Most of these are Dancy because that's just how it is right now. She's the comedian, even if she doesn't try to be.
DANCY QUOTES:
"You ate another pancake bite? Are you sure you put that in your belly?" - Shad "Yep! I gave it to the bad guys!" - Dancy "What bad guys?" "I have bad guys in my belly!"
"I want to move to Colorado to be by the bad guys." - Dancy "You want to be by the bad guys?" - me "Yeah, but the good guys will protect me. I'll shoot the bad guys with my orange arrows." - Dancy
"Thanks for driving! You're nicer than I am!" - Dancy to the trailer driver at Wheeler Farm in Utah.
"Why could we give Anna a balloon because she would let it go!" - Dancy trying to tell the new Elsa joke we learned. Why can't you give Elsa a balloon? Because she would *let it go! Let it go!*
Dancy trying a knock, knock joke: Mom, you say knock, knock and you say who's there. "Knock, knock." And you say who's there. "Who's there?" Moooooo! "Moo who?" Mooooooo!
"No, Mom. It's Sunday. The sun is up, so it's Sunday. Not Saturday." - Dancy, almost daily.
"Did you ever see a monkey riding a monkey? Did you ever see a horse riding horse? Down by the bay!"
Dancy always talks about turning her confuser on. She means diffuser. And she says "grabity" when we talk about gravity. And "guhs-dusting!" instead of disgusting. That one is my favorite.
"What letter is this?" -Dancy "U, for umbrella." -me "But we don't live in umbrella--we live in America!"
"Don't worry, Sam. Mom and Dad will keep you safe from ladybugs."
AND EVERYONE ELSE:
Tom can I try your penis? Tom said I can try his penis. - Katie talking about the penis-like appendage on the homemade pretzel Tommy made.
Thora loves Sman (Superman), apeen (airplane), moh-sigh (motorcycle), Sah (Elsa), and Wehgo (either "Let It Go" or Lego, depending on the context).
"So, what did you do that's totally not legal?" "I was looking for someone and got shot." "Oh, then if you got shot you don't need to be arrested. ..you're free to go!" "Yeah, I need rest!" *I didn't write down which two kids had this conversation, but I think it was Tom and Katie.
"I picked a buday!" -Katie, holding a handful of flowers. BOUQUET, dear, bouquet. Not to be confused with bidet. But they are both French words, so points for that!
Once upon a time, Samson was the cuddliest baby. I could sit in the recliner all day and just cuddle and rock my baby, cooing with him. Then one day I blinked and that all changed.
I thought Katie was the wiggliest creature I've ever known. Samson has her beat. My baby is almost 7 months old and refuses to sit still. Did I say sit? He has no interest in learning to sit. He'd rather move himself all over the floor. He's an expert roller and is working on crawling. Getting soooo close with those knees! In his bouncer he is always kicking, kicking, kicking. In his Bumbo at meals there is always a gauntlet of flapping limbs to pass the spoon through to make it to his eager mouth. Holding this boy is ever becoming a challenge because he is always twisting and contorting or launching himself backwards. Or eating me. Shoulder, jaw, fingers. We understand cannibalism.
But one night I just sat ready with the camera to watch him move about the floor. He came up with some excellent poses!
And then on Wednesday, he suddenly decided to bust out an army crawl, and now he's zooms all over the floor!
We're Mormons. Most of our friends know that, and if you're reading this and didn't know that, you do now. We build temples. We believe that temples are God's house on earth. We do baptisms on behalf of deceased ancestors there. We do endowments (ceremonies where we make covenants with God) for ourselves and deceased ancestors. And we seal families for eternity. Couples can be married and sealed there to be husband and wife not only for our time here on earth, but also for eternity and beyond. Children are sealed to parents like pieces of a puzzle glued together. (We don't use glue!) Normally, temples are reserved for members of the church 12 and older who live their lives according to the standards and teachings of the church, have an interview with their bishop and stake president, and then are given a temple recommend--like a driver's license saying you're authorized to enter. The temple is a sacred and holy place, so those who enter must live their lives likewise. When new temples are built, there is a dedication ceremony to bless and officially open the temple for operation. Before that dedication, there is a month period for an open house where ANYBODY of any age and any religion or non-religion can go for a free tour through the interior.
