Today in History

Ok, so it's nearly the end of today (June 13th), but I saw this weird entry on a "Today in History" thing.

1920: US Postal Service rules children may not be sent via parcel post.

I wonder if that means if you were a parent in 1919 that you could have shipped your kids to grandma's house for a week via USPS. If so, did they chrage by the pound, or the number of questions asked. "Let's see, Silent Bob there is going to cost you a nickel, but "Are we there yet?" Sally will set you back ten dollars."

Also today in history:

2007: I went to softball practice today. For some reason I thought I could do without strethcing or warming up, even though I haven't really ran in three years and I haven't swung a bat or thrown a ball in five years. I got home and went to pour myself a glass of water, and I had to have Sam do it for me because I couldn't lift the water pitcher. I'm afraid that I'll have to sleep on my computer chair because I don't know if my legs can lift my unreasonably large torso. Live and learn, I guess.

Differences

I got to thinking about my brother-in-law that got married three weeks ago. If you've been around people who are about to get married or just got married, you may notice a sickening amount of affection displayed between the two. "Oh honey bumpkin, I can't stand to be away from you for ten whole minutes. Do you really need to use the bathroom?" and "My shmoopie is thre prettiest shmoopie in the world." Sickening. I'll admit, Sam and I were like that seven years ago. Who isn't? Time sure changes things. It's been almost seven years since we got married, and here are some of the differences between then and now. The differences are mainly because of the children.

Flying
Then: Sam and I flew on our honeymoon (to glorious Reno, Nevada by the way) on Southwest Airlines. We made sickening comments to each other about how cute it was that their logo has a heart in it. We calmly sat in the terminal, waiting for boarding to start. There we sat without a care in the world, just happy to be with each other. On the plane Sam read a book about being newlyweds and I, well, was probably checking her out the whole time. ;) I think I may have looked through the Sky Mall magazine at all the cool stuff. When we got to Reno, we strolled to luggage claim and picked up our one suitcase a piece and went about our merry way.

Now: Flying with children at best can go semi smoothly, and at worst can be one of the crappiest days ever. If you get to check in with all of your stuff and all of your children, consider yourself lucky because you not only have to pack your children around, you have to haul their stuff too. Those two or more extra suitcases, maybe a travel play pen, and the car seats. Then you have to go through security. Nowadays you have the added bonus of having to take of your shoes to get through, in addition to emptying your pockets and throwing away any liquids. So what if you get through the metal detector and one of your kids decides to take off running before you get your stuff from the x-ray machine? Well, you get the exciting thrill of running after a two year old while barefoot and beltless, which may become worse if your pants start to fall down. So lets say you get to your gate, all is well, right? No, you still have to keep an eye on the little farts because they could take off at any second. Then you get on the plane, which is fantastic because it's a confined space and you feel obligated to keep your children from screaming. The children can sense your nervousness, so they hold you hostage. "If you don't get me a juice box soon pal, I may grab that Sky Mall magazine and start ripping pages out and throw them at that nice lady in front of us. Don't make me do that." If you have young children and they need a diaper change, well, good luck in that lavatory. When your plane finally lands, you get to do all the airport stuff in reverse order. At the destination, you can luckily skip the airport security check, saving you the embarassment of losing your pants in two different cities.


Grocery Shopping
Then: We were one of those annoying couples who would walk around the store holding hands the whole time. We would take our time walking through each isle, just in case there was something down that isle that we may have wanted. I probably said stiff like "Do we need any honey, honey?" and "You are sweeter than this brown sugar, sugar." Making our way through the store stress free and not a care in the world.


Now: Grocery shopping with kids is not fun, even if they're being good. Sam and I usually Rock Paper Scissors to see who gets to take the annoying child to the car. I don't know what it is, but grocery shopping with the kids leave you feeling mentally and physically exhausted. Maybe it's the constant bickering between the kids, or having to play Dr. Phil to find out why they're crying and fix it, or having to pack one of them around the whole time. I can't wait for the day when we can leave the kids home.

Bedtime
Then: Whenever we felt like it. Just another part of the day.

Now: Bedtime! Glorious bedtime! Welcome back, my dear friend.

