Entertainment

Hey, hi, it's been a while!

We had a great Christmas and I'll get there. But before I do, I've got some other things to share.

A day or two before we left town for Christmas, the great and fabulous day of the Les Miserables show came. It was so fantastic. And that's an understatement. I was such a fun night out. It was Dave's first time seeing the show and he totally and completely loved it. I don't see how anybody couldn't. So good. So so good.

Dave.

The venue:

Pictures I took from the car driving away. I wish I could see it again and again. Thanks for the best birthday present ever, Dave!

HAPPY NEW YEAR!

Stuck

This is what I found today after I responded to a "Mom! Help!" from Miles:

I thought it was funny.

Dave, Dad, and Honey

Last night, Miles and I were talking about names. I asked him if he knew "dad's" name and he said, "Dave, Dad, and Honey." Cute.

Dave has been pretty busy the past few years. In a nut shell, if he hasn't been at school he's been at work. If he hasn't been at one of those he's been at a library working on homework. I feel like I've been seeing a ton of him lately because he's been home most nights before Miles goes to bed! Hot dog! There have been many times in the past couple years where Dave would literally go days without seeing Miles. He'd be up and out before Miles was up and roll in at 10, 11 or 12 at night. There have been many a time that I've felt a bit like a single parent, but not a day goes by that I'm not super grateful for Dave working so hard to get through school while working and supporting us. I'm sure I don't express it enough to him. So thanks, Dave. You're the bestest, hardest working man I know.

Dave is notoriously the lightest sleeper on the planet. You know he's pretty beat when he comes home from work for a quick lunch and change of clothes before going to school, sits down by Miles for a half a second and falls asleep.

In other Dave highlights:

As you probably know, Dave's parents are on a mission in Argentina for The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. I was reading him their email the other night and he told me to go look up some of his old emails he'd written home from his mission in Nashville, TN. Here's a couple goodies I particularly enjoyed:

"Well things are going well here. Yesterday we had a District meeting in Columbia we had to go to then we had our interviews afterwards. The meeting went well and the interviews went well. All were actually pretty boring. All meetings are starting to get extremely boring to me. It was a really boring interview and I think Pres is thinking that I've lost all faith here in the town and that I'm getting lazy. But I'm working just as hard as I did before so I'm not sure what gave him that idea. Maybe it was the bags under my eyes, the unpolished shoes, the minor slouch in the chair, the suit with spots on it, the gain of 30 lbs, or the receding hairline. I'm just an old missionary, what can I say? I was noticing how all the guys who I cam out with just look beat and tired. It feels so good to be tired from working hard for 2 years in the field."

"We've just been tracting a ton and we have a lot of funny things happen. We've seen giant black snakes that have scared the poop out of us, we've had a dog about kill us and eat us alive, then we even tripped someones house alarm. Fun stuff. Then we've had the random people drive by and scream out their window, 'DIE!' Oh the pure joys of missionary work."

I really enjoyed reading the last 8 or so emails of his mission. I think about what I was doing those years he was out there, working hard and completely devoted to missionary work... Senior year of high school (that's funny), college, Paris, too much flirting... FYI, Dave was married to me LESS THAN A YEAR after he wrote that email to his family. It was pretty funny looking back in his emails. Seriously, there is one email between the two of us from our extensive dating (4.5ish months). One. ONE! If you were learning about Dave's life from following his emails, you would get to that one email correspondence between me and him (where we were already engaged and going to get married in like 11 days or something) and you would be like "WHAT THE???" It's both funny and insane to me and the anomaly of our extremely brief courtship has yet to wear off. Good thing this thing is working out!

Santa Came to Town

Miles got to see Santa last weekend. Although he was excited about the idea and concept, this is about how it went down:

This was the look I got as soon as Santa entered the room. He wants to smile. He wants to love it. But he sort of just wants to close his eyes too.

I just laughed the whole time Miles sat on Santa's lap:

And he even got a little gift out of the deal. Thanks Santa!

The Anti List 2.0

-Acid Reflux (D)

-When people walk down the middle of the lane in a parking lot and don't move for the car practically idling behind them (A)

-Cheapy toilet papter that makes your bum raw (D & A)

-Country music (D & A)

-Foreign female drivers (D)

-Most fast food (A-- Subway, Qdoba, Chipotle or Five Guys are about all I'll go for that are currently accessible to us)

-The way leg hair feels after being squished in long socks all day (D)

-Sour Cream (D & A if it's not mixed into/cooked into something-- I'd never get a dollop)

-Sprecher's gingerale (D & A)

-Stupidly tiny kitchens (A)

-Scraping the ice off the car in MN every freaking day from November 15-May 1 (D. A is soooo lucky)

-Long meetings (D & A)

-Unnecessary meetings (D & A)

-SCHOOL!!!! (D)

-Text messaging (D)

-Comcast bills (D & A)

-An ultra static-y apartment (D)

-The word "potty" in reference to the bathroom or anything you do in it (A)

That'll do. Here's the first anti list(s) if you care to take a gander. Some things made it again for The Anti List 2.0... I guess some things never change. Overall I'd have to say this little experiment has showed me that we are pretty much the same with the exception of some major circumstantial humbling. And that never hurt anybody, right?!

