This & That

I didn't take the time to write down what we've been up to this last week. Tuesday after the freeway party, I met Nylene, Jen and Machelle at Cold Stone for Jen's birthday. I miss seeing and visiting with them on a more regular basis, but I sure am glad for their friendship.

Thursday Emily had Beka and I over to swim at her mom's. Catching up with old friends is always fun. It always reminds me how much I like blogs because when you only get to see people once every year or two, you still know what's going on in their lives. Thursday night we had our Movie Night pack meeting. I thought it turned out great. So did Clara. She ate half (or more) of my M&M's. Then, she walked around to everyone else and peered over the top of their cup to see if they had any left. If they did, she bent down and helped herself. (Note the mouth full of M&M's in this picture). After letting this go on for a little bit, I went and got her and let he know she couldn't have any more treats. She walked over to someones cup of M&M's, looked at it, shook her head side to side and walked away. She also spent a lot of time running around and screaming in the parts of the Cultural Hall that weren't occupied by people. The movie was loud enough that you couldn't really hear her either, so I was happy about that. And she met a new friend. Nylene's niece, who's the same age as Lilly, was there and loved Clara. Clara loved her too and didn't want to come home with us after it was over. Friday we went to the Truitt's for Pool Days. Nylene's niece was there again so I enjoyed swimming in the pool and visiting without having to entertain Clara most of the time.

That evening Kathryn and Ryan watched Clara so Jason and I could go to the Temple. It was SO busy there since it closes after this weekend for a few weeks. Jason had a family name but our session was so big we didn't want to wait for them to record it. Fast forward to Saturday when we went to get my oil changed, to Old Navy to shop(if you like to buy clothes in advance for your kids, go to Old Navy right now, the sales are amazing) and then to the Temple to get the name. Well, I didn't think about it before we left so I had to go in the Temple in jeans and flip flops. I felt pretty awkward since I was obviously the only one dressed that way.

We were planning on cleaning our house, but Angela and Clint invited us to eat at Olive Garden with them. I love living close to my family. I think the highlight of our night was when Clara spilled some water and I gave her a napkin and asked her to clean it up. She got close to the table, had the napkin in both hands and began wiping back and forth rapidly. Afterwards, we came to our house and visited. We were kind of celebrating Clint's birthday that was on Thursday. I'm glad Clint is in our family. I don't know of a more fitting couple than Angela and Clint.

I was up until 5:00am working. But don't feel bad for me. First of all, it's my own fault. If I'm up that late working, a lot of times it's because I choose to do fun things. Plus, I slept until about 9:30am. Many of you wonder how I function. Well, I've never been one to need 8 hours of sleep. Six or seven is sufficient. A little less just makes my eyes burn a little more at night, but that's about it. I feel much better if most of my sleep is during about 11pm and 5am, which is rare. But I still end up getting a decent amount of sleep, it's just during odd hours. Lately Clara has been sleeping until 9am a lot of times, so if I'm up until 2am, I still get seven hours of sleep.

Why Jason makes me laugh:

Clara: (picking her nose)
Jason: I think Clara learned that she can find something if she picks her nose
Anna: Yeah, she's known for a while. She just puts her finger up her nose until she finds a booger.
Jason: At least we know she doesn't give up.

Tonight the family came over for cookies and milk to celebrate Clint's birthday. I just love families, particularly mine.

FOF

A few weeks ago I was asked if life would be noticeably different when Jason is done with school. So here are five reasons I'm looking forward to Jason being all done, since this is the last Friday before that glorious day...
1. Return of husband and dad. First and foremost, I will have a husband again and Clara will have a dad. I joke that it will be like we're getting married again. Almost every night (there will still be some late nights at work) and almost every weekend.
2. More happiness. Jason's friend Trent says: You must be back in school; you are always ticked off. I say: Welcome to my life. Then the other night Jason said, "I feel like I should get into politics just so I can beat someone up." Jason is very passionate about politics, but having that, work and school all at the same time creates a raging Jason. Happier Jason = Happier Anna = Happier Clara. :)
3. Money. Not only will we not have to pay ASU thousands of dollars a year for tuition and hundreds for books, but Jason has started working full time. Most of Summer School he worked full-time but since he didn't commit to it, he didn't get full benefits. Soon he'll be eligible and trust me, it's much cheaper than our individual health insurance policies.
4. Time. Jason will be able to spend time around the house and do the little projects we've talked about for years. We can eat dinner together as a family, spend time together as a family and he can spend time with Clara so I can be selfish and have ME time. He will also have time to help me. Of course this is only until he gets a second job. Just kidding, we joke about this a lot; it's only a joke (for now).
5. Availability. Jason will be able to go places with us. I go places ALL the time with just Clara. I'm not talking about just around town either. Since Clara was born, we've gone to California FOUR times without Jason.

