Slacker!!

Oh, heavenly days! I can't believe it has been so long since I've written on here. I just had to get on here to look up a photo and realized how much I miss posting, even though it was only about once a month. So, tomorrow, or in the near future, I'll get back on the horse. Until then, here is a lovely photo of my kids the day before they got their braces last June.

40th Birthday!

I turned 40 in April. I have to say, it ended up being the best birthday I have ever had.
Tom and I spend the night before in Park City, then had breakfast in Salt Lake.
We went to pick up my amazing birthday cake later in the day. I have a recurring dream where I go into a pet store and see that they are selling tiny little elephants, lions, giraffes, etc., small enough to put in a 10 gallon tank. I go crazy buying all these tiny animals. It's my favorite dream to have. Anyway, Tom found a baker who made a special cake for me, representing that dream.
We had a party that night, which is always fun. We had friends from our old neighborhood and from our new neighborhood. We played silly games, ate that great cake, and just had a really nice time.
Tom spent weeks and weeks before the party (with the help of Alesha) creating a book for me. He contacted family and friends and had them write down memories of us together, or whatever they wanted to write to me. They put these in the book and added lots of pictures. It did not arrive in time, and in fact still has not arrived, but I am really looking forward to reading it. It is the perfect gift for sentimental me.
One great surprise during the party was the arrival of our friend, Lance. Lance and his family are very special to us. Due to military obligations, he has been away for a year at a time, three times in the last four years. Neither Tom or I knew he was coming, so it was really a joy to see him walk into the room.
Evan and Kaelin, who are talented artists, each drew me a picture for my birthday. I will take photos of them and get them on here. Evan drew my favorite car, a Porsche, and Kaelin drew a cute animal picture for me. I could not have had a better birthday. Tom really outdid himself. A huge thanks goes out to Tom and to my friends who helped me shop for party clothes, stayed over with my kids, and came to the party.












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London, Part 1

On March 25th, Evan, my Mom, and I went to London with a small study abroad group from Evan's school. We were there until the 31st. We spent every day going, going, going, from about 7 am til 10 pm or later. Some nights we didn't get to bed until midnight, only to get up and do it again the next day. It was a fantastic experience, I was so fortunate to be able to be there with not only my son, but also with my Mom.
We had a great tour guide, James, who grew up in London, as did his parents. He was able to tell us so many great stories that you wouldn't necessarily get in a guide book. He arranged for our dinners and took us to eat where the locals eat. We had fish n chips one night (where the fish comes with skin and a tail!), Indian food, Japanese noodles in a shop next to the Tower of London, Bangers n Mash, Hummus, ate Pasties in Bath, Sandwiches by Windsor Castle. It was interesting to see how small the portions were, yet it was really enough food to satisfy.


Evan was not amused by the Bangers n Mash.

We saw gorgeous works of art by Monet, Van Gogh, Picassso, and so many others. We saw Shakespeare's Globe Theatre (and learned that the reason you see "Hark!" in his plays is because at the theatre, it was standing room only and was crowded and loud so in order for the patrons to know when they needed to pay attention, the actors would yell "Hark!" so people would stop and listen. So, when you read Shakespeare's plays, say "Hark" loudly before you say the following line in it's proper volume. :) )
We heard stories about WWII. During the war, Hitler had guide books to England and would aim for certain well-loved areas to be bombed. The Londoners love St. Paul's Cathedral. During the war, James said that the people would come out of their houses in the mornings and the first thing they would check was to see if St. Paul's Cathedral was still there. In fact, they had men stationed on the roof of the Cathedral, and if any incendiary bombs landed on it, the men would run over and kick them off the building before they caught it on fire.
We heard interesting anecdotes from recent history. When the Chunnel was being built, Margaret Thatcher was the Prime Minister. Apparently she was not a big fan of the President of France, Francois Mitterand. She decided that when the Eurostar entered London, it would arrive at Waterloo station (Waterloo being where Duke Ellington's army defeated Napoleon, ending Napoleon's rule). Pretty much a slap in the face to the French arriving in England whenever the took the Eurostar across the chunnel. (The Eurostar no longer arrives at Waterloo station.)
The only way the trip could have been better is if that dang Icelandic volcano would have erupted while we were there, so we could have stayed longer. Although we were constantly seeing amazing sites, I'm sure if we were there for a month, we still wouldn't have seen it all. These are just a few of the 500 plus pictures we took on the trip.
Trafalgar Square. The building to the left is the Art museum.

