The road to my house

is paved with good intentions.

(That was a very poor pun.)

Recently I was very lucky in that two of my best friends from home in good ol' Buffalo Minnesota came to see me!

Okay, fine, so their intentions were not exactly based around visiting me, but more around finding somewhere free to sleep in Utah on their road trip home from California.

But whatever.

I accept.

It's been over a year since I've seen anyone from home (except the three or four family members from MN who came to my wedding last October)

and it was a refreshing change to see them here instead of in Buffalo.

Hey. The rest of you Minnesotans thinking to yourselves "I wish I could see Becky," take a leaf out of Logan and Eli's book and come stay here.

I will let you sleep in my house and I will feed you.

It's not too bad a gig.

I miss all these folks.

p.s. Logan looks like a teeny tiny little person next to Eli and me.

Land of many blondes

Today when Travis was driving me to work we passed two girls with straight blond hair. They were lightly make-uped, brightly dressed, and laughing and talking to each other.
I said, "Those girls look like Laestadian Lutherans!"
And Travis started laughing before I realized I'd said it.
Oops. Is that okay to say?
Maybe I should have said those girls look like Swedes (or Norwegians?)
Lutherans in Minnesota are like Mormons in Utah: They're everywhere.
There might be a few Catholics or Evangelists here or there (maybe even one lonely Mormon girl), but it's mostly Lutherans, and all different types of them.

Just like Minnesotans are descended from Swedes and Norwegians and Utahs are decended from Danes and Brits.
I was looking through my friends on facebook, trying to figure out if anyone from my high school besides me is married and saw first names like Ingrid, Lena, Linnea, Lindy, and an absurd amount of Anna's.
Lana used to say that everyone in Minnesota had CRAZY last names and I was always like "Yeah right, none of us have weird last names."
But two of my best friends were Krumholz and Abramoski.
And looking at facebook again I saw
Briesemeister
Groenke
Liska
Roushar
Tuchenhaggen
Haglund
Haggen
Ostvig
Olinger
Engle
Bongaarts
Lindborg
Herdklotz
Pulvermacher
Logas
Wulfenstein
Lenczewski
Schwietering

There are more but I have to give up. Because you don't want to read that list any more, you get the point.
I went from Froelich (very weird) to Pitcher (not weird).
But the extra amazing thing about looking through facebook was that most of my friends from Utah had last names like Brown, Williams, Welch, Stanley, Stokers, Jackson, Lee, Bingham, Pewitt.
Those are very normal names.

And I'll be honest.
I like the unpronouncability of our Midwestern names best.


p.s. haha, I just spell-checked this and NONE of the Utah names I listed popped up as misspelled and ALL of the Minnesota names did.

Birthdays

Warning: This post is longer than was expected.

(If you're wondering what my Mom looked like when I was little)
(and if you're wondering what Minnesota looked like when I was little)

On her blog Emma talked about being nine and being barefoot and being in the Midwest.

Which is funny because whenever I think of how perfect a place the upper Midwest is to grow up, I always think about being nine. I don’t usually think about being barefoot, but that’s because it’s such an obvious expected thing. I only think about when I had to wear shoes.

Like when Kristine and her Grandma and I went walking down the middle of a calm part of the Mississippi behind her Grandma’s house. She made us wear shoes so we wouldn’t cut our feet on unseen things and I ruined a pair of tennis shoes by getting them wet.

I think I ruined a pair of tennis shoes every summer by walking in rivers or sloshing through ponds.

Or stomping in mud.

There’s water and mud everywhere so it’s not really hard to do. Mom would make us put our muddy shoes in the garage until they dried out and try to make us wear them the next time some grown-up dictated that we wear shoes, but we always thought they were too gross to put back on.

I guess this is a post about Mom somehow. Even if it’s about Minnesota, too. They have the same birthday, Minnesota and Mom, it’s today: May 11^th. Happy Birthday.

I think about them the same sometimes, which might be weird for my mom. But they’re so beautiful, and better than anyone or anywhere else, they completely shaped me as a person.

When you were little did you try to imagine what it was like for your mother to be little like you? I grew up so close to Mom’s home town that when we drove through I used to try to picture her walking down the street. I would associate stories with actual places. She would say that she grew up with a tire swing that swung out over Lake Silvey, and I would imagine her swinging out and dropping into that actual lake.

