Chrissa's Dance Moves

Chrissa was fortunate enough to inherit my dance moves.  She was able to showcase those genes during our ward activity yesterday: Swing into Spring.

She's second from the right as the video starts (front), and then moves to front-middle at 0:16.

She's lucky to be the benefactor of such impeccable dancing skill... haha!

Poetry Got Me In Trouble

It all started with a simple, award winning poem by Chrissa:

My Precious Gift

I looked with tenderness,

I looked with love.

This miracle in front of me,

Was gifted from above.

For how could I deserve,

Me, as best?

I may never know,

But I do know I'm blessed.

This blessing in front of me,

This child, so sweet,

Was given by God,

I am now complete.

Nice, eh?


While this poem was part of a Creative Writing assignment, she entered it into the "In Seneca Valley" magazine's poetry contest... and won.  This magazine is produced by our school district for businesses and families in the Seneca Valley School District.  Mostly full of ads, but meant to convey stuff that is going on in the schools in the area.  Personally, I don't read the magazine... I find it best served in the trash can.


Her win was announced a couple of months ago.  


Two days ago, she was stopped by her (former... it was last semester) Creative Writing teacher who informed her that the magazine changed their mind.  It would not be published.  Why?  Well, mention of a baby and miracle and use of the word "I" seemed to imply that Chrissa was endorsing teen pregnancy.  Someone MAY read more into it and decide to go out, get shnockered, and get knocked up.


Think I'm kidding?  I'm not.


Yep, the magazine felt the poem was too controversial-- too wishy-washy-- too open for the wrong interpretation to be printed in their beloved magazine.  So, they threw it out.  Why announce it as a winner only to throw it out later?  I have no idea.  But, after all, you never know what influence it could have on the weak minded.  I mean, I read it and suddenly felt the urge...

Eh, not so fast.  Not being one to take things lying down, I found the email to the magazine's editor and sent her a kindly worded email (really... I tried... I'm not good at being sensitive, though).  Excerpts include:

Me: "Can you please let me know what, specifically, in the poem was so offensive or open to such a wide interpretation that you thought some teenager might actually want to get pregnant by reading it?"  "The idea that the poem was about teen pregnancy is ludicrous."  "The magazine should not conclude that a poem clearly written to show the love a mother has for her child endorses teen pregnancy."  "What are you-- stupid or something?"

Okay, the last sentence I made up.

I did receive a response.  Excerpts:

Them: "We as the publisher always have final right of refusal.  The poem, while beautiful, left a lot to interpretation.  The school district agreed that this wasn't the best forum for this particular poem.  I have asked the public relations director to ask your daughter if she would either revise the poem slightly OR submit another poem."

And, again, from me (excerpts only-- I ALWAYS get the last words in an argument):

Me: "Define 'revise the poem slightly'... again, I don't know what was so offensive that it has to be taken out?"  "Interpretation is the essence of poetry... I don't follow your logic knowing that poetry is meant to be interpreted by the reader."  "Why are you not concerned about how your readers might interpret some of the ads you have in the magazine, or the other articles you print, or the photos you put in it?"  "I had assumed, since we get this magazine in the mail, that your reading audience was more mature than you claim us to be... students at SV and their families will read this poem for what it is, not for what it isn't."  "Her work on this poem was exceptional and innocent, and fear of misinterpretation of it should not warrant a need to have the poem completely revised, otherwise you should revise the entire content of your next edition because anything you put in there could be wrongly interpreted by someone."

I haven't heard back yet.  Chances are the magazine will not publish it as it is.  I've told Chrissa that it is her call... she can revise it or send in a new one.  They promised to print what she sends in as long as it doesn't cross some threshold for censorship.  But, I did tell her that her poem was great, it won, and there should be no reason to adjust it just to get it into their crummy magazine (that no one reads).

