Happy Birthday Joseph!!!

Joseph turned one today at 9:27AM (I still think the clock in the hospital was wrong and Joseph was really born at 9:29 AM. I can't believe it's been a year already.

“Don’t Let go Rose…Don’t ever let go of that promise”

Well so it finally happened- we had our housewarming party. And, if you’ve been paying attention it was a Titanic theme- Let me say AMAZING!!! We had a glorious turnout of wonderful guests, and my eyes watered with joy at the Costumes! Oh the beautiful costumes!

This was serious how people got into it! Even little Joseph got into his Tuxedo costume.

Overall we had almost 50 people in our house enjoying the atmosphere. Secretly though I feel I under delivered- there was little decorations to set the Titanic apart from just our house and I still feel a little disappointed in my self- especially after the great, awesome turnout! Let me just say that I’ll more than make up for it at Halloween! For real! I have already started decorating. But for those of you that came, a sincere Thank you and for those that dressed up, you rock and you are my hero! For real!

We just got a new camera and were not using it correctly so sorry the pictures are not the best.

I especially like “Top Hat Guy” (Chris) I pray that Top Hat guy will grace us with his (their) presence on Halloween.

and “Purple Dress Lady.” (Diane)

We also had a waiter which was impressive because he came up with the costume all by himself! Sweet!

We even had the one person who came as a lower class person win the kid portion of the contest.

There were so many great awesome costumes I can’t imagine…Halloween will be extra awesome I promise!

By the way, I haven’t forgotten about the Thriller video. I am still trying to get a firewire cable from my bro who now works graveyards so he’s hard to track down…speaking of which, James Cameron himself was at our party! So stay tuned- I promise someday to have the Thrill the Wedding Video posted, hopefully before the next wedding in November, which by the way, will not be thrilled, at least by me because I am not going. But Halloween might be thrilled…

Perhaps when I get home I’ll upload some teaser images for Halloween. It turns out I’m a dork and draw out plans for Halloween. I have my whole costume ready to go and various sketches drawn out of what you can expect. Be wary…

Joseph takes a shower

Joseph has started to have selective separation anxiety. Most times he is fine being left to play by himself and could care less if anyone he knows is around. But for some reason every time anyone gets in the shower he freaks out. He has a sixth sense about it too. He can be in another room and as soon as he hears the shower turn on he stops whatever he is doing and gets as close as he can to the offending person. It started with my dad, if Joseph saw him going upstairs to shower Joseph would zip up the stairs after him and stand at the bathroom door screaming until he was done. He does it even if someone else is around. Whenever Jared or I get in the shower Joseph will be at the shower door. If the other person tries to distract him he usually wants nothing to do with you. The part that make me really laugh is if you bring him into the shower with you he screams as well because he doesn't like the water splashing him.
Anyway Saturday I got in the shower and Joseph ran over crying that I was leaving him. He stood at the shower door hitting it and screaming he usual bloody murder. After a few minutes I opened the shower door to stick my head out and say hi. Well Joseph seized the opportunity and climbed right in, fully clothed. He sat on the floor of the shower splashing and laughing at how cleaver he was for about 30 seconds before he wanted to be picked up. I scooped him up, stripped his clothes and diaper and scrubbed him down. He didn't really appreciate this but hey it saved me from having to give him a bath. Then I took him out wrapped him in a towel and laid him on the floor and jumped back in to finish my own shower. He was so mad and screamed the whole time but didn't move an inch from where I put him. He never will just lay there in a towel.

Housewarming Party Planning

Now that we have finally almost finished unpacking it's time to have our housewarming party. Before we even signed on the house Jared decided the theme should be Titanic because of our staircase. We keep coming up with great decorating ideas and fun things to do. The problem was we never got around to setting a date and getting invitations out. We kept moving the date mainly because we hadn't gotten around to inviting people. Which needless to say if kind of important. We wanted to make tickets to have everyone join us for "Our Maiden Voyage into Homeownership". Of course we got busy and never made the invitations. Our next great idea was to take our picture on our deck with our arms spread wide like in the movie. Three weeks later we still haven't taken the picture. I finally decided enough was enough we had to get an invitation out and get busy planning the party before Joseph was in College. Yesterday I sent out some invitations that were lame and most people will probably miss the Titanic theme we are shooting for. But the party must go on. So here's to hoping our party is successful.

If you are reading this then you are totally invited. Saturday September 13th 6:30 PM at our house. Come dressed as a passenger in the class of your choice.

Here's to hoping I lost enough weigh to fit into my red carpet dress.....now if I could only find a huge diamond necklace to wear...

