Camping - Part 1

Tomorrow the Familius is going camping.

I'm pretty excited about it. We've talked about camping for a while now but always find an excuse not to go. Now we're finally going, and mostly because our good friend Erin organized a camping trip.

So tonight we planned, bought a bunch of gear, and planned some more.

And tomorrow we'll load up and drive to Moab. This should be interesting with an infant. I'm really hoping he does okay. He's not quite crawling yet, but he's rolling like a pro now and gets anywhere that seems interesting by rolling there. He likes to spit up on the floor and then roll away from it. He'll only start to complain when he comes up against an immovable object.

We still have lots of planning to do, of course, and we'll have to take lots of diapers and water and stuff. The interesting part is that there is a no-fire ban on all of southern Utah, so we might have to get creative with preparing food.

Hopefully on Monday when we return we'll have lots of great pictures and I'll have another entry with real stuff. In the meantime, here's hoping that everyone has a fantastic and safe Labor Day weekend!

David Hasselhoff - Hooked on a Feeling

Just because I love this video. It makes me giggle.

Here's to a great Home Teacher

Today at church I searched for my visiting teaching companion who was supposed to make the appointments this month. I couldn't find her. We just got rearranged so I don't know her at all. At the ward potluck on Friday I saw one of our teachees and asked if Nicole had made an appointment yet. Yep, it's set for Tuesday at 6:30. I still haven't heard from Nicole though and we have 3 other girls to visit this week. I really want to be a good visiting teacher but it's a tough calling for me. And I found out today that the girl we're visiting on Tuesday is moving in October. She's new on my list and is 8 1/2 months pregnant. Sigh. This all feels a bit haphazard to me so I really want to get it together. I like visiting teaching. But it's still very difficult for me.

A couple of hours ago our home teacher came over. Apparently his companion is inactive and his usual substitute was out of town so it was just him. He had made the appointment during priesthood I think because him showing up was the first I heard about it.

Anyway, this brother sat down and asked us some good questions about ourselves (I think this is only his second month with us). And while it was a concerted effort (meaning that it was pretty obvious he was just "getting to know us"), he was sincere in his desire to learn who we are. He made notes about our birthdays and reminded us of some service we had suggested he could help us with. We talked easily for probably an hour or so and he left us with a great spiritual thought. It was heart-felt and didn't feel forced. It wasn't awkward at all. At the end he apologized for taking so long (he usually tries to keep it at half an hour) and then he left.

Now, while we don't have much in common with this good brother from our ward, and it's obvious that he's really trying to fulfill his calling as a home teacher, he showed a sincere interest in us as people and he seems honestly to care about us. It was refreshing to have someone come who wanted to learn about us and stuff.

This is in contrast to my well-meaning but off-the-mark visiting teachers. Two old ladies that I really have nothing in common with, who come, ask some typical questions, share the message from the Ensign exactly as it's written, and then leave immediately after asking if there's anything they can do for me. Sigh.

I want to be like that home teaching brother and really show that I care, because honestly I love people and visiting teaching is a great excuse for me to make friends with more people. I've made some life-long friends through visiting teaching.

Anyway, Sunday is almost over and I think I'm going to make the effort really quick to organize some visiting teaching. I figure that if I at least put forth some effort it will be better than nothing and apologizing at church that I was "sorry I couldn't make it last month but this month is going to be better." Right?

I'm feeling very Procrastinate-y lately

I've always been a procrastinator. It has affected me in every aspect of life and I'm really getting sick of it. Well, I've been sick of it for a long time but I keep putting off doing anything about it. Hah!

Do you ever find yourself so completely bored with the idea of doing anything worthwhile that you put it off till something interesting comes along? Like a good TV show or bed time? Sigh.

I'm off to finally create room for Felix's crib so we can get him out of our room. I think 6 months is long enough. I don't know what we'll do with his bassinet though. We don't have much space for storage, so likely we'll be spreading out into my parents' storage space.

Of course, making a blog post is just another way of putting off the dirty deed...

Here's number two

Cas Haley is a great reggae singer, often better than the artists who originally performed the songs (at least I think so). Heather and I both thought he was consistently wonderful. The competition came down to Cas and Terry Fator, and we honestly would not have been disappointed had either one of them won.

And the winner is...

The second season of America's Got Talent is over. The winner, Terry Fator is an absolutely incredible ventriloquist whose specialty is having his dummies impersonate famous singers. Here he is doing James Taylor in a duet with Kermit the Frog on last nights results show. Check him out.

Felix's new toy

Soooooo....we got this cool jumper thingy we saw in a magazine ad, in the hopes of entertaining the little squirt. We think it's pretty neat, and Felix obviously didn't take long to feel right at home with it

Crafty adventure

This afternoon I did something I had always wanted to do - tie dying. And I did it with 7 kids. Truth is that some of the shirts we did turned out really cute, but not necessarily the ones I thought would be so cute. Funny how your best intentions can have little bearing on outcome sometimes.

My hands are gray. I spent about an hour rinsing out shirts tonight and they're all in the wash right now. I really hope the color sticks to the shirts because it would be a shame to color myself and not the items we prepared for that purpose.

I'm already looking forward to the next time, which will be on Monday with some other nieces and nephews.

I bought two Tulip brand kits - one with 5 colors and one with 3 colors. I also bought a thing of soda ash (all the info on the web said to soak the items in that first so the color will stick better), a box of 50 latex gloves, and a bunch of t-shirts. Wal-Mart may be an evil corporation, but they have great cheap t-shirts.

