Dear Blog

I've missed you! But there are good reasons I haven't been keeping in touch. Like . . .

 . . . simultaneously unpacking/laundering everything from our road trip to California while taking down/packing up Christmas. (It's all done now except for the measly porch lights: Brandon's job.)

 . . . hanging out with Brandon's brother Marc and his family off and on while they were in town for the last week and a half visiting his wife's family. (No one ever visits us directly, but by virtue of living in the Mormon mecca we get to occasionally see fellow LDS friends and family who come here to see other real people. ((Maybe now would be a good time to invite my friends of other faiths to come visit the mountains, go skiing, explore the National Parks, and see little 'ole US!)) I should say, my parents came here last year just for us, and Todd and Shauna came here last spring break just to ski for us.) It was great fun going to the Dinosaur museum together, having them over to dinner a few times with the youngest brother Brent (and his girl Camille), and introducing them to Orange Leaf on their last night, but I am sad we never got to do that homemade Cafe Rio dinner together, because I have four pounds of boneless pork ribs marinating in Coke in my garage right now.

 . . . starting our home search in earnest, though we are completely schizophrenic about how much we want to spend and exactly where we want to live which makes the process kind of difficult. It doesn't help that our realtor has figured out what we like, and he's getting really good at tempting us with homes we shouldn't buy even though they are FABULOUS! I've taken to calling him The Adversary.

 . . . creating a flurry of comments on Deseret News with my post on breastfeeding in public. Holy cow! I think I might start doing more opinion pieces. It reminded me that I do like a good debate. I love to hear other people's opinions and hash out all the pro's and con's of an argument while maintaining mutual respect. Which leads to . . .

 . . . watching the 257 presidential debates, caucasus and primaries. I would be for Mitt Romney even if he weren't Mormon because he just makes sense to me, but man, it makes it about twenty times more interesting to follow this race when there's so much crazy commentary regarding our faith. The stuff people are saying/writing gets more press time here in Utah as you can imagine, but it really is amazing how much is being said from every possible angle. I think what surprises me most is that people really don't believe our church is politically neutral. Meaning, we never--and I mean NEVER--talk politics at church! I'm guessing there are hundreds of evangelical churches all over this country with pastors supporting certain candidates based on their faith (like Reverend Jeffress down in Dallas backing Rick Perry and bashing Mitt Romney for not being Christian--because it's SO Christian to bash other people's belief systems) but I can honestly say I've never once heard the name Mitt Romney or Jon Huntsman mentioned at church. We just don't do it. And this idea that our church's leadership would be phoning in to the White House influencing Mitt if he were president? So preposterous! Equally preposterous is the idea that a President Romney could influence the church's leadership because of his political position.

 . . . getting Kate squared away for end of term, Will set up for futsal (indoor soccer), Elizabeth prepped for an expander, and Rachael, well, we just hang out together. I had the babysitting co-op at my house earlier this week with several cute little girls for her to play with, and it was so much fun listening to the sounds of little girls planning a tea party. (Until Rachael asked me for some real sugar to put in their "tea" and I wouldn't let her because I knew someone would overdo it and create a sticky mess on the carpet and she got so mad she actually WHACKED ME IN THE FACE! That was a first.)

 . . . attending a "Favorite Things" party tonight. How fun was that! Everyone brought their favorite thing (no more than $20) and an appetizer or dessert to share, and the "favorite things" were distributed white elephant style. I came home with the most adorable green homemade flirty/frilly apron. (Super cute. Kind of like this. I can't make stuff like this so I was pretty excited.) Someone else took home some Olay Regenerist night cream. I told them I started using it when I turned 50.

 . . . getting pulled over by a very nice police officer whilst in my pajamas and slippers in between carpools because apparently my registration expired IN AUGUST and my car needed to be impounded. Except that it wasn't, because that nice Indian officer (don't know why I mentioned his ethnicity other than to convince people that not everyone in Utah is a WASM ((White Anglo Saxon Mormon))) took pity on me, clearly sensing it would NOT be a good idea to remove an unshowered, pajama clad woman from her car for the harmless crime of being a harried mother of too many children who can't keep track of her important paperwork. (I took care of the registration yesterday.)

 . . . Brandon being the first person on the scene of an accident involving a high school girl and a big truck. He said she was moaning and unresponsive, her head was bleeding like crazy, and she was having a hard time breathing. (Somehow he ended up with her car keys . . . ) I'm just glad he was the one to "happen" upon the accident before other first responders could get there. Someone told me tonight she's still in a coma in critical condition.

This is our life. It is full and busy and good. But it doesn't leave a lot of room for blogging.