Random bits of late summer

I'm slowly but surely working my way backward, catching up this record of our lives. There are a few random bits of summer I need to group together into this post.

We spent some happy hours swimming at the Lakeshore pool this summer, especially since we had an unusually warm and non-rainy summer. I will never, however, get used to the fact that it gets chilly once the sun goes down in the summer in Washington. I do miss Utah summers.

 

 The beginning of August Dan drove Bailey, Aubrey, and their friend Emma to a Lee Brice concert at the Oregon Zoo. I stayed home with Joseph and his buddies at the annual "Summer Party."

The end of August Bailey and Aubrey were servers at a wedding reception of a good friend of ours.
 
One day in late August I took Aubrey to get a few errands done:
First she got a haircut and she also decided to get bangs for the first time in several years!
 
Then we got her a phone. She had used Brandon's phone while he was on his mission, but he reclaimed it when he returned. She also had used her iPad to communicate whenever she had wi-fi, but after the iPad was stolen she needed a way to reach us/be reached.

When we returned home, Bailey had made a wonderful meal for all of us and had the table set for dinner.

 She made homemade garlic pasta and veggies. Joseph's friends thought it was "the best pasta ever!"
 
Labor Day Weekend was quiet and peaceful. We did a little bit of shopping with the kids and took a bike ride with Aubrey and Joseph (Bailey was with friends). We rode to the Minit Mart and got a treat and then took a leisurely ride home.  That night we had a barbecue with some good marinated meats and lots of fresh fruits and veggies.

 

While on the coast, we had some fun with back to school shopping. Here Bailey and Aubrey try on some high heels.

 And Bailey and Joseph try out some hats.

Finally, Dan has been doing an intense workout called Crossfit. This inspired him to try to improve his diet, so he met with a personal trainer early in August, and she put him on a special "clean eating" diet.  He has followed the diet religiously (with a two week break for our trip to Europe). The stringency of the diet will change after awhile, but for now this is what he eats every day:

• 5:40 a.m. (before Seminary): 7 egg white scrambled eggs with 6 spears of asparagus, steel cut oats with coconut oil, cinnamon, and 1 cup of strawberries
• 8 a.m. (after workout): protein shake
• 10 a.m.: almond butter and apple
• 12 p.m.: chicken breast, one slice of "good seed" bread, 1 cup spinach, a quarter of an avocado, 1/2 cup berries
• 2 p.m.: "good seed" bread and almond butter
• 4 p.m.: 4 oz. chicken breast and a quarter of an avocado
• 6 p.m.: Salmon, 1 cup spinach, 1 cup broccoli, 4 oz. sweet potato
• bedtime: protein shake

It's a lot of food! He says that by the time he thinks he might be hungry, it is time to eat again. It's also a lot of vegetables, which is such a great thing.

I've tried to eat similar things, but I haven't had as much self control as Dan. This diet does require a lot of thinking ahead. The food for almost the entire day has to be prepared and pack in a cooler by the time he leaves to Seminary at 5:40 a.m. So, we prepare almost everything ahead of time, and I get up early with him and help make his big breakfast while he gets ready in the morning.

This week (mid October) Dan is gone all week for work. We really miss him, but I will secretly admit that it's a vacation for me to not have to worry about getting his special meals ready every day!

Triumph on wheels!

Words will not adequately explain the triumph we felt this summer when two of our kids mastered their own sets of wheels.

First, Joseph. He had worked for a few years to ride a bike, but was frustrated. He worked extra hard to get the necessary balance (even in OT), and Dan spent many patient hours walking and running alongside as he tried to get the "feel" of the bike. He was never okay with Dan letting go. We knew that it was becoming imperative that he master this skill.

We were headed to the coast for a week, and Brandon was going to be with us.We decided that we would try switching up the instructor, and we told Brandon we would pay him to help Joseph learn to ride his bike.

So, outfitted with protective gear on his knees and elbows, Joseph tentatively agreed to a lesson, mostly because he thinks the world of Brandon and wouldn't want to disappoint him. I don't remember the exact sequence of events, but it went something like this. They walked out to a path and Brandon steadied Joseph and then told him to push off and start riding. Joseph looked up, shocked, and said "I can't do it by myself!"  And Brandon, with his unflappable and calm demeanor, assured Joseph that he could do it and was going to do it.

