Avon calling

When I was little, I thought there was no job more glamorous than that of an Avon lady. Although I don't ever remember seeing ours personally, I DO remember spending a ton of time browsing the catalogs and thinking how great it would be to wear the makeup, jewelry and perfume. I was certain that Avon ladies were as beautiful as the women in the catalogs, and that wearing their wares would make one just as gorgeous.

That's why I get such a kick out of my girls and their fascination with makeup. For their birthdays, Grandma Mod gave each of them a large case of makeup. Heaven! Well, at least for them. M in particular talks of very little else but her makeup. Here's the results of one makeup session.


The other day the girls slipped next door to their cousins' house. They love to have their older cousins do their hair. Tay used her new wave iron on C. I thought it turned out beautiful - and this picture was even after her bath took out a bit of the curl.



I think she had planned to straight iron M's hair, but I suspect she had a hard time of even running a comb thru her hair, much less straighten it. Nonetheless, M was thrilled with the braids Tay sent her home with.

4th of July

Now that I have kids the 4th of July is one of my most favorite days of the year. I remember when I was little, the city we lived in had a firework show every year. We lived on the lower elevations of a hill, so we could see the firework show from my bedroom window, but sometimes dad would drive us further up the hill so we could see even better. I remember my parents barbequeing sometimes, and occasionally we even got to do sparklers. My earliest memories of Independence Day are the fondest. When I was older, the city stopped putting on a firework show, and my parents had bought a travel trailer so most of the time we were camping at the beach for the holiday. While I loved being at the beach, the 4th of July just wasn't the same. Maybe a big part of that was simply because I was older and things just naturally lose some of their "magic". At any rate, fireworks kind of fizzle in the damp air, and there was no big show close by.

When we moved to our current house six years ago I was pleasantly surprised to learn that the 4th is celebrated in a big way in our community. The city puts on a firework show and a family friendly event at the park with bouncy houses, a big blow up slide, petting zoo and pony rides, face painting, live music, food booths and a few other odds and ends.

The reason I get so excited for the 4th is because it is chock full of fun for the girls, without really requiring much effort or planning on our part. How cool is it that nearly anything we would want to do is within walking distance?!

Our day started out bright and early with a flag raising ceremony and a breakfast at the church. They've built a nice covered pavillion next to the large field behind the church, so it's perfect for outdoor functions like this - and tons of room for the kids to run around when they're done eating. I love that this has become an annual event. It's such a great way to start the day and to remind us what we are really celebrating. I also remember attending several similar functions when I was young.

By the time we got home, the girls had a little down time while I prepared our food contribution for Hillbilly's barbeque. Unfortunately, this event is not within walking distance - so you need to move closer, Hillbilly! A good time was had by all, and fortunately this BBQ was less eventful than the last one we attended two years ago. That time C was playing in the yard with the other kids when she came up to me complaining that her mouth was burning. Turns out she had picked and eaten what she thought was a baby corn. I believe it was actually anthurium. So that was my first call to poison control, and hopefully my last. But by the time we got off the phone, she was feeling fine again - although we did give her and another inquisitive little girl a glass of milk for good measure.

We got home from the barbeque in the late afternoon, which is later than I like to nap the girls, but since we planned on keeping them up late, we couldn't skip naps. When they woke up we skeedaddled over to the park, only to find that they had already shut down the petting zoo and blow up stuff. They did still get to play in the sand area that was sponsored by P's sister's business Players for awhile - so that helped ease their disappointment. There was also a band playing, with a stage set up for dancing that was crowded with kids. Naturally, the girls were up there too. They were soooo cute dancing together and holding hands. C showed us her favorite move, the two fingers over the eyes that originated in the movie Pulp Fiction. I have no idea where she learned it, but it's pretty adorable when she does it. I pulled out my camera to take a picture, but the batteries were dead. I put in my spare rechargeable batteries, but they were dead too! So you're just going to have to imagine them in all of their cuteness.

We went home to watch the fireworks from the house. We must have one of the best views in the valley - right from our back deck. We can see the fireworks from the park, plus a 360 degree view of all the other fireworks being set off in the bowl of the valley. I've never lived anywhere where there have been so many illegal fireworks. This year there were warnings of cracking down on illegal fireworks, but it didn't appear to scare anyone off. I'm always amazed at how many people have money to burn, especially in the current economy. It was a great show, and the girls gratefully went to bed when it was all over.

