First Semester of College is in the Books

Grades were due yesterday for the U of U professors.  Today Jonathan logged in to his U account to see his grades.  He had a very successful semester!  Jonathan completed 16 rigorous credits, including honors general chemistry, and honors calculus 2.  He made the Dean’s list.  His GPA was a 3.92.  He also now, credits-wise, is a junior at the U.  We’re proud of the dedication he showed in his studies and the success he achieved this semester!

A Quick Escape

Traditionally, over the Christmas break, and just before actual holiday, we go up to Midway.  I plan the trip prior to Christmas as a way to force me to be ready for the “big day” early so I’m not a beast on Christmas and get to enjoy the day too.  This year, I didn’t book the condo early enough and plans had to shift a bit.  Instead of going to Midway, we spent a couple of days in Eden.  Eden is up Ogden Canyon and close to Snowbasin.  A ski trip was planned!  Unfortunately, the snow is pretty pathetic at the resorts right now.  It was icy on the groomed runs.  It was windy on top.  But in all, it was a good day for the skiers. 

Miles seemed to enjoy his break from the “routine” as well.  He was happy to spend an entire day doing nothing.  I couldn’t convince him to go out and play in the snow.  All he wanted to do was watch Toy Story 2 and Curious George 2.  I was happy that there were multiple TVs and DVD players in the unit so I didn’t have to watch his movies.  Here’s how I spent the day with Miles. 

Finally at 4 p.m., I convinced Miles to go play racquetball with me.  Unfortunately, the courts were all booked and we had to wait an hour.  When our court was available, Miles had a great time hitting and chasing his racquetball all over the court.  He was nervous when it was “Mommy’s turn” because he was afraid that I was going to nail him with my ball.  Truth?  I did hit him a couple of times, luckily he didn’t get hit by any fast balls, just ones I’d missed that were dying down.

Christmas 2013

Let me start by saying we all slept in.  It was amazing.  I was the first up around 7:30.  Miles woke up around 8 and patiently waited for his brothers to get up, which happened around 10 a.m.  Everyone was showered and dressed before anything was opened.  A fabulous start to Christmas!

I managed to capture the moment of magic when Miles woke up.  I always love hearing the first random words that he says each morning, but to capture his reaction to Christmas was the best!

Miles loved everything about opening gifts, except for the fact that he tore thought his gifts so fast that he decided that he needed to help me open my stuff.  Whatever.  The hit gifts of the year... for Miles- anything that said "Miles" on it- he got a sheriff costume,

and this horrid hat which he loves.

For Nolan, I'd like to think it was a new trumpet,

but I fear it was his drum pad putty.

For Jonathan, he was happy with the new clarinet mouthpiece, not thrilled with his toilet plunger,

but his favorite was the gallium and spoon mold (in case you don't know why that would be a good gift, it's because gallium is a metal with a melting point around 85 degrees Fahrenheit.  It's a classic practical joke to give someone a hot drink and a gallium spoon to stir with... the poor victim of the joke finds that the spoon has melted off as he/she stirs the drink).

However, the best overall gifts of the day has to be the boys' new underwear.  Santa and his elves...

Christmas afternoon found Nolan and Miles sledding with their cousins.  Christmas evening found most of us at home while Dan made family visits.  In all, a good day. 

The one "not so great" part was that Dan kicked Nolan's trumpet case while chasing Miles and broke his little toe.  At least this year, I wasn't the one with the broke toe... I had my turn last Christmas.

That Breakfast Thing I Made

I've never been a fan of breakfast casseroles.  Eggs, cheese, bread, and sausage all thrown together and baked in sausage grease isn't appealing to me.  A few days before Christmas there was a unique breakfast casserole in the newspaper.  I thought it had the strangest combination of ingredients, but was intrigued enough to make it for Christmas breakfast.  The bottom layer was bread, eggs, and thyme.  The next layer was cheese, frozen shredded potatoes, and diced apple.  Then that layer was topped with more bread and egg mixture.  The entire creation was topped with a cinnamon streusel.  I knew that the combination of egg, potatoes, and cheese was good, but I wasn't sure about adding in thyme and apple, and I thought the streusel would be overkill.  However, since the recipe was published in the newspaper that implied that it should be good, but guess what?  It was really, really weird.  Leave out the thyme and apples, and the streusel topping, then it would be good.  It was as if the recipe creator wanted to make 2 dishes, but only had one pan available. Dan summarized it best... he said something along the lines of "I've never thought about taking your apple crisp and adding a breakfast burrito to it."  Needless to say, the casserole was thrown out and the recipe was put in the recycling bin.

