Apparently this is a post about hats

Okay, so now I really ought to start writing again.  Recording the memorable/everyday events of our family.  So I'm starting today.  Here goes!!

Yesterday was my mom's birthday.  I used to always tell people she was turning 21 again, but now that I'm 25, it's getting harder and harder to convince people of that. ;)

The important thing isn't that yesterday was Mom's birthday - it was that she flew to Austin to come visit us!!  She was going to come on Halloween and stay for a week, but at the last minute she decided she'd rather come later in the month.  It actually turned out really well, because Mace started crawling a few weeks ago. :)  I'm pretty sure that makes Mom's trip so much more exciting and fun, to have a crawling grandbaby. <3

We picked up Mom from the airport, then went to Mark's new job downtown, then ate dinner at the taco food truck by Mark's work (SO SO GOOD), then went over to 6th Street to look at hats at The Hat Box.  Mark has been asking me for weeks about getting a new hat from that place.  He has a coworker who, apparently, wears *amazing hats* and he got them all from The Hat Box.  Mark had a famous hat for a few years, but then we last it at Disneyland last year.  Funny coincidence: It was a hat we bought from the Indiana Jones store, and we lost it 3 years later on the Indiana Jones ride. :(

Old hat:

Carmen wearing Mark's hat!

New hat:

Mace wearing Mark's hat!  ... why do I not have any pictures of Mark in his own hats?!

We actually bought two new hats for Mark, but I only have a picture of this one.  The other one looks a bit more like the old hat.  Now I'm going to go on a hat tangent ... hats are big in Mark's family.  Sort of.  His brother, James, tends to wear hats and looks good in them.  We might get him a hat for Christmas (I doubt James will read this. phew.)  Mark's dad tends to wear fisherman hats.  But I don't have a picture of it.  Maybe some day!

I guess Mark looks really good in hats.  I'm just ... not used to them.  I don't wear hats.  Dang.  He's right.  He looks good in hats.  I should stop encouraging him to dress like a bum.  I'm such a boring t-shirt and jeans-type girl.

Jorgen's wedding, February 2011

Okay, maybe he doesn't always look great in hats.  But that doesn't stop him from always trying them on.

From our Mexico cruise in February 2010.  He tried on my cousin Emery's hat.

Taken some time in ... 2007?  One of our poor newlywed dates to DI where we bought a $35 couch.

Hm, somehow this turned into an entry about hats!  Okay!  So anyway, Mark got some nice new expensive hats last night as his Christmas present.

Today, I went to the gym in the morning to let Mom have some quiet time to get ready for the day.  All week long, Mace has been clingy and has cried (loudly!) the whole time I've been gone ... Usually the people in the gym day care try to let me work out for at least an hour if my baby is fussy, but this week has been so bad they've called me back after 20 minutes. Monday. Tuesday. Wednesday.  I had an appointment with a personal trainer last week who gave me a list of things to do, and this week I learned to immediately hit the machines fast and hard, because I'd probably only have 20 minutes to work out.  Hah! But then today, he was pretty cheerful and I got a whole hour in!  I was able to do all of the lifting I wanted to do, and I even got some time on the elliptical to read my Book Club book (The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks).  When I came back to the day care to pick my kids up (I wanted to go home and keep my mom company), Mace had just fallen asleep in the swing.  Aww~ <3

Mace took a ridiculously long nap in the afternoon, and when he finally woke up we went shopping with Mom on a Christmas quest to find an elf to do the "elf on a shelf" thing.  I hadn't really heard of this until a few years ago, when a friend of a friend posted pictures on her Livejournal of this weird cute little Christmas elf.  Apparently it's like a little gnome you hide around the house at Christmas time, and the kids get excited trying to figure out where the elf is hiding.  We couldn't find an elf, so Carmen picked out a Christmas puppy.  Close enough. ;)

Then we went to the mall to ride on the carousel and walk around.  There's a little kids' play area by the carousel and Carmen likes to go play with the little kids.  Since Mace is crawling, I set him out on the floor and let him watch the bigger kids play.  He is kind of a road block, and other moms are constantly telling their kids to watch out for the baby and be careful.  I'm not sure if I'm being helpful (now they are more aware of other people when they are playing!) or if I'm being annoying (why the eff is that weirdo mom letting her baby potentially get run over by packs of 3-year-olds?!) but I don't care if a little kid runs over Mace.  It will make up for the fact that he doesn't have a whole bunch of older siblings to maul him!  He only has Carmen!

It was really funny to watch the kids play at the mall.  They ran around in circles screaming, "AAAAUUUGGGHH IT'S THE BABY MONSTER!  HE IS GOING TO GET US!" and they would run away, as Mace smiled at them and got up on his hands and knees and rocked back and forth.  He didn't really want to go anywhere, so he just spun around in circles, watching kids and smiling, then occasionally coming over to Mom or me to gnaw on our shoes.  Oh, baby Mace, how I love you.

So .... that was our day.

And here's a picture of my mom ... she and Mace were matching today!  It was not intentional!

Don't you think she looks 21?

Wow.  Writing this was fun.  I think I'll do this more often.

Random Acts

So, I pretty much have the coolest husband in the world.  I have a strong desire to give and to serve, but there's also this stingy thorn in me that makes me think, "Okay, what is the cheapest way I can help this person out?"

