Part Two--The Middle of Jordan's Story

As the sisters sailed side by side down the ditch, they began to notice strange things. Empty green turtles shells sat next to red and white mushrooms on the banks. Now and then a star would quickly pass over them. Small gold coins hung in the air. A sister reached over and touched one; it disappeared with a chiming noise.
They watched, but saw no sign of their little brother. They saw a tree with yellow apples, and stopped to pick as many as they could hold. As they turned to go back to their sleds, one sister saw a single green apple. She picked it.
They continued sailing. One morning they woke up and saw that their sleds were resting on the bank. A tiny old man sat watching them. He asked them for one of their apples. The sisters happily handed him one, but he refused it, saying that he wanted the green one. Since the sisters were very nice girls, they gave it to him without hesitation. He ate it in front of them, a little rudely and with loud noises, but the girls waited patiently. When he finished, he held up the core so they could see it. It was a golden key. He looked at the girls with a puzzled expression on his face.
"Are you looking for something?" he asked.
They nodded.
"Then I will give this back," he said, handing them the key. He turned quickly and walked into the trees.
The sisters were discussing whether they should sail farther down the ditch, or begin looking for their little brother on land, when they heard an angry voice. They followed the sound and saw their little brother in a circle of trees, sitting on his dinosaur and waving his sword, loudly yelling at invisible foes. The sisters laughed; he did that all the time at home.
The brother turned and saw them, but instead of acting joyous, as they had imagined, he frowned and politely asked them to leave immediately.

To be continued...

In Which Jordan Finally Has His Own Story: Part One

Since we are taught that no one can offend you unless you choose to be offended, I have decided to go ahead and write a post for my brother. It has taken awhile because in Jordan's own words, "It is a time-consuming process to create such a momentous tribute."

Once there was a brother. His two sisters were not sure where he came from, he just appeared one day carrying a sword made out of pink Donald Duck fabric. Dark clouds followed his arrival. Soon the parents did not notice the two sisters; something surrounding their son must have blinded them. The sisters were upset and tried to get rid of him. They took him to the orchard and left him, but he found his way home. They locked him out of the house, but the mother always let him back in. Finally, they placed him in the ditch on a plastic dinosaur and let him sail away. He was gone for a long time. The parents were devastated; that was to be expected. The sisters were glad, though, because after three days their places were finally set at the table again. Their mother dug out their old toothbrushes and found their pajamas and read a story to them once more, so they were sure that everything was back to normal.
But when they went outside to play and saw the hut the brother had made between the pine trees, they felt a little sad. They thought this would pass, as it seemed to have passed for the parents. They took their tea set into the hut, but as they spread out the yellow and gray He-Man blanket to sit on they began to cry. They realized that at some point, they must have started to love their brother, and they remembered the few not-so-horrible things that he had done. They thought that possibly they wanted him back. But, remembering the effort it was to get rid of him, they decided to sleep on it. They didn't want to act hastily.
The next morning, finding that they still missed him, the sisters carried their snow sleds to the ditch and set sail.

To be continued...

Maddie and Emily

Maddie's creative dance class started their fall session a few weeks ago.



She's the beautiful dancer on the left.





While we waited for Maddie, Emily and I walked over to the Eccles Community Art Center to see the paintings on display. I had to carry her through all three floors of the house since the first thing she did upon entering was run over to an antique couch, jump up on it, and run back and forth shouting. In the picture above, she shows that she can sit quietly outside, where it doesn't matter.



Then she picked a few flowers.






And then posed for a few pictures.







Don't you love all the Hello Kitty band-aids? I do.

Dinner--Finally

HERE is the recipe I made for dinner last night (fall must be close because I finally made something other than hot dogs or BLT's). The kids loved it!

It's Fun To Have a Kid Like Nicholas

Here is Nicholas' 2008 football team. He's #69 in the middle of the front row.



