Attack of the Killer Birds

With summer comes "running season" for us. It's not that we particularly mind running in cold and snow (we've done it several times), but it has more to do with the dark. In the winter it gets dark before Clayton gets home from work, and I don't feel comfortable running in the dark by myself. I can't get myself up at 4:30 AM to run (it's also dark then, if you can believe it), and I also don't feel comfortable taking my kids in the jogging stroller when it's that cold. So, running is for summer.

On a related note (I'll tell you how it's related soon), Clayton is really scared of birds. On his mission, there was a particular part of Kansas that had terrible black birds that attacked people. He says they would circle really high in the air over your head and then take turns diving at you. One man apparently had deep scars on the top of his bald head from their sharp beaks. The birds were endangered, so no one could do anything about them. I've made fun of Clay about his fear for years. I've rented "The Birds" movie and made him watch it, and I've laughed when he ducks during a walk or something at the sound of a caw. He stopped running by the lake near our house, even though it is a BEAUTIFUL run, because he claimed to have been attacked by birds that are apparently nesting in a long row of bushes near the sidewalk.

I'm sure you know where this is going, but I'll continue. The other day, I was running by the lake. All of a sudden, I feel my ponytail swish to the side. "Could that have been a bird?" I thought to myself. Nah. A minute later, I heard a bird squawking and turned my head to the right. A large black bird with a blood-red beak and little red eyes was perched on a bush right next to me, seemingly looking and squawking right at me. The next thing I knew, it dove for my head, nearly knocking out my hair-band. Turning mid-air, it dove again for my head. Screaming and flailing my hands in the air, I took off in a sprint, even though I was dead-tired. No more attacks happened for the remaining mile and a half, but I jumped and swung my arms at every sound or movement.

Arriving home, I found Clayton and Luke waiting for me on the porch. Luke was cheering me on for my home-stretch, but I barely noticed as I told my story to Clayton, out-of-breath and rattled. Clayton smiled and said he got it; I didn't need to tease him anymore. "No," I insisted. "I'm telling you the truth. I was scared out of my mind, sure that I was going to be bleeding from gashes in my head!" He laughed, but then realized I was serious. "I tried to warn you," he said. "Those black birds are evil." You're tellin' me. I'm not sure I'll be able to run by the water anymore.

Last night, Luke woke up in the middle of the night, crying. I went in to see what was up, and he told me, in detail, about the nightmare he had just had. It was something about a black bird with a red beak hiding out in the garage and attacking him when he went in to get his bike. There were two dead people lying in the garage (I think this dream was a combination of the bird scare and Alma Chapter 49 that we'd read the night before). Then, he said the bird had flown into the house and was hiding in his room to get him. I felt so bad for the poor guy. Not only did he inherit my nightmares and night terrors, but I had told my attack story in front of him with real fear in my eyes. What kind of a mother am I? I've got to be REALLY careful about what I say in front of my little sponges. And, I need to be careful around those killer birds.

A Chocolate Party and the Beginning of Something Great

A couple of months ago, Clayton decided to start a tradition of reading a book to the kids at night before bed.  We've always read to them, but he wanted to start doing bigger books-- full-length classics and such.  To ease into it, he picked an illustrated version of Charlie and the Chocolate Factory as the first book.  The kids really liked it.  Well, Luke did.  Audrey is still a little young to have any idea of what's going on, but it was fun to see Luke beg to read another chapter every night.  This gave Clay something special to do with the kids, since he isn't home as much as he would like.  I usually sat in on the readings, too, being someone who never wants to be left out of anything.

After we finished the book, we thought it would be fun to celebrate with a Chocolate Party.  It was SO much fun, especially the planning and build-up to the actual event.  We picked out silly costumes, made treats, and rented the newer Johnny Depp movie version from the library.  The kids really liked seeing the characters they were already familiar with come to life on the t.v.  We ate square candies that "look round", edible wallpaper, chocolate bars that "shrank" after coming through the t.v., chewing gum, fizzy-lifting drinks, and a chocolate river (chocolate fondue).  

