March Ramblings

Where are you Spring?

Wow, I can't believe tomorrow is the 15th of March---the days are flying by! And that's okay, as long as we get to have SPRING soon and then I'd like time to slow down for awhile so I can enjoy it. I forgot how very much I DO NOT LIKE this time of year in Mink Creek-----everything is mud colored---mud on the snow, mud on the roads, mud in the gravel, mud on my porch, mud on my car, mud on my carpet-----everything is tinged with a lovely brown color! Of course, those 'spring' tulips may have to have their 'spring' in July by the time the 7 feet of snow melt off my flower beds! I guess we might have to go out there and help the snow melt or move or something so that we can see if there is actually life under there!

We had a wonderful trip to Cedar City at the beginning of the month. The purpose of the trip was to attend the Southern Utah String Festival (yes, my kids were thinking....another one!?!) In my efforts to consolidate trips, schedules, etc., I thought it would be great if we started our trip at 6:30 in the morning so that we could drop Joseph off at Driver's Ed for an hour, proceed to Logan to do violin/bass/viola lessons, tour the Draper Temple, visit my sister, and get to Cedar City in time for dinner. You'd think I'd learn that things do not just fall into place and that there has to be a catch to it if it does seem that things are working out!

The first 'catch' was that I was absolutely dead on Thursday night and then Jacob had a very bad cold and wouldn't sleep, so I held and rocked him until about 12:30 that night. Then I thought I'd put in a load of wash before I took a 2 hour nap and realized that I'd forgotten to wash everyone's Sunday clothes and that we'd need them washed and pressed for the Temple Open House and the String Festival. So, the 2 hour nap was scatched and instead marathon washing, ironing and packing went into effect.

The second 'catch' came when I started loading things in the car. I was quite impressed with my 'compact' packing of everyone's stuff in their backpacks. But......I forgot one very important thing! We had to take the Bass with us to Cedar City.....argh! Why did I let Samuel play this instrument anyway? So we got to repack the car, and cram everybody into the left over space. Ben had to sit with his neck crooked to one side so it didn't hit the Bass scroll and I think Samuel had to hold my suitcase on his lap all the way to Cedar City.......but I kept reminding him when he protested------'You could be holding that Bass on your lap, ya know!'

The third 'catch' came when my two darling boys let their violin/viola teacher's dog out of the house to play with him----that is, until they lost interest and got back in the car as the dog ran away. So....instead of a well-timed exit from lessons, we spent 30 minutes looking for the dog, which ended up being in the backyard-----go figure!

So, the fourth 'catch' came when we realized we weren't going to make it to the Open House at the time we had tickets for. A quick phone call to my sister assured us that we'd probably be okay to change our clothes at her house first and then head over to the temple. It did work out okay----yey! The only catch came when we boarded the buses at the chapel to go to the temple---somehow Jeff, Jacob and Joseph did not make it on the bus, so we had to wait for them at the entrance to the Temple. This would have been al well and good, except for the fact that there were a couple of picketers right on the entrance that we had to stand next to in order to watch for Jeff and his crowd. Benjamin, Samuel and David were coming a little unraveled when they read the 'classy' signs of the picketers, such as "josephlied.com." It was all I could do to hold them back from belting them one. The nice usher handing out brochures, could see my predicament as I held on to them and came to my rescue when he asked the boys to pass out the brochures as everyone entered the tent. David was quite ecstatic! Our little group finally got together and we preceded into the Temple. As I looked at the brochure, I noticed it said, 'silent tour.' I winced and wondered how 'silent' we could keep everyone. Actually it turned out better then expected and the boys were quite taken with the beauty and peace of the Temple. Joseph echoed our thoughts as he said on the ride back to Mary's, "I think that was worth the time and effort it took to go." (He'd kept remarking on the way down that it wasn't worth the time and effort it was taking.)

The fifth 'catch' came as we hit Fillmore on the way down to Cedar City in the form of a Spring blizzard..........what?!? I thought there were a few 'snow flurries' predicted for Friday night. I tried to help poor Jeff out with the driving, but at this point I was having a hard time just staying awake from my 36 hour marathon of no sleep for the past 2 days! The lovely white sheets of snow lasted into Cedar City. When we called Mom to see if she needed anything she said, "I'm not sure if it's snowing on the mountain---maybe a little." Well, as we drove down the drive to her house and looked down at her driveway-----it had definitely snowed more then 'a little'. In fact, it snowed so much that we were snowed in the next morning and had to cancel our times to perform at the String Festival. Fortunately, they were kind enough to let us come in the afternoon, AFTER the snow plow dug us out!

Despite all the 'catches' in our well-laid plan, we had a great trip----the boys played great for Grandmother and Papa Joe and at the Festival, Grandmother spoiled us with wonderful food and Easter treats, the boys had a great time shoveling snow (even though we broke the Snow Blower....again!!!.....sorry, papa Joe!), Joseph watched non-stop soccer on TV and we had a wonderful Sunday meal prepared by Grandmother and Papa Joe (assisted by David, Samuel, Benjamin and Joseph) before heading back to Idaho. And, of course, we timed the trip perfectly so that we had a 'white-out' storm on the way back home as well. We've definitely needed the week to recover!

Just a couple of other events of Feb-March that I haven't covered were Samuel and Benjamin's amazing Basketball playoff games. Each boys' team won the 'title' for their age division. Benjamin's team even went undefeated all season-----go Ben and Sam---you were awesome! Benjamin has also reached 515 AR points and earned his Honors reader jewel---way to go Ben! David got his 25 AR point goal and Samuel is reading up a storm as well. Ben also received his Bear in Cub Scouting this month and Samuel received his Second-Class rank in Scouting.

Joseph, by some miracle, was able to finally get into Driver's Ed and so he is enjoying getting up at 5:00 every morning so he can be in for the 7:00 class. This wouldn't be so bad except for he has driver training after school and is in the middle of intense Play rehearsals every night until 7:00-8:00. He had to perform at District Solo Festival 2 weeks ago and this past week he was involved in the Bridgerland Honor Festival Orchestra that rehearsed intensely for 3 days in Logan (Joseph was the Concertmaster----whoo hoo!). In the midst of this craziness, track has started, and he is in deep depression that he can't attend the first meet because there is NO TIME to even go to practice. He's had Ballroom dance performances and this week he has his Board of Review for his Eagle (yey!! he's finally getting this done!). I really hope this last month is not a preview of Joseph's life for the rest of his High School days----I think this is what they call being a bit OVERSCHEDULED!