All That JAZZ!

Geoff's assistant at work heard of some free Jazz tickets up for grabs and grabbed five for us!  Last night we walked to the game and the girls danced and screamed for the entire night earning an extended spot on the big screen above the court!  You can imagine their excitement about that.  Good times.

To bad the Jazz stink...

Great Books

When my dad and his wife moved from their large home we inherited their complete collection of Easton Press's Great Books.  They've been boxed up until now.  We unloaded them this past week during a spurt of energy and Tennie squealed with excitement.  

She read Grimm's Fairy Tales and Cyrano de Bergerac in two days!  Lot's of good literature in our future.

We also got their baby grand piano which has been stored here in Utah these past four years.  Hopefully we'll get that in the next few weeks.  We're hoping that its presence will ignite some kind of desire to play in the girls as I'm not interested in forcing a musical instrument!  I'm hoping to hone my meager skills too.

The girls sang in the Relief Society of our apartment building's ward (no children in that ward) this morning.  The ward meets in the Joseph Smith Memorial Building which is by far the most beautiful meeting house I've ever seen!  This is the view from the Relief Society room:

The priesthood meets in a room with large paintings of the presidents of the church around the room, and a large statue of Brigham Young out the window.  This is all in addition to the beautiful architecture of the historic building.  

We took the underground tunnel to get there.  I wanted to take a picture of the girls inside of it because it looks a little like a science fiction gateway to outer space, but Adele warned me that security might confiscate my camera so I decided not to.

Under the Weather

After Valentine's Day all five of us got knocked completely out of commission by a nasty and stubborn cold.  We were in bed all through the long weekend, and were still moving slowly all this past week.  Not fun.

Adele and Ceci set up a second bedroom on the couch anticipating a few days of rest.

We had a small arsenal of natural remedies, and drank endless cups of lemon, ginger and honey tea.  Usually we kick a cold in a day or two with this strategy but nothing seemed to help.

The girls were up and ready to go days before Geoff and I wanted to move.  One morning Tennie made pancakes for us.

Look at that presentation with the girls initials!

But we're on the mend now and tomorrow we'll be off and running at full speed.

Valentine's Day

We had a lot of Valentine hoopla this year.  Last year we found some small $1 mailboxes at Target that were a big hit for passing notes and goodies.  This year the kids wanted them outside their rooms like real mailboxes so they rigged them up a few weeks ago.  I turned a blind eye on the tape and focused on the purpose - sending love notes.  I love seeing the girls pass along little notes telling each other how much they admire and appreciate each other.  A sure Valentine's tradition has been born.

Geoff and I don't have mailboxes but we still got little notes on our pillows.  Here are a few of Adele's notes.  

Last night the girls really wanted to Heart Attack the doors of some of the nice people we've met in this building.  They also really wanted to Heart Attack President Monson's door (the prophet of our church who lives in this same building) but when I called security they preferred us not to.  Awww.  We did Heart Attack Elder Oaks and his wife.  Our parking spot is right next to their parking spot and we run in to Sister Oaks all the time.  She is very friendly.  We did about 7 doors total.  It was a very exciting night sneaking around and not getting caught.

A short while later the doorbell rang about 4 times in a row.  The girls raced to the door...

Sister Oaks doorbell ditched us!  She left a bag of candies on the door (torn off before I got a picture) and a bag with a fun math game.  The girls were so excited that someone thought of us for Valentine's Day.

Today we had some home-school friends over for a writing class (they wrote love tragedies from the fun book Don't Forget to Write) and instead of our planned math games we ended up running relay races in the hall for an hour and a half.  You heard it right - an hour and a half!  A lot of pent up winter energy was released today.  Thank goodness our neighbors love hearing kids because I'm sure they heard them today!

Most of the girls stayed all afternoon playing games and dressing up.

Tennie, Sunny, Adele, Ceci, Nora, Hannah, Chloe and Anja

Hope your Valentine's Day was full of LOVE!

Hawaiian Birthday

Saturday night we celebrated Geoff's sister's birthday, Hawaiian style.  We had a Hawaiian dinner, a limbo competition, and a hula demonstration by the birthday girl herself.  It is always a good time getting together with this great group of Davis siblings.

Emily, the birthday girl, is one of the coolest people I know.  Her faith and strength of character is absolutely astounding.  She just had twins a few months ago and continues to amaze me with her do-what-you've-got-to-do attitude, her organization, her style, her humor, her capacity to reach out to others, and her rock-solid perspective on life.  I am so grateful to know her and be a part of her life.

Emily can really do a mean hula!  Unfortunately most of the pictures were even worse than this one.

Up to Date

This is the last batch of random pictures to bring this blog up to date.

We have met some really kind people in our building.  They are genuinely thrilled to have kids running in the halls (we're the only family with kids).  One family invited the girls over to make gingerbread houses with their grand-kids.  This was a few days after moving in and the girls were elated to have a break from moving mayhem, and to be with other kids doing something for Christmas.  In true form we even got a little Christmas program.

 

We've had a lot of fun in the snow, and we've had a lot of snow since we've been here!

Little does Tennie know that Adele is about to plant a large snowball to the side of her head...

