Almost Christmas (an update)

On Friday I was able to fly out to Utah with Miciah.   Traveling with just one child who is 9 years old is Heaven!  Course she was crying on the airplane about how bored she was.  "I told you that you'd be bored.  I told you to bring a book."  "I don't want to read."  "Then draw."  "I don't want to draw.  I just want to get off this plane."  "Well, at least stop crying so the rest of us don't have to be tortured by you."  See how caring and sympathetic I am?  I learned that at Mom School.

I was able to see lots of family (and I missed some family, too.  There's too many of you!), and that was great.  I went to the Downs Family Christmas Party and was able to be the one who ticks off Grandma.  It's a special place of honor.  I fought off 5 others for the privilege.

Interestingly (to me), I went to BYU campus and felt no love for the place.  I didn't hate it, but I didn't have any positive feelings towards it.  I do, however, have a love for BYU's chocolate milkshakes, and I was able to get one.  I even broke my rule about not eating if you're not hungry.  We'd just gone to Cafe Rio and it's impossible to be hungry after Cafe Rio, but I sacrificed so I could get my yummy shake.

On Sunday my mom and dad and brothers and sisters had a family party at Rob's Aunt Lisa's house.  She has a great big house that's perfect for entertaining, and we were delighted that she let us have our party at her house.  It was great to get together with my family.  I like them all a lot.  ...  Also fun:  My family doesn't really know Lisa, and Lisa is something of a celebrity.  My brother asked what she did to be able to afford such a great house.  I told him that she started a scrapbooking magazine.  My brother just kinda stared at me blankly.  It was awesome. 

The Wedding
Monday was the wedding!  My brother Collin got married to Katherine and I'm so happy for them!  Miciah and Dea (and others) were flower girls, and this is how adorable they were:

Seriously cute, right?  A friend I haven't seen in a long time turned to me when Miciah was walking down the aisle and said, "Oh, Tamra, she's gorgeous!"  It's true.  She's a beautiful girl.  But she's not cocky about it.  Someone told her once that she was so pretty and she said, "People at school tell me that all the time."  It wasn't a snotty comment, it was just a this-is-the-way-it-is comment.  I love that she's beautiful and doesn't really care.  She's just Miciah and it's nice that she's pretty, but she's still just Miciah.  I'm hoping she holds onto that throughout her life.

This is me and my mom and my sister Lori (my only sister) all dressed up.  Or, rather, they're all dressed up and I'm just kinda Tamra dressed up:

My sister is taller than me and my mom, but not THAT much taller.  She's wearing heals and I'm not.  She's about 4 inches taller than me.  It's funny, our girls, who are months apart in age, are keeping the same trend.  Dea is about 3 inches taller than Miciah at any given time.  It's a good tradition.

Another family tradition:  Collin got married in Sambas.  All the best people get married in tennis shoes!  They actually looked really really nice with his tux.  Much better than my white tennis shoes with my dress.  I should have gone for Sambas, too.  What was I thinking?!

I came home yesterday so that I could say Happy Anniversary to Rob.  He was saying, "I'm sure you're really tired," and I was saying, "Are you kidding?  It feels like 8:30!"  We had our traditional cheesecake and sparkling cider, and we'll celebrate further next week when we have a 2 day date.  Hurray!

And Christmas is in 3 days!  I better start actually wrapping the presents, I guess. 

Top 10 Reasons I Love Being Married to Rob

To my Anniversary post I've received responses like, "COULD you come up with a Top 10 list?"  This is my response to that response:

Before Rob and I were married, I was convinced that I didn't deserve him.  (I still think that I'm lucky to be married to him, but that's different.)  Rob was in many ways more than I was.  More mature.  More stable and steady.  More conservative.  More good looking.  Just more.

At one point, before we were engaged, we had a conversation where I made some sort of analogy about a train.  It wasn't a good analogy, cause I'm really bad at them, but still.  I told Rob that I felt like he was a train ready to leave the station, and I really wanted to be on that train, but I wasn't sure I'd make it on time.  (You're amazing.  I'm unworthy.)  He responded with, "Well, get on board."  Oh.

