Even without BT’s usual morning help (he made an early morning visit to a friend in the hospital), the girls made it to school for their first day. This was a first for us. I’ve NEVER done the first day drop-off, and I definitely don’t have a reputation for being the most helpful or pleasant parent in the morning. After I fed them a quick breakfast of yogurt/granola and fruit smoothie, I made their lunches (including a quick love note), did their hair, snapped some pictures, and drove my sweet girls to school.

Tad was a mess . . . sour about spilling his smoothie, about not being the center of attention, and about the impending loneliness.

I love you, my school girls. Hurry home and tell me all about your adventures. In the meantime, Tad and I will try to not miss you too much.

p.s. Shoot! I just realized that we forgot family prayer. 🙁

Julie B. Beck, former General President of the LDS Relief Society, taught: “Women are like lionesses at the gate of the home.”

When I first heard this quote, I’ll admit that it felt a bit hyperbolic to me; however, over the past few years, I’ve come to find peace and empowerment in her analogy. When I feel guilty about fiercely guarding my family from the good things that monopolize our time and rob us of the better and best things, I remember her remarks, and I don’t feel quite so bad any more.

While unfailingly supporting and sustaining the local leaders of our church, this lioness will continue trying to respectfully and appropriately influence a calendar clear of firesides and mandatory meetings scheduled on the eve of a new school year. It’s always a sad thing when BT walks out the door and misses the last few precious hours of summer vacation and pre-school prep with our kids.

Thankfully, we had enough time this evening for me and the kids to receive special back-to-school priesthood blessings from BT before he had to leave. Sweet Tad beamed as he received the first blessing, and by the time he’d remained reverent for the other three, even his super Spidey Powers couldn’t conquer The Sandman.

After BT left, I painted the girls’ nails, we sipped Vitamix watermelon-lime slushes, and I tackled their traditional first-day-of-school foam roller ‘do’s. Wow! Ariana has a lot of hair!

(Tad’s nap was a short one.)

A year from now, Tad will be headed to Kindergarten and Ariana to high school. If my tears today are any indication, we’d better add flood insurance to our homeowner’s policy. What’s a lioness to do when her cubs have left the den?

In an effort to be more consistent with recording the happenings of our lives for posterity and for our faraway family, I will try to do a periodic post entitled “Wish You Were Here” (WYWH). Perhaps it will just be a boring brain dump, but I’ve been feeling an urgency to write certain experiences down, so hopefully, at the very least, I can sleep easier knowing that I’m following through on that prompting.

And so without further ado . . .

Ariana: Sometimes I worry that Ariana gets lost in the shuffle. Vivi and Tad are younger and seem to demand a lot more parental interaction than Ari. This week, between spending lots of hours planning a birthday party for her; dentist (no cavities), orthodontist (started with rubber bands), and optometrist (got contacts); and school supply shopping, hopefully Ariana will feel way down deep in her gut that she is loved.

Vivi: Vivi is blessed with with an obedient spirit. When I proclaim it to be a nap day, she meekly says, “Yes, ma’am.”  Most days, my sweet early-riser 7-year-old needs a nap, and without it, she’s quite unpleasant and doesn’t abide teasing from Tad well at all. Vivi is also very sensitive about us laughing at her. Today as we parked at church, she said, “this is the same sparking pot as last week.” I chuckled and said that I thought we should call “parking spots” “sparking pots” from now on, but she took offense at the rest of us finding humor in her tongue twister.

Tad: Oh, Tad. He’s a bundle of energy who defies my every request and who can’t keep his hands to himself. He loves to help in the kitchen and be my “tester.” We barely get one meal cleaned up before he is asking for another snack. He also has my acute sense of smell and says the funniest things. Example: Much to the dismay of our kids, we’ve cut back on sweets this past week as we try to detox from our vacation. (The drive back to TX was particularly bad.) BT sneaked some root beer after tucking the girls in but before getting Tad settled in for the night. Here’s the dialogue.

BT: Night, night buddy. I love you.

Tad: I love you too, Dad. What’s that breath smell?

BT: I think it’s toothpaste.

