The Whole Watermelon

Oh What a Beautiful Morning

2010-01-27T10:29:00.000-08:00

I love morning time. It's my absolute favorite time of the day.

For one thing, there are the quiet murmurs of sound, drifting towards me softly as I stir from my rest:

"Mom. I need a nunchuck."
"I don't know where it is."
"Mom, I really need a nunchuck."

"Kristen, have you seen the stuff from my back pocket?"
"I think I saw it in the bathroom."
"Where in the bathroom?"
"On the floor."
"Where on the floor?"
...
"Where on the floor?"
...
"Kristen, where on the floor?!"

And then there are the pleasant fragrant smells hovering in the air around:

"Mommy, change my diaper."
"Are you poopy?"
"Yes."

And last, but not least, there are the sights. The sense of discovery of all that has occurred during my quiet slumber:

Baby Names

2009-11-13T09:02:00.000-08:00

I've had a few people casually ask about baby names, so I've decided to share the list I've been compiling. We still don't know what we are having (not by choice, baby was shy), and won't find out until at least Dec 2nd at our next ultrasound.

Mike and I have a terrible time deciding on a name. His favorite names are names that were popular baby names in the 1980s. He laughs at me every time I tell him a name is too 80s. I like the older names which are coming back into style. Names of our Grandmas and Grandpas' generation.

We will get more serious about picking a name once we can eliminate half the names. I have devised a baby naming system, which, I believe, is the only way this child of ours will end up with a name. I am compiling a list of potential baby names. Names that start with Al- or An- or Au- are almost completely out of the running. I stumble getting my kids' names out of my mouth too much as it is. Also names that sound a lot like the other kids names are out. (Adam and Autumn for example. They don't look too similar until you try saying them out loud a few times.) Once the list is complete I will give a copy to both Mike and I, and we will (in private) number each name from 1 on down with 1 being our favorite name. Then we will go down our lists name by name starting with our favorite names. The first time a name that is read on one of our lists has already been read on the other person's list, that will be our name. In the case of a tie we go with my name since Mike named Andy. (If you ask me I should get free reign to name this one, but Mike doesn't agree.)

Our Boy and Girl 'A' Names for your perusing enjoyment.

Boy Names
Aaron: Hebrew, Exalted, Strong (#50 on SSA list, #31 in 2008 baby names)
Abbott: English
Ace: Latin, One or Expert (#777 on SSA list)
Adler: Old German, Eagle
Adrian: Latin, Person From Hadria (Northern Italy) (#61 on SSA list, #59 in 2008 baby names)
Angus: Scottish, One Strength
~~Ansley: English, From Annesly or Ansley, From The Hermitage Field~~ (Too much like Andy. See how hard this is!)
A.J.
Arnold/Arnie: German, Eagle Power
Arthur/Art: Welsh, Bear (#374 on SSA list)
Asher: Hebrew, Blessed, Happy (#233 on SSA list, #47 in 2008 baby names)
Atticus: English, Father-like (#683 on SSA list)

Girl Names
Ada: German, Noble, Happy
Adele: German, Noble, Kind
Abigail/Abby: Hebrew, Joy of the Father (#8 on SSA list, #5 in 2008 baby names)
Addison: English, Child of Adam (#692 on SSA list, #14 in 2008 baby names)
Adrienne: Latin, Person From Hadria (Northern Italy)(#751 on SSA list)
Adriana/Adriana: Latin, Person From Hadria (Northern Italy) (#170 on SSA list, #33 in 2008 baby names)
Agatha: Greek, Virtuous, Good
Agnes: Greek, Pure, Chaste
Aida: Italian, Happy
Aimi (Japanese for Beautiful love)pronounced "ay-mi or eye-mi or Ah-ee-mee"
Ainslie: English, From Annesly or Ansley, From The Hermitage Field
Amanda: Latin, Worthy of Love (#112 on SSA list)
Amaris: Hebrew, Promised by God (#958 on SSA list)
Amber: English, Precious Stone (#146 on SSA list, #99 in 2008 baby names)
Amelia: Latin, To Strive or excel or rival (#77 on SSA list, #11 in 2008 baby names)
Anita: Hebrew, Gracious, Merciful
April: Latin, Opening, 4th month (#310 on SSA list)
Ashley: English, The Ash Tree Field (#13 on SSA list, #98 in 2008 baby names)
Ava: Latin, Like a bird (#4 on SSA list, #1 in 2008 baby names)
Aven: Irish, Fair Radiance
Avery: English, Elf Ruler (#221 on SSA list, #37 in 2008 baby names)
Avice - English, Refuge in Battle

Good news and bad news.

2009-07-06T22:22:00.000-07:00

Good news and bad news.

Bad news first. During the editing process a few months ago, My NanoWriMo novel got eaten alive by my computer. Specifically, the hard drive failed and I had to replace it. I was holding out hope that someone could rescue it my novel from the hard drive, but it looks like the drive is so destroyed that the typical data saving programs aren't able to recover anything. I could pay a professional data recovery place to try, but it would probably cost $1000 or so. As much as I'd like to think my novel is worth that price, I can't justify that kind of money at this time.

Good news. Luckily I do have a copy of the novel, when it was about 73% completed, saved on a thumb drive. I'm going to re-write the lost portions of my novel, and it's going to be even better. My goal is to finish it before November, when the next NaNoWriMo will begin. I figure if I wrote the whole thing in a month I can surely re-write 27% of it in 4 months. This time I'll make lots of backup copies. When I finish it, I will make it available for people to read. Then it will be so popular that a publisher will come and beg me to publish it . It will make millions of dollars and I will be able to afford data recovery on my burned out hard drive. Then we'll be able to compare the two novels noting and analyzing the differences. Won't that be fun? I'll try and update my blog with current word counts to keep up my motivation. Current word count: 36,680 words. Goal: 50,000 words.

My First 5K

2009-07-06T21:45:00.000-07:00

I have never been a big fan of running. Even as a kid I hated the game of tag because it is pretty much nothing but running. In middle school I thought I'd give running a chance and signed up for a track race. It was relatively short, maybe a quarter or half way around the track. The race started out good. I got a good lead going and for a brief moment allowed myself the thought that maybe I could win the race. A second later it all fell apart. I ended up walking across the finish line in tears, gasping for breath.

I jogged in middle school, high school, and beyond when it was required and sometimes for short amounts of time on the treadmill for exercise. I wouldn't say my enjoyment of jogging ever increased.

Then something weird happened. I was prowling around on the internet, and I stumbled upon the couch to 5K program. I started having jogging fantasies. How cool would it be if I could actually pull something like this off? Running three miles was so out there it didn't even seem possible, but the program itself didn't look too bad. A little bit of walking then a little bit of jogging, easy enough.

I started the program. It was going good until I reached week 3. In the program you can either run for time or run for distance. I was running for time, but I quickly realized I wasn't on track distance wise. I decided to hold up on week 3 until I could run a little faster.

My husband was also running, and started the couch to 5K program, but picked it up a lot faster than I did. He liked to jog outside, and was having a good time with it.

Then winter hit. I was still going okay for a while until life got crazy and the drive to and from my parent's house to use their treadmill started getting hard to do. I got distracted and the program got lost in the bustle of life.

Then came spring. I started again with the treadmill a couple of times, and my husband started jogging again outside. I liked the treadmill because it kept track of my distance, time, and speed for me, and it was easy to keep a consistent speed if I wanted to. However, I decided to try running outside one day. To my surprise, I liked it a lot better. Something about running in the fresh air, seeing the mountains, and making visual progress was so appealing that very quickly I was only jogging outside. I stopped worrying about the distance and continued on the program using time as my measurement.

