Indiana

Evan turned 8, which was a great excuse for us to take a road trip. We had planned to drive, but then Dallas found us a great deal on plane tickets. I was trying to coordinate with my dad before I booked them, but then at the last minute Chloe asked if we could drive. Sophie was all for driving, because even though she hates being in the car, and even though it was a great deal, driving was still cheaper -- and Sophie is about the cheapest person I know (and there are a lot of cheap people in my family!) I was all up for a road trip, I don't mind driving, and it would give us a little more to do.

So, we hit the road. We took three days getting there, stopping in Cheyenne the first night. We got to spend some time with Grandma & Grandpa, and play with the cousins. We didn't do much of anything but drive and stop for gas and food on the second day. Chloe saw a pioneer museum she wanted to check out, but we decided to do it on the way home so we could get to the hotel with plenty of time to swim and relax. It was perfect -- I soaked in the hottub while the girls swam. The third day was our longest drive, but we still made a couple extra stops to make the trip worthwhile.

First we stopped to see the Walter Cronkite Memorial at Missouri Western State University. The girls are freezing outside in this photo, but inside there was a very nice display. Sophie asked me if someone would make a memorial like that for her when she died. I told her if she did something awesome, to which she replied, "I already am awesome!" No shortage of self-esteem there.

Our next stop wasn't much farther down the road, in Marceline, Missouri we saw a sign to visit Walt Disney's birthplace. We tried to go visit it, but the signs out on the highway failed to inform us that they are only open from April to October. We still bothered to get out of the car to take a photo.

We got to Indiana late Wednesday night (the 14th). On Thursday we hung out with Jessica, her mom and sister -- who also came for the occasion, and Daphne while the other kids went to school and Dallas went to work. He came home a little early, though, to take me to Chicago. I've wanted to go there since I was a kid, but then my interest kind of waned as I've discovered I don't like big cities as much as I used to. I still wanted to check it out, and this was a great opportunity. We went to the temple, then had a late dinner before my parents flight came in at 11:00 PM. Dallas had gotten us a hotel so we wouldn't have to drive back to Indiana so late. Meanwhile, the girls got to babysit their cousins so Jessica could go play volleyball.

Saturday was Evan's birthday. We had cornmeal pancakes for breakfast, followed by some gift opening. Later that afternoon, we celebrated by going to a moon exhibit they were having at Purdue. I helped Sophie fill out her quiz sheet, it was a little difficult, so she could get a prize (a pencil and an astronaut charm). Then we got to go bowling! I have lost my skill I once had, but it's still fun. Afterwards we went to dinner at a place called Literatos. It was so delicious, they seriously need to open up a few more. I had a sandwich with eggplant, zucchini and beets! It was to die for. Evan made a very good choice. Then we went home for a Mary Lou's Donut "cake."

Sunday was the BIG day, Evan got baptized! They were going to do it on Saturday, but then decided to make his birthday and baptism two separate celebrations, so Sunday it was. I was asked to play the piano for it. His two grandmas gave the talks. He had a super good turnout. I think he felt loved.

Monday was kind of a lazy day. Jessica babysits some kids, so they were there for a bit, but mostly we just sat around. When it was time for dinner they asked where we wanted to go. Can you guess what I said? I don't have any problem eating at the same place more than once a week, so back to Literatos it was. Come on, it's not like I'll get it again anytime in the foreseeable future. This time I had the fig & pear pizza. And then FHE treat was Red Mango :)

Tuesday we headed to Indianapolis. I've been there a few times in my life, but this is the first time we stopped at the Motor Speedway. I didn't take a whole lot of pictures on this trip, but I definitely took more than I needed to here. Everyone wanted a turn posing in the racecar.

Afterwards we got to go check out their new temple being built. They officially announced the date for the dedication (Aug 23) just the Sunday before, so it's coming along. It will be nice for them to have, and not have to travel to Chicago. Then we had lunch at Panera -- I was able to squeeze in 3 meals there on this trip, so that made up for Albuquerque. I think Dallas likes it there as much as I do. I ordered their new broth bowl, with quinoa, lentils, brown rice, tomatoes, kale and spinach. So much good food all stirred together!

