Stage managing part 3

This is the cute little church that they converted into a theater. And now I'm going to try a new thing the rest of the pictures are on my facebook page ('cuz they give me more storage room). If you can't get it to work tell me in the comments and I'll find another way to do it.

So I'm still here...

Wow I knew it had been a while since I blogged but I didn't realize it had been almost a month. So I've been busy, here's the basic rundown and then I'll do some more blogs on the more interesting stuff afterwards.

Spring has arrived, complete with it's fickle whims of crazy weather. It beautiful, it rains, I wonder where my shorts are, it snows, its beautiful again. Over all this is great for the yard, but I lost a blueberry bush :(. The most obnoxious part of that is for best fruit you plant 2 different varieties and I'm not sure which one died so I'm not sure what to replace it with. This weather is not so great for Little John, he just doesn't understand why he can spend 3 days living in the backyard and then has to be cooped up for another 3.

Spring break came and went for Mom and Ben and it was nice to have them around for a few extra days. We went to baby animal days, drove to Idaho to see cousins, and just hung out. (Blog with pics soon to follow)

General Conference weekend was great! We loved the speakers. We DVRed it and I put it on DVD and mailed it to my friend Clerie in Iraq (the internet there is too slow to stream the feed). We also (mostly John) got the railing on the deck out back, between sessions. I worry a lot less about the little guy playing out there now.

We finished the Man Cave, it's all decked out and John enjoys using it. (Blog w/ pics to follow)

Easter Sunday we got together with some cousins and did dinner and an egg hunt. Little John loves to find the eggs and for quite a while didn't care that there was stuff inside them. He got upset at the city hunt when we made him wait till they said "go" to start finding them. (pics blog soon)

We joined this fruit and veggie co-op thing (it actually started in AZ) and the produce is great. We got the italian pack and I made 6 cool whip containers of sauce and froze it (I added the tomato paste/sauce and some spices but most everything else came in the pack). We also got 40 lbs of pink lady apples that I'm in the process of turning into apple pie filling and canning it. I will be doing this for a while because 27 apples gave me 7 qt jars of filling and there's 115 apples in a 40 lb box plus the 13 I also used 'cuz they'd been in the fridge for a while. So I figure I'll end up with between 30 an 35 jars of filling. And I made a pie from the jar that didn't seal- delicous! Here is the link to the co-op if anyone is interested. (The only UT places right now are Brigham and Clearfield)

I have been stage managing a show at the local community theater. It's a straight play (as in not a musical) called The Women. It's basically Desperate Housewives, set in the 1940's. The author got all her material sitting around in hair salons and pwder rooms and women's shop just listening to ladies gossip. The play is fantastic a lot of drama but still funny. Opening night is tonight. (More stuff in following blog)

My mom went to the doctor for a rash on her face that started to swell and was told it was shingles. First of all she isn't old enough to be having shingles! Second, because its by her eye she has to keep a close watch 'cuz if it gets in her eye she could go blind, I'm not sure how likely that is to happen, but just thinking about it freaks me out! So I'm praying for her alot, feel free to join me :)

So see I'm so busy doing things worth blogging that I have no time to blog :D

The silver lining

So now that I've depressed everyone with our sickness (and possibly shared the germs), here's the silver lining. While being cooped up, those who were feeling up to it have done a lot of good work.
We put together, anchored to the wall, sanded, painted, and painted again the shelves for John's man cave. I made and hung a curtain to hide stuff stored at the back in the space to small to use as part of the man cave.
We dug, moved, and fertilized the garden boxes (the dirt here is such junk we use the square foot gardening method (mostly)). We planted peas, lettuce, and blueberries (although the weather may have killed one of the blueberries). We transplanted the raspberries. We seeded the bare spots in the lawn and spread peat moss to keep it moist. And even though the one blueberry may be toast all the wet/snowy weather means I haven't had to water the grass seed.
After being cooped up the old furniture arrangement was definitely old so we changed it up and it's much more cozy and conducive to conversation (but everyone can still see the TV, so we're all happy).
And John's had the chance to give lots of blessings. I love that we have such convenient access to the priesthood. And I always feel so comforted, even just listening to someone else's blessing. John says he makes better decisions than he might otherwise, because he knows I'll ask for a blessing and he wants to be worthy to give them. I think that is so awesome.

