she did it!

It's a fact I must come to grips with....I have a child old enough to vote. (I know, I know, she is almost 20. It's okay Maryanne - you are still young, you are still young, you ARE......)

She was SO excited she showed up at the polls at

6:45 a.m.!

witch hunt

Halloween wouldn't be complete without a witch hunt at Gardner Village. The place is full of whimsical witches all acting quite.....silly - one riding a bike across a tight-rope, one crashing into the side of an old grain silo, one begging passers-by for some chocolate, another for a kiss (one even sitting in the outhouse reading her newspaper - her name is "Witchy-Poo"!). The funnest part for the kids is the "hunt" where they need to search for certain witches around the grounds, write down their location, and then, once they've found them all, they can trade in their completed Witch Hunt paper for a delicious chocolate chip cookie!

Needless to say, we found all but ONE witch. Oh you "Witch-who-is-afraid-of-a-mouse"....where were you?! We looked everywhere for you! You must have been SO very afraid of that silly mouse that you just ran away. Far away. Oh well, the nice lady at The Neighborhood Bakery had sympathy on us cold and tired witch-hunters and gave us our cookies anyway.

A trip to Gardner Village would not be complete without a visit to The Neighborhood Bakery for some pumpkin sugar cookies and a couple of sprinkle doughnuts!

A few of the locals - these ladies are real witches! I just know they are.

I think I could become friends with this witch - she and I seem to have something in common - the willingness to do almost anything for some chocolate. (I asked her if dark was her favorite, like me, but she wouldn't answer me. Kind of a rude witch, I'd say....maybe I don't want to be her friend!)

recital

Matthew: "Mom, if I go blind before my piano recital do I still have to do it or can I cancel?"

here we go again.....

Bleah.

like mother, NOT like daughter

This morning I went for my usual Saturday morning run. And as usual, at about 10 minutes into it, I was already wanting to be done. I grumbled to myself the whole time because I was too cold, then I was too hot, then I was too cold. I was tired, I was hungry, and I had a cramp in my side. I pretty much hated every single minute of it. I finally grudgingly finished out my 3 miles and was thrilled to have it behind me.

About 2 hours later, Brooke called me....

"Mom, I went running this morning and I swear I could have run another marathon! I was loving every minute of it. It was nice and cool, perfect weather, and wonderful! After running for over an hour I thought to myself that maybe I should stop, even though I really didn't want to. But I decided it probably wouldn't be that good for me to run for very much longer since I'm not training for anything right now. So I went back home but I really could have just kept going and going and going!"

Whatever.

This, my dear Brooke, is why you run marathons and your mother doesn't.

The day I've been waiting for...

Look what just arrived in my mailbox! I love casting my vote by mail - it's simplifying at its best! Sitting at my kitchen counter in my jammies, casting my vote for the next President of the United States. Not that my vote here in Utah counts or makes any difference whatsoever, but it's nice to think that I'm helping shape the future of our country. It is a nice thought. Sigh....

What a crazy presidential election this has been. Honestly, I am sick of it and am SO ready for it to be over! All I can do at this point is fill in the oval and cross my fingers (for what, I'm not really sure).

May the best man (and woman) win! ;)

Mitt Romney has asked that I do not write in his name.

Darn it Mitt! Sigh (again).....

like mother, like daughter

To my darling daughter Raegan,

I PROMISE that next time you are going to a school dance I will NOT be sewing on your dress while your date is sitting upstairs waiting. I know, I know - he was waiting for a long time. A really long time! Yes, I do remember this exact same thing happened last year for the Sweethearts Dance. Next time I will have your dress done days, no, weeks in advance.
(I just figured that since I only had the sleeves to make and sew in it, well, that should only take a few minutes...shouldn't it? *sheepishly*)

And..... I didn't know there were other people waiting in the car! Yes, I can totally understand the "look" they gave us as we finally emerged from the house. And I am sure the following conversation took place....
"Oh finally! Here they come. What the crap took them so long to get out here?!
Oh no!! Great. There is Raegan's mom wielding her dang camera - now we have to wait again for her to take pictures. Hello Raegan's mother, do you think that we have nothing better to do tonight?!"

Yes Raegan, I remember telling you about how my mom would be desperately sewing on my high school dance dresses while my dates would be waiting downstairs in the living room. I would stand next to her at the sewing machine freaking out and completely panicked! I knew I would never let that happen when I, Maryanne, was sewing on my daughter's dance dresses.

