Flashback Friday

This memory takes place somewhere between 1976-1978. It was Christmas day of that year and my parents discovered that I had not received the one specific present I had asked for. It was a special doll called "Baby Alive" that I had played with at a friend's house that summer while on vacation in California. It was like a real baby that you could feed and change it and it crawled! I wanted one just like it and I never told anyone about it. I thought about that doll for 6 months until Christmas came and I could ask for that doll. My parents were unaware that I had asked for this doll because I hadn’t told them. I had only told Santa. On Christmas morning, I unwrapped everything only to find out that there was no doll. I waited until all the presents were unwrapped and then realized that I was not getting the doll I had waited for. Upon discovering my disappointment and the reason why, my parents got on the phone (without my knowledge) and found a store that was not only open on Christmas day (which was unusual back then) but also had this specific doll. My father went out on Christmas day and drove hours out of his way to this store. He brought the doll home, they wrapped it and left it downstairs by the fireplace. Then, my mother sent me downstairs with the wrapping paper to be burned in the fireplace. I walked downstairs experiencing the most excruciating depression I had felt so far in my young life. You can imagine my excitement when I saw this lonely present sitting by the fireplace because it had been dropped there by Santa! I just knew it had to be my doll!!! It was many, many years before I realized what my parents had done for me. And I say many because #1 I'm the most gullible person you will ever meet and #2 this caused me to believe for a very long time! (It helped that I was the oldest child and didn't have anyone older to tell me. Plus, my parents rocked in Santa world! They were good at it.) I didn't find out until my 5th grade school teacher blew it for me. I'm sure I was pretty much the only 5th grader in the world that believed!

Those stupid little things called learning moments...

I always look at the events, both large and small, that trickle in and out of my life as learning moments. When things happen repeatedly, I wonder what I am supposed to learn and why I am not learning? Because I really want these annoying events to stop happening. I know they can't...they won't because life is that way. Life happens. Crap happens. So, right now I am trying to figure out what I am supposed to learn from the latest. Now, this latest has crept into my life then left for a while and has now crept back with full force! I blame the economy! Actually, I really don't blame the economy.

Money!

I have always had issues with money. I used to be very frugal with money. VERY frugal! I am not as bad as I used to be but, I'm still bad. Now, I say bad because I let things have a greater value on them because I spent money on them. Does that make sense? What I mean is that if I need a coat and I buy a coat then that coat means a lot to me. I hold onto the coat. I try to take care of the coat. I try not to lose the coat. I wear the coat as long as I can. I don't want the coat ruined. I don't like to loan the coat because others don't care that I spent money on the coat like I do. If said coat is ruined or disappears...I freak out! So, my latest is with my children and their items. I am responsible to purchase all their belongings. I purchase the socks, underwear, pants, long sleeve and short sleeve shirts, sweatshirts, shorts, swim suits, church suits, church shirts, church pants, church shoes, regular shoes, flip flops, boots, coats, hoodies, hats, gloves, scarves, soccer cleats, sport pants for soccer, etc. Now, I list all these things not because I think you all don't know what all this is about because we all have to do that. But it's because I am responsible for these things alone...not someone else but ME. Okay, so you know what I mean now? Well...I have ALWAYS been the one to gather everything up and make sure "so and so" has this and "so and so" has that before we leave anywhere. And now...now I can't be that person. I have to leave it up to children and someone else to be responsible for all these items (that I paid money for, by the way, did I mention that?) to make sure they make it back home! So, let's just say that responsibility for things is not a strong suit for anyone in this dilemma. That leaves me upset, frustrated, and angry. So frustrated that I let someone know how mad I am. It doesn't matter. Nothing changes. So, I have been going over and over this in my head and have come to the conclusion that I HAVE to realize that these are just THINGS and that they don't matter and are replaceable. Right? You're all telling me this...I know...I get it...I do! But...my heart says let it go and my head says you can't let it go. These aren't just things. These are items of necessity. Some of them are necessary to live! I mean socks, underwear, a coat! And, they aren't replaceable! It is not feasible for me to constantly replace these items for three children! It's just not!

