Utah is beautiful. Let me just put that out there. I want to make that point abundantly clear so you won’t misunderstand what I am about to say:

Man, did I move to the wrong state.

This is a picture taken from my deck three minutes ago:

What’s wrong with this picture, you ask? It’s frickin’ beautiful, right? Well, the thing is, all of that snow that you see covering that lovely mountain will soon move down to cover the valley floor (read: my house). Snow on the mountain means snow will soon be in the valley. Which wouldn’t be a problem if I LIKED WINTER. Which I don’t. I pretty much hate winter. I hate cold. My hands ache (I suspect it’s the beginnings of arthritis). I hate bundling up in 8 layers of clothing to run to the store for milk… and I hate that the milk is then frozen when you get home. I hate that the hem of my pants will remain perpetually wet and freezing cold for the next 4 months. I can’t ski (well, I can ski, but at incredible risk to myself and everyone standing a ski pole’s length from me). I hate driving in the snow. I hate driving with other people around me who can’t drive in the snow. I do love shoveling snow. Ok, that was a test to see if you were listening. Of course I hate shoveling snow. Because you picked up on my theme of hate, right?

And it’s not like I wasn’t warned when I moved to this beautiful state. As soon as I drove over the Colorado border into Utah (way back in 1996) in my Volkswagon Rabbit (packed to the ceiling with all of my earthly possessions, luckily one of those possessions being a coat), I was greeted with the Utah license plate: Ski Utah!, Greatest Snow on Earth! Why, when seeing this braggy and obnoxious claim, did I not make a safe-ish u-turn and hightail it to Florida? Or just keep on going until I hit L.A.? Well, the honest answer would be that my car — from a “working” stand-point – would not have made it over another state border… and I was completely, dead broke. But also honestly, I love Utah. It is my home now. It is beautiful and the people are nice. If only I could somehow get mother nature to adopt a more tropical climate in the winters. But it ain’t gonna happen (and even if it did, that would be bad. Hello, Utah a tropical climate? Enter the end of the world).

So I will buy cute winter coats, and warm and snuggly gloves and hats, and tone up my ice-scraping arm, and buckle down for the next four months… and remind myself of how great this place is the other 2/3 of the year.

Today we (and by “we” I mean mostly Jon, because he’s the tallest) picked all of the remaining apples from Jon’s parents’ trees… in the pouring rain. Then we dusted off the apple peeler/slicer/corer and the dehydrator and got to work.

See, we can be kinda domestic when we want to be.

In a mere 8-10 hours, we’ll have 4 trays of dehydrated apple slices. I know… I really have to get more trays.

But this is the stuff memories are made of.

Our daughter has started down a road on which there is no easy return. She has tasted the sweetness of stardom. The excitement that is pom pons and herkies and splits.

(She gets it from her mom. Which I guess is better than getting it from her dad.)

Tonight Zoe performed with 84 other little girls at the Orem High homecoming halftime show. She busted some moves to the High School Musical 2 soundtrack. She squealed and kicked for all she was worth.

She had a special t-shirt. She was fabulous.

I see this as the start of loud and sassy times. But as I pointed out to Jon, my wild, troubled days didn’t start until AFTER my cheering days. So not to worry… yet.

As a side note:

Why are my son’s molars and/or tonsils showing in every photo I have of him? Seriously.

So maybe you’ve noticed that my flickr badge is currently filled with all kinds of weird images. This is what happens when you share a flickr account with your smart, nerdish (I mean that sweetly) husband. Clearly, he and I take pictures of different things:

Cute children: taken by me.

Grass growing: me.

Close-ups of my own eye: me.

Close-ups of my children’s eyes: me.

Close-ups of computer components and hardware that I can’t identify: NOT taken by me.

I’ll quickly go take some pictures of a fluffy kitten or a whimsical butterfly so my badge won’t look so nerdy.

Or, you can pretend that I am smart and take pictures of high-tech stuff once I’ve invented and built them.

Today for math we did “regrouping”, which is not a new concept to Jachin. Telling him that 13 ones is the same as 1 ten and 3 ones is old hat. Nevertheless, it was our lesson outlined for the day. So there we were, sitting at the kitchen table, counting out numbers on his blocks kit. His mind was wandering everywhere, as it usually does when he is bored.

“Okay, Jachin,” I said, “show me 18 in two different ways with these blocks. First, using only the ‘ones’ blocks, and then using ‘ones’ and ‘tens’ blocks.”

