Shopping With Mom

26 July 2008

Since Jared is gone, I need to take both boys with me every time I go shopping. It's a little bit of a pain for them but a really big pain for me. Lots of times they are hungry (even if they just ate)or tired (even if they just woke up) and therefore noisy. Today we went to the Gap Maternity store. We were in the dressing room and as I turned away from the mirror I was greeted by the above scene.

I just had to take a picture!

For those of you who may be unfamiliar with materinity clothing stores - that thing around his neck is a "pregnant tummy" that you can strap on when you try on clothes.

Note: they don't work.

Lobster Dinner

25 July 2008

Today we went grocery shopping at the HEB and Tyler asked if we could get a lobster out of the lobster tank. (He actually asks if we can get everything he sees.) Well, I've always been a big lobster fan and lately I've been inspired by the Food Network so I said "yes." $19.56 later we were home with our 1.25 lb lobster. It took some coaxing to convince Tyler to pick up "Pinchey" as he came to be called.

Thanks to the "How to Cook Everything" America's Test Kitchen Family Cookbook - we had a perfectly steamed lobster 13 minutes later.

After a little bit of work and quite a bit more squirting than I thought there would be - we had approx 5 oz of premium lobster meat. I was actually pretty suprised by how easy it was to get the meat out. I have ordered lobster like 3 or 4 times at restraunts and it always seems like it's a giant ordeal to get all the meat out of the tail. This time however (per the book's instructions) I just broke off the back tail fins and pushed the meat out through the big end with a fork. It slid right out! Maybe it's the fact that it was so fresh. The claws were really easy too. I just broke them in half and the meat fell out. Tyler was disappointed by all the fuss we made over such a small plate of food.
It turns out that Tyler doesn't really like lobster (but he still likes shrimp - he told me that like 400 times). So I got to eat all of it - yay! I especially liked the claws - which I didn't think would be as good as they were. It was super!

Polygamist Update: I saw the dad and the "other woman" at the HEB today and they were holding hands. They are DEFINATELY together. However, I haven't seen any of the kids or the first lady since that one morning last week. Weird....

Hurricane Dolly

24 July 2008

Happy 24th of July everyone!!! I remember when we lived in downtown Salt Lake and the 24th of July parade was a really big deal. Here in Texas saying "Happy 24th of July" to someone makes about as much sense as "Happy 23rd of July." Oh well, it's a holiday in Utah and that's all that matters. Most of the people in my ward are from Utah so they will appreciate it.

Jared actually took the following picture a while ago for the blog. We found this house on a little drive that we took around Medina Lake. See if you can spot the following unique features: 1) single-wide trailer 2) pineapple fence posts 3) human skull 4) tree growing through the roof.

It's CRAZY!!! I'm Brian Fellow.

The Salvation Army came today and took away all of our old furniture so that we could finially move around in the living room again. For the last few weeks we've had 4 couches and I don't even know how many tables all crowded together in there. I worked all day arranging the furniture and putting up the curtains and some decorations. I will work on the dining room next and put those pictures up soon. I am still missing two chairs (backordered) so it might be a few days.

It actually looks better in person than it does in the photo.
I was talking to my mom and she was a little worried about the hurricane. I don't know what kind of press it is getting in Utah but here it's on every network channel every 20 minutes. It isn't going rain very much here in San Antonio, they just say that we'll get scattered showers. Note however that a "scattered shower" in Texas is more like a waterfall falling on your house (or car if you're driving) for 15 or 20 minutes.

Here is a video of some rain outside our house. This might be boring to you (mostly because you can't really see the rain) - but I think it's awesome. I really like rain because it's so cool and refreshing. Wait - it's cool and refreshing in Utah. In Texas it is a little bit more sweaty and steamy. Oh well, I like it anyway.

Bad thing about rain: it turns out that all the rain and humidity has actually rusted the rear brake shoes to the inside of the drums on the yellow Focus making it impossible to disengage the emergency brake. The car won't move AT ALL! My dad said to take off the wheels and hit the drums with a hammer to loosen the rust. I might just wait for Jared to come home and make him do it.

Polygamist Update: They were gone all day today (darn it!) But you can see their house in the above photo. It's the 2-story red brick home in the top right-hand corner.

