Cousins and Friends - July 2015

Now that I have a little more time, I thought I'd catch up on some blogging. Last July, my niece was baptized in New Mexico, so the kids and I took a road trip. It was great seeing my brother, sister-in-law, their three darling daughters and my parents. We went to Window Rock and visited the Navajo Nation Museum and Navajo Nation Zoo. I tried steamed corn for the first time. It was delicious :)

Michael and two of his cousins.

"Bob"

 

"Mo"

All the cousins. I love those smiles...

...and the bear faces. Notice the signs in the two pictures above? Yeah, well, somebody chose to ignore them and here...

...is the bear she PETTED. I am glad no one needed to have their fingers stitched back on.

On the way home, we saw a sign for a souvenir place where you could also feed the ostriches. The kids had SO MUCH FUN feeding the ostriches :)

 

I love this pictue of Gwen.

One of the other great things about this trip was getting to stay with and spend time with my BFF. 

Well, it is good to be back!

This is me looking relaxed. Heather took some pictures of me last Sunday because I went to the community college cosmetology school and had my hair bleached - just for fun :) The girl who did it was so nice. We ran out of time for her to style my hair, so she asked for pictures for her portfolio and I complied.

Coincidentally, the Sunday after I had my hair done, and the day I had a chance to take pictures, I was released as RS president, after four years, so that is why I looked so relaxed. It has been a tremendous blessing for our family and for me personally. I have learned so much and am really grateful for the chance I had to serve, and am also relieved to not have the responsibility. I always felt like I should have been doing more, because there is always so much I could have been doing! I am sure I will miss things about the calling, but am also excited for a new calling - coming soon!

So, I thought I'd start catch up on some things that we have been up to. Last month, I drove to Arizona for the wedding of my best friends' daughter, Magan. Here she is - isn't she lovely? She is a delightful person and a wonderful mother, just like her mother :)

It was a really beautiful wedding and I loved seeing so many people I love! It was also great meeting Magan's husband Nick. He's a great guy. Being the introvert that I am, I had to take a couple breaks and hide in the bathroom - so silly. I just needed quiet for 10 minutes or so and I was good to go. One of the times, I resorted to taking selfies and sending them to Stan, who I missed so much while I was gone.

On the way home, I stopped in Quartzite and saw this stuffed bear wearing an impressive squash blossom necklace. I bought stuff for the kids and Stan. It is always fun to bring tchotchkes back from trips.

This picture is out of order chronologically (we dyed eggs the Monday before Easter for an FHE activity), but it is a good reminder that I made it home in time to spend Easter with the family I love so much. These are my two favorites that I decorated. I might have pictures of everyone else's somewhere else, but this is what I had on my phone. The one egg was cracked, so I did faux kintsugi on it and wrote haiku with (mostly) walnut ink on another.

fine porcelain shell

white elliptical beauty

waiting for chroma

Some other things that happened in March, were, Stan going to Tehachapi for work and taking this picture...

...and me seeing this amazing sun pillar on the way home from dropping the kids off at BYD.

In April, Stan and I went to Catalina for an early anniversary trip, or maybe it will a pre-anniversary trip and we'll take another one in July when our 24th anniversary rolls around. It will depend on time and money, like so many other things do. We had a wonderful time, anyway, whether it was our official anniversary trip this year, or whether it was just a trip because we like each other. It was a "free" trip we got for listening to a time share thingamabob, but we did pay for the pain of dealing with the time share people in blood, sweat and almost tears. My they are persistent! We also shelled out for taxes, parking, food and a kayak rental, but all in all, it was totally worth it! We had a great time. One of the things we did was buy some fish food to feed the fish from the kayak, which didn't work too well, but we had great luck feeding the fish from the pier. I love these Garibaldis - they are so pretty!

We also saw a sheephead! I've never seen one before. Stan and I are like a couple of kids when we feed the fish :)

While we were there, I kept up on one of my New Year's resolutions. I am trying to make something everyday. It usually ends up being a drawing because I can be quick, but I've also included some baking, sewing, my favorite - bookbinding, and various other creative endeavors. One even included jelly beans. I haven't missed a day yet, but the quality varies wildly from day to day. I have been having fun! Here are the two I did on Catalina. If you want to see more, I have a blog for my daily makes, which I have been updating every month or so, or if you prefer instant gratification, I post my daily creation on Instagram every day under the name @budgiemakes

Finally, a couple pictures from today -

I found cookies in the back of our second freezer from Summer and Rachel's wedding shower (almost a year ago!) and so we ate them. Gwen made icing and they were delicious.