Christmas Eve 2013

The beauty of this year's Christmas Eve celebration is that it wasn't at my house!  Because I didn't have a big meal to prep and a house to prepare, I had time to do other things, like driving to Draper and then taking Trax up to Salt Lake with Miles to drop off a couple of Christmas presents.  In our absence, Dan took Nolan snowshoeing, while Jonathan attended Mass at the nearby Catholic church.  Quite an eclectic group of activities.  The day evening was spent in typical fashion... dinner, a Skype session with Steve's family, then sing of Christmas Carols accompanied by organ, violin, trumpet, euphonium, recorder, maracas, and cymbals.  What a unique orchestration! 

When we got home, Miles went to bed, Jonathan and Nolan did whatever teenage boys do on Christmas Eve, and I got everything ready for Christmas Morning, including assembling an experimental breakfast that will go down in the books as one of the weirdest and unappetizing things I've ever cooked.

I Love Me a Warm Car

Okay, maybe not a warm car, but a HOT car (and not in the summer).  Yesterday I was driving around with Miles.  I had the heater cranked up all the way and was loving it!  Then from the backseat, I hear Miles say, "It's hot in the car.  It's summer.  Outside is winter."  I laughed and turned the heater down.

Jonathan's Dental Appointment

Jonathan has started his pre-mission appointments.  Yesterday was the TB test and dental appointment.  On Thursday he gets the TB test read.  His physical is on January 2.  While I was making appointments for him, I added in an elective appointment- the optometrist for December 26.  And he's got his passport application appointment for December 31.  What a fun winter break for him!


Our pediatric dentist recently retired so I decided to take Jonathan to my dentist (no need to have him see some new guy once before changing to a general dentist).  Our dental insurance is pretty typical- it pays for bite-wing x-rays annually, and for a panoramic x-ray once every three years.  Well, the missionary department requires both types of x-rays as part of the dental exam.  The dentist and I were talking about when Jonathan last had a panoramic x-ray taken and I said that I didn’t know and was planning on having to pay for it just like I was going to have to pay for the bite-wings (Jonathan had them last taken 8 months ago and insurance won’t pay for them until April and we need to get Jonathan’s paperwork submitted sooner than that).  So my dentist tells the hygienist not to bill us for the bite-wings, then tells me that if the insurance company won’t cover the panoramic, then I am to call him and he will discount the panoramic significantly- like 100%.  Wow!  Not was I was expecting.  Quite a gift of generosity!  He did tell Jonathan that he’d do the x-rays for free if Jonathan promised to work hard as a missionary.  If the dentist finds out that Jonathan was messing around, then the dentist would send Jonathan the x-ray bill.

Check out Jonathan’s nice, straight, cavity-free teeth!

The Gingerbread House

Earlier I posted that I'd made Miles Gingerbread Men, but refused to make a Gingerbread House.  Well, I caved.  The other day I was in Walmart and they'd marked the Gingerbread House kits down to $4, so I bought one.  Today I glued it together and sat down with Miles to let him decorate the house.  He was so excited.  I figured he'd decorate it "blob" style and just stick all the candies in random places.  I was surprised to see him put thought into the candy placement, and stick with a plan.  It actually turned out pretty nice- about as good as I could do!  He'd so proud of his house.  It's been given a place of honor in his room- on the floor in front of his closet.

Best Buy is the Worst

Nearly a month ago I placed an order on Best Buy's website.  I chose the delivery date of November 27.  Well, November 27th came and went and my order didn't appear.  I called their customer "service" number and inquired where my product was.  The agent who took my call said he'd call the regional delivery guy and find out what was going on and then he'd call me back.  He never did.  So I called back the next business day and that agent said my order was out for delivery right then; well, the item never came.  So began the daily routine of calling the 1-888 number and talking to some random person about my problem. 

