Fun things.

Prepare yourselves for a long post with lots of pictures. It's been a busy month at the Archibald residence.

On May 31st we celebrated Carter's birthday. Actually, on May 30th he had his friend party and on May 31st we had family dinner and gifts, so really it was Carter's birthday weekend. So spoiled.

The friend party went well. Only two friends out of the five showed up, and they were both girls. Did Carter care? Not a bit. Pizza, ice cream, cake, toys, presents, a water fight, and a pinata. Not bad for two hours on a Saturday.




Sunday we had spaghetti with all the fixins, more cake, more ice cream, and Carter-man got to open all his gifts from us: "Cars" games, model cars, a Nerf football, and various other little stuff. Grandma also got him an easel with markers, chalk, and paper. So far, the easel is the best gift EVER.

This last week has been crammed with summer goodness. On Wednesday, my sister-in-law Angela and her two kids Will and Chelsea picked us up and we all headed to Bear Lake to stay for a day in a condo my in-laws had reserved. It was a welcome break, and though Garden City, UT will not be deemed a metropolis anytime soon, it had all we needed: sun, water, food, and a place to sleep. We had a great time. Even Carter, my sometimes-over-cautious kiddo, looked up at me while we were playing at the beach and said, "Mom, I love Bear Lake."







On Friday, after being miserably sick with the worst. cold. ever. for about three days (It started the morning we drove to Bear Lake. Yeah.) I needed to get out of the house. I'd been promising Carter I would take him to the open house at the new Oquirrh Mountain Temple of the LDS church, so I went online, reserved some tickets, and off we went. Carter's first temple experience was at the Draper Temple open house, so he was really excited to go inside the new one. Yes, I know I'm a cheesy Mormon mom when I say I am so glad that my son loves to be in the temple.

Afterward, we took some pictures. Carter was happy to sit for them.




As long as he got to do what he really wanted to do in the first place, which was play in the fountain.

And yes, Moroni really did get struck by lightning.


Last but not least, on Saturday we connected with our inner rednecks by attending the demolition derby at the West Jordan Western Stampede. We went with Randy's twin Dave, his wife Alicia, and their boys Aiden and Evan.

As you are probably aware, Randy is obsessed with cars and he has passed on this obsession to our son. When Randy cut the ad for the derby out of the paper and showed it to Carter a few days ago, Carter was so excited he could barely stand it. He carried the ad around with him, ate breakfast with it every morning, and had every detail of it memorized by the time Saturday rolled around. He even had a running countdown, and informed everyone he met that he was "going to the demolition derby in __ days." And yet, despite all his excitement and macho toughness, the little boy in him came out in the end and he watched the entire derby like this:

I know he's my kid, but I swear he's the cutest kid this side of the Mississippi.

And thank you so much for your time.

Well, today was the big day--THE INTERVIEW. I actually wasn't very nervous going into it, probably because I've had so many other things on my mind--like the fact that today is my newspaper deadline and though I have all my research and interviews done, I've yet to write a single story. (School burnout is still plaguing me. That and the hope that my editor, Tom, does not read my blog.)

I showed up at KSL Broadcast House appropriately early. I should know by now that interviewers usually show up fashionably late. But at about 10:20, I was met by this very nice (but very accomplished and intimidating) woman.

Sheryl Worsley is the KSL news director, and she is the one who interviewed me. She very deftly wove small talk with interview questions, so much so that I now know that she is a mother of two daughters who love the Twilight series, which we agree is not well written and somewhat formulaic. (Sorry, Megan.) We also spoke about news stories that have come out of Cottonwood Heights and how print journalism and public radio--the strong points on my resume--are very different from commercial news radio. She tried very hard to make that point hit home with me. It did.

I then had to do a writing test--take three print news stories, organize them in order of importance and glean a 20-second news story out of them, in less than 10 minutes. I am pretty sure I failed miserably. My strength is quality, not speed. (Tom would agree with that wholeheartedly.)

All in all, I think I made a good impression but I would be surprised if they offered me the job. And I am OK with that. The hours would be really hard to manage with my family and other responsibilities (7:30am to 1:30pm on Saturdays and Sundays). But I'm really glad I took a chance to see what would happen. It was a positive experience and it helped me practice my job skills.

Now I'm back to square one: do I try to help out our family financially or stay home with Carter and be the best Mom I can be (which I would actually prefer)? Still looking for the answer.

It really IS the little things.

The other day I opened up the book of crosswords my friends gave me after graduation--you know, to keep my brain from shrivelling up--and this is what I found.



My first reaction was excitement at the fact that Randy was showing an interest in something I like to do. And then I actually read the words he had written. I laughed so hard that Carter thought something was wrong with me.

After all is said and done, with all the ups and downs that marriage brings, things like this are exactly why I love my husband.

Possibilities.

Those of you who know me well know that I did a two-year stint at the hoosegow lovingly referred to as Ricks College, now BYU-Idaho. Three things saved me from complete and utter apostasy from my religion during my time there--Prof. Nielsen, a few great friends (Nat, Cam, Kirsty, Jane, Kat), and my job as a radio announcer at the NPR/Classical station on campus, KRIC/KBYI, "The Voice of the Ricks College Campus." (OK, OK, maybe my family played a part in my continued activity in the church, too. Thanks for putting up with me, Mom and Dad!)

I LOVED my job on the radio. And I think I was pretty good at it, too, which is always nice. For these reasons, I have--perhaps foolishly--applied to be a part-time weekend news anchor/reporter on KSL Newsradio 102.7 here in Salt Lake.

And they have--perhaps also foolishly--asked me to come in for an interview on Wednesday.*

Nervous? Yes. Out of my league? Probably. Unsure if this is even what I want to do right now? Totally. Worried about how it will impact my family? Uh, yeah! But I thought I had to at least give it a shot.

See, there's this feeling I get when I'm supposed to do something. It usually comes when I am looking for an answer to a problem I'm wrestling with and then, unexpectedly, some weird solution that I'd never even dreamed of falls out of the blue and hits me up side the head. It's just so improbable, impossible even, that I know I'm meant to go for it. That's what happened when I applied to work at KRIC, and 15 years later it's happened again.

It may turn out that they don't want me. Or that I don't want them. Or that I need to go through this process for some completely unknown reason. Either way, it can't hurt to at least try.

So, ready or not, here we go. Stay tuned.

*UPDATE: They called me today and changed the interview to Monday June 22.