O! What a City.

Last Saturday we took the trek to Omaha's Henry Doorly Zoo for the first time. Jeff's sister Regina mentioned her family was going and we of course decided to tag along.
It's an amazing place and is more like a trip to Seaworld than a trip to the zoo. We visited the desert, caves, a swamp, rainforest, an ocean, the artic, and a butterfly garden all in the confines of Nebraska! They have an amazing amount of animals there, the gorilla house is NEVER ending. Seriously, you've never seen so many gorillas. And I contend that they have EVERY SINGLE species of snake on the planet. I am not exaggerating. There are snake displays every where, every crack, every crevice. It's really a little creepy.
In the "Desert Dome", which is quite literally a giant dome with a desert in it, there were cage after cage of hummingbirds. So totally cool. And owls, the kids and I were loving it. We really love the birds at the zoo, the Australia aviary is one of our most favorite places at the KC zoo. But the lone owl there is IMPOSSIBLE to find. They even had bears, that's right BEARS. The KC Zoo has not one single bear. Not ONE.
The aquarium was a hit with it's tunnel you could walk through and under all the sharks, sting rays and fishies. We sat and chilled with the sea life for a good 20 min.
Oh and the bats, the bats were hilarious. In the "cave" we'd put our faces right up the wire mesh barrier and a bit would immediately fly right up to our face and spit on us. At least we were hoping it was spit. Think that's gross? Oh relax.
While we had a great time, avoided major fits, and saw everything we set out to see - I came out of it appreciating our little KC Zoo. We already love our zoo, as manifested by our dozens of trips there, but this trip made me really feel glad to have a close-by more simple zoo where you just pop over, take a walk, and see a few animals along the way.
We all met up at Cracker Barrel on the way home. Mmmmm, Cracker Barrel meatloaf.
Our only complaint? Omaha's very sad motto, "O! What a City." Rough. After getting on the highway while leaving we saw a giant wild turkey, alive, by the side of the road. Jeff and I decided that a MUCH better city motto would be "Omaha, where turkeys wait by the side of the road". I know that would peak MY interest as a potential visitor.

Kid Dates Numero Tres

A few weeks ago we did another round of kid's dates, and again they were grand successes and big hits with the kiddos. I've said this before but I'd highly recommend doing these with your kids. It's a amazing how much they love to be one-on-one, and how much of their true personality you get to see.

1. Jeff and Rome played sports together, they left the house with a bag filled with balls, bat and frisbee. This is by far Rome's favorite thing to do with his Daddy.

2. Rome and I went to McDonald's to get a Happy Meal, (we go to McDonald's a LOT but Happy Meals are a special treat) and play as much air hockey as we could fit in our time there. Rome could play air hockey all day every day. Sable REALLY wanted to go, and Rome being the nice guy he is let her tag along.

3. Capri and Jeff went to the movie "Hotel For Dogs". She's been planning on "going to the movies for my next kid date with Daddy" for quite a while.

4. Capri and I went to the Quilt exhibit at the Toy and Miniature Museum. These were doll and miniature quilts made mainly by children. So amazing and inspiring. We of course had to check out Mar-Mar's marbles as well. Jeff's Mom is called "The Marble Lady" as she and her husband have the nation's largest marble collection. A couple years ago they donated the bulk of it to the museum which built a whole wing to house it along with a huge collection of their marble games. Because of their donation the whole family has a lifetime membership to the museum, sweet eh?

Mailbox of Joy

Remember the mailbox of doom?
Today it was the mailbox of joy. More specifically, the front porch of joy which is where the mailman left this, my order from Missouri Star Quilt Co.


And after inspecting, "ohhing" and "ahhing" over the Berry Delicious charm pack, Capri said, "Mommy do you think you could make me a new quilt for my American Doll? (It's actually an Our Generation doll.) She just loves blueberries, and I would just really love a blueberry quilt for her. If you could do that I would really appreciate it."

That's right, "appreciate".

plaid star

Eleven years ago I started to find my creativity. It began one summer when I decided to paint an old dresser that had sat in my family's garage. It was a tall, yellow dresser and had been mine when I was a little kid. Suddenly I thought I had it in me to change that dresser. It took the whole summer, lots of acrylic paint in small bottles, and a spill that stained my carpet blue - but I finished. I covered every square inch of that dresser, and was actually happy with how it came out.

From that dresser the term "plaid star" was born.

To me, the definition of a plaid star is one that is stands out different against the rest. In a sea of bright, shining white a plaid star stands apart. But it has it's OWN kind of beauty.
I suppose I've been a plaid star my whole life. Growing up LDS made me different from pretty much everybody I knew on the east coast. Then when I joined the sea of Mormons in Utah for school I found myself a plaid star once again because I was an "east coast" Mormon and that made me VERY different. Here in Missouri I feel like a plaid star on a daily basis, some because of just who I am in general.

Lately I've heard the term "blunt" thrown in my general direction. I've heard this my whole life, but it always comes in waves and right now I'm bobbing. I don't really think of myself as blunt. I've always tried to be honest, especially with myself. I am my own worst critic. I have opinions, but they change all the time. I'm a different person that I was a dozen years ago opinion-wise. I say what I'm thinking. This has gotten me in trouble a LOT in my life. For the most part I've accepted that, but it's still left me with more tears on my cheeks than I care to remember. I'm a fighter, I argue a LOT. Blame my Dad for this one, he taught me to stick up for what I want no matter what. Many times I'm wrong, but I'm always proud of myself for standing up. I'm always glad that I've said something when it needed to be heard, even if it wasn't popular.

