They Make My Heart Smile

As I watched Abby and Linzie walk down the driveway this morning, headed to the bus stop, I noticed Linzie's luxuriant dark hair bouncing high on her head with each step she took.  She pulled it up in a clip today and I am so envious of how simply beautiful her hairstyle is.  I also smiled to myself as, once again, I noticed Abby's feet adorned in her green Peace flip flops. (Abby, it's snowing outside.. yanno?) 

I smiled even more. 

These girls of mine are beautiful and complicated creatures who bring me so much joy! And heartache, worry, stress.. depending on the day.  But always there is joy and pride in abundance.

I was thinking of all the things I love about each one of them and decided to post an abbreviated list here.   

These are a few of my favorite things. 

 Madison's gut laugh when something strikes her funny bone. (It can be difficult to amuse her with our juvenile humor) She has a passion for penguins and the color purple. The color, not the movie.







Carley's tiny hands and feet.  She loves her feet, she really does.  I love her hands, especially when she holds mine during movies. She has the cutest little heart-shaped freckle on her finger, and another on the palm of her hand. She sees the world's colors and shapes in ways that I can only imagine. I admire her artistic talent!

Emily's energy is off the charts. She loves to entertain and be involved in dramatic arts. I try to imagine launching random high kicks just for fun, but I can't get there. I can't even remember the last time I wanted to kick anything... maybe if I needed to save my life - nah, I'd just get Emily to do it for me because her high kicks are amazing!






Linzie is the one we tease about being the second mom of the house.  However, beyond her amazing organizational skills there is a goofy little chick who tends to stick her tongue out when she's concentrating on something.  She's also darn good at the phlebbt noises with that talented tongue.  : P

Abby can't stand insects, but she loves animals. And I grinned as I glimpsed her enthusiastically trimming the edges of the lawn with my cutlery scissors last weekend. Hey, I'll take whatever help I can get! She also happens to be my four-wheelin' buddy  with the greatest laugh whenever we go riding.

 These little women are my heart and soul. 

They make me laugh and smile just by thinking about them. I don't mind sounding like a broken record by once again declaring how lucky I am!

The MOST Wonderful Time of the Year!

Did you read the title of this post and immediately hear your favorite Christmas crooner serenading you in your head? Awesome!  However, today I am not writing about Christmas. Sure, Christmas is sparkly, colorful and oh so expensive cheerful, but what I am thinking about today is even better than that...and dirtier too!

Picture if you will a beautiful blue sky, robins happily perched on fence posts, cherry and apple blossoms bursting all around, as lawn mowers hum in the distance - filling the air with the intoxicating scent of freshly cut grass.  Now turn your attention to the mounds of  tilled black dirt of the garden, just begging to be planted. My fingers twitch at the mere thought of getting dirty pulling weeds and planting in the rich, dark soil.

Ahh bliss!

This is the picture of my perfect spring Saturday spent with my husband and daughters, working in our vegetable garden, giddy with excitement as we pulled weeds and prepped for planting. In less than 10 minutes, my husband and I discussed fencing in the garden to prevent our dogs from eating the tender sprouts... an hour later and the building was well under way. There is nothing my guy can't do!  He even let me design the entryway and gate. 

Have I mentioned before how much I love him?

My girls are incredible helpers who pulled weeds, helped with the new fence and stained the old and new fence for hours. While my cute hubby measured,  cut and assembled the beautiful new fencing. I am such a lucky girl to be surrounded by wonderful, loving family members!

To celebrate our weekend and our new vegetable corral, we grilled two nights in a row and enjoyed the company of my brother's family on Friday night. We have completely given in to the fever of spring and our desire to be outside, soaking up the sunshine. Our scalps and cheeks are tender from the new sunburns we are sporting, but it is a tiny price to pay for the immense satisfaction we feel over a job well done!

As we look forward to many evenings and weekends spent working in the gardens, enjoying the fruits of our labors, and spending plenty of quality time together, we can easily say that this is truly the most wonderful time of the year!

Red Rock Camping

When I was growing up, Easter meant packing up the camper and heading somewhere south.  Escalante and Moab were favorite spring camping haunts, but there were also trips to Bryce Canyon, Zion's National Park and even jaunts into southern Colorado.

Ahh spring!

