Thankful

Why, hello there, little blog. Miss me?

I am just unpacking, laundering, and detoxing from four days spent off the grid with our cousins from the east in Amish Country, Ohio. While having no cell or internet service whatsoever was a wee bit inconvenient at times, this was my view first thing every morning:


We stayed once again in these charming little cottages smack dab in the middle of a working Amish farm. Our kids spent approximately 18 hours outside every single day and got so dirty it made my mama heart warm. They hiked through fields. They shot bows and arrows. They ran hard. They slept hard. We sat with our husbands around a table and laughed until our sides split.

It was a little taste of heaven.

The farm also allowed our kids to indulge their inner pet ownership fantasies, as the two farm dogs kind of adopted them. One of the dogs is missing a leg, and we respectfully dubbed him Tripod (though his real name was Tango). We suspect he lost the leg while trying to win a race with an Amish horse buggy. He tends to be a little reckless, this one.

Tripod's companion on the farm is a small four-legged dog that our kids called Little Dog (creative naming geniuses at work, clearly). Little Dog sometimes lifts that fourth leg up and runs on only three legs. We think he does it so Tripod won't feel left out. You know, with his disability and all.

Everybody needs a friend like that.

Tripod also has no clue that he is a land-dwelling mammal. He was always frantically scrambling to keep up with the kids on the paddle boats. Pretty good swimmer, too, considering he's minus a limb.

The gratuitous turkey dinner was fed to us by the locals at the one and only restaurant in town. Gabi and I thoroughly enjoyed not having to lift a finger to cook it, and took devilish delight in walking away without washing a single dish.

It makes me wonder why I ever spend the holiday cooking for days at a time.

Plus, it was sinfully delicious and sent us all into that magical tryptophan coma.

Mmmm, tryptophan coma.

On our way home, we stopped in to see some very good friends, and felt sad leaving, as there just wasn't enough time spent with them. It was like we had been together yesterday, instead of four years ago. It was so easy to pick up right where we left off. We drooled over their fabulous home, gorgeous boys, and shared a meal like old times. Remind me sometime to tell you my favorite story of our friend, Chris. He's a good man, that one. He and Emily are the best.

A lot of hours on the road later, and we are home safe and sound. There is mud in every crevice of my children's jeans, a pile of mail to go through, and a million calls and emails to return. But I find my heart is full from the love of it all - good friends, family, simplicity, and time.

I feel so blessed.

Philly photo phun, here I come!

Well, internets, it is adios from me for a few days. Headed out of town for a spontaneous little weekend in Philly. I get to see her and her, and FINALLY meet her and her. I am giddy with excitement.[ I am also practically paralyzed with fear as I have 11 photo shoots lined up for the weekend.]

Nothing like a little pressure, eh?

But I am looking forward to the trip. Especially the part where I sit on a plane all by myself and read a book for several hours. Bliss.

But before I go, I wanted to leave you with some of my favorite shots of the Great Family B. One of my favorite families anyway, but I am even more in love with them after getting to see them through the lens of my camera. They are some beautiful people, no? And nice? When you look up nice in in the dictionary - you would see this whole family there. Not an exaggeration either. Ask anyone who knows them.

This pic just might be my favorite of the whole batch - love the moment between a daddy and his sweet girl. Love the colors. It was a somewhat accidental picture - we had wrapped up the shoot and were getting ready to leave the park when I turned and saw this. And how, HOW, could I let one like this get away?

Wish every shot was this easy to take.

Have a good weekend, peeps. Don't have too much fun without me!

Last trip post, I promise



I know you are all probably so sick of this vacation that you saw the title and clicked off to hunt for free porn. Nothing like days and days of someone else's boring vacation pictures, right?

Right.

Well, too bad. At least for one more day anyway.

I end the Seattle/Hawaii Trip '09 with some stats and (of course) more pictures. To give you an idea of our endeavors over the last 13 days without writing down every detail, here is some data that is pretty representative of the fantastic experience we had:
  • Total number of flights: 7
  • Total number of bags checked on flights: Zero, thanks to my awesome packing
  • Total number of hotels we stayed at: 5
  • Estimated caloric intake per day by me alone: 9,678 thankyouverymuch
  • Pounds gained while on this vacation: I am sure at least 8.
  • Number of fish viewed while snorkeling: 756 or more
  • Number of bloody wounds received from jagged coral while snorkeling: 2 (both mine)
  • Bottles of sunscreen used: 4
  • Number of people in our family who took hula lessons: 2 (all female, naturally)
  • Number of people in our family who swam in a cage with sharks all around: 3 (all male, of course)
  • Total number of days before I adjusted to the time difference: 9
  • Number of days it will likely take me to adjust back: 14
  • Dollars spent shopping: Much, much less than it could have been, dear Husband. Remember that in the days to come when you look at the bank statement, mmkay?
  • Pounds of sand washed down our hotel shower drain per day: 3
  • Number of former KSL weathermen seen at the Hawaiian Temple: 1 (bonus if you guess who it was)
  • Number of times the natives called me 'Cousin': At least 27
  • Minutes until I am ready to go back again: I'd say less than one. It actually hurts a little bit to think that Hawaii is still out there in this world, existing, without me in it.
And finally, because my little i-phone picture posts were so tiny (a pet peeve of mine), here are a few of my favorites so far. I have yet to barely wade through the hundreds and hundreds of shots I took, so these will have to do.

















