Category: Friends (Page 2 of 7)

Valentine’s day done right

February 19, 2014 / Superpaige / 1 Comment

My husband gave me a shower head for Valentine’s day. Uh-huh. Yes he did. Installed it, too. Now that’s what I call a gift.

For a few weeks our shower has been kind of dribbling. Not great. I asked him if he knew what was wrong with it, and he did not. That shower head has been working hard for over 12 years, so I guess it got tired. Instead of buying a new shower head, however, my husband pulled one out of the boxes under our bed, and gave it to me. Instant gift.

What? Why do we have a shower head under our bed? We have a lot of neato shower parts in boxes hidden around the house. You see, several years ago, a certain shower maker wanted to partner with Ryan’s company and do a really cool automated shower. Somehow Ryan was the guy, and we got a whole bunch of shower stuff delivered to our house. Where is the really cool shower? In boxes. Ryan didn’t want to demo the bathroom and redo the whole shower, especially not when we were trying to work on the basement. So, in the boxes it sits.

Until now. Now I have a really cool shower head that does multiple functions. Like a hotel shower. And the cost? FREE. Better than flowers in my opinion.

(I gave him a shirt. A pink shirt, no less. Because we are ALL about the sappy valentines day stuff here.)

BUT, the next night, we got all dressed up and went to a Ball. Yes, that’s right, a BALL. A Regency ball. Where people dress up in their best Pride and Prejudice era garb and eat fancy food with the right forks and all that.

A friend of ours was turning 40 and wanted to throw herself a ball. She LOVES stuff like this. Well, it wasn’t exactly her birthday, but Valentine’s weekend, instead.

They hosted this party at the White willow Reception center in Provo. Everyone came dressed up. Some rented their clothes, some used what they had at home, some borrowed. It was so much fun.

Here I am sipping my juice. Elegant, right?

After dinner, there was even dance instruction and some dancing, and fancy desserts.

Ryan had to try on my gloves. I think he’s doing a magic trick or something.

There was even a photographer there taking pictures of us when we came in, and then candid shots throughout the evening. I can’t wait to see those.

What a fun way to celebrate Valentine’s day! I’m so glad we got to attend.

Costume Party!

October 29, 2013 / Superpaige / 0 Comments

Saturday evening we hosted a costume party for the Scarlet Pimpernel crowd–or whoever wanted to come. It wasn’t my idea, but a couple of the girls from the play were discussing how fun it would be to have a sing-a-long party, and asked if anyone had a place big enough for a crowd, and who had a piano, etc. I did not volunteer because I hosted the last party we had with this group, but one of the girls asked if I would be willing to have it at my house again. They would “plan” it, and could I just provide the house. Less pressure and work for me, right?

Well, we still had to clean the house. I didn’t make a ton of food, because I wasn’t in charge, and I thought she had made it clear to people that they were supposed to bring food. Ahem. These are mostly college students we are talking about, so there was very little food that was brought.But no one seemed to mind that there wasn’t a ton of food, or if the food that was there wasn’t very great or fancy.

Here’s Ryan. He’s thrilled about a-dressing up (can you guess his costume) and b- having a bunch of loud theater people taking over the house.

After the mingling and hugs and “YOU LOOK SO CUTE!”s, we settled in to play some games. We had apples to apples going, and then some people started singing show tunes in the other room with the piano.

We had some fun costumes! My friend Justin picked up my camera, as he tends to do, and took a bunch of lovely random pictures.

This was us playing “match that face” or something like that. You would look at the picture taken before yours and try to match the expression. Yeah, I know they are sideways. Whatever.

This is my favorite picture of everyone in their costumes.

We ended with a couple of rousing games of ENCORE, and if you’ve never played that with a bunch of musical theater people, you really should. We do know a lot of songs, but the pressure! When put on the spot, the brain just seems to sputter and fart, not coming up with the requisite song, like a song with the word “KISS” in it. We went back and forth on that one for a long time, until our team finally couldn’t think of another one. Of course, LATER, every song in the world seemed to have the word Kiss in it.

It was a fun night with friends, and I’m glad we could host it at our house.

Happy Halloween, everyone!

Rain, Slip and Slide

September 8, 2013 / Superpaige / 1 Comment

Saturday.

John’s Birthday party.

Decided to rent a bounce house or inflate a slide because that would be an easy activity for the boys, and I found a deal on KSL for a slide rental.

When the guy came to set it up, it was sunny and hot, and the kids were excited to give it a try.

We started the party with just a few kids, since some of them had said they would be late or had to leave early because of football games and such. Since John wanted to have a “Mustache” party, we did the mustache things first.

When we went outside to slide, it wasn’t quite as bright and sunny, and there were dark clouds off to the west. No worries, though.

