Dog Food For Christmas

I will never forget the year Sam got dog food for Christmas. I'm sure that has a lot to do with the fact that my dad joked about it when Sam opened it. I'm pretty sure Sam was confused when he opened the present and saw what was inside, so my dad was trying to help him work it out in his mind by saying things like, "Why would you get dog food for Christmas? Are you a dog?" And Sam would say, "no." And then Dad would ask, "Then why would you need dog food? Who eats dog food?" and Sam would answer, "a dog." So dad would say, "If a dog eats dog food, and you're not a dog, why do you think you would get dog food for Christmas?" It was kind of a joke about Sam being a dog, and we all thought it was funny. But it really didn't take Sam long enough to get what was going on--he got it before I did, I know that much.

Sam got a dog for Christmas!

We named him Scruffy, and he was our dog for many years.

One Christmas on Meadow Drive

Back Yard Concerts

I really do believe that our back yard concerts were Sam’s brainchild. He has always been a lover of good music, and known way more songs than I ever hope to in my entire life.

When we were kids, living on Meadow Drive in Ogden, Utah, we used to get up these concerts in the back yard, where we would lip sync to songs from Greece. My go to song was Summer Lovin’. I don’t remember what songs Sam did. This memory is very fuzzy. But we would make a stage, out of what I really don’t know. And we would stand on it and sing into our makeshift microphones, while the real music blared in the background. Neighbor kids would pay a nickel to get in (we didn’t really get a lot of paying fans), and we would sell popsicles and popcorn, also for a nickel.

That’s all I really remember about that!

The Barracuda

I was probably about 10 years old, and I lived in Ogden, Utah. My best friend in the whole world was Karie Hadley. Karie did all kinds of cool things, things I thought were great but really didn't care if I did them or not. She played all kinds of sports, had an after school paper route, could ride a ten speed bike, all kinds of stuff. She was so cool, and we were best friends. Most of the cool things I did were because I was with her. I did play on a soccer team for one season, I went skating with her, I accompanied her on her paper route sometimes, that kind of thing. (In all fairness, though, she did a lot of cool things by association with me, too. My parents did 4-H for us for a couple of years, meaning we learned how to do all kinds of things, including decorate cakes--which we entered in the fair and everything--and we went camping A LOT. We climbed the tree in my front yard and had a spot on the roof where we hid and talked). Anyway, she knew how to have fun, I was a big chicken. For years she had tried to get me to go on the roller coaster at Lagoon (Utah amusement park) but I refused. I just didn't see how something like that could possibly be fun. One of the cool things I did with Karie was go to the water slides. I remember there were 3 slides to choose from, ranging from the minnow (my style) to the barracuda (the one Karie always tried to get me to go on). I don't remember what the middle one was called, maybe the shark or something. The point is, one day after many failed attempts at getting me to go down the barracuda, she told me she'd give me a dollar if I did it. (Talk about peer pressure)! Well, I could definitely be bought, and although I thought I was going to die, I agreed. I oh so reluctantly went down the baracuda. And suddenly a whole new world opened to me. I realized how much I had been missing out on! I got my dollar, but she never had to bribe me again.

At that time in my life, the experience didn't teach me any profound lessons or anything, all it did was help me have more fun. But as I look back on that experience, I realize that there is a definite lesson there. In life there are many barracudas--things that may seem scary at first, but once you try them out you realize how much they can add to life, and how thankful you are for them. I guess the point is, we shouldn't be afraid to take risks. We should be smart about the risks we take, for sure. But sometimes you've just gotta throw caution to the wind--get out of your comfort zone and look beyond your daily patterns. And maybe, just maybe, you'll discover new things about life and about yourself. There are sure to be baracudas out there that, upon trying, will prove to be undesirable. But at least then you know. And they are worth all the barracudas of life that become amazing, eye opening discoveries.

Stake Lagoon Day

When I was little, my family lived in Ogden, Utah. In fact, we moved there half way through my Kindergarten year, and moved away after I finished 5^th grade. So essentially, all of my elementary years were spent in Ogden.

