Elder Jeppson

My brother Bryce, who has been serving a mission for our church in Madrid, has been having foot problems. I am a horrible sister because I can't remember what the name of the particular problem he has(I am sure one of my siblings can tell me what it is), but I have heard it is just excruciating. The best treatment for it is rest, which is just impossible as a missionary. So after living in pain for quite some time, he needed to come home and try to recover. It is pretty crazy that this happened just after all the out-of-town family left.

Last night we gathered all the Charlotte Jeppsons to welcome him home. His flight ended up being a couple of hours late, so we gathered, dispersed and gathered again. Colin and Chad weren't there the first time because of a baseball game so I had time to run home and get them and come back.

Here is a video of him coming down the escalator. My mom had already walked up the stairs on the side to wait for him at the top to claim the first hug. Please excuse the quality. For some reason I thought clapping while video-ing would work.

Bryce looks great - mature and fit (besides the limp, of course, poor guy) and handsome.

He told me he was studying a picture of the kids on the plane, making sure he got them all straight.

Welcome home Bryce! We love you!

Free Summer Kids' Movies

Ayrsley Cinema, a movie theater near us here in Charlotte, offers free kids every Tuesday and Thursday at 10 am. I think it is great way to get out of the house while remaining air-conditioned. You don't have to worry too much about bringing your noisy toddlers either, becauset the whole theater is pretty noisy. It is always packed with day campers, but they open up a second theater when the first one gets too crowded, so don't sweat it if you are running late.

Here is a schedule for Ayrsely. It looks like there are some fun movies planned. My kids really love Cloudy With a Chance of Meatballs.

AMC Pavillions, another theater nearby, also offers kids movies for a dollar every Tuesday. Here is a link to their schedule.

Summery morning

Hydrangea blossoms on my dining room table.


The sprinklers are running and the grass is green green green.



The sun shone right in my eyes at 6:30 this morning.



Ten more days of school left.

S-U-M-M-E-R!

What I am thinking about tonight

• My garden is really pathetic. Don't be fooled by the pictures on the side - they are prettier than it is. As a whole, it is needs a lot of work, and my climbing roses are all DEAD now, thanks to blackspot. So sad. I think I am done with them.

• I am really thankful to have a house big enough to host my family members who take the trouble to come see us. I know that is a huge pain to drive/fly across the country.
• Gabe was really grumpy today. He loves people, but he also loves his alone time and his mommy time.
  
• Colin made a really important move in his game tonight, helping win their first game in the their season-end tournament. I was really excited for him.
• Ollie wouldn't take a nap today and then cried hysterically on our way to Colin's school, until his little head dropped to his chest, dead asleep.
• I love my mom.
• My brother Aaron starts a law internship tomorrow. Wish him luck!
• Looking at my blog count for April and May really bums me out.
• We got our tickets for our annual trip to Spokane!
  
• I forgot how much I loved Lost until it ended. Sure, a lot of stuff still doesn't make sense, but I cried during the finale.
• I love TV, but sometimes I wish I had the strength to live a life completely free from it. Maybe even the internet too.
  

Oh My

Just a peek at why I have been too busy and exhausted to blog:

Worth a 15 minute drive

Maybe this post is a little braggy, but I had to share some good news - the school Colin attends, Smith Academy of International Languages, just received an award for being the top elementary magnet school in the nation! It was also one of the five finalists for the overall award. Hurray for Smith! I can't tell you how happy we are to be a part of Smith and how impressed we have been with his teachers, teacher's assistants, and all the little extras the school has that makes it so special. It isn't an excellent school because it is an language immersion school, it is an excellent school period.

Farmer's Market

I had the privilege of chaperoning Colin's class to the Farmer's Market last Friday. It was fun, but honestly, not as fun as I expected it to be. I consider myself to be pretty good with kids - I assisted in dance classes for years and have worked in the Primary almost continuously for the last nine years, so I at least have experience - but I am still surprised when kids Colin's age have the gall to disobey an adult within minutes of meeting them. Maybe that is just because I grew up as a chicken and my kids are kinda chickens too (somewhat shy with adults). Anyway, before I sound like an old fogey, most of the kids were great, and it was fun, as always, to spend some time in Colin's classroom before we left (I just love his school so much) and to see him interact with his classmates during the day.