There is a new temple in Fort Collins, Colorado, and we got to go for a tour in August. It was sooo great to be able to take our kids INSIDE the temple to see this special place. We all wore plastic booties over our shoes to keep the carpet clean. Thora had to be carried the whole time because she refused to let that booty be placed over her crocks. She's got this thing about having her feet touched. She hates it. (I had to wrestle her to paint her toe nails. She asked me to do it, then freaked out when I touched her foot. I fought the fight, knowing she'd be okay with it once she realized it was "soft." I was right, and now she has purple toe nails.) Anyway, that girl is heavy to carry! But we saw the baptismal font, the celestial room, sealing rooms and more. When the tour guide mentioned that twice a year, temples are closed down for deep cleaning and that the grandiose chandeliers in the celestial room are lowered so that each crystal can be cleaned, Katie's eyes grew wide. "Dad, can I help them clean the crystals?" She loves to clean! Add on top of that cleaning a chandelier...oh, the excitement! But no, she won't be cleaning it.
The art is local art of the Fort Collins scenery, painted by local artists. Beautiful mountains, pines, and elk. Flowers carved into the carpet, marriage altars, door knobs. Such a beautiful temple! It's now my second favorite, after the Kansas City temple.
We took a picture in front of the fountain because our kids love water fountains.
I just love the white and blue!
Dancy found orange flowers! She's squinting because of the sun.
Four out of five kids were willing to take a picture with the flowers...
and two wanted a picture with the Christus.
We made a whole weekend of fun to go along with the open house. On our way up to Fort Collins, we stopped at Hammond's Candy Factory in Denver for a free tour. It was just like Charlie and the Chocolate Factory!! Only not quite. There's a Santa on the side of the building, which created an interesting discussion a week later. We were discussing Santa, and I asked the kids what he does. Dancy replied, "Climbs candy factories."
After the temple open house, we had fun eating at a Chic-fil-A with a play place. Then we drove down to Boulder to tour the Celestial Seasonings factory. Only Tommy and Katie were old enough, since you have to be 5 to go on the tour. Okay, so I cheated a little with Katie. Shad played with the other three while we went on the half hour tour.
Shad let the little ladies look around the gift shop. One of the workers thought they were just so cute, she gave them little Celestial Seasonings tins. Oh, happy day!
Yep, that's our Thora.
They had a picnic with their tins.
After Boulder, we went down to Golden. Shad showed us the house he lived in when he was 6, then we went to the Lego Store in the Colorado Mills mall.
It was a Play Day there, so there were fun little carnival activities set up. Tom and Katie won a Lego set prize at one-- a two-car pack for races! We didn't get back to Becky's house until almost 10, and we had left at 8 that morning!
We didn't slow down on Saturday, either. We slept in a little, then spent 5 hours with Lori at the zoo. Thora reminded me a couple weeks earlier that she loves tigers, and I realized that we hadn't gone to a zoo since April last year. Thora needed a zoo trip. And the tiger there did not disappoint! He proudly paraded back and forth in front of the glass of the cat house for several minutes.
Leo the Lego lion!
Lori had fun spending the day with her nieces and nephews, even if the Tropics house had too many creepy crawlies for her. Dancy said she'd protect Lori from the snakes.
Lori came out alive.
We had fun jumping.
Thora was my little cling-on much of the day. This girl has learned to talk and she's makes her opinion known! Any time I went somewhere she didn't want to go, she commanded, "No! Stop! Tur-round! Tur-round!" So I'd turn around and show her what she wanted to see. When I was reading a plaque in the Komodo Dragon room, Thora was down walking around. She squeezed in between me and the plaque, put her hands on my thighs and started pushing me away from the plaque. She backed me all the way up to the wall, demanding, "Stay way! Stay way!"
Somebody always has to be upset, right?
After dropping Lori off, we picked up some Pizza Hut and went to Washington Park in Denver to meet up with Darrell Tyler and his son Ben. Darrell was my 8th grade English teacher some 13 years ago. He was a great teacher and I adopted him as a mentor. Even earlier this year, I turned to him when my brain needed help processing that awful English-as-a-second-language political science paper I had to edit for my last copyediting class. When I was in high school, I'd frequently walk across to the middle school on my lunch breaks to visit Darrell to chat or get advice. The last time I saw him was almost 9 years ago.
We had fun sharing Samson, meeting and playing with Ben, talking about Make a Killing (the assassin board game Shad and I have been designing), and catching up on life. I'm still mortified that I had insanely non-Kosher pizza for you! This round of Baby Brain has been near debilitating.
Lifelong teacher, mentor, and friend.
And we fed the geese even though the sign said not to. Ooops.
When we packed up in the van, Shad realized that we were right by Grandma Judy, so we stretched our long day just a little longer to visit with her for a bit.
Then we ended the night with Becky reading bedtime stories. Did you know that you can buy the Three Sleepy Kittens book from Despicable Me? You can also get Gru's unicorn book.
On Sunday before heading home, we went to church for a little bit and happened to meet a Delilah! Her mom was just as excited as I was that we made the pair!
