Eva: mom why do we need lotion?

Me: so your skin can be soft and smooth.

Eva: oh, like the sidewalk?

Yes, exactly like the sidewalk.

sent to the office

I had to pick up Annie from the office at school today.

On my way out the door to pick her up at school at the regular time, I got a call from the school saying that it was early out day, and that Annie was sitting in the office.

When I walked in, the secretary said "are you here to pick up a kindergartner?" I said "Yes" as I looked and saw a row of forgotten kindergartners sitting, waiting for their unfit parents to come retrieve them.

At least I wasn't the only one who forgot their kid. I looked at the row of kindergartners, and picked out the cutest one to take home. Luckily it was my kid.

Sorry Annie. I'll try to remember next Monday.

Earth Day Resolutions

I know this is late, but what kind of Environmental Studies Major would I be if I didn't post about Earth Day?

This year to do my part to help out our planet, I am going to try to move the laundry from the washer to the dryer in a more timely manner so that I don't have to wash the same load of laundry 2, 3, or even 4 times because it gets too stinky from sitting in the washer for days at a time.

Starting tomorrow.

That and not driving anywhere or really leaving the house for that matter because I have 3 kids under the age of 5. My energy is best spent doing something more productive than hauling the kidlings around Target or to the library. You know, something more productive...like doing laundry.

Just doing my part for Mother Earth.

sun days

today after eva's shower, i was getting her dressed and she asked if we were going to church today. i told her that no we weren't going to church because it's saturday and we go to church on sundays. she thought about it for a minute then said "well it's nice and sunny today."

Best. Mom. Ever.

I just opened the microwave to throw in some popcorn and I found a bowl of soup I was heating up for Annie...left there from last night! I never gave it to her, and she didn't ask. Don't call DCFS on me. I'll feed her today I promise.

thanks panda

last night i was making a recipe that called for soy sauce. it was coconut-lime chicken soup if you are interested. i looked in the fridge, and realized that i didn't have any. i remembered that at dan's work they have a basket in the lunchroom with all the little condiment packets that people get with their take-out food. i called him to bring some soy sauce home if they had any. he said he would, and if not, he would stop by the store on the way home to get some. so a little while later he showed up with some panda express soy sauce packets and told me that they didn't have any at work. instead of going to the grocery store, he had just gone to panda express and asked for some soy sauce.

nutrition 101

setting: lunchtime. eva goes to the fridge to get some yogurt to eat.


dan: "no yogurt, we're going to have lunch."

me: "i don't care if she eats yogurt for lunch."

dan: "no. we are going to have a nice healthy meal."

me: "ok you fix lunch for us"


dan looks around in the fridge and pantry for a while...


dan: "do we have any corndogs?"

halloween joke

a little cartoon i made for your enjoyment.

costa rica day 7

may 7, 2008
before leaving la fortuna we decided to hike to a waterfall. we got up in the morning and went and were the first ones there. we had the whole place to ourselves for a while so we played in the river downstream from the waterfall and watched the blue morpho butterfly flutter around. about an hour later the place started getting busy with visitors, and we hiked out. the hike down to the waterfall wasn't too bad, because it was all downhill, but coming out was straight up made even more difficult by carrying the kids.

after the waterfall, we all piled in the van to travel across the country to the caribbean side of costa rica where we would be staying for most of the rest of the trip. before we left we had some tentative arrangements but nothing concrete for places to stay, and dan's co-workers gave him some grief about that. they thought it was weird for us to just go down there with no real plans and wing-it...especially travelling with 6 kids.

so we asked directions on the best way to get to puerto viejo and we were told to head in a general direction and then ask for directions along the way. the roads in costa rica are poorly labeled when they are labeled at all so it made for an interesting road trip. i speak spanish as does my brother-in-law, and my sister manages ok with her knowledge of italian, but one of my favorite times was when we sent dan out to ask for directions. we were out in the countryside where they didn't speak english, and for some reason we thought it would be a good idea to send the non-spanish speaker out to ask for directions. needless to say we went a little ways further and then asked again for directions.

we were under the impression that it would take us 5 or 6 hours to get there, but it ended up taking us at least 10 hours to get to the house we were renting just outside of puerto viejo.

costa rica day 6

the next morning we had arranged to go on a little rafting trip for the morning. it was a really gentle river so we just floated along and looked at the wildlife. we saw sloths, bats, howler monkeys and even a crocodile. the funny (or not so funny) thing is that part way through our trip we stopped to swim in the river for a little while, and the kids were floating down in their life jackets and swimming and stuff. we got back in the boats to continue the trip and right around the next bend was the crocodile. also, our trusty guides decided to take our inflatable raft right up and nudge the crocodile. i could just imagine it taking a bite at our sturdy ship.

