Frank's Letter October 26, 2009

Read Frank's Letter here!

What been going on...

I've had a long couple of weeks that have gone by way too fast, if that's possible.

Part of it has been crap at the elementary school and high school. Part of it has been Primary. Most of it has been because I've been working and I've been sick. But I'm tired.

I subbed two days last week, teaching 9th grade English. It was fun. The kids are good and do what they're supposed to. I really enjoy doing it. Junior high is easy because it is a 45 minute class and then they're gone. I can manage a classroom for 45 minutes, no problem whatsoever. And N seemed to be okay with it (it wasn't her class). She would stop by between class and say hi. That makes me happy.

The downside is I got sick. I'm not sure what it was, but it wasn't fun. I was so tired and achy for a week. But I wasn't nauseous and didn't have a cough or sore throat. But I had a lot of junk in my lungs. After a few days, though, even that went away so I dodged a big one. I'd like to think it was my really good vitamins (Advocare!!!) and my voodoo doctor.

So the crap at the high school is the next easiest thing... We've had some pretty serious scandals lately. First there was the choir teacher who married an 18 year-old and was put on leave while the district investigates it. Then the principal was put on administrative leave while an audit was conducted. Both are still on leave. But it has been pretty disruptive to the school. I've said for years there was something hinky going on with the principal. And the choir teachers has been a thorn in many a student's side, although he's pretty loved by his students. Still, it is weird.

Then I got an e-mail with a link to a parent at my elementary school who wrote an article about homework in the local newspaper. The article itself wasn't that defamitory but it hurt the teacher's feeling pretty deeply, especially because she didn't talk to them about her concerns before taking it public. Then she posted some more about it on her blog which caused another firestorm of harsh criticism. She was feeling attacked and so were the teachers. And I felt caught in the middle, as a PTO president and as a parent. To make matters worse, it was the topic of conversation at the refreshment table at the stake Leadership meeting. She wasn't there (didn't feel like she could attend with all the controversy), but she had friends who were there. They reported that I was there in the gaggle of gossipers. I did hear the gossip but I walked away. I didn't stop it, I just walked away. But I still feel so guilty that I was a party to it and didn't stop it. What a lesson in standing for truth and righteousness. I failed.

The most stressful thing was Primary. We just had our RS and YW reorganized. This has left the rest of the ward (read Primary), in shambles. I was, at one point, functioning at 30% staff. They were holding off on callings while they made the changes in the other auxiliaries. When they finally made the changes, they took my two choristers. One they made my councilor (which was totally ok but left me without a chorister). They released my old councilor without telling her or me or the new councilor it had happened. So when the new councilor went to get the councilor's handbook, she was surprised. Talk about awkward. They released a teacher and didn't tell her, either. I feel responsible, but it wasn't my fault. Releasing people isn't my job. But I'm the one who feels guilty.

Anyway, coming up with names for callings is the most difficult, time-consuming part of my calling. I actually hate it. Passionately. And it is constant in Primary. I've never been 100% staffed. So they asked me for names for a chorister and I gave them two names. One had to say no for family reasons, the other had been requested by another organization. They asked me for more names. I told them there were no other names. The job is a hard one with a certain skill set, and not just "anyone" could do it. I told them I needed the one that had already been requested. After a bit of haggling back and forth they agreed to take it back to Bishopric meeting and council over it again. I heard on Sunday they are going to extend the chorister calling to this very "popular" sister. Now I can breath a sigh of relief because that is such a HUGE part of primary. If the chorister isn't a good one--and I don't even mean one who can sing, but rather one who loves the children and teaches the gospel and sings with them--then Primary doesn't work. I long for the days when my biggest concern was teacher appreciation gifts, not staffing.

So now I sit, listening to the rain today, watching the leaves fall from our Cottonwoods in the backyard. I feel like I can go on, at least one more day. I need to clean and do laundry today. And I probably should go to the grocery store (what's for dinner tonight?). I teach again this week (Thursday and Friday) so I have to get all my stuff done this first half of the week. Hmm... more to come.

Frank's Letter October 19, 2009

Read about it here!

Frank's Letter October 13, 2009

Read about Frank's mission here!