Nothing says "Hallelujah, winter is over!"  quite like dyeing eggs in the wild and then chucking them down grassy hills in remote parts of Utah.  Which is precisely why Hubby and I decided to pack up the girlies and head to Moab this year instead of the frozen tundra of Little Sahara Sand Dunes (where we have gone for previous Easter camping trips).

Of course the girls colored eggs at home the day before we left, and the Easter Bunny hopped their basket of sugary treasures into the living room on Saturday so that they would have time to stow their candy for the trip, but leaving bright and early Sunday morning still made it an Easter trip in spite of the burglary drama.

I try to convince myself that a simple, carefree life would be boring and so not my style.  I might even believe it someday.

I thought that leaving Emily home to head off to CA with her school group would be the hardest part of the day, but the theft distraction made it so that I was in a trauma induced stupor and so I didn't sob as I drove away like I had expected to do. I had my two oldest girls in the Durango with me, a new Stephen King book on my ipod, the open road in front of me and I completely zoned out for a few hours. 

When the red cliffs and plateaus surrounded the roads, I felt a wave of nostalgia so sudden and strong that I missed my mom.  The last time I had been in the Moab area was with my parents, undoubtedly over Easter, and it felt strange to be there without them. Even with the whispers of childhood all around me, I was ready to create new, lasting memories with my wonderful husband and children. I knew it would be a trip to remember!

Our campsite was great, but the wind was our nemesis.  I thought our tent was a lot like Monster House, trying to eat us as we desperately hunkered down to sleep through the 65+ mph winds. We didn't know it then, but we were in for a trip full of wind and bitter cold. It is a good thing my tribe is resilient!

We managed a group ride up toward the La Sal mountains, a day spent in Arches National Park, a day spent in Canyonlands National Park and Dead Horse Point, and one last day spent riding to Gemini Bridges and the trail below Dead Horse Point before my Raptor's fuel pump finally quit for good. (Good thing it was the last ride we had planned!)

This wonderful man that I am honored to call my husband takes such great care of us on a daily basis and this camping trip was no exception. He is so patient with the mob of women that surround him every day, and even though we are great helpers on each trip, we look to him to be the one to watch over us and make us feel safe.. especially in the wilderness. When I stop to think how blessed we are that he chose to spend his life with us, knowing full well what he was getting into, I am overwhelmed with gratitude. He is the rock of this family and  I love him so much!

In addition to having a wonderfully patient and loving  hubby, I have an adorable bunch of girls who went without showers for three days and endured sun and windburned faces for the sake of family fun.  Judging by the multitude of pictures we took to document our trip, it was all worth the sacrifices! When we talk about the trip now, we can almost forget the howling wind and biting cold. What we remember is the breathtaking scenery, the awesome landscapes that we were immersed in, and the camaraderie that binds our family together.

What an adventure! 

The weather tried to defeat us but even though we were definitely miserable at times, our Moab trip was one that we will always remember with vivid detail and great fondness. On our way out of town we stopped in a fun main street shop to get Moab helmet stickers and souvenir shirts for everyone.

We'll be back, Moab! You can count on it!

Violated

It began with a phone call to the Sheriff's office.

"Sheriff's Office, do you have an emergency?"
"Uh.. no, but I need to report a stolen wallet."

On the inside I was thinking that yes, this was an emergency. There we were, Easter morning, minutes away from departing for our Spring Break camping trip and I noticed my wallet was nowhere to be found. We tore the house apart looking for it, and that is not an exaggeration. People were actually looking in cupboards and under couch cushions.

Really? It's been a while since I accidentally put my wallet in the fridge or the tiny drawers of the living room table, but it was nice to see such enthusiastic helpers nonetheless.

But the wallet was not in the fridge, pantry, dog dish or upstairs shower. Try as we might, we could not find it under any rug, cushion, or coffee mug.

Because there is only one place I ever put that wallet and that place was left unlocked, unguarded and practically lit up like a neon sign advertising FREE STUFF RIGHT HERE! COME AND GET IT!

It absolutely kills me now to think that I volunteered to park my Durango in the driveway in order to keep the firewood in the back of Hubby's truck dry. Who wouldn't think that dry wood is a fair exchange for everything one needs to function in this world?

I somehow doubt this qualifies for sainthood.

