the gym

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Sometimes I think that maybe I’m a little dramatic. maybe. I dunno.

I have a gym membership to the YMCA. I’ve been a member of the Y for about 6 years, off and on, taking breaks for delivery of babies and the first few months after I have the baby for recovery time. And I love the Y. Let me tell you why – the biggest reason is because they have a child watch area and I know the ladies there. Miss Jean and Miss Dee are awesome. Even when I plop Ray down, get him involved in a toy, try to creep out and he still cries, they just shoo me away and tell me he’ll be fine. And he always is but it takes a few minutes and they take that time with him. Anyway, I go to the gym because they watch my kids so I can workout alone.

Daniel runs (I am not a runner, but he is, so more power to him). He usually wakes up a half hour earlier than normal and runs around our block and general area. He really gets a good workout and his heart rate up and I see that and think, “maybe I’m a little dramatic about this whole gym thing. Maybe I don’t really need the gym. After all, I do a lot of exercises on the floor and I don’t require a lot of equipment … and the boys aren’t that bad. Noah and Liam play downstairs with Legos quite nicely and Ray just crawls around …. maybe I don’t need the gym …”

So this morning, Ray woke up with a fever and I couldn’t take him to the child watch, so I thought, “I’ll just workout at home. I can do this. I have a yoga mat and an exercise ball. It should be fine”.

It was not fine. I NEED the gym. I am NOT dramatic. Because at the gym, I’ve never had to go into a bathroom while someone was pooping and change the toilet paper roll, mid workout. Also, at the gym, no one has ever crawled over to my head while I was in plank position and pulled at a piece of fuzzy hair falling out of my bun, then giggled with delight. And then pulled my hair really hard right after that. Never happens at the gym. Nobody at the gym poops their pants and then stands directly in front of the fan blowing on me. And nobody laughs while standing there blowing poop air into my face. I never have people crawling under me while in plank position or sitting on my mat when I get up and come back, or crawling on top of me while I’m doing scissors. That never happens at the gym. And while I’m cooling down at the gym, doing my stretches, nobody comes to show me their lego creations and while I’m distracted looking at legos, nobody has ever bit me hard on the toe.

I need the gym. And now I know exactly why.

California girls

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There is so much that this picture harrows up in my soul. It means I’m home and going into the city for some fun. It means Lucca’s Deli. It means Chrissy fields, Daddy Daughter dates to Espetus, family trips to the bathroom at the Fairmont Hotel. It’s all jumbled in my mind, but it’s allllll good.

I’ve been home for almost a month since my last visit and ever since I got back, I have been trying to find a way to describe all the warm fuzzies I get being around my sisters and their kids and mom and dad. I just love it. It’s comfortable and fun. I think we are the best all together, as one unit. We all fall into the same familiar rhythm, but just add kids, but it doesn’t even matter which kids you’re talking about. I scoop them up and kiss their faces off and play on the floor with them and shake my head at them when they’re ruining mom’s fountains. They are all of ours. They are an extension of my sisters and so I love them just the same.

And mom and dad are just fun. I wonder if dad does this on purpose, or if it’s just natural, but somehow, each one of us girls finds ourselves on a grown up daddy daughter date (mini ones) all the time when we’re there at their house. He just asks for us to join him doing whatever it is that he’s doing. One morning I was up at “his” hour (6am) because I was on east coast time, not because I am an early riser, and he asked me if I wanted to take a bike ride with him. You bet! I hopped on one of Dad’s road bikes (he has 3??) and he did what he always does – sets me up with all the good stuff, all of his stuff. He gave me the awesome glasses, the gloves for my hands, the helmet. Then we headed out for a 6 mile ride. I loved it. Then we got home and a little later he asked Aria to go with him to the store to pick something out and off they flew in the Corvette. It’s just funness (not a word, but it works in this instance) and it makes you feel special. He wants to spend all of his time around us, his girls. He wants our company and we want his. It’s so nice and comfortable and it feels like home, with my dad.