Here we have Grandpa Joe, a little Oompa-Loompa, Charlie, and Violet Beauregarde.  Don't mind Luke; he was having allergies or something.

Love the hair!

Hey!  You're blocking my view of the t.v.!

A chocolate-covered face on a dancing oompa-loompa.

I don't know if our subsequent books will lend themselves to such a fun after-party, but we had a fabulous time.  I think this is the beginning of something really great.

A Little Bit of an Update

Life is good.  Luckily we've been punctuating our not-so-good moments with trips to parks, the pool, the beach, etc.  I am really working on my patience right now, and it's been an up-hill battle, but something about being outside enjoying the nice weather seems to cheer me up.  

Audrey's mess-making capabilities have truly reached epic proportions, and we've almost banned cold cereal and watermelon from our house.  She LOVES taking care of her "babies," and we had to give the ones with the hardest body parts to the nursery at church because of all the bloody-noses she was giving herself at nap-time and bedtime.   I can only assume she was rolling over onto them or something; I'm not sure.  All I know is, the bloodiness has stopped, thank goodness.  She loves being outside, and we have to keep the doors locked so that she can't escape.  I'm just hoping she doesn't figure out the locks anytime soon.  I am having a really good time watching her grow and learn, doing girly stuff, but still being tough enough to hold her own against her older brother and her best bud, Jackson.  

I realized that I haven't been writing down Luke's funny sayings lately.  The only ones I can remember off the top of my head are:  (1) the dust in the air you see in a ray of sunlight he calls "sun-flakes" and (2) when I explained to him that Sally on the movie Cars was called a sports-car, he asked, "What sports does she play?"  Speaking of Cars, he loves that movie.  Luckily I like it a lot, too, because we watch it a lot.  A friend of his loaned him a Lightning McQueen racing car that revs its engine and says a few phrases, and I don't know how I'm going to get him to give it back.  He even got some Cars bed-sheets from a friend's garage sale, and you should see his excitement every time he jumps into bed.  He is a great helper, and he has an endless need to be busy (read: entertained).  Besides Cars, he also loves Legos and swimming at the pool.   Audrey and I will be shivering with blue-lips, and Luke will beg not to go home yet.  I'm having a hard time coming to grips with the fact that he's growing up, so I'm trying hard to enjoy the little moments while also trying to recognize and understand his growing and changing attitudes and needs.  You can be sure I'm going to be a blubbering baby when I send him off to school for the first time.  Luckily we still have a few years to prepare for that.

Clayton is studying hard, working hard, and sleeping hard.  Residency is passing like a dream, while the days often seem ridiculously long.  As I've pointed out many times, it's difficult for him to juggle all his responsibilities with his work-schedule, but I think he's doing a great job.  The kids adore him, and they jump up and down, screaming, whenever he comes home.  For that matter, so do I!  He scored really well on his Boards last month, so we were very proud of him for that.  It was fun to watch Roger Federer win the French Open today, as Clay and I have been Fed fans for a while.  Hopefully he and I will get to play tennis together again one of these days.

As for me, I'm just trying every day to better translate my love for my kids and husband into how I act.  My fuse has been short lately, and I'm trying to fix that.  I've been hanging out with my good friend, Arika, a lot, and our husbands are starting to make fun of us for being connected at the hip.  I'm just glad that I haven't run her off yet with my quick-fire tongue and grouchy moods.  I'm lucky to have a lot of good friends here, which makes being far from family so much easier.  I've been trying lots of new recipes, few of which are keepers, and I think it's fun to go to garage sales on Friday mornings.  

That's us, for now.  Life is good.

