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::literature & life::

If you ever read the books about Ramona when you were little, you might remember that when Ramona went to Kindergarten she met a little boy named Davy. She decided she loved Davy, and every time they were in the school yard she would chase him around and try to kiss him.

That was all I could think of today when I was waiting in the school yard with Max for his teacher to come and call the kids into class. It was cold. All the kids' cheeks and noses were rosy bright.  I couldn't see their breath--but I know that's not far away.
For some reason we haven't been able to figure out there is no playground equipment at the school--just a yard. So all the kids can really do is run around. And run they do.
The girls like to chase the boys and hug them. The boys like to run away. If you get caught in the middle of one of these events it feels like being accidentally caught in a stampede--a miniature one, but a stampede none the less.

Unlike Beverly Cleary's Davy, Max likes to be chased. Today he was hiding behind a tree waiting for the girls to notice him. When they didn't he came out along with another little guy and they yelled, "Hey girls! Hey girls! Hey girls!" Finally the girls came. And the little boys were chased.
And then everyone was happy.
That Mrs. Cleary knows her stuff.

::round the horn::

Anybody out there ever watch the show on ESPN called "Round the Horn"?
Kris likes to watch it. There's a host and a bunch of sports writers on video monitors. They talk about current sports issues and events and debate. It's fast moving and silly.
Max decided he loves it too. Especially the sports writer from Denver, Woody Page. He's super silly and on the first episode Max ever watched for some reason somebody dumped about 10 pounds of confetti on Mr. Page and it went into his mouth and everywhere. Max was instantly hooked.

Anyway, this morning when I was getting ready for the day Max came into me with a card he'd drawn. For me. I love the cards he makes for me.
This was a special one--an Around the Horn card.

Max and I are on the left. Then he drew the other guys from the show on the right. I'm glad it's just pretend though, because I don't think Max and I are up to speed on enough sports stats and trivia to survive.

The mysterious part though is that on the left hand side it says (I had to have some help translating the acronyms and mixed up letters)
Do Not go Around the Horn.
So I won't.

It's getting colder around here! We're wearing coats and gearing up for it to get really cold--remembering last winter. Dark long and cold.
I got a new fleece jacket I really love last night and I've already worn it twice.
It really feels like fall when I'm wearing brown corduroy pants. Which I am.
I tried to get a picture of me wearing them, but it's dark and gloomy in the house and our mirror situation is not so good.
So here's a substitute. Me in a corduroy hat instead. My hair was still wet when I took Max to school this morning so the hat got pressed into service, keeping me from freezing.


Alright, now I'm off to pick up Maxles from school and to mail a little birthday package for my october siblings.
Later.

::thoughts::

I've never seen more people wearing polar fleece type vests than when we were in Vermont. It was amazing. At least every other person was wearing one. We felt very out of place. And yes, it could've been mostly the Canadian tourists sporting them, but I doubt it.

Our house is being insulated as we speak. Our landlord is a great guy--very responsible, and he's making sure our place is nice. I'm excited. It hopefully means our heating bills will be low(ish) and we won't freeze all winter like we did in our last place. That would be so nice.

All I can think about today is muffins.

It's getting colder, but it's not really cold yet. The sun has been out the last few days and that's a really nice combination with the brisk cool air. It makes me want to go pick apples and pumpkins and cook spicy cobblers with lots of crunchy sugary stuff on top.

Kris's mom is coming to visit us soon--in about a week and a half and we're so exciting. Having visitors out here is so fun. We really feel starved for family, even though we get to see ours more than a lot of people that live so far away do.

Max seems to like school right now. When he first started he was not a fan at all. I think the main reason is because they were making him color. He does NOT like to color. One of the teachers told him not to be so "scribbly dibbly" and he took great offense to that.
But we stuck with it, and I tried to help and encourage him a bit with the coloring. It was hard because he's very stubborn, and when he decides he "can't" do something it's hard to change his mind.
But now he's coloring a lot better, and seems to be enjoying his short little school days. That makes me happy because I hate making him go when he doesn't want to. It just doesn't feel right, especially with kindergarten. It should be fun!

