Thursday, January 15, 2009
Swimming with two Downs
I got to tell you about my swimming trip with Bob and Mei. We went to the Provo Rec Center on Saturday for an outing while the parents were away. (Didn't even think of using this time to do homework) So off we go.
We get in the water and I find that Mei is too small for the deep and Bob is too big for the shallow and there is only one of me. Se we entertained Mei in the shallow part for a while and I went into the barely safe enough to jump and let Bob jump in a couple of times, giving Mei the thumbs up with eye contact in between each jump. Then Mei came on my back and we went to the deep part and let Bob swim around. He swam almost the whole length of the pool dogpaddling just out of reach of my hands for support. When he finally coughed on some water signaling that he was done I lifted him up and held him the rest of the way. I could feel the burning eyes of the life guard wondering what I was trying to do with this kid. So we ventured back to the shallow end and sat down in a circle. Bob immediately stood up with crossed legs and pointed directly at his groin. Well, Thank you for the signal!! So we hopped out and Mei kept playing in an 'i'm not listening' manner before I chased her down and pulled her out of the pool all the while praying that Bob can hold it til we make it to the toilet.
Bob and I rush in and find a stall where I wait for a little bit and anxiously tell him to hurry up! I go quickly to look for Mei and she is standing close to the door, FREEZING, but waiting so patiently. Oh thank you. So I go back and encourage Bob and carefully handling his swimsuit so it doesn't lose the string that I cut short the last time we went swimming.
I run back to thank Mei for waiting so patiently and she is gone! I go around the corner to peep into the pool and see her eye me directly and give me a thumbs up. Okay, she is safe for a moment. (Heavenly Father please keep her safe). Back to Bob. I finally decide that it is too cold to wait any longer and encourage him to put his suit back on. As I go to tie it, the strings are both gone! Well, that is probably the end of our trip... lets go get Mei. I scanned the shallow end and panicked when I didn't see her. She was inching her way along the side of the deep deep end, the end where the diving board is. Yeah, Thank You Heavenly Father for keeping her safe!
He is so good to us!
We get in the water and I find that Mei is too small for the deep and Bob is too big for the shallow and there is only one of me. Se we entertained Mei in the shallow part for a while and I went into the barely safe enough to jump and let Bob jump in a couple of times, giving Mei the thumbs up with eye contact in between each jump. Then Mei came on my back and we went to the deep part and let Bob swim around. He swam almost the whole length of the pool dogpaddling just out of reach of my hands for support. When he finally coughed on some water signaling that he was done I lifted him up and held him the rest of the way. I could feel the burning eyes of the life guard wondering what I was trying to do with this kid. So we ventured back to the shallow end and sat down in a circle. Bob immediately stood up with crossed legs and pointed directly at his groin. Well, Thank you for the signal!! So we hopped out and Mei kept playing in an 'i'm not listening' manner before I chased her down and pulled her out of the pool all the while praying that Bob can hold it til we make it to the toilet.
Bob and I rush in and find a stall where I wait for a little bit and anxiously tell him to hurry up! I go quickly to look for Mei and she is standing close to the door, FREEZING, but waiting so patiently. Oh thank you. So I go back and encourage Bob and carefully handling his swimsuit so it doesn't lose the string that I cut short the last time we went swimming.
I run back to thank Mei for waiting so patiently and she is gone! I go around the corner to peep into the pool and see her eye me directly and give me a thumbs up. Okay, she is safe for a moment. (Heavenly Father please keep her safe). Back to Bob. I finally decide that it is too cold to wait any longer and encourage him to put his suit back on. As I go to tie it, the strings are both gone! Well, that is probably the end of our trip... lets go get Mei. I scanned the shallow end and panicked when I didn't see her. She was inching her way along the side of the deep deep end, the end where the diving board is. Yeah, Thank You Heavenly Father for keeping her safe!
He is so good to us!
Holding down the Homefront
Last weekend my Mom and Dad went to Washington for my nephew James' baptism and birthday, so I held down the homefront while they were gone for 4 days. As they suggested the idea my response was "no problem, sure thing...only 4 days?" My feelings were slightly different on Sunday night waiting for their return. Wow, my stamina isn't what it used to be.
A few highlights from the weekend. I want to record the first one for my own journaling purposes because we left this part out of the report, and I think I am safe because Mom and Dad rarely read my blog.
