Spring Break 2012

April 1-7 we took a trip with Cutie, DaVinci, and Superstar down to Zion National Park and the Grand Canyon. We kept it a secret where we were going since we had had complaints when trying to plan trips before. When it became clear to the kids where we were headed the boys all burst into song: "Zi-on's National Park (park park), Zion's National Paaark. Zi-on's National, Zi-on's National, Zi-on's National Park (park park)". You probably had to be there to appreciate that spontaneous song fully, but they kept singing it the whole time we were there. It was great. 

By far the highlight of our trip was the hike to Angel's Landing. It was, "the best hike I've ever been on!" according to DaVinci. It was truly amazing. More on that later ;)

All of us at almost the top of Angel's Landing.

On the way down from Angel's Landing we thought this shadow was pretty cool. Who knew there was a skull on the  side of the mountain?

 We should have gone to the Grand Canyon first because it was truly amazing and astounding and unreal. When we first got there it looked kind of misty and huge and unbelievable. My mind almost couldn't process that it was real. I kept thinking that this must just be a painting or something. I'm so glad we went there because we had never been. We hiked down a short distance on a couple of trails--about 1 1/2 miles on the Bright Angel trail, and about half a mile on the South Kaibab trail. The Grand Canyon was amazing but the hiking we did was almost a disappointment after the hike to Angel's Landing at Zion.

Stephen and Superstar at Ooh Aah Point on the South Kaibab trail at the Grand Canyon.

Inside the watchtower at the Grand Canyon.  We almost didn't stop there because we were anxious to get on our way home, but it was really  amazing so we were glad we decided to make one more stop.

Stephen & I at the Grand Canyon

These pictures should be at the beginning, but I couldn't get them to switch order. Anyway, we spent the first day in Salt Lake at my mom's house for General Conference. Uncle Bill Dunn had come from San Diego to visit. The whole family got together for dinner. I love my family! It was so fun to have everyone together! None of the kids had ever met Uncle Bill and we very rarely get to see him so Juice and Sonny Pie drove down to meet him. They had to be at school at USU so they didn't get to come on the trip with us :(

All of the Dunn grandkids--at least for a while!

All of the Dunn clan-plus two of Alisa's friends from Nigeria. They came all that way to go to General Conference!

Moments

I was sitting in sacrament meeting this morning in our usual second-row-on-the-right-side seat in the chapel. There was a wonderful Samoan family sitting on the front row. About halfway through the meeting their children were getting a little restless(well, maybe more than a little), so the father lined up three darling little Samoan boys on the floor at the base of the podium with their arms all folded. I watched him as he patiently encouraged them to stay in one place and sit reverently for the rest of the meeting.

This whole parenting thing seems to be a theme among people I know right now. Just a little bit ago my sister-in-law posted on facebook, "Why does raising children have to be so incredibly hard?"

I'm not usually one to think about how hard something is when I'm in the middle of it, but raising children really is hard when I stop to think about it. I've found some strength in a couple of articles recently. You can read them here and here. As I contemplate the issues of parenting that I have dealt with over the last 21 years and will continue to deal with indefinitely, I think my friend Rosie expressed how these things seem to work. "This too shall pass". Rosie said her eighteen-year-old son reminds her of this all the time(even as he is being one of the challenges for her.)

Tonight as we were washing dishes Juice asked me if when she was younger we had to re-wash the dishes as much as we do now. I don't think we did because we didn't have so many kids to try to help and watch over at the same time like we do now. Each stage of life and parenting has definitely had its challenges and as each one passes something new comes up, but with the challenges come those wonderful time-stopping moments to treasure.

Like, playing mother-may-I during family night and having everyone ask, "Mother, may I have a hug?", just so they could win of course, but then everyone wanted a hug. I like that game!

Like when a five- or six-year-old Superstar said to me, "Mom, you're a spring chicken! That means you're young and beautiful, or at least you SEEM like you're young and beautiful!"

Like a wonderful letter from Sonny Pie for Christmas. I think he thought it was not a great gift, but he had procrastinated and had to settle for that, but to me it is precious.

Like Superstar giving me a meaningful thumbs-up after I played a piano solo in sacrament meeting.

Like Juice realizing that we are here to help her and she doesn't have to do EVERYTHING for herself.

