Jeff's Day with Erik

On Saturday, Jeffrey also went out with Erik. In the evening he and Erik took Tracks to Abravanel Hall where they saw the Utah Symphony and others in a program called Video Games Live. The whole music program was playing theme songs to video games. They had pictures of the video games on the screen behind the orchestra and in some cases they even had people play the video games while the music played. A man named Leung played the Mario Brothers theme really fast blindfolded. You should watch it at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Fep0OAWzLBw&feature=related. There were many people dressed up as video game characters: Link, Zelda, Snake from Metal Gear, Sims, Sora from Kingdom Hearts, Miss Pacman, etc. Jeff and Erik were able to sit on the balcony and both loved it. Today Jeff is wearing the T-shirt he got from the program and Erik also got him an event program. He keeps telling me of the person walking around with a green diamond over his head. They took Tracks back and had an amazing time.

Calista's Day with Erik

On Saturday Calista spent the morning with Erik. Erik wanted to do something special with her that she would remember forever. First he took her to Claire's and Limited Too and let her pick out accessories for their date. She bought three pairs of earrings, some sunglasses, and those decorations that go in the holes of Crocks (though hers are the sketchers version). They then came home to pick up the camera and directions to Heber. They went to Taco Time on their way out of town and headed into Heber. They then took the Soldier's Hollow express train. This is a 90 minute ride on the Historic Heber City Railroad. This was Calista's first time on a real train and not on tracks. They were able to walk around the cars, go to the outside car, and sit in a cart all to themselves. Calista looked like an old-time movie star. After the train, Erik bought them shakes to eat in the car on the way home. They had a great time both will remember forever.

Shabbat Shalom

So, I have this blog that I write but it isn't really about me but about the family, which is fine since the family is me. My two favorite days of the week are Sunday and Friday (both Sabbaths), Sunday because it is usually the day I get to spend with my whole family and Friday because of Shabbat, where I spend time with friends. Both days are my days. I love Fridays, the kids have a short day at school and in the evenings we go to Kat's house. I love sugar challah. If you've never had sugar challah go to Harmon's on a Friday and get some. I digress, because Friday is one of my days and I have more time on this day than Sunday I decided to write a Friday blog all about me, my thoughts, questions, what I did for that week, etc. This way you can all learn to know the real me. I am going to start now.

This Week I Love:
Erik's scrubbly beard and jutting out chin
Jeffrey telling me I am the best mom ever
Calista and her non-matching dress style
Carson singing, "I love you a bushel and a peck"
Ewan's cast free leg
Long Way Down and Tunnels books
Looking at Kids' bedroom decorating ideas
Chillers by Raw Bean

Things That Have to Go:
Bullies and having to call Bullies' parents
Carson I love you but I don't care for when you blow air in my face or shove your toys practically up my nose
Being baby head-butted in the nose
Not having parking in front of my house
Gay bar parking two feet from my window
Ants
Anti-climactic books, video games, movies, etc.
My hair all over the place
The chord of G on the guitar (I just can't get it)

Questions I Asked Myself:
Why is the hardest part of exercising actually starting it?
I hate the way little a's look, should I start signing my name Angel or AngelA?
Why do I daily have new bruises all over me? (2 possible reasons: clumsiness or Erik beats me while I sleep)

Some of my thoughts reoccur throughout the week. This week I have often thought that a person shouldn't be nervous of their own home or to have their kids play outside. More obscure thoughts occur to me. A few months ago, Erik and I were talking about dopplegangers. For those of you who don't know, a doppleganger is a ghostly double or counterpart of a living person. I was telling Erik that even though I watch a lot of horror movies, I haven't really seen a memorable one with a doppleganger. This week I had two such occurances. The first was a Supernatural episode where the doppleganger was killing off loved ones. The second was this movie, The Abandoned, which I thought would be dumb but turned out kind of spooky, though admittedly it could've been that I watched the movie around midnight with Erik at work and all the kids sleeping (for some reason holding Ewan while watching scary movies grounds me). The main woman saw her doppleganger and it had drown, indicating that is what would happen to her. This reminded me of one of Phillip Pullman's His Dark Materials books, The Amber Spyglass where the two children visit a world where everyone's deaths follow them around and they can see them. In fact, the people in this world are spooked to see people walk around without their deaths which to them would mean the people without deaths would already be dead. This leads me to wonder, would I like to see my death, know how I would die? I came to the resolute answer of no. I don't want to see it coming; I want it to hit me like a toilet seat falling through the sky from a space station. Besides the fact I would like to say goodbye to my loved ones, I would be too nervous to know it was coming.

