Disagreements

We often play a rhyming game when we travel.  Ever since the episode when Braeden rhymed casino with cappuccino and it took us 30 days (give or take) to figure it out, we have a hard and fast rule that you have to pick words that have the same number of syllables.

It was Mark's turn and we had to pick a word that rhymed with liar.  Emma and Adam kept trying words like fire and mire.  "They don't have the same number of syllables!" I protested.

Everyone else argued that they do.  They sound completely different to my ears and no one agrees with me.

*****

Adam told me he sees the Indian princess on Mt. Timpanogos facing one way and I told him I see it going the other way.  He googled it and told me his way was right.

I told him that was terrible and he had ruined Mt. Timpanogos for me (which is unfortunate because I see it every day).

When we got home, I googled it and found this:

I feel so much better (besides the use of quotation marks).  It was a dark and dismal world when Mt. Timpanogos was ruined.

And it turns out the 2002 Olympics backs me up:

On second thought, that backs Adam up.  Wasatch County is on the other side of Mt. Timpanogos....

Adam said I didn't need to worry about it; there isn't really a (gigantic) princess buried up there. 

Do we know that for sure?

*****

We are painting Emma's room tomorrow.  She wanted to paint the trim and I said no.  Painting trim is a slippery slope and I didn't want to go down that path.

So, since Emma is painting her room, Mark wants to paint his.  He was with me at Home Depot and picked out colors.

When he showed me his selection, I had no words.  He told me the brown in the middle was for the trim.  I must have looked stricken.  He said, "Keep in mind, I'm color blind."

Oh my goodness.  He is exceedingly color blind.  I hugged him.  "I love you, Mark.  I will protect you from yourself."

Emma said, "Why does he get to paint his trim and I can't paint mine?"

"He doesn't," I said.  (He also doesn't get to use any of those colors he is holding in the above picture.  I think ever.) The best way to avoid an argument with Mark is to let him carry home really terrible paint chips from the store.  We never go to Home Depot without him picking up some paint chips and going to look at appliances to see what the latest offerings are.

When you're disagreeing about syllables and mountains, you don't have the energy to disagree with Mark about paint colors.

Some lists

Staying with the family:

1- It was fun to be together.  We sat around the long table, taking a love language test.  Much laughter ensued.

2- I liked visiting.  I followed Olivia around while she was tidying up their room and thought out loud, planning some YW activities.  When Marianne came in I told her we were having a presidency meeting.  If Marianne and Olivia and I were in a presidency, I feel like we could really be something.  (I'd try my best to let them do everything.)

3- You kind of forget how loud and chaotic it can be with little ones.  They're darn cute though.

4- Since everyone else went hiking except for me and my knee, I got to email Braeden.  It is the perennial bright spot of my week.  Ever since that kid was born, he was the sun and I was a planet.

5- We enjoyed going to Tuacahn.  I was tired/it was late.  Live theater is always a delight though.  Add people flying to Neverland and you've got a good time.

6- A low point of the vacation was Morgan getting a concussion and a trip to the ER.  He and Mark were leaping over the couch.  When there are injuries, Mark's usually involved somehow.  It's been that way his whole life.  He should become a doctor.  Or at least an EMT.  It would be handy for his lifestyle.

7- I felt reassured by the little knot of concerned parents and aunts and uncles we made at the bottom of the stairs, late at night, discussing Morgan and concussions.  We all love that kid and I know we would have felt the same love and anxiety if it were any one of our children.

8- The first night of the trip, our mom texted to see if we'd made it safely.  She wrote, "I'm glad you all like each other so much."  And it's true.  We do.

The drive home:

1- We stopped at the St. George temple and went to the visitors' center.  There was a sign in French and a group from France taking a tour.  There were missionaries guiding the tour.  In French.

2- Emma slipped into the tour group and tried to see how much she could understand.  Then, she emailed her French teacher all about it.  Madame Tyler emailed her right back and also gave her a French assignment for the summer.

3- I think that's called getting what you deserve.  Don't email your teachers in the summer is the takeaway lesson.

4- Mark made me laugh so hard, I almost choked.  He's dangerous.

5- We stopped at two Maveriks.  I told Adam I think I like Maveriks because they remind me a little bit of California Adventure (and they also have pebble ice and fresh limes for your Diet Coke).  It's the little things.

6- We played a game where we had to each pick a job for each other.  If the person chose your job, you got a point.  Emma won.  She was good at coming up with dream jobs for each of us.

7- We modified the game and had to come up with horrible jobs.  I won.  (Adam: head of a commission only sales team.  Emma: a sales rep selling medical equipment to doctor's offices.  Mark: one of those street performers that entertains by holding perfecting still.)

8- Then we had to come up with ways to torture each other.  Which would be more tortuous?  I won again.  Handily.  (Adam: hands covered in Vaseline with no way to clean them off. Emma: sitting in a car on a long road trip between two super talkative/annoying people with really bad grammar.  Mark: stuck in a small room, surrounded by lasers.  If he moves more than a fraction of an inch, he'll receive an electric shock.)

