Small Christmas

Christmas in Nevada this year was small! With seven children in Scott's family and six in mine, the idea of a "small Christmas" was like speaking in a foreign language. Luckily we had Gary's new Playstation 3 system to distract us. It was definitely the highlight of the weekend (along with blu-ray movies on the new HD TV).

One of the favorite games was an off-road racing game with unlimited lives and spectaular crashes. Here's a picture of Sherri playing it for the first time.

The reason for the face? Here are some of her spectacular crashes on the beautiful new TV.

Do you hear what I hear?

In honor of it being the week of Christmas, I would like to share some Christmas thoughts about a song I've gained a greater appreciation for. First, I would like to write all the words, and read it like a poem... try not to think of the melody as you read.

Said the night wind to the little lamb,
"Do you see what I see?
Way up in the sky, little lamb,
Do you see what I see?
A star, a star, dancing in the night
With a tail as big as a kite."

Said the little lamb to the shepherd boy,
"Do you hear what I hear?
Ringing through the sky, shepherd boy,
Do you hear what I hear?
A song, a song, high above the trees
With a voice as big as the seas."

Said the shepherd boy to the mighty king,
"Do you know what I know?
In your palace warm, mighty king,
Do you know what I know?
A child, A child, shivers in the cold
Let us bring him silver and gold."

Said the king to the people everywhere,
"Listen to what I say.
Pray for peace, people everywhere.
Listen to what I say.
The child, the child, sleeping in the night
He will bring us goodness and light."

My first thoughts have to do with the voice. The name of the song is "Do you hear what I hear" after all. The night wind is what had the voice, and it was telling of the star with a voice as big as the seas. Perhaps we can assume this amazingly large voice was an angel, appearing to the shepherd to tell him of the birth of Christ.

My second thought is about the bravery of the shepherd boy. Can you imagine having the responsibility to tell the king about this amazing vision and newly gained knowledge you've received from an angel? How very brave.

But my final thought is for the king. He must have been a very humble and righteous king to know the truth of the words of the shepherd, and especially to know that this child, Christ, would bring goodness and light. We have no record of such a king at the time of Christ. But we do know that the wise men were led by the star from the beginning of the song. Maybe this song is a little window into the nation that one of the wise men came from. It's kind of fun to think of other prophets and kingdoms that we have no record of, but we know existed.

Of skunks, schools, and stilettos

We arrived in Nevada on Friday and guess who came out to greet us? Pepe Le Pew! (We think he's in love with T.J., Alisha's cat, who is black and white, after all.) Gary and Scott tried all sorts of fun things to try and get him out of the garage without being invasive, but this skunk was very small and could squeeze into another smaller, more secluded place. At last we looked on the internet and discovered that skunks don't like the smell of ammonia. Go figure. They don't seem to mind their own smell, but their touchy little noses can be picky about others. So we put out a bowl of ammonia with a rag in it (to help perpetuate evaporation) a couple feet away from his hiding place, and he was gone by morning. And he didn't leave any offending smell aside from the residual ammonia.

On another note, Scott got me my first pair of stiletto heels ever for my birthday this year! It took me a few days to be able to walk in them without the constant feeling that someone was trying to trip me. Now that I'm more used to them, I feel like I have attractive feet and I'm fashionable all at the same time. (For those of you with normal sized feet, when you wear a size 11 shoe, it's quite an occasion to find fashionable and attractive shoes that fit.)

Tomorrow is another big day for Scott with an interview in Reno. Please keep him in your thoughts and prayers!

Eleven Puppies!

Our landlords have a black lab whom we love and play with whenever we can. Just before Thanksgiving she gave birth to eleven puppies! Unfortunately, since they don't know what kind of dog the father was, they don't feel right about selling them legitimately. So what do you do with eleven puppies? Well, you take their pictures, of course!

I love how their faces are all scrunched up and wrinkled.

They just started opening their eyes. You can see their eyes are still foggy so they probably can't see much yet.

