Cattle Drive 2009

I was (and still am) sadly without camera during the week of in-law joy. The reason for the get together was because we all love to take our kids on the annual cattle drive. Every summer, Grandpa hires three large trucks to transport his 100+ cows to his land in New Mexico. Every fall, he and his boys spend a week rounding them all back up. The drive-in is much more kid friendly and it has become an unofficial family reunion. Everyone came but Jay's youngest brother, Clark, and his family as well as two of his sisters' husbands. Now that we are local, it's quite a bit easier to join in the fun. I realized that I haven't been present for the marching of the cows since 2004. Knowing it was Henry's first cattle drive made the inability to capture any of the day in pictures all the more depressing.

Still, I borrowed these pictures from my sister-in-law's, Bekki, facebook page. I appreciate her taking some pictures of my family as well as her own.

The reason for the party. Mama cows and baby cows get to chow on mountain grass all summer!

Grandpa not only drives in cattle, but a few grand kids as well!

Henry exploring at the rendezvous point.

Jay and Henry go for a ride.

About how it goes around here.

Some of my cute nephews. Scott, Jacob, Derek and Michael. I really hope my own boys grow up to be so charming and fun.

Sam and his best buddy, Matt.

The three cowboys who did all the work while the rest of us played. Yes, Jay wears chaps. Just one more awesome part of the day:) My niece Brooke is on the horse. Then Jay, Vaughn and Rex. Missing cowboy = Clark.
The sisters, minus Stephanie (Clark's wife and also a mudblood). I married into a family of tiny people. It's possible I subconsciously destroyed my camera that morning in order to avoid this picture. Lucky for me, while they may be tiny, they are also some of the best women I know. From left to right and in order of age: Kelly (sister), me, Peggy (sister), Bekki (mudblood), Molly (sister) and Patty (mudblood).

Good times.

Easy Blogging

It's been a bad week for blogging. Lots of in-laws have been in town and I broke my camera on Monday. I have several ideas going through my head that I really want to write down so that the fleeting becomes solid, but those take time. And editing. Tonight, I'm taking the easy road. I'm just going to type as I think.

Because it's about So You Think You Can Dance and I'm not quite so picky about getting it right, you know?

So.....let's just say it. This week's show.....

stunk.

It stunk. Paso Doble, Viennese Waltz AND the Rumba during the same week? Mandy Moore could not have choreographed a more boring jazz routine and I like Dave Scott but what's with having the double/double each week. Can't they switch it up a bit? Two Shane Sparks routines didn't work last week and having one person choreograph two dances in the same style (hip hop) doesn't make for an interesting show.

I was so excited to have my niece and sister-in-law over watching with me, because it's much more fun to watch with fellow fans than all alone but I found myself complaining after each dance.

1. Jonathan! Count the beat! Judges - say something nice to Karla because she was fantastic! They weren't synchronized because Jonathan can't groove (just borrowing from Tony Basil who liked to throw that word out.) I liked the routine, liked the music, but Jonathan's white boy dancing was distracting. Still...Karla was great and Nigel was waaaay too harsh.

2. Asuka and Vitolio. Boring, boring boring. I love Pat Benetar but I found the loud medium slow rock music/turquoise costumes/Askua combination too much to handle. I wanted the routine to end and Vitolio was making me nervous with all of his tongue waggling. Keep it in your mouth, buddy. When Nigel threw his hands up in the air and shouted, "Fantastic!" I wanted to throw something at the TV. Are we even watching the same show, Mr. Lythgoe?

3. Finally, Melissa and Ade. Practically a guarantee that something exciting and great will happen. Except they have the rumba, which isn't my favorite dance because they have to dance in fake lust. I find watching all that face pawing/open mouth act a bit uncomfortable. Especially when they cut away to her adoring and left-to-spectate husband in the audience. The dance was good, though. I'm still loving Melissa who is freakishly strong. Did you see her Pilates sit-up on that roller? It made me wish I hadn't sold my Pilates DVDs. Actually, it made me wish that I had used them more than once after buying them after watching an infomercial on TV. The dance was good but the music....the music was like fingernails on a chalkboard. Like a bad waitress who won't bring you a refill. Like a cellphone talker in a movie. As impressive as the dance was, I wanted it to end so that I didn't have to listen to Beyonce warble anymore.

4. O.K. I'm wondering why I started numbering these things because I actually can't remember the exact order of the dances anymore. But, I'm typing as I think, remember, so there's no going back. I'm going to say Brandon and Jeanette were next with those awful tights and bad hair. How can they make such a small, toned girl look so bottom heavy? Totally unflattering. Add her half-a-head of teased hair and I had to avoid watching Jeanette. Again...what's with the tongue? Is that Rock-and-Roll? I enjoyed the concept, thought and the music was....unusual. Not bad, at all, just disconcerting. I think Jeanette did the best she could trying to pull off being a dancing Joan Jett but Brandon was the total star of the dance. He's good. I totally believed his street cred (again, thank you Tony Basil for pointing out how necessary that is with your beret on your head) even after he finished gushing about stage lighting. But it was a hard dance to like because they never seemed to be dancing together. Just doing a dance off. Which isn't really a bad thing. I love dance offs! I am especially fond of real life ones.

5. Kayla and Kupono. I was so set on Kupono leaving this week. His interview about wanting to be a costume designer didn't help much. I just don't have any really positive feelings about him. I don't like how he dances. I don't enjoy how he dresses. And by admitting that he can't even lift Kayla makes him worthless in partner dancing as he is actually the male in the pair and Kayla shouldn't have to lift him. My Kupono dissing + Viennese Waltz (which I've always thought they should just stick with one waltz per season. It's just not an exciting dance) should have equaled a worst-dance-of-the-night vote but I was shocked by its beauty. I don't know if it was her pretty dress, or soft curls. The graceful way she pointed her toes as she was rocked by the suddenly stronger Kupono or what, but I loved the whole dance.

6. My sister is trying to convince me that Mia's "Butt" routine was really good but I just finished watching it again and I still didn't like it. Loved the music. I've already bought it on itunes. Loved Randi's outfit. Loved some of the funky shoulder dancing moves. But, why in the world did Evan have to wear a size 50 suit? Did they not want us to see any part of his body actually move? It was the first thing I saw and those first few seconds when I was adjusting to him looking like he belonged on "Honey, I Shrunk The Kids" and hoping Randi would lose the other shoe, I was hating the dance. I didn't like the attention to Randi's behind. I thought it was obscene and crude. The dancing really wasn't great but it got a pass because of a clever concept. Except, I never actually understood the concept. Was she supposed to be a poodle? But they kept referring to Evan as a creepy old French guy. Did the creepy old french guy like poodles? Or young women? Who was she? Some of those moves made it seem like she was sleep walking. I didn't get the story. The fact that it WAS the best dance of the night only shows that the whole night was disappointing.

