Graduation Day!

Today I received my bachelor's degree! It was a GREAT day!

We rode to Flagstaff with my in laws. Each of the girls coped differently with several hours in the car.

Heather read on her Nook and then watched scenery while listening to her mp3

Emily read half of Pride and Prejudice while listening to her mp3

Megan took a nap most of the way north, but she deleted the picture so I took this staged photo. She also listened to her mp3 and stared out the window.

 

Not many students from our program graduate in December.  Here is the gang I graduated with.  I will miss them and everyone else in the program.

 

Emily, me, Megan, Heather

Me with Mom and Dad

 

As we were leaving the Skydome it began to snow. I told Heather it would be fun to have a picture with snow in my hair.  THIS is the photo she took -- of nothing but snow in my hair! I DO have a face, honey!

This is the make up photo.  Please note the snow in my hair!
(Only someone from the desert would even care about snow.)

Emily and Megan were freezing. I had them pose for a photo of being cold and Grandpa photobombed them. This is my very favorite photo from the entire day!

 

Grandma and Grandpa brought us a plate of Christmas cookies! Yum!  Papa wouldn't let us eat them in his new car.  :-(

 

Heather fell asleep in Megan's lap on the  ride home. Megan got quiet so I looked back and saw her asleep on Heather's shoulder. Too funny! 

(Please note they both have their mp3 headphones in, even in sleep!)

 

We returned home to this!

 

And this....

 

YES, I DID!

 

Yeah. There is NO WAY I will ever wear this!

Chef Megan

My birthday was earlier this week.  Megan has been taking a Culinary class in high school this year and decided she was cooking dinner on my birthday.  She was sneaky!  She gave Emily a list of ingredients she needed and Emily went to shopping without me. I was banned from the fridge for the day.

That evening, I was banned from the kitchen while Megan did all the cooking.  Emily was at work, so Heather and I watched a movie while Megan cooked.

Here is the finished product:

Pan-seared, caramelized chicken with a cream sauce

Homemade vinaigrette dressing over greens

I made garlic bread

 

Dinner was delicious!  I think she should cook more often.

 

Emily's boss is one of the guys in my program at school. She came home from work and had this picture of the district manager and her store manager.

Santa Jim and Elf Kyle

Favorite Authors

Two of my favorite authors were in Phoenix yesterday to autograph books and visit with their fans.  I went with my friend Sandi and her daughter, Clarcy. 

The authors are Sarah M. Eden and Julianne Donaldson. What gracious and entertaining ladies! It was great fun to discuss books we love and get the scoop on upcoming stories. The characters in Sarah's books intertwine and know each other. Sometimes characters for future books are mentioned or make an appearance in an earlier book as a clue to what is coming. In addition to writing stories about all the siblings in a family, Sarah writes about many of their friends' stories, as well. Hearing which characters have their own stories coming up was exciting! We also talked about the motivations of some of the characters, when family secrets will be revealed (hint: It wasn't last night, darn it!), and whose stories are next in line. It was fun to do more than speculate about what could happen next.

Julianne (Julie), Clarcy, Sarah

I used to work with Sarah's husband when they lived in the Valley. Her parents have been seminary teachers to my two older daughters.  The added bonus is that her parents were at the book signing so we got to visit with them for a while, too.  They are some of the nicest people on the planet!

Ginny and Steve

 

Our stake had youth conference this weekend so although Clarcy's younger sister is a huge fan she was unable to attend.  We knew that Abby would be sad to have missed a photo opportunity with the authors.  The authors jokingly expressed shock that Abby chose youth conference over them. Julie grabbed a pen and paper and wrote a note to Abby:

Doesn't she look sad?

"Abby, how could you?"

 

Sarah also wrote a note.

 

"Priorities, Abby. Priorities!"

Favorite authors vs. youth conference. Tough choices! ha ha

 

After the authors left, we browsed through the Barnes and Noble store. It is HUGE! It must be three times the size of the one near our house. I could easily spend a lot of money in that store!  I love books and in five more weeks I will be free to read anything I want (instead of textbooks!). Yahoo!!

 

It was a fun girls' night out and a nice break from studying.

Family Feud

My cousin Kristy and her family were recently contestants on Family Feud.  It was so much fun to watch them!

You can watch their Family Feud video here and see all the action.

Kemp, Matt, Kristy, Sami, Mike

Woohoo! They won on day 1, but lost the second day.

Russian Missionaries

My niece Taralee entered the Provo MTC earlier this month.  She is heading to Russia.