Sick As A Dog

23 Jul 2008

Ralphie didn't go to the vet this morning. He had...you guessed it...Diarrhea!!! He must have eaten a bug or something. I am so sick of poop - I'm not even kidding. Jared is currently on a pretend emergency deployment (code for sleeping in a tent next to the building where he used to sleep) and so he can't use his cell phone or laptop. Hopefully we'll be able to talk to him again on Fri. We love you all and I really like it when you leave comments. It's nice.

Polygamist Update: They backed their truck up into our driveway and left tons of black tire tracks all over it. That dosen't mean that they are polygamists - it just bugs me :)

Nothing Much Is New

22 Jul 2008

There's nothing much new here. Tyler ate his dinner. It turns out that he really likes broccoli and also raw spinach - go figure. I'm still working on Derek, but I have more time with him. He went to bed hungry last night because he didn't want to eat a hot dog. I felt weird trying to force him to eat a hot dog but it was an all beef Ball Park frank - they're really yummy!

We went swimming yesterday for the first time since I was a negligent parent and let Derek fall into the deep end of Lisa's pool (even after she warned me to watch him.) Anyway, my kids are both scared of water. I planned to take them to the pool again today but it was too windy (because of the hurricane) and I think it will rain most of tomorrow and Thursday. Oh well, we'll go on Fri or Sat.

We are taking Ralphie to the discount spay and neuter clinic tomorrow (big cities are awesome because they have lots of cool welfare things for poor people that regular people get to use too). Ralphie is turning into a bad dog and he needs to be fixed! He marks all over the house and he's starting to get a little aggressive toward me. Hopefully all goes well - here a photo of him being scared to go to the vet :) His eyes look weird because I tried to fix the glowing "possessed" look that he always gets when we use a flash.

Polygamist Update: They have three cars. One is registered in Utah, one in Arizona and one in Texas. A coincedence? I think not! Plus the dad goes everywhere with the other woman. They went to Walmart on Sun and again today. Maybe the woman I met is the other woman? Hmmmm.....

Derek's Bling

20 Jul 2008

Okay - Joseph is right. All my evidence in the polyigamist investigation is circumstantial. I guess there's really no way to find out if the other lady is just an aunt or a family friend or something without asking them outright (which I'm NOT going to do). But honestly, I've been sick and it's really hot outside and all my friends live in Utah and Jared is gone and there's no one to talk to and I need some drama and scandal to spice things up. It's no excuse, but I'm getting bored.

I spent the afternoon today looking up things to do with the kids. I can't find any free spash parks but we do have the neighborhood pool and free tickets to Sea World for when Jared gets back. There's also a zoo and storytimes (with crafts) at the Barnes and Noble down the street. I also looked into a giant waterpark called Schlitterbahn. It's supposed to be the best waterpark in the country (it better be when the tickets cost $35 for one person for one day!) Anyway, I can't say that I'm not going to keep my eye on those neighbors (I also think that the daughter has trichotillomania) but we can move the investigation over into the cold case files - I guess it's the right thing to do.
As many of you already know, Derek is completely obsessed with necklaces (he calls them "glasses"). He has these two sets of beads that we got for St. Patrick's day and he loves them. Today he found some beads that Jared got in New Orleans and wore them all day. It took a long time for me to convince him to leave them in the car when we got to church.

Polygamy Ahoy and Jared's COT Photos

18 Jul 2008

Well things are going better here. I've unpacked all but 2 of the boxes and soon we'll be all set up and ready to move again next summer...yay?

Awesome news: I am pretty sure that a polygamist family moved in across the street from us a few weeks ago. Here's the deal. I first noticed them when they moved in because they had a car with Utah plates. I was hoping they would be LDS and in our ward so that we could have some friends close by. However, they were very elusive and until this morning - I'd only ever seen the dad. Today I took Ralphie out to potty in the front yard at about 6:30 a.m. and the mom and the dad and four teenage kids were all out in the driveway getting ready to go somewhere. The Dad is named Mormon (that's his first name - I don't remember his last name) and the Mom didn't talk to me. I don't think that they moved here from Utah because Mormon said that they were moving in a little at a time. Here is a picture of what they looked like this morning - no joke - they were all dressed just like this with the same hairstyles too.

They were gone all day today but when they came back later this evening we saw them moving in some more boxes so we went out to "walk the dog." That's when I saw the other wife! She was way too old to be another kid! I'll do some more investigating and keep you all updated - maybe they moved here from San Angelo (it's only 200 miles away).

