Operation Smile 5K

As you know, my two handsome nephews, Jimmy and Johnny, were born with cleft palettes. My sister Anna and her husband James have been active in the cleft community, and while in China helped in translation for Operation Smile. Well, that organization sponsored a 5K run and 1K walk this weekend, so we signed up.




The wind was biting cold in the morning, and I nearly wanted to run with my gigantic coat on. Still, the sun shone brightly and we enjoyed time talking and goofing off together before the race. Leah Sherry was there, though the speed bomb raced ahead of Anna and me right at the start!






As it turned out, we only ran for about 1 mile. At the 1 mile point, the trail became a super steep switchback up a gravel mountainside. (To quote Leah's blog entry, "what the?!") I'd never done a "trail run" of quite this type!! We were also then running through smoke from a nearby fire. And Anna was sick with laryngitis and feeling feverish. So we just decided to walk most of the remaining 2 miles. We came in dead last, but had a fantastic time catching up on sister time. Much more important to me than running up a non-trail! Anna wrote about the event on her blog, too.







Taylor had tons to do on his final dissertation/book edits, but still supported us and came for the walk. I'm so glad he was there too! Poor David didn't like keeping his gloves and hat on -- yet it was so cold!

The Whole Gang

Missing Blog: Taylor's Parents in Town!

I am catching up on blogging today, and want to blog about the fun visit from Taylor's parents, Richard and Kathy. But Taylor downloaded the photos to his computer and then from that to the external hard drive. So that extra step is slowing me down! I will get to it, I promise!!

Fear

Yesterday morning I had one of the biggest scares of my life while driving to work. I was on the I-15, and the roads were bad because of snow. I hate driving in snow!! I saw in advance lots of red tail lights go on, so I braked. I wasn't too close to the cars ahead, but I guess I was braking too fast. I started swerving all over the freeway, and couldn't regain control. In the process I got turned around, and was continuing to swerve, but backwards. Several cars were coming at me, including a semi. All somehow miraculously missed me. I couldn't regain control until I backed into the median. I was hyperventilating for 1/2 an hour.

The car is pretty much OK, perhaps a few scrapes. But I got the willies when driving the same spot this morning (even though today the roads were fine).

Again, I hate driving in snow!

The Mom Song

Hilarious!

Taylor's Book

Taylor's dissertation is being published as a book. Exciting! Check it out here. It will make a great stocking stuffer...perhaps! <; Actually, it is not the super arcane writing that you sometimes get in academic publications.

In fact, the editor had high praise for his writing. Taylor told them it was because I helped with the editing. I did read it over, but hardly made any changes. It's written well because he is a strong writer and thinker!

I'm very proud of all that he does!

Aaawesome!

I think I'm going to go crazy if "Aaawesome!" keeps coming at me.

For a while we kept getting a call from some company that said we'd won a free night's stay at Park City. I kept telling the woman that she'd have to call when my husband was home. "Aaawesome!" she'd reply. "When will he be home?" "About 7:30 tonight." "Aaawesome!"

Finally we told them we weren't interested and they shouldn't call back. "Aaawesome!"

A few days later I dropped off David's request for medical records at the office of the doctor we planned to start using. "Aaawesome!" the receptionist told me. I almost did a double-take, thinking she worked nights for the Park City company.

When I left school on Friday, I noticed two posters put up for "Kindness Week." (Not sure if I've been especially kind this week!) One said, "Be Happy!" The other said, "Be Awesome!"

Oh no.

Small Town Downtown

We had the nicest morning exploring Springville's downtown. We headed to Hank Vaud's furniture store to check out their mattresses. We need to get something set up in our guest room, since Taylor's parents visit in a week, and mine come in early April! Though we didn't buy anything there, we enjoyed a nice conversation with the owner. He had been working in the furniture business for 63 years. Wow!

Then we went across the street to Funfinity, a great toy and game store. We only window-shopped, but David enjoyed walking around with so many toys to look at.

Afterwards we ate lunch (a delicious cajun chicken sandwich) at a natural foods store. It's nice to have something a little "alternative" in Springville. The food was absolutely fantastic -- I'm sure we'll return.

And afterwards we walked into SOS Pharmacy. They still have a 50s style soda fountain, and for about $2 we had a great chocolate malt. Lots of historic paraphernalia in the store. They could spruce the place up a bit and really make it more of a landmark.

The day had started grey but turned sunny. It was a beautiful Saturday together!

Powerful Prunes

As a laxative, we bought some prune juice for David. But it had been a while since he'd had any at all. Yesterday I diluted it half-and-half with water, and he gulped down the first sippy cup. I filled another. He drank at least 1 1/2 sippy cups of the stuff. Then I went off to a RS Birthday Celebration and had a fun "girls night out" of sorts.

I came home to find a new batch of laundry going. I had just done the laundry! Taylor said there were two explosions. After the first, he bathed David and cleaned up the mess. Then he put him in his diaper for bed. Another explosion!

That prune juice is really powerful stuff! Beware!

Taylor's Day

Taylor's birthday was Monday, and we celebrated with a dinner out at his favorite restaurant in Provo, The Brick Oven. Free bottomless rootbeer on Monday nights, plus a whole pizza to himself -- Taylor was in heaven. And we had so much food left over!

David was saying "Pizza, pizza" all the way into the restaurant -- these two boys may not share any genes, but they sure share a lot of personality!




My parents sent a musical card with Homer Simpson on it. Homer sings this silly ditty about fire: “When a fire starts to burn, / There’s a lesson you must learn. / Something something then you’ll see / You’ll avoid catastrophe.” Then he says, “Doh!” because (its implied) he burns himself. David was at first afraid of the card because Homer screams “Fire!” at the beginning. Now David loves to chime in “Doh!” at the right time. It makes us laugh and laugh.

"Doh!"

Our Home

Friday our furniture arrived! Everything looks beautiful. I love to wake up and walk into the family room -- sun streaming in the windows (we've had beautiful days in the 50s & 60s lately!) and lighting up our home.






We placed the two tall bookcases I made back in Indiana into our family room:




The family tree I made (from a kit from Red Envelope) has all the right colors to match the couches and the rug. We were not even thinking about that, since it had been in our bedroom before. Love it when that happens!




The accent chair I'm excited about didn't come yet! Sigh. I will be excited to see it in this small sitting/piano room:




One sofa will eventually go in the playroom, but for now is in our library.




I know that what really makes a home is the people and the love there (plus a lot of laughter). But couches you like sure do please the eye!

OK, so this guy, and not the couch, is what's really important!