Mmm, Mmm, Good!

A few days ago, Evanston had a Lighted Parade. I was excited because I thought Jack would really like it. So we bundled up the little ones and headed out.


This is Addie in her little outfit that is supposed to fit babies up to 3 months old. You probably can't tell, but her legs don't even make it half way down. I guess that's good news because it will probably fit her longer than 3 months.


The newspaper said the parade was from 6-7. When we got there we realized what they meant to say was 6-6:15. We missed all of it, but I did manage catch a glimpse of a pretty awesome tractor covered in Christmas lights. So the lighted parade has made it on our list of things to make sure we do next year since we missed them this time around. We still wanted to do something Christmasy (I realize that's not a word) so we went home, started a fire, and had hot chocolate. This was Jack's first mug of the chocolate goodness. He loved it! So much so that he threw a fit when he drank it all and found out he wasn't getting a refill.

I love how when your plans are unexpectedly changed you still manage to have a good time. Tantrum or no, we had fun!

Common Sense

One of my absolute favorite things about living where we do is common sense almost always prevails. I love that, especially these days where things seem to be so confused and turned around. Along those lines, here's a story:

One day I was at Staples (one of my favorite places to feed my office supply addiction) and I was perusing the pen isle when I saw it. It was the perfect solution to all my work related pen problems. It was the NASA pen that can write upside down, in freezing temperatures, through grease and dirt and underwater. This was perfect for when I'm outside in the winter trying to write some notes about a house and its snowing or raining or I get hit with a ball of grease dropped from an airplane. This pen has been very good to me over the past few years and I often brag about it when I get the chance.

Well, one day last winter I was measuring a house and writing on my file folder with my NASA pen, and it was snowing. The homeowner was helping me measure (for some reason people always think I need help measuring, but in reality it's a thousand times easier when I measure solo) and he asked about the ink in my pen freezing. I took the opportunity to tell him all about my precious pen and how it is superior to all other pens in the case of snow storm writing. I told him all about how it can write in virtually any condition. I'm sure I went on in some detail and at length about my pen.

This gentleman was the prototypical Wyoming man. He had a deep, gruff voice and his words were few and thought out before they left his mouth. He asked if he could see my pen, and I gladly handed it to him. He examined it for a short time and asked if I wouldn't mind telling him how much I paid for it. I told him and he grunted out a "hmm" and handed it back to me. I suspected there was more to that response and asked him what he thought. He replied: "Well, I would have just used a pencil."

Needless to say, I don't brag about my NASA pen so much anymore.

Go Go Go

We recorded this a while ago and re-watched it last night and it just struck us as really funny.

Some Random Pictures

This place is in the Uintas. I thought it a little ironic to have a nudist ranch in a place where you will freeze to death 9 months out of the year and every evening if you're not wearing clothes and lots of them.

Just like in the movie Cars, they moved the highway and it died.

Ill advised mullet. I only wish my cell phone camera had better resolution...apologies.

He is almost 2

Jack has always been really good about not getting in to what we ask him to leave alone. With that said, he is beginning to find out how to tear things apart when he's left alone or we have our backs turned.