Office Party

Hunter (Darth Vader), Sabrina (Cheerleader), Rob (Quarterback), Hannah (Sleeping Beauty), Emma (Vampire)

Halloween just wouldn’t be the same without some sort of costume trouble. Hannah’s crown was sitting on the stairs and as I was running down them calling out, “Let’s Go!”, I accidentally stepped on it and broke it. I hugged her and said, “I’m so sorry sweetie.” She was really good about it answering calmly but sadly, “it’s ok Mommy.” I cut some pink ribbon to tie in her hair and we ran out the door.

Rob’s office party was a lot of fun. It was the first time the kids had actually been inside to see Daddy’s office and that was what they were most excited about. We went trick or treating down the hallways, ate a yummy dinner, played games, and watched part of “The Nightmare Before Christmas.”The kids were all very cute in their costumes and got lots of compliments. We are still waiting for word on the status of the scheduled Trunk or Treat for tonight. Rumor says it may be canceled due to the dirty air. The atmosphere would be great though. The moon glows an orange-red color that would be perfect for the festivities. 🙂

Preserving our Blessings

At the last General Conference I just loved the talk that was given by Elder Henry B. Eyring. He always has a wonderful talk, and I look forward to hearing him speak. This time he spoke of the importance of preserving memories of the blessings we see in our lives daily. At the end he sums it up by saying, “Tonight, and tomorrow night, you might pray and ponder, asking the questions: Did God send a message that was just for me? Did I see His hand in my life or the lives of my children? I will do that. And then I will find a way to preserve that memory for the day that I, and those that I love, will need to remember how much God loves us and how much we need Him.”

I would like to get these sorts of memories recorded for my family too. Whenever I think of it I like to ask the kids to tell about their happiest time from that day while we eat dinner. Tonight:

Hunter said: “During the Primary Program at church.” Which was very cute. The kids sang their little hearts out, and had their parts all memorized.

Emma said: “Making presents for Sabrina.” After church the kids were playing they were in a little clubhouse under the stairs. Sabrina was the queen and they made special gifts for her and a paper crown decorated with glitter and beads.

Hannah: “Thinging in a pogam.” Singing in the program- The soon to be sunbeams came up front and sang with the primary,”I’m trying to be like Jesus.” Hannah didn’t sing any of the words, she just stood there and smiled; happy to be standing with her best little friend Krista looking at all of the people smiling back at her.

Sabrina: “Happy.” She loves this new word that she learned a few days ago! Today was the first time she was in her nursery class for the whole time without Mom or Dad there too. Big day for her and us!!

Rob: “Making the apple pie, and snuggling on the couch with Mommy watching TV.” Rob has not baked a pie in a very long time. In fact, it’s been about a year I think. It was so delicious too. We always love his pies! At least three of us do. Hunter, Hannah, and Sabrina all gave their slices away after a few bites, but the three of us were happy to eat their leftovers. We had our short together time watching “Ebert & Roeper.” That’s always nice.

Amy: “Watching the primary program, walking to my visiting teaching appointment, and eating Daddy’s pie.” I love seeing the kids do their program and it brought back happy memories of when I was doing that last year as the secretary in the primary presidency. I miss that calling. -It was a nice day so instead of driving the half mile to see my sister, I walked.

One Night, Two Adventures

Adventure Number One:

So, last night, on a bit of a whim, and with some prompting from my secretary, I took Hunter and Emma to see our very first live NHL game. We saw the Anaheim Ducks play the Nashville Predators. It was tons of fun. My firm has a suite at the arena that’s mainly for “business development” (i.e., schmoozing clients) but if no one is taking clients to any particular event (which seems to be the case fairly often) then any attorney that wants to can use it.

We had a great time and Hunter and Emma really got into the spirit of it, cheering whenever the Ducks scored or had a great save. I did my best to explain the rules and everything else I knew about the game but I’m not sure how well I did. I don’t think I lived up to my Canadian heritage very well. “Daddy, why did the referee blow the whistle and make everyone stop playing?” “I don’t know, son. I don’t know.”

Is it just me, though, or is it weird that the Ducks started out as a marketing tie-in for a Walt Disney movie? And how weird is it that they won the Stanley Cup last year? Anyway, it was a great time. We watched the Ducks beat the Predators 3 to 1, we ate some nachos, took some pictures, and when it was all over, headed out for the approximately 20 minute drive back home, which leads us to…

Adventure Number Two:

It’s 10:00 o’clock at night, we’re about half way home and cruising along the freeway when I look down and notice that the tachometer on the dashboard is showing 0 RPM’s. I realize this would only happen if the engine is no longer running (hey, I’m a bright guy). I test my theory by pressing down on the accelerator and, sure enough, nothing. We’re in the car pool lane but, fortunately, we’re right at a spot where there’s a wider than usual median on the left. I pull over, we glide to a stop and I put on the hazard lights.

This now is where a nice mix of modern technology and good people turns something that could have been a really big problem into a bit of an inconvenience. I call the highway patrol on my cell phone and get a really helpful officer on the other end. He gets our location, dispatches a patrol car and then conferences in a AAA dispatcher. The woman at AAA was really helpful, too. She orders a tow truck and tells them it’s a priority call, figures out the closest repair shop to tow us to and orders a cab to be at the repair shop to take us home.