I snapped this darling picture of my five kids who are still at home hanging out together in the backyard after church. It makes my heart sing when I see my children being friends :)

Standoff in the Backyard

Super Saturday

Yesterday was SO MUCH FUN. We spent the day doing stuff as a family (78% of a family - we missed you Summer & Rachel!). It doesn't get much better than that (unless we are 100% percent anyway).

We started off at the Orange County Marble Show.

There were chances to learn from marble experts.

 And lots of opportunities to ooh and ah over cool marbles...

...like this one which was maybe 2 inches in diameter and had a city inside.

There were nifty wood things to display your marble collection on.

One nice guy told the kids that they could each pick out ten of these marbles for free - fun!

I took a while choosing some beautiful marbles made by the Santa-esque guy in the marble vest. He made all these at the Jabo plant. He told me you can rent the equipment and make your own marbles. When I bought ten of his marbles, he said, "Thank you for liking my art." I really liked that. I'll have to say that whenever someone buys a book from me (if I ever get around to selling them).

This was my favorite table. If I had money to burn, I would have had a bonfire right here! The guy takes credit cards because...

...he was selling all these gorgeous marbles from different artists. They were expensive. 

My favorite ones were the galaxy marbles like in the picture below. They were amazing! It was really like holding a little universe in your hand. Because you look through a convex surface, it looks so much bigger inside than you expect. I picked up my favorite and asked, "How much?" He nonchalantly said, "Oh, for that one, $5,000.00." Eek!

While the kids were waiting for me to make my final purchases, I let them mess around with my camera in the hall of the hotel. This was my favorite snapshot, by far.

We got back on the freeway and headed to the beach! Woohoo!

It was an unusual day at the beach. For one thing, we saw a sea lion swim up close where the people were swimming! By this photo, he (she?) was further away, but at one point, the sea lion was as close to the sand as where the water would come up to my torso. He (for the sake of simplicity) popped up and the woman swimming close to him yelled and ran for shore. The sea lion simultaneously yelped and dove in the opposite direction. I don't know who was more startled.

The other weird thing that happened was that Gwen was stung by a stingray! We have been going to that beach for decades and that has NEVER happened. She was in pain and bloody, so Stan and I went to ask the lifeguard what to do for her and he called another lifeguard who came and picked her up in a jeep. He took her back to the lifeguard station where they have buckets and hot water, just for stingray victims. Yeah, victims plural. There were four others when she got there and five new ones when she left. They just kept moving down the row as new victims arrived and chatted while they filled up with new hot water as the buckets cooled off. One of the lifeguards said there were more stings yesterday because the water was calmer than usual and stingrays like calm water. Chalk one up for rough surf, huh?

I didn't get a lot of pictures, but here is one of my boy at the beach. One of the best things about the beach was hanging out with the Pellegrinos :)

And, finally, some of the marbles I bought. The two dark ones are Stan's, the two small ones are vintage, the two marbles next to the biggest one were made by Santa Claus Man and the last one, the purple and green is a
Jabo Joker 3 Run.

New Pets (maybe) and Other Stuff

The kids have adopted a cat...maybe. The jury (Stan and I) is still out. They are having fun anyway while we decide (wear down most likely). We'll take it to the shelter tomorrow and see if it has a chip in it. They named it Griffin Blue. Even I have to admit it is a pretty cute cat.

Speaking of adopting pets, Kelly's 5th grade teacher retired in June and Kelly was able to take one of the class pets home, a Pacman frog. It was unimaginatively named...Pacman, so Kelly renamed it...

I fully expect my sister Sara to get the literary reference.

I've been meaning to post this from last May and am finally getting around to it. Michael took a fencing class and LOVED it. Here he is getting a point.

Finally, a picture of my bff Amanda who came to visit last week with some of her kids. As always, it was a joy to see her. Isn't her grandson a cutie?

