Firework Fun!

We had a very nice low key Fourth of July. Some friends invited us over to share in their fireworks. That was happy for us, since we never got around to buying any ourselves. Diana, Marion and I spent about 5 hours working on a painting job in the afternoon. Jared has been sick this whole week with the flu and a strained muscle. I was impressed with the pictures my camera could take on the night setting.Patriotic Gal.
Look at my sprakler.
Here is a cat sitting on top of my car watching the festivities.
All the kids with their sparklers.

Hey look it is firework Mickey!

Happy Fourth of July!

This put a smile on my face.

New Preamble to the Constitution

This is probably the best e-mail I've seen in a long, long time and so I thought I would post it here.

The following has been attributed to State Representative Mitchell Kaye fromGA. This guy should run for President one day...

"We the sensible people of the United States, in an attempt to help everyone get along, restore some semblance of justice, avoid more riots, keep our nation safe, promote positive behavior, and secure the blessings of debt-free liberty to ourselves and our great-great-great-grandchildren, hereby try one more time to ordain and establish some common sense guidelines for the terminally whiny, guiltridden, delusional, and other bed-wetters. We hold these truths to be self evident: that a whole lot of people are confused by the Billof Rights and are so dim they require a Bill of NON-Rights."

ARTICLE I: You do not have the right to a new car, big screen TV, or any other form of wealth. More power to you if you can legally acquire them, but no one is guaranteeing anything.

ARTICLE II: You do not have the right to never be offended. This country is based on freedom, and that means freedom for everyone -- not just you! You may leave the room, turn the channel, express a different opinion, etc.; but the world is full of idiots, and probably always will be.

ARTICLE III: You do not have the right to be free from harm. If you stick a screwdriver in your eye, learn to be more careful; do not expect the tool manufacturer to make you and all your relatives independently wealthy.

ARTICLE IV: You do not have the right to free food and housing. Americans are the most charitable people to be found, and will gladly help anyone in need, but we are quickly growing weary of subsidizing generation after generation of professional couch potatoes who achieve nothing more than the creation of another generation of professional couch potatoes. (This one is my pet peeves...get an education and go to work....don't expect everyone else to take care of you!)

ARTICLE V: You do not have the right to free health care. That would be nice, but from the looks of public housing, we're just not interested in public health care..

ARTICLE VI: You do not have the right to physically harm other people. If you kidnap, rape, intentionally maim, or kill someone, don't be surprised if the rest of us want to see you fry in the electric chair.

ARTICLE VII: You do not have the right to the possessions of others. If you rob, cheat, or coerce away the goods or services of other citizens, don't be surprised if the rest of us get together and lock you away in a place where you still won't have the right to a big screen color TV or a life of leisure.

ARTICLE VIII: You do not have the right to a job.. All of us sure want you to have a job, and will gladly help you along in hard times, but we expect you to take advantage of the opportunities of education and vocational training laid before you to make yourself useful. (AMEN!)

ARTICLE IX: You do not have the right to happiness. Being an American means that you have the right to PURSUE happiness, which by the way, is a lot easier if you are unencumbered by an over abundance of idiotic laws created by those of you who were confused by the Bill of Rights.

ARTICLE X: This is an English speaking country. We don't care where you are from, English is our language. Learn it or go back to wherever you came from! (Lastly....)

ARTICLE XI: You do not have the right to change our country's history or heritage. This country was founded on the belief in one true God. And yet, you are given the freedom to believe in any religion, any faith, or no faith at all; with no fear of persecution. The phrase IN GOD WE TRUST is part of our heritage and history, and if you are uncomfortable with it, TOUGH!!!! GET OVER IT !!!

If you agree, share this with a friend. No, you don't have to, and nothing tragic will befall you if you don't. I just think it's about time common sense is allowed to flourish. Sensible people of the United States speak out because if you do not , you know who will?

Good Bye June!

So June has come and gone. I am happy to report that it was a nice relaxing month for me. Hence my time to post 42 times. I don't know if the rest of the summer will be that way. Diana is participating in a choir camp that is three times a week for the month of July. And we are leaving to go to Seattle in just two weeks so she will only go to the first half of it.
With the passing of June, that means that half the year has gone by. Are we all half way done with our New Year resolutions? No me neither. Maybe I should be optimistic and look at it as not half gone, but half left to get things done.

