have you seen this child?

8 years old

brown hair

brown eyes

4 feet tall (and maybe a bit)

50 pounds (maybe a bit less)

last seen in church with his dad and 2 brothers.

uh, well, nevermind

because the whole doggy thing didn't work out. and not because the boys didn't want it to. no, they were pretty heart broken that mommy had allergies to poor lil' soda. it was a sad day at out house with lots of mourning. she was such a cute dog.

i think every experience is a good learning one. we know now we can't just go adopt a baby dog without checking it out first. no matter how cute and snuggly they are, they are not always harmless.

this is what we did....

she's cute huh? the boys fell in love with a 10 week old, deaf (for real) mostly white border collie. we've named her soda.

ever have one of these moments?

where do you something, sort of on impulse. you feel like it is the right thing to do for your family at the time. you justify it several different ways, each one more and more outlandish. then, you get home and think "what the hell did i just do?"

10 years ago...

on big d's birthday of that year, we got news that it was possible that big d could get a job with a dance company in new york city. not dancing of course, but doing what he does in theater. backstage stuff that i completely don't understand. it was an amazing opportunity for big d and being childless we thought it was a great idea. who doesn't want a trip to manhattan.

then big d left for a week. he went apartment hunting with his partner in all of this. the guy that got the other job. it was an amazing experience for big d i think, being without me, hunting for a place to live that didn't have too many roaches. amazingly enough, they found a two bedroom apartment way up on the northern tip of manhattan.

we didn't know if we were going to be back to utah. but to buy our first house, we did the "first time home buyer" thing. and one of the stipulations was "no renters". so we left it in the good hands of big d's and my family. who i think took great care in keeping it the party house. or make out house, or something like that.

i remember the feeling of looking at the nyc skyline after 2 days of driving. it was amazing. and then we totally drove into the city. all the way to the north end. on crazy one way streets. to our apartment building. when we got out of the elevator for the first time, i won't say i was disappointed. more overwhelmed by the smell of nyc. it stunk. but our apartment was clean...mostly. it had a weird showers and ancient tubs. it had bars on the windows and a tiny little kitchen. it had no form of ac. the coolest thing about it though, it was home. and it was in new york.

we spent the next couple of weeks just trying to get into the life of new yorkers. big d went to work via subway, i stayed home and tried to put a house together with a total stranger (the job partners wife) it was very awkward and very strange. it was uncomfortable. but it worked. we spend our evenings or mornings (depending on the day) wandering the city. sort of. we had to find places to shop, food to eat... that sort of thing.

we quickly realized that living that far north on the island put us in an ethnic neighborhood. and while we love different cultures, we were very lost in the dominican way of life. mostly it was the strange food. we never could find normal things at the grocery stores. just a whole lot of weird. expensive weird.

we watched kids play little league. we walked through the park. we sweltered in 90 degrees with 100 percent humidity. we had a blast. we were poor. really truly poor. between our house in utah, and our rent, we were pretty much normal new yorkers. we thrived on dollar store stuff. of which there were about a million dollar stores. we learned to eat soup. we went downtown and looked the shows, but never could afford the tickets.

we went to church in the basement of a girls school. we rode trains and buses. we didn't have a car. we shopped daily at the grocery store because we had to haul it home on foot.

it was hot and weird and nothing like utah. and then september came. and big d went on tour. and my sister came (who will always be the coolest person ever because she was the only person to visit us the entire time we lived there!). we did new york stuff. touristy crap that you only get to do once in a lifetime. big d came home and we learned that our neighbors were moving. and we totally snagged the one bedroom apartment. we moved into our own place in the same building. i would go downtown and just feel the energy. the countless people zooming by me, going to different places all at once. so many different cultures, so many different languages and stories all going on at the same time. it made me feel so small and yet a part of something so big. there was always a street vendor. there was always a nasty smell. there was always somebody doing something. there were car alarms and firetrucks and just noise. there were also boats and trains and airplanes and smog. there were so many people. and it was so lonely at the same time.

that was normal for a while. we were so poor, it was so hard. i can't remember having more fun though. i remember the day we realized we needed to go back to utah. it was a hard choice. we were torn between starting a family and fulfilling big d's dreams.

