The Hamster Wheel

We bought this big blow up ball in March. The kids have begged me every day to let them blow it up.
The weather has been not so great, or it has been too busy so far.

But yesterday, a bad case of the "I'm bored" syndrome set in at our house.
Instead of adding more chores to their charts, I decided to be nice and told them to go and blow up the big ball
The best part was that it actually took quit a few minutes to get each section blown up with the little hand pump it came with.
Great time filler.

There was a lot of screaming going on out in the backyard.

When I went to sit up in the parent's section at swim practice that evening, our next door neighbor told me that her daughter saw the kids playing with the ball and was yelling, "The neighbors have a hamster wheel!" I thought was a pretty good description of what was going on!
And very fitting for these little animals!

Will chose his own outfit. Hence the sweater on a nice warm day.

The Brewers Game

We spent the cold, windy, and wet Memorial Day with the Tyson family up in Milwaukee. We decided to take in a Brewers game. Very convenient because their stadium can be enclosed! 

Walker came in his Cubs baseball hat, but they forgave him!
I bought my sister Lauren's Cannon SLR from her. It came just a few days before we went to the game,  so I decided to bring it along and use the day as a test run to try to get used to the new camera.
So far, I am loving it, but I have a way to go before I am comfortable with all the Manual settings.
Time and practice!

They had lots of fun activities set up for the kids inside. They got to try batting and pitching.
Here is Sam getting ready to swing for the fences!

Wally at bat.

Walker loved this game that required you to peddle as fast as you could, but he was too small for it. He didn't want to give up though, and it took some coaxing to get him out of there.

Miller Park with the Tysons.

I look like I am channeling my inner Amazon woman! I had just walked through the rain though. A little wild!

Jared and Leslie and Annie. Greatest friends!

The field.

We made a concerted effort to hunt down the cotton candy vendor. Jack enjoyed his cotton mustache.

Our kids absolutely love Sam, Ella, Jack, and Annie.
This day was bitter sweet, because Jared has completed his residency in Orthopedic Surgery, and the Tysons are moving away next month.
Having them so close all these years has been a little taste of home. We will miss them so incredibly  much! We knew this move was coming up, but it is still just as hard to say goodbye to them as it has been to say goodbye to so many other really good friends that have lived near us, and then moved while we have been in the Chicago area! I always think I am okay with it when a friend moves away because it is not the end of the friendship. But that touch of melancholy always finds me in the end. I am sad about it.

We are grateful that we are from the same hometown so that we have assurances we will see our good friends a lot in the future! We love you Tyson fam! We are so happy for you! Good luck with your exciting future!

10 Years In the Midwest

It is so hard for me to believe that it has been ten years since we loaded up the Budget truck and left the Salt Lake Valley for Chicagoland!
But it has! Ten years this weekend!

Our life looked a bit different ten years ago. Understatement.

We had a two and a half month old baby.
I had just quit my job, and I was still in the adjustment phase of being a new mom, who had just quit working full time.
I remember alternating between feelings of being so completely overwhelmed with my newborn, who was very difficult, and had been kept in the hospital, and feelings of guilt that I was not at work.

I always felt guilty growing up when I was sick and had to miss school. Being home in the middle of the day was so foreign, and that is how I felt after I quit work.

As it turned out Wally had a few good reasons to cry. We would learn all of that on our journey in the Midwest!

Del had just graduated from Weber State, and had been on a post degree job hunt while he finished up the last few weeks of school. The economy was tough back in 2003. Although, nothing like it is now. Who knew it could get worse than what we were told, was the worst graduate hiring outlook in decades!?

Del was working for a water softener company doing free trial sign ups in new neighborhoods while he took full course loads non stop to graduate in eight semesters. Not glamorous work by any stretch of the imagination. He knocked on a door one evening that led to the job that would bring us to the Midwest!