7. Totally didn't buy Kaitlin and Jason's Paso Doble. I love Carmina Burana so was really pumped when the music started. I even really liked the clip they showed of them practicing, Jean-Luc's instruction and how Jason was supposed to hate Kaitlin...passionately. But then Jason was jumping around on stage, not really dancing with and not really hating his I Dream Of Jeanie co-star. I thought Kaitlin looked off and low energy but, again, the judges loved it. Loved her. Pass.

8. Jeanine totally redeemed herself because she has carried Phillip these last two weeks. She is really quite talented and I totally bought her bangs and her dancing. She has been the one in the pair to watch lately, but there's still something about her that makes me uncomfortable. Don't know what it is but I'm not a fan. I'm just admitting that she has talent. Phillip was even fun to watch for the first 45 seconds before he realized that he can't dance a la Broadway. After the couch jump, he lost his spark and just started running around. I actually laughed out loud once, because he looked so ridiculous.

They all could have been in the bottom three, in my opinion. Well, except Melissa who is excellent and Ade, who must be excellent because Melissa continues to look excellent next to him. There's something to that, right?

Asuka needed to go home. I'm glad that happened. I was never a Jonathan fan so I'm o.k. with that too.

Blah, blah, blah.

I hope next week is better.

Back At The Water Cooler

O.K. I'm calm again.

Disaster of disasters, my DVR didn't record last night's episode. That's right. I didn't get to watch the dances. I'd love to say that I handled it like an adult, but it wouldn't be true. I screamed. And not just on the inside.

As a result, I spent about an hour scouring YouTube for videos of each of the dances, hoping to find a decent recording before some overworked intern pulled it off for copyright. It's so frustrating. Something that actually should be available to watch again and again should anyone so choose, and the option isn't available. Of course, Fox doesn't offer any episodes on their web site either. Conspiracy. Or they just want to drive me crazy.

I found them all and watched them in their little 3 X 5 screen (because when I enlarged them, it was too pixel-y and distracting) but didn't have very strong feelings about any of the dances except Melissa and Ade's jazz routine. I'm telling you, I'm really, really liking Melissa.

I liked Jonathan and Karla's contemporary too but I think partly because I love the song they danced to. There are so many factors about liking or not liking a couple. The choreographer, the costumes (like what in the H-E-double hockey sticks was poor Max wearing????), and of course, the song. Falling Slowly is something Jay and I sing together at the piano and as soon as I heard the first few bars, I melted. Of course, the stellar dancing didn't hurt.

I am not a fan of the judges tonight. I don't think either Ashley or Max deserved to go home. Ashley has been phenomenal both weeks in a row and just had a lame hip-hop routine (that she nailed and her partner didn't). I even liked her solo. They know she can do all those tricks and I loved her attention to artistry instead. Loved it.

And Max! I've never liked the ballroom dancers' solos and I really liked his. It wasn't his fault he had to look like MC Hammer in bondage last night. Kupono should have left. Yeah, he's the quirky dancer this year and they love their quirks, but the quirks never win. They just bring their partners down when they can't do the difficult dance routines. He couldn't even do hip hop. Can you imagine him doing a fast Latin ballroom number? Poor Kayla. She's going to suffer without Max.

I think Kaitlin should have gone home instead. She's a good dancer, but other than her fancy gymnastics, which are pretty fancy, she's not the strongest dancer. I don't think Ashley is really that much better, but I'm more attached to her. I mean, she's tried out four years in a row! She wanted it more. I'm sad.

Lastly, I loved the Mia Michaels group dance. Mia has been bugging me this season with her opinions and ego and I was a little worried I'd have a bias against her choreography. But, man, this was one of my favorites. It was amazing. At least, I think it was amazing. I couldn't really watch it because I was busy having a seizure from all of the jumping camera angles (just have one steady cam pan out so I can see the whole stage, for crying out loud!) but the movement I did see was really powerful. It was a Rama-Lama-Bang-Bang kind of dance. Memorable.

It probably won't stay up some before being shut down by The Man, so sorry. Enjoy it while you can.

Looks Like a Two-Peat

If any of you thought I was in any danger of losing my Mother-Of-The-Year Award, ne'er fret. It's not going anywhere while this turkey is under my roof.

If you've got a hankering for Tillamook cheese and Mom's in the shower, what's a boy to do?

Book Review #61 - Olive Kitteridge

I have never liked the idiom, "You can't have your cake and eat it too," because it doesn't make sense. What are you talking about? I have cake and eat it all the time. Too frequently, in fact. But that isn't my point.

I do understand its intended meaning, however. I've seen it written instead, "You can't eat your cake and have it too," which really clears things up (the two desires are mutually exclusive. Choice and sacrifice are obligatory), but, I doubt the saying will ever change. And if I say it the way I like it, I'll just be accused of messing it up, blasted creatures of habit that we humans are.

When Elizabeth Strout wrote Olive Kitteridge, it appears she couldn't choose between eating the cake or having it.

To explain, you need to know something about the book, which, I should do regardless because this is, after all, a book review. Olive Kitteridge is a compilation of short stories that are sometimes strongly, but more often loosely, tied together through one character, Olive Kitteridge. The book is roughly chronological and whether in the periphery or forefront, Olive's abrasive and direct personality stand out. She and other inhabitants of Crosby, Maine, lead outwardly ordinary lives but with Strout's masterful story telling, their motivations, vices, guilt and hope are all achingly uncovered. It's really something, the way she captures the natural man (or woman) on her pages.

Imagine, for the sake of the above allegory, that Olive Kitteridge is a cake. She is the title character. She is the foundation. Olive all alone, however, is boring. She needs decorating. She needs a plot and supporting characters and conflict and all the eye-dazzling fondant that makes you take notice and want the actual food - the cake underneath. In other words....she needs a novel. I wonder if Strout started dressing Olive up, and saw that she had so much going on that her cake looked like a hot mess so she licked off all the icing, hoping, I suppose, the naked cake left behind would be enough. Unfortunately, and perhaps because I am overly fond of icing, I noticed its absence. As enjoyable as each short story was, Olive Kitteridge needed the icing and the icing needed Olive.

