Future Daughter-in-law

Remember Mysha? We got together with her and other friends for a roast in the canyon. She has a daughter 7 months old. I was holding RJ and Ella. RJ busted a move and held her hand. It was so funny. Too bad he's a little white trash with his gut hanging out of his tiny sweatshirt, dirty face, and sticky hands. Compared to little, dainty, princess, RJ is a slob.

So he has his first girlfriend, but I'm afraid she'll move on to less slobbish guys in the future.

It's Summer...and I'm in Dairy Country

You know when summer is here when my mom's roses bloom on our front porch.

Rhett is doing an "out rotation" in Brigham City. So we moved to Cache Valley for the next 4 weeks, living in Rhett's sister's basement apartment. This is a photo of our drive through Sardine Canyon. It was beautiful. It's been fun to see the neice/ nephews so much. We're watching them for two weeks when their parents go out of town so we've already started planning the parties.

It's been fun entertaining the little boys, 7 & 5. They are really fun ages. Every day so far we've walked to the pond to try to find frogs. First day--nothing. Today--we heard a croak and searched to find nothing. Maybe tomorrow we'll find an actual slimy frog.

Also, I've found buddies who are willing, and actually as excited as I am to watch my X-Men Animated series on DVD. RJ gave me x-men for mother's day and we're 4 hours into it and have already established every one's favorite characters and analyzed all the relationships, thanks to Brock's X-men Encyclopedia. Did you know Professor X is Juggernaut's half brother??? Whoa.

My Family Is Passionate About Food

This is my dad, Scott. (and Lynette)

Scott loves watermelon.

Scott is passionate about food, especially his favorite foods.

When I was in high school, my older sister and I were in our kitchen chatting. It was a Saturday night at 11:45pm. My dad stumbled in to the kitchen in his underwear, tossed some cash on the counter and squinting, muttered: "I need a watermelon. You better hurry. It's Sunday soon," (We were raised not to spend money on the Sabbath) turned and left the room. I called after him "Dad are you awake?" "I need a watermelon!" he replied, trudging back up the stairs to bed. So Heather and I fetched him the midnight watermelon so he could sleep knowing there was one to greet him in the morning.

Watermelon makes his summer.

This being said, you may understand this next story better.

Unfortunately, I was not present so this is passed on from the rest of the family. (Photo of my cousin, Nate, with a watermelon my mom grew in our garden)

Watermelon season was on, and Scott went to the local grocery store, Kholer's. Upon returning home, and cutting the melon in half, he was outraged to find it was completely white inside. Ticked, he threw it out and grabbed his keys. Soon he returned home, having bought the second watermelon. "This one better be good!" he said sawing it in half.

It was also white inside.

Scott was a-n-g-r-y. Infuriated, he threw this melon back in the sack and grabbed the huge carving knife and declared: "I'm not going to leave that store without a good watermelon!" Lynette, who was in high school at the time, knew this would be a sight to see and jumped in the car to watch the spectacle.

As they pulled into the parking space, and my dad was gathering the hacked melon and his huge knife, Lynette noticed peers from school going into the store and decided she'd wait in the car. So no one was there to report the rest of what happened, we'll take Scott's word for it:

He marched straight to the customer service, flinging the plastic sack leaking bitter melon juice on the counter. "I'm not leaving until I find a decent one," Scott said raising the knife as he continued marching to the melon pile. The display of watermelons was a large pile in the middle of the produce section. Scott just started hacking into them. You can imagine the scene of some infuriated Irishman with his wife's Cutco bread knife going to town on the local watermelon patch.

Luckily for my dad they didn't call the cops for wielding a knife like that.

Luckily for Kholer's produce department Scott found an acceptable watermelon on the second hack.

Holding the two halves of the acceptable watermelon in his arms, he walked past customer service on his way out, announcing: "I found one." Once at home, we all laughed and still think it is so funny. I'd like to think Kholer's had to develop protocol for anyone else bringing knives in to hack up all their produce, because they definitely didn't have a procedure or plan to stop Scott.

We take food very seriously in our family. So look out, summer is coming and with that watermelon. But lately we've been going to Costco for our melon and haven't had issues.

