new post for a new day

I'm just kind of sick of seeing the 9/11 post as my last one up, so this is totally random.  Today I'm so thankful for a gorgeous day of sunny sky, puffy clouds, perfect temperature, (made even more perfect by the fact that it rains every evening and makes the next day clean and fresh,)  and a morning at the ranch.  I was able to go feed horses this morning and do some mucking.  Both of which, are chores that I love doing.  Forget the dishes and the bathrooms at home.  Feed and clean up after a horse, is what I say.

Morning feeding at a barn is just one of my favorite things when I get to do it.  The air and the horses are fresh, the hay smells divine, and the sounds of soft noses nudging the hay around and munching on it in the otherwise quiet surroundings does a lot to sooth the mind.  (This being said, I am frequently just as grateful that I don't have my own horses to feed - every single day - no matter the weather or occasion.  In this regard I am ever so lucky to get to do it as a treat and not a daily, unforgiving, obligation.)  I also got to randomly chat for a lengthy time while mucking with my friend, Michelle, one of the nicest people on the planet.  She was sure nice to share her horses and morning jobs with me!

I took no pictures this morning, but I have a few leftovers from the girls' last day riding Coco at the ranch this summer that should suffice.  I mean, really, can we EVER get enough pictures of little blond girls on horses?  I think not.

9/11/01 - 11

Everyone says 9/11 is like the Kennedy Assassination.  Everyone remembers where they were, and who told them first.

Since 10 years ago was pre-blogging world for me, and I didn't keep a great journal at the time, I thought I'd write about it here so my kids know what I was doing that day.  Because, I do still remember some of the details as clearly as if I had seen them this morning.

10 years ago, I was starting my 4th year of teaching at Olympus high school?  Something like that.  I had just returned from Kenya with a favorite group of students.  Our flight there was very unmonitored.  We walked straight into the airport for an international flight without any real security check.  Parents brought their kids right to the gate and saw us off.  I remember boarding the flight home in Nairobi.  A Muslim woman boarded the flight with us in a full burqa.  You could only see her eyes and her heavy, billowing, black fabric covered her completely to the floor.  No one stopped her.  I actually remember thinking - that could be a guy with guns underneath the outer clothing and no one would know.  The thought only came to me because I have watched too many movies.  It didn't matter to me that she was dressed in Muslim clothing, it could have been any kind of clothing.  The point was that just that she was completely concealed under a huge piece of fabric and she could have been carrying ANYTHING under there.   As it turns out, she was simply a very orthodox Muslim woman who was flying to Amsterdam.  No biggie.

Fast forward to the second week of school.  I'm just setting up my classes, I have THE most annoying and incompetent student teacher assigned to me.  I start the morning with my favorite AP chemistry class.  A sweet, smart, blond boy (why can't I remember his name?! I remember his face, framed in the classroom door) comes in, just a hair under late, to AP chem and gasps out of breath "someone just hit the world trade center with a plane!"  I have no idea what this really means.  I'm thinking some little private 2 seater plane has lost its way and tragically ended by bumping into the world trade center.  I've seen that (those) building(s) in person and I'm pretty sure that plane vs. building = building wins.  I really don't think much of it, except we'll hear the details later on the news maybe.  My student was pretty animated though and thought it was much more.  I brushed it off in the interest of starting class.  In AP Chem, you can't lose 5 minutes of the year.  Every second counts.  Don't these kids get that?!   Some rich guy wrecked his plane... I just got back from Kenya, I have more perspective than that...

We plodded through the first period of the day.  Sometime during that period, or maybe the next, I walk into the library to make some copies.  Someone in there has the TV on and as I pass by, I see two burning towers with "debris" falling from the top.  As I would find out later, those were people jumping from the tops of the towers.  I'm momentarily disturbed and shocked.  I can't really process it in the 2 minutes I have in the library before someone burns down my lab next door, so I hurry back to class.  The next class comes in BEGGING me to turn on the TV.  I hear other classes doing the same thing, so I decide to follow suit for a few minutes.  More footage of the most unreal scene unfolding.  It was then I fully realized we were watching people die on live TV.   I decide that it shouldn't be up to me to allow impressionable and emotional kids to watch something so completely disturbing that I can't explain.  So, I opt to turn it off and go about business as usual.  My seriously annoying student teacher is all about living in the moment and thinks we should soak it all in.  I tell him to shut it.  I'm really wondering how we're going to get through the rest of the school day with this going on.  No one really knows what is happening, we just know it is B-A-D.

Soon after this, someone calls in a bomb threat to the school.  Lovely.  All the crazies are on the payroll today.  We evacuate the building and kids start calling parents on cell phones and as we sit on the lawn outside the school (for a very long time while bomb squads start rolling in), we get the real details of what is going on in New York.  It starts to turn into a pretty chaotic scene of hormonal, emotional high school kids trying to process such a huge event while at the same time feeling unsafe in their own school 2000 miles away from it.  Luckily, the principal decides to use his brain and actually sends everyone home for the day.  Of course, with the rest of the country, we all spend the rest of the night, the rest of the week glued to the TV watching the footage over and over in a stunned silence.  We can't believe that actually happened.

