American Creme Oreos

When I went to the store last week I was excited to discover that Nabisco has taken a step to help my family's Memorial day tradition seem a little more patriotic and fitting for the occasion.  There on the shelf was a package of  limited edition American Creme Oreos.

How patriotic is that?  Of course those Oreos had to come home with me in preparation for the upcoming holiday.

Today I took my required "Oreo Day" photo.

Notice how I worked hard to get the reflection of the flag in my picture.  Double points for patriotism!

Then I ripped open the package and sampled the cookies.

While I give Nabisco a high five for a fun idea, the end result wasn't all I had hoped for.  The hubby's first question was "Where's the white stripe?" So I ask, "Why no white stripe?" I do think all 3 colors found in the flag would have added to the filling and made it look truly American.

 I also have never been a big fan of the golden Oreos.  I would have preferred the traditional "chocolate" Oreo encasing.  I wonder who decided that "American Oreos" should be light and not dark?  Probably in our overly politically correct society there should be versions of both colors and several hues in between.  

Happy Oreo Day to my kids!  I hope you managed to find some kind of Oreo to partake of today.  I also hope you took a few minutes to ponder the sacrifice of  those who paid the ultimate price so we can live in a free country where I can discuss the color of cookies without fear of being labeled a subversive and being thrown into prison or transported to a really cold place. (Perhaps I have been reading a few too many books about the Soviet Union under Stalin rule recently).

Today I am thankful

that I was born an American.
for those men and women who gave their lives so I can enjoy the freedoms I enjoy here.
for unusually moderate temperatures that made being outside today enjoyable.

Breathing Fire

This is why my youngest son shouldn't be allowed to play with matches.

According to him this is perfectly safe.

Strawberries

The grandson is a big fan of strawberries. At dinner tonight we had strawberry spinach salad. Yum! The grandson decided he preferred his strawberries straight from the package without all the embellishments.  He started saying straw-ber-ries over and over again as he ate them one by one. It was so funny the way he was saying it, with his tongue wiggling all over his face, so I decided to make a video of him. Of course, then he just started being silly, but I love the surprise ending of this little movie.

Last month when my sisters and I rendezvoused in San Diego for a week, the woman in charge of restocking our breakfast each morning at the motel was very friendly and told us she was going to Carlsbad to pick strawberries for her anniversary.  Since we were planning a trip to Carlsbad too, we decided that sounded like a fun adventure.  The daughter, the son-in-law and the grandson accompanied us to the strawberry fields.  We (read Kathy) paid a premium price for the berries and the experience, but it was fun.

Carlsbad Strawberry Fields - April 20, 2012

and we picked some very, very delicious strawberries that the grandson called pineapple about half the time.

Just One More Sleep

Almost every day I get a phone call from the grandson.  It goes something like this:

"Grandma coming home soon?"

"Not today"

"After night-night? After one sleep?"

"Nope, not for lots of sleeps."

"Youse come home after lots of sleeps?"

"Yup, I'll come to your house after lots of sleeps."

"OK.  Love you.  Bye."

Even though it doesn't seem to upset him much, it breaks my heart every time I have to say "lots of sleeps", so a couple of days ago when he called I was happy to change my reply to "After 3 sleeps."

"Youse coming to my house after 3 sleeps?" he asked for clarification and the daughter piped in "You're coming to my house after 3 sleeps?"

Apparently the e-mail informing her that her dad and I were coming to visit got lost in transit.  But she is very accommodating and decided we could still come.

At the hubby's work the culture department sends out a daily e-mail with a Pima (Piipaash) and Maricopa (O'odham) word of the day. Recently they have been focusing on words related to time. Today, when we only have one more sleep before we leave for San Diego, he forwarded the info to me.  We both thought it was rather interesting.

Prior to European arrival, the O’odham and Piipaash did not organize time into seven-day weeks. There was no concept of a week at all. Therefore, there was no specific name given to any particular day. If one wanted to plan attendance at a future event, others were told to, “Come after four night’s sleep,” or something similar.

His comment was "See, it's just the Pima coming out in our grandson."

Only 1 more sleep!

