My Girls

Girls Camp was at the end of June and I was able to go for a couple days.  My Young Women are crazy!  They have a ward tradition of "ragging" their hair. You could always find them in the crowd because of the colorful tiny rags spiking out of their tightly wound hair.  About half of the girls tied their hair in rags the night before camp, then took them out on the last day (see end pictures).

The Stake really outdid themselves.  I remember when I was a young woman our stake did some elaborate events and firesides, but nothing compared to this:
They made the biggest structure at camp, a two walled pavilion, look like the Kirtland temple with white sheets and cut fabric to look like windows, complete with a steeple!
This was pretty amazing, too.  It was a precise historical replica of the tabernacle from the old testament.  They had the outer court with it's altar and washing table, the inner court complete with finely woven material, altar, and shewbread, and two sisters dressed in white dresses guarding the holy of holies (which we couldn't see, exactly, but they had a light behind the ark of the covenant so you could see it's silhouette through the veil).  It was amazing.  It was all part of a temple fireside where the girls walked around each station and learned about the history of temples and the restoration of the church.

On the last day of camp the girls took out their rags and afro-ed their hair.  I guess it's a ward tradition!  It was pretty fun.  Some of the hairdos got pretty big!

Oh give me a Home

Scott and I are in Missouri and yesterday we signed a contract for a house!  This will be our new house come July.  It's very cute, but small, 2 bedrooms, 1 bathroom, but has a nice fenced yard.

Personal Accomplishment

Last month I was able to hold fully inverted poses in yoga for the first time!  The picture is my elbow stand.  This is a very exciting accomplishment for me.

Spring!

After a fairly crazy winter-spring transition here in Utah Valley weather-wise, we were finally able to enjoy a few days in a row of beautiful weather. Britta and I took advantage and spent some time this weekend at Thanksgiving Point Gardens and Temple Square. We have a ton of pictures, and here are a few.

Woo Hoo! It's flip flop weather!

Kite Chronicle

So, Scott got a kite last weekend and was totally excited to fly it.  We flew it on Saturday in between conferences, and again on Sunday.  Neither day was the weather very cooperative, but we had fun anyway.  Then on Sunday afternoon it crash landed and a rod in the frame snapped!  So sad!

I love this picture.  Sherri had just told Livie to smile for the camera, and Livie painstakingly made this face as her "smile."  It was so funny!  Later she gave me this face-scrunching, teeth-baring smile:

I love it!

Glimpse

There was a moment this week while I was at work, my iTunes were on and a Disney song was playing. As often happens at work, I realized I was singing along softly under my breath. As I noticed this, I also noticed that my two employees, a 19 year-old man and a 22 year-old woman, had turned off their iPods and were singing along with me to the Little Mermaid while they were doing their work. It made me smile.

Easter Dinner

Scott and I hosted Easter dinner this year and it was lots of fun. It's been a long time since I've been able to decorate a table for a special holiday, which is one of my favorite things about holidays. Another thing of note is that we got a new camera! Unfortunately we forgot to break it out when we actually had people at our house. But Scott took lovely pictures of the table setting, don't you think?

Today is the big day!

I'm nervous. Today I am going under the knife (laser). I don't know how many times I have researched and asked and even dreamed about this time (I did dream about three separate dreams last night), but now that it is actually happening today I am nervous. Laser-assisted in situ keratomileusis (this is where I sniff precociously and push my glasses up my nose for the last time and hope nobody asks why its not called "LAISK" instead) has been a dream of mine ever since I first heard about it in high school. Actually, I first heard of RK, but that scares me far more, and I am glad that that is "so 80s" now. I'll give you more details about the procedure afterwards, if you want to know. I just realized that from now on I won't have the convenience of a mild-mannered, bespectacled alter-ego. I will have to assume my Super form 24-7, now. Britta, I hope you can handle that.

Farewell for now.

Its been nice knowing you.

Killer Bunnies and Irish Corpses

This past weekend Jeff and Nettie came to town to seal Calvin. It was beautiful, and lots of fun to have so much family in town. Unfortunately, I forgot my camera. But I did meet one of Nettie's sisters, Kelli, who knew me because I was the one with decoration crazy neighbors. In honor of that, I decided y'all needed an update:

They should put these back up for Halloween, especially if they want to scare away all the trick-or-treaters.

Happy Leap Day!

Here are some more scrapbook layouts I've recently done. These were all done for work at last minutes' notice, so they're not as thoughtful as the previous ones. Anyway, enjoy!

Snow Fun

Scott and I are watching my sister's children for a week while she is in Mexico. So while she's enjoying hot sun and warm beaches and sunburn, we decided to enjoy what we had and play in the snow. Uintah basin has definitely had it's share of snow! There are piles and piles of it to sled on...
...and eat.


Some favorite quotes of the week:

Said by Kaelan (age 10) to Scott just tonight while Scott was cleaning up after dinner: "You can fix the internet but you can't turn on a vacuum?"

Bryson (age 3): "Do you want a friendly alien?" but which sounded like "d'yoo wanuh fwendwy aweean?" (It took Scott three or four attempts to figure out what he was asking, with Bryson's anger rising each time Scott didn't understand what was so painfully clear to Bryson.) Then Bryson went on to "show off" his friendly (imaginary) alien that was walking beside him.

