Art Appreciation

Kara, the kids and I went to the Phoenix Art museum two days ago. I love it there! The kids enjoyed the kids art area and some of the other art around the museum. Of course, they weren't as appreciative at standing and staring at pictures as Kara and I were. Kara took some time with Braden and pointed out all the colors found in paintings and talked to him about what he saw in the pictures, and that really helped him to want to look at them for a longer time. Up in the modern art wing, they have a permanent display called "You Who are being Obliterated by a Swarm of Fireflies". It is LCD lights hung on lines in a completely darkened and mirrored room. It gave the illusion that the space was infinite and that there were "fireflies" everywhere you turned. It was cool, and was definitely Braden's favorite. He also liked the giant cube made out of burnt pieces of wood hanging on fishing line. Jade's favorite was "the toys". Which I believe to mean the kids area where they could create art out of blocks. Anyway, we all had a great time, and Kara and I agreed that we'd need to go back without the kids sometime to truly enjoy all the beautiful things there. Hopefully the experience has planted a seed in them for a lifetime of art appreciation.Jade is examining the artwork.

Braden is building something amazing (you can tell by the tongue)!Kara is outside by a cool water fountain.I'm looking refined next to my cute kids.
I said, "everybody make a funny face."
Ironic, that's all Braden was doing before I said something.

The Mercury Game

The rumor is true, we went to a WNBA game last Friday, Phoenix Mercury vs Seattle Storm. Oh boy! Now, I have to be honest, when I heard that Spencer had acquired these tickets through the KTAR website, I actually laughed audibly at the prospect of watching a bunch or women play "professional" basketball together. I was excited about it, but more for the social aspect of it than to seriously get into the game. Not to be harsh on my sex, but come on... there are just certain muscles that are bigger and stronger on men than on women (try the entire upper body), and I thought for sure that this was going to be more like a comedy club than a sporting event. We had 4 tickets, so we invited my younger brother, Jacob and his date, Erica to come along with us. Jacob also works down town, so I picked up Erica and we met the boys and walked to U.S. Airways Center together. I have never seen so many butch women in my life. It was pretty disturbing when I couldn't tell if they were a man or women. But enough about that aspect... We had a fun time at the game. The company was great, and we all had fun laughing. The game play itself was pretty slow compared to men's basketball, but they had a few good plays. It was funny because they would do a play like what Steve Nash does EVERY time he runs the ball down the court, and the entire center would erupt in thunderous cheering. I found the comic irony in the situation and enjoyed it immensely. Another aspect of the entertainment that is worthy of mention is the entertainment during time-outs and half time. This is where I felt kinda bad for these women. Here they were trying their hardest to play and put on a good game, and then the producers scrape together anyone who is available to come on for the between time. It was like a joke. During one of the time-outs, they had this company set up two of their exercise machines, and the host, Weezy, had two audience members do a hip thrust competition on them... how many hip thrusts they could do in a minute or something. It was one of those moments that I felt embarrassment for another person. "Yeah, I did a hip thrust competition at a Mercury game. It was the coolest!" Scary. My favorite in between entertainment were the little kid dancers from Arizona Elite.They weren't professional, but the little preschool ones were so cute. Along with the tickets to the game, we all got free hot dogs and soda and the crowning jewel of the evening... a free Mercury T-shirt. Jacob and Spencer decided they would share it and wear it to their Tuesday night basketball games. Classy. So, after all was said and done, and despite the horrible hip-hop dancers and slow basketball, we all had a pretty good time at the Mercury game.

Diana Taurasi driving it to the hoop. She was the best player out there.

The hip-thrust competition is well under way.

The questionable mascot... Chucky Cheeses cousin that they don't mention perhaps?

