900 And Counting

IT'S TRUE!  This very post right here in front you you is....drum roll please....My 900th post!  Get outta town Charlie Brown!!!  I started this humble blog on December 10th, 2006 as a way to show all of our out of state family pictures of Addison after she was born.  At the time, I had no idea what a blog was.  And here we sit, 900 posts later.  I think I pretty much have the whole blog thing figured out now.

The following are just a few ways my blog has change my life and the lives of those around me.  First, it has become a huge part of our family history.  There have been so many times I have had a question about something or needed to know the date of a certain event or details that I had long ago forgotten.  This blog has come in handy many many times for this.  Like that one time when I celebrated Addy's birthday on the wrong date and couldn't remember the correct one.  A fact my children still like to bring up.  On a regular basis.  If it wasn't for this dang blog, they probably would have forgotten that by now.

I hear this on a regular basis, "MOM!  Take a picture of me doing this and then do a blog post about it.  You can call it...."

My family hears this on a regular basis, "WAIT!  No one move.  I have to get my camera so I can do a blog post!"

My friends regularly say this, "This better NOT end up on your blog!"

This blog is a fact checker.  Just the other day Zac and I were having an argument about the way something happened.  I very smartly said to him, "You are wrong and I can prove it because I did a blog post about it!"  Turns out..I was the one who was wrong.  But that is totally beside the point.

Small day to day pieces of our lives that would totally have been forgotten are now recorded.  In black and white.  For all the world to see.  And just how many of you have seen it?  Since I started keeping stats on my blog, which was about 4 months after my first post, I have had 39,544 visits.  And 4,418 of those have been unique visitors.  I don't even think I know close to 4,418 people!  So that would leave me to wonder...WHO ARE YOU AND WHAT ARE YOU DOING HERE???

A while back, Blogger started keeping track of how many views each post gets.  You wanna know which post of mine has received the most views, by a long shot?  "The Night I Went Belly Dancing".  Really people?  Really.  That post wasn't as exciting as you thought it would be, now was it?

To celebrate this great feat of 900 posts, here are some links to some memorable posts over the years:

The one where I went to Walgreens: The Walgreens Chronicles 

The one where I swore a lot: Mind Your Own D*** Business

The one with the mouse in the house: Warning: Don't Pee In The Dark

The one with the best vacation ever: What I Did On My Summer Vacation

The one with the grumpy old man: The Psychological Effects of the Duck Hunt on a Slightly Crazy Lady

900 posts and counting!  900 posts and counting...

End Of School Festivities

In May I had the opportunity to go with Emily on one of her last field trips in Elementary School.  We went to This Is The Place Heritage Park to do a service project.  It was a lovely experience.  We woke up that morning to a day that looked like it was sure to bring rain.  I wondered if they would cancel the trip since we were going to be outside staining fences.  They did not cancel the field trip.  When it started raining, I thought for sure they would come up with something else for us to do rather than stand out in the pouring rain and stain fences.  They did not.  When I say pouring rain, it really was pouring.  Usually when it rains in Utah, it just drizzles and it doesn't last long at all.  This was a full on rain.  And it lasted a long time.  The whole time we were there in fact.  I was so thankful when they called it quits about an hour before we were supposed to be done.  I really don't think I could have stood out in that freezing rain for one more minute.  It was a wonderful growing experience. 

Aubrey had an end of the year performance for 2nd Grade.  She had a big dance part for which she had to go to school early one day every week for several weeks to practice.  She had so much fun practicing this dance.  She did a fantastic job.

The 6th graders had their annual Softball game against the teachers.  Although because we live in a most ridiculous society, this year they changed it from softball to kickball so no one would get hurt.  Addy and I went to watch Emily play in the game.  She did a great job and got two teachers out and ran home twice.

That same day was Aubrey's field day.

Aubrey and her friends doing synchronized hand stands.

 June 1st, The Last Day of School!  Zac skipped his last day and stayed home and slept in.

 Emily graduated from 6th grade!

Emily and her BFFs.  This is such a cute group of girls.

Emily left school early after graduation so Aubrey was my only child at the School Closing Flag Ceremony.  Here she is with her teacher Mrs. Jessen.

After school our neighbors had a fun School's Out party.  We all went and had a blast.  

That night all the kids went to various other School's Out parties.  We are excited for summer! 

(which I cannot believe is almost 1/3 of the way over now!)

