Dad as Furniture

This is the Way We Clean Our Pool

Knowing Clint, what would you expect? It was much simpler before the water got below 60. Then all he needed was a regulator, tank, and BC. This outfit took about 30 minutes to put on before the last cleaning of the season. Two layers of 5 ml neophrene--talk about a workout! But the pool got nice and clean before we closed it for the winter. This was late October.

Future Target Employees

I didn't think about the color scheme of these church clothes until after I bought them. When I saw that they were all wearing their "uniform" this Sunday, I had to take a picture.

The Halloween that Kept Haunting

"Bwest Fwends"

Jack likes to list his best friends and I'm always glad (and relieved) to hear him name his brothers. He wanted me to take a picture of him and Trace.

I was also pleasantly surprised to find this picture of Tal and Cole in the camera, because with the rough and tumble of boys, you sometimes wonder...

Allosaur-a-loo-yah!

I'm so proud of my cousin Nathan Hale. Our family has always thought the whole world should be able to enjoy his art. Now that he has a handful of children's books under his belt it looks like he may be on his way. The folks who produced the movie "Night in the Museum" have purchased the film rights to my favorite book of his, "The Devil You Know."
Now just in time for the holidays is The Dinosaur Before Christmas. It comes with a CD narrated by Al Roker. Here's a link to the book trailer.
http://spacestationnathan.blogspot.com/2008/11/dinosaurs-book-trailer.html

What Have You Done?

Copy the list and highlight the ones that are true about you

1. Started your own blog
2. Slept under the stars
3. Played in a band
4. Visited Hawaii
5. Watched a meteor shower
6. Given more than you can afford to charity
7. Been to Disneyland
8. Climbed a mountain
9. Held a Praying Mantis
10. Sang a solo
11. Bungee jumped--the only one in my extended family NOT to have done this. My brother-in-law owned a business, but I was on my mission.
12. Visited Paris
13. Watched a lightning storm at sea
14. Taught yourself an art from scratch
15. Adopted a child
16. had food poisoning
17. Walked to the top of the Statue of Liberty (saw it from the shore)
18. Grown your own vegetables
19. Seen the Mona Lisa in France
20. Slept on anovernight train
21.Had a pillow fight--almost daily
22. Hitch hiked
23. Taken a sick day when you’re not ill
24. Built a snow fort
25. Held a lamb
26. Gone skinny dipping (The Med, The Dead Sea, The Sea of Galilee...)27. Run a Marathon
28. Ridden in a gondola in Venice
29. Seen a total eclipse
30. Watched a sunrise or sunset
31. Hit a home run
32. Been on a cruise
33. Seen Niagara Falls in person
34. Visited the birthplace of your ancestors
35. Seen an Amish community
36. Taught yourself a new language
37. Had enough money to be truly satisfied (always have)
38. Seen the Leaning Tower of Pisa in person
39. Gone rock climbing
40. Seen Michelangelo’s David
41. Sung karaoke
42. Seen Old Faithful geyser erupt
43. Bought a stranger a meal at a restaurant
44. Visited Africa
45. Walked on a beach by moonlight
46. Been transported in an ambulance
47. Had your portrait painted
48. Gone deep sea fishing
49. Seen the Sistine Chapel in person
50. Been to the top of the Eiffel Tower in Paris
51. Gone scuba diving or snorkeling
52. Kissed in the rain
53. Played in the mud
54. Gone to a drive-in movie
55. Been in a movie
56. Visited the Great Wall of China
57. Started a business
58. Taken a martial arts class
59. Visited Russia
60. Served at a soup kitchen
61. Sold Girl Scout Cookies
62. Gone whale watching
63. Got flowers for no reason. 4 years later, married that guy.
64. Donated blood, platelets or plasma (passed out cold hours later and awoke to paramedics--got a ride home in the campus police car which almost qualifies me for #46)
65. Gone sky diving
66. Visited a Nazi Concentration Camp
67. Bounced a check
68. Flown in a helicopter--can't believe I haven't done this!!!
69. Saved a favorite childhood toy
70. Visited the Lincoln Memorial
71. Eaten Caviar
72. Pieced a quilt
73. Stood in Times Square
74. Toured the Everglades
75. Been fired from a job
76. Seen the Changing of the Guards in London
77. Broken a bone
78. Been on a speeding motorcycle
79. Seen the Grand Canyon in person
80. Published a book
81. Visited the Vatican
82. Bought a brand new car
83. Walked in Jerusalem
84. Had your picture in the newspaper
85. Read the entire Bible
86. Visited the White House
87. Killed and prepared an animal for eating (we raised chickens. I watched and helped)
88. Had chickenpox
89. Saved someone’s life
90. Sat on a jury
91. Met someone famous
92. Joined a book club
93. Lost a loved one
94. Had a baby
95. Seen the Alamo in person
96. Swam in the Great Salt Lake
97. Been involved in a law suit
98. Owned a cell phone
99. Been stung by a bee
100. Talked your way out of a ticket--many times :)

