Bryce Museum and Duck Creek Pond

The Bryce Museum is not what it seems. From the road it looks like a giant warehouse--inside it's a world class wildlife museum that rivals some of the best we've seen. The kids loved the African room, I was impressed with the exquisite butterfly collection, and we spent hours out back feeding the deer and chickens. AAA calls it, "a must see." We're concur.

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The kids love to hear about Nate's "Huck Finn" childhood. Like when he piled up garter snakes and threw them down the path at his sisters to keep them from walking home from school. Or the time his cousin dared him to swim in a near-frozen lake for five minutes in exchange for an ice cream cone. Despite his descriptions of the biting cold, the kids have long been sure that given the chance they'd prove to be just as tough as Dad.  

After our trip to the museum, Asher and I hung out at the cabin while Nate took the girls exploring. Destination: Duck Creek Pond. They didn't dunk themselves in the glacial water like their old man, but both waded in a bit and swear they had a great time

Red Canyon

Another red rock favorite! The Pink Ledges Trail is a short 3/4 mile hike just off the highway. We'd only planned a quick stop, but spent the whole day playing Hide-N-Seek among the sweet-smelling Ponderosas.

 Spotted! Can't lose with a little camouflage.

Bryce Canyon National Park

Bryce Canyon is calling to me

This land of mystery

The valley of hoodoos and warriors of stone

Creation and nature set free

I sang those words at the 1996 Utah Sesquicentennial Celebration but hadn't actually been to Bryce Canyon until this week. It is truly the most beautiful place I've ever seen. Add it to your bucket list! As a non-photographer I simply could not do the landscape justice.

For pictures of the park, head to Google. For pictures of my people, carry on.

 

Zion National Park

 

We got there. We walked around. We dug it.

Ven. Vedi. Vici.

You know. 

Greetings from Base Camp

We're in Utah. Surprise! The kids and I returned to the states in early January after Asher became ill in Korea. He was immediately diagnosed with Lyme disease (say what?!) and is responding extraordinarily well to treatment--a triple-antibiotic cocktail and a daily dose of hefty vitamins and probiotics. Nate will be in Seoul another few months, but flew in this week to join us for some much needed family R&R.

A friend tipped us off to vrbo.com (vacation rentals by owner) and we found a great little condo in Duck Creek, a couple-cabins town tucked away deep in the high desert. After only a  few days of red rock dust and Nate by my side, I feel good as new. So great, in fact, I thought I'd take a minute to rejuvenate the ol' blog. "[We're] not dead yet!"

We'd planned to visit nearby Zion and Bryce Canyon National Parks--where weather was predicted to be hot and sunny. We neglected to check temps in Duck Creek itself however, and packed only t-shirts and warm-weather hiking gear. Imagine our surprise when we pulled up to the condo and found the place covered in nearly three feet of snow!

Luckily, we came loaded with plenty of firewood and S'mores supplies. The advertised fire pit is buried in ice, but Nate got a roaring fire going in the driveway and our "winter camping" adventure turned into an unexpected bonus!

 

 

Merry Christmas and Happy Everything,

Nate, Erin, Jensie, Asher, & Frances

This One is Six

Celebrating at school with her best friend Chanel. Thanks for the party goods Grandi!

One gets all the weird stuff, the other has a flair for the dramatic, but this one, well, we never worry about this one. This birthday girl is sweeter than sugar. She is independent and quiet and self-assured and always happy. A friend told me, "I need a Frankie in my life." Everyone without a Frances Amelia is really missing out.

Frankie likes to chop veggies and surprise salad is her breakfast-in-bed specialty. A real serial artist, Little Miss cranks out hundreds of drawings a day--most of them identical. She has recently started stapling them together and sells her "books" on our street corner. I think I am her only customer thus far. She took a bundle of her books to school and read them to the class for show and tell. When the teacher asked why she'd written so many books she replied, "To make money of course!"

She is a laundry pro. She enjoys it so much she tried to talk her friends into doing "all the laundry in the house" when they came to play.

