Making Memories with Music

Last night was the Master Singers' Easter concert. I love the Master Singers for many reasons. Many of them are from my old neighborhood. The concerts are free and they welcome families to attend. It is one of the few cultural opportunities in town. I love music, and these men singing old folk songs, Irish ballads, and patriotic tunes make me teary.

The main reason I love the Master Singers for the sake of personal nostalgia. My mom tries to attend every concert and had invited me to join her for the Easter concert about five years ago. It was Sunday and I had just returned home from a trip to Mexico the day before. I was exhausted, but the concert sounded nice so I said yes. I was feeling good. I just spent a week working hard on humanitarian projects. I had that good sun burnt bone weary feeling. I had enjoyed being in another country. Also...I had just met a guy. He was on the same trip and we spent hours talking as we drove to Mexico and back. There was something special about him. He seemed familiar. He was a hard worker. He treated me well. And oh how he made me laugh. Everyone called him Starr.

We got home from the trip in the morning on Saturday. I went straight home, showered, and went to bed. I woke up a few hours later and went to get a drink. There was a knock on the basement door. I was standing there with a cup in my hand and thought "It's him." It was!

He asked if I had his tortillas. I was tired and thought he was joking. No, he claimed he was really looking for his tortillas. I like to think he was looking for my number. He got it.

So I was feeling good. I went to a fireside Sunday evening before the concert. I went alone and sat by a guy. My good mood overcame me and I was more talkative than normal. Big mistake. See what you get for being too nice? He was creepy and wouldn't stop talking during the whole meeting. I got a really bad vibe from him. He kept saying that I should give him a ride home. I did NOT feel comfortable at all. The fireside ended and I tried to gracefully ditch the dweeb. No success. I glanced around the gym and spotted my saving grace. Starr! I walked over and said "Starr! and Jeremy! There you guys are. If you want a ride, let's go!" and gave them both my please-save-my-life face. They played along and accompanied me to drop off the creeper. When we were done I thanked them for coming to the rescue and invited them to the concert. They said it sounded like fun.

I called my mom and she said something came up and she couldn't attend so the boys and I went without her.

Now most of my friends are usually male. I don't want to sound pretentious but I was used to being "in the middle" of things with guys. Go somewhere in a truck, I sit in the middle. Watch a movie, sit in the middle. Some sort of awkward love triangle, whoops! middle again (totally kidding here). When we entered the theater, Jeremy went down the row first and I naturally went to follow. Starr cut me off and followed Jeremy to the seats with me coming in last. Silly little thing, but it caught my attention. Did he seriously just not let me sit by Jeremy? Jason later admitted that was EXACTLY what he intended. I could fill this essay with little things that meant big things but we all know how the story ends so I won't make you gag.

He kept me entertained during the performance, pointing out impressive vibrato and tricky triplets. I would have called him a know-it-all, but I was actually pleasantly surprised at his knowledge. And of course, he kept me smiling and laughing the whole time.

The Master Singers concert wasn't our first date (for that he took me out for ice cream and tried to pay with left over pesos) but it was the first time I realized that he was really interested in me. Some random events had to happen to get us there, but I'm eternally grateful we went.

Last night Starr/Jason, Little Mason and I met up with my parents at the theater. The audience mostly consisted of old ladies with pruned gray hair and old men that used to be taller. Someone was certainly wearing too much cologne. But it was wonderful. Mason must have decided to give me a break and actually slept through most of it. I found out my mom loves the song "Send in the clowns". There was a piano solo of "O Divine Redeemer" which I fell in love with earlier this year. I fought tears when they sang "America the Beautiful." I'm a mess at their Veteran's concert.

It was special. I hope we can continue this tradition until I have a gray pruned bob of my own.

Muddy shoes and wind blown hair.

Walking to church on a bright spring morning is worth it.

It just makes cents

I'm obsessed with finding cheap stuff. Couponing and Bountiful Baskets are only the beginning.

Even when my boy is being Captain CrankyPants and I don't dare take him to the grocery store, I will justify stopping in at some of my favorite thrift stores.

I know I annoy my mom and sisters by sending pics of every bargain I find.
I know I annoy the store employees by doing happy dances in the aisles.
I know I'm probably not saving all that much when I keep buying stuff all the time.
But I don't really care, so hand over my change.

