Happy Birthday Jason!

Today, Jason turned 27! He took the day off from work, and we spent a lovely, lazy day together. Rudy woke Jason up by bringing him the birthday card he and I made yesterday for him, and wishing Jason a "Happy Birsde!" It was soo cute. We started reading Dr. Seuss's Happy Birthday to You book in bed, but Rudy got hungry, so we took a break for breakfast. Rudy helped Jason choose his birthday breakfast- waffles AND cereal. Rudy really thought that was something special-to get to have BOTH. After Rudy's morning nap, we all went to Fat Cat's to bowl. That was really fun. It's one of those dates that Jason always suggests, and I always shoot down 'cause it's kinda expensive. But today was his day of all days, so off to bowling we went. It was Rudy's first time, and he seemed to really like it. (What little boy wouldn't love rolling big, heavy balls into pins that crash when you hit them?) After bowling, Jason and Rudy raced each other in Rudy's first ever arcade game experience. Jason beat Rudy, but maybe that's just 'cause Rudy wanted to let him win on his birthday. :) Or maybe it had to do with Rudy running into just about every obstacle on the screen. maybe. Anyway, he had a blast driving, and Jason seemed to be basking in the beauty of introducing his son to the arcade. :)After a quick nap for Rudy, we dropped him off to play at Amy's house (one of his good friends who happens to be the daughter of our good friends)and off we went to stuff ourselves full of scrumptious foods at Taconos. Sigh. It was delicious, even more so because we got to eat 2 for one with a birthday coupon we received from them. So eating at a restaurant that would normally be way out of our price range turned out to cost us just a little more than 2 value meals at BK. We do love a good deal.
Finally, to end his day of all days with a bang, Jason has headed of for a brand new adventure. The stake out. That's right. He's that guy sitting in front of the Sandy Best Buy right now, waiting for the store to open at 10 am tomorrow. (It's 10 pm right now.) He's hoping, after a 12 hour wait, to successfully purchase one of the three HP laptops that came in on their shipment about 30 minutes ago. Best Buy is having this great sale on a really cool lap top and they've sold out online and in stores nation wide. The computer we have right now shuts itself down or totally freezes several times in an hour. And it's constantly kicking us off the Internet. We've been pining for a lap top for months and months. Maybe even years. Now, with the chance to get a stellar computer for under $400, we're hoping maybe all our pining will be soothed. Since he's there solo for now, Jason will be first in line, so I really can't imagine that we wouldn't get it. Hopefully it's worth the wait. (We're saving maybe $250 on the normal purchase price.) I think the staking out thing is more for the experience than anything else, though. Getting a lap top at a good price will be a happy side note. I think Jason just wants to see what it's like, being that guy we've all wondered about. And what better day for a brand new experience than your birthday?

Huber Apple Orchard and Self Discovery

On Monday, Mutti, Rudy and I went to visit a sort of park, I guess you could call it. The Huber Apple Orchard is a historical place that has been preserved as a monument to the Huber family and a simpler way of life. To tell you the truth, I really don't know much about the Huber's or their way of life. I was too busy thinking about my own.

Something about that place, or my state of mind, or maybe both, made it fertile ground for learning, for discovering. I came away from that visit a different person-much like a good visit to the temple. It reminded me of a quote in the lesson I taught last Sunday. Speaking of Liberty Jail, B.H. Roberts says, "It was more temple than prison, so long as the Prophet was there. It was a place of meditation and prayer....Joseph Smith sought God in this rude prison, and found him."

Though this beautiful plot of land was anything but a rude prison, I understood that no matter where we seek God, we can find him. In a prison, in a temple, in a grove of hundred year old apple trees. Wherever we need Him, He is there. Isn't that beautiful?