On Being "Exuberant"

Jack was sparking off a while back and I turned to Clint and said, "He's so....what's the word?" Clint said, "Exuberant." So, when referring to Jack, exuberant is an euphemism for a-danger-to-self-and-others. The other morning his exuberance was almost the end of him. We were leaving a doctor's appointment and as we exited the elevator on the main floor Jack saw that the doors to the outside opened automatically. He sprinted ahead of me. I had Trace in the car seat so I couldn't catch him as he sprinted out the door and straight into the parking lot. I see a car speeding past the entrance of the building at about 30 miles an hour. My blood curdling scream was just enough to slow him down enough that he missed getting run over by about 7 inches. I lectured, "Jack this is why you cannot run in parking lots and you have to hold my hand. That car almost ran you over and smashed you flat!" Jack replied brightly, "But it did NOT smash me flat!" So there, Mom.

Snack of Jack

Haley's 10th Birthday

Ten years ago Heaven touched earth and we met our daughter, Haley. She was with us for far too short a time but we only have to think of her sparkle and it makes us want to be better people. We're so glad she's ours for keeps.

The Following Saturday

Talmage way ahead, yelling: Yipee! Yipee!

Cole, thinking: We'll Tal's not feaking out. I guess I'm o.k. with this...

Jack, plugging along.

Mom, thinking: Brrr! It's 55 degrees!

Death by Bicycle

It has long been a nagging goal of mine to get my boys to ride bikes. Talmage and Cole are ridiculously, adamantly against it and usually get hysterical and sometimes violent whenever I bring it up. Jack thinks bikes are great and can ride circles around them on his little two-wheeler with training wheels. The weather in Memphis is gorgeous in the Fall--it's perfect bike riding weather. So, I have been plotting and scheming on this one for weeks. I bought them all new helmets, knee pads, elbow pads, and gloves to make them feel a tad less vulnerable. I scoped out the perfect one-mile training loop in Joey and Katie's neighborhood. It's perfectly flat, it's in the far end of the neighborhood where most of the lots are either vacant, or partially constructed and, ideally, a new playground was just constructed at the midpoint of the loop.
This morning I announced we were going for a bike ride. This was when we began our argument which continued for the hour it took us to fix the bikes and get Tal, Jack and friend, Ethan, in the car. My side of the argument was just a broken record: "We're going on a bike ride." Here's Tal's side of the argument.
"I'm not going on a bike ride. I will ride a scooter or I will walk. Riding a bike is a want, not a need. Mom, you don't understand, you could fall over and your feet wouldn't go out fast enough and you really could die from a bike, Mom! I can get my exercise some other way!"
We got there and the weeping and wailing continued and I was very grateful that it was such a desolate neighborhood so that no one had to hear. He screamed and cried and grunted and yelled and threatened. Did I mention the bike still has the training wheels on? Did I mention he's seven? He'd make a fabulous actor because you would not believe the lengths he was going to to convince me that he really could not move those pedals on that bike. It was too hard and the road was too bumpy and he was going to get killed! "It is NOT flat, Mom!" "There ARE cars here and one is going to hit me!" "I'm going to die, I'm going to die, I'm going to die!"
He was going unbelievably slow--usually a half turn of the crank before he'd stop and scream some more. He'd throw his bike on the ground and yell, "I'm going to break this bike in pieces and throw it in the lake!" He did this three or four times before I hit upon a very effective threat of my own. The worst threat in the world: "If you do that again we'll be out here again tomorrow." At this point I was a) kicking myself for avoiding fights for the past year and letting him walk or take his scooter; and b) so grateful to have Ethan along to entertain Jack. Whenever they got too far ahead Ethan always found an adventure in the field for them to explore. Good thing because it took us about 45 minutes to travel two sides of a block.
We finally made it to the park and played a while. When it was time to ride back to the car Tal tried to get me to promise to never make him ride a bike again, and why was I being so mean?
I had a hunch that the old horse-nearing-it's-home-pasture routine would kick in. It did. Tal saw the car and suddenly found his rhythm. As he sped off I heard him mutter, "Hey it is getting easier." I knew if he ended up having fun I'd have to be very careful about not pulling an "I told you so" or I'd undo any positive result of this ordeal. When I caught up with him at the car he volunteered that he had really started going fast and he had beat me and it was, "well, sort of fun." As we drove home he asked if we were going to HAVE to ride bikes next Saturday. I said "I thought you said it was a little fun." In his flat monotone voice he sometimes uses, Tal replied, "Well, I did say Yippee a couple of times."