Several agents said they'd check into the order problem and get back to me, but they never called back.  One agent told me that the item had been returned to the warehouse because I'd refused delivery on November 28th.  Well, I told her that that wasn't possible because the 28th was Thanksgiving and I was willing to bet that their delivery guys had the day off.  I had agents put me on hold forever then drop the call.  I had an agent give me the "next level up" phone number, but the "next level up" people wouldn't help me; they just transferred my calls back to the lower level.  Needless to say, I was really frustrated.  Best Buy had both my item and my money.  The order wasn't allowed to be cancelled either. 

Well, on Monday, 24 days after I placed the order, and 20 days after I was scheduled for delivery, Glenda was the lucky person to take my call.  I explained to her my problem, and obviously she wasn't really listening as she said "Yes, you're scheduled for delivery for the 27th, do want to change that date?"  I replied that I was scheduled for the 27th of November and that it is now December and I still didn't have the item or any information on where my item was.  That woke Glenda up and she poked around on her computer for a while before telling me that she's need to call me back.  I told her "fine, but no one ever calls me back.  Well, surprisingly, she did.  She called back about 30 minutes later and said she was working on my problem and that she'd call me back in another 30 minutes.  Well, she didn't call back in 30 minutes.  At that point, I was so frustrated that I'd looked up the contact information for one of the TV station's Consumer Advocate guys and was going to contact him.  However, I decided to give Glenda the benefit of the doubt and give her until the end of the business day to get back to me.  3.5 hours after Glenda said she'd call me back, she actually did.  While she didn't offer any explanations as to where my product was, or what the hang up was, she did ask me if I'd be available for delivery on the 18th.  I told her that would be fine, and she said that someone would call me on Tuesday night with a delivery time frame.  I thanked her lots and lots for helping me, and told her that she was "the best" before hanging up. 

The next day was Tuesday and I anxiously-but-hesitantly waited for the delivery call.  Well, guess what, as I 97% expected, the call never came.  I wasn't surprised; I actually expected it.  So Wednesday morning I was back on the phone with customer service.  This time I got to talk to John.  John looked up my order in the system and told me that it was out for delivery and that I could expect it between 7:30 a.m. and 9:30 a.m., but to plan on 10:30 a.m.  Whatever; I was hopeful that my item would come.  Then John asked me why I was calling his department because he was in the shipping department and I needed the delivery department.  I told him I was expecting a shipped item and he corrected me and said my item was a delivery and not shipping item.  Evidently, for the previous 3 weeks, I'd been dealing with people from the wrong department.  Stupid Best Buy. 

I got off the phone with John and shortly thereafter, my phone rang.  I was the Best Buy Delivery Team calling to see if I would be available for my delivery between 9 and 11 a.m.  Really?  Was my item actually going to be delivered?  I told delivery guy that I'd be home waiting, and at 9:30 a.m., I signed for my delivery.  Happy day! 

I thought that taking delivery of my item would end my dealings with Best Buy.  Evidently not.  Wednesday afternoon I received 2 different email, about an hour apart, telling me that my item was on back order.  I ignored the emails because the item was in my house.  For the past 2 days, I've received calls that I chose to screen from Best Buy.  The message they leave is an automated call asking me to call them back and reschedule delivery for my item.  What??? It's in my basement already.  So what to do now?  First, I guess I should check my credit card statement to make sure that it hasn't been charged multiple times for this item.  Second, once I verify that everything is kosher with American Express, I guess I'll have to give them a call and try and explain everything that has happened over the past month.  If they insist that they still need to deliver my item, I guess I'll be posting it on the KSL Classifieds. 

Seriously, Best Buy is the stupidest company I've ever had to deal with.  I cannot see a situation where I'd be willing to ever, ever, ever give them a penny again.  A customer lost for life, that's me.

Buying Gas

What an exciting blog topic!  I had to fill up on Friday and I was pleasantly surprised at the final bill.

