Memorial Day at Capistrano Beach

We headed out on Friday after school (Oliver's last day, Brenden's field day). The drive was long and boring -- 12 hours -- our longest yet. June started tugging at her seatbelt before we even got on the freeway in Provo. There were a few moments of sleep. We arrived at 2am.











Then there was bike riding















And playing in the sand









And warming by the fire (plus plenty of s'mores)









Plus playing in the water, having fun with cousins, grandma, grandpa, uncle, aunt, natalie. Great food. Great accommodations.


And then all too soon the dreadful drive home.

11 years!

Today is our 11-year anniversary! That's pretty impressive, I think. Yay for us! I love you, Scott.

On Friday we packed up the car (convinced Christine to come along) and drove west. We are spending the weekend with Scott's family at their lovely beach house in Capistrano Beach. Rain was forecast, but today was a beautiful 65 degrees and sunny. Tonight we made s'mores over a fire on the sand under the stars listening to the waves. Couldn't be better! We'll be back on Tuesday. Then home for a week and then right back for Zackrison Family beach week. Woohoo! Pictures to come...

booooorrrrrrriiiiiiinnnnnnngggggggg.....

I'm so bored. I don't know why. I have plenty to do and am busy but I've just been feeling bored every day this week. So bored that all I can think about is shopping and making cookies. I made cookies last week. They were delicious. The whole double batch of them. I can't make cookies again. June has enough clothes and I'm out of money. I can't go shopping any more. Cleaning the house is boring. Weeding the yard is boring. Cooking is boring. Blogging is boring. I'm in a rut.

So in that spirit, here are a few random things that have been going on around here the past few days. I'm too bored to tie them together in a meaningful way or come up with an over-arching theme. (I'm also too bored to try to tie in that picture at the top. I just thought it was cute.)

OH NO!!! WHAT HAPPENED TO YOUR BACK YARD? THERE'S MUD EVERYWHERE!!!
--Trey Widtfeldt, age 5

We're starting plans to work on the back yard landscaping this summer. It will be a scaled back version of our master plan, but will at least be nice to have some grass and no more dirt. I mentioned to the landscaper that I'd like to have a garden plot so we scoped out locations and he said, "well then it's time to get your seeds started." I've never planted a garden from seeds -- always just get the starts from the nursery. But figured I'd give it a try this year when I realized how cheap seed packets are. Oliver helped me plant some herbs (Cilantro, Dill, Basil, Parsley, and Mint) and his special request was pumpkins. We also did some tomatoes, spinach, peppers, squash, beans, onions, and carrots. I have no idea what I'm doing but hopefully some of it will work. I hope by the time they are ready to be transplanted to the garden, there will be a garden for them to go into.

I LOVE corn on the cob

I was so excited when I saw unshucked corn on the cob at the grocery store the other day. This is my absolute favorite summer treat. (That and wearing skirts are about the only good things about summer.) Just throw one on the BBQ until the husk is charred (about12 mins). Then peal the husk back (the silks should just fall off) and butter and salt away. My favorite topping is celery salt. (BTW this technique also works in the broiler.) Eating corn this way reminds me of our happy Thursday nights at the South Pasadena Farmer's Market.

It's about time

June finally discovered the bathroom, complete with toilet paper unravelling and toilet water splashing. Totally gross.

Two-by-two

Oliver is excited because he's finally started playing chords on the piano. The boys continue their lessons every week and despite all the complaining about practicing, are progressing quite nicely.

More about June

Here is an impressively wild hair day. And June's new favorite activity.

Girls are dumb

The other day when Brenden, Oliver, and Chandler went out to play in the cul-de-sac, 8 girls emerged from the various houses around to play with them. That's pretty good odds for us. There are two girls in particular who seem quite in love with Brenden (both second graders). They were doing the typical chasing, hitting, teasing that girls do when they like a boy. Then they wrote something with chalk on the sidewalk then Brenden got a water bottle and sprayed them then they ran away acting mad which made Brenden feel bad and he ran inside in tears. He was very upset. The girls came to the door to apologize but he didn't want to see them. I suggested they could write him a note. I tried to talk to him to figure out what happened or why he was so upset and turns out they wrote "We hate Brenden and Chandler" on the sidewalk and that had really hurt his feelings. So then I had to have "the talk" with him. (Well the talk that comes before "The Talk.") The one about how when a girl likes you they will hit you and tease you and tell you they hate you but really they like you. Oh man. What are we getting into here?!

