Update

It has been awhile since I posted. I guess I have been uninspired. Who wants to blog when there are no pictures? We still haven't bought a new camera. I turned on my camera today and was able to get a few pictures before it went all pink and melty.


So here's the latest:

• We had parent/teacher conferences this week. The kids are doing great in school. I am so proud of them. Emilia's teacher said she was one of the most creative writers he had ever taught. She is reading at an 8th grade level in 3rd grade. Man these kids are smart.
  
  
• I have done a bit of canning this year. I got some free tomatoes from a neighbor so I did 21 qts. of tomatoes. The other day I made 6 pints of salsa and yesterday I canned 12 qts. of applesauce. I have been busy. It feels good to see my empty jars filling up. Last year I was 9 months pregnant and I didn't get anywhere near a canning jar.
  


• It finally feels like fall and I am a little sad. I have really been enjoying the 85 degree temperatures. Canning applesauce was a great introduction to fall, however.
  
  My whole house smelled wonderful and brought back so many memories of fall baking and canning. I especially thought of my good friend Jessica who is my all time favorite canning partner. When we lived in Logan she had several apple trees and we would get together and can applesauce all day. I distinctly remember one fall when we both had 4 month old babies. We worked, nursed, took care of our 2 year olds and worked some more. Jessica, I missed you yesterday. (I didn't, however, miss having to stop and nurse a baby, although miss Adele was being a stinker and wouldn't nap. Instead of having to stop to feed a baby I had to continually redirect her away from getting into trouble.) When the girls got home from school they had a great time helping me strain the apples. Emilia was the "cranker" and Elise and Ian took turns being the "smoosher". (Adele gets an honorable mention for also being a "cranker".) They were really excited to help and they want to help again next time I make applesauce. I plan to buy some more apples soon and we'll need our "cranker" and our "smooshers" again. And hopefully I'll be able to get a few pictures of the process.

I did some golden delicioius and some red delicious. You can tell the difference in the color of the applesauce. The one jar on the right has golden on the bottom and red on the top.

No Longer "Just Ian"

For the longest time Ian was "Just Ian". If you called him "Ian-Boy", "Dude", "Buddy" he would get mad and say, "I am just Ian!" Yesterday Ian decided to change his name. His new name is Click-Click Click. His first name? "Click-Click". Last name? Obviously, "Click".

Thoughts on Whipped Cream and Romance

Emilia: When I am a grown up I am going to buy whipped cream and eat the whole thing by itself. Whipped cream is SOOOOO ROMANTIC!

Lisa, looking at Kent: Hmmm, Yes, I guess whipped cream CAN be romantic...

Kent to Emilia: Do you know what romantic means?

Emilia: Yes, romantic means beautiful, like when the princess dances with the prince. Whipped cream is SOOOOO ROMANTIC!

Kent: Romantic means something that makes you want to fall in love. Or the way you act when you are falling in love.

Emilia: Well, I am falling in love with whipped cream. Whipped cream is so romantic.



I was looking for a good romantic whipped cream image and I found this. I had to post it because my dad actually had (has?) this record. I remember once when he was showing us some of his records and this one surfaced. What a RACEY cover, woo woo!!! ;) I can remember my mom saying that he should get rid of it because it was just too racey. I think it is kind of funny. I especially like the giant dollop on her head. It's very romantic.

Recycle!

When I first moved here it drove my CRAZY that there was no recycling program. I was used to recycling just about everything plastic/paper/and glass. For those of you who don't know, our city has joined the 21st century! A large recycle dumpster has been placed in the front of the parking lot at Wal-mart on the grocery side. They take paper, newspaper, soda and water bottles (and I am guessing other #1 plastics), aluminum and steel cans and plastic milk cartons (and probably other #2 plastics). So, save all that stuff and GO RECYCLE it! And don't tell me you can't because you never go to Wal-mart. I have seen ALL of you there!

What to "DO"?

Ok, I was thinking that since our remodel is done I have nothing exciting to blog about. Then I thought of my hair. What could be more exciting to my faithful readers? Actually I am just doing this for selfish purposes because I feel like I am in a hair slump and I need opinions. I am pretty much always in a hair slump it seems. Maybe its because my hair is has grown out since my last haircut and it doesn't look good anymore. When I get to this point I go back and forth: cut it or grow it out. So here are some samples of previous "dos" over the last couple of years. I am going to set up a poll about what I should do to my hair so go vote.

Long, straight, no bangs

Medium, no bangs


A-line, straight, little bit of bangs

Don't know what this is called but it is fairly recent, straight and blond. I have gotten darker highlights since this picture to sort of head back in the direction of my natural color, (which is pretty much just mousy brown. My hair has gotten so much darker.)

Shorter-medium length, straight, bangs

Medium length, layery and flippy (this picture was taken today, sorry it's bad)


Poofy, floofy, blond with some red underneath. (har har)

So, go vote and leave a comment. Short? Long? Straight? Permed? Blond? Brown? What should I DO to my "do"?