All in all, I learned how not to dye your hands (gloves at all times!!!!!), how to get some cool designs (I'll post pics over the weekend), and how to entertain some kids. It's not really cost-effective to do it regularly, but it is a great once-per-summer type of thing. You know, get out all your stained light-colored t-shirts and change them into something fun. Maybe I'll take pics of the whole activity on Monday too so you get the whole process.

Strange Dreams

I've been having some of the strangest dreams lately. On Sunday I dreamed that there were aliens among us pretending to be human but I found out because I saw a bus fill up with water. Yeah, apparently these aliens lived in water and they would drown the humans and then eat them.

But this morning I dreamed that I was captured for slave labor and I had to swim down to their underwater city... They wanted me to be a waitress. I got really mad because I had a baby at home, so the alien who was in charge of me took me to a guy who dealt with black market stuff. He was in the process of getting a bunch of aliens high by giving them human aspirin.

I don't know what to think of these dreams. Apparently the two were connected in my mind and it turned out that the aliens had been living among us for quite some time but we didn't know till they started taking over. They would either eat us or use us for slave labor. I must have something against being a waitress because I was pretty upset that they would take me away from home just to make me be a waitress.

I wonder if it will continue. Maybe I should write a story about it all. I read a series of books lately about vampires (Twilight, New Moon, and Eclipse by Stephenie Meyer) that originally started with a dream the author had about one scene. She decided she wanted to know what happened so she wrote a book. She's on book 4 now and has made all sorts of money. Maybe I should write about my alien dreams...

Technical errors

I don't know what the deal is, but every time I go to look at comments I get a message about non-secure items and whether or not I want to display them. That would already be annoying, but as soon as I click yes or no, the message comes back. It gives me about 2 seconds before it happens again, maybe less.

For some reason, I can't just exit out of the page if that message is up, so I have to click and then hurry down to the bottom to right click and close the page before it pops up again.

Talk about annoying! I really hope nobody who reads our blog is getting the same thing... Gah!

Farewell to one of the greats.

Mike Wieringo, illustrator of hundreds of wonderful comics, has passed away. As one of my personal heroes and a true talent, he will be missed. May he find new audiences for his art in the hereafter.

Trip to Nilbog

On Saturday evening Dirt and I went to a screening for Troll 2 in SLC. Our friend Blair had organized the screening along with a cast and crew reunion that included a Q&A afterwards, and since the director (bottom right) and the writer (white sleeveless shirt) are Italian and don't speak great English, I was recruited to translate.

Turns out that Michael (front, gray shirt), who was the original child star of the film, is in the process of making a documentary about the film's cult status (www.bestworstmovie.com), and he asked if I could hang out while they filmed in Utah to make sure the Italians were understood and such.

In the 3 1/2 days I spent with them, I got to meet everyone (Grandpa Seth is bottom left, Farmer Waites is front black t-shirt, Mr. Presents is pink shirt, rest are documentary crew: Jim, Carl, and Katie), and go to most of the filming locations. This picture was taken in Heber, UT, where the majority of the film takes place (the house, not the city). I also got to meet most of the other actors, but hanging out with the ones in the picture was a huge highlight. Because I was helping with the Italian interviews, I got to hear all about the creative process and it was incredibly enlightening. They were all very gracious and I would love to be involved in the future.

For those of you who don't know, Troll 2 is a horrible movie. It has regularly been voted the Worst Movie Ever Made, and in the past 2 years it has gained somewhat of a cult status. It is now 18 years old and the hope is that the documentary will be ready for a 20-year-anniversary publishing along with a copy of the movie.

What separates this from all the other terrible movies out there is that this is actually entertaining to watch, while most require little robots and a lost-in-space type to talk throughout. It is actually very well paced, and amazingly, its ridiculousness was done on purpose. It is truly awful... in a very good way. If you ever get the chance to watch it, do so, but prepare to groan. A lot.

My 2¢

Okay, I have to chime in on the cutest kid alive. Here he is, enjoying his first tastes of baby foods. He obviously likes the banana goop. The way he pulls his lower lip up underneath his upper lip is priceless. His reaction to the peas goop was less than enthusiastic, however. He would open his mouth, no doubt hoping for more of the yummy banana stuff, only to be given green glop. His disappointment was readily apparent in his face. Crestfallen, he would listlessly move it around in his mouth and swallow it, reluctantly. Then his mean mother would bring another spoonful in front of his mouth, and he would again perk up, grinning broadly. Will this be the good banana stuff? The spoon goes in and his countenance falls. Peas again! Gag.

Poor Kid.

World's Cutest

Isn't he just the cutest little kid?!

We are absolutely blessed to have such a happy baby, and truthfully, we're excited to have more such younguns.

Now we're like everyone else!

So, we've finally caved.

Dirt and I decided we should just give in and become part of the internet age. Well, it's partly that and partly our desire to show off the world's newest and cutest Dirtius. Our mini-we.

We also thought it would be easier to post pictures and keep updates, so instead of sending out huge emails, we can just send out the links to the updates.

I don't know, maybe it's laziness, maybe it's the desire to be part of the world, maybe it's just that we want to brag because of how much we love our lives. I do know that a huge part of that love of our lives is how much we appreciate our friends and family. We are constantly amazed by how wonderful our loved-ones are.

I haven't decided how often I'll post. Maybe I can talk Dirt into posting semi regularly too. I would let the kidlet post, but he'd likely just drool all over the keyboard.

More later...