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Showing posts from September, 2010

Saying Aloha to Labor Day!

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[click to enlarge] Monday evening we took Daniela to the luau at Thanksgiving Point. It started with dinner and singing and then progressed to dances from each of the islands. The chief showed us how to start fire with two sticks, weave palm fronds, husk and crack coconuts and tell jokes. He had great patter, but he was no nonsense with a pointed stick. Staking out our spot in the amphitheater with 6,497 of our closest friends Rob thought this guy looked like a polynesian version of my brother, Mr. Twinkie. It really would if Mr. Twinkie ran around with a spear and warpaint and his tongue sticking out. Or if he licked fire. The chief came out at the end as the star of the fire dance. Keep in mind that it was about 30 degrees by this point in the evening but the performers were still sporting the alohawear native to their tropical islands. Rob, Daniela and I were wearing everything we had and fighting over the quilt! I hope the fire kept him warm . . .

Labor Day Continued

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Saturday evening we took the kids and went to the Timpanogos Storytelling Festival . It's an annual benefit for the Orem library and we'd never been, but KK gave us tickets for the Laughin' Night at the Scera Shell. We brought blankets and jackets and a big picnic and ate ourselves silly on goat cheese and bread and fruit while we listened to the opening musicians. A young guy next to me said "Can I ask you a weird question? Was your husband speaking German? I thought I heard him say 'goat cheese' in German and I just don't know any English words that sound like that . . . " Turns out he is from Berlin so we picked his brain about places to go and things to see for our next Study Abroad. I don't know what I expected the kids would do for four hours of storytelling, but I was astonished by how much they all loved it. We heard from seven men and women and they were all phenomenal and hilarious, from the Cinderella-meets-Rocky-Balboa opener to the &q

Naming Practices

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Last week my mom sent a package full of My Things Still At My Parents' Home even after college, mission, marriage, four kids and nine years of home ownership. Among them are the teddy bears that I made sweaters for to practice knitting. Joss seized upon these and has been insisting that they go with him everywhere since their arrival. He named them (from L to R) Papa Bear, Baby Pictures, Friends, and Pico Joe. We think he gets this talent from his Uncle Rick. Rick had great names for everything, from a goldfish named Potassium to his firstborn, Hildebang. Hildebang herself seems to have the gift. Rick asked her to name a metal insect he had welded: she named it Nooble.

Labor? What Labor?!

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We took the long weekend as an excuse to fall back on our hard partyin' summer ways. Rob and I started early with a private concert by my dad's cousin . He's on the music faculty at BYU and in the American Piano Quartet. But he is also a dutiful nephew, and so when he has a solo program coming up, he calls his Aunt Nelda and gives her a preview in her living room. And Nelda invited us. He played a Beethoven Sonata, the Debussy suite containing Claire de Lune, and finished with three Rachmaninoff preludes. Ahhh. It was lovely. Next night, Rob and I bribed the kids with TV dinners, and went out with friends for dinner and Brian Stokes Mitchell in concert at the deJong with a crazed, sold-out crowd. He's got an incredible set of pipes, but is no less an actor. He entertained us with jazz and Broadway tunes. Highlights were Soliloquy from Carousel, Face to Face from Les Miserables, How Long Has This Been Going On by Gershwin, and Waters of March by Antonio Carlos Jobim