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You: So! What did you do on Memorial Day?
Me: Oh, nothing much. We went up to my parents for swimming, grilling and an ecology lesson
You: An ecology lesson? What on earth do you mean?
Me: Well let me tell you a little story....
So for the second year in a row, my parents have ducks in their pool. They have already had a brood hatch and fly away, and today we were looking out the living room window, and we could see a duck on the edge of the pool peering into the bushes where the old nest was, and not moving. So Dad & Jamie went out to see if there were more eggs in the nest. My dad walks around the back edge of the pool, the duck flies away, and Dad pulls up the bushes around the nest. Well, there are in deed more eggs in the nest, however there was also a large snake eating the eggs!!! EEEEKKK! Right? Well, Jamie goes & gets 2 shovels; one to hold the bushes back with and the other to kill the snake with. So, with the precision and exuberance of 2 former boy scouts they hack off its head. And when my dad finally pulls the still wriggling snake out of the bushes, this is what he finds...
Yes, my friends, that is a flippin' huge snake. My dad is 6 feet tall by the way, which means that snake is at least 5 feet long. And our home autopsy revealed that it is most likely a cottonmouth, which is a poisonous water snake. I don't think you can really see in the picture, but there are still two big lumps in it from the duck eggs he had already swallowed.
So there you have it, the Memorial day lesson in ecology...although even that wasn't enough to keep us out of the pool.
So, I feel like I am the only person on the planet who does not watch American Idol, but I do appreciate it as a piece of American Pop Culture. So on Friday, when I was in Utah, Suzy and I were driving from Salt Lake City to Sandy. We decided to take State Street, which is essentially Main Street for every town in the Utah Valley. That little jaunt took us through Murray, Utah, home town of American Idol finalist, David Archuleta and Friday just happened to be "David Archuleta Day". The entire town was showing its support, and I loved it. I hardly even know who this guy is, but I love it when a home town really gets behind one of its own; so I got a little snap-happy from the window of the moving car. Here are some highlights:
This was the first sign I noticed, and I had to get a picture. If they ever go back on their deal, David can call me and we can use this as evidence.
Next stop: City Hall. Since we were taking the pictures from a moving car some of them are a little blurry. We decided not to cause a traffic accident, since we had kiddos in the car. This one says, "David Archuleta: Murray's American Idol".
Here we have the pedestrian sky walk going from Murray High School over state street:
Another drive-by: LaPointe Ford shows it's pride
Of course no one can ignore a lighted bank sign:
But this one was my favorite, and I have to credit Suzy for saying that it should be the title of my blog. Unfortunately a pesky light post got in the way; but it is the sign in front of the Arby's which says, "I'm Thinking David"
Not something you see every day now is it???
Kaiya and I are so lucky! We got to go visit my best friend from BYU in the bustling metropolis of Peyson, Utah. We had soooo much fun. We left on Thursday morning, and it was the first time I have flown with Kaiya by myself, so I was a little nervous. Luckily the flight was pretty empty, so Kaiya & I got a whole row to our selves, and boy did we need it!
Suzy has 3 girls, so let me tell you, we sure were a troop of girls on the move! We were chicks to the power of 6! We had so much fun while we were there, Kaiya loved Suzy's girls, Annie (8), Jane (6) and Lucy (4), and those four had FUN together. There was more laughing and screaming this weekend than I have heard in a long time!
In this picture, the girls are Jane in the red shirt, Annie in the blue shirt and Lucy grinning in the bottom right hand corner.
So on Friday when Annie & Jane were at school, Suzy, Lucy, Kaiya & I all went to Salt Lake City to do a little shopping (try not to be to shocked). We got some fabulous things and had a lovely lunch at the Paradise Bakery.
Lucy and Kaiya had so much fun being together.
While we were there we played a lot of fun card & board games, and basically just laughed...and laughed...and laughed some more.
We also went to the park, and Kaiya went on the swings for the first time (with Jane's help of course).
On Saturday morning, we all rolled out of bed and Dave (Suzy's husband) made the most amazing pancakes. While we were waiting for breakfast to be ready, a spontaneous sing-a-long broke out, with Suzy at the piano, and all the girls singing at the tops of their lungs. Somehow, when ever we get together, a sing-a-long always breaks out...hmmm...it's a mystery...
