32 year fast forward...

we all just got together for my dad's 70th birthday--good times! i recently acquired this old family photo and thought it was a fun comparison. here's to the next 30 years!

vegas baby!

when people ask where we are from they genuinely smile and say 'oh, nice' when i say i'm from colorado. but people out here on the east coast LOVE that mark is from las vegas. he says the word vegas and people get all excited and want to know all kinds of details... so when we say we are going to vegas it apparently raises our 'cool' factor considerably. :)

a couple of weeks ago we went to vegas. (one lady we were just talking to was very surprised we would take our kids with us--umm, we have family there) believe it or not, it wasn't that hot for august. only 99 degrees instead of 112! i'll take it. :) we had a great time with mark's family. they just moved to a great new house with plenty of SPACE for the boys to run around in--and Luke ran from morning until night! we also spent a day at lake mead and had a blast! noah enjoyed some quality time with his 'girlfriends' (mark's cousins). and petey nearly killed me with his insane moves on the jet ski--are they supposed to go under water? thanks for a great trip barrionuevos, we had fun!

city slickers

the boys and i headed out west and spent two weeks in big sky country while mark stayed in rainy boston to do his internship. :(

montana was heavenly--all that open space! we had a great reunion with my family in the mountains of big sky and then spent a week at my sister's in billings. they were amazing hosts and treated my boys to many 'firsts.'

first time fishing

first dune buggy ride--for me too!

first time on the trampoline

we had a great trip! the only snag was missing our return flight to boston due to weather in denver. we had to fly out the next day on a different flight and the man who traded me seats on the plane after the ticketing agent couldn't put all three of us together was a real gem. he very begrudgingly gave me his seat, but parted by saying, "maybe next time you will plan better and get your tickets a little earlier." yeah, next time i'll do what i can to control the weather that caused us to miss our flight--the flight i booked like six months in advance and for which i spent an extra 30 minutes on the phone making sure we got three seats together. he must have been one of those people who were never children themselves once... i should have just left him next to noah and luke if he wanted his aisle seat so much. :) ahhhh, the joys of flying with kids.

gym etiquette

first, i'll profess my undying love and appreciation for spell-check; i had serious doubts i could spell etiquette, and it turns out my instinct was right. (it still looks weird to me) i'll also admit i have no idea how to use a semicolon correctly, i figured i'd throw one in there and hope for the best...
now back to my gym post. we got a family membership through BU for the frigid winter months (only $24/mo. and it's a sweet facility!) but i didn't cancel it early enough last month, so we were stuck paying for april too. so i have been trying to get my money's worth by going a few times a week. i run a mile to the gym, do the elliptical and then run back--i know it seems funny to run to the gym only to "run" again there, but remember it is all about feeling like i'm not wasting money.
so today i'm on the machine listening to conference on the ipod enjoying a good start to my day when this guys gets on the treadmill next to me and cranks it to level who knows what and immediately starts panting--which i can deal with--and moaning! yes, moaning. like, "ahhhohhhh" it did not sound like the kind of sound you make in a gym if you get what i'm saying. so i tried to ignore it, but two minutes later i had to get outta there!
so i go all the way to the other side of the gym and see a new machine i haven't tried and hop on. well, about two minutes in the lady next to me starts singing out loud along with whatever she was listening to--the fact i can't even tell you what it was gives you an idea of the quality of the sing along--bad american idol audition. and not just singing under her breath or whatever--LOUD!
come on people, isn't there some gym etiquette out there that is understood? no moaning, no singing out loud, no crazy weird outfits, no sharing your gas with others...
i have hope that next time will be better. :)

random snippets

i haven't posted anything for a while, so i'm just going to throw out some recent happenings...






this picture of mark and a friend studying at the law school lounge made the BU online front page today. he's so famous. :)











little kid + big glasses = a couple minutes of fun

candlepin bowling. they play it in new england and canada i guess. really small balls and skinny pins make for quite a challenge even with the bumpers up.

noah's "knights and princesses" birthday party. i can't believe he is four. noah is entertaining with the things he says. yesterday i got a parking ticket and was not happy about it (arrrghhh!) and he very calmly and sympathetically said, "if i got a ticket mommy, i would be frusterated too." it actually made me feel a little better!

me and my knight in shining aluminium foil. we just celebrated six years of marriage!

ice, ice, baby

admit it, you loved vanilla ice too.... ice. ice is everywhere around me lately. two months into my first boston winter and now i understand why stores stock tons of ice melting salts and our apartment building has a big ol' bin of it outside. it just builds up on the sidewalks and if you aren't on top of it, you will see some places where the ice is a couple of inches thick and you know it isn't going anywhere for a long long time. must be why 'ice' has become a new staple in luke's word repertoire.

our experience with ice is not exclusively outdoors. check out what we have found on the inside of our windows in the mornings when it is really cold outside. it's pretty insane and shows you how old and ineffecient our windows are--good thing 'heat and hot water' are included in our rent!

true confessions--i'm abnormal

-i have never read a harry potter novel. i have never watched a harry potter movie from beginning to end.
-i have never read the lord of the rings trilogy. i only managed to watch the first lord of the rings movie, and i probably wouldn't have finished it if i hadn't actually PAID to see it in the theater--i didn't know what i was getting into.
-i have no desire to see twilight or read the books. remember, i said i wasn't normal.
-i have only watched parts of the star wars movies because mark and noah are superfans--mark denies the 'superfan' label, but would my two boys know anything about it if it wasn't for his influence?? (luke doesn't say much, but he can say "star wars.")
-i didn't care for the one chronicles of narnia movie we rented, but i thought the saturday night live digital short "the chronic(what?)cles of narnia" was HILARIOUS.

this all leads me to the latest movie franchise that all the youngins are lovin' and i'm thinking "why???"--high school musical. i saw a clip for high school musical 3 on a talk show while waiting at the doctor's office. it is a classic moment with the basketball team down 1 pt. with only seconds left and in this moment of truth they take to the court singing and dancing AND playing basketball. REALLY??? it was pretty awesome. it reminded me of this clip from sesame street we found on youtube a while back while looking for elmo clips for luke, but now i have a whole new appreciation for it's clever parody. "preschool musical, preschool musicaAaAaAaAal!"

so help me, what am i missing in all these movies and books? are there any other cultural phenomenons everyone loves that you don't quite understand?