7 & 8 year old boys, oh my!

Last week I was asked to substitute teach in my daughter's 7-8 year old primary class today. I was released from being Young Women president 7 weeks ago today (sob) which makes me available for such things. sigh. But I was up for the task. For pity sakes, I just served as the president to an organization of 40 young women and more than 10 adult leaders. Surely I could handle 45 minutes with a bunch of 7 and 8 year olds! Right???

When I entered the classroom, there was a boy STANDING ON THE TABLE. (Said boy shall remain nameless, but for purposes of this story, we will refer to him as Sam W.) I asked him to climb down and quickly arranged the chairs and asked the boys to take the front row. Silly me. I thought if they were right in front of my face they would have to behave. I know, I know....I have four daughters. I am so naive.

I remained un-rattled as I waited a full two minutes for them to be quiet so I could begin. They didn't even notice I was sitting there waiting for at least 1-1/2 of those two minutes. Finally, my 7 year old daughter tried to call the class to attention. It didn't work, but as the lesson suggested, I was prepared with an "attention getter", so everything was going to be ok. As the lesson directed, I had made "salt dough". Each child was supposed to form their ball of dough into an animal and then place it on the table at which time we would begin a discussion.

After being asked at least 17 times by one girl if she could eat the dough, I told her to go for it! Anywho, as it happens, I haven't made salt dough in awhile and probably needed to add a bit more flour. It was rather sticky and a little hard to form into animals. Most of the kids made snakes because, let's face it, my dough stunk and that was all they could manage. The table, now full of snakes, a turtle and a mystery "dead animal", made my transition into a story about farm animals rather unsuccessful. The kids immediately let me know that those "were NOT farm animals"! Did I mention that I forgot my watch??

The kids soon started asking if they could go wash their hands. There was no way around it. Had I made normal salt dough, their hands would have been fine but alas, they were a sticky mess. So the mayhem ensued as they all left to wash hands. Finally, they were back and I continued talking while rolling my sticky dough into a fence to surround the animals and talk about the safety of a fence for farm animals (leading into a discussion about how laws and rules keep us safe).

Soon, I realized my hands were covered with dough and that I needed to go wash them. I decided there was no way I could leave these 10 children alone for the time it would take to do it though. I decided I would just have to continue with dough hands. I went on for 10 minutes turning pages with wads of dough on my finger tips until I finally announced. "I HAVE to go wash my hands, can you guys be good for two minutes?"

Before I could even stand up to leave, every boy in the room was standing (getting ready to party I assume), and one boy stood up as if he were strumming a guitar and began "scringing" (that's a cross between singing and screaming). I decided the dough on my hands was the least of my worries and I just stayed put.

Did I mention I forgot my watch?!? So things are moving along, we're having a few decent teaching moments (I think) when I hear voices out in the foyer. I eagerly open the door to see if this means church is out and our lesson time is over. My good friend Rob was in the foyer walking his baby. He informed me there were still 10 minutes left at which time I may have asked him to go fetch me a valium.

Ten minutes later, I bore my testimony and for 45 whole seconds, it was quiet and they actually listened. On the way out, one of the boys said, "you didn't bring us any candy?!?! Our teacher always brings us candy." I said, "I'm not your teacher....and the 10 chocolate chip granola bars I DID bring for you are going to be eaten by ME on my way home to bring down my blood pressure!" O.k., I didn't say that. But I thought it.

I think I'm going to go bake some cookies for my daughter's regular primary teacher. Trust me, she deserves them.

7/1/12

Sundays are always a little tricky when you're on vacation. As Mormons, we believe in keeping the Sabbath Day holy. We try to make Sundays different than all the other days of the week....HOLY. It's easy to do at home but vacations are trickier. We actually LOVE going to church when we're traveling. It's been so cool do visit different wards all over the world and see that while the people are different, the gospel is the same. We want our girls to know that we think it's important!


Our goal when we travel is to find a church and attend sacrament meeting. We don't always stay for all three hours. But usually, if the meetings are in English, we try to stay.


So this week we attended church in Park City. It happened to be fast Sunday. Who fasts on vacation? Not me certainly! Afterall, we're going to church. Isn't that valiant enough?!? Well, this Sunday we decided there were some important things we needed to fast for so we ran it by the kids and being the awesome girls they are, they agreed. To fast. On vacation. Wow.


After sacrament, tons of visitors started to leave the building and even though we had decided to stay for all three hours, my oh so weak self wondered if we couldn't maybe leave as well. Luckily, we decided against it and stayed.


I believe Heavenly Father blesses us when we're trying to do what's right even if it's something little like staying for all our church meetings. Well Sunday, he blessed us. I went to Relief Society (which I never do because I serve in Young Women and I always go to YW even when we're traveling because I love being with the YW). Anywho, a woman bore her testimony on prayer and it was SO touching. The spirit was so strong and touched me deeply. I was so grateful that we had stayed and that I was able to hear that touching testimony.

We received another little blessing as we left the church building and met Sister Mary Cook (1st Counselor of the General Young Women Presidency of the church). She was amazing! She stood and talked to the girls for about 20 minutes. She was so nice and down to earth and it was such a treat to meet her. It was just a cool little tender mercy that reminded me how present God's hand is in our lives and that He blesses us when we are where we're supposed to be, when we're supposed to be there.

