Even more Relay pics

Luminarias: Beacons of light and hope amid the darkness that is cancer

More Relay Pics

The Man of the hour:



More pics of the camp site:





A tiny team Georgie supporter & Auntie Jessica:

There's No Place Like Hope

That was the theme for this year in the Great West division of the American Cancer Society's Relay for Life. Team Georgie came together for the third year (we have participated since 2006, just a few months after Georgie's passing). It is always so inspirational. And of course the team is fun to be around too! The first year, Craig and I were the representatives from The Davenport side. Last year, Dan & Jes were the speakers in the opening ceremony, I sang the national anthem, and Mom came too. This year I sang again, Mom came again, and Robert & Leese flew up. So now if we can keep everyone and add the Leethams or the Iowa Davenports or the SLC Davenports, or Dad, that would be even cooler. Relay is one of my favorite events all year. It's wonderful - albeit emotional - to remember and honor Georgie. This year's t-shirts said: "Celebrate. Remember. Fight Back." That's exactly what we did, and we raised a ton of money. Anyway, I wanted to post pics before I get totally enveloped in my c.d.

My Ruby Slippers:



Team Georgie's camp site:

Good to go

Well, for a minute there I thought it was never going to come together, but I finally got "Aguas de Marco" down (if you're curious, it's pronounced aguas jee mar-so. Aguas is just like spanish.), and had time to learn "Chega de Saudade" too (pronounced shay-ga jee sa-oo-da-jee). I am beyond excited. Caz and I are going to rehearse a little bit tonight and record tomorrow. Yay!!!

Aguas de difficulty!

I am busily preparing to record with Caz on Saturday, and I'm very excited! As many of you remember, I attempted to sing in portuguese on my first solo c.d. - years before I knew Craig. Antonio Carlos Jobim is one of my very favorite composers, and I have always wanted to sing his music authentically. One more reason why Craig is perfect for me! So for this c.d. I am doing two more of his tunes - possibly three, but we'll see. His most well-known song is "Girl from Ipanema". I will be doing "Samba De Uma Nota So" (One Note Samba), and "Aguas De Marco" (Waters of March). It is a really hard song because there are like 5 words that repeat throughtout the whole tune, so it's challenging not to trip over the lyrics in English, let alone portuguese! It's pretty much beating me up right now. But I'll keep working at it and be good and ready come Saturday.

A VERY adventure-filled family home evening

We invited the Schoenwalds (Zach, Anna, & Connor) over for FHE last night. We did our grocery shopping and a few other things, then about 30 minutes before they were supposed to arrive I was trying to get our dinner ready, get Baby's dinner ready, put away the groceries, and tidy up Baby's toys in the living room . . . all at the same time.

Okay. Before I get into the adventure, there is some back story. We got a new oven a couple of months ago when our broke (thank heaven for having nice neighbors like Tad who let me boil Carolyn's bottles over there while I didn't have a stove!) So that was exciting, especially since our landlord Charlie bought it, transported it, and set it up for us :).


There is only one problem with it: the knobs are opposite where they were on the old stove, so Craig and I have both turned on the wrong burner before. Well, last night in my attempts to multi-task, I turned on the wrong burner, which happened to have a kitchen towel on it. Yeah I know it's stupid to leave flammable objects on the stove. Won't happen again! Anyway, here's the aftermath.

Growing up so fast!

Holy cow it has only been a few weeks since Mom & Leese saw Carolyn, and they won't even recognize her. At graduation she wasn't crawling, had two teeth, wasn't eating finger foods, and was still being swaddled. Now she crawls everywhere and climbs up my legs, and has six teeth. She eats rice chex, rice crispies, freeze-dried toddler fruit pieces, wagon wheels, and corn crunchies (both of those are Gerber Graduates snacks). The other night she had crawled up to Tad and they were playing, then she let go of his hands and she just stood there for about 30 seconds ubtil she just non-chalauntly grabbed his hand again. She walks between Craig & me, and has taught herself how to back up off the recliner when she wants to play. She hardly feels like a baby at all anymore! Sniff, sniff. :)

Kind of a sad day, but productive!

We got a call on Thursday night informing us that Craig's great grandpa (Grandma Wilburn's Dad) was dying. He is 92, so it wasn't a huge surprise, but still sad. Well it turned out that he wasn't actually dying but his sodium levels had gotten too high. Tad used to work at a nursing home and he said that he has seen that happen and it can be pretty brutal so it was understandable that they thought he was dying. So we thought he was fine and Craig decided that he would probably be able to wait until after summer school got out to take a day trip over to the west side to see him. Then we got a call last night saying that the grandpa's sodium was too high for too long, and his kidneys were failing. So he decided to go ahead and go over there today. Baby and I wanted to go, but she has had some random gastritis w/ a rash, and we weren't sure that traveling was the best idea for her right now. So we stayed home. In the meantime, she and I have had a very productive day. Now if we can just stay out of Craig's hair so that he can get to his paper that is due on Tuesday . . .

I never lived in a dorm

I never wanted to live in a dorm so I was very glad not to have to. I know a lot of students that really liked doing it for a year or two, but it's just not my thing. What's funny though is that there are 4 apartments in my building. Tad lives downstairs and across the hall, and Erin just moved in right below us. So it kind of does feel like a dorm, but in a good way :)

New Milestones

Carolyn has gone without any swaddling for over a week now, which is saying a lot for her since she used to need it so much.

