The Gold Girls

Off to school
Last week marked the beginning of another school year for the Gold Family.
It is a little historic for us, as Bella, our baby, finally gets to go along with her sisters.




So, now I am left filling my days without children in tow.
I think that this Wild Thing will be o.k.

When I started getting a bit sad, I decided I needed to embrace the change.
I gave myself a treat on the first day of my new found freedom.
I went to Panera Bread and got whatever I wanted.
I sat and ate and read my book just to make sure I could still enjoy some quiet.
I sure hope the girls enjoy school as much as I enjoyed my date with myself.
I also hope that they will find and be the kind of friend that is illustrated in the following story by Susie. And, they will always remember that prayers are answered.
Bella can attest to prayers being answered herself. All summer, Bella repeatedly told us she wanted Mrs. Nitz, and we told her that any teacher would be just fine and that she wasn’t going to get to choose. It ended up that she had been assigned a teacher other than Mrs. Nitz, the one Sophia had last year. Bella was bummed out during the first week of assessments, but didn’t complain. She just kept on saying, “I really really really want Mrs. Nitz.” To our pleasant surprise, when Bella reported to her second day of school, Mrs. Nitz was waiting. Bella had been changed to her class. You should have seen that smile of an answered prayer.
WET PANTS

Come with me to a third grade classroom…..

There is a nine-year-old kid sitting at his desk and all of a sudden, there is a puddle between his feet and the front of his pants are wet. He thinks his heart is going to stop because he cannot possibly imagine how this has happened. It’s never happened before, and he knows that when the boys find out he will never hear the end of it. When the girls find out, they’ll never speak to him again as long as he lives. The boy believes his heart is going to stop; he puts his head down and prays this prayer, ‘Dear God, this is an emergency! I need help now! Five minutes from now I’m dead meat.’
He looks up from his prayer and here comes the teacher with a look in her eyes that says he has been discovered. As the teacher is walking toward him, a classmate named Susie is carrying a goldfish bowl that is filled with water. Susie trips in front of the teacher and inexplicably dumps the bowl of water in the boy’s lap. The boy pretends to be angry, but all the while is saying to himself, ‘Thank you, Lord! Thank you, Lord!’
Now all of a sudden, instead of being the object of ridicule, the boy is the object of sympathy.. The teacher rushes him downstairs and gives him gym shorts to put on while his pants dry out. All the other children are on their hands and knees cleaning up around his desk. The sympathy is wonderful. But as life would have it, the ridicule that should have been his has been transferred to someone else – Susie.
She tries to help, but they tell her to get out. You’ve done enough, you klutz!’
Finally, at the end of the day, as they are waiting for the bus, the boy walks over to Susie and whispers, ‘You did that on purpose, didn’t you?’ Susie whispers back, ‘I wet my pants once too.’

Hypocrites

Mom, what is that word that means you tell people to do one thing, but then you don’t do what you say to do?

Hypocrite.
Oh yeah, hypocrite.

So, if you tell us to wear our seat belts and you don’t, then you’re a hypocrite?

I guess you could say that.

Fast forward a week to this morning. (and I apologize to those of you who may not get the referenced Harry Potter magical creature)

Kids, please put your seat belts on.

Mom, you are such a hippogriff, put your seat belt on!

Oh, it was time for a little lesson while I shrugishly pulled on my seat belt.

It’s not nice to call people hypocrites, Abigail, and I am not a hypocrite, I just forget to put my seat belt on sometimes.

And it’s not nice to call people hippogriffs either.

Native American Cuisine


In the West there is something called a Navajo Taco. For lack of a better description, it is kind of a mix between a taco, a Pita sandwich, and a scone. And even though I somehow just managed to make them sound very scary, Navajo Tacos are very good and filling. We are sad that we haven’t eaten one in years. We have only Petro’s in the south. I suppose that is as close as we get to a Native American Cuisine. I guess all the Confederates scared all the Natives away long ago.

Well, as part of our trip out west, it was our goal to eat every Western cuisine that we miss while living in the South. We hadn’t really mentioned a Navajo taco, but whenever we saw a place that offered anything we can only get out West we stopped. We were constantly on the lookout for our favorites. (remembered or not)

After spending a day at The Grand Canyon, we immediately got on the road. We were in a hurry to get to my mom and dads. We had not eaten lunch and were starving, but figured we would see something on the way and would save time by eating in the car. We wrongly suspected we could find food on the road cheaper than we could in the Canyon. We ended up bi passing the only little town that would have anything to eat, and gassed up in the middle of nowhere. The trip turned into hours and we were well into dinner time.
The only thing we passed on the road were these Navajo Shops where the Native American tribe members sell their jewelry, pottery and such. There was a new shop about every 10 miles. They all looked exactly the same and seemed to market and sell the exact same items.
Now I know you all already realize that LG has an MBA and is always looking for good business opportunities. We were all getting hungrier and crankier by the second. Finally LG turned to me and in desperation exclaimed, “You would think that some of these Navajos would start selling some tacos.”
And, that, ladies and gentlemen, gives you the quick wit I live with on a daily basis. LG needs to start his own blog that features his humor. He’s so much funnier than I could ever hope to be. I am so happy to have a husband that has never let me down on his promise to make me laugh every day.