Weekend Visitors

My cousin Kathy came into town from Dallas on Saturday.  She and her family stayed with us for two nights before they left this morning to go to Yellowstone.  We enjoyed having them here.  My Great Aunt Verdene came up for dinner last night and brought with her Uncle Fred's Famous Carrot Cake.  It was delicious.  Our friend Kami, who also happens to be my mom's neighbor, and her boys also came for dinner.  Kami's husband just left a few weeks ago for a tour in Afghanistan.  We had a fun evening with everyone.

 The kids all had some wild fun together

The boys built a fort in the game room.

 We had quite the war going on in our house.  The ping pong paddles didn't make very good weapons.

 They finally took the battle outside where it belonged.

 I went outside to take some pictures of the kids and I slipped on Steve's shoes 

that were right by the back door.  I think they set off my skirt rather nicely.

 Ahhh...just as the sun was beginning to set the children called a truce 

and love and peace were once again found in all the land.

Our Latest Addiction

On Monday we had Family Home Evening with my mom and sister Lauren.  My mom taught the lesson and she taught us all about her latest hobby, Indexing.  Indexing is where you look at old records and enter the information found on them into the FamilySearch data base.  This helps people who are looking for their Family History and information on their ancestors.  Right now the FamilySearch indexing department is working on entering the information on the 1940 US Census.

Entering the information is easy.  You can do it whenever you want, and for however long you want.  If you only have 5 minutes to spare, you can do it for just 5 minutes.  If you have a record that is too hard for you to read or understand, you can just send it back and get a new one.  The way it works is they send you a "batch" of records to work on.  Each batch has two separate people working on entering the same information.  Once those two people send in their completed batch, an arbitrator looks through and finds any differences in the two entries of that same batch and if there are any differences the arbitrator looks at the record and decides which entry is correct.  That is the entry that is submitted to the FamilySearch data base.

So my three oldest kids all now have their own account to do Indexing on the FamilySearch website.  It only took a few minutes to sign them up and get them started.  THEY LOVE IT!  THEY ARE ADDICTED!  And I can't think of a better addiction for them to have.  Yesterday Emily and Addy and I went to the park and Aubrey opted to stay home so she could what?  Yeah.  So she could index!  When Emily got home from Summer Band yesterday, the first thing she did?  She logged on and started indexing!  Even busy Steve who has no spare time, was indexing!  It really is addicting.

There was recently an article in The New Era (our church magazine for teenagers) on Indexing.  My mom used that article to teach her Family Home Evening lesson.  In the article it lists 8 different reason for youth to get involved in Indexing, then it expounds on the reason.  To read the whole article, click here.  Here are the reasons they listed:

1 Because these aren’t just names; they’re people.

2 Because it feels great.

3 Because you’re a perfect fit.

4 Because it fits your schedule.

5 Because it’s not just for older generations.

6 Because technologies have been invented for this work.

7 Because it protects you from the influence of Satan.

8 Because prophets have invited you to do so.

Here is a quote to the youth from David A. Bednar of the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles:

"As you respond in faith to this invitation, your hearts shall turn to the fathers. The promises made to Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob will be implanted in your hearts. Your patriarchal blessing, with its declaration of lineage, will link you to these fathers and be more meaningful to you. Your love and gratitude for your ancestors will increase. Your testimony of and conversion to the Savior will become deep and abiding. And I promise you will be protected against the intensifying influence of the adversary. As you participate in and love this holy work, you will be safeguarded in your youth and throughout your lives."

What a fantastic promise to youth in this day and age!


Anyone can do Indexing!  My 9 year old can do it and she loves it!  You don't have to be a member of our church to do it.  Anyone can sign up and get started.  There is even an app for it.  Click here for more info on that.


To sign up and get started, click here.  If you have an LDS.org account, you can log in using that log in and password.


To find information about your ancestors, check out the FamilySearch website by clicking here.


For the Family History Youth website click here.

Summer Fun And Painting? Those Two Things Just Don't Seem To Go Together To Me.

It's back!  I'm back!  Life has been moving at a million miles an hour around here.  No time to do about 1/3 of the things I need to do.  And when that happens blogging gets moved way down at the bottom of the list.  But I'm going to try and do better.  

