Cait's Christmas List

So, what do you get a 17 year-old who seems to have everything? Cait did some brainstorming and here's her list:


1) pony (yes, a real one)

2) gift card to Target

3) plane (yes, a real one)

4) cute pilot (real)

5) Michael Phelps (yes, the real one)

6) white teeth

7) 50 lbs. hot chocolate

8) CTR ring (she lost her last one in a swimming pool)

9) Cheesecake Factory (yes, the restaurant)

10)lamb (real)

11)new tennis shoes (finally, something normal!)

12)a servant to do her homework and she will name him Jim Bob (?)

13)Japanese game show (?)

14)mouth wash

15)cute new baby scriptures

16)good ACT score

17)movies--Newsies and A Walk to Remember

18)be an EMT

--I'm going to forward this to Santa and we'll see what happens.

A real self-esteem builder :)

Yesterday I came downstairs dressed for the day/work. I was wearing a short-sleeved hoodie with a long-sleeved t-shirt under it. I'd worn the hoodie before but this was the first time with a long-sleeved t- under it. But, you know, the weather's cooling off--high of 80.


Benj took one look at me and said, "Wow mom! I've never seen you look like that before! You look cool!"


Was that a compliment?

A Bit About BOO-ing

The first time we were BOO-ed was before we moved here, so maybe 10 years ago. I actually remember it well. I had never heard about the idea of giving treats in such an organized way with the poem and accompanying BOO sign for the window. When we first read the poem, I felt very special. We were chosen! We were part of the chain! Then I read again--We had ONE day to make treats, copy poem/instructions, and new BOO signs. We shifted into turbo and put off our regularly scheduled programming to get the job done. But I was busy, could I fit it all in? Would someone know it if we were late or did it wrong? I know I stressed myself out about it WAY too much. I have a hard time with deadlines put on me that I don't agree to ahead of time. Anyway, after trips to the copy store and the grocery store to get the copies and the right treat, we went out to secretly deliver our yummy, perfectly planned delight. And guess what--in our little close-knit LDS neighborhood, there were NO houses left to be BOO-ed. We were the last ones! We were not chosen, we were the remnants. All of the running around to keep the chain going for nothing. We ended it. Chain over. We kept the treat. --After a couple of years of poems telling me I had ONE day to keep the chain going, I started to ignore them. I hoped that we wouldn't get BOO-ed so we wouldn't have to go to all of the trouble to pass it on. I should've just stuck up a paper ghost in the window to keep well-wishers away. I am such a grinch! :)

Now, I'm not all bad (I hope). There are some good things about this contemporary tradition. Neighbors reach out to each other and look forward to passing along a bit of thoughtfulness with their treat. But the best thing about BOO-ing, from my perspective, is watching my kids be sneaky. And for that reason, the last few years, we do our own kind of BOO-ing. We choose 4 or 5 friends/neighbors and make them treats. We enclose a note but leave out the demanding deadline part. They can have a treat with no strings attached--They don't have to pass it along! We just let them know it's from someone they know but we don't say exactly who. The kids dress in dark clothing and wear their best running shoes. We drive up to the house with lights off. We scout out the area--the best shrubbery/cars to hide behind and the best escape route. Chris and I sit in the car and giggle while we watch the kids sneak up to the door, ring the bell, and take off! They run, dive, hit the ground, flatten themselves behind trees, and set off car alarms (sorry Kristi!). When they all finally make it back in the car and Chris peals off down the street, they all breathe a sigh of relief and relive their moves. The adrenaline is thick in the air and they're all talking at once, same story over and over from different perspectives. "I didn't know they were going to come around the garage! I ran then hit the ground, then counted to 10, looked up, took off, hit the car (alarm), went behind the tree, army-manned it behind the bush, ran to our car!" Laughing, pointing, then--next house! I love BOO-ing!

Pictures!

Here are some Ike-related pictures. I know it's probably old news to most of you, but we're still living with it. The clean up is on-going and seems to be never-ending. Galveston will never be the same. Along the Sea Wall, there is no beach. The gulf waters come right up to the wall.

Last year, the first part of September, Chris and I celebrated our 20th down in Galveston. We stayed at an old Victorian house that had been turned into a bed-and-breakfast. http://www.coppersmithinn.com It was built in the late 1800s and survived the Great Storm of 1900. The next day, we chartered a fishing boat out of Crystal Beach and spent the day tanning and catching sand trout. We had the boat to ourselves except for our pilot/guide. Our guide baited the hooks for us and even cast them out. There's nothing left of Crystal Beach. There's not even a ferry to get you to the peninsula now.

The night of the storm we all slept (or tried to) in the family room. We watched the news until the signal went out and then Shrek and then Napoleon Dynamite until the power went out.

This picture is taken right around the corner from our house. One house lost 6 trees and the one next door lost 3. It looked like pick-up-sticks. A mini-tornado (there were lots of those all around that night) touched down here. Their front yard now looks like a war zone--holes and mud.

The kids wanted to try walking across this. What kid wouldn't?

Big trees = big mess. Lots of trees actually got tangled up in live wires which is one reason why it took so long for the electric to come back on.

Torn right out of the ground. You still see lots of this around the neighborhood. People are trying to get the stumps taken care of so they can put their yards back together.

Our messy front yard (and neighborhood).

Our debris pile out at the street. It was picked up a week before our power was on. Notice the pines are still standing, which is good because the one on the left is about 5 stories tall (the one on the right is actually an oak).

Chicken Foot game #427. Don't ask me why, but we didn't get tired of this particular game for over a week. We set up a table outside and ate and played out there a lot. The mosquitoes didn't move in until about day 10 after the storm.