I was feeling a bit partisan so I included the Catholic Thrift Store in my rotation.
Score! Old picture frame and a vintage Raggedy Andy for $3.50.
The Dollar Store never disappoints either.


Mason's new ride was a whopping buck fitty. I actually had no choice but to buy it... he wouldn't get off.


But my true love is DI.
Mason's Easter outfit, Jason's cupboards for his shed, my next craft project, books and toys were all picked up at DI today.

Last time I was in Richfield I ran some errands with my Father in Law, Richard. I convinced him to stop at their DI (as if it took much convincing).

Ta Da! The pièce de résistance! Always desired, but never splurged...until now!
I think it was $2.
My "new" cupcake display.

Richard was bewildered when he saw me dive head first to snatch it up. "What is that thing?!"
When I started doing my "I just saved a bundle" celebratory jig, he hid behind the tie rack.

I'm looking forward to an upcoming Swap Meet in my neighborhood. Not for the obvious reason either. I hope to lighten my personal materialistic load and maybe even make someone else do a happy dance.

Now there, I've admitted I'm a bit nuts. Aren't we all in one way or another? It reminds me of this humorous revision of the LDS 13th Article of Faith:

13. We believe in being above average, good at crafts, optimistic, and being fifteen minutes late everywhere we go. Indeed, we may say that we follow BYU football. We believe rumors about famous people joining the church, we hope to meet the three Nephites, we have endured many pyramid schemes, and hope to be able to endure all pyramid schemes. If there is anything cheap, free, sold in bulk, or given away when somebody is moving, we seek after these things.

Words of the Week

Courage does not always roar. Sometimes it is a quiet voice a the end of the day, saying "I will try again tomorrow." -Mary Anne Radmacher

Mediocre people do exceptional things all the time. -OK GO

Silence is one of the great arts of conversation. -Hannah More

Marriage is what brings us together today...

I spy friendly cousin Clint

(sloppy editing, I know!)

My smiley boys

As close to a family pic as we'll get

Little Mister

yes, I DO have a million pictures of him

And yes, the door was actually open!
Beautiful day, beautiful place.

speaking of wedding bells...

Jessica got married back in November. I do not love Jess any less but November was hard. My Grandpa died a week before the wedding. At the time I just didn't know how to write about the things going on. I'm still working on what to even say about Grandpa. But since I'm doing weddings tonight...let's do weddings!

Here's Junior Guapo. I just cut his hair short and this pic makes me sad.

Aren't they dashing?

Here's looking at you, kid.

Such a beautiful winter day

Such a beautiful happy couple.

Lions and Tigers and Bears OH MY!

We've been spending a lot of time outside lately. We pretend the weather is better than it really is. I thought I'd better hurry and write about our "OZ" adventure before I forget. We left Mason at my sister Kristi's, where he gets better care than at home. I really don't worry about him...well for a while I don't.

We had a goal of exploring and a vague idea of where to go.

We left town in good weather but with warnings of a severe weather storm approaching. By the time we got to Milford it was snowing. As we climbed up into the mountains it got worse. The summits were bad, but then the valleys were clear so we continued on. (Thanks to Scott for being our "hey can you google something real quick" friend). We found a beautiful place right before our turn off the highway, so we stopped and took in the view. Then we looked down found some great flagstone type rock. We loaded up the jeep with some (yay! free rocks!) for our back yard and journeyed onward.

Finding this sign was a relief. We certainly learned our lesson not to go without a map. Now we have several and spend a lot of time looking them over and picking our next adventure spot. We spent most of the day in the Pine Valley area, not to be confused with the town of Pine Valley or the Pine Valley Mtns. We were by Indian Peak and the WahWah Mountains. It feels so homey and comfortable. I'm sure most of the world's population would find sage brush and juniper trees ugly, but I love our mountain desert.

J's main objective was to spend time with me :) but since we were out there he wanted to find some elk. We searched high and low but no elk. There were tons of tracks and he found an elk antler, but no sightings that trip.