We have been trying to go to explore Salt Lake each Friday afternoon.  So far, due to weather, we've only hit museums.  Our favorite exhibit was the Da Vinci exhibit with replicas and explanations of all of his inventions and art.  What a fascinating man!

 

One day, when it was 32 degrees outside, we opened all of the windows to air out the house, and Tennie and Adele sat outside to paint the capitol.  It felt balmy!

And little winter poetry and painting...

And still lots of silliness.

Ceci wore this around town all day.  Many people admired her "third eye".

Adele's Fashion Birthday Party

Adele's 11th birthday came at a time when we were just recovering from the funeral and she didn't have any friends, yet.  But she still wanted a birthday party and some celebratory hoopla so we invited Geoff's four sisters that live in the area, and Babs, and told them to dress fancy for a Fashion Birthday Party.  It turned out to be so much fun.

When each guest arrived Adele did their eye make-up with bright blues and purples, and embellished with small diamond stickers and glitter.  Then we ate a light lunch.  Adele was especially excited about the pink lemonade bottles with the Eiffel Tower.

One aunt had no problem dressing fancy...

After lunch and cupcakes we sat down to demonstrate our fashion design skills.  Each of us put a few fashion themes in a bowl, like 'evening gown' or 'summer party dress' or 'work-out clothes'.  Adele then drew out a theme and we all had to create it.  We did four rounds, I think.  We shared our designs and hung them on the wall.

Next we divided into four (very small) groups with a kid in each group.  Each group had a bag of the same items: tulle, cellophane, mesh ribbon, and a toilet paper roll (some groups used some left-over plastic tablecloth).  Each group had 10 minutes to create something fabulous for their kid to model in the final fashion show.

Adele then opened all sorts of fun birthday presents.  Some design books, fashion sticker books, Paris notepads, a wire Eiffel Tower...she was in heaven.

Later the kids played with all of the left-over tulle and Adele came out with an awesome-looking veil.  She looked too cute to not take a few pictures.

Having had an eleven-year-old once already I was pretty sad about this birthday.  A transformation takes place during this year from child to young woman.  Suddenly my children feel very slippery, like I won't be able to hold on much longer.

Adele is such a beautiful human being.  She is sensitive and compassionate.  She is adoring and verbally affectionate.  She is disciplined and exact.  She is persistent, organized, and dependable.  She is artistic and athletic.  She has been a delightful child and will be a magnificent young woman.  It is absolutely my privilege to be her mother.

A Celebration of Life

My dad was a showman, and every show he put on was full of laughter and stories, and one always went home wanting to be a better person.  We wanted to put on his last "show". 

We chose not to use the word funeral - too sad.  We called it "A Celebration of Life".  We had about 25-30 pictures of my dad's life blown up to poster size hanging down the church hall.  There were three long tables loaded with paraphernalia - the first was titled "Professional Life", the second was titled, "Family Life" and the third, "Personal Life".  I wish I had taken some pictures.  Here are a few of the pictures, though, that lined the hallway:

I didn't end up with any of the pictures of him and his wife, Babs.  There were lots of those too.

The chapel service had been created by my dad before his death.  His brother, a professional friend and Babs spoke, and Mitch, Nate and I stood together at the microphone taking turns talking about things we had remembered or learned from him.  All were full of stories and jokes and laughter.  It was so much fun.  There were also three amazing musical numbers.  By dad would have LOVED it.

After, we all moved back to the social hall where we had tables set up with Bronco decor and had chocolate chip cookies and milk and root beer floats, both of my dad's favorites.  And we had an open mic where people could come share their stories about my dad.  We limited it to an hour and a half - it could have gone on much longer.

One of my dad's STARS lives in Seattle and has these three beautiful daughters.  We would visit them every time my dad was in town.  The whole family came to the funeral and the three 'big' sisters took great delight in our three 'small sisters'.

Afterward my dad's surviving brothers and their wives, and our immediate family, gathered for dinner and more memories.  We all processed the day together.

I knew that my dad was a well-loved man, and that he had changed the lives of thousands of people, but I still marveled at how devoted they were to him.  Hundreds flew in for the funeral, and hundreds took the time to share their memories on a Facebook page called Howard Brinton's Legacy.   They were from all stages of his life.  At the funeral I met my dad's childhood friends and high-school buddies that I heard about growing up, softball team members from Colorado drove over, one of his YM from his early days as a youth leader, his competitors in the industry who were all close friends came, hundreds of his STARS, etc.  It was overwhelming and beautiful to see the outcome of a life of good works.

Thankfully these people expressed this love and devotion before my dad died.  Friends were always flying to Utah to take him to dinner, or on little road trips full of adventures, arranging for a personal chef when he became to weak to be his own, making videos and showing them at various conventions where my dad would be present, throwing big birthday parties for him and all flying in to celebrate with him - he knew he had made a difference.

And then life goes on for all of us.  Strange how one man's amazingly successful mortal journey comes to an end and the rest of us wake up, make breakfast and go on with our busy lives.  But one thing is for certain, everyone who attended his "last show" went on with their lives wanting to be a little more like Howard Brinton.