During my visit, I walked in bare feet across soft earth. I felt the warmth of the sun in the pebbles beneath my toes. I leaned against a giant pine tree and looked up, finding that it had grown so tall and so dense, I could not see the top. I breathed in that moist, fresh smell that comes in the air as a mountain stream rolls by. I didn't really come upon much of anything in particular in the moment. It was more like my Spirit was taking in a breath of fresh air, exhaling the staleness that it had been subsisting upon until then.

That evening, I felt so energized and alive. It was then, as I pondered on the day's events, that I realized I had changed. I felt differently. As if something new had hatched inside of me, and was beginning to grow. Suddenly, I felt more peace and calm than I have felt for some time. It was really Zen like. Suddenly, it was ok not to be in charge of everything in my life. (Which is a really freeing outlook-since it's impossible to be in control all the time) Suddenly, I was ready to clear out all the unnessary things in my life, and make room for what really matters.

I'm still growing in that direction. Jason and I have started a physical manifestation of that attitude by slimming down our possessions. You'd be astounded at the amount of JUNK one can accummulate in 4 and a half short years. I took all the decorations off the walls today. There were probably 30 items slapped up there. In a few days, Jason and I will go through them all and decide what we really want to look at every single day. Hopefully it'll be less than 30 things. :)

For those of you who know me,you know this is HUGE. I'm the world's best pack rat. I have loved to surround myself with mementos of my life since I was a tiny kid. 3 year old movie ticket stubs on the billboard. Pictures all over the fridge. A wedding announcment here, a cool rock there, a piece of trash I picked up out of the gutter after having an enlightening thought on a run (I'm not kidding!). Well the enlightening thought I had on Monday is that I don't need all that stuff. I have a good mind, and if I ever don't, I'll have my journals. I can recall beautiful moments in my life without the aid of things crowding in on me all day. In fact, with bare walls and an increasingly orderly house, I feel I have more brain space to think, instead of having to process whats around me all the time.

For those of you who know Jason, you know that he is a VERY happy guy about my change of heart. He has tolerated my junk for almost 5 years, because he loves me and that junk was very much a part of me then. Suddenly I can let it go, and that makes home a more calming place for Jason as well as me.

So, that's what's happened to me over the last week. It's a cool feeling. A nice change. I hope we'll be able to minimize our home completely within the next couple of weeks before Jason goes back to school. Then I can just maintain it, and we can all enjoy it. Here's to a simpler life! :)

Sand Box

My parents have been busy building a grandkids' sandbox in their yard. At last, it has been completed! Since Rudy is the only grandkid who is out and enjoying the fresh air right now, he got the honor of being the first child to play in it. Here's a few pictures of Mutti and Rudy trying out the sandbox for the first time. This was Mutti's project. It's about 3 or 4 feet deep I think, all hand dug. Beautiful work, eh?

Banana

Rudy's cute little pronunciation of Banana.

Oh My Darlin'....

Bruce has a new and improved tank, thanks to Heidi's generous lending of her 10 gallon equipment to me. All I had to buy was gravel and some filer inserts, and presto- Bruce went from a little Betta Condo to a spacious mansion. If only it were that easy for us to get into a spacier home!

To go with his new tank, I bought him a tankmate. Her name's Clemintine. She's a Golden Mystery Snail. I love how bright she is. She's even got apricot freckles on her body. So far, Bruce tolerates her just fine, and she seems to do the same for him. Rudy really likes her. He calls her "SSSS" which is his word for snails. Sometimes he calls her TieTie-his toddler adaption of Clemintine.

I've had "Oh My Darlin' Clemintine" stuck in my head all day today. Hopefully, it wears off, or I'll have to change her name!

Bear Lake

Jason's side of the family opted to go to Bear Lake this year, instead of the traditional Fish Lake. We had a blast doing tons of fun things-here's a bunch of pictures:

Our view from the awesome second story porch on our cabin at sunrise.

Relishing in childhood memories. We used to feed the carp at Longview Lake all the time as a kid. You stick some bread or whatever in between your toes, and the carp suck it right out. It's the craziest feeling-you can't help but laugh, and a good laugh is always healthy. :)

Showing Rudy how it's done. He opted out at the last minute, and I don't blame him. Some of those suckers were at least half his size.

