Tyler - The Dark Cloud in Our Silver Lining

7 Feb 2009

Lately Tyler has been so so negative. He has developed an amazing ability to always find the dark side of every situation. Here are some of his more depressing quotes.

Explaining to Mom why she needs to climb up on the top bunk on Feb 1st: "But Mom, it gets so annoying for me to have to flip the puppy calendar month after month."

To Mom after she bought him a kid sized sundae at TGI Fridays: "This is the worst day ever. There's only one kind of kid's dessert at this restaurant. I got this same sundae the last time we were here." Later that night, "I sure hope that we get to eat more ice cream when we get home. If we don't I'm going to be so sad."

In tears, to Mom, after playing Wii for an hour and a half: "If I can't play Wii for any more time today then I guess I'll just never play any games any more ever again. I don't even like Lego Star Wars anymore. It's just not any fun if I don't get to unlock Ghost Ben Kanobe."

Maybe Mom (me) just doesn't get it. Maybe she should just make sure that Tyler doesn't get to play Wii or eat ice cream at all. That way he won't be so sad when he has to stop.

Sometimes he reminds me of Debbie Downer from Saturday Night Live:

http://video.aol.com/video-detail/debbie-downer/999727602

Photoreactive keratotomy, Hypoxia, and a little Sun on the Beach!

Pre-surgical prep for eye-surgery mostly just involves taping maxi-pads to the side of your head to catch the gallons of various eye-drops that they pour into your eyes throughout the day (anesthetic drops, antiseptic drops, re-wetting drops, etc.). It was such a good look, I [Jared] had to save it for posterity. From my happy expression, you'd think this was post-op (when I got my percocet).
Suzie already posted several pictures of our Big Day at the Beach. These little clear, firm, gelatinous whatzits were all over the beach. Kudos to whoever can tell me what they were. They were about 12-15 inches in diameter at the cap. Mushroomy jellyfish looking things (although they seemed too firm to be jelly fish), maybe a plant, or an anemone?

Here's another perspective of Tyler's first steps into a life of tagging. 'Tyler' isn't much of a street-name, though...

Suzie didn't get the wheat mill she wanted for christmas (probably because she wasn't all THAT good), but she had bushels and bushels of food storage grain from the Cannery that needed grinding, so she borrowed the Relief Society president's mill. After a day and a half of making flour, Suzie thought she noticed something funny about the way the grain was sitting in the hopper.

Turns out Suzie's tenacity for milling was greater than the mill was designed for. The motor heated up (due to a design flaw which prevented the cooling fan from drawing in air from outside of the unit), which melted the plastic housing.

Hat in hand, Suzie explained to the RS pres what happened, and now we are the proud owners of the Leaning Whisper Mill of Pisa (the manufacturer of which has mysteriously gone out of business. I know, hard to believe!).

My current rotation as a Clinical Psychology Resident involves the assessment of cargo and fighter pilots to determine whether they are still psychologically fit to fly. In order to better understand the professional stressors of my clients, I took altitude chamber training.

They first rocket you to the equivalent of 5000 feet (from sea-level) in less than 20 seconds just to check to see if your ears bleed. If they don't, they shoot you to 25,000 feet, then ask you to take off your mask. I was only too happy to take the stupid thing off, it was like trying to breath through a coffee straw, you really had to employ your diaphragm to suck air in and blow air out.

Once the mask is off, they give you some simple math problems to do and engage you in light conversation. Once you stop making any sense at all (3-5 minutes), they help you get the mask back on with positive pressure O2 so you don't experience too much cerebral atrophy.

Then they let you try the various forms of emergency O2, the first of which is like trying to breath normally with an air-compressor in your mouth (the pressure in the tank is 1800 to 2000 psi). Each time I tried to exhale, I couldn't push hard enough, so my lungs just kept filling. Not pleasant, eventually the air started to fart out around the sides of my mask, but I still couldn't exhale, so they let me take the mask off.

I wonder what my friends are doing on their psychology internships...

Video Time!

28 Jan 2009

Here are the requested videos from the beach trip on MLK day.

Welcome Holly!

Happy Anniversary

27 Jan 2008

I know, I know, my anniversary isn't on Jan 26th. However, it is on May 8th and this year will be our big number 10!!! Amazing! I can't beleive it's been that long since Jared and I were married. We actually started dating in Dec of 1994. That means that we've been a couple for almost 15 years. That's like half my life! I love Jared so much and since he seems to love me too I guess we'll give it a go for another 15 years (at least).

Well, the reason I'm writing about my anniversary in January is that Jared got me an early present.

The band is new and it has 10 diamonds to represent the 10 years we've been married. The center diamond is also new. Jared traded in my .44 carat for a 1 carat! It's so much bigger and I love it. He says, "This is how your ring should have looked all along." I love my new ring and my wonderful considerate husband!

For you folks who think you're so funny, no, he did not go to Jared. He went to Moses! Way better!