But as for my sisters and my feelings for them …. I just didn’t know how to explain what they are to me. How they fill in all my gaps, to make me feel like a whole person around them all. And now I don’t have to because …. Mina did it for me. She got home and wrote a poem about us all. It’s perfect. Mina is a poet. It just comes to her. It’s one of her talents and I love how poetry makes everything you say sound more important, more poignant somehow, and beautiful all at the same time. Mina and I are the only ways “away”, aka out-of-state and I think that makes us more sad to leave. We know it will be a long while before we feel that love and closeness again, so here it is, it’s called, Glass Half Empty.

After spending time away,
Then congregating home to play,
Our time together is so dear
And leaving is my greatest fear.

I wish to bottle it all up,
Satiate my endless cup
I turned my thoughts into a rhyme,
To take a picture of our time

Five Girls can sound like such a crowd,
We smile each time it’s said out loud,
But life without just one of you
Unravels my world, and changes its hue

It’s not a pie without eight slices
And despite all of our vices
I learn so much from each of you
So listen up, because its true

Beth has been our fearless leader,
Even when we didn’t head her,
Now she has us all impressed,
A definition of hostess!

She invites your kids with a smile,
Welcomes your burdens to her pile,
And when you think she’s had enough
Within a blink, she adds more stuff

Besides hard work and her service
Reigning in a daily circus
No single word can juxtapose,
Our Bethany, our valiant rose.

Though we tease her unrestrained,
Francesca is our family’s flame
She spreads her cheer just like wild fire,
Bearing gifts and Fun Supplier

A voice sonorous and ornate
Her home is organized and straight
She’s plagued with love of dazzling shoes
She’d buy them all, if she could choose

She’ll be the first to make you smile
And dress you up with flashy style;
Her love is honest and, you see
As sisters go, she fits with me

Christina is our middle ground
A level head and gem I’ve found
When asked which sister is her fave,
“I love you ALL”, she smiles and waves

Her beauty incomparable
Like mythic creatures in Fable
It transcends through her soft skin tone
Angelic features, all home grown

She’ll hold you close and make it right
Assured love, without a fight
We’ll sit and talk for hours and hours
A loyal friend, it’s her great Power

Our Chickie doesn’t stand alone,
In fact, we put her on a throne.
The family beauty’s cross she bears,
And wears it hum’bly without flares

I wonder if she knows how great
In all our eyes we venerate
Her honesty and fortitude,
For compliments, she often “shoos”

But know it now, how we all feel
We could not do without your zeal
And how we all have grown to love
This baby sister we speak of

If only these few words could do
The job that I had asked it to,
To bridge the gaps when we’re apart
And fill this hole, inside my heart

But now it’s made me wish inside
For all the pieces of our pie.
And nothing else will remedy
The magic of our fam’ly tree

So

Take these words and fill ‘er up,
And sip upon my rambling cup.
Until its time to all come back,
Refill the canteens in our pack.

I love you.

The only thing left to say is Mina. I honestly gave poetry a valiant effort and it was pitiful. It not only had a funky rhythm, the strains to make it rhyme made everything I said sound like a first grader explaining his love for pancakes. It was weird. Anyway, I am left with my descriptive powers and that will have to be enough:

Mina is so much. I don’t know how I would dare try to explain her in 3 stanzas, although somehow she captured us, I don’t know how to capture Mina in words. You want to have Mina in your car, because it no longer is a car, but the party bus and somehow you find yourself and all of the kids inside chanting “par-ty bus!” while flying down highway 17 on your way to Santa Cruz. Then you can get to the beach and it’s a crappy day at the beach, cloudy, overcast and Mom is buying sweatshirts for $50 on the boardwalk. But Mina is the one that throws propriety to the wind and takes ridiculous jumping pictures with you in the sand. The pictures are embarrassing and silly and totally awesome too. Then she can turn right around and on the car ride home, notice your uneasy driving this crazy huge beast of a car back on winding highway 17 and know just what to say. She’ll tell you your doing great, ask the kids to be quiet for Aunt Fran and talk you through each turn. She’ll keep one hand on your shoulder and you feel loved. You didn’t even know that’s what you needed or that you were acting nervous, but your little sister is so in tune and right there. Then you can continue down that road, and as it stops twisting and turning, your conversation turns deep. You can talk about anything with Mina and she’s right there with you. She has insight and thoughts and understanding and then what the heck, you’re both crying and then laughing.

