llegue

The year in food crafts

2012-01-06T14:58:00.003-07:00

I like doing food crafts with the family because we get a craft in but then I don't have stuff to hold on to because it's EDIBLE! That's the beauty of it all. So here's a summary of the crafts of last year. Pinterest and Family Fun are great resources.

1. Reindeer 2. Turkey

3. Face Sandwich

4. School bus (with unfortunate big Oreo wheels. Next time I'll get the mini ones.)

5. Witches' hat, broom and Harry Potter magic wand doing the lumos spell. (Rachel thought up the wand, the rest I found online.)

6. Oyster cookies with Pearls

7. Hot Wheel car in tortilla (Tom's idea)

8. Fruit Sushi

9. Father's Day bowtie

Christmas in Denver

2012-01-04T08:00:00.000-07:00

Although it was a pain to pack up all the gifts to travel to Denver and although we left on a Thursday afternoon instead of Friday at noon because Jerry got off of work early and although we got slammed with winter driving from Raton Pass to Pueblo even though we checked road conditions. And we struggled driving because some state that starts with C that shall remain nameless, doesn't clear their roads and we saw more than 10 cars in ditches..despite all that we had fun in Denver.

We decided to spend our Christmas in Denver for various reason but mostly because it's been a while since we stayed Christmas proper. Also Tom hasn't had a Christmas with the Rigo Regime and in a few years we might not live so close together anymore. My parents will be retiring within the next two years and possibly moving near an ocean. Jes and Rendy will be done with grad school and moving elsewhere, Josh wants to be in New York and Sam is done with Denver. We too will be here for less than two years and hopefully be somewhere...like East. Is for fun.

So back to the fact that we went to Denver a day early. Jerry got off of work on Thursday at 2 when the CEO told him to leave early for Denver. I was out to lunch with a friend and he called me to tell me he was home. So I rushed home, we quickly packed, threw the stuff into the car and drove to Denver. We got in at 9. I didn't call my parents to tell them because I wanted to surprise them. Something that is common in the Rigo Regime. Rachel and I walked up to the front door and I called. My mom answered and the conversation went something like this:

Mom: (sleepy) "Hello?"

Me: "Hey Mom. Are you sleeping?"

Mom: " (sleepy) "No..nooo just laying down."

Me: "I'll call back later?"

Rachel: (finger at the doorbell, waiting for the signal)

Mom: "No no, what's up?"

Me: " Just had some questions about Sat. You know if Dad answered I would have said "Open up, what's for dinner." (My dad frequently calls saying that but never actually surprising me)

Mom: (laughter)

Me: "So on Saturday....(give signal to Rachel to ring doorbell)

Mom: " Wait a second...WHOSE AT THE DOOR AT THIS HOUR?? LOU!!! GET THE DOOR.

(looks out window) AAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHHHAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHHH (more screaming) It's you!!!!

Needless to say, they were happy we showed up early.

And again the pictures are out of order.

This is me with my not-so-surprised laughter on receiving a Blu-Ray player for Christmas. When we bought our new TV (for impressive Lord of the Rings watching) my parents are usually the first to encourage us to buy surround sound system, direct tv, blu ray, etc. They asked me about and I told them that I was already having a heart attack from buying a tv and that the blu ray would have to wait (like whenever out dvd player dies.) My spidey senses were tingling when both parents (at separate occasions) AGREED with me and encouraged me not to buy a Blu-ray player. Also they had a conversation with me about whether they should buy a regular blu-ray or one with wi-fi capabilities. What? What do I care? Well ok..I guess wi-fi would be the way to go. Lo and behold, the LG blu-ray to match our LG tv.

Christmas has been very fun this year with Tom talking about Christmas trees, Baby Jesus (blowing up the bad guys in Cars @ according to him) and singing Jingle Bells EVERYWHERE!

XBOX kinnect with the family. This is Jes and Rendy's. We had fun dancing and doing the sports. Rachel danced to that annoying Numa Numa song ad nauseum. Here Mom and Sam are dancing Nicki Minaj's Massive attack. Great moves.

My dad dancing to the same song. We were all rolling watching him.

Us dancing to "This is how we do it."

Obligatory family picture using the same positions as last year.

Christmas Eve dinner with the immediate family, my aunt, my cousin Jake and Andrea and her family and family friends Graciela and Perry. Turkey and Ham and potatoes, tortellini salad, rolls, stuffing, ceviche, Jerry's corn, green chile and cream cheese concoction, posole, green beans and too many desserts to name but a favorite Tres Leches cake. YUM!

Travelers Cafe

2011-12-23T14:23:00.000-07:00

This cafe/restaurant/shop is by the plaza and I love it. It's funky, they have revolving art exhibits in the back where you can hang out, watch tv, play piano, read from the stacks of books and magazines or play one of their games. Apparently they do an open mike night but I haven't been yet.

The kids and I love the hot chocolate and pain au chocolat.

Another art exhibit of Dia de los muertos at Highlands University campus..Pretty cool.

Fondue Night and DG Holiday Get-together

2011-12-23T11:32:00.000-07:00

Again pictures not in order. Me in Santa Fe on Burro Alley. I met Gaby and Leslie for a holiday gift exchange. We had some yummy Japanese food ( I got a Bento box with tempura, teriyake chicken, cucumber roll, miso soup, etc and then we went to Burro Alley Cafe for hot chocolate and dessert.
The night before we had a very late night at a Fondue/White Elephant gitft exchange party at our house. Kimber and Jason who have been our LOTR watchign buddies this Winter.

Elyssa commenting on my Swiss Fondue. It did not turn out ok. :)

Kyle, who works for Game and Fish, does the best New Mexican accent

I got a chia pet!

And Luke got the hideous purse!

Kimber and Liessa. We talked, played some games. People didn't leave til 12:30 am.

And back to the holiday gift exchange with Gaby and Les.

Branch Christmas Party

2011-12-22T08:29:00.000-07:00

Here we are, the masterminds of the Branch Christmas Party. Elyssa was in charge and I was her commitee. I basically suggested what we did in Edgewood: Mexican dinner, a creche and small program with an ornament gift for each family and some crafts for the kids. The chapel/activity hall a little snazzed up.

The creche...all but 8 navitities were mine.

My kids all dressed up.

The Electric Christmas Light Parade

2011-12-21T08:51:00.000-07:00

The first Saturday in December, the town hosts a parade. This year , we were asked to be the family in the "living room" on our branch's float. It was snowing on and off all day but really started snowing that night. And it was cold.

The theme was Christmas in Candyland. So our float had a living room with a Christmas tree and fireplace on one side, These candyland men in the middle of a rotating table and the other side had a live nativity. Makes sense. :)

The live Nativity

Getting ready to start the parade.

It was fun to see all the families lined up on the streets with their kids waving. Rachel waved and yelled Merry Christmas as did Tommy when he wasn't spontaneously singing Jingle Bells. He did lose it almost towards the end on the parade so he went to sit in the truck with the branch president's wife. I found it funny that we ended up being in a lot of peoples pictures.

I was disappointed not to be able to watch the parade with the kids. But I guess we'll make the new family be on the float next year while we watch from the side. Once we got to the plaza though, all the other floats were parked and we got to see some of the others.

Thanksgiving Weekend

2011-12-21T07:01:00.000-07:00

So my pictures are all out of order but here we go. The week before and during Thanksgiving was pretty busy. Jerry's sister Lacey and her family came out to visit after Joey, her husband, got back from Afghanistan. So we went to Edgewood the weekend before Thanksgiving to hang out with them on Saturday (yummy Indian food) and on Sunday at DeNae's house. However this picture is when they came up after Thanksgiving to spend a day and night with us. Misty's family too. So we had 6 adults and 10 kids from the ages 2-11. Here we are at the Dwan Light Sanctuary up at the United World College. It's where there are prism in the windows and it casts rainbows all over. It was a little overcast so we couldn't see many rainbows. But there was a little group of Mennonites singing folksy/bluegrass gospel songs. They sounded incredible with their harmonizing plus the acoustics in the Sanctuary. It was a little treat for us.
The day before we had some people from the branch and missionaries come eat Thanksgiving dinner with us. Very yummy food from them: homemade rolls and stuffing to die for, Pumpkin crisp. So good!

Tom with his cousin Lilly who I call Ramona Quimby. I swear she looks JUST LIKE HER!!! Check out the illustrations from the books! I am sad that Lacey and Joey have been away. Tom and Lilly should have grown up together, with us switching babysitting so they would be super close like Rachel and Larry were.

Me and my Kenny. I love this kid. He is so funny. Some things he said to me. "Jenn! You're my friend!" "Jenn, Rachel's favorite color is pink and MY favorite color is pink too!"

Oh...here is a bit of the rainbow at the Light Sanctuary. Rachel with Misty and Travis's son Aaron. Watch for him popping into other pictures.

Ah..Tommy and Jonah..together again and fighting over stuff. Another one of Misty's kids.

Misty , Lacey and I. The three of us. We actually got away from the chaos of the house because of awesome husbands. We went wandering Old town and went to a few art galleries and antique shops.

The men....with pop up Aaron.

Rachel with her cousins: Taylor, Larry and Nani. I love this picture.

Inappropriate conversation about Elder Uchtdorf

2011-12-20T07:36:00.005-07:00

During the Christmas Devotional

Me: "Oh look, it's Elder Mc Dreamy!"

Jerry: (shakes head) "You're a dork."

Me: " Oh you know all women of a certain age are drooling over him. He is handsome and has an accent. (backpedals) Not as handsome as you though. You're bald and chubby."

Jerry: (chuckles)

Me: "Although as he is German, Mc Dreamy doesn't really work. What about Dreamberg? Dreamsteing."

Jerry: (smirk on face) "What about Dreamdorf?

Me: (laughing) Perfect!! Why didn't I think of that!

Calumet says Howdy

2011-12-19T11:28:00.000-07:00

For those of you who LOVE old 80's Cold War-esque movies featuring actors from and associated with the Brat Pack (including Charlie "Winning" Sheen,) here's a relic from the film Red Dawn.

We checked it out from the Highlands library since they have a collection of DVD's of movies filmed in the Las Vegas area. Watching the film, we recognized quite a few places, including this mural below. The film is set in fictional Calumet..where the Great Plains meet the Mighty Rockies. And the town decided to leave the mural.

The film is alright...actually it's comically bad but for the 80's and featuring C Thomas Howell, the aforesaid "Winning", Patrick Swayze, Lea Thompson and Jennifer Grey. The Soviets invaded the southern part of the US with help from the Cubans. All these teenagers run to the mountains and take it upon themselves to strike back through guerrilla type tactics and they known as the Wolverines...cause you see that was the name of their high school football team.

A film that combines both the enemy of the day PLUS Patrick Swayze. It's WINNING!!! Ah the 80's! How I miss you.

And now I get to live in Calumet!

And here is a picture facing the other direction of the railroad tracks and a train coming through. Tom likes to watch the trains go by.

This Morning

2011-12-15T14:40:00.000-07:00

When I went in to wake Tom up (which I might add NEVER happens), Tom pulls the covers over his head and wails "Leave me aalllooone!!!"

Top Five Tom Phrases

2011-12-12T12:50:00.004-07:00

1. "Awww, is not fair." (He learned that one from Rachel)

2. "My no want." (In reference to things he doesn't want, want to do or doesn't like)

3. "I sorry Mama, is not my fault." (About ANYTHING)

4. "Shake my penis!" (Said in a sing song voice after he goes to the bathroom, standing up)

5.. I wuv you Mama! (My favorite)

Concert Choir

2011-12-02T08:45:00.000-07:00

I joined the University Concert choir back in August at Highlands University. I always wanted to do this at UNM but driving to town and back just wasn't going to work out. Especially since they had rehearsals twice a week.

I was very excited to work with a music professor and learn some new music with a decent sized choir. I found it extremely funny that we were doing Messiah this semester. The choir mostly consisted of older men and women, professors and people from the community and a few college students.

The one wearing the glasses is our choir director/music professor Andre. He made us work hard and I loved every minute. I have sung Messiah with the East Mountain Community Choir but it was a 6 week rehearsal once a week and it was rather forgiving. Here he DID NOT let us sluff through the runs with many of the pieces. We worked our diction and we worked out many voice techniques.
In Nov, a guest conductor came from DU to work with us as well as the Santa Fe Symphony. Here I am at rehearsals at the Ifeld Auditorium which is a gorgeous art deco theater. Mary Jo and Bonnie, fellow altos flanked me. It was gratifying to hear from them that they liked sitting next to me because I knew my music. 7 Years doing Messiah will do that....plus the love.

You can sort of see the theater and the women there was our guest conductor. We performed middle of Nov and it was, as usual, awesome.

Next semester they are doing more showtunes, jazz stuff. Apparently every fall they usually so requiems and oratorios but in the Spring they do other stuff. I might do it or I might take a class in something. Not sure yet.

Halloween in a real town and by real I mean non rural

2011-11-18T08:32:00.000-07:00

So fun to go trick or treating in our neighborhood, which apparently is the "rich neighborhood" so all of LV drives here to go trick or treating. Jerry says hundreds of kids came by for candy. I saw those hundreds of kids roaming the streets, getting their loots. I was charmed by it all...it's just like ET, when all the kids are roaming the neighborhood in costumes.

So cool their costumes. People commented on how cool Rachel's costume was (Hey! it's Tron!) and how cute Tom was.

We trick or treated with Elyssa and Tanner's kids for a bit. They live around the corner from us (or across the street through an open field from us if we go the back way and jump the fence) I love that they are so close by. Cooper and Camron are almost 6 and 8. They also have a little girl Carsyn who is 2 and Tom loves to play with her. Sooo happy there were kids in the branch.

The loot. The first year that Tom really understood the concept of free candy. I had to hold his tote because it was so heavy. People were giving handfuls of candy.

Branch Halloween party

2011-11-17T08:00:00.000-07:00

There is a woman in our branch whose birthday is on Halloween so she throws a party every year for the branch. Her house was all decked out. Jerry is wearing his Jerry shirt and that constitutes as his costume. The Las Vegas Branch hasn't had the pleasure of seeing my Japanese yukata, and Rachel as Quorra from Tron Legacy and Thomas the train. Rachel with Kimberly from our branch. Her husband is getting his masters in Psychology and she is a dental hygienist. Rachel's costume is amazing if I do say so myself. Props to her for coming up with the idea.

Some of the decor.

A family in the ward. I teased him on his costume, snapping my fingers and saying.."Ooo let me guess...uhh...a Texan?"