Yahoo! It's Done!

After 5 weeks of being kitchen-less we are finally done! We absolutely love our new kitchen and living room. We are still waiting on a few details such as our above-stove microwave, a replacement shelf in one of the cabinets and a few spots of paint touch up that need to be done. All in all though, we are DONE and it is such a relief to be in a working kitchen again, and even better that it turned out so beautiful.

Happiness Is Here Again

We have a sink! Hallelujah.

Preschool

Yeah, I still have kids even though I haven't been talking about them. Ian (finally) started preschool this week. YAY! I told him he could go after lunch and he said: "Let's call breakfast 'lunch' and then we could go now!" It was very cute. When we got there some of his classmates were nervous and didn't want their moms to leave. Ian was not shy at all and ran right in the room. He was SO excited!

Almost Done!

We have had so much going on today! We had guys working on trim, building shelves in the pantry, installing countertops, finishing up electrical stuff, covering up the old window with siding. I am POOPED! (No, really. I have been running around all crazy answering questions, making sure the right person has the right info, plus takin' care of the kiddos etc.)

Here's how it looks now. We'll get a sink tomorrow (yahoo) and our new stove and dishwasher are going to arrive on Saturday. Just a FEW MORE DAYS! HOORAY.

They're SO Beautiful

We thought our cabinets weren't going to be installed until tomorrow but lo and behold, they came today. (HOORAY). I just can't stop looking at them because they are so beautiful.

The Latest

Here's how it looks. We are getting the cabinets on Tuesday.

Oregon Trip: Part 2

Thanks Suzanne for the pics!

Here are a couple more pictures. I wanted to put them in the other post but I know if I upload them in that post it will totally mess up all the spacing (stupid blogger) and I don't feel like dealing with that.

The YUMMY ice cream at the Tillamook cheese store

The blueberries. (You NEEDED a picture didn't you.)

After our coast trip we headed back to the hotel and after everyone got there we decided to go get something to eat. So, 8 out of the 10 brothers and sisters all crammed in an elevator and headed out. Of course we had to embarrass ourselves and get a stranger to take a picture of us all in the elevator when the doors opened. We were all pretty hyper and giddy from travelling all day. We had to remind ourselves not to act like "Aborigines" (the term our dad used to use when we'd go out in public. So politically incorrect, I know). I think we were more like Aborigines that night than we had been in a very long time. Our poor waitress.....

Every time I get together with my sisters we have to take a "sisters picture".

Below are a couple of pictures from the wedding.

Drew and Michelle. Don't they look so cute!? Michelle is so awesome. These guys will be so great together. We haven't spent tons of time with Michelle but she fits in with the family (in a GOOD way, not in an Aboriginal way, heh, heh) and is really really nice.

The Portland temple was so beautiful. The grounds were amazing and there were trees everywhere. It felt like the temple was just sitting there in the middle of a forest.

The happy couple with my mom and dad

Here we are decorating the car. We found out after we had finished that my other 2 brothers went to the store and got a bunch of whipped cream to decorate the car since they didn't think we were going to do it (communication in our family has never been a strong point). I am sure they destroyed all of our beautiful artwork.


After the festivities of the day we all went back to the hotel and crashed. We didn't even stay up and party or anything. (And darn the hotel, they didn't even have a hot tub.) I shared a room with 3 of my sisters and they all crashed and slept well thanks to a little, er, sleeping medication which I didn't take but SHOULD have. I on the other hand had a bout of insomnia and was up all night. Which I wouldn't really even mention except for the fact that it made my drive home much more interesting since I had to talk on the phone and sing loudly (not at the same time) to actually make it home alive.

So, in the morning Karen and I dropped off the rental car and sailed through the short security lines at the Portland airport. Since we got there early we were able to snag the front seats on the plane. We again had a good time watching and commenting on the different people around us. Since we were in the front seat we got a great view of "Betty" the flight attendant and everything she said and did. She was doing the attendant thing "solo" so she had a hard job to do. But never you fear. In the aisle seat opposite Karen was ANOTHER flight attendant (off duty) who could have jumped up in a moment's notice should there have been a flight attendant staffing emergency. We got to eavesdrop on her conversation with the lady sitting next to her about the ins and outs of flight attendant-ness: Which routes are fun. How she hates commuting to Portland when her hubby lives in SL. How those flights to Brazil are really, really long... etc. etc. We did learn one important thing though. We now know that it is not a requirement to have 2 mm of make up on and have a ratted ponytail to be a flight attendant. Neither she nor Betty had either. Whew. I am glad we cleared that up. We also got to observe our effeminate portable-airport-walkway-thing-mover do his job. At first we thought he was Betty's flight attendant co-worker and that we could have fun with him on the flight but unfortunately he had to stay behind in Portland. Karen (who reportedly never falls asleep on airplanes) fell asleep on the plane again and I, who had been up all night didn't sleep a wink.

