Draper Temple Open House

We went to the Draper Temple open house today. Trevor's parents, his sister Jami, and his sister Jodi's family all came along too. So there were 7 adults, 8 kids for a total of 16 people. It was a lot of people but our kids and Jodi's kids get along really well, thus Trevor and I have extra helpers. We wanted to share this occasion with his Dad since his Dad grew up in Draper, back when he could point to every house and name who lived there. Not to mention, his grandfather a few generations back, fresh off the boat from Denmark, was asked by Brigham Young to be the town's first blacksmith.

We started out watching a short film at a nearby church house before boarding the shuttle bus to the temple. Once there it took about an hour to go through the temple because it's Saturday and the halls were jammed with people. It took about 10 minutes to walk up a 30 step staircase. We had to do a lot of wrestling with Gabriella since you couldn't let her walk because she'd walk in between everyone's legs and you couldn't catch her. We were able to have some great moments too that I hope will stick in at least Caleb and Michelle's memories.

In viewing the following photos, keep in mind it was a two hour tour start to finish, we wrestled a lot, it was cold, and we are HUNGRY. Maybe that will explain why the long faces on such a happy day.

Fresh Tracks

There's nothing like a fresh layer of snow to remind you that you live in deer territory. Unfortunately for our budget, we've discovered there is no such thing as a deer-proof plant. If they're hungry enough they'll eat anything; hence the reason we rarely see our tulips and the reason all our shrubs and trees are "deer-pruned" (everything 5 feet and below is stripped off the tree-even the bark).

Of course, it's our fault. We built our house right in the middle of a deer path. It was worse before we put a fence around the backyard. We can still see the path they trod through our neighbors' yards, the deer just veer around our back fence and then come into our front yard for dinner and breakfast. But what really makes me steam is the fact that our neighbors across the street have few problems with deer and their hundreds of tulips in the spring attest to that.

Thank God for Dirty Dishes

This is in reference to my post on the 20th about the sink (and counter) full of dishes. I was cleaning off the fridge of all the papers that tend to collect there and found a page of quotes, stories, and poems. This one seemed to fit just right, and put things back into perspective.

"Thank God for dirty dishes;

They have a tale to tell.

While others may go hungry,

We're eating very well.

With home, health, and happiness,

I shouldn't want to fuss;

By the stack of evidence,

God's been very good to us."

Author Unknown

The 9 1/2 year Curse

We moved into our house September 1999. Trevor's brother built our house and we are blessed to have a lot of little things that make life easier (like an extra wide and deep garage that fits our van and 4x4 truck and we can still open the doors!). However, lately things in our house have begun to show their age. (1) our fireplace lost a part -see the photo below (2) our wood blinds have cracked in half at the bottom (3) our garage door springs, sprung and trapped our cars in the garage (4) our window shade for the sliding glass door broke (we actually spent over a year rolling them up and tying them with a ribbon after their original strings broke). That's all I can think of off the top of my head.

Don't get me wrong, we are very blessed to be able to live in such a nice home, with plenty of space for the kids to play. It's just that I've never lived in a house long enough to see it age. Heck, this is the longest I've ever lived in one state! But I love the memories we've already made in this house. I can remember each of the 4 times I brought home a newborn baby. I can remember all the family gatherings we've held here, especially the last time my Opa was here before he passed away. For all these little things that have needed repairs, we've had 10 times more happy memories.

The Chore of doing Chores

Since I really try to limit myself to just posting one photo a day on my photo blog I have to do something with the extras. The following picture is a true depiction of everyday life here at the Smith house.

It has been a chore for us to find a chore list that works. Since the new year we've been experimenting with a new chore chart. We've tried several versions in the past but nothing lasted more than 6 weeks. With this one we're only into it 3 weeks but it seems to be doing better than the others. We've been trying the "zone" tactic. This week Megan has the Dish Zone which means unloading the dishwasher of clean dishes, re-loading it with the dirty, and doing the "hand washables". Since she's only 4 1/2 she needs a little bit of help from me which results in the mess you can see below.

Running is my Cure All

We've been having a January thaw. At night the temperatures get into the teens but during the day it warms up to the low 40's. It also hasn't snowed in a couple of weeks. All of this adds up to one wonderful thing: I got to run outside this morning. I ran 9 miles and it felt great. Maybe it's the fresh air, the scenery or the fact that I'm away from the house but running outside provides me with the stress release that the treadmill just can't do. Since it's been a couple of weeks since I could run outside I've been a bit moody you could say. I couldn't figure out why I was behaving like I was. Trevor was even so kind as to give me most of last Saturday off. I went to lunch with a friend and did some shopping. I wanted to have my hair whacked off but lacked the courage. It wasn't until running this morning that I realized how much I need running to keep my body and my mind sane.