Yep, I filled my car for just over $40 and paid $2.64 per gallon.  Hardly something be excited about, but it sure is better than paying $50 to fill my car's tank.

New Way of Going Down the Stairs

Miles has decided to be five.  What I mean by that is that Miles is doing so many "age appropriate" activities that I am finding his typical behavior annoying rather than charming.  For example, Miles has discovered that there are ways to get down the stairs rather than the traditional "boring"/tried-and-true method of walking down the stairs.  Here's Miles' current preferred method of using the stairs.

I fear a visit to the ER is in short order.

Sentimental Decorations

Putting up Christmas this year, there were several items that caused me to roll my eyes.  Such dated items.  But they had to go up because they are treasured by my boys.  Two are advent calendars (which the boys like), and the other is a garland that, while it's groovy, makes me smile.  It's from the "poorer than dirt" graduate school days.  I spent hours and hours painting the pieces, and I thought it was wonderful.  It's fun to look around my house and see how my idea of "style" has evolved over than past 20+ years.  Most of the 90's stuff has been relegated to the basement, but there are these 3 items that are set out upstairs...  gotta love the "painting on wood cut-outs" of the past (and I laugh as it appears to be making a comeback... maybe these items will be cool again soon!).

Gingerbread Men

Miles is soaking up all the social cues as to what Christmastime consists of... a star on top of a Christmas Tree (found one at DI, so he's happy now), a visit with Santa, candycanes, presents, and gingerbread men.  Last week Miles came home from school talking about Gingerbread Men.  We needed to have Gingerbread Men.  Well, since I'm the only person in this house who likes to eat Gingerbread Men, I typically don't make them, but since Miles was so adamant about making Gingerbread Men, I conceded.  I mixed up the dough and cut out the cookies while Miles was at school (because sometimes I don't need all his enthusiastic help) then let him help me put the eyes and buttons on the Gingerbread Boys, Girls, and Bears.    I positioned the red hots and he pushed them into the cookie.  He thought that job was awesome.  After baking the cookies, he handed me the frosting and was content to let me "dress" the cookies.  After the cookies were "dressed" he put a couple of them on a plate, then took them to his room to be displayed with all his treasures.

I Love Being Insulted

There's this lady I know who should be a blond.  Really, she fits the blond stereotype perfectly.  I've also thought she's pretty stupid so I'm actually quite amused by her "rude" comments.  Not too long ago, Dan had to play the violin in church.  I was his accompanist.  The piece was played beautifully and Dan received many, many compliments.  Shortly after playing in church, I saw this lady in a social setting.  She came up to me and went on and on and on about how beautiful the musical number was, how talented Dan is, etc.  Then she went on to blab about how talented Jonathan and Nolan are, and how I must feel so sad to not have a talent.  She told me not to feel bad and that my encouraging words that get my boys to practice must be my talent.  Truly, I was amused.  And she would not stop talking about my lack of talent.  Obviously she's never noticed who accompanies each and every musical thing my boys do.  Now, I'm no virtuoso, nor do I want the praises of my accompanying, but I'd like to think that 12 years of piano lessons left me with a little bit of competency.  So I stood there, agreeing that, indeed, my boys are musically gifted, and trying not to laugh at her as she tried to console me for lacking any musical talent/ability whatsoever.

Cleaning the "Redneck" Way

The floor mats in my car were nasty.  They were loaded with dirt from hiking from the West Yellowstone and St George trips.  They had their fair share of stowaway leaves from the fall ground into them.  The dirt-and-leaves-yuck was compounded by snow and ice tracked in from the recent storms.  The other day I got in the car and thought "Yuck, it stinks like 'wet' in here!"  The floormats had to be dealt with.  I tried using the carpet cleaner on the mats, but it wasn't effective.  Well, as I pondered on what I could do next, I thought of my friend who uses his dishwasher to clean everything... seriously... vacuum cleaner filters and dirt containers, cooktop grills, etc.  Well, I didn't think that the dishwasher was the best place for floor mats, but how about the washing machine???  Desperate times call for desperate measures... I decided to give it a try.  My floormats came out beautiful.  The tub of the washer had a ring of fine silt.  A quick rinse of the washer took care of that!  I left the floormats out to dry and put them back in the car in the morning.  No stink!!!  Now, honestly, I'm not recommending that the washer is the best floormat cleaning solution for everyone.  Subaru puts pretty carppy floormats in their cars.  Mine have started to fray and I've only had the car for 3.5 years.  So, if you love your floormats, don't put them in the washing machine, but if you want an easy way to clean the mats, give the washer a try.

