Flat Stanley

Clayton's class read a book about Flat Stanley. He had to make a Flat Stanley and send it to someone. He chose to send him to me. I have had hime for several weeks and have had to do things with him.

I took him to work on the first day I had him and caused quite the discussion. First people wanted to know what in the world I was doing with a paper doll. Then they started to tell me all the things I should do with Flat Stanley. It was rather humorous to hear adults talking about Flat Stanley. We even got into ethical discussion as to why is it Flat Stanley and not Flat Stella? I would be working and people would come up to me and tell me that they had been thinking about Flat Stanley and I should do such and such with him. It was so funny!

Flat Stanley is working with my boss

I took him to Orlando with me. I was posing for a picture and it was funny to hear that people recognized Flat Stanley. People asked me if that was Flat Stanley, while others were pointing to me saying look mom it is Flat Stanley. He was more of a hit then the bush behind me. You would have thought Flat Stanley was one of the disney characters.

One evening I took him into Disney's Hollywood Studios with me. So he got to ride the rides and see some of the characters.

He went up to Tremonton with me and got to meet Varon, Dad and Grandma.

He is currently in Russia with one of my coworkers. So I should have photos of him in a week at Red Square in Moscow. He will also be traveling to Tokyo and will be photographed over there. I also scanned him in and sent him to an old coworker at Tahitian Noni who now lives in Saudi Arabia. He was currently hosting another Flat Stanley so they were able to become friends. I should have pictures from over there next week...they took him camping.

I am pretty much trying to make Clayton's Flat Stanley the coolest in the class! I hope it works...if not it has been fun seeing Adults discuss Flat Stanley.

Sapporo, Japan

During my trip to Japan, I got to go up to Sapporo. Sapporo is located on the Northern island of Japan and has hosted the Winter Olympics. It reminded me a lot of Salt Lake City, nestled at the base of the mountains. After landing at the airport we took an hour train ride up to Sapporo. This is what it looked like by the airport.

Sapporo has a snow festival in February where they have huge snow and ice sculptures thorughout the city. Unfortunately, I was too early to see this. But, I got to see the start of some of the sculptures. They are enormous and I could tell that we would be awesome.

This is the only ice sculpture that I could see...it is the size of a house.

This is a drawing of what the final sculpture will look like.

This is the sculpture under construction...I couldn't believe that the type of equipment that they were usind to make the scupltures.

This is a close up, you can see the building being formed on the left.

I got this picture from the internet of a past sculpture that was done there....amazing!

Being held hostage by a Japanese toilet

Today I had quite the adventure with the toilet in the office. As you may know the toilets in Japan have buttons and gadgets on them. You have a button to heat the toilet seat, a button to make the sound of running water (to disguise any noises)and a button to turn the toilet into a bidet.

The toilets in the hotel room have japanese to tell you what each button does as well as a picture. The toilets in the office only have Japanese. So, I used the restroom and went to flush the toilet. The toilet didn't have a handle to flush like any other toilet that I have seen...but I guessed at what I thought would flush the toilet, only it didn't flush. I tried it again and no flushing. So, i started to push buttons. Wow, that was the recipe for disaster. After I pushed the button this little hose came down and started to spray water. I of course was standing in front of the toilet and it starts to spray me. I jump out of the way and this hose is spraying the stall door and it was quite the stream! It is running all over the floor. I pushed the button again thinking maybe it will stop, but it doesn't stop. I push the button next to it and it keeps going. Meanwhile the floor is getting soaked with water and is starting to go into the other stall. I put the toilet lid down thinking it would stop the water from spraying all over the place...that helped a little but, the stream was so powerful it was flowing through the space between the lid and the seat and isn't stopping. I am thinking why isn't that on a timer...who is going to sit there that long having water spraying on them...THIS IS NOT A SHOWER.

