Evan, Clover & Co.

Busy Home Days

2012-02-16T23:23:00.000-05:00

It's been a busy couple of weeks, but the good kind of busy. Not the have-to-run-a-million errands busy, just steady work. I would far rather do laundry all day, cook a bunch of meals, sweep floors, and pick up toys than have to go somewhere with the little kids during the day. I don't know if I'm lazy, or anti-social, or just content in my housewife role. Anyway, pictures of the last few weeks!

Cheyenne at Winter Fun Day. It's such a pathetic winter, they had to stay inside to play instead of playing in the snow. The PTA president sent me this picture of Cheyenne (because I'm the kind of mommy who stays home instead of volunteering with two kids in tow), and it looks like she's enjoying herself.

Here's another picture from the energetic PTA president, when I went into school to eat lunch with Cheyenne this Monday. It is Take Your Family to School Week this week. Maybe when I don't have toddlers home with me, it will feel a little less like Fill Your Life With Stress Week. (see: above, about leaving the house with kids). I went and ate lunch with Elliott today, too. It is nice to see the kids during the day, but trying to carry lunch trays and coats and purse and navigate Lincoln and Marilla through the halls was a little exhausting.

We had a puzzle day a couple of Sundays ago. Cheyenne got out her 100 piece puzzle...

(think those braids are long enough?)

while Daddy worked on a 2000 piece puzzle.

Cute puzzle observers.

Sweet little friends.

Rilla looking proud, as she checked herself out in the mirror. I had given into pleading, and done an "Aunt Bet Braid."

It took a little longer than her normal hairdo, but it was certainly worth it when she caught a glimpse of it in the mirror.

This isn't a great picture, but you start by dividing the hair down the middle. French braid one side, but don't bother braiding very far down. Put an elastic in, or have the kid hold it. French braid the other side, then put the two braids together by taking the two strands that touch in the middle and making them the middle strand for the new single braid. I'm not a technical writer, as you can tell by reading that, but that's the gist of it.

Lincoln, in his favorite place (brushing his teeth or creating water havoc), with one of his favorite things-- a book!

We got a Valentine's package from Auntie, and there was much rejoicing.

Rilla and her loot...

Elliott with his...

And Cheyenne helping Lincoln open his candy.

I took the kids out to play the other day, despite the fact there was very little snow out. I usually just let Rilla play outside by herself, but Lincoln was so very excited, coat in hand, that I couldn't refuse him.

This girl plays outside at LEAST once a day. Thankfully, she is getting better and better at dressing herself. So grown-up!

In this picture, they are watching the fascinating garbage truck pick up the neighbor's garbage!

Then, saluting the garbage man! She was probably waving, but it's funnier to think of saluting. We don't have cool tractors in our suburban life, so we get by with school bus and garbage truck sightings.

One mitten off already...

Tweedle-dee and Tweedle-dum. Especially Lincoln with his bulging pants.

The reading kids. Tintin is HUGE here. Rilla makes her dollhouse people be Tintin, Snowy, Thompson and Thompson, and Blistering Blue Barnacles.

Bop-It is another thing that's big right now. It calls out commands, and you have to bop it, or twist it, or pull it, or spin it, or flick it. Once you get 100 commands in a row, it unlocks the next level (where the commands might be colors, or sounds, or combinations). Anyway, Elliott is seriously good at this. It is full-body exercise when he plays. He walks around the house, bopping and flicking away, his little body contorting all over the place. Hilarious. The other day, the batteries died, and after putting new batteries in, Evan set about beating the levels to unlock them. Elliott sidled up to me and whispered (so as not to interrupt Daddy's concentration) "Daddy is saving the day!"

Elliott's other exercise is playing Magnet-Shoot. He lays on the floor, moving the magnets on the fridge in an intricate pattern. Despite the fact he calls this game Magnet-Shoot, it never sounds violent. I find it hilarious that he has named this activity, not that he just "plays with magnets."

It's probably because the poor boy can't get his computer fix in the half-hour a week his cruel mother allots him. On Sunday, Evan caught him hitting his head with his hand. When Evan asked why he was doing this, Elliott said, "My brain keeps telling me to play computer, but it's not my computer day, so I'm telling my brain to stop!" Evan thinks he might need more time on the computer... :-)

And now, for the art show. Elliott was REALLY into valentines. He's also into exploring nicknames, which explains this card from "Ell" to "Ev".

I was magnanimous the other day and let him have a whole poster board for coloring. Then Rilla colored the bottom paper. I love how the entire paper is full of color.

This was Rilla's latest. She tells me it is a picture of the sun coming up. So smart.

My hilarious cousin-in-law, Sheena, wrote a post the other day about her diaper bag, and it made me remember I had never put up pictures off my first "purse" since I ditched a diaper bag. Bethaney is disgusted with me, since I bought a lunch bag, but I love shape of it, and the pattern. I hate the way purses bump on your hip, and swing forward and bonk your child's head the second you lean over to help the child. I may find an actual purse I can hold in my hand someday, but for now, this works splendidly.

I don't think I ever put up a picture of this, either-- my birthday present from Lisa! A table runner that doubles as a hot pad! It dresses up the table so nicely, and saves me scrambling to try and arrange a hot pad with one hand while holding a piping hot 13x9 pan with the other one.

And, Miss Take-A-Picture-of-Me! She's wearing the most disreputable shirt. Cheyenne wore it as often as I would allow her when she was little, and now Rilla has discovered it. I did make her see the light about warmth, and put a turtleneck underneath. I love hearing Rilla's thoughts these days. We were in the car last week, and somehow the topic got onto sharks. Rilla said, "If the shark KNOWS me, the shark won't eat me. So if a shark comes, I will say 'Shark, I am Marilla, and this is Lincoln, and Elliott, and Cheyenne, and Clover, and Evan.' " Elliott piped up with, "Rilla, animals don't understand!" and Rilla shot right back, "I will tell them LOUDLY!"

This evening, Elliott and Cheyenne had their first piano lesson! I've been wanting to get them lessons for ages, but I could never find anyone locally. We put an ad on Craigslist, contacted all the school music teachers, Googled every search term I could think of-- nothing. Finally started calling music stores, and found a place in the mall about 20 minutes away. It's not ideal-- we would love to have someone come to the house, or at least have someone in our town, but it's a start. I will have the mall available so we can go on stroller walks to keep the little kids occupied. We had a trial lesson with another teacher that we really liked, but there was nowhere for me to hang out with the little kids while the big kids had their lessons. Since the two different teachers were identical in price, location (just across the road from each other), and the music books they use, we decided to go with the place that made it easier to corral the Littles. Cheyenne and Elliott are excited, and it's made me want to practice the piano more!

Busy weeks ahead of us-- this unseasonable weather means sap is running, so sugaring might be happening a lot earlier this year!

You Win a CAR!!!!!

2012-02-03T23:03:00.001-05:00

See, the witty title is because this is my 200th blog posting, so it feels like I should do something noteworthy, exciting, and free-car-ish. But if I wait until I feel up to that level of coolness, I will never post again. So, despite the alluring title, this is a regular, run-of-the-mill post, in which I talk about my kids and made snide comments about character education in schools. Exciting, no?

Today, the kindergarten classes presented a skit about honesty to the whole school (all the way up to 2nd graders!) and parents. It was about as polished as you would expect a kindergarten performances to be-- about three kids actually sang the song, lots of milling around the stage, etc. But what really pushed the performance towards embarrassingly bad was when they projected a YouTube video about honesty up on the back of the stage. That alone would have me rolling my eyes a bit (hello, we are here to watch our children be cute, cut the technology!), but it was a BAD video. As in, my grandma can rhyme better than that. As in, Cheyenne is definitely a better artist than whoever illustrated that thing. As in, we-have-shoved-quality-under-the-bus-to-find-earnest-video-about-honesty. Anyway, so you can snicker like the bad parents Evan and I were (and are), here's a link to it.

Mr Stanley's All About Honesty

And now, bedtime has crept up on me once again. In honor of my 200th post, I checked the numbers on the little widget that keeps track of how many people visit my blog. People have clicked on my blog 47, 580 times. It makes me feel like someone actually reads this-- and I'm sure only 95% of the visits are from my relatives wishing I would just shut up already and put some kid pictures up. Well, stick around, Lovely Readers, and maybe by the 500th post, you can be entered into a drawing for our 2001 Chevy Venture.

Bad Mother Moment #392, and other ramblings

2012-02-02T23:36:00.000-05:00

Elliott lost his first tooth yesterday. It's been wiggly since Christmas, but it's hung in there. It finally fell out yesterday morning.

Per Elliott's instructions, Daddy had to take a picture on his phone to send to Auntie. Then, to keep the tooth safe, we put it in a little plastic ziploc container.

Okay, this morning is when the Bad Mommy moment kicks in. As I was drowsily coming to grips with getting out of bed, I heard a wail from downstairs, as an up-way-too-early Elliott started looking for his tooth. Instantly, my blood froze. I knew exactly where that tooth was. Or, were it had been 12 hours before as I had been mechanically filling the dishwasher. I could so clearly see me dump the little rattly "crumbs" out of the bottom of the kid's "snack" container, into the garbage disposal, before placing the container in the dishwasher. Knowing that you have destroyed your child's first tooth before the tooth fairy even got dibs on it is one way of starting the morning.

Anyway, after a whispered explanation to Evan, I assured Elliott that I would look for his tooth while he ate his oatmeal. Thankfully, the kids like to read while they eat breakfast, so they didn't notice me slinking upstairs (to write a note from the tooth fairy) and over to my purse (to extract a guilt-motivated record of $3) and going into the kitchen and getting the container out of the dishwasher... finally, I was able to convincingly exclaim, "Elliott! Look what I found!". He bought the whole tooth fairy idea, and was excited enough about his moolah to not question how the tooth fairy found his tooth on the messy counters. He's read a book about how the tooth fairy is building a castle with all the teeth she takes, so he told me that's where his tooth was. I don't really push the idea of the tooth fairy (Cheyenne is at the nudge-nudge-wink-wink stage of wanting the money but knowing the tooth fairy is short, fat, and forgetful), but I was happy to play it up this morning! Disaster averted!

Then, on to a busy morning. Besides putting away all the laundry I had washed Monday morning (it's been a busy week, okay??), here is what my morning consisted of. These are the things I had to do this morning, thanks to Lincoln, and Lincoln alone. I'm sure there were more, but this is all I remember.

Clean up the Cheerios, milk, and oatmeal smeared ALL over the table during my five-minute bathroom break during breakfast. We're talking at least five minutes of scrubbing, let alone the newspaper parts and napkins that had to be thrown out because they were saturated.
Clean his high chair tray for several minutes, since he carefully shook milk out of his sippy cup into every crack and crevice (this, while the Tooth Fairy was running around assembling the guilt money and note).
Fish unfolded clean socks out of the damp bathtub.
Put all the toothbrushes back in their cup, after he was overly eager reaching for his toothbrush.
Empty the bread drawer and pull it off its slides to get rid of all the pretzel crumbs and pretzel salt that resulted when the bag of pretzels was dumped upside down on top off all the bread bags.
Picked up all the batting strewn on his floor, from where he unzips his pillow and pulls the stuffing out when he gets bored at night.
Picked books up off the floor that were pulled off the shelf willy-nilly. (This happens a LOT!)
Fill the diaper changing table back up with all the stuff he had pulled out-- extra wipes, diapers, hats, boots, blankets, etc.
Refilled Elliott's treasure box, which was strewn all over Elliott's bed and bureau and floor.
I never did get around to erasing the pencil lines all over Elliott's wall, now that I think of it...

This is, of course, in addition to all the diaper changes, snack procurement, book reading and other normal activities that go along with having a toddler in the house. This kid is working hard to make sure I don't get too teary-eyed about him getting older!

As I attempted to clean up my extremely messy house this afternoon, I found lots of artwork that I thought needed documenting. Here is the pinnacle of the dreaded Mommy Blog-- subjecting you to all my little darlings' scribblings.

Cheyenne has definitely moved beyond the scribbling stage. Here's two pictures she drew for Marilla and Elliott. Both portraits are of cat-loving Parisians (note the berets), standing on a bridge over a river. Elliott's mustachioed artist holds his paint palette and paintbrush, and his bridge has wrought-iron spikes. I have no memory of ever drawing such details in my pictures, my daughter is obviously heaps smarter than me.

Marilla's intricate project this afternoon, intended for her teacher. Yeah, she's a little desperate to start school.

Marilla colored this for me, telling me it was "flowers just like your wedding." They must have been looking at old photo albums, I have no idea how she knew that I carried roses at our wedding.

Elliott colored this one, at first saying it was for Grandma, then generously presenting it to Cheyenne when she came home from school. (He was out of school for two days with an ear infection. Again).

I can't remember if I took a picture of this one before, but I just unearthed it from a stack of papers. Elliott drew it this fall, and I'm not sure he set out to encapsulate melancholia, but I love the slightly wary, not-so-sure-of-life look on this little guy's face.

Time out from art photography, to get another picture of the Tooth That Used to Be. Actually, he won't look gap-toothed at all, since the adult tooth erupted way behind the baby tooth, and is already quite big. He's quite proud to show everyone the space, though, including the lunch lady at school today.

My African violet is FINALLY blooming! It has been lush and healthy looking for ages now, but no blooms. It's a welcome sight in this stretch of winter. Although, on a little weather tangent, we have had a super wimpy winter. Warm, little snow... Until Monday, when it snowed 22 inches all at once, and we had an epic snow day. By today, though, the warm temperatures have melted all but an inch or two. Weirdness all round.

Okay, back to my little Norman Rockwells... This is a card Elliott made for Cheyenne one afternoon.

He's even spelling her name, somewhat topsy-turvily (I don't think that's a word, but it should be.)