Frank's Letter October 5, 2009

Dear Marissa,
Thanks for writing me! where did your teacher go? Did you like it up in Logan?
Love,
Elder Robby

Dear Holly,
You have ballroom dance up at your school? That's way cool! I wish I had taken better care of my teeth, I'm going to have to have one of my teeth fixed out here it looks like. There's a dentist who gives missionaries a special deal though, so it shouldn't be too bad. Have fun at school!
Love,
Elder Robby

Dear Mom,
I don't know if I can keep up with writing so many people each week. It's a lot of time to take care of it all, and we're pretty strapped for time.
This week has been great. We don't have many investigators right now, but the 2 families we have are pretty good. We went with Carlos to 2 of the sessions of conference and a baptism for a little girl in the branch this weekend, and it just got me more excited for him. When it was all over he asked us, "so, in two more weeks that'll be me, right?" Yeah. So the 17th is his new date for it. He's really excited too.
We found another family who Nefi taught, the Moras. I didn't know he had worked with him. She is from near where tanner is going on his mission and I sent an explanation of their funny accent to dad, if he wants to hear a bit about it. We were over at the Mora home last Tuesday and they pulled out a photo album with a picture of him in it at her baptism. The Gomez family is good, but still struggling a bit.
As far as clothing goes I'm good. I've been through it all now and I'm pretty much set I think. If I need anything I'll tell you though.
Thanks for all the pictures by the way.
Just another 1-2 weeks on the package.
We got our call outs last night, I'll be staying here with Elder Fishback for another 6 weeks. I'm also staying District leader, but they've realigned the districts again so that I've now been district leader for every area in the mission except the zone leader area and had no duplicates besides the other spanish area. That's been interesting.
So, conference was awesome! It was pretty different from last time but it was of course amazing. There were so many things I learned from it all. And there are some events that inspire you to want to do all you can to be your best, that was definitely one of them. It was great for our branch too. Carlos got to hear the prophet, and told us afterward, "there's no way he can't be a prophet". That's one of those south american miracle stories that don't come around all too often up here, which makes them all the more worth working and praying for. He's just awesome.
It sounds like you had a pretty great excursion up to Logan. I had one up there to look at USU, it was 7 degrees and windy and they took us on a walking tour of campus. If not for the scholarships I would've stopped right there I think. I like the cold, but it was too much for every day for me then.
My leg is good. We played soccer earlier today, and it's a little sore now but it'll be alright. It's recovering well.
I'm about out of time, but I love you all.
Love,
Elder Rob Christensen

Subject: Dear Elder

Dear Rob,

Another crazy week...

Here's Marissa:
I miss you. School is great! how are you? I am good.My teacher is back. I was so happy!

Here's Holly:
Hey Robby! I have been so busy! I am taking Ballroom Dance classes in school and I am also doing Choir again. I have 5 minutes until I have yo go to school, and I have to brush my teeth. (Look at me, my dental hi gene!) I love you! I miss you! Goodbye!

Back to me... As you probably already read, Hillary spent Thursday up at USU, having a blast. She felt so grown up :) I'm hoping for an equally fun, liberating experience at BYU the end of the month, although I personally think USU is a good match for her. But Dad doesn't like the idea of you guys at different schools. I know she'll make it a matter of prayer and it will be all right, no matter what happens. We met Hillary and Teah up in Logan and spent a day driving around. We went to the cheese factory and got squeaky cheese and the Peperidge Farm store to get cheap goldfish. We swam at the hotel and checked out the Tabernacle and the temple and drove up Logan Canyon to see the fall leaves. It was a nice visit.

Wasn't conference great? I was trying to decide what was my favorite talk, but I didn't have one. I always love the way Elder Holland phrases his sentences so his stands out, besides it was such a moving message. And I loved the choir's O Divine Redeemer. Did you remember it was what Hillary and I played at your farewell? It will always be a moving piece for me.

How is it going with Carlos? Did you have to move his baptismal date? Do you have anyone else you are teaching? I did send Nefi an e-mail chewing him out for not writing and I told him to write the Gomez (was that it?) family. I hope he does it. I know he is busy with school and working multiple jobs, poor guy.

Anyway, I hear the weather is turning. Do you need sweaters or anything? I would love to hook you up that way.

