Well done!

Our friends' son Kenny returned from an LDS mission to Montana last week. We were able to sneak over to their home & visit him for a few minutes before he jetted off to BYU the next day. I was (almost) speechless at how much he has changed. It was fun to see him - it's amazing how they leave as young men & come back as grown men. I can't say what I am feeling very well - but it was awesome to see him.

New Year's Eve Eve beach trip

Brandon & Rachel had fun flying Brandon's very cool new kite.

Tanner - what happened to your beautiful smile???

Yes, it is January & we are wearing our swimming suits on the beach!


Before we drove home from Florida, we had to make a trip to the beach. We love just hanging out in the sand & the sun, hearing the waves, & sometimes seeing seagulls. On this day, we flew kites & found almost 100 sharks' teeth. The Guana River Preserve between Ponte Vedra Beach & St. Augustine is a beautiful place & the lack of other visitors made it even better.

Resolutions

OK, so as usual I have a million (and one) things going through my head. I hate the idea of making a resolution & then not keeping it. My friend Bonnie listed a bunch of things she was working on though & I like the thought - here's some of the plan. This is a long and self-centered post so you can just skip the rest & make a clever comment at the end if you desire.

I am taking a picture every day for the entire year & making a yearbook from it. I am planning on making the pages digitally & having them printed in a bound book at the end of the year. I still have to decide if I want to make the pages 8.5x11 or 12x12 or something different.

I signed up for the Biggest Loser contest at The Gym. This year the program includes keeping a food journal & a cardio log (very clever & helpful). The results of one day of journaling? I am starving to death!!! I am thinking of munching on anything. I will probably whip up some vegetable soup & tilapia tomorrow. I did sneak in 35" of Wii Fit today while the kids were at school as part of my more-active-lifestyle plan.

I am going to run the Greenville Downtown 5k at the end of the month. If I can finish in under 31 minutes, I will sign up to do the National Marathon in D.C. with Scott. If I cannot, I will just go & cheer him on (& eat lots while not journaling my food at the race). My feet are not very excited at the prospects of going longer than ten minutes right now.

I have been organizing a few areas in the house. So far, this means that my cookbook cupboard & my clothes closet are looking pretty spiffy. The verdict is still out on the 200 other areas that need a little work. Hopefully, I can take BabySteps (yea FlyLady) & make some good progress.

I am trying to empty out the freezer. I have been storing food in the freezer & we've run out of room ... & the food is getting older by the minute so we're trying to eat what we have. I am sure that there will be financial benefits, but mainly I am just interested in having room to store the ice cream that I'm not eating. Along the same lines, I am trying to increase our food storage by shopping the good sales. My new favorite shopping blog gives coupon links with the sales. My goal is to leave the grocery store with a 50% savings - stock up at b1g1f prices with coupons & save a little extra for produce & milk.

I am trying to read the scriptures more. We are studying the Doctrine & Covenants in gospel doctrine this year & I am learning a lot. Also, I am helping Jared read better with a BYU independent study class about reading & the Book of Mormon. It only involves tutoring him twice a day for two weeks & then 30" 3-5 times a week for the rest of a semester. (?!) He is a pretty good little student & reading help cannot hurt.

In case you're still reading ... Okay, I promised Scott that I would be in bed by 11:00 p.m. so I won't be so grouchy in the a.m. so better toodle on along. What are your goals or plans this year?

Happy New Year!

I wish that I had something profound to say about the New Year - for that you should visit my friend Liz's blog. She is full of wisdom & perspective. I have hemmed & hawed about a New Year's resolution & have decided to jump on the scrapbooking world band wagon & take a picture every day for 2009. That's the official goal. The unofficial hope-I-make-it-but-don't-want-to-feel-like-a-loser-if-I-don't goal is to make a book with all of these pictures in it - a year in the life version of 12-on-the-12th.

We decided to save the BIG present for after Christmas. The kids would have totally ignored everything else that they received & we just wanted to shake things up a little. We were the last ones out the door on the way to Florida & left a few more boxes under the tree. Hopefully, the video will load & you can share the joy of kids getting something they never imagined possible. (After HOURS no video. I will move on to plan B.)

Merry Christmas!

Christmas Eve photos

This is the beautiful nativity set in the family room. There's a new beaded garland that I found at Costco the other day - garland was too thick for the depth of the mantle. We moved the leather sofa beneath the mantel so there would be walking/opening room.

This is a new nativity set that Scott gave to me. It sits on top of the piano. Next year Scott will build me the creche like the set. The official Willow Tree creche is $89 - I am thankful to be married to a wood-worker.

This is the hand-carved olive wood set that Scott brought back from Jerusalem when he went in 2003.

