Mudding Party

Last weekend we made the drive down to Fillmore to help my parents do some mudding in their new garage. Two of my brothers and their wives came too, and it turned out to be a great family get-together. As per tradition, we spent a lot of our time playing board games. We did spend some time working in the garage, and ended up with the first layer all taped and mudded, and even did a layer in the workshop area above the garage.

I must admit that Spencer and my dad did the majority of the work. Spencer is a very hard worker, and when he starts a project, he likes to keep working until it is finished.


Once my brothers got out of bed, they used their incredible to height to get the ceiling done.


My mom and I did most of the taping, and then I divided my time between trying to stay warm, helping with the mudding, and keeping track of Jack. Oh, and I also played a little "avoid the hanging tennis ball" with my brother Michael. I think I had the clear advantage, as I am about a foot shorter than he is!


Our dog Jack LOVES going to Fillmore because he gets to wander the yard and neighborhood chasing cats and searching for food. He must have found a lot of food scraps on Saturday because when we drove back up to Salt Lake that night, Jack got rid of all the extra food on our carpet. Not a fun mess to clean, and I am eternally grateful to Spencer for his willingness to clean that mess on his own! And you should all be eternally grateful to me for not posting pictures of the mess on our blog!

Say What??

"Teacher, she just said the 's' word!"

I can't tell you how many times I hear that sentence at school. Now the tricky thing is, in first grade there are many 's' words. Here are a few: stupid, shut up, sex, ...

Speaking of sex, a few years ago I was talking to my class about similarities and differences. I had a boy and a girl come to the front of the room, and the class raised their hands and pointed out things that were the same or different between the two. My really smart boy raised his hand and said, "they're different sexes." Of course, no other first grader knows that sex can be another name for gender (or even know what gender means!) so the room filled up with giggles and whispering. I then had to explain that sex can mean male or female. I often wonder how many first graders went home that day and said, "We learned what sex means!"

Now, back to first grade cuss words. Here's one I heard the other day that is new to me: the 'w' word! I had to ask the boy who was tattling to tell me what the 'w' word stands for, and he meekly whispered in my ear, "whatever." Oh. I did not know that was a bad word. Whatev... I mean, okay.

It is nice to know that there is still some innocence in the world. Last year, a boy came in from recess with the tattling look. If you have been around children at all, you will recognize the tattling look. Their eyes are open wide, a mix of surprise and concern on their little faces, their mouth half open, with their index finger pointed in the general direction of the culprit. Anyway, this boy came in and said, "Teacher, I had to call this other boy a retard! I just had to! He was going around calling other kids affols!" Me - "Calling other kids what?" Boy - "affols!" At this point, I realize that the boy initially doing the name calling either had a lisp, or the boy in my class was not hearing clearly. At any rate, "affol" was actually a different word, a true cuss word. It just happened to be a cuss word that this innocent little boy had never heard.

So now, when a girl comes up to say, "he just said the 'f' word!" I can calmly react with the knowledge that she is probably referring to fart.

Idaho Flashback

Idaho Falls Temple

It has been close to two years now since we lived in Idaho Falls. We moved up in 2005 and made our way back to Utah in 2007. It seems like so long ago! I thought I would do a quick flashback to our days in Idaho, since nothing too exciting is going on right now for us to blog about!

Remembering Idaho Falls:

What a quaint town! We passed this sign every time we drove out to Kelly Canyon for a day of hiking, climbing, or picking out Christmas trees.

Speaking of Christmas trees, one great thing about Idaho was we got to go cut down our own tree. Our vaulted ceilings in the living room allowed for maximum height, and we found a great 11 ft. tree to fill the space.

I'm embarrassed to admit that we haven't had a Christmas tree since being back in Utah. Picking a tree out of a stack leaning against the side of a building is just not the same as spending a day hiking through the woods for the perfect tree.

Another thing I miss about living in Idaho is our home. We were so lucky to have a great house to live in and house projects to keep us busy. Spencer finished part of the basement while we lived there and we worked in the backyard a lot. On the bright side, we don't have a huge north-facing driveway to shovel in the winter anymore!

Spencer did such a great job finishing the basement! We did all the work ourselves, except for laying the carpet.

I'm sure Jack misses having such a big backyard to run around in.


For some reason, we did a lot more rock climbing when we lived in Idaho than we do here in Utah. Hopefully this next summer we'll be able to get out and climb a little more.

This is a shot of me climbing at Paramount, which is a little spot up Kelly Canyon. We climbed here a couple times, but usually drove down to Pocatello and climbed at Ross Park.

Of course, there are plenty of things we DO NOT miss about Idaho! Here are the top five:

5. Fashion Selection - Clothing stores always seemed to have a really odd selection of clothes. Even chain stores, like The GAP, had a very different selection of clothes compared to stores down in SLC.