Aah, Utah life. Utah is full of Mormons. Being as young as I was, I didn’t really realize there was anything different about living there than anywhere else. At any rate, the big theme park in Utah is Lagoon, located in Farmington. Back then—and maybe still? I really don’t know—Lagoon would have these Stake Lagoon Days. When our stake had Stake Lagoon Day, we could get free (or discounted?) ride tickets, and our family would pile in the car and head on over. It was fun. My favorite ride there was the Scrambler. I’m positive I couldn’t handle a ride like that today. I was an incredible wimp though, and would never go on the roller coaster. Everyone said it was super fun, but I was not having it. But everyone has their price, I guess, and somebody offered me a dollar if I would ride the roller coaster. A dollar! I did it for a dollar. And strangely enough, I loved it. It was exhilarating! And that was the end of my roller coaster phobia. You couldn’t get me to go on the Collasses, with its two loops, where you actually went upside down. I do think that eventually I tried Collasses, but it’s possible that my loop experience was later on at Magic Mountain in California. Can’t remember. All I know is, I learned to love the roller coaster at Lagoon, on Stake Lagoon Day.

Let's Get Together

One of our favorite movies growing up was The Parent Trap. Good ol' Hayley Mills. It wasn't just a great movie, it was a movie we watched over and over and over again. And we studied it, looking for that subtle little line down the screen when both the twins were facing forward at the same time...that was truly great stuff. My best friend Karie liked to watch it with us, too. There was a time when we probably had the entire movie memorized.

And there were definitely our favorite parts..."My name is, Miss Inch. Uh, yes, Miss Inch." She really had to check the paper twice to make sure she got her own name right? Then there was the part during the dance where the guy caught a cake and then tried to catch the punch bowl. Even funnier was when Miss Inch tried to save a cake by raising it in the air only to have it stick to a beak on the totem pole and then come down, splat, right on to her face. There were lines we would say over and over again..."Where did you hear about her?" We just loved the way Verbina said "her." And "Oh honey, don't you play with the big girls, you'll be in way over your het." Yes, she said it like that. We laughed and laughed when the girls got Vicky to bang sticks together and rub sugar water all over herself. Or when Mitch fell into the pool. We also thought it was funny when Maggie said Vicky had "electric hips."

So one day, Karie and I climbed the tree in front of our house, got on the roof, and walked over to the roof over the carport. There we could hide in under the triangle part of the house roof. We liked to sit there and talk and talk and plan and plan. And one day, we planned a camping trip. See, we used to go camping a lot when I was a kid. Sometimes in the afternoon Dad would get home from work and would ask who wanted to go camping. Were we really that spontaneous? Maybe they were like me and planned it ahead but waited to tell us until it was time, to avoid our disappointment if something came up at the last minute. But it always seemed like we went on spontaneous camping trips. And most of the time Karie or some other friends would join us for the fun. We all piled in the car and drove up in to the mountains. We popped popcorn in the fire and sang silly songs and just had a great time.

So yeah. Karie and I got up this little scheme, that day on the roof, to take a camping trip, just the two of us and Mom. But how would we convince Mom that we should do it--that we should just up and leave everyone else out of the fun? We got our heads together and delivered the following presentation to my mom (using little puppets to do the talking, if I remember correctly):

"We've decided we're getting gypped."
"Yeah, gypped."
"We've decided we want to have our campout together."

Okay, so I can't remember all we said, but we had a great time using that scene from Parent Trap to present our idea.

It must have been good, because it worked. Either that or my parents were just super cool and really validated us and our ideas. (They were really good at that, I think). So we did it. We went camping, just the three of us.

How funny is it that what I really remember is our scheming to go, rather than the actual camping trip itself?

Oh, and I remember the triangle popsicles...remember that, Mom?

Camping

Living in Ogden, we were very close to the mountains. That made it really easy for us to go camping, a lot. Maybe we started going to complete some things for 4H, or maybe we just started going because camping is fun.


I remember packing up our things, piling in the car, and heading up the mountain. Most of the time, if not all, Mom would make up a big bowl of Birdseed. It wasn't real birdseed, it was a trail mix type snack that we just loved because it had things like peanuts, froot loops, m&ms, and raisins in it. She would fill the biggest Tupperware bowl, and we would all chow down on that yumminess. But we only got it when we went camping.


Sometimes our friends would come along, another reason why I think it may have started because of 4H. My parents have always been kid people, so the more kids the merrier.