October is the birthday month for my family. Both Cammon and Char have b-days within two weeks of each other. It was the best month growing up. Cakes twice, maybe some parties. We'd also go out to dinner to the b-day dude's favorite place and often do a fun family activity that day, like bowling or something.
It's such a bummer to be so far away and to miss out on the b-day going out and the cakes and the present giving. Boo hoo. So just know I miss you all. And Murphy.
And in closing, here's a great old photo of the said birthday brother and sister wrestling. Cammon is having fun, but is Charlotta?

She doesn't look exactly prepared for wrestling with her purse and scarf...

::artwork::

Here's some of my favorite Max art from the last month or so. He doesn't draw a lot, but what he draws is so cool (in my biased opinion).
Here's a rendering of Max and I playing catch. Cute!

This is mama fish:

I love it. She's so cute and chubby. I think there are robots above and below her, but I'm not totally sure.
Guess who?

Sultan of course! I'm told that the triangle shape coming out of the bottom of his face is supposed to be his nose. I'm not sure how that works out exactly, but that's ok. It looks like Sultan to me either way.

This is artwork done on the back of a menu while waiting for pizza. I helped--I think I mostly drew the sun. Aren't Walle and Eve adorable?

This is the scary robot from the Incredibles. He has a head that comes out the top or bottom of his body. Scares me.

Cool cool fireworks. I love this one:


And finally, I have no idea what this little guy is. I just randomly found him on a piece of paper.
But he's adorable. So cute.

And so melancholy.
I love it!

::so cute::

Kris says that when cold weather and winter comes out here it reminds him of when he first got to Germany at the beginning of his mission.
I think we're on a similar latitude with germany-and the weather out here is so much more like Germany than Colorado or Utah. So he's reminded of the bone numbing wet cold while tracting, street contacting and street preaching.
I hope we can go back together sometime soon.
Here's a photo that one of Kris's only converts sent us. It's Kris and his companion Elder K. The funny thing is that we ended up living really close to each other in Kansas City without having any idea, and Kris ran into him one day while having lunch by the dental school. We got to get together a few times and get to know his family. It was really fun.
He and Kris have a lot of good stories together, including the catching of at least one thief. We'll have to get him to post those sometime.

Funny picture, right?

So cute.

::yesterday::

Being out east makes conference days really strange. Instead of the sessions starting at 10AM and 2PM with the priesthood session at 6PM we're the day starts with the first session at noon. Then the second doesn't start until 4PM. Priesthood is at 8PM!! It sort of ruins the boys night out for ice cream afterwards. Good thing there's nobody out here to try to take Kris out anyway.

I was inspired by Marilyn--she and her family had a muffin day and ate a bunch of different delicious muffins. I was thinking that would be a fun tradition to attach to conference--at least the October session.
Is there a little boy out there that wouldn't look forward to 8 hours of church meetings as long as there were a lot of yummy muffins involved?

Unfortunately this time I planned a whole bunch of other delicious food too--like chocolate croissants, french toast, apple dumplings, etc. etc. A whole bunch of sugary, delicious, filling foods. So we only got to try two different kinds of muffins during the weekend. (I know, it hardly counts to say "only" on top of all that other food, but muffins are important!)
We had a mix from trader joe's that I didn't like much. It was too healthyish tasting for me really--too much fiber and smushy blueberries and cranberries.
But on sunday I made this recipe--strawberry vanilla muffins. And they were delish. Yum.

Enough about delicious food (for now).

In between sessions yesterday we went over to a little lake in our city so that Kris and Max could try to catch some little fish. They went a couple of weeks ago and caught a bunch while I was taking a nap.

Looks like a pretty nice place from this view, right?
How about this one?

Erg, blech. Yuck.
Remember, the industrial revolution did start around here somewhere. Who knows what's in that lake.

