September was fun

At the end of September, we got word that some long-time friends (from before we were married) would be in town at Disneyland and wanted to take a day at the beach with us. So we headed to our favorite beach for an afternoon. 

 Their oldest daughter is only 10 days younger than Evelyn. The girls got along great. 

 Little boy heaven. 

 This may have been Ben's first and only trip to the beach this summer. Sad. 

 Hiding out in the sun umbrella and eating fancy chocolate-laced popcorn Albertson's had on sale that day (thanks to Adam's parents who were also along for the beach adventure and shared their food with my bottomless pit children). 

 The tide was way out, so there was plenty of great sand for building and digging. 

 It was a warm day, and probably the last good day at the beach this year. Nikki and I chatted while the kids were good and didn't run off or get washed away. 

 Adam was Ben's roommate for the summer after his mission. They both worked for the same plumbing contractor, and have some good stories from that experience. It is because of Adam and another friend named Lynn that I met Ben. They were roommates again for a semester while I was dating Ben at BYU-Idaho, and we've all maintained contact since those days. 

 We enacted a new family tradition: Family movie nights on Fridays. The kids love it, and so far we've seen Willie Wonka and the Chocolate Factory, The Princess Bride, and something The Adventures of Tintin. 

 One Sunday during Primary I poked my head in for some reason, and as Ben sits in the back row, I see him wearing a Miss Piggy wig. I start laughing (most everyone else is too), and hope that someone took a picture of it. Apparently the music leader was doing some sort of game where the kids could pick a wig and wear it, and then elect to make their teacher wear it while singing. 

I think Jilly may have been the one to give it to her Dad, she's in his Primary class. 

September was our last hurrah before Ben started classes at the university again. We made the most of it!

Happy (Early) Anniversary to Us, from The Killers

A few weeks ago, a friend with ties to music industry let Ben know that The Killers would be playing a small concert in Hollywood in late September. Tickets were first sold to those belonging to the official fan club of The Killers, and then the rest of the tickets would be open to the public two days later. Ben started leaving hints at this point about some way awesome anniversary present he was hoping to give me. I didn't know what it could be. Then one morning he hid out in the room for a little while telling me to stay away from the computer. Near 10am, unbeknownst to me, he sat at the computer refreshing the browser every few seconds and as soon as the tickets went on sale he clicked the purchase button. Luckily or miraculously, the authentication code he had to enter wasn't too tricky and he snagged two tickets. He later learned from a friend that the public tickets had sold out in less than one minute. Ben was able to wait for about 20 minutes, and then he couldn't do anything but pick me up, swing me around, and yell, "We're going to see The Killers!!!" (He had planned on waiting at least a few days before telling me, but he can't keep a secret when he's excited).

A few days later the latest album from The Killers arrived and Ben immediately started listening to it. We would listen to it in the van everywhere we went and we listened to it on the way to the concert so we would know all the new songs. Ben thinks there is a bit of a Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers sound on some songs and some influence from 80's bands such as The Pet Shop Boys and The Cure, and Depeche Mode. There is also a song called "The Heart of a Girl" that sounds kind of like a U2 song. I really like the lyrics to that song, and we got to hear it at the concert too!

A fabulous friend offered to swap babysitting for the 5 hours this whole thing was going to take, and our kids were jealous, but well-behaved when we left. (A funny story: When we told the kids we were going to the concert Ben said, "We're going to bring our CD and see if we can meet them and if they can sign it." Once we got there we realized how naive that was, but when Evelyn heard this, the gears in her mind started working and she got a smile on her face and said, "Maybe you can show them a picture of us when you meet them so they know who we are too." Our kids are big fans too, cute.) When we arrived at the Fonda Theater in our minivan, there was a HUGE line wrapping around the block. My heart sank at the thought of waiting in this ridiculously long line. Ben wanted to walk up to the front to see what the line was all about and whether these were people with tickets or people wanting to try and get into the show at the last-minute. We got to the front and after seeing an opportunity Ben smoothly maneuvered us into the front section of the line without anybody noticing. We found out that, somehow, 1300 people are supposed to cram into this modest theater. 

