Sunday, September 28, 2008

Batman and babies

I saw The Dark Night last night. WHAT WAS I THINKING?! Shawn got a babysitter so that we could go out on a date, which we haven't done for a while. We went to Ann Taylor so I could return some pants and then we didn't really have any other big plans so we decided to see a movie. Shawn really wanted to see The Dark Night and there was nothing else that really looked too exciting to me, so that sounded fine. I'm not a huge Batman fan, but the other Batman movies were pretty good.

So the first part of it was fine enough, except that the Joker was SO creepy. Heath Ledger was just really amazing in that role. But then the movie just kept getting more and more disturbing until I pretty much had to spend the last half hour of it with my head buried in Shawn's shoulder. For one thing, it was over two and a half hours long. They could have wrapped it up much sooner, but it just kept going on and on and it was pretty much just two and a half hours of watching the Joker mentally torture and kill people.

I'm normally not that easily disturbed by movies. I've seen lots of intense, scary movies in the past and they didn't used to bother me at all. I used to be fairly thick skinned about that sort of thing. But for some reason I can't really handle them anymore. Ever since 9/11 I have a really hard time with movies that show someone blowing up buildings and big cities of people evacuating to escape some type of terrorism. I'm still abnormally disturbed by 9/11. It's one of the things that origionally caused my anxiety and anything that reminds me of it still causes me to panic. Plus ever since I became a parent I can't handle any sort of movie that involves children in distress. There were a few scenes in the movie last night that involved a little boy and it disturbed me to the point that I couldn't watch it, even though the boy turned out just fine.

We had planned to go out to dinner when the movie was over, but I was so disturbed that I just wanted to go home, so we ended up getting some cheesecake to go at the Cheesecake Factory (nothing cheers me up faster than Lemon Raspberry cheesecake from the Cheesecake Factory!!) and we went home and ate cheesecake while we watched reruns of The Office. A little Jim and Pam always makes me feel better. :)

So anyway, no more Batman for me. Heath Ledger should win a postumous Oscar for scaring the living daylights out of me. I hope he wins and I hope I never see the Joker again.

Onto other news, my friend Carol who went through her first round of IVF a couple of weeks ago just found out on Friday that it didn't work and she's not pregnant. My heart just breaks for her. They have one son who is Matthew's best friend and they've been trying to get pregnant again for years. They are honestly probably the best parents I know. They're just completely fantastic people and if there is anyone in the world who deserves lots of kids, it's those two. I'm so sad for her and I wish so much that there was something I could do to fix it. They're going to try again, and I just hope and pray that it works next time.

So between being scared out of my mind by the Joker and feeling sad all weekend about Carol, it's been kind of a bummer of a weekend! (and kind of a bummer of a blog post too!)

Oh, here's something funny! Maybe you have to know Josh to think this is funny, but this morning I asked him how the babysitter was last night and he said "it was fun, she needed help setting up a blog, so I helped her." That's my boy! That kid is more computer savvy than most adults I know. That fact that he spent the evening giving his babysitter computer lessons cracks me up for some reason. I love that kid.

So I guess that's all I have to discuss today! I'm off to do a photoshoot for a photo contest that starts tonight. One of my very favorite websites is www.dpchallenge.com and twice a week they have photo challenges that you can enter. They give a topic and then you have a week to shoot something on that topic and then we vote for a week and the top three get their photos displayed on the front page for a week. It's really fun, but it's definitely not an ameture competition! There are a lot of absolutely AMAZING professional photographers that enter and it's a super tough competition. The guy that just shot all the movie posters for the new Twilight movie is a member of that site. Not exactly easy competition!! I love to enter the challenges because it really expands my creativity. Tonights challenge is "abstract emotion". That is a SUPER tough topic and I'm still not 100% sure I can pull something off. I have an idea that involves broken glass, but I haven't shot it yet and I'm not confident that I can nail it enough to enter it. We'll see, I'll keep you posted! :)

Friday, September 26, 2008

SPOILER ALERT!

If you don't want to hear about what happened on the season premier of The Office last night, move along now, there's nothing to see here! :)

And for the rest of you, did you LOVE it?!! Ahhh, finally the Pam and Jim moment that we've all been waiting for, and it couldn't have been more romantic. I totally didn't see it coming, which is actually better than it would have been at the parking lot party when we were all expecting it. The rain and the rest stop...SOOO freakin' perfect.

