A Wonderful World?

Today, I am somewhat on a soapbox. I am thinking about a line from a song, "What a wonderful world..." I'm not sure who sings it. What a bunch of B.S.

Last night, I opened an e-mail from the director of the Children's Justice Center with a forwarded attachment of photos. One of the centers in Salt Lake had forwarded photos of a boy taken over a 4-5 year period, beginning when the boy was about 8 years old. The boy is a victim of sexual abuse via child pornography by, they believe, his dad. An internet task force officer has been monitoring the situation and it is getting worse and worse. So awful, in fact, that they refused to send the photos because of the horrific nature. They are trying desperately to find this child to save him from this but have been unable to do so.

I looked at the photos of this boy with a smile on his face, and I broke down in tears. I have two boys close to the same age as the boy in the photos. I am so heartbroken for this child, because I can't even imagine my boys dealing with that kind of life. Especially at the hands of a parent.

There is horrible, awful evil in this world. It is not wonderful, it is unspeakable. What is worse is that this type of abuse occurs with people we know and trust. It is not stranger danger, it is family and friend danger. It kills me to think that I need to find a way to teach my children to question and be safe not only by strangers, but by people they love and trust. How can I teach my kids to trust, but only so far? How can I teach them that people they love can hurt them in ways they cannot possibly imagine?

I hope that there is a special place in hell for people who hurt children. People who rob their innocence and kill their spirit. People who murder their childhood and violate their soul. I hope they suffer unspeakable atrocities for eternity.

So it Wasn't Exactly Wednesday Night...

So I have said this lots of times...what I missed the most when Rick moved from Avis to Thrifty is that family feeling that surrounded Avis. People spent time with each other outside of work, everyone knew everyone else, we knew kids' names and likes/dislikes, we knew each other's likes and dislikes. Whenever you move from someplace "known" into an "unknown" situation, you seem to start over, and this starting over was hard for me, because I missed my comfortable spot so much.

We started having big Wednesday night parties to have that feeling again. But, there was that unfortunate incident with the "fluid" from an unknown source and Wednesday nights were over.

Well, it wasn't exactly Wednesday night because we held the party on a Saturday night, but I finally felt that family feeling with Thrifty. We had everyone over last weekend--employees, spouses, kids--it was great!!! I love to entertain, and it was a great night. Rick cooked on the BBQ, we talked, we laughed, there was a fire and a little rain. But it was everything that I missed about Avis. It is so great to have that family feeling again!

Here are a few photos and video of our fun night!

Today, I am stealing a line from Scarlette O'Hara in Gone With the Wind, because I didn't do captions and I'm too tired to write about my trip. "I won't worry about it today. I will worry about it tomorrow."

This is my New Zealand bed--my "trophy" from our trip. I bought new bedding: a comforter, Euro shams, throw pillows, and shams that match the comforter from a specialty shop in Arrowtown just outside Queenstown. I bought new sheets to match when I came home.

The pictures don't really do it justice, plus, I wish I had "smell-a-vision." I have a recipe for my own lavender laundry detergent and lavender linen spray that I use on my sheets. And, of course, I iron them so they look gorgeous on my bed. JJ can testify to the smell--he wants a New Zealand bed of his own. :)

Rick and I experienced two very different trips in New Zealand. We each carried a camera and photographed where we went, what we saw, what we did. Here is a slide show from Rick's photos. I will have to have him make some comments about his trip. Until then, the pictures are pretty cool, although not as cool as mine. Frankly, I think his trip sucked compared to mine. But, then again, I'm not a hunter. He did shoot some fantastic trophies--all should have been classified as gold medal trophies. Everyone will have to come by our house once we get the taxidermy finished. They really are incredible trophies!

Helicopter Ride above Mount Cook

While we were in New Zealand, Nikki and I went on a helicopter ride above Mount Cook. One of the other hunters at the lodge had brought his wife on the trip, so she also came along. The funniest part of our ride was Kieron, our guide. He works for the professional hunter the Ricks were out with and it was his job to entertain us during the day. In order to take a ride in the helicopter, we had to have 4 passengers, so we coerced Kieron to come along if we paid his way. What we didn't learn until after our tour was over is that he suffers from an intense fear of heights. What a trooper!

Here are some interesting facts about Mount Cook:

• It is the highest of New Zealand's 27 mountains at 3764 meters.
• It is higher by more than 1500 meters to Australia's highest peak: Mt. Kosciuszko.
• It was named after a British explorer, Captain James Cook, by a captain of a survey ship.
• The Maori people, New Zealand's native people, named the peak Aoraki or Aorangi: ao meanin land and rangi meaning sky or heavens.
• It is almost equal distance from Christchurch and Queenstown.
• It was climbed by Sir Edmund Hilary who scaled Mount Everest.

Sleeping on the Bathroom Floor

WARNING...IF YOU DO NOT LIKE READING ABOUT THE MANY RESULTS OF FOOD POISONING, THIS POST IS NOT FOR YOU!

I stopped by Leslie's work to talk about New Zealand and drop off her presents that I brought home for early in the middle of the week last week. She told about this great spa trip she is taking and asked if I would check in on my niece, her daughter, who was broken-hearted over the break-up with her boyfriend. I agreed and arranged to take Sarah out for the afternoon on Saturday to boy-bash, eat lunch, and have a pedicure.

My niece IS NOT broken-hearted. In fact, she's great. She and her "ex" are still very good friends and see each other even more now than before. They were not really serious with one another and were actually dating other people while they were dating each other. Leave it to a mom to become melodramatic over all of life's interesting situations, right?

We ate lunch at Costa Vida--I had a fish taco and she had a chicken taco--then went to Tammy's to get pedicures. It was a fantastic afternoon! We then went over to Rick's mom's house and talked for a while longer. I went home to wait for Rick to come home so we could eat together.

Well...he ate, so I ate then fell asleep on the couch. At 11:00 when he came home, I told him that I didn't feel really well. We went to bed. No sooner had I gotten comfortable that I felt really sick. I ran for the bathroom. From this point on, I was sick. Not just any sick...the want to put a gun to your temple sick. I don't normally discuss "bathroom" problems, but I was so sick that I had to find a way to puke and poop at the same time. But at the same time, figure out how I could do both without making a big mess, because I was doing this about every 30 seconds. So I couldn't clean up any messes, if you know what I mean.

It was miserable. At one point I filled the bath tub and climbed in. I awoke to freezing cold water, a kinked neck and almost didn't make it to the toilet in time to throw up. I fell asleep on the bathroom floor. This is a really awful thought in my mind considering my germaphobia. At one point, Rick stopped snoring and realized I wasn't in bed and came looking for me. Apparently, I was shivering on the floor with one arm around a garbage can and the other reaching for the toilet. He said I had wedged myself in front of the door, that he couldn't open it to take me to bed.

I finally climbed into bed around 6 a.m. and slept until 11. When I woke up, I wanted to die. My body hurt, my head ached, and my mouth felt yucky despite the 6 times I had brushed my teeth.

Two great things that came out of this:

1. I will not be eating fish tacos for a very long time.
2. I lost 5 pounds and threw up the double cheeseburger combo meal large-sized from Wendy's that I was feeling very guilty about eating.

Who says there's no silver lining?