Band Concert for Nolan

'Tis the season for torture.  The junior high winter band concert.  The first concert for the beginning band whose members are so excited and proud of playing an instrument that they have no idea just how awful they are.  It's a lovely annual event and I'm happy it's the last juniot high winter band concert I will have to sit through for a long time (and maybe forever!).  Nolan wasn't happy this year to learn that he had to play with the beginner band.  The beginners were performing the Raiders of the Lost Ark theme and they didn't have a trumpeter who could hit the highest notes.  Nolan was recruited to play with them.  While listening to the song, I realized that there was a trumpet that didn't sound like the others... this trumpeter had good tone and articulations.  Of course this trumpeter was Nolan.  He's come so far as a player since his beginning band days. 

Jazz Band

Center Snare

So essentially, Nolan was the "king bee" of his bands.  He's first chair in the Symphonic and Jazz Bands, Center Snare in the drumline, and the "Hai" caller in the Taiko drumming group.  Next week he's in the "pit" at THS for their winter musical, "White Christmas".  It's fun hearing him make progress. 

Christmas Tree Decorating

This year I put up 6 trees... 2 9-footers, 1 7.5 footer, 2 4-footers, and 1 1 footer.  I stuck them up and then didn't want to deal with them.  Seriously.  I felt like leaving them naked.  However, Miles was not going to allow that to happen.  Miles was excited to decorate a tree.  I decided to let him go for it and I sat back and watched.  Miles decorated the "kid" tree, the 7.5 footer, almost all by himself. 

If he wanted an ornament up higher than he could reach, he told us where to hang it.  Miles was so proud of the tree he decorated and I've decided to leave it "as is".

 

Jonathan was quite surprised that I wasn't going to "fix" the tree and commented that he wasn't ever allowed to decorate a tree in the "Miles manner", so I had to confess that I've checked my perfectionism at the door this year and decided that making Miles happy is more important than having the tree look right.  Seriously.  I'm not adjusting a single ornament.  Actually, every time I look at the tree, I laugh and that makes me feel good!

Okay, so the "kid" tree is the only tree allowed to look "special".  I had a visitor come down on Thursday who happily helped me with the other trees (at least I think she was happy to help me... she sure helped a lot and it was really appreciated).  Here are the 9' trees.

I love sitting in the living room after Miles has gone to bed and the room is illuminated only by the tree lights.  So peaceful feeling.

Snow

It's been a snowy week.  Okay, a snowy-snowy week.  It has snowed and snowed, which required shoveling and shoveling.  On Tuesday we got about a foot of the white stuff.  I shoveled 3 times that day.  I even had a helper! 

Then on Wednesday, Thursday, and Friday, we had bitter cold weather... like 1 F at 6:30 in the morning and never getting above 15 F during the day.  Today we woke up to a new storm and got another 6"+ of snow.  Good thing shoveling snow is considered aerobic exercise.  This could be a long winter.

Messiah Sing-in at Abravanel Hall

Last Sunday Jonathan and I went to the big Messiah Sing-in in Salt Lake. 

It was so fun to sing the Messiah with a few thousand of my closest friends accompanied by the Utah Symphony.  It was impressive to listen to Jonathan sight-sing the tenor part of the Messiah.  He can hit some high notes!  The only disappointment was that my favoritest chorus wasn't part of the program.  I guess I'll save it for the car!  The best part was that we got to have/do an encore... the Hallelujah Chorus twice in a night is divine.

'Jing's Annual Photo

Here's the 2013 picture of 'Jing in the Christmas Tree. 

This poor tree needs to be retired.  It's branches are so droopy... I wonder who could possibly have bent them... I'd replace it if the cat promised to stay out of it!

