Goings On

It has been awhile since I last wrote, but these are a few of my more recent goings-on.

Surprise!
My mother turned 50 on July 30th and my dad decided to plan a surprise birthday party for her. She had a bit of a hard time with he whole turning 50 thing,but it was difficult to keep a straight face when she called complaining about how didn't want to turn 50 and didn't have any friends. All I could think was "if you can only see the guest list!" I flew in and surprised her on Tuesday night, and we made "special birthday plans" for the afternoon (the party was in the backyard and we had to keep her away from the house) and then on the way home, we swung by the airport and picked up her second surprise - my sister, her husband, and my two nephews! Just in case my mom suspected anything, we hoped to use my sister's arrival as a decoy. It worked! She totally didn't expect to see her and was expecting a quite family dinner. About 75 people were waiting in the backyard, and she was totally surprised! It was really fun to be able to surprise her like that. My dad had the party catered by our family's favorite caterers and Claire put together a wonderful slide show with pictures form my mom's life. Although it was a pretty hectic trip for me, I had a great time and it was really wonderful to celebrate my mom's birthday with her and to have the support of such wonderful family and friends. Happy birthday, ma!



Leilani
I have known Leilani since my freshman year in college. We lived a few doors down from each other in the dorms, and I kept her up many a night with my loud laugh. Despite that, we came to be great friends and ended up as roommates for the rest of our time at Utah State. She just finished defending her thesis at BYU (plant genetics!) and took a job in Iowa with a seed company. She will be moving soon, so she came out to visit me for a weekend. We had a lovely, if very relaxed weekend. It was really hot that weekend (up to about 115), and our morning excursion to the Desert Botanical Gardens was pretty uncomfortable. We mostly hibernated for the rest of the day, catching up and watching the miniseries North & South. We did venture out to attend the play The Music Man at the Hale Center Theater and to attend church, but overall it was a very relaxing weekend and great fun spend time with a good friend and to catch up.

Jackson Pollock and Me
At the end of July one of my roommates moved out so I switched rooms. It is larger overall and has more closet space (hooray!), but there was one very, very red accent wall. Don't get me wrong - I am quite a fan of red. However, the color was too intense for my tastes and I found myself getting the urge to sing odes to the Communist Party every time I walked into the room. Clearly, the color had to go. Now, for those that are not aware of my decision-making phobia, making decisions can be rather difficult for me. Actually, they tend to paralyze me. The thought of having to choose a new wall color was nearly overpowering. After much debating and an intervention phone call with my sister, I settled on the color "Porch Swing." It is a dark sage-like green, and it matches the sand color on the other three walls very well. The painting was an adventure in and of itself, but I had great fun splatter painting the primer. I suddenly understood why Jackson Pollock favored the splatter painting method! For various reasons, I have only been able to work on touching up the corners only intermittently, so I am not quite finished. However, I only have one corner left and I love the new wall!

Goodbye, Little Sister
Per previous posts, you are probably aware that I was a volunteer with the organization Big Brother Big Sister. I mentored an impossibly cute 7-year-old named Alexa. Alexa, her sister, and her mother, Kristie, moved from Iowa about 8 months ago. About two weeks ago I found out that Kristie decided to move back to Iowa, and they left this morning. Although I totally understand Kristie's reasoning, it was still very hard to see Alexa go. I grew to love our time together and always looked forward to our outings. We went to the library, to museums, baked cupcakes and frosted cookies, and went swimming in my backyard. She gave the the opportunity to adjust my viewpoint and see the world through the eyes of a 7-year-old. She is very bright and interested in the world around her, and she encourages everyone to do the right thing. For example, we went to the movies a few months ago, and I brought in my own candy. She looked up at me with her huge, chocolate brown eyes and simply said "I don't think we are supposed to bing that in here." Ouch. Although it was of short duration, I am very glad I had the opportunity to be Alexa's big sister!

Alexa and our impossibly cute ladybug cupcakes!