I love...

I love So You Think You Can Dance! Just thought I'd share :)

July is sometimes a difficult month :)

On Saturday, as I was walking from our back door to the backyard, I missed a step on a cobblestone. I don't know how I did that...I think I must have been focusing on the chickens. Down, down, down I went.
I'm not going to go into the emotional trauma of knowing that I just severely injured my ankle again and exactly what that means. I'm not going into the difficulty of moving and getting to xray equipment. I'm not going into the difficulty of hearing the reality of this injury from my faithful doctor...
suffice it to say "It is what it is!" My household knows what to do with this extensive injury and it'll eventually be ok again. Something freaky though...this ankle injury happened on the 3 yr anniversary of my broken ankle from trek...freakkkkkkkkyyyyyyyyy.

The diagnosis; rupture of the collateral ligaments in the left ankle. 6 wks non weight bearing-crutches, roller cart...at 6 weeks a high probability of surgery being needed.

and here we go again....

Reflections on the past year

I was reading my friends blog the other day and I'm listed in the sidebar as a blog that she reads. I haven't posted in 8 months and her blog lists that. That is so wrong.
So here are some reflections from this past year: btw; I think that this is going to be SO boring for anyone reading this who isn't me :)

We discovered Thinkwell for math and it is spectacular. They offer math, science, government classes. Prof. Burger teaches math and we love it. He is very funny and engaging.

We have been on amazing fieldtrips this year...Space Needle, Tillicum Village, USS Turner Joy, Olympic National Forest, Whale Watching in the San Juan Islands, Bainbridge Island Aquatic Center, Cirque de Soleil, International Childrens Festival, Pacific Science Center, Seattle Art Museum, Fiddler on the Roof, Boeing Tour, Whirly Ball, EMP, Sequim Wild Animal Park, Ceramics, NorthWest Train and Trek tour, Transiberian Orchestra and more.

Discovered Studio East Drama in Kirkland. They are an amazing drama facility that caters to homeschoolers during the day. Kylie participated in a year long Shakespeare class and performed 'A Midsummer Nights Dream' in April. It was great. Paige and Lilly were in a musical theater class and had a great time.

We had some big birthdays this year; Paige turned 12 and entered Young Womens, Sarah turned 4, Kylie turned 14, Sam turned 8 and was baptized and Lilly turned 11. WOW!

We do birthday parties on even years only but missed Lilly's last year so ALL the kids (except Sarah because I haven't done it yet ) had birthday parties in a 3 week period...

Lilly took her friends to a Japanese Hibachi Restaurant-so fun

Paige took 13 friends across the sound to the Bainbridge Island Aquatic Center for a pool party. They had a scavenger hunt on the ferry, lots of swimming, pizza back at home...fun

Kylie had a Mad Hatter Tea Party that was AMAZING...I couldn't have done it without all of the great women who helped me. We then took the kids to see Alice in Wonderland.
These 3 parties happened in one weekend.

Then Sam had a laser tag birthday party...best money ever spent for a group of boys.
Sam was baptized this year. Grandma Jenson came into town for it. His dad baptized . It was a him. I was really proud of Sam. What a boy.

For Christmas, I knitted all of my children their own fingerless mittens and hats...all unique to their personalities. Yay for knitting! Yay for me!

I finally found a tandem kayak in my secret kayak budget and bought if for Steve for Fathers Day. Yay for the family. It was a great surprise.

We have chickens now-6 total. They even have a coop. They lay awesome eggs-about 5 a day.

I was called as a ward organist-eeks! so I'm taking lessons from a great organist and am enjoying it but boy is it hard. Those darn, darn pedals...(btw, it's a secondary calling for me)

Took Paige to Utah for General Conference in April-12 year old tradition. It was wonderful. We took some family names and she performed baptisms in the SL temple for her first time with several cousins. We attended 3 sessions of Gen. Conf and loved it. It was a great mother daughter trip and I love this tradition.

Okay! Thats it for now! It's the next post that is more exciting :)

Hi!

I was reading through some of my journals earlier this week and it seemed that every entry began with "I need to be better about writing more consistantly in my journal." It seems I need to begin with that thought today.

