Pasadena EFT training

This last week I want to Beautiful Sunny, warm California for my Emotion Focused Therapy training. It was fantastic training, I can't wait to use this couples therapy in my practice. It's one of the few types that actually has empirical testing that shows good results. People have such a strong experience that after 13 orchestrated sessions, they are better and the change is permanent. When I was going into the Fuller Seminary Guest house, a woman dropped her magazines and they were the Ensign and New Era. This cool French woman named Gwenaelle does counseling at BYU Idaho Student center. We had a blast running around the Rose Bowl Parade route doing some shopping during our lunch breaks. Another woman I met is a runner and we ran in SHORTS in the morning. Here are some px. Then, all too soon, the dream was over and I had to come home to 7 degrees and snow.

But, that's OK, because I am so excited to see the kids and Grandkids for Christmas, I can't stand it. I've been going through the bedrooms, getting them ready like a hotel manager. I'm cleaning them, bought a new queen bed, putting flowers and vases and decorations in them, bought new towels and blankets and sheets and air fresheners and wall decor. At night mark and I sit and watch movies and make Christmas ornaments for them (our only gifts to the adult kids, since their gift this year was a plane tx to Costa Rica). It was so gratifying to see Bryce and Marcinia's tree at thanksgiving and see that many ornaments they owned were the ones we gave them.

I am so thankful that Mark paid for my EFT training tuition and I think it will change my life for the better :) I have an interview with LDS social services on Tuesday the 18th. It's been a lifelong dream to work there and to open up my own counseling practice.

Thanksgiving 07

I am so thankful for my thanksgiving.
1) I got to hold, kiss, change and cuddle Lily. We blessed her this morning at Bryce's house. She is the sweetest baby, easy to smile, easy to comfort. Perfectly proportioned from her tiny head, ample cheeks and thunder thighs....
2) I got to spend the night with my Mom and Dad in Ogden. I cleaned Mom's kitchen, we did a Ghantt chart on preparing the turkey, gravy, stuffing, etc etc. We took a walk on the mountain path by their house. Got to spend time with my Brother Rick and his 3 youngest kids who are all tall and attractive and funny.
3) I got to stay with Bryce and Marcinia. U of U who was ahead of BYU 10 to 9 in the last 2 minutes. The dog in the back yard dug up the cable to the TV and we lost the picture. I've never seen Bryce so upset. Finally we got it back on just in time to see the last shining touchdown of the game for BYU! We won!
4) Sammy has a new bedroom and we played a game I call "Christmas presents"
5) Shopping, shopping, shopping in wonderful Utah. They have stores we don't have in Denver. Danica who I could never get to go shopping with me in her creative element buying card making supplies, Marcinia showing us all the Cool stuff at Ikeya- Scandinavian design furniture, I bought a platform birch bed. And Tiapan trading.
There's no place like Utah.....There's no place like Utah....

Teaching Art History

So, I teach 2 sections of Art History this quarter and I absolutely love it! This week I was preparing a lecture on Neo-Classical Art and I came across an amazing picture. This is by an Italian trained, Swiss Artist named Angelica Kauffman. She was one of only 2 women artists in the Royal Academy in London. This painting is from an incident from ancient Republican Rome where a rich lady visitor who was showing Cornelia her jewels. She then requested to see those of her hostess. Cornelia replies as she indicates to her children, "These are my jewels".
That is so true! I'm so proud of my kids! They were worth all the years I stayed home.

Hawaiian Haystacks with Thailand, Lebanon and India

Well, most of my week was spent at this computer. For three online classes to prepare and present an online chat and to correct 200 papers it took me 55 hours this week. I'm rather burned out. I've got to find another job....quickly. I really miss people too, I find myself having facial ticks, talking to myself, having delusions of owning a horse in Wyoming and hanging out with country girls who talk about "green broke". Mark comes home and I'm so happy to see him and so alone, I say things like "I'll watch the world series with you, we don't have to go to the ballet". I am really loosing it. There was a bright spot in my week. The nurses at church and the elders came over for dinner.

The Amazing Thai Dinner

Sunday, October 21, 2007
It snowed! And we were out in the hot tub with Kizzy’s nurses, Nagham from Lebanon, Mem from Thailand and Tosh from Jamaica. They had never sat in a hot tub and they had never seen snow like Colorado Snow. They kept going outside and taking pictures. It was cute. Nagham had a steam burn on her neck so I gave her some snow to put on it and oops some went down her shirt.
The nurses told us that all they serve at the college cafeteria is potatoes and turkey—processed in several ways: turkey sausage in the morning and turkey slices with more potatoes at night. So, they are rather tired of it. On Sunday, after church Mem cooked us the most amazing Thai dinner. The elders pressed the garlic. There was coconut milk lemon grass soup and this chicken curry and some hot shrimp that was to die for. Dad and I SO went off our diet. The White chocolate cookie ice cream sandwich didn’t help either.

