Dance Recital- 2009

Emma's recital went well last night. She was so excited all day and couldn't wait to perform (especially since her two cousins were coming to watch her.) Emma had me replay her dress rehearsal video over and over and showed me each step and told me what she was supposed to do. She loved getting her hair and make-up done and has now fallen in-love with mascara. Yikes! Her two dances went great and she loved being in the spotlight. She had a hard time watching all the girls before her because she kept wanting it to be her turn. Thanks to all the family for coming out and sitting through two hours of little girls' dances. Emma loved having you there to cheer her on. Good job, Emma! We love you.

All the girls in Emma's class (3 of them are sunbeams with her in our ward.)


Emma and her dance teacher, Stephanie Russell. (Steph owns the Jazz Studio, used to be a Utah Jazz dancer, teaches dance classes at the studio, and teaches classes at Gold's Gym... she's awesome and Emma loves her.)


Emma with her uncle Pete and aunt Mal. Thanks for coming, guys!


Jake's parents, us, aunt Melanie, aunt Katie, and cousins Hannah and Isabelle


Emma with her two cousins, Hannah and Isabelle (Hannah had a dance recital tonight so they were able to watch each other perform on different nights. Hannah's a great dancer, too!)


Emma showing her flower and trophy as we were leaving the recital.

Emma's Dance Recital Rehearsal

Emma has her first major dance recital tomorrow and tonight was the dress rehearsal. She is performing two numbers, a jazz piece and a tap dance to "Who Let the Dogs Out." She's so excited for tomorrow and can't wait to have her two cousins, Hannah and Isabelle, come watch her. I'm posting the video of her jazz routine and hopefully I can get the real thing tomorrow with her in costume on video, or at least some good pictures. Emma loves dance and I hope she sticks with it because I can tell it's something she really enjoys doing. Plus, she's all girl and LOVES the costumes, make-up, hair, all the glam stuff. Jake and I have noticed that she's our shy girl a lot of the time (until you get her warmed up.) When she dances though, she loves the spotlight, and showing off her stuff. :) Love you, Emma. Good luck tomorrow!

28 is not so bad!

After Jake's cute post this morning, everyone knows of the festivities going on at our house lately. Today was a fun day, nearly perfect (besides Barkley peeing on me at the Vet's office. He was given two shots and scared, so I picked him up to comfort him and he let it out all over my shirt... nice.) Anyway, I had a session with my trainer at 6:30am and told him to work me hard because I knew I wouldn't be good with my calories today, and boy did he work me. By the end I was dripping with sweat and knew I would be sore in a few hours. I love workouts like that! When I got home Jake and the kids wished me happy birthday. As I was heading out to take Emma and Ben to swim lessons, my cute neighbor gave me a necklace for my birthday and put a sign on the back of my car without me knowing. It said "HONK! It's my birthday." (I wondered why people kept honking at me and just thought I was cutting them off or not driving right.) My RS president put a Happy Birthday sign in my yard and gave me a card. My visiting teaching companion brought me a wallflower and nice card. My good friend, Abby, made me a delicious strawberry marble cake with whipped cream and fresh blueberries and strawberries. I had to have two pieces because it was that good! My best friend, Naomi, sent me a card in the mail and it made me really miss her. I can't wait to see her next month when we go to Oregon. I got lots of birthday calls from relatives, birthday e-mails, and nearly 40 birthday posts on my Facebook profile (thanks to Jake for announcing it.) The carpet guy came and restretched our carpet and then I moved the furniture back so now our basement is functional again. Then I had enough time to take a quick 'birthday' nap before the kids woke up. When Jake got home from work he had a bag of Reeses Peanut Butter Cups for me (my favorite candy) and a sweet card. The whole family went out to Hires for dinner. I splurged and had cheese fries and a sandwich. (A girl can splurge on her birthday, right?!) When we got home we ate Abby's cake, put the kids to bed, watched the Will Ferrell special on Man Vs. Wild (Jake and I were laughing our heads off!) Jake massaged my legs and feet, even though he had a headache. Overall, it has been a great birthday. What a great way to start off my 28th year. Thanks to everyone for your well wishes. I'm lucky to have such wonderful friends and family.

