Did I mention it was my birthday last week?

Yeah...I totally turned the ripe old age of 37 last week.  Seriously?  How did I get into my late 30's so quickly?

These are my favorite shots of my birthday activities...

Seriously - can you day start out any better than this?  Do you think she's in pain?

After I got all dolled up for the day...

Jenny cooking me delicious shrimp for dinner...

Her pretty table setting with flowers and a gift...(there was a delicious smelling candle inside that bag!)

Maddie's one and only gift...she made the wrapping paper herself..used an entire scotch tape roll on it...inside I found a stuffed bunny, a baby doll, and her very precious ceramic art piece she made in school last year.  I use it on my nightstand to hold my earrings and rings.  What a great birthday!

And the card was AWESOME.

And I got an icecream cake for my birthday cake.  It was YUMMY.

Three of my favorite birthday celebrating people were there with me. 

And then I blew the candles out and got my wish later that night when John called me for my birthday.  YES!

First day of school 2010

Good morning!  First day of SCHOOL!!!!

Cute girl in her dress, tights and leggings...

She did her own hairs..."messy style"  Oooh la la...

Its pouring rain today...here's how we started out to the schoolyard.

And sitting in her new classroom - Mrs. Kilpatrick's 3rd grade class!

My 5 seconds of fame...

Recently our Family Readiness Group was asked to do a "shoutout" to the soldiers in Afghanistan by AFN (Armed Forces Network) - they also wanted us to do a commercial spot for AFN that they could play on tv.  So...I packed the girls up and we made signs for Daddy and we went to the shoutout hoping that we might get a good shot of ourselves so that John could see us.

Imagine our surprise when the AFN reporter lady asked if anyone wanted to be the voice spot for the shoutout...

*crickets*

She asked again...

*crickets*

She asked a third time and said please...

And I volunteered.  I don't mind doing that kind of thing and well, if it gets us front and center...even BETTER.  So - this is for you, John.  We love you.  We miss you.  Artillery HELL!



And if that wasn't enough for you...we're in the front row on the right in this one.  this is the commercial spot.  We even get a good shot of Madmad's bum.  ha ha ha

Jury duty

I. AM. BUMMED.

All my life I've wanted to get called up for jury duty.

Is that weird?

I just thought its kind of like giving blood to the red cross...your duty to help if you can.  Right?

So...anyhow...here I get a jury duty report date of September 14th...in Oregon.

And I just talked to the jury coordinator who has officially excused me because my husband is in the military and I live in Germany.

Well...I guess thats as good an excuse as any. 

It just better not be a really cool trial that I'm missing. 

Photos from Afghanistan...

John has just started to have time to load some photos and send them to me via email.  Apparently with their slow connectivity it takes him hours to do this...so, I'm thankful for what I've gotten and then I told him to just send me a CD.  :)

That being said...just a few photos from Afghanistan to give you a glimpse into life as he knows it...

First, a shot of the type of living situation he's in.  On the right are large barricades...to the left, the tents where the soldiers live.  Each tent has makeshift rooms inside made of plywood.  They each have a door.  I believe John said there were 6 rooms inside each tent...

This shot in particular has a "castle" in the background...

More tents...I was appalled at how trashy everything was.   I asked him about the garbage and the trash.  He said that its not just the US soldiers...all the contractors and workers and other country's soldiers are just as bad.  He said nobody picks up after themselves...

I found myself very disturbed by that...

And a final shot of the tents...this time with someone's laundry hanging out to dry...

The Romanian soldier's change of guard...John would really like to learn to speak Romanian now.

I'm guessing this is the Army's attempt to help clean up the trash...the more interesting part is the toilet instructions - do not stand...sit.  Okaaaaay.  Well, I have learned that apparently this is actually a big problem...as well as the use of no toilet paper....oh, and the refusal to clean up a mess left behind.

Ewwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwww.

More potty humor...welcome to the men's room.

Chinook helicopter either landing or taking off....Either way, these are a frequent sight.  John has learned to sleep through their arrivals and departures.

And the man, himself, sitting in one...right next to the gunner.

And last, but not least...John's new friends...or wait...are those fingers of his crossed.  Are they really his friends?

How far did the apple fall...?

My mom is now the proud owner of a new blog called The Family Tree.  For those of you not aware of my mother's passion - its geneology.  She's currently writing a book about the Butler side of our family and she's the queen of research when it comes to finding and locating information about our ancestors.

So, after a great suggestion from my dad...I created her a blog space and told her that if she sent me the photos and the stories, I would upload them for her and keep up her blog.

You can read all about it here...

http://thefamiliestree.blogspot.com/

And just for fun...

