Love you, Pops.

My Dad has style.

You can see it already.

He was a happy, cute baby.

And he’s a happy, cute man.

The older I get, and the more I know of him, the more I understand how very like him I am. 

There’s our small writing:

Me: This is the smallest pen ever.

Dad: I can write smaller.

Me:  I don’t think you can

Dad: They used to call me Captain Microfilm

Me: Can I take over the family name?

Dad: Maybe, probably, OK, sure

Me: Thanks.

Our mutual love of chocolate.

Believe it or not, I can’t find a picture of me like this, but believe you me, I’m eating chocolate right now.

And now I know he and I have a mutual disaffection for noisy atmospheres.  We both break down mentally.

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However, he is good with a knife and I am not.

And I didn’t inherit his impressive eyebrows. 

He’s more mathematical than I’ll ever be, but I may have picked up some of his attention to detail – in artsy stuff, and construction. 

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I like the way he holds his hands like this:

I like that he asks for Legos for Christmas still.  He spends Christmas morning at the table happily assembling his kits.

And I like this picture of us.

One of the things I love most about my dad at this point in my life is seeing him with my kids.

Melt my heart, joy of joys, to see the love in his eyes.

I love that I can tell him everything and that somehow he connects and has something to offer that makes my life make sense again.

I love you, Pops.  Of course there’s more to say, but I can only do so much on a blog post.  =) 

wild and precious

 photo courtesy of Rebecca Mudrick of darling art photography.

I had three kids in a span of 18 months.  I wish, oh how I wish, that I could beautifully express what that is like.  But just living it was easier than writing down what I was feeling about it.  If I had to write a poem about it it would go like this: 

Wee Young Ones.  A poem by Nicole Empey

Me and three wees. 

Intensity.

That’s all I’ve got to say about it.  I’m about as eloquent as a duck.  Luckily for me, I have eloquent friends.   I would read about their exploits and their poignant thoughts on motherhood and vicariously my heart would swell and soar with words that gave my own heart a voice.

There is another friend I have (who doesn’t know I’m her friend), but who I turn to whenever I’m feeling like what I am doing is impossible to accomplish with any grace or dignity whatsoever.  She writes at the blog Wild and Precious and she had 5 kids in 4 years.  Right, who am I to complain with my 3 in 2 years?

I want to share with you her recent address at a BYU Women’s conference.  Here is the link to her blog entry about it, and her talk is about halfway down entitled “Come Sighing and Singing to the Lord.”  Oh and her name is Catherine K. Arveseth.  Please, go read it.  It is sunshine for a mother’s heart. 

I identify with her experiences in a real way.  Though, I have yet to find a handmade sign in my yard that reads “Mom for Sale.”  But, that said, my kids can’t write yet. 

That one time, when we went on a Safari.

…like, a year and a half ago?  Well I didn’t even quite make it past the second day, so I’m feeling motivation to do it right now and when I’m motivated – I’d better do it.  So, we last left off with us eating lamb for dinner at Dunia Camp in the middle of the Serengeti.  ‘Will we see a cheetah the next day?’ I asked, and in this post, you find out.  But first, here’s what the morning looked like: 
We woke up in our spacious tent to a tray of hot chocolate and cookies which we enjoyed looking out over the morning mists and then headed to the main tent for some delicious breakfast.
We then piled in the Safari cars once again.
The night before, I had asked around if everyone had brought some plaid.  It turns out that most had.  I had a theory that if we all wore plaid the big cats would show.  We drove for a while and soon came upon a pile-up of safari cars.  If there’s a pile-up of cars in the middle of the vast Serengeti, you know something big is going on. 

There’s mama Empey sporting her plaid.  And here’s Nick and I trying to see what everyone else with the binoculars is seeing, also sporting plaid.

Can you spot him?
How about with Papa Empey’s beast of a camera? 
A leopard!  All that plaid was working its magic.  But would we see a cheetah?
Another pile-up!  What would it be this time? 
Lions in the road!
Is this the first time we’ve seen lions?  I think so.  Don’t worry, you’ll see more later. 
We moved on and saw this good looking bird up close and personal.
This bird didn’t stay too long.
And then we met this harmless looking little monkey on the side of the road.

Maybe this little monkey looks familiar to you?  He’s my facebook photo companion:

Oh, but he decided I was so amiable that I was worth sitting next to.  When I didn’t offer him lunch,

he got to looking around on his own.

When he couldn’t find anything he said his goodbyes and headed on out.  Evidently our driver, Eddie, didn’t know that the monkey had come in the car.  When we told him and showed him the pictures he laughed and said he’d never seen that before. 

