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 :)