a general conference rundown

i hate traveling with small children. i really do. so when the spanish branch got all of the stake's tickets to general conference, i was cringing inside. i mean, think about it: a super fast weekend which includes A TON OF DRIVING, two small children, an hour time difference (which shouldn't matter but, oh, it so does), rushing back and forth between activities and four young men? i offered sweetly to stay home with the children but ryan said he wouldn't have fun if i didn't come, so i gave in. just look at the power that man has over me.

i'm glad i went although i am so exhausted i'm nearly delusional. i swear to you, seth asked me if he could please use my iphone to check his portfolio. and i said, "you have a portfolio?" and then he rolled his eyes and tapped his foot impatiently. and i'm glad anyway, even though i got nothing out of conference.

session 1. i can't really hear anything, even though the conference session is being broadcast on temple grounds. that's because seth is howling to get out of the stroller and azeem is making frog noises in his armpit, a talent which peaked in third grade and has rapidly declined in usefulness and entertainment value since then. still, he trucks on. also, kevin is busy yelling, "migra!" which means migration. everyone thinks this is funny. i admit, i laughed, but i don't think it was for the same reasons.

session 2. driving around like our hair is on fire, trying to pick up a pair of pants from michael, a shirt from henry and pollo's backpack. all because i thought my making them a list of what to pack beforehand was too much. well guess what? it wasn't.

session 3. crystal and regis' house. where ava cried, seth cried and i hovered over brand new baby evie and a pan of scrambled eggs. oh, and bacon, which i undercooked. note to self: don't arrange to listen to something with friends you love to talk to. it won't work. i didn't get much out of that session, but i did get to see crystal and regis. i also got to talk to abby, who helped me grate cheese. she has dimples and i am a sucker for dimples.

session 4. ryan has run around like his hair is on fire (again), trying to get tickets together and clothes together for a bunch of teenage boys that ditched us for the kid who brought his playstation 3 to utah. this involved kevin and pollo running around with tickets in their hands. i don't know if any racial slurs were delved at conference, but i wouldn't be surprised. this might be the most politically incorrect weekend i've had in my life.

highlights include:

arul, or "pollo" calling me "jefa" (boss) and using the word constantly. his pronunciation is quick and harsh. non-stop it was: "jefa!"

"que?"

"jefa!"

"que?"

"jefa!"

"QUE?"

"nada."

or how about putting pollo to bed? he wanted to be tucked in like a burrito, given milk and cookies, sung a song, told a story and given a goodnight kiss. oh yeah, and he was certain that azeem wanted all of those things, too. i looked over at azeem and he was shaking his head quickly.

my buddy christian who always answered my questions that started with, "como se dice. . .?"

my new mexican accent! being surrounded by so much mexican accent means that i started speaking with one too. i feel ridiculous. and oddly enough, so hard core.

being in the car with four mexican boys who thought the word "beaner" was a funny thing to shout at other mexicans that they didn't know. this horrified me, because once yelled the offended party turned around to look right at me. this, of course, was found to be HIL-arious.

visiting with my aunt emily, uncle rob and their children, which included my cousin cameron and his wife allison, who is due to have a baby in four weeks. and then, going down to southern utah to visit ryan's grandparents who really are some of the kindest people i know. grandpa was a little confused by the presence of the boys and, upon looking at them said, "they look hawaiian!" about fifteen minutes later, when hearing ryan speak spanish to them, grandpa asked, "you understand spanish?" the boys nodded and grandpa explained, "well i hardly understand that! do they speak much spanish in hawaii?"

yes, confusion abounded, but the phrase, "i love grandpa. he's funny." was heard in abundance. of course, grandma answered this with, "don't tell him that! his ego is through the roof!"

and it is. because this is the story we heard while we were there: grandma worked the ticket booth outside the movie theater and grandpa saw her there every time he went to a movie. he thought she was very pretty. so one night, when his mother was just about to leave for a movie, he told he, "take a good look at the girl in the ticket booth because one day she's going to be your daughter in law."

later, he went to a movie and afterward came out to see grandma sitting on the couch surrounded by a group of boys. one of which, a boy named sterling, was to take her home. as grandpa walked by he said to grandma, "i'll be back at ten to pick you up."

as he walked away, grandma asked, "do you think he means it?" sterling knew grandpa and gathered his coat, knowing that grandpa, indeed, did mean it.

this is when grandpa interjected with, "he left because he knew if he stuck around i'd beat the hell out of him."

so grandpa came back at ten, picked grandma up and took her out.

