Taco Night at the Lydolphs

Last Sunday, we went over to Kirsten and Paul's house for tacos and football.  We had a good time, and the food was great, but the best times of all are listening to and watching little Tori.  She is such a hoot!  She is two years old, but is intellectually more on a three year old level.  Her vocab is astonishing and she has amazing recall of just about everything that anyone says around her.  For instance, at our house last Friday, she asked me "where's my Will?"  I told her that he was at a friend's house and would be home soon.  About 15 minutes later she heard Helena say "where's Will?" and Tori informed Helena that Will was "playing at his friend's house".  That's pretty amazing for a just turned two year old!

Anyways, that's what makes it so fun to Tori watch.  On Sunday night, she wanted to play with Will, so he spent a good chunk of the evening running/crawling around playing keep away with her.  When he finally let her catch him, she would land on him and hug him fiercely!  I overheard her quietly tell him "thank you, my Will" while she was hugging his head.

I think he'll make a great daddy, too.

I Have the Best Kids in the World

During Bill's birthday party that wasn't (see previous post), conversation at one point centered around how horribly behaved teen aged children can be.  I sat and listened to all the awful stuff my nieces and nephews have done behind their parents' backs (and even to their faces).  The longer I listened, the more I realized just what wonderful teen aged children I have!

My kids are certainly not perfect, I grant you.  And we don't always see eye to eye.  We've had our share of fights and grief.  However, I know they have never gotten into any of the trouble of the type I heard about last night.  And they are nearly always respectful, even when they are mad at me.  They are both still virgins (including 'virgin lips'), neither has a 'boyfriend'/'girlfriend', they don't smoke, drink, or do drugs.

In fact, my daughter just spent her Saturday night working on a physics project, playing with her old doll house (which we keep in the storage room for whenever Kirsten brings her two year old, Tori, over), and chatting with her good friend, Daniel, on the phone.  She will be 17 in one month.

I am very glad that her teen age years have been so full of fun and innocence.  I don't want her to have a boyfriend at all until she is at least in college.  Lots of guy friends, of course, but no boyfriends to confuse her and distract her from growing up gracefully.

My son still lets me hug and kiss him, even sometimes in public.  He'll let me hold his hand while I drive him to school and talk to him about his classes and grades.  He is willing to listen to me when I lecture.  He is happy, helpful, and kind.  He is 14 1/2.

My brother in law, Paul, thinks it is weird that a teen aged boy will show public affection for his mother, but I think Paul is too jaded and cynical and that it is a wonderful thing!  After all, when we tell our young women how to judge the character of the young men they meet, we tell them to watch how the young man treats his mother.  I think my son will make a very loving husband some day.

The Birthday Party That Wasn't

Bill turned 40 yesterday.

All week long I planned a surprise birthday party, inviting my siblings and their spouses and his siblings (at least the ones close in age to him) and their spouses to show up at my house between 7:30 and 8:00 pm while I had Bill out to dinner.  That way, we could have a surprise dessert party for him.  Helena had Megan come over to help cook the gluten free cookies, greet and help serve the guests.  Will had Dallan over to (supposedly) do the same.

At least, that's how it would have happened in theory.

Bill was supposed to get home from work at 6:00, giving him plenty of time to shower and clean up before heading out at 7:00.

Six o'clock came and went.  By 6:30, I started calling him, but every time I tried it just went to voice mail.  Later that night I found out that he had accidentally turned off his phone earlier in the day.  I kept trying until seven, when I called Steve (my brother in law and Bill's boss) to ask him if he had seen Bill.

He said, "Yeah, I'm lookin' at his butt right now."

I won't give you the blow by blow of that conversation, but I did point out to Steve that it was Bill's birthday and I had plans and company coming over.  I needed him to come home!  Steve said they had another hour of work to do. 

!!!!

People started arriving at 7:15.  There was nothing I could do.  I felt so dumb. 

I ended up just serving everyone soda and some cream puffs.  We sat around just chatting for TWO HOURS waiting for Bill to show up to his own party.