Mina is so much, you can’t keep her in a box, but if it were a box, it would be a party in a box. As I spend more time with Mina’s little babies (they are 5 and 3, so not really babies at all, but you know what I mean), the more I see Mina in them and it makes me love them intensely. Truan is a party, like his mommy. He is everything that is good and fun and open and impish, he’s your friend. But Jellybean, she is everything that is fragile and girlie and beautiful, just like her mommy. She feels so much and wants to be loved. I know my sisters all have a different relationship and view of Mina, but this is mine.

I stole most of these pictures from Mina because she had a “good camera”. I had my phone and used it every moment, but it doesn’t capture enough. There’s never enough pictures, never enough good food, never enough time …. yeah, it’s mostly the time thing. Never enough time. Good thing we’re around for eternity.

The kids …

me and Jellybean

Chiara

Rocco hiding telling Truan a secret. :)

Emily (Enlee) 

more Enlee

Ben

wait! what the? …. how did Jeff get in there ….

 The rest of us:

Dad, Jellybean and Mom on our walk in Concord

Me and Christina at Beth’s house

Aunt Net and Uncle Cliff at Chevys in Emeryville

Me and Mom at Chevy’s in Emeryville

Chiara, Beth and Dad at Chevys in Emeryville

Beth, Christina and Mom at Greens in SF

The Food at Greens …. which we promptly devoured (do you see the progression of the plates??). seriously. It was kind of embarrassing how quickly we cleared the shared dessert plates …. and then … we went to Ghirardelli Square for a little more dessert. what?! 

Mom, with her Stevia, at Greens, making her own tea. 

At Beth’s house, the last night we were all together.

OK, I posted this picture, solely for the shot of Aria in the background. She’s right next to Bethany and it looks like she’s mid sneeze or something. best. picture. ever. 

It was all for Daddy. Good times.

suffocated

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I have so much to be grateful for, but I am about to NOT talk about the many things I am grateful for. So, prepare yourselves. It’ll just take a moment.

Summer has been suffocating. It has been the rainiest summer I’ve experienced here in MI, so thank you Michigan for taking me to disgusting, humid, dripping, sweaty places I’ve never been …. and never wanted to go. But more than that, my boys are driving me crazy. Right now, it has been a day full of crying, cleaning, more crying, feeding, time outs, more crying, more feeding and now I have tight shoulders and I am craving chocolate and silence in a place where I’m completely alone and it’s …. quiet, did I mention needing quiet?

It’s a bad time of day, 5 pm. It means I should be making dinner, but I’m not, I should be getting ready to leave for Activity Days tonight in an hour and the boys are most needy at this time of day. They need food (dinner is coming, so I can’t hold them off with snacks, or dinner becomes a painful experience, reminding them to eat their food every 2 minutes), I need food and it’s the end of the day. I’m tired and I am flat out of great, learning activities for them to do to keep them busy and they just end up circling around me like vultures, pecking at me with questions, requests and whines.

I just told them to leave me alone because “Mommy needs a time out”. seriously. oh geez. I am looking down the barrel of a night of food making, taking care of a sick Ray, cleaning up and then going to spend the evening with a ton of 8-11 year olds for hours. I am tired. And I’m hot and sticky and my brain is aching.

Here’s what sounds good to me: going to Anthropologie and sitting in a fat, cooshy chair, surrounded by good smells and pretty things, drink a Jamba Juice (Caribbean Passion) and read. Maybe I would bring a laptop and look at apartmenttherapy.com. That would be nice. Look at nice things, in a quiet, good smelling place, drinking something yummy. Yes. Ahhhhhhhh.

But no. Ray just woke up crying and dinner should’ve been made 15 minutes ago. Blech. Time to dive in to the evening of duties. I hate being an adult. A responsible adult with kids.

camping at Holland State Park

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We always try and plan a car camping trip with the boys every summer. This was it this year. We’d probably go more, but it’s a huge hassle with little kids (namely, Ray). We had to bring the pack-n-play because he only crawls, so we couldn’t let him just crawl around in the dirt. And then we had to bring the easy up for the beach, the walker for Ray, two tents so that Ray could have his own area in one tent to sleep in …. needy kid. Anyway, it was fun. We really had a good time. Even though all the campsites around southern Michigan are basically RV parks, it was nice and quiet and the best part was that the campsite was about 50 yards from a little beach on Lake Macatawa, which connects to Lake Michigan via a channel. And on that little beach, was a place to rent kayaks and paddle boards, so both Daniel and I (separately because Ray can’t go in a kayak) paddled out to Lake Michigan with the boys. It was cool.