Hey, it's December!

A Night Out

Dave and I went to a hockey game! It was both fun and infuriating. It will be our last game for an indefinite amount of time... no hockey in Houston. That's sad. Anyway, a few things-- first off, Dave took all these pictures. Second, watching them warm up right behind the glass was the best part of the game since they lost. Third, how's that for a scuffed up hockey face? The guy on the left, of course. That dude is missing a lot of teeth too.

Good ol' Hejduk.

My boyfriend got traded to Toronto so I'm looking for a replacement. I always was quick to move onto the next relationship. Anyway, how about the Mr. behind the door on the left? O'Byrne. I don't know... I don't even know if he's American or Canadian (not that it would matter)... it's too soon.

Happy Thanksgiving

A Few More Pros

-Good food (D & A)

-Homemade food (D & A)

-Cooking (A)

This is the pecan pie I made the other day. I promised my mom I'd put up a picture so she could see that I turned out after all. It was real tasty.

A note about these pros:

Homemade food: Miles has never had mac n' cheese out of a box. Case in point.

Cooking: My, how we change. Honestly, I don't think I even so much as baked a batch of cookies before I got married. No joke. I was in the kitchen pretty frequently growing up and helped and watched my mom a lot, but I just didn't have much interest in cooking and baking and stuff. I'd have to say that I've blossomed into a pretty good little chef. Gone are the days of calling my mom, then my aunt to ask how to bake a potato (true story-- my mom wasn't home, so I called my aunt). I really was learning (except for that whole bake a potato phenomenon) just by being exposed to a mom who cooked and watching her. Or maybe it's just genetic. I don't want to bake/cook all day everyday and I get burned out if I'm cooking a lot, but I do like to cook and I think I'm pretty good at it. Who would have thunk it?!

Babies

Babies are amazing little things. So incredibly dependent and such adorable little floppy sacks of organs and bones and muscles and blood (did I miss anything?). This is my friend Holly's baby girl. She is so precious and pretty. I held her and couldn't believe Miles was ever that small. Every time I hold a new baby I just don't believe I ever had one of those little tiny, sleepy, floppy little angels. They grow all too quick.

Lists

Many moons ago, we did some "anti" and "pro" lists. I haven't read them, and I want to do them again to see what simple or not so simple things have changed over the years.

We'll start with the Pro list:

-Washers/dryers inside your dwelling (D & A, but especially A)

-Dishwashers (D & A)

-Garbage disposals (D & A)

-The pecan pie I'm baking this very second (D & A)

-The way Miles laughs when a ball hits him in the face amidst our playing (D & A)

-Miles' unfathomably grab-able bum (D & A)

-Playing baseball with an empty water bottle as a bat (M)

-Castle (D & A)

-Hockey and sports in general (D & A)

-Life (D & A)

-Rice and black beans from Qdoba or Chipotle (M)

-Throwing things away (A)

-Organization (A & M)

-Temps in the high 50s through the 60s... mmm (D &A)

-Scratching where it itches when it itches (D)

-Ron Swanson (D & A)

-That Dave has a job (D, A & M whether he knows it or not)

-Pretending he can't hear me (D)

-Pretending he can't hear Miles (D)

-Mountains (D & A)

-Horrifically, deafeningly loud XM talk radio-- hockey talk, politics, etc (D)

-These songs: exhibit A, exhibit B (D, A & M)

-Select a size paper towels (A)

-The softer, more expensive Kleenex (A)

-Being done with school soon-- Halle-freakin-lujah! (D & A)

That's all I can think of for now.

A little copy/paste and here's the old pro list from April 11, 2009:

Here's the Pro List:

-Hockey (D&A)
-Miles (D&A)
-Dave having been accepted to WSU (D&A)
-Cheese (A)
-Dr. Seuss (D)
-French manicures on toes (A)
-"Sunny days after the longest winter of my life" (D)
-Beautiful scenery (D&A)
-Hot farts that smell like rotten Chinese food (D)
-Traveling (A)
-Being cheap (D&A)
-Rubik's cube (D)
-Being a substitute Sunday School teacher (rivaling being a Ward Missionary with 4 other couples in REXBURG) (D&A)
-Internet (D)
-Kitchen Aid (A)
-Outdoors (D&A)
-Urinals (D)
-Satisfying poops (D&A)
-Automatic flushing toilets (ONLY D; A squats over public toilets and the sensor OFTEN flushes early giving her no chance to get away from the splash. A is anti automatic flushing toilets)
-Breastfeeding (D&A)
-ALWAYS asking the same question he was just asked when it doesn't apply to the asker (D. Example: A: "Did you cut your face when you shaved this morning?" D: "Yeah, did you?")
-Grumpy & Grumpier Old Men (D&A)
-Picture slide show screen savers (A)
-Sarcasm (D&A)
-Michael Scott starting his own company (D&A)

What do you think? I would have to say I still stand by all of those. And I was so spoiled back then, I probably couldn't even imagine ever having any reason to put washer/dryer, dishwasher and garbage disposal at the top of my pro list. Oh, I'm also pro full size ovens. The times! The times....