Desperate and not wanting to flood the entire bathroom, I leave to ask for help. Of course there wasn't any girls available to who speaks fluent English. Within a minute I found someone who understand...can you come help me. I go into the bathroom with her and ask her how to stop the water...yes she started to laugh at me. The one button that I hadn't pushed was the one to turn it off. By this time the floor in the both stalls were completed covered in water...and the area in front of the stalls. It took a while for her to understand where do you flush the toilet. You just had to push the thing I had thought to begin with really hard.

So for the next hour I heard laughter throughout the office, I was sure it was because they were hearing the funny story of the American girl who didn't know how to flush the toilet and flooded the bathroom.

Talk about FUNNY! I couldn't stop laughing at myself...I am still laughing as I type this.

Family book

This is a book that I made for an enrichment craft coming up in February. It is a chipboard book from Bo Bunny that you cover with your scrapbook paper. I thought it turned out really cute!

So did the sisters in the ward...now, I have to try and find enough of them for the day of the activity. I thought more stores would carry them...after all we are in the middle of Utah. But, only one store carries them. I may be getting them shipped in from an internet site. I am glad that I have a few more weeks to work on locating them.







It was fun and fairly simple to make.

Happy New Year!

Wow, it is 2008! I can not believe that it has been 8 years since Y2K. Boy, time flies whether you are having fun or not...and every year it goes quicker. Maybe it is because those nasty grey hairs keep coming back faster. Okay, I think I am divulging too much.

I went to Washington for New Years weekend and spent time with my family in Moses Lake. I was there from Friday evening until Jan. 1st. It was great to be with my family!
My Dad & I

Sunday when we ate lunch mom actually had about 20 minutes where she was doing really well. She was following the conversations, laughing at Marta & Joel and could feed herself. It was so great to be with her when she was able to be more of herself!

New Years Eve Janae, Nathan, Marta & Dad at Annika's house.

It is 2008! Breaking out the sparkling apple cider...one bottle seemed to be more sparkly then the other, we hoped it wasn't fermented!

Levi liked the sparkling cider!

One of the neighbors to my Dad had made some snow sculptures. He changed half of them before I took pictures. He had made a bear, turtle, and deer...but all that was there when we took pictures was the dinosaur, dolphin, alligator and sea serpent. I thought they were pretty cool. Varon, Traice and Drake.

Say Cheese, Kayden & Tye

On Monday Marta and I made freezer meals for my dad. We made 17 recipes in total, it took us about 8 hours to complete them. He now has over a months worth of dinners in the freezer. We made a big mess in the process and used every bit of counter space and mixing bowl. It was a lot of work but, it was worth it. Happy eating Dad!

Some of the meals packaged and ready to go into the freezer.

Freezer full of meals...can you believe that over 30 dinners fit in there with extra room! I love this idea of 30 meals in one day.

December Enrichment Meeting

For our December Enrichment meeting I invited Shelley Wille to come and speak to our ward. She was so GREAT! For those who don't know of her she is an education week speaker and author who knows how to have fun at home.

She spoke about creating Holiday Traditions. So, I thought I would share some of them with you.
Christmas:

*Wrap a christmas book for each day and let the children unwrap a book every night and you get to read that story to them. You can buy the books or check them out from the library.
*Have an event calendar that has a family activity written on a paper for each day. These are things that you will do that day. Such as: go to the ward christmas party, look at christmas lights, get a back rub from dad, go to the school christmas concert.
*Go christmas caroling as a family. If you aren't musical you can kazoo carol.
*the night you decorate the tree, as a family, you sleep under the tree. You get your sleeping bags out and have a big family slumber party by the tree. Secret: once the kids are asleep you and can sneek back into your bed and set your alarm for a few minutes before the kids get up. Then you go and get back into your sleeping bag and they think the whole family slept under the tree.
*Have a birthday cake for Jesus on Christmas Eve. Make a birthday cake. Buy a bunch of candles. Have everyone take turns placing a candle around the cake, with each candle they have to say something that they know about the Savior. Such as: he was born in a stable, his mother was Mary, he fed the 5,000, etc. After you have said as much as you can you light the candles and talk about him being the light of the world and He is the reason for the season. They you sing Happy Birthday and blow out the candles.
*Christmas Bingo you play this every hour on the hour with everyone in the house. You have prize that they are playing for each time. You need to make each prize seem like the best thing ever, basically sell it to everyone prior to the game beginning. It can be things like a small hymn book, chocolate, first aid kit for the car, a small hand held game, gloves, inexpensive gifts that you have picked up.
*Drive around and look at the Christmas lights. Choose a winner for the best house as a family. Take them a box of inexpensive Christmas lights with a note saying that they won the Larsen award for the Best Christmas light display. They will be delighted to have won an award.

