My Blog Title: A Clarification

Back when I started my blog I had a really hard time figuring out what to call it. So many of my friends had super cool, creative blog titles, but I felt stuck. I also didn't want a title with my last name in it lest this silly, stream-of-consciousness, friends-and-family centered blog sully my professional reputation (ha!!). So after literally tens of minutes of deep introspection I decided on Ang & 4 Plus 4. Among members of my family Forrest is lovingly referred to as "For," and I was pregnant at the time with numero quatro, so Ang & 4 Plus 4 seemed fun, and encapsulated what this blog was about (me and my family), and had a bit of an inside baseball, "you'll get this if you really know us" quality.

And then. And then! This happened.

Although I'm pretty sure the TLC show John & Kate Plus 8 was underway when I started my blog, it wasn't on my radar screen at all. Now, of course, it's impossible for this exercise in parental exploitation NOT to be on the radar screen of anybody with a TV screen, or a computer screen, and the whole thing makes me feel cringey about my blog title. Like I picked it because I had some kind of reality TV crush on the Gosselins or something.

Not true, not true, not true!

I've never, in fact, seen the show, but I have seen recent clips of the Gosselin parents sitting uncomfortably on a couch discussing the state of their crumbling marriage and whether or not having cameras in your house 24-7 to document your kids' temper tantrums and marital spats might be, I dunno, a bad idea, parenting-wise?

I, for one, can't keep my eyes off of Kate Gosselin's hair.



Is it just me, or does that hairstyle scream aggressive unhappiness?

Anyhow, now I don't know what to do about my blog title. Hopefully this Gosselin business will all cycle out of the news here soon, but I fear that my blog will forever hold the whiff of celebrity-seeking, child-exploiting, spouse-cheating, hair-gelling dysfunction, when all I was going for was something snappy.

Luckily, only twelve of you regularly read this thing anyway. And now you know!

Oh, and family update:

-Last baseball game of the season for Ethan tonight, and Jonas's last game on Tues. Will post pictures forthwith.

-Ethan will be performing in a ginormous youth temple celebration production for the opening of the new Oquirrh Mountain temple tomorrow. He's an Asian drummer, which turned out well since Ethan enjoys both Asia and drumming. Big thanks to Aunt Cindy for her hours (and hours, months worth of hours, it seems) heading up the multi-stake dance portion of this whole thing. I'm really looking forward to seeing it on Sat.

-Elise is planning to sing a solo for the 5th grade talent show. We're on the hunt for good songs. Any suggestions? We're leaning in a Taylor Swift-ian direction. She'll do great.

-Jonas was awarded student of the month for his class. The value this month was "Integrity," which is a pretty awesome value. Good job Joe!

-Wyatt is obsessed with dinasours: Dinosaur books (we have like nine of them, plus one from the library, from which he promptly ripped a page while he was looking at it in the car) and Dinosaur "shows." His favorite right now is an episode of Zooboomafo which we have "on demand" with our Comcast cable. Unfortunately, that particular episode expires on June 4th. Oh nooooooooo!

-Forrest is planning to ride his bike to St. George and then do a Triathlon with his friend. Yes, RIDE HIS BIKE TO ST. GEORGE. I will keep you posted.

-I'm almost done with my short story anthology. Just doing some last minute edits but have the whole thing put together. Woo hoo! Just in time to start judging the entries for the Irreantum fiction and creative nonfiction contest.

And that is all. Now I'm off to get my van's oil changed, since Forrest just pointed out it hasn't happened since late 2007. Whoops! Sorry, van. You know I love you: dented back window, vaguely stinky upholstery, gummed-up cup holders and all.

It's interesting to note . . .

That I get people all over the world visiting my blog almost every day because of this post from late 2007 on crazy song lyrics. It seems lots of folks are curious to know the words to "A Ram Sam Sam." I also get a good bit of traffic for this post (apparently cosmetology is a hazardous profession, or people are worried it might be), as well as this one (which makes sense since I, too, googled the good Dr. Weissbluth's name during the wee hours of sleep deprivation).

