Happy Birthday Madison and Savanna!

Dear Madison and Savanna,
We are so excited about you turning 10 years old, but we can hardly believe it has been 10 years since you came into our lives. We were all so excited to welcome you here. We have had some really fun times with you and your family over these 10 years. We hope you had a fun party without us. But we hear that you are coming to visit us here soon, so we would like to have a nice dinner with a birthday cake and let the Craigs up here celebrate your birthday too. So we are looking forward to seeing you soon and wishing you a Happy Birthday in person. Love, Grandma, Grandpa, Steve, Emily and family, Austin, Angela, and Brian.

Feather Your Nest??

Ah, Sunday mornings. . .not much to do. . .just sit back and relax while my well oiled machine of a family gets itself ready for church. Yhea, right. Actually, I was feeling pretty good about our prospects of actually getting to church on time. In a rare move of preparing in advance, I had laid out all clothes--including shoes and socks--for everyone in the family. (We had been 2 minutes late last week and had to sit in the folding chairs--ouch!--so we set a goal to leave for church 20 minutes early. Mind your our church building is a mere 4 houses away. Yes, only 4 houses away and we have to set the goal to exit the house 20 minutes early in order to actually arrive in time to get a pew. The 15 minutes early goal of last week just didn't cut it. Needless to say, rounding up children at our house is a lot like herding cats.)

But we had set a goal, I had set out everyones clothes the night before, and Richard had no meetings. We were set for success!

I was in the kitchen feeling good about our on-time prospects when Maddie came in, frantic, muttering "Just ground me! Just ground me!" My stomach churns. Dare I ask? Do I want to know? She now has a full size push broom in her hand and is zipping back towards her bedroom with it held high over head. I will not be deterred in our goal! "What's going on Maddie?" She mutters, again, something about a feather pillow. After questioning, she explained that she had "accidentally" stepped on a pillow that she "didn't know" had a rip in it. The problem. . . feathers had overrun her room. Hmmmmm? Push broom? "You might want to use the vacuum on that one," I respond, calmly. "I think its broken" she replied over her should, running with push broom in hand, high over head. Hmmmm. It worked just fine yesterday.

I made my way back to the bedroom and found the vacuum turned over in the hallway. It looked like this:

It was feather run amok. Feathers as far as the eye could see on every horizontal surface of her bedroom. Under the bed, on the beds, thick on all the dressers. This was no accident. This was definitely a child experimenting with some wild feather fantasy.

I was semi-impressed that she'd tried to clean them up by herself without mentioning said disaster to her mother. I thought we might have been done in, derailed. But thankfully the shop vac from the garage sucked all those feathers up, even the ones from the overrun regular vacuum.

We got in the car to leave for church and found the battery was dead--kids using that same shop vac to clean out the car had left the lights on the previous day. So we walked. We still made it to church on time. Like I said, it's only 4 houses away.

So I took Nancy's Challenge. With apologies to Dr. Suess, I give you "The Feather Fling" (Savanna says she wants to do some illustrations. She suggests a glum girl in her bedroom around 10 years old looking at car tail lights leaving the house when the doorbell rings by a "Celebrity Cheerer Upper" named "Anna Sophia" Ha! To be said to the tune of "Green Eggs and Ham")

I am sad

I am sad

Sad I am

Feeling bad!
Feeling bad!
I do not like to feel so sad.

Would you rather you were glad?
Then you wouldn't feel so bad.
I will help you! You will see! I'll delight you easily.
A feather fling is what you need. Feathers cheer you up in deed!

A feather fling? A feather fling?
I've never heard of such a thing
Whatever could a feather do?
It's best I bid to you adieu.

Fling the feathers! You will find.
Flinging brings you peace of mind.

Try it! Try it! You will see.
You'll feel glad! I guarantee!

A feather fling! A feather fling!
A feather fling is just the thing

To turn your glumness into glee.
Watch them drift up merrily.

{pause. picture the child plucking a single feather from her bag, looking skeptical}

Feather one. Feather two.
Feather landing in my shoe.

Feather three. Feather four.
Feeling better? Try some more!

Feather five. Feather six.
Toss them from my bag of tricks.

Feather seven. Feather eight.
Yes! Hoorah! I'm feeling great!

Feather nine. Feather ten.
Take a rest then start again.

One two three four.
Feathers filling up the floor.

