Tidbits

I obviously didn't drain the tub fast enough!

It has been such a good weekend (with lots of yummy food)! Leo was home Friday and we had some long discussions, which is always nice with your hubby. And we had homemade pizza for dinner which was delicious! Leo brought me a bag of chocolate chips (he's sooo sweet) which I mostly at that night, but some did end up in waffles the next morning. On Saturday we cleaned the apartment spic and span which I love too. Ahh, there's just something about a clean house on Saturday afternoons that make you just satisfied with life. Once that was done, we went to the Schaumberg Aquatic Park, which is indoors and had slides and a play area for little kids. It was so much fun!!! We all had a great time (minus the scrapped lip on Ana when she was trying to do a handstand). After the kids were in bed, Leo bought me some Breyer icecream (usually we get Aldi's brand which isn't nearly as good and I was craving GOOD icecream). Then Sunday was just nice with delicious chicken shish kabobs for dinner and Texas Sheet Cake for dessert. Today Leo's plane was delayed for a long time due to weather so we had almost an extra full day with him. I was craving vegetables and fruit when I went to the store last week, and so today I was going to cook eggplant for the first time in my life, but it had already gone bad. And so we had beets with vinegar, steamed carrots with brown sugar and butter on top, baked potatoes, slices of a sausage that was meant for the pizza but Leo vetoed that in favor of ham on the pizza, and a lettuce salad with pear slices, cheese and sunflower seeds. I was in heaven. I didn't even eat a potato because I ate so many beets and carrots. I guess I must be nutrient deficient in something to be craving all those vegetables. :) I remember eating beet greens and beets at my Aunt Judy's house in Cardston (at least I think it was her house--any help on this one? It wasn't the Tudor style house, I remember that too, but it was a house on a corner over in the direction of the church on the far side of Cardston by the reservation and the highway out to Mt. View. Sorry I don't really know any street names or anything for Cardston except Main St.) Anyway, I remember loving them!! And I was only about 4-5 yrs. old. Made an impression obviously though. I've always loved my mom's pickled beets especially, yum!

Ana, however, was not equally enamoured with the beets. She asked us if we would make her eat everything if she was sick like she had been last week. She had gone to bed at 5 PM without dinner and slept till the next morning, mostly she said she had a headache. Anyway, I told her if she was throwing up everything (and not just because she didn't like it) or if she went to bed like she had the other week, I wouldn't make her eat it. A few minutes later she was telling us that she thought she needed to go to bed. Needless to say, that didn't work. Later, while she was taking a bath, she told me she thought she needed to go to the doctor's because she had twisted her ankle at school. (She had been running around on it fine since she had gotten home, and had never said a word before this, of course.) So, I told her I'd take her to the doctor if she couldn't walk. When she came out with her pajamas on, she was limping and said it hurt to walk. Funny, that didn't work either. I think she needs to hear Grandpa say any of his usual favorites a couple of times, such as:

"It's a long way from your heart."
"It will stop hurting when it feels better."
"Buck up, little camper."
"Do you want some cheese with your whine?"
"Well, let's amputate at the neck."

I could go on, but I'm sure you get the idea. Poor Ana, she has a very unsympathetic mom, and I don't think she's realized it yet.

Finally

Yes, I am finally writing. It's seems like forever since I last wrote on here. It's been busy, mostly though, I've just been playing around with my new layout. Which, just so you know, this is still a prototype. I'm not done, not yet. But I did finish the layout for my other blog--the book club one, An Education. The links on the side if you want to see it. I also finished our last book on there and wrote my essay about it. It's pretty dry. In other news, we went to the Art Institute of Chicago on Friday. Ana was out of school and well, she didn't really enjoy it that much, but I sure did! She liked playing in the water at Millineum Park best. I don't really blame her. Here's some things we saw and Ana and Elena at the water towers.
I love the chairs.
This was mine and Leo's favorite painting, Bordighera by Claude Monet. It's funny how similiar of tastes we have. Only I love textiles (the textile exhibit was closed this time, but I've been to it before) and Leo doesn't like them at all really. Oh well. I wanted to go to the Winslow Homer exhibit but it cost extra and with the kids we decided not to. Maybe I'll get a babysitter and go by myself one of these days.

Oh and for the curious, Leo and I had a blast on our date the other week. There was a stake dance, 14 and up, that we went to. They were doing a little thing on each of the high school seniors, so mostly it was the teenagers and their parents there, but Leo and I really just had a blast. I love dancing!! We're very enthusiastic. :) (Although my bladder at six months pregnant doesn't handle the polka like it used too.) Afterward we stayed and talked to the DJ, Paul, while he put away his equipment. He's LDS, and said he'd DJ for any church function for free--why didn't I know him in Febuary when we were planning our Valentine's dance?!?!?!? Errr... It was funny the mix of music because there were a lot of Hispanics at the dance (yeah! Latin dancing is the best!), so he played some merengue, salsa, country, techno, one swing, one reggaeton, etc. He was from Venezuala and so when we said goodbye, he wouldn't let Leo shake his hand but gave him a hug, because he said they were "brothers." Hee. Hee. Anyway, he was very nice, very talkative, and I'm definitely keeping his business card for future activities.