Tad: Naaah. It smells like root beer to me.

Busted!

Lori: One highlight of my week was sewing the buttons on a sweater I knit for Vivian. Woo hoo! I finished a project! It is the first sweater I’ve knit since I was in high school. In addition to the fact that the sweater fits her, I’m also particularly proud of the alterations I made to the pattern (with my mom’s help). We figured out how to add a lace section to the bottom of the sweater. I love the wool/silk yarn I used, but the temperatures will have to cool down a bit before Vivi can wear it. I’m going to make her a simple dress to wear it with.

BT: Maybe BT is as excited about fixing a broken sprinkler yesterday as I am about finishing a sweater, but I honestly can’t say. I love him to death, but he isn’t much of a communicator. I am alarmed that he says he wants to dismantle all of the garden areas in the backyard, and he isn’t composting anymore. For our entire married life, I’ve saved all of the non-meat scraps for his garden . . . until yesterday. He’s just so busy with work and church that he has little time for anything else. It makes me sad, and it makes me feel guilty that I can sneak in a few minutes of my hobbies here and there (mostly as I sit in carpool lanes or doctor’s offices) but he really doesn’t have the time or energy to pursue his. He never complains, though. I also don’t feel super inclined to take on the garden in addition to everything else that falls on my list.

This week was also a transition week for us. It’s hard being back home when I’ve been at my mom and dad’s house for the last month. I miss being around family in the worst way.

After our week of adventure at Philmont Scout Camp, we traveled through beauty (Gunnison, CO) and desolation (middle-of-no-where, UT) to reach family in Utah. We had planned to take our time getting there, but Bryan’s Grandma Jones wasn’t doing very well, and he wanted a chance to visit with her before he flew back to TX, so we made the trip in one day. As an added bonus, Bryan’s mom was in town, and Michelle (Bryan’s sister) and her children were able to meet up with us as well.

Grandma Jones is one of the most pleasant people I’ve ever known, especially considering she is suffering from Alzheimer’s. She always seems to find humor and joy in even the simplest things, and although she probably had no idea who the gaggle of people around her were, she was warm and personable.

Grandma Grace Jones was particularly tickled when she was reminded that two of her great granddaughters carry her name–Ava Grace and Vivi Grace.

Sweet Grandma, we all love you and are grateful for the time we were able to spend with you. Thank you for your example of enduring gracefully and faithfully.

Several months ago when BT told me that he’d signed us up for a week at Philmont Scout Ranch where, with other church leaders this summer, he’d receive training relating to Boy Scouts, Duty to God and other programs aimed at strengthening the young men of the church, I think I muttered a few naughty words under my breath and started to cry. This is my blog and this is America, so I think I’m at liberty to say that I am not a huge supporter of BSA, I am not a camper, and I don’t think that a week-long church meeting is a family vacation.

With less than a stellar attitude but truly doing my very best to be supportive, we drove the 10+ hours to Cimarron, NM. One of the highlights of the trip to Cimarron was stopping at Clayton State Park and were awed by hundreds of dinosaur tracks.

As we rolled into Philmont, so did a huge rain storm. Thankfully, the tents were mostly waterproof because we had rain nearly every day we were there.

BT enjoyed the training he received, the kids had fun participating in their various activities, and I met some very sweet, nice people . . . and one bear.

For the record, I still maintain that Philmont is not a “real” family vacation, but it wasn’t as bad as I thought it was going to be, either. Also, it is my sincere hope that the learnings obtained through such an outlay of time and resources can somehow benefit the young women of the church and not just the young men.

In case this post leaves you in doubt, just let me say that I love the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. I love and sustain our Prophet and those that serve with him. I also hope that my skepticism about scouting and the time, energy and expense involved in the program won’t keep me out of heaven. 😉

When I realized a week ago that I only had a few days left with my kids before they headed back to school, I decided to host a “no regrets” week in my honor. I set aside the lengthy to-do list and, instead, the kids and I created a new list of things that we wanted to do during our last week of summer vacation. Although the list was not perfectly executed, we did a pretty dang good job of making the week count.

