The Beginning of an American Tradition

Last night, the boys started playing Monopoly (with Ryan's help).  This morning, they have continued the game.  It has lasted many hours already, as all Monopoly games do.

A few notable quotes from Cody this game:



"Nathan!  You just want to take all my money!"

"Nathan!  All you care about is money, money, money and houses houses houses!"

"You just want to win this game!"  (Said very accusingly.)

"Nathan?  Don't you remember we're supposed to be cleaning?"

And "Uhhhhhhhhhhhh.  When is this game going to be over??"



Well that's what it is to be American, son.  You have to play Monopoly 'til you're miserable and even then you still keep playing.  It's an American tradition.

Pasta City

Alternate title: Year's Supply of Food Storage in One Day.


I am again posting about my couponing conquests.  I know I posted about it pretty recently, and I wouldn't have done it again, but this haul really is more impressive than the last one.  And my husband said I should.  So here it is:

 Whewf.  I felt like I was taking a family picture... a very large family picture and it was difficult getting everyone in!  :)  Alrighty.  That would be...


90 boxes of pasta (yes.  90.  Do you know what Cody requests for every single lunch and every single dinner?  Pasta.  Pasta.  And more pasta.  This is a GREAT day.  This is a year's supply of pasta!  Hooray!)

12 boxes of Emerald Breakfast To Go (new product-but it's basically packages of trail mix with dried berries)

12 bottles of Sweet Baby Ray's (You love this bbq sauce.  You think it's the best.  Right?  'Cause we sure do.)

4 boxes of brownie mix

3 packages of toilet paper

4 packages of Cascade Complete dishwashing packs

1 package of Pampers wipes

2 boxes of Kraft Bagelfuls

2 bags of Kraft Deluxe Mac n Cheese (ever tried this?  Do you think less of me for admitting that I love it??)

4 packages of gum

4 Zone bars

2 sticks of string cheese

3 Hormel Compleats

Bananas.


Lawsie.  What am I bid?

For a tower of pasta taller than Cody and quite a few times wider?

I think I can't wait for you all to guess.  I'll just tell you and have you be impressed right now.

$18.48.  

Yep.  Do a double take.  Go back and look again.  I mean, just the Sweet Baby Ray's alone should have been about that much.  Shoot, just tax should have been about that much!  Plus I earned .25 cents off a gallon at Albertsons... and if I'm lucky, that'll bring the cost of one fill up down to just $4 a gallon... ;)  

But I gotta be honest, man, I'm exhausted!  It's quite a bit of work!  It's like a part time job... well, and speaking of that, you know what Nathan said in a prayer the other day?

"Please bless Daddy in his job of making us money and please bless Mom in her job of saving us money."

Amen and Amen.

More from Fashion HQ

'Twas during the post church clothing rip off.  You know.  Everyone comes home and starts peeling ties and tights, etc.  Leah was sitting outside of our closet when Ryan came out dressed in his Sunday gear.  Khakis and your basic post mission England shirt.  You can see the very outfit pictured below.

Leah looked at him very appraisingly and very seriously said, "Dat's not bery cute." 

Oh great.  2 years old and already disapproves of what her parents are wearing...

A First

 Little Miss helped herself to my makeup.  She actually got quite a bit of it on her eyelashes, so clearly she was trying to apply it the right way... this girl.  She's... girly.  She wears my shoes around the house-always two different ones.  She also cuddles them and takes them for rides in her stroller.  She has an opinion about what she wears (um, my boys still don't.)  She picks socks and shoes and changes them multiple times a day and always says, "I look so cute!"

But then I started searching the internets and realizing that you know, maybe she's just following a more advanced fashion than I am.  Plenty of gals on the 'nets look way worse than she does... and maybe she knows something I don't...

I guess she's kind of avant garde - a budding fashionista.

Happy Mother's Day, of course

 I actually kinda like all of my kiddles, but this is the nicest picture I currently have of me with any of my offspring (thanks Miss Jayna). 

Well, so far I've slept in, and then when I woke up, I found that my sweetheart was busy making  cinnamon rolls from scratch.  My children are trying their guts out to be kind to each other (the only present I asked for), but I happen to know that they even bought me something as well.

Yep.  It's shaping up to be a great Mother's Day.  Hope yours is just as lovely!

"It's called respect."

So the boys organize my coupons for me.  It's one way they can help out... Anyway, so they were doing it and Cody put something where it didn't belong, and Nathan wanted him to fix it.  Cody didn't want to.  I hear Nathan say, "It's called respect.  And responsibility."

Cody said, "No it's not!  It's called refreshment!"

So telling.  For both of them.

And when you say "86" or "84," what you really mean is...

91.  

NINE-TY ONE.  

 This woman is 91 years old.  Or young.

