Out of School....Again!

I think my kids spend more time out of school than in it.  They are off again for a 4 day weekend.  Apparently, they were overworked in the two weeks they were back in school.  I can't take it anymore.  My entire schedule has been so messed up this year.  I have been getting some stuff done, but I really need them to go back for longer than 2 weeks for this house to get really cleaned up.  I don't think I have mopped the kitchen floor for a month.  It is starting to get pretty bad.  I have been wiping small areas with a washcloth and it just doesn't do the trick.
I have been having fun creating my new blog.  I can't wait to publish it into a book.  I will finally have one resource to look at with all of those tips and recipes and cleaning hints that I try to remember but always forget until I find the little scrap of paper I wrote it on 6 months ago.
So if you have any good tips for life, let me know and I will add it to the blog/book.  Check out expandingfrosting.blogspot.com and let me know what you think.  The more comments the better!

General Relief Society Conference

I was able to get tickets again this year to attend the annual Women's Broadcast on Temple Square.  The Conference Center is always amazing to visit because it is such an extraordinary building.  This year I went with Leanne, Andrea, and Bekka.  Getting there isn't always easy but we all manage to make it.  It seems to be an exercise in the lessons of the 10 virgins.  I always wonder whether we are among the prepared or not as we are rushing to get where we are supposed to be.
Leanne and I left the house at 3:30 this year in hopes on not rushing.  We didn't have too much trouble with traffic but had to park about 1 mile away from the conference center.  We learned our lesson last year and wore sensible shoes this year but I was still plagued with blisters.  I decided I just need to wear my tennis shoes next year.  It took us about 20 minutes to walk from the car to the Lion House for dinner.  Unfortuately, we still had to rush through dinner to make it over to our seats in time.
Andrea and Bekka were having their own adventure on the freeway trying to get through traffic caused by an accident.  Leanne and I hurried over to the center and ended up giving Andrea and Bekka's tickets to one of the ushers so that we could go in and get seats for all of us.  Our seats were awesome!  We were right down in the front on the right side.  Happily, Andrea and Bekka made it just in time with 3 minutes to spare.  President Monson walked in and the entire room went silent immediately.  I cannot describe the feeling of joy we had being in the presence of the prophet and the first presidency.  They are such kind and wonderful men.  President Monson waved to the choir and all of them waved back in unison.
It was especially exciting for me to go because the choir was comprised of sisters from northern Davis County including sisters from our ward.  They sounded so beautiful.  I felt lifted up to heaven when they sang.  When the congregation sang with them it was like hearing the angels.  It is impossible to describe the heavenly sound that came from almost 20,000 voices.  It was sublime.
I have so much grattitude for my Savior for the leaders we have in the church.  These people love us and love Him.  They have testimonies of the work and want to help people to have joy in their lives.  It is such a blessing to be part of the Relief Sociey organization.  I am so thankful for the gospel in my life and the opportunity I have to be part of such an amazing organization.  So much good comes from it.  I fell renewed in spirit and can't beleive we live close enough to be able to attend these events in person.
As the leaders were leaving, President Monson, President Uchdorf and President Eyring all looked to the audience and waved goodbye and all the sisters waved back.  It was wonderful.

Wiiiiiiiiii

The kids finally did it!  After saving their pennies for an entire year, they were able to purchase their coveted Wii gaming system.  It has been better than Christmas around here and Alan and I didn't even have to do anything.  I forced the kids to search for the best possible price online We found it but they had to wait another week after getting their money together to have it shipped.  Dell was running a sale-yea!- so naturally I had to take advantage of it.  I was sure Jacob was going to come unglued at the lack of instant gratification.  But, it arrived today, as promised on the shipping estimate.  They can't wait to check every little thing out on it and it should take them several weeks to get bored with the games that came with the unit before they insist on spending more of their hard earned cash. 
I warned them about the money pit they were climbing into.  But, they happily dove in and are on their way to owning everything Wii.  They have already earmarked their current lawn mowing earnings for another controller thingy.  I can't remember what it is called.  I am wondering when they will figure out how hard they have to work to earn their money only to give it all away in one lump sum.  Probably not for a while. 
I am so proud of my kids.  What an accomplishment.  I love seeing them so excited about it too.  They did it all themselves. 
I must sign off now.  My head is filling with snot and I am pretty sure my fragile little cells are being destroyed by some nasty speck that has gotten stuck up my nose.  I think my sinuses are going to explode if they get much fuller.  What a wonderful mechanism for our bodies.  Trap the germs in mucus and then force the body to leak it out to eradicate the little creatures.  What an exciting adventure.  I can't smell or taste or hear anything and I sound like a fog horn.  I guess I'll just have to stay in my jammies and play the Wii!

The latest......