So, more to come, I'm sure.  My next steps are already planned, depending on how they respond.  I could go as far as to mark up the current edition with my thoughts on how I'm interpreting each page... that should be fun... and mail it back to Mrs. Editor-in-Chief.  Or, I can forward this to our local radio station (the hosts have a nationwide audience) and urge them to aire my grievances over the radio waves.  Or, I could post it in the local paper and say that our highly-intelligent school district, being the smarty-pants that they are, thought we were all too dumb and bubble-brained to read it for fear that it would spark a mass-teen-pregnancy trend in the local schools, and therefore decided to keep this potential time bomb of a poem out of our over-sexed hands and out of our over-sexed minds.  

But, isn't it amazing?  The school will talk about teen pregnancy until the cows come home.  Some schools condone it (or, certainly don't downgrade it) by passing out "how to" manuals on the subject.  Yet, you get a student to write a poem about the view that a mom has for her child, and suddenly THIS is going to create sexual pandemonium in our youth? 

Phew!!

My Unknown - and Surprising - Family Tree

Chrissa's latest school assignment is to develop and share her personal family tree.  These are always a bit unsettling to me because, first, it exposes some interesting characters in the family, and second... we all come from Utah and Idaho... which, by itself, can either result in a family tree that looks like a stick, or a family tree that looks more like a bowl of spaghetti.  Fortunately, our's is fairly normal looking, but in the back of my mind, I worry that someone will come out of the woodworks and claim something that will totally destroy the family tree, revealing that somehow I'm my own uncle or something.

Chrissa's rendition had some added notes of interest, however,  A quick glance at it would not reveal much; however, upon close scrutiny, I learned a lot about my background that I didn't know.

1. My paternal grandma's name was Louis Warton (not Lois Norton).  She was born in 1935 and died in 1974... at the ripe old age of 39.  She actually died 8 or 9 years ago at a much older age.
2. My paternal grandpa died in 1963 at the age of 33.  He actually died 15 years or so ago... again, at a much older age.
3. My maternal grandma died at the age of 45 in 1968 (incidentally, she is still alive... sorry, Grandma!).
4. My maternal grandpa died at the age of 45... 33 years ago.  He actually died about 2 years ago.
5. Michelle's side had similar death dates (the 60s must have been a bad decade for the Jensen - Humpherys clans).
6. Michelle's paternal grandmother was born in 1928 and died in 1936... at the age of 8.  What is really striking is that she got married and died during that short time on earth, then gave birth to Carl (Michelle's dad) in 1951... 15 years after the poor old lady kicked the bucket, and 4 years after the real birth actually happened.  And, incidentally, she's still alive, too (again, sorry Grandma!)

So, the moral of the story is this: do not let a teen write a school paper without proofreading it.  Once the origins of your family start to outcompete the miraculous events of the Nativity, your story starts to lose credibility. 

We are an amazing family, but this is a bit much.

Another Girl's Camp, Come and (Thankfully) Gone

Another girl's came has come and gone. Now, only one or two more to go, I think.

Last year I had the opportunity of arriving at the camp at the last day in order to bring the girls home.  It was an hour and a half drive, but the drama spanned the previous 5 days of girl-girl interaction.  Before I got them all home, I was nearly ready to put a gun to my head.

This year, sadly, I didn't get to take them or bring them home, thus I missed out on that crucial moment when female relationships are at their most strained: the last hour on Day 5 of an LDS Girl's Camp.  I'm almost certain the tension was greater than Gettysburg, the morning before.  Put weapons into these girls hands and it would have looked like Jonestown, the morning after.

So, all the drama hit me full force when our daughter walked through the front door.  There were the usual issues: backstabbing, condemnation, ridicule, scandal, backbiting, cattiness, vilification, scorn, gossip, malice, slander, and even libel... all done with a spiritual overtone, of course.

Preparations included the packing of every earthly possession plus a compass and a pocketknife.  The compass and the pocketknife caught my attention.  When asked, I was told that the compass was needed "in case we got lost", and the pocketknife was needed "in case we needed to make shelter and start a fire."  My follow up questions were, "Where is your map, since the compass will not do you much good without one," and, "Do you even know how to use a pocketknife?"  Response: the 14-year-old female "Stink Eye" stare.

