Parents on the hot seat

Where, oh where, are Rich and Karen with their interviews?

Well, the Smith girls have provided an answer. They sat us down for an informal chat, with questions they came up with. We were not allowed to see the questions beforehand (I guess so they could spring the unexpected on us, 60-minutes style). So what you see is our unprepared responses to the probing questions that had to be asked!

I edited a bit for length...that's the privilege of being the one who knows how to use the video software and who posts the blog.



Sorry...must run. We're fielding calls from the local TV stations calling to offer our girls positions as reporter interns.

Girl Talk: The Year In Review

In honor of the ubiquitous Christmas letters, which are now appearing in our mailbox and I'm sure yours as well, we decided to do a special video blog this time. Instead of bragging annoyingly about our 3 wonderful girls, like I do the rest of the time, I'm going to let them speak for themselves.

So we sat down and I asked each of them a few questions about this past year so you'd be able to hear what they thought of this past year. I apologize in advance for the sound and video quality; none of our children have a lisp, but it sounds like it on here.

We'll start with Anya, in 9th grade this year...


But wait...there's more!


Next up, Miss Emily...


And Emily, part 2...


And now, Jenna...


Jenna, the encore...


The parents may or may not contribute a v-blog in the coming days. Stay tuned.

If you've just come to our blog for the first time, feel free to browse our past posts via the listings at right. Or just bookmark this webpage and revisit us as often as you like.

We'll try not to be boring.

The joy of a pre-lit tree

We tried for a few years to be a real Christmas tree family. You know, the kind with needles that actually fall off the tree and the scent of pine filling the room and sap stuck to your hands once you've finished standing it up.

We tried. We gave up.

I think our foray into real fir lasted for 2 years. Maybe 3.

We finally decided we just liked the convenience of a fake tree. We like not watering it. We like that our room is not littered with pine for the month of December. We, for whatever reason (and I'm sure that many of you will discern some deep emotional scar or inherent weakness in us that manifests itself in our distaste for a recently axed conifer) just like the fake one.

So we'd pull it out of the box every year on the day after thanksgiving, and poke all the color coded wire branches into the appropriate holes, string the lights, hang the ornaments, light a pine scented candle to complete the faux effect and call it Christmas.

Until about 4 years ago when we had the brilliant, revelatory thought, "Wouldn't it be nice to have a tree with the lights already on it?" What a great idea! So that year, we watched the sale flyers and purchased our very own imitation 7 foot 5 inch douglas fir complete with 700 white lights. And it came in three sections! Simply pull the three sections out, stack them on top of each other, watch the branches flop down, plug in those already attached white lights and bask in the glorious glow of an easy Christmas tree!

It was truly a beautiful thing.

Beautiful, that is, until this year.

Because as we plugged in those strands of 700 lights, only about 100 0f them actually lit up. And that's a problem, because it turns out that when this delightfully festive imitation douglas fir is assembled in China, those little Asian hands that put it together do a marvelous job of attaching those lights to the branches of that douglas fir. And, if, by chance they don't work and you have to remove them...well, let's just say that the time you would spend removing those lights is probably greater than the combined amount of time you would have spent hanging and removing strands of lights from an unlit tree for the past 4 Christmas seasons.

No, not probably. It is greater. We know. We've now lived through it.

Evidently, when they put the lights on these trees, they want to make sure they NEVER come off, or that it takes some sort of apocolyptic event for them to be released. I assume the logic is that the buyer will become so frustrated, they will simply give up and go purchase another pre-lit tree to replace it. (I think all of them are secretly made by the same Asian conglomerate, so it doesn't matter which brand we buy, they same people get the money. And no, I don't think I sound like a conspiracy theorist. I'm not paranoid. Everyone's just out to get me.)

So some two and half hours later, all five Smith's gingerly rubbing their fingertips which have by now lost any recognizable fingerprints, the old lights were removed and the new lights, purchased on sale at the Walgreens down the road on Black Friday (2 for the price of one!), had bedecked the now newly revitalized imitation Douglas Fir.

And the evil Asian conglomerate didn't get any of our money.

