Ten Adventures

#1 Strawberry Picking. We decided last week that since we were going to be out of town for half the week, and we weren't sure what conditions that Memorial Day would have, that we should go strawberry picking on Monday. Alison begged to be kept out of school (which we did), and we all drove out to our favorite berry farm and picked 43 pounds of strawberries. Alison, about halfway through picking, proclaimed it "boring". Silly girl. But, generally, both Alison and Kristen were good and helped out. I turned the strawberries into 36 jars of jam, which (crossing fingers) hopefully will last a year. I also made myself a crisp and some ice cream, both of which I shared with friends because no one else around here eats them.

#2 Mother-daughter book group. This is becoming one of our favorite outings. Both Caitlyn and I find it fun and rewarding. I'm just sad I didn't have one of these to go to with Megan. Then again, she and I share the same taste in books, and it's nice to have a way to connect with Caitlyn.

#3 Last day of school. The girls had a great, fantastic, superb, excellent time on their last day. They all came home excited and thrilled and worn out. Megan burst into tears, though: she's actually going to miss Wilbur Middle School and all the teachers. We realized that it was the longest she's been at one school ever in her whole life, so that may have something to do with it. On the upside, she'll probably text her friends all summer, and they'll all be there in high school with her, so she's not really leaving anything.

#4 Kansas City/Independence. So, the day after school got out, we headed on a mini-vacation. Russell got our editor at Dialogue to pop for the conference fee to the Mormon History Association conference, and we all tagged along. We had a good time, but we also had a lot of adventures....

#5 Forgetting Kristen's shoes. Completely. Left them at home. Which left me standing in Walgreen's in Independence, Missouri trying to pick out a pair of flip flops that Kristen, who was cranky and had her heart set on "sunshine shoes" (which in her language was "hunhine hoos"), would actually wear.

#6 Locking the keys in the car at Far West. We went to Adam-ondi-ahman (big field, but we found a trail at Tower Hill the girls could tramp around on, which they liked, though Russell had a massive allergy attack), and then out to Far West. Where Russell left the keys in the car. Which I had locked, out of force of habit. Whoops. Thankfully, there was another nice couple who had a cell phone (ours being in said locked car) and called AAA for us. We then spent an hour or so bumming around, goofing off. Thankfully, there were trees to climb and places to run around and it was a pleasant day to be outside.

#7 Getting lost. The hotel we stayed at was situated weirdly, and for some reason, Google Maps could not find it. Every time we left, every time we tried to get back to the hotel, we got lost. Completely. Thankfully, we have a compass in the car... and we did manage, eventually, to find our bearings (thanks to the Community of Christ conch shell temple that serves as a pretty good landmark) and get to and from the hotel. And we only had to call the front desk for directions once.

#8 Toilet overflowing. What would a hotel stay be without an overflowing toilet. Oh, yeah: uneventful.

#9 The water park. The hotel had a water park attached to it, and we managed to score four free passes, so we only had to buy one. And so we went on Friday morning, had a grand time for two hours (except Megan said afterward that it was just okay). Then we crashed, watched Alice in Wonderland (not a bad little movie. Not great, but not bad either), ate ice cream (got lost again), and basically had a fun day while Russell was at the conference.

#10 Fire alarms going off. Friday, we're too exhausted to go anywhere to eat, so we head down to the hotel restaurant. We order and wait and wait (it takes forever, and the natives are getting restless), when suddenly the emergency alarm goes off. We evacuate. They shoo us back in. Then they decide that we need to go back out. They shoo us back in. Then the fire department comes and we get evacuated. Again. Finally, we're cleared to go back in (false alarm??) and our dinner arrives, late, and kind of cold.

You can't say we don't have eventful vacations.

We mostly had an uneventful drive home yesterday and we all crashed. Literally. Today's been good; church was mostly about self-reliance and helping others. And we have no idea what we're going to do tomorrow since we've already done our vacation...

From Megan's Camera; Or, Kansas City, Part 3

Though, perhaps this should have gone first? Right when we first got to Independence, we stopped at the Visitor's Center to eat and go to the bathroom (overshare?) and pick up a map to the rest of the sights. Megan got out her camera, and snapped a few shots.





Man, that girl has talent!

Requisite Weird Hotel Picture

Yes, this is how she was when I woke up Saturday morning. Good thing she's on an air mattress and not a bed!

