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  • Sunrise, Sunset

    Peter got this nice sunrise shot on his way to work last week. I have yet to see a sunrise here. Totally pathetic I know.

    We went to Busch Gardens, an amusement park in Tampa, for Spring Break. Here’s my kids getting sugar highs on soda pop.

    On our way back home we stopped at the temple in Orlando.










    Peter and Isaac wore matching soccer ball ties. I made them using the Maggie Grindstaff Preferred Method.

    I got Sydney this peach colored skirt and white sweater. They are both two sizes too big on her and look terrible and I couldn’t let her go to church wearing them. I am going to make something for her THIS WEEK!

    Peter and I rearranged the TV/office area. We moved the treadmill upstairs, folded up the dog crate and moved the entertainment center and couches. I feel like I gained a whole new room! Isaac and I celebrated by spreading out all of the his Hot Wheel toys. Isaac is happy to have some room to run around!

    A sunset from the west side of our neighborhood. This would have been AMAZING from this other coast of Florida!

    • We have had fun listening to a bunch of John Bytheway talks on CD while driving around in the mini-van. Sydney has had a difficult time controlling her laughter! Isaac was just sitting on the john singing out with his hearts desire, “John Bytheway, John Bytheway, he reads his scriptures everyday! And that’s all I needed to say…” I have learned to keep my mouth shut and just listen with a grin when Isaac sings – if I say anything he stops and gets mad because I noticed. That boy! – he’s just like his mother…
    • Sydney and I both had to stay home on Easter Sunday because we were sick. We are both feeling much better now!
    • I have gone to two voice lessons and am enjoying practicing some breath support exercises. Baby steps…
    • Isaac’s preschool teacher said she usually recommends summer birthday boys to be held back one more year before kindergarten but that Isaac is very ready. I get to go to the elementary to register him tomorrow!
    • Just five more weeks of school for the kids this year.
    • We had lots of fun as a family at Busch Gardens, staying in a hotel overnight and visiting the Orlando temple.
    • Sydney refused to go on a mild roller coaster after I had been waiting in line with her for 45 minutes. The staff would not start the ride with her having a fit because apparently they are not allowed to let kids go on rides against their will any more. So we had to get off (needless to say, I was in a bad mood for a little while after this). What is this world coming to?
    • Peter is getting ready to take a two-week trip to England. Without us. The nerve…
    • Yesterday I attended our yearly Stake Relief Society Enrichment activity and had a wonderful time. When I got home I found out that Peter and the kids had been working hard. They scrubbed walls upstairs, cleaned all the toilets, took down some blinds and hosed them off in the back yard, Sydney had practiced the piano, and Peter was drying bananas and strawberries in his home-made food dehydrator (pictures to follow later). Peter rocks!!! (think about that one for a minute – it’s a redundant statement).

    That’s all folks…

  • We love our new camera!

    I love that I can easily get pictures like this with Isaac in mid-air! This is REALLY what Isaac looks like – a big blur of motion.
    Sydney is easy to photograph because she holds still.
    Peter played with the focus on the camera while photographing this bush in our back yard. In real life the bush does NOT look this cool. Those National Geographic photographers just have really good cameras. Maybe Peter should apply?
    Where did you go on Saturday? We went across the street to the beach in between conference sessions.
    Isaac had lots of fun splashing in the waves (and peeing in the ocean – boys just love that sort of thing).

    I love this picture of Sydney. She is still my little nature lover.

    Spring break is in full swing and many of the ladies on the beach are not covered up appropriately. I love photo editing software… I can continue to live in my little sheltered bubble.
    This is truly the only decent recent picture of me. Either I was approaching nirvana through the medium of music or I just blinked. Take your pick.
    Peter got to go fairly close to the last rocket launch and got this great shot!
    Leave the shutter open at night and follow the streak of light!

    Our recent news:

    • We have been enjoying General Conference. I got several good ideas for helping to engage children during conference from the March 2009 Ensign. I made some pictures of key words for my kids to listen for and for each time they heard one of those words, they got to pick a small treat out of a bowl. My kids are extremely high on sugar right now. Anyone want to adopt an eight-year-old and a four-year-old this week? We still have one more session of conference to go… Next conference I am going to adapt the same idea so that there are LESS treats involved. BUT – the kids have been listening and this is a first!
    • During Elder Richard G. Scott’s talk on temples (‘temple’ being one of the key words for the kids to listen for) Sydeny made the remark “This guy’s good!” because he said the word ‘temple’ so many times that my children’s sugar intake was exponential compared with previous talks. And then right after that was Russell M. Nelson with his talk on prayer (also another key word) and yes, you guessed it; he said the word ‘prayer’ over and over. I have a belly ache just from watching my kids eat so much candy.
    • We are revving up for our HUGE trip to Utah this summer. We will be leaving on or about June 13th and driving to southern Utah for our own little family trip to Zions, Arches or whatever we feel like seeing (and no, you are not invited to this portion of our vacation) and then we will be driving up to the motherland to visit with family (arriving on or around June 20th). The kids and I and the minivan will be staying in Utah until approximately July 27th and then we will drive home to Florida (at this point Peter will be back to help us drive home).  YES – we are crazy! I don’t know yet what we are going to do with the dog.
    • This week is Spring Break for our kids. We are going to spend a day in Busch Gardens in Tampa and spending a night at a hotel (we have a free military day at Busch Gardens and Peter has earned a free stay at a hotel so all we have to finance is gas and food)!
    • Sydney earned straight A’s on her report card again. No improvement once again. Any suggestions?
    • I will be registering Isaac for kindergarten this month. Crazy.
    • I am starting voice lessons this week – this is something I have wanted to do badly for years. Come to think of it, I already sing badly – I guess the idea is to improve… Recently I got a piano book entitled How to Read Chord Symbols in Jazz and Popular Music. I have had hours of fun at the piano – I’m trying to branch out to jazz piano, blues, improv, etc. Peter’s very excited about that. I think one more Bach fugue would just about do him in.
    • Peter almost has the two motorcycles finished! He has also been picking up his guitar a little bit more recently. He taught me how to play an E Major, e minor and a C Major chord on the guitar, but I have probably already forgotten.
    • Last night I steam cleaned the living room area while Peter was at the priesthood session of conference. This has become my own twice-a-year tradition. Pathetic, huh?
    • It was fun to hear Bruce Carlsen called as a new member of the seventy in general conference. He is a recently retired four star general in the Air Force who was in our ward for a short time in Ohio. I remember when I saw an article online featuring his retirement the thought came to mind that the church would probably snag him up. I’m a good guesser!

    That’s all folks…

  • Watch out on Saint Patrick’s Day!!!

    Isaac: On Saint Patrick’s Day at my preschool my teacher says we have to watch out for … um… pilgrims.

    Mom: Don’t you mean Leprechauns?

    Isaac: Oh yeah.

  • Our Boring Update

    Life is going just peachy here at the Johnson household.  Really. Truly. Here are some highlights:

    Isaac – He has still been quite a bit more affectionate lately and I am trying to enjoy it while it lasts. His hugs are kisses are always quite overwhelming – he runs up and jumps on me out of the blue and tackles me with hugs! We have been working on reading The Cat in the Hat and Green Eggs and Ham with Isaac reading all the words he can. Some of the new sounds or words that he recognizes are: sh, said, hard ‘g,’ house, mouse, box, fox, and p.

    Sydney – She is busy taking the FCAT test this week (Florida’s version of an SAT). They totally gets these kids so worried and worked up about these tests that it drives me insane. As if kids aren’t stressed out enough – let’s add severe test anxiety to the list! Thankfully Sydney does not seem to suffer much from test anxiety (she takes after her very relaxed mom and dad) – just from clean-room apathy.

    Liz – Our Relief Society just did a very nice musical program for the Relief Society birthday celebration. I accompanied most of the songs and sang one. The program went very nicely and the dinner tables were beautiful (that’s because I wasn’t in charge of decorating). My next project is practicing to accompany a mezzo-soprano for her student recital. In other news – my flip flops completely flopped so I need a new pair. This means I will have to go shopping and you know how I feel about that.

    Peter – Well, Peter gets to take a trip to England in May. I hope it rains the entire time he’s there. Peter has had some time these last couple of weeks to work on the motorcycleS that are in our garage. He plans to sell one and keep one. The last step is just some painting and body work and then I can have a clean garage again! I’m actually very glad Peter has had some down time to work on stuff other than WORK!

    Our only really exciting news is that we are planning a super-duper long trip to Utah this summer! We are going to drive from Florida to Utah (some might wonder about our sanity) and I am trying to convince Peter that we should stop at Nauvoo, IL on the way (He wants to go somewhere else but I’m going to use all of my wily womanly ways to convince him otherwise).  I am going to seriously crash in my mom’s house and take over for about six LOOOONG weeks and it will be SOOOOO nice to have my mini-van so I can be independent. Peter of course won’t be staying the entire time (he will help drive out there and drive back but he will have to fly back to Florida for work in between).

