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Today, I was cleaning out some old picture frames and came across this hilarious/cute/heart-warming picture of Mark: Oh my goodness, he must be about four years old.  Mark was never without some kind of super hero get up, or costume.  Obviously, his choice for the day must have been (non-working) walkie-talkie headphones and a red yarn necklace. I couldn't help but think of one of the last pictures we received from him in the Missionary Training Center: His headphones work this time, but you'll notice that he's tied his traditional long tie into a bow tie. Somethings never change, thank goodness.

When I'm home alone (which isn't very often lately), the cats and dogs seem to sense my vulnerability and take full advantage of it.  They recognize that I'm not taking care of anyone else, and I don't seem busy. Scout especially moves in.  And I mean that literally. While eating my lunch, I like to take a break and watch a couple of minutes of TV.  Scout starts watching me while sitting on the floor.  Within minutes, he is sitting next to me.  Very politely sitting next to me, but sitting next to me.  And staring at me. In fact, the longer I take to recognize him and give him a pet, the closer he moves in.  When I took this picture, I was literally hugging the side of the couch, barely able to lean back far enough to get the picture: He will hold this position for a good while until he realizes that he needs to move closer.  This is when he tries to crawl into my lap, but with his drooling, he is quickly shooed away. No problem in Scout's wee mind.

This past week, Johannah was set to attend the PMEA Regional Chorus Festival.  This is the second round in festivals, leading up to All-State.  The festivals are auditioned with chairs awarded to the best performers. When Johannah attended Districts last month, she received first chair as an Alto 2.  Learning from the past experience of her brothers, this was no time to rest on her laurels.  Regionals are typically the hardest festival of the three, and she knew that she needed to know the music. It comes as no surprise that my three children have prepared differently for Regionals.  Ethan, like most things in his life, preferred to study the music.  I spent the most hours with him at the piano, playing the music for him while he made notes about the different intervals and worked things out in his mind.  Mark, being Mark, would hear the music once or twice, make big pencil notes all over the music, and have it learned.  Actually, he might not have the music learned per se, but wi

For the past several years (basically since I broke my ankle), I have been living in one funky state of mind.  Needing help definitely doesn't agree with me--in the same way that neutral-colored nail polish doesn't agree with my skin tone.  It's only in the past several months, as I've pushed my way out of the fog (and the narcotics), that I've started to feel like myself again.  Of course, I couldn't go through that experience without learning a bunch of new things, so really I'm my old self, but an updated version.  Make sense? I was feeling like a larger-than-life loser, not being able to do everything I felt I should be able to do.  On top of that, I felt that I was no help to my friends which made we feel even worse.  So, back in October, I decided to find my own way of helping people.  You might remember my post about not being a 2B kind of woman (brownies and babysitting), so I needed to be creative.  My goal was to try and help someone everyday.  I

Man, two posts in two days?  There must be some serious fun going on here in Provo :-)  (This post had to wait because I didn't get the pictures from it until today, but I wanted to tell a little bit about my date on Friday and some thoughts that it sparked in me.) On Friday morning, I didn't really have any plans for Friday night.  I knew that we were going to have the massive St. Patty's Day party the following day, so I figured Rebecca and I could just hang out with each other at her apartment, or something (yes, I can be found there just about every night--that's the trap of an amazing girlfriend!)  I had been invited to another party too, so I figured I'd be pretty busy.  Friday afternoon, my roommate invited us on a double date with him and his girlfriend.  They were planning to watch Ratatouille and make the dish that gave the movie its name.  It sounded like a really clever idea, so we decided to join in! The movie Ratatouille is about a rat, Remy,

Happy St. Patricks Day everybody! I have had so much to post about recently, and I'm awaiting the pictures for several of these items, but in the meantime..... My wonderful, dearest, mother, who always cares about me oh-so-much, decided to send a FANTASTIC St. Patricks Day party box.  It got here last week, and we've been eagerly awaiting for the festivities to commence! We had the party at my girlfriend's apartment (yes, I have a girlfriend--her name is Rebecca and she's amazing :-)) with her roommates, Shelby and Clarissa.  Taylor, my rommmate, asked Shelby out and Clarissa had a date with an old friend already planned, so it worked out perfectly! The night started with everyone getting there and us making Irish soda bread.  wWe had two loaves, one with cherries and one with chocolate chips.  In hindsight, we probably should have mixed the two, because guess which loaf was the more popular ;-)?  There's nothing like smelling delicious soda bread while

I'm thankful for times in my life when I'm given a second chance to reevaluate something that I initially found distasteful. Last week, Glo's violin teacher, Amy Oshiro, texted me that there were comp tickets available, and would the family and I be interested in attending a performance of the Philadelphia Orchestra? Absolutely!  I didn't hesitate to respond so that we didn't lose this amazing opportunity. This is a photo of the orchestra, taken in February.  You just don't know how star struck we all are, knowing several people in this orchestra! Afterwards, I headed to the computer to see what music would be on the program.  I knew it would be something good. My heart nearly sank when I saw one and only one selection on the program:  Symphony No. 5 by Dmitri Shostakovich. Really?  Did the musical fates have it in for me?  Of all the music, through all the ages, Shosty 5 was the selection? I digress for a moment.  In my teenage years, I did my