Impulse and "Satan George"

With Michael as busy as he is, being a bishop and everything, it is really hard to make or keep schedules. Quite often, our scheduling goes somewhat as follows:

 

Michael: I have a meeting tonight.

Me: Okay. What time do you think you'll be home?

Michael: It should be quick: probably about 8.

Then he usually gets home at 9:30-10 PM.

 

Also, we get a lot of these:

Michael:  I don't have any bishop responsibilities tonight! We can just have a quiet night at home.

Phone: Rings the rest the night.

 

It's pretty funny.This portrays an interesting challenge when it comes to working around him. We still get a lot of time together as a family, it is just not always at the times that we expect it to be.

   Last week was Evelyn's last week of school. Michael wanted to do something to celebrate the kickoff of summer: especially since Evelyn was dreading school ending so much (she is such a different kid!). We tried to come up with  ideas of what we could do, but mostly it was the same things that we do all the time. On Thursday, Michael came up with the idea that we should get a hotel and go on a mini-vacation. It turns out we could get a free hotel in St. George with Michael's hotel points.

  Friday morning we got up and took Evelyn to her last day of school. While she was gone for that last hour and a half, we packed up overnight bags for all of us and  then we picked Evelyn up and started driving. She had no idea where we were going. We had snacks, books, games, and we had rented a movie at the library for her to watch to make the drive go more quickly.



 

 We got to Saint George at about 1:30 or 2:00. We ate lunch at the Black Bear Café. We love experiencing all the different atmospheres at the ma and pa kind of restaurants. We tried to avoid chain restaurants like the plague--because we can go to those anytime up here. We also ate at the Bear Paw Café and a little pizza shop called Riggatti's. That was particularly fun because they throw the pizza dough in the air and they involved Evelyn; they let here come behind the counter to look in their big wood-fire oven and taught her how they turn the pizzas to cook them evenly. I think she came home with a major crush on one of their workers. She even dared him to throw the pizza with his eyes closed. He almost got a face full of pizza dough.

  Another aspect of our trip that was memorable was going to the Red Cliffs. We don't get out camping or hiking much (I don't love uneven ground with my arthritis) and so it was very special to be out seeing those beautiful creations. Michael has never camped around the red rock, and Evelyn has never played in sand dunes. It was very nostalgic for me as my family growing up used to camp all the time and climb those cliffs like nine little mountain goats: making up stories about a wild man that lived in the cliffs and feasted on lizards. 

It was a beautiful day and perfect for Southern Utah: we had a lot of cloud cover, and wind that was gentle enough to not stir up the sand and blow it in our eyes--most the time. 

Evelyn tried to slide down this rock and discovered it wasn't slippery enough.

Evelyn was hunting for lizards the whole time. We were lucky enough to see three pretty big ones, but they were too fast to catch. She wanted to catch one and make a friend of it. Luckily, I knew my daughter pretty well and I brought her own lizards from home. (Yes, they're plastic.) Evelyn had fun burying them in the sand and playing around with them.

 The sand got probably 5 feet deep in some spots. It had blown into drifts, and Evelyn loved climbing them and rolling down them.

Here is her little sand angel.

Saint George (Or "Satan George" as Evelyn used to call it,) is also where some of my ancestors are from. In fact, one of my ancestors, Hans Ulrich Bryner, was the first person buried in the Saint George Cemetery. We went to visit their graves. Evelyn loved hearing some of our pioneer stories. If you would like to hear one of my ancestor's stories, visit this blog: here . 

 

We swam. We stayed up late eating way too much junk food. It was a blast!  

Escape

Due to a great deal of stress (mostly imagined) in our family, we decided to take off on an impulsive vacation. We splurged our tax refund on an emergency trip to Disneyland! The trip did provide the relief we needed, but only after it provided a few stressors of its own. The trip started out where we discovered that we had forgotten my shoes, and my scooter rental fell through. But we were able clear those hurdles fairly easily. We got a new rental company for my scooter (and it worked way better by the way) and I just spent my time in Disneyland in slippers--it was totally awesome! I'm never doing another trip in shoes!
   One of the very first rides we went on was California Screaming. Evelyn hadn't ridden it yet--she was just tall enough to--she was excited to try it because I had told her it was like riding a dragon. She showed absolutely no nervousness the entire time we waited in line and skipped onto the ride with a smile. But as soon as it "Zoomed"--in her words, she screamed, "I HATE THIS RIDE!!!!" over and over until the ride was over. Then she cried for 20 minutes. Poor crushed dreams.
   We spent a lot of time doing Piratey things, standing in line, me trying not to run over anyone on my scooter (people love to cut off motorized wheelchairs...I don't know why! I don't have brakes, people!!!). We watched the parades, the fireworks (which were extremely disappointing after the 50th anniversary one) and Fantasmic. We traded pins--mostly on Friday because the pins were all boring the rest of the week. We ate churros, a turkey leg, gumbo, Ghiradellies, and went to Tortilla Joes 3 times. We gave Evelyn glow sticks to wear and pass out at her leisure at night, and Marde Gras beads in the day. She made quite a few friends that way, and found courage to go on quite a few rides that used to intimidate her. We played twenty questions with Disney characters. We came up with a Disneyland Scavenger hunt while riding Pirates for the 12th time.  It was a great vacation.
  Here's my picture diary:

 

This was Evelyn's original feelings about Thunder Mountain, but as soon as she got off the ride she yelled, "LET'S GO AGAIN!" She did this every time we rode it. It is her new favorite ride, even though she can't remember its name.

