Merry Christmas

2008

What a great year we have had! We started out with a trip to Disneyland in February, which the boys loved (Matt and Tina too, of course). And then we geared up for our big trip to Italy this summer. It was a trip we have for years planned and saved for, and we had a wonderful time! We stayed with Tina's Brother, Verne, and his wife, Monica, in Turin for a week and a half, and also spent a week traveling around to Venice, Florence, Rome and Pisa. McKinnon had so much fun playing with his cousin, Elizabeth, and Deacon ate everything he could see. It was a wonderful trip, and we are so thankful for the opportunity to see the beauty of Italy, and for the great hospitality of family and friends.

Lily Jane Smith, the newest addition to our little family arrived on November 19th and she has already been a joy. McKinnon was so excited for a new sister to come, and he picked out her name months ago- it just took mommy and daddy a while to concur. McKinnon adores Lily and is always trying to share his toys with her, asking if he can wake her up (the answer is always no) and giving her hugs and kisses. Deacon has adjusted to having a new baby in the house without batting an eye. He just kind of noticed that she was here to stay and adjusted accordingly. That was a big relief for mommy and daddy who were worried Deacon might have a hard time with the adjustment. Lily is a great sleeper and a good eater, so she is already spoiling her parents. Needless to say, her parents hope this great behavior stays up through teenage years at least.

Deacon has grown so much this year that he has really turned into a little boy. He is enjoying his Early Intervention classes, and is a busy boy. Although we are still waiting for his first words, he is so independent he has little need for words. We often find him in a cupboard getting himself a snack, or climbing up to things he wants that are too high, etc. Terrible twos for Deacon means no temper tantrums, but getting into everything! His list of messes he has made this year is lengthy, so it is a good thing he is such a happy and easy-going child. It makes a difference at times like these to know your child is just being curious, as opposed to being naughty- at least it reduces how upset you get, if not reducing the size of the mess. Deacon loves to hug, cuddle and play. We are being told all the time by his teachers at school and church how much they love that Deacon wants them to pick him up, and then he will throw his arms around them and give them long hugs.

McKinnon tuned 4 this year, and he is constantly amazing his parents with the new things he is learning and teaching himself. We have always been surprised with how fast he learns things, but this year he has taught himself how to read and is constantly teaching us new facts about the world that he has picked up from Pre-School or other places. McKinnon had such a good time in Italy this summer and learned some Italian words that he used quite fluently- most often, "oopsila," meaning woops, and "scusi" meaning excuse me. This has opened his eyes to the fact there are different languages in the world, and so he often asks mommy and daddy how to say a certain word in Spanish, or Italian, or some other language. Mommy is glad daddy knows so much, or she would spend her life looking up the answers to all McKinnon's questions about the world.

After spending most of the year pregnant, Tina is glad to be back to herself and is enjoying dressing a little girl for the first time. This year Tina has kept busy running McKinnon and Deacon to their classes, and working in the garden and around the house. She has loved her calling as Relief Society President at church, and although it keeps her very busy she enjoys the opportunity to reach out and serve so many woman around her. With the new baby Tina will be busier than ever, but she knows the Lord has blessed her so much to be able to accomplish everything she needs to so far, and that He will continue to sustain her through the coming year.

Matt turned 30 this year, reached his 6th year of work at L-3 Communications and bought a minivan, realizing he is now officially a grown-up. Matt also ran his first 10K this summer. Matt enjoyed the trip to Italy - especially the pizza and gelato. It was great for him to see some of the sights his Dad had seen 40 years earlier. Matt has had a good time in his church calling as Cub Scout Master, and is looking forward to another year of Cub Scout activities and acting like an 8-year-old.

Once again we send our love to you all and hope you had a fantastic year too. Merry Christmas and Happy New Year!

Lots of love,Matt, Tina, McKinnon, Deacon and Lily Smith

Deacon... a few more messes, by Tina

So, my visiting teachers were over today and as I was telling them about some more of Deacon's crazy messes I thought... I haven't put these stories up on the blog for my family to see. So, here we go:

Matt went shopping and came home with cookies (best way to a little boys heart). Matt put the package up on top of the counter, on top of the microwave, thinking that was plenty high. It didn't take Deacon long. Matt came downstairs to a floor full of cookies with one or two bites taken out of them. Apparently they taste better if they are whole, so Deacon tried all of them.