And what's up with Angela?! Here's what I've never understood about her. She was always SO secretive about Dwight and she never wanted anyone to know about her personal business, but she's always been very open about Andy. If she loves Dwight (and we all know she does!!) then why doesn't she just get back together with him already?! Why is she so insistent on keeping that relationship a secret and why in the world is she going along with this whole wedding thing? It's more than obvious that she doesn't want to marry Andy. Poor Andy, it's totally going to break his heart when the whole thing blows up, and we all know that it's going to!

And how great is it that Ryan is the temp again?! Classic. Everyone in the Office hates his guts.

And Michael and the new HR lady?! They've totally got to get together. Michael has met his perfect woman. She's a total dork like he is, but at least she seems to have a little more common sense. He needs her.

Ah, I love that show. I've seen every episode a million times. We have all the DVD's and I've practically worn them all out. The whole Jim and Pam saga is the best love story on TV EVER! My two favorite episodes of all time that I can watch a million times and never get tired of, are the Booze Cruise, where Jim almost tells Pam that he loves her, and Casino Night, with the big moment at the end. So perfect.

So if you watched the show last night, let me know how you liked it! I've already watched it twice and I think I'm going to watch it again today!

On a completely unrelated note, we got to go to Josh's school this morning because he won a special citizenship award! Yay! I was SO proud of him and I could really tell how proud he was of himself. They had a little ceremony before school started for all the kids getting awards and it was fun to see him go up there and get his certificate and be congratulated by the principal. The school got a new principal at the end of the school year last year and he's SO fantastic. This awards ceremony thing is something that he came up with. I think they're going to be doing one every month to honor kids that the teachers think have gone the extra mile that month. I've always really loved that school, but ever since he became the principal I love it even more. I can tell that he's working hard on coming up with new ideas and fun things for the kids. We're lucky to have our kids in such a fantastic school.

So I guess that's all I have to talk about today! I think I'm going to go watch the Office again! I haven't had enough of the proposal in the rain yet! :)

Thursday, September 25, 2008

Only two and a half more hours until the season premier of The Office!

WOOHOO! I've been waiting for this day all summer. Will Jim and Pam finally get engaged? Will Angela get back together with Dwight? Will Michael get together with the new HR lady? And what's going to happen to Ryan?!

If you're an Office freak like me, come back tomorrow so we can discuss!

Wednesday, September 24, 2008

Readathons and brotherly love

I've got two completely unrelated topics to discuss today!

First of all, it's the elementary school's annual readathon this week. Woohoo! Every year they have the kids get pledges for how many minutes they read and then for one week they read as much as they possibly can. There are daily prizes for the person who read the most in each class and they have other fun incentives. We're a bunch of book lovers around here, so the readathon is always a fun event in our house.

The kids have really been trying their hardest to read a lot each day and every night this week we're having our own family readathon. After dinner we all get our jammies on, curl up in blankets in the living room and then I give everyone a fun snack and we all read for at least an hour. It's been really fun, we've all enjoyed it. The boys both read for two hours yesterday and Matthew read the most in his class, so he got to keep a trophy on his desk all day, which he was really excited about!

So on to topic number two. Last night when we were just finishing reading, Matthew got a papercut on his finger from the book he had been reading. He was kind of upset about it and Josh offered to go get him a bandaid. I thought that he was just going to bring me one so that I could fix Matthews finger, but he actually took Matthew into the bathroom with him, made sure that Matthew washed his hands and the put the bandaid on his finger for him. He was SO sweet about it and made Matthew feel so much better.

I know that it's just a little thing, but it was one of those special mom moments. I have normal kids that fight with each other and drive each other crazy sometimes, but it's sweet moments like that that just make me remember how much I LOVE being a mom and how much I LOVE LOVE LOVE my kids. I fought like cats and dogs with my siblings growing up and it's super super important to me that my kids have a close bond with each other. I really hope that they grow up to be the kind of siblings that hang out together and really enjoy each other as friends, and it's moments like that that make me feel like maybe my constant speeches about how you should love your brother are actually sinking in! Hearing my kids giggling together or working on a project together is my very favorite part of being a mom.