And then he did.  Slow and wobbly at first, but within a few minutes he took OFF. He spent the rest of the beach trip begging one of us to take him for a bike ride. By the time we left to go home, he was riding like a pro.

And he hasn't stopped yet. He burns off extra energy every day riding his bike around the cul-de-sac. He said to me one day, "I'm glad that now, when my friend's mom tells us to go outside and ride bikes, I don't have to think of an excuse. I can ride too. And now I can do the Cub Scout Bike Rally." 

As parents, this was a learning experience for us, too. We had worked and worked to help Joseph learn the same skill that Brandon "taught" him in 5 minutes. We aren't sure what exactly was the magic that finally convinced Joseph he could ride. Certainly, he had worked for a long time to acquire the skills of bike riding, and this process was necessary. But Joseph didn't believe that he could do it, and he knew that we would keep patiently pushing him. So, maybe in this case it took someone else, someone not Mom or Dad, to kindly insist that "Yes you can do it.. Now go."  Whatever it was, hooray for Joseph!

Now Bailey.

Bailey started drivers ed in August of 2012. In Washington, the kids have to pay a private drivers ed school for training (at almost $500) OR wait to drive until they are 18 years old!

She sailed through the written coursework and tests, but didn't really like driving. We practiced a lot and her comfort level increased. It was a process.  She put off her last intimidating drive for drivers ed for almost a year, and we had to pay a fine for this, but it was okay. In that time she gained the skills and confidence. Bailey has always been a good driver. She is very cautious and very aware of all the dangers on the road. She just needed to trust herself and decide she was ready.

I will not say much about this, but I will mention that I deserve an extra nice mansion in heaven for the time I've spent and will spend teaching teenagers to drive. 

By the end of August 2013 she was ready to take the test, and she was craving the independence that driving would bring. Recently, drive tests were switched from the DMV to the drivers schools, and there is an option to pay an extra $30 for a 30 minute practice drive with the instructor just prior to the test.  Bailey scheduled her test for the day before school started. I spent the time she was taking the test praying fervent prayers and guzzling sugary Starbucks hot cocoa to calm my own nerves.

And she passed.  Hooray for Bailey! We celebrated right afterward with an IHOP brunch.

It is so great to have another driver in the house. She drives herself to Seminary, drives her siblings to lessons and activities, drives herself to Target to do her own errands. She is a great driver, and this was a very important step.

By the way, another Washington law prohibits new drivers from driving with anyone other than family for six months, which I think is a great idea. It is a little funny, though, when these kids try to go on dates.  Everyone can drive, but no one can drive each other, so they generally  have to be chaperoned by one of the parents!

I'm 43!

At my advanced age,  you might think that birthdays don't deserve an exclamation point (43!), but I want it to be known that I'm okay with my age. I am. There's a lot of great things about this stage of life.

• I waste very little time worrying about what others think of me any more. 
• I'm not offended very often because I've experienced enough to know there's always a reason someone acts rudely, and it generally has little to do with me.
•  I feel really busy, but less stressed than I did in previous decades. I have small pockets of time to focus on things that are important to me. 
• The kids are spread out from age 8 to age 21, so we cover many enjoyable kid stages and are firmly past the potty training and sippy cup stage. 
• Dan and I enjoy hanging out with our kids, but we also like the fact that we can get away sometimes and leave the responsible teenagers at home to handle things. 
• Dan and I have focused on creating a marriage where we know how to work together to get things done, but we also know to prioritize time to relax and be together. 
• Just like it's kind of a relief to get the first ding or scratch in the paint of a brand new car, it's kind of a relief to not expect to look 20 anymore. I have long since acquired some grey hairs, wrinkles, and love handles, and I begrudgingly admit that I am coming to terms with these facts, even though I do invest time and money in haircolor, wrinkle cream, and gym workouts. 
• My next big hurdle? Accepting the quickly approaching necessity of "granny" reading glasses. I am SO not okay with that right now, but I'm working on it.

I had a great birthday, and I partied it up big. This is what I did . . . .

