Alone Time

I packed the boys up to send to Phoenix with Jeremy this morning (they are headed to Tucson for Rodeo Week with their Gamma and Pa J) and now am relishing in my alone time. The only challenge for me when presented with this opportunity is not stressing out about what I am going to do to enjoy every possible second. I always have so many things I want to get done, including not doing anything. I have had a HORRIBLE earache and sinus problem all week and today was the first day I was feeling like myself. This morning I went to Starbucks to drink coffee and read.

As you can see, I was armed with my Bible, journal, and a book by the professor of Jeremy's and my class, Steve Tracy. I like the book because it deals with abuse from a very Biblical perspective...and the cover picture looks like me after I put my ear drops in 4 times a day for the last week. I had to drive the stick shift car to Starbucks because Jeremy took the Subaru to class today. I arrived in one piece but was a little apprehensive about the drive home the whole time I sat in Starbucks. I did have some stalling incidents--which feel worse than they actually are because the car has no shocks so it bounces up and down like crazy--like I have hydrolics and I am bopping along to some rap music. After Starbucks, I have been cleaning the kitchen...getting all the junk that I never have time for when the kids are around. On Wed., Jeremy and I are going to stay at a Pastor's retreat in Cottonwood (south of Sedona) and then we go on to Phoenix for our last classes Friday night and Saturday. I know the time is going to fly by...which is probably good because I will end up missing the kids by the end of it!

I Hate Sprinkles

Today we decided to make Sarah Warren's Sugar Cookies for Valentine's Day. Well, actually, I volunteered to bring cookies to our seminary class tomorrow, and being that it will actually BE Valentine's Day, I figured I had to go with the theme. Samuel wanted to help (well, Evan, too) so I tried to put him off long enough to get most of the real work done and then let him do what he wanted with the scraps at the end. Meanwhile, Evan threw cookie cutters around the room, succeeded in almost pulling my pants down while trying to climb up me to see the cookies, and got ahold of the sprinkles and sprinkled the kitchen floor while saying "Whee, eee" every time he did it. I can't say I was the best mom about it all--my stress was definitely high by the end and dinner became chicken nuggets instead of turkey burgers (too much mess still left to clean up...why am I wasting time writing this?) It's interesting to note the personality differences in Sam and Evan in the process--Sam asks for permission to do everything and generally obeys, though he acts like a puppy on a leash most of the time--pawing at me and crowding. Evan, on the other hand just ignores me and takes what he wants--and then looks at me like "What? I wanted that. You can't be mad at me because I am so cute." On a side note, Evan has begun saying "Hot dog" and it is so cute that I like to feed him hot dogs just to hear him say it. Well, now I have sprinkles ingrained in the bottom of my socks, which are filthy, and there are sprinkles all over the stovetop (which might be interesting if I turned the burners on), but I did manage to get two containers of cookies for tomorrow--one of mostly-intact hearts with a reasonable amount of sprinkles and one of grossly-laden-with-sprinkles hearts and X's and O's and W's (don't ask me why we made W's--Sam was just adamant that they went with Valentine's Day). Here's a couple pictures:

Next to the cookies in the second picture are the homemade Valentine's that Sam and I made for his friends--he was supposed to go to a Valentine's Day party on Tuesday, but it got cancelled because of the snow. Jeremy and I are off to seminary class tomorrow--thanks to Aunt Riah (Mariah) who is coming over at 5:30 am to get the boys ready and then take them to my friend Christy's for the rest of the day. Jeremy is off at a guys lock-in at church tonight and took Sam so I could clean up. But I am writing this instead. Oh well. By the way...I wrote most of this post 3 words at a time--I had to stop repeatedly to cock a machine gun for Evan to pretend to shoot me.