Incidentally, the boy scout camp was also last week.  The two camps made for an interesting juxtaposition.  The boys had one item to bring: Mountain Dew.  They had one goal: come back alive.  That was it.

Little did I realize at the time, but these two camps and the preparations done for each of them mirror what lies ahead in marriage for these kids.  Girls will spend hours debating the proper color for the table decoration in the main cabin, whereas guys will be in their tent drinking Mt. Dew.  Women will remember to bring the compass... men will realize that it isn't wise to get lost in the first place.  Women will work to ensure a spiritual message is sewn into every uttered word, every minute of every day of camp... men will work to ensure that there are as few of those minutes as possible.  Women will spend months planning... men will plan when they show up-- or maybe not plan anything at all.

Anyhow, Chrissa is home again, having survived another annual Girl's Camp experience.  I was asked a couple weeks ago if I wanted to be a chaperone... I respectfully declined.  I'd have rather had my eyes glued shut or been tied to a chair forced to listen to Barry Manilow tunes for the week.

Not So Swift

Last January, I got the hair-brained idea to incentivize Chrissa's school performance with two tickets to the June 18th Taylor Swift concert at Heinz Field in Pitt.  Cost: ~$100 per ticket.  Given my cheapness, I only bought 2 tickets... one for me and one for her.  Or, if grades failed, it would be one ticket for me and another ticket for whomever I could convince to go with me.

It should suffice you to know that I'm typing this while sitting in the van on the 8th story of a parking garage trying to get home from said concert.  So, yeah, Chrissa did well on her grades... and here we sit at exactly midnight as I type this out on my Blackberry.  We've been sitting here since 11:15.

So, we joined the 52,000 member mob of Swift fans this afternoon and made our way to the stadium.   Its roughly 20 miles from our home to Heinz Field.  The first 17 miles took us about 15 minutes... The last 3 miles took us nearly 2 hours.

Don't laugh... I'm not joking.  In fact, we were passed by two people who had entirely given up and abandoned their car in the emergency lane, deciding that walking would be a faster alternative.  They passed us and we never saw them again.

Things got surprisingly better once we got to the stadium, however.  After paying the $35.00 parking fee, and after wandering around for a half hour trying to find our seats, I asked a worker where we could find Section 230, and we were escorted to PRIVATE elevators to the box sections.  Ha!  We left the riff-raff behind.  I had no idea that the section I bought our tickets in were in the more illustrious part of Heinz Field set aside for the glitterati.  How and why they let two rednecks into the section is beyond me.  Our section even had leather furniture and carpeting out in the food sections.  We were happy.

Despite showing up at 8:15 for a show that was supposed to begin at 7, the show hadn't started yet... some wannabe was playing.  So we gassed up on 2 slices of pizza and 2 Cokes for $22 (gulp!) and waited for the show.


While waiting, we did note some strange characters in the audience.  This couple in particular caught our eye.  Apparently, they were spending their wedding night at the concert.

As I started to realize just how many teen-aged and pre-teen-aged girls were in the audience, I knew that at any moment the place would erupt into a huge fireball of screams and frantic behavior.  I only had one reaction, which I carried on my face-- I was in serious trouble:

As the stadium started to fill up, and nighttime started to fall, I realized that the capacity of Heinz Field would hold the entire population of Idaho Falls-- our former home town.  So, for affect, I took a panorama of the stadium from our seats.  You'll need to click the photo below for full affect.

As nighttime fell, the show started with a dizzying, deafening blast of teen-aged girl screams, just as I had earlier feared.  It was like sticking your head directly into the tail cone of an F-18.  I was, in reality, in the ninth circle of Dante's hell.  And, for the next 2:45, we heard Taylor Swift belt out her greatest hits.  

Sadly, however, the ride to the stadium ruined the experience for me.  As we sat in traffic moving at the blinding speed of 10 feet per minute, all stations in the Pittsburgh area were playing Taylor Swift songs.  Thus, before the concert even started, we had listened to each song she had ever sang at least 3 times.  