The rest of our day included:

-Cousin bonding over crumb cake and goblets of milk.

-A relaxing Sunday afternoon with no meetings and no responsibilities.

SO awesome!

-Ash doing a little photo shoot for her cousin's senior pictures.

-And the manly Mr. and I going for a leisurely walk and talking and resting on a patch of grass under the ski lifts. 

It was a perfect day.

6/30/12

Does it seem like the only thing I ever blog about is vacations?!?

That's NOT because all we ever do is travel. Although if we could, we would.

It's mostly because the only time I ever have TIME to blog is when I'm ON vacation!

Cuz at home I'm driving kids to Irish dance 3 days a week, tennis 3 times a week, piano 2 days a week,

Doctor's appointments, young women meetings and activities, drop-offs and pick-ups from 3 different schools and doing laundry, dishes, etc., etc., etc.

If and when I ever finish all my stuff (which I never do), I want to do something mindless that requires absolutely no brain power. Pinterest is usually my chosen end of the day mindless activity.

I must say though, that our vacations keep us sane! If I never got a break from the insanity that is our life, I might crack. Seriously.

Saturday we started off our week in the best possible way....at the Bountiful, Utah temple 

to see Joel and Nikki sealed.

It was a beautiful sealing. I love to see the beginning of eternal marriages and to be reminded of my own 20 years ago.

Max & Ash at the wedding luncheon.

 Me and the manly Mr. 

(He informed me he wanted a more manly name on my blog. Studmuffin and "The Stallion" were thrown out there as possibilities, but ultimately I decided to give "the manly Mr" a try. Since he never reads the blog, we'll just let him think he won and is being referred to as "The Stallion".

And yes, he's still as manly as they come EVEN THOUGH he watched two seasons of "Downton Abbey" with me in Paris and REALLY liked it.

 My two cute babies

After the wedding festivities we headed down to Utah County to see 5 of my nieces and nephews in an amazing choir performance. I've never seen anything quite like it. They sounded AMAZING!

After the performance, we got "Cafe Rio" to eat at the park and had a fun time visiting and playing.

After a very long day with LOTS of driving, we arrived at our condo in Park City.

P.S.

Dear guy who bought this Marriott time share, then couldn't use it

and sold your week to us for super cheap on "Redweek",

THANK YOU! This place rocks!!!

We love this city!

Of course he came prepared with a padlock (that he engraved himself) to hang on the "bridge of love" in Paris. It is tradition for lovers to put a padlock on the fence over the bridge and then throw the key into the river as a symbol of unbreakable, eternal love. So we did just that. I know, super mushy but it was awesome! Can't wait to bring my girls here some day and show them our padlock on the bridge.

I made the smooching picture small so as to not traumatize the children.

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"The Hamlet" at Versailles. We felt like we had walked into 'Pride and Predjudice' or some kind of amazing fairytale when we got here. So beautiful, so amazing, SO romantic.

Our girls would have LOVED this place.

One thing we have embraced fully while in Paris is picnicking Parisian style. They picnic in an awesomely no fuss way. You simply stop by the store and grab a baguette, lunch meat, cheese, fruit, pastries and wine (or in our case, a nice bottle of water).

Then you go find a beautiful place to picnic (very easy in Paris). You wash the fruit with your bottled water, tear pieces of bread off with your hand and stuff meat and cheese in your fresh bread. Then you talk and laugh and think how nice it would be to do this every day of your life.

I plan on continuing to picnic Parisian style back in Southern California.
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"Rue Cler" is the perfect place to pick up picnic supplies. Absolutely beautiful.

We just happened to see on Facebook that my cousin Wendy (Blue Lily Photography) and her two adorable children were in Paris for some photo shoots. So we met up in Luxenbourg Gardens to....picnic of course. We had a great time eating and chatting and watching the couple in the background to Tai Chi for two solid hours. 

The beautiful Seine river in Paris.

This is how we got through some gates at the airport that weren't opening when we put our tickets in. My studly husband jumped over, lifted all of our luggage over, helped me over and then hopped back up with another man to assist some older German women over as well. It was quite a hilarious little adventure.

We love going to church whenever we travel. It is so cool to see the church in different parts of the world. No matter where we go, it is still the same true church.

Picnicking in the Louire Valley while on our way to see a castle.

What this picture doesn't show is the laptop we set up a while later to watch an episode of "Downton Abbey".  And no joke, that was HIS idea. I know.....

A.W.E.S.O.M.E.

There are flower stores EVERYWHERE you turn in Paris. I will miss that so much.

Hands down, my favorite activity was riding these bikes all over Paris. We've had so many adventures on these awesome little bikes. We even biked home from church on them while I tried to hold my skirt down hoping to not traumatize any Parisians walking by.

Need to sleep

I need to post more pics for my girlies but it will have to wait till tomorrow. We stayed up till 3 a.m. last night (I may have gotten Jeff hooked on Downton Abbey) and we can't do the same tonight. We are not being very disciplined about going to bed. Isn't that the fun of being on vacation though?!?