About a half hour later he'd calmed down and they came to deliver their notes. He apologized for throwing water on them, they apologized for being mean. It all ended nicely and he told me they'd decided to play together again tomorrow. I came into the office to find him feeding the notes to the shredder. I missed the first one, but asked to read the other and he handed it over. This is awesome.

Brenden gets some air

Scott took the boys out motorcycle riding on Friday and Brenden found an area to learn/practice some jumps. They're having a great time with this new activity.

Other misc things to report for which there are no pictures...

* I've continued with the yoga, practicing about 5 mornings a week. I'm still enjoying it and hopefully getting stronger and better. It's been fun having Rachel & Christine come along a few times (even if I have to wake Christine up when I'm in the parking lot) and I miss them now that they're both off on various summer adventures this week.

* Scott's been working hard this week finishing up a new lullaby album (non-religious/more traditional lullabies) for Deseret Book. It's sounding really awesome so far. He's picked some great songs and singers and come up with beautiful arrangements. I'm very excited to have a new standard baby gift to give out. He's supposed to turn in the master on Wednesday so hopefully he'll get to take a bit of a break after that. (The artwork has gotten even worse for this one, so once again, please don't hold that against it -- it's a fantastic album.)

* Memorial Day is almost here! I'm very excited since June and I both have new white skirts which you can bet we'll be wearing on Monday!

uhhhhh.... thanks?

So on Saturday when we returned from our various errands and ball games, we were greeted by these lovely orange vintage schoolhouse chairs sitting on our front porch. I have no idea where they came from. Are they for me? Did they get mis-delivered? Did someone need me to store them for a while and they will come back eventually to retrieve them? They are in great shape (and according to the price tags left on them were quite a bargain) and might even look nice in my kitchen. There is some indication they were formerly a part of a set of 8. If I come to your house and you have the other four, that will give you away. I've asked around quite a bit, checked email, voicemail, looked for notes, but to no avail. They have become known, around our house, as the mystery chairs. If you have any information about above said chairs, please let it be known.

Alarming (but not)

BEFORE

AFTER

On Saturday afternoon, Brenden decided to warm up a piece of crumb cake left over from breakfast. He put it on a plastic plate and put in the microwave, just like he's seen me do a million times. The tricky thing about microwaves is learning how long to cook things. Brenden decided to do it for 2 minutes. I was outside playing with June and when I came back in to check on the boys, I was immediately hit with a cloud of smoke so thick I couldn't see to the other side of the room. And the smell was so strong I could hardly breathe. I found the boys sitting on the couch playing video games - completely oblivious to the fact that the house was about to burn down. I found the source of the smoke in the microwave and took the plate outside. I turned the fan on and opened all the windows and doors and the smoke eventually cleared. The plastic plate had melted through. The microwave still smells like burnt popcorn.

The most troubling parts of this story are:

1. How is it possible the boys didn't even notice?!
2. Why didn't the smoke detector go off?

This makes me slightly nervous about what might happen if there was a real fire. (But not enough to get rid of my microwave.)

Happy Mother's Day!

Before this day gets away from us completely, we just wanted to say a very special

Happy Mother's Day

to the two women who made our family possible. We love you so much and appreciate all you've done and continue to do for us.