While I applaud Strout's idea, which is brilliant, entire chapters felt disappointing and unproductive because Olive's presence was so minimal. At times, the thought crossed my mind that Strout had some of these stories written beforehand and once she came up with Olive Kitteridge, and her idea to assemble stories containing Olive together in a book, she threw in a few of her other favorite short stories, briefly mentioning Olive as a 7th grade math teacher or down-the-street neighbor so that they earned an "Olive" label. Like drinks that claim to be 10% fruit juice. Not near enough juice but that's another analogy for another day.

For a book to connect so...haphazardly, was unsatisfying. Even though each chapter had the structure to stand alone, I felt preoccupied with Olive. When was she going to enter the story? How did this person know Olive? Olive, Olive, Olive. It was distracting.

I understand and even agree with the book's critical acclaim because the premise is unique and clever. Strout's writing is superb and certain chapters are undoubtedly engrossing. But what am I supposed to do with an unfrosted cake? Eat it or have it? Without the frosting, I'm not sure I want to do either.

Land And Its Many Uses

Sam holding a baby lamb at an organic farm we visited with friends yesterday.

Pasture-fed pigs, which are a closer relative to the wild boar.

Henry chasing the chickens.

The one sales-pitch on the tour - the difference between their pasture-grazed chickens and an egg bought from Wal-Mart. The darker colored egg has more Vitamin A, E and Beta-Carotene.

An old school house built in 1908 that the owners of the farm recently restored.

Pretending they are at school.

Picking garden strawberries with Michelle and her two youngest for some fresh strawberry shortcake. The super-hero help was nice.

Henry was a good picker.

Jay is off today so I went exploring. Unfortunately, I picked a bad trail that dead-ended.

And the trail was muddy. But you should have seen my leaps and jumps. It was almost like I was on So You Think You Can Dance.

I love this land.

Sunday Thoughts

It's that time of day when our pot roast dinner is finished and put away, the dishwasher is busily purring and remnants of the meal (my boys are the messiest eaters ever) are swept off the floor. Jay is at a meeting and I just set a book down after reading several chapters. The boys put their shoes on after dinner and charged outside and have delighted me by staying out there for over two hours now. I truly feel calm and restful.

As the daylight dimmed, I stepped onto the back deck to call the boys inside. Oblivious to my witness, I watched Seth, Sam and Henry gleefully running back and forth in our shared backyard wilderness with eight other neighbor children. My next door neighbor's four tots were all present and my across the yard neighbor's two also played. Three girls from down the street could be heard squealing and a new boy from across the street had only just arrived. They were all playing Capture The Flag and I swear it was a scene straight from a Norman Rockwell painting.

Then the internal argument began.

On one side of my argument(which will no longer be internal once I click on the publish button), I loved the spontaneity of their play. When does this kind of pick-up game happen anymore? I remember (and I don't think this is a walked-uphill-in-the-snow-both-ways kind of memory) playing outside with my neighborhood friends ALL THE TIME. We played Hide-and-Seek and Capture the Flag, and No Bears Are Out Tonight. We played in the street, until a car came, and then we returned to the street. We came inside when it was time for a meal or too dark to see anymore. I don't ever remember my mother setting up a play date for me. Ever. I just played.

My boys play all the time, but with each other, not friends. Oh, they've played with these neighborhood kids before, but none really match up in age or gender and it doesn't happen very often. To see them enjoying, so innocently, their community of peers made me smile. I couldn't call them inside. There is another half hour of light left, at least.

But, on the other side of the argument and the one that matches my generic title, it's Sunday. The Sabbath day. Is neighborhood play on the approved list?

I could come up with all kinds of defenses. We have no fence, so it's not like they can just keep to themselves. And isn't that a weird defense? I know I'm not really keeping the day holy merely by preventing them from playing with other kids. But, I do remember in our heyday of fence ownership, telling the next door neighbor, who wanted my boys to come play with her, "Sorry, not today." I watched her watch my boys from the top of her play set and didn't feel one bit badly about my little Seth and littler Sammy outside in the sandbox or going down their slide (plus, she was pretty obnoxious and it was a guilty pleasure to have a reason to keep her out of my yard for once!)

Would it be better if they were inside watching a church video? Or reading the Friend? Or writing letters to their grandmothers asking them for copies of their personal histories? I wasn't engaging them because I wanted to get the five pots I had used for cooking cleaned and put away, and the table cover wiped off, and then I wanted to use the fabulous Method spray from Target to polish the Granite counter tops. They were left to their own devices while I did my thing and their father did his. Having my kitchen cleaned up makes me feel...better than when it is messy. But, maybe cleaning up my kitchen isn't keeping the Sabbath day holy either?

I'm not usually so conflicted about this. It was just that scene. A simple game of capture the flag. I saw it and I smiled. And then I stopped. And then I wondered if I was wrong to stop smiling or wrong to think I should stop smiling or just wrong to smile in the first place.

Time to go get the boys.

If I Had A Water Cooler....

.....I'd be standing next to it discussing my favorite TV show, So You Think You Can Dance. I was worried, after complaining about the camera work last year, and the mostly absent Wade Robson, who is my favorite choreographer, that I was falling on the side of critic. I tend to do that, you know. Complain. It isn't pretty.



So, imagine my delight at such a fun show on Wednesday night. The dancing was....fantastic! I didn't think any of the dancers deserved to go home. After watching the results show, and the dances once more (gotta love the DVR!), I think the judges got one right. Tony. He wasn't near a good enough dancer for the show. But, I know they loved his personality and I was so worried he was going to become the Comfort of last year, staying on the show for sake of diversity and personality instead of actual talent. So, so glad they kept the better dancers instead.

But, I don't think Paris deserved to go. She got stuck with the worst partner and the worst choreography of the night and she still nailed it. I watched their routine again, and she's a really fun dancer to watch. I'm sad she didn't get one more chance. I think Asuka should have been sent home. She's cute and gives the show another female dancer with ballroom experience, but she performed the worse solo and plays on her sultriness a bit too much, I think.


I think Jeanine is the weakest dancer, but she's partnered with Phillipe so I think it'll be a while until she's up for elimination. And I loved their routine, even though it looked like every other sentimental Tabitha and Napoleon routine. It was still great.



The one that gave me chills, though, was Ade and Melissa's jazz routine. I mean, they danced to Richard Marx and that's wrong on more than one level (you shouldn't bring back bad 90s pop, Mandy Moore!). They are both so strong and it's fun to watch people do something so technically hard that you know you couldn't do yourself. That's every dance on the show, but their lifts and positions looked especially hard.


