Where The Heck is Spring?

I'm ready for warmer weather! Here in Utah we keep getting little tastes of Spring, but then after one (sometimes two) days of truly warm weather we regress right back into winter. I'm TIRED of being COLD!! I'm ready for swimming, a slightly darker skintone, and Summer Sunrises/Sunsets. Like the sunrise we captured outside our kitchen window last year. Plus in my heart Spring is over anyway - Bekah picked ALL my daffodils!

The Newest Members of Our Family

We have two new members of our family. Over the weekend we bought a male and female beta fish. Aaron wanted to name the red male, Jack and Emma wanted to name the blue female, Cheesey. Don't ask me why - I have no idea. Emma wants to feed them all the time, and Mommy overfeeds them when it's her turn, (Jack steals Cheesey's food!) Aaron and Bekah do okay with the small amount Daddy gives them, so maybe their feeding privileges will not be revoked.

Now this is not the children's first experience with owning fish. When Emma turned 3 or 4, her aunt gave her a bowl full of fish as a birthday present. Well, unfortunately they didn't last too long. One day I caught Emma putting hand soap in the fish bowl. She told me she wanted to give them a bath. Poor fish.

Our current fish are a test to see if our kids our ready for a pet. We are planning to get a kitty when the backyard is finished. This will be an outdoor-kitty, Mike refuses to have an indoor cat. I'm okay with this, as long as the cat can come into the garage during the winter. Hopefully we won't have any issues keeping the cat alive - even if they do try to give it a bath. Here's me apologizing in advance for any water-related activities this cat may become a part of - Sorry kitty.

My Music is Better

So I just wanted to let everyone know my choice in music is better. And most of my picks are on the second half of our playlist. Sorry Mike - I still love you though.

The Finished Product

Coloring eggs is one of our kids favorite Easter activities. This year Bekah joined in the fun. Last year I didn't want her to get dye all over her hands so we got a rather angry picture of our baby watching the others have fun. A friend of mine suggested letting the "littler ones" just use water colors to decorate their eggs. Now why didn't I think of that! We have the water colors out a least once a week.

Michael Hates the Easter Bunny

Maybe "hate" is a strong word, even so he doesn't thrill in the childish traditions of Easter. I don't care for the competition of time and focus between the Easter Bunny activities divided between the true meaning of Easter - The Resurrection. So last year we started a new tradition. We invited the Easter Bunny to come to our house on Friday night so we wake up to baskets of chocolate and strewn Easter grass on Saturday morning. This has been such a good idea for our family. And a sure way to keep the spiritual focus and teaching on the right day.

Where Were Your Shoes?

Emma has an aversion to shoes. In fact all my kids do, (they get it from me - I prefer to be barefoot or at the very most just socks or slippers). So because I understand this aversion I have never been too hard on them, although it does make my day a little more aggravating when I'm constantly hunting for the socks and shoes they took off immediately after walking through the door. Well, Emma also has an intense dislike of sneakers, "There not pretty Mom and I want to look like a princess!" After all you can't dress up in your fanciest gown and then expect the poor girl to wear sneakers with it can you? So, in an attempt to let the girly-girl side experience everything wonderful about "dress-up" I have let her wear her nice Sunday shoes with basically every outfit she owns, yes even the sweats. That way she feels like a princess and I save myself a pointless argument with my very stubborn 6 year old. But, after what happened at the park this battle is not so pointless anymore.

We were having a picnic at the park with Aunt Coco and her friend/roommate. It was a beautiful, sunny day so we threw out our blankets under a nice big tree and proceeded to eat our *dinosaur sandwiches* (I'll have to elaborate later). Then Emma took off her Sunday shoes and ran around the park, no big surprise there. Until it was time to leave and we found that Emma's feet were covered in sticky, sapping seeds the lovely shade trees had been dropping everywhere. So frustrated in fact that she found it necessary to shout, "How do I get all these Damn things off!" Now this is funny (not the cussing part, well that's kind of funny I have to admit), but I had this great idea for a really cute picture of the kids by the tree, but there was no way that was happening now, Emma was (literally) cursing the tree and by now in a very foul mood, so instead I got this picture.

Did you get tickets to the show?

Yup. I attended a gun show last weekend. I thought it'd be a good idea to check it out and see what it's all about. I haven't wished so bad that I had chosen differently since I watched 2001: A Space Odyssey. The only redeeming factor to the whole experience was spending time with my dad, my brother and my boy.

For those who have never been to a gun show, close your eyes and let me paint you a picture. (I know that! Of course you can't read a computer screen with your eyes closed.)

You walk into a large convention center. For those familiar with Salt Lake, picture the South Towne Expo Center. Buying tickets and passing the turnstiles is nothing special, but as you enter the sea of vendors you get an odd feeling that you accidentally drove to a swap meet. Nonetheless, you make your way to the large booth in the center of the room with an inviting yellow sign: Wholesale Ammunition. It's worth a shot, right? It's either that or set up camp outside your local outdoors store waiting for the next delivery truck, just hoping that they might have a couple boxes of high-speed, lead projectiles on board.

Hope quickly turns to despair as you realize that the throng of people surrounding this booth is second only to a Twilight book signing. No, there is no line. Just masses of people hoping to catch a glimpse of the table before they need to take a lunch break.

It didn't take long for the four of us to bag the ammo idea and see what else the gun show had to offer. Row by row we wove ourselves through the Expo Center, trying to justify the expense of admission. Three times Aaron dropped the helmet to his Darth Vader action figure. The third drop went unnoticed long enough to eliminate all hope of finding the tiny helmet. Aaron and I retraced our steps, looking under dangling table cloths and even across the aisle...no helmet. When we met up with Dad on the next row, he pulled me aside and opened his hand to reveal the missing item. He had spotted it on a display rack a couple yards ahead of where we were when Aaron noticed it was missing. Someone must have picked it up off the floor shortly after we started back-tracking. Needless to say, the helmet found a cozy spot in my pocket for the rest of our excursion.

All in all, the gun show was not at all what I expected. For one, I didn't see nearly as much camo as I thought there would be. However, to make up for it I did spot a man dressed as a Reb (Keith would have loved it) and another dressed as George Washington without the white wig. I could have sworn that Halloween was still six months away, but I might be mistaken.

You get what you pay for...

So...last year Gail and I decided to finally retain the dirt in our back yard. The yard behind us (nearly 4 feet higher than ours) was already fenced in before we started building. You add that to the required grade away from the house and what we were left with was 11 good feet of flat yard and the remaining 9 feet used up by a 45 degree slope up to the fence. As much as I'd like to trick out a lawn mower with 4WD, I'd prefer some more usable yard space.

Enter the cement contractor. T is his name. (Yes, his name is an initial.) He offered a great price on a cinder block and mortar retaining wall and we jumped at the chance to have someone else sweating all those bricks in July's heat. Besides, I got to "play" in a Bobcat! Long story short...we got a lien on our home because a subcontractor didn't pay a supplier and our wall looks like a do-it-yourself project.

Moral of the story...you get what you pay for. And so it is with this blog. I guarantee my work and promise you'll double your money - every red cent you put into it.