just for you, Dave

Apparently John got chewed out on his weekly phone call to his dad this morning.  Apparently my father in law is not happy with the lack of blogging going on over here. 

The problem is, there isn't much going on at all over here.

I do plan on blogging about a trip to the lake, but once I do that...

Yes, I have more time to myself these days.  But that doesn't mean I have anything to blog about.

I've been cleaning a little.  (but just a little though. Apparently I can't get thrilled about cleaning out closets)

Reading.  Right now I am in the middle of the Count of Monte Cristo - (1400 pages) book club for that book was last week.  Book club this week is the book "The Devil in the White City".  It looks pretty interesting.

I've gone to the gym and walked on the treadmill while I listened to an Italian language program on my mp3 player.  It's not the best to get the heart rate up, but what can you do? I can now say the alphabet, and I think I can say "Hello, my name is Kirsten" without totally massacring it. 

I've run a few errands,

and I've napped.

Then after school it's all driving around and getting kids to and from their various activities and trying to make sure they've done their homework, practiced, done their chores, etc.

So you see, not much blog material these days.

John did go to St. Louis this week, where they once again tried unsuccessfully to get him to move there. (Technically speaking that's where his actual place of employment is.  I think he even has his name on a cubicle.)  On his way back to the Marriott (home away from home) he spotted a sign by the freeway (I told him to take a picture as this was the closest thing to blog-worthy we've seen in a couple weeks, but he wasn't able to get one).  Anyway, it was a sign advertising All Day Kindergarten for only $3600 a month.

I had to double check that I heard that correctly. (John said he "triple checked" to make sure he read it correctly)

 Kindergarten. Three Thousand, Six Hundred Dollars Each and Every Month.  Over 30 thousand for the school year.  For one kid!  KINDERGARTEN.  For that much money I could send a couple kids to college. Well, BYU or ASU.  Harvard will run me about 60k. Inconceivable.

Apparently the public schools there aren't that great, so private schools are a big deal.  Anyway, given that we currently send our five year old to all day kindergarten where he gets all sorts of individualized help, and door-to-door transportation FOR FREE,  not to mention we have three other kids currently enrolled in the comparatively-superior-to-St. Louis-public-schools here in Gilbert Arizona, we would need the mother of all raises to convince us to move to Missouri. John reminded him of that, and then the extra $ they spent on a plane ticket and a hotel room doesn't look so bad...

So there ya go, Dave.  And yes, I have a couple more to write up - a lake trip and a birthday, but then after that?  I'll try and do better.  But no promises. I suppose I can go dig up some old retro pic from my childhood or something.

borrowed from facebook

Someone posted this on facebook today-

It's been said that everlasting friends go long periods of time without speaking and never question their friendship. These friends pick up like they just spoke yesterday, regardless of how long it has been or how far away they live, and they don't hold grudges, they understand that life is busy and you will ALWAYS love them. Borrowed from a friends FB status - feel free to borrow from me if you agree.


That's nearly perfect timing, as I was about to post about my oldest and bestest bff Jamie.

I've mentioned her before, but I just gotta again.

We only get to see each other when I am visiting in the summer, and have to work around her work schedule and my schedule, and we rarely have contact the rest of the year, maybe the occasional e-mail or text, but when we're together, it's like no time has passed. 

I mean we were bridesmaids at each other's weddings, she was at the birth of my first born (I don't think she has forgiven me for this) and I am probably partially responsible for the fact that she has no desire to ever give birth herself.  This is a picture of her back in high school. (on the left) I have no idea who that chick is next to her.  Judging by her outfit she is clearly mentally unstable.  Brown loafers with white socks and gym shorts?  Where are the fashion police when you need them?

My kids love her too and get really annoyed when I try and claim a "grown-ups only" time with her.

This particular time though we went to The Training Table.  Another "must go" place on my to-do list.  I really wish they'd get one in Arizona.  The hamburgers and sandwiches are really good, but the must-get item is the cheese fries with the special dipping sauce.  It's like fry sauce only made with bbq sauce and mayo instead of ketchup. yum. 

 And instead of ordering at the counter or having a waitress take your order, you place your order into the phone at the table, then the phone rings when your order is ready and you go pick it up.  Kinda cool, unless you have obnoxious little kids who won't leave the phone alone.

Sweet

There's a candy factory here in Salt Lake by the name of Sweet's. 

They make the only cinnamon bears I will eat.  They're the best. Especially when they dip them in chocolate.  Their chocolate covered jelly sticks rock too, not to mention their chocolate covered marshmallow bears/santas/bunnies.  yum.  I think they are most well known for their salt water taffy.

Anyways, you can tour their factory, and see how they make all their candy,

and then of course the tour ends at the factory store where you can buy all the treats you started to crave sometime during the tour.

My friend Misty set up the tour.  She's a friend from high school.  This is us at our high school graduation.  I haven't aged a day, have I?

