The Pulsiphers

MMMMmmmm......

2010-07-27T20:55:00.010-06:00

I love that this

turns into this.

In fact, I love it so much, that the very next day, this

turned into this

with the help of this

and this.

Sad to think that tomorrow it will turn into this

and this?

Until then, we will enjoy!

Recipe found here

This is what happens when you eat pretzels while at the pool

2010-07-14T15:49:00.002-06:00

And, yes, Zach did this all by himself.

Ry's very first last day of school

2010-06-02T13:38:00.010-06:00

Miss Amee, Miss Becky, and Ryan

Last Tuesday was Ryan's last day of preschool for the year. To commemorate, I will share what he has learned this year.

Learned: How to share one girl with 8 other guys.
Did Not Learn: Girls have cooties.

Learned: Field trips are fun, especially when they involve candy and cookie factories.
Also learned: Candy tastes better than most other foods.

Learned: Miss Becky likes to hear what goes on in your life.
Did Not Learn: You shouldn't tell Miss Becky everything that goes on at home.

Learned: Poop is a funny word.
Did not learn it from me.

Learned: How to paint with brushes, fingers, toes, and sponges.
Does not understand: just how much mommy treasures the pictures he brings home.

Learned: All of the letters and the sounds they make.
Also Learned: Body parts and the sounds they make.

Learned: it's fun to be the "special leader" and bring the snack.
Also learned: some children are allergic to peanuts.

Learned: School is fun.

Did not learn: Most kids are excited to have summers off. It was very tough for Ryan to learn he will not be going to preschool during the summer.

It was very fun to watch Ryan go to preschool and learn a lot and grow up a bit. In September, I sent my baby to preschool. Now we have a little boy on our hands. So fun!

Days 3&4: Legoland

2010-05-12T22:00:00.000-06:00

So it's taken almost 2 months to document our 5-day vacation. Wow. So here's the rest of it: sandwiched between our days at Sea World were 2 days of Legoland. Neither Dave nor I had ever been there, so we didn't know what to expect. We'd heard it's good for little kids and we found that to be a very accurate description. And since we have little ones, it was perfect for us. But don't go if you don't take a kid under 5 years old. Most of our fun was watching our kids have fun.

March was an excellent time to go - the place was nearly empty. On some of the rides with no line, the workers let us stay on and ride them again and again and again and again and again. Fantastic. I think we only had to wait in line at all for 3 rides. And those rides had the best invention ever - a Lego play area for the kids while the parents wait in line. Brilliant. Every amusement park should have these.

Legoland is full of fun play areas for the kids and, yes, all of the props are made from Legos. Somebody has way too much time on their hands, especially the person who built the New York scene. I think it had over 6 million Lego pieces.

One of the play areas was a little water playground and of course I forgot to bring the towels, so now we have a Legoland souvenir towel. The water was really cold, and well, it was March, so the kids got cold pretty fast!

Ryan was very brave and rode on his first rollercoaster here (the Coastersaurus) and liked it the 1st time. After the 2nd time, he said it was too scary because it went too fast. So the next day, we told him it went slower that day. And yes, he did believe us and learned to like the rollercoaster. Speaking of fibbing, Ryan also learned to tell a lie while here at Legoland. He had a major meltdown when he learned he was too short for the dragon rollercoaster. So we went to ride the horses next, not realizing there was and age requirement as well as a height requirement. He was tall enough by several inches, but not 4 years old yet. And those smart workers ask the child (not the parent) how old he is, . Luckily, I had enough time while waiting in line to coach him. "Ry, how old are you?" "3." "No, you're 4 now. How old are you?" "I'm 4!" Good job, Ry. So am I a bad mom for teaching him to lie or for forgetting his 4th birthday? Ry, sorry I forgot to celebrate your 4th birthday.

Zach experienced his first waterpark adventure here and also fell in love with Lucky Charms and couldn't get enought of those little marshmallows. Interesting combination, as those little

marshmallows sure make a sticky mess when they get wet.

Definitely the #1 deciding factor when making my next vehicle purchase:

Front-row parking at Legoland! Don't worry - Volvo actually has some fans in the world. They have some kind of weird partnership with Legoland and there are a few front-row preferred parking spots reserved for people who drive Volvos. Or you could just have some dignity and drive a non-Volvo and park in the next aisle over. And in case you're wondering, not one of the Volvo-designated spots was ever occupied. Sorry Volvo, maybe try again at Disneyland. But I guess Ryan enjoyed driving his Volvo, maybe because he could drive all by himself.

So there you have it - our entire vacation given in full detail, complete with this creepy Lego-pirate guy with 2 prongs for fingers. Enjoy the slide show - it took forever to upload!

Happy Birthday Zach!

2010-04-21T07:15:00.006-06:00

My Dear Zachary,

Happy birthday (yesterday)! Pardon the cliches, but I can't believe you're 1 already. It seems like just yesterday Ryan was talking to the "baby Fritz" in my tummy. Even though you've only been here for 1 year, it seems like you've been a part of our family forever. I have had so much fun being your mommy.

We have all enjoyed watching you grow from a small, helpless baby to an independent little boy. We were excited to celebrate when you changed from sleeping all day to sleeping all night (especially mommy). Dad and I are so glad that you chilled out quite a bit and love to hear you giggle and see you smile more often.

As you've grown and have become more independent, it is sometimes a struggle when you won't hold still on my lap. That is why I still like to hold you after you have fallen asleep. Even though you are technically not an infant anymore, you will always be my little baby boy.

Thank you for smiling and growling back at me when I often growl at you in frustration. As you empty out the cabinets and drawers, I do find it silly when I tell you "no no" and you shake you head no and do it anyway, giggling. Although I will never understand your fascination with the vacuum or putting shoes in your mouth, I love to sit back and watch you play with "toys."

It has been fun to see little glimpses of your personality, like when you cried when opening your presents, because you didn't like to see the wrapping paper rip. I love your hugs and your slobbery kisses - you have such a tender heart. Thank you for being such a good baby! Please be a good toddler!

Love,

Mommy

Days 2&5: Sea World

2010-04-12T14:37:00.004-06:00

As part of the trip, we went to Sea World. First stop: the Arctic exhibit. Have you ever seen a walrus eat? Very strange. It would put the fish in its mouth, chew it up a bit (I'm guessing), then it spit it out against the glass for us all too see, then sucked it back in. Yum. Zach was a little scared of the walrus. Every time it came to swim next to the glass, he cried. So cute!

After the walrus, I put my camera away and sort of forgot to take it out again as we walked around the park and saw everything. We saw all the shows - except for the dolphin one, it was closed - and I didn't take any pictures of them. That's right - no pictures of Shamu OR the sea lions. Sorry. Guess we'll have to go back. But here's a nice picture of the flamingos and my 2 little animals.

Sea World does have a few rides now and a fun play area for the kiddies. So when they were playing/riding, I did get the camera out.

Zach got a little tired of riding in his stroller and this was his preferred method of traveling. Cute, until he fell out. Not fun, guess we have to strap him in now. So if he only crawls in circles or has slurred speech, we'll blame it on the stroller.