Sedona the Sequel & Kaci's First Seminary Class

My battery died on my camera and I can't find the charger, so no pictures today, but still news to report. Jeremy and I were planning to go to Phoenix on Saturday for his class together and on Wed. night, some friends offered us their timeshare in Sedona for Friday night. So, we packed up the kids and headed off to Sedona again. We stayed at a really nice place that had incredible views of the red rocks with storm clouds blowing in. The boys (and us) were the only ones actually in the pool--the breeze was very chilly...temperatures were probably in the 50's. Our friends, Jason and Mariah Rohr, came down and stayed with us. We had dinner at a yummy barbecue joint and walked around UPTOWN (Jeremy and I had a long "conversation" about whether it was called downtown or uptown...I won) and saw some live monkeys and colorful javalina statues.

At 5:00 am, we got up and loaded the kids into the car in their jammies and munched on Cinnamon Toast Crunch on the way to Phoenix (I have begun to buy sugar cereal--I swore I never would! But it's only for special treats, Mom). We watched the sun rise and met Grandma and Pa J (Jeremy's parents) at the seminary for them to take Sam and Evan on a day of fun in Phoenix. Jeremy and I really enjoyed class and even had lunch with the professor at Chipotle (yum!). It was so wonderful to be in that setting with Jeremy and get to talk to different people and be challenged about Biblical issues. I am excited for the next two sessions--the 14th and 28th of February. I even volunteered to bring cookies for the class next week. I guess I can just go ahead and say that the class is Biblical Sexuality...now everyone stop blushing already! It made me think a lot about how to handle these issues in our youth group and with our own kids when they get older. There were newlyweds (married 5 weeks) in front of us that were asking lots of questions--at one point the professor said, "Spoken like a true newlywed" to the husband...but he didn't seem too embarrassed.

The boys had fun with Grandma and Pa J--they went to a park and then on a narrated steamboat cruise on Canyon Lake. I was glad to hear they wore lifevests the whole time. We met back at Cheesecake Factory--delicious--and then headed home. Jeremy and I had such a good time talking about all sorts of things...all of us went to bed very tired but very content. We woke up this morning to fresh snow everywhere--how beautiful! Evan's nose is running profusely and is not fit for the nursery, so we are having a stay-at-home morning instead of going to church. I am excited to try a curry couscous recipe for lunch. After writing all of this, I feel like giving a happy sigh, so "sigh!"

Daddydillas

Today, I made Daddydillas (pronounced Daddy-deeyas) for lunch.
My dad used to make them for my sister and I when he was left alone to watch us. It is a hot dog inside of a quesadilla...you can imagine the grease that leaks out when you tip it. I don't think he used whole wheat tortillas, so mine are so much healthier. I remember eating them and trying not to bite the toothpick. My kids weren't that excited about them--their lunch ended up being more like quesadillas and hot dogs. Maybe I should have waited and let Grandpa make them--they probably would have gobbled them up.

Sedona Day

Yesterday, the fam took a trip to Sedona...always one of my favorite things in the world to do! Here's us in front of Cathedral Rock.

We walked along the creek and saw all the vortexes built by New Agers (and probably gullible tourists). Here's a couple pictures of them in case you don't know what they are.


Poeple stack rocks at certain places that they think have a spiritual energy--it's their way of taking the focus off of the Creator and putting on the creation. Jeremy taught Sam a new game--Vortex Bowling. I kept the lookout for angry park rangers while they knocked down dozens of them.

We then decided to cross the creek--a better idea when standing in the sun on the side because it was cold and moving fast! On the other side, we found the Magical Swing put there by someone named Mr. Nobody. I don't know if it was magical, but it was big and fun. I even braved it, though I have had bad luck with rope swings in the past.



We crossed back over the creek as the afternoon shadows brought out all sorts of photographers who can't resist taking pictures of this beautiful place. On the way home, we stopped at my favorite Dairy Queen in the whole world.

Evan ate his first ice cream cone all by himself and I was a lot more worried about the mess from across the table than Jeremy was sitting right next to him, but he managed to get most of it in his mouth. We ended our day with a high speed pursuit up the switchbacks--we happened to pull out onto the highway behind our friend, Ryan. It wasn't really high speed, but there were some squealing tires just for the fun of it.