The color of the water didn't stop Max from having fun--or trying to get in the water--or from sitting down in the mud a zillion times.

Kris tried to catch fish.
Max found a groaty spoon.

Kris tried to catch fish.
Max threw muddy sand into the lake and scared all the fish away.

Kris tried to catch fish but,
he caught a tree instead.

Kris tried to catch fish.
Max caught a long long twisty branch (by pulling it down out of a tree.)
and then he threw it in the lake.
So if there were any fish left at that point they ran away!

So at the end, Kris didn't catch any fish, but Max succeeded in catching some time in the time out chair for not listening. Lucky him!

Isn't this a crazy beautiful spiderweb I found in the yucky icky lake mud? It looks like a gorgeous necklace. I keep learning that if I keep my eyes open there are beautiful things to see.
And hear--conference was great too.

::two questions::

Question number 1:
Is there anything tastier than a piece of bread, warm from the breadmaker with honey on it?
I think the answer is no, but if anybody disagrees, let me know.

Number 2:
Where the heck did the top of the milk go when Kris dropped it the other night? How is it possible for something like that to completely disappear. We looked under everything.
That is so dang weird to me.


Yay for October!

::special::

As we were driving up to our campsite in Vermont we realized we drove right past Sharon, VT. This is important to us as members of our church because it's Joseph Smith's birthplace.
So we decided that on sunday when we were on our way home we would stop in and see what there was to see.
First of all the landscape there is totally amazing. Vermont may well be one of the most beautiful places I've ever been, and this area is definitely high on the list of beautiful Vermont. As soon as we got off the freeway we could see the rolling wooded hills and the granite rocks. The White river runs right next to the road for some of the way and it has big granite shelves sticking out from the river bed. Hard to describe, but so dang pretty!
It was rainy and chilly on sunday, but the rain just seemed to intensify the leaves that have already changed colors.

We didn't know what to expect at this site. We knew that the church had something there, but not the details.
Driving up was kind of like driving into the temple grounds. Lovely landscaping and flowers--very well maintained. It looks like the stake center for the area is on that property. It was cool because the building is made in the new england style, with white boarded sides and a straight steeple. It's fun to see chapels built in different styles.

When we got out of the car the view was beautiful! And they have a sound system throughout the area with music from the mormon tabernacle choir playing. That had the potential to be a little cheesy and over the top, but it was actually nice. It added to the peaceful feeling there.

There's a big monument to Joseph that was set up in like 1905. It's supposed to be the biggest single piece of granite in the US or something like that. The story of how they got the stone there was pretty amazing. It involved lots of teams of horses, many weeks and a lot of prayers.

The monument looks like it could've been made yesterday, the cuts all look really fresh. It's hard to believe that it's been there for over 100 years.

The landscape around is beautiful and peaceful. Behind the monument there are some dirt roads where you can go back and see the ruins of the foundation of Lucy Smith's parents' home and some of the remnants of the old roads and bridges. The main road from canada to Boston at the time ran basically right in front of the Smith's gate. It sure would be interesting to see what it would really be like to live back then.
The view from the hill is gorgeous too. The house on the left is where they have a lot of paintings and info about Joseph and where the senior missionaries give tours. We're not sure what the house on the right is for.

The tour was really nice and well given. They had recovered the hearthstone from the house where Joseph was born and installed it there. There was also a rocking chair which Joseph had made at some point.
We enjoyed it. And even Max listened for a while.
I was a little embarrassed because we were pretty yucky from camping for three days, but oh well. The senior sister missionary from Reno took our picture anyway and told us to come back for their christmas light show. So we must not have smelled that bad, right?

I'm so glad we stopped. The feeling there was so nice. So peaceful and happy. It's my favorite of all the church sites I've visited. I'd love to go back.
As we were driving out Max said, "I sure wish we could stay here." I asked him why and he said, "Well, Joseph Smith was born there, whaddaya think?"