It was nice to let him out and play. He really liked these blocks, and I couldn't get enough of him playing with them. So when I sorted through our pictures of the trip, I realized most of them were of Zach playing with the blocks. Again, sorry Shamu.

Once again, Dave and I succeeded in doing something that is rarely accomplished: completely wearing Ryan out.

San Diego, Day 1

2010-03-31T07:28:00.007-06:00

Last week we took a trip to San Diego. Ryan was so excited to be in Calnifornia that he couldn't sleep. That's right. He woke up at 3:00 am that first night and wouldn't go back to sleep. And he wouldn't let us sleep. So finally at 6:30 we got up and got ready for the beach. Dave and I were ready to change our airline tickets and go home that day since we don't do that well with limited sleep. Luckily for all of us, Ryan changed his ways and slept well that next night. I think we wore him out.

With it being a Sunday, we didn't want to do too much. So we started out at the beach. And let me tell you, the beach is pretty empty (and cold) at 8:00 in the morning. We did all the beach stuff, complete with building a castle, finding shells, and burying Ryan.

Zach wanted to get out and play, but he didn't like to sit in the sand. He did like to eat it, though.

After the beach we went back to the hotel and hung out at the pool for the afternoon. The pool was much warmer than the beach, so I joined the boys swimming. Zach loved his whale and I was grateful for Ryan's life vest, as there weren't any spots shallow enough for him to touch the bottom. While at the pool, Ryan came running to us. "Mom, someone threw something at me." After looking at him, right away we knew that Ryan got pooped on. "I don't like it when birds throw poo at me." Me neither, Ry. Me neither.

What happens if you pull too hard with wet hands?

You fall!

After the pool we went for a drive up to see the temple. It was very beautiful. Such a distinct-looking temple. And we forgot to have someone take our picture as a family. So here is our forever family, minus Dave.

It was difficult to find a place to eat right off I-5. We didn't want to venture too far from the freeway in fear that we might get lost (no, we don't have GPS). So we stopped in at Whole Foods to see if they had sandwiches. Now I'm not an organic person. I don't mind if my veggies were grown using fertilizers and insecticides. But let's just say I didn't recognize a lot of the foods in there. It was as if I was shopping in a different country. Do people really eat this stuff?? Anyway, we got some tasty pizza from the deli and found a new treat - two-bite blueberry scones. Even little Zach loved them. Too bad there's no Whole Foods store here, or we might have a scone problem. Well, that's all for day 1. Next up: Sea World.

Football Star-in-training, or not

2010-03-06T14:42:00.004-07:00

Thursday was the day Dave has been waiting for for 3 & 1/2+ years: Ryan's first day of "organized" sports. A football minicamp. Yes, football is a little too advanced for a 3-year old, but this was more of an introduction to the sport. And it was an opportunity for our unathletic, uncoordinated, and -most frustrating- uninterested boy to "play" a sport. It has been rather frustrating for us that Ryan just isn't in to sports. We have both been excited to go to our boys' games and play ball with them. However, when we ask Ryan if he wants to play basketball with us, he tells us he would rather play with his cars or trains. It's difficult to remember that he is just 3 and maybe he'll take an interest later. And maybe there's still hope with Zach. But for the time being, we'll just try to make sports seem as exciting as they can be and give lots of positive encouragement. And sign him up for minicamps and league play, cuz we're just mean like that.

Ryan did have fun at the camp. He learned how to stand when waiting for the play to start. Then he got to run the ball in for a touchdown. It was fun (and funny) to watch.

Ready!

Down!

Set!

Hike!

See - he really does look like he loves the football, doesn't he?

The Marble Jar Revisited

2010-02-18T11:50:00.003-07:00

So we've been having discipline issues with Ryan. He is loud, disobedient, and he is constantly pushing his limits. It is exhausting and it makes us all grumpy. A few weeks ago, my friend Janae shared an idea - using a marble jar. If he's good, put a marble in. If he's bad, take a marble out. When the jar is full, he gets a new toy. That worked for about a day. I think Ryan wasn't motivated by a toy and it took too long to get a reward. He needs to see results a little faster. So we abandoned the marble jar. We've tried other things like time-out and taking away toys, but he doesn't seem to be learning and I want something to reinforce good behavior instead of just punishing for bad behavior. So we will try the marble jar again, but with different rules. His everyday "rights" will now become privileges. His current reward: watching his favorite show, The Dinosaur Train. And I won't wait until the jar is full, he only needs to get 10 in the jar. We'll see if it works - I'll keep you updated. Anyone else have any other discipline ideas that work in case this one doesn't?

Not abandoned

2010-02-18T11:47:00.002-07:00

Okay, this blog has not been completely abandoned. I still think about it every now and again and I have no reason not to update it. It guess maybe since Zach was born, we haven't quite settled into a routine. Ten months later, I think we're almost settled, so I'll try a little harder to keep it updated. I also figured Dave's parents (recently returned to the mission field) would like to see what's going on with 2 of their grandsons. So here you go!

The Basement

2009-10-07T15:27:00.005-06:00

After a few short months full of noise and extra dust, the basement is finally finished. Well, not completely finished, but in livable condition. It is still a work in progress - there are still many things left to be added, cords needing to be hidden, and walls to be covered. But if that's the definition of finished, then the rest of the house still needs finishing (anyone who's been inside my house knows how bare the walls are - I don't do decorating). I can't decide what I love most about having it done, but here are some of the candidates:

-Sending Ryan downstairs and closing the door. Ahhh, peace and quiet.

-Having a place for Ryan's sports stuff (and the big box to play in)

-Lots more closet space

-Lots of extra carpet to vacuum

-The nice tile work in the bathroom

-Having a TV with HD

-Letting Ryan play in the empty closets, thinking they are trains

-The computer will be out of Ryan's room

I think I definitely know what Dave's favorite thing about having the basement done:

The 55-inch Samsung LED TV. Beautiful. Of course, it will be more beautiful when the cords are hidden behind the wall and there is a cabinet below the TV to put all the techy stuff in.

So here's to 50% more livable space in our house!

California Adventure

2009-08-27T15:50:00.011-06:00

Has it really been 4 months since I've posted anything? No, I didn't abandon the blog. Wow, time flies! Well, it's been a fun summer and we've done a lot. Maybe I haven't posted anything because I'm overwhelmed at all the catching up, so I'll just start with our most recent adventure and tell you about the rest of the summer as I get the chance. So an alternate title to this post: What I learned while traveling to the Bay Area with the 2 kids.

- Rent car seats instead of bringing your own. Lots to carry at the airport.

- My boys are good at flying on planes. Zach slept the entire time, both ways.

- Marriotts have very comfortable mattresses.

- There is a train that goes under the bay between Oakland and San Francisco. Its name is BART. Using the automatic ticketing machines for BART involves lots of steps and can be a little complex for the first-time user. All I want is a ticket to ride the train. How tough can that be? A lot more difficult than you would think. Anyway, Ryan liked to ride on BART. He also got to ride on a plane, a bus, a boat, and in a rental car. Lots of vehicles on this trip.