I have been on both sides of the financial spectrum. I have avoided total poverty and lived in "next-to" poverty (during school and residency - awful!) and while never being wealthy I have enjoyed "sufficient for our needs" (minus the house needs). I know what it's like to not make ends meet. To not be able to purchase anything except food and bare necessities. To not even think about purchasing something as minute as a bottle of fingernail polish. To not purchase any makeup (we're talking covergirl here) and use your sister's hand-me-down make-up or any other items people gave to you. To watch your children share a slice of pizza while you and your husband look at each other starving and wondering what in the crap are we going to do? To depend on family to provide your children with Christmas and birthday presents. For spouses not to buy any gifts for each other (not a good idea btw). To not be able to afford vitamins or gym memberships. To not have health insurance. To not take care of yourself because you can't afford to. To basically look like crap and feel like crap!

Then...I know what it's like to make ends meet. To be able to pay the bills every month and not worry that there isn't enough money. To not have to choose between food and clothes and gas because there is money for all of it. To go out to eat at a restaurant. To shop at Costco and not have to put items back on the shelf. To put a full tank of gas in your car. To take a vacation. To buy a gym membership and do things to take care of yourself. To buy fingernail polish AND remover AND cuticle cream AND to buy your own make-up!

So, somewhere I have to learn to let go of the THINGS and let go of my anger in having to replace what feels like EVERYTHING!

Seriously...can't someone else just learn to be more responsible? Is that really too much to ask?

GOSH!!!

Give me some sugah...

I'm finally posting some pictures from the U of U/BYU game. Late? Ya...I know. That's okay. And, if you don't understand the title for this post...it's for the sugar bowl...yo! Even I knew that. Moving on...

We watched the game with the Marchants, Morgans and more Marchants. It pretty much rocked. They were all U fans (in case you couldn't tell by the scatter of red everywhere!) There was tons of yummy food and goodies (peanut butter bars - delish!) Tamra even had Pez footballs with the U on them for the kids. How awesome is that?

We had our own half-time entertainment which was pretty sweet. A bunch of us got up and danced to...something...Corbin Bleu or something...I don't know what and then the girls' did some cheer leading pyramids. Each taking a turn on top so as to be fair. Then, as you all know, the U won 48-24! We took pictures to show our enthusiasm. Then, as we were cleaning up, Tamra and Elyssa decided to get into a food fight with some cheese dip. I grabbed Keslee's camera and Mikaela and I started snapping shots. I brought my camera to this little shin-dig but couldn't find it until the night was over. That's what happens when someone else (Hudson) brings it in and drops it by the door! So, thank you to Tamra and Keslee for camera usage and to facebook for allowing me to steal the pictures! (Not pictured: Dalton and Bella and there isn't a good one of Deann either! Sorry.)

Everyone watching the game except for Kath.

She brought a magazine. It's good she prepared for boredom!

Josh and Hudson

Parker, Kennedy, Elyssa and Mikaela

Brianna

Larissa and Kath

Mike, Kyle, Doug and Heather

Half-time entertainment!

Kennedy, Elyssa and Mikaela

There were some acrobatics...

(Keslee and Austin in the background)

I dunno? Maybe tired from all the sweet pyramid building!?!

Parker

The girls playing with snickers. Tamra let her come too. Now, that's true friendship!

The U WINS!!! Yay!!!

(These were totally candid...not re-enacted at all!)

Kath, Tamra and Larissa

Rock on!

Chick fight! I think it was a tie!

