Worst news ever!

That's what I said to my husband today when he came in the kitchen and he saw that I had been crying. Okay, I had to point out that I had been crying, but nonetheless, he thought that the worse thing would be if someone died or was hurt. No,I blubbered, the worst thing would be if my work called me and told me that I had to work the weekend of our rim to rim hike, even though I had my vacation approved weeks ago. I COULD NOT believe that it was possible to cause that much emotional trauma, but there was a lot of planning and coordinating that went in to the reservation for the shuttle from the south rim to the north rim, getting the lodge at the north rim (VERY difficult this time of year), then the south rim lodge, and Grandma's plane ticket to babysit. Maybe I was so devastated because I was on the treadmill at my 12% incline with my 20 lb backpack for my endurance training and had been planning on being on there for 2 hours, and then the phone call cut it short by 30 minutes. So, I called my dear friend Emily, and told her about all of the drama, and she had the best words of comfort which she said her "Nordstrom" lady would tell her...she was going to pray for me. That warmed my little heart. But then it got better when she dropped off a card with a Payday and Take 5 candy bars inside! I couldn't even share those with my family since they are all allergic to nuts (well, not Chloe-she just refuses, and I don't want to risk anything on my dear little baby). I knew things were going to look up from that point on. I was able to switch everything to the next weekend except I have to hope and pray that a room will become available at the north rim lodge. One of the three reservation agents that I spoke with today, said that there are cancellations constantly, due to people making reservations so far in advance. So I have to be persistent and in the words of Yo Gabba Gabba "Keep trying, keep trying, don't give up, never give up" (this song may be the reason why my children don't take no for an answer). Because if I don't, Kevin says that we are going to camp out in the lodge by the plate glass window.

The Worst Blog Ever!

I need to rename my blog. This comes after several inquiries from my adoring fans about when I'm going to post and these same fans in the same breath tell me how bad I am at blogging. If I could blog while running or folding laundry, it would be an exceptional blog, but I can't so it's sub par. I will now recap my lovely trip to Utah.
It was a lovely trip to Utah. I mean it, sisters. I bet a couple of them giggled or rolled their eyes, but all in all, I enjoyed my time. These are the highlights, in no particular order.
I wanted to share pictures of the trip from Phoenix, but I am technologically stunted (underdeveloped, maybe?), so I will have to describe. Please use your imagination if you have not made the trip. We take the route that takes us through the Native American Relocation Land (the Indian Reservation). All I can say is, the lone and dreary world. At one point it looks like we've landed on the moon. Not fun. And we've never even stopped for a necklace or anything. When we get to the small Utah towns, for the past four years, sitting in the same exact spot, are police cars that have a dummy in them to get us to slow down and obey the speed limit. I wonder how many people panic when they see them.

My children and I stayed at The Residence Inn in a two bedroom suite. I will never go back to regular hotel living. I could close my door and their door. It was great. PLUS, they had a treadmill that would go to a 15% incline. Perfect for my Grand Canyon training.

