Insights from Taylor

Two and 1/2 days until school is out. Hooray!! We area all so excited. But with the end of school comes a lot of school stuff. The kids have had one program, project and activities after another for the last 3 weeks. There is always some "day" going on - Garage Sale Day, Crayon Day, Water Day, Teddy Bear Day, Quite as a mouse Day etc, etc, etc. There are so many things I have to keep track of and send the right stuff for,- it's crazy. My head feels like a propeller on the top of a helicopter - just endlessly spinning. Anyway the kids have also been cleaning out their desks and bringing their stuff home.

Going through their stuff has been a real eye opener, especially Taylors. I have been irritated at his teacher for most of the year because he seems to lack organization and communication skills. I am used to getting notes home about upcoming activities and assignments. I like homework sheets and detailed outlines for what each assignment entails. Nothing like that has come home from Taylor. He pretty much has no homework, and the homework he does get has had no real directions. Taylor will come home and say I have to do a book report, or a project or something but doesn't know what it all entails. We have emailed the teacher and spoken to him at parent teacher conference about this. He says that he does give out homework and that he outlines the assignment's and gives them to the kids. The teacher said they are trying to teach the kids independence by letting them keep track of their homework and assignments themselves. While this sounds like a good idea, I don't know if I am ready for him to take control of his school life yet. I like to know exactly what is going on and manage it for him. He is just not ready - or I maybe I am not ready for him to be ready. But I just don't think he is very responsible yet. I guess I just like to have control in everything he does. But I am his Mom that is my job - right.

A prime example of this was a couple weeks ago, the Saturday before I left for Ohio, I was chatting with a friend who has a son in Taylor's class - she mentioned the wax museum assignment they had coming up. Well I had never heard of it, I came home and ask Taylor. He said they had to choose a Utah Hero and do a report on him. He said don't worry I already got it taken care of. I was surprised so I asked him what he had done. Well he had chosen his hero and looked him up on the Internet during computer time. He had chosen Scott O'Grady and he knew that he was a famous air force pilot. That is it - that is how he had it "taken care of" it, well he also had an idea for a costume. So we spent the next 2 days madly trying to get done what we should have been working on for weeks. I ask him exactly what he was supposed to have - he said a costume and some facts about Scott O'Grady. So we got it done, or something done anyway. Tuesday night as we were putting the last coat of paint on his costume (I was leaving Wednesday so we had to be done by Tuesday) he said "Oh yeah I need a brochure too." A what - I said. What is it supposed to look like, what does it need to contain. I was blown away by this. Why hadn't he told me before, why hadn't his teacher sent home a note about it. Why was it 10:00pm when all this came to light. So Rick found a template for a brochure on line and we threw in some text about Scott O'Grady and a couple pictures and called it good.

On Thursday they invited the parents and had their wax museum. He said he thought his was the best there, a couple of other people told me his was really good. I was in Ohio so I didn't get to go and see for myself.

Anyway today as I was cleaning out his backpack I came across several assignment sheets clearly outlining what needed to be done for each assignment. There was great detail involved. I read over the one for the wax museum assignment. As I read it I was stunned, immediately filled with fear - I thought Oh, no - he is going to fail - he is probably going to have to repeat the whole year since he hasn't been doing anything right. Then I remembered that so far his grades haven't been too bad - which was a bit confusing. The thing is we didn't do the vast majority of the things listed on the assignment sheet and the things we did we didn't do like we were supposed to. So I went online and checked his progress report. He got 100 on it. For some reason this always happens with Taylor. (Kind of like his Uncle Jeff, everything seems to always go right for them even when it shouldn't.) I am not sure how he got an A, he definitely didn't deserve it.

Anyway so maybe I have been over reacting. On one hand I am angry and frustrated that Taylor hasn't brought home his assignment sheets and hasn't been doing them like he is supposed to. He says he just forgets. But on the other hand maybe he won't become independent and responsible unless he has some responsibilities. So maybe I should back off and let him just worry about his homework, assignments and projects himself and see what comes of it. I guess I just stress out over it because he doesn't seem to give it a second thought and I feel like someone should worry about his academic career. But maybe it is time to let go, if he fails he might learn a good lesson, if he succeeds I will have learned the lesson.

I also found the following little essay that he wrote. I found it amusing and insightful so I thought I would share it.

Hair

I had a life which everybody pretty much has. But this is my 1-5 life, no, not your life, my life ok. Ok, it all started when I was born, which always comes in the picture. I was born with a lot of hair. Mountains and mountains of hair. Hair, hair, hair one other weird thing about me is my first words were trash and yucky. Now somethings I threw away were good for me to have done. But the rest were new and not helpful. Like mom's new shoes, silverware, and clothes. Well you get the point. When I was about 3 years old my brother was born. I exploded like a volcano. I was always asking my mom can I hold the baby, can I sleep with the baby. But no, no,no was all she would say and I cried out with tears saying please, please? A couple years later. When I was 5 I went to school. I had heard Mom and Dad talking about it. But me, I, me. At first I thought school was some place with pink flowers and butterflies. But it was horrible. But its gotten better.