This week I also finished my Long Way Down book. At the end of the book, Ewan McGregor and Charley Booreman reached the Southern-most tip of Africa from starting at the Northern-most part of Scotland. Ewan talks of how he was sad to be reaching the end of his destination. This is how I felt about finishing my book. I wish it were longer. I will have to buy the DVD. That would be an amazing trip to take, taking a BMW Dakar bike and riding South through Africa: the Great Pyramids, the Nile, the desert, the animals, the people, working with Unicef, along with the legacy of a people who continue to survive and be happy throughout all the diversity. Amazing.

I am now reading Tunnels by Roderick Gordon and Brian Williams. The book is about a boy and his dad who discover underground train stations, passageways, etc. under London. It's a real fun book so far. I like that it tells the story from different people's points of view instead of just one. In particular, one of the points of view is from a character, the sister of the main one, who at twelve years of age is given the responsibility of house cleaning, making sure everyone is fed, her dad pays the bills, etc. Her point of view shows how resentful she is because of all of this. It is nice to see some real emotions in teen books besides love angst. One of the reasons I like her is at night she waits till everyone is sleeping and she thinks about how much she likes that time because it is just for herself and even if all she does is stare out the window, it is her time. While I am not resentful of anything but this stupid neighborhood, I still love the time by myself at night. I just wish I didn't have to sleep as much because I could fit in more things that I love.

That's it for this week except that I added a slide show of some of my favorite pictures that you may not have seen before. Thanks for listening.
Shabbat Shalom

My Park Can Beat Up Your Park Day 2, cont.

Cast Video

Ewan's Second Worse Day Ever

Ewan had his cast removed today. It wasn't pleasant. One person tried for quite a while. She couldn't get it off. Another person came in. They sawed and pulled, cut with scissors and used the cast splitter, nothing. The cast still wouldn't come off. Ewan was screaming and they pinched his leg in the side of the cast they could barely crack open. The orthopedic doctor came in and after Erik and Ewan's profound sweating, they used their third pair of scissors, the saw again, the cast splitter, more tugging, and then the saw went through (scratching Ewan). They were able to then pry off the cast. Ewan's poor leg is dry, all scratched up, indented, and raw but it is cast free. I added some other pictures of him. One of him laughing at me because I told him his foot smelled bad (it was rank after a month in the cast), and two of his first cereal feeding in the high chair.

My Park Can Beat Up Your Park Day 2

We did decide to go back to the park, on Monday. We had Masha for the day so that was fun. As everyone knows, I love zombies and I may have instilled this love in my children. Here they are at the Isaac Chase home once owned by Brigham Young. The day held certain milestones: Erik learning to play lacrosse with a baby on his back, Carson learning to pedal and steer her bike, Jeffrey learning Lacrosse, and Calista finding new ways to model.< Oh yeah, I had fun too

Easter...Kind of

I don't really celebrate Easter but we decided to do a little something for it. We had an egg hunt at mom's with all of us there. This picture is of my favorite people in this world eating their candy afterward.
On Sunday the kids played in our front yard climbing on our fruit trees. When Carson wants her picture taken she says, "Picture me...Hey, picture me." Later I took the kids to see Horton Hears a Who. This was Carson's first movie and she loved it, though half way through she wanted to sit on my lap and she kept yelling, "Hey! What is this?" really loud.
The best part of this holiday/break was how many days I was able to spend with my whole family. It was a much needed break after all the stress around my house lately.