Dollar Tree Oddities

On Friday I was in the local Dollar Tree buying some stuff to send up to Jonathan to help him endure the last bit of this semester.  Miles wasn't with me which meant he wasn't asking for something every 4.379 seconds so I had time to actually look at what is available for purchase at Dollar Tree.  You know, they sell some pretty unique items, including some that before Friday, I never knew existed.  Below are the Top 3 Strange Things for Sale at the Lindon Dollar Tree.

Number 3- Canned Strawberries.  Really?  There's a demand for canned strawberries?  I thought frozen ones were nasty enough.

Number 2- Canned Banana Cream Pie and Key Lime Pie Fillings.  That's just nasty.  And they're made by Musselman's?  I thought they were legit.

Number 1- The Home Drug Testing Kit for Marijuana!  Wow!  And for only a dollar you can have peace of mind that your teenager really is just stupid and not high!

 

Santa Visit 2013

We just got back from taking Miles for his annual visit with Santa.  He's been really excited to go tell Santa that he wants a candy cane, a Magic 8 Ball, and a Frontier airplane.  I was fairly certain that when it was his turn, Miles would freak out and refuse to talk to Santa.  I was wrong.  Miles got really excited when we walked into the room and he saw Santa.  Then when it was his turn, Miles hurried over Santa and climbed up onto his lap and told Santa exactly what he'd been rehearsing at home.  He was excited to get a candy cane and a treat bag, but was a bit confused as to why he didn't get a Magic 8 Ball right then.  Hopefully he'll still want one when Christmas comes.

Other Things that Make Me Happy

Scenes like this make my evening. 

All 3 boys playing together (sort of).  Makes me so happy.  With big ages gaps, you never know what you're going to get, and I thought this was nearly perfect.

I like scenes like this too! 

Mmmmmm, pie.  This year we had 13 different desserts- the traditional pumpkin pie, as well as the following pies: apple, peach, dark chocolate mousse, lemon cream cheese, chocolate cranberry nut, banana cream, coconut cream, Oreo, raspberry, pecan, and a pumpkin cheesecake, and Oreo turkeys.  Oh yum.  Too bad we ate dinner first!

Oh, these people also make me happy. 

It was a nice Friday Thanksgiving.  Glad I got to share it with 65% of my family (missed you East Coasters!), and sorry for the "hey look, we're eating" pictures.

One Thing that Make Me Happy

I rediscovered a frivolous "happy" thing on Saturday.  Yesterday I got the boys to haul in the 3 big Christmas Trees.  It's pretty much their most favorite thing to do so it only took a week of nagging for this to happen.  So the tree boxes were hauled in and they disappeared to the MOA for the art exhibit.  Fine.  It was scheduled.  I decided to embrace the artificial trees and set them up myself.  I started with the slim 9' in the living room.  Bam!  No problem, just a big sigh when I looked at the branches all mashed together and all I could see was all the "fluffing" that I needed to do. I HATE fluffing the fake trees.  Well, I decided to ignore the fluffing part and put together the small tree- the 7.5' fake tree for the family room.  Now this tree I hate dealing with.  It's heavy and pokey.  Well, I hauled out the stand and stuck the base part of the tree in it followed by the middle section of the tree.  Then I realized something was wrong.  It looked too short. That's when I remembered that I elevate this tree atop four No.10 cans and a piece of particleboard.  I went and got the cans and tried carrying them all at once and dropped them- banged up my thigh, knee, and foot.  Bummer.  This time I decided to carry them upstairs two at a time.  Then I had to disassemble the tree.  I pulled out the middle tree section (which is heavy), then pulled the base (which is heavier) out of the stand, then moved the stand and put up the platform.  Then I reassembled the heavy tree and stood back and saw how absolutely smooshed the tree was.  I was not going to fluff that tree right then and there.  It looked truly awful.  So, I had 2 smooshed fake trees up and it was time to attack the monster tree- the full-sized 9' beast that goes in the dining room.  The only thing I could think about was how much fluffing that tree was going to take and how much I did not was to do that.  So I hauled the 4 sections of the tree out and began assembling it (and messed that up as I attached section 3 to the base (looked really silly).  I put the base into the stand and stood back in amazement as the branches fell into place.  The tree looked good.  I attached the next section, and while it was the wrong piece, the branches looked nice again.  Then I remembered- this tree is a "memory" tree and it knows how to fluff itself!  I was so excited to remember this because that meant that I didn't have to fluff this tree.  I happily put the tree together correctly, admired it for a split second, then started fluffing the other two trees.

