Dance Festival

Tonight was the regional dance festival held at the Taco Bell arena. Jessica looked beautiful dancing and had a great time. Rich, Jo, Cam & Eli joined us.

This Music Will Make Your Day!

If you listen until the end, he gives the story behind the arrangement.

Boise State - #54 Michael Ames

Last night was Boise State's spring scrimmage and Michael got us tickets to go and watch. The blue team was loaded up and dubbed "the all-stars" and the white team were the underdogs. The white team won! It was a great time.

#54 is the one to watch on the O-line this year. He is being talked up in the Statesman and on Sports Radio AM. We expect great things from him and on top of it all, he is a returned missionary and an all around great guy. We love him.

Baca's Helpers

It stopped raining and the sun came out. Yippee! Best of all, I had these two great little helpers in the yard yesterday. They did a great job of rearranging all of the dirt left over after I re-dug out the edging. I was trying to get a picture of Eli's mouth, but it was not to be. He was working so hard and had his little tongue sticking between his lips the whole time. It was very reminicient of Grandpa Wray!

The Joy of Easter; The Reality of my Backyard

Times, they are a changin' at my house. I got the easter eggs all boiled and there was no one to color them with. Jess was busy with her Saturday activities and Gordon was busy painting over the "fry sauce" experiment in the basement (pictures to come). I came to the realization that even when I'm 80 and there are no kids in sight, I will be boiling and coloring eggs at Easter.

Jess put up a fuss at finding eggs alone on Sunday morning so we told her she could wait for Cam and Eli to come over. Here she is proudly showing off her find: "No child can beat the Grinch!"

It was a joyous Easter. Especially when family is around to share it with you.

As to the reality of my yard; it became painfully evident that even with my early spring trimming and cleaning up that there is so much to be done before we can enjoy the spring out there. I had to force myself to ignore the weeds springing up in the beds, the cocoon of "something" growing in one bed, and general debris that has accumulated. The yard is due for a fresh mow and mulch and the beds beg a raking with my cute new bright green mini rake.

I'm on it! As soon as it stops raining.

Ode to Grandma Nola

My mom's mom, Nola LaVon Simmons would have been 88 years old today. Because my mom died when I was 13, Grandma Nola became a very important person in my life.

She was never quite the same after the death of my mom. It is said that children should not go before their parents; that there no pain like that.

She lived with a lot of pain in her life.

She got married at age 15 to Myron Simmons who was 30. He owned a dry farm North of Ririe, Idaho and they began their life together there. They were very happy. First came a son, Kay and then two years later , a dark haired brown eyed daughter named Bonnie, my mom. When Bonnie was a year and a half, Myron got pneumonia and died, leaving Grandma Nola (not yet 19) a widow with two small children and the dry farm to run.

This is where I believe Grandma Nola developed her grit, her strength to get through anything.

Years later, she married one of the farm hands and had another son, Ronnie. Eventually, they divorced and she sold the farm and moved to town (the big metropolis of Idaho Falls). She spent many years alone until marrying her 3rd husband, whom she was with until he died of cancer five years before she passed away in 2000.

Grandma Nola was a fiesty red head who, I learned, wasn't a natural redhead at all. One day I gave her a permanent on her hair and told her not to put any thing else on it, like color, for at least two weeks. The next day I went back to see how the perm and she was doing.

"Grandma, did you put something on your hair?" I asked.

"No", she insisted as she turned around. There, on the back of her ear, was a big red glob of something. "Are you sure?" "Yes", she insisted again.

The bottle of "Fanciful Flaming Red" in the bathroom dashed the notion that red hair ran in my family.

Then there's the time she called me, mortified, after she had gone to Albertsons.

"Land", she said, "everywhere I went in that store, people gave me the most awful looks! I thought they were so rude. Then I walked past the freezer section and saw my reflection in the glass. I forgot that I had put on one of them cucumber facial masks on before I left. I looked like a dried up old ghost. I couldn't even get my groceries, I had to get out of there!"

As she got older, she fell and broke her hip and elbow and was in a long term care facility. I always wished I could take care of her, but with me living in Boise and she in Idaho Falls, it was not to be.

One day I went to visit her and took James, who was 13 at the time, with me. I sat on the bed, she was in a wheelchair and James sat straight across from her. She got very fidgety and was fussing about something. Finally she pulled up her shirt and exclaimed,

"They won't let me wear a bra in this **** place!"

She then proceeded to "tuck herself" into the elastic waist of her polyester pants, all directly in front of James. It was priceless. And exactly the thing that a parent needs to have happen in the life of a hormonal adolescent.

About a year later, she had to have her right foot amputated due to poor circulation. Richard wrote an essay for English, titled "Ode to Grandma Nola's Foot". It chronicled her life and all of the places her foot had carried her in her life; all the good times and the bad. She was a hard, hard worker, and her foot served her well.

Grandma Nola provided all of us with a lot of humor, a good laugh and many good times. She was always there for me.

I miss her a lot.

But knowing that she and Bonnie are together is enough for me.

Happy, Happy, Happy

Jessica had such a great time at Nationals (Grand Champions!) and at Disneyland with her friends. They are a wacky group and they know how to have some serious fun.

Jess and Spencer, our other daughter.

Kylee, Jessica, Tori, Spencer and Marissa

They had a break from dance this past week but tomorrow the work begins again for the annual "Spring Show".

The things a grandmother will do.....

While Jessica and her friends were on a "wet" ride at Disneyland, I stumbled upon two of our favorites, Mater and Lightnin' McQueen! There was a long line of children waiting to get their picures taken with them. I waited for my turn and then another mother took this picture for me. It was somewhat humiliating; little children waiting and watching with their parents and here I am by myself, posing, with an audience. I suddenly felt really silly. But not enough to not do it. My boys were so impressed to see their Baca with these heros!

Jess totally rescued me on the Buzz Light Year front. We never found him, but she did get this great picture. We found Buzz Light Year guns for them; you know - the really annoying kind that make a loud, repetitive sound and flash red and blue lights? Totally cool.

Ode to Commando

It was nice while it lasted......
Commando, the $5.00 car that James and Suzanne got last August died an untimely death last night.

In James' words, "For those who haven't heard, Commando has seen his last day. Last night after coming home from Cam and Eli's birthday parties I ran inside to put on a white shirt and tie for a meeting I had. Suzanne came in with me and we left Commando in the parking lot....RUNNING. When we came out....THIS IS WHAT WE FOUND!! "

Commando spent his last days in the service of his fellow man, ferrying Suzanne back and forth to teach school, to teach ballet. He took both of them as far away as Nampa and Kuna in his last days. He was home to many a hornets nest in his younger days back in August. He brought many honks of horns while beautiful Suzanne was at the wheel. He was a great conversation piece and saved unnecessary miles on the Blue Honda.

RIP Commando

08/15/08 - 03/31/09

Cremation has already taken place; memorials may be sent to James & Suzanne at jamesbird@u.boisestate.edu or dansersuzy_87@hotmail.com