We are all plaid stars to somebody else anytime we move out of our comfort zone and are different. I love it especially when women are honest with who they are. When they abandon the sickly sweet fake smile they've plastered on their face and let others actually see them. When they have opinions, and SHARE them. I've watched that fake smile change to a real one, then they truly shine.

When I started having kids I felt my creativity start to fade. The sketchbook with all my "grand ideas" was stuffed in my nightstand, at one point I even forgot it existed. I still did projects, and was crafty but the creativity that once was such a big part of me was very hard to find.

But. . .suddenly.

It's back.

I give the credit to my Brother sewing machine.

Nursery Lunch Bag

Diaper Bag

Crayon Roll

Superhero Garb

Puppy Bag

Hedgehog Family

Strawberry Hat

Primary Music Bag

Perfect they are not. But they lived in my head and now they are real. This makes me happy. There's more, but until they are shipped away to their new homes I can't post them.

So here's to plaid star, and everything it's meant to me for over a decade. Here's to hoping (really, knowing) that my children will grow up to be plaid stars, and will never be afraid to honk at dumb drivers. That's right midwesterners, honk.

Little Girl to Big in One Hour

BEFORE

AFTER

Is There Something On My Face?

If You Have. . .

. . .a box of fudge marble cake mix, you can make cupcakes.



. . .water, flour, salt, alum & food coloring, you can make playdoh.

(Note: This is NOT a pregnancy announcement.)

. . .two empty egg cartons and a stack of magazines, you can make superhero houses.




And if you put all these things together, you can make a Sunday fly by without having to turn on a single movie. Amazing.

Christian The Lion

This seems too amazing to be true, but apparently there is a book telling the whole story so maybe it is.
I'm not ashamed to say it made me cry.
In a good way.

My Name. . .

. . .is Abigail Lindsy.

. . .that's right, Lind-S-Y.

. . .was spelled this way by my Dad.

. . .causes a lot of people trouble.


My Nickname. . .

. . .is Aby.

. . .that's right, A-B-Y.

. . .was spelled this way by (you got it) my Dad.

. . .is often spelled Abi or Abby or Abbie.

. . .makes me cringe when I see it spelled Abi.

. . .is a good one.


I like my name.

It's romantic, and strong (if not WAAAY overused now).

But I don't like being CALLED Abigail.

Because frankly it's way too long and formal.

My Dad always introduces and refers to me as Abigail.

I do not like this.

Now my Mom seems to have started.

I don't like being called Ab, or Abs, or Abster, or Flabby Aby.

Even though that last one is somewhat true and funny.

Drunk & DEFINITELY Disorderly

1:15 am

A woman screaming.

A brawl in the street.

A barefoot off-duty cop.

The F-word used approximately 1.3 MILLION times (not by the barefoot off-duty cop).

A knocked out tooth.

Suicide threats.

A nervous wife to the barefoot off-duty cop standing in her doorway with the storm door propped open while holding a phone for nearly an hour and a half.


Is it an episode of COPS?

No.

Maybe Law and Order?

NO.

A new Cop reality show then??

NO!

Is it one of our drunken next door neighbors and his live-in girlfriend having a very loud domestic dispute in the middle of our street?

YES!!

And in a test of his true metal, Jeff shone. No uniform, no bullet proof vest, no gun, no badge, no partner - and like I mentioned, NO shoes.
He handled the situation so calmly, so professionally. I was more than impressed, MORE than proud.

Jeff said it was as close as he's ever gotten to having to fight somebody, this guy was VERY drunk and is twice Jeff's size. If he'd been on a call (on duty) he'd have of course shown up with another cop and would have had the guy in cuffs from the get-go and there wouldn't have been an on-going threat of a possible fight.
Why didn't we just call the cops and hand it over? As Jeff put it, "I don't want to be the guy who has our neighbor hauled off to jail to sleep it off." And I had to concur, no matter how badly I wanted to call.

The thing is that we've lived next to these neighbors for 3 1/2 years and other than some loud drunken parties we've actually had no problems with them. We suscribe to the live and let live policy and so do they. We're cordial and friendly with each other but until the other night DID NOT know their names. In fact we referred to one of them (not the one that was drunk that night) as "Kid Rock" because that's who he reminds us of.
Therefore, we didn't want to inadvertently start some kind of neighbor feud. I already sort-of started one of those with the people that live behind us by VERY nicely and VERY calmly telling their 12 year old daughter and her friend that it really wasn't OK to have their lemonade stand in our yard without asking. The mom DID NOT like this and was extremely vocal in telling me so.
Instead, Jeff did his duty as a cop, as a neighbor, and as a human being. NO other people came out to help or even poked their head out of their door. Nice huh? It could have been that because most people on our street know Jeff is a cop they figured that he had it handled and should just keep out of the way. Still. . .

Back to live and let live.

Stupid alcohol.

For Those Who Asked, And Those Who Didn't But Still Don't Know

The Thin Blue Line, a colloquial term for police and police forces, derived from The Thin Red Line and suggesting that a thin line of police officers is all that prevents civilized society from descending into chaos; it can also refer to the brotherhood of the profession.

-Wikipedia