Happy Memorial Day!

I love Memorial Day! I love to drive to the cemeteries and clean graves and reminisce about loved ones and see all the other people who do the same. Cemeteries full of flowers and balloons and flags make me feel happy. I told Merritt today that we are truly ungrateful if we do not remember our loved ones and those who fought for our freedoms, and I believe with all my heart that is true.

I also like Memorial Day because it gives us an extra day to spend together as a family. After six stops at different gravesites (we know a lot of dead people) we headed home for a lunchtime bbq - hamburgers and hotdogs - and then headed into the backyard to make some serious progress on my Mother's Day gift...a raised herb garden. The previous owners of our home left us with a very fine rectangle of weeds courtesy of the fact that they parked their trailer in the backyard. We had originally intended to re-seed the spot, but then I saw a picture and had an epiphany; we could make that dead zone into a wonderful garden! I had the dream, the energy to dig it out, the enthusiasm to see it through, and bought the stone and the weed barrier, but I really had no clue what I was doing. This was especially true since my proposed garden is on a slope! *Sound the trumpets!* Chad to the rescue!! He figured out how to make it work, and despite the fact that I am digging alone in the following picture, we grubbed TOGETHER and he made my dream a reality. Well...almost. I did run out of stone toward the end, so it's back to Lowe's tomorrow! I will post a picture when it's all finished and planted with the seeds I have carefully gathered: thyme, rosemary, sage, oregano, basil, marjarom, chives, parsley...oh, the list goes on! Such fun! Also, I'll post a picture of my vegetable garden when I get some serious signs of life from my fun seeds, I only planted them on Saturday so it'll be a bit. You're so impatient! (Actually, that would be me.) :)

This is what happens...

when your lunch tries to eat you!

To And From Casper...With Love

I love my sisters. They each have attributes I admire greatly, body parts I wish I had, and clothes I want to borrow. :) We have a hootenanny when we all get together, which is, unfortunately, not very often since two of them live far away. Last week, I drove to Casper to see my baby sister (she's taller than me though) since she'd recently had surgery. For some reason I thought filling her house with my rambunctious children would be helpful...hmmm. Well, helpful or not, it was at least fun. We all ate good food and lots of dessert, went to the park, talked and talked, played with toys, shopped and rather unsuccessfully dug up weeds in the garden patch. Sandra and I also got our geek on and went to see the new Star Trek movie. I loved seeing her kids again, Mckenna was a wee baby last time we met and Eli is now a talking machine, and visiting with Keith. He is a great guy, and Merritt thinks he is the bomb. Keith is the only person Merritt knoes who has shot (either with bow or gun) a deer, antelope, coyote, wild turkey and a porcupine, AND skinned (or plucked as the case may be) them all too. Keith has a box full of devices that make animal calls, which Merritt thought was awesome. He especially liked the deer call because, in his words, "it sounds like burping." Keith even set up a spy glass (I'm sure there is a proper hunting gear term for it, but I don't know what it is...sorry) so that Merritt could watch the pronghorn antelope that were hanging out behind their house. I thought we were there to help them out, but they laid themselves out for us and were gracious hosts. We were all sad to leave and Merritt is already making plans for when we will visit again...watch out you guys cuz he says it will be 10 days next time!

(P.S. - Thanks to Merritt for the fun but slantwise and highly unflattering picture at the top. I need to hire a professional!)

Heavenly

These beautiful glories grow along my backyard neighbor's fence-line and spill generously over into my yard. I LOVE lilacs!! I think they're about the only flowering tree (or is it technically a bush?) that grows in Wyoming, and I looked forward to their arrival every spring when I was a kid. With three lilac bushes in the backyard, the scent of the flowers is wonderfully pervasive; it hits you as soon as you walk out the door. I'm enjoying every minute of their too-short life (I like to sit under the branches and breathe deeply - I feel so serene) and will miss them when they are gone.