I was excited the week I finished the couch to 5K program, but I was sure I wasn't really running 3 miles. About that time our church announced they were doing a 5K fun run. I thought it would be fun to run in the race, so I started running longer. Instead of 30 minutes, I ran 32, 35, 40, and then 45 minutes. As the race time got closer, I started having doubts. I was pretty sure by then I was running for 3 miles, but I didn't know for sure. What if I couldn't do it? What if I had a repeat of my last middle school race? I didn't really want to end the race gasping for breath, having everyone concerned that I needed medical attention. Plus I knew that I would come in last place. I knew I jogged slow. I had even been passed by walkers on the path I often jogged. I also felt very self conscious about how I looked when I jogged. I don't have a runner's physique, not even close, and I worried about what people thought when they saw me jogging along.

I was undecided about doing the fun run, but just in case I drove the car around the running loop in the neighborhood and figured out how far 3 miles was so I would know if I could do it. The wednesday before the race I decided to give my freshly measured route a try. I jogged it without paying too much attention to my watch. It felt long, and I was extremely tired at the end, but I did it, hills and all. I was disappointed by my time though. 53 minutes to run 3 miles. I had proof that I could do a 5K fun run if it wasn't a lot harder than my jogging loop, but I also had proof that I would most likely come in last place. I thought that maybe instead of doing the race the day of I would just get a copy of the route and do it on my own.

Over the next couple of days I went back and forth on the issue. Finally I realized that my reasons for not wanting to race were stupid and went against everything I was trying to teach my children. It doesn't matter what place you come in, as long as you try your best. You shouldn't avoid doing something you want to do just because you think someone might laugh at you. Simple lessons that I knew but was struggling with. Friday I called my Mom and arranged for her to watch the kids on Saturday so both Mike and I could run the race.

In telling this story to my 6 yr old daughter afterward, I asked her the following questions:
Me: "How many people do you think laughed at me when I ran the race?"
Her: "um, no-one?"
Me: "Yep! How many people do you think were cheering me on and hi-fiving me as I was running the race, and congratulating me when I was done?"
Her: "lots?"
Me: "Yep! What place do you think I came in?"
Her: "First?"
Me: "Nope! Last!" (We both laughed). "Do you think I felt bad about coming in last?"
Her: "No"
Me: "That's right, I was just proud of myself for finishing and for doing my best."

I finished the 5K fun run in about 50 minutes, beating my previous time by 3 minutes. My kind husband was nice enough to walk back after he finished the race and run the last bit with me so I wasn't coming in on my own. I had a lot of fun during the fun run, and am so glad I did it.

Now, for the first time in my life, I actually enjoy jogging. It's still hard work and tiring, but it also feels good. I can finally understand why people like to do it.

Night Terrors

2009-06-18T23:41:00.000-07:00

Last night my husband tried to kill me. Again.

I was sleeping peacefully in my bed when my husband rolled over. He didn't say anything, but I knew with every fiber in my being that he was going to put a rag with chloroform over my mouth and kill me. There was someone else involved too. Someone who had told him to kill me. I think this person might have been H.H. Holmes, the serial killer I just finished reading about in the book The Devil in the White City.

Of course none of this was real. I was having another night terror.

I was not surprised that a reference to this book had worked it's way into my night terror. In fact, while listening to the audiobook version of the novel, I realized that it was a real life version of the night terrors I have been experiencing lately. However, before I go too much into that, let me tell you a brief history of my night terrors.

When I was a child, I would sometimes bolt out of bed and stand shaking against the wall. I just knew there was something in my bed. Sometimes it was a snake, sometimes spiders. I would remain plastered against the wall with my heart beating wildly until I woke up enough to convince myself it was just a dream. When I use the term "woke up" I don't mean that I suddenly broke free from the sleep state. When I am having a night terror I do not feel asleep. So waking up from a night terror is not like waking up from a regular dream. It's like reality slowly creeps back into my mind and I realize that what I had accepted mere seconds ago as reality was completely untrue.

As I grew up, I had a couple of night terrors that my parents were going to kill me. In one instance I ran from my room on the far side of the basement, up the stairs, out the side door of the house, and down the long driveway. Lucky for my neighbor, whose home I was running to for help, I realized I was having a night terror before I reached the end of the driveway.

The worst case of night terrors happened after I got married. Suddenly, after a lifetime of having my own room, there was someone else next to me making noise and sparking all kinds of nightmares. The first month we were married I probably had at least one night terror a week. At first I imagined there was someone other than my husband and myself in the room. My husband would calmly tell me that it was a dream and tell me to come back to bed. Slowly my night terrors changed, and it was my husband who was the bad guy. Now when he tried to soothe me, I thought it was a trick, and usually looked at him with terror and mistrust. He quickly adapted his new strategy for dealing with my night terrors, which was to completely ignore me. I again almost knocked on a neighbor's door one night when I was running away from him.

I still have night terrors, but on a lesser scale than when I was first married. I've been reading up about night terrors on various websites, and have appreciated the information I've found. I particularly have found the nightterrors.org site to be a valuable resource.

I can usually laugh about my night terror experiences the next day, but they are not fun when they are happening. They are so realistic and I have no idea that I am dreaming. Imagine what it would feel like if you really thought that someone or something was trying to kill you. You then are literally running for you life. A lot of times it takes a while for me to settle down afterward. My heart continues to pound hard even after I know it's not real. The author of nightterror.org says "I find the most amazing aspect of night terrors is that it generates a heart rate of 160 to 170 beats per minute. This is much faster than the normal heart rate that can be attained under most stressful circumstances."

His definition of a night terror is "Sudden awakening from sleep, persistent fear or terror that occurs at night, screaming, sweating, confusion, rapid heart rate, inability to explain what happened, usually no recall of "bad dreams" or nightmares, may have a vague sense of frightening images. Many people see spiders, snakes, animals or people in the room, are unable to fully awake, difficult to comfort, with no memory of the event on awakening the next day. ... This, however, is not always the case. Quite a few people interviewed can remember portions of the night terror, and some remember the whole thing." I am one who usually remembers at least portions if not the whole thing.

Night terrors usually happen during the first part of your sleep, within the first hour, before you enter the REM portion of sleep. Usually when I have a night terror, I'm stressed or overly tired and have entered into a sort of restless sleep. One night in this restless state I heard my husband shift and the sound of his body moving on the sheets was so scary to me. On this occasion I was fully aware that it was him moving, but something about that sound was still so unnerving. My husband reports that a lot of times my night terrors are sparked by his movement. I find it fascinating that a slight noise sparks an elaborate story in my mind. My husband turns over, and instantly I have this whole detailed story in my head about him having an evil plot to murder.

I do not know if it is totally true in my case, but I did find it a little cool to read that night terrors happen to those with "active imaginations" and that they happen due to "increased brain activity."

I think it's interesting that so many of my night terrors lately are about my husband trying to kill me. During the waking hours it seems ridiculous to even consider the possibility of that happening. He's a nice, good man who has never shown the slightest hint of violence to me or anyone else for that matter. I think that's what adds to the overall terror of it all. Suddenly he's not the man I know. Suddenly a slow smile comes across his face and he reveals himself as a man who enjoys giving others pain.

This brings me back to The Devil in the White City novel. H.H. Holmes was just like the husband of my terrors. He was a charming and handsome man who seemed generous and kind and then suddenly he would show his true colors, those of a killer.

To me, I can't imagine anything more frightening than someone you love and hold dear revealing themselves to be absolutely evil. Maybe that's why, when my brain feels the need to pick the most frightening thing for my terror, it provides me with this scenario.

Unlike the women in the novel, I am glad that my nightmares can be woken up from, and that my husband is a genuinely nice guy. My heart goes out to those who have experienced the things I have only had to live in my dreams.

Podcast Easy Listening

2009-06-09T21:46:00.000-07:00

A couple of Christmases ago, my husband came up with a brilliant plan. He wanted a new IPod, one with video, but didn't have enough gift money to buy the latest version. He somehow convinced me to buy his used IPod with my gift money for the price he could have gotten by selling it on ebay. He then he used those proceeds to help buy his new model.