A few days before my birthday I invited two of the amazing women I spent time with at Girls Camp to join me for a deluxe pedicure.  It was just lovely. The pedicure was relaxing and our toes looked great, but mostly I felt so privileged to spend time laughing with these women. And they brought me a delicious chocolate cake!

 The day of my birthday I was awakened with breakfast in bed. Okay, so that's the official story, but really I got up around 6:30 and visited with Dan while he got ready and then left for work at 8:30, and then I went back to bed and pretended to be asleep when the kids woke up at 9:30 and made me my breakfast. But, it was a perfectly sweet thought, and I loved it!

A few hours later I met some more amazing women and they treated me to lunch at a Thai restaurant. I am so blessed to have great friends!

When Dan asked me what I wanted for my birthday, I told him I wanted him to buy his car so I didn't have to think about it anymore. We had spent an intense week or two researching cars and communicating with dealerships via email to negotiate the rock bottom price for Dan's new car. I finally got several dealerships to agree to an incredible price for a new Hyundai Sonata, so Dan stopped by to check out the actual car. Here he met us along the road, going for a test drive with the salesman. He ended up locking in the price I had negotiated by email and buying this car on the afternoon of my birthday, and that was the best present I could have asked for. A great price for a great car and I didn't have to step foot in a dealership!

We met Dan and the salesman along the road because we needed to hand off Joseph to them, as the girls and I had tickets to go to the Taylor Swift concert in Portland.  We wore red, of course for the RED tour and made signs, which we were sure would buy us entrance to meet Taylor backstage.

Okay, so I am really 43, but it just didn't rhyme with the original song!

Kanye West, that is.

 We had a great time together! I love hanging out with my daughters.

We were really lucky to get tickets as they sold out immediately way back in December. Our tickets were not super impressive.  Okay, they were pretty much classic nosebleed!  And we definitely didn't get to meet Taylor. I'm not sure she could have seen our signs way up on the third level, even with a telescope.

But, we had a great view of the Jumbotrons and could enjoy the huge elaborate spectacle of a show, even though we couldn't see Taylor's face up close. 

 

And, at the end of the day, we were in the same building as Taylor Swift, experienced being "at" the concert, and the money we saved on tickets (versus paying more to a reseller to get a better seat up close) will pay for some college tuition someday!

I had "The Best Day" (get the Taylor Swift reference?) on my 43rd birthday. I couldn't ask for better. It will be a fantastic year!

Thank you, Sir Alexander Fleming

In 1928 Scottish scientist Sir Alexander Fleming discovered penicillin as a "fortuitous accident."  In his basement laboratory in London, Fleming noticed that a petri dish of staph bacteria had been left uncovered by accident and that a blue-green mold had formed on the dish.  Wherever the mold was, the staph bacteria had died. Fleming realized that the mold could be used to fight some common and deadly infections. Penicillin was tested and used on a limited scale until a method for mass production was created in June 1945.

Fascinating trivia, isn't it? I looked this up the other day because I wanted to know to whom I owed my utmost gratitude. It is always at the end of an illness that I am amazed at the complexity of the human body, and appreciative for the medication that healed me.

I've been lucky to be pretty healthy all my life. My bouts of illness are minor, but I am at my sickest when I  come down with strep throat, about every 5-8 years. I can clearly recall almost every single time I've gotten strep over the years because the agony is emblazoned on my memory.  Here's a few notable episodes:

• Four days after returning to BYU from our honeymoon and wedding receptions, I was so feverish and sick with strep that I couldn't eat, drink, or talk. After a few days our landlords (Dan's great-aunt and uncle) called a doctor friend, who met us at his office in the middle of the night to give me an antibiotic shot. 
• When I was pregnant with Bailey, I had many complications, but a notable one was a simultaneous kidney infection/strep throat that sent me to the hospital for a few days. The pain of the kidney infection was so much less severe than the pain of my throat, and I was ever so grateful for the IV infusion of antibiotic that quickly quelled the fire.
• Shortly after moving from Arizona to Utah, we were trying to finish off a bathroom downstairs so company could visit for Brandon's baptism in March. I spent all one day laying down vinyl floor and texturing the wall, and somehow thought it was a good idea to entertain several of the kid's friends simultaneously. As the day went on, I felt increasingly achy and unwell and my house was systematically destroyed by 8 and 2 year olds. I clearly remember a bag of fishy crackers dumped out and ground into the stairs to the basement.  Now, my renovation and child care activities that day really aren't relevant because they aren't the reason I got sick, but the sickness was bad enough that the events of the day are cemented in my memory.  
• When Joseph was one month old, we were expecting Dan's sister and family (the Baldwins) to come to visit for Conference weekend. We were excited to have company and had planned lots of great food and fun activities. The day before their arrival my throat started to hurt. Bad. I eventually found my way to the doctor and got my positive strep test. I was so miserable AND nursing a one-month- old baby AND didn't want to get our visitors sick. So I spent the entire Conference weekend in bed, feverish and miserable, while everyone else visited downstairs.