Reminds me of this Seinfeld episode:
(Kramer holds up cantaloupe)
KRAMER: Taste this.
JERRY: No, I just had a sandwich.
KRAMER: No, taste it. Taste it.
JERRY: I don't want cantaloupe now.
KRAMER: You've never had cantaloupe like this before.
JERRY: I only eat cantaloupe at certain times.
KRAMER: Jerry, this is great cantaloupe.
JERRY: Alright.. (tastes it)
KRAMER: Ah, huh. It's good?
JERRY: It's very good.
KRAMER: Good, huh?
JERRY: Good.
KRAMER: I got it at Joe's.
JERRY: Uh-huh.
KRAMER: Forty-nine cents a pound. That's practically half than what you're paying at the supermarket. I don't know why you don't go to Joe's.
JERRY: It's too far.
KRAMER: It's three blocks further. You can use my shopping cart...
JERRY: I'm not pulling a shopping cart. What am I suppose to wear? A kerchief? Put stockings on and roll 'em down below my knee?
KRAMER: See, the other thing is, if you don't like anything, he takes it right back.
JERRY: I don't return fruit. Fruit is a gamble. I know that going in.

So tell me, have you ever returned fruit?

Baby Ruth!

Get excited. Goonies. Where are they now.
http://movies.yahoo.com/feature/getback-goonies.html
Chunk isn't so chunky anymore.

Officially a 4th Year

Rhett is now in his fourth and final year of med school. A year from now he will graduate and our days of paying tuition will end...much to look forward to.
I'm sure someone will remind me that residency is much worse and ruin my parade, but I'm being positive. Only one year left! To celebrate we had a picnic in AF Canyon at the reservoir. It was fun. I love living so close to the mountains.

RJ is one year old and walking. He signs "more", "milk", "pain". The only words he uses consistently in the correct context are "Papa" and "ouch". He can make donkey, cow, and puppy sounds. If you ask him he will point to his nose, ears, and tongue. Those are all the tricks I can think of. He eats a ton. He loves to show off and laugh. When he gets to watch TV he always pushes this little rocking chair into position for himself. He is doing well and keeps us busy.

Jess is the same pretty much. Looking forward to helping harvest the huge garden this fall. We're going to have a mini farmer's market so that will be fun and keep us busy this summer growing all the stuff. Especially with the raspberries. We still are working on all the raspberry/peach jam I made last fall so this year we'll sell the excess. We will be eating peas next week maybe.

Lemon Gelato

Italy and lemons have been on my mind lately.

Lemons because we bought a huge bag from Costco and need to use them. Italy, well mainly Rome because we recently saw Angels & Demons, which is set entirely in Rome. So we made lemon gelato.

I've only been to Italy once, but I loved the citrus all over. In one village on the coast especially, one of my favorite memories of the trip was a warm afternoon walking around smelling all the citrus trees. The lemon tree out the window was taken when we were in Venice. I loved that. I knew my mom would love it too.


Gelato is italian ice cream and it is amazing. In no way do I think you can replicate the actual stuff. On our trip, I ate gelato every single day, most days twice a day. The best gelato we had was in the Vatican in Rome. It was only 1.5 euro for a huge cone, we had strawberry. Maybe it was extra good because I had experienced an awful morning and ice cream helped cheer me up. Either way, here is this recipe which is good, but just an attempt at the real thing.



Lemon Gelato

a little taste of Italy cookbook


5 egg yolks
1/2 c. sugar
2 c. milk
2 T lemon zest
3/4 c. lemon juice
3 T thick (double) cream


Whisk the egg yolks and half the sugar together until pale and creamy. Place the milk, lemon zest and remaining sugar in a saucepan and bring to the boil Pour over the egg mixture and whisk to combine. Pour the custard back into the saucepan and cook over low heat, stirring continuously until the mixture is thick enough to coat the back of a wooden spoon--do not allow the custard to boil.


Strain the custard into a bowl, add the lemon juice and cream and then cool over ice. Churn in an ice-cream maker following the manufacturer's instructions. Keep in the freezer until ready to serve.

I usually double this recipe and it makes about 2 qts. We like to serve it with fruit.

Trying to be an entrepreneur...sort of

I've opened a little etsy shop to see if the stuff I've made for kids has any appeal to anyone other than myself and my mom. We think they are really cute, and so you may agree, or know someone who might like it. The first one I made was the bluebird and I was so excited with the way it turned out I wore it to Herschel's blind event, because they couldn't tell an adult was wearing a kid backpack. One night I was telling Lynette about some plans I already had for this little shop and our minds exploded with great ideas...so credit to Lynette for some of the ideas, and mentoring me through backpack construction.