"where did you go?" i asked.

without blinking, grandpa said, "necking."

three weeks later, they were engaged. three weeks after that, they were married.

and you know what's lovely? they told that story together holding hands.

then we drove home. and ava and seth howled and the boys wrestled each other to death and anytime anyone fell asleep the other messed with him. they tickled his face, threw goldfish crackers down his throat or placed small toys over their eyes. i am so glad i will never be a boy. they are just so strange.

it's good to be home. it's good to know we survived the weekend. and oddly enough, after all of that, i look forward to seeing all those people again.

pictures to follow.

happy birthday james!

perhaps the "barack obama has a penis" was a bit much. i mean, the man is a our president. the last thing you want to do is focus on his, uh, unmentionables. and i have to admit, i felt slightly blasphemous when i wrote it. but really? how could i have left such a gem unsaid?

i hope i don't get too many weirdos on here now.

hmmm. . .

my mom is home from the hospital. and she's amazing! fabulous! fantastic even! the woman has more energy and enthusiasm in her left pinky than i do in my whole body. sunday night, while waving her arm around to show me that the IV is no longer there, she mentioned that james, youngest in our clan, is turning ten.

"and i want to make him a cake! but not just any cake! a mini hamburger and french fry cake that i saw on the bakerella blog! it'll be so cute! but i can't do it on my own! you need to help me!"

i think the enthusiasm stems from the fact that she's been so sick she's barely left her bed for the last few months, and her health before that wasn't much better. and it is so amazing to see things so much better (although exhausting). i mean yesterday, we went to target and she didn't even need a nap. you have no idea how amazing that is, so i'm going to repeat it in italics: she didn't even need a nap. and just the day before she'd been slaving over mini hamburgers and french fries. this is monumental. i went home exhausted.

"i don't think i can keep up with her," i told him. "she's got so much vigour!"

so monday morning ava, seth and i fetched the birthday boy's presents. then seth napped (it is exhausting to birthday present shop). then we went and got all the groceries. then seth and ava napped (again, exhausting). then we got to my parent's house where my mother had been working all day long on what i consider to be a birthday cake that is a bit too labor intensive for my taste. but how could i not enjoy myself while assembling little bags of sugar cookies sprinkled in sugar to ressamble french fries? we finished them just in time for me to snap a few pictures and for my brothers to descend on them with something that i can only compare to hun verocity.

before the carnage

they turned out insanely cute. As they should have. you don't dedicate an entire day with a perfectionist to have things turn out okay. at one point, i really had my doubts. and the nanny, eric (i affectionately refer to him as the "manny") almost lost his head when he took a moment too long to respond correctly to the question, "don't they look just like hamburger buns?"

i know that my project frenzied perfectionist of a mother sighed a great sigh of contentment when it was all over, but since i am neither project frenzied or a perfectionist i ended up feeling an odd sort of resentment towards those adorable little hamburgers and french fries. only a little. and i resented how fast they were eaten, too. but, watching james' face be so delighted with his special birthday dessert did a a good job of wiping up most of that resentment.


my poor children. this was their glimpse into everything they are going to miss out on because i am never going to do something so intricate like that again.


the finished project:

please note that the paper says "happy birthday james". no, not the paper holding the fries, the paper that rests between the mini-cupcake-burger and the mini burger basket.