9- I'm not sure what this says about me that I'm good at knowing how to make my family miserable.   

10- I think it says about Mark that he doesn't like to hold still. 

When we got home:

1- I had three ripe tomatoes on my plant.

2- Mark took a bike ride.  Because is that kid ever tired?

3- Ammon texted that he had Mark's swimsuit which we'd left behind.  (We had the fewest people and no little children and we are the ones who left something behind.)

Family vacation

Yesterday my dad said he thought we would all kill each other.

This morning at breakfast, Olivia said, "So I just need to eliminate Marianne."

I said, "Daddy was right!  It's happening."

Ammon offered to form an alliance with Olivia.

Really, though, Olivia was wondering if it was her bread sitting on the counter or if it belonged to someone else.  She was asking all of us, to eliminate contenders.

So we aren't ready to kill each other yet.

It has been a bit lively.

Yesterday I spoke in church at our ward.   Olivia and her family came to listen to me, which was kind of them.  Then, Olivia and I took our girls and headed to Sandy for church part II.  Clarissa's mission president and his wife, Annette, are home from their mission and were speaking in church.  Coincidentally, Annette is also my mom's cousin.  I enjoyed the meeting a lot and got to meet Annette and my mom's other cousin Nancy (who reads my blog...Hi Nancy!).  It was after that meeting that my dad predicted his children killing each other.

What can I say?  He's an upbeat guy.

From there we hurried hurried hurried and went back to my house to reunite with husbands and sons (they had finished out church at our building--Edgar was Adam's team teacher in primary).  We then drove to St. George.

We are all staying in a lovely house in the red desert.  Red deserts are my favorite.  I like being here with these people too.  Edgar made us an amazing dinner last night.  His love language is making amazing dinners and I am so OK with that.  Marianne took a picture and I said, "You'd better not put that on Facebook."  I hate it when someone puts an ugly picture of me on Facebook.  Then I went there this morning and stole the picture.  So good thing she put it on Facebook...

Last night was raucous.  It was a whole lot of shushing because some of the children were trying to sleep and a whole lot of getting mad at Mark because that kid riles up his younger cousins.  He could have a career in warming up crowds for entertainers and politicians. 

Adam and I spent a sleepless + miserable night.  (Turns out that was a common complaint around here.)  When you're a finicky sleeper, like me, there's no place like home.

This morning everyone bustled off to hike in Zion National Park and I decided to stay home because of my ring ding knee.  I'm tired of that thing.  I know I should go to a doctor/physical therapy but I don't want to.

It is nice to be here alone in the silence though.  Silence can be beautiful.  Also, my missionary will be emailing at some point and I will be here front and center, to receive the email.

I may even take a nap....

Summer days

Emma is on the home stretch with her closet.  It was ridiculously full--odds and ends stuffed in every corner.  Yesterday afternoon she said, "I don't know what to do next."

Her entire bed was full of a small portion of what had been in the closet.  (And seriously, her closet isn't that big, it was just that packed.)  I pointed to something and asked, "What do you want to do with this."

"Throw it away," she said.

"Put it in the hall.  What about this?"

"I don't know."

"Do you use it regularly?"

"No."

"Put it in the dungeon."

Emma looked at me sort of wonderingly.  "What are you doing right now?" she asked.  "Will you stay here?  I need your help."

Since she never says that and it quite flatters me, I said, "Of course."  I scooted some stuff over to make a spot for me on the bed. 

"I get so distracted," Emma said.  "I do things like this." She showed me some poetry she'd written with a little magnetic poetry set she found in the closet.

So I kept her on task and we chatted.  "What should I write a blog post about?" I asked her.

"Mark," she said.

Later Mark and I were sitting on the deck, which is my favorite place in the world to be when the sun is setting.  I asked him, "What should I write a blog post about?"

"Me," he said.

So here I go.  This is Mark this summer.

(And I can really write anything because Braeden is my only child interested in my blog.)

I am almost always awake first but Mark is close behind me.  He doesn't have the sleep in skills of Emma.

Yesterday Mark and I were weeding side by side and talking about rattlesnakes.  I told him my dad killed one with a shovel when I was a little girl.  Mark laughed and said, "Of course he did.  Grandpa is so manly all he needs to kill a snake is a shovel and to wear Old Spice."

(Mark is a big fan of Old Spice.)

Mark loves music from the '80s and also dance electronic music (which I think is kind of terrible).  He sings all the time but if I ask him to sing for someone, he refuses.

I often think Emma is my most stubborn child but I'm not sure.  It could be Mark.

I bought Mark a subscription to Popular Mechanics for his half birthday because I thought he would love it.  He does.

Yesterday he said he wants to give the gun back to Ammon.  He said he is not really comfortable with killing a squirrel after all.  I told him that's fine.  He likes the idea of hunting, the thrill of the chase, but he's the boy who wouldn't read Charlotte's Web when he was little.  He looked at the cover filled with a picture of all the animals and flat out refused.  He said, "You can just look at that picture and know one of the animals is going to get it."