A Motto is Born

So, at church, I work with what we call the "Young Women." It's just all the girls from ages 12-18. Anyway, I came up with a pretty good one liner during our lesson on Sunday. The topic was change. Preparing for it, dealing with it, whatever. The teacher asked for any final thoughts and I turned to the one 13 year old girl we had in our class and, hoping to convey how important attitude is, told her about how disgusting our apartment was when we got here, what with the mouse poop and mouse hole and so on.

Ah, memory lane...

To wrap it up I said something along the lines of, "But no matter how bad it is or how many mouse holes there are, you can always plug 'em up and... decorate."

I think it's one for the books!

PLUG UP YOUR MOUSE HOLES AND DECORATE!

Yesterday

I meant to write this post yesterday, but the computer was all tied up with Dave doing that awful, obnoxious thing we all know as "homework." Psh. Then, when he finished, I was too tired, so you get yesterday today.

First off, I'd like to tell you a story. Once upon a time, like 5 weeks ago, I was at a baby shower for my buddy and my friend. Holly is her name if you must know, and her water broke during our Young Women meeting today at church. How about it?! Anyway, I was chatting, chatting, chatting (I'm such a chatterbox. NOT.) with another of my pals, whose name is Kristin, if you must know again (you are being very nosy). We were talking about our hubs and what job prospects they had lined up. Dave was set up to have his interview in Houston a few days from that time, five weeks ago. I was all dolled up (kit kat anyone? Give me a break, give me a break, break me off a piece of that kit kat bar!) because I love my friend Holly, and my pal Kristin commented on my boots. These boots to be exact. She said something along the lines of "Well, it looks like you're all dressed for Houston." I responded with something along the lines of "Yeah right! I have way too many clothes on! I'd have to be naked; it's so hot there!"

Good story? It brings me, in that round about, random way to yesterday, which is the point of this post. Yesterday morning was beautiful. Sunny, crisp and fallish... delightful. We went to story time at Choo Choo Bob's, went for a donut and then went to our new favorite store: Menards. If you don't love it for the name alone, then I don't know what to tell you. I had shed my coat long ago because it was so nice outside. After our shopping at Menards (I know I'm immature, but I think it's funny every time), Dave and I were feeling a bit hot-- me tugging at my turtle neck and Dave unzipping his light jacket. We rolled the windows down. And then we checked the temperature: 47 degrees. At this time, Dave turned to me and said, "Honey, we are going to die in Houston." Well said.

It got warmer and cloudier as the day progressed and felt colder. Sunshine sure does a number. We went to this cool park in Minneapolis. I've driven by it a hundred (exaggeration, I'm sure it's been significantly fewer than a hundred) times and always thought Miles would love to play there, but as it turns out, the weather here is TERRIBLE the majority of the year. That's my excuse and I'm stickin' to it. For now, because I don't feel like blabbering on any longer. Look at me! A downright chatterbox!

Yesterday was the first day in quite a while since I've had my camera out, so this is picture overload. What's new?

I really like play structures like this. This is the same style of Miles' favorite park in Salem, but way cooler and in far better condition. They had a train and a boat and a groovy car.

This is Dave, as you well know. He didn't want to go to this park because there was a U of M v Wisconsin football game going on and this park is pretty close to the campus. He thought there would be no parking or that we'd have to pay for parking and whatever else. I said, "whatever dude, it's not that close to campus and I'm sure there is parking. Pleeeaaaase." I was right. Here he is accepting the fact that I was right and it was a splendid idea. I'm always right. ;) P.S. I never use emoticons. Ever. Except for right there. And it hardly counts because in reality, it's just a semicolon and a parenthetical meant to be a smiling winking thing.

Take a look at that mouth, would ya? He was mid word-- I don't know which one, but I wonder if my mouth ever looks like that when I talk...

A splendid idea, indeed! Look at Dave, having the time of his life digging in the dirt.

Father-son instruction followed by one stinkin' cute kid:

Did I say it or did I say it? Stinkin' cute.

Something tells me that someone belongs in this car and someone else doesn't...

Here is a short series of photos I like to call "And Dave squeaks his bum into a car." Enjoy, because I sure do:

Haha, I love it.

And this, ladies and gents, is a series of photos I like to call "Miles the crazy man dare devil." Check it out:

Everyone got out of the car successfully. Whew!

This is when Dave took over the camera. I guess he just couldn't wait to take a picture of my backside. I don't blame him; I'm just so sexy.

Side story: The coat I'm wearing is one of my favorites and the chain looking thing in the back is actually a necklace I bought at some antiquey type shop in Paris to replace the actual piece that either got stolen or just fell off. The end.

Look at this! Me and Miles in some pictures. Together! Three of them!

One.

Two.

Three!

Lastly, and to close this long and probably really random post, here are some pictures of Miles on the swing: