Not Dead Yet

I'd hate for anyone to think that the Mitchell's have gone missing - totally untrue. I can't even say we've been overly busy with school starting up - Just various reasons and sheer laziness have kept me from the computer.

Mike has been busy creating new ringtones for our phones and changing all of the rings on my phone. He has been taking songs or sound bites that we like and editing them to the 15 seconds that we need for the phones. He even created some from the Haunted Mansion soundtrack.

Tyler is still recovering from the shame of wrecking my car on the first day that he got to drive alone - and then getting a parking ticket in his Dad's car a few days ago. He was working almost daily at the zoo giftshop until school started. Now he will do weekends and special events. He also is involved in TV West, the high school news program. I have no idea what he will actually do and I don't think he does either. He has been tweaking his schedule so that he now is taking seminary during school hours and taking five AP or IB classes - Chemistry, European History, English, Calculus II and I have no idea what the other one is.

Krista is off to school and babysitting at least once a week. No fluffy schedule for her this year wither - every class except for PE is academic. She is even taking Spanish and ASL (American Sign Language). She actually has a class and lunch with her friend Stephanie this year - last year they rarely saw each other. But the year hiatus hasn't negatively affected their friendship.

I am back to school also. I spent much of my day checking out books, ordering the Student Body Officers around or trying to clean the piles of papers off my desk. Unfortunately my label maker pooped out before I was finished, so I abandoned that project. Now I have my stuff, so tomorrow I will be back at it! Tonight we went to Staples and stocked up on school supplies for everyone.

O - Mike had gun surgery yesterday. Turns out he has been brushing his teeth too hard and his gums have receded in horror. Now he has a clear plastic retainer protector to wear while he heals.

I will post a picture of my new car soon - as soon as we get the new computer in. This one has been having fits. It sometimes doesn't recognize iTunes music and other times our iPhotos. I haven't downloaded any pictures in ages!

Poetry ala Krista #1

On My Desk

On my desk I have,
20 papers all shred and torn
10 pencils, all broken
Two pairs of scissors, none left-handed
One piece of poster board
Markers and colored pencils
Three rulers
One bottle of glue
Ten glue sticks
A pile of binders


All stuff my brother needs

School Posing

I got Krista to pose in some of her school clothes.



She is very proud of the sparkly skeleton tennies in this picture.


Krista sewed the top in this picture.

School Shopping

First thing Wednesday morning Krista got her hair cut. Its very cute, but I don;t think she has the patience to straighten it - and that's what it needs to really show off the cute cut. Mike went into work for a bit. Tyler got to hang out at hime.

Once we all assembled yesterday, it was off to school shopping. At Target of all places. Well, he had done some trial runs at Nordstorm and various othe mall stores, but came up with nada that wasn't over pirced or off the hip. Krista already has a ton of shirts, so we really needed pants. And Target had what we needed. Mike and Tyler were actually surprised how fast we were. But, I am pretty good at the whole shopping thing. And I know Krista's style better than she does. Don't tell her I said that.

Mike and Tyler only took ten minutes to find socks, underwear, shoes and two pair of jeans, And that's it for Tyler. Well, he will get one more pair of shoes later. But those will be Vans from the real Vans store.

THen it was over to DSW (shoes) where we staked out the big sale shoes, but then Mike sprung for two cute pair of shoes for Krista at regular price.

School shopping done, MTK went to the dentist for their cleanings. Well, Tyler went first in the Explorer and then Mike and Krista went on the scooter. Tyler had to hurry home because he had traffic school that night. He just barely made it. And instead of riding his bike down, I had to drive him. Traffic was bad, but he took it easy - that's much better than another accident.

Today was really quiet. Mike went golfing at a course in Tooele after his morning work. 18 holes - but I didn;t know any of this, so I was hanging around in vain. Tyler was at work and Krista went to babysit for 90 minutes, which ended up stretching to 4 hours! So, instead of getting anything really done, I spent my time waiting for people to show up. Oh Well.

Mike talked to his mom tonight. She will be coming here for Thanksgiving and then we already have our tickets to Cali for Christmas.

