Double the Birthday's Double the Fun!

Happy Birthday (yesterday) Dad! He turned the big 5-0 on Sunday. I want to throw him a big party like we did for my mom, but since mom is not able to eat real food, we are going to post-pone it till she can participate. Aren't we nice?

I was also informed that I am in charge of my Grandma's 75th birthday celebration down in St. George in July. I don't know if Dad was serious, but I will do it if he wants! I think I did a pretty good job on moms!

Now, on to the birthday celebration! Dad made steak and potatoes for his birthday dinner (mom says he has not had to cook much, so it was good of him to cook for us!) and afterwards we opened gifts!

Mason opening his gift from me and Nik. I strategically wrapped it in a box way bigger than the gift itself. I know, I think I am so sneaky.
Mason finding out it is just his old watch with a new band and a polish. But that is what he wanted, and was excited to get it.

Poor Billie, she is so afraid of the camera, for some weird reason. So of course I took as many pictures of her as I could. She was literally shaking when I took this photo. After presents she spent most of the night downstairs in her kennel. Poor dog.

The boys got Dad a digital probe thermometer that you can use in the oven and on the grill (I think). I think it is was cool. The boys didn't care.

Here is Billie helping Dad open his present from Mom. It is a cool swing chair that you hang from the ceiling or a tree. It is Utes. Very cool.

This one is from me.

It's a Bonsai Tree! Dad likes these little trees, and in the past has even taken trips out to the desert to harvest his own trees to bonsai. This one is just little, for his home office. I hope I picked a good one!

After gifts we had desert. Two kinds of cake and ice cream! Mason doesn't like cake as much, so he always requests a Strawberry Boston (that mom gets from Albertson's) and then there was a small marble cake with raspberry filling for dad. It was decorated with Over the Hill stuff, it was cute.

Hope you guys had a great birthday!!

ps: on a sadder note, the 22nd also marks the anniversary of my Grandma Great's death. I think it was about 8 or 9 years ago that she passed away. We miss her!

Happy 21st!!!

I want to wish my younger brother Mason a Happy 21st Birthday today! I know I will not see him today, but I hope he shows up on Sunday for Dad's party so I can give him his present. It is pretty cool. I won't tell you what it is just in case he chooses today to read my blog!

I can honestly say that I don't know much about Mason any more. He is almost never home when I go over and when he is, he tends to be asleep. Which is why I chose to steal this photo from my moms blog from his birthday last year. I will say that Mason is a good friend. He is loyal and is always willing to lend a hand. He has even surprised me and offered to help with things like moving furniture and the general up keep on my car! He is a great mechanic and I hope he is able to find a great job doing what he loves.

As much as he angers me some times, I really do love Mason.

Happy Birthday!

In my opinion

The saddest thing in the world is the telegrams they used to bring families of soldiers who had died in WWII. Makes me cry every time.

You know what makes this weather tolerable?

The fact that it is no longer dark when I leave work at night.

Because I like free stuff

The first five people to comment on this post will get something made by me! My choice. For you. This offer does have some restrictions and limitations:

1. I make no guarantees that you will like what I make!
2. What I create will be just for you.
3. It'll be done this year (hopefully sooner than later.)
4. You will have no clue what it is going to be.
5. I reserve the right to do something extremely strange.

The catch? Oh the catch is that you must re-post this on your blog. The first 5 people to do so and leave a comment telling me you did will win a marvelous homemade gift by me! And I have to be able to contact you somehow!

Good luck!

Going Postal

I never really understood why people at the post office were so angry so often. The employees and the patrons. Up until a couple weeks ago I had only had pleasent experiences in the various offices I visited. Up until a couple weeks ago.