Five six seven eight
Can you now appreciate

The joyousness that feathers bring
I feel so happy I could sing!

Out the door
Down the hall
Through the windows
Watch them fall

Eight seven six five
Feathers make me feel alive!
Four three two one.
Surely I was never glum!

They fly so high they touch my nose
They're on my face and hands and clothes

I love to watch the feathers float.
It's like a river! There's a boat!

Swimming in them like a duck.
I can't believe in my good luck.

Hold your breath. We'll take a dive.
Watch me dance a feather jive!

Swirling, spinning feathers floating to the sky!
Deeper! Higher! Giddy watching feathers fly!

{A sudden realization that feathers have overtaken the room--perhapse a picture of her mom returning}

Oh no! I need an alibi.

We will clean them! You will see!
We will sweep them thoroughly.

A feather here a feather there
Sweep them up without a care.

Dust the lamp, shake my hair,
(I plucked one from my underwear!)

They zip into the vacuum hose
(Achoo! There came one from my nose!)

Feathers disappearing fast.
Feather flings are unsurpassed!


One two three four.
Finally we see the floor.

Five six seven eight.
Mom will sure appreciate

Our thorough ways and tidiness
Finding feathers is the best!

Eight seven six five
Almost gone! Say your goodbyes.

Four three two one.
Our feather fun is now all done!




There you have it folks. We turned our would be disastrous morning into our own Dr. Suess book. When life gives you scurvy, make lemonade.

For Any of you Who Were Unable to Make it to the Islands

How is this for a bit of nostalgia, Mom and Dad?

You can make it fullscreen by clicking in the bottom right of the view. Just click on the view and drag to look where you want to. Use your scroll wheel to zoom in and out. Sorry, this might obstruct some of the text on the right side of the page for a bit, at least till more posts move it further down the page.

UPDATE: Big THANKS to Iban for the tip on changing viewing size! It doesn't cover up any of the right side now.

There are a bunch more from the islands at this site. Enjoy.

I've got a Fever and the only Prescription is More Cowbell

The local classic rock station has an everyday occurance called "5 for the Drive", where they play five songs at five o'clock that fit into a certain theme. Todays theme was cowbell, in refrence to this SNL hilarity. Enjoy.

Interesting factoid from last week's Newsweek that just showed up in Lindon

The Texas Instruments TI-2500 calculator did only the four basic arithmetic functions. What was its original price in 1972?

a) $75.50
b) $99.95
c) $149.95
d) $199.99

And my own follow-up question: What in the heck (I live in Utah now) did people do before calculators? Math?!

I love Bobby!

So, the first time I heard the name Bobby Brown I thought, "isn't he married to Whitney Houston?" Well, it turns out Bobby Brown is a she and she make fabulous make-up. I recently purchased her under-eye- brightener and let me tell you, I look like I've been getting some sleep! I wore it to church yesterday and Margene Jackson didn't tell me I looked tired. So it must be good! So if any of my fellow Craig sister are still searching for a solution look no further girls! Thank you Bobby!

We're been keeping busy with Puj. It's so much fun to work on.

Ben recently got our garage organized. Last year he designed a garage organizing system for Yakama called "Ground Control" Well they were kind enough to give him one and we've got all 5 bikes up on it (Walker's included) It is so nice to come home to a clean garage. And it's easier to get out the door for a bike ride. Thanks Ben!

My boys are growing up so fast. Truman says the cutest things these days. I forgot how much fun an 18 month old is. I also failed to remember how much they climb and throw their food. Life is exciting at the Richardson home.

We are excited for fall. We've got about 7 pumpkins in our garden. If anyone has Halloween costumes for a 3.5 or 18 month old send them our way!

Oh, I've also made myself a dress recently. Mom, you're such an inspiration to me. I've been wanting to make one for a while, but didnt' want to mess up some pretty fabric. So I bought this fabric for a $1 a yard. I figured it wouldn't be too big of a loss if it didn't work out. I made it to fit just right so it has no zippers or buttons. It's a bit hard to get off, but it works. It made it's premier at church yesterday with some fall orange tights! I know, I'm so BOLD!