Driving the speed boat with Grandpa. Let me just say Rudy REALLY enjoyed this. :) It's too bad he's probably still too young to remember this later in life, 'cause this would be one of those great memories that can light up otherwise dull or dank days.

At the beach! Mike, Jared, and Katie got us a coveted spot on one of the few sandy beaches. (The water's so high that most of the sandy beaches are plum swallowed up.)

Mike dug out a 'kiddie pool', which Rudy was very happy to visit. The waves in the lake were a bit scary for him.

Playing in the sand with Ella.

Braving the big Blue with the family. (And only because Daddy was holding him. He was a BIG Daddy's boy this weekend. In fact, he still is.)

There was a tractor that would haul the boats in and out of the water. Rudy was captivated by it.

A floating trampoline. Cool idea, but not too fun. Jill said it was really hard to balance because of the waves, and the water was too shallow below to really allow yourself to just be flung off of it.

Deciding what to do at this giant sand box bordered with water.

This is Rudy and Jason walking up to the beach. Rudy's not so sure he's happy to be there yet, but he warmed up.

Taking a family ride on the pedal carriage. I forgot to take the brake off for the first 5 minutes or so of pedaling, so we were pretty spent from the get go. We braved it and managed to squeeze some fun out of it though.

Rudy liked to help drive once in a while.

We went with Jill and Mike and thier girls when we went with Grandma, and that made it more fun too. We had someone to race (and someone to push us up steep hills-thanks Mike!) :)

All in all, it was a good time. Mom taught me how to crochet, and Dad told me about his childhood and his Grandpa, John Henry Miller. Apparently, Jason is named for him and his Grandpa John on his mom's side too. (Jason's middle name is John.) That was news to Jason, who had thought his parents picked John just 'cause it was a J name they liked and they had planned on calling him J.J. I love to hear family stories. Maybe I'll write the stories down that Dad told me in another blog sometime later.

Guardian Angel

Remember how we've had a diaper genie visit us a few times in the past? Well, apparently, our little family is a magical beings magnet, because we had a Guardian Angel visit just last week. Someone left a card about having a Guardian Angel on our doorstep. That, and a generous sum of money. What a beautiful world we live in. We feel so blessed to associate with people who are so mindful of others' needs, and so generous with the means they have been blessed with. I'm committed to looking out a bit closer for ways I can bless others' lives.

Breaking and Entering

The other day, we were doing what has become the default time consumer of our little family: looking at houses. Sometimes it's dull, sometimes it's fun, and sometimes it's downright adventurous. This was one of those adventurous outings.

Jason and I were busy checking out what a Springville home had to offer when we simultaneously heard a door slam and noticed that neither one of us 'had' Rudy. Hum. "Rudy...where are you?" I sang down the hallway. Oh, he's in the bathroom. I prepared to do our ritual "knock knock" game, when I realized that the door was locked.
Eeek! Stay calm, Maria, Rudy sounds fine...he's not even asking to be "found" yet. Don't let him know you're worried, and try to reassure your sweating husband that everything is under control. Deep breaths, now. Deep breaths, old girl. This is a simple lock to pick, just find a long skinny something to stick in that hole and it'll pop right open.
Jason procured the inside of his ball point pen. Very Maverick of him, don't you think? Trouble is, it didn't work. Then both Jason and I thought of the same thing at practically the same time: "Isn't there a window in the bathroom?" We headed for opposite exits, both thinking we were taking the quickest route. (Jason's was the quickest, of course. He has a much better sense for space than I do.) I looked at what could easily be a 70 year old window and thought, "Oh no, surely it's painted shut!"
This time, however, we were in luck, the unscreened, unlocked window slide open like it'd been oiled that morning. Jason gave me a boost up to the little window and I awkwardly threw myself in, landing in a crumpled heap at the base of the toilet. Rudy looked at me with a face that said, "Mama, if I had just done that, I'm sure you would have scolded me!" (And I would have!) With Rudy safely rescued, we finished our walk through with a close eye on our little man. Sheesh. What if we'd have had to take the door off it's hinges or something?
I remember being a little tyke myself and accidentally locking myself into a friend's bathroom. They had take the knob off to get at me, 'cause I just couldn't understand what I was supposed to do to let myself out. (I think it was one of those knobs that you push in to lock, or something myserious like that.) Apparently, that bathroom didn't have an accessible window. :)

Naps!