I think it was later in this same conversation, I told him that marrying him would be a dream come true.  His response startled me.  "I'm not here to make your dreams come true."  Rob had a whole bunch of girls who adored him and wanted him to make their dreams come true.  I'm pretty sure it was common for him to feel like the hero, the savior, the champion.  But it wasn't common for me to feel like the maiden in distress.  I didn't need "saving," I just thought Rob was above me.

Fast forward to married life.  I no longer think that Rob is above me, or like I don't deserve him.  Rob is a wonderfully good man, but he has faults, which is something I was unaware of 10 years ago.  I have faults, he has faults; turns out we were equals in that regard all along.

Sometimes, we'll be laying in bed, just talking about nothing, and I'll say, "Remember when you told me that you weren't here to make my dreams come true?"
Invariably he'll respond, "I said that?"
I'll tell him, again, about the conversation.  About how it shocked me, but about how I actually liked it.  Rob wasn't here to save someone.  He was here to find an equal and share a good life with that equal.
Then he'll hug me tight and say, "Now I'm here to make your dreams come true."

And that pretty much sums up my Top 10 Reasons I Love Being Married to Rob.

10 Years.

Next Tuesday is our 10 year anniversary.  I should be pontificious (I just made that word up) about our 10 years, about what marriage really means.  Or I should be posting the top 10 things I love about my husband.  Or the top 10 things I love about marriage in general.

Spare me.

Here's us in 2000, 2 months before we got married:

And here's us on Thanksgiving Day 2010:

Still cute, right?  :)  (Teancom just looked at the first picture and asked, "Is that Dad?"  Then he asked 2 more times.)

...  Even though I'm not making a Top 10 list, I AM grateful for my husband.  He's a good man, and we have a good marriage and a good life.  Hurray for 10 years!

Elijah Likes Stickers

Since the start I've been allowing my kids to put their artwork on the walls.  I like kid artwork, and they like showing it off, so it's a win for everyone.

But somehow Elijah decided that he should be able to put anything he wants on the wall.  He started with his homework papers.  I told him that wasn't okay.  Then he started putting up images he'd printed off the computer.  Fine.  And then stickers.  Whatever.

And this is where we currently stand.  Join me on a journey across Elijah's bedroom walls.

up...

and over...

still going...  (did you notice the ones on the ceiling?)

and back down...

He told me he was putting these on the wall to "beat his high score."

And in case you were counting walls, that was an unbroken sticker string spanning 3 walls.  The fourth wall:

He takes these stickers off his school papers.  He gets really mad if I recycle the paper before he can get to the sticker.

I might need to put in place a new rule about stickers.  But until then, let's celebrate the best section with a close-up, shall we?

Awesome.

Key West for REAL, part 3

Friday - Leaving Key West
Rob picked up the rental van and we spent the next few hours clearing out Key West Friend's house and packing the van.  Tank said, "Is this our new van?"  I told him it was ours for the weekend and then asked him if he remembered what happened to our old van.  He thought for a minute and then said, "It got broke-ed."  Yep.

Before we left Miciah tried out her shoebox boat on the ocean.  She made this boat at home and then insisted on bringing it down to Florida with us.  She's cute like that.

Do you love how she painted it?  Awesome, right?  ...  It floated pretty well, too.  Rob kept calling it a "seaworthy vessel."

Then we left.  While driving back up the Keys we stopped at the Seven Mile Bridge to walk on the old scary bridge and take pictures.  It was very bright, but the ocean was gorgeous.

If you're ever going to the Keys, I highly recommend stopping to walk on the Seven Mile Bridge.  It'll give you an appreciation for the new, wider bridge.  You'll walk on that old bridge and think, "Why would anyone in their right mind drive on this bridge?"

We also saw a bunch of blue jellyfish in the water, and that was fascinating because there were so many of them!  I couldn't get a good picture of them.  But here's a picture of Elijah instead:

Better than a jellyfish any day.

We drove to the Everglades with Key West Friend leading the way.  We arrived after dark, so we set up our tent and ate dinner by flashlight and car headlights.  It was awesome.  Then we covered ourselves with 100% deet, talked late into the night, and then went to sleep.