Happy Belated birthday Rick

So we haven't been up to much lately, just normal everyday stuff. Diapers, groceries, bath time, ect. That's why I haven't blogged, nothing to blog. But we did something interesting this weekend so I thought I'd share. We went to Salt Lake to hang out with Rick for his birthday. His birthday was weeks ago but bad weather has kept us from getting together. So we checked out his new apartment and took him out to lunch at Famous Daves. We got a garbage can lid full of food and shared it all around and there was still enough for Rick to have some leftovers for lunch today. Then we went to a couple stores and walked off lunch. It was a good time. And the other interesting thing was that we talked in church last Sunday. We both spoke on the atonement and it went really well.

Some recommendations

So I found this really great online radio station. Google for "your LDS radio" and you should find it no problem. They play church music and good uplifting other music, but its not all MoTab. Theres a lot of EFY stuff and things like from the "Singles Ward" sound track where they gave hymns a jazzier beat. Don't get me wrong, I still love to listen to rock and oldies and some newer stuff, but if I'm having a stressfull day or the atmosphere around the house is chaos, I just crank up the volume on this station and it makes such an improvement, especially in my attitude. They also keep advertising this sort of LDS version of iTunes where you can download most of the music they play. I haven't tried it yet but I'm deffinatly going to get me at least the Cinderella song, if I figure out what the real title is.

Also: I found the best series of books for, ummm... age 10-14?, girls. They're called the Lady Grace mysteries, you can get all the titles from the wikipedia page. They're great historical fiction with lots of adventure. I love them. (Of course I love a lot of children's/young adult books) One big helpful bit of advice to go with them: there is a glossary and a "some info about..." section in the back and I find it easier to read the story if I've read those first, instead of constantly flipping to the back to see what a farthingale is. (A sort of hoop skirt, fyi)

John got a Job!

So we got the best present for Christmas! John got a job! He interviewed last week and they loved him. He says his knowledge of Revit (an engineering program) is what hooked their intrest. The company is in Salt Lake City (cottonwood heights really) so he is going to take the commuter train and then a bus for the last little bit. The train doesn't come all the way to Brigham yet but the nearest station is only 15-20 minutes away (depending on traffic and weather). (To all the Phonecians- the trains and street cars system here is way better done than the "PHART" and is a reasonable way to get around) The commute will take about an hour all together, but since he doesn't have to do any of the driving he's excited to read or stuff (the train has wi-fi but we Ebayed the laptop). The company that hired him is called River consulting http://www.riverconsulting.com/ and they do big industrial buildings mostly out of concrete. He is so excited because he gets to do plates and shells analysis (figuring out if concrete ceilings will crack (plates) or concrete domes will collapse (shells)), which he learned to do in collage but didn't get to use at his other job. He starts on Jan. 5th and we're going to do a dry run of the commute before then to be sure he won't be late. He says he'll be the bottom man on the totem pole (well they hired 6 bottom men), but he thinks thats good because then he has room to work up. Even though he's bottom ranked, he still gets his nice benifits: health, dental, and eyes. And this might be what I'm most excited about, because we haven't had any real health problems (colds, ear infections), but the worry that something could go wrong and we don't have health insurance (especially for Little John) has been eating away at me. But no more worries! So Merry Christmas to everybody and ours will deffinatly be a happy one!
PS. please pass this info on to anyone who knows us- that John now has a job and thank you everyone for your prayers.

Wow its cold here!