Elliott sure did miss Cheyenne while he was at home, and she was at school! His ear drum seems to have ruptured Sunday night, so I took him to the pediatrician Monday morning (through the mess that is 22 inches of instantaneous snow). The doctor put him on antibiotic ear drops, but he was still in quite a bit of pain Tuesday, so I kept him home. Wednesday, he had a long-standing appointment to see the ear specialist in Syracuse. We first saw a resident, who suctioned out some of the goop from his ears, and seemed confident that the doctor would recommend another tube for the ear that had lost its tube. However, when the doctor came in, he favored a wait-and-see strategy. I honestly don't know if I was glad of that, or if I wanted the tubes in. I just hope, either way, my poor little guy doesn't have to suffer too much more with those silly ears of his.

Okay, and just to make this post as random as humanly possible, here's a blurb on a book I found in my daily Shelf Awareness e-mail.

"Clover Adams: A Gilded and Heartbreaking Life by Natalie Dykstra (Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, $26, 9780618873852) is a biography of Henry Adams' wife, a privileged and popular woman who killed herself in 1885."

I finally find a historically significant person with my name, just to learn that she is most famous for her suicide. Bummer.

And, on that uplifting note, goodnight...

10 Signs I am a Middle-Aged, Suburban, Housewife

2012-01-27T21:39:00.000-05:00

Signs that I hopelessly am hopelessly middle-aged have been piling up lately, even if we discount the fact that I just turned 34. Here are the top ten.

I haven't used AAA in years. During my college years, my card was worn smooth with pulling it out of my wallet to call them to tow my Escort/Skyhawk/Rabbit back to the farm so Dad could revive it, however ephemerally. I got our replacement cards in the mail this week, and I couldn't remember the last time I called them. And it was probably some hopelessly suburban reason, like having a nail in my tire, not catastrophic engine failure coupled with shot brakes.
I drink copious amounts of herbal tea. Actually, I'm not sure this is a sign I'm middle-aged. It might be a sign that I have been reincarnated as a vegan college student wearing dreads and reeking of incense. However, it definitely is weak sauce compared to my daily Diet Pepsi intake in the college years.
I do laundry on a schedule. In college, I washed my clothes when A.) I didn't have any clean clothes or B.) I was desperately trying to avoid writing a paper. Now, I have two days of the week that I have designated as laundry days (Monday and Friday, if you're burning up with curiosity).
I run blatantly stereotypical errands. Last week, I did an errand run to the post office, bank, dump and grocery store. In my minivan. With two kids.
I eat a high-fiber breakfast cereal every. single. morning. In my defense, I occasionally switch between Frosted Mini Wheats and Raisin Bran.
I am older than most famous people. I will be reading the morning paper (either over my shredded wheat or my peppermint tea, natch), and the amazing person I am reading about who has climbed Everest / composed a symphony / started a Montessori school for Haitian orphans funded by the proceeds of their bestselling book-- is a decade YOUNGER than me. That kills me far more than having another birthday.
I occasionally find music to be too loud. I've never been the kind of person to have music on 24/7, but if I did hear music, I liked it loud. Now, I go places and wish they would please just turn the volume down. And it's not because my hearing has gotten better-- I think Evan wishes I would hurry up already and just buy the hearing aid.
I would rather eat birthday cake with toddlers than have a night out on the town. Or, at least, I want to wrap up the night on the town by getting home in time to tuck the kids into bed.
I write things on my calendar like "Change the furnace filter". And I usually do such a thing on the day I designated for that incredibly mundane task.
I find middle-aged guys hot. My kids are loving watching the YouTube video of Celtic Thunder singing "All God's Creatures Got a Place in the Choir" lately. Celtic Thunder, at least for this video, is five guys singing. The youngest one, Damian McGinty, is about 16-17 in the song. He is gorgeous-- but I mostly want to pinch his cute little cheeks and pat his head. On the other hand, forty-something year old (bald) George Donaldson-- him, I can imagine swooning over.

Okay, now I'm off to drink tea and read a novel before I turn on my electric blanket, put on my socks, obsess over dental hygiene, and crawl into bed.

There's officially no hope, is there?

[Insert Witty Title Here]

2012-01-26T22:11:00.000-05:00

Despite the fact I have written about 20 posts in my head in the last ten days, I still can't come up with a good title for this post. Probably because it's a fairly incoherent mish-mash of photos and thoughts. Written while I'm numb with sleepiness. Here goes!

It was my 34th birthday last week. Not my 43rd, like you could easily assume from the grouping of candles on my cake. And my looks, but let's not dwell on that.

How did my girl get big enough to carry a lit cake?

The kids were all in their jammies, because Evan had taken me out to eat for supper, and we got home just as Grandma and Grandpa were finishing up baths.

Here is my exaggerated dismay that Elliott has quickly blown the candles out before I had a chance to make a wish. Sigh. Goodbye, daily maid...

I have a pretty good collection of kids.

I airily tossed off the phrase "Evan had taken me out to eat" a few lines back like it was no big deal. But it was definitely a big deal. It has been a LONG time since we got to go out together, and this time, we really lived it up and went to bc, a fancy restaurant in Syracuse. It was absolutely awesome. I splurged on an appetizer (I did share nicely) of two humungous sea scallops. They were buttery and perfect, but it was the garnish that made me moan in food ecstasy-- leeks and mushrooms in a brown butter/thyme sauce. I think I would have licked the plate, given any privacy. Then, Evan had a filet mignon with a green bean / potato hash with bacon that looked glorious, and I had (in the words of the menu) a "homemade potato gnocchi, wild mushrooms, short rib and truffle ragout". It was tender, exotic, and everything someone wants when they have made 47 dinners in a row at home. Before supper, we met at a restaurant supply store and bought a bunch of little kitchen gadgets I have been yearning over for a long time. Then, home to a bunch of sweet kids that were eager to give me my birthday card and sing "Happy Birthday!" to me over a vinegar cake. All in all, about as lovely as birthdays get.

This was Lincoln the other day, helping unload the dishwasher. He was all set for a party of dogs, his new favorite animal.

He's either showing off here, or trying to get a peek at the back of the camera to see a picture of himself.

Owen, Ashley, and Cody came down Saturday night to buy some parts for Owen's truck. Mind you, they decided the parts truck they were looking at was in better shape than the truck Owen drives, so they hauled the whole truck home. Anyway, we squeezed in a few games of Progressive Rummy while they were here.

Soda, PR, some brownies... life was pretty good.

Cody, being forced to acknowledge my superiority at the game.

Ashley may have had a bit of a handicap, having to reach around the devoted niece and nephew. Not that it stopped her from going out in the last hand, the stinker.

My dashingly handsome husband.

Ashley cemented her already huge place in my kids' hearts by reading them a ridiculously long Tintin book out loud. Of course, the rest of us listened, too. There is a major obsession with Tintin happening around here lately.

Today, I relented and unlocked the toy cupboard (the one with the big lock on it on the left there). The kids were ecstatic to have new toys to play with. It even diverted Lincoln well enough that he left off his usual method of play-- sweep everything off their play table, then throw everything that is on the floor down the stairs to the entryway. No matter how I discipline him, he seems to find this inexpressibly fun.

Now, we travel back in time, to when the kids went skating while Lisa was here.

They are really learning how to navigate on the ice, I'm sure they're much better than me at this point!

Not that they're enjoying themselves, or anything.

Here's one of Lisa making cookies with the demon-possessed White-Eye children. Very creepy effect, that.

Well, that's it for photos, and you might be spared some of my drivel, since I will fall asleep on the keyboard here pretty soon. It's been very busy here, I miss the Januarys when Evan was unemployed. Sure, we were flat broke, but Daddy was home! Now that he's been working straight through, there is a lot of nights when he's not home until late. Definitely don't want to complain about his business being a success, but I do feel a little nostalgic for the other years! :-)

I'm so grateful for our fairly uneventful life right now-- a house over our heads, food on the table, sweet kids in our arms-- we sure are lucky people!

Our Day Off

2012-01-16T22:43:00.001-05:00

We had a lovely day off from school today. I decided to skip most of the housework I do on Monday mornings, and putter around my kitchen instead. I didn't get to that until after lunch, so I spent the morning holding Lincoln a lot, giving into my OCD side and organizing the kids' hair accessories, making perfunctory attempts at tidying my room, and interceding in sibling disputes. At one point, while I was in the bathroom doing my hair, I could hear the four kids, all in different parts of the house, all singing. Lincoln was singing a little "Baby is Happy" song without words; Rilla, a hymn, Elliott, a song he was making up about shooting stars; and Cheyenne, a popular song she has heard only a few times, so she was singing enthusiastically, but the lyrics were a bit hit-or-miss. It was a happy little symphony.
After a scintillating lunch of English muffin pizzas and PB&J sandwiches (not concurrently), I made cookies (http://orangette.blogspot.com/2011/10/out-on-this-limb.html), cut up steak for tonight's quesadillas, made chipolte mayonnaise (for the quesadillas tonight, and the fish tacos I am treating myself to on my birthday Thursday night), helped Cheyenne make No Bake Chocolate Peanut Butter Fudge (her default recipe when she decides she wants to cook), threw some frozen bread dough in a loaf pan to rise, and made 10 pie crusts. No, I am not planning on making 5 pies anytime soon, I do this once or twice a year and then freeze them to have on hand. I use my food processor to mix the crust, so I do them all at once while I'm getting everything dirty anyway. It felt very indulgent to be using 2 lbs. of butter, 12 cups of flour, a cup of cream... no wonder pie crust is so good.

While I was making pie, I had lots of time to listen to the conversations that were going on among the kids. Or, more accurately, the American Girl Doll, Felicity, and the American Girl Bitty Baby, Gilbert White. I don't know how the bear first entered this story, but this is where I started hearing it. (To set the scene, there were also 4 Cabbage Patch kids, numerous books, paper scraps, stickers, an emptied tin of baby toys, extra bags, 2 Polly Pocket houses, lots of Polly Pockets, a Loving Family house, a Playmobil barn with all its paraphernalia, discarded corn bags and blankets, spoons with residual cookie dough, a bag of scarves, used Kleenex (nose bleed), puzzles, crayons and coloring books scattered all over the living room. Elliott was laying on the floor, telling me how he wanted an American BOY doll. A doll that was a twin to him. A doll that could swim. Huh?)

Felicity (a.k.a. Cheyenne): Good-bye! I'm off to college now!

Gilbert White (a.k.a. Marilla): Because the bear won't come to college? Oh, look, the bear is going away from your house.

Felicity (arriving at college, which is under the high chair): I'm so glad I'm at college now. I don't have a roommate? Oh, good.

Gilbert White, hot on her heels: I came to see you at college!

Felicity: Pretend you want to go home right away.

Gilbert White: My mom said I could stay for a LOOONG time. Not a short time, a LOOOONG time.

Elliott, jumping into the mix: Pretend a giant Polly Pocket is coming into your college.

It only got more mixed up from there. I love my kids being home.

A Week with Auntie!

2012-01-15T22:32:00.000-05:00

It is a freezing cold night here, but the kids are all tucked up warm in their beds, and I am a total wimp and have the electric blanket on, preheating our bed. For some reason, I am over-warm all day long, but by the time I get in bed at night, I am a block of ice. I'm not complaining about the cold, or the 2 feet of snow we have, though. Winter has been entirely too weird, with all the warmth and lack of snow.

Lincoln, snuggled into Daddy one night after Daddy got home from work.

Giving Daddy a hug...

Which is apparently a hilarious thing to do!

The Whites were here for the week, so the kids got to play hide and seek several nights, and Grandma did "Going on a bear hunt" with the kids. Except it turned into "Going to the store for ice cream", which probably fits into my kids' suburban experiences better.

Rilla, in her favorite hand-me-down princess jammies.

Curly hair, drying after a bath!

My handsome little dude. It's starting to be that he looks funny without his glasses!

We wanted to take a picture of the kids with Auntie when they were all in their jammies the other night. Cheyenne didn't want to have her picture taken. I don't know if you could ascertain that from this picture.

After about 30 pictures, this is her, thinking it's funny. Which it isn't. Refusing to smile politely at the camera is a trait I hate-- both in kids AND adults.

Rilla, of course, wanted to pose for more pictures. It might be time to tone down the compliments. The other day she told me, "I have beautiful sparkly eyes..." True, but it's not something you usually compliment yourself on!

Marilla with Auntie.

After a decent night's sleep, Cheyenne wanted to have her picture taken with Auntie. Here's an actual smile.

Then, Cheyenne wanted a picture taken with all the kids with Auntie. Which was all very cute.

And now Auntie is en route to Michigan, up to where they have lots of snow and cold. Hmm, sounds familiar. The kids had a great week with her, playing lots of Uno, and even going ice-skating with her one afternoon. On Friday, they had a snow day, so they could spend the whole day with her!

Sunday Evenings are Wonderful

2012-01-08T21:25:00.001-05:00

I am sitting here, debating whether to take a bath or read a book (or both!) as soon as I finish this blog post. I love Sundays. Not that I didn't have to give the kids supper, and get them in jammies and all, but I don't have to feel I'm a slug for not doing a whole lot. I did just tidy up the living room while Evan read the first chapter of The Hobbit out loud, but that hardly seemed like work. I'm not sure the kids are old enough to get that book, but Evan and I are enjoying it! We read it, and the Lord of the Rings trilogy, out loud to each other when we first got married. We apparently had a LOT more free time back then.

It finally snowed enough for the kids to be able to play in it. In this scene, I was lucky enough to capture the moment when Elliott swept an armful of snow right into Rilla's face.

Here is Elliott, oblivious, while Rilla sobs her little eyes out. Elliott has problems with his ears again, so he misses a lot of what goes on. Thankfully, after I shook her scarf out and wiped her face off, Rilla went back to playing happily. They really had fun this weekend, when the temperatures went crazy high again, and they could pack the snow into snowmen! Now the snow is mostly gone, but I'm confident we'll get snow sometime this winter.

Little Miss Two Braids, going off to school with her birthday backpack. She's getting grown up enough, she chafes at the two braids, so I'll enjoy them while I can. Thankfully for her, there's few mornings I have time to do much more than one basic braid.

Happy boy!

On the left is the new mug my mom bought me. Books, books, and books! Cheyenne thinks she needs to buy glasses so she can exactly match the red-headed bibliophile on the mug, and thus claim ownership. On the right is the teapot Dana and Marilyn bought me when they went to England-- bone china! I have kept it in my china hutch, using it occasionally, but I've decided to use it a lot more. I'm casting about for somewhere to store it that is more accessible. That could be a problem in my smallish, over-full kitchen. In this picture, I was making Chai tea for when Cheyenne came home. She likes tea with lots of milk and sugar.

