1 down 8 to go!!!

Congratulations

to Spencer for passing his

Materials and Methods exam.

We are so very proud of you.
Love, Angela, Nolan and Jarom

It's a boy

Congratulations

to Rob, Tanya and Dalin on their new arrival.

Braden Parker Court

(not 100% sure the spelling is right)

We can’t wait to see photo’s of him!!!

Soccer Wind Up

Last night was Jarom’s soccer wind-up. We all gathered together to enjoy a bbq of hot dogs, chips and pop. Jarom received his team photo and medal. He has been talking all season about the medal he is going to receive at the end of soccer. He was so excited to FINALLY get his very own medal (just like Nolan) and proudly wore it all evening. We had to display it on his wall as soon as we got home.

More Baseball Pictures

Drowning Ruth

It has recently been brought to my attention that many of my blog viewers do not enjoy my book reviews, but would rather see more pictures of my adorable kids and stop wasting their time with my thoughts as I turn the last page of my latest novel. I was shocked to hear this news, well not shocked exactly, it bought back memories of Spencer, Tricia and James with their eyes glazed over at party night while I tortured them with the latest developments in my book.

For you who dislike my book review I have 2 words for you - TOO BAD! I like writing them and since this is my blog you can just skip them.

“Drowning Ruth” is an Oprah’s Book Club selection that I picked up at a garage sale for $1. In the past, I’ve read a few of Oprah’s selections but found them to be a little too on the darker side of life; although I always find the main character’s in Oprah’s selections to be complicated and they hook me in as soon as I start reading. This book proved to be no different. "Drowning Ruth" is a thriller that keeps the reader guessing until the last page - what happened on that frightfully cold evening in November which caused Ruth’s mother to break through the ice and drown.

I very much enjoyed this book; if you have an opportunity to read it, take it!

Baseball Jamboree

Saturday Nolan participated in his first Baseball Jamboree, I’m not really sure what the difference is between a Jamboree and a Tournament, they seemed the same to me.

Nolan’s team played 3 games and Nolan was in heaven. In the first game he played first base and kept catching pop fly after pop fly. He was so thrilled; catching pop flies in his favorite part of the game. He has a running total of how many he has caught during the season and is more then happy to share his stats with anyone willing to listen. He is a great little player and plans to continue his baseball career again next season.

For all those wondering… I did not join the ranks of the Spit Spitters.

Grandfather Frog

What are little boys made of?
Frogs and snails and puppy-dogs' tails,
And that are little boys made of.

Friday was a beautiful day. The hot temperatures had finally broken and the humidity level had come down to a tolerable level; Nolan had the day off school - so his teachers could do their final report cards of the year!!! We headed off to Kings Park to do some frog hunting. We’d actually never been before, but the kids were super excited, really how could life get any better than hunting down Grandfather Frog?

Nolan was great at catching the frogs and everyone else enjoyed touching them. There were also tons of tadpoles at different stages of development; it was fun to see a tadpole with a long tail, but also tiny little legs.

After the kids had their fill of hunting frogs, we headed over to the “waterfall”, the kids climbed the rocks. Nolan and his friend Logan built a dam to stop the water, and then had a great time destroying it.

This is a little footage of Jarom doing what he loves to do – Sing. He sings all the time, when he is walking, eating, doing a puzzle. He sings church songs, nursery rhymes and songs he has made up, usually about what he’s doing. One of his favorite songs is “Old Suzanne”. He has a little tape recorder that he carries around the house playing his songs and singing.

Honeymoon in Purdah

I read about this book on Kirsten Anderson’s blog site; she had just finished reading it and I thought it sounded very intriguing.

This book is full of surprises. Not at all what I had expected when I read the title of the book. The author Allison Wearing went on vacation to Iran with a friend – posing as a married couple so they could share a room. They travel all around Iran and the book is her experiences with the Iranian people.

I love this book from the first page until the very last. It portrayed a very different picture of life in Iran and the people who live there than I ever would how expected. I highly recommend this book.

I’m on the look out for a great read… any suggestions?

Dancing in the Rain

One of my favorite memories as child is running around in the pouring rain. For the last couple of years I have tried and tried to get Nolan to share in this experience and run while being pelted with rain drops.

Yesterday I bribed him with a dollar if he would run around in the rain. After much trepidation, the money finally won out and Nolly ran for his life. If was fun to watch them run and play tag, spash in puddles, slide on their knees (although, I probably should have changed Jarom out of his church cloths first).

