Diving class #1- SO cold!

Here's me studying the manual and becoming enlightened as to the finer principles of introductory SCUBA skills.

Here's our group getting ready to go under the ICY COLD water.

Here are the poster children for our dive class. Have fun at the Great Barrier Reef, you lucky ducks.

Becky and I got smart and got out before we became totally hypothermic. Let's hear it for sensibility.

No, he's not dead. He's breathing. At least I think so.

July 3rd, Up at Mom's

We had another wonderful, crowd-free fireworks show tonight, but it wasn't just the fireworks that made it great. The moon was out and gorgeous, and rolling in over the lake, a storm was flashing bright yellow lightning that was visible all through the fireworks. The wind picked up just after the fireworks and it was a perfect night for crashing out on the balcony while we waited for the traffic to clear out. I got 30 minutes of perfect sleep, even on the iron bench.

Thanks mom, for the burgers. Thanks, Richard, for the cake & cookies, and thanks, Sam & Yndi, for the cheesecake. I just love people who feed me.

Air Show

Clouds?

Never.

Cold?

Nah.

Rain?

Nope.

Hail?

Uh-uh.

Church?

(shhhhh.)

Can nothing keep us from going to see really, really, really fast airplanes?

Apparently not. We love the airplanes.

Oh, and I love that guy's kilt, to the left of my feet. I have kilt envy.

SMA Art Ball, part II

It was so fun!  What else needs to be said?

SMA Art Ball, part 1; the art.

We go every year.  Every year, it is amazing, excellent, delicious, fun and glamourous.  This year's addition of the sculpture garden added a stunning new facet to an already fantastic art experience.  

It doesn't hurt, either, that it functions as a bit of a reunion, and I get to catch up with my relatives, who are, of course, excellent people.  

I loved the art.  There is something stunningly arrogant about museums.   I walked around, looking at the creations, wondering why the human imagination occasionally demands such an all-consuming outlet.   Most of us are contcnt to walk through life on the prescribed path, but some people feel compelled to constantly discover and explain what it is to be human in millions of different ways.  Here are my favorites:

There were so many others I loved.  I wish I had snapped a photo of the painting of the young man and his dying grandfather, or the painting of a girl that was nearly indiscernible from a photograph, or the dress manufactured from chains, bubble wrap, and a large twig.  But I didn't; I was enjoying the company and the atmosphere too much.   (See part II)

It was, as always, worth every minute of the drive to Springville

The Birth of the "Mini-Picnic"

L:  "Mom, can we have a picnic?"

Me:  "I'm too tired to make one."

L:  "PLEASE can we have a picnic?"

Me:  "I'm so tired..."

L:  "Please?"

Me:  "How bout tomorrow?"
L:  "Noooooo."

Me:  "How bout a mini-picnic?"

L.  "OK.  What's a mini-picnic?"

Me:  "It's where you just eat popsicles on the trampoline."

L:  "OK.  Can we have it right now?"

Me:  "Sure."

L:  "I'll get the popsicles."

When it's so bad it's funny.

It's going to rain. What's funny about that is that two days ago, W emptied all the contents of the shed into the yard with the claim that he was "organizing". He lost interest.

It's possible that today was fated to be bad. I got only two or three restless hours of sleep last night, and that's never good. Still, I made it out the door on time, with a glass of chocolate instant breakfast (a feeble attempt, I know) in hand. I grabbed a couple of cans of Diet Coke on the way out, too. On the way to school, I tried to drink the chocolate stuff, but it was clashing with my toothpaste (or so I thought). Finally, I started feeling queasy, like I should pull the car over and barf, and I smelled the container. BIG mistake. I felt sick and couldn't get that smell out of my nose. I finally got to the U and parked the car. I turned it off, zipped my keys into my bag, and got out to dump the stuff out. AND... the door shut behind me, locking me out. I called Robb but decided just to go to class and worry about it after. There's no experience quite like walking into class late carrying absolutely nothing except a cell phone.

After class, I called him back after realizing that parking services could probably take care of getting it open. The parking guys had it open in about ten minutes, and the poor soul who parked next to me and wanted to leave was penned in by their security vehicles. He asked me if I was a teacher already. (I was still feeling sick). At least it wasn't raining.

So they got the car open and checked my license and registration to make sure I wasn't trying to steal an old dented station wagon (!!!) and I locked it back up and went to my next class, 25 minutes late, where Rebecca informed me that I missed the best discussion ever. Of course. By this time, I was getting really tired, and I had the warm, flat coke from the car and drank the rest of it in class. I thought I should eat something for real, so I picked up a sandwich from the library. I took it outside, camped out by a cute little garden and tried to eat it. It had all this melted mayo on it. I hate mayo. Melted mayo is worse. Just looking at it turned my stomach, so I gave up and drank my other diet coke instead. This, of course, made me goofy, jittery and hyper in my last class, and that class went extra long. I made it home, begged the kids not to fight and do their homework, and decided to apply the only cure I know for a horrendous day:

Photographer: B