The whole fam damily went to Lagoon. For those of you not familiar (that would be you, Toia), it is an amusement park with a water park. I looked forward to going there every year on Stake Lagoon Day. We had fun at the water park and went on many spinning, throwing, shooting up in the air rides, which I love. Growing up, one of my favorites was the Rock-O-Planes, which is like a ferris wheel that you and your co-rider (someone you know) can spin the cage around that you are sitting in and even stop in upside down. I'm getting a little dizzy thinking about it. No one ever wants to go on it with me. That is, until this year. My niece, McKellyn, said she wanted to go on it, so I jumped at the chance. She said that she had been unable to spin it more than once with her cousin, so she did not have high hopes. Little did she know she was going with a pro. We spun that thing around so many times, I cried Uncle. She would not let me stop and the next day had a bruise on my leg from all the spinning. She's crazy! Probably why I love her.
Alison had her baby. On MY birthday! Happy birthday to me! It wasn't supposed to be my present (my real present was a day at the Japanese spa. Domo arigato, shujin.), but she had an emergency C-section and delivered a scrawny 5 lb 2 oz Rolf Olav Vagen. I will be calling him Jussi because that's the name I picked and felt that since he was born on my birthday I would get to choose. Her excuse was something like people would call him "Juicy" instead of "Yussi", so they went with the Skule's dad's name. I would let her choose my baby's name if I had a baby on her birthday. I realize that I can say this without any hope of that ever happening. But he was super cute and little. And she said the doctor was shocked at the extra small placenta (I know Kevin doesn't read this, so I feel confident that I won't upset his tender sensibilities with that), but of course it was no wonder given the stress that she had been under, what with the being evicted under false pretenses, pregnancy induced high blood pressure, cafe being shut down suddenly for two weeks, and husband who is an illegal alien. I live vicariously through her. I have no drama, so I marvel that anyone can handle it. I'm so lucky to have her as a friend. I wouldn't be who I am without her.
There was a brush fire right outside our hotel. I mean, we could smell smoke in our room. When I woke up in the middle of the night, I wondered why I could semll hot dogs roasting. It was the fire. The winds had been super crazy that day and when we were driving to the hotel, we saw a small brush fire. By the time I got the kids ready for bed, they had shut down I-80 because the flames were jumping across the freeway. YIKES!!! I tried to remain calm, and FORTUNATELY, Chloe had slept over at my mom's. She would not take a brush fire that she could see without anxiety. We saw flames and I just stared at it. They were able to contain it, but it was all way too close for me.
Julie and I went to lunch at The Cheesecake Factory, on the day that it happened to be National Cheesecake Day. Who knew? SO they were offering half price cheesecake. I asked our waitress if anybody was crazy enough to turn that down, and she pointed to a table with a couple of men and said they did. We all were shocked. Julie, of course, looks fabulous and is enjoying hjer little family. I miss being with her everyday. She is such an awesome friend. She even brought me a necklace for my birthday. What a thoughtful girl.
OK. I admit. This is getting a little boring, and it's about me. You can scan quickly through here and just look for your name and see what I say about you. I won't be offended.
The children and I went to Sheri Louann's house to make happy memories at her house, instead of the last time, when Chloe got slivers all in her hand and Sheri gave my children salt water taffy to ease the pain. Sheri has a cute little family and has the cleanest house! I did take a peek at her food storage, since I'm a little obsessed with it and the fact that the Utah girls have so much space for it. We talked about everyone we knew. She was a wealth of information. I guess that's what happens when you live in Utah and see people you know from growing up. That never happens to me here.
I had a funny temple experience. Yes, I risk being sacrilegious here, but I can find humor in any circumstance. So, Stephanie, Kellie, and I went to the SLC temple. Of course it's beautiful and brings back wedding memories. We missed the session that we were aiming for, so we got to sit in the chapel for about 50 minutes. That's a long time for us who are geared toward silliness. A woman came in walking with a Moses staff (I have no other way to describe it) which would not have been THAT funny except for the fact that she had crocheted a cozy to go around it, the entire length of the staff. I took one look at that and, well, I giggled. It's just like when one sister starts crying, we all do. Same with giggling. I just pictured that woman measuring her Moses staff to get the precise size of cozy for it. The best part about it, though, was that the woman didn't even use it! She walked without the assistance of it, but she had it in her hand, just in case, I guess.
We went down and saw Mrs. McKellar in her love nest. She looked great and their apartment was so cute! She makes the best bows and gave some to my girls. I had an odd experience in the BYU Smith's grocery store. I was in line, when a man walked up behind me and looked me in the eye then poked me in the arm and shocked me (literally and figuratively). I couldn't believe that someone would accost another at BYU!
If you've made it through all of this, you are either my mother or a true friend. Or I guess REALLY bored and willing to suffer through the travelogue. Or maybe you are like my sister, Jen, who will read this in its entirety to make sure that I don't out her as a mean sister who teases her little sister, Sweet Stephanie, for having a "grandma purse." I know MY mother didn't raise me to think I was better than someone else.

The Jig is Up

I thought that my sisters were not reading my blog since NONE of them took my How Well Do You Know Me? test on Facebook, and my specific instructions were that they were NOT to read the answers until they took the test and their results were posted. They all took it and guess what? No controversy over the Who Is My Favorite Sister? question, even though none of my biological sisters were the correct answer. I guess none of them really cared that they were not my favorite sister. So now I get to thank Julie for being my favorite sister and she actually cared that I chose her. But the jig is up now and I can't divulge any privileged information on here about them. However, since there are so few following this blog, I can blog about other people. Hmmmm....

Now that I am here in Utah, the land of Zion, where you can go to your local Costco and buy Church related materials, and no one looks at you weird when you have four of your children plus extras (I haven't heard ONCE "Boy, you have your hands full!" given with a disapproving look). It is such an interesting experience to come back and the differences between here and Phoenix (or maybe for that matter, anywhere else). I saw a billboard for same day missionary package delivery. I was with my dear friend, Alison, and her nurse knew what a ward was, even though she's not LDS. We went to Lagoon and they had dinner prayer over the loud speaker. OK, I made that last one up, but it is definitely Zion.

The last thing on this post, is what my nephew, Noah, had to say about me. When my sister, Stephanie, was relaying this exchange with her children, she made me promise not to be offended by what she had to say. So there had been a incident where her daughter was left out of a sleepover with Chloe, and instead of us being upfront with her and telling her what was going on, I chose to not tell her, in an attempt to not hurt her feelings. It didn't work because she found out about it and was upset that we had done something behind her back. I talked to her that it was my idea to not tell her and that it was my idea and not her cousins. She was still hurt even after her and I talked about it and was asking her mother who knew about the sleepover. Stephanie told her that it wasn't the best idea to have kept it from her, when her son, Noah, piped in and said "Well, Malia, you know Aunt Kim isn't as developed as Mom." Wh-a-a-t? Mind you, I teased Stephanie RELENTLESSLY when we were growing up on her lack of development, stating several times that I had taken her fair share. So this is very humorous. Noah goes on to explain, though. When Stephanie asked him what he meant by that he said "Well, you know she's like a kid, she likes to have fun and you don't, Mom, you're more of a party pooper." LOVE that boy! Little does he know how true his words are.