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!

Memorial Weekend 2012

We had such a fun weekend!  It started Friday night.  Sam and Teresa drove down from BYU Idaho to spend the weekend.  They came over to our house with my mom and Lauren and we had dinner and watched the first 2 Men In Black movies.

The next day (after I went garage sale hopping with my neighbor that morning and Steve and the kids cleaned out the garage-bless them) we all went to see Men In Black 3 in 3D.  After that we went to my moms house to eat and play games.  

The kids played on the wii.

 We all sat outside on the deck trying to enjoy it but we were freezing cold

We played a huge game of Skipbo and Addy acted as photographer. 

While we were playing Skipbo, Teresa was showing us the shirt she was wearing that she tie dyed.  We started talking about how much fun it would be to tie dye shirts and all wear them on Memorial Day.  So we printed off a coupon for each person and went to Hobby Lobby to buy a tie dye kit and shirts.  I feel bad for all the people in line behind us, because I sent each one of my kids (even Addy) through the check out with their own 40% off coupon to buy their shirt.  Steve didn't go with us and I called him and tried to talk him into letting me buy him a shirt, but he said no and I knew he wouldn't wear it, so I didn't get him one.  A decision I regretted on Monday when we were all wearing our shirts.  Teresa said, "You never listen to him any other time, why did you listen to him this time?"  So true.  I will remember that next time!

On Sunday we all went to church.  After church, I don't know what everyone else did, but I took a luscious two hour nap.  After that everyone came over to our house and we made our shirts.  Then we played around the yard a little and then had breakfast for dinner.

 There was a beautiful double rainbow in the sky

The next day was Memorial Day.  We all met that morning at the cemetery 

where my dad is buried for a Memorial Service.

 

After we left the cemetery, we went to my mom's house where she had a fantastic bbq brisket lunch awaiting us.  It was beautiful outside so the deck was much more enjoyable that it was two days before.

After lunch we decided to go shooting.  So we all loaded into two different vehicles and headed over to our house to load up the guns.  The people in my mom's van turned down a side street right outside of our neighborhood to wait for us to get the guns and then meet them.  Right across the street from where they parked, they saw a trampoline sitting in front of someones house with a "FREE" sign on it.  So they called Steve to see if we wanted it.  He said no.  A while later my mom called my phone and said, "Are you sure you don't want this free trampoline?"  And I was like, "What free trampoline are you talking about?"  Well, needless to say, that trampoline is now in our backyard.  I do have mixed emotions about this because we had a trampoline at our old house but I sold it because my kids and all the neighborhood kids made me so nervous on it.  But I figured it was free and if I decide we made a bad decision, we can always stick it in our front yard with a "FREE" sign on it.

After the whole trampoline situation was taken care of,

 we headed out to the west desert to get our red neck on.

 Addy made it her mission to collect as many spent shot gun shells 

as she could and place them in the door of Steves truck.

Red Neck Grandma

After we shot the place up, we headed back to my moms house for leftovers for dinner.  Then Sam and Teresa left for their journey back to Idaho and we left to put kids to bed and I took Zac and Em on a nightmarish journey for new shoes for Zac since the whole bottom of his was flapping free in the wind and a new swimsuit for Em who had a 6th Grade Swimming Field Trip the next morning.  The shoe part, not so nightmarish.  The swimsuit part.  Sigh...let's just not even go there.  I will just give you this advice: If you are in the market for a somewhat modest one piece swimsuit that isn't as thin as a piece of paper, for a girl who is right in between little girl and women swimsuits, don't put off shopping for it until 9:00 at night when she needs it by 9:00 the next morning.  Also make sure she isn't absolutely exhausted from a long weekend before you subject her to such trauma as swimsuit shopping.