i still have moments when i am lost in new york. i think about how fun it was, how crazy we were. i get a little homesick for it. i often have dreams about living there. it was such an amazing experience. and it was something that cemented big d and i together. we learned to lean on each other. we learned what we could live without and what was most important. we learned to sacrifice for each other. we learned that our little family is what is the most important thing.

the weekend?

just for the record

even though i think i possibly one day could look like dara torres,
doing 80000 push ups in one day is not the way to do it.

i cannot swim even 1 meter, although i think if my parents had me in swim lessons, i would be winning a gold medal today.

gymnastics are better left to those who are properly trained. besides, nobody cares that i can do a half cartwheel. and my sommersault is definantly a 16 pointer.

running fast down my street doesn't mean i can understand what an 11 second 100 meter is.

as long as i eat ice cream while watching the olympics, i'm never going to look like i am an olympian. crap.

life with fussy....

what happens to fussy when mommy takes a shower late in the day. and big brother is playing gamecube. nobody to fuss too, nobody to play with. i guess it gets kind of boring. the only thing you can do is play with yourself...

school and stuff

big d did a blog about the first day of school, and the last day of summer. you should check it out. it has some funny pictures of the big boys on it.

while i can't believe my middle child is now a kindergartner, it is almost harder to believe that my oldest is in 3rd grade.

starting school is so much fun. and so very stressful. this year was no different, especially in the stress department. seeing that we had not had a proper vacation in well...ever, big d decided to throw caution to the wind. we left our house thursday morning and came home from yellowstone late saturday night. it was fun. there was a lot of driving. fussy still doesn't like his carseat. while i'd like to lie to you all and tell you he did wonderfully on the trip, the truth is he didn't. and we did the whole illegal child out of car seat thing a few times.

it was fun. we did end up with a mild case of hurling on friday night. poor harry had a sick stomach. i don't know if it was the motel room in west yellowstone, or if it was the late late dinner, or the fact that he had about a bag of peanut m&m's. whatever. but he clogged the already slow motel sink with aromatic chunks of puke. i'm lucky, big d cleaned it up.

besides the puking, we had the car windsheild get a chip, the camera died, our motel was pretty much the oldest thing i've ever seen. it was a great trip. big d stopped to take a lot of pictures. and by a lot, i mean over 300. so that little slide show is nothing compaired to what we have.

we came home from our trip, expecting to just relax and get the kids ready for school. while we were gone, we got a letter from the school. for harry. concerning 3rd grade. specifically his teacher. who up and got another job JUST BEFORE SCHOOL STARTED. leaving my kid without a teacher. the letter was letting us know this, and that the class would be taught by the principal and vice principal, until a real teacher could be found.

well, that just blew the wind right from our sails. not only had i talked up his teacher to be, but now i know that the kid is getting a crappy situation. i don't do well with that. so we worried all day on sunday.

when we finally get to school we find out that the principal and vice principal are working really super hard on making the transition easier for the kids. i also come to find out that third grade is when the kids start moving classrooms. so everytime he comes back on track, he's going to be in a new room. my poor kid who is so resistant to change! first a weird teaching situation, and then the knowledge that he won't have the same room all year. what a change from second grade this is going to be.

meanwhile, chilly is having the time of his life in kindergarten. and who wouldn't . it felt weird to be doing that again. it was incredibly boring to listen to the "this is what is going to happen" things. i guess by the time fussy's in kindy, we'll know everything we need to know about kindergarten. chilly's teacher seems nice. i just know he is going to be a handful. i feel pretty confident that this teacher will be able to handle it though.

it's been busy. between finally getting a vacation (our first family vacation that wasn't centered around a family reunion or big d's work) to starting school, to taking an interest in our family heritage....the kids have been so stinking busy. i will be happy for a routine again, but i am so sad that summer is gone for us.

happy birthday

to one of my very favorite-est bloggers/mofia ever. blackeyedsue. she is who i want to be when i grow up. better yet, she is probably one of the coolest people i ever met. and she has adorable kiddies. really cute kids that almost match up to my kids. if only i could work it out so her cute girls would marry my boys....back to the point, if you've got a minute, leave her a happy birthday note.

yellowstone

beach 2.0

on being mommy

being a mommy means that you get to see your kids doing things other people don't see. it means that while everyone else sees your kid as a handful, you can smile nicely, walk away, come home, and moments later catch this....