I also talked to Tom and let him know we were sorry we couldn't make it to Oregon for Kellie's baptism. It sounds like he already met up with Bob and his gang on the coast.

Sunday Evening

Well, I know things have been a little sketchy on the blog lately, but I hope Mom and Dad realize that its because there were some things going on that I really didn't want to talk about right away. Tyler seemed to turn into a full-blown teenager overnight and Mike and I had a series of days for about a two weeks where we were constantly dealing with Tyler. It was almost like he wanted to push all of our buttons all at the same time and now Ithink he may be over the whole rebellious teenager thing. It's kind of like going through every tantrum during the terrible twos in the course of two weeks.

Part of the problem was that Tyler found a young lady he really likes and instead of asking for computer time to exchange greetings, he just took the time instead - not thinking that we would let him on for a generous amount of time if he just talked to us.

Then, when he was discovered and shut down, he went behind our backs and reactivated everything on his Grandmother's computer. Of course he got caught and further discussion ensued.

Then, he was given trust of my car for a day to do some very specific things - and decided to go show off to his friend and rear-ended someone instead - causing $5000 worth of damage. He got to hear lots of stories about my, Mike's, Virginia's and his uncle's car accidents so that he could understand that it does happen, but we don't want to happen any more - especially not something the severe. Luckily the airbags didn't deploy! I really don;t want to shop for another car - I LOVE my car. AND none of you really need to go into a blow by blow of my car accidents from when I was a teen!

Tyler did get a job at the zoo - in the gift shop. He is fulltime for now. He gets to pay my insurance deductible, plus for his ticket and for traffic court. That will take his paycheck for a little while. ANd if he doesn't keep his grades up during the school year, then he willhave to quit the job. But he is going to be in great shape - He's been riding his bike up to the zoo every day!

Krista? She's actually been very calm and enjoyable. She is not babysitting every day any more. So she has time to hang out with friends. She is doing some sewing and alot of reading. Its kind of weird to have Tyler be the problem instead of Krista. And kind of nice.

While Mike and the kids were in the California, I was off to Minnesota for my consulting at Lerner and my annual pilgramage to the Mall of America. We went to a couple of great restaurants and watched a vaudeville-like play on a riverboat. Other than that, I have been doing a lot of reading, lots of various things for school just keeping relatively busy. I saw a doctor about carpal tunnel (both wrists) and tennis elbow (both elbows). Being summer, it symptoms have been greatly reduced, so we are going to see how quickly things go bad once school starts.

I ran by school last week and went through my mail. As soon as I step back in that building, I will not have time to breathe for a very long time. There is so much to do and get ready. I really wish I were paid to go in early and ge things set up before the teachers arrived. But there is no way i am going early without pay. That may sound mercernary, but I have dona enough work this summer for school. And I still have more to do.

Yard pictures

Here are pictures from all over the yard. Brian ran out of gas for the lawnmower, so I sent Tyler to fill the gas can for him. The lower lawn and front lawn look just fine, but the back lawn is what didn't get mowed. Lovely nest of tree sprouts all over. We cut down the bigger ones.

we were only able to weed the north and most of the east (from the kitchen window) yards before it got too hot to work. I am planning on going back next Monday and do some more.

Weeds or not weeds - that is my question

These pictures I am sending specifically to check for whether they are full of weeds. In the first picture I think that the day lily or iris (I wasn't sure which) are all that are real flowers and everything else is weed.


In this picture I am wondering about the reddish colored stems. Pretty much everything else looks like weeds, but I am not sure about the reddish stems.

In this picture i am wondering about the plants that are between the front of the border and the butterfly bush. They are kind of cloudy looking, but I was unsure whether they were weeds or not.

Changes In Provo

There is lots of building going on along Foothill. This is a picture of the gully that used to be across from Osmond Lane. and the second picture is directly north of the gully, with houses going in on the ridge above. The third picture is of a new house that is being built directly west of the sand volleyball court.




These pictures are at the bottom of Foothill as you reach the new church down there. There is no orchasrd left at all. Instead, three huge houses are going in. As you can see, the road now goes all the way through, twists around and then comes out on Canyon Road. They must have started at the bottom, because in the spring we only saw barricades and now suddenly there is a completed road!