"I will not be left out!"

Really, I almost couldn't bare the heartache of my baby going to 'school' for 10 whole hours a week. But it was Christian -- even though he only says 'cars', 'trash', 'go', 'hi', and a handful of other rarely understood words -- who almost forced me to send him to the Mother's Day Out program. (Can you feel the sarcasm dripping like the humidity at high noon in July in Houston?)

He did a great job. No tears. When we first got to the classroom on the first day, he did grab my hand as we were walking in the door and tried to turn and bolt, but that was partly my fault. I completely forgot about his "meet the teacher" the week before, where he would have known what he was getting in to. Maybe it was better this way. Anyway, he at least knows the school. He took Samy there last year for her Pre-K and cried each day we dropped her off and he couldn't stay. Here you go, buddy! Stay all day! See you at 2. Other than the wanting to bolt, it seems like he is really liking it. He's even gotten his back pack on non-school days and headed for the door. His daily reports say that he is happy and "a sweetie" the teacher wrote. He likes it.

Mom likes it too. It's a win-win!

Sunday Funnies

While getting ready for church:

Maren: Mom, I don't ever hear you 'toot'. I hear your big, loud burps all the time, but never any 'toots'.

Me: Yeah, well, if those have to happen, I try to keep it private.

Maren: I mean, your burps are the best ever.

Me: Thanks Mare, I try.

Minutes after the Stake President reads an official letter from the pulpit in regards to Swine Flu and what we need to do to stay clear Samy does a big, uncovered sneeze. :

Geoff and I burst into laughter as quietly you can in church.

Samy: Why are you guys laughing?

Geoff: Because we love you.

Samy: You're lying, you're making fun of me.

Yet another trip to the past, I gotta stop doing this...

On the 28th of August, Christian turned 2. He's been terrible for quite some time, but now he is officially Terrible Two. Every day, as I laugh or shrug off his shinannigans, I am reminded why he is child number 5, and child number the last. I'm very type-A and was way too uptight to have had this little man earlier in the family. (Father knows best). Now I can -mostly - laugh at it all. And I can certainly enjoy every bit of him!

I just adore this little man. Happy 2nd Birthday Christian!

Come with me back in time, won't you?

It's like the second half of August just disappeared. School happened and I was only somewhat coherent. So, we're just going to go back and pretend that I am documenting my sweet little girls first day of Kindergarten on, well, the first day of Kindergarten instead of now - the second week of school. Poor fourth child.

Samy was so excited to go to school. Secretly, I have been a little worried that she is going to come home some day and say that she doesn't like it any more, or is bored and doesn't want to go every day. So far, so good. Her teacher is a gem, and one of her best buddies, Ty, is in his class (thanks for letting me ride your coat tails, Emily!).

She put on her new clothes and her new pink tennies, packed her new backpack and lunch kit, and war raring to go. It's funny; she seems so big and grown up to me lots of times, but putting her in that school uniform and sending her to school made her seem really little. I'll get over it. Oh, I am over it!


By the end of the day, her new pink tennies had given her blisters on the heels of her feet, so she walked out of school on her tip toes. That's okay, she walks like that subconsciously anyway.

Geoff and I walked her into her class room. She went to her desk and waived good bye. We snapped a picture and took off. As we rushed down the hall and out of the school, Geoff said something like "can you tell we're fourth-time parents?" I said, yeah, with Christian, if I can't find a bus to put him on, I'll make him jump out as I slow down in front of the school." We're awesome like that.


I'm not totally unsentimental. I had to rush back out to the parking lot to get Logan and Maren, whose bus never showed up, and take them to their magnet program school a half hour away. We went home and got Christian, whom I had left with Eric (nice, babysitting on the morning of the first day of school - yee haw, 8th grade!) and loaded him in the car. Drove the kids to their school, now an hour late on their first day. Then Christian and I got to spend the rest of the morning at the School Admin office complaining about the lack of communication and lack of "courtesy" from the Transportation department. I won't go into any more detail. I've slept since then -- maybe it is better that I let time pass before posting. No one needed to hear my rant about this.




So, Eric didn't get a first day of school picture because for his first day he left on his own with a hearty "Have a great day. Lock the door behind you when you leave!" I love independent teens!

When Christian and I got home that morning and all the kids were gone, he would not come in the house. He stood out in the back yard (and it was hot!) for about 30 minutes babbling up a storm (still very few words from that boy!) and every now and then yelling for the "gys!". Then when I guess he'd figured out they weren't coming to his calls, he came in and stood at the bottom of the stairs and kept yelling "gys!" So dang cute!

School is good.

Lucky number 13

Happy Birthday to Eric (this past Saturday - I'm a little behind.....).