His eyes scanned my face, then he looked me in the eye and said, “Wow, none of your zits have gone away. That face stuff you’re using sure doesn’t work.”

*sigh*

“As true as that may be,” I said, “please show me two ways to represent 18.”

“There’s one,” he said, pointing to my chin. “And there, and there, and there. Oh, and right there. And there. And there.”

“Yes, yes. I get it. I’m hideous. Show me 18.”

“You have, like, 18 zits.”

“Okay, fine. Tell me two different ways we can group my zits. First with all ‘ones’ and then using ‘tens’…”

So he did.

Sometimes I am brilliant as well as hideous.

So now that we have thick, luxurious grass… grass soft and lush enough to frolic barefoot… guess where the kids play? Huh? Take a guess…

That’s right! In the one dirt patch in the corner of the yard!

The dirt patch, or this…

The gravel patch in the other corner.

The gravel patch with a high voltage power box, perfect for climbing and hanging out.

I like to encourage wild, irresponsible, even dangerous play in my yard. My yard that, judging from these photos, looks like something from a very untidy, unkempt crack trailer park. In actuality, our yard is very beautiful… at least the part of the yard that is completely uninhabited by children.

Behold:

To answer the several questions that are no doubt tumbling around in your mind:

Yes, the sleeves get a bit drafty.

No, I did not actually make those tortillas. They are merely props, meant to give a more overall Spanish flair. (In case you are wondering, they are multi-grain.)

No, the sweater is not made from Alpaca.

And therefore, no, it is not appropriate to use on a weary donkey.

Has it seriously been a week since I last posted? What a slacker-blogger I’ve turned out to be. But let’s go ahead and catch you up with my ultra-exciting life, shall we?

Jon came home on Wednesday and announced that he was building a fire pit in the backyard, and we were going to roast s’mores, darn it. I asked him if Orem City actually allowed people to build a fire in their backyards. He said, “I don’t know, but I’m doing it.” So he went out there and dug a hole in the future-garden-dirt-area in the back corner of the yard and carefully placed rocks all around it. Zoe followed along behind him and rearranged the rocks in a more symmetrical, pretty, girly pattern. Then we put out camp chairs and got the roasting sticks and s’mores ingredients, and sprayed each other down with bug spray. I told a spooky campfire story (which I couldn’t remember the ending to… so I made up a really stupid one) and then Jachin caught a stick on fire and freaked out and threw it into some dry leaves. We yelled and he stomped it out. He then also caught fire to: several more sticks, two marshmallows, and almost his sister.

Thursday night I went out with my friend Heidi to see Bourne Ultimatum (again). It was one worth seeing more than once. It was a decent movie. Heidi is 6 months pregnant (and is super cute and “all belly” because she is a personal trainer and she actually works out) and watching her sitting there in the theater rubbing her belly and propping her swollen ankles sort of made me want to be pregnant. But then five minutes later, watching Matt Damon kicking butt and taking names made me want to take karate. And I can’t really do both. So I’m sort of unsure… I’m very fickle. But I definately want to either have another baby or beat up someone.

Friday I spent the bulk of the day getting ready for the yard sale we had on Saturday. I put price tags on everything. Including my children. But I felt remorseful and eventually un-priced them.

Saturday I woke up early (early for a Saturday, anyway) and went to my mother-in-law’s (one street over) for the yard sale. It was 40 degrees and raining. It was frickin freezing, Mr. Bigglesworth. But die-hards flocked anyway. It drove me crazy that people would haggle over prices. Stuff was labeled a dollar, and they would offer fifty cents. I always caved, thinking that maybe the individual was poor and really could only afford fifty cents… and then — sure enough — they would pull out a wad a cash the size of my huge head and ask if I could break a $100. For three days worth of sorting and pricing, and 5 hours in the freezing rain, I made a whopping $71… just enough to cover the co-pay of having my frostbitten toes amputated because, like a moron, I wore flip-flops the whole day.

Sunday was nice enough. I wore my cute new Old Navy sweater. (I got two new sweaters from Old Navy and Jon hates them both. One looks kinda poncho-ish and he calls me “Consuela” and asks me to make him a tortilla when I wear it, and the other has big, puffy balls hanging off of the ties. They are both much cuter than Jon lets on…) I got my Sunday afternoon nap and I even went to choir practice… where I ceaselessly offended people with my limited vocal range.

That pretty much catches you up. Fun stuff, my life.

Pictures of something tomorrow, I promise. (If you’re lucky, me modeling my ”Consuela” sweater… possibly while making a tortilla)