Dear Neighbors.

Dear Neighbors,

If you can't find the green bag that was left on your driveway (I don't even know what they were for...)

I might know where they are.

And I might be certain that you'll not be getting them back.

I apologize.

Sincerely,

Steph.

Whirlwind Trip With Brynn and Mom. And the Fillmore Territory State House.

I had a situation where I had to go help a family member in court.

In St. George.

On a Friday morning.

Being that I work where I do, my boss was pretty understanding that this was something I needed to go and do.

It would be a whirlwind trip, drive down Thursday after work, crash with my parentals, hit court in the morning, take my mom out to lunch for mother's day, and be home by dinner on Friday.  A mere 24 hours.

I figured Brynn could use some punishment and invited her to go with me.

I was thinking about how Tay had done the Color Run (here) and General Conference (here) with me, I had spent the day in Jr. High (here) with Cas and a trip to the temple (here and here), and I had just been on Cali's field trip (here).  In my reckoning  it was Brynn's turn for some one on one.

So we loaded up on junk food, grabbed a bag of clothes, made sure we had books to read in case the court process was a long one, and we hit the road.

The sunset driving down was gorgeous.

We hit Grandpa Dick's and Grandma KC's at about 11:00 that night.  Grandpa and Grandma came out of their room, sleepy eyed, and hugged us, gave us blankets, informed us we'd be going out to breakfast the next morning, and shut off the lights.

By the way, they have the best couching for sleeping on.  The Man and I usually take it when we visit, leaving The Circus with the blow up mattresses.

Brynn was excited to be able to sleep on that perfect couch that night.

The next morning we hit The Wagonwheel for breakfast, because frankly, it wouldn't be a trip to St. George without breakfast at the Wagonwheel. We checked out an antique shop and we did our thing at the courthouse.

We combined a celebratory lunch with a Mother's Day lunch at La Frontera with Aunt McKell and Uncle Scott who were also there for the court thing and with happy Mother's Day wishes to my mom, we hit the road to head home.

We stayed with Aunt McKell and Uncle Scott through Beaver

where we found Brynn the most giant sucker ever,

and then Brynn and I split off and stopped in Fillmore to see the Territory State House.

I had no idea that Fillmore used to be Utah's capitol.  Apparently it was chosen due to being geographically the center of Utah.  They held one legislative session there and then after that it was voted to be moved to Salt Lake where most everyone was living anyway.

Because of moving the capitol to Salt Lake the building in Fillmore was never finished.  Below shows what it was planned to be, the colored wing being all that there actually is of it.

Apparently traveling across the state and back in a 24 hour time span, with your mom, is exhausting.

 Thanks B for being my travel companion in this.

I hope to be able to spend more one on one time with my kids, and I hope they all know how much the mean to me.

Also, we need more family trips out and about, because that's what we do, we travel.  I foresee a family camping trip in our near future.  Anyone want to go with us? :)

2nd Grade Field Trip to Red Butte Gardens.

It's been crazytown business around our house, and I'm sure you can all relate to that.

Plus, exhaustion hit me.  You know when you're running and going and then suddenly you get a break and you stop for a minute?  And in that minute it all catches up to you and you feel like sleeping for four solid days?

That's where I just came back from.

That and a bunch of other stuff that was going on in between all my napping.

I need to get caught up on our goings on.

Last week I signed up to go on Cali's field trip to Red Butte Gardens up at the University of Utah.  I was assigned to watch over Cali and three of her classmates.

Tell you what, I could never be a 2nd grade teacher.  Hats off to those people who not only do it, but do it well.

The kids learned about flower parts and about pollination.

They learned about different kinds of seeds and even got to pull some lima bean seeds apart to see the different parts inside as the plant begins to sprout.

They talked about different ecosystems.

And I related having just finished my conservation biology class.

There is a flower there that smells like chocolate.  And a plant that smells like lemons.

I need these for my yard.

Need.

After Red Butte Garden we went to a park for lunch.

Where we realized Cali's friend had forgotten his lunch so we pulled him over next to us and split up our food.

And I watched as other kids caught on and brought him parts of their lunch.

In the end he had more food than he could eat and no one was hungry.

It made my heart smile to watch these kids looking out for each other.

(And then turning around and fighting over the swings...)

We also got to see a truck bring in a tree for planting at the park.

Tell you what, by the time I got home from the field trip I was dragging.

I laid down and took a solid hour nap.

But how grateful I am for the day I got to spend with Cali.  To see her excited about the beauty of the world around us, to see her helping someone in need, to see her laughing and playing with her classmates.

That girl is a whirlwind that leaves me so tired, but man alive I love her to the moon and back.

Some Days.

