I just heard Avee growling in frustration, "Dis is dwiving me NUTS!"
Oops.
I may have said that one too many times on our road trip. Or twelve too many times.
I have so much I want to write about and it's overwhelming me into silence.
I just drove halfway across the country with three kids, I mean really---after that I could write about anything.
But I also had a birthday. And it was a fantastic birthday! I woke up at 9:30 on my birthday and took a nice long, uninterrupted shower. My kids were being fed by my friend upstairs, and I had no cares in the world. Aside from turning older that day.
It was our last full day in Utah, so I spent the morning packing our van and getting ready to head out. On the table was a balloon, a pan of brownies, wishing me a happy birthday, and a wrapped present. I walked right past them to get to the washing machine. That's how devoted I am to household chores. JJMac had to tell one of the kids to come back and look at the loot waiting for me on the table. It was an awesome start to my day.
I got to spend the evening with some more good friends, and I had one of the best dinners (homemade!) that I have had in ages. It was soooooooooo good. I was kind of fried by then. It had been nearly 2 weeks on the road. My kids wanted to sleep with me and I wanted to throw them against the wall. I wish I was joking.
I want to tell you about Saturday.
I have been married for 7 years. I have made no secret of my little gripes about J's lack of enthusiasm for holidays and birthdays. Funny thing is, I really did have a change of heart and feel good about how things are.
Wow. I'm just linking all over the place. What is that all about?
Anyway, all it takes is letting go. I'm here to testify: If you love your birthday and think it should be a national holiday, set it free. It will come back to you. :)
On Saturday we spent the day hanging out, recouping from our travels. J, my niece, and I all had good books. The kids had dirt to run their hands through, messes to make, Pokemon cards to obsess over, and 23 outfits to try on and leave laying around.
Around 11 am my friend dropped in with a gigantic bouquet of balloons. 24 balloons. One for every year I've been alive. (sometimes having a cheap husband works out for the best)
I thought it was very sweet and a really nice surprise for my mellow Saturday morning.
About 3 hours later some more friends showed up with this awesome cake pan/box and a delicious chocolate cake. We had cake and sat around and talked, and I thought about what a lovely day it had turned out to be, just sitting around chillin'.
Then around 3-4 hours after that, some MORE FRIENDS dropped by with ice cream and suddenly some rootbeer showed up on the table and within moments we were eating rootbeer floats.
Now, I like to think I'm a pretty sharp woman. But I think I may have given my husband good reason to believe I am not. It was all planned by him. He thought it would be cool to have people stopping by through out the day, with treats for my birthday.
He was right. It was awesome. All day long birthday celebrations are the BEST.
Finally I figured out that it wasn't just coincidence.
Then more people came and we had a corn fest.
I sort of wish I was joking about that, but the fact is, I love my husband through and through. And it's f'real. And part of loving him through and through, is accepting the fact that he does things like, plans a corn fest to celebrate my birthday.
He enlisted the neighbor kids and ours to shuck about 40 ears of corn. And then he cooked them all. And I didn't think twice about my husband cooking up 40 ears of corn in the middle of the day. But everyone who came over that night, seemed to be expecting corn. So I figured he had lured everyone there with promises of fresh Iowa sweet corn. Oh yeah, and to celebrate with me.
It was a perfect and lovely day. I love that J was thinking about me and working to plan something to surprise me. Not sure which of the love languages it is, but I love it when J thinks about me when we aren't together. Because, when we are together, I'm very demanding and pretty much give him no choice but to think about me.
Danyo set free all but 3 of my balloons. Which is a little sad, but he was definitely determined to be those balloons' hero---so, what'reyagonnado?
I got to go to Olive Garden with my niece and two of my friends, and then yesterday we had dinner with our friends as a sort of finish to my birthday and the start of my friend Kim's.
She's old now too. Go wish her a happy birthday and remind her that for the next 359 days, she is as old as me.
Monday, July 27, 2009
Wednesday, July 15, 2009
Excuse Me, What Happened to July?
Is it really already July 15th? Yikes!
I'm in Utah chilling at my friends and having a splendid time. My kids are going to bed at hours that are borderline abuse. And then climbing in bed with me in the middle of the night, mere moments after I fall asleep. Which is total abuse. I need a little more room than their sprawling, snuggling bodies allow.
We drove through Colorado and spent a day there to break up our trip. We went to the Butterfly Pavilion which was awesome for all of us. I'm with my three kids and two sixteen year old girls. And then you know, I'm 29. We all loved it. Bo got to hold a tarantula for a 12th of a second. Which spiraled him into a world of spiders and only spiders and the biggest spider and the fastest and the smahtest and ugliest and the one that would beat Caleb's if they were racing and....500 miles across I-80 worth of spider talk. It was awesome.
I don't mean to brag, but my kids are amazing travelers. Avee barely makes a peep, well, toward me. She pretty much talks nonstop to her "friends" in the backseat with her. Bo is delightful with only the occasional meltdown when things like a speck of his slime from the Butterfly Pavilion falls to the ground and I won't let him get it. Or I speed. He's all, "Is the speed limit 83 Mom, because that's how fast you are going and I don't see any signs that say '83'!" Okay J.
We stopped in Evanston, Wyoming for a quick bite and we were served by Napoleon Dynamite's very close relative. He was staring down at the cash register when I went to order, so I thought perhaps he was trying to work something out, so I was giving him time, watching him. He never looked up and after a few minutes of me not ordering, he said, "Well!?" In a very Napoleonesque way. Then when I had the nerve to ask what came on the burger, he turned and did a Vanna White on the teeny part of the board that showed what comes on a burger. The best part was, my niece asked the same question like three minutes later. He did the same thing, with a little more annoyance. But the thing is, he wasn't like, in a bad mood or a rude dude---he was chatty in a very odd way. And basically the only thing that makes it all make sense, is that he's related to Napoleon. We are sure of it.