I also realize that as the big sister of the Normal Mormon Husband, my comparative internet notoriety means I'm about as popular as Angelina Jolie at a barbecue hosted by Courtney Cox-Arquette. (And how is little Coco Arquette doing, I wonder?)

And speaking of celebrity babies, did any of you catch Suri Cruise being (lovingly?) squooshed by her mother during the AI finale?

(Note to Katie: Three year olds don't like really loud rock music, and screaming people, and cameras in their faces. I know you're probably just trying to do you best. I'm just saying.)

And speaking of the AI finale, I must admit that this season I couldn't muster a whole lot of enthusiasm for anybody. I did think Kris was cute as a bug's ear, what with all his humility and Christianity and his adorable blond wife. He was almost a Mormon! (Almost.) And every once in a looooooonng while, I found Adam fun to watch. But mostly I found him pretentious and screamy and inauthentic. The finale was fun, though. Although I could have done without the bikini girl interlude, what with impressionable children in the house, eyes glued to the screen . . .

And speaking of reality television, So You Think You Can Dance is back on!!! Hooray! Oh, how I love that show. I think of all the reality shows on TV, SYTYCD is my fave. Well, that and Project Runway, but Project Runway has been RUINED FOREVER BY THE EVIL HARVEY WEINSTEIN and Bravo's new replacement, "The Fashion Show," isn't nearly as good. I miss Heidi. I miss Tim Gunn. And I know that when they pop up in the fall on Lifetime (ick! uggh! who watches Lifetime?!?!?!?!) they will be tainted by Lifetime's cheesiness and all will be lost.

But I'll get over it. And at least I still have SYTYCD. Talented, flamboyant people who are really good at what they do competing against each other fairly. THAT's what I like. (Oh, and Top Chef has the same sensibility. Also a good television choice.)

And speaking of television, did any of you happen to watch the season premiere of Glee on Fox? I liked it quite a bit and hope it lives up to its promise next season. It's kind of a like a cross between Election (a movie with Reese Witherspoon and Matthew Broderick from years ago that's smart and funny and mean and also kind of naughty and rated R, so don't see it and hold it against me) and High School Musical (which I do not need to describe in a parenthetical aside). The crazily intense cheerleading coach on Glee was particularly good--I know I know her from other shows, just can't remember what. She seemed like an over-the-top version of the award winning dance/drill team coach from Cyprus (she who shall not be named, just in case she googles herself and finds my blog and comes to my house and beats me down . . . but Jenny, you know who I'm talking about :-). I remember this particular coach once posting the weights of all the girls in the drill team on the dance room door as an "incentive" for them to slim down. I was never in dance company or drill team, though, because 1. she scared the crap out of me, 2. they had to wake up waaaaaay too early in the morning and 3. I wasn't a very good dancer, which kinda makes 1 and 2 moot, wouldn't you say?

Which brings me back around to SYTYCD. No, I never thought I could dance. But I always wished I could. Maybe that's why I love the show . . .

That's enough stream-of-consciousness rambling for now. Have a great Memorial weekend everybody! (And yes, I probably watch too much television. Sue me. I fold the laundry while I'm watching, okay! And we have a lot of laundry!)

Southern Utah Extravaganza!

We packed up the Tahoe and headed out to Southern Utah last weekend for some family time, red rock rejuvenation, and hard core triathloning. (Or triathlon-spectatering.) I give you our photo diary:


Wyatt with one of many caterpillars he discovered at Zions. He thought they were waaaay cool.

All the kids in a mom-imposed group shot at the Zion's visitor center. Wyatt thought the whole "group shot" idea was waaaaaay lame.


But he recovered on the bus ride. Cool again. No car seats!

The wonders of nature!

Another pose-y, mom-coerced shot. No Wyatt this time. Didn't want to push our luck.