Sister West with the missionaries-who we feed EVERY week and with Bro. Dickens. I adore Sis West, She's nice and sassy and her own person. I'm not sure why she wears a patch but what I have noticed is the patch is never the same. She color coordinates it to what ever she is wearing or to the holiday. This patch is orange with a black cat. The other day with a green outfit sprinkled with cherries, her patch with green with a cherry. Rachel happened to be wearing her cherry necklace and they both compared cherries. One day she was wearing a purple velour track suit and her patch was purple velour with a purple flower. I think that is splendid. She owns that patch and makes it a fashion statement.

The goodies were fun and creative.

Heather and Tyler and Alice as Cheerleader, coach and football player from Highlands. (Tyler is also a Psych grad student)

The other Texans. I teased Bro. Burney about the huge stretch that is his outfit. I told him he was "totally out there" with his costume. Heh heh heh. He manages some ranches (cattle and all) near Mora I believe. The college girls had told us about how True Grit was filmed on his ranch and how they got to meet Matt Damon and watch them film that last scene where there is that fight down in the valley while the girl and Matt Damon was high up. Bro Burney got to know Jeff Bridges pretty well and really liked him. Naturally this all happened before I moved here. (!) Next movie right?

Elyssa and Tanner...the ones I thought were from Utah are really from small town Mormon Arizona (some argue it's the same thing) Elyssa is a dentist and Tanner is a personal trainer and they are both beasts when it comes to working out. I feel chubby next to them.

Rosie and Isaac are funky. She's pretty sassy. They are from Oregon. He's a mechanic and she is a social worker. They bought land in the mountains and for now are living in a travel trailer on their property until they can start building.

Sis. West prepares some games for the kids and adults and had numbered prizes for the everyone. It was fun.

Everyone is a character in the LV.

Notes on taking the High Road to Taos

2011-11-10T08:11:00.000-07:00

1. Stunning scenery.

2. Waltons have a ranch there (remember the old 70's/80's show..."night ma,night pa, night John boy.)

3. There is also a buddhist monastery.

4. The road is high....you go up a steep hill to go down another steep hill to get to Taos and vice versa.

5. There is snow.

6. There is a small ski resort (Sipapu.)

7. NOBODY was on the road.

8. Taos was busy.

9. McDonalds did not secure the lid on my hot cocoa, hence spilling it all over me.

10. It was nice to go inside a Smiths

11. Unfortunately I didn't play tourist because I had this in the back of the truck.

Isn't it beautiful! Handmade armoire with the Hecho en Mexico stamp. I lurv it.

WLV Homecoming parade

2011-11-08T14:01:00.000-07:00

Rachel goes to school in the West Las Vegas school district (I think I mentioned the fact that this town of 15,000 has two school districts.) Friday Oct 28th, all the kids of the school district got out at noon for the last homecoming parade of the Fall.

I'll admit, I am absolutely charmed by that fact. The parades are a big deal here. I got Rachel from school, we grabbed some lunch and then staked out a place to sit in Old Town to watch the parade (the same place where they had the 4 of July parade.) So many old timers were there with their grand kids and people my age with their kids sporting the Green and gold. It occurred to me as I was sitting there that I was wearing the dreaded rivals colors (black and red) (!!!)

It was ok though because they also participated in the parade.

Most of the float were about burying the Raton Tigers ( I think Raton Tigers is funny, why not the Raton Rats or Mice?) in the homecoming game. Mmm. Speaking of which, I don't even know who won.

The mascot is the Dons, so these are the West Las Vegas Dons..as in Spanish for gentleman, sir or mister..I suppose. You have to admit though, the band uniforms are cool. I like them. They're mariachi styled.

The kids were happy to get their candy.

Homecoming week, nay month here in the LV

2011-11-07T14:01:00.000-07:00

Las Vegas has two high schools that are bitter enemies; West Las Vegas and Robertson known for this. (I know, nice.) They both do a parade for homecoming as well as New Mexico Highlands University.

This week in Highlands homecoming so there are banners all of over the campus asking for votes for Homecoming queen plus banners asking people to "paint the town purple." Tomorrow will be the parade. Not sure if we are going this year because we were planning to be in Albuquerque.

Tom and I went to check our another local thrift store and it happened to be across the street from campus so we went for a walk and ended up at the Student center. Tom wanted to hang out and watch students play pool and ping pong.

There were lots of girls with Homecoming candidate written on black sashes and they were giving out candy and cupcakes and they were nice enough to voluntarily ask if Tom could have some.

A huge athletic type guy walked by us with a Halloween pumpkin tote of candy and Tom's chubby hand shot out to grab it. The guy was really nice and asked if he wanted a candy and held out the tote. Tom decided to grab the actual tote and the guy got a great laugh out of it...and Tom got M&M's.

I also felt conspicuous because I wasn't wearing purple and white like everyone else. If you thought it was being I was the only one with a toddler then you'd be wrong. There was another student working at the post office in the center holding a baby.

One of the homecoming candidates came over to talk to Tom and gush how cute he is. She was really nice and she told me about her son who is 2....seriously the girl didn't look more than 20. I mean, good for her for going to school but it's still interesting how normal that is here.

The local paper around graduation time had a huge photo layout of the graduates of the HS and university and there was a big picture of a HS graduate holding his baby.

Something else I noticed on campus was the amount of African American students. I comment on that because in Albuquerque and most of New Mexico, the population of African Americans are low. You have Anglo, Hispanic and Native American (Navajo, all the different pueblo tribes, Mescalero Apache, Zuni, etc) so it's cool to see a different group represented here. Also...I haven't seen as many but I know that there is a Polynesian presence at the university, partly because of a new member of the branch named Tina. She's Samoan and she's going to school here and finishing up her BA and going on for a MA. She started a Polynesian club at the university and she also has a daughter who is Rachel's age and I swear they are the same, bright, inquisitive, talkative girl. Love it.

On an unrelated note, I am SOOO grateful that there are SOME kids in our branch. Honestly, I thought the chances of having kids Rachel's and Tom's age at church to be nil. However, there are at least 2 active kids that are 7 years old and Tom has a two year girl to play with in nursery.

Fall in Las Vegas

2011-11-06T08:56:00.000-07:00

Fall is my favorite season. I love the colors, the crunchy leaves underfoot. Especially in New Mexico, I love the sunlight that bathes the trees in a golden glow. It's different than summer or spring light. It's dimmer, I guess.

I drive Rachel to school and I love seeing all the autumn leaves. We mostly get yellow leaves. On occasion, we get red or orange leaves but the majority is red. I love walking in Old town with my feet brushing and stomping through the leaves.

After storytime at the bookstore, the kids playing in the leaves. I love being in a small, walkable town where such leaves are ready to be played in.

Crunching through the leaves with my new green shoes.

The next two pictures are of the Rio Gallinas that cut the town in half (East and West, as I mentioned before there used to be two cities) I love the leaves floating on the river.

The trees along the riverwalk near Old Town. We went for a walk one Saturday afternoon here.

Words from Tom

2011-10-28T08:49:00.002-06:00

Me: "Tom! You smell! Did you poop in your underwear?"
Tom: "No, my farted."

Me: (exasperated) "Tom! Don't .....(write on the wall, rip up the paper, whatever)."
Tom: (wide-eyed, innocent) " I sorry Mama, is not my fault!"

Me: "Tom please put away your toys."
Tom: "No! you do it!"
Me: "No, they're your toys."
Tom: "I no do it, you do it!"

The last weekend

2011-10-12T21:44:00.005-06:00

Last weekend we went to Albuquerque/Edgewood for a variety of reasons, mostly because Jerry was leaving that following Monday for work. Rachel didn't have school that Monday so we decided to all go down, run some errands and spend time with friends and family.

On Sat, I ran errands in Albuquerque and Jerry met up with us later when we had dinner at Los Cuates. My niece Nani tagged along with us. Sunday we went to Edgewood Ward, spent time with with my sister-in-law and her family and had dinner at Misty's. Monday morning, I had a few blessed hours to myself to meet a friend at the thrift store and found the items below.

Funky Shoes, didn't recognize the brand: $1.00

New York and Co electric blue cardigan and Banana Republic linen pants: A quarter each

Linen dress, Calvin Klein Jean Skirt, Tommy Hilfiger white skirt: a quarter each

Then I spent sometime with a friend at a yogurt place with the kids. Drove to Santa Fe to shop for food (closer to home so the food wouldn't spoil.)

As much as I am enjoying life in a small town, going to Albuquerque for the weekend made me think about the things I miss about the Q (yes, a lame name that the last mayor wanted to use for Albuquerque instead of the Duke City or my favorite 'Burque)

The things I miss about the Albuquerque area:

1. The incredible sunsets

2. The same sunset touching on the Sandia Mountains, making them look reddish

3. Friends who have known us since forever

4. the thrift store

5. A history with those friends and family

6. the view from the Northeast Heights to the West Mesa

7. Asian food

Things that make you go hmmm...

2011-10-05T19:03:00.001-06:00

I don't understand why I enjoy reading organzing books so much when I am already organized, nay, an anal neat freak.

Las Vegas Snapshot #4

2011-10-02T16:30:00.000-06:00

Sabor de Las Vegas happens every September in the plaza. Local restaurants give out samples from the menu. Jerry got free tickets from work so we showed up.

They had kid games set up, the type that it's possible to win something.

The food was goood. Lots of New Mexican foods, burritos, tamales, etc. Here Tom is chilling with a cookie from a local coffeehouse.

Music was performed. This girl was incredible..especially because she did not sing ANY country music which is rare in Las Vegas. She sang covers from Muse and other alternative bands. We were pleasantly surprised.

Hmm....I'm not weak! I'm just ALIVE!!!!

2011-09-14T09:29:00.000-06:00

Las Vegas Snapshot #3 Salman Ranch and Cleveland Mill fest

2011-09-08T13:21:00.001-06:00

This last Saturday we ventured out into the mountains, on the road to Taos, to Mora.

We went to the Cleveland Mill Fest that has an old flour mill restored to working order.

The festival had entertainment and vendor and you could tour the mill. This is our branch President who lived in Mora. He made that contraption for cooking huge batches of anything. Here he is making kettle corn. Normally I don't like kettle corn, but this homemade kettle corn was the best I have ever had.

I think these T-shirts are awesome. I need to buy one. I think it'll be fun collecting obscure t-shirts from random places in the US.

The mill, fully functional.

The store at Salman Ranch. I love the blue by the adobe walls and the flowers

Back at the festival. Folkloric dancing.

Salman Ranch. Historic church. Northern New Mexico is sprinkled with so many little churches. They are so picturesque. I love it.

At Salman Ranch from end of August to the first killing frost in October, you can go and pick your own raspberries. The store has products for sale, such as jam, jellies, vinegar, chile jam all made from their raspberries.

We picked about four pounds. Rachel and Tom were very good about picking. They were quite industrious.

Las fiestas de Las Vegas

2011-09-07T15:57:00.000-06:00

Las Vegas has a fourth of July celebration each year called the Fiestas. It's a pretty big deal. Friday night the reina (or queen) of the fiestas is crowned at an evening mass and then there is a procession to the plaza. That night we hung around the plaza waiting for it but we really wanted to go dancing at the masonic lodge so we didn't see the procession.

The next day we went to Old Town to check out the parade. As parades go, this was a long and decent one. Candy was thrown, popsicles, frisbees, bracelets, and bottled water was passed out.

Here's Tom checking out the fire truck.

Ah, the ubiquitous low rider of Northern New Mexico.

This was awesome. This procession was to represent the conquistadores coming to New Mexico, hence New Mexicans consider themselves "Spanish." It's actually interesting to read up on that. Anyway, the main guy was yelling Viva to everything.

Main conquistador: "QUE VIVA LA REINA!"

The Crowd: "Viva!"

Main conquistador: "QUE VIVA LAS VEGAS!"

The Crowd: "Viva!"

Main Conquistador: "QUE VIVA NUEVO MEXICO"

The Crowd: "Viva!"

Main Conquistador: " QUE VIVA LA VIRGEN!"

The Crowd: "Viva!"

You get the point. Did I yell "Viva?" Well gentle reader, if I sang Rule Brittania while I was at the 50 anniversary celebration at Buckingham Palace of Victory in Europe then OF COURSE I yelled VIVA because you know, when in Rome....I mean New Mexico..:)

Mariachis of course. The wagon carrying his sound system had a huge Virgin of Guadalupe statue. This performer is a town icon, he dedicates his music to la Virgen.

"Que VIVA la reina!" and her damas (ladies) in attendance.

The rest of the day was spent on the plaza with music, dancing and food galore.

I am digging small town-ness.

The good, the bad and the just plain interesting

2011-09-06T13:15:00.000-06:00

They sell holy santos at Walgreens.

Every year sometime during the summer, some of the older citizens do a raindance in the plaza to hasten the monsoon season. (I missed this because I was out of town)

There is not one cart at Walmart that works properly. They are all wonky.

During the Spanish art festival in Old Town, the priest blessed the waters of the Gallinas rivers and the artwork.

There are little plastic and glass liquor bottles strewn about EVERYWHERE. I don't get it. Do people drink and then toss them where ever. And really? That many bottles?

I hear police sirens alot. When I hear it, I think "Oh oh, another domestic dispute," merely because 1/3 of the articles in the paper are about that.

I have never seen so many tattooed and pierced people in my life.

Everyone is pretty friendly. People are always saying hi in the streets.

In a town of 15,000, there are two school districts. Apparently the rivalry is pretty fierce. I have also heard you don't to send your kids to the middle schools or high schools here. Good thing we won't be here then.

Las Vegas used to be two towns, the City of Las Vegas and the City of West Las Vegas..hence the two school districts. Now it's one town, but you really need the two districts because of politics and the administration definitely need jobs.

New Mexico Highlands University has a rugby team called the Vatos

I've also seen too many Tap Out t-shirts here. I don't know why but they bug me...big time.

to be continued....

Adventures in Potty training

2011-09-05T08:04:00.001-06:00

If you have no interest...move along then....it gets a bit gross.

Three weeks ago we started potty training Thomas. It was not pretty. The first week was a hit or miss of messy training pants and underwear. He'd pee in his underwear and then tell us and finish up on the toilet. #2 was just a disaster. All I'm saying for now.

However we make some headway, by the end of the week it was half the time on the toilet half in his pants.

Week 2: More promising on the #1 initiative, #2 not so much. We got Tom peeing everytime on the toilet with no accidents PLUS dry diapers/underwear during naps and overnight.

The #2 initiative was its own kind of horrible. It went from just dumping in his pants, to him trying to eliminate the evidence, like by smearing it on the furniture. That wasn't pretty. I caught him hiding behind the couch and stereo cabinet trying to clean up, clean it up on the cabinet, wall and couch. I catch him and he jumps and then tells me, " My pooped Mama."

Sigh.

THEN we made some headway. He'd poop in his underwear. It would be quiet and then I'd look for him and I would find him in the bathroom with a messy diaper that he'd be dumping into the toilet. I was somewhat mollified. At least, the mess was contained in the bathroom AND he was trying to clean it up.

