Thanksgiving

This year presented me with my first opportunity to host Thanksgiving dinner. I've never been away from home on Thanksgiving, so my biggest contribution so far has been a couple dishes to add to everyone else's work. I usually get to run a race in the morning and show up at my mom's or sister's and enjoy the rest of the day! Both Tom and I had planned on running, but with a few things not going as planned, and last minute unexpected (but welcome!) guests, we were working hard all day and still started about and hour and a half late. We had some fantastic food... I tried a few new recipes - honey sweet corn, walnut/lemon vinaigrette green beans, and my favorite - brie stuffed mushrooms. I'm posting the recipes on my old recipe blog, so check it out (thenewlunchbunch.blogspot.com). Tom made some amazing pies! Maybe I can get him to share his (or rather his mom's) recipes, too.

Our friends Meridth and Edward, their sweet baby Uschi, and their friend Sarah were here. Edward actually made the turkey, so I still haven't had to attempt that!

Tom's cousin Laura, her husband Michael, and their darling daughter Kylie came. We were so glad they were here. I don't know what I would have done without Laura! As soon as she got here she was helping... As soon as I finished something she had the dish washed and ready for the next thing. I know she did more dishes than I did. She brought some delicious candied yams that we are still enjoying for leftovers!

I was really happy Kylie was here. I don't think I could have been happy on Thanksgiving without kids running around. She was good entertainment for Addison.

Edward (the turkey man) is in the background here... What a mess this kitchen was!

Happy and tired after a fun day!

Changed For Good

We've had to learn pretty quickly, living here, that things never stay the same. This seems to be a place where people stop on their way to somewhere else. We've have had to say goodbye more than once to friends we've come to love. Today, Addison had a final play date with a dear friend, hugged him goodbye and bounced into the car like always. I never know how it's going to affect him when someone moves away... how close he's gotten, how much he'll think about it. On the drive home, we were listening to the Wicked soundtrack, and the song Changed for Good came on. Nearly halfway through, I looked in the rearview mirror to Addison crying quietly. It broke my heart. He asked why his friend's dad wanted a new job anyway, and why everybody here has to leave. He said he was tired of making friends because they just move away and he's not going to do it anymore. I cried with him and tried to explain that sometimes things change, and sometimes change is hard, but, wow... that kid has a hard time with change. And he comes by it pretty honestly. I've never done well with change. I remember breaking down and telling the Elder's quorum to stop moving the furniture when we were moving to the house next door in high school. And when it comes to people... I don't even know where to start. I said recently that I'm terrible at keeping in touch. I think it's because it's too hard to keep missing what isn't there anymore, so I try to pretend it never was. Today, though, I realized that I'm missing out. I've had so many dear friends that have made things better, bearable at times when I couldn't bear anything...

Mindy, who has known me since I was 2. The friend who I can call in 6 month intervals and talk to as if no time at all has passed. The friend who saw how really bratty I could be and still made me feel like I could make the world turn.

Megan, who had her first baby 1 month before me and was such an example of patient parenting. The friend who still invited me over for play dates when my husband was in the hospital because she knew I needed to be normal. The friend who came with me to the Provo Courthouse to face something I knew I couldn't face alone.

Trisha, my visiting teacher turned friend who sat and watched my baby all through the night when he came home from Primary Children's, and I couldn't, just couldn't stay awake anymore.

Tracey and Ellen, my grown up best friends. The friends who taught me that I could still have girlfriends who meant as much to me as anything, who I could stay up all night with, and go to Vegas with, and toilet paper other grownups' houses with.

My new friends here in Monterey...Cheryl, who said to me, "I knew when I saw you that we'd be friends." I felt the same way. Annie, who I met at Addison's school and said, "Let me know if I can do anything for you." And when I said, "can you pick my son up every Monday?" answered... "Sure!" And all of these ladies here who have let me be a part of this ever changing group.

It seems my family gave me my general shape. They love me, support me,

help me learn what's right and good. The shape changes as I have opportunities to cut out the unique pieces that are just me by rubbing against or pushing past or colliding with people I chose, or who chose me, and I give some and I take some and become different than I was before I knew them.

Who knows if I have changed for the better? I know I haven't always, but hopefully I have at times, and hopefully I will more often than I don't. And while it breaks my heart to see Addison so sad that things are changing, I know he is changed... for good.

Halloween

We carved our pumpkins... Every year I say that next year we're just going to paint the dang pumpkins, and then i forget... until I'm scraping and scraping and scraping guts out of a pumpkin and realizing it's just not worth it!! We even broke a knife this year! I would miss roasting the pumpkin seeds, I guess... but not that much.

Addison was going to be Rocky. We had the costume all ready... New workout shorts, white t-shirt, championship boxing belt, and boxing gloves. Then, as he was getting ready for school, he tried on my bathrobe to go with his boxing outfit, and decided he looked like Albert Einstein and thought that was a better costume. He grabbed his Harry Potter glasses and spiked his hair, and we were out the door. People kept asking him if he was a mad scientist, but no... he was Albert Einstein.