The Bright and Beautiful in my fall quarter 2007

You are looking at a px of my new Nissan Z convertible. 320 HP 6 speed. Here's my schedule. Monday, Wednesday prepare all day for 3 online classes. Two in Art appreciation and one on Ethics. Tuesday Thursday, prepare all day to teach Business and Psychology. OK. So I'm so thankful I get to teach. But it it is pretty lonely at this computer. Still....I can have a totally crappy day sitting all alone preparing and delivering the online chats. But, then I take a break and just drive up the street to the post office I'm very happy again. The other thing is our tree out front. It's really beautiful. Look how much it changed in just a week. Sometimes there is so much pressure to get prepared, I have to reflect on the 2 hours I spend with Danica when I went up to see Lily. You know how Danica has the reputation for being a tom-boy. I was so shocked when she suggested this. We went for my first ever pedicure at a beauty school in Rexburg. They put your feet in warm water and rub them with lotion and I sat in a massage chair! Oh, it was relaxing. I was transported to an other worldly plane of existence.

Don's Px and Nagham's Baptism

I found my camera and there were these px of Don the day before he went to Iraq. We took them at the temple. They are very serious.

Nagham is an incredible Lebanese girl who always felt she was searching for something. Her mom saw a website for nurses to come to the USA to get licensed and work here. Kizzy in our ward told the nurses to come to LDS services as a cultural experience. Nagham decided to take the lessons and she read the Book of Mormon and felt it was true. She reminds me of Tiana and I've adopted her. We went shopping last night for her birthday and I made her a quilt because it's getting cold. Yesterday we went to visit Nagham with the missionaries to take her some baptism clothes and practice how to be baptized. She was staying at Kizzy’s mom Pricilla’s house. Pricilla mostly speaks Ebo, but she was going on and on about how she was reincarnated and Kizzy was her dad and she was his reincarnated daughter. I was watching Nagham’s face and here she is going to be a brand new member today and false doctrine already. You can barely understand her but finally I said, “Oh so those are Ebo (Nigerian) beliefs right! To our relief she said yes.
We got to take the missionaries and Nagham to eat Lebanese food. Elder Bowen did not eat much of his lamb. I got to give the talk on Baptism for her tonight. She so sweet, I told her that while we were giving her the lesson on commandments, I felt impressed not to study on Sunday, so she said she is also not going to study! She has a ton of homework!

Grandchild #4 Lily Elaine McDonald 6lbs 12 oz 9/15/07

She's here! And she sure is cute! And tiny! And kissable! And she looks and acts just like Danica. A dream baby who just eats well and sleeps alot.I'm in Rexburg Idaho. My favorite trick with her is I kiss her when she's hungry and she is really strong for a 1 week old human being and she tries to suck my cheeks. I'm going to put some px of her on my blog when Danica and Dave wake up. Dave just built himself a new computer and it has a dual processor and he said it's twice as powerful as his old one and a high definition graphics card. I run around after Jensen most the day. He is a dynamo of energy. Danica and Dave live next to friends who have a boy Jensen's age. This is the process Danica has to go through just to do laundry. #1. Go to the store and pay 10 bucks for a roll of quarters. Oh, and it's really more complicated than that because it takes 1/2 hour to get the 2 babies ready for the store and another 15 minutes to get them both buckled into their car seats. #2. Sort all the dirty laundry. Each kid gets 2-4 outfits dirty every day. #3. Take the kids over to Mandy's apartment while you make 2 to three trips to lug the baskets of laundry down steep steps to the coin operated machines in a separate building. Put 3$ in quarters in. #4. Pick up the kids from Mandy's. Go back in 37 minutes Take the kids to Mandy's again and move the three loads into three dryers. Put another $4 in quarters in.Pick up the kids. #5. Take the kids to Mandy's again while you make two trips to lug the dry laundry back up the stairs to the apt. Pick up the kids #6. Spend the rest of the day trying to sort and fold and put away the Laundry while you are nursing the baby and trying to keep Jensen away from your work. Oh my gosh, I forgotten how much work 2 babies are! I don't know how Danica is going to do this! I need to write a 20 page paper that is Due Monday on Pentecostal Christians and I need to prepare my live chat for Monday night and grade!!!! ACH. I have to run, Jensen the human terror, the powerhouse of destruction is waking up! He stole a cupcake off some child's plate at the neighborhood BBQ and smeared alot of it on his face but the part that reached his blood stream made him into a supercharged atomic particle.

Labor Day Driving Vacation

Friday the 31st of August, Mark had business in Provo, so I got to play and go running with my grandchild Sammy. Sammy makes me feel special because he speaks Portugese all month to his parents but when I visit him, he switches to English. What a brilliant kid. He came up with this cute ritualfor singing his birthday song. He swings his Lighty McQueen(from the Disney movies "Cars") birthday bag and sings Portuguese style and then he pulls out his presents. He seemed to enjoy it and he'd always say "again" at the end so we did it 57 times. I've included the movie. Marcinia told me that she wanted to buy Sammy some Lighty McQueen underwear. Sammy jumped up and down and sang "underwear! underwear!" Then he said "Mommy, do I like underwear?"
On the way home to Denver, by way of Aspen, Mark planned a surprise for me. After 16 years of living in Colorado, we saw one of it's most spectacular beauties. We hiked up to Maroon Bells. It's my new favorite place. These 2 metamorphosed mountains have a maroon tint to them in the sunlight and are shaped a little like bells. There's several gemstone colored lakes to reflect the mts. Because there are so many aspen trees there, and the beetle kill is negligible, we are going again for the fall leaves and it will look like this px.