Happy Birthday, Jamie

So you turn 28 today? It might seem, on the surface, that this would qualify as your classic "ho-hum" type birthday. You're old enough that each one doesn't seem like the focal point of the year anymore. It doesn't entail any new legal rights or obligations like 16, 18, or 21. And it's not a nice round number like 25 or 30. So you might think this is just a regular old birthday. But you'd be wrong! Seriously wrong.

Just think of how important 28 years is:

In Jewish tradition the sun is blessed every 28 years to signify when the sun is at the same place, on the same day of the week, and the same time of day as when it was created.

The Hearst Castle took 28 years to build.

Madrid's Royal Palace, the largest in Europe, also took 28 years to build.

Wikipedia, that great repository of collective wisdom, tell us that "28 (twenty-eight) is the natural number following 27 and preceding 29." So that seems pretty special.

In math, 28 is the second perfect number (perfect!) as it is related to the Mersenne prime. It is a happy number. It is the ninth and last number in early Indian magic square of order 3. So that's pretty terrific.

Saturn takes about 28 years to orbit the sun.

In Hebrew Numerology, 28 means "power" or "energy."

Humans commonly have 28 teeth.

In Astrology, the 28-year cycle marks significant turning points or sections in the course of a person's development in life. So look forward to a significant year, as far as astrologically-related personal life development goes.

Here's an interesting tidbit: 28 is approximately the number of grams in an ounce, and used as such in the illegal drug trade. Right on!

And, finally, wikipedia makes a special note in its section on the number 28 to inform us that the common name for the parrot 'Barnardius zonarius semitorquatus', widely distributed in Western Australia and South Australia, has a call that sounds like "wenniate". If anyone is able to derive the significance of this in relation to the number 28, please enlighten us all.

Let's turn now to the history of this fine day in human events:

NPR informed me this morning that the prophet Muhammad died on this day in 632.

Other deaths of note: Thomas Paine (great American revolutionary), President Andrew Jackson, 14th century Japanese Noh actor Kanami, wonderful poet (I really mean this) Gerard Manley Hopkins (if you want to be inspired by God and language, read this), Sir George Mallory of Mt. Everest fame, and psychologist Abraham Maslow Hierarchy of Needs.

You share your birthday with architect Frank Lloyd Wright, composer Robert Schumann, Nazi physician Karl Genzken, first ladies Barbara Bush and Ida McKinley (coincidence? or fate?), Seinfeld's Frank Costanza (Jerry Stiller), Joan Rivers (coincidence? or fate?), Dutch cyclist Ad Tak, Keenan Ivory Wayans, and Kanye West.

Finally, take pride, as well, that today is both World Oceans Day, and World Brain Tumor Day.

All in all, this should be a great day for you, Jamie. So happy birthday. I love you and I am so grateful you are my wife. You are smart, funny, beautiful, kind, loving, patient, and, now, you are also 28 years old. The perfect combination!

Loving Homeownership Except...

On days like today. I went to the gym early this morning and when I got back Emma ran into the office and said "MOM, there is water on the floor in the laundry room." I just thought maybe she saw a drop or two but when I opened the door I saw water all over the floor. It had come out to the carpet in the doorway, hall, and seeped through the wall to the family room floor. I didn't know how far out it went until I moved the sectional away. I borrowed my neighbor's vacuum so I could suck up the water (thanks, Susi!) I spent nearly two hours sucking up tons of water. I had to empty the vacuum 4 times, and there was still more water! LeDel Pace, our plumber, took out our two water heaters and replaced it with a new one. The two were 13 years old and we were told they had a good run. I called our insurance and spoke to a claims guy about the water damage. Our deductible is pretty high so Jake and I decided to try and do most of it on our own and closed the claim. So now we are cutting out the soaked padding and have fans placed all over downstairs (thanks for letting us borrow them, Abby!) so the carpet and cement can dry. Then we will put the new padding down, call someone to put in new tack strips and stretch our carpet back down. Then we need to get the carpet professionally cleaned with an odorizer to prevent the musty water-log smell to penetrate the floors. Ugh! So much for a quiet Friday, relaxing with the kids. Times like these I sort of miss living in a rental, being able to call the maintenance people at a moment's notice when something like this happens. Instead, we get to fork out nearly 1K to pay for a new water heater, new padding, labor to stretch and tack our carpet, and then get them cleaned. Now Jake and I are wondering why we didn't renew our home warranty last November. At the time $450 seemed steep for something we didn't know if we would use. Argh. If we only would have known...

