NEENER

So I'd like to just send a little NEENER-NEENER out onto the internets, to those of you who haven't yet started school. I know it is cooler to say I cry every morning and wish all the kids were here, tucked under my wing of love and tenderness, but it is 110 degrees outside and 110 percent (approximately) humidity, and it just isn't the best time of year to be at home. They spend all Christmas Break riding their bikes around the neighborhood and having Extreme Nerf Wars and bouncing on the trampoline, whilst I bake them cookies and wear stylish sweaters and accessories from Anthropologie (until about 10 am, when it gets too warm), but right now I just sit here sweating in my t-shirt, typing with one hand while holding a shoe in the other, cause Ross found another scorpion this morning and I am jumpy (the scorpions hibernate in winter. Okay, fine, hibernate might not be the right word. Whatever. I'm not looking it up. U can't make me.)

I do enjoy the monsoon storms though. More than I should, maybe. Last night's was a doozy. I could hear thunder and wind from inside the temple. I haven't been outside yet to check for fallen Mesquite trees.

Tonight is another installment of the Ryan Layton Concert Series: John Mayer with Owl City. (Ryan is my younger brother. He is mentally handicapped, works at Target, and enjoys himself some live music.) Monsoons are welcome: we aren't sitting on the lawn this time.

More of the Ryan Layton Concert Series, for you reading enjoyment:

Billy/Elton

Counting Crows/Maroon 5 and much, much more!

Ok, no time for spell check. Baby is ticked.

Have you seen any good shows lately? Any you wish you'd seen? (Ryan wants to see Paul McCartney, Simon and Garfunkel, and Fleetwood Mac. Hey, a boy can dream.) I am waiting for Bono's back to heal so I can go up to see U2 in Salt Lake, I would like to see the Killers, and I wouldn't miss Coldplay. That was a great show. Maybe Ryan will come along next time.

I like Vans. Oh, and we party like it's the first day of school.

Okay, the wedding post is still in the works. But look! It is only 8:30 am on the first day of school, and here I am, on the internets!

Everyone got up early and decked themselves out in hats and sunglasses from the swap meet, plus some brand new Vans.

I love Vans. I got my first Vans in the third grade. They were blue with checks. I had them custom made, cause at age 8 my feet were a women's 7.5 AAAA. In college I wore black on black suede lace-ups. Now Jake wears his Vans with the flames on the sides when he takes me on dates, cause he knows I can't resist Vans. He's very smart. If he were even smarter, he'd wear his argyle sweater with the Vans. But they don't really match, so he won't. I guess he likes fashion better than kissing girls.

We opened a bottle of Martinelli's for breakfast to toast the new year, and then everyone went outside to sit on the road.

How did Sam end up with Cousin Jack's fedora?

This is real. Not staged. Don't miss the dollar sign necklace. His beat-me-up-at-recess tee was in the wash. What? You don't think he'll need it? That's so rude!

I also told the kids that if they started waving their fingers around all willy-nilly like that at my Junior High in LA, they'd probly end up dead. They didn't believe me.

By 7:30, the baby was back to sleep, and the after-party had begun. (Yes, that's Tom's t-shirt, tucked into his Madagascar briefs.)

Happy first day of school to you and yours. I wish you something other than 110 degrees.

Which sort of shoes do you wish your husband/boyfriend would wear?

Which sort accidently get tossed in the trash bin/DI pile?

Do you even care about a man's shoes?

Do you think I should look only on his heart, and not on his black socks and Birkenstocks (is hypothetical. Jake would rather die)?

Do you think I have some sort of fetish?

Hey! Is that Danny Ainge marrying your sister?

What? You wouldn't have come over here if you knew this was just gonna be more pictures of my stupid vacation?

Well, actually, Danny Ainge did marry my sister. But my sister didn't marry Danny Ainge. (He's already got a lovely wife and six lovely children, including my friend Ashlee.)

Is like a riddle. A riddle I will answer in my next post. Because the wedding didn't happen 'til the last day of vacation. And I am nothing if not chronological...