11 photos for 11 years
On
August 15th 1997
LG and me
We were wed
For eternity
In Salt Lake City
In 1997
There was no looking back, only forward.
In 1998
I bulged around the middle.In 1999
We added Abigail
In 2000,
You heeded the call very early every morning and tried to stay awake.
In 2001,
Sophia made us 4.
In 2002,
You worked your way to the top.
In 2003, Bella was born.

2004
will always be a little blurry.
In 2005
We ascended every corner.
In 2006,
The picture was brighter than ever.


In 2007,
Your American education was finally complete.

In 2008 The shadows of the past
added to the pureness of the future
make the perfect picture.

Flooding, no problem

“I love water”, she says.

At five, she obviouslly doesn’t understand the negative impact of a flood.

I think that that she thinks that her weather jacket is just a snazzy costume.

Thanks to the WBIR TV and The Weather Channel for this wonderful service provided at our Back to School First Night Celebration (which I can’t find a single thing about online, sorry)

My girls enjoyed the free celebration on the evening of the first day of school. No free food was there, but lots and lots of giveaway and a really retro boy band that I will post about later.

Sophia and Abigail were pooped out from a whole long day at school and they had no desire to pretend work for the weather channel, but prefered to stand in line for the big blow up slide.

It would have been nice to see what the teleprompter actually said, don’t you think?

Love Pairs
Look mom, we put all of the Little Pet Shops in Love Pairs.

Oh yeah, what does it mean if you are in a love pair?

It means you are the same kind and you love each other.

What do you do if you love each other?
I don’t know. Mom, why do always have to talk about sex?
They are just pet shops.
They just stand by each other and love each other.
And we put the spider and the pig together because we only have one spider and one pig.
They just love each other like friends.
They can be Charlotte and Wilber.
So, we aren’t going to have any half pig/half spiders running around.
No.
What would we call that creation?
Piggers or spigs?

Mom, you think you are so funny.

You’re not.

I know I’m not funny. To you. Ha ha.

Dad thinks I’m funny.

That’s only because he’s your love pair.

(And I totally just took literary liberty here with this last sentence)

So, what kind of love pair is this?

Oh the butterfly and caterpillar aren’t a love pair.

The caterpillar is too little.

And, they aren’t married yet, right?

Right.

And, I would like to bare my testimony,
You can teach morals to your children at any given time.
The End.

Those Days Are Past and Gone
My baby went to Kindergarten today.
I feel a little lost.
I am happy for Bella to go to school.
I just wish I had some more kids.
I am not ready for this season to be over yet.
I took this photo in South Dakota last week.
And I wrote this poem showcasing my mood today.

Those days are past and gone.
The ones when they were young.

Off, away, they go.
Leaving me feeling so.

The sun sets on my heart.
Do we have to be apart?

This is their new dawn.
Those days are past and gone.

Five Years For The Fries
We used to live in Utah.
LG had a very favorite restaurant.
Ever since we moved to Knoxville, LG has been counting down the days until he could go back.
For five years, the conversations have been countless.
“We have to go to The Training Table every day whenever we go back.”
He can never get too many cheese fries and Utah famous fry sauce.
You have to try them. Even if you are counting calories.
The caloric splurge will not disappoint.

The kids thought ordering over the phone was pretty cool.

But they knew that they had to work for the food.

Alright girls, figure out how to get home.

Disassembling Our Daycare
Today is the first day of summer that I got to sleep in as long as I wanted.
I know, I know.
How sad!
Lazy summer mornings are one of the hugest perks of being a stay home mom.
I rejoiced the day that all of my kids were old enough to take care of themselves in the morning.

In fact I parented with the notion of them being independent enough to get their own breakfast and play a DVD all by themselves.

And, whala, they prefer to wake up around nine and get themselves a bowl of cereal while watching a movie.
And this works great for us because I prefer to sleep until 10 a.m.
Especially when I am still recovering from a long road trip.

The Clarke’s are moving and so we no longer get to watch Adriana.
Abigail is going to miss losing a couple strands of here from time to time.

And Brayden is going to be spending the rest of this month with his auntie while his pregnant mother finishes out her last few weeks of work.

Bella will really miss having someone else around who is smaller than her and worships the ground that she walks on.

And Sophia, she is just going to miss the babies all together.
She is the most natural nurturer that I have ever known.
She would stop whatever she was doing to care for one of them, and I didn’t even have to ask.
She takes after her Grammy in so many ways.
We are sure going to miss having these guys around.

Especially when school starts when I won’t be able to sleep in anyway.

I really need some more kids fast!!!
Anyone willing to give us a toddler who sleeps through the night?

I don’t want to work with my husband every day.
I love him to pieces but I want to enjoy the time I spend with him.
Taking his orders as a paralegal has the potential of ruining our date nights.
Anyone willing to work as a paralegal for free so that I can go to the spa everyday?
After nine years of child rearing, and a summer daycare I think I deserve it, don’t you?
Schucks, I better go and buy some business attire.