"You've been selected"

Those are dreaded words if you are part of my husband's family. "You've been selected" does not mean that you have won a prize or will be honored with some recognition.

"You've been selected" in my husband's family means prepare yourselves - you are about to be hosed, taken advantage of, inconvenienced or required to buy a steak dinner for 16.

Everyone is his family has their name blocked so when you answer the phone your caller ID can't tell you who it is; otherwise you would never answer the phone if you saw it was a member of the family. You just don't dare, you never know when you will be "selected." And it can be an expensive experience.

You can answer your door and have a family member standing there telling you that "you have been selected" to feed them lunch that day or let them spend the night or take them out for ice cream.

Don't get me wrong we have taken advantaged of this tradition, too. When Jason's car broke down in St. George last Thanksgiving, Garth called his cousin to let him know that he had "been selected." Garth wondered if his cousin had hung up, there was such a long pause on the other end. His cousin was very relieved when he found out Jason just needed to spend the night.

Every January I start to worry. I know we are going to be "selected," once again, to host the Super Bowl party.

So two weeks ago I wasn't surprised when Garth told me that yes, once again we had been "selected," the Super Bowl party would be at our house.

It used to be that we varied who had the party. We would head to Flagstaff, play in the snow, go ice skating, visit the Grand Canyon or go to Winslow and visit the "Standing on the Corner" monument (that's about all there is in Winslow) and have it at our house every other year. But that was long ago when we still had all our kids at home. Now no one wants to get cold (I think everyone but me is getting old) and so our house "gets selected."

The Super Bowl party is quite a tradition in my husband's family and we all look forward to seeing all the family, eating way too much, and watching the "big game."

So I shop for food and stock the fridge with cokes (our budget is so thankful that no one drinks beer) and Garth's one uncle brings his delicious salsa and his other one brings a half eaten box of chicken wings and you just hope no one invites too many friends they didn't tell you about.

I talked to Jason today and he was sad he would miss the Super Bowl party once again. I talked to my son-in-law and he wondered if we could set up Garth's laptop and Skype he and Lonica in. Then I remembered all the wonderful memories I have of Super Bowl's past and realized that while "being selected" can be expensive, it can also bring together a great family and create memories that will last a life time.

I guess I can handle "being selected" once again.

How not to start a conservation with your mother

I feel pretty proud of myself that I am not that obsessive, worrying type of mother. I thought I was pretty cool under most circumstance.

When my almost two year-old was standing at the sliding glass door with blood covering his face and needed 30 stitches, I calmly grabbed a towel covered his head, instructed my daughter to call her dad and then stood on the driveway holding him until Garth came and picked us up. I then laid on him for an hour to hold him still while the plastic surgeon stitched him back together. I was calm.

When the same child fell off a couch I let him walk around on a broken foot for two weeks before taking him to the doctor and finding out his foot was broken. (I know that sounds cruel but it was a couch a foot and a half off the ground for heavens sakes.)

When my daughter was head butted in soccer and had her lips smashed into her braces and her jaw dislocated, she pulled her lips out and a father on the team realigned her jaw, we rinsed out her mouth and she continued to play. No wasted trip to the hospital and I didn't freak out.

When the same daughter informed me that she had repelled off a train tressel hundreds of feet high, in the middle of the night, with trains going across, I didn't freak out. Just reminded her that that probably wasn't the smartest thing to do.

When my son was sent to live in Bogota, Colombia for two years, I didn't freak out. And when he told us how he had been bitten by a dog, held up at gun point, chased by gangs, and almost choked to death, I didn't freak out.

When my 16 year-old called to tell me he had wrecked my car and was in his fourth accident in less than a year - I did freak out. Well, wouldn't you have?

Overall, I feel as though I have a pretty good track record, so when my son who lives 600 miles away calls and starts a conservation with, "Okay mom, don't freak out." What are you supposed to think? Obviously, you think of accident, right? But how bad can it be because my child is talking to me on the phone, so he isn't dead yet. But of course, your mind races way at a thousand miles a second thinking of all the worst things that could have happened.

