Summer Colds

Dear Germies and Infectious Immune Shutter Downers,

Why did you deliver this cold to me in the summer? You changing things up on me? Why I oughtta! You have to understand how confusing this is to breathe in, that is, if I could breathe with my nose running like a faucet. I feel you should have waited until the air turned frigid. The winter air feels so much better on my scabbed throat working like a lozenge instead of swelling my lymph nodes even more into the ping-pong ball size they already are. In the cold, I could rightfully be sipping something hot and be huddled under a warm blanket. Instead, I'm crouched in the heat trying to continue on with summer activities getting no relief from my full sinused head.
Signed,
Vitamin C and Lots of Rest

PS If this is some allergic reaction, then please accept my apology.

Thomas Judd Store

If you are ever in St. George, you need to stop into this old fashioned candy store, nicknamed, Judds (I have a thing for old candy). I remember cutting across the street to go to it in 6th grade. You could stop in for a crappy lunch of nachos, breadstick, soup, ice cream and of course, candy. Good thing girls and boys alternated every other day for lunch at Judd's otherwise we would all have severe nutritional issues. Anyway, it was a good time, especially because I could meet up with old friends, Becky, Angie, and Alysia. We should have put our hair into side ponytails, worn double-colored socks, and carried a few tote trays. Good to see you guys.

So, here I stay

Mat is there (Minnesota) and I am here (St. George). And oh! how I miss my over there which my heart can hardly bare. But, while I'm here, I shan't think of there, so I will trample everywhere to clear the air of my over there. -Dickinson

Here, I am---Welcome to Dixie! Land-O-Tried-Cotton! Oh! how it makes my thoughts dizzy when I step onto red dirt soil again. When you come home you immediately place yourself in this frozen space of time of what you once were. My ice age goes back to 4th grade and on up to college. There are constant little flecks of firing sparks from my memory trying to get rekindled every time I come home that it is almost unsettling. Unsettling, yes, let me explain---you look at your roots and you start to argue with conscience: "Was it always like this?" "Has living out east changed my accent that much?" "Maybe it's my age, mmm, yes, I'm more mature, maybe? Na, maybe not." "Did that building used to be there?" "I think I know her....but where from......"

I took a few mental observations:

Observation #1 People like to tell you within the first few minutes upon your arrival of what is new, what has been replaced, and what the city council plans to do for the future. They will also tell you their opinions to go with it.

Observation #2 On hot summer days, you can smell the asphalt reheating to a melting point. It's almost as if they had just repaved the Albertson's parking lot yesterday.

Observation #3 There's something about Mary's. Three blonds are standing at a Target checkout register and they had peculiar written all over them. Their hair was colored, cut, and angled all the same. They stood in perfect form. I scrunched my eyebrows and asked, "Self, how is this possible? Every quiet strand of hair carefully placed and tacked" It was so amazing that it made my head slant slightly to the right just to get another angle.

Observation #4 I'd like a thick toasted accent with with a side of accents.

Observation #5 I've been to two sacrament meetings, in two different wards, where both of the speakers have caught my attention. The first speaker mentions Settlers of Zarahemla as a moral lesson in her talk and the Second speaker mentions how after careful planning of the girl's camp theme, the be attitudes, she was finally able to find the bumble bees at a local craft store. Next week is a cousins homecoming so no surprising talks there.

Do I like my hometown? Yes and maybe.
Does the remodeled town square look rustically nice? Absolutely!
Did I return to Target the next day purposely wearing no make-up and messy hair? yup.
Do I plan on coming back and living in my hometown? Maybe, hence the heavy speculation.

Ending my observations.......... now.

Drop and give us 100...eventually

One of my favorite websites, Lifehacker.com, recently featured a website called one hundred pushups, which has a cool challenge for those of us with less than a Men's Health magazine chest. You start with a push up challenge test, which is basically just your maximum number of pushups. Based on this test, you start doing 5 sets of pushups, 3 days a week. After 6 weeks they reckon you should be able to do one hundred consecutive pushups. I'm 2 days in and I've already added 0.3 millimeters to my triceps. If anyone else checks out the site and decides to try it, let me know in six weeks if you were successful.

