The Annual Daddy-Daughter Date

This year's theme was Disco! They enjoyed pizza, salad and ice cream, watched a group of dancers do the Hustle, and then participated in a 70s-based relay race (complete with running to the other end of the gym in a disco move). Enjoy the pictures!

Shaking Hands with a New Technology

I'm not quite ready to embrace it since I don't know much about it, but my kids helped me set up my own Facebook page. You see, I've been trying to find a friend of mine, Greg Hoffman, for several years now. We'd been in touch, and then, as is typical, I lost his info and couldn't find it anywhere. A few weeks ago, Maggie helped me search Facebook "just in case." Unfortunately, his name was common enough and I didn't know where he was currently living that I couldn't sort through the hundreds of profiles and question every person. So I made my own page today, and within 15 minutes, had found him! A few minutes later, Greg jumped online and then we were on the phone chatting away for a half hour or so.

This was an interesting experience. As Ian told me that I needed to put on a picture, I was faced with my high school fears. What picture would I choose? Did the picture make me look fat? Would people from high school look at it and know who I was, and if they did, would they say, "Wow, she hasn't changed at all!" or would it be, "Wow, she's really let herself go!" And since I'm new at this and wasn't sure what I was doing when I was setting my profile up, I was clicking on CB West fellow classmates left and right, not realizing that I was asking them to accept me as a friend. I expressed concern to Ian "what if they don't want me to be their friend?" and "Did I do anything back then that might make it so they would never want to hear from me again?" I haven't had this sort of anxiety for over 20 years when I was, um, oh yeah, in high school!

Date Night

When I bought John his Christmas present from Sport Clips (a punch card for six deluxe haircuts), they included four tickets to our local NBA D-League, the Flash. Tonight was the game, so John and I decided to take the two boys with us.

I don't know what I don't think things through beforehand, but it was loud. And we had Griffin. He doesn't like loud noises--or not getting the things they throw into the crowd.

There was a remote controlled blimp that would periodically fly around the stadium and drop gift certificates to a local restaurant or tickets to future games. He loved seeing the blimp and was always upset that it didn't come close enough to us.

He also wanted to see the mascot. At one point he was so agitated and saying, "I just need to go out where things make sense!" that we left to walk around for a while. (The picture is John trying to explain the rules of the game to him.) While we were gone, he, of course, came up into our section. And we missed him.

Anyway, the highlight for him was probably the halftime show where a group from Bobby Lawrence Karate came and performed a Star Wars-based production with light sabers and karate/dance moves. He liked that, but not much more.

We finally left at the start of the fourth quarter. I had made no secret that I wasn't happy with his behavior through the night and that when he got home he could go right to bed. He was distraught and sure that I hated him. I told him that I didn't hate him, but was just a little upset with him. John and I decided to go downstairs and the girls informed me that he wanted them to stay in the room with him because he was so sad. They consoled him with some stuffed animals. When we finished playing Rock Band for a bit, we came upstairs to this sight:

SpongeBob should ward away all those nightmares. Pleasant dreams, ya'll!

Ellie's Science Fair Project

Today was the day! We have purchased more gum in the past month than you could ever believe and today was the science fair for the fifth and sixth graders. Here is her project:

We find out Monday how she did and what her grade was.

Professional Development Day

Maybe twice a year, our school district closes the schools to students on Monday so they can hold a "Professional Development Day." John's office celebrates by someone typically bringing in a cake with "Happy Professional Development Day" on it. I took advantage of the opportunity to develop my children professionally by taking them to the Draper Temple Open House. We started in a neighboring chapel with a 12-minute video about temples and this one in particular. (Griffin videotaped the whole thing on his Flip camera. I'm sparing you the results because through most of it he would say, "Earthquake!" and shake the camera around.) From there, we boarded a really nice bus which took us up the mountain to the temple site. (I figured the bus rides would be Griffin's favorite part.)

We unloaded and walked through the tented path into the temple. We got to go through the dressing rooms, baptismal font area, the bride's room, ordinance rooms, celestial room, and ended in a sealing room. There, they kids got to see the never-ending mirrors--which were his favorite part. Bruce Lindsay (a local news anchor) and his wife bore their testimonies of the temple and being sealed as a family. I gathered the kids around and we talked about what it would be like someday when they would be sealed to their spouse.