So that's my news for the week. Books have been read, papercuts have been healed and we're having a pretty good week around here. Right now Shawn is chaperoning Josh on a cub scout field trip to the firestation and when he gets home we'll eat dinner and get back to the books! You can never read too much around here!

Sunday, September 21, 2008

We're getting closer!

Well, it's the 21st again. That means that were officially another month closer to Clarissa. As of today we have officially waited 10 months and we're starting on month 11.

It seems like I go through periods where I'm OK with the waiting and then I'll have a month or so that is really hard and I think I can't possibly wait for another minute. I've been OK for this past month. We've been busy getting the kids back to school and there have been other things going on, so I've been able to put it in the back of my mind for the most part.

But I don't know, today it's been on my mind a LOT. Sunday's are sometimes hard because it seems like at church every single person I see has a new baby and I'm so ridiculously baby hungry! Today was one of those days. I see everyone with their babies and it gets me wondering what it's going to be like when Clarissa gets here, what she'll look like, what her personality will be like...I can sometimes drive myself crazy thinking too hard about it.

And then I let myself look at the Korean adoption message board and that's always a bad idea! I'm so happy for all those families with their new babies, but I secretly want to gather all those babies up and take them home with ME. (don't worry, I'm not going to go on a baby snatching rampage!)

So anyway, here we are. One month closer. That's a good thing, right?! I need to focus on how much time we've got behind us and not so much on how much time is still ahead. We've come a long way and we really are getting closer. Sometimes I feel like this past year has gone by faster than I thought it would and sometimes I feel like I'm watching the clock and slowly counting down every second. I've never been a patient person and waiting for my babies to get here has always been hard for me. It was hard enough when it was only 9 months with the last two! Now 9 months is sounding pretty good to me!

So there you have it, my monthly whine about how much I hate waiting! I got it out and now I can hopefully get through another month before I have to publicly whine about it again. I'll see you all back here for another round on October 21st. :)

Friday, September 19, 2008

The Whites are on vacation

in the basement! If you remember my previous post back in June, sometimes we like to go on vacation to our basement. It's a change of scenery, it's a chance to do some family bonding and it doesn't cost us anything. Today I was just feeling out of sorts and bored of the house so I declared it a basement vacation weekend. It looks stormy outside now and it's supposed to rain tomorrow, so we may just hang out in the basement all weekend and watch movies and play games. Sounds like a perfect weekend to me!

Wednesday, September 17, 2008

The family that Wii's together

So after last nights sad news, I do have happier things to discuss today!

I have been resisting introducing my kids to the world of video games for a while. I'm not really a big fan of Playstations and that sort of thing. I just don't need to give my kids another reason to park themselves on the couch all afternoon. I always said that I would never buy game systems for our kids and I really intended follow through with that.

But then I started hearing about the Wii and my willpower has been crumbling for a while! The great thing about Wii is that there are all kinds of fun games that require you to get up and DO something, instead of just sitting on the couch. That sounded like something I might be able to get on board with.

And then the Wii Fit was born and I was completely fascinated. It's taken everything I had not to go out and buy one months ago.

I tried to resist! I reminded myself that I vowed not to become a video game family. I reminded myself of all the reasons I don't like them. I tried, really I did.

And then yesterday my willpower was depleated, so I marched myself down to Target and bought one.

Crap, I have no willpower.

But I don't care because seriously, the Wii is the coolest thing EVER! :)

For those of you who aren't familiar (although by the sound of it lately I think I was the last person on the planet that didn't already own one!) let me tell you all about the Wii. It's a regular old game system but it comes with a super cool wireless remote that tracks your motion. The system comes with several sports games. So you can play tennis and actually use the remote as a racket. When you swing your arm the little person on the screen swings their arm. The remote can become a golf club, a bowling ball and all sorts of fun things. SO COOL! Matthew has officially become the bowling champion in the family. That kid rocks!

And then there's the Wii Fit. Only the coolest thing since sliced bread. You stand on the platform and it weighs you, gives you your BMI, tests your balance and posture, lets you set weight loss goals and then charts it all for you! So everyday when you step on it adds your new info to your graph. Sooo cool. And even better, it becomes a whole little home areobics class! There are all sorts of super cool games you can play that work you out, and it teaches you yoga, aerobics, strength training and it works on your balance. You can play the hula hoop game and every time your swing your hips the platform you're standing on senses the movement and your the little computer person on the screen swings their hips. The platform becomes a step for step class, a tighrope for balance training, and all the time it's sensing your movements to make sure you're doing it right. Looove it!