Conservation of Fitness

Clint coined a phrase early in our marriage called "conservation of fitness." For some reason, it seems only one of us can be fit at one time. We don't know why this is, but we have a fairly perfect record of it. When I trained for Honolulu Marathon, Clint became a Everquest junkie.(This crack habit he voluntarily gave up a year later for my birthday. He's so nice that way). When we tried to run the St. George Marathon together we had a blast for a good month until lack of reliable babysitters made our joint long-runs an impossibility.
Remember a month back when I pulled a crazy and trained for a triathlon in 3 weeks? Well the following week my body fell apart: shoulders, knees, tush. I'm grounded. I totally knew that it's wrong to accelerate training like that, but I threw caution to the wind and tried to forget I'm 38! Darn. At this point I'm just hoping that I can get my knee healed and ever run again! Exercise is fairly crucial to my physical health and general sense of well being, and I'm never going to take off my baby fat with diet. I really like to eat. Meanwhile Clint, who during my triathlon was taking excruciating baby steps with 15 minute runs, has now worked up to 5.5 milers and an hour on the bike. Five days a week, faithfully. (The silver lining to his new job that has taken him out of the cockpit for the first time in 16 years). Guess someone has to carry the family fitness baton.
Stay tuned for a post about Clint's first foray in to multi-sport events.

Cole's "Marvelous Me!" Pages

Here are a couple of pages I made for Cole's kindergarten class. They have a scrapbook with pages of all the kids that they get to take turns taking home for a week.

Trying to Break Blogging Block

I've been blogging shy lately. I'll try to get back on the bandwagon as I appreciate all your blogs so much!

Here's a scrap page of Tal's first days of school here in Tennesee.

Blasts from the Past

I'm slow on getting together recent pictures, so I thought I'd post some of the digital scrapbook pages that I compiled while we were driving across the country. Lots of cute friends in these pictures who have really grown up!
This was April, 2005 in Tierrasanta. Everyone in the pictures have now moved from there!

In these pictures, Jack is 6 months, a little older than Trace is now. They look so similar! But then again all our boys do at this age!

6 Quirks About Me

I got this tag from my friend and old mission companion, Kerri.
1. One of my favorite treats is a whole carrot with mustard squirted on it. Hey it's low calorie, cheap, filling and tasty. I just can't imagine why this has not caught on! :)
2. Kerri admitted this, so I will too. I like (she said "love") the smell of skunks. I didn't used to. But after growing up in the country, then moving to the city, I found the city smells so noxious. It seems a skunk smell can cut through those carcinogenic city smells with something that is so very natural!
3. I cannot stand the feel of my hair near my face. If I was really brave I'd sport a Sinead O'Connor look.
4. I have dyslexia when it comes to turning on a stove. Those picture diagrams mess me up 100% of the time. So I like a stove with labels like "top left"
5. I have to have short fingernails. I've never bit them in my life, but I cut them every week. If they get at all long it gives me the creeps.
6. I have 47 of the state quarters. This morning I got Arizona at the coin car wash, then it fell out of my running shorts into the gutter!

Have we mentioned our favorite thing about living in Memphis?