I could really go on all day about this all day. You get the point though. In seven years, we'll probably be looking back at this time and thinking "Remember how nice it was back when the kids were little."

Let's Go Rangers

The Cub Scouts in our ward got group tickets to a Rangers game Tuesday night. Since Jared is in the Cub Scouts he knew about it, and since I have a way cool wife, she was willing to let me go to the game with Dylan. We had a pretty good time.

We had seats up in the nose bleeds, but you could still see the game pretty well. The first inning was pretty cool. The Rangers loaded the bases, and the fifth batter hit a Gran Slam. The next batter hit a triple, and they ended up scoring six runs in the first inning. We ate dinner there, which included a hot dog, a drink and a bag of Cracker Jacks, which all came to $16.75. I wonder why ballparks, Disneyland, and movie theaters have no sense of how much things cost in the real world. "How much is a hot dog? Let's say $4.50, that sound good. A cup of soda? $5.00, yeah that's about right." If I could get my hands on the people that makes those decisions, I would give them a stern talking to.

These (above) were not our seats

This is my attempt of a panoramic picture from where we were sitting.

Dylan lost interest in the game about the third inning. I took him walking around the park and I bought him a hat. He had no interest in wearing the hat at all. Its like the hat was a symbol of him missing his bedtime , and he was not happy with it. By the seventh inning he was crawling around me, the floor, other people desperately seeking comfort. He tried to eat stuff off the ground, but luckily I caught him before he got anything. I think.

He looked happy for a little while.

The Rangers closer Gagne got the save to end the game, and when I said the game was over, Dylan got excited and said "The game's over? Yeah!" It was the most excited he was all night. After the game was over, he would actually hold his new hat, and he said he had fun.

I thought it was way cool. Just walking in the stadium and seeing the size of it was amazing. We even got to see Sammy Sosa bat, so that was awesome. All in all it was a very fun, and we'll have to do it again sometime.

You can't really tell, but the white blip by home plate is Sammy Sosa.

Mr. Kunz May Kill Me

Back in high school I had a computer class taught by Mr. Bart Kunz. He is a pretty good guy, and I think I learned Pascal in that class, which I have never looked at since then. He had a few rules about the computer lab, but the main rule was "No drinks allowed!!!" Whenever anyone broke that rule, he would make idle threats about grade deductions and give these soapbox speeches about how a spilled drink could ruin computer equipment.

I kind of remembered him today at work. Why? Well, the good Lord chose not to bless me with good looks, charm, or very much coordination at all. I was drinking a Mountain Dew (because what else is there to do at work?) and my brain and my hand had a minor disagreement or something, because as I was picking up my drink, I somehow ended up spilling 2/3 of it all over myself, my desk, and *gasp* my keyboard. Oh no, all those warnings from Mr Kunz went unheeded and now my keyboard was covered in liquidy stickiness.

Ya know, when you're drinking a 12 ounce can of pop, it doesn't seem like there's a whole lot there. When you spill that same amount of liquid on a keyboard, it makes you wonder where it all came from.

After the shock had worn off and I realized that Mr. Kunz is in Wyoming and was probably teaching Algebra to a bunch pimple faced airheads at the time, I started cleaning up my mess. It's a good thing I don't have any delusions of being cool, because I probably looked pretty dorky walking to the bathroom with my pants covered in Mountain Dew. I cleaned up as best I could, but if you take a look at your keyboard, you may notice that it may not be that easy to clean pop underneath or between the keys.

Sorry Mr. Kunz, I spilled pop on my keyboard and may have ruined it. Oops. My bad. To make it up to you:

for($i=0;$i<100;$i++){
echo "I will not spill Mountain Dew on my keyboard. ";
}

Walker, Texas Ranger

Just so you know, Peyton is walking now. I don't have any video or pictures of it because he's out third kid, and it's kind of lost its coolness. Instead of being happy, it's more of a "Great, another one that can run up and hit me in the crotch with his head." If I ever do get video or a picture of it, I'll stick it up here because it kind of looks funny. He just had a doctor appointment, and his head is measuring in the 80th percentile and his height and weight in the 25th and 8th, so he kind of looks like a Peanuts character with his big head and tiny body.