For we had boys and we had a slide and we had water. What could be more fun?
There was lots of jumping and climbing and twisting and turning and splashing. Such fun.

Soon the skies began to darken even more and we saw lightning a short distance away.
Not wanting to have to explain to any of the mothers why we let her child be hit by lightning instead of bringing him back inside, we reluctantly made them get off the slide and come in.

The wind was getting quite strong, and one boy was just shivering. I wasn’t cold, but then again, I wasn’t wet.

We ended the party inside, turning on the Three Amigos, and the kids dried off and were all happy. Party deemed a success, even though only half of the invited guests came and we only got about an hour of slide time in. I was a bit ticked off, because even with the deal, that slide had not been cheap, and I wanted to be using it ALL afternoon with the other kids and their friends.

Even worse, DARK clouds soon covered the area, and I read online about areas in Alpine being evacuated due to flooding. Ugh. We had another party scheduled to start soon. I had invited the cast of Scarlet Pimpernel over for a backyard barbeque. Not much dry backyard after the rain started pouring.

But I went online and reassured everyone in the group that the party could still happen, we would just have to move it inside. I had told them earlier about the large water slide, and to bring their suits, and one of the guys replied that he thought it would be fun to go down the slide, even in the rain. Ha.

Well, even through the rain and wind, they came, and we ended up having a houseful of loud, funny, theater people. My family, not used to being around such a group, kind of cowered in the corner, but they warmed up eventually.

Once the rain subsided a bit, we were able to get the meat on the grill, and eventually we had a prayer and ‘started’ dinner (even though everyone had already been eating all the chips and food that was on the counter already).

Soon, the rain was just a drizzle and I decided to plug that slide back in. Three of the guys ripped off their clothes to their swim suits underneath and jumped at the chance to go down that slide, even though it was kind of dark and kind of cold.

I should have played around with my camera settings because it was hard to capture any good images with them moving so fast and it getting dark. But let me just say that there were some spectacular jumps.

Even people who did NOT bring swim suits or a change of clothes had to try it out, and soon we had 10-15 people going down that slide. One of them was John, who got to do round two of his slide party, I guess.

Eventually the wind kicked up again and it was just plain cold. And dark, so we deflated the slide and went inside to finish the party.

It was really fun. Even after all the food was gone, people still stayed to play games, watch a movie, or just talk.

We had a game of Settlers of Catan downstairs, Fooseball matches going on, and a big game of BANG upstairs.

It really was fun. The day, even though it was not what I had planned and not the best weather conditions, was great. We managed to have LOTS of fun, rain or shine. I’m glad my Pimpernel friends braved the rain to come all the way out to Highland. When the show ended, I knew I would miss those friendships, and I told one of them that I just needed people to come to my house and entertain me, and that’s what they did.

Thoughts after it’s over. Thank you, Scarlet Pimpernel.

August 26, 2013 / Superpaige / 1 Comment

Not everyone understands why I do what I do, and why I love it so much. Why would I want to “waste” my whole summer just rehearsing and performing a play? It interferes with family things, makes me tired, takes up most if not all of my free time, and for what? A free t-shirt and a water bottle?

I auditioned for the Scarlet Pimpernel because I really liked that show. I had seen it before and loved the music, the costumes, and the story. I knew I would only be in the ensemble at best, if I did get in. And, I thought if I did this play at the Scera, it would have less conflicts with my weekly bell choir rehearsals, since they don’t perform on Wed nights at the Scera. It was difficult to not be in the Alpine Community Theater play, since I have a lot of friends in that group, and Natalie was in that play, too.

There was a real sense of community in this show. Almost like a family. Maybe it was from the Director.
Jerry is 83 years old and has been directing and acting for over 60 years. He is really quite amazing, but he’s soft spoken and when he gives direction, most of the time it’s in a positive way. On our first attempt at a run through, after it was done, he said, “Well, that was pretty good for a Monday.” Which we knew meant that it wasn’t that great, but he was still accentuating the positive.

At the beginning of the rehearsal process, they schedule people to only have to come when their scenes are rehearsed. Since I was only in 6 scenes, I didn’t have to come every single night, and when I did come, it was usually not the whole night. Kind of easing us into the reality that we would be spending every night with these people. When it’s run through time, there’s a lot of free time for the ensemble. The leads have things to work through, and the rest of us get time to chat. We learn things about each other, like that fact that about half of the cast is related. Seriously. I was talking to one girl, and she pointed out her four sisters and about 8 cousins. “Oh, and Jerry’s my grandpa:, she said. So, most of the cast knew Jerry was related to Jerry, or had been in a show with him at some point.
Even though MOST of these kids are young (like I could be their mom, that’s how young they are), I grew to love them. At the end of the show, one of the cute 20 year old boys came up to me and gave me a huge hug. “You’re my mom crush,” he said. He tried to explain that by saying I was like a mom, or like the mom he would want, or something like that. I understand, though, because I grew to love that boy very much, as well.

