The little 80 yr old Asian man in my zumba class

zumba is a dance workout, as most people know.  And in my renewed efforts to lose this 3 year old baby weight, I decided I'd give one class a try.  (Basically it was the only class offered at the time I had to work out.)  Anyway, can I just say this class is hi-larious.   I had the best time just watching everyone.   There are young aspiring Solid Gold dancers ( I wanted to say stripper-pole dancers but this is a family blog), middle aged women rocking it with abandon (picture Martha Stewart doing the Cabbage Patch) and newbies like me tucked quietly in the corner just trying to keep up and not fall on their face. (Of course. There are normal, coordinated women there rockin' it and just having a fun work out.)

And then there is this adorable old man, unassuming in the back.  Apparently he is the mascot of this class and attends regularly.

 I actually laughed out loud at his attempt at The Pony during the song "Save a Horse, Ride a Cowboy."   And bless his heart, I totally lost the beat watching him hold his hips while trying to pull off Beyonce's booty-shake move.

He made my day.

No, my week.

Because of him I might go back. Plus it was a great work out.  When I couldn't follow the steps, all I had to do was shake my hips and jump around and no one was the wiser.  

Who knows?   Maybe one day I might get confident enough to join the strippers, I mean the talented dancers, in the front.

There is sunshine in my soul today...

What happens when you mix the outside & a Portland boy who hasn't been to the park in weeks?

(Portland still feels weird to say.)

Beginnings of something good (hopefully)

I decided to start the laundry room.  Basically because I knew what I wanted to do on one wall.  I've seen it on a few blogs and I really like it.  So I copied.  Like I usually do. 

Here was the laundry room when we moved in.  It's sandwiched between the family room and the playroom.

Taken from playroom doorway

Look at me getting all fancy with arrows and stuff

Here's the wall.    Stripes!   Know it's not for every body but I like it.

Pretty easy to do.  Painted it all white, then  taped off my 18 in stripes. I chose 18 in because it divided the wall perfectly into 5 stripes.  I sealed the tape edges with another layer of white paint and then filled in the grey stripes.  The edges were crisp and clean in most places, just a few touch ups.



I also decided to paint the door.  Weirdly I didn't think about it before but as I was painting it became the obvious thing to do.

I haven't decided if I want to do the rest of the walls grey or white.  They won't be striped because there are too many corners and cabinets to make it worth my oh-so-precious time.

I had the Goodwill mirror for ages and decided this wall would be the perfect spot for it.

And I painted it purple.

It originally came in gold and I debated whether I wanted to just leave it gold. But my wilder, sexier side took over and 5 coats later, I had a purple mirror for my laundry room. :)

See the tiny black lines on the door frame?  Not dirt.  That's our family growth chart.  We started it when Jonah was born and he was measured on the doorway at 22 in.  I had Lucas copy it from our old house to put here.  I give that kid one more year before he passes me.  Yeah, it's usually 12 or 13 when normal people keep growing where I seemed to stop.

To finish this room I want to paint or refinish the cabinets. Most likely white.  I've been researching and comparing painting all the cabinets myself to paying for them to get resurfaced.  

 Painting =Cheap but SOO much work with a pretty good finish

Refinishing=  Little work (on my paty) but SOO much more money with a beautiful finish

There are upper cabinets above the counter as well as underneath and I am going to do the kitchen cabinets plus two built in bookcases.  That's a whole lotta cabinets.   I waver every month depending on my mood and energy.  I might ask for an air compressor and spray gun for my birthday coming up if I get adventurous enough to do it myself.  If not, I'm going to start saving my pennies. Either way, it will be a while before anything gets done.  Finishing the room is on the (ok, my) Home Project list but around #40 or 50.

 I also want to change the laminate countertop to a dark butcher block and the linoleum flooring to tile, or cork or hardwood. Don't know yet.  It's such a small space we really could do something fun.

