Birthday in July?

Since I will be in Britain over my birthday this year, the family celebration for it was going to be combined with the August birthdays. BUT, since July birthdays were celebrated late this year, we were all combined together in one celebration tonight. Meaning my September 8 bday was celebrated in July. Lori's birthday card made me laugh as she wrote that she knows who is the favorite now since her birthday was pushed back a month and mine was celebrated two months early - but she was okay with that since I'm her favorite too. I'm hoping she was just joking about why she thinks her birthday was put off...it certainly got a laugh out of me though!

Mom made me my own cheesecake which was DELICIOUS! Lori created a treasure map for TJ which he loved...though was a bit confused on in following the clues...and it had a treasure chest pinata at the end with candy AND fun prizes. Way to go Lori! Cody even got me my favorite cupcake from Sweet Tooth Fairy - red velvet with lovely frosting.

One of the prizes from the pinata.

Chris wasn't quite ready for his glamor shot yet.

Double-Header

Mindy has been wanting for some time to watch some of the oldie-but-goodie movies from the days of yore. We were finally able to get together tonight to accomplish this. Girls Just Want to Have Fun and Strictly Ballroom. On the radar for next time is Dirty Dancing.

While watching, I managed to organize this old box of letters I had and put them into a three-ring binder. I got to review all of the letters Kemery, Jon, Dana, and Joseph sent me from their missions as well as all the ones sent to me by missionaries I was writing and guys I dated. So sad to see Jon's! Joseph's were very bittersweet. There are some times I almost wish you could go back!

I may have stolen these photos of Matthew from Lisa's blog because I thought they were so cute! Thanks Lis!

SYTYCD Starring...Jason!

I may have already done a few posts about SYTYCD before, but since Jason went to the filming last night and sat next to Marko's mom, he was featured prominently several times on screen. There were also 22 little blips of him as well.  Melanie's flying leap into Niel's arms was amazing! So trusting!



Day Off

I got today off work thanks to the Pioneer Day weekend. Since dad had his little foot surgery, he couldn't join mom and I in the pool. It made him the perfect candidate for camera man though! Mom actually raced me. This is a huge event as she doesn't like to get her hair or face wet. She has some joint problems that have made her feel like she should start swimming as her exercise, meaning she played around with me more than usual in the pool.

I had to give her half the length of the pool, only use my legs and no arms, and start swimming without pushing off from the side for our race. It was VERY close. She pushed herself so hard that she about drown on the last stroke and spluttered and coughed a lot afterward. Ever seen a cat in water? I laughed so hard I thought the neighbors were going to come running to see if everything was okay. It was like the close race for Michael Phelps in the Olympics where the swimmer ahead of him did one last stroke above water and he cut below and touched the wall milliseconds before the other swimmer. Mom won and she was very pleased with herself...once she could breath normally again.

Mom holding on to my feet to be dragged around the pool.

She started tickling of her own volition
while on the phone with Lisa. I swear!

Happy Pioneer Day!

Dad's favorite show on Sunday is Music and the Spoken Word. So, since they are in town, we went to a recording this morning on Temple Square. Since it is summer, they are being held at the Conference Center rather than the Tabernacle. Lots of Pioneer songs which was nice.

We tried out the Capitol Hill ward which I should go to if I wasn't in the singles' ward. The building is an old, unusual one with lots of random turns, corners, and stained glass. I'm glad I'm in the ward I am!

This trip was supposed to be a relaxing one for mom and dad. I think we can safely say that it is a success as mom took a four hour nap! Even dad did three hours! I just read and lounged around waiting for them to get up and made an awesome dinner. See - I CAN cook!



Crying Headache

After a nice relaxing morning, mom, dad, and I went to see the movie 17 Miracles at the Gateway. We stopped at Juicy Berry for some DELISH! frozen yogurt first and then headed in for the movie. You know the headache you get after a serious cry? Yeah, I've had that for the rest of the day. It abated somewhat while we were up Emigration Canyon for dinner at Ruth's Diner and disappeared during the Rook tournament. I made an amazing comeback and posted a huge score the last hand. Enough to take me over our goal and end the tournament...only to discover mom totaled 5 points more than me to end up with the win!

At Ruth's Diner



Decisions are the Worst!

I'm faced with the conundrum from the movie 'Girls Just Want to Have Fun' where the statement goes - 'decisions are the worst!' Two possible job transfers, both with serious positives, and no idea which one to do. Guess I'm just going to have to study it out a bit more...