Grandma Butler as a little girl...

Grandma Anna as a little girl...

My mom as a little girl...

coming soon...can you believe I don't have a

single photo of my mom as a little girl?

Me as a little girl...

My little girl...

3 favorite Bella pictures...

I'm not up for writing much tonight...I just thought I'd share three of my favorite photos from our family reunion time in Utah...

Bubbles...

Sunshine...

Artist...

Wendy and Leah.

I. Love. These. Two. Girls.

Wendy and Leah...old roommates from my BYU days...actually, my last year at BYU when I lived in a little house called the Treehouse.  It was called the Treehouse because it had three levels of living situations...I lived on the middle floor with 7 other girls...two of which are Wendy and Leah.

So, I haven't seen these two for YEARS.  As in a decade kind of years.  Both married.  Both have children.  Both still as fun as I remembered them.  And let me tell you...we had FUN...and got into only a little bit of trouble. 

Just a wee bit...

Like when we held a big house party with Capt'n Grass' See Food and Need it Band.  Yeah.  We had way more people at our house than could actually FIT in our house....but we had fun.  Well, until our downstairs neighbor who is our mortal enemy called the cops on us and we had to break it up.

Our downstairs neighbor being Temple Taggart who won the Miss Utah pageant in 1997.  She was errr.....a really special spirit.  Actually, we couldn't stand her.  She was snotty and entitled and drove us batty.  but we laughed our buns off when she told the world during the Miss USA pageant that her family loved to wrestle and eat oreos and milk together.  ha ha ha.  Still laughing about that one.

Here's the video if you *really* want to see it...her comments start around minute 6...



OH..and funny enough..guess who Miss taggart is cousins with?  Stephiloulou.  HA HA HA.  Yeah...that girl I posted about just a couple of days ago.  For the record, I do believe she can't stand her either. 

ANYHOW...I go see Leah and Wendy who are practically down the street neighbors from each other (so jealous) and we had too much fun just catching up...

And then Leah's crazy neighbor lady took Wendy's dog and stuffed it down her shirt.  HUH?

Yeah...so this lady is French so I guess you can blame it on cultural difference, but she totally violated Wendy's dog.

Of course, it wouldn't have been a true Wendy/Leah visit without something like that happening...

Wedding Called Off.

My cousin had a wedding planned in my mother's backyard for the Saturday before our family reunion was to happen.  My mother had worked and slaved and worked and slaved and worked...to get the yard to its most beautiful state of pristine weddingness when the wedding was called off.

Not that big of a deal.  Well, I'm sure it was a HUGE deal to my cousin who expected to marry the girl of his dreams that day...but then again...just putting in my $0.02 - I'm glad she called it off instead of marrying him and being unhappy about it...then they have 2.5 kids and end up divorced.  Ugh...what a nightmare.

BUT...the real story here that I want to tell is that while my aunt sent out cancellation notices to all the guests on their side, the bride's family never sent out a cancellation notice and instead just expected the word to get passed around...(insert TACKY emoticon here...)  So, at 3PM on the day of the cancelled shindig we get our first carload of people all dressed up for a wedding and reception. 

WHOOOPS.

This lady did about 4 drivebys before she finally stopped and asked if this was the right address...when mom told her the wedding was off...she responded..."I figured...I mean you've all got your laundry hanging up." 

HA HA HA...  We'd strung clotheslines in the carport for swimming suits and towels.

The second carload didn't even hesitate...they immediately said, "The weddings off, right?"

So, we put up a sign and hightailed it to my sisters for the rest of the afternoon and evening to make sure that we didn't have to break the news to anyone else.

My favorite part of this is when my mom called my aunt.  Aunt asks, "What are you doing?  Letting the carloads of people who are showing up for the wedding know that its cancelled?" 

Of course she was just JOKING...

I wish I could have seen her face when my mother said, "Well, actually..."

My day and the waterslide...

See, if you can't tell what I'm doing I'll just spell it out for you.  I'm blogging current events...while slipping in past events that I should have already blogged about. 

Today you get to hear all about...

1.  Bella's 104.2 fever
2.  Our friend KJ and meeting her giant dog, Tyson.
3.  Taking a walk in the rain
4.  Taking a walk in the sunshine
5.  (Repeat 3 and 4 a few more times through the day...)
6.  Getting to see our favorite librarians again
7.  Watching the first Little House on the Priarie...show 1, disc 1, season 1
8.  Talking to John for a whole 30 minutes!

Phew...what a day, eh?

Now, I get to move on to the waterslide...a family reunion activity that has become a real tradition for my family...one that we will have to repeat forever.   You have probably already seen preview photos of my mother going down this slide...but to get the full wonderful effect of this family reunion activity I must give you additional details...