It was so easy for us to go camping, that I remember one night I was out in the back yard playing in the sand box, when my dad, just home from work, came out and asked if I wanted to go camping. We were all going on a completely spontaneous campout. We were able to decide to go and pull ourselves together at dinner time, and make it up the mountain with enough time to enjoy our night, even though we had started so late in the day.


Pretty awesome, I'd say!


One night I remember we were making popcorn over the fire, and a dud kernel popped out of the fire and right onto the bottom of Celeste's night gown and burned a hole in it. Random memory!

Shenanigans

It was while living in this house that we had all kinds of crazy fun. Some of our Shenanigans included:


1) Toilet Papering. These days you can get sent to jail for it. Back then, when the concept was new, it was a fun prank that you played on people you loved. And then you went back in the morning and helped them clean it up. At least, that's the way we always saw it. In fact, my mom herself is the one who provided the toilet paper, and even took us out and helped throw the rolls around! We had a lot of fun. We went toilet papering every time we had sleep overs. Like I said, we always showed up in the morning to help clean it up. Then one day, somehow my mom found out that it was against the law, or at least a very socially unacceptable, hooliganish thing to do, so that was the end of that. Because we really didn't mean for it to be rude.


2) We had this tree in front of our house that was great for climbing. The coolest thing about it was that you could climb right up and onto the roof. I don't remember doing that a lot, but definitely a handful of times. One day my best friend Karie and I climbed up, and walked over to the top of the carport, which was lower and allowed us to hide under the eave of the roof to the house. We went there to talk and plan, and to be away from all our siblings while we were at it. (Karie lived at the other end of Meadow Drive, so we always had siblings around, no matter whose house we went to). This rooftop spot is where we planned our Parent Trap campout, and various other sleep overs, that always included movie rentals and junk food.


3) This one is a not so funny shenanigan. One day this girl came over when my parents weren't home. I don't remember at all who she was. She could have been a neighbor kid that I didn't really ever play with, or she could have been a girl that followed me home from school or something. Either way, we had not made plans to play, and my parents weren't home so I did not let her in. Well, somehow she got in, and I didn't know it until crazy things started happening. I heard noise from my parents' bedroom, whooping and hollering, so I ran in there. When I got there, I saw raw egg running down the wall, and broken shells on the floor, but no sign of anyone. Then I'd hear a noise from somewhere else, and find a similar situation. Finally I guess she left, but I really had no idea what in the world was going on or how it was even happening, because I never actually saw her in my house. It was pretty bad business when my parents got home. I think that they believed me that I hadn't done it, and helped me piece together what had happened. I was so glad to not be the kind of kid that people would believe capable of that kind of mischief.


4) Not that I was perfect or anything. There was that time our parents weren't home and someone dared me to see if butter would stick to the ceiling. I'm pretty sure it was Sam, but I can't say for sure because I honestly don't remember. I didn't think it would, because butter is greasy. Looking back, it's unbelievable how it just absolutely didn't occur to me that throwing butter at the ceiling was a bad idea. Ugh! So I threw it. And it stuck. Let's just say that Mom and Dad were not happy with the situation. What made it worse is that it was one of those popcorn ceilings, so when my mom wiped the butter off, it took the popcorn with it, so we had a couple of glaring smooth spots on a ceiling that was not supposed to be smooth. Smooth and greasy spots.


5) This story goes that one day, when Dawn was really small, she climbed up the shelves of the pantry and found a number 10 can full of honey. For some reason, there was no lid on the can, but it was higher than her, so how did she know? Plus, she was little enough to not really care about a lid anyway. She ended up grabbing the can with both hands, and turning it upside down to see what was inside. Boy oh boy, did she see what was inside! Not only did she see it, she wore it!


6) Last but not least, this was Utah, so it would get cold and snowy in the winter. In our front yard, we had these hedges that  bordered the front where the yard met the street. Oh, the number of things that got tossed into the hedges and lost forever more! In the winter, the snow would fill the hedges, and it would all freeze. So, great adventurers that we were, we would climb up and walk all along the hedges. It was awesome, because it felt like every winter we got to get the best of those darned sticker bushes!

Throwing Papers

My best friend Karie had an after school paper route. I think she only delivered them once a week, I don't think it was an every day thing. She would take the stack of papers, fold them, put a rubber band around each one, load them into her paper carrying bag, and hang the bag onto her bike. Then she would ride around tossing the papers onto people's porches.


