Day Spa Gone Awry

We recently went home for Jaycia's wedding and Uncle Sterling and I were awarded a free trip to the children's day spa. Sterling is extremely popular with the nieces and nephews because of his patience and his inability to say no while I am only popular because I happen to be his wife.

Anyway, the day spa was conveniently located on the stage in the cultural hall so that while the adults were visiting the children could play. There also happened to be two big rolls of carpet that make an excellent spa bed for the customers while still providing equal customer access for all aspiring employees.

At the day spa you can get pedicures, manicures, massages, you can have your beard washed with wipes and on occasion you can even have your entire head waxed if you so desire. I was the first customer and I received a pedicure and foot massage which was a combination of actual foot massaging and stabbing forks into the bottom of my feet. Sterling was the second customer and as you can see he received a variety of services that were not available to me.

Sterling enjoyed most his time at the spa and though the children are not licensed they are quite thorough. After ten minutes behind the curtains of the day spa, my dear husband approaches me to show off his new and rejuvenated self. His beard was clean, his arm hair was brushed and in place, his eyebrows were waxed and the top of his head was bleeding from the head waxing.

I guess the star employee Michaelee was waxing what hair he has left on his head with a fork, a new tool used in spas, when Sterling asked if he was bleeding. She said "No," took one more stroke with the fork and then said, "...but you are now." At this point the day spa appointment came to an abrupt halt and Sterling was wiping the blood from his head with the same wipe that cleaned his beard minutes earlier.

I didn't get a great picture of the damage that his head sustained but here is the picture that I took. He wiped away the blood a few seconds before I took the picture so it doesn't look that bad.


The moral of the story...don't go to a spa where the employees are not licensed; especially if they are children with forks, spoons and knives.

Gifts that Keep on Giving

This post is long overdue considering the fact that the gifts I am talking about are gifts that Sterling bought me for my birthday. For any of you that know when my birthday is, you are aware that it is two months to the day.

Sterling really went above and beyond this year for my birthday. I had been asking for a lot of things and he delivered on most if not all of them. So I will start by listing everything that my dear husband gave to me this year.

1. Electric Keyboard Piano

2. Bread Machine

3. Jack Johnson CD

4. Ice Age and The Jungle Book

The two gifts that I want to write about are the keyboard piano and the bread machine. They both continue to give and add to our lives but in very different ways.

About five months ago we were in church and one of my favorite little girls in the ward was having a really rough time. Her mom was teaching the Sunday School lesson and her dad was doing everything in his power to calm her down. Neither food nor toys could console the heartbreaking fact that her mom was not going to be sitting by them during Sunday School. All of a sudden her dad picked her up, sat down at the piano, started playing "A Child's Prayer" and singing to her. She immediately stopped crying.

I decided then that I needed to be able to do something like that with my children someday. I wanted to be able to console them with music if nothing else was working. Quickly it was brought to my mind that I do not possess a single musical talent and if I wanted to do something of the sort I would have to soon acquire one talent or multiple talents. 

Considering the fact that I took piano lessons for a few months in junior high I decided I would begin there. I began begging for either a piano or a keyboard. I would obsessively search the Internet for good deals on one or the other and I started doing research into what is the best for starters. 

Sterling and I decided that we would start with a lower end keyboard because if my desire to play the piano now lasted as long as it did in junior high then there is no reason to spend so much money and then have it wasted.  This is the reason for the keyboard.

How does the keyboard bless our home? Well I don't know if I would call it a blessing, it is more annoying than anything. I sit in the spare bedroom, sometimes for an hour at a time, plunking away at hymns in the "Hymns Made Easy" book and then when I start to get proud I move on to the hymnal only to be humbled again. My talents have not increased exponentially by any means but I can now play "Come Follow Me" and "God Speed the Right." Please do not go directly to the hymnal to check out the difficulty of either hymn as I had strategically chosen them based on simplicity.

This gift, I hope, will continue to give in the future. The development of my ability to play the piano will bless our family as I play the hymns in our home and teach our children a love of music.

The bread machine has been the gift which has given back the most at this time. We bought it because we ate at the Sheffield's (Abe and Erin) home one day and they made some of the most delicious dinner rolls that my taste buds have ever known. We asked how they made them and they confessed that they used their bread machine. 

