My Easter Treats

Remember when I wrote about living in a shoe?

Bella fits in Shaq's 22D.

On Sunday morning, Easter Sunday, we packed up the Avvy for the 8-hour drive home. Lo and behold! What was in the sky?




A sky writer declaring Jesus' love for all who would look up.

Look and live, people, look and live.

Park Here

Kiana took all these while Mom and I slept in the car. I might be going overboard with this collage thing.
(Isn't it cool though?)
These two take after their mother - very photogenic.

Hoover gets such a bad rap

Friday we went to Hoover Dam.

Have you been there before?

The road between Arizona and Nevada goes right over the dam. In the future, however, traffic will soar above the gorge. This bypass bridge is one of the most incredible things I have ever seen. I took approximately 67 pictures of it.


This is why we have ENGINEERS. They do amazing things.


The rest of the dam is cool too (Shawna, I thought of you the whole time!), but we didn't take a tour of the inside because tickets are too expensive. It's a good thing we got there when we did; by the time we left, traffic was slowed for several miles.

See Emily taking the picture of me?

Henderson and Bella

I am finally sufficiently recovered to write about the last week's worth of adventures. (And by 'recovered' I mean the house is clean enough to function in, there's food in my fridge again, and my brain is on the right time schedule.)
So yesterday I went through the pictures we took and picked my very favorites ... I ended up with 136.

Don't worry, I will not post them all here - I don't want you to hate me. (Or get bored, which would be worse.) Some will be posted on our other blog* and some will end up on Facebook, but for these blogging purposes I will pick only a few to show. I'll also break up the posts.

As you can see, I picked a seat right over the wing, preventing me from taking pictures any cooler than this. I was fine with that, though, because I love flying. Love LOVE it. I had never flown over snow-capped mountains before (in daylight) and they were absolutely stunning.

My sister lives with her in-laws in a beautiful gated community in Henderson. I couldn't help but take pictures all over the house. Then again, maybe that was because there was so much green! So many colors! Unlike my own town, which is inching towards spring one windstorm at a time.
And of course, I held the baby. She is such a sweetheart. And so beautiful!
She looks like a thinker already.

*I have not yet told you about it. I will soon.

Breaking Spring

Earlier this week I was telling my husband that he's not very good at surprises.

"What do you mean?" he asked.

"Well, I don't know, you just go about it the wrong way...." I mused. It's hard for me to explain. For someone who loves surprises as much as I do, there is just something about him that makes me skeptical, even irritated, when he doesn't tell me what he's up to.

"Well, you haven't surprised me that much either." He countered.

"Fine, I won't plan another surprise birthday party for you then," I said, "And I'll certainly stop buying you flowers."

This came up because Slice made the plans for Spring Break. All he would tell me was that we were going to Ogden, might be making a temple trip, and would definitely be doing some golfing. I was not very happy about it.

"How did you get off work?? Do I have to take off work? Are you just going to skip class? When are we coming back? Will I need to get a sub for Primary? Should we take our perishing food next door?"

"Don't worry about it," is all he would say.

The Ogden part was fine - although I was still depressed about missing out on Angie's baby - but I got more exasperated with every question he waved off. And even though he'd told me I could find out by looking in the car's glove box, I refused to do so.

(It doesn't make sense to me either.)

Last night we got home late, and he told me we had to leave this morning by 7:00. I gave him the evil eye.

"You won't even let me sleep in?! If I'm getting up early just to watch you play golf, I'm gonna be ticked."

"Just pack." He said.

"I don't know what to pack." But I started anyway.

About this time, Slice left to get something out of the car. He returned and handed me a couple folded pieces of paper. I hesitated, then asked "You're sure you want me to open it?"

IT WAS A BOARDING PASS. FOR A FLIGHT TO LAS VEGAS AT 10:45 THIS MORNING.

Gosh, I'm a jerk sometimes. And I really don't give my husband enough credit.

He is the BEST.

Also, little Bella is a doll.

Turns out, Slice has to work all day tomorrow, Saturday and possibly Sunday. He concocted a (convincing) web of lies to keep me off the trail. All my family was involved too, and it totally worked. "Not good with surprises" my foot.

the next best thing

This is the way to do it.
My mom and younger sisters are in Las Vegas today, with my beautiful older sister who IS HAVING A BABY.

Am I jealous? Oh yes. Holding a newborn baby beats working all week hands down - even taking into account the $$$. (of which I make so much)

However, things could be worse. Ki is in the waiting room texting me updates:

The inversion didn't work

Her surgery is at noon...our time...I will let you know


I guess since I can't be there, this is the next best thing. Thanks Ki!
Love you Ang and Dann! We hope to see you and the little one soon!

Pricks

Sometimes I wonder just how I got here.

I think everyone wonders this occasionally, please tell me you do. What am I doing with my life? Why did I work so hard, spend so much money, for school (etc.) if I was just going to end up back where I started? How can I keep from losing everything I gained?
{Insert all similar queries here.}

I’ve been asking myself these questions even more than usual. Perhaps only because I spend so much time alone. I hate feeling like I’ve squandered my time, wasted my talent - and I’ve been feeling like that a lot lately.