My brother Joey and his fine wife, Katie. When we tell people that my brother moved here one week before us they say, "What an amazing coincidence!" And we say, "No, that's the best part. It was planned." Joey graduated from U of Maryland Dental School in May and hesitated to move back to Utah because of the glut of dentists there. Dentistry is the perfect Mormon profession--low amounts of work hours and stress, high amounts of family time and mullah. So he decided to live somewhere else, near non-Utah family, to pay off school debt and build up a nest egg. And we are the lucky neighbors! It's such a treat for us because in our 14 years of marriage/Navy life, we've never lived LESS THAN A MILE from family! Whoo-hoo! They are brave because we are a loud rambunctious group!

Above they are making us Pancake Puffs for Sunday morning breakfast.

And here's Tal licking the plate at that yummy feast!

I Thought I'd Give it a Tri

Have you heard about Nie Nie?

This past week I've been wrapped up in the life and blog of Stephanie Nielson/NieNie. You may have heard about her in the news. She has an amazing blog about the romance and joys of being a wife and mother. She's incredibly stylish, she's a vegetarian, she's a staunch Republican, she's a home birther. With all those divergent views she's bound to disagree with many, but yet what strikes a chord with everyone is the way she slurps up every day with such joy and celebration. My life is so changed, I hope forever, by getting to know her life. So if you've heard about her, you may also have heard that she and her husband Christian were in a small plane crash and she was burned 83% of her body and he 30%. Please pray for her and if you have extra funds send them her way at http://www.nierecovery.com/.

With a Trace

Pool Construction Days 6,7, 8 and Done!

On Monday this week the cement guys came and put up the forms to pour the deck, but the weather looked too threatening to pour. Good thing they didn't as we had the tail of Tropical Storm Fay blast through that night and added 2 inches of water to the pool! Tuesday it was still raining a bit. Wednesday they poured the cement then power washed down to expose the pebble finish. Thursday morning Damon from the pool company came and vacuumed all the grout and other garbage that had fallen in the pool and shocked it with chorine. Then he gave me (Sarah) "pool school". I learned how to work the vacuum, back wash the filter and use the test kit. Then he said it was ready to swim in! We waited for the boys to come home from school, and this was what happened.

So all in all it was 2 weeks from the first day of construction to swimming in the pool. They said it would take 5 days and that the pool would be in by noon the first day. It wasn't much longer than that. The pool was in on the second day because the entry to our back yard was so narrow because of the second garage. And then there were a lot of rainy days in there. There still is a little work to do. When the surrounding mud is dry they will come in with a bobcat and level it out for us. Then Clint and I and the boys will try our hand at laying sod and landscaping.

Family Home Lifting?

Can you think of better captions for these photos?

Pool Construction Wednesday--Day 6

The Catalina Pool people did come, but it was plumbing and electrical stuff. Mostly it rained. We'll have to wait for a dry day before they can pour the washed pea-gravel decking.

Pool Construction--Tuesday, Day 5

Bricks! Walah! Umm...doesn't that water look inviting? The CoverPools guys came and built a pine box for the cover roll and motor. Can you see it on the deep end between the diving board rails and the pool edge? The tracks will go along the bricks and we'll be able to open and close the cover in under 60 seconds with the turn of a key. Essential with four boys under 7 who mostly can't swim!

Pool Construction Monday (Day 4)

Monday morning they brought in the bobcat and leveled the sand and soil. They put in place the safety rails and the rails the diving board will sit on. They won't be permanently set until the deck is poured.

Our little chlorine froggy buddy. Notice that the water is clear with just some sand on the bottom of the pool.

Putting in the concrete footings. Tal was so jazzed about watching this!!

Pool Construction Day 3--Over the Weekend

Please excuse the screen grid in all the coming photos! Over the weekend they continued to backfill with sand between the pit and the pool shell as they filled the pool with water.

Pool Construction Day 2

This was parked on our street this morning!

They needed the extra big crane because it was not able to enter our back yard.

I was impressed with "Daddy's" (It's a family business) ability to steer the pool using the shovel of his backhoe.

This crane part was amazing to watch. We had 5 neighbors out taking pictures!

It's in!

Pushing sand between the shell and hole.

I'ts 9 feet deep.

Filling with water.