And that brings me to last week. Conference weekend again! I was busy getting everything ready and thought that was why I was feeling run down. I made lots of delicious food which I never really ate. By Sunday night I knew I was getting sick, but assumed it was the cold virus the kids had fought while we were in Europe. Their illness had started with a sore throat and moved to a cold. So, as I vacillated between chills and fever all Sunday night and all day Monday, I kept waiting for the sore throat to dissipate and the cold symptoms to set in. Instead, my throat grew more sore and the lymph nodes under my jaw were larger than golf balls and so painful I couldn't move my neck.

Like an idiot martyr mother, I did my best to keep going. I got up at 4:40 a.m. Monday and helped everyone get breakfast and lunches packed and off to seminary or school. To avoid passing my germs, I wore surgical gloves while I made the food. I did the same thing on Tuesday, but looking at or smelling the food was making me extremely nauseous. Finally, Tuesday afternoon I was picking up Joseph from school and running him to piano when I grew a brain and realized that this was more than a cold. I squeaked out a call to the doctor and arranged a strep test. Twenty minutes later I had my answer and an antibiotic called in to the pharmacy. But I couldn't bring myself to stand in line at the pharmacy - I was that sick. I texted Dan and told him to pick it up and went home.

But Dan didn't really know how sick I was, and he was delayed when his boss asked him a question . . . which led to an hour long discussion. By 7 p.m. I was a puddle of mess on the hardwoods in the the kitchen, crying painful and feverish tears. The kids had disappeared upstairs doing homework or reading, and I couldn't summon the energy to go get them or the voice to call them down to help. Dan happened to call on the way to Fred Meyer, and I sobbed into the phone enough for him to know he needed to hurry.

And he did hurry. And then, with that blessed antibiotic, the healing began. Isn't amazing how fast a mold-derived miracle drug can obliterate the bacteria that threaten us? Within a few hours I could tell the tide had turned. It took a few more days to get back to a weakened state of normal, but at least I was moving in the healthy direction. Dan felt so bad once he realized how sick I was that he insisted I do nothing but lay on the couch the next day while he handled everything. Which is a tiny bit ironic, because by then I felt a LOT better than I had the day before. The kids also were very kind and took good care of me, but I felt so bad about laying on the couch like a lump instead of helping them with all their various things. I am grateful that I'm the only one in my family who seems susceptible to strep.

So, thank you, thank you, thank you Alexander Fleming, and every other researcher who has worked to disocver medical advancements which have saved lives and saved misery!

Back to school . . . awhile ago

 Take a look at these three cuties . . .

Now, let's just pretend that these cuties just barely headed back to school and I am sharing the pictures with family, hot off the digital camera.  Are you pretending?  I know it's a stretch, since we are ending the first quarter of school soon, but pretending makes this so much more fun.

I've always wanted to get one of those pictures with all my kids together on the first day of school, but that hasn't been possible for many years. My high schooler always leaves for school when it's mostly dark, followed a few hours later by the elementary-age kid, and finally the child in middle school takes off. So, we are on a staggered schedule, and maybe that's okay. I have time to get some individual pictures of each child.

First up was Bailey, our beautiful high school Junior, who had a special assignment on the first day of school. She is part of student government at school this year, so she had to wear her ASB shirt and then get to school early to help direct kids to their classes. She spends many hours helping with events at school.

And, in a very exciting turn of events, Bailey got her license the day before school started, so she drove herself to school!

What do you - think? Does she have enough key rings attached to the one key?