Why he may now always request to sit by old, ugly, very large men

Last night, the Husband got home from a business trip. He had a funny little experience on the plane, and I feel that I must share it with you here, in the event that any of your loved ones travel, and could benefit from this valuable lesson.

Due to the high frequency of the Husband's business trips, he is one of those annoying people in the "more special than you/able to sit in the front of the plane/and board early" group. If there is room, he is automatically upgraded to first class. He has a special waiting room at the airport which has comfortable seating, drinks, snacks, and free WiFi.

I know. I never even knew that room existed, nor have I seen the inside of it.

Anyway, he was seated semi-comfortably in coach on a completely full flight. There were two empty seats left on the plane, and one of them was next to him.

Two people were in the aisles, heading to the last two seats. One of them looked like this:

And one of them looked like this:

He swears that merely for the comfort factor, he was silently praying for the attractive woman to have the seat next to his.

Yeah, right. On what planet are we expected to believe that one, Husband? Pffftt, puhhleease.

As [my] luck would have it, the woman was NOT seated next to him, and proceeded to take her seat a few rows back. The male passenger squeezed into the middle seat, right next to the Husband.

Within 30 minutes of take-off, there was a loud retching sound heard a few rows back. Further investigation revealed that the attractive woman had gotten sick mid-flight and thrown up ALL OVER EVERYONE in her row.

Let me repeat that in case you're not clear.

THE ATTRACTIVE STICK SHE THREW UP ON THE PEOPLE SITTING NEXT TO HER.

And had the Husband gotten his secret wish, she would have puked all over him, his laptop, and any remaining shred of his manhood.

And so, let that be a lesson to you, dear Husband. Sitting by attractive women on your flights will only result in BAD things.

VERY, VERY bad things. 'Nuff said.

I just love it when life lessons are handed out in neat little packages like that, don't you?

On road trips and fraidy cats

We're back from our weekend jaunt to Denver, and I must say, it was well worth the 12-hour car ride each way.

Not because of the last-minute victory which made the Husband absolutely ecstatic, but because we got to hang out with these people that we love:

And we got to go trick-or-treating with our cousins, which is a first for us, having always lived away from family:

Trick-or-treating was fun for everyone except Hannah. She was terrified of anything resembling a spiderweb, skeleton, or bat.

Yeah. Which apparently pretty much makes up the whole of Halloween.

So, I gently explained to her that no doors, no candy was going to be the policy of the night. Even when she begged me to go to the door FOR her, I held firm. I mean, after all, that's less candy for me to consume while she's sleeping, right?

But lucky for her, cousin Will has a soft spot for little fraidy cat girls. At every house she refused to approach, he would ask for an extra piece of candy, and bring it to her himself.

Her own mother was not so kind.

But all in all, the trip was fantastic. How would it be otherwise with the weather a balmy 75 degrees, the BYU game a success, and the company hilarious? We really hated to see it end.

If only we could click our ruby red heels and be home in an instant. Those last few hours in the car got to be a little long.

P.S. Did you vote today? I did. And it was worth waiting in line for over an hour for. Man, I love this country of ours.

What is it they say about the best laid plans?

Well, interpeeps, I had some grand ideas for posts this week that I was hoping would pull me out of my blogging slump.

I was going to find all the old Halloween photos from years gone by and post them here so you could ooh and ahh at my darling babies, you know, when they were babies.

I was going to make a really yummy soup and post pictures and directions to entice you all to make it.

I was going to let you into the world that was my frighteningly pious 19-year-old psyche and share some old journal entries I just found in the basement.

But, these good intentions have gone by the wayside. And come tomorrow morning, I will be waking at the unholy hour of four a.m. for a little spontaneous road trip with the family.

See, when your husband happily tells you he has taken Halloween off from work, don't mentally start making any plans for lunch dates, afternoon matinees, or any other afternoon delights. For, you see, about three-point-seven seconds later, he will sweetly bring up the fact that there is a BYU game in Colorado this weekend, and wouldn't it be great if we all went?

So, we're going.

I'm actually excited because it means I will get to spend time with one of my favorite sisters-in-law (sorry, she's blogless or I'd link) and I get to sit in the car for several uninterrupted hours with a large stack of books by my side.

And I get to miss church. (Which is definitely something my pious 19-year-old self would not be happy about. Please don't tell her. She'd definitely have words to say about that.)

So, Happy Halloween. And, I guess, Go Cougs.