She is generally agreeable and very obedient. We only ever argue about her hair. That mop is tangled, wild and out of control. I say we should wash and comb it now and then. She disagrees! But I can't get enough of those yellow curls--they get bouncier every year.

The first time I wised up and sent her to bed with "product" in her hair. She's using Curly Q's. Great stuff for kids.

Little Miss for Levi's. She's thought it was so fun to model with Jensie.

And now for the birthday quiz I mean to ask every year but always forget about...

1. What is your favorite color? Pink and purple and blue and yellow.

2. What is your favorite toy? My doggy named "Snowy"
3. What is your favorite fruit? Watermelon!
4. What is your favorite TV show? The Last Unicorn
5. What is your favorite thing to eat for lunch? Pizza
6. What is your favorite outfit? Skirt and a shirt
7. What is your favorite game? Mouse Trap
8. What is your favorite snack? Fruit snacks
9. What is your favorite animal? Hedgehogs
10. What is your favorite song? I am a Child of God
11. What is your favorite book? Pink Priscilla (Priscilla and the Pink Planet)
12. Who is your best friend? Ellena and Chanel and Maggie
13. What is your favorite cereal? The flake ones
14. What is your favorite thing to do outside? Ride my bike
15. What is your favorite drink? Ice-cream with soda
16. What is your favorite holiday? Christmas
17. What do you like to take to bed with you at night? My money
18. What is your favorite thing to eat for breakfast? Cereal
19. What do you want for dinner on your birthday? Ice-cream cake with the flower that explodes
20. What do you want to be when you grow up? A doctor

My Brown Eyed Girl (These Days)

This is probably the fourth time I've used that title on this blog. I just can't get enough of those chocolate lookers. When Jensie was an infant I brought her to UVSC to show her off to my favorite professor. He took one look at those eyes and said, "Boy, she'll break a lot of hearts with those brown beauties!" I'm afraid he was probably right. Sometimes I just can't believe what a gorgeous girl she's growing into. What really gets me though is how passionate and capable she's become. Sure she's pretty, but you should hear what she's got going on right now.

Miss J. for Levi's- at one of her last photo shoots. Jensie traded in her modeling career for a cute pixie cut.

Jensie is remarkably talented and so helpful around the house. The other day I was in the kitchen making dinner and Jensie walked in and started doing the dishes without being asked! Then she brought up something she'd seen in the news--suffering in North Korea--and we had a great discussion about politics, our own abundance and blessings, and ways to help others. It was one of the most amazing experiences I've had as a parent--such a neat glimpse of the woman Jensie will be someday. I have decided I can't wait for my kids to be teenagers. To have them express opinions in a mature and thoughtful way? Man.

Jensie's grown a lot this year and has really started to shine at school. She is the editor of the lower school newspaper (Dwight School is PK-12) and was thrilled to report that she beat out of a couple of older candidates because the faculty adviser felt she had the "best attitude for the job."

Left: "I can effect social change" self-portrait. The art teacher said they didn't have to draw accessories so Jensie omitted her glasses. She can't wait 'til she's old enough for contacts. Right: Jensie has been lucky to have Ms. Kremer teach her for two years in a row. That woman is a godsend. She knows just how to motivate our sweet and sour firstborn.

Fifth graders for change! Why talk about it when you can do it? Jensie asked parents to sign a petition against racist practices in Australia. Others encouraged boycotts and one classmate wrote to China's prime minister and president with ideas about improving their air quality.

 Last week, Nate and I were proud to attend her first "persuasive essay" presentation. Research on her topic, Racism in Australia, was completely self-driven. Without any help from her teacher or us, Jensie's speech was thoughtful, detailed, and articulate. The delivery was spot on and she closed by inviting the audience to "Have a nice racism-free day." Thanks, Jense, don't mind if we do.

Goodness the pre-tweens are fun. Jensie's still pragmatic about clothes and hair, but adores makeup and changes her nail polish nightly. She loved her Halloween eyeliner so much she now wants to be "goth." I'd worry, but last year one of my young women at church told me, "Goth is a fashion, emo is a state of mind." So that's cool. Jensie can wear dark makeup as long as her personality isn't dark to match. Not that there's much fear of that. While her ideas get bigger and better, she gets sweeter and sillier. The last time she brought home a scholastic book order she circled every book with the word "romance" in the description. She and her girlfriends giggle over Google chat when their homework is done, and Jensie says she'd like to meet her someday boyfriend while she's working at a cafe.

