Daddy/Daughter date

I'm not feeling too blog-a-licious today but I do have some fun stuff to share so I guess I'll do it anyway...

I had the day off on Tuesday, so I got to have some time with Callie! I picked her up Monday night and we spent all day Tuesday out on the town having fun. Our first stop was the little park by my house. Callie played on the slides for awhile and I only got one halfway decent picture of that.

We caught the bus over to Macey's and had lunch there.

I could tell that Callie was tired as we were walking back to the bus stop because as I was carrying her on my shoulders, she kind of flopped over on my head!

When we got home and I was putting her in her crib for a nap, boy she was wide awake then!
she finally went down and slept until 6:30 pm!

My internet connection is pretty nonexistent tonight so I'll have to upload the pictures later, Sorry!

Edit: I got the pictures up tonight, 8-28-08, so this will count as a post for tonight!

Don't be ridiculous!

As I get all my pictures sorted out from my trip to WA, I'll keep you entertained with an old school episode of Perfect Strangers. this is a 2 parter, so there are 6 clips total, you'll have to watch!!!! Good stuff! http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SYcPJ7bQawQ&feature=related

Boys will be boys

Our ward is doing a Pinewood derby race this Saturday.Unfortunately I will not be able to be there to witness the agony of defeat of the other racers, but my car wil lbe there. My home teaching companion will be racing it for me. It's name is, "The Stick of Joseph" #1 because it's made of wood, #2 because this is a church activity, #3 because we removed so much material from the original block, we will be using some special weights to bring it up to the specified weight.

Pretty sweet, huh?

Sunday Afternoons

There's nothing better than a lazy hazy Sunday afternoon to go take pictures. Today it was a time to take some self portraits. I was going for an old fashioned look, I think they came out fairly well considering I had to go set up the camera, turn on the timer, push the button , go run into the frame, wait, then check the shot every single time!

The sun was setting and it was just about the perfect temperature, and everything seemed like it was made for a photo shoot down on the railroad tracks.

I'm outta here for now....

Killer Tomatoes

I had a late start on planting my garden this year. I've always had good luck with my tomatoes and this year has proved to be the same so far! I don't use the cages because my plants outgrow them anyway. Plus it's easier than trying to reach into the cage and pull a huge fruit back through the squares. This one is the Sweet 100 variety. It's almost as tall as me and it still has several more weeks to go before the chilly nights start setting in.

August 12

Kinda looks like she's got a big fat leg, huh? Unfortunately there wasn't anyone behind the camera to tell me to move my foot!

Cali is training for the 2020 U.S. olympic whiffle-ball team, or whatever sport this is.

Nice form on the backwards catch!

First night

If rumors start leaking out that I'm having young blondes staying the night at my house on a regular basis, the bishop might want to call me in for a little chat! I'm sure that when I explain to him that it's only my daughter, he'll be ok with it. Now that Calathea is 18 months old, I get to start having her stay the night here. There's going to be some good bonding time happening now that I don't have to worry about finding something to do withing two or three hours, factoring in travel time, loading/unloading her and her stuff from the car, etc. It just doesn't leave a lot of flexibility when there's such a time constraint.

I'm sorry I don't have many exciting pictures of this weekend, but it was really fun nonetheless. Friday night we went to the Cache County fair and had a great time there. Cali loves being around people and there were plenty of them there! She couldn't get enough of all the multi-colored flashing lights and excitement. her head was always turning this way and that trying to soak it all in. We cat in the field for a bit and listened to a band playing country music. she loved it! She was clapping her hands and smiling the whole time. She probably would have gotten up and danced around if I had let her off my lap. we went in the buildings and looked at the quilts and canned foods and things. We went in the 4-H building and she liked the animals except the cows were awfully big, loud and frightening, which sent her sheiking in terror. (awwww....) We didn't do any rides, but one of the game booth guys conned me into trying to throw a ball into a big bucket to win a stuffed animal for her. 20$ later the ball bounced out on every single shot but the guy let have me have a stupid snake thing for my efforts. I swear I've seen the same toy at the dollar store before. He also tossed a little tiny tiny pink bear/dog(?) into her stroller as we were leaving. I thought that sure was generous of him for the twenty bucks I just handed over.

Saturday morning we stayed around the house and occupied ourselves. we watched some episodesof the muppets show on you tube andplayed outside a bit. We also got the apartment cleaned and Cali helped vacuum. After lunch I tried to put her down for a nap(Mostly because I needed one!) and she just stood up the whole time talking. After such a futile asttempt at relaxing, I took her to the Sprinkler Store to show her off to my coworkers. Even my manager who is a self proclaimed child resistor, said she was, 'pretty dang cute and that's forshizzle-nizzle!'. I think it was when she gave him a high five and her big smile afterward that broke down his wall. We're used to seeing him deal with rough and tough contractors so we rarely get to see his soft side. Corbin, another worker is having having a little girl in october with is wife. When he picked Cali up, she latched on to him and gave him the biggest hug ever. He then proceeded to melt into a big Corbin puddle all over the Sprinkler Store floor.

By the time we left, we barely had time get home and get everything organized for Jani to come pick her up. As soon as I got her in her seat to go home she zonked out. I got her in the house and in her crib as if she had been asleep in there the whole time.

When Jani came she asked if this whole time was harder than I thought it would be. Honestly it wasn't any harder at all.I had already done most everything I needed to do before today, it was just at another person's house. I've changed her, fed her, put her to bed, entertained her, comforted her and everything else conceivable all on previous occasions . This weekend was just the next step. I got to do it all in the same segment of time and all on my home turf. So actually , it was easier than before because I didn't have anybody watching my every single move.

Over all, I'd say it was a ssuccessful first weekend. Here's a picture of the bright-eyed and bushy-tailed wonder on Saturday morning.

An unlikely pair

I figured out how to get a playlist on my blog and in the process I found a song that Frank Sinatra and U2 did together. Never in a million years would I have guessed that they would do a song togeher. They are from completely different eras and have totally different music styles, yet it works! Click on "I've got you under my skin".

I had Cali for a few hours tonight! I took her with me to my elder's quorum meeting and then we came home and picked Raspberries . She's pretty good about picking only the ripe ones and a few of them actually made it into the bucket rather than her mouth! I'm making a treat for her out of our harvest so I can give it to her the next time I see her.

I can tell Fall is on it's way. It's starting to get cooler at night instead of staying roasting hot all the time. It gets in the 90's during the day and it cools down to the 50's or 60's at night. It's really not jacket weather yet, but I put this on her to help fend off the mosquitos when we were outside.

My latest adventure in domestication revolves around my job actually. Tim, one of the guys I work with, got married a couple months ago. One of their gifts was a food dehydrator and he is actually more prone to using it than his wife. He has made several different flavors of beek jerky and brought some to work for the rest of us to try. It was S-O-O-O-O good! Then figured if Tim could do it, so could I! So when I saw one at the DI on Friday for $5.00 I couldn't resist.

This morning I pureed some raspberries, threw in some applesauce and then rhubarb for a little different taste. I put it in the dehydrator before church and when I got home it was ready! It was so good I had to make more ; except this time I blended in some tropical fruit chunks like pineapple, guava, mango and passion fruit. I'm excited for this next batch- it should be ready in another hour or so.

This might seem like a lot of work and rime for a little snack, but it's really satisfying to think about the fact that this is real food and it's made from my own hands, from my garden(except for the tropical fruit) it gives me alot of satisfaction and confidence knowing that it is not full of preservatives and all that other stuff that comes in store bought food.

I miht have to work up to doing jerky, that takes a little more prep than throwing some fruit in the blender.