Springtime at my House

When I think of spring flowers I always picture colorful tulips or bright yellow daffodils poking their heads up through the damp, frigid soil, often sporting a soft coating of snow on their welcome green leaves. Ah, spring flowers bring with them a promise of new birth after a cold, dark winter. Just looking at them reminds me of Easter and the Resurrection of my Savior, Jesus Christ.

However, I haven't had much luck getting bulbs to blossom at my house and so I am usually lacking tulips and daffodils at this time of the year. I do love it when I can find affordable bouquets of these flowers to bring home and add a little springtime cheer to my home.

A couple of days ago I bought some beautiful tulips and put them in a vase on my piano next to my statue of Christ in the Garden and in front of my Living Christ frame. It felt like spring!

And they sat there for about 1 minute before Sparrow, the curious one, had to come and check them out. He thought they smelled pretty good

And head-butted even better.


And he had to make sure that he could still take his short cut across the piano to the table.

I could envision what was going to happen next, so the tulips got moved to the dresser in the entryway, where they still make me think of spring.

Springtime flowers in Arizona are a little more showy than these standard blooms. Our flowers go all out to blossom and grow and truly welcome spring with a grand hurrah. This is perfect flower growing weather for us and the place they grow the best, in my opinion, is at the Mesa Arizona temple.

They are so beautiful and they smell so wonderful.

A truly impressive sight.

I am learning to think of these as springtime flowers as well. While tulips and daffodils offer the quiet promise of new life, our flowers shout it from the gardens with uncontained joy.

Christ Has Risen! He Lives Again!

And I sat and enjoyed them for a few minutes today


because next week they will probably disappear.

It's time to plant the less showy, but equally beautiful, Arizona summer flowers.

Didn't spring just arrive?

Today I am thankful

that I didn't wait and go to the 2:00 session at the temple - it closed early today because of the Easter Pageant and I would have been sad.
for beautiful flowers.
for this Easter season and all that it represents.

General Conference

I just want to tell each one of you

who tuned into General Conference today

hoping to receive answers to your questions and concerns

that I am sorry.

Apparently, Heavenly Father inspired all of the speakers

to focus on my list today.

However, you can tune in again tomorrow.

Perhaps those will be your sessions.

I sincerely believe that what was shared today

by prophets and apostles of God

was intended to humble, teach, strengthen and uplift me personally.

I hope those of you who listened

to any or all of Conference today

feel the same way.

Isn't it wonderful?!!

Today I am thankful for

a son that cares if his shirt needs ironed or not and irons it himself if it does.

my crockpot.

spiritual food.

Missing Her

Two years ago today my mom passed away.

I am usually OK with her being gone.

Since we didn't live close to each other for the last 20 years of her life, at first I could just pretend that she was in Utah and I was in Arizona and think I would call her in a few days.

It made things easier.

However, for some reason, the past few days I have really been missing her.

When we came home from our Spring Break trip to San Diego I started thinking, "Last time we went to San Diego for Spring Break we came home and went to Utah for a funeral." The 2 trips are kind of connected in my mind. Just like the Spring Break Disneyland trip and my dad's funeral immediately after.

Perhaps I should do away with Spring Break trips to California.

Anyway, since we got home, my thoughts have kind of frequently drifted to my mom and the fact that she is definitely gone.

It's been long enough.

It's very real.

No more pretending she's sitting at her computer reading this blog post.

On Tuesday night we had Relief Society Temple night. We usually have it on the last Tuesday of the month but this month it got kicked up a week because next week our Stake has family week to prepare for General Conference and we are supposed to be home with our families.

It turned out to be a good thing because a sister who recently moved out of our ward went through the temple for her own endowments that evening and we could be there to support her.

It was a nice, but VERY FULL session.

During the session, I was looking down at my apron and thinking about my mom, who made it for me. There is a tiny spot on the embroidery floss in one place that I am pretty sure is her blood. She probably pricked her finger while she was stitching away. I look at it sometimes and I'm reminded of all the sacrifices that my mom made for me.

There are a lot of them to think about.

For some reason though this night, as my fingers traced that drop of blood, I was just filled with an overwhelming sense of loss.

I missed my mom so much.

I'm sure the friends seated on both sides of me wondered why I suddenly began to quietly cry.