Westminster Abbey
House of Parliment
You've got to get your picture in a phone booth!
Windsor Castle. Although it is not in the picture, the flag was being flown that indicated that the Queen was there that day. We saw the Crown Jewels too.
Garden in the moat area.
St. George's Chapel at Windsor Castle (see the flag being flown in the distance?) I walked on the grave of Henry the 8th here. Dancing on the grave is frowned upon, I'm sure.

London, Part 2

Stonehenge - started in 5,000 B.C. It took several generations of people to complete this project. Can you imagine starting a big project that wouldn't be done for a couple of hundred years? They had to have had a pretty organized society in order to get it done.
The first stones placed are called Blue Stones, they weigh 4 tons each. The larger stones are called Sarsen stones. They weigh 40 to 50 tons each! They are glacial debris, but did have to be brought to this location.
The ground here is chalk - yeah, real chalk. I pried some up from the side of the road. So, the monument could not be built from local stone, which is why they had to bring in the other types of stone.


Roman baths in Bath. Gorgeous city, the baths were very interesting. Evan drank a glass of the 'medicinal waters'. I tried it, it tasted like hot mineral water.

Evan was very excited to see this Lotus. Gas in London was $12 a gallon. Yep, they use gallons at the gas station.
View of London city from the London Eye, the giant Ferris wheel type thingy. It took 1/2 an hour to go all the way around the circle.
Picadilly Circus
London Bridge. We walked over it on the way to London Tower.

Guard at London Tower. I swear, this guy looked like he was 12 years old. One of the girls in our group got him to smile, but it was pretty quick. The castle at London Tower was started in the year 1200 by William the Conqueror. Pretty cool to be there.
In Greenwich at the Prime Meridian line.

View of Greenwich from the Observatory, where the above photos were also taken.
We saw "Wicked" in London. It was fantastic, we all had such a great time. We were so lucky to be able to see this play here, in the West End (London's Broadway).
Video from the London Eye

Graphology

Last night for Girl's Night Out, we had a handwriting analyst come read our handwriting. The woman who FLEW out here just for this is a professional analyst, does forensic analysis for the police, has been told by the police she is as accurate as a polygraph, and is writing a book about it. (She used to work for SouthWest, so she gets free flights, but how cool was that for her to fly here just for us?)

Here are the results of my analysis. You will have to decide for yourself if you think they are right. If I have any comments, I'll write them in parentheses. Here goes:

First there was a drawing test. We had to finish drawings based on a shape that was already there. For a circle, I made it into an Oreo. The circle reflects your self image - (I do use cooking as a way to define myself, most people made smiling suns or something cheery, which is for sure not how I define myself) For a rectangle I made it into a hearth and fireplace. This represents home life for me (like to be home). For two parallel but different length lines, I made them into a windshield of a car with tho people inside. This reflects how I relate to others and have friendships (best one-on-one, I think). For a tic tac toe grid I made it into a square foot garden - this reflects my competitive self. (I don't have one!) For a half circle, I made it into a snowman - this reflects my social self image - cold (ouch, but yeah). The rest all indicated creativity, going with the flow of things, stuff like that.

Now, on to the handwriting, I am:

open to new ideas and religions (I think so)
have a good relationship with my parents (I do)
am honest (sometimes to a fault)
am more organized with other people's stuff than my own (uh, yeah!)
I know I am awesome (her words) but question myself a lot (a lot of self questioning going on here)
have a lot of frustrations in my life (yeah)
have strong friendships (for sure)
can keep a secret (I'll never tell...)
very good listener (always been told this)
finish projects (my own, not as much, but a project for someone else - yes)
love people (til they give me a reason not to)
am a peacekeeper (yeah)
lover, not a fighter (yeah)
don't like confrontation (for sure)
good communicator (I think so)
fool me once, shame on you. fool me twice, shame on me - meaning once you have violated me in some way (friendship, professionally, etc) you don't get another chance (abso-freaking-lutely)
introvert (yeah)
have old fashioned values (I've always thought so - honesty, loyalty and kindness are my three favorite attributes)
harder on myself than others are (who isn't?)
rule follower (yeah, in fact I have stated this to Tom recently)
present a more closed off public persona (agree)
very creative (creative, but not artistic)

I would say I agree with 99% of it. Now, you might say these are pretty generic attributes, but there were 5 of us there last night and we all had a variety of different qualities - good and bad. The other girls agreed on the vast majority of their readings too. Some did like confrontation, some were better talkers than listeners, some were rebels, some didn't have good relationships with parents. Some were more religious than others, some were extroverts. I thought it was very interesting and wish I had more time with the analyst.