Lemonade sells better than random junk

Some friends of mine had a yard sale today. I decided to take a bunch of the stuff in my garage over and add it to their stuff. I have been needing to get rid of all this junk for a long time.
As I was loading my car, a rather remarkable thing happened. While picking up one of the bags of clothes, I noticed some ear phones. I was shocked beyond belief to pull my old mp3 player up from the ground. Apparently what happened, was that I dropped it as I walked into the house from my car way back in April. Because it landed on the bag of clothes, it didn't make any noise when it fell. Hallelujah! It seems like a miracle, and Diana found her old glasses yesterday as well. So I think the Bermuda triangle in my house has yielded up all its treasures. How will I fill my days, without something to look for? I was sure the mp3 player was gone for good, which is why I finally gave in and bought a new bigger, more expensive one. Sheesh.
As least I know that no one at the school stole it, which I really found hard to believe. So now I have two mp3 players. That will be good because then I can have one as a back up if I ever loose one again.In the mean time I was able to get a ton of junk out of my garage. Now we can open the doors to the car without hitting something. Here is Diana showing off our merchandise, a la Vanna White.It really was ridiculous how much stuff I had. I probably could have just stayed at my own house, but it was much more fun to have friends to hang out with. And I benefited from the fact that they chose the date and advertised it, so I could coast on their coattails. I really needed that because I have wanted to hold a yard sale for a long time, but the sun and moon never aligned to make it happen. Oh and the hamster wheel never stopped long enough either.
One of my favorite sayings is that "One man's trash, is another man's treasure". I really do tend to treasure other people's junk. This may be a remnant of my custodial days at BYU. People really do throw away useful things. And don't you just love that about yard sales, that people will come to you house, pay you money, and haul your trash away. What's not to love about that. Oh, maybe the fact that I only sold about $9 worth of stuff. And $2 of that were Diana's barbies, so she got that money. It was probably too hot for most people, and so we really didn't have very many customers. When it was done, I put everything back in my car and took it over to the DI trailer at the stake center. Good riddance and oh, well for not earning more mullah. For me cleaning out my garage and finding my mp3 player were reward enough. As an added bonus, finding that player, seems to have restored some of my sanity, because I really thought I had lost my mind. Of course I will never get back the hours of my life I have wasted looking for it.
Diana and her friend Jared ran a lemonade stand. They had more customers than we did, as some people stopped to buy lemonade and didn't even come to our yard sale. These two were ecstatic about their profits. At some point Diana came up with the idea that they could offer a free gift from the yard sale with every purchase. She also was very good at announcing to everyone that they were selling lemonade. These two young entrepreneurs made almost $8 together. So with Diana's profit from barbies she came home with more cash than I did.
All in all it was a very successful day. Like my friend said, there is something very freeing about getting rid of stuff you don't want or need. It almost makes you breathe easier. So hooray for clean sweeping. Well, I still have more to get rid of from the garage, but this was a good start.

Singing in Space

Star Wars at the Opera

Diana found this and I thought you all might enjoy it. Phantom meets star wars, good stuff.

Napa Cabbage Salad

This is a really yummy summer dinner. I got this recipe from some friends that we went camping with while we were still at BYU. We were hiking at Arches on Memorial Day weekend. When these friends whipped this out of their cooler and offered to share, I fell in love with this. Nothing better on a hot day. This has Napa cabbage in it, which is a long head, that has curly leaves on it. Here is a picture of it, after it has been sliced up.

1 head of Napa cabbage, sliced the round way, into bite size pieces

3 chicken breasts, or a can of chicken (I have only made this with canned)

1 pkg chicken flavor ramen noodles

1 Tbsp sesame seeds

2 oz sliced almonds

3 diced green onions

Combine all ingredients in a bowl, and top with dressing. Serve in pita pockets.

Dressing:

1 Tbsp sugar

1/2 c. oil

1/2 tsp. salt

1/2 tsp pepper

2 Tbsp vinegar

flavor packet from noodles

This is a great recipe for picnics. You can make it ahead, but since it has no mayonnaise, it will keep well. Hope you enjoy it.

