One of our little morning routines is that on days where I don't have to get up super early and go to work, Mike will tell me what he dreams and (if I can remember) I tell him mine in return. This morning, I told him that I had that one dream where you go someplace and when you look down you realize you forgot your pants. I thought that dream was pretty universal, but apparently not because Mike looked at me like I was all crazy and stuff.

"What about the dream where you know you have the ability to fly but you just can get off the ground?” Blank stare. “You’re in a play but forgot the words?” Nada. “You’re in school and you realize that you have a test that you didn’t study for?” “Yeah! I had that one in high school….Although, that may have been real life.”

That conversation reminded me that a month ago, I had started a little dream “experiment,” if you will. It all started the Monday morning that happened to be President’s Day (and Mom Stacey’s birthday--Happy Birthday, Mom!). We had the following conversation:

Mike: I had the weirdest dream last night.
Me: Me too!
Mike: I dreamed that there were, like, 6 rusty broken down cars parked in Mom’s driveway and I had to go out and fix them.

Me: That is weird!
Mike: What did you dream last night?
Me: I dreamed that I was at a wedding, and then aliens sent down pink mind-control rays and brainwashed the groom and about 10 of the guests and I spent the rest of the dream trying to find out why they did that.
Mike: *pause* OK, you win.
The next day, Tuesday, as I was getting out of bed, Mike sleepily told me he had just dreamed a bee flew by his ear. I, on the other hand, dreamed that I popped a zit on my leg and out came a banana, peel and all. Mike was slightly grossed out.
It occurred to me, though, that it was now two days of peculiar dreams and at that point, I decided to keep a tally of whose were the most bizarre. So far, I was ahead with a score of 2 to 0. The rest of the week played out thus:

Wednesday:
----Mike: A little person was teaching a class. (He didn’t actually finish the story because he awoke with a sore throat and he didn’t want to make it worse by talking.)
----Me: The goblin king was stealing souls and a small group of freedom fighters had to battle him to save everyone. High points: I had to learn the Goblin language “Waku” to sneak into the castle and Betty White played the part of the grandma.
----Discussion: While at the very least I should win by forfeit because Mike opted not to complete the telling of his dream, the fact that Betty White made a cameo appearance in mine hands down puts me over the edge.
----Point: Me. (3 to 0)

Thursday:
----Discussion: Mike prefaced his telling of the dream by saying, “I wasn’t really asleep when I dreamed this…” At this point, I think whatever either of us dreamed becomes irrelevant, because what Mike had wasn’t so much a dream as a hallucination. In his defense, however, he was up all night with the flu. Hallucinations aren’t a regular occurrence for him. Still, that’s definitely weird. ----Point: Mike. (3 to 1)

I was going to give it a week, but I felt that I had to call off the whole thing after four days because Mike developed full-blown influenza and was absolutely miserable. I didn’t think it was fair to judge his dreams on the scale of sanity when he was so, so sick. I guess that means I won by default, but did I really win? I mean, what kind of mind comes up with that stuff? Mike had to knock on death's door to have weird dreams, whereas I have them all the time. Let's just chalk it up to a vivid imagination. Yeah, that's it.

Know who else had a dream? That's right: Rapunzel. "Tangled" came out on DVD today and I'm off to watch it!!

Home is where warm circling arms go all the way around

I seem to have blogged a lot on Family Home Evening lately. Well, here's yet another. I love Mondays and Family Home Evening. I may not remember many specific FHE's growing up, but I sure remember the feelings around them.

Family Home Evening combines three of my favorite words in the English language. (I also love the words "Christmas," "shoes," and "travel." And "chocolate," but then we start getting into the realm of the cliché.)

----* Family: The source of my greatest joy and happiness. The lack of it was the one thing that kept Hawaii from being a perfect place.

That and I never learned to appreciate the muumuu other than for comedic value.

----* Home: No other word embodies comfort more than "home." Dorothy Gale had to travel on a tornado before she realized there was no place like it. I'm all about vicarious learning, so who am I to argue? Like the Primary song says, it's "where warmth and love abound." That doesn't apply to everyone; I'm lucky enough that, in my case, it does and always has.

----* Evening: My favorite time of day. The burdens of work seem to be erased the moment I walk through the door and give Mike a hug and kiss. Evening time is Our Time and I love every minute of it.

Two weeks ago, Mike and I had a great FHE. It was on family unity and started with an object lesson involving the a 500-year-old Inca fortress in Peru called Sacsayhuamán. (Side note: Say that aloud and tell me what it sounds like. It had us giggling all evening because apparently we're both still in 1st grade.) The point was that even though each stone is different, it doesn’t weaken the wall. In fact, the different sizes actually help keep the structure together and thereby accomplish their common purpose. To demonstrate that, we had a scavenger hunt for our activity. We had a list of 10 categories and we each had to find an object that represented that category. Some of the items were engagement, honeymoon, wedding, marriage, our strength as a couple, and our future together.