The Mysteries of Life

I made one of those egg strata dishes for dinner tonight, you know, the one that you assemble in the morning, let sit in the fridge for 8 hours and then cook. Well, this dish called for broccoli florets, which I chopped of the stalk. Grace decided the stalk was neat and wanted to play with it. ???? Don't ask me, I just live here. She kept it all day. She caught me every time I tried to sneak off and throw the darn thing away, always asking politely, but adamantly, for her "brokey" back. I don't know what exactly was so wonderful about this broccoli, but she was happy so...okay.

Happy Mother's Day!

Some mom's get breakfast in bed and things like that for Mother's Day, but I get to cook whatever I want with no consideration for others' food preferences, and no one gets to complain. (Cue evil laughter!) Here is a food slide show that demonstrates I do sometimes get my way...

Breakfast: Chocolate Chip Waffles with Chocolate Syrup and Fresh Whipped Cream
(Merritt was highly skeptical of this dish until he took a bite. Now he declares that he likes chocolate chip waffles MORE than Eggos. That is earth shattering let me tell you!)
I ate Reese's Peanut Butter Cup cereal for lunch, but nobody wants to see that, right?

Dinner: Honey Pecan Crusted Salmon (thanks Harvest!)
Honey Yeast Rolls (sweet and tasty!)
Spinach Salad with Strawberries and Candied Almonds

Dessert: Coconut Lime Cake
AND Strawberry Pie with Fresh Whipped Cream!
Now that's what I'm talking about! Jeannine and Dax came over to help us eat it all up and I went to bed happy since everything turned out so yummy!

I Caught A Dino!...and other Merritt stories

The day after we got back from Nauvoo was our Jurassic Park Pack Meeting for Cub Scouts and I had volunteered to make dinosaur bone cookies and do a Paleontologist's Corner. I had Chad print out five big pictures of a Styracosaurus, Cryolophosaurus, Brachiosaurus, Compsognathus, and a Tyrannosaurus Rex, which later ended up on Merritt's wall, and I did dino bios on each one. I then invited Merritt to the meeting because I needed a special dinosaur helper, and because one of the other cub leaders, knowing that Merritt is a huge dinosaur fan, offered to bring a costume for him to dress up in. He was, of course, ecstatic to go and told me, "I get to go to the dinosaur Scout meeting because you need a dinosaur expert to help you." True, true.

The Cub Committee Leader is a fabulous lady and she had found a plastic safari hat for me to wear while extoling the virtues and vices of dinosaurs. Merritt held the pictures for me and inserted commentary whenever he felt I wasn't being thorough enough, which had people's jaws hanging on the ground because he's so stinkin' smart. Apparently I was pretty convincing in my dinosaur scientist role because I was approached by a ward member who said, "So this is where Merritt gets all his dinosaur information. His mom's a paleontologist!" I tried to explain that it is MERRITT'S FAULT that I know ANYTHING AT ALL about dinosaurs, but he looked skeptical. Well, it's true, it really is. That is a good little dino-boy I have.

Picture number three here is Merritt as a first-grade pirate. They made hats, put on eye patches, and yelled "ARRGH!" as they searched for buried treasure. Inside the treasure chest the kids found a pirate bouncy ball and a skull-and-crossbones ring for each one of them. So cute! I tried to have Merritt either give me a big smile or a fearsome grimace for this picture, but since I snapped his head with the elastic on the eyepatch (accidentally!) he looks more pained than anything.

Merritt's hair had grown out of control, and I usually don't cut it because he complains something fierce when I do. It's like each and every hair has a nerve ending that is racked with pain when I run the clippers across it...so annoying, especially since he doesn't say thing one to the stylist at the salon. I cut Chad's hair and he doesn't cry! The other big issue is that he doesn't like to get all that "itchy hair" on his skin. Clothes on or clothes off and swaddled in towels - it doesn't matter, he'll still whine about being itchy. Since we ran out of time to take him to a salon it was up to me to cut Merritt's hair, but I really didn't want the accompanying drama, so this time I stuck him in a garbage bag. It was novel, he enjoyed it (except when he tried to use his hand under the plastic to wipe his face and got hair in his mouth), and even told the bishop about his hair cut adventure.