I'm the BEST mom again!

Yeah, Remember when we went to the used furniture place and everyone loved that pink chair and said "you'll be the best mom if you let us get this chair"? Well, it has happened again. Thanks to the Rinvelts who put this chair out in their driveway with a "free" sign on it, we are the proud owners of a recliner that vibrates, heats, and has hidden storage spots and cup holders. Dad, of course, being the creature of habit, has not sat in it yet nor given it his seal of approval. It will take the place of the ugly but comfy green chair in the family room.

So we’ve had some pretty hilarious moments out here that definitely need highlighting. Our first episode came during Boscov’s store closing mega sale. In one of its last days open, we hit up the store amidst a ravenous “Black Friday” type chaos. With items strewn all over the place, no a/c, and patches of the store roped off w/ caution tape we flew around the store trying to find some final steals. Towards the end of our excursion, we hit up a gigantic table full of curtains, drapes, and tablecloths. Connie found one of the only shower curtains, but like most of the other items it didn’t have a price. So I took it over to get a price check only to find that it rung up at $0.00. There wasn’t another of its kind, so we decided to head to the checkout anyways. As the ladies rang up our items the curtain again came up at 0. One lady asked the other what to do, while the other said just to let it go. We ran out of the store high-fiving and jumping w/ joy over our latest bargins. When we got home we started opening up our super deals only to find that our awesome shower curtain wasn’t so awesome. From the picture you might be wondering what happened to the other half. Turns out it was a “demo” curtain used to showcase the full shower curtains. We keep it up though since it looks normal when the inside curtain is pulled back.

Next up on our hilarious moments came last week w/ the arrival of our new couches. One of our neighbors bought new couches and needed to get rid of their old ones. Who else would they turn to with an offer of “free” couches. So the only thing left to do was to get rid of our old nasty couch. Inheriting the independence gene from Dad, I didn’t want to bother anyone to help transport our couch to Goodwill so attempted to do it alone. Connie and I carried it down to the car and hoisted it up atop the Grand Prix. I thought for sure Con would drop it w/ all the laughter going on. As I tied it off, Connie went inside to avoid embarrassment. We drove it over to Goodwill passing car after car full of puzzled looks only to find that they don’t take upholstered items and had to drive back.

Lastly, I’ve always told Connie that my nose produces gigantic amounts of clogged pores. We put it to the test w/ a couple nose strips to see who came out w/ the bigger result. As you can see, I was the victor and I don’t think she’ll ever look at my nose the same way again.

The End of an Era

Here we are in the senior year of our last child. Who would have thought that this day would ever happen? Both Mrs. Weatherwax and I were feeling the closure of a large part of our lives at the last 2 local band competitions this year.

The show was about "the seasons" of the year. The grand finale was "Summertime" which is my favorite. I taped it but forgot that they were wearing their rain coats that night. I tried several times to download the video but am giving up. sorry.

The Great Outdoors

Nets has told me emphatically whenever I talk about how beautiful Utah is that she never did anything fun outdoors while she lived here. So, for the first time since we were married, we are both in Utah for more than a couple days and we decided to take advantage of a long weekend and do some hiking.

We started out with Stewart Falls. After getting Nettie mad at me for driving aimlessly throughout Provo Canyon to find the trailhead, we got lucky by finding Three Sisters road and a trail that appeared to head in the direction of a waterfall. It was a short, but beautiful hike. We got wet, ate lunch and took some pictures.
Annette was so inspired with the falls that when I mentioned the prospect of hiking Mt. Timpanogos, she decided we should do it, in spite the 8 hours it would take.

For those of you who don't recall, Nets and I had done a long hike before in Switzerland and it had gone terribly awry, so I was a bit nervous to try again. But encouraged by her optimism, we left for American Fork Canyon at 9:30am. I had gotten better directions this time as to not incur Annette's wrath.
It was a great hike, sunny day, even the foot of snow we came across about 2 hours into the hike couldn't dampen our spirits. At about four and a half hours and 6 miles in, we reached the first summit, where you can look down on the valley and Utah lake. Wow. Breath-taking.
We were about 45 minutes still from the peak and the way was much more difficult; steeper climbs, higher ledges and a slipperier path. Initially, Nets wanted to turn back, but of course, I goaded her on... bad idea. Within 20 mins I had her frustrated and scared to tears, so we appreciated the view from where we were and started the hike down.