So anyway, now I've done it. I've backed down on one of the biggest rules of the house. We are now a video game family. I'm going to have to come up with some other rule that will be much easier to keep. Something like no elephants in the backyard or something. I'm pretty sure I can uphold that rule.

But in the meantime, the White's are having a ball with our new toy. It's really not a sit on the couch kind of game system. I'm only buying games that require you to get up and do something, and I'm only buying games that we can all play together. We had a pretty good family tournament last night playing the sports games. I forsee many more of those to come! And this morning I drug myself onto it to hear the Wii Fit tell me how out of shape I am. It was nice being in denial all this time...

So there you have it. The broken rule that turned out to be a lot of fun. Sometimes you just have to break your own rules in life, right?!

R.I.P. Harvey the hampster

I had something a lot more fun to blog about today, but instead I have sad news to report. Harvey the hampster died this evening. I know he was just a hampster, but he was a member of the family, so we're all a little sad.

Josh always goes in to say goodnight to Harvey before he goes to bed and tonight he went in there and came running in to tell us that Harvey looked dead. Shawn went into check, and sure enough, he was laying on his side in the middle of his cage. I'm so sad that Josh had to be the one to find him. Josh is just as tender hearted as I am when it comes to animals and this is the first time we've ever had to go through the death of a pet with our kids. I'm sad that Harvey died, but not nearly as sad as I am to see how hard Josh is taking it. Poor kid. We sat and had a good cry together and we finally got him off to bed. Tomorrow we're going to have a little funeral in the backyard.

When Shawn's mom died a few years ago, his boss asked Shawn if he could buy a tree for our yard in memory of Shawn's mom, which we were so touched by. Shawn's mom loved lilacs, so we told him we'd like a lilac bush. We planted it in our backyard, and when it bloomed we were amazed to see that it's growing in the shape of a heart! Every spring we have a beautiful lilac bush in our backyard that always blooms in a heart shape and it always reminds us of those we've lost. Tomorrow we'll go bury Harvey under the lilac bush, and every spring when the lilac blooms we'll be reminded of what a sweet little pet he was.

So say an extra prayer for Josh tonight. Seeing him so sad just breaks my heart.

Tomorrow I have all sorts of fun things to talk about, but for tonight I'll leave you with a few photos of our buddy Harvey.




Monday, September 15, 2008

News from the crazy bird lady!

I realize that probably no one but me cares about the birds in my tree, so just humor me!

The other night I was watching my birds at the feeder and two birds showed up that caught my eye. At first I thought they were mourning doves because we get a ton of those in the tree. They were the shape and size of mourning doves, but they were a little lighter in color, they were missing the spots on their feathers that mourning doves have and they had a black band on the back of their necks.

I'm always excited when new birds show up at the feeder (I really need to get a life), so I got right on the internet to try and figure out what kind of birds they are. After much research I discovered something really exciting! They're Eurasian Collared Doves and they're really rare in Idaho! I found an Idaho bird tracking website and they're asking people to send in reports if they see any because they're trying to track them. I won't bore you with the history of these birds, but their migratory history is kind of interesting. They've come a long way to end up in Idaho!
So anyway, by the time I realized what rare birds they are, they were gone. I kept a close eye on the tree and about an hour later they came back around to eat at the feeder again so I grabbed my camera and got a few shots of them before they left again.


They're pretty birds and I'm glad that they chose my tree to rest in! I saw them again for a couple of minutes again this morning, but the mourning doves have kind of taken over the tree and the feeder lately and they kicked them right out. I'm hoping that they didn't get scared off for good because I would love to see them stop by again and try to get some better photos.
So there's the latest story about life at my bird feeder. I'm sure you'll all sleep better tonight now that you've been properly updated. :)

Friday, September 12, 2008

My new obsession!

