NEW YEAR 2010

I had wanted to post yesterday, the last day of 2009 but did not have time. I've been meaning to post all month long because it was a really great month!! I kept putting it off, tho', so now here I am with a re-cap of the many fun things we did in December 2009:
I started out the season with my annual Black Friday shopping trip with my good friend, Kim. After I worked all night on Thanksgiving, we met up at my house at 8 am and shopped until almost 10 pm. We had a fun lunch at Chik-fil-A and dinner at Olive Garden. I got nearly every single thing purchased, with the exception of some frames for which I went to Michael's on Sat morning and then I was done!!!! wahoo. Too bad most of the presents stayed in the trunk of my car until Dec 22!

All five of us went to the Festival of Trees, the annual celebration and fund-raiser for Primary Children's Medical Center in Salt Lake City. There were more than 900 trees this year, along with at least 100 gingerbread houses, many door/wreath displays, table top decorations, a huge gift shop, and my kids' favorite: the Kids Korner. Meghan and Emma made several Christmas crafts and Emma enjoyed some time inside a bubble! We of course bought scones and cinnamon rolls towards the end of the night, after they had announced the "half-price sale" overhead. It was a freeeeeeezing cold night but so much fun!

We took turns trying to do good deeds to earn "straw" to put in the manger for the Baby Jesus to lie on when he finally came on Christmas Eve.

All of the presents which I had to mail cross country were wrapped and sent (and received!) by December 16! What a relief to have that done so early this year!

Emma wrote a letter to Santa right after I went shopping. She asked for a Barbie guitar and a real horse to put in the back yard. We mailed it to "Santa Clause, North Pole Alaska 99705".
Emma, Meghan and I spent hours coloring cardboard snowflakes to make decorations for the Christmas tree. They were 3-dimensional and really fun to create. They fit perfectly on the "Let it Snow" themed tree this year.

Emma helped me to bake a few treats this year. We made banana bread, chocolate chip cookies, and brownies. She is a great helper in the kitchen!

I spent hours and hours making hand-made cards to send for Christmas. I know it is time-consuming, but it really puts me into the spirit of the season and I LOVE to make cards.

Emma and Meghan and I also spent some time coloring and decorating little wooden ornaments for Emma to give to all of her neighborhood friends. She helped me to hand-deliver them on the 18th with the neighbor gifts that I gave out (sugar cookie mix with a christmas-themed cookie cutter).

We gave and gave and gave some more to charities this year. I felt so grateful this month for so many things, that I wanted to spread some cheer and have the kids hopefully share in some of that as well.

We spent a lovely afternoon with our good friends, the Farnsworths, watching "The Forgotten Christmas Carols" on DVD while sipping hot chocolate and eating cookies.

Emma, Bryan, and I took time to drive thru one of the local cemeteries that puts up an incredible display of Luminaria lights. There were thousands of lanterns set up: a most amazing sight. I was so inspired by it that I set up our own little (6 lanterns) display on Christmas Eve night to light the way of the Christ Child to our home.

I started collecting my very own Christmas Village this year. I am starting small and inexpensive, so I am beginning with a "Village Square". I have a gazebo with Santa and a child; a Christmas Trees for Sale stand; a pair of boys riding a fence-post toy horse; and a Victorian couple getting into a horse-drawn carriage.

It has been a delightful way to end out the year. We only missed out on the Lights at Temple Square, but maybe we will be able to fit it in before they take the display down. I hope your families had time to enjoy the season together in the ways most meaningful to you.

I love Fall!!!

This is my favorite time of year, by far. In northern Utah, "fall" lasts for weeks. The days are bright, the colors almost overwhelming, the nights are chilly and star-filled. We typically have 30 to 35 degree temperature changes from wee morning hours to our warmest time of day which is about 5 p.m. For example, last night the low was 63 and todays high is 92. In a few weeks we will see straight 80s for daytime highs with low fifties overnight. I love the smell of the air, the sound of the geese and ducks as they fly overhead. All the talk of the deer hunt, the smell of campfires, the last hurrah of the farmers selling corn and tomatoes at their stands. FOOTBALL games on Friday nights!! Driving thru the canyons and taking in the sights. Going to the corn mazes and decorating for Halloween! Finally being able to justify the purchase of the mulled cider and pumkin spice candles that I've been dying to burn :) Waiting for that first snowfall in the mountain tops. Usually we get the first snow above 8000 ft during the 2nd or 3rd week of September... I know because it is always around Meghan's birthday. This year there hasn't been any snow yet. I hope you all have a wonderful season, and are not too overcome by the negatives of this time of year: allergies, colds, sinus infections, rain. Enjoy!!