Hunter and Emma were great, too. They made a contest of who could spot the police car or tow truck first and then compared notes with each other over everything they’d have to tell their friends at school the next day. As for the car, we’re still waiting to get the whole story on what caused the breakdown. At first the mechanic thought it was just a problem with the distributor, but they replaced it and it’s still not working so they said they’ll dive back into it tomorrow and see what they can figure out. Yikes! We’ve had this car since our BYU days and I’m really hoping we can squeeze a few more years out of it before it totally bites the dust.

So, basically, it was just another day around the old homestead. Mostly fun, with just a little bit of crazy thrown in to make things interesting.

Las Vegas Getaway

This last week was an especially rough one for Rob at work. He’s been working on a deal that was originally supposed to close on Friday, then it was bumped to today, and who knows when it actually will close, but it has been one of those killers trying to meet the deadlines. Every night last week he got home as early as 11:00 pm and as late as 2:00 am. I suppose it was lucky he didn’t need to pull all-nighters which he has had to do before. Anyway, the weekend came and we were faced with a blessing and a curse. There was another work obligation… in Las Vegas. There was a conference that Rob was signed up to attend. Luckily, we were all able to go and the firm paid for our rooms.

We made the four hour drive and arrived at the Signature at MGM Grand. We were all excited to find that our rooms were beautiful! We had adjoining rooms, one for the kids to sleep in and the other for us. From the balcony we could see the airplanes taking off and landing which was so exciting for the kids, and luckily not noisy enough to make it annoying. One of the favorite features was the TV that raises up out of the desk, fancy! I have to admit I wasn’t too excited about the idea of packing everyone up for a one night stay that would mostly be me and the kids in the hotel room, while Rob went to the the conference and a fancy dinner. It turned out to be a lot of fun for us though.

I ordered pizza and the kids and I ate, played games and watched the movie, Bridge to Terabithia. I warned them that it was very sad, but they insisted that it was one they wanted to watch. It was sad, but also a great story. I’d recommend this one for the family. About half way through the movie I took the little girls in the other room and put on Baby Einstein Farm Animals. They loved that one and had fun watching as they jumped on the big bed. Rob returned around 10:30 pm to find me and Emma crying on the couch at the end of Bridge to Terabithia, Hunter lounging on the floor seemingly unphased by it, and the little girls sitting quietly with me knowing that if they fussed at all I would put them to bed.

After we put the kids to bed, Rob and I snuggled up to watch Deadliest Catch Season One. We have gotten into this show since we expanded our cable a month ago. It’s the true definition of a reality show, following several fishing boats as they make their way through “the vast Bering Sea” to find crab. It sounds like it wouldn’t be very interesting, but somehow it is fascinating and we just had to go back and find season one, since we came in on season three.

The next morning we woke up and prepared for our trip home. But before leaving we took a long walk to see the lion habitat at the MGM Grand and then on to M&M World, where we were all left drooling. Sabrina literally was, and left the store sucking on a bag of M&Ms with a chocolate goatee. Having exhausted our knowledge of family friendly attractions near the hotel we headed home.

There was something surreal about the experience of leading our little kids through the hotel casino to get back to our van. There was a walkway running through it and on all sides we were surrounded by people planted at their slot machines with their hands poised over a button feeding quarters, mindlessly pushing the button hoping for a big payout. It was sad to me because none of them seemed to be having any fun. In fact most of them sat alone. Not quite the kind of fun you see in the images of Las Vegas playing on TV.

It was a great trip for our family though. We made some fun memories and I stocked up on hotel shampoos, lotions and soaps 😉 The return trip took us six hours because we hit a lot of slow traffic so we’re glad to be home now. It’s back to the old grind…

I Think She Likes It

Thank you!!!

Emma just loves her new American Girl Doll. Thanks so much to all that contributed to get her this group gift! She was so excited when she opened it, and hasn’t put it down except to sleep. And even then, the doll slept next to her in the little brass bed that Auntie Heather gave her. She stayed home from school today because she woke up with a “stomach ache” supposedly after eating all of the birthday treats. I think it was more of an American-Girl-ache. One clue is that she just said to me, “I don’t want to go to school tomorrow. I just want to stay home with my American Girl doll!” She will go tomorrow though. Emma has been filling out the little book that came with the doll she has named “Emy.” Emma also said earlier this morning, “I wouldn’t give up my doll for all the money in the world. Because everybody put their love into it.”

In About Nine Years…

In about nine years I’ll be looking for dresses for dances, and entering the dating world with Emma… When we were back at my Mom’s for the wedding, she and Emma dug my wedding dress out of the closet, (I keep it there because we move so darn much and the train is long and bulky) and Emma just had to try it on. She looked so pretty in it and I was surprised by how much I enjoyed seeing her feeling beautiful in my dress. It was a moment where I thought, “wouldn’t it be fun if she wore this for her wedding too?” Then I snapped back to reality and thought by then the styles will have changed a few more times and I don’t think she’ll be interested. I can just hear Hunter now quoting, “I like your sleeves, they’re real big.”

With that day in the back of my mind I was looking through the website, Beautifully Modest and came across this dress that I just loved! If Emma, Hannah, or Sabrina were old enough and wanting it I would be seriously tempted. The price is a bit out of control, but I’m dreaming here… I love the belt, the colors, the flowing skirt and all of the sequins, so pretty and girly! They also have a wedding dress in this pattern, which I think is gorgeous too. I’ll file it away, and maybe in nine years I’ll be back!