Luckily, people don't expect lights along the very top roofline in our neighborhood. The ones that we do are scary enough. This is our house on Christmas Eve. We were kinda hoping for a little snow flurry but it's not happening.

On Monday night we were invited to our friends' home to eat with the missionaries, go caroling, & act out the Christmas story. It was a ton of fun. Along the way, we have tried to teach our kids the true meaning of Christmas. It seems like this season has rushed by without having time to do the things that make it feel Christmas-y to us. We only baked one evening. Next year we are going to plan ahead - don't we always say this? But I think that we really will.

Tomorrow we are feeding the missionaries after they call home. I do this because I love them, but also because someday when my boys are far from home on Christmas day, I hope that someone will take them in, feed them a great meal, & let them use their phones to call home.

Merry Christmas - hope yours is merry & bright!!! I can't wait to see my kids' faces tomorrow.

Kids hung out & watched the extra video on Kung Fu Panda.

Umm... don't change into your jammies while mom has the camera out. Every Christmas Eve the kids get a new pair of jammies. And usually mom & dad if we're on the ball.

We had to take 6-7 pictures to get this one. Jared could not keep his eyes open. We finally told him to close his eyes until we said "3" & then open them. He popped his eyes & mouth open. Too bad we already did Christmas cards - this is a keeper.

Stockings were hung by the gas fireplace with care. Family room was rearranged so there's room for chaos in the morning.

Christmas card

Click on the picture if you want to read the gory details - mostly just the good stuff.

I totally lifted this idea off of Kerri Bradford's blog... saw the idea, bought the template, & cranked them out. Costco even printed them up at 5x7 for 38 cents each & threw in free envelopes ... another reason to love Costco. I am thinking I will address these on the way to see Bret. Too bad they won't work for next year too, huh?

Cool Christmas lights video

We have decked the halls with lights, garland, a beautiful artificial tree with a kajillion ornaments, set up the Santa mantel in the kitchen, & put up four beautiful nativity sets. I will try to post some pictures later - but while reading through my Google reader list (146 posts behind@!) I surfed into an amazing Christmas light show. Umm... our lights don't look that great but usually we remember to turn them on!!! :)

A few random shots

Jared's teacher has a fun Thanksgiving feast every year with her team teacher. All of the parents bring a side dish that they've made & everyone eats together. The teacher even has former teachers & family members come serve so the moms & dads can sit with their kids. Jared was delighted to have mom attend; Scott was in the air on the way home from a business trip.

The swing at the lake house is great fun. All three kids were actually caught smiling & playing together at the same time. Jared loved hanging out on the boat with Aunt JeaNette too.

Reality Check

Feeling confident in your ability to handle it - whatever it is? If you want a little self-assessment test, check out the Clean Sweep Assessment. I took the quiz and found plenty of areas of my life that could use improvement. In honor of turning 42, my score was 41. How did you do? I wonder what would be different if it included stuff like reading the scriptures, praying, or other important religious behaviors.

I had a bit of a pity party tonight & took it out on my kids. Nothing like ending a great day with a mother's temper tantrum, huh? Maybe we'll have chocolate cake for breakfast to make up for it.

Top Ten Hints that We're Not on a Cruise Anymore

So now that we've been officially back for a week, I thought it was time to let you know how we know that we're back. The cruise was WONDERFUL! We are so blessed to have good friends who were willing to take care of our children for us. We even came home to clean laundry & happy children. So nice.



1. It's cold! The weather was warm & wonderful for the entire time. The decks were very windy for a few days as we outran the hurricane. When we were docked in Roatan, the sky was overcast & threatening - but it was still warm! Now, I am cold every day & even wear my sweatshirt through most of class at the gym! (I am the designated Fan Girl usually so this is a change.)


2. No one cooks or cleans the dishes up for us! Every night at promptly 6 p.m. we would show up at dinner & Imade (our waiter) would bring us dinner (and offer another choice if he could tell we weren't pleased with our original choice). On our first night home, it was a shocking change to have to think of what to cook & actually cook it! Also, we had great dinner companions (Jan & Walter from Florida) that were fun to talk to every night. We even saw Gilligan's Island out the window next to the table.


3. Nothing very new & exciting out the window when we wake up every morning. We were lucky enough to see four different ports of call - I am still counting Roatan because at least we saw it from the window! In order the pictures are Tulum (Mexico), Belize, Roatan, & Freeport (Bahamas).



4. I don't get to spend enough time with my husband. We were together 24 hours a day almost every day. It was wonderful - Scott is such a fun traveling companion! We didn't have to divide & conquer to get everyone where they needed to be all at the same time.