Well, they only got the few dollars we spent on new lights. All the Christmas paraphenalia is pretty much produced by that same Oriental monopoly.

Happy Thanksgiving!...and an edible cell

Greetings with grateful hearts from the Smith clan!

The food has been prepared, the meal has been enjoyed immensely, the dishes are in the dishwasher, and the triptophan-induced nap is fast approaching. We've enjoyed a quiet day at home this Thanksgiving, watching the Macy's Tgiving Day parade while we performed our culinary wonders.

We all took turns describing one thing (at least) that we are thankful for this year that we couldn't say last year. Our list?

Anya: for the musical "Oklahoma" that she got to be a part of. She loved being with friends, and finally getting to perform the finished product and see all the people who really enjoyed watching what they'd done.

Emily: for our trip across country this summer, and especially for the historic downtown Philly tour we took on her birthday. Her teacher for 5th grade made history exciting and being in Philly (and for a brief few hours in DC) made the things she learned a reality. She is also thankful for the months we got to have Brooke live with us (we all agreed with that one, and still miss her).

Jenna: for science. Yes, science. She is really enjoying that this year they get to do lots of experiements in science, and it is very fun!

Karen: for Financial Peace University (a Dave Ramsey 13 week program that teaches money mangement and personal budgeting). It's been a hard adjustment as we've learned to make our money do what we want it to, instead of doing what we want and trying to figure out how to make the money cover it. Karen said it has been a great change of perspective for her, and while it's been hard, she knows our financial picture will now be much more secure down the road.

Rich: for the trip this summer. I figure that it may be the last time for a long while that we can take an extended family trip like that, and it was three weeks of memories I'll cherish for a long time to come. Also for our church offices we moved into this spring, because it means I have a place to practice with my worship teams that doesn't involve pulling a trailer to another location and unloading/loading for practice!

We hope that all of you are finding reasons to be grateful, and that you offer that gratitude to the One who gives us every good thing!

On a completely different note...

For biology, Anya had to make a model of an animal cell. She could create it out of any materials she chose, so she decided to make an edible cell. A sugar cookie to be exact.

It was too fun not to post.

Here's the key to it's parts:

· Ribosome---------------sprinkles
· Nuclear envelope-------pink frosting
· Nucleolus---------------orange fruit snack
· Chromatin--------------red frosting
· Cell wall-----------------black ring
· Mitochondrion----------blue Jelly beans
· Lyosome-----------------blue frosting
· Rough ER----------------green squiggly icing
· Smooth ER--------------hard macaroni
· Golgi apparatus---------purple frosting
· Micro filaments--------thin spaghetti
· Micro tubles------------thick spaghetti
· Cytoplasm---------------bare cookie

Bet you'll never think about cells, or look at sugar cookies, the same way again!

Where the wind comes sweepin' down the plain...

Sorry for the delay...if any of you have been waiting, that is. We've had a very busy two weeks, mainly with 7 nights of Oklahoma! to keep us hoppin'. The play was a huge success! For those of you that live in places beside Utah, you really can't imagine the quality of theater these schools put out here.

This was a Jr Hi production, and it was really good. I mean, the kind of good where intermission comes and you say, "really? It's been an hour and a half already?" The kind of good where you wish you could get up on stage and dance with these kids.

And the high school performances we've gone to? Phenomenal! This place truly puts as much emphasis on the arts as they do athletics, and it shows. Truly incredible shows here.

Okay, so on to Anya's production. We couldn't get pics of the play itself, but here's her in all three of her costumes.

Yeah, the makeup is a little extreme, but when she was on stage it looked great!

Anya had a great time and we loved watching her perform. (multiple times the parents watched her perform) But, we're all kind of glad it's over. Practice almost every afternoon for 2 months, then night rehearsals, Saturday rehearsals and performances for the last 2-3 weeks. We missed having her around! And she was feeling pretty wiped out!

On another note, some fall pics Karen snapped of Em & Jen while the leaves were still vibrant. They turned out fabuloso!!

Costumes

Just a quick post so you can see the gals in their halloween costumes. Grandma made the maid and the goddess. Einstein is all us.