4. Slow Drivers - I don't know why, but everything is a lot slower up there, from driving to checking out at the grocery store. And for some reason, most of the cars on the road are either full-size pick-ups or Buicks.

3. Lack of Snowplows - Now this one has always been a mystery to me. Since winter in Idaho Falls lasts about 9 months of the year, you'd think they would have some sort of snowplow system worked out. Instead, each time it snowed they would wait until traffic had packed down all the snow, and then they would come around and throw red rocky sand over everything. Very strange and annoying! Speaking of never-ending winters, that brings me to ...

2. COLD!! Winter starts in October, and it doesn't get above freezing again until May. They actually had to cancel school a couple times because it was so cold, kids' faces would freeze if they tried to go outside! To make matters worse, the extreme cold was almost always accompanied by the number one thing I will NOT miss about Idaho...

1. The Wind - It is always there, blowing hair in my face, whipping the petals off of flowers, sending dust tornados and tumbleweeds racing across fields, blowing out the flame of our gas grill. If there ever was a non-windy day, we celebrated. Unfortunately, those celebrations were few and far between!

Winter Hike

Today is Saturday, my second-to-last day of winter vacation before going back to school. With overnight snowfall and a clear blue sky this morning, it was the perfect day for a winter hike!

Spencer and I both slept in until about 9:00 a.m. and lounged around until 11:00, when we decided to go for our hike. As soon as we started getting ready, Jack immediately began to whine! This always happens when he knows we're about to do something fun. He whined for a couple of minutes before I grabbed the camera and recorded some of the excitement.

It turned out to be the perfect day. The air was cold, but the snow was so fresh and sparkly! We drove up Millcreek Canyon and were lucky to find a parking spot. It seemed we weren't the only ones with this idea! Luckily, we only passed a few people on the trail we were on. Here are some pictures of our hike along the Pipeline Trail.

The sky was so blue!

Much of the trail looked like this. Everything was covered with fresh white snow.

Here is Jack, sporting his new doggy backpack that Spencer got him for Christmas. He carried four bottles of water for us and a dish for his water to be poured into.

Sunglasses were a MUST in this bright winter wonderland!

Lights

Has anyone else noticed a huge decrease in the number of Christmas lights on homes compared to ten years ago? Spencer and I spent an evening driving around to look at Christmas lights, and while it was a lot of fun, the lights seemed few and far between.

We found that the lower-middle class neighborhoods typically had more homes decorated, and the big expensive homes along the east bench were pretty sparse. Where's the Christmas spirit?! Oh well, we did find some homes all lit up and beautiful.


Even Jack enjoyed the sights!


The best spot we found for lights was at La Caille, the fancy French restaurant in Sandy.


What a great entrance! Just beyond the gate, the road bridges over a pond, which was filled with ducks despite the cold. The long cobblestone path up to the restaurant was lined with trees, all lit up with red, green, and white.


The water fountains just outside the restaurant had mostly frozen over and formed these great ice sculptures. We could see water still spraying out the top.


On the way out we even spotted a swan.



If you are in the area and have a free evening, this is definitely worth seeing. And the best part is, you don't have to get out and walk around in the cold and snow!

Body Worlds Exhibit

My parents asked us a little while ago what we wanted for Christmas this year, and I told them right away, we want tickets to Body Worlds! Since we first heard about this exhibit coming to Salt Lake City, Spencer and I have both been "dying" to go. (no pun intended)

So, my mom and dad sent us the tickets, and yesterday we drove downtown to the Leonardo museum and experienced "Body Worlds 3: A Story of the Human Heart."


We both loved it! I learned a lot about anatomy and was blown away by the amount of precision and detail it must have taken to create these displays. I know that a lot of people are grossed out by it or think it is morbid, but I looked at it as a celebration of the human body, and proof of divine creation. After seeing all that goes into making a functioning human body, I don't know how anyone can say that it was all an accident!

At the end of the exhibit, Spencer and I discussed what our favorite parts of the exhibit were. I couldn't really narrow mine down, but one thing that Spencer was amazed by was the camel dissection. That's right, a camel! And it was HUGE!


I was very impressed with the blood system dissections that they had, ranging from a rabbit, to a placenta, to an entire human body.


After spending two and a half hours at the museum, we headed to the Gateway for lunch and a little window shopping. It was so fun to spend the day with Spencer. Thanks Mom and Dad for the great gift!

Friday Night

We got to babysit for our friends, Greg and Laurie, on Friday night for a couple of hours. They have two cute boys, and Spencer and I had a lot of fun with them. Spencer spent much of the time organizing all their transportation toys into different categories.


Of course, he had plenty of help!


It's fun for me to see Spencer interacting with kids, because he is so good with them. We're both excited for the day when we have our own children, but until then we can enjoy the kids around us. We get to spend a lot of time with Greg and Laurie and their boys. We love hanging out with the Lorenzon family!