After walking past the well-equipped bar, we headed upstairs to the balcony seating, and found single seats here and there, but there weren't two seats together. So we ended up sitting separately for most of the concert, I was on the aisle seat of a row and Ben was in the aisle seat of the row behind me, so we could talk and hold hands still. It was interesting to see that most of the people at the concert were about our age. Still, that didn't stop some guy from making fun of us as we left in out minivan with Idaho plates. But he was a Red Sox fan, and we all know how Red Sox fans are.

 All the pictures we took of us in this dark theater look goofy. I couldn't stand the bright flash, and Ben was trying to take our picture and stay in the photo at the same time. And that lipstick? You can't trust those color buttons at the store. I thought I was buying a red/pink blend. As it turns out this tube is bright fuchsia. The girls think it's awesome. It also takes 18 hours to wear off. But I still kind of like it. 

I wish our camera could show how close we were seated, it looks farther away than we really were. We were close enough that I could make out facial expressions and everything.

 It. Was. Awesome. From beginning to end.

Below you can see a video of the opening and a bit of the first song, "Runaways," from their latest album, Battle Born. The camera did pretty good with the sound, but it doesn't even come close to capturing just how loud it was in there. When they played songs such as "Mr. Brightside," "When You Were Young," or "Smile Like You Mean It" it was just super loud, Ben loved it (You can hear him yelling, "Yeaaahhhhh!" in the video when the band walks out onto the stage). They played a good mix of songs from all of their albums (set list below). In the middle of the concert The Killers slowed things down a bit and played some of their ballads, which are my favorites. They also performed "Moon River," by Johhny Mercer and Henry Mancini, a song that is referenced in some of their own songs.  

Here you can see Brandon's synthesizer stand is a lightening bolt like the one on the cover of the album, it changes all sorts of colors depending on the lighting scheme.

 We didn't end up with any super-crazy drunk people around us, which is nice, though they always provide a bit of entertainment for me. 

 Or maybe I was just too focused on the concert to notice any crazy people. 

 I may have lost a degree of hearing, but I think this was worth it. I had planned on bringing ear plugs, but forgot. 

 It was so much fun. It feels like it was a dream. We still can't believe we got to see one of our favorite bands live! What are we going to do next year for our 10 year anniversary to top this? I have no idea.

(This is the ending of the song "Human," Gordon's favorite song by The Killers. After I walked the girls to the bus stop the next morning, Gordon and I went home and I showed him the videos and pictures from the concert. Of course he liked this one the best and he wondered why the didn't play the beginning of the song for him on the video. :) What a sweet boy. 

The kids are a bit jealous that they didn't get to go. So we're thinking of picking up a copy of this DVD from their last tour and asking uncle Dan if we can watch it his house on his big TV with great sound so the kids can pretend that they got to go to a concert as well.

Here is the set list from the concert, we got to sit right next to each other for the encores because some people left after The Killers left the stage for the first time:

Runaways

Heaven Ain't Close

Smile Like You Mean It

Spaceman

Flesh and Bone

For Reasons Unknown

Bling (Confessions of a King)

Miss Atomic Bomb

Human

Here With Me

Dustland Fairytale

Moon River (by Johnny Mercer and Henry Mancini)

Read My Mind

Mr. Brightside

All These Things That I've Done

Encores:

Heart of a Girl

Jenny Was a Friend of Mine

When You Were Young

1st day of school for TWO kids = Drama

The lunch Gordon packed for "Buzz Lightyear School." He coined this term for the pre-school co-op he'll be in next week. I love this kid. A large bowl of chocolate pudding, water, and Oreos minus the white, creamy filling. (I have two children who only eat the filling, so I'll scrape it off and save the cookie parts for ice cream or something.)

Jillian was anxiously awaiting for school to start, in positive and negative terms. I'd been assured that Evelyn's kindergarten teacher would also be Jilly's. (She told me that unless she got Mrs. K, she would not be going to kindergarten at all). So when school lists were posted online the night before school, and we could not see either girls' teacher, Jilly wasn't too bothered by it. Evelyn on the other hand, was a mess. She was so disappointed to not know this great secret. Then, after one of the many times I hit the refresh button on the web browser, a teacher's name appeared, but it was a teacher who had been teaching first grade for several years. Evelyn was adamant that this woman was NOT her teacher, that the school was stupid, the computer, everything was stupid. (Drama.) And except for this one instance, no teacher's name was shown on the system for Evelyn. So we told Ev she'd just have to wait until school to find out what was going on.