Interestingly enough, Miss Alanna, this is my grandma's sister on the OTHER side.  Yes.  I know.  Digest that for a moment.  I've got my freakin' awesome grandma (my dad's mother) and Aunt Rose is my mom's mom's sister.  Yeah?  So that means I've got RAD OLD LADY GENES coursing through my veins from both sides.

I think my new slogan shall be 

 

Yes.  I think that describes it all quite nicely.  

Thanks for playing along, kids. 

A Study in Awesomeness: Aunt Rose

Quite technically, my great Aunt Rose, but you don't ever have to be too technical around Aunt Rose.  By the end of the post, she'll be your Aunt Rose, too.

So listen.  I haven't spoken with the woman in, oh, let's say a round 5 years.  But I wanted to stay with her for our trip, so I gave her a call.  5 years of no speaking and our conversation with something like this:

"Hi Aunt Rose, this is Bethany."

"Well Bethany, hi, how are ya?"

"Good Aunt Rose, how are you?"

"Oh I'm fine.  You're still in Boise?"

"Yes."

"You like it?"

"Yes we do."

Oh good.  Now, let's see, you have 3 kids-2 boys and a girl, right?"

"Yes."

"Oh I bet they're cute."

"They are, and how would you like the opportunity to meet them next weekend?"

"Great, when will you get here?"

"Thursday night."

"Well fine, I've got my Read 'n' Feed, so I won't be here, but the house will be and you're more than welcome to use it.  Just come on in."

2 minutes and 4 seconds.  In that time, we caught up, arranged to come stay at her house and said goodbye.  Don't mess around with the woman 'cause she's got stuff to do and places to go and awesome to be.

This woman.  Alright, get me, so we get there Thursday night and she wasn't there, as she said she wouldn't be-she got home at about 11:30!  She's out half the night at plays and playing games with her friends and the like.  She's crazy.  We talk about a certain book, she says, "Well I wish I had time to read, but I can't.  I'm too busy."  Too busy?  Too busy doing what?

She spends all her time at the hospital.  As a patient?  Um, no!  As a volunteer, duh!  Volunteers at the hospital, used to volunteer every single day at the MTC teaching literacy.  (Hilariously-I asked her if she was still doing that.  "Oh, no, not anymore.  I guess I was on a mission because one day they gave me my release papers!")

When she's not out at plays or book clubs or running cancer fundraisers or volunteering at the hospital, she's traveling.  Where?  Oh, you know, normal places like Morocco, Turkey, China, Japan, Israel (4 times), Africa on safari, England, the Hawaiian Volcanoes.... (to be honest, I don't know all of the places she's been.  I was asking her to list the places she's been, and she tired of it, so she eventually said, "Well, if it's there, I've been there."  HAH!  See what I mean?  A study in awesomeness.  Her house is filled with snow globes from Nova Scotia and elephants from India and guide books to New Zealand (does that necessarily mean that she's been to all those places?  I have no idea, since she got bored of telling me, but we can assume.)  And that's just a few little things.  The house is filled with fascinating items that came from a life of world travel.

Staying at her house?  Totally awesome.  Come and go as you please, eat with us or not, you do what you've gotta do and I'll do what I've gotta do.  Pretty rad.  (Oh, here's another funny story-it snowed in Utah while we were there, rather unexpectedly-and I hadn't brought a coat.  So I asked Aunt Rose if I could borrow one.  Sure.  She takes me to her closet where I fully expect an old lady jacket.  She goes, "Well, I'm wearing that one, so you can't have that, but here, how 'bout this?" And hands me a sleek black leather jacket.  One that I am absolutely not ashamed to wear on BYU campus.  In fact, I think it makes me look like more of a co-ed than I actually am at the moment.  Straight from Aunt Rose's closet.  What?

Oh, and I haven't mentioned Virgil yet.

Virgil is her husband of 9 years.  (So yes, just 9 years ago, the woman was a newlywed.  Naturally.)  And Virgil is a dear man who, fascinatingly enough, Leah took to immediately.  And that is quite unusual for little Miss I-Play-Hard-To-Get-So-Win-My-Affections-Slowly.  Virg.  He's awesome.

Now, she's my grandma's sister, so I bet you can guess that's she fairly old, but just how old?  Just how old is this woman who never stops?? 

Do you tire of my guessing games or is it fun?  Look, if no one responds, I'll know that you're bored of guessing how old my awesome female relatives are and I won't do it again.  But if not, give me a guess... how old is Miss Rosetta?



Oh, and if you were looking for the vacation recap post, it's here.  :)

Quick Little Trippie

Ryan's office is doing a little remodeling, so the office was closed from Thursday 'til today (Monday).  So, we bipped out of town for the weekend!  We headed down to Utah, and had some fun.  It was quite a laid back trip and I didn't take pictures of everything... well, the first picture I took was this:

OH I KNOW.  You're dying, aren't you?  You're saying, "Bethany!  I had no idea you could take a photograph of heaven!"  I know.  I know.  But we'll get to that.  That's a little ways into our trip...