Saturday in the Everglades
Some time around 2 a.m. the deet wore off and the mosquitoes and no-see-ums found us.  We woke up covered in bites.  Which made us suddenly appreciative of our after-dark arrival the night before.

NOTE TO ALL OF YOU:  If you ever go to the Everglades (and I recommend it.  Don't go every year, but do go once in your lifetime), go in the winter months and bring lots of 100% deet.  We re-sprayed ourselves every hour or so.

We attempted to see manatees, but they weren't cooperating.  So instead we saw lots and lots and lots of alligators.  (Plus cool birds and fish and stuff.)

That second alligator was inches from us, and that's not an exaggeration.  You're supposed to stay 15 feet away from the alligators, and we were happy to stay away from them, thank you very much.  But this one crossed the foot path moments before we did and its tail was even over the path for a while.  Check it out:

Really neat, but probably not the safest.  He looked so docile.  It was very tempting to try to touch him.  But then you remember that he's a wild animal, he has lots of sharp teeth, and that you'd like to keep all of your limbs in tact.

On our way out of the Everglades we stopped and ate gator sandwiches.  Alligator is actually pretty good.  I'd eat it again.

Then we said bye to Key West Friend and made our way to Orlando, which was only about a 5 hour drive.  And that was good, cause we were exhausted from a long week and not sleeping the night before.  Rob and I took turns passing out in the passenger seat.  He slept and I woke him up when I thought that trying to stay awake for another 5 minutes would result in me crashing the car.  It was a long day.

It ended at my uncle's house, eating leftover Thanksgiving food (hurray!), watching Alice in Wonderland, and then sleeping wonderfully in a soft bed that wasn't the ground.

The kids, ready for bed.

Sunday and Monday - Home We Come!
Our no-talking-about-the-van rule was over now that our trip was over, so the whole way home we talked about cars.  We discussed which new car we would get if we could get anything we wanted.  And then we discussed what we would need to do with our finances to be able to afford another car.  It was a fun time.

After a stop in Atlanta and another much needed good night's sleep, we arrived home on Monday night.  Our original plan was to let most of our crap sit in our van and we'd slowly unpack it over the next several days (I'm a slacker like that).  No such luck.  The rental car had to be back at the airport by 9:30 the next morning.  We unpacked it, cleaned it out, and returned it, all in about 2 hours turn around time.  I was impressed with us.

THEN we went home and crashed.  I think the whole next day I was basically asleep standing up.  It was a long trip.  But it was fun!  Thank you, Miciah, Elijah, and Teancom, for saving up your money for a year so we could enjoy our time in Key West.  And thank you, Key West Friend, for letting us come. 

The End

Key West for REAL, part 2

Wednesday

We woke up on Wednesday and heard Tank say, "Look, Elijah!  There's a rooster in Julianne's back yard!"  Elijah didn't even look.  He said, "There's ALWAYS a rooster."  If you've been to Key West, you know it's true.  Roosters run free all over the island.  I think it's supposed to be quirky and cute, like Hemingway's 6-toed cats.

Wednesday was our day for sailing!  Sailing isn't cheap, but if you're going to go to a subtropical island, you HAVE to go sailing!  I think that's a Vacation Rule.

The kids loved it, of course!  We saw dolphins and felt the lean of the boat and drank all their free water.  Tank was especially into it.  He wouldn't take his eyes off the ocean (which he called the 'sea,' and that's adorable) and he was so excited to see dolphins.  Unfortunately he was the only one who didn't see them.  ...  I think he did see them, he just didn't recognize them.  They didn't jump out of the water or anything, so you had to kind of know what to look for.

Captain Andrew was great with the kids and he let each of them sail the boat.  Very cool.  He told Miciah that she was very good at sailing and then said, "You need to get this girl sailing lessons."  Right.  On which ocean nearest me?