Leaving the house. 

For the first time this year, the school district asked parents to find classroom assignments for their kids online. Unfortunately, the school district underestimated the mess that would be caused by all the schools submitting their assignments at the same time, and then all the parents that would be invading the server searching for this information. So the system crashed, and we were not the only ones in the dark about classroom assignments. We found the lady with the assignment clipboard at school, who found that Evelyn's classroom was indeed the first grade teacher (now former first grade teacher). It was right next door to Ev's classroom from last year. She thought she'd been placed in first grade. Again. Enter complete emotional breakdown. She's crying that she didn't get Mrs. Lee like she wanted (an older friend had really talked up Mrs. Lee to her), and that she'd be in boring first grade all over. I couldn't even get her to walk in the general direction of her classroom. Meanwhile, Jilly's chilling in the kindergarten line, looking all grown-up. So I give up trying to talk to Ev, and she just keeps crying for a while.

Eventually, a kindergarten aide who remembered Evelyn came over to see why she was so upset. I tried explaining it, but then found myself in tears over the frustration and stress of the last 24 hours, so Ben finished the story for me. The aide explained that this had been frustrating for many parents, and told Ev that Mrs. Lee was actually not teaching at the school anymore. She'd moved, and so Mrs. T had to take her place teaching 2nd grade. Ev almost stopped crying on the spot. (Thank you nice teacher's aide. Sorry you have to deal with emotional children and their parents). Ben asked her if she would like to go to class now, and she replied, "Yes, let me walk around a little bit to stop crying." And she went to class (30 minutes late), and her teacher knew exactly who she was because she got to know her last year, and everything has been fine for both girls in school so far.

Gordon was happy to drag the pointy end of the umbrella through the dirt, as, gasp! It had actually rained a bit that morning.

The End, and thank goodness!

The rest of summer

What else we've done besides travel this summer:

 We met some friends at an In 'N' Out near LAX, they were returning from a summer in Chile. We ate dinner together and watched the planes fly overhead. If you look, the palm tree is blocking the view of the plane. The kids thought this was a great activity and want to do it again.

 We went fabric shopping for a quilt, and Gordon's face is priceless in this picture. We sent a pic to the Grandmas so they knew what fabric he liked.

 Swimming lessons. I enrolled the girls in a week's worth of swimming lessons, and they are so much more confident in the pool. They are so, so close to being able to swim on their own. They learned some valuable things, like bobbing in water that's too deep, gliding, and swimming underwater. The girls have already had to use some of these skills when they got into water that was too deep at the pool last week. I'm glad I was right there to pull them to shallower water. Gordon is growing up quick, all that little boy toddler-ness is all gone.

We have been to the beach, but not as much as we should have gone.

 Evelyn is not a fan of sandwiches in general, but she does enjoy a peanut butter banana sandwich on occasion.

 Jilly playing with her "Petshops."

 Gigantic disasters in the living room that I just love to help clean up. Jilly's face is sour probably because we told her it was time to clean up this great and messy "set-up."

 Bike riding with Dad. After one lap around a local park Jilly asked, "Daaaaaad! Where aaaaaare we goooooing?" They thought that bike rides were for going to a specific place, not just to enjoy riding the bike. So after a chorus of complaints that they "weren't going anywhere," they stopped at a playground. Ben has lost 15 pounds since June, and counting. He's been wanting to lose it for some time and has finally found the right motivations to make it happen. He's looking good! ;) He tried on some shorts we bought the summer after Evelyn was born, and they fit better than any other pair of shorts he currently owns.

 Remember when I said we felt the cool ocean breeze driving over the hills into Orange County at the end of vacation? Well, that was pretty much the last time we felt it up until last week. Then the heat came back on.  I've been running fans 24/7 to keep the apartment livable. Yesterday it was 99 degrees, and today I stopped checking the thermometer when it hit 100 degrees. Thankfully, it's supposed to cool back down a bit.