I am going to send this while I get some pictures from our trip together. And I'll try to write more, but I don't want to miss you this morning! Last week was so fun, writing back and forth. But I don't want to chance missing you altogether!!!

Xoxo
Mom

What the Hail?

We had some wicked weather the last week. It finally got "cold" and we even had a bit of snow. Not enough to photograph, but still... It got the trees changing color. But this morning, just as the kids were going to leave for the bus stop, we got hit by a good hail storm. This was the beginning of it and it already covered the road. It is hard to tell, but off in the distance, just over the red fence of the neighbor's yard, you can see the one poor boy waiting for the bus...





Here is a close up of the hail on our front stoop. I should have taken something to reference the size, but they are pea to marble sized, which, for Utah is pretty good. We usually don't get blessed with hale that size. Now we are getting a bit of sun, finally.

Frank's Letter September 28, 2009

Dear Mom,
Well, I figure something came up yesterday and you didn't have time to write. That's ok, I know how busy things can get.
We had a pretty good week. It's been raining here a lot. Elder Fishback has been sick so we didn't get to work for a couple of days, but he's about over it enough to go out again at least. Carlos had an emergency come up so he had to go to North Carolina and it looks like we'll have to move his baptism back a week, but he's still doing great. We went with him and another member to listen to a fireside from Elder Robbins of the 70. He talked about the church's standards and how our goal is the temple and missions, and far from backpedaling like a lot of people his age would be expected to do, he just ate it up! He's a real awesome guy. Sometimes you find somebody and you just know they're ready, while there are others you worry about the whole way (a lot more at least) We found a few other people this week that were good. We got to give a guy the new Spanish Bible and teach him a little about the Restoration and he invited us to come back this Wednesday to talk to all his family and friends. That was a pretty neat experience. It's not every day they just come to you like that; usually we have to hunt them out from the rocks and the trees etc.
Missionary work has it's ups and downs; last week we had so many people at church and this week it dropped from 95 to 69. But the work goes forward.
The highlight of the week was definitely zone conference on Thursday. Elder Robbins taught us about how we should study and about the power of service in finding investigators. It was a huge blessing to have this spiritual giant come and teach us. Plus, Carlos got to meet a GA, that's a pretty neat experience!
Basically everything's going well. There's not a whole lot to report. The package is almost ready to be shipped off so I'll get it in the mail soon.
Love,
Elder Rob Christensen

Oven Roasted Tomatoes

This is the second piece I've written for my sister's amazing blog. Check it out if you haven't already...

I've been a busy kitchen maven the last few days. Not only was I gifted with two boxes of pears, I also got a bushel of corn on the cob (which we are giving away and eating--not canning!) AND three buckets of tomatoes.

Now, since I ran out of bottles to can a long time ago, and I steadfastly refuse to BUY canning bottles, I have resorted to other means of preserving this bounty. I ran across a recipe for oven roasted freezer tomato sauce in the Relish Magazine the other day that looked yummy so I tried it. And I loved it. But most importantly, my brood loved it. And since I have a large brood of 6 peeps (one who is now a rooster who has temporarily flown the coop and 5 chicks), I am all about making my brood happy. This recipe sends them in to convulsions of delirious joy. And since it is so easy, I am a happy hen, too.

So here it is... an alternative to bottling tomatoes!

First I wash the tomatoes. I was given an assortment of romas and other various varieties of tomatoes. Romas are good because they are meaty and less juicy so they make a good, thick sauce. But any variety of tomatoes will do. I often do it with the cup of grape tomatoes from the grocery store, too, and it works fabulously.



After the tomatoes are washed, I prepare the pan. I use olive oil, but any light oil will work. In the effort to keep things real and honest, I've used my ACTUAL cookie sheet. It is stained and dark in the corners. Now you know my secret. I don't have spotless cookie sheets. I hope it wont ruin our relationship forever!



Cut the stem end off the tomatoes (and any blemishes you wouldn't want to eat.) This is one of my brood who, thanks to her camera work today, has decided she wants to be a hand model.



Add a few cloves of garlic. I like a lot of garlic. I put in 5 cloves. Yumm. And it keeps the vampires away which is a good thing since Vampires are so last year. And I see a tomato that got through with a stem end still intact. I'll have to talk to my brood about quality control.



Put on the cookie sheet and drizzle then with a bit more olive oil.