5. We ARE the fun & games committee at home. We miss the cruise directors & staff planning fun activities all day long. We played charades, bingo, and trivia games. I even went to a little scrapbook class. We could have done 100 other things - there was almost always a decent selection of things to do.


6. When we go to bed at night, no one has turned down our sheets, left us chocolates, & a to-do list for the next morning. Also, no cute towel animals.


7. No cigarette smoke clogging our noses & lungs every time we took a wrong turn or tried to get somewhere that was only accessible through the lounges or casino. (This is definitely a positive!)

8. No more wardrobe excuses - all of my clothes are present & accounted for. I don't have the excuse of saying that my [-----] is at home so I have nothing to wear. Everything is right here.

9. Piles & piles of pictures to scrapbook. I chose my favorite 188 pictures to Costco to have them printed up. Now I have a list of pages to scrapbook & great memories to relive! (And a deadline so I don't forget!!!)

10. Three beautiful children are within reach to hug & kiss & love almost all day long.

Cruise Pictures - the big file

I wish that I had time to make captions on each picture right now. You can see A SLIDE SHOW of the trip if you have nothing to do for half an hour. It's long. We saw Cozumel, Belize, Roatan from the ship, & the Bahamas. Very cool & fun.

Cruise teaser

We are currently docked in Roatan, Honduras. Civil unrest (a strike against the government) has made it impossible for us to go ashore. The officials didn't tell us until we arrived this morning. It is very beautiful - hilly, mountainous, lush, green, & overcast. We were going to go by rickety fishing boat to Anthony's Key Resort to snorkel & see the dolphins today. We saw the dolphins out swimming in the ocean this morning - A LOT of dolphins (20-30). Yesterday, we went ziplining & cave-tubing in Belize. The day before we visited the ruins of Tulum near Cozumel, Mexico. Here are a few pictures -- (*well, there up there)

We just received word from the cruise director that we are going to have an extra At Sea day instead of another destination. Bummer, bummer, bummer. We are loving the cruise but this ship is especially suited to beer drinking, smoking, & gambling.

We have however discovered all of the places to eat good food & have partaken liberally. ;)

Anchor just dropped & so will the internet service.

2008 Greenville Spinx Marathon

After months & months & miles & miles of training, Scott ran his first marathon ever! He started back in late June or early July and couldn't even run a mile without pausing to walk. He has run 3-4 times a week since then including several very long runs on the weekend. The course was so beautiful. It wound around through Cleveland Park, through the streets of Greenville, under the River Falls bridge, and finished in the Greenville Drive stadium.

We the spectators spent time running between here & there in hopes of catching the runners at various key points. Scott & Ken & Danielle ran the whole 26.2 miles, Jacob Armbruster & Lisa McMurtrey ran 13.1 miles, & Christopher ran 3.1 miles. Christopher had a P.R. today of 23:08 & came in first for his age group. Lisa finished at 2:01. Danielle was about 3:32. Scott & Ken were about 3:38. So incredible & inspirational to watch. These people have all trained long & hard to be able to complete these long distances.

We were especially lucky to have Grandma & Grandpa Smith visiting from Utah to see the boys race. They were also able to see Ryan play a baseball game for the first time ever on Thursday night. We know how hard it is to come out this far & are so appreciative that they would change their schedule to be here for this important day.

The Really Big Wall of Pictures

One of the things that I love (& hate) about our family room is the high ceilings. However, they make for really big walls & everything seems to look really dinky. I saw an idea on Tara Whitney's blog & copied her. TW's is WAY cooler - but she's a professional photographer & I am not. I took all of the pictures except the Toyota jump at the temple & the cruise picture. These frames are just shy of 20" square so the top of the arrangement is at 8'.

It took me months & months (& months) to make the trip to IKEA in Atlanta, decide on pictures, & get them hung. I am happy enough with the result. I love my new laser level that Scott bought me to make the whole process easier. I only had to reposition one nail. (!!!) We like it because it represents a lot of aspects of our lives together - living in the Pacific Northwest & the South, mountains & sea, cool architecture, & travel. This project makes me think that I need to paint my walls a color other than this, but with 20' ceilings I think we might just live with it!

What's cooking Wednesday

Tonight we were in a hurry for dinner because of Cub Scouts & Boy Scouts. This is an un-recipe but it was very, very tasty.

Pocket-less pitas (Costco)
Ham (lots of thin slices)
Muenster cheese

Layer the cheese, & the ham on a pocket-less pita. Cook on the George Forman grill until there are good little marks on the ham. The grill makes cute little grill marks; layering the cheese on the bottom keeps it from sticking too much. Fold in half.

You will probably feel ripped off by today's recipe until you give it a try! We serve this with grapes & carrot sticks.

