The Long Bird Story

On Wednesday afternoon Nate and Bonnie came home from school with a young bird that they had found in the park. They were sure that it had fallen out of its nest and was going to die, therefore they brought it to me in the hopes that I would know what to do. This is when my all-knowingness as a mom failed me. We found a box, filled it with shredded papers, and put the bird in it. Bonnie begged me to please take it to the vet because she was sure that its wing was broken. Now I like animals just as well as the next person, but I was not willing to pay the cost to take a random stray bird to the vet, especially when I could tell that its wing was folding just fine. I called my older sister Bet and asked her for advice. After telling her that the bird was a dove she looked it up online (yes I realize I should have thought of that) and found out that this type of bird leaves the nest at about 2 weeks old. It can't fly yet, but it explores its surroundings and the best thing for it is to be back where it was so it can get back to its nest. I informed Nate and Bonnie of the findings and told them that when they were done with their homework and piano practice they would need to return the bird to the park where they found it. Bonnie immediatly burst into tears and cried the whole time she was practicing piano. (I should have taken a video of it as it is really quite funny to think about now, but was not so funny to me at the time.)

Well, it took them over half an hour and 4 trips back and forth to the park to finally leave the bird under a bush where they had found it. Each of these trips caused more tears on the part of Bonnie who first needed a picture with the bird, then was worried because the wind was blowing its feathers, and then was further traumatized because, "When we set it down it didn't move anywhere and I just couldn't bear to leave it." Finally I convinced them to leave the bird under a bush and walked back to our house with 2 sobbing children, who continued to cry for another 1/2 hour after they got home. Unfortunately (for the babysitter) I had to leave them with a babysitter to go help at scouts and she got to deal with the last part of it. She was a really good sport.

Notice Bonnie's red-rimmed eyes.

I wish that I could tell you that was the end of the story, but sadly it continued into the next two days. On Thursday Bonnie woke up and immediately asked me if we could walk to school through the park and check on Lightning (yes they had given it a name). Now I may not know what to do with a live bird, but I do know that after all the tears the night before I was not going to risk them finding a dead bird at the park on the way to school, therefore I promised to check on the bird after I dropped them off at school. Well, I could honestly tell them that the bird was not where they had left it and that it must have made its way home (eternally). Not two yards from where they left poor Lightning was a very dead bird. I had a little bit of guilt, but I think the several trips to and from our house did not do it any good if it was alright in the first place. Needless to say I got my neighbor to watch Gwen for 5 minutes while I went to the park and disposed of the bird.

Nate and Bonnie came home yesterday afternoon very happy that they had not found Lightning at the park. They were sure that he had made it home, and I did not disagree with them. Everybody was happy.

I am sorry to tell you that today, Friday, Nate and Bonnie came home from school again in tears. On the way home from school they had found a dead bird in the park that looked just like Lightning. Of all the luck. With all I had gone through to make sure they didn't find the real bird another one just like it would die in the same park. I did finally convince them that it was not their bird by telling them that there are a lot of those types of birds around and just last week there had been one like it that had died in our yard. For some reason telling them of other dead birds seemed to do the trick. Bonnie decided that it must have been one of Lightning's siblings and that was okay. Thankfully everyone is now happy again and they do not know how to get on our blog to read this story. Someday when they have kids I hope this comes back around to them.

Holiday dinners

So I am a little behind with the St. Patrick's Day dinner, but I did get festive and the kids thought it was very cool. We had cabbage, green rolls, green chicken, and green limeade.

For April Fool's Day we each had 12 slips of paper. The strips of paper had these items listed on them:

1. Spaghetti
2. Worms in mud
3. Ants on a log
4. Limeade
5. Salad
6. Garlic bread
7. Fork
8. Knife
9. Spoon
10. Wooden spoon
11. Napkin
12. Otter pop

We had 3 courses and for each course we drew 4 strips of paper for what we got to have.

The worms in mud.

Here are some pictures of the fun that we had during dinner.

The kids love doing this for April Fool's Day and I am afraid if we ever decided not to do it we would be in big trouble.

Mission time

My parents left yesterday for a 23-month mission to Romania.

You can stay updated on their mission at: http://bobandpeggy.blogspot.com/

We will miss them a lot, but we are so excited for them.

My grandma and more family.

Last week my grandma Sorensen passed away. She was 92 years old and had been very healthy up until about 2 weeks ago when they found out she had cancer. Apparently she'd had the cancer for between 3 and 5 years and never had any symptoms of it. When we still lived in Utah I used to take the kids to go visit her every Monday. I am so grateful for the time that I had to get to know her better before we moved.

While we were up in Utah for her funeral we were able to listen to my parents speak in church before they leave on their mission to Romania.

All of my siblings were there on Sunday for their talks except for 2 of my sisters. You can imagine the chaos at their house afterwards, and if not, here is a small sampling of it.

I don't know if my poor brother-in-law ever did get a decent family picture. Two of my brothers-in-law are in this picture, they were taking the place of my sisters... I'm sure that if we just photo shop in the faces of my sisters no one will know the difference right?

We also were able to visit with Ben's brother Chuck (Bonnie's favorite uncle) and his family...

We spent Sunday night in Hurricane with Ben's sister Krysti and her family as well as the chickens. The kids loved the chickens, and I even got to hold Crooked Beak. We are so grateful to them for being willing to let us invade their house for the night.

Then on Monday before we came home we went and visited Ben's great Uncle Boyd and Aunt Della. Even though the wind was freezing cold Boyd still took the kids down to see the horses and let them each have a turn sitting on them. They are always so kind and gracious when we get to visit with them.

Gwen thought the four-wheeler was about the coolest thing ever.

Squaw Peak

Last week Ben and I went and hiked Squaw Peak for our Saturday date. Considering most of the "hikes" that we have done here in AZ I didn't figure it would be too hard, because compared to Utah the hills they call mountains around here just aren't. I had several friends tell me that it was a tough hike, but I just figure it was because they had never lived in Utah and didn't know what real mountains were. However, I was quickly humbled when we started the hike which is only a 1.2 mile hike to the peak, but which goes up over 1200 feet in that 1.2 miles. I had done a kick boxing class the day before and was already sore, so I wouldn't let Ben stop on the way up because I was afraid I would not get started again. It was a really good hike though and I enjoyed it.

That is the peak right behind us, although this was taken on the way back down because of my aforementioned refusal to stop at all on the way up.

The view from the top.

The trail on the way back down.

My final Stay Busy Project

So I am finally posting my last project. I waited until now because I did not want to risk having Ben see it before he got home, but he is on his way home now so you can all see my handiwork.

Picking a color. Thankfully Lowes has half-pint sample cans or I would have been in real trouble.

During:

Getting ready for the stripes. I don't know if I will ever do stripes again. They were a pain, but they do look really cool now that I am done.

After: It's kind of hard to tell I painted the bathroom, but I did and it looks awesome!

...and finally the bedroom.

Before:

Mission Call

My parents got their mission call this week.

They are going to the Romania Bucharest Mission. They will be going to the Missionary Training Center on March 23rd and serving for 23 months. We are so excited for them.