Weeds and Popcorn

I love all this warm weather, but every time I look out my window, all I see are weeds. I hate weeds. Jay and I have killed 6 trees in our backyard and we can't seem to keep flowers alive, but the weeds seem to have no problem. If anyone knows of a good way to get rid of weeds, please feel free to share.

So a couple of months ago, I had to go out of town for work. While I was gone, Jay and Jamison made some popcorn to eat. Jamison found an unpopped kernel of popcorn and told Jay that it was a seed and that they should plant it and grow some new popcorn. Rather than tell our son the truth, Jay said 'sure' and got him a little cup and some dirt from our backyard and they planted the popcorn kernel, watered it and put it in the window to get some sun. Well, about a week later, a stupid weed grew in Jamison's cup. Jamison was SO excited that his 'popcorn plant' was growing and he took his popcorn-watering duties very seriously. And how can we tell him NOW that his daddy lied to him and that there was never a possibility of that weed turning into popcorn? Meanwhile, the weeds in my yard are running amok and here I am growing one in my kitchen. After a few weeks of taking care of his popcorn plant, Jamison decided that to get some popcorn growing, he needed to transplant it outside. So he did. We actually went outside and found like the only spot that didn't already have a weed growing in it and planted his weed in that spot. He goes outside every day and waters it and fortunately does not seem too concerned that the whole popcorn thing hasn't happened yet. And did I mention that I blame Jay for all of this.... :)

American Idol?

So, I've got my plans for Gianna to be on 'So You Think You Can Dance' in about 15 years. For Jamison, it looks like he'd be better suited for 'American Idol'.... :)

Just Dance!

I have secret hopes that we'll someday all see Gianna as a finalist on 'So You Think You Can Dance' or maybe 'Dancing With The Stars'. If there's music, she's dancing. Even if she's confined to her car seat, she's still dancing. Every day when I pick her up from school her teacher fills out a daily report on her and every day somewhere in there it says 'Gianna loves to dance'. I think I'll have to get her in dance classes when she gets old enough. It's so cute! :)


Also, if you have a minute, please vote for my friend Becca. She entered a video contest for Bobbi Brown Cosmetics and I'd love to see her win! I've been friends with her for over 15 years now and she is such a great friend. Anyways, most everyone who would read this probably knows Becca too so you already know what a great person she is. The contest ends Friday so help her out and vote and vote more than once!

Pretty Powerful Sponsored by Bobbi Brown

Offensive or Useful?

For my birthday, Jay got me a Kindle. I love it. I would recommend it to anyone who likes to read. However, there is one minor drawback. And that is that technically it is a 'portable electronic device'. Which means that for about 20 minutes on either end of a flight, I am forced to entertain myself by looking out the window, talking to the person next to me (which on my most recent trip was Jay), or reading the Sky Mall magazine. So, I'm reading the Sky Mall magazine and I come across this item:

Stealth Secret Sound Amplifier

Improve your hearing - and enhance your image!

If a conventional hearing aid sounds like an embarrassment to you, try the Stealth Secret Sound Amplifier. It looks just like a cell phone ear adapter and works as a sound enhancer so you can join conversations and even hear soft voices from 50 feet away. Now you can enjoy the best of both worlds: a more youthful appearance and better hearing. Comes with charger (no batteries to replace) and three ear tips.

Is this a joke??? Maybe I'm biased, but I didn't realize that a hearing aid was thought of as an 'embarrassment'. Nor did I realize that having a giant bluetooth device hanging off your ear is considered 'cool' and 'youthful'. Especially when it has no actual bluetooth capabilities... Would people honestly walk around all day with one of these on just to avoid wearing a hearing aid??? Okay, so I can see how some cruel kids may one day make fun of my little boy for wearing hearing aids (like 4-eyes for glasses), but seriously, the man in this picture looks at least in his 60's. I'd think people would have grown out of that childish behavior by then. And besides, look at my handsome little man proudly sporting his hearing aids; I hope he never feels like he needs to hide them by using a product like this!