I would go swimming in Lake Silvey and think of her and of my grandma and me and how we all swam in the same lake and how it made us the same.

I think of summer days when Mom and Kim would stand in our kitchen with windows open (and screens shut, of course) and it was so hot inside because they were boiling tomatoes.

They made so much salsa every year. We would play outside and run in and they would be filling dozens of cans with delicious mild salsa.

I would try to grab a chip and dip in to the half-way made salsa and sometimes Mom would let me. Sometimes she wouldn’t.

Summertime. Summertime is almost upon us.

We used to go berry-picking until we burst. We would weave in between the rows, instead of staying in one like we were supposed to. The berries were always warm from sitting all day under the hot sun. The soft skins would burst and warm red juice would explode in your mouth and Mom would tell us to pick them, not eat them.

We’d come home then with buckets full and Mom would freeze a bunch for smoothies and desserts.

Then she would get out the cans again and Kim would come over and they’d spend the whole afternoon and maybe the next making strawberry jam. Mmm, just thinking about it makes me want toast with homemade jam.

Most nights after that, when Kim and her girls spent the whole day at our house anyway, Dad would get out the barbeque and make burgers and brats for all of our families.

We’d spend the evening running around the yard, barefoot, and covered in so much bug spray it’s a miracle we could taste the brats.

And I can picture Mom in a lawn chair or on the front steps laughing and talking and not caring that we were covered in mud.

And not caring if we ran through the neighbors sprinklers with our clothes on.

And knowing that when it came time for the Haggen’s to go we would cry that we needed to have them sleepover, or we wanted to sleep over there and we wanted to set up a tent in the yard.

And she would shrug and say fine, and the next day we would wear the same clothes, or no clothes at all except a swimsuit and it would all start over.

Until the very end of summertime.

* * *

I love you Mom. Happy Birthday and thank you for being so good, and raising me so well, and teaching me about all the important things, like friends, and swimming and bug spray.

And I’m sorry I never learned to dive as well as you.

Happy Birthday Minnesota, I love you and miss you and hope that you are not embarrassed that I talk about you on my blog all the time.

I woke up to loon calls.

"Impossible!" you say. "That cheery and eerie Minnesotan bird could never live in Utah's desert climate!"

Yeah, well I think one of our neighbors has a loon call.
I said to Travis "That's a loon! Someone must have a loon call!" and he looked skeptical.
"Have you ever heard a bird like that?" he shook his head no.

However, after a half hour of loon calls I became confused.

Maybe there is another bird around here that kind of sounds like a loon.

Or maybe they had a loon sound on their alarm clock or computer.

Last night we had a conversation that began with Travis filling out a form. It asked the question "If you could go anywhere in the world right now, where would you most want to go?"

He wrote Minnesota.

"Why?"

"I don't know. I just have been thinking about it so much lately."

"Because it's spring and Minnesota is beautiful in the spring?"

"No. I just have this longing. It's calling me back. The cool deep waters. That little neighborhood outside Minneapolis. The people. The people there are really nice."

And I thought, "Congratulations, Becky. Taking Travis there last summer was so wise because it's impossible for anyone to go to Minnesota, really go there, and not long for it later. Maybe someday we'll live there after all."

Because Minnesota is the best kept secret in the United States.

People think of Minnesota and they're like "Those backwards lumberjack hicks without electricity must have such crappy lives."

And we say YES.

Except for me, because I love it so much I can't keep it a secret.

Here's a secret: Whoever made up the rumor that California, especially SoCal (hehe) is awesome was LYING.

Apparently it's warm there, not HOT. The water is SUPER cold as well as being dirty and filled with a billion people. The cities are dirty and crowded and it's a dessert so... it automatically sucks for that reason.

Minnesota gets hot in the summer, and gets snow in the winter and is secret and pretty.

And filled with lakes.

Filled with Loons.

Filled with Loon calls.

Travis was reading over my shoulder as I wrote and said "Why did you write "hehe" after SoCal?"
I responded, "I thought the phrase SoCal was a joke."
He only laughed, so now I think, Is it NOT a joke? Do people call it SoCal for real?

