May 30, 2006

Hello Everyone,
Quick update from the weekend. Saturday we had a barbecue at our house with several families from our ward. It was fun and the kids all actually played together quite well and let the adults talk. Amazing. We all (well, at least I) ate WAY too much and I felt sick that evening. I did a short "photo shoot" of all the kids who were there (at least, the ones who wanted to cooperate) to try and work on my lighting. I discovered I desperately need a grey card for my white balance!
In the late afternoon we walked around Rock Creek with the Curtises and stopped at the dinosaur park for the kids to play for a while. It had been quite hot and muggy that whole day, although threatening to rain the whole day as well, but at the park a nice breeze blew in and I savored the last vestiges of spring. I think summer is officially here.
Sunday I gave my first ever relief society lesson. How have I been in relief society for 12 years and never given a lesson? I'm not a teacher but was asked to substitute. The lesson was on Creating a Gospel Sharing Home, from the talk by Elder Ballard this last conference. I think it went really well, mostly because I tried hard to incorporate the things Ben taught in his teacher enrichment class he just finished up. Thanks Ben! We had leftovers for dinner plus corn on the cob that the boys had asked for when they saw it at Sam's Club on Friday. Corn on the cob makes me really miss Utah! I also made blueberry cobbler which was really good. It was meant to be blueberry cake, but it sort of fell, or at least failed to totally rise and was more of a cobbler. I did the old yellow cake mix plus 12 ounces of diet sprite. I poured the batter in a bundt cake pan and then sprinkled on a bunch of frozen blueberries-- probably about a cup. Then baked at 350 for 45 minutes. I think it failed to rise properly because I couldnt' find my beaters and so I just mixed it by hand and it probably didn't get mixed enough. Maybe the blueberries messed things up too. But in any case, it turned out much better than a blueberry cake and it was all gone by the end of the night.
Monday Ben let me sleep in till 10:30. When I got up the boys and I did a major cleanup of the downstairs and then we went to the Embassy Lakes pool to swim. There were a bunch of people there, because of the holiday, but it was still fun. We were there probably 2 hours and then the clouds started to roll in and we were tired, so we headed home. At 4:30 we all piled into the van and drove up to Plantation to meet up with a family that I was scheduled to do pictures for, and we then caravaned up to Deerfield Beach. The weather was perfect up there, the lighting was great, and I got some good pictures. The only problem was the mom trying to get her kids to look at the camera and smile! Her 4 year old was giving typical 4 year old fake smiles and driving her crazy. I probably could have gotten some natural smiles better if she hadn't been bugging him, but that's ok. I still got some good ones. After we were done the boys and Ben went swimming in the ocean for a while and we had a picnic dinner. Once it got dark we headed on home.
Today was a great day! We all got up, had breakfast, did some things around the house, and then went to the park. The boys went wading/swimming in the lake, chased ducks, climbed on rocks, played on the playground, practiced swinging by themselves, and helped me make braided grass belts, necklaces, headbands, bracelets, and anklets. They were dressing up as Indians, and afterwards they found old palm fronds to use as spears and went a few rounds "slaying" each other. They were pretty sure anyone who saw them would be so surprised to see real Indians in Rock Creek! I told them that their Grandma Frandsen grew up on Indian reservations, and now they think she must be an expert on all things Indian. I told them maybe she would make her really good Indian fry bread when we go to her house.
Back at home we finally had lunch (we were at the park till nearly 3:00 PM), and then the boys played outside in the hose until Ben came home from work.
So, that was our weekend. Oh yeah, on Monday I videotaped the boys singing "Proud to be an American." I thought it was appropriate for Memorial Day. They are so cute singing it! I need to figure out how to get the video on the computer. It is a digital video camcorder, but still uses tapes, so a bit confusing. I need to dig out the manual and figure that out.
Well, I'm tempted to stay up later and proof pictures, but I'm going to bed instead. I'm trying hard not to get back into a cycle of staying up too late and then suffering during the day.
Oh, one more thing! Mosey peed in the potty again today (he did a few weeks ago as well, but that was pretty much a fluke), and was very proud of himself. I think I'm going to really try over the next few weeks and see if I can get him trained. I think he's ready.