Winter Park

Orange you glad you came to this Barrand Family Reunion! On August 2nd we went to Brooklyn’s baby blessing in Heber and then we spent a night at a girls camp with all the Hogans. The drive from Heber to Winter Park should take about 8 hours, but it took us 10 because certain people are pregnant and have to stop and pee every hour. So, Jensen got bored in his car seat, so someone did an amazing job of “Spoon man theater”. Spoon man was made with chewing gum and sang all the camp songs he knew for an hour and a half. Then ,We had a really nice, relaxing family vacation in Winter Park with the grand babies. Bryce fell on his face and scraped it up on a wild mt bike ride and Marcinia made him wear this band aid to cover it up so she wouldn’t get sick looking at it. Oh the joys of being pregnant. We had birthday party for Sammy who turns 3 on the 24th.



We rode mountain bikes, we had hot dogs over the open fire, we had picnics outside with the glorious mountains. They had a nice hot tub that wasn’t too hot for little kids and we sat in that A lot to play with Sammy and Jensen. Dave was a big hit. He explained the geology of the rocks while we hiked up to a waterfall. We really missed his geological explanations when were on top of the mountain with the glacial lake and the granite topped with schist.





Dave had to leave and go work In TX on a drilling rig and JJ is SO incredibly active.. He is into everything all the time. Danica is so pregnant and tired. All three babies seemed to make poopy diapers constantly which made Marcinia wretch. She gags at any bad smell. Bryce was really great to change Sammy. Never, the less, Marcinia and Bryce make a mean wally ball team. Dave and Brad were “balls out” at wallyball. Poor dad and I almost expired trying to keep up with them. Dad is a doer and a goer. In one day we drove up to Rocky Mountain National park and way up to this 12,000 foot peak, where we hiked up with the strollers and saw this amazing vista.
Then we drove down and played miniature golf. I was JJ’s buddy to keep him out of trouble so Danica could golf. He is so cute with his drunken sailor walk and his fuzzy blond head. Dad won the European Train Game and I won the US one. Sitting around talking was so nice

Wild Flower Vacation

For our anniversary, I gave Mark 4 days at a condo in Avon (Near Vail) and an REI water bladder thing that you put in your pack. Our goal was to hike everyday, and experience the height of the wildflower season set against the craggy peaks. This first one is Columbines. They were in huge bouquets in the granite boulder field. Then sunflowers and lupine. With a little more snow you could see this is the mount of the Holy Cross. People used to make long pilgrimages up to see it, now people are more hedonistic, or have just realized you can't get closer to God by hiking to a cross in a mountain and there were back packers instead of pilgrims on the trail. They'd stand and talk to us with these huge packs on their backs and huge leg muscles to get the gear up the mountain. There are 52, 14 thousand foot peaks in CO. The Holy Cross is a 14,005 foot summit and we met a couple climbing up there to do their 47th summit. Did I mention we really liked going home to the condo and soaking our sore muscles in the hot tub? #4 is Indian paintbrush at sunset. #5 is an entire field of yarrow and just up the trail from this we saw a brown bear. I made lots of noise and walked quickly away but Mark had to stand within 20 feet to get a px. #6 is the wild man, not the wild flowers with his tricky walking stick waiting to trip the next unsuspecting hiker trying to pass him on the trail. The last one is dark purple monks hood. I feel so blessed to live in Colorado!

Sammy the Dinosaur

Bryce and Marcia and Sam came for the weekend to see Bryce's friend who's home from the Peace Corps. We got them to go to water world with us. There is a dinosaur tube ride where you go to the "center of the earth" Sammy rode in our tube and his eyes were as big as paper cups when the tyrannosaurs rex rises up in front of your tube. Then I bought him these fighting dino toys and he wanted to play with them all weekend. Then I was mowing the lawn and here came Sammy in his dinosaur footie pJ's with his little fisher-price mower and helped me. When you ask him to smile, he growls like a T-Rex. What have we done to our grandchild?

Jensen and Sammy on the 4th of July

We got to play with the grand babies on the 4th. It was a glorious day. A fun parade in Provo. Then hung out at the lake with the Fam and Bryce's friend Jake's boat and watched the boys play in the water and try and give water to Jake's dog. Jensen ate his first watermelon, or should I say, gnawed his way through his first piece of watermelon. Then the most spectacular fireworks I have ever seen by the Marriott center. The next day I gave Danica some clothes for her new baby girl. We had to try them on Jensen to make sure they were cute. I know, I'm a naughty grandma.