Getting ready for St. Patty's Day

Mother Nature

Friday, March 11, 2011 9:00 am

Friday, March 11, 2011 12:00 pm

The snow steadily fell all day Thursday.  It looked like a winter wonderland as I ran errands and took the boys to piano lessons and basketball practice.  As the temperatures dipped lower that night, the snow began to stick and when Rich and I woke up early Friday morning there was a light blanket of snow covering the ground.  As I watched Rich scrape his car for hopefully the last time this winter, I yelled out the door it was hard to believe it was March 11.  As he drove away into the darkness I hoped he'd be safe on the slick roads.  It was a strange beginning to a day where the high would be in the 50's and sun the sun would break through.  I knew it wouldn't be cold for long. In fact, I would have been surprised if the snow hadn't melted by the time the girls were finished with their ballet class that morning.

Mother Nature is like that.  She keeps us on our toes and just when we put the coats and sweaters away, she gives us a surprise.  Little did I know that my little idea about Mother Nature would seem trivial and insignificant just moments later.  While I slept the world was rocked with a massive earthquake in Japan causing extreme damage, enormous loss of life with horrific wide spread destruction. 

As Rich traveled to work, I grabbed the phone to get the news updates from around the world.  My heart stopped when I read that a massive 8.9 earthquake had hit Japan and that there were tsunami warnings for over 50 countries and as far away as California.  The quake had happened five hours earlier.  I read that a 30 foot wall of water had hit the Sendai area, driving debris 6.2 miles inland.  I called Rich while he drove and broke the news to him.  I had to talk to someone about what I had just discovered. 

While earthquakes seem to be common place in our world, but after seeing the destruction Chile had after their 8.8 magnitude quake just over a year ago I knew the outcome in Japan would be catastrophic. 

I thought about the massive devastation and loss of life in the 2004 India Ocean earthquake and tsunami where 230,000 people lost their lives.  When that tsunami occurred, my family was on the beach in Mexico and as I looked out across the ocean, it was hard to comprehend something like that happening to people just like me.   

For the next hour I read online about the newest updates and researched past earthquakes.  The largest was in Chile in 1960 a 9.5 quake rocked that nation producing a tsunami that devastated the city of Hilo, Hawaii and killed 61 people.  I lived in Hawaii in college and to think an earthquake in South America could produce a tidal wave that would cross the Pacific Ocean and kill people on the Big Island was beyond belief.

In 1964 there was a 9.2 quake next to Anchorage, Alaska that killed 131 people.  While my family and I visiting there in the summer of 2006, we went to a museum that had photographs of the damage and let you sit in a room where they reenacted the violent shaking that occurred during the earthquake.  It is something I'll never forget.

As more reports came in from Japan and videos were posted online, my heart broke.  The quake was so powerful GPS showed the coastline of Japan moved 8 feet.  It moved our entire planet's axis 4 inches and made the day longer.

4 million building were without power.  9,500 people in one town, 1/2 of its population, were unaccounted for.  There were huge areas where the debris was 10 feet thick.  To watch the water push over beautiful plots of farmland with floating home on fire, cars and boats being tossed like small toys, it was heart wrenching.  Then came the nuclear reactors failing and possible nuclear meltdown.  This brought a new element of danger. 

On Friday night the LDS church issued a statement that 2/3 of the missionaries in Sendai were accounted for.     There are 84 missionaries there, which meant 20 families were unsure if their missionary was safe or alive.  We said a special prayer on Friday night asking that the missionaries would be alright.   Would they find the missing missionaries?  I had seen the videos and massive flooding and complete devastation of the Sendai area.  It made me nervous.

Then on Saturday morning, the church issued a statement that all of the missionaries in the Japan mission had been contacted and all were safe and accounted for.  What a miracle!  I true act of God keeping His servants safe.  My heart burned and I knew it wasn't just luck or a coincidence that the missionaries were alive.  Heavenly Father had protected them. 

The people of Japan have been a remarkable example of courage, resilience and fortitude.  The people have remained calm, patiently waiting in lines for the scant resources available in the hardest hit areas.  500,000 are in shelters and many have lost not only their homes, but their entire city.  There has been no reported looting, rioting or people voicing their complaints found in reports. 

