Our week in review

So here's what we did this week:

Sledding

Visiting the jolly ol' fat man

Not pictured: shopping, shopping, more shopping; wrapping, wrapping, and more wrapping; washing 5 extra loads of laundry because Ryan is having more potty failures than successes (I think we're running an accident:success ratio of 5:1); shampooing the carpet due to the aforementioned accidents; Ryan getting wild and crazy at the ward Christmas party; and last but not least, stuffing ourselves silly with all of the extra goodies around the house. I love the holidays!

A start

I've been wanting to potty-train Ryan for a long time. Back in April he was very interested in the toilet, so I got him a little potty. Then he wasn't interested. Then a couple months ago, he went pee in it a couple times, then got really mad every time I tried to take his diaper off to put him on the potty. He cried and said "Diaper on!" So I let it go and decided he still wasn't ready. Well ready or not, I've decided that I'm ready!!! I guess this is just going to be a battle of who's more stubborn. Dave would say that one's a toss-up. But as you can see from the pictures - I won! Ryan went in the potty yesterday morning and this morning. Now I just have to take that next step and let him finish out the day in big boy underwear...

Feliz Navidad

Last week, Dave and I continued our new tradition of escaping the cold weather. While Ryan stayed with Grandma and Grandpa Pulsipher, we spent the week in Cancun and had an amazing time. We mostly relaxed on the beach (which still stands as my #1 beach pick, if you go to the right place). We also snorkeled off the Isla Mujeres and spent a day at Xcaret, a nature/ecological park. Definitely the most relaxing vacation we've taken!

Happy Thanksgiving

Okay, so I'm a little behind. I am aware that Dave's favorite holiday was almost 2 weeks ago. We've just been so busy digesting our food that I haven't found time to post. This year, we did double duty on Thanksgiving because Dave's parents are back in town. So we started the feasting at his parents' at 1:00 and headed over to my parents' at 4:30. Don't worry - we ate full meals and them some at each place!

For those of you who have ever experienced eating with Ryan know that it is a battle to get him to eat anything other than cereal, pasta, and veggies. But thanks to some creative trickeration (thanks sportscasters for inventing that word) by Dave, we sneaked in some yams and turkey. Ry thought it would be funny to show us his food and growl during the entire meal. Wonder where he learned that?

And here's a picture of Dave eating his 5th or 6th piece of pie that day.

And of course we finished off the weekend by decking our halls and trimming the tree for Christmas.

Hitler on Recent Holy War

So it's the day before Thanksgiving and I just don't feel like doing too much at work, so I give you another great video for you viewing pleasure:

The Hoff

My friend Derek has officially ruined my day by posting some lyrics to a song originally made in the 1960s and remade by the Hoff. I'm sure most people have seen it already, so hopefully watching it again will make your lives as bad as it just made mine as I rewatched it. If you haven't seen it, well, enjoy! (If you liked this one, may I also recommend viewing his remakes of "Secret Agent Man" and "Jump in My Car")

3 years

This week marks my three-year anniversary with Wal-mart. That means a replenishment of vacation days, sick hours, and personal days...and one full year closer to complete retirement! Woohoo! Reflecting back on my last 3 years, I thought I'd share some of my favorite things about working for Wal-mart.


* Getting to see a mullet or wife-beater shirt almost every time I work.

* Listening to the 80's butt rock music that my cashier insists we listen to every time I work

* Having patients question why every prescription we fill isn't 4 dollars

* Hearing a 10-minute-long story about someone's extreme constipation

* Telling parents that it's not okay to drug your new infant just to have them sleep (unless you're on my flight, then I'll supply you with the good stuff)

* Having a patient ask my advice on a product, then not take my advice "because Oprah said..."

* Telling patients that "no habla espanol."

But I think my favorite thing is telling people that yes, I did, in fact, go to college for 7 years just to work for Wal-mart! Hey, for %^ bucks an hour, you would too!!

Bowling (the fun kind)

Orange, Sugar, Tostitos....MMMmmmm....they all sound tasty to me! Go Utes!!!