One night at rehearsal, I brought some balloons and ended up making animals and swords for a bunch of people. I tried to teach a few people how to make things, and I made LOTS of swords, since this is a sword fighting show. But then I worried that I was making TOO much noise. Have you ever tried to twist balloons quietly?

When we moved to the outdoor stage, we started adding in the scenery, props, costumes, lighting and sound. IT went from just a bunch of people saying lines to telling the story. One Saturday we spent several hours just learning our scene changes. Every set piece had a name, and we were all assigned to move these pieces at different times in the show. It made things more complicated, because instead of just sitting backstage between our scenes, now we had to figure out when we were doing our costume changes, and when we had to be there for our scene changes.

I am happy to report that I never missed a scene change.

We really had to work together to make everything work. There are some pretty complicated costumes, and a lot of us needed help to tie corsets, get out of dresses, do hair, fix hair, fix skirts, etc. And few things bring people closer than helping each other change clothes. I mean, you’ve seen me in my underwear, so we must be pretty close, right? We would laugh in the dressing tents as we were all changing, laugh as we fixed our hair, but not right backstage, of course.

We started rehearsals June 17. We started performing August 2. We did ten performances at the Shell. A couple of them, we weren’t sure if we would actually have a show because it was rainy and windy right up until the show started. But we never had to cancel a show for rain. Then, once our run at the Scera was over, we moved everything over to BYU, and did four shows right in a row for BYU education week. Because the stage is different and things had to be changed to accommodate it, even though we had just done 10 shows, we had to have additional rehearsals to get things right. We ended on August 25. So, that’s 14 actual performances we did together. More than two months we spent a LOT of time together.

We formed some pretty good bonds. We performed through sickness and injury, jokes and laughter. It’s also a much more emotional show than I’ve ever done before. There’s love, hate, betrayal, deception, imprisonment, death, beheading (that usually leads to death), and joy. When you go through such a range of emotions, even if it’s just pretend, it really brings you closer together.

The cast had a few get togethers through the show. Many nights people would go out after rehearsal, and they even had a couple of parties. Because I do have a family and live 30 minutes away, I didn’t go to many of those, but I did go closing night out with some of the cast to Sonic. Sorry to the servers, it was late and we were loud.

Now that the show is over, it’s like a part of my life has ended. Well, a part of my life HAS ended. I have to go back to ‘normal’, and remember with fondness my time that I got to share the huge Scera Shell stage with so many friends.
I laugh at the pictures that friends post of backstage and rehearsals (thank you, facebook), sing “Falcon in the Dive” while I load the dishwasher, or hum “Madame Guillotine” while I’m doing laundry. I will never forget this experience. I may be crazy, I’ll admit, but I’m glad I am. I am so glad that I took that leap out of my comfort zone, that I was brave and tried something new and scary. It’s only when we try new things that we can have new experiences, meet new people, and have more joy.

Chinese girls

August 7, 2013 / Superpaige / 0 Comments

After all the changes that we’ve been through in the spring, losing both Cole and Larissa, I wasn’t hip for hosting any exchange students this summer. Let’s just have a nice quiet summer with the four kids, right?

Somehow the family thought it would be fun to host again, even though I told them over and over again that I would NOT be around, since the hosting was at the same time as our final rehearsals and opening of the Scarlet Pimpernel. Ryan assured me that he would be fine, even if I wasn’t around. Ha.

A few things were actually in my favor this time.
#1-Carpool. I actually had a lady from Alpine call me and say that she and another lady each had vans and were willing to carpool, they just needed a third person. Hooray! With each of us housing two students,that’s 6 kids to haul back and forth, so you really need a van or big car to be able to carpool. Last time we did this, I was kind of late in finding a carpool, and could only find someone with a small car, and the driving was unbearable. This time, I had to drive only 9 times. Hooray! I told them that I needed to drive in the mornings, since afternoons get crazy, especially when I have to turn around and go back to Orem for rehearsal, so mornings were best. But it was dang hard getting myself and the girls up to leave by 7:30 each day.
#2-Distance. The home base school, where all the classes and activities started, and our place to pick up and drop off, was at about 800 North in Orem. While that’s still a ways away, it’s better than driving all the way to Provo, or BYU. On a good day, I could make it there in 20 minutes.