Bryson: "When I grow up, I want to be arithmatic." Britta: "a what?" Bryson: "Arithmatic, you know, and do magic." Britta: "Oh, a magician" Bryson: "that's what I said!"

What do YOU do on Sunday Afternoons?

Hobbies

Britta and I have been saving old jeans since we've been married in the idea for making a quilt. Our Freshman year of college Britta made me a blue jean quilt for Christmas, and it has remained my favorite blanket ever since. Once our collection of old jeans reached critical mass, Britta started on another. (Thanks to mom for lending us her sewing machine for this project.) Two and a half weeks, several pin pricks, and thread bobbins later, we have a new, multi-toned, super jean quilt, bigger and heavier than the previous. Britta made it large enough for both of us to fit under it comfortably, and so it is about 86"X72". We love it already. Thank you Britta!


With only a few months of normal life left before school starts again for me, I decided I would like to pick up a hobby. (I also think that this is spurred on by my day off when I don't have anything to do and my tendency to become awfully stir-crazy.) I have always had a dream of doing wood working, even furniture building, and having my own shop. This dream is quite impracticable now, or even in the near future, so I decided to start small. In south Provo on State Street is a woodcarving shop called Treeline, and visiting the store made me feel like a child in a candy shop. I picked out a couple of tools and a pattern for a wood chain and some wood blocks and so I'm off on a new hobby. I'll keep you updated on my progress and future projects, at least until time runs out for me.

Cancelled!

We awoke this morning to a snow storm. By about 8:30 four or five inches had acumulated. After spending the better part of two hours trying to keep the walks clear at the stake center, and another three inches adding up, church was cancelled. This is the first time in my living memory that church had been cancelled. So, instead of spending the time in church, I began to reread "Standing for Something," by President Gordon B. Hinckley. What a great book. Much of what was written seems especially insightful and prescient now, just as it did eight years ago when first published. The world seems to be such a different place than it was then.
On another note, Britta has spent a god deal of her time making a new quilt for us. . . pictures to follow. I won't say any more so I don't spoil her presentation party.

Happy February!

While I was in paper craft mode, I thought I'd share some Valentine card ideas I made for work. Happy Early Valentine's Day!

Scrapin' Gal

After working for over 9 months at a company that designs things for scrapbookers, I decided I should try my hand at scrapbooking. These are literally the first four attempts I have made at serious scrapbooking. I have so many ideas now to do so much more! I'm excited. I'm also a little crazy cause I don't have much time to add another hobby to my to do list...

p.s. Thank you to Nettie and Sarah for letting me use your blogs as a resource for my scrapbooking!

Three cheers for snow!

hip hip HORRAY

hip hip HORRAY

Since I've lived in Utah (for over 8 years now) I've never had a winter as wonderful and snowy as this one! It's snowed at least once a week since the beginning of December! What makes it even more wonderful? That means we haven't had a single inversion in the valley! And for that, I jump up and down and shout

hip hip HORRAY!!!

Napkin Heaven

Merry Christmas to me! I love folding napkins. It's a hobby I picked up when I was really young, living at my parent's house, decorating for special family dinners (like Christmas). When I got married I got a linen set with four orange, green, and yellow large plaid patterned napkins. It was a strange pattern and none of the napkins were quite square. So for the past 4 1/2 years I've made do with folding misshapen or paper napkins. For Christmas my sister gave me all the above napkins! I'm in napkin-folding heaven! Now I just need to get my starch out...

I love my sisters

Minnesota December 2, 2007
First time we were all together in 1 1/2 years.

O Christmas Tree

Here is our blurry Christmas tree (sorry, its the best picture of it we've got). We got a screaming deal at Target for this artificial tree and the much of the decorations ( I think all of them, actually). I like it, though it is a skinny-triangle-tree. We would like to see pictures of everyone's trees if you don't mind posting them.

Scott's Random Featured Quote

"I want to punch this cardboard box because I'm a boy."

Happy Thanksgiving!

Who says people are ignoring Thanksgiving to decorate for Christmas? They should meet our neighbors. Here's a taste: monster turkeys, pilgrims, yellow and orange lights all over...

Can you see Mr. Pilgrim winking in this one? I couldn't get a good shot of Mrs. Pilgrim from the street. These manekins are decorated differently for every holiday: zombies, pilgrims, Mr. & Mrs. Clause, lovers (for Valentine's Day). Scott refers to them as the corpses.

Vindicated

BYU 27

TCU 22

Last night Scott and I got to go to the BYU vs. TCU game (Happy Birthday to Scott! Thanks, Gary and Sherri). It was awesome! I know this is a little ridiculous, but I still felt bitter from the fall 2005 game at BYU and this win has finally quenched that. I felt like TCU joined the MWC just because they thought they would have easy wins and get a better ranking. Then that first season, 2005, they were overrated and set up to win the Conference title (ugh). When we played them (I was there) BYU looked clearly like the better team, but because of two major bad calls, in overtime TCU won 51 to 50. We were robbed! But now, two years later and with two wins over TCU (including last year @ TCU) I finally feel vindicated.