Tadum...the slide...22 feet high and 50 feet long.  We set it up in the school yard behind my mom's house.  YES we had the permission of the principal...sort of.  But long story short...nobody from the district came by to shut us down and besides if they had my lawyer brother said we'd smile and say ok then continue to play on the slide because NOBODY was going to stop this party except the city police.  he he he....thats what we get for having a lawyer in the family. 

(We did consider maiming my brother in law, Jason so we could sue the school for liability and finance our next reunion, but in the end we decided it wasn't going to be worth it...)

Now, the thing about the slide is that we SAY its for the kids...

See them all lined up waiting for it to be ready...set....

...GO!

Katie hitting the puddle at the bottom...

Alana's look may seem like pure terror, but in reality THAT IS FUN!

But the reality is that the slide has become a competition of sorts that you could compare to log rolling, chainsaw throwing, truck pulling and the sort.  Its the "man's" activity of who can go up the slide, down the slide and get off the slide the fastest.  Thats right...this is the infamous slide race that is now held at every family reunion.

Lest you think this is a joke...our last reunion we had two broken toes from this activity...sported by MY HUSBAND, who also happened to be the WINNER of the slide race...  Of course that was a pansy bonsai slide that was about 10 feet tall and 10 feet long...nothing like this mammoth of a slide we had this year, but its still a record that John holds proudly and considers two broken toes a price well worth paying.  Plus, he will never have a chance to be overthrown either because that bonsai slide ended up popped at that same family reunion.  Ah...well...anyhow...

The big boys...

Tom bypassing the children...out of his way...its time for the big boys to slide...

Ray's stealth move of sliding on tummy didn't work out so well unless you could actually slide all the way to the end without stopping...

Aaron and Ray fighting over who went faster...

I am, pleased to announce that this year there was a twist in the slide race.  This was the first year the women of this family also competed AND WON the title  Thats right.

Eliza Sue posted a 12.03 seconds...and Sarah Louisa posted a 12.23 seconds to make it up 22 feet, around the corner, down the ramp and slide all of the 50 feet rolling off the end of the slide.  Beating the best boy time which was at least a second longer than either of those.

Thats right...the women prevailed...

...until 2013...muwahahahaha

Seeing old friends...

One of the best parts of this trip back to Portland was the opportunity to see old friends of mine that I haven't had a chance to really "hang out" with for years.

One such friend, Stephyloulou is just the coolest chick around.  I'll never forget meeting Stephanie for the first time.  We were in Italy on our missions and I had "heard" about her...(FYI...thats not a good thing in the female missionary world...and usually means high maintenance)  Anyhow...I turn around at a conference we were at and in wafts a darling girl with coiffed hair, high heels and a hot pink suit.  I adored her instantly and we became the best of friends...actually, we were forced to become something as I was transferred to the city she was in and we became companions for just over a month...I'm really glad that something was best friends.  We had so many adventures...one in particular involves a broken bike, a 10 mile walk home, and a traveller singing "American woman"...but I digress... 

I think the thing that must be understood  about my friendship with Stephyloulou is how entirely DIFFERENT from each other we are.  She loves clothes and makeup and spending money.  She's a Wyoming cowgirl who can talk like a sailor and always gets what she wants with her womanly wiley charms.  She's my flighty dreaming passionate opposite.  We like to say that she encourages my creativity and I keep her grounded.  As much as I long to be called smokey and mysterious the truth is that practical and sensible are usually more correct in terms of describing me.  (although I did once get called mysterious by a boy named Mika who was terribly cute and I had such a crush...)

Princess Stephanie strikes again...

She's the one and only person that can get me to buy clothing that as soon as I'm out of her influence I roll my eyes and take back to the store...   And at the same time we love so much of the same things...including gelato and pizza margherita (italian style) and shoes and each other...

Oh look...with Auntie Stephanie around Bella got her first Starbucks drink and is wearing a brand new Polo outfit that she looks absolutely adorable in...  (See what I mean?)

And now, here we are...married and each with a baby of our own.  Its the first time we've seen each other since we both made these changes...and it was like being back in that stinky Italian apartment and laughing hysterically at some crazy person we'd met that day or talking about the beauty of the countryside we'd biked through or admiring the shoes as we windowshopped around the town...

I love you stephyloulou...

Steph and her son, Anders

This little cutie is 7 months old and weighs the same amount as Bella does at 21 months!

The only picture I could get Bella to actually sit near Anders so that we had some memory of them meeting as babies...

And the all important meeting Auntie Stephanie photo...I hope my daughter has a friend like her one day.