- Because we only had 1 day in the city, it was nice to take a bus tour and see it all. If we would have had more time, I think we would have taken the hop-on-hop-off tour so we would be able to get out and do more. Ryan's favorite stop: The Golden Fence Bridge. He is very fascinated with bridges and always asks now if we can take our car on the Golden Fence Bridge.

- There is still a lot of "segregation" in San Fran, as it is divided into lots of districts, and lots of people live/work in these districts based up their places of origin. There is a lot happening in the Chinese District, lots of pizza and pasta restaurants in the Italian District, and lots of rainbow flags in the Castro District. If the Salt Lake Valley was divided into districts, I think mine would be called the White District. Which district do you live in?

- Take advantage of restrooms when they are around. Otherwise, you'll be walking from one end of the wharf to the other (yes, from pier 44 & 1/2 down to pier 1) when Ryan starts his ever-popular yelling at inanimate objects - "no poo, don't come out yet!" So, after 10 more minutes of walking, we finally found a high-quality (not) restaurant/bar and took care of business.

- Humidity takes quites the toll on our junk food. I opened a bag of animal crackers and it was soggy within 1 hour. We also left Ryan's big round lollipop out overnight and awoke to a sticky, melted-lollipop mess.

- Seafood on Fisherman's Wharf was good, as was the Ghiradelli chocolate.

- The Pacific Ocean is very cold. It has been over 7 years since I have visited California and have since been to much warmer beaches. But it was a fun afternoon in Santa Cruz and Ryan had a great time burying Dave and he didn't seem to mind the sand in his pants until we were walking to the game and he would stop and scream "mom! My thing itches" and proceed to scratch himself (but his th's sound like f's and he has a slight southern drawl, so it sounded like "mom, ma fing itches!") The guys behind us got a real kick out of it. How could you not laugh?

- Google maps are not always right, especially when you have the wrong zip code in your search field.

- Nobody (including Ryan here) cares about San Jose State football. It reminded me of Utah football in the 1990's, before the stadium was rebuilt. It seated about 30,000-ish, and about 1/2 of the seats were empty and 1/4 of the seats were filled with fans from the visiting team. We didn't get strip-searched at the gates to confiscate every last little bit of outside food or drink (just a pat-down of the backpack to check for alcohol) and the line for the women's bathroom was a mile long. There were no face-painters or tailgaters and if we wanted, we could have parked right next to the stadium. It was a fun game with a few frustrating moments when the Utes just couldn't get into the endzone or kick a field goal. We miss Sakoda!

- Ryan loves to walk and run and can do it for miles at a time.

- Most important thing learned: we are good at vacationing and should do it more often.

Update

2009-05-28T12:51:00.007-06:00

So, it's been almost 2 months since we've posted anything. A lot has happened in the last 2 months. Here's some highlights, as pictured in the slide show:
-we welcomed a new baby into our home. Zachary Karl Pulsipher was born April 21 and was 8 lbs, 1 oz 18 & 1/2 inches
-we celebrated Easter
-went to the Utes' Red & White game
-celebrated Mother's Day and Memorial Day
-went to the aquarium and Wheeler Farm
-officially kicked off swimming season at the splash pool
-planted our garden

Busy, right? Hopefully now that we're almost adjusted to the new baby, I can stay up to date here! More pictures to come later...slide.com is really slow at loading and sorry, I don't know how to get rid of the song. Suggestions, anyone?

Snow Day

2009-04-04T18:15:00.003-06:00

Every day that it snows, Ryan asks me if we can go sledding. I always tell him that we'll go when daddy gets home (knowing full well that it will melt by the time Dave gets home). This morning Ryan was so excited to see snow and the ground. And he knew that daddy was home today. So the first thing he said was "Would you wike to go swedding?" We have such a tough time saying no to Ryan, especially when he looks up at us with those cute little blue eyes with long lashes and asks in his super-high-I'm-so-cute voice. "Can I pwease go swedding?" So at 8:30 this morning when everyone else was in their warm houses (probably still asleep) we were out sledding. Lots of fun, and yes, I could still zip up my coat - barely.

Busy

2009-03-11T13:45:00.003-06:00

I guess it's been awhile since I've posted. I guess I just got busy and forgot. We've had a fun month. Ryan started (and completed) his first round of swimming lessons. I had fun taking him to the pool 3 times a week and he seemed to enjoy it too. Now he's swimming laps at the South Jordan Rec Center. Just kidding. He mostly learned safety stuff and got used to going under water.

We also decided to put Ryan in the other in preparation for the new baby to come. So after lots and lots of searching, we found a new bedroom set and quilt. Dave also painted. It was a much more positive painting experience than the last time. We still need to put up the wallpaper boarder that matches his quilt. Other than that, he is completely moved in. He was really excited to have his big boy bed, which made the transition a lot easier. But on the first night in his new bed, he fell out and it scared us to death - it's a very tall bed! So everything's a lot better after I found a safety rail and we can all sleep soundly. Well, as soundly as we can.

I also tried a new recipe for sugar cookies, something I haven't made for about 5 years. They turned out a little too soft (definitely undercooked them), but after a few days, they hardened up. And as you can see, we have a new designated beater-licker at our house!

And I finally got to go to another U of U basketball game. Makes me excited for March Madness. Watching basketball and eating Girl Scout Samoas and cadbury minieggs are what I associate with this time of year. What would spring be without 'em?

Encore

2009-02-05T13:03:00.004-07:00

All of you seemed to enjoy Ryan singing, so here's a couple new songs for you.

In case you couldn't tell, that was "I'm Too Sexy" by Right Said Fred ("I'm a model, ya know what I mean..."). Here's Ry's version of Stayin' Alive.

Monet in the making

2009-01-30T13:28:00.003-07:00

Lately when Ryan goes to the daycare at the gym (to see the "buddies," he calls them) he has been painting with watercolors. Yesterday he really wanted to paint but didn't get to. So today while I was out and about, I was really brave (and nice) and purchased a new set of Crayola's finest for my boy. He was so excited. So I put on a superbig t-shirt on him and put him in the high chair so he wouldn't ruin our dining set. I am pleased to say that it wasn't a total disaster like I was expecting. He didn't even get any paint on his shirt. The colors did get a little mixed up and he wanted to drink the water and lick the brush, but I can deal with that. Still working on staying in the lines and keeping the colors separated, so instead of being a Leonardo, he's more of a Monet right now...

Sorry

2009-01-30T13:10:00.006-07:00

So I haven't posted anything for awhile. We've been a little busy. Doing what? I have no idea. Somehow the time seems to fly by so quickly, but if you ask me what I did at the end of the day, I wouldn't be able to tell you. A couple of highlights over the past couple of weeks:

- We celebrated Dave's 30th birthday

- We went to the parade to celebrate the Utes 13-0 season

- Dave put up more shelves in most of our closets, giving us ssssoooo much more storage space

- We added more to our food storage

- Ryan is mostly potty-trained with the #1 thing (still has yet to poo in the potty)

- I have a new helper to help me clean the potty

Here's some pictures.

