Elders' Quorum Social

Last night our ward had a social. I had already planned on making chili for a family in our ward that just had a baby last weekend, then I found out that the Elders' Quorum social was going to be a chili feed. Convenient for me! So I made a vat of it, and we dropped some off at the Walkers, then headed to the church. We were a little late, and they were very glad to see us because it was a pretty small group. What I also didn't realize was that it was a cook-off with judging. Everyone was invited to cast a ballot (I abstained since I cooked), and there were 4 categories: best looking, best tasting beans, hottest, and best overall. To my surprise, I tied for hottest; and to my utter delight, I won best overall by a landslide! Granted there were only 4 entries, but it still made me really happy. I never thought back in the days when I was winning local, regional, and national awards both as an ensemble singer and soloist that I could get such gratification from something so small. I suppose recognition for whatever one is currently involved in is nice in any capacity, and my domestic efforts are at the moment taking center stage, as they should be :). Carolyn also expressed a new interest at the socail: fashion design. She decided that my outfit was entirely too drab and would look much better if she dumped a bowl of chili on it.

Busy Bee

Carolyn is a very busy girl. Much too busy, in fact, for nonsense like diaper changes. The other day while we were at DeLayna's (I'm Eva's nanny for the summer), I had to wrestle her (Carolyn, not Eva) to the ground no less than 5 times. Then I had to let go of her to get the new diaper. By the time I grabbed it and unfolded it, she had rolled over and was crawling away with her jeans around her ankles. Nice. You'd think a 27-yr-old woman would be able to handle an infant. Apparently not! :)

It couldn't last

Carolyn has now realized that the living room does in fact lead into the kitchen. Nice. She is also trying to pull herself up to things. I fear I may have a walker within a month! Time to get a play yard to keep her safe from all of the many, many power cords in our apartment :).

Crawling!

My sweetest girl is growing up so fast! She started crawling this week. It still needs some fine-tuning, but she gets around wherever she wants to go! At the moment, she doesn't realize that she can crawl into the kitchen from the living room. So that's nice for now but I know it won't last long. She also cut two new teeth this week - her top front. That makes 4 total now. Well, one good one (bottom left), and 3 nubs. She was REALLY cranky for a couple of days while they were cutting through, so it was a huge relief for us both when it finally happened. It makes Mama so sad when she is totally inconsolable. Another noticable develpomental milestone that happened recently is taking verbal cues. she will do "Boogie boogie boogie" without the physical cue, and yesterday she started clapping when I said "Yay" in a different context. What a smart girl!

Almost total vocal inactivity and pregnancy hormones . . .

Almost total vocal inactivity and pregnancy hormones . . . apparently can do a lot of good! I went almost a year between my last vocal jury and my summer lessons before Dr. Reich left for BYU, and I haven't really had occasion to test my operatic chops since then. Well, I am going to sing "O Divine Redeemer" in church on Sunday. I prepared it for my senior recital but had to cut it because of time issues. Dr. Reich and I worked it again last summer, but then I was too pregnant to sing it in public so it had just been shelved until last week. I had a little run-through with my accompanist (Cathy Gibb who was the Opera Theater's costumer, and served with her husband in the branch for a while until recently returning to our ward). I have to say I was really nervous that I would dust the cobwebs off my instrument and find it altered and not know what to do with it. Well, I did find it altered, but mostly just in that I have more color, which is an effect that motherhood generally has. But I was very happy and relieved to find that I still had control and consistency, and yeah, with the added color, it wasn't too bad! I had another rehearsal yesterday (it is Gounod, after all), and it went really well. Cathy had something to finish up when I first arrived so I sat down and took myself through some exercises, and found that I haven't lost any range (operatically that is. My jazz whistle tones are not what they used to be, but outside of singing lead in a vocal jazz ensemble, it's pretty useless anyway), in fact I used to max out at a high C and yesterday I had a solid high D. It doesn't seem like it would make that much of a difference, but that will open up more repertoire to me. I suppose that I should have had more faith in the hard work I did and the instrument and foundations of technique the Dr. Reich and I had built.

So I am offically announcing that I will be doing a recital next summer - date TBA. If anyone has a preference, let me know! I continued to study weekly with Dr. Reich for a year after my senior recital, so I have a good amount of new repertoire. If I add a few more things, I'll definitely have enough for a good solid recital. Yay!

