Just Because

Never let us take home the leftovers from the bag of chocolate creme Golden Oreos.

You should have seen MY face. Cookies are dangerous. And, oh how I love them.

I didn't do a Father's Day post, but I did get a picture that day. Here's the rockin' dad at our house. We love this guy. He's a keeper.

Last week Tessa and I drove out to Jake's clerkship location so we could see where he's been working. Nice place and nice people.
It had been a little while since I'd driven downtown (traffic = no fun).

Anyway, I brought the camera, just because, and dinner too. We had a picnic over by the University.

A toddling Charlie's Angel?

Giving an Aristotelian take on something or other .
I got a kiss on the cheek. I brought the food.

Otherwise we've been packing in the house projects here and having a good time inside and outside of that.

We've decided we want to paint a couple rooms to mix things up a bit and have even picked out the colors we want to use. I was at a friend's home and was admiring the colors and the risks with paint she'd taken. I explained how I was just too scared to go for it. She looked at me and said, "If you don't like it, then paint over it." Good point. Funny what it takes for me to gain a grain of perspective now and then. I'll let you know how it goes.

See some of you soon! Yay!

The Jabberwocky

by Lewis Carroll

'Twas brillig, and the slithy toves
Did gyre and gimble in the wabe:
All mimsy were the borogoves,
And the mome raths outgrabe.

"Beware the Jabberwock, my son!
The jaws that bite, the claws that catch!
Beware the Jubjub bird, and shun
The frumious Bandersnatch!

"He took his vorpal sword in hand:
Long time the manxome foe he sought --
So rested he by the Tumtum tree,
And stood awhile in thought

And as in uffish thought he stood,
The Jabberwock, with eyes of flame,
Came whiffling through the tulgey wood,
And burbled as it came!

One, two! One, two! and through and through
The vorpal blade went snicker-snack!
He left it dead, and with its head
He went galumphing back.

"And has thou slain the Jabberwock?
Come to my arms, my beamish boy!
O frabjous day! Callooh! Callay!"
He chortled in his joy.

'Twas brillig, and the slithy toves
Did gyre and gimble in the wabe:
All mimsy were the borogoves,
And the mome raths outgrabe.

She just goes on and on when dad gets home. This video is near the end of whatever story she was telling. I tried to keep the camera hidden because she'll stop talking when she sees it. She had been telling a story for at least a few minutes straight without any prompting at all.
Every now and then a recognizable word will come out in her jabbering, and it makes me wonder even more--what IS she talking about? I wish I knew.... and I wish I'd gotten a video clip a minute earlier. Oh well, you get the idea. :)

Four years and climbing

Happy anniversary, Sweetie!

A Day With Daddy

I spent all day Saturday at our stake's Youth Conference. Jake had Tessa from sun up 'til sun down. They partied. Jake got out Tessa's little pool, a bubble machine, went and bought what he deemed "a fun tub toy" (plastic butterflys that swim around in water when you pull a string and a net to catch them) and played. He blamed this hairstyle on her nap. (I'm just happy he tried.) It was really fun to hear Jake tell me about their day.
I had a great time with the youth. It's usually nice to have a day that is different from what usually goes on. We started the day running the 5k. I have mentioned before that I'm a really slow runner, but I'm determined to not stop. I came in 52nd place out of maybe 130 people. First half? I'm happy.
The day continued with some fun activities, speakers, happy chats, a sunburn, etc. and ended with a testimony meeting at the outdoor amphitheatre. The walk there was like something out of a dream. The stars were brilliant, but the most amazing backdrop were the fireflies. It looked like glitter falling from the trees. It was almost magical. The testimony meeting was nothing short of awesome. I am not kidding when I say that these kids were fighting to bear their testimony. There was never a pause. Time ran out before everyone in line was able to speak. It ended at eleven and could have gone on for at least another hour. What a blessing it was to have been able to attend. There's nothing like a youth conference testimony meeting to give you absolute faith in our future, even if during the day I wanted to swat a few of them. I was privileged to have witnessed these kids sharing powerful truths with one another.
I had a wonderful day and became even more grateful for my calling and felt a deeper love for my ward.
Now for the more mundane.
Second set of petunias: deceased
If anyone can think of a flower that I might be able to keep alive outside, please let me know. I am not ready to resort to the plastic flowers, but I'm getting there. :)
Our fence: still covered in graffiti
We are going to have to paint it. Our poor fence. It already is decrepit and needs to be replaced, but we aren't financially ready for that yet. So, painting is the only option. I need to get on that fast because I can't stand the thought of whoever did it walking by and laughing about it. Grrrr.
Job watching Hudson: paused for summer
I'll be watching him for another school year. He and Tessa have gotten to be close friends. So cute. She's been a little confused as to where his car seat went and why he isn't around when she wakes up from her nap. "Duddo go?"
Summer vacation to Utah: very excited
It's time.

