Timponogos Storytelling Festival

Right up there with Christmas and Halloween in our family tradition is the Timpanogos Storytelling Festival. We've been going for several years now and the event has embedded itself in the pantheon of Paulsen family mainstays. We pull our kids out of school, ride the shuttle bus up the canyon to the tents and have the best time together.

This year, when I was walking late to meet Becky and the kids already seated, I heard the sweet and lovable Gomer Pyle accent of Donald Davis flooding from the tent. My eyes got teary as I heard that distinctive Appalachian accent that took me back to my mission to North Carolina 25 years ago. His stories really get to me.

Sid Lieberman is the biggest small guy I've ever met. We love his "I'm Sean Connery" story. His Abraham and Isaac story brings the teary eyed crown to its feet every time.

Bil Lepp had is in stitches! Who has heard of a guy running from a pack of wild dogs and 250 prairie dogs on burning 12 foot stilts on a roller skate while tangled around the 100 foot extension cord for his cell phone and no pants on! My face still hurts.

David Holt did the ham-bone in the thunder suit, a jumpsuit with electronic drum triggers sewn in, was pretty amazing.

And of course there is Bill Harley who had the entire crowd whining... in harmony! Waaaa waaa waaa. That was great!

Carmen Agra Deedy was one of our favorites, the favorite of my little ones. They have one of her books and CDs from the last time she came to the festival. They listen to it every night and have it memorized. Who knew my precious little ones could talk like a little cockroach with a Cuban accent?

All of the storytellers were just amazing and touched me in some way. I couldn't get enough. This is the kind of event that I hope my girls will bring their families to when they have kids of their own.(if I don't intimidate all their suitors away) Forget coming home for Christmas (ok not really) I'll pay for the plane tickets (If I let you move that far away) and come home for the storytelling festival!

It's sad when the stories are all told and each step back to the car takes me further away from such a great experience, but this little treasure will come around again and again. I can't wait!

Swimming

The older girls and Becky were away at camp this week. I thought I'd get the little ones caught up on their summer swimming. Every day when I would get home from work we went swimming. We went to SCERA pool, the Orem rec center and Seven Peaks twice.

On Friday, after I'd spent the previous night at the E.R. passing a kidney stone, we went all out. I took the girls and checked into the La Quinta Inn Orem. What a blast! We checked in at 1:30 P.M. and swam until about 5:00. While the girls watched some T.V. I went and bought some take out, oh I also bought a Wii. (Something had to fill the gaps between swims! =:) By 9:00 P.M. it was back in the pool.

My little fish were really taking to the water and had learned to snorkel and not freak out. They even survived the 'rowdy teen hour' at the pool. Melinda can swim in water over her head for an extended time. When she gets tired she just rolls over and floats on her back before moving on. What a fish! Audrey liked reading her teenie magazine while floating on her raft. Fabulous!

I did have a wii bit on an ulterior motive. I like to relax by the pool and enjoy my kinds having a good time swimming. One of my favorite episodes was in Tucson when we stayed at the El Conquistador resort when Tammy had Stephen. That was truly an awesome week and funny enough it seemed to be just me and the two little ones at the pool all the time. Anyway, this weekend I read my book and synthesized plenty of vitamin D by the pool. The hotel had a nice little garden with a gazebo right by the pool. That was a nice place to read. On Pioneer day the Orem Owls put on some fireworks after the game. We watched from the comfortable couches in this nice little gazebo. Perfect!

No driving or travel, no rental car, no hastle. Just a 5 minute drive to Orem and a nice relaxing time with my girls. I do wish they were all there though. We'll have to do this again before summer ends.

Completly worn out and ready to go home

A good book, a pool, a nice (not hot!) day and my girls. A perfect recipe! Only some ingredients were missing.

Tiptoe Through the Tulips

Spring at last! Yeah it's still snowy and cold outside, but spring is officially here. For a guy who defies and denies the existence of Winter here in Utah, spring provides a break from the day to day cognitive dissonance brought on by the delusional notion that shorts and barbeque's are normal in the dead of winter.

One of our favorite rites of spring is opening day at the Gardens at Thanksgiving Point. This local treasure tames the monsters inside my head that nearly take over when the sun is scarce and everything outside is pretending to be dead. We enjoy a lunch at the Trellis cafe and a stroll though the still awakening, but still mostly asleep gardens. There is some greenery just poking up through the recently melted permafrost that stimulates the more ancient parts of my thawing brain. Hundreds of thousands of burgeoning Tulips preparing for their big show next month. If you live in Utah, this is something that you ought not to miss.

Here are some shots from this year's first visit in late March 2009

It's not spring up there yet!


Some shots of warmer times at the Gardens...

Today was the Rex E. Lee Run for cancer at BYU. This is the second time Becky and Audrey have made the 5k run. This was also the second time Audrey carried her cousin Natalie Burraston's name on her back as a show of support for her struggle with leukemia. Becky ran with the name of Natalie's friend, Alexa, who passed away from neuroblastoma last summer. Cancer sucks. Becky has posted a note on Facebook describing her experience and letting people know about the Princess Alexa Foundation which collects donations of dress up clothes, costumes and money (what's in your wallet?) for children undergoing treatment at hospitals.


So much progress has been made in so many areas like cancer and other diseases. The kind of leukemia that Natalie had has a high cure rate these days, but 15 years ago it was much lower. The future (and the present!) looks very promising for even more astounding medical progress with diseases that are so frustrating and heart breaking today. It is the hard work and dedication from people like Alexa's parents, who founded and run the Princess Alexa Foundation, and Natalie's doctors, nurses etc... (see the post for FRIDAY, MARCH 13, 2009 09:35 AM at the link for Natalie Burraston above) that have made this progress possible. I may not be as hard working and dedicated like those others, but my credit card still works and monthly donations to these excellent charities are much less painful than for those who directly experience the disease and its effects.