Greetings from Utah Valley

Some of you might be mildly interested to know that Laurie has turned into quite the football fan. At least he has faithfully watched the BYU games since we have been here. Well at least he has watched the winning games , that I know of. Right now he and Steve are watching and eating popcorn. BYU has made 3 touchdowns and I don't think airforce has made any, but the game is not over. We went to lunch yesterday with our friends, the Bullocks, from Oregon, who come for every homecoming game. They have season tickets to BYU football probably so they can always come to at least the Homecoming games. He played football for BYU over 40 years ago, and she was a cheerleader, so they are really die hard fans. It is heavily overcast here right now, but so far no rain. She says many games in the past, they have had to sit under tarps because if has been raining. We'll see. The weather forecast is for a lot of rain today and in the next couple of days. We went this morning for a walk in Provo Caynon though and it was nice there. We have been walking there for a couple of weeks. Laurie has taken digital pictures and I tell him he should do a blog with the pictures, but it hasn't been done and so I will just talk about it and maybe sometime soon, he will put on the pictures. The canyon has been a great place to walk. The trail is really nice, paved, and wide. Lots of people use it. It follows along the Provo River. We have been all the way to Vivian park, not all at once, but we park the car at different parks and walk different stretches of the trail at different times. It is all pretty and interesting. We have seen lots of school children with little nets looking for bugs and butterflys, etc. We see bikers, skaters, boarders, joggers, strollers, etc. The trees are starting to turn color and so everything is really pretty, and we have enjoyed the exercise. Today we saw a tiny chipmunk, we have seen quite a few squirrels, we saw a rabbit yesterday, and one day we were frightened by a very large snake that slitherred off the trail right to the side of us. I just jumped back, but Laurie had the presence of mind to at least look at it and realize it wasn't a rattler. But colorwise and size, you could have fooled me. It was a lot bigger and lighter in color than those smallish dark colored snakes we saw in the spring in the pit. Steve and his boys went on a hike this morning too and went to the Homecoming Parade. We didn't go to the parade, I basically don't like crowds. The boys started school Friday and both seemed happy with the experience. The bus stop is almost as far away as the school so Steve says he will just drive them to school each morning on his way to work. The closest stop is up on Denali Dr. I guess they could come home on the bus. We had a fun little BBQ in the backyard last evening. It was still warm and sunny yesterday. But now it seems like fall. Austin, Angela, and Brian will come to dinner tomorrow and we will sing a belated Happy Birthday to Isaac and then next week is Norah's real birthday. Some of you need to post more often. I miss hearing from you.

Bad hair cut

Hot, Hot Heat

So Brian and I have a little garden in our back yard with tomatoes, peppers, squash and cucumbers. At the moment the only thing really producing any produce is the serrano pepper bush. And boy is it producing. Does anyone have any good recipes using serrano's? I've already made salsa, but I used all the ripe tomatoes on that, and only two serrano's (don't worry, it was nice and hot), so I need some more suggestions. Thanks folks!

P.S. If anyone want's any serrano's let me know, we've got pleanty!

Mom Wins

Mom suggested I charge rent for my Tripod instead of just lending it out all the time or selling it. That is the winning idea. I'll charge $10 a day. It's perfect. Thank you, MOM!

Thought you might all enjoy this.

This reminds me of this. I've mentioned the one before elsewhere. They're aesthetically similar, of course, and while one is called "art" and the other an "ad", I think the titles are divisive of two things that should have the same heading.
Who knows, maybe the one inspired the other.

Tie Dying Cousins

I forgot about these pictures until I downloaded my camera yesterday. These are from our cousins party that Becky held on Labor Day. The kids had a lot of fun tie dying shirts and playing with each other. My kids keep on asking if they can wear their "crazy shirt." They had a lot of fun, thanks Becky for organizing it all! We are sad to see Steve and Emily and Co. head off to Utah. We're hoping to join you though in the not-so-distant future. So go, blaze the trail for us Craig family, we will surely miss you. Good luck in your next phase of life, I know you will be happy. And yes Aaron, they have Saved By The Bell, the "greatest show ever" in Utah.

sometimes I wonder what Travis must look like from Hallie's perspective, I'm thinking he looks tall. You can see why my kids will never make a straight face for me in pictures, they get it from their Dad!



These poor girls were hot and sweaty, which yes it's still hot here, they sure look sweet together though. They were being very good girls the whole time.


I thought maybe these kids were trying to do a see no evil, hear no evil picture or something, but I'm not really sure. They look cute though!

To Dad and anybody else investing:

I think you should invest in Google soon, because of this. It's all over the web, and looks like it's something coming soon. Let me know what you think.