I am sure that Sterling saw the excitement on my face at the thought of having a machine produce such goodness. Of course, just like the keyboard, I began searching the Internet for bread machines and reviews on each machine. I looked at the really expensive ones and at the not so expensive ones and tried to justify why I need the biggest and the best one on the market. Though I didn't think that I could live with one of the cheaper bread machines, ours has proven me wrong. We have made pizza, cinnamon rolls, bread and of course the delicious dinner rolls.

Look and behold the goodness!

I have to say that the best gifts are the ones that keep on giving! Granted the bread machine may be giving more to my thighs, hips and gut than I would prefer but the memories and fun will always surpass my weight.

Weekend in the "Windy City"

Cylynn's sister (Chelsy) and her family made a trip out to Chicago one weekend in July. They asked us to come out and join them and since Chicago is only four hours drive from Coralville we decided to make the trip. The drive was quite boring; we saw mostly corn. We met our brother-in-law and nephew at the Midway airport around dinner time. Then the traveling problems began.

Chelsy's plane from Las Vegas could not pressurize after taking off. They were forced to fly in circles for a half-hour to use up fuel in order to lose some weight for landing. When the plane landed the brakes were damaged and they were forced to switch planes. Meanwhile, we, the group in Chicago, went to dinner and ate some real Chicago style pizza. If you haven't had any real Chicago style pizza you are truly missing out. It is not very similar to regular pizza but I really liked it.

As we finished dinner we received a call from Chelsy that her plane would be delayed even more due to the weather in Chicago. We decided to head to the hotel and come back to pick her up. We made the mistake of not taking the freeway to the hotel. We drove the entire way to downtown on Archer Avenue, an experience we will never forget. When we finally reached downtown we received three different sets of directions from three different cab drivers to find our hotel. We finally found the place and had our car parked.

As we were unpacking our luggage our brother-in-law (Wags) found a surprise. He grabbed the wrong bag at the airport. The bag was exactly the same except it was missing the pink string Chelsy had tied to the handle. Well, needless to say we had our car returned and we drove back to the airport. We took the freeway this time and were able to find the correct bag and return the wrong bag to the airport. We then waited and picked up Chelsy and returned to the hotel around 1:30 am to finally get some sleep.

The next day, Friday, was the Cubs game. We were able to purchase tickets to the game for an obscene amount of money. This was my first time to attend a major league baseball game. I must admit that baseball is not my favorite sport to play or watch. I tend to become bored by the end of the game. I did enjoy the experience of Wrigley field though. I loved the live organ playing during the breaks and before the game. Here are a couple of pictures from the game (one of Cylynn and I and the other a hilarious picture of our nephew Landon):

Part of the experience of Chicago was riding on the subway and elevated train system they have there. Now many of you may be thinking that this is either an insignificant or undesired part of Chicago. I, on the other hand, realized how much I had missed riding on trains and buses since I was in Germany. I enjoy observing and listening to all of the interesting people around you. It is much more entertaining than driving in a car.

Back to the story. The next day we visited the Shed Aquarium and Field Museum in Chicago. The Shed aquarium was one of the best organized aquariums we have ever been too. They organized it in rivers or areas of the ocean specifically instead of by continents. We saw many interesting fish and watched a dolphin show to cap it all off. The dolphin show wasn't very impressive for those of you who ever visit the aquarium. Here are some pictures:

Note: the top three pictures were taken in an artificial egg at a barnyard zoo we went too with Landon. I bet you would not believe I could fit in something that small. Cylynn and I had to get in first in order to convince Landon that it was not too dangerous or scary.

Following the Shed Aquarium we visited the Field Museum there. It is famous for the lions of Tsavo (which you have heard of if you have seen the movie The Ghost and the Darkness). These were two killer lions who killed for the joy and the blood rather than food and had somehow become addicted to human blood. Anyway, we looked at the lions and got a couple of pictures with Sue the T-Rex. She is the most complete T-Rex skeleton in the U.S. found in South Dakota in the 1990's. You can see in the pictures that Cylynn and I have arms pretty comparable to the length of a T-Rex arm.