Birthday Weekend

Jenna and I both have October birthdays, mine the 24th hers the 26th, so this year we had an extended birthday weekend. We began with mine on Friday, celebrated hers some on Sunday, and then had a party for her on Monday.

First, a few snaps from my celebration.

Before this first one, you should know that last year soon after High School Musical 2 premiered on the Disney Channel, I talked about it in a sermon -- specifically how I'm a dork because I liked both of the movies, and have watched them multiple times with my girls.

And HSM3 premiered in theaters on my birthday this year. So, one of the wives of a fellow staff member at church got me this for my birthday.

Very exciting!

Jenna made me several things, but this artistic rendering of her and me was a fave (one set for her, one for me):

Emily's home made certificate/objet d'art:

And new duds for Dad from Aunt LeAnne in Oklahoma:

The girls and Karen always approve of Aunt LeAnne's choices.

After a day of recuperation, we began Jenna's festivities, first with a present from the parents:

One from Pastor Dan and Miss Candi (it's kind of a kid version of a scrapbooking decorative cutting tool):

And Jenna's sisters made her a scrapbook of pictures of her and them through the years, along with commentary, encouragement, and silly captions on each page.

Jenna loves to go to the park just a few steps from our front door, but we don't let her go alone. Anya will occasionally go with her, but begrudgingly. So Anya gave Jen this highly valuable certificate:

And Jenna unwrapped her stylish outfit from Aunt LeAnne:

She had to wear it to church on her birthday, of course!

Monday brought her birthday party, with friends Hannah, Hannah, and Madelyn. We began by decorating our goody bags.

We made a quick trip to the Dollar store. Instead of gifts, each friend brought $3 and we went to the Dollar Store where they each picked out three things for Jenna, and had to tell her why they picked them for her when she received them later on at the party. Jenna also picked one thing for each of them that reminded her of them, and we added that to their goody bag.

Hannah picked this hat for Jenna, and Jenna had picked out the same hat for Madelyn!

After a few rounds of Hide the Beanie Babies, the girls ate homemade pizzas they put together themselves. Then it was time for candles on the cake. Uh, I think I caught Jenna off guard...And, the lovely birthday serenade:

After the cake, we played a couple of rounds of Mario Kart Wii, a kind of kart-racing video game. Hannah F was a Nascar Champion! She rocked the Kart!

Jenna and her friends...

Good times...good times...

And the parents weren't even that worn out!

Gardens, but not of the flower variety

We have this book called Utah Curiosities that lists interesting, cool, little-known, and sometimes just weird places throughout our glorious state. Last Saturday, we decided to hit a couple of those places in Salt Lake that we'd never visited. One I'd categorize as interesting, the other...at the very least, weird.

First, the odd ball.

Just a stone's throw from Trolley Square (you out of staters may remember Trolley Square from the mall shooting that occured there a little over a year ago), is a hidden spot in the backyard of several houses called Gilgal Garden. A guy named Thomas Child lived in one of the houses that borders this garden, and for years in the 40s-60s he brought in huge stones and created sculptures, all with some sort of religious theme. Now since this is Salt Lake City, most of that religious theme has to do with Mormonism.

Here we are perched in front of the sphinx:

"But wait," you say. "That doesn't look like the regular face of the sphinx, Rich."

Why yes, how very observant of you. And that's because, once again, we're not in Egypt, we're in Utah. And the face is?...Joseph Smith, of course. Founder of the Mormon church!

Can you imagine the time this guy put into sculpting and carving this? And this yard is full of stuff like this.

This one is some sort of monument to tradesmen, or masonry, or construction workers, or something. Note the guy's pants are brick. Very stylish. By the way, that's a self-portrait of Thomas Child, at least the head. I don't think he wore brick pants in real life.

A representation of Nebuchadnezzar's dream of the idol in the book of Daniel:

I know...kind of disconcerting. Body parts scattered on a small hillside in a backyard.

And that 's the thing. This is STILL in people's back yards. All the original homes still surround this. There's lots of other sculptures to examine, 12 in all, but here's one more:

And remember, he carved and assembled all these on his own over 50 years ago! The stack of books on the right is the Bible, Book of Mormon, Doctrine and Covenants, and Pearl of Great Price (the last three are Mormon sacred writings, for you non-Utahns).