We were directed out into another tented area and led to the meetinghouse next door where there were refreshments, lovely displays, and lots of people to answer questions people had. We boarded another bus back to the church parking lot and then took off back for Orem. Ellie and Maggie had each brought a friend (Natasha and Anna) so we finished our trip with a visit to Cold Stone.

It's a lovely temple, but really, are there any that aren't? The girls commented that they now had something to look forward to. (Me, too, when one of my girls get sealed so we can visit the Bride's Dressing Room!) Griffin wants to get back to the room with the mirrors and to go in that teeny, tiny swimming pool (that is the baptismal font).

I love the temple. It's such a beautiful place of peace and refuge. I've had dream after dream where I spend my days quietly playing organ music in the chapel. I think fondly back on the time when my parents would go to the temple and come home (the next day) with temple cookies! I can't wait for the time when I can go on an extremely regular basis--in the middle of the day--and find that peace.

Another World Shattering Dream

This one had me waking up just laughing, and laughing through Sunday. It's a wild ride!

I think a combination of the many TV shows I watch combined into this bizarre dream. John and I look forward to watching "The Soup" every Friday night. For those of you unfamiliar with the show, Joel McHale and his crew show clips from realty and talk shows during the week. One of the trashiest shows on television is "Rock of Love" with Brett Michaels, lead singer of the 80's glam-band, Poison. It gathers together the skankiest group of women (think strippers, porn stars, pole dancers, etc.) to walk the face of the earth, all vying for Brett's affection. (I don't really know what the end prize is; remember, I honestly just see the clips on "The Soup.") There's also this new Joss Whedon show debuting on Fox this week called "The Dollhouse" where a select group of women have their personalities made to order and than erased after the client is through with them.

Here we go. My father (yes, you can start laughing now since he is a patriarch) thought that it would be perfect if he used the personality technology of "The Dollhouse" to give me the trashiest of trashy women personalities to win over Brett Michaels' love and win the grand prize (and I still don't know what that is). So I was transformed and became part of the new cast. When it was our "date night," I took the opportunity to give him a piece of my mind including the following:

• Yes, I had a past where I was a pole dancer (and could dance with the best of them) and could do all sorts of other things, but I had risen above that and knew my potential as a daughter of God.
• Didn't he understand what he was subjecting these women to? The quoting of The Family: A Proclamation to the World began where I made sure that he knew what my divine role on earth was, and his too!
• How could he subject the world to this level of trashiness?
• Etc., etc., etc.

My father, from his living room, was banging on the tv screen shouting, "What are you doing? You are ruining this for all of us? How can you say these things?" He ran down to the "studio," demanding a refund on my personality change and had to be restrained by security. I, however, turned around, and stomped off, leaving Mr. Michaels completely dumbfounded.

This was hilarious! It still makes me laugh just thinking about it. I can't wait for the next episode of "The Soup" to see what my dreams bring!

Super Bowl Sunday

A grand tradition in our family is gathering for food, football, and well, the commercials of Super Bowl Sunday. Ian mentioned to me early this afternoon that it just wouldn't be the same without Kim and the Clawsons to gather with. (He also said that New Years' Eve wasn't the same, either, and that these two occasions are his two favorite of the year because we spend time with family.)

So after church ended (at 4!) we rushed home (thank goodness for Tivo!) and John and the kids started helping with enough food to feed more than 6 of us! We set up a table downstairs so we could all watch together and no one (namely me!) would have to miss the game or commercials preparing food. We had:

7-layer dip
mango salsa
nachos
cheese and crackers
lil' smokies
artichoke dip
buffalo chicken dip
banana pudding with Nilla wafers

Did I mention there were only six of us and that at least one really doesn't eat much (although I'm sure the dogs would have been happy to chip in their appetites)? Needless to say, if anyone walks around this house hungry for the next few days, it would be their own fault as we have enough leftovers to feed an army.

It was a great game, keeping us captivated til the end. We enjoyed the game and the commercials, as well as the nourishment--especially after a long Fast Sunday. We just have one more Super Bowl to sit through without Kim's company, but know that she is in better hands than ours.

Thanks, Mom and Dad, for bringing me up so well. I don't know that many husbands have wives that make such a big deal out of Super Bowl Sunday for their families. (And by the way, this was the first football game I'd seen in HD. You could see nearly every pore and bead of sweat. It was spectacular!)