I contrast that to the chaos of New Orleans after Katrina.  The people were dangerous, desperate and lawlessness was common place. 

The Japanese are a strong, proud people who are ready for the difficult days, weeks and months ahead and ready to move forward to reach the goal of one day regaining the normalcy they once had.

The Emperor Akihito today said, "I pray we will all take care of each other to overcome this tragedy."

I hope we all can pray for those suffering and hurting in Japan, count our blessings- the large and the small every day, and take care of each other because we all face challenges, we all have struggles and we all need love and support to get us through.

Images from Japan

 photo via National Geographic

 photo via CNN

 photo via CNN

 photo via CNN

photo via CNN

Sunday Snapshots

Ballet before 'Bednight'

Random bits of life....

It's never good to hear your four year old yell, "Mom, Zach's got the plunger," while you are taking a shower.

According to Kaitlyn, you have to use a lot of 'focustration' on the iPhone games.  It seems focus and concentration are not quite enough.

Unlike our home in Lexington, we can clearly hear the tornado sirens from our Cincy house during an intense storm.  Monday morning we had a huge, scary storm blow through and at 5:15 am we hauled everyone to the basement when the sirens started blaring.  We had high winds, lightning, rain, but were in no real danger.  A tornado did touch down in Kentucky closer to Louisville and destroyed three homes.  Spring ushers in severe weather, which can be very scary.

Josh designed and decorated this sweet confection on Cake Doodle on Monday night after Rich's brother Danny called and gave us the shocking and abysmal news of Davies' dismissal*. 

BYU.  Man, it really hurt to see them lose THAT BAD at home last night. In fact I couldn't even watch the highlights from Sports Center because it made my stomach sick.   #1 seed chance gone long before Selection Sunday.  There is no joy in Mudville....

(*Even though he broke the honor code and should have been kicked off the team, my heart goes out to him because of the PUBLIC frenzy this has become. What a mess for everyone involved.)

My girls were running in circles around the kitchen shouting, "We are trout girls."  Maybe they are hoping we can find a high school in Utah who's mascot is a fish.  Or they might just be future TRACK stars.  I'd pick the latter.
 

I'm in love with all the fun iPhone camera apps.  We've spent way too much time snapping Polaroid type pictures on ShakeItPhoto and making cool looking pictures with Instagram, Hipstamatic and CameraBag.  So much fun!

Life has been so busy around here lately that I've gotten to March 3rd and have not even read one single book (well, short bedtime stories to the girls at night don't count).  I have a stack like no other near my bed, calling out to me to dive in and get reading, but I've started reading CNN, Fox News, The New York Times, The Salt Lake Tribune and USA Today on the iPhone while I workout, which leaves me no time for fiction.  I'm missing my books!

We've had so many showings of our home in Lexington with not even a nibble of an offer.  After ten months of waiting, I'm starting to feel like the girl who goes on a million first dates and never gets a second phone call.  We all know that that is never any fun.

The boys do not have school tomorrow due to spring conferences.  They are already asking if it's going to be a repeat of President's Day.  It's suppose to rain and the girls have ballet in the morning.  For all our sakes, I hope it is far better than their last day off.

We fly out to Utah in three weeks from today.  I haven't been home since December 2009, so I am very excited about seeing our families.  I am hoping and praying that we have an 'ah-ha' moment about where we are suppose to live.  I am also crossing every finger that Zach is a sweet, quiet baby on the flight, instead of the 'I screamed all through our last Kroger shopping trip and people were giving Mommy the evil eye' attitude we've had lately.  Yeah, I REALLY hope he sleeps for most of the flight, but I have serious doubts about that.

After a mere FOUR MONTHS I finally made it to level 3 on Jillian Michael's 30 Day Shred.  How come it took me 120 days to get to the last level on the video, and yet, I'm still not even close to shredded?  Maybe it's all those almond M&M's that find their way into my mouth.  On Tuesday Kaitlyn told me I needed to try level 3.  I admit I was quite comfortable with level 2, but took her advice.  I think I had the Eye of the Tiger tune from Rocky in my head while I did my traveling push-ups.  I was exhausted at the end.  Did  I mention the video is only 25 minutes long?  And yes, I happily ate my M&M's  upon completion (as a reward, you know?).

