Good News!

I know, I know, I've promised some posts about holiday activities, but this week I'm the procrastination queen- I've been putting off writing a seven page paper all week and I'll put off holiday posts, too, yes, I will :)

Just a little update here, in addition to what Jon has posted.

Jon entered a drawing at school earlier in the week and was just notified via email that he won 2 adult tickets to the Renaissance Festival. Sweet! We love free :) We got free passes last year and Jon took the boys for the first time (see his post about that adventure here) and I was wanting to check it out (I've never been) but the girls were younger (by a whole year) so I stayed home with them. This year we'll be more adventurous and take everyone. Yay! I'm excited to go and Sally will love dressing up like a princess for it :)

In other news, we've begun the spring story time at the newly renovated Tempe library. The first phase is complete, and the entire lower level has become a child's dream (that is, if you have book worm children like we do). There are more books, better displays, all kinds of secret/quiet/cushy nooks to snuggle up with a book in, new computers, posh interior designs, and a fun play area for little ones and a fantastic new story time/multi-purpose room. We went to the second story time this past Tuesday and it was a blast. The best thing about the Tempe library story times is that its a mini preschool lesson every time; they always have a fun theme- this time it was colors, they sing, read, and have an activity, and then they do arts and crafts. All for absolutely no cost to me :) Super awesome! Plus, Sally loves it and Sophie is learning to love it. Happy times.

I don't have any more cool free things to talk about but I do want to share some SUPER COOL news about my brother, Jimmy. He's been living/going to school in Santa Monica for the past few years and through some lucky chance encounters landed a small role playing a doctor in a TV show called Three Rivers. Unfortunately, the show was cancelled before the three episodes that he was in [and already got paid for (bonus)] aired. Fortunately, one of the casting directors liked him and hooked him up with a recurring role in an upcoming feature film starring Orlando Bloom called The Good Doctor AND an audition for a highly anticipated film (the name of which I can not mention here because Jimmy had to send confidentiality waivers), coming out in the summer of 2011, directed by Kenneth Branagh, and starring Natalie Portman and Sir Anthony Hopkins! He got a spot as a bodyguard and there is a possibility that he may have a speaking role! What?! Crazy, you say?! I know, right?! He has already had a personal telephone call from Kenneth Branagh and an audition with him. I'm hoping it's OK to say all of this stuff in such a public forum, I better check with him. If it's not then you'll understand when it disappears, but I just want to let people know how much we're all totally tripping that this is happening to him. What a lucky boy :)

Note: I checked with Jimmy and have made some changes to what I'm not supposed to say. He's also doing a commercial tomorrow that will probably only air in Italy :)

This is the picture he sent us of the role he'll be playing.

Flashback Friday- Worst Date

I'm behind in posting some things I've been intending to post about the holidays, but that'll be for another day. Today I'm feeling inspired by a friend's Post to share a little inconsequential story from my past in spirit of another friend's Flashback Friday posting idea, because today is, after all, Friday.

Recently, all the Thwaits gathered together at Wolfgang and Anne's house in Tucson and performed/presented their talents (more on this event will be forthcoming). My sister-in-law, Daina has been working on writing her personal history in the past year and shared an experience that she'd written about one of the worst dates she'd ever been on. It got me thinking about my own dating experiences, which I decided were few, but from what I can tell- I didn't really miss out on much.

I had a steady boyfriend for a big part of high school, the dates are a little fuzzy but it was for more than a year that we were "official" and much more than that before (my first mention of liking him in my journal was when I was 12) and even a little bit after that (even after breaking up and a lot of ugly stuff I wasn't completely over him until my freshman year of college when our very last kiss told me there wasn't anything there anymore) I was still un-"officially" interested in him.

Wow, that was kind of weird, I hadn't really intended to go down that path. Anyway, I wasn't really big on going on dates like some girls I knew. I've always been a little bit introverted and not too comfortable when trying to get to know someone and I've also always felt like I had an ability to get a pretty good sense about someone by first impressions and if I knew there wasn't going to be anything romantic there then I wasn't terribly interested in giving a guy false hope. Not that the guys were beating down the door, mind you. And I wasn't as cold as that may seem either, I would usually go on a first date with most anyone who'd ask, but I would let the guy know that I was just interested in friendship if that's how it was.

I got married when I was 21, and my husband and I had been dating for almost a year before that, so there weren't a whole lot of potential dating years in there anyway.

