I'm a Survivor!!

I survived Girls Camp 2007. Girls Camp was this past week, from Tuesday through Friday at Camp Cedar Falls. It was extremely well organized and the girls had a ton of fun. Sister Snow, from our ward, was in charge of camp this year and she did an excellent job. She is absolutely hilarious!!! She came up with all kinds of clever things for the girls to do and ways in which to play up the theme. It was great. The theme was Candy Land--Sweet is the work. Each cabin was named after a candy of some sort.

There was a certain amount of confusion regarding which cabin I would be in, but things turned out OK. Prior to Girls Camp, I was told I would be in the same cabin as one of my Mia Maids, Kendall. I was particularly excited about being in her cabin. However, I got a phone call just days before we left and learned that I would have to be in a different cabin--one in which I didn't know ANY of the girls. I reluctantly acquiesced. Upon arriving at camp and finding my cabin, the "Nerds" cabin, I was soon informed that one of the leaders wanted to switch cabins with me and I was off to the "Life Saver" cabin. I settled into my new cabin which had several members of our wardin it. As a side note, the husbands of the two other adult advisers of the cabin I was in had served missions in Taiwan. So that was cool.

Each cabin was in charge of creating their own cheer. The stake leaders, "The Peeps" went all out and even had creative costumes. It was great. The picture below is of the Life Savers doing their cheer.

The first night was a lot of fun. The girls were all very excited to be at camp and stayed up pretty late. Thank heaven for ear plugs. I got a decent amount of sleep that night. They played games for a couple hours (including a round of Truth or Dare in which most of the dares revolved around licking things--the floor, the bottom of a shoe, the bunk bed ladder and a toe). At least I was entertained--knowing that leaders are not expected to participate in such games.

All of the activities were very well planned. The seminars were all very good. My personal favorite was one by President Monson (not Thomas S.) in which he talked about appropriate dating habits. He started out by informing the girls that Girls are desperate and boys are retarded...meaning that girls tend to be very hard on themselves and feel that they are never good enough for any boy and so they must change who they are or break the rules in order to fit in. Boys are retarded because they don't mature as quickly as girls do. Anyway, he is a VERY entertaining speaker and I found myself agreeing with everything he said and I just hope that the girls listened to every word he said. It was excellent!!

On the second day, there were a couple of groups of girls who were supposed to go on hikes. I volunteered to go on the 5-mile hike. I wanted to get some exercise (given the theme, there was a ton of candy at camp) and I generally enjoy hiking. The hike was good. We passed a stream where some of the girls took off their shoes and enjoyed the cool water. It was a good hike, but it was very dry and dusty. We haven't gotten much rain in California this year, so all the dust (or something) gave me a sinus headache. By the end of the hike, I had quite the 'dust tan'. My legs, from where my shorts ended to where my socks started were covered in dust!! It certainly felt good to take a shower.

When I got back to camp, I was informed that I would need to switch cabins again!! Apparently, one of the two adult leaders in the "Runts" cabin left after the first night because she had to go to work the next day. Our Life Saver cabin was the only cabin that had three adult leaders, so I was asked to move in with the "Runts". The Runts are, of course, the first years.

They are adorable. They were very obedient and went to bed at a reasonable hour. They were too afraid to sneak out of the cabin at night to attempt pulling any pranks (not that that was a problem this year--but it has been in previous years). The Runts are sooo cute. I was especially impressed that of a cabin with 11 Runts in it, three were non-members!!! So that was great. Unfortunately, one of them fell and twisted her ankle. So that was sad, but she was a trooper and stuck it out.

One of the highlights of the week was the testimony meeting on Thursday night. The way I see it, so many of these girls go to school every day in an environment where their peers swear and dress immodestly etc. So coming to camp was a stark change from what they were used to. Therefore, most of the testimonies revolved around how nice and friendly everyone was and how there were so many good examples around them. It was a great contrast for them. We then had hot chocolate with Peeps in them and Krispy Kreme donuts. Mmmmm.

Of course each girl and leader got an award--a candy lei. My award was the "Super Trooper" award. I got it for being willing to go on the hike and to switch cabins...several times.