No matter what our laundry room looks like I can only think how far we've come.  In our first Seattle ghetto apartment we had all our whites stolen out of the communal laundry room by a drunk, crazy lady and thrown into the dumpster because Aaron moved her clothes out of the washer after waiting an hour for her to change her load.  It took him 20 minutes to figure out what had happened and then sweetly climbed in the dumpster to salvage all our wet "whites."   The manager apologized about the incident and said the resident had the police called on her earlier that day because she threatened another neighbor with the promises of returning with a gun.  Oh the stories we could tell about that place- urine in the elevator, puke in the stairwell, our neighbor who repeatedly set off the complex fire alarm by leaving food on the stove and falling asleep, the water heater that broke two stories up while we were gone in Chicago and came back to everything covered in mold. 

Ah, cherished memories.

Threads That Bind

"At 16, Madison has accepted herself for who she is: smart and witty, but overweight with thick glasses and the social life of a Tibetan monk. Everything changes the summer before her junior year of high school when her eyesight inexplicably corrects itself, and she begins to rapidly lose weight. However, her new look comes with an unexpectedly expensive price. Madison’s first kiss with the boy she has had a crush on for years triggers powers she can’t control, almost killing him.

She discovers she is a Berserker, a powerful being chosen to guard the world from the Havocs, ancient creatures brought into our world by magic thousands of years ago. They cause destruction and death, but cannot be killed. Only the Berserkers’ life-blood can bind – and free – the Havocs. One Havoc is free and wants Madison’s blood to free another. Instead of enjoying her new look and popularity at school, Madison must now work with the Berserkers to master her powers and bind the Havoc before it kills her.

Oh, and if that weren’t bad enough, it turns out she is the first female Berserker since, well - ever."

My first book review!   Plus an interview with the author.   How cool is that?!   It's just like a real blog.

I must confess Brant Williams is my brother in law.  And he is wonderful.  A wonderful father, brother & of course, writer.   I am so proud of his hard work and determination to accomplish his goal.  And the result is a great book!   If you like YA urban fantasy, you will LOVE this book.  And if you don't like YA urban fantasy, you have never read this book.  :)

Here's my oh-so-professional, nitty-gritty, right-to-the-heart interview with the author himself.

Q. What or who was your greatest influence in becoming a writer?

A. It’s hard to pick one single thing. I’m going to have to go with the Scooby doo episode formula (darn those meddling kids) - or maybe bacon. It’s a bit of a tossup.

If I am being serious - which I rarely am - at the top of the list would be my parents. They taught me to love reading and stories in particular, and that love of a good story directly led to my desire to write. When I read a good book, I get a little lost. (Those who know me will find that easy to believe.) For a brief time I am submerged in a completely fictional world and held captive by the author’s imagination. I wanted to have that kind of impact on others. I wanted to create a book where people would not want it to end, but at the same time they would procrastinate things they really should be doing just to keep reading. When I hear people tell me they stayed up late reading, didn’t get their homework done, or forgot to feed their children, I know I’ve done my work.

Another powerful influence was that in 2007 I was accepted into Orson Scott Card’s Literary Boot Camp. That was a very influential event for me. It was essentially a crash course on how to write a good story. I went in looking to soak up anything I could learn. Being able to work with Scott for a week and hear him dissect stories and talk about what made them work, or what was preventing them from working was phenomenal. I still have my story that he marked up with the comments he wrote.

Q. Where did your inspiration for Berserkers come from?

A. Berserkers are part of Norse legends, although they are very different from the ones I created. I had been familiar with their existence, but when I was out at OSC’s Boot Camp, I stayed at my parents’ house. My dad showed me some genealogy on the computer and we followed a line where we tapped into royalty and thus had the genealogy going back for thousands of years. One of the farthest back was Arngrim “Berserkur” Grimsson. I thought it was so amazing that I was the descendent of a berserker. At the same time, I had been thinking about the idea of adrenalin magic, where the power was triggered by an adrenalin surge. I put the two ideas together and had my berserkers.

Q. How were you able to identify with your main character, an insecure sixteen-year-old girl while you are a middle-aged man who grew up without sisters?

A. Middle-aged is a bit harsh, don’t you think? Given advances in medical science, I could easily live to 110, maybe 120. That would make me FAR from middle aged. FAR, FAR, from middle-aged. But it is true that I am male, and did not have sisters growing up. Unless you count Aaron. Which, to be completely honest, I kind of do.

