First day of school!

It's finally Friday and that's an amazing thing when you consider it was the first week of school for both boys. Carter started 3rd grade and Jensen started kindergarten. Here are their lists:

Things Carter loves about school:

1. Spanish Class (promise, he said that)

2. Being back with his friends

3. Riding in dad's car to school

Things he doesn't like

1. No recess (at our school 3rd graders are on a block schedule. He has PE every day and a lunch break of 40 minutes-- if he eats fast he can go outside)

2. Waiting for me in the Carpool lane

3. Math homework (400 problems on day three for homework-yikes! Took a while but we did it. Welcome to life at a college prep school!)

Jensen's List

1. Loves Ms. Hansen

2. Recess

3. Riding with dad in the morning

1. doesn't like the girl he sits by

2. kids that don't know stuff (he gets frustrated with the repetitiveness sometimes)

3. remembering all the names of the kids ("We should all wear name tags, mom)

Mom's List

1. Love early morning structure (I'm such a morning person--gym at 5:15, shower, everyone up at 6:35, gone by 7:00 am, Anja up at 7:30 am.....-- Rich hates it.)

2. Love that the time I have alone with Anja

3. Love being with all my "school" friends

4. Love uniforms

5. All the reading!

6. Having a REAL reason to say no to all the extra things people want you to do in the evenings without feeling a bit of guilt! (I don't have to go to another church meeting during the week until next summer!!!!!)

7. The pure joy of watching my children learn

8. Cleaning their rooms when they aren't home to argue over what stays and what goes

9. Being on the Parent Council

10. schedule, schedule, schedule--- I love structure!

It's my birthday.. and I am lucky

As the song goes... "it's my birthday and I'll cry if I want to..." and I did, tears of sweet joy. I woke up and found Anja's bedroom door decorated. Carter secretly made this sign (is it normal for an 8 year old to know how to make block letters?), cut it out and hung it on Anja's door knowing that's the first place I would go when I woke up. He is awesome! Thanks dude!

More babble...

This has been a rough week. I was elected to a two-year term on the Parent Council at our kids school (think cross between PTA and PTO and a school board) which meant I had a lot to do with back to school nights this week. As luck would have it, BTS was Wednesday and Thursday, the first two days of school at SLCC and Rich is teaching again, so we had to call in the troops to help with the kids.

My mom went to the mandatory parent meeting for the boys piano lessons tonight. Not only did I tell her it started at 7 pm, so she was 30 minutes late, she got there as they announced that my mom would be relating something I had written about our experience at Suzuki Piano Camp this summer. She was shocked! But, she did it. She totally made it up on the spot and told everyone how wonderful it was. The truth is-- WE HATED IT! I didn't want to go after the first day and Jensen had to be heavily bribed to go! It was a joke; unorganized and an expensive waist of time for these little preschoolers. Anyway, I owe her big time. She said my "written statement" was wonderful. Thanks Mom....

It's done

I finished reading "Breaking Dawn" last night. It took me a week to steal away a few minutes here and there to read it. I liked it, I think, but then again maybe not. Maybe it ended a little too perfectly. Maybe it was nice to have a happy ending that didn't take much thinking. Maybe I'm jealous I didn't write it first. Maybe...

I have half-a-dozen half written books on my computer. Stories that I start and don't finish. Plot lines I create then trash because no one would ever read that. I have ideas I know would sell but might have my neighbors frown down on me. But, maybe just one of the stories is worth the work. Maybe one of them is worth reading. We'll see.

Writing isn't easy. Some piece of it is a thread pulled from your mind; from your soul. It's a window to what you are thinking, seeing and feeling. If I write what I think then I am inviting others in; to look, to judge to see what I am really seeing. And that's a scary/brave thing to do. But maybe, someone is just curious enough to look.

More fun in California.

Behind the scenes...

Shelbi was in charge of getting Nadia's hair ready for the wedding. We figured if Kristin didn't like it she wouldn't do mean things to Shelbi. She likes her too much. It all turned out OK. Mat couldn't stand all the fun. Scott and Jensen watched cartoons everyday.
















Jensen can make the funniest faces. He and Carter got a little sunburn the first day we were there but were fine the next morning. Aunt Shelbi hung out with the kids at Universal Studio. Everyone likes her best.

The Wedding!

They both said, "yes". I guess that makes it official. Kristin is now Mrs. Daines. Strange. I'm sure we will get use to it. The ceremony was in the Los Angeles temple with a backyard reception at the Daines home in Arcadia, California. I didn't know a soul there that didn't fly down with us so I hung out with the kids and danced to the live band. We rented a house in Burbank with a pool and spent every available hour playing in the water. The only touristy thing we did was visit Universal Studios, which was fun and a new experience.

The Sister Role

Kristin will become K.B. Daines this weekend. Somehow the duty of talking about her at the rehearsal dinner fell to me. I guess I was the only one who said yes when dad called. I spent last week interviewing some of her high school and MBA friends.

Perspective is a strange thing. KC is my one and only sister. I have loved and hated her with the passion only a sister can have for her own. I thought I knew her. Listening to others describe her has proven perspective belongs solely to the person who is sharing their story. To me, Kristin is the sister who was always smarter, more beautiful, the musician, less emotional, the style Deva, dated a lot more, a cheerleader, makes me look fat and, of coarse, she made "top ten", I didn't. To her friends, she is devoted to life, to finding joy in what she has, to setting and accomplishing goals and to their friendship.

To me, she is my sister, and that is complicated to define. KC's the only one who understands when I talk "t.v. shop", she gets my struggle with staying at home, understands my pain and celebrates my joys, she loves my kids as unconditionally as I do, we talk politics, discuss books and we've both been poor. We've eaten BBQ southern style, watched Oprah live, been there for the birth of each other's babies, curled up and had a good cry together and been there when it really counts; when the world leaves you alone. She's been there for it all.

So, as she starts the latest chapter in her life adventure, I wish her well. I know she'll make life with Steve fun, unpredictable and rewarding. I know she'll make him crazy with her social calendar, her "healthy food only" policy and her addiction to the gym. But I also know when it's all said and done in 30 years, K&S will look back and they will perceive perfection. After all, that's what I see when I look back on her role as my sister.

love you, KC! Nix

Is he old enough?

This week Carter got "braces". Not really like you think of but more like retainer-things that will widen his jaw and push the bottom jaw out while pulling the top jaw in to correct an under bite (thanks to my DNA). Ten years ago, he would have been stuck in headgear and hating life. Thanks to science, you can't even tell. His appliances are small and if he smiles big you can see the small wire that jets out in front of his teeth (not in this picture) but for the most part you can't really tell. Or, we could have decided to go with jaw surgery. We'll take the retainers. Carter is only eight so it seems strange, but all his friends have braces/retainers now so why shouldn't he? He hated me for making him do it for about two days. Now he seems to be okay with it. I'm hoping he'll thank me in 10 years.

The beginning of the end

It's August... It's the beginning of the end of summer. I worry all year that the summer will be a bust, then I realize it has been a blast! One week from today we will get on an airplane and head to California for one last vacation before we buckle down for school. The boys and I spent yesterday online looking at Universal Studios and designing our plan of attack. I think we will fun and get plenty wet. Can't wait.