Good Memories

One Week To Go

In one week we will be starting out for Utah (well, a week and and two days). The drive is 2 days long, we have four kids, and we decided to do some weird health kick this summer that is suppose to exclude caffeine (let's hope we stay awake). Once we get there however we get to see this;


while watching these;



and eating stuff like this;



And just for Audrey here is a list of stuff I want to do - hopefully we can match up our schedules and do a lot of it together....

Thanksgiving Point
Hogle Zoo
lots of hiking and general running around in high altitudes
movie night with big bowls of popcorn
free concert at Brigham Young Park
Temple Square
camping
Liberty Park
making cookies or some other delicious treat
watching 'A Walk to Remember' or 'PS, I Love You'
taking pictures
Red Butte Gardens
Getting babysitters and then going out to some lavish dinner and an opera

Okay...some of this might not happen but hey, we can dream!

Finally, I figured out how to post youtube videos. So....here's Audrey singing The Star Spangled Banner. If you want to listen to the whole thing without it pausing then give it a minute to load and then drag it back to the beginning.

A New Haircut and Singing Videos

Sadie's New Haircut

We downloaded some videos of Eliora at her recital but Grandma wants the other kids too. So here it is....Sadie with twinkle, twinkle and Audrey with The Star Spangled Banner.

Something To Do - Photography Scavenger Hunt

Summer has started which means we are taking a break from homeschooling as much and inserting other activities as well (trying to keep the kids occupied while mom cleans out the junk that accumulated over another year). The other day I wrote out a couple of scavenger hunts for them but it turns out they are pretty fast when working together (the things they found were around the house, I wasn't sending them to the neighbors.) They love to play with the camera and I needed another half hour to tackle the fridge so they did a photography hunt instead. Here is the complete twenty pictures that occupied a good hour of their time.

Make a Smilebox slideshow

Sugar

My biggest vice is sugar. I get really cranky when I don't have a daily dose and actually go through withdrawals when I cut it out entirely. I have always heard how sugar increases the chance of diabetes, obesity, addiction, and the like but today I got this in an e-mail.

Most people do not realize this but excess sugar is considered one of the main causes of premature aging. The more sugar we eat, the more sugar we have entering our bloodstream. Over time, this can result in a process known as glycation, which is when a glucose (sugar) molecule damages a protein molecule by sticking to it. The new molecules formed are called advanced glycation end-products, or AGEs. AGEs damage collagen in skin, cartilage, and ligaments and promote a loss of elasticity. Wrinkles form and skin begins to sag.

What!?! Sugar causes wrinkles!! That's it, I'm done. No more sugar for me.

Dream Analysis - A Post From Syden that Made me Laugh

Tuesday, June 9, 2009

Dream analysis

As an insomniac I don't actually have a lot of dreams to speak of. So I have become somewhat of a dream analysis expert so that when I do dream I can know what their meaning is. At least that's the story I told my coworkers and even though they have been burned by me before and horribly ridiculed because of it, they actually believed me. They started emailing me their dreams so that I could analyze them. Here are some of my abbreviated answers. Seriously though people you are starting to make it to easy for me to mock you.

Alison wrote:
I had this dream the other night were I am in a car and it has no brakes and I am heading for this river and I just know I'm going to crash. What does it mean?

My reply:
Well Alison this dream is a pretty common one, though mine usually involves a firetruck and some garden gnomes but I digress. Dreams where you are out of control are common for women especially, your inadequacy at even the most basic driving skills make it hard for your brain to process all the data your tiny girl brain sees when you are driving like an insane postal worker right on the edge of sanity. You feel powerless to take control of your raging hormones and as such, suck at driving. I hope this helps Alison,
Syden

Gary Wrote:
Syden I have this dream every so often that I am in the hospital dying and no one comes to visit. It's so strange it always leaves me rattled the next day. What do you think it is?

My Reply:
Gary that's @#$%'ing weird seek help man.
Your weirded out friend,
Syden

Joel wrote:
Ok this is a strange one I had this dream that I kept eating glass and it was really good so I just kept eating all this broken glass but I could never get full. What do you suppose that means?

My Reply:
Joel, of course, the old glass eating dream. I think just about everyone has a dream about eating endless amounts of glass once and a while. No wait that's just you. This dream is defiantly trying to tell you something perhaps you feel left out that you never got that razor in your candy at Halloween by the psycho down the street that smelled like pee. After all everyone else got a razor in their candy apple why not you? Because Joel nobody likes you. This dream is your brains way of telling you that it doesn't even like you and maybe you should eat some glass to end it all. Or maybe you have discovered the newest trend like deep fried candy bars, maybe deep fried glass could be next, YOUR GONNA BE A MILLIONAIRE! But most likely its meaning is that you deeply envy me and my awesomnitude and have no way to express it so you tell me your dreams. Don't try and deny it Joel, I know you want to be like me. But unfortunately this can never be Joel because, well.... I'm a winner.
Your winner coworker,
Syden.
P.S. Don't kill yourself seriously that would be uncool

Cindy Wrote:
Syden I don't know if I buy into this whole dream analysis thing but here goes. I had a dream last week that my boyfriend was cheating on me and it felt so real that I was actually mad at him the next day until I realized it was all just a dream. I'm pretty sure I know what this means but go ahead have a crack at it.