So much has been happening here-lots of learning, cleaning, playing, reading, cooking, baking, knitting, teaching, creating, sleeping...it seems whenever I get a moment to blog, I instead use the time to wander around others blogs. For instance, I now own 'Artisan Bread in 5 minutes a Day' because of a blog. It is a magical book and I highly recommend it.
I also am the owner of 'The Pioneer Womans Cookbook'. She seems to make my days easier-lighter somehow.
But that isn't what this post is about. This is what this post is about:

A friend 'found' me via facebook the other day. A friend I hadn't heard from in 20 years. It was someone I met while I was serving my mission in Canada. I was so amazed to hear from her that I went and dug out my old journals from that time. For the next two days, every spare moment was spent reading in my journals. I was 21 and 22 yrs. old. Wow! What an experience that was. In some ways I was surprised by things I wrote-trivial things, seemingly meaningless things now, horrified at what I chose not to write about-moments that changed my very being-things that still affect me today and grateful for the times when I wrote with clarity the true feelings of my soul and the moments that I recorded when someone stepped into my life and changed me for the better. I'm so glad I recorded those moments of kindness, concern, boldness and humor.

After closing back up the journals I realized that I genuinely miss some people in my life! Best friends, funny friends, genuine friends. I decided that if MaryAnn could find me, I could find my people! I have found a couple of them. It's been 16-18 years since I've spoken with them and we've had so much to catch up on that I decided I would make a list of the 20 things that they either wouldn't expect or should know has happened.

So this is a list of 20 things for my long lost friends! (Hi! long lost friends...it's good to have you back)

1. I homeschool all of my kids-all 5 of them! At times I've had all in public school, some at school, some at home, all at home. They are all home now! I have 4 girls and 1 boy, ages 13-3

2. All of my children were born at home-(it's a fascinating story-how that one started-ask one day and I'll tell you)

3. I ran a piano teaching studio when we lived in Georgia that at one point had 160 students/week. Now that's a lot of teaching.

4. I still compose music and have quite a portfolio. I even have most of it in sheet music form now.

5. I went 13 years being perfectly healthy (except for pregnancies-which were a nightmare-but the deliveries were sweet)

6. I'm not perfectly healthy anymore :[

7. We've lived one year in SLC, 8 yrs in Georgia and 9 yrs. in Seattle.

8. We moved to Seattle because it was the furthest we could drive from Georgia and it has the most beautiful flowers I've ever seen.

9. I love to read cookbooks

10. I'm currently the primary chorister

11. I have served as an early morning seminary teacher and in every presidency imaginable on both a ward level and a stake level.

12. For extra income that wouldn't take me from the home I've made and sold quilts, taught quilting classes, sold Stampin' Up!, taught piano and voice, professionally arranged music.

13. I rarely make breakfast. But on Easter Sunday, I go all out! The menu? Eggs Benedict with cheese sauce, fresh fruit, O.J. It's a tradition

14. Other family traditions? Christmas Eve I cook a traditional Scandinavian meal-red potatoes with parsley and butter, carrots, red cabbage with bacon and apples, swedish meatballs with lingonberries, courve sausage, and these little sausages that I don't know the name of but my Norwegian butcher does. Also, my kids get new PJ's every Christmas Eve! We read the Christmas story, sing alot and play chimes. We always spend this evening at home and typically invite 1 or 2 families to join us.

15. My family loves games. We love Five Crowns, Shanghai, Speed Scrabble, Scattergories, Golf-the card game. My children are ready to play at a moments notice. (I love puzzles!)

16. I wish I prayed more, used a softer voice more, attended the temple more, read the scriptures more, laughed more, composed more, had time with my husband more, more, more.

17. I'm not afraid to knock down walls, install and fix electrical, plumb a bathroom, install septic pumps, fix the wiring in a stove, paint, hammer, and find people who really know what they're doing to make sure I'm doing an okay job. I've learned almost everything via Google! and learned even more through trial and error.

18. My favorite hymns: How Firm a Foundation, Press Forward Saints-Ohh! they make me happy!
My favorite rocker is Rob Thomas-oh my word! I love him!!!

19. We've only had one major hospitilization with our children in all of these years. Our son Sam was in the hospital for several days and had emergency surgery for a life-threatening illness when he was 4. We feel very fortunate that he survived and came away whole.

