Prom Times

I gotta post about the PROM I went to last weekend! Who would've thought Adrian and I would get to go to prom! Jenny and Matt and a group of friends from their ward decided to throw a prom and we were invited too. It was uber fun!

The prom experience started with a trip to the salon with Jenny. We both got up-dos and it was the first time I have ever had an up-do. It was awesome! And wow not a hair moved that whole day - there was more hairspray than hair in my up-do!

We got a corsage and boutonniere for the occasion and it even matched my dress, which was a formal borrowed from Jenny. We had Sophie take the ubiquitous putting on the corsage and boutonniere pictures and then off we went to the dance. It was at a community center clubhouse and one of Jenny and Matt's friends DJed. Neither Adrian or I are dancers, but we did shake it and it was so lovely to get to dance with my sweetheart. I was at a loss during the Macarena. I really didn't know that people including my husband knew how to do that dance! Like he really knew how to do it - I could tell he'd had some practice! We requested our song, "There is a Light that Never Goes Out" by The Smiths and I delighted in Adrian singing it to me in the cheesiest way possible as we danced. I love my man. It was such a great night and I think fun times were had by all.

First Days of School 2010

Time for written and visual documentation of the first days of school for my kiddos this year. Whew, summer went by so fast! I can't believe Sophie and Ben have been in school for well over a month now. They are all enjoying school and preschool. Sophie feels especially grown up at middle school and Ben is actually loving being in school all day as a first grader (here kindergarten is only half-day). Nina comes home from preschool in such a cheerful mood - she loves Miss Stacey so much!

Sophie, 6th grade

Ben, 1st grade


Nina, preschool

Mom, aren't you glad I finally put pictures on my blog!!:)

Birthday Weekend

I had the best birthday weekend!! Adrian and I went on a date last Friday night to the King Tut exhibit which was awesome! I got to see one of my favorite ancient works of art, a statue of the Pharaoh Akhenaten and the audio tour of the exhibit was narrated by Harrison Ford. How cool is that?! Then on Saturday we went, with Jenny and her family, to the BYU vs. Air Force game in Colorado Springs. Sadly the Cougars didn't do so well, but it was still lots of fun. When we got home I was shocked to see my garage doors covered with hearts and a happy birthday sign. I was heart-attacked by some wonderfully kind friends who made me feel so loved. Then there was the family party on Sunday with cake (delicious peanut butter chocolate cake!) and ice cream and presents and cards. I was spoiled. Thank you thank you to my husband, family, and sweet friends who made my birthday special! I'm a lucky girl and you made me feel much better about turning 33!:)

Mockingjay

First Things First
Hello! I could be blogging about so so many things right now. Like more about unpacking and getting settled in our house. Or I could write about the fabulous time I had at BYU Education Week (I really must another day, because it was awesome!!) or the scary fact that I now have a child in preschool, a child in elementary school, and a child in middle school. None of which ride a bus. I am responsible to get these 3 children to and from school everyday!! 3 different drop off times. 3 different pick up times. What has happened to my life?? But luckily I am part of 2 carpools. I am already insane right now, but I am telling you I would be institutionalize-able if it weren't for my middle school and preschool carpool. But this week I am the driver for both carpools and of course also taking Ben to and from the elementary school. So yes, this week I will probably lose it. Any time now. Wait for it. No, actually right now I'm okay. Check back with me on Friday. So while I'm okay instead of writing in more depth about those probably more important things I'm going to write about Mockingjay. Mockingjay!!! You should probably stop reading now if you haven't read it yet or ever plan on it.

***SPOILER ALERT****
Getting the Book and My Tizzy Fit
Despite my loathing of series-books (except for HP *said in a reverent tone*) I really couldn't wait for Mockingjay to come out. More like I REALLY COULDN'T WAIT TO FIND OUT WHAT THE CRUD HAPPENED TO PEETA. Sorry about that. It's just that I hated the way Catching Fire ended. I wanted to stomp up and down on that book because of the way it leaves you hanging. It was awful. So. I got Mockingjay the day it came out. I just had to have the final book in my hands. Did I plan on reading it that day? No. But I HAD to know I had it on the first day possible. Crazy. Then I made myself wait to read it. I needed to finish my book club book (Zookeeper's Wife - very good, but not a page turner) and continue to clothe, feed, and run carpools for my children. I knew once I started Mockingjay I wouldn't stop till I finished it. So Friday evening the conditions were perfect. I was waiting for Sophie at her piano lesson and I started reading and guess what, no Peeta! He was off being tortured by the capitol and I was left alone with Katniss and freaking Gale (can you tell I'm Team Peeta) in oh-so-scifi-District 13. I threw a little private tizzy-fit and stopped reading. Darn it, but I wanted Peeta back in the story. Well my little tizzy fit lasted about a day and then I decided I can't have everything that I want and that I would stick it out and pay attention to the story line rather than be all disgruntled. I'm glad I sorted myself out because when I picked the book back up I was riveted. I couldn't put it down. Whoa, what a ride Mockingjay was! It has taken me a few days just to collect my thoughts and decide exactly what I thought about this book. It makes you think and that's a good thing, right?!