As far as identifying with an insecure sixteen-year-old girl, that was a bit of a challenge at first. Fortunately, I had the advantage of having been an insecure sixteen-year-old boy as a base to work from. I think a lot of the feelings and emotions between boys and girls in adolescence are quite similar, they are just aimed in vastly different directions. I mostly took my own memories of what it was like at that age and filtered them through a female lens. This didn’t work in every situation, so I had some female readers who helped make sure I had my girl facts straight – word usage, mental focus, communication style, etc. It also helped that I didn’t make Madison (my main character) a typical girl. I wanted her to have a unique and quirky voice. For me it is her quirky world-view that dominates her, not her gender, so I had some freedom to explore that side of her.

Q. If you got to spend the day with one fictional character from literature, who would it be and what would you do?

A. I’m going to have to go with Abraham Lincoln. Wait, he was real? Dang. Let me chose again… How about Oprah? Wait, also real? I’m really messing up this question. In all seriousness, I would actually rather meet the authors than the characters. But if I have to choose a fictional character I would go with Kvothe from Patrick Rothfuss’ “The Name of the Wind”. I would listen to him tell stories and put on some plays. I love to watch a good play.

Q. What do you do when you get writer's block?

A. I was a psych major at BYU so I decided to try a bit of operant conditioning (the kind of stuff they use to train animals to perform tricks – fitting, huh?) on myself. Most of this book and the sequel were written at the same time every weekday morning, listening to the same music, in the same location. When I was doing that regularly I didn’t have writer’s block. My mind became trained to know that when I woke up early, sat at my desk and put on my music, it was time to write. I basically beat my muse into submission every morning. Don’t worry, my muse likes the rough stuff.

 That being said, there are still times when I am writing that I get a bit stuck. It generally means that I haven’t thought things through well enough. I will usually take a couple of days (during my morning writing time) and spend some time outlining and thinking through the possible ways of fixing the problem. I type out questions and answers as I think through the problem part until I have a workable solution. So far it has seemed to work for me.

 Q. Who's your favorite sister-in-law?

 A. Do you really think I would make a rookie mistake and answer that question? :)

Q. Can you give us a little teaser for the next installment of "Threads That Bind”?

 A. The next book will be called “Unbound”. I hope to have it up on Amazon in late June or early July. In “Unbound” I really put Madison through the emotional wringer. The first book had a lot of her exploring her powers and preparing for battle. The next book will deal more with her figuring out what she really wants and the complications that come from relationships in the Berserker world. I really wanted to up the emotional stakes in this book. Madison is in less physical danger for the most part, but the consequences of her choices will have a huge emotional impact on her and those she loves. A spoon will play a role in the book, and Madison will finally have a kiss where she doesn’t end up seriously injuring anyone.

You can buy the book {HERE} on Amazon.  Enjoy!

I used to wish my older sister was a boy...

Basically because I thought she would have cute friends as we grew up. But now my sisters are two of my best BFF's in the whole world and I wouldn't have changed anything.   I guess my mom's prayers worked out after all those years of fighting over clothes.

I have the same prayer for our two boys. The only fighting that ever happens between two kids 9 years apart is the destroying of Lego creations, so these two are way ahead of us.

We went to Baumans Farm the Saturday before Easter for an egg hunt and all the other activities of a great kid's farm.  We got to go with cousins, the weather was perfect and we ate free apple cider donuts.  

One kid sure did not want the party to end.  I think we'll have to make this place a yearly tradition with the Friess'.

A Wall of Chocolate Memories

Collect anything?   My mom collected elephants when I was growing up, my sister had a hundred ceramic animals and I collected rocks.  Not special, rare rocks.  Just ones I found in the yard that I liked.  I had it for years.

But I also collected Michael Jackson paraphernalia.  I am so not the obessive type, but I sure loved the guy.  I was 8 or 9 and I even got a Michael Jackson Barbie doll, complete with "Beat It" outfit, "Thriller" leather jacket and a plethora of white gloves.  I LOVED it!  After all these years, I honestly don't know where it is at the moment.  Sad, huh.

Aaron kept a collection too. Of candy wrappers.  Not just any candy wrappers.  Argentine alfajor wrappers from his mission.  A cookie, chocolate, ducle de leche confection you found everywhere. 