Happy Holidays a little late

2009-01-08T13:24:00.005-07:00

Okay, so I'm a bit slow to give the old Holiday report. To apologize, I'm treating you to Ryan's version of Jingle Bells:

This year was full of some new traditions, with Dave's parents being home and my grandparents getting old. We started out the holiday celebration at Dave's parents house. It was priceless to see Ryan open his first present. He was so excited to play with the new tractor set that he didn't want to open any other presents. But we convinced him to do so. After all of the present opening mayhem, Ryan had fun playing air hockey against his cousin Ben. Fun to watch. Later that evening we went to my grandma's house for the German feast. She says this is probably the last time she'll do it at her house because our family is getting too big and she's getting too old. Christmas just won't be the same without it.

On Christmas morning, we woke up to a big snowstorm and wondered if we would get to leave the house. After we opened most of our presents, our parents all came over to our house for a yummy crepes breakfast. Luckily, my mom and dad had enough room in their 4-wheel-drive sleigh to take us back to their house for dinner and more presents. It was the funnest Christmas we've had in a while. It's so much more fun when Santa comes to your house and brings toys.

For New Year's Eve, we went to watch the Utes beat Gonzaga! The next morning, Dave left for New Orleans for a good time at the Sugar Bowl (pictures and report to come soon, right Dave?). Go Utes!

Our week in review

2008-12-19T12:12:00.005-07:00

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

2008-12-12T13:23:00.003-07:00

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

2008-12-09T07:39:00.005-07:00

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

2008-12-08T15:33:00.004-07:00

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

2008-11-26T15:07:00.002-07:00

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

2008-11-26T15:04:00.001-07:00

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

2008-11-26T09:00:00.000-07:00

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)

2008-11-24T13:07:00.002-07:00

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

What 1/3 of a ton of food looks like

2008-11-20T14:00:00.004-07:00

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

2008-11-11T13:09:00.002-07:00

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!

2008-11-06T15:37:00.005-07:00

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

2008-11-04T14:21:00.003-07:00

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!

2008-10-28T13:57:00.004-06:00

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

2008-10-10T13:25:00.011-06:00

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

2008-10-09T14:58:00.002-06:00

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

2008-09-24T12:39:00.003-06:00

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

2008-09-09T13:33:00.005-06:00

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.

The Big Game at The Big House

2008-09-02T13:34:00.004-06:00

I'm going to skip ahead in our little journey and tell about the big game before another loss to UNLV ruins it all. Don't worry- I'll let you know about the rest of our Chicago & Amish adventures. On Friday, we finished our drive to Ann Arbor. We were a little bit worried about going into a blue town wearing nothing but red. We know how tense feelings can exist between blue people and red people. Let me just say these were the nicest blue people I have ever met. After parking our car a mile and a half away from the stadium (remember, this is still 5 hours before kickoff), we found the tailgating party. It covered the entire golf course. These people really take football seriously. Here's just an extremely small piece of the tailgating going on...

The U's humble little tent...

At the game, we didn't sit with all the other red people in the endzone 80 rows up. If we're going to travel this far for a game, we're going to sit in good seats. So we sat at the 30-yard line 50 rows up, with all the blue people. We were the only red around! I think the people around us were a little upset we were there, especially when the Utes started to dominate. But Dave reassured them that the Utes would make stupid mistakes and rack up plenty of penalties and blow a big lead late in the 3rd/4th quarters. And in typical Utah fashion, the Utes almost blew it. Luckily, they held on and we were able to celebrate the victory!

We were very impressed with the number of Ute fans that made the trip. We estimated there to be 4500-5000 Utes. I know that only accounts for 4% of the attendance (107,000+), but it's a long way to travel for a football game. For being so relatively small, the Utah section sure was loud! What a fun game! I'm glad I finally got to experience a "real" college football game.

Art?

2008-09-01T14:11:00.004-06:00

We didn't have any plans on Friday in Chicago, so we decided to walk around the city. We spent most of our time on "The Magnificent Mile" aka Michigan Ave. After the long ride on the ghetto train, we finally made it into downtown. Interesting place. With all the tall buildings, we were unable to see the sun, so it was hard to find our sense of direction. Thanks to our fine navigation skills, we were able to find Michigan Ave. All along the street, there were these strange pieces of "art." How do you define something as a piece of art? I think my definition is that if you would pay money for it to display it in your living room, then it's art. But apparently, others have a different definition of art. I certainly would not want to display random bodices in my living room...

Maybe I could display these on my porch or in the kitchen...

Perhaps art is supposed to make you go "hmmm." If that's the case, I guess all of these creations could be considered great pieces of art.

Rock Star in the Making

2008-08-27T13:40:00.006-06:00

Here's Ryan's version of Twinkle, Twinkle Little Star. Listen closely.

Here's The ABCs...

Happy Birthday to you...

and the Itsy Bitsy Spider

Birthday Celebration Comes to a Close

2008-08-25T13:49:00.002-06:00

Last night, we finally finished celebrating Ryan's birthday. It all started on Wednesday (his actual birthday). We opened presents and my mom and dad came over for some birthday cake. Then on Saturday we celebrated with Dave's family. Ryan had so much fun running around and getting crazy with his cousins. Unfortunately, I forgot to pull out the camera for pictures of this party. Last night, we went to my parents' house to celebrate with that side of our family. We also celebrated my aunt Liz's birthday and my nephew Cooper's first birthday. Ryan hadn't seen these cousins for awhile, so again, he had fun running around and getting crazy with them. They were so loud the gave my mom a big headache. But it was fun. And Ryan and Braden were really excited about the Lightning McQueen party gear. Ry's having so much fun now with all of his new toys.

Happy Birthday Ryan!

2008-08-20T15:19:00.003-06:00

Happy birthday to you, happy birthday to you! Happy birthday dear Ryan, happy birthday to you!

Can you believe our baby's already 2 years old? He's growing up so fast! Here's what he looked like 2 years ago today.

New Look

2008-08-15T13:35:00.002-06:00

I decided it was time for a new background. I got so sick of searching through the hundreds of designs and they all started to look the same. So I decided on something seasonal, in honor of Dave's excitement for the Games and all the extra time we've spent watching TV. Go USA!

What you don't want to see when you open the lid to your washer!

2008-08-12T13:21:00.003-06:00

I've seen a lot of scary things when looking into the washing machine and dryer. I've seen Ryan's matchbox cars (not too scary), important notes left in my pockets (getting scarier), gum(pretty darn scary), and our new point-and-shoot camera (so scary I almost had a heart attack - and yes, the camera was dead). Yesterday, I found something one step below the camera. So I'm one of those people who washes their darks with the whites. If the darks have already been through a couple of cycles and there's no chance of them bleeding, what's the point of separating them? Yesterday, I thought my red lounging pants had passed the point of no more bleeding. Apparently, I was wrong. I was a quite surprised to see my laundry with a pretty pink hue. I didn't know whether to cry or cuss. (in case you're wondering, first came the *!@%, then came the tears). Unlike the last time this happened (yes, it has happened more than once), we only lost a couple of Ryan's shirts that he had almost grown out of. And I'm sure he won't mind wearing a pink bib, as long as nobody sees him. Thanks to some quick action with a gallon of bleach, I can still wear my favorite pair of capri's and we don't have to replace any pairs of g's. Hooray for bleach!!