This summer, Eric has spent a LOT of time babysitting. So it was ever so appropriate that for his 13th birthday, he babysit to start the day, and again to end the day.

That was sarcasm, because how pathetic.... Saturday morning was a Primary Activity that the whole family was involved in - except for Eric, so we all had to take off after the morning chorus of "happy birthday". Christian wasn't really involved in the activity either, and no one wanted the chore of chasing him in the church parking lot (it was an outside water activity), so Eric got to hang with Christian in the morning.

We tried to redeem ourselves as parents by dropping him and some friends at the movie theater in the afternoon and leaving them with movie tickets, money for concessions, and money for ice cream after the movie. It seems to have worked, as he hasn't shown signs of resentment, but I'm sure as the hormones kick in more and more, there will be plenty of resentment, and worse....

So, his entrance in to teen years concluded by babysitting (which he agreed to) for some friends of ours so that we could go out on a double date. I will say that had I been in charge of the planning, I would not have chosen our child's birthday to have a night out on. A few days earlier, Geoff called and told me that he had arranged a date with this other couple on Saturday, was that okay with me. I said, um, it's your firstborns birthday... He responded with a Homer Simpson doh! Nevertheless, Eric was a good sport and saw $$$ in his eyes and we had a good time out!

Happy Birthday Eric!

Last Minute Fun

The plan for this summer was to enroll in a plethora of camps and classes to keep everyone busily engaged in good things. This was very fun for everyone and a pretty good plan. There were weeks here and there where not everyone had something going on, and a rare one where no one had anything going on. As for the mom, I was tired out from the drudge of taxing to and fro, same as the school year.

By the beginning of August, we all needed a change of scenery. I searched for places to stay in Austin and San Antonio (some of our favorite spots to drive to for a get-away) but nothing was available at anywhere near the price I was willing to pay.

I decided that we (and by we, I mean I) wanted to go to the beach. Galveston doesn't count. People like it, and people have fun there, and that's okay. I've even been found on the rare occasion to have had a good time at Galveston beaches. However, it wouldn't do for an end of summer trip in my mind. Then I had it: Florida! White sands and clean water were a mere 8 hours drive away.

We had the greatest time! On a Friday morning, we packed up and headed to Pensacola. The drive was great. The kids were great.

Christian did this: and this: and this. Very smooth.

We went through the eastern tip of Texas, the horizontal whole of Louisiana, the bottom chunks of Mississippi and Alabama, and by 5 pm were in Pensacola Florida. We hung out at the hotel pool Friday evening because it was a little overcast and we would do the full on beach thing the next day.

Saturday, we headed out to the very cool National Naval Aviation Museum, because it was a bit overcast and we figured the sun would come out more in the afternoon.

Next, we headed for the beach, finally! To get to the beach, there are a series of bridges that you go over. As we drove across one bridge, it started to drizzle. Then it was raining. Then it was pouring!

I DROVE 8 HOURS TO GO TO A NICE BEACH! WE'RE ON VACATION!!!

Off in the distance, there was a break in the clouds and some actual sun peeking through. We drove to that spot, unloaded, and went about our business ignoring the drizzle and hoping that it would stop any minute. The good news is that the rain stopped. The bad news is that Maren came out of the water and said that she was itchy all over. There were red splotches here and there on her body. Just then, Geoff came out of the water and said that there were about four jelly fish right there where the waves break. (Right about where Maren had been when she came in with the itching and spots!). So. We considered peeing on her. Who was going to do that? Logan suggested we give Christian a bunch of milk and then let him loose. In the end, we wrapped her up in a towel, and between that and burying herself in the sand and the itch and sting just went away. Thankfully.

So, in the meantime, we all went down to the water and looked at the many jelly fish that were messing up our beach trip worse than the rain. I thought about maybe moving our party down the beach a bit, so I took a walk to explore. As I walked, there were several more jellies either washed up onto the sand, or right there in the water. We stayed where we were and soon a family came who happened to have nets, "fer shell diggin'", who used the nets to catch as many jellies as they could and pile them up on the beach so as to have them out of the water. That was good of them.

Between that, and Geoff said that the further out one was, the less jelly fish there were, the beach ended up being a great success. The sand was really white and clean and "sandy", and the water was green and clean and beautiful!