All in all, the concert was fun.  Now, if we can just get home.  Time is now 12:20AM, and the cars on the 8th story of this stinking garage are just started to move out.

School's Out For Summer

As Alice Cooper so eloquently stated:

School's out for summer
School's out forever
School's been blown to pieces

No more pencils
No more books
No more teacher's dirty looks

Out for summer
Out till fall
We might not go back at all

School's out forever
School's out for summer
School's out with fever
School's out completely 

So what has the evil mom and pop done to combat this belief?  Well... HOMEWORK, of course.

This summer, the kids will be spending a couple hours each day working in math and science workbooks that we bought for them.  BWAAA-HAHAHAH!

As for me, I'll be working extra hours this summer.  I don't want to intrude on Michelle's homeschooling efforts, after all.

Once Upon A Time, There Was Dinner

1. Surgeon
2. Psychiatrist
3. Lawyer
4. Computer Physicist
5. Aeronautical Engineer
6. Stock Broker
7. Research Chemist
8. Genetic Engineer
9. CEO
10. Novelist

What am I doing, you ask?  Scratching off potential jobs for my oldest child.  Just goin' down the list, and putting a big black line through each one when I see something that makes me question its future in her life.

There was promise, at one time.  Now... no more.  Look out Ronald McDonald... there is a challenger coming up.

I come home today and walk in the front door.  Smoke hits me in the face like Mohammed Ali.  I walk in, adrenaline pumping through my veins. 

Inside, sitting on the sofa playing the Wii are my four kids. On the stove in a pot is/was dinner... a roast.  Pouring out of the pot (it has a lid on it, mind you) is smoke that smells like charcoal.

Me: "What in the *!#% is going on??!!"
Chrissa: "What?"
Me: "I SAID, WHAT IN THE *!#% IS GOING ON!?"

I go over to the stove, remove the lid, and nearly choke as I'm hit yet again with a wave of smoke.

Me: "Did you notice at all that the food is burning?"

Michelle had left to run errands since today is the first day of Spring Break.  Chrissa was left to manage things.

Chrissa: "Yeah, but I called mom and she said it was okay."
Me: "What???"
Chrissa: "I called mom to tell her that I could smell smoke.  She asked me if there was any liquid in the bottom.  I said there was, and she said it was okay."
Me: "So you just let it smoke up the place?  Does this look like 'liquid' to you?"

I got that blank stare... like she fell suddenly into a trance, ready to submit herself to the shadows.

Chrissa: "Well, not exactly.  I saw liquid on the lid and assumed that it would drip back into the bottom."

The lid is/was see-through, making this incident even more vexing.

Here is what I saw... maybe I'm getting old in my age.  Maybe my eye sight isn't what it should be.  But, this is supposed to be onions, potatoes, carrots, etc.  It now looks like Pompeii, the day after.  Blacker than a stack of dead house cats.  Blacker than Barack Obama in a coal mine.  I removed the lump of charcoal that had once been a chunk of top round roast.

So, I set the pot outside to cool off and de-smoke and continue scratching off future employment possibilities....

1. Oceanographer
2. Paleontologist
3. Forensic Anthropologist
4. Microbiologist
5. Business Executive

Mom and Daughter, Phipp's Conservatory

Michelle and Chrissa made a trip (along with other young women from our ward) to the Phipp's Conservatory as an early Mother's Day outing this past weekend.  They had great time.  They had to get there early before the blooms died off.

It puts our attempt at landscaping to a total shame.

See the slideshow, right.

To Catch A Teenager

Today is January 31st, 2011. It is also the first day of the new semester for kids attending the Seneca Valley School District here in western Pennsylvania.

This morning, the alarm goes off at 5:50AM so that Michelle or I can run Chrissa to the designated meeting spot for transport to early morning seminary. Instead, Chrissa walks in and, in a very groaning voice, says, “Mom… I don’t feel very good. My stomach is queasy.” Michelle: “OK, call the driver for seminary and tell them you won’t be going.”

JUST LIKE THAT.