Tara is the redhead on the right.

Her companion is from Sweden.

 

Emily's good friend Ross is also heading to Russia next month.  He had an open house on Sunday and looked so awesome in his Russian attire (and Soviet hat!) that I had to post some pictures. (No one ever explained how his dad comes to own a Soviet hat....)  His grandparents just got home from a mission to Moscow and were in town on Sunday to say goodbye.

 

He looks Russian already, doesn't he?

Hamming for the camera

It will be fun to read their letters and see how they experience Russian culture.  Taralee will be on the western border of Russia and Ross will be on the far eastern border just above North Korea.  Will it be like comparing New Jersey and California--very different cultures within the same country?  It will be interesting to find out!

Ross's grandmother made Russian celebration foods: borscht, plov, and Olivier salad.  The plov was AMAZING!  It looked and tasted like Thanksgiving dressing, but had pork in it instead of turkey.  Yum!

Megan, Ross, Emily, Heather

She looks so short!

In addition to our new Russian missionaries, Taralee's sister is currently serving in Bolivia and the girls' stepbrother is going to Tacoma Washington starting the end of October.  It will be very exciting to see them all grow.

And Heather is counting the days until she can leave in 2016!

Randomness

Earlier this year my camera died.  It was about 7 years old, so it had probably outlived its life expectancy, anyway.  We have found, though, that the camera on my cell phone is actually better than my old camera.  As a result, I find all kinds of random photos on my phone.  Or, like today, my children will pull out the phone while we are our and about. 

Here are the latest random photos:

The cat had been outside and came in looking like this. 

At the mall - no desire to go in here!

In my class last week on Diversity we learned about Afghanistan culture. The women in class got to use henna to decorate their arms, hands, and feet. This was my henna "tattoo."  The mark can last up to 3 weeks, but mine faded after about 5 days.

 We get a lot of Daddy pictures!

 

Sleepover with our friend Mercedes before she left for college

 

 Emily called this "James Bond's license plate"

 

This one says "RUBBISH", which is a phrase The Doctor uses on Doctor Who, a favorite British TV show.  The bumper sticker on the right is a British flag.

 

Heather's chemistry class learned how to change the color of pennies yesterday. One was changed by chemicals; the other by fire exposure.

 

And A Child Shall Lead Them

I spent the entire spring semester working on a research paper on civility in America.  My research documented the increasing rudeness shown in social interactions, especially by people of different ages.  I have seen it.  I have been on the receiving end of it.  I have probably even been on the giving end of it.  I KNOW I have been on the giving end of it. 

Experts claim there are various reasons for this decline in how we treat each other. Stress is big. Being in a hurry. Lack of concern for the feelings of other people. Impatience. Selfishness.  Narcissism. Intolerance.  These last ones are really big!  People, especially young people, have no patience for anyone that is different or in any way inconveniences them. Basically, we are polite when it benefits us to be polite (at work, when we want something from the other person, etc.) but careless, impatient, unthinking and rude at other times.  And this rudeness is prevalent throughout society: at work, at school, on the road, in the media, in our homes.

It is that last area -- our homes -- that I have been more and more concerned with.  More specifically, in MY home.  I know I have taught my children about being polite to other people, but to them sisters don't seem to count at "other people" deserving of restrained responses. After watching some interactions as they fight for control of the bathroom or the television, I have worried that maybe I have failed as a mother to teach them the manners and skills required to succeed in the adult world which they are soon to enter.

And then my children surprise me. Today as we drove home and turned on our street we saw this:

The man in the wheelchair was going about 1 mph.  Every few feet he would stop and punch a button on his phone. It was clear he was using some kind of automated phone system and was completely engrossed in his call.  He was unaware that we were at a total standstill, waiting for him to move to the side or speed up.  I wasn't in a hurry, but was ready to honk to let him know we were there.  As I moved my hand my girls yelled, "NO!" and grabbed my phone, taking the above photo.

Some might think their reaction was mocking or rude, making fun of the older man.  But they were grinning from ear to ear, much like we adults do when watching a small child who is completely engrossed in making mud pies or splashing in a water puddle.  They kept saying, "That is so awesome!" and "I love it!"  And while they had been a touch grumpy on the ride home from school, they were now, and have remained for hours, cheerful and happy.

The man put away his phone and continued on his way, still blissfully unaware that he had delayed us in any way. And that made my girls even happier. As he drove off I realized that maybe, just maybe, my children have learned something from me, after all.  But I KNOW I have learned something from them.