I must say I was a bit skeptical about having an IPod. I didn't know if I would use it enough to warrant using precious Christmas money on it. I like music okay, but in general I don't listen to a lot of it, I have very specific tastes, and I tire of songs quickly. I thought I would probably use my IPod occasionally, but thought it was something I could live without.

Shortly after acquiring my IPod, I discovered podcasts. My entire view of my IPod has changed. It's not a little music machine, no, no, it's a little talking machine! I love it! I listen to podcasts when I'm exercising, and when I'm doing dishes, laundry, cleaning, and other domestic agonies. It makes tedious work fun. Or if not fun, bearable.

I've decided to share with you my fav podcasts. They are all available from ITunes if you do a search for them. If you don't have an IPod, you can still download them to ITunes and listen to them from your computer.

The Dave Ramsey Show
You can get an hour of each daily show free. Since I am usually not driving in the car from 7-10PM, it's nice to be able to get my Dave Ramsey fix.

Astronomy Cast
Mike got me hooked on this. I'm not extremely interested in space like he is, but listening to the podcast is like being in a really cool college class. It's a little like the television show Nova. They talk down enough so that it doesn't go over your head, but keep it intellectual enough that you feel like you're really smart for listening to it. Dr. Pamela Gray is awesome, and has a knack for explaining really hard things.

KEXP Song of the Day
This is one I've just started subscribing to. Every day they give you a new song. It seems like it's mostly self-released songs. They seem to have pretty good taste and a variety of music, and it's nice listening to music I haven't heard a million times already. I listen to the songs, delete the ones I don't care for, and then I'll transfer my favorites to my IPod.

This American Life
Each week they have a theme and tell stories of people relating to the theme. It sounds lame, but it's amazing. It's one of the most popular podcasts for a reason.

NPR Planet Money
A spinoff from This American Life focusing on money. It's a nice way to keep up to date on current events relating to money. They somehow make it fairly interesting.

NPR: Wait Wait... Don't Tell Me! Podcast
It's a comic gameshow focusing on current news. I like it, and it's funny, but I'm convinced it has a liberal bias to it. Actually, I think all NPR shows have a least a little liberal bias going on, but the other ones try harder to hide it. I haven't given up on it yet though, as it usually makes me laugh a few times per episode.

The official Lost Podcast
If you watch the show, definitely listen to the podcast. They answer questions and erase a little of the confusion.

Pediacast: a pediatric podcast for parents
I used to get Parents magazine, but after a while it started bugging me. This podcast is so much better. Dr. Mike has a down to earth and practical approach to parenting and pediatric advice. His advice has come in handy a couple of times for me.

Stuff You Should Know
I want to like this podcast, and the topics are intereting, but the hosts are so nerdy. I'm not a big fan of their shtick, but the info is good, so I'm sticking around.

TedTalks
These are videos, so I don't download them to my video-less IPod, but they are very interesting talks by all kinds of people. Again, it's like being in college, with guest lecturers coming to the school.

WNYC's Radio Lab
I love this podcast. It's a lot like This American Life, but about science. Very cool.

60-second Psych
60 second commentary on the latest in brain and behavior studies. I've just started listening to it, but so far it's interesting.

The other think I love to do with my IPod is listen to audiobooks. You can download free audiobooks from ITunes (I recently downloaded Anne of Green Gables), and I also get audiobooks from the library. I really enjoy listening to mysteries. Something about listening to the stories makes them more spooky.

I don't usually keep up with all my Podcasts, but it's nice to know there's always something to listen to when I need to tackle a bunch of laundry.

Now that you know what I like, if you have any Podcast suggestions, I'd love to hear them!

Michigan, Part Four dot C

2009-06-06T23:14:00.000-07:00

My final (for now) Michigan post will focus on the drive. Here are a few more things we used to entertain the kids on our long drives to and from Michigan.

Tbese are some of the surprise bags (explained here) I made for the trip.

One of the surprise bags for each kid had a blank journal and a bunch of stickers inside (found in the Target bargain bins). The younger two just transferred stickers into the journal, but my oldest used stickers and coloring to create really neat pictures.

This last trip I packed a bag full of craft supplies. We had pipe cleaners to sculpt designs with, lots of glitter glue, scissors, construction paper, staplers, foam shapes, and a bunch of squiggly eyes and puff balls to make pictures with:

For $5 at Robert's Crafts, I got these foam kits which the kids loved, and which kept them occupied for at least an hour.

We played Car Bingo through Wyoming, which added to the challenge. (You would not believe how long we looked for a bird!)

Balls are fun to throw around if you're in the way back seat.

I bought a bunch of dry erase markers and an eraser, and let the kids draw on board books. They weren't specially bought board books, just ones we had. My 18 month old loved scribbling and erasing on the animals over and over again.

The older kids like drawing clothing, silly glasses, fake eyelashes, spots, etc. on the animals. I love the decorated bunny on this one:

Another great thing to bring along is a cookie sheet. Most are magnetic, so the kids can play with magnets on them. My boys loved to drive their cars on them, and they are also great for drawing on or doing puzzles on (so the pieces don't slide off.)

but the most entertaining thing of all on a long trip is watching Daddy have a little talk with a nice police officer.

(phew, just a warning)

Michigan, Part Four dot B

2009-06-06T20:00:00.000-07:00

The best part of being in Michigan is hanging with family of course!

In April, Mike's Mom, Barb, got married, and we were all excited to welcome Rick into our family.

On both visits we made sure to drive up to Alma to visit with Mike's grandpa, Grandpa Floyd. In October we went with Mike's mom, and in April we met Mike's mom and Aunt Betty there.

Grandma took us to Uncle John's Cider Mill which had yummy home made cider, bouncy castles and a corn maze.

and of course visiting the zoo with Grandma is a must!

We met with Wayne and Carol (Mike's dad and step-mom), and Jeff (Mike's step-brother) for awesome nachos in Lansing. I just noticed it looks like Alex is chugging a beer. It's root beer of course.

While we were waiting for food, the kids entertained themselves by balancing folded napkin rings on their noses. Their father entertained himself by trying to blow them off.

I entertained Andy with a giraffe puppet.

We stayed a couple of nights with Wayne and Carol. We sent the kids to get their pajamas on, and they came back with a surprise. They had switched pajamas. They thought it was hilarious. I thought it was pretty funny too.

After the kids were in bed, the hard core board game playing began. Notice the cool card holders Wayne made, and the professional baseball caps to cut down on the glare.

And since I don't have a better place to put it, let me finish with a picture that shows just how much Fall in Michigan rules!

Michigan, Part Four dot A

2009-06-06T18:14:00.000-07:00

Remember my posts on our trip to Michigan? That trip we took back in October? And how there was going to be a "Part Four" to wrap things up?

Well since then, we took another trip to Michigan for Mike's Mom's wedding. So I've decided to turn my Michigan "Part Four" post into a few all encompassing posts about my favorite things we did in the Mason area and on our drives during both trips.

Starting with Impression Five.

Impression Five is an awesome children's science museum in Lansing, Michigan. I much prefer it to our pricey local Utah children's museum. The Utah museum charges $8.50 for each per person, child, and toddler ($42.50 for our family), which seems a bit excessive for a little dress up if you ask me. In comparison, Impression Five charges $5 for adults, and $1 per age of each child ($21 for our family). Plus at Impression Five you learn about science, and science is cool!

Mike and his dad took the older two kids when we were out in October, and they had such a good time that Mike and I took all the kids again when we went out in April.

Here are some of our favorite things at the museum:

Bubbles
(big enough to stand inside of!)

Water
There was a big water table room,

as well as a special toddler room with a smaller version.

Pulleys!
Another fun exhibit was seeing how hard it was to lift yourself using 1, 2, or 3 pulleys.

