Crazy June Update

It has been a crazy month around here. Here's a quick catch up:

• My niece  Hailey came to visit for about 2 weeks. The kids had a LOT of fun, as you can see.

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  I have been sewing a lot. I have been making dresses, blankets and even leopard print shorts for my girls and a skirt for Hailey.
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  We have been doing quite a bit of hiking.  With and without the kids.

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  Adele fed the fish 1 1/2 cans of fish food.   (Maybe she was trying to fatten up or kill our oldest fish "Skinnies")

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  We had a picnic in the garage with our new picnic table before it got moved to the backyard.
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  We had a family reunion (which I will blog about later).
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  I have strep throat. Don't worry, I am not going to post pictures of my throat which the doctor labeled "impressive" and gave me a stronger-than-usual dose of antibiotics.

The Big "8"

Elise turned the big 8 this month!  She barely turned 8 in time for the June Stake baptism.  We had a little bit of a problem with getting the bishop interview on time and for awhile there I was worried that we might not make it since he had to go on a youth conference.  Lucky for us though he was able to squeeze in the interview and get it done.  I asked Elise before the baptism if she wanted to get baptized in a white dress or the jumpsuit.  She didn't hesitate to answer that she wanted to wear the jumpsuit.  I was going to buy or make her a new white dress but she ended up just just wanting a "regular" dress.  She had no desire to go with me to pick out fabric (I'm not sure why,) so she drew me a picture. I had to call her from the fabric store to offer other ideas because red and purple vertical striped fabric isn't that easy to find.  I ended up buying some pink sparkly fabric with multicolored butterflies for her dress.

So here we have a bunch of  pictures with the gorgeous gold background at the church.  Top left:  Elise and her grandparents, Top right: Me, Kent and Elise.  Bottom left:  Double cousin Hailey who stayed with us for almost 2 weeks, Adele in her new dress that I made for her, Emilia, Elise and Ian. Bottom right:  Elise and her good friend Lindsay from school.  They have been in the same class at school for several years and they didn't know that they were going to be baptized the same day. It was a fun surprise for them.

Here's Elise with our good friend and neighbor Virginia.

 Now we move on to the partying

Swedish pancakes for breakfast with strawberries and whip cream.  I love this re-enactment of the "blowing out of the candle".  And the backwards, inside-out pajama tank top.

More birthday treats.  Cheesecake with strawberries and

"E L I S E # 8" cookies that my friend Christine made for Elise.  And last but not least, the birthday party at the "bouncy castle" place with her friends Jeffrey and Johnathan.  I had to get a picture of the wall with the unicorn and the castle because If there is anything Elise loves it would be unicorns. 

I have to say, Elise had a GREAT birthday.

P.S. Please ignore the psycho blogger formatting.  Blogger people, why all the weird formatting?

Denver Trip: The Final Chapter

Ok, If I actually had readers I would worry that you're really sick of hearing about this trip.  I really should have written this part first since it was the most crazy and interesting.  At this point I am sick of blogging about this so it's going to be the quick and condensed version. 

The day after the wedding was Sunday.  We had  a flight out around 2:15 pm.  We hitched a ride to the airport with Rachel and waited a couple of hours to our plane to board because it was delayed.  Finally it was time to board and they had overbooked our flight. They asked people to give up their seats for 400 dollar flight vouchers.  I called Kent and we decided that a free trip somewhere was worth the pain and suffering of having to sleep in a free hotel and eat free meals and get home a day late.  

We made our way to the Frontier Airlines customer service line and waited pretty much forever.  Apparently Frontier Airlines has a pretty bad reputation for overbooking their planes.  Also, that day there were a bunch of athletes who were scheduled to fly to Milwaukee and they ended up having to take smaller plane so there were about 50 stranded travellers.

So, in a nutshell, here's what our "free hotel and free meals" package deal included:

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  Waiting in line for over an hour to get our vouchers
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  Talking to lots of disgruntled folks from Wis-KAN-sin
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  Waiting for our shuttle to take us to the  hotel
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  Wandering around the "bad part" of Aurora Colorado with our new travel companion Rob who was also bumped from our flight.  He became our bodyguard while we walked for at least 45 minutes looking for a restaurant that accepted our airline food vouchers
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  Stopping to take a picture in front of the giant menorah constructed out of street sign poles and lamps
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  Being called a racial slur from a moving car--  (anyone ever been called a "jigger?  It means "a Jewish person pretending to be a black person"?  Who knew there was even a word that meant that. It must be really common for Jewish people to impersonate black people...)  That wasn't even in front of the giant menorah or anything. I guess I just REALLY look Jewish. My blond haired, blue eyed child does too. 
  