Every once in a while, she would have to go to the doors of the people she took papers to, and collect payment for their subscription. This was called "going collecting."


I took my bike and went with her a few times, tossing papers. Once I went collecting with her. Nothing earth shattering, just something I remember doing.

Fifth Grade Class

Here is my 5th Grade Class. Let's see whose names I remember...

There is Mr. Grant on one side, Mrs. Nishimoto on the other side.

Top Row: Lana, ?, ?, Nestor, ? Noelle

Third Row: ?, ?, Karie Hadley, Brandon, ?, Brian, Me

Second Row: ?, Alisha, ?, ?, Carma, David, ?

First Row: Jacquelyn, ?, ?, ?, ?, ?

There are a lot of question marks, but I think I did fairly well remembering some of these random kids! =)

Ten Things About T.O. Smith School

When I moved to Ogden, one quarter or so into  my Kindergarten year, I started going to a school called T.O. Smith. (The T stood for Thomas, no idea about the O). The school was within walking distance of our house, and about halfway between the two was the meetinghouse where we went to church, so we usually cut through the parking lot. We had two spots along the walk where we had a crossing guard. Here are the tidbits I can remember about going to school at T.O. Smith.


1) Teachers. Kindergarten: I can't remember her name, but I do remember that every time she introduced a new letter of the alphabet, she had an inflatable character she would bring out, who had a name that started with that letter. I remember how I loved that, I always looked forward to seeing who in the world the next character would be. Ha ha!  First Grade: Miss Binney. I remember learning about fish. Maybe because for a long time, even into my adulthood, there was a book about fish that I had made in first grade, that my mom had kept. Miss Binney was pretty old, with short, curly grey hair and a very tiny nose. (We really do remember the strangest things!) Second Grade: Mrs. Gunnarson. She was also older, but younger than Miss Binney. I liked Mrs. Gunnarson, and that is the only thing at all that I remember about second grade. Unless it was in her class that we did the Pac Man reading challenge. Hmmm. Third Grade: Mrs. Rhode (pronounced road-ee). Oh, I adored her. She had a ukulele and she taught us all kinds of songs. I can still see her standing there playing the ukulele, and all of us singing, "Kukabura sits on the old gum tree..." She also drilled us on multiplication. I guess in her mind, the 7s were the hardest (maybe that's what most of us struggled with) so we spent extra time on those. Ever since then I have been a speed counter of the 7s, and they are my easiest multiplication facts. (After 0s, 1s, 2s, 5s and 10s, of course). Fourth Grade: Mrs. Layton. In her class we studied the State of Utah, and we spent weeks making this cumulative book that had all the facts about Utah. You know, state flower, state bird, state song, founders and people in Utah history who made a difference, trappers and fur traders, all the counties, all that kind of stuff. It was a huge deal! I also remember that one day I whispered in Mrs. Layton's ear that I had memorized all the Articles of Faith, and I was so thrilled that she knew exactly what I was talking about, and she told me good job. Fifth Grade: Mrs. Nishimoto. She taught us how to sing Silent Night in Japaneses, and she ran out of time at the end of the year to make us learn all the states and capitals, so I never did ever learn them. And all my friends who had had a different 5th grade teacher could spout them off like rock stars. And our principal was Mr. Grant. I can still picture his face, but that's as far as it goes. So there you have it!


2) While I was in 4th grade, my mom had learned how to make a really cool Christmas tree by hot gluing baby food jars together, spraying them with fake snow, and working colored Christmas lights into the jars. They were really cool! And then she came to  my class and taught us how to make them.


3) One year we all (as in, probably the 4th and 5th grades) learned how to do Bamboo dancing. For the life of me I can't remember what it was called, but we used these really long bamboo sticks. There were two sticks, and one person sat at each end of the sticks, and held one stick in each hand. Then they had to clap the sticks together and then on the floor to a certain rhythm, while people danced in and out of the moving poles. I actually had a LOT of fun with this.


4) At this school they wanted us to climb the rope and touch the ceiling. I never was able to do it.