Wednesday morning we left Indiana. My parents flew out later that day, but we had to hit the road early. I was trying to leave plenty of time to stop and do things along the way. There are several family history spots I would have loved to spend some time at, but I didn't have that much time to go dig through libraries, and it was a bit cold to wander through cemeteries so the only stop we made was at the Abraham Lincoln Museum in Springfield, IL. We spent a little over two hours there, and that was good. There are several more sites to see, but that was not the purpose of this trip, so maybe some other time.

We spent that night in St. Joseph, Missouri so we had an extra long drive to Cheyenne the next day. The Kangs were gracious enough to host us one more time, but I was so dead tired by the time we got there that I don't think I was a very gracious guest. I just wanted some sleep! I did just fine while driving, but once I stopped it really caught up with me (plus we just "gained" another hour crossing into mountain time zone at the Wyoming border) so all I could do was yawn. Then Friday we made it home -- shortly before Brandon did. I was hoping to get everything put away, some shopping done, and have dinner for him, but just putting things away wore me out. Luckily, he didn't eat much while we were gone, so there was still enough food for us to have some dinner.

Brandon started a new job the day we left, so he was able to use all that extra time to spend learning his new stuff. He's enjoying his work (which there is plenty of!), and he's become a new man. No more business casual clothes, no more clean shaven face. We'll see how long that lasts, but for now he is having fun with his new freedoms.

Oh, and if you don't follow Chloe's blog, you should. She has way more fun pictures than I do.

Christmas and New Years: 2015

I like to spend Christmas at home -- and apparently I get my way. My girls asked if we could go to "grandma's" for Christmas, and I said "we always go there." And then I thought about it, and realized that we hadn't been for a really long time. So, we decided we could make the trek this year. There's usually a houseful around the holidays, but everyone went for Thanksgiving this year, so Chloe & Sophie had Grandma to themselves -- just the way they like it. Brandon took the whole week off, so we were spoiled having so much time with him. It was a really nice time.

We went up to Afton on Tuesday, getting there just after they had returned from a full day in Idaho Falls. On Wednesday we went and visited my grandma who is now living in a nursing home there in Star Valley. We took her a gift from Libbie, and spent pretty much the whole time helping her try the different outfits on. Wednesday evening we held a little Christmas Eve program. The girls had prepared some talents to share.

Chloe played "Joy to the World" on the piano.

Sophie brought her harmonica and played two songs: "Silent Night," and "Home on the Range" -- a special song she picked out just for her grandpa. I spontaneously decided to participate, and played a little "Christmas is Coming."

Grandma read a story that had little nativity pieces to go along with it, and then Grandpa read the Christmas story out of Luke.

Pajama tradition continued -- they always get a new pair of pajamas to open on Christmas Eve.

Christmas morning we made the kids wait until after breakfast, everyone was dressed, and my dad went and got Grandma to spend Christmas with us, to open presents. But... we did let Chloe open one special gift. She had bought her GoPro camera a month ago, but didn't have quite enough money left over to get any memory for it, so it was kind of useless. Luckily, Aunt Nicole came through, and her parents were smart enough to guess that is what was in that package, so we had her open it first thing that morning. She was all excited, but once she got the memory in she realized the battery was low! Poor girl. She was able to hurry and get it charged before we were ready to open gifts.

Opening gifts -- Chloe is about to open her quilt Grandma made her for her new room. And can you see her pillows she got on the couch? She's gonna have a whole new bed!

Sophie got bears and owls, what more could she ask for? Oh, and lots of books! That's her carved bear that my mom got her in Albuquerque, and the stuffed bear I got for her at the fort in Bluff. She fell in love with him, and I thought I could sneak him as a gift to put a smile on her face. She named him Oliver, for me :)

Chloe with her new bedding, and lots of hair stuff! Plus, showing off her GoPro.

My dad wanted to take us sledding while there, but I think we let him down. The girls just weren't into it, and I hadn't come prepared for that. They were happy to just go out and sled on grandma's "hill" she made.