Happy Birthday Daddy

Today is my daddy's birthday which I'm told is a special day for him. Since I've never had my own birthday I don't really get the whole birthday thing. Mommy keeps asking daddy when it gets to be her birthday. I hear her tell daddy a lot that she wants him to pick a day and plan a party but I don't think daddy likes that idea. I wonder why, a party sounds like fun to me. Anyway in honor of it being daddy's birthday mommy and I made a list of reasons why he "totally rocks"

• he makes silly faces and used funny voices


• he is willing to change my stinky pants


• he plays on the floor with me


• he quit the job he loved and moved back to the city to spend time with us


• he cooks diner a lot


• he loves spaghetti just like me


• he made everyone learn and perform Thriller at Carl's wedding


• he tells lame jokes that make me laugh


• he gave into mommy when she wanted to keep the old VERY HEAVY TV instead of buying a new flat screen 'because the old one still works most of the time" and even moved it and the huge entertainment center to the basement


• without daddy's "creation techniques" I wouldn't be alive


• daddy wakes up early every morning to drive me across town to play with Grandpa & Grandma or Diana, Ken & William while mommy sleeps in before heading to work


• he tells both of us that he loves us all the time


• he thinks mommy comes home with cool things from garage sales


• he agreed with mommy and me about buying our house


• he has unpacked almost all the boxes


• daddy loves baseball and takes us both to games all the time


• he is willing to find creative ways to fund his DeLorean Fund


• he makes everyday an adventure


• he has taken me to Disneyland twice and is making us go to Disney World in December


• he gave me great hair and blue eyes

As you can see my daddy is really great. I wanted to make the list longer but mommy said we better stop before daddy gets a big head. I don't really know what that means since daddy's head is already way bigger than mine.

We love you Daddy!!! Happy Birthday!!!!!

Believe in the Power of Dreams

Well now that our stupid vacation is over…

Ever have a dream? Martin Luther King, Michael Phelps, Pinocchio, Aerosmith- they all had dreams. Well I have a dream too. Like most people (this is Leigh Anna by the way) I have a dream car. Now some people like fast cars like a Corvette or a Mustang. Some like Vintage cars like a Charger or El Camino. Some even like ugly cars like a Gremlin. I want a DeLorean. You know the Back to the Future car, I want one always have always will.

What would you do if your dream was within reach? Well mine is. On eBay right now there is an auction for a 1981 DMC-12 DeLorean. The auction is at $5,600 right now. Here’s the best part- the car is here in Denver. Take a look at the auction. That’s a pittance- others in California are going for 29, 30,000$! And I’d have to fly out there. This one is here right here. What do you think, do you think I should buy it? I say yes! Jared is totally ok with it, in fact he seems to be more excited than me- however, Joseph is holding the deal up and even has trouble believing that I’m serious about buying it. Every time I try to broach the subject with him he rolls his eyes and I explain my perfectly legitimate plans to acquire the car, he then refutes them one by one. I have thought of buying it anyway and asking forgiveness later. It’s right under my nose. Plus it would be cool to get it in time for Jared’s birthday and for the anniversary we didn’t have this year.

http://cgi.ebay.com/ebaymotors/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=160272551490&ssPageName=ADME:B:WNARL:MOTORS:1123

Leave your comments and help convince Joseph to let me live my dream!! I’ll let you drive it!

World tour Part IV

By now you are probably sick of reading about our trip to NY and really could careless about it. Well the good news for you is the following story does not take place in NY…mostly.

Ah so we arrive at the Rochester airport in time. We go through security and lounge around waiting for 4:50 or so when our flight was supposed to leave. We get near 4:40 and something is suspicious- there is no announcement of boarding and there seems to be something afoot. We get word that there is no crew. Ok fine, so we wait. Well eventually the crew comes strolling in and we’re like ok good- we can still make our layover in Detroit. We only had a half hour gap to make our connecting flight. Well as they’re doing the pre-flight check they find some sort of minor mechanical problem. The flight is delayed- so now we are faced with a conundrum- will they be able to get us to Detroit in time for us to make our connecting flight? They say there’s a 50% chance we make it but cannot guarantee anything.

Well Annie and Diana being the eternal schemers, decide to see if we can stay in NY an extra night rather than risk going to Detroit. William and I just practiced Thriller, which we are very rusty at apparently. Finally the word came down, they booked us a hotel right by the airport in Rochester so we were staying 1 more night. Which means Pageant, Part II.

So we went down to rent a car (everybody claimed they were out of cars) except for National who quoted us 40$ for a car but then ooops it looks like were out of the 40$ cars and all they had was 60$. Fortunately (sic) the guy upgraded us to a SUV (with gas at 4.25$ this was not an upgrade) but we weren’t going that far. So we’re back in the car, back at Palmyra, back at Pageant. I gotta say I was too thrilled with seeing the Pageant again because it was a “good 1 time thing.” Everyone got excited when the rotary club potatoes went BOGO, but it was odd to me because here were these people who’s ancestors threw out the Saints in the first place making a ton of money off of us and yet, as Nephi would say, “we suffereth it.”