  Discovering that there were NO restaurants who had ever seen our airline food vouchers
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  Finding several closed restaurants
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  Settling upon a small Mexican restaurant in a scary looking strip mall and not even worrying about the stupid food vouchers because we had been wandering around for almost an hour
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  Walking into the Mexican restaurant and having about 10 Hispanic people turn and stare at us since we were the only Gringos in the place.
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  Going to Safeway to get treats and wait for our shuttle to pick us up again.  (Worrying the whole time that someone was going to kill me, and thankful that we had invited our bodyguard Rob to eat dinner with us.)
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  Finding out upon our return to the hotel that the vouchers must be used at the airport or the hotel (gee thanks customer-service-lady-at-the-Frontier-Airlines-desk for not TELLING us that small detail.  And believe me, we were there long enough to overhear the instructions PLENTY of times before it was our turn.  GRR. That reminds me, I still want to call and complain about that one.
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  Getting ice at the hotel (I always love getting ice)
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  Getting up at 4:30 am to catch a shuttle to the airport at 5
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  Spending a ridiculous amount of voucher money at the airport McDonald's for breakfast
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  Taking Cinnabon home to use the rest of the voucher money

That's pretty much it.

Here's the Mexican restaurant.  The food was excellent.  The atmosphere, not so much.  On the right of this picture there were all the guys who were wondering what the heck those crazy white people were doing in this restaurant.  They kept looking at us, making me feel very conspicuous.  The bodyguard Rob went outside and sneakily took this photo after I said that I really wanted a photo of this place so I could post it on my blog.

Here we have Emilia in the shuttle, the tv that Em thought was so cool in the plane, the view of the Denver sky at 6 am and Emilia playing on the moving walkways while I waited in line forever.

So that ends my Denver Trip 5 (6?) part epistle. I just had to write about it because there were so many crazy things that happened and believe me, my IBV was going 100 mph.  I had such a great time visiting my friends from Denver and seeing Kari get married. It was really fun to take Emilia with me on this special mother daughter trip.  Thanks again to the S family who housed us and everyone who gave us rides and cars to borrow.  And thanks to Frontier Airlines for the free trip. Now that it is over it is definitely worth it.  Now we just have to decide where we want to go.  That's a post for another day.

Denver Trip: The Wedding

On Saturday May 10, 2010 Trevor Vernon and Kari Grimshaw got married in the Denver Colorado temple.  This temple was always "my temple" because I was a kid when it was built and our ward's primary earned the money to pay for the "bride's benches in the back of the temple. I went to the dedication of this temple and even have a plaque with one of the stones that was used in the construction of the outer walls of the temple. 

When we were in the sealing I had this overwhelming feeling that I didn't want to ever leave Denver again.  I looked around and saw so many people from my past and felt like this was the place I belonged.  It has been so many years that I have been away and I just finally felt like I was home.  When I was a teenager and moved away from Denver I felt that way the first time I visited again, which was about 3 months after I moved.  I wondered if I would feel that way on this trip and I didn't until I was in the sealing room with Kari's family and some "old" people from the ward we grew up in.  The wedding was very nice and the sealer, one of my previous bishops, Lloyd Richmond said some nice words.

The happy couple exiting the temple

Here I am with 2 of my all time best friends:  Kari and Rachel

Didn't we look awesome back in 1991?

I'm not sure why I posted that second picture here but I thought it was pretty funny.

The reception was held in the mountains at Mt. Vernon Country Club.  How fitting huh, since the bride and groom are "Vernons".  I saw some of my old high school friends at the dinner reception and had a chance to talk and visit with each of Kari's 5 sisters.  It was seriously such a fun walk down memory lane.

Denver Trip: Part Who Knows?

Ok, I really gotta get this done so we'll see if I can wrap it up soon and move on with my blogging life.   After this I think there are just 2 parts left.

Soooo, I left off at the zoo. 