How confusing.
And also stupid.

19.91 GB

I could not figure out why on earth my computer was so slow.
Why it would not load anything.
Why it kept telling me that my start up disk was almost full when just recently I deleted almost 20 GB.

I copied and deleted nearly every picture. I deleted all my movies. I had only my music, documents, recent pictures, and a bunch of little things.

Guess what the problem was?
My photo album of pictures and movies from my two week trip to Minnesota was taking up 19.91 GB, ALL ON IT'S OWN.
That's SO much.

So I have deleted it, and now my computer is unburdened and joyful. Now, my dear computer romps wildly through the prairies of imagination.

(don't worry, EVERYTHING I have has been meticulously copied on to my external hard drive.)

Why am I so poor?

I had almost 800 dollars when I went to Minnesota.
I spent about 100.
I gave almost 300 to Travis, for help with gas, hotel rooms, food, etc.
300 went to rent, 150 this month, 150 next month.
The last 100 I spent on food.
Yes, it all disappeared completely and I have yet to pay my 200 for health insurance.
I promised to keep some to pay for books in the fall.
Apparently I will not be able to do anything of that nature.
Also, I'm still going through a tissue box every few days because I am so allergy-crazed, but I cannot afford pricey drugs.
Hopefully, because all my classes are English classes, I can find them on Thriftbooks.
Hopefully, because I have a job that starts in August, and I have a little job now that never gives me hours, I can get me some money.
Hopefully, I will get money from the government because I'm crazy poor, and I'm a college student.

Sometimes I have to write posts like this just so I can honestly look at how much money I have spent.

the heart land

Last night as I was reading Calvin and Hobbes I started to wonder where it was that Bill Waterson's characters lived. It certainly seems a great deal like where I grew up.
Snowy in the winter, hot in the summer. Lots of trees and grass, all the children are above average. Well, Waterson is not from Minnesota, but he did grow up in Ohio.
Lots of famous people are from the midwest. For example:

Thomas Edison
John Deere
The Wright Brothers
Oprah
Henry Ford
John Wayne
Ernest Hemingway
Mark Twain
Walt Disney
Abraham Lincoln
Dwight Eisenhower
Harry Truman
Benny Goodman
Miles Davis
Ronald Regan
Carl Sandburg
James Dean
John Cougar Mellencamp
Kurt Vonnegut Jr.
Herbert Hoover
Sufjan Stevens

These people are not only from the midwest, but also from my home state. Aren't they gems?
Bob Dylan
Francis Scott Fitzgerald
Judy Garland
Garrison Keillor
Sinclair Lewis
Prince
Charles Schulz
Jesse Ventura

p.s. this is one of my favorite strips.

Road Tripping

So most of the time in the car looked like my last video, but here are some clips from the trip besides us rocking out.
This is what the trip was like, at least the actual traveling part.

The music is "Your ex-lover is dead" by the stars.
Please just ignore the lyrics, this is not a video about breaking up. We just like this song.
We may or may not have listened to it on repeat the entire first day.

Alright, fine. We did not listen to it on repeat for the entire first day.
Just the first six or seven hours of driving.

Driving Song

Most of the roadtrip looked something like this.

Cliff Jumping in Minnesota

This is my friend Eli, and his roommate Jackson. I called Eli in the morning one day to ask how to get to the quarries and he said "Are you going cliff jumping today? SO ARE WE!" We met up and went together.
This is my cousin Nichole, who also came with and was SUPER brave, since she's afraid of heights and jumped off of the cliff that was 35 feet up twice. Very impressive no?
This is my hot boyfriend Travis. This picture is kind of ridiculous. Can you see us despite the shadows?
Also, Travis films both the videos, but he jumped as often as any of us, and is the bravest, because in the first video, he's treading water and holding the camera over his head.


okay, in this one, the first three to jump we don't know. I'm the third (I scream), then it's Eli, then Nichole, then Jackson.

a taste

Travis said that my friends from home and I are like friends in movies.
I like to think of it that way, too.
We are. We're the perfect big group of close knit friends. We're all very different, and very crazy (although some are crazier than others). and we have fun.
Even after I'd been away for well over a year, it was beautiful to come home, and meet up with Brad, Logan and Jordan at Perkins.
We laughed at the same jokes, teased Logan about the regular things, they made some mormon jokes, and it was like no time had passed.
This video is from when Magee cooked us dinner, and then afterwards (or was it previous to dinner?) we all climbed into the tent that was set up in his living room.
I'll give you guys more pictures and videos soon.