A little photo shoot on the lawn while we were waiting for Forrest and Wyatt to get some lemonade. Aren't they good lookin?


Wyatt doing the happy dance while we were waiting for Forrest to come zipping past during the triathlon. The music was hoppin!--although they did have something like five or six songs on a continuous loop, one of which was "Living La Vida Loca."

All the other kids boogie-ing (how does one spell boogie-ing??) down. Oh, except the one who's going to be a teenager soon. But he was smiling. :-)

And here he is, zipping past. Is it just me, or does he look super hunky? And kind of menacing with the stubble and sunglasses? And if he looked hunky and menacing, it was authentically so, since he kicked butt: came in 9th out of the 50 or so competitors in his age class. Not bad for his third triathlon ever! Especially considering the canceled the swim portion--it was too windy, apparently, for the kayakers to hold their positions in the lake--and it was a bummer since Forrest does really well on the swim. Instead they ran a 5k, did the 13.2 mile bike ride, then ran another 5k.

Smiling during transition. (The same couldn't be said of me during the only transitions I'm familiar with--those of the childbirth-induced variety.)

Coming in after the biking portion

We took the kids to a fun little park in downtown St. George the evening after the triathlon--they had a ball. The night was so pretty and warm and sundappled.

I gave in when Wyatt said to me, "Mom, shirt off?" But I drew the line at "pants off?"

Cool picture, no? With the Dixie "D" in the background? And mom, see? He didn't fall to his death.

Although Jonas did have a hard time making it from one side of the "riverbank" to the other when we hiked Bryce Canyon . . .



The boys climbed to the tippy top of a little trail (while the girls and Wyatt stayed safely below).
There's nothing like the orange of the rocks at Bryce.

And yeah, Mom, this log crossing did have me a little worried.

The kids and me, Mother's Day 2009, Bryce Canyon

It was a wonderful trip. Big thanks to Mindy and Peter for making it even more fun. I wish it could have lasted longer!

Good Stuff

Lots of good stuff this last week. The best of the good stuff being:




Jonas Leo got baptized! (And doesn't he look handsome there with his handsome dad?)

It was a wonderful day. We had lots of friends and family in attendance, a portion of which is (of whom are??) pictured here:



We also almost got a halfway decent family photo, if only Wyatt didn't have his fingers in his mouth:



I can't imagine a better kid than my freckly-nosed Joe. We're so lucky to have him in our family, and it was great to be able to celebrate his baptism with so many people who love him too.

We also had some good stuff during the two weeks the "middle children" (Jonas and Elise) were off-track from school. They had a piano recital--duets!--and they played together masterfully. Didn't even kick each other underneath the piano.




We spent a fun day at the zoo with my friend Delise and her kids:



Oh, and we also celebrated my Dad's 60th birthday with a SURPRISE birthday bash. A surprise that was miraculously carried off, since it borders on impossible to pull anything over on Detective Dad. But we did!

And last but not least, my sister's in town with her kids for the week. We had a lot of fun today with them and Grandma at Jungle Gyms (thanks Grandma!). Wyatt's a BIG fan of bumper cars, spinny things, swoopy rides and merry-go-rounds--especially with Grandma. Can you tell?




All in all, a really fun week, full of lots of good stuff. The only mixed blessing of the week was the cancellation of my spring creative writing class--not enough students to carry it. But I say mixed because although I'll miss the paycheck, it was going to be tough to squeeze in two nights a week away from home and the compressed grading schedule. I'm hoping it will give me some time to wrap up the anthology I'm editing and actually finish the blasted short story I've been working on for the past (what??) six months? And then once that's done, maybe I can start on one of my two abandoned novels. Maybe? Hopefully? Can I get my behind in gear? ("Yes, Angie, you can!" you all say. And I thank you for your support. I need it. Sometimes I think a small dose of obsessive-compulsive disorder would come in handy. But that's another post . . .)