On our first day, we drove down and hit this random little indoor carnival thing in Midvale.  It was called Jungle Jim's and our kids had a b-last.  It was perfect for our age of kids-not too expensive, and lots of little rides that you could ride as often as you liked, and then a few arcade things, and a soft play maze thing.  Well, here's a link to the website if you care.  I'm sorry I didn't take pictures because the kids loved it. 

Then some Sweet Tomatoes.  Do you live near a Sweet Tomatoes?  Are you taking advantage of that fact?  Do you ADORE the cornbread with real corn in it??  I do.  Oh for sure I do.

Next day: Ikea.  That glorious bastion of Swedish wonderfulness.  Being in an Ikea is an instant mood boost.  I think you imbibe some European air from the place... you pretend you're all "Euro simple clean lined good storage and I don't need too much stuff so I can live in 530 square feet and I could do it with style!"  At least, I do.  In my head.  Oh, by the end of the top floor, I know that's not true, but I like to pretend.  And then you get to the cafe.  The cafe, the cafe.  Has anyone written a song about Ikea's cafe?  They should.  As I sat there eating the blessed macaroni and cheese, and then positively DYING over the cake, I realized that secretly, this was the reason we came.  Oh, taking our kids on a trip to make memories is nice, and seeing family is good, but the real honest to goodness reason was that I had a serious hankering for Ikea mac 'n' cheese.  It was perfection.   

But all amazing Swedish things must someday come to an end, isn't that what they say?  So we took a little drive around Orem/Provo. Showed the kids the old haunts, tried to get them interested in seeing critical sights around BYU's campus... "See that field?  Right there?  That's where daddy and I met.  You should thank that field, kids.  Thank it for your very LIVES!"  I guess they were less than impressed.  Little weirdos.  So we went to the Bean Museum.  Gotta love it... well, Cody did...

No, he really IS the Polar Bear.  

And then, we became CUHRAZY and went out to dinner at ... wait for this one... Pirate Island.

I know.  The little Cody in your heart just died, went to heaven, died again and then went to Pirate Heaven.  BUT I DIDN'T TAKE PICTURES.  I'm lame, I know.  OR I'm cool because I didn't stop the fun for lame pictures.  You pick.  But here's a link to the image gallery and you can see, it really was super pirated out.  Kind of like Chuck E. Cheese, but pirate themed, and better done and with a huge pirate ship that they could play in and on and servers wearing pirate gear and the food wasn't terrible.  So, like Chuck E. Cheese except for in all those ways.  :)  Kids had a blast, complete with balloon swords and everything.  And Uncle Chase, Aunt Amberlyn and Baby Anna went with us.  And you know, I think they were kind of glad they had an excuse to go there...

After that, back to Chase and Amberlyn's place for a bit of cousin hang time...

Next day, we woke up to... snow.

What in the what in the??

Yes.  SNOW.

Like, lots of it.  BIZARRO world.  

So we improvised some boots (what?) and let them out to play.  You know, it was kind of pretty weird, but hey, thanks, Utah, for providing some free fun for my kids for the morning.  

We hit up BYU's bookstore in an attempt to brainwash our children into loving BYU and also get some cheap BYU t-shirts.  Ok, maybe those were both Ryan's motives... Of course, the one the husband got his heart set on WASN'T cheap, but whatever.  We're on vacation to a place that is so super dear to the man's heart.  Fine. Get a fancy shirt.  Live happy, man.

The boys then went off with Uncle Chay to his football games, and the girls did a wee bit of shopping... and when we returned, we ditched our kids with Chase and Amberlyn so we could go to Zupas in peace.  Oh Zupas.  I do love you.  I'll be back for you and your muenster cheese sandwiches.  It occurs to me that we're all using a lot less muenster than we should be...

I digress.

The next day was, sadly, departure day, but we hit up Temple Square on our way home.

Yes, this was the day right after this:

Weird wild, wonderful world.

Temple Square (or Square Temple, as Cody called it), was gorgeous.  I mean, it always is, but in Spring?  Please.

Funny.  It doesn't seem like that long ago, we were cake toppers on that very spot...

And now look at us.  No longer cute little cake toppers, we're the family who eats the cake and leaves crumbs in our wake.  Or something.  But isn't that weird?  Not even 9 years have passed and we have changed... like, a lot.

End of trip.  And the kids slept all the way home (which is another way to say, "They all lived happily ever after."  Because it's pretty much the same thing.)

Now, I'm done with my main post about the trip, but I am now also going to post about my Aunt Rose.  Don't miss it.