OK, I've totally gotten off topic. The point of this blog was that I wanted to share my worst dating experience. The sad part is that it was a date that I initiated. When I was a freshman at the U of A I went to a party (thrown by my future sister-in-law, Julie) and there was hardly anyone that I knew there (and no, my husband was not in attendance- that may have changed things ;). This guy who was currently a senior at my old high school, who I'd never met before (he wasn't LDS and was big into drama, which I hadn't been) kind of hung around me all night so I invited him to go with my sister and I to a play (or a show- its a little fuzzy) that was happening the following weekend. Ok, so some might argue that it wasn't totally a date, but it was for all intents and purposes pretty much a date. I thought there might be something there and I wanted to find out.

Tammy had a seriously cool, very old Mercedes and she agreed to be our chauffeur for the evening. I remember running late, but don't really remember those details either (this is a great story so far, isn't it?), but we were feeling rushed to get there quickly. We lived on the south east side of Tucson and were headed into the downtown area so we took Golf Links west to the Aviation freeway. (I'm changing tenses here, sorry all you English majors). As soon as we get onto Aviation we feel a thump, thump, thump, and no, it wasn't the beating of our hearts, it was a flat tire. Tammy pulls the car over and parks on a side street leading into a very scary residential area. We're a good 5+ miles from our destination and you guessed it- without a spare. It was very dark and we were totally out of our element in this strange area of town. The only options we could think of were to walk the 5+ miles to the show/performance and get there as it's ending and then call my dad to come pick us up and change the tire, or walk to the closest pay phone (it was still a number of years before cell phones were prevalent) and call my dad to come pick us up/change the tire and hopefully make some of the show. There was/is nothing along Aviation by way of convenience store/gas station so we started walking in the general direction of 22nd street hoping to get lucky. The three of us amused ourselves pretty well with silly conversation but the walk still seemed to end up taking much longer than it probably actually was and the wait for my dad to come rescue us was even longer. By the time he came and fixed the tire, the better part of the evening was totally over and my date asked me to just take him home. I didn't think it was an especially terrible evening- it wasn't devastating to miss whatever the show or play was that we missed and we didn't have any long, awkward pauses in conversation, or any rude, careless remarks or behavior, but neither of us ever called the other again. I like to think that we both sensed that our relationship wouldn't be anything more than friendly, of course, I have no idea what he thought about the whole thing. Oh by the way, for those Tucson, Santa Rita friends who are dying to know who the guy was (because it's been such a juicy story) it was Matt Ramage-White.

Do you have any recollections of this night, Tammy? I'd like to hear your thoughts :) Also, I'd love to hear any of my faithful friendly readers' own bad date experiences :)

Heidenreich Baptisms

The whole Heidenreich gang with all of the kids and grandkids

Sunday December 27, 2009

In 2009, Fred & Bonnie Heidenreich (members of our ward when I was growing up in Tucson) had three grandchildren turning the age of 8 and getting ready to be baptized who lived in various places in the United States. They were all getting together for Christmas and decided to have a special family baptism with all three children when everyone would be present and able to attend. Maren's daughter, Amy; Joe's son, Peter; and John's daughter, Reina. Since my Jon is one of John H's best friends we were invited to attend. It was one of the coolest baptisms I've been to. There were so many familiar faces that I hadn't seen in a while that it almost felt like a high school reunion. All of the Heidenreichs were there, plus Dave & Julia Whetten and their kids, Tim & Clarisa Gailey with their 8 kids, 1 foster child, and 1 baby on the way (I am completely amazed by them, by the way- all 8 of their kids were so well behaved and reverently sitting and singing hymns when appropriate, while my boys were making faces at each other and we kept having to take the girls out into the hall because they were being too noisy), Alan & Annie Kowalski, and Matt & Mindy Richins were there with their kids as well. Rodney Fuller (Maren's husband) presided, Heidi Heidenreich (Joe's wife) conducted, Corey Smith (Heather's husband) accompanied. John gave the opening prayer, then Laura gave a great talk on baptism. My favorite part was when the three children being baptized sang If The Savior Stood Beside Me together. It was too sweet! I wish I had a picture of them, but you know, no flash photography and all that. After the baptismal ordinances were performed, Maren gave the talk on the Holy Ghost and then Joe and Heidi sang To A Child. Very sweet. We were busy chatting with people afterward and almost forgot to take any pictures. I remembered as we were heading out to the car, so I had Jon run in and take some pictures of those who were left while I waited in the car with the kids. The whole Heidenreich crew were already conveniently assembling themselves for photos. Nice.

from back left to right: Chloe (Dave & Julia's oldest), Clarisa with foster baby, Heidi with her son and I believe the little girl in the front is also one of Joe & Heidi's five kids.

Laura & John

Clarisa with mother, Annie, and sisters, Laura and Julia