Cali asks, "Mom, what did you check for my field trip?  Sack lunch or school lunch?"
"I don't remember."
"Because I got a note that said you checked sack lunch."

...

Yesterday my group project for English got turned in.  And I made it through my biology final.  I made The Man take me out to dinner to celebrate the end of a hard semester.

"What am I supposed to do with all of these flashcards now that biology is over?  I can't decide if I should keep them or burn them."
To which Tayler suggested I sell them for $25... each.
"Girls, that was a pack of 300 index cards and I used almost all of them..."
After some discussion of math Brynn blurts out, "That's $7500!  You better buy me something with that money."

So I guess if anyone's interested...

...

Because what else are you supposed to do with a half deflated balloon?

Mint Green Vs. Turquoise Blue. Woman Colors Vs. Man Colors.

I bought The Man a new shirt on Saturday.  He hates clothes shopping but needs new clothes; I happen to love clothes shopping so it works out well.

He even wore it for date night.  (Warm Bodies was surprisingly better than we thought it would be, wuzzup dollar movie score).  We were sitting at dinner and I told him again that I really liked his shirt, it was a good find.  He looks back at me and says, "We match."

What?

"No we don't, we're not even wearing the same colors."

We've had this conversation before, but it was about decorating color schemes.

Remember this chart?

So I say, "I'm wearing mint green.  You're wearing turquoise blue."  I even throw in the "green" and "blue" to help him out.

And he says, "but it's the same color."

"No.  Green (finger pointing at my chest).  Blue (finger pointing at his chest)."

"You are not wearing green.  That's totally blue."

"No way."

"Yours is the same shade of blue that mine is."

The pictures are high quality cell phone pictures, but obviously the difference between mint green (coupled with navy blue) is not the same as turquoise (coupled with gray).  While the guys are squinting at the screen trying to see a difference, can I get a, "um hum," from the girls in the house?

Um hum.

Monster Tag vs. Playing Kitties

Sean, in his deepest, roughest, commercial announcer voice approached the girls, who were sitting together, and booms, "Who wants to play monster tag?!?"

To which the girls politely replied, "Do you want to play kitties?"

A persuasive conversation ensued for a minute between Sean and his sisters and then a collective agreement was made.

But before you say, "Poor Sean," as people always do,

Let me reply with, as I always do, don't go feeling too bad for that boy. He knows how to hold his own.

The conversation continued, with kittens in hand, "I need an evil lair. And I need a citizen kitten to kidnap so a super hero kitten can be called to rescue it."

And thus the game proceeded, evil lairs, damsels in distress, super heroes and all.

A side note: Cali was overheard discussing the names of the kittens she was playing with, a white one and a gray one.

"This one is named Snowball, and this one is named Dirty Snowball."

Blue Eyed Beads {A Giveaway!}

This morning.

Oh this blessed morning when I tromped onto campus at the lovely hour of 6:30 for the last time.

For this semester anyway.  I'll be back with classes on campus come fall, but for the summer I'm sticking strictly to online classes.

We play too much in the summer to commit to a class on campus.

The sunrise had just breached the mountains and the dawn of the new morning was brilliant and euphoric as I thought,

"I am done."

I still have finals looming on Monday but my physical, "get your butt there" class is finished.

My friends, this calls for a celebration!

One of my more popular giveaways gets to make a return visit today, and I can't wait to get this rolling!

A huge shout out to Blue Eyed Beads for giving us another chance to win one of their necklaces.

Here's some of my favorites:

I seriously want them all.  I have five girls, I can justify this, right?

And get this, she does necklaces for us Moms too:

 And Mommy Daughter matching sets:

So let's celebrate the end of my semester!
Let's celebrate warmer weather!
Let's celebrate cute necklaces on cute girls!

Are you ready?

I get to give the "A Day At The Zoo" necklace away (thanks for everyone's opinions on facebook and instagram on which necklace I should choose for this giveaway!):

I want to stir up more exposure for Blue Eyed Beads; the necklaces are adorable and good quality.  So for this giveaway I'm going to ask for the obligatory follows on facebook (wink wink) but also to share the word about Blue Eyed Beads.  I've created every way I can think of to spread the word as entries for this giveaway.  Check out their page here, they have so many cute things.

This giveaway will be open until Wednesday, May 8th at 11:59 pm.  I'll announce a winner next Thursday (May 9th) in the morning.

a Rafflecopter giveaway

May the odds be ever in your favor, but if they're not, you can always go buy one.

(Just a disclaimer that I don't receive any bribes compensation for writing these posts about Blue Eyed Beads.  I just really love them (the family and the necklaces) that much.  All Blue Eyed Beads necklaces in my house were purchased simply because we are complete fans of them.)