since i've been gone

Gee, I love technology :) I am typing this post from 30,000 feet in the air on my way home from Idaho. I had a fab time (of course) but didn't take many pictures (my real camera was hiding when I was packing). My apologies for the text overload - I am just trying to paint pictures for you with my words :)

> most of my days started off with a snuggle from this pup:


I need a dog.

> girls night with my sweet cousins. They are pretty much my favorite people to be with. Thanks to Camille, who is the youngest by far, for driving us to Ririe and back without any 'hang on for dear life' maneuvers :)

> working a shift at my parents' store. I've still got the retail touch apparently - I sold the smallest pair of women's Harley Davidson steel toed boots and convinced a guy to buy a shirt because I liked the color of it . . .

> mowing the whole lawn twice. Life was much less sweaty when Dave mowed the back lawn and I only did the front.

> playing in my first Jack's Pack softball game. I think my grandpa got a kick out of me running to first with my eyes closed because I was afraid the ball was going to hit me. I am so athletic :) Haha!

> road-tripping (via airplane) to visit Dave and Jessie in Mesa. Dave took me shopping in probably my most favorite mall to date. EVER. Maybe it was the company too . . . To show him my gratitude, I watched him and my mom relandscspe the front yard in 100+ degree heat. That is best sister ever material :)

> finding a plant in the bathroom after our weekend in Mesa. Thanks Dad, I guess?



> watching the best fireworks west of the Mississippi. Seriously, going to Idaho Falls on the Fourth of July should be numero uno on everybody's bucket list. Words cannot describe the experience - just ask Cody; he thought I was being overdramatic until he tried it last year.

> throwing a baby shower via Skype for Jessie. Good food, cute presents, nice chats - practically perfect, except the guest of honor was in Arizona instead of Idaho . . . but when life gives you lemons, you might as well make lemonade

> or lemon bars, which were part of the spread my mom and I whipped up of my cousin Katie's wedding. In one day, we made 300 cookies <4 different kinds>, 50 lemon bars, and 50 mint brownies. I am baked out.



> we wedding-ed it up with Katie & Luke. I am so glad I was able to come celebrate with them - I only teared up a couple times, just to shake people up. Or maybe I am becoming soft in my old age :)

> silly me, I almost forgot to mention our two sets of guests! My Uncle Rod & Aunt Susan from Seattle visited for a few days. And then our pals Marcus & Brittanie brought their sweet babes to stay overnight. As a result, I was informed by Reagan <5> and Ainsley <3> that my hair is CRAZY in the morning. I guess toddlers tell it like it is!

Signing off from somewhere over Nebraska,

{almost} famous

Just in case you haven't heard from my family or other assorted random observers, you should check out mittromney.com. Somebody's familiar face will be beaming at you there!

blogsplosion

Warning: Several long and possibly boring blog posts follow - enjoy!

St. Louis Getaway

Did you know that the Louis part of St. Louis is incredibly hard to spell? In all seriousness, I misspelled it both times when I was typing the last sentence. Thank heavens for spell check!

Cody & I headed to St. Louis for Memorial Day. We had a fabulous time.


Our weekend started in Nauvoo for the sealing of some friends in our ward here :) We are so happy for them. After Nauvoo, we hit the road for St. Louis - this picture is supposed to show how full the Mississippi is. The water was about 2 feet from the road for the first 30 minutes of our drive - long enough to take even more boring pictures.





Isn't Illinois beautiful?

When we finally made it to St. Louis, we:


went to the zoo and saw penguins,


lots of penguins,


PUFFINS!!!!! (Puffins are my favorite animal, courtesy of a grade-school science report),


zebras,


giraffes & ostriches in the same exhibit,


giant snakes native to Peru,


and crocodiles eating rats.

We also went to the City Museum. It involved several of my least favorite things:
spiral staircases, heights, small spaces, and disorganization. I was a wimp (or cautious, depending on how you look at it) the whole time, so Cody took these pictures to document my bravery:









Then, we went to the Cardinals/Giants game. The Cards stadium is gorgeous!



