Smile

For this long weekend I spent a lot of time in a car. Well, not a lot, but a lot for me. I had a four hour trip down to Payson to play with my Brown cousins, and no, that’s not a racial slur. :) To make the trip more fun, I pulled out all my CDs that I hadn’t listened to for more than a year and I found a song that totally described my weekend. It’s by Simon and Garfunkel and there’s a part that goes...

I get the news I need on the weather report.
I can gather all the news I need on the weather report.
Hey, I’ve got nothing to do today but smile.
Da-n-da-da-n-da-da-n-da-da here I am
The only living boy in New York.

Ok, so I live in Burley and I’m a girl, but other than that it fit my weekend perfectly. I’d find myself just humming it and then bust out in song with, "I’ve got nothing to do today but smile!"




Saturday we went for a drive up into the mountains. We weren’t able to make it up to the waterfall (I still have a hurt foot), so Scott hauled me half way up and we picnicked near a streams. And, of course, there’s nothing more fun than throwing rocks, so the kids had a blast.

The kids came back very wet, "butt" very happy.

Noah was my pal. I think everything he did cracked me up. I managed to whittle down my weekend pictures for your pleasure to have an equal share of Noah as all the other kids combined. I loved to ask him if his name is Noah. "No. I’m not Noah. I’m Michael Phelps!" I guess last week he asked his mom if they could go to Wal-Mart and buy a diving board. I had to work pretty hard to get a picture of him diving, but after I left (it figures) he laid out his blue blanket and piled up the couch cushions to "dive" and "swim."

When I visit my nephews and nieces whether they are my brother and sisters kids or my cousins kids, I like to take them for a walk. This weekend I told Scott’s kids we should go for a walk, "oh. ok." And we should take my camera and you can take pictures, "All right!!"

We started out with just David and I and since there are A LOT of kids in the neighborhood we started to pick up a trail. About halfway around the cul-de-sac I let all the kids take a turn. They took some really cool pictures with only an occasional idea from me. I did take the one picture of a yellow flower. It only took thirty minutes to walk around the circle and make me the cool aunt. :)

This weekend was Onion Days for Payson, so here we are ready for the parade.

Onion Days. Ha! They’ll never make fun of my potato-slash-sugar beet country again. This is just before the deluge of rain. The Monsoon. The falling of cats AND dogs. It didn’t start off to intimidating. In fact, it makes me want to sing, "I’m singing in the rain. What a glorious feeling; I’m happy again!"

There I go singing again... Hey, I’ve got nothing to do today but smile.