In fact, Dave & Suzy's house is such a music-filled, singing, dancing, and frolicking house, that they had to make a rule: No Singing at the Dinner Table. Which I think says it all, have you ever had the need to make a rule like that at your house? Neither have we (yet).Suzy, Kaiya & I took a little jaunt over to Provo to visit the BYU campus, and I had to take Kaiya's picture in front of the Y (it's painted on the side of the mountain overlooking campus and is up at the top of the picture). And I was reminded again how incredibly beautiful Utah, and more specifically BYU is.
So overall we had an incredible time, and I was so sad to leave. Sometimes it makes me so sad that Suzy and I can't live close to each other, but I am so grateful to have such a good friend, who makes the trips out here for all the important stuff, and who I know I can visit any time.
I just took this picture of Kaiya a few minutes ago. My mom was here putting Kaiya to bed while Jamie & I were out; Kaiya had a hold of a stuffed puppy she got for her birthday, and Grandma just didn't have the heart to take it away from her before she got in her crib, so...
Thank you G.G. (aka Great Grandma) for the new friend!
I decided to start a tradition for Kaiya's birthday. When we went into her room to get her out of bed on the morning of her birthday, we took a picture of her, first thing. In her p.j.'s, in her bed, boogers on her face and everything (she was sick). I think that we will try to do this every year, and we will end up with a fun montage of her growing up.
I thought this sounded like a fun thing to start. She was sweet about it this year, but I can see the teenage years now...covers over her head, perhaps a pillow being thrown... But still, the scrapbooking possibilities are endless!
Here is Kaiya on her birthday before her party started.
Kaiya is an avid reader, and she got quite a few books for her birthday and I think everyone appreciated that. Before, we usually read every one of her books every day, and it is sooooo nice to be able to rotate through the library now. Here she is enjoying one of the new books with Daddy, while her furry sisters keep watch.
So, I've been thinking about something lately. A few weeks ago I went to Oklahoma City with 2 of my friends for "Time Out for Women"; it's kind of like a retreat. It was great, we stayed in a nice hotel and got to hear some amazing speakers. The weekend we were there also happened to be the 13th anniversary of the Oklahoma City Bombing. We visited the memorial in the late afternoon. For those of you who have never seen the memorial, on a normal day it looks like this... (I didn't take this picture, it didn't look like this on the day we went).
Each one of the empty chairs represents a person who died in the bombing. The arrangement of the chairs corresponds to the location in which the person died; so on the second floor of the building was a daycare, and in the second row of chairs there are 19 little chairs, representing the 19 children who died in the bombing.
Because of the special memorial service that had taken place that morning the barriers that normal prohibit visitors from walking amongst the chairs were taken down; and each chair had been decorated. Some with pictures, most with flowers, many with family pictures; even a few letters.
The whole situation really got to me, and I wandered around the chairs just crying. Especially when I looked at the things that had been placed on the children's chairs. I just couldn't help but think what my life would be like if Kaiya was suddenly taken away from me. When I walked up to the lookout area, there was a fenced off area with a small grassy area inside. I walked over to see what it was, and noticed there were crosses with little bells all along the fence.
The grassy area was the children's play ground, and there were 19 crosses, one for each of the children who died that day. Well, I stood at the edge of the area and just cried and cried. Then, a woman who I had never seen before walked up to me and said "You look like you could use a hug" and just hugged me. I didn't know her, she didn't know me, but she embraced me as a sister. This woman didn't know why I was so touched by the memorial, she just saw that I was crying and tried to help me.
It was then I started thinking about the assumptions we make about people. I looked over the memorial, and saw all different types of people, all in various states of contemplation. There were some who looked curious, as if they were just at another roadside attraction. But there were others who had the hurt but empty look of someone who had really lost something. We might walk past any of these people on the street, somewhere far away from the memorial, and think ill of them, maybe they cut us off in traffic, or gave us a dirty look as we walked by. But we do not know what hurt is hidden behind their face.
It was then that I decided to be more patient with those around me. People can be quick to judge, and sometimes I assume that I know why people look or act the way they do, but I don't. So this is my mid-year resolution: to not make assumptions about others and treat everybody within my sphere of influence more kindly.
Yes, my friends, that is a flippin' huge snake. My dad is 6 feet tall by the way, which means that snake is at least 5 feet long. And our home autopsy revealed that it is most likely a cottonmouth, which is a poisonous water snake. I don't think you can really see in the picture, but there are still two big lumps in it from the duck eggs he had already swallowed.