He then proceeds to tell me that he hit heads with another kid and has a gash on his forehead that needs stitches. Is that all? All those visions of mangled cars, broken limbs, or severed fingers for just a cut that needed stitches! Doesn't he know his own mother? Doesn't he know I'm not the "freak out" type of mom?

I guess not.

Maybe I ought become that "freak out" mom type and show him just how lucky he has been all his life.

"Oh, the weather outside is frightful"

I live in the desert. We don't get much rain. We average 7 inches a year; that is our average and we haven't gotten that in the last couple of years. We average 364 days a year of sunshine. That means that we never have to worry about getting rained out of anything. We only worry about heat and pray for a change in the weather.

So imagine our surprise when last Sunday the meteorologist announced that the Phoenix area would be getting 8 inches of rain this week. There would be change in our weather and next came the media blitz! Since the media gets excited anytime there is a prediction for change in our weather, and most of the time it doesn't happen, we were all doubtful that we would end up with even an inch of rain.

Well, this time they got it right. Monday it started to rain a bit, but Tuesday evening we got hit with the first big down pour (we've hardly had a reprieve since). At about 6:30 I was fixing dinner when I got a call from Garth on his way home from work. He had a flat tire on the freeway, almost at the exit to our house. You know every person that creeped by him that night was so glad it wasn't their vehicle with the flat.

His truck is a monster to change tires on and he wasn't in a safe place to do it, it was raining buckets of water and it was dark. We debated what to do, called a couple of friends to get advice and eventually I borrowed a heavy duty jack and set off to help Garth change the tire.

By the time I got there, one of the friends I'd called was already that and he and Garth were about done (yea, I didn't have to get soaked) They were soaked to the bone, but within 10 minutes Garth was home. Thank goodness for great friends!

Moral of the story is, when the tire pressure light goes on and you can get off the freeway and find shelter and light at a QT, don't think you can make it home. And sometimes the meteorologists are right in their predictions.

It's About Time

As you can see it is past the middle of January and I'm barely getting around to blogging about our holidays. (I hope that isn't a sign of what the year to come will be like!)


Once all our family got home we had plenty to do before Christmas even got here. We had to take Amelia to have her first picture with Santa.
Take a family photo for our Christmas cards that never got made or sent. (Sometimes something just has to give and that is what I gave up on this year. I've had terrible guilt but it will eventually go away.) We do look pretty good don't we. What is even better is that we didn't even plan on taking our picture that day and everyone just happened to coordinate. I just love it when things like that happen.

We had to make a quick trip to St. Johns so Amelia could meet all of her great-grandparents, aunts, uncles, and cousins. My dad even came over from Albuquerque. Here is Garth with his mom and Amelia.

Amelia also needed her first hair cut which I wasn't too happy about being chosen to do. The top and sides turned out pretty okay but the back looked awful. Good thing Lonica has her wear headbands all the time.

And of course we had to play with Amelia every moment she was awake.

Finally, Christmas Eve arrived and we all sat down for dinner. Without Anita, Rob and their kids here this year our table seemed kind of empty. But for the first time in two years we had Jason home and that was wonderful!

After Christmas Day, we just sat around for the next week in a messy house, eating, playing games and going to movies. It was wonderful. Here we are having a fondue dinner with Preston's friend, Clark. He was really impressed with fondue and we taught him to play hearts. That is all he still wants to play.

Scott also made us a speculaas-cake. Anita had brought the recipe and spices for it last year, but we never had time to make it. None of us had eaten it before or knew what it was supposed to look like but right or wrong it was delicious!

Finally, on New Year's Day I decided to get outside and get some exercise by hiking with a friend, Terry, and his friend. This is a picture at the beginning of our hike (actually we'd probably gone a mile already) and you can see Flat Iron (our destination) way in the background, it's that point clear in the back.