Pyramids

Over the 1/2 hour drive home today, Jamison talked for the entire 30 minutes without stopping. The first 10 minutes were spent explaining to me that his gloves are blue and that the pink gloves and boots belong to Gianna. Apparently, I switched his and Gianna's backpacks this morning when I dropped them off. That's what happens when mommy brings them to school (usually Jay drops them off since their school is right next to his work). Oh well, I told him I learned my lesson.

In the next 20 minutes, I received the following information: Pyramids are very big. They are made from pieces that are put together to look like a mountain. Pyramids are brown. They are slippery. There are kings and treasures inside the pyramids. There is also one mommy that lives in the pyramid. The mommy has toilet paper all over. There are no letters in pyramids. And with that, at the age of 4, I'm pretty sure that Jamison has surpassed my entire knowledge of pyramids (I didn't know they were slippery). He's so cute! :)

Spring Fever

I wish I could say lots of things about how good it is to be home, but in all honesty, I wish I could be back on my cruise for a little while longer. I did miss my kids like crazy though so I'm glad to be with them, but I think I would have preferred that they just join us on the ship. I'm thinking that having my kids on the ship would give me the incentive I need to want to be home again. Jay and I had a GREAT time though. I had originally thought to blog my whole vacation in detail, but I kind of already did that on my facebook album, so instead, I will just post a link to that: Facebook - Bahama Pictures

So, now what... my next scheduled holiday is Memorial Day. That sounds really far away. Actually, that IS really far away. And I'm getting Spring fever. If it would get warm, I'm thinking camping could be in our future. Last year we went to Lake Mead in March or April and the year before that was Zion's National Park. Once it gets warm we like to go up to the Mirror Lake area to escape the heat. We even enjoy camping at Willard Bay! But I'd love to try some new places this year. Maybe Yellowstone or something? I feel like there's a lot of places reasonably close by that would be fun. Bear Lake, Pineview, Flaming Gorge, etc. Anybody visited some campgrounds in those areas? I'm wondering if anyone has any suggestions they've either tried or heard of. Where is your favorite place to camp? Is anybody else getting desperate for some nice weather to get out and enjoy? :)

Work Travel

When I first found out that I would have to travel for work, I thought it sounded very exciting and fun. I also thought that meant that I must be pretty important for my work to send me clear across the country. Turns out I was COMPLETELY wrong!!!! Not on all accounts; depending on the weather and the people, I usually do have fun, especially when work also goes well. But the kind of excitement I tend to experience is not something I'd recommend to others. So my trip this time was to Barton, Alabama. Actually, my very first work trip was also to here and over the years, I've been there a lot. My first year working, I went there at least 10 times for almost 2 weeks each time, getting me Mediallian Status on Delta and Diamond VIP with Hilton Honors. So it's not really surprising that I have a lot of memories from there and each time I go (much like every place I go), I usually have a lot of thoughts that go something like "oh yeah, that's where I lost my wallet for 3 hours that one night". This trip was no exception and I even got to add to my list. So, here's the highlights of this particular trip.

Day 1: Flew through the Memphis, Tennessee airport which I have not ever done before. I got to use my new Kindle which I LOVE and I think I met Elvis. Twice. I also got to experience some terrible customer service from my rental car company.

Day 2: Went to the plant for work and then to dinner. I can't speak for all of Alabama, but if you've seen any movie exemplifying southern charm and hospitality (Sweet Home Alabama comes to mind), I can honestly say that Barton fits this mold. The people are so great here and I love the scenery. I met several people in the lobby of the hotel for dinner and then we left for the restaurant. When we got to the restaurant, I realized I had lost my purse at some point. Luckily, after calling the hotel, they found it in the lobby on the floor by one of the tables so I picked it up when we got back.

Day 3: Very busy at work as usual. I decided to go for an outdoor run which was fun. Running at low altitudes makes anybody feel like a better runner and the weather outside was beautiful and warm 60 degrees.

Day 4: Locked myself out of my hotel room, but I do that all the time.