20. Over the past 18 years Steve and I have had amazing experiences, brutally difficult experiences and 'we will never be able to survive this' experiences. We've experienced pure joy and happiness and struggled with seemingly simple problems and conflicts. We continue to sometimes trudge, mostly walk and occasionally run down this road of life and marriage. We are grateful to be together, that we have beautiful, healthy and bright children, that the gospel of Jesus Christ is in our lives, that we live in a place of our choosing and the list can go on and on. I am blessed!

Updates!

Okay, again my mom is being stubborn and is refusing to update! So, she asked me to do a quick overview for you guys! Here it goes!

-ALL 4 of us are homeschooling this year! Its been crazy around here!!!
-We went to the Puyallip fair and the Rodeo there! (TONS of fun!)
-My Aunt Rachel is Married! (my moms sister)
-Went on vacation for 3 weeks! (our longest vacation ever)
-Yellowstone
-Horsback Riding
-Montana
-Idaho
-Utah
-Computer Trouble:( (NOT good)

If you guys want more details, I post on my blog! The link is on the side bar!
Hopefully my mom will post soon!

What does 100 mean to me?

The number 100 is very interesting to me today. At times it represents how much weight I should probably lose. Other times it is the number I'm helping a child learn to count to-by ones, fives, tens etc. It seems to be the number of miles I drive in a day whenever I have the car. Today however it means something very different. It means heat, sweat, misery, longing for coolness and lots and lots of popsicles being eaten. Today the temperature where I live reached 101 degrees. This is a place where a hot day is considered 83 degrees. A heat wave is 3 days in the eighties. We have now had several days in a row feeling the agony of the upper 90's.

We do not have air conditioning. 90 % of the population here in Seattle does not have air conditioning. We have fans and really large windows that try to invite the sun in. Those windows are very good at their job and so? It is hot! (we wanted another fan yesterday but everyone was sold out. We hit Costco at the right moment as a worker was carting out a dozen fans they had just found. We got one of those. )

To help combat the heat today, I woke up early and duct taped tarps to my windows to cover them. I'm now the house with bright blue tarps duct taped with turquoise tape to my windows. Sweet! I think it helped. We've been living downstairs because it is cooler and a dozen kids have been living in my pool. In a 15 hour period 48 popsicles and about 30 otter pops have been consumed. No real food has been eaten because it is just too hot! Dinner was watermelon, cantaloupe, strawberries and costco rolls.

Have I told you it's hot? It's suppose to be hotter tomorrow! Uugh!!!!!!!!

It Happened!

It happened! That moment that every parent dreads! The one where you think you know where your youngest is, but they aren't there. The one where every backyard is searched in the culdesac, a huge contingency of neighbors are searching, people are calling out her name, 911 is called, a description is given down to her shoes...that moment happened!

I can tell you this; you find out who your neighbors are and what a community can do quickly! You find out the kindness of 911 dispatchers and the gentleness of police officers! You realize that prayers are said desperately while standing in the middle of a road waiting for reports of roads searched. That for every second that passes, internal agitation and fear increase yet outward calmness seems to rule the hour.

It was a very long hour. The two little girls, ages 3 and 4 (the 3 yr. old being mine) told me that they were going to walk to the 4 yr olds house to see her bedroom. She lives very far away. I said no. They then told the 4 yr olds mother. She said no! They walked out the door and went anyways (no one knew they walked away). They crossed a busy road together-proud of themselves that they did it safely. They walked many blocks until the road came to an end. Then the 3 yr old knew she was lost. She began to cry. Someone called 911. The police were there in moments, the message was relayed to me -they were safe! A dad ran, a neighbor ran, 3 kids ran and bikes and vans from the search party converged on the place of safety- just to make sure it was true. I couldn't run. I stayed where I was planted-in the middle of the road desperately praying that it was them.

She safely came home to my arms. Many prayers were answered through the kindness of friends and strangers. I feel blessed!

I'm touched by those who offered up prayers in cars, on the sidewalks, while searching backyards. I'm even more touched that everyones concern was for the missing girls and not one comment was made to blame me for this difficult moment. Thank you for your kindness, true compassion and concern. I thank everyone who jumped in today to help. People are genuinely good!