More Weekend Fun

I just love a good weekend outing with the kids! I don't know if there is anything I like more than that. My Magic House membership expires as of April 1, so we went for our last trip (at least for a while), with my brother, John, his wife and their kids. It was a great day!

Here we are on the way over.

In classic John and Bruce style, they couldn't resist a battle to see who could go fastest on the wheelchair exhibit. I don't know who finally won. (But I'm sure that the winner will probably inform us all that he is mightier.)

Ross got lost for a minute or two, and Bruce asked around if anyone had seen a Zack & Cody look alike. Later one of the men Bruce had asked saw us again, and pointed to Ross saying "I found Zack!"

Mark & Jonni buddied up for the entire day, and had a good time. Here they are being detectives:

Even Clayton found something fun to do there.

We finished off the day with an enjoyable visit to John & Liz's place. It was a good time.

Ear Ache

Justice has a double ear infection. He thought a bandaid would help it feel better -silly boy!

Calling All Computer Nerds! HELP ME PLEASE!!

I've been trying to figure out how to transfer all of my old home movies, from back in the VHS days to a form that I can use on my computer. I've got all of my video from when Lydia, Ross and Mark were little on one VHS, and it's dieing. I'm afraid that the next time I play it, it will die totally. I've got an analog to digital converter. That will transfer it to a form that my DVD player can play, but my computer can't really do anything with it. It turns them into two or three separate files, I think. There is a BUP file, a IFO, and a VOB file for each clip. I have an external hard drive that I'm wanting to save the video on, and then edit and burn disks / post things on here. What I think I need it a good program that can convert those BUP, IFO, and VOB files (one on them I think is just a menu, but I'm not sure) into a WMV, or an AVI or something that my computer can use. I could also go for a good program to capture from a DVD format, that could work. I tried a trial version of one program, I can't remember the name of it, but it stank royally! It took about 45 minutes to transfer 3 minutes of video, and then it doesn't work right anyway. You can't get the sound and the video to come out at the same time, and Windows Movie Maker couldn't play it right. ARGH! I'm wondering if my external hard drive is part of the slowness problem. How much memory do I need for that? The one I've got has 100 gig. Anyone have a clue? Do you know of some good software to help me, or just a better way all around? HELP ME PLEASE!!!

And for the rest of us, who know nothing about how to do this, here a clip from my good camera, that needs none of converting junk:

Check out his eyeballs!

I'm Too Tired to Think of a Title for This, But Doesn't it Look Like Fun!? (all be it, a little cold still?)

A Neato Thing That My Kids Noticed

There is a relatively new statue of a bunch of kids playing "Ring Around the Rosie" outside of the Magic House. One of the girls in the statue is wearing a CTR ring. How cool is that?!

Yay For New Blogger Friends!

Here's a quick shout out to Cassi and Mittens McBarney! Soooo glad to have new friends. (Even though I don't know who you are McBarney. I'm assuming a Barnard, but which one?)

My Kind of Weekend!

I love a good weekend! I had originally planned to be part of the Zillapede in the St. Patrick's day race. A bunch of people in Team Godzilla (a triathlon group that we belong to) dress in silly St. P's day clothes, tie themselves together and run the race with all kinds of loop-de-loops around everything in sight. It sounded like a lot of fun, but I opted to go to the relief society breakfast instead, and that was a good thing. Next I came home; everyone pitched in,and we got the house and yard cleaned up in record time. (I love it when everyone works! I need to make that happen more often!) Then we went to the Magic House with our kids and my brother and sister-in-law. (It is soooo much nicer to go to those kind of places with other grown-ups than for me to take the kids by myself!!! The extra help with corralling the kids was WONDERFUL!! Todd and Suzanne might have had a better time without having to help coral my crew, but I really appreciated it!!) After we got home and had dinner, Bruce and I left the kids with Trent (my little brother) and we went for an easy 3 mile run. The weather was perfect for that, so it was rather nice.

Sunday evening Suzanne, Lydia and I went to a David Glen Hatch fireside. That was AMAZING! I'm so glad that we went. Thanks to Bruce for watching the boys so we gals could go!

This morning Justice was saying a prayer over his scrambled eggs and he said "...please bless the food, and um ... Go Diego Go!..." Snort!

