Tick Tock

It's almost here! Graduation. Commencement. The end and the beginning. I feel so full of emotions - like a rainbow of fruit flavors. Excitement, sadness, stress, longing, anticipation, and yet . . . YEEHAW!!!!!!

I said Goodnight L.A.

In this case it's Goodbye L.A. And when we come back to visit biannually, we will not just go to Orange County - I promise.

I still can't believe that the 4 years have already come and gone.

MoFash

The coolest Stake Activity EVER!

Our Stake goes all out in the name of activities and once again they've outdone themselves. It's MoFash, a modest fashion show - bringing high fashion together with practical ideas for modest styling. It's sure to be fun, and hopefully will spur a trend toward more classy dressing. Check out their list of "Sites we Like" for some truly good shopping.

The Final Countdown

Well, we're down to less than a month left here in Los Angeles. I wish I had more time so I could post all the great pictures I'm taking of our final moments.

I've had an "LA List" of our favorite thing to do in the area that I wanted to revisit for the last time and a couple things we hadn't gotten to yet. Our favorites- The Getty, Zimmer Museum, Santa Monica pier, favorite parks - Kenneth Hahn, Aidan's Place, etc., the Grove, Travel Town, Zoo, Legoland, Hollywood & Highland, "Whimsic Alley", aka - the Harry Potter store, Gene Autry Museum, Shrine Circus at the Shrine, LACMA, Tide Pools in Malibu. I still haven't managed to get to the Griffith Observatory yet, but that's slated for next week. I'm going to an Ellen show taping tomorrow afternoon and I hope to get down to the Pantages to see Wicked once more (front row for $25 in the nightly lottery - can't beat that!) We're also doing one last bonfire at Dockweiler beach this weekend. It's also my bday this weekend, #30, but I got my present a couple weeks ago - tickets to Phantom of the Opera. We're also doing weekly Disneyland trips to savour our passes, so we're heading down to Anaheim in a couple hours.

The boys are playing tball and 5-pitch and doing really well. Dalton can snag a ball and throw it from 3rd base to first with spot-on aim. He totally didn't get that from me. Darren is coaching Dane's team and it's just a riot to see him chugging around the bases with the giant batting helmet on. He also like to draw pizzas in the dirt.

This is a rambling post that I'll surely edit later. I just want all to know that we're alive and kicking and trying to prepare ourselves for some huge and exciting changes.

Just in Time, eh?

Looks like we're headin' out of Dodge just in time. Check out this article packed with stats about the high probability of quakes in the near future of good old Southern California.

california_quakes

And the ladies at Target looked at me like I was loco when Dalton told them we were making an emergency earthquake kit. Who's loco now? HUH? Yeah, that's right.

But seriously, they're reporting this as though it's groundbreaking, jawdropping information. As if every single person who lives in Southern California, or the entire state for that matter, isn't painfully aware of the impending doom awaiting. They've been predicting "the big one" for eons. We send little earthquake kits to preschool with family pictures and beef jerky and a toy. We have little teasers quakes to keep us on our toes and remind us not to get too comfy. We just choose to pretend that it's not a serious threat so that we can get through the day. My mom warned me to sleep with clothes and shoes near the bed so just in case it's in the middle of the night we won't be caught unaware. I don't. Denial is a beautiful thing.

WORD!

Anyone else LOVE Elder Ballard's talk yesterday? A friend put it best - "If I could've clapped afterwards, I would've." It was so validating and practical.

Great New Blog

A friend referred me to this great new blog:

www.enlightenedhomemaker.blogspot.com

It's all about feeding your family the right way, practically. It's really informative and helpful. I'm off to clean out the pantry!

Dancing with the Stars

I admit it - I love Dancing with the Stars. Yeah, the girls wear skanky outfits, especially Edyta, but it's so fun to watch! I wasn't always a fan, but last year I went to a taping with my friend Maegan and have been into it since. (She has a friend that writes for the show so we got good seats - mine even said "Stacie Denneker" HA HA!) It was two seasons ago - when Apollo won, and I was pregnant and it was Maegan's first time leaving her newborn. Although we were preoccupied by needing to potty and having milk let down, it was so fun just to watch the dancing. You forget that it's celebrities out there and just enjoy the excitement. And not to age myself, but I was actually more excited by who was in the crowd by us - Boyz 2 Men and some cast members from Beverly Hills 90210. Good memories of the 90's right there.