The end

A memorable Memorial Day

Summer is finally here. I got up Monday morning to flag lined streets, no school and no work. Memorial Day. The first official day of summer, at least in my book. We actually had a really nice weekend. My Mom and Dad came down and Kevin and Tess hung out with us too. And my kids favorite house guest, Molly, spent the weekend with us too.


I was itching to get out into the canyons and do some camping but I waited to long and didn't reserve anywhere. I thought the chance of us getting a first come first serve spot was slim so we opted for a fire and dinner by Bridal Veil Falls. It was beautiful. Kevin and Tess headed out early afternoon and snagged us a spot. We had a BIG fire and roasted marshmallows, ate dinner, went on a walk to see the falls and just kind of hung out. It was a lot of fun.

Being Memorial Day we thought we should do a bit of grave visiting. So we headed out to take flowers to my grandparents grave. When we got there we had a bit of trouble finding the graves, I thought I knew where they were but somehow they disappeared. Turns out I was actually remembering pretty right. My Mom pointed them out-they were where I remembered them they were just a little difficult to see due to the picnic that was spread out on top of them. The family of Grandma's cemetery neighbors look to be a fun group. They all turned out to bring flowers and have a bit of a party. There was quite a few people and quite a lot of food. Donuts, cookies, all kinds of stuff - spread all out for the grave goers to enjoy. They jokingly offered us some when they realized their donuts were covering Grandma. I spotted some raisin cookies and had a hard time controlling myself. I wanted some so bad but didn't feel it the place to indulge on strangers cookies while I was supposed to me memorializing my grandparents, plus I would have embarrassed my family had I reached out and grabbed one. I was hoping if we waited around long enough they would leave before us and I could scout around for a leftover cookie crumb or two - but no such luck.

So Monday afternoon we decided to head out to Utah Lake for a little canoeing. We rented 2 canoes and Kevin and Tess took out Taylor and Anna and Rick and I took Ryan and Dallin. Rachel got to stay with Grandma, Grandpa and Molly. We had a great time paddling down the river. The mosquitoes were a bit bothersome but they seemed to hang out mostly by the docks. Swarms of them descended on us as we got in our life jackets and the canoes into the water. They weren't too many as we left the dock so we settled in for a nice ride. It was beautiful. We had a great time searching for animals. We all kept our eyes peeled and called out when we saw something. We saw lots ducks and geese, a beaver and even a turtle out sunning itself. Ryan kept looking and looking but had a harder time spotting those quick moving little animals. He finally got really excited and almost tipped us when he jumped up yelling, "I see a huge rear" Sure enough there was the back end of a horse sticking out from behind some bushes.

We raced back and forth with Kevin and Tess and as we headed back we pulled ahead and left them in our wake. We kept expecting them to pull around the corner - but they were no where to be found. After getting out and waiting around, then going to look for them we finally spotted them. When they got back to the dock Tess let us in on a lesson learned that canoe ride - to stay still. They also learned that in May the water in that stream is mostly snow runoff that is still pretty close to being frozen. So the canoe tipped, and all four occupants went for a swim. Tess was able to grab Anna, Kevin grabbed the canoe, Taylor grabbed Anna's flip flops and somehow they all made it out of the water and back into the boat, except Tess's flip flops. Anna wasn't' to thrilled with the little dip into the freezing, dirty river. She insists that she will never go canoeing again. She admitted that she cried, Taylor on the other hand "cried without tears". Whatever that means. Anyway what an adventure - one they are sure to remember. In fact on the way home Taylor tried to comfort Anna with, "At least we have a good story to tell our kids." And he is right - one should never underestimate the importance of a good story to tell your kids.

Spring has come and brought some chaos with it.

It’s been awhile since I have gotten a chance to write. I feel like I barely have time to breathe- things have been so chaotic lately - for the last month at least. First I was madly trying to get ready to go on our vacation to Disneyland. I came home from disneyland to a mile long- to do list. Somehow during that week we were gone spring came and all the work that comes with it. All of a sudden the garden needed tilled, fertilize, and planted, the flower beds needed weeding (and a lot of it), the annuals needed planting, and the jungle in our yard we used to call grass needed to be mowed.

