Ceci's Birthday Tea Party

Yesterday we had a birthday tea party for Ceci. It was the only day that worked for us in a six week period, and unfortunately the majority of our guests could not make it! Fortunately we had three of our favorite people there, and Ceci got her #1 wish...to be the center of attention for her party.

Geoff was Ceci's designated butler (he wore a suit at her request, and it was 95 degrees out!) And he played the role of "hat maker". Eat was a custom fit.

At your service.

Time for tea! I'll have a quiche, please.

Ceci's guests were (left to right): her mother, Tennie, Kylie Joerger, Adele, Morgan Baldridge, Cindy Joerger, and Mormor

The following pictures show Ceci in all her attention-getting glory...












It is good to be seven.

Farm Stand Revisited

Picking the produce, lugging it to the street, waiting for interested customers (Only 3 in 2 hours!), and giving all the money to Mormor (except for $2 in tips which they added to our "spare change" jar...working toward giving a Kiva loan). They experience a tough day in business.

Ceci is SEVEN!

I'm pretty sure Ceci will go off to college and I'll still picture her as a toothless 3-year-old. I deceive myself into thinking she is staying small, and that I'll always be able to carry her around. But then I see a picture from our year in France when she really was 3-years-old and I stare in amazement at how big she is now. Has she really changed that much during this so-called transition time? And then this past week it happened. A big adult tooth broke through and began to grow in the beautiful space that has been there for three years. I'll miss that toothless grin. Luckily she has her other big tooth to lose...that buys me a little more "little" time.

We had a great day celebrating Ceci. We took muffins to art class where the girls showed off their guinea pigs, painted, and then ran and played with the other kids for a long while.

After lunch we had her birthday treasure hunt and were first interrupted mid clue when we found a sick mallard duck sitting on our driveway. We tried to corral it, catch it, and finally settled for getting it to rest in a shady spot. Next we found a rat who was unfortunate enough to live in our garage and eat our poison, and it lay dying from desperate dehydration. Tennie ran to get it water, and was quite upset to see another living creature die. Geoff kindly removed it to its blackberry bush grave. After much delay, and amazing patience on Ceci's party, we opened the treasure of many presents. After that we went out for some gelato.


It was 104 degrees outside so Ceci went straight for the nearby fountains. Tennie joined in. Adele thought of the long car ride home and declined.


Geoff and the girls rode a little train.


Ceci came home and played Barbies with Geoff (quite fun to listen to) while I made some pizzas and salad, and Geoff's mom made a delicious lemon creme pie (Ceci's birthday request). Yum!

Ceci literally dove right in!

Ceci is pure sunshine in my life. I am so grateful for the privilege of being her mom. Seven great years...and looking forward to many great years to come!

Geoff is 40 today!

Geoff and I celebrated his birthday by going to Santa Cruz for the weekend. We haven't been away together in over three years so it was a real treat. (Geoff's parents watched the girls.)

We stayed in a little dive right on the beach where we went to sleep and woke up (all night) to the lullaby of seals. We spent most of the time at the beach, and at a little vegan/raw restaurant we discovered the first day and returned to four times! Tasty!

Geoff took a 2-hour surf lesson and did amazingly well!

The beginner class started on very tiny waves, but Geoff managed to get up most of the time. He wished he could take lessons for a week straight to really get the hang of it, and try bigger waves.



Here is to many birthdays at the beach to come!

Have you seen the Kid History movies? My cousin's husband and his brothers make these, and they have become quite popular. The latest one is about their super healthy mom and got an extra, knowing laugh around our house.

(My cousin's husband is the mom...)

New pets!

Friday we went to the Auburn County Fair to see the guinea pigs (Tennie and Ceci had guinea pig fever). We stopped in to see the cows, goats and pigs too.



Saturday the girls worked all day cleaning out the bunny hutches and preparing for new critters.

A little sawing to the bunny box created a new little hide-out

And then a trip to the pet store...

Ceci's Benjamin

Tennie's Louis (Louie)

Adele's guinea pig is elated to have new friends, and they are handled, bathed, fed, and socialized as much as new guinea pigs could be.

Let me say that these pets (aside from Kipper, our dog) are 100% taken care of and paid for by the girls, from hutches to hay. They are very careful pet owners!

How do they get enough money? Allowance. Starting at age three they got a quarter a week, and they get a quarter raise each year (Ceci is now at a $1 a week). And then there are the foot rubs for sale, commissioned paintings, and occasional farm stands. They feel jipped with their assigned tooth fairy (other tooth fairies are sooo much more generous), but have grandparents that come up with a lot of extra jobs (cleaning grandpa's house is extremely profitable). Somehow they scrounge up enough to get what they want.

Welcome Benjamin and Louie!

Back to School Party

On Monday night we had our Back To School Party, and this week we've been inching into a little more structured learning. We have a busy fall planned, and the girls are excited about all the action. I sort of like simpler days staying home, but those days may be harder to come by as the girls get older!

Our party theme was Every Day I'll Do My Best (inspired by a picture on nieniedialogues)

Oh, I forgot to mention that Rapunzel stopped in...

Tennie made cake pops

And Rapunzel thought the lemon was sour...

Our Life is a Story...

Geoff's sister Emily recently sent this personal experience to us. It is just too good not to share...

I just finished reading a book called A Million Miles in a Thousand Years that talks about our life being a story. Some people live a bad story, most live an average story and some live a really memorable story. The reason most live an average story is because we naturally seek comfort and safety and security, which often leads to going through the motions but not really living. Those who chose to live a memorable story aren't afraid of a little risk; going outside of their comfort zone to do, feel, or see something memorable. There is a lot more to his premise, but that's the gist of it.

