My New Favorite Flower

The stake primary presidency brought me a boquet of poppies...probably the awesomest flowers ever.

A great day for the park, a hike...and a cookie.

good times

Breakfast and A Show

You have to get up pretty early in the morning to catch live entertainment like this.

We were out the door by 5:00 in the blessed AM to make it to the re-enactment of the shot heard 'round the world and the Battle at Lexington on this, Patriots Day. Then back to our friend's house for breakfast.

Even though the re-enactment was much smaller and much, much safer than the actual event I was struck by the courage of our few men that fought for all the things we too often take for granted. The Americans didn't fare so well in this particular battle and I hope that my behavior as a citizen will always uphold and protect the same ideals those men gave their lives for.

The "Red Coats", "Lobster Backs" the bloody British

Lexington Milita

British General and fallen Militia man

(These pictures are from the Boston Herald, we were not this close and I don't have a lens that would make it seem like we were.)

Beach Day Hooray!

While Utah was digging out of a snow storm on Friday we were enjoying a glorious day at the beach. We were there with good friends and it all ended way too quickly. We are all getting excited for more beach days!

BFF's

Addi's idea of helping

...

I know the Boston v. Seattle debate seemed to begin and end quickly without much explaination and there isn't much to explain but here's a little insight...

Like I said before this decision was very hard for us and we would go back and forth, literally, from moment to moment. But we feel confident in our decision. Leaving our friends here is going to be painful and I am dreading the day we leave. And this is how I've worked it out in my own mind:

I know what it feels like when I've made a wrong decision...and this isn't wrong... just a hard right decision.

We are not leaving until the end of the summer so we'll be filling our time with friends and day trips to the Cape, the Vineyard, Maine...and I'm not leaving without a gurgling cod.

VERDICT:

Jaunty Satchel

For a jaunty gal.

(I used this free pattern http://madebyrae.blogspot.com/2009/02/free-buttercup-bag-sewing-pattern.html)

Crossroads

Here we are now.

And next fall we could be here....or not.
It is strange how hard this decision has been for us; marriage, children, graduate school, paper or plastic all of these decisions have come so easily and this one might very possibly kill us.

We have done so much research we could write a dissertation on each city but we can not decide where to go. The problem is no city is a clear winner in any category; program quality, our cost of living, city coolness, weather...it basically comes out to 6 or 1/2 dozen.

So we turn to you, our 6 faithful readers to weigh in. Of course we will have to make our own decision but we'd like to know what you think. And if you live in either city tell us what is keeping you there.

*If you are a random 7th reader and don't know what's going on, Randall is doing a one-year post graduate tax law program in either Boston (where we are now) or Seattle.

This Week in Pictures

Addi wanted to start earning some cold hard cash, so we gave her some jobs to do for quarters.
After a while she'd saved up enough to go to the dollar store and purchase these fancy earrings that she feels like a "rock star" (her words) in.

Later, Addi was dying for some female company. So we had her friend Jordan over for a ladies tea party (note earrings) and they had a simply marvelous time.


On Friday we had a Joy School Brunch and Easter Egg Hunt

we started by decorating our hunting baskets, then while they dried we tucked in to a nice spread (no pictures...I was eating)

Then, outside to hunt for eggs and other treasures.

I think I found something...

Yessssssssss!

The hunters

The Easter Bunny came on Saturday morning with legos and a sleeping bag and I didn't get pictures because...I'm lame

Blustry Easter Morning

We set out for church at 7:30am and it was COLD!! (I had to be there at 8:00 for choir rehersal before our 8:30 Church start time)

Please excuse my weird smile, I was having an underground zit take over my face...I'm hoping to be back to normal soon.

...just an observation

The children never need you more than when you're in the bathroom.

Petting my own Peeve

One of my biggest blog pet peeves is gushing...spouse, child or otherwise it kind of makes me throw up in my mouth. But after today I will no longer be able to be too judgemental about gushers because...hold on to your hat...I'm about to gush.

Addi sat through 4 sessions (that's 8 hours folks) of conference this weekend, I don't know what happened there was of course coloring, eating, painting and book looking involved but seriously I was NOT expecting this of a 4 year old....if I only get one I sure got a good one.

...........................I am not entirely unconvinced that we just caught her on a good weekend.

An Apple a Day Hankies

This is my first attempt at embroidery, and they'll be out on a swap with other goodies soon I hope.

Playing with Intent

Addi is just like every child in the universe, she loves to play but as she is getting older she does not merely want to play for the sake of playing there must be an objective.

For example, this may look like Addi and her bff Haz on the swings, but in their mind they are princesses escaping a witch...

Here she has joined forces with the boys to rid the world of 'bad guys' by spying on them and shooting them.

Sniper Addi has a bad guy in her scope.

While this may sound amusing I assure you it is NOT. We must be pretending and plotting all the time. Luckily I am ususally the Mom in the land of pretend and I do go about my regular activities but I am being cued constantly about my dialoge, here is a sample...

"Mom you ask me how old I am and I will say 7 and you will be surprised and I will tell you that I can also tie my shoe and that I have a baby sister that I am in charge of and I live on the street and you say I can live with you and you make me dinner and then we put the baby to bed and I get to stay up because I am the big sister and the baby cries but you tell her that when she is older like her big sister (usually named Sally) then she can stay up....

.....and on it goes with no punctuation at all and if I get tired and stop using convincing voice inflection she'll call me on it....she just needs the drama.

Story Book Tent

It was very rainy on Friday so we set up a tent to read stories, at first it was picture books because we had Theo there but when he went down for his nap we pulled out one of my FAVORITE books....

Junie B. Jones...it's a series actually but I think it is totally hilarious.

Addi rarely requests books without pictures but she really enjoyed this one and her favorite part?

the "BIG SMOOCHIE KISS!"

A Mom and Dad kiss in the book and she giggled uncontrollably and had me read that part over a few times and the next morning I woke up to her shaking me with the book in her hand asking me if I could read the part about the BIG SMOOCHIE KISS.

See, I told you she loves the drama.

wishful sewing

Two summer skirts awaiting demolition.

Easter Dress '09

To begin: I feel like I could never see pink and brown together again and be fulfilled but I am on a fabric fast and I had this in my trunk... to be clear up front, I did NOT sew the ribbon detail on the bottom, it came that way.

Can't keep from dancing