Jamie’s sigh of relief

May 15, 2013 By

For the past few years, Jamie has taken Bode on our church’s father-son camp-out with the Scouts. On Bode’s first adventure, he’d had a big day: his preschool class went to a play at Heritage Square, followed by a fun night with the Scouts of Capture the Flag, roasting marshmallows and hot dogs and basic revelries any boy would love.

As he and Jamie contentedly nestled in their sleeping bags under a blanket of stars, Bode queried:

“Do you know what’s better than camping, Daddy?”

“What, Bode?”

“Musicals.”

It has taken Jamie a few years to recover from that one but I’m sure he was very pleased when I asked Bode his favorite part about going camping at Bear Creek Lake State Park last weekend and he replied, “Killing fire ants.”

My, what a difference a few years makes.

Filed Under: Bode, Humor, Jamie

Mother’s Day: Something to Smile About

May 13, 2013 By

Mother’s Day can be joyful but also full of hurt and despair. I am surrounded by women who are tremendous mothers and examples to me. I also know several who have yet to become mothers–some struggle with infertility, others chose not to have kids, a handful have lost their mothers or have a bad relationship with them and many more want to settle down but haven’t found Mr. Right.

My own mom never liked Mother’s Day so I’ve always treaded softly around the subject. This morning, I posted a picture on Facebook of Bode reading a book he wrote to me with this message:

Happy Mother’s Day to all the wonderful women who mother, even if they are not moms.

I had been up most of the night with an unrelenting cough, causing Jamie and Fat Kitty to leave me alone in my misery so they could get some sleep (and I didn’t blame them a bit). Early the next morning, I saw three faces peek through my bedroom door and when they realized I was awake, burst in with my favorite breakfast: fresh mangoes, raspberries and strawberries with yogurt.

They showered me with homemade gifts–Bode a beautiful picture, Hadley a fun notebook she had made at church and Jamie spoiled me with a new juicer (send me your favorite recipes), two four-hour deep house cleaning Groupon cards (HALLELUJAH!) and he reluctantly wore his Canadian maple leaf tie in my honor.Our ward’s tradition at church on Mother’s Day is to have pie at the end of our meetings. One year, some silly man got it into his head the women didn’t like the pie so changed it up. I won’t go into the  ugly details of the Mom Revolution (think: World Ward III) but I was very happy to see pie back on the agenda the following year.

And this welcome addition: Jamie prepared a smoked beef tenderloin, thyme-rosemary fingerling potatoes, garlic mushrooms and poppy-seed coleslaw.

My vote is he’s on dinner duty from now on.

Our little family likes to keep Mother’s Day low-key. A couple of years ago, we went for a walk around gorgeous Evergreen Lake where we love to skate in the wintertime. It was so memorable I declared it our new tradition because there are just so many things to smile about like this: Not to mention this.

And this.But don’t tell that to Hadley. She thinks I have a camera constantly in her face and she would be correct. Sorry, dearie but such is fate of the iPhone generation of parents who always have their camera phone with them. Doesn’t she just looked thrilled to be in this picture?

May2013

Jamie wasn’t much better. The first shot I took, he was mimicking Hadley by scowling at the camera.
I obviously made him retake the picture.

For this one, I told Hadley we weren’t moving until she would smile. Stubborn Miss took a while (so long poor Bode declared he was going to start crying because he had been smiling forever).

It’s my Mother’s Day and I’ll MAKE YOU SMILE IF I WANT TO.

But don’t be mislead. She was smiling 99.9 percent  of the time as we took that beautiful stroll around the lake. I even caught this candid shot of her (gasp) smiling.

Just don’t let her know I’m onto her.

Happy Mother’s Day!!!

Filed Under: Bode, Family, Hadley, Jamie

How NOT to honor the mother of your children on Mother’s Day

May 12, 2013 By

The Husband: “What tie should I wear?”

Me: “The maple leaf one to honor your Canadian wife on Mother’s Day.”

Him: “It’s broken.”

Filed Under: Canada, Humor, Jamie

Because it’s never too early to start corrupting the young

April 26, 2013 By

Hadley’s class is beginning a farming unit at school and they will be going on a three-day field trip to a farm in a couple of weeks. To help prepare, her teacher asked Jamie to come into her class to teach them about soil and giant pumpkin growing.

An entire hour to talk about pumpkins to eager young minds? He was IN.

I wasn’t planning to go but at the last minute, he told me he needed help transporting visual aids, one of which is Hadley’s plant that is already growing like gangbusters in its pot.

I took it out to the car, carefully placed it by my feet and buckled up.