afterwards ryan and i went to frozen yogurt with our friends tyson and heather (ava says tyson and feather. she loves them) and took the two remaining hamburgers and fries to them. if there was anyone who deserved miniature desserts in the form of a happy meal, it was those two. and their reactions wiped away the last of my resentment. i could never resent a dessert for long, anyway.

and in case you were wondering, this is what true mini-burger apprectiation looks like.

byu

they lost, but we got our faces painted.

sister.

this makes me happy.

preschooler ava and the zoo

we went to the zoo on a whim last saturday. i love doing things on a whim. and i love the zoo. unfortunately, doing things on a whim means bringing the wrong equipment or leaving important things at home. we accidentally grabbed preschooler ava and took her to the zoo instead of the much nicer and more enjoyable toddler ava. i'm rolling my eyeballs when i tell you she was a joy.

think i'm exaggerating? see for yourself:we figured out that getting ava's cooperation required the use of a magic phrase. the phrase: "let's go see the next animal." worked almost every time, except when she suddenly decided that she loved the lion and she only wanted to see him. upon finally seeing him, she attempted to scale the gate saying, "c'mere lion, i love you." (this didn't work, he did not come)

best moment of the day? obviously this one:
this is when we were watching the giraffes come right up to us and i was marveling at their grace and size and wondering how close they were going to come and why when i thought i would take a picture. i pulled out my camera, started snapping a few shots and thought to ask ava what she thought of the giraffes coming so close. i asked her. no answer. i looked down mid-snap and saw--

my daughter underneath the giraffe fence, just an inch away from clearing it. in my best shocked mommy voice i gasped, "ava!" and she quickly climbed back over to me.

"Mom," she said loudly and with indignation, "I want to pet the GIRAFFE!" then she wept. bitterly. for a very, very long time. and then ryan had to stop me from chucking her into the giraffe cage by physically restraining me because i had just about had it.

ah, family.

birthday weekend

first: i married a man worthy of a modeling career.
but that's not all. concerned about how we would spend my birthday, he did some research and decided that the santa monica pier would be a fun saturday activity. so we packed everyone up and headed down.

we went to the little aquarium they had. ava refused to touch a single item found in the "touch tanks" but she did wave at the crabs and then kiss the glass closest to them. and she was really excited about the sharks. but most of all, it was the jellyfish she loved.
then we rode the carousel. this was my favorite part because it was ava's favorite part. she was so delighted with the whole concept that i couldn't take my eyes off of her. she has me captivated. the first ride ended and she cried. it took both of us to get her off without too much of a scene.
seth stayed in his carrier the entire time. he is such a mobile baby! i love that about him. i fed him in the car when we got there and then in the car again before we left. other than that, he wasn't a problem.
it was a good trip. it's the first time we've done something fun since we started the whole moving process. it felt good. in fact, as i look at these pictures and write these words, i want to do something just for fun again.

i'm going to go eat leftover birthday cake instead.

in response to hernan's comment

funny story about finding out i was pregnant with seth. i went in to the bathroom on new year's day with a pregnancy test, took it, watched the little pink line appear and came out of the bathroom. ryan was sitting at the computer in the bedroom so i said, "dude, i'm pregnant."

it turns out ryan was really hernan, our friend who was staying with us for the holidays. he turned around and said, "WHAT???"

so yeah, with baby seth my husband was the second to know. the third person was whoever was on the phone with ryan at the time. i'm awfully good at spreading good news to the right people.

a family affair

james is the youngest child (not grandchild) in our family and he just turned a whopping 9-years-old, which is OLD! for the youngest child in our family. where are we all going? why must we grow so quickly?

james was my "buddy". my mom made a system where the three oldest children each had a buddy with the three youngest. that meant we buckled our buddy in to his car seat (or just made sure he got in to the car, if you were that sort of buddy), got him ready for church and kept an eye on him at home. i failed that part miserably. david and james were two years apart but alike in maturity and curiosity. they were Trouble. in fact, too many times in a row had they woken up strangely early and dumped raw eggs all over the carpet. my mom bought all the safety locks the child safety store had (which they broke, sometimes within minutes) and finally settled on a padlock and chain. it was so much work for the adults to get in to the fridge that we just didn't. we ate bread and water instead (and visitors in to our home found it odd as well).