The lake was pretty and the beach had soft sand and was clean, so it was awesome! I couldn’t help but be a little embarrassed while hauling down to the beach: the easy up, pack-n-play, cooler, food bin, large polka-dotted beach bag, diaper bag, toys and camera bag. But at least it was fun and we camped out there on the beach the whole day on Friday.

After camping Thursday night and spending all day on Friday on the beach and  kayaking, we headed out to a Marriott hotel about an hour away. Honestly, we weren’t sure Ray would be able to handle life after two days with probably interrupted or truncated naps, so we had the hotel reservation in case we wanted to cancel that day and just head home on Friday, but Ray was holding it together, so off we went with showers and eating out dancing in our heads.

I have to say, the hotel was one of the best ways to make a stop off before home while doing a camping trip and here’s why: we destroyed that hotel room. There was sand everywhere. Along with dirty foot prints, smelly clothes, food remnants …. it looked crazy that night. Truthfully, I was soooooo glad I didn’t have to clean that tub once we were done with it. Best Marriott points usage ever. We stopped off, cleaned up and showered up. It was wonderful. I had time to clean up the car a little and organize the mound of dirty laundry and we got to eat out, so that was awesome too. Usually when we get home from a camping trip it’s a smelly, dirty event. The front room is usually piled with dirty camping gear, a cooler full of old, half rotten food, dirty, stinky boys that decimate my bathroom, and black footprints everywhere. This hotel stop off fixed all that. I feel sorry for the poor cleaning ladies that followed us. I’m so sorry. But so glad it wasn’t mine at the same time :)

Ray, however, was NOT doing well after days of irregular and nonexistent napping, so by Friday night he was a sobbing mess. Daniel went out with the boys for food and I tried to get Ray to sleep. Major fail. He cried for half an hour, then I got him out of his pack-n-play and watched golf and food network with him to try and get him to fall asleep …. no go. So then I put him pack in his pack-n-play and hid behind a bed, so he thought he was alone and could fall asleep. I sat there on the floor next to the bed texting and checking email on my phone for about 25 minutes before I was starving and frustrated. Ray seemed happy, but not sleepy. I gave up, Daniel came back with Chipotle and donuts (I don’t know if I’ve loved a man more than when I saw him walk in with Chipotle and donuts in hand for me) and we all hung out, ate and then every one of us went to bed at 8:30 pm. It was awesome. I was so tired.

We got up Saturday morning (today) ate the free breakfast and swam in the hotel pool and hung out in the hot tub – which was Ray’s first pool experience, he did great! It was wonderful and refreshing and we were ready for the 3 hour long ride home.

Good times. Here are all the pictures:

THE CAMPSITE

 

 

 

 

THE BEACH:

We tried putting Ray down by the water, but he just screamed. We let him scream and ruin everyone’s beach experience for a few minutes, then gave up when he never calmed down. He was terrified. It was a terrified scream. So sad. So we set him up right here on the towel with puffs to cram in his face. And that’s how Ray enjoyed the beach … the whole trip. He didn’t seem wild about the sand, or the water … yeah, so that’s really what the beach is, so I guess he doesn’t like the beach. He must not be my kid. I don’t get it.

Oh man, how would you like THAT hunk of a man walking towards you out of the water??!!! Huh?!! ….. sooooo hot.

My boys. Ray above and Noah and Liam below. Just beautiful little souls.

 

Oh man, Ray’s face in the one above is hilarious, right?

OK, so this always happens to me. I take a LOT of pictures of Daniel and the boys. And I work hard, taking several, to make sure I get good shots of each of them, because I want to remember them at this age and have sweet picture memories. But I am very rarely photographed. Not because I’m afraid of the camera or something, but because nobody thinks to take the camera from me and take a shot of me. So I have gotten in the habit lately, of telling Daniel that nobody has taken my picture and I hand hi the camera. So this happened. But evidently, Daniel does not want to remember me at this age or have sweet picture memories or get a good shot of me, because he took pictures like this one:

ummmmm, I don’t even know where to begin. This is possibly the worst picture of me ever. I never want to remember this. And also, I’m not even looking at the camera. He didn’t tell me to look or say cheese, or suck in that nasty mommy middle of yours as best as you can, cuz you’re not gonna want to remember that!

