This one takes the cake!

Conversation with Daniel upon returning home from school recently:

Daniel: I don't know why, but I suddenly have this strong desire to make a cake.

Cheryl: Whatever. As your mom, I'm never going to tell you 'no' to making a cake. You figure it out.

An hour or so later he was busily making a yellow cake from scratch while I was tutoring math. "Keep up the good work, son."

Next time I checked, he was in the middle of a masterpiece. It's always grandiose with Daniel - there's not much middle ground. So, here is the final product. And it tasted as good as it looked. As a cake-baking mother I am beaming with pride! As the baker, Daniel says he already knows how to improve it, and he'll be trying again soon. Can't wait!

Have you ever wanted to go to Kanosh? Yes!!

We recently went to my mom's to help her move into her new house (Hooray!). On our way home, traveling north on I-15, Dale said, "Have you ever wanted to just get off the interstate and go see what Kanosh is like?" I replied, "Yes! I think about it every time we drive up and down this same route." I added that I've always wanted to take the Lamb's Canyon exit on the way to Parley's Summit. The point is that we drive the same route over and over, but we rarely get off that route to see what else is out there. With that conversation as the impetus, we've decided to "go see Kanosh" and other places like it throughout this year.

As luck would have it, the next weekend was a three day weekend and the perfect opportunity to begin our quest. So, on a snowy Monday morning, we loaded up the kids and headed west!

The plan was to start our day at Lehi Bakery (home of the legendary square donuts). Obviously we did not know that Lehi Bakery is closed every Monday!

That's okay, Smith's in Saratoga Springs sells donut holes - crisis averted!

The drive took us past Eagle Mountain to Cedar Fort and Fairfield (cool old school building).

Through Faust and on to Vernon. Dale remembered stopping at small convenience store/diner 25 years ago on the way to fight a forest fire. Wow, it's still there!

What a great place -- convenience store snacks and everything to field dress a deer all in one place. But that's not all, there's still a diner there too.

Sadly, we're still full from the donut holes! The nice ladies there let Cheyenne pet the search and rescue dogs, and they direct us to a nearby quarry to collect Vernon wonder stones. The kids loved it.


Next we toured the big towns of Eureka, Genola, and Goshen as we we approached our lunch destination of Santaquin. We'd heard good things about the scones at The Family Tree restaurant. Good things - but we were not aware the scones are about 18" long and 4-5" wide. We'd go again, but we'd probably order half as much food.

For a half day tour, a good time was had by all, and small town Utah is a little less mysterious. We can't wait for our next excursion -- we welcome recommendations!

2010 Already

Thanks for all the comments on that last post. It was a pretty full year. Now, here we are in 2010, and it's already held a lot.

The year began with some new things and there are plenty more to come.

New Jobs!

Dale started a new job on the first Monday of the year. He's now working for LanDesk in South Jordan. He's excited for the job as he hopes to be able to work with user interface issues which he really enjoys. He's working with some people he's worked with before (that happens a lot in this industry) and he has a nice window by his desk! It's been a bummer of a change to give up the excitement, diversity, and flexibility of the Noah's job (aka the dream job), but I guess it just wasn't meant to be. At least it wasn't for a lack of hard work, loyalty, and dedication on his part. Thanks, Dale, for all you did there, for taking the chance and enjoying it. And thanks for going out and being a valuable enough asset to be snatched up quickly for a new job. Your wife and family appreciate it tons!!!

Cheryl also started a new job. As if I weren't busy enough, I agreed to take a small part time job with good friend Syd. In addition to her real job running a business doing Public Information work for major construction projects, she uses her engineering skills to run a non-profit organization to help rural water users in Utah. I'll be helping her do some work to administer grant money she has gotten for the users. I've been involved for about two weeks now, and I already know more about rural water issues than any stay at home mom ever should. I've also participated in enough meetings to know that the Federal Government has issues. If you want an earful just ask me about my meeting last week. It was excruciatingly painful, and there was a running soundtrack in my head saying, "And you want to run health care?????" Arghh! But I digress. I don't plan to spend a ton of time, but it'll be fun to get out a little bit and awesome to work with my good friend Syd!

New House

After a couple of years of working on it, my mom has finally moved into a new house. Thanks to my sister and her husband and their investment, my mom can finally live in a bigger, safer, more comfortable place. Thanks, Cathy, for enduring the process and taking such good care of her. We all had our chance to go down and help move her in. I hope it brings years and years of comfort and joy.

Sad News

The new year has already brought sad news. Those of you who've read my blog for a while will remember me writing about my friend with the brain tumor. After a diagnosis of a second tumor in November of 2009, my friend Evan passed away on January 16, 2010. He was mere 41 years old. I am so happy for him to be able to be free from the bonds of his imperfect body. And I'm equally sad for his sweet wife and children who will miss him terribly. At times like this I am so grateful to know we have a Father in Heaven who loves us and will provide comfort and peace in even the most inexplicable situations. I know He has already done so for this young family. I'm also grateful to know that none of us was sent here to do it alone. I love the acts of kindness I've seen in the last week. I live in an amazing place with awesome neighbors.

