Musical Taste

Humph. Jason just informed me that he thinks the music on the blog is "kinda lame". We do have pretty different tastes in music (which is what makes that fact that music was one of the first things that sparked our interest in each other nothing short of miraculous.)

I'm going to invite him to create his own playlist for the blog. It'll be interesting to see what comes up. :)

Don't expect anything before the weekend, though. School's crazy for Jason right now-not to mention home and car repairs. Someday...maybe someday...life will slow down....you think?

Peach Dumplings

This is one of my favorite foods-it's an Austrian recipe adapted for American ingredients. Delicious-I always eat way too much, but oh well, I only make them about once a year. ;) It was fun to share this with Rudy this time around.

Blending all the wet ingredients.

Rudy playing the "is it a hat?" game. I'm not sure, but I think that Jason started it-taking everyday objects and putting them on his head with the question for Rudy, " Is this a hat?" Anyway, Rudy likes to play it, and it makes for some funny pictures if I can grab 'em. :)

Putting in the dry ingredients.

Mix-a-rooni!

Flour the surface...

Grab that dough and

turn it into a ball! (These are the 'baby' dumplings we make without any fruit inside because they're just so tasty plain, and some people in the family prefer them that way.)

Dine upon the delicacy. :)

A First of My Own

Nice that you can be almost 29 and still have firsts in life to experience, huh? ;)

My rockin' friend's rockin' husband sent she and I off to what was my first ever manicure and pedicure, or mani/pedi, as 'they' call it.

Amazing. It's something I'd always wanted to try, and had actually been kinda wishing for lately even.

Thanks so much Matt! You're a peach- and there are at least 4 ladies in the world who know it (Bonnie, me, and the two ladies who did our pampering yesterday.)

Bonnie's nails (and the treat we stopped for after the pampering session).

The final result. I wish you could see how soft my hands and feet feel-that's the best part. ;)

Oh-and a side story about Bonnie's amazing hospitality:

Matt had called earlier in the day to arrange a surprise get away for Bonnie. So while he and I were in cahoots, Bonnie had no idea about what lay ahead.

I had no idea to what extent Bonnie had no idea, so when I showed up right at nap time and put my son to bed in her daughter's bed, (as instructed by Matt before hand), I assumed he'd at least given her some kind of heads up about the whole Rudy will be napping in Amy's bed thing.

Nope.

LOL-I can't believe how absolutely gracious that sweet Bonnie was! She just set little Amy up in her makeshift bed in their walk-in closet, and was grateful I felt comfortable enough with her to have a serious 'mi casa es su casa' mentality in her home.

Holy cow-I would not have passed that hospitality test. I'm sure I'd have figured out a way to nap all our kids at my place at a moment's notice, but I'd have wanted some sort of story first at least, and probably would have put Amy on the floor instead of Rudy.

(Amy did get to sleep in her bed in the end, which is nice, because Rudy wanted the novelty of camping out in the closet more than the coolness of sleeping in Amy's new bed.)

Those Parks are pretty cool people, they are, pretty cool indeed. :)

Life Lessons

Rudy experienced a little taste of heartbreak yesterday.

We had just completed our shopping at a local grocery store that offers helium balloons to their child patrons. Rudy had chosen a beautiful bright yellow balloon, which bobbed cheerily above him as we headed out the door. In an attempt to further secure it from 'blowing away', he accidentally loosened it and away it went.

Up, up, up, 'till we couldn't see it anymore.

We must have been a pitiful sight: two year old sobbing for Mommy to tell the balloon to come back, Mommy trying to balance a flat of strawberries on one hip while holding her heartbroken son in the other. I was so sorry for my little man, I just about cried myself as I tried to explain that the balloon would not be coming back.

A well meaning woman, seeming to see my uncertainty about what I should do next, said matter-of-factly, "You'll just have to go back and get another one."

Something in me resisted that suggestion, though. There are lots of things in life that you can't just "go back and get another one" for. And while I knew my son's heart was breaking at the moment, I also know Rudy well enough to know that this crisis was indeed, a mini crisis, and something he could handle with the proper guidance.

So, instead of marching back in to demand our balloon be replaced, I just held him close, and told him how sorry I was that he lost his balloon. After he'd had some time to calm down a bit, I talked to him about how even though it was sad for him to see his balloon go, maybe his balloon was really excited about the grand adventure he was off to, and we talked about all the places the wind might carry that cheery yellow balloon. To the mountains? To the ocean? Would he get to see some whales maybe? Would he visit the airplanes going by?

Rudy seemed to catch on to the make believe, and said he would pretend that he and the balloon would go on the adventure together, and they would fly through the sky and wave at all the people in the airplanes, and everyone would think how lucky he was to be on an adventure with his yellow balloon. And then he would land, and say good bye to the balloon, and his yellow friend would sail off to find more adventure on his own.

After telling that story to ourselves together, we both felt much better, and even cheery about what lay ahead for Rudy's balloon. We gathered our groceries again, and completed the trek across the parking lot to our car.

A bit later, Rudy said something like, "I said good bye to my balloon, so I'm not sad anymore."