Nicholas sang with the school choir this year--he's in the white polo and jeans. The choir practiced two mornings a week before school and each day Nicholas would get himself up, dress, he would eat, do his hair, and ride his scooter to school. He has turned into a very responsible kid. He does the same thing with football--he'll come home each night, do his homework, get dressed, fill his water bottle, and ride his bike to practice. We love him!

The End?

I, for one, am quite excited about the powering up of the Large Hadron Collider tomorrow, but just in case we are all sucked into a black hole, goodbye.
By the way, I completely understand what this thing does, but it would just be too much to go into now.

We're Waiting...

So that Jordan knows we all saw his comment on a previous post, and knows we are anxiously waiting for the promised glorious story, I am putting his comment here (it is from the post with the story to Cindy):

Hello everyone, my name is Jordan. If you read this story, and I’m sure you did, you probably noticed that it never mentioned that the two sisters have a little brother. Well, they do, and his name is Jordan (have you made the connection yet?). He loves his two sisters, but they always seem to forget about him, so it is my job to remind them that he exists. In the past, I would have simply published a post requesting that Tiffany write a story that includes him and talks about how diligently he checks her blog, but alas, the good child is always overlooked. In addition, I know that the story would never be written. (For further evidence to this claim please see Cindy’s blog post entitled “For my sister…” and note my efforts to get her to create a post entitled “For my brother…” Also note that as of 9/5/08 @ 2:20 pm, Central time, such a post still does not exist. That’s right Cindy, I have NOT forgotten.)

Thus, (I use this word because I know Tiffany loves it) I employ a new and radical tactic: I will write my own story and post it in Tiffany’s comments! That’s right, I will go straight past the source and BECOME the source!

Unfortunately, writing this dramatic, yet effective introduction has taken longer than I originally anticipated and I am out of time, so the story will have to wait. BUT IT WILL COME…MWAH, HA HA!

(Question, Jordan, for this is vague--why do you assume that I would not write a story about you, just because Cindy didn't? I was totally going to, but now I think you may have offended me.)

Update: The Mouse

The mouse is no longer with us and has moved on to a better place. By this, I do not mean he is living out back by the waterfall now.

Labor Day, Rain, and the Kangaroo Zoo

We had planned to drive out to Antelope Island on Labor Day. At the ranch there, three times each year, they have pioneer activities like candle dipping, rag doll making, and bending nail rings. We've been once, and the kids were looking forward to going again. But when we woke up to dark clouds, lightning, rain, wind and even hail Monday morning, we had to come up with a different idea. So we took a trip to the new Kangaroo Zoo in North Salt Lake.



Emily has become very brave the last couple of months. She did everything Maddie and Nicholas did.



She laughed hysterically each time she went down a slide.



Cute Maddie.



Glow-in-the-dark miniature golf was the favorite activity, though.








Even though it was beautiful and sunny for the ride home, Emily rode all the way under her umbrella.

Update: The Mouse Still Lives

So, what would you do if you have seven-that's right-seven traps set in the basement and the mouse won't DIE! It's not like I can pull everything out of the storage room looking for it--it's truly not possible and I'd rather begin feeding the mouse Brie and hand-smashed peanuts before I did so much work.
Oh please, mouse, run over one of my traps. I cannot function with you in my basement.

Anyway, I just noticed to my shock and dismay that Cindy has not looked at my blog for a very long time. She never does comment much, but usually she at least looks. So I think I will use her lack of interest to my advantage--it's time for another story about Cindy.

The Girl Who Could Fly
Wait--That's the title of the book Maddie checked out of the library tonight. I hate it when I do that.