Sarah turned 7 last week and we had to get pretty creative at our house for her birthday.  Times are tight for us all and Sarah was terribly worried about her "family party" not being very exciting this year.  We decided many years ago that only one of the kids could have a big friend party at one time.  So they are all on a three year rotation.  It was Sarah's turn for the family party this year and so we started planning.  We decided to have a Willy Wonka party and it ended up being so fun.  There is a chocolate factory in Salt Lake we toured with Andrea and her kids.  After eating chocolates and learning all about chocolate and watching the cool lady dip the chocolates, we came back to the house for the rest of the festivities.   The kids stayed up and watched Willy Wonka at the end of the party.  It was a pretty fun afternoon!

Sarah requested a Strawberry cake with white frosting. This was sooooooo sweet it was hard to eat.  It turned out cute but the rest is going in the garbage.  Wow!  It gives me a headache just thinking about its monumental sweetness.  It was fun to get back to my cake decorating roots. 

Since we were having a Willy Wonka party, there must be candy!  I found all these Wonka candies at the store and with the miracle of computers, made Wonka Bar wrappers!  It was so fun!  I forgot to add the golden ticket though.  Oh well, they all ate them pretty fast anyway.  

Make a wish!  Hannah got a glitter water ball like the one in Sarah's hand a few months ago and Sarah has been asking for one ever since.  Her brothers got her one finally for her.  She carries it everywhere now. 

We were all so sick of candy by the time Sarah blew out her candles, we didn't even eat the cake.  Everyone went outside and ate some apples from the tree.  I don't think we had cake till the day after.  Too much candy!  Sarah had a fun birthday and I can't believe she is 7 now.  I say that every year the kids get older.  I feel like I have such a short amount of time with them until they grow up and do their own things. 

Alan and the boys along with Leanne attended the temple dedication of the Oquirrah Mountain Temple a few weeks ago.  Sarah wasn't old enough to go yet so I stayed home with her.  What a wonderful thing to have another temple in this world.  Kent and Nick live a stone's throw from the temple and went to the dedication personally.  We were fortunate enough to have it broadcast to our stake center.  One of the talks I have heard recently mentioned if we could see into the spirit world and realize how many people are waiting to have their work done for them, we would be at the temple every spare moment we had.  We have had a wonderful temple attending summer and this was a great way to end the season.  It is amazing to live so close to so many temples.  We feel so blessed!

Feeding my soul with cabbage

Sometimes in the business of living, our souls cry out to our unconscious in ways that don't make sense until later.  Life has been overwhelming lately because we are going through another one of those years of big events.  The events don't always have to be negative, but they are always stressful.  Even when we are in the middle of an activity designed to relieve stress, getting there was no picnic.
I grew up disconnected physically from family and as an adult it has cemented in me the greatest of desires to be around my family however and whenever I can.  Moving to Utah, while difficult in so many ways, opened up for me an emotionally gratifying life that I have yet to know in my 38 years.  I get to live near family that I was only able to visit on rare occasions in the past.  I lack the literary maturity and skill to adequately convey how much it feeds my soul to live within minutes rather than hours or even days of my family.
I called my Aunt Janet last week and asked if I could come and visit her today and being the lovely person she is she said of course!  I have the wonderful privilege of being related to some truly extraordinary women and Janet is no exception.  I could talk to her for hours, and do, and she obliges me.
I love going to Jerry and Janet's because their garden is so magnificent and I always learn something.  I never leave empty handed from their generosity and I come home ready to create something new with my bounty of produce.  They are all about creation and creativity and I think that is why I identify so well with them.  Ada and Bert taught all of us wonderful lessons in life, but to Jerry, they gave the joy of gardening and I appreciate Janet's patience with it and his willingness and enthusiasm about it. 
It took this visit for me to realize the reason for the cloud that has been hanging over me for sometime.  I wasn't sure why I needed to go, I just knew it would be good for me.  I discovered I miss my Grandma Ada terribly.  Alan and I spent so much of our lives together talking about ways we could move to Cedar City to be closer to her.  I feel like I have finally gotten my wish to be closer and it is too late.  I had so much I wanted to talk to her about.  So much I wanted to learn from her.  I feel jipped in a way for coming to her part of the world so much later in life, hers and mine, only to have her gone now.  Visiting with Janet helped me recognize how much I rely on the women in my life to feed my soul.  It is a hard thing to explain or even know how to explain to the men in our lives.  Women need each other and need to be around each other to appreciate the people we live with more.  There is something that connects us in our common experience as wives and mothers that helps to keep us all sane.  We fill each other's souls up, so we can all get out there and face whatever comes our way.
Jerry's cabbage were extraordinary in every way this year.  They are massive and there are lots of them.  As a result, they are making sauerkraut at their house and lots of it.  I was gifted three large heads and immediately started cleaning and cutting them up when I arrived back at my house.  I was standing over the kitchen sink crying and washing when it hit me how much I needed today.  I needed to talk, to eat, to cry, to laugh and to be replenished.  Thank you Janet for refilling my bucket.  And thank you for honoring the memory and life of Ada.  I may not have her here to talk to and learn from, but all those she loved and nurtured and taught in her life are here and available and ready to continue her legacy of love and devotion to family.  And I can talk to them whenever I want to. 

