Friday, February 27, 2015

Oscar Night

The Becky, oh the Becky.  A few years ago I discovered that she looks forward to the biggest night of the year as much as I do.  What night is that do you ask?  Doi - Oscar night!  What other night could you sit on the couch in your jammies and watch celebrities parade around in fabulous get-ups?  Oh, like pretty much any night you want.  Of course.  But you know, there's just something above and beyond about the Oscars even though I generally have seen about a third of the movies due to their overwhelming rated-R-ness.  I just love watching and so does The Becky.  A couple of times in the past we have made an Oscar night date and this year we did it again and decided to make it an official annual date.  We even planned a menu.  Oh my gosh it was so much fun.

I headed over to The Becky residence around 5:00, just in time to begin binge watching skinny ladies in fancy dresses talk to microphone-wielding also-skinny people.  We made baked brie with apricot jam and almonds.  We made these amazing salads with yellow beets and avocado and soft boiled eggs on top. Lemon vinaigrette.  So good.  I finished all of mine while The Becky daintily left  the last few bites so as not to delve into total gluttony.  And that's before I made molten chocolate cakes....with cream and raspberries....

Oh boy.

Good thing I wore my pajamas.  And slippers. It was all very glamorous.




Thursday, February 26, 2015

Presidents Day Escapades

Last year when Presidents Day rolled around our valley was still encased in a foggy smoggy freeze.  We could not get ourselves out of the valley and down to Dixie fast enough.  This year....well, we were still very excited to go visit St. George but Salt Lake has been experiencing this crazy warm and gorgeous spring with clear wonderful air and flip flops every afternoon.  Both alarming and delightful.  Ok, now it's cold again but two weeks ago St. George was a lovely allure but we didn't head there quite as desperately as we did 12 months ago!

We still had a fantastic weekend.  We headed down Friday afternoon, stopping along the way for some In-N-Out (always a good way to get a trip started). We enjoyed a lot of time relaxing and letting the kids play in the sand, which resulted in some serious cavern excavation in P&S's back yard.






Sheri was excited to take us on an adventure on Saturday, and I was so glad she did.  I was a little surprised that we found a place to go in St. George that wasn't completely overrun by hoards of people.  Being President's Day weekend, not only was the gorgeous weather an allure, but there were tons of baseball and soccer tournaments happening so there were families packed in every place we went.  Trying to drive down St. George Boulevard was nearly impossible.  It was just a parking lot all day long.  But Sheri knows her way around that place and took us on this wonderful little hike to a place called The Vortex.  I have no idea quite where we were - we just got in the car and followed Sheri.  Most of the hike was a nice stroll through desert and rocky hills.  We were surrounded by that wonderful burnished rock and cerulean blue sky.  What a treat.  The very end of the hike is at the top of a big rock hill - we later found out that there's a pretty easy trail that winds its way up to the top, but we didn't know about it and so we just scaled this rock face.  It kind of freaked me out, not only because I'm not great with heights and exposed climbs but because I was with my little five year old who I just kept imagining tumbling off the side.  Ooh, that still freaks me out just thinking about it.  I tried to not let her know that I was nervous and protective of her - I didn't want her to feel like she couldn't do it.  And guess what, she totally could.  She was so awesome.  She got this boost of confidence and just kept saying things like, "Mom, today I learned that I can do really hard things.  I got scraped, I was tired, but I just ignored it and kept going and I could do it!"  She was so proud of herself and I was glowing too.  





Here's a picture Sheri took of us scaling this very scary mountain - once you got started up that was it.  You just had to keep going no matter how badly you (meaning ME) were freaking out


One of my favorite selfies ever.  What a great picture.

Cap on top of the mountain


"Mom!  I can do hard things!" What a rewarding day for my kids.








We had just the weekend we needed - getting away with family, enjoying the sun, playing outside.  Loved it.


Wednesday, February 25, 2015

Mad Science

So let's see....if I post at least one entry a day until the end of February (in 4 days) this will not be the worst blogging month ever.  We shall see.

So....here's a fun little detail for the books. Last month our school held a science fair for the 6th graders.  This was a little bit of a surprise to me.  I mean, I had heard Cap mention something about choosing a science-ish subject to study a few weeks ago, but I thought it was just for a class assignment.  I would now like to explain the beauty of this situation to you.  My son had a science fair. And I knew nothing about it.  Meaning....it wasn't me helping him work on it until midnight the night before it was due.  Meaning...I didn't have to sit there wondering how much help is too much, even when my OCD flares up and notices that his posters aren't designed symmetrically.  I knew nothing!  Those wonderful teachers had the kids do every bit of their projects in class away from us meddling grown ups.


On the day of the science fair when I came to pick up my kids I got rushed by a troop of 6th graders who came to announce that Cap had won!  It was pretty great, and I was so proud of him.  His project was all about mushrooms and if they, being a type of fungus themselves, could actually grow fungus.  Basically, can mushrooms grow mold?  I laughed quite a bit when his teacher later told me that his project almost got disqualified and would have been if any part of the experiment had been conducted at home due to the fact that is was considered a toxic substance.  And that the cleanup of the mold-covered 'shrooms were pretty horrendous to clean up.

Cap did a great job and we were all proud of him.  He got to go to the district fair, but his journey ended there. He was kind of bummed out but I was still so proud.





Monday, February 23, 2015

Dream Come True

I think it was about 4 years ago that we took our little family on a trip to California and I passed the time by letting my OCD run wild keeping track of the license plates I saw.  I really wanted to see plates from all 50 states on the way there.  When I failed to do so, I tried to complete the list on the way back home. Failed again.  Curses!  After the trip I found that as I drove around town my eyes kept darting to the bumpers of the cars all around me.  The sickness had begun.

Oh dear. Here's the part where I yet again reveal just how very kooky I am.  I can't stop!  I have so much fun (yes, I'm that lame) keeping track of license plates. I used to just keep a checklist until I saw all 50, promising to let it go as soon as they were all checked off.  But I noticed that there were a few plates that were very hard to find - thanks a lot Deleware, Rhode Island and Hawaii - and I almost never found them.  I decided to turn it into more of a monthly quest.  Happily I found a fun little app (you wouldn't believe how many are available - glad we OCD folks can unite) so I can just check them off as I go.  Never while the car is in motion of course.

Sadly, in four years of my OCD-game have I seen all 50 plates in one month.  Make that 51.  Washington D.C. has its own license plate.  And then, a miracle. Last month, January 2015, I finally saw them all.  What a rush! (Only kidding. Kind of.) You know, it really got down to the wire there at the end.  I had this miraculous month where I found the three most challenging plates, those I previously mentioned.  You would think Alaska would be on that list as well but surprisingly there are Alaskas all over the place.  It always makes me wonder what brings all these people here.  Anyway, I got those tough three but still was missing one: the NEVER elusive Indiana:


It was really weird!  I always get Indiana, but I just couldn't find one anywhere, even down to January the 31st!  Nail biter, I tell ya.  It was a Saturday (I mentioned the OCD, right?) and had a cello-mommy conference in Sandy. Miles and miles of freeway.  As I drove past a large semi I caught a glimpse of the Indiana plate and let out a whoop.  I'm not kidding about that, I really did.



I can now consider that chapter of my life complete.  Except ... this month I've seen everything but Deleware and I still have 5 days to find it.....can you IMAGINE getting all the plates two months IN A ROW!?!?!

I am now hanging my head in shame.