It's like this...

Now the dreaded swine flu has reached Seattle. My son was disappointed to discover that a few cases of swine flu in Seattle is not causing widespread panic and closing of schools. He does however hope that it turns half the populace into zombies so he can go all I-Am-Legend on them. Oink Oink.

Good morning brothers and sisters. I have some advice for you before I begin my talk. When Rob Harril calls you and leaves a message asking you to call him back? Don't. If you do, you'll soon find yourself standing where I'm standing. Secondly, if you get up in the morning before you're supposed to speak in church and think “OOH! Now's a great time to give myself a haircut!” Don't. Rob gave me the topic of Christ's teachings. Considering the breadth and depth of this topic, you''re all going to have to sit here til oh---next year. Don't blame me, talk to Rob Harrill. For those of you who don't know me, I'm Pamela Kinnaird, wife to the amazing and wonderful Lance Kinnaird and mother to his four children. We were in this ward for ….12 years? When we made the flawed decision to sell our home and move to Puyallup, against the counsel of then Bishop Geddes. Once we did that, locusts descended, boils erupted and the three horseman ...

Hubby had to work today, but before he went off to the salt mines he donned his King of the Grill t shirt and grilled us up some burgers. I made a fresh fruit salad and then we feasted. Isn't he cute? Then I worked on some things around here before taking kids too and from work, and then picking up some Rx's and whisking the two younger girls off to Golden Gardens. It was crowded with all kinds of people and some were not exactly the kind of humans I'd invite home to dinner. One in particular really caught my eye when he/she/it dropped trou and did their business right in front of me. I told the girls to avert their eyes and I drove back out of the park before we saw something worse. Ugh. So much for a nice family park. I drove up by the boat launch so Ashley could play with her remote control car for a bit. Allison didn't want to get out---she's having kind of a rough time right now and I wish I could make it easier on her because it hurts my heart to see ...

"Mom I feel like I'm going to throw up and not in a good way" "There's a good way?" "Well, you can throw up candy"

Ashley was looking off into space at the dinner table this evening. I asked her what she was thinking about. "I ....uh......um...." "You don't know what you were thinking about?" "I spent 8 hours thinking today. I can't think anymore" "What were you thinking about for 8 hours?" "The WASL. I had to do the writing part today" "What did you write about" "I can't tell you" "What do you mean you can tell me?" "It's against the law" "It's against the law to tell me what you were doing at school today?" "Yeah" At this point I was laughing and so was my father. "It's true!! I can't tell you about it! They told us we can't talk about it" "Maybe I should ask your teacher about it" "She doesn't know either" "Your teacher doesn't know what it was you were doing in class today?" "Nope. She doesn't ...

I went under the knife. I'll spare you the gory and painful details, but the end result was a man child. We named him Christopher, but called him Critter. He goes by Chris to his friends. Today he turned 18 years old. Wow. He wanted to go to Red Robin for dinner so that's where we took him. It was just me and the girls. Before we went, he made me promise not to say anything to the waitress about it being his birthday. He didn't want to be embarrassed by the singing and clapping that they do. "I promise I won't say a thing" I didn't promise I wouldn't write a note to the waitress on a napkin. I held it up to her as I was ordering and he was looking somewhere else. She winked at me and I knew the singing and clapping was assured. So while we waited for the burgers and fries, Steph and Chris did a bit of coloring.It's nice to see that although some things change, a lot of things don't. Before the burgers came, he opened his cards and g...

Lance and Ash went to volunteer at an Earth Day event in Carkeek Park. They picked up trash on the road Ash had a good couple of hours flagging on the road to keep the other volunteers safe from cars racing down the windy roads to the park. She's the one in the blue jacket carrying the orange flag. She then stenciled on drain grills to make certain people know that they drain into streams where fish and other wildlife live. Didn't she do a good job? Afterward they were treated to pizza and juice and the satisfaction of a job well done in defense of the environment.