I'm in a So You Think You Can Dance vacuum here! Jay doesn't (won't) watch it and I'm used to having people around me to discuss this with. I've spent hours on the phone with my sister dissecting the dances and still feel unsatisfied. I don't usually enjoy blogging on pop culture but since I have no water cooler....

you're it!

Here's one more to enjoy:)

Book Review #60 - The Help

Gush, gush, gush, gush, gush! I cannot gush enough about this book.

The Help, by Kathryn Stockett, follows the lives of three women living in 1962 Jackson, Mississippi. Two of the women, Abilene and Minny are black, hired as help to wealthy, or trying to appear wealthy, white families. Eugenia, or "Skeeter" as she is called, is a white woman recently graduated from Ole Miss University and trying to become a writer. She is what probably most of us are, kindly ignorant of the world around her. Raised on what her mother embarrassingly still refers to as a "plantation" she lived in an environment with all the privilege and prejudice you'd expect from a southern belle. Living at home again, Skeeter doesn't quite fit in anymore among her friends, who are all married with children.

When a feminist editor from New York rejects one of Skeeter's submissions, she includes with that rejection the advice for Skeeter to write about what disturbs her. It is while playing bridge with her friends, that she becomes aware of her friend, Miss Hilly's, crusade for every home to have a separate bathroom installed for "the help", to contain the germs blacks carry that whites are more susceptible to, that Skeeter realizes she has found her subject matter.

Skeeter is the least developed character of the three but she is the means in which this uniquely uplifting story can be told. Without Skeeter, who at 22, finally and lonesomely comes of age, The Help would simply be another shocking look at the racial inequality that existed still so recently in the South. It is Skeeter's character, and her ambition to write a book that matters, that strips Abilene's and Minny's blatantly mistreated, funny and irresistible characters out of their perfectly pressed maid uniforms and into each of our lives.

I don't want to give away too much about Abilene and Minny, who became women I loved. They mattered to me. Abilene, especially, is so vividly written, that her voice, her mannerisms... her unguarded moments... took solid form in my imagination. More than anything, I wanted her to thrive. To triumph.

As rich as this book is in both characterization and plot, its real accomplishment is that it encouraged me to examine my own prejudices. Racism has always been a frustrating topic for me to think about, as has sexism. My mind has a hard time wrapping around the idea that there was a time when educated people - enlightened people - sincerely believed that any race or gender was superior to another. It seems our spirits must have always had the capacity for understanding that this could not be so, but The Help showed me how such beliefs are possible.

Stockett, a southern white woman herself, exposes with an experienced sympathy how many in this particular chapter of our nation's history weren't racist because they were mean-spirited or elitists, but because it is what they had been taught to believe. Foolish traditions, yes, but they were able to be easily convinced that a separate toilet was necessary because they lacked the scientific understanding about germs and contamination and genetics. They only thing available to counter such painfully offensive actions was personal reflection and, perhaps, their consciences.

More so, and what was really eye opening to me, were the attitudes of "the help", how their own actions and attitudes were also heavily influenced by tradition and fear - as much so as their white counterparts. Whites, with control and power, dosed out injustice after injustice that was defended by their fear and blacks adjusted to the degradation based on their own learning and fear. Minny was taught by her mother how to behave as a maid in the home of a white woman - what to say and do and how to say and do it. She also experienced first hand the consequences of breaking with that tradition, being fired and blacklisted and unable to provide for her family. The difference between what excuses the fear as loathsome or imaginable was the availability of recourse. Blacks had none. Or very little.

I must believe, as a human being, that there is something inside each of us that witnesses the value of our souls. However, blacks, then, had even less access to understanding and knowledge than their white peers which left them with little other than their own consciences as proof of their worth. How frustrating to be human whose freedom is limited by the understanding of others. It made me wonder which of us are like Miss Skeeter, Miss Hilly, Abilene or Minny. Are we currently kindly ignorant, arrogantly holding all the answers, quietly giving the best of ourselves with what society allows or protecting our vulnerability with a tough outer shell?

Perhaps, we are all of them, at different times of our lives, progressing at our individual rates of enlightenment and courage. As Skeeter explained, "Wasn't that the point of the book? For women to realize, 'We are just two people. Not that much separates us. Not nearly as much as I'd thought'."

Amen.

Now, go read this book!

35 Reasons To Celebrate

Jay isn't a fan of the birthday. He is particularly Scrooge-ish about his own. Why someone wouldn't want the accolades of friends and family for merely being born is beyond me, but I think his hang-up is that he doesn't enjoy aging. He claims he wishes he were still eighteen, but I'm awfully glad he's 35 today, or else I'd be one of those creepy female predators in the news.

As he isn't wont to celebrate today, it is left for me to acknowledge his amazing contributions to society - an assignment that, as his biggest fan, suits me perfectly.

1. He is a law abider. I don't think I've ever seen him lie, cheat or steal to get ahead in life. He doesn't even speed (which can aggravate my own lead foot).

2. He is extremely responsible. I've never known anyone who is as driven as he is to not let someone...anyone who might be counting on him, down.

3. He is smart. The things his big brain retains puts me to shame.

4. He is funny. He may be no joke teller, and I don't think he'd ever make it in stand-up, but if you get him comfortable enough, you will be rewarded by the rarely seen goofy side of Jay and will probably end up in tears. The good kind.

5. He is a good cook. He chooses to have specialty dishes, rather than experiment with new things, but his Chile Verde, omelettes, and cowboy goulash are all family favorites.

6. He is patriotic. His alter ego wishes he were a Navy Seal. Or Jack Bauer.

7. He has a strong testimony. He believes what he says he believes. And he lives it.

8. He is sensitive. He hates to cry in front of people, but he feels things deeply.

9. He is strong. There are bottles I swear are glued shut that he opens with ease. To my humiliation.

10. He is a leader. He doesn't need a bunch of sheep following him, but he is also no sheep.

11. He is musical. He can play the guitar, the trombone, a few songs on the piano and has a lovely voice.

12. He is passionate. He loves life, and constantly strives to have his passion bucket full.

13. He is frugal. The economic mess can't be blamed on him. He lives with what he can afford and doesn't focus on material things.

14. He is kind. Although he surely has plenty of ammunition, he never attacks me.

15. He is a master at mind over matter. How he handles his food deprivation, decides when or when not to be ticklish and pushes his body to the limit when he runs amazes me.