What 1/3 of a ton of food looks like

So, for the last year or so, Dave and I wanted to get our food storage supply up to snuff. So last Tuesday, Dave had the afternoon off (happy Veterans Day) so he spent it at the cannery taking care of business. Three hours later, he had cranked out 106 #10 cans of food, which included 150 lbs of rice, 105 lbs wheat, 200 lbs beans, 120 lbs sugar, and 25 lbs of powdered milk. Now we just need 60 more lbs of sugar and 650 lbs of grains (is that right?) and we'll be all set. So, here's what 1/3 of a ton of food looks like.

Don't worry, we still have our 3-month rotating supply:

If anyone is looking for a good cookbook to use all this stuff, let me suggest The Essential Food Storage Cookbook and Pantry Cooking. Happy cooking!

Number 2

So, if you haven't seen me in the last month or so, you wouldn't know that I've gained a little weight. It's not entirely due to the fact that I haven't been to the gym consistently for the past 4 months. And I'm not extremely plugged up (as the title of this post may imply:) We're actually expecting child number 2 in late April. And we just found out on Friday that it is also boy number 2. We're really excited to have another kid in the house and it will be really fun for Ryan to a little buddy here full time. It will be interesting to see how he reacts to someone that is stealing a lot of his mommy time and is taking over his bed, his old clothes, and before long, his cars and other toys. So far he seems to be doing all right. Every now and again, he'll pat my tummy and say "nice baby." Pretty funny. So, if any of you have good ideas for boys names, we'd love to hear it!

Go Utes!

Okay, so we're crazy die-hard Ute fans. We braved the cold weather last night to watch the game. Don't worry - we left Ryan with Dave's sister. The child-swap thing is nice - we take her 15-year old boy to the game and she takes our 2-year old. I think we have the better end of the bargain by far, but we'll let Jill keep believing what she wants. Anyway, Emily and her 8 degree trick-or-treat weather would have laughed to see just how many layers I put on in the 28 degree football weather (it's all the same once it gets below 32, right?), but I was determined to stay warm! Although for most of the game there wasn't much to cheer and jump around for, I did stay warm! And can I just say - what an exciting 3 minutes of football! Go Utes!

Halloween Fun

The week continued with the strange ritual of pumpkin carving on Halloween Eve. Ryan had fun watching Dave and me clean out and carve the pumpkins. I think he got his mom's strange obsession with keeping his hands clean because he wouldn't even touch the guts, let alone put his hand in the pumpkin. But my mom would be proud to know that I cleaned out my pumpkin all by myself. Yes, it's okay to have messy, sticky hands for a few minutes (as long as I know there's a sink within 5 feet).

On Friday, we started out the evening at Dave's parents house and ate soup & chili with Ry's cousins. Then the kids played in the big pile of leaves Jerry had raked for them. After dinner, we headed to Dan & Lindsey's house for the annual doughnut cookoff. Once again, the doughnuts were fabulous and we had a great time. Then came what we've all been waiting for - trick-or-treating! Ryan had to have a sucker in his hand the whole time, but he did leave his hat on for about a half-hour (but no eyepatch). He was really good about saying "trick-or-treat." We even heard him say the whole "smell my feet, give me something good to eat" at one house. I wish we got his reaction on camera when we dumped out his pumpkin and checked out his loot. His eyes got big and he said "whoa!" Yeah, pretty excited about the whole thing.

Let the Festivities Begin!

To get an early start on celebrating Halloween, on Friday we took Ryan to the Heber Valley Railroad's Haunted Canyon. He really enjoyed the train ride and didn't really get scared. It seems to take a lot to freak this kid out. Here's some pics.