Misty, Charity, and I hung out quite a bit in high school.   

This is Charity.

We were also in Academy of Finance together.  That was a concurrent college course during our junior and senior years of high school where we got college credit for taking classes like banking and accounting and economics.  (I kinda rocked at economics- not so much in banking though.  I think it had a little to do with the fact that I really liked the economics teacher, but couldn't stand the banking teacher)  Anyway, those two girls were the ones who really taught me the joys of ditching classes.  Our AofF classes were at a different high school which we had to commute to and from every other morning so there were many, many times we would take an extra long lunch and skip 5th period and go out to lunch.  In fact the other day I went to lunch with John and we went to Olive Garden, and ordered their soup, salad, and bread stick special and I got all nostalgic so I took a picture.  Good times.

  

Miss those girls. And would you believe that despite the regular phone calls from the school informing my parents of the class(es) I missed that day, my parents still regularly encouraged me to hang out with them? "You're going out with who? What about Misty and Charity? Why don't you hang out with them more?"

I thought this was cool.

While going through my old pictures from my childhood, I ran across this picture. 

I think I am about 2 in this picture.  This must have been just after my parents planted this apricot tree in the front yard.

Anyway, it made me think of this picture-

Recognize the tree?

More than 20 years later, it served as Nick's favorite climbing tree when he was 3 years old.

 Anyway, I thought that was kinda cool.

Easter- another excuse to post retro pics

Happy Birthday Daddy

In honor of my dad's birthday today, I thought I'd just share a favorite memory of my dad from my childhood. Technically I think I was 19, and not really a child any more, but that was half a lifetime ago, and before I had children of my own, so I'm counting it as part of my childhood.

My dad has always big on outdoorsy stuff. Huge, really. Still is. Camping, backpacking, hiking, mountain biking, canyoneering, white water rafting, skiing (that's how he spent his day today). (I would not be surprised if he lives to see a hundred, and still manages to die while doing something he loves like falling off a mountain or something) I'll be honest, most of the trips he goes on sound less than fun to me, and so I didn't tag along on most of his adventures. But one year, there was an extra spot on a river rafting trip down the Hell's Canyon section of the Snake river and somehow I was the lucky one to go. Just me and my dad. And one of my dad's friends and a bunch of strangers.It was so fun. Three days of 100+ degree heat, floating down a refreshingly cool river. For safety, my dad gave me a pretty scary looking knife (I think it was like 6 inches) to carry with me, you know, just in case I fell out of the raft during some pretty wild rapids and got stuck in a rope or something. I think I carried that thing with me night and day, even when there was no chance of drowning. I thought it was a pretty cool knife.

When my dad gave me that ginormous file of over 1800 pictures for Christmas this past year, I asked him about the picture of me sleeping on a beach. I couldn't remember ever sleeping on a beach. His comment was something to the effect of "That was from our river trip. Don't you remember the butt holes?" Of course, as soon as he said it, a memory was jogged, and I had to laugh because how could I forget that? It's not as crude as it sounds, by the way. Our sleeping arrangements literally consisted of digging holes in the sand for our butts and sorta shaping it into a recliner, then lining with our foam pads for comfort. I don't think I have EVER slept so well on the ground before or since.

Anyways, I think that's got to be my favorite memory of spending time with my dad. Besides being a ridiculously fun trip, it was also nice cause it was just the two of us.

the art of swinging

Yesterday Christopher and I went for a walk.

Well, I walked, and he rode his scooter.

Which means he was faster, so he lead the way.

Straight to the park.

After a few minutes at the park, he climbed up on a swing and said, "Mommy help."

So I pushed, and pushed until he was ready to get off,

and then he surprised me by saying, "Mommy's turn" and motioned for me to get on the swing.

At which point he started pushing me.

Seriously, how cute is that?

He pushed me for several minutes giving me enough time to remember how much I used to love swinging.

Going as high as you could, trying to see if you could go in a full circle all the way over the top of the swing set, but secretly afraid you might succeed.

Learning to jump out and just the right moment.

Swinging just as high and as hard as you can, then Flipping upside down, wrapping your legs around the chains, and feeling that moment of thrill as you watched the ground come closer and closer and then just as you think you were gonna get a face full of sand, the earth would start to pull away.

Twisting, turning, spinning.

I was constantly trying to change things up, think outside the box, find a new, cooler way, to go faster, higher, get a bigger thrill, something someone never though of before and would hopefully name after me.

Anyway, that all came back to me as I sat there, letting my little boy push his mommy on the swing. (and it's a good excuse to share all these pictures)

The smell of my childhood

is wood. and stain. and varnish.

When we were setting up the book case in my diningroom, and removing the shrink wrap and protective cardboard pieces, I leaned in, closed my eyes, took a big wiff, and said "Oh, I love that smell."

