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.