"Wouldn't that, like, be just, like, so romantic, mom?"

Yeah, Jense. Totally. Or as you say, totes.

Halloween '13

It's about time I started documenting this stuff again, right? 

Costumes this year were pretty low key. We waited 'til the night before to even think about them, so had to pull things from our usual wardrobes and the dress-up pile. Jensie was Thalia, Zeus' punk daughter, from the Percy Jackson books. We found an old jammie shirt and spiced it up with a bleach pen (thanks Design Mom)--orange "Camp Half-Blood" shirts are a big part of the P. J. series. Jensie did all of the work herself and it turned out so well. I'll have her model it again sometime because these are the only pictures I took all day.

I dashed Asher's dreams of being his favorite "Club Penguin" penguin and Frankie wanted to be a ghost. They were both disappointed when I insisted we work with what we had, but were pleased with the end results. Asher went as a skeleton pirate--the closest we could get to his second choice, Skeleton Barbosa from The Pirates of the Caribbean--and Frankie was Alice in Wonderland as "Mary Ann." She looked pretty darn cute in that little house, but the straps broke five seconds into the school costume parade. After that she was just plain Alice.


Some expat friends from school joined us for trunk-or-treating and sloppy joes. Their kids took home about 3/4 of all the candy, but my kids were so thrilled I didn't make them throw theirs all away outright that the night was a total win for everyone.

Reader Beware...

When I was seven, I watched the film adaptation of "The Yellow Wallpaper"-- a short story about a woman whose husband locks her in the attic of their summer home to keep her from her own big ideas. (Read it here... if you dare).

The woman goes mad and begins to see the eyes of someone trapped behind the wallpaper. Eventually, to free that person she tears the paper from the walls in harsh noisy shreds. The last scene leaves her crawling on all fours around and around the tattered room. Only, pan out to include her thoughts and she's crawling through the dead leaves of a forest floor, that attic hell already a memory off in the distance.

"The Yellow Wallpaper" haunted me for years. I spent the rest of my childhood sharing a bed with my sister(s) because I was too afraid to sleep alone.  

Fast forward to February 26, 2013. The following is an excerpt from my journal--I've been saving it for a spooky occasion.

Jensie was delirious tonight. She shouted my name again and again until I ran to her bed to comfort her.

She began sobbing, "It's itchy. I have to get her. I have to peel her skin off, it itches so bad. Over there, she itches. Look at the wall! Its skin is peeling. She itches so bad, I have to help her. I want to get up to help her."

Creepiest moment of my life.

Happy Halloween!

Bell's Palsy

So, there's one kid in every family who gets all the weird stuff: glasses, braces, cavities, lyme disease... In our family, Asher's that guy.

When he woke up this morning, half his face was "out."

I didn't notice until this afternoon and then I had to take a video and text it to Nate. "Is Asher's face weird or is this just in my head?"

 

 

Weird. Definitely weird. The entire left half of his face is paralyzed and the nice ER doc diagnosed him with Bell's Palsy. It should resolve itself in a couple of weeks so no biggie. Treatment includes some sort of steroid that greatly decreases the likelihood of permanent nerve damage (inflamed Cranial Nerve #7, I think they called it). For now, his left eye is our only concern. Because he can't blink it's already quite dry and beginning to hurt. We need to help him "blink" manually and apply ointment and drops several times a day. He also has to sleep with a patch but I think he's secretly thrilled about it.

 
Other than that we're all getting a kick out of watching him try to drink anything and his frowny face is my new fave.

Overheard: Probably Delicious

While walking past a sale display of "back to school" snacks at the commissary...

Frankie: Ooooh, Cheez-Its! Oh, they're so good!...

              I think....
             
              I don't know...

              I've never had them.

Guess I'm Doin' Something Right

Asher: Mom, you are 100 percent torture, zero percent fun.