After the zoo Emilia and I went to one of the most exciting restaurants in Denver:  Casa Bonita.  They are known for their great entertainment, cliff divers and disgusting food. I was hoping that the food would have improved in the 20ish years since I ate there last but no such luck.  The sad thing too is that my food was actually cooked and prepared BY Spanish speaking individuals who probably make delicious food at home. For some reason the nasty food is just considered a part of the experience.  Maybe they just want you to eat lots of the unlimited sopapillas. That must be it. 

Here are some pics of the Casa Bonita trip:

Vroom

 See how it says "EMILIA" on the poster?  Too bad can Emilia only find her name on Spanish posters and not on key chains and license plates....

Look, I found that same poster on Amazon.com for sale.  Wow.  (Now the question we naturally must ask is: Who would want a freaky-facial-hair-hombre who is losing pantalones and has an arm that  appears upon first glance to be to a very saggy different body part hanging on their wall?") 
 Btw, profugo means "fugitive" in case you wondered.

If you look really closely you can see yet ANOTHER girl with Soviet hair. This one was at Casa Bonita. Her tattoos went really nicely with her hair.  It was really tricky taking her picture without being too conspicuous.

After Casa Bonita I drove around to some of my old neighborhoods.  I lived in 5 houses in the Lakewood area (that I remember). I went to just the 2 where I lived the longest.  We were tired from eating all that "Mexican" food (and walking around the zoo all day) so we didn't want to drive around forever.  So, here's the house where I lived for 6 years: 

The pine tree is HUGE now, and the house looks so much smaller.

This was the next house where I lived during my Jr. High years. When I was looking at this house it reminded me of Dora the Explorer with her mushroom hair. ( My kids have completely ruined me forever.)

(Swiper NO swiping...)

After the driving around we had to take advantage of the malls and other shopping centers.  It has been a LONG time since I have set foot in a mall (sad but true) and I was shocked and quite sickened by some of the things that were for sale.  Granted, this was a "Claire's Boutique which markets mainly to teens and teeny boppers, but REALLY.  REALLY.  Who buys this stuff?  Really?  I personally haven't SEEN any people wearing fishnet neon gloves anywhere.  Maybe in Denver they do.  I do live a pretty sheltered life, far away from any good shopping centers.

I love her face on these!

Plastic pants anyone?

After a long day of animal watching, nasty food eating, Soviet hair photographing, top-hat headband wearing and dress buying we finally headed back to the S's house for dinner and some air-hockey.  Did I mention how awesome our hosts were? When we were there I wished I could go work in Dr. S's office again.  Those were some good times.

Adele's Dress

Yup, I made it.  And I plan to make a few more because it was so easy and I think it looks so cute on her.

"Shortcut"

I took Elise in for a haircut and Adele was being surprisingly cooperative and wanted a haircut too.  After we got home she kept walking around telling everyone that she had gotten a "shortcut" just like Elise.  During the cut she kept zoning in the chair.  I thought she was going to pass out.  I had to give her a "curiously strong" mint to keep her from falling asleep in the chair.  Hopefully she'll have the same reaction when we start taking her to the dentist. Somehow I doubt that.

Baby #5

I have always wondered what it would be like to have 5 kids.  I debated for the longest time about whether we should have 4 or 5 kids. I always knew it would be either 4 or 5, and I have had the hardest time knowing what to do.  Well, for the last 3 days I have experienced what it would be like to have baby #5.  I babysat my niece Jenna from Sunday afternoon through Wednesday afternoon. 

Just a little background:  Jenna had a bit of a rough start, but not as rough as her mom's.  My sister in law Michelle delivered Jenna via emergency c-section after experiencing an abrupted placenta at just 30 weeks.  To make a really long and painful story short, Michelle had a lot of complications, almost lost her life a few times and had a very long and difficult recovery.  Today, Michelle has recovered and she and my brother (An)drew have a beautiful and healthy baby girl.  Drew and Michelle attended a timeshare presentation and got a "free" trip (where there ended up being a bunch of hidden charges etc. but that is their story to blog about).  I offered to watch Jenna so they could have a baby-free vacation and they took me up on it.  Jenna is the cutest little thing and a VERY mellow and sweet baby.  We all had fun playing with her.   Despite the fun though, I really think that this just reminded me that 4 babies of my own is good.  I'll borrow babies every now and then because they are fun to play with but I think I am good with 4.... :)  I like being able to give them back.  Even the sweet ones.

