Thanksgiving 2012!! (pt 3)

We spent our thanksgiving with family up in Ogden: Grandma Browne, Carolee, Marvin, and Austin.  Of course we had way too much delicious food-thanks Carolee and Grandma!  and everyone was excited to meet Jake.  It was so funny-Grandma was CRACKING jake up!  I don't know what it was about her-how she looked, how she was talking to him, I don't know but he loved her.  Code and I have tried to impersonate Grandma Browne since to get him to laugh but it doesn't work.  It's the most I've ever seen Jake laugh/giggle.

portrait of jake and grandma browne haha:

More hanging out pics:

it was lots of fun!

whoa step back

I was on facebook and happened to look at the waiting status update space...what's on my mind? funny you should ask facebook-
I'm just thinking about how I DON'T UNDERSTAND IRRATIONAL PEOPLE.  you know who I'm talking about.  People who fly off the handle over nothing.  People who go from 0-60 in one second.  People who can actually scream publicly and NOT feel embarrassed.  Who are these people?! I don't understand.  I mean...I can have a temper but I am not able to lose all inhibitions enough to yell at someone I don't even know much less someone I know...I may get a tone in my voice but flat out yell/scream?? how do you do that?
I actually started thinking about this last night when code and I were watching parenthood (we just started and they're on netflix so we're in the 2nd season).  In this show there are a LOT of screaming matches between people where they are yelling at each other at the same time (clearly not listening to the other) and then they both stop magically at the same time out of breath and just staring at each other in silence and it always goes 0-60 in no time flat.....and both code and I were like....."honestly, who does this?"  Well...I know our neighbors do this-we hear them yelling all the time (esp at their kids-it's really sad).
I started thinking about this again today when I was leaving our apartment complex to go to the bank.  It can be kinda confusing cause there's a main-ish road out of our complex that's not exactly straight (it curves around groups of apartment buildings), but it's clearly the main road cause there aren't any stop signs along it and then there are roads that branch off of this main one that do have stop signs.

So I'm going along and come to a part where the main road kind of curves a little where another road intersects.  So you can turn a lil bit to keep going straight on the road-follow it as it were- or turn 90 degrees to the left or right-but there's no stop sign for the main road.  So there's a car coming from the other way on the main road at this same moment.  Since they weren't signaling at all I assumed they were going to continue to go straight on this main road and I continue to turn with the road to keep going on it, when they sort of pull into the middle of the road acting like they want to turn to their left (my right) and so I just keep going (I don't have a stop sign and I assume that if you're going to turn you should yield to oncoming traffic-maybe I'm wrong about that??).  Well this girl slams on their breaks all dramatic like-her window is down and starts FREAKING OUT as I'm passing her.  I didn't really make eye contact cause I frankly didn't want to lip read what she was saying-not that I'd need to cause she was screaming at me (literally) and flailing her arms all around (prolly flipping me off) going crazy.  I looked in my rearview mirror after I passed her and kept going and she was still stopped (apparently another car was behind me and she waited for them too) and then turned......


WOW........
So I realized it's prolly pretty hard to tell what i'm talking about so I included a diagram...cause who doesn't love a good diagram:  (the stop signs are only for the people coming off those side roads

I was so shocked that she acted like that.  First of all, it's not a big deal-didn't even come close to hitting each other, and even if I was in the wrong (which I wasn't technically, she was just impatient), what...you had to wait 2 extra sec for me to pass?  big deal!  But you'd think that I had ran over her child the way she was carrying on.  Granted she was pretty young-around my age or younger I think...but still....where do people come off???

Even if I am mad I say a lil zinger to myself and move on-I'd never think of freaking out on someone like that.  The saddest part is that people like that who really need a talking to-to help them realize how crazy they look, are the LAST ones to listen.  If I had stayed and tried to "talk" to her I would have gotten cussed out further and prolly threatened to be honest-people like that seem to jump to violence pretty quick.

sheesh....it reminds me of my mission.  This is prolly the first time since my mission that I've experienced such an irrational reaction from someone.

Thanksgiving 2012!! (pt 2)

After a day or so of rest in Monticello we continued on to Salt Lake City to stay with my brother Eric since the condo my family was renting wasn't available til the next day.  We chatted and got to know Sarah (my new sister-in-law!) and watched one of the harry potters with riff tracks.  It was hilarious.  Anywho...
The next day we picked my parents up from the airport and all made our way to the condo up in Sandy.  It was pretty nice (you'll just have to take my word on it-didn't take any pics of the place).
Over the week we of course played tons of games, watched movies, and played a hilarious game of charades with the grandkids.  It was fun for everyone to finally meet Jake in person and see how much everyone has grown up!