Most of them are dark brown/black with a little white on their tummies. Some have white noses and white feet, too.

Can you find all eleven?

Viva, Las Legas, Baby!

Do you like my allusion to your blog, Amy?

Here Britta and I are in Sin City, Nevada (actually, Henderson) in a nice hotel room. I was really quite scared at what I was going to get for my price range here. (I read some reviews of hotels around here and the customers talked about prostitutes, dirty and dingy run-down rooms, and I just wasn't looking forward to it.) Anyhow, we got into a Holiday Inn Express. And I paid significantly less than I was afraid I would have to. Thank you Priceline!

We are here because I am interviewing for medical school at Touro University, an osteopathic school. This is a relatively young school, a subsidary of the Touro University system based out of New York, with another campus in California, which is one of the top-rated schools (the California one) for primary care medicine in the US. I figure that if they ask me why I want to be a doctor on Monday, I could tell them that I feel like I can do anything, because "I did stay at a Holiday Inn Express last night." I wonder if that will work.

On the drive here Britta and I were thinking of what ridiculous, middle-school level nickname we would be given by the paparazzi if we were a celebrity couple. . . you know, like TomKat, Bennifer, or Brangelina. . . (thank goodness we aren't celebrities at all, who could really live with a monniker like that?) After tossing around a couple, and thinking of some for our siblings, we came up with one we liked. From now on, you may call us "the U.K." (see if you can figure it out). "Your Majesties" would be fine, too, afterall, we did stay at a Holiday Inn Express.

Thanksgiving entertainment

We came back to Vernal for Thanksgiving this year. I think I discovered why Scott wanted to come.

And so it begins...

On Sunday night Scott and I invited some friends over and we decorated this gingerbread house. Yea, yea, I know it isn't even Thanksgiving yet, but we couldn't resist. We've had the gingerbread house kit sitting on our shelf for a month already, begging us to take it out. It was lots of fun. Next comes the Christmas tree!

Soccer Mom (or hockey, or dance, or gymnastics)

This week Marcus is having a special hockey training camp. He has had two hours of hockey scheduled every night so far this week. That's a lot of hockey! (especially when you're seven.) Have any of you ever had to put on or wear all the equipment for ice hockey? I think I stuck out like a sore thumb amid all the hockey moms and dads. Imagine a woman trying to piece together at least sixteen pieces of uniform that she's never seen before onto a seven-year-old boy (who becomes increasingly immoble during the process), during which a two year old boy takes every opportunity to climb up her back to her shoulders when she squats down, and a five year old girl aimlessly waves the hockey stick nearby, occasionally hitting the nine year old girl who is trying to ignore the whole situation and trying to take charge of it at the same time. It makes me laugh just to think of it! I'm surprised more people didn't just laugh out right when they saw us.

These kids are busy kids! There's not just hockey, but dance, gymnastics, piano, violin, play groups, library storytimes... and it's just wednesday! Today (after violin, but before hockey) we had a little window of time so we went to the park.

Do you remember loving tire swings? I had totally forgotten what a rush it was to play on a tire swing. I didn't play on one tonight, but watching the kids reminded me of how coveted those tire swings were in my elementary school.

Alas, tomorrow marks the end of my week with the kids. It has been fun and busy, but I miss Scott and I am ready to sleep in my own bed again.

"I'm bored... I'm hungry"

Lyndee is five. She can eat three times her weight in food. In one sitting. Five minutes later she comes to me,
"I'm hungry."
I tell her she's not really hungry because she just ate.
"I'm bored."
What do you normally do during the day for fun?
"I don't know. I'm bored"
I've tried playing dollies with her, playing games, coloring, doing crafts, going for walks. Whatever we do, two minutes later,
"I'm bored."
For the time being, she's playing with her little brother, and that is working... for now.

Happy pre-turkey day!

p.s. I learned while making these turkeys with the kids, that the red fleshy part that hangs below a turkey's beak is called a wattle. The red fleshy part that drapes over the top of the beak is called a snood. These are always words that escape me.