Actual Book Review
I guess this book makes it clear that Suzanne Collins is no warm fuzzy young adult fiction writer. Nope. Mockingjay was violent, intense, and disturbing. Things were not neatly wrapped up as so many current writers (*cough*stepheniemeyer*cough*) like to end their multiple book series (*cough*breakingdawn*cough*). At some points I thought the violence was a little much. Yeah, my limit was reached at the end with the children and the parachutes and all the death. That was too much. But overall I really liked it. A lot.

The characters were written with depth. I'm glad we got to understand the back-stories of Finnick, Haymitch, and Gale and Katniss. I liked the stuff thrown in about Katniss' father. That little tune he sang was uber creepy. I liked that we got to see many character's underlying agenda. Gale turned out to be twisted Mr. GI Joe with some deep Capitol hatred. Plutarch didn't end up being the revolutionary leader I thought he was going to be at the end of Catching Fire. No he was a total media-mogul type just wanting to exploit anyone he could for "good TV". That's what I loved - that I was surprised all the time by Mockingjay. Nothing ever happened that I thought would happen other than Peeta and Katniss ending up together. Even that was different then I thought it would be. I love the unpredictability.

And then there was good meaty stuff. I was just talking with a friend about the great symbolism with President Snow always having those flowers around to cover the his real scent of blood/covering his real intentions and agenda at all times. And Coin who was "two-sided" being corrupted by power just like Snow. When they talked about having a Hunger Games again at the end there I knew Katniss was going to take Coin out and she did! That was a great twist. So no Mockingjay wasn't Hamlet, but it was a complex story that made you think a little deeper than your standard young adult fiction and that was refreshing.

Okay, so now I'll talk about how I was totally traumatized in addition to liking it. Was anyone expecting Finnick to die like that?? Man, it was awful. I had to reread that twice just to make sure there was no loop-hole for him. Death by mutant lizard people. Not cool. Finnick was my very favorite side character and he just barely got to be with Annie and they just got married... Then he died. And Prim. Oh that scene made me nauseous. The children and the parachutes and Gale's strategy and Coin putting Prim there. It was all so horrible. I almost couldn't handle it. And then of course I was completely traumatized by Peeta finally coming back and then trying to KILL Katniss. What the?? That was unexpected. But I loved the part were he got to talk about what a dork Katniss was never picking between him and Gale. That needed to be said and it was clever how Collins made that happen. So I was okay with Peeta's story line even though he was gone, then all wrong, then psycho-killer, then back to being sweet Peeta. I liked the honest approach for the ending. I agree that with what happened in this book those characters would be sad broken people at the end just trying to eke out some kind of life and it was fitting for them to end up in the ruins of District 12. It felt real and I appreciated that. Would I have liked a couple chapters at the end on Peeta and Katniss living again and falling in love again? Yeah, that would have been nice, but then that would have been tied up a little too neatly and this was so not a neatly tied up kind of book.

So there you go. I liked it. I recommend this series to anyone who is ready for some gritty-action stuff. I still think I like Hunger Games the best, but I'm so happy that I wasn't totally let down by a end-of-the-series-book again. It was good.

Jenni's Hunger Games Cast
One of my favorite parts about starting a book is casting the characters. So here's my own little IMDB version of the Hunger Games Series (the other characters are just kinda random people in my head, but these one's are identifiable):

Katniss - Avril Lavigne with mousy brown hair (I know, kind a weird, but it worked for me)

Peeta - Pacey from Dawson's Creek, aka Joshua Jackson

Gale - Riley from Buffy the Vampire Slayer, aka Marc Blucas

Coin - Sigorny Weaver

Finnick - Robert Pattinson (can you see why I had such a problem with him dying?!)