My eyes had to be on fire before my parents would believe a statement like that.

So, Chrissa stays home, and I leave for work.

Michelle had plans to go to Ohio today with Sherry, a lady from our ward, to pick up some stuff. Naturally, she took Ambie and Preston with her, especially since Chrissa was home being sick.

At noon, I come home from work, as I usually do, to have some lunch. As I open the door to the house from inside the garage (remember… our “basement” is actually at ground level, so our first floor would be above me at that location), I hear some feet running across the wood floor—very quietly—and disappear at the stairs that lead to the top floor.

I’m fairly confident at that point that it is not a burglar or Jack the Ripper or even a really big rat. I’m certain that it is our teenager—equally menacing as these others, however.

So, I go up to the main floor and, seeing no one there, continue up the stairs to the top floor and Chrissa’s bedroom. Sure enough, there she is, in bed and blankets, with eyes closed and mouth wide open making labored-breathing sounds, trying to show that she is in deep sleep.

Hmmm. She is either faking it, or Jack the Ripper made a quick exit from the house the moment I walked in.  I guess it could be a ghost, too.

Me: “Chrissa.”
Chrissa: zzzzzzzzzz
Me: “Chrissa!”

Chrissa, opening her eyes as if being awaken from a coma: “Y-y-yeahhh?”

Me: “Who just ran through the kitchen a minute ago?”
Chrissa: “Huh? I don’t know.”
Me: “Chrissa!!”
Chrissa: “It wasn’t me!”

Me: “Who was it, then, the One-Armed Man?”

My innate sense of teenage body language interpretation told me that there was more to this story than she was letting on.

Her mouth begins to pucker and, trying to hold back the smile, says, “OK, it was me, but I was just trying to get something to eat because I haven’t eaten anything today.”

Me: “Then why try to hide? What is going on at school today?”

Chrissa, after much thought, finally confesses that today is the first day of the semester—new teachers, new classes, etc. She was just too nervous to go, though she stays firm on her statement that she was feeling sick.  So, seeing she’s not as sick as she had been, and considering the fact that she had been on the computer and eating regular food, I tell her to get ready and I’d take her to school.

Skreeeeetch! “Oh dad, my stomach is feeling queasy again…” *Cough, cough*.

Uh-huh, sure. I asked her if any of her new classes included Drama. When she said “no”, I said, “Good… you wouldn’t get a very good grade for your acting skills.”

Christmas 2010



New Christmas Pajamas



As I'm sure is true for all of you, it was a hectic few weeks prior to Christmas and, all of a sudden, it was over.  Now what?


We had a great day, though.  All the fun started the night before.  Honestly, it is getting harder and harder to justify the existence of a Santa Claus for our 8-year-old.  He's finding out that some things just don't make any sense.  Nevertheless, thanks to http://www.noradsanta.org/ we were able to keep the magic alive for him for one more year.

Despite this, however, Ethan was still a bit too curious to totally give in.  At three separate intervals Christmas Eve night, as Michelle and I were "preparing" and he was supposed to be in bed asleep, he snuck out of his bed and went downstairs to get a visual on the tree, presents, and stockings to make a mental comparison of how he left them during his previous inspection.  This is one good thing about buying/owning a crappy run-down house... the stairs creaked a little too much during his descents, triggering my senses and alerting me to the fact that we had a rogue child on the loose.

Ethan: "Dad, what happened to the stockings?"

Dad, realizing he took them off the mantle a bit too early: "Ethan, are you crazy? Santa is probably here right now, and you had to nose around and force him to hide! Now, get to bed!"

Ethan: "Lets check the Internet, just to be sure."

So, thanks to the Internet, we were able to determine that Santa was in the Sandwich Islands at the moment, far away from Pennsylvania and not scheduled to be here for another couple of hours.  I had to come up with excuses, fast. 

Dad: "Let me check with mom..."... "oh, she told me that she had to take them down to make sure they were clean and empty for Santa."

Preston was easy to convince, however.  Everything from brushing his teeth to making sure he made his bed to getting him to eat his beans-- each was "encouraged" by making sure Preston knew that I had access to Santa's cell phone number and could call him at any time.