We were headed in the general direction of home when Jason spotted some antelope. There were only 3 but they were amazing! They ran parallel to us at about 40 miles an hour. They seem to exotic to be roaming around in Utah. Seeing them is probably as close as I'll get to my African Safari dream. Here's a little video clip. Hard to see, I know, but they were so close to us. I actually started getting nervous that they would run into us.

Right after we caught our breath from that encounter a big coyote ran across the road directly in front of us. And later we found a big golden eagle, unfortunately dead, but majestically dead. So, no lions, tigers, or bears, or even elk. I guess antelope, coyotes, and eagles will have to do.

We finally figured out a way to get home. The roads were snowy in some places and muddy in others but we were doing fine. We found Lund Ut, all three houses of it, and headed home on Avon Rd. Suddenly the dirt road turned into this:This is after Jason reversed. You can see the tire tracks. We were barely able to stop in time to stay out of the flood. I asked if we could go around, so we tried off roading through the sage brush. It was not just the road that was flooded, but the whole valley! We back tracked and found another road that looked like it headed in the same direction.

I knew for sure we were in OZ when this strange scene popped out of the sage brush:

The road sign by the gate says "Toad Road". Quite literally in the middle of nowhere. Unfortunately we came to a screeching halt on this road as well when it was too washed out. We back tracked again. I started to worry, it was getting late and we were still a long way from home and getting back to Mason. Eventually we found our way to Beryl Junction and then home on HWY 56.

Covered in mud.
Tired.
Happy.

Two days later we went to Lund, UT the easy way and found out we should have taken a road on the other side of the three houses and we could have been home in a half hour instead of the almost three hours it took us. We took the long way home (Jason likes loops, not going and coming back the same way). We found more antelope and Mason thought they were amazing. We also found a lost dog and contacted his owner. We found out the dogs name was Star... just meant to be I guess.

Two days after that Jason and his buddy Tyler finally found some elk. Our search is over, some might say. But they don't know Jason. Once he's hooked, he's hooked.

Mommy moments continue

today I was trying to coerce Mason into eating his whole sandwich. I heard myself repeating the common mommy phrase "eat your crusts, they are the healthiest part" when I suddenly realized the crust is made up from the exact same ingredients the rest of the slice is. Mom tricked me! and yes I am just now figuring this out.

today I took Mason to the shoe store. He literally outgrew all his shoes overnight. I asked the sales lady to measure his foot so I could see what sizes to look at. I couldn't believe it when she said to buy size 6 1/2! What happened to 4 1/2 and five? I thought she must be mistaken, but sure enough that was the size that had room. This might sound like a trivial story, but I was the mom in the shoe store trying not to cry because her little boy is growing up too fast.

(ps I told Mason to pick out which shoes he wanted. He picked one Dora the Explorer tennis shoe and one sparkly gel sandal)

What Starr has been up to

For the past month or so Jase has been out of town almost every other weekend. Work is getting crazy busy. When he's not out of town, at trainings, or on installs, he's on his phone. The calls and texts do not stop. It's hard. This year the "season" starts extra early. He only has a few weeks left before he heads out to Mississippi. Mason and I will go when the office moves to Alabama and into real housing.

So he doesn't have much leisure time, but he's been able to fit a few fun things in.

Here he is in Cancun for the annual APX trip. This year he went with his bro Joe and a few of his good tech/friends. Luckily this year he did not end up wretchedly sick.

Despite Jason's time deficit he always prioritizes basketball. For the last few months he'd play city league on Mondays, church ball on Tuesdays, and then church playoffs on Wednesdays. I'm 88% supportive of this. It's important to be active and, for him, to be competitive. Guys seem to need that sweaty-physical-manly time. It makes him happy so it makes me happy. My 12% reservations are mostly based on the multiple injuries. (Thanks Chels for the snapshot. For as many games we went to, I never brought a camera.)

All in all I'd be remiss if I didn't mention J's obsession with elk lately. We've been up in the mountains about every other day for the past week. I'll write on that next, but here's a picture of my man in the mountains. This is a beautiful spot we discovered while out exploring, and later found out it's called Eye of the Needle. Exploring is a good activity for us. He gets his wildlife, I get my nature, we get some together time.

"You cannot touch without being touched"

Newton's Third Law