On Sunday, we found a local church to go to and then were going to either hit the beach again, or head to the big outlet mall in Alabama, then on to New Orleans for the night. The mall won over the beach (because it was still overcast and looked like rain again) so we headed out of Florida. We got to the mall right about lunch time and Eric got to choose the place. He chose Hardee's. Eric has now lost all restaurant-choosing privileges. Walking on the floor alone grossed me out, let alone Christian sitting, falling, or touching it. It was greasy, dirty, and just all around yucky. I know, I know, we could have left..... The best part of all was when Geoff was sitting across from me and trying to casually pull the hair out of his burger without me seeing. I handed him the rest of my food and said I'd be in the car getting the hand sanitizer ready. If you know Geoff at all, you won't be surprised to know that he did, in fact, finish the hair-burger, along with my food. That's one fast food place I could eat at and be sure to lose weight.....

The outlet mall (I know. We never never shop on Sunday. But we were on vacation. It's kind of like how calories don't count on vacation or after midnight. Sometimes Sabbath rules can be bent as well. I'll repent later.), was great in theory. In reality, we had a very tired two year old 'bronco' who is still in the early stages of being 'broken'. No worries though, we still managed to drop a load $!

The real "Goonie adventure" happened on the drive after our time in Foley, Alabama. I thought Texas had big bugs. I had never been to Mississippi. We stopped at a rest stop (very nice and clean and manicured for a rest stop, by the way! Good job Mississippi!), and when the girls and I got done, we noticed that the boys had all gone down the scenic path to take in the sights. What a sight to behold! The girls were a few feet in front of me and Samy stopped and said "ewe, a spider!" I told her to just jump over it, she's bigger than a spider. Then I got to the "spider"...

It jumped, too.

So we quickly caught up to the boys who were crouched down looking at something. It was a swarm of the giant "cricket things". All the while we were encountering the "cricket things", there were swarms of "giant flies" dive bombing our heads. I said that's it, we're done. Everybody runnnnnn! I made Olympic time to the car all while in a skirt and flip flops. Good bye, Mississippi!

This is why I am not a camper.

We ended our day in New Orleans and checked in to one of the coolest hotel rooms that I have ever seen. It wasn't necessarily the most luxurious room, but the layout was way neat. It was just a Marriott Residence Inn, but I had never seen one like this. There were basically three bedrooms each with a queen sized bed, two bathrooms, a huge dining area, huge living room (with a sofa bed), and kitchen. We kind of stumbled upon it because they didn't have two rooms adjoining. It was so great! We have to split personalities up strategically so as to avoid the biggest fights and problems. We had Maren (the little mother) in bed with Christian (who needed mothering because he doesn't fit in the pack n play provided by the hotel - and this mother wasn't going to do it) who needed help his first time in a big bed. Samy (tiny girl) was in bed with Eric (germ-a-phobe who can't get along with Maren or Logan). Logan (sleep-through-anything-spread-eagle) got the living room sofa bed all to himself. It worked perfectly. Eric asked Geoff if this hotel room was as big as our first house. Almost. Our kitchen was a bit bigger... However, there was one slight problem with the awesome hotel room:

Monday in New Orleans. I've been to Nawlis once in my life, and frankly, that was one time too many. Not a fan. I went a few months after Hurricane Katrina and was purely convinced that the moldy stink and grimy feel of the place had nothing to do with the levee's breaking and was well established long before any hurricane! This time, though, I knew to completely avoid Bourbon Street - even in the day time, not make eye contact with any street vendor trying to "give" you a souvenir cap, and what streets/areas to avoid altogether. Despite my feelings for the Cajun city, we did have a good time walking through the Historic French Quarter and Market Place. Conveniently, a storm rolled in right about lunch time so we ducked in to a quaint Authentic New Orleans-style restaurant. Granted, a plate of red beans and rice should never cost $11.50, but it was a dang good plate of red beans and rice. The southern fried chicken and baked macaroni that the girls had was to die for, and Eric's Po-boy was scrumptious! So, still not my favorite city, but this time left a much better taste in my mouth (literally) than my previous visit.


I still think the city is Gamorah.

So, as this 'story' has unfolded, you may have noticed the instances of overcast skies and/or rain. Yeah, that was Tropical Storm Claudette that pretty much hit exactly where were staying in Florida pretty much right after we left. We had no idea there was anything brewing in the gulf (need to watch the news once in a while). While we hesitate to call ourselves inspired, we do recognize the safety and protection that are afforded our little family and are very grateful for our complete dumb luck!

We left Nawlins on Monday afternoon. Why is it that the trip home is always soooo much longer and harder than the trip there? I know the answer, but it always amazes me. Not to mention the fact that for the trip home, we shaved off three hours by starting from New Orleans! Whatever. I swear we made fifteen stops within that five hour drive, each time telling all the bladders this really was the last stop we were making before we got home. The most upsetting was when everyone in the car was convinced that Christian had a loaded diaper. We pulled off and found a stop. Opened the diaper to find nothing but a false alarm. Little bugger. I'm sure he did that on purpose. One of the fun things was driving through or near many of the areas that I had served as a missionary for the Church. That brought back a lot of good memories.

