try something fresher, something pleasant!

On a whim John and I decided we'd take our family to Mexico for our fall vacation.  Thanks to Voice Male we get a week of vacation in a time share every other year, and one of the places is in a town just south of Tijuana called Rosarito.  It's been really wonderful.  Anytime I go on vacation I start feeling like I want to move to that place, and Rosarito is no different.  I could do it.  It would take me a minute to remember how to speak Spanish, but even now I can get by all right.  I know how to buy food anyway, and that's supposedly one of the important things. 

A briefish recap for record-keeping purposes: 

Last Friday we picked the kids up from school and started on our way.  When we got to Willard I remembered that our passports were at home on my nightstand, so we got to backtrack for that.  Then Willa was carsick and we had to pull over for her to throw up three or four times.  We got to our hotel in Las Vegas after midnight.  Breakfast Saturday morning was pretty good for a free hotel breakfast buffet.  We considered for a moment going to M&M World or Coke World, but then we remembered that that was a dumb idea.  Then we saddled up and drove the rest of the way to Rosarito, with a stop in Tijuana for fish tacos.  We grabbed some groceries for Sunday at the Comercial Mexicana, and I was in heaven because foreign grocery shopping is my favorite thing. 

On Sunday we went beachcombing in the morning.  There are so many sand dollars around here; they are just scattered around the beach like cookies--big, nice ones that haven't been smashed to pieces yet.  It's amazing how quickly you acclimate, because the first one we found that had only a small hole was like a miracle, and a half hour later, when we had a stack of six or seven, only the most perfect, unblemished specimens could even capture our attention.  Later we went to church in the Spanish branch in Rosarito.  We pulled a Nate and only went to Sacrament meeting because:  Espanol.  I got the main gist of the testimonies, but going to class would have been a total mare's nest.  We had omelets for dinner. 

Monday we took some food to an orphanage that John's friends had told him about.  They were all jazzed about it and said to mention their name, since they go there all the time, but the people we talked to were a little bit like "Who?"  They seem like they are so strapped, and they have so many charities coming in and out all the time, and so many kids to take care of--fifty in one house and forty-five in the other--that they don't really have the deep connection to any particular benefactor that the benefactor might hope for.  It's a great big mess, pretty much, but the kids were all smiling and friendly and seemed as happy as could be expected.  We ate some carne asada and tacos al pastor at Tacos la Gloria, and then we went and got two cocos.  I was hoping my children would have the same magical experience I did, watching the guy chop off the top of the coconut with a machete and then be able to drink the coconut water, but they all seemed kind of underwhelmed.  Oh well, more for me. 

We spent Tuesday and Wednesday at the beach and the pool.  I was not present while the meth-heads were scraping all the sea stars off the rocks and trying to sell them, but all the same it's a good thing I didn't have my smiting powers that day. 

Thursday we drove down to Ensenada to see La Bufadora (The Blowhole, a geological marvel, not to be confused with Blowhole the whale from that one episode of The Tick).  We were hounded by vendors and bought some marvelous things:  Willa one of those faux peasant outfits, Ike a luchador mask, John a wide-brimmed cowboy hat for irrigating, and me a painted terra cotta skull and a skull necklace.  I'm into skulls I guess.  I'm pretty goth. 

Friday we bought candies and food from our favorite vendors and took one last look at the tide pools during low tide.  All of the days we watched a lot of futbol with occasional Jeopardy and Price is Right and movies. 

Saturday we got up and out of there as quickly as we could and spent two hours in the line to cross the border back into the U.S.  Let's just make Canada, America and Mexico into one big country, shall we?  We ate lunch at a gas station where we were mistaken for Europeans, I guess because none of us were wearing white socks or sneakers and two of my kids were wearing soccer jerseys.  Then we surprised the kids by taking them to LEGOLAND, which we will not be going back to ever again if I have anything to say about it.  The models are amazing, and the kids liked the Mindstorm robot thing, but other than that it's a turd convention.  We only made it as far as Henderson that night. 

Sunday we got up and ate and left and were able to make it to Washington for church in what turned out to be a singles ward, and the lady who sat in front of us turned around and scolded my kids for kicking her bench.  She told us afterward that we had nice voices, probably because she felt bad and is trying to buy her way back into heaven.  We ate at the Mired Ox (Café Rio) with all the other Mormons on their way home from California.  Willa barfed I think three times on the way home.  I read Harry Potter OotP for seven hours.  We got home and had a beautiful reunion with the cats. 

I loved this vacation so much.  I want to go back to Mexico.  I want to move there!  I hope my kids remember it as fondly as I remember the trips I took with my family. 

when I get to the bottom I go back to the top of the slide

A couple of kids in our ward are in the Mandarin immersion program at a nearby school, and I thought for a while about putting Willa in it, but then I despaired at the thought of having to run her back and forth every day for the next five years.  I am a lazy mom.  But also one of the moms is a giant drag and I don't want to have the forced intimacy of a carpool schedule with her.  Besides, I think that Spanish is as much the Language of the Future as Mandarin, and I can actually converse haltingly in elementary Spanish, so I think I'll just buy some textbooks and teach the kids a Spanish class once a week or something. 