Nik and I have always had trouble with the keys to our mail box at our appartment, and two weeks ago, they stopped working. The key would go in, but not turn. No matter what you did. Nothing. So I called the post office near me and they said, (well, first they said to leave the keys in the box and they would get the lock replaced. I had to kindly remind him that I could not get my box door open.) that they would have someone out to change the lock. After another week or so I see that we have a new lock on the box, but no one has said anything about the new keys. We went to the post office on saturday and the nice gentleman told us that no, there were not any keys waiting for us, and no, there was no mail either. Fine.

Monday I called again and they said *surprise* there ARE keys here for us! Go figure. Thurday I was off early so I made the trip the the PO again and got the keys. Once again I asked if there was any mail for us (it has now been more than three weeks since I have been able to check my mail) and was again told that no, it would all be in the box. I had my doubts. Its not a big box.

So, very excited to FINALLY get my mail I go home and try out the new keys. Yay! Box opens! Boo, no mail. But there is a lime green paper that says that our box was too full so they took our mail to the post office for safe keeping.

WHAT!!!!

You mean all that mail that was not there the last 3 times I asked.

I guess its back to the post office.

Hope I don't shoot the person that helps me.

I was right about all those Mormon Baby names

A new report says boys with odd-sounding names may be more prone to trouble than other boys. But some professional baby namers question how accurate this research is.
If you ask people who have lived in Utah a few years the strangest name they've ever heard, they'll list some unique-sounding ones.


Shaniqua. Sheray. Riannon. Latrina. I had to question that one. Author of the Web site The Utah Baby Namer, Cari Clark, said, "I swear to you. There are at least two of them."
But let's focus on boy names. New research from the University of Pittsburgh says boys with unpopular names are more likely to commit crimes than boys named Michael or David. If that's true, Utah has been raising criminals for generations now.


Clark said, "Unusual names are not unique to the Utah culture; it's just that I think they've been around in the Mormon culture longer because you see some unusual names even back in the 1800s."


Clark says parents named many of their children things like Tanner and Kimball in the early ‘80s after leaders of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. However, she says giving a boy a Mormon name could backfire.


"When you give a child a name like ‘Nephi' for example, you are loading that kid with a huge amount of expectations that don't necessarily come with a name like David," Clark said.


So, if Nephi were to ever drink an alcoholic beverage, people would assume he's breaking the rules of his religion. Both Clark and Babynamewizard.com Operator Laura Wattenberg agree with part of the research which says parents in poor neighborhoods use more non-traditional names, and people from low socioeconomic areas are more likely to commit crime. But, Wattenberg disagrees with the notion that kids with unpopular names are treated worse by peers than other kids.


She said, "Let's say there's a class with Jaydon and Braydon, those are common names, and then there's Graydon, which is an uncommon name. It's hard to believe Graydon is going to be ostracized for his name while Braydon in embraced."


Plus, kids with odd names were likely given those names for a reason.


"Every name sends certain signals, so it's true that naming a child Mike may send a signal that he's right in the mainstream of society, but if you named that kid Maverick instead, you probably raised him differently instead, too," she said.


Wattenberg says bizarre names are becoming the norm. She says parents used to name their kids so they would fit in, but now they name them to stand out.

Just couldn't resist....

The four Goldberg brothers, Lowell, Norman, Hiram, and Max, invented and developed the first automobile air-conditioner. On July 17, 1946, the temperature in Detroit was 97 degrees.

The four brothers walked into old man Henry Ford's office and sweet-talked his secretary into telling him that four gentlemen were there with the most exciting innovation in the auto industry since the electric starter.

Henry was curious and invited them into his office. They refused and instead asked that he come out to the parking lot to their car. They persuaded him to get into the car, which was about 130 degrees, turned on the air conditioner, and cooled the car off immediately.

The old man got very excited and invited them back to the office, where he offered them $3 million for the patent. The brothers refused, saying they would settle for $2 million, but they wanted the recognition by having a label, 'The Goldberg Air-Conditioner,' on the dashboard of each car in which it was installed.

Now old man Ford was more than just a little anti-Semitic, and there was no way he was going to put the Goldberg's name on two million Fords. They haggled back and forth for about two hours, and finally agreed on $4 million and that just their first names would be shown.

