Fa ra ra ra ra, ra ra ra ra!

(Name that movie.)

Happy Thanksgiving? Merry Christmas?! What month is it?!

Sorry it's been so long, but here is what we've been up to:

We feasted. Do you know what I see when I look at this picture? I mean besides the Hottie McHottiepants in the background.

My humongous pan of raspberry pretzel Jell-o salad. It is bigger than the turkey or the mashed potatoes or anything else, as it should be. I love that Jell-o salad.
Here we are, eating:

Notice my poor, sad children back there at the kiddie table. See that old, dusty television behind the Lovesac in the background? I told DJ that all I want for Christmas is for that TV to be taken to the D.I. That, or dunked in gasoline and burned to the ground while I do a celebratory dance. That's my Christmas dream, everyone. I hate that TV.

We also went Christmas tree hunting in Kaibab. Here I am acting like the only doe in the world with antlers:

 This is a tradition that my dad started. I'll admit, the antlers make more sense when they are on a guy.

Here is Macey singing with her school choir at the Dicken's Festival:

She is the upper-right-most blur. You know, the one with a black shirt and the blonde hair.

Finally, here is what I wrote last week at St. George News. Can you tell I was coming down from eating half of a Costco pumpkin pie when I wrote it?

Turkeys, hamsters, Santa, and other mythical creatures

Today my mom, my sister's husband Manny, and I ran the Turkey Trot 5K. Deja vu, anyone?

Here are all of our people, preparing for the race by having our picture taken by a stranger. We are so hard core.

Speaking of hard core, here is my mom crossing the finish line:

I think that is pretty awesome. Not just because my kids' grandma runs 5Ks, but check out the turkey, random rapper hamster, and Santa Claus behind the finish line. What a reception! Every race should have mythical creatures awaiting you at the finish line. How motivational would that be?! I would run a marathon if there were a unicorn or Yoda at the end of it.

I love the Turkey Trot. Historically, I have had excellent luck at this race. I always win something. Last year I came home with the grand prize - a pair of running shoes from St. George Running Center. This year as we were making our way out to Washington Fields, DJ predicted that this would be the year that we brought home a turkey.

Behold:

As you can see, Manny also won a turkey, but it is clear that I am more enthusiastic about it by the height to which I have hoisted my bird.

I love free turkeys. And I love how my husband's use of The Secret just won us the main component of our Thanksgiving feast.

(Speaking of Thanksgiving, I wrote this thing over at St. George News...like three days ago. Sorry, I have been a massive slacker about posting these things. You'll like this one. I mention Abe Lincoln. It's very Thanksgiving-y.)

a RAD metaphor

This morning I did the Color Me Rad 5k with my mom and my sister's husband, Manny. It was super fun and also a metaphor for our earthly lives. We start out pure and white and clean, and as we go through life people throw paint at us until our perfect white hoodie is ruined. RUINED, I say.

















After that, you decide that since you're all filthy and ruined that you might as well ruin your sister's/daughter's/wife's lives as well:

And then you die and go to heaven to take a shower and find that somehow the evil of the world has made its way under your hat and onto your hair.

And then you take a shower and the color mostly washes off, but you still find paint powder all over your car and your house and everything you touched between the finish line and your shower door. I suppose it is not a perfect metaphor.

In other news, this week I wrote about how to get over the Romney Lost Bummers. You should read it. Is anyone else having a severe case of the bummers since Election Day?

Like sands through an hour glass...

Hey guys.

Another week has passed. How does that happen so quickly?! It was the usual grind - homework, Halloween, carpool, cleaning, ballet, Wal-mart - you know. It is a grind, but it is my grind and I love it. Usually.

Halloween is the best. No, that is not sarcasm. See if you can tell what we are:

Olivia was Frankie Stein from Monster High. I was Rapunzel. Tess was Rapunzel. Chancho was Ironman. Macey was a witch. And DJ was a Dad Who is Too Embarrassed to Dress Up But If He Wasn't He Would've Been Flynn Ryder.

Now we are amidst the post-Halloween sugar crash. My kids need to clean their rooms. They are cranky. I am too tired to boss them around. Halloween is the worst.

So I wrote this thing about the younger missionary age. You should take a look. I am excited for sister missionaries to be able to leave earlier, aren't you? Say yes.

Over and out.

Thirty-two.

So.
Things have been a leetle busy. Hence the blog silence. BUT, yesterday was kind of a big deal, so here I am.
Just to jog your memory, recall that in October we join together to celebrate the lives of two people: Christopher Columbus and me. Yesterday was my thirty-second birthday. It seems so OLD when it's written out like that.
To celebrate I bought myself a used bike off of Craigslist.

And Carrie threw a surprise party for me.

I also got a new phone which I love with an unhealthy love. Really. It's a problem. One handy feature that it has is the screenshot, which allows me to share the following ridiculous exchange that occurred tonight between DJ and my running buddy, Audrey:

Happy birthday to me.

My Cold War globe, ballet day, and more!

Hiya, all.

First thing's first. I bought a globe at the D.I. today.

And then I painted it yellow. And then I noticed Ceylon, which is now Sri Lanka. This discovery piqued my curiosity  I found Rhodesia, which is now Zimbabwe. East Germany. West Germany.\

How old is this globe?!

Obviously I am going to need a Sharpie marker or my kids are going to have problems in geography class.