Can't believe I forgot about this draft I started a month ago! Guess it's time to finish and publish now:
The second weekend in August, just two weeks after Shad was back from Iowa, I left for Norfolk, Nebraska to have a weekend to myself. My sanity was completely on the fringe from everything this summer, and I lost the fight with breastfeeding and dried up, so Shad was able to keep Samson. It was so good to have quiet to think and reset my brain, and also do things I wanted to do without kid messes or complaints about food or naps, etc.
Why Norfolk, Nebraska? My paternal grandpa, Fred, grew up there. When Grandpa Fred was alive, he talked to me several times about his beloved Nebraska. I remember him telling me a story (somewhat reluctantly because he didn't want me to think badly of his father) about his father owning a gas station in Norfolk. They had a neighbor across the street who owned a gas station as well, and the neighbor's dog would walk across the street to do his business in Fred Sr. and Marie's flower bed. Fred Sr. had talked to his neighbor about the problem, but the neighbor basically laughed it off, saying dogs go where they want to go. So Fred Sr. got a pressure water shooter and practiced for a few weeks, perfecting his aim. Then he filled the shooter with turpentine and waited for the dog to come again. He fired two well-aimed shots at the dog's butt and watched him scuttle back home, yipping and howling. The neighbor came by a while later, asking if they had seen anything happen to the dog. Fred Sr. feigned ignorance, saying he hadn't seen anything and asked why. The neighbor explained that the dog had come running into the house acting all wild and strange, scraping its butt across the floor and yipping, then running back out. Again, Fred Sr. just shrugged and commented on the bizarre behavior!
Grandpa also talked to me about joining the army in WWII and playing trombone in the army band. The closest he got to any action though was being stationed in the Azores, a group of Islands a hundred miles of the coast of Portugal. I remember pulling out my laptop one night while we talked about it and showed him Google maps satellites. Oh, the delight in that old man's face, seeing that place from long ago right there at the kitchen table of my parents' house! How wonderful and marvelous that was to him!
Even though my grandpa grew up in Norfolk, it was only ever a place I heard him mention. I'd never been there before because after the War, Fred met my grandma, Erma, and they married in Denver and lived out their lives there. But Fred always talked about it with such fondness that it's been on my bucket list of things to do while living in Kansas. After five years, I finally made that four hour drive and got to tour the city and get more glimpses into Fred's life than I thought I would.
*For those who may be offended by my use of first names, I do so for clarity and conciseness. I do a lot of family history/genealogy work, and first names just work best for my brain.
Anyway, I left Thursday night and spent the night at Shad's parents' house. Friday I stopped to see the Fairmont Army Air Field that was used in WWII.
Another historical marker.
And another.
Norfolk Senior High School, where my grandpa went to school.
411 S 1st Street, listed on the 1940 Madison County Census. Back of the house.
Front of the house.
I knocked on the door to talk to the owner and ask if I could tour the home (small town life is different like that), but she was in process of moving, so she didn't want to let me in. She happily talked to me on the porch for nearly half an hour, telling me about the house and city. The house is 3 bedroom, 1 bath. It used to be on a different location outside city limits, but was moved to its current site in the 1900s. Until a recent renovation, it even had the original coal stove in the basement.
View from the front porch.
After talking for a little while, the owner remembered that during renovation, she had found old papers in the wall. One was a register of deeds, detailing the sale and purchase of the house from owner to owner. Fred Sr. and his wife, Marie, are in there! I'll have to get photo documentation of that later.
Norfolk Junior High, where Duane would have gone to school.
Veterans' Memorial at the junior high.
Another memorial across the street from the junior high.
So there was this really cool WWII memorial with names engraved on the back. My first thought was that it was all the names of those from Norfolk who had served in the war. No, it was the names of donors and how much they donated. Priorities, right?
On Saturday, I got a massage, then had such a strong urge to go biking. I went to the local bike shop to see about renting one. They didn't do rentals, but let me borrow one. It wasn't great, but it got me around. I went to Ta-Ha-Zouka Park to ride on the Cowboy Trail, the largest rails-to-trails conversion in the US.
A branch of the Elkhorn River
Yeah, it was pretty challenging once the trail turned from pavement to crushed gravel, but I still pushed through about 4 miles of it.
The Elkhorn River
Bridge Art
Wind turbine parts
Walking in the Elkhorn
Dead Monarch
I spent the evening walking around Skyview Park.
Sunday morning I swung by Washington Elementary, which is likely where Duane went to elementary school.
This Greyhound bus stop is the site where Fred's gas station had been, approximately a mile northeast of their house.
There is still a gas station across the street.
Or it might have been this old rundown place, which looked like it used to have pumps.
Last historical marker stop before surprising Shad and the kids at the end of church.