When I asked him why he didn't come home on time, he said he didn't know I had anything planned, there was a job to get done, and he knew we needed the money.  On his birthday.

I will never, EVER, plan a surprise party for him again.

Traffic

Today, after school, I needed to pick up Will from his school (since Helena is taking an ACT prep class after school and can't get him) then run some errands.  I teach in Saratoga Springs, which is two towns to the west of my home town of American Fork.  The errands were in Orem, 3 towns to the south of home.  My daily commute is about 20 minutes, each way.  That really isn't too bad, though, because I don't travel during peak rush hour traffic.  I am part time, so morning rush is over before I go, and I come home two hours before evening rush.

However, my errands into Orem left me trying to get home again during the evening rush.

UGH!!!

I love living in a vibrant and busy town, surrounded by bunches of other vibrant and busy towns, where everything I could possibly need or want is just minutes from home.  That kind of convenience is paid for with a price, though, and that price is horrible traffic!  It was so frustrating trying to get anywhere with all those other cars on the road, not to mention the 'blessed' drivers!  I have very little patience with slow drivers, or poor drivers, or anyone who isn't rock solid about what road they are on or where they are planning to go.  Sorry to all the little old blue haired ladies out there in their boat sized Buicks... get out of the way, granny! ;)

When I am driving, I have a constantly evolving 'Plan B' formulating in my head so that I can dodge obnoxious traffic jams with a split second decision.  Does everybody do that?  There is usually about a ga-jillion ways to get from point A to point B, and it is good to know all of them!  It probably doesn't save me any time, but it sure makes me feel better.

Of course, the real reason traffic is insane (besides too many people and too few lanes) is that I-15 is under construction all the way through Utah County, as is EVERY bridge/overpass/ramp on and off the darned freeway!  You might remember I told you about the Main Street interchange not that long ago.  Now, it is the 500 E interchange that is shut down and causing havoc with the commute.

So, to sum it up, I had a frustrating time trying to get around this evening, and I am very grateful that my normal commute is during non-peak times!

I wish I hadn't done it.

Today was the semi-annual dentist visit.  I am very grateful that my teacher benefits include good dental coverage, so my children have never been without dental care.  I have to brag a bit and tell you that neither Helena nor Will has ever had a cavity in their lives!  Not one!

Of course, that probably has more to do with inheriting their dad's diamond hard enamel than anything else... especially with Will's spotty dental hygiene habits.

Today's cleaning was just Will and me.  Helena had an ACT prep class, so I had to reschedule her for next Monday afternoon.

Anyways, we have a years old tradition.  Anyone who goes another 6 months without a cavity gets to go out to eat for their first post-cleaning meal.

Well, Will and I are both cavity free for another 6 months, so we went to Wendy's for an early dinner.

I wish I hadn't.

I calculated the calories of my meal in the restaurant, then decided to watch my calorie burn at the gym tonight to see if I could 'balance' it, so to speak.

Yeah.

Let me just say that the food I ate in that one meal constituted and entire day's worth of calories.  It tasted wonderful at the time, but sat like a brick of lead in my gut about 30 minutes after I ate it.  I wasn't feeling very motivated to go to the gym with that overstuffed feeling, but fortunately, Helena got me going.

So.  How did it go?  My one hour jog burned off the caloric equivalent of the burger and half the fries.  That left the calories from the other half of the fries, the soda, and the... *ahem* ...dessert.

Hmmm.

It would have taken two hours of solid jogging to break even from that meal!  I registered a caloric gain today, darn it!  I am trying to lose the fat, after all.

So, here's a thought.  Every time I want to eat decadently, I need to count the calories and calculate how long it would take to exercise enough to overcome those calories and still be burning fat.

Deal.

Parents just don't want kids to have fun, right?

Who knew that Mom and Dad went through agonies when they were raising us?

When I was little, Mom and Dad were the ultimate authorities on all adult knowledge.  I was sure they had all the answers to the secrets of the universe and the only reason they said "I don't know" was because they were too busy doing something else to bother with explaining deep stuff to me.

