Monday, April 20, 2009

Jake's birthday, and what we've been up to

Today I fall under the classification of "bad wife". Jake's birthday was Thursday, and I'm just now blogging about it! In my own defense...okay, I haven't really been that busy. Just dragging my feet.

Jake turned 24 this year! It's funny how laid back he is about birthdays, because if you know Jake, you know he's not laid back about ANYTHING. But he's very easy to please when it comes to his big day. The first year we were dating, I took him to dinner for his birthday and he wouldn't even let me pay! I can't ever get an answer beyond "I don't care" as to what he wants for a gift.

He had a pretty good day this year. He went snowmobiling

and got a Coldstone cake.

This was about the only thing he'd specify that he wanted on his birthday. Cost me an arm and a leg, but hey, April 16th only comes around once a year, right? We had his brothers and their wives over to share, but I was too busy eating to take pics of the fun!

Here's my useless facts about Jake:
  • He's a hard worker. Since we've been married, he's had three full-time jobs and millions of on-the-side jobs. He's been laid off more than once, but he never sits around for long-he usually finds something to fill the time off within a day! And even when he has days off, he's usually helping somebody with a project or working for some extra cash.
  • He can't sit still. He loves to be around lots and lots of people, and I don't, at least not for long. Wow, how do we ever survive?!?!
  • He gets his feelings hurt VERY easily. Sometimes, my family or his will be making fun of him for something (he's an easy target), and he'll hunch up his shoulders and say "That's fine", or "I ain't scared", or, our personal favorite, "Amy, get the kid!" Fortunately, he has about a two second retention and then he forgets the offense.
  • I'm about 97% sure that he's secretly afraid of snakes. (See below for reasoning)
We had the chance to go to a really cool concert Friday night. One of my favorite bands is Sugarcult, and they played at ISU for really cheap! They're not very well known; click here if you want to hear some of their music. We bought stadium tickets for only three dollars each, but ended up on the floor within twenty feet of the stage. We also ran into some friends while we were there, which made it even more fun! It was really great and gave us a chance to have a "date night" without worrying about Sayer.

Sayer is really enjoying having space to play at our new home. The other day we had temps in the 60's, clear skies, and no wind, so I took him out and let him work off a little energy.


A couple of houses down from us, there are some teenage boys who jump on the trampoline and do tricks. Sayer loves to watch them. He'll poke his head through the fence and yell at them. It's pretty funny. At one point, he even tried to scale the fence!




We have a really nice front porch. Sayer loves to play on it...


Even when he falls over!


Oh boy. I don't even know what to say about this one. Notice the football lying abandoned in the background.




At long last, here's some pics of our new digs. The shop/garage is Jake's favorite part.


Lately, Sayer has become really interested in his "cahs". He lines them up all day long.

He has the funniest vocabulary. Here's some of our favorites:
  • "Poon" (spoon)
  • "Bama" (grandma)
  • "Bopa" (grandpa)
  • "pea" (please)
  • "nnnNO!" ...(no explanation needed)

We are also discovering that living in the country does have its drawbacks! Today, we were outside cleaning our vehicles out and just generally enjoying the sunshine. I saw Jake peering at something in our flower beds, and went over to investigate.

SNAKES!!!!

Okay, so they were only water snakes, but snakes all the same, and there were several of them.

Jake's reaction: Staring at them, scratching his head.
My reaction: BLEAUGHCGHWOEIUFH!!!!! (Roughly translated: Get those slithery, slimy monsters away from my house!) It reminded me of a certain incident with a certain godsister and a big snake in an old building by our houses. Remember that, Em? You ran away and I was too scared to move! I think I still have abandonment issues ;)

And mind you, this flower bed is right against our house, next to our door:


You can't see them in this pic because I was too chicken to get closer, but they're in there. And the reason I think my husband is a chicken: I immediately snatched Sayer and flew into the house. Jake followed a little too quickly, and then when I told him to go back there and get rid of them, he said, "They're not going to hurt us". I told him to just pick them up and put them in the canal, and he said, "I am NOT touching them." So yes, I think my husband is a closet snake fearer.

So the snakes won. Lovely.

Monday, April 13, 2009

405th Battalion

My cousin Landon and his friends were deployed to Afghanistan a few weeks ago. My aunt sent us a link to a slideshow that was done for the Salt Lake Tribune. It's amazing! You can see my grandma with her hand over her heart, and another with her hugging Landon. There's also a few with Landon and his friends being hugged by my cousin, Cody, who is Landon's older brother and a veteran of the Iraq war. Check out the slideshow! It's only about a minute long, but it's really cool!

http://166.70.44.68/multimedia/2009/405th%20back%20to%20Afghanistan%20SS/index.html

Tuesday, April 7, 2009

Huh WHAT?!?!? You're how old?!?!?

Today is my 22nd birthday! Holy smokes, I'm old! Okay, okay, so I can hear the howls through about a thousand computers right about now. So I'm not old by most of the world standards. But I feel old! Six years ago, I was turning sixteen and was very excited to be old enough to date. Four years ago I was eighteen and was trying to figure out what I was going to do with my life after high school.

Two years ago, I was twenty and was miserably six months pregnant. I don't remember much of that birthday, naturally. Today, I'm 22, married, and a mom. I don't think I ever thought this was where I would be in my life at 22. But I think I'm okay with that!

I've had some birthday adventures all ready. Saturday night we had a birthday party with Jake's family. Jake's birthday is next week and his sister and her husband's birthdays were last week, so we celebrate them all together. Jake was excited because his mom bought the two guys a "Cars" cake!

My wonderful mother took me to dinner last night, just the two of us, and we went shopping afterward. We went to Ruby Tuesday (my new favorite restaurant, by the way-I recommend the garden bar!!!) and just talked and laughed and had fun. We like to gossip and be catty and it's lots easier when we don't have those pesky husbands around accusing us of being judgmental. Dang men.

Our family has a traditional birthday song: "Happy birthday to you, you live in a zoo, you look like a monkey, and you smell like one too!" I've had this song sang to me at least once every birthday for as long as I can remember. Jennifer left me a voice mail this morning singing the song. Kandice coached Ky into singing it on video, and sent it to me this morning. It's hilarious!



Totally made my day. Hope the video works. Anyways...thanks to all of you who've sent me texts or called me today. It's great to hear from all of you; thanks for remembering lil' ol' me! As for the REST of you...where've you been?!?!?! Ha ha, I'm just joking. Seriously, it's been a good day and a great year. Lots of changes: new house, raising a baby into a toddler, new job for Jake. We've had challenges and trials and lots of fun. Tomorrow I guess I'll wake up and see what I can create with the next 365 days.