So yesterday at church Little John had one heck of a poopy diaper durring sacrament meeting. So I fish all through the diaper bag and find a diaper but no wipes, then I remember seeing them in the car. So I ask Sarah to run out to the car and grab them and I'll meet her at the bathroom with Little John (it takes 2 people if we have to use the cold fold out of the wall changing thing). So she hurries in and I strip off the diaper and she's over there struggling to get out a wipe. I'm like his tush is hanging out here hurry it up a bit and she tells me the wipes are frozen! I try to get one and she's right- its a solid block of frozen wipes. So she makes me some "wipes" with warm water and paper towels (not the first time I've had to resort to that sadly) and we get the whole thing taken care of. We opened the wipes again after church and found that at least some of them had thawed out. Man , I thought they were made with rubbing alcohol. I didn't think that stuff could freeze. This would never happen in Arizona. In AZ I would have opened the box and probably found that they were all dry from the heat LOL.

Tempe Friends

Dear Tempe friends,
So recently John's cousin (and her husband) moved to Texas from Washington. And they drove all the way. They have been staying with family all the way down because most hotels don't take cats even if they'll take dogs (they tell me its because people don't usually travel with a filled cat box for obvious reasons). When they got to Phoenix the plan was to stay with family again but after the fighting between their cat and John's parents cats they weren't sure they wanted to risk that again, so I looked online for a hotel that wasn't too far from the freeway that would take cats. And I found one (just south of the baesline and priest intersection), luckily. But I told them that if we couldn't find one that I knew lots of very nice people in the area that could probably take a cat overnight. So I just wanted to let you know that you all have a wonderful rep with some people you haven't even met :D
And since they came down with the fluas they got there I totally planned on calling anyone of you if they decided they needed a blessing or anything, 'cuz I know you guys would come through for them.
Missing you tons,
Carol

Elder Hizer arises from the internet

So I experienced a small miracle today. (If I had been checking my email daily I would have had this miracle on Monday. I get emailed when anyone comments on my blog.) I got a comment from a guy in Wamego, KS, where Elder Hizer is serving right now. This guy's family have a dinner apointment with Nathan tonight! And they wanted to make him feel at home, so they googled for him and found my blog. They asked what his favorite foods were. (You can read the comment on my post "Ode to Elder Hizer" in Oct)
I am so excited. I told the guy what Nathan likes to eat and asked him to email me a pic of him and his companion. How awesome is all of this?! Next time I feed missionaries I'm going to have to google them, who knows what can happen. I knew God worked in mysterious ways, but I never realized that could mean google.

Ward Christmas Party

So I don't know if I ever mentioned it but John and I were called to be on the ward activities commitee. So we had the Christmas party breakfast yesteday. We do a beakfast early in the month to keep from interfering with people's holiday plans (for the most part). John helped flip pancakes and I ran the skit. The plan was that I'd do the "voice from off stage" but people had things come up and/or got sick so I did a part and sound effects, John did a part, and Ben did lights. And I rounded up a guy from the audience for the "voice". It went well though.
If you've been to Seagull book lately you might have seen the book "A stranger for Christmas" well there is a skit version online(http://www.theideadoor.com/Skits/a_stranger_for_christmas%20skit.htm).
Of course I picked a few characters to do parts and the version we did isn't the same one that's scripted. Our version turned out to be a little more of a comedy when "Florence" decided she was a bitter old scrooge complete with insertions of "humbug!". The original script (and book) was a bit more pionant and heartwarming when "Florence" was just a sad lonely lady. But we got a lot of compliments about it and it was never expected to be a Broadway preformance anyway since we only had one rehersal with an incomplete cast.
And everyone had a good time, even the sweethearts who filled in at the last minute.

Is there a Santa Claus?