They had a great time. So much fun, that we couldn't get them to come in the house. Nolan finally came in when he teeth were chattering and his lips were blue.

Spitz

Since this is my first year as a baseball mom I was unaware of certain cultural aspects that company the sport. The first thing I noticed was all the parents camped out in their lawn chairs with a gigantic bags of Spitz sunflower seeds. When I say gigantic I really mean it; the bags are huge. One family even doubled up and each parent had a bag of their own. All the parents sit on the side lines eating their Spitzs and then spitting the shell all over the ground. By the time the game is over everyone is forced to wade through an enormous pile of spit covered sunflower shells.

At first I was a little in awe of this ritual, but after sitting through my first game I realized the wisdom of it all or at least the reasoning behind the Spitz spitting. Baseball is at times a bit mind numbing. A game that is scheduled to run for 1 1/2 hours can at times feel like an eternity. Although I am very fortunate in that Nolan is a great player; he hits the ball easily and even though he is assigned to play left field shortstop (I’m not even really sure if that is a real position) it’s not uncommon for him to catch a pop fly on the other side of the field.

Dragon Bones

If you check out books on Amazon it is very informative in that it lets you know that if you enjoyed a certain book, then you will probably enjoy these other books, and it usually list about 3 or 4. “Dragon Bones” was recommended if a person enjoyed “Snow Flower and the Secret Fan”. Since I thoroughly enjoyed “Snow Flower and the Secret Fan” I felt “Dragon Bones” was worth reading. I’m not really sure what Amazon was thinking when they linked these two books, pretty much the only thing they had in common was that they were both set in China. Dragon Bones seemed more like a main stream murder mystery (with some very gruesome passages), than a beautifully written piece of literature like “Snow Flower and the Secret Fan”.

Now don’t get me wrong, I enjoy lying on the beach reading a good murder mystery, I just expected a little more since it was link to such an amazing book.

A visit from Michel

Yesterday we were so fortunate to be able to spend some time with Michel. Our favorite friend Sheena moved to France about a year and a half ago to marry Michel and so it was good to hear what is going on in their lives. We were very sad that Sheena wasn’t able to accompany Michel on his trip, but we are looking forward to seeing her this summer.

The end of Pre-school

Last week was Jarom last week of preschool. He loved it, I loved it. His teacher’s name is Mrs. Falconer and she was born to be a pre-school teacher. She is so patient and so fun, I wish she could teach my kids until they graduate. We are going to miss her very much.

This is Hopper (Mr. Grass head). Jarom made him at preschool and loves it. We have to water it every day and talk about how he is going to cut its hair. I can’t wait to see what finally happens when Jarom goes crazy with the scissors.

Earliest Memory

Last week I was trying to clean up some papers and I found a paper that had all my church information on it. I was reading it over and read that I was sealed to parents in 1977, which would have made me about two. I have vivid memories of being sealed to my parents and for this reason I always thought I was around 5 when we were sealed as a family.

I remember being in the temple nursery before they took us (Shane and I) to our parents and having this overwhelming feeling of love and feeling at home.

Lumpia

Girl’s camp here in Winnipeg is way different than any other YW’s camp I have ever heard of. I remember my days at camp; sleeping in a tent on the hard ground probably in a puddle of water because it rained the whole time we were there. Eating burnt food, which we cooked ourselves over an open fire or better yet, on a rock, and the only bath we got was whatever magic we could be work in the frigid glacial water.

Here in Winnipeg the girls go to what in my mind seems like a resort. I’ve never been, but from the reports I’ve heard it seems as close to paradise as yw camp could ever come. The girls sleep in cabins with bed and mattresses. There is running water, and daily hot showers, they have cooks to cook their food. When I first arrived in Winnipeg, I was horrified that the Winnipeg stake had the nerve to call this camping, but now that I am in Young Women’s and will soon be attending my first girls camp in many, many, many years I can’t tell you how excited I am about these luxuries.

As you can imagine, along with all these comforts comes a considerable cost. As a fund raising project I thought it would be easy for us to sell Lumpia (a Filipino spring roll, very small). And it was; a little too easy in fact. We had to roll 11, 863. Yes that’s right almost 12,000. And we still had tons of people coming and asking if they could buy some, we probably could have sold twice that amount.

It took way longer to roll the lumpia than I had anticipated, and I was never so happy and when I saw the last lumpia being rolled. The only thing that makes it all worth it is the at we raised enough money to pay for all the girls camp fee.