and then there were all the rocks in the pool, the string cheese smeared all over the sliding glass door, the stolen candy that they later "found" outside in the backyard (and had no idea how it got there). . .

oh boys. now they just want to play computer games and shoot guns and it's a little sad to see them get so tall. and yet, it is such a relief to not have to wash an entire jar of peanut butter off of their bodies (and the dog).

happy birthday, jamos amos!

stud

see that guy on the right? he's ryan's brother and he's totally single. and way awesome. if the bachelor wasn't such an amazingly bad idea, i'd nominate him.

happy birthday to you, bid-air

in the middle, fourth child from my parent's clan

aaron turned 14 on saturday. i really like him. he's my brother, he's got these GORGEOUS blue eyes and this amazing rock star hair and these freckles. . .he's pretty cute. he used to walk around the house trying to keep his eyes open and shut all at the same time. this caused him to walk in to walls and doors and fall down stairs, but it was hilarious. also, amanda and i put him in more dresses than he'd care to have us admit (we had sort of wanted a sister).

sheesh, i love that kid.

a favorite aaron moment: he is told to set the table and sulks. my mother says, "if you don't set the table, you don't get to eat."

aaron sulks some more, then asks, "what are we having?"

mom says, "spaghetti."

aaron considers this and then says, "i'm not eating and i'm not setting the table." he's then sent to his room, where he goes willingly, and we continue with the evening (note: i probably had to set the table instead). at dinnertime though, aaron slinks back in to the dining room looking dejected, as if he was forgotten. as he lifts a limp hand toward the roll basket my father stops him, "aaron? no. you gave up your opportunity for dinner when you declined to set the table."

aaron acts shocked and betrayed, "what?" he gasps, reaching again toward the rolls (his favorite).

my dad shakes his head and gestures towards the bedrooms with his fork. "excuse yourself," he says.

i'm certain that aaron sputtered and my dad insisted. then aaron slunked into the hallway, shut the door and sat just on the other side, wailing pitifully. this went on for several minutes. until: "you guys," he sobbed. "i hope you know it's illegal to starve your child."

this happened last week (just kidding).

happy, happy birthday, bid-air. you saved my marriage.

ps there were other pictures to be posted. lots. and they were good. but i took them with my mom's camera and my stupid computer is SO STUPID and it won't read her memory card. i don't know why. maybe because it's old (or maybe because it's stupid). for details on my frustration, ask ryan.

a letter to a friend

dear sarah,

you THROW the clay on the wheel? and it just sticks? what happens if you don't throw hard enough or you have bad aim or you don't center it?

please tell me more about parkour.

the magazine is good. it's finished! i have a copy. you don't have to have a copy, but if you would like one, i'll grab one for you. i think they're fifteen dollars. you're such a supportive friend.

i've never read les mis, although i've started it a bajillion times. it's long. very long. and there are a lot of people involved. and their stores are told in full. and their stories are long. very long.

it's too bad you just discovered those bad-hair hippies. think of the time you'd save! and the money people would hand you in the street because you looked homeless.

ava and i went to the janss marketplace to splash in the fountain today. she didn't like the unpredictable water. so mostly we just watched. unfortunately, we chose a seat next to the speakers and now i may be slightly deaf in my right ear. this is a pity because i've always thought it to be my prettier ear (just kidding).

i have tomatoes growing!!! they are there, even if they're still small and very green. i have grown the beginnings of a tomato! i feel very proud of my tomato. i feel it may compensate for every other plant i have killed in my past. i keep meaning to go to osh and find some flowers or strawberries or some other plant because i have this large, flat-ish storage bin and lots of extra soil and room on my patio.

tell me more about one world. they sound wonderful. you're right: right up my ally. too bad they're in salt lake.

love you, too,
miriam