Like Cutie telling me tonight that he wants to go to Europe on his mission, like England or Spain, "or I want to go to Hannukah too!"

All of these things come for a brief moment and then they are gone and time starts back up to normal and we plug along through the hard times. I hold on to those moments. They make it all worth it!

Back to the Future....or What Happened to Summer?

Did I really just blink my eyes and have the whole summer gone? How did it go by so fast? I'm sitting here trying to remember all of the many, many things that kept us so busy all summer that we didn't even notice it disappearing....

1. Sonny Pie graduating from Logan High School(as per previous post).
He was so ready to move on. So he's very happy now to be a student at Utah State University!

2. Summer Orchestra.
DaVinci & Superstar both participated in summer orchestra for the month of June. It's at 8:00 am which is way too early when I've been looking forward to being able to sleep in a little when school gets out. They like it though, especially Superstar who was invited to participate in a chamber group that played at a workshop for orchestra teachers.

3. Too much snow at Camp Loll.
Sonny Pie was supposed to leave for camp on June 8(?), but there was so much snow that they couldn't get in. They finally decided they had to get in no matter what on July 1. Even then they had to shovel snow off of  TWO MILES of road to be able to make it in. The first two weeks of camp were cancelled. That was a really long three weeks for all of us while Sonny Pie anxiously waited every day for news of when and how he would get to his beloved camp.

4. Juice coming home from China.
On June 26 Juice arrived home from China. She was jet-lagged and tired and happy. We're so glad to have her home!

5. Utah Festival Opera & Musical Theatre.
We are so lucky that Stephen's work sponsors the opera dress rehearsals and we can get free tickets to them. It's pretty much like the real performances but not as crowded and we can get the best(most expensive) seats. Stephen's mother comes every year and goes with us and this year my parents came to a couple of them also. It's always a highlight of our summer.

6. Cutie's 7th Birthday.
Right in the middle of the operas mentioned above is Cutie's birthday. He really, really wanted a party so we threw a pirate party. We put bandanas on their heads and sent them on a treasure hunt. The treasure was a pinata shaped like a parrot full of candy necklaces, ring pops, and chocolate coins. It was all topped off with a pirate ship cake with ice cream. We got Cutie a bike for his birthday which he now is thrilled to ride around the neighborhood all day and night if we let him.

Here's the Back to the Future part:

7. Howard Jones concert!
Stephen & I have both been HoJo fans since before we met and we've gone to several of his concerts since we've been married. We were very excited to take Juice, her friend, and DaVinci to the Sandy Amphitheater on July 9 to see him in concert once again. It brings back so many memories of college days. I remember being at a church dance and going outside with some friends to cool off, but hearing the beginning of a HoJo song we all RAN back inside to dance. Oh, and the lip sync a group of us did to Like To Get To Know You Well with a giant stuffed snake weaving it's way around the audience. I guess you probably had to be there. It was so much fun. It's still pretty fun, especially when I'm sharing it with my family! My brother Robert, his wife Lynnae, and their two oldest kids were there with us too.

8. Swimming.
I spent every summer practically living at the pool when I was 13-16. I LOVED IT! I got to know the owners  of the pool and they taught me to dive. I worked for them a little. It was the best time! This summer DaVinci refused to take swimming lessons. He doesn't swim as well as I would like so rather than trying to force him to take lessons I bought some punch passes and went swimming with the kids. The time spent in the water was probably more valuable to them than the half-hour lessons where they only swim for about ten because the teacher has to split the time between four or five kids. And I got to swim too! When the kids are in swim lessons I just sit on the side. I do have to give credit to the Logan Aquatic Center though because this year they offered water aerobics for the parents during swim lessons. I did have Cutie in two sessions and I really enjoyed the water aerobics. It was wonderful to be in the water. I love to swim!

9. The Big Flood.
On July 10 we were walking out the door for church and sent one of the kids back in to comb his hair. He combed it and came back out and we went to church. When we got home 3 1/2 hours later we found the water in the upstairs bathroom running and water EVERYWHERE! He had left the water on and that drain is really slow. Fortunately, our home owner's insurance covered the damage, but that took a huge chunk out of our summer because we spent so much time with workers at the house doing repairs. We're still waiting for the new vanity for the bathroom since the one we chose was out of stock and is taking a while to get here. Hopefully soon!