16. He is a cowboy. Who doesn't love a cowboy?

17. He is healthy. He resting heart rate is in the 40s, has perfect blood pressure, fantastic cholesterol levels and is at his high school weight. If he didn't have a couple of rare diseases, he'd be the poster boy for health.

18. He is generous. As frugal as he is in his own life, he wouldn't deny me anything I really wanted. Or the boys. Or good causes.

19. He is a collector. It may be radiology text books or little papers I don't dare throw away from the hospital, but he keeps his things.

20. He is a good provider. I have the luxury and ability to stay at home (and blog if I so choose) while he strains his eyes and brain day after day after day.

21. He is raising his sons. They will know how to be men from watching their father.

22. He is a boy scout. He may not have earned his Eagle, but he knows his knots, and I'd hang out in a snow cave with him.

23. He saves lives. As grateful as I am that he has a good job for our own security and lifestyle, I respect his profession for the good it does in helping the sick and broken.

24. He reads. For knowledge, for information, for entertainment, for joy.

25. He plays. He'd prefer to stay away from my favorite kinds of games, which he finds embarrassing and unnecessary, but, he is no dull boy.

26. He respects differences of opinions. Which, believe me, I personally appreciate.

27. He is obedient. I have accused him of having too much pride from time to time, but, when it comes to truth, he hearkens and obeys.

28. He honors his parents. After reading Gilead, and understanding this idea fuller, I appreciate this trait of his that much more.

29. He is patient. If good things come to those who wait, his future just keeps getting brighter:)

30. He isn't opposed to changing a dirty diaper. He's as tired of them as I am, but he's done his fair share over the last nine plus years.

31. He is independent. I'm sure it's a blessing at work and church to have a guy who manages to get things done on his own without any hand holding, but it's especially appreciated by his wife who suffers from wanderlust.

32. He breaks his mold. He might appear to be your typical sports-loving-middle-class-conservative American, but he's pretty fly for a white guy. I adore his NASCAR following, marching band enthusiast, merengue loving, Spanish speaking ways.

33. He is a conservationist. He wears his shoes out, takes short showers, uses Cruise Control, turns off lights and reads by headlamp.

34. He is prompt. We both hate to be late, which makes things less stressful for both of us.

35. He loves me. Which is all the reason I need to celebrate his life.

Best of all, he isn't nearly as big of a nerd as I just portrayed him to be. He is the sunshine of my soul. The yin to my yang. The supplier of so much happiness.

Happy Birthday, Jay!

And a big shout-out to my sister, Emily, who shares Jay's date of birth and also happens to hate attention (what is it with these spotlight shunners? Don't they know how warm the light feels?). I know you are being treated right by your own honey, but I hope you have a fantastically spectacular day.

Book Review #59 - The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo

Good mysteries are like chick-lit for me. The book might not be a prize winning, heart soaring, profound thinking sort, but the tension and lure of what happens on the next page keeps me coming back for more.

I assumed with the good reviews and attention The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo was getting, it would be something I would enjoy. I did not.

I open mysteries/thrillers with open eyes, knowing that most contain dark subject matter. Murder is usually involved. Crimes are usually committed. Lives are usually in peril.

This book, however, took the darkness and dank to a whole new level. None of the characters were likable. Of course, you expect some characters who live in the underbelly of society to have unappealing lifestyles, but normally, there is a protagonist or detective, or someone...anyone, to cheer for. Hope for. Like. Even just a little.

I found no such character in this story. Stieg Larrson's novel opens with Mikael Blomkvist, a financial journalist (I know...yawn), whose career is on the rocks after he is convicted of libeling a well known financier in his small, liberal magazine. In order to save the magazine, and to earn some money during the time when he won't be working, he accepts an unconventional offer from Henrik Vagner, a former corporate mogul, to investigate the thirty year-old disappearance of his niece. Charming (or distracting, depending on your mood) as the Swedish names are, Mikael is a yucky guy.

He sleeps with his boss, who happens to be married. His daughter is all but forgotten in his exciting world of kronas (that's money). While he's living on an isolated island during his investigation, he sleeps with a lonely fifty year-old woman. And then, when he finds help in the deeply troubled, but brilliant Lisbeth Salander (hint...she has a dragon tattoo), who looks fourteen but, thankfully, is of legal age, he sleeps with her too. And he's the good guy, folks.

I admit, Lisbeth is a fascinating character and her chapters were the most intense, by far. A victim of the system, she has no respect for societal rules because they had no respect for her. Still, as interesting, scary and sad as she is, I still couldn't root for her. It would be like cheering for Hannibal Lecter.

With no redeeming characters, I was at least hoping for a knock-my-socks off plot. But, the mystery surrounding Vagner's niece is murky, impossible to solve on my own because the people in my life are not complete psychopaths. If the main characters are seedy, the secondary characters are heinous. Double yuck.

Add the confusing Swedish culture, towns, money and names, and I didn't enjoy reading this. I admit the writing was good, but it came with too little reward.

Are You Tough Enough?

This morning, as I was combing Seth's too-long hair, he started to cry because I was hurting his scalp. I should mention that I was combing his hair so that he could go pick up his gear for football camp starting today.

I wondered.

This is my boy who believes in a hearty cry when he feels any pain. It's why, when he broke his arm last summer, it took me a few minutes to realize how serious his injury was because he always cries as loud as he did that day whenever he hurts. Then, when his stubbed toe/scratched leg, bonked head feels better, he re-emerges from his room and gets back into whatever game.

He also happens to love football. He's never played, but he knows the game as well as any 9 year-old fanatic. He understands plays, positions, and strategies. This is the sport - more than soccer, more than basketball, more than anything - that he wants to play.

But I wondered.

Is he tough enough?

The hair combing thing didn't reassure me and I warned him that he was going to get tackled. And the ball would probably hit him. He had to prepare himself mentally so that he could handle it physically.

There was some drama when it came to trying on helmets. Jay said each time he put one on or off, Seth would whimper. His hair follicles in his scalp must be awfully sensitive things. Eventually, Seth found a helmet he liked and they came home for a few hours before heading back to the field for his afternoon camp.

He shone. He loves it. He can't wait for tomorrow.

I guess he's tough enough!




Heisman pose
Dad tightens his shoulder pads.

Dad giving him his first tackle instruction.

Uh-oh.
Let's try this again....this time, go low.

Better.

Henry joins in the fun.

Hut, hut.

Go long, Dad!

Seth has good hands. He's hoping to be a receiver.

He's got the spiral but not the distance yet.

Just like brother.

I could watch this all day.

How do you feel about football? Would you let your skinny fourth grader play?