Love, Scott & Sarah

working the system

A great deal of our time together during the days is spent fighting, not sharing, not playing nicely together, teasing, watching too much tv, playing too many video games, and eating too many treats. I can be heard very frequently saying things like, "let's speak nicely to each other" or "i'm setting the timer" or "stop fighting about dumb stuff" or "you're the older brother you need to set a good example" or "go outside" or "no more treats". By about 7:30pm I'm done. I know my Mom fuel runs out at 8pm so it's time to get into gear to get them to bed. So is it coincidence or have they cleverly figured out that at that moment that I start to say "it's time for bed" if they'll start playing nicely together and go outside and do all those things I've been nagging them all day to do, bed time will inevitably be extended. It is uncanny how every night the same thing happens. Do you think it would work to start threatening bed time in the afternoon and get the same effect? Anyway, here are a couple silly videos from too-late-to-be-outside last night. (Note that June has pretty much transitioned now and is a full-fledged biped.)

I., II. & III.

I. Accessories


June has started into her [apparently inevitable] accessorizing phase. She loves to find hats and necklaces and bracelets and cruise around the house with them. This is how I found her the other day. (BTW - she is completely capable of walking now, but she's not really convinced yet.)


II. Toys


What is the point to buying all those stupid toys when this is obviously way more fun. I'm seriously SERIOUSLY hard pressed to think of any of the "exciting" "essential" "impactful" toys that we got for Christmas that the kids have any interest in whatsoever. Oliver wanted to play "pretend you mailed me" all day today.


III. Window Box


Remember the project Scott was working on a while back where he got to use all his fancy tools? We got the flowers today and put it all together and it looks beautiful! Thanks so much Scott!

a gaggle of girls

First of all, it's time to introduce Gigi. Isn't she beautiful? Scott put the baby seat on today (great to make it more usable, so sad to lose the great looking rear rack) so we went on a family bike ride. The weather was perfect, the boys are strong enough to go up hills, and June had a great time. That is my idea of a perfect Saturday activity.

When we got back from our ride, there was a gaggle of girls waiting for us outside our house. When we rode up we heard them say, "There he is. There's Brenden!" There were about 8 of them, mostly from the neighborhood and they have become quite enamored with Brenden. They come by pretty much every day to see if he can play, and every time Brenden and his friends go out to ride bikes in the cul-de-sac, the girls are out within minutes to watch and hopefully join in. The best part is to see Brenden's reaction. He's polite and very occasionally he'll be slightly pro-active about hanging with them, but mostly he just couldn't care less. He seems oblivious to their affection and unimpressed with their attention. It's so awesome to experience this from the boys perspective now, having already lived it once from the girls perspective.


I wish I had my camera out when they were all standing on the curb waiting for us when we got home. Or when Brenden and his friend Chandler were riding their bikes down the street and they were all running behind them trying to keep up. Those were impressive sights that would have told the story better. Here they are playing with the plasma cars and riding bikes down the neighbor's driveway and looking on and hanging out.

So how will this thing play out over the next few years? Do we have trouble on our hands? He's just so little. Surely we don't need to talk about girls yet?!?!

bitter sweet

My lemon tree is sad and so am I. The other day I came down and found the largest of the lemons had fallen off prematurely. It wasn't ready yet. It was still only about 2 inches long and pretty hard. It needed more time to ripen. Then I noticed the leaves were looking a little droopy and yellowish. I started doing some research and figured out I'd probably induced root rot when I re-potted it and covered the trunk too high with dirt. I didn't know you had to be careful not to cover any of the trunk - only fill the dirt to barely cover the roots. So I've been trying to nurse it back to health. I gave it a bleach wash to try to kill the bacteria and next I think I need to re-pot it with a better draining soil mixture. Today the other 3 lemons with promise fell off. They were smaller but quite yellow. We cut them open and decided to juice them and see if we could at least get our one glass of lemonade.










We did, and it was scrumptious, but it was bitter sweet (literally and figuratively) since it meant the lemons hadn't made it and the tree is barely clinging to life. More of the leaves have dropped and it's looking even more droopy. Is there any hope? I keep thinking that if the weather will finally warm up I can put it outside and the sunlight, warmth, and fresh air will heal it. But I don't know. The whole thing is just very sad and depressing.

my boys

Off for some more male bonding quality father/son time in the Provo foothills.