Puerrrrto Rrrrrrico!



Whenever my friends go on trips I love vacationing vicariously through them. I love looking at all of their pictures and basically being a creepy stalker. I am running on the assumption that you do, too.  Today I have A LOT of pictures for you. These pictures are not in chronological order or in order of importance since I am too lazy to drag them around the screen. A week on the beach will do that to a person.

 

Puerto Rico was wonderful. Here is a compilation I have labeled, "Random Crap We Saw on the Beach":

 

 A tractor, toaster oven, a sad homeless dog, a very rare scorpion-tarantula-crab hybrid, and some other things.

I call this next grouping, "Things that I loved about Puerto Rico: the beach and pina coladas."

This deserves its own picture:



It is mofongo - a Puerto Rican dish comprised of mashed plantains stuffed with meat and onions and stuff. I could eat mofongo every Sunday for the rest of my life.

Here we are waiting to go to dinner with DJ's big boss man (the man responsible for sending us on this little holiday, as well as our livelihood - who was spotted walking around the hotel in a t-shirt which read "Trust me, I'm a salesman." I hope I am so cool when I am a multi-millionaire).

 Here is what my kids were doing at home:

 

My poor mother watched my kids all week. She did the carpooling, the ballet, the homework, the laundry, the boiling of macaroni and cheese noodles, and much more. She deserves the Nobel Prize Purple Heart Medal of Honor for sainthood. They should make one of those.

 

Here is the view from our hotel room balcony:

Our resort backed up to the El Yunque National Rain Forest. (Wouldn't that be "The THE Yunque National Rain Forest"? Yes, it would.) Every night we opened our balcony door to let the moist rain forest-y air in and to listen to the frogs chirp. DJ SWORE he could whistle at them and they would respond.

One thing that this trip succeeded in was reminding me why I love DJ:  because he is partially insane. I present exhibits A through F:



Remember how I said that these pictures are not in order of importance? I lied. I saved the best two for last. Here is the piece of seven-layer chocolate cake which I ordered from room service and ate in bed:

If that is not the definition of heaven, I don't want to go to heaven.

 

Finally, this:

I mean seriously, seriously love it.

The end.

(P.S. On a vacation-related note, this week I wrote this thing about how I've never been to the Grand Canyon. Yes, it is true. Don't judge me. Hop on over to St. George News and have a read. I am sort of embarrassed about this.)

Easy like...

...Sunday morning.

Tess woke up at 6:00, per her usual - she is too young to understand Sunday morning. Now I can't get back to sleep. I am equal parts excited and freaking out. Tonight my husband and I are leaving my children with my mom so that we can go on a week-long trip.

It has been a long time since we've left our kids for this long. Like, since 2007, before the recession hit. Hence the freak out. But the excitement part is because we're going to Puerto Rico to do nothing but sit on the beach and eat food. That's what I'm planning, anyway. DJ keeps talking about things like zip lines and kayaks and all I can think of is sand and water and sunshine. Eighty-degree sunshine.

If you don't hear from us for a while, that's where you'll find us - on a beach in the sun, eating junk food. Living the dream.

Speaking of junk food, lookie what arrived this week:

 

On March 1st I ate four Samoas. They made me sick. No more sugar for Elise. The end.

 

(Here's what I wrote this week at St. George News. It is the story of how I found an elk in my Tahoe that one time. How did this tale NOT make it to the blog?! I don't know, but you should give it a read.)



Some grapefruit, a fetus, and some thoughts on treadmills. We're all over the place today.

Is it already February 22? How in the world did that happen?! Usually February crawls by like ... February. Longest shortest month of the year. Cold air. Short days. Valentine's Day.

Total crap.

But for some reason this February has not made me as hateful and depressed as it usually does. I don't know what is different this year.

I gave up eating sugar. I am 21 days clean. Clean if you don't count that maple syrup that I eat on my pancakes once a week. And clean if you don't count milk and pretzels and hamburger buns and every other food that is essentially sugar parading as food. I'm clean in the "Public Restroom" sense of the word.