Now is your chance to get creative. You can add basil, rosemary... whatever herbs you like. Or don't add any at all. It is up to you! And they don't have to be fresh. You can add dried herbs if that's what you've got. To make it even more easy, you can leave them out all together. Add them whole or chopped up, whichever you want. I put in whole basil and rosemary.



Sprinkle with salt and pepper. I use coarse kosher salt because it's trendy and makes me feel clever, something I'm not naturally.



Pop the pan in the oven, set to a blazing 450 degrees. Bake until the tomatoes are blackend (30 minutes or so, depending on the size and water content of the tomatoes you use). There will be a lot of clear tomato juice. I sometimes drain it off, and I sometimes keep it. It depends on my mood. If you keep it, your sauce will be runnier. And, conversely, if you drain it, your sauce will be meatier. Well, not really meatier, but thicker because you can't get meat from tomato plants. Yet.



Smash the roasted tomatoes with a potato masher. Or whatever else you have. I have sometimes let it cool and put it in a freezer baggie and squished it with my fingers, even. Do whatever makes you happy.



Now you can put it in the freezer or on pasta. I wish this were posted on blogsmell.com because it smells so good. It is sweet and hearty smelling. Oh man. My brood keeps hovering at this point. That's how I know when it is done.



Here it is on spaghetti noodles. Sometimes I add roasted veggies, like zucchinni or summer squash or peppers or eggplant or carrots or onions or all of them. That's just a bit of heaven, I have to say. All you need is a piece of crusty bread and a green salad...

Frank's Letter September 21, 2009

Read Frank's letter here!

Pear Butter

I got gifted with two boxes of RIPE pears on Sunday. I love these kinds of gifts. They're like getting a pregnant cat. They just keep on giving! It was a drive-by gifting. I luckily caught the gifter trying to leave them unannounced, but she still left them. How'd that happen? Anyway, I can't stand to waste anything so I made a plan! I have a very cute niece who made a bunch of pear butter earlier this year. After hearing her rave about them, I decided I had to give it a try. She was right... it is delicious.

So, I'm paying it forward and sharing the pear butter love.

Pear Butter
(BTW it comes from the Ball Bluebook for preserving foods.)

After I got through shaking at the thought of peeling and coring all those pears, I got down to business. First I washed all the pears...



You'll need about 20 medium pears. Mine were a bit small so I did a bit more. Peel the pears. I found a potato peeler works fabulously. I'm all about being fabulous. I peel towards me. It is a tested procedure that is faster and more efficient than the hacking that happens when you peel away from yourself. But that's a topic for another day's post.



Then cut the pear in half. It'll be slippery so hold on tight.



Then cut out the core. Pear coring is tedious so I turn on some sweet tunes and rock out while I do it. It goes faster that way.



Cut the pears into a heavy pan.



Add a half a cup of water. I used tap water because it was what I had the most of. You can use whatever water you have on hand. It makes no difference. Really. Also, temperature doesn't matter. I used hot water because I was bringing it all to a boil and it would speed things along a bit. But if all you have is cold or room temperature water, that would be okay, too. I like to obsess about the easy parts of a recipe. Can you tell? It shows my cooking insecurities. I am helping you out here so you wont have any of these insecurities like I do.



Simmer the pears until soft. Be sure to stir them often because they will scorch and that would be tragic.



Puree them, but be careful not over do it. You don't want them to liquify. I did this step with an immersion blender (also called a stick blender but I don't call them that because they are not used to blend sticks and it causes confusion among my very literal brood).



Measure out 2 quarts (it doesn't have to be exact). Add 4 cups of sugar and cook until the sugar dissolves.




Add ½ teaspoon of nutmeg. Don't be alarmed at the enormous size of this jar. I got it at Costco, on clearance, if you can believe it. Otherwise I would have never bought so much of something I use to little of. Because everyone knows old spices are no good!



And ⅓ cup orange juice. Don't you LOVE that my picture shows I didn't measure exactly? That means you have permission to not really measure exactly, too.



And 1 teaspoon of orange zest. Don't leave this out because it is the magical ingredient that helps the butter set up.