Next Thursday, I'll happily say to Jason, welcome back to the family. :)

Five things that make Clara happy :
Having an attitude (she would make this face then every now and then laugh/squeal loudly and smile) Watermelon (like father, like daughter)
Blowing bubbles in the water... she also decided she could swim and will now just go under water with her arms and legs out like a frog and wait for someone to get her. She even holds her breath.
Lots and lots of boyfriends (like mother, like daughter... when I was young, of course)
And of most importance, her dolly. In the last few days, Clara has decided this is her new best friend. She loves dragging her dolly everywhere. If Clara gets to watch me make breakfast, then the dolly does too. I asked her to share her milk with her and she did. The next morning, we were eating blueberries and I caught her shoving a blueberry in the dolly's mouth. The dolly has a little purple pen mark on her arm and every time Clara sees it she says "owww" and then kisses/bites it better (in a similar manner as she is kissing/biting her lips in this picture)...
Happy Weekend!

WOY

The following conversation took place in the Penrod's kitchen at 4:00am:

Jason: What are you doing?!?
Anna: Making you breakfast so I can win Wife of the Year.
Jason: Oh, I thought you were a robber.

That's right, I made muffins for Jason at 4:00am to take fishing. Congratulations to me. Okay, the truth is I actually hadn't gone to bed because I was working. Sadly, the chances of me waking up to do something like this are pretty slim, if there even is a chance. I don't even wake up at 7:00am to make breakfast, let alone 4:00am. So remember these as long as you can...Why I shouldn't cook/bake at 4:00am: I might be mistaken as a robber, cinnamon doesn't come out of the unopened bottle with plastic covering the holes in the lid and saran wrap melts when placed on hot pans.

Par-tay

Last night we were invited to an exclusive party. Okay, maybe it was open to the public. Angela and Clint came over, we went to Sonic and then off to the Loop 202 for the party. The final stretch (University to Power) opens this weekend so ADOT threw a party for all to come have fun. The white lines are 10 feet long. They don't look that long driving or walking past. So I decided to put things into perspective and volunteer Angela to lie next to it. She deferred the obligation to Clint. Even better, he's 6'4" (I think).
Now this picture isn't that great. But it has a funny story behind it. As Clint was walking towards this wall, I was taking pictures and kind of laughing. One of the vendors taking his table down seemed to think initially I was going to take a picture of him. I said sorry, I'm taking a picture of him (motioning towards Clint) and kind of laughed. The guy asked if I knew him. I confessed. Then he asked me if I liked him. What? I was like um, he's my little sister's husband (maybe he didn't realize I was married with a kid?) so I hope I don't like him like that!
I'm pretty sure Clint took this random picture. I like the angle and I like that you can see the Brown Rd. sign so we always remember what part of the freeway we were on.
Hard hat family
This picture is cool for two reasons. One, the speed limit signs are HUGE. Two, I can't get over how much the sign is glowing from my flash. Of course Clint described it well when he commented on it being a speed limit sign from Heaven.

Clint glares, Angela smirks
Angela longs for the day she gets to use an outhouse
There were several low-flying helicopters during our short stay. Clara was sure to point excitedly at every one.
Maybe there are too many family pictures in this post... oh well.

Clara's cheeks get so rosy when she's hot.
Waldo even was at the party
Hmmmm...
Afterwards I noticed Clint's legs in the front seat of my car. Obviously he wasn't real comfortable. Whoops!

Clara's Funnies

Only those of you with Google Reader will probably read this post, since I started it nearly two weeks ago and am just now finishing it. Oh well, at least I'll have it in my personal records!

Believe it or not, besides closing her eyes when asked to smile, Clara does a LOT of other funny things. It's amazing (and sad) how quickly things in my mind go forgotten if they aren't recorded.
The other night we were having family prayer and after it started, with her arms folded, she reached up and tapped Jason's forehead. I told Clara to close her eyes. She did, for a second, then opened them up. I gently put my hand over her eyes to try to help her understand we keep our eyes closed the entire prayer. After a few seconds, I removed my hand and her eyes obviously stayed open. I told her again to close her eyes, so she put her hands over her eyes.

While Clara was eating her mac & cheese, she decided she just couldn't shovel the food in her mouth with her spoon quick enough. So she attempted to dump the bowl in her mouth. Seeing that wouldn't work either (she was cautious) she set the bowl down and began grabbing fistfuls of her orange dinner and shoving them in her mouth.