My parents got a new fridge for Christmas. I got a really bad photo of it -- but I'm including it here because my mom had asked for one. Sorry, this is the best I could do in that tight space!

We got a ton of board games for Christmas, and I believe we played all of them while still in Afton. Good thing we love to play games together.

For New Year's Eve we continued our tradition of going to the EVE celebration on Temple Square. This year we invited the Stephen's, which makes it so fun. We got there a little early because Chloe wanted to have time to take some pictures of the lights before it got dark -- but turns out it was a little too bright to capture the pretty lights. We still had fun walking around for a bit before the night began.

Here we are in the tabernacle, all spread out, to save a seat for when our friends got there. We sang our hearts out at the Broadway show tunes sing-along. It's my favorite event of the whole year. Chloe was actually the very first person to get the microphone, but of course she bombed. She wouldn't sing a thing! Luckily I got a turn, but it was on "If I Were a Rich Man" -- not exactly the best song for me to sing, but at least I tried!

Afterwards we got a semigroup shot.

And then Kellie took one with me in it :)

Then it got dark enough to shoot the pretty lights!

We went over to the Joseph Smith Memorial Building to participate in the FamilySearch activities they usually have, but they decided to cancel them this year. I'm not sure why, but it was a disappointment :( We weren't ready to go eat dinner because we were still waiting for the Stephen's dad to get off work and join us, so we decided to just go up to the top floor and look out at the awesome view. I could not manage to get an awesome shot of it, but here's something for the record books.

The girls just had fun hanging out with their friends, and Brandon, Kellie and I got to visit.

We spent some time in the South Visitor's Center before going to another Broadway show -- this time it was just the representatives from Hale Centre Theatre performing some songs from the upcoming season. Even though I didn't get to sing along, it was still fun to listen to them and get excited about the plays that are coming!

Then Quentin was able to join us, and we went and ate dinner at the Nauvoo Cafe. But during dinner we could tell Kiera wasn't feeling the best. We are a bunch of indecisive people -- but finally came to a decision that we should just go to their house and play some games. Vocal Point was the closing act for the evening, so that's really all we missed out on. They had canceled the firework show due to poor air quality. At least they were being responsible! So, off to Centerville it was! We had a ton of fun playing Telestrations and eating snacks, and then we turned on the TV to countdown to the new year and made toasts with sparkling white grape juice.

On Thursday we celebrated our new year and last day of having Brandon around (until the next holiday) by going to see "The Tree of Life" in Draper. And then we stopped for Jamba Juice on the way home. It was way too cold for me, so I passed, but I believe we rang in the new year on a very happy note.

Finale

As our project was nearing completion, Brandon got pretty anxious to be done. He just threw himself into it and everything fell into place pretty quickly. I think he realized that if he stayed on schedule he'd have it done before Thanksgiving, and we could eat our meal at a real table, in a real dining room. We had a very simple Thanksgiving, and for that I'm very thankful. After I planned what we were having I noticed that I only picked the foods I like. I told Brandon I was sorry I had forgotten about him, and he said it was OK, we could just spread it out over a few days, so the next day we got to have mashed potatoes. Lark came to visit and it was so nice to be able to offer her a seat and a table to eat at. We fed the missionaries the next week and my parents stayed the night on their way to Vegas, so we're getting the use out of it that we hoped for. I'm not good at inviting people over, but maybe I'll improve.

The following week was jam-packed: First Presidency Christmas devotional, tithing settlement, make a dessert for Relief Society Christmas dinner (Sophie took care of that for me), attend RS dinner with the girls while Brandon got to babysit in the nursery, pass out flyers for ward Christmas party, make 10 3D snowflakes for party (Chloe did 5 and I did 5), help decorate for Christmas party, shop and prepare food for ward Christmas party, attend party [no, I was not on a committee, just got asked by a lot of different organizations to help], make a salad for a funeral. The girls got to go to Music & the Spoken Word, in addition to their weekly YW activity. Brandon and I managed to squeeze a date night in -- our first in a couple months since he needed all the spare time he could get to do stuff on our house.

