20 Years Ago...

... Matt was a 5 month old baby and he liked to eat his toes too! My mom just sent me this today because it looks just like Oliver's pictures! Funny!

Dinner tonight!

For fun, we had cheese fondue for dinner.

Reaction from Ivy: boring!

Oliver was appalled he didn't get some!

But wait! He's got his own idea!

TOES!

Nummy nummy toes.

Sorry, he's not sharing.

Weather

113 Degrees.

2% Humidity.

Day 4 of a Loooong, Hot Arizona Summer.

AIR CONDITIONING!!

Summer Camp Rocked. Seriously.

I must say, for doing our first summer camp ever, we really rocked it. From the music, to the choreography, to the performance, to the LIMO Buses, to the swim partyat EVO, to today, when the kids got to come to Broadway Palm and meet their Director and the Narrator and get their picture taken by the media this morning. Oh YEAH.

Silly

Adam sent me an email today that said, "The bill is on the high end of their scale. Total including replacing the mounts is $43,509.60. The car will be ready on Friday."

Hello, Typo! Yeah, I'd say that's on the high end of the scale!

Whitney and I have had a three year love affair with Lime Green paint. It was first used when I helped Whitney paint her entire room that color. I took the rest home and painted big circles on what was later named "The Polka Dot Playhouse." We finished it off tonight painting this:

Reliving my childhood

This week we are holding our summer camp - "Musicals and More!" There is much singing of show tunes, grandiose melodramatic emoting, and even choreography. I'm having a total blast.

Do you know how I spent almost every free moment of my childhood? There were two games I loved to play:

1 - Playing School. I was always the teacher.

And 2 - Creating a Show. I can't tell you the countless productions we created in our home - with song (usually interuppted with fits of giggling), dance (always less than graceful on my part), costumes (shabby chic), scenery (including an old sheet we colored on, used as a backdrop, then wouldn't let my mother throw away for at least a decade), tickets (to make it seem REAL!) and always an audience (bless their patient and longsuffering hearts). Topics ranged from the W.E.T.S. news show, to Starlight Express dance numbers, to reenacting the signing of the Constitution during a particularly patriotic phase.

Someday, when I have time and energy, I will post some of the incriminating evidence.

I would regularly enlist my sister, cousins, neighbor kids, church friends - anyone who was game, and we would perform to anyone who would listen.

This week, as I was leading a group 50 kids in song and dance, it all felt so familiar, and I realized, I've been preparing for this my whole life!!

So, thank you to my patient and encouraging parents, aunts and uncles, and the parents of the neighborhood kids I can't even remember names of. No, wait, Laura Serena, that was her name. Hope you're doing well, Laura!

Some things never change. And I'm loving it. :)

Visions in Technicolor

I feel like I'm wearing Technicolor glasses today. I woke up early to take Adam to work, and here's what we saw when we went outside:

We'd been Flocked.

Oh, you've never been "flocked" before? Well, it's a clever scheme to raise oodles of money, one yard prank at a time. See, you have to pay $20 to have the flamingos removed to another yard of your choice. Very, very clever.


Later, I threw out all the child labor laws and enlisted the help of my 10 year old, 7 year old and 4 year old to put together 60 music binders for the CCC summer camp next week. "My fingernails hurt from opening the tabs!" "I got another paper cut" - such wimps! Why, when I was a kid, we had to assemble 600 music binders, all while walking uphill in the snow. So don't whine.

Aren't they so colorful? It's to go with the "Coat of many colors" theme of the week. Ooooh! TECHNICOLOR!!!

It was actually really fun.

Then we picked up the Summer Camp t-shirts:

What can I say? We don't want to lose anybody! And bright lime green should do the trick. :)

Well, I'm off to bed. Hopefully I will dream in black and white.

Have you missed this face?

I sure love this boy.

3 Cheers for Summer!

Mt Whitney

Click on the picture to see the amazing pictures from Adam's Successful Summit of the tallest mountian on the Continental United States!!

No Time, Any Problem

So, I was hanging out with Ivy today and she did me a favor, so I told her, "Thank you, Ivy!"

She replied, "No time!"

. . . HuH?

Then Lizzie and I realized that she was mixing up the two phrases "No problem!" and "Any Time!" to make a new phrase: "No Time!" Which naturally led us to the other mixed-up phrase: "Any Problem!"

I was thinking about it and decided that this has kind of been the Stewart family motto this week.

Broken Transmission? "Any Problem!"

Need a new hairdryer? "No Time!"

Accidently broke the pool filter which was just replaced? "Any Problem!" "No Time!"

I'm hoping we can get un-mixed up soon here, because this family motto is getting expensive! :)

Sockless on Mount Whitney

I found Adam's special REI hiking sock last night when I was folding the laundry and watching Arrested Development with Erin. He was looking for it frantically on Wednesday night before he left on his big trip. Whoops.

This morning he called me from here:

The one-socked mountain climber on the highest peak in the contintental United States. I hope that one of your feet was nice and warm.

These conditions are not ideal. Just call him Bear Grylls.