Deacon likes to drink (non-alcoholic, of course). He loves fruit juice most, and then Gatorade. And when we got some pomegranate 7UP to try- yup, he loved that. As you can see.

Having Deacon around guarantees that my kitchen and dining room floor are always a mess- he has no problem getting into anything that strikes his fancy. The next photo demonstrates just that- he has a bit of a sweet tooth, and if nothing else is available than what could be better than powdered sugar?

We thought we'd let you see just how much he enjoyed it for yourself:

So, it makes me sad now to realize all the photo ops I've missed. There was Deacon trying to eat the stamp ink pad yesterday (needless to say, I'm glad I caught him before he touched anything), the apple juice fiasco, and especially I'm sorry I didn't get the frosting episode on tape. Lets just say- if you buy a tub of chocolate frosting remember to put it on the highest shelf of the kitchen. Chocolate frosting from head to foot, all over my white carpet, the walls, the floor, the stroller... what fun! Like my dad always says, "Single life was never like this!!"

65 Things We've Done...

Italics- Matt
Bold- Tina

1. Started your own blog
2. Slept under the stars
3. Played in a band
4. Visited Hawaii
5. Watched a meteor shower
6. Given more than you can afford to charity
7. Been to Disneyland
8. Climbed a mountain
9. Held a praying mantis
10. Sang a solo
11. Bungee jumped (Tina fell 15 feet rock climbing- does that count?)
12. Visited Paris
13. Watched a lightning storm at sea
14. Taught yourself an art from scratch
15. Adopted a child
16. Had food poisoning (multiple times)
17. Walked to the top of the Statue of Liberty (Matt went, but a sniper kept him off the top)
18. Grown your own vegetables
19. Seen the Mona Lisa in France
20. Slept on an overnight train
21. Had a pillow fight
22. Hitch hiked
23. Taken a sick day when you’re not ill
24. Built a snow fort (like any good parents, we made one with our kids)
25. Held a lamb (Matt hasn't, but he was kicked by a sheep)
26. Gone skinny dipping
27. Run a Marathon (Matt, in 2010)
28. Ridden in a gondola in Venice (Matt would have, but decided the waterbus was just as good)
29. Seen a total eclipse (of both the sun and the moon)
30. Watched a sunrise or sunset
31. Hit a home run
32. Been on a cruise
33. Seen Niagara Falls in person
34. Visited the birthplace of your ancestors
35. Seen an Amish community (Not Amish, but a Hutterite Community)
36. Taught yourself a newlanguage
37. Had enough money to be truly satisfied (We both agree we're satisfied with what little we have)
38. Seen the Leaning Tower of Pisa in person
39. Gone rock climbing (Matt too, if you count Dick's Sporting Goods)
40. Seen Michelangelo’s David
41. Sung karaoke
42. Seen Old Faithful geyser erupt
43. Bought a stranger a meal at a restaurant
44. Visited Africa
45. Walked on a beach by moonlight
46. Been transported in an ambulance
47. Had your portrait painted
48. Gone deep sea fishing
49. Seen the Sistine Chapel in person
50. Been to the top of the Eiffel Tower in Paris (Tina's been to the base, just not the top)
51. Gone scuba diving or snorkeling
52. Kissed in the rain
53. Played in the mud
54. Gone to a drive-in theater
55. Been in a movie
56. Visited the Great Wall of China
57. Started a business
58. Taken a martial arts class (We are going to say fencing counts)
59. Visited Russia
60. Served at a soup kitchen
61. Sold Girl Scout Cookies (never sold any, but eaten plenty)
62. Gone whale watching
63. Got flowers for no reason
64. Donated blood, platelets or plasma
65. Gone sky diving
66. Visited a Nazi Concentration Camp
67. Bounced a check
68. Flown in a helicopter
69. Saved a favorite childhood toy
70. Visited the Lincoln Memorial
71. Eaten Caviar
72. Pieced a quilt
73. Stood in Times Square
74. Toured the Everglades
75. Been fired from a job
76. Seen the Changing of the Guards in London
77. Broken a bone
78. Been on a speeding motorcycle
79. Seen the Grand Canyon in person
80. Published a book
81. Visited the Vatican
82. Bought a brand new car
83. Walked in Jerusalem
84. Had your picture in the newspaper
85. Read the entire Bible
86. Visited the White House (from the outside- it was too close to 9/11 to go in)
87. Killed and prepared an animal for eating
88. Had chickenpox
89. Saved someone’s life
90. Sat on a jury (Matt wants to really bad)
91. Met someone famous
92. Joined a book club
93. Lost a loved one (unfortunately yes)
94. Had a baby
95. Seen the Alamo in person
96. Swam in the Great Salt Lake
97. Been involved in a law suit
98. Owned a cell phone
99. Been stung by a bee
100. Totally copied a post from someone else's blog to your own

