Discovering Scissors

Once upon a time there was a very cute sweet little girl, who wanted to cut up some papers with some little purple scissors. So her mommy, thinking this would be a good time to let her imagination soar, let her play with them. These scissors were blunt edged and really were not very sharp, but were perfectly adequate for her paper cutting expeditions.
However, while mommy was practicing her violin, she noticed that the house was as quiet as a mouse, so she went to see what the cute, sweet little girl was doing. Much to mommy's surprize, the little girl had found some different sharper scissors in a drawer and had swiftly cut off the whole left side of her beautiful red hair.
The little girl didn't understand why mommy was freaking out so much, because the little girls hair is probably more in style right now than mommy's. It turns out the little girl just wanted to have an Emo hairstyle. Is there really anything so terribly wrong about that?

Summer memories that are still keeping us warm

Yeah, we're sad about it, but not too sad. David and I LOVE winter! But we figure that we better at least blog about what we will miss about this summer.
Several times a week, we have gone on walks. We are always the only ones out at ten thirty at night but that's when we like to unwind and our walk is the perfect medium for us to talk quietly about our day, or weekend plans or just whatever.
I'm also going to miss Orion. But it wont be the first time I've missed it.
How about I tell the story love! I'll let you in on this inside joke of ours. Orion is my favorite constellation, maybe it's because it's a winter constellation. Anyway, while Abby and I were dating I would always say, "There he is" because I always like to point him out. So the first time I show it to her it was a bit of a challenge, but she finally said "Oh okay, I can see it now". Total and complete bull....!! I have no idea why she pretended that she could see it. Well after we were married for a year or so, she finally let the cat out of the bag and fessed up! I couldn't believe it! We had a good laugh, and now she knows where it is when I point it out....or do you?

Abby says: To be honest, it is a WINTER constellation, so while we were dating, David was nicely bundled up and toasty in his hoodies and beanies and I was still trying to secure a husband so I was wearing a mini....(ok, not really) but it was cold outside when David was trying to show me Orion. And I'm thinking, "oh my gosh, how long is this going to take? " I just saw an iceberg run south because it was too cold. So I just lied and said "oh, there it is." and then after that he just expected me to remember exactly where it was. (K, the big dipper is a little tough for me still.)
So in response to your last question love....Did you marry a textbook, or a really hot babe that is always going to have to have things explained a few times?

Dave says: Well the later, but it's the most obvious constellation in the Winter sky, he's right THERE!

Abby says: David is the brightest star in her sky.

Anyway, we are al...Dave says: That's not a fair response, can't we at least fight fair?
Abby: This is the reason this is my blog.

Dave: Touch`e

We are also going to miss our trips up the mountain and wandering around our property looking for deer and listening to birds and sheep.
This was our bubble tea summer. I think just about every Friday night we drove to St. George to get our favorite treat. (We looked forward to it all week long.)
David was in Hawaii almost the entire summer last year, and this year it was so perfect to have him home.
Dave: She just liked it because she didn't have to mow the lawn!
Abby: what lawn, you killed it?
Dave: LIES AND DECEIT!
Abby: my blog, I win.
Dave: Cheaters never prosper. You ever heard of that one, huh?
Abby: That's getting deleted next time I log in.
Mckinley had so much fun swimming this year, and many days during the summer involved negotiations with her about wearing her "swimming pote." (her floaty suit...yeah, the old school ones. She thinks it's lovely.) She also got to go on the water slide with her daddy this year, and she thought that was so fun.
Dave: She totally wore me out, we probably went twenty or more times down the slide and you had to hike up like six flights of stairs. Okay maybe three or four, but it took a while.

Our camping trip was fun too, soo much better than the first time we went with Mckinley. We also had a fun time hanging out with our friends.

I went to critical care training and got to experience a little bit of Missouri, (and Kansas City BBQ, and the Royals.) And I also got my first taste of firefighting, standing on top of a 70 foot ladder over a burning building.
Dave: My car over heated three times coming back from Vegas. You want some excitement, try that one on for size! 120 degrees, no water or gas station in sight, in the middle of a desert. Then in the middle of a gorge ( which is actually quite an awesome canyon if you ever take a trip down 1-15 from St. G to Mesquite.) with no cellular services. I did make the best of it and read a lot of Success Through A Positive Mental Attitude, so that helped. Good times! Man is it just me or am I just writing negative stuff? I guess I need to read more books! I honestly did have a good time though, Seriously!
We will miss the family bar-b-cues and get togethers where the women in the family talk smack about the men behind their backs. Dave: WHAT!
We already miss little visits from friends and anyone just passing through. You are always welcome for a quick lunch or treat.(it might be a drink of water if we don't know you're coming.) We love all of you. Hope your summers were as perfect as ours.