I won't bore you with all the details of who picked what and why, but here are a couple of examples:

----* For our engagement, Mike picked a Brian Regan CD because we saw his show in Seattle and, in general, we did fun things together each weekend. Also, on our first sort-of date, he loaned me a couple of Brian Regan CDs so that he would have an excuse to talk to me again. I picked a car because we spent so much time driving back and forth.

----* For our honeymoon, Mike chose the Lord of the Rings trilogy because we went to New Zealand. I picked a drawing of the ocean at sunset because, for me, it was about exploring new horizons at a place neither of us had been before.

It was fun to see each other's perspective on the same thing. I'm excited to go home and have another wonderful Family Home Evening. I feel so blessed to have a husband who is not only excited for FHE, but more than half the time plans for it and carries it out. And I'm grateful that we are establishing this tradition early in our marriage so that we can continue in our efforts to have a united, happy family.

It's amazing to me how many ways the Army finds to make my life more complicated. This last week, for no good reason, they transferred command of the residents and fellows from the hospital command to some other arbitrary non-medical command. Whereas I used to be able to walk down the hall to take care of paperwork, submit my leave forms, etc, I now have to find time in the middle of my day to walk a mile down the road to do the same. If there's any population in the hospital that doesn't have time to do this, it's residents and fellows.

This non-medical command has seen fit to impose certain requirements for leave, like mapping out my route if I'm driving more than 300 miles and giving them a copy of my last pay stub. I have to admit, I'm at a loss for why that one is required. Do they want to make sure I can afford to go on the trip I'm taking? But the ultimate move to make me feel like I'm still in kindergarten is this: I have to phone my command just before I leave bye-bye and then again the minute I come back in town...rain or shine, day or night, weekday or weekend. Next they're going to require a hall pass so that we can go to the bathroom.

I suppose that all of this is done so that I can be very, very sure that when my payback time is up in 6 1/2 years that I'm ready to get out of the military. Well, believe me...

But not everything is bad this week. First of all, Mike got an A in yet another of his classes. Our tradition is that every time he gets an A, we get to go to our favorite restaurant: Lemon Grass. This place has the best Thai food in the history of ever. We love it. Since we only go there every 5 weeks, pending Mike's grades, and since this is about 5 times less often than we'd like to go, we feel that we have to make it count. Last night, we prefaced our order by saying to the waiter, "Please don't judge us harshly," then proceeded to order 2 appetizers and 3 entrees. It was a lot of food. We had the first round of leftovers for lunch today.

In addition, Mike's health has taken a turn for the better and he was finally able to go play church basketball.

So sorry for the overall crappy quality of the pictures. I took them with a phone. Sadly, Mike's team didn't advance further in regionals, but it was still a great opportunity for us to get out and meet people in the ward.

The Clark monthly Family Home Evening was last Sunday. We gathered at Brenda's house and had, seriously, one of the best FHE's on record. The lesson was on family unity, which so happens to be the YW lesson next Sunday. So, awesome, part of my lesson was prepared for me! They started off with "The Parable of the Porcupines." You can find it online, but I rewrote it a little to fit the YW lesson better.

I should also mention that after the lesson part, Brenda and John and family went the 2nd, 3rd, and 4th miles and made everyone dinner. Here was the catch: we had to have our hands tied to the person next to us and learn how to cooperate so we could eat. I lucked out, though. Andrea, our niece, was supposed to be sitting at my right but was helping serve dinner so I was able to scarf down the delicious dinner unhampered. Heh heh.

Anyway, here's a copy of the parable...at least my version of it.

The Parable of the Porcupines
It was the coldest of winters – so cold that the forest animals were perishing in the bitter weather. In order to save themselves from this icy fate, the porcupines gathered together to fend off the chill. As they huddled close, they protected each other from the elements and were warmed by their collective heat.

But their prickly quills proved to be uncomfortable in close proximity. They poked and stabbed each other, wounding their companions. Eventually, the discomfort became too great and they distanced themselves one from the other. In so doing, they ended up alone and frozen in the forest and they began to die.

It soon became clear that they had to make a choice: either accept the quills of their companions or succumb to the freezing temperatures. Wisely, they decided to band together. By learning to live with the little wounds caused by the close relationship with their fellows, they were able to survive.

Likewise, families don’t bring together perfect people. Instead, we learn to live with each other’s imperfections while we benefit from the spiritual strength and love the family provides.

I decided to make little porcupines to give to the girls on Sunday. I wanted to make cookies or something but, astonishingly, porcupine-shaped cookie cutters are hard to come by. Huh. Go figure. I did some brainstorming and ended up making "Porcupine Peanut Butter Rice Krispies Treats."

It took a little bit of trial and error, because a lot of the recipes out there ended up being too hard once they cooled and it made sticking in the pretzels quite difficult. I ended up using 3 Tbsp butter, 3/4 c peanut butter, 4 heaping cups mini marshmallows, and 4 cups Rice Krispies. The chocolate topping is 1/2 bag of chocolate chips, 1/2 bag butterscotch chips. Overall, I think they turned out well. Plus, they tasted yummy.