But that's 21 days of not eating a bowl of ice cream after each meal. 21 days of not having a sleeve of Oreos for a midnight snack. 21 days without Sour Patch watermelons or cinnamon hot lips or pretzel M&Ms.

Wouldn't you think that would have made February so much worse? All it has done is reminded me of how much I love grapefruit.

I am going through a lot of grapefruit these days.

To me, eating grapefruit is like reading the scriptures. Every time I do it I think, "That was awesome. And good for me! Why don't I do this more often?!" And then I don't do it for a while. And then I think, "Eating grapefruit is a pain in my butt. I have to dig the segments out with a little spoon. The seeds are everywhere. I always get squirted in the eye. Instead I'll have a doughnut." And with every doughnut it becomes more and more difficult to eat grapefruit.

You see where I am going with this.

Doughnuts are delicious.

Speaking of my sister-in-law's baby shower, here we are showing off our respective bumps. Hers is from an eight-month-old fetus. Mine is from grapefruit, pancakes, and a Chipotle burrito bowl.

Can you believe how tall I am in this picture? Sometimes I forget that I am tall and then I see a picture of myself with a normal person and I start to wonder if I am, perhaps, too tall. And then I remember that I can reach whatever I want and people don't give me any crap. I like being tall.

Can you tell that I am stalling? My husband is out of town and since I can't run outside without leaving  my children to their own devices, I am forced to run on the spinning hamster wheel of doom, A.K.A. the treadmill.

Treadmills are the worst. They take something that I enjoy under normal circumstances - running - and make it a completely hellish nightmare.

Say your favorite thing to do is read. Now imagine that you are in Hell and the only thing you have to read is a Crock Pot manual. And you have to read it over and over and over. That's what it is like to run on a treadmill. Like reading a Crock Pot manual in Hell.

I guess I'd better get to it. The treadmill won't run itself.

Peace.

(Nope, I'm not peacing out yet because I just remembered that I need to share THIS LINK with you. It's what I wrote this week about a special ed. teacher at Snow Canyon High School who entered her students in a Samsung video contest. Out of 1500ish applicants they have made it into the final 15 and are poised to win $110,000 in grant money - given they receive enough online votes. That is where you come in. Click the link, click the link!)

(One of these times I will update you on the rest of the people I live with, but to be honest they don't do much besides ride their bikes and eat string cheese.)

(Enough stalling. To the treadmill!)

(Not you, me.)

Adios, Chancho

 This little hoser decided that he no longer wants to be called Chancho:

Here is what happened: We were at my sister-in-law Sheree's "Eat Food and Occasionally Watch the Super Bowl Ads" party. Chancho overheard DJ telling some people what Chancho means in Spanish. 

He was not pleased. 

This whole time I thought he knew. We have told the tale of how he got his nickname so many times I assumed that he must have figured it out at some point, but I was grossly mistaken. I keep trying to sneak it into conversation like it was all just a bad dream, but he won't have it. I am very sad about this. My boy has outgrown his nickname.

Happier news: I ran this week! It was glorious and wonderful and every other sweeping, generic adjective that you can think of. I may regret this later in life when I have to have all of my foot bones fused together or something like that, but for now I am happy and blissful as an ignorant clam.

I love running so much, which is weird because I'm not that great at it. Consistent, yes, but not naturally talented. If we're ever faced with a zombie apocalypse situation my brain will be the first to be eaten since I'm so slow, but I persist. Yesterday I went for my morning trot and it was raining. The sun broke through the clouds and voila:

I stopped dead in my tracks on the trail and took a picture. Can you think of a better way to start your day? Until I can eat doughnuts again, I can't.

Lastly, here is a little something about the new Monopoly game piece and what is wrong with America. I figured it out, so you can rest easy.