So here's what I do. I discover a new hobby and then I completely immerse myself in it like a crazy person for a while until it runs it's course and I have to find a new one. A couple of years ago I decided to learn to make my own lip balm. I researched the crap out of it, I ordered professional grade supplies off the Internet and eventually I was making the greatest lip balm EVER! It even had pure Shea butter from Africa in it. It was great, in different flavors, with custom labels I created on my computer. I made it constantly and my house smelled like lip balm flavoring, which is just YUMMY!!

Then one day I decided that I was sick and tired of making lip balm and now I have a box full of lip balm supplies in my basement.

Once I decided that I was going to teach myself HTML and design web pages. I bought the books, I researched on the Internet and learned all kinds of cool tricks. That one got old kind of early though and the two other web pages I have besides this one are currently using templates that someone else designed.

Once I decided that I was bored and wanted to research something so I decided to learn about law and the court system. I'm really interested in the Innocence Project, so I decided to research people who have been convicted of crimes that they didn't commit. I know that sounds bizarre, but that's just how my brain works. I like to research things. So I read books on the subject, I watched documentaries on the subject and of course I researched the heck out of it on the Internet. Now I know all sorts of things about people who are in jail for crimes they didn't commit. What am I going to do with that information? Nothing. But now I know. :)

There have been many other hobbies over the years that I've picked up and eventually put back down. I taught myself to sew (one blanket and a pair of pj's later, the sewing machine is in my basement next to the lip balm supplies), I scrapbooked for a while, I painted craft projects for a while, I learned to crochet, I've researched the heck out of random topics...my brain is full of useless information. You'd be amazed at the random things I know that will do me no good in life.

Photography was one of those hobbies that I decided to pick up, only that has been the only one so far that I've never gotten tired of. I don't think I ever WILL get tired of it. That obsession is officially here to stay.

But right now I have a NEW hobby, that I'm sure will run it's course, but it's fun for now. It's making jewelry! When I was in Park City I saw that the resort offered a jewelry making class and I thought that would be fun to try. So I sent the boys swimming with Shawn and I learned how to make a really pretty beaded necklace and earrings. They taught us how to tie special knots that require beading tweezers and how to attach clasps on the end and all sorts of things. I had so much fun that I came home and ordered myself all kinds of beads and clasps and thread and tools. It's SO FUN! Last night I made my mom a necklace and I made myself two bracelets. They're not super fancy, I'm still learning, but I'm having a ball coming up with different patterns and ideas. Maybe if I get good at it I'll sell some in my Etsy shop.

I'm sure that eventually I'll get tired of it and end up with a Tupperware box of beads in the basement next to my other retired hobbies, but for now it's totally entertaining me. This whole story is worthless without photos of the stuff I made but I haven't had a chance to take any. I'll take some soon and post them. Oh wait, the necklace I'm wearing in the photo of me on the lefthand side of this page is the one I made in Park City. It's very simple, but that's how I like my jewelry.

So there's the story of my latest obsession. OH! And I also have an update to another one of my current obsessions-my birds. I went to the bird store today to buy more seed for my thistle sock and realized that it's time to put out suet. Suet is a block of seeds that are kind of in a peanut butter type consistency. You put the block in a little cage and hang it on the tree. It's a fall and winter food for the birds and it sometimes will attract different birds that are coming through on their migration journey. So I'm really hoping that I'm going to be seeing a few different birds in the coming weeks. I've taken a billion photos of my regular birds, so I really need a new subject! I'm hoping to see some woodpeckers or something else interesting. We'll see!

And now that my story for the day is done, I'm off to make myself some earrings! :)

Thursday, September 11, 2008

The birds and the bees...and the flowers

Between going out of town, getting the kids back to school and taking care of sick people, I haven't had time to take very many photos lately. We're heading into fall now though, which is my very favorite time of year, so I have a feeling that there will be more photos coming soon!



Anyway, I did come up with a few to share and here they are!




Wednesday, September 10, 2008

I've got too much time on my hands

Josh is feeling better and back to school today, so my afternoon was very quiet. I think you can see what I did to entertain myself! I'm totally into this whole blog background thing suddenly. I'm going to keep designing them until I find one that I really love and then maybe I'll stop changing them daily!

In the meantime you'll just have to check back to see what I come up with next!

