The Professor and Mary Ann

To update: Our van was ready, then not, then ready, but not quite, then they gave up and rented us a van (which of course the kids liked better than our car. of course.) and then they promptly got it all working. I picked it up last night, signed my savings away and received a baseball cap in return with "ACTION TRANSMISSION" on the front and " get your shift in gear " on the back. That is the honest truth. The Most Expensive Baseball Cap Ever as the professor calls it. * * * * * I found out while folding clothes last week that Joss is a laundry savant. I would hold up a shirt -- any shirt -- and he would tell me who it belongs to. This included a brand new shirt only two weeks old, and others which were hand-me-downs from Will to Sebi. He is paying a lot of attention to people around the house. You might expect me to say "I should fold clothes more often! Who knows what else I might discover about my family!" But no. What I thought was "Now I can j...

(A guest post by the Professor) I am really lucky. I am the music leader for the "Primary," teh children's organization in our church congregation. I have the marvelous job of singing with 50-70 kids each Sunday morning. It is the best calling in the church--by far. Especially when the Primary leaders are not part of the Mormon Taliban who cry "Heresy!" at the least hint of un-orthadox behavior. The four women who are in charge of the Primary in our congregation are fantastic: very low-key and supportive. Even yesterday, when I pulled out some hallo-weeny upgrades of some of our musical favorites. The children have been very good and reverent for weeks on end as we have prepared for our annual program. They deserved a break. I told the kids that I had looked very hard and found Halloween hymns in our Children's Songbook, right before the Thanksgiving Hymns (anyone who knows the Songbook knows that you can look long and hard for anything spooky except for...

....and.....the heater just made a horrible sound and died. McFarlands: 0 The Universe: 5 Hand-washing dishes, chopping wood for the fireplace to keep warm: We're partying like it's 1929!

(Guest post from the Professor) Within 24 hours we have seen the untimely demise of the following: 1 Canon EOS 35mm Camera 2 (count 'em: both) of our automobiles. 1 Bosch Dishwasher. Combined with Joss' recent denuding of two laptop computer keyboards, a downstairs kitchen leak that left a gaping hole in the wall, the demise of a vacuum cleaner, an active leak in the roof and the impending death of our entire heating system, we are wondering of someone has Professor and Mary Ann-shaped voodoo dolls on their dresser.   On the other hand, our car carried us safely back from Idaho and Wyoming, and we are not currently stuck at a transmission shop in Evanston.  As the artist known as "Owl City" has sung: "Every mushroom cloud has a silver lining..."

our next study abroad. Check it out and tell all your BYU students to come! check out the amazing video here (I tried to put it on the blog, but it was too big!)

Rob thinks that I need to post this for posterity. I started planning menus after discovering Leanne Ely with her Saving Dinner method. It has made shopping with kids easier in the store, I've saved money, I have to do less thinking during the day, and dinner is on the table by the time my ravenous swimmers come home. It has also allowed me to keep a really poorly-stocked pantry! (I have used the Saving Dinner sample menus, shopping lists and recipes in the past. They're easy to follow, I love the fact that I can print out her shopping list, and my kids always eat them with gusto. I also used her make-ahead meals for the crockpot when I was pregnant with, um, someone (Joss?). Aside from the fact that I couldn't keep down green peppers, these were great too; take one out and throw it in the crockpot, then shut the door and run to the other end of the house until dinnertime.) I've done better and I've done worse through the years, but last month we had some big expe...

So I guess that last post was also saying aloha to blogging for a month. I just can't blog. First, I took the camera in to be fixed. We were shooting everything at a sport film speed, nothing was in focus, and the repairman kept referring to some sort of "impactive event" . I didn't have the heart to tell him that it wasn't a single event, but rather a lifestyle for this camera. Chasing toddlers over cobblestones has led to many, many impactive events. I'm still waiting to see if he can do anything about that, when Joss had a moment alone with my laptop. He flicked off the enter key, B, N, L, Y, +, . , / keys and the space bar! It is really painful and difficult to type these days, so I just avoid the computer. But things have been steaming along in the meantime, so here are a few soundbites. Will and I were at the table doing [frustrating] math homework. He was so angry and finally choked out "You guys are making my life THE HECK !" He repeated it...

[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 . . .

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 ...

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.

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...

To celebrate the end of the kids' summer swim team course, they held a potluck and party at the CLAS Ropes Course down by the lake. We'd never been there before, but they had lots of fun things to do. This is Will playing aeroball. Maddie and Emma take a canoe out for a trip down to the lake, and Rob took Sebastian and even Joss in another. Joss insisted on bringing that monstrous oar, though he never got it into the water. In addition, there were things that required a harness: This is Will going on the big swing. I could tell that he was scared to try it. I could also tell afterward that he was pleased as punch that he'd done it. Emma's littlest brother scaled the rock climbing wall. Since he got hoisted higher each time he got stuck, it seemed pretty easy. Maddie was the very last person to get to swing. In this one, you can see everyone else who has to pull her up to the top. Everyone agreed that it was disconcerting to let go when you were flat on your back 20 f...