Muffinhead

Here is our friend Andrew. His three year old sister, Abby was kind enough to put these pajama bottoms on his head. Perhaps she was helping him get dressed. When we all laughed, he was pretty proud of himself. Pretty handsome kid, huh? This picture is compliments of Diana.

Something you don't see every day in Vegas..

a pile of ice in a parking lot. This is what we saw when we picked Jared up from ice skating. It was so strange, when you got close to it, you were actually cold, even though it was 100 degrees in the air. Very unexpected.

Temple Trip

Yesterday I went with the youth to do baptisms at the temple. Due to vacations and EFY, we were missing a lot of kids and leaders, but it still went really well and we had a great time.
Afterwards, we ate dinner in the cafeteria. I had a very yummy oriental chicken salad, and of course a roll. Can someone explain to me why the temple cafeteria always has the best tasting rolls? Some of the girls decided to go back and get some dessert. But they ended up buying two rolls each. Which I can totally see, I would rather have delicious rolls than chocolate cake. I went to see what they were doing just as they brought out a fresh tray of rolls. They were still warm from the oven. They were irresistible, so I got two for myself. At .35 they were more than worth it. Oh my goodness, can we say heaven. Serving the Lord and warm rolls, it doesn't get better than this, people. I scarfed one of them down as we were walking up the stairs to go outside. But here is a picture of me with one of the remaining delicacies. As it usually does, something strange and humorous happened to me while in the temple. I went out to the lobby to tell the other young women leader that we were eating in the cafeteria. There was a sister worker talking with the two men who were at the recommend desk. As I walked up, I noticed something on her hair. Closer inspection revealed that it was a live grasshopper. I swear the antennae on this thing were an inch long. And they were moving back and forth, gross. I wasn't sure what the polite thing to do would be. Do you just ignore the fact that the person you are talking to has a live insect on their head? Or do you point the fact out. It seems like a rather strange thing to say: "Excuse me, did you know that you have a grasshopper on you hair?" Well I could not just let her go on, if it was me I would want to know. So I pointed it out. She said "Well get it off me." I was reticent to touch it, or swipe at her head with my slipper. I told the men that they ought to get it. I am not sure if it they were hard of hearing or blind, but they did not seem to share our sense of urgency to get it. So finally I stepped up to the plate and swiped it off with my hand. EEEEWWWW! The men then said they hoped I didn't kill it because it was their friend and had been hanging out there for some time. What the heck? Is it just me, or does that seem like an odd response? And then we couldn't find it anywhere. It just seemed to disappear. Maybe I imagined the whole thing, but I really don't think so. Has anyone else had any strange animal/insect experiences at the temple? No, I didn't think so. Yeah, I am pretty sure it is just me and my life that things like this happen to.Here we all are for the obligatory group shot. Notice the girl on the right with her rolls in her hand.
Here is one that includes the spire. You can't really see people though.

And here is a shot of just the temple. I am glad I could go, it is always fortifying to be in the house of the Lord even if the experience did include a close encounter of the bug kind.

Project Runway

About a month ago Diana saw a friend with a cute jean purse that had been made out of an old pair of jeans. She was excited for me to duplicate that project. Today was the day that we finally made it happen.We used a pair of jeans with a cute buckle. It really did turn out cute.

The pockets on the pants make great pockets for the purse. Here is Diana modeling that feature of the design.
And just for an added bonus, I turned an old pair of jeans into a skirt for her. I haven't hemmed the bottom, but maybe that will just be part of the style.
Hip, hip, hooray for recycling and resuing things.

Arachnidphobia

Yesterday Diana informed me in a calm, quiet manner (not) that we had a spider just outside the sliding door. Of course before I reached for the poison, I grabbed the camera and snapped a shot of the lovely black widow spider. Yikes! And then we couldn't find the can of poison, and so we sprayed it with sunscreen. Then Jared was brave enough to smash it with Diana's purple flip flop. She was overjoyed by that as you can well imagine. So at least for now, our patio is spider free.

More Napoleon Hilarity

Those of you close to Logan can enjoy the fair. I would love to meet the marketing people who came up with these ads. They stike me as very funny people.