5) Our school cafeteria had real, honest to goodness, made right there in the kitchen food. I remember seeing gigantic mixing bowls where they would make mashed potatoes, huge ovens, giant pots on giant stoves. Our cafeteria ladies were fantastic. Every week, they would choose two students (4th or 5th graders only) to help prepare and serve food. It was fun. We had to wear hair nets, and then we to use big scoops to put the food on the trays. There were no choices. What they were serving is what you got, and you didn't get to refuse anything. And then other cafeteria ladies would walk around making sure you took at least one bite of each thing. (The big trick was to use your spoon to make a hole in your pile of green beans, or whatever it was you didn't want to have a bite of, so it looked like you took a bite). At the end of the week, if you had been a cafeteria helper, you got to go down to the cafeteria after lunch was all said and done, to pull taffy. And then, as payment for your services, you got to take home a long rope of twisted, pulled taffy. It was the coolest thing in the entire world.


6) We had a spelling bee in 5th grade. Typical spelling bee--lots of pages of words to study, and all that. I was smart. But other people were smart, too. My best friend Karie Hadley was smart, and probably the smartest kid of all was Jeremy Richards. We were all in the same primary class, and we were all in the 5th grade at T.O. Smith. One day Karie told me that a bunch of people were saying that it didn't matter how many people were in the spelling bee, it was really only down to two people. Her, and Jeremy. I didn't really understand what she was getting at, but I didn't really care. I didn't stress about the spelling test, and I don't think I really studied for it. I was never really the studying kind of girl. But the day of the bee came, and kid after kid was eliminated. Finally there were only three of us left up on the stage--me, Karie, and Jeremy. I ended up getting 3rd place, Karie got 2nd, and Jeremy got 1st. I don't think it really mattered to me. Honestly, I had  no concept of competition back then. It sounds crazy, maybe, but it was years before I realized that it really did end up being between Karie and Jeremy. I had a lot of fun with that spelling bee, and I think it was the only spelling bee any of my schools ever had.


7) Pac Man Reading. I don't know if it was just my class, or if it was the whole school, but each student got a Pac Man with our name on it, and they all hung in the hall. We had to take home these reading logs and record what we read. I don't remember if they tracked it by pages or books, but every time you read to the milestone marker, you got a ghost to hang on your Pac Man. Different colored ghosts represented different numbers of books (or pages, whatever it was). I had a lot of fun with that. I don't know where I ranked among the super readers, but I read my little heart out. It was something I loved to do and it was so fun to watch my string of ghosts get longer, and longer, and longer.


8) Out in the back there was an obstacle course that we got to run at recess if we wanted. We probably also used it during PE sometimes, but I don't remember that. There was a big field where we used to play Steal the Flag (which is now called Capture the Flag). But my favorite thing of all was the tetherball. I was so, so so so good at tetherball. I couldn't run super fast, and I couldn't climb the rope, but I could play tetherball like a champ. I played tetherball all recess, every recess. I loved it so much that at one point, my mom and dad bought me a tetherball for the back yard and it was the best present I ever got.


9) I was in 3rd grade when I decided I wanted to change my name to Katie. But not yet being strong in the conventions of spelling, I spelled it Kattie. (Because I thought two ts looks way better than one t). I was adamant that people call me Katie. Mrs. Rhode was so understanding and kind, that she did it. Even to t he point that when I got a certificate for something in class, she wrote my name as Katie Chandler. (I don't think I had ever mentioned how I was spelling it in my mind, LOL). I'll never forget what a kind thing it was for my teacher to be so understanding of the notions that can come into kids' heads sometimes. It wasn't too long before I got over that, and just went back to being Nyla.


10) Like any good elementary school, in 4th grade they started teaching us the recorder. We had music class on the stage, with the curtains closed off so we couldn't see the gym. I have no idea if our classroom teacher taught us music, or if there was a specific music teacher for the job. I do know that we played recorder for our school, and probably for our parents at one point. One time, when we were all there on the risers, someone in the back fainted from having had locked her knees. That was so crazy to me, I had never heard fainting because of locking your knees. In fact, I had no idea what locking your knees even meant.

Sooooooookeeeeeee

Our neighbors had this cat named Sookie. (Pronounced sue-key). Every night at dark, their mom would go to the back door and call, "Sooooooookeeeeeeeeeee" out into the night, in the attempt to get the cat to come back  home from wherever it had wandered. I can still hear her voice to this day. "Soooooooookeeeeeeeeeee!"