Rilla, showing me how the Froot-Loop blue matches the blue of her spoon. I bought a box of Froot-Loops in an indulgent mood, and they disappeared like snow in a ditch.

Rilla in a signature outfit-- polka dotted tights, black and yellow skirt, pink shirt, red sweater.

You might have to click on this to read it, but it seemed tailor-made to me. Cody was here the morning it was in the newspaper, and he drew it to my attention.

A rare moment of the three big kids playing together without angry words. I am apparently the most clueless mother ever. I was making supper in the kitchen (the floor of which is in the bottom of this picture), and Marilla managed to bring all three huge Little People houses up without me noticing. I now I can zone out while reading or dinking around on the Internet, but apparently I can lose track of my kids while I'm slicing onions, too.

And, now for the bath. And the book. And the pleasant bed afterward. Life is good!

Totes Awes. Christmas Vacay!

2012-01-05T22:20:00.000-05:00

See, I managed to cram about 14 annoying phrases in one title! It wouldn't be Christmas vacation without us Vaughans hitting on an obnoxious phrase to overuse for the week, and this week it was "totes adorb." Livie mentioned in passing that she had seen someone comment on a Flickr photo with the phrase "totes adorb" instead of taking the time to type out the phrase "totally adorable." She unwisely said something about "It just really annoys me." Well, way to wave a red flag to gathered siblings! We promptly worked "totes adorb" into every conversation, along with its cousins, "totes awes", "totes ridic" and "totes yum". Bethaney, who was not there for the original conversation, added fuel to the fire the next day by telling us how stupid it sounded. The sad part is, it's getting to the point where I find it hard to say the word "totally" even when I'm not trying to be all ironically funny.

This is going to be the most pathetic collection of pictures for a Christmas vacation, ever. I got so used to Livie being camera-hungry and stealing my camera to take lots of pictures, I got out of the habit of taking many pictures. But now that Olivia is all big and important with her new camera, my poor camera was neglected. I took 30+ pictures the whole nine days we were up at Vaughan's.

Cheyenne was still obsessed with cats. This is her, Christmas morning, freezing her little tushie in the 12 ° weather to go cuddle the cat. Cheyenne went outside every moment she could, to help feed cows or tag along with Owen and Ashley to the barn. Quite the dedication for a little skinny minnie who can't stay warm for more than five minutes!

Evan, serenading us.

Cody and Evan decided we needed biscuits for lunch on Sunday. Cody's buddy Anthony had made biscuits the last time he was there, and he left the recipe, so the guys decided to tackle it.

Evan, self-sacrificingly tasting the dough. They were stinkin' awesome biscuits. The triple recipe disappeared in a heartbeat.

A gaggle of people on the couch. The kids were finding Livie's $5 webcam to be the funniest thing ever, since you could stick your tongue out at it, and there it would be on the computer screen. Tee-hee.

Then, for supper Christmas night, we had hamburgers with 60 minute rolls, and homemade French fries.

Justin was the deep-frying MO-sheen, with two fryers going. They didn't last about 30 seconds after he dumped them out and salted them. Totes yum! Right at the end, he made some potato chips that were deeply delectable, too.

Monsieur Gilbert, in his big boy Carrharts.

Olivia, modeling the fascinator Ashley made for her. Très elegant!

Dad decided to make pancakes one morning when all the cousins slept over. Sticky chaos!

Rilla's super-cool Aunt Ashley hairdo! It lasted for longer than I should probably tell you. It was a bit linty by the time I undid it to wash it.

Cheerful Lincoln, despite the fact he had kept me up half the night with his cough and cold and general malaise.

Rilla, exhibiting symptoms (i.e., snot), of the same cold. I think every kid got it eventually. It's pretty inevitable when there's that many people in close proximity for that long. At least we didn't get the stomach flu this year.

This picture is terribly blurry, which is tragic because it is utterly gorgeous. I don't know why my camera is taking such blurry pictures lately, I don't know if I have lost all brains when it comes to taking pictures, or if there is something wrong with my camera. If anyone would like to forward me $800, I will purchase a new camera to explore the alternatives.

Cheesy grinned Orianna!

Lily, all festive in her snowman jammies.

Glasses dude. I still think they are adorable.

Cheyenne, looking all paparazzi-averse and teenagerish.

Lincoln trying on Daddy's boots.

He's got a little ways to go to fill those shoes.

This is Cody's new truck, which caused an involuntary squeal of "Totes Adorb!!" when it was pulled in the driveway. It's an old military truck, but it makes me go "Awww..."

Evan couldn't spend the whole week up there, but when he was there, he was playing with the sugar shack. Here it is, all sided with board and batten siding. Again, totes adorb!

And, my little traveling companions, on the way home New Year's Day. Despite the fact she blithely sailed through the week with late bedtimes and a paucity of naps, this little monkey NEVER fell asleep the entire ride home!

This little tired bunny conked out within three miles, but he woke up again all too soon. Alas.

So that's the extent of the photos. Pretty lame. I missed documenting the White grandparents coming up for a few days, and the influx of David and Rachel and their kids, and the general wonderfulness that the week was. We played lots of progressive rummy, and even an entire game of garbage with Mom on one of her few days off. Towards the end of the vacation, we got into a hearts craze, where I proceeded to shoot the moon. Twice in one game, New Year's Eve. Not to brag, or anything. We ate lots of yummy mint cookies that Ashley made, and a couple batches of biscuits, and turkey, and ham, and spaghetti, and... it was a lot of food, which made sense because there was a lot of people there. Not quite as many people as there was there last year, sniff, sniff (we missed you, AK and OR Vaughans!). The cousins spent a lot of time saying " 'Tend I'm the mommy, and you're the little baby," or " 'Tend I'm the panther, and you're all scared," (that one is courtesy of Little House on the Prairie), or " 'Tend I'm the ROBBER!". There was lots of 'tending. Lincoln and Gilbert alternated bonking each other on the head with long, sincere hugs. I missed Evan desperately when he had to come home to work for a few days, and we all missed Lindsey, who had to attend to stupid medical issues before the year was out (and the deductible had to be met again) instead of coming home as planned. Several of the family went to Vermont to attend the wedding of the lovely Cristin McMillan, and those of us left at home felt weird in the semi-quiet house (well, as quiet as it could be with 7 kids. But it did lack Livie, so a reduction in volume, overall), and waited anxiously for the pictures and reports from the wedding weekend. Evan and Justin played with the new tractor, and dreamed sugaring dreams. All in all, 'twas wonderful. And now we're home, and the kids still have colds and are fussy, but it's nice to be in our little nest again. Occasionally, it even snows and gets cold enough to remind us that it is winter! Looking forward to the rest of January!

Thanksgiving to Cheyenne's 8th Birthday, And Points In Between

2011-12-23T23:19:00.000-05:00

This is a huge amount of events and time to chronicle in one sitting. However, I really was bad about taking pictures during this time, so there's actually less pictures in this post than the one I put up yesterday, full of excruciating detail about Capitol Reef National Park.

Here, we have the obligatory blurry shot of children in an auditorium. I like this picture, because Elliott has just said his piece, and his mouth is about to form into his trademark shy, embarrassed smirk.

Then, Thanksgiving! Adorable hairdos courtesy of Aunt Ashley. I love how these two girls were so engrossed in reading.

The table is set! This is Mammy's old tablecloth, which she had people sign when they came to dinner. Then, she embroidered the names. Always a good conversation starter at dinner, trying to remember everyone written there.

Ownie.

Orianna had borrowed Cheyenne's scarf, so she was extra-specially elegant.

This was Bethaney's contribution to the entertainment-- she brought a kid-sized accordion.

It was a huge hit. Probably more for the kids than the listening adults, but still.

Yes, this is the third picture of pretty much the same pose. He's just so heartbreakingly beautiful, though!

Go Fish! tournament.

Gilbert found a good place to sleep.

What a doll.

Livie grabbed my camera to document the gorgeous colors of the sunset.

What do you do when you have too many people to play Progressive Rummy? You play two different PR games.

Elliott, with Slinky bling.

Crazy child. Not really "heartbreakingly beautiful" here, I'll admit.

Orianna, upcoming card shark.

My curly, dimply baby!

Gilbert's edible feet.

Justin takes a turn with the accordion.

Rilla "showing my belly!"

A husband-wife duet!

Yup, still playing. And, of course, I'm still winning.

As my Poppy would say, a "clean" baby. Love his little profile.

Being silly on the balcony...

So of course, Elliott was soon in the picture.

A feet shot!

Sunrise the next morning. Livie took the next several beautiful pictures.

Don't Dana and Marilyn have gorgeous views?

The porch, wonderful for sitting (mostly) year-round.

I stayed home from the Black Friday shopping with Gilbert, Lincoln and Elliott. They built block towers and knocked them over!

Hmmm, little sneak thief took my iPod. So cute.

Yeah, Evan did not abstain from the Black Friday shopping. He is now the proud owner of two tractors. Which is kind of ironic considering A.) We own 1/2 acre in the suburbs B.) He has never driven a tractor and C.) He doesn't like to work on engines. But, hey, they'll probably help with sugaring somehow, I guess a rabid old-tractor fan has to start somewhere!

I probably won't object to the tractors too much, or else Guido here might have to hurt me.

Elliott is a nut.

So are the Lucas children.

Stairs full of nuts.

Livie finds it very hard to talk without her hands. Kind of fun to watch in Taboo! Taboo was all sorts of fun, with people getting more tired and sillier as we went.

Dana and Marilyn playing. It was their anniversary that day!

All the "little" kids, although they are getting pretty long-legged to be considered little!

And the Lucases.

We here they're not long for NY. Sniff, sniff.

We sang one hymn before the evening had to wind down. Lots of strong, lovely voices!

Cute friends!

Then, home. Since I didn't take many pictures this month, you'll be spared too many pictures of my home babies. They were having so much fun climbing in and out of the laundry basket while I folded wash.

Rilla was very protective of her "house" here. She was quite glad when I agreed that it was Lincoln's nap time!

If I had the time, I would add stars and fireworks to this picture, because this was the Saturday Evan finished siding the back of the house!

There are two small sections of the house left to side, but at least we could take all the staging off the back. And yes, for once I do mean "we", because I actually helped him take it all down. I even climbed up on the garage roof to sweep up some debris!

Of course, Lincoln was not impressed with being shut in the house (it was a little nippy for kids by then), so he persuaded Cheyenne to bring him out for a tour.

And then, Miss Cheyenne's eighth birthday (and my little point and shoot camera, since my other camera was dead. I remember why I love my big camera.) This is her spiffy grown-up lotion from Auntie.

Some relative called to sing to her at some point, so she paused her gift-opening to listen to "Happy Birthday!"

Eun Hui and Elliott, playing with Eun Hui's phone camera.

The cake. Vinegar cake, natch.

Being sung to.

Making a wish.

Getting a round of Uno in with Auntie.

This is Marilla's contribution to photography. I decided to keep this picture, since it's the only picture I have of the flowers Evan bought me for our 12th anniversary. 12 days after we got them, I had to throw them out because we are going away, but a lot of them were still beautiful!

Then, Cheyenne got to have her school friend over for supper on Friday, and then Vaughans came for the weekend. She likes telling people she got three birthdays this year! (And, I lied, apparently, cause there in the background is another picture of the flowers.)

Marilla, illicitly playing with the Squinkie dispenser Cheyenne's friend bought her. If you don't know what Squinkies are, consider yourself lucky. Squinkies are nominally eraser tops for pencils. Their real "value" lies in collecting bunches of them. Grandma Marilyn started the trend here when she bought some for Cheyenne and Elliott. They're sorta cute, but the problem is that they come in these plastic globes. And the kids NEVER put them back in the globe, and after about the 972nd time picking up globes in random parts of my house, I decided they would never notice if I threw the globes out a couple of weeks ago. Unfortunately, the new Squinkies dispenser requires the Squinkies to be in globes to work. So, while Cheyenne was starting to play with her new toy, I was upstairs, furtively digging in the trash can in the girls' room, resurrecting Squinkie globes. So now I have to treasure the globes I find all over the house. The only thing I like about Squinkies is that they're marginally better than Silly Bandz.

Grandpa Dana and Grandma Marilyn came out, just for the day, to help celebrate a birthday! Elliott had gone outside to play in the snow, and Grandpa had pity on Lincoln, who was desperate to go out, too, and watched him outside for a bit. This is the picture Dana took of my little snow guy. Just like last year, Elliott will play outside until his body is verging on hypothermia. I've never seen a kid love the snow so much. I splurged on some more expensive boots for him this year, so his feet did stay warm and dry!

We had corn chowder for lunch with all our company, and then the presents! Here, Cheyenne is unwrapping the present from Aunt Bet-- all the food she needs for a picnic with her Felicity doll. (Psst... don't tell Cheyenne, but Marilla is enamored of the food, and plays with it while Cheyenne is at school.)

I love this little girl. And this little girl loves her "Shy-Nigh-Ann".

Spiral art from Aunt Tori! (I think... maybe this was Aunt Livie's game and Tori bought the Madeline game. Either way, young Vaughan aunt.)

And, the Madeline game.

Grandma Marilyn brought Cheyenne a couple of cool knitting rings. They're a bit of an obsession with Livie and Tori now-- and Cheyenne, once the aunts go home!

And, another vinegar cake.

Sunday, Evan showed me just how well Lincoln's little hand-me-down suit fit him! Oh, well, once you put the vest on, you didn't notice that the pants had to be up to his armpits so he didn't trip over them! He was dashingly handsome.

Okay, sorta caught up here! Evan took the kids up to Vaughans' tonight, and I had planned on following after, but packing/cleaning/bill-paying took longer than I had hoped, so I'm just staying here for the night (and squeezing some blogging in). I'm doing battle with my conscience-- up super early so I can go up and help watch my kids, or sleep in in a quiet house? We'll know in the morning... although the 11:15 time it's showing on my computer clock doesn't bode well for the conscientious mommy scenario!