Napoleon meets Bill Gates

Instead of cleaning my house on Saturday, I spent some productive time watching youtube. I happened onto this funny video. My favorite part was when Bill Gates roller blades. If you do not like Napoleon Dynamite then do not watch this.

Happy Birthday!

A big Happy Birthday, to Marion's mom, Rose Marie Hammond. We all hope your day was fantastic. We miss you and can't wait until you come home from Washington DC. Thanks for being such a great Grandma to our kids. And especially thank you for raising such a wonderful son for me marry. So many of the things I adore about him, I know you taught him. Also thank you for being such a great mother-in-law. When I hear others speak of problems they have with their in-laws, I count myself very lucky in that department. You have been a great friend for the past twenty four years.

Mother in Training

Sometimes I have worried how Diana would be able to learn to take care of babies and be able to babysit. Obviously we are not going to have another baby just to solve this problem. I think the solution will be our wonderful ward family. We have several good friends who Diana helps take care of their kids on a fairly regular basis. She seems to have a natural love for kids. It is probably a girl thing. But really she has a fan club of 3 year-olds, who just love her and look forward to seeing her each week.
Friday night we went and babysat for the wife of our scout master. She had a fun scrap booking class to go to and a husband gone to camp for the whole week. She has 4 kids, 3 of them are under four years old. Since her husband took Jared to scout camp, I probably should have moved into her house for the week to help her out. (by the way, our house was eerily quiet with Jared gone all week, it was pretty much heaven) Eliza is an amazing person and a saint to boot. Who else would let their husband go to camp every year since they have been married? Regardless of how many small children she needs his help with. I have not doubt that a special place in heaven is reserved for scout master wives. I hope they will invite me to visit them.

Anyway so we went over to babysit. I have to admit to being a bit worried how it would go, since the youngest is a two month old nursing baby. He was fed right before she left and he never even complained the whole night. What a good sweet baby. At one point all the kids, including Diana were sitting on the bed watching a movie.

Babysitting with Diana is the easiest thing ever. She pretty much does all the work/playing and I am just the adult in charge to get people out of the house in case of fire. The whole evening went so well, I am so glad we did it.

The next morning there was a primary activity at the church. It had an Olympic theme, but centering on special Olympics where the kids learned about different kinds of handicaps. Diana had a great time. Here is a shot of her in the wheel chair that they used to play wheel chair basketball.

Then she needed another turn to hold the baby. It was kind of sad that he slept so much the night before.Yes, I think I have no need to worry. She will be able to get plenty of practice and be well prepared for any babysitting jobs in her future.

Pat's Ponderings

When I was at Women's Conference, I was able to attend a musical performance by several different LDS performers. One of those was Kenneth Kope. He sang a song about how the Lord loves broken things. This song really spoke to my soul and I have listened to it many times since. I don't know if I have thought about the fact that the Lord might love me even more because I am broken, than he would if I was perfect. Something to ponder. I think Satan tries to discourage me by telling me that I need to be perfect, now. It is kind of like that Lynn Robbins book, I believe in Christ, but do I believe Christ, when he says that he can take my life, mistakes and all, and make me whole. This song reminds me that I do.

This song invoked such imagery in my mind and I figured it would be perfect for a slide show. As of right now, I don't have a lesson or anything to show this at. Marion says that I should make up a lesson for it to go with. Perhaps it is enough for it to be just for me, to uplift and encourage me when I am feeling down. I choose some of my favorite pictures to go along with the music. So for now I will just share it with all of you.