We secretly cheered for the Giants. I am sure they felt these good vibes


because one of their players hit a grand slam! And nobody even clapped :( A couple innings later some player named Pujols hit a solo home run and fireworks exploded from the scoreboard. Talk about a double standard! The Giants ended up winning and we ended up on the jumbotron. Who could ask for anything more?

Thanks for the fun weekend St. Louis! (And Cody! And travel agent Dave for consulting with me a billion times when I was planning this trip! And Facebook friends for all of the recommendations of fun things to do!)

miscellaneous may memories

This post is brought to you by two totally unrelated things that happened in May.

PART ONE:


We had an epic weather day - tornado sirens; hailstorms; flash flooding; house-shaking thunderstorms - just normal Iowa spring weather :)


Cody sang me several renditions of 'My Favorite Things' during the thunderstorm, but ditched me during the hailstorms to collect the half-dollar sized hail pieces.


And I took pictures from safely inside our undamaged house.

PART TWO:
We hung out with Mitt! And hopefully more presidential candidates . . .
One sweet perk of living in Iowa is that politicians actually care about getting your vote. What a novel concept! Consequently, there are plenty of opportunities to meet the candidates - rub shoulders with them - and get a real-life, in-person chance to form an opinion of them. But I digress . . .


Our fabulous neighbors invited us to a BBQ for Mitt Romney last weekend. We headed up to a beautiful farm - the main event was inside the neatest barn I have ever laid eyes on. We walked in and Mitt was right there - just hanging out & chatting with people like nobody's business. Of course, Cody walked right up to say hey - without me. I was too star struck to move :)


I did get myself together in time to sit behind Mitt during his speech, get my picture taken with a Mitt campaign sign & try to push my way up to the man himself (which resulted in the above picture).
Overall, I was very impressed with my first presidential candidate experience. Mitt seemed down to earth and very determined to have a better showing this election. Good luck Mitt! Maybe next time you visit we can get a better picture - and I will do my part by actually brushing my hair before our next rendezvous :)

pink eye

{fyi - there are pictures of a grossly infected eye in this post - in case that makes you squeamish}

Last week, I woke up for work & my eye hurt like crazy. I thought it was only my allergies - then I looked in the mirror. This is what I saw:






Definitely NOT allergies . . .

Luckily, our neighbor is an opthamology resident and gave me the scoop about how to recover fully from the wrath of pink eye.

Just in case you ever get pink eye, here is what you need to do:
- stay home from work for 3 days. This is particularly important if it is the last week your schools are in session and you really need to be at work.
- encourage your spouse to sleep on the couch (because the little germies are all over the king size bed & pillows . . . so you can have the bed all to yourself); stop working on anything important to his schooling so he can check on how pink your eye is every two and a half minutes; and bring you frosties at least once each day
- every hour on the hour, call your mom to whine about having to stay inside when the weather is beautiful outside. Consistency is key on this step, right mom?
- sleep 12 hours each day (10 at night, with a 2 hour nap in the afternoon)
- watch your teeny-bopper crush win American Idol :)

this is why I love my dad

competition

Cody has some competition these days. From a 7th grade artic student. Here's the official transcript of a recent conversation:

Joe*: Ring.
Me: Nice r sound. Use ring in a sentence.
Joe: Is that a wedding ring you are wearing?
Me: Yes.
Joe: He's a lucky guy.
Me: What's your next word?

*names have been changed to protect the (not so) innocent

grandparents day

Today is grandparents day at one of my schools. And it is funny. Grandparents come in all shapes, ages, and sizes. Some kids act like being with their grandparents is a novelty; for other kids, it's no big deal.
One of my speech babes asked if my grandparents were coming to school today. I told him no. Apparently, that was the wrong answer. 'Why aren't they coming?' he demanded. I told him they lived too far away to come. That wasn't okay with him; and, honestly, it's not okay with me either.

something borrowed; something blue

Lance & Taylor got married! Yay! We were so glad to be able to both make a quick trip to Utah to visit & participate in the wedding festivities. For your viewing pleasure:

the girlies

cody's best bud -- still :)  hope that never changes!

los hermanos

only Corgan & Greyson had the guts to portray how we all felt during the freezing dang cold post-wedding pictures

thanks for the polish bean!

