Life in the Fast Lane

Before I begin my chapter book on the last two weeks I want to show you my child's newest and completely self-invented trick:

Sure, this is cool, but she can kick it up a notch...

Ta-da! No hands! She cracks us up every time she does this trick. Maybe it's funnier in person. Or when you're the parent.

This photo was taken at the dinosaur exhibit we took Addie to a few weeks ago. Delayed, I know. Addie remained rather calm and professional despite the girl next to her blurring up.

And now for the main event: we have been having far too much fun lately. Evidently, the problem with too much fun is a: no time for posting, which means one long mega-post and b: people get sick. The ill victims of the recent fun are Jason and Addie. I have a feeling my turn is coming up, though.

Now let us begin the reminiscing of the weekend prior to the last one (February 12-13th). We went to the lovely land of Logan to visit our friends, Tork and Crystal, and rate their new home. We give their home an A and their hospitality an A+. We had a rockin' good time despite the dreary weather and sneering snow. Okay, the snow wasn't really sneering, but it was the crusty kind with the layer of rough ice on the top. Pretty close to sneering. We spent our weekend eating delicious food (thanks Crystal!), looking for geo-caches and playing with the largest Little People collection I've ever seen. It was awesome.

We also went over to the local Macey's where the girls decorated their own Valentine's cookies. Addie prefered to save time by skipping the decorating part and going straight to eating part. She ate her piles of frosting first and followed up with the candies next. I ate the cookie. You snooze you lose.

She threw a fit after the all frosting had either been eaten or smeared across her overalls. Multi-tasking begins at an early age, proof being found in the fact that Addie can have a tantrum and watch a movie about horses at the same time. I regret (as always) that I didn't take more (or any) photos of that wicked weekend.
We had a great time hanging out with Scack Attack too, and thoroughly enjoyed our "Take your friends and their child to work day" with him. He paints people's houses (although not for long, thanks to some awesome luck and a new job) and we came along to help. Hey, spending time with friends is important to us and if that means going to work with them then so be it.
Dear Logan friends, I propose we begin digging a tunnel that connects our homes and start saving large amounts of money for underground rocket packs. Instead of 1 1/2 hours we could cut the travel time down to five minutes. Think about it.

The following Monday we went to Ikea with Tyler and Clare for the all-you-can-eat pasta for $1.99 and free entertainment night. Oh, and kids eat free. Apparently they do it every Monday night, which is cool. So we stuffed ourselves and then waddled around the maze called Ikea for a couple of hours. No one bought anything, but we did learn that Addie is completely fearless when it comes to climbing on things and then jumping off. Addie also had her first time-out there, due to running away from mom and threatening a set of glass lamps with their lives. Fortunately, the lamps lived to light another day and Addie came out unharmed, although de-funned (meaning I took away her fun and made her sit in the cart for five-minutes). All in all, still an event that counts as fun and therefore is being mentioned in this post.

And now let's skip to the next weekend and say the weekend starts on Thursday (February 18-20th). Jason's family (mom, dad, Cami and Caitie) came to town for a dental convention. Somehow Tyler got conned into watching all three girls while the rest of us went to a comedy show starring Jason Hewlitt. Now, I wouldn't normally consider sitting in a room full of dentists as a gut-busting good time (more like a gum-busting uncomfortable time, not that I dislike dentists or having my teeth cleaned I just have a hundred other things I prefer doing) but add Jason Hewlitt and it's suddenly a really funny place to be. He is a great comedian with an amazing vocal range and odd facial flexibility. It was a good time. The laughter continued once we got home and discovered the girls, being the awesome aunts they are, had changed Addie's diaper and put her in her pajamas. Unfortunately for Addie and her chubby thighs, the diaper was put on backwards causing excess material and friction in the front and partial bum coverage and waste capture in the back. But hey, a backwards diaper is better than a soggy one. You can't get better babysitters than Cami and Caitie, and Addie had the time of her life. I bet she didn't even know we were gone.