Blixtar och dunder

A week ago we celebrated my brother in law's birthday. This was the same weekend that we had temps over 100. That Sunday was expected to be super hot too, and we were going to have his party at the park. Thankfully the extreme heat did not materialize, although it was hot and humid. It remained overcast much of the day, and started to rain shortly before the party was scheduled, so the party was moved to the newly cleaned and painted garage of my in-laws. It turned out to be a great location because it still felt like an outdoor party. The kids could play outside between rain showers and we could all stay dry.

Eventually a lightning storm rolled in. Some of the lightning was so close that you could hear the thunder before the lightning bolt disappeared from view. It was a fantastic storm to behold! Needless to say, the kids were kept inside at this point. Last year C loved to watch lightning storms with me. She was initially scared when I brought her in during this storm, but that might have been because she'd never been aware of the potential danger to herself before. It didn't take long for C and M to be completely enthralled; they were more than a little dismayed when the storm passed.

I can't find any specific numbers, but I seem to recall the meteorologist saying on the news that night that there were over 1000 lightning strikes, although many of those were in the eastern part of the state. There was a fair amount of damage, and two men in a nearby community were struck by lightning - one of which was seriously injured.

Here's a few photos I found online, including one from another storm on July 3rd. Sadly, I slept through that one. You can go to the source and see more photos by clicking here.





I have been a huge fan of lightning storms for some time now. I actually get giddy. Not quite as giddy as when it snows, but it's up there. I've decided my love for storms can be traced back to the summer of 1986. I spent the summer living with a wonderful family in Sweden. It was probably the most fun summer of my life! My memory may not be totally accurate, but I seem to remember having lightning storms on a nightly basis that summer. I do know that there were more storms than usual, which was attributed to radiation in the atmosphere following the April 26, 1986 Chernobyl disaster.

So now my reminiscing of time spent in Sweden brings me to the title of this entry. "Blixtar och dunder" is lightning and thunder in Swedish. It is also the opening line of a song by a Swedish pop group (three LDS brothers) called Herrey's. They won the 1984 Eurovision song contest with this song, which is a huge deal over there. Since they were squeaky clean, my mom helped nurture my fascination with the band. I was particularly impressed with the two younger (and single) brothers. I thought they were both "fine" and I would have been happy to call either one mine. In 1985 my whole family was in Sweden and we planned to catch a Herrey's concert in a park. I was totally excited to be going to their concert as it was only my second concert ever (my first was the Osmonds circa 1980). Imagine my dorky glee when it turned out my mom knew the oldest Herrey brother's father-in-law, and we got to meet them after the show. I was so nervous to be meeting my potential boyfriends that I clammed up and I'm sure I failed to make a lasting impression. Nonetheless, it remains a memorable moment in my life - and I have a picture to document this glorious event. Depending on how old you are, you may or may not remember how cool these ToysRUs sweatshirts used to be. I'm pretty sure I swooned when one of the brothers sang the jingle to me that was in all the ToysRUs commercials at that time. (I think is was Richard - the blond one.)



As I pulled out the photo to scan, I surprised to see that the original photo has my brother in it too. As you can see, Louis' arm is stretched out, but when I had this photo blown up for my room, and also made a wallet size for my purse, I cut him out. I totally don't remember him being there. I guess I was just in my own little world : )

Now the purpose of posting this photo is two fold. The first is to show the object(s) of my young teenage affection (since the members of Duran Duran were totally unaccessible to me). The second is to appease my Hillbilly friend. You see, as a lark I posted a photo of myself on my Facebook page a couple of months ago - showing me in all of my permed glory back in 1990. My friend was awestruck by my timeless beauty, but said that she could do better than that - so I challenged her to out-ugly me. You can see that she rose to the challenge here. I have not responded in a timely fashion because I am secure in the fact that I will, indeed, out ugly her and because I know that it will require a considerable amount of time scanning and editing old photos. So Hillbilly, consider this my first entry and stop bugging me : )

Since this has turned into a bit of a tribute to Herrey's, I'm going to put on one of their promotional photos (which is signed for me on the back) and I'm going to see if I can link to a You Tube video of their performance that won the Eurovision contest for your viewing pleasure. Now before you go making fun of the gold boots in the video, let me just tell you that they tied in with the words of the song. Everything else is just pure 80's.