Mom and dad have come up to spend the weekend with me at Packsley's Penthouse. They took me out to dinner at the Olive Garden and have relaxed a bit. I may have (thanks Rich for the linguistics lesson this week) even serenaded them on my guitar. I learned 'Home on the Range' to be able to sing it for dad.

Dad visited my podiatrist and had a little foot surgery of his own.
Now he has to soak it in Epsom salts every day.

Super SYTYCD

It's down to the final ten dancers on SYTYCD. That means each dancer is paired up with one of the All-Stars. Chelsie, Twitch, Alison, Robert, and Pasha all came back. Nine out of the ten dances were BRILLIANT. I especially liked the one with Twitch and Sasha. I'm thinking it might even be nominated for an Emmy.

A guy in my ward hosts SYTYCD parties at his house. I went and watched the show from his place. Turns out they're not really talkers about each dance. I had to break them in gently with all my snarky comments. They started to thaw a bit at the end, but it wasn't ideal watching conditions. The big screen TV was AMAZING though!

Soft Pretzel Tasties

Thanks to my AWESOME co-worker Laralynn, I got to enjoy homemade soft pretzels several days this week. Bread, yum! Salt, yum! Laralynn staying up until 1 a.m. to make them for me? Sweet!

Edgardo tried on one of the shoulder shawls that nice, little, old ladies make for temples. It's a good look for him!

Doctor's Day

I took the day off for two doctors' appointments. Just dentist and podiatrist this time thankfully. I LOVE newly cleaned teeth!...even though I was proscribed to chew special gum to cut back on bacteria in the mouth. It's a bit more expensive than regular gum. :-(

Kicked Out Calling

I got a new calling in Church today. I'm glad I don't have the weekly babysitting one now of the music people in Relief Society, though I think I was kicked out from not being there as much as they wanted me. It was almost harder to rotate through three people for each responsibility because they would forget when it was their turn, even with me reminding them every week and they still wouldn't show up. Now I'm on the Compassionate Service Committee. I work with Leisha Olney who is the chairperson.

Since I have Doctors' appointments in the morning, I've come down to Pleasant Grove to spend the night. Cody was a good sport and played me and Lori Tetris so we could get our fix.

Harry...Again

Mom and Lori hadn't seen Harry Potter yet so I met up with them in Draper to watch again. There was another crier sitting next to us. Mom said she would have gotten in to it more, but she was trying to figure out the whole time why a grown woman was crying that hard about insignificant things.

There was a Sweet Tooth Fairy shop next door which we sampled afterward. Now, I'm a carrot cake with cream cheese frosting person all the way. But, the red velvet cupcake was to. Die. For! It was all about the frosting!

Aunt Rae's Funeral

Aunt Rae passed away last week and her daughter, Judy, had the casket shipped to Utah for burial next to grandpa and grandma Pack. Dad was in charge of the service and he was VERY nervous for it. It went really well though and some funny stories were shared about how fiesty Rae was.

After, we had a meal with all the family who came and I got a chance to sit down with Karen and Shawna to go over our upcoming trip plans. There is some consideration being given to us going to Ireland for a night now.

My old greenie from the mission, Heather Cotting Blinzinger, had free tickets to a showing of Harry Potter before it was released. I met up with her in Spanish Fork for it and everyone there was given giant bags of popcorn, large sodas and a candy bar. Pretty sweet deal for me since everything was free! There was a slight problem with the people who ended up sitting behind us. I don't think they get out much and thought they were just in their living room. Every sentence in the movie was commented upon, or cried about (loud, uncontrollable sobbing), or cheered. The hysterical crying is what got to me. It's not like the events of the movie weren't known about ahead of time what with there being a book and all! It made for something to laugh about though with Heather.



Take Me Out to the Ballgame

The Temple Department was given a number of free tickets to the All Stars Baseball game and so I took Lori, Cody, and Dana's family with me to the game. We had decent seats and had a good time watching. Two guys parachuted in before the start and there was another guy there with a large bald eagle on his arm for the national anthem. Lori entertained the youngest kids who got a little bored during the slow game. After, there was a magic act and then a FANTASTIC fireworks display. Taylor kept thinking it was over and then it would start up all over again. In Bryan's words, it was the most fireworks in histories!

Division Summer Social

It was that time of year again and we met at Bob's house for our Division Summer Social. The rain and wind held off while we were there so we could enjoy his new pergola in the backyard. We barbecued (and when I say 'we', I mean Edgardo) hamburgers and hotdogs and had salads, watermelon, brownies, and homemade ice cream.

We played a game where everyone tied a balloon to their ankle and the person who remained with their balloon unpopped won. I put up a good fight in keeping my balloon alive, but eventually lost it. It came down to the two recently returned missionaries.