Clinton's Soda Fountain; Or, Kansas City, Part 2a

So, in between hours at the water park, we crashed in the hotel room, watching the new Alice in Wonderland (interesting, and we all kind of liked it). Then someone -- possibly Megan -- said, "I want ice cream!" Hey, good idea! We havehad a picture of the sign from Clinton's Soda Fountain for the past year (since the last time we went to Independence), and so I figured it was about time to actually go eat at the place (since it was closed last time). I Googled it, Googled the directions, and after getting lost a bit (the hotel was weirdly situated, and we got lost going to and from the hotel every single time we left it), we found the ice cream shop. (Hooray for mom's internal compass?)

We got to sit at a counter...


And eat GINORMOUS ice cream.

It was very happy-making.

(No, I don't know how Megan managed to escape the pictures; perhaps it was just because she was a bit cranky and is smart enough to get out of the line of sight.)

The Water Park; Or, Kansas City, Part 2

So, Friday while Russell was at the Mormon History Association conference, the girls and I played. We watched a LOT of TV, and we spent a good two hours at the indoor water park the hotel had.

I discovered it's hard to be both parent-on-duty and photographer, so most of these shots are from right when we first got there.

Hands down, the girls' favorite thing was the lazy river. They weren't required to be on the floaties, and it was only 2 feet 6 inches deep, so even Kristen could stand up in it. So, what they did was "run" laps. Around and around and around they went, best if I were chasing them. And, yes, they did sleep well Friday night!


The second best thing was the slides (except the big-big-kid slides; Megan said they were "meh"). There were Kristen-sized ones, and Alison-sized ones, and they both went up and down and up and down and up and down again.





(I know it's out of focus, but it's the only one I got of her!)

It was a LOT of fun, and we're glad we went!

Off to Kansas City, Part 1

So, Russell was very interested in going to the Mormon History Association meeting in Independence this weekend, and so we turned it into a bit of a family vacation. First stop: visit the Missouri church sites.

We headed out to Adam-ondi-ahman, first. And tromped around the fields a bit.



Then we headed to Far West, where the girls discovered that they could fit through the fence.


And we discovered that Russell left the keys in the car, which I had locked. Thankfully, there was a nice couple with a cell phone there (our phones were in the car, too!). They called AAA, who called a nice guy to come out and open the car. In the meantime, we goofed off a bit.







Once we got the car open, we were off to Liberty Jail, where a nice sister missionary took us around. The girls were duly impressed.


And then dinner and the hotel, for there is more excitement to come!

Lookie Here!

And where did it go?

There it is! (She informed me after school that it was loose, a couple hours later, it came out! Wow!)

Last Day!

It was the last day of school today! And for Megan, that means the last day of middle school. (Eep!) She took the camera and took a whole bunch of shots.

Her favorite teachers:

(Mrs. Brotton, Mr. Goter, and Mrs. Rayl)

Her favorite friends:

(Brooke, Shayla, Margaret, and Cole)

One with her (after I texted and DEMANDED she be in one!):
(She said, "It's the redheads.")

She's actually a bit sad to be leaving middle school. She's had a fabulous experience at Wilbur. I can only hope the other girls have as good of time. (Crossing fingers, knocking on wood.)
The other two girls had last days, too, of course.

Alison and her kindergarten buddies:

(Alison, Liberty, Jaylin, Holly, Piper and Mackenzie)

And Caitlyn with all her fourth grade friends. (We couldn't get them all rounded up for one shot this year...)

(Top left: with Maddie and Mikayla; Top right: with Carly and Merry; Bottom left: With Madeline; Bottom right: with Tara and Emily.)

And here's to summer!

(Mis)Adventures

There has to be at least one interesting story to tell in a weekly letter. Right? (Especially when the week was full of rain, school, and normal stuff.)

So, I went to church this morning, turned on the organ, played prelude and never suspected anything was wrong. And then the opening hymn... aside from the moment of panic when the chorister didn't appear (a member of the bishopric stepped in the last minute), I thought all was fine. Except, everything seemed a bit... off. Not quite right. It started out as a niggling little feeling, and messed up my concentration (it was a little-sung hymn to boot), and by the end of the hymn, I was completely flummoxed. Prayer, announcements, chorister shows up and whispers "The organ's in a weird key." Huh? What? I mouth back, "I don't know what's wrong!" And we play the sacrament hymn: by this point, I know there is something completely wrong: the hymn is WAY too high for most of the congregation. We clip through it (I'm impressed they got the bread broken by the time we finished...) and after the prayer I look over the keyboard, and (finally) notice: the transposition knob has been turned up. All the way up. AHHH. Problem solved.