Day 5: Yay, I get to come home!!! Or so I thought.... The day started well with lunch at the Rattlesnake Saloon. They don't let you drive in, instead they drive you (in the back of a pickup) down a STEEP hill to a restaurant built into a cave.

This poster was on the wall in the bathroom:

Well, after lunch, I headed for the airport where my flight was delayed. Grounded due to bad weather in Atlanta for 2 hours. After taking off, we flew the 40 minutes to Atlanta then circled the airport for another hour because of a tornado. It was crazy, I've never seen so many airplanes just circling around and around before. Hard to understand the problem since we were above the clouds and it was a perfectly clear night from our view. Then we were cleared for landing and I experienced 30 minutes of the most terrifying flight of my life. Several times I was sure the planes wings were going to snap off or that the wind would just take us down, but it turned out fine and we finally landed in Atlanta. My connecting flight had left 2 hours earlier and since it was already midnight, I was stuck there. Without my luggage of course. They gave me a 'discount' voucher for the Quality Airport Conference Hotel but when I went out to catch the shuttle, I stepped into the wrong one and instead ended up at the dumpiest hotel I've ever seen in an area that reminded me of Beck Street by Southern Exposure. The door to my room opened out to the street instead of a nice quiet hallway and there were 3 signs in my room suggesting that I use the chain latch and deadbolt lock in addition to the regular lock on the door. Very comforting.... 4 hours later, I woke up and rushed back to the airport to see if I could get a seat on the first flight out. Fortunately, I was able to get on the flight and finally made it home. Unfortunately, my luggage took a slightly different route to Salt Lake, so I had to spend 30 minutes trying to find it. When I got it, it was soaking wet... I think it must have spent a couple hours sitting in the rain or something.

Well, that's it for my trip. One of these times, I hopefully will experience a trip where I have absolutely nothing to say about it except maybe about the weather... this was not it. It's all good though, what else would inspire me to update my blog??? :)

Less than 2 days and I'll be back on a plane headed for Atlanta again for our cruise to the Bahamas. Let's hope it goes better than this one did!

Here we go again...

It's days like today that completely amaze and baffle me at the same time. How can someone be so unlucky and lucky at the same time? How in the world do I get myself into these situations in the first place? And probably most importantly, why does it continue to surprise me?

Yesterday I picked my kids up from school. I got Jamison first. He was not wearing his hearing aids which isn't completely unusual. Sometimes after their 'naptime', he refuses to put them back in. So his teacher handed them to me and for a brief second the thought flashed through my mind "I should put these somewhere before I lose them." I'm pretty sure these small flashes of brilliance is God's way of warning me that I'm about to do something stupid. Once, before I threw away my rental car keys (never to be seen again), I remember thinking "Why would they give me two keys? I should take one off and put it in my laptop bag." Well, I didn't listen then and I sure didn't listen yesterday. I left Jamison's room holding his hearing aids and this is the last I remember seeing/thinking about them until last night. While I was in bed falling asleep, I remembered them and thought "hmmm.... where did I put them? They must be in my purse. I need to remember to get them out in the morning before I leave for work." Two things are wrong with this: 1) There's no way I'd remember that in the morning and 2) Of course they're not in my purse. I quit bringing my purse into school with me a long time ago so I don't lose it.