Preston did almost blow it for all of us, though.  In the days leading up to Christmas, he actually was able to sneak into our bedroom during one of our (actually, Michelle does all the wrapping... I am a wrapping idiot) wrapping evenings.  Amberlee followed.  They found everything that Santa was planning to bring to them, all unwrapped and easily accessible.  Amberlee walked out with her stuffed Minnie Mouse, and Preston came down to ask us who the toy pistols were for.

Needless to say, I got in trouble for not watching the kids closer.  I had to defend myself with the question, "Well, why didn't YOU (Michelle) lock the door when you left the bedroom?"  She countered, "Because I'm too short to reach the key on top of the door jamb!"  Touche.

The kicker was Ethan's Christmas list.  He sent 2 letters to Santa the past couple of weeks, the second letter being a revision to the first.  He had only 3 items on it:

1. A Tech Deck mega ramp (these are the miniature skateboards that are the latest craze at his school);
2. A rat-faced nutcracker; and,
3. A boyish nesting doll.

Ey.  Words cannot express my concern for this kid.  While other boys are interested in the latest Wii games, sporting equipment, etc, my kid hopes that the rat-faced nutcracker he expects to receive is a Russian original.  The nesting dolls??  We tried to convince him that these are girlish, hence the inclusion of the adjective "boyish" on his Christmas List.

Defying all odds, however, Santa was able to find a rat-faced nutcracker.  Although he couldn't make the claim that it was a Russian original, it was a limited edition, which saved us from weeks of scrutiny.

The nesting dolls?  I think Santa had to put his foot down on that one.  "Boyish" couldn't bring him to deliver.

Overall, the kids got spoiled, again.  Amberlee got lots of girlie stuff and HAD to try on all clothes she received before she moved on to another present.  Preston-- he got his guns and his Hot Wheels, and he's happy.  Chrissa got iPod / iTunes stuff, DVDs, and so forth.  She's happy. 

Only 364 days till the next one.

National Treasures

Last weekend we made another trip to Washington DC.  Church thing.  We didn't have a whole lot of time, so we drove there (4 hours) and back in the same day.  It was a whirlwind.

But, to break up the day, we took the kids to the Air and Space Museum annex, which is located near Dulles International Airport, before we made the journey home.  The Museum contains all the air and space stuff that the primary museum on the National Mall can't contain.  So it promised to be good

Like all Smithsonian museums, it was free; however, unlike all Smithsonians, our parking fee was $15. 

However, the treasures inside were awesome!  Of particular importance were the following historical aircraft:

1. Space Shuttle Enterprise-- my personal favorite, but it nearly became the victim of a national disaster at the hand of my 2 year old... keep readin'.
2. Enola Gay-- the bomber that ended WWII.  Again, another favorite of mine... its size was incredible.
3. SR-71 Blackbird-- the spy plane of the Cold War.
4. Concord-- the Air France commercial jet that got you from one place to another in supersonic time.

The place also had a mish-mash assortment of odd items... the first flying car, the first helicopter, etc. 

Hundreds of planes, parked on the floor or hanging from the ceiling.  It was amazing that one building could contain them all.

So, back to our adventures with the official prototype of the United States Space Shuttle program.  As you might guess, each plane is fenced off to keep the riff-raff from accessing it.  What the Smithsonians never counted on was the sly maneuvering of small children who see these things as challenges rather than restrictions.  One minute Amberlee was by my side, the next minute she was running underneath the Enterprise... in full view of the crowds with all the spotlights shining on her.  My heart about dropped into my shoes as I gave her the Death Glare and, with a prominent index finger pointing down to my side, insisted that she come back.  It took her a few moments, but I believe the heat radiating from my face convinced her I was serious.

Thankfully, no CIA or FBI guys dropped out of the ceiling at the scene to haul me off to Guantanamo Bay.  But, as you recall from our trip to the Breakers House in Newport Rhode Island, she has a knack for threatening our lives by threatening national treasures.  At the Breakers House, she jumped on Mr. Vanderbilt's patio chair-- a total violation of the rules.  Now, it was the Space Shuttle.

