James and Shauri's wedding, Part I

I have no idea how many parts this will be, but I think if I don't start writing things down now I'll never get around to it.

James is Mark's next-older brother.  I first met him shortly after Mark and I started dating, and the first thing I thought about him was that I thought he was super-cute.  He's the random skinny blond-haired, blue-eyed kid in the family.  He hardly looks like his siblings, but he looks EXACTLY like his parents.  It's kind of like how my sister, Marissa, and I don't look very much alike (until we smile together) because we've inherited opposite traits from our parents. :)

James is really smart and speaks about a bajillion languages (okay, maybe it's just Portuguese, Arabic, and Spanish, but it SEEMS like a lot), plays the guitar and had his own band in high school and used his college money to make a CD, currently works for the foreign service and is going to Baghdad with his wife in September, travels like crazy, and writes poetry.

Last February, I met Shauri when we visited James in Matamoros.  She happened to be going to Mexico city and had a layover of sorts in Brownsville/Matamoros.  I don't exactly know how to describe this, but ... she's sort of the person I imagined myself becoming.  She served a Spanish-speaking mission in Anaheim and somehow managed to graduate from school without getting married and landed herself an awesome job that lets her travel ALL OVER THE PLACE.

Instead of graduating and traveling the world, I got married my freshman year and had my first kid shortly after graduating (or, at least, when I *should've* graduated if they hadn't cancelled all of my finance electives TWICE.)  Often times, life doesn't turn out how you envisioned it.

Anyway.  Shauri was amazing and awesome and slightly intimidating to me because I barely knew her and already idolized her.  James talked to Mark once and was like, "Should I pursue it?" and Mark was like HECK YES DO IT MAN.  Now I'm thrilled to have one of my idols in the family.  Don't let her know. ;)  I guess I'm also a little sad because now I KNOW I'm not the coolest daughter-in-law anymore. ;) ;) ;)




Okay.  So James lived in Matamoros, then went to Washington, DC to study more Arabic before going off to Baghdad.  Shauri lives in Ann Arbor, MI, in James' sister's ward.  She gets to travel all over the place because she kind of does video PR stuff for companies.  It sounds like most of her family lives in Ann Arbor, too.  So, of course, between James' family living on the west coast, Shauri's family living in Michigan, and James living in Washington DC, Shauri opts to get married in ... Rhode Island.  Makes perfect sense, no?

Mark's family goes to the Oregon coast every summer.  Larry (Mark's dad) has gone in on a house with some of his siblings, so we all stay at the "coast house" every summer.  Apparently, Shauri's family went to Rhode Island a lot when she was younger because her grandpa grew up there.  Or something.  So it's a gorgeous place and would be an AWESOME cool place to have a wedding.  They went all out and out of their way to make the wedding an awesome experience for all of us.  It was like a destination wedding ... a nice change from your stereotypical Mormon wedding.

*whistles innocently and looks away* Who, me?


Awesome fact #1: Kids under 2 fly free, and Carmen turned 2 the Wednesday after we returned from Rhode Island.  Thank you, James and Shauri, for choosing the first weekend in May so we could save $400+ on airline tickets. ;)

I was a little nervous about the toddler-on-a-plane thing, but Carmen and I have traveled together a LOT.  We've driven to Seattle several times and Mom's purchased plane tickets for us so we can visit her.  Plus, this time, we had Mark with us so hopefully the two of us would be able to entertain her enough on the flight.

Our flight to Rhode Island had two parts - first a short flight to Phoenix, then a long flight the rest of the way.  Our first flight was pretty empty, so we actually had a whole row of 3 seats to ourselves.  Carmen did a *fabulous* job entertaining herself and charmed the pants off everyone in the plane.  It's fun to have people compliment your kid after you land.  "Awww, you're such a cute little girl, you were so good on the plane!" to which Carmen nonchalantly goes, "Yeah." and elicits more coos from people.  Hahahahahahaha.

Our second flight was completely full, and we were lucky to sit next to a woman who said, "I remember what it's like to fly with a toddler." and, "You can sit by me as long as you bring her with you!" and would occasionally ask us if we needed to get up and walk around or go to the bathroom.  Carmen fell asleep on Mark's chest for a while and it was a lovely 6-hour flight.

Thank you, thank you, thank you.

My parents tried matching their arrival time to ours, since we rented a car together.  We got off the plane and saw them standing next to the gate entrance, and for a while it felt like we were in some kind of pre-9/11 time warp.

Don't you miss being able to see your loved ones right at the gate?