I really don't eat candy all day, just most of the day.  The other things I am loving eating right now are Tostitos Restaurant style salsa warmed with a heap of cheddar cheese, and eaten with baked Scoops.  I could eat that for every meal, but I usually only have it for lunch and dinner.  I also die over Cinnabon cinnamon almonds, Chick-fil-A chocolate shakes, Chobani Greek yogurt (especially the pomegranate and pineapple flavors) and caffeine free Diet Coke.  Good stuff.

With February behind us, we have decked out the house with 'Green Day' decor.  I found a Shamrock plant at the store and fun little white Daisies, a cool St. Patty's snow globe, a tiny green wreath, tinsel, beads and other green things we stashed around the house.  The kids eat it up, which I appreciate, since I need things to celebrate while we wait for this fellowship year to end.  Who cares if it might look a bit tacky?  My kids love every holiday because it gives us another opportunity for a party.

On Monday night our opening song for FHE was Follow the Prophet.  I had a little laugh when Brynn belted out Adam was 'from a place called Egypt' and we should follow the prophet, 'don't go a strange.'  I love kids' versions of things.

I am loving the extra sunshine we have now it's March.  It finally isn't dark when I pick the boys up from piano every Thursday at 6 pm and it's not dark when I take them to basketball practice.  I love to crack my window so I can hear the cardinals beautiful call and love my fat squirrels that are constantly darting around, climbing and digging in my backyard.  I started sharing my almond stash with them.  They are big fans of the sweet cinnamon ones.

On my birthday, Kristi introduced me to Land's End swimsuits.  She wanted to give me a 'birthday suit', which I greatly appreciated.  I had no idea what I was missing!  These suits hold you in, lift you up and are so dang cute.  After placing two orders (free shipping, extra 20% off and all were on clearance) I ended up with 4 'birthday suits' for the price of one regular priced one.  Love good deals and swimsuits that actually make you look better than you really do.

I have two nephews that were born in Salt Lake City and Milwaukee this past month.  In fact every single married sibling on both sides have had or will have a baby this year, except me.  (Jenny and Julianne's girls were born in 2010, but it's still within 12 months.)  I am completely content (and often overwhelmed) with my brood.  Yes, I would give anything to snuggle and cuddle with any of these new bundles of joy, but I'll happily hand them back after I get my baby fix.

I totally ate up this year's Academy Awards.  I didn't get to see any of the red carpet, so I set my DVR (which I am still looking forward to watching).  After a quick look online I got to see all the beautiful gowns.  I thought everyone looked pretty.  No real 'WOW' standouts, but none I really hated either.  I loved all of Anne Hathaway's looks.  Her first dress she wore during the show was white with crystals and was really lovely.  I thought she was really relaxed and cute as host, while James Franco was very stiff.  Hard job.  Zach had taken a late nap after church (1-4 pm church is a killer for toddlers), so he stayed up with me to the bitter end.  I was very happy for Colin Firth.  Amongst the many wacky actors, he seems nice and normal.  I am excited to rent some of the movies that did well that I haven't seen.  My boys flipped through the show the next day and they died laughing when they saw the fake musicals from movies.  I don't know how many times I've heard the He doesn't own a shirt bit.  Very clever.

It's no nursery for Zach.  The kid hates it.  That makes 5 haters and 1 lover of nursery.  Trey was our only one who cried when he wasn't the last to leave.  Lucky Rich still gets his Z bonding time every Sunday.  What a sweet Daddy.

My new favorite quote is this:

We are all a little weird and life's a little weird, and when we find someone whose weirdness is compatible with ours, we join up with them and fall in mutual weirdness and call it love.

It's totally true.  We are all strange and weird and you just have to find that someone who is strange and weird like you and then you both think you're normal.  I love it.

Enjoy your weekend!  Happy March!

Pinewood Derby

This marked our fourth year of fun filled Pinewood Derby races. 

Okay, they really are more like stressful, race to finish a car Derby, but inspite of that, we had manage to do well in the past.  Our Lexington ward would have scout nights at the church where people would bring their tools and saws and cut and sand and paint the cars, but it doesn't work like that here in Cincinnati (or anywhere else I suppose).   