St. Patrick's Day
*Die all the food green for your meals...even the milk.
*Eat on green paper plates

Easter
*Have them go on a hunt for lunch. Wrap the different parts of lunch up in colored cellophane. Sandwiches in yellow, chips in blue, veggies in green etc. Hide some in the bushes, in the mailbox wherever you would like. They then go on a hunt to find how many items you hid. Once they find them you have a picnic outside.

April Fools Day
*Set the clocks in the house forward several hours while everyone is asleep. When the alarms go off do everything normal as if it really is 6:00 in the morning. See how long they wait at the bus stop before they figure out that it is just an April Fool's joke.
*Order pizza for dinner. But, make arrangments with the Pizza place to have them deliver a bagel pizza in the large pizza box instead of a large pizza.
*Show up at a friend's house (with the whole family) at dinner time like they invited you over for dinner. Walk into their house like it is not a big deal. Let them panic and wonder why they spouse didn't tell them that they invited you over. Ask if they need any help getting ready. After about 15 minutes of stress you can let them in on the joke.

Halloween:
*Eat dinner out of a hallowed out pumpkin, use that as the serving bowl.

If you would like a list of things email her at skwille@hotmail.com and tell her you would like to have a list of the ideas that she discussed at the Enrichment night in Lehi the beginning of this month. She said she would email the list out. You can also buy her books from http://www.shelleywille.com/

Reflections of Christmas

Wow, it is less then two weeks until Christmas. How time flies! It seems like I just got my tree up, well I guess that is because I put it up last weekend later then normal.

I remember Christmas growing up, which does not seem that long ago. I remember sneaking out to see if Santa had come. Whoever discovered first that he had been there would wake the rest of us. We would tip toe out and look at the presents under the tree. We would look through our stocking and go back to bed and wait as long as we could stand before we woke up mom and dad. Was there a rule that we couldn't wake them before a certain time? I don't remember that part. I do remember the magic of Christmas. I know that many years mom would tell us not to expect much for Christmas and every year to my astonishment we had an amazing Christmas.

I remember Christmas Caroling as a family and taking homemade candies and cookies. I remember reading the Christmas Story on Christmas Eve. I remember Christmas shopping and trying to decide how to spend my money on my family members, trying to find the perfect gifts. Sometimes that was really hard. I remember getting a new ornament every year. when we were little we made an ornament. The beaded wreath ornament was so beautiful in my mind. I remember decorating the tree as a family and then I would watch the bubbling candle lights, I loved those. I remember going on rides as a family and looking at Christmas lights.

I love Christmas! I learned to love it as a child. I think it must have been because it was a time when I absolutely could feel the love of my family. We spent a lot of time together getting ready for Christmas and doing Christmas things. I love my family and treasure the moments that we share together.

I love this time of year as people tend to be a little kinder, thoughtful and loving. Why can't it last longer then 3-4 weeks of the year? That is what I asked myself this last Christmas. Then the thought hit me, I don't have to let it last only one month of the year. So, I set a goal and it was to do an act of service for someone on the 25th of every month. I would have Christmas every month. As I went through the year I found that often times I became aware of opportunities to provide service more often then just once a month around the 25th. I have been more in tune with the Spirit and ways to bless the lives of others because, I was loving like Christ loves. That is what Christmas is about. The life of Christ and His example of loving and lifting those around us.

Merry Christmas to each of you and may your life be filled with His love!