Raindrops on roses and whiskers on kittens

My sister, Lisa, and I had a long text discussion a little while ago about things that are our favorite. This lotion  is one of her favorite things:

She recently mailed a tube to me and now it is one of my favorite things. It smells of pomegranate and makes my hands silky, but the best part about it is the little key that rolls the tube up, making for efficient lotion usage. So cute.

Lisa is classy.

Me? Not so much.

When she asked one of my favorite "things" my answer was this three dollar lip gloss from the grocery store:

Anyone tried this stuff? I love it. Especially the red-with-green-writing flavor. It smells like Smarties and makes my lips feel silky. Until this moment I hadn't realized how invested I am in feeling silky.

And then there is Tess. Her favorite thing is my blue eye shadow:

She tries to sneak some every day. Blue eye shadow is difficult to sneak. She also wears my smelly lotion, paints her nails on a daily basis, and - I am not exaggerating - she combed her hair in front of her mirror for twenty minutes tonight before bed. She is my mother-in-law reincarnated. She doesn't get this stuff from me. I didn't even realize I was female until I was seventeen years old.

My husband's favorite thing lately is anything to do with lifting weights and weight lifting supplements and eating more lean protein and vegetables. He's been Mr. Healthypants since October. I am very proud of him. Here he is on our last date:

Please notice that he ordered the under-500-calories grilled chicken breast and salad, but won't keep his grubby mits away from my onion rings and barbecue cheeseburger. The cheeseburger thought it was funny, too:

I guess I've been thinking a lot about the little "things" that make me happy lately, since my go-to Happy Thing is off limits for another 25 days. This is my third sugar-free day. No Oreos. No Marshmallow Mateys. No Bordeaux cherry chocolate ice cream. This is really happening. Wish me luck, friends. And pray for my family.

Speaking of funny "things" check out what I wrote about the moisturizing Wrangler jeans that I found online. I laughed so hard when I stumbled up them. And then I briefly considered buying a pair.

There is sunshine in my soul today!

This boy. For the past four or five years he's been going through this phase of not wanting to sleep in his bed. That is how my husband and I found him the other night. Maybe a nightlight will help.

In other news, I am toying with the idea of doing a sugar detox. I am fairly certain that I am addicted to sugar. I have been reading about sugar addiction online and have found all of these great 21 or 28 day sugar detox plans which I have been circling around like a shark, but I am not sure if I am ready for that kind if commitment. This is how I know that I am an addict: I do not think I can live without sugar. I am not sure if I want that kind of life. But I do know that eating the amount of sugar that I eat on a daily basis is going to cause me to die young, not to mention what it's doing to my skin.

February is notoriously sucky anyway, maybe this will be my sugar detox month. I really want to do it, I'm just not sure if I've hit rock bottom yet. I mean, why bother with the recovery process until I've reached that point, ya know? I am craving Oreo cookies.

Speaking of rock bottom, this week was kind of the pits. My poor husband got strep throat. I have no idea from whence he contracted this horrible illness. It was his turn for the penicillin shot in the bum this time and I took great pleasure in watching him wince whenever he sat down. "Imagine running thirteen miles like that!" I declared self-righteously and repeatedly. This was the day before his 31st birthday.

Yesterday - DJ's birthday-  I woke up with one of those 12-hour flu bugs that eternally destroys your appetite for whatever you ate the previous day (Vietnamese shrimp soup, spring rolls, chicken shish kebabs). And when I say "woke up with" I mean the nausea pulled me out of a dead sleep at three a.m. Totally lame.

AND ON TOP OF IT ALL I think I have a stress fracture on my foot. The thing about stress fractures is that you can't run on them for 6-8 weeks or the bone will completely break and you will need surgery. Long story short: I will spend crappy February unable to do the one thing in this world that I enjoy most. I best rethink this sugar detox plan.

Finally, here is a link to my latest column at St. George News. If you haven't already read it, it is about the geological perils that surround us in southern Utah.

