Apricot Jam

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Neighborhood Giants

Driving down my street today, I saw the garbage man get out of his truck and bring the cans in to the garage at the house on the corner. I know that's not in his job description. It's the house where an old lady lives with her shiftless grandsons and a host of their teenage friends. She is always struggling to maintain her yard all by herself, and maybe the garbage man knows that. I stopped and shouted to the garbage man that he deserves a bonus for being so nice. Opening his mouth in a smile that revealed quite a dearth of teeth, he replied, "I don't ever see no bonus." Well, I wish he did. His kindness brought tears to my eyes which I was still wiping away when I saw Pam up the street bringing in the garbage cans of her next-door neighbor. I caused quite an eye-rolling among the kids in the car when I started bawling about the kindness of our neighbors, but it was inspiring! I bet a hundred good deeds went quietly unnoticed today, just on my street. It made me want to go out and just do something nice for someone, to follow the example of our garbage man. He and Pam inspired me today. I live among giants. Thanks, neighbors!

Laughing at Ourselves

This one is tongue-in-cheek for my fellow Latter-day Saints. My dad gave a wonderful talk today in Sacrament meeting that didn't follow this outline at all. It was a brilliant talk about his ancestors and others who sacrificed everything for their faith. My dad was inspiring. I'm just facetious. But maybe the Mormons will think I'm funny. Here's fill-in-the-blank talk for you, in case you ever have to speak in church on short notice. Hey, if we can't laugh at ourselves, who will?

Fill-in-the-Blank Sacrament Meeting Talk

Good morning – er – afternoon, brothers and sisters. When the bishop called me to speak, I thought____________________________________________.
I really enjoyed that wonderful musical number. I wish it could have gone on forever! But no, really, I am glad to be here today. Just bear with me because_____________________________________.

The topic I have been assigned today is________. This word appears ___
times in the standard works. That shows you just how important it is. In fact,_____ percent of all the sections of the D & C contain this word.
Webster's defines this word as__________________________________
__________.

In a 1987 General Conference talk, Elder _______R.________ stated the following, quote,_________________________________ end quote.

Forgive me for reading so much, but_________________________________.
If we look in the Book of Mormon, it reads…bear with me… (find scripture and struggle through 3 or 4 verses). As I was thinking about that scripture this morning when I was preparing my talk ( chuckle), I was struck by_________________________
______________________________________________.
When I was on my mission, I met a woman named Maria. She had a challenge with___________. We told her________________________, and she ended up getting baptized a week later. (Look at clock)

Um…I have another story here from the 2005 Ensign that I’d like to read.____
________________________________________________________________
I had some other stories I was going to read, but it looks like we’re out of time. I hope we can all__________________________________________________I know I can do better in this area. In the name of ….

I'm not trying to be sacrilegious. Just finding my culture funny!

How to Have a Pirate Party

1. Find pirate cups, napkins and tablecloth on clearance for 29 cents. Buy them because you know you'll need that stuff at some point in the future.

2. Don't wait for the day when you'll need pirate cups. You don't want them cluttering up your pantry. Start talking to your kids about the amazing, exciting, thrilling pirate party you're going to have!!!! Do that for about 5 days.

3. Find the kids with the scariest pirate faces and invite them to the party sometime within the next 18 hours. Be careful not to plan ahead, or even remember to get ready for it in any way. Ten minutes before the party starts, have one of the kids set the table and jump in the shower.

4. Once the kids arrive, start thinking about a cake. Dig out a chocolate cake mix. Add wheat germ, apple sauce, oatmeal and pumpkin to the batter, because you know you're not going to fix your kids lunch today. Have your tweens frost the cupcakes so you can blame it on them if they turn out ugly.

5. Get a treasure chest and fill it with junk you've been picking up off the floor every five minutes for weeks. Flash cards, Matchbox cars, feathers, pencil boxes, necklaces, a badminton raquet. Have the tweens come up with an exciting game where you get to pick a treasure out of the box.

6. Try a new project from a friend's blog. (Thanks, Michelle!) This one was just dish soap, water and a water bottle. Fun!

7. Send the boys to find a big stick. Give it a cool name, like "The Rod of the Deep" and let them take turns hiding it in the yard. Point out where the poison ivy is and hope they remember.

8. At the end of the party, have a contest to see who can be the scariest pirate on the swingset, while you clean the house. By the time the kids leave, it will be like there was never a shipful of outlaws making AAARG sounds and spreading cupcake crumbs all over. That way, your tweens will be able to spread out their stationery on the kitchen table as they write invitations for their water fight party. Tomorrow.

