California Train Museum

Tuesday, May 31, 2011
California Train Museum

Old Town Sacramento, CA

Old Town Sacramento & The California Train Museum

Arthur really wanted to take the kids to the train museum up in Sacramento.  He remembers going there on a field trip and loving it.  Uncle Reed didn't have to work that day, so he came with us, and Nona kept Sydney at home with her.  That ended up being great, because a stroller would have been a nuisance!  And Sydney wouldn't have been very impressed by the trains anyway.  Thanks again, Mom!

 We had to break a $20 to pay for the parking meter, and where better to do that than a candy shop?

There were barrels and barrels of soft, delicious, salt water taffy of all different flavors. 

Raspberry Cheesecake, Orange Creme, Huckleberry and Caramel were some of my favorites.  While I picked my taffy based on flavor, the kids picked theirs based on color.  I'm not sure what flavors they picked, but suffice it to say that not all flavors are created equal!  

We didn't have to coax these kids to smile for very long.  

They were in a CANDY SHOP for crying out loud!

At the Train Museum:

Had to get a picture of the family in front of the Santa Fe/Cochiti Car since we are from New Mexico, after all!

Hayden could have stayed in this section of the museum all day!

Hot Dogs and Pretzels with nacho cheese for lunch

And here we are sporting our fancy Cassette Optics Sunglasses, courtesy of Reed who is now an official Cassette Optics Sales Representative.  Haven't heard of Cassette Optics?  Well they are an up-and-coming sunglasses company founded by my future brother-in-law Jade.  You can check them out on facebook.  They're gonna be big, folks.

Visiting this museum made me think about how the railroad really changed everything.  It changed where people lived, (making some places much easier to live than before) changed farming and production since the farmers were able to ship their crops all over the nation, changed the way people travel, and in general made the country a much smaller place to live.  The railroad had a pretty significant part in the shaping of our nation.

Grammy's 80th Birthday

Monday, May 30, 2011

Grammy's 80th Birthday Celebration

Del Rio Country Club & Grammy's House

Grammy's 80th Birthday Celebration

Grammy and Grandpa arriving at the Country Club.

The great-grandkids greeting their Grammy.

(And I just realized what a GReat example this is of the poetic device alliteration.)

Grandpa, and his sons

Arthur and I got to sit at a table with all children.  I was going to say that was an adventure, but not really since we do that every day.  We just had a few extra little people than normal.  In fact, we were like magnets. Even the ones who were seated at other tables ended up at our table. They all knew that our table was the fun table!  

Grammy loves talent shows.  So of course, for her birthday celebration we had one.  Each family had offerings for the talent show.  Here are the married RJ Stone girls who came out for Grammy's Day (Natalie, Julianne and myself) with our husbands singing "Old Fashioned Wedding" from Annie Get Your Gun.  I can't decide if I am sad or happy that it wasn't recorded.  I think it was probably better live, but it's not often that we get the guys to sing with us, so I do wish it had been documented.  :)  Anyway, it was super fun for us to do this, and my kids (including the boys) still go around the house singing, "I wanna wedding in a big church with bridesmaids and flower girls! . . ."   

The RJS Men singing "Let the Lower Lights be Burning."  

They sound GREAT together.

And here is a video of the Great-Grandchildren singing to Grammy.

The RJS family's present to Grammy was a scrapbook entitled, "Patricia--Glimpses of Grammy from A to Z."  Mom and Dad provided the album for all the layouts and Natalie, Jenny, Julianne and I all split up the alphabet and did layouts for each of the letters of the alphabet.  Each layout takes anywhere from 2-4 hours, (depending on volume of creative juices -- the lower the volume, the longer it takes.)  And Julianne did all of her layouts with a gimpy hand!  (She had several stitches in her left hand due to an incident with a Cutco knife.)  Anyway, it was a labor of love, and we hope she will enjoy looking back and remembering glimpses of her life for many more years to come!

Looking through the scrapbook

Happy Birthday, Grammy!  You are still beautiful as ever.

Lavender Hollow Farm

Saturday, May 28, 2011

Lavender Hollow Farm

Escalon, CA

Saturday afternoon, Mom took Natalie, Julianne and I to pick up Grammy for a birthday outing to Lavender Hollow Farm.  Grammy thought it was just going to be her and Mom, so she was really surprised to see the rest of us on her doorstep.  We browsed around their cute gift shop, and got a few fragrant souvenirs.  Then we headed outside to walk around the lavender farm.  

These are the box dinners Mom treated us to.  Aren't they cute?

I didn't know this, but apparently, lavender is edible.  We had lavender-chicken salad on cresents, strawberries with lavender fruit dip, lavender seasoned almonds and cheese, and lavender lemon bars for dessert.  I was surprised at how delicious it was.  

Smelling the lavender

taking pictures of people taking pictures

Grammy lent me her jacket since it was much cooler than I thought it would be out there in CA.  

This time of year is usually pretty warm.

What a beautiful way to spend an afternoon.  Thanks to the husbands who held down the fort while we got to have some girl time.  (Don't worry--they had PLENTY of golf later to keep everything even.)

Way-Back Wednesday

I'm copying this idea from my sister-in-law.  I think it's so fun to look at old pictures and remember, so hopefully this is the first of many "Way-back Wednesdays" to come, though I have no aspirations of doing them every Wednesday.

