I'm SO lame. Just ask my teenagers.
So it's not QUITE the end of March, but here I am, and I'm thinking about it, and if I don't do it now it probably won't get done until June. July maybe.
February for us is not too far removed from December, for the fact that we spend almost as much money on gifts.
Darin, Hannah, and I all have February birthdays, followed closely by Maren in March. Plus Valentines, and Darin's dad's b-day. Arg!
But we tried to do something a little different this year. We tried to DO birthdays more than GIVE birthdays. So on the day of Darin's birthday we dragged him off to the Farmington Bay Waterfowl Refuge so he could see the migrating bald eagles. We saw about thirty of them this year. One year we saw well over 100. Afterwards we took him out to lunch, then bowling, then went home for a dinner of Bratwurst and Sauerkraut and Spaetzle.
Hannah wanted to spend her birthday with friends, so we dragged everyone to The Pie for the best pizza in Utah, then back home for her favorite cake--raspberry brownies topped with caramel topping, cool whip, and crushed Heath bars.
Suzanne REALLY wanted to stay home playing Zelda on the gamecube, but things didn't go exactly as planned. First, Darin and Hannah left in the morning for work and school and Maren and I started up on our school day, but they'd all been keeping secrets from me. About an hour after everyone left, Darin and Hannah came home. They'd been fooling me. They dragged me down to Salt Lake to spend the day at the Planetarium--one of my favorite places in the world! We saw a show there and had fun playing with all the cool stuff in the gift shop. I bought a gyroscope and a gyroring, and we played with them all day. Then we went home and did I get to play Zelda? Nope. The TV wouldn't let me. It's been slowly dying for a year or more and it chose my birthday to have a stroke. How am I supposed to find the treasures buried under the sea when I can't hear the little treasure music that plays when you're right over the top of it? You can't. BUT, we did get a new TV out of the whole deal. Our first HD, Digital, flat screen TV. No more stupid little converter box. And yes, I did get to play Zelda.
Maren wanted to spend her day with her friends, too. Poor kid just happened to have spent her younger years during some of our hardest years, so she missed out on the kinds of birthday parties her older siblings used to have at that age. So we took all her friends to pizza and bowling. We had a great time. She got the 3rd Fablehaven book, even though she hasn't read the first one yet, and even though she's had the first two books signed by the author--which is another February story.
And THAT story is about LTUE--Life, the Universe, and Everything, which is a sci-fi/fantasy symposium held at BYU every year. This year I got to sit on a couple of discussion panels and teach a workshop on writing flash fiction. OK, I actually sat on ONE discussion panel, but was scheduled for two. Hannah and I were running late and missed the first one I was supposed to be on. Dang it! Anyway, it was a fun weekend, we had lunch with a dear friend of mine and spent the night with Aunt Sharon, watched the Olympic opening ceremonies there. Ian and Maren and Darin came down to join us on Saturday, which is when Maren brought book 2 of the Fablehaven series to be signed by Brandon Mull. Pretty cool.
I don't remember much else from February. We had grandparents up to celebrate with us on a couple of Sunday evenings. They came up and watched the Super Bowl with us on one Sunday.
March brought Maren's birthday, which I've already gone over, and St. Patrick's Day, which pretty much CONSUMED the whole first half of the month! Why? Because Hannah and her Ogden High Fiddle Group were in the SLC parade and played on one of the stages afterward. Darin and I went down to help. We pulled the trailer with our truck, which the kids decorated with glass markers and clings. We were, fortunately, near the front of the parade. We got through before it started to rain, and rain, and rain. By the time we were ready to pack up and head home after their show it was pouring and cold, and it snowed on us on the way home.
Fun times!
For Hannah, March will always be a memorable month. It's the month her dreams really started to come true. Last Sunday, Hannah received an email announcing her acceptance to the Valley of the Moon Fiddle Camp. It's run by her fiddling idol, Alisdair Frasier, a Scottish fiddler of amazing talent. She'll be flying out the end of August and coming home the Saturday before Labor Day. We're very excited for her, but nervous to be sending her out into the wide world all by herself. I know it'll be a great experience for her, and I'm excited for her.
By the way, she'll be hitting up our close friends and loved ones for donations to help her get there. *wink* She's already earned about half of what she needs, and a wonderful, generous couple in our ward have given her a sizable donation. THANK YOU!! She's going to spend the next couple of months street playing as much as possible, and planning a fundraising drive and yard sale to earn more.
Our next adventures involve getting braces on Ian and getting Hannah in for a check of her Pectus Excavatum. Don't know what that is? Google it.
That's all for now.