Beach Day - Thanks MLK!

19 Jan 2009

I know, I know, today isn't really the 19th - but I've been really busy with lots of stuff and I neglected to post these great pictures earlier. When my parents were here last week we went to the beach in Corpus Christi. The temperature was around 80 degrees and we had a great time.

The Gingerbread House

14 Jan 2009

The gingerbread house is finally done!!! It took me about 2 months from start to finish but it was totally worth it. I was inspired by a food network challenge where they were making candy castles. I was sure that I could do just as good. Now, I'm not so sure, but I do know a lot more about making and working with icing. The trick is to make it super sticky. Here is my recipe:

2 cups powdered sugar
1 egg white
tiny bit of vinegar (like 1/2 tsp) - add more to make the icing thinner

This will make really thick and sticky icing that dries hard in a manner of minutes and rock hard by the next day. Next year my house will be even better!!!!

Boring Old January

12 Jan 2009

Well just as Jared predicted - January is pretty boring. We're all fine here. We (meaning me, Derek and Holly) sleep in late. Jared goes to work and Tyler goes to school. Ralphie is getting to be a better (more obedient) dog thanks to the new air horn we use to warn him of danger. We just need to be sure that we warn everyone else before we use it or we get three crying kids in addition to the terrified/paranoid puppy.

One bright light in the old day-to-day is that Grandma James came to visit last Tuesday and Grandpa James will be here on Wednesday. They will stay until Jan 20th. We are so glad to have them here because Grandma loves to do dishes and Grandpa loves to teach Tyler how to ride a bike. We're hoping that it will be warm enough to go down to Corpus Christi to play on the beach and show Grandpa the aircraft carrier. It's been warm off and on all week. We hope the warm is on next Sat.

This was Holly about a week ago. She's even fatter and cuter and less yellow now.

These two are the SLEEPIEST! Jared is always sleepy. Holly is always sleepy when Jared is holding her. It's kinda weird. Actually, she's really sleepy at night too. It's nice for us to get good sleep but it makes it hard to work on things during the day because she's awake and wants to play.

Tyler is really good at holding the baby! He loves to sit and hold her and sing her songs.

He always gives her back when she starts to cry.

This is what you can do in Jan if you live in Texas.

Ralphie recreation time! They were doing this for awhile before I thought to make a video. Don't worry about Ralphie. He's okay.

Cooper's Old Time Pit Bar-B-Que

[Jared] One of my New Year's Resolutions is to patronize establishments which share my name. I couldn't shop for jewelry at Jared's, so I settled for a an evening of BBQ at Cooper's. Texas is littered with these little pit BBQ joints. Eating there is a lot like dropping in on a family reunion, you typically eat off a slab of butcher-paper and sit at picnic-tables, and the food is A-maz-ing. Suzie got pork ribs and I got beef--wow. Makes me sort of regret growing up in Utah where our only culinary distinctions are fry-sauce and green-jello with carrots. Then again, San Antonio was declared by the American Obesity Association as the fattest city in the United States (I can see why, they can seriously cook down here).
Suzie thought she'd pick up a few Coopers to go.

I, on the other hand, couldn't leave without getting a hat and a T-Shirt. I know there's some big fans of Trucker hats who follow this blog, big ups!

One of Suzie's resolutions is to eat a Chimichanga, which is actually harder than one might think. Apparently, Chimichangas are considered Cal-Mex, not Tex-Mex. If anyone can find a joint online in SA where Suzie can get her Chimi-fix, we'd be obliged!

Tyler hijacked our white board and made a list of his favorite things called 'Tyler's Goods.' He started with 'video games,' then filled the rest in. Notably missing is Derek, oh well, c'est la guerre.

Suzie and I had to go to the Commissary (grocery-store in civilian language), and I saw this:

Shelf-stable Egg Nog! This stuff doesn't expire until Spring 2010! That way, when Armegeddon hits, I'll be sittin' pretty sippin' my Nog, while all you chumps are trying to keep the government from taking your guns and silver coins! It doesn't taste great, but it's not horrible either. We also tried Southern Comfort Egg Nog (we decided to not add the whiskey), which was good, but had a heavy nutmeg flavor. The best we tried this season was Hill-Country Farms (or something like that) from WalMart--Smooth, thick, sweet-but-not-sugary.

*Sigh* now onto boring old January.

Dinner Time Recipes

1 Jan 2009

One of my New Year's resolutions is to be a better menu planner. I think that this will help my family eat healthier and cheaper. I was talking about this with Jared a few days ago when my mom called with the idea of a family recipe blog. Perfect! Now I can get and share ideas with my whole family. I think that it will help me plan out my meals ahead of time and make better shopping lists. Here is the link:

dinnertimerecipes.blogspot.com

If you would like to contribute just e-mail me and I will add you to the list of administrators so that you can log on and make changes. If you just want to look and use the ideas - that's great too.