For Want of a Mother

This poor kid....who lets their child wander outside like this? In underwear and his sister's boots? Just to call the dog? Well, he's a cute kid, anyway.

Last night was Braxton's first band concert. Why does every concert start with 6th grade band? Honestly, I didn't recognize any songs. Then we had the 7th graders. I'm sorry, folks, but I couldn't get a picture of Braxton. We were in an auditorium (not a gym!) and he's a percussionist so clear in the back and he's also a little on the small side so he pretty much got lost behind the tympani. I didn't recognize any of their songs either.

And that led me to ponder how my parents managed through five children in beginning band. Or how any parent suffers through beginning band, for that matter.

While my ears are hurting, I realize that Randy's head is falling further and further towards his chest.
He's trying to get McKay to sit still and I think he held a little too still. Then there's a heavy slump on my shoulder.


How can anyone sleep through that cacophony? Well, Tanner can sleep anywhere. We finally called it a night at intermission, which is too bad because the high school band could probably play real music.

Just Try to Get His Attention

Helping me make apricot jam during the summer.

During Kilee's birthday party last May.

Four books in four days last week.

Does he really need a reading class????

AKA

My niece tells me that the Mormon Corridor is also known as the Jello Belt.

And if you go to a show/presentation/program/play at BYU, it starts with an opening prayer. This one we now know from first-hand experience. Not a bad experience, mind you, just an unexpected one.

Observations on Living in the Mormon Corridor

WARNING: PG-13 BLOG POST!

Orson Scott Card is a well-known author, as well as a professor at Southern Virginia University. He also writes a weekly opinion piece for the Mormon Times. A while back I read a piece where he discussed the "Mormon Corridor." That being the stretch of land from Utah through Eastern Idaho which was settled by Mormon pioneers and remains, to this day, predominantly LDS.

I now live in that Mormon Corridor. I'm sure I'll have more to say on this subject in the future, but let's start with a few things today.

1. There isn't a Starbucks for miles around. No steamers or vanilla scones. Saves the pocketbook, but I think I'm going through withdrawals.

2. Standing in line the other day I met a girl from Albania.

I didn't know where that was and didn't want to ask her and risk looking stupid. Since you probably don't know where it is either, here's a map. She's a student at the University. She's one of hundreds of students from more than 60 countries who come here to study. It was a nice day, but I was still cold (big surprise). She told me to just wait; that this day was a beautiful, warm day. She was on her bicycle and a little while later, I saw her on her bike at yet another store. And then I wondered what she does when it snows and it's impossible to ride a bike up here. But where else do you get to go to the grocery store and meet someone from Albania (except Albania, of course) and know exactly what brought them to this cold place?

3. People think nothing of calling you "sister" in the public library and sharing with you their favorite place to sit in Sacrament Meeting.

4. There isn't a Starbucks for miles around.

5. My friend April makes a cake. It's a yummy cake. It's called Better Than Sex cake. The other day I went to the Cocoa Bean Cupcake Cafe. It's not Starbucks, but it'll have to do. They have a cupcake there called Better Than Whatever Cake. Outside of the Mormon Corridor, it's okay to call it Better Than Sex, but evidently not in the Mormon Corridor. It's just Whatever.

Did I mention that there's no Starbucks?

Straw

Monday night we took Family Home Evening on the road. We visited a straw maze a few miles from here.

They had a little maze made up of 40 lb. bales for the little, little kids. We could just barely see McKay's head bobbing along in the maze. It was totally cute. His brothers and sister went to the exit and cheered him on.

Then it was time for the big maze.

We let the older kids just run through the maze. Randy, McKay and I were more methodical.

After many a dead end, we found some trash to start marking where we'd been. We even ran into another family and the mom said, "I thought this was supposed to be fun!"

There were a lot of these signs throughout the maze. Imagine that.

The kids finished the first time and came back and found us. Then Tanner took off with McKay. An hour later, Randy and I finished the maze. It was so much fun and the kids are already asking to go back.

Sunday Afternoon Football

We went to Randy's brother's on Sunday for the blessing of their new baby, Kalissa. After church, we were preparing the family feast and these cousins quietly disappeared into the back yard.
The teams were divided up by those with ties and those without.