I will not blame it on the “stifling” small town either; it irks me when people whine about where they live. (If you don’t like it, MOVE.) I'm a “bloom where you’re planted” believer. Our high school janitors are some of the best-informed citizens I know.

So… I was especially grateful for President Uchtdorf’s words yesterday morning. He often talks about lifting where we stand and doing the best we can in our circumstances; I love hearing it from him. I need those pricks every so often to kick me out of my hole of self-pity. I can do a lot more than I have been doing.
Isn't it great how millions of people can listen to the exact same talk, yet each one comes away with a different message? Personal revelation is the best thing ever.

It's a glitch

"Sometimes I wondered if I was seeing the same things through my eyes that the rest of the world was seeing through theirs. Maybe there was a glitch in my brain."

Eleven pages into Twilight, I can already tell how melodramatic Bella is. (Or how profound Stephenie Meyer was trying to be, I'm not sure.) I was thinking get a grip, girl throughout the entire series. She never did.

The idea, though, has been rattling around my own brain ever since, probably because it reminded me of one of my own epiphanies. I once discovered that my eyes see different colors.

Left eye - more subdued, bluish messages
Right eye - vibrant, pink/yellow

We can talk about my amblyopia later.

Realizing this made me wonder - do I see the same colors everyone else does? How would I know if I didn't? How would anyone know, for that matter? What about those poems we wrote in 4th grade describing colors in "feeling" words?
My perception of reality shifted.

I’ve returned to this concept recently, because sometimes, I feel like I just don’t get things that everyone else does. Things like .... well, things.

I read a LOT of personal writings: blogs, books, magazines, letters. I am always intrigued – and befuddled – by people who write about objects. Clothes, Shoes, Accessories, Furniture, Antiques! I don't understand the obsession. Some of them make me smile (CJane’s odes to her pink skirt, for example), a few make me covet. Most make me think, "I missed Consumerism 101."
I don’t like stuff.

I don’t really follow fashion trends (they’re trends, why would I want to follow them?); I dash in and out of the grocery store, grabbing only what’s on my list. I rarely shop for clothes, shoes, or makeup, and even then I stick to the basics. I never buy dishes or plants or decorations. I find it hard to justify eating out; I hate superstores and catalogs and sidewalk sales.
I guess it comes down to this: I hate spending money, especially when it's not necessary.

The material, to me, is immaterial.
Sorry Etsy.

The best thing

about short-sheeting everyone's beds on April Fool's Day?

They forget every year.

I love it.

The Best Joke

My family has a favorite vacation spot – more beloved even than Disneyland — that we have visited almost every other summer for several years now. Always over the 4th of July, we meet our Colorado cousins at Aspen Grove for a week of mountainy bliss.

I was pretty young the first couple times we went, so when I was finally old enough to sleep in the 'teenager cabin,' I was ecstatic. We’d party all night every night! That’s what teenagers do! I just knew the week could only get better.

One night as I climbed into bed, my feet got stuck halfway down the sheet. I could not figure out why. There was nothing in the bed but the sheets, which were refusing my skinny legs entrance. I struggled for a bit before my sisters came to investigate.

Someone had short-sheeted the bed.

I had never heard of such a thing...we laughed and wondered who it could be. Then we fell asleep.

The next night after dinner, we trudged up the mountainside to our little cabin. We unlocked the door to find muddy footprints all through the cabin (including the loft) and leaves stuffed in the damp swimsuits hanging from the rafters. Later, we found Smarties had been scattered all around and in our beds. We were completely baffled.

Who could have gotten in the locked cabin? It was only unlocked for a few minutes during the day - when one of us would have been around. Was it some teenage boys playing a joke on my sisters and cousins? Had they been watching us to know when the cabin would be open and empty?
I was particularly creeped out, having spent some time alone in the cabin that day as I changed out of my swimsuit and hung it up to dry.

We talked and speculated, waited and wondered. Our parents seemed a little concerned, but mostly they thought it was funny.

It wasn’t until YEARS later that we discovered who had done it - our mothers. My mom and Aunt Cheryl kept their secret for a long time. The little pranksters.

(My mom still laughs every time we mention it. All those conversations of "remember when that happened? I wonder who it was???")

I’ve short-sheeted the beds in my house every April Fool’s Day since.

Now, I told you that story so I could tell you this one.
They're completely unrelated. I just wanted you to know that I'm an expert at short-sheeting.

While I was chaperoning for the dance last week, the teacher I was with told me this story from a year ago. On April Fool's Day she asked her students to tell the best joke they'd ever played. One of the freshman girls said,
"I told my boyfriend I was pregnant....by another guy. Then I pulled up my shirt and APRIL FOOLS was written on my stomach! It was the best joke EVER!!!"

Apparently, the rest of the kids thought it was hilarious.
Wow.