It's been a weird couple of weeks. Here's an update. Warning: I'm still a little drug-headed so this may come off as even more confusing.
My sweetheart turned 39 on Valentine's Day. We took the long weekend off and went to SoCal to see Grady, visit Jay's mom & dad, go to Ruby's (of course), and take a deep breath of the ocean air before the full brunt of tax season hits. Jay's mom is doing much better now that chemo is over and she's about 1/2way through with radiation. Grady is just as adorable as the pics I see and such a charmer-that kid-I'm tellin ya, he could ask me for anything and smile and he'd get his way.
..anyway.... while we did have a nice relaxing couple of days, Jay's Grandma died that weekend too. We headed home for Jay to prepare the eulogy and me to practice the 3 hymns I know so I could play the piano at the funeral the next weekend. We were back in the car 4 days later, back to SoCal, I think the car drove itself. All went well and the funeral was very nice. The drive home seemed extra long. (BTW, during these cross-desert trips, Eric got his first experience at driving 80 mph... hahahahah) In between all this Jay had bronchitis, Rebekah got cut from the jr high softball team (very traumatic), Eric's been coughing up major lung-butter, I've had to go back to the head doc for a med check, breathe, plus regular life. Today I was at the pediatrician's TWICE. Something that hasn't been done in YEARS at our house. It turns out that Eric's cough is just allergies, so he has to take claritin and shoot some saline up his snoot. David pulled his groin muscle today playing football at recess, so at 5:00 we were back at the doc to make sure it wasn't a hernia (major trauma). It's just a pulled muscle but it's bad enough that he can't play baseball next week, so he's REALLY ticked.
Life at our house is never stand-still. There is always chaos and a lot of the time there is drama/trauma too. When was the last time that everyone at your house was home in time for dinner, which was homemade, sat at the dinner table, had a nice conversation without anyone yelling or accusing someone of being "stupid" (or gay, or lame, or...whatever), and then you all just had a nice relaxing evening at home? No one had to be anywhere in particular, homework got done, watched a little tv together, everyone went to bed on time with a smile on their face and a happy feeling in their heart. HAHAHAHAHA. never. at least not that I can remember.

Teen Dance Conversations

The annual Valentine's Day dance was last night. Our church holds one every year for kids 12-18 from all around the area. (In Mormon speak: the stake, aka about 4 high schools area worth) This is the text conversation I had with my 12 year old boy...who was not excited about the dance.
12: (an hour into the dance, only 30 min left) There is so many ugly people here and they have only played one slow song.
M: Just be a nice guy. If you don't find your loser this time, it will be okay:) Tough it out!
12: I just danced
12: What time is this thing suppose to be over?
12: Her hand was so sweaty.
12: ok, it's over.
Doesn't that just take you back to the day? Sweaty hands, nerves, I wouldn't repeat it again for all the money in the world.
It might also help you to understand the above conversation a little if you know our family "rules" when it comes to a dance. The boys WILL dance with at least one "loserish" girl (their term, I just said someone who no one else has or probably will dance with) and they must say yes to all dance requests. The girls WILL say yes to all dance requests (unless they ask for more than 1). 12, being the A type personality, black and white - no gray area, rule following guy was all worried. First, how embarassing. I mean, really! Second, that the only slow dance he'd have to dance with a weirdo. After picking up the kids, 13 informed on her little brother. His 'loser' wasn't even ugly and not very loser-y. 12's comeback: her hands were all sweaty and her hand kept slipping. I asked big 15 who he danced with. It turns out that he disobeyed. (surprise!) The first slow song, he asked a girl to dance who no one else was dancing with. She just happened to be HOT (his words).
Does anyone else have these "rules" for their kids and dances?

Testing a Slideshow

My attention span is about 5 minutes these days. I'm trying to figure out this photoshop stuff. This is a test....and only a test:)

WooHoo! It kinda worked. Only my crazy boys would actually go surfing over Thanksgiving. Brrrrrrr. You'd think they were from Wisconsin or something. Nope, just the desert. And anytime they can jump in the ocean they will.

Lack of Photos

For Christmas, Jay got me this digital scrapbooking program along with Adobe photoshop. Well, I'm still trying to figure it out...apparently it takes more than 5 minutes at a time. go figure. One of these days I'll post some pics, I promise. In the meantime, does anyone have any digital scrapbooking tips?