back up and running

Me and the marathon blog both. We've set our sites on a half marathon at Rushmore: land of my mission! Land of four heads carved into the mountain! Land of Black Hills Gold (which I've always actually considered to look pretty tacky)! Check out the blog. And then, if you want, join up. It will be the bomb.

pls lol

Recently, Dave and I went like 2 years without cells phones. Como es posible? Well, I can't really remember, especially since he and I are now completely addicted to texting (eachother, mostly. Even if and especially when we're in the same room).

I've been meaning to post about this since I heard it on NPR (this is why I love NPR. It's the news of the people, people!). The National Texting Championship. Watch the video at the bottom. This is why I love America. Because teens have the freedom to get freakishly good at irrelevant pursuits like mastering the QUERTY keyboard.

geeks

I always thought that if I were a character from The Office, I'd be that freaky mom Hannah from season three, who used her breast pump at her desk and dressed her boy in pink. Turns out, though, that I've found quite a lot in common with Dwight K. Schrute in the form of Battlestar Galactica, which Dave and I have been Netflixing since April. The other day we got impatient for the next installment and I went to Blockbuster.

Me: I'm here to pick up Battlestar Galactica. (yeah, I'd called ahead)
Blockbuster dude: (shouting to another Blockbuster dude) Battlestar Galactica?
Blockbuster dude #2: Battlestar Galactica season two, right?
Me: (really wishing the title didn't sound so geeky) Actually, it's season 2.5, disks two and three.
Couple behind me: snicker, snicker, snicker

Seriously, though, it's been a fantastic (if slightly racy) series--well worth such humiliations. We finished up the first half of the final season last night. The last eleven episodes come out on DVD next month and you'd better believe I'll be lining up outside of Blockbuster to conclude the human/cylon saga.

proof

(see preceding post)

already off the charts

Today was Lucy's first doctor appointment (it was also her three-month birthday. What can I say--it's taken me a while to get on the ball, plus she sees dr. grandpa practically every Sunday. Anyway...) She is 95th percentile in height and weighed in at 16 plus pounds. Which puts her over the growth curve. That's right: she's like 110th percentile if there were such a thing.

Mommy is so proud!

a visit

The Walkers added my house to their many-faceted trip to AZ, which obviously delighted me to no end. We are sort of (ok, really) out in the sticks--a lone voice in the wilderness, calling for company. And so an out-of-the-way visit such as this just makes me feel loved. Plus, I got to do things like watch Lance grab a handful of cactus, hear Candy's philosophical musings (to be stitched on a pillow someday: "life is full of irony and ambiguity"), and see Kenz as a cute mom with an equally cute daughter, whom Penelope took to calling "Cupcake."

Cate & Peeps have a tea party and then hit the pool.

Later that weekend, we got to welcome Chad home from his mission in Germany. Here he is in a ever-so slightly disturbing pose:

Take notice of the pin. My favorite was seeing Pam sport this at church. She really is the happiest woman alive right now.
Welcome home, Chad!
(p.s. don't forget your half-marathon commitment!)

thirty years ago today...

this guy was born!

We love you, Dave!

11 year high school reunion

It seems like whenever I make it back to Utah, I only ever really have time to give to family. So when my old friend Becky said that she'd be coming to Scottsdale, I invited myself to crash her vacation!

The kiddie pool was amazing. Penelope thought of it as a giant bathtub and pretty much sat in the same spot the whole time (note the ducky crocs--classic!)

It was good to see you Becky! Peeps is still asking where Marlee went...

a play by play of some dental work, for the truly desperate reader

A few months ago part of my tooth broke off. I didn't do anything about it because it didn't hurt at the time and I was pregnant (somehow I have it filed in my book of wives' tales that you're not supposed to go to the dentist while pregnant, even though I'm pretty sure there is no factual basis for this), and I have a raging fear of dentists, which I'm pretty sure I've discussed multiple times over the blogging years. Anyway, the point is, it inevitably started hurting and I needed a root canal. Which I got yesterday.

I always brush and floss before a dental visit--hoping that it might do some good--even when most dentists seem as silently scornful of badly kept teeth as I am of a poorly misspelled letter. But the dentist (actually, he was an endocrinologist (that's a dentist for people with really bad teeth)) was this nice old man who apologized for the pinch of pain that came with the five shots he had to put into my mouth and who considered me a "poor thing." I really felt that he was sincere in his empathy--he wasn't patronizing me like some professionals who take to calling me "sweetheart," which, by the bye is my biggest pet peeve. Hello! I'm practically 30, people! These sorts of nicknames just make the people who throw them out sound like perverts. ANYWAY, the point is, it wasn't as bad as I'd anticipated. And I'm grateful for that. And then, one of my more thoughtful friends just brought me over some pudding in case I couldn't eat solid foods. And I'm thankful for that, too.

four years

Dave and I went on a picnic to mark our anniversary.

We also got to swing...

and overlook the town. Sounds pretty simple. And it was. But somehow it was my favorite wedding celebration to date.

the girls

anniversaries are a great excuse to air out old wedding photos

Happy Fourth Dave!