Johanna - Scary Spice (hee hee)

President Snow - Bill Nighy (not the science guy, the one from Love Actually and Underworld)

The Move

Not many people outside our family and our friends here in CO know, but we have moved. And we are SO happy with our new house. Yep, we moved a little less than 2 years after buying our old house. Honestly I didn't post about it all before now on the blog because I didn't want to jinx it if you know what I mean. And it's weird to people why we would move so soon (almost 2 years) after buying our house. The short answer to why we moved is that we wanted a different house, enough that we went through the enormous ordeal it is to sell a house, buy another one and move all our stuff. Tons of work. Tons of stress. And yes all that considered we wanted a different house that much. So we staged our house, put in on the market, went under contract 5 days later, found our new wonderful house, and moved a month and a half after putting the house on the market. Whew. It was fast. The closings were a nightmare that I'm trying to block out, but it was worth it. We love our new house.

But for those of you really wanting the long answers for it all read on:

Making the Decision
After buying our former house we were happy with it. I loved the kitchen. I loved the floor plan. I loved the view. Watching fireworks from the porch on the 4th of July was awesome! BUT there was always the problem of the location. It backed to a huge open field... I don't know if field is the right word actually - more of a big huge open space that is commercial property. We thought that all the wonderful things about the house would make up for the fact that it backed to commercial property, but it didn't. It started to be a constant stress that was added to by neighbors and casual acquaintances asking us if we knew what was going in behind us. Ben had a playdate about 6 months after we bought the house and the mom of his friend asked me what I thought about King Soopers (local grocery store chain) going in behind us. I asked her if she knew for sure and she said yes. Oh my, I started freaking out wondering what we should do. She was wrong at least for now. We called the city and found out the property hadn't been sold and King Soopers was not going in. But that was all I could think about for a long time. It was scary to me and I started to think we had made a mistake. We never knew how much that commercial property would bother us and stress us out until we were in the house and really started contemplating how we would feel about that land being developed. Someday that property will be developed and it isn't zoned for houses, it is zoned for a King Soopers, or a gas station and other businesses, or whatever. Some kind of commercial something. Of course something fantastic like a library could go in too, but what are the chances and it's hard to take a chance like that. Our answer was that we would feel better if we found a different house. It was hard. So about a year after buying the house we were close to selling. We talked to a real estate agent. But at that point it was just too much to think about after so recently moving to CO. So we decided to hold off for a while longer, but at that point we knew we were going to sell someday.

Selling
So this spring we started to feel like it was time. We spent a day driving around looking at houses and even seeing a couple open houses. It felt good. So we found an a great real estate agent, he sent over a stagger and we staged the house, then listed it. The "staging" part was actually a lot of work. We had about 6 showings and we got an offer 5 days after listing. We of course were SO happy, but also stressed to find our "forever house" (a house we can picture ourselves in for a long time) in the time before we'd have to move. But after seeing LOTS of houses we kept coming back to one and it felt like home every time we saw it. So we put in an offer, went through the negotiation process and got our new house under contract. Everything was butterflies and sunshine until the closings.

Closings
At the closing for our former house we found out there was a problem, as in when we were all sitting around the table ready to sign the papers. We were told not to worry that everything would work out and we would close sometime within the day. So we went to our other closing for buying our house and signed everything, but the first closing didn't go through that day. We were assured it would go through the next day. So the next day we loaded everything onto the moving truck expecting to hear that it had all gone through and we could have our keys. That didn't happen. We had to move everything back into the house and were told the deal was probably going to fall through. We would not sell our house, and not be able to get our new house. It was heart breaking. I spent a lot of that day crying. It was horrible. So then we get a call that we should extend the closings through the next day, and we did. The next day we waited all day and no word. Our real estate agent started talking to us about unpacking and getting the house staged for selling again. It was so hard to comprehend. All that packing and and moving just to unpack. Ugh. Then as Adrian was talking to our real estate agent about all of this and my sweet friend Ganelle was at our house delivering a wonderful dinner our agent got a text that the closing was going to go through. The issues with our buyers were resolved and we were going to sell the house and get our new house. It was almost surreal and we were so happy. Adrian got teary and I was overjoyed. So then the next day after that (day 4) we actually closed, funded, and recorded on both houses and got our keys. We kissed the house when we walked into it the first time. The whole ordeal made us appreciate our new wonderful house even more because we realized just how much we loved it and didn't want the deal to fall through. It is our happy house and hopefully we will get to live in it for a long long time.

So there's all the gory details. Nothing seems to ever go completely smoothly, but we feel very grateful that we were able to sell our old house in this economy/real estate market so quickly even if there were hiccups at the end. Hopefully I'll be getting our "we've moved" cards out soon so you'll have our new address. Shoot me an email if you'd like our new address sooner.