I was sitting on the couch talking on the phone and Clara, sat right next to me "talking" on her phone. She started talking faster and then would bob her head and then laugh really loud as she threw her head forward. Hopefully I'm not that animated when I talk on the phone...

Recently Clara has decided it's really fun to "honk" my nose. Fortunately for me, she's fairly gentle when she does it.

I'm not sure if Clara is attempting to be a baby again, or a dog, but she thinks she's hilarious when she crawls all over. And to her, she's even funnier if she puts her head on the ground as she does it. One morning she even crawled into my closet and buried her head under the pile of clothes.

At Scouts, when we do the Promise, you are supposed to raise your right hand up with your hand making the peace sign. Well, Clara does it along with us using just one finger. She also does this while we say the Pledge of Allegiance.

Last night, 7.26.08, at the restaurant we ate at, Clara was totally ornery. When I tried to make her eat some chicken off a plate before getting more fries, she shoved the plate away. Then today (7.27.08) after not getting a nap, she was off the wall. One second she was crying and the next she was laughing on the ground. She threw her baby on the ground, pranced around like she was hopped on sugar, she turned on the TV and when I told her to turn it off because we don't watch TV on Sunday, she laid face down on the floor and threw her head up and down and kicked and screamed until she realized I wasn't going to leave the TV on. She also walked around shrugging her shoulders and had us laughing our heads off all afternoon and into the evening.

Opportunities

Before we went to Organ Stop Pizza with Lily Thursday, we went to Kathryn's. Amy, Kathryn and I wrote a statement for the November ballot stating our opinion of the importance of amending the Arizona Constitution to state the that in Arizona, "Only a union of one man and one woman shall be valid or recognized as a marriage in this state." Kathryn's friend and her husband have put forth much time and effort to get others to take action, so Kathryn asked us to do this with her. We wrote a short and sweet statement that we felt really made some good points. Doing this got me thinking about all the issues like this. So often I think, Oh, let someone who knows what they're doing take care of it. Or, It's not my responsibility. Or even, What do I have to offer? And then I remember something I once heard, "If not you, then who; if not now, then when." I realized that if everyone had the same attitude as me, society could be worse off than it is now. So thank you to Marily (Kathryn's friend) and her husband and Kathryn for giving me the opportunity to realize the importance of being involved. Hopefully, this wasn't the last time I attempt to get my voice out there.

I had the opportunity to do fun things this weekend. Friday night I played Bunco with Beka and then Jason and I watched Dan in Real Life. I heard it was good, but I really liked it. I don't want to say it was super good, because then it might find you disappointed. I was a little sleepy through it, but I don't remember there being much language (it was PG-13, so it wasn't exempt from it, but it was pretty clean) and I don't recall any scenes that made me feel awkward. Plus, the music was really great. Saturday afternoon I played Bunco again, with my new Bunco group. It was fun seeing and visiting with people from high school that I haven't seen since high school.

Saturday afternoon Lily had a syncro swim meet. By the way, her and her partner got 2nd. Yeah Lily! Before going, I called the 1st Counselor in our Bishopric to see who was speaking in Sacrament. Long story short, there was only one speaker. The 2nd, had fallen through the cracks (not literally). The poor 1st Counselor sounded devastated. So I did what anyone would do (right?), I volunteered to speak. I actually have been secretly wanting to speak in Sacrament for quite some time. For the 20 months or so I've been doing the bulletin, I've been waiting for them to tell me I'm the lucky winner.

There are a few reasons I was wanting to speak. First, I have only spoke once in this ward and it was a disaster. Well, whenever I speak, it usually ends up as a disaster. I have all these great thoughts in my head, they never come out the right way, I cry because I'm nervous, then I cry because I'm crying and then I squeak through the rest of my talk, sniffling obnoxiously into the microphone. In a way, I wanted to see if I would ever be able to overcome this. And the only way to know is to speak. I also just love preparing for a talk. I get to read so many powerful quotes, ponder wonderful scriptures and feel the promptings of the Spirit.

Anyway, when I told Bro. Bevell I'd speak, I'm pretty sure he didn't think I was serious. I was and I was excited for the opportunity to serve. After all, I've been asking for lots of blessings lately and clearly I needed to have the opportunity to do certain things so that the desires of my heart would be granted (Kathryn, when can I watch your girls? :)). Sometimes we have to be willing to make our sacrifices BEFORE we are granted our blessings. Plus, I usually work Saturday night, but for some reason I had energy and motivation to get my stuff done Friday during Clara's nap (trust me, it is very rare for me to work Friday afternoon unless I absolutely have to). What else was I going to do?

