Category: Uncategorized (Page 112 of 118)

Saturday night was Erin’s Slumber Party . I had won 6 tickets and a hotel room. You wouldn’t believe how hard it was to get 5 friends who could ditch their families and commitments and come and play with me. Now, don’t get me wrong, I’m all about families and commitments. I have many myself –commitments, not families– and I understand that not everyone can get away on a Saturday night. This being said, however, I found it quite difficult to find the requisite 6 people to use all the tickets. So, congratulations to Sherry (a neighbor and friend), Tess (long time friend found again), Lisa (mother of 3 month old twins and I am very impressed that she was able to get away), Tennille (bell player extrordiniar), and Chrissy (my sister who left 7 children with her awesome husband) for being able to get away and play, and coming with me so I didn’t feel like a loser with no friends.

The Slumber Party, although fun, was not all I had hoped it would be. The lines were long and the place was crowded. It was a bit overwhelming at first to decide which line to stand in, (Do I want my toenails painted pretty or do I want my eyebrows waxed? Wait, what’s that over there, a psychic?), but we soon signed up for massages, stood in a few lines, got some food and had our fill from the chocolate fountain (chocolate covered cream puffs and cinnamon bears–who knew?). We enjoyed our 10 minute massages (wish it were longer), were entertained and amused by our “psychic readings”, and pocketed a few of the little dessert tins from “My Girlfriend’s Kitchen”, avoided the “Party Girls” and their adultproducts, and Sherry got to ask her make-out queen friend from high school if she had made out with Sherry’s boyfriend 15 years ago. Apparantly her answer was something like “there were so many, who can remember?”. Chrissy even endured a very long line and had eyelash extensions put in.

Although we entered every contest we could find, none of us were big winners. By 9:30 we had had our fill of the fun and excitement, and were ready to leave. We only had to find our hotel room and get the jackets that we had stashed. That was a little harder than we had thought, as no one really remembered the room number, or where exactly it was. Lisa was in the room, but walking the halls calling her name didn’t seem like the best idea. We eventually found it and were impressed by the comfy beds. Hopefully Lisa had a lovely relaxing night in the room with no twins, no kids, and no husband. She was the only one who took advantage of the free room, and I hope it was a good one for her.

All in all, it was fun, but not the event of the century. I’m glad I could spend a night with girlfriends, and we had plenty of those frosted sugar cookies to go around.

Well, 15 minutes and $149 later, my dryer is working. Hooray! No more stiff scratchy towels and jeans that stand up by themselves.

I don’t know about you, but it makes me a little bit more secure to see that Martha Stewart is back on the air. I saw a bit of her new show on TLC last night. Interesting. Live audience kind of like a talk show. But she had a guest cooking a wonderful fluffy dessert that of course looked like everyone should try it. Now I can sleep easier knowing that Martha is back doing what she does, inspiring housewives everywhere.

Well, the dryer isn’t working. Ryan said he’d take a look at it and it was probably just the thing that goes in the thing, just like he’s replaced in the oven. He looked at it, and unfortunately, it isn’t just the thing that goes in the thing. So, I have to suck it up and call a repairman. I’ll call the same guy who came and fixed my washer when it wasn’t working. This, too, will probably be some 10 minute problem that will cost me $60 minimum (I hope). I guess each appliance is allowed one service call. More than that, and I’m getting one of those fancy Maytags.

Did I mention that I love winning things? It’s just a little thrill. I usually change the radio around all day so I can try for the usual scheduled contests (if I’m home, that is), and it really brings me joy to win things.

So, yesterday I picked up some passes to “Erin’s Slumber Party” being put on by a radio station. It’s a big girl’s night out, and I’m very excited to take my girlfriends and we’ll all go get pedicures, facials and eat chocolate and watch chick flicks!

I also won two CD’s (one from Keane and someone else that I can’t remember right now) by answering the question: The human brain has ______ the memory of even the best computers.
a) 100 times
b)1000 times
c) 10,000 times
d) about twice.

Do you know?

Ugh. It was a rough night.

Sometime around 3:00, Jenna had a bad dream. I took her back to her room and sat on her bed with her until I thought she was asleep. I also turned off everyone’s ceiling fans that were left on, used the bathroom and shut a window.

Sometime after I had gone back to sleep, in comes Jenna again. Bad dream. I don’t know if I’m believing that, but I’m half asleep, so I pull her into bed with us. It’s a big old King bed, right? There should be enough room for two adults and one small child. But alas, the one small child is a squirmer and a kicker. Not good sleeping.

Later, around 5:40, my alarm went off, reminding me that I was going to go to yoga this morning. Turn off alarm before it wakes squirmy kicky girl, and drift off to…

Screaming. It’s John. He’s wet through his clothes and needs his clothes changed. With two matchbox cars in his hands and dry clothes, he goes back to bed. So, I go back to bed, only to be kicked one too many times.

So, I lift Jenna up and carry her back to her own bed. As I walk in, I’m assaulted by the sound of Megan’s CD player alarm clock. I franticly pound on the thing until it stops, put Jenna in her own bed, then it starts again. I unplug the blasted thing!

I wander back to my own big half empty bed with no kicking, and drift off to sleep once more, only to have a bad dream of my own, that involves bells and putting them away in their cases. I won’t elaborate, as it will only bore you to sleep, as I wish it would do me. I’m jolted awake by a very loud chirping noise–someone’s alarm. Why do these kids set their alarms for so early?! I’m about ready to throw the dumb thing out the window as I stumble towards the sound. “Don’t wake up John or Jenna!” is my thought as I find that it’s Megan’s alarm again. How can it be beeping? I took away your power source, you evil thing! Not knowing how to turn it off, I just bang on it a few times, and realize Jenna isn’t in her bed, anyway. Megan is sleeping through this millionth alarm and doesn’t notice her crazed mother pounding on her CD player alarm clock. Good. What she doesn’t know won’t hurt her.