10. The Big DeJunk.
So the big flood prompted the big dejunk. Since we were pulling up the laminate floor in the living room and most of it was perfectly good, we decided to replace the carpet in our room with the old laminate from the LR. We couldn't stand to replace the floor and not paint so we painted too. Then we just felt the need to paint the bathroom while we're waiting for the vanity. Then we decided to move all the kids' bedrooms downstairs and make this upstairs room into an office/library/sewing room/instrument room. All of those things were spread out all over the house so moving them all into one room made space in other parts of the house that had to be dealt with. Stephen's music studio has been moved upstairs. All in all we've gone through literally EVERYTHING in our house. We've sent SO much to DI. There's still a little more to do but it feels really good to get things in order!

11. Family Reunion.
On July 30(Sonny Pie's Birthday) we went to Twin Falls, ID for the Hymas family reunion. It was really fun to see all of my aunts and uncles and cousins. We don't get to see everyone very often. When I was growing up we got together pretty often and we've always been a pretty close family. Now the Grandma & Grandpa are gone we don't get together much. I am really grateful for all of the work of my cousins Sarah & Shelley who put this together so that we can spend some time together. I can just imagine Grandma & Grandpa looking down with joy and gratitude to see the family growing.

12. Bass Camp.
Superstar participated in a Bass Camp for young bass players. He LOVED it! He got to spend all day for four days working with older, accomplished bass players. At the recital on the last day, the teacher said he even corrected her on a key signature once during the camp. He's pretty smart about musical things. I'm pretty excited to see where he ends up!

Well, I know I've left some things out, like the blessing of my very cute nephew Evan on July 2, but this should give you some idea why I haven't had time for blogging. All summer I kept thinking I need to blog about all of this, but there just wasn't time so here's your synopsis. Now I am contemplating taking a job as an aide at the elementary school for a couple of hours a day. Hopefully I can make time to keep up!

How did this happen?

                                                From this.....            

To this......All overnight!

Wet and Wormy

Waking up to pounding on the trampoline outside.

Worms stretched out on the sidewalk avoiding a watery grave.

Raindrops pattering, spattering

It's a wet and wormy day.

People running here and there trying to stay dry.

Windshield wipers rhythmic chant keeping us alive.

Wind blowing, flowing

It's a wet and wormy day.

Puddles unavoidable because they're all around.

Children huddled waiting for the bus, wishing it were here.

Umbrellas bobbing, mobbing

It's a wet and wormy day.

"I will never.....

 ....play sword fighting on the trampoline again!" That's what Cutie said  on the way to the Dr. office after he fell off the trampoline three weeks ago. Of course if I had known what they were doing I would have stopped it sooner. He came to the door crying and kept crying for about an hour. I thought it might be broken and told him so. He asked me if they would cut his arm off!

Here's his swollen up elbow that night. He was pretty excited to get the x-ray. He was really excited to see the bones in his arm. Apparently he thougt x-rays were only something in cartoons. He said he didn't know x-rays were real. 

Here he is with the splint and sling we got that night. He doesn't look too unhappy here and he really wasn't after we had been to the Dr. and gotten some ibuprofen in him. Just a couple of days later the neighbor called and asked if he should be jumping on their trampoline! Of course I said he better wait at least until he had a cast on it. After a week with the splint so the swelling could go down we went back to the Dr. to get a cast.

This hasn't stopped Cutie from doing much--only going to the school swim party. Here he is with his nice green cast running in the Wildcat Run at school. A couple more weeks and he'll get the cast off and be back to normal.

Tulip Time!

 I got the best gift for Mothers' Day! My tulips bloomed the day before. Something about watching things grow and bloom just excites me. I walk around my yard watching how much my plants have grown and counting the buds as I find them. I feel a little silly but I just love the anticipation of knowing that the beautiful colors will be coming soon.

Seven or eight years ago I planted lilac bush in my yard and waited and waited and waited for the amazing and intoxicating scent in the spring. About three years ago it got one rather disappointing bloom on it that lasted about a day. You can imagine my joy and pleasure this year at finding about thirty of these...

 on my bush! Finally after years of waiting I'm going to have lilacs on my bush! Wahoo!!!!!!

I also got for Mothers' Day this lovely sculpture made by Cutie. He was so cute as he kept asking me for more and more food to add to it. This kid is going to be an artist---or an engineer----I can't wait to see!