Project Indiana

On Tuesday, I pulled Ana from school and made a trip down to good ol' Indiana to visit my sister Kayli. Besides getting my hair cut, I mostly helped her with a few projects. Okay, I harassed her endlessly on the two projects she asked me to do because, well, I don't like to leave projects (at least other people's projects) unfinished.

Project 1: Floral Arrangement. Why I told Kayli to buy white ribbon instead of cream when the flowers are cream, I don't know. But I told her to try staining a bit of the leftover ribbon with tea, and then if that works, to do it on the rest. It really bugs me now when I look at these.
Ethne is darn cute. The arrangement is not at all what it started out to be when I started making it, but Kayli likes it, so all is good. However, Jethro was horribly annoyed that the flowers were upside-down and kept insisting we change it.
The finished project up on the wall. Well, sort of finished. Kayli's going to tie the ends of the sticks with twine, but we didn't have any, so we just used some other ribbon.
Project 2: Kayli's photo collage. I painted most of these frames with three coats of paint, and then helped Kayli arrange them and decide which picture should go where. Kayli, of course, had ultimate say and voted down quite a few of my recommendations. But she gave me veto power over Brett. Hee. Hee. She has to get the photos printed out in the right size, then this will go up on her wall. Fun. Fun.

Now we're all safely back home and waiting for Leo to get home tomorrow. Hurray!! We're going on a date Saturday night. :)

The Birds and the Bees

Dad said Ana was a great helper around his little farm. She helped him trim the horses hooves, trim their manes, and feed them. She woke up early almost every morning we were in Utah to go out and do chores with Grandpa. She went to the vet with him when one of the horses cut her leg and had to get stitches. And she went again with Grandpa to the vet when one little horse started figuring he was a stallion (one of the mares was in heat) and Grandpa decided to fix that. Literally.

Which leads me to the point on the birds and the bees. Dad claims I owe him money now to compensate for him having to explain a few of the facts of life to Ana. Hee. Hee. Not only the time when he explained that they were gelding the horse, but on a different day Ana asked how you tell a girl horse from a boy horse. Dad decided to just straight out tell her and then she went around checking all the horses to see which ones were which. I laughed out loud to hear that. Farms are really great for these purposes I think. I remember once walking up to our house in Willard when I was in 6th grade and Wyatt in 2nd. Wyatt asked me why Wally, our stallion, was jumping up on Fazelle. I referred him to Dad. I really think I'm going to continue that tradition and bring all my kids to Grandpa's when they're around this age and let Grandpa explain it all. But then again it might get costly.

The Painted Veil

I watched this movie at Amy's and absolutely loved it!!!! You should all go and watch the preview right now!! Really, I mean it! Here's the link. So good. It's based on a Somerset Maugham book and set in the 1920's.

Oh, it's PG-13. Definitely an adult movie. Partial nudity--think Dances With Wolves and you have about the same thing in this movie.

So here's the beginning of the story for those of you who won't watch the trailer. Dr. Walter Fane, a bacteriologist working in Shanghai, falls in love with socialite, spoiled, shallow Kitty while on leave to London. She marries him due to family pressure.She's completely unhappy and bored in Shanghai.

Then she meets this guy, a married British diplomat, and has an affair, which her husband finds out about. Walter gives her an ultimatum: accompany him to the Chinese interior to assist with a cholera epidemic relief effort for which he has volunteered, or face a divorce on the grounds of her adultery. He basically does this as a way to punish Kitty, and is hoping neither of them will make it out alive. Anyway, I won't tell anymore, but the tagline is: "Sometimes the greatest journey is the distance between two people."

The scenery alone is worth watching the movie for. The soundtrack is beautiful too. I want to watch it again right now.

Home At Last

Yes, I am finally home!!! But here are some things I miss from my mom's house already. The creative sleeping arrangements. This is Elena's playpen in a closet/kitchenette (it has a sink).
Once again, creative sleeping arrangements. This is where my little sister slept. Yes, it is the garage. The bed used to be in the theater room, but my parents found that an unacceptable with my little brother's (17 yrs old) friends and girlfriends around. I don't know why the couch is in there. The monkey tree. This tree has been around since I was in 6th grade. We decorated it one year for Christmas instead of getting a Christmas tree. Since I was in high school it has become the home of an assortment of monkeys and gorillas. Not always the same ones mind you. Sometimes I've seen up to seven or eight in there. Even when the tree used to be in my mom's nice living room. I love it.

The trip lasted longer than it was supposed to. We were supposed to come home Sunday but got stuck in Phoenix. After waiting all afternoon at the airport, Leo left and I called my sister and asked to stay at her house for the night. Monday looked horrid for flights too, so we didn't even bother to try that day, which gave me the opportunity to make the above arrangement for my sister Amy. It's hanging on her daughter's door. Tuesday we tried again and spent 12+ hours at the airport. Luckily, Wednesday morning we finally caught the first flight out to Chicago. Flying standby definitely calls for a flexible schedule. While we were in Phoenix, my mother-in-law had a little birthday party for Ana , which was sweet of her. Ana was happy to miss more school too. I was tired--Elena stayed up one night from 12-4 AM. But all's well now that I'm home!