So Thursday night, first night without the parents, I am fixing chicken broccoli casserole (mega sized) and doing my best to handle all the nerve firings in my brain about each person, thing, time, medication, that needs to happen that evening, and picking up the phone to hear about Rosey's date last night, when Doug is coming to cover, what is the recipe from Jules, and my friend Beth borrowing my Kinesiology book. All the while baking cookies with Mei. We finish the cookies and Mei and Bob follow me downstairs to stick them in the oven. I look at the clock on my phone and decide that I will remember to come down in 5 minutes to pull out the cookies from the ambiguous oven. So I race upstairs to finish the casserole. A couple of minutes later I go downstairs and Mei informs me "Bobby gone". What!!!! Where did he go? "Idn know" as she shrugs her shoulders. I frantically look in every room downstairs calling his name. The only trace I have of him is Peter's curtain that is moved 6 inches to the right uncovering a bit of the window. I recruited Peter to go out and look while I finish the casserole. I begin working on the casserole again and went downstairs for something. AH! The Cookies?? I rush to oven to pull out probably the best cookies I have ever made... don't ak me how it all worked out, thank you Heavenly Father.
So Pete comes back in unsuccessful. In his teenage tone "somebody will call and let us know where he is"
"Pete!! We can't just wait for that?"
"Well, what do you want me to do?"
In my mind I know that Pete is right from his vast experience of this same predicament, but I can't just give up. Somehow my neurotic reaction makes me feel that we are getting somewhere.
So I finish the casserole and stick it in the oven and head out to walk around the block. Pete calls to give me the address of where Bob is. I hop in my car and head out to the next block and halfway down the street. I pass a cop car on the way and knock on the door of the house.
The friendly older gentleman who almost died of a heart attack from Bob's intrusion was really sweet about letting Bob explore his house and handing him over to the police when they came. His granddaughter recognized him and called him "Bobby". The gentleman took Bobby to his daughters house up the driveway from him and his daughter Brenda recognized him from church. She supposed that he was in the 6th ward and called the Jensen's in our ward who confirmed that Bobby belonged to us. So they told the policeman and he responded "yep, we've identified him" (yeah, sure you have) and Bobby was excorted home. I arrived home and asked Pete what the guy said when he dropped Bob off.
"Nothin'"
"What? No, what did he say?"
"Nothing"
"Pete, what words did he speak when he came to the door?"
"He just asked if this was his house and dropped him off"
Oh Gosh!
Everyone home safe and sound!
We just like to keep our guardian angels busy around here!
A few highlights from the weekend. I want to record the first one for my own journaling purposes because we left this part out of the report, and I think I am safe because Mom and Dad rarely read my blog.
So Thursday night, first night without the parents, I am fixing chicken broccoli casserole (mega sized) and doing my best to handle all the nerve firings in my brain about each person, thing, time, medication, that needs to happen that evening, and picking up the phone to hear about Rosey's date last night, when Doug is coming to cover, what is the recipe from Jules, and my friend Beth borrowing my Kinesiology book. All the while baking cookies with Mei. We finish the cookies and Mei and Bob follow me downstairs to stick them in the oven. I look at the clock on my phone and decide that I will remember to come down in 5 minutes to pull out the cookies from the ambiguous oven. So I race upstairs to finish the casserole. A couple of minutes later I go downstairs and Mei informs me "Bobby gone". What!!!! Where did he go? "Idn know" as she shrugs her shoulders. I frantically look in every room downstairs calling his name. The only trace I have of him is Peter's curtain that is moved 6 inches to the right uncovering a bit of the window. I recruited Peter to go out and look while I finish the casserole. I begin working on the casserole again and went downstairs for something. AH! The Cookies?? I rush to oven to pull out probably the best cookies I have ever made... don't ak me how it all worked out, thank you Heavenly Father.
So Pete comes back in unsuccessful. In his teenage tone "somebody will call and let us know where he is"
"Pete!! We can't just wait for that?"
"Well, what do you want me to do?"
In my mind I know that Pete is right from his vast experience of this same predicament, but I can't just give up. Somehow my neurotic reaction makes me feel that we are getting somewhere.
So I finish the casserole and stick it in the oven and head out to walk around the block. Pete calls to give me the address of where Bob is. I hop in my car and head out to the next block and halfway down the street. I pass a cop car on the way and knock on the door of the house.
The friendly older gentleman who almost died of a heart attack from Bob's intrusion was really sweet about letting Bob explore his house and handing him over to the police when they came. His granddaughter recognized him and called him "Bobby". The gentleman took Bobby to his daughters house up the driveway from him and his daughter Brenda recognized him from church. She supposed that he was in the 6th ward and called the Jensen's in our ward who confirmed that Bobby belonged to us. So they told the policeman and he responded "yep, we've identified him" (yeah, sure you have) and Bobby was excorted home. I arrived home and asked Pete what the guy said when he dropped Bob off.
