My New Car

Funny story. Last summer I may have been VERY lost on my way to a concert at a large, well-known, easily accessible venue in Salt Lake City. Hearing the story later, my brother Tyson suggested it was time for me to invest in a GPS. (He even taught his four year-old son to say clever things like "Aunt Traci wants a GPS for Christmas.") My reply to Ty was something along the lines of "If I'm going to buy a GPS, I may as well just buy a new car." Does that make any sense? Not really. Keep in mind I was pretty traumatized from being so lost on the way to the Brad Paisley concert the night before.

True to form, two weeks ago I bought a GPS. It was on a great Fathers Day sale. I would have bought one for my Dad - but he pretty much IS a GPS. So I bought one for myself instead. And then I bought a new car the next weekend to put it in. Go figure.

Happy Fathers Day

Happy Fathers Day to my Dad!

Thanks for coming over yesterday to replace my flat tire. And thanks for bringing me cherry sours because you knew I had recently adopted the philosophy that a house is not a home without a bag of cherry sours.

Thanks for always giving me directions to unfamiliar locations and for acting like "Is that MY north or YOUR north?" is a legitimate question.

Thanks for always having cans of Minute Maid Light juices in your kitchen, because they're my favorite. And peanuts for Ty, yogurt-covered pretzels for Jess, Pringles for Tay, Nutter Butters for Heather, frozen pizza for Biz, and corndogs, gum, waffles, Tootsie Rolls and doughnuts for Tyler and Bryce.

Thanks for buying $25 flip flops for "the grand guys" without batting an eye... and full size candy bars because they NEEDED chocolate. (Even though you would never consider paying $25 for a pair of shoes for yourself - but for a 3 year-old's flip flops, that is a perfectly reasonable price. We'll talk about your clothing choices another day.)

Thanks for taking us all to dinner, picking up the check, and always telling the server that's why we bring you along. It's not the ONLY reason we bring you along. But it doesn't hurt either.

Thanks Dad! Have a happy day.

Tricia's Exciting News

Tricia has accepted a 6th grade teaching position at Eagle View Elementary for next fall. We are really excited for her! The school is in Roosevelt, Utah... which is near Vernal... which is near, well, it's a couple of hours from Salt Lake. Tricia is busy planning lessons and I am busy planning Girls Weekends in Vernal. Yay hurray!!!
Love this picture of Biz leading the rising generation. Classic.

So proud!!!

Biz and Dad. How cute is that?

And a couple of bonus pics. Here is one of Tyler and Tanner where Tyler is smiling. You saw it here first!

And one of Bryce enjoying his birthday present. Can you believe this little "angel" is three years old? He recently learned that you can delay a family drive from Prescott, Arizona to Wendell, Idaho by over 5 hours if you shove a pencil down the van's ignition and the lead breaks off. Way to go, Mr. Bryce!

Life's Like That

The other day I bought flowers at the grocery store. I was not having my best day ever and I thought fresh flowers would be fun. As I was filling the vase (my favorite vase) with water, it shattered in the kitchen sink. I was not happy. I cleaned up the mess, then put the flowers in a second vase. By the time I got the vase on my table, the water had turned red from, you guessed it, blood. My blood from the "owies" I sustained while picking up the bits of shattered glass. By this point, I was REALLY not happy. Here I was, trying to do something nice for myself on a rough day and I ended up breaking my once-favorite vase and nearly bleeding to death.


Don't you love days (and weeks... and months...) like this? Days like yesterday, where my bad day at work was followed by a screw in my front tire and a city-wide power outage where no businesses had air conditioning or were able to use their cash registers. You can't do anything right. You're still bleeding from picking up the pieces from one disaster and turn around to find yourself facing another. You know you are destined to spend your entire life buying presents for other people's weddings and baby showers. And you're tired.

Yeah, I love days like that. I'm glad I have this blog as a reminder that sometimes I do fun things. I go on cruises and play with my nieces and nephews and I have a masters degree. And I know that a little bit of gratitude can go a long way. But wow. I'm not going to pretend that I never have days where my "it's ok, let's cheer up" flowers end up in a vase filled with blood. Because sometimes life is just like that!

Have You Ever???

Have you ever???

1) Tried a sunless tanning lotion, broken out in hives and still been happy with the results because the faint "golden glow" you've wanted your whole life is SO worth an itchy rash?

2) Accidentally stolen bananas from an out-of-state grocery store where you really had no way of correcting your mistake?

3) Straightened the shirt collar of a co-worker during a meeting when you were the only girl in the room? Then had a moment of absolute terror where you realized that everyone was staring at you and apparently guys don't appreciate helpfulness like that?

4) Put on a temporary tattoo of Thomas The Train just because you could after spending the day with your nephews at "A Day Out With Thomas," then forgotten all about it at 3 o'clock in the morning when you stumbled out of bed to use the bathroom and completely freaked out over the large and very vivid blue, black and red "bruise" you had somehow acquired?

Yeah, I haven't either. But if I had... I can only imagine how embarrassed I would feel right about now.