An Idaho Weekend

My trip to Idaho happened a little while ago, but I still wanted to post about it. I made the 247 mile drive because Phil & Kelsey and kiddos moved east, leaving us here in the west to wither without them. They're going to have a grand adventure in the land called "A Real Job." So I had to see them before they left. Just Annie and I made the trip because Aaron had Sunday duties and school duties. It's wonderful being a free woman. Annie was great on the drive (answer to prayer), and she had a great time running around with the other munchkins. Klara is always very attentive to Annie. It's cute.



I got in lots of good chatting time with Phil and Kelsey. I also spent a good portion of time holding this beautiful creature, the newest addition to the family.

Now let me just take a minute to talk about Phil and Kelsey. They are some of my favorite people in the world. Our whole family just loves Kelsey because she is perfect for Phil and very down-to-earth. She does many things well, but she never gives you the feeling that you have to compete with her. The perfect woman for other women to be around. And Phil is hilarious and also gentle and easy-going. What a good man! This isn't an obituary or anything. I know they're not dead just because they're moving away, but I will definitely miss seeing them as often as we have been.

For FHE on Monday night, Andrew brought his lady friend, and we had a talent show. Everyone had to participate. We had singing, trumpet duets, piano solos, joke-telling, neck cracking...








and walking on the hands by Mindy (the lady friend). This girl was crazy. She did a back-flip to get onto her hands and then walked around the room. That takes some serious arm strength, people! And she was nice, too!


I'd like to explain the next picture. Phil was telling us that during General Conference while they were at Mom and Dad's house, Jarom and Jacob were doing this with their hands.

My mom saw them and said, "I bet you can't keep your hands like that for the rest of conference." There was a talk or two left. The boys took the challenge. When they needed to rest, they laid their heads and hands down on their lap. Imagining that just made me laugh. What talent we have in our family!

$300 dollars later...

Yesterday, I spent $300 dollars at the first vacuum store I've ever been to in my life. Now I have seven days to decide if I got a good deal or was just being a sucker (nyuk, nyuk).

I walked into The Vacuum Vendor in south Provo with the intent of getting information about what makes a vacuum good or bad. Our last vacuum came from the DI. Believe it or not, it actually worked for a little while...ish. I could always see little scraps of stuff when I did yoga on our living room floor, but the vacuum was definitely better than nothing. Then we totally broke it while trying to fix it, and now it is not better than nothing.

So, as I was saying, I walked into the Vacuum Vendor and three gentle/salesmen were waiting to wait on me. They pulled out every trick in the book to get me to buy that vacuum. I knew what they were doing, but it was kind of nice. At most of the stores I frequent, I'm lucky if I can find a worker to ask why the store is out of stock of the cheap Kleenexes. So I felt a little fancy.

These are the vacuums I was looking at.


Aren't they beautiful? The vacuum demonstrations were actually very convincing. First the guy showed me how this $600 vacuum has two motors and can vacuum up a whole shoe and still be totally fine. He let me vacuum up the shoe, and then he just pulled it out of the vacuum lickety-split. No burning smell or anything! But the thing that really got me was when he poured pink sand on a black carpet. (Yes, I asked if the pink sand comes with the vacuum cleaner. It doesn't.) He then used a Dyson vacuum, which are supposed to be pretty fancy, to clean up the sand. On the surface, it looked totally clean. But then he used the Vibrance Riccar vacuum. When the vacuum got next to where the sand had been, little pink pieces of sand started jumping up into the air because of the "vibrance" feature. There was still sand in that carpet! and the Riccar uncovered it! It was beautiful. I bought the vacuum.

Now I really do think this is a good product. Our main concern is that the handle is plastic instead of metal, and we've both seen lots of broken handles on vacuums. To return or not to return, that is the question. But if you had seen those sand particles jump, you might be in love like I am.

P.S. Never buy a vacuum at Walmart. Go to a vacuum store. They have similar prices with much higher quality vacuums...or at least I hope they are much higher quality.

Ward Prom

The singles' ward has been a happenin' place lately. A few weeks ago we got a babysitter, got dressed up, and went to the ward prom. It was totally fun and romantical.

The activity's committee did a great job of organizing it. Everybody who wanted to go signed up and then was randomly assigned to a member of the opposite sex...unless of course they already had a significant other. Apparently, several guys were hoping they could sign up to go with Annie. She's popular. Anyway, the boys escorted the girls and ate dinner together, but then people could dance with whoever they wanted. They also had dance cards for the slow songs to encourage people to actually dance. It worked. There were very few wallflowers/water cooler bystanders. These were our dance cards.



For anyone who was wondering, Aaron has some serious dance moves. And thanks to apartment 55 for teaching me all I know about dance parties.

Baby Shower

I have a best friend named Amanda. We met in college and comforted each other in our awkward freshman year. Now our husbands are both in school; we're both done with school and not working. So we exercise together, shop together, watch movies together, etc., etc. We're like two peas in a stay-at-home mom pod. And soon Amanda will be giving birth to her own baby girl. Woot!woot! So of course we had to celebrate. I hosted a baby shower for Amanda at my humble abode. We had a grand time. I forgot to take a picture of the decorations and food, but they were pink, tasty, and cute. Since it was the weekend before Valentine's Day, I made heart-shaped rice krispy treats, pink cupcakes, and fudge ripple bars.

We also played an awesome game called "Pin the Umbilical Cord on the Baby." Aaron drew the baby. I said it looked like a man-child, so he put a bow on the head. Then it just looked creepy.

My umbilical cord is the one furthest away from the belly button. Emmeline was the big winner.

Of course there were presents involved. I crocheted Amanda a baby sweater from this book of patterns Aaron's mom gave me for Christmas. I was a little bit proud of it. Making it took a long time, but was not too hard. And I learned a lot about crocheting by doing it.


Amanda is quite the lady. Her baby has a lot to look forward to!