Freshly painted toes...

After lunch, I decided to paint the trim on my back door. I've been caulking for the past week and now it was time for paint. I was taping off the door and around the trim. The wind was blowing slightly, frustrating me to no end. After painting a section, messing up, ripping the tape off I decided to leave it for another day. I put the kids down for naps with a disappointed feeling inside. I read my book for a minute but still felt crestfallen. Then I looked down at my feet. They were a bit dirty and in serious need for a pedicure. I frowned at them. So I closed my book and proceeded to paint my toes.

Every single time I paint my toes, I'm amazed at how good it makes me feel. A fresh coat of shimmery, iridescent pink with no chips, or scuffs brings my self esteem up! Ahhh. So now I'm feeling better and will figure out the door some other day.

And lastly, here's a gem I found on the camera.

Yikes!

I'll fix you...

Okay, so my Jeep is old. When we got it, I looked down at the console and there's a display that alerts the driver when something is amiss with the Jeep.

I thought to myself, "That's cool!!" Merril noticed it and said, "Ross's Mom's Jeep had one of those. It was always flashing something about the back lights."

Mostly, it doesn't do anything but show me the time and date. It's told me that I'm low on oil and washer fluid and have a door ajar.

Three weeks ago, the dreaded error message popped up, "Rear Lamp Failure." It seemed pretty stern for a light bulb being burned out. So I checked and noticed a brake light out. Fixed the light and turned on the Jeep, same error. I ignored it for a while to see if it would correct itself. No dice. I checked the web and that led me in the direction of license plate lights. Sure enough, one was out. I replaced it, jumped in the Jeep, cranked it over and REAR LAMP FAILURE. Urg. I went back to my first plan of ignoring it to see if it would go away. I then I thought about back up lights. Therein lies my problem. Something's wonky with the back up lights. They come on half the time. Do I really care? No. Do I want the error light to go away, YES! It blinks the entire time the jeep is on. This thing has become my nemesis.

Fast forward to today. Eyes narrowed and hands on hips, I attacked again. I read more about this common Jeep problem and one suggestion was to replace the neutral safety switch, which could be pricey and out of my skill set, or bypass the lamp outage module, cheap! So I pulled it out, yanked the appropriate resistor off the module board and reinstalled it. Ta da!!

Now if only I could make the Jeep have a smiley face on it.

Wishing school didn't start tomorrow...

I know I'm probably the only one, but I'm sad school starts tomorrow. Maxine wasn't excited last week but she was excited tonight. It'll fizzle soon, I promise. Summer is time for sleeping in, no schedules, no homework, no bedtimes, and general laziness. And well, I'm lazy. Last week, Maxine was lamenting that I don't home school her. I asked, "Why do you want to be home schooled?" She said, "So I can sleep in, stay in my pajamas all day and not leave the house." With a raised eyebrow I retorted, "That's no reason to stay home babe." Maybe if she was bullied, maybe if she was having a serious social dilemma, but to stay in her pajamas all day? Maybe we're more alike than I'd previously thought.

Australi-yah!

We had a super fun time! We mostly were winging the whole trip but here are a few highlights!

We were flying standby so we drove to LAX to catch our flight. We could've flown from Vegas but we were a little nervous about not getting on in Vegas and thus, missing the flight to Sydney.

We didn't know we needed visas to visit Australia so we didn't get on the flight the first night we tried. Since we drove, we just picked up our truck and stayed in a dive motel. The next day, we purchased our visas online and went to the Santa Monica Pier. The weather was cool, about 75 so it was a nice break from 110.

Then we went to the Griffith Observatory up by the Hollywood sign.

The observatory has been in movies like Transformers, Charlie's Angels 2, Yes Man, The Rocketeer, etc. The inside is a museum about planets and space! Very cool and very free! I would recommend it to anyone with kids!