What a profound bit of wisdom about dealing with disappointments, sorrow, even heartbreak. When we give ourselves a chance to be sad, and then face the fact that what we wanted to be simply isn't, we free both ourselves and whatever yellow balloon we were calling back to us, and we don't have to be sad anymore. We can get on with our next adventure.

And that's just what we did, my sweet Rudy and me. :)

Good Things to Come

How cool! The Church put out a little video with the story from Elder Holland's talk on it just a bit ago! Here it is:

Good Things to Come

Great video-but really-the whole talk is full of good stuff. Don't miss out! :)

Vacation...

We decided to turn a dog sitting opportunity into a family vacation last week. It was supposed to be this rockin' recharge of relaxation.

Why is it that at least half the time I go on vacation, I end up more stressed than when I left? Does that happen to anyone else?

The plan was to spend Sunday night through Wednesday morning at my parents' awesome, ultra-cozy home, feeding the animals and otherwise chilling and having a good time.

On Saturday evening, our radiator cracked. How are you supposed to relax and enjoy the splurges of a vacation when you're stressed out about a multiple hundred dollar unexpected car repair, not to mention lack of transportation?

My sweet mother picked us up from our home and brought us to hers, plus left us with some spending money so that eased things a bit, and our awesome car mechanic had the car ready to be picked up by 10 am on Monday, but my nerves were still quite raw about the whole deal.

We spent a ridiculous amount of the vacation smoothing over irritations, re-irritating each other, and then smoothing things over again.

We did have some fun times in between:

Horsing around with Sam, my parent's two year old lab mix. He's a sweetie, and getting to be more and more of a gentleman, thanks to all my parents' hard work in

training him.

Playing in the hose, and catching some rays on my parents' super cozy lounge chairs.

Exploring Cascade Springs together.

Oh, and we can't forget the train table. I think Rudy put a good 10 hours (if not more) of train play in over the 3 days we were there. I can't believe I didn't record it in pictures.

By the time we were packed up and headed home though, I was so ready to get back into the swing of normal life again. That is, until Jason headed into our bathroom and found it had turned quite, er...swampish...over the 3 days we were gone.

Our swamp cooler leaked and flooded our bathroom, hallway, and downstairs bathroom. Thank goodness it didn't do more, but that's not what I was thinking as I watched multiple drips coming from my bubbling ceiling.

I guess it's just one of those growing up moments when you realize it's always a good idea to turn off your water if you're gonna be gone for any length of time. We're learning all about making home insurance claims and luckily, things are going smoothly in that respect.

To complicate things further, however, Jason was in the middle of converting our tub into a combo tub/shower when we left (we had planned to let the stuff he'd done 'cure' over the 3 days and then finish on the day or day after we came home). With the damage, we're not comfortable finishing the conversion until we know we won't just have to rip it out in a couple days, so Rudy's been stuck taking "sinkies" instead of "tubbies" for the last 5 days.

Besides the inconvenience of having to convert the kitchen sink into a bath and then back again, it's actually kind of nice not to have to lean over the tub to wash my kiddo (small though my belly may still be, it's definitely got more of a presence than it did 17 weeks ago). :)

On Sunday, we backed out of the garage and ripped our left side mirror's casing right off the car. Today, Rudy threw the camera rather than relinquish it to his 'demanding' mother and IF I can repair it, it will held together by duck tape.

Needless to say, we're feeling kind of thin by now. Sigh.

When I feel thin like this, I listen to this talk, and it reminds me what I have to hope for, and why I can seek for and expect peace no matter my circumstances: "An High Priest of Good Things to Come" by Jeffery R. Holland, October 1999 General Conference. I like to listen to it better than reading it, because it's the kind of thing I want to hear from someone with faith, confidence, and love in his voice, rather than reading it in the fearful, doubtful, or burnt out voice I may be harboring at the moment.

Give it listen-maybe it'll come in handy for you the next time you have a vacation you need to recover from . ;)

Farm Country with Grandma

Mom took Rudy and me out to Farm Country with her Grandparents' pass last Saturday. We had tons of fun seeing all the baby animals and talking about farm life. Here's a few favorite shots of the day:

Rudy's first time ever on a horse (pony, whatever). He was totally stoked, up until she started moving. This is his expression as he realized that his perch was not so stable as he'd assumed. ;)

He recovered quickly however, probably 'cause he had Grandma right there with him to help him feel secure. Soon enough, he was lovin' the horse ride, and ready for more at the end of it. He even got brave and ventured a quick wave or two near the end, but I didn't get any decent shots of that daredevil stunt. ;)

Cheesy grins for Grandma.

Feeding the goats through the fence. It took a bit for Rudy to figure out how to do it-he kept holding the grain just out of the goat's reach and asking it to come get it. Finally he figured out that the fence was not going anywhere, and he'd have to bring the grain to the goats. :)

Petting a Clydesdale's nose. I loved how tuned in and observant he was with those giants. It was almost a reverence he held, as he said to me, "Look at his eyes!" His toddler self was distracted away before I could get further info about what he thought was special about those eyes, but I like to think he had one of those soul to soul moments with this horse. Maybe that's just the granola in me, though. ;)