Since I went to all the trouble to plant a garden, grass and flowers- watering was also on the list so the plants would have a chance at growing. I anticipated this need when putting the yard in and insisted on installing a sprinkler system. It has worked pretty well for the last 6 years but for some reason this year not so good. The timer had blown a fuse, a solenoid (or something like that) was broken, this took blowing 5 fuses to figure out. My little drip system that was supposed to water my flower beds was gushing instead of dripping and the water was spurting up about 50 ft into the sky instead of gently dripping onto the roots. So that needed a major overhaul. It didn’t’ get it, I lack the time, skill and patience for such a job. But I did plug up al the drip holes and installed a head to the end of the line that hits one bed. That worked pretty well, all the flowers in the bed are getting watered - it only took three tries to get it in right, the first two times I put it in backwards and watered the street. It takes real skill to install it backwards not once but twice. Luckily the third time I got it right and didn’t have to dig up the pipe and start over. I changed a few things around in the garden and the other flower bed too, now I just have to cross my fingers and hope things grow.

School was also in spring mode and all the teachers decided to throw one more project in there for the parents to do while their kids cheered them on. At least that is how it works at our house. We also had end of the year programs, track meets, and field trips to take care of. Throw in 10 dentists appointments, 2 orthodontics appointments and 2 Dr. appointments and 6 soccer games and a birthday party the schedule starts getting full. All of this also had to be done to the tune of the Mexican Clapping Song, Hedwigs Theme, Supercalifagious, Piano Reviellie, Slavic dance and Matador. All of which needed to be practiced (or pounded as we like to refer to it) over and over again because the Spring recital was also last week and the boys were a little behind in their preparation.

I was trying hard to get these things taken care of during the week and a half I was home before taking off to Ohio and Michigan, but I’ve had to finish them up the last two days. I also had to try and squeeze in the extra 12 loads of laundry I brought home from California. Usually this wouldn’t be that big of a deal, but since my dryer takes at least two if not three cycles to dry it seemed to take an awfully long time to find my floor in the laundry room.

So there you go, my excuse for not writing, I have been a bit busy. It is just one of those things - it seems like when it rains it pours. Today was a prime example. I woke up to a house that could easily be confused with a disaster zone. I had a sink full of dishes which I thought would be good place to start, getting to it was a chore because the thick film of spilled lemonade and soggy cereal all over the floor caused my feet to stick with each step. I finally got those taken care of admit the dozen or so phone calls I receded.

First the school called to tell me my kids needed to pay for lunch. They said I owed 7.25. I am not sure how this could be since I paid $18 three days ago. Math has never been my best subject but according to my calculator 9 lunches at 1.75 was only 15.75, which is less than the $18 I paid. It became even more confusing when I learned Dallin had gotten free lunch the last few days for being a lunch worker. The lady kindly offered to go through her records with me and compare notes to see where the money had gone. She asked me if the kids where sneaking school lunch- and throwing their home lunch away. Well I know Anna doesn’t throw hers away since she brings it home largely untouched everyday, but as for the other two I guess anything is possible. I had to just remind her that since I didn’t go to school with them I couldn’t be sure but since my kids don’t like to eat much of anything and would rather skip lunch to get more recess time I wouldn’t guess this was the case. Except maybe on the days they were serving Granny B cookies - then I wouldn’t put it past them, those cookies are so good. Anyway I promised to send a check to school and got back to the dishes, just in time for my next phone call reminding me that my den had the program for pack night tonight and I had forgotten to bring over the list of awards my den had earned. I hate coming up with a pack night program.

Well I took my kids to play group at 10:00 since I have been feeling very guilty for abandoning them the last few days, or weeks. I have felt so busy I haven’t taken them to the park or even sat down to play a game of Mario cart with Ryan even though he has begged me too since the day he got it 3 weeks ago. So we went to playgroup and then hit the grocery store and the bank on the way home. Arrived home in enough time to put the refrigerated groceries away and grab the sandwiches I had made earlier this morning for the kids to eat in the car. We picked up Dallin from school and drove to Provo where I dropped them off at Aunt Tess’s house. She watched Dallin and Ryan for an hour then dropped them off at the dentist. Meanwhile I raced back to the school to watch Taylor’s dance program. Which was great (more about that later) and then grabbed Taylor and Anna out of the crowd and whisked them to the car to take them to the dentist. I had to call the school on my way to let them know I had taken the kids so they wouldn’t get worried when the didn’t show up back in class. The receptionist was probably annoyed at me but oh well - my dentist has a missed appointment fee I didn’t feel like paying for being later than I already was.

So we made it to the dentist, just as Dallin and Ryan were finishing- Taylor went in and got a tooth pulled while I went in the billing office to make the dentist next mortgage payment. While driving home I was feeling good about making it there on time and getting that all taken care of when it occurred to me that it was 3:10 and Taylor was supposed to be at piano lessons at 3:00. I tried calling the teacher but the phone number I had was disconnected. At first I thought I just dialed wrong - it is kind of hard for me to look up the number and dial it while driving. But it really was disconnected. I had Rick call her for me and got home in time for Dallin’s lesson.