So if you have been around these parts (my blog) for a while, you know I do a summer fun chart every week in the summer.  I actually had decided NOT to do a chart this summer.  I kinda get on my nerves a little bit and I thought that maybe we should try a summer without a chart.  I don't know.  I just like to have everything planned out.  I like to know what to expect.  I like everything to be in order.  Which is kinda funny to think about if you've seen my house any time in the last year.  But anyhoo.  I just thought maybe I should try and be a little less rigid and a little more spontaneous with our summer this year.  But when I mentioned it to my children, they got upset.  It would seem that, with the exception of Zac, my children really like my summer fun chart.  Still, I went the first two weeks without one.  That was about as much unstructured spontaneity I could handle.  I woke up yesterday morning and whipped up a chart.  And I tweaked our summer chore charts.  So we are all armed and ready to have a little order going on now.

I know.  This chart does not look like much fun.  I mean- clean up rooms?  Paint?  Paint?  And more paint?  I know.  It doesn't sound much fun to me either.  This is the deal.  Pickle.  We have lived in this house for 3 1/2 years.  And we have yet to actually decorate it.  When we were building and picked out paint color, we painted pretty much every room the same color, with the exception of a few colors.  You see, we had to pay extra every time we changed a color.  And by that time we were plum outta money.  I promised the girls we would paint their rooms a different color after we moved in (because I just love painting so much).  And, well, here we are, 3 1/2 years later and their bedrooms are still the same boring color as the rest of the house.  With the exception of Aubrey's room.  Two summers ago I did have a plan for painting and we started with her room.  That is also where we ended.

So why now, you ask?  And why are you trying to kill yourself and make all your kids hate you by painting everything in a week?  Well.  Those are very good questions.  The answer is this.  One - I just wanna get it done and over with.  I don't want to drag it out all summer long.  We can have one awful painting week and get it over with and enjoy the rest of the summer.  And Two - "Schmid Hotel" will be opening it's doors in just a few weeks and I would really like to have the rooms done and decent looking by that time.

Next month is going to be a fun month for us.  We are going to have 3 sets of company over a 3 week period.  And for 2 of those weeks, we will have a little company on top of company (our nephew is coming to stay with us for 2 weeks and work with Steve).  So you see, it just needs to be done.  And it needs to be done now.  

Aside from the two reasons I said I wanted to paint, I also feel the need to put my home in order.  And if a promise of paint and a decorated room will help the kids to clean up their rooms and get rid of about 1/2 the stuff in them, well then, so be it.  I don't know if we are actually going to be able to get all those things on  the chart done this week.  We are already a little behind because we didn't have anytime to finalize room ideas and paint colors yesterday.  And we should already be on our way to the store to buy paint this morning and all the kids are still in bed and I still in my pjs.  But!  Em's room is clean!  And that, my friends, is a pretty big feat in and of itself.

So!  Wish me luck!  It will be a busy, crazy week here. I'm just hoping we can hunker down and get it all done so our next week's summer fun chart can have a little more fun in it.

Flashback/Flashforward Friday - EFY

Flashback: Summer 1988  My First EFY

 Austin Texas

Flashforward: Summer 2012 Zac's First EFY

Ogden Utah

Zac has been at EFY all week.  I have been so excited for him because I know how much fun he is having.  EFY memories are some of my most favorite memories ever.  He went with his friend Garrett to the Stay At Home EFY in Ogden.  I had no idea there was such a thing as a Stay At Home EFY until I started looking into registering Zac to go.  Basically it is the same program with all the same activities only they don't stay overnight at the dorms.  All the kids go home late at night and come back early the next morning.  And it is about 1/3 of the price of the overnight EFY.  

Garrett's mom has been taking them every morning and I have been picking them up every night.  I was so excited to pick them up the first night.  I was looking forward to hearing all about their fantastically fabulous day.  Yeah.  That didn't happen.  They would not give me any details, other than "It was fun".  They wouldn't even tell me what they ate for their meals.  I told them that if they were girls they would be going on and on and on about everything they did and all the cute boys they met and blah, blah, blah.  They said they weren't girls.  I asked them if they could pretend to be girls for 5 minutes and give me some details.  Steve was relieved when I told him they said no, they couldn't pretend to be girls.  Not even for 5 minutes.

This is their last night at EFY.  They are at their 2nd dance of the week right now.  They both did tell me they were very excited for the dance tonight.  I am so glad that Zac was able to have this opportunity to go to EFY.  I know what EFY did for me and my Testimony of the Gospel of Jesus Christ.  From listening to the few  tidbits Zac has provided me with, I know that his Testimony is being strengthened as well.  I am so grateful for my dear parents who I know must have sacrificed to send me to EFY for 4 years (no Stay At Home in Texas).  Even during those years when they had multiple children attending.