Last Thursday, after a week on no accidents on the #1 initiative, but plenty of #2 accidents and one semi-success ( he was in the midst of pooping when I bodily carried him to the toilet and sat him down), he voluntarily told me he had to poop and we rushed to the bathroom. With a book in hand and in two minutes, success!

( I am wondering whether the succes was due to the fact when we went on a field trip with Rachel to the mountains on Wednesday, he wanted to go potty but changed his mind when he saw the port-a-potty and realized that a nice, clean porcelain throne was infinitely better hence success on Thursday.)

Rachel and I cheered and clapped for him. He proudly proclaims "My pooped Mama! My dry!" (he's not really saying I yet) and then we brought down the poop prize that has been on the shelf for the last three weeks, His Thomas the train expansion track set. And he was happy..until a half hour later when I had to tear him away from it to go to sleep.

Now it has been 4 days, with no accidents. Not even on an almost full day outing.

Yay!

Catching up 2010....another post that I never posted last year

2011-09-03T11:22:00.001-06:00

Some highlights of 2010

Halloween. With some church friends, we decided to dress up in a theme. The theme was Miss Universe and we represented different planets. Somehow I got it into my head that Miss Mars would be red, you know the red planet and all. Later I realized that it's always GREEN martians. Oh well. Lest you think I painted my arms and legs too, those are thigh high boots and red tights. My face was the only thing painted. Everyone else looked like prom queens. We had Miss Neptune, Miss Earth, and my favorite Miss Uranus (DeNae on the left) with a big ol' butt.

Rachel decided to be an angel and created her own costume ( I think she did a great job) and Tom was Elmo.

Christma time at River of Lights at the Botanical Gardens. I love this picture of Tom.

Lacey (my favorite sister-in-law) and the kids came for Christmas while Joey is in Afghanistan. It was fun having them. I love Kenny's new glasses. I love that he kept telling me that he missed me and that I was his best friend. I think Lilly looks like Ramona Quimby.

I went to Salt Lake by myself for a former YW/friend's wedding. I got to see old friends, my favorite sister in law RaNell took my mother in law out to lunch and to buy new sassy clothes and play a bit. Only downside was Tommy being beat up by a thuggish three year old.

Our vacation this year was in the southwest quadrant of NM during the fall. We saw lots of great fall colors. We fulfilled a lifetime goal/dream of eating Pie (the famous New Mexico Green Chile Apple pie) in PieTown.

See the fall colors. This is at Glenwood, a little mountain town with restaurants that have sporadic schedules. This is the Mogollon catwalk, with a mile long trail.

Here is the suspended catwalk over the river in the middle of a box canyon.

This is an old mining town and the last weekend it was open before it closed for the winter. Very nice people. We also went to Silver City...super charming cute town surrounded by hills. Only thing is that you don't accidently come this way. You have to make a special trip....it is off the beaten path. I love Fall vacations, cooler weather and no crowds...not that there would be lots of crowds here.

VLA (Very Large Array) Pretty impressive passing by and up close.

Corn maze and hay rides

State Fair and winning first prize at the Pee Wee stampede

Tommy taking his harvesting duties seriously.

Embudito Falls on our side of the mountains.

My special little guy and his tie

If you know me well, you know that every new year I try and start the year off by organizing, purging and finishing off old projects. The house is clean and organized. I threw away TONS of stuff, rearranged stuff for maximum usefulness and beauty. Now, I am finishing up the projects dealing with journalling and photo albums/scraping. Believe or not I have FINALLY finished Tom's baby alum with is scrapbooked (old school) Then I am mostly making photo books through blurb for the family and the kids.

I feel like I can't go forward however unless I do some catch up of journalling of some events of last year on this here blog o' mine. I was quite lax last year.

Visiting cousing in Utah..going to This is the place which spawned lots of jokes. Is this the place? This IS the place!
Karaoke with friends.

Rachel and I world famous in New Mexico at a karaoke contest. I decided to dress up to sing Son of a Preacher man. Rachel sang Don't stop believing.

Hooch and Rendy's wedding. As you may recall, Jes, my little sister and I have this delightful little name for each other. They got married at Mt Timpaganos.

Something I wrote last year and never posted

2011-09-02T11:34:00.001-06:00

Me: Hey Rachel, look at that A.

Rachel (outraged) MOOOM!!!!! That's not an A!!

Me: (confused) yeah, it is.

Rachel: Noo-oo! It's not!!

Me: (Sigh) Ok Rachel.

Rachel: (even more outraged) Ugh! Moaaaa-mmm! You say it's an A..but it's NOT! I don't know why you say it's an A...blah blah blah

Well you can see how all day every day of this can wear on you.

Las Vegas Snapshot #2 Tome of the Range

2011-09-01T21:22:00.000-06:00

This is the only bookstore in town. Maybe the university has one, I'm not sure. I have yet to explore all of the university. It's called Tome on the Range (LOVE the name) and it is up the street from Estela's and the Kiva theater. This is an great bookstore. Good selection, quirky items , magnets and knick knacks, comfy chairs. And it does it's own storytime for two age groups.: 3-6 which consists of two stories and a craft and the 7-10 years Explorer club that learn about cool subjects like mythology, cooking, the Wild West, spying etc. Both groups do a bilingual storytime once a month and we've already done Spanish, Japanese and French. Afterwards, they get a paper sack with a snack that usually consists of a juice box or water, some sort of cheese, crackers or fig newtons or a fruit or yogurt or applesauce. Rachel loves it. Tom loves running away and playing with the train toys. One time he actually sat for half a story. He sometimes does the crafts. His favorite craft was the sun he painted and he was most proud of that. Usually though, he bides his time until he gets his snack.

Familiarity right. Be consistent and eventually he'll go and listen to the story.

Field trip

2011-08-31T20:04:00.000-06:00

Tom hiking.

Rachel writing down observations.

I am loving Rachel's school thus far. Today they had a fieldtrip into the mountains, a place called Storyranch. The students were being trained in how to conduct an expedition. They had their journals with them as they were given tasks to complete. They do a lot of hand on stuff, focusing on creative and critical thinking skills and completing projects. And it was gorgeous up in the Santa Fe National Forest. Tom and I tagged along and Tom did really well with the hiking.

First day of in a new school and other musings

2011-08-31T19:49:00.000-06:00

Rachel started school last week, on Tuesday. After much thought, I decided that she'd go to the charter school. It's official name is Rio Gallinas School of ecology and the arts. I know, it sounds a little granola-y but they do expeditionary learning so it's lots of hand-on, projects, critical thinking, etc. I am tired of the education pendulum being at scripted lessons and readers. I love that they have art twice a week. When I was teaching we got art every other year for nine weeks every other week. Grrr.

I was worried for her for various reasons. Most importantly because she is the new girl, she came from somewhere where she knew everyone since she was born. She went to school already knowing kids from church. I worried about kids being mean to my baby, etc.

I dropped her off and walked her to her classroom. She's in a 2/3 combo and I am actually please about that because I have worried about her being younger than everyone else. I've worried about whether I had made the right decision to skip her a grade. She would have been bored out of her mind in Kindergarten and she had no problems in 1st and 2nd grade (besides penmanship) but I realize (too late) that she will be 17 when she goes to college. 17!!! Yikes! I don't even know if I want to let her out the house much less college at 17. Am I over protective? I never realized how stressful parenting can be. I worry about my kids so much and want to shield them from any possible hurt. Maybe I am projecting the worst grade for me in Elementary school (4th) and worry about how kids can be mean, teachers can be mean, etc.
But I digress, I was happy about her being in a combo so she can still be around kids her age.

The teachers were nice,the kids were too so I left her in good hands. She seemed fine. All day, I am praying in my head that she'll be fine. I go to pick her up and the director asks me if I am Rachel's mom. I said yes and he told me that Rachel was having a rough time. I must have looked alarmed because he reassured me that Rachel was fine all morning and that in the afternoon she started feeling shy and unsure. I went to the classroom and Rachel looking mopey and the teacher told me the same thing that the director told me. As I am driving home, Rachel tells me about it. "I realized that I'm new and I don't know anyone and I don't have any friends!" Except Amara that I know from the play this summer and I met _________ and ___________. (I can't remember the names) Oh I liked Art and the teachers are nice but I don't know anyone." I understood that, I remember at new situations I would be shy and not fully myself until a little time passed.

I was reassured slightly but felt bad that I was putting her through this move ( and a few more in the future) so to make ourselves feel better (more me than Rachel I think), we went to Sonic for some slushes. Then later we went to Dick's for a first day of school dinner (great food) but the slushes made Tom completely wired. He was on the craziest sugar high ever.

Luckily every day this week at school went better and better. The following day I take her to school and all these kids are saying hi to Rachel and she was trying to remember every ones name. They had "creative movement" instead of PE (see what I mean by granola-y) and Spanish and she is learning the ropes of a new school. Luckily alot of kids in her class are new as well and it is a small school (one 1 grade, a 2/3 combo and a 4th grade.)

Night before schools started we had FHE and made these school buses. I should have gotten mini oreos.

Rachel's first day of school outfit. She loves colorful socks.

My squishy is a third grader!

Karaoke Glory

2011-08-30T13:26:00.000-06:00

I have mentioned in the past that I am a karaoke junkie. A couple of years ago, this guy named Gary started a Karaoke business (p.13 is my article on him) and started doing gigs at the local eateries. DeNae (my sister-in-law) and I noticed the signs at Chili Hills and decided to go one evening...and the rest, they say, was history.

We made a welcome change from ballads and muliple country songs. Our first song together was " I love rock and roll." We branched out to "Material Girl" " Dancing Queen" " Mickey" "Bust a move". We even started doing solos....me with my showtunes, Amy Winehouse, and Shakira songs. We had even one old guy ask us to sing Mickey everytime we were there.

We got to know the usuals and Gary pretty well. Rachel came with and started singing on her own such classics as "Rudolph", "I'm a believer" and "Don't stop believing" He started doing gigs at other restaurants and bars. Dancing was included between sets. The restaurants started getting too crowded. We missed the days of us singing every other song.

So we tried a new venue...Molly's in Tijeras. That was an experience. Now I am been to a few bars/restaurants with friends back in the day (like in Japan my water or coke to their whatever they were drinking). Generally trendy places, fashionable people, tasteful drinkers, good food. Molly's was not like that. Molly's was, to sum up with one or two words, rather vile. There were leathery women who I don't think were much older than I, sloppy drunks, women with LOTS of facial hair and homeless guys.

One in particular Gary dubbed Dancing Gene because he danced to EVERY song, including me singing Popular from Wicked which we all know is NOT a danceable song. Dancing Gene wore
a plaid shirt, overalls (both greatly stained) long scraggly hair and beard like down to his chest, a little toothless and VERY out of it. So I am singing away Popular on the stage and he's dancing away in front of me. Alright! So be it then. So I started directing my showtune towards me....he was the one I was going to make Popular. So I gestured at him with lines such as:

and with an assist from me,
to be who you'll be,
instead of dreary who you were...
Well, are.

When i see depressing creatures, With unprepossessing features,

and my favorite when Glinda speaks "Why, Miss Elphaba, look at you. you're beautiful!"

This line brings down the house because I lean over and look right into Dancing Gene's eyes and say that line." Dancing Gene was giggling the whole time. I think he was tickled pink that someone was paying attnetion to him. After the song was over, I got lots of thumbs up and compliments including from Dancing Gene who says so eloquently "That fun!"

Well here I am in Las Vegas and I see on facebook that Gary is doing another karaoke contest. He did one last year, Rachel and I sang. It was loads of fun. Well this time, he was holding auditions of sorts so I really couldn't come to auditions and the contest so I was planning on not going. However the weekend before Gary messages me on Facebook about whether I was coming. After explaining that I couldn't do both, he just told me to come on down for the contest.

Well, I did have some things to do in Albuquerque. Who am I kidding? I came down for the sole purpose of participating in the 2nd annual karaoke contest. It was nice to see the usuals and when I got up to perform, people cheered and yelled my name giving me a great welcome back. That was heartwarming. I perform Popular (of course) and used people in the audience to sing the song to. I was especially proud of singing the line "Celebrated Heads of State or special great communicators" and gesturing to the mayor of Edgewood, who was there that night.

I felt I did well, and the winners were going to be chosen for showmanship as much as for singing ability. My singing is average but I think I do pretty well with showmanship (just a fancy way of saying shameless exhibionists) plus a few people (my favorire brother-in-law being one of them) said I had a shot at being one of the winners. Plus...I guess it's a good sign when the judges come and compliment you!

I got to hang out with the usuals through which I learned that Dancing Gene died. Sad. I liked him.

There were three categories, female, male and duet. So just for kicks, DeNae and I did a duet, "I'm too sexy."

So finally the results were tallied and I thought..well maybe I'll get third or second place. Third and second place were called and they weren't me so I was not expecting to be first place only except I was! I'll admit, I started jumping up and down. I also probably said things like "Really???!!!"

Here are the winners below..top three females and males. Plus second place duet. The first place duet was DeNae and I! Now that I couldn't believe because we were just being goofballs. I guess the judges were really looking towards entertainment value. At this point I am yelling " Are you kidding me?? " And the judges were telling me not to monolopize the prizes (tongue in cheek of course)

I won a free night stay at Best Western (in Moriarty woo hoo!) and a purse. (The !st place man won the hotel stay but a digital picture frame..I think I would have preferred that. That's ok..I was just thrilled for the glory of being 1st place. DeNae and I spilt two gift certificates, one $25 for a consignment shop and one $20 at a florist shop.

I was on a natural hight for a while. DeNae left early so she couldn't believe that we won.

Below are the videos. It was done on Adam's phone. The videos go all wonky and the singing isn't synced with the action but you get the idea.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zYtCsKh1aMY&feature=related

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-FhILvDkfsI&feature=related

These are the people of Walmart (I mean Las Vegas)

2011-08-27T15:00:00.001-06:00

A Cavaet: Is it wrong to describe the people in this town. Do I come off as mean? I'm just trying to be truthful according to what I can observe. Read and be the judge I guess. There is a moral of sorts at the end.

