A couple of my uncles are in town for their annual ski trip to Utah. They come dang near every year right around the time of my birthday. They. Are. Sweethearts. Seriously, I love those guys. And while I intend to sit and write a proper post in the next few days about my adoration for my uncles, for now I will just chronicle the ski outing of this afternoon.

I hadn’t been skiing in 8 years. I’d pretty much sworn it off. I’m not good at it. It doesn’t seem to come naturally to me like it does for others in my family (and for Jon, even!). But my sweet uncle Matt told me that he would treat me to skiing for my birthday, and how on Earth could I say no to that? I can’t say no, is the answer. The uncles were only here for four days, and if I wanted to spend any time with them, it would have to be on the slopes. Breaking bones. Acquiring concussions. And so I went.

And so did my kids.

Here is where you learn what a bad mommy I am… we live in Utah (frickin UTAH!) and my children — ages 8 and 6 — had never been skiing before this afternoon. I know, what the crap, right? But today was the day. Today I would take them up there and spend $3,000 on rentals and half-day passes, and then force my screaming children onto ski lifts, and then force them down the bunny hill, whacking them coercively with a ski pole, until they were bloody… but skiing! At least this is how I imagined it would go. Because I’m a total pessimist. Because I always imagine the worse possible circumstances before going into an adventurous outing like this. But guess what? Go on, guess!!

Well, my kids are flippin’ awesome. They ski like they mean it. They ski like it’s sort of in their blood. They ski like they are totally NOT related to me. There wasn’t a single tear. Not a single whine. Not a single outcry of frustration. Nothing. They loved it. They owned the bunny slope, people.

Uncle Beezer (no, not his given name) took Jachin, and Uncle Matt took Zoe, and off they went.

They were skiing by themselves by the end of the first run. It was insane. They were giggling and grinning with pride as everyone cheered them on. They were unstoppable.

(It is important to note here that Zoe credits much of her skiing success to the fact that she rented some SWEET pink Barbie skis. Regular dumb skis would not have produced the same level of skiing awesomeness.)

Since the day was spend completely on the bunny slope, I incurred no serious injuries. I handled myself well. No one was cheering for me, mind you, but a day on the slopes ending without full body traction is a good day, indeed. Here’s the gang, chilling out in the lodge afterward, taking in some hot cocoa and stories:

Front to back: Jachin, me, Uncle Beezer, Paige (who is totally faking being asleep), Zoe, Jeff, my mom, and Uncle Matt. Bless us all and our aching old bones… what a great day.

more pics up on flickr.

I have a secret that I want to share. Actually, I’m not I sure want to share, but I will anyway.

I’ve never done a day of college in my life. Ever. I never even took the SAT’s. (Though I did take the PSAT’s my sophomore year… but those don’t count.) I’d never applied to any school, anywhere, ever.

Until a couple of weeks ago…

This fall I will be a freshman at Utah Valley State College (although this fall it will actually be Utah Valley University, which sounds even cooler). I sent in my application a couple of weeks ago and then anxiously waited by the mailbox for my acceptance letter. Because every person who applies is accepted. Snoopy — if properly documented — would be accepted. But did that squash any of my excitement when I got that letter?? Nope. It was my first acceptance letter ever.

I wanted to party like it was 1999 (… which is actually the year when I should have graduated from college…) I have been accepted in the English program. Though I may change that to Fine Arts with emphasis in creative writing and photography. We’ll have to see… because, as you may know, I haven’t actually decided what I want to be when I grow up.

And later this month at UVSC? It’s the Forum on Children’s Literature, which I am so excited about I could do actually do a backflip. Well, I mean, if I actually could do a backflip, which I can’t. But in my mind I’m doing one.

Three cheers for higher education. Maybe my Christmas newsletter this year will actually be a little better written. Or at least type-o free.

Next up: getting a copy of my high school transcripts. I wonder how far back that archive goes…?

My nice blogger friend Leslie asked me to write a article for her monthly “This is Motherhood” column on her site. I am March’s spotlighted mom blogger! Woo Hoo!

So check out my very first contributing article, or go to her blog to read the question and answer interview wherein I liken my blog to mashed potatoes with Pop Rocks on top. Oh, come on… you know you want to.

Tonight at bedtime I was sitting on Jachin’s bed, chatting about the events of the day. Wednesdays are one of my volunteer days, so we talked a little bit about things that went on in the classroom today. Then the conversation turned to puppy love. I asked him who his current crush is. Even in the dark, I could tell that he was a little embarrassed; he whacked me with his pillow.

I’ve noticed, though, that the previous playfulness between he and Rachael has sort of cooled… since she stopped wearing her reindeer antler headband… So I started going through the list of girls in his class. After a few”no’s” I got to Audrey. “No,” he said, “she’s Mikey’s crush.” Mikey is Jachin’s best friend; the only other child I know who shares Jachin’s insane love of Super Mario Bros.

“Mikey likes Audrey?” I asked.

“Yeah.” Then all of the sudden he blurted out, “Mikey and I are going to move to Mexico.”

“Why?” I asked.

“Because in Mexico you can get married when you’re 10.”

“You don’t want to get married when you’re 10,” I said.

“Sure I do. Why wouldn’t I?”

“Why do you want to get married when you’re 10? How will you get a job and support your family?”

“Oh, easy,” he said, matter of factly. “In Mexico you can get a job when you’re, like, 4.”

I thought of my sweet son, standing along a chicken filled street next to his ten year old wife, selling Chicklets, and I shivered a little.

While I’m happy that my son doesn’t seem to have any sort of commitment phobias, I told him to tell me before he and Mikey move to Mexico… so that I can ground him from leaving the house and the country.

Most of you with children have probably heard of — or even practice — the Love and Logic method of parenting. It’s a method that teaches parents to respond to undesirable behavior with a calm and rational head. The idea is to allow your children to make mistakes, and then allow them to also discover the natural consequences to their actions. It all sounds fine and good, and it’s possible that it even works many times. But I’m currently at a stand still with my 8 year old over a certain issue, and there doesn’t seem to be enough love or logic to solve it.

This is a conversation that took place a couple of months ago, on a cold, snowy afternoon:

Jachin (walking through the front door after school, shivering, his coat shoved into his backpack): Man, it’s freezing outside!

Me: Yeah, I know. It’s winter. Why is your coat stuffed into your backpack instead of being on your body?

Jachin: Why didn’t you pick me up? Did you want me to freeze to death?

Me: You would have been fine if you would have worn a coat over your short sleeved shirt.

Jachin: I wouldn’t have to wear a stupid coat if you would just pick me up from school.

At this point, I’m thinking that eventually, after walking home a couple of times without a coat on, the whole “logic” thing will illuminate my sweet boy’s mind, and he will wear the stinkin’ coat. If the choice is for one to walk home in the winter without a coat, the natural consequence would be for one to freeze one’s butt off.

But this has gone on all winter. For months. I don’t know why I bought the stupid coat. On the very coldest of days, he will put the hood part of the coat over his head, and then leave the rest of the coat dangling off the back of him like a cape. His arms are always the appendages that take the brunt of the nasty weather. When I asked him why in the world would he go to the effort of putting the hood on, but then not put his arms in the sleeves he actually said to me “Men don’t wear coats.” First I pointed out that at 8 years old he is not a man, and then pointed out that his dad — whose age does indeed qualify him as a man — has more than one coat and wears them when it’s frickin freezing. But this seemingly flawless logic did nothing to sway him, either.

And so the cycle continues. He comes through the door in the afternoon with blue arms and gives me the old “Why didn’t you pick me up from school?” And I respond with the whole “I’m giving your coat to orphans since you don’t wear it”.

The other day I came across a picture that shed some light on my current dilemma:

This is Zoe at about 18 months of age (I know, it’s hard to recognize her without the hair), skimming through the Love and Logic book. This is when it hits me that the kids are already on to me! They know my plan. They’ve thought through my method, and they’ve been one step ahead of me the entire time… just waiting for me to give in. Waiting for crazy mom to crack!

So my resolve grew stronger; I would stick true to my course! I would not give in, or pick up my freezing child from school! And the impasse continues…

And Jachin still apparently lacks the logic to wear his coat, and I — obviously — still lack the sufficient love for Jachin to pick him up from school. He is not so smart, and I’m a heartless wench. And for this knowledge, I paid $19.99 for the hard copy.

Yay for Love and Logic!

Bad Mom put up this fun Movie Quiz, and I — being the big, fat, follower that I am — totally copied it. Well, I mean, not word for word, or using the same movies, because that would be dumb and not fun. You: Play along!! The rules are as follows:

For the blogger:

• Pick fifteen of your favorite movies.
• Go to IMDB and find a quote from each movie.
• Post them on your blog for everyone to guess.
• Fill in the film title once it’s guessed, along with the name of the smarty-pants guesser.

This part is for the reader (y’know, you):

• No Googling or using IMDB search functions. No cheaters, please.
• Leave your answer(s) in the comments.

Keep your hands and legs inside the blog at all times. Here we go:

1) Ok. Orphans! Listen to Ignacio. I know it is fun to wrestle. A nice piledrive to the face… or a punch to the face… but you cannot do it. Because, it is in the Bible not to wrestle your neighbour (Nacho Libre, by Stu)
2) You should’ve gone to China, you know, ’cause I hear they give away babies like free iPods. You know, they pretty much just put them in those t-shirt guns and shoot them out at sporting events. (Juno, by Stu… again)

3) Dear Baby, I hope someday somebody wants to hold you for 20 minutes straight and that’s all they do. They don’t pull away. They don’t look at your face. They don’t try to kiss you. All they do is wrap you up in their arms and hold on tight, without an ounce of selfishness in it. (Waitress, by my bff Diana)

4) You know my girlfriend is dead. She fell off a cliff and died on impact.  (Happy Gilmore, yay Bill! I was starting to think no one would get it…)

5) Before Judith, our fun level was at an all time high. Ninety-three, it is now an eight. (Saving Silverman, by Leslie)

6) Get off of me, don’t you touch me. It is over between us, Kate. Nobody makes me bleed my own blood - nobody! (Dodgeball, by Leslie)

7) Bastian made many other wishes, and had many other amazing adventures - before he finally returned to the ordinary world. But that’s… another story. (The Never Ending Story, by Nerak)

8 ) Assimilate this! (Star Trek: First Contact, by Nerak… she didn’t get the exact title, but I don’t think anyone else would.)

9) You hear that Mr. Anderson?… That is the sound of inevitability… It is the sound of your death… Goodbye, Mr. Anderson… (The Matrix, by Stu)

10) Look at you, you have a baby… In a bar. (Sweet Home Alabama, by Nerak)

11) Oh, nonsense. This is nothing compared to the twig of ‘93. (A Bug’s Life, by Diana)

12) You all wanna be looking very intently at your own belly buttons. I see a head start to rise, violence is going to ensue. Probably guessed we mean to be thieving here but what we’re after is not yours. So, let’s have no undue fussing. (Serenity… my favorite movie… by Diana)

13) Witness Exhibit A: My 8th Grade science project - a working rain forest. Mike Dexter threw it out a third story window. It rains here no more. Witness Exhibit B: An eye patch I wore for a month after Mike beaned me with a raisin in home ec. My parents took me to a 3D film. I saw no third dimension. And of course, how could I forget the pudding incident? I know no one else has. Well gentlemen, tonight, Mike Dexter will know humiliation. Tonight Mike Dexter will know ridicule. Tonight is the night we fight back. Tonight is our independence night.

14) I flunk English, I’m outta here. I gotta get a job, and you know what that means. That’s right, they start me at the drive-up window and I gradually work my way up from shakes to burgers, and then one day my lucky break comes: the french fry guy dies and they offer me the job. But the day I’m supposed to start some men come by in a black Lincoln Continental and tell me I can make a quick 300 just for driving a van back from Mexico. When I get out of jail I’m 36 years old. Living in a flop house. No job. No home. No upward mobility. Very few teeth. And then one day they find me, face down in the gutter, clutching a bottle of paint thinner and why? Because you wouldn’t help me in English. (The Sure Thing, by Sam)

15) The fact that you’re not answering leads me to believe you’re either (a) not at home, (b) home but don’t want to talk to me, or (c) home, desperately want to talk to me, but trapped under something heavy. If it’s either (a) or (c), please call me back. (When Harry Met Sally, by Stu… who apparently likes many of the same movies I do.)

Though there are movies from a few genres, most are comedies… since I do love the zippy one-liners.

Good luck, and guess away!

You may recall me mentioning something about my husband getting a new job a few weeks ago. What I haven’t mentioned yet is that they are working him like a dog. (Albeit a decently-paid dog.) All last week, my husband stayed late. Today (Saturday) he decided that he needed to go in again. So he ran to work. Like, with his feet. He called me — panting — when he got there to tell me that he’d forgotten his badge to get into the building. So I packed up the kids and took him his badge and some non-sweaty clothes to change into.

Upon entering the building, the kids were enthralled. We happened to come in through the break room door. Well, one of the break rooms. The building has several of them. And they’re pimped out. Omniture is one of those places that thinks that if they pay you well, and feed you, and give you cool places to hang out, you will live there and never go home. And it sort of works, because Jon really likes it there.

I took some stealthy video of the break area and the “Guitar Hero Loft”. Check it out.

You’ll notice that I repeatedly voice my concerns over the amount of “productive work being done each day”. It would seem that this really bothers me, even though I don’t really think it does. I think it’s kind of hilarious that Jon came home the other night and told me that he is now officially the Guitar Hero champion in the office. So amid all of the “productive work” being done, there is also a bracket system scribbled on a white board in someone’s cubical with my husband listed as the reigning champion; the man to beat.

There’s also a network gaming room decorated like a dungeon with torches and a large gun turret thingy mounted to the ceiling. I didn’t get to video that today. I was kind of afraid of getting shut in behind the huge dungeon door.

Oh, and the big Omniture Conference next month is going to be sweet. Lance Armstrong is one of the keynote speakers, and Flight of the Conchords is the entertainment act. Tickets are $3000 a pair, and there’s no real reason for the company to send Jon, so the chances of me being able to go aren’t looking good. *sigh* Even though I’m the mother flippin’…

For the company, it’s all about whatever keeps employees motivated, I guess. If they ever put in employee spa services with pedicures and massages, I’m applying to Omniture as a software engineer as well.

Today the kids played pool in the break room at Jon’s office:

Jachin’s a natural. Luckily it’s difficult for an 8 year old to find billiard “action” in Orem, Utah.

When I start thinking I’m bored with the internet (we’ve all been there… thinking we’ve seen and done everything the internet has to offer), I like to go to www.apple.com/trailers. I get giddy watching trailers for upcoming movies, and this site has high-quality viewings (not the crap you find on YouTube).

Nosing around this evening (Jon is out laser-tagging without me… *sigh*) I found several movies that I’m freakin’ excited for. A short list:

First on the list is a brilliant looking movie called Son of Rambow. After watching the trailer, I wished so badly that I could immediately watch this movie. Like, right now. Like, ten minutes ago. How cute are those kids? How much do you wish that you’d had a friend like that when you were ten or twelve, running around filming action movies. *sigh* Even just the trailer makes me want to be a creative, care-free, mischievous kid again. Can’t wait…

For the handful of you out there who don’t know that I’m a Trekkie, well… now you do. I’m both excited and apprehensive about the new Star Trek movie. I hope, hope, hope that it’s good. Since all of the original Star Trek actors are ancient (even the TNG-ers are getting up there in age), the new movie is a prequel. Kirk and Spock at Starfleet Academy. Fraternity house of the future. My fingers are really crossed for this one. I’m sending happy feelings its way.

Now we come to the eye candy. Just when the world finally simmered down and stopped guffawing at In the Name of the King: A Dungeon Siege Tale, we are enticed with the next pec-tastic installment of Jason Statham’s hotness: The Bank Job. Dare I say it, people… this movie looks… well, good. And not just “good” like staring at Jason Statham’s fantastic martial arts moves, buff muscles, and scruffy-licious 5 o’clock shadow kind of “good“, I mean good, good. Decent acting. Non-nauseating dialog. Plausible plot (in fact, it’s based on a true story). All of my sultry good energy is being directed toward this one. My poor, sweet Jason is long over-due for a good movie.

Last but certainly not least is the newest installment of M. Night Shyamalan genius: The Happening. I am a Shyamalan fan. The Sixth Sense? Genius. Signs? Creeeepy. The Village? Spooky with a good twister ending. Lady in the Water? Ok, wow… I’ll admit it… it was a frickin stinker. Whatever fantastic, over-my-head ka-pow smartness he was trying to convey just didn’t work out. I think it was supposed to maybe be a metaphor of something… but who really knows? Only M. Night himself. At the end of the movie my husband and I both gave each other the WTF? look and I wished for those lost hours of my life back.  So I’m hoping this is the comeback I’ve been waiting for. Give me something good man… I’m ready.

There are, of course, others. This is a short list. What are you looking forward to seeing??

Mother Nature heard our pleas… enough, enough, please.

Enough of the powdery white crap, already. Enough of the freezing temps.

This is Zoe on her bike today(notice the snow-free sidewalks!) yelling “Uncle!”

And I think that Mother Nature may have heard, because the sun started shining and the snow began melting…

And our once proud igloo dribbled down to something resembling Utah’s Delicate Arch…

I don’t want to jinx anything, but please, oh please, let this weather stick.

Mama misses her sun tan…