Parenting: A Walk in the Park

Parenting is like a walk in the park. Especially if you're a Daddy.

It was the day before Christmas Eve, or Christmas Adam as we say in my house, and it was so beautiful we decided to go to the park by our house.

It was about 75 degrees outside, so people were wearing things like this, and it was okay.

Not only was it hot, but it was sunny, so we made G wear his new hat (go BYU!). He didn't keep it on very long, however.

Here G is following Teddy Roosevelt's advice to speak softly and carry a big stick.

Until you get mad, then you should yell and wave the stick around, preferably hitting things

We stopped for pictures on this lovely bridge.

Aren't they cute?

There is Frisbee golf set up at this park. I have never even heard of this,

but apparently, you stand at the sign and try to throw the Frisbee into this goal.

There were like 13 holes. And we saw two or three groups playing, so it's pretty popular, I guess.

We were warned when we entered that there might be dogs about.

Sure enough, there was a cute coley.

And two giant Great Danes. I could have posted more, too, but I didn't.

All in all, it was an awesome day. I was looking forward to a moderately climated Christmas, but alas . . .

Utah Trip

Well, since our camera was lost and now is found (thank you, thank you all the looked for it, but mostly thank you Helen, who found it and shipped it along with the famous chocolate-covered cinnamon bears from the BYU Bookstore. If I didn't love you before, I would certainly love you now. You're the greatest!) now you get some pictures from the trip:

As you can see, it was very dry in Utah, which made for some interesting hair days.

My Mom enjoyed having all the grandkids around . . . . I think

Here I am enjoying storytime with the oldest

Here are all the cousins on the DH's side. Aren't they cute?
We went to the Bean Life and Science Museum in Provo and almost got attacked by a cougar. Must have been the U sweatshirt Johnny was wearing.
One day G is going to be this tall

G learned some new skills in Utah. He may not have crawled, but he learned to wave and push down blocks.
One of the highlights of the trip for me was this: a musical birthday tribute. This is the second performance and it's still just as funny, and it will be equally as funny the 50th time I watch it, if not more so. Enjoy!

Gentlemanly Jerk

I was shopping at Albertson's the other day, which I try to avoid doing for many reasons: a) although they do have good sales occasionally, they require to you read between the lines of the deliberately ambiguous fine print; b) their good sales usually have ridiculous limitations like limit 1, which makes it hard for a good Mormon in the middle of flu season to stalk up on things. So frustrating. And c) something inevitably goes wrong at the register making things more expensive than I was planning. Like the other day, when although Albertson's supposedly triples manufacturer's coupons up to $.39 they didn't even double my $.35 coupon. Annoying.

Anyway, I went to Albertson's to get some chicken because it was a decent price and we needed some. So I found the other things I wanted and headed over to the meat section. They didn't have any chicken out, but there was a man standing by who said they were bringing out more. He was very much a Texas cowboy, slightly overweight, little twang, probably had boots on (I didn't check). Kind of like this guy:So I am playing with G in the cart, waiting, and they finally bring out four packages of the chicken on sale. The cowboy gets one, then an Indian woman comes up and starts picking up two packages and is looking at the third and last, when the cowboy perks up and says, "Hey Lady, this woman was waiting here first!" The woman was really embarrassed and mentioned how she didn't know I was waiting for the chicken, which the cowboy very angrily set her straight on. I, in the mean time, was also embarrassed, picked up my chicken and went away quickly.

On the one hand, it was very nice for this cowboy to do a gentlemanly thing and stand up for me. On the other hand, did he have to be such a jerk about it?

This new oxymoron of the gentleman jerk has been simmering on the back burner of my feminist brain center since it happened. Still not sure what to make of it, but I'll let you know when I get things sorted out.

Snow! or Why I Love Utah Winters

I am sorry for all the people in Utah who did not like all the snow we ordered for our vacation. What can I say, I may really like the mild winter so far in Texas (minus the icky brownness everywhere), but I miss snow. So the week we were in Utah, I wanted new snow everyday. I almost got it too.

I'll be honest, although I had a great time on vacation (thanks everyone, I love you!), it didn't really feel like a vacation. Not because it wasn't restful, or different, but because I've never visited Utah for a vacation before. Normally flying to Utah means the end of a vacation. So it was disorienting. Also, all my good friends are great in the fact that, if we only see them once a year it still feels like see them all the time. Which just means home always feels like home.

Problem now: We already had Christmas, but I can't shop cause no one else has!
Just as a reminder, this is what I was doing last year. Good times, mostly. So if you didn't get to see us last year, you know why. If we didn't see you this year, I'm sorry. Next time I'll be more aggressive on my emailing.