 

So, here are the little bits and pieces I have to catch up on. I also have some longer posts to write about Sara's wedding, zoo and museum trips, hiking, camping and graduations. Any requests for which I do next?

Weekend in PA

Michael and I flew to Pennsylvania a few weeks ago to see my parents. I was talking to my mom about it and she said, "Why don't you come the weekend of the farm show"?

Wow, I'm glad we did!

First, I want to say, the whole weekend was wonderful. It is always great to spend time with my parents. I enjoy both of them so much. I wish I lived closer. It was also fun to see my sister, Sara, brothers Toby and Matt, sister-in-law Steph, Matt and Steph's three girls, Ruby, Coral and Opal, Sara's boyfriend Greg and my good friend Cathy, with her son Daniel. I was having so much fun eating good food (including Sara's chocolate birthday tower of delights that had a layer of brownie, layer of chocolate cheesecake, two layers of chocolate cake and chocolate frosting, all made by my dad), playing board games, touring the Herr's Potato chip factory, shopping and chatting that I didn't take any pictures, except at the farm show, so if it seems that is all I have to tell you about the weekend is farm stuff, it is because that is all the visuals I have to offer.

So, on to the 96th annual Pennsylvania Farm Show! Here's the blurb from their website - Pennsylvania is proud to host the largest indoor agricultural exposition in the country, with nearly 6,000 animals, 10,000 competitive exhibits and 300 commercial exhibits.

I got ready before we left home by painting my toes in John Deere colors :)

Coincidentally, here is the first exhibit we stopped at. Michael and my dad were both excited for the day.


Next we, went to the cow barn. The noise was deafening! There were some moos, lots of talking, footsteps, public announcement system fuzziness, but that didn't explain it.

I couldn't figure it out for a minute. There was along line for the cow showers (cow wash?), but that wasn't all of it.

Oh, that was it! Hundreds of cows getting BLOWN DRY all at once! They had to look pretty for the judging in a couple of hours :)

Or maybe they were looking pretty to attract potential customers...

I am always impressed with the longhorns.

Then, it was on to the pigs, sheep and goats. If I told you it was much quieter in this barn, you can get an idea of how noisy cow beauty parlors can be.

This pig was really enjoying the scratching.

Here is the grand prize winner.

My dad wanted to get there early so that we could park close and not have to take the shuttle from the far parking lot. We were there by about 7:30 and, even though we were inside, it was chilly when we got there. The goats and sheared sheep were all wearing jackets. I thought this one had a sweet face. He (she?) was probably thinking my camera strap looked liked breakfast.

There were fun chickens and...

...fat rabbits.

We watched chicks hatching...

...and ducklings being oppressed.



There was a high school and middle school rodeo. I couldn't believe the twelve year old 7th graders riding full sized bulls! I was too tense wondering if they would die a gory death to take pictures. All I got were the rodeo princesses at the start. I miss riding a horse that I know well and can appreciate. If I believed in reincarnation, I would want to come back as a rodeo princess.

It is a fuzzy picure, but look at all that glitter!

There were all kinds of competitions on display, including floral arrangements, mushroom dioramas...

...cookies, pies, cakes, honey...

...apples, vegetables, wine (we met the grape princess) maple syrup...

...and the famous butter sculpture!


Michael's favorite part of the whole shebang was the butterfly house. We each got a q tip dipped in gatorade to feed the butterflies.

There were lots of them, mostly monarchs, but also swallowtails, painted ladies and buckeyes.

Guess which chrysalis is about to hatch.



Sara, with some hitchhikers.

Michael went through the butterfly house with me, my dad and Sara and then again with his aunt, uncle and cousins. Matt and Steph and the girls came from the D.C. area and met us after we had been there a couple of hours. Michael was so happy to have cousins to hang out with. At one point, we were separated from them in the crowd and it was all I could do to keep him from running off helter skelter to find them. Maybe that is why I don't have any pictures of Michael with his cousins. I was too busy hanging on to his collar to hold my camera. So I stole some pictures from their blog...

Coral, Ruby and Michael

Opal

Coral

Michael and Ruby, who is being idolized.

Can you see how happy he was to be with his cousins?