Coming Soon - Adventures in Minnesota

the cupboard under the stairs

this is where Harry Potter lives.
Except that it's not. It's a cupboard in my aunt Katies house which has been legally graffitied. Every child who happens to stumble upon this little gem is allowed to climb inside and color on the walls. Inside of this exposed-wood walls are little boxes of pens and markers, (and a bunch of toys, too!)
It's the best place to hide, because the floor is covered in super thick and comfy carpeting, and the walls are entertaining. They're filled with little mini journal entries. One of the Bigelow girls wrote in 1996 about a popular boy who asked her out. She said no, and wished that she hadn't.
I found my name in there twice, and added it one more time.
Can you find my name here?





these are two of my beautiful cousins. their whole family is darling, with this perfect blond hair and cute little faces. oh, I like them.

Minnesota in June

Looks like this:

I've been away

at the family's cabin up in Brainard. Where there is no internet.
I would like to tell you about the time spent there, so, to avoid confusion, let me clear this up:
At the cabin there was Amanda, Mary Amanda, Michael, Jack Michael, Jack, Matt, Kathryn (who goes by Katie), Katelyn (who also goes by Katie) Kathryn (who goes by Katie or Kathryn), Polly Kathryn, Danielle, Becky, Maggie, Marnie, and a bunch of Amanda's other children.
But there is a lot of name repetition in the family. That was the point of that.
So, to avoid confusion, our family has developed nicknames, for example Jack Lindsay is to only be called Little Jack. Jack Froelich must be called Big Jack Froelich.
Not just Big Jack, or Jack Froelich.

One day, as I was lying out on the deck Little Jack came out, and tried to hit me with a bungee cord. After a few minutes, he turned and asked "Becky, do you think that I'm cute?"
"Oh, yes," I said. "I think that you're very handsome." He nodded and looked down at the lake for a bit before I asked, "Do you think I'm cute?"
He nodded, and then said, "I guess that you're a pretty good cousin, too."
That was the day AFTER the entire day during which the children all called me Icky Vicky.

Kathryn my sister crawled into bed with me one morning and snuggled into my chest.
"You smell like a puppy," I said.
"That's because there are baby puppies in my tummy," she said. "And I am a puppy, but a witch put a spell on me. I was a puppy in heaven, but" she claps her hands "when I got to earth, I turned into a human. Someday, I will be kissed on the ear, and be turned back into a puppy."
"Can I try?" I asked. She pointed to her ear. I kissed it and nothing happened.
"Actually," she said, she touched her collar bone. "you have to kiss me here." I kissed her and she clapped her hands.
"In just a few days the spell will start to work!"
She was still a human when I saw her last.

Later we went swimming off the boat, jumping off and swimming under the pontoon. I went under water and when I came up, Kathryn said, "Did you see anything?"
"No," I said. "Just a big fish swimming around your feet."
"OH MY GOSH!" she latched herself around my neck. "Let's get out of here. Are you serious?"

Kathryn and Maggie swam out to the dock while all of us were on it, "we swam here by ourselves" Maggie told me. "Because you are our mommy, and we love you and we hate to swim by the prickly weeds."

I went into the house to find Maggie, Kathryn, and Katie (alternately known as Kaylie) holding hands and jumping. "Becky, Becky. Becky!" they were yelling, "we need to find Becky. Becky Becky!"
"Hi," I said. I reminded them of who I am. "I'm Becky. What's up?"
"Oh," Kaylie/Katie blushed. "We want to play house and you have to be our mom."
"I can't right now," I said.
"Well, then where's our other mom Danielle?"

After several days of my family accusing me of having French sympathies, and pretending to speak French, my sister Kathryn said to my mom, "Becky's going to be pretty mad when she hears that I'm going to France. I see London, I see France!"