This reminds me of how, when I was a teenager, my family owned a set of World Book encyclopedias, copyright 1988. I used to read them all of the time when I came home for lunch while I would eat my bowl of Frosted Mini Spooners/Corn Pops/Marshmallow Mateys/(fill in any number of Malt-o-Meal cereals here).

(This is probably why I never dated in high school. I was just too darned smart for high school boys. Yep, that's it.)

Anyway, because encyclopedias do not magically update themselves like Wikipedia, all of the factoids I memorized were from 1988 and prior. I used to know all of the winners of the Kentucky Derby up until 1988. Really. I had all of that crucial information committed to memory. I knew SO MUCH about West Germany, it's disgusting. And I was really happy when, in 2001, I finally learned that the Berlin Wall fell. Good for you, Germany!

Besides painting a globe yellow and taking a trip down memory lane, I also took my girls to ballet today. That is the view from the driver's seat, while waiting for Macey to get out of her class. I have a lot of thinking time on ballet day. Two 45 minute ballet classes, back to back. 45 minutes is an awkward chunk of time. It isn't enough time to go shopping or go home, but it's too much time to sit in the car and stare at Olivia's leotard butt.

Anyway.

In case you didn't catch it on Facebook, I also wrote this thing about mobile phone addiction for St. George News. While I was researching (yes, I research - don't act so surprised) I came across this video that I thought was quite nice. It's really worth a look.

It's not the weekend anymore!

I have all of this stuff rolling around in my brain like marbles in the bed of a pickup truck. I'm going to dump it all out right here, right now, on the Internet.

I may regret this.

We had a relaxing weekend. Saturday was Chancho's first day of City of St. George Smart Start flag football. Let me see if I can break this down for you: Smart Start basically means that you pay the city to go to a public park and play catch with your own kid. But it was an organized game of catch, followed by some running and kicking. Chancho loved it. He puffed his little chest out with pride as we walked back to the car.

We drove to Las Vegas for my husband's brother's engagement party. I hate Las Vegas. Have I ever mentioned that before? Anyway. We had some cousin time. This is every grandchild on the Haynes side of our family:

And these are all of the Hayneses, minus Seth who is still in Kenya:

Kind of a sad thing about this gathering was that both of DJ's parents have long since passed away and they missed the whole thing. Unless they were haunting us...oooOOOOoo....

Even Grandma Marilyn was there, wearing the Playboy bunny necklace that she found at a yard sale, bless her heart.

On Sunday we took a drive up to Pine Valley because we had HAD IT with the desert.

We rolled down the windows and just snorted in that mountain air. It was rejuvenating. What is it about mountain air? It's just so fresh. The laundry detergent people try to copy it, but they're not even close. I love the mountains.

Oh yeah, and I wrote this thing for St. George News. I felt kind of "eh" about it, but whatever. Something had to give this week.

It's the weekend!

I made it through this week! Can I get a hallelujah?!

My two-year-old nephew has been staying with us for a few days. And there's the everyday babysitting of cousins and neighbor kids. And the taxi driving and the homework and the folding of the dreaded laundry. And writing the humor column. And preparing singing time. And cooking dinner and every other darned meal that these people I live with like to eat.

But do you want to know one of my favorite parts of the week? My morning run with my friends.

I think it is the only reason I am sane. Sort of sane, anyway. Unfortunately it has done nothing for my grammar.

cheeseburgers and spray paint - my two loves

I feel inclined to apologize to the people of Washington City who just witnessed me going to town on an animal-style cheeseburger at a public park.

I've been craving it since Seattle, I was starving, and it was AMAZING.

I must be going through a growth spurt.

I can't seem to eat enough or sleep enough lately. And I've been unusually cranky.

I have also been nesting. I have spray painted everything in my house that stays in one place for longer than five minutes. I almost got Chancho the other day. Almost. He's little, but he's fast.

Which reminds me, what does Donald Duck have against Chip and Dale anyway? We've been watching a lot of that lately and it makes no sense. So much animosity in that Donald Duck.

I know what you're thinking. I am certain that I'm not pregnant. This is just a case of regular old, crappy hormones. May they pass quickly.

(I almost forgot. Here's what I wrote this week over at St. George News. Remember when the turkey chased me in Minnesota? Elise 1, Rapist turkey, 0! Boo yah!)

Two weeks later...

Sorry about the blog silence. You know how it is - school is in, so I find myself driving to and from the elementary school about twenty times a day. Sometimes I think it would be easier to camp out on the school lawn with just a sleeping bag and a cooler full of salsa and chocolate milk.

On top of that there are the wild pool parties.

And the cousin visiting from Ohio for the weekend.

And I was in charge of concocting ten billion centerpieces for the church potluck.

Oh, and DJ came home with all of our Seattle crap to unpack, plus a hundred or so pounds of halibut and salmon to find a home for. Plus two enormous boxes of Washington peaches that I feel guilty about not turning into jam. Plus two large sacks of Washington corn, which is still stuck in my teeth. Plus a beard.

Somewhere in there my girls started ballet.

And my garage door broke. For a day or two it hung open at a wonky angle, officially making ours the classiest house in the cul de sac. My husband and brother in law finally monkeyed it back into place, but I assure you we are still classy. When I came home from Seattle I discovered our swingset leaning toward the ground at a roughly 45 degree angle, where it remains to this day.

I am also supposed to be writing my "humor" column right now. I'm currently 72 hours past my deadline and for some reason my brain is just NOT in funny mode. I keep trying to write and it is not coming out humorous. It is coming out like a technical manual.

Here's where we find out if this new Blogger app works. Cross your fingers.