I had just enough time to put the groceries away, mop the floor, make dinner (which was ordering pizza from Dominoes - I am really into this online ordering thing where you can schedule it to be ready anytime y ou want) and clean the bathrooms before taking the kids to track practice. I was cutting it a bit close but figured I had enough time to get the girls out of the bath tub and get them dressed before picking up our neighbor we car pool with to track. It would have been fine except that the girls had drained all the water from the tub and were sitting in there naked rubbing Vaseline all over each others bodies. Vaseline doesn’t come off that well. So they got to get in the car all slick and shinny. I used the 10 minuted drive to the track to come up with a game for the pack night program
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I had promised myself I would get the numbers and patches sewed onto the scout shirts before pack night this month. Taylor has 3 months left in scouts so I decided it was about time. Well I started in on sewing them and realized just how inept I am at such things when I noticed I was sewing the sleeve together. It is pretty much a lost cause, my sewing stinks and when we got to the church I noticed the patches I had gotten on the shirt were in the wrong place. I think I might try stapling them on next month.

Anyway I have finally finished my day and don’t have a whole lot planned for tomorrow. I think I just might take it easy tomorrow, I have been looking forward to having enough time to eat lunch and get a drink. I have been to busy to drink much lately for fear that I will have to go to the bathroom - I was afraid I just wouldn’t have time to do that. Maybe tomorrow.

Suprising finds in the Old Testament

I have never been much for the Old Testament. I always thought there were a few interesting stories in those books but they were hard to find amidst some pretty boring and hard to understand stuff. But lately, (like the last year or so) I have found some pretty amazing things in the Old Testament, it kind of surprised me that there were some pretty profound and inspirational stories and messages written in the scriptures before Matthew, Mark, Luke and John came around. I read a few books* (fiction) that made me take a second look at some of these stories and definitely gave me a new appreciation for the people and prophets who lived before Christ.

Anyway today in Sacrament meeting a reference was made to a phrase of scripture that is pretty commonly used but I wasn't familiar with the context of the scripture. So I came home and looked it up. It is Proverbs 31:28. I have always heard "they will rise up and call her blessed", but hadn't really thought to much about who would be rising up and who they would be talking about and why. The whole chapter caught me off guard and hit me hard. I don't think I have ever read it before. Well actually I know I have- when I was reading the Old Testament for seminary, but while my eyes went over all the words in those books my mind was too busy thinking of other things to really pay any attention to what I was reading. Any way two things hit me really hard. Number one is I should be rising up and calling my Mom blessed because she is everything and more the chapter talks about. The chapter is clearly describing my mother, and how I got to be so blessed to be born to her I will never know. The second thing is boy do I have a long way to go to get to a point where my kids could say that. Even then they would probably need to stay seated and using the word "blessed" would be a stretch. But it does give me something to work on. And work on it I will.


*The books I read were the Gods and Kings series, The Women of Genesis series, Stone Tables, and Joseph and Aseneth (by Alex Chappell). I have a hard time keeping track of authors but I am sure you can google it if you are interested.

Mothers Day

Somewhere during the night a miracle has occured. Yesterday I was the meanest most hated Mom in the world, and today I am the most wonderful Mom ever and all my kids love me. It is amazing what a few words on the calendar can do. I am not meaning to be cynical-I don't mind being the meanest mom, something would be wrong if I wasn't. And while I don't like to hear "I hate you", I understand they don't really mean it. So I really do appreciate whoever thought up Mothers Day. We do need a day where our children are reminded that they are supposed to love us and to tell us as much because if the calendar doesn't remind them it may never cross their mind.

I did recieve a absoluety wonderful Mothers Day gift. I was suprised, thrilled and very touched. Taylor cut out a coupon off the back of a cereal box and put it in an envelope and left it on the front seat of the car for me to find. A couple weeks ago I started commenting that I really needed to get my hair cut- it truly looks awful. I especially wanted it done before we went to Disneyland. I have a hard time doing things like that because I am not at a point where I warrent spending much on my hair (maybe a couple more months of serious running-but experience has proved this is just wishful thinking) so I just usually go to the beauty school, which has very limited hours but good prices. So I have to get a babysitter - which is hard for me to justify for a haircut.

I bought some cereal that happened to have a coupon for buy one get one free haircuts. I was really excited because that would make each haircut in my budget and the place was open evening and weekends. So I ask Taylor to go with me to get our hair cut. He absolutely refused. He said, "No way - I like my hair the way it is, I am not getting it cut." I anticipated this so I pulled the "I can't get my haircut unless you do" card and begged. He stilled said no and I dropped it. Well then a few days ago he left me this coupon with "Happy Mothers Day" on it. I was so impressed he thought of a gift he could give me that I really, really wanted and that required sacerfice on his part. I was very excited and we planned to go on Saturday and get it done. I am leaving next week to go to the Midwest so the timing was great.