More photos of Lily- Tina's 1st blog attempt

Lily is 1 1/2 weeks old, so I thought I'd attempt my first blog post and put a few more photos up.

Lily Jane Smith at 1 week old

The proud daddy and Lily at 1 day old

Lily loves to cuddle!


More photos and news to come...

Lily Jane Smith

Lily Jane Smith was born today. She is 8 pounds, 1 ounce and 22 inches long. She is a beautiful, content little girl and has a full head of red hair! Both Mom and Baby are doing very well (Dad's exhausted, though).

Spiderman Fights Cancer

So, my cousin Morgan has a toddler named Austin who recently was diagnosed with APML Leukemia. Although this has been very hard for Austin and his family, his prognosis is good. Through modern cancer research, doctors have discovered that chemotherapy combined with a Vitamin A regimen is a very effective treatment in fighting cancer in young children. Because Austin is going through chemo and therefore immuno-suppressed, he can't have visitors most of the time. Austin's father, Aaron has been keeping a blog of Austin's progress at http://www.spidermanfightscancer.com/

There will be a fundraiser/race for Austin and his medical bills on 8 November 2008. It's a 5k that I will be running and information about it is here: http://web.me.com/aaronshamy/Spiderman_Fights_Cancer/5K_Run_Walk.html

Halloween Party

So, Curt beat me to the punch and did a great blog post about our little Halloween party. Check it out here:

http://curtisandcharityhuff.blogspot.com/2008/10/halloween-at-bodies-by-curt.html

Madame Butterfly

So, this week my Uncle Paul hooked us up with tickets to see Madame Butterfly (Thanks, Paul!). I had never seen an opera before, but I consider myself a fan of the more artsy of art forms, so I was looking forward to this. Tina had seen Madame Butterfly when she was nine. When her parents moved the family over here from New Zealand, her dad decided to get tickets for the whole family to a production of Madame Butterfly since the didn't have the opportunity in small-town New Zealand to see many operas. Well, that was also the last time Tina's dad took the kids to the opera.

I was particularly excited to see Madame Butterfly because Weezer made an album loosely based on it. (The title of the album is Pinkerton (the male lead), includes a song called Butterfly, has a Japanese theme and is semi-autobiographical picture of River's life as an outsider in the Rock world and his frustrations over lost love and tragic relationships.)

I thoroughly enjoyed myself for the whole experience. The music is amazing, but I got so into the story that sometimes I forgot to listen to the melodies. The opera is sung in Italian, which was a little strange at first considering the characters are all American or Japanese, but I got used to it. The English translations are shown as supertitles. I don't know what people did before they had supertitles. I would have been completely lost. However, I was proud of myself for recognizing about 1 in every 20 Italian words.

The singers who portrayed Cio Cio San, Pinkerton and Sharpless were simply amazing. They portrayed the characters well and had great voices. But, the one to steal the show was the 3-year-old boy who played Cio Cio San's son, Trouble. His part was silent but he did everything he was supposed to and looked so cute doing it. For one part, he picked up a bunch of flowers off the ground. I can't get my 4-year-old to pick up 2 toys off the floor.

So, two thumbs up for the Utah Opera's presentation of Madame Butterfly. I laughed, I cried, I very much enjoyed the evening.

Italy Trip Part 4 - Torino

So, the big reason we went to Italy was to see Tina's brother Verne and his family. They had come over to the states a few times and stayed with us and we kept promising for a long time that we would come and visit them. Well, after a lot of saving and planning (and not being in school) we finally planned the trip. We were so grateful to Verne and Monica for letting us stay with them. They have a very nice place in Torino so we were able to spend most of our time there. Torino isn't a touristy town so there aren't a lot of 2000-year-old buildings or massive galleries of art. But, there also aren't a lot of Americans around and not everyone speaks English. So, it was fun to be thrown into pure Italian culture.