As always, it was a little surreal to send a child off to school by themselves for the first time driving a car. It's just plain weird. But I've gotten used to it and I don't even make her text me from the parking lot anymore.

 And here is one picture of Bailey from the 2nd day of school, when she was able to wear a regular outfit.

 So, after Bailey was successfully launched it was time to get the new 3rd grader up and ready for school.  Joseph was more than ready and got ready quickly, even gelling his own hair. He is meticulous about getting his hair just right before school each day. (There must a lot of cute girls in the 3rd grade).

 

This kid just cracks me up!  Notice that this year his backpack is plain black and so is his lunchbox. I'm kind of sad that he doesn't want a Spiderman backpack or lunchbox (or costume) anymore. I knew that those days would end eventually and then they just . . . did. Without any fanfare. He's growing up.

 And, finally, time to help the ever lovely 8th grader prepare for her first day of school.

Aubrey walked home from the bus after school with her good friend Laura.

Oh, and don't forget Dan . . . he had a first day too!  A first day of work with his brand new car! Because Bailey is now driving, he had to give the "kid car" back to the kid, so we found him a smokin' deal on a new Hyundai Sonata. It is just lovely and drives like a dream.  Isn't he cute?

 After school the kids enjoyed their after school treat, the traditional rice krispy treat shaped like an apple. (Which I'm not so sure that anyone enjoys enough at this point to justify the effort, so I'm looking for another idea for next year). 

For some reason, these pictures were taken the second day of school. So, I guess the celebrating lasted two days? I don't know. If I had written the post in a timely manner I might have remembered. As it is, I'll just have to make up a story to explain.

 

 

It was good to be back to school, as much as we missed summer. Structure is good! New challenges are awesome! And when school starts we know that the beautiful fall weather and colors in Washington are coming around the corner.

Memories of Summer

In August, when the brief lazy weeks of our summer were ending and we were looking at a much busier end-of-summer and then the beginning of school, I asked each of the family members about what they would remember the most about Summer of 2012.  These were their responses:

• Joseph: "I liked playing with friends and making up games to play with them.  Also the best thing was learning to ride my bike at the beach house. And I liked going to Utah."

The bike riding was such a huge and awesome accomplishment, that I think it deserves its own post.

• Aubrey: "Girls Camp was a great memory and was the best year ever, even with the stinky toilets. And I liked our Utah trip and Grandma and Grandpa's cabin. But a very sad memory from this summer is having my schoolclothes money and my iPad stolen"

 The iPad Story

Yes, that was a very sad day. It happened in August, when we were doing some back to school shopping at Ross with Aubrey, Aubrey's friend, Bailey, and Angela (Brandon's girlfriend, who was visiting). To understand how sad this was for Aubrey, you have to understand how much she loved her iPad Mini.  She saved her allowance and babysitting money for several years and finally had enough to buy it last January.  She had researched the pros and cons of different iPad options for many months (she is so conversant in the features of Apple products that she should work at an Apple store), and finally decided on a 32 gig white iPad Mini. She also chose a very nice bright green cover. 

She used her iPad for everything and treated it with utmost care. She carried it with her to school and (as is encouraged by the school) used the wi-fi to do research and keep track of her assignments and calendar, etc. I had been skeptical that it would be helpful for school, but it really was a great tool, and she used it like a pro.

So, we were at Ross and she had brought her iPad in her purse. She also had $100 of her own money to use to buy school clothes. At one point she wanted to try on a coat and she didn't notice that she dropped the purse to the ground. She showed me the coat, and out of the corner of my eye I saw the purse and had the thought that I should tell her to pick it up, but then I was distracted and didn't say anything to her. Boy, do I regret ignoring that prompting.

Aubrey ran off to the dressing room to try on some clothes and I was distracted by looking around to track down the rest of the group. We all walked away from the coat aisle for a few minutes. Then Aubrey realized she didn't have her purse and I immediately knew where it had been dropped, under the rack of coats. I ran there but it was gone. When I checked at the customer service counter to see if anyone turned it in, an older woman held the purse up and said she found it on the ground and was bringing it to the front. When she held it up my heart sank, because I could tell that the bright green-covered iPad was missing. We talked to the security guard and he tried to piece together what happened, finally concluding that someone must have seen the purse, rifled through it and taken the money and the iPad, and then dropped the purse and left the store. There were many crocodile tears shed in that store that day. Oh..... it was sad and painful. Many nice people in the store came up and offered Aubrey their condolences. Why oh why didn't any of the nice people find the purse first and turn it in??