I think this year would have been drastically different if we actually owned a saw and had remembered prior to just two days before the race that we never got our derby kits from their leader.  The derby was fast approaching and we were totally car-less.

Feeling the time crunch we searched high and low in the storage room for the boxes containing last year's cars.  We managed to find Josh's car, but Matt's was nowhere to be found.  Josh's car did not do well in the 2010 Derby, so it wasn't like we were trying to cheat the system by using a souped up ultra speedster.  It was more like, find a car to race so I can stop worrying about it thing.

The scout office is clear across town, so I decided to just grab a pre-cut car for Matt from Hobby Lobby.  $20 later we had a cool pre-cut car, an entire car kit (I only needed the nails and wheels), a bottle of green paint and some awesome decals.  It wasn't until the next day that I read the fine print on the car kit and saw the wheels weren't really cub scout approved, and I could only find three of the needed cub scout nail axles.  Frustrated, I gave up.  I had spent hours looking for cars, driving to stores to buy new parts and then they didn't even really work.  I said enough is enough and decided Josh and Matt would have to share a car this year.

Saturday rolled around and I got up early to take Trey to the church by 7:30 am he could go on an outing with the scouts to work on orienteering.  At 10 am we went to Josh and Matt's basketball game and got home around 11:30 am.  Trey got home from scouts at 12:30 pm and 5 minutes later Rich and Trey walked out the door headed to Trey's basketball game.   The derby was looming at 1 pm.

That stinking car from Hobby Lobby sadly sat on the counter, unpainted, unloved and totally unusable.  

I decided then and there, with the clocking showing 12:35 pm, that Matt needed his own car.  

Frantically we grabbed the blow dryer and lathered on a quick coat of green paint and dried it in a flash. Using great care, with a healthy dose of hurry, we used a pencil and applied the decals.  We grabbed various random bolts, washers and other metal objects from the tool box, dug out the glue gun, threw it all into a sack and headed over to the church.

Once we arrived, they shockingly approved our totally illegal wheels on an axle, but I had forgotten my hammer, so we proceeded to pound in the metal rod with a metal bolt from our collection.  We hot glued on the weights (plus a penny) and it finally was ready to go.

Sure, the cars looked cool, but they weren't breaking any speed records.  Our ultra fast car production didn't warrant any time for upping the speed factor and Matt's face fell when he took 4th place (out of 4) the first two races.  Josh's old car didn't fare any better, but he really didn't care, nor was surprised.  Matt managed to get a couple of 3rd place finishes, but one was against Josh, who took 4th place.  I thought it was a bit funny, but I can see the principle of 'you reap what you sow'.  It was a bit harder on Matt.

In the end, they both were able to participate and race cars and I promised them next year we will take the time to make new cars and try to get them to go fast.

I won't be that hard to improve our speeds posted from 2011.

Josh: Stanford Rocket

Matt: (Green) Black Widow

Trey had a basketball game that started at 1 pm and Rich is the coach.  He was too old to race a scout car, but they came over right after the game to support Josh and Matt.  Rich's calling is assistant cub master, so it was great that he could make it to most of the event.

The girls loved playing with their primary friends in the gym and hallways.

This little fella had his own ideas about the Derby.  After an hour he wasn't too interested in the cars.  He quickly directed all his attention on one thing and one thing only: getting outside.  He's big enough and strong enough to push those heavy doors open, so it made for a lot of grabbing and chasing on our part.  He was very, very proud of himself when he managed to break out and make a run for it multiple times.

By 3:30 pm Zach was delusionally tired and I was tired of chasing him inside and outside of the church.  The girls and I took him home for a nap.

Rich and boys stayed after to clean up and vacuum the halls and the foyer for our assigned building clean up.  They got home at 4:30 pm.

Matt burst in the door with a huge grin on his face.  His car won an award and medal for 'sportiest design'.  Looks like our rapid build-a-car-in-30-minutes-or-less paid off.  I was very happy, because it made Matt SO happy.

Two more years, then we get a break until Zach is 8.  Yes, I am smiling.