My reply:
Cindy, yes it is pretty obvious but you wanted it analyzed so lol here it goes. You are obviously deeply attracted to me and have no way to show it so your very brain is telling you to get out of your terrible relationship. But dreams can have more than one meaning it could also mean that you need to buy a garden gnome to protect your hopes and dreams while you are sleeping. You could always get a dream catcher but they are a bitch to clean when they get full. So I recommend the gnome. Mine is for sale for only $200.00. He has a green hat and I call him Frank. He is mostly intact and the side of his face is badly burned from the cleansing ritual. But all in all he is a great defender of reality. I don't need him anymore because I got the enchanted apple of dreamlessness at the store so I wont be dreaming anymore. Hope this helps,
Syden

If you have a dream you need analyzed please leave a comment

Music

I have been trying to exercise more lately plus we are leaving in three weeks for Utah so I have been trying to get my house deep cleaned before we go. Of course this means I need some good music to get me up and motivated. I haven't listened to anything in a long while except Primary songs, classical, and Miss Stacy. Anyone have any really good suggestions? What are your favorite songs? So far I have got a lot of stuff from the Shrek movies (hey, they have good songs!), Staying Alive, I will survive, Respect, One Week by Bare Naked Ladies, Just a Girl byNo Doubt, Viva La Vida by Cold Play, Mr. Jones by Counting Crows, How's It Going Be byThird Eye Blind, Unwrittenby Bedingfield, and It's Not my Time byThree Doors Down. (Can you tell when I went to high school?) I think I need some that have a little more of a beat. Come on people....my house is at stake here!

Last night Eliora woke up saying she had a bad dream. Ben and I put her in our bed and told her to go back to sleep.
30 minutes later Audrey came down and said that she had woken up and got scared because Eliora wasn't in the room. (They are in bunk beds and Audrey is on top). We told her to go and climb in our bed too.
30 minutes later Sadie came down and said she couldn't sleep without her sisters and she wanted to know where they were.
We woke the other two up and put them all back to bed where they all fell right back to sleep after seeing that they were all there.
Heaven forbid if one of them ever goes to summer camp.

When it Rains it Pours

This week we have had to call the exterminator, the kitchen faucet leaks enough that I have had to turn the hot water off, the toilet seat upstairs is broken and can't be used, and the dryer has quit drying the clothes. Abbey has a cold (she is the worst sick kid I have ever had) which means she is up all night and crying most of the day plus my plans of weaning this week have been postponed. Sadie still isn't potty trained and carrot cake is ruining my start at eating healthier this summer. The lawn also needs to be mowed (seriously, again...didn't Ben just do it last week?) I haven't heard back from the publisher I e-mailed a month ago and the birds are eating my tomatoes from the garden while snails destroyed our chances at squash before I saved the plant. The registration and emissions and safety are overdue on both cars, the sky is light blue instead of deep blue, and our cat is missing. (Whew, I feel better)

On the upside, the rest of the garden is big and doing well. We have used fresh herbs and bell peppers for most of our meals lately. My new phone came in the mail and I got it up and working last night. The house is clean for once due to us taking a break from home school, the swimming pool opens next week, and the electricity bill came from this last month and was only 99 dollars (which is a pretty low for a hot month in Texas). The exterminator cost less than I thought he would, I found a new brand of mint tea that I really like, and the rest of the kids haven't gotten sick yet. The flowers are all blooming in our yard, the carrot cake really does taste good, and I actually kind of like mowing the lawn (weird, I know). All classes the girls were in are over for the summer which means I have had a little extra time and so have organized and gotten caught up on my coupons and saved a lot of money at the store yesterday and a fairly good amount last week. I got to go see the new Star Trek recently and I have a new favorite shirt.

And so you don't have to just hear me complain for this blog post, here are some pics and maybe a video of Eliora's voice recital (if I can figure out the video part). I love Eliora's attitude. The kid has no fear about performing for people. She is at that perfect age too where she still sounds like a little kid singing. We were so proud.

Eliora right before voice class. I seriously think the kid could model. Check out the 'look' and pose she has!

Sadie modeling the back of her hair. We all got dressed up for the special night.

Audrey, who is beautiful enough to model but would never pose for the camera.

Eliora's voice class and her awesome teacher.

The elusive 'Pat Gray'. A local celebrity who has his own radio show. His daughter is in Eliora's class and I think the possiblity of him being there was Ben's reward for sitting through a voice recital. I actually did not mean to take this shot. I was taking one of the general after party and he stepped in the way. He did apologize.