when we pulled out of the river we stopped by some peoples house where they had made us fried plantains and some cheese. it was pretty tasty. they also had some brand new little puppies that entertained the little kiddos.

later that evening dan and i left our kids with my sister and we went to find some hot springs. there are lots around, and we didn't really want to pay $50 to go so we found a reasonably priced one. it took us a while to find it with the directions given us and with the limited signs. eventually we found it, and it was fun, but basically just a big hot tub.

i had been to costa rica previously when i was in college and we went to a really cool hot springs that had beautiful plants and more natural surroundings and waterfalls and stuff, but we paid a lot more to go to that one. so i was a little dissapointed this time when it was like going to a community pool. you get what you pay for i guess. we had wanted to find some natural hot springs along the river, but weren't able to pry that information out of the locals.

more on costa rica....

so, over a year ago we went to costa rica and i never finished writing about our adventures. well, i am going to attempt to recall what happend on the rest of the trip and show a few more pictures.

so, i left off the last post about costa rica arriving in la fortuna. so we spent the night there and in the morning after a breakfast of fresh fruit and gallo pinto (rice and beans) at the hotel we headed into town. my brother in law decided he wanted to see if any stores in town sold a backpack to carry their 1 and 1/2 year old little boy. we asked at numerous stores and nobody really knew what we were talking about. so we decided to abandon the idea and head off toward volcan arenal and go for a hike (ok so really more of a walk since we had 4 kids under age 4 with us).


arenal is an active volcano, so you can see the boulders being spewed out of the top of the volcano, and hear the eruptions. we never had a clear night where we could see the volcano, but during the day we were able to have some good views. we hiked to where there was an old lava flow from about 10 years ago or something. it was cool to be able to see an active volcano.

down with ticketmaster!

so last night we bought our tickets to pearl jam in salt lake. the tickets themselves weren't cheap, but then on top of that there is a $3.00 facility charge per ticket, and an $11.60 convienience charge per ticket! ok ok so i go to check out and if i want to print the tickets at home it's an extra couple of dollars so i went with the free mail option, then there was the order processing fee of 5 bucks. holy cow. just tell me up front how much the tickets are going to be. don't tell me one price then add on an extra $15. ok so that's how i really feel. however, i am really excited to see pearl jam.

American Dork

I hate that the D is right next to the F on the keyboard because I always seem to type "american dork" for my address (you know, instead of american fork...which is way cooler than american dork). I am already a little self-conscious about living in utah county, and this key placement doesn't seem to help.

doing our part in the kingdom

so the other day (actually the other week), dan and i went snowboarding up at park city. we had stopped by the cabin to say hi to my mom, and apparently someone who had stayed at the cabin had left a whole bunch of beer. my mom kept a few for herself (you know for marinating meat...) and gave the rest to us to put in the garbage on our way out. well, we thought we would go make some friends at the ski resort, so we wrote on the box "have one on us", and "free to a loving home" and the obligatory "don't drink and drive" and decided to set out the box in the parking lot so people could feel the love after a day of skiing. well we left the box out while getting ready, but there were just people with little kids and stuff around. i decided that we shouldn't leave it by our car in case there was some sort of law against handing out alcohol to anyone and everyone who wanted to happen by. anyway...i chickened out, so we just put the box in the back of the car. after we got home, we put the box in the carport, but dan decided we better get rid of it before the weeblos come over, so he took it over to the neighbors house and gave it to them. they were appreciative. well, i guess i just want to know if we can count this as "missionary work", you know, contacting the less active/nonmembers even if it was to give them beer. maybe i'll mention it at the next ward council meeting. what do you think?

i am failing as a parent

I obviously need to get my kids into gaming more, you know, to prepare them for the future.


Are Violent Video Games Adequately Preparing Children For The Apocalypse?

fire

dan's little brother is on a mission in the detroit area. a couple of weeks ago, their apartment complex burned down. here is his letter describing what happened. i hope he doesn't care that i posted it, but i thought it was pretty good.

