Camel Ride Anyone?

I can't think of riding a camel without think of the painfully long and occasionally funny movie Ishtar. Really how often does one get to ride camels. Well today Dan & Sam each had the chance so we took it. I don't recall the camel riding from previous years and the boys both enjoyed. Our annual apple picking trek to Anderson & Girls turned out to be a lovely day. Perfect temperature. Fun ride into the orchard to pick apples. We finally got to see the pig races. They were so cute. My favorite was the slowest that had the goal in mind and ran as fast as they could but never made it to the prize as the others ate up before it got there. :( Then they raced pot belly pigs which was a hoot to watch them walk along like they were on parade. We of course came home with a lot of crispy apples, fresh cider and some doughnuts. We always enjoy this tradition with friends. Fun times!

FINALLY...Cub Scouts

Today was an exciting one for Sam. It was the much anticipated, long awaited, first day of cub scouts. Sam has wanted to have a shirt with patches, like his brothers, for years. Well the big day came. He loved it and his den leaders are pretty cool too. They used to be his primary teachers and Terrell plays Minecraft (that is very important to Sam and he tried to spend significant effort today trying to get me to play). You can see Sam doesn't have the full uniform and the shirt is pretty big. I'm determined he will not grow out of that so I don't have to do another shirt with patches until he turns 11.

Speaking of shirts with patches...Dan will head to his first boy scout 8 day encampment this weekend. I'm heading to the scout office tomorrow as I decided last minute that his shirt should be larger and I should get all his patches on. More on that in a future post. It will be very strange not having Dan around for an entire full week!

Have Typewriter, Can Go Anywhere!

Sam's typewriter has been tucked away for a few months, but surfaced as I cleaned his room last week to make way for a new desk, perfect for typewriting I might add. When he asked to take the typewriter to the ball field for Dan's game my first thought was NO WAY. But I had just asked him what he wanted to take to entertain himself. It was just a bit larger than I had in mind. It was also the hottest day yet of the year, in the mid 90s, and sitting in a hot car so he had a place to type didn't sound fun. These pictures show the typewriter on Dan's seat while Sam sat on his seat, his favorite setup. Of course the doors were open to give a breeze but he had to be careful not to let the important papers blow away!

Some of his typing gems:

"your awsome m.r.s. lunsted" (his 2nd grade teacher that he misses)

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"I love the earth my name is Sam just to let you know lets recycle."

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"THE UNIVERSE"

"Chapter 1 THE SUN"

"THE SUN is a giant burning gasses and dust. Juipidir is so big. Not even earth can escape its pull and we would get crusht."

Sunday Solar System

Sundays can be a real challenge for Sam. We attend church for 3 hrs. That is hard enough for adults let alone a kid who is on the autism spectrum and bothered by noise, crowds and who knows what depending on the moment.

The first meeting (sacrament & talks) is with everyone and is supposed to only last 1 hr 10 min. The remaining time he spends with the kids (primary) where half is spent in a class setting with kids his own age and the other half is spent with kids ages 3 - 8 learning songs and doing fun things as they learn more lessons about the gospel of Jesus Christ.

I always ask what he would like to bring with him, that is quiet, to keep his hands busy for the first hour. Lately his response has been "I don't know, I will tell you when I get there". Sigh! Today on the way to church he found a roll of masking tape in my basket. It never left his hands. The end result was a solar system across the back of the bench in front of us. I had no clue that our 2nd grader knew the order of the planets, including asteroid belt, kuiper belt (and knows that Pluto is actually part of this) and then for this masking tape masterpiece he added stars at the furthest outer area. I helped hang some planets and he would correct me if I put it in the wrong spot. Some may think it was not the best thing to be doing during such a meeting. But hey, I was happy that he sat with us the entire time without having to "take a break". Thank goodness that cell phones have cameras now. Not the best pictures and they overlap some but I had to capture the impromptu project. Thanks Nick for taking the pics.

Left: Sun, Mercury, Venus, Earth, Mars, Asteroid Belt, Jupiter
Center: Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus, Neptune, Pluto
Right: Uranus, Neptune, Pluto/Kuiper belt, Stars

Who got the better deal?