Oh, and PS: There is no need to comment on the bang situation in the first picture.  I am well aware.

Sandaversary

Do you  know what I was doing 17 years ago today?  A lot of you were with me on that day.  But there is only one person that was with me that really matters.  Not that I'm saying none of the rest of you matter, because you do.  But on that day, my wedding day, the day I became Mrs. Stephen Schmid, he was really the only one that mattered.  There are things about that day that I look back on and just laugh at.  Like the one thing I gave my aunt to give to Steve to hold.  And she didn't want to give it to him so she gave it to my dad and my dad gave it to Steve and then later Steve was like, "Why did your dad just give this to me?"  Hey, desperate times called for desperate measures.  I also laugh at my crying sobbing breakdown I had just a few hours before the wedding when the bouquets were delivered and my bridal bouquet was the ugliest thing I had ever seen.  Ever. Everyone was trying to calm me down and tell me it wasn't ugly.  And I was a hysterical mess.  Ahhh...thankfully my dad was able to call the florist and, I don't know what he said, but they had a beautiful bouquet there real fast like.  Looking back now I see how silly that was and how really, in the grand scheme of things, it really didn't matter what my bouquet looked like.  I would have married the man even if I did have to do it while holding that hideous thing.

So yesterday Steve was at work and he and I exchanged some texts.  This is how they went:

Steve: I would like to take Emily on a daddy/daughter date to a movie at 4:10 to celebrate her graduation from 6th grade.  Is that OK? 

Me: Yes.  Although I'm sure what you meant to say is Darling, can I take you out on a hot date tonight to celebrate 17 years of wedded bliss? 

Steve: I would like to take you out to celebrate 17 years of wedded bliss.  After the 4:10 movie... 

Me: Yeah, yeah, yeah...

So after the 4:10 movie, Steve and I got ready for our hot date.  He was in his closet getting dressed and I was in my closet getting dressed.  He saw me and said, "Are you really going to wear a dress?"  and I said, "This isn't really a dress.  It's just a long thing with leggings under it."  (That is important later in the story)

So we went out for dinner at the Sonora Grill.  The food was fabulous and the floors were even better (care of Mr. Stephen Schmid).  After dinner he asked what I wanted to do next.  I was going to be teaching the lesson in Relief Society the next day and I was going to be doing this object lesson.  I needed sand and I, at one point in the not too distant past, had a bag of sand in the garage.  But after searching in the hot garage several times over the course of the day, I could not find it.  So when the old man asked me what I wanted to do next, I told him I wanted to go to Walmart to buy some sand (that is where I had bought the elusive bag before) and I had a few other things I needed to get.  He sighed and said, "Well, an anniversary wouldn't be an anniversary without a trip to Walmart, now, would it?"

So we went to Walmart.  And much to my chagrin, there was no sand to be found.  We got the other stuff we needed, and as I was freaking out about the lack of sand Steve said we could go to Home Depot and get some.  I asked if they were still open and he said that they were going to be closing in 12 minutes.  I looked at him and said, "OK! We gotta get the heck outta here and book it over to Home Depot in under 12 minutes!"  So we started moving through that store with a purpose.  We hurriedly made our way to the front to find 50 million people in line and only a handful of registers open.  Why do they put 5 gazillion registers in anyway?  They never use half of them.

We chose a self check out line since we just had a few items.  I wanted to yell at the young couple in front of us who were checking out and laughing and flirting with each other like it was their first date.  I wanted to scream, "LOOK!  THIS IS WHAT HAPPENS WHEN YOU HAVE BEEN MARRIED FOR 17 YEARS!  YOU SPEND YOUR ANNIVERSARY AT WALMART AND YOU ARE ABLE TO DO IT WITHOUT PLAYING AROUND AND HOLDING THE REST OF US UP IN LINE!  NOW PUT YOUR SERIOUS FACE ON AND BE ABOUT YOUR CHECKING OUT BUSINESS!"

Finally they finished and we checked outta there like it was our 17 thousandth date at Walmart.  We ran out to Steve's truck with five minutes to Home Depot closing time left.  Believe it or not, and despite all our anniversaries spent at Walmart, he still isn't what I would refer to as a seasoned Walmart shopper.  He made the rookie Walmart escape mistake.  He drove past the front of the store before I realized what he was doing.  When I realized it, it was way too late, we were already driving past the front of the store.  It was like it was in slow motion and I said, "NOOOOOOO!!!! You NEVER drive past the front of the store!  You always drive around the back of the parking lot to get out!!!"  (I hope you read that in slow motion, because that is how I typed it)  So after sitting perfectly still for what seemed like 10 years, waiting for all the people to walk past us on their way in and out of the store, and waiting for the cars in front of us to finally move out of our way, we made it.  We made it past the front of the store.