I took Joseph during a calm down walk during the Pageant but he never went to sleep. Annie had to miss part of the last Pageant because of Joseph so it was my turn. So the Pageant was good but there was a bunch of Antis yelling at us. Whatever.

So then we went back to our NWA paid for hotel- a Marriott. Far and away the best hotel we stayed in, including Niagara falls. The pillows….yum…the beds soft. The problem- by the time we got back from the Pageant it was 12:30 and our flight left at 5:30. That’s only about 5 hours for you keeping score at home. So we “slept” an dragged our beds out of bed at like 4:30 or something awful like that.

So we get through security (flagged again for additional screening by the airline!) and get to our gate. Seems like this plane works, has a crew and is not over booked. So we fly to MN without further delay.
We had like an hour or so in MN before our connecting flight to Denver. By now everyone is exhausted and we all want to get home. I wanted to go badly. Very badly. William had tickets to see the Rockies in a luxury box so he had to get home. Within 20 minutes of our flight an eerie foreboding swept across the terminal- an all too familiar feeling. “Attention NWA passengers to Denver…we have overbooked this flight. Would anybody be willing to take a later flight for $300 in credits?” Would we? Annie was all over it and so was Diana, but then I got torn, do I want to stay or go home? I raced and checked the paper Minnesota Twins v. Texas Rangers 1:10 Metrodome. Yikes! We gotta stay I’m giving up my seat! Diana was none too pleased as she wanted the credits (which I would gladly give up if I could) but I wanted to see the Twins. I was beating myself up for potentially missing the Tigers I sure wasn’t missing the Twins. So I 180d and decided to give up our seats to the later flight. Originally they had us on a flight at 2:00, and as compensation they had us in First Class. Ah but the game starts at 1:10 theres no point staying if not going to the game. So I convinced annie to take the 4:50 flight so we could watch the twins. She agreed, and gave up her dream of first class.

So Diana, William and Joseph took off for home while we stayed, just the two of us. I had a backpack full of books which everyone asked if I wanted to send home. I declined. Big mistake. So then we decided hey since were in Minneapolis why not go to their famous landmark- the Mall of America!

Quick fact-did you know the Mall of America doesn’t open until 11 am? Yeah me neither. We got to the Mall via train (a thrifty 3.00$ roundtrip for 2!) at 9:30 thinking the mall would open at 10. It didn’t. By the time the mall did open it was almost time to get back on the train and head for the world famous Hubert H. Humphrey Metrodome.

The Mall of America was underwhelming although maybe it was because a) we were so tired b)I had those books and c) it wasn’t open yet (we went inside the mall but all the shops were closed) Frankly the Mall wasn’t that big. I imagined miles and miles of retail but really it wasn’t that much bigger than our Colorado Mills. We ended up buying some clothes for Joseph (whom we truly missed as I do now) and a couple of ties and an ornament.

Then it was onto the main event- Twins- Rangers-Metrodome.

Now I don’t know about you out there but watching baseball inside is just not Christian. We descended the train and got our tickets in the “cheap seats.” One good thing about the Metrodome is the cheap seats are general admission so we could sit pretty much anywhere on the top- I liked this idea. So we bought our tiny tickets with a huge receipt/stub and went into the Metrodome. Now having been spoiled by the best baseball park in the world, we both thought the same thing upon arriving on the concourse- Weird! Weird. It’s almost as if a different game started with baseball and evolved on a different path and arrived at something that closely resembled baseball but not quite. Weird. Astroturf. Designated Hitter. White ceiling (difficult to follow the ball on a pop up) fake dirt. Weird. The game was enjoyable but not the same. The Twins actually ended up losing 1-0 but the twins pitcher pitched a 1 hitter- the 1 hit being a home run, and he got the loss.

It was weird being inside and watching baseball but it really made the trip for me. Now I have seen the Twins- just as I was worried I wasn’t going to make it to a road game this year.

So then it was back to the airport for the last time (?) a bad omen- on the train to the concourse the power shut off and the train stopped moving and the doors sealed. Well we finally got there, had us a California Pizza and got on board the aircraft. Then an announcement… “We have overbooked this plane would anyone be willing to give up their seat for a $300 voucher?” Well my hand shot up right away, but Annie gave me a scathing look. The Flight attendant came by and asked if I wanted to give up my seat, I hesitated then finally relented- “No. I want to go home.” So we did.