A little ranting...

For those of you who don't follow my cousin Becca's blog, I just thought I would re-post a portion of her post....

The one that has been getting my goat lately has been SOCIALISM. Let me help sort this out for us. First: Socialism is an economic system, not a political system. Therefore, our country would not be transitioning from a democracy to socialism. If such a transition to socialism was occurring, we would be transitioning from capitalism to socialism. Second, Marxist theory classifies socialism as characterized by unequal distribution of goods and compensation according to work done. Let's take health care reform, then, as an example. A chief complaint about this reform is that people who do nothing get something, but socialist theory clearly states that people who do stuff get stuff, and people who do nothing get nothing. So while health care reform might be a big steaming pile of you-know-what, it just isn't socialist.Count Henri de Saint-Simon is regarded as the first individual to coin the term socialism. He advocated the creation of a society in which each person was ranked according to his or her capacities and rewarded according to his or her work. Economically, socialism denotes an economic system of state ownership and/or worker ownership of the means of production and distribution. There are elements of both of these principles in our society now, and they were in place long before our current president. Think about Medicare, Medicaid, our PUBLIC lands system, and our system of PUBLIC education, just to name a few. I don't necessarily think that all of these programs are run well, but they have been around for decades, yet it is only recently that talking heads have started screaming "SOCIALISM!"My final note comes from Che Guevara, and I'll quote:
"Socialism cannot exist without a change in consciousness resulting in a new fraternal attitude toward humanity, both at an individual level, within the societies where socialism is being built or has been built, and on a world scale, with regard to all peoples suffering..."See? We Americans could never be socialist because we don't give a **** about anybody else.The moral of the story: Go ahead, call the state of affairs in this nation a joke, call our President delusional, say that Congress has their heads in dark places, and say that the proposed health care plan will never work. Just don't call it Socialism. It isn't.

Thanks Becca...I totally get it, you rule.

I just want to say, that maybe some of you are sitting out there and thinking, "Boy, I sure wish I had healthcare, that would sure be nice..." or maybe you are thinking, "Boy, that grand I've been dropping every month on my health insurance would sure go a long way in the grocery store/towards my kid's dance lessons/get some new shoes/car or mortgage payment..." Or maybe you (like my friend Annie) have great health insurance until you get real sick and have to have surgery...and your health insurance won't cover you anymore...

Whether you are republican, or democrat you can agree that health insurance reform is needed. Every other well developed nation has better health care than we do, and it costs less...that alone should tell you there is a better way to do this. And maybe Obama's plan isn't perfect, but what plan ever proposed by the government for any reason is ever perfect? I can't understand all this fear mongering about socialism and our country going down the toilet, and all our children are going to have to pay for it for thousands of years....because who wouldn't pay for it? You already pay for it! If you knew your child or even somebody else's child or your sister or cousin or grandparent or even your next door neighbor was going to have health insurance, was not going to be denied coverage, was going to be able to afford life saving surgery/chemo/prescription drugs and not go bankrupt and lose their house...who wouldn't pitch in? Who wouldn't try to pull together to help them? This is healthcare, not gun law, not abortion rights... This shouldn't be a grand debate, for me this one is easy.

The Miner Family Comedy Tour...

I just had to post this quickly. I am supposed to be doing homework for my class, but this was just too much fun.

Two nights ago, I am putting Lillie to bed and, normally, I give her a bottle of milk and she drinks it and she has her snuggy and she just snuggles in and goes right to sleep. Well, I am rocking her in the chair and she drinks her milk and closes her eyes. I am rocking and it is quiet and dark in her room, and I think she has just fallen asleep...and she starts fake snoring!!! I am not even kidding, and she opens her eyes and looks right at me and just smiles the biggest smile! I know she was just thinking that she really got me, and she totally did!!! I couldn't even help it, I got the giggles, I mean, how does a baby know how to tease like that? How does a one-year-old understand that concept? But she totally caught me off guard, it was completely well played! I got the giggles, and then it was on...she was just giggling and laughing. It was so funny! I knew it was going to take another half hour just to get her calmed down enough to go to sleep, but it was totally worth it! I got faked out by a one-year-old...

Then, this happened this morning at breakfast...I am trying to teach Lillie that we don't throw food on the floor, or feed the dog while we are eating. I have been very firm with her, but this morning she threw all her pancake on the floor for the dog. Well, I was so mad and I yelled at her...LOUD!! Sierra looked right at me and said, "Mom, you don't need to yell at Lillie like that! You need to use your quiet inside yelling voice." Well, what do you say to that? I totally got the giggles...I couldn't help myself.