I think her cuteness prevented us from being locked up forever.

Halloween

Halloween was a bit odd this year. We made the decision as a family to go TT’ing on Saturday the 30th rather than Sunday the 31st. The reasons vary, but it all boiled down to religion. And, I’m not talking so much about us being Mormon, either. In Pennsylvania, particularly near Pittsburgh, the religion is football… Steelers football.

While our hometown of Cranberry Township and its neighbors (Wexford, Zelienople, Mars) all elected to hold TT’ing on Sunday (with the caveat on their websites that this date will stick unless riots are started over conflicts with the Steelers game being held the same night), other towns held it on Saturday. So, we picked Saturday.

We drove to locations near Zelienople and Evans City, two nearby towns. At first, I was a bit hesitant about it. I mean, I had been to Evans City, and it isn’t what you’d call a major metropolitan area. It’s a small town—really small. Something like a couple of traffic lights and a population of 2,000 people, all surrounded by farmland. They don’t even have a WAL-MART (GASP)!

However, upon further research, I learned that Evans City was the PERFECT place to go TT’ing. The film “Night of the Living Dead” (the original 1968 version) was filmed in the Evans City cemetery and in nearby houses. Ha! So, go ahead and laugh, y’all… we are trick-or-treating in the very place that ZOMBIES arose from the dead to devour the city’s residents… back in 1968.

So, Amberlee was a witch. Preston was Indiana Jones (complete with fedora hat and a whip that actually made the whipping sound AND played the Indiana Jones theme at the same time). Ethan was a transformer. And Chrissa… well, I’m not sure what she was. She said she was a dragon witch or something to that effect.  She was an eclectic mix of witch, zombie, and bird all wrapped up in one. She covered herself with a feather cape, and when combined with her blackened eyes and lips, I thought she looked more like a dust mop.

 

But, when you looked at our whole bunch, we weren't much like we had intended.  Amberlee wouldn't wear her witch hat.  Preston's fedora hat drooped around the brim, making him look more like Jed Clampett than Indiana Jones.  Ethan's transformer suit made him look like a superhero. 

 

Anyhow, we hit the big houses, and the kids walked away with bags of king sized Snicker's bars, full cans of soda pop, king sized packets of Skittles, etc.  As Ethan quoted during our expedition: "Rich families give out WAY better treats than poor ones!" 

What did we give out?  Small bags of pretzels.  I guess that means we're numbered among the poor.

School Days Are Back!

It is with great pride and pleasure that I announce the return of our kids to all things academic (school). Ethan is now in second grade and Chrissa is now a freshman in high school. Wa-hoo! We are all thrilled.  The Seneca Valley School District opened their doors this past Thursday, Sept 2nd, to allow us parents to offload our kids without going through the guilt of orphanages.

Out comes the Advil for me. Tutoring starts soon, I'm sure, with Geometry and Biology coming down the pipe. Just thinking about it makes my blood pressure rise.

I'll be honest... convincing my teenager that you really can do the math "X + Y" is nothing compared to what I face in Geometry: the Pythagorean Theorum, volume of a pyramid, surface area of a sphere, polygons, congruent angles, pi, corollaries, quadratic equations, etc.

And in biology: the Kreb's Cycle, electron chain transfer, evolution, deoxyribonucleic acids, protozoans, adenosine triphosphate, cell theory, and so forth.

Oh. I'm sick.

The deal with tutoring is-- she gets all the tutoring she needs, and in return, I don't get the teenage "death glare" when I ask her to do the dishes.  Chrissa has perfected the "death glare" to a level that would make Darth Vader jealous.  This arrangement has semi-worked so far, but I'm beginning to feel that I'm getting scammed. 

But, overall, I guess it could be worse. 

Girls Camp

Call me "old fashioned". I don't care. But, I can no longer sit idly aside and let another year go by without commenting on Girl's Camp.