This is why we get the extended warranty . . .

After pumping over $1,000 into my car for general upkeep and maintenance, we found out that my A/C compressor needed to be replaced. It was a long process with a ridiculous amount of bumps in the road, including a clerical error at the DMV last October which put false information on my carfax report making my warranty void, the fedex box containing my parts getting lost, issues with the title, and discovering that when the part broke it sent metal shooting through several more parts. Finally after a month of taking my car back and forth from the Hyundai dealership in Yakima, dealing with the DMV, faxing info back and forth, my car is back with a brand new A/C compressor and every big and little part pertaining to it or surrounding it. The final bill: $1,800. What I paid: $0.

Happy Fathers Day Part 3

Let's not forget about uncles!

Happy Fathers Day Part 2

I couldn't fit all of the pics into one post, so here are some more.

Happy Fathers' Day

Here are some of my favorite pics of Carolyn with her Daddy!

Apparently we are ready for finger foods . . . . .

A local restaurant sends out free birthday/anniversary meals. So we used my birthday meal yesteraday and shared a burger at the Palace. Baby ate some fries and thought that was great fun. She also gummed some lemon slices. Apparently she is her mother's daughter!

I came home from finishing up Fathers' Day errands to find her eating a Triscuit. I had left the box in the living room last night, and she somehow opened it and helped herself. Pediatricians nowadays are advising that ALL babies avoid wheat in the first year, and even then we might hold off because it is likely that she will have inherited my wheat sensitivity. So anyway, I took the box away, closed it, moved it, and went to do the dishes. A few minutes later, I came back to find the last 3 triscuits in crumbs on the floor. Nice ;). So I think tomorrow we'll try rice chex again and hope she does okay with the wheat!

A Fun Outing

Carolyn LOVES to be out in the community. She gets cranky if she doesn't get to go somewhere pretty much every day, so we try to go for walks on the days when we don't have to take the car to get groceries or do banking at Fred Meyer. We have a lovely Farmers' Market in town, which I haven't been to in years because . . . well . . . it's always held on Saturday mornings. And I was reluctant to give up my one day to sleep in and get there in time. Well, my car has been in Yakima getting fixed (New A/C - covered under warranty thank heaven!) since Wednesday night, so I planned ahead and Baby and I headed out after breakfast. I have to say I will really miss our location when we move. Right now, we live a stone's throw from the Historic Downtown Area, which is way fun. I live on 7th, the Dollar Tree and on of our theatres are on 5th, the post office is on 3rd. It's really nice to live so close that walking rather than driving doesn't take way more time than its worth. Baby and I had already chosen Fathers' Day gifts for Craig, but I told her that she could buy something for Daddy at the farmers' market if we found something fun. Of course over 20 people stopped to talk to her and comment on what a happy baby she was and how cute her cheeks are :). I bought the fresh local spinach and tomato that I had gone there for, then we browsed around, bought a cookie from the nice German baptist ladies, were very tempted by a lot of crafts, and sampled some AMAZING local homemade salsa and even homemade tortilla chips. A little pricier than what you find at the grocery store, but well worth it. So we kicked off the festivities a little early. Craig has been sick for several days now, but his taste buds are at least working well enough to appreciate his treat :). I appreciated it too!

Funny Baby

I've always said that Carolyn is a great communicator, and it seems to be more and more true as she grows. She has started sleeping without being swaddled some of the time. Well last night, I tried to put her to bed without being swaddled because it was already quite warm in her room. She usually goes to bed at 10, but was NOT having it when I put her in bed at 10:15. So she got up, had some more milk, played a little, and by 11:15 was still not showing any signs of sleepiness. At 11:30 she was rubbing her eyes but still not wanting to be in her crib, so I finally just took her into our room and got out her "swaddle me". She immediately started laughing, and it was hard to get her wrapped up because she kept trying to hug it! It was way too cute. So after she was all wrapped up I gave her her bink & blanky, put her back in her crib, and she was out within 5 minutes.

The graduates

YAY!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Not much else to say!