Greg (the guy helping me move and the son of the owner) looked at me with a somewhat puzzled expression and said, "You do?". (I'm sure he thought I was weird or crazy or both)

Some people love that 'New Car' smell. I could care less. I like the 'New Furniture' smell.

The freshly cut wood, the faint wiff of stain and polyurethane.

I confess to secretly opening the cabinet doors on the book case and drawers in my desk and inhaling deeply when nobody is looking. It'll fade away soon enough. And I made all my kids come and smell and appreciate it too.

You know how scent is one of those things that brings you back to a time and place?

For me, the smell of new furniture takes me back to my childhood home.

My bedroom was in the basement, right next to my dad's wood shop. He was always in there working on something. He built most of the furniture in my parent's house, and a good percent of the furniture in my house right now. My mom even had her own band saw and spent the better part of the late 80's and early 90's in the basement cutting out wood for various relief society homemaking projects. Homemaking leaders from all over came to her to have her cut out wood for them.

Anyway, somewhere along the way I learned to love the smell of new furniture.

10 1/2 months to go...

Madison got invited to her first Young Women's activity at our church last night.

No, she's not twelve yet.

They had a 'New Beginnings' night, and invited all the girls who will be turning 12 sometime during the year.

Now she's even more impatient to turn twelve.

It's already killing her that she's not old enough to babysit.

Of course, out of all the girls there, guess who was the youngest?

I remember being her age. (and as we have the exact same birthday, I can totally relate) I remember sitting on the back row of primary watching all the other kids graduate and move on until I was the. very. last. one.

It sucked.

I had always loved primary, but then something clicked inside of me, and the best way to describe it was I was in limbo.

waiting.

waiting.

waiting.

At least all of Madison's besties are younger than her. My BFF was 2 weeks older than me. I really hated her those two weeks.

She would go on, and on, about how awesome Young Women's was, and what super fun activity they did that Wednesday, and look at this cute handout they gave us to go along with the lesson, which by the way was totally awesome.

I really, really couldn't stand her those two weeks. I think every word out of her mouth had something to do with how much she loved being in Young Women's and how glad she was to not be in primary any more.

I think it will help me, remembering how I felt when I was her age, because watching all those beautiful older young women last night, I started to panic that I am not ready for any of that. I am amazed at the difference just a couple of years make.

very, very scary.

(just a random thing I noticed- I think Maddie is wearing the exact same pearl necklace in both pictures)

picture time

"And now for something completely different"

Looking over my blog, I see lots of words. Lots and lots and lots of words, and no pictures.

So here's a little self-deprecating fun-

I think I'm about 8 here. And apparently hot stuff in my purple one piece outfit thingy.

So much so that I posed the exact same in two different pictures. I think my favorite part is the fact that I still thought I was quite the babe with only one shoe and one sock on.

My favoritest ever dress-up dress

It was pink. and bumpy. I don't know material gets bumpy but it had little bumpy dots all over it. I LOVED that dress. (PS- don't you love how my little brother and I have matching shoes?)

Snow. and another stroll down memory lane.

I heard it snowed in 49 out of the 50 states today. Florida was the only holdout. Yes, even Hawaii got some snow.

It didn't snow here in Phoenix though.

Personally, I thought it was a nice day. When Christopher left for school right before noon, I didn't even feel the need to send a jacket with him. I thought he'd be fine in his shorts and t-shirt.

However, I do feel the need to share some snowy pictures from that file my dad gave me. Just for fun.

These pictures were taken right after my parents moved into that house. Over 30 years ago. (they still live there)

They were some of the very first people to move into that subdivision. My mom told me they would just "off road it" through the neighborhood back then since there were few other homes, and no landscaping, sidewalks or curbs to speak of. My dad said there was pavement on the actual streets, but with the ground all frozen over anyway, it didn't make that much of a difference.

That house is the only house I ever remember growing up in. I was (mom-feel free to call and correct me if I'm wrong) almost three when we moved there.

Before that, there was this house. My parent's first house. See my mom? She's very pregnant in that picture. With me.

My parents still own that house too, believe it or not. They sold it to my dad's parents, who rented it to my mom's mom for several years before she bought her own house, and then it went through several other renters, and when my grandparents passed away, my dad inherited it back, and kicked out the other renters (they needed to go- I heard all sorts of crazy stories from the neighbors- everything from attempted armed robbery, drug dealing, and an illegal tattoo parlor in the garage) so, my dad kicked out those renters, fixed the place up and let John and I live there for several years. Currently, my two youngest brothers are living there and remodeling the place. They're doing a fantastic job. I would have cried to have a kitchen like that when I lived there. (the second time. I could have cared less about the lack of pantry or dishwasher the first time. )

what I do miss-

It's been 17 years and 28 days. exactly.

I don't miss this either-

(driving in the snow- and the ice, and the sleet...)