Looking Ahead

Of course, I can't accurately predict the future. I've never been good at that, but there are a few things that I'm fairly certain really will happen this year. Daniel will start tenth grade at the high school!!! I'm a little freaked out by that. I'm similarly -- no, more freaked out by the idea of him getting his learner's permit for driving. I'm so afraid he won't notice that there are other people on the road with him.

I'm sure we'll travel somewhere, but it may just be to another small town or two in Utah. I hear Koosharem is beautiful! If I'm really lucky, I'll keep working on my 50 state goal. And for those who are wondering, the six that are left are: Delaware (somehow I missed it while hitting the rest of the east coast), Wisconsin, Minnesota, North Dakota, South Dakota, and the ever-elusive Hawaii. Wish me well.

2009 in Review

It's nearly the end of January, 2010. I'm pretty sure I've just blinked since the end of 2009. Can time really be passing that quickly????? I remember as a kid calculating how old I would be at the turn of the century. I would be 35! That seemed absolutely ancient. Is it even possible that it's now ten years beyond that mark, and I'll be 45 this year? Say it isn't so!

So, since my brain cells are now dying at a more rapid rate, I feel the need to do a brief recap of 2009, for myself and my posterity! You can read along if you'd like as I make a short record of what turned out to be a banner year.

I got in some serious entertainment: We went sledding at my sister's cabin, I went cross country skiing all over the Wasatch Front, and I hiked to the 'Y' in Provo with my kids. I saw my kids perform in music performances, band performances, and horseback riding. I saw plays (including 'Wicked' in San Francisco), movies, and improv comedians (one of my new favorite entertainment forms).

I spent some awesome time with family: We had fun times at Colleen's cabin. We had Easter in Beaver Dam with Dale's mom. We had multiple extended visits from my cousin Mike and his family. We had the first annual Non-funeral, Non-wedding, Female Family Reunion with all the women on my dad's side of the family. We spent a week in Alaska with Angie and family. We celebrated the 24th of July in Kamas with sisters and friends at a barbecue and the demolition derby. We celebrated the births of babies to my my nieces Meagan and Jessica. We saw Mom and Lucky every couple of months for some family event or another. We spent Thanksgiving in Vernal with Wendy. We had another Wilde Christmas party where LuDean was the queen of all Wallyball at age 74! We got invited to Cathy's annual fondue dinner (wow!). And we ended the year with my nephew Dallin's wedding. In the course of the year I saw nearly every relative I have. That's awesome!

I had a healthy dose of good, clean, Wilde family fun: We got way too much enjoyment from the "evil" doll and her varied appearances. (Can't wait to see what this year brings.) We blew up a chocolate bunny and a cake with firecrackers. We loved Daniel's fireworks spectacular. We used our microscope. We tested the flammability of snack foods. I enjoyed inventions ranging from a go-cart made from a handtruck to swords made from pool noodles and duct tape. My life is awesome that way!

Parties were had: We had our second annual Harvest celebration with bread galore! I celebrated my 44th at Noah's with friends as we pretended we weren't in our 40's, and we jammed on Rock Band (I was really bad at it, but I enjoyed the company). Cheyenne had a Lady and the Tramp party for her 10th. The whole family partied it up at the Harry Potter Halloween party (a potential repeat event awaits us in 2010).

I hit numbers 43 and 44 in my quest to visit the 50 states: Our family visited Alaska (#43) in July for the trip of a lifetime. Dale and I visited Texas (#44) for the BYU-Oklahoma football season opener (super fun). Just 6 more to go!

California made some money off us: Our family took an awesome trip to Disneyland in February how I wish we could do it again right about now! Dale and Daniel spent a week on Catalina Island in June at a super fun scout camp. Cheryl spent 3 days in San Francisco in November enjoying the city, the food, her friend's company, and the play "Wicked."

Daniel made some money: Daniel started and ran a successful bread-baking business now known as Saturdough. We look forward to a successful year two of business.

2009 held a lot. Here's looking to 2010 for more travel, more fun, more bread, more friends, more family, more blogging!!

I am a binge blogger

I've decided I am a binge blogger. It seems that I go for days or weeks just busily living my life, then all of the sudden I realize I haven't blogged in a very long time and I set out to catch up. I'm feeling a bit like that right now. My head is full of all the unwritten blogs, the experiences I want to share, and the memories I want to record in some small way. I hope I can do them all justice over the next few days.

I thank the rest of you who are much more consistent bloggers for keeping me updated regularly. I enjoy knowing what's up with my family and friends. You inspire me, you make me smile, you help me stay in touch. Thanks!

And, finally, for this brief blog entry, let me share a thought that was shared with me today. I was introduced to a website called despair.com. Their business is to sell demotivational products. They saw a market for anti-motivational posters, and they jumped on it. Some of them were kind of harsh, but several of them really made me laugh. But one of them said this:

Blogging: Never before have so many people with so little to say said so much to so few

It made me laugh, but fortunately, I don't quite feel that way. I just wanted to share it in case it made you laugh too! I'll be seeing you soon in my little corner of the blogosphere.