I’m flying to California this afternoon. My bags are packed, I’ve got a knitting project for the plane, my ipod is loaded with music my husband doesn’t like and the 5th harry potter book. I’ve made 50 lists, and I can’t imagine how I could possibly forget anything, although I’m sure I have.

I’m worried that I’m going to miss the kids. I don’t want to miss them. I already miss them. I want to go, have a good time and be glad to come home. But I don’t want to miss them. Maybe it’s something about being needed so badly. I do this every time I go on a trip, I worry that I won’t make it back to them and at the same time, get mad at myself for missing them.

The other day Honor got one of my mixing bowls out of the cupboard, filled it with dog food, opened the back door and fed it to the dog. When I found him feeding the dog, I told him to pick up the bowl and put it in the sink. I followed him to the kitchen and found him trying to put the bowl back in the cupboard. It was full of dog slime!! How many dishes have we eaten out of that were full of dried dog slime? It’s a wonder any of us are still alive. So maybe I’ll remember this when I start to miss him. And if that doesn’t work, I can recall how he threw mac and cheese all over the dining room the other day. And I can remember that Eden told me “Whatever” or that every time she gets up in the middle of the night to go to the bathroom, she leaves the bathroom light on.

Somehow, I think all of this will just make me miss them more.

Have a good week everybody, I’ll be back Monday and I’ll start putting together the scarf swap scarves!

We have some friends who live a couple of farm towns away from us. Their oldest daughter is raising pigs for 4H and her mama pig just gave birth to a whole bunch of babies. They invited the kids to come out and see the little piglets.

5 days old

I thought this one had really cool coloring

mama pig

Eden and Honor trying to escape the pig pen.

It was a great time for us city folk and Honor even got to eat the egg he brought in from the hen house.

The fiesta was a huge hit. There were 53 people in our house, including kids. I have to start by saying how thankful I am that it wasn’t too cold outside so all the kids could be out of the house. That was very fortunate for my house.

Here’s photographic proof that Elaine and Anya were there.

We ate some really, really yummy food. Tacos with all kinds of fillings, shredded beef, ground beef, shredded chicken, bell peppers and onions.. YUM! All the kids spend the evening terrorizing our back yard, while the adults kept watch on the back porch. Those without children enjoyed their evening in the house. As the night progressed, people slowly trickled out, the kids slowly trickled in and things started to wind down.

While I had such a great time, I have to say the best part of the night was when my friends Melissa and Sarah stayed to help me and Elaine clean up. I can’t say how much that meant to me!

View the slide show of the whole party.

I had so much fun with Elaine, she’s really, really great. And I thought that her blog is a really good extension of who she is. You know she’s taller in real life than she seems on the internet?

Here’s Jim with Baby Anya, she wasn’t a big Jim fan (but she liked me!) and this was the first time that he held her that she didn’t burst into tears.

Sunday, Eden and I took Elaine and Anya to Ouray. Ouray is one of the coolest little towns in Colorado and boasts a great little hot springs pool.

Eden and Anya were really excited to start swimming.

Isn’t it beautiful?

Overall it was a really great weekend. I’m so grateful that I’ve had the opportunity to meet an amazing person over the internet. I’m thankful for all of you, I can’t say all the ways these relationships I’ve developed have impacted my life.

And now I think I’m going to sleep for the next week straight.

This weekend our good friend Josh got married in Farminton, New Mexico. He had our company DJ the wedding, so we traveled, with our friends Brooke and Brian, 4.5 hours through some very scary mountain passes, some topping 12,000+ ft, to attend the wedding. (Note, I did not take the photo of red mountain.)

I have to say, that I’m not terrible impressed with Farmington, and it’s surrounding towns. Although, Aztec had this very interesting for sale sign.

But we really enjoyed Durango, where our good friend Isaac is now a police officer. Most importantly, downtown Durango, picture perfect for a little mountain town, had a Starbucks. Brooke was so excited when she saw it, that she elicited some very strange looks from the bikers on the street. Perhaps the saddest part of the trip was finding out that the yarn store was closed on Sunday. What kind of yarn store closes on Sunday? Sad. Sad. But we did enjoy a very large pizza before heading home.

Yesterday the kids and I went to the lake with my mom and sister. I love going to the lake. I always forget how much I like swimming. I really really like to swim. Why, oh why, don’t we live in a place that having a swimming pool in our back yard is common place?