So, why is San Diego so much better in every way (except for the crowded freeways and in potential for deadly natural disasters ) than Phoenix? Why don't I live there? Well, for two weeks a year, I pretend I do. And it is lovely.

There is the buffet,

and the beach,

and my birthiversary

(had a Hello Kitty princess luau Twilight fiesta party with cousin Claire, who was turning 5. Jake got us a cake from VG Donuts in Cardiff, which was an appetizer for our romantic dinner at Jake's Del Mar, where we have spent many of our 14 anniversaries),

my buddies since fourth grade, Hallie and Shawna,

and the Battalion.

Have you been to the Mormon Battalion Visitor's Center down in Old Town since it was reopened? The kids loved the talking pictures (my great great great Grandma Phoebe Draper Palmer Brown was one of the narrators) and other Disney-ish effects. Above, Ross and Sam were outfitted for service at Ft. Leavenworth, Kansas. After the tour, the kids panned for gold and washed clothes by hand.

We also did some stuff that didn't start with B, like the Swap Meet. (See Jake below in all his vintage double breasted Hugo Boss glory, probably pawing through these used nighties looking for my anniversary gift.

And Legoland. Where it was too hot.

So we headed back to the beach.

Relaxing is hard. No one can blame you if you fall asleep in your swimsuit, your crack full of sand, shirt backwards and inside out, and your fist full of strawberry Laffy Taffy. It happened to me, too. Tommy just looked cuter in the picture.

Stay tuned for wedding photos...

Don't judge me for my farm

What? Where have I been?

Maybe I spent a couple weeks lying on the beach in Carlsbad and eating doughnuts.

Or maybe, I got new ipad for my birthiversary, and I've been playing all the apps that have been on my phone for a year (farm story) but seem a lot more interesting LARGE, watching movies I can rent on itunes, breaking into my parents' kindle account (31 new books. Don't hate me cause I got the new Anna Quindlen that had a 50 person wait list at the library), and otherwise becoming completely brainwashed by Steve Jobs and his lovely technology.

Or maybe, both are true.

And to all the people on Facebook I ridiculed for having online farms: I'm so sorry. Sometimes you just can't stop yourself. I see that now. And sometimes it just feels good and very relaxing to get some virtual dirt under your nails? Is like therapy, maybe? And people should just respect that and not make u feel bad if u need to earn money for your grain silo instead of cooking dinner, cause summer is long and five is a lot of kids, especially if they are loud and smart and hyperactive and bored, and it is 115 degrees outside, which is nearly too hot to swim. I really love all of them but school starts two weeks from today. And I'm not sad about it.

More later. I need to go harvest some melons.

What's your therapy?

On heat, America, Flashdance hair, treats, and critters

So this weekend, we swapped the 112 degree desert for the mountains.

It was a good trade.

We decked out the rhino in her patriotic regalia for the neighborhood parade on Saturday in Payson.

Here I am with my (new) signature Flashdance hair.

Unfortunately, in the above headwear I look less Jennifer Connelly:

and more Slash:

Finally, we all jumped in, and Jake started the engine

We got about 20 feet before it sputtered, and then died. Dead.

The children wailed and gnashed, but then Jake ran back to the cabin for gas while I walked to the end of the parade route with the whiners in tow.

People threw stuff at them, like candy and otter pops.

They soon decided spectating became them.

High on sugar and America, we headed to the pool.

Where Sam had some very specific instructions for the face painting artist.

And Tommy didn't hate the cotton candy and sno cones.

Sunday after Church there was napping, then some eating.

My sister Jen tended bar

while Meg made salsa, and Jello with pretzels

and Jason, with Tom and Charlie, dominated the grill.

Camping is hard work.

I told Ross that roughing it is when you have to use regular yellow instead of deli mustard on your burger.

Fireworks were promptly at nine. But the kids were so excited about the glow swords and hats, I'm not sure they even glanced up.