As for this season, my early favs are Kristie Yamaguchi and Jason Taylor. First elimination tonight!

Happy Easter

Easter was super early this year, and although Aunt Jenni didn't make it out to visit - we had a happy day! And no, much to Darren's dismay, we did not give the kids carrots in their easter baskets - they got good old chocolate.

It's always hard to make sure that the kids understand what we're celebrating - not the arrival of Spring, but rather Christ's resurrection. Luckily the stake was putting on a performance about Christ that we could take the kids to. It was actually the second act of the same show that the church put on in the Conference Center during the Salt Lake Olympics in 2002.

It was a nice addition to the holiday, but Darren and I had a silent laugh at an older sister who was sitting in front of us. She turned around shortly after we arrived - about 10 minutes before it started - and said to Davis (in respons to his slapping the metal chair), "It's cute when you do that now, but after the show starts I'll turn around and give you a mean look." Then she looked me and said snidely, "I had 9 kids you know, but we never took the babies to performances. That's what babysitters are for. " HAH HAH! IF we had more than 3 young women in our ward I might have better luck with that, but even so - isn't the church all about families? Momma mia.

This picture is the night before, Easter Eve if you will.

On Saturday we went to a couple of Easter egg hunts at local parks - one that started at 9am SHARP and was over in literally 30 seconds. The kids just stared at the mayhem and didn't get squat. So we headed to another hunt at Aidan's Place (site of the Christian Bale incident) for a "festival" where they had millions of eggs but kept shouting "only get ONE egg!" Did any kid listen? Of course not, so after everyone caught on, we all dumped their baskets out and took the one egg to trade for a goodie bag. It was weird, but much fairer. And they also had some hot rap music playing while the kids rocked out in the bounce houses. Only in LA. Then the kids got their faces painted by the BEST face-painter ever. NOT. Dalton wanted a spider and as she was painting she said, "All spiders have 6 legs you know. " Then Dane wanted a Harry Potter scar (shock) and she put a big yellow blob on his forehead. Good thing there was no mirror or he'd have been all put out. He's kinda picky like that. Anyway, it was a good time.

Here the boys are with the Merrells and Marshes at Lindburgh Park, the first hunt. The Merrells also have three boys almost the same ages as ours.

On Sunday we had the Merrells and Coveys (family away from family) over for dinner and it was nice to enjoy the Spring weather. Oddly enough, Maegan and I made the EXACT same dessert - strawberry shortcake trifle. Great minds think alike, eh? Hoppy Easter 2008!

Life's a Beach

Last weekend we experienced what happens when you don't make plans. After about 30 minutes of "What should we do?" " I don't care. What do you want to do?" We ended up heading down to 3rd Street in Santa Monica, where of course we got in some great shopping (window shopping in some cases - we had all the kids) and saw lots of bizarre street performers. Check out this guy - atrophied legs in a cross position, then up on his arms. Crazy!

Here he's magnified, but a little blurry. He stood like this for like 5 minutes straight. I'm sure gonna miss all the weirdos around here. But maybe not the shirtless guy with the hairy back and the Arnold mask complaining about how we "Don't need Sacramento! They're idiots up there!"

Afterwards we just walked along the cliffs above the PCH and I realized I'm already starting to miss the beach. Darren doesn't understand, but I would spend all my time there if I could. I wish I could stuff it in my suitcase and take it with me.

Motivation

As Dane was eating his veggies at lunch today, he turned to me with a steely look and said, "I am going to eat my vegetables so that I can grow up to be as tall as Daddy. Then, I won't have to sit on the couch when I hold Davis."

Little Daners just loves Davis. He'll frequently come away from whatever he's doing and just plant a big one on Davis's cheek. Or he'll bring his cherished blanket over and shove it under Davis's nose so that he can smell it as Dane loves to do. Too bad that by the time Dane is as big as Darren, Davis will probably be close to his size and won't want anything to do with being carried around.

Why is the grass always greener? When you're a kid, it always seems so powerful and exciting to be bigger. When you're grown, you look back on childhood as such an idyllic an simple time. Human nature I suppose. For now, it's a great motivation to eat the greens and chug the milk.