Okay, that was a really musically geeky story.

Megan had her last middle school band concert of the year on Monday. It was the pops concert, so it was a lot of fun. Pop songs, jazz bands, the Wilbur Rock Band (except the poor girls couldn't handle singing over all that backup; you could barely hear them!). Fun, fun, fun. I'll miss Mr. Goter (he's the band director); though it'll be interesting to see what band experiences Megan has in store in high school. (And I'd say that we'll see him again in a couple of years, but Caitlyn's leaning heavily toward choir instead of band...) Speaking of which, anyone know a place where we can get a good (she's currently playing on a Yamaha) used clarinet for a reasonable (around $500) price??

We had Clarissa over on Tuesday. Wednesday, I was stranded at home (it was raining, and Russell took the car) and so I didn't bother getting dressed. Kristen and I played and watched TV and played some more. Thursday, I've managed to blank out; I'm sure it was because so many exciting things happened that my brain can't hold them in anymore and they leaked out.

Friday, Caitlyn woke up -- she's been staying up late, late, late (mostly because the rest of us bigger people have, too) and it finally caught up to her -- and proclaimed herself "sick" and went back to bed. She slept until nearly noon. I took Kristen swimming in the morning (it's SO nice having the pool to oneself; there was a water aerobics class in the pool next door, which fascinated Kristen, and she spent some time imitating what the instructor was doing, much to their amusement). Then we watched ALL of the Shaun the Sheep clips. Then we went to the doctor's (Kristen's doing fine; she really needs to stop biting her toenails, though...), and then we went to Wilbur to help set up for the big dance. Kristen was a big help with the balloon blowing and tying (and I met Cole, who was very polite, mostly because I terrified him a couple weeks ago, and he introduced me to his mom) and then she got tired and wanted to go home. By then, Megan was home and getting ready for said big dance... (Why does it take girls two hours to get ready?? I still don't really know.) Alison had gone over to the Austins after school, and so I dashed over to pick her up. A friend came over to do Megan's makeup (since the salon we wanted to go to wasn't taking appointments), we did her hair, she ate something, we got dressed, her two best friends came over, we took pictures, took the three younger girls over to a friend's house and Megan and her friends to the school and ... whoosh! Everyone was gone.

You would think we'd take advantage of that, but no. We just watched a bunch of TV. And ate Ben and Jerry's.

Yesterday was busy, too. Both Megan and Caitlyn had gone to sleepovers, Alison had a birthday party she spent the morning wanting to go to. Kristen spent the afternoon in her swimsuit (hey, it got HOT!). I mowed, cleaned, weeded (yes, other people helped in between everything else). We watched Serenity (okay: I like Mal and Simon better in the TV show, and the ending: seriously?!? SERIOUSLY? Sigh.) and then crashed.

And that's about it. Three. More. Days. And I'm completely not ready.

They All Grow Up Eventually.

Right?

This was for the Eighth Grade Formal/Graduation Dance. She begged to be able to go, and because she's a good kid (and because she would have been the only one of her sisters to miss it, due to when her birthday is), we let her go. She and her friends have been planning this for MONTHS.


She's such a beautiful girl. (Yes, I am biased.)


Those are her two closest friends, Brooke (in the middle) and Shayla (on the end).


It's nice to know she's still her mother's girl, though.

Jammie Day

Sometimes, even Moms need one.

The Last Middle School Band Concert

For a while at least...

This time the 7th and 8th grade bands played together, and since it was the pops concert, they played, well, popular songs. In this case, Don't Stop Believing and a medley from The Phantom Menace (which they spelled wrong on the program.)





A couple of random shots... this, my friends, is a keytar (Keyboard/guitar). Mr. Goter was all excited about announcing that he got it -- Megan said they day it came, they spent the entire period listening to him play around on it. I thought that Alex probably thought he was pretty darn cool... :-)


And this, for a couple of years now, has made me laugh. Harrison is shorter than Megan. Harrison is a geeky kid (like Megan, he was on the NAL team). Harrison is the last person you'd expect to play lead electric guitar. But, man, this kid is good. And he's the epitome of geeky cool doing it.