This collection had stayed hidden for 15 years tucked in a box in his parents basement.  But no more!  I resurrected the things and framed them for Aaron for Christmas this last year.  They are now resting comfortably in their new home of Aaron's office.

Here they are in all their cellophane glory!

My attempt at artsy.

Note the new set of boxes unearthed during Aaron's last trip to his parent's home for Conference.  Guess what one of them contained?  About 50 more wrappers.  So, do I add 2 more frames of wrappers?  That is if I can find more frames.  I got those four at some amazing Joann's sale about 5 months ago.

Time and luck will tell if these guys get two more companions.

Odds & Ends

OK.  Now all these extra pictures don't quite fit together after the loose narrative I had going in the original Guatemala post.  And since this is me, I cannot get Mary Kay's CD of pictures working to add others.  I somehow erased her CD. How does that happen?!  I mean. I know I'm not a super computer nerd, but I thought I could at least hold my own and not erase a CD without knowing it.

So here's randomness at it's best....

Super cute video of my mom and her wonderful Spanish....

Another great view from our early morning bus.   It just brought back so many mission memories.

Our crammed-full, knee-to-knee bus the first morning as we drove out to Santa Lucia.  Most of the volunteers and all the dentists.  Yes, the one that had the flat tire.  Too much weight?

Here's Mary Kay at work, just doing her thang.

Our Thursday morning breakfast overlooking Antigua.

Just kicking it in front of a fruit and vegetable depiction of the "Holy Grail" out on the front lawn like every morning.

I wish I got a better picture of the real, working people her in Antigua.  It was such a mixture of the modern and old world traditions.

Lucas, our picky-picky eater, actually eating calamari!  I guess you fry anything and it becomes edible but I was amazed he even tried it.  I told you this trip was good for him and getting him out of his comfort zone!

Ok, to finish off this amazing trip I just had leave you with some of my favorite pictures....

It's sad I only remember about a quarter of their names, but they will forever be in my heart. 

(All together now... "aah.")

Forgotten Credit

Oops!  I wanted to give credit to Mary Kay who sent us a CD of all her wonderful pictures.  The last post were about half hers (all the good ones) and I wanted to say THANK YOU for sharing.  They are fabulous!!

I am writing this on my new laptop since apparently the motherboard on my 10 year old laptop went to motherbaord heaven.  Aaron uploaded all my stuff to this new machine and I'll be back to posting this weekend. 

Yes, that means a few more Guatemala pictures. 

I'm sure most of you just went, "Guatever."

"Guat's Up?"

***I know it's hard to believe but I actually have more pictures I want to add to round out our trip.  My old lap top completely died on me and now I have to wait to be able to get the other pictures off of it.  Grrr.  So, here's an imcomplete travel log.  Just know I reserve the right to add more pictures once my computer decides to give me the goods.

Many have asked how and why we got involved with this amazing adventure.  Well, we basically invited ourselves through my mother who heard about it through my Aunt Donise and Uncle Lloyd who have good friends who organize these groups to go down for humanitarian trips.  Easy as that.  We've wanted Lucas to have foreign experience and to have service opportunities, so we decided to throw caution to the wind and just go for it. And we couldn't have asked for a better experience!

We left Portland Friday morning braced for our longs flights to Guatemala City, just Lucas and me while the rest of of our group left together from Arizona.  I can't complain because there was some special deal going on when we bought our tickets and so Luke and I traveled 1st or business class the whole way down.  So no, can't complain about the fresh squeezed OJ, hot towels, actual steak meal. (How good is an airline steak meal?  Not so great.  But still no complaining.)

We got to Guatemala City about 11pm and my mom and uncle had charitably driven back from Antigua (where we would be living about 1/ 1/2 hours away from Guatemala City) after getting up at 3am that day and traveling nonstop just so we didn't have to arrive and travel alone to Antigua.  We all didn't get to bed until 12:30am. They went above and beyond that day!

The very next morning, Saturday, we woke up at 5:30am to get out to the Pacaya National Park to hike up their active volcano.  As soon we were parked we were swarmed with young boys wanting to rent us sticks to help us on our hike.  The sticks actually helped a lot on the loose lava rock.