Things went smoothly with retrieving our luggage and finding the car rental place, even though the car rental place was like ON THE OTHER SIDE OF THE AIRPORT.  We took a bajillion moving platforms across the airport and finally made it.  Dad was smart enough to grab us one of those Smart Cartes, because otherwise ... there's no way we could've figured out how to get our luggage out.  Whoever invented the wheel was a genius.

Random side note: There was a guy with two kids who was also going to the car rental place, and he was wearing his kid's little backpack that was shaped like a Storm Trooper head.  I wanted to tell him "Happy Star Wars Day" (it was May 4th) but he looked kind of cranky and I didn't want to annoy him.

ANYWHO.  All of our luggage fit perfectly (and barely!) into the back of the SUV we rented and I wanted to be a good person and return the Smart Carte.  Dad wanted to leave it in the parking lot and let the airport people take care of it.  I took it back inside and got a lucky quarter from the cart return (hooray!) and on my way out, I passed by a lady who was on our flight.  She stopped me to tell me she thought my daughter was an absolute doll and I thanked her.

Seriously, it felt so good.  It was a nice vacation.  I'm so happy.

I think it makes a big difference when we leave on time, get there on time, and get enough sleep.  The beginning of a vacation is the easiest part. :D

We managed to find our hotel and got in touch with Mark's parents (who were staying in Boston that night because they wanted to revisit their old stomping grounds at Harvard) for what we would be doing on Thursday.  More about that next time, in Part II!!

More Carmenisms

Carmen used to call her friend Braxton "Bobby".  He would get really upset every time she said his name.  "I'm BRAXTON, not BOBBY!"

Two-year-olds learn quickly as they master making sounds with their mouths and learn to formulate sentences.  "Bobby" has now evolved into a name that sounds a bit like "Button" with an occasional "x" in it.  This weekend, Braxton's family went to Grandma's house and I had the opportunity to feed their cats.  Carmen loved coming over and seeing Kanga and Roo.  This morning, after dropping Mark off at work, she said, "Bra-tin's house!  Roo house!" because she remembered the names of the cats that lived there. <3  I love having a two-year-old!!

She also used to use the phrase, "I hold you!" to ask us to pick her up and carry her downstairs or wherever we're going.  This morning, her grammar evolved again.  "I hold you me!" she said.

On Friday night, we had another game night at our house.  Jorgen came over and while they were saying goodbye to each other, I said, "Hey, Carmen, can you say, 'I love you, Jorgen'?" and she parroted, "I love you, Jorgen!"  This is the first time she's said, "I love you" to anyone!  Cute!!

Today, I was cleaning the kitchen and I turned around and saw Carmen standing there with her eyes closed and her arms folded.  "Father, thank you thank you, sippy." she said.  Sadie said, "Carmen's saying a prayer!"  ... which I thought was really cute.  When we say prayer at dinner, we ask Carmen which parent she wants to have say it.  Lately, she's been saying, "I do it!" and then folds her arms and starts mumbling gibberish.  It's kinda funny, because sometimes she actually says words and other times she just mumbles cute stuff.

Anywho.  I've been kind of sick since Carmen's birthday on Wednesday.  I hope to write more in the future, but life just got really busy.

Mark got a job in Austin and we're moving in July.

HOLY COW.

Found my cat ... again.

I'm glad my life isn't boring. @_@


I found Tiber today.  HE'S ALIVE!!!!
My brother-in-law got married on the East Coast on Friday (more about that later) and we left on Wednesday.  On Thursday, my neighbor who is caring for our cats called me in a panic and said, "I went to your house today to feed your cats, and I CAN'T FIND TIBER."  I told her not to worry, and I'd take care of everything when we got home if he didn't turn up.  It's not her fault my dumb indoor cat likes to play escape artist.

We've been praying a lot this week for Tiber's safe return.

Now, THE STORY.

This morning, as we were all heading off to run a bajillion errands, I thought I heard a cat meowing outside.  I had to drop off the recycling, buy groceries, and pick up all of the snacks for Mark's work, so I knew I didn't have much time to investigate.  We got all of the errands done that we needed to do and I dropped Sadie off 10 minutes early, woohoo!!

When we got home, I heard the cat STILL meowing and wondered what was wrong.  I walked over to the fence to figure out where the noise was coming from, and I said, "Tiber?  TIBER?!  Is that you?!" and the poor cat kept meowing and meowing.  I looked between the slats in the fence and still couldn't see anything, so I figured he must be stuck back there somewhere.

