Therapy by Mail

I get a lot of misdirected mail at my house. I mean a lot. This kind of concerns me. I wonder if there are pieces of my mail floating around the neighborhood in other people's mailboxes. I guess this could be a good thing- maybe they don't read carefully and will pay my bills. On the other hand, they may be receiving that letter stating that I have won a million dollars, in which case, I'd like it delivered to my house, please.
At first, the misplaced mail was innocent enough: a stray circular here, an occasional bill or a customer survey. However, the last several months I have only been receiving misdirected magazines and catalogs. Sometimes they are addressed to my house number but on any number of different streets, sometimes they are addressed to our street but one number off, and sometimes it seems that they have arrived at my house completely at random sharing neither my house number nor my street name. How, I wondered to myself, could the South Euclid post office be so completely inept? Were they hiring blind persons to sort the mail, because it is not brailled, nor are the addresses in large print. Do they have an inadequate number of sorting bins so that, when postal employees run out of places to put mail they just match it with the closest address already utilizing a bin? I just could not think of a logical scenario which would produce so much wayward mail.
Then, I remembered that the post office is, in fact, a government organization. I started thinking along the lines of conspiracy theory. Maybe, this misguided mail was no accident. I began noticing patterns. My lawn was in desperate need of mowing. The dandelions were threatening to take over- when lo, and behold, what should arrive in my mailbox? A seemingly innocent copy of Better Homes and Gardens that belonged three houses down. The cover? A pristine yard.
My mail carrier has decided that I need some direction and that she is the person to give it to me.
She has delivered copies of Newsweek, these seem to come on weeks when I am feeling especially unintellectual and disconnected from the world- how does she know? I have received a copy of Woman's Day whose cover features indicated I needed to improve the menu in my house and decorate for the new season. Has she been talking to Marc? Health magazines, movie magazines, book catalogs, and jewelry order forms have all made their way to my house with very suspicious timing.
This week, I have not been dressing especially nice due largely to the fact that my clothes are slowly refusing to fit correctly. As a result, I even went walking with the boys, in, I am ashamed to admit it, sweat pants. So yesterday I got The Week in my mailbox featuring a large elephant on the cover, and today I found waiting for me an L.L. Bean women's catalog with a large caption "chase away the chill with our Fitness Fleece". Apparently, our mail carrier appreciated neither the sweatpants nor the bump now evident on my middle.
There is still one magazine, however, whose purpose in my mailbox I have been unable to decipher. Last month, I got a copy of National Geographic (I was actually excited thinking maybe someone gave us a gift subscription, but no- just more therapy mail). It had something very similar to this picture on the cover:My question to you is- what does this mean? Any suggestions? Do I need to get a facial with "light tweezing"? Do I have wrinkle lines? Should I dye my hair red? I'm just not sure what my therapist is getting at and until I figure it out I am guessing that the barrage of magazines will continue finding their way to my door.
Oh- and to some residents over on Lawnway- I have your magazines. I will walk them over at my earliest convenience, as soon as my L.L. Bean fitness fleece arrives.... by mail.

Utah Part 2: Marc and Sarah's Grand Adventure

Tuesday, Day 4
We spent the morning swimming at Ryan's mom's house who generously offered to let us use her in-ground pool while she was at work. We took Meagan, Camden and Kaleb with us while their parents were at the temple. Jen met us there with Cayelle and Cassius and Lora came with Maya. It was quite the party. We all enjoyed swimming even though the morning was a little cool. Gabe, however, decided to add some additional excitement to the event. He came walking up to Marc with what looked like a rubber snake wrapped around his arm. "Look Daddy, a snake!" Then the snake started moving. Marc told Gabe to put it down so Gabe threw it in the pool. It started wriggling frantically and Marc had to fish it out. Needless to say, there was a lot of screaming from the girls.
After lunch, everyone 2 and older went to see The Sorcerer's Apprentice. It was highly entertaining and even though we thought it was a little scary our boys weren't bothered at all. On the way home, we learned that our nephew's favorite part (Kaleb is 8) was when one character said to another "You're sexy." We thought that was pretty funny.
Oma watched all of the kids so the four remaining siblings and their spouses could go out to dinner. Here is a picture she took of Elijah, David John and their cousin Maya jammin' on the piano.

Wednesday, Day 5
We said goodbye to Rebecca, Marcus and their kids as they drove back home to Denver before Marc and I left for our first overnight getaway since the twins were born. Oma and Opa bravely agreed to watch all three of our boys for 24 hours. We hit our favorite burger joint for lunch. It's called Burger Supreme- if you are ever in the Provo area please give it a try. It has awesome burgers and fries and the best fry sauce. After that we headed to the Mount Timpanogas Temple where we were married almost 8 1/2 years ago. We didn't get any pictures there this time, but for those of you who didn't know us before we were married here is a flashback:


We then headed to the Thanksgiving Point gardens. They were just incredible and far more expansive than we expected.

My favorite was the garden entitled "The Secret Garden" complete with an ivy-hidden door. It really made me feel as if I were in the story I read so long ago.


We checked into a bed and breakfast in Salt Lake City with themed rooms. Ours was a secret agent theme complete with a bookcase that really opens up to an awesome bathroom with two-person jacuzzi. Our stay included cheesecake and sparkling cider at night and an amazing breakfast in bed in the morning. We loved it. For dinner that night, we went to a Brazilian steakhouse- if you've never been to one you need to go. We definitely enjoyed our romantic and relaxing night away.
Meanwhile, back at the ranch, our boys were spending time with Oma and Opa. They loved helping Oma pick pears from her tree in the backyard.