The Big House

2008-08-08T13:40:00.008-06:00

It is official - we are going to spend an afternoon in the Big House for the Utah-Michigan football game in three weeks. We do have high hopes for the Utes this season, but we are going more for the experience of attending a game at another big time college football stadium.

After this game, I will have been to a college football game at four of the five largest college stadiums over the last three years. Since 2005 I have been to football games in Rice-Eccles Stadium, Sun Devil Stadium, Romney Stadium, Ohio Stadium ("the Horseshoe"), Sam Boyd Stadium, the Rose Bowl, and Neyland Stadium.

Ok, I admit to possibly having an obsession with going to college football games, but I currently have no desire to abandon said obsession. Now I just need an excuse to go to a game at Beaver Stadium in Pennsylvania to complete the five largest college football stadiums...

Of course, I have already seen the best game that I will ever see in my life - Ohio State - Michigan in 2006. Fortunately, this time I will be going to a road game with this other Ute fan:

Go Utes!

Pioneer Day (Non)Celebration

2008-07-30T13:30:00.004-06:00

Today, the 24th of July was just another day. Dave went to work, I played with Ryan. It seems like nobody, (except for the parade participants) celebrates anymore. After dinner our neighbors invited us to watch their impromptu fireworks show. So a bunch of the neighbors and their kids watched fireworks. Maybe we'll start some kind of tradition next year...potluck bbq with fireworks. And you're all invited.

And 6...

2008-07-17T09:58:00.002-06:00

...pounds that we each gained at dinner last night...

Happy Anniversary, Linds! I can't imagine my life without you!

Happy Anniversary!

2008-07-16T13:58:00.004-06:00

Well, today marks the day for another year of marriage. That makes 6 now. My, oh my, how time flies when you're having fun! So, after 6 years, 5 airplane trips across the Pacific, 4 trips to the Gorge, 3 college degrees, 2 job changes, and 1 child later... here we still are, happy as can be. Here's to many more happy years to come! I love you Dave!

Flamingo George

2008-07-16T13:32:00.003-06:00

So here's the last account of our summer vacation. On Sunday, we drove to Flaming Gorge and met up with my family. It was so nice to get up there and have our huge tent all set up for us. It was also fun to have all of my aunts there, even the one's from Texas and California. We had lots of fun playing the usual camping games (Scrabble, Password, Apples to Apples, etc) and Ryan had lots of fun playing with the dogs in the "firetruck" (aka motorhome). Dave was bummed because he couldn't ski, but he enjoyed taking Ryan out on the waverunners. Swimming in the lake was also fun, and very refreshing (a bone-chilling 69 degrees). It was nice just to take it easy and lounge around all day, whether on the boat or back at camp. Of course, we had to chase Ryan around a lot and he fell a lot on the not-so-paved road, so he got lots of scrapes on his knees. We had a very fun time on our vacation, but it was nice to come home!

The Wedding

2008-07-11T15:22:00.003-06:00

Saturday was the day of the big wedding. So we packed up and drove about 45 minutes west of Denver to another little town called Georgetown. It was such a fun little town nestled in the mountains. After the quick drive, we checked into our hotel early and took a nice little nap.

Let me give you a little background story about the wedding planning. To my understanding, Tyler and Kari (bride and groom) put a nice down payment to hold the date for the wedding at a different site. About a week and a half before the event, the went to pay for the rest, when they discovered the site was double-booked. Apparently the employee taking the down payment took the down payment and left town. So they relocated the wedding to this place in Georgetown and of course, were out a large sum of money. Then the Monday before the wedding, the photographer's wife and daughter were in a nasty car accident and had been in the hospital the entire week. He was still planning on photographing the event until Friday night when his daughter wasn't doing so well. So he had to cancel. Ronda, we got all the pictures we could! So was anybody at all surprised when....

....it rained the entire evening!!! Other than the weather, it was a beautiful wedding in a beautiful setting. Great food, great company, great flowers, great couple, and great cake! Congrats Tyler and Kari!

We'll post more pictures with the rest of our vacation in the next entry.

BBQ & Rockies Game

2008-07-10T14:45:00.011-06:00

On Saturday, we attended the pre-wedding barbecue at Bruce & Ronda's house. They live about 30 minutes east of Denver in a little town called Strasburg (population 1,402 in the year 2000). The area looked just like what I picture Nebraska to be like - very flat with fields in every direction. We had a good time with Ronda's family and I finally got to meet Bruce Lee (Dave's uncle, not the kung fu master). Ryan even got to take a ride on Bruce's tractor. He thought it was just great!

After the BBQ, we headed to the Colorado Rockies game with the entire Lee clan. For those of you who haven't heard the score for the game, check out the box score:

Yes, you saw it correctly, 17 to 18 for the Rockies. And yes, it was every bit as long as it sounds. But we had a great time at the game and Ryan was uncharacteristically good. He didn't even try to run off. Dave and I were shocked! Can you believe that the Rockies scored like 5 or 6 home runs? Every time Colorado hits a home run, the fountains in the outfield go off, which I thought was fun.

Before homerun After homerun

Of course, with it being the 4th of July, we got to watch fireworks after the game. It was Ryan's first experience with fireworks and he seemed to like it. I think he would have shown a lot more excitement if it wasn't 11:00pm.

Watching the game Waiting for fireworks

Watching fireworks

All in all, it was a very fun 4th of July and we took part in the typical 4th of July festivities: BBQ, baseball, fireworks. We're so American. Actually, Dave's American. I'm only 1/2 American, so that would make Ryan 3/4 American, right?

The Drive

2008-07-09T13:47:00.007-06:00

We finally got to go on our summer vacation this week. We first stopped in Denver and then camped at Flaming Gorge on the way home. I'll tell you all about it, but it would take too long to do in one sitting. And who wants to read a really, really long entry all at once? So I'll give you the account in installments. Here is the first, entitled "The Drive."

We left on Thursday afternoon. Ryan was asleep before we left the valley. He slept clear to Evanston. Isn't that the best? No screaming child in the back seat...yet!

Ryan was so good in the car. We didn't even have to used the DVD player. He only got mad when he was hungry for dinner, about 15 minutes outside of Rawlins, WY, which is where we planned to stop for dinner/gas. So Ryan ate his first Happy Meal ever (with the apple dippers and apple juice substitutions, of course). Look at the stupid little toy he got. Come on McDonald's, can't you do better than this for my boy? I don't even know what it is or what it's supposed to do, but Ryan had fun with it in the car. New things are always fun, I guess.

Here's the best view of Wyoming.

We finally arrived in Denver, and as you can imagine, we were all very excited to be there and be out of the car after 8 hours of driving excitement. Next up...the wedding barbecue and Rockies game.

Lindsay, the auto mechanic!