Years ago Adam read, Where the Red Fern Grows to our older two.  He never read it to Mark.  It probably would have been the undoing of that boy.

Mark loves to ride his bike.  The other night Adam and I were sitting on the deck and we watched a lanky rider far away up on the trail.  I knew immediately it was Mark.  He has tell-tale long limbs. 

Besides the sunset, Mark provides part of the show each evening.  He goes out on the trampoline and we watch him do tricks from the deck.  Adam calls down suggested feats and I say to Adam at least once a night as we watch him flip and spin and flop and maneuver, "He has such long legs."

After jumping and jumping, he runs up to us, panting.  He usually wants ice cream.

Summer on the East Coast

There were a lot of things to like about living on the East Coast.  The summer weather was not one of them.  It was sort of a shock for a girl who had grown up in the desert.

Water really did slide down the outside of cold drinks--that wasn't just an effect for Coke commercials!

Also, when we opened our refrigerator in our apartment that didn't have air conditioning, a cloud of condensation would billow out.  It was like we had liquid nitrogen in there or something.

We removed the light fixture from Braeden's room and installed a ceiling fan instead.  (Well, Adam did.  I probably contributed by keeping one-year-old Braeden out of the way.)  Still, it was hot.  Braeden would wake up from naps with wet hair, his curls soaked in sweat.  He was always completely amiable though.  He'd smile and beam his expressive personality all over that hot summer.

Maybe that prepared him for now.

Yesterday Rebecca (Rebecca who makes my day all the time) texted me this picture:

I asked her if that was sweat or rain.  She said sweat.  She said with the humidity it was 100 degrees.

I'm happy to see it doesn't curtail his smile, or his...accessorizing.

Update

Mark

He was out early, hunting.  In his pajamas.

He hasn't killed anything yet, but not for a lack of effort.  In related news, we need to buy more BBs....

Emma

After weeks of trying, Emma was called in for her first gig at what she hopes to be her job.

There was much rejoicing.

Braeden

Last week, he asked me for a list of questions.  This week he sent me a 6 minute video, answering my list.  I loved it!  Most of my questions were of the nagging mother variety.  He answered them.  Yes, he's drinking a lot of water (it's hot and humid there) and no, he's not wearing sunscreen (bad, bad, bad).  I asked him what he is spending his money on (more accurately his parents' money) and he just evaded the question.

He did send some pictures though.

If he weren't such a cute boy, I maybe wouldn't miss him so much.

But I might.

Even though he doesn't wear sunscreen and avoids financial questions.

Adam

I overheard this conversation:

"Emma, do you want to do some errands with me?"

"How soon do you want to go?  I don't look presentable."

"What do you mean?  You look great."

So she went with him.  Dads are the best.

Me

I have to speak in church on Sunday.  I don't know how that happened.  Have you ever had a phone conversation and amiably said, "Yes," then got off the phone and thought wait, what?!? 

Because I did.

Yesterday

I like the 4th of July in Pleasant Grove.  It is always appropriately hot and sunny and I love how patriotic everyone is around here.  People love the flag.  There's a group that fly a 30' x 60' flag in the canyon by our house.  It is beautiful!  They illuminate it at night and we not only see the bright flag from our front yard, but we see the big shadow cast by the flag as well.

 Sunday night a group of 100 people walked the flag up the street.

Yesterday morning we had a 4th of July neighborhood breakfast.  It was also a ward breakfast because they are pretty much the same thing.  We enjoyed our time and I liked seeing everyone in their red, white and blue.

Adam and I went to the grocery store for our last minute dinner needs and I've never been there when it was so busy!  Employees were stocking shelves as fast as the hordes of (patriotically dressed) people could grab things.  I heard lots of people greeting each other by name and times like that remind me that Pleasant Grove is kind of like a small town in that way.  It also made me happy that everyone we saw at the store was getting ready for a party.  No wonder everyone seemed to be in a good mood.

My good mood was crushed when we got home and we saw the squirrels on the deck!  I know we have lots of animals in our yard.  They are destructive and we have to be aware of what we plant because they will eat it.  I'm OK with that.

I'm not OK with squirrels on the deck, standing on their hind legs, eating my tomatoes!  War was declared.  I grabbed my broom to chase away the squirrels and I knocked over a table and broke some of the glass top and I broke part of my broom and the squirrels got away just fine and within a few minutes, they were back.

So I did what any sane person would do and I texted Ammon and told him to bring his BB gun.  I would have had him bring a more powerful firearm--because he has them--but the city is sort of particular about things like that.

I think this qualifies as self defense though.  Tomato defense?

We had an enjoyable time with Ammon and Melanee.  We went on the deck at dusk and enjoyed the show.  In our old neighborhood, I always felt like I was in a war zone and this is exponentially better.  I love watching blooms of light bursting all over the valley.  It's beautiful.

I'm grateful to pause and celebrate America.  I just want the squirrels to be warned about the constitution we follow.  Especially a certain amendment.

Stay out of my tomatoes!  (Mark is on squirrel patrol and he just completed the rifle shooting merit badge at scout camp.  You have been warned.)