Today, my honey and I have been married for 17 whole years.
We haven’t changed all that much.
Happy Anniversary, Ryan. I still love you!
Author: Superpaige (Page 73 of 180)
School starts this Thursday. Why on a Thursday? I don’t know. I don’t make the rules. While I’m now ready for the kids to go back to school, I’m not ready myself for them to be back in school. You know what I mean, don’t you? The carpools, the schedules, the soccer season, the piano lessons, the after school activities, the lunches, the permission slips, the homework checks, the lost papers, the daily checking of powerschool, the forgotten band instruments, the PTA jobs, the lunch money checks, and all that.
I am feeling particularly overwhelmed having kids in three different schools. How does one mom keep a handle on ALL that? Tomorrow night is back to school night for three schools! How? How is this possible? I’m only one person!!!
I’m sure once we get into the routine, it will somehow be manageable, but today–Right now–I’m scared.
Help.
One of my favorite pictures from our Yellowstone trip.
Cole couldn’t be bothered to turn around for the picture. At least he had the excuse that he was filming the eruption with the video camera.
And this dog. Doesn’t he look like Bolt?
Here’s one of the whole crew together.
There were these two cows, chatting over the fence between their fields. The first cow said, “I tell you, this mad-cow-disease is really pretty scary. They say it is spreading fast; I heard it hit some cows down on the Johnson Farm.” The other cow replies, “I ain’t worried, it don’t affect us ducks.”
I’m feeling kind of blah today. Tired and out of sorts. No energy and grumpy. It could be because my painting did not go well yesterday, and what I thought would be finished by now is now unsatisfactory. It could be that time of the month (well, I know it IS that time of the month, but that may be why I’m a little discouraged), it could be that summer is ending and I want to still do fun things with my kids, but don’t want to expend the energy to do any more fun things.
And in trying to plan my son’s birthday party that he’s told me ALL about what he wants, I can’t find instructions. I was pretty sure there must be a Star Wars jedi training party out there, since all of his friends have had star wars parties lately, and I’ve been searching the family fun website, but I can’t find it. And there’s that yoda pinata that he wants. *Sigh*
I want to give myself permission to do nothing. Can I do that? Can I just not do anything productive today without considering myself a failure?
What do you do when you feel like this?
–According to the one Ranger we talked to, Moose sightings are pretty rare in the park these days. They haven’t had many Moose in the last few years.
–The big animals we commonly call ‘buffalo’ are really called ‘bison’
–Try as I may, I can’t stop my kids from getting sick, even on vacation
–Vacationing with grandparents is THE WAY TO GO. They put two of our kids in their hotel rooms, took two kids in the car, and were a lot of fun to hike with, picnic with, and hang out with!
–You can never have too many pictures on a vacation
–Geyser steam makes my hair instantly flat
–It doesn’t matter if you have gas or not when you are hiking around the hot pots–No one would know, anyway.
–On about the 100th hot spring or geyser, you just really don’t care so much. In fact, my five year old was overheard saying, “Geysers, geysers, geysers! That’s all we see are geysers!” Well, it is Yellowstone National Park.
–At the end of the day, having a hotel with a pool is all the kids care about
–My kids have never heard of the song “muskrat love” and they thought I was pretty weird when I sang it to them when we saw two muskrats swimming in the stream.
–Listening to multiple episodes of Gilligan’s Island while in the car can cause a person to want to jump out of a speeding car, even if it is keeping the yahoos in the back entertained.
–Never say, “he could run around and play here all day” when the five year old is balancing or jumping on down trees. The minute you say that, you have jinxed it, and sure enough, he will be crying and needing band-aids in 5-10 seconds flat.
–Sacrament Meeting in the outdoors is a wonderful experience
–Lodge pole pine trees have two kinds of pine cones. One that drops their seeds after two years, and one that opens and drops their seeds when temperatures reach over 150 degrees.
–There are a heck of a lot of lodge pole pine trees in Yellowstone.
–When you are at a place with nice bathrooms (and by nice, I mean toilets that flush and running water where you can actually wash your hands), you should USE that bathroom, even if you don’t really think you need to go. You never know how nice the next facilities will be.
–The Junior Ranger Program is WELL worth the $3 they charge for it.
–Even the most simple of new toys, such as a happy meal stuffed animal or a little plastic shoe, will entertain the kids in the car, as long as it’s something NEW.
–The Grand Prismatic Spring is breathtaking.
–With whiny, tired kids, even a .3 mile hike is too long.
–I look pretty good in a cowboy hat. Especially a red one.
–Eating healthy while on vacation is not really possible.