1. Tattooed and Pierced Native New Mexican (almost everyone, generally druggie, apparently there are lots of drug use here)

2. Ranch style New Mexican (Some tattoos but also boots, hat and bolo ties, cowboys)(I think my landlady qualifies under ranch style..she lives outside of town..in a ranch and she is in her 70's maybe and has a big old tattoo on her arm. I didn't get a close enough view to see what it says but she is a little old abuelita, sweetest lady and she has a tough tattoo...apparently the rebel thing to do here is to.....wait for it......NOT get a tattoo. Seriously though, I have NEVER seen so many tattoos and piercings in my life. Not even at BYU.) (That's a joke)

3. Professional New Mexican (people with jobs at the hospital, university, city government, school districts) (some of them are pierced and tattooed)

4. Anglo(we say Anglo instead of white here in New Mexico) trash (also tattooed and pierced, druggies)

5. Anglo Professional (hospital, university, schools, etc)

6. Hippie Santa Fe Artiste types ( could be any race but generally Anglo) (long flowy skirts and ponytails and earrings for men, some tattoos of celtic symbols, mandalas, etc)

7. Texan ranchers (no tattoos, hat, boots, bolo ties and lots of talk of Texas, the best damn state in the union.)

8.Mennonites (Super nice, one lady Mennonite works at the Wal-Mart..saw a bunch shopping, cute little girls in dresses, maybe Rachel can be friends with them)

9. African Americans (athletes at New Mexico Highlands University)

10. Foreign born population from Africa, Asia and the Middle East (almost wrote Middle Earth hee hee) (New Mexico Highlands University and United World College)

and.....

11. Hasidic Jew (saw a family at Wal-Mart, the father and sons with yarmulkes and the corkscrew curls, the wife with a head covering..kind of fascinated me...I expect Hasidic Jews in New York not Las Vegas, New Mexico.

I find it interesting the diversity of people here. I was not expecting that. I was expecting small, insular, tight knit native New Mexican Catholic community. I wasn't expecting either the friendliness of people..especially people who look a little..shall we say..daunting. I'm out in public and people in the streets will just say hi cause you are passing each other (some also ask for change to get a cup of coffee too.)

I was at the dentist with the kids and a couple comes in with a baby. My kids were interested with the baby and the dad showed them the baby. The couple looked definitely chola, cholo-ish yet they were the nicest couple, super friendly, we chatted the whole time until they called the kids back. I think of the old adage "Appearances can be deceiving."

Friendly wave

Night at the Opera-Santa Fe style

2011-08-26T16:04:00.000-06:00

Sigh..blogger messed up so these pictures are out of order. So the caption for this is "Me making a salient point about...something...like the state of culture in the United States, punctuating my remarks with my wine glass. Notice the glass filled with water, which we poured out of our water bottles once the bubbly was gone." Ok, read the rest and this picture and caption will make more sense.

I have lived in New Mexico longer than any other place, more than 12 years and I haven't been to the Santa Fe Opera. So with friends from Edgewood Ward, the Hasler patriarch Reg, matriarch Julie, the twins Megan and Leah (my YW) a son Glenn, and wife Janae, we met in Santa Fe to partake of high culture.

We were lucky to snag this picnic table with a stunning view. Santa Fe Opera goer also have tailgate parties here. People set up by their cars tables, fine china, gourmet food and champagne. When in Santa Fe....

Haslers brought up Rudy's BBQ and we provided peach cobbler, ice cream, water bottles and a couple of bottles of the bubbly (er...sparkling white grape juice with plastic um champagne? martini? glasses)

I took a picture of the party and me holding the glass.

Then some people near us took a picture of the whole group.

Here's another great view ....of the mountains and the bald and not-so-chubby guy.

The 2011 season

The venue is fabulous. It's outdoors but we are covered. It was hot but every once in a while you could feel a breeze. I was especially excited to see my favorite La Boheme.

It was a great production. They changed it up a bit. Instead of Rodolfo hiding Mimi's key so she has to stay longer, Mimi is the hussy..hiding her key and "pretending" to lose it. Also the set was fabulous. The scenes on the Paris streets were fantastic. It looked like two streets converging to a plaza like area with outdoor cafes, strung lights, etc. My only complaint was that the translation was off....some of the subtlities are lost. But the singing was wonderful and I loved seeing it again.

Projects and Crafts

2011-08-25T13:30:00.003-06:00

Some projects and crafts I've been busy with:

Two Hinckley quotes. The first is just painted and stained with vinyl letters. The other I found as a freebie off of a craft blog. I printed it out and decoupaged it onto some wood. I really like the various lettering and colors.

The clothing projects were done due to my favorite sister-in-law who was here in July visiting with her 4 kids. The cardigan was ginormous but for a quarter and in new condition, I couldn't pass it up, but I didn't know what to do with it to make it smaller. My sister-in-law cut the sleeves down the middle and tied them to give it a cinched look at my elbow. Then she made a hole on the side and made it like a wrap around shirt where I take the other side and tie it through. I love it! And it was a quarter!!!

This dress..you can see the pattern is a little funky. Misty picked it out for me again for being $.25 and $1.00. The slits on the side were too high for my taste so she sewed them up a bit. Sorry the bottom picture is blurry.

This dress was a quarter and a size 16. Way too big for me but I couldn't resist. My sister-in-law took it in and the cardigan was also a quarter and I had to resew the seam with the buttonholes. I love it! 50 cent outfit.

Found this dress...again for a quarter but loved the easy comfortable feel and fit of it plus the swank factor. The problem was that the peek-a-boo hole in the middle was bigger and showed lots of skin. Even if it didn't, I thought have that neckline with skin in the middle was tacky. So, we sewed the hole up a bit to make it smaller and I bought some sheer fabric, doubled it and sewed it in. Now I love it.

Had a block of wood and used my stampin up stamps and mod podge to create this. Simplify is my mantra.

I made a few years ago blocks that said LOVE on it and realized that I could create another four letter message on the other side. So using my favorite season as inspiration I made this.
You can also see the other side as well. I couldn't find any complimentary paper so I went with the same pattern.

Tantrum in an odd place

2011-08-24T17:14:00.001-06:00

Yeah Tom, climb to the top of the recliner and precariously perch up there and throw your

fit. That'll show me.

The rental

2011-08-24T14:00:00.000-06:00

If you are interested, here are pictures of the house we are renting. This is a random room by the downstairs bathroom and laundry room, connected to the downstairs master bedroom that we use as a storage/guest bedroom. We use this room as a pantry.

Here's the downstairs master bedroom.

The kitchen from the direction of the side entrance. Dig the 70's vibe, linolium, wallpaper...oh yeah.

The sunken-in family room was a garage that they converted. You can tell by the breaker and the dryer outlet on the wall (not shown in picture) We decided to make this also a play room since it's so big. You can see into the formal living room. Now why couldn't they have made the effort to re-carpet everything blue instead of keeping the orange carpet.

Other view of the play room. See the breaker?

Formal living looking into the formal dining that we use as an office and slight view into the kitchen.

Office and to the right in the door to the laundry room. You have to go through the laundry room to get to the pantry and the bathroom. Rather random and weird.

T's bedroom with yet another type of carpet

Our bedroom with yet another type of carpet....plus carpet in the bathroom...sigh. Notice the green and brown paint and curtains? Not us....they were left there and as we will transient for a while and living in rentals, I really don't feel like investing in curtains that might not work in another house. Remember the bed that Jerry, I mean Travis built?

Rachel's room. My parents gave her my old bedroom furniture so I really like the girly factor in this room. Don't worry T, one day we'll get rid of your crappy furniture and get you a bedroom set.

I think the house has potential if it were updated and a few walls knocked down and rooms rearranged (um laundry, bathroom and pantry) I am loving the space and the fact that it doesn't seem cluttered because of the space. We had friends and families with their millions of kids and there are plenty of room. Not so in our last place. Our last house was crammed with furnture. We did get rid of tons of stuff and it felt GREAT!

Back to School and other stuff

2011-08-23T13:37:00.002-06:00

My blogging has been almost nil this summer. Our summer has been quite full what with the unpacking, purging of extraneous stuff before and after the move and making a vow NOT to acquire more stuff in preparation for another move in a couple of year. Also we had trips to Denver and ABQ and many many visitors. Now that everything is settled, school is starting...I have some time to blog. I really want to journal like this again. I miss it and I don't want to forget life as it happens.

Rachel starts school tomorrow and I am excited for her to be in a charter school that seems to do lots of cool things, hands on stuff, field trips, FULL TIME ART TEACHERS!!!!, amoung other things. I am tired of the education pendulum being stuck at scripted lessons and worksheets so this will be a great change. Also I like the fact that the school is small and the classroom sizes are small. This summer she got to be in a community play and had lots of fun in that. When we went to go see her, I found it hilarious that on the stage she was micromanaging the other "dust bunnies." Also this fall she'll be in a Children's acting workshop on Friday's for a couple of hours.

Tom turned three in July and is into Thomas the train more than ever. After a VERY difficult weeks of pee and poop filled underwear, we have had a break-through. Two days of dry diapers and two nights of dry diapers ( I mean #1) ! We are still waiting for him to poop in the toilet but once that happens, I think we are good! We go to two storytimes a week, one at the library and the other at the bookstore and we are having some success in him sitting and listening to the story and not just asking for food right away.

Jerry is lots busier at work, learning how to be like a boss. But his co-workers, bosses and employees are really nice and he is learning a ton. It also so nice that he is just a mile away from home. He gets to come home for lunch and he puts Tom down for a nap ( cause he refuses for me) He got not one but two callings: Executive Secretary and HP group leader. Nice that the second youngest in that group is 63. :)

Me-I'm in Primary as a counselor. The counselors and president basically run the show. Class time and sharing time. We do have a choirister so that good. Since we met with the Stake President, and stake conference is coming up, yours truly gets to speak in it....in Spanish. Awesome. Not used to speaking in an stake where I don't know anybody. That's when I miss ABQ. East Stake. I knew lots of people (12 years there) so it is a little disconcerting to speak where I am unknown. Also since Fall semester is starting at New Mexico Highlands University, tonight I am joining the concert choir which is open to students, faculty and the community. We'll do one or two performances a semester and this semester we'll be working with the Santa Fe Symphony to do.......THE MESSIAH!!! YAY! I was missing it already for this Christmas so I am thrilled to be able to do it again.

Another piece of news that is a relief is that our house is in the process of being sold. Three weeks more and it is out of our hands! We will be 100% debt-free (albiet without any investment in property)

One of the perks of being an executive in training

2011-08-22T22:43:00.001-06:00

You get to wear the Smoky the Bear suit for Back to School days at the hospital.

Las Vegas Snapshot: Estela's and Kiva theater

2011-08-22T16:10:00.001-06:00

One thing I am loving about small town life is the limited choices of things to do. That might sound a little silly but I remember reading somewhere about having too many choices just stresses you out and makes you worry about cramming it all in. Same goes for shopping. Too many stores equates to having to check out all the stores.

Another thing I am loving is that we don't have to drive 30 minutes to go out. As much as I liked Edgewood, it got tiresome driving into Albuquerque to play. If it was a Friday night, I would meet Jerry in town so he wouldn't have to drive to Edgewood only to drive back to ABQ. Everything is barely 5 or 10 minutes away. Going out and knowing I'm that close to the kids if anything happens is rather comforting.

Going back to the limited choices: Las Vegas has quite a few things going on. There is always something that the town hosts, summer festivals, music in the plaza, fiests days, rallies, fairs etc. And then in the Fall, the university jumps in with activities as well.

So I am going to start a Las Vegas snapshot where weekly I'll post a picture and blurb of some LV or surrounding area institution.

Here in Old Town which has more of a Wild West/Victorian feel than a New Mexican feel although there is a plaza with a gazebo. (More pics of it later) This is the only theater in town. It plays one movie a week and only at 7:30 in the evening. Matinee on Sundays. We've been to see Cars 2 (twice), Harry Potter, and Captain America.

We ate here at Estela's...a little hole in the wall...decent New Mexican food and bunches of holy santos.

Moooooooooooookkkkkkkkkkkkkkk!

2011-08-22T07:00:00.000-06:00

I was driving back from Albuquerque from my historic win of the 2nd annual East Mountain karaoke contest with the kids plus one. Rachel's friend Tessa came home with us to spend a few days. We stopped in Santa Fe to do some shopping at Sam's Club and Smiths since it was closer to home and I had to buy refrigerated stuff.

We were all tired, cranky and hot. We finished at Sam's Club and went to Smiths. I wanted to be in and out so I didn't even get a cart. We rushed to the back, got three gallons of milk. I held two and Tessa held one.

Since we had another hour drive home, I went to fill up the water bottles but the fountain was out so a very nice lady at the deli offered to fill it with ice and water. As we waited, Rachel and Tessa were fooling around and bam! dropped the gallon of milk. It exploded all over the floor. Tessa looked stricken, Tommy started to cry and scream "MY MOOK! MOOK!!! MY MOOOOOOKKKKK! (That's how he says milk....if I didn't mention it earlier, if Thomas could, he would drink milk all day and forgo food. So yes, seeing milk explode on the floor was quite traumatic for Thomas.)

I put my face in my hand and started crying as well. Smith employees swooped in to clean, reassure me, get me a new gallon of milk and balloons for the kids and the ice cold water. As all this is happening.

Meanwhile Tom is a little confused that I was crying. He stops screaming "MY MOOK!!!!" suddenly and cocks his head to the side and questions "You cry too Mama?"

Yes, Tom. I cry too.

Work Party

2011-08-21T20:48:00.002-06:00

One thing I realized in participating in the Pie eating contest: You end up snorting quite a bit of banana cream pie.

Las Vegan Mentality?

2011-08-21T09:49:00.002-06:00

Every state has a city or town that the entire state looks down on. New Mexico, however, seems to have multiple towns. I heard disparaging comments on Hobbs, Roswell, Gallup, Española (low rider capital of the world!) and of course Las Vegas. When people heard that we were moving to Las Vegas, the horror stories come out of the woodwork.

Mostly the responses involved curled lips, looks of disgust and exclamations of derision towards my new town. And then I wonder, in what world is it alright to insult where one is living or planning to live? Really? How about being positive and keeping your thoughts to yourself? There is one city in the USA that I absolutely detest. I happen to know people who are from there and love it...ergo I have never insulted it. There is my soapbox.

That being said, I am starting to understand the little quirks that could be annoying if one did not have a sense of humor. When people say that there is a certain way that Las Vegans (Vegasite? Vegaser?) act, it is true and it is hard to explain.So three examples of Las Vegan mentality......

1. At Walmart in the 20 items or less lane....a woman with two whole carts full of food....nobody blinks an eye while she is there, with her two carts, going excruciatingly slow...

2. Our Landlady....very laid-back....we are renting from her with just a handshake because she likes us. She is very nice but I don't quite understand when she tells us we can fix up the house if we want...new fences, carpets, etc. Er....how does that benefit us when we are renting? Also we are renting this house except for half the shed and a parking spot in the driveway. Half the shed is being used by the neighbor and a parking spot in the driveway (it is a big driveway) is for her daughter-in-law's car...who lives across the street and has used up all the parking spots with various and sundry cars and diesel trucks.