A Visit to the Dentist

Sit right back, and you'll hear a tale, a tale of a problem tooth. The name of the problem tooth is back lower molar on the left side. This tooth has been a bur under my saddle for the past 6 years. It all started when we were in our car accident and our van rolled over. Apparently I bit down really hard on my teeth at that time. About a month later, the tooth second from the back cracked and broke off. That was when I got my first crown. Then the tooth behind it had to have a cavity fixed. And I keep breaking pieces of that cavity off of the tooth. In the past year I have had the same place fixed three times. One especially horrible time was when piece of porcelain broke of and got lodged between the two teeth. Holy uncomfortableness, Batman!
So the last time my dentist fixed my filing, he told me that if it happened again, I would have to get a gold crown. Of course it happened about a month or two later. So for the past four or five months, I have been living with a large hole in the back of my mouth. I did not want to pay for the new crown. Finally I went back for my cleaning and they told me that it was time. I have grown tired of carrying floss with me for every time I eat anything. It is most inconvenient. So today I bit the bullet, so to speak, and went to get fitted for the new grown.
Here is a picture of my x-ray. The gap between the back two teeth doesn't look so bad, but it felt lick the grand canyon back there.
Here is a lovely picture of me in the shades they give you to wear and of course the obligatory paper napkin bib. Oh and a little bit of the stuff they used to take a form of my teeth on my cheeck, just for added aesthetics.
Here they are taking an impression of my tooth. Wow what a glamorous shot.
And another lovely shot of some part of the process.
Here is the best part of my dentist office. They serve Otis Spunkmier cookies in the waiting room. I never mail a payment in, I always just stop by and pay in person so I can get a yummy cookie. Boo for being numb and not able to enjoy this yummy thing. But you better believe that I took it to go with me for latter. If anyone needs a great dentist in Vegas, mine would be a great one. His name is Jason Downey.

Wonderful Woot

I can't remember if I explicitly talked about the MP3 player I received for Christmas. It was purchased from Woot at a very good deal. I loved my new tech toy and promptly put 375 songs on it. The place that I appreciated it the most, was at school, when I was making copies. It was so glorious to have music to help me whistle while I worked.
Then there was a tragedy named I lost my MP3 player. The only thing I can figure out is that I must have left it as school. That is the last place I can remember having it. Curses, that darn copy job. Another example of no good deed going unpunished. But I have already ranted about that. So nuf said. After searching in vain for about 8 weeks, I gave in and purchased a new one, again from woot. This time I upgraded from the 4 GB one to the 8GB. Woohoo! Think of the storage capacity.
So the next chapter of my woes, was that my new player had some issues. It would never power itself up quickly when I turned it on. Eventually it just got stuck trying to come on. I could do nothing to fix it. It just had to run out of power. After a week of fiddling around with it, I decided that it just wasn't worth it.
Next I wrote to woot telling them of my problems. To my happiness they wrote me back the very next morning, telling me that they were sending me a new one. I just have to send my old one back. So yay for easy solutions to problems. My new one came today and I have already put my music back on it. Now I am up to 600 songs. Based on my experience I would totally recommend buying something from woot. Great stuff at great prices and great customer service when things don't work right.

Diana's efforts to help the economy

Tonight, Diana and I were driving home from a friend's house. She reminded me that I had promised to get her some nail polish remover. In her helpful way, she suggested that we stop and get it. To help encourage me, she promised that she would not ask for anything else. I replied that I highly doubted that was possible. She retorted, "Mom, I can't help asking for things, I am just a wanter." Well I guess that explains it. So we did stop, and you guessed it we got the remover and some remover pads. Oh well, what can you do?

Puppet Palooza

Yesterday, I took Diana, her friend Alison, and another friend Eliza to a puppet show at the library. It was really cute, although pretty short. The best part was that they let the kids play with the puppets after the show. That was really fun and they had some pretty cool puppets."We need to get across that bridge to eat the green grass"
Here is a fox puppet. Pretty cool, huh?
Chicken anyone?

Oh, No, this shark is attacking me!I always knew I was a birdbrain, now I have proof?

