White Sands

Our family (minus Rus) decided to celebrate President's day last Monday by going to White Sands National Park near Alamogordo, New Mexico. Coincidentally, the Park was celebrating President's day by giving free admission, a win-win for us! The kids also had Tuesday off of school for teacher in-service, so we decided to go down Monday, stay the night, and drive home Tuesday. I made our plans Sunday evening, but despite the short notice my parents took little convincing to accept my invitation to come along. (YAY! I love that they live close by and that my dad is retired and that they have adventurous spirits!)
We packed up and headed out Monday morning. It's about four hours from my house to White Sands, but the drive was pleasant. We stopped at every historical marker (at my dad's request) and enjoyed being on new roads through new towns that we'd never seen before. They were small specks of towns, but quaint nonetheless.
We drove straight to White Sands, spent a few painful minutes at the gift shop (please, please can I buy that stuffed animal/pin/puzzle!!), and then drove out to the surreal landscape of the dunes. After a few hundred yards the paved road gave way to packed white sand. It looked just like packed snow, complete with plow driven berms of sand lining the sides of the road. White was the main color, accented by dots of color from visitor's clothing and vehicles and interspersed with the occasional desert plant. We drove to the end of the loop because that's where they said the biggest dunes were. Bekah was the first to grab a sled from the trunk and try to sled down the gentle slope in front of our van. It didn't work. My grand plans of sledding froze and I worried that the trip was in vain. We tried another dune with a different disk-sled and it was equally painful. Finally watched a little family send their mother down a steep looking dune and heard her happy squeals as a signal of success. We encroached on their spot and soon the kids were happily sledding full speed down the dune. My mom and dad even took their turns.

Marianne went once with me, and though she didn't hate it, she was unyielding in any attempts to get her to go again. She did enjoy making sand-angels though.

Bekah was the first to be buried in the sand. My dad made her into a mermaid, and much to my embarrassment she couldn't get over the fact that she had boobs made of sand.

Beau got buried next; he was a spider/octopus.

Then Grandpa gave Marianne big feet. Jacob and Beau enjoyed making small tunnels of sand and big dug-outs that could hold their whole bodies.
I remembered that a friend had suggested we try jumping off of the dunes and soon had Beau and Bekah leaping while I took pictures. Then I gave Bekah the camera so she could try to get me. I admit, I found it exhilarating and terrifying to leap off the edge, even though I knew the sand would catch me. It still felt like I was falling. It was my favorite part of the dunes.

After a while, my mom, Marianne and Bekah had retreated to the car and Beau, Jacob, my dad and I explored a few more dunes and took advantage of the blank canvas they provided. We wrote our names and drew pictures; I held the boy's feet so they could walk and leave handprints in the sand.
Eventually we returned to the van, but reluctant to leave yet we found pieces of trash that could serve as molds for building sand castles. We had quite a village by the time we were done. That was my dad's favorite part.

When we were all satisfied, we left and allowed another visit to the gift shop so the kids could spend their money on pins and stuffed animals and two small carved rock animals, and on my part, a small white sand castle.
We decided to see the lay of the land in Alamogordo before settling in our hotel. It is a small town, I think kept mainly alive by its proximity to Holloman Air Force base and the White Sands Missile range. Thus there is a long main strip with a lot of fast food restaurants and not a lot else. (I'll admit our drive wasn't really thorough because we were all tired of being in the car.)
We checked in to the hotel and immediately changed so we could swim in the pool, as much a destination in our trip as White Sands. My dad is really fun in the pool and gave any willing child a chance to ride on his back while he swam underwater. Most of us were quickly drawn to the hot tub, though.
Later we ate some BBQ ("best ribs ever," -Mom and Dad and Bekah), and then went to bed.
The next morning, Marianne made herself pancakes. She had slept in my parent's room, laying with my mom in one bed and telling my dad, while pointing to the other bed, that he had to sleep in the "boy bed." My dad took her to get breakfast and there was the most wonderful machine there. It had a button that said, "press here for pancakes" and when you pressed it, a conveyor belt started inside and within a minute two pancakes rolled off the end of the belt and onto your plate. Marianne was incredibly proud of herself and her cooking ability.
We checked out by 8:30 and decided to visit Cloudcroft before returning home. It was a blip of a mountain town, and unfortunately we arrived too early to enjoy any of the touristy shops it offered. We did get to see a large tourist trap called the Apple Barn that had one invaluable offering: it sold grapefruit spoons. As a grapefruit lover, I'd been wanting one! We also had to stop and sample the locally grown pistachios. We wound up with large bags of our own that we snacked on most of the way home.
And that was it. A wonderful whirlwind trip. I'd go again in a heartbeat!