On the last Saturday of summer, our generous neighbors opened up their pool to the whole neighborhood. "Pool" doesn't really cover the amenities; another neighbor calls it the water park. Here Rob is taking Sebi off the high dive. Another generous neighbor brought an underwater camera and took pictures of everyone there, then e-mailed the movies to us. Maddie and friends take the plunge from the high dive Rob and Joss on the slide. In the video he looks concerned. But once he figured out where it was, Joss went down this slide about 20 times. He just assumed Rob would be there to catch him. thankfully Rob was. Maddie sporting a disco leap.

Everyone was nervous to start school this year. All three kids are attending new schools. Maddie is going to a pilot GT program for 7th and 8th graders at the high school. Yes, kind of a shock for us to skip right to PHS! She was plenty worried the night before, but she loves her classes, loves her teachers, and has friends in all of her classes ("except GERMAN! Why do I have to take German ?!"). She's even been riding the bus home each day which is an incomparable luxury for me. Once swimming starts she's going to stay after school in the library to work on homework until it's time to walk to the rec center for practice. Sebastian is starting first grade across town in the Mandarin dual immersion program. He went to a week of summer school where he learned some numbers and colors and family members, so he had seen his classrooms and met the teachers and students. He seems pretty nonchalant, but still had some wardrobing issues on the first morning, so I knew he...

Our cup runneth over. We are so often gone at this time of year that I will always take zucchini. Until now. Um, thanks, but we're full here. Our zucchini plants are one of the few things that produce in the garden. Then we got a whole row from family on Monday night. "We'd better leave a note, so they know they're zucchinis of love ." said Bulk. Betz agreed. Then today we just got the equivalent of a CSA box from our neighbors who are going out of town. They're probably leaving so that they can eat something besides squash. So to vent celebrate, here are some of the zucchini recipes that work for this household: Zucchini Wheat Bread from Nedra Beat until foamy & thick: 3 eggs, beaten 1 c. oil 1 c. sugar 1/3 c. molasses 2 t. vanilla Mix together: 2 c. flour ½ c. wheat flour 2 t. cinnamon 1 t. salt 1 t. soda ½ t. baking powder Stir wet and dry ingredients just till blended. Gently stir in: 2 c. coarsely grated zucchini 1 c. raisins 1 c. nuts Pour into 2...

In the last weeks of summer, it got increasingly difficult to keep the kids happy. If I made them do chores, they felt justified and grumpy. If I took them out somewhere fun, they were unjustifiably grumpy. But I dragged them out anyway so that they would stop grazing through the kitchen all day long . We used the annual pass again and just went to the children's discovery garden. I think it's been five or six years since we last went. It was just the right speed for Joss. He ran around saying "Oh! Dewh's a geyyyysewr!" Maddie taught Joss how to warm up on the dry cement. [click to enlarge] In addition to the water play, Joss loved the labyrinth where he dragged us into corners and shouted "Uh, oh! We're stuck!", the tunnels and bear caves, and the fish pond and flowers. But we had to finish up at the ark with a complete dousing. I should have left the shirt off!

When Maddie was six months old, we moved from our beloved Victorian apartment to the UNofficial Married Student Housing at Berkeley. They were long low buildings perched on the steepest of hills between a grove of eucalyptus trees and the Hayward fault line. Our next door neighbors were another LDS family at the law school. Their daughter was one month younger than Maddie and my only memory of her was that she was perhaps the most darling baby ever. Emma and Maddie mostly screamed through the wall at each other until Emma's family moved away. Twelve years later and guess who is on the same swim team and going to the same school? These girls are so funny and brainy and enthusiastic and similar that it's a kick to listen to them. One minute they're critiquing tween pop, the next they're reciting Shel Silverstein and then they're discussing swim strokes and cracking open the Complete Works of Shakespeare. For their birthdays, Kathrine and I decided to take the two gir...

a poem from the professor: Oh, Huckleberry, blue as the Hound you endowed with your name: How do we invoke the language to properly honor The hard-won sweetness of your indigo bulge, the bright citrus flash behind your ubiquitous navel? Drenched in Deep-Woods Off, bearing jury-rigged milk jugs We hie off to the secret glade, like initiates at Vesta's altar Led by the High Priestess and her Minion Hoodwinked, and led by the hand into the stooping rites of Huckleberry Hill At first, we think: "Damn. One frickin' berry every forty feet. Like Sal and her cub-friend, we kuplink, kuplank, kuplunk until suddenly, 'twixt the fallen trees and mosquito clouds We find it--Shangra Huckin' La, with berries at every turn My Huckleberry Mojo comes and goes, but as the time comes to leave to return to the abandoned children at the cabin, weeping in their squalor my empty carton has become a stained-glass window of red, blue, dew-dropped purple And I must turn back one more leaf...

Thursday night saw us heading out to the local rodeo. The closer we got, the harder the wind blew and the rain poured. But we were determined and sat out in the exposed cheap seats, huddling together and wearing rain ponchos for warmth. Joss had a meltdown and we thought we might have to go early, but it turned out he was just hungry and a bag of popcorn set him to rights again. It began with the bucking broncos. The kids loved the rodeo because they'd never seen one, but Rob liked it because it felt authentic: these were young kids on the rodeo circuit, some of them still teenagers and one of them had his first certified ride that night. Then came one man roping Then the calf-tail races. Naomi and Sebastian were in the eight-and-under category. I don't know if either of them got anywhere close to the calf, but all participants got a gold dollar, and they were pretty satisfied with that! So were Maddie, Sophie and Will here. Their calf gave all the kids a good run for their mon...