3. Our Neighbors...When the house was empty, the neighbor who is using part of the shed would leave his truck in the driveway so people would think the house was being rented thus preventing vandalism. Jerry went up the beginning of May didn't know who the truck belonged to so he called the landlady who told the neighbor not to park his truck there anymore now that she had a renter. The neighbor came over to chat with Jerry. The conversation went a little like this:

Neighbor: How's it going neighbor?

Jerry: Good.

Neighbor: Oh hey, do you want me to move my truck? I left it there so people would think that the house is being rented.

Jerry: Oh. Yeah, well next week we'll have the movers here and we'll need to unpack the truck...

Neighbor: Oh ok... I'll move the truck for you..

That was Monday....Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, Friday.....the truck was still there.
Jerry leaves for Edgewood. Saturday is moving day. We get to Las Vegas in the afternoon and not only is the truck still there, but another car as well. So we go over to the neighbors and....

Neighbor: "Oh hey! Do you want me to move the truck? I'll move it if you want me too."

( I actually really like the neighbor so the conversation is very comical....he's an easy going guy with lots of toys..hence the use of the shed and driveway)

4. At the Allsups..waiting to get gas.....people in the cars....just hanging out at the pump..not using the pump just parked in front of the pump....

I will probably have more examples as I live here longer.

Said by the only Japanese restaurant in Las Vegas whose chef is Chinese

2011-07-20T15:04:00.001-06:00

"It's the best Japanese food in all of New Mexico."

Um...no....no, it isn't. Not to say it was bad but not the best in all of New Mexico.

An unfortunate event involving too much syrup on pancakes

2011-07-06T08:57:00.004-06:00

We had a little meltdown this morning involving too much warm syrup being pouring over pancakes because the syrup was too runny. Lest you think it was the almost three year old who had the meltdown, let me quickly correct you.

It was the 7 year old.

She stomped off, threw her purse down (yes, she takes a purse to breakfast) and yelled with tears in her voice "THERE'S TOO MUCH SYRUP IN MY PANCAKES. IT'S TOO RUNNY!!!" Not explicitly stated but felt was this though "MY LIFE IS OVER!!!!!"

So I stopped her and the good, patient mother that I was, told her in a firm but kind voice that that behavior was unacceptable and she needed to:

1. Pick up her purse
2. Go and calm down in her room

What I wanted to do was scream right back at her like a banshee. She was lucky to get a real breakfast today instead of making her own cereal. (A confession, they were leftover from Monday...I made too many for guests that were here for the fourth of July)

So I go to my room and calm down some more before I attempted the patient talk with Rachel.
Serenity now. Okay. Ready to talk to her

I go to her room. We talk. I explain that extra syrup on pancakes isn't a big deal. A leg being chopped off...sure, that's a big deal. I also explain she'll be a happier person if she is able to brush off any minor inconveniences of life. I did mention that she still needed to eat the pancakes. We had a tender hug moment.

She went downstairs, ate the pancakes and said " WOW these are good Mom. Try them." I took a bite and agreed that they were good.

Crisis averted....hopefully I armed Rachel with skills instead of going crazy which I REALLY wanted to do.

Look how mature I am. Maybe I should have a THIRD child!!!!

Just kidding.

Sticking up for himself

2011-06-19T22:03:00.001-06:00

What Tom says when I swat his behind (ever so gently I might add)

" HEY!! (indignantly) No spanka ma butt!"

Life in the Las Vegas Branch

2011-06-17T13:59:00.009-06:00

Here are the pictures of the activity (more below)

We are now settled into the house we are renting, you know the house with the shag-tacular orange carpet. We've been to the branch a few times when we've been in Las Vegas on the weekends, we've even been to a branch activity in the mountains at the home of our branch president.

My parents came down to take the kids with them to Denver so I had a week to unpack and organize without the kids. That was VERY nice. Then I spent a few days in Denver before we all came back home to Vegas.

So now that I'm here, here are some impressions of the branch.

1. I was mostly spot on with my made up stories about the people in the branch. Lots of former Texan ranchers, young couples from Utah going to grad school here because of the great psychology program at New Mexico Highlands University and quite a few odd ducks. One Sunday, a couple gave a talk. They were an older couple who have no concept of brevity (Not unlike myself :) The wife was talking about when she was older, she lost her sense of humor because of the seriousness of life. She said that her husband asks her "Don't you think that's funny." She replied, "No." For some odd reason, I started laughing. That just struck me as funny. She also wove into her talk that kids rattling paper during sacrament meeting distracts her.....REALLY annoys her. Um....basically my kids would be the only ones rattling paper, along with one other family with kids. Again, I started laughing (quietly I might mention both times as it is a small branch....I would really stick out with my obnoxious laughter...although I guess my laughter was quite noticeable in Edgewood and that was a ward.)

2. I find it interesting that you find the same types of people wherever you go. The women teaching Relief Society was similar to other RS teacher of Edgewood, free spirited-ish,etc.

3. Another woman, maybe a bit younger than me came up the aforesaid woman and said, " I love your shirt, it has a hippie, free love vibe about it." I knew then that I was going to like her. Afterwards, she overheard me saying to someone about living in Abq, and she came up to introduce herself and said "Oh so you are practically New Mexican, you aren't a Utah girl who comes here and hates it here and is gone in a year." Again.....I KNEW I was going to like her.

4.The whole branch presidency are cowboys....with a name like Chick,(he is the one you see by me on the zipline) how could you not be? The presidency is super nice. The president lives in Mora in this gorgeous setting, we had an activity there, breakfast, lunch, hay ride, Zip line, tour of the compound (seriously it was a compound or a retreat, the president has two other buildings with bunkhouses, with beds, bathrooms, tv's, books for his extended family. A great place to get away from it all) The missionaries have mentioned that if the Apocalypse ever happens, the branch would be covered by staying with him. The counselors, one with the name Chick and the other Lynn are cowboys to the core. Boots, Cowboy hats, one with a handlebar moustache. Both very nice, especially to Tom and Rachel. Tom was the hero of the activity and was even mentioned over the pulpit on Sunday. He was the hero because after he saw me do the zip line, he said and I quote " My turn" and started to walk up the mountain to get to the zip line. Jerry had to follow and Tom came down the zip line with Jerry, no screaming, no tears, nothing. He high fived everyone when he got down the hill. I took a video but it was a bad copy so another person in the branch made a video and will get me a copy soon. Also funny (well I thought) A piñata being hoisted up by the presidents backhoe.

5. Around the corner is a family with kids our kids age. The couple seem to be around our age and we've already discussed get togethers and babysitting trading . We are excited to get together since our kids are the only "active" ones in the branch so they'll have more fun socializing. Yet again, Rachel seems to be the only girl. There was a girl at the the activity a year older than Rachel, but only semi-active so we hope to get them together sometime. Also there is a SAHM mom with a baby whose husband goes to grad school (T's nursery leader) that we are planning outings and what not.

6. Thus far, we have no callings and it is a reprieve of sorts. Sundays are laid back, I get the impression that even with a calling (RS TEACHER RS TEACHER PLEASE!) it's still going to be laidback. I missed the last potluck but apparently once a month (on High Council Sunday) they have a potluck after church. The cowboy brought brisket, Jerry said it was awesome. I find that charming, because of the smallness of the branch, the busy-ness is non-existent and certain activities can happen because of the few numbers.

7. We've had the missionaries over a few times already and let them teach an investigator here as well.

8. I guess it boils down to the fact that everyone in this branch is an individual and they all have their own story and that's fascinating. The women in RS joke about the fact that they are trophy wives (one husband is 15 years older, the other is younger than the husband's daughter from another marriage) The one young woman introduced herself and volunteered her babysitting services. Everyone here is nice and interesting and I am excited to be here.

Random items of business

2011-05-11T21:40:00.000-06:00

Bought this at the thrift store for Tom for $5. He loves it. He babbles "train track help Mama."

It's been a while since I've posted pictures of Rachel and Tom.

Mother's Day. I love the roses they picked out for me. Love the colors. Jerry mentioned that they were going to go with red but Rachel pointed out the rainbow colors and wanted to get this for me. And in true frugal fashion that was sure to turn me on, he tells me that the better roses were also $2 cheaper! YES!

Everything is a mess, still in the process of moving and packing. I can't find anything and I really want to throw everything away. When I get us to Vegas, I am going to throw away even more stuff. I want to go minimalist (although can't get rid of the books, musn't get rid of the precious!)

Another enlightening conversation with Tom

2011-05-09T14:01:00.001-06:00

Tom: Mam! I pooped!

Me: Tom! Why don't you go potty?

Tom: (laughing very heartily) Ho Ho Ho Mama! No potty!

Conversation with a friend today

2011-05-02T12:37:00.002-06:00

Friend: " I admire how you handle this with such grace."

Me: "Yeah but the sucky thing about it is that noone will ever know."

And that my friends is me being truly "graceful." :)

Talent Show Night

2011-04-27T20:15:00.005-06:00

Here is a video of Rachel and I performing at her school's talent show. As much as I encouraged her to audition with a solo piece, she wanted to sing a duet. A duet that we happen to sing everytime we are driving in the car and once at Karaoke: "What is this feeling" from the musical Wicked. When we sing, she's Glinda and I'm Elphaba.

I am quite proud of my Squishy. She was the self starter in this whole talent show thing. She told what she wanted to do and I probably forgot about it promptly since the move is taking up all possible brain power. Then, one day she wanted me to have lunch with her and as we were having lunch she reminded me that she wanted to sign up.

First though I told her that we should probably ask the person in charge whether moms were allowed to be in the talent show as well. I also took this opportunity to ask her again whether se should just do a solo, like "Popular" or "No good deed," other favorite songs from the Wicked soundtrack.

Well, we got the go ahead and she signed up. I found the karaoke music and downloaded it. We practiced some more and then had auditions. I thought she would freak a little auditioning in front of many people, but she kept calm and cool and did a great job.

The next day we learned that out of 54 kids auditioning, only 14 were selected and Rachel was one of the fourteen! I was so proud of her!

Then on the performance night, with a packed house, she did wonderfully! I think she was a little shy at first because she wasn't as loud as she normally is, but you can see later on her voice increases in volume. I was so pleased!

So without further ado, What is this feeling. Pardon the yelling baby in the beginning. My friend Misty was recording using my camera, so it's not the best. Notice Rachel is in pink for Glinda and I am in black for Elphaba.

This is the place

2011-04-25T11:54:00.002-06:00

We went up to Las Vegas on Saturday to check out two houses to rent and drive by another that could be available to rent thanks to my mad calling- realtors- and -asking- if- they- have- any -houses- that- haven't -sold- yet- but- the -owner- would- be- willing -to- rent- skills.

The first house was a good house that my friend would describe as having "good bones." It was spacious, had a family room, living and dining room, huge kitchen with a kitchen nook. It also had a sort of mother-in-law quarter/master bedroom on the first floor with a little kitchenette in a connecting room and a bath which is GINORMOUS. The owner is an older New Mexican woman, very chatty and very nice. She was hoping we'd rent because she said that she had a good feeling about us (must be my obsessive cleaniness shining through that she picked up on) and she hugged me as we left. :)

Then the upstairs has three bedrooms, one being another master bedroom. It had a shed type building in the back. We thought it might have been too big for us. Another house we saw was an adobe house 5 minutes out of town which we liked as well. It was in a rural area, absolutely gorgeous views. The drawbacks: the need for four wheel drive in the winter to get out and radiant heating floors which are VERY expensive.

We checked out the third house that would have been cheaper but it was too small for us.

There aren't many rental options in Las Vegas so we decided to go with the first house. Although it didn't have a garage, it has plenty of storage, it's a mile away from Jerry's work. We are walking distance to shopping, school and church. I think it'll do for a few years. Here's the link.

I'll have to deal with the orange shag carpet in two of the room though. :)

Change

2011-04-22T10:49:00.002-06:00

I am hoping to become better at blogging. Partly because I am realizing that it does make a great journal and partly because I feel guilty that I have so many anecdotes about Rachel's toddler years and not so many of the T-man.

So I hope to resume with our stories more regularly..in between packing, moving and unpacking. I announced on facebook a few weeks ago that we were moving. We are still moving. Here are the details.

Jerry went through two interviews with a hospital in Las Vegas (New Mexico not Nevada) middle of March for a controller position. As much as he loved working at the Heart Hospital, there was no room for growth as his bosses (Controller and CFO) weren't planning on leaving until retirement. So he was more or less stuck in his position unless he moved companies.

A week after the second interview, the people at the hospital in Vegas offered him the job....with a nice raise, sign on bonus, relocation package, etc. (We joke that now we feel like grown-ups when you have a job that offers bonus and moving money)

I announced it on facebook because I was too sheepish to tell people in person. The last few months we've being "mentally" checking out of this area and when I would make plans with people, plans dealing with Young Women's Girls Camp, youth conference (I'm YW president), I would nod and make commitments secretly knowing that I wouldn't be around but not having anything definite to tell. Weird! Also the last two YW presidents have left after a year and our bishop gave me strict instructions not to move in a year...which back then was only a tiny germ of an idea, so this news made major waves in our ward.

So Jerry starts the beginning of May and the rest of the family will go up end of May, beginning of June. We've been looking for a rental since we'll only be there a couple of years. The neat thing about this job is that it's a training program of sorts. In a few years, Jerry would take on another position in another hospital. So we could be anywhere (29 states). We could be coming to a state near YOU!!!

Las Vegas, NM in Northern New Mexico. Lots of people have wide and differing opinions of the place. Me...I can like and be happy anywhere so I think I will enjoy my time there. It's a small city of about 14,000. It's home to New Mexico Highlands University and Luna Community College. It has an Old Town that is on the National Registry of Historic places as is many houses in LV. There are lots of activities hosted by the town and university and by the Arts council. It's close to a few lakes and Santa Fe National Forest. My go-to town for a Target and Sam's Club will be Santa Fe (about 35-45 minutes) away. We are still close to ABQ (90 minutes) so I can see coming down sometimes (esp. to see Les Miserable next year at Popejoy!)

We went up to look around and check out the housing situation. I was charmed by the town. People seemed friendly. Great architecture. The rentals are really geared towards college students so we are still looking for something suitable for a family. We ate at Charlie's Bakery, kind of like Frontier's in Abq. Good food, good people watching, college hangout and town mainstay. The kids were fascinated by the tortillas baking machine. I was fascinated by the fact that Las Vegas had a lot more aging-female former hippies-Santa Fe -turquoise-wearing- artiste types. No offense to them, just an observation. Also my favorite, the older Native New Mexican abuelito type with that accent I adore.

As we drove around, we found the LDS chapel. There was a car in the parking lot so Jerry went in to try to talk to someone, to get some info. It was the piano tuner but he had a number for the missionaries and Jerry spotted a sheet. It was a sign up for cleaning the church and had a number for the person in charge of the cleaning. So we called him. After Jerry explained who he was and that we were moving to Las Vegas, I could hear the guy through the phone, "You're moving HERE??? GREAT!!!" To say that he was enthusiastic for new blood would be an understatement as was the branch president when we talked to him.