I am knitting a scarf which Little Jack seems to think is a pair of pants. We don't know why he thinks that I'm making myself a pair of handmade, knitted orange pants.

My mother excells at diving, and backwards diving, and doing all sorts of flips, jumps, and etc off of the pontoon. She is horrified that none of her children can dive.
Mary tries to dive, but everytime she tries, she jumps, and about a foot above water she screams, throws out all of her limbs and belly flops. Once, for a kick, she decided to try and do a backwards dive.
My mom hung from the bottom of the boat so that if Mary hit her head on the ledge, she would actually hit my mom, and therefore not die. Mary did hit my mom's stomach with her outstretched fingers, and smacked her legs and feet against the boat railing.
We're glad that they're both alive.

ask any of my siblings

and they'll tell you that the best part of a new house is exploring the woods inevitably surrounding it.
Mary, Jack, Kathryn and I explored the creepy barn out behind Matt's new house, followed by a brief investigation of the woods. Later, Mary, Nichole and I returned to the woods, and played around in these giant cement trenches, the use of which is being debated. Was it a dairy farm? A chicken coop? Some strange form of irrigation?
Who knows? Do you know?
I cannot, for some reason, coax my pictures off the camera, but when I do, you are in for a treat.
Until then, here are some pictures from my sister Mary's camera.
She took most of the pictures, but I took some, too.
I love Canon cameras.


This is my baby sister Mary, the high school graduate. She is pointing at a junk pile.
This is Mary, and my cousin Nichole.

Can you tell that that is a basketball court?
We found many things in junk piles around the yard and within the trees.
Including several bathtubs, a stove, a fridge, and a hot water heater or two. (These were actually pretty far into the woods.)
Have you ever seen such leafy greenness anywhere else? I think we might live in the garden of Eden.

This is the barn from behind. It doesn't look creepy at all here.

did I mention I seem to be sharing a bed with a lab?

this post is long, but they are just some of my musings written on my journey from Virginia to Minnesota.
which is where I happen to be.
here goes:

Reading in a car makes me feel carsick, and being on a plane makes me feel planesick.
Just plane sick.
I’m sorry. No more of those truly embarrassing jokes. Just plane sick. Honestly.
But really, people talk about motion sickness, as if there is one type of nausea that you feel when you’re in motion, and it just intensifies with speed or bumpiness or something.


I pretty much hate doing anything without having music playing. My ipod is almost dead, and if it gives up then I will steal my neighbor’s.. The girl next to me has a Macbook Pro. The guy on my other side is watching a movie on his PC. Until he pulled that out I thought that he might be mildly cool.
He seemed nice.
Clearly, you can’t judge a book by its cover. But you can judge a person by their Macbook.

Hello Michigan.
Thank you for letting me stay in your airport for a while.
My iPod appears to love the Michigan airport as well, and has fine-tuned its musical ear to help me appreciate the beautiful body of water outside.
With no help from me, the song “Lake Michigan” by Rogue Wave began literally as I stepped into the airport. Immediately followed by Sufjan Steven’s “To be Alone With You,” which, if you didn’t know, begins with the line, “I'd swim across Lake Michigan,”
Also, in the two hours that I spent in the airport, I wrote a poem about dying in Lake Michigan.
It rhymes, can you believe it? Maybe my first poem that rhymes since tenth-grade English.


I’m really into my Lily Allen It’s not me, it’s you album right now, but it’s actually kind of sad. The music is brilliant, but her topics cover: how everyone is on drugs, either prescribed or illegal, Anti-gays and conservatives are worthless bigots, Just because she sleeps with you doesn’t mean she likes you, You will never find prince charming, God may still be around, but he certainly doesn’t know what’s going on, and um.. all she wants is sex and money, nothing else is important.
Yeah, okay. I know.
I’m sure she sold her soul, and that’s why her songs are both awesome, and totally horrifying.

So, my flight is over half over already, and I’m in aisle 12. The drink cart has only just gotten to the row in front of me,.
Ooooh. The smell of coffee is so strong, and wonderful. It’s perfectly soothing, and rich. It’s one of my favorite smells, and in Utah I only ever get a whiff of it in Target or Barnes and Noble.
Maybe that’s why I love the smell. Target and bookstores happen to be my favorite places ever.
Huh, everyone in my row denied drinks and cookies. Interesting.

