Friday, May 20, 2011

Old News

As promised, here is a pictorial of our wild Spring Break in Utah...

Day 1:
We took Shayla on a tour of BYU campus.
 There was an interesting art 
display in the HFAC...
The contraption below looked like a few
things my kids have done with old
motors and army men....when they were like 7 years old.

Old newspapers on a chain
hmmm...
Looks like someone put off their art project 'til the last minute
and lucky for them someone put off emptying the trash.
It's a win/win.

Day 2:
  Church and nachos...
Then we had a family Quilting Bee and
tied a quilt for Baby Mason


Day 3...
A sweet nautical-themed baby shower
for Shanna and baby Mason





Whilst the girls were oohing and awing over
adorable baby stuff, the boys went out for
Ice Cream Cones

Day 4:
Bonding with guns and ammo


Yep, I'm a pistol packin' Mama
and Seth let me shoot his Mosin-Nagant--
Now I know what I want for Mother's Day.
(I know that's not a pistol or a Mosin--it's the only picture I had
of me shooting--but I did shoot the Mosin. And it was
AWESOME):

Shanna getting Baby Mason started early
learning about the family hobby.


The morning of Day 4:
I ran off to Salt Lake on a charitable
Relief Society errand.

The free quilting supplies I picked up ended up
costing me a whole lot more than nothing.
Thank you Salt Lake's Finest for pulling over a frazzled
Relief Society president looking for the
Humanitarian Headquarters.
I was informed that I was going 5 over the limit.
Was it my BYU license plate in Ute territory perhaps?
And it snowed while I was there.


I told you about our good time at the Macbeth performance our last night...

THEN

I tried to make the trip home fun and adventurous for the 
youngsters by 
stopping off at a roadside petting zoo:

Baby goats!
A zebra!
Actually, the kids didn't want to get out of the car. 
I finally coaxed Shayla out and she humored me
and walked over to look at the animals.


So I tried again at Cove Fort:


They all staggered out of the car and went on the tour with me.
As I was loading these pictures for the blog, Sam said
"I was really kinda mad that you made us get out of
the car for this--but then it turned out to be
really cool. It wasn't boring like I assumed it would be."
That, my friends is a ringing endorsement from
a fifteen year old boy.



And that was our Spring Break in Utah.
One day while I was paying for groceries in the
Smith's in Orem, I overheard two guys talking about
how bad the weather had been. One said to the other,
"We just got back from our Spring Break in San Diego--it was beautiful!"

We can have that beautiful weather anytime so it was worth the
chill and damp to spend some time with people we love.

Thursday, May 19, 2011

Let me tell you about my day...

So, yesterday began with the usual 5:15 am wake up. I haven't used an alarm clock since high school--I just tell myself what time to wake up and my internal clock starts winding down my dreams a few minutes before wake up time and then my brain starts an "All Systems Go" alert and my eyes pop open at the appointed hour. It's very convenient and low maintenance. Now where was I? Oh yeah, 5:15 am. I roll out and get breakfast started for what is becoming the last of the Mohicans  for the Gale Clan. Shayla and Sam are #6 and 7 of the 8 seminary-goers. According to my calculations, I have been getting kids up for seminary for the past 14 years (give or take). But there is a light at the end of that tunnel and that light will shine in 2016 when Shane wraps up his formal Church Education--at least as far as it involves me personally waking up before the crack of dawn.

I got the french toast toasted and the hot chocolate hot and then turned my attention to the peanut butter sandwiches and got their lunches packed. They straggled in and gulped down their breakfast and then left with Dad who was dropping them off. I turned my attention to the dishes and clean up and then I needed to prep for Relief Society presidency meeting. I got a little more involved in my calendering and agenda typing than I realized and suddenly it was past the time I usually let the dog out of his kennel for his morning constitutional. I was still in my jammies and slippers but I bolted out the back door to the pool house and opened the door. The smell that greeted me confirmed that I had waited too long. But the big surprise was that Gunner was not in the kennel. He was lying like the perfect model of a good dog next to the kennel. He had sprung himself from doggie jail. A very messy, smelly doggie jail. I felt terrible for waiting too long and he had managed, in spite of the messiness of the situation, to not get anything disgusting on my nice rug. I fed him his breakfast and turned my attention to the mess. I made the executive decision to just throw away his bed. I sealed it in a drawstring garbage bag and disposed of it in the trash. Then, I hosed out the kennel and gave it a good dowsing of Clorox Clean-up. I went back into the pool house to air it out and spray it down with Febreeze--when I noticed the odor was still too strong considering the source was outside and disposed of. Then I noticed the other surprise behind the treadmill. Apparently it was a big digestion night for Gunner--and the mongrel doesn't even eat that much! I'm just glad it was on the concrete floor and not the carpet--or the treadmill for that matter.