I’m sneering, looking at what must be a bug or something on my hand and I’m slouched over, sticking my tummy out …. oh my gosh. It’s a good thing I have no shame and can show this picture, just to prove a point. And who in the blazes is that weird dude in the background?? Sheesh. So here’s one of the 50 pictures I took of Daniel:

Beautiful, right? Nice background, sweet smile, good lighting …. this is what I was hoping for. Instead I get about 5 random, unflattering shots of me.

This one isn’t terrible, but I’m not looking and he didn’t even give me a chance to suck I that hideous middle of mine that I haven’t been able to shake since Ray was born. Whatever. There’s me. In all of my unaware glory.

Liam lives too much of his life upset and dissatisfied, like he is in this picture. So funny that Daniel caught it on camera.

It wouldn’t be camping without s’mores :)

Liam has a bit of an obsession with law enforcement dudes lately. He thinks they’re pretty cool. So when a Ranger walked by our campsite, Liam lit up and said, “Mommy, look! A officer!” I told him he was a ranger and he was all excited. I’m sure the guy heard him. He wanted to go say hi to the ranger after he passed, but was too scared to go by himself. This was a picture of Noah going with him for moral support, to say hi.

Then there was kayaking:

And that’s camping!

 

 

 

jamiesons leave

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It’s crap. They’re gone. I guess I didn’t really consider it for a long time because I just didn’t want to. I didn’t think about it, until the day they left. It was sad. They came by the morning they were driving out of town. I wonder if Les and I waited for this goodbye to be the very last because we knew it would be hard and crushing. I cried. I hate crying. I watched them drive away, down my street, turn and disappear. It was just sad. I have felt alone many times since living here in Michigan, but it swelled up in me again when they drove out on Wednesday. I felt really alone … and just sad.

Leslie knew Daniel his freshman year at BYU. They discovered, the first Sunday they were in our ward that they knew each other. Daniel said that as soon as he saw Leslie, the first thing that popped into his mind was not that he remembered knowing her, but instead thought, “she looks like someone Francesca would be friends with”. Funny, he was right.

I remember Leslie telling me I seemed like “one of her people”. I didn’t really know what that meant at the time. But she is. She’s one of mine too. I could try and explain it, but I can’t really. Some people you just find to be “kindred spirits”, people you understand and connect with. She is a LOT like Daniel and he, of course, is my other half. I need people like them in my life and one just stepped out of it. Not completely, but it will never be the same. I don’t know that we will ever live 5 minutes from each other ever again and so it will change. She was my friend, my co-conspirator, my workout buddy (as much as that was totally painful), my young mother pal, someone I depended on …. and it seems like it went too fast. We knew she’d move to LA a year ago, but that doesn’t matter. So, a chapter has ended.

Wednesday was a rough day. I cried when she left. Then when Daniel came home, I did it again. I did it again while alone in the car driving down a street to get to her old house. I kind of felt silly. It’s not like she died. But it’s not like she’s here, right here, next to me anymore.

So, I just breathe and move forward. I went on a camping vacation with my family and now I’m home and I’ve got plans. I am going to finish painting the garage and organize the basement and clean the bathroom and ….. ah man, I miss Les.

Last playdate with the Jamiesons:

 

 

 

Last double date out with Bobby and Les:

 

 

And the place we went to was awesome! It’s called Vinsetta’s Garage. It an old garage turned to restaurant. e had to wait for over an hour to get in, so we walked across the street to Trader Joe’s and bought some snacks, ate them in the car and considered that our appetizers :) The food was so yummy and the theme of car garage was consistent throughout. very cool. very fun place. They had super ghetto yummy surprises in their food, like the milkshakes had Captain Crunch crushed and sprinkled on top, and their ice cream had pop rocks in it …. it might sound gross, but it was ghetto good.

We all had burgers. Best burger I’ve ever eaten …. anywhere. NYC included.

 

 

 

 

 

Ah, good friends. They are missed.