23 Days

Dallin's Schedule:

Portland, Oregon
Boston, Massachusetts
Portland, Maine
Vancouver, British Columbia
Vanderhoof, British Columbia
Campbell River, British Columbia
Portland, Oregon

Total Distance: 8,396 Miles
via Airplane, Car & Ferry

Sariah's Schedule:

Seminary
Soccer Practice
Soccer Games
Swimming Lessons
Violin Lessons
Piano Lessons
Pre-School
High School
Middle School
Elementary School
Kindergarten
Church
Store
& More

Total Distance: 396 miles
via Car, Foot, Bus & Bike

It's hard to know who will be more tired on October 4th.

Looking forward to October 5th. 

House Rules

If you get dressed by yourself then you get to choose your own outfit. 
Even if it's a school day.

NIGHT ONE

I thought that nothing could be worse than cleaning up the hot dogs that look identical coming up to going down.

NIGHT TWO

It turns out, though, that cleaning up digestible foods is significantly worse than cleaning up indestructible ones. 

vig·il /ˈvijəl/

noun

1. 

a period of keeping awake during the time usually spent asleep, especially to keep watch or pray

 

 

there's something about a nighttime vigil with a sick child

when you can relax into it.

something sweet about the silence

something inviting about the comforting

something lovely about it.

 

unless you're worried

or scared

or hopeless.

then it's something completely different. 

 

Darn It!

Sometimes several years can go by and it feels that life is much the same as it has been.

But other times,

Naomi looks like a woman and smiles confidently as she leaves for high school.

Marko runs off to his kindergarten line because he already knows where it is.

And the game of pretending that Lucy is still a baby gets a bit ridiculous as she tells me that "Technically if a peregrine falcon didn't have wings it wouldn't be a bird." 

Darn those other times, when I realize that this stage is slipping away. 

Driven

I know people who are driven,
almost by impulse,
to compose music
or write beautiful prose,
or sketch,
or create poetry.

I'm sad to admit
that I just want to talk,

...so I  blog.

I didn't know last night...

...that it was their last day as little guys
sharing a pink and blue room
with a rocking chair.
I didn't know
when I tucked them in
that today they'd move on
to big bunk beds
and separate rooms.

Darn Craigslist
for having a great deal
on bunk beds that matched
Chas's bedroom set.

Lucy's Heartfelt Wish Revealed

"Ohhh!  I wish I could've been born on MY birthday!"

(After she discovered that Marko was born on his birthday.)

Conversations with Lucy during the Sacrament

"The Wise Men brought Jesus presents.  Would you like to give Jesus a gift?"

Yes

"What present would you like to give Jesus?"

A hotel to be born in.

"The present Jesus really wants from us is for us to be kind.  Would you like to give that present to Jesus?"

But he couldn't open it.

Before & After

Before:

 

After:

 

Stay tuned (for 3 years) to see the real AFTER pictures. 

Good Luck, Beautiful Kid!

First Day of School 2013

 

 

 

A Highlight of My Summer:

Merinda and I spoke at Girls Camp.

A Highlight of My Life:

Merinda and I met at Girls Camp.

 

Second Cousins

Standing in line at the water slide
One second cousin says to the other second cousin,
"In our family we play this game called Beaver."
"We play that game too!!"
"We Beaver red hair, horses, clothes on a line, and motorcycles."
"We used to Beaver those, but now we Beaver..."

Three days ago, they probably wouldn't have recognized each other on the street.
But, yet they are cousins.  Related through a Grandmother neither of them remembers.
And mysteriously linked by an old fashioned travel game that spanned 4 generations.

Thank heaven for traditions!
And family reunions.
And long drives from Iowa or Washington that unify us to our second cousins.

 

Brooksish

as in Spanish, Swedish, Finnish... 

After a while, you develop your own dialect.  At the Tower of Babel languages divided families from each other.  In our case, our dialect, in a strange way, unifies us. 

Famine--The tendency of all 13 boxes of tissues around the house to run empty at approximately the same time.

Binge--Mom's current fad of cooking cuisine. That is, all Mexican food for a month, sushi every week for six months, fondue twice a week for the summer. 

Concoction--Attempting to hide vegetables or fruit in a smoothie drink or muffin mix.  Concoctions' rate of success is 50%.

"Probably watered down"--The polite thing to say when something tastes awful.

"That's the dumbest idea I've ever heard"--"That's what I just said," or "That was my idea first."

"It's probably a tumeh (tumor)." -- "It's hypochondria."

The Abyss--The roaming location that swallows things like putty knives, nail clippers, thermometers, and other essentials. 

Mt. Everest--The ridiculously high, didn't-we-have-a-warranty? middle of our king size bed that is at least 8 inches higher in elevation than the sides of the bed.

I Went to the Dentist Today

It turns out that flossing is still all the rage.

Too bad.

Not when I water the daisies

or the hydrangeas
or the the day lillies.

Not when I water the zucchini
or the carrots
or the pumpkins.

But when I water the roses,
I miss my grandmother.
She said roses like water.

And a lot of other wise things that stick with me.

The Price of Being a Therapist

9 O'Clock PM. 

Front Yard.

Chaos inside.

It's good to go to therapy. And it's good to be a therapist. 

It's probably therapeutic for the neighbors too.

American Medical Association Recommendations

I went to the Doctor today for an annual (read--first time ever) physical.

Apparently the annual Pap Smears that I've been avoiding are now recommended only once every five years.  I've been right on schedule then.

Also, those monthly "breast self-exams" with the little laminated charts in the shower that seem like such a waste of time, are, in fact, actually a waste of time.

I told her I was ahead of my time.

Next week I have a dentist appointment.  I bet he's going to tell me that flossing is a thing of the past. 

Getting my kids to clean the house

leaves me feeling like not a very nice person.

Dysfunction

For the record,

I did a Zumba Class today.

And a Core-something-or-other Class that was awful and painful and humiliating.

Then I came home.

Then I remembered the Boston Cream donuts in the cupboard that I'd hidden from my kids and myself.

Then I debated whether to eat the donuts after I just worked out for an hour and probably didn't burn off the calories of one donut.

Then I paused in my debate to take a picture of the donuts so that I could blog about my dysfunction.

Then I ate them both and chugged water from my exercise water bottle.

Dysfunction at work. 

Also for the record,  they were delicious.

dys·func·tion noun  \(ˌ)dis-ˈfəŋ(k)-shən\


1: impaired functioning

2: unhealthy behavior