I took the girls to see "The Nutcracker" at the Covey Center in Provo. Chloe told me she's not a fan of ballet, and neither am I, honestly, but this was a pretty cool production. I kept thinking they must have had a bigger budget than Joy Johnson. The next day I came across an opportunity to go to "Swan Lake" in February, so Sophie and I are going to go see that together.

I want to go back to elaborate on the girls' trip to Music & the Spoken Word. My kids listen to good music. I've always been proud of them, and whenever they get around friends I get a little nervous seeing how easily they could be influenced to listen to stuff that's not so uplifting. But so far so good. They each have their playlists they have created that they listen to while they are working on the computer. Sophie's is full of all kinds of good music, while Chloe's is pretty much Christmas songs. She loves Christmas music -- all year long! One day she discovered the Mormon Tabernacle Choir, and sat and listened to them all day long. She was making comments about how fun it is to watch the conductor, so the next day she had to pull some stuff up to show me how much energy he has. It was the very next Sunday they announced the youth would be going to M&SW. Brandon kind of gave an eye roll (he's not exactly a MoTab fan), but I knew it was going to be good for the girls. They were both kind of excited. Sophie came home from the performance telling me all the people she got to see. She was excited because she saw Mack Wilberg (she has a friend whose dream is to become Mack -- one of those rare good influences we celebrate in our lives), and she saw this Ryan guy, but she was frustrated because she never got to see Felix. I just listened to her as she talked, but then later that evening she brought me the program she saved for her scrapbook and was showing me the outline. That's when I saw Felix was Felix Mendelssohn. I got a little chuckle out of that. Chloe may be one of only a few 13 year olds to ever say to their parent, "Don't you just love the Mormon Tabernacle Choir?"

JDG * Chloe's Closet

I honestly thought it had been a week since my last post, but the blog is telling me otherwise. I guess it doesn't lie. Chloe was telling us today how she doesn't write stories with her blog, you only get pictures. I tend to write too much -- although I do take more than my share of photos. But today it's going to be nice and short, just a couple items of business:

Sophie got to cash in her birthday coupon I gave her. I told her I would take her to a Jessica Day George book signing. The only one we saw, since her birthday, happened to fall while we were in Albuquerque. Her latest novel had been released that week. I told Sophie I could still buy her the book and then just get it signed later, but she said she wanted to wait and get it when she met Jessica. Luckily, Jessica was doing a signing down in Provo on the 13th so I got to take her. She spoke for about an hour beforehand, and then we stood in line to meet her. Sophie was pretty happy, and I'm glad she's simple to please.

Remember that project I told you I was going to take on? Guess what, I completed it. I told you I would probably end up relying on my husband, and indeed he did help me, but only in the beginning. I just needed help getting started, and I needed him to help me with that top shelf. An 8 foot board is not an easy thing to lift up by myself. But after that I did it all on my own. She still has two areas that need some built-in shelves. I was planning to just let Brandon do them, but now I'm wondering if I can't do them myself. Hmmm, I just realized that we were talking today about getting the table saw put away. That's a really exciting thought, and with the snow coming it's probably time. Do you think Chloe can just wait a bit for those shelves? She may have to. But for now she has one side of her closet that is super cute!

Chloe finally got to have her sleepover with Elsie. She's been begging to have her cousin over for a long time, but I told her she just had to wait until the kitchen project was completed. Then it took us a few weeks to find a time that would work for both parties. We actually got to have Elsie for 4 days, so Chloe was in heaven. I didn't take a single picture the entire time, but Chloe took care of that. She did all kinds of photo shoots with Elsie. You'll have to check out her blog if you missed that.

What Have You Been Up To? Oh, Nothing.

Conversation I just had with my husband:

B: what are you doing?

C: I'm going to go blog?

B: about what?

C: about everything I've done since I last blogged?

B: Bud, we haven't done anything.

He may be able to pull that over on someone else, but it's not gonna work with me. I document things!