I remember we left Wally with my mom one evening, and I went up to Weber with Del to attend a recruiting presentation put on by SAIA, a trucking company. It was pretty much a situation where Del could have had the job if he wanted it. We would have moved to the Northwest, and he would have been on salary and done of lot of logistical work for them.

Del was not excited about it. We were also so frustrated by the really stupid questions being asked by the other potential employees in the room.
Del and I had a bit of a giggle fit in the back of the room as we dared each other to ask dumb questions on par with the ones already thrown out.
"So, what are the names of all your truckers? A to Z?"

We left knowing we would not be moving to the Northwest.  Much to the dismay of the lady who  co-orindates jobs for graduates of the collage. I remember that night she told us not to go down the path we eventually took.
We were used to that because getting married at ages 19 and 21 a few years before that taught us that there are plenty of critics out there.

Del took a job with a medical supplies company. They had one guy in the Chicago area at the time. He was a local, and from what I remember, his forte was more repairs. Not sales.
Del would open the area.
We would be on a salary so small it would barley cover our rent, groceries and maybe a bill or two. I was terrified. So, so terrified. But, even through all that fear, we felt at peace with this mostly commission based pay job.

Before the move to the Midwest, we lived in this little white house.
We rented it from some friends of the family.  We found it when we moved from St. George to Salt Lake for Del to start at Weber.
When we first went to look at it, you could not see the outside of it because it was so covered in junk trees. It was being used as a storage unit. It had no A.C.  It had radiator heating, no door on the second bedroom, floors so slanted you couldn't drop anything without it rolling to a corner. It had been moved to the location it was back in I believe the 30's or 40's, and who knows when it was built before that.
I left knowing we could make it into something!

Our families, most especially, my Dad, helped us get it whipped into shape. We repainted it, inside and out, replaced windows, framed out the lean to laundry room, replaced the doors, switched out light fixtures, cleaned the appliances, several times, cut down the trees, and planted flowers.  We loved the independence of not living in an apartment complex with people surrounding us.
The best photo I have of the little house is pretty blurry. I think we took it right after I spent the day planting flowers.

Del did grounds maintenance at the Salt Lake Community Collage back then. One day he was told to dig up a bunch of dead grass and replace it with new sod.

We had a stretch of weeds and rocks on the side of our little house. So Del asked if he could have the dead grass. He loaded it up, brought it home, and we pieced it together, one dead hunk at a time (it was not even in strips or large pieces of any kind) on the side of our house. We watered it religiously, and it grew. Green and soft.

We found a free scrap of new carpet, ripped out the old carpet in the only room that had it in the house, and paid a guy in our ward to help us lay the new remnant. We made it fresh, clean and cute for our new baby girl, who it tuns out was really a boy!

In my opinion, we turned that little white house into the most precious thing! I painted the front door  red, and the tulips I planted still bloom in front of it every year to this day.

I talked my good friend Amanda, and her husband Matt into moving into another little white house, that happened to be for rent across the street, and it was so fun to have them there while we all ran around like crazy to do the work to put together a future for our families. Such good memories. I remember Amanda helped me pack up my closet when we moved. I took having her across the street for granted. I loved it!

The best part about this little shack? We paid $350 a month in rent! Del  mowed our tiny lawn, and the adjoining yard of our landlord each week. I am very sentimental about that little house. It hold good memories of making things work.

Sorry, this post is turning into quit the walk down memory lane! Hopefully this ten year history won't take that many years to read!

As you can imagine, we would be moving into something more than triple what our rent had been in Utah!
We flew out to Chicago with our crying baby, and went on an apartment hunt. One of the reasons Del was selected to open this area was that he had served his mission for our church here. He was sure he would know his way around in those days before GPS in every car.

Nope.

We drove around lost for two days straight. Our maps were marginally helpful. I think it is probably a miracle we found our apartment. We saw many scary ones, and talked to many scary landlords, and I went to bed the first night we spent in the Chicago area, feeling pretty low.