The Girl Who Did Not Like Her Sister and So Moved Far Away

Once upon a time there was a girl who did not like her sister. There were many reasons. The sister often borrowed the girl's socks, stretched them out, and then put them back in the sock drawer dirty and stinky. Each morning this girl had to study her socks to see if they had been worn yet; the people she worked with had begun calling her "Smelly Feet" because she had unintentionally worn used, smelly socks. Not original, but still hurtful.
Another reason she strongly disliked her sister was because she insisted on calling her at 6:00 in the morning to see if she was going to have waffles for breakfast that day. You see, her sister loved waffles and loved doing everything the same, like wearing the same clothes and doing her hair the same and eating the same stuff at the same time. But the girl was becoming tired and sick of waffles. She hated to lie, but lately she had just been having granola for breakfast and telling her sister that she was having waffles.
The last reason she couldn't stand her sister--I guess there were not many reasons she disliked her sister, just three reasons, it's easy to exaggerate-- was because her sister would not brush her teeth. This was unacceptable because the girl's husband was a dentist and could smell bad breath a mile away (he also could spot yellow teeth a mile away, but let's not brag).
So the girl moved to Alaska to get away from her sister and her irritating, sock borrowing, waffle eating, forgetting to brush ways.
And her sister was very, very sad.
And promised not to steal her socks, even when she forgot to do the laundry and she didn't have any clean ones of her own. She would just wear sandals. Even if there was five feet of snow outside. It was worth having frostbitten toes if she could have her sister back.
She promised not to wonder what her sister was eating for breakfast, and just eat her own waffles alone in silence.
She also definitely promised to brush her teeth at least twice a day in order to be less offensive to everyone, not just her sister.
And because this story has a perfect ending, her sister moved back. And they lived happily ever after.
The End

There will be more, Cindy, if you continue to slack in your blog reading duties.

Football Season

Nicholas will play in his fourth football game this weekend. This year he is playing nose guard, and he loves it. He does a great job. The first week he was named Player of the Game, and the second week he was the Defensive Player of the Game. He also long snaps and plays on the punt return team. He likes his team and his coaches this year. It's fun to watch his games!



Grandma and Grandpa drove up one weekend to watch Nicholas play. This huge, red Gatorade was his award for being the Defensive Player of the Game.



Maddie and Emily like going to the games.





After the game we drove up Ogden canyon to try a restaurant called The Oaks.



The food was good and we enjoyed eating next to the river. Happy football! Go Syracuse!!! Go Utes!!!

Hello, Again, Hello!

I lost the enthusiasm to blog for awhile because nowhere in my pictures could I find any new photos of Jordan's smiling face. It just doesn't seem right to blog without making a comment or two about Jordan. But, rather than avoid posting until Christmas, I have decided to just begin blogging again, anyway. It probably won't be as exciting as before.
I also didn't blog last week because I was preparing a Talk! It is over now, thank goodness, and I don't think we'll have to move to a new neighborhood, as I previously thought (because of the fact that I usually embarrass myself beyond all repair in these types of instances). So life is good post-talk.

Here are some pictures of our recent trip to the Davis County Fair:



Riding the horses, of course.



Bet you didn't see this one coming.



Here's another view to make sure you don't doubt that Nicholas held the tarantula.



Duckie races.



Even Emily got in on the shivering good times. She liked petting this snake. I don't know where these kids came from.

And yesterday, Maddie, Nicholas and three neighbor kids knocked on my front door holding a very large garden snake--asking if they could keep it! Ummmmmmm, no.
I wanted to take a picture of Emily petting that snake, too, but I did not dare let it out of my sight while I went to find the camera. If I had come back and they had accidentally dropped it, I would have been very, very upset, especially since we have a MOUSE in our basement RIGHT NOW! He's been there since the huge rain storm we had Monday, and must be quite full, since he's eaten all the peanut butter off our traps THREE TIMES. (It's kind of fun writing in all caps, one you get going, even if it is to talk about a disgusting little MOUSE!)
I'll follow this with one more post today, about our exciting trip to Boondock's, and leave the rest for tomorrow.
Hopefully there will be good news about the mouse.

Boondocks

We hadn't been to Boondock's in a very long time, so everyone was very excited when Darren announced he had a work party there one Friday night. Oh, the fun we had.



Nicholas waited in the it-seemed-like-several-hours-long-though-it really-couldn't-have-been line. He said it was worth it.



Playing miniature golf like pros.



Waiting for the family in front of us to finish and move on!




Emily enjoyed riding along with Darren.