Arizona

Okay, just when I think I am totally California-ized, I realize I'm not. (I've lived here for 15 1/2 years, almost as long as I lived in Arizona, where I grew up.) But I watched a video today that made me realize that, while I adore California and hope to live out my days here, I am still an Arizona girl at heart.

I have to say that there is nothing like an early morning run in the Arizona desert. Watching this video brought back memories, and I actually almost started crying (must be hormones):

http://www.vimeo.com/3387393

I Heart Arizona.

Soup

Luisa's Not-Famous-At-All Chicken Soup

3 tablespoons canola oil
1/3 cup flour* (I use gluten-free flour, or see below)
1 large onion, diced
4 garlic cloves, minced
4-5 potatoes, diced
3-4 carrots, sliced
2-3 stalks celery, sliced
1 teaspoon dried oregano
1 teaspoon salt
fresh ground pepper

cilantro, torn in pieces, to taste (optional)
4-6 cups chicken broth or water (enough to cover vegetables)
1 rotisserie chicken (remove all meat and shred)

In a 6 1/2 quart Dutch oven, heat oil over medium heat. Add flour and cook, whisking constantly until golden, about 5 minutes. Add onions and garlic, cook until translucent, 2-3 minutes. Add the rest of the vegetables and oregano; season with salt and pepper. Add chicken broth and cilantro. Cook, stirring occasionally until vegetables are tender, 10-12 minutes. Bring to a boil. Stir in shredded chicken and warm through.

*Sometimes I use cornstarch instead of flour to thicken the soup. I cook the onions and garlic in the oil, then add the rest of the vegetables, seasonings, cilantro and broth, cooking until vegetables are tender. Then I mix 2 tablespoons of cornstarch with 1/4 cup cold water and add this to the soup. After it comes to a boil, I stir in the shredded chicken.

(And sorry, my soup doesn't actually look all that appetizing in the photo. I'm no food stylist. I promise it tastes better than it looks.)

Orchestra

Generally speaking, I am not a fan of the New York Times. This Op-Ed about the Really Terrible Orchestra might have helped to change my mind (a little bit):

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/03/09/opinion/09mccallsmith.html

Why should professionals have all the fun?

This article cheered me up, not that I needed cheering up.

Photo-A-Rama

This is one of the views from our yard. I wish I had a really good camera that was capable of capturing the beauty of the Sierra Nevada mountains. They regularly take my breath away.

This is the hill across the street from our house. That white stuff is snow! I have never seen the snow come down that low, and we've lived here for 7 1/2 years. I loved how low the clouds were, also.

Somebody please shoot me if I ever take our views for granted.

These were Jack's Valentines for his 3rd grade class. I melted semi-sweet chocolate chips for dipping the strawberries. It was ridiculously easy. For the first batch, I melted the chocolate in a stainless steel bowl over a pot of boiling water. Then I tried melting the chocolate in the microwave -- it was faster and easier. I didn't notice any difference in how the chocolate looked or tasted, so I'll probably just use the microwave for this in the future.

Jack's birthday party was on Thursday (12 February). It was very low-key. He invited his friends Cole, Mason, Grant, Logan, and Nate over. They ate pizza and chocolate cake. They played on the XBox 360. They watched a movie. They wore silly Bert and Ernie party hats. (I bought those hats for Luke -- the older boys saw them and wanted to wear them. Silly boys.) I think they all had a good time, and the older boys were sweet to let Luke hang out with them. (Parker went to a friend's house that night.) Anyway, Jack's party was a slumber party, but we aren't sure how much slumbering actually took place.

Luke

So today, Luke came into the master bedroom where I was reading and said, "Mommy, I made a mess with my mouth." Then he opened his mouth and pointed to it. It took about two seconds for me to translate. "You mean you threw up?" Then he said, in that tone of voice that lets me know what a smart mommy he thinks I am, "Yes, Mommy! That's right!" He took me downstairs to the family room and pointed. Sure enough, there was a little bit of Luke Puke on the ottoman. Not much, but enough that I didn't think I should go to the school to teach. (A lady watches him for me at the school for two hours while I teach. If he is sick, I didn't want to expose her. He didn't seem sick -- in fact, he went right back to playing -- but he did throw up just the tiniest bit of his breakfast.)

I wonder if it is possible to get through a month without having at least one sick kid at some point during the month. I've got my doubts...