Science Fair Project

Lydia had to do a science fair project. We just finished it up last night, and she turned it in today. When the assignment came (about a month ago), Lydia said that she was just going to do a survey. She had no idea what kind of a survey, it just sounded like the easiest kind of project to her. Not wanting her to take the easy way out, I tried telling her that this could be a fun thing, or a great opportunity to learn something. I started brainstorming out loud to her, telling her all of the many different thing that she could learn about.

"Just pick something that sounds interesting to you, something that you'd really like to learn about." I said.

I tried showing her how interesting the divine proportion was, but she thought that was boring. Well, since it is her project, I let that one drop, and I started throwing out random ideas. I was just trying to talk her out of taking the easy way out. I don't remember all of the ideas that I spouted off, but the one she stuck like glue to was this : How do strangers react differently when grown-ups act silly in public from when children act silly in public. Me and my big mouth *sigh!* She is my daughter after all. Once that idea had entered her head, there was no diverting her from it. I told her she'd better ask her teacher before we began that one, just to make sure it could really count as a science project. The teacher said it was fine so...

We went to Dairy Queen, as a family. This used to be an old haunt for me. There is this set of tables off to the side where no one hardly ever sits, and no one really sees you too much. It's my favorite place to sit because there is a large window by the drive through. The people waiting in line out there, are stuck just a few feet away from you, on the other side of the window. You can make all sorts of faces, cover your face in ice cream, and do all manner of silliness, and they can't help but to notice you. We let the kids sit next to the window first and be silly while I wrote down all of the reactions that they got. Next Bruce and I swapped places with the kids, and Lydia wrote down the reactions that he and I got. One guy actually took a picture of me!

Next we went to Walmart. Lydia had a big pink fluffy skirt and crown, and Mark & Ross took turns wearing a Spiderman mask / cape thing, and skipped around the store while I observed the others reactions. Then we switched, and I wore the big pink fluffy skirt and crown and skipped around the store while the kids did the observing. Then we took turns wearing a shoe on our heads. All of the silliness was actually really fun. I was surprised how much fun I was having skipping around Walmart wearing a big pink fluffy skirt even though everyone was giving me strange looks.

Then we had to go home and do all manner of reports, and graphs and stuff. Lydia made a big display board with pictures and everything. I'm cringing a bit as I think of all of the people (students, teachers, principles, and other parents) who are going to see this picture:

and this one:

Will anyone ever talk to me again?

What Does It Mean When:

You hear laughter, and lots of flushing coming from the bathroom? You walk in to find the 3 year old and the 8 month old on either side of the toilet, and the baby's hair is soaked?

I Love Bill Nye!

Feeling Tentative

I've done a few musical arrangements, always for some specific thing or another. If the situation never arose where I wanted an arrangement a certain way, I'd probably never write music. I try to do it just for the heck of it every now and them, but unless someone needs me to finish it, I always give up after about 4 measures and tell myself that I can't do it. But when I really need to, I can do it (and they are not bad, if I do say so myself). Anyway, I created a page where I can upload my arrangements to share. Right now there is only one arrangement on it, but I'll put more on there later. The problem is that I'm WAY critical of my work, and I'll probably never think that anything that I do is ever worth sharing, so I'm half cringing at the thought of putting up my other stuff. I'll probably give myself an ulcer re-doing them over and over before I think they are ready for the world at large. Anyway, there is a link on the side of this blog (at the top) to my other site where you can download "As Sisters in Zion," and hopefully more later, after I review my other things and if I find them worthy.

My Message to Winter

Amusing Tidbits

I just overheard this bit of conversation between my children:

Mark was vacuuming up some popcorn that he got all over the floor, and Ross unplugged it. When Mark complained, Ross said, "It smells awful!" (speaking of the vacuum)

Lydia says, "It does smell awful, but it's not the vacuum. It's just dinner."

-Thanks guys!

Earlier today, Bruce caught Justice sitting at the table, eating ice cream straight out of the box. He said "Hey, put that back in the freezer!" and took it away. About 2 minutes later, Bruce went into the kitchen to find Justice standing on a chair, with the freezer door open, eating ice cream out of the box, which was "in the freezer."

A Conversation With Mark:

"Mom, why does almost all the girls in the school love me?"

"What do you mean?"

"They all chase me at recess with their lips pointing at me!"

"ALL of the girls chase you?"

"Well, all except the duty teachers."