I felt a little awkward about trespassing into someone's backyard, BUT THERE'S A CAT BACK THERE, I THINK IT IS MINE, AND I MUST RESCUE IT.  I strapped Carmen back into her car seat and drove one street over to see if I could figure out what backyard he was in.  The house was ... um ... trashy ... and the backyard was a total junk yard (3 cars, a big shed full of crap, an air conditioning unit, random barbed wire, it was yuck.)

The meowing was coming from the discarded air conditioning unit and I peeked inside and there was this little squished gray cat in there.  "TIBER!" I screamed.  "Tiber!  I'll get you out of there!  Just wait and I'll find a way!" and he yowled and meowed and squirmed ... but there was nothing for his claws to catch onto and the a/c fan kept spinning and he would slide back to the bottom every time he tried to climb up.  Plus, he was pretty squished down there and he could hardly move.  I tried tipping it over and tearing it apart, but I didn't have enough leverage to do much.  Plus, I was squished up against the fence (which backs to our townhome complex) with these random piles of barbed wire ... I tried knocking on the door to let the home owners know my cat was stuck in their yard, but nobody was home.  I was shaking and my adrenaline levels were through the roof.

I ran back to my house to get the tool box in case I could disassemble the unit and get him out.  I also called Cat to see if she could help me (and then I was going to call the cops as a last resort) and we found a neighbor to hold the baby monitor while Braxton slept.

We managed to get the air conditioning unit tilted over enough that Cat could pick up Tiber by the scruff of his neck.  I had a wool emergency blanket in the back of my car (yay, emergency preparedness!).  We wrapped Tiber up in that because he was matted and dirty and covered in urine and Cat held him while we drove home.  She gave me several cans of wet cat food that her cats won't eat and I gave him a bath.

We got home just as the Jehovah's Witnesses arrived and Dana agreed to come back later, after I'd taken care of my cat.

Carmen and I took Tiber upstairs into the bathroom and I stripped down to my underwear (woo-woo!) and wrestled Tiber into our bath tub and sprayed him down with the shower hose.  The water was completely black and he was NOT HAPPY but was too weak to scratch me or jump around much.  I shut the door to the bathroom, told Carmen to not let Tiber out, and grabbed some towels, a bowl for water, a can of food, and Carmen's baby wash.  I went back into the bathroom, let Tiber eat for several minutes, then washed him up a few times.  Finally, the water came off clear and I didn't want to torture him any more.  I squeezed out what water I could and dried him off a little bit and let him eat and shake himself out.

Wet cats look so pathetic and skinny.

Now he's dry and looks pretty normal.  Still traumatized, still probably hungry.  I'll keep my eye on him for the next few days to see if he's acting funny or sick.  He doesn't look like he's in any pain, just lonely and hungry.  He has a little gash in his thigh, which I shaved and cleaned out and put Neosporin on.  I'm going to call the vet to see if he has any advice of anything more I should do for him.  Really, there's no point in taking him IN to the vet if the vet's going to do exactly what I did.



I'm so glad he's okay.

It would've been so horrible for him to ... for him to have died in that awful air conditioner.  Ugh.  Why do people let their yards turn into junkyards?

Stay tuned for even more dramatic wedding stories!!  Murphy's Law is alive and well!!!

Ding Dong, the Witch is Dead!

In case you missed it, they found Osama bin Laden yesterday and killed him.

Favorite quotes from my friends' Facebook feeds last night:

"A prince gets married, the bad guy is dead. It's a real Disney weekend."

"R.I.P Osama Bin Laden - World Hide And Go Seek Champion (2001 - 2011)"

"I think Obama is postponing his statement on purpose so he can air instead of Trump and The Apprentice :) Sneaky comeback."

"BREAKING NEWS: Donald Trump demands Bin Laden death certificate. ;)"

{Kamis's own personal thought: Obama killed bin Laden about as much as Al Gore invented the Internet.  It doesn't make this any less cute, though. ;) }

"Osama is dead. Praise Allah... oh wait."

"somewhat disappointed that it wasn't an alien invasion"

"Bin Laden's last spiteful act against the United States: giving up the ghost on Obama's watch to get him reelected."

"Carmen Sandiego, Waldo, and Osama bin Laden in epic hide & seek showdown - WHO WOULD WIN?"

"With Bin Laden dead, who am I supposed to hate? I feel aimless. This is like when the Red Sox won the World Series in 2004."

"Fun fact: 66 years ago today, Hitler was confirmed dead."

"Was watching Return of the Jedi with Zacky, when Emperor is dropped, then the twitter feed of the Osama news came. Good things happen when you watch Star Wars."





Obviously, this isn't the end of terrorism by any means, but it is a good day in the world.  It's good to find a reason to celebrate. :)