Ian giving Jenna some love

 Adele actually did pretty well with Jenna.  The only thing that was different was that every time Jenna had a bottle of milk Adele insisted on having a drink of milk too.  I was hoping that when Adele saw that Jenna wore diapers she would be motivated to be a big girl and to to the bathroom in the toilet. No such luck. Go figure.  Don't you think that Jenna looks just like her Mama?  I love this picture!  Gorgeous pair!

(Michelle, I hope it's ok that I lifted a few pictures from your blog :)

"Giant Bum Bum"

Adele:  "Mom, you have a giant bum bum".
Me: "Oh really?  What about dad, does he have a giant bum bum?"
Adele:  "No, he doesn't have a bum bum."
Me:  "What about you?  Do you have a giant bum bum?"
Adele:  "No, I have a little bum bum.  But YOU have a GIANT bum bum.  Emilia has a big BIG bum bum."
Me:  "What kind of bum bum does Elise have?"
Adele:  "Elise has a teeny tiny bum bum.  Ian has a teeny tiny bum bum."
Me:  "Do I have a teeny tiny bum bum?"
Adele:  "No, you have a GIANT bum bum, and I have a giant bum bum."

As you can see we are constantly hearing about the sizes of our bums.  And the funny thing is that it changes quite a bit, except mine.  Mine is always a "giant bum bum".

The Treat Picnic

Ok, I know that I haven't finished my Denver trip blogging but honestly, it has kind of slowed me down with my other blogging stuff.  I have so many photos to edit and stuff to write that I have not wanted to blog about other stuff with that hanging over my head.  I think I am going to take a break from the trip and just update some other things we are up to and I'll get to the other stuff asap.

My kids decided they wanted a treat picnic one day after dinner.  I had taken them to the dollar store the day before and they loaded up on treats.  (Like mother, like kids right?) We spread out a blanket on the floor and they had:

gummy sharks

fruit snacks

potato chips

gobstoppers

bubble gum

root beer

Needless to say, it was the "best picnic ever"

Denver Trip Part 2: The Zoo

We had a busy day planned for first day in Denver.  The S's let us borrow a car and their GPS and after a delicious breakfast of oatmeal pancakes we set off for the zoo.  Thanks to the GPS we only made a couple of wrong turns (There was some tricky freeway driving and when we were almost there the GPS lady told us to turn the wrong way.) 

We saw some interesting stuff at the zoo.  I definitely noticed that we "weren't in Kansas" anymore and there were a lot of very interesting people.  Not that there aren't interesting people here in "Kansas" but I guess when you get a whole bunch of people together there just seem to be more unique individuals.  And it was "school field trip" day so there were about 3 thousand kids all wearing their identifiable t-shirts plus several hordes of show-off teenagers who were actually almost as fun to watch as the animals:  "Dude, when that huge turtle comes to the top of the water, touch it's head."   "Yeah, I am gonna do it."  Emilia and I stood there to see if he really would do it and if he was going to hand bitten off.  When the turtle came to the surface he changed his mind and decided NOT to stick his hand in there.  I am not sure if he had ever heard the term "snapping turtle" but this would not have been the turtle to test it out on.

The other thing I noticed, and maybe it was just because it was the zoo and the zoo mentality is all about endangered animals and saving the whales and don't choke the ducks with your plastic soda pop rings etc, but  I noticed that Denver is a very, very environmentally conscious place with lots of attempts at saving the planet and being green.  Even the litter tries to be "green".  The funny thing about this plastic cup is that all plastic cups are essentially made from the same things:  plants.  They just wanted to make people think their plastic cups were extra-cool and green.

K, here's another random story about people watching at the zoo.  I saw this girl.  She had some serious bangs.  She had what "someone-I-know-but-I-can't-say-who" would call Soviet bangs. How do I know this? Well, the day before my trip I decided that I needed to give myself a little bang trim.  I trimmed my bangs and added some hair to my bangs that was previously not bang-hair.  I didn't have a LOT of bangs, certainly not the kind of bangs from the early 80s that start 1/2 way back your head and hang down right by your ears.  I did have more bangs than before though, and I have to admit that I cut them a LITTLE bit shorter than I had planned (dang).  When the "someone-I-know-but-I-can't-say-who" saw my hair they were a little shocked and said that I looked like I had Soviet bangs, like the lady in the new Indiana Jones movie.  This of course made me self-conscious until I saw the girl at the zoo.  Now SHE had Soviet bangs and I HAD to get a picture of her to present to the "someone-I-know-but-I-can't-say-who".  So I had to nonchalantly try to take this girl's picture by trying to make it look like I was really taking pictures of the animals.  This one is all the evidence I need.  I do not have Soviet bangs.