Jared sent me some pictures from COT that he wanted me to share with everyone. Most of these were taken on the same day that he hurt his shoulder. Hopefully you'll be able to pick out Jared in each of the pictures.

This is Jared and his roommate (a chaplain).
Jared's flight. The asian person in the front is a man (not a woman like I thought).
This is Jared in sand.
Jared's flight again.
Jared over sand (or something).
Jared's flight again (this time with hats!)
Jared agian.

Jared again. The orange belts mean that they are trainees - kind of like the special student driver stickers they put on the driver's ed cars.
This is Jared's commander.
This is Jared with a pretend broken leg leading his pretend blind friend off of a pretend battle field.
This is the only picture Jared could find of him in his nice uniform. I'll see if he can get another.

Tyler's Comments

17 Jul 2008

As many of you may already know, Tyler is the king of awesome comments. I thought I would include just a few of his recent gems in this post.

"It's okay if we don't go swimming today Mom. I like to swim but I don't need to swim."

(I don't think he even really likes to swim.)

"Mom, look at this house. It isn't going to clean up itself!"

(Referring to all of Derek's toys scattered all over the living room floor.)

"Mom, if I just go outside for a really long time and I get a suntan and I turn all brown then I guess I'll know Spanish."

(I have no explanation for this.)

This is Derek in a dune buggy at Pep Boys. When it was time to go I said, "Come on Derek, we're leaving, bye!" He buckled the seat belt, waved and said, "Bye bye!" I guess he really takes after his Grandpa James. This picture is for Kay's benefit. She was under the impression that all of Texas looked like the dusty street of an old wild west ghost town complete with tumble weeds and saguaro cacti (more like crappy New Mexico). This is a photo I took across the street from our subdivision.
This is a photo of the drainage ditch at the end of our street. When it rains this litterally looks like the Provo River.

Just A Regular Day

15 July 2008

Derek was playing around on the computer when I called him into his room to put on his pajamas. He looked into his room and saw me holding up his sleeper. He then said, "I can't Mom, those are Tyler's." He then went back to his typing.

Tyler is currently sitting at the kitchen table until he finishes his vegetable beef soup or 9:00 p.m. - whichever comes first. He only has an hour. I think that he's going to go to bed hungry.

We took this picture at the dinosaur park in Ogden, UT.

The New Fluffy

14 July 2008
It's been a little while since my last post because I've been so sick. I went to the ER with flu symptoms that I've had for about 4 weeks now. They treated me for dehydration and sent me home with some immodium. It didn't help - much. I got an antibiotic later but it's not really helping either. I hope that Jared gets the health insurance sorted out soon so that I can go see the OB on the base and get it figured out. Tyler drew this picture for me to help me feel better. It says, "Dear Mom, This leads to the treasure of friendship."

Well, some days I feel better than others and I found some time last week to fix up Tyler's fluffy. It was really getting ragged. He called it his halloween blanket.

Yesterday Tyler woke up really excited to dress as a "hero" so he put on his Superman t-shirt and his red cape. (He wore them all day.) When Derek saw the cape, he wanted one too. So I put Tyler's Batman cape on him. It was really cute.


This is what Tyler does when you tell him to keep his eyes open for the picture.

Lawn Mowing in Texas

5 Jul 2008

Jared made me promise that I would mow the lawn every week while he was gone. I agreed and now I'm paying the price. Our yard is only 1/2 the size of our yard in Orem, but it's all hilly and it has this awful, woody, weird grass and it's really hot and the mower vibrates my hands too much and there's red ants and lizards and huge bugs and green dogs...

Kids in Texas must have bug collections that rival the Smithsonian.
I'm really tired.

Barfin'est Family Ever!

4 Jul 2008

Well, based on our plans, today was going to be a really great day. And it eventually was, it just started out crappy... and barfy. Tyler needed to eat the rest of his potatoes from last night before we could go to the neighbor's for their 4th of July breakfast, but he gagged and threw up. I guess it was the smell of the barf, or Derek's poopy diaper, or the vitamins that I took on an empty stomach, but then I threw up. After a lot of cleaning, we evenually made it out the door and were only 1/2 hour late. The breakfast was fun - there were lots of kids - and it was nice to get to know some of the people in our neighborhood.