A new name and two new titles :)

Not for me, but for Carolyn. Her new name is "Miss Grabby Hands", and she has appointed herself to two positions in the family, hence the following titles: Miss Grabby Hands: Cannon Family Librarian Miss Grabby Hands: Cannon Family Senior Vice President of Family History

Snow in June

CRAZY weather 'round these parts. It snowed today on Snoqualmie pass, the Blue Mountains, and Pullman (right by Moscow, ID). Many people have said this already, but this whole "Global Warming" mania seems a bit of a crock.

Still Recovering

After such a whirlwind of celebrating, we are all pooped! And Mom & Leese had Baby at night, so I'm sure they are even more pooped! Of course, we did take advantage of not having her here and played cards with Tad & Erin late into the night more than once. She did beautifully, but her nap schedule was definitely not consistent. So by the time everyone left yesterday, she crashed. We both did, actually. I walked around the apartment kind of in a daze the rest of the day, and Craig and I tried to get things somewhat back in order. Today she had her 9 month check-up, and is still ahead of schedule physically as well as developmentally. Being a college grad is weird. I always knew I would get my degree, but now that I'm done it just feels . . . weird. I guess what feels weird about it is that I don't feel any different - Tuesday is still bathroom day, and my routine is still the same, and yeah, nothing is really different at all.

Graduation Day

Graduation day was just so Ellensburg. About 70 degrees, but with obnoxious wind that made it cold, and blew everyone's caps off at least once. Delayna and I chased after our caps several times, and pinned eachother's back into place, so we were more focused on that than the actual ceremony! Oh well, we got through it without losing our caps or turning into popsicles, so we'll call that a success.









In this picture, I am next to the guy in silver, with the dot on my cap (a picture of Baby). The other one is our little family, with Baby in a CWU cheerleader's uniform. I searched the internet high and low for a Baby-sized cap and gown, but there were none to be found. This was still realy cute though.





After the ceremony, Mom came back to the apartment to help me with last-minute menu prep, and Dan & Jessica headed over to the park I had reserved to make sure no one was trying to steal our picnic area and let the boys (their dogs) play. Dad joined them there.





It was still cold, and the wind attempted (with some degree of success) to blow the entire party into the Cascades, but the food turned out well, and the company was great. Thanks again to my sous chefs (Mom & Lisa), and the grill master (Dan). Here's was we had:



Steak pinwheels stuffed with spinach, asiago and parmigiano reggiano cheeses, and scallions
Grilled corn on the cobb with herbed butter
Prosciutto-wrapped asparagus
Cabbage/carrot salad (lettuce free) with asian dressing
Chips w/ black bean dip
Garlic bread
Blueberry lemon cheesecake shooters

Yummmmmmm!

After all of that I was frozen to the core, so we went to the hotel to soak in the hot tub. A very relaxing way to end a crazy day!

Party Party Party!

Mom and Lisa kept Baby in their hotel room Thursday night, and she was such an angel! She slept until 9:00, and when she woke up in a strange place she just talked to herself until Lisa came to get her. She paused for a moment when she realized the Lisa wasn't who she expected, but then gave a big smile and went with it! It's interesting though that Thursday night as she was going to sleep, she preferred Aunt Lisa to Grandma.

Friday afternoon was spent busily preparing the menu for Saturday, then we all went to the Olive Garden in Yakima to kick off the festivities. Dan & Jessica met us there, and Baby was friendly with them immediately too. What a good girl!

The last thing I needed . . .

The missionaries just left from having dinner with us, and Mom and Lisa will be arriving in about 2 hours. So with that in mind, I've had a pretty busy day - not to mention that Baby and I had an appointment at WIC this morning. After that appointment, I came home and got Carolyn down for her morning nap and dashed off to the laundromat before Craig had to be at work. Well, when I got there, I found two empty dryers, and empty dryers surrounding the ones that had our clothes, and empty dryers in the entire general vicinity. A woman there said that earlier she had seen an old man folding up a bunch of towels from those dryers but that he had gone. PANIC. Most of my garments, a few shirts, my favorite jeans, over half of Baby's clothes including ALL of her pajamas, of course some of Craig's clothes and garments . . . so I burst into tears and called Craig, then called Mom & Leese hoping they could pick up some G's for me if they hadn't yet left town. I caught them just as they were getting ready to leave, so they took some notes and headed over to Beehive. When I first left the laundromat, I called Tad to see if he had by any chance picked up our clothes when he closed it up last night. He was in a meeting, so I left a message. After Mom & Leese had taken down our sizes and left, He called to say that he didn't get our clothes last night, but that he would call his boss and see what he could find out. Turns out that his boss had emptied every dryer that had stuff in it earlier this morning because someone had left their stuff there for a few days, making several of the dryers unavailable for other customers. He had stashed all of it their back room, which was locked. So I ran to campus to get Craig's keys (in all of my freaking out I had locked mine in the car), then went to the laundromat where Tad met me and held Baby while I looked through the masses of laudry and sure enough, found or stuff. WHEW!!!!!! I can't remember the last time I felt so relieved.