2008-06-23T13:36:00.002-06:00

So as our luck would have it, the battery on our older Civic died on Saturday, late enough for all of the auto shops to be closed. We got the car jump-started and got it home safely into the garage. This morning I called my friend Jessica to see if she could come over today and jump-start the car so I could take it in to get the battery replaced. Of course, the car was parked on the wrong side of the garage and the cables weren't long enough. So I thought I'd wait until Dave got home and we could pick up a battery and Dave could change it. But Jessica insisted that she'd take me to get a battery and we would do it ourselves. I thought that was pretty funny, because the only thing technical I know how to do is put in gas. But we changed it! And the car actually started! Thanks Jessica!

Bye-Bye Truck

2008-06-18T09:51:00.004-06:00

Yesterday was an exciting, stressful, and somewhat sad day. After 7 & 1/2 years of driving up high in our truck, we decided it was time to trade it in. And in case you're wondering, yes, I did shed a couple of tears. So many fond memories. When looking into our garage, don't laugh too hard about the simpleness of our ways...

Yes, we are the proud owners of 2, yes 2, Honda Civics. What can I say? Honda makes a fine automobile. Can you believe that we almost got the same color as our 2004? The red and gray were our top choices with no preference for either. We just wanted to get our hands on whatever we could that wasn't Tafetta White or Atomic Blue. These cars are hard to come by these days. All 3 dealerships in the valley were out. So when we found a red one, Dave actually got to see it in person (and not just the pretty pictures), and he was pretty excited to have the red. So, here's to 40+ mpg!

Happy Father's Day

2008-06-16T13:53:00.006-06:00

What a fun day! We went to my aunt Rose's house for dinner last night and had a fun time playing in her yard. Ryan really liked to jump off the big rocks that lined the flower beds. He also had such a great time wrestling with and chasing Daddy, now that Dave's able to play a little bit more. Ryan loves his Dad! Dave is the perfect father for Ry. It's fun to watch how much fun they have together and to see how proud Dave is of his little boy. I love you, Dave, and Happy Father's Day!

Smarty Pants

2008-06-06T13:15:00.003-06:00

Well, there's not too much going on around here, but I though I'd better post something so that you know we're still alive and well. Ryan and I are recovering from another bout with the common cold and Dave is quickly (he doesn't think it's that quick) recovering from his surgery.

The other day, Dave and I were watching TV and Ryan was in the kitchen. We noticed he got really quiet, which usually means that he's up to no good. So we went to check on him. He took out all of the liquid soap bottles. No big deal, toddlers unload cupboards all the time. But check out what he did with the bottles...he lined them up from shortest to tallest. And look how proud he is of himself.

It's amazing how smart these little ones are, even if they don't talk. Speaking of talking, Ryan is really picking it up. He copies everything we say, and he's getting better with his the "r" sound. He can almost say fork without offending people, although I do miss the random F bombs being dropped at the dinner table.

Shoulder Surgery

2008-05-28T07:31:00.000-06:00

So, apparently I had a bit more damage to my shoulder than we thought. About six months ago, while lifting weights, I felt a sudden pain in my left shoulder and dropped the weight. I waited for around four months to go to the doctor because I thought it would heal and stop hurting soon enough. Well, it didn't.

The x-rays showed the damage to the AC joint that I had done when I separated it while playing football in 9th grade. After several potential solutions failed, the doctor decided that I would need surgery to fix the problem. The surgery would consist of removing .5 inches of the collar bone to eliminate the friction that was caused as a result of the separation.

While in surgery, the doctor realized that I had actually torn my labrum, probably while lifting weights several months earlier. In order to fix the problem, the doctor put a pin/anchor in my shoulder in order to hold it in place while the labrum heals.

Unfortunately for me, it takes 4-6 months for the labrum to heal. So, instead of wearing a brace for one week and being 100 percent after 6-8 weeks, I will have this annoying brace on for a total of six weeks, after which I will have several months of therapy. If I would have known this, I would have had it fixed in the Fall, not the Spring. So much for the Summer of Dave...

Now, for those of you who like this kind of stuff (and I know you are out there), here is part of the surgery in which they install the anchor and tie it off (maybe you want to sit down before you watch this...)

In case you want to see more, here is part of the AC joint resection (same warning applies here):

Memorial Day Weekend

2008-05-27T13:46:00.003-06:00

Our Memorial Day festivities started on Sunday with a drive down to the Springville/Mapleton Cemetery. We visited the graves of Dave's dad's family. While Dave was busy placing flowers by the headstones, Ryan was busy running around, of course, and checking out all of the flags and making them wave. After Springville, we went to Provo to visit Dave's aunt. It was her birthday and I think she enjoyed having some visitors. On Monday, we went to Tooele for the annual Memorial Day Barbecue at Dave's grandma's house. It was fun to see all the family and Ryan had a great time with all of his cousins. After the barbecue, we walked to the cemetery and Ry had some more fun running around and climbing on all of the headstones. Nice. We finished off the day with a barbecue at my parents' house. It was a very busy, but fun, weekend.

My first cricket-hunting experience: unsuccessful

2008-05-21T13:38:00.004-06:00

Yesterday, I woke up feeling like I didn't sleep well, but couldn't figure out why. Then I remembered at 10:00 last night when this stupid cricket starting chirping. It was so loud I thought it was in our house. I was determined to not let it ruin another night of sleep, so I went hunting for it. I found it on the little concrete ledge in our window well, just sitting ever so still. I just stared at it for a few minutes. Was this a cricket or some spider? I didn't know what a cricket looked like and it was really dark outside. The window well was looking awfully deep. Would I be able to get out if I jumped in? I think so. So I checked for any other bugs or poisonous spiders. All clear. If I jumped in, would the cricket freak out and fly around and attack me? I wouldn't want the neighbors to come outside and find me in the window well screaming, they might think I am crazy. Better check. There were no rocks around to throw at it, so I went for the next best thing - the bark chips from our flower bed. So I threw a couple pieces at it, hopefully trying to kill it. Duh. Throwing wood chips at a cricket is not going to kill it, especially if you miss! The wood chips must have scared it, so it started to crawl into the rock/leaves/rubble in the window well. I had to act quickly, so I jumped in and just started stomping and jumping on the rubble, hoping to smash the cricket. But it was too late, the cricket got away and started to chirp again. Sorry for wasting your time with this stupid story, but I thought I should let you know that if you see a cricket, don't think about it, just kill it or you will lose sleep! I'll keep you updated if I find it again. Next time, it will be dead!

Our new cripple

2008-05-15T14:06:00.003-06:00

Yesterday was Dave's much dreaded/much needed shoulder surgery. It was quite the ordeal. Lots and lots of waiting around. We went in at noon and he was dressed and ready to go, IV in and everything, by 12:45. Apparently, the people ahead of him had unanticipated problems (and Dave was the last surgery of the day), so he didn't get in until 4:00. We finally left the hospital at 8:45. Crazy! Everything went well, but there was more damage to his shoulder than what was expected, so his recovery time will be about 3-6 months instead of 6-8 weeks and he'll have to wear this nice sling for 4 weeks instead of just 1 week. Bummer! No more softball or water skiing this summer.