#3-Megan could drive herself and her sisters to the buddy program. They always do a buddy program with American kids, and this year three of my kids were old enough to do the buddies. There were 5 days of activities that they did together, although my kids flaked on the Seven Peaks day. They just didn’t want to go, and said it wasn’t as fun as in past years. But whatever. I didn’t have to drive them!!! Hooray!!! Megan couldn’t drive the Chinese girls anywhere, but she can drive her sisters.

I feel bad that I wasn’t around to take them to do fun things. In fact, the last week, I would only see them in the morning, as I would be leaving by the time they got back. But Ryan was GREAT. He took them and John to see Despicable Me 2, took them bowling a second time, brought everyone to the theater to see a dress rehearsal of my show, and took them to yogurt. He took everyone to the parade and Fireworks for the Highland Fling. He even took them to fix a broken ipod case. What an amazing guy!

Hopefully they won’t look back at their time here and think, that was boring.

On their last night here, we invited over another host family and our new carpool buddies, and had a barbeque. The girls came alive with friends to talk to, and everyone had a nice time. That night we even all played “Mafia” in the basement.

Although we were a little unclear on the rules, it was fun.

Monday morning I took them to school for the last time. I gave them both hugs and Yao said sweetly, “We will miss you!”. I hope we can keep in contact with them. It’s always fun to send Christmas cards to our foreign friends.

Of course, it’s NOT fun to mail them stuff that they forgot. We found a camera in the back yard after they had gone, and now don’t know how exactly to get it back to her.

For Diana

July 29, 2013 / Superpaige / 1 Comment

My heart is filled with sadness and confusion today. I found out yesterday through facebook that a friend of mine had passed away. I thought it was a joke when a mutual friend posted something about how much she will be missed. What? Is this a joke? I read on to see post after post about her sudden and unexpected death. How could this be true? She was healthy girl, in her 20’s. How could she be gone? I started asking questions, and while there are no answers yet, we know that she died in her sleep. Just didn’t wake up on Sunday morning.

So full of life and fun. I met her when I did Seussical at Alpine Community Theater, and she was there with me in every play since.

She was so happy and helpful, and we got to be friends through the show.

(Annie get your gun)

When our two months of rehearsal and the play was over, I would see her through the rest of the year at the grocery store, or we would occasionally go out for a movie with the girls.

In Wizard of Oz, we got to be Apple Trees together, and we had SO MUCH FUN, both on and off stage. I laughed SO hard with Diana and Felicia. They are both wonderful girls.

One of the things I love about a play is that you get to know so many different people. Yes, it’s long hours at rehearsal, and for many of those hours, it’s just sitting around waiting while other people are on stage. While it’s long and boring, that’s when you get to know people.

Here she is in her Cinderella ball gown. She’s really not that tall, she’s just standing on a chair right before I cut off the bottom of her dress for her.

Diana and I have shared make-up, hairspray, bobby pins, done each other’s hair, helped each other into costumes, all the while laughing and having fun.

As I read what friends are posting about her, it makes me smile and cry at the same time. Bill said,
A wonderful young woman in our neighborhood, who we have known and loved for nearly fifteen years, died unexpectedly in her sleep last night.

Diana was as vibrant, funny, and kind-hearted a person as I have ever met. We attended church with her, worked and performed with her in community theater for a decade, and saw her several times a week at the grocery store where she worked, and she always had a smile on her face and something kind to say.

Our children huddled around us yesterday when we leaned about this and wept. She was one of those rarest of people – a radiant personality and someone truly without guile – and she left us too soon.

I wasn’t in the play last year or this year, but Natalie loved being in the show with “Mom’s friend Diana”. Even though Natalie’s only 14, she was kind to her, and they laughed together as well.

Here she is with Susi (another friend from a few shows). Full of enthusiasm and life.

I wait to hear when the funeral will be, and to read her Obituary.

I guess this is a reminder to not squander our time here on earth. To tell those who you love HOW much you love them. To make time to see your old friends, and not to take your family for granted. To treasure those relationships and be nice to everyone. My heart grieves for her family, but takes joy in the fact that they will see her again some day.

Thank you, Diana, for all the joy you shared with me, for making me feel comfortable in some uncomfortable situations, for your love of Mama Mia and all things theatrical. Thank you for your friendship. I can’t imagine our little community theater without you. Much love until I see you again.

Enough goodbyes already

June 6, 2013 / Superpaige / 2 Comments

Thursday night we welcomed another visitor from Germany. Larissa’s mom, Simone, was joining her here in Utah. We were excited, but also a little nervous. What if she got here and met us and said, “THIS is where my daughter has been all year?!” Of course, there’s not much she can do about that NOW, except take her away back to Germany, which is what she’s doing anyway. We were all able to go to the airport, and we were sitting around waiting. Someone came down the hall that looked kind of like Simone, and I said, “Larissa, is that your mom?” She jumped out of her chair and said “YES!” and started walking toward her, then after two steps, said, “NO!” and walked back. It was SO funny, we couldn’t help laughing at her. We waited about 40 minutes before she finally got here, and when she did, there was much hugging.