A bit deflated

Yesterday afternoon I went to the Registrar's Office to pick up my Honors tassel. They didn't have me on the list under Davenport OR Cannon. Hmmmmm. So she looked up my transcript, and told me my GPA wasn't quite there. I was pretty crushed because for some reason, I though I had a 3.6, which wasn't enough to graduate summa cum laude or magna cum laude, but very comfortably in cum laude. Turns out I have a 3.465 GPA. Right. Less than 4 tenths of a point shy. So, yeah, I was a bit deflated. Pretty sad, really. Of course my GPA in my major is better than that, but they are going off of my entire CBC transcript and my entire CWU transcript combined. So there will be no "cum laude" by my name in the program or on my diploma, but I take consolation in the fact that there are literally a handful of CWU alumni who can say that they taught a college level course as an undergrad, which I did. And as Craig pointed out, Carolyn is my honors. She truly is my greatest and proudest accomplishment. :)

Getting excited for graduation

As most of you know, I am graduating on Saturday. If you didn't receive an announcment, please don't take it as a slight - they are quite pricey so I was only able to buy 10. I am receiving my B.M in vocal performance, which I actually finished in March '06. I didn't apply for graduation then because I was still working on my music ed degree and didn't want to pay post-bac credits. Well, eventually I decided that there was no point in going even deeper into student loan debt in order to earn my education certificate that I don't intend to use any time soon and will expire in a few years. I was never excited about walking in the ceremony. I think graduation ceremonies are pretty boring, and it didn't feel to me like it had much of anything to do with my actual education. My senior recital was much more relevant to me - encompassing expressions of the instrument I had built, the musical knowledge I had gained, as well as the growth in my testimony. But it was really important to mom that she would be able to watch me graduate, so I said I'd be in the ceremony. She also helped me change my perspective on it when she brought up Baby Carolyn and how the pictures that will be taken that day of our little family and just her and I together will likely serve her in the future as she decides what to do with her life. I really am setting the standard that in the Cannon family, we believe in higher education and that Cannon women go to college (or beauty or culinary school, etc). So I began to see that it was important to do even though I was fine with my diploma just being mailed to me. Then I found out that DeLayna and I were going to be able to walk together, and that's when I started to get really excited. We both took detours with marriage and babies, and it's really cool to both of us that we get to walk together. It's interesting how many parallels we have in our lives, and it's always been that way. We both did the community college thing with emphasis in jazz. (She didn't go to CBC with me - she went to Edmonds Community College, where I attended jazz camp. Their pilot group is "Soundsation"). We both transferred to CWU with a huge upper hand in jazz and got immediately into VJ1, but had some make-up work to do in other areas which we both acheived, singing operatic roles as well as being section leaders in Chamber Choir. We experienced the all-encompassing passion for music that most majors feel, the stress of academic life, the uncertainty of single life, the intense desire for marriage and family. I remember there were times when we would talk about our dreams for the future and rub our empty wombs and mourn their emptiness. It was kind of a joke between us, but somewhat serious as well. We got to know eachother's families and became eachother's family away from family. We truly mourned with eachother and rejoiced with eachother. We got married less than a year apart, and had our daughters a littlle more than a year apart (15 mos). I coached her in her delivery, and she coached me in mine. So for us to walk in the same graduation ceremony is totally fitting and appropriate. Mom and Lisa are arriving tomorrow (Thursday), Dan & Jessica on Friday, and Dad Friday night into Seattle and then he will drive to E-burg Saturday morning. So I get to celebrate my graduation with them, as well as my birthday on Sunday. And I am always happy to have a reason to celebrate! I suppose I'm rather hobbit-like in that way. So yeah, I'm pretty excited. Now I just have to finishe getting ready for the festivities!