I creep back to bed, even though it’s obviously time to get up by now, lay my head down, and hear the lovely wake up call from John, “MOM!” over and over and louder and louder until I get him up and fix him breakfast.

My only hope is for a nap today.

As promised, we had a fun trip to St. George over the weekend. We left Friday at 11, but didn’t get on the road until after 12, due to a “broken gas tank evaporative line” or something like that. Thankfully, we realized there was a problem as soon as we filled up with gas and gas splashed all over on the ground. We just had some work done on the van (to the tune of $400) this week, and since they did the repairs, we’ve smelled a faint gasoline smell. We quickly took it over to the repair place, and an hour of magazine reading later, we were on our way again.

We had an uneventful drive down, and as we were getting near St. George, we started talking about the Moai statues on Easter Island, and were in an interesting conversation about theories when I saw a sign that said Welcome to Arizona.

*What?!* How could we have missed St. George? Did we just drive right on by? Apparently, we did. This is why Ryan and I cannot be contestants on our favorite show, the Amazing Race. We had to turn around and drive back about 6 miles to our St. George exit. Duh!

We had a fun weekend, with visits to the Jacob Hamblin Home, the St. George Tabernacle, Brigham Young’s winter home, the St. George temple. It was very interesting and I learned so much about the pioneers who settled St. George.

I enjoyed a wonderful dinner and show at Tuacahn by myself. Ryan came down with unexpected stomache problems, and decided at the last minute not to go. He assured me that it wasn’t just that he didn’t want to watch Joseph and his colored coat, but that he really didn’t feel well enough to go. So I went by myself and really enjoyed the show. They do some fun updates on this classic and it was a lot of fun.

On the way home on Sunday, we decided to stop at Cove Fort, and had a lovely tour. If any of you ever have the chance to stop and tour it, it’s really fascinating! We’re already making plans to take the kids there. It’s only two hours from home and they would really find it great, I’m sure.

We had a lovely time, and really the Thanks go to Ryan’s mom and dad, who were so wonderful to stay with the kids for the weekend. They gave us the glowing report, and the kids were excited to see us when we got home, which tells us we were gone just long enough for them to miss us, but not long enough for Grandma and Grandpa to hate them and never babysit again. Perfect!

Don’t we all love Fridays?! The beginning of the weekend, last day of work or school, two days off, get to sleep in tomorrow. My kids love Fridays because it’s Pizza day at school. Natalie has something called “fun Friday” at school, where they get to play games, and Megan has a “Pop” party at school today because they earned it by good behavior.

I like Friday because it means no lessons after school. No soccer games tonight, either. Sometime Friday is date night, and tonight is actually an especially fun Friday because Grandma and Grandpa Erickson are coming to watch the kids and we are going to go to St. George for the weekend! Nothing extravagant–I won two nights’ hotel stay and tickets to a play at Tuachan, so we’re going to see Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat. I’m sure I’ll love it even without Donny!

So, Happy Friday to y’all, and have a great weekend!

You don’t really think about how much you rely on and need your keys–that is, until you can’t find them. I spent yesterday using my “back up keys” because I couldn’t find my keys. Thankfully I HAVE back up keys. If you don’t have back up keys, may I recommend you get a set, with keys to all the cars you drive and your house. You should also pass out keys to select neighbors and friends, so that if you, say….Go to Disneyland and forget your 5 day passes, someone can get them and mail them (or send them with a neighbor who’s also going to Disneyland the same weekend) to you without having to break into your house. It’s just a thought.

Well, after asking the kids and asking Ryan, and asking myself where those keys were, Cole reminded me that Julene used them to drive the van on Sunday morning, when she was watching the kids. So–call Julene and ask where the keys are, and she told me–in the pink diaper bag! It would have taken me days to look there!

So, now I have my keys and my back up keys, and I feel safe and secure again.

And, in other news, thanks for all the comments on my hair. I just got a perm today, so it doesn’t look like that anymore–but I think it’s still cute!

Wow. I survived the very stressful and busy week!

Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday nights we had rehearsal, then Friday night and Saturday night we had our Bells on Temple Square Inagural Concerts. It went really well and we are so glad it’s over!! Friday as I was playing, I thought, “What would happen if I just passed out? Would they stop? Would they just kick me under the table and go on like nothing ever happened?” Luckily, I did NOT pass out, so I was so relieved! At the end of the performance, we all just felt like giving a big WHOOP of joy that we all had actually made it through. We are not perfect–we all made mistakes (some bigger than others), but we lived through it. Saturday night’s concert also went well. I was pretty much a nervous wreck until after I made it through the song I had had the most trouble with the night before. Once that song was under my belt, I felt a lot better and was pretty confident I would make it through to the end.

Sunday morning we performed with the Tab Choir on Music and the Spoken Word. We did two songs with the choir and one by ourselves. I was about 8 feet from Craig Jessop, and he is amazing. He’s working so hard to get the choir (and orchestra) to stay together and sound their very best, that he’s sweating all over the place. Sweat (and spit) fly from his face! In fact, after the run through the stage manager comes and hands him a towel to wipe his face. He doesn’t put on his tux until after the run through, either. So, as we’re standing there warming up, Maranda (who plays right next to me), says, “Watch out, you’re in the spit zone.” I did not get wet, but my bells did get a few spots on them.