Tuesday, September 9, 2008

Lazy Tuesday

Not a lot going on here today. We're passing a cold around our house, unfortunately. Shawn got it last week and now Josh has it. Poor kid, he's been pretty sick. We kept him home from school yesterday and ended up taking him to the doctor yesterday afternoon because he was coughing so much he was throwing up. He was also having a hard time breathing and I was worried it was turning into pneumonia or something.

The doctor listened to his lungs and could hear something going on in there and was going to do an x-ray, but he decided to try a breathing treatment first. After some Albuterol he was sounding much better and the doctor decided that he was OK.

Today he's doing better and he really wanted to go to school, but he's still coughing some and he still sounds a little wheezy. I'd rather be safe than sorry, so we're keeping him home for one more day. I think by tomorrow he'll be well enough to go back.

So that's pretty much all that is going around here lately. Not too exciting! I was supposed to go to a PTA meeting last night but I skipped it since Josh was sick. Somehow I've become the official school photographer. Last year I mentioned to someone that I would be happy to take some candids at school functions if they neeeded a photographer and they jumped right on that! Now I'm on the PTA board as the school photographer. I get to go to all the activities and take photos that they'll use in the yearbook or for whatever else they do with photos, I guess! Fun stuff!

I wish I had something more interesting to blog about today, but I guess I don't. I've been home nursing sick people for the past several days, so there hasn't been a lot of exciting adventures going on here. I have a great big stack of books that I bought at the library book sale in Park City, so while I'm not out buying cough drops and making people soup I've had my nose in a book a good portion on the time.

One of my favorite things to buy at library book sales are books that I've already read and loved. I like rediscovering old favorites that I either used to own and have lent out or given away or ones that I checked out at the library and wished I had my own copy of. Right now I'm rereading White Oleander. That's a fantastic book that I haven't read in a while. Next on my list is the Glass Castle by Jeanette Walls. That ranks pretty high up there as one of my favorite books of all time but I lent my copy to my mom and never saw it again so I was happy to find a new copy at the book sale. After that one I've got the whole Big Stone Gap series to reread. I know I'm just a total nerd, but having a huge stack of books waiting to be read makes me very happy! :)

Saturday, September 6, 2008

Well that didn't take very long!

I had some time to kill tonight so I started experimenting with making my own blogger backgrounds and somehow it turned into this. I've never designed a background before (and it probably shows!) so I don't know how long this one will stick around, but it was an entertaining way to kill an evening! :)

We just got The Office season 4 on DVD (my favorite show ever in the history of television! I never thought I'd like a show more than Seinfeld, but The Office has surpassed it!), so I've spend my evening watching several hours of The Office and playing with Photoshop.

The Office and Photoshop. Two of my very favorite things. I'm such a nerd. :)

Friday, September 5, 2008

The waiting game

Every week we get an e-mail from our adoption agency giving us updates about anything new and it usually also contains news about families that have gotten matched with their baby over the past week and how long they waited.

The average wait is 18 months and every week I look at the referral announcements to see how long each family waited. For the most part it seems like it's usually between about 17-19 months, which is basically what they've quoted us all along.

Well today I got my update and there was an announcement of two families that were matched this week and one family waited 15 months and the other waited 16 months. I think that's the shortest referral times I've seen so far.

So I know that probably means nothing, but I can't help but get my hopes up a little that maybe it's not going to take us as long to be matched with Clarissa as I think it's going to be.

They don't strictly go by the person at the top of the list. When a baby becomes available they look at the family at the top of list first and see if their profile matches the baby. If not they go on to the next family and so on. So just because one family gets a referral early doesn't mean that everyone will, and they're careful not to tell us what our place in line is, since being next in line doesn't mean that you'll get your baby next.

But STILL, I can't help but be excited by the update today. Maybe things are speeding up! Maybe we're going to get a pleasant surprise and Clarissa is going to join our family quicker than I think. I can hope, right?!

*sigh* This is just me being tired of the wait. I've banned myself from the Korean adoption board, maybe I need to ban myself from the weekly updates as well!

I'm actually getting more excited about the thought of Clarissa being born early next year because it suddenly seems like everyone I know is announcing pregnancies and they're all going to be born early next year!