Each of the students brought a few dollars to spend at the market, and his teacher drilled it into their heads that Mother's Day was just a couple of days away, so they should get their mom flowers.

Colin took it very seriously, and used the money I gave him to buy me some tulips, which I put on my mantel at home.

On Sunday we were sitting around in the living room talking when I observed that the tulips on the mantel were very similar to the ones in the painting hanging there. Colin got a big kick out of it, and I got a big kick out of downloading my pictures yesterday and finding two that Colin took......

The tulips are dead now but the pictures make a good Mother's Day memory for me.

Stalkerazzi

The first night that Chad and I were in DC, we took a bus tour around to all the different monuments. The first stop was supposed to be the FDR Memorial, but there was too much construction around it, so our driver announced that we would be stopping for a White House photo op. Pretty cool! However, when we got out and started walking towards the street where the driver directed us, we were greeted by security officers, telling us that the street was temporarily blocked off. Bummer.


So this is as close as we got. I took a lot of pictures of the White House and we got back onto the bus, where the driver told us that he was told by security that the Obama girls were playing on the lawn, which is why we weren't able to get closer. I actually thought that was kinda cool - "Good for them" I thought. "I'm glad they still get to play outside when they want to." We had noticed some people milling around the roof, but when we got home and I looked at my pictures, I noticed some other people in front.

Like the gentleman below in a pink polo(zoomed in from the picture above).

Tell me that stance and build doesn't look like our president!


Again!

And if that doesn't convince you, please say hello to Mrs. Obama on the right below!

I'm convinced (even more than I was with Orson Scott Card). How about you?

Aching legs times four

This is the circulator. It runs (I think) three different loops around the city all day. Maybe more. You can get an all day pass for $3, and since one of those loops was very near our hotel (or at least near by DC standards), and another ran the perimeter of the National Mall, it was the only mode of transportation we used in DC.

It is supposed to come by every ten minutes, but sometimes it is longer than that - like when you have been standing on your feet for the last two days, and your legs and back are screaming at you. Not to mention the last 2 hours of being on your feet were spent in the Holocaust Memorial Musuem, which is draining in a whole 'nother way. And chances are, when it does take longer than 10 minutes, there will be no bench around, and even the railing that you want to lean against will have fancy scrolling spikes on top to prevent you from leaning. No kidding.

And then when you do get on that bus, and it is hot, and there is a woman cursing loudly at the driver, and the bus temporarily stops working in a seedy part of town, and you are wondering if you should just get out and walk to the hotel.....

You will think to yourself, "It could be a lot worse."

"We could have the kids with us."

Anniversary

My rechargeable camera battery died. I have been using those really expensive disposable ones for a few weeks ('cause normal ones don't cut it), but now those are dead, and I still haven't ordered a new battery. So I have no pictures from tonight for you.

But if I did, you would see this:

Me on the computer, slouchy and wearing sweats.

Chad on the couch in the other room, watching basketball.

No big deal, but it happens to be our anniversary. Neither of us even remembered to say "Happy Anniversary!!" to each other until around 10 or so this morning.

Doesn't sound romantic, but it is, because we are leaving for DC this Thursday and have been so focused on that trip that today was just another day to get through before we leave!

Chad and I didn't really have a honeymoon. We got married in San Diego, had an open house at his parent's house in Orange, spent the night nearby, drove to Palm Springs (which I know the stars love and all, but yeah, not really that great) the next day, spent the night, and drove to Blythe the next day for our reception there, drove back to our apartment in Anaheim the next day, spent a day getting the apartment ready, and then Chad went back to work.

So we have always planned to spend our 10th anniversary in Italy, which is next year. Knowing that we want to have a baby sometime next year, we realized that that probably isn't going to happen, and decided to do something special this year. Italy was out of the question this year, and I know DC doesn't sound nearly as exciting as Italy, but well, it is exciting enough!

A lot more exciting than eating Papa John's with your 1 year old, who was supposed to be babysat but got a bad cold, which is what we were doing on our 3rd anniversary in the picture below.