We looked over the sign up sheet and pores over the names. We realized that it was the same 12 families signed up over and over again. It is going to be a small congregation. I made up stories about the people.

Kimberly and Jason ---young , from Utah, going to school
Tom and Jackie--older couple, most likely ranchers
George and Francis--Old, retired, planning on going on a mission, needing a family to watch over their house for a couple of year while they are gone..preferably a family that has an obsessively anal clean wife and mother :) Oh yeah, in exchange for the care of their house, no rent :) (I can dream)
Tanner and Elyssa--Young, DEFINITELY from Utah.

Would you think I was
A. crazy and
B. slightly stalkerish
to say that I went home and tried to look up some of the names on facebook? YOU KNOW!! To do investigative work?? By the way, I was right about my stories. (Well at least the young ones :)

Looking at the list, I realized in a few months, I would most likely know the whole branch and they would not be just names that I made up stories about.

And that was exciting and a tiny bit scary. I have lived here in the ABQ area for more than 12 years. I have friends, some family, a support unit. I know everyone in my ward really well and thanks to Stake calling and Girls camp, I know many people in our stake. I think my being the new girl skills are a little rusty.

So....that's the news. I'm excited for this next stage of moving around a bit, I'm excited for the opportunities Jerry will have in this new company. I'm excited to be a part of a new place, to explore it, to become involved in the town's going-ons. I'm already planning to join the university's book club which is open to the public, to the free concerts and lecture. Cause I am a geek.

An upgraded conversation with Tom

2011-02-27T20:37:00.004-07:00

Me: Tom! You're my special little guy!!

Tom: No! I not guy! I a man man!

Me (trying not to laugh) I thought you were a boy?

Tom: (outraged) I not boy! I a man!

I swear this conversation is true. I have multiple witnesses. Also I have been asking him repeatedly if he is my

a. special little guy

b. my boy

c. my baby

to which he consistently replies in an indignant tone " I not a _______(fill in word) I a MAN!"

I ask it repeatedly because I love how he proclaims that he is a man.

I have not the foggiest idea where he got this.

A conversation with Tom

2011-02-19T09:01:00.001-07:00

Me: You're my BABY!!!!

Tom: NAw! No No No Baby...BOY!!!!

Me: No! You ARE my baby!!

Tom: NO! No Baby!

Me: What are you then?

Tom: 2! (tries to hold up two fingers)

My Birthday

2011-02-15T21:56:00.003-07:00

My birthday actually started last night. Jerry made dinner and cake (well brownies per my request) and I opened presents because tonight Jerry had class (he's teaching a class at CNM) and wouldn't be able to do the normal celebration so my birthday got somewhat extended. Here is the run-down of my night and day.

Monday night
5:00 showered (finally) while Jerry and kids made my dinner (I requested burgers, corn on the cob and onion rings) What can I say? I love burgers
6:00: ate dinner
7:00: Opened my cards and presents. I got money, a gift certificate from Rachel for her to clean my bathroom, a colored airplane from Tom, a wallet and jelly bellies from Sam, my sister and a sewing machine from Jerry (actually a coupon to pick one out..and I don't know if I want one anymore...I told him I wanted one but I think I changed my mind..I mean I use one once in a blue moon to fix some clothes and I am really not meticulous enough to sew something useful. I might get option 2 which Jerry tried to find at the stores but I told him he needs to buy it off Amazon-Star Trek The Next Generation on DVD ..ok...too long of a tangent)
7:30 Blew candles, made wish...family including Tommy singing Happy Birthday. Had brownies and chocolate chip cookie dough.
8:00: Kids in bed, Jerry cleaning the kitchen and me relaxing with a book (Sense and Sensibility and Sea Monsters)
10:00ish: Sleep

Tuesday Feb 15th (the actual birthday)

7:00am Birthday wishes from the family
8:00am Took Rachel to school, dropped Tom at a friends' house for a Jenn alone-filled day in Albuquerque.
8:10: Opened card from friend watching Tommy -a gift certificate to a spa!
8:20: dropped off overdue DVDs(The Lion the Witch and the Wardrobe and Prince Caspain)at library.
8:30 : While driving, it occured to me that the friend watching Tommy was going to score lots of great loot at out local thrift store while I was in town and wondered whether I should turn around.
8:45: Got gas, tried to see if Michaels was opened
8:50: Was not opened
9:10: showed up at Massage school. Got massage as a present
10:30: Went to Victoria's Secret and spent my $10 off birthday card. Got perfume and lip gloss. No LINGERIE! It's MY birthday, not Jerry's!!!!! :)
11:00: Wandered Barnes and Nobles
11:30: Had lunch with Jerry at his work. Got Asian Lettuce Wraps.
12:15: Went to the NM Holocaust and Intolerance Museum-Yes I know I am a geek...I've been wanting to see it and figured I should do it alone. Mom and Jes called and said Happy Birthday.
12:45: Good idea to see it alone (read: no kids) Left the museum crying (There was a pretty graphic picture of a boy T's age among other pictures)
1:00 Went to Buffalo Exchange to see if they would honor my store credit certificate that I lost a year ago and recently found as it had expired. If they didn't I was going to pull the "It's my birthday" card. Luckily I didn't have too. Got a gray, sparkle scarf/wrap and necklace. Josh called and said Happy Birthday.
1:30ish: Wandered the funkiness that is Nob Hill with no coat...it was that warm!
2:00: Got Frozen yogurt-cake batter. YUM! Curse you Andrea (my cousin) for introducing this to me!
2:30: picked up Rachel..She gave me some sweetarts as another birthday present

(It should be noted that as I was driving around, I was belting out tunes from Wicked...hoping that I would be ready to sing them at Karaoke)

2:45...Went to friends house to get Tommy and discovered that my feeling was RIGHT...she did score lots o' loot. Methinks that the friend and the thrift store doth conspire against me. Pulling the "I wants it. Give it to me , my precious, it's my birthday" ploy did not work. (Well, she did give me a cute Gap cardigan)
3:40 Went home, kids did homework and played
4:15 Ryan (my favorite brother-in-law) called to wish me a Happy Birthday. As did Dad and Sam.
5:15: Met DeNae at Connie's Grill in Moriarty for Karaoke night. Released my inner exhibtionist for a while
Sang: Material Girl, Summer Nights (with my nephew Marc), Bust a Move (with DeNae), Don't rain on my parade, was go-go dancer to Denae's and Alicia's "These boots were made for walking" Applauded Rachel's performances of Rudolph, Don't stop belieiving and I am a believer. Tried to entertain Tom with food and ice.
The restaurant sang Happy Birthday to me. Gary (the Karaoke guy) promised to find Popular from Wicked for me.

8:00 Home, Jerry home. Put kids to bed and smiled with all the Birthday wishes from friends on Facebook.

10:33 Almost done blogging!

It was a great day..Thanks everyone!

Happy Anniversary

2011-01-13T08:20:00.000-07:00

The 13th of January was our 12th anniversary. 12 years of marriage, two kids one house later. That's like going to high school or college 3 times! Time is starting to become meaningless to me. It's has been a good 12 years....being a bit reticent when it comes to my important personal feelings (love, testimony, etc) I am suprisingly mute. Suffice it to say, I am glad that I married my tall, bald and not so chubby guy!

We went to Santa Fe to celebrate. We spend an hour in our private tub at a Japanese styled bathhouse/spa called Ten thousand waves. We loved it! It was so relaxing! When I lived in Japan, my friends and I would go to the onsens. I had forgotten how wonderful, how your flesh feels like it's going to melt off your bones relaxing, how your skin feels completely purified.

We had the Waterfall tub which was large enough to fit 10-12 people.

We wandered around the spa after.

A tatami room to relax, listen to music, read or sleep.

A hot tub to dunk legs

Thrifting before it became trendy!

2011-01-11T12:51:00.004-07:00

One of my goals this year is not to go thrift shopping willy nilly...I mean ALL THE TIME! But today I couldn't resist. The local one is Edgewood is AWESOME. Perhaps you have seen my previous posts on items that I have found there for PENNIES, PENNIES I tell you. So I was planning on creating a photo book of last years pictures today when I innocently logged onto facebook and saw that Jamie (the girl who works there and hooks me up with a free purse (see black one above when I was only going to get that and some polly pocket stuff..she just shrugged me away and said and I quote...Eh...take it!) (Also not pictured here but here is Tom's birthday present, I found this in the box for $3.00 retail price being $80 and it works!!!!)

Anyway, where was I? Yes Jamie posted on Facebook that there was an Internet special today...you could fill up a paper bag for a dollar or a garbage bag for $11 in honor of it being 1/11/11 today. To get the deal you had to also sing a song with the word sunshine in it ( I sang You are my sunshine and Walking on Sunshine for Misty...she mentioned that this wasn't a difficult thing for me to do...the karaoke queen!) I hurried off to get there before my friend and workout nemesis Misty made out with the better items (hee hee Misty!)

So this is what I got for $1. All these items look almost like new!

This is what I found for me. Union Bay black capris, Old navy white shirt. The brown capris I don't recognize the brand and the Mamacita Hottie shirt is because I am a Mamacita and I am a hottie and Misty threw it in my bag. It'll make a good workout shirt.

All this is what I found for Rachel. Arizona jeans red cardigan, Disney princess tutu, Hello Kitty sweatshirt, Banana Republic wool XS cardigan that used to be for a woman but now can fit my almost 7 year old. Cute pink skirt with velvety flowers.

...and Chloe's closet dress and Gap cord dress

and Chloe's closet dress, Candies dress.

Including the first picture with a gold clutch that I am going to freshen up with paint or fabric and the East of Eden book the grand total came to $1.25. I love it!!!

Sleeping with random non-fluffy inanimate objects

2011-01-07T09:14:00.004-07:00

Last night Tom wanted to sleep with not one but THREE Lightening McQueens (Regular, Radiator Spring Lightening, Dinoco Blue Lightening) all clutched in his chubby little hand.
Some nights he has five or six cars, trains and books sleeping with him. Right now I put him down for a nap and he insisted on sleeping with the How to Train your Dragon DVD.

Whatever. As long as he sleeps he can sleep with anything he wants (minus sharp knives.)

Holiday Pictures

2011-01-03T20:43:00.003-07:00

Here are the kids with their new pajamas on Christmas Eve. I think it's hilarious that T always poses like a man, hands clasped behind his back. He even watches TV standing up in this pose. Rachel is quite pleased with her Princess stuff. Sigh..one day she will outgrow it.

Nativities and stuff

2010-12-21T11:42:00.002-07:00

I know I know, I repeat this refrain every month or so. It's been a while. I have felt so busy with life that I never get around to documenting it and I do miss it. I will endeavor to be better this coming year. Actually I am hoping to catch up with some of the events of this year in the next few days when Jerry is home and we are in the pre and post holiday blissed-out hanging out eating and playing. In the meantime I post some pics

Us..the matchy matchy family on Sunday. It took a while to get the kids and husband situated and happy.

Tom before his haircut. I love how curly, then cowlicky it gets. It is poofy and sticks up all over the place!

I Love love love my friend (who is the bestest in the WHOLE WIDE WORLD and my absolute favorite eva!) Misty. We were at the thrift store this morning and she found this and we discovered it was a nativity and I wanted it soooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo badly and SHE DECIDED NOT TO BUY ergo ALLOWING me to get it. I LOVE IT!!!!!! It's so unique!

We have Lacey, my sister in law staying with us a couple of weeks. Her husband Joey is deployed in Afghanistan and she is actually living on base in New York but came out for the holidays. We are having fun and suprisedly enough I am not ready to kill anybody because of sheer amounts of people and child mayhem in my normally immaculate house.

Most people would assume that I would be that way and they would be right to assume thusly, but hey..it's the holidays and I need to relax a bit. People are more important. So who cares that every toy in the house is strewn everywhere? Seriously though, I am improving (Ask Lacey.....she'll even tell you) We've done some crafts and lots of park trips. Tonight we are going to River of Lights and dinner. 'Tis the season!

Hey! I really do miss blogging!

My comeuppance

2010-11-12T12:00:00.000-07:00

I was teaching Sunday School to the 17-18years for a while and I started to get burned-out...not over the youth...NO! not at all I love the kids in that class....LOVE, LURV them.

So an opportunity arose when our old Relief Society presidency was released. The new president who was called had been one of the RS teachers and so knowing that there was a opening, I tried to position myself (really I was working it) into that calling for various reason, first off being that it's such an EASY calling, teaching once a month? Really that's it? And with using the Socratic method of asking the sisters what they think, the lesson just teaches itself. Instead of RS teacher, I would really be a RS faciliator. Second, I had this calling back when I was first married and I really liked it alot.

So I mosy up to the new Prez, who happens to be my visiting teachee and friend and volunteered my services as a sub and mentioned casually how much I LOVE RS and teaching and I could sub until she felt so inspired to choose a new one. As I walked away, I could see the light bulb over her head so I knew it was a matter of time before I was called into RS.

I ended up subbing twice and received many compliments on my lessons which were mostly the sisters talking (again me "facilitating) and lo and behold I get called the week Jerry was released from the bishopric to be put on the high council.

Yay! Mission accomplished! Just nudging the spirit a bit right? Thought I was flying high, comfortably settled.

Then a month after my call, I get a call from the bishop asking to drop by to talk with us. As Jerry was just released, Iassumed that the bishop wanted to go over some transition business. WRONG. He extended a new call for me, to be Young Women's president. I was stunned. Not expecting that AT ALL Especially with Jerry being busy with his calling, I figured that I would have relatively simple callings.

I actually blurted out, "ARE YOU KIDDING ME?" To which the bishop replies "Yes I came over to play a joke on you. Of course not!

So hence, my comeuppance. I thought I had a cushy job , I had a cushy job for a month until bam! right into a high profile, busy calling.

Sigh. I guess I should keep my meddling to myself.

(Actually, I do like YW...alot....but prez? I can lead if I have to, but I just prefer being a follower. I'm a great follower. Tell me what to do and I'll do it. I can't get over someone always checking with me to get approval for some activity. Generally I say, "Sure! Whatever you want!" Me as Prez with my counselors goes like this: "So what do you think?" "Ok yeah let's do that."

Big boy bed

2010-10-19T12:56:00.001-06:00

Getting Tom to sleep in his "big boy"bed was easier than I thought. Rachel was fine in a toddler bed at 18months but we felt that it was better to keep T contained.

Finally we thought it was time. Here he is all excited to go to bed. He kept pointing to the lights and saying "light, light" to turn it off.

Just as exciting is the fact that he is napping in his toddler bed with no problems!