So we were at the lake and I discovered a frog. Well a toad really, but yeah… I’m not going to even bother to try to explain to the kids that there are toads and there are frogs. So this toad is a frog. So the frog. Eden insisted that I catch and hold the frog, but she wouldn’t touch him. Honor on the other hand was SO extremely excited to see the frog. “Frog! Frog! Frog!” He followed the frog all over the place. Each and every time the frog jumped right before Honor stepped on it.

As Honor put the frogs life in danger with every step, Eden observed, “The frog doesn’t say ribbit?” When Eden was first born, I had no idea how we were going to teach her all that she’d need to know. How was she going to know what a joke was? How was she going to learn how to communicate? How in the world would I explain every single aspect of life to her? I’m constantly amazed that she just learned all these things all by herself. Three years ago, she couldn’t do a single thing for herself and now she uses words like, “awful” and does things like climbing into the bathroom sink to wash her feet.

When we got home from the lake, Eden explained to her daddy that frogs don’t always say “ribbit.” And Honor came in to tell daddy what he did, “Sim, Sim, Sim!” Eden got two suckers because she dunked in the lake two times and Honor only got one because he only dunked once (not counting the time he tripped and was floating face first – don’t worry we were right there.) Eden’s already talking about when we can go to the lake again and occasionally Honor will throw in,
“Lake, Lake, Lake!”

We had a really nice trip. There’s so much to tell, I think I’ll just list out the highlights.

*There was a Starbucks 10 feet from our room (much to Brooke’s delight)
*I immedialty won $46. Brooke was getting frustrated with her machine because she wasn’t winning anything, so the first nickel I put in, I won 6 bucks. (That is pretty telling of how our whole gambling experience was.)
*It was too cold to swim (although some crazy people were) but we did get to sit by the pool and knit. I taught Brooke how to cable – she was shocked at how easy it is.
*Brooke almost called the front desk to ask what time Alias was on. Yes, she’s even more addicted than I am. I thought it was on at 9pm, she thought it was on at 7pm. She was right and we missed it during dinner.

*We discovered that riding the monorail in Vegas takes almost as much time as just walking would (since you have to walk through the whole casino to get to it). But it was fun anyway.
*The fountains at the Bellagio weren’t going because it was too windy, but here’s a picture of me and Brooke inside.

*Cesars Palace was a fun maze of shops, but it was quite pricey. I don’t understand how people can pay $500 for a Louis Vuitton bag. It has also more than tripled in size since I was last there, 9 years ago.
*We really enjoyed the Fashion Show Mall, it made us realize how truly pathetic our mall is here.
*Paris was our favorite casino. It was really relaxing and peaceful to walk around the shops. We didn’t want to pay NINE bucks to ride up the Eiffel Tower elevator, but now I kinda wish we would have.

*As we traveled back to Mesquite around 11pm, we were able to see all the lights of the city. Las Vegas is HUGE! It makes Grand Junction look like a teeny, tiny ghost town.

*Friday, before we left, we went and got our massages at the spa. Before hand we floated in the mineral pools. It was SO relaxing. Unfortunately, driving through two blizzards on the way home, kinda tensed me back up.

*And for the funniest part of the whole trip: As we waited in traffic, we watched a guy pick his nose and EAT IT.

Last weekend we went to Ouray, Colorado by ourselves. Ouray is a tiny mountain town about two hours south of us. It’s claim to fame is it’s hot springs pool and it is also pretty close to Telluride. The hotel where we stayed is unique because it has it’s own hot springs hot tubs. It’s just several big wooden barrels stuck on the hillside, but SO NICE. The low was 19 degrees, but I could have sat under the stars in that hot tub all night. This is the hotel we stayed at on our honeymoon.

We ate dinner at a very nice Italian restaurant where the meals were $25/plate and up. Since we were in a mountain town, I don’t think I saw anyone there who wasn’t wearing jeans. For breakfast, we ate cinnamon rolls at a little bagel shop and then walked through the town (only a few blocks). Nothing is open this time of year so it was a short walk. We headed home and went shopping and to a movie, I think the last movie we saw in the theater was the last Matrix, so that was a treat too.

It it just SO nice to get a little break from our kids. It’s funny, I see Jim everyday, but sometimes I miss him so much. Taking this weekend away helped out a lot. I feel ready to start this week.

**A few scarf swap things, don’t forget to send your postage paid envelope. Also, don’t forget to label each square with your name, those of you who forgot, I’ll take care of it. I’m getting excited to see the finished result. I got the best job in this swap, because I get to see each square.

Finally, I finished this herringbone scarf for a friends birthday. I LOVE manos del uruguay!!!! It’s so beautiful! I think that it’s my new favorite yarn.