Interception!




Touchdown!

Have you ever seen a more reverent pick-up game?

The Rest of Potato Harvest

So how did we spend days 8, 9, and 10?



We swam in the hotel pool a lot. We sat in the hot tub, too. I'm all in favor of owning one, but it would be nice to have a house first.




I spent a wonderful lunch hour with my friend, Crystal, who lives in Boise. The last time I saw Crystal was 14 years ago. We spent 90 wonderful minutes catching up. It's amazing how parallel our lives are. She is amazing and beautiful. I was actually nervous driving over to the restaurant because I hadn't seen her for so long. There was no reason to be. Now I remember why we became friends in 8th grade.


The kids helped Papa in the orchard and then we picked some apples to bring home with us.


Then we came home and my kids went back to school and promptly forgot to bring their homework home. It's like starting a new school year all over again...except this time I didn't have to go school shopping.

Spud Harvest Day 7: SMURF TURF

Last week when we were talking about going to Boise, Braxton asked to go tour Boise State University. For those of you who don't know, BR is a huge BSU football fan. He's been to a few games with his dad and uncles and if it's on TV, he's always watching. He's met a few players. Michael T. Williams came to our hotel room nearly three years ago to talk to BR and give him his autograph. Pete Cavender and Tim Gilligan signed his 2007 Tostitos Fiesta Bowl DVD. Tanner is slowly coming around to football and understanding the game. Both boys were excited to go to BSU.

We had an awesome tour guide this morning. He took us all over campus and we got to see some really cool things. Braxton loved all the technology available in the ILC. Tanner was enthralled with the Art department. Personally, I liked the library. Our tour guide knew a lot about the history of BSU and kept the boys entertained with stories of what used to be. Shayne saved the best for last.


Our final stop: Smurf Turf. The football team wasn't practicing so we were able to walk out onto the field.
This is cool tour guide, Shayne, on the field with Tanner and Braxton. Then he let them run up and down the field. They discovered that the field is a lot bigger than it looks.



We had a great morning at BSU. A special thanks to Bethany for watching McKay and letting Kilee take care of Royce. The smurf turf was well worth it.

Potato Harvest - Day 6

It really snowed this time. It snowed all morning. But we just kept on packing and headed out of town...on the road to Boise and a few days of sunshine (we hope). Randy has meetings over there all week so we're going to go play.

Spud Harvest- Day 5

We tried something new. When we were in the grocery store the other day, some Albertson's employee had cleverly stocked caramels next to the apples. I remember enjoying caramel apples in the fall so I caved and bought the caramels (I had a coupon, too!). So on the fifth day of my kids being out of school for no good reason, we made caramel apples.

Betcha can't guess which one is mine. I have decided that despite growing up with an apple orchard, I'm not that fond of apples. I don't like red delicious or granny smith (even for baking). I tend to buy gala apples or golden delicious for my family. Randy likes honeycrisp, but that's a new variety and they're expensive. Hiding under these luscious layers of caramel are gala apples. I like nuts on everything and decided that caramel and nuts would make for a yummy apple. Let me just report that it was really good.

Now, what are we going to do next week?

Patata Harverst - Day 4

No, that isn't a misspelling. It's a phonetic spelling. That's how these Eastern Idahoans say it, especially the older folks.

So on day four, we went on a field trip. Can believe this tree? One day it's green. The next day it's yellow. This is actually a few miles north of where we live, up in Ashton.

We went investigating this piece of property. It's further west of where we are - and in a different school district (that's a good thing). What do you think? It's got a large pond or a small lake, whichever you want to call it. The water would be a lot of fun. Building a house might not be quite as much fun because that would mean living in this apartment for another year or so. There is no way we can get a foundation poured this fall; it would have to wait until spring.

This lake happens to be next to Old McDonald's farm. Goats, chickens, a donkey, geese, ducks, and a rabbit. It was actually quite noisy while we were walking around.

The kids were pretty good while we were hiking all over this property and I was imagining a house somewhere and a floating dock and canoes and paddle boats. I'm not sure where Braxton was when I took this picture. I think he was running around behind the lake/pond to see where the water came in from.

Seriously thinking about this property today.... Could be fun.