Have I ever mentioned how much I love my kids??? They are the most awesome little people ever!!

First Day of Dance!

I promised Coco I would post these. This is Sierra on her first day of Dance class and Tumbling class. She absolutely LOVES her classes. She is so dang cute. She is learning so much. She comes home and has to show me all that she learned that day. She askes me ever day, "Is this day my dance class day?" I am just so proud of her and so amazed every day at how grown up she is getting. It is just such an indescribable feeling when you see your baby become a little girl. It seems so fast, but at the same time I am so excited for her. She is such a sweet sweet girl.

P-rades and School Days...

Catching Candy!

Lilly and Papa

I took this picture just yesterday. Sierra and her friends holding hands walking across our backyard to the neighbors. These girls are just such good friends and they play together so cute. It just makes me smile to see them together.

Well, this is my second post today, but I figured I had more to say. I just wanted to post some pics of the Summit County Fair parade. I just love the fair. It is one of my favorite summer traditions. We always watch the parade and then go to the rodeo. I love getting to catch the candy and the parade with my girls. It is so fun to watch them with their giant grocery sacks of candy. They get so excited. Lilly was so funny, she was fearless. She wanted to pet the ponys and she would put her hand up and wave at all the rodeo princesses. It was a good fair this year. I think it was the first time in my life I have ever worn a jacket at the parade though! I thought it was going to rain, but we didn't even have a drop. The rodeo was really good this year, too. I always enjoy that this time of year.

Secondly, I would like to announce that I have been accepted to USU, again. I will be going back to school this fall. For those of you who are worried about me going back to college let me say this in my defense. I think I shall go to class more this time around, and party a bit less......

No wisecracks about my GPA either, Rose!!!! You know why!!!! I am pretty excited actually. I am going to finish some prerequisite classes I need so I can apply to the nursing program. Yep, folks, I am really going to make something of myself someday. Truthfully, I am a little nervous. I don't really know what I was thinking, because I have signed Sierra up for preschool, dance, and tumbling classes...and they are all at the same time I am supposed to be going to class. I think I can work it all out. I have some rides already put together, and hopefully Miner will commit to pick up the slack. I just have to figure out what to do when Miner is traveling....I haven't gotten that far yet, wish me luck!!

Art Day! Hoo-ray!!

Nanny Had fresh apricots!

Art Day with the Cousins!!

Watch me paint!!

My little artist, hard at work!

My Sierra just LOVES to do art projects. My mom loves teaching art. What do you get when two trains collide??? Art day at Nannie's house, of course! We had so much fun. A few days ago, my mom had Sierra, Lilly, Tyler, Brook, and Chris over to her house to have an art day. Sierra couldn't have been more thrilled. She is such a cute artist. She works so hard at her pictures. My mom had all kinds of fun paint and glitter and paint brushes to use. The kids really were cute. As you can see, even Lilly got into it. She was a little mad at me, because I was trying to not let her paint her clothes, skin, hair...you name it, and that is what she really would have liked painting the most. Also, she decided she really needed a big drink of the paint water, and I didn't think that was the greatest idea either....It was otherwise a giant success.

Ever since art day at Nannie's, Sierra has had to write letters to all her friends and invite them to her Art Show, "Saturday Noon." That's what she tells me to write. And Nannie's Glitter is apparently the best glitter, because Sierra has been telling me to write "Nannie's Glitter" on the grocery shopping list so I don't forget to buy some for her. But the best thing she has said, she just said yesterday. This is how our conversation went...

Sierra: "Mom, do we have any glitter like Nannie's Glitter?"

Me: "No."

Sierra: "I KNOW!!!! We can make our own glitter!!!"

Me: "I don't know how to make glitter."

Sierra: "I do. First you add 4 cups of sugar. Then you add some sprinkles..."

Me: "Sprinkles and sugar...got it."

Sierra: "...and then you slowly stir in milk, water, and juice!!! It is very simple and easy!!!"

Me: "Yup. Probably."

Good old Glitter. If any of you decide to try out this recipe, let me know how it turns out...I'd be very interested.

Chi-Town 2009!!

Make a Smilebox slideshow

July 2009 MoFo!!!

Just waiting for the fire works to start!!

Sparklers and Black Cats at Nanny's

Well, here it is. My July post. We have been so busy, really we have. I feel like all I have been doing is running around. What a great month we have had. We have really done everything. I started the month with a fourth of July 5K run. I did pretty good, considering I shaved 3 minutes off my time. However, I got shin splints pretty bad and I haven't been able to run since...story of my life right there. Miner ran it with me and took fourth place in his age group. I was pretty proud of him. We had so much fun on the fourth of July. We went to Evanston to watch fireworks. If you haven't ever done this I would TOTALLY recommend it. They light off every firework known to man. It is a giant free-for-all. Literally, we went to a big park that had lots of ball fields and people just parked their cars in this big parking lot and just started lighting a gillion fireworks!! Talk about hometown fire work show. It was parking lot of fire!!! It was a little white trash, but totally fun! Then the city actually puts on a pretty good fire work show when it gets dark, and it is all free, unless you spend $10,000 on fireworks to light off in the parking lot, and I swear people must have spent that much, because this went on for hours. When we left to go home at 11:30pm they were still going STRONG!! I am going there next year for sure.

The next weekend we got to go to Chicago (my new favorite city) to see our friends Rusty and Collette get MARRIED!!! We had so much fun while we were there. You can check out my slide show to see all the coolness! But we went to the Sears/Willis Tower, the glass balconies they just installed are AMAZING! It totally gave me butterflies to walk out there, but it was such and incredible view from up there and it almost felt like you were flying. We took a water taxi through the city down to Navy Pier. We had lunch at Navy pier and walked all over the City. We had so much fun with the Griffin family, it was the most fun I have ever had at a wedding. The Griffins are such party animals!!! I love you guys so much!! And I have to give a shout out to my girl Lindsay, I am so glad I met you, because you are the best friend I have every had on facebook!! HA HA! And I also want to say that I totally ROCK at Wii bowling and Rick is a baby bowler who is to afraid of a rematch!! I just tell it like it is... Moving on, we went to the Cubby Bear and we got see Wrigley Field. The Cubs were playing but we didn't have time to see a game, which would have been pretty cool. I have to say, the weather was amazing while we were there. Even the humidity felt good, kind of reminded me of Oregon in that respect. After the wedding we got to take a trolley tour of the city with the wedding party. I saw the biggest black guy I have ever seen and he had the longest dreads I have ever seen...I told him he had great dreads, but I was kind of afraid to say it to him, that's how big he was!! He probably thought I was the smallest whitest girl he had ever seen, so I guess we are even... We got to have dessert at the top of the John Hancock building, and the city lights were so gorgeous, and they were lighting fireworks at Navy pier and we could see it from way up there. It was just so fun to be with such good friends and just to have such a great time. P.S. Collette's family is straight out of the Mafia and I think they totally adopted Miner into the "family" if you know what I mean, and so be respectful, if you know what I mean!!!

The next weekend we went to a Miner family reunion. These are always fun, because I don't get to spend much time with Miners extended family and so it is good for me to meet them all over again. Plus, we had the best waterfight ever! And I played Volleyball...for those of you who know me, you will be surprised by this since you should be aware of my fear of ball sports (these include sports in which a ball is used, if you couldn't tell). I think I would have been better at volleyball if I would have managed the art of keeping my eyes open when the ball came towards me. This is extremely difficult for me to do, since I have been practicing keeping my eyes closed practically my whole life. Finally, Lilly started crying and this saved my team from my services. Then the Candy cannons were brought out. Roger Miner (my father-in-law) has a new hobby. It is making cannons out of PVC pipe which he uses to lauch candy several hundred feet in the air. Children love this. So he made several of them and we launched candy for about 45 mins.

Miner now owns his own Candy cannon, and it is actually quite awesome. We used it at Sierra's Birthday party and it was a huge hit.

My Sierra turned four!! I can hardly believe it. She is the light of my life. She is such a great kid. She just wants to be good and make her mom and dad happy. She loves to help me clean and she loves to play with Lilly. She just is so happy and it rubs off on everyone around her. You just can't help smile at her. She is that cute. She loves to play with her friends and her cousins. I just can't get enough of her, really I can't!! I love you, bug. Happy Birthday!!

Miner and I had our Anniversary. We have been married 9 years!! We are just getting older and older....We didn't really celebrate. We feel like we have just been celebrating all month long, so we played golf. OH!! You will want to know this, I hit my first real BIRDIE!! It was awesome. It was a par 3 on the back nine at Thanksgiving point and it was totally awesome, because I drove the green and ended up about 4 feet from the hole and I totally sunk my put!! How awesome is that? I am so amazing! Someday, I may actually be able to play a full round!! Ha ha Ha...

And that brings us pretty much up to date. I signed Sierra up for preschool today. It is sort of a sad and exited feeling for me. I think her preschool is going to be awesome. Her teacher is really a neat lady. I will keep you posted. Maybe I will have time to update the ol' blog more often!! Peace!