Our Lucky 7 Hits 1

Ahhh! It is my dear daughter Micah's birthday. After coaxing Dr. Fetco to perform my c-section on Saturday, we were able to have Micah's birthday on 7-7-07. Easily remembered. Not knowing the gender, the doc hollered, "It's a girl!" She was quiet, calm, and very peaceful, making it very easy to love her and accept her as my third child.

It's days like these that you find yourself the night before flashing back to your first newborn meeting. Micah could do no wrong last night. I smiled as I cleaned up her smudged face, vacuumed up her mess singing, changed her diaper not minding a bit, waited on her, left her in the high chair a little less than my usual hour and let her stay up a few minutes more because she didn't want to go to bed. It was just sigh, after sigh, with a few, "I can't believe you're turning 1" in betweens. For her birthday, we will make her a chocolate cake, since chocolate is what runs thick in the veins of this family. She will get a big piece and be covered and smothered and all over good. For her birthday, I had a hard time deciding what to give her. She wants the channel changer desperately bad, but she is also partial to my telephone. She also likes plant dirt, computer buttons, and lamp cords. Oh! I just can't decide what to go with, you just want to give her all of them. She definitely deserves it, it's her birthday.

More on Minneapolis

We have now had a few more days to get to know this city and we like it more and more each day. The two lakes across the street from our apartment have several wonderful parks, walking and biking trails, and swimming beaches. The trail system in the city is amazing. I started biking to the VA last week. I can hook onto the trail in front of our building and arrive at the hospital 9-1/2 miles away having taken a continuous trail (along the Minnehaha creek, past Lake Hiawatha) for all but about the last 500 yards.

The houses along the shores of these lakes are all unique with great architecture and beautiful yards. They hail back to a time when neighborhoods weren't just carbon copy 2x4 dwellings.

These were a few of our favorites.

We're pretty sure this is the house we want to build some day.

We watched the fireworks on the 4th on the roof of the apartment building and there were no less than 15 fireworks show visible in all directions.

If it wasn't so ridiculously cold in the winter I would give this city a 4 star rating.

Land of the Lakes- Minneapolis, MN

3 rest stops, 11 PB & J's, 4 tanks of gas, 2 walkie talkies, 17 sticks of gum, countless episodes of blasted kid shows, 7 bottles, 1 bag of Reece's pieces, 1,201 miles and 20 hours later......

We're now resting our fine selves in downtown Minneapolis.

Our apartment happens to be located in a lovely part of town in a high rise apartment (thank you UNC). If you were to glance out the window, you might see, two lakes, bikers, runners, runners with dogs, walkers with dogs, standers with dogs, windsurfers with their own kind, canoers, kayakers, and a cheap local fish taco stand. Our apartment has a pool on the roof (that is unfortunately not heated, but kids don't care), a coin-op laundry, and a doorman. The kids and I have 1 week to smell it all before we leave for Utah. When we return in September, I'm sure it will be a whole different earth with the leaves changing along with the air.

Old School Playgrounds

Location: Black River Falls, Wisconsin
Year: 2008
Year that it felt like: 1984

We crashed in Black River Falls the night before from an exhausting 10hr trek. When we arose the next morning, we were transported back into the 80's when playgrounds were carefree, unsafe, and still had merry-go-rounds, big paddled seated teeter-totters, and steep metal slides that would sear you buns in the hot sun. The playground also featured springy animals that you could rock back and forth on that actually had some give, not like springies today that just go eh, eh, eh, like stop and go traffic. The local downtown was something out of Leave it to Beaver. The people were friendly, 1 old time hardware store, 2 traffic lights, and an old clock tower that donged every hour with pretty music. They also had a general store that still carried your favorite candy bars example: Charleston Chews, Big Hunk, Chico sticks, Fun-dips, ginormous and super ginormous jaw breakers, O'Henry's, Sixlets, Zagnuts .....Oh! I could go on and on because I'm such a candy masticater. The merchant even served old fashioned ice cream with a Whopper carefully placed in the bottom of the cone so the ice cream wouldn't trickle through. Can you imagine what their 4th of July must taste like? Wish there were more antique towns like this.