Lucas was a little green around the gills that morning & toughed out the hike as long as possible.  We finally convinced him to take a horse and that made all the difference.  It gave his stomach time to catch up with the rest of him.

Uncle Lloyd, Lucas & Nana hiking the volcano which has erupted just 2 years earlier




Once we got to the top, you could tell where the heat was still venting through cracks in the mountain.

 The next morning we all went to church which turned out to be the cutest little capilla with dark chandeliers and beautiful wood pews.  I wish we had gotten more pictures of it.  And the best part of church?  We sang "La Alba ya Rompe," or "The Day Dawn is Breaking," as our opening hymn.  Wouldn't you know it?!  That is the one and only hymn Lucas knows in Spanish!  Aaron taught it to him when he was smaller than Jonah because it's his favorite hymn in Spanish.  I rack that up to a sweet tender mercy for Lucas. It sure was special to him.  :)

After church we went for a sah-weet buffet over at Santa Domingo, an old convent and monastery turned 5 star hotel which served delicious food.  The grounds were covered in old ruins, a glass and candle museum, and a large outdoor hall where mass was being held.  (The rumor is since thay had both a convent and monastery on the grounds at one time, there was also an orphanage. Go figure. But I don't think that is publicised.) 

They left some of the old timers.

My breakfast of pupusas filled with cheese, a platano and black bean souffle, crispy bacon, fried platanos and a crepe with strawberries, almonds, whipped cream and of course, chocolate sauce.  And fresh squeeze orange juice.  (Which will for the rest of my life remind me of summers in Utah and Grandpa J making fresh OJ every morning. Just a side note.)

A woman was there working a loom making gorgeous table runners.  She was there for tourists but it was still beautiful work.

That night we got together to sort the 1500 reading glasses and hundreds of thousands of vitamins and medicines.

Jim, Becky, Rick & Diane working hard at the Pill Party

 Larry and Ellen, who organized this wonderful trip.  This is just one out of dozens they have done over the years.  Good people.

Just dividing our drugs.

Just a fraction of the vitamins.

That night a religious procession passed right on front of our apartments.  Each of the surrounding villages get a week during Lent to march with their patron saint around town to celebrate their devotion.

We were supposed to have 4 full days working at a clinic, each day in a different community. But Thursday didn't work out because their city officials did not come out to set up the details on Sunday when Larry and crew went out there. So we had to make do with 3 days working with the sweet and humble people.  We left each morning at 6am for a bus ride out to the village we would be working in that day.

Our view on the early Monday morning bus out to Santa Lucia, our first little town about 2 hours away from Antigua.  This sight reminded me so much of the mission field.

Looking back at one of the 3 surrounding volcanoes as we left town.  Gorgeous, no?

Puff of smoke, just reminding us he was there and to keep watch.

A lovely couple on their commute to work.

About an hour in, our overstocked bus got a flat tire. 

How many dentists does it take to change a flat tire?

Many of these days and pictures are all lumped together.  But at each village we set up in the school, the dentists taking rooms for anesthesia, oral surgery and triage.  The eyeglasses were in another room.  Here's a video of Lucas giving a quick tour one day.

Rick and I were put at intake since we both spoke Spanish (Him much better than I.  He's a native Cuban.)  But we got to talk to everyone and figure out what services they needed.  By the end of the first day my brain and tongue were exhausted!

We had 10 dentists who did some amazinging work on people who may have never seen a dentist before.  They were great!

I finished intake and Wendy and Becky taught me to do fluoride treatments one day.

Soldiers were there to keep the peace at every community.  Not that we had any problems.

We made sure they all got decked out with new sunglasses. Had to keep them happy. :)

Over looking our biggest crowd of the week.

So many of the older generation you could tell had dressed up to see the doctors.  How adorable is this old cowboy?!  Rick and Greg sure made friends fast!

 This was the last road out to our  most desolate little village They grow sugar cane as you can see.

This little boy became Lucas' shadow one day and kept by his side every where he went.  It was sweet.  but I never got his name. :(

Lucas and Popeye, our guide and expert on all things transportation.  Loved him!  Took great care of us!

Lucas posing in one of the classrooms of the school.  They all had cement floors, no glass in the windows and old desks.  Just a little different than his school in Portland.

A sweet posse of boys in our third city. 

