Screenless Saturday

As the self appointed CEO of this joint, I made a spur of the moment executive decision while lying in bed at 7 a.m. on Saturday morning, wondering why I wasn't sleeping in.  I decided that Saturdays around here, from this point on, will be known as screenless Saturdays. This simply means that from Saturday morning until 7pm  Saturday night, there will be no video games, no tablets, no Facebook, no computers, no TV, no cell phone gazing and grazing.  No screens, all day Saturday.

For many many years, Saturday was the day the boys looked forward to for playing video games. They usually didn't play much if at all during the week, but on Friday nights and Saturdays after chores were done, video games were pretty much free reign. And that worked pretty good when they were in school. But somewhere along the way, with the addition of cell phones and tablets, and WiFi, and Netflix, our screen time got ridiculously out of control. Week nights are spent in front of our various electronic devices, sometimes working and sometimes playing, but they are always on. And Saturdays have become the worst. Dan goes downstairs and plays video games, Duncan is upstairs playing video games, Olivia is squirreled away in her room on her tablet or at the computer, and I am glued to my phone. Audrey is the least offending, but she does have a ton of homework, and she does a lot of writing on her laptop.

In all honestly, most weeknights, I don't have the energy to fight it. We are all tired, and when we get everything done, we all just want to veg out for a few hours, and that is okay. But Saturdays should be a day when we get a few things done, or at least acknowledge the existence of our family members. Hence, screenless Saturdays.

To my surprise, nobody even balked that much. I mean, it was only the first week, so I'm not holding my breath. But the first one was pretty successful. Dan was a handyman machine, got Audrey's car fixed, and the lawn edged and trimmed. Duncan worked until one, and he was kinda bummed that he couldn't come home and escape to his games. He survived though. He helped Dan get the lawnmower fixed. Olivia and I went to Wendy's and hung out at the mall together. She wore lipstick for the first time too, so that was exciting. Audrey was at youth conference all day. After dinner, Olivia suggested we go see Lego Batman together. It was a nice Saturday. We will see what next week brings.

Junior Prom- April 15, 2017

Can I get just a small hallelujah choir in the background please?

 I have just completed the last but certainly not the least of several large and hairy projects that have been congealing on my plate for the past six weeks. They were all terribly boring, time consuming, tree destroying things that suck your soul and your will to live. You know, like taxes and passport applications and work certifications. Medical crap.  All that dumb adult stuff I somehow got sucked into without ever realizing it.

Anyhow, as far as I know, it is all DONE, for the moment at least. So now I can finally get around to the important stuff, like posting Audrey's junior prom pictures.

We were like, the most awesome host family ever, and when we heard that Nicole really wanted to go to prom while she was here, Audrey arranged a date for her with our neighbor Jake, who was pretty cool to agree to go to prom with a girl he had never met. Jake goes to a different high school, whose prom was on a different night, so there was no interference there.  He even delivered the cute poster to officially ask her, and then she got to answer him by delivering a poster and candy to his doorstep. That was a fun night.

We had to get a shot of the back 'do's, courtesy of the talented Nikki. Nikki the hairdresser neighbor, that is, who should not  be confused with Nicole the German.

This picture makes it look like Audrey has a red corsage, but no, hers is the really pretty white one with a hint of purple. She had an odd colored, although lovely, dress and her date Zach did a great job of matching it.

I know I'm a little biased, but I think these two are the cutest couple there, especially the girl.

A Lull

Audrey pointed out the other day that it had been over 50 days since I updated this old beast of a blog. She knew this because my last post was about Will being gone 130 days, and we are now past the 180 day mark. Yes, it has been quite the extended break in our little world.

It's rather Twilight Zone-ish that he has been gone six months and is 1/4 of the way through. For your kid's whole life you think about those two years he will spend on a mission. As it gets closer, you start to count down how long you have left before he leaves. But you never spend much time thinking about what it will be like while he is gone. And suddenly here we are, smack dab in the middle of this time that we planned for and thought about for so long. It is weird that time is really passing, he is really out there tooling around the streets of Mexico, and these are his mission days. We just better buckle up and enjoy every moment of the ride, because it's already starting to seem like quite a fast one.

We have not been sitting around pining however. Life keeps happening here too, and while I for sure can't catch up on all the comings and goings of the past 50 + days, I will attempt to make a small accounting.

Duncan is a working man again. He got a part time job at McDonalds, making fries. And he is a substitute custodian for the school district, so he gets called in last minute to cover when regular custodians don't show. He is happy to be working again and is looking forward to a paycheck coming in one day soon.

Audrey, in addition to our big Paris trip coming up in June is also going to New York City in August with a group from her school theatre club. She has been busy working her tail off to earn money for this adventure She has been selling cookies and brownies, babysitting, and now has a temp job at a store that is closing. She has to earn another 300 bucks by the end of May. Yikes.

And perhaps our biggest news of the month is the arrival and departure of this kid:

 who came to stay with us from Germany as an exchange student for three weeks. In three weeks she managed to wrangle herself right into the middle of our family, going from complete stranger to adopted daughter and sister in 21 short days.