Look for the Silver Linings

Last weekend we had some setbacks but we triumphed and still had a rockin good time. I have been Suzy Homemaker lately. I was on my second round of my plum harvest looking forward to more plum jelly, but alas, it wasn't meant to be. This represents about 2 gallons of juice cooked out of my little plums. This doesn't taste good just the way it is. I had transferred it into a juice pitcher and left it on the counter to cool, not thinking anyone who lived here would touch it. They know better than to taste something without asking what it is first. I have too many things in transition to just sample food in my kitchen. The kids have learned by trial and yuck! to ask first. However, last Friday night we had most of the kids on the street over for a bonfire and cinnamon rolls and there was much activity in the house. The little girls were eating in the kitchen with Sarah, when the four year old decided some pretty red juice would go well with here cinnamon roll. Unfortuately, she decided to pour for everyone. Let's just say she missed the cup the first time. And got some in the second time. By the time I came back in, it looked like someone had thrown water balloons full of plum juice all over my kitchen. It was awesome! All the little girls exclaimed, "that juice is yucky!". After getting it cleaned up I was relieved to see that they had only spilled 1/3 of the juice. I carefully put it in the fridge to deal with later and went off to party.

Nick and Andrea showed up shortly after the plum juice fiasco and were staying the night so we could go to the Hot Air Balloon festival up Ogden canyon first thing the next morning. We have been planning and looking forward to this for some time. We were going to take breakfast with us and watch the sunrise over the mountains and see the balloons lift off. It was going to be ethereal and beautiful. After deciding who would sleep where we went to bed with much anticipation for the following morning. At 4:45am Alan and I got up to start raising the dead for our day of "fun" and noticed it was raining outside. Sadly, our ballon launch dreams were dashed. Ever the adventurers, we all decided to go anyway because it might not be raining on the mountain. As we all got our things together, I was in the kitchen packing up our breakfast and getting some help from others. The watermelon needed to be retrieved from the fridge but it was in the back. I asked for some help getting it out and guess what was in front of it in the fridge? Yes, the plum juice. It wasn't moved out of the way of the watermelon enough and the juice spilled out onto the floor-all but maybe 2 cups of it. The pitcher landed on Leanne's recently broken toe sending her into a vortex of pain. I am sure it felt awful. We all stared at it for a moment and then started the clean up, again. My floor has never been mopped so much. We pulled out the fridge and cleaned out the inside. Many towels were needed to soak up the sticky stuff and finally we got it all cleaned. And behind and under my fridge are nice and clean too. I decided to dump out the remaining juice, it was not meant to be.
The drive up was beautiful and rainy. We saw water gushing out of the mountains from the rain run off and the river that parallels the road was full too. The location of the lift-off was in Eden and it looked like Eden. The rain only made the hills greener and the cool weather was nice after hot days down in the valley.

The vendors and carnival games were on hold because of the weather and so we decided to eat our breakfast out of the back of the care and enjoy the journey. This is Wolf Mountain Ski Resort and you can see where the runs are when there is snow.

Hurray for hatchbacks! We ate our cinnamon rolls and watermelon out of the back and got some great looks from other tourists looking to salvage their own plans for fun. It ended up being a beautiful day. After returning home we decided to go to the movies and then headed down to Salt Lake to visit with Bob and Mary. They were having a get together for Lane and his family who were visiting from New York for the week. As always, it is fun to see family and eat. We parted ways with Nick and Andrea and headed back north to attend the Dinosaur Park's free evening for Jacob. He has been looking forward to this forever! It is an outdoor park that has life size statues of dinosaurs and dinosaurs built into slides and swings for the younger kids. We were so exhausted by then we couldn't wait to get home and just go to bed.
There was a steak house near the dino park and the smell was more than our empty stomachs could bear. We decided to check it out. It looked like an old mine and had lots of miner/cowboy stuff everywhere. I picked up a menu and about fell over. Just about everything on the menu was $20 to $40 a plate! I am not sure if I had lots of money I could pay that for a steak. Ever the cheapskate, I recommended we buy our own steaks from the grocery store and BBQ at home. The vote was unanamous. We found some yummy steaks and had a lovely BBQ out back. It is so fun eating outside. The weather has been amazing here (mid 80's) and we are not looking forward to the snowfall. We try to spend as much time as possible outside in a desperate attempt to hold off our pending hybernation.

Coming to a theater soon.... Jacob as, Flash Gordon!