When I go on vacation, I enjoy the touristy places, but I also like getting off the beaten path and experiencing what life is really like for the people living there. So, we decided to take the subway into town a time or two to see some of the sights that not every American tourist gets to see.

This is the Mole Antonelliana. It was originally built to be a Jewish Synagogue, but now holds the National Cinema Museum. The museum was pretty cool, but a few of the movies featured were not for the kids (or for me for that matter), but what was really cool about the building is that there is a glass elevator that goes up the center of the building to the top of the dome and you get great views of the city.

This is the cathedral in Torino that is famous for housing the Shroud of Turin.

I think the Vatican only lets the actual Shroud be on display once a generation to preserve it, but a replica and a negative image are on display at the Cathedral. It's interesting that the image shows up better in the negative than in the original.
It was interesting for me to notice a few things in the Shroud. Blood marks on the forehead where the crown of thorns would have been. Blood marks on the back. Wound marks on his side, feet and wrists. I don't know if this is the real deal - it doesn't really matter, but it was interesting.
And, here are a couple of photos of the kids enjoying the fountains in the town square in front of the palace. (No photos were allowed in the palace, but it was incredible. The kids did very well for a 1-hour tour in Italian where you weren't allowed to run around or touch anything. They got their wiggles out in the water.)

Another Vista Rant

So, I was all ready to write another post about our Italy trip. I had noticed that I was quickly using up our disc space allotted for photos. So, I figured I would shrink the photos a little bit before posting. Now with Windows XP, you could download a powertoy to easily resize a photo from Windows Explorer. All you had to do was right click on the picture, select resize and pick your size.

Well, that feature is no longer available on Vista. What replaced it is the ability to resize photos only when emailing them. So, now I have to right click, send to, mail recipient. Then I select the picture size. Then I have to set up everything for a Windows Mail account. Then I need to add fake text for a fake email, then I get my picture attached to an email. Then I can drag it back to Windows somewhere. Congradulations, Microsoft. You just took away another feature I use and made it harder to get a simple task done.

Deacon's Messes

So, writing about Deacon drinking apple juice off our floor reminded me of something else he did recently. I think the video tells the whole story.

Deacon is a very curious kid and has done a lot of this type of stuff. He really enjoys making messes. He likes to pull all of the DVDs out and take out the paper sleeves. He can spend all day in the dirt. His dinner ends up all over his face and his clothes and his hands and his hair and the chair and the floor and the wall. I think he is the enforcer of the law of entropy.

McKinnon on the other hand, was a fairly neat toddler, just expensive in his "messes." He threw our new digital camera in the garbage (which we didn't check before it went out). He also threw our phone in the toilet (I didn't bother to try to salvage that). I think I'll give him a bill when he gets his first job.

Weezer Concert Photos!

Me in the blue album (they look so young) :

Numan, Misha and Tina getting ready to rawk!
Tina and me and our cheesy smiles.
The hootenanny performing Island in the Sun.
The crowd-surfing wheelchair dude having the time of his life. (weezer.com)

More pictures at weezer.com's recap of the concert:

http://www.weezer.com/news/default.aspx/nid/14179/aid/372/

Deseret News review: http://deseretnews.com/article/1,5143,700265025,00.html

Salt Lake Tribune review: http://www.sltrib.com/ci_10668576

Weezer Concert!

So, I went to the Weezer concert last night and it rocked! Here's my full report.

I had diligently prepared for this concert by getting the opening band's CDs and listening to them over and over so I could sing along. Well, the first opening band (Tokyo Police Club) didn't show for some reason. Some local band took their place. I didn't feel bad about arriving late when I heard them. They were pretty bad. In fact, my brother overheard someone yell out, "Go back to Liquid Joe's!" (a private club for members).

The other opening band was Angels and Airwaves. I grew to like their albums the more I listened to them, but after their performance, I'm boycotting them forever. The lead singer Tom DeLonge was stuck on himself, didn't know how to put his mouth up to a microphone a microphone when he sang (isn't that your job?), couldn't get out a sentence without the f-word, and insulted the people who bought seat tickets instead of floor tickets. Oh, and he told us a very unimpressive peeping Tom story. I hope that girl presses charges against him for voyeurism.