Spencer, Erica, and Jake

Spencer and I are so full of laughs

California and All That it Entails

Another overdue blog by Crystal: I went to California last Monday with my mom and kids to San Diego, to visit the people and places I love. My amazing cousins, Jessa and Jamie just had their babies and the main reason for the visit was to see them and hang out with the new mamas. Their babies are absolutely perfect... cute little round heads, beautiful little lips, tiny hands each with 4 fingers and a thumb, that distinctive and delicious clean baby smell. It was awesome to see these new little lives and to see the wonderful mothers that my cousins are becoming. We also got to hang out with the other cousins, of course. Braden and Jade loved playing with Bryce and I enjoyed chillin' with Erin. Brian and Terri, Stephanie, Annie and Alex (and Bev, my practically adopted cousin) were also all there having fun with us. Day one we went to a barbecue arranged by Erin at a friends house. Good times. Day two we visited a very exciting splash park that the kids had a blast in. And Day three we found ourselves at Mission Beach splashing around in the waves and playing in the sand. We went home form there. The kids slept for almost half the way home which was nice. They were pretty cooperative for the whole trip. What can I say? They are just good kids most of the time. It was kind of funny. Whenever we would turn on my Kelly Sweet CD (provided by Jacob) the kids would fall asleep within two songs. It was pretty sweet (har har). Anyway, that was cheesy. The weather was beautiful for the whole trip. It was slightly cooler than my body, but not cold enough to require a jacket. I was expecting suffocating humidity, but I actually think it was less humid there than our lovely monsoon weather we were having here. Most of all I just loved being with my cousins and taking lots of pictures. I love California and all that it entails.

Baby Isabelle contemplating life

Baby Madeline peaceful in my moms arms

Terri and Brian

Auntie Stephanie with Isabelle

Erin and Annie. These girls are so fun!

Bryce and Braden hugging upon Bryce's arrival

Braden just got water dumped on his head. YIPEE

Jade at the splash park

My beautiful mother

Me holding baby Isabelle. She is so precious.

Jade, Braden and Bryce playing at Mission

Me and my cousin Erin. I love her so much!

I'm Not Broken

I went to Urgent Care yesterday, because my ankle is still swollen and tender from that fateful jog around the van on the way to Bryce Canyon. I wanted to get it X-rayed and make sure it wasn't broken and healing wrong (like Dad's). I went to a new Urgent Care, and I was the only person there. It was as lifeless as an old Arizona mining town... not at all what I expected. Yet, the doctor still took half an hour to see me. Whats the deal with that? Oh well... it is what it is. The good news is that I got a CD with the pictures of my bones (which is so fun to look at) and I'm not broken.

Great Uncles, Aunts, and Ants

This post is very long over due, so I'm going to combine two completely unrelated topics to save some time. Last Thursday, I had the opportunity of meeting and visiting with my great uncle Joe and great aunt Linda and their son (my moms cousin), Danny. It was so delightful. They are jovial people with big laughs, but also a sense of refinement. I instantly loved them, and so did the kids. I've never seen Jade so chummy with somebody new as quickly as she was with Aunt Linda. She was letting her hold her, talking with her, and sharing her toys. It was awesome. Of course, Braden was in both of their faces instantly upon meeting them to show them the toys or tell them about something he found to be interesting. Joe and Linda are from Georgia, but I'm not really sure where their accent is from. I can't exactly place it except to say that it is not from the West... definitely an Eastern sound. I loved listening to them talk and hearing each vowel just a little differently than I usually do. I wasn't able to stay very long because the kids had to get home and get to bed, but I really enjoyed every minute I was there.

When the kids and I got home, Spencer had gotten home from work and had started cleaning the kids room in preparation for them to go to bed. When we walked in the door, he said, "Don't let the kids go in their room. There are ants all over the place" I went in there and sure enough, they were all along the edge of the floor going into the bathroom, and also on the carpet under the kids table. I determined that the infestation was probably spurred by the fact that I had been doing a project on the kitchen table and had therefore fed the kids a snack on the table in their room. During the snack, Jade had chosen to smash all of her crackers with the base of her cup, and there were crumbs everywhere. I had vacuumed the floor,the table, the chairs, and Jades clothes and had wiped down the table and chairs with a rag, but I knew there were probably still some fragrant crumbs attracting the tiny terrors. Spencer vacuumed the ants that he could see, and I sprayed poison along the carpet near the bathroom . That seemed to put a stop to the problem and we saw no more ants, so we put the kids to bed. In the morning, after the kids had been up for an hour or so, Spencer found more ants. They were on Jades bed! AHH! We immediately washed her sheets and bedding, pulled out her bed and found a trail of ants along the baseboard on the North side of the rooms. I sprayed the poison along the baseboard. Spencer had to go to work, but on his way out, he found an ant hill right up against the side of the wall downstairs. He had me boil some water, and I poured it all over the hole. We haven't seen any more ants, and luckily the kids didn't get bitten, and it was isolated to that one room. Hopefully they don't come back. So, there you have it... my two completely unrelated stories of great uncles, aunts, and ants.