The Promised Land

It's hard to blog underwater, or even by the poolside. So I haven't been blogging. But I have been reading a book, one sentence at a time, by the pool. Sometimes it's the same sentence several times, because I have to scan the pool every 20 seconds to make sure my diving-board daredevils are still floating, and that Xanthe hasn't beat up a smaller kid and taken their floaties. Xanthe had been busy growing a new fingernail to replace the one she lost on the 4th of July. Whenever she's in the pool, she holds her finger up out of the water. It's adorable, as long as you're not offended by rude hand gestures.

Today was the day Utahns get an extra holiday that the rest of you don't get (ha ha!), so we went to the "Chuckwagon Breakfast" at Bowman's. The kids got to ride in Jim's Model A, so they were the coolest kids in the parking lot. (I hope they aren't the coolest kids in the parking lot when they get to high school...)

The requisite holiday BBQ was at Grandma and Grandpa's, and it was so nice and relaxing. Jeremy brought his giant water slide and it kept the kids happy and active the whole time. There is no better place to be than with family, surrounded by love and Rice Krispy Treats. Thank you, Mormon pioneers who crossed the plains to reach Zion. I'm happy to report that it's still the promised land here, at least to me. I love it!

The Wild West

Yesterday was our triumphant return from the Great White North. We're back from exploring the uncharted American Frontier. We blazed a trail across the West.

OK, we went to Pocatello for the weekend. I was just trying to make it sound exotic. If you count chasing squirrels as exotic, then our weekend was just like an African safari. We came inches away from animals some people never see in their lifetime: squirrels and crows. We also got some great wildlife photos of a giant beetle.

After I told the kids we could keep any animal they caught, Scott and I watched them try to sneak up on squirrels as Scott regaled me with a story from his childhood:

Bruce and Uncle Marlon used to throw a bunch of kids in the back seat and take them pheasant hunting. They'd have loaded shotguns on their laps and plenty of brown licorice to keep the kids busy. This one particular time, Bruce spotted a bunch of pheasants and shouted to Marlon to get out and shoot them, which he did. At about that moment, they noticed the sign that said, "Absolutely no hunting. Wildlife preserve." The poor pheasants had their wings clipped. Bruce grabbed the injured birds, threw them in the back seat with the kids and tore off down the road. Marlon was souting, "Drive!! Drive!!" The kids were screaming, the birds were flapping all over the car, bleeding everywhere.

A few miles down the road, the men pulled over to put the pheasants out of their misery. It was a very quiet ride home, followed by a big pheasant dinner. Can you blame Scott for refusing to eat the meat? Marlene understood and told Scott she'd fix him some chicken. She went in the kitchen with a plate of pheasant and came back 30 seconds later with a plate of "chicken," which Scott gobbled up. He's still in therapy.

Now you know why Scott doesn't hunt animals. Instead, he spends his Saturdays in Pocatello, hunting for fun things to do. Entertainment in Pokey is about as elusive as the fabled Jackalope, but we found some fun in the form of the hotel pool, ice cream with Coco and Bill, dinner and 4-wheelers at Jen's parents' house way up in the mountains, and little Zachary's blessing on Sunday. Zeljko gave him a beautiful blessing. It was an honor for Scott and my dad to participate, and for us to be there with them. Sometimes, even when you're in southeastern Idaho, you know you're in the right place at the right time.

Since we didn't have any dead birds in the car to eat on the way home, we stopped in Malad at Me and Lou's Cafe for a wonderful meal. No pheasant. No "chicken," either. Just good, home-style food to top off a great weekend.

Snips 'n' Snails

At Bible School a couple of weeks ago, I watched all the kids in a big room, putting on a little program for the parents. The girls were singing the songs and smiling adorngly at their leaders. Freestone and the other 5-year-old boys were break dancing around the carpet, making superhero sound effects that sprayed all the girls with spit. I had this vague thought: "I wonder how old Freestone will be when he grows out of this rambunctous phase?"

Then I looked over at the 8-year-old boys. They were all doing the chicken dance, hopping on one foot and shoving each other, making machine gun noises as they fell. OK, so 8 is still a rowdy age for boys.

