Ahoy Maytee

So, Dan and I were invited to a murder mystery dinner and the theme was a pirate night. We had a great time. We were each assigned characters. I was a sea maiden and Dan was the inn keeper who was hosting the pirate jig where the murder took place. It was fun. We had to dress the part and act it. Dan was much better at acting the part than I was....as any of you who have played Cranium with him know. So, here is a picture of the evening. It was a total kick. Thanks to our good friends for including us in the fun! Another Big thanks to Al for providing my costume. If you can't tell from the pictures....we took chicken legs as our entree of choice.

Oh, and by the way...I didn't buy the pictures. I threw away the proofs before I knew what I was doing! Bummer, huh? Maybe next time, as I am sure there will be a next time!

Why?

So, I have one question...WHY? Why is it that after I did Ella's hair so nicely before her pictures (two braids on top of her haid tied with big pink bows) that she feels the need to put a BIG BLUE CLIP right in the front and ruins the picture for me? (She must have had the clip stashed away and pulled it out after I dropped her off) Why does this bug me so? Why don't I just buy the pictures anyway to prove what a stinker she was? Why do I think that someday this is just going to make me laugh and not make me angry? Why didn't her teacher take the clip out of her hair...never mind I know this answer....Ella freaked out, I am sure. So, do I buy them or not? Other than the blue clip they are super cute. The blue clip just bugs me.

I have a feeling I am going to be asking this question many more times in this child's lifetime.

10K

So I gave it a shot and tried to run 6.4 miles the other night to see if it was at all possible for me to run in a 10K race that is coming up this Saturday. I grabbed a friend, who is a seasoned runner, and made her go with me. WE DID IT! We ran around the lake two times...which is exactly 6.4 miles or a 10K. WOO HOO! I had never run more than 4 miles straight. It was a kick and we did in a decent amount of time too...

On the down side...when I got home, Tarin had a fever of 102 and Ella came home from a friends house sick....So, needless to say, it was a sad homecoming. Hopefully they are all feeling better by tomorrow so we can show our faces at church. Now I am just hoping Walker doesn't catch it. Seriously, have we been sick all year or WHAT? It is getting a little old. Maybe I should home school and never let the kids leave the house and then all the wicked germs will STAY AWAY!!!

That's that!

Enlighten me, if you will

Last Saturday we spent the day with some new friends and their kids. The adults went to dinner and the kids stayed and played at our house with a sitter. We had a great time getting to know some new people in our neighborhood and ward. That night when we were saying family prayer, Dan thanked Heavenly Father for our new friends and the opportunity we had to get to know them better that day. As soon as the "Amen" was said. Tarin looked at us and said...I didn't get to know Brooke today....(this is where the explaination comes in) "I already know Brooke, off the hook."

Does anyone have any insight what it might mean to know someone "off the hook"?

Simple Requests

So, Ella's birthday is coming up and, I don't know about the rest of you, but it seems the buildup for birthdays around this house is almost more exciting than the actual birthday. The same day we were at Target and lost Tarin, Ella announced to me that her simple request for her birthday present would be a diamond necklace. She has since reminded me that this is the only thing she wants for her birthday about four times. So, if any of you grandparents out there read this....send money now, because this girl has the same caviar dreams her dad does. I don't know if we can afford to have two of them in the same family.

Lost Child

So...I go in spurts. I have like six different things to post...but I think I will spread them out to keep myself updated. So, on Friday, for the first time in my life...but probably not the last, I lost a kid in the store. Our cousin is visiting from OR and needed the experience of going to SuperTarget....apparantly she is Target deprived and only has little ones. So we went to get a few grocerys. Dan was with us..so the ratio was three adults four kids. Ella needed to go potty or "tee tee" as she now refers to it, so she and I left the rest of them in the shoes. After about five or ten minutes I meet back up with Dan who quickly asks me where Tarin is, and of course I don't know, then we find Jenna and still no sign of Tarin. We divided and looked for her, and of course, she wasn't where we last saw her.

It was what seemed like FOREVER and I turned a corner and saw her walking down the aisle with one of the Target employees. Thankfully, if I had to lose a kid, Tarin was responsible and old enough to know to get some help. She found the nearest Target worker and told them she was lost. Apparantly the Target employee had paged a Ms. Dillon because Tarin was so scared she "couldn't talk loud enough to say it right." So, it turned into nothing more than a really great learning experience for both mom and dad and Tarin. I feel blessed that it was such a non event, but still very scary. I felt TERRIBLE! I know there is nothing scarier than feeling like you lost your mom and dad and Tarin's face said it all. I don't ever want that experience again.

Scary stuff to learn for both of us.