Farewell Utah

Here’s a side note to my post before it’s even begun. Tuesday night we went to a broadway play, Avenue “Q” (thanks Mom & Dad). I didn’t have any idea what it was about but it was definitely NOT what I expected. It was HILARIOUS! And so incredibly raunchy and sexually charged that I was slightly mortified watching it with my parents and somewhat conservative sister and her hubby. I’ve seen my share of plays (my parents get season tickets to all the plays that come through the Capital and Kingsbury Hall), but this was unlike anything I had seen before. Many of the characters were puppets and yet still humans. So hard to explain, but for me it was like Sesame Street on ecstasy. Good times.

In other news, I’m off to a land of warm(er) delights this weekend. Arizona to be exact. The purpose is more business than pleasure, but I”ll do my damndest to squeeze as much pleasure out of the get away that I can . If I have anything to say about it, it’ll be a 25/75 split (pleasure being the later of course).

Courtesy of the foundation which I happen to sit on the board, we are really looking forward to this weekend. I shall partake in a much-anticipated spa resort massage while Greg gets to golf on an amazing course (who will host some big pro tourney the week after we leave. And yes, that is an actual picture of the golf course). Woo hoo!

All I need now is to 1) get over this stupid flu that decided to beotch slap me yesterday, 2) pack, and 3) leave the house relatively clean. And #3 is negotiable. The logistics of scheduling the kids whereabouts and care taking can be a little overwhelming, but I think it’s all figured out and I, for one, plan on taking this opportunity to relax. Tucson, HERE I COME!

For Entertainment Purposes Only

From the beloved failblog.org, here are some goodies:

Too Long

It’s been quite awhile since I’ve graced you with a “how people find my blog” post. So without further ado, here’s the Top 10.

10. “alpine slide crash” – this made it into the list not because it is overly entertaining, it’s just brings a lot of people my way. Yeah, I’m impressed too.

9.  “i’ve finally realize that sometimes you…” - I guess a lot of people have finally realized something as well.

8.  “to marry the love rings” - If there was a man named Love Rings, I’d marry him too.

7.  “married man magnet” - I can’t say I’m surprised. This was the search term that comes in 2nd as far as popularity goes. Guys, this does NOT instill confidence in your abilities to be loyal.

6. ” booooooooooring” - I know my blog isn’t THAT exciting, but come on.

5. “mary steamvirgin nude” - Where would I be without dear old Mary? I didn’t know who she was before I began writing, but the simple comment of a friend has made her a legend, at least in my mind. Mary is #1 when it comes to bringing strangers into the land of Megatropolis. Welcome my friends.

4. “dating advice threw up” - The word “dating” often causes a gag reflex in me as well. So happy to say that it’s a thing of the past (although I still have nightmares).

3.  “you gat the show me love” - Oh, I’ll show you the love. How about we trade… you show me an ability to correctly form and spell a sentence, and I’ll show love like you’ve never seen before.

2. “lesbian rings” - This earns the #2 spot on the list simply because I have no idea what lesbian rings are AND because I have no idea why that search term would bring anyone here. This is a time when I believe ignorance is bliss.

1.  “random bodily functions” – Frankly, this seems entirely appropriate.

I hope you enjoyed this latest installment. Stay classy.

XOXO

I can’t fully explain what happened to me just over a year ago, other than I trusted myself completely. I didn’t question my decision. I didn’t worry about or look for the approval of family and friends. I was completely confident because it felt 100% right. No doubts and no second guessing. My husband, Greg, proposed to me in December of ‘08 and a few weeks later, on January 16, 2009, we were married.

Joining our lives and family hasn’t always been easy, but I CAN say that it has always been worth it. We’ve definitely had an eventful 1st year, including a lot of fun and exciting things, and sometimes less fun stuff. But when I think about this past year, I am proud of how we’ve handled the challenges that have come our way. We’ve come through everything supporting and loving each other, and I grow to know and love Greg more each day.

Before I meg Greg, I was beginning to lose hope that I’d find that person who would compliment me so well… a soul mate if you will. I do believe that things happened for a reason and I feel so incredibly blessed that as a result, Greg and I now share a life together.