I was anxious to reach the peace of the celestial room where I could sit and think and feel the closeness to my parents that I frequently feel there. The veil there seems thinner and eternity and the opportunity to see my mom and dad again seems closer.

However, once I entered the celestial room it was a place of joy and excitement and congratulations and it was wonderful, but not peaceful. Way too many people sharing their thoughts and feelings. I gathered with friends and then it was time to leave and I was the designated driver so I never got the opportunity to just sit and decompress and think and feel and be filled.

I need to go back and just sit and be still.

I know it will help.

I know I will see my loved ones again.

I know this is not the end.

I also know that sometimes it is just fine to feel sad.

To miss the people that I don't get to be with right now.

To wish I could just talk to my mom for a few minutes

and give her a hug

and get hugged in return.

I miss her and that's OK

and I took my moments to grieve this week

and that's OK too

and now I will pull myself up by my boot straps

and live the kind of life that my mom wants me to live

and the kind of life that will get me to where she is

and where I can be welcomed by her loving embrace.

That's what she would tell me to do if she were here

and that's what I'll do,

even when I miss her.

Today I am grateful for

the citrus blossom scent that fills the evening air when I walk outside.

a son that was grateful for me today.

a husband that washed the dishes.

La Jolla Cove

On Sunday when I was telling one of my friends that I had decided to go to San Diego she asked me what fun things I was planning to do. I told her I really wanted to go to the beach and see a whale, since this is whale watching season. It seems like even though I have been to San Diego a lot in the past 6 months I haven't made it to the beach very often, so that seemed like a good goal.

Well, Monday it was rainy and cold and Tuesday it wasn't really raining but it was wet and cold. That left today for our beach excursion. The oldest daughter, the son-in-law and the grandson had been to LaJolla Cove and seen lots of seals so the youngest son wanted to go there. I thought that was as good a beach as any and so off we went.

When we got to the beach the oldest daughter did a fabulous job parallel parking on Coast Blvd. (even though she swore she couldn't do it and got a little freaked out) and we were off to see some sea life.

We watched this group of seals and sea lions from the cliff above the Children's Pool for a while.


It was fun to watch them flop through the sand, swim in the surf and to see the mamas taking such good care of their babies.

Then we decided to move on and see what else we could find. We saw a beach with a few animals and people up quite close to them so we headed down the stairs for a gander.

The seals and sea lions seemed completely at ease with us checking them out. We got close enough to take a couple of pictures and then moved up the beach to let the grandson play with his sand toys.



and to take a few pictures of ourselves.

While we enjoyed the beach, people continued to move up close and watch the seals and sea lions. All of the sudden we heard a voice from the cliff above us, "Ladies and Gentlemen! Please move away from the seals.You are too close. Please move away from the animals."

Everyone looked around to see who was speaking. When it was discovered that the spokesperson was just a regular lady and not someone in authority, everyone kind of just went back to what they were doing.

Apparently, this was not the desired response and the woman decided to get closer to the offenders. She climbed the fence and rushed out to the edge of the cliff above the animals and once again began loudly urging the people to leave. She yelled, she cussed, she stomped her feet and ranted. I thought she was pretty scary and so did the sea lions and seals because all of the sudden they began to look concerned and agitated where before they were quite peaceful. The woman continued to carry on and other people decided to yell back at her. She took pictures of the "criminals" and they took pictures of her. She never aimed her camera as far over as we were, so apparently we weren't on her list of "stupid, idiotic, humans".

I thought it was interesting that this individual sincerely cared about the wildlife and really wanted them to be safe, but in her zealous display she probably caused more harm than good. The mommy seals only felt endangered after she appeared on the scene.

Sometimes I think I do the same thing. With the best of intentions, I rush in and try to enforce my will on a situation and often I end up making things worse. Maybe I can remember this experience next time I want to jump in and "fix" something. Evaluate if it really needs to be fixed and if it does, thoughtfully figure out the best way to handle it, hopefully without raising my voice.

When the excitement died down we climbed back up the stairs and headed over to La Jolla Cove. On the way we saw lots of ground squirrels eating the flowers. They were pretty cute.