Actually, sometimes that was probably true.

Later, when I became a teenager, I was convinced that my parents were purposefully trying to hold me back and shut me in the proverbial tower to prevent me from having any fun whatsoever.  Mom was 'out of touch with the modern world', and Dad was a 'crank'.  I thought they were so wrapped up in my little brothers and sister that they didn't care if I had a social life or not.  They certainly never said they cared about it.  I wanted to go places and do things, but that cost money and would have required a parent who was willing to play chauffeur.  My parents were never willing to drive, and I never had any money.

Fast forward to today.

I try to be willing to drive my kids wherever they need/want to go.  I try to make sure they have a little pocket money, though I wish it was more.  I will be the first to admit that my kids are a little too spoiled.

Having said that, I still go through agonies of frustration when they don't live up to expectations.  Kids seem to think that we enjoy grounding them because then we don't have to pay allowances (we pay for grades) or drive them anywhere.  That is SO not true!  Every time they get grounded, I wish they weren't.  EVERY TIME.  When they have to miss a fun activity or get together with their friends, I feel bad.  I don't want them to miss out.

Now that I am on this side of the fence, I have come to realize that my parents probably felt the same.

Weird.

Fall Break

We just had a lovely four day weekend.  It was Fall Break.

Originally, we planned to go camping, but Bill couldn't get time off of work, so we stayed home.  That is actually quite alright with me.  I was feeling overwhelmed with trying to pack and organize in my after school hours, and then came down with a mild head cold on Wednesday morning.  I got home that afternoon and promptly went to bed for the rest of the day.

I woke up feeling fine on Thursday, though. 

I wish I could tell you all the exciting things we did during our time off our regular schedules, but really, we were a bunch of bums (with the exception of Bill, who worked).  We slept in, we ate whatever and whenever we wanted.  We watched movies and read books.  We stayed up shockingly late and slept in again.  I only officially 'got dressed' on Friday evening when I went out on my date night with Bill.  The rest of the extended week end was spent in exercise clothes because they are so dang comfy!

As you can imagine, the kids found it extremely difficult to get out of bed this morning.  They were both late for school.  Frustrating, because Helena is already in the doghouse with the school over tardies and has to attend 'tardy school' to get her grade back in one of her classes.  Harumph.

Guess we'll all be going to bed early tonight to try to get back on schedule.

BYU Concessions, Again

Today we worked in the concession stand again.  Bill wasn't able to come because he keeps hurting his shoulder that is trying to heal.

When I signed up to do this, I failed to realize that today's game was BYU's HOMECOMING GAME!

Ugh.

Don't get me wrong.  Rah, rah, rah, and all that.  But I definitely WOULD NOT have signed up to work in the concession stand if I had realized it would be the highest attended game of the year (barring the BYU/UTES game)!

However, it turned out to be just fine.  Everything ran much more smoothly than last time, and it seems like there was less of a mad rush at half time than at the last game.  It also helped that we decided to leave early.  We arrived early, after all,  Most of the boys didn't even show up until just before the game, so we decided that they could just stay and be the ones to clean up!  At the last game, they all took off and left just a few of us to do the clean up.

Class of 2012 Ring

Helena brought home the paperwork and order forms for her high school class ring.

Yes, it is still Jostens.  Remember them?

Yes, it is still EXPENSIVE!

Are we going to let her have a class ring?


Yes.

Here is her current favorite design...

I won't tell you how much it will cost, but we'll have to split the cost up over two or three payments to get it done.

Preference dress

Today I purchased Helena's preference dress from an online wholesaler, http://www.lightinthebox.com/.  I can't post a picture of it from the site, but if you click HERE, you will see which one we bought.  She chose to get in in dark navy, not the yellow you can see in the picture.  She is VERY EXCITED!

Parent/Teacher Conferences

I met with Helena's and Will's teachers a couple of weeks ago, at mid-term.  It seems like school just barely started and we are already looking at the end of term 1 in just a few weeks!