I tried to take a picture of me grating the zest off the orange, but I found I needed two hands to do that and that left no hands for taking the picture. Oh well. Those are the pitfalls of trying to photograph cooking steps while the brood is off to school. By the way, don't you just LOVE my cute heart-shaped measuring spoons? I do. It insures everything I make has an extra dose of love in it. It is what makes it so delicious.

Cook until the mixture is thick enough to mound on a spoon. I wondered what that meant, too, so here's a picture of what that looks like except it shouldn't be that dark. The lighting was bad when I took this particular shot. Anyway, that's what I'm telling everyone. It took about 1½ hours to achieve this level of moundedness. I think I just made up a word.



Be sure to stir this often or it will burn. I know this from personal experience. It is not pretty OR tasty.

Ladle the butter into hot, clean jars, leaving ¼ inch headspace. Damsel has discussed headspace before so I wont bore you with descriptions of that. I'll just give you a photo!





Put lids and screwbands on the jars and then it is time to process them! In a water bath canner, fill the canner to reach the necks of the jars. Bring the water to a boil then set the timer for 20 minutes (in Utah) or only 10 minutes if you live in the lowlands.



Sorry about the blurry picture. I didn't notice I focused on the handle of the pot rather than the jars like I meant to. It was hot and I clearly got overexcited.

I plan on giving these for Christmas gifts. If you are on my Christmas gift list, act surprised when I show up on your doorstep, okay? It is delicious on everything from toast to pancakes. But my favorite thing to put it on has been my finger.



Now... for your ease and comfort, here's the recipe straight up, without all my "helpful" pictures.

Pear Butter
from the Ball Bluebook for preserving foods.
6-7 lbs pears (20 medium pears)
4 cups sugar
1 teaspoon grated orange peel (do not skip this ingredient, it gives the recipe the pectin it needs to solidify)
1/2 teaspoon nutmeg
1/3 cup orange juice

Prepare Pulp: Wash pears. core, peel and slice pears. Combine pears and 1/2 cup water in a large saucepot. Simmer pears until pears are soft, stirring often. Puree careful not to liquify. Measure about 2 quarts.

Making butter: Combine pear pulp and sugar in a large saucepot stirring until sugar dissolves. Add remaining ingredients. Cook until thick enough to round up on a spoon. (this will take about an hour, the less it cooks the more runny the butter will be) As mixture thickens, stir frequently to prevent sticking. Ladle hot butter into hot jars, leaving 1/4 inch headspace. Remove air bubbles. Process 10 minutes in canner with lids. For here in Utah I processed them for 25 minutes.

Happy Birthday to my baby!

I can't believe how freakin' old I am getting. Really, really old. My baby is 9!

When I think what I was doing when she was born... trying to sell our house in TX and make the move (finally!) back home... I can't believe how much has happened and, especially, how quickly it happened.

I'm so in love with her, as I was the day she was born. She's a beautiful, talented, smart, sensitive, caring, witty girl. I am pleased and proud to be her mom.

Happy birthday, baby!

Frank's Letter September 14, 2009

Read Frank's latest letter here!

Here's a shout out about my favorite Blog

I am avant-guard... a trail blazer, of sorts... I am the harbinger of future coolness. If you follow my advice, you will be on the cutting edge of awesomeness. As proof, I offer this... I single-handedly launched the career of Stephanie Meyer. It is true. I personally exposed the entire northern half of Utah, as well as the Dallas/Fort Worth metropolitan area to a little old book called Twilight. I am expecting a check any day. I twittered before my kids. I facebooked and bittorrented--I INVENTED the internet.

I digress... what I came here to talk about is this really new cool blog I've been following. It is helpful and entertaining and educational and amusing So here's your chance to get in on it so you can say you were a fan before everyone else makes it trite. Learn how to make gravy, fix a hole in some jeans, make jam, can turkey... If it's old school, she'll show you how to do it.

Check it out... OLD SCHOOL

Frank's Letter 09/09/09

Dear Mom,
I'm down here a lot earlier than usual today, so I figure you haven't had time to write yet, and that's ok. We've had a real good week here. I think often you get trials to prepare you for the blessings ahead, because it's a lot harder to be faithful in times of prosperity than in times of trial. We definitely see that in the Book of Mormon. The work is going well, but we're not yet reaching the goals we were hoping for. I have been thinking a lot on patience, hope, and faith lately, on the difference between the two. I have faith that the Lord can bless us with the success we are working so hard for and hope that he will, but patience to accept that he may not yet. I'm looking and searching for how to understand exactly what it is I'm supposed to do in balancing all these things. I was a little wary to set the goals we did because they would be so difficult to reach, but they felt right when we did it. I guess the only thing to do is to keep going forward doing all that we can to reach them, having hope that we will reach them through the guidance of the Lord, and the patience to accept that we may not. It's still a difficult concept for me to grasp.