Wild Waterpark Wetness

Saturday, Diana convinced me that it would be a great idea to go to our local pool that has slides. If you remember I talked about it in an earlier post. She is now officially tall enough to go down the big slides. We took our next door neighbor, Kori with us. Other than the fact that there were about a million people there and it was about 102 degrees, it wasn't too bad. It was nice that we took a friend because I told them that they had to stay together, no matter what. Such safety in the buddy system. Here they are waiting in line for the slide.I managed to score myself a chair in the shade. So I plopped myself down there with a good magazine to read. I was right next to the slide, and the girls would come and check in with me now and then. The heat was a bit bad, but there was a bit of a breeze, and occasionally I would go and get my feet wet. The thing I could do with out the most at public swim places, is the indecent exposure. Good grief people, cover up. Also I wore my new clip on sunglasses. I don't' think I have posted about these coolio things. They attach to my glasses magnetically. This is flippin sweet. Also it is nice to have your eyes protected from the glaring blaze of the sun.
Here is Diana modeling the sunglasses. Pretty stylin', huh?
Here is a most amazing picture of Diana coming down the slide. This took me a lot of tries to get this shot. I have a lot of pictures of just an empty slide, due to the delay that digital cameras seem to have. Finally this picture met with Diana's approval.
And here are Diana and Kori posing by the measurement marker. They both got carded or well measured more than once at the top of the slide. But they made it OK both times, much to their delight. It is a big day in both of their short lives. Short both in years and height. This picture almost makes it look like they are not tall enough, but let me assure you they are 48 inches tall.

Happy Father's Day!

A big happy father's day to the two men in my life. First my dear husband and father to my children. Look at this picture, we look like babies. Thanks for all the fun throughout the years. I appreciate what a good father you are to our children. Next to my dear own father. I am so lucky to have been born to you and mom. These are a few of my favorite pictures. This one is called "tummy talking". I guess when I was upset as a baby, this would always work to calm me down. I love the smile on my dad's face.

Then I love this next picture. First great hair on me, huh? This picture could be a symbol of my relationship with my dad. He has never let me down. No matter what. Lastly, here is a picture taken last year at Diana's baptism. I am so grateful to have both of my parents for both their guidance and friendship. So, Dad, I hope you have a great Father's Day. I wish I could be there is person. I love you!

Diana's New Glasses

It has been one whole year since Diana went to the optometrist and found out she needed glasses. As has been chronicled on this blog, it has been a year fraught with anxiety and turmoil about where those darn glasses were. It seemed that it was almost unheard of, for them to actually be on Diana's face where they belonged. Instead they were in her room, or my room, or the family room, or the bathroom, or on the top of my head being kept safe and unbent. You get the picture. Probably a huge problem is that I have been unable to train her/me to put them in the same place every time she takes them off. And hence we have be able to participate in the never ending game of "Find the glasses?" This is a game that involves things like me crawling all over the house on hands and knees in search of the lost peepers. Or at other times it involved me taking her to school, only to have her say "Oh I forgot my glasses?" At which point I go home and retrieve them. I could do without such fun in my life as the only prize seems to be the losing of my sanity and lost years off my life expectancy. I suppose that I need to let her suffer when she forgets them, but somehow it seems to cruel. Maybe after this year, I will be better at training her to be more responsible.
So off we went to the eye doctor. Good news her prescription has only changed a small bit. Bad news, we could not find the glasses to take with us to the appointment. Aaaaagggghhh! So I decided to just bite the bullet and buy a new pair. That way when/if we found the old ones we would have a back up pair. Actually I figured the fastest way to find the old ones, was to buy new ones. I was sure that the old ones would turn up the very day we plunked down cash for new ones. But no, I was wrong. It is still most perplexing. So here is a shot of her with her new stylish frames. I like them a lot and they are her favorite color purple. Now if only the millennium would hurry up and get here we could all be perfected and not need such things as glasses.

Another Silly Joke

God: "Whew, I just created a 24-hour period of alternating light and darkness on earth."

Angel: "Oh yeah? What are you going to do now?"

God: "I think I'll call it a day."

Too Cute

Here is a picture of Diana with our good friend Jenna. She is kind of like a surrogate little sister for Diana. Diana loves to play with her, and Jenna is so cute when she walks up to Diana and holds her hands up to be picked up. It is nice to have friends who are like family that live here in Vegas.

Ch-Ch-Changes!

Well after looking at so many other really attractive blogs, I thought I would try a change. I am not sure if I really like it or not. I will need to get used to it. Don't be surprised if I change it again. I think I will leave this one for a few days and then decide.

Happy Anniversary!

My mom and dad have been married 45 years today. Wow! I really admire the way they have always worked at their marriage and kept it strong and happy. They are truly a team in all that they do. I am blessed to have such a good example to follow. Hope your day is special, but I have feeling that every day you are together is a special one.