"Nothin'"
"What? No, what did he say?"
"Nothing"
"Pete, what words did he speak when he came to the door?"
"He just asked if this was his house and dropped him off"
Oh Gosh!
Everyone home safe and sound!
We just like to keep our guardian angels busy around here!
Thursday, January 1, 2009
Happy New Year!! Welcome 2009!!
Happy New Year!! And it was the happiest New Years Eve I can remember. Well, at least the most dazzlingly celebrated. I spent New Years Eve with Rose. We began our night dining on pork salads from Cafe Rio and engaging in fantastic conversation about the men in our lives and how grateful we are to be together this night without them!
We went downtown to First Night at the Gallivan Center and flitted from stage to stage and tent to tent tasting each event sufficiently for exciting fun. We made bee pencils and wrote our New Years Resolutions on honeycombs to be hung in a giant beehive (for the beehive state). It is a TH year for us, Rosey is creating Trust, Healing, and Travel while I am creating THanksgiving and Healing. We also partook of the breakdancing, Latino band, sensual circus fire dancers, local music artists, and party vendors where we found our fabulous "Happy New Year" tiaras that you see modeled in almost every picture of us in the same pose with a different background. :)
After seeing all there was to see, we hopped on trax and headed to Temple Square. On the way we found two young girls out with their grandfather waiting to cross the road. They admired our "princess hats", we enthusiastically thanked them and offered them our green light sticks wrapped around our necks. They joyfully accepted and smiled as we connected them around their necks before dashing down South Temple to the Joseph Smith Memorial Bldg where inside we would find one of the most sparkling highlights of the night. We stopped first in the Empire Room where they had 12 singers performing popular memories and music from the 1940s. We sang along until we were gently shushed by a cute asian woman beside us... then we just lip synched through the rest of the songs as mutely as we could. They sang songs like "Boogie Woogie Bugle Boy", the Coca Cola theme, Moonlight Serenade, and that one song that Michael Buble sings... "It's You". We sang along with the darling old folks nodding in their chairs with huge grins on their faces as these memories are dusted off and dancing through their minds.
When the 40s show was over we looked at the schedule of events and raced to the foyer to find a Big Band set playing all the old favorites in our repertoire. We found a cozy spot by one of the pillars and enjoyed almost a whole hour of rich Big Band and muffled dancing. This is where we would have waved our magic wands to have our dad and brothers there to dance with us. And it was confirmed that since we are on the planning committee for the Ruby Reunion, a dance party is definitely on the schedule. While we jived in the corner I noticed many heads turned our way vicariously enjoying the life of our bodies moving and enjoyed many sparkling moments when our eyes met.
Rose and I got a kick out of the darling gentleman guarding the alternate exit from the building wearing a "Happy New Year" hat. He suavely pointed and winked at everyone passing by while wishing them a "Happy New Year". We eagerly asked to take a picture with him. "Sure!" he said excitedly as he manually placed his arm around Rosey on one side before taking my hand in his on the other.
About 11:40 we finally connected with Rosey's friend Ryan and decided to meet his party at the U of U Institute for the count down. Yikes! We had a small window of time to meet up with them before 2009. So we hopped on and off Trax, ran 4 blocks to the car (Passing a hobo bumming off some bucks from passersby...eek, keep running) and raced... drove safely across town to the Institute where we met our party at 11:57 pm. They had a ball to drop with a pen of balloons to let go at 12:00. We screamed and cheered the new year in with a shower of streamers and confetti, pictures of 2009 with our hands and eyes, and new year kisses. After Rose got hers, we brainstormed some approaches I could use to eenie minie mo a chosen candidate for the job. We laughed it off and that was the end of that, maybe next year. :)
After the hulabaloo dwindled and the mini Martinelli's was gone, we monkey walked in a line to our cars and headed to Ryan Beck's house for a dance party, sparklers, and good clean chillin' out. The dance party was the most refreshing grooving I have done in a long time--less stress I guess, and jivin' with Rose. I won the name writing with sparklers this year and got to massage Rosey's "dead" feet while we cooled down on the couch. Best New Year's Ever!
New Year's day Rose and I got off early at 10:15 to make her hair appointment in Ogden. We enjoyed Souper Salad for lunch and headed home to make dinner for Grandpa. A whole 24 hours with Rose filled with laughs, memories, moments of truth, raucous singing, dancing, and questions I have always wondered but never dared ask anyone else... What a treat, I love you Rose!
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