So, Aubrey started the school this year without her beloved iPad. She is saving her money to buy another one and learned a very sad lesson about safeguarding her valuables.  And some dishonest person made a bad choice that broke the heart of a little girl.

• Bailey:  "I loved EFY and our trip to Utah, including seeing Ashlyn and BYU-I and the new cabin in Heber. And staying an extra week in Utah with Mianna.  And I loved being a YCL at Girls Camp this year. "

We will need to do a separate post all about EFY and also one about Girls Camp.

• Dan:  "I love the fact that I go to work while everyone else sleeps in and plays all day. Wait, actually I don't love that!  But I did like our trip to Utah."

• Me (Tiffany):  "I loved all the good things you guys mentioned, but I especially loved the night we watched shooting stars outside."   

 The Shooting Star Story

We had heard on the news that there was going to be a meteor shower that night, visible to much of the nation.  We were skeptical that we could enjoy it because it's pretty rare that we get a clear enough sky to easily observe the stars. But, the night was unusually cloud-free and after we all went to bed Aubrey opened up her blinds and curled up at the bottom of her bed to get a good view to the outside sky.  

At about 11 p.m. she saw a burst of shooting stars, so she jumped up and rushed in to wake me up. Isn't summer wonderful . . . who cares if it was 11 p.m. Sleep is such a flexible thing in the summer.  We needed to be awake and outside watching the stars! 

I knew Joseph and Bailey wouldn't want to miss it, so we woke them up and gathered a huge pile of blankets. We didn't bother Dan, who had to go to work the next day, and he blissfully snored through all of our rustlings and never knew that we had been outside.

We spread blankets on the grass in the back yard and covered ourselves with more blankets. We were all lined up in a row - Bailey, Joseph, Aubrey, and me. We scrutinized the sky and eventually were rewarded by a shooting star here and there.  There really was a lot of movement in the sky that night, which was fun to see.

But the best thing for me wasn't even the stars. It was just being there.  My mind took a picture that I'll never forget. It was an amazing thing to snuggle together, smelling the grass and the crispness of the night air, seeing the beautiful tapestry above us, and talking about every random thing that crossed our minds.  

 "Is that a bat or a bird?  I think it's a bat.  Oooooh.  I hate bats!  Don't be silly, bats won't hurt you . . ."  

 "Where do you think everyone will be in five years?  Wow - I can't believe how old I'll be!  And only Joseph will be left at home . . . ."  

"What do you think makes the shooting stars?  Is a shooting star the same thing as a meteor?  (it is) . . . .. "  

I feel like I have overused the word "magical" in my posting lately, but that's the only word that describes that night for me. We stayed outside for hours, going inside about about 1 p.m.  I didn't want it to end. I wanted to stay in that moment, with three of my four chickadees gathered together under a blanket, just being together.  

And that was my favorite moment of the summer.   

October thoughts

How in the world is it October already? I'm in a little bit of denial, even as the weather has taken a turn in the rainy and foggy direction and the temperature has necessitated daily doses of hot chocolate.  It can't be October yet, because I haven't had closure on summer. I'm missing the lazy days when we didn't have anywhere to go and when popsicles and squirt guns were essential.

The older I get the more I know that time just keeps on marching, even when I don't want it to. Seasons go by in a blink. It feels like we catapult from one super busy event into another, and I'm constantly telling myself and others "as soon as ______ is done, I will get to that." Sigh . . . for better or worse, there's a lot of things I'm just not going to get to, but hopefully the essential things are getting done, and most hopefully we are enjoying the ride.

There are a lot of reasons that I am glad that we have our cute youngest son. One very small reason is that he keeps my standard of holiday decorating up to an acceptable level.  To be honest, at this point it would be easy and REALLY tempting to back off on holiday decorations, especially for the "lesser" holidays like Halloween ("lesser" by my criteria, at least).