We picked up her heavy suitcase, and went to help her get her rental car. She and Larissa were just both rambling on in their VERY fast German. I could understand some of it, but I’m a chicken and was speaking English to them. Once they got their car, I went with them, and Ryan took the rest of the kids in the car. I told them they were welcome to just speak German to each other, that I love to listen to it. I also contributed to the conversation, but things were still a bit awkward, but that was to be expected.

When we made it home, it was already after ten, and she had been up for about 22 hours, so we showed her to her room. But before she could get ready for bed, she had some gifts for us (well, mostly just for me, but I do share). A cuckoo clock! I had mentioned that I would love a new cuckoo clock, if that weren’t too much trouble, but I wasn’t expecting that. She also brought us a little mini beer stein, a cute magnet, and plenty of Rittersport chocolate…Yum!

Larissa’s friend, Ashlyn came over quickly to meet her mom, and they made plans to go hiking the next day. I couldn’t get any of my kids to go, and I didn’t want to go either, so it was just three of them hiking somewhere in Alpine. I spent the day cleaning up and then curling my hair and applying a lot of makeup. I had to leave the house about 4:45 to meet my carpool to go up to the Tabernacle for my concert. Ryan brought Simone, Larissa, and the kids (minus Jenna, because she was going to a party) up to Temple Square.

The concert went so well. Seriously, it was the most fun I’ve ever had playing in a concert. Flight of the Bumblebee at 90 miles an hour? So Cool! Now we get a few weeks off from Bells rehearsal since the choir is going on tour, and taking some of the bells with them.

Saturday those Germans went on another hike, and we cleaned up, mowed the lawn, made some pies, and got ready for a party. We invited Larissa’s friends and ward members over to meet her mother and to say goodbye and good luck to her. We made WAY too much food, as there were only about 30 people there, and I had been planning on more. Oh, well. She and her friends stayed out on the trampoline way past the time that we cleaned up and carried everything inside. I think it was about 11 when they went home. We didn’t kick them out or anything, since it was the last time (probably) she would get to hang out with them.

Sunday was fast Sunday, and we didn’t get there very early, so we were in the back on the hard chairs. It was a very good meeting, but my friend DeEtte got up and was sharing how thankful she was that Heavenly
Father answered their prayers and sent a friend for their daughter at a very difficult time. Sent a friend all the way from Germany. Isn’t that wonderful? We didn’t know when we were signing up to host that there was a special girl who really needed to come here to our neighborhood, and we would be facilitators in answering that prayer. That got me crying. Larissa even went up there to bear her testimony. She said she knew there was a God and that he cared for us. She knew that Jesus had died for us. She also thanked everyone for influencing her life, and teaching her so much. In Young Women that day, they gave her a really cute scrapbook that all the girls signed and wrote their testimonies. They also gave her her own set of scriptures in German. We have the best ward. I hope she never forgets those young women.

Sunday she and Simone went over to Ashlyn’s house for dinner, and we went to see my sister and her beautiful brand new baby boy!

Monday they packed up, taking a cooler and some ziploc containers, also some dishes and ice so they could buy some food for their trip and they were off. I had to take the kids to piano, and was going to go to the gym while they had their lesson, so I gave them both hugs and told them safe travels. I don’t like big goodbyes. It’s good for us to have two weeks before we have to say goodbye for real. It’s kind of like the MTC, only we can still text.

Speaking of the MTC, Cole has finished his time there. Tuesday morning the phone rang before 7 am, and I thought, “it’s Cole!”. I had heard that his flight was early on Tuesday, and I HOPED he would call, but I didn’t know if he would. He said the MTC was FANTASTIC and he learned so much. He sounded kind of nervous to be going to West Virginia, and I can’t wait until Monday when we should get his first email from the field. I can’t wait to hear where he is and who his companion is, and hopefully he can actually attach a few pictures. Hooray!

So, yeah, we’ve had enough goodbyes around here for a while. I need more hellos.

Our exchange student

March 4, 2013 / Superpaige / 2 Comments

http://www.ericksonfamily.com/gallery3/index.php/2012/Q4-October-December-2012/2012-10-14/P1100755
Someone asked me recently what it was like having an exchange student. I haven’t written too much about our experience with Larissa because I don’t want to embarrass her or hurt her feelings.