And I thought after 3 years of seeing Mr. Goter's back, you'd want to see him from the front. (He's a really good trumpet player, too!)

I'm actually going to miss him; he has an incredible enthusiasm for the music, for band, for the kids, and he can inspire them to do great things. I have no idea what the band program is like up at the high school, but they have large shoes to fill. Mr. Goter's been awesome.

Storms and Programs

Storms: it rained pretty much every day this week. Except Tuesday, which was field day at school; and Friday, which was Alison's field trip to the zoo (and I mowed the lawn), which was good. But, the storms were Kansas doosies. (I love that word.) Monday had us hiding in the basement due to a tornado warning; the tornado eventually passed about 10 miles south of us. Close call, but aside from Alison being panicked for much of the evening, no one was hurt. Wednesday night we had another tornado watch (it went north this time), and that evening it poured sheets of rain. Literally. You looked out the window, and you couldn't see the trees in our front yard for the rain. And hail. It was... exciting... it was all I could do to convince Alison and Kristen that they did NOT want to go out and play in the rain. Except for the off days and the big storms, it's been raining on and off all week. Good for growing things, and easy on the water bill, but I think it'd be nice to see some sun, personally.

Programs: Kristen had her preschool program: they dressed up as "aliens" (well, they had made alien eye headbands), and sang songs that they'd learned over the course of the year. Kristen alternated between being very animated singing and being more interested in chewing her nails and looking at her alien eyes. It was very cute. The preschool director told me afterward that while she was going through pictures for the end-of-the-year slideshow she found that there were hardly any pictures without Kristen being hammy in them in one way or another. She also said that she's going to miss Kristen; we're going to a different preschool (through the school district instead of private) next year, hopefully. And she said that was ok, as long as I promise to bring Kristen by to say hi once in a while. :-)

Caitlyn's class had their class plays this week as well. As always, she's wonderfully animated to watch. Especially when she got mad at Nick for forgetting a prop... :-) She told us that it was the worst performance they did (it was the last one; they were tired!), but we thought it went just fine. A friend who watched the videos told me that she kept expecting Caitlyn to say "You're a murderer of love!" since she does despair so well. She also spent Friday night with some friends (she's been having trouble with people picking on her at school, and so I had to remind her that she has a group of good friends; it was good for her to spend some time with them) putting together relief packages for Haiti. She told us on Saturday that while she knew she was doing good, it was really boring.

Alison really desperately wanted me to go to the zoo on Friday, but I wasn't going to spend all day there, so I took Kristen in the morning and we set about trying to find Alison. Which was a lot harder than it sounded; the zoo was packed with school groups, and Kristen was less than willing to go on a single-minded search for her sister. So, we wandered around the zoo, fed the fish and the goats (one goat butted me in the rear because I wasn't feeding him fast enough!), and eventually found Alison when she was sitting down for lunch. We said hi, talked for a while, and went on our way. She had a great day at the zoo, but was a bit sad that I wasn't able to stay with her all day like other kids moms... (on the upside, I did get the lawn mowed before it started raining again.) We also spring cleaned Alison's and Kristen's room yesterday (didn't take me nearly as long as Megan's. Huh.). Alison begged to have the bunk beds taken apart, so we did... and then she got upset because it was different. Ah, Alison. We love her.

I did spend Wednesday at the temple which was very nice -- nice to get away, nice to go do a session, nice to chat with other adults, nice that Russell, Megan and the Kitchens were able to make it happen for me. It's very good to go once in a while.

And Megan... she's been watching Firefly (seriously, people, this is TV at some of its finest) with Russell and me. In fact, she's pushing to finish it really really fast (there are only 14 episodes!), and I keep asking what we'll do when we're done. She says, "Watch Buffy the Vampire Slayer." Okay then. And we also watched Wallace and Gromit's Loaf or Death (meh; but the Shaun the Sheep short was hilarious!) and Fantastic Mr. Fox (the girls liked it; I was kind of meh; and Russell was HIGHLY disappointed). So, it's been a good week all around.

Have a lovely week! (Ony 8 more school days left here. Eeep!)

Caitlyn's School Play

One of the main reasons Caitlyn wanted Mrs. Harman for a teacher in fourth grade was because Mrs. Harman does plays every spring. Caitlyn desperately wanted to be in one. Thankfully, she got her wish.