We returned home last night to find the house infested with scorpions. Jake killed like 15 with the black light and one Converse All-Star basketball shoe, while I did my part by alternately screaming and breathing into a paper bag.

Tonight he found a bunch more, plus a flying beetle the size of a chinchilla.

The beetle's life was spared. It is probly still out on the driveway (shudder).

Switching Teams

On the phone with Jake just now:

J: Is that Twilight movie tonight?

K: Yes, remember when I told u that, last night?

J: Do you want me to go to the dollar store and get u a TEAM JACOB shirt?

K: No.

J: Why not?

K: I'm TEAM EDWARD.

J: Really?

K: Yes.

J: (LONG PAUSE.) That's very awkward, considering...

K: (ANOTHER LONG PAUSE.)

Oh.

I never thought of it that way.

Team Jacob, then.

So if you see a three-month-postpartum lady at the Chandler Mall Harkins tonight at the 7 pm showing of Eclipse, who has fabulously large Flashdance hair (got my hair cut short and now it is really curly, and who has time for straightening irons this summer?), is eating red velvet cupcakes her friend Shireen snuck in inside her purse, and is wearing an ill-fitting I HEART JACOB t-shirt stretched over her lactating breasts (Jake always gets me small or medium-sized clothing. I think this is a compliment. Like in his mind's eye, I am skinny? Or maybe in his mind's eye, I am wearing a tight t-shirt?), you should know she isn't really rooting for the wolf-boy.

You should also look for a straight-haired woman without a t-shirt, in case I get time for fancy hair and Jake doesn't have time for the dollar store.

Or maybe you should look for a lady wearing the gorilla mask that Jake bought to scare little kids coming to get candy on Halloween? Gorillas are like wolves, right? Then I wouldn't have to brush my hair at all.

Or I could wear those vampire teeth Tommy got at the Chuck E. Cheese?

You should say hi, when you see that lady.

The rest of you, who are judging me for going to see Twilight, can just remember that I am getting cupcakes, with cream cheese frosting, maybe, a new shirt, and three hours away from my kids on a Tuesday night. And I didn't even have to stay up til midnight.

Are you in? You got a shirt? A gorilla mask? Curly hair? Husband named Edward? Long incisors?

Witches, baby of wisdom, Juicy, and poor hygiene

Jane, poolside, yesterday, as I applied my SPF 70 sunscreen: Mom, you look like a white-faced witch. When she saw my horrified expression, she backpedaled: But you know, not in a bad way. It's the green-faced witches you want to avoid.

Kids like to play a pool game they have named "baby of wisdom." It involves one child holding another in a cradle hold, and then dunking the 'baby' for incorrect answers to trivia questions.

Whenever we get in the car, Tommy yells "Juicy!" and then everyone sings Better than Ezra at the top of their lungs.

At our fancy lunch over to the Peter Piper today, my genetically closest female relative (who will be unnamed, so I don't get beat up) said: See this dress I'm wearing? I slept in it last night. I was pretty impressed, cause she'd paired it with some three inch gold wedge sandals, and was looking pretty fresh. I replied: See this dress I'm wearing? I wore it as a bathing suit cover-up yesterday.

Yeah, she continued, unfazed by my admission. Summer hygiene can get kind of lax.

Which is so true. I find myself sniffing my kids and asking: have you had a bath this week?

What are you letting slide this month?

Hello Mudder, hello Fodder

So, it seems that five children is a lot. I'm just saying that so in case one of you decides to have five children because "Beeswax made it seem so cinchy on her blog," you can't sue me for something. Like having my pants on fire.

It is fun, though. If you remember that books and blogs and hairbrushing and the kind of vacation where you just sit on the beach and sip Coca Lites (and eat guacamole served by cute beach waiters to your cabana while you read embarrassing chick lit novels and stare at the ocean, and even sometimes get in it because there are no fish that you have an unreasonable fear of because of that lecture on poisonous creatures on the California coast at oceanography camp in the 5th grade) will still be going on in the year 2020 (unless that whole Mayan Calendar thing is for real, and everything will be over sometime next year).