Marianne the Great

Marianne is my constant companion. That is why she is critical of my driving abilities, likes to pick out what kinds of cereal or mac and cheese we eat, and why she can proficiently bread chicken for frying. She can also crack eggs and whisk ingredients, but as a rule I plan for a 10% loss of ingredients whenever she helps me bake - either because she is messy or because she is a devoted taste tester. 

On a weekly basis we go shopping, and she likes to tell me which stores to go to based on the benefits they provide to her - Smiths has car carts, Sprouts has stickers, and Albertsons has cookies. 

Twice a week we try to go to a yoga class that a ward member teaches at the church. Moms take turn doing the babysitting. This pic is from when it was my turn to play in the nursery with Marianne and she was baking me lots of goodies and serving me tea. She is fine with me "going to yoga" when I'm actually "going to watch kids at yoga." Otherwise, she offers enough resistance that if my own resolve is weak, I am easily swayed into not going.

There are three little girls in Marianne's life to whom she is truly devoted. One is her cousin Rachel. The other is her frenemy Noelle. And the third is her dear friend Sidney. When Marianne and Sidney play together, they are little angels, so happy, and so distracted by their games. This pic is of Marianne and Sidney as Rainbow Kitties.

Marianne is so endearing with her blue eyes and happy smile and her immense conversational abilities that you might never guess that she has a messy streak as wide as the Mississippi. She changes clothes five times a day, and usually empties her drawers onto the floor looking for "the cupcake shirt" or her "kitty pants". Her clothing routine goes like this:

Wake up in jammies.

Change to different jammies after breakfast.

When we have to go somewhere, she changes into her "morning clothes," which are actual clothes.

When we get home she either:

A. Changes into her queen Elsa dress accessorized by her queen Elsa necklace and princess shoes, or

B. Changes into "something soft" so we can SNUGGLE.

At bedtime she always changes into something soft so we can snuggle, if she isn't there already. 

This picture is of the mess she makes emptying our costume bucket in the hall to find the perfect princess dress.

I should have mentioned a fourth favorite girl in her life - her Grandma Cutesy. Marianne and Cutesy have a special bond. Marianne will call her and invite her over and tell her she wants to snuggle and relate to her in detail all of her owies in their expansive stages of healing. And when they are together, they will talk and snuggle, and Marianne will ask for lotion on her back and front and bum and they will talk about her upcoming birthday (in September).

Marianne is at that awful stage where she doesn't nap but isn't the happiest person in the afternoon. (Like Rus. Rus never left that stage.) In January our time slot at church changed to one and Marianne graduated to Sunbeams. She was not in favor of this advancement, however, and spent many long tearful minutes in Sunbeams until I took her out and told her she could enjoy Sunbeams or nap with me. She chose a nap. In the most awkward of positions. She slept like this for at least 30 minutes.

And that concludes my photo dump of the exploits of Marianne. Oh how I love that little tornado.

How to Get Hit By a Car

If you are going to get hit by a car whilst riding your bike home from work, there are some simple guidelines you should follow:

Make sure you and the villainous car are both going at slow speeds. 

Wear a helmet.

Ride in the crosswalk.

Only allow the car to hit you on your front tire, sparing the rest of the bike and your lower appendages any damage at all.

Tuck and roll.

Use your head.

Resist the offer of an ambulance ride.

Have great neighbors, family and friends nearby.

This past Wednesday night a young man in his car with his kids unwittingly played a part in poking our families mortality bubble - you know, that sense of immunity from sickness, accidents, and death. He was turning left and crossed paths with Rus, who was riding straight through a crosswalk. He just didn't see him, despite Rus's light clothing and multiple blinking lights. He clipped Rus's front tire and Rus went up onto the hood of the car and then rolled off the other side, landing on the asphalt on his head and shoulder. The man stopped immediately, was super apologetic, and in a blur a policeman and ambulance were at the scene as well, checking on a super adrenalined Rus. He was hurting really bad on his left shoulder but resisted taking a ride in the ambulance. Instead he called me.