Monumental: I do not think it means what you think it means

This was a monumental week for me. I got strep throat for the first time in my life. My tonsils looked like big ol' cantaloupes. Sorry if that ruins cantaloupe for everyone, but that is how humongous they were. This was me, every ten minutes throughout the day on Wednesday: "Holy cow! DJ! Come see how big they are now!" It was very exciting. I mean, if you don't take the crippling body aches and fever into account.

On Thursday it occurred to me that I was supposed to run in the St. George Half Marathon on Saturday. I thought, I best get rid of these ginormous tonsils, raging fever, and body aches if I'm going to run 13 miles two days from now. I went to my doctor's office and requested Magic, because I know that is the request that doctors love most. My doctor's Magic came in the form of a penicillin shot to my keister.

This was also a monumental experience. I have never had a penicillin shot. It was not like getting an I.V. or donating blood. It was more similar to being bored by a bull and then having a nurse laugh at you afterward as you attempt to "play it cool."

Fast forward two days. My friend and I ran the St. George Half Marathon on Saturday morning. Would I be beating a dead horse if I called it a monumental experience? It was fun, but it was also kind of like running 13.1 miles with strep throat. Enter the least flattering post-race photo in the history of unflattering post-race photos:

I have this app on my phone that tells me how many calories I burn when I run. The half-marathon burned about 1530 calories. 

"Holy moly!" I thought. "I can eat whatever I want for the rest of my life!" 

But as it turns out that is exactly the number of calories in my post-race meal of choice - an animal-style cheeseburger, Neapolitan shake, and fries:

Finally, in case you're not my friend on Facebook here is a link to what I wrote this week: It's about running, too! You should click on the link, if for no other reason than to see my editor's super awesome Photoshop work with the picture of my brother-in-law in a ski mask. Enjoy!

Introducing: Homework Elise

This is a selection from Macey's homework this afternoon. Ignore her underlinings and markings and read the paragraph, if you will. 

In summary, it is about a girl named Elise who sits on the beach, applying coconut-scented lotion, eating fruit, and listening to the waves crash.

This cannot be a coincidence.

I envy Homework Elise and her day at the beach. I envy the warm sand and her need for sunscreen. Homework Elise kind of takes summer for granted. Homework Elise is a big jerk.

I am dying for summer over here. DYING. Does that sound extreme? I kind of wrote about my need for sunshine this week. Sorry it took me so long to link to it over here. I have been busy moping and watching Arrested Development. 

My people

Today I think it will be fun to update you on my children. Do you know what makes a kid update complete? An outdated photograph from Seattle. You can tell it is outdated because my children are sporting their summertime Oompa Loompa look - you know, red faces, white hair, weirdest boss in the world. Also the leaves on the trees are a dead giveaway. And the trees. We don't have trees like that in the desert.

Let's do this!

(And let's go oldest to youngest since Macey hates when we go youngest to oldest and Tess can't read.)

Macey:

Macey is 8 1/2. She takes ballet. My mom is teaching her the piano. She is in the school choir. And she was recently invited to be a part of the third grade newspaper. This was quite the prestigious invitation. Her first contribution was a fictional story about a puppy who snuck into Santa's sack on Christmas Eve and became his helper. And then he saved Christmas. One day you will say you knew her when...

Macey's latest thing is playing Minesweeper and keeping track of where the bombs are on a sheet of paper and trying to win the next round using the last round's intell. Thus far it has been a frustrating endeavor for her. I half-heartedly explained Minesweeper to her, but she seems sure that she is on to something with her method. She also loves horses and playing with her neighbor friend, Megan. She has also recently fallen in love with the world of Harry Potter. She finished reading the first book a few days ago and says that her favorite character is Hagrid. I think that Macey and Hagrid would be good friends.

Olivia:

Olivia is 7 1/2. She takes ballet. My mom is teaching her the piano. She has a knack for it, which makes me really happy. She takes the piano seriously and practices as soon as she wakes up, when she is supposed to be in bed, and generally whenever I want quiet. Unfortunately, Olivia only has one volume - mezzoforte, which is Italian for "Mom will need 800 mg of Ibuprofen and a box of Swiss Rolls if this persists." I have tried to explain pianissimo to her, but it went over like Minesweeper. No comprende.