And as we settle into summer, it is feeling less like a frat party and more like a not-very-good summer camp, in which I am the camp counselor who wishes she could sneak into the woods and eat cream puffs, instead of teaching children to make lanyards. Don't get me wrong. I am quite a skillful lanyard-maker. I made one out of green yarn, and hung the pool key from it.

My cousin Melanie had her fifth child last Monday. Baby Abby is fine, but Melanie is still in the hospital with all sorts of complications, so I've been hanging out there when I can.

I think she'd agree with me that five is a lot of kids.

(Who the heck said eight was enough?)

I'm fine with June. But not with scorpions.

This is my mantra: I'm fine with June.

(Totally stole it from my sister. I think is bad karma to steal mantras?)

Anyhow. It is working, I guess, cuz I am.

Fine.

With June.

Kids have been home a week now. And it feels like a party, all day, every day. Maybe like a frat party. Because there's fun and friends and lots of pool frivolities, certainly, but also fighting sometimes, and drinks flowing like water (because actually is water, and also some lemonade. Is 100 degrees.), and then the house gets really, really wrecked and nobody wants to clean it. Sometimes people pee in the bushes if they can't get to the toilet (most of these people are toddlers), somebody always throws up on me (the baby, mostly), and then we all try to sleep it off in the morning. That's my favorite part. The kids aren't wholly on board with the sleeping part, yet.

I'm super tired. And I never get a moment of peace. You can't normally expect to, at a frat party. Okay, fine, I don't really know anything about frat parties. I went to the University of Arizona for two years, and never attended one. But I heard some stories, people.

(Boy, I don't sound very cool right now. And I wasn't. Instead of the frat parties, I went to Institute dances where they played a lot of Footloose music. And it was the 90s.)

Tonight we went scorpion hunting. We bought a big black light at Walgreens, and sure enough, Jane found one of Hell's own arachnids out by the living room window, fluorescing green and creepy like a Halloween glow stick. She smashed it with Ross' shoe, and she collected her 50 cents. My Mom (who lives just a couple houses down the canal) got stung on Friday, and her finger is still numb, so we are all pretty jumpy. But so far we've been lucky, I guess.

If you think it is lucky that we had a three inch hairy spider on the front porch last night. It was big. And so hairy, he coulda used a haircut, or a side part. It looked like a tarantula. For all I know, it WAS a tarantula. Seriously, I'm not cut out for dealing with desert fauna. Jane squealed and told me I should spray it with hairspray, so I did. That just made it mad. (Perhaps he thought I was attempting to style his very long gray hairs on his enormous bulbous abdomen?) I'm getting the heeby-jeeby-shudders right now, reliving it.

Only thing worse than hairy spiders and scorpions? SNAKES.

My Dad ran into a rattlesnake last week while he was hiking. He was alone and listening to his ipod, so he didn't hear it rattling and striking at him 'til he was nearly upon it. Then he stopped to take photos. Brilliant. He's also seen a giant desert tortoise and a couple of mountain lions this spring. Not bobcats. Mountain lions. Huge. He's lived in Arizona most of his life and never seen one before. And two together is especially rare, cuz they are lone hunters and only seek each other out to mate. So, who knows what he interrupted?

Wink wink.

And that is all I have to say tonight. Just: I'm fine with June, but not with all these critters.

What are you doing this month? You got yourself a mantra?

What kinds of nasty insects/amphibians/reptiles/bugs that look eerily like tiny lobsters but not in a way that makes you want to dip them in clarified butter do you have at your house?

The Gila Valley Temple

Photo from Gila Valley Temple: Fulfillment of a Prophecy by Marleen Taylor Mott, Meridian Magazine

The Gila Valley Temple is in the Gila Valley.

But more specifically, it is in Central.

Central, Arizona.

Central, Arizona is in southeastern Arizona.