Capitol Reef National Park, Where the Rangers Have an Inferiority Complex

2011-12-22T22:43:00.001-05:00

Have you ever been to Capitol Reef National Park? Yeah, Lindsey and I hadn't, either. It turns out there is a reason a lot of people don't go there-- it is in the stinkin' middle of nowhere.

When you have time, though, and this is the view for the drive in, why not?

Hello, black speck, so glad you popped out again. This was supposed to be about the cool moon above the rock formation, but all I can see now is the spot.

We saw these same striations for 70+ miles. It looked like sand, but it wasn't sifting around like sand. Very interesting looking.

We drove through more desolate country than I have ever been through in my life. There were no signs for the park, either, so we started to wonder if we had somehow found a wormhole into another world.

Just as our laughter was beginning to get a little nervous, we finally found The Official Sign. Hallelujah!

Rocks! I have to admit, by this point in the trip, I was getting a little blasé about rocks. At this point in writing about rocks, I'm sort of running out of words to describe them. Capitol Reef was amply endowed with amazing rocks, though.

And it had some of the most beautiful tree color we'd seen, helped by the gorgeous sunlight that day.

Rocks + Trees + Sun = Beauteous.

Capitol Reef is named for a fold in the earth's crust. It is an amazing example of its kind, we were told. Unfortunately, we never went on any of the hikes that took you to a view of that fold. Here's a link to the geology, which might explain all those pits in the rocks above. I've got lots of pictures of them coming up, so if you want a real explanation, rely on the National Park Service, not me.

This white rock was really white. Blindingly so, in the sun.

This national park had a twist-- remnants of a former Mormon settlement and fruit orchard. Here's the Fruita school. Isn't it adorable? It's also the only national park with a working fruit orchard. When the fruit is in season (not November, unfortunately), each visitor is allowed to pick one bushel of fruit. Kind of a fun thing to do with kids, I would think!

I wonder if the teacher ever worried about landslides.

More bee-you-ti-ful trees. Maybe I was getting a little homesick for NY at that point, because I was in love with the trees.

A farming relic! I mostly took this picture for my dad. This picture was snapped before my husband became a de facto old tractor nut by buying TWO old tractors during his Black Friday shopping! (Details coming up soon! In my Thanksgiving post! Which I'm hoping to get up before Christmas!)

We stopped into the visitor's center, right as a huge tour bus pulled in. We made a mad dash for the restrooms, hoping to beat the rush-- but there was no rush! The tourists got out, took a picture of the sign in FRONT of the visitor's center, and got back in the bus. Not one of them set foot inside the visitor's center. This is where the rangers' inferiority complexes come into play. They were deeply disappointed that the only happening group of visitors was going to ignore them completely. One of the rangers started on a huge rant about how they had probably got out at ARCHES! And ZION! And all those other places with their "one trick attractions" and on and on! I am prepared to admit the coolness of Capitol Reef... but Arches does have a few things happening, too! I think NPS needs to rotate their employees more so the Capitol Reef rangers don't die choking on all their unspoken Fascinating Lectures. Anyway, they were happy to answer all our questions! :-)

We decided to hike into the Hickman Bridge, a natural bridge. We started off beside this beautiful river.

Nice wall to keep you out of the river!

We started seeing these huge black rocks, seeming to have no relevance to the landscape around them.

They were quite warm, soaking up the sun.

There were LOTS of them. Lindsey and I trotted out several plausible (in our mind) theories about how they came to be. The answer, according to the visitor center later? Volcanic rocks from about 60 miles away. The real mind-blowing part is that geologists think they rolled 60 miles in one day. I have no idea what they base this on, but it's a crazy thought!

A little tiny land bridge! If there wasn't the possibilities of snakes, and I was about 100 pounds smaller, it looks like a fun place to crawl through!

See, more water-eroded holes!

And more!

This is Capitol Dome. Any idea why?

Lindsey!

Beautiful color in this rock, just like honey!

This one looks vaguely obscene.

Lindsey in her snazzy running skirt, and running leggings, and her Camelbak.

Me? The wardrobe was a little depleted by this point. I had only brought a couple of t-shirts (I was still in late fall/winter mindset, and packed lots of turtlenecks), so I ended up wearing pajama shirts most days. (My "pajama" shirts are just old t-shirts, so this wasn't too much of a stretch.) I only own three pairs of pants, one vaguely sporty (see: Zion, Arches pictures); one in a peach color I wouldn't be caught dead in, but took for being warm while sleeping in the van; and these only marginally better sweatpants. I suppose if I had ever bothered running a half marathon like Lindsey, I could justify cooler sport clothes. Maybe if I buy the cool exercise clothes, I will magically be able to run a half marathon, hmm?

First sight of the bridge! Kind of hard to pick out in this picture, actually.

Getting closer!

Up under the bridge, looking back towards Capitol Dome.

These rocks at the base had Lindsey a little skeptical about the engineering soundness of the bridge.

Hmm, a might sketch.

It was a great day for taking pictures of bridge silhouettes against the sky. So we did.

Lots of them.

Lindsey went WAY off the trail (tsk, tsk!) for some cool shots.

It looks like it has chisel marks.

But we already knew it was sculpted by an amazing creator, right?

Then, we took another trail back down.

I loved this little bush, with its waxy leaves. I wonder if it would suit the climate here? I mean, 7" inches of rain annually sure sounds like the weather around here!

Lindsey striking off the path (AGAIN!) for a view.

So then I had to go join her. And it was quite pretty.

And, we're back to the river!

Then, off on the sixteen mile scenic drive. (I think it was 16 miles? The mileage for all the Scenic Drives is starting to blur.)

More of the sand-that-isn't-sand stuff.

And... here's where the day took a down turn. Lindsey decided to go on the dirt scenic drive at the END of the scenic drive. Despite the fact that we were driving a rental minivan that had the clearance of your Granny's Lincoln.

Lindsey was the one renting the car, though, so I couldn't put my foot down. Off we went. And it was pretty cool.

And then, I started to feel really sick. Like, I-want-to-die sick.

But, Lindsey was enjoying every minute of these amazing rocks.

Once we got back to the visitor's center and walked around in the cool air for a while, I felt absolutely fine. I don't know why I hadn't figured out I was carsick. I could have got out for a minute or two and saved Lindsey an enormous amount of whining. :-) In retrospect, it was a cool ride!

Then, it was time for our traditional dash-around-the-park-at-sunset trip! For once, though, sunset made sense! Except sunset was almost over by this point, so we literally ran the 1/3 of a mile uphill. Bet that would have garnered some hits on YouTube!

It was worth it, though.

I love the etching on this rock. It looks very purposeful, but the visitor's center had closed, so I couldn't go back and ask them what had caused this.

Lindsey, defying death by standing on a projecting rock!

Nice play to defy death, though.

See that bench, there? We sat on it for a while. It was pretty awesome.

The last light fading.

Then, an interesting evening. We were both desperately hungry, as food for the day had consisted of some trail mix and pepperoni. Maybe it was time to treat ourselves to a steak dinner. Ha, ha, ha. Remember how southern Utah shuts down on the off season? Our first "town" on our drive on Scenic Route 12 was Torrey, Utah. The only dining there was Subway, which wasn't that appealing after the disastrous Bryce Subway experience. Never mind, I'm sure there's lots more! Yeah, there wasn't. We went over mountain passes with names like "Hogback", and while we didn't drive this specific portion, one of the byways of Route 12 is named "Hell's Backbone Byway." We are talking seriously twisty, steep, nerve-racking road. I'm sure it was gorgeous in the daylight, but when the temperature is just under freezing and you can't see anything except the occasional amazingly steep drop-off, it is wearying. We finally got supper around 8:00 in Escalante. Other than being an obvious drag on our waitress's social life, it was a lovely hamburger dinner. Then, soldiering onward. Our intended goal was Cedar City, Utah, about 4 1/2 hours from Capitol Reef. Around 9:45, I was nodding off and Lindsey was getting sick of driving twisty roads. Or maybe she was getting sick of my "silent" panics. Either way, we stopped in a little mom-and-pop motel just east of Bryce. Only the "mom" in the picture was nuttier than a fruitcake. We went into the hotel office, and used the provided phone to summon the night clerk. Pretty soon, we heard a four-wheeler swish in the gravel outside, and this giant of a woman comes running inside. She had some sort of neurological tic, and she was never still. Head twitching, eyes winking, dancing-- she had a whole repertoire. After realizing she wasn't an extra in a horror film, I mostly felt amazed that she managed to run a hotel with this disorder, and impressed with her. We asked to see a room, and they were spotless, odorless and huge. Sold! My generous understanding of her disorder only went so far, though. I was so tired and it was so freaky, I did make sure the deadbolt was put in, and that I sent a text to Evan with our address. Just in case. Of course, nothing happened and we had a lovely night of sleep. Then, up in the morning to clean the van out and somehow manage to cram all our stuff back into our meager suitcases.

Another gorgeous drive that morning. This is Cedar Breaks National Monument.

The yurt Lindsey will live in, once she becomes so rich she can give up her career and become a NPS employee.

Even higher than the night before! The road we had intended on taking to Cedar City had an abrupt road block and detour halfway through it, adding at least a half hour to our trip. It was a beautiful detour, but I'm quite glad we didn't have to do it in the dark, while tired!

Thus, we detoured through Brian's Head, which I guess is a huge ski resort. I have no idea if this rock is Brian's Head, but we can pretend it is.

And that concludes the pictorial journey. Lindsey flew out from Las Vegas at 4:30 (she managed to check in 48 minutes before the flight, 3 minutes before she would have been turned away), and then I spent a lovely seven hours hanging out in the airport, waiting for my flight. I considered hopping on a bus to see the sights, but having a large backpack and carry-on suitcase sort of takes the fun out of that plan. I slept a bit, and read The Elegance of the Hedgehog, hoping nobody saw me crying at the end of the book. (HIGHLY recommend that book, by the way!) Very uneventful flights home, and then getting off the plane to four wildly enthusiastic children, which was one of the best parts of the whole trip!

Whew, now I just need to put up pictures of our lovely Thanksgiving, and Cheyenne's 8th birthday, and all the points in between!

Moab (Arches, Canyonlands, and Sweet Hostels!)

2011-12-11T22:41:00.000-05:00

On the same evening we raced shivering around Bryce, we also drove 5 hours to Moab. Probably the longest 5-hour drive I've ever been on, although it's hard for me to complain since Lindsey did all the driving. We had came out of Bryce, and headed a few miles back to where we had seen a Subway shop advertising free Wi-Fi. Well, one of the benefits of hitting up the national parks in November is NOT the hours the local shops keep. The Subway employees gave us dirty looks when we headed in at 5:35 p.m., and told us they were closing right away. I guess no one in Utah eats supper. Anyway, we ate our subs in the car and used the wi-fi to find a place for the night. Sleeping in the van was out, since it was already below freezing and heading south fast. Lindsey had scoped out a really cheap hostel in Moab, so we looked up the number and called. They allowed check-in until 11:00, which was tight, but doable. After stopping for gas, and various other slowdowns, we arrived there about five minutes before they locked the door!

Outside views, the next morning.

Lindsey, relaxing in the swank rooms. We did spring an extra ten bucks for a private room with two beds.

I was really tempted to swipe the decor.

Attention to detail-- I like how the curtain was six inches too short. Anyway, the Ritz it ain't, but at least it was warm and cheap!

Then, to Arches the next day.

Catching the moon between the two rocks.

The moon, slipping out of view in Lindsey's picture. (I have pictures in here from my camera, and Lindsey's two cameras. It may be a little mixed up, even a librarian finds it hard to organize three different cameras.)

Balancing Rock! (Guess which one is called that for your chance to win a prize!)

It doesn't look too bad here...

But this angle makes it look a little dicey.

Ooh, some arches!

I love this rock pile. It's like a little colorblind kid was stacking rocks and didn't realize that a white rock slipped in among his red rocks.

Desert soil, as the 300 signs told us. They were quite concerned that we knew the damage walking on this soil would do to the ecosystem. I was afraid of walking in my backyard by the time I came home, they had indoctrinated me so thoroughly about keeping to the official paths!

If you didn't know you were in a protected area, you would swear you were looking at mine tailings. All these crazy piles of what looked like sand in different colors. Lindsey tells me it looks a lot like the Painted Desert in New Mexico. It was extremely cool to look for all different colors as we drove along.

Like Lindsey said, it looks like Dr. Seuss Land.

Lindsey walked back into the Devil's Garden here, while I stayed in the van, writing postcards.

Some older guys back in there were very chatty, offering to take her picture and asking all sorts of questions about Alaska.

Here we are, starting out the trail up to Delicate Arch.

Lots of steps to climb up-- and down. When I'm the president of the Fat Hiker's Society, I will re-write the guidebooks to reflect the actual elevation climbed. I'm sick of these hikes that say "500 feet in elevation gain", leaving out the fact you climb 200 feet, down 75, up 50, down 25, up 100, down 25... so by the time you reach the top you're 500 feet higher, but you climbed 780 feet. If I'm going to hike uphill, I want ALL the bragging rights!

Looking up to the long slickrock traverse. (If you click on the picture, you can see the little ant-like hikers better!)

And back down to the start of the path.

There was lots of interesting things to see on the way...

The little cairns marking the path on the slickrock. I liked these little cairns-- they were a good place to stop and catch my breath for a few seconds.

It goes up for a looooong time. (And if you've hiked this before and are shaking your head at my wussiness, shake away. I'm just proud I made it up!)

Walking along a ledge. Not for anyone who's afraid of heights.

I love the swirls in the rock.

The final ledge before Delicate Arch.

The gorgeous view, to the left off the ledge. I would love to be in one of those natural theaters.

Totally awesome!

And then, finally, at the arch. It was such a beautiful, quiet day. We sat there for quite a while.

Lindsey.

This is the depression between the arch and the path. There was only one cautious-looking guy out there when we went up, so I didn't know if people were supposed to go down in there. I asked a park person later, and they said it was fine, but I was a wuss and didn't go out there.