I am one of those lucky people who can say that I married my best friend. Greg is an amazing husband, father, man, lover, and friend. Being married to a man who you have fun with is underrated! I always enjoy our time together and I am excited to think about the years to come and what adventures and experiences we will share. I can’t imagine growing old with anyone else .

So, HAPPY ANNIVERSARY Sweetie! Here’s to our first year together and to the many more to come.

I love you!

In All Fairness…

Tonight was my date night with Cooper. After my suggestion (because he got a coupon for a free kids meal) for Mimi’s Cafe, he fell for it. He said “it was the best place he’s ever eaten”, although I think I’ve heard that a dozen times from him before. Afterwards he really wanted to go bowling. Seeing as I’m still lame in my right arm, I wasn’t down with it, but figured he could bowl by himself and I could cheer him from the sidelines. But once we got there, I decided to try it left handed. Here are the results:

HEY, I’m not left handed!

I absolutely love these monthly alone times I have with the kids.

Just Another Reason

My dad is da’ BOMB! Notice I used “da”… that makes it all the more real. Not only is he a free repair/handyman, a great babysitter, etc., he is also pretty darn good at figuring out electronic and entertainment crap. That’s why for years we, his children, have come to him to have VHS’s, home movies, you get the drift, burned onto DVD’s. Heaven forbid we spend the money for the equipment and figure out to use it when he’s perfectly capable of being our DVD slave.

One of the many great things about my dad is that he rarely says no to us. When we need something, such as endless hours of video burned, he does it without a complaint. Even though I’m sure that he loves nothing more than spending 203948 hours babysitting the recording device. And when he DOESN’T really want to do our bidding, instead of telling us no, he just buys us EACH a VHS (and pretty much everything else) to DVD recorder/player. ALL of us. And mine arrived today. I’m excited to get all of my many mini video tapes forever archived to DVD. Hip hip hooray for Dad!

Maybe I should keep asking to borrow his truck .

R & R and Some More R

This past weekend = DREAM.

After the hectic Holiday comings and goings, staying up until 1:30 WITH FIVE KIDS on New Years Eve, and 2348 lbs. of cardboard and twist ties from Barbies and other stupid crap delightful childrens toys, a child-free weekend was  just what I needed. The ex’s picked up the kiddies late Friday morning and that left the Mr. and I to fall to our knees in thanks for having more than 5 minutes pass without hearing the words, “(insert name here) is looking at me”. OK, so it wasn’t that bad, but the calm of the house was oh so good.

For Christmas my sister and her family were in town from AZ, so in week we headed to my parents home in NSL 3 times. That’s probably as much as we were there all last year. Anyway, it was great to see everyone, including new baby Noah (so cute!). And as much as I enjoy Christmas time, it is exhausting!

Back to his weekend. Friday we watched movies, vegged, and then met up with friends later that night. Saturday was probably the laziest I’ve been in, oh, forever. I’ve never stayed in bed that long by choice. I so rocked the 3rd season of Dexter. Oh sure, I got up to eat and eventually shower, but was in a horizontal state until 4:30 when I managed to get ready for dinner and show with our other friends (thanks Carla & Jeff… we had a blast!).

Yes the house needed to be cleaned. Yes there was a butt load of laundry.  But I gave myself a pass. Sometimes it’s good to be a slacker.

Goodbye 2009

At the start of each year I think or at least hope that the next year will be better, easier, awesome. A year full of rainbows and skipping down the lane with unicorn dreams. At age 34, I’ve finally realized that each year is full of wonderful and not so wonderful experiences. And THAT, my friend, is called life.

2009 has been a doozie! And I don’t mean that in a bad way. It has just been full of so many changes. I got married, went from mothering 3 children to 5, moved, become a landlord (hopefully to end soon), transitioned my kids to a new school, met a handful of amazing new friends, had more encounters with crazy people than I care to remember, hiked to new places and saw amazing Utah, became a mother of a dog named Jake, had shoulder surgery which I wonder if/when will not cause me constant pain, had an evil insurance company settle, had many fun weekends with the whole family and many fun weekends with just me and Mr. N.

There is a general re-cap of this past year. It’s one that I’m sure I’ll never forget and one whose happenings will change my life forever.