I was very proud of my Mia Maid girls. Those who were leaders did an excellent job in organizing their cabin devotionals each night and they truly loved their girls. Those who went on the overnight hike were also troopers. They hiked in 4 miles, spent the night out under the stars and then hiked out 4 miles the next morning and did an excellent job.

One funny thing about the camp was that it was run by 7th Day Adventists. Therefore, there was no meat served at mealtime. This didn't sit well with a lot of the girls and by the time we were heading home on Friday, everyone had plans to go to In-n-Out or to have a big juicy steak as soon as they got home. Every billboard or restaurant we passed was met with longing and wistful groans. Andy and I went to Black Angus on Saturday to pacify my hunger for meat.

For as much fun as it was to go to camp and to take a few days off work, it was nice to get home and to take a shower and a nap. I also got a pedicure on Friday afternoon and enjoyed it thoroughly.

Father's Day 2007

Andy was able to spend Father's Day weekend in North Carolina with Emma. They had a great time. Among other things, they went to the beach, saw a movie (Surf's Up) and went to Jungle Rapids--an indoor gymnasium. Here are some pictures of their adventures.
Emma likes jumping around in the bounce house at Jungle Rapids. Emma is a lot of fun but can be very dramatic. She briefly fell in the bounce house screaming in pain and stating she hurt her ankle. I was worried and gave her lots of attention, love, and ice. Luckily the ankle was better in no time (three minutes). Once she had the attention her ankle was fine and she went back to playing. I am always amazed of the healing power of bandaids, ice, and love.
Emma is very friendly and outgoing. Usually when we go to Jungle Rapids there are several birthday parties and dozens of kids running wild. This time it was only Emma and Lauren. They soon become best friends and made up several games to play together including hide and seek.
Emma decorated a pot for me for Father's Day. I love it. Emma suggested planting Azalea's in the pot. Wilmington is the home of the North Carolina Azalea festival.

Survey Says.....

Something we have been doing lately to entertain ourselves is we will record the Family Feud (I'm not sure how people get along without DVR...commercials are a waste of time) and then play along as we watch it. So, for example, John O'Hurley (aka Mr. Peterman) will say, "We surveyed 100 people. The top 5 answers are on the board. Name something people do to liven up a dull party." Then we pause it, discuss our top answers and then press play to see what the contestants say. Anyway, it's a lot of fun and we even 'played' it at a dinner party we had a few weeks ago.

Well, the other day, Andy and I had just watched an episode and I was quite disappointed that it was over. You need to understand that I'm pretty good at playing the Feud and hold myself in high regard for doing so. So Andy, in an effort to entertain his delusional wife, says, "OK. We surveyed one Andy. The top one answer is on the board. What TV show does Andy feel like watching?" To which, I replied, "PTI!!" Of course, I won!!!


P.S. In unrelated news, we are in escrow to sell one of the homes in Yucaipa. YAY!!!

Take me out to the ball game!!

Andy works for William Lyon Homes. The company has box seats to the Angel's baseball games and every department gets to have an annual party at a game. We went last night to see the Angels vs. Mariners. I don't care much for baseball and I'm sure I'm not the only one who feels that way because why else would they have created box seats?!? We had a ton of food and it was so fun to just hang out and watch the game--which, by the way, was pretty good. The Angels won 8 to 6. So it was a relatively high scoring game.

This is Andy trying to decide what to eat:

Now that he has his food, it's time to put the hurt on!!

The best part of the evening is not the 7th-inning rendering of "Take Me Out to the Ball Game", but when the dessert cart comes around!! They always have an awesome selection!! Andy ended up getting the peanut butter brownie and I got the creme brulee cheesecake.

This is what we train for!!!
Here I am with my cheesecake! Mmmmm....tasty!

Andy's visit to North Carolina

The Wilmington Children's Museum is one of Emma's favorite places to go. I purchased a family annual membership and it has been a great investment. Activities include arts and crafts, clothes to try on, a circus, a grocery store, a restuarant, camping, animals, science, and pirates.