Love and Happiness of the Fourth Kind

Happy 4th of July!! I love my country! I love that we celebrate that love with fireworks and barbecues. I loved sitting out on my porch last night with my family watching the town fireworks below. (Good thing the town fireworks were on the 3rd because there's a big old thunder storm going on tonight.) It was hilarious to hear Nina wowing and aahhing and exclaiming very loudly "OOh a PINK one!!" every minute or so. Then there was also the throwing of pops at the ground by Sophie and Ben (Nina opted out of throwing pops - she still doesn't like loud sounds), followed by them stomping around to get any pops that hadn't popped. We all took turns taking pictures of the fireworks and of course I made everyone pose for a couple of pictures too. We had fun. Hope your 4th of July weekend was fun and full of love too!

Eclipse Fest

I still have a bit of an Eclipse hangover, but it's coupled with complete Twihard giddiness so I'm okay. On the 29th I got to go to a fabulous Eclipse party at my friend Tracy's house that started at 4 o'clock in the afternoon. Wonderful friends, food, and treats and every possible surface and wall in her house covered with Twilight paraphernalia (she has 4 very Twi-enthusiastic teenage girls). It was awesome in every way! Thanks Tracy!!

Jenny and I went together (and quickly became known as "the Jennys" - the curse we share having the most popular name from 1975-1985). After the party we all headed to the theater where we watched not just Eclipse, but Twilight, New Moon and then at midnight Eclipse. Oh it was heaven! I was the only person in the theater to cheer for Edward's horrible pastiness when he takes off his shirt in New Moon, but that's okay, he deserved a little cheer after the applause and hooting that Jacob gets during his Chippendale's moment in the motorcycle scene. I couldn't believe how quickly Twilight and New Moon flew by. You would think watching 3 movies in a row would be too much, but no it was absolutely fun and the time passed so fast. Of course the intermissions were also lots of fun. Chatting with fellow Twihards. Nice.

Then Eclipse. Oh it was GREAT!! Really really. I loved that the whole movie had lots and lots of Edward. The newborn fighting was fun times and there was even a plug for waiting until marriage during the famous (and yes quite steamy) "compromise" scene. I thought the whole thing was awesome. Okay now, the most awesome awesomeness was about a 25 second scene with the original vampire the Quileutes faced played by none other than PETER MURPHY!!! He really was in it!! He was billed in the credits (which I stayed to watch on my second viewing) as "The Cold One"!! Ha!! Don't I know it! Yes, Peter Murphy is The Cold One and always will be! I want to make myself a "Team The Cold One" shirt!! Woohoo it was great! And Bryce Howard as Victoria I think was a good choice. If you remember in the books she has a sweet child like voice which I think the other Victoria chick didn't even try to do, whereas Bryce Howard nailed that evil sweetness. Rosalie's and Jasper's back-stories were just awesome. Jacob's and Edward's fire and ice scene in the tent was pretty good (I wish Edward would have been a little more verbose shall we say, but hey I guess at this point I really shouldn't expect Rob to be book Edward so I let it go). One problem. Can they please figure out what color they want the good vampires' eyes to be??! In this one they were almost orange and that bothered me a little. I think I like the color in New Moon the best and of course think Twilight with their brown contacts clearly visible was the worst. We'll see how it will be in Breaking Dawn though I cringe to even think of that book becoming a movie - Monster Baby pregnancy?? Oh it's gonna be gross. But of course I'll watch it anyways. Anywho, I thought Eclipse was fab. And it was so fun to see it with Jenny and Tracy and other new Twihard friends. I swear half the theater was Mormons.:)

And of course as per tradition Adrian and I went and saw it last night again (in IMAX!!) so I could see it twice on opening day. It just wouldn't have been right not to. We had Olive Garden before, with mushroom ravioli again and it was great. Adrian still refused to fully embrace the part of Edward and not eat and give me his Coke, but oh well.:) We had a great time together and Adrian genuinely liked the movie. He smiled at my reaction to Peter Murphy's 25 seconds and laughed that I wanted to stay for the credits just to see Peter's name up there as a vampire. I also think he liked that TwilightSagaEclipse (we say it like that now too Cami!) was more of an action movie than the other two.

So there you have it. My 32 hours of serious Eclipseness. It was great. It was fun. It was fabulous. And I'm so glad I got to share it with good friends and my ever supportive husband.

Aren't the ribbons in our hair cute?! That was Jenny's fab idea to match the ribbon on the cover of the book. Jenny had a very cute "La Push Cliff Diving Team" t-shirt that she made herself. The necklaces were favors from Tracy's party - little tiny Eclipse book covers on scrabble tiles. So fun! I got Eclipse party swag!:)