Sunday Thoughts

In junior high, the three wards that existed in my Montana town were split into four. Unlike the booming wards of LDS suburban strongholds, I'm not sure there was much necessity for the split other than the hope that by doing so, the church would grow.

I think it has but I never felt it during my remaining time at home. While our ward did have some large families to depend upon for stability, it also had what felt like more than its fair share of misfits. Before branding me as judgmental, please realize that I'm basing my perceptions upon teenage memories. Fitting in and being normal were way more important to me then than they are now.

Still, those less conventional members didn't have the cover more fully functioning wards tend to give. Their oddness was more exposed. And nothing showed it off more than testimony meeting.

I remember an uncomfortable moment when a transient looking man talked about seeing his dead sister walk through a wall. That felt uncomfortable. I remember another woman who faithfully stood each fast Sunday and talked about her nervous breakdown. Each time she stood up, I felt nervous. Nothing made me giggle as much as the pre-missionary who started singing Alabama's Angel's Among Us at the pulpit only to be joined by his parents (from the stand) and his siblings (from the congregation). But that was a missionary farewell and they've done away with those kinds of things. For obvious reasons.

Quirky church members aren't exclusive to Montana, however. It was a Provo ward where I saw an interpretive dance performed while someone sang His Hands in sacrament meeting (o.k...so it was enthusiastic sign language. But, boy, was she was moving!). And it was a Denver ward where a gentleman felt his testimony was best expressed by playing a song he composed on the piano.

Nothing like that happened in my ward today but the first few testimonies born were, well...odd. And rambling. And frustrating. I felt like shouting, "Don't we get how this meeting is supposed to work yet? It's not fill-in-the-blank anonymous where you get your few minutes to talk about how you've been feeling and struggling. It's testimony meeting! Bear a testimony!" But, I knew that kind of attitude wasn't contributing much to the meeting either.

I am ashamed to admit that my negative attitude affected each of my subsequent meetings. Sunday school was about the second coming and one member dominated the discussion with his own speculations. Things perked up in Relief Society but because I wasted a couple of hours being puffed up, I wasn't in tune with the spirit and missed out on most of the well-prepared lesson.

Elder Russel M. Nelson said, "Each member of the Church bears responsibility for the spiritual enrichment that can come from a sacrament meeting." That means, that I have a responsibility to gain spiritual enrichment in my meetings. Kind of hard to do when I'm too busy being critical of what's being said.

We had a lot of visitors present today and I think I was hyper-sensitive to my small-town ward's image. Pride fostered my embarrassment when humility should have been in its place. We are a church made up of lay-men - preaching, teaching, sharing and serving each other. Sure, some days it would be nice to have an eloquent professional up front sermonizing. And, yes, there are days, like today, when I think I would prefer if everyone bore a testimony of Jesus Christ. But, I'm also grateful to belong to a church that employs its members so well and trusts each one to share the gospel with others in the best way they know how.

I know testimonies are strengthened when they are shared - not just our own but those who hear them as well. I think of Alma the Younger and his great conversion and how many lives have changed because he shared and bore his testimony. What if Mormon, when abridging the plates, thought that Alma's testimony rambled too much and decided to leave it out? Millions of lives wouldn't be the same. My life wouldn't be the same. Our testimonies are meant to be shared - eloquent, polished or...not.

With humility, I testify that while none of us is perfect, we are sons and daughters of our Heavenly Father. Because we aren't perfect, Heavenly Father sent his son, Jesus Christ, to atone for our sins and make it possibile for us to repent and become perfect, so that we can return and live with Him. I believe this knowledge, as well as the keys and powers of the priesthood that open the gate to His kingdom were restored by Joseph Smith. I believe that Heavenly Father loves all His children, and is no respecter of persons.

While I will stick to my guns about Alabama singles being inappropriate for sacrament meeting, I do hope that I will have a better attitude next month.

Simple Joys

There are times when I think I need to get a life. I mean, I like my life, but by the world's standard, it's pretty dull. Lately, it seems I rarely socialize (one of my favorite things to do but it seems to clash with my role of mother, wife and recently revealed middle-aged homebody), my adventures fall into the ho-hum category, there are fewer and fewer opportunities to dance or be goofy and I find comfort in the role of spectator or cheerleader more often than participant. If I'm in the right sort of mood, those factors can bring a former wild and crazy girl down (and, yes, I did just mentally shimmy).

Today was proving to be to be just another lackluster day. But, in between five loads of laundry, making beds, playing a few rounds of Word Twist on Facebook, going to Wal-Mart, Home Depot, Albertsons, watering a friend's garden and watching the Netflix movie, Kite Runner, I managed to sneak in an enjoyable afternoon with the boys.

Why are they hiking with tennis rackets, you might ask?

To play tennis, of course. I'm really quite bad, but I find the thwacking of the fuzzy yellow ball very cathartic. When I actually manage to hit it, that is.

Seth surprised me. He isn't the most coordinated nine year old, but he had some great shots. I'm woman enough to admit that he was actually better than me.

We packed a simple lunch of peanut butter and honey sandwiches, apples, string cheese and go-gurts (which I did not eat, because they are disgusting) and ice water to share.

Those not playing tennis entertained themselves on the nearby playground equipment. Sam found a way for the toddler toys to suitably challenge a daring six year-old.

Little brother tries to copy.

Henry wants help copying Sam playing unsafely on top of the monkey bars, but dull mom said "no."

That's about as exciting as it gets around here now-a-days, but these simple outings do bring a smile to my face.

Book Review #58 - Tallgrass

Somewhere in the back of my mind, I decided that I wanted to post every day this month. It's a mental challenge more than anything. Besides, I've got eleven book reviews to write. And I'm counting them as posts:)

I read Tallgrass over a month ago and was so excited by its opening chapters. I thought I was getting To Kill A Mockingbird but with innocent Japanese detainees in camps during World War II instead of an innocent black man detained for rape in the south. It had the requisite small town setting with a few violently ignorant residents. It had the naive daughter narrating the story with a do-the-right-thing-even-if-it's-unpopular father as her hero. Like I said, the flavor was there.

But the taste was not. I don't know if the author, Sandra Dallas, was trying to write a copycat novel or purposely veered off track, but Tallgrass quickly fell far from the Mockingbird tree. The characters were boxy and predictable, the plot stretched too thin with an unrelated murder mystery (was I supposed to suspect the Japanese in the nearby camp? Because I didn't. The author never develops the suspicion for the reader with Rennie as the narrator) and the dialogue feels unnaturally scripted.