Autumn again....

Summer is over, although it is still reaching 85+ degrees here each day so it's still very warm out. The nights, however, are CRISP and I've actually put a blanket on the bed. I feel cheated from such a short summer (it seemed like) and at the moment I can't recall anything we did during August or September. I'll have to think about it!!!

School has started, and this year I have one in 11th grade, one in 8th grade, and a kindergartener! My life is stretched thin, with everything from car dates to play dates, from AP physics to flash cards numbered 1 to 30!!! HAHAHA, it is a great place to be, actually :)

Kate is cheering again this year, for REAL... knock on wood no injuries so far! Meghan decided to attend a different junior high this year, threw a fit on the second day cause she realized that was a mistake, but is now adjusting well to the new school. She has already learned a new love of history thanks to this year's teacher, and is really enjoying her Family and Consumer Studies (FACS) class if you can believe it. She keeps saying "I love my fax class" and I'm wondering, "her facts class??" LOL Emma was my worry... she didn't care for preschool at all ("except the field trips, mom!") so I thought we'd have a real problem on our hands. However, she LOVES kindergarten and hasn't complained about it at all. The first couple of weekends she was quite put out, actually, that she had to wait three days to go back to school!

I attended my 25th High School reunion the second weekend of September, and it was WEIRD! To see us all grown up.... it was odd, because I don't really think of myself as this old, but when I saw everyone together.... ugh. We are obviously adults now! It was really a ton of fun seeing people and having those memories flood back so fast and furious. I got to drive around my town of Ramsey, NJ with an old friend and see some of our favorite places. I ate breakfast at the diner that my friends and I used to go to after we closed down the fast food place where we worked. I toured the highschool and even saw some of my teachers that are STILL THERE!!!! I saw my old house, spent some quality time with my very very best friend from then and his absolutely darling funny sassy wife. I even got to spend time with my aunt and uncle in Chicago during a 4-hour layover! It was a great weekend and I don't regret going at all.

We had a bit of "spring cleaning" last weekend and cleaned the house as if it were really spring! We all had several jobs to do and even Emma said, "Mom, the house FEELS different". It is sooo nice! I even cleaned out and re-organized my kitchen cupboards! Now I would like to paint....

We did not get to go to the Utah State Fair again this year...that is my one favorite "tradition" at this time of year; a way to say good-bye to summer and hello to autumn, but it is just not the same without Grammie and Grampy Redmond and since they can't come out anymore, we haven't really wanted to go. Maybe next year we will feel like going.

SUMMER 2009 - the good and the bad of it

Wow, there's been so much going on this summer I can't believe it's only been two months so far. Here are some high lights and real low lights so far:
*Emma learned to ride a two-wheeler! She spends hours each day racing around "the circle" (cul-de-sac across the street) going faster and faster. She loves it!!
*We had a backyard campfire and made s'mores.
*Emma and I went to visit my Dad and stepmom Helen in Florida after more than 2 1/2 years. Gosh it was so great to be there.
*Planted a garden for the first time in 12 years!! I'm trying "square foot gardening" with a bunch of my neighbors. Emma has helped me from the get-go, including hammering the grids, mixing the special soil mix, and planting all of the seeds and plants. We are trying to grow: 3 different kinds of tomatoes, green peppers, cukes, yellow squash, beans, radishes, onions, carrots, and pumpkins. The pumpkins are doing the best, followed by the tomatoes (I've already picked two cherry toms and two yellow pear toms), and the radishes have come and gone. We can plant more, as they only take 4 weeks but I don't know if I want to. Everything else is not really doing well and I'm pretty frustrated with it. But I got a late start and it was a VERY wet June so maybe that is the problem.
*Had a few picnic dinners already in our favorite canyon.
* I had the best 4th of July that I've had in a long time... since the first time I came to visit Utah over the week of the 4th. We had a neighborhood bike-decorating contest the night before, a parade in the morning followed by breakfast with over 100 of our neighbors. Then, since I got cancelled from work for the whole 12 hours, we were able to join Bryan's family in Sunset, UT and enjoy a great BBQ followed by an awesome fireworks display in Clearfield. It was such a great day!!

