Breath In... Breath Out

Jordan received his school track in the mail yesterday (Fall/ Winter--the one we wanted!) and passed his local Board of Review last night with a few suggested revisions and additions, but because he had it before his birthday, he can still make the alterations before he sends in his papers for his "National Board of Review". We're still not out of the woods, but I told him he got one day off for his birthday and then there would be "no rest for the wicked!". Our stress levels were pretty high last night, but I am so proud of how hard he has worked these last three months and all that he has learned. This process has been invaluable for prepping him for the reality of adult life. He is 18 today and has chosen to spend the first 8 hours of his birthday building fence with a friend to earn money for all of the "realities" that are coming up quickly in his life. Not the choice I would have made on my birthday, but responsible and appropriate for the first day of "adulthood". We'll make sure we party BIG this evening. We're fudging on "unplugged" during Spring Break and are going to watch a few movies together. We've missed that.

Olive Update ("Because this drama is an impactful part of life in the Bloomquist Family)--
The more permanent fence piece that Fred built a few weeks ago, has not stopped Olive; she learned to climb the chain link, so during my morning scripture reading of the "war chapters" I got the brilliant idea to raise "works of timber" against the trouble spot of fence. After I went on my morning ritual of looking for my escaped dog and bringing her back to the yard, I leaned every post and 2x4 that Fred had left over from projects against the low fence wall. It looked pretty deterring to me, though I'm sure the neighbors were just shaking their heads at the "mess". The next morning, Olive got behind them and knocked them forward, which is impressive since some of them were 12 ' long and leaning on the fence at quite an angle, and escaped before I could get out to walk her in the morning (I have to get kids ready for school until 8:00). A couple weeks ago, Fred picked up some garden trellis netting to string between posts at the top of the 42" gap, in hopes that Olive would be deterred for a week before he could get to building an actual fence. The following Sunday, we came home and Olive was still in the yard, but there was a large hole in one spot of the rope trellis. She must have either jumped and got caught in it and struggled free, making a huge hole, and didn't try again because she got hurt. Fred went out and fixed the hole, by tying together string pieces, but the next day she tried again and was successful. Every day I fix the new hole, and every day she makes a new one. My mom said, "always look for solutions", so even though I feel foolish and incompetent, every day I try something new, and every day it fails. Since the beginning of spring break, Mikayla and Eden and I get up at 8:00 and do our 15 minute workout and then run the 2-1/2 mile neighborhood "scouting route" looking for our dog. Yesterday morning, before we even started our workout, I got a phone call from the little barbershop downtown, telling me that they were holding Olive inside, if I wanted to come get her. Luckily it was early enough that they didn't have customers yet, but as usual they were just concerned about her welfare and pleased to be the protectors of "this sweet dog".

Fred has taken the day off for Jordan's birthday, but now Jordan is gone all morning, so maybe he will be building fence today. I still love my dog; she is very sweet, she just has this minor little thing that continually forces me out of my comfort zone and forces me to interact with "strangers".....Maybe it's all a blessing in disguise. Olive certainly seems to have guardian angels watching over her.

This Week With The Bloomers

I left the house at 7:10 this morning and have been in 3 different buildings, for 5 different meetings, visiting 3 different wards and I don't have anything left to say, but the heat from the laptop is soothing and the foot massager is relaxing, so I will sit here until something comes or I'm forced to get back up. I'm not whining--this isn't a typical Sunday and I'm sure that there are many people with busier callings than mine who aren't even home yet, but it feels good to put on slippers.

The twins birthday lived up to their expectations which made it fun for me. Lily and Sophie each ordered the color of cake and frosting they wanted and we made them together and then I cut primroses in 3 different colors and let them each decorate their own cakes however they wanted. I thought they turned out lovely and reminded me of the cakes my mom used to decorate when we werer all still living on the farm, though at a 5 year old stage.

I can't wait for Spring Break coming up. We have a lot of fun, simple things planned around town with friends and family, (we're also in major crunch mode for Jordan to finish up his Eagle scout requirements and I had nightmares about it all night, so I hope he gets that squared away ASAP so I can stop worrying.)

Lily and Sophie's birthday party:




Sophie's cake:


Lily's Cake:


Planet Kid for their birthday date:

Treats at my sisters store-- "Cookie's and Cream"

Double Pleasure/ Double Trouble:

Jordan's finished sign:

Where, Oh Where, Has My LIttle Dog Gone?

Some of you know the story by heart. The naive young couple move, first from a farm, then from a ranch with their 6 farm kids to a small plot subdivision. The children, including the known wanderer, miraculously seem to be contained even without a fence, but just to be on the safe side the farm dog stays at the ranch while the intelligent couple surround the yard with a four foot fence, then reclaim the dog. It is only a matter of weeks before the farm dog learns to jump the four foot fence and regain her farm freedom. We chase her down almost every day and meet many neighbors, police officers, animal control officers, school principles, and even country landowners miles away, all who love the dog and are very protective, helpful and friendly, but we are constantly worried and annoyed by the "Olive antics", so we finally resort to putting her on tie out cables that allow her access to the entire yard, but she is depressed and frequently winds herself around trees and trampoline legs to the point that she is completely restricted. We finally give in and pull down the entire 4 foot fence that we originally put up and replace it and the back chain link with a 6 foot wooden fence; It takes the entire summer and by Fall it is finished except for a small 42" gap. Fred has run out of materials and steam and good weather, so we block the opening with the leftover chain link roll. We keep Olive contained for a happy two weeks and then she figures how to shimmy under the chain link. We block the bottom with stacks of cinder block, but she moves the cinder block. We barricade it with garbage cans and long cedar planks and a wheelbarrow, but she maneuvers through, knocks over the chain link roll and continues to escape like Houdini. She has now learned that their is wisdom in escaping while we are not watching. She always checks the house windows carefully before heading out, so we sometimes catch her going back toward the "junk pile", but never actually see the flight. It gets to a ridiculous level, where it becomes almost routine for the Elementary school office to call and tell me that Olive is locked in the Kindergarten playground AGAIN, so we revert back to the tie out cables, only this time it has been shortened to 30" so that she can't wind herself around objects. We try to take her out on walks twice a day to get "it" out of her system, but "it" is inborn and so we continue to have guilt and prisoner continues to "sulk". Finally, though Jordan's Eagle project is needing every spare minute of Fred's time, I finally beg and plead for him to spend a half hour and secure the opening. Fred builds a more permanent fence piece all the while muttering about us being smarter than a dog and something about him having a degree. I watch Olive stalk the opening all day and give up 3 different times while I am secretly watching her behind the curtain, making sure that she can't see me (she keeps checking). She is contained all day and I am so happy with my brilliant husband. When Fred and the kids get home from church on Sunday there is a note in our door saying that a lady has picked our dog up at the Ridley's grocery store parking lot and is kindly holding her at her house until we get back home(our address is on her tags). Luckily she doesn't want a ransom, but like every other person in our 4 years of Olive experiences, she loves this dog and is so kind to us! When I get home from meetings today, my darling dog is back on her 30 foot ball and chain. Fred scouts out the fence and surmises that our dog has actually climbed the chain link fence. She's smart and highly motivated; we have to admire her persistence.

As soon as Jordan has finished his Middleton sign, Fred will devote his Saturdays to building a 6 foot high fence to replace the chain link and then we will wait to see how many minutes it takes this big, hairy chunk of our heart, to devise a plan to outsmart us once again. I am pondering writing a column in the Middleton Gazette to thank our community for looking out for our dog. If our town ever needs a mascot, I know a black lab that would love the job.

Middleton March Unplugged is going fabulously! I thought we were already pretty "unplugged" as a family, but with all personal radios off, and entertainment computer time gone and weekends void of movies, we have put together a 500 piece puzzle, played Stratego, Bingo, Ruckus, and Storytime. Jordan has taken Abe, Lily and Sophie to the city library and instead of me chasing fussy 4 year old's out of the kitchen during dinner prep, Jordan and Mikayla are wearing them out on the trampoline. Eden has turned into a bit of a book fanatic and since that is not electronic, we have had to spend a bit more time convincing her to "plug in" to us, but "we have ways of making [her] talk", so the first week has been fun, enlightening and so positive. I'm hoping that with three more weeks to go that some of these family times will become habitual and when we plug back in, some things will just fall by the wayside naturally.

Tonight while we were reading scriptures, Jordan was helping Lily with her turn and he said a sentence for her to mimic with the word "heard" in it. Often the little girls don't actually understand what they are repeating but just try to imitate the phonetics of what they hear. Lily replaced the word heard with nerd, and Sophie, under her breath and to herself said, "Nerd? That's weird!" Lily hadn't been phased but Sophie knew that wasn't a common term used in the scriptures and she was a little perplexed.

The twins birthday is tomorrow. They have the whole day planned out. They will have breakfast served in their bedroom on their little table. They each have different menu orders. Then we are off to pick up Fred on his lunch hour for their birthday date at Planet Kid, where Fred and I will remember how old we are getting as we crawl through small plastic tubes and play in the balls. Then they want to do some window shopping in Target, where the shoe aisle holds more appeal than the idea of going to Disneyland. After that, we are home bound to make cakes together which we will decorate with real primroses (we hope they are not poisonous, but we couldn't find any pansies that matched their colors--and we won't eat them). Then family party and F.H.E. Sounds like a lovely, hectic day. They are having trouble sleeping because of the anticipation and Lily is sure that in the middle of the night her five year old body is going to burst out of her four year old pajamas.

Payoffs

Jordan received his admissions letter to BYU-I on Thursday and was accepted! We've all been so anxious for this news. Eighteen years ago, this was the farthest thing from my mind, but it has flown and now the parent payoffs are flowing! Jordan still hasn't received his track assignment, which is a little nerve wracking, because it determines the entirety of your school schedule and can not be decided or changed by you for the duration. They do take into consideration, the dates in which boys will be entering the MTC, but we still aren't sure where that puts Jordan. I guess we'll find out soon.

"March Unplugged" started yesterday. Everyone in the community was encouraged to hold a family planning meeting and commit to the challenge of unplugging all entertainment electronics (t.v.'s, cell phones, computers, radio's etc.) and determine how to apply it to our individual families. I am REALLY looking forward to this month. Our family doesn't watch t.v., but we have decided not to watch any movies, or listen to the radio, or use the computer for any entertainment purposes. We have a selection of music CD's that we can play on the family stereo, but it is limited. The city has put together a calendar of events for every day, some that are family suggestions and some that are community events. Our stake has been heavily encouraged to participate.

On Monday, March 23rd (which is during Spring Break) we are encouraged to hold a family talent show. We thought it would be fun to have an extended family talent show. I think it would be so much fun, especially for the children to perform.

Extracurricular sports are gearing up for the kids. Eden is going out for track this year, which will be her first experience with organized sports, and Jordan is trying to decide whether he wants to fit it in his schedule this season. Mikayla is opting out of the "school organized" route but she and her best friend are organizing their own schedules and will start running together after school the same time as track starts. Neither of them like the pressure to perform and Mikayla doesn't care for some of the athletic ego's at school, but I think they will enjoy what they have decided to do and gain a lot of benefit as well.

Abe has decided to give soccer one more chance. He has played for two previous seasons and didn't have very motivating coaches, and wanted to try baseball this season, but since we had already paid dues for Fall/Spring, I asked if he'd be willing to give it one more go if I got him a great coach. He agreed, and I was able to request he be moved onto a team where I have been impressed with the coach's "team spirit" and positive enthusiasm, so we'll see how that all plays out. I've never pushed my children toward sports, but when Abe was interested last year, we thought it might help him get out of his isolative view of the world and help him see the group picture, but we'll see. Lily and Sophie are just excited that they will be able to play on the school playground during the games.

Fred and I have been successful at almost a month of free (except gas) dates and it has been so much fun. Now that we have decided to achieve this goal together with a reason and goal in mind, my attitude has changed and not using money has become a positive challenge instead of a forced drudgery. With spring weather just around the corner, our options are opening wider and wider; we've even been invited on a group "double" date by Jordan. They want the parents to dress up out of character and browse in Karcher mall while the teenagers have a race to find us. It's a popular youth activity called "Where's Waldo". It's in planning stage and the guys haven't asked dates yet, so we have a little bit of time to come up with believable costumes. We have to "blend" in, but be as unrecognizable as possible.

Jordan opening his admissions letter from BYU-I

Reading it out loud.

Accepted!

Jordan setting the capstones on his Middleton sign.

Getting close to finished on the backside.