My Park Can Beat Up Your Park Day 1

For part of Spring Break it was warm enough to go to the park so that is what we did. It was Ewan's first significant day outside and he didn't seem to care much (Get with the program Ewan). The kids played at the seven canyons, at the big and little kid playgrounds, at the pond, in the fountain, and on the Goblet of Fire. We decided we need to come back more often.

Bowling

I am not as cool as all of you who know how to do a slideshow so I posted separately the pictures of my family going bowling with Alisha's kids last Thursday. Trisha came too but was too grumpy for her picture to be taken (even though I did sing all of "If You Chance to Meet a Frown"). We had a great time even though I got the lowest score (72) of everyone including Carson and Sadie and I even had bumpers. Erik said we need to go bowling together to boost his self-esteem as he thinks I can do most things better then him. I can't though, only grammar. Anyway, thanks Mom.

Stupid Neighborhood

You should watch this news video on the link below. This is a man who is Public Enemy #1 who left Utah a while ago after shooting a man in the face at a jewelry store. He had previous attempted murder charges against him. He was in Missouri in January where he shot at cops. Last Thursday he was in Magna. He has been living in the apartment complex two doors down under a different name. He was arrested early yesterday morning at 938 Washington Street (I live at 928 Washington Street). You can see the apartment complex behind him as he is walking out of it and when he is put in the cop car you can see my fence in the background and my car behind the cop car. http://www.myfoxutah.com/myfox/pages/News/Detail?contentId=6101975&version=1&locale=EN-US&layoutCode=VSTY&pageId=3.2.1

What do you think? I think it is another great reason to move. They call my neighborhood diverse...bull poop, try dangerous.

Another Busy Week

Well, this week is not as crazy as last week but almost as busy. We have three big events that happened this week. The first is that Gromit came back out of the potty when we were out one day and when we came home Carson found him on her dresser and even more exciting...he came with friends: Robot Dog, Shop Owner, and Sheep. With Wallace, Penguin, and the Wrong Trousers, she has all the Wallace and Gromit friends. Carson is so excited and carries Gromit everywhere with her. She keeps telling people, "Gromit came out of the potty." We were a little nervous she would try to flush him again so we told her if he goes down the potty he will be gone forever. She is now trying to understand the concept of "forever" so everything is forever. I overheard her playing with Jeff and Jeff said, "Oh, you are killing me" and Carson replied, "Then we will die, forever!" Carson's other news this week is that she has learned to spell her name in sign language and she has had a cold with a stuffy nose and a sore throat.

Jeff's exciting news this last week is that he finished his History project, presented it, and won 3rd place. Around 35 kids entered projects and he did really well. As you can tell from the picture, he received a cool trophy. He did an amazing job and worked hard. I am sure he will be emailing some people with a different picture to tell you how he did personally. As you also can tell from the picture, he had his hair cut. Whenever my kids get their hair cut, I am amazed at how much older they look. Jeff is also looking much thinner. Jeff is turning into an amazing young man. We do need to work on his self-deprecation though as he got a B in science and he was distraught. Jeff is torn with school. He loves the academics and has two good friends (Austin and Jeff are reading Vampirates together and having book discussions.) but some kids are jerks. Jeff is also writing a play and today I told him he should write down the books he reads with the date he read them and write book reviews in a type of journal. I hope he does it. Already this month, he has read Milkweed, Journey to the Center of the Earth, Wolverine Origins, and is reading Everlost.

As you can tell from the picture, Calista's big news this week is her haircut. She loves it and while I loved her long hair I have to say I love this hairstyle too. We took her to a place called Lunatic Fringe that does funky hairstyles. She too looks so much older. She has taken to posing and looking like a model all the time. The best thing about Calista deciding to cut her hair is she also decided to donate her hair to Locks of Love that makes wigs for children with cancer. She originally didn't want her hair that short but they said she needed to cut off 11 inches in order to donate it so she decided to do that. We found pictures online of some cool haircuts and Calista mixed some and came up with the hairstyle herself. It is the first time she has had bangs since she was 2 or 3. She received straight A's on her report card and is working on a book report on Fairy Haven and the Quest for the Wand. She is an amazing girl and so creative. With the stupid dead body found in our shed she has started having bad dreams and being scared to be alone so I hope that works itself out. If any of you have any ideas tell me; I would love the help.