He was so funny when he was waking up from the surgery! It's difficult to explain and to remember all of the funny things he said, but if you've ever hung out with people as they're coming to, then you know it's pretty darn hilarious. He's feeling all right today. His shoulder is quite sore, but the rest of him feels much better. I think it helped when we finally got to put a shirt on him. The hardest part for Dave is just sitting there. He doesn't like to sit still. I'm glad his shoulder is finally fixed, but let's hope that we all survive the next few months! Get well soon!

Happy Mother's Day

2008-05-13T11:22:00.006-06:00

I had such a fun Mother's Day! It started out with some yummy waffles with strawberries made by Dave. Then of course, church is always fun ;) Then the Jazz won. After the game we went to my Aunt Liz's house for a family party. She always makes such delicious food! It was fun to see the rest of the family and play with Ryan. Dave and Ryan played a lot! It is so fun to watch them play and wrestle. They both have such a good time. I really enjoy being a mom and I wouldn't trade it for anything in the world. It is so rewarding to have little Ry smile at me and I love to see him learn new things. Here's some pictures from the day.

Congratulations, Miss Jenny!

2008-05-06T13:06:00.003-06:00

On Thursday, we attended Jenny's graduation ceremony. I can't believe she's finished with school already. She graduated with her bachelor's degree in nursing from the University of Utah. Now she will work at Huntsman Cancer Institute. We're so proud of her!

Goodluck in AK (or is it AS, AL?)

2008-05-01T13:52:00.005-06:00

On Friday we made the trek down to Provo for Emily & Derek's graduation/goodbye party. It was fun to see my gals to reminisce about the good ol' days and to catch up on current events. Congratulations, Derek & Emily and good luck to your little family. We'll miss you guys, even though we didn't see you too much. Even though Alaska is cold and there's no warm, white sand beaches, I'll still put Alaska on my "places to go" list.

The girls

Ryan loves to hug!

Hunter, Ryan, & Ry's girlfriend of the day

Emily took this one. It is so cute!

So Speedy

2008-04-25T09:04:00.004-06:00

While checking out other people's blogs, I found the speed typing test, and I must say, I'm pretty dang fast. Or maybe there way just something wrong with the computer. According to the webiste, I am ranked #86 out of 194182. Thank you, Mrs. Afoa from Bennion Junior High School, for 2 semesters of teaching me how to type.

278 words

Sticky

2008-04-24T13:50:00.003-06:00

We had French toast for dinner the other day. When Ryan was finished, he decided that he would put the plate on his head (something he has never, ever done before). Yup, sticky side down! Notice the angle that the plate is at...all due to the syrup. Thank goodness he was already in need of a bath.

Check out all of the syrup drops in his hair.

2008-04-20T15:34:00.004-06:00

Yesterday was such a busy day. We went to the zoo early in the morning. Grandma Ing got to come with. Ryan had such a good time. I think his favorite animals were the monkeys. He got so excited when they jumped and swung around. He wanted to climb right in the animals' cages and play with them. But for some strange reason, the animal statues were so much scarier than the real animals. He wouln't sit on the fake tigers to get his picture taken, but he wanted to go play with the real tigers. Go figure! After we were zooed out, we went to the Red and White Utah Spring scrimmage game. It was fun to watch football this time of year. Now we're even more excited for football season to start. Go Utes!

Hooray for TV!

2008-04-11T13:08:00.004-06:00

Last night, we finally got to see a new episode of The Office. It wasn't the best one I've seen, but we'll take it. It's been so long since we've had new episodes, thanks to the dumb writers' strike. A couple of months ago, we got new episodes of Lost (now we're impatiently waiting again until the end of April for new ones), and now The Office is back! I hope nobody forgot to make more seasons of Heroes and 24. I'm sick of all the reruns and poor excuses for reality shows.

Boo for winter

2008-04-11T12:55:00.004-06:00

I am so tired of winter. Can it just be over? I woke up to snow again this morning. Not only is it freezing cold outside and we can't go out and play, but we're also tired of getting sick. I don't remember getting so many colds in a winter. Ryan and Dave each had 3 or 4. I've been lucky and have only had 2 or 3. I guess that's what happens when you have a toddler. So we all got it again this week. Ryan started on Friday, I started on Monday, and Dave on Tuesday. I think I've had it the worst this time. I've just been leveled with no energy at all. Thank goodness we have such nice neighbors who take care of us. On Wednesday, the Larsen's called and said they had too many enchiladas again and would bring some to us. Then last night, Lindsey brought us some soup that was just fabulous! Thank you so much! Now, here's to warmer weather...

Here's Ryan blowing his nose and checking it out!

Car Obsession

2008-04-02T19:07:00.005-06:00

So, Ryan is the latest to join millions of little boys around the world in the big car craze. Dave bought the Cars movie for Ryan a few weeks ago and we've watched it almost every day. When the movie comes on, Ry says, "Cars, cars, cars." In church last week, the boy in front of us and the boy behind us had cars and the three boys kept trading their cars. So on Monday, I had to get Ryan some matchbox cars so he can have something to contribute next time. As he played with his cars all day long he kept yelling at the top of his lungs in his squeakiest voice, "Cars. Cars. Cars." Can you say obsessed?

Is it summer yet?

2008-04-02T18:35:00.003-06:00

On Friday, we took Ryan swimming. No, not outside yet... still too cold. We went to the South Jordan indoor pool. Last summer, Ry had so much fun swimming at the neighborhood kiddie pool, so we thought he would still have fun. He was a lot more cautious this time, maybe it was a little loud inside. It took him a little while to get used to the pool. He kept getting out and going back and forth between the kiddie pool and the big pool. He did go down the alligator slide, which is a step up from last time. Of course he wanted to go down the big waterslide, but single riders only! Maybe next year, Ryan. After about an hour, lips blue and teeth chattering, he had enough fun for the night.

Locked Out!

2008-03-26T12:28:00.003-06:00

As Ryan's getting taller, he really likes to see just how far he can reach. He's been able to reach the doorknob for about a month now, but has shown no interest in the lock or the dead bolt...which is why I was so surprised - shocked, actually - to find myself locked out of the house yesterday. When I took out the trash, Ryan shut the door behind me like he sometimes does. Little did I know he was reaching way up high and he turned the dead bolt just enough to lock me out. I knocked on the door and Ryan knocked back. He thought he was pretty clever and funny. Of course, all the other doors were locked and we didn't have a spare key in any hiding place. Luckily, I saw that one of the windows was unlocked. So, feeling like the biggest idiot ever, I went to the Montague's house to see if they had a ladder. They didn't, but Dan was tall enough to climb through the window. Now I guess we'll have to keep a key hidden somewhere so that next time this happens, I'll be able to get in by myself.

Happy Easter

2008-03-25T13:35:00.003-06:00

This weekend, we finally got to celebrate Easter. I think Dave and I were more excited for it than Ryan was. On Saturday, we went to Dave's sister's house for lunch and for the egg hunt. Ryan had so much fun finding the eggs. He had even more fun jumping on the trampoline, even after he pinched his cheek in the springs. Yikes! He also had fun playing with his cousins and chasing the dog through the doggie door. On Sunday, Ryan found his Easter basket with all the goodies. We have way too much candy on our hands, so if anyone is in the mood for some good chocolate, come on over!