I have two really great friends who live around the corner from me that I really enjoy spending time with. One of them recently announced that she's pregnant and due in March and the other one is doing her first round of IVF in two weeks and if she gets pregnant (and I'm hoping and praying that she does, they've been trying for so long), she'll be due in May. I'm loving the idea of all three of us having new babies in the spring. How great would that be?! My brother also called recently to let me know that his sweet wife is pregnant and due in April. I'm so thrilled for them and I'm so excited about us having babies at the same time!

Spring is going to be a super exciting time around here, and I hope that the excitement includes finally getting to know our own sweet Clarissa.

Wednesday, September 3, 2008

Happy Birthday Shawn!


My wonderful husband is 36 today! Yay! :)

Tuesday, September 2, 2008

Ch-ch-ch-changes

As you can see, I gave my blog a little face lift. We'll see how long it takes me to get bored with it and do something else!

Monday, September 1, 2008

One wild ride!!

We're finally home!!! Wow, what a crazy drive we had today! It's a six hour drive from Park City to Boise, which is long but usually uneventful. Not this time! When we left Park City this morning the weather was looking a little yucky. There were some pretty dark clouds in the sky, but it wasn't raining yet. By the time we got down the mountain and into Salt Lake, the sky was BLACK! It was actually kind of creepy looking! By the time we were past Salt Lake it started to pour rain. The visibility was so bad at one point that we almost had to pull over. It was BAD! So we had to drive super slow for quite a while to get through the pouring rain.

Finally we got past that and the trip went fine for a while, although we had been in the car for so long that everyone started to get really antsy and ready to get HOME! We kept counting down the miles, anxious to get the trip over with and then literally 25 miles from home traffic on the interstate came to a screeching halt. We couldn't tell why, but we sat there forever. We figured that there had been a bad accident. So while we were sitting there forever waiting for traffic to move, wouldn't you know it, the gas light comes on in the car letting us know that we were almost out of gas. Crap!! The traffic was crawling super slow as we were sitting there watching the needle move closer to the E, and there was pretty much nothing we could do about it.

It was stop and go for over an hour before they finally diverted us off the interstate onto a middle of nowhere side road. We were just sure that we were going to run out of gas and then be sitting in the middle of nowhere. A ton of cars had to wind through a little used road to get back to the next exit back onto the interstate. By that time there was pretty much no gas left in the car! Fortunately we did eventually make it back onto the interstate and to a gas station (whew!)and eventually got ourselves home, but it took us an hour and 45 minutes to go the last 25 miles home.

Sadly, we found out when we got home that the reason the traffic was backed up is because someone went the wrong way on the interstate and hit a semi head on. We could see the semi in the median when we got back on the interstate, but we didn't know what had happened until we saw the news shortly after we got home.

Anyway, we're home, we're safe and I think that we're all going to be happy to sleep in our own beds tonight. We had a really fantastic trip, but I think we're all glad to be home.

Time to go home!

Well, it looks like our Utah adventure is coming to a close. We're getting ready to pack up and head home. I'm not looking forward to the six hour drive. It's always a lot more fun and exciting to drive TO your vacation destination than home from it, isn't it?

We've really had such an amazing vacation! This trip was kind of an afterthought and not something that we put a lot of planning into, so I think we all underestimated how much FUN it was going to be!!

The place we've been staying is a time share resort right at the base of the ski slopes in Park City. This place is in extremely high demand in the winter since you can walk right out the back door and hop on the ski lift, but this is the off season. Right now the ski slopes are green and pretty and they have all sorts of fun family activities at the base of the hill. Yesterday we took the kids miniture golfing and that was so fun! The boys had never been before and Matthew got a hole in one on his very first shot!

The resort offers all sorts of daily activities for their guests. They have a list of all the fun things you can do here each day. They have bingo and Guitar Hero tournaments and family movies and kids crafts and all sorts of things. Yesterday while Shawn took the kids swimming I signed up to make a freshwater pearl necklace and that was really fun! I really think we could have stayed here for a week without ever leaving the property and still had a ball!

We're not signing up for a time share here, but I do think we're going to find a way to come back. I'm already looking into renting someone's time share for a week next spring!! I don't think this is the end of our Park City adventures!

But for now the time has come to zip up the suitcases and pack up the car. Tomorrow we're back to school, back to work and back to real life. I'm glad we got the opportunity to do this though, spending the past several days as a family discovering all sorts of new adventures has been an experience we'll never forget!