We ended up finding a newly updated second floor apartment in Palatine, Il. We quickly signed the lease and felt grateful to have found it! The apartment was a great blessing to us, because it would be where another young couple from our ward at church would end up moving with their new baby too. A girl named Tanja asked me at church one day where I lived, they were in temporary cooperate housing. I told her there was an apartment across the walkway for rent, and she should live there!

I had to go down to our old neighborhood a few weeks ago, and I drove by and took this picture of our old place. That is our old front door and balcony, but not our wreath! Ha!

We stayed with my parents the night before our move, and early the next morning, we buckled Wally's car seat in between us on the bench seat of the moving truck, with our car on a trailer behind it, and with heavy hearts and a promise of only five years, at most, in Chicago, we drove off. Just about two weeks after Del walked in graduation.

Once we were settled, my good friend, Tanja and I spent hours walking with our babes around the lake while our husbands tried to make a mark in their new careers.  We all moved out of the apartments, and into homes at the same time, and we were in the same ward again, although a forty minute drive from each other! I still get to work with Tanja at church, and see her every week!

Tanja was pregnant with her twins while we lived here, and I had my first miscarriage. It was home while I made countless trips to doctors and hospitals to address all of the health needs I didn't know my baby had, until I moved to the Chicago area. How I found all those different doctors without GPS is still a mystery to me!
I remember my grandma died while we lived here. I still wish I had gone home for her funeral. I had just returned from a trip to Utah the week before. I listened to a recording of her funeral service my Dad sent me in our bedroom, in this apartment.

It turned out Del was really good at his job! Certainly good enough that we knew we weren't going anywhere for a while. He went straight commission for the higher pay scale.
We built a new home about forty minutes from our apartment, and moved in in July of 2004. We were nervous about it to say the least. Building a home in a place so far from home, after only a few months of living here! We were scared, but we felt good about it for some reason.
The only picture I could find handy was this one that I must have taken in the middle of the day. Some pretty heavy shadows going on.

The home was the sight of many new people and ideas!
Will came home to this house.
Georgia came home to this house.
Del's company was organized in this house.
Walker came home to this house.
We had faith testing, and building experiences in this house.
We had marriage building experiences in this house.
We had family members pass away, and survive disease while we lived in this house.
New friends became old, good, forever friends at dinners and parties in this house.
We set and achieved goals in this house.

We lived here for eight years. It was the fastest eight years of my life so far! I documented more than five years of it here on this blog! The company grew, and gained footing, and our family certainly grew. We started to feel a little pinched in the living space with our four kids.

I have told the story before here, here, and here, about how we wound up moving into the home we live in now.
We have schemed and dreamed over these past ten years about moving back to Utah to be near our families. We have come to the realization, and come to peace with the realization, that in some instances, we can't push things. The blessings that have come into our lives over the past ten years have been so many, and so abundant, that I know we have to be willing to go, and be, where we are needed.

I do hope that one day, we will be able to build a home in Utah somewhere. But I have found peace where I am now. We do better when we let things work with the timing the Lord has for our lives. We just have to do the hard work, and be ready to act.
I have learned a lot living here, and I only have more to learn. I am also so grateful for the footing we have been able to establish for our future from our time spent in Illinois. We have made a home for our family here.

I know that we will be lead to the places we are supposed to be. I have a lot of love/hate going on with the weather here in Illinois. But I absolutely love the people and experiences I have in my life because of the decade I have put up with that weather! It makes my head spin to think back to the way things were ten years ago. It feels so far away. We never guessed we would have lived here this long as we drove that moving truck with every Earthly thing we owned in it, across the country.  I can only guess what ten more years will bring!

If you are wondering if I ever have less sentimental feelings, just ask me how I feel about living here on a black, snowy day in March! He, he!

A Few Facts About Red Heads

We always seem to get around to taking a picture of me and the kids for Mother's Day, a week late. So true to form, here we are just before we jumped into the car to go to a special Stake Conference for church. We got a new stake presidency.
The kids all have bright red cheeks from a weekend of playing outside.