This was taken in our first apartment.  I don't remember the name of the complex, but it was in Orem, UT.  There's Arthur surrounded by piles of books and homework and notes.  And behind Arthur is a couch.  You can't miss it--Probably from the 60's--who knows how many times it's been to D.I.?  We lucked out and didn't even have to go to D.I. to get it, because as we were moving in, someone else was moving out and asked us if we wanted that couch since they were just gonna take it back to D.I.  Well, we didn't own a couch, so we gratefully accepted.  It's a beauty, isn't it?  A few months later we moved to an apartment closer to campus and SIGNIFICANTLY smaller--so small that couch wouldn't even fit in the family room.  So we took that couch back to D.I. and picked up another vintage special half the size.  Ah, the joys of being poverty-stricken newly weds.  It's so good for you.

May Quotes

Little Red Hen (aka Me):  Hey boys, do you want to help me make some bread?

Sean & Hayden almost simultaneously:  "No." "Uh . . . no."

Daphne was the MC at a puppet show she and the boys put on and said, 

"And now for the introdooktion of Sean and Hayden!"

Sean:  I loved my birthday.

Me: (pleasantly surprised that he would remember his birthday since it was back in September)  Oh, good!  Did you have so much fun?

Sean:  Well, no.  I just liked getting so many presents.  That was awesome.

(and that's why we don't do parties very often.  I don't want my kids to be greedy little birthday brats.)

Last night while driving home from Pack Meeting, Sean stuck his "wand" (yes, my children all have wands that they've made, and carry around with them in case they need to stupify someone,) into a hole in the car where the seat belt is stored.  Tragically, it fell all the way in and all hope of restoring it was lost.  Until Daphne said, "I know!  Let's turn the car upside down!"  Hayden thought about that for awhile, and in the meantime the conversation turned to other things.  Then about five minutes later, horrified at his conclusion, Hayden tearfully exclaimed, "But the car is too big!"  This morning, after giving it some more thought, he decided that if we had a giant to help us, we could probably turn the car upside down.

At Pack Meeting--

Cubmaster (who happens to be Arthur) : Okay, now it's time for AWARDS!  

Hayden:  A War?!?  Awthome!

Dallin recently did a big report on Utah for his gifted class, which included among other things, reports on 3 famous people.  

Dallin chose Brigham Young, Butch Cassidy, and Jimmer, of course! -- technically not from Utah, but played for BYU, so Utah can partially claim him!

Here is a close-up of his state project.  

As a result of all his Utah research, he claimed the following title in this phone conversation:

Dallin: Hi-- is Cole there? 

Cole's Mom: Sure, let me get him.

Cole: Hello?

Dallin: Hi Cole.

Cole: Who is this?

(say this in a Mr. Jack-the-Canadian-Border-Patrol-Voice): Well, this is . . . shall I say, "the UTAH EXPERT."  

As we were loading the kids back into their car seats after the 3rd store we'd been to:
Me : Boy, all these errands are for the birds, huh guys?
Hayden:  Well, we are not birdth.  We are perthonth. (persons)

Waving good-bye to Natalie & Brian as they left Nona's house, Hayden said, 
"You're gonna mith uth!"

Sean:  Mom!  I want to go swimming!  I haven't been swimming in an AWESOMELY LONG TIME!

Last night Daphne explained to Aunt Julianne, "My mom made these brownies for a reason, not just for fun.  She made them for dessert!" 

Dallin:  I hate it when people explode for no reason. 
(??? I think this must have been in reference to a computer game, but out of context it made me laugh.)

Moments & Mindfulness

On Mother's Day, I heard this quote from Elder M. Russell Ballard's talk entitled "Daughters of God," and I just loved it.

"Recognize that the joy of motherhood comes in moments. There will be hard times and frustrating times. But amid the challenges, there are shining moments of joy and satisfaction. 

Author Anna Quindlen reminds us not to rush past the fleeting moments. She said: “The biggest mistake I made [as a parent] is the one that most of us make. . . . I did not live in the moment enough. This is particularly clear now that the moment is gone, captured only in photographs. There is one picture of [my three children] sitting in the grass on a quilt in the shadow of the swing set on a summer day, ages six, four, and one. And I wish I could remember what we ate, and what we talked about, and how they sounded, and how they looked when they slept that night. I wish I had not been in such a hurry to get on to the next thing: dinner, bath, book, bed. I wish I had treasured the doing a little more and the getting it done a little less”(Loud and Clear [2004], 10–11)."

That was a good reminder for me.  I have been thinking about that all month, and trying to recognize those special times with my kids and to stop and enjoy them more often.  I have been trying to share at least one "moment" with at least one of my children every day.  I've also been trying to be more "present"-- for lack of a better word.  A lot of times I find myself preoccupied with this or that, and not listening to my children carefully.  I've been trying to just really be all-the-way-there more often; instead of being physically present but mentally thinking about the next thing on my to-do list.

Anyway, there's been a lot of good side effects of being more mindful, one of which is that I have been able to find a little bit of humor in the hard and frustrating and monotonous times in between.

Here is what is going on between those shining moments of joy:  

Yes, we've reached the phase of keeping the bathroom doors CLOSED! 

(unless we want to double our toilet paper consumption.)

Hayden decorates the walls any chance he gets.

He even signs his work with a big "H"

Sydney doesn't want my music to feel neglected so she takes it out of it's storage crate every day.

Sean and Hayden used my rotary blade to embellish my craft table and were careful to make sure the chair matched.

Pillows and cushions that never stay where they belong.

Don't have a clue what they used to scratch up this table.

monotony.

Here's to recognizing those joyful, fleeting moments, and to living in them better.  Because we all know that what goes on between those moments can really kick your butt.