A Day In The Life - 01/31/2011: Strauss' 3rd Movement

Okay, so it wasn't Strauss but it was Richard's third move-ment! You know how when you move, your stuff has a way of multiplying and expanding even as you are taking it out the door and loading it? That is what happened to Jessica. So, here it is Monday. We should be all done moving but that was not happening. Jess went over and worked during the morning getting more stuff packed and ready to move. I started work at 4am and worked from home until noon. Then we took the trailer over to the condo, loaded it and hauled another load to Tucson. Oh, my aching back! :)

A Day In The Life - 01/30/2011: Moving, Moving, Moving

Jess was released from the emergency room last evening with a diagnosis of a 6mm kidney stone. And here she was with a moving van full of stuff to get to Tucson and a hand full of drugs. So I helped and we spent most of the day getting down there and getting back. Some great friends helped us get things unloaded so that was not as bad as it might have been.

A Day In The Life - 01/29/2011: An Eventful Day . . . For Jessica

So here is the situation: Paul is in the Army and Jessica and the kids are supposed to move today. Paul fell a couple of days back and sprained one foot and got a stress fracture in the other. And then this morning Jessica calls early, first thing, and needs to be taken to the hospital.
After Gaye shuttles Jess to the hospital and brings the kids home, she and I go and pick up the U-Haul rental truck and head over to the apartment. Kyle and Jennie and Quentin show up to help. Then Jess' cousins show up to help and they are amazing in getting almost all of the big things down and into the truck. But the truck is not nearly big enough to hold everything that they have and so we load until it is mostly full. Then it is off to visit Jess in the hospital and see if she knows anything yet about what put her there. Then we are off to get the kids (and me) something to eat. Shortly after we get home and food stuffed into us we get a call from Jess that she is free at last. She has a kidney stone that is 6 mm and ovarian cysts. Wow!
The plan is now to take the truck down to Tucson tomorrow and unload it and turn it in. On Monday I will work early while Jess packs up some more stuff and we will get the trailer and haul another load down. And again on Tuesday, if needed. Then Gaye and I head out of town. So the next few days are going to be a bit more than busy, I think.
Oh, yes! Did I mention that tomorrow is ward conference as well and that I should be at all of those meetings I will be missing? Family sure is worth all of this excitement.

A Day In The Life - 01/24/2011: Game Night With Little Ones

 Monday night game night at Mom and Dad's. We are in the process of assisting Jessica while Paul is gone and until she moves to Tucson, with picking up the girls from school and sitter. So Ariel and Hero came with us to dinner but did not stay long enough to play more than a couple rounds of the game.

Hero was enjoying her cheese. Not to eat, mind you, but just to pull off pieces and put them all in a line. She is such a creative kid in so many ways. But this tickled me. She found it more important to build a cheese line than to eat it.

A Day In The Life - 01/21/2011: There's A Snake In My Garden

When I was preparing to plant this garden I purchased some new varieties of plants. One of the new ones was some different types of lettuce. What I ended up with was this lettuce which is very tasty but looks like no other lettuce I have ever seen. It grows almost like a vine and as you keep picking the leaves the "vine" gets longer and longer until the plant finally goes to seed. But as you can see, they just wind around like snakes in the garden. I will do those again because they are so much fun.
And now I go to pull the seedy things out because the leaves are beginning to get sour as they go to seed.

A Day In The Life - 01/20/2011: Ariel Builds A Blue Bear

 For Christmas Ariel received a card to build a bear at Build-A-Bear. Very patiently she waited until we could finally take her to Chandler Fashion Square to build her bear.
After much ado about which bear to choose and how many clothes she could get for her bear, a blue, very soft bear was chosen. She got to help stuff her, put in her name tag and her heart and then watch as she was sewn up.
Finally, it was off to the bath where the bear was scrubbed and combed to be ready for her debut.

 And, of course, all of the paperwork had to be completed. A name was given to this special bear (Makyla). All of her information was entered. Finally a birth certificate was printed.

 With all of the loot in-hand, we went to pay the doctor fees. She got to pay with her card. They dressed the bear in her new clothes.

 Then all of her things are packed up into a bear house and she is ready to go.

All done! The kid and the Bear sit in the store window.

A Day In The Life - 01/16/2011: The Life Of A Gourd Party

 These three gourds show, for the most part, the life of a gourd - at least the ones in my shop with out the disastrous end, of course.
First, on the left, you have the natural dried gourd with his waxie skin still in tact.
The center gourd is the one that has been soaked and then scrubbed with steel wool until all of the leperous skin has been removed.
The third one is the gourd that has been marked and the work has begun to make it into a piece of art. Hopefully this one will survive the rigors of life as an art gourd in the making.

The second day of partying for Gaye's birthday continues with a meal for more kids who could not be here on Saturday and then Eegee's being eaten on the back porch by the grand kids.
The partying managed to continue for one more day on Monday when I took Gaye for a day of fun - to the movies and then shopping for a necklace and a pair of earrings. What a fun weekend!