*Reconnected with some very old friends on Facebook. I love facebook!!
*Kate got her driver's license. She is also attending summer school to "get ahead", and she is back to cheering full-time. :)
*Kate and Meg are going out to Georgia to visit Auntie Kris, Uncle Dan, and Taylor. They will also be able to see my Mom and stepdad for a day, and then it's off to Hilton Head, South Carolina for a week with them.
*I found out some not-so-nice things about my teenagers - "normal" things, but still, I didn't expect to have some of the conversations we did!
*My dear friend was diagnosed with cancer just 20 days after she had her 4th baby. Her prognosis is good, though, and she's started chemo, has a great attitude, and has literally hundreds of well-wishers.
*Another close friend was thrown from her horse in early June and has spent more than a month in the hospital in two different ICU's and a regular floor. She suffered 4 broken ribs, a torn spleen, and a punctured lung which later got infected and required surgery and a chest tube. She is recovering slowly, but is already back to work part-time.
*My church ward merged with another ward and I quit going.

I really can't believe that there is another month left of summer, and yet I can't believe there is only another month left! Emma will begin kindergarten, Kate will be a junior and Meg is going into 8th grade. It will be another busy busy year....

Friends from the past

I have been looking at my high school yearbook and other photos lately, in preparation for my upcoming 25th year reunion. I can't believe how OLD I am. Yeesh. But it's been fun looking back and trying to remember people and events. My biggest problem is that I attended two high schools: I moved in November of my junior year. So it is hard for me to remember exactly who was at which high school, although I do remember the different things I did at each. At my first high school I had such close friends, and we were all in chorus and theater together, had sleep-overs all the time, we didn't have jobs (we were all too young to do anything except babysit) or cars. In my next high school, it was very difficult to make friends because I was only there for a short time. I didn't "fit in" to any of their groups. I tried to join chorus, theater, colorguard... all the groups I was a part of in my first high school but it was nearly impossible to break into their solid groups. So I got a job (or three) and made friends that way... made some friends in a christian youth group.... and basically had a completely different life those last 18 months of high school. Now it is "reunion time", and I am afraid that I still won't fit in, still won't be able to join in conversations or memories cause I really don't have that many memories or anything in common with the adults that everyone has become. I am very curious to see what everyone is doing, how many kids they have, where they've travelled to, etc. I have a few months to get used to the thought of going back there (I am going to my NJ reunion... since I actually graduated from there although I have more friends still to this day from my MA high school). I've added some photos for your enjoyment!

Our First Harvest

Our garden has been up and growing for about 5 weeks now. Everything looks like it is doing well, with the exception of the yellow squash. Supposedly that is supposed to be ready at 7 weeks, but by the looks of it we've got another 10 to go! We picked all 7 radishes that came up, and they were beautifully red and very spicy. Can't wait for the other veggies to be ready.

OK, so I'm not much of a Blogger!!!

So, my last post was 6 months ago, so what? Ha ha. I am a goof. I just don't have time for all of the things I want to do. Here is a brief catch-up of the first half of 2009!

1) Can't believe it is June. That's all I can say.
2) School is out for summer. Meghan is just hanging out, Emma is ready to go to kindergarten tomorrow, (too bad she's got about 3 months to wait), and Kate is busy with cheer practice every day from 6 to 9 am followed by summer school from 9:30 to 2 pm. (She wanted to "get ahead" so she is taking two classes so that she can take even more classes during the school year. She's crazy.)
3) Work at the second job has picked up from what it was over the winter months. Now I get to work just about every shift I sign up for. Not sure that's a great thing, but it is money.
4) Slowly paying off debt, yahoooooo!!!!! Seeing some real actual results and that is amazing considering the obstacles I am fighting.
5) Had a real vacation recently; got to visit my dad and stepmom in Florida for 6 days. Took Emma with me and we had a grand time.
6) Planted my first veggie garden in more than 10 years. It remains to be seen how well it will do with all of the unusual rain we are having, but I am excited. Tomatoes, beans, squash, carrots, radishes, pumpkins.
7) I guess we've adopted another cat. She showed up on our doorstep about 3 weeks ago and hasn't left since. Emma named her "Bella" ("you know, Mom, from Twilight?") . She won't come inside but she won't leave, either. She's a sweet and loveable little thing. We'll see what happens when the weather gets rough.

OK, that's about it. I'll try to be better, really!!!!