Seriously though, I think we were still pretty happy that day, just like we were happy the year before when we just went to Spaghetti Factory with a three week old Colin, or when we left a screaming Gabe with Audra and Levi to jet off for a fast lunch for our 5th. Just being together is enough.

Happy 9 years Dew.

(our other "exciting' anniversary)

Hour of Peace and Rest

When I was just a girl, my parents instituted An Hour of Peace and Rest. Every Sabbath, there would be an hour when every child retired to their bed, ordered to silence for the span of sixty minutes. There were eight children in a four bedroom home, so I'm not sure what level of peace we ever really acheived, and I can remember sneaking out the window with my sister Ashley to pick the grapefruits from the tree that grew next our bedroom, but we knew that for that little time each week, we needed to at least pretend to be resting. I think it was one of my parents' favorite times of the week, and I can still remember my dad singing, "There is an hour of peace and rest...."

Chad and I have very fondly carried on this tradition. Colin goes in the guest room, Gabe goes in their bedroom, and Chad and I take turns napping with the baby while the other one sprawls out on the couch and monitors the movements of the big boys. Even when we had church 2:30pm last year, we had it in the morning before lunch. I gotta tell you, 8:30 church this year sounds awfully early, but it is heaven. Home by 12, lunch done by 12:30, and then straight upstairs for an hour and peace rest. I actually took a 2 1/2 hour nap today.

Anyone else have an hour of peace and rest on Sundays?

Guide me, Wise Panda

Almost every Saturday afternoon, I open and close my fridge and freezer about twenty times, waiting for something exciting to call out to me. Nothing looks worth cooking on the weekend after a day of baseball and lawn duty. Chad and I give-in to our weariness and start gathering our coupons, deciding what we will eat instead of the salmon in our freezer.

Panda Express won out last weekend. We took two coupons, each got a three-entree meal, and split it up between the five of us. I have to admit that I was not full when we were done, but that is probably okay, because really, how much orange chicken does my body really need?

I had to laugh at my fortune cookie. It was quite perfect for someone is who prefers emailing over calling because it allows me to word everything oh-so-carefully.

Baseball

It is baseball time again. Colin just barely made the age cut-off for this age division, so he is, once again, the youngest guy on the team. He has a great time though, and shows never-ending patience for the slow moving game and run after run from the other teams.

His brothers, on the other hand, aren't quite as enthralled with the long games as he is. Ollie splits his time between eating and drinking everything I have brought, and sneaking over to the dug-out to ham it up with all of the big boys. Gabe just lounges, or in the case of the game earlier this week, plays in the dirt until he is covered from head to toe, not noticing when a fly ball comes at him until it hits him in the back of the head. Ouch.

And me? I enjoy the sitting out in the nice weather and relaxing for about the first hour, praying every time Colin gets up to bat that he will get a hit. Then after that, Ollie gets a little crazy, Gabe gets a little grouchy, and I wish I could read a book while nothing is going on.

*As I type this, Chad is watching a game between the Cardinals and the Mets that is in the 18th inning and is 0-0. It has been going on for over 7 hours. Unbelievably ridiculous sport.

Someone tell the conductor

My Gabe is a huge fan of Dinosaur Train. He watches it at least once a day. I love that he loves it, but I gotta tell you, each and every time I hear the intro song, where Buddy the T-Rex hatches in a Pteranodon nest, surrounded by Pteranodons and wonders what he doing there, and then the mom assures him that he belongs there, I totally think, "She is an egg-naper! She totally snatched his egg from a T-Rex nest!"

Am I the only one that thinks this? Watch it yourself and try and tell me I am wrong.

I Feel Old

Today I saw an explosion of stuff about Justin Bieber ALL over the place. Seriously- in a month old copy of Entertainment Weekly I read at the gym, in a skit with Tina Fey, all over the internet, the cover of People magazine.

Why does this make me feel old?

Because before today, I had never heard of him, and yet, apparently, people are crazy for him. Let me tell you, I used to be pretty up on my pop culture.

Am I the only one this out of it?

It's okay for me to not know who this 16 year old is, right?