So, this morning I went to work early and of course forgot all about the hearing aids. Until Jay called to ask me for them. I checked my purse. They weren't there. I can't say I was surprised, I had no memory of putting them in there anyways. Jay checked the kids backpacks, but they weren't in there. I was a little worried, but then Jay let me know that one of his hearing aids was in his cubby at school. The other one was still missing. This is when I panicked because right then I realized that I had done the thing that I have spent hours lecturing Jamison not to do. I lost his hearing aids. I spent all day stressed and panicked (again not completely unusual for me). When I got to school, his teacher told me that a parent found the one hearing aid on the floor in the hallway right outside Gianna's classroom. Jamison and I walked up and down the hallway several times, but the other one wasn't there. I searched the parking lot, searched my car, searched Jamison's classroom, Gianna's classroom and any other open classrooom I could see, but no hearing aid. Finally, I reached down to put on Gianna's coat and had a sudden flash of memory of putting her coat on the day before. I was holding Jamison's coat, Jamison's backpack, a drawing of a caterpillar Jamison had made, Gianna's backpack, Gianna's coat, my car keys and Jamison's hearing aids. I now can remember feeling something fall out of my hands while I tried to get Gianna's coat on and now I know what that something was. Still one hearing aid short, I called Jay in my stressed out panic upset mode and of course he was completely calm as always while he told me that everything would be okay. I don't know how I got so lucky that I married someone who can handle these situations so well. I don't think I would react as calmly if he told me that he lost a couple hearing aids at about $1400 a pop...

An hour later, I'd searched the pockets of everything I owned, dumped out the entire contents of my purse and the kids backpacks, searched under the couch cushions (which are still on the floor in my living room), searched Jamison's room, called the school to ask them to leave a message for the cleaning crew and was about to give up when I FOUND IT!!!!! Inside Gianna's snowboot that had also been inside her backpack yesterday.... of course. I am so so relieved!!! Of course now I realize how fortunate I am that someone found the one on the floor before it got swept up into the garbage and also how lucky it was that I checked Gianna's boots before I ordered a new hearing aid for him. Really, I am just thankful God was looking out for me once again. I'd love to say this is a one time occurance, but who am I kidding? I'm leaving for the Bahamas in a week, who knows what kind of crap I can get myself into there......

7 Years!!!

7 years!!! That actually sounds like a significant amount of time. And considering Jay and I dated for 3 years before we got married, I've now known him for 1/3 of my life. So, I looked back at my post from our 6 year anniversary and noticed 2 things:
1) I said that one day I would be spending my anniversary on a cruise. Well, it's not exactly on our anniversary, but 2 weeks from now, we will be on our first ever cruise!!!! To the Bahamas! I am really excited. It's been a LONG time since I've been on a vacation like that and going somewhere tropical during this crappy weather is EXACTLY what I had in mind when I chose January for our wedding date.
2) Last year I answered the question I get asked the most, 'How did Jay and I meet?'. I also said that this year I'd answer the question 'How does Jay put up with me?'. Well, when I said that, I thought I was joking. Either that, or I'd have a whole year to come up with a brilliant romantic answer. Turns out neither of those is true.

So, anyone who knows me knows that I spend a lot of time stressed out. I would say that several times per week I lose something that is usually kind of important to me. My purse, my wallet, my keys, my phone, etc. Let me tell you, that's not fun. I'm also a bit forgetful and I get sidetracked VERY easily. When I first moved out to Minnesota, Jay came out to help me drive me and all my stuff out there. This was only our 4th time seeing each other and the morning we were supposed to leave, I discovered I lost my wallet. We searched for it. A lot. For a very long time. My car was packed (and at one point even running ready to go). Several hours later, we found it wedged between my door and the driver side seat (and we'd searched the car many times by this point). This was just the start of Jay having to deal with the chaos that somehow just seems to follow me. I can't tell you how many times I've called Jay in an absolute panic because I've lost my wallet (both at home and while traveling), lost my rental car keys, my suitcase, and many other things. Jay has learned that he should not be surprised when cops stop by our house to return my purse that they found in a park or if I call and tell him I'm on my way home but then take 2 hours to get there. In Minnesota I even lost my car keys in the snow outside his apartment in November and found them again in March when the snow melted! They were rusted... So, just how and why does he put up with me??? Well, to be honest, the only thing I can think of is that for 6 months we dated long distance. Either I didn't waste my time talking to him about the various things I had misplaced, or because he was so far away, it probably didn't have the same effect. By the time he learned all these things about me, it was too late and he was already 'hooked'. :)

Happy Anniversary Jay!!!! I love you and am so glad you 'put up with me' for 7 years now! :)

Oh, almost forgot... K for next year... 'Why do I put up with him?'