I blogged at the end of our vacation about how Shane was in town for some training. That required one more get-together. My parents came back down and Jason's family joined us for dinner. Plus, the day before Shane came and hung out at our place to get some laundry done. It was fun to see him for a little bit, and to remind my kids of what mean brothers I have!

BYU celebrated chemistry week with magic shows all week long. I took the girls to one of them. We got to watch a lot of things blow up, and the teacher really liked to set things on fire.

Then I took them to the Young Filmmakers of Utah conference. I had worked as a volunteer for it so that I could get free admission. The girls haven't ever really expressed any interest in becoming filmmakers, but I like to expose them to as many different things as I can -- and then let them decide how they feel about it. They were just excited to go and meet several of their celebrity heros: Dave Roberts (from Kid History), Jeremy Warner, David Nibley & Daryn Tufts. Paul from The Piano Guys was supposed to be on the schedule, but he must have backed out. Sophie was pretty bummed about that. So, we went and learned a few things. This was on Saturday, and then Monday morning I got an email from Sophie asking me if she could use the video camera, and explained the movie she wanted to make. Then there was a P.S.

P.S. there was no inspiration from the young film maker of Utah conference! I decided it would be fun for me and my kids to see all the awesome things I did.

Yeah, right. No inspiration at all. She just felt like it.

They ran out of time to do individual shots with the celebrities, so we just had to squeeze into a big group shot with Jeremy. Can you see them hiding away in the back, on the right?

Way back in July the library held a photo contest. You had to take a photo and then zoom WAY in on a section of it to create a "new" image. (The theme for the summer reading program this year was ZOOM!). We got a phone call that Chloe took 3rd place in the contest, and that they would be making a display at the Viridian Center around the first of October. We finally make it over to see her photo on display. They also created bookmarks with the winning photos on them, and you can pick them up at any of the county libraries.

On the way out to the parking lot our driver got a little mixed up. I had my camera on me, so you get to see my family having a little fun.

The girls first year of growing crops was an interesting experiment. Not much turned out, but they did get quite a few pumpkins. They were even able to sell some (Chloe sold 25 and Sophie sold 20). On Halloween they decided that since they still had some left over, they would just pass them out to any trick-or-treaters who might stop by (we weren't expecting many). We did get a few though, but you should have seen the excitement of the kids when we told them they got to choose a pumpkin. One girl lost her shoe running so fast to get hers!

Chloe finally got some dry ice. I think she's asked for it every year since she was like 7. It made her pumpkin smoke a little, but she wasn't terribly impressed. I guess it was no chemistry show.

But the important part of the day was celebrating this man. He is a wonderful father and husband (even if he thinks we don't do anything). I don't have any photos to show his hard work, but he's still working on my island and table. Sophie put her "un-inspired" skills to work and make a video of Brandon. She was a little sneaky and managed to get some photos of him from her grandma. That was really fun to see. At the end she filled the time with dancing. We were laughing so hard our faces got a little wet. It was a good birthday.

I am still painting the fence, but I got our ditch filled back in with all the dirt that was dug out to run pipe to the back of the field. The girls are helping me fill the rest with falling leaves. I made a small amount of progress on Chloe's closet, and she now has window coverings. All of our old appliances have been sold! I have a living room back. And I just sold the folding tables we had. They were being stored in the bathroom for some reason, so we now have a bathroom back -- and thanks to Chloe's awesome cleaning skills it even looks good. But then we start dreaming about remodeling that ugly old room. I told her we can dream, but no more projects for a long time.

Last night we had a ward chili cook-off. I made my yummy white bean chili. It was supposed to be outside, but the weather turned nasty so they moved it to the church. Brandon and I were at Lowe's when the wind went really crazy. Our licence plate flew off the van while we were loading our stuff. Lowe's lost one of their sheds -- the manager told us someone just came in and reported that they saw it blow away. At least my island top isn't going anywhere. Have you seen that thing? I wanted a moveable island, but just the top has to be over 100 lbs!

OK, Brandon, have I blabbed enough to prove that I did something?