Skin--You gotta love all the skin showing in our Christmas 2009 photo at Lava Hot Springs. It’s relaxing to wallow in the hot springs after Thanksgiving dinner. Our bloated bellies look like multicolored icebergs. In today’s milieu skin is where it’s at! Unfortunately, during our Perrine Bridge photo shoot we all weren’t looking as gorgeous, TIC (I made that up—means tongue in cheek.) But, you can scroll down to December 1st post for a slideshow of all the juicy pics.
Bob—What can I say about the man who keeps happy? He even watched Julie and Julia with me last night. I have been channeling Julia Child since August. I watched reruns of her cooking shows when I was a teenager. I laughed and laughed because she was so funny.
Well, back to Bob. Poor guy hasn’t been in a Diamond Star airplane (or any plane) for ages. Several of the flying services have downsized. He did try to burn down half of Kimberly, ID with his parents’ extra large burn pile this fall. Excitement was had by all. For himself he reads really boring stuff like Dark Sun about the making of the hydrogen bomb. He even read Gulag Archipelago by Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn (OK, this read was a couple of decades ago.) Rarely, he gets me to read his books.
Karen—You get plenty of me throughout the entire letter. But, I did get a bunch of varicose veins fixed in my left leg and pelvis at the insurance company’s expense—YES! Now, how do I get them to pay for a tummy tuck. I know I really need it for medical purposes.
Aynie—is having as much fun as possible at BYU and still keeping up with her class schedule. Chem 105 is making her smart a bit. Oh yeah, she says she not interested in freshman guys. Guess she’s too mature;) She ran around Italy with the Utah Valley Youth Orchestra in July on a broken toe. Dr. Rogers operated on the toe in August and Ayn was in a brightly colored pink cast for the first six weeks of the semester. Tons of boys offered to help her with her books. How would it be?
Brad—can now drive other teens in the car. I was lucky to go with him during Homecoming before his six months was up. Nothin’ like having your mom on a date with you. Unfortunately for the kids, I get a kick out of it. Brad received a professional saxophone for Christmas. So far, he’s been practicing regularly. He’s getting ready for the next lacrosse season. Brad and Ayn faced off frequently over who gets the kid car. Brad usually wins because Ayn is “suppose” to be away at college.
Mark—wants to sell his Yamaha dirt bike. He’s growing out of the bike. Whoa, looks like he sold it. Craigslist is pretty nifty. He loves airsoft battles and Xbox. He made a great looking long board in woodworking class at Oak Canyon JHS. He's got a pretty good golf swing and Grandpa Hillyard has been coaching him. He's on the PG Viking HS LaCrosse team this coming spring. Bob says, “Mark likes to ‘tickle the dragon,’” the dragon being me. This happens especially during dinner clean up. Last night Brad was asking Mark how he gets away with it. Brad doesn’t realize Mark has frequently received a wetting by the dragon via the sink sprayer.
Shannon—is now 12 years old, a young woman. I’m lucky to be one of her advisors in Beehives. Patterson’s gym works her out twice a week. She tries to avoid practicing piano and violin, but Whitney is much better at this than Shan. She loves voice lessons from Lisa Harris, a talented mom in our ward. Shannon is singing “Santa Baby” (the Taylor Swift version) in her recital next week. Shan just finished reading Hunger Games. We both devoured it and Catching Fire. Shannon has moved out of her horse phase although she still really appreciates them. She ran a 5K, played on Lindon’s soccer team and swam on its swim team.
Whitney—is in her kitty phase. All she wanted for Christmas was a kitten till I nixed that. We already have two. Whitney is churning through the Warriors series (Cat clans wage war.) She’s read and reread the Wimpy Kid books. Whit’s attitude is similar to Bernard’s, the assistant elf to Santa, in The Santa Claus with Tim Allen. She is the boss and she knows it. She sketches wonderful Littlest Pet Shop© scenario’s using her large collection as models. She’s a night owl and a very picky eater. No wonder she is so thin. Although she could “climb the rope” in gymnastics, she decided to take a long recess from it unfortunately.
Daniel—is our Mr. Smiley, unless you won’t let him in your room to play. I like this guy and he likes me. He hugs me and kisses my cheek. He is the baby and very indulged. He has everything a seven year old could want. With five older brothers and sisters he has every Lego© set, transformer, Barbie©, Littlest Pet Shop© (He doesn’t play with these last two, unless forced or bribed.), DS© game, board game, bike, ball, dinosaur, or inline skates a kid could want. Daniel has checked out most of the dinosaur books & DVD’s in the library and now he is on his fifth or sixth go round of Orem’s selection. This kid knows about the Triassic, Jurassic and Cretaceous periods and how to pronounce postosuchus.