Well, after that perfect start to my day, I had to step it up to be ready for the meeting which was at my house. After the meeting, I had a Visiting Teaching appointment. By then I figured my day had been stressful enough and I hoped to go home and take a breather before I had to pick up the kids from school. I pulled out of the side street onto a main road heading toward home, I got up to the speed limit when a small white car came screaming up to my bumper at an alarming rate. There were two guys in the car who looked to be late teens early twenties. I thought they were going to crash into me, instead, the driver started swerving back and forth wildly while his passenger gestured and laughed. The road was narrow and one lane with a median in the center that is planted with good size oak trees and there is concrete curbing on both sides of the road.  There is not a lot of room for error. He continued to ride my bumper and swerve crazily--and then he pulled around like he was going to pass me--only there was no room to pass. There was no way to pull over and let them and they didn't seem to want to go by, they were having a good old time acting like maniacs. After a couple more tries at running me off the road and into a tree, the driver swerved between the trees and roared down the other side of the road going the WRONG WAY! This forced an oncoming car to drive up on the sidewalk as they tore by. He then crossed back into my lane and sped ahead. I followed as I tried to see his license plate and also memorize the description of the car and the two crazed maniacs. They turned onto the cross road that leads to my house so I continued behind them but they got up to about 80 mph in a 25 so I pulled over and dialed 911. The operator transferred me to California Highway Patrol and I explained what happened and using my Good Citizen Perpetrator Description Skills, I described the car and it's crazed contents. I only got the first 3 digits of the license number--they were so close to my bumper, I actually couldn't see it most of the time.

I had another errand to run so I headed downtown. On the way home I was wondering if the CHP had caught up with them or if they had caused any damage further down the road. It really seemed like the driver had to be under the influence to be that insane. Well, I turned up the road right before our street, and there parked on the side of the road is the very car. White Toyota Yaris. License 6CL something. Just sitting there empty. I parked and got out my handy dandy Droid phone with the handy dandy camera. I did a very thorough job of photographing it from every angle. And got a clear shot of the license plate. I then called my Police Detective friend (who also happens to be in our Bishopric) and asked him how to pass along the new information. He told me to call 911 again and let them know it was more information related to an earlier call. As I was talking to the dispatcher, the punks came out and got in the car and drove away. I recognized them as the wild wackos and then knew for sure it was the car.

So yeah, that was my day...I'm waiting to hear back from the Highway Patrol and I got dinner on the table and Shayla home from Driver's Ed. in time for the Computer Programming class we have here. You know--
SAME OLD, SAME OLD.

Wednesday, May 11, 2011

Promises to Keep

I realize that I foretold that I would blog about our Utah jaunt and also Seth's day of birth...it sort of haunts me from time to time when I am glancing about the internet looking at other blogs that I enjoy. I actually downloaded a number of pictures carefully chosen from the many that I took in Utah--and when I came back to blog, they were all gone. I didn't realize I had to finish the whole thing in marathon fashion or lose it all...so I haven't quite had the gumption to get back to it.

In the meantime, we'll take a break from our regularly scheduled program to bring you a special 
Motherhood Moment:
I got a card in the mail yesterday from my firstborn--he's a Chemical Engineer by degree and an award-winning Dow employee by trade. He's married to the amazing Nicole and they have two darling little girls. Not the one I expect to wax poetical and hand-write a Mother's Day message...but that's just what he did.
"I set out to write you a ballad or sonnet.
Maybe to gift you a bracelet or bonnet?
The gift of life isn't easily repaid,
nor the sturdy foundation on which it was laid.
To stick to the basics and do what is right,
is the sure way to bring my Mother delight!"
          Happiness on your day!
               Love you,
                Scott
Why yes son, you are so right--and writing a sweet poem also brought me delight!

Happy Birthday Scott!

 It has been awhile since I updated this little family scrapbook on the internet. I like to pop over here from time to time and look at our ...