Here are some more pics of our zoo adventures.

What you have ALL been waiting for: Denver Trip Part 1B

I was going to call this part 2 but I just didn't feel right about it. Part 1 should have really been part .5. Anyway, that is why this is only part 1B.

So, here's just some background before I officially get started. I was born just outside of Denver and lived there until I was about 3. My family moved to Sandy, Utah and lived there for about 3 years. When I was in 1st grade we moved to Lakewood Colorado. I lived there (in 4 different houses) for the next 10 years. After that the fam moved back to Utah, which is a whole 'nother story in itself, and should be saved for another day, maybe indefinitely. The last time I visited Denver was the summer of 1998. When I found out my friend Kari was getting married I knew that this would be the perfect opportunity to go back for a visit. Just a little background on Kari, we met when we were 6 years old and have been friends ever since. We had countless sleepovers, snuck out at night, attended seminary at 6 am, went to church dances, EFY and practically killed each other when we were learning how to drive. After we were "all grown up" we were roommates for a year at BYU. I love this girl!

I debated and debated about who to take on the trip and how we'd get there. In the end I decided it would be really fun to just go on a mom/daughter trip with Emilia and start a new tradition of a "ten year old trip" with our kids when they are 10. Emilia was obviously bouncing off the walls for a week before the trip. The day of the trip FINALLY came and we had a fun drive to the airport. We rocked out to a mix cd that Kent made for Emilia. When we got to the airport we had a little bit of difficulty finding the right parking lot because of some construction. We ended up taking several laps around the airport and then finally found the right parking lot. We took the shuttle to the check-in and that was the first exciting leg of the trip. Emilia was one excited kid the whole time. She was just grinning ear to ear. Security was the next fun adventure. There were lots of questions there: "Why can't you have water bottles? Why do I have to take off my shoes? What, I can't even have my juice box? r If you have metal staples in your body why doesn't it set off the metal detector? Can I ride through the x-ray machine?" My main question when we were going through security was : "Why would someone be crazy enough to wear 5 inch stilettos when travelling through airports. Not only are they very uncomfy to walk in but you become a hazard on escalators and moving walkways... (Just my observations).

So we got to the terminal and Emilia said our trip was the funnest one she had ever taken. And we hadn't even gone anywhere. We ate our lunch minus our juice boxes and boarded the plane. We had requested a window seat for her when we bought our tickets but she ended up in an aisle. We asked a guy (from WisKAnsin) to trade with her because it was her first time flying. He was nice and moved to the aisle. After almost taking out a few people putting my carry on bag in the overhead compartment we were off. Emilia was fascinated with everything. She asked for my camera and proceeded to take about 50 pictures of the inside of the plane, the view out the window, and me.

We landed without crashing (whew) and navigated through the airport to find my friend Kathi who was picking us up. I have to admit that I had never actually met Kathi in real life before. We are online friends from a forum we belong to and she lives in the Denver area. She was kind enough to come pick me up from the airport when we had never even met. We hung out together and she confessed that she actually had a felony record for being an ax murderer but she got off for good behavior after only 6 days. (Ok, in case you didn't get that it was a JOKE. She's not an ax murderer at all but a very nice gal, and mom of 2 cute kids.) Kathi and I chatted and I admired her home decor while Emilia navigated her way through a very tricky and seemingly pointless horse and Barbie Wii game. Oh, and I just have to mention that this Kathi is the ONE AND THE SAME who named my singing belly button Navelia. And just to get even with her I named her kneecap Patelletta. As far as I know though, Patelletta does not sing.

Kari, the bride, picked us up at Kathi and Patelletta's house and we drove to Ruby Tuesday to eat. We caught up on all the news and chatted about plans and what we have been doing with our lives. She caught me up on all the local gossip and I bored her with all my kid-stories. After dinner we drove through Lakewood where I used to live and lots of memories came back. She took me out to my old boss Brian S's house to stay. We visited with Brian (Dr. S) and Lila S., our gracious hosts, and went to bed.