Mother-o-matic 5000

Today I became a single mother of four. Don't worry, I didn't have instant quadruplets, and Scott is still alive and well. I'm watching my sister's children for a week while she and her husband are on vacation. Within the first hour of my having all four kids, the nine year old changed out of her conservative school clothes into an eentsy weentsy tank top and invited a friend over for a "dance party" (thus the miniature clothing), the five year old felt left out so she invited a friend, too, and the two-year-old-in-potty-training had a stinky, squishy mess in his underpants. It was a great initiation.

After the first hour, things ran smoothly... if you ignore the second accident in Mr. Potty Training's underpants, and ignore the burnt pizza and the smoke alarm. Oh, boy! This is going to be a fun week. Aren't you all jealous of me?

This is Bryson telling me just how big he wants his cookie to be for lunch.

The witch and the philosopher

For Halloween we were invited to a party on the farm.

Here the DJ, who was Klingon, taught us the electric slide. A Klingon who can dance? Who knew!

Here is our host, the good doctor. It was fun to see him let his hair down.

Happy Halloween!

Riding the bus everyday to and from work/school I get a chance to meet some great people and get to know them fairly well. One of my bus friends is named Chris. We are often dressed in a suit and tie on the same day (Thurs), but for different reasons. He is a Jehovah's Witness and proselytizes on Thursdays, and I work at the MTC and often have presentations there about missionary work on Thursdays. Sometimes I see the strategically placed (really, "left behind") Awake! or WatchTower magazines on the seats of the bus which virtually everyone avoids acknowledging, and know its been Chris' warm-up for his own work. He really is a great guy and is very friendly (maybe overly so), knows everyone's name and has a disarming laugh.

Anyhow, twice in the past week I have mistakenly, and honestly, asked him about his Halloween plans or about holidays. I know that the Jehova's witnesses do not celebrate the holidays, but for some reason I completely blanked these two times, which, actually, I think is pretty funny.

The previous story has no point.

I love Halloween. Candy candy candy.

I came across this video today. I love it. So, for all you "Chris-es" out there (and for anyone with a good sense of humor) I give you this holiday offering. Enjoy!
http://www.vimeo.com/clip:113868

Dream, Dream, Dream

The other night when we were at volleyball, I got hit in the head four, yes four, times. It was a riot, especially because the first and hardest hit was from Scott (it left a little red welt on my forehead for a few minutes). Anyway, that night as we were falling asleep, my cuddling was interrupted by Scott's whole body jerking, resulting in his head propped up completely perpendicular to his body, eyes open. I grumbled at being so rudely startled, and he started laughing. He had dreamt that I had hit a volleyball at his head! We both had a good laugh at that.

This is not the first time I have been interrupted from my sleep by his dreams. About a year after we got married, we were sleeping and his arm was draped across my shoulders and chest, and he started pushing down on my collarbone. It was a little uncomfortable. So I reached under his arm and started pushing it up away from me, but he just pushed harder, and he is much stronger than me. It got to the point where I was a little nervous cause my breathing was almost affected. Then he said (which is now a classic line), "You're not getting away this time, Mr. Jackson!" I said, "Scott" rather louder than I needed to, but it woke him up. He just mumbled, "oh, I thought you were Michael Jackson and I was arresting you" then rolled over and went back to sleep. Good times.

It's beginning to smell a lot like Christmas

When I was a teenager I had friends who loved candles. They loved incense and smelly lotions and anything that would permeate a room with an asphyxiating aroma. I was never a smelly lotion kind of girl, and although I would use and smell their lotions and agree that they smelt good, in the back of my mind I really thought they all smelled the same. In fact, I would privately roll my eyes and think that smelly candles were kind of juvenile.