Once we got to the top of Flat Iron we could see the top of the Superstitions about 1/2 mile further, so of course we had to go up there. Here I am at the top and you can see Flat Iron down to the right of me. It was a good way to start the new year - on top of the world (or the top of the Valley).

Since that day life has gotten back to normal. I'm taking four classes this semester, Lonica, Scott and Amelia went back to Ohio, Jason went back to Utah, Preston started his last semester of high school, Garth, Dave, Raquel and I all went back to work. So while life is back to our same routine, we will always look back to this past Christmas as one of our best - just a lot of family time, good food and relaxation.

Look who's here for Christmas

Last Tuesday night the little girl Garth and I have been waiting to see, made it to our house to spend a couple of weeks with us. Amelia was as thrilled to see us as we were to see her and she has given us lots of smiles to let us know how happy she is to be here.
We are thrilled to see Amelia's chubby little face around our house and we are glad to have those other two that she brought with her - Lonica and Scott, too. Although we do have to split awake time with them - dang!

Jason will be home this weekend and our family will be complete. Bring Christmas on! Oh, wait - I'm not ready yet. I'm glad we have another week.

How the time flies

Twenty five years ago, a couple of days before Thanksgiving, I went to the doctor and he told me my baby was ready to come and could be born at any time. The stars were aligned, my body was ready and so when my family came from Utah and New Mexico for Thanksgiving, my mother was certain that she would have a new grandchild before she left to return home. Well, we all waited and waited and waited, everyone was ready but the baby. Finally on December 12, I decided I'd had enough of this waiting stuff and so I walked, vacuumed and cleaned all day. Early on the morning of the 13th, Garth and I headed to the hospital. Of course when we got there my contractions stopped, but I was ready to have the baby and they didn't dare send me home. We were told to go walk around the hospital. It was probably 4:00am and it was cold, (the next day was the first time since I had moved to Phoenix that I would see snow on the Superstition Mountains) and we were both tired. After making one trip around the empty, cold corridors, Garth found a couch and told me to wake him after each trip around - my pillar of support!

After a few more laps, the nurses checked me and broke my water. 40 minutes later, Garth and I had a brand little girl with tons of hair. We kind of wondered if she was an Indian baby because she had so much hair that wouldn't lie down, just like most Indian baby's. The next day I sat in the hospital, going though our name book looking for a name that would fit our beautiful little girl and I came across Raquel. It just seemed to fit this newest gift from heaven and so we had our little Raquel Millie that would join her big sister, Lonica, and make our family a foursome. I think the Lord new I needed a good baby since I already had one that was only 15 months old, so he sent me Raquel. For the first year, we couldn't have had a better baby than her. She loved to cuddle and be held and you could always make her happy if you just held her.

When she turned one though things began to change. Raquel came to life and from that moment on we always knew she was around. She was full of life and excited about everything. She made up her own mind and would let you know if she wasn't happy about something or squeal with delight if she was. She seemed to always have a smile on her face and loved her babies, stuffed animals, food, her Daddy and especially her big sister. She was full of life and you could see it in her eyes. She loved to sing and dance and perform and talk and talk and talk. When she was 3, her voice went hoarse and it never got better, after a couple of months I took her to a doctor who asked if she was a loud child. I said, you could say that. Apparently, Raquel had damaged her vocal cords from being so loud and I was told to keep her quiet for 6 months and they should get better! Luckily they did, but I'm still amazed that they ever healed, I certainly wasn't able to keep her quiet. Raquel loved life and she wanted to share that with everyone.