Wedgie

Okay, whoever heard of a wedgie being used as a weapon?

Did anyone read about the woman in Salt Lake City who caught a guy trying to break into her co-worker's car? She chased him down, but he kept squirming in his attempts to get away from her. She finally grabbed his boxer shorts and gave him a wedgie. (So there!) Then she put him in a headlock until help arrived.

URL: http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/29242028/?GT1=43001

Maybe policemen should utilize the wedgie when trying to apprehend squirming criminals. Maybe they already do.

Technophobe

Okay, I have been wanting to update my blog with some pictures, but I am such a technophobe that I need help getting the pictures from the camera to the computer. As soon as Tim has a free minute, I'll have him help me do it. (And I'll actually pay attention to how it is done so that I can do it myself next time.)

I will post pictures of the following as soon as I get them on the computer:

-strawberries I dipped in chocolate for Jack's class (he gave those out to his class instead of Valentine cards) and my family

-the hill across the street from our house that had snow up at the top (the snow doesn't usually get so low)

-Jack's birthday party

-some other random things (the chicken soup I made for dinner last night, the art supplies Jack got from his friends and my dad, etc.)

Stay tuned...

Loosh

Okay, another video of Lucia playing "Kashmir." This one was filmed at the Josh Groban concert in Salt Lake. It must be from an official concert DVD, as it is professionally done. The audio is much better on this one than on the video I posted from the Pittsburgh concert. You can also get a much better idea of what was happening on the stage during the performance.

Embedding was disabled for this video, so the link is: HERE

Disneyland

On January 24th, we went to Disneyland and Disney's California Adventure. My sister, Aimee, and her business partner, Mike, were going to Anaheim for a convention. They both decided to bring their families along to go to Disneyland before the convention started, and they invited us to meet them down there. My cousin, Garrett, who is presently living in Los Angeles, also met us there.

The kids (and adults) all had a great time hanging out at The Happiest Place on Earth.

My favorite moment of the day was when Luke got to meet Pluto. Garrett captured their encounter with his camera:

(Thanks, Garrett, for emailing the pictures to me!)

As far as my favorite ride, I've got three words for you: TOWER OF TERROR. Loved it. I've been on it many times (at Disney's Hollywood Studios and Disney's California Adventure) and it never gets old.

I'll post more pictures from the day as soon as I get them from our camera to the computer.

Costumes

I've been going through the pictures on our computer and I came across several pictures of the kids wearing costumes. Like I've mentioned, I have not been very good at journaling over the last 15 1/2 years, so I am now playing catch up. This blog is most likely also going to end up being a scrapbook of sorts, because (let's be honest here) I am probably never going to scrapbook.

Parker and his best friend, Daniel, were luchadores for Halloween when they were in 6th grade (2007). I stayed up all night sewing Parker's cape and mask. Admittedly, I didn't start sewing his costume until really late on October 30th, and I was freestyling it because I didn't have a pattern, but also, I'm just not a great seamstress. My seam ripper and I got really well-acquainted that night.

Jack was a caveman that year. I sewed his Flintstones get-up out of faux fur from JoAnn's Fabrics. Next, our family consumed an entire bucket of Kentucky Fried Chicken. Tim then cleaned and sterilized the chicken bones, drilled holes through them, and strung them together for a lovely prehistoric-looking necklace. (For the record, I am not a fan of KFC, but we needed the bones, and we needed them fast. Desperate times called for desperate measures.) I think that necklace was Jack's favorite part of the costume. He went to the school and told everybody that it was made out of real bones. When I went up to the school for the costume parade, several teachers and parents came up to me and said, "So, we hear you guys made Jack's necklace out of real bones." Apparently, Jack gave them all an in-depth description of exactly how it was made. He was very proud of his necklace.

After making Parker and Jack's costumes, I was too tired to do much in the way of a costume for Luke. We ended up putting some temporary tattoos on his arms so that he could be a "street tough," although I don't know many street toughs who still use pacifiers. (Well, I guess I don't know many street toughs, period.) I don't know if you can tell, but in that first picture, Luke's got his pacifier in his mouth. It's a dark-colored pacificer, so it blends in with his beard and mustache. Tim was in charge of drawing the face and body hair on Luke and Jack because I was too tired to operate an eyebrow pencil by that time. Maybe Tim was also too tired, because Luke's eyebrows looked a little wonky.

Good times...

Bloghopping

Is that even a word?

You know when you are visiting one friend's blog, and you see a link to one of their friend's blogs, and you click on it, and then you click on another link to another blog, and you go from blog to blog, and pretty soon you are so far away from the first blog you were visiting, and you feel like you've met all these new people along the way (even though they have no idea who you are, and you are pretty much just a blogstalker)?

I love it when that happens.

This blog was pretty fun: http://www.turleybenson.blogspot.com/

I don't know her, but I want to be her friend!

Luke just came in and said, "Mommy, I want to see your blog."

I think that's a sign that I need to get off the internet for now.

PS-I just asked The Google if "bloghopping" is a word. It is. (Well, according to some, it should be two words. Blog hopping.)

Jack

Jack's self portrait that he painted in art class about 2 1/2 years ago. You can tell that they had just had a lesson about Pablo Picasso and were asked to paint a Picasso-esque self portrait.

Nine years ago today, John ("Jack") Thomas Suorsa was born. He wasn't born till 10 days past my due date, so I was very happy when he finally arrived. He has a cool date of birth -- 2/2/2000.

Jack is such a fun kid. One of my friends, Karen, an artist who often volunteers to help teach art at Jack's school, says that Jack is a "free spirit" and joy personified. She said that she loves to watch him when he's drawing -- he gets totally into it.

Jack loves art. He takes after his Grandpa Burdell and a few of his artist uncles. He goes to art class once a week after school with another one of my artist friends, Yovanna. Jack and Yovanna have a wonderful relationship -- he would live at her house if I'd let him! He loves her studio -- he feels so at home there. Yovanna is his second mother.

Jack also loves music. He takes piano lessons and wants to learn percussion next year in school. (Tim and I want him to learn the trumpet. We'll see...) He'll probably be in a rock band someday because he is already a rock star.

Jack also loves playing with his friends. He is definitely a social creature.

Jack, thanks for being part of our family. You are a good son. We love you. Happy 9th Birthday!

Dirty

Here are some pictures that Tim took of Parker and Jack a few years ago when we lived at our old house. I had forgotten all about them until yesterday, when I came across them on our computer. I remember when these pictures were taken -- I was inside cleaning the house and Tim came in and said, "Luisa, you have to come outside and look at your boys." I knew when I heard those words that I was going to find a huge mess of some kind. This is what I found:

Maybe they were having some kind of spa treatment. Whatever they were doing, the boys took those shorts all the way to Tide Country.

Joy

There are lots of days when my kids drive me crazy. This was not one of those days. Today, I was very proud to be the mother of Parker, Jack, and Luke.

Parker stood up during sacrament meeting (the family worship service at the church we attend) and I thought he was going to leave the chapel to get a drink of water or something. Instead, he went up to the pulpit and shared his testimony of the gospel of Jesus Christ. (For those who aren't familiar with The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, we have a fast and testimony meeting once a month, usually the first Sunday of the month. Those who are able to fast come to the meeting fasting, and any who feel inspired to do so may share their testimonies.) Parker talked about some chapters in Helaman (in The Book of Mormon) that he read yesterday which pertained to missionary work, and he talked about how he is preparing to someday serve a mission and share the gospel of Jesus Christ. I didn't know he was going to share his testimony -- I don't think he even knew he was going to until he did it -- and I was very proud of him. He is such a good boy and he has such a strong desire to do what is right. He is a very good example to his younger brothers.

Then, in Primary (the children's worship service), Jack gave a talk on the importance of families and how families are ordained of God. He wrote the talk out in his own handwriting (he has excellent penmanship -- Tim says Jack's is neater than his) and he did such a nice job. Sometimes Jack can be a little silly, but he was very serious when giving his talk today. I was very proud of him.

And then there's Luke. He is 3 1/2, so obviously there are days when I don't know what to do with him. But today, he tried very hard to sit in Primary and be a good boy. It's hard for the little Sunbeams (the name of the class for the 3-year-olds) to sit still for that last hour of church, but Luke is getting better and better at it every week.

The feelings I had today about my boys reminded me of a scripture from the Third Epistle of John 1:4, which says, "I have no greater joy than to hear that my children walk in truth."

I recognize that Tim and I have a huge responsibility to teach our children the gospel in our home and teach them right from wrong. I pray that they will continue to choose the right long after they leave our home and go out on their own to forge their way in the world. I pray that they will continue to walk in truth.