A small word to the wise. Do not wear a white dress and then try to eat a buttered blueberry muffin in the car because you did not get a chance to grab anything else in the midst of getting the kids ready. It will inevitably lead to either a blue, or a butter stain on the front of the dress. Possibly both. Dang!

Okay,
Look at Georgia in this picture! Ha Ha!! Could she come up with a more scathing look at her brother if she tried? I laughed so hard when I saw this photo in my camera! She was telling Will to smile at the camera. Will was not having it on this particular morning. He was doing the "look at the camera with your eyes half closed and mouth hanging open" thing. Georgia was only too happy to instruct him to do otherwise.

I don't know if she is more or less fiery than any other little girl, or redhead, because she is the only one of both those categories that I have. But I will say that pretty much nothing gets past this girl in our house. She is a one woman, redheaded patrol.
Georgia also gets FAR more attention from the general public than any of my other kids. It is pretty safe to say that we cannot go anywhere without getting at least one comment on her hair color, how pretty she is, or how rare her look is.  We are asked what her name is by people all of the time. They are curious about her. When they hear her less than common, old fashioned name, it takes the attention to a new level!
I totally get it, because now that I have a redhead, when I see a girl or woman while I am out with Georgia's coloring, I am drawn to her, and usually find a way to ask her about her hair. Especially the teenage girls. And usually only if they have the exact strawberry red, blonde, gold mix that Georgia has, because that is what I am dealing with. They are so pretty to me!

Del's family is very familiar with all of this because Georgia has so many redheaded cousins. We all have so many stories about the extra attention that comes with this hair color!
There are plenty of red tones running in my family line too. My great grandma was a red head. I wonder sometimes if she was anything like my Georgia.

Georgia is very sensitive to this right now, usually ducking her head. But I think that she actually enjoys the attention. I hope she does, because she has been forced to make a promise to me that I will never hear of her buying a box dye with her teenage friends and going for it in someones bathroom! Her hair must remain uncorrupted!
I remember when she was a baby and had barley a sign of eyelashes, I would angle her this way and that in my arms to catch the light on them. They looked like they may be red! I was so excited!

I happened upon a list of facts about red heads this week. I found them entertaining, and some of them made me kind of sad, because I could not love my daughter's hair color more.

You can decide for yourself how the red heads in your life live up to a few of them!

Facts About Reheads:

-Less than 4 percent of the world's population has red hair. Only 2% of the U.S. population is a red.

-The gene for red hair is called MC1R on Chromosome 16. This gene must be carried by both parents in order to produce a red head. The gene is a mutation and can show up after generations of darker hair.

-Red hair with blue eyes is the rarest genetic combination on Earth. Red hair with green or brown eyes is more common. (Hello Georgia!)

-Red heads often require up to as much as 20% more anesthesia, and have been known to wake up during surgery if they do not have a strong enough dosage.

-Those with naturally red hair do not go grey as they age. Red heads keep their pigment longer in life than any other color, before fading and turning white.

-Red heads have been picked on through out history. Guidelines for witch hunting in almost all time periods suggested that those with red hair were of the devil. Girls with red hair were often burned, or buried alive in both ancient Egypt and Medieval times as a way to try to halt the coloring from spreading.

-Scholars note that redheads have influenced history out of proportion to their numbers. Famous redheads include, Roman emperor Nero, Helen of Troy, Cleopatra, the ancient gold of love Aphrodite, Queen Elizabeth I, Napoleon Bonaparte, Oliver Cromwell, Emily Dickinson, Antonio Vivaldi, Thomas Jefferson, Vincent Van Gogh, Mark Twain, James Royce, Winston Chruchill, Brigham Young, Christopher Colombus, Malcom X, Dwight D. Eisenhower, Ulysses S. Grant, Galileo, King David, and I have heard George Washington powdered his red hair white.

- Throughout history Satan is often portrayed as a redhead.

