"My Planetarium"

While at me parent's house this summer, Miles discovered my dad's game, Perplexus.  It's a maze-type strategic-ish game where you guide a ball through obstacles all contained within a plastic sphere.  Coming home, he was quite excited to discover that we own the game as well.  Miles has claimed it as his own and call it his "planetarium".  Why?  Because his favorite thing to see at the planetarium is this balls-running-down-tracks Rube-Goldberg type thing.  He plays with his "planetarium" often (and in some sections is better than me!)

Summer's Goodness

Finally ripe (from the garden)...

My lunch for the past few days (thank, Costco)...

Oh yum!

Not Your Typical Summer Storm

I spent most of the day cleaning out the garage.  I even went so far as to hose out the floor.  Several times I took a quick break to go nag Nolan about mowing the lawn.  I told him that storm clouds were building in the west and he needed to get the mowing done before the rain hit.  I got the "eye roll".  Finally, after the garage was done, I not-so-nicely told him to get outside and get the lawn mowed because the storm was rapidly approaching.  Nolan got half of the front yard mowed before coming to get me to show me the storm blowing in.  Billowing black and GREEN clouds were racing in from the south and rapidly wrapping around to the north.  My neighbor and I decided that outside was not the best place to be.  She grabbed her kids and their toys and headed inside.  I ran back inside to get my camera and shot pictures of the incoming storm...

The rain came down in sheets.  Miles was mesmerized by the storm.

I checked the National Weather Service for information.  Their website had us under a severe thunderstorm warning, a flash flood warning, and a "seek shelter in an interior room on the lowest level of your dwelling" alert.  So, I went outside to check out the storm, but was driven back inside by the sideways rain.  Evidently, near Oak Canyon (and about a half mile away from me) was a funnel-type cloud that was spiraling upwards are wrecking havoc on trees, shingles, fences, etc.  The gutters filled with water.  Boxes and trash were flying everywhere.  The wind was whipping my baby tree every which way.  This went on for about 45 minutes.  Then the wind stopped and the rain lightened.  So we went out to tour the aftermath of the storm.  All the storm-catch basins were filled.  I've never seen all of them full at the same time.  The soccer field at THS was flooded.  There were kids playing football and wading in the massive puddle.  Miles wanted to go swimming too, so we headed home to get him a swim suit.  The catch-basin at the end of our street was already drained, but the one on 900 East was plenty full.  The boys had a fun swim in the "mud pool".

Nolan's grand entry into the water...

It was a memorable storm!

The USPS Makes No Sense

Today I needed to mail a package to Leslie.  I boxed it up and took it to the post office.  The line was obscenely long so I went to the "Mail it Yourself" kiosk.  According to the postage calculator, to ship the box Priority, it would cost close to $16.  Parcel Post was about $12.50.  I was about to ship is parcel post, but luckily I was on the phone with Amy who told me to look into the Flat Rate boxes.  I looked at the boxes and it appeared that my box would exactly fit inside the flat rate medium box which would ship Priority for $12.35.  Cool... I use their box, I save money.  Well, of course the "help yourself" box display was out of the box I wanted so I got to stand in the long and slow post office line.  When it was finally my turn, I asked the clerk to get me the box I needed, and yes, my box fit perfectly inside their box, so I taped up their box, shipped it to Virginia, save about $3, and happily left the post office.

Later in the day I was thinking about my post office experience and realized that the post office is nuts.  I brought in a package using my own packaging (box and tape) and was going to be charged nearly $16 for the same delivery service that I got for using their custom printed box which they give out for free.  Since my box was put directly inside their box, the package now weighed more, yet cost less to ship.  So the USPS spends money on their free supplies and then charges less for shipping if you use the free packaging that costs them money to produce.  I don't get it.  Shouldn't I have been rewarded with cheaper postage for not costing the USPS money instead of the other way around?  Strange policy.

T-Wolf Trot 2013

It blows me away that I have kids who don't regularly run, and yet decide one morning that they want to run a 5K.  They run the 5K and run it well.  The main reason Jonathan returned home this past weekend was to participate in the THS X-Country team fundraiser- the T-Wolf Trot 5K.  He and Nolan got up fairly early Monday and went for a run.  No biggie to them.  Here are their finishing (and near finishing) pictures.

Jonathan's...

I forgot what Nolan was wearing, so I was happy I recognized him near the finish line and got a picture of him.

 

By coincidence, Nolan wore his wolf shirt to the T-Wolf Trot!

Hotdog Roast

Monday night was a hotdog roast at Parley and Bona's.  Miles is fascinated with fire, but quite scared of it as well (which is a good thing).  Miles throws sticks into the fire from 5 feet away.  He decided that he wanted to roast himself a marshmallow.  He found a stick, put a marshmallow on it, and stood as close to the fire as he dared...

Hahaha!  He was so proud of himself for "cooking" a marshmallow, and he happily ate the cold, untoasted marshmallow off the stick.

A Quick Visit Home

Jonathan decided to spend part of Labor Day weekend with us.  We picked him up at the Trax station in Draper on Sunday evening (which was actually kind of an adventure... my phone was giving directions to the station.  It had us on Fort Rd. in Draper.  Fort Road?  Sounded familiar, but I didn't know why... I don't know Draper street names.  So we're driving on Fort Rd. and encountered a police perimeter.  Then it hit me... there was an officer shot and killed that morning on Fort Rd and the area was closed while the investigation was going on.  So we did a Tour de Draper via the neighborhoods trying to get around the sealed off area.  Needless to say, we were late picking up Jonathan).  It was fun having Jonathan home.  I loved seeing familiar sites/things like this...

YouTubing it up together like in the "old days".  Jonathan knew that I'd cleaned out his room; he thought I'd completely evicted him, and he may as well sleep in the guest room.  I objected and took him down to show him that while I'd cleaned out his room, plenty of his things were still out and his room was still "his"... it was just de-junked and cleaned.  He went in his room and informed me "this is wrong."  Well, too bad.  He slept in his room.  The next morning I went downstairs and looked in him room and saw something that was definitely "wrong".  This is what I found...

He'd made his bed!  For the first time that I can recall in 18 years  Jonathan made his bed.  Whoa!

The main reason Jonathan came home (other than for my awesome pancakes) was to run the T-wolf Trot at THS on Labor Day (but that gets its own post).  The rest of Monday was spent hiking in Battlecreek Canyon and over at Parley and Bona's.  There wasn't any UTA service on Monday due to the holiday, but I told Jonathan that either I'd take him back to the U on Monday night, or he could take an early train back to Tuesday.  He opted for the train.  Loved the visit! 

Jonathan seems to have adjusted well to dorm life.  He was very relaxed this weekend- not overly stressed like he was all of his senior year.  I loved hearing him play his clarinet Sunday night.  Looking forward to a longer visit though!