Unfortunately, I did forget about was how well the sun reflects off snow and how white I am (how could I forget). Having worn a beanie all day, I ended up with a burn from the eyebrows down with a still shiny white forehead. Sweetness.

Tongan Life

Life in Tonga is all work, dances, running and earthquakes. Yeah, my first earthquake in Tonga was on Sunday and it was small, just rattled a few things. It was fun, I haven’t been in one since my mission. This week I am at another conference, but this one is in English-thank goodness. When they are in Tongan, I am so tired by the end of the day just to understand about 50% of the message. It is a lot of new vocab since it is health related. The foto is of me helping at the field day, I taught the kids aerobics and helped with the games. In true Tongan fashion, on Monday we got in one car to go to school and work and it was out of gas. So, they siphoned the gas out of the truck and put it in the other car cause it already had some gas in it. Then while we were driving, the tire was kind of flat so we pull over to fill it. Yeah, I was really late to work, but told my boss and he said, typical life in Tonga. The other funny thing was at our conference, there is a sign near the toilets which says, "Please keep the toilets clean for everyday use." What they are really saying is that they don't ever clean the toilets, so don't make them dirty. Scary huh! Well, That's Tonga!

Mom's 40 year High School Reunion

Last Saturday I went to the Union High 40th reunion. First we went to Tosh's band competition so we got to the reunion late. It was fun to see my old "Cronies" and to remember our crazy high school lives. The 2 girls on my right and left and I went to the Sweetheart swirl as freshmen together. We all asked guys we didn't know and we were all sorry by the end of the night. I ran into my biggest junior high crush, a fantastic jazz pianist who plays at Noto's every Friday night. He invited us to come hear him play. It was really funny when someone looked at their watch and said "my, it's after midnight". Someone else said "I'm always in bed by now" and someone else quipped "yeah, it's just about time for the first pee". Of course everyone laughed at this point because we are all stumbling to the bathroom one or two times a night at our age. I told this story at work and everyone over 50 broke into laughter and the rest just looked confused. They'll find out. Anyway, thanks to Annette for helping me to figure out how to post. Comments?

Yellow life or death?

Well, the fleabites are on their way out after 2 weeks and most of the major itching has subsided, Hallelujah!!! I still have many bumps, but I think that most went away pretty fast cause I didn’t itch them and Mom’s diligent prayers. It’s in times like this that I know why I wasn’t sent down during Pioneer times!!!

The fun new item in my life is my yellow burn cream from Pakistan. I’m pretty sure that it is helping and the iodine is probably keeping it clean. About half my clothing is covered in yellow! It may be hard to believe, but the burn is a lot better than it was!

Anyway, life is good, I started working at the ministry of health last Monday and spent the day helping make a TV broadcast about Rheumatic Fever. Basically I didn’t do much but I add in my two sense once and a while. Anyway, it will be good for my resume at least.This is for Taki-I also went to a primary school and taught the kids a song in Tongan about how to brush their teeth. Then we all brushed our teeth and did a fluoride rinse. I'd upload the video of the song, but it is long. I also played games with the kids-few adults play with kids and so they loved it!

Well, if you didn’t know that I went to see Mone, but I did. I just wanted to make sure. He still loves me, but not like before. Its been good to finally deal with it all and close this chapter of my life. I’m starting to see that I am better off, but it is taking time. Thanks for your prayers!

Funny story is that one of the cousins Kenny drove me and Nisi to the women’s broadcast and then the car died and so we had to try to jump it, but no one had cables, so someone took out their battery and we finally got it started. We drove about 30 ft and it died again. I think it was out of gas. I just laughed and said, “this is Tonga.” They were not too excited to walk the 4 miles home. Oh, and last Friday I went to a dance and it was fun to just get out there and let loose. That’s the news from the Island!