See, it looks pretty steep there. I guess it's deceptive looking and it's pretty easy to walk on.

I love the snow-covered mountains in the background.

The Quebecois that went speeding past us on the trail. Then there was a Japanese couple with a ten year old daughter. It's fun to see the different people that hike in!

Stairs carved in the rock.

Interesting rock.

The pictograms.

Then, on to other parts of the park. This was the area labeled the Parade of Elephants, and I couldn't decide if this was the elephant head-on (about to trample a Port-a-Potty)...

Or this was the elephant's side view as it marched along. Either way, they looked elephant-y.

And then, for some inexplicable reason, my camera was swarmed with fuzzies and dots. They hung out just long enough to ruin several beautiful pictures, and then disappeared without me ever having noticed them or wiped them away. Very frustrating. But here's a picture of one of the Windows arches, complete with central black fuzzy.

Looking from Windows, over toward the Double Arch, and the Parade of Elephants. (Again, this is from memory. Don't become a tour guide on the strength of my information.)

Turret Arch, opposite the Window Arches.

The Windows, from Turret Arch!

I love this picture, I shall have to have my smarter little sister Livie show me how to remove the black dots from it.

We finished up at Arches in the late afternoon, so Lindsey said we had time to run over to Canyonlands National Park, since it was "just down the road." After driving about half an hour, we got to the road for Canyonlands-- where it informed us it was 25 miles into the park! Oh, well, the van was warm and the scenery was beautiful, so we decided to go in and see as much as we could before the sun set. (Are you sensing a pattern here? "Bryce and Canyonlands-- 30 Minutes at Dusk!")

Two mesas on the drive in-- the Monitor and the Merrimack! (This is the last picture to feature black fuzzies-- they somehow died a quiet death before the next picture.)

It was actually a beautiful 25-mile drive. Not a lot of rock formations, but after Arches, it was restful to see open fields, full of sage brush. This is the first time I've ever seen the purple undertones to sage-- "Riders of the Purple Sage" by Zane Grey sprung to mind! It's been too long since I've read a Zane Grey-- I must fit that in soon.

Saw lots of these birds. I have no idea if they are crows or ravens, although I think crows are actually more rare? I need to stop relying on my memory and look things up, but that smacks too much of college. Or gainful employment as a librarian.

Canyonlands was hugely impressive, and I definitely want to return there someday when it isn't 5:00 p.m.

This isn't a great picture of this plant, but it looks like a ghost plant, so white and ethereal.

The colors are so intense it is amazing.

And, like everything, snow-covered mountains in the background make it better.

Canyonlands has over 80 miles of dirt trails accessible by four-wheel drive vehicles. We may have to take advantage of that when we bring our kids out for an amazing vacation in ten more years... :-)

The last morning in Moab, Lindsey discovered her wallet was missing. The last place she remembered having it was at the pizza joint in town the night before. Of course, since it was a pizza place, it wasn't open at 8:00 in the morning. On the off-chance there was someone there, we drove over, and Lindsey knocked on the door. After a while, a cleaning guy opened the door and let Lindsey in. He rummaged around in a couple of cupboards, and found it! Lindsey almost kissed him. Needless to say, there was great rejoicing that we could continue on our trip without trying to cancel credit cards and get Lindsey some form of ID so she could fly home!

We parked beside this tree in the McDonald's parking lot. The leaves were such a beautiful green, especially in the morning sunlight. I don't have a clue what kind of tree is it.

Then, it was on to Capitol Reef (Pictures Coming Soon!!)

Bryce! (Or, the Time We Almost Froze to Death)

2011-12-07T22:31:00.000-05:00

Okay, that title is a tad melodramatic. But it felt very bitterly cold, despite the fact it was barely freezing. We drove over to Bryce after a day's hiking in Zion, where we were down to T-shirts. Then, after sitting in the car long enough to let our muscles get good and tightened, we arrived at Bryce and attempted to see it all in the remaining hour of daylight. So we'd jump out of the warm van, ignoring the screaming muscles (okay, probably buff-n-tuff Lindsey did not have to ignore screaming muscles, but I did), jog up to the lookout point, and take some pictures. And it felt really, really cold. This was definitely the park we shortchanged the most, but we didn't have time to pay attention to them all properly. Next time.

You don't officially visit a National Park unless you take a picture of the sign.

Bryce Canyons: Where Mother Nature's Decorator Forgot to Take Her Meds. But it is totally gorgeous.

The view here was just spectacular-- Bryce's famous hoodoos, then vast distances to another mountain range.

The whole state of Utah brings flashbacks of 9th grade Earth Science. In an exciting way.

Evan and I hiked this trail in 2001. And it was the hardest hike I did the whole trip. When I realized this time that Bryce is at a ridiculously high altitude, I forgave myself some of my 2001 wussiness. If I ever hike at Bryce again, it will be after a couple days of laying around a cozy cabin, acclimating to the elevation.

The snow only makes the crazy landscapes even better defined.

Pretty trees!

I love the gnarled one on the left.

See? Ridiculously high altitude.

We were JUST about out of any sunlight here.

Getting a little closer to the rocks at this lookout.

I'm not a real risk-taker (okay, I'm not a risk-taker in even the teeniest sense of the word), but this makes me want to toboggan down through there.

Red, red, rocks! Imagine what they would look like in the sunlight.

Even though we didn't have a lot of daylight left, the sunset was beautiful and it was definitely worth our mad race through the park.

Lindsey, in her Skhoop skirt. I am scheming about getting my own Skhoop someday. I think I've already used up my birthday presents for the year by getting to fly West for a week, but maybe next year Evan will be open to suggestions... I'm partial to the Hella.

Utah: Zion National Park

2011-12-02T22:59:00.000-05:00

Being Jill's daughter, I have to start this post off with lots of apologies disguised as disclaimers.

Disclaimer #1: There are WAY too many pictures in this post, but I know I'm not going to remember half of them if I don't sort and caption them now. And I'm too lazy to make a photo album. So this is my photo album, just open to the general public. Feel free to click away now if looking at 80 scenery pictures is not your thing. Even if you intend to brave the whole thing, I suggest making a cup of tea so it isn't 15 wasted minutes.

Disclaimer #2: I am absolutely no good at taking scenery pictures. This trip taught me that I don't have the foggiest notion of how to use the camera's settings in the great outdoors. Plus, my camera has something on the internal mirror (I think?) so there's occasional great black dots in the middle of my pictures. National Geographic would not approve. A lot of the decent pictures are the ones Lindsey took. I don't know which is the more pressing need-- a camera course, or a new/cleaned camera?

The first national park we hit up was Zion. Here's the sign at the entrance! Except it wasn't. It was the sign when we were leaving, and we turned around to get a picture. But let's pretend it's the beginning here!

Of course, we didn't magically appear in Zion. I flew into Las Vegas late Sunday night, and we spent a chilly night in a Vegas hotel, muttering imprecations against the fool who had decided one extremely thin blanket was sufficient. Finally, at three in the morning, Lindsey called the front desk and asked for blankets, and after assuring them that yes, we really did want MORE blankets!!, we got our extra blankets a speedy 45 minutes later. After calling again. Anyway, then up for a buffet breakfast, past the jackhammer breaking up the concrete in the middle of the still functioning casino floor... The upshot is, I was REALLY ready to head over to Utah.

One of the views as we drove over. I was rhapsodizing how beautiful it was driving out of Las Vegas, just because it was so open and un-New York-ish. But then the real scenery started.

Just the trees and grasses were beautiful, let alone THE ENORMOUS CLIFFS OF GORGEOUSNESS looming in the background.

We had to stop for pictures a lot. For some reason, I felt compelled to wear sunglasses on the top of my head most of the trip. Not sure why.

Sometimes (lots of times, actually), I took pictures without even stopping. This is the view just driving down the highway. It really makes the C. Square to Fort Drum stretch of I-81 seem little humdrum.

Beautiful rocks!

In the park now, driving on the scenic road in the park. The road is usually closed to all but shuttle traffic, but since it's the off-season, we could drive all the way in. November seems to be the time to be out there-- no crowds, and a beautiful temperature for hiking.

We got there not too long before sunset, so we did an easy creekwalk the first evening. There was a surprising variation in the colors of the foliage. It was a nice change from our November-denuded trees out here.

Lindsey, photographing it up.

One of the vistas from the walk. There was a calendar-ready view about every 10 feet. If you knew the restraint I am actually showing in posting pictures here...

Standing in the creek for a better picture.

Worth it! Actually, this may have been Lindsey's picture, but I took SOME sort of picture standing in the creek. And this is a lovely picture.

We were in a canyon, so the light had left the canyon floor, but the walls were beautifully lit by the setting sun.

Me, looking highly skeptical about something. Maybe that's when I was starting to notice the blister on my little toe.

The Looming Rock.

I love these arches, scattered all over the cliff faces. This one was especially pretty, with a little pool at its base.

We weren't the only people with cameras. This seemed to be a class.

The creekwalk was 1.2 miles in, and this was the view at the end of it. In person, it was this amazingly white mountain, lit up by the sun, in between the looming canyon walls. It really did not photograph well at all, despite me trying about 20 different settings. It was utterly spectacular, though.

A "little" spider on the path on the way back.

There was some sort of shrubby maple all over there. Even Lindsey, brilliant silviculturist that she is, didn't know exactly what they were.

Maple leaves, but not like the trees we have here.

The view walking out. The light in this one reminds me of the pictures on the View-Master. I spent hours at a time looking at pictures on there when I was a kid.

This might be the Great White Throne, but I totally forget now. Lindsey took all the brochures and maps we collected to plan her amazing spend-a-year-hiking-in-Utah trip, so I'm relying on my memory here. And it's faulty and sleep-addled.

The colors and formations here are indescribable. Though I certainly seem to be typing enough to try, here.

Turkey!

And a deer! This is a blurry picture, but we didn't see a lot of wildlife, so I'm hanging on to this picture. Actually, the only wildlife we did see was turkeys, deer and a coyote. Sort of like if we hung out in the field behind Mom and Dad's barn for half an hour. But, hey, it was in Utah, so we took pictures!

Sunset is an awesome time to see the color of the rocks.

The view off a bridge.

I'm not the only one who found it worth photographing.

Our palatial accommodations. Lindsey rented a minivan, and all the seats stowed away in the floor so we could sleep in the back. It got down in the 30s at night, so we dressed in lots of layers, but it wasn't too bad. My toes stayed toasty all night!

The differences in time zones between Lindsey and I manifested itself in the morning, when I was raring to go and she could have cheerfully slept another several hours. I was dragging by evening, though.

The campground bathroom. I had to get up in the night to use the facilities, and there was an almost full moon shining over the cliffs. I've never been so glad for my inability to sleep through the night without using the restroom. It was so quiet, especially after the horror that was Las Vegas.

The second day, we were just crazy adventurous. This sign warns that "Falls from cliffs on this trail have resulted in DEATH!" I felt like such a rebel.

Yup, rebels wear grey sweatshirts.

We hiked into the Emerald Pools. There's a Lower Emerald Pool, Middle Emerald Pool, and Upper Emerald Pool (again, from memory, so don't quote me.) Very imaginative people in charge of naming. This is the lower pool.

A little waterfall. I think the water was lower than normal, but it was pretty.

Enough water to make soupy, slide-y mud. The stupid sneakers I had brought had given me a blister the night before, so I was wearing Crocs, which weren't super grippy on this surface. Poor Lindsey lived in mortal terror that I was going to plunge to my death the whole vacation, because I wore my Crocs the rest of the time. No problems, though. Do you think Crocs is looking for a spokesperson upon whom they want to shower endorsement deals figuring in the millions?

Some really red trees on this hike.

The hike to the lower pool was an easy, paved road, but after that it got a little more serious. Lots of climbing!

The middle falls!

A view out over the valley.

As the famous blurb in the ADK hike book says about Catamount Mountain, "some non-technical rock climbing."

Lindsey, leading the way.

There should have been water pouring down from here into the Upper Emerald Pool, but it was dry.

The pool itself was there, though, all still and reflective.

We were the only two people in there, and it was SO QUIET. Until I yelled, "GUNNNNTHER!" at the echo.

Setting up my camera for a portrait of the two of us.

Yup, we were there. It got a bit chilly after the exertion of the hike, but we put our sweatshirts back on, and just sat there for a while. Definitely worth the hike!

Of course, if we were really adventurous, we could have tried scaling them, or something. But I was quite content to pant up the official trail.

This view of the valley was awe-inspiring. I wish I had a super wide angle lens to get it all in!

Alaska girl, enjoying Utah.

Our hike out is on the left.

This is a view of the Upper Pool from the trail out (we took a different trail for some different views).

This trail was more in the sun, so more desert plants than the trees on the other side of the canyon. Lindsey thought I was highly immature, but I called this "The Funny Cactus" because it looks exactly like the kind of cactus a person would sit on in a comic strip.

Very cool landscape!

Interesting path for the trail!

Here we could see the Lower Pool and the Middle Pool. It made me quite proud that I had hiked all the way up there--then, all the way to the Upper Pool. Not bad for a sedentary housewife.

I realize that is pretty much the same view three times in a row, but they are all so lovely I can't choose.

That rock underneath the ledge looks like a fan, spread open.

Hmm, getting near the end of the trail, and we're still quite a bit above the river! There was a paved switchback right at the end, though, so it was easy.

Then, we had somewhere between .5 and .8 of a mile walk back to the van. (The official path, across the road from the creek, was .5, but we walked along the river and followed all its meanders.) 'Twas a pretty walk, and a good way to cool down.

Walking underneath the cottonwoods! They make an interesting shushing sound.

Then, we drove up the Mt. Carmel highway on our way to Bryce. There were lots of switchbacks with sheer drop-offs, and an old tunnel over a mile long, so I had a bloody tongue NOT telling Lindsey to slow down! She was a fine driver, I just get nervous in those situations!