Being around other people who haven't seen me or my children for a while, makes me acutely aware of how my children behave. Avee is a 4 year old, pg version of a sailor. She talks about inappropriate and crude things almost nonstop. I don't know why, and I'm having a hard time modifying it.
Example:
Avee:My booty, my booty, my booty! Hahahahaha!
Me: Avee, come on, you don't need to be talking like that.
Avee: My booty!
Me: That's enough Avee, no more.
Avee: I'm just going to say 'my booty' one mo' time.
Me: hmph.
Avee: My booty! See, I just said 'my booty' one more time!
Me: Stop!
Avee: (turning slowly and "slyly") Yoooooo booty?
Danyo's been a little freaked out by all the traveling and hoteling and wondering at which point he's going to get ditched. We've stayed two nights at my friend's so he's finally comfortable. He's also suddenly said like 8 new words so I'm thinking Utah is stimulating his left temporal lobe. Mmm hmmmm.
We had Cafe Rio my first night here. It was delish, but I'm thinking my friend in Iowa has mastered the art of duplication because it doesn't turn me into the normalcracksalad-seeking crazed lunatic that it has in the past. This makes me happy because I can't take Cafe Rio with me wherever I go, but I can take Kim.
Today I get to meet a friend from my mission, after which, I will be getting ice cream from the ice cream shop on steroids, with my niece, to celebrate completion of a dentist visit. That's how we roll. And later, I get to meet up with Yvonne for more ice cream. Pretty much going to be the awesomest day ever.
My blog posts are too long.
The end.
I'm in Utah chilling at my friends and having a splendid time. My kids are going to bed at hours that are borderline abuse. And then climbing in bed with me in the middle of the night, mere moments after I fall asleep. Which is total abuse. I need a little more room than their sprawling, snuggling bodies allow.
We drove through Colorado and spent a day there to break up our trip. We went to the Butterfly Pavilion which was awesome for all of us. I'm with my three kids and two sixteen year old girls. And then you know, I'm 29. We all loved it. Bo got to hold a tarantula for a 12th of a second. Which spiraled him into a world of spiders and only spiders and the biggest spider and the fastest and the smahtest and ugliest and the one that would beat Caleb's if they were racing and....500 miles across I-80 worth of spider talk. It was awesome.
I don't mean to brag, but my kids are amazing travelers. Avee barely makes a peep, well, toward me. She pretty much talks nonstop to her "friends" in the backseat with her. Bo is delightful with only the occasional meltdown when things like a speck of his slime from the Butterfly Pavilion falls to the ground and I won't let him get it. Or I speed. He's all, "Is the speed limit 83 Mom, because that's how fast you are going and I don't see any signs that say '83'!" Okay J.
We stopped in Evanston, Wyoming for a quick bite and we were served by Napoleon Dynamite's very close relative. He was staring down at the cash register when I went to order, so I thought perhaps he was trying to work something out, so I was giving him time, watching him. He never looked up and after a few minutes of me not ordering, he said, "Well!?" In a very Napoleonesque way. Then when I had the nerve to ask what came on the burger, he turned and did a Vanna White on the teeny part of the board that showed what comes on a burger. The best part was, my niece asked the same question like three minutes later. He did the same thing, with a little more annoyance. But the thing is, he wasn't like, in a bad mood or a rude dude---he was chatty in a very odd way. And basically the only thing that makes it all make sense, is that he's related to Napoleon. We are sure of it.
Being around other people who haven't seen me or my children for a while, makes me acutely aware of how my children behave. Avee is a 4 year old, pg version of a sailor. She talks about inappropriate and crude things almost nonstop. I don't know why, and I'm having a hard time modifying it.
Example:
Avee:My booty, my booty, my booty! Hahahahaha!
Me: Avee, come on, you don't need to be talking like that.
Avee: My booty!
Me: That's enough Avee, no more.
Avee: I'm just going to say 'my booty' one mo' time.
Me: hmph.
Avee: My booty! See, I just said 'my booty' one more time!
Me: Stop!
Avee: (turning slowly and "slyly") Yoooooo booty?
Danyo's been a little freaked out by all the traveling and hoteling and wondering at which point he's going to get ditched. We've stayed two nights at my friend's so he's finally comfortable. He's also suddenly said like 8 new words so I'm thinking Utah is stimulating his left temporal lobe. Mmm hmmmm.
We had Cafe Rio my first night here. It was delish, but I'm thinking my friend in Iowa has mastered the art of duplication because it doesn't turn me into the normal
Today I get to meet a friend from my mission, after which, I will be getting ice cream from the ice cream shop on steroids, with my niece, to celebrate completion of a dentist visit. That's how we roll. And later, I get to meet up with Yvonne for more ice cream. Pretty much going to be the awesomest day ever.
My blog posts are too long.
The end.
Thursday, July 2, 2009
Utah Visit
I am going to Utah in a week and a half and will be there for a little over a week. I have a nagging feeling that there are people I will want to see and will forget to contact. So if you are one of them, I'm totally unloading the burden on you, and if you want to visit, you have to tell me so I can pencil you in. Otherwise, I'm just going to be at Cafe Rio stuffing my face or wading through the canal at Pioneer Park, with my kids on a leash or something. Because I never had the nerve to do it when I lived there.
The End
The End
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