Flashback Friday

This memory takes me back to the high school days. Must have been around 1987-1988 - ish. We actually did this a few times and it was sooooooo funny! I really hope that no one comments on this post that "you musta had to be there"cuz it was dang funny. My friends Jennifer, Christie, Krista and I would all go out on a weekend night. This would have been either our Sophomore or Junior years, as Krista was the year ahead of us so it couldn't have been our Senior year. Anyhoo, we would head up to temple square and go into the visitor's center and grab some pamphlets entitled "Why Stay Morally Clean?" and then we would head up to the Capitol building or behind it, rather, where all the "parkers" (as we called them back in the day) would go to have their sweet make out sessions. We would drive around and toss one onto the windshield and inevitably the couple would interrupt the sweet make out session and hop out to get it. We thought we were so funny and really it was. One time somebody started to chase us but they didn't chase for long. Oh, those were good ole days and who knows...maybe we saved some poor girl from getting knocked up from one of those sex crazed, over-the-top hormone raging guys!!! Ya, it's all the guys fault. I blame them. j/k I had some slutty girl friends too.

Okay...ewww!

A few months ago, Tamra and I had just finished working out and grabbed our stuff to head home. Tamra looks at her water bottle and says that it looked like more water was gone than what she had drunk. She starts worrying that someone drank out of her bottle. We both didn't know what to think and couldn't even imagine someone doing that, but also realized that sometimes the bottles look alike and someone could have made a mistake. So, being the germ freaks that we are (T more than me - btw) and just to be safe, Tamra threw the bottle away. Well...


The other day (so...months later...)Tamra and I were at the gym and just about finished with our workout. In walks this loud, obnoxious, huge, handicapped guy. He's a regular. He walks around and around the track and goes over and weighs himself and talks to everyone and taps everyone on the arm to say Hi and is just really loud. You can hear him all over the entire second floor. Anyway, he comes in and we notice (because you can't help it with the boisterous entrance that he makes every time). We finish our workout and start walking to the cubbies (you know the things that hold every one's stuff while you work out). As we begin our approach to the cubbies, I see the loud, obnoxious, huge, handicapped guy drinking from a water bottle. I am watching him and something tells me to keep watching him. I stop Tamra and we both kinda stand there to watch him. He begins to put the water bottle back in MY cubby! MY CUBBY...MY WATER BOTTLE. I freak out! "Oh my gosh, Tamra! He just drank out of my water bottle!" I say. At this point we're both freaking about it and wondering how many times has he done this without our knowledge. We are freaking out about how many germs we have sucked up without even knowing and how many germs this guy is going around drinking too. Gross! Needless to say, we hide our water bottles now!

Shoot...it's Flashback Friday...again!

I have been working hard to get our Christmas cards figured out and sent early this year. I've done Christmas cards every year for the last 16 or so years. I don't try to out do myself each year but, I always do things the hard way. I know what I want and I want it to be perfect. I suffer from "analysis paralysis" and always get them out way too late. But, this year, they are basically finished except for the fact that I lost all those years of addresses when my computer crashed for good. (I could pay someone to get them off, but I don't want to spend the money at this point in time!) So, I am re-creating addresses and making a shout out to everyone to email me your addresses and those of people I know.

Now, on to Flashback Friday.

The story takes place in 1997. February to be exact. It was time for the annual semi-formal dance at the medical school. My friend Kirstie and I went out shopping looking for cheap dresses to wear to this fabulous function! Well, we searched and searched and couldn't find anything. If I recall correctly, she had decided to wear something she already had. I kept telling her over and over again that I wanted to find a $10.00 dress to wear. She, being the kind friend that she was, simply let me say it. She didn't try to sway me or talk me out of it or call me stupid or anything. But, deep inside, she thought there was no way! I think she thought I was a fool but she was too nice to tell me. Anyway, I went out by myself the next day to TJ Maxx and low and behold I found a nice black semi-formal dress in my size for $10.00 on clearance! I took that sweet thing in the dressing room and tried it on. Yep, it fit and I was so buying it!!! I came home and called Kirstie (remember those days? We didn't have cell phones and we couldn't just call and tell each other immediately while still at the store!) I was so excited!!! I have a picture of me in the dress but it is a print and a negative and my scanner and computer don't work so you'll have to imagine. I thought it was pretty awesome so just imagine awesomeness!

Kirstie...do you remember that?

Talk about The Secret! I haven't read it, but I've heard about it. That's my ONLY experience with that working. Too bad it only works with a $10.00 dress and not a house or something.

The internet now doesn't work on my home computer so this is actually posted late. Oops!

Alta vs. Bingham

Me, my kids and my siblings, Alicia, Spew, Jon and the Marchants all went to the state championship playoff game. Nick went to Alta and his dad has coached over there for years so he came and sat on the Alta side. All of my siblings as well as Cham, Alicia, Spew and Jon went to Bingham so we sat on Bingham's side. The Marchants came to be supportive and have fun. They sat with us because...well...we are so much cooler than Alta! Anyway, Elyssa had some friends sitting on Alta's side so she and Mikaela sat over there. (traitors-ahem) We had a lot of fun and left the game very disappointed. Alta was ahead in the 1st quarter and then Bingham was ahead until the last few minutes of the game. There were a couple of bad calls and Bingham screwed up some, but if you watched the game, I don't think you can deny that those bad calls really screwed things up. I even heard through the grapevine (won't mention any names) that some Alta fans admitted it should have been Bingham's win. Anyway, at least they gave them a run for their money. As we were walking to our car, we saw all the Alta fans and players celebrating and as we drove down the street, we saw the busloads of Bingham players with their heads down and helmets still on. It really was sad! And, not to forget...I scored me a sah-weet hot chocolate for free!

Alicia, Derrek, Summer, Larissa and Dalton

Alta side...Boo! Traitors = Elyssa and Mikaela

Kyle, Tamra, Keslee and Austin

Loren, Ari, Cham, Derrek, and Billy

Spew ponders...

Tamra and Larissa

Jon (eagle.swoop.bacon)

Keslee and Austin

Alicia, Summer and Dalton

Mmmmm! Nachos! Josh and Hudson

Billy, Alicia, Derrek, Summer

D-Rock...Peace out!

Flash game!

We went to the Flash game last night which is the D-league basketball team for Utah (they're an affiliate with both the Jazz and Celtics). Mikaela's choir sang the National Anthem. Nick and Suzanne came and I brought the kids and Hudson's friend Kaden since we had extra tickets. Don came and left after the Anthem. Everyone else bailed on us. We had to be there an hour early. So, the boys are sitting together and the cheerleaders had been practicing for that extra hour. Apparently, there was some discussion between them about how Kaden is "in love" with the cheerleaders and girls in general. Dalton and I proceed to have this conversation:

Dalton: Kaden is "into girls!"
Me: Oh ya?
Dalton: Ya, he said when I'm his age I will be into girls too but Hudson isn't!
Me: That's okay. Hudson is a slow poke in that area. So was Mikaela. It's okay.
Dalton: Well, I'm a fast poke cuz I'm kinda into girls too!
Me: (To myself - WHAT?!?) Out loud I say "Oh really? Which ones?"
Dalton: The ones in my class!
Me: (To myself - UGH!)

Throughout the evening, the cheerleaders would come and get kids to participate in different time-out activities. A couple of them came over and Dalton points to Kaden and says "pick him...he's in love with the cheerleaders!" They got some of the kids to go out and do the chicken dance. All but Hudson went out there. Dalton won a free pizza certificate from 5 buck pizza! Dalton informed me of this little piece of information last night. He said "Mom, when strangers look at me...they smile because I'm cute!" He is so cute! So, of course, me being the freak I am, had to add a little reminder about the strangers (which, btw, you shouldn't use the word strangers...did you know? There's just so much to know and screw up! Ugh!) All in all, it was a good night and a good game. It was close the entire game and the Flash lost by two points in overtime!

Children's choir singing the National Anthem

One of the Flash cheerleaders getting the kids together for a contest

See Mikaela on the right?

Dalton won a five buck pizza!

Half time entertainment. These were Russians in hideous costumes. The girl did all kinds of flips from this 4 inch board that the guys would hold and she would land them all!!!

The landing.

It was pretty cool in a freak show circus kinda way!

Final Score!