Mostly, I felt disappointed because Dallas didn't write enough about the Japanese camps. Its existence around the Colorado town of Ellis is placed so far into the background of her story, that having it as a part of the story's setting actually seems unnecessary. Sure, she included a few Japanese characters who came to work for Rennie's father on his sugar beet farm, but they were as boxy as the white folks. Why bother?

I wish I hadn't.

In the Middle of the Tunnel

I keep thinking that eventually, as he ages, Henry will get easier. More publicly acceptable. Less...disastrous.

But, today, he outdid himself. Sam took him outside to play (new rule - he can't be outside without one of his brothers or me with him after the breaking and entering into the neighbor's house incident) while I helped Seth with his piano practice. Sam came running inside shouting, "Henry is outside without a diaper on!"

Imagining more laws broken, like indecent exposure, I asked Sam if he could bring him inside. Moments later, Sam prodded Henry into the family room where the piano is and, sure enough, Henry was without diaper but still fully clothed.

He had the all-too-familiar scent of my current least favorite thing, and I told Seth that I had to stop and take care him because poop takes precedence over piano. Every time.

"Where is your diaper, Henry?" I demanded.

"Garage," he replied.

"Show me."

We walked out to the garage and circled the van. Not there. With dread, I opened the doors of the van and searched inside. It was blessedly absent.

"Where is it?"

"Garage," he repeated.

Then, because we were near the open garage door, he pointed to another open garage door up the street. A garage door belonging to a neighbor who faithfully sits outside in her driveway while her boys play. Because I rarely do, I suspect I long ago lost her respect for my obvious parental negligence.

My heart said no, but my gut said yes and I told Sammy, "Run up the street and see if you can see a dirty diaper in your friend's garage."

Too embarrassed to remain outside, I ushered Henry upstairs and found an awful mess inside his shorts. I stripped him down, wiped him up and put him in the bathtub.

After a few minutes, Seth and Sam came running inside.

"You were right! It was in their garage!" Sam exclaims.

This is Henry. This is what I deal with every day. Outrageous behavior involving poop. If it's not poop, it's food. If it's not food, it's markers. If it's not markers, it's something else he shouldn't have. He unbuckles himself in the car while we're moving. He throws water out of the bathtub. He bites, he hits, he steals and runs away. He is simply...naughty. And I see no end in sight.

Normally, I take most of his antics in stride, and focus on his other many good qualities, but today I feel weary. I feel like we've been doing this for forever. I want to see a glimmer of light!

And I really, really, really want a fenced yard.

Book Review #57 - Sea of Poppies

A definite labor of love, this is the kind of book that I can blame when I suffer and finish a bad book. Because I did not enjoy this for hundreds of pages. Hundreds. I'm glad I was patient.

Sea of Poppies begins with Deeti, an Indian woman, harvesting her opium crop in her small Indian village with her young daughter. While working, she has a vision of a large ship - the kind she has never seen nor imagined, ultimately revealed as the Ibis, a former slave trading vessel. She immediately returns to her home and draws her vision, including the occupants of the ship. This sketch foreshadows the rest of the novel and is the bone that Ghosh throws his readers to stick it out until the end.

Even though the characters, who are complicated, fleshy and the kind you want to bravely endure with, are separated and seemingly unrelated for much of the book, it works. It works because Ghosh had a vision of an epic story and didn't allow himself to cater to the impatient reader. The variety of his characters voices, who range from an ignorant villager, to an Indian Raja with Americans, English and Chinese stuffed in between, are so delightfully unique, that I felt I was witnessing the spectrum of an 1830s India I didn't know I was interested in. This is historical fiction at its best.

There is a good-sized chunk of pages at the end of the book full of the unique vocabulary Ghosh uses. It's a vernacular that has an Australian feel, or pirate or...something that I am not familiar with. Truly, there were whole sentences, nay, paragraphs that I skimmed because I knew that I didn't have the patience to decipher their actual meaning. Instead, I read it a la The Jabberwocky, hoping I'd pick up the gist through its surrounding context. However, if you happen to be more patient that myself, the author offers the opportunity to painstakingly look up each word. If that's your thing, then, good luck.

If the story has an Achilles heel, it is the budding romance between several of the novel's characters. Considering Ghosh's patience in other matters of his story's development, I was surprised and disappointed that these particular scenes were so rushed over. However, the rumor is that this is merely part I of a planned trilogy, so, perhaps that flaw can still be remedied.

Difficult, interesting, historical, rough, and not for the faint of heart, I have to admit to enjoying this wildly complex book.

Once Upon A Time...

When I was working up in Montana I knew three cowboys: Seth, who had a horse named Dusty. Sam, who had a horse named Happy. And Henry, who had a horse named Amigo.

One day, the boss man came into the bunk house and said, "Boys, I have a very important job for you to do. Do I have any volunteers?"

Seth, Sam, and Henry all raised their hands (and usually feet too).

"I can always count on you boys."

(Then Jay makes up a story, different every time about some kind of cowboy job (branding calves, mending fences, finding lost cattle, etc.), throws in some comic relief which, lately, has involved Henry and some sort of shenanigan, and the eventual successful outcome after much trial)

When the cowboys finished their job, they came back to the bunkhouse and had a cowboy dinner with baked beans, applesauce, and cold lemonade (if you've been to the Bar D, you know where the inspiration for the dinner came from).

The End.

Lost and Found

In 1990, my family took its last family vacation. None of my older siblings had married yet and my brother was a year away from leaving on his mission, so my parents planned a trip unlike one we had ever taken. We were heading east, and for a Montana girl who had never been further east than Billings, it was a big deal.

With eight of us traveling, we caravaned in two cars: a cute, white Pontiac Grand Am and a not-nearly-as cute grey Chevrolet station wagon. We flew into Chicago and drove our two rental cars through Illinois, Indiana, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Maryland, Washington D.C. New Jersey and New York in a grand three week loop. Looking at a map, I now realize it was no different mileage-wise than driving to California and back, which we had done more than once, but the east was far more exotic, not to mention the oh-la-la of the air travel. That was something my family just didn't not do. We were drivers. We drove. But not this time!

Many firsts occurred during our family odyssey, besides my first plane ride. I saw Les Miserables, Phantom of the Opera and my brother lose fifty dollars to a street hustler. I paid eight dollars for a milkshake in Times Square in New York City. I saw church history sites that before had only been pictures in a lesson manual. Seeing them firsthand gave weight to the stories about the prophet Joseph Smith and early Saints I had learned all my life. Additionally, for the first time ever, my family got lost from each other.

