Waking Up is Hard To Do

Last week I came home from work and found AJ in the bedroom sitting on the bed with his hands between his knees. He looked a little thrashed so I asked him how he was. He replied, "I am a writing volunteer."

"A writing volunteer?" I asked, trying to figure out what he was talking about, "what is that?"

"You know, a writing volunteer!" He exclaimed.

Fully confused, I resigned myself to picking up my place in Harry Potter while, AJ, exasperated that I didn't understand, laid his head down on his pillow and went back to sleep.

Pioneer Day!

Ok 7.24.2007, who can appreciate the Pioneers' sacrifice more than on this day? We began our festivities by driving to Centerville (North of SLC) Monday evening and spent a great night with AJ's parents. After a great chat with my Mom-in-law Karma I was feeling great. She has a knack of setting you at ease!

That night AJ, his dad Steve, and I watched "The Tonight Show: With Jay Leno" Monday is Headlines. Leno reads funny newspaper, magazine, and other publications that have strange wording or errors to benefit us with a laugh.

In the morning we had a fantastic breakfast and watched the KSL parade coverage. I have to admit, I am not much of a parade person, and I had to stifle more than a couple "clever" remarks regarding floats and their occupants.

Early afternoon found us at Erika's where we went swimming for the first time with Olivia. That evening we went to the Bees Baseball Game who sadly lost but put up a good fight in the end. Mooky came out and AJ and I popped over to say hello to the friendly cow. After the game was a great fireworks show. Olivia was mesmerized by the colors and bangs of the show, which was surprising. Even more surprising was her reaction to the cheers of the crowd during the ball game. She would shout with joy along with the others, a look of happy excitement on her face. This just affirms that she is indeed her mother's daughter.


Swimmin' with Mama!


AJ and Mookie (aka: Marcus, the Winder Dairy Hero!)

The Ball-Gamers.

Me and Mine!

The mesmerized little one.

One Word...JEWEL!!!

Jewel was to perform in AZ the summer I graduated. I have loved her work since her first CD back in 1997 and have all bought all her CDs as they've come (with the exception of the Christmas one). I wanted to go but I felt I should hold on to my money for my upcoming college days. How foolish! That was 5 years ago!

I had been keeping my eyes open for upcoming Jewel concerts, especially since her last CD came out. It turns out Jewel doesn't have a big following in Utah. How else could you explain why Utah was so cruelly exiled from her recent "Goodbye Alice in Wonderland" tour? I just knew when my Mom mentioned she heard Jewel would be coming to Park City I could not pass up my opportunity to see her perform again! The big day was July 21, 2007. I immediately bought tickets for Monica and me.

I became a YouTube addict (ok maybe that's exaggerating), watching interview and performances to hype myself up for the concert. But despite this, no YouTube video could come close to the excitement of actually being there. Jewel told stories about her songs and you must know she performed with the Utah Symphony Orchestra.

She recalled her first single, "Who Will Save You Soul" and laughed as she recounted the experience: She was 16 when she wrote the song and at the time knew just 4 guitar cords in only one particular order. If she attempted to rearrange the order, she got all muddled. As she knew she was to be performing with the Symphony, she gave them music from the various songs she would perform. She winced in embarrassment when recalling the moment she handed the sheet music for "Who Will Save Your Soul" to Maestro. She felt beneath their musical glory! Perhaps then but not now.

She has dared to write lyrics and music reflecting her own philosophies, and in a world where money holds phenomenal precedent, that takes courage. I like to think her brave for that!

More for me than for the readers, I am proud to list the itinerary of the performance.
The Utah Symphony Orchestra performed solo first. Of the notable pieces was played "I Feel Pretty" from Westside Story. Following their 30 minutes of solo time was an intermission. After which Jewel presented herself and sang the following in cooperation with the symphony:
1. Intuition (0304)
2. Standing Still (This Way)
3. You Were Meant for Me (Pieces of You)
4. Break Me (This Way)
5. Goodbye Alice in Wonderland (Goodbye Alice in Wonderland)
6. Foolish Games (Pieces of You)
7. Who Will Save You Soul (Pieces of You)
8. Love Me Just Leave Me Alone (This Way)
9. I Won't Walk Away (This Way)
10. Hands (Spirit)

Encore
11. Chime Bells Are Ringing (a yodeling tune)
12. Unknown (a new love song from her upcoming album)
13. Somewhere Over the Rainbow (Sadly this didn't get played as there is a curfew at 10pm)


Here are some pictures from my most memorable concert and one of my top ten life highlights:

Monica and I waiting for it all to begin.

My new JEWEL shirt!! Yeah it was $35, $5 less than the concert itself, but I'll take it!

Monica eating a piece of a symphony bar as we listened to the Utah Symphony Orchestra.

Jewel doin' what she does. And in complimentary colors too! Purple and Yellow! Her dress was so pretty and definitely aligned with her recent style. An "Alice in Wonderland" dress if I ever saw one.