I played P-I-G with Trent which he would have won hands down except for my no-look behind the back shot from the free throw line which allowed me to actually WIN! He was not pleased. So I played another game with him that he won before I had a chance to make all my backward shots.





The look Bob's son is giving me cracks me up!



Plants are Taking Over

My neighbors are out of town and have given me the key to their apartment to water their plants. Not that I feel tricked into doing it, but when someone says they're going to be gone for a week and ask if you can water their plants, you think once, right? Wrong. Daily. Twenty-five plants. Two gigantic watering cans worth. Plus checking on their grandma who was left behind to make sure she is okay. Lucky the grandma is so nice and is easy to chat with!...and that I'm going out of town for three weeks in September and need someone to water my five plants while I'm gone. Twice total!

Aunt Rae AND Aunt Adele passed away this week. I tried getting a flight to San Diego for Aunt Adele's funeral on Monday and actually found a cheap one! Unfortunately I waited too long to book it and ended up losing the price. Probably for the best since I've already committed to WATER PLANTS!

G-g-guitar

So, when I took my guitar home last weekend to play for the holiday weekend, I apparently jammed so hard on it that the next day a string was broken when I pulled it out of the case. So, today I learned how to restring a guitar. I'm getting pretty good at these musical instruments what with restringing the cello and guitar now. Fortunately before it broke, I brought my mom to tears with one of my songs!

Peregrine Falcons

A few of us at work have had a fascination with the Peregrine Falcons that nest every year in a box on the top corner of the JSMB. There are two cameras in the box that allow us to watch the eggs be laid, hatched, and then the chicks grow until they're able to fly. We missed the eggs hatching thanks to a weekend. Guess what time the first flight was? Six o'clock in the morning! I can't believe we even agonize over their growth since we miss all the milestones!

The falcon box is in the top corner.

Happy Fourth!

We played a lot of Nintendo today and I even got to lazy around and take a nap with little Christian. Dana and Deborah invited all of us over to their place for a fourth of July barbecue. The weather was rainy and windy so we ate inside. They even lost their trampoline in a microburst of wind. It picked right up and blew 200 yards through the fence and apparently ended up as twisted metal.

I drove home and watched the fireworks from my place. There were so many fireworks going off in the different cities that I couldn't watch them all from my French window.

Sick Sunday

Poor little Christian had a 102.7 fever and didn't want to do anything but be held by me. Is it bad that I liked the hours and hours of cuddles? Though I felt so sorry for him. Everytime the fever got particularly bad, he would stop talking and just do miniscule head shakes or nods when asked questions. One of the times I took him to the restroom, he finished and then his face just crumpled and he started crying so pitifully. It crushed me! We piled on lots of cold washcloths and I slept by him all night in case there were problems. When I took him to the bathroom in the middle of the night, he hadn't spoken for so long and he finally said, "Nightmare!...MOUSE!" Mom vowed not to let him watch any more Tom and Jerry reruns after I told her about that. He finally improved some by morning though.

Jeremy sent a picture from their time spent at Lisa's in D.C. Very debonair!

Kiddos

Jenny's kids have been at mom's house for a week now so I wanted to hurry down there and play with them. I couldn't go last night because a girl that I visit teach was getting married today in the Salt Lake Temple. So, I waited around for the ceremony, got to the temple, and found out she told me the wrong time! It was an hour later than she said so I had to wait even longer.

I headed directly down to Pleasant Grove afterward and made it just in time to go to a movie with mom and the boys. Each of the boys asked if they could sit by me, and I couldn't tell them no! I solved the problem of there being three of them by having Christian sit on my lap while Micah and TJ each sat on the side of me. Mom bought us drinks, popcorn, and got me cotton candy. Now that's a movie!

After, we headed directly to McDonald's for the boys to wear themselves out on the playground. We had an abrupt departure due to an 'accident'. Needless to say, that boy had a bath when we got home.

Mom and dad needed a bit of a break, so while they went to the store together alone, I went for a walk in the neighborhood to a nearby park with a swingset, slide, and climbing gym. Even though I made all three boys use the restroom before we left, we were at the park for less that a minute when one had an immediate situation arise. He didn't think he was going to make it home. Needless to say, we made another abrupt departure and had a bath on our return. Since this was a different boy, I'm thinking they were a little sick...

Picnic on the Plaza

It was such a nice day outside that I decided to have a picnic out on the Church plaza.

I decided that I needed to practice the guitar for a patriotic weekend of playing for family. Two and a half hours later, it felt like my fingertips were going to split open and start bleeding. That's when I realized how long I was playing and was amazed!