She was funny, though. She got the lead in one of the plays, and then she spent the next month complaining how unprofessional her classmates were. Silly girl.

Here's the play in three acts... Enjoy!


Sorry this one's a bit out of focus; I was having a bit of trouble with the camera!

Preschool Program

Today was Kristen's preschool program!

(She's an alien...)

The program consisted of the preschool class doing a bunch of short songs for us, getting a certificate, watching a slideshow (which Ms. Linda, the director, told me afterward that it was hard to find pictures that didn't have Kristen in them!), and having a bowl of ice cream. Fun times.

As usual, I managed to get a couple of videos. Both are longish (around 5 minutes), so you know ahead of time.

This one is a collection of a few songs that Kristen had told us about beforehand.


This one is Going on a Bear hunt

She's not always singing, but she is always entertaining!

With her teachers Ms. Rochelle (Miss Hell) and Ms. Jenny. She adores them both.

We've had a grand year at preschool. It's hard to believe that it's almost over!

Tuckered

Time: 7 p.m.
Place: the living room sofa
Event:

Reason: she was just plain tuckered out.

Normality

I'm on the laptop because Caitlyn's working on a project for school downstairs, and I'm watching American Idol from this week (parts, anyway; Harry Connick Jr. was on, and I couldn't pass it up), and Russell's in the next room doing dishes and commenting on the singing (mostly "meh"), and I'm just laid back and enjoying my Mother's Day. Hope you all have had a lovely day, too.

So, the highlights this week...

We spring cleaned Megan's room. Which I thought wouldn't take very long, but actually ended up taking six hours. Mostly because we reorganized as well as a bit of redecorating. And that always is fun, even if it takes up time. The only misstep we took was in buying sheers for curtains; as Megan pointed out: "Mom, I can't change in my room now!" Oops. Back to the store.

Kristen got her four-year-old pictures taken. She was cooperative, and very, very cute. I knew ahead of time that it would be very hard for me to get just one pose (instead of, say four or five poses), so I took pre-emptive measures and brought Russell along. He was very strong and determined, and we settled on one pose. Unfortunately, we didn't get it in CD, and our scanner's on the fritz, so you'll just have to imagine the cuteness. (Unless you live near a grandparent or ask us nicely to send you one.)

Hmmm, what else?

I think the rest of the week was normal(ish). Piano, homework, school, playing. Alison asked to
watch Harry Potter 2 every single day, and then when we let her on Friday night, she got about a third of the way into it, and then came up saying that it scared her. Caitlyn had Merry over on Friday night for a sleepover, on the assumption that they were going to work on a school project that they were doing together. Um... yeah, right. Saturday morning, though, the two of them took Alison and Kristen to the runoff and spent a good part of the morning there. Oh, and I deemed it hot enough on Thursday to get the little pool out in the backyard, much to Kristen's delight. She spent the rest of the afternoon in her swimsuit (I may have to get her a few just so she doesn't wear one out terribly fast; on the upside, her clothes will be in pristine condition!). The neighborhood boys came over and stayed to play with the hose and the pool for a good long time after dinner. Fun times.

I got my Mother's Day yesterday. The girls really wanted to give me breakfast in bed, and since we have 9 a.m. church, we determined that meant Saturday would work better than Sunday. So, they made yummy blueberry pancakes, and served me breakfast in bed. (And then Kristen and Alison stayed to watch, which made eating a bit tricky...) I got some lovely handmade presents from the girls, and Russell got some advice from local women friends and got me a gift certificate to a local spa to use how I see fit. (Which begs the question: how? Massage, yes. But facial? Exfoliating? Stone massage? Manicure? Pedicure? Too many choices!) And he drove across town to get me some roses (for free). What a great guy. I love my family! :-)

And, aside from watching too much TV (Monk and a new-to-us-series, Firefly -- space cowboys, you gotta love that! -- ah, summer), and Russell finishing up classes and attending graduation, that's about it for us.

Have a great week!

Adventures at the Runoff

So, Caitlyn and Merry are working on a story project for school. They decided that it was to be "realistic" fiction and needed some illustrations. So they plotted it out, went down to the runoff with Alison and Kristen and had fun taking pictures for their story. These are a few of my favorites. (Caitlyn was the photographer, which is why she's not in the pictures.)