I cringe every time I think of the repeated nagging at Hubby to please lock the Durango. Yes, I know we are just walking into the store for a minute, but please lock it anyway? He almost always rolled his eyes or made a snippy comment. In time, this exchange condensed into, "Did you whoop it?" because of the comforting chirp the alarm makes when you push the lock button on the key fob. Hubby would answer with an affirmative nod or I would instantly hear that happy little "whoop" that let me know all was well.

But last Saturday, in the rush to get things ready for the camping trip, Hubby was running last minute errands in the Durango without me. I was in the house trying to get important work finished up before taking time off, so I wasn't there to remind him to whoop it.

There was no whoop that night.

At some point in the night, some Jerk Face decided to help himself (herself?) to my Durango.  Luckily, my ipod was in the house getting updated for the road trip. Also fortunate was that I had taken my flash drive (full of documents, photos and other important stuff) out of the side pocket of my purse earlier that day. Jerk Face did, however, take the M&M chapstick out of the very same side pocket that usually holds my flash drive. It was more than just chapstick, it was a souvenir from the Las Vegas trip I took with my girls last fall.

Maybe Jerk Face had really dry lips.

The truth is that I would have rather lost the ipod than my wallet. Now I don't have any identification and I have had to cancel all of my cards. I also lost checks and the ticket stubs from the first movie date I had with Hubby. Sick and sad can't even begin to describe what I feel.

Today a neighbor came over to return some useless cards that they found discarded, in the street, on Easter Sunday. The sickness came back with a vengeance. I felt violated all over again. Until that moment, I held a secret wish that I would find my wallet in a pickle jar after all. All week long, I had held on to that hope like a light in the darkness.

It could be possible that I was holding my wallet with the same hand that reached into the pickle jar for a crunchy snack...

Looking at those plastic cards and quickly scrawled notes to myself on random pieces of paper that my neighbor held out to me in a gesture of extreme kindness and neighborly responsibility, I felt something give way inside. What he held out to me was the ruined remains of my life Before.  I was instantly thrust into the unkind and inescapable After.

I am hurt, angry and outraged that this happened. There was nothing in that wallet of any value to anyone but me. (other than my identity?) And now it is all gone. Forever. My identity might already be destroyed and put to whatever horrible use that will haunt me in future years.

I will forever wonder what became of those movie ticket stubs.

You could have had my ipod, Jerk Face. I would still gladly trade it for the complete contents of my wallet.

The Good Life

Last Easter we packed up the girls, our camping gear and other necessities, and headed to Little Sahara Sand Dunes for some fun filled four wheeling.  What we ended up with was mud caked, frozen solid memories! But if you ask the girls about it, they will talk your ear off about all of the fun they had. 

That is the stuff childhood is made of. 

Sunday we will once again head off into the wilderness with our girls, but we will be short one this year because our delightful Emmerly will instead be heading off to sunny California on a trip with her school choir. (We will miss you, Roosafee!) I could begin a sad, depressing rant about how my life is changing and maybe we have already experienced the last complete family camping trip... but not today.

Needless to say, our week has been filled with a mountain of tasks and errands required to move our household to the great outdoors. 

Hubby built a covered wagon using our atv trailer and some poles. (I'm not even kidding, although I wish I was!) He insists that he wants us to have shade out in the desert. I didn't come out of the house for 2 days because I was afraid people would ask us if we were building a parade float.  Sure enough, one day a neighbor asked Bill if we were entering the Days of '47 parade.

*Snort*

Once he had it set up and staked down, it took the wind 2 seconds to rip the tarp. I didn't say a word... And it took a tremendous amount of self control to hold it in! If I had, it would have been something along the lines of, "Even the Gods disapprove of a giant, bright blue covered wagon."

I adore my Hubby, I do.  While I was busy working this week, He has spent his spare time moving his elderly father into a new apartment, prepping the four wheelers for our trip, shopping for camping groceries, and preparing components of the camping meals in advance.

That's one hard working dude! 

In fact, he was so busy that he never found time for that haircut that he so desperately needs.  I swear it is time for me to learn how to buzz his hair myself! How difficult can it be, right? 

So tomorrow my scruffy, scraggly man and I will take five girls camping out in the elements. Our home away from home will be staked down among the wind, rain, bitter cold nights, and hopefully some sun.

We will be sure to take lots and lots of photos. But right now I need to go visit my sweet girlies who are singing along to the Glee soundtrack as they color Easter eggs. 

Our life is a good life!