-As recently as 2001, red hair has had an effect on a judges sentencing of a criminal in Ireland, as he believed red heads to be of a bad temper.

-Michelangelo portrayed Eve as a brunette before being expelled from the Garden of Eden, and a redhead after being driven out.

-In Denmark it is a high mark of honor for parents to have a red head. (Good thing the majority of our ancestry is Danish!

-Redheads have been depicted as unlucky. Judas is portrayed as a redhead, proving an early prejudice.

-Redheads have the thickest hair, but the fewest strands.

-Redheads are stung by bees more than those with other hair colors.

There are a few things you may not have known about those "fiery" headed people in your life. I know that we love having the red variety of hair around here! I think history may just have it exactly wrong! So far red has been nothing but a lucky hair color in our lives!

The Piano Recital

We had the privilege of hosting Will's piano recital at our home this weekend.
When Will's teacher asked me if we would be willing to do it, I asked him if he had seen our piano!

I never would have dreamed when I painted this 1970's hand me down in my garage nine years ago, that the old girl would come through so well for us in a recital!
It is a relic for certain, but when I get it tuned, they always tell me that the piano is a good instrument in a beat up body.
I must admit that I was nervous that the E in the last octave that sticks a little, would act up every time the advanced player's left hand worked it's way down the keyboard! But we came through just fine!

I have to throw out the disclaimer that while I was proud of how the piano performed, it by no means eliminates my desire for a grand piano! Ha! Del reminds me of what a pain it would be to move it one day, but I think that we should cross that bridge when we come to it!

The group we hosted was made up of some really quality, good people! It was nice mingling with them over refreshments. I was thrilled that everyone felt comfortable staying to eat and talk and didn't feel they needed to run off right after.

I loved the elegant feel that the beatiful music brought into my home! That is one of the reasons that I was so happy to host. It was a pleasure to sit and listen to music played by sweet children, and dedicated teenagers. Good music truly does bring the Spirit of God, and I felt that during the recital. That was nice after the rush and stress of getting everything ready in the minutes before the participants arrived. I loved the memory of accomplishment in our home it created for my children.

Some pre- recital collaborating among the beginner players.

I went to buy flowers at Trader Joe's and they had so many pretty choices, I left with a few more than I probably needed. I was able to put together a nice sized arrangement for impact on the top of the piano, and two smaller ones for tables. Flowers are a weakness!

We filled every chair and then some! Good turn out!

When it was Will's turn to play, he stood up, set his book down on his chair and announced, "I am going to play without my book!"
Followed quickly by me whispering an anxious, "Are you sure?"
He got up there and played both his pieces so well from memory!

The humble/proud walk back to his seat in the middle of the applause.

Will's teacher, Mr. Steurrer, had some of the very advanced players he has taught, come to the recital to show the smaller ones what they can do one day. One of them played the theme song from "Pirates of the Caribbean" for fun after his serious piece. The kids liked that. Those students also have students of their own. So some of them came and joined in our recital.

Mr. Steurrer has small children, and he had his oldest, just seven, come and play the violin as an introduction at the start of the recital. His two year old son also plays! Crazy!

His daughter was so cute, and very good! He is a big believer in the Suzuki Method. After reading "Battle hymn of the Tiger Mother," I am also very interested in trying this method. (That book is another post of it's own! I really enjoyed it, but wow, that woman is intense!)

Georgia was fascinated by his daughter's violin. She held it up to try it out with Mr. Steurrer's instruction.
He said she has great natural form. I asked her if she is interested in taking lessons because we are starting her in piano this Summer, but she said that she wants to do it. Mr. Steurrer doesn't teach violin, so we would have to find a Suzuki Method instructor.
 Something to look into for sure!

I decided to do a selection of different muffins and juice for refreshments. The families all brought a treat to add to the table.
I got asked about nine times how I make the raspberry punch. It was a big hit!
(Thanks for the recipe Aunt Sandy!)

We had to try to get a decent shot of the family! Walker fell asleep on Del in the middle of the recital, so he was off napping though!