Rich in Conversation

Richard recently created his own blog. He did not mention this to me. In fact, he didn't tell anyone. That is why he has no comments. . . .YET. Now that I know he's got his own blog I'm going to go make plenty of comments and tell all my beloved family members about it and I"m sure they will periodically check it and make comments too. It is fun, hip and ultra informative (much like its creator). It has heavy emphasis on the information. If you click on his contributor name it will link you to his personal blog.

So since he has zero comments I'm taking matters into my own hands and telling all you about it without mentioning it to him first. I'm going to go make some comments there right now and I thought you'd all like to check it out now and then, too. Let's start a dialblog. I just made that term up, I think--a combination of dialouge and blog pernounced DI-a-blog.

A dumb little movie.

Thought you guys might like to see this (click here).

And honestly, the parts of the movie you don't like, those are the dumb parts my roommates insisted we put in. I'm not kidding. And we made this really fast, and it was before I'd really studied film. It would be a thousand times better if we did it again.

But I hope you like it anyway.

Fresh Fruit

I really love blogs with great pictures. But as all of you know, I am electronically challenged and consider myself lucky just to be able to comment on your postings or to post something myself. For a picture, you can refer to the last photo of the raspberries and count that for my blog too, since I was the one who taught all of you to love raspberries, or does Grandpa get the credit for that. Anyways, we have had a great little basket of locally grown raspberries this last week too. When Steve was here we met him, Angela, and Austin at Zupa's for lunch and I had a salad with fresh berries and nuts with a poppy seed dressing and that reminded me how much I enjoyed that kind of salad. So we stopped at Verd's on State St. and got some fresh raspberries and some strawberries and I have had that salad a couple of times and it was great. Today we drove up to Midway, but I guess Swiss Days was over. We found the half tents where activities must have taken place, but it must have been on Saturday only. Next year, if Nancy is around, maybe we will make it on Saturday. Angela and Brian have been going to the Onion Days festivities in Payson, I guess we should have gone to that with them. But we enjoyed the car ride up the canyon, some of the leaves are already starting to turn color, and had our favorite thick milkshakes at Dairy Keen in Heber. Boy is that a busy main street. I distinctly remember last summer right after we got home from the mission watching all the pickup trucks going fast up and down that street and being amazed at how large all the vehicles here were. Now I guess I am used to it. We were thinking how everybody in Utah must have been at the Dairy Keen when we stopped, and did run into a few people from the ward who had been up to Jordanelle water skiing. We also went to the outlets at Park City and the other half of the people in the state must have been there shopping. We walked around all the stores, but I didn't buy anything and Laurie bought a T shirt. He says he needs more long sleeved white shirts to go along with his new calling in the branch presidency of Branch 44, Spanish speaking, at the MTC. Last week we had to go shopping for ties. He says his ties are not conservative enough for the MTC and used this for an excuse to buy several new ties. Needless to say, he is having fun with this calling. But I have to say that I enjoy it too, except I have to put on nylons every time I set foot on the MTC campus. We had a great conference on Sunday and have one of those every fast Sunday. This week will be a little light as we will not be getting any new missionaries in our branch on Wednesday.
Sunday, Angela and Brian and Austin came for dinner. We had leg of lamb. It has probably been years since I cooked lamb, but we needed a little variety. Angela brought her home made fresh peach ice cream and that was delicious. I ate too much of it. I did get up this morning and walk up the mountain. I go up Dry Canyon, then down Denali and around that loop 3 or 4 times. This time I just did 3 times and came home. Then Laurie said he was disappointed because he had wanted to go with me and I had gone without him. He doesn't usually go. So I said I would go again. I hope that paid for the ice cream yesterday. Brian had picked the peaches off his Grandma's tree and they were delicious. I remember many years ago getting to pick my fill of apricots off Aunt Lura and Aunt Vilo's tree in Salt Lake. They were the best. Remember this all fits in with the raspberry theme. Speaking of raspberries, that was the flavor of milkshake Laurie had at Dairy Keen. In keeping with my usual preference, I picked something with chocolate in it.
We are continuing to have nice warm weather, it is in the 90's each day. We have been able to pick a lot of fresh tomatoes off our own plants. Our garden is that large tire that used to be a sandpile or something. I made salsa with a lot of the tomatoes and I like that. The radio said tomorrow it will cool off a little . We will wait and see. I wouldn't mind a little cooler weather, but am not ready for winter yet.