The next day he came to me a bit troubled and said, "Mom I just don't know if I can get my hair cut." When I asked why he said, "Sister Bartholmew said she liked my hair now that it is growing longer, so I better not cut it." I could tell this compliment meant a lot to him because he is really concerned with how he looks now. I was a bit sad but let it go. He later told me he would still go with me as planned- which thrilled me even more. Well Saturday came and things kept coming up to keep me busy and Taylor went to help a neighbor paint his shed and we ran out of time to get our hair cut. I was pretty disappointed. Taylor seemed to genuinely feel bad about it to. Since tomorrow evening is fhe that only leaves Tuesday evening as a possibility to do it before my trip. I know Rick is super busy at work and most likely won't be home to watch the kids so I will probably go on my trip with thick, shaggy hair I have nothing to do with but twist up on the top of my head. I guess worse things have happened.

Dallin had a Mother's Day program at school. Althoug the program was the same as the one Taylor did for me last year I was very impressed. Dallin sang all the songs and he sang loud. This says a lot because he doesn't like to sing and rarely does. But he looked right at me and sang every word. I realized that he wanted me to know he really meant what he was singing.

The point to these little stories is that my sons were willing to do something for me that they really didn't want to do, and that is the best mothers day present ever. I also got lots of cards, coupons for vaccumming and hugs and kisses- which I definately enjoy and appreciate.

Kids who Shine

This week I spent a lot of time in the sun watching my kids shine. Taylor, Dallin and Anna all had their finally week of soccer. They did great and have definitely improved this season. Anna even kicked the ball several times and made a good pass. Taylor played very aggressively and was all over the field tackling, passing and dribbling. Dallin made some excellent passes and was a very vigilant defender keeping the ball out of the box.

I was pretty irritated with the way the soccer season panned out. I was pushed into coaching when I didn't want to. The teams were too small, the weather was too cold and it rained to much. The rained out games were rescheduled for the week I was out of town leaving me scrambling to find a replacement coach for my team. I was definitely very irritated with the whole soccer season. But now that it is over and I stop and reflect on it and if I am honest with myself I have to admit it was a good experience. While every night at the sports park is definitely a sacrifice there were legitimate benefits. My boys played hard and learned a lot. Their skills improved, friendships with teammates were strengthened and most importantly their confidence and self esteem were boosted.

Anna learned a lot too. She learned the importance of commitment, and playing even when she didn't want to. She learned that you don't have to be good at something to enjoy it, and that it is important to try new things until you find something that fits you. And most of all I hope she learned that her Mother loves her enough to make a fool of herself running all over the soccer field pretending to coach a sport she knows nothing about just so she they can spend some time together, and be on the same team. Teams are important, I want my kids to know how to be a good team player, but more than that I want them to know they have a mother who is always on their team - in one way or another.

Taylor and Dallin also had the opportunity to shine in the Hershey Track Meets. Dallin's meet was on Tuesday and Taylor's was on Thursday. They did so well I almost burst a pride button. Dallin ran the 100 and the 200 and he did the softball throw. He got first in his heat in the 100 and second in his heat in the 200 and the 100 semi finals. He is a very fast runner and looked great doing it. He had a lot of fun and asked if he could join the track team, which I am thrilled about.

Taylor ran the 200 and the 400 and did the standing long jump. He got 1st in both of his heats and 1st in the Long Jump. In both races he was behind for the first part of the race but when he decided it was time to kick he took off like a bat out of hell (I am not sure I should use that particular phrase, some may find it vulgar, but it is something my Dad would always say and like they say - tradition makes it ok) and passed up all the other runners. When I told him he needed to start out a little faster he told me Dad had warned him that in longer races you have to start with a slow jog and then run fast at the end so you don't run out of energy before you finish the race. I think he took the "slow jog" a little to literally - but at least he had it in him to push on past the other racers before he hit the finish line. I am so proud of my boys and am so glad they both did so well. There is nothing like the thrill of feeling that tape across your chest as you cross the finish line.

Taylor is an excellent long jumper. Jeff called him the longest leaper in the district last year when he won first in District. Taylor easily won this weeks meet and has his eye on Nationals this year. He also joined the track team so hopefully a little coaching will help him accomplish his goal. It is so fun to see your kids succeed.

When you gotta go...

When you gotta go you gotta go. I know that for the most part this is a true fact of life but my kids take it to the extreme. I am not sure what it is with bodily fluids but they sure seemed to flow during our vacation.

