Look Down Below

So I don't know how to fix the fact that I did these posts out of order so scroll down below the tag to see our hike.

I guess I'm it.

4 jobs that I’ve had:
1. Training Table
2. Boys and Girls Club 1st grade teacher
3. Picasso's Commissary Accountant
4. Reading tutor

4 Movies I have watched more than once:
1. Newsies
2. Mean Girls
3. Walk the Line
4. Drop Dead Fred

4 TV Shows I Watch:
1. Gossip Girl
2. 90210
3. Privileged
4. House

4 People who email me regularly:
1. Amazon.com
2. Springville Library
3. My book club
4. Mom

4 Favorite Foods:
1. Wendy's chicken sandwiches
2. Pasta
3. Thai
4. Pudding

4 Things I'm looking forward to in the next year:
1. Graduating!
2. Not moving
3. Parties
4. Summer Vacations

4 Places I want to visit:
1. Africa
2. South America
3. Mount Rushmore
4. Keri's House

4 Things I love about my husband:
1. He's great with kids
2. He makes me laugh my ass off
3. The smell of his hair
4. His feet

As for tagging others...I tag Erinn and Kyle

Annual Hike

So I haven't put together the Halloween post of all the horridly awkward pictures we got of everyone, but don't worry, it'll come. Instead I have this post about our "annual" hike. Last time Kyle took me on a hike I puked my brains out at the top and I don't think Jenny ever ate mandarin oranges again, and I have tried to chew more before swallowing since then. That was sometime last year. So Kyle and I went on a walk Saturday in the most wonderful weather ever, and I decided to call it a hike because there were occasional slight inclines and we were in the middle of trees.

Old News

The purpose of this blog is to share the pictures I couldn't share during the absence of my camera. Here is dinner with some of my sisters.
Here's when Kyle and I took Matthew and Andy to Kyle's Mom's dog show. Where we ran into so many people that I had no idea were in the dog show scene, such as Kory's neighbor Amy and my niece Jeannette. Here's Janet (Kyle's mom) and her show dogs:

Here's Andy longing for a moustache:

Finally the boys could play with the dogs after the shows:

Another shot of Janet and the dogs:

Here's (Left to Right) Matthew, Andy, Jeannette, and Chuck (Kyle's step-dad).

Janet showing the dog to a judge (I'm sure you've gathered by now that these pictures are not in chronological order):

Kyle, Matthew, and Andy:

Andy was obsessed with this dog. He yelled so much about 101 Dalmations that the owner finally came over and let him pet it:

Here's Grammy Cloe blowing her birthday candles out. There's two candles for her 82nd birthday:

But she could only blow one candle out! We all thought it was funny, luckily she did too:

mIni GoLfiNg

I've been wanting to go to Trafalga's black light mini golf course, so since I couldn't get Kyle to go with me I took my next best friend(s): Shauna's kids.Matthew

Maggie

Andy

Maggie was copping quite the attitude in this picture.Andy started dancing and we all joined him.

Care-A-Lot

We babysat Shauna's kids Friday and the thing they wanted to play with the most was the batting mom gave me to stuff toys with. They were "clouds" for the care bears to be on. When they finished playing Andy set all the Care Bears up on the piano on top of a cloud. It was great. Those kids are so fun. We had a great night with them. And Matthew loves Canasta more than me so it's great to have someone to play with.

To Forgive Is...

I just finished the last 4 pages of my journal and then I turned the page to where I had copied the following poem. And it made me feel really good.

To Forgive Is...
To begin
and there is so much to forgive:
for one, your parents, one and two,
out of whose dim haphazard coupling
you sprang forth roaring, indignantly alive.
For this, whatever else followed,
innocent and guilty, forgive them.
If it is day, forgive the sun
its white radiance blinding the eye;
forgive also the moon for dragging the tides,
for her secrets, her half heart of darkness;
whatever the season, forgive it its various
assaults--floods, gales, storms
of ice--and forgive its changing;
for its vanishing act, stealing what you love
and what you hate, indifferent,
forgive time; and likewise forgive its fickle
consort, memory, which fades
the photographs of all you can't remember;
forgive forgetting, which is chaste
and kinder than you know;
forgive your age and the age you were
when happiness was afire in your blood
and joy sang hymns in the trees;
forgive, too, those trees, which have died;
and forgive death for taking them,
inexorable as God, then forgive God
His terrible grandeur, His unspeakable
Name; forgvive, too, the poor devil
for a celestial fall no worse than your own.
When you have forgiven whatever is of earth,
of sky, of water, whatever is named,
whatever remains nameless,
forgive, finally, your own sorry self,
clothed in temporary flesh
the breath and blood of you
already dying.
Dying, forgiven, now you begin.

Pamela Spiro Wagner, "Divided Minds"

The book I found this in is this amazing account written by Pamela and her twin sister about the struggle they both experienced because of Pamela's diagnosis of schizophrenia. It's a beautifully written and incredibly interesting book and this is one of my favorite poems.