The shadow wall and magnet exhibits were also very, very cool, but I can't find any pictures of those.

Mike loved Impression 5 so much that he bought places for the older two's hand prints on the wall. We meant to do our youngest's when we went back, but we had too much fun playing and didn't get to it. Now we have a reason to go back!

I almost forgot to post pictures of one of my favorite parts of the museum. They provided yellow pieces of paper where kids could ask science questions, and they would post answers to some of the questions on a bulletin board. We didn't have time to write the questions until we were in the car after we had left, but I really liked my kids' questions.

My 6 year old daughter's:

(Why do wishes not come true?)

and

(Why do worms like dirt?)

My 4 year old son's:

Michigan Trip Part Three

2008-12-10T21:19:00.000-08:00

Remember that trip to Michigan we took in September? Remember how I keep promising to post Part 3 of said trip? Well hold on to your britches folks, because here it is...

Part 3: Holland, Michigan

One of the main reasons that we decided to go to Michigan in September was because Mike's Hope College 10 year reunion was then.

We convinced Mike's mom to come with us to Holland so we could spend more time with her as well as abuse her amazing babysitting powers during the grown-ups only portion of the reunion. In looking at hotel rates, we discovered that since it was off-season in Holland, we could rent a whole cottage for less than the price of two hotel rooms. We booked the Mirandy Cottage at Rosewood Pointe before we left Utah, and it did not disappoint.

The cottage was located on Lake Macatawa. One of the best parts of the cottage was the nice beach. We liked the cottage so much we stayed an extra night.

Across the river from us were some pretty impressive houses.

Literally the first thing we did when we got to Holland was to visit Lake Michigan.

Grandma and Andy walked back and forth along the beach and tried to catch seagulls.

The water was cold, but that didn't stop Autumn and Alex.

We had a great time at the beach.

Autumn drew this awesome picture of a whale in the sand.

A trip to Holland wouldn't be complete without a visit to the famous windmill. (Brought over from Holland, the country)

We took a tour of the inside of the windmill, and rode on the carousel at Windmill Island.

And Andy met a new friend.

We also spent a lot of time doing reunion activities. We had the Reunion Brunch, Reunion Barbecue lunch, and Reunion grown-up dinner-sort-of (we thought it was going to be dinner, but it was more of a light appetizer buffet.)

We had a great time at Hope college and it was nice to meet some of Mike's friends that I haven't met before, as well as reconnecting with some we haven't seen in a while. I didn't want to post their pictures without them knowing, but just know that they are a good looking bunch! It really is nice that I married into such awesome family and friends.

Holland was a blast!

Stay tuned for Part 4: Fun times in Mason

I am a NaNoWriMo Winner!

2008-11-30T01:38:00.000-08:00

I just have to take this opportunity to shout to the world that I have WON NaNoWriMo! Yeah! Yippee! Hooray!

It was such an exciting moment when my husband and I verified our word count on the NaNoWriMo web site at the same time, and this came up on our screens:

I cannot explain how amazing this experience has been. I would highly recommend it to anyone. Seriously. Next year, do it. I didn't think I would be able to pull it off, and honestly I'm still a little amazed that I did. I am not ashamed to say that I am proud of myself for completing this.

I have decided that I will take a week and ignore my novel. I'm not going to open it read it or anything. I want to read it straight through, mistakes and all, after I've distanced myself from it for awhile. I have no idea what it's going to be like. I haven't had time to read through it, and I'm curious what it'll be like to read through it start to finish. After I've done that, I'll do a little housekeeping and clean it up a little bit before I will release it to the world. My plan is let anyone who is brave enough to read through my rough first draft be able to do so by Christmas. That will be my present to all three of loyal blog readers.

Here's another excerpt to tide you over until then:

(disclaimer: very rough first draft)

. . . . . . . . .

Chapter One

Lexi felt the despair she had been trying to fight all day wash over her. She felt the need to sit, and found the curb beside her car. Desperately seeking something to distract herself, she focused on the problem she had been thinking about on the way to her car. “for i=1 to 100 do... for i=1 to 100 do” she repeated in her head a dozen times. She felt herself calming, and although she still didn't trust herself to think about anything else, she moved on to what the next line of code should be. She didn't get much further than that when a new shadow appeared at her feet.

She turned around to find a pair of wide blue eyes looking concerned down at her. “Sheesh.. is that your car?” the mouth below the eyes asked.

She forced her lips into a half smile. “Yeah,” she replied

“Dude, of all the tires to slash in this lot, why pick the beetle? That thing is awesome.”

Lexi looked over with a sigh at the 1977 beetle her parents had just gifted her. Even with four slashed tires, he was right. It was a thing of beauty.

“I'm Everett, by the way. Do you need a ride somewhere?”

“Hi. I'm Alexis – Lexi. ” she replied, then focused her mind to the car problem. “No thanks on the ride. I have AAA. I'll just have it towed to the tire shop.” As proof, she reached into her purse and pulled out her AAA card. This time she managed a full smile. Everett returned her smile, revealing two slight dimples under his cheekbones. He sat down next to her as she arranged for a tow truck to come.

“They said it'll be here within an hour” she relayed after the phone call ended. Everett looked at her for a moment than said “Tell you what, I'm done with all my classes. I'll help you wait for the tow truck, and then I'll give you a ride in my car. It'll be a lot more comfortable than the cab of a tow truck”.

Lexi felt the draw of the blue eyes, but her mother's voice in her head was louder. “No, thanks,” she answered, “you don't need to do that. Really, I'll be fine”.

Everett was quiet for a moment with his brows crinkled. “I know this sounds ridiculous, since I'm don't know you, and you don't know me, but I just feel uncomfortable leaving you alone with slashed tires and some unknown tow truck driver driving you around.”

Lexi debated whether to act annoyed or flattered by his chivalry. In the end her nerves took over and she let out a few giggles. As she strove to control those, she found her giggles turn gradually into deeper and fuller laughs until finally she fell backwards into the grassy median to release several full belly ones.

Everett looked down at her with a confused smile, and as her laughter turned into sighs, she elevated herself up onto her elbows. “I am so sorry,” she explained, with a smile still on her face, “I have had one crazy day, and I guess my body needed to release some tension. Tell you what,” she continued, “I'll let you drive me, but I'm going to text my mother your license plates number, so if I come up missing, she'll know where to look.”

As they waited for the tow truck, Lexi tried to find out as much about Everett as she could. Not only was she interested in what he was doing at the 'U, but she was unsure what exactly she was going to reveal about herself. She so badly wanted to fit in here, and to play the part of a normal freshman college student on her first day of classes. Unfortunately, she was anything but normal, and she knew that the longer she waited to tell the truth, the more awkward it would be to bring it up.

Everett concluded his story about how he had started as an English major two years ago, found himself taking more and more computer science courses as electives, and finally deciding to switch his major to computer science with a minor in English, despite the fact that it would add at least one extra year to get his degree.

“So, how about you?” he asked, “What brought you to north-east side of campus?”

”Well... I guess the first thing you should know is that... “ Lexi took a deep breath and felt her brain groan as she released the words, “I'm only sixteen years old.” She could see the shock first register in Everett's eyes and then quickly move to the rest of his features.

“No way, you're kidding, right? You totally don't look sixteen”

“I know”, she replied, “I get that a lot.” Unsure of what else to say she added “How old are you?” She did some quick math in her head. Even though the math added up to it, his soft features and large bright eyes didn't match the number she guessed: “20?”

“Yep, I'm 20. So you're sixteen and in college. How exactly did that happen?”

NaNoWriMo Update

2008-11-18T21:12:00.000-08:00

I am happy to announce that I have completed half of my novel. That's right folks, over 25,000 words have been typed by my ten fingers (25,839 to be exact).