Catch 22

The recent housing crisis has sent mortgage interest rates to record lows. We decided to take advantage of the great rate and refinance our mortgage. Turns out that the housing crisis has also sent the values of homes plummeting to the ground. Our house appraised at $56800 less than even the what's listed on the county property valuation. After trying to work things out for about a month we decided that this must be a sign to not do it. So now we have to pay the appraiser for an appraisal that stinks. The good news is that we're told we can now take the appraisal to the county and they should adjust the market value on our house which will then (hopefully) lower our property taxes this year.

Project 365

Last Friday I read on a friend's blog (thanks Mignonne) about the challenge to take a photo a day for 365 days. I figured it's a new year so why not try it. If you care to check out the photos you can click on the link to the right titled: "A day in the life of a Smith". Hopefully I'll be better about keeping up with the photos than I am with posting entries here.

A new year to try new things

I've heard a lot about how beneficial yoga is for runners since it helps build core muscles, breathing techniques, and be more flexible which lead to less injuries. So last night I went to my first ever yoga class. Back in the 80's I took one aerobic class with my sister. After she told me how uncoordinated I was I kissed aerobics happily goodbye. With this in mind I was nervous about taking another rec center class-I don't do well doing things I've never done before in front of 20 strangers. It turned out to be okay though, especially since I was on the back row with no one watching me. I had a good time and especially loved the last 10 minutes where we got to lay there focusing on nothing but relaxing every muscle while focusing on deep breathing. Of course I kept thinking about the money I'd spent to get into the class and over time if maybe I should buy a yoga vide0 (oh- I mean DVD- does that date me or what?!), but I'm pretty sure that I'd never find a solid hour to actually do the yoga at home without distractions.

SNOW-the 4 letter "S" word

It snowed for 48 hours straight. In my back muscles, I'm feeling every shovelful of snow I hefted over the already high piles along the sides of the driveway (they were so deep, Caleb dug holes into them and used them as forts). Especially the shovelfulls of rock hard icesnow that the snowplow piles up preventing you from leaving the driveway even in a 4x4 truck. But this morning I didn't have to shovel the snowplow icesnow since the snowplow never bothered to come up our street last night! The kids never would've gotten to school alive if it wasn't for our truck. But the good news is the SUN IS SHINING! and what doesn't kill you makes you stronger. I can now count shoveling as my core muscle exercises for the day.

Over the past month we've had such worries about if we'll be able to drive back up through our hilly neighborhood (we can't leave the house unless everyone has boots and a coat) that Caleb said "I'm beginning to hate snow". That's not what 8 year old boys should be worrying about-they should be able to think about snowball fights, sledding and snowforts. This year we put on brand new all season tires, so we've done our job, now the snowplows need to be better at doing their job.

'Twas the Season

The first priority for Christmas vacation was the "Great Toy Round-up". Trevor took time off from work the week of Christmas so we had devoted one entire day to the task of collecting all the toys around the house (not including their favorite toys that were in their bedrooms) and putting them into our play room. We sorted through everything and gave a majority of the toys and books to Deseret Industries and a refugee family from Burma.
Below is the "after" photo. That's a much more managable amount of toys for one household.

One morning we woke up to an 8" snowfall. Megan was excited to play outside so I had her do the Rains tradition of measuring the depth of snow with a ruler (when I was younger and we lived in Colorado we'd have to use a yardstick).


We finally got some packing snow. You can't really tell but the bottom part of the snowman is up to Megan's chin and the total snowman is approximately 6'6".

This is Gabriella's first time out in the snow since she only learned to walk this past summer. This also marked the day that was the first time our whole family was able to go play in the snow together since I finally splurged and bought myself snowboots and snowpants.


Gabriella on Christmas morning. She loves horses and rocking chairs so a rocking horse is the perfect fit.

Caleb on Christmas morning. He's completely enthralled with Legos, both Star Wars and Mars Mission. Once he saw the Legos he forgot about all else.

Michelle on Chrismas morning. She can now join in on the Lego craze-can you believe they make pink legos?! She also loves her new Fur Real puppy. I love that I don't have to feed it or clean up after it.

Megan on Christmas morning. She also got a Fur Real puppy. She really like her Disney princess camera too.

The best Christmas dinner ever! Why? because I didn't have to cook one bit of it. My wonderful husband prepared the whole meal (even cleaning off the dining room table which also duels as the homework table) while I sat on the couch talking with my older brother.

The Sunday following Christmas with all the kids in their Sunday best. Santa brought Michelle and Megan the new Christmas dresses.

It was a wonderful Christmas season. We've really enjoyed spending so much time together as a family since my husband has only had to work for 2 days during the past 2 weeks.