Bryce Canyon

Yesterday, I got back from Bryce Canyon Utah. I had gone with the Lilly family (minus Diana) for a Johnson family reunion (Tony Johnson being Lorens maternal Grandfather). It was quite fun. Instead of writing a very long post detailing the trip and all it's activities, I will state some notable happenings and then post pictures with explanations. Here are some things that happened on the trip:
I sprained my ankle after running around the car like a lunatic to stretch my sore back. My whole foot is still sore, stiff, and quite bruised. Just another of my brilliant moments. (*see my post "I Fall").

I walked on a mud bog. The lake had receded, and therefore only mud topped with a layer of dead water plants remained. It was fun and precarious to walk on.

I spent all sorts of time with my in-laws and loved it! They are so awesome and I can't imagine my life without them.

Braden found a dime and gave it to Grandma with the explanation that he was giving it to her so that she could buy a "really expensive thing".

I saw Bryce Canyon and marveled at it's beauty.

Kara and Justin won the three-legged race as they always do. I'm beginning to think they are unstoppable.

I took several hundred pictures (this is not an exaggeration) and felt like I didn't get enough.

Now here are some of those pictures from our very fun trip to Bryce Canyon:

Kara wrapping my ankle. She's so sweet.

Braden and I carefully walking in the mud bog.
Cameron stuck a stick in the mud. Braden stuck a stick in the mud
The boys are very muddy.
Braden and Jen from the Old West
Jade is painting a pig.
Jade is showing Daddy and Uncle Cameron her findings.
Spencer is shooting a marshmallow gun
Spencer is VERY happy to be shooting a marshmallow gun
I think this was the time that Cameron and Brandon shot each other at the same time thus eliminating each other from the game.
Boom Boom sticks.
Mike is cool.
We are posing for a picture at Bryce Canyon. In the background you can see many other people who speak many other languages.
Apparently it is tradition to make little stacks of rocks near the end of this particular trail. I didn't see it because of my ankle, but Spencer snapped this image.
Thumbs up to pinatas
Some people are born to win.
I was the driver for most of the trip. We borrowed Grandmas van which was very comfortable. I had not ever previously driven a van of any sort before, so it was an experience worth-a-having. Is it normal for mini-vans to have brakes with extremely slow response? I felt like to be safe I had to put a ginormous gap in front of me (even more of a gap than my typical "car length for every 10 MPH" gap). It was different.

Thank You

I was just thinking about something. People are constantly doing things for me and my family. We are continuously being blessed by others. We have never been without the necessities of life and that is only because others have loved and served us. Furthermore, we have scarcely been without many of our WANTS because of the generosity of others. I don't know how to account for it. I really don't deserve any of it. I am often a selfish person and I sometimes wonder, "would I do this for someone else in the same situation?" We owe so many people so much more than we could ever pay back. People have blessed us so tremendously, that I have begun to lose track of the tally I had going. I know that I can never re-pay everything that so many people have done for us, so I suppose the best thing I can do is to use their service as a great example to me and just give it back to somebody else when it is my turn. So thank you to everyone who has ever babysat, moved us, taken us on vacations, let us live in your home, given us things to ease our way, been a friend through hard times, forgave me when I spoke without thinking, loved me unconditionally, cleaned my stove for me, made something beautiful for my daughter, gave my kids your kid's clothes/ toys/ shoes when they outgrew them, taken family pictures for us, fed us, made us cookies, chatted with me when I was craving adult conversation, came to my child's birthday party when you could have been doing something way more fun, or in any other way taught me how to give without any thought of self. I love you, and I hope I will someday be that person for somebody too. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you.

Minority

Yipee! The car is fixed. I no longer feel imprisoned. Since I hadn't driven for several days, I felt OK about driving far for some shopping and fun. So, off to IKEA we went. I found bunches of stuff including fabric for my curtains. The kids and I ate lunch at their cafe after we were done shopping. Braden finished first, so I let him play in the kids area with the other children. After awhile I noticed that he stood out like an albino surrounded by highly pigmented people . I counted ten kids including himself. Of the ten, about 4 were asian, 2 were black, 3 were hispanic, and 1 was middle eastern or something. Because I find random hilarity in situations like this, I snapped a picture. My little blond haired, blue eyed boy surrounded by dark skinned, brown eyed, dark haired friends. The best part is that he was having a blast and was thinking nothing of it. Now he knows what it feels like to be a minority.