While driving through a town in New York, my father went through a stale yellow light and my mother was forced to stop at the red (having, I believe, been stopped earlier in the day for running a red light and getting off with a warning). In my father's defense, he had told my mother the plan for the day, including our final destination, but my mother wasn't listening, or, more likely, was taking care of something else, and during that pause at the red light when she lost sight of the grey station wagon, realized she didn't know where she was going.

It's hard to remember the time before cell phones, when a person could actually be unreachable, but that night, my mother and three of us children, and my father and three others, had no idea where the others were.

We laugh about it now - how we and my mother investigated the parking lots of as many dive motels as we could find and how my father's group roamed the parking lots of some of the better hotels. My father jokes about it being the only time in his married life when he had no idea where his wife was at night, but if we are true to the memory, it was an awfully nervous feeling. A sad feeling.

We rejoiced when we found each other the next day in the parking lot of the Peter Whitmer farm. We hugged and stumbled over each others' explanations; those of us who ended up with Mom rubbing in the fact that we got to stay at a better hotel (my dad picks some doozies!). I suppose hindsight can add amusement to an unplanned and unwanted separation. But, in the moment, it never feels funny. And it's definitely not fun.

Today, to avoid another frustrating drive through the construction hell I must travel through to get into town each day, I loaded Seth and Sam's bikes into the van so that they could enjoy a bike ride while I walked and pushed Henry in the stroller. We had several hours to kill between Sam's Safety Town summer camp and their piano lessons at three o'clock and the river trail that runs through town is a pleasantly flat and long stretch of pavement for bikers and walkers to enjoy.

We have done this before, them biking and me walking, and the boys know they are supposed to "check in" with me every so often - never getting so far ahead that I can't see them. Today, I unfortunately told the boys they didn't need to keep quite so close (as they were constantly getting off their bikes to wait until I came into view) but assumed the "come back and check in" understanding was still in place. Before I could even get the wheels on the baby jogger on, Seth and Sam had taken off. Not at all worried, I set off a few minutes later.

It wasn't until I had gone about a mile that I became concerned that I hadn't seen either of them since their initial take-off. Truthfully, I was more annoyed than anything that they were so far ahead and hadn't bothered to check into see how far I wanted to go.

I continued down the path but I was no longer at ease while walking. Now, my eyes were busy scanning and scoping my entire environment - wondering if they had turned off somewhere or stopped at one of the few parks with swings along the way. When I got to the mile and a half point, and had gone as far as I had planned on going, I yelled out their names and then turned around.

Suddenly, I doubted the certainty I had felt that they had even headed in the same direction as me. I mentally conceded that they might have gone the opposite way which could explain how our paths had never crossed. My heart started pounding as I imagined them confused and wondering why their mother wasn't following behind them and with that thought, I started jogging, as fast as I could, back to the car.

I tried philosophically empathizing with Heavenly Father about how he must feel when His children are disobedient and distant and don't "come back and check in." I even thought, I could use this for as a story about prayer in a talk or lesson, but then - remembering that I wasn't, in fact, omniscient and didn't have the luxury of even one-sided knowledge - I dropped the thought and returned to my mortal reaction of freaking out.

I still kept hoping that our paths would cross. Every biker that appeared in the distance disappointed me when their body or bike proved to be too big to be Seth or Sam. I hated my own physical weakness which forced me to stop and walk every so often, lamenting the fact that I was not one of those moms who could lift a car to save her child. I couldn't even jog a ten minute mile!

When I hadn't seen hide nor hair of either boy by the time I got back to the van, and saw that they were not waiting for me there, I started to cry. I had been rhythmically praying on my way back, "Please let the boys be safe. Please let the boys be safe," and I know I expected that prayer to be answered by seeing them waiting for me. Their absence plunged fear into my whole self and every hooligan I had passed became suspect in my mind. It had now been over 45 minutes since I had seen two of my children and I started to mentally prepare myself that something bad could have happened.

My first instinct was to continue on in the opposite direction - to see if they were waiting for me further along the trail. Instead, even though something inside of me was arguing about wasting precious time, I stopped and unlocked the van, found my phone, and checked for messages. Sure enough, an unknown number had called and left a message about ten minutes earlier.

I called the number and was told via recorded message that the mailbox was full. I listened to the message and heard Nancy telling me she had my son, Sam. But she didn't say Seth. My heart sunk as I thought about them now, not only being separated from me, but being separated from each other.

I called Nancy again and this time she picked up. Good news! She had Sam and Seth. They were sitting on the side of the road at the recycling center. What? How in the world did they end up there? It wasn't even on the trail. Nancy promised me she'd stay with them until I could get there, which was about ten minute drive from where I had parked.

Along the way, I had the time to decide how to react. Honestly, my initial emotion (after relief) was anger. I wanted to shout at them and blame them for causing me so much worry. I wanted to take away their bikes for the rest of the summer. Yell at them for willy nilly riding so far ahead of me without once stopping or turning around to look for me. That was what I had told them to do! But, luckily, I had those ten minutes to remember that these were two scared little boys. That I was lucky. That our afternoon could have ended so, so, so, so much worse.

By the time I arrived, Nancy had calmed both boys down. So much so, that neither of them seemed too upset at being lost. She assured me there had been many tears at first discovery, that she didn't know why they had become separated and didn't have time to sit there and investigate with me. But she did let me give her a hug and a thank you.

I'm still having a hard time comprehending how it happened. Seth tells me he kept going because he was looking for the car. When I point out the fact that it would have been impossible for him to find, because he had never turned around to get back to it, he acts confused about how the trail works ( i.e. you go so far...you turn around...and you go back. Frustrating). But that, apparently, is how it happened. Sammy followed his big brother until he got too tired and stopped, which is how they became separated. The fact that they left the trail to continue their search for the car only has me shaking my head at how lucky they were that Sam had the sense to stop and cry... alerting another mother that he was lost.

Tonight, I'm grateful. I'm grateful that I have a family of five to cook for. That I have three sons who need reminders about manners at the dining room table. That I have three boys to boss into the shower, put pajamas on and read a story to. I'm grateful for cell phones, and that Sam miraculously knows both my and Jay's phone numbers. I'm grateful for a kind woman who took the time to comfort my children. And I'm grateful that my prayer was answered. I'm so grateful that my precious sons are safe and close.

As for this turning into a funny story in the future - it doesn't have the same zing as driving around hotel parking lots, but you never know. The image of me running as fast as I was trying to run is pretty funny.

I'll leave you with that more lighthearted thought.