Memory lane

I've been copying old photos from cds to the computer over the weekend. It was so fun to see these old photos again. I had almost forgotten how stinking cute the kids were. These were some of my favorites.
This was from fall 2002, visiting my Grandma and Grandpa Grover. Kaelin was in her 'sticker phase' and Grandma had given her a sheet of them to play with during the visit. As you can see, she decorated us well.
There is a shot of Evan and Kaelin playing with Salsa, our mexican milk snake.
Then Kaelin sleeping with a rubber lizard she named Lake. That was a well traveled lizard. He went to Idaho, Washington, and in 2003 he went to Hawaii. Kaelin just LOVED lake! Eventaully there was a papa Lake and mama Lake, but the original was always the best.




Here is a shot of the kids and myself at a friend's wedding.
I just love the expression on Kaelins face in the picture of her and my Dad.
Evan with his buzz cut. He was so mad at us for doing that! He wore a hat for weeks.
Kaelin was a big coloring fan. As you can see, sometimes it was exhausting.
The last shot is from Valentines day in 2002.





I had so much fun going through the photos, I'll have to find some more favorites.
And there you go, a blog post for March! I've been a slacker. :)

Yay! The videos posted!

Evan and Kaelin play 'Scorpinok' and Evan plays "Return to Earth". Grandma plays her fancy version of chopsticks.

Recital, life and ears.

First I thought I'd post a couple of pictures my photographer friend took of me the night I had my makeup done for the Pioneer Woman book signing. Katie and her husband Dan own Peekaboo photos and are wonderful photographers as well as great people.

Well, not everything I wanted to post is working tonight. Evan and Kaelin had a piano recital a couple of weeks ago. Evan found some Transformers music he really liked but it was too complicated for him to play. He modified it to be something within his range and his teacher liked it so much she asked him to play his arrangement of the music at their piano recital.
The video wasn't uploading for some reason, so I put it on Youtube.(Actually not, it won't load)
We had a nice Thanksgiving all to ourselves. It was just the four of us with the whole shootin' match as far as food goes. I cooked all morning and the kids did the dishes. Nice!
Thanksgiving night we headed up to the VA to see Grandma and Grandpa Grover. While we were there Evan and Kaelin played their piano pieces for them, which we all really enjoyed. That got Grandma in the piano mode so she played her famous version of chopsticks. She was pretty fast at getting going but I got most of it recorded. I'm in the process of putting that on Youtube too. I'm sure Grandma will be thrilled to know she is on Youtube. Then again, I probably won't tell her! (As I have been typing this I have been trying to upload to Youtube. It says the file is corrupt and won't upload. Crap! I guess whoever wants to see it will have to see it here or request a CD. It plays just fine on my computer. I may try again another time.)
We got ready to put up our (stupid and ugly) fake Christmas tree right after Thanksgiving. We put it up in the living room and left it undecorated overnight to see if the cats were going to leave it alone this year. What do you think, can you tell a cat was in there?
We moved the tree to the basement and had to fix every single branch. The cats apparently lounged on each branch and smashed down the fake needles. Now the cats are locked out of the tree room downstairs. It's very pretty, but I miss having it in the living room. Oh well.
We all went to grab a burger tonight and stopped at the mall to do a little Christmas shopping. While we were there I jokingly asked Kaelin if she wanted to get her ears peirced for her birthday. She actually said yes. It took another 30 to 40 minutes for her to work up the nerve to do it but she said it didn't hurt as much as she thought it would and she was glad she did it. What a brave girl!

And last, but not least, instead of the gratuitous cat shot I decided to post a drawing that Evan made. It is of Tom's truck as a Transformer. Pretty cool, huh? And, just for formality's sake, this image is the property of Evan and cannot be reproduced without his permission. (Unless you are a blood relative and I have unflattering photos of you as insurance.) :)