Rainy like Monday morning

Can you beat a morning...or a view like this? (Mike literally took this picture out the window while he was showering today. I made him thoroughly dry his hands first.)

You know, we laughed about this window in our shower at first...but I have to say it's been kind of nice. There's something really invigorating about a cool breeze and rain in your face at the same time you're standing in a warm shower. I wish I could start every day that way.

An episode (and the lesson) from the life of a 6th grader

What if you panic during recess football and throw the ball back to the quarterback because there's a mob chasing you down...and so everyone's disgusted and the next day you get demoted from running back to center? This is especially humiliating because you've spent the last few years cultivating an image as a college football super-fan. And your friend (who's never cared about football at all - but oozes athleticism) doesn't even try and yet she dominates all over the field.

Jess told me this painful story today. I felt for her. Everyone knows that feeling of being inadequate. (I totally wrote a song on my guitar about something like this in college. I should whip it out and sing it for her. No, that's not such a great idea.) She actually mulled over the idea of signing up for a flag-football league this fall...to get better, to save face.  - I had to smile.

Our girl.

I tried to reassure her that she is talented in SO many ways...that's hard to see when you only see the strengths in others and the flaws in yourself. We talked about how she could get better if she really wanted to - but in life you kind of have to prioritize what things you're going to commit time and effort to, and learn to accept the rest.

The more I parent...the longer I live... I think more about the criteria we use to judge ourselves and others.  We tell ourselves and others that we only matter if we have...... beauty, knowledge, style, talent, creativity, money, cleverness, image, recognition... 

You know what I mean?

"It is not good to make others feel as though they are deficient. Let us lift those around us." - Dieter F. Uchtdorf

(Jessie, you are just right. We'll play a little practice football this weekend if you want.)   :)

First Day Back

It's that magical time of year again.

Temperatures are cooling off and everyone is in the mood for a change. Even though we've had kids in school for quite a few years it's always exciting. I wasn't sure how the routine would work in the new house, if I was leaving enough commute time, etc.  (By the way, aren't the new lunch boxes sweet? Thanks Kirsten for pointing me in the right direction with those. They'll be the subject of a future "Simple Foods" post I think.)

Everything went smoothly this morning. Tillman did really well with a full day of school. Grace's hair was cuter than ever. I finally persuaded (compelled) Jessie to wear those Dr. Martens I bought for her. (Can you believe she thinks they're not cool? What the?) Noble took his brief case (ha ha ha... I'm actually serious about that.)

Plus, I SO enjoyed the quiet. Don't think I'm one of those horrible parents who cheers when their children start school again....I didn't quite cheer. (But between you and me, a break is pretty nice.)

When the Truth Hurts

Noble informed everyone this afternoon that I looked "lots older than Dad. He looks like he's in his 20's and she looks like she's in her 40's."

Nice.    

It's OK, Mike told him he was out of line (and made sure to kiss me once or twice extra as they left for their father/sons camp-out tonight). I told Mike that kids are expert at telling the naked truth. And that's OK. I mean that doesn't mean it's any less awkward when a 4-year-old Tillman called that guy in the Jiffy-Lube waiting room 'really fat' a few years back. When I quietly told him that was rude, he (just as loudly) replied, "But he IS fat!" I couldn't argue. But I still made him apologize.

Coming to terms with change can be tough. I've been thinking of that a lot lately. This week Mike's 92 year old grandma needed to be moved to an assisted living facility here in South Jordan. As she and I sat talking about things yesterday, I told her it takes a lot of courage to face life as it is, and adapt ourselves to it. Like after you have your first baby and life seems like it will NEVER be the same. And it's not - but you grow into it. I told her that when we moved to our new house Tillman spent weeks crying every night because he missed our old house and the way life was there. But our needs had changed....just like hers have. So we keep moving forward.

Over the past 8 years or so we've watched both sets of our parents lovingly care for their aging parents. I know it's been hard for them. That example has had a profound effect on us. Change and strength and love.

Grandma and the kids - taking it easy at her new place.

I Just Found Out it's Friday the 13th

 One of the last lazy Popsicle days of summer vacation.

Summer is wrapping up. So we're trying to check a few more items off the summer 'To-do' list. 