So I started thinking about my life and what kind of a story I'm living. I think I'm living a pretty good story; I've let myself feel and live and love and the good and bad that have come from that. But I do often retreat toward the comfortable instead of venturing in to the unknown because it's comfortable and I'm a bit of a control freak.

I finished the book on Wednesday night and decided Bailey (her six-year-old daughter) and I needed a little adventure that took us out of our comfort zone. So we decided to take TRAX (commuter train) into downtown SLC, meet Nikki (another of Geoff's sisters) and go have a picnic lunch at the Gallivan center where they have outdoor concerts everyday at noon. Bailey and I decided we would dress up like tour guides, riding the train into Paris. I put a silk scarf around my neck and after deciding her fairy outfit and purple wings were too itchy (and not French tour guidey, but I wasn't saying anything...) she decided on a scarf in her hair and we set off. My french is pretty rusty and Bailey's is limited to bonjour and merci, so instead of only speaking in French, we decided to pass out lollipops to everyone we met.

Once we got going, we walked the length of the train and started passing out lollipops. It was amazing. People went from distant and down, to smiling and aware. Some gave us a confused look and said no, but most people smiled and said yes. Then they started chatting with us and each other and we looked back and the whole train was full of people eating lollipops. Bailey realized how much fun it was, and as soon as a new person got on the train, she would walk down and give them a sucker. We passed them out all the way to downtown. When we got off the train and were waiting at the light to cross the street and go meet Nikki, Bailey handed one to a business man waiting next to us. He turned to her and said, "I don't take candy from strangers". She just stared at him. Then he smiled, said, "just kidding", and took the sucker. So she gave one to his friend too. She passed them out all the way to Nikki's office and to everyone in the lobby.

Nikki came down, we chatted with Chad and Jared (fellow lawyers), Bailey gave them suckers too, went and got lunch, and headed to the Gallivan center. We were disappointed to find, after walking three long blocks, that there wasn't any music that day, just a band on stage doing a sound check. So we hung out, ate, chatted about this book and making life more of a memorable story, and then got ready to leave. We made a potty stop, and when we walked out of the bathroom, we noticed we were right off the stage and the door was open. Bailey said she wanted to give a sucker to the band rehearsing on stage, so we walked on and started passing them out. They loved it. Bailey gave one to the drummer and in exchange, he gave her a set of his drumsticks then asked her if she wanted to play the drums a little! The band manager took a picture and was getting Nikki's email address to send it to her while Bailey and I finished passing out suckers to everyone else on stage. The manager told Nikki, "she just got drum sticks from BB King's drummer!" They were warming up for a big concert that night; I had forgotten that BB King was in town and we had no clue it was his band when we went on stage!

We had passed the Church Administration Building earlier in the day and I was telling Bailey that it is where President Monson and the Apostles work. As we were walking back to Nikki's office, Bailey asked if we could give President Monson a sucker. We stopped in to Nikki's office to get some band-aids (I was getting a blister from all this walking around...) and President Monson's son Tom walked into Nikki's office! Bailey gave him a sucker, we explained her desire to give one to his dad, he said security wouldn't let us up there but that he was going up there tomorrow for Pres. Monson's birthday party, and he would take one to him, so Bailey gave him her very last sucker, to give to his dad. I asked him to tell the prophet that a little girl from Riverton says Happy Birthday. He said he would.

After a quick stop at the Planetarium, we rode home on the train, giggling about what a fun day we had.

And of course, upon hearing our story during dinner, Mike's first comment was, "let's see how much we can hock those drumsticks for on ebay".....

Last weekend my dad was in the hospital again. With a terminally ill loved one there is always the chance it might be time to say goodbye. I knew of a family driving to Utah Monday and quickly threw a bag together and was off again. My dad, to the happy surprise of doctors and family, responded incredibly well to a drug that is part of a study has been a part of for the past year or so. After several days at the hospital he was ready to return home, and I flew back knowing he was well, and taken care of.

The night before I left Geoff and Tennie went outside to check on Tennie's bunnies and to Tennie's great horror they were both dead from the long day of heat. Tennie has been so diligent these past two summers in keeping them cool with frozen water bottles and spray bottles, but this particular day must of been too much. They didn't share a cage and it was so peculiar they both died together. Tennie was devastated, and felt their loss so profoundly. I missed the touching funeral Tennie organized with a little song and prayer, a tribute, each person said something they remembered about them, everyone wrote a note to put in their box, Mormor read a quote that there would be animals in heaven, and then they placed the bunnies box into a grave she and Geoff had dug and cleared of debris. Everyone took turns shoveling some dirt over the box, Tennie sprinkled rose petals over the mound, and poured the bunnies remaining water bottle water over the petals. It was very ceremonial, and cute little Tennie is still feeling the pain deep in her heart.

While I was gone we had a visit from our friends from Boston, the Shumways. To say I was disappointed to miss them is a huge understatement! Lucky Geoff and the girls got to spend the whole day soaking up their delightful presence.



Yesterday we spent a few hours at the river, trying to squeeze out the last warm days of summer vacation. Tuesday we rev up for a new school year!

Sonoma with Mormor

Geoff's mom took Tennie on a special trip to Sonoma a few weeks ago. They biked through the vineyards...


...and gave themselves spa treatments.


They stayed at a quaint little Victorian Bed & Breakfast.


And stopped to admire an old California Mission.


They enjoyed a walk around the main square of Sonoma, stopping in each little shop.


This ice cream shop saw them twice!


Tennie had the pool to herself, and Mormor got to sit down and rest for a moment!


And they ate a LOT of really good food.


Tennie has been bringing up their fun adventures ever since. A very happy memory.