Saturday was such a busy day! Addison had play rehearsal in the morning that overlapped into the primary party that overlapped into a friend's Halloween party that overlapped into meeting up for trick-or-treating. Somehow, though, we managed to get to all of it and without too much stress at all! Edward and Meridth (or Medward and Eridth as we like to call them) had a party at their house. Pinata, games, and eating doughnuts off a string were all involved. Lots of fun! Trick-or-treating in Toro Park always yields way more candy than our buckets can hold. We sold it this year to a local dentist for $5 a pound!

This year, I had to teach Addison about my favorite part of Halloween... sorting the candy! Tom was baffled by this activity, and I assumed everyone did it. Don't they?

Rock Climbing

We started going to the YMCA in Salinas, and it has been so much fun! We got a free 3-day pass and loved it. The rock climbing wall is our favorite. Of course, Tom scrambles to the top on the craziest routes possible in no time, while I struggle to follow the simpler paths, but it's still fun. Addison does great, too, and is getting better and better every time we go!

Fourth Grade

Addison started fourth grade. He was so excited to have gotten the teacher he really wanted... Mr. Doolittle. He's a real live Dr. Doolittle. His classroom is full of wiggly, crawly creatures and critters that the kids can take out to recess and bring home on the weekends (lucky us!). Addison loves him because he lets them chat, put their feet up on the desk, and be in charge of doling out the animals to the other kids at recess. I love him because he is exactly what a fourth grade boy should have for a teacher. Their "chats" are great group discussions. When Mr. Doo is teaching a concept and someone has something to add, his idea is not to get on with his lesson and overlook the kids' input, but to discuss it and find out what interests the kids, helping them apply what they're learning to their ever expanding lives. He empowers (thanks, Tom for helping me find the word) the kids by telling them to sit back and relax when it's appropriate, but reminds them that this isn't the usual rule for school, and he's trusting them because they can handle it. If someone else comes in the classroom, feet come off the desks, but while they're with Mr. Doo, he knows he can trust them enough to give them a little room to breath. He gives them responsibility for these creepy little animals and they really take it! They clean their cages, make sure they're fed, and keep watch as other classrooms handle the animals.

Addison is positive he is Mr. Doo's favorite kid, which he very well may be (I'll admit a little favoritism here), but I'm pretty sure every kid in class feels the same way...

Moon Lake

While we were in Utah, we had a family reunion with my brothers and sisters at Moon Lake. My mom grew up in Bonita which is near Moon Lake. She spent a lot of time there growing up and we used to go when we were little. It was fun to be back.

Heading off for a bath, after a run with Shellie, in the cold, cold lake.

A little hike up the mountain.

Braden and Tom.

Addison caught a fish!!

Me and Brit.

It was so fun to have all the little boys there. It's funny, because Eric and Addison used to be "the little boys," and now they're "the big kids." Jack, Braden, Charlie, and Liam are all about 6 months apart and so cute together!! Addison had a good time being ring leader for a while.

We rented these kayaks every day we were there. After a rocky start for Tom and I, we figured it out and had a lot of fun. One day, I took Addison and Emma out quite a ways to a spot where we could jump off a little cliff. Emma was a great little rower and she and Addison made up a chant to help us on our three-hour-tour: "Left, right, left, right; rudder to the right."

We played volleyball one night. Let's just say the Lundell's are serious athletes.

Hanging out at the fire.

We had such a great time - Brad on the guitar and all of us singing Cat Stevens songs around the fire, a revealing game of "I have never...", interesting new information about Jen as divulged by Brad, long runs, lots of bugs, fantastic food, and great company!

Summer In Utah

While we were in Utah...

**Addison went to a theater camp in Park City with his step-brother Quentin...

They wrote a play and performed it. It was pretty dang hilarious...

**Addison went to scout camp with Eric

**We swam at the Lindon Pool too many times to count

**I took Emma to get her first manicure. We had a girl's day in which she cut her hair, we went to lunch, got manicures and pedicures... and my car died.

**I read a lot of not so great books

**We went to Moon Lake (which gets its own post)

**Dean and I ran 10k at 10k... hardest race of my life, but I ran up that whole hill... very, very slowly.

**I ate at Zuppa's about 20 times

**Addison and Eric and all the cousins thought their Aunt Amy was a wizard herself when she came up with a most fantastic way to make wands with glue.

**I bought a new car

**This little boy hiked 14 miles to the top (the saddle) of Timp.

I have a "better" picture of Dean from our "second breakfast" break that I really wanted to post, but I've had enough toe twisting and knuckle crushing to last a lifetime.

Our friend the moose. I don't think I've ever hiked Timp and not seen this guy... and of course, I'm sure he's the same one I see every year.