Our little girl

Today I was feeling like I needed to "timeline" Mckinley. Sometimes, it feels like she changes so much everyday, and I just want to hold on to little things that she says or does and always remember them. There are so many of these little things that I've already forgotten because I haven't been very diligent in writing them down. So starting today, I will do better.
Everywhere we go, Mckinley takes her shoes off. We notice this especially when she goes to nursery. I always go back to check on her a few minutes after we take her, and it's always the first thing she does.
The past couple of weeks, she loves watching Cinderella. She has also started to sing some of the songs especially the "A dream is a wish...." song. She sings it in the bathtub, and when she is done singing all that she knows she says "oh that clock," like Cinderella says in the movie.
She loves Dragontales and Word world.
She adores Scooby and he is her best playmate during the day. She involves him in everything that she does, (Including dressing him up like a princess.) and she also frequently gets him in trouble.(A while ago she told him to come inside and watch a movie with her, which he did although he knows he isn't allowed in the house.)
The school bus stops in front of our house to pick up the neighbor kids every school day, and Mckinley is always up waiting at the window to see "the friends and the school bus."
Her current favorite food is sour cream...just plain. Disgusting huh? She says it's ice cream. David and I seriously convulse when she eats big bites of it, but she really loves it.
She loves going to "Donalds" with Grandpa.
Whenever she sees a water fountain, she asks for a penny to make a wish. She always closes her eyes and throws the penny in the water.
Whenever we go anywhere in the car, she has to haul several toys with her. She can't bear to leave her babies behind.

We love you so much Mckinley! You are our Angel!

The trip with my seven brothers

No, this is not a real accident. We did this on purpose! I am a recruit with Cedar Fire Department and a couple weeks ago I went to summer fire school with 7 other recruits from my class. It was held in Provo, so you can imagine how busy I was trying to keep 7 firefighters out of jail in Utah County.(Busier than a one legged man in an ass kicking contest.) We had a lot of fun, although I must say that any time you put 7 men together, they all turn into 14 year olds with a drivers license...(Sorry guys, but you know it's true.)
I was in the extrication class and really learned a lot especially about stabilizing a vehicle after a car accident. (it is a lot more difficult and dangerous than I ever thought to get patients out of seriously damaged cars.) But the exciting thing was that I was able to effectively do it! There are a lot of things that I am nowhere near as proficient in doing because I don't have the body strength that a man has. The extrication tools are about 50 pounds each and they are hydraulic tools, some of which have the capabilities of spreading or cutting 350000 pounds of pressure. (So that really makes up the difference in my wimpiness.)
Anyway, it was a lot of fun, and I also realized how lucky my department is to have the up to date tools and training opportunities that we have.

So Long Sweet Summer

We have a firepit. We bought it last year as soon as we moved in to our house. I had all these visions of inviting people over to just chill around it and talk the night away. But we never used it last year. It stayed in it's box because David was gone most of the summer last year, and I didn't feel like having people over with him gone.
Anyway, the other night we used it to cook s'mores. It was fun to cuddle around it with McKinley and look up at stars and eat summers favorite dessert. (We put ice cream on top!) We still have a bunch of wood and plenty of chocolate, mallows, and graham crackers,(As well as Ice cream.) so if anybody is feeling like they need to enjoy one last summer treat, we're open for business.

Primary = crazy

David and I are primary teachers, and we have been since we have been married.(and I have been in primary since I graduated from high school.) We have always loved it because we have been able to hang out with really cute kids who seem to be still unspoiled by the less than desirable things of the world. For some reason, we have always taught the five year olds, who I fondly call the "CTR Superstars." In our class now, we have 8 five year olds, (although, we have had as many as 14!) Each of them have very unique personalities, and the more we pack into our classroom, the harder they are to control. There have been times when they have literally been bouncing off the walls!
Anyway, today in our class we were talking about obeying laws. Quite an important topic, and one that most of the members of our class are a little confused about. We are the type of teacher that tries to uphold the "there are no wrong answers in our primary class, " rule. So we were talking about stealing when all of a sudden one of our kids burst out with " I am so DAMNED!" After he said the D word, I think the quietest moment our class has ever experienced happened. David and I just looked at him and tried not to laugh. But we couldn't do it, and everything just went downhill from there. We have a long standing joke that as soon as we are ready to be released we are just going to teach the kids the F word one day. (Which will never happen, of course, but we think it's funny to laugh about.) The reason he was so damned he said was because he had stolen candy from the store. We ended up letting the kids out a few minutes early because we figured we were less than prepared to teach the class today. That's what I get for "winging" the lesson.

TV addict

Haven't the Olympics been awesome? I rarely watch TV, but I can't seem to turn off the amazing things that athletes are doing in China. Last night, we stayed up til midnight (McKinley included) watching mens gymnastics. As we were watching, David was kindly giving me a back massage. However, I left the room for five minutes and this is what I came back to:

I don't know how I feel about having competition for David's massage attention. This is just more proof that she has her daddy wrapped around her finger.