We biked ALL over today and happened onto a beautiful church which we went in to see. There was a orchestra and about a hundred member choir rehearsing when we went in. They were absolutely amazing. We sat and listened for quite awhile and considered it a gift that we had stumbled into that lovely church when we did.

(Best crepe maker in Paris and trust me when I say, we just about tried them all)

We stopped by the little crepe stand right outside our hotel tonight for a farewell crepe. When we walked up, the guy smiled real big and said, "banana Nutella crepe??" Yes, we're regulars now. We will sure miss this place.

We're getting up early to go to church in Paris before we head to the airport to grab a rental car and drive to the countryside. Should be a great adventure.

More pictures tomorrow sweet girlies.....

Love you!

Day 3 in Paris

"The Hamlet" at Versailles. Amazing.

View of the Eiffel tower from the boat on our nighttime river cruise.

In front of the Louve

Romantic Paris

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Wow. Today was A.M.A.Z.I.N.G. Turns out this place IS quite romantic and awesome. I was served breakfast in bed consisting of yogurt, granola and a chocolate filled croissant. Yum. Then it was off to the Louve & Arc de Triumph. Those were both cool but of course we always prefer the less touristy things. Favorite parts of today: afternoon bike ride through Paris, listening to incredible Jazz band outside the park behind Notre Dame, lounging on a blanket in the park and our 10:00 p.m. river cruise.

The Venus de Milo was my fav at the Louve.

The coronation of Napoleon was hubby's favorite ("because there are no naked guys in it")

Inside the pyramid at the Louve

Resting on a blanket in the park

Biking outside the Louve

Delicious AND artisitc gelato!

View of the Eiffel tower from our river cruise tonight.

Notre Dame at night

Twenty years of marriage and it just keeps getting better.

I so LOVE this man.

20 Years

This summer we celebrate 20 years of marriage. The hubby decided there was no more romantic place to celebrate our anniversary than Paris, so here we are.

Biked to Notre Dame Cathedral and went to part of a mass.

Biked back to hotel in the rain. :)

Right outside our hotel

The item my hubby will be eating 4-5 times a day while we're here. He only fit two in yesterday.

Long week.....

So it's been a long week. Even though the week I'm referring has only been two days so far. But week sounds better than, "it's been a long two days", don't you think?

Hubby is in China. Things never seem quite right when he's gone. To console myself, I bought myself a new two-pack of pens at Target today. I LOVE them. Paper Mate InkJoy 700 RT - 1.0 mm M. Do you think "InkJoy" is a corny name for a pen?!? I think not. They ARE pure joy to write with. I'm totally serious. It almost made my husband being in China ok. Almost.

So some days while I'm doing laundry, I listen to conference talks, Education Week talks, Podcasts or TV shows on Hulu. When my husband is out of town, I should probably stick to uplifting talks and Podcasts. Today while I folded, I watched one of those FBI shows (can't remember the name). It was about some guy who broke into people's homes after he cut the power and phone lines and killed the entire family. They finally caught him after he killed about five different families. Not the best show to watch while the hubby is out of town you say? Yes, I would agree.

After a morning of frightening laundry folding, I went to pick up the kids from school. Suddenly every scary movie I've ever seen starts replaying in my head. Like the one where the bad guy was hiding in the back of the lady's car as she pulled out of the garage unknowingly. Or the one where as she pulled into the garage, he slid under the garage door as it was closing. Or the true story from Oprah where while the wife is out gardening, a man enters her side (unlocked) door, kills her husband and waits for her to come in. He then rolls her up in a carpet (if I remember correctly), backs his car into the driveway and throws her in the trunk. I won't even tell you what happened after that.

So with all this running through my mind, I took the extra precaution of locking the door between the house and the garage so no boogie men could enter while I was picking the children up and taking them to piano. My paranoia turned out to be a pretty big bummer when 3 minutes later, I had to return for the piano bags I had forgotten and found myself locked out of the house. I brought the set of car keys that doesn't have a house key attached. Sigh.

Maybe there is a door unlocked? Fat chance!! Thanks to said paranoia, the house is locked up like Fort Knox. After trying all the doors, I found an unlocked window (which totally freaked me out but also made me happy as I had no idea how I would ever get in again). I removed the screen and crawled (very un-gracefully) in through the window, grabbed the piano books, locked the window up tight and ran back out, now late, to pick up the kids.

I am now in bed. The car doors are locked (even though it's parked in the garage). The house is locked up and every window has been checked. And I may or may not be sleeping with a bat.

I just remembered one time when he was out of town in the summer and it was so hot and I just couldn't bear to close and lock the window so I set an elaborate trap in front of the window so if someone tried to crawl in during the night, things would go tumbling down, make a lot of noise, wake me up, at which time I would leap from my bed, grab my big, heavy Mag Light and charge said intruder in my undies to knock him out with my weapon?!?! What the heck was I thinking?!? I'm pretty sure that wouldn't have ended happily.

And now it's time for some "InkJoy" love to forget all my scary thoughts and hopefully get some sleep.

I couldn't agree more.
Everyone should see this:
Things as they really are