I was sitting in a meeting with parents and teachers, therapists, speech therapists, and other school officials on Wednesday. I was interpreting for the meeting and at one point the teacher stopped talking and just looked at me and told me that my hair was the prettiest color she'd ever seen. It made my day.

This is my 12 year old Allison and the flowers her 'boyfriend' gave her today at school. Apparently it's their four month anniversary. He didn't actually hand them to her---he gave them to his friend to give them to her.(How Middle School is that?) This is the text message conversation that my husband and I had after I sent him that photo. Lance: "FROM JARYD??" Me: "Ayup" Lance: "GET MY GUN!!" Me: "Ayup" Lance: "I'm happy for her but scared for us" Me: "Ayup"

Where you think it's a good idea to go off into the night and smash the windows on parked cars and then steal what's inside? How do people get to that point? We're all born the same. Tiny infants, innocent babies who are loved and cuddled and hopefully taught right from wrong, taught the Golden Rule. Where do these people come from? Did they start out telling little fibs to their mommy and daddy and get away with it? Did they steal penny candy from the corner grocery store and never get caught? Or if their mom caught them, was she too tired and embarrassed to drag the child back into the store and march them up to the counter to have them give the candy back and apologize for what they'd done? My Niece did just that the other day with three screaming children in tow. Hard? You bet. Worth it? Very. I had to do the same thing when my four children were small. It embarrassed the daylights out of them----as well it should. You should be mortified when you do s...

My son. My delightful seventeen-soon-to-be-eighteen son. Every morning he gets up and drives himself to seminary (for those of you non-LDS, it's a morning scripture study class for high schoolers). He takes our small car and then parks it in front of school when he gets there. Hubby and I get up and we take the girls to school each morning a few hours later. Then I drop hubby off where The Boy has parked the car, he drives it back home and then drives it to work. Are you with me so far? Good. So he leaves the house around 6:20-6:30 every morning. Seminary is from 6:30 til about 7:15 or so. He then drives a few blocks to school and parks the car. In theory, and usually in practice, this is when he TURNS the car OFF, removes the key, locks the door and walks into school. Not so today. When I dropped hubby off at the parked car, it was parked all right. It was even locked. The problem? IT WAS RUNNING. Key in ignition, car running. For over an hour. Sitting in front of the h...

Thankfully we didn't need him on Tuesday when she was feeling pretty good and we went to Children's Hospital for her swim therapy. Trina, her swim therapist, really worked her hard. I was so proud of her. Then we had lunch outside in the glorious sunshine at the hospital. I snapped this picture of Daddy and his girl. Such love..... And then it all went downhill from there. Another bad night for Ash and back to the pediatrician we went. Then of course we were sent to Children's Hospital for a blood draw. Apparently we're testing for everything under the sun and a few things on the dark side of the moon. This did not please Ashley Rose. Boy did it ever not please her. Thankfully we had her Occupational Therapist there to offer comfort. She's better than a tranquilizer. There was a mix up at the lab and things were not going very smoothly so I promised her if she'd not put up a huge fuss I'd get her a stuffed duckie at the gift shop afterwards. It wo...

by this. Today was Dental Day for our family. I hauled all six of us to the dentist for cleanings and to get my tooth repaired. I broke off a filling and part of a tooth last week. For the record, it wasn't as bad as I thought it would be. Dr. Madsen is the best. I barely felt the needle. I will shamelessly recommend him to all my dentally-challenged friends. There were six cleanings done and not one cavity was discovered! See? I knew all this investing in toothpaste and fighting the kids every night about brushing their teeth would pay off in the end. When we finished up we drove around our old haunts and shopped at the grocery store there that has food (in some instances) at half the price of what we pay here in Seattle. We over-shopped, but mostly purchased necessary items. Like hair coloring and strawberry pop tarts. You may think the hair coloring is for my daughter and the pop tarts are for me, but you would be mistaken. Which reminds me. I didn't make it to ...