Does anyone realize what is going on down there? Is it the heat? The humidity? Has the sun somehow affected those involved causing them to act like they do?



Girl's Camp. The only comparison I have is Boy's Camp. And, there is a HUGE difference between the two. If you don't believe me, just Google "LDS Girl's Camp" and "LDS Boy's Camp" and see which gets the most hits (my last count was 198,000 to 80,400, respectively).

Last weekend, I travelled the 1 hour and 45 minutes to Donegal PA to pick up Chrissa and 2 other girls for their return trip home. I needed that 1:45 to psych myself up for the return trip, but I also realized that despite this time, it was not going to be enough to prepare me physically and mentally from the teenager onslaught that was about to come my way.

I knew, just by the nature of huge masses of teenage girls in one area, that I was in for it. Add to that the spiritual principles of eternal significance that is attached to every breath and footstep made during the entire ordeal. And, as I entered the campground, I knew I was right. I had, once again, stepped into Pennsylvania's equivalent of the Bermuda Triangle.

Girls slowly came out of the cabins that they had been put up in for the prior 4 days. They looked like liberated concentration campers. Out some of them came in dirty clothes, ragged hair, etc. My truck was like the approaching Allied army.

Before I could say anything, girls started throwing bags and crap into my truck bed, asking me if I would be willing to drive them to the upper camp ground. They didn't want to drag all their belongings to the meeting point. Little choice did I have since the stuff was already loaded up by that point. So, I took the camping gear to the top and waited, and was awarded the title, "Calvary Cade" for arriving in the nick-of-time (calvary meaning the army unit, and nick-of-time meaning that the girls were ready to start a mutiny at any given second prior to my arrival).

There were dozens of girls, and the aire of estrogen was heavy. I KNEW that there had been hours of back-biting and accusations, cold shoulders and silent treatments, harassments and scandalizing, gossipping and scoffing, rumormongoring and insinuating. The battle wounds on their faces told a week-long story of an experience only teenaged girls can have when held up in leaky cabins for 4 days without cell phone coverage.

As if on cue, as we started our journey back home, a recanting of the weeks events ensued. First up: who was the most stuck-up girl there. After a short debate, a girl had been chosen. Second, a listing of the girls who HAD to have make-up while at camp, and how ridiculous those girls were. Third, the drama (they called it "togetherness") that resulted from the testimony meeting-- the only point in the week where you can catch all girls crying at the same time, but probably would not find the same group of girls even looking at each other at any other point during the camping trip. Fourth, which hair conditioner at camp was actually better for your facial pores. And fifth, which girl was missing her boyfriend's text messages the most (little to no cell phone coverage in the area) and how 4 days of crying as a result would affect their relationship.

There were the ants-- they happened to find their way into the food bags, sleeping bags, and hair of sleeping girls throughout the night. Then there were the mice-- same thing (not in the hair, of course, but I'm not totally convinced this didn't happen after seeing the girls emerge from their cabin coccoons when I arrived). And the bats and racoons. Sadly, the prayers to "subdue" the creatures didn't get answered, at least not in the way they had all hoped for.

How does this all compare to my experiences at boys camp? Well, for starters, ants had 3 functions-- they sizzled when thrown into the campfire; they helped you pass the "Wilderness Survival" merit badge by giving you an easy and convenient way to "eat off the land" (i.e., putting them in your pancake batter); or 3) they made good practical joke props by putting them in someone else's pancake batter. Mice-- they were fun to catch and put on a hot dog stick OR encouraging them to get inside other guy's tents when they weren't there. Interpersonal conflicts? We just found one person to vent on, sparing the rest of the group. That one person received the brunt of it all, sparing the rest of the team from a weeklong battle of hormones (we called it "natural selection"). No accusations, no insinuations, no backbiting. We didn't shower, either, so we could have cared less what hair conditioner was better for our pores.

In the end, all the boys were great friends when we left, aside from the scapegoat.

So, for future reference, if you are ever caught being asked to help out in some way at an LDS girls camp, you have been forewarned. Be careful!