I think that thirty or forty years ago the idea of being a flight attendant must have seemed like a saucy, sexy thing to be. All of the young women in their twenties looking for a bit of adventure, and a chance to travel must have rushed flight attendant school.
Then, when all the positions were filled, they just stopped hiring.
I don’t think I’ve ever been on a plane where the attendants were younger than fifty or sixty. I wonder how long that stayed fun for them.

I just found a spilt end and I pulled it apart for more than an inch.

a day at sea

So, as you may know, my dad spent a few years being a "Professional Fisherman," until he won the walleye fishing competition of the world.
Even though most times that I went fishing I was forced aboard the boat, (being on a boat with your dad on a quiet lake as a teenage girl is the opposite of fun, even in Minnesota) I can handle a fishing pole, and am not squeamish touching slimy fish.
I had a chance this week to show off my fishing skills (not terribly impressive), when a family in my grandparents church invited my grandma and I to go out on their boat.
We didn't know they were going to make us fish.

We were on the ocean, but we weren't fishing for cool, big fish. We were fishing for shiners to use as bait at a later time. It was the easiest afternoon of fishing ever.
We dropped unbaited hooks in the water, let them sink to the bottom, and then two minutes later pulled up a six-inch fish.
In ten minutes we had about a dozen.

Apparently, even though I only caught one fish, I was the "best fisherman to ever set foot on the boat," because they gave me the pole with the wrong type of hook, and I still caught one.
Also, I was apparently the only one on the boat (besides the dad) who wasn't afraid to touch the fish. That means that I gave up my pole, and had a different job.
As soon as someone reeled a fish up, I took their pole, squeezed down the spiky gills of the fish, and wiggled the hook out for them.

All was going well until the second fish, because as I babbled away, (pulling the hook out of his eye, yuck!) he started babbling back.
IT CROAKED AT ME.
It made an unmistakably frog-like sound, over and over again, and I nearly dropped in it surprise.
The rest of the fish croaked at me, too. They're called croakers (not a very creative name), and they are little, spiky finned, razor jawed fish that can talk.

I've never seen anything like it.
Unfortunately, you can't see anything like it either, because the camera died. You don't get any pictures of me holding slimy, talking fish. Sorry.

But I just thought I would share that story in anticipation of returning home to Minnesota.
Where I will probably go fishing.
Or.... see lakes at least.
Oh, Minnesota. Where the women are strong, the men are good-looking, and all the children are above average.

this is the face

of a lumberjack, planning her return to the homeland.


FAMILY, take note: I will be there for Mary's grad party. I am coming to Minnesota.

FRIENDS IN MINNESOTA, pay attention: I will be there from the 14th of June until the 21st (?).
I think, or the twentieth. Or another week, depending on when Trav can get work off.
We're coming, and our time had best be jam packed with fun.
Please figure out a time that you are free to come love me, and tell me.
Also, I probably lost your number, so if you haven't sent it to me, please do. Then I can call you, and make plans with you.

Kathryn

she is my sister.
I didn't make a kathryn post for her birthday, but I wanted to now, because two days ago, she turned four.
FOUR.
Four years ago my mom told me that she was feeling sick, and I immediately assured her that I had what she had.
Too bad for me, what she had was a baby.

she is the sweetest most adorable child in history.
and, because she's a froelich, she might also be the craziest.

I hardly have any pictures of her from the last four years, since I lost all my photos.
But you can see what a cute three year old she was, and what a cute four year old she'll be.
and hear all about her.
Here goes:
Before she could even speak, Kathryn started developing sarcastic qualities, such as fake laughing and eye rolling.
As a one year old, Kathryn was known to exclaim: "oh, the insanity!" and "uffdah!" after sarah simo taught her how.
And she had no fear climbing up the outside of the staircase, and on to our upright piano, or on to window sills, or jumping off the couch onto the cement floor in the basement.
She spent a good deal of time breaking things, and then yelling "Holy moly! That was naughty."
Once as we read a Clifford book before bed, she touched Emily Elizabeth's face and sighed, "Oh isn't she charming? I just love her."
Another time, a friend came over. "Be careful not to wear your shoes on the carpet," she warned.
"What are you, forty?" asked the man.
"Oh, no. Just two."
Kathryn, more than anyone in the family, loves to be naked, too. Once, as she ran around unclothed, my mom said "You better put pants on before you get a spanking, because that's what happens to bare butts."
"But Mom," said Kathryn, "I'm not a bear, I'm a bunny!"