Steve kept telling me there was no way we were going to make it to Home Depot in time.  I kept my game face forward and said, "Just drive.  Fast."  We got to Home Depot right at 9:59.  With my game face still on I said, "Pull up to the door and give me your wallet!"  He did and I ran my self into that store, ran up to the first person I saw, asked where the sand was, hefted that 50 pound bag up onto my shoulder, checked out and was back outside in 2 minutes flat.  And Steve and his truck were no where in sight.  Seriously?

So I am standing there hefting that 50 pound bag of sand scanning the mostly empty parking lot for any sign of my dear husband of 17 years.  Nowhere.  He was nowhere.  So I think maybe he is at the back of the lot waiting for me to come out and I need to make some movement so he can see me and drive over to me.  So I start walking past the front of the store.  And still no sign of him.  So I keep walking.  And all the time I am thinking, "WHERE IN THE HECK IS HE?!?!?!"  Then I see the section of the parking lot up ahead where the trees are for sale.  I think, well he has been talking about wanting to plant trees, maybe he drove over there to see how much they cost.  So I keep walking.  Bag of sand weighing me down the whole way.  He was not there.  I thought, maybe he went to get gas. Maybe he needed to drive around and clear his head from all that excitement at Walmart.  Maybe, maybe, maybe... Unfortunately I was in such a hurry when I leaped from the still moving truck to make it into the store in time, that I left my phone in the car.  I turned around and see that they were about to lock the doors and the ladies that were locking them are staring at me and whispering.  I guess I might have looked a little crazy at that moment.  I asked them if I could use their phone.  I wasn't about to carry that sand bag around any more, so I set it down outside and went in to use the phone.

I called Steve's phone.  It rang.  And rang.  And rang.  Then it went to his voice mail, which I recorded and I have been meaning to change for years now because my voice in the message grates on my last nerve.  I hung up and repeated the process 2 more times.  At this point they were turning off all the lights in the store and they were starring at me in an irritated manner because they were still waiting to lock the doors.  At this point, these are the things that were going through my mind:

What?  After 17 years of wedded bliss, he decides to leave me.  Now.  At Home Depot.  With this dang bag of sand.

What if he had a heart attack and his foot fell off the break and he is like out there somewhere, crashed and dying?

What if as soon as I jumped out, someone else jumped in with a gun and they are holding him hostage and they won't let him answer his phone?

How am I going to get home to my kids?

What if I have to call the police and they have to look at the surveillance videos to find out what happened, but the store is closed?  Would they be able to find someone to let them in to see the tapes, or would we have to wait until morning?

As I am thinking all these things, I am walking out of the store.  I look down where I left my bag of sand and it is gone.  Really?  So I run back and ask the girl who is locking the door if she knows where my sand went.  She said she just had someone take it back inside.  So I am waiting for them to bring it out to me.  Then I see him!  He was walking out the door way down on the other end of the store!  Then I look in the parking lot and see that his truck was parked there the whole time.  I just didn't recognize it because he wasn't in it.

I yell across the parking lot, "WHERE HAVE YOU BEEN?!?"

And he says, "I'VE BEEN IN THE STORE FOR THE LAST 15 MINUTES STANDING BY THE REGISTER HOLDING A BAG OF SAND! WHERE HAVE YOU BEEN?"

And I say, "I'VE BEEN WALKING AROUND THIS PARKING LOT WITH A BAG OF SAND  FOR THE LAST 15 MINUTES LOOKING FOR YOU!"

Then we stopped yelling because we were not across the parking lot from each other any more.  I was so glad he wasn't crashed and dead or kidnapped or something.

So then we got in the truck.  I was a little gripey (I don't know how to spell that word, probably because it isn't really a word).  I didn't want to be gripey so this is how the conversation went:

Me: Sorry.  I'm just a little frazzled because I was walking around a deserted parking lot.  In the dark. Carrying a huge bag of sand.  In a dress.  And heels.  And I thought maybe you were dead. 

Steve: Yeah, but that's not really a dress.  Right?

OH!  I LOVE THAT MAN!!!  Happy Anniversary babe!