Leap Day, Leap Year

Hi! I just had to post on a day I can only acknowledge once every 4 years. Happy Leap Day!

Also to celebrate: Frank is home for 4 days! YESSSSS! We are a complete family for the weekend. (OK, we're always complete...only just not always together...) Here is the whole group being goofy a year plus ago, since heaven knows we can only survive by being goofy once in awhile.

Braids, Ponytails, and Manicotti

Hola!

There was once a girl who woke up and looked in the mirror, to find that she had only three hairs on her head. “Oh, no,” she thought. “What am I going to do with these 3 hairs? I guess I will braid them,” which she did. Then she left, and she had a great day.

The next morning, she woke up and looked in the mirror, to find that she had only two hairs on her head. “Oh, no,” she thought. “What am I going to do with these 2 hairs? I think I will part them down the middle,” which she did. Then she left, and she had a great day.

The next day, she woke up and looked in the mirror, to find that she had one hair on her head. “Oh, no,” she thought. “What am I going to do? I think I will wear it in a ponytail,” which she did. Then she left, and she had a great day.

The next morning, she woke up and looked in the mirror, to find that all her hair was gone! She had no hair on her head. “Oh, no,” she thought. “What am I going to do? Well, I guess I don’t have to do my hair this morning!” Then she left, and she had a great day.

The moral of this story is about attitude! The lady in church who told this story, also gave examples in real life of having a good attitude.

So, my new goal is to try to grin and bear the little inconveniences of my days! Little inconveniences like: TODAY is DAY 9 of Frank being gone. (We may get him back for a few days next weekend, around Day 14 or so…)

Little inconveniences like: we have jumped through hoops for weeks. We were ONE DAY away from having the “for sale” sign out in the yard of our house, and…mini soap opera between the Realtor and the renters. Without dragging you through all the gory details, our best decision right now is to CHANGE realtors. Sigh. More delays.

Another inconvenience was: my Bagel Cut (see previous blog entry)!! Ugh.

However, we have had some good rain this week, desperately needed in desert-dry So Cal. Frank has his first week of work under his belt, and continues to acclimate, re-learning to drive in sleet and snow. I am inching my way through the garage, tossing what I can and donating other things. We had excellent talks in church today, and I taught the lesson in Relief Society. (The General Conference talks are so good.)

12-yr-old David is making stuffed manicotti for our dinner tonight (gotta love those cooking class requirements).

Have a glorious week! Love, Kari

Bagel Cut!

Hola--

BAGEL CUT! AAaaahhh!!! I just hate that. I'm cutting a bagle, which of course is "pre-sliced," but not quite enough, right? Being careful as I cut toward my palm, not to get the knife too close. So careful, I am not paying attention to my POINTER FINGER, sticking out randomly, so the knife gets my finger, for Pete's sake. So now I'm trying to finish making lunches and get breakfast together, holding a wet paper towel tight to my finger. (That dumb thing bled for 20 minutes...) Here is an expert opinion on my predicament:

Improper cutting technique has led to many bagel-related lacerations. Mark Smith, head of Department of Emergency Medicine noted, "The bagel is inherently unstable because it's round. In fact there are two unstable surfaces: the knife against the bagel and the bagel against the table...I theorize that it's difficult to modulate the force needed to get through the exterior once you hit the doughy part, and you cut your finger."

(Thank you, Mark Smith of Department of Emergency Medicine.)

Flights, Flips, Flapjacks

Hola--

And HAPPY VALENTINE’S DAY, 3 days ago. Frank gave me a card that said, “For Valentine’s Day, I am quitting my job and moving out! …I’m leaving you with everything, so the separation should go smoothly…” Well, he really did it. (!!?!?!?) He left me with everything. It’s amazing how all I really need to function normally in this world is a house, a car, and a working computer.

His flight left on Friday, after he scrambled to pack and get everything in a suitcase or a box to be shipped. He flew all night, arrived safely and was greeted by a 1-bedroom apartment and a Jeep Commander that he can use for the next few months. OK, I didn’t know what that was either. It's a 4WD--for inclement weather, you know. Here’s a photo of a Jeep Commander, but his is a maroon color. It's kind of boxy, but it’s a Jeep, right? Boxy is a given.

His apartment, he says, is as close as any apartment in the complex to…you guessed it, train tracks!! Yes!! I suppose after the first week, he will know the night train schedule by heart.

In other news, David and Teresa are trying to increase their “personal best” numbers on the trampoline. They have mastered the Front Flip. Now they try to beat their own records of “How Many Front Flips In A Row Can I Land Before I Exhaust Myself?” (They can jump in between, mind you. There is no time limit and they can re-position themselves in between.) David is up to around 30, and yesterday Teresa got up to SEVENTY FRONT FLIPS. I get dizzy just thinking about it. Tomorrow is President’s Day. The kids have the day off of school. It is supposed to be in the low 70s and they want to go swimming.

There you have our update! (By the way, I just put "flapjacks" in the title because I like that word, and it fit with the other "FL" words. Maybe we'll make pancakes for breakfast tomorrow.)

Fruits of Our Labor

I don’t think I mentioned that for the last couple of months, the girls and I have been working on an Elementary School Talent Show act. Background: Last summer, Kara, Teresa and I made up dance moves to an 80’s song, “Eye of the Tiger.” Just in the backyard, with some aerobics-style moves and cartwheels and handstands. It was fun.