Cute story though, when I was showing Jake the water damage this morning Ben said "Hey Mom, Emma is a hero. She's a hero for finding the water!" So cute. I also thought it was nice when the plumber told me I didn't look old enough to have 3 kids. I told him I was turning 28 in 3 days and he said "REALLY? You look like you're 16." I think I'll take that as a compliment. I just hope this 'youthful look' stays with me for the next couple decades!

A picture of what our family room looked like before the water heater disaster

Ben's Kindergarten Graduation

Ben's graduation ended about 2 hours ago. It's crazy how fast this year went by. It feels like yesterday when I took him up to his teacher on the first day of school and had him line up with his class by the flag pole, and then watched him wave goodbye as he walked away. Now the year is over and I'm beginning to realize that people are right when they say to enjoy your kids now because tomorrow they will be gone. Ben looked adorable (okay, I'll say 'handsome' for Ben's sake) in his little graduation hat, walking down the aisle and getting his graduation certificate from his teacher, Mrs. Armknecht. I have to say, she is wonderful and I couldn't have asked for a better teacher for Ben. I'm crossing my fingers that Emma and Josh get her too because she's THAT good! After all the kids got their certificates, then Mrs. Armknecht played a slideshow of the kids during the year. It was really cute and it was amazing to see all they did over the past 9 months. I'm really proud of Ben. I heard nothing but good things about him from everyone, his teacher, other room moms, etc. He has tested above average on everything and seems to soak in all he is taught. I still remember a couple months ago when he was telling me who was on the penny, nickel, dime, quarter, dollar, and what was on the back of them and what some of them represented (sheesh, I didn't even know some of that!) He loves teaching Emma how to read words and do math. He's a smartie and Jake and I are proud of him. Good job, Ben! Next up... 1st grade.

PS While I was outside taking Ben's picture in front of our house, I had to take one of our roses too. I love June for a lot of reasons (my birthday, our anniversary, great weather, summer begins, etc.) but also because of the roses. I can't say I love pruning our rose bushes or getting stuck by those dang thorns more times than I can count, but I do love how pretty they are when they bloom, and how great they smell.

Ben and Mrs. Armknecht

Ben's Kindergarten class

Ben with Emma and Josh sitting at his table

Proud of his graduation certificate

Emma, posing right after the graduation ended

And, my roses

8 years down... eternity to go

Jake and I were married on June 2, 2001 at 11am. It was a Saturday, overcast, and I was worried it would rain. The whole day though, despite being a little chilly at the reception, turned out perfectly, exactly how I had hoped my wedding day would be. Now 8 years later, it's hard to believe all we have been through and yet 8 years is nothing in the grand scheme of things. We've graduated college, had 3 kids, Jake graduated law school, we have had many different jobs (some great and some not-so-great... like computer tech support at Alorica which Jake hated, or me as a receptionist at a copy machine store, ugh). We have owned 5 cars, and only one of those was a piece of crap. (We lucked out!) We lived in student housing three times, lived with Jake's grandpa, my parents, a rental in Klamath Falls, Oregon, and Sugarhouse, and finally bought our own house in 2007. If you would have asked me 8 years ago where I thought we would be in 8 years, I would have said "happily married with a couple kids, a house, a good job, and lots of love and laughter." I'm lucky to have all that and more.

So, Jake already made me a 10 minute video with pictures of us put to music, and then he added himself talking for a little bit. I can't compete with that and I'm not going to try. I just want him to know I love him and am so glad he's mine. I know I'm not the easiest person to live with sometimes, but thankfully he still puts up with me. I'm really lucky. Love you, babe.