At the pool yesterday, I watched a bunch of 12-year-old boys making fart noises with their armpits. OK, so 12 is still juvenile for a boy. But then one of the bigger boys laughed really loud. I did a double take. The boy was bald. His chest was hairy. It was the DAD! So at 40, boys are still going through the phase where they think armpit noises are funny. Parenting boys should come with a caveat: "Abandon all hope, ye who enter here." These people never grow up. They are ALL Peter Pan. Scott and my brother still hide behind doors at their office and jump out to scare each other. For heaven's sake, they're attorneys. And my dad, at 70, laughs at the pranks until his eyes water.

I think I'm finally used to boy energy. Instead of waiting for Freestone to grow calmer, I embrace the energy. It's him. It's inherent in him to jump off the couch, roll across the room and make loud beeping sounds on his way out the door. It's hard-wired to turn couch cushions into "shoot-guns." I laughed the other day when Ari, Xanthe and Freestone were playing with little dolls in the kiddie pool. Ari and Xanthe were floating their dolls on rafts, giving them high, sweet voices as they talked about where they wanted to float. Freestone was shouting, "Aaaaaaaaghhh!! HELP! My doll is drowning in the ocean! Aaaaaagh!" Which reminds me, the first thing Freestone did when he learned to swim was to perfect the art of pretending to drown. That one, I had to put a stop to.

I used to think the "snips and snails and puppy dog tails" thing was lame. Now it gives me a lump in my throat, as I sneak in to see Freestone asleep in his bed, Star at his feet, his rock collection spilling out of his hand. I look at his soft, downy face, his sun-bleached hair and his chubby hands and wish, for a minute, that he would never grow up.

Ruby's List

Ruby was tagged by her cousin, Lexie. Here are her answers:

What I was doing 10 years ago:I was waiting to be born.

What I was doing 5 years ago:Playing the violin. Making mischief with Eva.

What I was doing 1 year ago:Getting baptized.Wishing Bentley would move back.

What I was Doing yesterday:School shopping.

5 fav. snacks:Chocolate,apples,watermelon, Coke, Grandma's cooking.

5 fav. Books: Harry Potter, The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe, Spiderwick, Tales of a Fourth Grade Nothing, BFG

5 places I would run away to: Grandma's house, Bentley's house, Coco's house, Imperial Beach, the Lot.

5 things I hate: Caviar? I can't think of any.

5 things I love: Ari, Freestone, Xanthe, Golda, Daddy and Mama

I tag Brittany! Have fun!

Playing Dolls

Meet the nursery/playroom/orphanage formerly known as Xanthe's room. Xanthe finally made the leap to the upstairs girls' room after a year in the laundry room. I know it sounds a little bit like Harry Potter living in the closet under the stairs, but Xanthe loved having her crib in the laundry room. I can't even begin to describe what a bad sleeper she was when we got her. It's not that she cried all night. It was worse. She thrashed around her crib like a fish on the deck of a ship ALL NIGHT LONG. At the slightest sound, the thrashing would begin again. You would think a baby who spent her first year in a room with five other babies would be able to sleep through anything. NOT the case with Xanthe. She couldn't get herself to sleep, period. And she couldn't be rocked to sleep, either. She just didn't go for it. It was like trying to rock a baby octopus on steroids. She didn't cry; she just thrashed. Scott and I tried having her crib in our room for bonding but it was a nightmare, so we finally moved her. She loved the dark, confined space of the laundry room. Until I decided it was time for her to graduate to the "girls' dormitory." I like to think of the attic room as a boarding school dorm, with its pink walls and white beds lined up like in the Madeline stories. In reality, it's not quite that romantic. It's more about Ari's clothes strewn over every inch of the floor. She likes wardrobe changes, and she has to see all her choices. That's my theory. Yesterday, she wore a swimsuit, a flamenco-style skirt with silver sequins, AND a swim skirt, with a Build-a-Bear cheerleader skirt around her neck as a finishing touch. Totally normal for Ari.

After we moved Xanthe out, Araceli and I transformed the laundry room into a nursery for her dolls, all of whom have had their names changed to Serena, since Ari happened to catch a little bit of Wimbledon recently. I hope the self-portrait of Van Gogh doesn't freak the dollies out. At least it's not the one where he has a big bandage around his head from when he cut off his ear. Some stories just don't work for bedtime. Good night, Serena(s)!

Comfort Food

The Rubies

Nana's girls

The whole time I was growing up, all of my 24 cousins gathered at my Opa and Nana's house every Sunday night. As a youth, I absolutely depended on those gatherings to ground me and make me feel that the world was as it should be. A big part of the comfort factor was the food. I knew for a fact that there would be Aunt Marla's lemon dessert and Nana's chocolate chip cookies waiting for me. I knew the cousins would watch Silver Spoons and Punky Brewster and the grown-ups would gather in the pristine, white living room to catch up.

