Her life is an art project

I don't have work today, which is nice. That means I've had time to finish the housework that I didn't get done on Saturday. And it gives me time to hound Sophie about the Native American craft project she has to do for her report. She's studying the Nez Perce tribe and is making a "tulle mat" for her project. I'm not sure how to spell it, so I'm trusting her spelling.

And I swept the floor in the back room, which was pretty gross and now it's not. And then I've been working on moving data over from the old computer. It's taking awhile, which is unfortunate, but unsurprising because I did some weird things with the data on the old computer that I thought would make it easier. It didn't, so I'm undoing it as I move it onto the new computer. While I do that, Sophie came in and said, "Dad, look at the new way I did my hair!"

It absolutely fits with her personal style. You know, just about everything that kid does is an art project of some kind. Which totally explains why she likes Lady Gaga so much.

Heart breaker

He says I broke his heart into little pieces and they got lost and they can't find their way back. What did I do to precipitate this huge crime? Asked him to find a good stopping place in what he was doing and get ready for church.

To quote Buster Bluth, "I'm a monster!"

Training week

I'm not even going to pretend to catch you up on what's happened at our house since the last time one of us wrote on this blog. Where we are now is that it's training week, so we've sent +Chelsea to New York again to finish up her ABT ballet teacher certification. I booked her a plane ticket that would get her to New York mid-afternoon so she'd have time to settle in and kick around the city for a little bit before her classes start tomorrow, which meant that we had to wake up freaky early this morning to get her to the airport. The upside is that traffic wasn't bad.

So far, we put gas in the car, stopped at Krispy Kreme, straightened up the house, watched a few episodes of Batman: The Animated Series, and then we've each done our own things. I tried to mail nacho ingredients to Miss Kris in England, but was dissuaded from sending them FedEx when I learned how much it was going to cost. I'm going to see if the US Postal Service can get them there cheaper. Then I took down the Christmas lights. I know, it's late in the year, but it's been super cold, icy, rainy or I've been doing other things that I just haven't done it before now.

The rest of the day has yet to unfold, but there will be more. And Chelsea's not the only one doing training this week; I have training at work this week too, but mine is packed into 2 days at my office rather than spread over a week in New York City.

The Nutcracker's done

The girls were in The Nutcracker this week and it went relatively well. It was less disruptive for me this year than it has been other years, but it's still hectic for us. One of the things I enjoyed this year is that I got Chelsea flowers for her performance and I felt like a big shot calling up Campus Floral (at BYU) and telling them what kind of flowers I wanted. The guy on the other end of the phone asked how much I wanted to spend and suggested $15, and I said "No, make it more like 25." Yeah, big spender, but it was nice to be able to spend more than the typical college kid. Chelsea says our house looks (and smells) like a flower shop exploded in here.

We've spent the day together and one of the things we all had to do was figure out what we're going to bring to Thanksgiving. I traditionally bring a secret nontraditional dish to Thanksgiving dinner with the Carliles and I've had some trouble coming up with what I wanted to bring this year. And of course, the kids now think they have to bring some kind of secret something too, so there was some negotiation on that one. But I've come up with something and I think it's going to be really tasty. I'm excited to share with everyone.

New glasses

I got new glasses today. I think they make me look like a hipster Bond villain.

Chelsea says that's just because I shaved. Apparently I look like a Bond villain when I shave. In any case, I'm digging my new glasses. What do you think of them?

Sick is the worst

I'm sick.

I got sick yesterday afternoon, and getting sick Halloween night is the worst. I still had to take the kids trick-or-treating, so that was an adventure. But I stayed home from work today and watched movies by myself, which really is my favorite thing to do when I'm sick. I started watching From Russia With Love, my favorite Bond movie, right after lunchtime and Sophie came home about an hour later with one of her friends. Right about when Bond has that brutal fight with Grant in the train compartment.

"What are you watching?" Sophie's chatty friend asked. "I'm not allowed to watch violence. What's this about?" As the two spies throw each other around the compartment.

Being sick and kinda cranky, I said, "Violence."

"Why are we watching this? Can we turn it off?"

"I was watching this before you came over and no. If you don't want to watch it, go away."

Not my best moment, but if I want to watch James Bond movies all day when I'm sick, I will. And don't question it, little girl.

Our trip to Zion

You may not have heard that we recently took a trip to Zion National Park. Chelsea's dad was going to be in a triathlon that weekend in Lake Powell, but with the crazy government shutdown, the park closed and the triathlon was canceled. We thought it would be a shame to do nothing, since everyone got time off work, so Chelsea's mom booked rooms in the town just outside of Zion National Park, where we could hang out and do fun things that didn't necessarily involve the park. 

Magically, the park opened for one day while we were there and we got to hike around. Here are all the pictures of our trip.

The Grafton cemetary. Grafton is a little ghost town outside Zion.

The Grafton schoolhouse

We had dinner at Oscar's Cafe in Springdale

I had a Murder Burger. The big question was how was I going to eat it?

I'd eat it by opening wide.

Wiped out boy

Wiped out munchkin

Wiped out mom

At the Zion visitor's center. It opened!

How often do you get to walk behind a waterfall?

Sophie left this message for other hikers.

The non kid-bound grownups hiked Angel's Landing

Dinner at Wildcat Willie's

It's not really that fun unless someone gets a bloody nose.

We had a fantastic time and would do it again in a heartbeat. Just as soon as our bank account recovers. Springdale is not a cheap place to spend time, but we had a great time with our family.