Tissue

2010-10-11T09:46:00.002-06:00

Tommy, during church yesterday, asked for a tissue to wipe his nose. He wiped his nose a few
times very carefully and then proceeded to put it down my dress.

Not sure why he thought that was a trash receptacle.

Oh...to be this tall

2010-09-24T18:37:00.003-06:00

Dude, I know platforms are passé, but I couldn't resist. I will rock these for my brilliant costume for Halloween.

More Thrifty Goodness

2010-09-14T11:05:00.003-06:00

The first three items for .50 cents each. Banana Republic cardigan. 100 percent silk

Calvin Klein 100 percent wool short jacket: 50 cents

Limited Black cardigan: 50 cents

A.n.a black shirt (JC Penneys): I think $3.00

New york & Company cotton skirt: $1.00

I don't recognize the brand but I thought it was a fun and punchy color for a cardigan: $1.00

Lord of the Kittens

2010-09-08T10:19:00.002-06:00

I thought it was so cute that Tom and the kittens were playing with each other; Mostly Tom running like mad and the kittens running after him.

Some finds

2010-09-01T09:37:00.000-06:00

...from our local thrift store.

JC penney's brand tote bag...perfect for lugging around YW stuff. I also found a week later the same exact tote in brown! $1.00

Cute Old Navy shorts for Rachel...brand new. $1.00

Levi khaki green pants with tags still on them for Jerry. $3.00

Cute Children's Place shorts for Rachel. $.50

Beautiful dress, satin and velvet for Rachel. $.50

Another awesome purse with a colorful liner. $1.00

Hiking backpack with frame. (Jerry is needing tons of stuff for Scouts) $3.00

Old Navy top and awesome dark wash, brand new jeans from JCPenney's $2.00 together

Fun pajama bottoms still with tags (the white part are little skull and crossbones.) $.50

I swear I have better luck at the thrift store than I do at a regular store.

I pity the fool!

2010-08-31T12:12:00.002-06:00

Tom was putting on all of Rachel's necklace while we were changing his clothes. He was shirtless but had his dress pants on. So I put a vest back on him. I think it works.

A live Awkward family photo

2010-08-30T15:15:00.002-06:00

Have you ever been to this site? It is hilarious. I almost pee my pants laughing everytime I take a look.

I never thought I would be an almost witness to an Awkward Family Photo. I went to the JC Penney Portrait Studio to pick up the pictures of Tom. Waiting there most proper was a small family who looked like they came from good old Scandanavian/English pioneer stock from the Midwest...or Idaho. Just simple people, a dad, mom and a 30 year old son.

The daa was wearing a button down shirt and pants, no tie. The son, who was a little on the nerdy side, was wearing a plain brown three piece suit and tie. Ok, a little formal compared to his dad. The mother, let me remind you again...white as white can be...little rotund....blonde hair pulled back from her face, was wearing a full out green and gold Indian sari. She was even decked out with the jewelry and bindis on her forehead and nose

Far be it from me to judge what a person wants to wear. I just thought it was pretty funny and a little random. I wish I could have seen the end results of the photo shoot. :)

Tom's World

2010-08-26T19:17:00.006-06:00

I love that Tom is so observant of the world around him, even of things that I would have thought as too small for him to take notice.

For example, a few weeks ago we were re-doing the roof of the porch and the whole family was on the roof as the sun was setting and the stars were coming out. Tom pointed to the first star of the night, which was just a pinprick, and yelled out "Mama! Mama!" which roughly translates to "Look Mother, it's that a beautiful star." After I repeated star a few times, he could say the word. From then on out, in the evening, he'll point and say "Mama! Mama!" and then "sar!"

Also, I went with him to Sam's club and as we were walking to the car, he pointed to the roof and yelled, "MAMA! Mama!." which roughly translates to "Look, Mother, there are fake owls and cameras on the roof." I have NEVER noticed the owls up there.

Ah, to see the world through the eyes of a child.

Guiding my child to make better fashion choices.

2010-08-24T13:16:00.004-06:00

This is what Rachel wore today.

These are the shorts she wanted to wear with this shirt (see above).

I asked her as nicely as possible if she wanted to wear these shorts with that shirt and mused on whether they actually matched. She informed me that both have bits of white and peach. She was right and right there I decided that if she wanted complete control over something in her life, she could have it in choosing to pair stripes with flowers.

Lucky for me this morning, Rachel came to tell me that she spilled a little milk on her shorts and that that was okay. There was a nice round spot of milk on her shorts the size of a half dollar. With loving, solicitous concern in my voice I said, " Oh Rachel, they're dirty. That milk will make a stain.....and it'll SMELL! Why don't you change shorts and I'll wash these and you can wear them later this week."

Rachel, oblivious to the fact that I was manipulating her, agreed and changed her shorts most willingly.

Let's hope she chooses wisely later this week.

How T says please

2010-08-23T12:43:00.001-06:00

Me: Tommy, say please.

Tom: Uh huh!

An attempt in diplomacy

2010-08-02T21:24:00.004-06:00

Today I babysat for a friend. Averi is about three years old and likes to hang with older girls (Rachel) and play with younger boys (Tommy).

Here is T's attempt at a civil conversation rather than screaming "MINE!!!"

Averi: " Can I have the ball?"

T: "Nao! My MY ball!

A funny thing happened in Ward Council

2010-07-10T08:32:00.002-06:00

The HP group leader talked about going to the Cedar Crest Ward Activity and commented on how the women in their ward make better chili than in our ward and what was up with that?

I responded...."Why do the women have to make the chili? Men are just as capable of making chili!"

Everyone responded with laughter (which is the usual response to anytime I open my mouth in Ward Council)

The bishop backed me up by saying that the H.P. Group Leader comment was a tad sexist.

Yeah...sticking to the man!

An obsession

2010-06-20T21:15:00.003-06:00

Tom waylaid a three year old at the library who was wearing a Lightening McQueen shirt. He walked up to the boy and started poking him repeatedly on the chest and stomach exclaiming "Vroom Vroom!" and "Ka-Pow!"

The adults found it charming and funny. The boy, not so much. I dragged Tom away for a walk while Rachel was watching a magic show at the Summer Programs. As we walked back and forth, Tom ran off to poke the same kid in the chest as the kid tried to protect himself by hunching over and covering his shirt with his hands.

Tom, oblivious, happily shouted in the boy's face, "VROOM VROOM! KA-POW! KA-POW!"

Karaoke-rama!

2010-06-17T11:12:00.006-06:00

Rachel and I are signing up for the Karaoke Contest at Chili Hills. Apparently, we can dress up in costume and all. We are filling out the forms to enter. We need to put down the song we plan to perform along with a back-up.

Rachel already knows which two songs she wants: Journey's Don't Stop Believing and Doris Day's Perhaps Perhaps Perhaps. She is very excited to dress up.

Me? I'm not sure what I want to sing. I thought about all black, platform shoes, black wig, fake tattoos to sing Amy Winehouse's Rehab. I also have a great 60's outfit if I want to sing Son of a Preacher Man. I could do a Shakira song or Madonna's Material Girl. Then I thought of out-there songs like Salt N Pepa's Shoop.

What do you think? Which should I go with? And other requests?

A little cruel? Or just crazy?

2010-06-12T23:11:00.005-06:00

A silly game I like to play with the kids.

Rachel has an oversized stuffed animal...a cat. It's always lying around the house. Generally I kick it out of my way while making a screeching cat yowl.

Like thusly:

Meooorrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrwwwwwwwwwww!

Well, that made Rachel and Tom crack up. So I do it again...and again. They laugh harder. So I encourage them to kick the kitty and yowl. Which they do.

Rachel yowls very well, Tom too. His yowl is more of a "Ouwwwwwwww!"

So we named the game "Bad Kitty." I say "Bad Kitty," the kitty sails through the air as I yowl. Then Rachel takes a turn and then Tom.

Bad Kitty..patent pending

Ka-chow!

2010-06-08T19:06:00.004-06:00

The more that the movie CARS is played ad naseum , the more I love the movie. I can probably recite the whole movie. Any guesses on who wants to watch it over and over and over again?

If you guess a little boy who screams VROOM VROOM and Ka-chow! named Tom, you'd guess right.

I am the farthest person you would expect to like a nascar type entertainment but the Route 66 storyline is quite heart-warming (speaking of which, we live very close to the original Route 66 here in the East Mountains, the humor: a great balance of somewhat sophiscasted and lowbrow.

Example:

"Is it true you're posing for Cargirl?"

McQueen: "He's won three Piston Cups"

Mater: (spitting out oil) "He did wut in his cup?"

or

Mater (in a helicopter) " Woo hoo! I'm happier than a tornado in a trailer park!"

I never encouraged the cars thing but Tom is all boy and he loves anything with wheels.

So if you want to watch something hilarious, go here. I love that Mater can speak Japanese in Tokyo Mater (and the music rocks . I am constantly singing "This is To-k-yo where we pump that gas!") , does a German accent in Unidentified Flying Mater and was a bulldozer fighter in Spain.

Yeah, I am around kids all together too much.

What I wrote on the Moriarty School District Survey of the Quality of Education at Rachel's School

2010-05-21T12:56:00.002-06:00

I feel that the school, the district and the state of education in general are muzzling their teachers and taking away the creativity of the teachers. My child had an excellent teacher that I have heard about since I moved to the East Mountains. She had incredible units and of course the year my child was in her classroom, all those units were taken away because she "had" to follow the book. Although my child was in the higher reading group, she could STILL read circles around the basal reader and I felt that her needs were not addressed because the school is too busy making sure that the lower functioning students catch up. I feel like education today is encouraging mediocrity and does not encourage critical thinking or creativity. Yes, let's create a nation of drones who are told what to do. I feel a disservice is being done to the students when thematic units are done away with and all they do is reading from a basal with no connection to Social studies or Science. Oh that's right, first graders don't get Social Studies and Sciences. These students are capable of so much more. The teachers WANT to not be controlled. More testing and scripted reading lesson plans ARE NOT THE ANSWER!!!!! How about actual classroom instruction and not substitutes so teachers test every month or so. How about learning subjects and not test taking skills? Quality content and subject instruction paired with literacy is the way to go. I don't know who to go to express my displeasure: Local? State? Federal? I would like a response but honestly I think this survey is something required by the state and that no one in the school district is really going to respond to the results and comments of the survey.

Betsy and me

2010-05-18T16:30:00.003-06:00

Check me out here.

I failed to mention that I was also influenced to try listening to opera. I know the music to La Boheme because of Betsy's sister Julia....well and my dad.

Diaper Rash

2010-05-16T09:13:00.003-06:00

I was changing Tom's diaper and as I was wiping him, he started yelling insistently "DONE! DONE! DONE! DONE!"

It doesn't feel good to be wiped when one has diaper rash.

My Bed

2010-05-13T11:12:00.004-06:00

My Mother's Day weekend was wonderful for a variety of reasons, the most important being the bed that Jerry made me! My friend Misty found a website called Knock-Off Wood and found plans for the Farmhouse Bed from Pottery Barn and in one weekend her husband made it for her. Once I saw her bed I was sold. I wanted one soooo bad. I had to wait for about a month for Jerry to finish teaching at CNM. Last friday we spent a few hours buying the wood and on Saturday we went over to Misty's to the saw to cut up the wood.

Travis (Misty's husband) helped Jerry put it all together which was AWESOME because it would, in Jerry's words, have taken Jerry three months to put it together. Travis spent most of his day helping Jerry.I really should say that Travis built it and Jerry helped him. :) We were feeling a bit sheepish about it. Jerry went back to till their garden and I got them a gift card to dinner and babysitting as a thank you.

Sunday, we rested from out labors and I had my day. I got a delicious breakfast and dinner cooked by the family plus chocolates. In church, I made my Sunday School kids teach and two of the young men brough snacks: homemade cookies and sour gummy worms. I scrapbooked in T's baby book for a while too that day.

Monday night we stained the bed. Here it is unfinished.
Stained in Red Chestnut

On Tuesday, after it dried, we put it together in the bedroom

And voila! The finished product. I. Love. My. Bed. Since we've been married, bedroom furniture has always taken the back burner in importance. So I am so happy to start making the bedroom pretty. Now I am on the lookout for some unfinished nightstands or nightstands that are either the lighter or darker color of the stain. Cost of the wood and materials to build the bed: About $200.

Thanks for the lingerie

2010-05-11T10:24:00.002-06:00

Dear Victoria's Secret,

I don't know what I've done to deserve this but I am extremely happy that you choose to send me every other month a card for $10 off ANYTHING and free VS panties. The beauty of the $10 off is that I can get $10 off of anything, not with $75 of purchase. So I waltz in, grab a sassy panty for recreational purposes and then head over to the lotions section and acquire another bottle or tube of lotion (Vanilla Lace), head to the counter, present my card and waltz out.

One thing though, the coupons are addressed to a Jennifer D. ____________. Um, D is not my middle name. It occurred to me that perhaps someone signed me up for the catalog and stuff as a practical joke or something as a pointed barb towards my former uh..."grade"

Thanking you for all the vanilla lace and panty joy you bring into my life,

llegue

How Rachel filled out a questionaire about me in Primary for Mother's day

2010-05-09T14:59:00.003-06:00

1. What is your mother's name? Jenn

2. How old is she? 34 (She must have gotten confused with Jerry's age...yes I am older)

3. How tall is she? 21 ft. (???)

4. What does she do around the house? Stays on the couch (When I asked her about this, she said that's what I am doing today..because everyone is slave of the day)

5. What is her favorite thing to eat? Spaghetti with pesto and parmesan cheese (Good guess!)

6. What is her favorite TV show? Glee (I've shown her some of the numbers..she likes it)

7. What does she cook? Pancakes

8.Where does she like to go? Walmart and home (Ouch to Walmart)

9. What is her favorite hobby? Read books

10 My mother is special to me and I love her so much because....

She's always nice and she reads books and plays games with me

-Rachel

What Rachel and I sang at Karaoke

2010-05-06T07:00:00.000-06:00

Rachel's songs (without us)

Don't stop Believing (Journey)
These boots are made for walking (Nancy Sinatra)
Rudolph the Red nose Reindeer
I'm a believer (Smash Mouth)

My songs

Estoy Aqui (Shakira)
Rehab (Amy Winehouse)
Son of a Preacher Man (Dusty Springfield)
Ay Papacito (Grupo Limite)

With Denae (My sister in law) using sweet moves

Keep on (Brady Bunch)
Bust a Move (Young MC)
Killing me Softly (The Fugees)
Dancing Queen (ABBA)
I love Rock n Roll (Joan Jett)

With my nephews (providing the female backup vocals)

Tubthumping (Chumbawumba)

So sluggish

2010-05-04T16:32:00.002-06:00

I have been having a hard time having any energy as of lately. We did have a big trip to Utah for my sister's wedding. We left at 4 in the morning and had many late nights up in Utah so that must contribute to the lack of energy.