I was at home with nine kids. Four, of course, were mine, and five were Carla's. She and Doug had gone to the hospital to visit a friend whose baby was in the NICU. I had cooked chicken, green beans, and had just started on some pancakes, a weird combination, I know, but I knew it would appeal to the masses. Rus called, calmly told me he had been hit, and I calmly asked him to repeat himself and then we calmly worked out the details of how I would come pick him and his bike up. The call felt not-unlike several that I've had over the past year where he needed me to rescue him because his VW bug broke down. I told him that I'd load up the littler kids and leave the big kids at home, but when I hung up I realized immediately that that was a bad idea. Instead I called my own first responder and neighbor Jen and she came up with her two kids to take care of everyone. She later texted me a picture - she was holding my 15 month old nephew Johnny who had fallen asleep in her arms with a pancake clutched to his face.

I drove to pick up Rus. I was anxious to get there quickly, worried that he'd downplayed his situation and that I'd be greeted by a much more grim scene. Actually when I arrived at the corner where Rus had wrecked, I just saw him and his mangled bike. That was it. 

I loaded up him and his bike and he informed me that it was date night! Just kidding. He said we needed to go to the ER because his shoulder was in a lot of pain. I called Carla, who was naturally very worried when I informed her that Rus had been hit. She was actually at the hospital still, and wanted to see Rus before heading back home to watch the kids.

We had a brief exchange with Carla and Doug at the ER where Carla cried and Doug poked around on Rus's shoulder, and then we sat to wait and wait. It was, according the the employees there, an unusually busy night at the ER. Highlights: Getting to be x-rayed on a brand new x-ray machine, listening to a man chew out the nurses because he had "been there for days," listening to a young woman moaning and wailing uncontrollably, and eating Subway for dinner. Two hours later (not too bad!) we were leaving, papers in hand that read: Fractured Clavicle and Neck Sprain.

By the time we got home, my mom had replaced Carla and Doug (so that they could get their kids to bed), our kids were in bed except for Marianne, and Rus was happy to down some pain killers. The whole ordeal, crash to finish, had taken four hours. Rus was actually in good spirits, and the general consensus was that the whole thing could have been so much worse.

If you have to get hit by a car, that's the way to do it.

Here's to hoping that insurance money buys him his dream bike!

And now some pics: I actually have no idea how to read this x-ray. But to my untrained eye, that clavicle looks really bad.

Rus really loved having me take pictures of him.

Cows for Christmas Again

Richard the Moo Doc put me to work again this Christmas. He has trained me over the years to be adequately good at drawing cows. (Who knew that'd be a marketable skill!) This year he educated me with more cow-health information than I ever wanted to know and tasked me with building a clipboard twice the size of any clipboard on the market. Actually he tasked me with building 25 clipboards for his 25 clients. Lucky for him, I have the tools and the husband and father to make this happen, not to mention sufficient online shopping skills to find the clips and the screw posts I needed.

There is a terrific graphic design firm in Abq called Subia. I love them. I needed them to take the image I had created and glue it to the board and then seal it with a powerful laminate. They did an excellent job.

I love that the owner was the one to call me to let me know they were done and that he quizzed me on how I would finish the job, just to make sure I knew what I was doing. I love that I was tempted to ditch all of the boards I had cut and go with his pvc boards instead (more expensive but potentially more durable), and he talked me out of it, talking himself out of more money in the process. That's the kind of business man I am happy to do business with.

After the boards were laminated, my parents, Rus, Marianne and I spent a morning in the garage putting them together. 25 boards, 50 clips, 100 screwposts. It was hard, but not awful, especially with a great crew.
I hope that the NM Dairy Producers enjoy them!

Spots. He's a She.

I know you can't see her in this picture, but Jacob was given a really terrific gift from his friend Lily for his birthday. It was a leopard gecko that he named Spots (after much serious deliberation, not to mention the admittedly intrusive examination for signs of gender). Lily knows how much Jacob LOVES animals, and she had been planning to get him this gecko for months. She did really well keeping the gift a surprise right up until the last moment when she gave him just one clue - "It's alive."

Even with that vague clue, Jacob was thrilled, ecstatic, delighted when he realized he was getting a new pet, all his own.

Thank you Lily for your kindness and thoughtfulness!

Yes, I'd Love to Shop With Your Money.

My friend Jeanine asked me in October if I would decorate her house for a dinner party she was hosting for her newlywed son and his bride the weekend after Christmas. I said I'd love to, if my mom could help me. Jeanine agreed, and my mom agreed to help. The timeline was set - we would decorate everything by the first week in December so that Jeanine could enjoy it all month and we wouldn't be tied up decorating at the busiest time of the year. My mom and I were both delighted with the prospect of shopping for Christmas decorations and coming up with crafts with someone else's money.

