For the first part of our spring break, we stayed home.

Friday night Megan came home and we went to dinner at the traditional birthday place, Los Hermanos. And we ate WAY too much. Darn chips and salsa.

Saturday, Natalie and I baked about 25 loaves of bread and delivered them to the people who had ordered bread. It was a LONG day for both of us. We’ll bake more bread in the future, but we either need to charge more money, or not deliver.

We also listened to conference, or tried to, when the Bosch and the wheat grinder weren’t making too much noise. Ryan also took Megan bow shopping. Seems the girl has gotten into archery and she really really really wanted a compound bow for her birthday. Yep, she’s just like Catniss. Only she and her roommate Sarah shoot hay bales, not wild game. They found one she likes, and the guy at the shop took about 1/2 hour to help her adjust the draw length, and also instructed her on her stance and corrected her grip, so it was like a private lesson. All that matters is she is happy with her present.

On Sunday, we all enjoyed the chance to sleep in and stay home.

There was some looking for easter eggs and candy eating, as well as waffles for breakfast. As newly called Relief Society President, it was nice to not have to GO to church and do all the church responsibilities. The conference talks were AMAZING! I really felt the spirit. After the last session of conference, we hosted a family Easter dinner. Lots of food and fun. It was just my sister Amy’s family, our family, and mom and dad, but that’s still kind of a crowd.

Monday I got the kids outside with me and we did about 45 minutes of weeding in the back yard. But it wasn’t all that warm, and there was of course much complaining. I had grand plans that we were going to weed EVERY day, but the weather didn’t cooperate so much. But at least we got that one weeding session in. Monday night we decided to take the kids bowling. It really is their favorite family thing to do. We had such a fun time bowling. The last time was with the Brazillian boys, and that was awkward, so it was good to go with just us, and with only 3 kids to pay for, it seemed almost a bargain.

On Tuesday, the kids were doing an awful lot of tv watching, so I encouraged John to find a friend to play with, and I got out the hair dye for the girls. Natalie had been wanting to do a bright pink on the ends, and Jenna wanted red. SO, I got to play beautician. The natural henna rinse I had picked up for Jenna took FOREVER to process, and it looked like green/brown baby poo.
It smelled AWFUL! Seriously. I nearly lost it several times as I was trying to comb it in to her hair. She put on a cap and got to sit for a time while I worked on Natalie.
First we had to bleach, then wash and dry, then color the pink. It was a long process! Both girls are happy with their new looks, though, so that’s a good thing. Then it was time to take John to the Orthodontist, just to check and see if he needs anything. nope. He’s good for a couple years, at least. When we came home, I decided to take the kids to see a movie. Paddington was the best option at the cheap theater, so off we went. Ryan was going to do a bike ride, but he ended up not going because it was just too cold and windy.

Wednesday, I had plans to attend a workshop learning about and sewing with DAYS FOR GIRLS. We want to do a service project with them and they had invited me to come to a training session. Before I could do that, however, my phone rang, and it was the Bishop of our ward, calling from California. A member of our ward had died in the night, and we would be responsible for the funeral on Saturday. Oh, goody! A funeral! Just what I had been dreading. But, we have a wonderful compassionate service person, who has done lots of funerals. I got on the phone with her, called my counselors, asked a few questions of the former RS president, and we figured things out. I decided I’d better go to Costco and get the hams today, since we have plans to be out of town on Thursday and Friday. It took a while to call, set up the sign-up list, email back and forth, but I think we have things under control. The Bishop and I will both be back in town by Friday night, so we can take care of this funeral on Saturday.

Oh, did I mention we are feeding the missionaries on Wed night? Yep.
It’s not Disneyland, but it’s still fun!

This big ol’ white board now lives in my office. I’ve spent some time this morning figuring it out and rearranging a few things (just a few). It’s the visiting teaching board for our Relief Society. I have a feeling I’ll get to know that board very well. With sisters moving in and out, changes seem to be necessary almost constantly. I feel bad for our secretary.

I’m thankful for my supportive husband. Yesterday, as I looked at the website for substitute teachers, there were 36 available jobs listed for today and in the next week. I look at those open jobs and I feel guilty if I don’t accept one of them. But I didn’t want to. I mentioned it to Ryan and he said “You should NOT feel guilty for not subbing unless someone specifically asked for you.” I realized today that this morning is the only quite time I’ll have around here for about a week (spring break coming up) and I really needed to prayerfully consider the sisters and the changes that need to be made, so I’m glad I had this morning to do it.

Today we will start our breadmaking. I believe we need to make 26 loaves tonight and tomorrow for the first baking day of Natalie’s fund raiser. She needs to earn about $600 to pay for her Debate trip in June to Texas. But we’ve had a GREAT response to the bread idea, and I think she can earn that money in the time we have.

On Saturday, the girls wanted to go to the festival of colors in Spanish fork. We had gone last year as a family and had fun, but I didn’t know if it was in the cards this year. I had a bells rehearsal in Salt Lake and wouldn’t be home until after noon, and John had a birthday party at 1 pm, but I told the girls I would go with them if they really wanted to go. They did. At least Natalie and Megan. Here we are on the bus to go to the temple BC (before colors).