The grandson liked to tell them "GRR..." and watch them run. He thought it was so fun until one of them ran down the edge of the cliff out of sight. Then he was really worried because he thought it had "falled down" into the water.

After we strolled through Scripps Park we stopped to watch a big group of seals and sea lions sunning on the cliffs above the cove. As the tide rolled in the waves would come up and splash over them, but they didn't seem to be bothered. We decided these were the anti social animals of the area because their cliffs were pretty inaccessible to the humans.

La Jolla Cove has an underwater ecological area with artificial reefs so apparently it is popular with scuba divers. It was interesting to watch people swim out into the cold ocean to explore. Most of them were clad in wet suits, but one brave soul was wearing nothing but a speedo. Scary!

The grandson got kind of bored of watching the sea life and decided to try his hand at street entertainment. Here he is playing "Twinkle, Twinkle, Little Star" on the bench and singing along.

I found him entertaining even if no one else did.

It was a beautiful afternoon and a fun way to end this trip to San Diego.

Can't wait to come back again. Maybe next time I will actually see a whale.

Making Sugar Cookies

Today the oldest daughter and I decided we wanted to make some sugar cookies. The grandson thought it was a great idea.

First we had to make the dough.

We have a favorite sugar cookie recipe that came from our next door neighbor, Kate. Every year we would go to their house and make sugar cookies at Christmas time and this was the recipe that we used.

Holiday Sugar Roll Out Dough

1 ½ cups sifted powdered sugar

1 cup margarine

1 egg

1 tsp vanilla

½ tsp almond flavoring

2 ½ cups flour

1 tsp soda

1 tsp cream of tartar

Cream sugar and margarine. Mix in egg and flavorings. Stir dry ingredients together; blend into sugar/margarine mixture. Refrigerate 2 – 3 hours. Heat oven to 375. Bake 7 to 8 minutes.

After the dough sits in the fridge for a couple of hours you need to put a lot of flour on the table where you are going to roll out the cookies.

This is more fun than making the dough.

A lot more fun.

Then you get to cut out the cookie shapes and put them on the pan and cook them.

You have to get really close to make sure the cookies are cool enough to frost and make sure you blow a little if they aren't.

Then you make the frosting.

Icing

1 cup powdered sugar

¼ tsp salt

½ tsp vanilla

Water to make icing consistency.

Try to remember to not add too much water because then you have to add a lot more sugar :).

Then you get to frost your cookie. You have to concentrate really hard and make sure you do a good job.

Then you get to eat your dog bone cookie.

That is the funnest part of all!

We like making sugar cookies!

Puppy Love

I will be the first to admit that I am not a dog person. Give me a nice cat any day. I have never really felt a great deal of love for Baja doggy. She is cute as dogs go, but dogs are jumpy and smelly and just not my favorite.

Plus when you mix her with a two year old it usually means trouble. When one of them wants to be left alone, the other one just has to get in their face.

The constant poking, barking, biting, pulling, chasing, yelling, crying drives me crazy.

However, I must hide my feelings well because Baja seems to really think I like her. She is always the most welcoming family member when I arrive at her house for a visit. She is SO happy to see me. I don't get the reception that the son-in-law gets when he comes home from work, but it is a close second.

Today the grandson and I were upstairs playing toys while the oldest daughter was gone to a doctor's appointment. We left Baja downstairs with the back door open in case she needed to go potty. It was very likely that she would since earlier the grandson had fed her an entire package of Girl Scout Samoa cookies while I went to the bathroom. (I should have known he was up to something when he didn't even ask to go potty with me.)

When we came downstairs we could tell she was in trouble just by looking at her face.

It had been raining and she decided to dig in the mud and then proceeded to haul it all into the house with her and bury it in the couch cushions. I wasn't very happy. I threw all the clumps away and then started sweeping up the mess. That was when I saw the present Baja had left for me.

There in the pile of dirt was a tiny heart made out of a piece of grass. It made my own heart happy.

I guess Baja's not bad for a dog. In fact, when the grandson isn't around she is almost likeable.

At least she keeps me warm when she cuddles with me on the couch. It's nice to be loved, even if it is by a puppy. I guess I should try to like her back - at least a little bit.