Fast forward 10 years.  My kids weren't even born when it happened.  Other kids I know were only toddlers and don't remember.  They have no idea why we have to be nearly stripped naked at the airport, take off our shoes, place our DVD players with disney videos in a separate tray, put our shampoo in miniature bottles, throw away our WATER, beg the security guard to please let us take the medicine and juice for the baby, leave the nail clippers at home, get to the airport 2 hours early, and say good-bye to the loved one dropping us off at the airport in the middle of traffic because they can only pause the car long enough to throw our bags out of the back of the car onto the sidewalk.

The wars in Iraq and Afghanistan have been going for Grace's entire life.  She has not lived on the Earth without those things, neither has Harriet.  What a world we live in.  Not that it was anywhere perfect before, but it has seriously changed, and tiny shampoo bottles at the airport are the very least of it.

Jessica's Wedding

My baby sister, Jessica, got hitched a couple weekends ago.  I was extremely excited she decided to have the wedding in Salt Lake so that I could go for sure.  But, her choice of date meant we couldn't make a very long trip out of it - the kids had just started school and Harriet was only a day into kindergarten.  She also got married the day before our 14th anniversary!  Must be a good wedding weekend.  So, we decided to fly out of Albuquerque right when school got out on Friday and fly home Sunday morning.  It meant we were only there for exactly the wedding.  Still, I am so grateful for this short, but important time with my family.  It was the first time that ALL of my family members have been in the same place since Harriet was born, and we were minus Kate then.  Can't wait to see that family picture!

The weekend, was of course, a whirlwind of activity.  Jessica and Nick just bought a house in Salt Lake this spring, and decided to design their untouched yard for the purpose of hosting their own wedding.  I saw it in June as a huge pile of dirt.  I cannot believe what they were able to do this summer to transform it into a beautiful and magical setting.  I also can't believe they were so ambitious as to host their own wedding and reception, but they pulled it off very well.  They hosted everyone for a rehearsal dinner as we got into town on Friday night.  Then, we all went back Saturday morning to help decorate.  The yard was really so incredible, it only needed a few accents here and there to make it perfect.

 

We all did get our hair professionally done at cousin Lauren's salon.  Those girls did a great job and we were so grateful for all the back-combing and pound of hairspray when thunderstorms ripped through the wedding just as the ceremony ended and we were supposed to have pictures.  

A little lipstick from the bride for the flower girl.  I think Harriet is one of the only people who saw Jess before the ceremony.  She was very serious about no one seeing her, even before she had her dress on.  

Jessica's choice of dresses also held up extremely well in the rain and when the sun (and a huge, full, rainbow) finally came out, we all still looked great!  I can't wait to see the professional photos.  Melissa and Randy also took some great shots that I need to get my hands on.  

Jessica's taste is impeccable.  The colors, dresses, and flowers she chose were all just gorgeous.  It was a rare moment for me to see Grace completely dressed up with her hair done.  She did it without complaining and said it was her wedding gift to Aunt Jess, to wear and do whatever she asked.  She was grateful, though, that Jessica chose dresses without lace and frills and bows.  Harriet was more than delighted to be a flower girl and dress up like a princess to toss flower petals down the aisle.

The flower girls:  Harriet, Kate, Grace

Jessica and Nick with flower girls, and ring bearer, Sean.

Bridesmaids:  Jessica's sisters (Emily, Me, Melissa), and Nick's sisters (Mackenzie and Missy)

Bridesmaids and Groomsmen:  I was actually pretty grateful to hang onto one of these guys as I walked down the aisle and nearly killed myself in my heels on the runner on the lawn.  There's a reason I don't wear heels 99% of the time.

The happy bride:  I really don't know if I've ever seen Jess look as happy and gorgeous as she did on her wedding day.  She was the perfect bride.

She had these darling red shoes on under her dress.  Love this photo of her sitting in the middle of her pond.

Beautiful girls with their Daddy

So happy I get to claim these as mine.

A few more random pics:

Father of the Bride - I think this was the second time he took off his tux.  Love my Dad.

Cake Time:

(check out the groom's cake - a motocross key lime pie because Nick is way into motorcycles and doesn't like cake)

 I've never had to cut into someone's wedding cake, but I ended up with the job of tearing this gorgeous thing apart so that everyone could have a taste.  We figured out the red velvet was on the bottom, so we just had to keep cutting!  (no wonder they took that corner piece.)

First Dance

 Mom and Grandma at the end of the night.

I have never given a toast at a wedding, but ended up being the family representative when toasting time came around.  That was kind of cool.  I do wish them all the happiness life can hold.

I just feel incredibly lucky to have such an awesome family complete with great sisters, parents, and grandparents and all the others in-between.  I'm so glad we were all able to go and be there on this special day.  Welcome to the family Nick.