They also "helped" Opa sort out six boxes of files around bedtime.


Thursday, Day 6
We were grateful to find, as Opa put it, that "Despite everything, everyone is still alive." Absence certainly makes the heart grow fonder and we were happy to see our little guys again.

I did some shopping at the BYU bookstore and got a favorite and rare treat of chocolate-covered cinnamon bears. Lora and I also learned that the clothing store Shade is going out of business. We visited the store and I scored an awesome brown tank top for $4. Their online store still has a few things left. You should check it out.
At night we went out with our good friends Josh and Evette Dutton to the Pizza Factory, another Provo favorite. Marc also got to see his friend Ben Sorensen. His wife was due on Friday, but their little girl didn't favor us by arriving before we had to leave.


Friday, Day 7
Sadly, this was our last day. We spent the morning packing and grabbed lunch at Cafe Rio (who knew Provo had so many delicious restaurants?) before heading to the airport. We had an absolute blast on our trip and, thankfully, the flights home were not nearly so long as on the way out. We arrived back in Cleveland at 11 pm and our kind neighbor met us at the airport with our van. It's always fun to travel, but it also good to come home. I found that what I missed most (besides by friends, and the birth of my friend's baby) was my pillow. We are glad to be back, but will be looking forward to our next Utah vacation.

Utah Part 1: The Family Reunion

Saturday, Day 1
This was a 12 hour day of travel. Due to our cheap plane tickets, we got to fly to Baltimore before flying to Salt Lake City. The thing is- we used to live in Baltimore and we could NEVER find a direct flight when we lived there.... go figure. Anyway, we survived the harrowing 5 hour flight from Baltimore to SLC without too much trouble and with no Benadryl. After a 1 hour drive from Salt Lake to Provo, we finally got to see all of Marc's siblings and their kids who had gathered for the weekend family reunion. Unfortunately, no one wanted to hug us because our whole family had pink eye. Woo hoo!

We had a lovely family dinner with some amazing potato leek soup (I am still waiting for that recipe, Marcus...) and salad with steak and shrimp. We also did our Christmas gift exchange that night. We received a much-needed new skillet and two awesome games. We just played "In a Pickle" last night and loved it. Thank you Lora and Johnny!

Sunday, Day 2
The real miracle of the day was that our boys SLEPT IN! This was the first trip to Utah since our kids were born in which I did not have to get up at 4 AM with crying children who had not adjusted to mountain standard time. Hallelujah!
We all got up and dressed for church and we just couldn't resist getting a couple of family pictures in our matching red outfits.

Then, it was off to church to see our adorable new nephew Cassius receive his name and blessing from his father. After, we all went to Ryan and Jen's house for a gourmet lunch (best tomato salad ever!) and virgin mojitos.


We spent the afternoon napping and chatting then went to church again for the Baptism of one of our other nephews, Kaleb. Gabriel was very interested in the concept of baptism and was convinced that he wanted to be baptized too. (I think it had something to do with the attention and Reeses peanut butter cups that Kaleb received.) Gabriel immediately changed his mind about being baptized, however, when he saw that Kaleb had to go all the way under water.

That evening, Marcus made his famous cookies and we all played a mafia-like game called Werewolves. I don't know how I feel about this game. I got killed off both times, and Marc turned out to be a werewolf both times... what does that say about our relationship?


Monday, Day 3
Monday morning was officially family picture time. One thing you should know about all Ricks women is that they are a little fanatic about their pictures. It took some time, but I'm sure we'll all be happy with the results. Here is a picture of Marc with all five of his siblings:


The rest of the morning was spent going to visit Marc's paternal grandfather and maternal grandmother. Marc's grandpa (also named Marc Ricks and also a doctor) turned 100 on Thursday. Pretty impressive. Our boys were happy to share in a birthday cupcake and they even recognized their great-grandparents from the photo albums we made for them.

The whole family went out to lunch at Los Hermanos, a Utah tradition. If you wear a Los Hermanos t-shirt you get a free specialty drink, so we all showed up in owned or borrowed t-shirts. Our boys, of course, did not eat any of their entrees, but instead preferred to eat any food that other people dropped on the floor. David John's goal was to make as large a mess as possible, and I narrowly missed being the target of some catapulted guacamole. Despite all of this, their behavior was a huge improvement over the last time we all went out to eat together. There was no screaming or tantrums and no non-family members had food thrown at them.
Unfortunately, Robert and Nancy and Jonx and Tine had to leave after lunch, but the rest of us headed back to Provo.
We had promised our boys that while we were in Utah we would take them to see the temple. Gabe's favorite song and nightly request is "I Love to See the Temple" (Ding Dong the Witch is Dead is a close 2nd, he has varied taste in music). The boys were awed as we drove onto the temple grounds. We pointed to the temple spire and asked "Who's that up there?" Elijah answered "That's a child of God up there!" (I bet you can guess which primary song is his favorite.)


The boys loved the fountains and all of the flowers. We walked around the grounds and just really enjoyed being a family.

That night for dinner we devoured Johnny's signature whole wheat and applesauce pancakes. Marc's sisters are all smart- they married men who can cook!
We loved being able to see everyone and enjoy being together as a whole extended family even if it was only for a few days. Our thanks to Oma for hosting and doing a ridiculous number of dishes and to Opa for assisting with the financing so we could all make it.