Happy Brithday to . . . me!

On Monday I turned 26. Pretty crazy. I look at my life and really it's pretty much how I figured things would work out. Granted, I wasn't planning on living in Texas and having a husband still in grad school but I'll take it.

I spent my birthday cooking and doing some minor picking up. In Provo there is a fantastic little Mexican fast food place with a great vibe. It is always busy. A few years ago I got recipes copying a few of their signature items. Now I can have Cafe Rio anytime I want, so Sunday the pork and black beans went in to cook. By Monday we had lovely Pork Barbacoa, with black beans, cilantro rice and the creamy tomatillo dressing. Yum. We washed it down with a great Boston Cream Pie. I love good food so it was a great birthday meal.

Hyrum surprised me with a fancy diploma frame for my diploma. It's something that I wanted but would never have bought so that was a really great present. Now my diploma looks nice in its new home. We just have to get Hyrum some for his diplomas so they can all look nice and fancy together. Hannah gave me a little piggy bank to save my pennies in. And Jonathan just smiled a lot. It was a good day.

I am so grateful to have my family. I love Hyrum and the kids so much. The Lord has greatly blessed us with more things than we could ever define. I look forward to another year of adventures. Hopefully I can be wiser, not just older by this time next year.

Racoons, Opossums, and Skunks, oh my!

I've been running in the mornings for almost a year now, well eight months, and I see an amazing amount of wildlife. Sometimes it's scary. This morning I came across not one, but two skunks. Luckily they were going the opposite direction I was. The last time I saw one, I almost had a tomato bath when I got home.

Then, on my way home saw a little critter scurry across the road. At firt I thought it was cat or raccoon. We have no shortage of either one of those. It was a opossum though. I have always wanted to see one those, alive. They are really about as ugly as they are alive though the light was bad. Considering they are nocturnal though I don't think I'll ever get better light.

I kind of wish all of the critters knew that they should be back in their beds by 5:30 am, in time for me to get out of mine. Hopefully, I get to keep seeing them from a distance, a great distance.

Rumblings

I noticed the other day that our blog has become more of a travel log. Maybe that is for the best but I would like to share a bit of me.

As a kid I loved books. I loved being transported to another world or time or both. I could see the action of a story within my mind and get so engrossed that time seemed to fly by without me. There were several occasions when I was suppose to be cleaning the bathroom and instead of cleaning the toilet I was sitting on the seat cover with a book in my face. My mom hidden more than one story from me and I didn't get them back until my chores were finished. I remember reading a good mystery on a summer night with my lights on and jumping from fright when the June bugs flew into the screen on my window.

These simple pleasures were something I wanted to give someone. To be a novelist was my dream. It was a dream I carried with me through the years. Sometimes it was buried under other concerns or interests but it never got thrown out. My senior year of college I took a couple creative writing classes and loved them. My grades weren't stellar but I figured that with time I could work something out that would knock the socks off a publisher.

As more time went by, I realized that I probably wouldn't blow away the literary world. I certainly wouldn't be a J.K. Rowling. or Stephanie Meyer. Finally after sitting down to work on my novel in the works about a year and a half ago I realized that I would never be a novelist. I am a lecturer, not a creator of fiction. I could never tell good stories, or even attempt comedy. I have come to the realization that I am a researcher. I love the thought of sitting down in a quite library, in a hard chair and a pile of books. I love thinking about writing with a pencil and making notes. I love the smell of such an environment.

Talk about self-discovery. I think this must happen through out our lives. It doesn't diminish who we are but helps us become the best we can be as ourselves.

Now I just have to find time to sit in that library with books for hours so I can finish a couple research papers.

Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year

Hannah in her new Christmas dress.

We had a wonderful Christmas. We stayed here in our little place to celebrate. Christmas Eve we enjoyed a wonderful and quiet meal with our family and a few friends. We talked about the Nativity story and let Hannah and Jonathan play with nativity pieces. Hannah loves the baby Jesus piece. They opened their traditional Christmas pajamas and off to bed.

Hannah and Jonathan modeling their new pajamas.

Santa visited our place and left some goods for both Hannah and Jonathan. Then we spent a little time opening presents. The kids finally got to open and play with the car mat I spent three months sewing. They love it and boy and I glad. We enjoyed a pretty lax day here and then on the 26th we whisked up to Allen for a week.

Kids on the car mat.

Hyrum's birthday is the 29 th so we spent that day doing birthday stuff. We literally took all day too. One of the Wright family tradition is the magical birthday. It just happened that this year was Hyrum's, he turned 29 on the 29th. So he opened one present every half hour. He started at about 7 in the morning and finished at 9:30 pm. At one point his mom added a bell to the ritual and he rang the bell before he opened every present. It was pretty fun. I tried a new cake recipe. It was like a big chewy chocolate raspberry brownie. I enjoyed it. I think I ate about 1/2 of it.

Are you sure it's not too heavy?

It was nice to be with family with and we went bowling (a tradition from my family). We missed Nate and his family but we're glad Josh came. Everyone had a good time bowling. Jonathan was so mad that we didn't give him a chance to bowl so we added him into our second game but then he was mad that he could only thrown a ball on his turn. It was great fun.

Jonathan's turn (He almost had the best score)

We came home on the second and we're back into real life. It was great to have a break and especially since Hyrum had the entire month of December off work. Now he has hit the ground running with some important milestones with school and a new job. I'm so proud of him.

Happy New Year to all and though I don't believe in them, good luck in all your resolutions and may this year be better than the last.

What's Up?

It's been a little while. Since our last post a lot has happened. It's been a busy few weeks.

We spent Thanksgiving up at the Wright's. We had a great time. It certainly started off with a bang though. We were there twenty minutes when Jonathan fell and split his cheek just below his eye. The cut was about 1/2 inch wide so we went and saw a doctor friend and luckily he was able to glue his cheek together right then. Other than that it was pretty uneventful. We got to spend time with Hyrum's parents and sister Rachel. Hyrum had a great time : ) wheelbarrowing dirt around their back yard and assisting the tiling of the bathroom floor. I had some time to work on Christmas Projects and just chill. I had plenty of food requests that I obliged to make sure they would let us come again. We were certainly busy.

One of Jonathan's favorite things to do right now is climb on our table. He thinks that is his play area. I have to get him down or at least hold the chairs around the table 7-10 times a day to keep him from getting up there. The day I took the pictures it was cute but mostly it drives me crazy. He is starting into the frustrated toddler phase of life. He has started throwing temper tantrums when I tell him no.

Jonathan also started waking up between 5:30 and 6:30 am and just cries. If I go get him though he will sleep in my arms until 7 or later if I let him. I wish he would just sleep in his bed.

He is such a talker though. A couple weeks ago a friend was watching the kids and when I picked them up she commented that she couldn't believe how vocal he is. Hannah was so quiet as a toddler but Jonathan is always making noise. He loves to talk to us and he is constantly pointing at things and saying something about it.

Hannah is great. She is so silly and fun most of the time. The other day I mentioned the word "roller coaster". She repeated it with question in her voice. It was so cute. It is fun to see her learn new words and new things. She always wants to know what things are and why are they that way or why are they doing that.

At the grocery store she will see little kids and try to talk to them and she will comment about how they are her age. It is so fun to see her growing up. The other day I was struck with how close kindergarten is. It was a pretty scary realization. I don't know if I will be ready for that not to mention her.