Afterward, we were planning to go up to Austin to spend the evening with Joseph and Emily but I was still feeling so sick that I couldn't get up the courage to drive 1 1/2 hours each way. So we stayed home and made a 4th of July cake. I thought that it would be kind of sad and pathetic for me and the kids to make a cake all alone but it really wasn't. The kids had fun decorating and eating it and I had fun watching them. At one point Tyler said, "Everyone who comes to our 4th of July party is going to love this cake." That was the only sad part - oh, and the part where Ralphie didn't get any (see the background), that was sad too.

After the cake, Tyler asked what time we would go see fireworks. I had planned on getting some fountains and things at Walmart but they weren't selling any. I found out later that it is only legal to buy and set off fireworks in designated fireworks areas. They hate brush fires here (go figure) so they pre-burn all these fields and then let people go there for "Driveway of Fire" en mass. So, I decided to pass on the personal fireworks but I'd never even considered a large fireworks display. Thanks to my trusty friend Google I found the park where they were doing the city's fireworks show and we headed out. Of course it was 15 miles away and there was tons of traffic but I magically found this triangle shaped grassy area next to a canal (so it had less trees in the way of the view) about 5 minutes before the show started. There were a few other cars there, but not many. We laid out a blanket and the show was great. There was even a big family right behind us that turned on their stereo and made all kinds of fun comments and I kind of felt a little bit like we were at home with our family on my mom's lawn. It was nice. I thought it wouldn't be, but it really was.

This is what Tyler does when you ask him to look at the camera.
This is what Derek does when you ask him to look at the camera.
Tyler took this picture.
This photo makes the sky look really blue. It wasn't, it was really dark. Weird.

Maybe The Kids Need Lessons Too

3 Jul 2008

"I'm not eating that!!!"

I made some real dinner tonight: BBQ shrimp (on the Forman grill because our BBQ was broken in the move), mashed potatoes, salad and grape juice. It took me 4 1/2 hours to convince Tyler to eat. It is now 10:30 p.m. and both my kids are up for adoption.

P.S. The photo is not my baby. It's just a picture I found on the internet but it captures the scene quite accurately.

I Might Need Some Mom Lessons

3 Jul 2008

I went to college for 7 years to learn how to be an accountant and things worked out really well. However, in the meantime I somehow acquired the two cutest kids in the whole world. They aren't dying thanks to Grandma James and Grandma Cooper but I never really learned how to take care of them. Sure, when the thermometer read 104 I took them to the doctor and made sure that they were in bed sometime before dawn, but I was always so busy that I was content to make do with the bare minimum.

Now I'm home with the kids all day and I really like it except that I'm realizing that I don't know what to do with them or what to feed them. Last week Tyler told me that he couldn' t drink his orange juice because his tooth hurt. I ignored him and later that night Jared found a hole in his top right molar the size of a grain of rice. We brush and floss his teeth each night but he hasn't been to the dentist in two years. (I've been scared to take him because last time we went he had 4 cavities and it cost $650 - I know it doesn't make sense but that's the reason).

Anyway, before Jared left for Alabama he gave me an assignment to make up some menu plans so that our kids could start eating something he called vegetables. I googled "vegetables" and got pictures of all sorts of weird things in all sorts of colors (red, orange, green, purple, etc.). I'm not sure Jared knows what he's talking about. Just to same, I'm going to try. As motivation, I have collected some photos of our past poor eating habits.

Derek has shortened macaroni and cheese to just "cheese". The kids also love peanut butter and honey sandwiches and pizza.
Birthday cake is always a cause for celebration.
No one can resist Easter candy...
...or Halloween candy.

This is Rudy's. They claim to be the worst BBQ in Texas. Tyler is eating a sausage and Derek polished off 4 slices of Wonder bread.
The ever popular Otter Pop.
Derek is so starved for fiber, he regularly eats his blanket.
This is Derek crying for some fruit or yogurt rather than the cinnamon roll that I got him for breakfast (see the table in the background).

I will do my best.

Summer Time!

2 Jul 2008

We seem to be all over our illness now. I still have a headache but this morning Derek came and jumped on my bed and yelled "I want some souuuup!" I guess he's feeling better. He didn't really want soup though. He really wanted marshmellows. Tyler is having fun doing chores and homework so that he can earn time on the Wii and the computer. I rearranged the living room and gave away all of the moving boxes that were filling up our dining room. I think our house is really starting to look nice.

These pictures are actually from a few month ago but they were just so cute I had to put them up. To me they are the ultimate representation of summer.