Back to the talk (yes, it gets better). Saturday evening I had my topic and spent a few hours gathering quotes, scriptures and trying to determine an outline for my talk. Nothing was coming. Normally if I have a topic I can go on for ever. I started getting sleepy and I decided to "rest". Ha ha, yeah right. I fell asleep, Jason carried me to bed and I woke up at 7am with almost nothing ready. At 7:45am I received another frantic phone call. My topic was actually what the other speaker had been assigned. I got my new topic and at first, I was like, this isn't even a "real" talk. There seemed to be very little doctrinal substance, more of reminiscing about history and bearing a testimony. But I prayed and imagine that, everything all of a sudden came together. It was a true testimony of how the Spirit can guide your preparation for such a thing.

We got to church about 2 minutes before it started, but only because Jason helped me so much. He made me breakfast in bed, watched Clara all morning and got her and her bag all ready for Church. Oh, he put her down for a nap and copied the bulletin too. I was a little embarrassed when Bro. Bevell relayed this story to the congregation because I saw it as a way to show the Lord that I will continue to do the things He's asked as he blesses us with the things we need. The opportunity was a blessing for me, not just an attempt to ease the apparent burden this put on Bro. Bevell.

Anyway, the deliverance of my talk was great. I didn't cry once (not that it's bad to cry in a talk, but when I do, it's more because of nervousness, not the feelings of the Spirit, so it's embarrassing). That may be because I read my whole talk (I had a good excuse not to memorize it), but either way, I felt like my talk, for the first time in my life, went well.

And had I known Bro. Bevell was going to mention the situation, I would've shared the top 5 reasons it's good to find out on Saturday night you're speaking in Church:

5. I wasn't worried about preparing a talk during the week
4. No time to get nervous
3. Who starts preparing before Saturday night anyway?
2. I got breakfast in bed
1. With little time to prepare, there was no time to memorize so I was justified in reading my talk, word for word. :)

100 Years

Civil Engineers are in charge of the drainage in our world. They design for the worst case scenario: the 100 year storm. In other words, they design how to best move water from the worst possible storms which are expected to come around every 100 years. Some government agency created Isopluvial Maps (Jason says maybe the Flood Control District for Maricopa County?) which define what a 100-year storm is for certain areas. Over by us, they are required to design for 2.6" of water within two hours. The storm on Thursday that washed half of Mesa away was about 3" of water in less than an hour. So what is that, a 1,000-year storm? I imagine it was a lot like the thunderstorm in These Is My Words. :)

Anyway, Thursday evening Jason, Daniel and Daniel's friend moved a desk from Ryan's to our house. Jason called asking if it was raining. It wasn't (Lily was over and we went on a walk). My words exactly? "It's not even sprinkling". At 7:02pm, we went inside. By the time they got here with the desk, less than five minutes later, we were in the middle of a torrential down pour. It was awesome! The desk got unloaded without being too wet (the wettest piece was the one in the cab that had to be carried into the garage). Daniel took me to Ryan's and University was full of water. I was amazed, the whole time. I stayed at my mom's for a bit so to avoid some of the craziness on the roads.

On Brown, there was a cop and as I got closer, I realized the road was flooded (one lane in the opposite direction) and water was bubbling up about 3 feet (Jason said it was probably a storm drain). I kept driving and later on, Brown was closed. I thought it might be an accident so I went to cut through a neighborhood and realized the road was flooding and water was gushing into the neighborhood. The rushing water was flush with the curb, it was crazy. I was glad to be in Jason's car which sits a few inches higher than mine.

When I got home I told Jason of my adventures and he, of course, had to go on his own adventure. He wanted to go check out a road nearby his project.

He took TONS of pictures, but these are my favorites.