Emma likes Shrek and was much more interested in the happy meal toy than the hoppy meal. This Shrek baby made some funny sounds that Emma played for Evan over the phone and Evan grabbed his Shrek baby so the Shrek babies could talk over the phone. One of the activities Emma and I enjoy is selecting a movie at blockbuster, building a fort and watching the movie together.

I am reading the Bearenstein bears book about Strangers to Emma. The book handles a difficult subject very well.

Memorial Day in Chicago

My last day in Chicago was spent at Lake Michigan. We brought a ton of food to the park and had a BBQ. Some of Ravi and Anne's friends joined us and it was a lot of fun. Fortunately, the weather was completely different from Saturday and we really enjoyed the sun and the time to just relax.


One of Ravi's friends brought a game that originated in Illinois. It's called CORN HOLE!!! Who doesn't love a game named Corn Hole!?!? It's basically bean bag toss for grown ups. You set up two targets about 20 feet apart. Then you toss a bean bag (filled with corn, of course) and try to get it into the hole. You get 1 point for getting the corn bag to land on the board and 3 points if it goes through the hole. The net score is added to the winning team's score. The team that reaches 20 points, wins.



We had a ton of food at the BBQ including burgers, hot dogs, marinated chicken, grilled corn, frog-eye salad and smores. Yum! It's my new mission to make as many people as I can aware of frog-eye salad because it is sooo good. Andy can eat almost an entire bowl all by himself.


Before I knew it, it was time for me to go. I had a wonderful time and really enjoyed Chicago. I'm afraid it would be way too cold for me to actually live in Chicago, but it was a great place to visit.

Day Two in Chicago

After an action-packed day on Saturday, we got a slow start on Sunday. My feet were killing me, so we took it easy on Sunday. Kenny and Ravi went golfing and Anne and I went on a drive to see some of the sights in Chicago.

We drove up to Evanston to see the Northwestern campus. It was amazingly beautiful. The area is very peaceful and green compared to the city. With all it's beauty, I can't imagine how freezing cold it must be in the winter. Chicago is just too far north for me.

We then went to mecca...I mean, the Harpo studios where the Oprah show is filmed. Anne and I have been fans of the show for a long time now. Anne was fortunate enough to get tickets to a show back in February. I got pictures of the balconies across the street where last month Oprah surprised her neighbors by making over their balconies. I was also quite surprised by the number of other tourists who were there taking pictures and especially by a group of about five guys walking around taking pictures as well.

We then met up with Ravi and Kenny and walked past Anne's old apartment (aka "the Dive") to the Chicago Zoo--which is free. We had a lot of fun and I was quite impressed by the Gorilla/primate exhibit. I was even more impressed that it was free.

For dinner, Ravi made a fabulous meal. I was quite impressed.

The Windy City

I spent the Memorial Day weekend in Chicago!! I had only decided about two weeks ago that I would be going to Chicago for Memorial Day, so it was weird to have such short notice in planning a trip. The main reason I went is that Anne will be graduating (from Northwestern with her Master's degree) and I had not yet been out there to see her. We had a blast!! We got the Go Chicago card for $55 and it allowed us to go to a variety of museums, attractions and tours. Anne's friend, Kenny, joined us for the weekend as well. Anne and Kenny met while at Georgia Tech and Kenny is now living in Rockford and is an OBGYN.

So on Saturday morning, we took the "L" train to downtown Chicago. Our first stop was the John Hancock building. It's the second-tallest building in Chicago. It was really cool to see the entire city. Unfortunately we were not able to see as far as we would have liked. On a clear day, we should have been able to see several neighboring states, but it was raining on Saturday, so our view was rather limited. It was so rainy that Anne and I had to clean the windows. We did what we could.
Our next stop was Navy Pier where we caught an architecture boat tour. It was very interesting. Our tour guide told us the background of the types of architecture we saw and learned various tid bits. We learned that Donald Trump was told that he cannot have the tallest building in Chicago, so his Trump Tower is going to be one floor shorter than the Sears Tower. We also found out that there are several pieces of buildings and such from around the world (like the Great Wall of China, various cathedrals, the Taj Mahal and the Twin Towers) embedded in the exterior foundation of the Chicago Tribune building.