The last picture we took of Zion-- Checkerboard Mountain, maybe? Evan and I had been to Zion briefly in 2001, and Lindsey asked if I remembered much of it. It was the park we did the least in, so I told her I just remembered this specific mountain looming over the road. The whole time we were there, she kept asking me if anything looked like that mountain I remembered. Nope. When I finally came home, I looked in our photo album from that trip, and it was Checkerboard Mountain. I had remembered us going from Zion to Bryce, but we had done it the other way-- so my first sight of Zion had been from the back entrance. So even after photographing the mountain, I still didn't recognize it, because I had an idea fixed in my head about it!

I hope I haven't lulled you all to sleep by this point-- at least I'm not running a slide projector!

No Pictures!

2011-11-20T21:09:00.000-05:00

I got back from Utah Saturday, and I am having a wonderful time squeezing children and enjoying the clean house I came home to, thanks to my marvelous husband and in-laws. I am also spending time trying to sort and edit a stinkin' lot of pictures. With Thanksgiving looming (in a pleasant way) in a few days, I'm not making any promises about when they'll be up-- but whenever I do get them up, you will be jealous that you don't have a week to hike around parks in Southern Utah.

Now, to take my ridiculously tired self off to bed. Nighty-night!

Bits of November, Before My Trip!

2011-11-13T13:59:00.000-05:00

I fly out today to meet Lindsey and take a trip through Utah for the week. I am both wickedly excited and terribly apprehensive. The last time I flew by myself was when I flew to Alaska in 1997. It's been a while. Lindsey had planned this trip to use up a ticket she had from the year before, and I decided to crash her party. Evan had the week relatively free so he could watch the kids, and we're haven't-reached-the-winter-doldrums rich right now, so it all came together. After we bought the ticket, Evan got a job he wanted Dana's help on, so it turns out Dana and Marilyn will be out here for the week, but I'm impressed Evan at least was willing to be the only parent for a week!

I'm hoping to return with a jillion beautiful pictures of the scenery, so I figured I should upload a few of the ones from normal life before I left. I don't know if I'll ever get around to posting the pictures I have from October, but here are the November pictures.

We went up to Vaughans' last weekend. Owen and Ashley are building a house up on the hill behind the maple trees.

Second story walls going up.

Livie and blue sky.

I think Ashley is tired of the paparazzi.

Tori.

Livie standing around while other people do big and important things. But I've heard she redeemed herself and single-handedly built the stairs. Or something like that.

The view to the southeast from their house.

The village of Moira, to the west.

And east to the farm! I never did really see the view to the north, since the windows weren't cut into that wall yet.

The 886, doing it's part.

My handsome, and sawdust-y, husband.

I was "helping" put that wall up, so I didn't get a picture of all the people pushing it up, but it was a cool sight.

Ashley handing lumber up to the second story.

To the right of the front door, where the kitchen will be.

The lovely view Owen will have from the kitchen sink as he does dishes. Alas, the view will probably be missing Evan then, but at least there will be the maples.

The temporary stair arrangement. By evening, they had the stairs finished, but I was corralling kids through baths at that point and didn't have a picture.

There are kittens at the farm, and Cheyenne is just a tad obsessed. All of her clothes came home with a nice layer of cat hair, but at least we escaped having a feline passenger. The poor kittens stoically lived through endless holding and petting.

Lots of young whippersnappers hanging out that Saturday. I believe there was 11 kids there at one point.

My little Carrhart dude.

Our burning bush this week.

Beautiful colors. The leaves fall in the basement window well, which dresses it up quite nicely.

Weatherproofed! Now we just need siding. And trim. And insulation. And drywall. But we (meaning Evan) are getting there!

I spent a glorious Saturday in October tidying up the yard. I found these landscape timbers entwined in the grape vines in the back of our yard, so I moved them to next year's garden location.

If you look at the upper right hand corner of this picture, you can sort of see all the old wood, and cement blocks, and bricks, and pure trash that were piled around the old shed's location. (This picture is from July.)

I spent hours pulling trash out and cleaning it up. I took the jumble of cinder blocks and lined them up on the edge of the lawn. I may find a project for them, or I may try to get them to grow moss and leave them there.

Before one of the previous owners decided it was an excellent place to dump their trash, someone obviously maintained this area. There's a rampant ballerina rose bush, and there are slate tiles laid out here. I want to prune a lot of the bush back, and thin out this area. I don't know whether I'll keep the slate there (after I cut some of the insidious grape vines) or move it nearer the house, but it seems silly to leave it half buried.

Our leafless catawba tree.

Our October Glory maple. It was such a mild fall, this tree didn't change colors until November, and then the leaves fell quite quickly, so it wasn't as glorious as usual.

I had planned on buying a bike for Rilla's fourth birthday, but soft-hearted Daddy didn't want her waiting that long, so he bought her one this month. She spends hours riding around the driveway by herself in the morning. And yes, the pink heart tights/black and yellow flowered skirt/completely different flowered shirt is a clue she dressed herself this morning.

Wednesday, it was so ridiculously warm, I walked over to the school and picked the kids up at dismissal time. It seemed crazy for them to have to sit on the bus for an hour when they could be home riding their bikes. This was on the trail on the way home.

Beautiful kids!

Lincoln found out this stuffed animal plays music, and he is in love.

He's also in prodigious amounts of snot. I had to take him to the doctor Thursday, thanks to a double ear infection.

Cheyenne is still excited over her training wheels-free bike.

Rilla had to pose like Cheyenne.

Chalking up the driveway.

The frogs on his shirt are appropriate-- he's always on the go!

The Great Book-Reading Tree Frog.

We ordered these glasses for Elliott from Zenni. He is absolutely in love with them. He says, "It doesn't even feel like I have glasses on, but I can see!" He's been sick for the last couple of days, but even when he's laying down, he wants the glasses on!

Watching the first snow Friday morning. It was a late first snow-- for a place famous for its big snowstorms, we've had nothing!

The Vaughans were here that morning, enroute to see Aunt Emma in PA. Tori stood on the deck to catch a snowflake on her tongue.

Of course, it snowed everywhere else on her, too!

Serious little sick man.

Silly boy!

Elliott, showing me the rash on his belly.

And the rash on his neck.

That seems like a fascinating place to end-- on a slightly blurry picture of someone's neck rash.

Now, to go finish packing. We'll be doing some hiking, maybe some camping, so I have no idea if I am packing the right things, but I figure I can't go wrong with great quantities of socks and underwear. Cheyenne went to PA with the Vaughans, so she won't be back until I'm gone, which is sad-making. I'll have to hug the other three extra long and have them pass the hugs on!

Tired in My Bones

2011-11-09T20:34:00.000-05:00

All day, I have been excited that I would have time to sit down this evening and actually put up pictures and write on my blog. Alas, when the time comes, I am too tired to type much, let alone resize pictures, upload them, and write coherently. It's been a busy week-- 11 loads of laundry on Monday and Tuesday, lots of errand running on Tuesday, then gospel meeting an hour away Tuesday evening. Today was going to be the day to finally conquer the mound of coats/snowsuits/mittens/boots that is dwarfing the family room love seat. Unfortunately, I didn't get to that at all. I still haven't finished cleaning up the supper dishes, despite working diligently on it while listening to Evan read the last two chapters of "Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone" aloud to the kids and I. There are toys out in the living room and family room, and still some groceries sitting on the floor of the laundry room from Tuesday's grocery shopping. The barbeque chips Lincoln got into while I was at a tricky part of supper still lurk in corners. Only one bed is made in the guest room, while the other sheets wrinkle in the dryer for the second day. Still haven't got to vacuum the corners of the bedrooms that have been screaming at me for weeks now.

BUT...

I got my family through another day of being clothed, and fed, and loved. I spent extra time holding a little boy with a bad cold, and took the time to walk to school and collect the big kids so they would have more time to ride their bikes before it got dark. I got to read part of a book from one of my favorite authors while I ate lunch today. I managed to get four kids fed a decent meal (meat! potatoes! vegetable!) before Evan got home late. And I have the health and strength to get up tomorrow morning and try, try again.

Halloween 2011

2011-11-01T22:40:00.000-04:00

As Evan is reminding me every five minutes, I said I was too tired to move 2 hours ago. So here is a quick dump of pictures from our Halloween weekend, starting with the kids' school party Friday evening.

I don't know this little girl, but her costume was so cute I asked her mom if I could take a picture.

Cheyenne and Isabella.

Cheyenne with Tess. Hopefully, an orthodontist will be called in soon.

Elliott's pirate tattoo (which broke his heart by washing off the first time he went to the bathroom and washed his hands.)

Rilla, who grabbed everything pink out of the dress-up bin. By the time we got to the party, she had ditched the feather boa and the wings, but she still was pretty pink. Especially after the face painting person gave her pink dots on her cheeks.

A cute little cow. He was perfectly content, sitting in his stroller watching all the crazy kids run around. Which is very good, because Evan was working late and I took the four kids over by myself. I'd like to think it's because I'm a good mom who didn't want to disappoint her kids, but it's mostly because they were selling cheap food there and I didn't want to cook supper.

The coloring table. Both Rilla and Elliott adore coloring. I've let Elliott make his bedroom door into his own personal art gallery. It is getting rather full of intricately-colored pumpkins.

Sunday night, the kids carved jack-o-lanterns with Grandma and Auntie. Lincoln liked putting the pumpkin goop back in the pumpkin.

I'm not sure what expression that is on Cheyenne's face, but she thought gutting the pumpkins was kind of creepy.

The kids with their (meaning Grandma's) creations.

I'm so glad my mother-in-law has skill and patience in this area-- while the pumpkins were being carved, I got to sit and play Wordthief with Eun Hui, popping up once in a while to take pictures.

Then, Monday morning was the school's Harvest Festival. The kids dress up in costumes they make in school, revolving around a book they read. Elliott's class was pumpkins-- I'm not sure what book they read about pumpkins.

He finally spots us in the bleachers. WAY up in the bleachers, which kept me in a near panic the whole time, trying to make sure I didn't drop Lincoln, Marilla, the jackets, my diaper bag, the camera, the keys Auntie was letting Lincoln play with... open bleacher seats seem like a rather poor idea in an elementary school. Thank goodness Lisa and Marilyn were with us.

A blurry picture of Cheyenne the Owl.

Getting ready to go trick-or-treating Monday night. Lincoln sees no reason not to start collecting candy at our house.

Elliott with the lighted jack-o-lanterns. The pink blur in the front of the picture was Rilla running by.

We've added a cape and tiara to the pink outfit!

So, a cat, a bumblebee, a pink princess, and an astronaut.

Milling around the candy bowl.

Setting off! I planned on taking Lincoln to just our immediate neighbors' houses, but he had a grand old time and went all the way up the street with us. At the first house, he tried to put the candy he had grabbed at home into the neighbor's candy bin, but he soon got the "Gimme!" idea down. Not that he broke his vow of silence to actually ask for candy, but an outstretched hand seemed to do the trick. Cheyenne soon met up with Tess and they went off together, so Marilla and Lincoln would often run up to the house before Lincoln could get there. Once, I decided to just keep going to the next house instead of Lincoln belatedly following his siblings to the door-- nothing doing! He wanted to visit every single house they did! Of course, everyone went, "Awwww!" and gave him (read: Mummy) lots of candy. He also insisted on carrying his own pumpkin. At first, this was fine, but as we walked home, it was really heavy. I finally had to let him open a lollipop so he would have something to hold on to while I carried the pumpkin. All the kids came home with lots of candy, but I would have preferred Cheyenne to NOT come home with dog doo on her shoe. Gross.

Quite the capable astronaut.

Posing for a picture.

Lots of other pictures from October, will have to work on that another night! Hope you're all enjoying eating yourself into a post-Halloween candy stupor!

Utter Blather

2011-10-26T10:41:00.000-04:00

I was sick from Saturday until yesterday, which means my house isn't exactly Wednesday night meeting-ready. I am being as ambitious as my pathetically weak self will allow (how on EARTH can you lose that much strength being sick for a few days?) but I decided it was time to sit down and drink a tall glass of water, eat the Super Softee Donut Evan bought last night, and write totally random things on my blog. So here are the things I've been musing whilst I put kids' books back in the bookcase, picked pajamas off the floor, made beds, braided hair, etc.

Silly Putty is a loathsome thing. I'm not saying it isn't a cool toy to play with, but it gets embedded in fabric and never comes out. And with a 16-month old terror on the loose in my house, it gets embedded in every strand of every fabric in a three-mile radius. Maybe, if they've been super good, my kids can get Silly Putty for their 17th birthday.
I love the fact that Cheyenne loves riding her bike. Even if she only has three minutes before the bus comes, she gets it out and rides circles around the van in our driveway until the bus comes. Then, she dumps the bike directly behind the rear wheels of the van and merrily jumps on the bus. But that's a lesson we'll get to, hopefully before the crunch that means I've destroyed her every hope and dream.
I have never seen such a grey day. Despite having every shade all the way up, it feels like evening here. I don't think I have ever been anxious for Daylight Saving Time to end-- usually, I hate the evenings getting darker. These still-pitch-black-at-seven mornings, though, have me longing for November 6th.
I could not close my eyes last night, despite the fact I was bone weary. So I came downstairs to the computer and bought 13 Joan Aiken books. It's probably a good thing I very rarely get insomnia. Although, it's hard to imagine getting more bang for your buck than $1 books (plus shipping, but we'll ignore that).
Before I gave up sleeping and went on a book-buying binge, I mentally went through every step in our eventual bookcase relocation/closet annexation/drastic bedroom rearranging. This, despite the fact that our bedroom still looks like your great-uncle's hunting camp. I probably won't be whipping this plan into action anytime soon.
I'm so glad my husband was sweet enough to stay home Monday morning and help feed kids and get them on the bus. I like to think it's because he was so sorry for my sickly state, not because he was in no hurry to get to the roofing job he had agreed to help another contractor with. And I think I just ended a sentence with a preposition, and I don't care.
I still haven't got out winter coats or boots, and there's snow in the forecast. Hello, Giant Time Suck on Thursday.
I like looking in the entryway closet and seeing the cans of applesauce Marilyn canned on the top shelf. In true Vaughan fashion, now that I know how easy canning can be, I want to can everything. Probably the urge will fade by the time there's fresh food to can next summer. Maybe, though, I'm just a few Mason jars away from being a domestic goddess.
I don't think any of my kids have had the sheer energy + persistance + climbing ingenuity that Lincoln has. It is utterly exhausting. Good thing he's still cuter than a button so I forgive him. He would be even cuter if he still took two naps, though.
I have hardly been on Facebook in a couple of weeks. I still like reading about the news in other people's lives, I just haven't had the time/inclination to get on much lately. Weird.
My sister-in-law is going on a quilting retreat, and it has made me think blissfully of four days of being able to work on projects with zero interruptions other than to eat food and chat with people. Hmm, who wants to host a Projects weekend in a lovely Adirondack chalet soon? Then, I wondered if I had four free days, would I really WANT to mend the 67 books that need mending, or would I want to sink into a reading stupor to rival all reading stupors?