The kids got their faces painted at a Primary Activity Day, and then decided to make a birthday party for Gordon. They got out all the food, and then didn't eat most of it, but I like their creativity. 

 I bought work books for the girls to sharpen their academic skills this summer. Well, the skills are dull or dusty, because we haven't gotten through 25% of the books. I lack the gumption to make them sit down each day and do some of it. I guess I really believe in a summer of relaxation and no school work!

My garden is doing well despite the heat and humidity, and I recently planted a second round of sweet corn, tomatoes, watermelon, beets, zuchinni and squash. We'll see how they do, and how much I get out of them before the days get too short. The flowers I planted in late June (Vinca) are thriving and are so pretty.

Da da da daah daaah, da da da daaaaaaah daaaaah!

For about three months now, we've been listening to John Williams: Greatest Hits in the car as we drive around town. The impetus for this was that I (Ben) was playing Lego Indiana Jones for a few weeks earlier this year and the kids would watch or play along. The game includes the wonderful John Williams music that he composed for the movies and it makes the game-play that much better. The kids, Gordon in particular, really took to the music, so I got out my John Williams CD and we started listening to it as we ran errands or drove to the beach. Eventually Gordon randomly started singing either the Indiana Jones or Star Wars theme (something he picked up because we're raising him right!) at any given time throughout the day. Occasionally it matched what he was doing -be it jumping off the arm of one couch onto the other one, or playing with his toys- other times the music was completely incongruous with what was going on -reading scriptures or eating dinner-. As we were driving to eastern Idaho we finally captured Gordon singing his two favorite pieces of music, enjoy.

The last leg of vacation

 Heading to Cache Valley, area of my ancestors. I love how rural it is there. 

 Gordon is obsessed with combines. He was always excited when we could point one out to him, and mad if he couldn't see it. 

 We headed here to stop by and say hi to some friends of ours. This is the only good picture we got, which is not great because it's of Gordon showing his mad (or lack thereof) light saber skills. He had just smacked Hudson on the hand. Sorry! The girls played games and Barbies upstairs. This was also the place where I had my first bite of French chocolate, and I must say, the French know how to make a blissful milk chocolate bar. Way better than Hershey's.  It was good to visit and catch up on all that's happening. 

 Then we headed to the Bountiful area to see Ben's Grandma. We stayed here for two nights. Ben braved a bike ride with an old friend, Jason, who he met in Boston. Jason took him up City Creek Canyon, but after a while Ben thinks he must of gotten altitude sickness or something, because he felt terrible and they had to come back down the mountain. 

Happier times at lower altitudes. 

 We took Grandma Green to the In n Out in Centerville, where the food was just as good as in Cali. 

 I took Grandma on some shopping errands with Jilly while Ben took the kids up to Farmington Pond, where he caught his first fish. 

 Playing with toys one morning....Jillian getting a tractor forehead massage, I really don't know what she's doing in this picture. We watched as much Olympics as we could at Grandma's. The kids really liked the gymnastics and swimming events. 

 We stopped in for a visit with Ben's other grandma, Grandma Cluff. The kids don't know her as well, so Gordon ended up falling asleep in my lap. I was shocked, this hasn't happened for at least a year. Jilly was glued to my side while Evelyn played 'Flow' on Ben's smartphone. After this, we headed to the Bountiful Costco where we (I) drooled over all the stuff you can get at a Costco geared more toward families. We even bought food here to take back to California, stuffing it in our already-overflowing minivan. 

 Then we stopped to see some of the oldest friends of Ben and I's married life, and their cute kids who are the same age as ours. They played great together and we're hoping we can get together and see them again. 

Astronaut Gordon. So precious. 

 Next up, we headed to our old BYU stomping grounds and stayed with these friends we know from school here in California. These kids spent hours playing together at the playground near our apartment until they moved last year. They played dress-up/superhero/andwhoknowswhatelse games all day long while we visited. It was fun to see them having a blast. 