There was also an awesome little family that was a little obsessive about taking pictures and more specifically, about taking pictures in which they were standing in front of the tour guide and essentially distracting everyone else on the boat. They made such a spectacle of themselves that I couldn't resist taking a picture of them myself!

We made quick stops at Navy Pier and Millennium Park. We stopped by a statue of Bob Newheart who gave me some good advice. We saw the big bean statue and two very cool water fountains that had the faces of kids on them and the kids would spit out water. Anyway, it was pretty cool.
We made a quick stop at the Art Institute of Chicago. We saw some of the impressionist paintings. It was a very impressive collection. We even saw "American Gothic" by Grant Wood. That painting cracks me up.

We then took the bus to Shedd Aquarium. Thanks to the Go Chicago card, we were able to bypass the loooong lines and go straight to the will-call desk. They have a variety of displays based on different regions of the earth.

It was about lunch time by the time we got to the aquarium, so I had my first Chicago hot dog. Between the two of us, they're not as good as New York hot dogs. Of course, I'm not a fan of hot peppers. If you don't know, a Chicago hot dog has diced onions, relish, NO ketchup, mustard, tomatoes, hot peppers, and the dog all on a poppy-seed bun. The aquarium also had an amphitheater of sorts where they had dolphins doing tricks. I must say, if I were a dolphin, there's no way I'd do all the tricks they do for a lousy fish. We also saw the beluga whale display. There was a baby beluga born last year, so the mom, dad and baby whales were all swimming around in a relatively small aquarium. I tend to feel bad for animals kept in captivity.

All day we had been walking like crazy and all day it had been raining like crazy!!! I think they had more rain on Saturday in Chicago than we've had all year so far in California. We took the bus to the Sears Tower. We went all the way to the top. I believe there are 108 floors. Fortunately, the weather cleared up long enough for us to see a decent amount of the city.

We then walked about 30 more miles (kidding) to go shopping at H&M and the Adidas store and finally to Giordano's for some Chicago-style pizza. Ravi (who had been in a mini-marathon that morning) joined us for dinner. The pizza was sooo good and Chicago deserves to be famous for a pizza like that.

Cookies!!

So, a couple weeks ago, Andy and I were watching TV and there was a blurb about some lady who started a business making unique cookies. I asked Andy if he had ever made cookies from scratch AND by himself!! The answer, much to my chagrin, was "No". I pointed out the fact that Andy is 30 years old and that I found it rather shocking that he had never ventured to make them on his own. Andy pointed out that he had made cookies with his mom on several occasions and that he didn't think that any of MY brothers had ever made cookies from scratch by themselves either! We immediately called my brothers and found out that both Andrew and Stephen had, indeed, made cookies from scratch and by themselves "many times". David, however, had to think about it and finally concluded that he had not. I guess we'll let David off the hook because he is still young--but I am hereby putting David on notice.

Fast forward a couple weeks. For mother's day we had arranged to make dinner for Andy's mom and family. As we were contemplating what to bring for dessert, Andy decided that he would make cookies by himself and from scratch. Of course, I was all in favor of the idea. I must admit, aside from not knowing where everything is in the kitchen, he did an excellent job! The cookies looked and tasted great and I didn't help him at all!! Of course I had to document the process.

Hey Andy! Have you ever made lasagna by yourself from scratch before???? How about Pot Roast???

Andy Defends the Universe

I feel it is my duty to share this video clip with everyone so that you will appreciate the good job Andy is doing in defending the universe. We went to the PCC a while back and I...encouraged...Andy to volunteer to help defend the Maori village. He really got into it and was hoarse for a couple days afterword. I apologize for the jiggly camera work, but I was doing my best to stay in my chair and keep from passing out. This is one of my favorite things about Andy...he is always willing to make me laugh and to be my muse. I come up with the funny ideas and he executes them. Enjoy!! http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LkGynbdrzoQ