Camera Mishaps

I've been spending a lot of my free time looking at homes. Thomas and I pack up after breakfast and spend the morning criticizing other people's homes. I usually bring the camera just in case I find one I like, I can look it over again at home and "show" Mike the house. The other day we were driving home after yet another unsuccesful house hunt, Thomas got a hold of my camera in the back seat and I ended up with about 30 pictures. Here are my two favorites: upside down and up the nose and the back of my head while I'm driving and hoping my camera will still work when I get a hold of it.

Anatomy of a FHE

So ever wonder what Monday evening is like in our house?

The first challenge is to get everyone to sit down in order to begin.


But then what is the point in sitting down if your opening song is "Jesus Wants Me to be a Sunbeam" which is accompanied by jumping up each time you sing "Sunbeam".



This was family planning night for us. So keeping Garrett interested was difficult. He played with his shirt and then starting throwing his paper airplane.

After several threats we calmed down. Then it was off to business. Paige and Kate were reviewing their savings accounts and allowance while Mindy tried to occupy the boys.



The closing prayer worked out ok.


Then it was time for Garrett's favorite game - Don't Eat Pete!!


We finished with some ice cream.



A relatively calm endeavor. Must have been the camera.

My Memories

Well, I have a random list of memories,
nothing specific.

Brown Road...

• Being scared of the chicken coop because of King the Rooster

• Climbing the plum tree next to it and eating the plums.

• The tennis court and the automatic tennis ball shooter-outer thing. Do you remember wearing a pair of tennis socks with the puffy ball dangling from the back? I remember the huge bugs that would land on the tennis court at night. Someone, probably my brothers, told me that they were tarantulas (like the one that dad had in that picture frame along with all the butterflies). I recently asked mom what they really were because I actually grew up thinking that they were tarantulas.

• My yellow, banana bike that Melissa passed down to me on my birthday. That was a great day.
  

• The yellow, sectional couch.

• The crystal chandelier over the dining room table and eating fish with tartar sauce. Yuck!

• The Driggs were our home teachers and they would always bring us a treat. I liked when they'd come over.

• The secret cubby in Heather and Melanie's room. I hid there every time we played hide and seek.

• The secret safe in the floor in the boys room.

• Eldon's wax? Or wax around cheese? I just remember chewing on Eldon's red wax. Weird.
  

• The basement: the pinball machine; the video arcade that had a helicopter and some woman's voice crying for help (you've got to remember that I was only 5 or 6); the player piano and "Bad, Bad Leroy Brown"; the sparkly, yellow weight machine set that I was not allowed to touch (but I did anyway); the juke box; and chip and dale cartoons on the movie projector.

• Do you remember the antique-looking, rotary telephone in the library that stood on a tall stand? I loved that!

• And we had a big pile of rocks between our house and the Shills house and I would play there a lot.
  

• Do you remember sitting on the divider between our little street and Brown Road? I do because I wasn't suppose to it because I was too young, but I would sneak in a sit whenever I could.

Evergreen...

• The mirrors over the dining room table. Chicken and rice or roast. Graham crackers and ice cream. Cheesecake which is still my favorite, with tapioca pudding running in a close second.

• I remember Brent and Melissa would ride their unicycles everywhere and I practiced and practiced but I never did get the hang of it.

• The singing machine and The Carpenters.

• John Wayne movies.
  

• Mushroom pizza, yuck.

• Dilly bars, yuck!

• Kentucky fried chicken on the way to the cabin, yuck!!

• Candyland and the dog-shaped beanbag at the cabin.

• King's Table all-you-can-eat buffet! We would mix all the sodas together so that we could drink coke and mom wouldn't know it.

• Shaving cream on the trampoline.

• I had a fabulous slip and slide.

• Hawthorne is the place that I go to school, boom, boom, boom; but I never sing about it's name, 2, 3, 4... Yeah!

• Mr. Kempf and his amazing memory of names.

• Mrs. Bowers and singing "Off we go into the wild blue yonder"...or "Army, Navy, Air Force, Marines: Nothing can stop the U.S.A".

• Atari and the dragon game where you had to get all the different colored keys.

• Leaving gifts and food on an unknown family's doorstep at Christmas time and hiding in the car while the boys would ring the door bell and run.

• The movie collection of t.v. recorded movies.

Mallory Circle...

• Monopoly games.

• Playing in the orchards.

• Mutual activities in the circle or in the pool.

• The coyotes howling at night.

• Riding the motorcycles where the elementary school now is.

• Climbing on top of the house from the balcony.

• The dang cats that still haunt the house to this day.

• Anne of Green Gables marathons.

• Sitting on the swing when it rains.

• Oh! And cinnamon rolls on rainy days.

• Homemade bread.

• Rice, cinnamon and milk. Another huge yuck! :)

Well, I hope I didn't take your memory
but instead sparked more memories for you
or gave you something to expand on.
I hope I made you smile.
I did.

This is for you Mindy!!!

This is what a size 13 should look like!

Diving for Dad

I was trying really hard to think of a good family memory. Thoughts of the cabin came to mind; the headless snake thrown around my neck, the ATC and the mud, but I think one of my all time favorite memories has to be dad judging our dives by the pool at night.

I don't know if you boys ever did this with dad, but us girls in the family kept dad occupied many an evening having him judge our fabulous dives.