So that night we got on the flight to Sydney. Merril and I were still standby but were able to get seats next to each other. There were personal tv screens for each passenger and there was a ton of movies, tv episodes, music videos and games that you could pick from. Merril and I watched about 4 movies each. If I decided I didn't like the movie, I could stop it and pick a different one. Super great!

We got into Sydney early in the morning, picked up a rental car, and went to see the famous Opera House.

This is Sydney's Harbour Bridge. (I didn't spell harbor wrong, that's how the Aussies spell it.) Tourists can climb to the top of it. We would've but didn't have time. We drove to Brisbane.

This is me driving on the right side of the car, on the left hand side of the road. I had the hardest time making right-hand turns.

We met up with our friends, Nate and Sarah, and fell asleep.

I made Nate find me some kangaroos. These were out at Turnboll or Turnbull or some little coastal town like that.

The next day we went out to Bribie Island for fish and chips and to see the most beautiful beach ever! Miles of white, clean, soft sand. It was most excellent.

Another night we took the ferry to around the Brisbane river and saw the Brisbane Temple. (My picture didn't turn out, we were going fast and it was dark.)

Mostly we just goofed off and hung out with friends. We had dinner at friend's houses, saw all their American muscle cars they were rebuilding and had a great time together without the kids.

On the way home, I got bumped to business class and Merril didn't. He told me to take the seat so I did. I felt out of place the whole time. I really tried to mind my manners for 14 hours. I belong in coach with my peeps. But the food was great, I ate on real plates with real silverware, and the bathroom is huge in business class. Some of the passengers were pretty snooty. Here's the menu.

I also got socks, lotion, a chapstick, a pen, an eye cover for sleeping, mints, a real pillow and a nice comforter to sleep with. The seat laid totally flat. I don't think it's worth it.

Just a few things I want to remember about Australia:

-Burger King is called Hungry Jacks

-A burger Aussie style comes with a fried egg and beets on it

-Ketchup is called tomato sauce

-Breakfast is called Brekky

-Eggs have smiley faces

-Tim Tams are a type of cookie and so delicious!! (You can buy them in the states, Pepperidge Farm makes them. I bought a package at Wal-Mart yesterday.)

-The toilet is called a dunney

-Sticky date pudding should always be ordered for dessert

-Woolworth's is huge over there but they left the states long ago

-Everything is so expensive! A candy bar is $3! So is a can of soda!

-Meat pies are very popular

-Australia is very clean, looks like Hawaii and sounds like Britain

-It was awesome!

Take off eh...

Merril and I leave tomorrow to go on vacation for 9 days to Australia!! It's for our 10th anniversary! Wahoo!! Are we bringing the kids?? NOPE!! I'm so excited! I've been doing laundry like a mad woman to pack enough clothes for everyone. The hardest part has been underwear. I have a week's worth solid, but 9 days worth of clean underwear is hard to come by at our house. Thanks to all who are pitching in to watch the kids!! Without you, this trip wouldn't be possible!

We'll be back on the July 29th!

Wireless Mouse...

Seriously, a wireless mouse is one of my very favorite inventions ever! Until the batteries die and I don't have any more AAs. I like to keep my skills sharp and navigating with keyboard shortcuts is doable. That being said, sometimes I just want to point and click.

Lovin' some glasses...

I purchased some funny glasses for Young Women's the other day. My kids inherited the leftovers. Juliet LOVES them!

She wears them while watching tv.

She even wore them to her nap. She fell asleep with them on.

About me...

I'm the type of person who doesn't like to make phone calls. But a text is somehow different!! I would much prefer sending a text to ask a question, rather than call.

I'm not a huge fan of Tai Pan Trading Co. (except for a small cookwares section.)

I love to peruse the Harbor Freight Tools catalog.

I love to fix things (think Tinker Bell but without the outfit).

I like to learn and try new things. I strive to be smarter.

I love good food! Especially dessert.

I love my husband, in a crazy "can't live without you" kind of way.

I have to have a shower EVERY day!

I have no ambition to get a job, ever.

I love to travel! It gives perspective.

I love the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints.

I miss my motorcycle.

Super Summer Tip of the Day...

I love to make homemade ice cream. I think it's super delicious! Creamy smooth! Yummy! So anyways, homemade ice cream requires rock salt. You can buy it at any grocery store and can get a 4-5 lb. bag for around $2-4 depending on the brand and the store.

Our water softener requires salt crystals, not the pellets. The first time I cracked open a bag I thought to myself, "That looks just like rock salt." So when I made ice cream last time, I checked on the salt crystal manufacturer's website to see if it could be used to make ice cream as well. Checks out it's perfectly fine for ice cream. The great thing is, you can get a 40 lb. bag of water softener salt crystals at Wal-Mart for $4.28. Now that's a whole lot of ice cream!

So when my water softener needs salt, I just save the bottom of the bag for ice cream!

Do you food storage?

I happen to love food storage lately. It's all due to my friend, Shauna, because she was the first person my age that had a sizable store of food in her house. Up until then, it had kind of been an abstract concept that I'd get to someday. She even gave me the idea of using tax return money to fund it! I started a year and a half ago. It loiters in the corners of my basement.

My favorite finds have been canned butter and canned cheese. I just think it seems awesome that butter can be canned. I have a recipe to bottle it at home with a pressure or water bath canner but haven't tried it yet. I want to try that and chicken!!

Food storage is like a huge insurance policy for me. I feel like saying, "Bring on the apocalypse!! I've got like beans and stuff!!" We use the beans, oatmeal and dehydrated onions pretty regularly. Wheat and apple slices less often.

Happy 4th of July weekend!!

Yeah! My garden is growing!

My garden got a late start this year because I made it bigger. Since I was digging out rocks, instead of planting seeds, it got planted around May. Around here, that's a pretty late start but it's starting to look great!

I planted tomatoes, onions, carrots, zucchini, green beans, yellow beans, jalapeno peppers (those were an accident, I meant to get bell peppers but still yummy), and russet potatoes. The potatoes were an afterthought. I finished planting everything I wanted to plant and had extra space, a rarity in year's past. The potatoes came up last week. Some things are still small; we had huge wind storms and then hail. Everything has been battered but a few weeks of nice weather has helped immensely.

Also, Juliet fell asleep on me after church. She still needs a nap but 1 o'clock church makes it hard to squeeze in a nap.

Other than that, I went to girl's camp last week and we had the best time. I was there from Wednesday to Saturday and the weather was great and the girls were too! Today I'm cleaning my house and doing a mountain of laundry! Yippee!

She's a thumb sucker no more...

Other than Juliet being a little grumpier than usual, she's doing very well! I can tell she's trying to figure out a new way to comfort herself without sucking her thumb, poor thing. But she hasn't sucked her thumb at all in days! The only side effects are she's the last kid to fall asleep and has a harder time getting over a upsetting situation. Even then, I'm sure those things will fade over the next few weeks as she adjusts.

Update: Day 2 of ceased thumb sucking...

Today Juliet threw a fit while trying to go down for an afternoon nap. Mostly from being overtired. I waited too long and she was tired from all the crying the night before. But, it was only 15 minutes and then she was off to dream land.

Tonight, she played around in her bed for a little longer than usual but then fell asleep without any crying or fussing or thumb sucking! Yeah! (I kept peeking in on her every 5 minutes and she kept smiling from bed like, "Why are you spying on me all the time?")

Someone asked what we're doing to keep her from sucking her thumb. She has a silky blankie that she would rub between her fingers while she sucked her thumb. For about 2 months, I said that the blankie would be taken back to its Mommy by the "blankie fairy" and then she'd have to stop sucking her thumb. The "blankie fairy" arrived on the eve of her 3rd birthday. She seemed okay with the idea until it went away, then she was very sad and said she wanted it back. We've also been painting her thumb with stuff specifically designed to make thumbs taste yucky. She likes to paint it herself, because it's like her own nail polish. I tried to put a sock on her hand before bed but she didn't want it. Mostly, she just knows she's not supposed to suck her thumb anymore. So she's thrown a few fits because she doesn't like the decision but is getting over it and hasn't sucked her thumb at all today.

So far things are looking good. It only took 3 days to break Maxine. Juliet appears to be on the same track! Keep your fingers crossed.

And Juliet had a birthday...

So I cleaned most of the day for my anniversary because it's also Juliet's birthday. When she turned 3, we told her she was going to stop sucking her thumb. We went to the store to get a present in celebration of the momentous occasion. She picked out a crown.

For her birthday she wanted, "shoes and a phone" and requested a pink cake with purple icing.

She did fine without sucking her thumb until bedtime. Then she cried for about an hour and a half. Hopefully tonight will be better.

Someone lost a bet...

10 years ago today, Merril and I got married!!

We were hanging out here in the shade, waiting for the photographer to load our whole families on the steps of the temple so we could stand in the front and take the traditional "family on the steps of the temple with the bride and groom in front" picture.

I'm sure there was someone out there who thought we wouldn't make it this far. I think we're happier than ever! Seriously though, we look like children. If my kids come to me when they're 20 and say they want to get married, I'm gonna roll my eyes and say, "Sure sweetie. Maybe when you grow up."

I'm amazed we didn't have to get legal guardians to sign the marriage license.

Anyhoo, I think getting married younger has advantages. We grew up together.

Wahoo 10 years! It's been a fun ride!!

Been busy...

So here's some picture catch up!

We went to the sand dunes with some friends to barbeque some dinner and have smores.

We went swimming.

And then I decided to take on a yard project!! The north side of my yard slopes badly towards the rear of the house. I went to the BLM and purchased a $14.50 permit for 1 ton of flagstone from a community pit. Then I made some stone stairs down the slope so the kids would stop sliding down. Jack snagged this picture of my working without telling me. My children must be terrified of me all the time because I furrow my eyebrows when I'm thinking or working. I look mean, but true to life.

Here's Jack standing on the stairs in his pajamas. If you can't tell by the sun, it's actually late afternoon in this picture. When I get involved in a project, I kind of let them do whatever. I'll attend to meals and naps, other daily routines are optional.

Then I decided I was sick of the slope and decided to make terraced levels down to the backyard!! I figured this would also help with the huge amounts of rain that collects in the backyard when it rains. And along the one side I decided to make raised bed grow boxes and plant blueberries, blackberries, strawberries, and raspberries. And then 2 more grape vines in the back yard.


Luckily I have a million rocks in my backyard to hold up the terrace levels.

So I did this all last week. May has been so mild but as soon as I planted, it decided to turn into a blast furnace. I might lose a few strawberries. Here are the bushes in the ground.

The blueberry bushes had some blueberries on them. I've been eating them just as fast as they turn blue!!

Holy moly. It was A LOT of work. Fortunately, I didn't have to get any new dirt but just rearranged the existing dirt!! The whole project was pretty cheap and looks 500 times better! Now if I could just find a way to hang out in the side yard all the time!!

I like welding, welding is fun...

I have a little spade that I use in the garden. It's a metal shovel tip with a wooden handle. Lately, the wood handle is breaking off because it has always been outside. I told Merril I need a new handle built for it. He had a piece of leftover pipe and said I could have it and weld it to the spade tip. He offered to weld it for me but I've always been intrigued by the welder and wanted to give it a go. The whole idea of passing electric current through metal and getting it so hot that it melts and fuses together. Very fun. Plus it throws pretty sparks. :)

(Welding helmets are important, we don't want burned retinas.)

And here's my new garden shovel. It'll take a million years for that handle to corrode off.

My bountiful basket ran dry this week...

So I've been participating in a produce co-op for a couple of months called Bountiful Baskets www.bountifulbaskets.org. It's been great for us because we get a lot of fruits and veggies for at least half of what I normally pay at the stores. Pick-up times are not negotiable, I don't get to choose the produce, and the website is a little wonky at times. That being said, I'm overwhelmingly satisfied with the amount of produce for $16.50. I can deal with the rest.

So fast forward to this week: The two volunteer gals who run the thing decided to take a week off for scheduled website maintenance and just because. I understand that. I see the need. If I were volunteering all those hours so a bunch of strangers could get a good deal, I'd be tired too. But ohmigoodness I went to the Wally World and got a package of blueberries and some grapes and spent $5! I felt so ripped off because I've really gotten used to paying $16.50 and getting an amazing amount of food. Amazing! So take the week off girls, but I need you next week!

Playing make believe...

Jack and Juliet love to play in the basement. It's generally a mess and there's cool stuff down there to get into. Today, they found a box of winter gear and a whole expedition was spawned. I'm not quite sure what it was all about but I know they were trekking long distances in the game.

Apparently Jack needed a walking stick to make it but Juliet was able to do it without shoes. This evolved from an earlier game where Jack was a farmer, thus the overalls. :)

Only a week and a half until school is out!

I don't know about you, but I'm looking forward to the summer. Some of you may say, "What am I going to do with all my kids when they're out of school?" Personally, I'm focusing on the mornings where I won't have to drag myself out of bed in order to drag Maxine out of bed. I can tell she's done for the year. I'm looking forward to a few months without so many schedules. More time hanging out and less time screaming, "Get your shoes on RIGHT NOW, or we're going to miss the bus!!" True, we'll have to come up with more activities to keep the kids occupied, but......I.......seriously.........can't........wait!

Moabites...

Every time we go to Moab, I wonder if natives call themselves Moabites. (Ruth, Moabite daughters-in-law, etc.) Anyhoo, we went camping in Moab with some friends. I had the best time! I think some other people did too.

We got there late Thursday night and had a hard time finding a spot to camp. So we camped at an overflow spot and then changed to a nice camp spot the next morning. We decided to go on a trail in the Scout. Merril and I built this shade top to keep the kids out of the sun. That PVC would not hold up in a roll, believe me.

Since the Scout has run beautifully for a year, it decided to act up while we were in Moab. Urg. Darryl and Shauna towed us on a couple of occasions!! You guys are the best! (Seriously, if you guys don't ever want to camp with such needy friends again, we'll understand.)

The kids had a great time playing in the dirt. Juliet rarely had a pair of shoes on. She also stood a little too close to the fire on a windy morning and singed the back of her hair.

We went hiking to Landscape Arch and had a few meltdowns on the way back to the truck. They seem happy in the picture.

And of course we had to try Potato Salad Hill. The Scout kept dying because of the incline. It was battling a fuel system problem.

Jack and Will, Shauna's son, fell asleep in the back of the Darryl's Jeep at one point.

Then one night a bunch of friends came to visit around the campfire and burn smores. Good times. I've never seen so many flaming marshmallows and kids whipping hot, poker sticks. I think we all kept our eyes.

Maxine made me a Mother's Day gift at school. We brought it so I could open it on Mother's Day. Merril surprised me with an egg slicer as a gift. Yeah!! Some of you might be thinking, "Egg slicer? What's up with that??" First of all, I LOVE to make egg salad sandwiches!! A few months ago, Jack bent and pulled all the wires on my old egg slicer. I haven't purchased a new one since. Merril saw me making egg salad a couple of days before we left for Moab and knew it was the perfect gift! He's REALLY good at thinking of gifts that I really want!

We went to church the next day and came home. I feel bad for the people we sat next to in church. I'm sure we stunk like campfire smoke.

I LOVE CAMPING!!