All of our progressing investigators from before have dropped off the face of the earth, but the Lord has blessed us with new ones that are coming along very nicely. We met a man last Thursday that came to church for the fast and testimony meeting and was quite impressed. We taught him again yesterday and felt the spirit was very strong. We're also working with a young Honduran named Carlos who has a huge desire to come to church. He's only been held back before by not coming to church, because he is in North Carolina most weekends to see his family and is only here during the week to work. We are working with him to get the missionaries involved down there and help him to go to church down there, but he is a great example of someone with a sincere desire to find the answers. On the converse, we talked with some Jehova's Witnesses yesterday who were just obstinate. They more or less flagged us down from their car and tried to bash us right there on the street corner. It was a reinforcement to me of how we have to teach the gospel. It is ABSOLUTELY NOT a matter of proving your point to someone by a methodical means. We can ONLY do it by the power of the spirit, or they will not feel edified, closer to God, or even pleasant. Past times I have wondered why people have no interest in the restored gospel after we share it with them. Now, reflecting on it, I realize that I haven't taught in the manner most accommodating for the spirit to really catch their interest. Of course there are people who are just plain not interested and stubborn, but I think a lot of it has to do with that. Being at the halfway mark in the same place I started has led me to a lot of reflection as to the areas I have improved and seen success, and where I can do more. Yesterday I had the opportunity to go on exchanges with one of our Zone Leaders and learned a lot from him. I also was teaching solo again because he doesn't speak any Spanish. It's a nice reassurance that I can do it, because my confidence in my Spanish had waned a little since I'd been with Elder Fishback, who has a lot of experience and very good Spanish, which makes mine pale in comparison.

Tomorrow I get to go on an exchange back up to Hampstead, my greenie area! I'll be getting to do a lot of exchanges this transfer, but the two up there are the ones I'm most excited about. We're set to have dinner up there with the first members I met there too! It'll be neat to get to revisit a lot of the old places.

Thank you so much for the package! It was great to get to hear from most of you. I hear from the girls so little, so packages are a real treat because they write. I'll be writing them back when I can, but it'll probably be a while because I won't have time today at least (we're going fishing with a member) and we can only write on preparation days. By the way, this is the last Wednesday preparation day. They will be on Mondays from hereon out, if I didn't mention that before.

Didn't you say that Cody was going to write me? That bum.

I love you all, hope everything is going well. Tell Hillary not to get overwhelmed by it all

Love, Elder Rob Christensen

Yeah! My computer's working again!

My computer is out of memory. Already. Bah. But I've fiddled and deleted and I'm able to post pictures again. Yippee.

Here's what I spent labor day doing... I have a very wonderful friend who used to live in my ward--who is my friend even though she knew me in high school--who is about to send a son on a mission (to Canada!). They went away for a long weekend to have one last "fling" before her son left, only to return to find her home completely flooded. A valve under an upstairs bathroom sink broke and water poured into their home for 3 days. They lost their ceiling and drywall in the basement, all their flooring except a few spots of tile, and all their bedrooms were soaked, as well as their home school area with all their books. They had to rip nearly everything out and deal with mildew. They are frantically trying to get their bedrooms liveable so they can move out of their family room where they are all sleeping now. Anyway, a farewell open house would be out of the question so I took the girls and went over to work on the yard so they could hold it outside. She has the most perfect garden that was overflowing with different varieties of zucchini and tomatoes and beans and eggplant and everything imagineable. But she doesn't have a kitchen right now to take care of it so I brought it home and processed it for her.

From the 8 GIGANTIC zucchinis, I made 40 baggies of grated zucchini (she adds it to hamburger or whatever she's making to add extra veggies to their diet) and 10 baggies of cooked zucchini and a couple of bags of roasted freezer maranara sauce. Yumm. It was a lot of work, but it felt good to give a hand where it was needed.

