"Fireball of Stickiness"

Gwen cracks me up everytime:
Gwen was biting her arm in the car,
Rus: Gwen, don’t bite you arm!
Gwen: But it’s fun for me!
Rus: You used to do that when you were a baby, now you’re a big girl, so don’t do it anymore.
Gwen: Let’s have a contest-I’ll bite my skin, you bite your fur!

Gwen after eating pancakes with honey for breakfast, held her hands up above her head, and in a very dramatic, very loud voice declared, “My hands...are...a fireball of stickyness!!!” I replied, “Why don’t you wash them?” She, adopting an odd, wide, face-stretching, mad scientist (still very loud) sort of voice said “I don’t want to do ANYTHING to take care of them!!”

Xander brought me a rose from our backyard and said “Mamma, if you multiply that by a BILLION, that’s still not a QUARTER of what you are” Sweet boy, he makes me smile.

Isaac has been very helpful keeping the younger kids happy and busy, inventing games and fun stuff to do during summer vacation.
Yesterday we went to the Scottish Festival and Highland Games that is held at Thanksgiving Point every year. We saw some of Molly’s Revenge ( a Celtic music group), the kids and Rus did the “beat the giant” “boffer” fighting at the SCA tent, (Rus and the “giant” tied once, and Rus won the next two times) Rus got to see how many pull ups he could do while wearing 20 lbs of chain mail, and Jon and Chastity and kids caught up with us for the Wicked Tinkers (a bagpipes and drums and digeridoo type of experience). Rus was sick last year, so he didn’t get a chance to dance much, but this year it was lovely to dance around together. There is something about dancing barefoot in slightly muddy ground to live bagpipes and drums that makes one feel more alive. In fact I was reminded of Marjorie Hinckley’s (former president of the church Gordon Hinckley’s wife) quote about wanting to exit this life with peanut butter stains from making sandwiches for a sick neighbor’s children, etc (It’s a great quote, wish I could remember it verbatim right now.) After we had finished dancing two nicely coiffed, done up women walked by, and I was reminded that after dancing outside and getting sweaty and slightly rained on, and the wind whipping my hair all over I probably was a bit scary looking. But then I realized that I really didn’t care, I would rather “exit this world” so to speak sweaty and mussed and grass stained from dancing and being alive than with my hair perfect from staying on the sidelines. What’s the point of being alive if you aren’t going to live?

Maxed Out Puppetry had a couple of performances at the Princess Festival down in Lindon. We performed Ape in Boots, Hardware Store, and a new sketch called “Seanderella,” set in the ocean.
And, for the record, Kelly looked good even after having danced crazily in the muddy grass.