    That’s all folks…

  • Peter’s new camera

    Peter and I pooled our allowances for a few months to purchase a new camera. I can’t even tell you what all of the features on the camera are because I am quite clueless. I know it is made by Canon. It really is Peter’s new toy. The first day it came he was out at night taking some pictures (it just happened to be the evening of a rocket launch). Here are some of the first pictures from our new camera:

    Here’s the rocket launch (Peter had some fun with photo software after taking the picture)

    This is the moon.

    This is the smelly dog (but you must agree that it is a very good picture of the smelly dog).


    Now I just need to work up the courage to figure the camera out and not be intimidated by it! I am so used to my point-and-click version that takes crappy pictures.

  • Rockledge Gardens Field Trip

    Isaac’s preschool class took a field trip to a local nursery called Rockledge Gardens. As you can see I didn’t get the memo about sending my child in a red shirt…
    Too cute! I had to take this picture while Isaac wasn’t looking.
    The highlight of the trip was going into the butterfly room.  Butterflies of all sorts were flying around and so it was easy to get a good picture!
    These chrysalises (wow – how do you make that word plural?) were fascinating to look at.
    Each kid got to plant a few sunflower seeds. Isaac’s is sitting in our kitchen windowsill and is doing great so far.
    Boys can’t resist a pile up at the bottom of a slide!  (By the way, it looks like one other mom didn’t get the memo about the red shirts…)

    Isaac and I had fun doing a scavenger hunt and looking at all of the butterflies on his field trip. It was nice to spend time doing something like this with him – he let me hold his hand and help him out. But I think his favorite part of the field trip was playing at the park with the other boys!

  • Sydney’s Pierced Ears


    And the best part is … she gets to change her earrings for the first time on April Fool’s Day!

  • Johnson Family FAQ

    Q. Is your family moving to England?
    A. We still don’t know. But you’ll be the first one we call when we find out.

    Q. Is your family going to stay in Florida if you don’t go to England?
    A. We still don’t know. But you’ll be the first one we call when we find out.

    Q. When will you find out if you are moving to England?
    A. We still don’t know. But you’ll be the first one we call when we find out.

    Cheerio!

  • Valentine’s Day Poem


    Sweetums,

    If you send me flowers I’ll gape in disgust
    If you buy me chocolates I just might combust
    Don’t take me to dinner
    (I want to be thinner!)
    Just help with the dishes, the laundry and dust…

  • I guess I should update this here blog

    I haven’t been blogging lately because I have not had the time or inclination to do it. This morning I finally had the thought to take some pictures of my two adorable children to post here, but alas, the batteries in the camera were dead and I do not have any extra AA batteries. I have like a zillion AAA batteries (because of the new pulsating toothbrushes we recently invested in). Maybe I’ll have to take some pictures of our super clean teeth for later…

    Here’s a little snippet about each person in the extraordinary Johnson family:

    Isaac – I have started giving him back rubs in the morning when I go in to wake him up. Ever since I started doing this I have been hearing “I love you mom” more often and have NOT heard “I hate you mom.” Totally worth it! He has had fun reading books like The Cat in the Hat and Green Eggs and Ham – he is learning new sounds and new words everytime we read together. Potty training is my LEAST favorite thing about parenting (so far), but hearing my kids learn to read has been one of my most FAVORITE things about being a mom!

    Sydney – She has recently been learning division and basic fractions in math. Most of her spare time at home she spends reading a drawing. This week a couple of boys in her class were picking on her because she was the slowest runner in her PE class and so she went to the school nurse and said she was sick and needed to go home. She did fess up to me (duh, I could totally tell she wasn’t sick) why she wanted to come home. Well, I gave her two choices: 1. Continue to run the way you do right now and just ignore the kids who are picking on you, or 2. Spend some extra time running outside and on the treadmill so you can get better at it. She chose #2. I remember always being the slowest runner at school (it’s not hard when you’re also the shortest).

    Liz – The days have really been running into one another. I have not had time to practice the piano, work on sewing projects, read for leisure, etc. My days have been filled with packing lunches, helping with homework, helping my kids practice the piano, teaching piano lessons. I am looking forward to going to the temple tomorrow with Peter and a new couple that just moved into our ward. Going to the temple always reminds me that all of the mundane days are totally worth it. Peter is back in the swing of traveling for work so I am back in the pseudo-single parenting mode. Phlooey.

    Peter – He went to a gun certification or safety class today (I don’t know exactly what it’s for except that he is going to have fun shooting guns all day). He is leaving for Utah on Sunday (sorry folks he probably won’t be able to stop by and visit you). We are still waiting to find out about the job he applied for in the UK but have found out that several people have applied and that he is over qualified or something. I’m pretty sure he’s the one they really want for the job but I think I’m biased.

    That’s all I can come up with off hand….