So here are a few of the things we came up with for Jeanine's house.

My mom and dad made this welcome sign and I painted it. I spray painted it using a vinyl stencil, and it turned out awful. Paint bled everywhere. I had to bust out all of my brown paints and my brush skills to fix it. There was also a considerable amount of sanding involved to redeem it. Now, I actually like the effect that all that touch up gave.

One Pinterest idea that I found and fell in love with actually turned out quite charming. It was doilies in embroidery hoops hooked together to hang in the front windows. I started by finding a lace tablecloth at the thrift store, and then my mom and I spent several wonderful hours hunting for doilies and handkerchiefs at antique stores. Then my mom remembered that she had a garbage sack completely full of old lacy doilies and things and we used those too. I made two panels, and unlike the rest of decor that Jeanine was to keep, asked that these be returned when her party was over.

My mom and dad made this trellis that hung in the front entryway. It was the real showpiece. It was stunning!

The nativity scene on top of the entertainment center also turned out really well, thanks to my mom's genius.

It was a really fun project for my mom and I to work on together. We loved the shopping and the planning and learning that we see things just different enough to really compliment each other. So fun, I would totally do it again...

Killing 2014 in Lordsburg

Going to Lordsburg anytime around Christmas is always a treat. Louise loves Christmas almost as much as she loves Christmas decorations. Nutcrackers adorn every surface, the result of years of collection (I think they number in the forties, after having given several away to grandchildren...), there are snowmen and trees, lights and signs, snow globes and dishtowels and trinkets. And then there's the Christmas village; a dozen cottages lit up, frequented by tiny shoppers and families on a bed of sparkly batting.

It is a festive, merry house, and we were happy to be able to go visit a few days after Christmas through the new year. We thought we were escaping frigid weather but instead seemed to bring it with us. It was freezing the first day, near-tornado the second day, and snowy white the third day. Hence there was an awful lot of indoor creativity and play.

The kids watched shows, checked coyote traps with Rus and Big Papa, and kept Nana busy on the sewing machine. Actually I kept Nana busy on the sewing machine. She helped me put a quilt top on the long arm quilter, aka "Tin Lizzie," and get it all quilted and ready to bind. So happy! It's one of those Christmas projects that was abandoned to save my sanity, but now with a little less on my plate I am anxious to finish it.

We made marble runs out of wrapping paper tubes and windsocks out of milk and juice cartons. (Those pictures are at the end...) We enjoyed meeting Emilee and Chip's baby, Gypsy the hedgehog. So pokey, and almost cute until it pooped on me...

Louise spoiled us with caramel and we somehow didn't eat all of it before it was time to have a caramel wrapping party. She truly spoiled Rus when she made him divinity. Oh, the lost art of making divinity...

I had to bring my popover pan - a Christmas gift from Louise - so she and Roger could try their first popovers. Rus and I are recent converts; we love popovers! It is magical how they puff up!

On the super windy day, we ventured out for a short while to visit the Lordsburg Rock Shop. It is quite the vacation destination, with good people running it and lots of pretty rocks. And little rock figurines of animals that had Jacob hooked at first glance.

On New Year's eve we had the kids in bed at 8. Rus and I aren't hard core celebrators of that particular holiday. In fact I usually go to bed early. Christmas usually wipes all the creativity out of me. This year Louise and I made a pan of brownies, and that was enough to keep me up until midnight. We all watched a couple of movies, and at 12 on the dot I was standing on the porch with Louise's .410 shotgun ringing the new year in with a bang. Like in a race. (Don't think I'm a horrible person jeopardizing the neighbors...the house is in the middle of nowhere, with only one close neighbor, and I shot in the opposite direction.)

We were ecstatic to wake up to calm skies New Year's day, even if it came at the price of two inches of snow. You can shoot guns in the snow, but not in the wind. We took turns shooting the gun Rus recently acquired for Roger, a Remington 600 Mohawk. Roger thought he was getting a rusty old gun and already decided to name it "Tetnus." But in reality Rus had taken it apart, cleaned the barrel and refinished the stock. By the time he was done with it, it was a real beauty.

The kids built Olaf out of the perfect snowman-snow and even rode their bikes around, enjoying the tracks that their tires made.

We enjoyed the relaxing time we had there so much, it was hard to leave. We're so grateful for family!