The schedule for the rainy overcast day (my favorite) included the last day of swimming lessons, Dan's baseball scrimmage (which ended up being cancelled), Nick going back to work to catch up on grading and I my long list of things I knew would not all get done. At swimming I made a deal to swap kids. After lunch I took Sam to his friend Liam's and I took Liam's two cute little sisters Kailey and Maddie home with me. As we left their dad said "I'm not sure who is getting the better deal here". I believe he was thinking he was getting the better deal. I don't get a lot of "girl time" at my house so I needed to make the most of this. Kailey was more interested in Wii Sports Resort, the dog and what Dan was doing. But Maddie was my little buddy. She was so excited to make little Easter treats. I had all the equipment and stuff to make more chocolate covered marshmallows. So we did pink and green with Easter sprinkles. Nothing real original but we had fun and the time went by quickly. I think I got a pretty good deal. Now to attack the list. Actually I didn't accomplish more than 2 things off my list but that's OK...life goes on whether the list is done or not. I at least have a fun memory from the day!

TV Dinner Anyone?

When I woke up this morning I really didn't think about it being April 1st. I didn't have plans to make something fun either. But after running across a link on facebook that lead me to THIS, I had to make it! The fun thing is that we took dinner tonight to a family that had a new little baby boy last week! OH he is so little and cute. Daniel proudly delivered the following line "our budget has been a little tight lately and we could only afford one TV dinner for you. But there are three chicken legs, some mashed potatoes gravy and butter, peas and carrots and a dessert." Then Sam said "April Fools" and we delivered the regular food.

Valentine's Day - what does it mean to you?

I'll ask this at the beginning so it doesn't get lost in my lengthy post. Happy Valentine’s Day to all. I realize that today means different things for different people. I’d love to hear what your traditions are on Valentine’s Day. Leave me a comment.

For me Valentine’s Day has lost much of its appeal. When I was little my favorite part was decorating our “mailbox” (container) I’d get to take to school and anticipate all of my valentines from all of my school mates. No one had to tell us to write a valentine for everyone, that is just what you did. You even gave a valentine to the boy who drove you nuts or didn’t smell so good and not because someone handed you a list of names. As I became a teen and even into college days Valentine’s Day became more anticipation that someone might surprise you with something to brighten my day. Of course getting something was much more exciting from a guy than any of the girlfriends.

20 years ago on this day Nick was driving west to move out there before we got married. He missed arriving on Valentine’s by a day. At first I was really disappointed that we wouldn’t get to spend that day together. But I wanted him to arrive alive and determined then that Valentine’s Day wasn’t nearly as important as our wedding day would soon become to us. This was emphasized on our first Valentine’s Day a year later when I realized on our meager budget that I’d much rather Nick not spend any money on me when he could get twice as many flowers for the same price, in 6 weeks for our wedding. YES I love to get flowers and will never tire of them. So the tradition began. There have been a few times where we have gone out to dinner or this morning, to breakfast. But I do not anticipate anything more and I’m completely fine with that. I know that in 6 weeks we will celebrate being married for 20 years and although we aren’t going anywhere exciting just like our 10^th and 15^th (when we were poor grad students), it’s OK we are simply happy to be together.

Now Valentine’s Day is much more for the kids. Dan is on his way out of the pass a card to everyone stage! Sam has a few years left. Honestly they really don’t care about it either. I live in a house of boys. So it becomes a much bigger deal to me. I have also never been one to buy a box of traditional Valentines cards, anyway. I have this deep inner drive to be different and since the boys don’t care too much they usually go along with whatever I come up with.

This year it was all about chocolate. For Dan we took sucker sticks and put a marshmallow on the end. The store just happened to have pink ones! He isn’t into pink but that’s OK, we covered them in melted milk chocolate. Then dipped them in colorful sprinkles (do you know I had a hard time finding valentine sprinkles that weren’t just colored red sugar?). He also did half with chopped peanuts, his favorite and he knew several kids at school who would like them. I was surprised to learn these really are much faster to do that one might think. I am going to remember this concept for other things. I found the idea here. However, the ones I found were made with two marshmallows on a stick. I have to say that is a lot more work, hard to get the marshmallows not to separate and honestly eating a single dipped marshmallow is MORE than enough sugar for a treat!