Things haven’t really slowed down all that much since the play ended. Well, I take that back. I am not enduring seven hour rehearsals, nor do I leave my home at 5:00 every night for a show. So, I guess it HAS slowed down, but not a whole bunch. We had guests here for a lot of the month of July, and that was GREAT. My kids get to have friends here to play with and entertain them, we all have a great time and we don’t have to go anywhere. Of course, that also means there are lots of dishes to wash, lots of food to make, and lots of noise. But that’s a small price to pay to have people we love travel to see US, instead of us having to travel to see them.
Last night, after the Annie Get your gun cast party, I was home by 8:30. I went to bed.
I think I’ll just show some pictures from some of the fun things we’ve done this summer.
Oquirrh Mt. Temple open house with family.
playing in the pool in the backyard,
Took the girls to a High School Musical sing and dance along at Thanksgiving point,
swimming lessons
some horsing around at Colonial Days,
We tried to take a decent family picture,
played with cousins,
Went camping,
and even got Megan’s braces off.
And in the middle of all that, we did a play!
We also…
Set up a waterslide in the back yard,
played games
went to a waterpark
went to a baseball game for Ryan’s company party,
and had a family pool party.
Whew! Now we are getting ready for a trip to Yellowstone, and we’ll try to pack in all the fun we can in the last few weeks of summer.
Wednesday evening I was changing my clothes to get ready to go to my bell choir rehearsal. I glanced in the mirror and saw some weird marks on my back. What the WHAT? What is that on my back? I called my husband to come check it out. He looked at it, poked at it, and came to the conclusion that it wasn’t mosquito bites, and it wasn’t a rash. It was possibly bruises, but how in the heck did I get symmetrical bruises on my back like that?
Weird, isn’t it?
I wracked my brain trying to figure out what in the world I had done to get those bruises. Had Ryan been poking me in my sleep? In a symmetrical pattern? Do I have some sort of new shingles? What?
I finally figured it out. On Monday, I did some jogging/walking for an hour while Megan had a soccer practice. When I finished, I went over to the park playground to stretch out. I sat on one of the platforms, and then leaned back. I ended up on my back with my legs over my head like in a yoga plow pose.
I didn’t think it was enough pressure to BRUISE me, but it’s the only thing I can think of. The playground platform must have had raised dots on it. This is so weird, isn’t it? I don’t know why I would bruise like that, but I guess that’s what it was.
Yes, I bruise easily, but not THAT easily.
How about you? Have you had weird unexplained bruises or injuries that you can’t figure out?
I just had to post this. And yes, I stole it from a friend.
Have a wonderful day. Maybe tomorrow I’ll tell you the wonderful story of the weirdest bruises EVER.
A few weeks back, a friend asked if I’d like eyelash extensions as part of her training. Sure! We got a time worked out eventually, and I became one of her eyelash guinea pigs. She had to do a so many sets for practice before she took her certification test, and she wouldn’t charge me anything for the experience.
It’s ended up being a nice little experiment. Being blonde as I am, and not having long lush eyelashes, it was kind of nice to wake up with actual dark lashes. I could go out without mascara, even. The timing was perfect, as I had long lashes for the play. I would just apply mascara as usual and my lashes looked long and full, and I didn’t have to put on fake eyelashes like I did last year.
Since this wasn’t a real set of lashes (with the real glue), I was told they would only last two weeks or so. Well, it’s now been just short of three weeks and I still have some long lashes. I take note now whenever I lose an eyelash. Oh, there goes a nice long full eyelash, I think. Did you know that your eyelashes grow out completely and replace themselves in about 60-90 days? So, obviously, a set of eyelash extensions won’t last forever, even if they are glued on there with permanent glue. 
I was funny when I went up to girls camp to do some activities with the girls. I was all clean and showered, and even though I hadn’t done much with my hair or makeup that day (since we had a dress rehearsal that night and I didn’t want to do all the hair and makeup AGAIN), the ladies there acted like I was just a picture of loveliness. “Look at you, you’re so clean! And did you get your eyelashes done?” Pretty soon all the girls are clamoring to get a look at my long and lush eyelashes. Wow.
Every once in a while I get a last that’s all skewampus, pointing East when it should be point west or some other such nonsense. I just give it a little swipe with the mascara wand and it goes back where it should.
Would I do this on a regular basis? Oh, heck no. I’ve been told it costs around $200 for a full set of lashes that last around four weeks. That’s roughly $50 a week, so I don’t think so. But for a fun experiment and to let my friend practice on me, you bet. Now I need to find someone in massage therapy school who also needs to practice on me, or someone who’s studying to be a personal chef who needs families to try out. Or an apprentice housekeeper? Anyone?
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