So this is Little John's first Christmas that he'll remember (he was only 2 and 1/2 months old last year) and I've started thinking about the whole Santa Claus thing. I really want to teach him the nativity story and go from there with something along the lines of "and just like the kings gave baby Jesus presents we give each other presents, because we love each other and to remember his birth" and then I want to go farther with the story of St. Nicholas- the nice old guy who gave kids toys to play with and coal to keep warm. And then to go on from there with thats why there's all the nice stories/movies about santa, but he's just a nice make belive name we use to give present with out saying who gave them like a secret suprise. And then to bring it back to love and family and Christ.
But... I don't want to squash the magic of the suprises from santa, and I don't want to be the mom of the kid who goes around crushing other kids dreams by saying there is no Santa.
But... I don't want him to get all into the "Santa will get me anything I ask for" and thus get caught up in the "gimmes" at Christmas and miss the truth of it all.
Maybe its too soon to worry about this, but you set patterns early on and whatever we do with Little John we'll have to do with the rest of them. Any ideas from the other parents out there?

Ode to Elder Hizer

So Wednesday we took John's brother Nathan to the MTC. His poor Mom was just loosing it right and left and then its the part where the missionaries go out one side and the families go out the other side and suddenly we're all crying. I'm gonna miss that punk. (And I mean punk in the I-love-him-like-a-brother-and-sometimes-hes-as-annoying-as-my-real-ones sense) But I know he's going to do great. He's going to the Independance, Moissouri mission which, as it turns out, covers most of Kansas and very little of Missouri. We took pictures of course and he told me its my job to be sure that Little John remembers him when he gets home. They have a very smooth streamlined process for dropping off your missionary. Everything from parking to luggage to tissue boxes every twenty feet, its all arranged for. I was very impressed. On the drive home everyone was missing him and sad so I was trying to cheer peolpe up with jokes. They were pretty cheesy, but I will share my favorite with you. (This joke is because Nathan is such a ladies' man)


You know how when you stop dating a person, people start telling you "well there are lots of fish in the sea". Well missionaries aren't sopposed to date, do you think thats why they go to the empty sea? (empty sea=MT C, get it?)


Yeah, nobody else really got it either. But you know you think I'm funny. (That's what Sarah says when we don't laugh at her jokes)

L to R: John, Mom/Pat, Nathan, Dad/John, Kevin
Front: Little John, Carol

Mom putting his nametag on him

Hurray for Elder Hizer

The RS Broadcast

So the broadcast was fantastic and I enjoyed the speakers so much I decided to share my favorite things each of them had to say (I promise to keep it short).

Sis. Beck (RS Pres)
RS was created way back then because God knew we would need it so bad now and we had to have everything established well in advance so it could fullfill it's potential now.

Sis. Allred (1st councillor)
Reinspired me to attend the temple and do many ordinances often.

Sis. Thompson (2nd councillor)
Described us as a righteous army armed with: love, compassion, service and faith.
(And its odd to think of those as weapons but just try to resist someone who truely loves you and serves you and you'll realize thats a formidable force.)

Pres. Uchtdorf
Aknowledges that our trials are trying and gave 2 ways to survive them: 1) creating beauty and helpfulness brings satisfaction and 2) giving compassion bouys us up and helps others.
(I loved his talk so much I want to post it somewhere to read every day, maybe on the barthroom mirror. I was going to post a link but its not on LDS.org yet.)

If you missed the broadcast I hope you can find it online, it was wonderful.

Destruction

So there was this fantastic rain and wind storm. Lots of thunder and lightning. Microbursts that blow sideways against the windows so loud it sounds like hail. (My favorite kind of weather for a walk honestly, but my Mom thinks thats suicdal) So John and Ben took the legs off the trampoline so it wouldn't blow away and we all setteled in to enjoy that cozy feeling of being warm and dry when its miserable outside. And the next day we had just the usual mess to clean up of garbage that blows around and stuff. (No palm tree debris, hahahaha)
But we took the dog and the baby for a walk down to the church and back and WHOA! We lost 2 huge cottonwood trees and they fell righ on the bowery! I have some great pictures of the devestation but I din't get any of them chopping up the trees to haul them way.