Rudy, the child I thought just wasn't a napper, has become a regular napper!!! (knock on wood). For the last two days, he's even napped for 3 hours straight! He's come into the pattern of having a morning snooze while I go for a run or walk, and then sleeping in his crib every (and I mean EVERY) afternoon. Sigh. It's lovely. Before, Rudy would just nurse FOREVER in the afternoons and kinda zonk out while attached to me, but he would rarely go down for a nap on his own. Now that he's a bed time nursing only kid, afternoon naps have emerged! Hooray! Hurrah! Haroooo!
Weaning is a good thing. A very good thing. As soon as we're back from our Bear Lake trip, I'm cutting our last session. I don't think it'll be too bad, 'cause even the last two days, I've put Rudy down after some nursing time but before he was asleep, and he did ok.
One problem with all this napping and no nursing: I'm not getting near as much reading in. I have a book I'm really interested in right now, which I would have normally flown through within 2 or 3 days, but I'm still under 10 pages into it. I just can't justify reading when I could be doing other things. Oh well, I guess I'll just have to wait till baby # 2 is nursing 8 hours a day. Although, Rudy will be around too then...hmm...I have a feeling my reading days are kinda over until I'm a little old lady sitting in my lazy chair stroking my lap dog and sucking on my dentures. :)

Baby

We welcomed a new baby into our home last Friday.

Baby doll, that is. Rudy's been really cute with some of his friends' baby dolls, so I thought I'd buy him one. It'll be good practice for caring for his yet to be conceived little sibling. That, and I just really wanted a baby doll to dress up. :)


As it so happens, I haven't really found a good opportunity to make respectable clothes for our newest addition (who came to us naked as can be from DI). Right now he's wearing a shirt sleeve off of one of Rudy's old stained shirts. Hopefully I'll find a moment to make something a bit cuter in the near future, but it'll have to be when Jason's around to watch Rudy while I sew. Since day one, Rudy has slept with "Baby". Here's a shot of them at nap time today:

Baby's been a real pal for Rudy:He has had his head iced, cream applied, and nose suctioned to list just a few of the things he has let Rudy do so that they wouldn't be so scary or irritating when Rudy had to have them done. Rudy also looks out for Baby-making sure he gets his share of food and water, and reminding me to get him out of the crib when I'm getting Rudy. This could be the beginning of a long friendship. Then again, maybe Rudy will move onto something new in a few days. You never know with toddlers. :)

Fireworks

After the race and some R&R time, we headed up to Midway for some burgers and time with my family. Heidi and I picked up a few little fireworks to mess around with while we waited for the big show on Memorial Hill to begin. Here's a few shots of the "kids" playing with fire. Rudy had a blast with a bag of poppers earlier in the evening, but he was out long before the sun went down, as usual. Maybe next year he'll have enough stamina to make it to the fireworks show. :)

VICTORY!

Heidi and I ran our first 10K ever on July 4th. 1,358 people joined us in Provo's Freedom Run. (Or at least that's how many people finished) It was really cool to be running in such a crowd.

We've been training separately for just over 3 months-this was our first time running together. We both have "barely faster than walking" paces, so we chose the 12 minute a mile pace marker to line ourselves up with. That was just about perfect.

Finally, it's time for the rubber to hit the road. :)

And we're off to a strong start!