Jinga's New Territorial Claim

I haven't been seeing much of the cat during the day.  I figured she'd found a new place to sleep the day away.  I found where she's been hiding...

When the "Big One" is away, Beijing will play (or sleep).  I wonder what will happen when Jonathan comes home for Thanksgiving Break and wants his bed back...

Procrastination Can Be a Pretty Sight

I've put off doing most of the fall "clean up the yard" work.  Yes, I pulled out the annuals and raked up the leaves, but I hadn't cut back the perennials, iris, gladiolas, lilies, daisies, yucca, or roses.  One morning last week, as Miles and I were outside waiting for his bus (because, evidently, waiting inside where there is heat isn't any fun), I looked over at the rosebush and saw something pretty.  The too-late-in-the-season-to-bloom buds that I'd been too lazy to cut off were dotted with frozen water droplets.  I thought they were really pretty.

Well, as of yesterday, those buds have gone on to "better place."

Miles Sings About Thanksgiving

How Miles Really Feels about Jinga

It's never been a secret that Miles does not like Nolan's cat, and the feeling between the two is mutual.  Jinga has expressed her dislike of Miles since he was just days old by hissing at him.  Five years later, not much has changed other than Jinga not having claws and Miles expressing his fear of the cat.  Currently Miles is so afraid of the cat that he freaks out if they are in eyesight of each other. 

Last night Miles ended up sleeping with me.  It was one of those nights where I really needed a second adult in the house... so many things going on that required my immediate attention and at 11 p.m., I hadn't had time to put Miles to bed so he slept with me.  This morning, I was awake in bed and in denial that the day needed to start when, in his sleep, Miles started laughing and then exclaimed, "Jinga is all dead!"  Wow!  What a dream he must have been having!  The joy emulating from his sleep-talk was eye-opening as well.  I must keep an eye on those two for the next while.

Vending Machine Heaven (for Dan, at least)

For me, a good vending machine will be stocked with all sorts of yummy temptations- Twix, Skittles, Gum, Almond Snickers, Milky Way Midnight, Peanut Butter M&Ms, etc. Even though I know vending prices are a complete rip-off, candy is always tempting, unless you are Dan.  Until last night, I thought that the only vending machine that would tempt Dan would contain varieties of beans, ketchup, high fiber tortillas, oatmeal, and Fiber One Bars.  However, last night we encountered a vending machine like no other.  It was a bike repair vending machine.  Seriously.  Last night we went and checked out a Mexican restaurant that moved into our favorite fast food place, about 10 years ago that is.  Monstros closed and Mama Chuas opened.  Our loyalty to Monstros kept us from patronizing Mama Chuas until last night.  Pulling up to the restaurant, it appeared that they had a Red Box machine in front.  However, as we neared the entrance, we noticed that the vending machine said "Mad Dog Cycles" on the front. 

Mad Dog Cycles is like Disneyland for Dan.  Upon closer inspection of the machine, we saw that its contents were 90% bike repair essentials (with Red Bull and energy bars and goo accounting for the "edibles").  Seriously, a bike repair vending machine?  Cool idea!  The machine is located near the mouth of Provo Canyon, which is a very popular cycling place, and pretty far from any bike shop.  And as surprising as a bike repair vending machine was, astonishing was its reasonable "in the middle of nowhere" prices.  So, what's inside a bike repair vending machine? 

Well, tubes ($8),

lights ($15) and batteries ($4-$6),

chain lube ($6),

chains ($23-$37) and a water bottle ($8),

and tire levers ($4) and a spoke repair kit ($12).

 

There were a few other bike essentials in there too, like a patch kit, but to list everything would be too boring.  Anyway, cool vending machine concept, especially if they added Peanut Butter M&Ms.