Puzzle #1 of 3. Stef is protective of them--she did most of the work on all 3.

What the kids do when they get stir crazy.

One of the houses that Mormon Helping Hands helped clean up.

Chris said that in Galveston, boats were everywhere.

I Get By With a Little Help From My Friends

I'm back. :) Ike came and went 2 weeks ago today. We are fine, the house is fine, we didn't lose any trees--only some big limbs and the bird feeder. The power came back on last night about 6 pm. That's the focus of this blog. Living without power is nothing. Easy. So, why was I crying when I pulled into the parking lot of the laundromat and couldn't find a parking place? Why did I cry again when friends took my laundry for me? We were prepared. Always have been. We have a grill outside, a Coleman stove, lots of propane, flashlights, batteries, a galvanized steel tub for open fires outside, a turkey fryer that runs off of propane, water. We have clean water! The water wasn't interrupted at all but we were under boiling advisement for about 3 days while it was checked. We also have 4 55-gallon barrels of water in the garage and we had 7 cases of bottled water. Also, all of our cars tanks were full and we didn't have a generator that we needed to buy gas for. We have food storage! I've been working on our 3-month supply of easy to cook food, mostly canned. We really were prepared. The only line we ever had to stand in was for ice. After a couple of days we couldn't keep our fridge cold enough any longer and had to throw out a lot of food and transfer the rest to coolers. Every day we went in search of ice. 5 bags a day. Our new HEB was open soon after the storm and usually got 2 trucks of ice in a day. The arrival times varied so sometimes we had to wait on the shipment before we could buy our treasured 5 bags. We kept 3 coolers cold and put the rest in the outside freezer. After about a week, the freezer was ready for a clean out. Everything was thawed and after eating a lot out of it, we couldn't buy enough ice every day to keep it full. So, one cooler went to the freezer items and the freezer was cleaned out. We gave one turkey away and fried the other. We had to throw out a roast, some chicken, a couple pounds of hamburger, some ribs, and stewmeat. The day before the storm, I cooked about 5 lbs. of chicken and shredded it and stuck it in the freezer so we could easily add it to meals to eat after the storm. We had plenty of bread in the freezer, which was a blessing, because the stores could not keep bread stocked. The area is mostly back to normal now. We were the last block in our neighborhood to get power. The kids went back to school on Wednesday, I went back to work last Monday. Chris went back to work the Monday before. Life is getting back to where it was before but my emotions are not where they were before. After living on the edge of civilization for 2 weeks with only a newspaper and radio for news (the radio got old really fast--too much negativity), I feel like life will never exactly be the same again. On Wednesday morning before school started, the elementary school had a prayer for the families in the neighborhood and for the kids starting back to school. We all met at the flag pole and participated in a non-denominational prayer. Tears came to my eyes as I stood with my friends and neighbors and prayed with them. Only in Houston does the PTO think of praying with its students and actually does it. And no one will be suing. During the first week after the storm, we had the kind of experience that has made lasting positive memories. The weather turned cool (very rare for this time of year here) and people went outside. Neighbors helped each other clean up yards, cut up trees, rake and bag debris. And then after dinner the kids played. Freeze tag, toilet tag, flashlight tag, missionary tag, and lots of games and running. One night Chris and I sat on the porch and watched 16 kids in our yard and spilling out into the other yards, playing some kind of tag. We enjoyed watching their antics and strategies. We're surprised no one ran into any of the trees because it gets dark without any street lights or lights of any kind. We roasted marshmallows together and made banana boats and s'mores. After the cleanup in the neighborhood was under control, the kids would head down to the elementary school every day to play kickball, touch football, and swing. It was an amazing week of good old-fashioned play. As more people around us got their power back on (some as soon as the day after the storm), we had so many friends reach out to us and others who did not have power. We were offered help with laundry, dinner, and a place to cool off when the cool weather left us. These friends will always, always be dear to my heart. It really wasn't catastrophic to not have power for 2 weeks. We had all that we needed, thanks to our friends. Pictures coming soon--Chris has the camera down in Galveston today where he's helping clean up. Mormon Helping Hands sure stays busy around here. (I'm going to go vacuum now.)

Stef's Alarm Clock

Stef is not a morning person. She never has been. She's not really a night person either. She's always been a little bit sleepy. I've had her blood sugar and iron tested and they're fine. It's just that when she's not busy with anything in particular she prefers to spend her free time sleeping. :) She's not lazy. She actually loves to be active. She loves to ride her bike, play vollyball, and go do things with friends. She keeps up with homework, facebook, school activities, church activities. She just really enjoys sleeping, too. And when she's asleep, she's out.

So, now to the alarm clock. Stef recently got her own room for the first time ever. And I went and picked out a very cute and cheap alarm clock for her. She started seminary this year and needs to get up by about 5:15 a.m. She quickly learned about the snooze button and set her alarm for 5:05 a.m. So, at exactly 5:05 a.m. the alarm goes off and makes this horrible grating/shrieking/annoying noise. I get up and go into Stef's room and wake her up. Stef wakes up and pushes snooze. We repeat this 9 minutes later. The noise, I get up, stumble into Stef's room, wake her up and then she turns it off and this time, gets up. This morning I decided to be grateful that I have a new alarm clock that is so cute and that I have Stef to snooze it and then turn it off for me. And I'm very grateful that she mostly always gets up the second time.

Baptismal Covenants

I promise to serve the Lord, keep His commandments, and to always remember Him.
The Lord promises to forgive my sins when I repent, to bless me with the constant companionship of the Holy Ghost, and to give me eternal life.