Anyway, Weezer made up for it all. They started the set with what should be their opening song for every concert: My Name is Jonas. Dressed in white jumpsuits and in front of a white curtain, the men of Weezer radiated their energy to the crowd. After the third song, the jumpsuits were shed for red jumpsuits and the curtain dropped to show a huge digital screen showing artsy video clips submitted by fans.

(While I was writing this I was interrupted by the noise of Deacon who had just grabbed the full 2 quart bottle of apple juice off the counter, dragged it to the tile entryway, took of the cap, spilled it all over, slurping up whatever juice he could while swimming face down on the tile. Lovely.)

So, back in 2000, I went to a Smashing Pumpkins concert where people started crowd surfing. In between songs, Billy Corgan politely asked that the crowd surfing stopped adding, "it isn't 1994 anymore." So maybe people have gotten the message over the years and there was much less crowd surfing at the concert than in the past. However, one of the coolest things I've seen in a long time was when a guy in a wheelchair went crowd surfing. Holy Cow!

Anyway, the rest of the concert was great. A solid set list with a combination of their biggest hits, rare fan favorites, covers (Morning Glory from Oasis and Sliver from Nirvana) and the new songs. It was nice to see Brian, Scott and Pat take over lead singing duties for a few songs. Tina wonders if Rivers needed to rest his voice - his singing was spot-on, but when he spoke to the crowd, it broke a few times. Speaking of his speaking, he spoke a lot more this show. He told a fun story about how he took is 17-month-old daughter to the children's museum downtown and she had a toy taken away from her for the first time (Pat told a story about how he lost his shoe in the Great Salt Lake the first time he came here). Rivers also did a few shout outs in Spanish and seemed just to have a lot to say. Not only was he more vocal, he was more animated, jumping up and down on a trampoline, sliding across the stage on his knees (tearing a whole in his jumpsuit) and wandering all over.

Back to the rest of the band. In addition to taking the lead, they switched instruments and played a few non-Rivers authored songs.

I think the highlight of the night was Pork and Beans. Now that's a song that can get a crowd going. The rhythm was perfect for jumping and everyone sang along. In fact, most people sang along to most of the songs - always a good sign of a fun show.

After the main part of the set, they brought on about 30 radio contest winners and their various instruments to play the first encore. This hootenanny featured several guitars, a string trio, an accordion, penny whistle, jaw harp, euphonium and several other instruments. Then Rivers directed, they played and we sang - Island in the Sun and Beverly Hills. That was a nice surprise and a lot of fun. Weezer certainly knows how to entertain.

Then Karl (weezer.com webmaster, roadie, jack-of-all-trades) set up a record player and played a vinyl copy of the red album's Heart Songs (the only prerecorded music of the night (unlike some concerts)). When it got to the part in the song where he talks about how Nirvana influenced Rivers to start his own band, he kicked the record player down and started playing Sliver. After that, for the last song of the night, he took of his jacket revealing a Led Zeppelin T-Shirt and played Buddy Holly to the delight of the thousands of fans.

Overall, a great show. I realized it had been over six years since they came and boy did I miss them. One cool thing about the show was the diversity of the crowd. I've been to concerts where everyone is 14 except me. But here we had people who were in high school or college when the blue album came out 14 years ago, new young fans, grey-hairs, parents and their kids, people in wheelchairs, even a blind guy, all united to hear some great Rock Music.

So, Rivers did say "See you next year," so I hope that's a promise. It may be so. Pat said that it used to take such a long time for Rivers to write all the songs, work the kinks out, record an album and tour that they would have to take off two years to recover. Now that all four of them are writing songs, the process should be quicker with shorter breaks. Pat said they will start some recording for their next album next month, so I look forward to another show.

(Pictures coming later)

Italy Trip Part 3 - Monaco

One of my favorite parts of our Trip to Italy this summer was when we went over a border or two and took a trip to Monaco. We had a lot of fun at the beach. The French Riviera really is what people say it is. Here is a picture of the beach. I don't know how Tina managed to get a photo without any, ahem, free-spirited beach-goers.