It was a memorable stroll. Odd, but memorable.

Next we headed a few miles west and just a little south to the International Peace Garden. This was created to help foster peace and create understanding of different cultures, or some such mumbo jumbo.

Basically it's several acres of a park with different areas dedicated to different countries, with various representations of those cultures.

For example, in France, a miniature version of the Eiffel Tower, small enough to put next to your fireplace.

In Switzerland, a remarkably accurate (if by accurate you mean "it looks like a 7th grade science fair volcano") rendering of the Matterhorn with a lovely Swiss chalet at its feet.

In China, we wondered, "why does this Lion have a ball in its mouth?"

Near the great wall of...Korea? I don't pretend to understand. I just report the news.

Another lion, this time sans a mouth ball, and protecting the entrance to Vietnam's patch of grass.

Evidently in Mexico hundreds of years ago, the people had really big heads. And could have used a good plastic surgeon for their noses.

After a while, Anya expressed a bit of weariness with the Peace Gardens.

We took that as our cue to leave.

David Copperfied?

I'm not a magician, I can't even do card tricks. But my daughters tell me that I do a magic trick.

I don't get this; as I do this so-called magic, it seems utterly ordinary. But when I do this, the girls are amazed, a-MAZED I tell you.

So much so that they had to get it on film:


I know...kind of a let-down, isn't it?

At least they find me fascinating. I'm highly doubtful that will last.

Red rock, sand, and arches

One of our very favorite places is Moab, Utah and Arches National Park. The girls had Thursday and Friday off this week, and David (G'pa) flew in from St. Louis, so we packed up the van early Thursday morn and headed down to southern Utah to see how much red sand we could bring back with us in our pockets and shoes!

We arrived at Arches at 9:15 am and headed straight for one of our favorite hikes, Park Avenue. At the end, we have a tradition of posing the girls with a monolith called the Three Gossips as a backdrop.

The girls also manged to "lodge" themselves into a crack.Don't worry...they got out.

Afterward, we headed over to Double Arch, a cathedral-like expanse where it's great to just sit and bask in the glow of God's creation.

Few locales I've been in have such a "sense of place" as Double Arch. Everytime I go I find myself stunned to silence at the majesty of these two arches joined togther. I simply sit under them and marvel. It is impossible to capture on film; it has to be experienced.

And, the alcove they create is really fun to climb in.

That evening we hiked in another section of the park to catch a view of the sunset, and especially the redrocked vistas to the east that get lit by that setting sun. On the way, we stopped by Landscape Arch, the longest arch in the park (over 300 feet wide!).

The next day we began by meeting some friends who were also spending some days in Moab. We went to the girls' mostest favoritest spot, Sand Dune Arch. It's not a fave because of the arch, though. It's because it's hidden in between some giant sandstone fins, and the area around and underneath is a giant sandbox! It is filled with the finest, softest, reddest sand, and perfect for hours of play.

You can also climb up to the top of the arch. Here are Anya and Emily with their friend Marissa (they're those little specs above the arch).

To end our two day trip, we and our friends hiked up to Delicate Arch just before sunset. It's about a mile and a half walk, climbing about 500 feet in elevation to a sandstone bowl with a majestic arch situated on the edge.

We brought some food along to enjoy as we watched the sun go down and the colors change as it did.

This is us with our good friends, the Robinsons (except Karen, who was, once again, taking the pictures). The great thing about hiking with another family is that none of the girls complain about how tired they are, or how long it takes, or how hot it is. They're having too much fun with their friends! And so much more enjoyable for the parents.

David and I with Delicate.

It really is an incredible sight.

We've hiked up to Delicate four times now, and each time I'm delightfully surprised by the immensity and grandeur of it when we come up those last few steps of the hike and finally see this glorious arch. Beautiful.

As the sun set, we hiked back down, jumped into our car and drove the 3+ hours back home.

And we managed to bring quite a bit of that red sand back home with us. Our dryer lint will be tinted a slight shade of pink for the next few loads.