So far I've really enjoyed it, the animal backpacks are really fun and I have lots more planned if people seem to like the one's I've already made.

So if you know anyone who might like to take a look: http://www.primobambino.etsy.com/
Thanks!
And if you think they are lame, I can take some constructive criticism too.



Also, I've been thinking of selling the patterns for the animal backpacks, since they are all original designs I drew freehand...do you think people would prefer to buy a pattern for cheap (<$10) and sew it themselves???

Blackberry Citrus Rolls

I LOVE SWEET ROLLS. Cinnamon rolls, orange rolls, etc.

I love these particular rolls in the summer. The combo of lemon & blackberries is delicious. I've also made these with blueberries instead of blackberries and that is good too.

Blackberry Citrus Rolls

DOUGH

1/4 c. warm water

2 1/2 tsp yeast

spoon of sugar

1 c. warm milk

2 eggs

1/3 c. margarine, melted

1 tsp salt

1/2 c. sugar

4 1/2 c. flour

FILLING

1/2 c. butter, softened

1 1/2. c. sugar

zest of 1 orange

zest of 1 lemon

1/2 to 1 c. blackberries, quartered length-wise

GLAZE

juice of 1 orange

1 T fresh lemon juice

2 1/2 to 3 c. powdered sugar

Let water, teaspoon of sugar and yeast froth until doubled. Add remaining ingredients and mix/ knead until soft dough forms. Additional flour may be required, add a little at a time until dough begins to clean side of mixing bowl. Place in greased bowl and cover with greased plastic wrap. Let rise until double, about 1 hour. Punch down and knead air bubbles out. Roll out into rectangle.

Spread 1/2 c. butter over dough evenly. Mix the sugar and orange/lemon zest in bowl. Spread sugar mixture over butter evenly. Sprinkle your quartered berries over dough. Roll up on long side into a long tube, wrapping the berries in tightly as you go.

Slice into 2" segments and place in greased 9x13 pan. Cover with plastic wrap again, let rise about 45 min or so until the rolls start poking out the top into volcano shapes.

Bake at 350 for 20-25 minutes.

Makes 12 rolls.

Mix juices with powdered sugar to form glaze. Drizzle over rolls after they've cooled 10-15 minutes.

4 kids under 4...I Don't Recommend It

My sister went out of town for a week and we stayed at her house to watch her kids.

I was nervous to jump from one kid to four kids, and there was major chaos but it wasn't totally hellish. There was Katie, who actually barely turned 5, Dace: 2 1/2, RJ: 12 months, and Kael: 11 months.

Each age had it's challenge, but here are some highlights:

-changing Dace's diaper only to have Kael's quick hand shoot out of no where, grabbing the diaper and flinging poop all around. Luckily, Dace has reindeer poop pellets so clean up could have been worse.

-just after bath the two babies were playing with toys, I ran up to get pj's for the 2 year old and came back to hear splashing and laughing from the bathroom that is supposed to stay shut. Both freshly washed boys were pulling the toilet paper from the roll right into the toilet

-after shrieking and cleaning up the toilet mess, getting the boys back to playing, I had the daunting task of washing the paint out of Katie's hair. She honestly thinks she's 20 and therefore showers and doesn't need help. So our compromise (I wanted her to take a bath) was her showering as I was leaned in to lather her hair. Just then RJ flagged me from the right, trying to crawl into the shower. I stuck my leg to block his path when Kael darted between my now open legs, crawling into the wet shower in his 2nd pair of clean jammies. At that point I kept trying to keep them out with my legs, and finish getting the paint out of her hair, needless to say, it was messy and the kids were laughing--of course at me.

Here is me looking trashed and Katie getting her hair brushed and hating it.

-Katie getting triple time outs in 3 minutes...sassy

-The second night Katie snuck down out of bed to get a drink, filling a sippee cup with chocolate milk, only to let it drip in the bed all night. The next morning she said a ghost had given her the chocolate milk...discussion on lying and the what ghosts can and cannot do

-babies getting their heads conked because I can't be 4 places at once

There were some fun moments too, one day we went to my mom's to plant corn and the boys had fun swinging in the pergola, the lilacs were blooming and it was a great spring day. It's fun to see RJ have a buddy his age, and so it was not all bad.

So there was some of this.... all bathed, fed, house cleaned, and ready for bed

but there was also a whole lot of this....

Rhett asked me if I thought I could handle this if it was my life. I guess I could handle it, but I now understood when we were all little the occasion my mom locked herself in the bathroom and told us no one could talk to her for 10 minutes. Then when I'd slip notes under the door, she'd promptly slide them back saying "10 minutes!!"