Mary Kay and some friends in her ward in California made dozens of wonderful beaded bracelets to give out.  It was fun to have a little extra gift to give the beautiful women.

Here is Aunt Donise working with a women to find reading glasses that suit her needs.  We got to work together a little after I finished with intake.  

Here is Nan, our resident doctor of the trip.  She is one amazing woman and when I grow up I want to be just like her.  :)

She spent her time doing home visits to those who couldn't travel.

I SO wanted to go on "rounds" with her as the translator, but it never worked out in the schedule.  Next time!!

The homes and animals sights brought me right back to places we worked in Argentina.  Tender to my heart.

My mother and Lucas worked in "Fluoride" most of the time where that gave treatments to kids and then handed out toothbrushes.

My mom had been practicing her Spanish and I was very impressed with all she knew! Que bueno!

Lucas gave fluoride treatments, worked as a runner getting patients to and from each line and ran errands for whoever needed help.  He made me proud!

Our third day out was the farthest away, the poorest community and the hottest day.  The night before I hadn't been feeling well and my stomach was rolling all morning.  I tend to get car sick pretty easily, especially early in the morning.  I worked for a few hours but since my stomach was yucky, I wasn't drinking cold water and I got overheated.  My stomach took a tun for the worse and I excused myself from the intake table to take a break.    My uncle asked to give me blessing which I most welcomed. So after a quick trip to a local kiosko, they consecrated some oil and I got my blessing. The tenderest mercy of the day was that a government official who hadn't been either of the other days, was on site with her car.  Which had AIR CONDITIONING.  After sitting in the cold car for a while, I felt better and went back to work.   About an hour later, it hit me again.  Light headedness, nausea, headache.  My mom and Guillermo took my arms to walk me back to the cold car, when in the middle of the school square and in front of everyone I began tossing my cookies and then with much pride and grace, I fainted dead away.  I woke up 60 seconds later with 4 different people jostling my arms and legs as they tried to hoist me in to the waiting car.  It was one of those times I had to ask where I was and what had happened. Even with being so out of it, I still had enough sense to be thoroughly embarrassed.

A local woman brought ice cold water for my feet and I got ice packs shoved under my arms and around my neck.   Again, I felt so blessed because this sweet worker offered to drive us back to the apartment two hours away.  I would NOT have made it back alive on the hot, stuffy bus in the condition I was in.  I would have rather have just stayed fetal on the side of the road with the pigs.

I of course attracted quite the crowd, so I couldn't leave without reassuring my adoring fans that I indeed lived to see another day.

Here is our wonderful group.  Each one of them are so kind and welcoming and made the trip so perfect.  It's hard traveling in a group.  The phrase "herding cats' was mentioned a few times, but everyone was so upbeat and easy going.  And they especially welcomed Lucas and put their arms around him to make sure he felt part of the group.  I would again with these wonderful people in a heart beat!

Antigua, the city where our apartments were, was a perfect and colorful place to see.

We ate one night at "Ni-Fu, Ni-Fa" (which doesn't translate into anything) an Argentine restaurant.  Matt, a fellow Argentine missionary, and I had milensa con papas and it was DIVINE.  Unfortunately not every else enjoyed their meal, but we sure were in Argentine heaven!

We of course did lots 'o shopping at all the tourist markets and brought back goofy stuff for family back home.  My favorite?  T-shirts for the men saying "Guat's up?" and "Guatever."  Doesn't get classier than that.

Dinner anyone?

We did buy some beautiful jade and took a tour of a small, local factory.  Nan bought each of the members of the Church in our group (she is not) a necklace with the symbol for "And it came to pass."  That symbol along with depictions of Lehi's Tree of Life vision and Noah and Abinidi have been found in caves in the area.  Pretty cool, huh.  And thank you again, Nan for such a thoughtful gift!

Lucas. Being Lucas.

On our way home we stayed a night in Guatemala City.  Here is a sign for visitors staying the 7th floor, the Quiet Zone.  Be aware. No marching bands or circus animals. Plus no loud singing in the shower.  I did my best.

Our last sunset before our 6am flight back to the states.

This trip could not have been better and we loved this opportunity we had to serve adn visit such a beautiful country.  I would do it again in a heart beat!