Well, the apple doesn't fall far from the tree, does it?! Sigh.
(Note to my mom...sorry mom for ever getting upset or frustrated or mad at you for not finishing my dress before my date got there to pick me up. That was just soooo wrong of me. I KNOW that you were doing your absolute best and with all you had to do as a mother, it was absolutely amazing that you were still willing to make me a dress!)

Sorry Raegan. Sorry Alec. Sorry people waiting in the car. I'll do better next time. I promise. No, I pinky-promise.

john's garden

I love this time of year - when our garden is in its full glory. Actually, when I say our garden, I really should correct myself and say "John's Garden". He is the one who does 98% of the work. But to him it's not work. He is in his element when he is gardening. Each year he tills it, preps it, plants it (much from seeds that he has grown in his home-made greenhouses), tends it, weeds it, harvests it, and yes ladies it's true, he bottles it, freezes it, makes it into fruit leathers, juices, jams, etc, etc. Last week he made his first batch (of the season) of salsa, and several batches of fruit leather. He also did his first of many batches of grape/pear juice.

What's it like having a husband that's so domisticated, you ask? I'll tell you - it's sweet!

John is growing 6 different varieties of grapes, so we end up with several different colors of delicious grape juice.

The peaches will be ready to harvest this weekend.

Nubby squash

Broccoli

Four varieties of tomatoes this year. In addition to his salsa, he makes a mean tomato juice.

Eggplant

Raspberries galore. The sweetest you've ever tasted!

Sweet Dumpling winter squash

No garden is complete without a few gigantic zucchini!

Fuji apples

Barlett pears

Our cat Tache hunting her prey in the corn stalks.

Basil. Glorious basil!

Blueberries

Swiss chard

Every garden needs a spider the size of your fist!

Our little harvester Adam who loves to roam through the raspberries and eat them as quickly as he can pick them (if his mommy doesn't eat them all first!).

Mmmm. Can't you just taste them?

It doesn't get much better than this!

remembering

September 11, 2001

1:30 a.m. - I head to the airport to pick up our good friends, Steve and Becky, arriving from England for a 2 week visit. This is Becky's first time to America and we are so excited to see them. We collapse in bed at around 3 a.m.

9:00 a.m. - We are all waking up and the kids are so happy to see Becky and Steve for the first time in several years. I am in the kitchen cooking breakfast while Haylie and Matthew are playing on the floor nearby with Becky and Steve. They are all laughing having a great time.

9:30 a.m. - The phone rings and it's my friend Kris. She asks me if I am watching The Today Show. I told her that we did not have the t.v. on and she insisted that I turn it on immediately, which I did.

That's the first time we saw it. The two towers with smoke pouring out of them. As we watched with confusion, I will never forget how I felt when I saw that first tower collapse. I knew this wasn't really happening. It couldn't be. Surreal doesn't even describe it.

We had planned a full day with our friends - we were going to spend the day downtown seeing Temple Square, The Conference Center, eat lunch at the Lion House Pantry. It was all so new to Becky and we wanted show her wonderful Salt Lake City. With heavy hearts, still feeling very confused, we headed downtown. The day was very strange. Passing people on the street, you could see the grief and confusion in their faces. As the day went on and as people realized how truly huge and devastating this was, the stores and shops began to close, hanging signs in their windows saying "Due to the tragic events of the day, we are closed".

We went into the Visitor's Center and silently sat by the Christus statue. After a few minutes two sister missionaries approached us and offered us some tickets to a Tabernacle Choir concert that night in the Tabernacle, which had been planned for some time. They had decided to still go on with the concert despite of what was going on. All I can say is that concert was truly inspired to be held on September 11th.

We arrived at the concert that night, and obviously the program had changed a bit. President Gordon B. Hinckley spoke. He spoke words of comfort, love and hope. As we stood at the end and, with hands on our hearts, sang as a congregation, My Country, 'Tis of Thee, I wept. I wept in a way I have never done before.

It was a difficult time for our friends to be here. Their plans completely changed. There were no cars available for them to rent and travel around as they had planned. Becky wanted to go back home to England - surely she would feel safer in her own home, but that was not a possibility. The skies were silent for nearly two weeks.

Adam didn't join our family for almost 3 years after that tragic day, so seeing all the flags at the Healing Field this morning was just a play date for him. I wonder how he felt, though, as surely he watched from above as the events of September 11th were taking place, about coming into such a world.

But I believe he knew that with the Gospel of Jesus Christ that he would be okay. There he would find safety and shelter from this cruel and unpredictable world.

a conversation in the shower

"Dad, my hair has been really hard lately. Will you put some

AIR conditioner in it?"