Both kids had mostly good reports from their teachers, with only one bad grade to deal with (Will!).  Every teacher said that my kids were nice, pleasant, attentive, and good.  The seminary teachers especially had wonderful things to say.  Helena's seminary teacher thought she was a senior because of her maturity level and participation in class (last year's teacher thought the same).  Will's seminary teacher told me that Will has been made the desk partner of a girl in class who is deaf, because he knew he could count on Will to be a kind and good helper to her.  In fact, Will recently asked me for a couple of dollars so he could buy a Milka candy bar for her.

Parent/teacher conferences for my school happened over the past two nights.  For the first time, I  was able to simply stay at the school, rather than hurrying home to be a mom before hurrying back.  In the past, I was needed to pick up from school, drop off at ballet/football/whatever, and then rush back, missing the PTA provided dinner.  Now, my kids are old enough to take care of themselves!  Helena can drive, and Will can ride his bike or walk on the days that Helena stays after school for ACT Prep class, preventing her from picking him up.

Dinner was pretty fun both nights.  The PTA provided soup and salad on Wednesday night, and deli sandwiches on Thursday night.  It is fun to get the entire faculty together for a meal, because you get a chance to chat with people who are not on your lunch rotation.

I decided to stay for the entire time on Wednesday night.  I don't have to.  I am a part time teacher, so I am only paid to stay at p/t conferences part time as well.  I had a pretty steady stream of parents come in, too.  When there weren't parents in my room, I spent my time reorganizing my files (which have gotten shockingly bad over the years).  The other specialty teachers told me they had very few parents come in.  In fact, the computer teacher didn't have a single visitor BOTH nights!  I am very glad the parents want to come in to see me!  Still, it made for a LONG day!  I was at work from 8:30 am to 8:00 pm.

Thursday night, I only stayed at p/t conferences until 6:30 because I had to stop at the store, pick up refreshments, and hurry home and get ready to host my book club at 8!  The book for this month was And Then There Were None, by Agatha Christie.  Each lady takes turn hosting and I had been scheduled to host in October.  It was just perverse luck that it fell on a p/t conference night.  I was pleased that most of the ladies came.  I think there were 13 of us there last night.  We spent about 45 minutes talking about the book, then another hour and 45 minutes just visiting.  The ladies finally left at 10:30!

I have to give a great big thank you to Bill and the kids for making sure the house was clean and ready for my book club!  It was so nice knowing I could count on them!

Now, for the oddities that happened behind the scenes...

Bill told me that Matt called on Wednesday night from an Anonymous listing and asked for Paul's phone number.

I need to back up and fill you in a bit about Matt.  He got married last February, on Valentines' Day.  He didn't bother telling anyone.  His mother found out at the same time we did, because he changed his Facebook status to 'married'.  When we called to get more info from him, he was very reticent to tell us anything about her, other than her name (Kimberlyse).  Other facts we were able to pry out of him are that she works as a physical therapist assistant, and she is older than him... but how much older, we don't know.  Angelina, Matt's sister through his mother, Michelle, is the one family member he is closest to.  She is under the impression that Matt's wife is closer to his parents' ages than his own!

Since his marriage, Matt has continued to isolate himself from all family by canceling his cell phone, Facebook, and MySpace accounts.

Now he calls using the 'Anonymous' code to prevent us from getting the number he is calling from.  And he wants Paul's number.  Paul is Kirsten's husband and he is a lawyer.

We don't know why.  There really is nothing we can do about it, too.  He is an adult and it is his right to shut himself off from his family if that is his choice.  Bill is really sad, though.  And his mom, Michelle, and I are very worried about him, too.

On Thursday evening, Helena called me during p/t conferences to tell me that our street was swarming with ambulance, police, and fire trucks, and that smoke was billowing out of a neighbor's back yard/house! She didn't know what to do and sounded really worried. I suggested that she let Will wander over there like he wanted to, because he'd find out the answers to what was going on. BTW, there was already a crowd of neighbors gathered on the street.