I’m excited for what 2010 will bring. I (we) have some BIG plans for this next year… ones that are both exciting AND a little nerve racking. There is no person I’d rather tackle these goals and experiences with than Greg and our family, and I am forever grateful for meeting and marrying him. All I can say is that things happen for a reason.

ANYWAY, join me in raising your virtual glass and toasting to the passing of a great 2009 and usher in an even better 2010.

Awesome and Not-So-Awesome

AWESOME: Getting together with a gaggle of friends for a “Christmas Cookie Exchange” party. What is a Christmas cookie exchange party you ask? It’s a bunch of women getting together to visit, catch up, laugh and just enjoy each other’s company. But we don’t come empty handed. Oh no. We show up with 6 dozen cookies that we’ve made, and then all share the bootie. Cute snowman platters were provided by our wonderful hostess, and we filled our huge plates with cookies to bring home and, if desired, share. It was great!
NOT-SO-AWESOME: Having a dog, Jake, whom I love, eat the ENTIRE f’ing platter of cookies when  I went to pick the kids up from school the day after the cookie shin-dig. THE. WHOLE. PLATTER. We’re talking about 40-50 cookies. Maybe 5 lbs. of cookies. When I saw what he had done, I quickly went from pissed to terrified. Because what goes in MUST come out, and I didn’t know how, where, or in what form the “out” would rear it’s ugly (and potentially disgusting and vomit inducing) head. He spent the good part of the afternoon outside, and luckily there were no accidents. However, there was some serious air polution infractions. When I opened my daughters bedroom door this morning (which is where Jake sleeps), it was obvious that his digestive system had been doing some serious work through the night. Yuck.

AWESOME: Having amazing medical coverage is worth more than it’s weight in colostomy bags. My shoulder surgery cost me absolutely nothing. Having lived through some serious medical insurance nightmares, I am extremely grateful to have such great insurance. Sweet!
NOT-SO-AWESOME: Having a state “program” designed to protect and cover children who’ve been dumped by other insurance companies DUMP those same kids because of a confusion over paper work. AND then not do anything about it. That is my tax dollars at work.

NOT-SO-AWESOME: My hubby being out of town for the week .
AWESOME: Being married to not only my best friend, but having that man be the most thoughtful and sweet man alive. Every morning that he’s been gone, I’ve gotten a text telling me where I can find my next hidden gift. That’s right… he hid little presents for me around the house, one for every day he’s gone (although yesterday was “bonus” day and I got two ). Seriously, how cute is that!?! It’s been hard having him gone and I miss him terribly, but I am excited to get to see him tomorrow and looking forward to our weekend alone.

My Dating Life of 2009

Dating changed significantly for me in 2009, in that my “hot” dates consisted of going out with my hubby or with my kids.

In November it was Ian’s turn again and he chose to eat at The Training Table. It’s been years since I’ve eaten there and the cheese fries still rock. And because the kids seem to always choose to do what the child before them did (I think they are worried that something AWESOME happened and they are afraid they might miss out on something if they don’t follow the same plan), Ian and I hit the Nickelcade. I still stand by my previous statement… Yeah, it’s a little dingy, but it’s cheap and the kids love it. Hence, SUCCESS!

December was Emma’s month and my date with her was this past Thursday. I have been feeling under the weather this past week (yes, I know, I’ve been sick a lot lately), and that in combination with my bum shoulder made me want to skip this month. But I didn’t have the heart to disappoint her, so we did something low-key. She had yet to experience The Cheesecake Factory, but the boys make sure to tell her how amazing the cheesecake is in detail as often as they can. That is where she chose to eat, but with a 40 min. wait, I-Hop became her second choice. After dinner we went to see Planet 51. Emma loved it and from what I saw, it was cute. I admit, I fell asleep a few times. IN my defense, I haven’t been getting much sleep and I was sick, so, yeah. She is a really sweet and funny girl and I always enjoy any time I get to spend with her.

I’m really happy that I implemented this whole “kid date” thing this year. There really is no other time that I get to spend one-on-one with them, and they are all so excited when its their month. For 2010, I’m going to try to get a little creative and try to come up with some new suggestions for the kiddies (any suggestions???). But whatever it is we choose to do, I’m just glad to be doing it with them.