Sam’s valentines were a little more time consuming but not by much. We took pretzel rods and broke them in half. Then dipped each end in colored dipping chocolate and wrapped with valentine sentiment crayon labels. I have to say they are really cute. I found the idea here.

To sum up my view of Valentine's Day, I'd have to say that for now its simply a venue for me to do something different and creative that the kids will enjoy sharing with their friends. I don't love my family and loved ones any more or less because of this day. It is simply just another day in anticipation to a better one in 6 weeks.

Hawaii Five-O wherever I go…

Recently I have been reminded of some of my favorite memories of college days. I went to BYU in the early 80’s. It is by far a conservative school and is always #1 in the Stone-Cold Sober Schools list that comes out each year. When my sister first attended BYU in the mid 70’s the dress code had loosened to allow girls to wear pants or pant suits. Just before I arrived on the scene in the early 80's they had just started to allow jeans on campus.

I remember rushing to my M,W,F morning class in the fine arts building. Depending on what time I left I might in fact be stopped for a daily tradition. The national anthem would play and the flag raised by the ROTC. I believe the same happened to lower the flag in the evening but I rarely remember being on campus during those hours. Everyone within listening distance would stop in place and wait for the anthem finish.

Another tradition happened late at night sometime shortly before the library was to close. A different anthem would play – the theme song from Hawaii Five-O. In such a quiet place that was still laden with card catalogs, it felt odd to hear such upbeat music playing over the loud speaker. We would joke that it was to wake everyone up! It was the anthem for library closing time. I cannot hear the song today without thinking of those late nights at the library decades ago.

Last week CBS announced that a new “reimagined” version of Hawaii Five-O will begin to air fall 2010. I’m not always fond of classic things being reinvented. Time will tell if this remake of the series will live up to its legacy.

Two nights ago it was Nick’s pick for movie night. He chose a fascinating show I had never heard of before called “The Dish”. It is all about the Apollo 11 mission but from the perspective of Parkes Australia (with some license to make the story better than the real one) where they housed the southern hemisphere satellite dishes that produced the first images of men on the moon. I recommend it as a good movie. But here is a spoiler. In a scene where the town was welcoming the US Ambassador, a teenage band was asked to play the Star Spangled Banner. When it was time to play, the song that came out was the theme song to Hawaii Five-O. I'm guessing it didn't happen that way in reality but to me it was classic.

A day for good luck...

My shortest blog entry to date! This is how we started off St Patrick's day.

Museum open for business

Some people have asked what the bright yellow sign on our front door is all about. (yes I know its crooked)

Last week on Wednesday it was a snow day. Before moving onto a new activity I wanted Sam to pick up some of his toys off my bed and his bedroom floor. At the time I was in the middle of working on something for the Mt Pleasant Discovery Museum. I knew just saying Sam clean up your toys would result in a meltdown because that task is not specific enough. Creativity can be important at this point. The first thought that came to my mind was “Sam I have this great idea, why don’t you take all of these creations you made with the kid connects and turn your bedroom into a museum!” Then I suggested that all of the pieces on his floor could be piled into like piles so that customers (probably a poor choice of words in hindsight) can easily locate the pieces they want to use to build new creations. He totally bought into it – IMMEDIATELY! I have never seen someone clean up so quickly. But he played for real. “Mom now we need signs – 2 of them, one for the front door (he placed this one and I don't want to ruin his careful placement) and one for my bedroom door”. Our front door now has a sign that reads “Sam’s Awesome Building Place of Fun”. I was the first “test” customer and later that night Dan’s friend became the first real customer. Sam decided though if Dan's friend had fun, his first visit was free (instead of 5 pennies). The next morning the first thing he said when he woke up was “did we have any customers?” I have also been told I need to work on coupons good for 4, 3, 2 or 1 penny off getting in.

I was in a seminar with his teacher the next day and I told her about Sam’s new venture. Two days later Sam had two more museum customers, his teacher Mrs Auker and her daughter. He was so excited to see them come to the house and I had fun observing. He is now considering a second exhibit with space in the basement…Hmmm what a creative kid.

I never thought I'd be working on two children's museums at the same time.