Jenna did not want to go, so she stayed home with Dad.

I love how when you walk in, you see the WHITE people and the COLORED people. Talk about segregation.

It was a beautiful and warm day. We didn’t purchase colors, but as soon as you walk on the grounds, people start to toss a bit of color on you, or even pat you on the back or the face with some color. Personal space? Not here.

I like the shirts when they are colorful, but not TOTALLY covered in chalk.

In trying to protect my camera, I kept it in a bag. I tried to take pictures through the bag, but this was the result, so I tried to just take it out and take a picture or two and then put it right back in the bag.

Here it looks like Natalie is trying to eat our heads.

The bandanas are to protect your mouth and nose from the chalk in the air. When it’s the official THROW at the top of the hour, you can be sure we had our faces covered.

There are a ton of people there, so parking and traffic is a problem, but we didn’t mind waiting for the bus to take us back to our car at Salem Hills High school.

The important thing was that we all had fun. Yes, we had to shower, wash everything, even vacuum out the car afterward, but it was a fun experience!

Happy Spring!

I hate making doctor’s appointments. I put it off and put it off. Especially if it’s something for me that’s just kind of a nagging, non urgent thing. My mammogram gets later and later in the year every year, as I put it off.

Well, I’ve been having night sweats something terrible, lately. When I went to the doc earlier this year he wrote me an rx for estrogen, which my pharmacist cautioned me against taking this if my body wasn’t making progesterone, because it can cause cancer. So, I never took that. I also never took any of the pain med he prescribed for a stress headache I had at the time.

So, I gathered up my courage to call and make an appointment with an ob/gyn (I don’t have one currently, since I’m done having kids and all) and was rejected. Not taking new patients, only doing surgical consults, blah, blah, blah. It was like a slap in the face. Plus, I had just used all my gumption to call and make that appointment! Now I’ll have to wait 3 more months and stew about it before I can call again. Ok, not really. I summoned up the courage to call a DIFFERENT office and try to schedule an appointment, an they won’t even talk about making an appointment before April. FINE. But I made an appointment, at least.

Now I have to call the Orthodontist and CHANGE the appointment I made for the kids, because that turns out to not work very well. When you have to schedule so far in advance, things come up, I tell you.

But I can’t do that today because I’ve already called two doctor’s offices today. That will have to wait for another day.

Wow. Our show is over. 22 Shows is 3 weeks.

The show was so popular that it sold out, so they asked us if we could all do an additional show on Thursday night, which we did.

It was really awesome to get to know the other 7 people in the cast.

For the past four weeks we get there around 9 and start to do our makeup, hair, get out mics on and get in costume and warm up. A lot of mornings I was tired, or stressed, or really didn’t want to do JUST ONE MORE show. But once I got there, everyone was laughing, singing to whatever music we had on that day, and just having fun as we got ready. I mentioned to Ryan how much fun we were having, and he said, “this is the payoff. You did the 6 weeks of rehearsals and now you get to reap the pay off.”

Yep.

And what great people. Our director is in his 80’s. He’s a wonderful man.
We have a 57 year old dynamo with tons of energy, and she was also our choreographer.
We have a retired cop, now stay at home dad,
A 19 year old chemical biology student (something super smart like that)
A couple of 28 year olds who love theater and have been doing it for years,
A mom of 3 who only did her first play last fall,
Our Pinkalicious, who is most often a behind the scenes gal, directing and stage managing so many shows, but she was AWESOME and full of energy in this role,
And me.

Everyone was so nice. We talked about relationships, theater, husbands, boyfriends, dating, kids, makeup, music, underwear, school… everything. This past week I came on Thursday and had just learned of a young man’s death in our stake, and I was very sad. But doing a show forces you to leave your sadness at the door. There is no time for sadness in a busy, high energy show like this. I felt love and support from these people.

In a small show like this, you get a chance to sing and dance (at the same time) even if that’s not your forte. Often, n big shows, I don’t get to dance at all because it’s obvious that I’m not a dancer. I LOVED having the chance to learn choreography and dance. No, I’m not the best, but I CAN do it, and it’s fun.

Yes, it was a ton of work. Each show took about 3 hours out of my day, with driving to Orem, getting ready, doing the show, changing, and then driving home. On 7 of those days, we did the show twice, so that was about 6 hours. But I LOVED doing it. Yes, my house is a mess, and I was quite exhausted.

But it’s worth it to me.

Now the show is over and I have to go on with my regular life. I have a few sub jobs lined up already and I will continue with my chimes choir. I still have Bells, and we are entering a really busy season. I have enough to do, that I’m glad I won’t have to give up 3 or 6 hours of my day tomorrow. But a part of me is sad that I won’t get to see these friends every day. I hope to be able to do another show with each of them, and hope we keep in touch. Dr. Seuss said, ‘Don’t cry because it’s over, smile because it happened.’ I will always smile when I think of this show.