Here he is!
He was disappointed he had missed the party when he woke up. He told me as I put him to bed that night, " I missed the food, and the people."

I loved what one woman said while we were talking about staring kids in music. She said that it is a good idea to start them young, because then they learn that they can play an instrument, as well as all the other activities and interests they have as they get older. It helps them learn to fit more quality activities in because they are already in the habit of practicing. Rather than the mentality that there is not time that sometimes comes with age.
The recital renewed my level of commitment to encouraging my kids in music. It is such a rarity to play something so well! I know I wish I played the piano better than I do! With all the lessons I took, I have no one to blame but myself!

Hopefully we have many more recitals in our future!

Mostly Outside Things

Del has started a little tradition. We invite the neighbor kids over to make S'Mores in the back yard. They come, it gets a little crazy, and they eat,and eat, and eat, and eat. And get really sticky. And have a lot of fun! And then we all smell like fire smoke for the rest of the night!

We had our first S'Mores night a couple of weeks ago. The kids do not let us forget when it has been a while since we did it, so I see another invite going out in the very near future. Sometimes we get a few parents along with the kids, and sometimes they throw in a backyard game of hide and seek to work off the S'Mores they stuffed themselves with.

Del learned the hard way not to be goofy with the marshmallow roasting sticks. Playing along, he took a bite off of one of them when it was held out to him by one of the kids, and burnt his lip! Ouch! That was a nice little lesson to the kiddos though!

Del got a riding mower because we have more yard space in the new house. The kids hound him for rides.

I was straightening up in Georgia's room, when I found a surprise here in her bird cage.
I knew Georgia found an abandoned birds nest outside. She was carrying it around the yard one day.

But when I took a look inside the cage while I cleaned up, I saw that not only had she brought it inside, but there was a small blue robin's egg sitting inside.
When she got home, I asked her about it, and she told me that she had convinced Will to climb a tree, and steal an egg from a nest so that she could be its mom and watch it hatch.

I had to explain that now the egg would not hatch because it needed it's bird mom to sit on it and help it get ready to turn into a baby bird.
I am sad that nothing will come of this egg. I hope Georgia got the message, and remains an observer when it comes to nests in the future.
Oh boy, this girl is too curious for her own good.

Our turtle friends have returned! Georgia spotted this guy sloooowly working his way along the fence line, trying to get to the pond on the other side of it!
We had this happening last Summer too, after we put the fence up between us and the pond, we realized that it was a barrier to these turtles. They are not smart animals by the way. You actually can get around the fence at the edge of the property line, but they will stop and turn around inches away from the stopping point.
We have to scoop them up and give them a ride over the fence on a shovel. They are snapping turtles, and they live up to their name! Best to keep some distance between the turtles and your fingers!
We are on a roll when it comes to disrupting the local wild life this week!

Speaking of animals, Walker makes the perfect pet doggie for Georgia. She loves to boss him around. She is really good at it! I think this dog and owner relationship is bit more complex than the norm however. When your dog talks back it adds a new level of complexity. At least the game kept them playing while I tried to get rid of a headache by taking a rest on my bed.

I swear the hose runs from the moment the kids get home from school, until I call them to get ready for swim practice. They are always drenched before they get to the practice pool.

Along the lines of nature and the outdoors... Wally's class built a rainforest in their classroom at school. They were so excited to show off their handi work! So they invited parents to come and eat lunch in the rainforest with them. This is not a flattering picture of me, but it is all I have of the rainforest, so for the sake of my son, here ya go!

These boys chase each other, wrestle each other, laugh with each other, and are pretty much as close as two brothers can be. This brotherly relationship runs deep!

I was called on Sunday to teach in Relief Society. It has been so many years since I attended Relief Society on Sunday's because I have been serving in Primary and Young Women's. I have taught before, years and years ago. So I will be interested to see how I do! Ha! Keep a good thought for me as I prepare my first lesson!