Nicole and Audrey hit it off right away. While she was here, she experienced Walmart, Zion National Park and Las Vegas, the mall, Target, Del Taco, Park City, Logan, Cedar Fort, Red Dot shooting range, the spiral jetty, junior prom, bagels, general conference, high school, school buses, Dr. Strange, Hot Topic, and so much more. She left for Germany last Friday, and we are all still recovering, but we have plans to meet for lunch in Paris for a grand reunion.

I have tons more pictures of all of the many adventures that happened, but we must pace ourselves on this the first day of blogging in so long.  Suffice it to say we really liked our German.

 We all bawled when it was time to see her off. I'm getting kind of tired of taking people to the airport and telling them goodbye. I'm going to look forward to picking people up at the airport. Or better yet, being the one to leave.

Which leads me right into  a nice segue of our next trip to California, planned for a few weeks from now, in which we will go to Alisa's graduation and then pack her and Erwann and two cats up and move them to Utah! Yeehaw!

130 Down

Here is a screen shot of the missionary app I use to track Will's time in Mexico. Today, as you can see was a momentous occasion when we hit the 600 days to go mark. 130 days gone, 600 more until he comes home.

That sounds like a lot of days.

 It's odd how in some ways, it seems like last week that he was here and we were so busy running around and getting everything ready for him to leave, and in other ways, it feels like he has been gone FOREVER. It also feels like the more days we get underneath our belts, the faster the days are going.

I am still determined to not wish this time away. It will go fast enough. Life is good. We shall savor the moment.

Jackpot Times Six

I'm pretty sure that everybody in the world has at least a few things in their life that did not turn out the way they wanted or expected.  I have my fair share of those bothersome things, and the older I get, the more I realize that some of them are just not going to change, no matter how much I dislike them. I am also really good at dwelling on all of those things I have not, and feeling sorry for myself.

Today though, it hit me hard that there is one big part of my life where I got everything I hoped for and more.

I have great kids.

 Whatever areas it shorted me in, Life was kind enough to bestow upon me six terrific kids.  More than anything else, I always wanted a herd of kids, and that is exactly what I got. The older they all get, the more I just really like them. Every single one of them. I wish I could take more credit for what wonderful people they are, but I really can't. They mostly just came that way. I will take some credit for the fact that none of them are ax murderers, but beyond that, I think I really just got lucky.

They are kind, intelligent, level headed, hard working, thoughtful, funny, honest, motivated, and of course, beautiful. Right now, they are all doing exceptionally well, achieving great things, and giving me much about which to brag and boast. I have been a parent long enough to know that I could wake up tomorrow and all six of them could be in dire straits. But no matter what happens tomorrow, I have six good, decent human beings on my side. What else could a girl ask for?

Menagerie

There are times in life when you are just tripping happily along, doing the best you can, and suddenly, something gets thrown in front of you that you never wanted, never looked for, and never expected, but it's there, so you just grab on to it and run.

I keep hoping that one day it will be a million dollars that trips me up, but this time, it was just a dog.

The last thing we needed, wanted, or planned on was ANOTHER animal, and yet, here we are.

Meet our latest addition.

 This is Bandit, now unofficially known as Bennett or Benny on the records of the Metcalf family, because he doesn't look like a Bandit. I really wanted to call him Dwight. He is a sheltie shitzu mix as far as we can tell. He is an old puppy, around 10 or so, we think, He lost his first person to a care center when they got too old to keep him. He bounced around the animal shelters for a while, then bounced around various members of our extended family before we just decided to bite the bullet and adopt him. He is cute and mellow, but he also has terrible separation anxiety, and wreaks havoc if he is ever left alone. But even having just another dog around for him is enough to calm his fears, so, since we have Piper, he does great at our house.  And oddly enough, we all really enjoy having two dogs, which is something I NEVER thought I would say. He isn't any more work than having one dog, and he and Piper play off each other great. Plus, he is old, so it's not like we've made a lifetime commitment or anything.

So I am going to say this one more time, and this time, I really mean it: THIS IS OUR LAST ANIMAL. No more exceptions, not ever. Mark my words.

Especially no more birds.

If you want to know the truth, this lousy parakeet here is the one that really rules the roost. We are all terrified of him. He is really mean.  I keep suggesting that we let him outside, just to see what would happen. Or that we let him fly into the microwave, then accidentally nuke him, just to see what would happen. Nobody thinks I am funny. I am not funny. I am serious. I almost had Audrey talked into pulling an Ozzie Osbourne moment, but she chickened out at the last moment. The bird's head was in her mouth. All she had to do was.....never mind. I better quit before the ASPCA starts calling.

Science!

The Sixth Grade Science Fair was a success!

I didn't get to go, but my friend snapped a picture for me.

Olivia came up with her experiment all by herself. She made her own slime, then tested to see how adding salt and sugar to the slime would affect it.  Apparently, a LOT of girls in her class did experiments with Mento's and Diet Coke, which was probably the first project to come up when their mothers looked on Pinterest. So I am quite proud of my independent and creative girl. And proud that she got a perfect score, all on her own.