I was reminded of Nana's chocolate chip cookies this week when Marlene told me that she is careful to make cookie dough whenever Jakey comes to her house. I love that she does that, because I know how disappointed he would be if he opened the fridge and Grandma's cookie dough wasn't there. To this day, I remember one Sunday when Nana bought cookies at Albertson's and put them in the special ZCMI shirtbox she usually put her homemade ones in, nestled between the cool sheets of waxed paper. I remember tears stinging my eyes and feeling unreasonably betrayed and devastated.

I don't know why it was so imperative that the cookies and the lemon dessert always be the same. I felt that way about my mom's bran muffins and homemade bread and my grandma Golda's roast beef and toasted cheese, my grandpa Bill's Election Day chili and the Dutch food Nana made for Opa. I was even comforted by Slurpees the summer my grandfather died. He died on Memorial Day, and we were all a little bit lost that summer. Almost every night, my Aunt Tricia drove my grandpa's four grandchildren to 7-11 for a Slurpee, which we'd take to the cemetery. It sounds strange, but it gave us a new routine to cling to in the face of change and loss.
Away from home in college, I'd find myself buying buttermilk for the bran muffins or calling home to get the recipe for Mom's heavy, whole wheat bread. I never missed an election day without chopping the onions and celery for Bill's chili. When my brother left for a mission in Brazil, my dad inexplicably packed over 24 grilled ham and cheese sandwiches for him to take on the plane. He sliced the cheese, grilled each one and carefully wrapped them individually in napkins and tin foil. I guess he was thinking that those sandwiches would bridge the gap between the continents and the two years Traj would be gone. Many people on the flight to Brazil enjoyed one of my dad's sandwiches. Jack Spratt bread, cheddar cheese, a thick slab of ham, a little Heinz chili sauce...

Food connects us to each other and creates memories that nothing else can. This summer, the kids and I and Coco have taken a couple of pies to Nana's house to sweeten our visits. Every day, somebody asks hopefully if we can get a pie and go to Nana's house. Of course we can! How easy is it to hop in the car, stop by Marie Callendar's and spend an hour at Nana's house. When the storms roll in and the leaves fall and the kids go back to school, I hope they'll feel as comforted by their memories of summer pie as I do by my memories of Nana's chocolate chip cookies.

The 4th of July

Oh, beautiful for patriot dream
That sees beyond the years
Thine alabaster cities gleam,
Undimmed by human tears.

The Fourth of July is such a perfect way to remember that we live in a land of beauty and bounty. From the Rotary Club breakfast to the K-town parade, the family BBQ to the fireworks at the high school, there are ample opportunities to be reminded that we have been blessed until our cups are overflowing.

One of the best parts of the day is after the parade, when the water floats come by, Main Street businesses turn their hoses on and we all load up our water guns, buckets and cups to drench our neighbors. My kids each had a squirt bottle. That was enough to soak Daddy, Bill and all the uncles in the vicinity. If your town doesn't endorse a city-wide water fight every summer, you're in the wrong place. It doesn't get any better than a cold bucket of water down your back, delivered by a 9-year-old you've never seen before. On the downside, I think Ari took out more eyes than any other kid before I could get it through to her that we don't go for people's faces.

We added a new twist to the usual festivities: a three-hour ER visit after Xanthe got her fingers caught in the door at Nikki and Clint's BBQ. One finger swelled up like a sausage and her nail turned purple. So Scott and X had some bonding time at the hospital while the rest of us had a great time at Nikki's, playing in the water and eating good food. Xanthe came back with a cute pink splint and a ravenous appetite. Poor little thing!

We always go to fireworks with my dad, always to the same spot. My dad is fun at fireworks because he says things like, "What if we were just part of a big, cosmic fireworks show and the Big Bang was just one firework and we were floating on one of those sparks." Another one was, "What if we had to go to a fireworks show every night for the rest of our lives?" He's always thinking. He also taught the kids how to figure out how far away the explosions are by counting the time between the light and the sound. You can't be around my dad without learning something.

One final thought for one of my favorite holidays...

My native country, thee,
Land of the noble free, thy name I love.
I love thy rocks and rills, thy woods and templed hills.
My heart with rapture fills
Like that above.

Aren't we blessed and fortunate to be here.