For those that have lots of small children at home, you deserve a medal. A medal and a week long cruise with lots of massages. For those that have one year old twins, you deserve two cruises.

I'm hoping that this babysitting is like babysitting when you're 12, "it's always different when they're your own." But one was my own.... I do like being a mom, I've just decided spacing is important for me with future kids we may have, and I thought this already, but it reinforced the feeling of never wishing for twins...and early bedtimes are sanity maintainers.

Blind Ball it Up

My little brother, Herschel played in the Western Regionals in Goal Ball. It's a game for blind people, more HERE if you are interested. He was running his own team as center and the game I saw was against Texas and they killed them. The video is Herschel scoring the winning goal. The photo is his ball burn on his face. His team, Utah Fire ended up taking 4th and qualified for Nationals. One of the great things about going to large blind events...there's always tons of parking available.

School's Out For Summer

This time of year is always the best. Even though it's been a while since I've been in school, it still has a great feeling as summer is on the very edge of busting through.

It also reminds me of one of my most embarrassing moments...one of the ones involving underwear, there are three of those, all during Jr. High except for this one.

Maybe this is new for some people to learn, but I was not appealing to members of the opposite gender during my teen years. This photo might explain it:

Alien Girl

She must be a "sweet spirit"

I had to throw this in so not everything in this post makes me look bad, but maybe this does too...in a vain sort of way... at least I'm wearing a different shirt in this one. Oh how I loved that Spanish Fork Soccer T. If I ever used an online dating program, this would have been one of those photos to use in a profile, that looked alright, then if anyone met me in person--TOTAL LETDOWN.

Anyway, my best friend, Mysha had it going on and experienced dating and relationships in high school--basically she was normal. It was the end of our sophomore year and we had a tradition from 7th grade to have a sleepover the night before school got out and we'd wear our pajamas to the last day of school. So 10th grade ended.

A couple weeks prior to the end of 10th grade, a group of guys had started hanging out occasionally with Mysha and I. Among the group were two seniors that were graduating, so two years older, which was really intimidating for me to be around them. Even though I grew up with all these guys in my ward, I don't think we'd ever spoken because I was shy and lame, as stated before. But a couple of the guys were interested in Mysha and it came to surface the "Kelly girl that is mute" was the "cute girl's" friend so they started showing up.

That stage being set, after all the yearbooks were signed and school was officially over for 2001, we all had the great notion to go jump off the dam at the mouth of American Fork Canyon, into the American Fork River. I'd done this tons as a kid and looked forward to it.

Here is the dam with the group on top and my butt facing the camera as I climb on the side. **literary foreshadow** So we got bored with just jumping off, and the group relocated across the river on a make shift platform. There was a huge log chained to the ground, and everyone would climb up on it. Mysha and I think Kyle were out on the log, and it was my turn. The two seniors, Jordan & Spencer were still in the water behind me, and the gentlemen they were, preparing to help hoist me up on the log.

So I grabbed onto the log with my hands, and as normal, began to swim up, kicking as hard as I could until my arms were straight. I must of underestimated the power of my vertical swimming, or overestimated the strength of the elastic in my fleece pajama bottoms, but I swam out of the water and my water-logged pants stayed in the river.

The worst part is, the water was so cold I think my legs were slightly numb because I didn't immediately realize I had no pants on. I remember straightening my arms and looking up at Mysha who was bending down to help me, when her eyes got huge. I realized what was wrong through the combination of her expression and the yelps of Jordan and Spencer who were right behind me, ready to help me. The shock of some random sophomore losing her pants might be enough, but to top it off I had white panties on, so basically mooning these guys right in their faces.

At this point what do you do?

I'll tell you what I did, I just plunged back in the water and pulled my pants back up. As the ice cold water froze my brain, and my options began to narrow, I decided I couldn't hold my breath forever and I would have to come up and face everyone, including the intimidating cooler upper class-men who just saw my butt. I decided I had to surface, but better to laugh then cry.

So when I decided drowning actually was worse than facing the group, I popped up fake laughing as well as I could under the circumstances. I'm sure the guys behind me were less eager to help me get on the log this time though.
I don't remember too much of any detailed conversation, but I think a couple "keep your pants on" jokes worked through whatever we were doing and I survived.
And it could have been worse. At least my granny panties stayed on my bum, providing a thin transparent buffer zone. Oddly enough, that group of guys continued to hang out with us despite myself and some of their friendships ended up being the most important influences in my teen years.