On Sunday we went to my parents' house for a little dinner/party with the other cousins. It's fun to have them in town again and Ry really enjoys playing with Jos and Braden. We finally found something that makes Ryan a little nervous. After dinner, we went to my parent's neighbor's house. Let's just say Mark decorates more for Halloween than anybody decorates for Christmas. His collection is probably worth more than our house. He has all kinds of creepy mannequins, skulls, and weapons. Still trying to figure out if he really just enjoys Halloween or if he's a devil worshiper. Anyway, he has a pirate skeleton that talks and moves and raises its sword at you. Ryan was really freaked out and wanted to go home after the pirate threatened to kill him. But being the mean parents that we are, we kept taking him to the pirate to watch him get scared.

Can you believe Ryan kept the eyepatch on? We're still working on the little hoop earing.

Autumn's not so bad...yet

Okay, so maybe this season isn't quite so bad, especially since we haven't frozen over yet. There are a few fun things to look forward to that I may have forgotten about since last year. Here's a few of those fun fall things:

College football and doing the wave

The pretty fall colors and jumping off rocks

New episodes of our favorite TV shows

Adding soup back into the mix of dinner recipes

Election season in full swing, complete with awesome impersonations

And the overabundance and excellent price of my favorite cereals.

The death of our very first computer

So I know it's been a while since we've posted anything! Let me explain why. First, life is just a little boring right now. Second, we had a computer issue 2 weeks ago. I couldn't get online on our computer. It was really old! We got it just after we got married, 6 years ago. It finally died. Don't worry, we had all the important files, pictures, and movies saved to our external drive (yes, there is only so much that 18 GB will hold). So I've been using Dave's old laptop to get online and there's no active virus protection, so the computer would shut itself off every 5 minutes and tell me that my computer was being maliciously attacked. Finally, the new computer arrived today and I set it up all by myself. Let me tell you, this thing is fast! I don't have to wait for anything. You'd think it would save me lots of time, but with all it can do, I think this will help me waste a lot more time on the computer. Now there's plenty of room and RAM and whatever else SimCity 4 needs!

My Autumn Rant

So I haven't posted anything for a while. I guess life has been a little boring and there's not a whole lot to tell about. I've noticed that all of my friends have blogged about the changing weather. So here's my 2 cents about Fall. It's okay. Football season is fun and Halloween should be fun again this year. The leaves changing colors is always nice and I'm enjoying the peaches and all of the yummy apple stuff....But.....I'm still not ready for the cold! I'm not quite ready to trade in my short sleeves for sweaters or my nightly fruit smoothies for nightly hot chocolate. And once Christmas is over, there's nothing to look forward to until April? (unless we have a nice tropical vacation planned in January, which is almost becoming a necessity). Sometimes it would be nice to be a bear and sleep all through the winter and wake up to the nice warm weather! Maybe that's what I'll do. I think I'll hibernate this year. So until spring, I'll leave you with some pictures of the summertime things we haven't posted about yet (elementary school carnival, neighborhood luau, Utah vs. UNLV football game, and Dave's parents returning from their Indian mission.)

The Rest of our Vacation: Chicago & the Amish

After checking out Chicago and deciding there wasn't a whole lot to do, we grabbed a pamphlet from our hotel for a little Amish place called Amish Acres. We thought it would be fun to check it out because neither of us has been to Amish country and it was on the way to Michigan. We were a little skeptical about its authenticity, because the name was trade-marked and the pamphlet gave a telephone # and an email address. Do the Amish use phones and computers these days? When we finally got there at 6:00pm, all the little buildings were closed except for the shop and restaurant. So we bought some Amish bread and peach butter (kind of like jam). We also ate at the restaurant. As it turns out, the Amish Acres is located in Nappannee, IN, which has Amish people there, but the farm is not run by the Amish. I guess you could say they exploit the Amish. But it was still fun and let me tell you, the Amish (fake or not) can cook! They served the food family-style, and it was a lot of food! Check out our little buffet (complete with beef, potatoes & gravy, green beans, bread, apple butter, stuffing, fried chicken, beef & noodles, bean soup, pickles & sweet onions, and don't forget the pie). We were stuffed!

After the big dinner, we rolled ourselves out to the car and finished our drive to Kalamazoo. Here's the rest of the pictures.