Later we met this old giraffe you see over my shoulder.  You can tell he’s older because his spots are really dark.  I learned that from Eddie.  Eddie knows things.
Alright, alright so we’re driving.  And all the sudden Eddie slams on the breaks and backs up.  This is why you pay him. Do you see that?
Yeah, none of us did either.  Look closely and you’ll see:

A cheetah!

And she had some wee babes hanging out with her.

Wahoo for plaid, eh?  I would now like to interject that I spent most of my youth crawling around the back yard and then jumping up and sprinting across the lawn pretending I was a cheetah.  I remember begging fairly often at the movie rental store to rent the movie Cheetah.  Seeing one in real life in Africa was, well, SEEING ONE IN REAL LIFE IN AFRICA. 
Next will talk about lunch with the hippos.

these berries don’t happen to look like straws at all

Wednesday was berry pickin’ day.  We left in the morning before it got too hot.

They gave us some cardboard palettes.  We filled them up with (mostly uneaten) strawberries.

We picked only the best.  The reddest.  The juiciest.

We apparently picked some other stuff, too.  We didn’t (I hope) eat these, though.

For Brookston it was a time of deep introspection.  “Why do they call them strawberries?”

For Nicole it was a time to see how long she could keep white pants clean during a red berry juice adventure.

For Roz it was a good core workout.

“But I can’t drink milk through them.  Weird ol’ name for a berry…”

That’s one happy strainer.

See what I mean, though?  These are obviously very juicy, red, unstrawlike berries.  Maybe the most unstraw like I’ve ever seen.  But we didn’t let that stand in the way of having a good time.  Well, maybe Brookston was a little perturbed.

The Slurping Mud Pit

I think I’ve mentioned before that when it rains our yard turns into a slurping mud pit? 

…Yeah, it does.

Accountability

I’ve noticed accountability helps when it comes to p90x.  That’s why the cool kids and I have a google chat club with high expectations.  We meet every night at the same time and sweat it out for an hour and a half.  My friend Al provides the motivation, Ames provides the encouragement and I provide the whining.  Last night we threw Hannah into the mix and she provided the happy baby.

Here we are, all happy, as we start our Yoga X:

This picture of Al above gives me tender feelings.  Look at that smile.  Al recently got her own beachbody coach, and I’m pretty jealous.  Her coach has a picture of himself with Tony – I mean, that’s legitimacy.  I’m currently trying to find out if her coach can be my coach.  Oh, and it turns out that Al’s coach went to the same university she did, and he’s Mormon.  Mormons are everywhere, man.

We each live in a different state of the U.S. but a similar state of awesomeness.  Here’s Ames, probably finishing up her three minute fiction while we all chat.  Look at that smile too: 

The following picture makes me laugh and laugh and laugh.  I asked Nick to take a picture of me to prove my stretchiness.  I distinctly remember saying “and we only want flattering pictures.”  Ha ha ha.  Oh, failed that one.

But here’s my stretchiness.  When I started p90x the first time round I was ‘grabbing at my socks’ as Tony says.  So I’m pretty happy with this instead. 

If you’ve ever thought about doing p90x but aren’t sure about it, I highly recommend it.  But, get a cool kids accountability group going, or you’ll never get it done.  It’s an hour and a half (more or less) each day 6 days a week, and that requires good friends to make you do it and to make it exciting.  See below for example.  Look at those smiles:

But I have noticed great results.  My first time round I couldn’t even attempt to do a pull up, by the time I finished I could do one.  This time through – the other night I did 5, count them 5, chin ups.  Yeah, it surprised even me.  I kept yelling “Look!  Nick LOOK!  I’m doing it!  I’m doing it again!  What's going ON?”  So, I’m not just putting that up here to brag, I’m putting that here to testify that you get results.  =)  Note: Blogs are for bragging, and that’s why I have one.  I brag.  I’m a bragger. 

If you’re wondering what it’s like, it’s pretty much like this. I actually found this skit on Tony Horton’s facebook page.  Believe it or not, I hadn’t heard about BYU’s divine comedy until I saw this from Tony.  Yeah, I have a lot to thank him for.

And now, I’ll end with my favorite Tony quotes: 

“Don’t stop breathing.  You stop, you die.”  (Thanks, Tony.  Although, I usually am holding my breath at this point and need the reminder)

“Kaw! Kaw! Like a pterodactyl backing out of trouble.”

“Get your little bucket nearby my friends.”

(pointing out  Joe Bovino’s triceps) “Diamonds of Gold.”