Frank's Letter September 4, 2009

Can you believe it is half over? Read all about Frank's mission experience this week!

Primary Quarterly Activity

We took the Primary children to the Church Museum of History and Art. I had done it with Primary kids a few years ago and it was wonderful so we were thrilled to be able to do it again. We met and carpooled everyone to SLC. Just so I remember in the future, walking kids across the street in SLC is like herding cats. They just wont go where you want them to go. And the stares... Drivers looked at us like we were polygamists!

We did a station where the missionaries talked about what was art and how to appreciate it.

Then the kids were ushered to another room where they learned about sculpting and were able to sculpt a bust. This is a cute little CTR 5 who was so proud of his sculpture. It looks just like him!

Lastly, we went to the basement where there was a stage where the kids were able to become part of a painting. It was good, but definitely too hard for the youngest children. And I don't like to be critical, but the missionaries were kind of harsh to the kids. Fortunately I don't think the kids noticed as much as the adults did.

(notice it is H wearing the beard)

After the museum we took the kids to the reflecting pond to take their picture in front of the temple.

It was a lovely day. Making it even better, I ran into Mom and elle_cosette coming out of the museum. What a small world!

Apricots

One of the things I did this summer was I canned apricots. I hadn't done them in years--since I did them with my mom when I was little enough that it was my job to put them in the narrow neck jars and turn them all face down so they nested perfectly on top of each other.

I have a love-hate relationship with apricots. They are yummy but not that useful. I get tired of them quickly. They aren't sweet enough for cobbler to anyone but me. They leave the worst mess on the lawn under the arpicot tree... But this year I got a bunch from miettemonster (thank you!) and I determined to be a dutiful Molly Mormon so I canned 14 bottles and did a bunch of apricot nectar, some apricot fruit leather and dried apricots. Delicious! And, apparently all for me because no one else likes them. Now all I need is come cottage cheese and I am 8 again!

Frank's Letter, August 26, 2009

Read all about it here!

Congratulations, Annie!

I am so excited for saginaw_annie ! She just got a letter in the mail informing her she had been selected to be a photographer for the TX section of the Ogden Standard Examiner. TX is the paper's section for high school journalists. She is a little nervous about it but it is a fantastic opportunity to get published! Whoo Hoo!

County Fair 2009

It's been a while since I posted, so I have a back log of stuff... so here's what we did this last month of summer!


The Davis County Fair was a blast. I took saginaw_annie , N and Scout on the first day because they were going to girl's camp. Since Annie had entered, she wanted to see if she placed. She entered three photographs. She got a second and a third and a fourth place. Huzzah, Annie! I entered three pictures, as well, but I didn't win anything. How humbling :) She wins everything she enters.

Then on Saturday Dilbert and I took M and H to see their entries. They both got blue ribbons for their sewing projects. Huzzah, M and H!




Then we went and saw the bunnies and the chickens and rode the ponies. Then... on to the critter tent. H is fearless and loved holding the snakes. M wouldn't go in the tent. Spiders... ick!
Ick.!


Lastly we visited the balloon clown. It was a lovely, mild day. Look at the gorgeous mountains behind them! I love living in Utah!

First Day of School 2009

Today is the first day of school so I am sitting here, enjoying the quiet but missing my kids. saginaw_annie and Scout started high school. Scout was pretty nervous about it but Annie will keep her heading down the right halls. N is in 8th grade and is nervous to try out for the volleyball team. H and M are excited for school. I'm so grateful that my kids like school.

I spent the morning writing e-mails to the English departments at the high school and junior high. I am hoping to do a bunch of subbing. I hope I don't regret this. I have loved being home for my kids and really appreciate Dilbert for making it possible. But I want to help with the family finances and I especially want to make enough money to take a trip to Madrid in January and DC in August. Well see. The beauty of subbing is I can always just say no.

Frank's Letter August 19, 2009

Read Frank's Letter here!

Frank's Letter August 12, 2009

Read Frank's Letter here!

Frank's Letter July 29, 2009

Read Frank's letter here!

Happy Birthday, Dilbert!

Happy Birthday to my wonderful husband. You're like a good piece of cheese. You get better every day.

I love you, I love you, I love YOU!