Also, there was this great crazy tipsy guy on the boat with us.  New England accent.  He kept telling us he was from Connecticut.  For the rest of my life I will be referring to him as Midlife Crisis.  I don't think I've ever met anyone that was a caricature of a person until Midlife Crisis.  He kept saying, "Are you seeing this?  They're steering the boat.  They're ACTUALLY steering it.  This is the real deal.  Are you seeing this?"  Wasn't much to do but smile.  "I'm moving down here.  I'm done.  I told my kids, 'I'm already gone.'  It's done.  I'm gone.  I've already looked at 2 houses in Florida.  It's done."  Okey dokey.  And, my personal favorite:  With his third beer in hand, "This is a natural high.  No, really.  Look at this.  We're on the ocean.  The sun is shining.  Sails above you.  I mean, this is the real deal!"  Uh huh.

Afterwards Key West Friend took Miciah on a date to the Shipwreck Museum and Rob and I walked back to the Navy base with the boys.  We bought souvenirs and what did the boys want?  Pirate toys that we could buy at our local Walgreens.  But they were happy and the toys were cheap, so it's all good.

Miciah trying on the old school diving mask at the Shipwreck Museum.

Teancom the Pirate

We put the kids to bed early because they were wiped out and CRAZY.  We waited until Elijah had passed out and then Rob and I went on our real date.  We walked down Duval Street, which is the famous night life place.  The challenge is called the Duval Crawl, where you get one drink at every bar on Duval Street, and there are probably 25 bars.  Rob and I passed on the challenge and just walked down the street, which was interesting enough.  Lots of ladies of various sorts (naked ones in pictures, dancing ones, scantily clad ones, not-really-ladies dressed in drag), t-shirts of questionable value, and souvenirs that you'd only buy if you were drunk.  All-in-all, it was our kind of place.

One of the things that I love about our trip to Key West is that our kids will have fond memories of the island, and they won't remember the party side.  They'll think that it was beautiful and fun and nice.  And they won't know what on Duval Street after 7 p.m. the party REALLY starts.  :)  Hurray for Key West.

Anyways, on our date we went to Caroline's on Duval Street and ate the best key lime pie I've ever had.  We bought a whole pie to take home for Thanksgiving.  Which brings us to ...

Thursday, Thanksgiving Day 2010
The first order of business was taking family pictures on the beach.  We'd been planning this for ages, because Key West Friend is a good amateur photographer and she has a great camera.  I LOVE the way the pictures turned out!  In a few weeks I'll have a large print posted on my living room wall.  Hurray!

Here are the kids all prepped and ready to go.  I wanted to take the boys' pictures while their hair was still combed, since that was bound to last all of 90 seconds.

My favorite part of my little pre-photo shoot photo shoot was that Elijah was completely uncooperative.  Not shocking.  To get the photo above, Rob had to tell him some joke about a chicken.  This is a photo taken moments before, when he said, "This IS my smile!"

Yes.  Clearly.

Then we cooked and cooked and baked and cooked and washed dishes and prepped for our Thanksgiving meal.  It was super tasty, we enjoyed our time with friends, and Miciah decorated this adorable table for us:

Check out how much effort she put into this table.  She was so excited about it.  Cracked me up.  The girl is a born party planner.  (Bummer she has me for a mom.  I'm a born anti-party planner.  Less work = better.)

It rained on Thanksgiving day and into the evening, so it was good that we got our photo shoot out of the way.  Also, it meant that Rob missed his Key West sunset.

...  to be continued  ...

Look at Christmas!

Today I asked Tank if he likes his name.  I'm not insecure about the name we picked out for our son, I'm just curious.  At what point in his life will he realize that his name is "strange"?  (And yes, this is connected to the title of this post.  Wait for it.)  And when he does realize it, will he hate his name or love it or will it not matter because it's his name?

So I asked him if he likes his name.  He said, "Not very much."  I asked him, if he could pick any name he wanted, what he would choose.  He thought about it and said, "I want my name to be 'Look at the Christmas lights.' "  I suggested that Look at the Christmas lights might be a touch long.  So he said, "Okay.  How about just 'Look at Christmas.' "

So there it is.  Tank's new name is Look at Christmas.

(But it's a secret.  So you don't know anything about it.)