Good Eatin' and Good Grief

If you won't get me something to eat, I'll just have to do it myself.

Breakfast was a little overdue, and Jake left the pantry open a crack. She's no dummy. I let her munch away, because, hey, she did the work to get the bag --and she wasn't making a mess.

So, in case you didn't know, I go through phases of sayings. For a long while I would say "honestly" when I was irritated or incredulous. Then I switched to "seriously" --which I still sometimes use. Lately though I'm on a "good grief" kick. Yep, I'm Charlie Brown. Anyway, this last week had me saying "good grief" plenty of times. Wednesday afternoon our television and internet services suddenly were nonexistent. (This was not a happy time considering So You Think You Can Dance? was on and in the cities of Salt Lake and Dallas.) We called Time Warner and began the 3 day battle to get it back. Now, that company has never won any prizes for their customer service, and at the rate they are going, they never will. We have new neighbors, and when Jake met them, he discovered that they had their cable installed from TW on Wednesday afternoon, the same time ours went out. So let us all conclude that that was the reason ours went out. Well, TW doesn't want the customer to come to any conclusions at all except to become so exasperated that they hang up and spontaneously combust. Jake came close. Every single phone call (and there were many) gave us different information or led us down a different path. We did not give up. Finally they made an appt. to come out on Friday to take care of it. They didn't come. I called, and apparently someone came out to check the neighbor's cable and to bury their line. Hm. They set another appt. for Saturday. It turns out the cable installer for the neighbors cut our line. "He just cut it, " the repair guy said. Good grief. But, it was finally fixed! Then we saw that we had a big cable line draped along the back of our fence from the TW box, across our driveway and around the side of the house. We figured they'd be out in a couple days to bury the line.

Well, Sunday morning after Jake's meetings, he came in to let me know that we'd been vandalized. The back of our fence had been sprayed and the city's electrical box on our property had also. We couldn't really tell what it said on our mad dash to church. Later, we called the police to come over and just put the vandalism on file before we attempted to clean it up. Turns out it was black shoe polish and some weird green paint that they also used on the neighbor's garage door. We figured out some of the writings. "No TV" "No television" "666". Nice. So, some emo kids are angry with the world and wandering around in the middle of the night with shoe polish. They see our giant wire running around our house and decide we're stealing cable. Well, they showed us. That's the only thing we can figure. GOOD GRIEF! Ah well, at least it was shoe polish and not spray paint. I've scheduled tomorrow to clean it off, and I think it'll come off okay. TW buried the line yesterday. I actually think all of this is pretty funny. All that mess because some guy spent two seconds making a mistake.
Other than that, we've had some summer fun already.

She means business with that squirt gun.

On Sunday during Sacrament meeting services, the water reached our row. There is no passing her by on the bread and water anymore. I held the little cup for Tessa to drink, and when I took it from her, she let out a big "Aaahh!" Like, "Oh, how refreshing!" The young man taking the tray from us did a good job keeping in his laugh. He did better than me.