I don't know if my olfactory receptors have changed, or if candle companies have gotten better, but I repent of my old ways. I love having a good smelling house! Candles, lotions, and especially oils have such a great variety of smells, it's great! True, a lot of them I still don't like, and a lot of them still smell similar to me. But a relatively new passion of mine is to match a scent to a season. I got a new Wallflower plug-in that is Christmas Spice scent. It's a mixture of cinnamon, a little clove and other spices. Everytime I smell it, it just makes me happy!

Crazy Britta

Here is an illustration I finished last week for the Liahona magazine. It will be published in March. Because I'm still new to working with a deadline, this illustration caused me a little bit of panic. There were times when I just wanted to throw the whole thing across the room, and times when I almost vowed never to paint again. But now that it's all done and handed in, I'm looking forward to my next commission. Crazy!

Half the time I feel like I don't know what I'm doing. Wouldn't it be nice to just know how to do everything, and to be able to improve talents just by wanting to?

Spring Gardening

When I was invited to plant spring bulbs in the reception center gardens, I imagined myself in a wide straw hat with a charming bandanna wrapped around it to keep me in the shade as I dutifully dug holes in the soil, making friends with the worms and potato bugs. Even though I was planting bulbs for spring, the beauty of the fall flowers already in full blossom would be my backdrop providing a sea of warm reds, yellows, and oranges. Perhaps I would sing an aria of Mozart's as birds and squirrels eagerly rushed to be by my side.

Unfortunately, I don't own a straw hat with a wide brim. Yesterday while planting what I'm sure will be beautiful tulips and daffodils, the temperature was around 45 degrees and it was pouring rain for the first two hours of gardening. I was amazed that I could still use my hands when each finger was an inch wider in circumference due to mud caked on my gloves. And that sea of fall colors as my backdrop had to be uprooted to make room for the new bulbs, so it was more like a pile of dirty greens, browns, and mud. Notwithstanding the adverse weather, I had a surprisingly delightful time gardening. I envy those of you who have your own yards and gardens. Someday...

Woo Hoo!

BYU 31
TCU 17

Volley-fall

Each Thursday night is stake volleyball night. Our ward has a co-ed team for the stake league, but that is debatable since we haven't had enough bodies out to have a full team yet. I don't know how you would credit a win/loss when both teams don't have enough players to have a team, but oh well.
Britta and I have been to a couple of our scheduled games just to mix with another ward and play an unofficial game. It has been a lot of fun, so far, plus, I've been able to stick around another hour afterward to play some basketball. Honestly, that's about 80% of the reason I go.
This last Thursday Britta and I joined some others for volleyball and everything was great. I think that the best quote of the night was Britta, when asked if she could set, said "I'll try not to suck." She didn't! She played very well.
I think that my volleyball career is now in question, however. While playing the net, I jumped to block and came down on the opponents' foot, and sprained my ankle!!!
Luckily, Brett and Sarah had some crutches and a walking brace, which has been a lifesaver. Now, if I can just get better, but sprains never heal quite as fast as I wish they would.

Sweet sound of middle C

After three wonderful years of marriage, Scott and I looked back and felt that something was missing. Both of us being musically inclined felt lost without a piano... so we got one! Scott found a posting in the newspaper selling a used digital piano for really cheap. We went to check it out and found it to be all that we wanted and in great working condition. Of course, it had little quirks, but nothing we were bothered by. So, we borrowed a truck, packed it up and brought it home. We carefully maneuvered it into our apartment and eagerly plugged it in...

Boom! was the only sound we heard as we switched on the power. None of the keys worked. None of the buttons worked. None of the plugs were loose. Scott unscrewed the top and started experimental surgery on the motherboard, plugging and unplugging. I got nervous and couldn't watch, so I left. An hour and a half later, he had no success. We both went to bed heartbroken and had restless dreams of broken pianos. The next morning Scott woke up and went straight to the piano and started tapping middle C. Then he turned on the power... "Ding, ding, ding, ding... " Middle C was sounding through the apartment as the sweetest wake up call I've ever heard.