The last night of our trip was spent on Navy Pier on the shore of Lake Michigan near our hotel. Anyone who knows much about Chicago has probably heard of Navy Pier. Many of the cruise ship and tour boats take off from this sight. There are a number of restaurants as well, as some carnival rides to enjoy. Chelsy, Wags and Landon took a ride on the Ferris wheel and Cylynn took Landon on a ride on the Carousel. We had some dinner and ice cream and watched a human chandelier show to top it off. The chandelier had a number of people playing instruments and completing acrobatic stunts while a hundred feet in the air held up by a crane. Here are some final pictures and a video of the chandelier show. The sound turned out much better than I would have expected.

We were so happy to spend a weekend with family. That last picture of Landon has got to be one of the best pictures ever taken. Backing up to the title. Cylynn and I both loved Chicago so much we decided we would not mind living there. It was beautiful, but ironically not very windy.

Eternal Blessings

Cylynn was blessed with the opportunity to attend her sister Josie's sealing to Shane in Phoenix Arizona in the Mesa Temple over the July 4 weekend. They were sealed on Saturday, July, 5. Cylynn should probably be making a post detailing all that happened there but I wanted to put in a few comments about what happened here and my thoughts.

I was blessed, or cursed whichever you prefer, to stay home while Cylynn made this trip. She was able to see her parents, brother and his kids, and two of her sisters including Josie. She reported that she had a great time and I was sad to miss it.

I was able to finally organize our house as Cylynn was in Arizona leaving me bored out of my mind. I also attended the Coralville fireworks show on the night of the fourth. I must report, and some of you may have experienced this and I sympathize if you have and pray that those who haven't never endure the experience, that watching fireworks is miserably boring alone. I received no joy from the experience and almost regret having gone at all. On the other hand, it did help me to feel what I was missing. This weekend without Cylynn was miserable. It was the second time that we have been separated since marriage, the first being a year previous and for approximately the same duration.

Ironically, as Cylynn was taking part in a sealing of a family for time and all eternity I was contemplating the blessing of eternal families. This weekend I had a small taste of what eternity would be without my family, wife, parents and siblings. I can attest that for me that eternity like that would be the essence of hell. On the other hand, I also contemplated eternity with my family and all its constituents. That for me would be the ultimate joy. Therefore, I would like to thank my Heavenly Father for the blessing of eternal families and the knowledge I have of this doctrine. It is truly a blessing. I have included some family pictures from Arizona (and other) below.

Home at Last

I must apologize as we are behind on our blogging. I have no excuses worth mentioning, but I am going to strive to catch us back up today as I have little else to do.

On June 28th (notice that is before our last post) we were able to move back into our apartment. All in all we were only out of our apartment for 15 days. We were very blessed by the Lord as the damage our apartment sustained was minimal. In fact, our apartment was only flooded with one inch of ground water. Try and remember back to all your geology classes in high school and college to remember what ground water is (that means you Swaag and Tote). In other words, we had no bacteria nor fecal matter that filled the water most of the people dealt with in the flooding; therefore, rather than smelling like the rest of the street which induced severe vomiting for many, our apartment smelled as sweet as honey. Furthermore, since we only had ONE inch of ground water the sheet rock in the apartment was placed high enough that it was not touched. Hence, no molding occurred in the apartment and all that needed to be replaced was the carpet. The first of the Lord's blessings.

Lest you think that the Lord's goodness ended there I will relate more of the flood story to you. The owner of our building just happens to own a carpet business. As you can imagine after severe flooding like Iowa sustained here in the last month the carpet businesses that were not under water were kept relatively busy. However, the Lord provided us with carpet from the owner of the building and it was laid within four days of the water exiting our apartment. All in all we were able to move back in within two weeks after we moved out and within five days of the water receding out of our apartment.

We also did not have to pay a cent for our lodgings while we were away due to the kindness of those around us. It was incredible to me to see the love and sacrifice those around us were willing to show us in our time of need. The night we moved out we received multiple phone calls from the ward members, my friends at school, and Cylynn's friends at work offering places to stay and help to move. I may be repeating some of the remarks Cylynn made in previous posts but I want to show my gratitude.

I am grateful for the Lord's blessings in our lives. Unfortunately, even though we were able to move into our apartment so quickly I cannot claim that we arranged our apartment back to the way it was nearly as quickly. It remained in the state you can see below for far too long. I did enjoy my new computer though, as you can see.