Him: “Pick it up.”
Me: “Fine.” I put it on my lap.
Him: You’re not holding it correctly.” I change my pose, holding it closer.
Him: “It’s moving around. You can’t hold it like that.”
Me: “What is wrong with the way I’m holding it?!”
Him: “Holding the plant upside down is not considered the best way to do it.”
(In my defense, it was slightly tilted but stable.)
Me: “We’re in a moving car and I’m clutching it to my CHEST. WHAT ELSE DO YOU WANT?”
Him: “More.”

I didn’t know what I’d signed up for when I volunteered to be his assistant.

When we were walking to class, the criticisms continued until he finally took the plant. I don’t know how he did it but his entire upper body didn’t move as he walked.

Hadley was thrilled to have him and his hands-on presentation was well-received. He was the Pumpkin Man Incarnate. He dazzled them with stories, awed them with pictures of The Great Pumpkin and never has a talk on soil been so moving. Some of the kids couldn’t get enough–one boy even took a full page of notes and kept drilling him with questions. Others will be losing sleep about their parent’s crappy soil.

“I’m going to plant a pumpkin in our yard and not tell my mom,” said one little girl.

Another one wailed, “How do I know if I have enough nitrogen in my soil?”

“I send my soil to get tested but I’m sure your parents won’t want to do that,” Jamie replied.

“Can we give it to you so you can send it off?”

At the end of the day, The Pumpkin Man gave each kid their very own Dill’s Atlantic Giant Pumpkin Seed.

Judging from their reaction, it was better than the Magic Bean from Jack and the Beanstalk.

Filed Under: Humor, Jamie, pumpkins

And So the Giant Pumpkin Games Begin!

April 25, 2013 By

Grow room. Allegedly the legal kind.

Pumpkin season has begun Chez Johnson and after soaking the seeds via the paper towel method, they are nicely planted in their pots in our makeshift grow room. This year, Jamie is using a mixture of 65 percent ProMix BX, 10 percent worm castings and 25 percent Fox Farm’s Ocean Forest.

C’mon, you know you were wondering.

Jamie is also planning to grow giant watermelon and tomato plants because we want to make our backyard resemble Honey, I Shrunk the Kids even more.

This morning, Hadley’s teacher asked Jamie to come speak to the class about soil, seeds and gardening. An entire hour to preach the Pumpkin Gospel to inquiring, gullible minds? Talk about the best thing ever.

The other day, I caught him rummaging through our cupboard.

“What’re you looking for?” Me, trying to be helpful.

“A cup for storing my bacteria and fungus.”

Thus begins the season of It’s Better Not To Ask.

Follow Jamie’s pumpkin updates at denverpumpkins.com. Tune in here next time for all the details of when Jamie became a rock star for Hadley’s class.

Filed Under: Jamie, pumpkins

Battling Out the Glory Days

April 23, 2013 By

Bode recently started soccer for the spring. He has been with the same group of boys for a few years so it’s always a joyous reunion when a new season rolls around. He is a solid player and usually scores every game because he’s really good at ball handling and dribbling.

What he is not good at? The Big Kick (as Jamie calls it). We found that out the hard way when his coach held him back as the Sweeper, whose primary job is to belt the ball upfield. Little dude would try to just dribble the ball past his attackers and it often backfired on him.

Thank goodness they’ll start to play on a bigger field with real positions soon. That kid has “forward” written all over him.

We recently went out for Chinese food and were trying to explain to Bode all the different positions in soccer with (what else?) sugar packets.

The problem with this is whenever we try to talk strategy, Jamie and I disagree on our old glory deals. Jamie boasts what a scoring machine he was and I always assert my soccer career was much more glorious than his (competitive, much?) with my near-foray onto Alberta’s provincial team before my busted ankle. Blah, blah, blah.

As we were battling it out in front of Bode, I told him, “I was center-mid. They called me “The Rover” because I was just so good I followed the ball wherever it went.”

Jamie interjected, “It is also called ‘being out of position.’”

 

 

Filed Under: Bode, Humor, Jamie

Utah: How I Love Thee (Mostly) and our Park City Family Vacation

April 4, 2013 By

My complicated relationship with Utah was reconfirmed during our latest visit for spring break. I wouldn’t go are far as to say it’s a love-hate dynamic but I always struggle between “I want to move back here” and “I’m so glad I got out of here,” the former attributed to the mountains and family and the later, to cultural idiosyncrasies.