"hey. spank me with a spoon" kathryn
"no, you haven't been naughty and i don't want to hurt you." dad (also, he doesn't spank his kids with spoons)
"i wouldn't get hurt, i'd laugh like this: ha ha!" kathryn

"hey, mom and i are getting married!" kathryn
"don't you want to marry a boy your own age, katie?" mary
"what? a two and a half year old?" kathryn

"kathryn, you are the best thing ever born." dad
"yes. yes, i think i am." kathryn

"let's watch Barbie Princess! and we will hold hands and do *this* (sways back and forth)" kathryn
"alright, that's fine." Riggs

"kathryn, i saw elder facer today!" me
"*gasp* oh! was he singing?" kathryn

"you look like a ragamuffin, i need to comb your hair." mom
"people LOVE me when i am a ragamuffin" kathryn



A few weeks ago when I called home my mother told my the following story:
As she undressed my sister Kathryn she found the name of one of her friends written in marker across Kathryn's back.
"Kathryn," said my mom, "why does your back say James?"
"What!?" exclaimed Kathryn, "he was supposed to write MY name!"
Later, as she pulled off her panties, my mom could see two little people drawn on each of Kathryn's butt cheeks.



Last night while I was on the phone with my mom, she stopped talking to me, and said to my sister, "hey, why do you have poop on your arm?"
"I don't know," said Kathryn.
There was a pause.
"Did you poop outside?"
"Yes I did."
"Please don't ask me how I guessed that."



mom: why don't you make gingerbread cookies?
kathryn: i'll get the bread!


kathryn: when i die, how will I get up to heaven to be with God?
mom: um... you just float up, maybe.
kathryn: or maybe, I close my eyes when I'm alive, and then die, and when I open my eyes, I'm already in Heaven with God.
mom: yeah, that's probably it.

kathryn: those are my good boys. Jack is so handsome. When he get's bigger, he'll get all the girls, and so will his handsome friend Sam.

becky: this is how you make the letter A, do you want to try it?
kathryn: yeah, I think I can handle that.

kathryn: everybody has a different jesus
dad: what, kathryn?
kathryn: i mean... do you think jesus has buddy in his left hand?
dad: buddy the dog?
kathryn: yes, do you think jesus has him in his left hand?
dad: i think jesus knows buddy, yes.
kathryn: jesus is so strong, because he can pick up things like big dogs.
dad: he vanquished sin
kathryn: what? what did you say?
dad: he vanquished sin
kathryn: he's so strong that he can pick up sin, and dogs, and the biggest, hugest, hugest bull ever.

kathryn: can jesus come down from heaven?
dad: yes, he comes down sometimes
mom: honey, she's asking if he'll come live here
kathryn: yeah, will he live in our house?
dad: no, jesus won't live on earth again until --
kathryn: he's a little baby again?
dad: nope, not until he comes to reign on earth
kathryn: then he can stay here
dad: i think he'll have his own house
kathryn: yeah, he has his own house, now, too, up in heaven.
dad: mansions, i'd say
kathryn: and someday i'll live up there and have a mansion, too, right?
dad: someday, if you're good.

mary: do not touch me, unless you are massaging me.
jack: hey, i'm not the massager man
mary: rub my feet
kathryn: i will, I am the massager girl
mary: there's a lot you could learn here, jack.

Kathryn got a hamster named Marigold for her birthday:
"Please bless the food, bless Becky and Lisa, thank you that I finally got a pet and I love him so much and he is nocturnal and so soft, and thank you for our house, amen"

she told me "nocturnal means that you sleep in the morning, and are awake at night."
so smart.

She's so sweet.
I can't believe that she's been around so long, but I also can't imagine life without her.
Happy belated Birthday, my dear.