Hopefully everyone there that day has forgotten this experience though, I'm still a little embarrassed. Any if you were there and remember it differently, email me and I'll correct it the best I can, but I think it's pretty accurate.

Blackbird Photography

RJ had his one year photos taken...we're excited to see the rest.
** Grandmas: If you click on a photo on her blog, it takes you to her Flickr account to see more photos.

If you are in the SLC area, we'd really recommend this photographer, she was wonderful with the little guy.

Awesome Weekend

RJ on Grandpa's junk truck

We went to Delta for the weekend, our niece, Brinley was getting baptized. Friday night we played night games in the grease woods (sagebrush fields) and that was a blast, as always.
Saturday was Brin's baptism and it was great, I had to speak on the Holy Ghost and for some reason, my whole talk I had the crackly cry voice. It was so annoying because I wasn't emotional and fighting back tears--I guess my nervousness manifest itself as the "cry voice" THE WHOLE TALK. I felt like Jerry Seinfeld when he cried, exclaiming: "What is this salty discharge?" Crying with no reason to, but in my case, cry voice with no reason for it. Anyway, it was great--(the baptism, not my talk). The afternoon we hung out.
Here is RJ and his fan club:

















Saturday night the older nephews, and Brooklyn, 5th grade, went with Rhett and I to see X-Men: Origins, Wolverine. IT WAS AWESOME!!!!!

Let me preface my short movie review with my X-men fan status. I did not read the comic books, but I was loyal to the TV animated cartoon series, setting my alarm every Saturday to wake up for x-men. Cartoon x-men was the only common ground my older brother and I had between each other. For those 30 minutes every Saturday our chronic feud would have to be set aside as we united to enjoy our favorite comic cartoon. (We did also unite as teens for MST3K)
I loved it because it was a child version soap opera with all the romance, plus they are super heroes with powers. I love x-men...I'm still mad my mom never invested in the sheets for my bed. I don't feel I'm a true fan without x-men sheets.

That being said, I was pumped for this movie for a few reasons. It was Wolverine's history, but my biggest reason was my favorite x-man was finally making it in the films:
GAMBIT

My favorite x-man, who hooked up with my favorite x-chick: Rogue in the cartoon. (Rogue in the film is lame compared with the cartoon) So finally Gambit would make his place in x-men. From the opening credits to the end I loved it. At certain points I was clapping and dancing in my seat I was so excited. Rhett leaned over and told to remind me to act my age, someone was just decapitated and I was joyfully clapping in delight. It was so fun, it was like I was 10 again. I love feeling 10.
The movie has received some poor reviews, but I loved it. Gambit's character met my expectations, I just wish he played a more vital role in the movie.

Anyway, after the movie I was so giddy and hyper, my nephews and I were in a huddle in the lobby of the theatre discussing all our x-men knowledge. I had to explain that where this movie left off, the 1st movie X-Men begins, and we all decided we had to watch that movie to continue with the story as the real adult in the group herded us out to the cars.
In Delta the only business open at 11:00pm is 7-11. It was fate working in our favor, because 7-11 had x-Men to buy for cheap. Also, while the boys were looking at something, Brooklyn and I ran to get a Slurpee and what flavor did they have? MUTANT BLAST, a promo for the movie we had just watched, so of course we both immediately filled our cups with red slurpee without test-tasting the flavor. We were now returning home on a movie high and a sugar high, when our PT Cruiser stopped running by McDonald's. Our nephew Dallin was following us in his huge black truck, so Jared, Brooklyn & I hopped in the back of the truck to ride the rest of the way home while Rhett kept working on the car. We were laughing and yelling as we broke the law as passengers in the bed of a truck and shot this photo:

We were up late watching X-Men, and had such a great time. I came home to tell all my family about x-men, getting overly excited about it when Lynette stopped me and said: "I can tell this movie was like you were 5 again." It was that great. Childhood magic at the Plaza Twin Theatre in Delta Utah. Am I lame?

Don't tell me, I don't care.

I'm trying to schedule the next time I can go down there to watch X2: X-Men United and X-Men 3: The Last Stand with the kids.
Want to watch the x-men cartoons online?
Want Gambit's official bio?
Want to buy me the animated x-men series on DVD?
(Oh, don't forget Volume 2)
Want me to shut up about x-men?