 And finally, we opted out of staying in Las Vegas for another night, and drove straight home. It was mostly pleasant, albeit brutally hot, and interspersed with 20 minute crying jags from Gordon about nonsensical things, like wanting to turn around to see the combine he missed. We stopped briefly in Vegas to visit with Ben's best friend from growing up. He works at a flooring, tile, and appliance outlet, so I had fun perusing all the options while the girls asked a million questions. Gordon was mostly bored and wanted to leave or touch everything that could fall and break. 

When we stopped somewhere between Riverside County and Orange County in the hills, we could feel the ocean breeze and it was so wonderful! It wasn't  hot anymore! Just so pleasant, like the weather usually is here. 

We had a good vacation again this year, and Evelyn's already talking about where we're going to stop next year. I'm grateful for good family and friends who let us impose upon their routines, and a minivan and mechanic that make it possible for us to travel so many miles without car trouble. 

Compilation

I've been compiling this post for a few months. It's sufficiently long enough now.

Gordon climbs into bed with me most nights, and stays if Ben is not sleeping in bed with me. He's my "bed buddy." I must be sleeping deeper, because I couldn't tolerate the girls in bed. They were so squirmy. It's fun to wake up with him, he says really sweet stuff in the morning. This morning he asked, "Who's going to baptize me?" and I re-directed his own question back at him. He answered, "John-a-da Baptist. He's going to baptize you." I told him that Grandpa Cows baptized me and that Daddy was going to baptize him. Gordon got a big, sleepy grin on his face and rolled over to doze for a few more minutes. He didn't come into bed at night with me for all of vacation. I'm trying to figure out why that is...

Last night at family home evening, Evelyn taught a lesson about following the prophet. She asked Gordon, "What would Jesus tell you to do if you were a prophet?" (she had some interesting questions!). Gordon answered, "He said he's going to give me a golden whistle!" Gordon picked up this golden whistle connection with Jesus a few months ago, and I've got no idea where it came from. But it is funny.

He loves bare-back scratches, just like his Daddy. Evelyn loves these too.

His favorite stories right now are Harold and the Purple Crayon.

He likes to give me kisses, which are pretty slobbery and like dog-licks lately.

He likes to take whatever clothes are in his reach and stow them in the crack between my bed, Ben's bike and the wall. I was making up the bed while Ben was talking to the kids on the webcam in my room tonight, and came around to this particular side of bed and yelled, "Gordon!!" when I stepped on a big pile of now unsorted laundry. Ben quickly asked, "Did you just find a pile of clothes?" He didn't even need to be present in the room to know what happened.

Ben was putting Gordon to bed and Gordon put his arms around Ben's neck and said, "Dad, I love your hairs. Your hairs on your cheeks, on your this (the back of Ben's head), your back, on your head, your beard, and your what's this, above your nose?" (pointing to Ben's mustache, I think he meant to say under your nose")

"It's my mustache."

"Mustache," he says with a cute grin, and rolls over to sleep.

He's converting his pronouns. When we say prayers at night, and I say, "Please help Gordon to..," he can convert it to, "Please help me to..." I never noticed this as much with the girls. Probably because I had an infant to care for when they were both going through this stage.

Evelyn's bedtime conversation tonight. "Mom, can little girls fall in love?"
"Well, I don't think you can really fall in love that young, but you can really like someone because they're a good friend and you get along really well."
Thoughtful pause.
"Who is it?" I asked.
Coy smile like she's not going to tell me anything. "Well, he moved away and I don't know if you even have his address."
"Well, if his family was good friends with ours, chances are we sent them a Christmas card and we have their address. You could write him a letter. Is it the ____ family?"
Another coy smile. "Yeah, we could just play outside for hours and hours. What kind of stamps do we have?"

I need to have a plug for Jill...she picked out her school back-pack at Costco yesterday, and has been having a little bit of a rough last week, I think in anticipation for for kindergarten starting in a couple weeks. She told me today the only part she's afraid of is the part where I leave and she stays at the classroom. Yeah sweetie, that part is kind of hard for "Momma" too. She's the only kid that calls me "Momma." I'm Mommy to Ev and Gordon.

Oh man, my kids are growing up. I don't know how ready I am for it. :)

 "We can't smile when the sun is shining on our faces!"