Jake with his oldest cousin Benson:

Jake with his uncle Mike

We also got together with some of the Browne's for lunch at Crown Burger per cody's request :) (we had specific restaurants that we HAD to hit while there and this was one of them)  Where we got to meet Amy and Brett's lil guy carter-so cute and fun to see them together!

uncle randy and the lil guys

The next day Code and I took Jake to BYU campus.  Man I-15 is pretty nice now that it's FINALLY done!  Other random changes: the cheap barbershop on campus is no more-we discovered this, sadly, as Code tried to get his haircut only to find a ritzy paul mitchell salon.  I felt bad- he had waited til the trip to cut his hair specifically to get a cheap hair cut at the barbershop.  Oh well.

It was so crazy to be back-it felt like forever ago and yet so familiar.  It was fun to walk around campus and get our fav: pumpkin smashes! 

so, since when was this roped off infront of jamba in the wilk??? 

best building on campus:

cute photo session with jake:

in honor of the Engstroms:

We even stopped in to see the MoA and even though their main floor exhibits were out of commission (getting ready to put in a new exhibit next month apparently), the bottom floor had a cool exhibit combining warhol popart and some japaname artist.  I was nervous that jake would start crying and MAN does it echo in there-haha, but he was the perfect lil patron of the arts.  They had a really cool interactive area in the middle of the exhibit.  I'll admit I hadn't taken the time to really read the different signage and get the overall theme of the exhibit so I have no idea the correlation (something about the flat dimensions/styles of popart?), but it was cool just the same-they had these fans set up blowing different directions, and these silver balloon pillow things that would float forever.  Jake liked looking at them.

here were some statues outside of the MOA:

All and all it was so fun to be back in our old stomping grounds!  Later that night we went to dinner at a local philly cheese steak place and then went to the BYU game which kind of backfired.  Jake didn't like all the screaming/cheering/and whistle blowing-kept crying (poor guy) so I spent the first half with him out in the hallway watching the game on the tv.  I had a bad headache/didn't feel great so we went home at the half.  Oh well, hopefully it's not any indication of his interest in future byu games :)

To Be Continued....

Thanksgiving 2012!! (pt 1)

WE SURVIVED! I knew our lil boy was an amazing chill baby but even I had my doubts when it came to driving him 24 hours to utah, passing him around tons of different relatives, being around energetic cousins, and then driving 24 hours back again.  But I shouldn't have tho-apparently we have the best kid EVER.

On the way there, there was really only one moment of Jake crying uncontrollably because he was tired of being in the carseat (the rest were hunger related which were quickly fixed), and even then pulling out the ipad and putting on tangled proved just the proper amount of distraction to calm him down.  I'm not sure how I feel about the fact that my 4 month old is already enjoying movies (secretly love it but I know I have to be a responsible parent and should try to limit his exposure early on).  The rest of the trip he was pretty good and if one of us sat in the back with him he was really good.  I have to say our lil mirror was a life saver this trip and I've left it up cause I enjoy checking out his cute lil face as we drive around doing errands.

We were able to make it to utah faster than our drive home cause we brought pumped milk so we wouldn't have to stop every feeding-it proved really helpful.

We pulled in to cortez just a short ways from monticello where cody's grandparents live for some dinner...and jake didn't want to miss out:

We spent the next few days in Monticello, Utah-a really fun small town where EVERYONE knows cody's grandparents.  It was pretty chilly to us but we survived and at least there wasn't any snow on the ground (the roads around there aren't taken care of that well).  Jake was a lil fussy while we were there-prolly just aftershock from all the traveling but he eventually made it back to his usual chill personality, and at least he was great at church on sunday.

playing games with the slades:

One thing I've learned is that it is impossible to take a good pic of everyone

While we were in Monticello I re-learned that God is aware of each of us and without us even knowing can use us to help one another answer each others' prayers-I love re-discovering this fact over and over.  So we were walking into their church building and Grandma Slade discovered a little knitted bootie that looked like a blessing outfit item on the ground.  It was half frozen but she brought it inside and put it on an easel outside the chapel to dry etc.  I didn't think anything more of it and we went to sac meeting and the rest of our meetings.  In between sunday school and RS I went to feed Jake in the mothers lounge.  After a few minutes a sister came in from a different ward.  We chatted and got to know each other and somehow in the course of our conversation it came out that her lil baby was blessed a week ago, and then she totally asked me if I saw a bootie wedged in the side of the rocking chair I was sitting in etc cause she had lost one of her baby's last week.  Apparently they were really special booties that her husband had brought back from South america where he had served a mission or something and every child in their family had been blessed in them but she had lost one of them last week.  Needless to say I was very excited to show her where we had found it.  She was so happy and relieved.  There's no way that it was just a big coincidence-so many things could have happened just slightly differently to where I wouldn't have seen the bootie or wouldn't have met her-what if Jake had gotten hungry sooner? or later? etc, but no, it was totally Heavenly Father answering a mother's prayer-just love that I could help!

To Be Continued...