Home Sweet Home

Bowling at Brunswick

Obviously it was great fun. :)

Steven played the part of wise teacher and coach, and helped Crystal and I (by far the two worst bowlers in the family) beat our scores from the first game.

Rejection. Disgrace.

Yay.

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Barro's Pizza and Water and Ice

I think Crys was attempting to turn this into a model shot. All she needs is some wind blowing her hair back...

It was soooo good. And yet Crystal looks pained...

Yum.

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Crystal Gets a Sunburn

Crystal and Stephanie went on the ward boating trip and both came back with awkward sunburns. Crystal was more vocal about the pain of hers and, therefore, it received more attention. I never said it was positive attention, though.

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A Leader is Born

Steph and Crys are great pals (as you can see), but Stephanie worked up the courage to slap Crystal's sunburned knee. As a result, she became "The Leader."

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Game Time

Saturday night we played a game Tiff found out about called "Wise and Otherwise." We have some great quotes. I'll list the few I have access to right now:

"Open lips, insert toes." --Dad

"Drink or shrivel up like a cold weinerschnidtzel and die!" --Mom

"He who goes to bed hungry ate a salad for dinner." --Mom

"Open lips make you sweat on one spot on your shoulder." --Mom

"Tiffani didn't have one." --Tiffani

"Young people and dogs take pees together." --Me

"If you stir up the bog, at least have the decency to come up with an old Danish saying that is worth caring about while you're doing it." --Steven

"The back and the belly are wonderful shields for the majestic panda." --Stephanie

"Do what you want to to get that stuff out." --Crystal

"The back and the belly hurt in flop-style." --Crystal

Oh man. Good times. I know you're all dying to play that game with us now. :)

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Mad Guitar Skills

I know this may be hard for you to believe, but Steven's guitar skills have increased a ton since I last saw him--which was only a couple of months ago! He has dozens of parts from different songs memorized, as well as dozens of full-length songs. Solos included! He's taken the next step and decided to try writing his own music, but it might be a while before anyone gets to hear any of it. :) My brother is amazing.

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Late Night Fun

So there the kids were-- sitting in the "hangout" (Tiff and Nik's room) staring at each other. Occasionally we would rotate who we were staring at, but ya know.

Then in pops Mom's head. She sensed there was some fun being had since Steph and Crys weren't upstairs in bed and she heard giggling.

And Mom's intuition was right. We talked and laughed and took many pictures of Stephanie that she willingly posed for (we needed a decent shot of The Leader for promotional purposes).

The Leader requested these pictures of her be put side by side for viewing pleasure, so I thought I'd share the joy with everyone. By the way, this is a Before Tiff and Nik Came Home and After Tiff and Nik Came Home shot-- we gorged a lot. :)

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All Good Things Come to An End

Not that braces are fun... just that their time comes to an end. As did the the time for this trip. As will the time for this post. Now.

"Pumba. With you, everything's gas."

We'd been planning the trip for a week or two. Calculating out how much it would cost with different types of mileage and different numbers of people. The "average" for gas price that we were using to calculate was $4 per gallon. As it turns out, that was a little high. The day before Tiffani and I set out on our journey to Arizona, I paid $4.099 for mid-grade (because the lower grade wasn't working and I was distracted on the phone and too lazy to drive somewhere else). In case you were wondering, it was only $.01 more than the $3.999 price of the lower grade, anyway. :P The next day we set out. We were almost to Cedar City and we needed to fill, so we were checking out gas prices as we drove past the small towns along the way. After we passed one town, I chided Tiffani for passing up gas for $3.79. Then after she passed another exit where gas was only $3.70, I became more enfueged. Tiffani thought it was a game and that the further you drove, the lower the prices got. We ended up paying $3.79 at the next exit. Anyway, gas prices did go down the closer we got to Arizona, with the average there being in the 3.50's.

The lowest we saw was $3.43 (QuikTrip will never let you down!)...

...and the lowest we paid was $3.49 (at Love's--a PFS truck stop place).

Although this place had gas for $3.49, too... Anyway. Can you see all the bug guts in these two shots taken through the windshield? :) Upon returning to Provo last night, to my delightful surprise, I discovered that gas had actually dropped in Provo by $.12 since we'd left. And now I'm sick of thinking and talking about gas.

16,078

How many steps does it take for a 5'3" girl, whose stride isn't known for being the longest, to walk half way to work (and get a ride the rest of the way--thanks, Laurel!), clean two offices, three bathrooms, 2 carpets and 3 basketball courts, to sneak away for an overly long break, to empty two trash bins and one recycling bin, to work out for 20 minutes and then to walk home? According to my pedometer it takes sixteen thousand and seventy-eight. That's right. I reset my pedometer just before I walked out the door to go to work and here I am, an hour after getting back, with my pedometer reading 16,078 steps. Supposedly an active person takes 10,000 steps a day, so I guess I'm actually active! Monday through Friday, anyway... :)

More evidence that my job isn't a cake walk-- yesterday I wore my heart rate monitor watch to work. I periodically put in my heart rate and it calculated that from just before work to about a half an hour after I burned just over 2,100 calories. Maybe that's why I'm tired all the time--my job is tougher than one might think. Maybe I'm not dying after all!

NCCCD

According to Tiffani and the United States of America, August 4th was National Chocolate Chip Cookie Day. She and Naomi got really excited and decided to make cookies the night before.

They worked hard while I sat by, lazily watching and eating chips and salsa.

We started getting worried about the outcome when Chama made her first (and only) spill...

...and got so distracted by the camera that she poured all the flour in at once.

We patiently waited for the cookies to cook (and I discovered some features on my camera, hence this picture) and I'm sure we were all thinking that Tiffani's cookies would turn out best. But Lo and Behold-- Chama's were better! No offense, Tatorsh. Better luck next time. :)

Giving in so easily? Yeah.

It usually takes me a while to give in and start up accounts with things like Facebook, MySpace and blogs, but apparently I do eventually succumb. I've decided to do it my way, though. There was no way I was going to pick a cutesy background for my blog. No way! So I did it the hard way and made my own. Once I get too many concerned phone calls or start having too many nightmares I'll change it. But don't expect to see bows and flowers. At least not yet. :)