One other thing that cracked me up was that we had the DVD player in the car, another portable one, a small DVD playing laptop, and almost every other electronic device known to man, (iPod touch, iPods, Gameboy DS's, etc...) with us to entertain for the long drive. But for hours, those four kids sat in that van and had competitions with this silly maze toy that we somehow got four of out of three kids meals at greasy Hardees!
I love it when the kids are "retro"!

We finally rolled into our driveway at 8:57 pm after a short, but very fun, successful, and much needed and deserved weekend vacation. (Laundry was started at 9:06 pm).

To paraphrase from one of our favorite children's books (by P.D. Eastman); "We love our house. We love our nest. In all the world, our nest is best!"

Some of my favorite lines from the trip:

Samy: "Mom, why did you turn around?"
Me: "Becuase the lady [GPS]told me to."
Samy: "WHAT! That lady is insane!"

Logan (upon entering the city of New Orleans at night): "I swear we are in Gotham."

After the first night in a hotel, Maren got up and made the bed that she had shared with Samy. Samy said, crying: "I wanted my maid to make my bed!"

My sincerest aplolgies to Life's Good

We purchased our LG washer and dryer four years ago. For the last three and a half years, I have been cursing the existence of said LG dryer. It was taking three and sometimes four cycles to dry a normal sized load of laundry -- and it is the "giant capacity" dryer!

We've had it checked out. "No problem with it, ma'am." We had a guy come out and look at the vent. "Looks like it has clear air flow, ma'am."

So, I just assumed that it was a lemon and until it completely gave up the ghost, I would have to live with it running constantly. And I mean constantly.

The last straw was last week with the whole burning incident. (the last post) So, here's what has happened since then:

I called a guy out who services LG appliances. He looked all through the dryer and said there was nothing wrong. I need to have my dryer duct cleared out, he informed me. (Now remember, I said that we had a guy come out and check the vent. The robber cleaned the coil at the back of the machine, then went outside and looked at the exit, saw air flowing and decided that was all that was needed.) Essentially, I paid the repair guy 75 smackers to tell me I had a good dryer. "Please call us again, ma'am." Yeah, because it's money for nothing!

The next day, I had a dryer duct cleaning service come out. I wasn't home right when they got there, but had arranged for awesome neighbor to be at the house to receive them. As I rounded the corner to my street, I noticed the gutter running water that looked like there was something like dirty, dark wool running in it. All the way down the street! The yucky water was being pumped out of the duct leading from my dryer. I talked to Tom (from Supreme Air - whom I highly recommend in the Houston area!), and he told me that he has done this for nine years and has never seen as much discharge as has come from my duct. I said, "It was bad, wasn't it?" Tom said, looking very serious, "No, it was worse than bad. You are so lucky you have a great dryer, or your house would have been up in flames. Seriously, I have never seen it so bad. You are so lucky." (Mind you, I had spent the day before looking for a company to clean the vent and watched numerous online videos about the dangers and fires caused by clogged dryer vents and ducts, so I was sufficiently freaked out).

The repair guy made the same comment too, about being glad that I have such a high quality appliance. So, my tune has now changed from cursing LG, to praising them for a quality product. (My cursing is now focused on the home-builder - now out of business, hmmm... - for building a utility room in the center of the home and having the duct go up to the second floor to vent and not putting in a duct fan to avoid a problem/disaster like this was/could have been). Please forgive me, Life's Good...

As I contemplate this whole situation, I am simply grateful. I don't think our little family is more important than anyone else, but I do know that we are just as loved by our Heavenly Father as everyone else. I really feel the "hand of the Lord" in protecting us from, at the very least, loss of property, but also, the possible greater loss of life. I think about how for the last three years -- unless I was out of town (which wasn't often) -- that dryer was running around the clock, building up more and more of a hazard with each cycle. I simply know we were protected and I am so very grateful to know that our Father in Heaven is looking out for us.

Now, when Tom left after cleaning the duct, fixing the vent opening, and applying some sort of solution or something to help the lint move along through the duct, I said, "So, I should have this cleaned, what, every six months?" He said, "No. With everything I've done, you won't need us for three years." I said,"No way! And it's going to dry a load in one cycle?" He said, "Yes. And there is a two year warranty on the work we did today, so if in a couple months, if you don't feel it's working properly, we'll come back and clean it again for free. We'll come every week if you feel you need it." Okay!

So I dried a load of towels. In 45 minutes. Yeah!!!!! Tom and Supreme Air are my new heroes. I feel like I have a new lease on life! Literally. We dodged a big, fiery bullet. Thank Heaven. Literally.