Flashback Friday

Today we go back to 1999. We lived in West Des Moines, Iowa in a large apartment building on the third floor. It was government subsidized housing which means there were lots of students living there. The graduate school in Des Moines had a lot of different programs. (DO, DPM, PA, PT and HCA degrees.) For some reason there were many LDS students at the school. Many of us in that apartment building were graduate students, LDS and in the same ward! We always had one or two neighbors right next door to us or downstairs from us that were fellow LDS students. It was fun. The apartment was such that our front doors opened to hallways as opposed to the outside. The laundry was on the first floor. Just to paint a picture. During this time period, Mikaela was 2 1/2 and I was pregnant with Hudson. It was our last year in Des Moines but we didn't know where we were going for the next few years. Here are a few stories from that year:

I decided to go to the mall for some shopping. I didn't do this very often as we had no money and I didn't need much from the mall. I can't remember what I was going for but I decided to go. I got Mikaela ready and myself. I was wearing these chunky heeled shoes and we headed out of our apartment door. We got to the second floor where we ran into the wife of a fellow LDS student. She had three little kids very close in age. She was carrying a newborn in a carrier and holding a sleeping one year old over her shoulder and a little 3 year old trailing behind. I was pregnant and only had Mikaela walking with me. So, being the super kind self that I am, I offered to carry her newborn in the baby carrier. (You can probably see where this is going!) I'm helping. We walk down the stairs to the doors outside. I open them and let her and the trailing two kids out and I step out and take two steps. One of those steps happens to land half on the sidewalk and half on the grass. My chunky heels can't take it and I begin to fall. FALL with a newborn in a carrier in my arms who is NOT mine! I fell and luckily was able to save the baby from injury and place her down gently. (Baby was totally unharmed during this fiasco - even stayed asleep!) You can imagine my horror at almost hurting another person's baby. The mother was so nice, but I am sure she wanted to yell at me or hit me or something. But, let's face it, she was carrying two kids down stairs which was WAY more dangerous then what I did. Needless to say, I sprained my ankle really badly and had to go back upstairs and ice it and wrap it and elevate it. As you can guess, we did not go to the mall! My ankle hurt for a long time and was really painful. I remember going to Young Women's that week and back in Des Moines, we had to drive all over the place to drop the girls off at their homes. We had our activity which was bowling or something and then we had ice cream. I remember my ankle was throbbing at the ice cream place and by the time I dropped the last girl off at her house, I was crying. I didn't know how I was going to drive back to my apartment because I was in so much pain. It was awful and stupid.

I remember we used to get coupons in the mail for Arby's. You could get a kids meal for 99 cents. Kirstie (was one of my best friends in Iowa and her husband was in Podiatry school too) and I would head out every so often and run errands together (usually Target) and we would drive through the Arby's and buy 5 or 6 kids meals and go to her apartment and eat them. When I was pregnant with Hudson I craved Arby's sandwiches. I know weird and gross but even more weird because I don't eat meat! We could all fit in her mini van together and would go all over Des Moines together. Those were good times! I miss them!

I remember the one time we had to take cover from a tornado. You could actually see the twister off to the west. The weather was crazy. Kirstie and I were on the phone not quite sure what to do. The news was telling us to take cover. We lived on the third floor and I guess we were supposed to go to the first floor. None of it felt very safe. Kirstie lived in the pool house on the first floor so she said to come and take cover over there. I gathered up all the photos I could carry and Mikaela and I ran over to her house. It was dark and there was heavy rain. It just pelted us. The wind was blowing like crazy. I opened up the glass doors to her hallway and Mikaela ran in and it just blew right out of my hands and slammed shut on us! We stayed with her and her kids in their master bedroom where we were close to a tv and the bathroom. We were ready at any minute to jump in the bathtub with the couch cushions to cover us. Mikaela and Dallin (Kirstie's second child who was Mikaela's age) were jumping on the bed having a party. They had no idea what was going on. Luckily, we didn't have to take cover and it all passed and no one was hurt!