And So It Continues

I have a rather sad, embarrassing past as an adult in my church with preparing food for large groups of people.  It's been a struggle.  The first instance I can remember was about a year after Clay and I were married, and I got a surprise phone call from one of the youth in our ward asking me if I would be in charge of food for the Stake Youth Conference two weeks later.  It would be 4 meals for about 200 people.  I was floored, but I couldn't say no.  I'd been practically begging for something worthwhile to do (it was illegal for me to go to school, work, etc.), and this seemed to be the answer.  My good and patient friend, Ortensia, volunteered to do the shopping with me at Costco, and before I knew it, I was driving by myself to a remote location, three hours from home and at least an hour from civilization, with a lot of food in my little car.  I hardly knew any of the youth, none of the leaders, and I had no idea what was going to happen.  To cut to the end of this story, it turned into a pretty terrible disaster.  I hadn't purchased enough food (apparently the wilderness air was really increasing already healthy young appetites), and there were no stores to run to for backup.  I left in shame, wondering how I got roped into this last-minute task in the first place.  

Fast forward from here past a few other instances (in which I wasn't the top dog so things went alright or I didn't bear the brunt of responsibility) to last fall.  I made soup for 50 missionaries, which turned out to be a bit more work than I bargained for.  With dishes piled high in my kitchen, soup sloshed all over my trunk, one screaming kid attached to each leg, and a shocked Visiting Teacher who had come over for a quick visit but had stayed to help with dishes, it was something to remember.  It did turn out okay in the end, and there was enough food (yeah!), but it left another little scar etched into my book of "big food blunders."  Later, as the Branch Activities Committee Chair, the Christmas party took some work.  We did appetizers instead of a full meal, but it was still kind of crazy to warm everything up in our building's small oven in good time.  I should add here that a big part of my problem is trying to do everything myself.  I bought all the food, planned the activities and crafts, and tried to decorate and cook everything myself.  Silly, I know.  Luckily, my friend Tiffany really stepped up to bail me out.  Our branch is small with limited man-power, and I always feel like I'm going to overload people.  

Anyway, today we had a Branch breaking-the-fast potluck/celebration of our graduates.  I prepared the main dish (pulled-pork sandwiches), and purchased cakes.  You'd think this would be fine, since we were only expecting about 80 people, but it was A LOT of pork.  I gathered a pretty large crowd around my cart at Costco who were all asking what I was going to do with 7 8-pound pork loins.  After doing 8 Crock-pots worth of pulled pork the night before and almost gagging in the morning while inhaling the overwhelming pork smell, my blood pressure was rising during Sacrament Meeting when the pews were jammed full with more people coming in.  Clayton looked over and mouthed, "Will we have enough food?"  I was really worried, but there was nothing to do about it then.  Memories of the Youth Conference fiasco flashed through my mind.  It was ridiculous.  We had over twice as much pork as we needed, and I watched our budget being haphazardly doled out to unenthusiastic members after the potluck because I had grossly overestimated how much everyone would eat.  I guess I just don't have the gift.  Either I will need many more of these failures under my belt to figure it out, or I'm doomed to food failure.  Oh well.  I guess it's better to have too much than too little.

Fourth of July pancake breakfast, here I come.

My First Real Race!

It's kind of funny that I trained all last summer to run a 5K, but I never entered an actual race.  Then, this year, I enter one at the beginning of the summer after hardly running at all.  Anyway, I entered the racing world with a bang, as I picked one of the biggest races in the city:  the Susan G. Komen Race For The Cure.  It was pretty crazy, with over 10,000 racers and 30,000 participants altogether.  It was kind of fun and emotive to do it with a few ladies from the Mom's Club, especially since one of our own was recently diagnosed with aggressive breast cancer.  So many people were there in behalf of or celebrating a loved one.  It certainly wasn't ideal for posting a great time, as  there was a lot of dodging through massive groups of people while trying not to take out the bands and cheerleaders lining both sides of the route.  But, it was really, really exciting.  It was especially fun for me that Clay and the kids came to cheer me on.  Clayton loves running a lot more than I do, and he has been my number one fan over the past two years as I've tried to become somewhat of a runner.  The pictures we got are terrible, but I'm glad to say that I've done a 5K, and it won't be my last.  I'm sure I can beat 28:52 next time!  Oh boy, it's kind of embarrassing that I just put my time.

Wow, don't I look great right after finishing! Haha.