the windy city

Dave & Jessie passed up a trip to Italy to come visit us (and by us, I mean Chicago). We had a fabulous long weekend. Since I prefer to just see pictures on blogs, I am assuming that you do too :) So here they are!

the NBC building

wrigley field

it really was that windy

still windy & cold (you can tell it was cold because of my eye wrinkles)

lake michigan

I know that this is an incredibly unflattering picture, but Dave was trying to take a picture of Soldier Field & I jumped into it.  He was so dang mad! 

the Chicago skyline

jellies

boys will be boys?

where i wish I was

celebrating with these two . . .

Congrats to my sweet cousin Savannah & her husband-to-be (for about 15 more hours) Austin!

I am sending lots of love from rainy, windy Iowa!

my favorite things

It seems like I tend to come up with ideas for blog posts only when I am driving to/from the booming metropolis of Victor,Iowa. For whatever reason, the stretch of highway between here and there with only semi trucks to keep me company really gets my creative juices flowing! I desparetly need those juices because if I were to simply blog about our every day lives, it would sound something like this {all the time}:

Today I hit my snooze button three times before I rolled out of bed. I went to work; Cody went to school. I didn't wear anything vintage or homemade - rural Iowa isn't quite ready for that. (Quite frankly, neither am I). Two of my kids said my hair looked funny; six of them actually worked on their speech goals; and the rest just weren't having any of anything.
I came home; checked the mail, Facebook, and Google Reader; made dinner; asked Cody to turn the tv down; cleaned up after dinner; and went to bed.

Lackluster - right? And that is why I relish any ideas for a blog that will satisfy me, as well as my many fans who get on my case if I don't post semi-consistently (you know who you are!)

With that brief introduction, I present to you my list of favorite things as of today:

> Buying big bags of Coconut M & M's! Available only at Target in the Easter section. I haven't been able to find anything besides the little size anywhere. It's not from a lack of trying either. Please, buy at least one of these bags so that whomever invented the goodness that is coconut m&m's will know they are appreciated :) And so the big bags will continue.

> Our Best Bites. Thanks Stacie, for raving about this blog enough to convince me to check it out. Make the orange-kissed cookies. They will change your life.

DISCLAIMER: These next two posts make it sound like I watch a load of tv. I am uncomfortable with the amount of tv that I have been watching, but I have been sick for the majority of the last 2 months (not an exaggeration).

> Scotty McCreary. He is just the cutest thing to ever hit American Idol! If I were of the voting persuasion, I would vote for him every week. As an added benefit, I think hen looks a little like Cody.

> Parenthood. I started watching this show because all the speech blogs I read were raving about the accuracy of the show's depiction of a little boy with Asberger's. Now, I just love it. The family is dysfunctional, but they love each other just as much - if not more - than any functional family I know. Love it!

> My new favorite game on my iPod is Tiny Wings. It's so dang fun, even rivaling the beloved Angry Birds . . . I even nabbed the high score for about seven minutes (until Cody found out I beat his score and tore the iPod out of my hands & played it until the battery died and the high score was regained).

Until inspiration strikes again :)

april fools

So sorry about the spazzy italics in the last post -- I will never blog from my iPod again. 

Four years ago, Cody & I played the best April Fool's prank EVER.  Don't believe me?  Watch this:



Please excuse two of my most endearing qualities: my side-mouth talking & greasy hair :) 

Happy April Fool's Day! Good luck trying to top this joke!

twinge

A couple months ago, I accidentally coined a new word - twinge. I meant tinge, but I wrote down twinge. Cody is the only person who has known about this snafu until now :) He lets me hear about it pretty often too!

Along those lines, I have been feeling little twinges (haha) of homesickness today. They have just been coming out of nowhere. It's very frustrating :)

The funniest thing is, I have twinges of homesickness for Iowa when I am in Idaho! Emotions are strange things . . .

I have learned in my 8 years of living away from home that I get homesick when I have to do things that are MILES outside of my comfort zone. I am kind of wimpy, so most slightly uncomfortable situations fall into this category. This week I just want to curl up on my mom's couch while eating one of my dad's ultimate salads.