When she came in August, things were naturally a little awkward for all of us. We were all extra nice and she was a little shy. There was a whole bunch to do to get her registered for school, and while she was excited and friendly and helpful, I sometimes found myself getting annoyed with the extra work of not only having another teenager in the house, but the red tape and confusion of the forms and the immunizations.

While her English is excellent, there are always some communication errors, which sometimes make us laugh, and sometimes annoy us. I tried speaking German with her, but her German is really fast teenage German, and my German is 20 year old missionary German. So, if I wanted to talk about God and the Holy Ghost, I could probably manage, but listening to her tell a story about getting 20 dollars in change from a vending machine left me a bit confused.

She’s such an outgoing girl, not afraid to try new things and loves meeting new people. It takes a lot of bravery to come to a random family who you know nothing about in a random state (she did not get to pick Utah) in a new country. She just has always wanted to come to America, and she did whatever she could to make this exchange year happen. I wonder about her mom, and how she can stand to have her 15 year old gone for a whole year. Sure, she can skype with her once a week and send emails, but she has no guarantee that we didn’t just accept her daughter to come live as a nanny or a housekeeper for us (NOT the case, by the way, I’m just saying that in a hypothetical way).

We have tried to do fun things together as a family, and in the fall we went up to Snowbird for a night’s outing. It didn’t turn out like I thought it would because the tram was the only thing running, but we still enjoyed a little “fall” up in the mountains.

It didn’t take long before the boys at school noticed her, and she had a date for homecoming. Even though we don’t allow our children to date before they are 16 (heck, my children have no desire to date at 16. I have to FORCE dates upon them, so we have never encountered this issue before.) We didn’t feel right about enforcing our Mormon dating standard upon her, so we let her go. We didn’t realize that this date would turn into many more dates, and that before she was even 16, she would have a boyfriend.

But he’s a good guy. I have tried to encourage her to go out with groups, do things with other people so it’s not just a single date, etc. Her best friend here, Ashlyn, won’t be 16 for another month or so, and I think it’s hard on her that Larissa can and does date, while she’s not allowed to. Hopefully it won’t hurt the friendship, though.

This friend, Ashlyn, has really been a blessing. She and her group of friends had a bit of shock last summer, when one of the friends took his own life. It rocked their world and she didn’t ever hang out with those friends much, it was too painful and awkward. So when school started, she was feeling quite alone. Larissa knew no one except Megan, and to tell the truth, Megan is more of a ‘sister’ and less of a ‘friend’. I can’t force her to be a friend to her when she’s at school, and Larissa, while super nice and friendly, wasn’t really welcomed into Megan’s small circle of friends. Larissa and Ashlyn found each other right away and it’s been SO NICE for both of them to have a friend. They walk home from school together, go jogging together, shopping together and even went skiing together. I couldn’t have arranged it better if I had tried, and I know these girls are going to be friends even after Larissa goes home. Ashlyn is already planning and saving to go visit her in Germany, and I think it really will happen.

In October, we went to St. George as a family. We had plans to see a show at Tuacahn, go shopping, hiking, and enjoy the sun.

The rain came instead, and we had to adjust our plans, but we still had a fun trip. Everything was new and exciting for her, and it’s fun to see her gasp with excitement when she sees something new, or something that she’s seen on tv or a movie, but not in real life. She will often say, “This looks just like on tv!”. Most of the tv they watch in Germany is the same stuff we watch here, only with German voices dubbed in.

She really wanted to see Las Vegas, so she took a field trip with some other exchange students down to Vegas for a weekend. She was so excited to go there, but when she came back, she told us that some of the other students had been rude and cliquish, and the chaperone wasn’t super responsible, making it an uncomfortable weekend. But she got to go, and she got home safe.

Holidays have been lots of fun. They don’t do Thanksgiving the same as we do in America, so that was a fun experience. Of course, maybe our family celebrates Thanksgiving a little strange, with tons of people and food and then basketball.

We tried to do all the fun things we love about Christmas. We each had advent calendars, we decorated, we had large family parties, concerts, etc. Really, just the things that we would normally do. We didn’t ever go ice skating, but we did go sledding. We wanted to keep her busy so that she wouldn’t get too homesick during the holidays. The kids all bought each other gifts, and it was difficult for her to buy them things, especially Cole, who she doesn’t see all that much. I told her socks were a perfectly acceptable gift, and that’s what she did. She ended up giving me a silver watch that I really like! I think she asked one of the other kids for advice, but you can’t go wrong with watches for this girl.

She’s always willing to help out when asked, and often asks if she can help with dinner or other tasks. She doesn’t eat a lot of meat, and really likes salads. So most days, at dinner, even if she’s not the child assigned to help with dinner, she will offer to make a salad. It’s good for us to have salad each day, and even my non salad lovers in the family are getting used to it. It makes things strange sometimes, though. Like when we go out to dinner, she doesn’t really like fast food, and won’t eat a hamburger or cheeseburger. I think she said she hadn’t had a hamburger in four years. When we were in California, she mentioned that she would really like to drive through In and Out Burger and get a t-shirt that says In and Out California. Ok. So, we made special arrangements on our last day in California to stop at In and Out, and ordered food and a t-shirt for her. But the funny thing is, she doesn’t like hamburgers and fries, and that’s all they have there. No salads, nothing healthy. So, we all ordered cheeseburgers and fries, and got her a cheeseburger and a t-shirt. She took the meat off, gave it to someone else, and had herself a cheese and pickle and tomato sandwich.

We planned our trip to California so that both Larissa and Cole could go. It made things difficult to work around everyone’s schedules, and it was kind of crowded with 8 people, but we did it. She had only ridden one roller coaster in her life, and she’d never been to any Disney Parks. The other kids were excited to show her all their favorite attractions.

Funny thing about Disneyland, though. Most of the rides are themed around some Disney movie. So, as we were going to the Aladin show, she asked, “What is Aladin, actually?” What? Even though she had not seen Indiana Jones, she enjoyed the ride. We later vowed to make her watch a bunch of movies, just to catch her up to speed.

I love her excitement and enthusiasm for things that we might take for granted. On our roadtrip, she wanted to get pictures of each “welcome to” state sign.

She was also very interested in LA and wanted to go there. We told her that we don’t really go to LA, that Disneyland is in Anaheim. But when Ryan had to go to LAX to pick up the kids from the airport, she wanted to go with him. I don’t know if she thought she would see Johnny Depp coming out of the airport at 11:00 pm or what, but he took her with him. Of course, it was foggy and she couldn’t see anything, but she went anyway. On our last day in California, we drove through LA to Hollywood. She wanted a picture of the Hollywood sign.

We didn’t get the best picture, but we tried.

We went to Hollywood Blvd to see the Stars and the handprints and things. She LOVED it. And it was a fun thing that our family wouldn’t have gone out of our way to do on our own.

This week I realized that I haven’t been taking advantage of a native German speaker living in our house and working on my language skills. I told her I wanted to speak German with her for the whole week. The first day was hard. But the second day I realized I could just speak to the family in general in English. Cheating, I know. But it is stretching my brain to have to speak to her in German. Hopefully she will be patient with me.

It is sometimes a strain on the family having a “stranger” here. But I think out of all the strangers to have, we got a pretty good match. Although I can’t say that we treat her exactly as we do our own children (we are still a little bit more polite, more careful), we do try to treat her like one of the family. The kids tease each other, they joke around with her, and even roughhouse together sometimes. I hope we are setting a good example to her, and that someday she may think back with fondness to her experience with our family and have real interest in the Mormons, but if not, that’s ok, too. She goes to church with us, participates in Young Women and all ward functions that we go to. She even plays YW sports with the girls. She participates in family prayer and scripture reading and Family Home Evening with us (when those things happen–not saying we’re 100% here, but we are constantly trying).

I know that our family has been enriched by having her here. I think of her as a part of the family, and I hope that when this year is over, we will still keep in touch and have a lasting relationship with our German daughter.

A very merry unbirthday!

October 1, 2012 / Superpaige / 5 Comments

When Natalie said she wanted to do a Mad Hatter’s Tea Party for her birthday, I thought, “That sounds like fun. Not too hard. We can do that.” Hmmm. Well, I wouldn’t say it was easy, but it turned out to be so cute.

It pays to have an art teacher for a dad. He told me a while back that he had make a bunch of Alice in Wonderland decorations for a ward party, and that they were just sitting around. I decided to take advantage of his creativity and borrow all those decorations. Wow! There were so many, I could hardly find enough available wall space.

(GRRRR–I had this whole post almost done and when I went to save it, something went wrong, and now I’m back to this point. Well, I guess you get the shorter version, then.)

When the ladies arrived for the tea party, Natalie escorted them outside to play croquet. It seems the rules of croquet were cramping their style, however, so they just ended up whacking the balls all at the same time, running willy-nilly after balls.

You may notice that John seems to have bunny ears on. He made a night before costume decision that he wanted to be the white rabbit, and Larissa actually made those ears for him from tissue paper and a headband. It’s nice that Natalie didn’t shun her siblings and let them enjoy the party. John’s friend showed up right before it started, and I told him in order to participate, he would have to have a crazy hat, too. So, they went down to the costumes and found a wizard hat for him to wear.

Inside, the preparations were continuing. We had lots of cookies and small sandwiches. We wouldn’t want our guests to leave hungry, would we?

After the girls played croquet for all of 15-20 minutes (I had planned for that activity to last at least 45 minutes. Silly me), the girls came in and opened presents. While they were opening the presents, the Queen and the Mad Hatter arrived to officially welcome them to the party.

Oh, and the white rabbit was there, as well.

Now before you get all impressed thinking that I rented or bought these costumes, let me tell you the back story. On my way home from bells on Wed night, I mentioned to my carpool that I had this Mad Hatter’s tea party to do on Saturday and I needed to put up all these Alice in Wonderland decorations. My friend Janeen said, “You know I have the that Red Queen costume, right? You could borrow that.” WHAT? Why didn’t I THINK of that? She mentioned that she also had access to a Mad Hatter and an Alice costume, if I wanted to borrow them, too. No WAY! When we discussed some bell music that I could use, that clinched the deal, and I made a trip to Spanish Fork the next night to pick up all these things. Sadly, we don’t have a full shot of my in the costume, because with the skirt and the hoop skirt and all it’s pretty amazing. Don’t you agree? So, thank goodness for talented and generous friends!

Anyway, enough about me and how lovely I look in my fabulous costume….

Let’s talk about our birthday girl! Natalie looked pretty dolled up, too.

I thought it was fun how her friends came dressed up, as well. If they didn’t dress up in a skirt or dress, they at least hat on some kind of hat, which is the point of a Mad Hatter’s tea party, right?

After they had eaten their fill, the ladies retired to the family room to play Natalie’s favorite party game, Truth or Dare with the fuzzy Toss it to me game cube. And the party ended with a showing of Mirror, mirror.

I think it was a huge success. Of course, here it is, two days later and I haven’t returned the tea cups or put away the many tea pots.
Maybe I’ll have the servants do that, since I am the Queen after all.
Right.

Yep, we’re different, all right

August 24, 2012 / Superpaige / 2 Comments

It’s been almost a week with our new ‘daughter’, Larissa. She seems to be adjusting well and fitting in nicely. Soon the newness will wear off for all of us and we’ll hopefully just consider her one of us. Right now, I’m still trying to ‘make a good impression’. That basically means I’m not yelling at my kids, I’m folding laundry, I’m making dinner every night, and trying to keep up on the war against clutter. In a way, it’s kind of like you would feel if you were being filmed for a reality tv show, only we have an audience of one. I want her to think we are organized, nice people. (I don’t know why I try, she’ll soon learn that while we ARE nice, we are NOT organized.)

It was nice to read her blog and NOT see anything about how insane her host family is. No lamenting about how she got the lamest family ever, so that was reassuring to me. She did list a lot of differences, however, between America and Germany. As I read over her list, I can agree, that yes, all of her observations are true.

She said,

Well, this is a short list of all things which are different here (okey, actually there are too many things to write them on this blog, but these are the things I regognized immediately):

Evereything is bigger (cars, houses, meals, shopping centers, school, streets)
You do everything by car (including the 5 minute walk to your freinds house)
People eat differently (the meals are just different, I can’t explain it :D)
You do what your teacher tells you to do
You don’t always have to raise your hand if yo want to say something in class
If you need to go to the restroom or need to make a call in class you need to use a hallway pass. If you don’t use the hallway pass, you get extra credit (=better grades)
You (at least at my school) can look up your grades, teacher’s comments, schedule etc on the internet
People here are just friendly. The neighbor that you don’t even know says “hi” when you see him, everybody helps you when you need help – with a smile 😀
Everything’s easy going (except school, but now I also saw that it isn’t hard to get a good grade if the teacher just see’s that participate a little little bit)
If you buy something you usually look at the price. Let’s say, something costs 1.50$. You will always pay more than the prays say’s because of taxes!
Here are many fast food restaurants (but I guess that’s not new)
All meals taste very good, milkshakes are sweeter than in Germany, salads taste better etc. (Today there was a girl, my host sister’s friend and she bought a pizza in the school’s cafeteria, but she didn’t like. I wanted to try it. I liked it and told her: “Hey what’s up with this pizza? It tastes normal, just like German pizza.” She said, she would never buy a pizza in Germany. What I want to say: American pizza must taste really good, because I even liked the American “bad” pizza :D)

While I wouldn’t know about school in Germany, I would agree with her assessment. Yes, we are friendlier here, and yes, things are bigger. When she saw our Suburban in the garage, she just about fell over. Yes, welcome to Utah, home of large families and large cars.

Category: Friends (Page 2 of 7)

Valentine’s day done right

Costume Party!

Rain, Slip and Slide

Thoughts after it’s over. Thank you, Scarlet Pimpernel.

Chinese girls

For Diana

Enough goodbyes already

Our exchange student

A very merry unbirthday!

Yep, we’re different, all right

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