Okay, my doughnut is done, and I need to go sweep up the steel cut oatmeal that's been lurking behind the door of my laundry room for a week now. Although curling up in the recliner with a book, or crawling under the covers of my luscious bed, both sound infinitely more appealing. Good thing I made my bed this morning and my current book isn't super captivating. Rise and shine, Captain Ambitious!

October So Far

2011-10-13T21:08:00.000-04:00

It's been a quiet week here in Lake Wobegon...

Actually, it's been pretty busy. But for some reason, I've been bad about pulling my camera out, and about half the pictures I took came out blurry. I probably need a new, awesome, expensive camera. I'm quite sure of it.

Mr. Turban Head asleep in his playpen at Dana and Marilyn's. This was the weekend we went over to NH for Uncle George's funeral. We drove over on Friday, Evan visited a job site for an estimate, and we stayed in a hotel in Nashua Friday night. It was a nice hotel, but I didn't enjoy it much, since Lincoln cried most of the night and I ended up sleeping in the van with him! The next morning, I required Excedrin, Diet Pepsi and a Snicker's bar to get over the ensuing headache! :-) Saturday was a beautiful day-- it was wonderful to see the love of Uncle George and God that was poured out by the huge crowd that came to the funeral. Walked around talking to people for three hours and still didn't even see everyone that was there. Then, to Margarita's in Keene for an early supper (first time I had been to that awesome restaurant in at least ten years!) and home to Dana and Marilyn's for the night Saturday. En route, Evan and I stopped in an urgent care to have them take a look at Lincoln. They couldn't find anything wrong with him. He had had a fever about three days before that, so maybe a virus, maybe teething, maybe some constipation. Thankfully, he slept great Saturday night, and we enjoyed our day at the Whites' house very much! Union meeting in the morning, nice meal with some friends, and a lazy afternoon. After a long drive in the pouring rain, we were home again Sunday night.

This is the only other picture I took the whole weekend. It's quite blurry, but she was so pretty that day. Her eyes, hair and smile remind me of Breanna!

Elliott is doing great in kindergarten. We left before noon on Friday on our trip to New Hampshire. I had decided it wasn't worth sending the kids to school since we planned on picking them up at 10:00. As Elliott was leisurely finishing up his breakfast at 8:30, still in his pajamas, he told me, "I really want to go to school." Well, a whirlwind few minutes, and he was on the bus. I find this old worksheet he had done during last year's kindergarten period. The one on the left is last year's paper; the right side is this year. I know coloring ability is not required for kindergarten, but I am just amazed at the difference!

The top here is last year, the bottom this year. Mostly, this makes me think we start formal schooling for our kids much too early. Why try to make them learn to write when their fine motor skills are still so poor compared to what they will be in a few short years? But my thoughts on the education system could fill up several blogs, so I'll leave it at that! ;-)

Miss Marilla, with everyone's favorite cup. It was a baby present from Aunt Bet when Cheyenne was little, and it sat way up on a shelf as a decorative object until this fall. Then I thought, "What on earth am I saving this cup for? The kids might as well use it!"

This is why it's the favorite-- a little Piglet and his teddy bear hidden on the bottom. I tell Rilla to drink her milk up so Piglet can be dry and warm.

A messy little boy after his lunchtime PB&J.

This last weekend, we had a White Family Reunion-- all eleven of us! These PA folks stopped in to say "Hi!" on their way north to Vaughan's farm. The Whites all remember the millions of books Cheryl read to them when she lived near them in Maine. It was good to see them!

The Colorado Whites. I love Tyler's totally sincere smile here.

Lincoln playing Napkin Peek-a-Boo with Cheyenne and Aunt Julie.

Followed by the Beat-Aunt-Julie-on-the-Head game.

Then, back to the napkin!

Lincoln, with his firm grip on Grandpa. Grandpa is one of Lincoln's favorite people.

Happy to be there.

In search of apples in the apple orchard!

With this whole crew, it didn't take long to pick 2 1/2 bushels!

Yum!

Elliott loves picking apples, despite the fact he won't eat them.

"Will the crazy camera lady please get out of my face?"

Evan supporting Elliott as he reaches for the top branches.

Elliott with his Big 'Un!

It weighs 15 ounces, for the record.

Couldn't get everyone in there, since Julie was taking the picture, but I like this one.

Aren't they just The Gorgeous Couple?

The kids sitting in the back of the van while we loaded up.

Rilla and Cheyenne holding Lincoln tightly while he squirmed and screamed-- a very familiar sight!

My wee boy. His nose isn't dirty, my camera has some dirt on the sensor or the mirror, I forget which. It only shows up sometimes, but it can be pretty blatant. See, I do need a new obscenely expensive camera.

Swing buddies.

Multi-tasking Cheyenne-- practicing cat's cradle while swinging. Cat's cradle is big with her right now, along with learning sign language. Auntie Lisa brought her a couple books to teach ASL, and Cheyenne is fascinated by them.

All the kids (even the almost-thirty kid!) loved our new air mattress, set up in the family room. It was quite bouncy!

Utterly, utterly gorgeous weather all weekend. Here, Tyler and Julie were obnoxiously beating us at Progressive Rummy, even though they had just learned how to play the game. And, while we were relaxing with cards, Evan and Dana were getting blue foam on the back of our house. We still may have bare stud walls in our room, but at least we've got that extra 2.5 R value! It can get quite chilly on those nights when it dips down into the thirties!

Cheyenne, after lots of "I can't!", learned to ride her bike without training wheels.

Going down the road, with Auntie following after.

Just a bit proud! Elliott tried with his wheels off, but his balance is still pretty shaky. We call him the Human Pinball for a reason-- even walking around on level ground, he can lose his balance! Anyway, after helping him try, Evan went back to working on the house. The next time Evan came to the front of the house, Elliott had already re-assembled the training wheels on his bike! He's a smart boy, like his daddy and his uncles!

Julie read Marilla right into a stupor! Lincoln liked hopping up and down while she read.

Lincoln, who still hasn't got the memo about tables being places to put our food, not places to strut around in our PJs.

Sweet, albiet dirty, little morning face.

And then everyone left. Including Evan. He's over in NH, working on a job over there for at least 10 days. Thankfully, Marilyn came back out to stay with me, so I'm not completely on my own. Tonight, as I wrangled four filthy, overtired children through their baths, Marilyn was busy cleaning up the kitchen. If you knew the difference it made to come down to clear counters and an empty sink! She's also made a large dent in my mending/sewing projects. AND we got homemade cinnamon bread today! I've kept busy, too, I think we finally have all the winter clothes out, the summer clothes put away, the unwanted clothes taken to Salvation Army, flip-flops washed and stowed-- now I just need to tackle getting all the hats, gloves, scarves, coats, boots, snowsuits, etc. out.

Hmm, that tires me out even thinking about it. I think it's time to go lay in bed with a good book (and a little curly-headed toddler who gets to share the king-size bed with Mommy tonight!)

The Unexpectedly Nice Day

2011-09-28T22:54:00.000-04:00

This day did not go as planned. I was supposed to finish bagging up the mountains of clothes and things to take to Salvation Army, and finish putting away Lincoln's winter clothes. I was supposed to start sorting through Cheyenne's winter clothes, and make mashed potatoes and spicy buttermilk chicken for supper. Instead, I had a sick baby. And while it is horrible to see a little baby be unhappy, there were lots of compensations.

Lincoln had woken up from his nap yesterday with a fever, but it responded fairly well to Tylenol and I just figured he was teething. This morning, he wasn't his normal energetic self, but he was playing around. At lunch, he really did not want to eat, which was unusual. By the afternoon, the fever was back. I ended up laying down with him and holding him while he dozed in and out, half-delirious. Instead of being a bustling mountain of energy, I dozed myself for a while, then finished a nice, thick YA book. It rained on and off during the afternoon, so I could look out the window at any time and see clouding racing and roiling across the sky. There was a beautiful little breeze coming in the window protected by the eaves, and I could hear Marilla, who was supposed to be napping, in her room admonishing her army of dolls.

When the big kids came home from school, I told them they could have their weekly half hour of computer time tonight. They sat at the computer without fighting the entire time! I finally talked to Evan around 5:00, and he said he'd stop and get a pizza since I hadn't finished making supper. Right after I got off the phone with Evan, Lincoln threw up. And threw up, and threw up. It could have been worse, though. It only soaked the comforter on our bed, and my clothes, and Lincoln's clothes. No floors to scrub or books to throw out. After a bath and a change of outfit, we were back to being snuggle buddies.

So, I got to hold my baby a lot. And read two books. And watch the interesting sky. The house isn't clean, and I have some interesting laundry to deal with, but it was worth it to have a hot, heavy little weight on my chest. After the rest of the family left for meeting tonight, Lincoln did perk up a bit, and played for a few minutes before I put him in bed for the night. I'm hopeful that is the end of his bug. But if not, I will be ready to hold him for a whole new day.

Evan's Trip to Alaska

2011-09-26T23:21:00.001-04:00

Evan took a restrained 400+ pictures in Alaska. I have whittled them down ruthlessly, but there's still close to 100 pictures here. I may get lazy about writing, but the pictures are loverly. And I really want to go to Alaska.

Lindsey had a few folks for lunch on Sunday, the day after Evan got there.

Lindsey doesn't have a lot of chairs, so here is Tricia seated on a yoga ball, and Tom on a stool. Not that Tricia would tease Lindsey about this.

This was the beautiful weather that Sunday. When you live in Alaska, this is the view when you run to the grocery store. Or other mundane chores. Yeah, I still miss Alaska a lot.

Lindsey's back yard.

The back of her house.

The front of the house, I believe. And Lindsey and Nanette, deep in fulfilling conversations.

The trash pile from the demolition. It only got worse after Evan was there a while. Lindsey eventually rented a U-Haul to take it to the dump. Which, unbeknownst to her, meant she had to dump it in the commercial trash hauler's section, which meant she only had 15 minutes to unload 2000 pounds of trash. And she had to buy an orange vest for $5. But at least her front yard was reclaimed.

The bathroom. (I am applying for the Obvious Captions award, if anyone would like to nominate me.)

Front door and kitchen.

Some nice built-in cabinets.

Sunday night, despite the fact he was about to pass out from exhaustion, Evan decided not to waste the perfect evening in sleeping, so he and Lindsey drove down to Turnagain Arm to see this sunset.

I can't remember if there were supposed to be sheep in this picture, or not. Either way, it's pretty.

Cool picture of a random stranger's silhouette.

Evan's I-desperately-need-a-haircut silhouette.

And Lindsey's My-jacket-has-fancy-reflectors silhouette.

Utter gorgeousness.

And then the moon came up. And yes, I'm slightly bitter/jealous as I type all this.

Lindsey's cabinets. She got an awesome deal on cabinets one day in Home Depot, with the stipulation that she had to pay for them and get them out of there in a couple of hours. So there they sit, awaiting installation.

Living room.

The kitchen, after all the drywall was torn out and Lindsey painstakingly taped all the insulation seams. I thought I had put up a picture of the kitchen before, but I guess not. Suffice it to say, the plans to save the old drywall were scrapped once they started adding up how many holes there were to patch.

Living room. On the left there are the highly luxurious living room chairs in which Lindsey and Evan ate supper every night while working horrendously late. I don't feel too sorry for them, though, since many of those suppers involved Bear's Tooth pizza.

The kitchen, drywalled and in the midst of taping.

Bathroom-- new tub installed and new drywall. This is after Evan had been there for a week.

Then, they had to return Tom and Tricia's vehicles they had been using for a week, so they headed up there for supper Saturday night.

Mountains and clouds.

This picture is blurry, but it's so familiar to me-- about halfway through my drive home from work, and such a beautiful view!

Driving up Hiland.

I don't miss driving up these curves on Hiland, although Evan assures me it is way more fun in Lindsey's sporty car than it was in our old boat of a Taurus.

The view up there is... all right, I suppose.

The hot tub-- I have REALLY got to visit Alaska!

Then, after Sunday meeting, when Evan realized I was going to have his head if he didn't take some pictures of people. The Lundell "babies" are older than most of the Lundells were when we moved up there!

Merle and Lois. I loved seeing these folks when they passed through here last spring, but I would love it even more if I got to visit them at their beautiful house and take another walk through their awesome garden.

And the Evans, host to the day's potluck, and dearly missed friends.

And then, the road trip to Denali. Could they have had a more beautiful day to drive up there?

Yeah, this is The Mountain. Denali.

Nellie and Becky, making the scenery even prettier.

Checking out the evening's lodging.

This is the Cantwell Lodge, which was built by placing two ATCO trailers side by side and building this hall in the middle.

The view from Evan's room.

And the view from the parking lot.

A little blast from the past-- the old outhouse, thankfully not needed now.

Reading the sign on the door.

Evan, Lindsey, and Lindsey's friends had taken this trip to Denali because Lindsey won the Denali road lottery. Once a year, if you win the drawing, you get to drive your own vehicle all the way into the park. Normally, you have to park and go on one of the park buses. They decided to get into the park early, since that's the best time for wildlife viewing and they hoped to beat some of the crowd.

Unfortunately, it was still dark enough that a lot of the following pictures are blurry, but they are proof that Evan got some awesome views of bears.

It looks like they're playing in this one.

A lone bear.

Even if you never get to see Denali, there is so much gorgeous scenery in this place, you could spend days just staring at it.

Although the road is a little freaky.