Where have you been in the USA?

visited 32 states (64%)
Create your own visited map of The United States

Happy Birthday Bonnie!

Two of my nearest & dearest friends - Mimi & Bonnie.

Bonnie is one of my best friends. I have known her since the fall of 1990 when we moved to Renton, Washington. She was my visiting teacher. We were fresh out of BYU & far away from home & family. She had two children & I had none. (She now has seven & I have three.) She was the Young Women's president & I served as the Laurel advisor. She has been an awesome friend & sister for as long as I can remember. I would love to write a beautiful essay about how much she means to me, but I don't want to proofread & rearrange & all of that. So instead, I will tell you 20 random facts (or until I run out of ideas).

• She & her husband met in seminary when she was 14. They married after his mission.
• She is wise & is able to cut through extraneous information & quickly come to a decision.
• She is the mother of seven children - a son on a mission for seven more days & a daughter just starting college & 5 more involved in football, baseball, ballroom dance, soccer, & swimming (all at the same time).
• She juggles a schedule that would make me weep. Whenever I think that I have to do a lot of carpooling, I talk to her & realize that I have it easy - really, really easy.
• She has a strong testimony of the gospel.
• She is a great travel agent. When I drove from SC to FL to WA, she talked me through the crazy journey. She was the other adult in the car with me keeping me sane. When I would be lost, she would get on the internet & find out where I was & how to get to where I wanted to be. (Hopes of having an 11-year-old be the chief map reader were ill-founded.) She would suggest my stopping point for the night & then help me find a good hotel.
• She is a patient psychiatrist. When I moved to SC, I was very very very homesick & pregnant. I talked to her EVERY day for years.
• She has an uncanny ability of hopping in the shower or shopping at Fred Meyer's when I call her. ;)
• When we drove home from the hospital with our new baby Christopher, we came home & she came over to see us. She immediately sensed that we had no clue what we were doing & needed some basics - she helped set up a modified changing table on the kitchen table (a towel folded in two) and a makeshift bassinet (a Rubbermaid box beside the bed).
• She gives countless hours of selfless service to people in her ward. She is not one to boast & rarely lets her left hand (me) know what her right hand is doing.
• She serves as the bishop's wife.
  
• She is soft-spoken & kind.
• She is super practical. (the carpet)
  
• When I was turning 40 & so stressed out, she & Scott worked together by phone to have her come & surprise me on my doorstep. She even called me during the day when she was on a layover so that I wouldn't get suspicious.
• When we lost our baby at 18 weeks, she comforted me & helped me work through a depression that was deep & long-lasting.
• She scrapbooks & is almost up-to-date on all 7 kids' scrapbooks & a family book (with fancier pages). She has made several wonderful scrapbooks for me as gifts. When we left Washington, she contacted people in the ward we lived in to make a going-away book for us. It included a picture, addresses & phone numbers, & memories of people & when they met us or what we meant to them. So precious.
  
• She has everyone's phone numbers memorized just like I do.
• She is an avid genealogist & has submitted a lot of names for temple work. She has worked on & off for as long as I can remember at gathering names on her husband's family.
• She does not gossip. Since we haven't lived in the same ward for 16 years, we don't know tons of people in common; but even if we did, she is not a teller of tales. She is the VAULT & if you tell her something, it stays there.
• She loves to travel as much as I do... and has been to many more exotic places than I.

I have lost track of how many points that is and I know I've forgotten some key ones - but HAPPY BIRTHDAY my friend.

It's Wednesday - what's cooking?

One of my friends does words of wisdom every Wednesday. And I like that. But I am not the wisest cracker in the barrel. However, I like to cook. Every Wednesday (until I forget about my pledge) I will be posting something that I've made recently. And by posting on Wednesday, I am not saying that I cook on Wednesdays. Jack (-in-the-box) cooks for us on Wednesday.

PEACH COBBLER by Jonna (Jenna's mom)

1/2 cube butter
1 cup flour
2/3 cup sugar +1/3 cup sugar
2 teaspoons baking powder
3/4 cup milk
3-1/2 cups sliced peaches (big can or frozen)
1 teaspoon vanilla

Preheat oven to 350. Melt butter in shallow glass casserole dish. Mix flour, 2/3 cup sugar, baking powder, & milk; pour over melted butter. Pour in peaches (if using canned, drain first); do not mix. Add vanilla by sprinkling over the top of peaches. Sprinkle remaining 1/3 cup of sugar over the top. Bake at 350 for 45-60 minutes. Check at 30 minutes. Makes 6 servings. Cobbler is done when top is golden brown & inside is cooked. A little overdone is better than a lot underdone.

I must confess that this is as good cold for breakfast as it is hot for dessert.