Grant got on the basketball team he wanted, he is surviving middle school and getting excellent grades despite some of the teachers doing all they can to squash his love of learning, he is sometimes a jerk to his siblings, he doesn't practice his trumpet, he has been doing slightly better at getting up on time and feeding and watering the goats.  So, a mixed bag.  We take what we can get. 

Emmett loves school and life and is almost always happy except when I am making him eat cream of mushroom soup.  He does a slapdash job on his chores and incurs frequent fines for letting the chickens run out of water.  But because money actually matters to him, when we showed him the hole the fines had dug into his savings he got very wide-eyed and repentant. 

Ike is a child of contrasts.  Monday he was a turd and getting him to practice his piano was infuriating.  He sulked the entire afternoon.  Tuesday he came home and did his chores and practiced his piano right away without any nagging.  This morning he took 45 minutes to put on a shirt and barely caught the bus.  His two settings are happy and angry.  Hey--he must be my son! 

Willa is getting her claws out this afternoon.  I think we've finally succeeded with her.  It took a long time of wearing the mitten at night, but I think she's cured.  It helps that she's busy at school all day--it's when she gets bored that things get ugly.  I wonder how she'll do on our long drive to Mexico, since the car is like the most boring place you can be, and that's always been her hardest fight. 

John interviewed for and was offered a job at a different company but ended up not taking it.  It would have been fun, but there really are some very nice work/life balance benefits to working for the church.  Plus I like him working downtown--who wants to go out to lunch in West Jordan or whatever?  Not me. 

I love not being the PTA president.  It's nice to have only YW to worry about, because that is plenty of worry by itself.  Thankfully my Laurels are bright and inquisitive and happily engage in discussions during the lessons.  A couple of them are planning on serving missions, which is an exciting prospect.  I'm interested to see how the role of women in the institutional dealings of the church is going to evolve over the next little while.  My advisor Wendy and I do our best to disabuse them of incorrect notions regarding doctrine vs. custom, and hopefully it will help them find a space in the church that they can be comfortable and faithful in. 

keep smiling until then

We said hasta la vista to my sister tonight.  She's headed off on her mission for the next eighteen months, and we will miss her something fierce.  She's the first missionary out of all my sisters and me, partly because she's the first one to have the juevos to do it.  She made enough money to pay for her whole mission by selling cinnamon rolls every summer for the last nine years.  She came out of the womb just plain better than most people, and I am proud to know her. 

I can't show you any of the pictures with me in them, because I looked vomitrocious tonight.  But believe me, I was there.  Right before we went to the airport we stopped at the Rancho Market, which is a glorious wonderland of Mexican groceries, and we bought some stale chicharrones, a chocolate concha, and a weird ball-shaped thing covered in butter and sugar and filled with some kind of goop.   

 

We saw those guys who got flash-mob engaged in Home Depot last week and wondered if they were heading somewhere to get married.  I just want to make sure you all know that I disapprove of flash mobs to the utmost.  It seems like everyone in the video is part of the flash mob, so I'm wondering, who are they performing this for?  The only one that does not earn my undying ire (by which I mean it makes me cry) is that one where they play Peer Gynt on the train. 

 

Justine and Cannon brought cookies from Paradise Bakery, which were delicious.  Everybody took one, and there was just an oatmeal raisin one left, and someone asked, "Does anyone like oatmeal raisin?" and I pointed to my mom, and she said, "Oh, I thought everyone liked oatmeal raisin."  No, mom.  Just you.  Because oatmeal raisin is the worst cookie.  Can you even think of a cookie worse than oatmeal raisin?  A real cookie, not something made up like a barf cookie with poop frosting?  I don't think I can. 

we both found what we were looking for

Ugh, what is up with teenagers wanting to stay up all night?  It's a real problem.  Grant is really settling into the traces of his messed up teenage circadian rhythms and that in turn is going to mess up MY circadian rhythms, because mommy needs a certain amount of awake time after her children go to sleep to restore her sanity.  When else am I going to watch Bob's Burgers except during the day when they're all at school? 

John and I were going to have to sing at what we were fondly referring to as a Troubled Marriage Retreat, but we've been pardoned.  Pity, because we were going to rock on "Ben," the Michael Jackson song about that rat who eats people.  Kidding!  Or am I?  Now you'll never know, because the event was cancelled.  But I'll say this:  our rat costume, that John and I bought for private reasons, was going to come in super handy. 

All the children are playing sports and musical instruments of one kind or another.  They all enjoy school.  Neon is back in a big way, so they all hurt my eyes when they get dressed in the morning. 

is it just me, or do those gilly sketches go on way too long for way too little return?

It's the last week of summer, and boy, are we ready.  The fighting about the absolute stupidest things has reached an unacceptable level, and I think everybody just wants to be shut of each other for a while.  This is how the modern world has broken the family, you guys.  Instead of spending our short, brutish lives working our family farms together in harmony and ignorance, we have come to enjoy--nay, prefer--living in comfort and ease with greater access to health care, education, and foreign cuisine.  What a sad commentary on our society. 