In case you're like me, and have no idea how long a 50,000 novel is, I'll try to give you a better way to visualize it. I'm typing my novel in OpenOffice (just like Microsoft Word except it's free). I am typing in a 12 point font, single spaced. I do add a line of space between my paragraphs. I'll probably change that later to make it more book-like, but I like it for now. Right now I am about halfway through page 51. So, my novel will probably be about one hundred 8 and 1/2 by 11 pages long when I'm done.

This is by far the longest thing I've ever written in my life. It generally takes me two hours of typing every night to hit my daily goal. If I get distracted or fall asleep it takes me longer. Mike and I also take turns having writing nights where we get out of the house and write. We even had a date night writing night.

I am having so much fun with my novel. I had no idea I'd be having such a good time. I especially like that there's no expectation for it to be good. The only goal is to hit 50,000 words. If you do that you win.

In celebration of my half way mark, I'm going to post part of my novel. It's not my favorite scene in the novel, but I think I'll save that for those of you who are brave enough to read it when I'm done. And I think I will post my entire novel, although I'll probably take a week or so to clean it up a little. (the majority of the novel I've not had a chance to even re-read).

So here it is, a glimpse of my novel, but keep in mind that it's unfinished first draft.

.................

Lexi knew that she should get back to her work. She looked at Everett while she debated in her mind, and he flashed her a smile complete with dimples. She was putty in his hands. Of course she'd go. That's not what she said though. What she said was, “Well, I guess my program can wait another few minutes. I'm intrigued. What more could possibly be hidden in this building?”

As the entered the hallway Everett said, “Not hidden inside the building. Hidden on top.” And with that he opened the stairwell door and they climbed the stairs two levels up to the door leading outside.

The Computer Science building was built into the side of a hill. The top of the building was level with the top of the hill. The building was a shaped like a 'U' with a courtyard in the middle of the lower level. Sidewalks ran up the hill connecting the courtyard at the bottom of the hill with the parking lot at the top. They had exited the building at the top of the hill by the parking lot.

There was about 10 feet difference between the top of the hill and the top of the building. By climbing on a hand rail and jumping a little, it was a fairly easy to climb on top of the building. Everett went first, showing the way, and Zach encouraged Lexi to go next. Lexi took a little longer than Everett, but made her way up.

There were two things that Lexi noticed when she stood up after climbing onto the roof. One was that the view was incredible. There were no buildings, trees, or lights standing in her way. She had a perfect view of the city. There was a cool breeze blowing, and the night felt fresh and inviting. All of the twinkling lights below seemed magical in the quiet night air.

The second thing she noticed was that there was a couch on the roof.

“Um, did you guys put this up here?” she asked.

“Nope,” Everett answered, “I noticed it one day when I was walking to class. It's hardly visible from the ground. You have to look up at the roof at just the right angle to see it. Once I saw it I had to get up here and explore. I've never seen anyone up here, but it's a nice place to come and relax when I need a break from the programming.”

“Well the couch seems to be in pretty good shape, considering it's outside, so it couldn't have been up here too long.” Lexi said.

Everett sat down on the couch, and having learned her lesson from lunch the other day, Lexi quickly sat down next to him in the middle spot. Zach sat down on the other side of her, and they all looked out in silence at the city below. Lexi wanted nothing more than to snuggle up to Everett, and imagined his arm wrapping around her and pulling her close. Since that didn't seem likely to happen, she brought her knees up instead, wrapped her arms around them, and rested her chin on top. She sat that way, snuggling herself with Everett close by, and felt content.

NaNoWriMo for the win

2008-11-07T12:54:00.000-08:00

I know I've left everyone hanging about how our Michigan trip ended. I'll spoil the ending by saying that we all made it home in one piece. I promise I'll get to the rest of the details in about a month.

"Why so long?" you ask. Well, it just so happens that I have started writing a novel for NaNoWriMo (National Novel Writing Month). Basically, in the month of November anyone can try and write a 50,000 word piece of fiction. If you hit 50,000 words by the end of the month you win.

I really wanted to do it last year, but with a newborn it just didn't seem possible. Now that all of my kids are (mostly) sleeping through the night I thought I'd give it a go. I don't want to give too much away, but my novel is a lot like Twilight. Except instead of vampires, there are computer science geeks. It really is just a self indulgent way for me to re-live my favorite college memories. Except I can make them even better. Like including a Bud Cort look alike for my leading man.

I am having so much fun writing this. It may not amount to much, but I'm glad I've decided to do it. If it doesn't stink too bad, maybe, just maybe, I'll let you read it when it's done.

Here's a little gadget to show you how far I am in my writing.

Michigan Trip Part Two

2008-10-16T22:52:00.000-07:00

We arrived in Mason late on Sunday, and spent the next day unpacking and cleaning the car, visiting with Mike's family, doing laundry (yes, after 2 1/2 days we had already generated a load and 1/2 of laundry), and packing for our mini-trip to Houghton Lake.

Mike's dad has a cabin on Houghton Lake, and we couldn't miss an opportunity to spend some time there, so Tuesday we made the two hour drive North, and stayed there through Friday morning.

Unfortunately it rained pretty much the entire time we were there, so we didn't get a chance to get out onto the lake, and all the fun things we could think of to do with the kids weren't open, but we managed to make due just fine. We had a fun day of shopping and leaf hunting, topped off with a visit to the doughnut shop. We had amazing food the whole time, both homemade and at the local pizza place. The kids had fun playing with the SmartCycle and other toys in the cabin. The adults enjoyed watching Season Two of The Office (American version) and playing Settlers of Catan. Unfortunately I wasn't taking any pictures of any of it. What was I thinking?

What would a trip to Houghton Lake be without a visit to the Urgent Care? Two years ago we went with Alex after he fractured his arm falling down the 2 steps in the cabin, and this time we made a visit after Andy broke out in a full body rash.

The first night he turned red:

And then the next morning these huge welts started appearing all over. They were everywhere - front, back, face, legs. He looked awful!

I was afraid that he had had an allergic reaction to something that he ate, and the doctor at the Urgent Care thought the same thing. They drew blood to send away to test for food allergies, (which Andy only cried at the very end of), and sent us on our way. We spent the rest of our vacation avoiding eggs and peanuts thinking one of the two might have triggered the reaction. The results from the blood test came back a week later (when we were still in Michigan), and were very weird. Urgent Care called to say that he was allergic to one or more of a list of 7 common allergy foods. Those results were not helpful, to say the least, so we continued to keep him off eggs and peanuts until we could get an allergy test done back in Utah. Luckily after calling around to several doctors we found one that could fit us in before Jan/Feb.

Since I'm writing this blog post after we've returned home, I can tell you that we did visit a doctor here the day after we got back, and the allergy prick test showed no food allergies to any of those food items the other blood test tested. The doctor said that the results from the other blood test were weird in that it's usually a very specific test, and they should have been able to tell me what specifically he was allergic to. His guess from the symptoms and how they showed was that Andy was probably reacting to a viral infection. He did another blood test just to make sure, but said that he was 95% sure that Andy didn't have a food allergy. We will find out the results from this 2nd blood test early next week. Andy didn't cry at all when his blood was drawn. All the nurses were stunned.

I will say that I have a lot more sympathy for those who deal with food allergies. After only a few weeks I've come to realize how hard it is to avoid some of these foods, and how stressful it is trying to come up with foods to eat that he will eat that are safe for him. He ate a lot of hot dogs, french fries, oatmeal, and pop tarts for the last part of the trip, just because I knew they were safe and he would eat them. It's was so sad to not let him eat something that he really wanted, because it had egg in it. Hopefully the tests will come back negative, but if not, I'll definitely be talking to those of you who have had more experience with this stuff.

That seems like a good place to end for today. Thanks Wayne and Carol for an awesome time at the cabin, even though the rain thwarted all of your best plans.

Part Three will be focus on our visit to Holland, Michigan for Mike's 10 year college reunion.