Yesterday when I got to Delayna's house I realized that I had forgotten baby's bottle. Oops. so We tried the sippy cup again. Normally she just yells at me, but she did great! I had one on hand at home, and we went to Fred Meyer today and got a few more. They are a really neat kind that make a good transitional tool into regular sippy cups because they have rubber spout so they feel more like a bottle than one with a plastic spout but let the baby get used the fast flow. What a big girl she is becoming!

Happy 4th of July

We had "red white & blue burgers" (onions & hot sauce mixed in with the ground beef, stuffed with blue cheese), hung out, and took pictures.


























When it started to get dark, we went outside the city limits (fireworks wre legal in the county but not in the city) to do ou fireworks. It was very fun, but very windy and actually cold! I changed into warm pants and a sweatshirt, and bundled baby up in a blanket. She did really well with the fireworks - only a couple of things really scared her.

All set!

We went to the Old Navy summer clearance sale this week, and almost all of the stuff that would have fit her a year from now (I was looking for jammies) was already gone. Sad day. But they did have one pair that fit her right now and she doesn't have an abundance so we picked them up. If you can't read the shirt, it says Miss Independent, and boy isn't that the truth! We are very excited to celebrate our nation's independence today. Baby got her first exposure to patriotic songs on Sunday when I led Primary music, and she picked out her own outfit for today. She really is kind of a fashionista and gets really excited when she sees something she likes. When she saw her dress for today at Walmart, she had loud exclamations of "Gee! Gee!" (she only says that when she's really happy), and she laughed and laughed and hugged it.

Craig and I didn't really get to do anything for our anniversary because of a minor financial setback and the A/C issue with my car (Tad & Erin were very nice though and took us out to dinner), so we decided to spend the money we set aside from summer financial aid for our anniversary on fireworks. We didn't get to buy a lot of fireworks when I was a kid but I always loved them and I LOVE the 4th of July. So we are excited about that. Today we are going to Yakima to visit Dan & Jessica, then we are going to honor my own tradition that I've done for years - watching "The Patriot" and reading Patrick Henry's "Give me liberty or give me death speech". Later we are going to the Schneiders' (Matt & Delayna) for grillfest. Carolyn and Eva will be very excited to see eachother, especially since they haven't seen eachother since Tuesday.

Happy 4th everyone!

Laws of Physics

The laws of physics are very harsh ones to learn, especially for tiny girls. Carolyn is for the most part very steady on her feet (she started pulling herself up to furniture less than a week after she started crawling), but sometimes while she's busy exploring those pesky natural laws get the better of her. She has genuinely hurt herself a couple of times, but generally I think that those spills just hurt her feelings. I think she'll be walking well before a year, though. Yesterday I stood her on her feet and let go. She stood unsupported for at least 5 seconds, then lowered herself to the ground using a toy. Resourceful girl! c xBvx ] FD (that's her version of the story. Then somehow I had a new web query pop up, and a new page in microsoft excel. I don't know how she does it! :)

I feel really smart!

So who knew the answer to tonight's final jeopardy question? That's right - I did! It's not really common for me, so I have to revel in it. The question was about movie quotes, and the contestants were asked what #31 on the top 100 list was (there was also a clue that it occurs 2 minutes after #30 on the list). The answer: "After all, tomorrow is another day", which happens 2 minutes after "Frankly my dear, I don't give a damn". Both are from one of my favorite movies, "Gone With the Wind".

A Day Off

Delayna and Matt are making preparations to move back to the West side next month, and because of lease issues started paying on their new place tis month. She decided last night to take a load over there and miss classes today, so I got a bonus day! It was really nice partially because I had a TON of stuff to do at home that has been neglected from me working and/or I've been sick all week. Watching Eva is a really great job. She's a very sweet girl - still has her moments as any 2-yr-old does, but Delayna is both a very loving and patient mother AND a consistent disciplinarian, so Eva knows all about time out and it is really effective with her. So it's not that my job is difficult, it's just that 4 hours lapse between when I leave home and when I get back, and that makes it really quite challenging to get done all that I need to get done. That said, Craig's schedule is also really intense at the moment with summer school and work, so when all is said and done, we will both have worked our fannies off during summer school and both deserve a nice break.

My morning project was to tackle Carolyn's room. Basically I reorganized everything and put up blockades of heavy boxes to keep her from getting to the extension cords, etc. I also moved a lot of her toys that were in the living room into her room, then put up a gate. So now she can play by herself in her room, keeping her out of danger and not underfoot while I am say, trying to clean up the living room (which is really hard to do if there in anyone in there because it is so tiny).

Gettin' Scrappy

This weekend, Delayna and I got together to catch up on our scrapbooking. We were both way behind . . . well I suppose we're still both way behind. But making progress! I have found that my local Dollar Tree has lots of fun stuff, and of course that makes it a lot more affordable to do. Supplemented with a few things from Walmart, I'm pretty well set up! Birthday/Graduation money well spent. Anyway, here are a few of my favorite pages that got done last week. (Thanks for the idea Jes!)

The caption on this one says "Taking after mama already"