When she started kindergarten, she also started playing soccer which would consume her life for the next 12 years at least. Raquel loved running and she was fast and could beat most of the other players and was a delight to watch. When we moved to Texas all the girls' teams were full so Raquel played on a boys' team for the next two years. Although the boys helped her to develop a killer instinct, she could still out run all of them and there was nothing Garth and I enjoyed more than to watch Raquel whip by some boy and out maneuver him. That was our little princess!! Raquel decided in 1st grade that she really wanted glasses and found this lovely pair, bought them and proceeded to wear them all the time. Her school teacher thought they were real, as did everyone else and she loved that. No one loved holidays more than Raquel, especially Halloween. She started thinking about what she was going to be for the next year as soon as Halloween was over and she came up with some great ideas. Over the years she was the Mr. Peanut man, Van Gough, a reporter, Dorthy from the Wizard of Oz, and Jackie Joyner just to name a few. The only one she wanted to be that I could never figure out a costume for was the Pillsbury Doughboy.
As Raquel grew so did her love for the Lord, for life and for her family. She was never as happy as when the family was all together and playing games.

She worked hard in school and in everything she ever did. We watched her play the piano and the saxophone, run track, play soccer and softball, become an editor for the yearbook, coach a YMCA soccer team, participate in countless service projects, become a swimming instructor, enjoy crazy dates with boys and laugh and eat with her best friends. If Raquel was around, you were having fun. After graduating she went to Northern Arizona University and continued to love life, work hard, make new friends and grow into a beautiful young woman who fell in love with Dave. She still loves holidays, is crazy and is so much fun to be around. In deed, she has magnified the gifts and talents she has and developed others. She is now our cake decorating expert, is learning to sew, is amazing at teaching children to swim, is working on becoming a physical therapist assistant, continues to use her graphic design skills and of course still has her sensitive heart and concern for others. Last summer she even indulged me and hiked 14 miles in the Grand Canyon with me in one day. I know it was hard for her but she never complained even when we were being pelted with rain, were soaking wet and were freezing cold. For the last 25 years I have been able to love and enjoy Raquel and watch her grow. I have loved being her mother and can't wait to see what the future holds for her. She has blessed my life in countless ways.

Happy birthday and I hope you always know how special you are to me.

Love, Mom

Twinkle Toes

Last spring, while my son was still on his mission, I had to register him for school for this fall. I spent days calling and talking to a counselor, planning his schedule and trying to guess just what career path he would take. In the middle of all this a mother of one of his friend's, who was going through the same process, called and asked what I registered Jason for. She proceeded to talk me into registering Jason for beginning ballroom dancing with her son.

When Jason found out he was registered for ballroom dancing there was no note of excitement in his voice; in fact, I think it was disbelief and disgust. I explained that it was a great way to meet girls and that he would have a friend to suffer though it with, and besides if it was really that bad he could drop it.

Well, school started and I would inquire occassionally how the dance class was going and I always received the same reply, "It's okay." Those of you who know my son know that's about all a reply I can expect from him.

Then a couple of weeks ago the relpy to my usual question about the dance class was, "It's pretty fun." Imagine that - three words and with emotion!

I also found out that Jason's friend had dropped the class the second week of school and Jason had continued to dance by himself (well actually he did have a female partner, that was "pretty cute"). I was amazed that my 'macho' son seemed to be liking and was sticking with ballroom dancing.

A week ago Jason told me that his teacher had told him the he "a lot of potential" and Jason seemed really pleased. (What was happening to the son I knew? Could he actually be enjoying something as cultural as ballroom dancing?)

It all came to a head last Saturday when I made my usual call to check in on him and found out he had missed a coveted intermural flag football game, that was a play off game, to attend a dance competition! He and his partner had made it through all the morning rounds and had to go back that night to finish the competition. He was excited and I guess he must be pretty good to make it that far - right?

Later that night Jason and his partner made it to the quarter finals before being eliminated. In other words, they made it down to be one of the last 12 couples out of about 100.

Kids never cease to astound you. You think you have them figured out and then out of the blue they like ballroom dancing and do well in a dance competition and actually enjoy it.

So when Jason was registering for classes next semester I asked him if he was going to take the next ballroom dance class. He said no, he was good, but he really would like to learn how to country western dance! As long as we have kids, wonders will never cease.