Olivia is quite a little smartiepants. She reads like a sixth grader and kicks butt at math. (And yet I cannot drive home the concept of pianissimo? Someone is taking me for a ride.) Olivia loves sheep, steak, salad, riding her bike, texting her cousin Paige, and playing with her neighbor friend, Megan.

Chancho:

Chancho is 5 1/2 and we have yet to drop his unfortunate nickname. He is in Kindergarten and endures it. Coloring and sitting in chairs are not his "thing." Luckily, his best buddy Jack is in his class. Unluckily, they have been banned from sitting together. He loves his teacher, he loves having snacks, he loves recess, but the rest of that crap he could live without.

Chancho is really into flying machines of late. It started at the Boeing museum in Seattle. It is an interest that I am trying to nourish and encourage. Santa brought him a Blue Angel jet and a Stealth Bomber to go along with his M-21 Blackbird. He also got a little biplane that you shoot off of a charger gun so that you can watch it fly thirty feet in the air before landing on your neighbor's roof at 8:00 on Christmas morning. Chancho has decided that he is going to be a Blackbird pilot when he grows up. I have explained to him that if he wants to become a Blackbird pilot he is going to have to endure the coloring and the sitting in chairs.

Tess:

Tess is 3 1/2. Yesterday was her very first day of Sunbeams. For those who are not fluent in Mormonese, that means that she gets to sit in Sunday school instead of staying in the nursery and eating Goldfish crackers while smelling other kids' soiled diapers. Tess is proud of her status as a Sunbeam.

Tess is obsessed with Taylor Swift. I have created a playlist for her on YouTube and she watches the videos for "We Are Never Getting Back Together" and "You Belong With Me" repeatedly. She sings along loudly - even the speaking parts. As in, "This is exhausting, you know. Like, we are never getting back together, like EVER." A month or two ago she asked me, "Mom, is Taylor Swifff never getting back togedder?" I told her yes. For that is an eternal truth.

That is what's new with my little people. What's new with you?

We're ALIVE!

Have you given up on me? Guess what, we are ALIVE!

Not to understate things, but December turned out to be a busy month.

We tried to enjoy the holidays. Look at those little people. They woke up at 3:00 on Christmas morning, but my husband had mercy on me. He forced them to watch cartoons on the Lovesac until 5:00. Yes, these are the same children that I have to drag out of bed by their ankles at 8:00 on school days.

 

Anyway, look at what my husband gave me for Christmas - a weapon!

 It's a Kimber .45 with a nifty laser pointer that makes for easy shooting. And really interesting Singing Time activities.

I joke. Using a gun laser at church would be inappropriate. (That is supposed to be read in your best Church Lady voice.)

2012 was a good year for us. I have been weeding through the year in pictures and I feel kind of overwhelmed by our good luck or blessings or whatever you want to call it.

We visited two oceans on several occasions this year. The Pacific one via Newport Beach, California:

 The Atlantic one via Sanibel Island, Florida:

 The Pacific one via Seattle, Washington:

 And the Pacific one again via La Push, Washington...

 ...this is where we discovered that Washington State does not mess around when it comes to driftwood:

And my Macey Bella was baptized this year:

So many great things happened in 2012, it would take a lot of pictures and lot of words to get through it all. 2012 was good.

But do you want to know what scares the bejeezus out of me?

2013.

The last time we had a year this awesome was 2007. And then 2008 happened. And then 2009. Those were rough years. Those were humbling, learning years. I'm not prepared to repeat them. I am content with my current level of humility and knowledge, which means that 2013 will probably be a learning experience year. Darnit.

In other news, this is what I wrote at St. George News this week. It's about guns. If you have time on your hands, you should find the rest of what I've written in December, since I am too lazy to post them here. Ha.

Happy 2013!