On our honeymoon, we had stopped in Brigham City to eat some food and put gas in our car.  On the way to the freeway, we saw this guy holding up a cardboard sign that said, "BOISE" and just as we were passing him, I thought, "Oh, we're driving to Boise right now!  We could totally pick him up!"  Apparently, Mark had the same thought, because instead of getting on the freeway, he made a U-turn and asked if I would be okay with picking the stranger up.  Of course it was contingent on how comfortable we felt with him once he got in the car ...

Turns out he was on his way to Boise to see his girlfriend (or fiancee, I can't remember).  He didn't have a car and she was up there and they'd just had a fight or something and that morning they had been talking on the phone and he told her he was going to find a way to go see her.  I don't exactly remember the whole story (it was 5 years ago!) but he thought he was being terribly romantic and was really excited that someone had stopped to give him a ride.  It was an enjoyable trip.

A few years later, on our way back from one of our annual trips to the Oregon Coast with Mark's family, we saw another guy on the side of the road.  He had a big suitcase tied to a board with wheels and a dog.  Don't ask me how we managed to fit him into our 2-door Honda Civic ... but somehow we managed it.  I remember cutting my hand on a nail that was sticking out of the board (glad I was up-to-date on my tetanus shots! ha ha ha!) and he was kind of a crazy conspiracy theorist.  He was a car repairman who had lived all over the country and had just finished living in Hawaii.  "It was time for a change of pace, something new.  So I want to go to Idaho Falls."  Really?  After Hawaii, Idaho Falls is where it's at?  O.o;

So we dropped him and his dog off at some gas station in Idaho Falls and he merrily went on his way.  After that, we kind of agreed we weren't going to pick up hitchhikers again.  I was pregnant.

Last month, we went house-hunting in Austin.  A girl at one of the apartment complexes recommended we eat dinner at a place called Chuy's, where they have great Tex-Mex food.  I'm not exactly sure what "Tex-Mex" is, because it seems to me like it's more like real Mexican food than the "Mexican" food found in other places in the US ... Wikipedia doesn't help me too much.  Apparently the other Mexican food is "New Mexican" food, which explains why the Mexican food I grew up with ion Arizona seemed different from what I found in Matamoros/Cabo/Puerto Vallarta/Mazatlan, and why "Tex-Mex" felt more like Mexican food than what I thought was Mexican food ... for some reason, I grew up thinking "Tex-Mex" was Taco Bell compared to real Mexican food.

I still can't figure out whether Tex-Mex or New-Mex is more Mexican.  I LIKE BOTH.

Anywho.  Chuy's was really tasty and I was super-excited that we had a bunch of leftovers to take home.  On our way back to the freeway, we passed a hungry homeless guy with a sign.  I don't make a habit of carrying cash on me because credit cards are more secure and do a better job at recording my spending habits.  Anyway.  I happened to have a $5 and Mark suggested we give the guy our leftovers, too.  I knew he was right, but in the back of my mind, I was thinking, "siiiiigh!  I was so looking forward to eating my leftovers, too!  Why can't we give him something off the dollar menu at Wendy's or something?!"  The guy's eyes lit up and he blessed us when we gave him the money and the food.

We are so fortunate.

And, finally, last week we went to Disneyland for my birthday (still promise a post full of drama, intrigue, and car trouble!  or at least one of the three!)  On Saturday morning, we went to Subway to buy some sandwiches to eat for lunch.  Disneyland is awesome in the fact that they let you bring in food and don't force you to buy theirs. :)  Anyway.  I met a nice skinny homeless black guy while crossing the street who asked where I was from.  "Does it snow in Utah?  They say if you can't handle the cold you shouldn't move up north.  I wouldn't be able to handle it, considering what I've got." and he smiled and waved towards the scraggly sweatshirt he was wearing.  He wished me a nice day and we parted ways.

Inside Subway, I looked at the menu, thinking, "I know I like both turkey and ham sandwiches, and the ham sandwich is one of their $5 footlongs, so I'll save a buck and get a ham sandwich."  Mark and Carolyn were a little behind me and when Mark walked in, he said, "Let's get a turkey sub for the guy I saw you talking to at the light.  He just started talking to me and said he'd really like a turkey sandwich."  I kind of tried to get Mark to give him the ham sandwich instead (because I wanted a turkey sandwich, too, and had already ordered the ham sandwich!) and realized it was a really silly argument ... so we got the guy a footlong turkey sub and went on our way.

Anywho.  I'm thankful to have such a generous husband who makes me laugh at myself when I have petty thoughts like, "Aw, but ... leftovers!!!" and "but I want the turkey sub!"  Really, it means so much more to them than it does to me.  There is so much we can do to bless the lives of others.  Sometimes it's something personal like service, and other times it's something material like food.  We have much to spare.

Happy Birthday to Me!

We went to Disneyland for my birthday.  Our vacation was an unexpected adventure, which I will write about later (what is it with life and not having time to type?!), but anyway ... we got home and I noticed a big package on our doorstep.  Mom said she'd mailed me a birthday present, so I assumed the package was from her.

I went into the backyard to quickly water our garden before going to bed, and I heard this mysterious ripping noise coming from inside the house.

"Mark!  Don't open my birthday present!" I shouted.

"What?  How do you know it's your birthday present?"

"Because Mom said she sent me one.  Does it have my name on it, and is it from my mother?"

There was a slight pause, then a sheepish, "Um, yes."

"Okay. THEN STOP OPENING MY BIRTHDAY PRESENT.  Thank you."



Hahahaha.  I love my hubby.

And don't tell anyone ....... but I open his mail, too. ;)