He would spend hours rating us,

1 being the lowest and 10 being the

"perfect dive".

Over and over again, we would dive into the water trying so hard for that "perfect 10". He would tell us that our splash was to big, our feet were too far apart, we needed to arch our body higher, and other things that his expert eye would catch. Then finally at last, when everything came together, he would bestow on us the coveted
"perfect 10"!

Now as my children swim at moms, they beg me to judge their fabulous dives. I watch them dive over and over again until at last I can watch no longer and I bestow on them the coveted "perfect 10".

Dad, I loved that you spent hours judging our dives. I always thought I was Olympic worthy, but now as a parent I realize that after an hour of judging...

...dad just wanted to go inside!

Happy Birthday!

I'm slow in posting this... but we had a wonderful weekend this past weekend... Grandma and Grandpa came by for supper. We had a birthday dinner for Grandma! It's always fun to have a party! We need to have more. (Not necessarily b-days, just parties!)

Gotta' love the digital camera... after all the pictures we took, this is the best one of Zach. Turkey!

I was sitting on the swing and I was chewing on a drumstick when I saw a dead thing in the grass. It looked like a bird, but then again....
I couldn't really tell, but I thought I saw bunny ears. Suddenly the drumstick really grossed me out. I threw it away and as I was rushing back to work I had to get a closer look to be sure. Notice the tuffs of hair in the grass.

I know you all wanted to see this!

I guess I should have saved these pictures for Easter!

The Freeze

This is what our hard, 3 days in a row freeze did to our banana tree, OUCH!



The bananas all turned black.
Once the stalk of the tree produces bananas, you cut it down so the new stalks will produce next years bananas.



But as you can see there are no beautiful green leaves to feed the tree. I wasn't sure we would get bananas next year BUT look--



See the purple bud. Amazing!! That is the blossom for the bananas. Nature is amazing!




And this, what is this you ask...
Ahh it's the smell of orange blossoms!!!
You missed them by a week Heather!

1725 E. Brown Road

Life at 1725 E. Brown Road. I remember most the Tree between our yard and the Shills yard. We had a trampoine under it on our side and we would jump from the tree to the trampoline. We would also play tag in the tree. It was huge and we were like monkeys jumping from branch to branch.

That also reminds me of playing "ditchum" in our yard/the Shills yard. It was like our own little world. They had a funky house that had so many places to hide. And the were never there so it was like our yard too.

Then there were the chickens. King! Need I say more. I still have marks on my legs from King.

The Wait..

Wednesday, there was a small party going on while we all waited.

Some laughed & smiled.








And smiled some more! Some picked "Sweet Peas" & giggled!










Some just had to eat because the wait was too long for them-





Others played games while they waited.

One couldn't keep his eyes open-




Tickling & giggling kept happening-



More games. It was great, nobody to tell them how to do it!!



And then the wait was over!!! Lindsay came . . . She showed us her brace for her fractured arm!!! "How did she do it," you ask? Mostly, just being Lindsay, playing at the park.
For the details you will have to wait for Linnea's blog.

A couple of random memories...

Okay, I'm squeaking this in before the midnight deadline here, but I've been thinking about the memories I'd share all week. I finally found the images I wanted also :-). How's this for a trip down memory lane:




My memories of growing up often include food, like rice casserole, hawaiian haystacks, cracked wheat, and yes...Thrifty Icecream. I don't remember what the criteria was for whether you could get a single, double, or triple scoop (remember those cool cylindrical scooper guns they would click in the water bucket between scoops), but it was "the best" when Mom said, "Yes, you can have a triple!" My favorites were Double Chocolate Malted Crunch, Mint Chip, and of course Rainbow Sherbet. I remember all of us kids running into the store on Gilbert and McKellips and huddling around the ice cream counter deciding what we'd get. Begging for a "sugar cone" instead of the regular ones, and then going outside with the "stack" of icecream and frantically licking around your cylinder so that it wouldn't collapse in the high heat of the day! MMMMmmmmm - good memories :-)

Two more memories...one of them food - I also remember a few trips to Farrell's Icecream Parlor, and getting the gold coins as we went out in the candy shop. That candy shop was amazing. We always got the gold coins which were SO cool. I had one not too long ago and they are actually not that good - but back then they truly were like gold! Remember the pig's troughs and the Firetruck, and the singing happy birthday?

Okay, the last memory I have came today at Stake Conference. Christopher sat by me and with the lights turned down so that everyone could see the screens they have set up, he got sleepy. He laid his head on my lap and curled up, just like I used to on Mom's lap :-) That was my favorite part about church as a kid - laying my head on Mom's lap and listening to the music and watching the tall curtains billow in the air conditioning I suppose...anyway, they were moving and I was transfixed, watching them as I nodded off to sleep. Christopher never went to sleep, but Emma did, in my arms as I walked her through the hallways softly humming. Kids are so lucky :-) We were so lucky. Good memories!

I Like Cute Butts...

...And I cannot lie

This is our typical view when we go to the Zoo. Mindy's sister MerryAnn came down from LA with her family and we all went to the Zoo and then they spent the night.

I'm not sure we could enjoy the Zoo without little kids excited about everything and running from exhibit to exhibit.

We have year passes so anyone who wants to come see a real Zoo just let us know.