 Evelyn was hesitant to get up and participate in the street performances, so Michael got up with her. He was the only adult who did, but it didn't stop him for playing around with the green army men and kids.

But when they had him salute, he was really the only one up there who looked like he knew what he was doing. He made those green army men look like...well toys.

I think they knew he was a real soldier, so of course they had to use him more. They gave him a tambourine and called him "Private Tiddlywinks." The rest of the day random people would pass him in the park and say, "Hey! There's Private Tiddlywinks!"

 

That wasn't the only show Michael got to participate in. They also called him out of the audience in the Golden Horseshoe Review as the "Town Drunk." Michael had fun playing up his part and stumbling around and calling out, "I'll drink to that!" every time someone finished a sentence--literally. He was only supposed to say it when they tapped him on the shoulder, but he threw in a few more just for fun.

 

These pictures turned out really funny/cool. It looks like we escaped from the haunted mansion.

 

 

Merry Christmas to All! 2014

   This was the year. We've been expecting it for the past three years. Evelyn didn't sleep last night. She finally drifted off, and then woke up and ran into our bedroom at 1 AM to ask if it was time to wake up yet. She only got about half-way through her sentence when she noticed the clock. She sighed a long-suffering kind of sigh and slumped back to her bedroom. She came in again around 3 AM and exclaimed, "HOW AM I SUPPOSED TO SLEEP THIS NIGHT WITH ALL THE EXCITEMENT?!?!" We found out this morning that she had been in her room between 1 and 3 listening to Christmas music and daydreaming about today's promised treasures. She did eventually drift back off to sleep, but she might need a nap today.

   We finally crawled out of bed at about 7 AM. Penny woke us all up when she discovered that we had hung a blanket to block off the view from the hallway, and she thought it was the scariest thing she had ever seen. (She also did this to the snowflakes we hung up two days ago.)

 We peeked out the window and what to our wondering eyes did behold, the white Christmas we've all been waiting so anxiously for. We had our ritual Christmas morning prayer, thanking Heavenly Father for the gift of His Son. Then we pulled down the blanket and turned up Mannheim Steamroller's "Joy to the World" full blast. Sorry neighbors, but we have to dance to  it every Christmas morning. This year was especially fun because Penny joined us in the dance.
 

 

   After our dance we opened just a few presents while we waited for our oven to preheat. Evelyn was lucky because her first gift she opened was Santa's big gift to her: her dragon toy. (This year Evelyn asked Santa for lots of dragons and some money.) As soon as our oven beeped, we stopped and made our breakfast: Pigs in a blanket. While they cooked, we opened a few more gifts, then we paused again to eat. It was nice to kind of take things slowly this year and enjoy the individual presents more.

   Evelyn made us a cute calendar for next year. She also wrote me a poem. I should really start compiling those in a book. Those little hand-made gifts are the most special presents I get. --But I also really loved the new outfit that Michael bought me.

  Really, we were kind of lucky this year to get any presents at all. The only reason we did is that I already had Christmas bought and paid for when our water heater went out....and then our fridge died...and then our car needed repairing. It was quite the December! But I chose to look at it that I also got a new water heater and a brand new fridge!!!

Penny spent the whole morning eating the bone Santa gave her, and staying out of trouble.

   As soon as we finished unwrapping the presents and digging through our stockings (Evelyn's had a small roll of quarters in hers!) Evelyn started begging to go play out in the snow. So we bundled everyone up, including Penny and went sledding.

Here is another video of our little sled-dog:

 

And here's a family Christmas picture of us:

 

Halloween Fun

 
 

Lots of pictures to update!  First off, here is our little kitty that we got to pretend was ours for 1 hour while we delivered it to the Johnsons. Their poor little kitty got hit by a car. So we're hoping this kitten fills a little bit of the void.
  The Johnsons named her Narnia.

This is the pumpkin patch where we picked our pumpkins. Evelyn dressed up for this as Minnie mouse, but she really didn't commit to what she was going to be for Halloween until she dressed to get ready for school.



Michael and I decided to dress up this year as well. I put on his old Class A's except for the trousers which I couldn't fit in--I promise I'm not that big! They were his original trousers from when he was 17! So I didn't look completely official, but I still managed to fool all sorts of people. Granted, the official Class A's are blue now.

 Michael decided to also dress as a soldier, He somehow squished himself into his old uniform, but he also wasn't completely kosher. Notice the gray t-shirt, and he also wore cowboy boots because his old boots are at his mom's house. We tried to get him into his Class A's and he couldn't even button it because he's filled out so much--from his neck to his chest--I don't know how he got those things on only 5 1/2 years ago!!

 



 Evelyn decided to be an Ewok from the original Star Wars Trilogy. This is her cute made-from-scratch costume. For the parade at school, she carried her little baby Ewok, who she named "Itchy", but she didn't want to lose him while trick or treating.

 We really hoarded on the treats. Evelyn just about half-filled her pillow-case. It was sick. --Not that we've eaten it already!!! We're hoping it lasts until Santa comes.

Pumpkin Carving

Today we carved our pumpkins! Here's how they turned out:

This one was Michael's design

This one was Evelyn's design, carved by me. Evelyn ate the seeds.

 We also had Evelyn try bobbing for apples this year. We thought she might actually have more success trying it this year since she is no longer afraid to get her face wet. (That just makes life a little bit nicer, doesn't it?) So here is a movie of her bobbing for apples. She did eventually figure out how to get a good bite from watching her mommy try.