Here, this will help:

Now, Central doesn't seem to me an obvious spot for a temple. Safford or Thatcher, just a few minutes down the road, have many more people. There isn't much in Central: Farms. Livestock. An old post office. Lots and lots of my relatives. Many of them are in the cemetery.

No stop light. No Circle K. If you grow parched while cruising Highway 70 between the Taylor Freeze in Pima and the Sonic in Thatcher, you might need to stop at my Grandma Layton's house. Or maybe at Aunt Lona or Jody's. They are a mite closer to the highway.

When the temple was announced, I asked Grandma:

Wow. Can you believe it? Did you ever think you'd have a temple in your backyard?

Well, sure, she answered. But I always expected they'd put it up on the hill, near the cemetery. A temple, down there, practically on the highway? Very disappointing.

Come again, Grandma?

Honestly, it didn't seem very disappointing to me, but I didn't say so.

So I decided to look it up. And do as much historical sleuthing as I could do from my desk chair, in the five minutes of spare time I have each day. I didn't actually go to a library. Archivists don't like newborns in their reading rooms. (I know cuz I used to be one. An archivist, not a reading room. I know my rear has spread, but golly, that's rude).

So it turns out, as early as 1882, Jesse N. Smith predicted a temple would be built in The Valley, and depending on which vastly reliable source you believe (and one of them is Wikipedia, but both were supposedly quoting Mormon Settlement in Arizona), he predicted it would be built in Thatcher or Pima. That was just a couple of years after the first Mormons arrived, and most of them were still in Pima. And then on Sunday, January 30, 1898, when Apostles John W. Taylor and John Henry Smith came to reorganize the St. Joseph Stake (where, btw, they released my Great-Great-Great Grandfather, Christopher Layton (didya know my maiden name is Layton?), who had been sent by Brigham Young from Utah (Layton, Utah) to be the first Stake President in 1883.)

The new President, Andrew Kimball (President Spencer Kimball's Father) wrote in his journal: “During his visit, Apostle John W. Taylor prophesied that one of the most beautiful temples ever built among the Saints in the Rocky Mountains would be built here in the Gila Valley”.

None of this fully explains why Grandma envisioned a temple on the hill behind her house. So she elucidated: her Grandpa had told her. Her Grandfather, Edsil Myron Allred (my great great grandpa) was the Bishop in Central for 18 years and also served as Patriarch. During his tenure as Patriarch, he gave a talk in Church (this I gathered from my Dad), in which he predicted that a temple would be built in Central.

And it was.

We went to see it.

It really is beautiful. The architecture is similar to other small-but-not-too-tiny temples being built lately, but the interior art is sort of unbelievable. In volume, but also in quality. The mural of the Gila River in the ordinance room is amazing.

I whispered to Sam: look, this whole room is painted by hand!

Oh, he replied. I know what that is called. Graffiti.

No, I told him. Not if it is commissioned.

My Dad couldn't get enough of the original oils. The painting of Ash Creek Falls on Mt. Graham was his favorite (in the assembly room). Does anyone know the artist? Let me know.

After our tour, we headed over to Grandma's (Grandma was walking along the road, she'd been watering Uncle Jake's horses) to change, then to Uncle Chuck's to ride his horses. Chuck and my cousin Brandon rope. I think they are good at it. Maybe a little famous, even. But I don't know. I'm from Los Angeles. When you are a little famous in LA, you have your own sitcom.

Tom, who saw some kids with cookies outside the temple, and asked them: Did Jesus give you those?

Grandpa Ross (my Dad) and little Ross, riding Lloyd and Hidalgo, respectively. That's Mt. Graham behind them. We've got a cabin up there. Here are Dad and the kids on the mountain at the Ladybug Saddle trailhead last summer:

Cousin Jack and Chuck.

Ryan and Uncle Rick

Grandma. And me.

Looking east and north from Chuck and Lona's place.

The Temple was dedicated this Sunday, and was broadcast all over the state. Did you attend? Do you have any Gila Valley relations? Are they the same as mine? In addition to the Laytons and the Allreds, I've got Norton, Porter, Reay, and Webster peeps.