(not a photo taken in the time frame written about, but a photo that shows the adoration and care of Addie's aunts nonetheless. This was taken in January.)

The next day, Friday, Cami and Caitie came over for a few hours to hang out and keep me entertained. We played board games and sang Wiggly Giggly songs. Then I left for a Faith in God Activity (I'm one of the leaders. Have been for two years, that's all.) at the Church History Museum. Jason, Tricia and the girls went to Discovery Gateway, which is a cool place for kids...I know because I sneaked in for twenty minutes before we all left for dinner. They have awesome toys. Then we all went to dinner at Pat's BBQ, which was pretty tasty. J and I (and Addie) are done with BBQ for awhile though, since we went to Smokey Blues BBQ in Logan the week before. You can only eat so many large'n meaty meals before you start feeling like a gluttonous villain and crave vegetables like air. Then we went swimming at the hotel and played games in the hotel room. After tuckering ourselves out we went home and tucked ourselves in bed around 1 a.m.
We woke up in the morning and gathered together for breakfast at Bruges Waffles and Frites. Yum. They only sell waffles and fries. And one kind of sandwich. It's really delicious (anything with sugar chunks in it has to be) but I would recommend going there in the summer since they have no indoor seating. Okay, maybe two seats. But that's it. Then we all went to the zoo. We bundled up and walked around to look at the animals (all of which hate the cold and wish they had hot tubs and bathrobes). Addie had fallen asleep in the car and so we just put her in the stroller and piled jackets on top of her. To other people at the zoo it probably looked like a portable coat rack. ( Don't leave home without it.) Addie didn't wake up until an hour or so later when we were looking at the elephants. Let's now enter the mind of Addie for the coolest point of view on the event of her waking up: "Oh, I'm waking up from a nap like I do everyday. I'll make little noises and kick my legs to alert everyone that I am now awake and ready for my needs to be met. Why is this jacket draped over my stroller and obstructing my view? Oh good, they are removing it now. Wowza! Before my infant eyes what do I behold but two elephants!" I know, she's a genius with a large vocabulary. She audibly gasped when the absolute first thing she saw when she woke up was an elephant and her baby. I just thought it was cool.

I would like to someday fall asleep in a normal place, like my bed, and then wake up to unexpectedly find myself in the company of elephants... in their natural habitation, of course (I would not like to find elephants in my bedroom).

Caitie riding a Zebra.

Addie and Grandma riding a tiger and Cami on a panda bear. Carousels rock.

Giraffes have 18-inch tongues that are blue in color to prevent sunburns. They must have their tongues out a lot. I must say, a sunburned tongue sounds incredibly awful. Anyway. Every time a giraffe would take a bite of food it would drop some on the floor (a long drop, by the way) and Addie would say, "Uh-oh!" I think she relates well with giraffes because she has the same eating issue.

After animal-gazing we ate at the Corner Bakery. Delicious! But we ate entirely too much. If this weekend of fabulous food hasn't helped me gain weight then I will have to come to the conclusion that food is actually escaping through my skin like air from a popped balloon. It must happen while I am sleeping since I haven't actually witnessed it. It would, however, explain the piles of tacos and pistachios on my pillow every morning. Back to the Corner Bakery. What's cool about being part of a big family, I am learning, is that when you eat at a restaurant you still feel like you are at home. It's hard not to when more than half the people in the entire place are family. Anyway, we had a really fun-packed weekend (it's cool when you feel like you're on vacation when you haven't even left home) and we were sad to see it end. We had to say goodbye to J's family and send them back to warmer weather (does that sound like we banished them? If we were in the business of banishing we would banish ourselves down south and leave them here). We all went to bed at 8:30 p.m. Saturday night and didn't even flinch for ten hours. Yeah, we were exhausted. Addie woke up with a cough and Jason felt icky. Not to the touch, of course, just overall sick. Such is the price for living life in the fast lane.