Bryant's Baptism

2008-03-25T13:26:00.002-06:00

Bryant is a friend of some of the youth in our ward. He has been attending Dave's Priest Quorum for the last few weeks and has been meeting with the missionaries. On Saturday afternoon, we found out he was going to be baptized that evening. So Dave got the word out to all the priests in our ward and we all got to attend the baptism. A priest from our ward performed the baptism. It was fun to see the young men get excited and fired up for their missions. Congratulations, Bryant!

Will the Real David Pulsipher Please Stand Up...

2008-03-24T14:06:00.011-06:00

It seems that 90 percent of the people I have met in my life know another Pulsipher. Usually the "other" Pulsiphers are not directly related to me, but the fact so many people know a Pulsipher shows that there are more of us out there than people think. We are everywhere. You can find us in professional baseball, in Hollywood, in dentist offices, or kicking for the University of Utah football team.

My dad even served as an LDS Bishop at the same time another Jerry Pulsipher (not pictured) served as a Bishop in another ward in the Salt Lake Valley. Until now, maybe that was the most interesting commonality that two Pulsiphers that I have known have shared.

I have always known that there were even other David Pulsiphers out there. I have a cousin, whom I have met two or three times, named David Pulsipher. I even have a neighbor named David Pulsipher, but I was still not prepared for the discovery that was made last week.

Let's go back ten years. I was in the MTC preparing to go on an LDS mission to Puerto Rico. While there, I met another Elder Pulsipher who was preparing to go to England on a mission. After talking for a few minutes we realized that not only did we share the same surname, but we were also both named David. It was fun to meet him and realize how much we had in common.

Over the past few years, I occasionally would receive Google alerts with my name from the blog of another David Pulsipher. I thought all along that this was probably be the same David Pulsipher that I met in the MTC, but I was never quite sure. Last week this same David sent me an email because my name had shown up after he had "Googled" his... or our... name. After exchanging a few emails I thought I remembered that maybe our birthdays were close as well. Maybe I thought this because we were in the MTC together, which I know is a bad way to make an assumption on birthdays.

So, this story ends like this: A little over 29 years ago, the day after Terry Bradsh aw led the Pittsburgh Steelers to victory in Super Bowl XII, two David Pulsiphers were born on the exact same day - one in Utah and the other in New Jersey. What are the chances? We're not talking about common names such John Smith. We're talking about Pulsiphers. Maybe we are the only two Pulsiphers in the history of Pulsiphers to have identical first names and to be born on the same day!

To visit the other David Pulsipher's much more interesting blog, please go here.

Springtime, cont'd.

2008-03-17T14:01:00.002-06:00

Here' some more springtime pictures. Ryan loves to play at the park and he had a lot of fun planting his peas!

It's Springtime!

2008-03-17T13:54:00.005-06:00

Last week, we went to the mall to do some shopping. There was no line to see the Easter bunny, so we thought we'd try it out. It's not quite like visiting Santa Claus - you can't really tell the bunny what you want, because he can't talk back! So Ryan just stood there and stared at the bunny. He got the little bunny ears and wouldn't let us take them off for the rest of the night. Here's a picture of the angry little rabbit when we tried to take off his ears.

Thanks, Shannon!

2008-03-15T08:28:00.002-06:00

Shannon sensed my frustration with the user-unfriendliness with blogs and called me last night with some great news! There are some cute premade templates! The instructions are somewhat similar to Emily's, but minus about 2 pages of instructions. I'm sure there's plenty out there, but the ones she found were at cutestblogontheblock.blogspot.com. So, now you will no longer have to look at the boring templates from Blogger! And maybe one day when I'm really bored and I feel very motivated, I will once again attempt making my own using Emily's instructions and hopefully I will be a little bit creative! Now if I could just figure out the slide show thing...

Technologically Challenged?

2008-03-13T15:49:00.006-06:00

So, I was looking at my blog the other day, wondering what I could do to make it look a little more exciting. After looking at some options in the "page elements" section, I thought maybe I could add a slide show along the side. So I followed the directions and I just could not get it too work. After trying suggestions from the help section, it still wouldn't work, so I checked the conversation threads of people who had similar problems. There was so much technical jargon that I didn't understand. People were throwing around words like "widget." If I had to guess what a widget is, I'd say it's a cross between a witch and a little person, perhaps something you'd see in a Harry Potter movie or the Wizard of Oz. After a couple of hours of messing around with it, I give up. So forget the slide show! Then I thought I'd change the template. Nothing in the pre-made blogger templates caught my eye, so I asked Em where she got hers. I thought it would be something easy to download, but holy cow! The 3 page instruction sheet she wrote was all about some computer programming, which I know nothing about! (Thanks for sending it though, Em) I'm not totally computer illiterate, I feel very comfortable navigating a computer and the web. In fact, the computer is very good at telling me what to do, such as what to do to fix a hole in the wall, what good recipes to cook, what good books to read, and how to remove hard water stains from my shower walls. But for me to tell the computer what to do, now that's just frightening! So for the time being, until Emily or Carolee comes to my house to show me what to do, just sit back and enjoy Rounders 3, courtesy of Blogger.

Biker Boy

2008-03-04T12:49:00.005-07:00

It was so warm last week and Ryan was so anxious to go outside. So Ryan went outside and rode bikes and scooters with some of his buddies. He had so much fun and didn't want to come back inside. When we finally had to come back in, he stood at the door and screamed for about 10 minutes.

Ryan Pulsipher, Come on Down!

2008-03-04T12:40:00.005-07:00

When Ryan was much younger, he used to like watching the Price is Right. We haven't watched it for a while because it's usually on when we're at the gym. So a couple days ago, the Million Dollar Extravaganza was on in the evening. Ryan was glued! When the announcer would say "come on down," Ry would try to say it. He waved when the models waved, and when the audience would shout out their answers, Ry would yell back and hold up 1 finger. So I have some episodes recorded on DVR for him to watch when he gets bored. He also likes to watch Wheel of Fortune. What can I say - we have a game show star in the making!

Road Rage at Every Age

2008-02-27T11:29:00.002-07:00

The other day when Dave was backing the car out of the garage, Ryan yelled from the back seat, "Gggooooooooo! GGGeeeeeeezzzzzz, GGooooooooo!" It took us a moment to figure out what he was doing. Then I realized he was copying what I do in the car. I usually yell at the slow cars in front of me to gggoooooooo! It's amazing how easily he picks up on everything I do and say. Guess I better be more careful!

We're Blogging!

2008-02-25T13:06:00.004-07:00

Okay, so once again I've fallen victim to peer pressure! It's been so fun reading my friends' blogs, so I decided to do one of my own. I guess this will give me a reason to get out more and take lots of pictures so that my life looks somewhat interesting! Don't expect too many posts or frequent updates - like I mentioned, my life is not that exciting!