I had my yearly check up and my blood work came back slightly anemic again (??? Really, I LOVE Beef) so I started back on iron pills today. Hopefully that will help. I was totally dragging today. I had no energy for a workout. I made Misty do nice and easy pilates. Then I went home and vegged in front of the TV and when T took a nap, I did too. We slept for almost three hours and I was still groggy when I woke up (Incidently, I woke up just in time to pick up Rachel from school.

Any ideas to perk up a sluggish body?

Deep thought

2010-05-03T22:09:00.000-06:00

Hmm..maybe I should use this blog for good, not evil. :)

Discriminated because of religion..but that's ok. I deserve it. How martyr-like of me...stupid religious freak!

2010-05-03T17:24:00.006-06:00

Perhaps some of you recall a friend of mine who decided to look into my church. That surprised me more than anyone. I mean, it works for me, but I realize that in this modern day and age most people do not want to live the way we live much less believe in a deity. Whatever. People can believe whatever they want to. I could philosophize on and on about that but I shan't. I'll stick to the point.

This friend kind of went from fad to fad, Buddhist, Goth partier, piercing and brandings, co signing for a car with a man she barely met and then having to file bankruptcy, etc. Generally with each fad, she'd switch friends as well. The birthday and Holiday dinners I do with my former colleagues she used to be a part of. The last dinner she went to was (ironically) her own birthday before she ditched the lot of them.

She and I would still be in touch, squeezing in a meeting at Starbucks here and there. No big deal. The fact that I didn't see her as often didn't bother me much because we'd always meet up again. When we first met, we just hit it off. We went to a teacher's inservice at the Natural History Museum and I remember browsing the gift shop with her and cracking up over what they sold there. We had the same sense of humor and could easily makes each other laugh hysterically. When I got pregnant, she cried with joy for me and when I miscarried, she cried with me again. That was the kind of friend she was.

Now, I hardly see her and it does bother me. VERY MUCH so because I feel that I am being discriminated. She did end up being baptized and some time later she decided that it wasn't for her. That is my assumption because we never talked about it. Why did we never talk about it? Because it was NONE OF MY BUSINESS!!!. Like I said earlier, it shocked me when she told me she was looking in my church and I felt it necessary to tell her that it is a big deal to become LDS. I'm all for telling people what I believe and why I believe only if they ask. I am not for being pushy. So the minute she decides that it wasn't for her (just like I thought she would per past experiences) what does she do? Ditches me. SO completely.

And the sad thing is that I saw her do this to other friends and I sort of brushed it off. I guess if she had ditched me back when she was Buddhist or Goth (with the Goth thing she sort of did), back when she ditched our other friends, it wouldn't have bothered me as bad. Friendships ebb and flow. We get busy, get in a different groove, etc. The fact that she ditched me because I am active LDS really bothers me, actually more than bothers me, it really hurts me. Does this just go back to the thought that only like people should be friends with like people? That was I think sometimes. I have friends of different religions, backgrounds, and political persuasions so I try not to make assumptions about what or why people do and say what they think. It surprises me though that some friends of mine, only have friends of the same belief background,politically and religious. Seriously, some friends can honestly say none of their friendships are Republican because they are they who shall not be named. Some friends can say that all their friends are good old conservatives and they couldn't imagine having friendships with the Godless side. OK I digress here a little.

I think I am not judgemental. I firmly believe that I have no right to tell people what they should believe or think or do. So that our friendship would be over because of religion is astounding to me. Especially because I wasn't rushing her to baptism. As usual, I was the voice of caution so I resent being hammered into a stereotype....religious nut, freak, etc. Just because other people who call themselves Christians act in ways that are offensive, pushy, etc does not mean that I act that way!

I even called her on it last year and she was apologetic ...she was busy etc etc. But I felt that was a ruse. I know her M.O. She probably vented to the next friend about why was I making her feel bad along with some choice words on why I bug her. This was 2/2009. We finally met up in the summer of 2009 and then nothing.

So as you can see, this has been stewing for sometime.

Despite the hurt and the bad, I always remember the good and I miss it. It just feels like a betrayal of sorts. Yes, I understand that life gets busy. But really? How convenient that you stop calling the minute you decide not to be LDS. That's right. You stopped calling, not me.

I know I take these things hard. I generally like to keep my friends. So I tried one more message... A" Hey how's it going....been crazy busy..I'm sure you too..Thanks for being a good friend (ok I know...sarcastic, passive aggressive....not mature) I tend to lash out when I am hurt.
No response....I want to say "Go to Hell." But I won't ...not yet anyways. I did say...."Ok I get it. Good luck with everything." Nice. I'm such a jerk sometimes. But in the interest of keeping this blog real...you get a bit of Good Jenn with a lot of the BAD Jenn.

On an unrelated topic, I am extremely tired all the time.

Mr.Manners

2010-04-11T20:10:00.002-06:00

Today in church, the nursery person brought me Tom. As he walked into a room full of people, he sort of yelled happily "POO-POOs! POO-POOs!"

So I took him to the bathroom to change him. As he laid there in his usual position (arms crossed behind his head) he said "Tank you!"

I was quite charmed by that and replied "You're welcome! Good Boy for saying Thank you!" (We are trying to teach him manners, he refuses to say please but will suprise us with a thank you.)

He responsed by wiggling on his back and yelling, "ELMO! ELMO!!"

Yay Blurb

2010-04-06T11:30:00.005-06:00

I use to scrapbook...a ton. Since Tom-o came into our family, I haven't had the time nor the inclination to scrap. Oh sure I still do one a year for this small 8x8 book. I generally scrap the holiday picture and journal about that particular year....and see the year go by...and see the wrinkles and aging occur, not only in me but in the kids. I am also determined to finish Tom's first year scrapbook. I am up to 6 months on his...only because during Conference Weekend I scrapped away while listening. And I realized that I still love scrapbooking...just maybe not all the time and only for very special pictures.

Because I have discovered the ease of Blurb. I know you can fancy it up with page colors and you could using a digital scrapbooking software and downloads those to blurb but I went with just the regular book.

They have different sized books and so many different templates for your pictures. You can also create your own templates to fit your pictures. SOOO easy. I love that I don't have develop the pictures and the book is flat and not bulky.

What to Expect when Kissing an Asthmatic

2010-04-02T00:00:00.002-06:00

When I kiss Jerry, as I am closing in for the kill, he does two things:

1. A look of near panic flickers in his eyes and face.

2. He takes a huge, deep breath.

Then he kisses me.

It's pretty funny.

April Fool's Day

2010-04-01T21:54:00.002-06:00

We started April Fool's Day with Rachel telling me that there was a mouse in her room. The eager smile tipped me off at once. So I said: "What??? A Mouse...ewww...show me." to which she yelled gleefully, "April Fool's!"

I then told Jerry and Rachel we'd be having eggs for Breakfast. ...April fool's! (made with whipped cream and peach halves)

I packed Rachel's lunch with many a worm. I tried to scratch on April Fool's with a toothpick but then opted for a note.

The sandwich was also very wormy. Rachel was smiley when I picked her up. She told me that all the kids in her class were crowding around her to see her lunch. She was also told that her mom is "silly." Praise indeed.

When she came home we made fish sticks, ketchup and mixed veggies. (Sugar wafers covered in PB and Bran Flakes, Jam and Airhead rolled into shapes)

Then I made a pie for dinner. Chocolate pie with Ice cream topping and caramel. (Shepherd's Pie)

Karaoke at Home

2010-03-30T19:04:00.003-06:00

I love how she is "emoting." Ever since we've been going to Karaoke on Tuesday nights, she's loved this song.

Do not share with his friends

2010-03-28T09:55:00.002-06:00

It's rather nice to have a husband who will watch three versions of Jane Austen's Emma and two versions of Sabrina....and enjoy it.

Adventures in car repair and breathing

2010-03-26T08:13:00.004-06:00

The last week has brought many unexpected things.

1. During Rachel's Spring Break, after her dentist appointment, the car wouldn't start. Jerry came to look at and figured that the fuel pump was out. We had to get the car towed to the repair place. It wouldn't be finished until the next morning. So imagine the whole family smushed into the truck. Also, the amount of money dropped into this repair-NOT FUN!

2. Sunday, Tom had problems breathing. I came home from church (thereby missing another Sunday of teaching Sunday School....:) ) and while he napped, I looked up some of the symptoms on the Internet. He was retracted, you could see his ribs when he was breathing and it was just not normal. So I call our ped., and she said to go to Urgent care. Which I did by myself while Jerry was home with Rachel. I think we both thought, he'd get some meds and we'd be on our merry way. That's not how it turned out. When I got there, there was a two hour wait. I waited for a half hour until they took his vitals. While I waited, I chatted with some grandparents there. I could hear them going on about how cute Tom is and about his eyes in Spanish. When the grandfather asked me a question in a spanglish sort of way, I just answered in Spanish and they, of course, were suprised. The usual comment being "Wow , you don't look like you could speak Spanish." I also got compliments, "que hablo muy bien el español." Well, compliments do soothe the soul, especially to this about-to-freak-out-Mom.

When they took his vitals, his oxygen was at the low 90's to which they said that his lungs are really strong to get that much while he was working so hard, but as he was working too hard at breathing, he jumped to the head of the line and we were brought back to urgent care.

Naturally, I freaked a little. Crying while clutching my baby...etc. You may be wondering why I freaked as it is RSV season and many babies have to be nebulized,etc. You may recall the Polly Pocket Shoe eating incident and Tom's propensity for eating things that he shouldn't. Well a month ago, Icaught him with an overturned garbage can and he was sucking on some pistachio shells. I got them out but this last month I watched him, hoping that he didn't swallow or aspirated them.

I had a niece who died when she was 17 months old. She had RSV and would stop breathing and they couldn't figure it out until the autopsy where they found a peanut in her lung that had gotten infected. It didn't show up on the xray because it is organic. As a result, with Rachel and Tom, I have been paranoid that the same thing could happen again.

I explain all of this to the doctors and they were actually really understanding about my paranoia. They did xrays and they said that his lungs were consistent with a viral illness/allergy/future asthma, that either side was not strained because of a foreign object and reassured me that if he hadn't had trouble breathing the last month, that there wasn't anything there. However, they did say that if this problem continues, they would look into scoping him

So they nebulized him. He was not happy about that. Halfway through screaming and trying to keep the mask on him, he fell asleep. When I was done, he perked up and started running around and tried to get his jacket on to leave. That was nice that there was a reprieve because earlier, he was so uncomfortable that I couldn't just hold him sitting down, I had to stand up and walk and hold him. Eventually, he started getting fussy and since he was still breathing hard, they admitted him. We got there at 4:00pm and at 11:00pm we were taken to his room.

They put him on oxygen and while I was holding him, he was fine. We fell asleep for a bit on the cot. I woke up and tried to put him in the crib. He screamed, cried and ripped off the tubing. Eventually the doctor came, checked on him and gave him antibiotics for his ear infection and steriods for his breathing and a respiratory therapist came in to neb him. We fell asleep again and I woke up when I realized that the awful breathing was gone. Then Tom was able to sleep in his crib and I got a few hours of slepp. At 6am, I woke up to Tom sitting up in the crib saying "MAMA!"

We stayed in the hospital til about 1 when we were discharged. He was tested for RSV and other viral stuff which came back negative, probably because Tom fought the nurses about getting swabbed.

He's had two follow-ups at the Ped. and all is well. They all suspect that T will eventually have asthma and that the viral thing triggered it. It was his first episode so for future colds and stuff, I will have to be vigilant about his breathing. They gave us a nebulizer for such occurences

I might be able to let go of the pistachio thing....maybe.

It's hard being a mom!

An irrelevant thought

2010-03-19T09:03:00.000-06:00

Who do you think you would be in the Middle Earth universe?

As much as I would love to be an Elf or a shieldmaiden of Rohan, deep down in my heart of heart, I know I am a hobbit. Oh, not because of personality but because of the physical attributes of being brown-haired and short.

So if I had happened to be an extra in the movies, they would have cast me as a hobbit.

Who would you be?

Just keep swimming...swimming swimming..what do we do..we SWWWWIMMMMMM!

2010-03-18T10:24:00.007-06:00

I hate this woman.

I have been doing Jillian Michaels videos with my friend Misty since last August. We've moved up from half hour workouts to 1 hour. We work out about two to three times a week and I have even moved up a hand weight size.

That being said, I hate working out! Hate it with a passion! If I lived somewhere walkable, then I wouldn't need to do these stupid videos. One can inevitably see (and hear) me cursing Jillian out in a creatively clean way. Here's a list of things that irritate me about Jillian and her videos which leads me to scream at the video and pretend that I am punching her with my hand weights.

1. Her counting is WAY OFF! When we are doing some reps, or cardio move and she says we have 10 left. This is her counting. "10, 9,8,7,6,5, "Ok don't give up on me, you have 4 left. You can do this, (blah blah blah,) 4, (more motivating crap that she spews that takes up a good 10 seconds,) 4,3,2,1." When one's arms are shaking and all that is being thought is "Ok 4 more, " You don't mess with me mentally!!

2. She demonstrates the move for like two seconds and than goes to "check" form. So she is NOT EVEN DOING THE MOVE!!! She's blabbing on and on and then joins you for the last two seconds. (Granted, not like she needs it)

3. I personally think she is patronizing to the women in the video.

4. The music sounds like "Psycho" or "The Omen."

I'll admit I'm getting results, slowing but surely as I do not work out for hours a day. Could it be that I can write the word "semi-ripped" and "Jenn" in the same sentence?

Yes, yes I can. I don't think I will every be truly "muscle" due to the top heavy-rubenesque-short-waisted figure of mine but it is quite satisfying to see some lines of definition on my abs, to see a muscle in my arm and know that they are starting to resemble Michelle Obama's arms.

I like the feeling I have after the workout is over. I like feeling healthy and fit. But I do kick and scream and verbally abuse everyone in a 3 mile radius of me. Thanks Misty, for putting up with me.

The depressing thing is if I want to maintain the definition, I have to keep on working out. What??!!!. I just can't get myself to where I want, weight-wise and toned-wise and calorie-deficit wise and then STOP?

Sigh.

Endure to the end, right?

Regarding the Keep Calm and Carry on Poster

2010-03-12T11:53:00.002-07:00

Rachel liked the poster quite a bit, especially after I explained what it meant. She told me she wanted a big pink one to go in her room rather than a small framed one (I bought a stack of notecards for 4x6 frames)

We were driving in Abq and I was behind an extremely slow car and as I was grumbling and pseudo cursing, Rachel says, "Mom, Keep Calm and Carry on."

I love it when my child reprimands me. I started laughing and told her that she was right.