Anna gets car sick pretty often so I was prepared for some throwing up. Surprisingly enough she only did once. She had been fine all week and then on the way home she started to look a bit green. She said she needed some fresh air, I told her we would stop in just a few minutes. I was a bit worried but kept watching here. Finally we arrived at the St. George temple. We all got out and I breathed a sigh of relief. She got out and walked around a bit and then walked over and told me she didn't feel to good. Then she proved it by throwing up in the middle of the road. I was trying to get her out of the road before she got ran over without getting thrown up on when the other kids noticed. They all thought it was hilarious and made sure the whole city knew about it. I am sure the bride getting her pictures taken was thrilled to have throwing up going on in the background. Anyway all in all it wasn't too bad, it was all outside. I gave her some Dramamine after that and she slept the rest of the way home.

Monday morning we were excited to get into Disneyland. We wanted to get in the park as early as possible. Before leaving, like we always do, we had everyone go in and go to the bathroom. Everyone went and all was fine until we got through the security line and in line to go into the park. Then Ryan came up to me and said, Mom my tummy hurts, I think I have to go the the bathroom. I wasn't too happy. I asked him if he could hold it. With a very worried look he shook his head, "It's poop, he said. Great I thought, a little wet underwear I could deal with but who wants to clean up a poopy mess. So we got out of line and headed for the bathroom. Rick wasn't there so I sent Taylor in the bathroom with him. After what seemed like two eternities later they emerged and Ryan said he felt better. I was relieved until he admitted that he hadn't gone. I knew I was in for a day in the Disneyland bathrooms - and I was right. Every 1/2 hour to hour he all of a sudden desperately needed to go, and he was always careful to make sure I and everyone else around knew he had to poop. Well after several failed attempts he was finally successful and he got to enjoy the rest of the day in the park and not the bathroom.

I say he got to enjoy because I wasn't off the hook yet. Rachel discovered that Disneyland bathrooms are, in her words, "amazing". The toilets flush by themselves, the water turns on the by themselves and the paper towels come out with a wave of your hand. She was truly impressed. We provided a bit of entertainment and amusement for our fellow bathroom users as Rachel was always very vocal about how amazing the bathrooms were. The first time the toilet magically flushed I heard a few chuckles as she loudly exclaimed, "that's amazing". Her delight in the automatic sink and paper towels was also amusing.

The bathrooms on our vacation were also a eye opening experience for all of our boys. One of the many public restrooms we visited gave our boys there first experience with "the trough". Now being of the female persuasion I myself have not personally had this experience or got to be present the first time my boys did but Rick told me it was a bit funny. Dallin refused to go, Taylor got "stage fright" and Ryan thought it was great fun. I'll have to admit this is one situation where I am glad I was born a girl.

On the way home Rachel discovered a new phenomenon. We got tired of stopping at every rest area and gas station between Utah and California so we told the kids we were only stopping for gas and they would have to take advantage of the toilets at that time or go by the side of the road. Well Rachel took us up on the side of the road option and had her first peeing without a toilet experience. She thoroughly enjoyed it and begged to do it every 1/2 hour the rest of the trip. Anna decided it looked like fun too and tried it too. I was the lucky one who got to hold them up while they peed. It didn't go to good at first, Rachel got it one the car door and my shoe the first time but with a few tries we were pros.

Despite the frequent bathroom breaks we had to take I was pretty happy with the outcome. While at home Rachel (and sometimes others who shall not be named) frequently provide me with "soaky" underwear to wash. She usually does pretty good, but sometimes (about once a day) she doesn't quite make it in time and "goes a little bit" in her underwear, or is too lazy to leave what she is doing to go to the bathroom and soaks her underwear. So I was prepared for this while on vacation. I took extra clothes around with me everywhere I went. But surprisingly enough I only needed them once. Although that was a bit embarrassing. It happened to be the day my cousin Becky met us at Disneyland. She watched Rachel while we rode Space Mountain. When we got off she led Rachel over to us by the hand apologising that Rachel had a little accident. Well the funny or irritating thing was that about 15 minutes before this happened I was carrying her and she leaned over to me and quite out of the blue said, "It is gross to go potty in your underwear huh." I told her it was, and asked her if she needed to go potty, she said no and for some reason I believed her. But apparently she was lying.

Anyway all in all I count myself pretty lucky. It could have been a lot worse, 10 days away from home with only 1 pair of wet underwear, 1 throwing up episode isn't all that bad. Plus we got lots of new bathroom time experiences .

Vacation

I went to Disneyland when I was about 6. I don't remember much about it. In fact I only have 3 distinct memories. It is a small world, the Matterhorn and throwing up on the beach. That is it - so it is likely that Ryan and Rachel won't remember much of our vacation either. That may be a good thing. Not that we didn't have fun, it was wonderful. We all really enjoyed it. But there were a few things I wouldn't mind if they forgot. Things like the red glowing eyes of the abominable snowman, the ghosts in the haunted mansions and pretty much the whole tower of terror experience. But there are more things I hope they never forget, things like the thrill of going 0 to 60 in a matter of seconds, the slight feeling of dread and exhilaration when you crest a hill look straight down and plunge into a pool of water, or the power of the ocean, and the magnificence of a Killer Whale rising out of the water. But most of all I hope they never forget the sound of their Mom laughing, the feel of Daddy chasing them down, throwing them in the ocean and then jumping in after them and hugging them tight. I hope they don't forget how much their parents love to play with them, laugh with them and hold them tight.