Elder Simpson woke me up at 3:30 am and our window glowed with orange light. As I gazed through the blinds I find drips of burning vinyl siding flying past the window. we get up and run outside, the only thing grabbed is the cell phone to call 911 and the mission president. Upon exiting we see a raging inferno high on the third floor. The fire was growing fast in the cold breeze. Molten vinyl dripped onto my shirt and a spot on my foot. we watched as soon we found our own apartment blocked by flames. We stood and prayed. and then started screaming to wake everyone up. everything was left inside. car keys, wallets, shoes. I was in pajamas and Elder Simpson only was wearing shorts and a tee-shirt. As we stood, Elder Simpson only could repeat, "Our door is on Fire! Our door is on Fire, Elder!" were called over to the side of the building by a man, where we found a woman and a man holding a baby. the woman apparently had taken her shirt off to cover the baby. Thick heavy smoke billowed out the apartment. the man calls for us to jump on his shoulders. I tell Elder Simpson "You're lighter, You go." He fearlessly climbs up the man and reaches halfway up the railing. The woman in histeria, is hesitant to hand the baby down. off to the right a window explodes and glass shoots everywhere. The smoke is only getting worse and Elder Simpson can hardly even keep his eyes open to help the baby. We are hollering to send the baby down first. The woman hands the baby to the man and he leans way over and hands the baby to Elder Simpson who soon loses his balance atop this guy. he reaches out and catches himself on the railing with his left hand, and with his right he wraps around the baby and pulls her in close. I run over to him and he lowers the baby to me. I looked as I was holding a little 7 week old crying baby named Kennedy with burns on her face. Next the mother climbs over the railing and climbs onto Elder Simpson he lowers her down and she grabs onto a little fence nearby. by the time she is down, a detroit edison truck(electric company) pulls up and grabs a ladder and helps lower the man down. the woman jumps into a police car as the officer calls for an ambulance. she was heavily burned. and taken to the burn unit in Flint. We take a stand back and watch the fire growing. the two fire truck spray the fire with everything they have and soon an enormous truck drives up. it extends hydrolic arms for stability and after a few minutes of hooking up as many fire hoses as it can it raises a large ladder with two huge soaking hoses. there is someone trapped right above our apartment and the two smaller trucks spray and block the fire around the window and the large truck extends and breaks through a window and the lady jumps onto the platform with the fire fighters. she climbs down and the ladder takes its place above the fire and begins unleashing its wrath. at a rate of 1000 gallons of water per Minute the fire now has a worthy opponent. bit by bit the fire is calmed as the staircases become waterfalls and our apartment becomes a wadding pool. at about 4:00 I call President Rawson and then Bishop Juarez. We ask for some clothes and something to eat. At this time, we are freezing and finally somebody from a neighboring complex gives us blankets of which I wrap myself up and stand upon to give my poor raw freezing feet a rest. We decide to go to the Apartment Clubhouse which has been opened to shelter the now homeless. I am hungry, malclothed, and pretty much have nothing anymore. somebody brings in some bread and cereal. the Bishop arrives as donates us his shoes and coats that appeared nearly new. another man donates some pants that were 4 sizes too big. A whole community begins awaking and pouring out their support. The American Red Cross arrives and extends some relief and gives us a voucher for some clothes and food. In time we are given a new apartment in the opposite end of the complex. The Relief Society President Sister Hagan comes and brings us some clothes and groceries. The Mission comes up and brings Desks and matresses. The fire has been out for a little while and we go the the apartment which only sustained smoke and water damage and we can ask the firemen to grab anything we need we get keys cameras clothes books; all covered with the horrible aroma of burning plastic. A few hours later as they are boarding up the apartments we run in there and have about 7 minutes to get everything else we want. I find my headlamp and begin sloshing through the dark apartment looking for everything i think salvagable. I grabb the Area Book which holds the precious records of hundreds of missionaries efforts in the Area and my journal soaked through and through. and now we return with our treasure in our brand new Chevy Malibu with a melted bumper and headlights. And that the Way it is. Love Elder Bolke

my sister-in-law posted some pictures and media links here.

new slang

Click to Play

in this episode, michele attempts to play the guitar and sing the song "new slang" by the shins.  disclaimer: this is a first time recording, editing, and first thing in the morning as well.  but anyway, enjoy.

three little birds

annie loves the song "three little birds" by bob marley. here is her rendition.

enjoy.

can you feel the temperature drop?

i play the flute in the wasatch winds symphony, a community band here in utah county. as i was walking out of rehearsal to my car tonight one of the other flute players was just leaving and rolled down her window and enthusiastically tells me "you're awesome", she then continued with "your presence exudes coolness." i was taken back a little bit with this compliment, but then recovered and stuttered something real cool like "hey thanks" or something like that. i mean, i like to think i'm cool, but it's always nice to have some reassurance from the outside. i won't let it go to my head though because i do realize that is was a compliment from a fellow band geek.

if anyone wants to get in the holiday spirit in early december come to the christmas concert.

wasatch winds symphonic band

"a holiday spectacular"

monday, december 8, 2008

7:30 p.m.

american fork high school

catalina island

last thursday we went drove down to california to go to catalina island. we went with a couple of friends, and NO KIDS! i don't even remember the last time we had a weekend without the kids. thanks to mom and dad, and dan's parents for watching them. anywho here is a recap of our trip....