We went school shopping and got clothes for everybody, and it was brutal and not at all enjoyable.  I so rarely have to take my kids on errands anymore that it was almost like I no longer have that set of skills.  Like that muscle has atrophied and now I'm useless.  They were not even that naughty, it's just that there are four of them, and they wander like crazy!  All over the store, grabbing and touching everything on the shelves like a family of goshdarn raccoons!  But we prevailed and got everybody taken care of.  Grant and Willa got the most because there's nobody to pass stuff down to them.  Poor Emmett and Ike.  At least they get new shoes, and I do always buy them a few new shirts that no one else has sweated in and spilled on yet. 

Grant and Ike are done with basketball, Emmett and Ike and Willa are done with swimming lessons, we have eaten about 1/10th the amount of shaved ice we should have, and we turned the basement room into a dormitory so the boys could still be all together, but not smooshed quite so tightly. 

John asked about a job at work that would require a transfer to Europe, but his current boss was like, "Uh, who's going to do your job if you move to Europe?"  Flattering that they aren't willing to let him go, but it would have been nice to have an adventure, especially because as soon as we heard about the job I was on that like flies on a gutwagon and had already picked out where we were going to live.  Oh well, Groceries and Rex would have hated the plane ride. 

what does it even mean to miss someone by their hair

Last week I went to Girls' Camp.  We had flushing toilets and showers, and it was so much better than dirt camping.  When I was little we were always going camping and woodcutting with my mom's side of the family.  There were never bathrooms and you just had to wander to a private area away from camp, collect some soft leaves, and do your dirty business over the side of a fallen log or something.  I didn't really mind it then, and I would still probably prefer that to an outhouse, but I am old enough now that a real bathroom is pretty important to me.  Anyway, the second afternoon we sent the girls off to read their letters from their moms, and two of them found a decent-sized rattlesnake.  Thankfully our camp director's husband was there, and he is a mountain man deluxe edition who trains dogs to hunt bears and mountain lions (he just takes pictures of them; his reasoning is that if people kill all the bears and mountain lions there won't be any left to hunt, and then what is he supposed to do with his dogs? I like this approach), and he tromped off into the weeds with the shovel and soon found the snake and dispatched it and buried the head.  It was a very exciting time for everyone.  Thankfully none of the girls fought and there was no crying or meanness.  Our testimony meeting was only about a 2 on the bizarre/awkward/inappropriate scale.  Pretty much it was a terrific success and I'm looking forward to next year. 

I had the kids sort all their clothes so we have at least a vague idea of how many shirts, pants, socks and underwear they have before we go school shopping.  They never use their drawers and all their stuff just lives on the floor and travels up and down the stairs every week, being washed over and over again without being worn because they're too lazy to differentiate their clean and dirty piles.  Where do they get that from?  I'm sure I don't know. 

but sadly we just left rhode island

Last weekend we had our final family reunion for the year, sniff.  I love my family in all its multitude and it makes me sad we don't see each other more often.  I rode a horse for a minute.  I stubbed the crap out of my toe on a stump and thought maybe I broke it, but it turns out not.  I got a 91 on my BB shooting attempt, which I think is good but not great, but I'm not sure.  I think I overheard a conversation defending whaling, but I chose to remove myself from the situation rather than end up in an argument.  There was a brief game of what was called fireball, which is exactly what it sounds like, which was shut down by some killjoys who didn't want to set the borrowed mountain ablaze.  I got a sweet hat that belonged to my grandpa, and I must say, I look way foxy in it.  My cousin's fifteen-year-old son is 6' 4 1/2" and Grant standing next to him looks like he's next to the World's Tallest Man.  It seriously looks like photoshop.  I feel a little jealous of all the talls in my family. 

Grant is at scout camp, probably being initiated into all sorts of unspeakable teenage behaviors.  I have done such a good job of dissing BSA at our house that I've had to backtrack a little and defend it for the good life skills it teaches, aside from just knots and fires.  Overall I guess it's a decent program to be involved in, but I sure as heck am not going to hold any of my kids hostage and say they aren't getting a driver's license until they get their Eagle.  I mean, how dumb.  What in the world do Eagle Scout awards have to do with driving?  Parents, if you're doing that, stop it.  Read a parenting book that talks about natural and logical consequences. 

Emmett went on a 14-mile bike ride the other day along the highway.  Ugh, the highway.  Why can't we have a bike path in this place?  It's nothing but cyclists from dawn to dusk in the summer, and how many of them need to be hit and killed before we figure out they need some room?  At least Emmett wears a helmet, so if he does get hit by some texting jackass he will have a lovely, intact head atop his mangled body. 

Ike cut his foot open again today, because: aggressive researcher.  It was only a small cut, even though he was bleeding like a stuck pig.  I predict that the infrequency of his shoe wearing will not be affected. 

Willa has worn a hole through the mitten.  I might have to make a new one.  At the reunion we took it off for a family picture, and her hand is all pale and white like a cave fish, so she said that she wants a mitten for both hands so they'll be the same color.  But she's singing a different tune now, and all of the sudden wants the mitten OFF.  Well, hoss, this is the choice you made all those times we told you to take your fingers out of your mouth and you refused.