Here's Heidi, running down University Ave. It was cool that we ran along the parade route for a lot of the race, 'cause we had a good crowd to cheer us on. I had fun gettin' some skin and performing for the crowd.

At the Finish Line. Those water bottles were our "prize", though I think our sense of accomplishment was a way better prize than a little plastic and some free Gatorade. :)

Posing with Captain America. We pretty much felt like super heroes, having accomplished our goal, and even beating the time we were shooting for by almost 15 minutes. (We finished in 1 hour, 15 minutes. We thought it'd take us about 1 and a half hours.)

Ahh, sweet victory! Heidi and I decided to try to eat 25 dollars worth of food at the end of the race, since we got gauged with the "almost late" registration fee. I'm sure we didn't even come close. :)

Even though we had to pay an extra $10, I think it was worth it. It helped me so much to have Heidi doing the training program with me. She helped me stick to the program, and actually get signed up for a race. Our next goal: run faster. Hopefully in about 3 more months, I'll be posting about running 10K in under an hour. Woohoo, baby!

A Cure for "The Uglies"

On Wednesday morning, I woke up with a bad case of "The Uglies". Do you ever get those? You know, when everything about you seems a thousand times frumpier than the day before? I'm especially prone to the uglies the day before my "cycle", so I was feeling grumpy about the probability that I would soon get the signal from my body that we have not yet achieved our pregnancy goal. This made me feel not only ugly, but somewhat of a failure too. Needless to say, a cure was in order.
I arranged with Jason to have the car for the afternoon. I put Rudy down for a nap, and took a luxurious shower. I dressed in some comfortable, but unfrumpy clothes, styled my hair, and prepped Rudy's and my hiking pack. When Rudy woke up, I whisked us both up into the mountains for some fresh air and fresh perspective. Sigh. It works every time.
We had a great time enjoying the beauty of the world our Father made for us, and I couldn't help but feel a part of all the beauty. My self image began to recover. As we hiked and played in the woods, my heart softened and opened to the idea that God loves me, that He is aware of me, and that He has my best interests at heart. I began to remember to trust Him. Funny how the woods can do that to me-can remind me of eternal truths. Rudy and I dawdled at the beginning of the hike, basking in the vibrant life around us. Then it was time to strap Rudy on my back and book it up the mountain. I really wanted to see the Stewart Falls after all the rain we've been getting, and my deadline to get home in time to pick up Jason was fast approaching. Though I puffed and perspired up the trail, I felt strong, healthy, and full of life. With my mind no longer half occupied with keeping Rudy safe, I was able to fully concentrate on the peaceful, reassuring whisperings of the Spirit. I was reminded of the many mercies of the Lord our family has enjoyed lately. I was reassured that though our house hunting has hit several brick walls, it has not been a waste of time, energy, or emotion. I felt sure that God would help us to find the right home, the best home for our family. I remembered that He sees far more than I do. It was a really restorative afternoon, and just plain fun, too. I'm so glad that I live so close to so much beauty.

Making silly faces at each other.

Taking a moment for further inspection.

A very excited little boy pointing out the raging white waters of the Stewart Falls fed stream. (He's standing in a little eddy, a good 6 feet away from danger) :) I loved seeing the stream and thinking of what was ahead as we started the hike.

Taking a look at some more rapids. Rudy's holding onto my ear for security. :)

Safely away from the "water front" trail, Rudy's off on his own, sorta. :)

Taking a break to admire the canopy.

Inspecting an abandoned snail shell.

One of the many wild animals we saw on the hike. We also saw a snake, a lizard, a chipmunk, a bunch of birds and...

GIANT ants. Rudy loved them. He's trying to feed this one here.

Speaking of giant things, check out this flower! The rain has been good to the plant life along the trail, very, very good.

A peek at where we're headed!

What a beautiful, view, huh? Breathe deeply and pretend you can smell warm, moist earth, blooming flowers, and a hint of water, and you'll get a taste of what it was like to stand there. (Or you could just go there. That'd probably be better.) :)