Another great moment on the guitar.


Here are several videos I managed to take. I always fight with the dilemma of whether to "savor the moment" or "preserve the moment". I chose mainly to "savor the moment" so the videos are a little sloppy and cut funny, but at least I managed to preserve some of the moment after all.


Jewel performing "Love Me Just Leave Me Alone". Listen to the Symphony in the background, it's amazing. Jewel commented that she was hesitant to suggest performing this song. She felt to lean toward, "more classical pieces" as she said. But Maestro wouldn't have it. He replied, "We can jam!" And hence, the song was played.


Jewel performing "Goodbye Alice in Wonderland".


Jewel performing "Standing Still".


Jewel performing a Yodelling song.

A Family Fiesta!

Last night we had a shindig. We had Erika, Marcus, Olivia, Monica, Johnny, AJ, and me all together! We grilled hamburgers and made delicious chocolate cake.

We played Apples to Apples in a rediculous fashion. The point is to find the best matching synonym of the pile of words you're given and everyone thought it would be funny to pick the most un-matching word in the pile (you'll have to read the instructions to understand). It was a little too past my bedtime to appreciate the humor. But then we moved on to good old Catch Phrase. We played girls against boys the entire time and we girls found the boys to be a formidable foe. We got trashed but we held our own toward the end.

This is reportedly a favorite sitting position of Olivia's.

Monica and Johnny! What a cute couple!

Girls Only...No Boys Allowed!

I forgot to add that on 6.23.2007 we had a shower for our cousin Lindsay! I video taped most of it for you Mom so you could feel like you were there! But we had a great girl's picture I have to include.

The Winder's Visit

Laura and Daniel (aka: Big D) Winder came to visit on 7.6.2007. We got to visit our favorite restaraunt with them The Brick Oven and visit the Timpanogas Temple. What a great treat!

Lions and Tigers and Mold...Oh My!

Here I am again!

So we are on the downhill side of a mold problem in our apartment. At first they told us we would have no use of our guestroom and our bathroom. No bathroom?? It turns our we did get to keep our bathroom afterall. Our guestroom (luckily not our BEDROOM!) had to be cleared of all its contents, the door and blinds were removed, and plastic was set up to allow an airflow only through one filtered exit (yeah right, and how long do you thing that lasted). Next the wall adjacent to the bathroom was ripped off and we were left with signs up on the plastic reading "Warning: Microbial Hazard! Only Authorized Personnel May Enter".

My first thought was, "This is my home, I am an authorized personnel. Don't tell me where I can't go in my own home!" My second thought came after the 15th time of taping up the stupid platic that kept falling and allowing hazardous microbes into the unprotected portion of my home, "Microbial what...hazard?? If it is hazardous enough to put up a sign, why isn't it hazardous enough to tape the plastic up so it doesn't fall every 4 minutes??"

After the 3rd day I just let it go. If I was going to die by microbs, I had accepted my fate. But now the plastic and filter are gone and we have drywall in its place. We are getting there.

Here is our guestroom all drywalled back up. I wish I had gotten a picture of the warning sign!

Here is a picture of the other side of the wall in the bathroom.

A Little Piece of History

I was going through some pictures to add to my oh-so-exciting blog and found some old ones of Valentines Day and Birthdays: Erika's, AJ's, and Mine. So these are below.

Now, as much as I love cutting edge technologies (which is really true BTW, I'm not being sarcastic here) and have a somewhat tech savvy job , I am no blogger and Erika is going to give me some help on making my blog look more like hers. Because let's face it, her's looks good and mine is a little boring still. But this will all change.

So what's new? I will tell you! Monica and Johnny got engaged! If you're asking yourself who Johnny is, don't feel bashful, we all asked the same question too! ;) Yes, it all happened quickly but if it's right it's right. We're all very excited for Monica. I know I am excited to help with wedding plans etc, but I must admit, I'm glad I've already done it. It's a lot to plan! It will be a fun party and day.

There seems to be many other winds of change blowing that haven't quite found their course yet and thus are still undefined, so nothing can be said. But like a good tv series, we will keep you rivotted, hanging on the edge of your seat until more develops. (Stupid The Office always leaving you hanging, however the season finale this year was quite fulfilling. Now 24, that is bad. AJ was determined to d/l and watch the second half of one episode and the first half of the following episode in order to not die of an adrenalin attack between episodes.)



AJ's Valentines day present to Jessi! A beautiful clean sink.

Erika blowing out candles with Robert. March 29, 2007.

AJ's birthday!! Mmmm...Smartfood popcorn, which turns out to be delicious but not a smart eat after all.

Jessi's b-day! Oh, smartfood popcorn again. And more importantly...JEWEL tickets!!! And IPod speakers, and a giant pepper grinder. I love pepper, a love derived from my brother-in-law Marcus.