But Joseph will have none of that. He is positively militant about his insistence on holiday decorations. By September 28th he was already begging and guilting me into getting the boxes of fall decorations down. By October 1st he was apoplectic that we hadn't strung up our fake spiderwebs across the porch and installed our big, ugly, motion-activated spider that drops onto the heads of unsuspecting passers-by. Have I mentioned that I'm really not a fan of spiders, unless they look friendly and have googly cartoonish eyes? This particular spider looks like something brought in from the depths of the jungle, and it is hairy and has multiple creepy red eyes.  I'll let you guess who pressured me into buying this joyful decoration.

Actually, we have a fair amount of spider Halloween paraphernalia, because I really dislike the "evil" side of Halloween but will acquiesce on spiders. The ghoulish decorations are a no-go at our house, leaving spiders and cute witches, black cats, and pumpkins.

Anyway, we are now adequately decorated, and it's fun, and I owe it all to the insistence of my 8 year old.  One more thing . . . he is never content with our current decorations but is always dreaming about and planning our next acquisition. Now he tells me that what we really need is a machine that makes fake fog.  Looking out my window today, I see plenty of real fog. Why do I need to manufacture any?

Tomorrow is one of our favorite weekends of the year - LDS General Conference. I need to start preparations, because this is an EVENT at our house. The family room will be transformed into a comfortable hangout with a blanket fort for Joseph and blankets, beanbags, and pillows for everyone else. We will eat nothing but carbs and sugar all weekend. On the menu: homemade mac and cheese, apple crisp, pumpkin muffins with salted caramel glaze, Lindsey Porter's famous french toast, tacos with homemade salsa, and lots of M&Ms for Conference Bingo. It will be a great weekend, and not just because of the food and the company. We love the chance to hear the words of the Lord, communicated through His servants on the earth.

One final random thought. It is so much fun to be about to nurture my kids this last week. They are fully capable of doing most things themselves, including their own laundry, making their own breakfasts and school lunches, etc. And over the summer I really encouraged them to become even more self-sufficient and independent because I knew that they would need to be big helpers while we were gone to Europe. They did a fantastic job, handling the chores, the meal preparation, the laundry, and calming the nightmares of the younger brother. They made the babysitter's job very easy! And Joseph did a great job preparing his own lunches and entertaining himself.

But now it's nice to give them a well-deserved break. All week the girls have looked grateful and happy when I hand them their prepared school lunch. And it has been fun to surprise them with cookies and homemade rolls. It's especially nice to lay down by them at night and talk about their day.

So, like always, it's about balance. I am so glad Dan and I chose to go on our trip to Europe - it was a priceless experience and I hope we have a chance to do similar things again. But it is also great to be home with our kids who are are even infinitely better than Swiss chocolate (and that is a true, heartfelt compliment!)

Magical

Dan and I just returned from a magical vacation to a beautiful part of the world - Switzerland and the Bavarian regions of Germany and Austria.

The trip was magical because every day and every experience was more amazing than the last. We saw breathtaking mountains and waterfalls and lakes and breathed in the fresh, clean Alpine air. We drove and walked through countless small villages which are unfailingly pristine clean and tidy and the very definition of charming.  We saw opulent castles and buildings and cities with a rich history spanning over a thousand years. We saw people proudly walking around in lederhosen and other traditional Bavarian dress and cows and sheep with big bells around their necks.

The trip was magical because we were able to travel with my parents. What a privilege to spend time with them and enjoy our fantastic relationship. We were sad to see an end to the time together.

The trip was magical because I was able to spend almost two weeks with my hubby. In this season of our lives we literally have to schedule time to talk and our (usually) weekly date night is our only brief respite in our busy and separate lives. We are perpetually sleep-deprived and going different directions, often "dividing and conquering" conflicting kid's events. It was an incredible luxury and privilege to spend 12 days just being together - talking, exploring, learning, laughing.  We came back refreshed and delighted.

Oh, and the kids seemed to do just fine at home, thanks to some careful and detailed preparation and the help of some wonderful friends and babysitters.  They wish they had been with us, but are enjoying the Swiss chocolate we brought home. (Over 30 lbs of chocolate. I am wishing we had brought home more!)

On this trip I took between 50-600 pictures per day.  Let's just say that it is going to take me awhile to sort through and edit them enough to post some pictures. But, while the memory is fresh, I thought I would document that I had a perfectly magical time.