A Day In The Life - 01/15/2011: Birthday Prison Pictures

" Face Forward. Now turn to the left. Move along." At least that's how it is done in the movies when you get arrested. And then there is always one short guy who can't tell his left from his right and messes up everything and usually gets you caught - and that is why you're getting your picture taken in the first place. So it's Noah's fault. :)
Actually, this is the before picture of the guys going racing for Gaye's birthday while she took the little boys to the train park (Desert Breeze in Tempe). We knew that there would be no pictures being taken while we were racing so this is as good as it gets. Also, since Drew and Paul are away, I asked a couple of stand-ins to join us - David Clark and Nick Rasmussen. Nick couldn't make it, however.

I am most certain that there was food in there somewhere but I must have had my mouth full when that picture wasn't taken.
But here we see Oma opening one of her many presents and then sitting around with the family when the wrapping paper quits flying.

A Day In The Life - 01/14/2011: Winter in Horrible Arizona

Arizona is such a horrible place to live. No color to the trees and just horrible weather. Wait! This is January. The temperature is 74 degrees. The leaves have fallen - not in October but in January. It is wonderful to not get to shovel snow or slip and fall on the ice.
I don't know what all of those other people are talking about but who would want to live somewhere else? Yes, it gets blazing hot for a few weeks during the summer but I don't have to shovel it! :)

A Day In The Life - 01/12/2011: A New Hiding Place

I have a couple of holes in my back yard waiting for me to pick up the trees I bought and put them in the holes. And today, the girls were playing in the back yard and Hero was asking what the holes were for. I told them and then I just picked up Hero and put her in the hole.
At first she was mortified that she was being put into the hole. Then Ariel wanted to get into the hole with her. Now it was cool to be in the hole. Finally, Hero go the idea that it was a great place to "hide". So she ducked down and covered her face and was "hiding" from me. It made me laugh.

A Day In The Life - 01/11/2011: My Car Is Talking To Me

My car is possessed! It started talking to me. actually it was only the front drivers side wheel well that has been talking to me lately. It was saying, "Something is wrong with me. Please check." It would make the weirdest clunking noises when I was driving along. I had done the brakes recently so I guessed that I had done something wrong.
I finally took the time to jack up the car and pull off the wheel to see what was happening and sure enough, I had not tightened one of the bolts that holds the caliper unit in place and so the housing would clunk back into place after I had braked.
I got that all fixed up and took it out for a spin and it sounded great and worked fine.
Then, a couple of days later it begins talking to me again. What! I just fixed that! But this time it was a different sound. Same wheel well but a different sound. Not a clunk of metal but a rub. So, again, after driving it all day and trying to figure out want it was, I got home and was ready to once again pull off the tire, it dawned on me - and I reached in behind the wheel and pulled out my work light that I had hung in the wheel well to work on the first problem.
Well, I guess that I need to get another light. And maybe get the latest brain update while I am at it.

A Day In The Life - 01/10/2011: Paul's Exit Dinner

 Paul is getting ready to leave for his re-enlistment in the Army - this time as an officer since he has his degree. We were all so excited to have him out of the state that we threw a dinner. At least I think that was the reason. And, as usual, I ate way too much of all of that great food that Gaye cooks up for us.

Ariel poses for one of her many glamor shots with her new hat posed jauntily on her head.

A Day In The Life - 01/07/2011: Egg-A-Muffins

This year for Christmas, Patti and Ken had us for gifts and we got a several cool items from them that have been very fun to experiment with. One is this microwave egg cooker (top right) which can do 1-4 eggs and makes them kind of like the McDonald's version of  the egg sandwich. So I did a two-egg sandwich. It was so much fun we will need to get some English muffins and cheese and do this up right!

A Day In The Life - 01/06/2011: Dinner With The Family

 Paul is entering the Army (again) in a couple of days so it is only appropriate that we celebrate his good fortune by going to Tom's (Golden Valley) for dinner. Dinner is always great at Tom's, and very filling, as Chinese food is.

 Hero enjoyed her meal immensely, as you can see . . . at least what actually made it into her mouth. She was in one of her classic great moods, too, which is so much fun.

 After dinner the kids came over and played at the house. But Hero doesn't really know the mechanics of making the swing work so she just sits there. And that just doesn't seem to be as much fun as swinging through the air.

But Ariel is at home in the trees. Her first destination when she goes to play is the tops of the trees. She goes so far out on the branches that she has had to be restricted to only going so far so that she doesn't end up either braking the tree or the branches.

A Day In The Life - 01/04/2011: This Will Make You Cry

I think that I have finally figured out carrots but there is still something to learn about onions I guess. I am sure that these were supposed to be big, round, great tasting onions but they are looking a lot like scallions. And I probably planted them too close together. They are a lot like me - hate crowds, standing in line and are a bit smelly (but really sweet inside).

A Day In The Life - 01/01/2011: Happy Emma's Party!

It was hard to beat the New Year's Party but I think this one might have done it. We traveled to Sahuarita, located in the bowels of Southern Arizona, to celebrate Emma's birthday, which was on the 27th of December. So we trucked on down for the festivities.
Besides the gifts, the best thing was the cookie-cake tree. No ordinary birthday cake for this kid. No. It was a tree made of cookies where the birthday girl got the special ones at the top and then everyone go to have one of the layers below. And the good thing was that the more patient and polite you were, the bigger your layer. I got a very small one, of course.