And so to this day, all Ford air conditioners show Lo, Norm, Hi, and Max on the controls.




So, now you know...

Coraline!

My first reaction: NOT a kids movie. Do not think, "Oh, there is this new animated movie for me to take my 8 year old too." This is not a feel good movie. It is weird. But cool. Really cool.

Ok, that said, I really liked Coraline. It was an interesting concept done in a very interesting manner. I like Dakota Fanning as the voice of Coraline, she did a good job of not being "herself" in this movie. I liked the extremes of the other characters. Very tall, thin, or fat. It made them more intriguing. The cat is an important part of the story, but you don't really get to know him. I know that sounds weird, but I felt I was missing something there.

We went to this show Friday with a bunch of people from Nik's new job. It was even cooler to see it with this group cause some of them actually worked on the movie, so their names were in the credits. I felt way more justified clapping and cheering for them than I do for Super Hero movies. Afterwards everyone stood around speculating on how different parts of the movie were made. That was cool. I am looking forward to getting to know these people better as time goes on. They seem really cool.

Please keep in mind that this does have some mild language and some semi-creepy images that may be sensitive for younger audiences.

My Recovery

I am doing fine.  Really.  This whole thing is way easier than I thought it would be.  Thanks Hilary for giving me a time frame for feeling better, I think I am on track.  I have been taking it pretty easy the last couple days, and I even spent yesterday at my moms so we could keep each other company in our recoveries.

I was surprised at how good I felt once I got home on Wednesday.  Even without the meds, I was feeling pretty good.  It is true that the worst part is the air they put inside you during the surgery.  I feel great while I am laying on the couch with my hot rice bag on my shoulders and my cold ice bag over my incisions, then I stand up and it feels like my abdomen is twice its normal size.  I know I need to move around more, but my apartment is just not that big.  I will take myself (and my iPod) for a walk later today.  

Nik's coworkers are going to see Coraline tonight, so I don't want to over do it, but I want to make sure I am ok to sit through the whole movie.  I am so excited for this by the way.  

I want to say thanks again to Talina who brought dinner over Wednesday night and stayed to talk to me for a while, and to Jenny and Tyson who brought dinner last night.  Christi brought me some amazing shortbread and carmel cookies and talked for a while too.  It is good to have company  who doesn't care that I don't have my contacts in and that my hair is not done.  I am looking forward to getting ready tonight.  Feeling human.

By the way, it hurts to take a deep breath (yawn) and cough.

Two things

One: Yesterday was the anniversary of when Nik and I got engaged. We usually try to do something fun just to say we did, but this year it came with a lot of other things to do. Oh well. I will always remember that I did not get to watch Groundhogs Day because I was being proposed to. Some day Nik will make this up to me. :)


Two: Less than 13 hours before my surgery. Check in time is 8:15am. I am glad that it is in the morning. Get it over with before I have a chance to realize how hungry I am. Sorry if this feels like I am making a way bigger deal out of this than is necessary, but this is foreign territory for me. I am sure I will be fine and that all my worrying will be for naught.

Speaking of Burn Notice

I think I have a crush on Michael Weston (Jeffrey Donavan)........but I am not sure. Sometimes I see him and think, 'man he is good looking.' And I do love his smile. But other times the feeling is more.....'meh.' So I am relying on you to tell me what you think to help me make up my mind. Here are some pictures I have found of Jeffrey Donavan to help with your research. Feel free to send me any other pictures you may find of him that you think I may enjoy.

Possibly the best TV moment ever.

On Burn Notice when Michael thinks that Fi was trapped in the burning building and comes home soaking wet to find her in his house explaining that her cell phone was melted, then seems surprised to see that he was really worried about her. And all this time he has not said anything and is just standing there, soaking wet, brushing her hair from her face. Then he kisses her. LOVE IT!!!!