He did go over, but we never did find out what was going on. This particular neighbor is kind of an odd bird; hoarding junk and big HUGE containers of "bio-diesel" in his back yard. He has recently been seen hauling most of that away. We've speculated that either he's moving, been evicted, or was forced by the city to clean up the yard. At any rate, by the time I got home, the excitement was over.

Miscellaneous Ramblings

Next Thursday I am hosting the book club.  The book we will be reviewing is And Then There Were None, by Agatha Christie.  It's a good choice for October book club, I think.  Since I am hosting, that means I need to get my house all cleaned up and ready, so I spent part of today doing some of the more particular cleaning that never gets done on a regular basis.  You know, the dusting of the bookshelves, wiping down the blinds, cleaning off the front porch, and brillo scrubbing the stove burners.  You might wonder why in the world I would go to such trouble just for the book club, especially when we will be meeting in the family room, not the kitchen?

If you have to ask that question, you are not a housewife.  I am not about to let a dozen housewives from the neighborhood see dust on my shelves, grease and grime built up on the blinds, cobwebs on the porch, or blackened grease on my stove THANK YOU VERY MUCH!

In fact, I might just break the sabbath tomorrow by cleaning some more!

Change of subject...  Bill's niece, Shalecia, got married today.  We spent the afternoon at her reception.  This is one of those times when we were all thrilled to see her making the right choice and marrying the guy she has been living with.  They seemed like a very happy and very YOUNG couple.  Good grief!  She was only 6 or 7 years old when I got married!  She is at least as old as I was back then.  I truly did not realize how very young I was back then.

At any rate, there weren't very many people at the reception, and those there didn't stay for the whole thing.  Several in the Watson clan are notorious for dropping in for just a short moment and then hurrying on to something else.  I think it is because the family is bi-polar, so to speak.  One half of them can't stand and don't approve of the other half and hate to spend long periods of time in each other's company.

There is just reason for that.

Of those who did come, there were two distinct camps.  Those who dressed up and those who didn't.  About half of the guests (from both the bride's and the groom's family) wore the type of clothes you would traditionally expect to see people wearing to a wedding reception.  Bill, the kids, and I fell into this camp.  I figure if the bride is wearing a traditional gown, then that is the clue for the guests to dress more formally.

The other 'camp' were the non-traditionalists who wore jeans or shorts.  There were guests from both the bride's family and the groom's family doing this.  I guess they thought it would be fine since the reception was held in a park at the base of the canyon?  Actually, I don't know what they were thinking, I think it was tacky to not dress up!

And then there were the outliers.  There was one from each family, that I noticed.  There was a woman from the groom's family wearing a wife-beater tank top and frayed short-shorts on her more than ample body.  And then there was Craig.  He is one of Bill's brothers, and he represented the seedy side of the bride's family.  Not only was he in jeans... they were greasy work jeans!  He also had on a greased up cowboy shirt, and to complete the outfit, a greasy do-rag covering his hair!  UGH!!!  ARE YOU KIDDING ME?!?

We stayed long enough to see several people come and go, watch the cutting of the cake, forced Helena to go stand with the other single ladies for the throwing of the bouquet (which she was relieved NOT to catch), and watched the garter toss.  As we were leaving we noted that Craig was once again engaged in grand theft auto.  Or, at least, grand auto mischief.  He was hot wiring the groom's car so that whenever the brakes are engaged the horn will sound!  I say 'once again' because he was caught in the act of doing just that to Bill's truck all those years ago at our wedding open house (the reception was in Washington, the open house was in Utah).  What do you say to that?  'Think up something new, dummy?'  'You're not as funny as you think you are?'  'STOP MESSING WITH THE WIRING OF THE CAR, IDIOT!'

At least he's consistent.

I think the next niece to get married will be Kaitlin.  She's been dating the same guy for three years now.  That will be extra weird for me, since I was her sixth grade teacher!

GAH!  I am NOT getting old!

I refuse.