Today's accomplishments:

*Meet grandma Melton at her school for SCHOOL LUNCH (!!!).  (A rare treat for the kids - at their school everyone has to bring a packed lunch.)

* A visit to the County Fair to see the animals and stuff. (Noble got to check out the Lego Robotics booth...A neighbor told us about it & we're hoping they'll have room for him on the team this year.)

* Finish another 'together' book, Indian in the Cupboard.

We might find something fun and crazy to do for the 13th.

Maybe fold laundry...or go to bed early. he he he.

Happy Friday the 13th!

A Week to Remember (well, most of it)

We've been pretty busy this week. Jessie's had lots of horse show stuff (3 shows this week between her two horses). No pictures, because unfortunately one of the things that happened this week was that the boys got a hold of our camera and killed it. When the camera wouldn't switch on I removed the memory card and put it in the computer. ----> No surprise, the last photos on it were of two crazy boys jumping around blurry. Busted. Don't cry for us though - Canon is fixing it for FREE. The kids are covering the cost of shipping.

Anyway, back to Jessie. She did SO well this week. Today she flew on her speed events with Pumpkin. She clocked the fastest time in her division on an event called 'keyhole'. She went from like 11th place in her division earlier this week up to 4th today. We were way excited for her. This means she gets to go to state finals. We're not excited about the extra practices or long days at post-season shows. But really we can't complain. At least the state competition is being held in South Jordan this year and not St. George or something. Jessie is STOKED about 2 things:
1.) She gets one of those extra large sparkly cowboy belt buckles (I know what you're thinking: AWESOME!) as part of the state finalist regalia. 
2.) She gets to miss 2 days of school for the state competition.
I really think everything else is just secondary for her. (Honestly, competitiveness does not seem to run anywhere in her veins. We keep telling her a little bit doesn't hurt.)
Good work Jessie!

Also this week:
* Swimming lessons - everyone except Sully & Jessie (who is now a graduate of Shinsel Swim School.) Sully shows his solidarity by wearing his Shinsel Pool t-shirt - "30 years of teaching kids to be fish".
* A visit from the South Jordan police. If you want to know the details, you'll have to call me or something. I don't want to incriminate myself on the Internet. I'll just say this: Jupiter the Space Donkey has reverted in part to some old habits. And maybe our spotless first impression has been tarnished in the neighborhood. Oh well, I guess it was only a matter of time. :) (My Dad is still laughing about this.)
* Mike invented skateboard basketball tonight - and at this moment (10:15 PM) I can hear 4 enthusiastic children and one 35 year old man yelling loudly in the driveway. I suppose I should go put an end to it before we have another "incident" involving the police.
Just kidding about that.

Weekend in Heber Valley

Arden & Carol

The big Sampson reunion took place this weekend here in Utah. The committee (my mom, her local sisters and my sister, Kay) booked a place up above Heber for a couple of days. It was beautiful. We spent our days zip-lining, hiking, canoeing on the lake, eating and talking and talking. The Sampsons are a spunky bunch...especially the women, as Mike and other sons-in-law have pointed out. All of them a kick in the pants. ha ha ha :) So it was a lot of fun to be together again.

Sunset over the Wasatch back

A young buck by the lake

More young bucks at the lake (Sully & Tom)

Someone pointed out that my grandparents have at last count (a few weeks ago) 201 descendants. Not bad. We had a big smiley group this weekend. I had such a good time talking to as many of my 50-ish cousins as I could get around to, as well as all my aunts and uncles. All of my siblings and their kids (minus Casey & Helen - who were given primo private accommodations because of newborn Zeke) slept in one cabin. It was hyper-ville with all the little cousins together. A poor night's sleep for us - but great memories for them.