This is our backyard. You can't tell how deep the water was (Jason said it was about 1.5-2") but I love the ripples from the raindrops.
This is the retention basin by our house. It's not huge, but it's pretty deep. It was totally full and flowing over the curb. Speaking of the curb, you can see the moving water on the road was a good 2" or so deep.
Friday morning, Jason and his "team" from work went to go check out what happened over at the site. I think it is incredible seeing the damage rapidly flowing water can do. Here's the start of the next Grand Canyon.
This is a box culvert (4 barrel 10x3, if you want to get technical like Jason) that is supposed to be a 3' opening. After the storm, it was no more than 2' because there was 6-12" of sediment in it.
Erosion along Ellsworth. Jason said the City graded this wrong which is why the water destroyed the bank and ripped off pieces of the road. It was supposed to go across the road.
And now, before my favorite picture, I have to explain a bit about retention basins. Retention basins are designed to hold all of this water during the 100-year storms. Most neighborhoods have their parks as the basins. This is why a few neighborhoods around here had water in their retention basins higher than benches/tables. That means the drainage is working as it should. Well, on Jason's current project, they designed and the contractor has graded such a retention basin. As Jason and his co-workers were looking at the retention basin, the contractor (not the developer) came up and confronted them saying they better be authorized to be there or leave. Jason said they were and mentioned they worked for the Civil Engineer firm. The contractor said, "Then you guys are responsible for this!" And by this, here is what he was referring to:That's right. He had all his semis, a pickup, a tractor and a bobcat parked in the retention basin. Jason explained to him that with the basin full of water, it was actually working exactly as it was designed. The guy then went off on the Panama Canal, Canada, Japanese vs. American chains and so forth. He sounded like quite a character. Character or not, I sure hope his engines weren't destroyed (he claimed he had $150k in engine damage). I hope he doesn't think it's a good idea to keep his construction equipment stored in a retention basin in a master planned community, complete or not. I want to get this picture blown up with a caption that says "You think you're having a bad day?"

FOF

Five happy thoughts for me...

Fresh {cheap} berries are fantastic, but giant ones, are awesome.
A nice brother and SIL who gave me a smoking deal on a new desk and a nice brother who helped move it.

We went with Lily to Organ Stop Pizza with Lily's piano teacher and her other students. While there, this made me laugh:
Lady: I'll take a picture of the three of you
Me: Okay, thanks.
Camera:
Daughter: Oh, the baby's eyes weren't open
Lady: Okay, I'll take another one
Camera:
Daughter: She did it again
Me: (After realizing what was going on) Oh, right, that's just how she smiles... That face will always make me smile.

Apparently all the picture taking worse the girls out, After about ten minutes in the car, this is what I saw when I looked to see why Lily was so quiet.
Two weeks...

Clara has been waking up in the morning and after her naps just talking away. She rarely cries for me. One afternoon, I went to get her and she didn't want to get out. She talked to me, bounced around, ran back and forth in her crib, blew bubbles in her slobber, made funny faces and just laughed at herself for at least 15 minutes. I just sat and took pictures, responding to her babbling ocassionally. That was a fun afternoon.

Five happy thoughts for Clara...

Riding the "roller coaster" at my mom's. I must say, this thing is pretty cool, and even better than Clara can ride it by herself.
Daddy AND the water bottle (Don't worry, Jason is actually covered in sweat, not water)
Baby spoons, laundry detergent and shoes (I was naive thinking the reason Clara wasn't opening the door while I was putting blankets in my car was because she'd gone and played with her toys).
Being carried in a blanket. Fake laughing. Oh, it's hilarious. And then when you laugh at her, she tries harder to do it and starts coughing.

Sweet

I only had one Scout today so we just had a "fun" day. Scouts is always fun, but today we weren't doing any of our requirements, just fun activities. I figured making and decorating sugar cookies is fun for any gender and any age, so that is what we did. As I was looking for other things to do, somehow I stumbled across this and realized TODAY is National Sugar Cookie Day. Who knew? What are the chances that the planned activity coincided perfectly with a declared holiday?

PS I like decorating sugar cookies nearly as much as I like to eat them.

Random Thoughts, Random Pictures

I love to have homemade pizza and smoothies for dinner. Rachel introduced me to the idea last Summer. Plus, it really is fairly healthy. Garlic crust (sometimes wheat, usually not b/c I don't have any wheat ground right now, ha ha), sauce, cheese (2% mozzarella), pepperoni and onions is healthy, right? My smoothies are really healthy. The only ingredients are frozen strawberries (I buy them when they are super cheap and then freeze them in a Ziploc bag) and the organic Vanilla soy milk from Costco. According to Clara, it's even better when you dip the pizza in the smoothie. She ate most of her pizza this way.
Apparently, just before sunset, my curtains act as a perfect light filter because I was able to get the sweetest pictures of Clara. She gets in "lovey" moods and will lay her head on me, hug my hand or whatever else she thinks I'll laugh at.

Finally, Clara has learned to hold the phone with no hands so she can multi-task...

I think frogs/toads are cool. These toads (probably from the canal) come hang out in our yard in the Summer at nights. This guy is pretty large.Free pets that take care of themselves are the best.

Now for the coolest picture...

Clara has been "jumping" lately. By jumping I mean trying to jump and then usually falling. I was taking pictures and she actually got off the ground 1/2 an inch or so. I got it in picture, which I thought was fun. But then I realized that the lady in the TV in the background has her mouth wide open and her right arm in the air, just like Clara's. Neato.