I think this is Polychrome Pass. I think it's name is fairly self-explanatory when you see this picture.

Sheep.

The fall colors in Alaska are spectacular, even when there's no trees.

And, there's not enough scenery, so let's take pictures of each other. Actually, Evan thinks Nellie was taking a self-portrait in front of the view, but it looks funny!

A picture of the road. I remember standing at this spot, about 2.5 months after we moved to Alaska, being so glad we were there!

Caribou!

It's about the time of year when caribou shed their antlers, which is why (I think) they are that color.

At this visitor center, they have outlines drawn on the window to let you know where the mountain would be if it actually wasn't covered by clouds.

Lindsey took this awesome picture of antlers framing a beautiful view.

Then, the mountain began to emerge from the clouds!

Evan said they would stop every couple of minutes, "Because we might not see it any better than this," but it just kept getting better and better.

A beaver!

Then, just to round out the wildlife profile, a bull moose.

Strutting around to show off in the pictures.

"Oh, you'd like a picture of me by the water?"

Yeah, this is utterly gorgeous.

The little birds that hung around the campground, hoping for (highly illegal) handouts.

Not a bad spot for lunch.

Yeah, Evan went on a road trip with four women. What a Lothario.

Proof that they drove all the way to the end. Evan says there wasn't much to see beyond the Wonder Lake campground where they had lunch.

Mountains, and some tree color.

Lots of caribou.

A closeup of Denali.

Lindsey, star photographer.

Wildlife viewing. Back when we were SO much younger and we did this trip, we had fun stopping and pretending to point to a certain spot, to see how many other cars we could lure into stopping to search fruitlessly for the wildlife we were exclaiming over. We are so much more grown-up now. Totally.

Eielson Visitor's Center. The just renovated it to disappear more into the landscape. As you approach it from the road, you can't see it at all as it is recessed into the ground. All the focus can be on the awesome view!

And, some more photogenic bears.

This one looks like it's belly-flopping in the stream.

Evan is REALLY glad I wasn't along for the ride at this point.

So beautiful. We need to start saving our pocket change now so we can all go up in ten years.

And, back to Anchorage and Lindsey's bright red kitchen!

There was still lots left to do when Evan left, he felt terrible. Lindsey is going to have to be Super Amazing to finish up and move in by the end of the month (end of this week)!

A picture of the guy Lindsey hired to tape and mud the drywall. There's a story about this guy that made Evan LOL for reals. Evan had hooked up a new gas line, but could not get the furnace to light. He called the gas company, and a guy came out to help him. After the problem was fixed, and the gas guy turns to go, Drywall Dude calls out, "Hey, are you Joe? Joe So-and-so?" When Gas Guy replies in the affirmative, Drywall Dude says, "Hey, I married your wife!" It made Evan remember the interesting characters he met in the construction industry in Alaska.

So, now Evan is home working in prosaic New York. Not as breathtakingly beautiful at all times, but as he sits in his chair with a sleeping Lincoln, I think he's happy to be back. We're certainly ecstatic to have him back. The kids wore their souvenir t-shirts to school today, and spent the whole evening dragging their wheelie suitcases around as they got on and off the plane to Alaska. We might have to start saving other people's pocket change, too, but by hook or by crook, we will get back to Alaska someday!

Single Momhood is Losing its Luster

2011-09-20T22:37:00.000-04:00

I don't even know if "momhood" is a word, but I do know that I'm sick of it. Considering how many hours Evan worked this summer, and how much time he had to spend in his "office" working on estimates, it's not like it's really a different amount of work for me-- it's just different. The kids miss their daddy, and I yearn for someone else to carry the Big Meanie torch occasionally.

I finally found a cheapie point and shoot on Saturday, but I took the elementary precaution of forgetting to buy a memory card for it. It does take four pictures, but four pictures are not inspiring enough for me to learn how to download them from the internal memory. Evan sounds like he has been taking lots of pictures, so I should have lots of them to post when he comes home. Whenever that yet-to-be-determined day is. It seems appropriate for him to come home Friday, since Central Square is having the Homecoming Parade. Lillian Nora came home from the hospital during the Homecoming Parade four years ago, it's kind of nice how they arrange these things especially for us.

I've been to the kid's pediatrician twice already this week. Monday was Lincoln's (late) 15-month checkup, and I also made an appointment to get Rilla's weird armpit bumps checked out. (Molluscum contagiosum, generously shared by Elliott and Lily.) While they were there, they got their flu vaccine for the year. Today, Marilla woke up crying after a short nap. She kept saying she wasn't feeling good, but couldn't narrow it down to something specific. Finally, at 3:45, she said, "My ear hurts." I had the doctor dialed within 10 seconds, because I have been up with an earache-y child all night, and it is not a fun activity I care to repeat. The doctor had one appointment left for four o'clock. I usually allow 25 minutes to get to the doctor's office, but it is about 20 minutes. Today, I got shoes on the kids, grabbed my purse and diaper bag, got the kids in the carseat while calling the neighbor and the bus garage (Cheyenne and Elliott were already on the bus, heading home) and got to the doctor's only about 3 minutes late. Marilla does have an infection, so I'm glad we went. Now Elliott and Cheyenne have appointments next Monday morning for flu shots and checkups, I sincerely hope that's the last time we see our nice doctor for quite some time. I stopped at the drug store on the way home to pick up the prescription the doctor had faxed over, and they didn't have any information on Rilla. I think it's the first time she's ever had to be on medicine. I love having healthy kids! Anyway, it took longer to wait in line at the drug store than the whole doctor's office visit, I felt bad about the big kids being at the neighbor's. Cheyenne was ecstatic, of course, because she got to have a playdate with Tess, their daughter. This neighbor is the same wonderful person who stepped in to watch Elliott and Marilla on zero notice when Lincoln made his impatient arrival to the world. I sure am glad I have someone to call on at times like this!

I am about to pass out with exhaustion, so I better head to bed while my brain still semi-functions. Here's hoping to a tear free night with my sick girl!

3rd Annual Pig Roast

2011-09-13T23:34:00.000-04:00

It's 10:30 at night, and I just got finished tidying up the house. I was about to head up to bed, and then I thought, "Who am I kidding? I never seem to be able to get to bed until midnight no matter how hard I try, so I might as well take care of those orphaned pig roast pictures that have been hanging out in a pending blog post for four or five days." So here I am. We'll see how amazing I am, maybe I can write about the whole awesome pig roast AND get to bed before midnight. And, by the way, this is by NO means comprehensive: see Bet's blog and Laura's posts for many more (and probably better) pictures.

Technically, this is not a pig roast picture. This is a picture I took whilst I was packing my camera, and realized I hadn't taken a single picture since Elliott's birthday on August 6th. So I quickly had to rectify that situation and take a picture of my quickly-growing toddler.

He hadn't forgotten how to grin at the camera.

Okay, we're now at Vaughan's, so we've officially started this party. It looks like a wild one, judging by this debauchery.

Helping Lincoln get the coon-skin cap on.

I don't know who had the camera, but it was apparently time for my closeup.

And a closeup of my gorgeous husband.

And the beautiful ladies, Cheyenne and JoAnna.

I really don't know why someone took this picture, but I bet this cover model got more notice before her closeup.

Tori, elegantly lounging with a Dilbert comic.

Elliott and Orianna, in their blanket "house."

In the mad rush of August, several birthdays passed without cake. Bethaney made cake September 1st to rectify this situation.

Gilbert was happy to help with pan-scraping and frosting.

When we started singing "Happy Birthday" to Gilbert, he whirled around delightedly to see everyone singing to him.

He was tickled (orange) with the attention!

What a perfectly awesome two-year old!

This must be a Livie picture, but I love how it looks like there's planets looming into some yellow landscape.

Friday night, the "kids" played some rather bizarre relay games. This is one of the few pictures that turned out. Most of the time, I was laughing too hard to focus the camera. The first relay involved balancing an apple on a wooden spoon and running from the entryway door to Mom's chair in the corner of the addition, making sure to step over the Polly Pocket vomit the kids had spread over the floor. Then, after touching Mom's big toe as she sat innocently reading the paper, they had to pivot and run back to the corner of the kitchen. The race was timed, and there were five second penalties for dropping the apple. I think it was using Mom's toe as the turning point was the thing that sent JoAnna and I into hysterics every time. It might have had something to do with sleep deprivation, but it was funny at the time. And, Mom, you owe me the big bucks for not posting the picture I took of your big toe. It would have added a lot to this story, but I figured you hadn't had advance notice to get a pedicure, so I'd spare your toes.

Tim blasted the competition in this iteration, where you had to balance a water bottle on your neck while holding a spice jar on the spoon. The route was still the same, though Dad had fun putting things over Mom's toe and fouling up their pivot.

Then, a fashion show where David wore Olivia's drastic heels.

He looks simply adorable.

I'm sure it had NOTHING to do with the fact that kids were running around the kitchen and howling with laughter, but this is the sight I found when I went down to bed at 10:30. And he was still going strong at 11:30, when I finally gave up and passed out.

Elliott with Gilbert White. Bethaney had bought Gilbert a boy Bitty Baby from the American Girl Company. Actually, she'd bought two of them off eBay. She thought Elliott might feel better about starting school if he had a backpack-sized friend to go with him. In the great White children tradition, Elliott promptly named it Gilbert. Seriously, we have about 20 dolls named Gilbert. Elliott adores this Gilbert, he worries (for Gilbert's sake) if the doll isn't tucked in with him every night.

From this angle, Elliott almost has long legs.

Then, I missed all sorts of photo opportunities of the pig slaughter, and people arriving. Here, lots of people are starting to husk sweet corn. 96 cobs, I believe. Yeah, it was a lot, we ended up slicing a lot of it off the cob later that afternoon. It was yummy, though! Part of the reason might be that the varieties were named Ecstasy and Serendipity. Drug-injected corn, baby!

Dad and Laura got to hang out on the swing while husking.

The pig roaster, with the pigs turning away inside.

Then, getting the volleyball court set up. I defy anyone to find sturdier side posts.

Getting the tractor in on the action.

Tim and JoAnna, wisely removing themselves somewhat from the action.

See the parking lot? Lots of cars there.

Bronson setting the post...

And the bucket pressing down. Or the wheels coming up.

Standing back while the bucket does its pounding act.

Setting the hole for the other post.

Bringing in the big guns.

Owen hand-driving it in.

Farm boy muscles!

Good way to debark the cedar post, too.

Spectators in front of the house. I think Kimmy is asking her dad if they can take the van to Split Rock, the ol' swimming hole. And he said yes! What a trusting father.

Elliott, steadily filling up on chips before lunch.

And then, I have absolutely no pictures of the absolutely enormous quantity of quality food. Laura covered that, so go check her pictures out.

Bethaney brought a ball sprinkler over for the kids to play in. I wish I had pictures of Gilbert, blissfully wading into the spray, whether it was aimed at his face or his tummy! The cold water was a little off-putting to my skinny minnies, but they sure enjoyed the mud puddle that resulted.

Elliott played in this puddle all. after. noon. He's such a little dirt-phobe most of the time, I'm always glad to see him play in the mud. He got a crispy sunburn, since the water and dirt washed the sunscreen right off, but he had a glorious afternoon.

As did the rest of us, blissfully sitting around digesting.

Cuddling little boys.

Gilbert, fast asleep cuddling Grandma Jill.

Lincoln, thinking he's big stuff in his own chair.

Yes, I take a lot of pictures of this kid. One reason is because he's close by...

And the other reason is that he makes my heart melt with his beauty.

Sort of like this flaxen-haired niece of mine.

I missed a ton of pictures that Saturday, like pictures of the stellar volleyball games that were waged all day. And Ashley taking the kids for rides with the lawn mower wagon. And I got hardly any pictures of the people there. So you'll have to believe me when I say it was a perfectly lovely day, between the weather, the friends and fellowship, and the luscious food.

Then, on Sunday, we had 53 or 54 of us for union Sunday meeting. Here, Miss Teenager-in-Training hangs out with her cousin Amy.

Stefan seems to be saying, "WHAT did I get myself into?"

Most of the young 'uns.

And again. Ashley had got in the picture, but then Owen refused.

As did Marilla. But after the Christmas photos fiasco with Marilla, I did not insist on her presence.

Beauteous young ladies.

No, these two aren't sisters. Why do you ask?

The usual Owen face when anyone tries to get a picture of Owen and Ashley.

He looks like he's planning something sneaky.

Amy, with her buddy Ethan.

I had to steal this picture from Victor. I love this of my dad, mid-laugh.

Sunday evening, we went up to the hill for a bonfire and hymnsing, so I had to go Rabbit hunting. I still adore this car! (All these next pictures are blurry, because it was too dark for the camera to take a quick picture, but if I used a flash it made it look like it was midnight out.)

The congregation.

Armful of goodness.

Then, just to add a little zest to the evening, Dad decided to see if the old travel organ still worked. He had to fight the brambles for the school bus.

They found it, and it still kind-of, sort-of worked! The workers used to use it in Alaska in the 70s, taking it around to the gospel meetings. Somehow, Mom and Dad ended up with it when the workers got rid of it.

They put the organ on the back of Dad's truck so it would have a level surface. It required a few repairs. Thankfully, Tyler Williams was right there with duct tape, so they were good to go.

Starting to play, with an admiring circle of fans.

Pretty young girl, Miss Orianna!

And, another pretty young girl in the form of Miss Amy.

The Cool Couple arriving.

Rilla treated the back of Dad's truck as a stage.

Owen looking oh-so-cool.

And Olivia, looking... startled? Polite? Freaky?

I think this was when they were trying to do a duct tape repair.

Sunday night, it poured buckets, so it was good that everyone had got in lots of outdoor activities in in the first two days. We left right after lunch on Monday so we could get settled at home at a decent hour, before school! And the tricky thing was, I accidentally took ALL the pork home with me, instead of the one big bowl mom had packed for me! Thankfully, Cody and Anthony came by my place the next day and carried it north again. Between the two of them, I'm not sure how much pork actually made it back to Vaughan's, but at least I tried!

Okay, it is now 11:30 and my brain is shutting down. Nighty-night, all.