On Monday, we went to the Dallas Zoo and enjoyed temperatures in the high 80’s, low 90’s. Ariana invited a friend to help make her trip a bit more enjoyable, and we all had a really good time.

Tuesday, we went to a cute movie: The Odd Life of Timothy Green. It was a great family-friendly film, and I think we all enjoyed it. Afterwards we had a little Wii Party.

Wednesday, we stayed close to home and had a Leave it to Beaver marathon. Netflix is our best friend!

Thursday, at 5:15 we went to Ariana’s school and decorated her locker, although I think it took a little longer than expected, partly having to do with my want need for perfection. 🙂

Friday, Ariana dutifully watched the littles while Bryan and I went out for lunch to celebrate our first lunch together. Bryan even got off work early to go to the Frisco Athletic Center with us. We spent the remainder of the day there, came back home, fixed ourselves up again and left, yet again to go to Fisher to meet Vivian’s teacher, while Ariana stayed home and made us salad for dinner. (Tad reminded me that he helped her by tasting the toppings to make sure they were good.) We got home… again and finished up dinner, watched a movie, and went to bed.

Saturday, we went to the North Texas State Fair in Denton. Despite the heat and lack of proper hydration, we had lots of fun.The kids and Ariana (She frequently reminds me that she is not a kid anymore, but she will always be my baby girl no matter how old she gets) did a tractor pull. Ariana tried and kept going onto the grass, making them have to restart it a couple of times and then stopped short because she thought she was done. Vivian, too, stopped just short of the finish line. Tad was the youngest competitor in the group, and his little legs didn’t even fully reach the pedals. He had the best showing from our family advancing to the semi-finals.

(Thank you to Ariana for helping to write this post. I started it but then got distracted. She finished it for me.)

Downton Abbey is the sole reason why any laundry ever gets folded around here. Because the only time I allow myself the privilege of watching that splendid show is when I’m folding laundry, I think that, subconsciously, I allow loads and loads of clean clothes to accumulate in baskets just so I can stand for hours at a time folding and watching. I suppose that if I lived in that era, I’d be one of the servants (a laundress?), but I like to envision myself as Lady Grantham, wearing beautiful, tasteful gowns and attending to a variety of worthy causes.

This graceful lifestyle is what I had in mind when the latest beautiful issue of Somerset Life caught my eye at Costco as I headed to the checkout stand. They really know my weakness and they purposely position the magazine rack in the impulse-buy section of the store. I bought the issue because, after all, a $10 magazine at Costco is a like a brass farthing compared to a costly basketful of toilet paper, pork loin and the sample-of-the-day that you don’t really need but that you get suckered into buying anyway. You know what I’m talking about . . . the humus dip that your kids insist they love in the store but turn their noses up as soon as you get the 3-pound-refrigerator-hogging container home. Anyway, I was immediately drawn in by an article about an artist named Heather Sleightholm, aka “Audrey Eclectic.” I fell in love with her work and, while sitting in the food court as Tad scarfed a hot dog, I pulled her information up on-line from my phone because I was so excited that I couldn’t even wait to get home to a real computer.  When I discovered that she did affordable commission work, the wheels in my head started spinning. When I showed Bryan her work and he was equally impressed with it, we started the process to get our family portrait done. Goodbye humble laundress, hello Lady Tolbert.

I am picky. I am opinionated. I am very detail oriented. Heather is PATIENT. Heather is TALENTED. Heather is AMAZING to work with. I really can’t say enough good about that woman. The process of information exchange went FLAWLESSLY, and I couldn’t be more pleased with the end result. Well, actually if Fedex hadn’t beat the packaging to HECK and broken the wood frame that the canvas is stretched to, I would have been a wee bit more pleased, but it’s nothing that can’t be fixed by a competent frame shop (and hopefully paid for by Fedex).

We all LOVE our large 30 inch x 40 inch painting and I plan on having it hang above our fireplace until the day I die. And then I hope that my kids show a little more decorum than Lady Grantham’s spoiled children and amicably decide some time-share system to rotate the heirloom from home-to-home in a fair manner.