Ewan is doing slightly better. He finally got over the flu after 7 days of throwing up, off and on fevers, and not sleeping. Now he has a cold with a sore throat and he still isn't sleeping. He wakes up because of his throat and I think his leg is uncomfortable. He used to wake up with some mumbling but now he wakes up screaming bloody murder, it isn't my favorite way to wake. The longest he sleeps is two hours. He slept better as a newborn. He is ticklish now and laughs really loud. As you see in the picture, he has learned to wield his cast as a weapon. Beware to anyone changing his diaper and sitting near him. He swings that cast straight up, he tries to grab his toes, can't reach, his leg gets too heavy so it comes crashing down on any unsuspecting individual. He smashes it repeatedly on my leg, on Erik's ankle, and he smashed Kat's hand while she babysat him. All day long you hear Thump, Thump, Thump as he swings it up and smashes it on the ground, his chair, the toys above him, or anything he can reach with it. Only two more weeks with it and it comes off. I am looking forward to having him not so awkward to carry. Another thing he does now is spit,not just drool but he spits with noise accompanying it.

Erik's new quest is to get Carson not to eat her sandwiches like this, inside to outside. He has been a little dispirited this week. He received a letter from PAPD (Port Angeles Police Department) and he is ranked in 2nd place. To him this means yet another thing he is trying to do for the family isn't working out and he has failed us all. To me this means he will most likely be hired as they have 3 total positions opening and his letter said the top 5 ranked people are going forward for the hiring process for when a position opens. It does mean another waiting game to see if it pans out. He isn't happy. We don't want to live here even though he likes his job. He wants to go back to school to become a lawyer. He would be great at it but it doesn't seem likely if we stay here with the current financial status. We are doing fine but feel we are coasting. I try to follow John Lennon's words, "Life is what happens while you make other plans" but something needs to change. He is even talking of moving to PA and going back into construction work. It is sad that with two semi-educated people, the best job either of us could get is in construction. C'est la Vie.

For those of you who think I am a strong person...you are wrong. I skirt on the edge of being exhausted, going insane, laughing hysterically, and having fun with the family (sometimes all together). Even though in this week alone I have dealt with no more than 5 hours of sleep, parent/teacher conferences, a broken leg, dentist appointments, play rehearsals, a cold (Erik's, mine, Carson's, and Ewan's), the flu, an history project, a book report, doctor's appointments, trying to exercise, finding time to read and play guitar, and everything else, through our troubles, I still feel as if I am the luckiest person in the world to wake every day and see this: a zombie baby (he tries to eat me all the time), a self-perceived devil husband, a scared model, a messy eater (who recently told me, "you are a grumpy, mean mom"), and an Egyptian, emotional, pre-teen.

News Story

Here is a side view of our shed where the body was found.
Erik talked to the initial cop on scene. The cop said it looked like torture was involved. The guy's ear was roughly cut off and his eye gouged out. The homicide detective said he wouldn't go back there without a gun and we shouldn't either.

Here is the news story.
You can hear me at this site
http://real.ksl.com/video/slc/2/224/22426.mp3

or see me on the video at this site (upper-right corner)
http://www.kutv.com/mostpopular/story.aspx?content_id=818da851-b10f-4d8f-abc3-846d0c3581e0
Here is the written news story.
The body of a man was discovered early today in Salt Lake City behind the Trails Men’s Club at 921 South and 300 West. Angela Mordecai-Smith, the wife of a Salt Lake City police officer, was notified that a man’s body had been found inside of a shed behind her house. The body was removed from the scene to be taken to a medical examiner.The unidentified body appears to be the victim of a homicide. Wounds found on the body show that he had been severely beaten. Whether or not the homicide took place in that exact spot is still unknown. The time of death is also unknown.