But, that isn't going to happen - and I am okay with that! I am just so grateful that I grew up in a home that I want to go back to - full of the love, comfort & peace that I crave so often. Thanks, Mom & Dad, for loving your babies enough to provide that for us. You are wonderful :) And, I will be counting on laying on the couch & eating a salad when I come visit in 27 days (but who's counting?).

crazy

Sometimes Cody & I have contests to see whose hair is craziest in the mornings. Today I won.

we are alive

Just in case the blogging world noticed our month-long hiatus, I am sending this message to the world : we are still alive!

And, as evidenced by the scenic picture above, we survived our first Iowan winter. It was stinky, frigid, and seemingly eternal. I am not looking forward to next year.

In other news, a killer flu/sinus infection sidelined me for a couple of weeks. It was bad enough that some of my kindergarteners asked me if I was dying.

Speaking of funny student stories, I see a couple of fourth grade girls together. They started talking about their weddings (hello! you are 9 years old!) and their future children. Anyway, one girl said she wanted to name her first boy Goku. She was serious. Yikes!

Cody just informed me that he actually knows the cartoon that Goku is a character in . . . I can't believe I just admitted that on the Internet :) Now, he is claiming that his brothers are responsible for his nerd knowledge - pretty convincingly, I might add.

thunder snow is real

Last night, it thunder-snowed & was windy. And this is what happened to the side of our house:

Nursery

Today Cody gave a lesson in Nursery about prayers. He showed these pictures talking about thing we can ask Heavenly Father for.

Strong Bodies:



And happy families:


This picture was taken in 1995 - I was 10 with pretty skinny arms :) Sometimes I think how much I have changed in the last 15 years ... I am taller & fatter; I will call my friends without being forced to; I like boys, since I am married to one :) I might be a little more snotty too.
I wonder if I am a person my 10 year old self would like. I hope so - I wish that I had written down somewhere what I had hoped to be like. I did write down that I wanted to live in my parent's basement forever. Good thing that has changed :) Still love you though mom & dad!

Chilly Weather = James Bond

Cody & I went out on the town last night (read: mattress shopping) and it was FREEZING!

okay, it wasn't that cold - but I was :)

I zipped up my coat all the way, then Cody told me I looked like a James Bond villain's wife. Really?

Monday, Monday

My Monday has been rather lackluster, but I get such a kick out of reading about everybody else's lives that I figured I might as well throw something up here - blogging more often is one of my New Year's resolutions after all :)
My speech babies were nice today - which was a pleasant surprise. One of my first graders told me he visited his grandma, who has cancer & and is 'losing every single hair on her body.' I just wanted to snuggle him and tell him that I know how stinky it is to see your grandma hurting, and no matter what happens you will always love your grandma and she will always love you.
On a totally unrelated note, I realized today that I have WAY too many clothes. I feel like I wear them all - but Cody thinks otherwise. I say there are other people in the world that have as many clothes as I do. Cody dared me to find someone! The nerve! Throw me a bone here guys . . . count the number of tops & pants you have, leave a comment telling me the number of each separately, and if anybody has more than me I will send them a treat/prize for helping me be right :)
Hope your Monday has been fab!

the golden age of mexican restaurants

When I was in grad school, one of my professors hailed us as living in "the golden age of mexican restaurants in Utah Valley".  Then he went on to name about 15 establishments and their specialty.  The scary thing was that he was spot on.
Fast forward two years . . . Cody & I had decided to come to Iowa.  One of his cousins who had lived in Wisconsin warned us that the further east we traveled, the worse the mexican food would be.  For most people, that wouldn't be a big deal.  But it was a little scary for two mexican food junkies like us.  I hoped that Cody's cousin was wrong -- but he was 100% right. 
We have been trying really hard to find a good mexican place here.  Tonight, we may have had success.  Just take a look at Cody's $10 dinner:

The salsa was fab; the chips were delish; my diet coke was adequately caffinated; and the food was the best we have had here (with Taco Bell coming in a close second). 
To top things off, the to-go box had 'gracias' embossed on the lid.  Lovely!
Gracias for reading!  And commenting :)