Then, this past December, we received the school flier announcing the annual Talent Show coming up. We decided to do the dance, and the girls asked a few friends to join us. We ended up with 6 girls. Here is their order in stage picture, L to R: Amanda (4th grade), Lindsey (2nd), Kara (2nd), Lizzie (1st), Sam (2nd), and Teresa (5th).

I had a friend shorten the song with his sound equipment, to meet the time requirement. A couple times a week for the past few weeks, we have been practicing. I also found some fun tiger shirts online, so the girls could match.

Last week, after quite a few home unofficial practices, multiple after-school official practices, and 2 afternoons of dress rehearsals…(whew, can you tell this was a little more time consuming than I anticipated in the beginning…?) The girls got to perform 3 times: 2 school assemblies first thing in the morning, and one evening performance for the parents.

They did such a good job! I think they had a great time. Here are some pictures. I was going to include the video clip, but it’s 153 MG and the limit is 100 on the blog. Maybe the grandparents will get a DVD of it, but for now? Photos!

SoCal Sledding

Hola!

Another week gone by—wow! I am playing catch-up on a few activities, so this will be a report on something we did a month ago.

Believe it or not, it does snow in Southern California! Not close to the beach, of course, where we live, but if you drive inland you can get to some pretty mountain areas and yes, snow! So, when we had “lots” of rain here in January, that meant “lots” of snow in the mountains. (We are desert terrain, remember…”lots” of precipitation just means “more than usual.” “Usual precipitation” here means “never.”)

Once it snows, you are on a time clock. If you want to ENJOY the snow, you better get up there within the week or it will be slushy ice, or half-melted, or gone. We look up Mt. Pinos online, and see that it received a foot or more of snow. We must go THIS Saturday, we reason, if we want to take advantage of it.

Sledding, for us, is an all-day event, of course. Get up and gather all cold-weather gear together: tubes, gloves, boots, sweatshirts, snow pants, coats, hats, extra socks, extra shoes to wear afterwards, water, lunch, snacks. The minivan is now filled to the gills with STUFF! The neighbors think we will be gone 3 weeks.

Drive 90 minutes (yes, we try to shave it down, but we can’t seem to get below that number of minutes). Get off the freeway, finally to the tiny town where we can wind up the mountain to the white stuff. Buy a state park day pass at Joe’s Liquor Mart, one of maybe 2 places that sell them, and you better do this because the park patrol people are BORED SILLY. (All they do all day is stare into the windshields of parked cars off the sides of the roads. If they can break the monotony and actually write up a ticket, they are ecstatic.)

Drive up, up, up, and lo and behold, now there it is! White and Fluffy! Only now, we have to find the Perfect Sledding Spot. Not too crowded, not too steep, not too used up by previous sledders. Another 30 minutes of scoping out sites. Luckily we can eat our lunch in the car as we scope.

All right, we found it! Yes, we can go here, and it’s not too crowded, and--icing on the cake--it’s not a death-trap. Happy day! Pile out.

Here are a couple of scrapbook pages I did from pictures taken on that day, and a few other photos also. It really was a lot of fun. David’s goal was to make the biggest snowball on the planet, so that’s what he’s working on.

Hope your week was eventful in a good way. More later, love, Kari

A few more details, + Japanese temple

Hi!

Some people have asked a few more details about Frank’s new job and location…(I think my brother Kris may suspect we have made the whole thing up…) So I’ll fill in just a little more of the puzzle.

The company is Parexel International, located in Waltham, Massachusetts. (Note the pronunciation: WALL-tham, and the 2nd syllable rhymes with “ham,” not a schwa sound like you want to say it. First syllable is emphasized, and the second syllable rhymes with “ham.”)

If you find Boston on http://mapquest.com/, you see that Boston has 2 beltways, an inner beltway and an outer beltway. Parexel is just outside the "inner beltway."

The company provides the testing services needed to research medicines. Companies at different stages of having medicines approved need people to try the medicines. Parexel finds the groups of people worldwide, who will try the medicines for arthritis, cancers, etc., etc. to see if they work. Here is the opening paragraph provided by Wikipedia.

PAREXEL International is a Contract Research Organization based in Waltham, Massachusetts and founded in 1983 by Josef H. von Rickenbach (still current CEO) and Anne Sayigh. It provides services for companies in the pharmaceutical, biotechnology and medical device industries, including consulting and clinical studies. The name PAREXEL comes from Paracelsus, a Swiss physician considered as the father of modern toxicology.[1] PAREXEL employs more than 7,000 people worldwide in over 50 countries[2], and has supported nearly all of the 50 best-selling drugs on the market.[3]

That part will be interesting for Frank: watching the progress of different medicines towards approval or not.

Another interesting part for him will be travel. His responsibilities will include groups of people in the U.S. and in Latin America. Periodically, he will visit people in Parexel offices in CA, VA, and NC, and south of our border he will visit Argentina, Brazil, Chile, and Mexico. (coincidentally, Mexico City :) ).

So, there are a few more of those details! Otherwise, the week has been eventful but blurry for me...I lost a couple of days to stomach flu.

David, resident 7th grader, on the other hand, spent many many minutes of the week on his Japanese Temple project for his Social Science class. You can see the final product below. I was impressed! (If not a little awed/disgusted at the amount of time it took. Impatient Me, you know.)

I will sign off now. Have a healthy week! Love, Kari