We're not sure why or how the piano started working again, but it has quickly become the most cherished possession in our apartment, played on multiple times a day by either or both of us.

I CAN contribute to something

I am a closet poet. So I suppose you can consider this a coming out party. . .

Darn It

I really hate it when you're wet,
thin, and stretched, and unable
to stand,
but falling 'round my ankle.
Holy?
No, I wish you weren't
But fat. And Taut
And full of clout
I'll put my foot into your mouth.

I have three other poems posted on www.poetry.com, (Superfluous, untitled, To One Apart)
This is one of my favorites, though.

See, I can contribute to something, even if it is my own [wife's] blog.

the end.

Home again, home again

While in Minnesota we celebrated the first birthday of one of my nieces. I was asked to make the cake, and I jumped at the opportunity cause I love cooking and being creative.

My mom thought it was so beautiful no one would want to eat it. Well, it turned out that the shortening in her kitchen that I used to make the frosting was rancid, so we ended up throwing away all the leftovers anyway. At least my niece got to keep the doll.

A big chunk of our time in Minnesota was spent on the north shore of Lake Superior. We camped and hiked and wandered a little in Duluth, a city that I love. The trees were just starting to color at the tips of the leaves. The temperature was perfect. The clouds were light and cool during our day hike, but fluffy and sparse while we were hanging out at the campsite. Over all it was a satisfying trip.

On our hike we were the furthest north that Scott has ever been.

The group that went on the day hike was a smattering of my immediate and extended family. My dad, on the left, was our fearless guide on this seven mile stretch of the Superior Hiking Trail. Doesn't he look the part?

Minnesota State Fair

Today Scott and I went to the great Minnesota get together. I love the Minnesota State fair! I don't know if it's the crowds with endless people watching potential, the 27 different foods on a stick (this year the new one was "hot dish on a stick", hot dish is Minnesotan for casserole), or the smorgasborg of smells mixed together of fried food, autumn air, garbage, and farm animals. All of it is nostalgic to me.

One of the sights to see is the butter sculptures of Princess Kay of the Milky Way and her royal attendants. Each day a new bust is sculpted right there in front of everyone. Maybe they're a little creepy, but it's tradition. Plus, what beauty queen from a dairy farm wouldn't want a butter head of herself in her freezer?

Another tradition is to buy a bucket of fresh made cookies and bring them to the all you can drink milk stand, which is fresh, frothy milk, and have a cookie feast.

It's not a complete day unless at the end of it your feet are sore and your clothes fit a little tighter.

Ah, Minnesota...

Playing in Lake water is so much fun, especially when the entire lake ends up in your diaper, sand and all. The diaper on my niece Sofia got so big it looked like a watermelon lumbering between her legs. It was amazing she could keep walking since her balance was precarious to begin with. Being at the lake is so wonderful and relaxing. With nieces and nephews, it's a blast!

I'm looking forward to Wednesday when Scott will come. Vacations are much better with husbands.

And you thought your laptop was small

Scott got a cool new toy from work.

It's about the size of a piece of paper. It's so small that it won't even fit a disk drive. Scott has to attach a separate media base if he wants to use a CD or DVD. He's having a lot of fun with it.

From out of the stone age...

We finally emerge into the Peterson blogging scene.

Yay! This is fun to play with! I can see how it can become addicting to post things and keep the world informed of all that goes on.

This is a painting that is the first in a series I'm doing about the symbolism in the Chronicles of Narnia. For those of you who have read or seen the movie, the figure of Aslan is obviously symbolic of Christ. This painting is called "Good and Terrible." Here are some quotes that were inspirational to this painting:

"When they tried to look at Aslan's face they just caught a glimpse of the golden mane and the great, royal, solemn, overwhelming eyes; and then they found they couldn't look at him and went all trembly."

"His hair was like pure gold and the brightness of his eyes like gold that is liquid in the furnace.... and in beauty he surpassed all that is in the world even as the rose in bloom surpasses the dust of the desert."