My first memes

2008-10-16T21:23:00.000-07:00

Brittany and Nicole (I think) tagged me by name, so I thought, what the heck, I'll do a couple of memes.

Passed on from Brittany:
------------------------------
4 things I love about my husband:

1. I love hanging out with him. We get along together so well. He's a very easy person to live with, and truly a best friend.
2. I feel like I can tell him everything. And I do. Even those weird dreams that he probably doesn't even want to know about.
3. He loves our kids. It's so fun watching him interact with them.
4. I do not doubt that he loves me. He's always saying and doing things to show his love. He tells me all the time what I good mom and wife I am. He shows his love by doing things to help me, just because he knows I speak that love language. He likes to snuggle and watch movies, and is always begging for date nights. He is totally hot.

4 Movies I would watch more than once:

1. Harold and Maude
2. The Royal Tenenbaums
3. The Jerk
4. A Mighty Wind

4 TV shows I watch more than once:

1. The Office
2. Lost
3. Firefly
4. Buffy

4 Places I have been:

1. Europe
2. Maine
3. Alaska
4. I've driven to or through most states in the US

4 People who email me regularly:

1. Mike
2. My Mom
3. My brothers/sisters-in-law
4. Gosh, nobody, they just send me a message on Facebook. Stop making me feel like a loser :)

4 Favorite Foods:

1. Restaurant Morelia - My favorites are the chili verde burrito with cheese, the enchiladas, and the rice, but everything is so good!
2. Indian Food - Love the India House in Sandy, and the Bombay House
3. Chocolate Dipped Strawberries from Cummings Studio Chocolates (and any other high quality chocolate for that matter)
4. Homemade casseroles and nice warm comfort food.

4 Places I would like to visit:

1. Japan
2. Alaska (again!)
3. Hawaii
4. Maine (again!)

4 Things I am looking forward to this coming year:

1. We just paid off all our debt except our house, and I'm really looking forward to paying ourselves the money we used to pay other people.
2. Thanksgiving, Christmas, New Year's Day. I love the holidays.
3. Spending time with my family and watching them grow.
4. Getting pregnant again. Kee Kee, just had to throw that in to see if Mike's paying attention :) We're currently undecided if we're going to stick with 3 or end with an even number. We need a few more months to clear our heads before we can think about it.

4 People I would like to tag:
1. Umm, I don't really know who reads my blog, and I have doubts that there are 4 people I could name, but if you like the questions, then, tag, you're it.

Passed on from Nicole:
------------------------------
I was doing 10 years ago...
1. Having a total party time in the CS computer lab!
2. Not sleeping
3. I can't remember exactly when I got my internship with Unisys, so I was either working for them, or working at Restaurant Morelia and babysitting, possibly TAing as well. I was definitely working in the computer Mac lab in the Biology building. I did that most of my college career.
5. Hanging with and sometimes dating really cool people (hadn't officially met Mike yet though).

5 things on my to-do list today. (I'll say tomorrow since today is almost over)...
1. Continue to unpack/clean
2. Find a babysitter so Mike and I can have a much needed date night sometime soon.
3. Take Bruno (our dog) to get his haircut. (I'm glad I'm doing this meme, I almost forgot that I had to do that)
4. Exercise. For real. I'm thinking I might take the kids to my Mom and Dad's house and jog/walk on the treadmill. I had a routine of going over there before I had to get ready for the Michigan trip, and I'm ready to get back into it. (Thanks Mom and Dad for letting me use your house as a free gym!!)
5. Go to Wal-mart and get invitations for Autumn's upcoming birthday party. Also some face paint for Alex's spiderman costume. We also need to hit some 2nd hand stores to try and find some cowboy boots for Autumn's Hannah Montana costume.
6. Come to the realization that there is no way I'm getting all the above done in one day.

5 of my favorite snacks...
1. Hot cocoa (in the fall and winter)
2. Ice Cream
3. Popcorn - I usually do the Healthy Choice Kettle Corn now-a-days, but my mother-in-law got me hooked on the super buttery kind, so every once in a while I'll indulge in that too.
4. Lately we've been into the fruit smoothies - we usually do 2 cups of fruit and 1 can of diet pop. (I like to use diet 7-UP or raspberry Diet Rite), and sometimes I'll throw in some yogurt.
5. Banana Bread. Yum!

5 Jobs I've had...
1. Currently I'm a very very part time web developer and also the Grant Administrator for Citizens for a Safe future for Midvale
2. My first official job was at Burger King. I eventually became a Shift Supervisor.
3. One of my favorite jobs was working at a copy and print shop part time one summer.
4. I worked at Intel after I graduated from college for about a year and 1/2.
5. My least favorite job was selling Mary Kay makeup. I think I lasted the length of my pregnancy with Autumn. I love the product, and liked giving demos, but hated making phone calls and feeling like I had to move the product filling my office. I did like going to my weekly motivational meetings though. It definitely wasn't all bad.

5 things I would do with a million dollars...
1. Finish the Dave Ramsey baby steps.
2. Get new carpet
3. Get a new dishwasher
4. Get a Kitchen Aid mixer
5. Invest most of what's left, so it could generate some interest, baby!

5 things that made me laugh this week...
1. Autumn saying "Cheerio" to our neighbors when we left their house tonight.
2. Alex telling me, "I love you a billion and hate you 3... (pause)... that is not very much."
3. Andy's head bob dancing.
4. Mike driving the car and laughing out of control about something he heard on his IPod.
5. Bruno's beyond enthusiastic greetings after seeing me when we got home from our trip.

5 people I tag, to answer these same questions....
YOU!!

Michigan Trip Part One

2008-10-12T07:21:00.000-07:00

We are coming to the end of our 2 and 1/2 week trip to visit family in Michigan, and we have seen and done so much!

Part One of this blogging series is dedicated to the drive from West Jordan, Utah to Mason, Michigan. The drive took us two days, with an overnight stay in York, Nebraska.

The first day we left at 6 AM, and arrived in York, Nebraska thirteen hours later. The second day we were planning to leave the motel at about 7-8 AM, but due to some baby's (ours) inability to stay asleep, we ended up leaving at 6 AM. We took a few more stops this day, and ran into some road construction, so it was about thirteen and 1/2 hours later that we arrived in Mason, Michigan.

My kids are such amazing little travelers. As long as they had something to keep them occupied they were good natured the whole drive. Unfortunately with attention spans of about 10 minutes, I was constantly digging through and rotating activities. It was only for a brief moment when both boys were sleeping that I got a chance to rest and listen to my ipod.

I had the car packed with toys, books, and activities (thanks to some friends and http://www.momsminivan.com/toddlers.html for suggestions).

Here's me about 1/2 way through the drive, when all the activity stuff had migrated back to me, and I was squashed between a car seat and the mound of toys and activities.

New this year was a laminated map I made showing our route.

There are two maps, one for each day of traveling. The stars on the map were the cities where the kids could open a "surprise bag". The surprise bags were basically manila envelopes with a dollar store toy or two thrown in, decorated with stickers and the name of the city on the outside. Albertsons was also clearancing out some kids books right before we left, so a couple of the surprise bags had some cool books in them. Out of all the things I did for the drive, this was the best thing. Instead of only having our end destination to look forward to, we would count down miles until our next surprise bag city. And at each surprise bag city they would get something new to play with.

Here are the kids playing with some surprise bag items:

We also used a washable marker to keep track of where we were on the map. The kids could see our progress and how close we were to the next surprise bag city.

Anytime the kids asked how close we were, I'd just pull out the map and show them. It was nice to have a answer to that question.

We also had the luxury of portable DVD players and laptops. (Thanks Mom and Dad for letting us borrow players and movies!) For about 5 minutes while my laptop battery had juice we had 3 movies going at once.

I'm totally bummed that we didn't have this technology when I was growing up!

The boys also enjoyed a little synchronized sleeping:

We stopped at a cool rest stop just outside Joliet, Illinois. It had a neat little playground attached to it.