Anyway so here is our vacation in a nutshell. The drive down was better than expected. No throwing up, no wet pants, no blood, not much fighting and not much whining. So I was happy about that. We arrived in Anaheim about 2:30 and got all checked into our hotel, which was also better than expected. Then we went to Newport beach and played on the beach. It was fun. I think it was the first time Rachel walked in sand and she loved it. She couldn't stop laughing at and looking at her feet with the sand coming between her toes. She ran straight for the water and promptly fell down in it. Which wouldn't have been so bad if it would have been warmer. So I had to strip her down and she ran around in her underwear the rest of the afternoon. The kids all had a lot of fun, so did I. I absolutely love the beach.



We ate dinner and "In and Out Burger" because Rick had never been there and wanted to try it. We ate out our first day and our last and that is it - I was pretty impressed with myself for that. I brought all the rest of our food and cooked it in a hotel room with a fridge, microwave and a crock pot I had brought. I just kept praying housekeeping wouldn't object to us cooking in our room. In fact I was so nervous about this that I decided not to have maid service so I put the Do Not Disturb sign up. Well Rick had to go back for something and took it down - so the maids came. They didn't kick us out so I guess they didn't care. I love maids - you leave with the room looking like a cyclone hit in, and come back and presto chango the room is all in order, beds made - clothes and things neatly folded and put away. What I wouldn't give for a home with maid service. I used to think polygamy might not be that bad of an idea. I could deal with a second wife who's main job was to cook, clean and do whatever I told her and be my best friend all at the same time. But since sharing a husband doesn't thrill me I decided what I really need is an Alice. Okay back to Disneyland.



Sunday we went to church and we actually found the church with no problems and it started right when we thought it would. It would have been a great experience except I felt extremely uncomfortable and guilty the whole time. Because I am a bit on the lazy side I didn't bring our regular church clothes. I did bring khakis for the boys but they just wore a polo shirt and flip flops, Anna and Rachel wore flip flops and sundresses. I wore a tee shirt, denim skirt and flip flops (like 2 dollar men's flip flops) Rick wore khakis and a button down and white tennis shoes. The white tennis shoes looked horrendous, I was so embarrassed by them and then felt bad for being so humiliated for such a silly thing like shoes. I even asked him to please not wear them but he did anyway - I was livid but I knew I shouldn't be so I tried hard to hide it. The whole time we sat there the words of Sister someone, (I forgot who), who gave a talk in General women's conference that started out with something like this, "Girls these days don't even know what an iron is for and they dress like they are going to the beach for church." That is exactly what I did and I felt so out of place and almost evil. To be honest I don't think it makes much difference what you wear to church as long as you go and wear the best you have. I think the clothes you wear show respect and reverence for what you hold sacred. Well we didn't wear the best we had, I was simply to lazy to bring it - and I felt very disrespectful. I knew and believed better and was to lazy to keep my personal commitments is what it boiled down to.



Anyway I might not have felt so guilty for looking like beach trash except that I felt like everyone stared at us the whole time. I think this was mostly due to Rachel's behavior. She was awful and very distracting. All the other kids were better than Rachel but not on their best behavior either. The only thing that saved us was the little boy behind us was also very naughty so he took some of the blame for all the ruckus our two rows were causing. Anyway that was church. We came back, had dinner and then went to the Newport Beach Temple. It was beautiful. I was really impressed with it. It was fun to walk around and take pictures. They kids found some rabbits they chased around. I had a hard time keeping them out of the bushes as they were rabbit hunting, so we packed up and left.

Monday through Wednesday we went to Disneyland. It was great fun. The kids had a blast and it was fun to watch how excited they were. It was apparently not very busy and we had perfect weather. We rode every ride there except for Roger toon town or something and Pirates of Carri bean (because it was closed). We also went to California adventure which I think my older boys actually liked better. Rick and Taylor and Dallin loved Screamin which the rode like 10 times. We all liked, (except maybe Ryan who declined a second ride) the tower of terror. Rachel could ride quite a few rides but not all. Our general rule was if your big enough, your riding. I thought, (maybe I was wrong here), that we came all the way to Disneyland we might as well get our moneys worth and do all there was to do. So if it was scary I just covered their eyes. This worked pretty well to keep the ghosts at bay during the day, but at night when the lights went out somehow it wasn't enough to quiet the fears. One of the few roller coasters Rachel could ride was the Matterhorn. I really like it so we rode it several times. Rachel didn't like it so she cried, a lot, but since I didn't want to sit out, she got to ride. She got so she knew that as soon as we sat down in the little car she wrapped her arms under mine and put her hands over her eyes. It was a bit embarrassing when the seat belt checker comes around to make sure we are all secure, I probably looked like an awful mom sitting there with my 2 year old screaming, that she wants out and covering her face with both her hands. But I wanted to ride. Anyway she lived, plus we don't want to raise any wimpy kids.