For Saturday night's entertainment, my dad's little brother, Bruce and his band played for us so we could tansivat (Russian for dance). Sorry I didn't take any pictures of this...because I'm sure they would have been super cool. I was way too busy getting my groove on.
That's a Sullivan thing: generations of Fender pickers - traditionally honky-tonk, but uncle Bruce, as a child of the 60's, sticks with rock from that era. My dad once temporarily occupied a spot in one of Bruce's high school bands, "Nobody's Children" (he he, HA HA HA - that name always hits the funny button when the subject comes up in the family) .   Not a natural musician, he said he just memorized a couple of base lines and stuck with them.  (Remember, Mom, I'm first in line to inherit the only existing "Nobody's Children" playbill, right?) We boogied to The Beatles & CCR among others - rounding out the evening with "Memphis Tennessee" (One of our Uncle Smokey's old stand-by's whenever he used to play when the Sullivans got together.)  Lena's husband, Tim, sat in on drums for the evening. (Thanks Tim...you were awesome.)
Anyway, I haven't been that sweaty since the last ska show I went to in college. :)

I love family. (Thanks Mom & Kay for all the planning. It was perfect.)

Birthday Boys

The boys of summer. Father and son nearly share a birthday (the 26th and 27th). Noble's request for the day was to catch the IMAX Hubble Space Telescope 3D show (his second time) at the planetarium. (It was so rad I really wanted to come home tonight and break out the telescope...but we had cloud cover.)

What else do you give a kid named Noble who's also into chemistry?

(He also scored a new Wii game.)

Mike's new long board. He says this is more of an 'old guy' ride than his regular skateboard - smooth and easy. (Sully liked it too.)

Another year older and wiser (and better looking).

It's all about Pick-Up Ball

Running my errands today I caught a little bit of an interview on the radio about the waning of unstructured play for kids, specifically the loss of sandlot style baseball. This is a subject I've thought a lot on and (ask Mike) have my own opinions about.  When I was a kid in Castle Rock, Colorado (oh my goodness, that sounds like my grandma) my siblings and I spent our summer days from sun-up till mom called us in, with each other and our gang of friends exploring the bluffs above our cul-de-sac, or in at the vacant fields down the road, building jumps for our bikes and challenging each other to death defying stunts. We rode all day on beater bikes, my brother had a battery powered radio duct taped to his handle bars, providing music for the pack of kids.

More than once I've bemoaned the fact that our children have no such creative universe to explore. When I was 13 in South Jordan every kid on the block got together every day for pick-up baseball, basketball, water fights, or other craziness. In the winter we pulled each other on tubes at breakneck speed behind motorcycles, 4-wheelers or whatever motorized vehicle we could get our hands on. I'm not going to say that we all became geniuses because of the freedom we had - but seriously, can you duplicate that kind of imaginative enterprise? The creativity and social development that comes from making it up as you go TOGETHER with other kids. The possibilities were infinite.

I try not to get too involved in overly competitive and specialized sports training for young kids. Which may cost my kids a starting spot on the high school team...but I don't care. Maybe I'm all about mediocrity - but I don't think so.
To me there is something vital about kid-invented play...and variety to make a healthy and correctly-prioritized kid. I'm totally going on gut instinct and common sense here, I'm no expert - except that I was a kid myself and I have about 80 of my own. I don't have anything against a little organized sport for kids...just when it becomes really competitive and driven by the motivator: "If you don't train hard now you'll never be good enough for high school/college - or have a professional athletic career (heaven forbid)."
My parental objective is to provide as much of that freedom and variety as possible in the world we live in now. I guess that's why we've gravitated toward less demanding extra-curricular (county rec karate, baby!) - or less popular (4H). But we encourage stuff like neighborhood night-games, or driveway basketball (by the way, thanks again Jacque and Howard for the sweet hoop!), fort building, sledding, skateboarding, animals, garage bands, art...with the hope that the kids will make up some of that creative and social magic themselves. I'm not quite the hippie mama who doesn't require certain standards in education, music & behavior. Don't get me wrong, structure is good. Too much is stifling.
Read the Sandlot article in the SL Tribune (subject of the radio program). I've thought about starting up a movement...but then that might defeat the spontaneous purpose, right?

Some Must Push and Some Must Pull

My mom kind of has a flare for the dramatic. And so, this year's Pioneer Day observation included a mini pioneer trek around the block, ending in the "valley" (her backyard) - where we all camped out Friday night after a pioneer dinner, camp fire and stories.

Great-Grandma Tiede (who happened to be in town from New Mexico for the occasion) warmed up the crowd before their trek with some of her own stories.

Move 'em out!

Forward scouting party

We caught some fireworks a little later that night before the big cousin sleep-out

It was pretty cool. I know the kids were loving every minute. Magic times.