Sienna's Visit Continued

Sienna's been busy between playing with our neighbor Kaitlyn, visiting Zoe in Springville, and Grace in Draper. She got to meet author Elana Johnson at her book launch for Surrender. I was going to get a picture, but forgot my camera.

Today Sienna got to meet author Cindy Hogan, who signed her two books--Watched and Protected--for Sienna.

We're heading for Gardner Village tomorrow to meet up with Kelsey and baby Winter. We're picking up Grace (I think) on our way. I hope to have some pictures them. I want to get up to Sundance with Sienna, too.

Summerfest

Sienna's been having fun with Davey who stayed with us for three days last week. He likes to pretend he knows how to make the bike work while Sienna uses Adam's old scooter.

This last weekend was Summerfest. I took her over for lunch, and we checked out all the vendors. I got some tickets for the rides. Ed, who joined us after an appointment, didn't want to go. One ride for me told me I'm too old for this stuff. lol So the little girls, Kelly and Allie, from across the street who happened to be at the grandmother's house across from City Center Park, helped Sienna use the tickets.

Afterward, Sienna went to the park with my coworker Bobbie and her family--Kaitlyn, Bobbie's oldest, is 13. They were having a water balloon fight at the park. The weather turned crazy, though, with the wind really kicking up.

I was going to take Sienna back to Summerfest for the fireworks, but it had gotten really cold outside. We were watching Winter anyway. Too bad, though.

Sienna's going to spend a couple of days with her friend Zoe. Ed will take her there tonight. The timing is perfect because Ed's got the Temple for a good chunk tomorrow, and I've got a city council meeting from hell: the first of the budget public hearings. The staff is proposing the first property tax increase since 1978. As you can imagine, many people are up in arms about it. The increase comes to about the cost of a movie ticket a month. But that can be huge when you're on a fixed income. Just ask Ed. But what do you do? We're literally at the point where services will be cut if it's not approved.

Sienna's Visit

Sienna arrived last Wednesday after a little adventure (like idiot airport people). Erin sounded really  stressed when Sienna missed her flight. Hmmm . . . I wonder why. But they finally straightened everything out and got her on another flight--and even put her in first class.

She's been helping Ed and playing with the little girls across the street. One of my clerks at work has a daughter (Kaitlyn) who's Sienna's age and has been really nice to invite her over to play.

Sienna's friend Grace (moved from Hawaii to Utah earlier this year) invited Sienna to come to a horse show Grace was involved in (she took 2nd place). Sienna not only got to be around horses, she got to ride one.

She's anxious to read the book I've been editing--the one where she's the main characters. Yes, both of them. I was hoping to be able to get through the first edit, but now I'm working on a revise and resubmit edit from a small publisher on another book. *sigh*

Kinslayer

Have I mentioned that Paul and Adam have a band? They're into Metal--not the screachy Death Metal stuff but the epic Symphonic/Melodic Metal. Adam writes most of the music and does the mixing, and Paul's the lyricist, and they have an really talented keyboardest who helps with the music. You can hear some of their music at their website kinslayerband.com.

Paul and Adam have been working on this for a few years now, with Paul being the driving force behind it. Well, they had their first concert last night. It was in bar, so their underaged drummer couldn't go. They built Robby the Robot to fill in (and had to use a computer to play the drum). Their next performance is on the 26th of this month and there's no age restriction. Ed and I plan to go.

Here's a picture from the concert last night. If Paul's wife Kelsey can get me some of the video I'll try and post it here.

Don't even ask me why Adam's wearing shorts.

Davey and Winter

My dang phone jiggles when I take pictures.

Isn't Winter getting big?

And look at Davey!

And Life Goes On . . .

We're still (kinda) doing the reboot. We've had a couple of challenges get in the way of the healthy eating, and Ed was bragging last night that he hadn't really had much of a salad in two weeks. Ugh!

He's working to get the yard squared away. It's a slow process for him, since anything physical really takes it out of him. I remind him--but he disregards me--that if you don't do anything, you hurt even more when you finally do. But he's been blowing me off for years about health issues, so why should this be any different?

We got to see Winter on Saturday. She's getting so big and giggles awesomely when you blow on her belly. Kelsey always dresses her so cutely, too. We'll have Davey this week while his mom is at a work conference. And then next week I've got the LDS Storymaker writing conference. Can't wait!.

Ed and the Reboot

I'm a little bummed because I didn't lose any weight this week. I'm doing P90X, so I can excuse it and say I'm really picking up more muscle which weighs more than fat. It's always so much easier to behave when it shows up on the scales.

We had a yummy Easter dinner (I weighed in the morning) of deviled tomatoes, carrot ginger soup, pralined sweet potatoes, and asparagus pasta. Oh, and dessert was a lemon poppy zing cake, made from white whole wheat flour and sweetened with agave. Very yummy.

The doctor was concerned that Ed's breathing issues might be more blood clots in his lungs, so he went to the hospital for an emergency CT scan. His longs look good, so they're thinking he's got something going on with his heart that's making it so hard for him to get his breath. He's got a special kind of stress test he's going in for tomorrow.