The highlight of the drive was an overnight stay in York, Nebraska. I made sure to book a hotel that had a pool, and the Holiday Inn there didn't disappoint.

Blast to the Past

2008-09-21T13:52:00.000-07:00

I've only recently started this blog, but I've been broadcasting a digital version of myself since my CS 1010 class in 1996. My first web page was located at www.eng.utah.edu/~kmay. Unfortunately due to a crazy stalker I had in college I took the site down, but a few years ago I made a remembrance page for those original web pages. It can be found at: kristen.pietdepsi.com. A lot of the links don't work anymore, but it's fun to remember what life was like all those years ago. (as long as I don't focus too long at the exact number of years it's been :) Here is the creepy picture I made myself which graced one of my original index pages:

My newest web page is at wholewatermelon.com. It hasn't been updated for a couple of years though.

I passed!

2008-09-16T23:14:00.001-07:00

After 2 full days of cake-making, I have finally finished the final cake for my Wilton Course III class.

If you want the details about the cake, or to see my other cakes from Course II and III, you can go to my entry at the livejournal cake_decorating community.

Carpool Update

2008-09-03T21:50:00.001-07:00

I just wanted to ease everyone's worries and let you know that I've solved a majority of my carpool frustrations. After talking to my neighbor, the carpool guru, I now leave my house at precisely 3:31-3:32 PM and make my way to the school. If I leave at that exact time I can find a gap in the line and slide right in without making the kids wait too long. The final bell rings at 3:25, so by the time the older kids get out of school, pick my daughter up from the kindergarten area, and settle down by the tree, they only have to wait for about 5 minutes. (which is no less than they were waiting when I did get there early to fight in the line). I also moved the boys' carseats to the driver's side of the car, so the kids can file into the car from the sidewalk with no reprimands from the aide. Maybe, just maybe, I'll get this school thing figured out after all.

Lunchboxes, wheee!

2008-09-03T21:19:00.000-07:00

I'm supposed to be blocking it from my mind right now, but I just can't help it. My sweet mother-in-law knows that I collect lunchboxes and usually finds a few good ones each year to help my collection grow. It's kind of a tricky thing to do, since my criteria for which lunchboxes I would like to own is that they have to make me happy to look at, and most trigger some form of nostalgia. My favorite lunchboxes are from the 80s, since that's where I spent most of my childhood. Today she called when she was looking at antiques to ask if I was interested in any of the ones she saw. They will be gifts for my upcoming birthday or Christmas, so I'm supposed to block them from my mind, but I can't help but smile with anticipation for a couple hours before I forget about them. From what she was describing, the lunchboxes we decided on probably look something like this:

Rambo - I'm not sure if it's the metal or plastic version, so here's a picture of both. The metal versions are usually worth more than the plastic, but I do it for the nostalgia not the resell, so it's not too important to me.

Strawberry Shortcake - I already have one strawberry shortcake lunchbox, but not this one. I owned a strawberry shortcake lunchbox as a kid, and I love having them just as much now!

Snoopy - She sent a picture to my phone of this one, but I couldn't tell for sure if it's the metal or plastic version. They both look like this:

Doesn't looking at them just make you feel giddy? Now I just have to wait until we're out in Michigan in a couple of weeks so I can try and convince her to show them to me in person.

Yeah, I'm so happy!

Uggh... Carpool!

2008-08-20T23:57:00.000-07:00

I'm surviving Kindergarten. My daughter is doing great, but I'm having a bit of a problem adjusting to the new regime. It's hard being expected to be somewhere on time everyday! Preschool was a lot less forgiving if I showed up 5 min late every third time. But in kindergarten there's consequences for tardiness. They wrote out said consequences for me on a sheet of paper in the welcome to school packet. The consequences are bad. I could get called into the principle's office if I don't tow the line. I've already had to check my daughter in late once, because I forgot about Friday early-out day, which for afternoon kindergarten is actually early-in and early-out day. I can only hope it won't go on my permanent record.

My biggest complaint is definitely picking up my daughter and the other kids in the carpool twice a week. Today I arrived at the school about 6 minutes before the final bell rang, at approx 2:19. I arrived back at home at 2:50 PM. I live 1.3 miles away. To put in in perspective, it takes me 4 min to drive to school and drop off my child for afternoon kindergarten (which is pleasantly uncrowded at that time of day). It takes me 31 min to do the reverse.

When we bought this house, I saw the shiny elementary school across the street and assumed that my daughter and future children would be attending that school. I checked the school's boundary maps to make sure our house was included, and checked the test scores of this school against several others in the area. Everything checked out, and I felt secure purchasing the house. After we moved in, our neighbors told me they had lost the fight some time ago, and the kids in our neighborhood were being bused to another school because the newer housing somehow won the right to attend that school. Our subdivision had been kicked out. The boundary maps on the school district's web site were apparently out of date, making all of my careful research useless. I took deep breaths and told myself that since my daughter was only 6 months old, plenty of things could change before it was time for her to go to kindergarten.

Flash forward 5 years. They've built another Elementary School, which is closer to the one the kids in the neighborhood had been bused to, but still not as close as the taunting school across the street. This new school is 1.3 miles of walking distance away, however, they calculate distance as if our children fly to school, and that makes our home under 1 mile away. Thus my kindergarten age daughter is within "walking distance" of the school, despite the fact that she would have to cross two very busy and dangerous steets to get there. No matter what label they place on the distance, there is no way on earth my child is walking it, and I've settled for the best solution I can find. Carpooling.

So here's how carpooling works at my school. I'm curious to know if this genius system is implemented everywhere, or if my school has a market on the most frustrating experience in existence. I arrive at the school 6 minutes before the final bell rings. I park two blocks away at the end of the line of cars waiting to pick kids up in the "car pool" lane. There is also a "drive-through" lane, but there is supposed to be no stopping in that lane. I wait for 10 minutes for children to start trickling out of the school. The people who camped out in their cars the night before start picking up their kids at the front of the line. We inch up a few spaces as a couple of cars leave from the front. But then we run into a problem. Some people follow the line of cars to the "pickup area" at the front of the school. But others have their kids just start walking until they see their car. So we've got some people waiting, some people trying to inch up, people leaving the "carpool" lane to jam their way into the "drive-through" lane, and people in the "drive-through" lane trying to jam their way into spaces that are left by deserters in the "carpool" lane. So people like me, whose carpool children have been trained by my other carpool partners to wait by the tree, are left to judge whether cars are going to pull up, or if I have to hop over them to an empty space. Then I have to venture into the "drive-through" lane and hope that someone won't steal the open spot before I get there. I don't want to hop prematurely and lose my place in the line that's not really a line. By the time I jump around all the people whose children have walked to them by this point, and make my way to the pick-up tree place, I'm always one of the last people to be picking up my kids.

To make matters worse, I got a talking to from the aide today for breaking procedure. Apparently, despite the fact that I got out of the car to walk my child from the sidewalk to the driver-side passenger door, children are only allowed to enter the vehicle from the side closest to the sidewalk. In exasperation (more from the whole experience than this one particular annoyance), I voiced my irritation to the aide that I have 6 kids (2 of which are already buckled in car seats in the car) to cram in the back of my mini-van and having them all enter through one door, and forcing half of them to crawl over my buckled children doesn't make life any easier. "It's for her own safety" was her snide reply. Well you know what? If the school were really concerned about my daughter's safety, maybe they could find a nice safe little yellow bus to come pick her up and take her to her house, a very un-safe 1.3 miles of "walking distance" away.

After I chaotically yet "safely" load all the children in the van, I get to join the long line of cars waiting to get onto the busy streets our children would be forced to walk if they didn't have parents who were willing to face the brutality every day. I'm always at the end of the line. And we wait. A long time. One of the girls in the carpool tells me that she and her friend ran an experiment, which concluded that the kids could walk home faster than they could be picked up and driven home. Maybe I'm wrong. Maybe that's how they calculated their "walking distance".