This brings me to what I really wanted to say here today. While cancer research and treatment are working miracles every day, there is one "disease" that is so easy to cure, nearly trivial, yet goes untreated far too often. That is poverty and hunger. So many children and families suffer so greatly from hunger and even starvation which is a condition that is hard to believe even exists in this age. I can't imagine how expensive it must be to treat cancer and other diseases, but I figure a child's life could be saved from hunger and easily preventable disease just from the equivalent cost of postage to mail insurance claims etc... to a cancer patient's home. I saw the stack of mail at Natalie's house. Wow! So while I'm plugging charities, my favorite is Children's International. We've been donating for a few years now. It's so easy to set up automatic charges to the credit card and I hardly even notice. I was looking at a picture on the fridge of our sponsored child, Sindy, the other day and realized that she's starting to get big. I'm not the kind to get too involved personally in the struggle of others, but my credit card still works...

Here are more pictures of the Rex E Lee Run for Cancer

Old Friends and Neighbors

It's very difficult, yet exciting to watch kids grow up. Our old neighbors, the Humphrey's, lived next door for many years. Their girls are just a bit older than ours. We watched as their girls hit milestones and it scared us to know that our own girls were right behind. When I wish I could slow life down and keep my precious girls small forever, I often think of the words to a favorite song...

Summer's going fast, nights growing colder

Children growing up, old friends growing older

Freeze this moment a little bit longer

Make each impression a little bit stronger

Experience slips away

Experience slips away...

Kristen Humphrey, the tallest one in the middle of the picture above, is getting married. Yeah, and that's Debra and Karen in there too (along with Ali) not all that far behind. sigh... This is one milestone that, for my own girls, I'm hoping will be far behind our old friend and neighbor.

Congratulations Kristen!

Story Telling

Last night we all went to the Timpanogos Story Telling Festival's Midwinter Conference. What a delightful break from the cold, wet and smoggy winter doldrums. I told Becky as we were walking out that it was like a big turkey dinner on a fast Sunday. Just getting a taste of the Summer event takes me back to Provo Canyon in late Summer, sitting in the tents and enjoying one of our family's favorite Summer rituals. I enjoy that memory as much as any Hawaiian vacation.



For those of you that don't know about the festival, it is over Memorial day weekend every summer at Timpanogos park in Provo Canyon. We go every year and I usually take a day or two off work to attend the weekday session. Funny stories, sad stories, interesting stories and even some just plain stories. When they are told by the world's best story tellers you cannot help but being taken away for a few minutes to another place and time. The great thing is that even our kids love the festival... every one of them. We all look forward to it and relish the little treasures of books, CDs and DVDs we bring home.


Here are some photos of festivals past...

It gets hot in August.

The crew waiting for the next story

Making pottery at the festival at the foot of Timp. Don't leave it behind this year!


At the Scera Shell for the Saturday night Laughin'




The band warming us up for some fun!

The real star of the show

It just doesn't get any better...

The blondie girl

Puppet masters!

Lunch with Tucano's. Maybe it does get better!

Riding the shuttle bus to the story telling festival is as fun as a roller coaster!

Dallas!

Our desktop computer died and the laptop is all but useless. I haven't updated for a while, but that doesn't mean there haven't been plenty of facts to torture! It's time to catch up. I think I'll post several short entries rather than one big long one, so stay tuned!

First off, I now have a shiny new screamer to work on. A Dell Studio XPS with the new Intel Core i7 chip. When I opened up Task Manager and saw 8 cpu windows, I got the giggles! The chip is a quad core, each core being hyper-threaded, which the OS (64 bit Vista) sees as 8 separate cpu's. Very nice and very responsive, no matter how many things are going on. Take a look, you might get the giggles too.

We had a wonderful trip to visit Natalie in Texas in January. We had to take Duke back though. Returning a dog that you love to his owner in Texas who has recently recovered from Leukemia isn't as easy as it sounds! We had to get him a kennel... (No, we didn't ship Melinda with him in the cargo hold)



Becky had to run all over the place getting shots, vet certification, grooming etc etc... We got Duke home and Natalie and the Colonel were happy to see him. That makes it worth it. You can see the happy homecoming at bluesparklyshoes

We all love you Duke and we miss you terribly!

Here are more pictures from the trip...

This crazy bird (A Great Blue Heron I believe) flew to this pond at the Fort Worth Botanical Garden's - Japanese Garden and he stalked and fished out a Koi from the Koi pond... right in front of us. No kidding, this brutal yet beautiful spectacle of nature took place not 10 feet from where we were standing.



Another brutal spectacle of nature... A young boy stalking a squirrel, or is it the other way around...


The bird soon after arriving at the crime scene

Picture perfect! Natalie and the Colonel.



All of us Paulsens love to skate and we helped Natalie learn a little bit before her skating lessons. Please don't look at the skates I'm wearing. It's embarrassing! I thought of taking my own skates with me to Dallas, but... Ok, if anyone on my hockey team sees this I'll never hear the end of it.





Three beauties in one shot. There should be a law...


The cattle drive at the stock yards in Ft. Worth.



Teaching super Nats how to skate. She did great!

At the Japanese Gardens in Ft. Worth










Some things are more beautiful than even the most beautiful gardens.








Sisters!