Some Snippets of Randomness

I had to snap this shot of Natalie in action last week - This describes our Rimington girls to a T. The epitome of girliness, while still doing boy-type things. and no, this was not right after church. She wanted to wear a dress and her fancy shoes on a Saturday.

--------------------------------

I may have rubbed off a little on Kimberly with my new hobby -

While I was working on Easter skirt #2 last week, Kimberly started sewing her own Barbie clothes. Guess I won't have to worry about sewing any, huh.

--------------------------------

And here you get a brief glimpse into daddy/daughter time at the Rimington household -

--------------------------

I saved the best for last. I think John's had a nice and relaxingly long break since his last home improvement project, so he's set out to work on the next one. Once he picked up the freshly minted business license from Layton City, I set to work clearing this space aside in the basement.

With this space now cleared, we can start moving the items from the corner of the other side of the basement (see below) so John can start building Kimberly's bedroom. Current plans are to be done by the summer. Kimberly is more than anxious to move into her own pad and be able to stop sharing her things with her 17-month-old sister.

As you can see, we have our work cut out for us.

Thank You Mr. President.

Specifically, President Roosevelt for setting aside a ton of national forest areas for us to enjoy.

We decided to honor his legacy and all other Presidents on Monday (since remember, John now gets every famous and unfamous government holiday off - woo-hoo) by enjoying those national forests with a bit of adventure -

Snow mobiling up Logan Canyon. We dropped off the two youngest girls at Grandma's house (thank you very much mom rimington) and sped on up to the lodge where we rented two snowmobiles and the fresh layers of powder from the weekend snow falls were just calling our name.

That is until 5 minutes into the adventure when I got my snowmobile stuck. oops. and then John got his snowmobile stuck trying to get mine unstuck. enter gps thingy the lodge gave us if we needed rescuing.

At this point I was wondering how many more times we would need the rescue beacon and $20 each time they had to come rescue us.

Anyway, after we were thus rescued, we forged ahead on some beautiful trails just laden with fluffy snow, and beautiful trees and valleys lining each side of the trail. I was thinking as I sped along with my speedster and Alicia behind me how much I love, love, love living in Utah with all of the magnificent snow activities just minutes from our house, then when we hit warmer months, beautiful hiking trails, then of course in the summer, camping, campfires, smores, beach fun at the lakes. I need to stop there. Now I'm getting all giddy for summertime. Reigning myself back in for the wintertime fun. Isn't it nice to have seasons?

So, we were all the way in the deep forests of Idaho, having crossed the border about halfway through the trek when we decided to turn around. Before doing so, John found a nice meadow where he could power his way through the thigh-deep snow. He did encounter one minor problem - a tree . To his credit, he was trying to turn, but with the deep snow, was having slight technical trouble. Kimberly and I watched as the tree shuddered when John and Alicia ran into it. Poor tree. Poor us having to dig ourselves out. No, we didn't have to page the rescue squad that time.

We actually discovered this place 12 years ago when we were still going to school up in Logan.

When we were finished on Monday, John asked me why we hadn't thought to do this sooner since we had so much fun. I had to remind him of the many years I spent either pregnant or nursing a baby. Now that we've had our last and she is well past nursing, we are excited about being in this next stage of life when we can enjoy such adventures.

Three Generations

Who knew when my mom learned to ski on the slopes at Brighton Ski Resort up Little Cottonwood Canyon that she would be skiing in that exact location down the road with her daughter and her granddaughter.

My mom came to visit this last weekend, so we decided to take advantage of all the Utah snow they keep hyping about in the TV ads. Trust me, the hype is well-justified. Nothing sweeter than a luscious trail of powdery fluff for us ski bums to plow our way through (okay, literally, Kimberly plowed, while my mom carved beautiful parallel patterns - and me, somewhere in between).

In other news on the Rimington front, I am currently on a loaner computer because our hard drive completely failed. Yup. Kapoot. No workee. Adios computer files. Sigh. New computer parts, here we come - in about a week. And it's only a 50 percent chance we'll be able to recover our data from said failed hard drive. Technology is a beautiful thing, ain't it?

Pink gets Even Pinker

I started another sewing project.

Using a lot of this -

And some of this -

TA-DA! I worked on it last night and am thrilled with the results. I'm also thankful both my mom and mom-in-law were only a phone call away when I had questions throughout the evening.

I'm making Easter skirts for the girls - and myself. Alicia was the first 'victim', only because when I cut the skirt out, intending it to be for Kimberly, it was a few inches shy of covering her glutious maximus, so it became Alicia's skirt. Now onto the next 4 skirts. Good thing Easter is still two months away.

And given that ALL of the girls in this family (yes, that would be 5 out of the 6 of us) will be in pink for Easter, it seemed only fitting for John to match us. Guess how long it took me to talk John into buying this tie...

I can't wait for Easter to be upon so we can show up at church in all of our pink glory!

Wait. Clearly the skirts are slightly more coral than John's bright pink tie. We may have to make some slight adjustments.

A Lot of Sweaty Writing

I've been knee-deep in sweat and working on a hefty story this past week, so therefore, no recent blog postings. I've started a new workout program called Insanity. I can assure you it lives up to its name and I have been sweating in bucketfuls.

In the hours of recovery from that lovely activity, I have been working on this story that landed itself on the front cover of Sunday's newspaper. After 8 interviews, 8 pages of typed notes and 2 pages of handwritten ones, I finally had all of the information I needed to write up the investigative piece my editor gave me at the beginning of the week. I may have stirred up some controversy, but all in a day's work as a journalist, right?

http://www.standard.net/topics/education/2011/02/05/teaching-webcam-reaches-larger-audience-students

As for the rest of my time, I'm usually trying to keep up with this gal, who at nearly 16 months is finally walking.

...and this is the side I usually see the most of as she is always off and running to find the next something or other to get into.

Wait - I did get her to stop for a minute -

She's smiling because she knows what trouble she will be getting into next and what joy I will have cleaning up that trouble.

Anyway, now that I'm done with this blog session, the moment I've been dreading all morning has arrived - another round of Insanity.