I picked up my car an miraculously I didn't fall asleep on the drive home. As I mentioned, things were in pretty good order when I got home. (Thanks again Kent for being such a great dad while I was gone and all the time!)

Oregon Trip: Part 1

A break from the remodel!!! YAY!

I can finally blog about this because I got the pictures. As you know my camera is dead so I had to have other people send the pictures to me.

My brother Drew got married on 8/23 so I went to Portland Oregon for the wedding. Kent stayed home with all 4 kids and did they all did ~GREAT~! They were all alive when I got home and things were even relatively clean, considering having a torn apart house, no kitchen and 4 kids. (THANKS so much Kent, you are awesome.)

I drove up to my sister Karen's house on Thursday and stayed with her overnight. We flew together out of SLC airport friday morning. We drank our "slim-fast" breakfast shakes on the way to the airport and listened to Jimmy Chunga (one of Karen's favorite radio guys.) We worried that we wouldn't make it on time because of the crazy traffic, but somehow we made it. Our seats weren't together on the plane because we bought our tickets at different times but some kind soul was willing to switch with us. We had a great start to the trip, discussing flight attendants: "Is it a requirement to wear 2mm of foundation and a have a huge ratted ponytail to be a flight attendant?" we wondered. We did sudoku puzzles, shopped in the air mall catalogue, (anyone need inflatable stairs for your pet so they can get on your bed?) and had some fine airline cookies and crackers. Karen enjoyed her "spicy tomato juice". Me? 9 o'clock am is WAY too early to think about drinking anything spicy or tomatoey. Then Karen (who claims she never sleeps on airplanes) fell asleep.

We arrived in Portland, and after realizing that in Portland exit 23B comes BEFORE 23A we finally hooked up with our other sister Suzanne and took off for the Oregon coast. It was amazing and beautiful, like being in the mountains and at the ocean at the same time. We stopped at a seafood restaurant that Suzanne had been to before called "Mo's". We all ate seafood. (Even *I* the seafood hater ate seafood, just for the experience. I had skewered shrimp and it was good.) Karen was very excited about this because she had been looking forward to the crab legs ever since we found out we were going to the coast. Karen and the crab legs

Sitting outside at Mo's

As you can see in that photo there is green foliage close to where I was sitting. There were a whole bunch of these little furry caterpillars in the leaves. My purse was on the table there by the glass divider and as I reached for it to get my wallet I jumped in surprise because there were 2 furry caterpillars on my purse. I brushed them off and didn't worry about it. This is where the story gets funny. Suzanne (who is one of my most faithful blog readers) thought that it would be a great idea to blog about the caterpillars. She suggested that we put them BACK on my purse so we could take pictures and I could blog about them. I said, "that's ok, I don't really know what I would even say about caterpillars on my bag". She insisted though, and proceeded to put the caterpillars BACK on my bag. At this point I said, "Ok, now this is what I am going to blog about. You putting the caterpillars BACK on my bag so I can blog about them."

So we got a picture of her putting caterpillars back on my bag.

And there you have it.

After Mo's we walked up and down Cannon Beach.


So gorgeous!

Karen, me and Suzanne

While we were walking on the beach we saw some interesting things. (I commented on these things and Suzanne decided to take pictures for blogging purposes, so here you go.)

The lost, lone flip flop sticking out of the sand. Hopefully the owner wasn't buried underneath.

The weird, nasty (and stinky) sea plants that were washed up on the beach. Maybe we should have our friends at ourbestbites come up with a tasty grilled seaweed dish using these beauties. (With or without the sand).

Sea foam. Bubbly, slimy sea foam. (What is this made of anyway? Is it some sort of living plant slime?) Just a note about sea foam. When the person who invented the color "seafoam green" named it they had obviously never actually seen sea foam.

Here is an example of "seafoam green" (with heads removed to protect the guilty. Nice black bras girls. Did anyone tell you these were STRAPLESS dresses???). Hopefully they will never see this picture on my blog. If if by some random chance you are the green dress wearer and you are not ashamed to admit it, leave me a comment and if you can prove this is you I'll give you a gift. (A seafoam green guitar perhaps? To play at that upcoming wedding reception?)


OK, no more tangents.

We continued driving up the coast and we stopped at this overlook to get some pictures. The view was breathtaking.

We made a few more stops on the way to buy fresh cherries and blueberries (yum!). Then we stopped at the Tillamook dairy and watched them make cheese, and of course had delicious ice cream. They had the best bubblegum ice cream I have ever had.

So, that is the exciting day at the Oregon Coast. It was absolutely beautiful and a lot of fun. It was a great break from the kids, but the whole day I was thinking how much I'd love to take them there. The would have had so much fun. I hope to take them back someday.

So that's the first installment of the Oregon trip. I'll have to post wedding pictures (when someone sends me some hint, hint) and give more details of the rest of the trip in the next installment.