we drove all day thursday down to huntington beach where we stayed at the hilton across the street from the beach. it was pretty nice, except for the beds were double beds which made for a cozy night for our friends that went down with us since they weren't married. they weren't even dating or anything. they are both married but to other people. anywho, mike brought down his blender so he could make smoothies. i thought it was kinda weird that he wanted to pack his blender, but i sure enjoyed the smoothies for breakfast.

mike with his famous blender

well, it took us a little bit longer than we thought to get to the ferry in long beach, so we missed our 10:00 ferry to catalina island, and were put on the 12:15. alicia decided she needed to roll out some muscles in the middle of the terminal, until some guy made her move out of the main walkway. we had our bikes with us, so we went for a bike ride and found some lunch before returning to get on the ferry.

alica

dan and i in front of the catalina express ferry (dan is being extra safe by wearing his helmet).

avalon bay

when we got there, we rode our bikes to the hotel, checked in, then walked around the town. most of the transportation around town is done by golf cart, so we rented one and went for a tour of the town. we drove the course for the triathlon we would be doing the next day.

overlooking the harbor

that afternoon, we rode one lap of the bike course to get a feel for it. it was up a canyon, it wasn't real steep, but steep enough that it made me wish i had a granny gear on my bike to make it easier to pedal. then we rode the run course. all of this prep work made me nervous for the race because i am not too good with hills, and this was a pretty hilly course. anywho, the next morning we got over to where the race was going to start, set up our transition areas, and shimmied into our wetsuits. a little bit before the race was going to begin, mike realized that he had his wetsuit on backwards, and had to take it off, and put it on correctly. dan was in the second wave to start and i was in the last, so i sent dan off and hoped that he wouldn't drown. he did awesome though. so we swam in the ocean up one side of the dock, out to some bouys, then back to shore. then hopped on our bikes for a 3 lap course up the canyon and back down. while riding up the canyon i was wondering why i always think it is a good idea to sign up for these triathlons...i still haven't figured it out (it's kind of addicting), coming down the canyon was fun though. dan lapped me on the bike, and actually finished the whole thing before i even began the run. the run had a couple of long steep hills, so i ended up walking part of it. i still need to work on running a lot. anywho, i ended up with 8th place in my division, and dan with 13th in his (his was a lot tougher division than mine). our friends also did well.

after the race.

we had tickets for the 7:00 ferry that night, but decided to trade them for sunday morning. so since we had the afternoon, dan and i decided to go diving. we rented some gear, and went for a dive among the giant kelp forests. it was pretty cool. the deepest we went was about 70 feet. that's the deepest i've ever been. there were lots of fish, and of course the giant columns of kelp. it had taken us so long to get the gear and stuff so it was dark by the time we came out. we had lights and stuff, and there were plenty of other divers nearby, but i still get nervous in the dark so we surfaced.

we had cold stone ice cream for dinner, then went to a movie. the theater was way cool, the ceiling was dome shaped and there were murals painted all over. there was even an old organ right up near the front.

the next morning we packed our bags and got on our bikes to ride over and catch the ferry, when we found out that the winds were too strong so our boat was cancelled. we rode over to the dock anyway and changed our tickes for 2:00. well, that boat was cancelled too. so finally, about 3:00 we were advised that all of the ferries for the day had been cancelled, so we had to stay another night on the island. the hotel we were staying in gave us half off since we were stranded, so that was cool. that afternoon dan was able to go out to one of the sailboats with a guy we met the day before. he lives on his boat, and when he found out that was dan's dream he invited him to go and check out the boat. they took some kayaks out and dan hung out on the sailboat and swabbed the deck and stuff, while i went shopping.

dan and peter going out to the sailboat.

earlier that day we had seen the missionaries and found out that they had a group that meets at the bank at 4:00, so we went to the services where there was one other member besides us and the missionaries. i guess that area has only been open since january and they have had 13 baptisms, but all were spanish speaking and attended the 6:00 services. the services were about a half hour long. we sang a song, took the sacrament, the missionaries each shared a thought, and then we sang again and that was it. it was great. the missionaries invited us back to the spanish services, and asked me to share my testimony. we went back at 6:00, and there were a couple of families there that we were able to meet. we had the same services, but in spanish. they did have sunday school after that for about a half hour. it was pretty cool.

so the next morning we were finally able to get on our ferry. the seas still had some big swells, so they were handing out puke bags, and on the deck below us there were people taking turns puking into the garbage can. it was awesome. anywho, we made it back to the mainland, and drove all day and finally reached home at about midnight last night. we had a good time, and it was fun to get to know alicia and mike better. i went to pick up the girls this morning at my mom's house, and when i got there the girls looked at me, then went right back to doing whatever they were doing before. i asked annie if she missed me, she said "nope". well, at least it's nice to know i was missed while i was gone.