Crappy Neighborhood

I need to move.


I sort of feel that this blog has turned out to be one big complaint but I swear this will change. Let me explain why I put this picture on the blog. When we first moved to Salt Lake we were shocked when we found out someone was stalking us because of our house - this is all old news now except now that Erik is a cop he found out the same guy has threatened cops and they are now looking for him. Anyway, shortly after that a stolen car was dumped near the front of our house and lit on fire to mask evidence. If you notice, the car in front of the burning one was Aaron and Jessie's. Along with the lack of parking, noisy fights, dogs barking, drunk guys lying on the sidewalk outside our house, last month there was a shoot-out a block away at Sears and two people died. Nice neighborhood huh? So, since Erik became a cop we have had multiple people knock on our door with reports or complaints.

As most of you heard, I am having one heck of a few days. I thought Ewan's leg breaking was difficult. Erik left yesterday for interviews in Port Angeles. On cue, Ewan got a fever and started throwing up and having diarrhea. Yesterday I had to stem the tide of a poop explosion with my hand so it didn't get on his cast, which can't get wet. I change us both and not five minutes later he pukes on me. I change us both and later he poops and pukes on me again. He is only sleeping around an hour at a time. Exhausted, last night I put him in bed with me. The only way he would be calm was for me to put my finger in his pacifier. He fusses, I stroke his face and ask if he is all right. He pukes in my face and down the front of me. It gets better. Today he pooped on me again and puked on me again. He won't sleep or be consoled and we smell gross with no time to shower and only being able to sponge bathe him.

It gets better. I get home from dropping kids at school and start laundry. I am feeding Ewan when there is a knock on the door: "Oh Great!" I think as a mostly toothless drunk-looking man looks back at me and asks, "Does the cop live here?" "Yeah," I reply. "Is he around?" "Nope," I reply skeptically. Then the man says, "mmmphfff dead man phlupb alley." "What?" I reply trying to understand him. "There's a dead man in the alley between your house and the bar." "Uhh" I reply illiterately. After he stares at me I say, "There's a dead man in the alley behind the house?" "Yeah," he replies, "I was walking down the alley and I saw a guy lying there. I moved him with my foot to see if he was alive and he didn't move. He's dead." "Well, is he a bum?" I ask because of the large amounts of bums around. "No, he has blood all over his face." (Mind you it is difficult to deduce this is what he is saying so I make him repeat it a few times. "O.K. I'll call the cops." I say. I go inside, call dispatch and say, "Hey uh I didn't know if this is where I call but my husband Erik Smith is a cop and told me to call if there were any problems and well..." I tell the dispatch lady, I have to spell my name out for her, and I say, "I live in a great neighborhood." She gets my address then states, "Wow, you do live in a crappy neighborhood." As if I needed her to point that out for me. She says a cop will come over. I get off the phone with her and call Aaron. He answers and I say, "Good, you're not dead." He says, "What?" I said, "Good, you're not dead. Some guy was murdered and shoved in the back and I was making sure it wasn't you. You are the only one I know that goes back there." Then I tell him the story. He decides to start bringing his gun when he comes over. Cops come over. Sure enough, a man was beaten to death and shoved in our shed. In the picture you can't really see it but the shed is the one right behind the small one on the right. So, I talk to cops, homicide detectives, firemen (they needed a ladder to get on top of the building to search for weapons), and newsmen. (Channel 2 if you are interested. Ignore the way I look, I mean give me a break.) All day people are knocking on the door and climbing on rooftops all around, helicopters circling. Meanwhile, Ewan is still pooping and puking on me while not sleeping. I have felt between hysterical crying and laughing till I decided to just shut it all off. The newsman asks me, "Were you shocked to find someone murdered behind your house." "No," I reply. Now he seems shocked. "No?" He asks. I reply, "It's the nature of this neighborhood."