But what could be better than hanging out reading books with Grandma in her beautiful, new finished basement?
Not to mention dying eggs and a fun Easter egg hunt with our darling cousins?And sneaking off to do this memorable hike on the Bonneville Shoreline Trail behind Red Butte Gardens wasn’t too bad, either.
Our spring break was about two things: Skiing at Park City Mountain Resort and family. Fortunately, we were able to combine them both by staying at Silver Star, a gorgeous three-bedroom town home at the base. The gift basket is courtesy of Resorts West. The Cheese Balls, thanks to us.
We like to keep it classy.

For four days, we hot tubbed, watched The Hobbit, grilled burgers, ate and hung out.

Ski School

That was just the indoor fun. The kids did ski school for a few days and Bode rocked his “Superstar” class.

Attempting Mary Katherine Gallagher’s “Superstar” pose

And Hadley graduated to an intermediate-advanced class. Her instructor told us she used to train the U.S. Ski Team, gave us her card and said that she “could work with her.”
Some parents would sell their soul if their kid had an iota of Olympic potential. We’re underachievers who said “that’s nice” and went back to eating our Cheese Balls.

Jamie had a stellar time on the mountain, with the exception of the day I got really ill from an allergy-induced sinus infection.

I, of course, have to get sick on every vacation.

Tubing for a Bruising

Then, there was Gorgoza Park. On our final night in Park City, Jamie’s sister and her family joined us for some fun at this adventure park outside of Park City. Our kiddos tore up the mini snowmobiles.Our 3-year-old twinnies are darling and sweet but oh-so fearful. They’re under 42-inches tall so had to tube the Lower Lanes, which is a good thing because they were sufficiently traumatized. For the first run, Ada went down with her dad without a problem while Berkley was HAVING NOTHING TO DO WITH IT. Jamie’s sister Tammy soothed her fears and even Ada’s pep talk about “being brave” didn’t help. After several motivational speeches, they eventually went down with Berkley screaming the whole way.

Then came the final attempt. The staffer at the top complimented Tammy saying “Most parents just throw their kids in the tube but you handled that just right by talking it out with her.” But this time, it was Ada who decided to freak out and refuse to go down the hill. After trying to calm her down, they all loaded up and had the staffer push them down the hill with Ada screaming the whole way.

“You mean, the parents do it like this?” Tammy joked to him.

I always knew I liked her.

For Fear Factor, Edition 2 we dragged Jamie’s mom up and down The Big Hill.

She initially wasn’t very happy but unlike Ada and Berkley, Adventure Grandma didn’t cry even once.

Family Ski Day

There are few things that bring me more joy than skiing with my little family and though we hope to keep them in ski school as long as possible, I love when we can ski together. A tradition at many resorts is to throw bead necklaces in the trees as you’re passing them on the chair lift. We purchased eight necklaces from the Dollar Store prior to our trip and were so excited to try it.

The problem: Bode lost two of them before we even left the condo. We also hadn’t calculated the exact moment we would need to toss them, taking into account the velocity of the chair lift, the angle of the trees and our sheer incompetence.

Translation: We failed at physics and I think only two actually made it into the trees.

There were many, many other adventures including skiing down the Adventure Alleys designed for kids, doing the jumps at the terrain park, the alpine coaster and Flying Eagle zipline.And then my very favorite moment of the entire trip: summiting the top of the McConkey Lift. Perched at the top of the ski resort, only intermediate and advanced skiers can access it and this was our first as a family.

Bode squealed, “I’m the king of the world” as he gazed out upon the endless sea of mountains. Then as he peered over the edge as he skied and he confessed, “I’m kinda freaking out” but went on to ski it like a champ.

His wasn’t the only breakdown. The day before, Jamie had taken me down double-black expert terrain at Jupiter Bowl when I was still recovering from the plague. There are no pictures of his indiscretion, which is probably a good thing because the less evidence, the better.

Hopefully, Ada, Berkley, Bode , Grandma and I will have forgotten those freakout moments by the time we return to have the time of our lives at Park City Mountain Resort next year.

Filed Under: Bode, Family travel, Hadley, Humor, Jamie, skiing, travel, Utah

Life lessons from growing the Great Pumpkin

April 1, 2013 By

In Jamie’s words on his Facebook page:

“My wife finally wrote an article in the Denver Post about something important.”

Don’t say I’m not supportive of The Crazy.

Click to read the article

Filed Under: Humor, Jamie, pumpkins

How to get your kids to appreciate you

March 25, 2013 By

Ingratitude. It’s the age-old battle all parents wage with their kids. But I have found the solution for instilling gratitude:

Leave them for a week.

