it was WICKED fun

president monson

president uchtdorf

the boys with elder perry.

after 10 months of waiting, we saw wicked last night. it was really, really good. worth the wait, and the horribly expensive tickets.

as we were packed in the lobby like sardines, waiting for them to open the doors to the theatre, a tall, white haired man walked by and my dad says "that's l. tom perry." sure enough, it was. we worked our way over to where he was waiting and asked for a photo with the boys. (they must get so tired of that.) after we got into the theatre and to our seats, we found out that president monson and uchtdorf were both sitting on row 1, directly above us on the balcony. we had a straight shot of uchtdorf, but a speaker was kind of in the way to see monson. we had to go to the end of our row to see him. will sent the boys up there to try and shake their hands, but security wouldn't let them anywhere near them. it was pretty cool though. we picked the right night to go to the theatre. :)

(my photos were really blurry, too far away for the flash to work.)

urban farming

well, will got stung 3 times AND the queen died! on saturday, we had about 75 thousand bees in our garage. crazy! the first hive (ours) went fine. but up at cheryl's, the other three hives got a little vicious. they had some problems and the queen ended up getting mashed. so will replaced her yesterday. the bees have required quite a bit more time than we were expecting.

last night we had friends over for fhe. we had a bbq and then started to build our chicken coop. i was in the kitchen trying to get dinner ready to go, and outside in the back i heard a lot of commotion. they had brought over our goats (the co-op goats) to milk them here, so will and the boys could see how it's done. it was complete chaos. the photos don't do it justice. :)



building the coop.

that's preston doing the milking...

it took four grown men to hold her down.

up at cheryl's.

will's fine bee suit.

more photos

this picture is from clayton's and my dad's birthday party. i love it!

they insisted on meeting mickey! 45 minutes later....

at judd's store in st. george. this is where will's famous rat bastard rootbeer is from.

the tabernacle in st. george. will and i really like this place. totoally interesting! right above us on the wall is a huge 'all-seeing' masonic eye. i wish the guy had gotten that in the photo. it's crazy looking.

here comes the sun

we thought we'd be coming home from ca to sunny weather in utah, but we were wrong. however, the sun has finally decided to show it's face, and it looks like it might be here for awhile. yee haw!! at last, time to plant the garden! will built me my salad table on monday. i'm really excited about it. (i'll post photos) he has built and painted all of the bee boxes. the bees arrive tomorrow. i'm anxious to see how all of that turns out. i can't quite picture will standing there, with a bee suit on, and bees covering his arms and stuff. let's just hope he doesn't get stung, and that the queen doesn't die.

we had a good time in california. i'm already planning our next trip. breaking up the routine is completely necessary for me. for our next excursion i want to go to a cabin somewhere without any electricity or amenities and let the boys be 'humbled' a bit. who knows if that will work or not, but it's worth a try.

i recently finished reading glen beck's book, the real america, which i liked alright. my next book is one will just gave me, spiritually anchored in unsettled times, by bruce c. hafen. i really hope it's as amazing as i'm expecting it to be. i'm also reading a really great book called made from scratch. i checked it out at the library because i didn't want to buy it before i knew it was any good. it's really cute, and matches up with how i feel on so many different levels. anyway-

here are random photos of the past month or two:

disneyland!

preston got very sick on the teacups.

coronado beach and seaport village.

Tom Kah Gai

so tonight i tried making my own tom kah gai. it turned out surprisingly well. not as good as our trusty thai restaurant- but i wasn't expecting it to be. i learned what i'd do differently to get it to taste more like we're used to. i also attempted vietnamese spring rolls. pretty much not good. i learned we don't like basil in our spring rolls, or cucumbers. and that peanut sauce you dip them in? mine was alright, but nothing like we wanted. practice makes perfect! :)

Today has to be a productive day- because yesterday was not! At all. My list of accomplishments for yesterday was pitifully small. I spent most of the day lounging around and reading magazines. I did find some fun looking recipes though, which justifies my laziness. :)

The boys are home this week and next for spring break! But honestly, could this be any more miserable weather for SPRING? I feel badly for the boys. They want to be outside playing basketball all day, but instead they are stuck in the house, bored to death. Preston spent the day yesterday trying to learn 'Bella's Lullaby' on the piano. I'm not sure why he wants to play that song- there must be a girl that would be impressed by it- but he seems pretty committed. Spence went with a friend to do baptisms at the Timpanogos temple. Brig and Clayton sat around the house and drove each other, and me, crazy!! We're heading down to So. California next week, so at least that gets them out of here and into better weather for half of their break.

Will and I have watched a few movies this week. Nothing good. We sat through Quantum of Solace last night- it didn't impress either of us. Sunday night we watched The Duchess- we both agreed it was very depressing and a little disturbing. Our next movie is Australia. But I never heard great things about that one either. Anyone see anything lately that was really good?

not at all what i was going to blog about

Tonight was supposed to be a crappy night. It started with a crappy day, which really started with a crappy LAST night. Our hour long Monday night meeting turned into a 3 hour meeting. We got home late and found crying toddlers, older kids with unfinished homework, and a really messy house. We went to bed late, but sleep never really happened because both Quince and Linc are struggling with really bad coughs- which are ALWAYS worse at night. (why is that?) This morning I called and got them appointments to see the Dr.- which took over two hours. Then I dragged sick kids around to do errands because I had things I HAD to get (for Preston's science project, which has to be turned in at BYU tomorrow) so they had to come with me. And everyone knows that taking sick, sleeping kids and pulling them in and out of car seats for a few hours = F. U. N.

I picked the kids up from school, got the mail, and found another exciting letter from our insurance denying the claim for Brig's awesome 'teeth' incident from last year. So I started the ritual phone calls, which I do every month, and got the same answers after waiting on hold for over an hour. (no joke.) They'll take care of it and they're really sorry for all of the trouble.... and they'll tell me the same thing when I call in next month. By now I'm in a really awesome mood.

Then Will informs me that Brig has tickets to the Jazz game tonight and he'll be taking him- which means they won't get home until late and I'll get to try to get the meds down the two little boys by myself, assist Spence with a paper that's due tomorrow, and all of the greatness that comes with nighttime at our home. I was seriously about to have my own little meltdown. I left for the store to get the prescriptions filled and while we were gone they all decided that instead of going to the game, they'd stay home and watch it on TV- make shakes- and hang out together. Can I tell you how much better that sounded to me?

So tonight wasn't so bad at all. It was still H-E-doublehockeysticks getting Linc to take his medicine, but he did it. And it gets better: tomorrow I have a PTO meeting in the morning that I decided I'm going to skip out of, and my R.S. meeting got cancelled. So no plans for tomorrow. Woo Hoo!!