Ryan usually goes to sleep with the light on. That is all fine and good when we are home because he has his own room. But with all seven of us are in a hotel room and all of us utterly exhausted sleeping with the light on wasn't too popular. He did good the first couple of nights, I think he was so tired that he was asleep before he could realize it was dark. But for some reason every night after riding the tower of terror was a bit rough. I ended up laying by him until he fell asleep and as long as he cuddled up against me with a death grip on my hands he was ok. This is not to comfortable of a way to sleep especially when it was hot but being so tired you can't see straight has its advantages. Once asleep we all slept hard every night.

Thursday we went to Lego Land. Which was fun, Taylor was getting a bit old for it and Rachel a bit young but everyone else really enjoyed it. They had some fun little rides and amazing Lego structures. They had a fire fighting ride thing where you get in teams of 4 and man a fire engine. It is a race to see who can get their fire engine over to the burning building first. You have to pump up and down on this bar that makes it go. Once to the building you have to spray water into the "fire" until it goes out then race back. Well we all decided to do it. Rick immediately formed his team. He and the three oldest kids. I told him that wasn't' too fair so we divided up a bit more even, but it was a big concession on his part to take the littler kids because he really wanted to win. But it was fun.

Friday we went to Sea World which I loved. The animal shows were amazing, the other things were really interesting too. The rides were fun and there were pretty much no lines. The only thing I did not like was that they were a bit strict on the height requirements for rides. Rick took the older boys to do something and I took the youngest three to ride the more baby rides. Well I thought it would be no problem but they made me ride with each one of them separately. So I had to ride those stupid baby carnival type rides where you go around in a circle and get really dizzy 3 times in a row, for each ride. I thought I was going to die I was so dizzy. Anyway didn't throw up so that was successful. I was also really wet. Absolutely drenched from the Shamu show and the Atlantis roller coaster ride. (Mostly wet from Atlantis) I don't think I could have gotten wetter if I dove in a swimming pool. So I walked around drenched all day - it wasn't hot enough to dry us out so I was a bit cold too. Luckily I brought a change of clothes for the kids. Anyway I think Sea World was my favorite.

A funny little side note. We saw baby killer whales when we first came in. Rachel really liked them and I told her we would go see the mommy whale in a show. She wanted to know if there was a daddy too. I said I didn't think so. She was disappointed there was only a mommy Shamu. Well the show started and 4 killer whales actually came out (I didn't know this I thought there was only 1) Rachel was so excited and yelled- look there is a Mommy whale, a Daddy whale, an Uncle Kevin whale and an Aunt Tess whale too. She wasn't' the only child to compare her family to a whale. We overheard a little boy ask his mom, "Mommy are you bigger than Shamu." I am glad my kids didn't ask me that - that would be a tough one to call.

Saturday we went to La Jolla beach. It was awesome. We spent the day building sand castles, playing in the water (a bit cold for swimming or snorkeling) I brought those little water guns that are like a syringe kind of that you get from the dollar store and we had a big water fight. Anna spent most of the time collecting shells. She did this in Newport beach too and we forgot she left them in the car so when we got back in three days later we were hit with an awful stench. We found muscles that were apparently live, or had been anyway, that had been sitting in our hot car for three days -so gross. We made her throw those. We also walked along La Jolla cove and saw the seals on the shore. It was awesome to see them out sunning themselves and crawling or waddling or whatever they do around the sand. There were so babies that we were really cute too. We also went to the San Diego temple which was absolutely beautiful. The kids endure it.

The ride home was a bit more adventurous with a bit of throwing up and a little more fighting than the way out but all in all I am shocked with how good the kids were considering how tired they were. We tried to go to church in Henderson on the way home. Kevin and Kristin told us Church started at 2:00, according to the Internet. Well the Internet was wrong. So we heard a testimony or two and the closing song. We were told there was another building down the road a block or two so we tried that Church too - same story. So we just got back in the car and kept on going. We don't have the great of luck at going to Church while on vacation. Right after leaving Las Vegas Anna started looking a bit green. We turned on the air and prayed she wouldn't throw up. She almost made it. Well she did make it actually. We decided to stop in St. George for a rest. So we pulled up to the temple. She got out took started crossing the street, got to the middle stopped and threw up. We were mightily glad she made it out of the car. The bride having her picture taken was probably not to thrilled with that as a background but what could we say. Anyway we rested a bit and headed home. We made it home by about 11:00 pm. All in all it was a wonderful experience. Full of good times, and good memories.