I recently spent a week in Canada for some family matters. I arrived home to jubilant children who pelted me with their stuffed animals and doused me with hugs and kisses. Their excitement was augmented when I brought them their very favorite food in the entire world: Tim Hortons Timbits (thanks to Dad for enduring a 4 a.m. doughnut run before my early flight).

But with time, the children started whispering.

“Do you see that pile of dishes? It got to be this high!”

“I have no clean underwear. Have you seen all the dirty clothes in my laundry basket?”

And the worst one of all:

“THERE HAVE BEEN NO HOMEMADE COOKIES IN THE COOKIE JAR!”

Though I left a fridge and freezer full of healthy food, McDonald’s and pizza became the staples (though you didn’t see the kids tattling about that).

I won’t mention when I called 40 minutes after bedtime on a school night and they were waging a mixed-martial arts competition after watching Here Comes the Boom. In the background, I could hear Bode saying, “Daddy said we could have three cookies!”

Sounds like he coped just fine with his store-bought Oreos.

This is not a knock on Jamie…far from it. The dude was a single dad for a week while he juggled a demanding work schedule, Bishopric, homework, poor health and shuttling the kids to their various activities while making sure they were fed. I couldn’t have gone  home if my wonderful husband hadn’t generously stepped up.

But it was a wake-up for all of them that clean clothes don’t just magically appear, delicious, homemade food doesn’t make itself, and darn it, those dishes don’t wash themselves. Maybe that lady we call Mom does more around here than nag us to keep a schedule, do our chores and to make our beds.

Though apparently they got a bye on all those things last week.

They don’t know how really good they had it.

Filed Under: Bode, Hadley, Humor, Jamie

The Amazing Race: Colorado!

March 14, 2013 By

I have a longtime obsession with The Amazing Race, a love affair that started in their fourth season (they’re in their 22nd season; Jamie may-or-may not have bought me boot legged copies of the first few ones I missed). So great is my love for this show that I would forsake my Canuck citizenship and come over to the dark side (become American) for the chance to race.

It started up again a few weeks ago and the kids and I have been faithfully watching every Sunday night. I was thrilled when I learned that this season, there are some Coloradoans “The Roller Derby Moms” competing and one of them actually lives in my town! I connected with them via Twitter saying I wanted to meet with them and one of them pinged me back on Facebook and we’ve exchanged emails. Because of CBS’s strict confidentiality agreement, they can’t do a formal interview until they’re eliminated, after which I’m there! I’d love to learn all the behind-the-scenes stuff you don’t see on TV.

I flew home from Canada on Tuesday and on Wednesday, I suggested Jamie and I go on a lunch date to the Sherpa House Restaurant and Cultural Center. Knowing my obsession with Nepal, my sweet husband bought me a Groupon to this Nelapese restaurant in Golden for my birthday. The authentic decor made made me feel like I was strolling Durbar Square in Kathmandu valley.

When we were standing in line for round two of their buffet, I realized we had inadvertently cut in front of a cool-looking, long-haired dude who was standing back to make room for people leaving the room.

“Oh, I’m sorry,” I apologized. “We didn’t mean to cut.”

“No big deal..I’m not going anywhere,” he replied. And as soon as the words left his mouth, something was triggered. I hissed to Jamie, “That guy was on the Amazing Race!”

Jamie glanced back and not recognizing him told me I was mistaken. I wasn’t ready to give it up but also didn’t want to make a fool of myself with mistaken identity so I casually mentioned to Jamie how I’d emailed the Roller Derby Moms this week. The bait was taken hook, line and sinker as his eyes lit up. He turned to me and before he could say a word, I said, “I knew it! You were on the Amazing Race last season?!”

Turns out Mark “Abba” Abbatista lives in Golden and was gracious enough to let me take a picture as we peppered him with questions. He and his teammate were among my favorite teams but were eliminated when a cabbie drove off with their backpacks in Russia, including their passport and VISA. Abba divulged the nightmare that ensured of trying to get out of the country , the emergency VISA issued by the embassy and so much more. He limped around a lot and figured he had a meniscus tear in his knee. Turned out he had much worse: when he arrived home and got his legs X-rayed, he learned he had been running the race on two broken legs.

I could have talked to him for hours but after 10 minutes, we let him rejoin his daughter for lunch (cuz we’re nice like that). When we arrived back at the table, I squealed to Jamie, “Can you believe that? I wasn’t too much like a crazed Amazing Race fan, was I?”

He assured me I wasn’t any more over-the-top than usual.

Take that to mean whatever you want.

 

Filed Under: Humor, Jamie
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