Maybe I should end this with a positive affirmation for my boy. Hey Peyton, if you ever read this, remember that you can do anything that you put your mind to. Why? Because you're good enough, you're smart enough, and dog gone it, people like you.

Pictures

Ok, so I lied about not taking any pictures when we were gone. I did take a few pictures at the Salt Lake Temple while we were waiting the hour and a half for the bride and groom to come out. There aren't may, but here you go.

Hangin' out in the shade

Knock knock

Unfairly Typecast

On May 19th, Sam's brother Barton got married in the Salt Lake Temple. He is the last sibling of ours to get married, so from now on my summer vacation time can start going to vacations instead of weddings. Woo hoo! The wedding and festivities were all good. We took our camera, our camcorder, and Andi's camera, but we didn't take a single picture. Some people did, and if I ever get a hold of a good one I may stick it up here.

Since we flew down (thanks to Sam's Dad), we had to rent a car while we were there. I thought "hey cool, it'll be a little break from the silver minivan." How wrong I was. We ended up getting a mini van. And it was silver. And it had Texas plates on it. It's like we hadn't even left home. The guy at the counter didn't even ask me if I wanted to upgrade to a convertible. He just said "So, you're getting the minivan." I filled out my paperwork, and he told me to haul myself, my luggage, and my thirty children up the escalator to the place where the shuttle would pick us up and take us to our glorious silver minivan. Hoorah.

It's sad to me that I can't even go on vacation and get away from a silver minivan. I'm not gonna drive one of those for the rest of my life. I hope.

The nice gentleman who didn't offer me a convertible did offer the loss damage waiver for $12.99 a day. I thought, "Nah, what could happen?" Well, we got a rock chip in the windshield of the Speed Racer. D'oh! I guess karma or whatever thought I would feel more at home with a rock chip in my rented car to match the one I have at home. Fixing the rock chip only cost $25, so it cost less than the loss damage waiver. Take that, rental car company! I win again! Ha! Wait, you charge how much to rent a silver minivan for five days? Oh come on, that's not fair.

Ladies Man

Yesterday Sam went to get her hair cut, so that left me with watching the kids. The mall we went to has a little play area for kids. One of the toys in the play area that a little convertable car the kids could sit in. Andi and Dylan got a chance to sit in the car at one point. They didn't do much but sit in it. Andi left after a while, and Dylan slid over to the driver's seat. Not too long after Andi left, two girls climbed in the car next to Dylan, and they sat in the car with him for a while. I couldn't hear what he was saying to them, but I'm sure that it was along the lines of "Hey baby, you come here often."

We left the play area, and Sam was still getting her hair cut, so I took the kids to lunch at McDonald's. I let them play in the Play Place because they don't get to do it often and we had time to kill since apparently Sam had a lot of hair. Andi was too afraid to climb up into the fun area of the Play Place, so Dylan ventured up there by himself. I would see him running past on a bridge every now and then, and he would sometimes stop to say "Hi" and wave. That is, until some girls joined him in the Play Place. After that, he was running around and playing with four or five girls. I think I heard him say something like "Your eyes are as pretty and blue as my Superman pajamas" to one of them.

Sometimes I worry about Dylan and his social skills (since somedays the only things he says to his mother are "No" and "Mommy, I pooped!"), but after yesterday I think he's going to be ok.

Happy Mother's Day

Happy Mother's Day to all moms out there. I'm sure youre kids are thankful that you didn't kill them when they were two. Or four. Here's a video clip that somebody sent to me last year.

Friend to All Animals

Today I had to walk from the building I usually work in to a warehouse on the other side of the plant. On the way there, I passed by a bush that a bird was perched on. I thought it was kind of weird that the bird kind of just stared me down and didn't move. After I had passed it a few steps, I felt something hit my shoulder like someone had thrown something at me. That happened all the time in high school, so it's nothing new to me. I turned around to look and didn't see anything. I kept walking, and I felt it again. I turned around again and saw the bird from the bush flying above me and flapping its wings menacingly. I didn't really feel like fighting a bird, so I kept walking. After I turned my back, the bird hit me again. I would have asked the bird what I did to it to make it so mad, but it's a bird and I probably wouldn't have gotten very far with it.

Between that and the numerous splats of bird droppings on the sidewalk, I'm getting a little paranoid of birds.