This same neighbor girl let me in on her Mom's secret. "She just comes really late" she said with a smile, "that way she doesn't have to deal with the long line." The funny thing is, her Mom has gotten my child home earlier than every day I've tried. Sometimes it's 2:40, sometimes 2:45, but never 2:50. And she's doesn't waste all the gas I do, idling in the hot summer heat for 3o min.

Thank goodness for carpooling. I don't think I could handle this 5 days a week..

2008-08-08T16:45:00.000-07:00

My review of Breaking Dawn (I posted it on goodreads.com)

*WARNING* It does contain major SPOILERS!!

Breaking Dawn by Stephenie Meyer

rating: 3 of 5 stars

*Warning* SPOILERS AHEAD

I love happy endings, but sometimes you have to sacrifice a little happy for the good of the story. This book lacked depth, and I found it really disappointing. There was a serious lack of the deep emotion that I found drawn to in her previous novels. This seemed more like a 600 page epilogue to the other novels than a novel itself.

To fully understand my disappointment, you might need to hear my expectations. From an e-mail I wrote before the release of Breaking Dawn:

Thoughts on Breaking Dawn:

I'm so excited for a fourth novel! I predict that Bella will stall a little bit before changing, but I think she will eventually get married and have Edward be the one to do the biting. I have no idea how the consummating will go. I'm not sure if Stephenie's going to go into too much detail and I'm not sure why Bella thinks it's going to be such a pleasant experience when she's a human. Having relations with hard cold marble ... maybe it could be pleasant, but I don't think I'd be excited about trying it.

Stephenie says she's given it a lot of thought, so I'll just let her sort out the details. I'm excited to see if Bella's a crazy newborn, and how she deals with it. I hope Stephenie details a lot of her changing. I think it could be really interesting. I keep thinking that some crazy twist is going to happen. I first thought she was going to get pregnant during her wedding night and have a 1/2 vampire baby. Stephenie shot that idea down on one of the blogs I was reading. I guess vampires can't get anyone pregnant. And if Bella were pregnant when she was turned into a vampire, she would remain that way forever. Since most of the story lines have been fairly straight forward, I doubt anything too unexpected is going to happen. I'm guessing that Bella's power to control her mind is going to be her major superpower, but I'm guessing that attracting danger isn't going to stop once she's on the other side.

---

I really wish attracting danger would have followed her on as a vampire. The dangers could have been more extreme to match her new powers. That would have made the pages and pages of waiting for something to happen a lot more interesting.

I kept waiting for some conflict. First I waited for something to happen to delay the wedding or make it harder. Didn't happen. I kept waiting for something to happen to delay the honeymoon or the sex. Didn't really happen. Then I waited for some conflict to happen with the pregnancy. It happened, but we switched perspectives instead of using that opportunity to explore Bella's internal struggles with her love for something that was killing her. Then I waited for some conflict with Bella being a vampire. None really. Then I waited for some interesting character information on the new vampires. Boring. Then I waited through hundreds of pages to get to the end battle. The end battle that ended up being pages and pages of talking.

And human/vampire sex good? really? how? I feel like Stephanie turned traitor on me. How exactly did the seed get from Edward to Bella? That was never explained to my satisfaction. I thought she had it all thought out. I think I was wrong.

I also had a problem with the Bella having to drink blood during her pregnancy. It's not like the embilical cord is a straw between baby and mom's stomach. The baby should have been getting the nutrients it needed from the IV to survive, so why was it rejecting nutrients passed on from Bella when it wasn't even tasting them? Bella as a human drinking blood was creepy, and in my opinion totally unnecessary.

Their baby was really creepy. Couldn't she show a little human emotion? She was not vulnerable and seemed devoid of any emotion. As I was reading, I kept picturing her as the Chucky doll. Despite the fact that all the vampires were falling in love with her, I didn't find her to be that enduring.

Bella's love for Edward was as strong as a mother's love for a child in the earlier novels. In Breaking Dawn her love seemed more like lust than anything else, and her maternal love towards Chucky seemed a little flaky. Sometimes she was obsessed and then other times she just ignored the baby.

I thought the plot of Twilight was weak, but I enjoyed reading about the relationship between Bella and Edward enough to forgive it. I loved the emotional turmoil in New Moon. Jacob and Edward both bugged me in Eclipse, but I had high hopes for Breaking Dawn. Instead I was left with neither plot nore interesting characters. My disappointment is overwhelming.

I still like Stephenie's writing, but I feel like she dropped the ball on this one. I get the sense that she got too attached to her characters and wanted everything to end perfectly for them. I wanted that too, but not really. Really I wanted to feel some conflict, some pain, and some character growth.

View all my reviews.

Kindergarten Blues

2008-08-03T23:58:00.001-07:00

It's 1 AM, an hour past when I usually go to bed, and I'm sitting here writing this post. I talked myself out of walking to the car to get the book I just checked out of the library. Why am I looking for excuses to stay up? My best guess is that I'm having issues with my oldest child starting kindergarten tomorrow. Technically she does not start until Tue, but tomorrow she goes in for 45 min to meet her teacher and get tested. I've heard stories about Mom's getting cold feet when it's time for their kids to go to school for the first time, but I thought I was going to be ok. I have pretty much convinced myself that it's just like preschool, only 5 days a week instead of 2 or 3. Nothing to worry about. Except..

I had a dream last night about kindergarten. I was a substitute for the kindergarten teacher, and I did a terrible job. One kid was being a little bit rowdy, and I felt like I needed to set an example of him so others wouldn't follow his lead. I decided to take him to the principle's office, and was only planning on being gone for a minute. Of course, since it was one of my dreams, it took me forever to get back. When I finally did get back, two members of my church who are actually teachers in real life were watching the class. I tried to pretend that nothing was amiss, and started teaching again, but I felt terrible and totally inadequate.

I can remember bits and pieces of my own kindergarten experience. I remember playing with the toys, and the letters hanging around the room. I remember kindergarten orientation where we got to play outside on the playground afterward. I remember loving to cut and paste. I have good feelings overall when I think about kindergarten, but I also remember a couple of bad experiences. The worst was when a someone who sat at my table was absent, and another boy at the table decided that it would be funny to distribute the missing boy's crayons amongst ourselves. We all laughed and agreed that it would be a funny trick. The next day when the boy came back, neither he nor the teacher thought it was funny, and asked who had done it. The ringleader, who had been the one to suggest it, told the teacher that I was the one who did it. I guess I was too shy to stand up for myself, because I had to go out into the hall for punishment. Not that I really minded. I remember liking being out there.

Our teacher would give us assignments to complete in class. After we were finished she would collect our pencils and then we come up to her desk in small groups to have our work graded. If we got all of the answers correct, we would get a scratch-and-sniff sticker for our paper. One day I did the assignment, she collected our pencils, and then just as I was about to go up for my work to be checked I noticed that I had answered one question incorrectly. The whole long trip up to her desk, and while waiting in line I had visions of sneaking over to the pencils, grabbing one, and quickly fixing my error, but I never worked up the courage to do it. The girl in front of me got a wonderful elephant sticker that smelled like peanuts when you scratched it. I wanted one so badly, but sure enough when I got to the front of the line I didn't say anything and my teacher marked the answer wrong. No smelly sticker for me.

Part of me wonders if I really am ready for my little girl to be off experiencing the school experiences, both good and bad, without me. Lucky for me, they are always looking for volunteers to help in the classroom, so I will hopefully be able to take advantage of some of those opportunities and be in this part of her life for a little while.

Well, blogging has made me feel better, and by better I mean sleepy. I have to be up bright and early to make her 8:15AM appt (are they crazy? She's in afternoon kindergarten for a reason people!), so I think I'm settled down enough now to go to sleep.

Wish me luck!