Deacon playing on the beach:
Here's the Palace at the top of the Hill:
What you see in this photo shows about half of the entire country of Monaco. It is very small and it seems like everyone here is extremely wealthy. It's like the rich man's Las Vegas. (One of those boats has a helicopter landing pad).

I've always wondered why a country as small as Monaco is was never taken over by a larger country. It is surrounded by France and is close to Italy. Well, the palace is on a huge hill and is surrounded by this:

Italy Trip Part 2 - Pizza

So, I have to say that one thing I really enjoyed in Italy was the food - especially the Pizza. I'm not a big pasta fan, and in Italy, it's either pasta or pizza. Good thing the pizza was incredible. One Sunday, we went to a friend of Tina's brother's family and had a big lunch of homemade pizza:

Cooked in a real brick oven:

Just about every restaurant I went to, I would order Pizza. I tried a few different toppings, too. Elizabeth (Tina's niece) had a Pizza with "Lardo" which translated is Lard. It was basically the fatty part of bacon. I tried a bit and then realized why this is not an option at Pizza Hut.

One of my favorite pizzas was on our last day in Italy: gorgonzola and apple. I had ordered the gorgonzola and pear, but they were out of pear and asked me if apple was OK. I said that would be fine. What was really cool about ordering is that by that time in the trip, I had learned enough Italian that I knew exactly what the server said when she asked me and I knew how to reply in Italian - a proud moment for me.

Vista! Where's my "Up" button?

So I got a new computer a while ago and it came preloaded with Windows Vista. Now, a lot of people have big issues with Vista, but I think most things are easy enough to get used to. I've read a few articles with hundreds of complaints, but I'm surprized that my biggest beef doesn't make anyone else's list.



My biggest problem with Vista is that they got rid of the "Up" button in Windows Explorer. The only reason I can think of for why they did this is they wanted to de-clutter the interface. There is no other good reason. I use the "Up" button all the time in traversing complicated directory structures. I'll move up and down directory trees grabbing different files. Now, they did add a nice feature that you can click any directory in the address bar and you'll go directly there, but it doesn't show the whole directory path, especially when you are working with long path names:



I think my biggest issue is that you're getting rid of functionality. There isn't even an option to add an "Up" button if you want it. It's like if they got rid of the copy and paste buttons in Word because you can just use ctrl-c and ctrl-v. So, Microsoft: please give me back my "Up" button!

Italy Trip Part 1 - Cars

So this summer we went and visited Tina's brother and his family in Italy. We were over there for two weeks and it was a lot of fun. I'll spread out the pictures from the trip into multiple posts so I don't feel overwhelmed to finish.

In preparing for the trip, one of the toughest things was finding a rental car. When we have rented cars in New Zealand, we have gone with companies that rent out older (10-15 year) cars. That has saved us a bundle and I really have no pride when it comes to the car I drive (I've been driving a 1992 Ford Escort with more rust than paint). Plus, I'm much more relaxed driving a car that's seen better days. No worries if someone dings my door. So, I looked really hard to find some rental agency like that in Italy. No luck. I swear I should open my own used car rental place in Italy - I'd make a fortune. Anyway, we went with some place I don't remember and picked the Fiat Panda because it was the cheapest 4-door we could find. When we got to the rental place, they gave us a Lancia Ypsilon. Here it is:

I was really worried when we picked it up because it was brand new. I think it only had 4km on it when we got it. That plus all the horror stories of the crazy driving in Italy freaked me out. I was so worried, but we turned it back in in perfect condition. I was a little worried too that it was only a 2-door, but it wasn't a problem even with two car seats in the back. In fact, I loved this car. By the end of the trip, I wanted to export one to the US and use it as my commuter car.

Speaking of cars in Italy, just about every car there looked about the same as the Ypsilon. Little compact hatchback. In fact, here's a Mercedes:

As long as I'm talking about cars. Here are a couple of funny ones. The Fiat Multiple (ugliest car in the world):

And an Italian pickup truck:

One more car related photo from Florence:

Of course, the tiny cars of Italy almost dissappeared when we went across the boarder to a village called Eze in France, just outside of Monte Carlo:

Frist Blog Post

Well, I guess I'm about 4 years behind on the whole blogging thing, but here it goes. I figure I should start this because I've noticed a few things about people about my age. People about my age keep in touch with email and blogs. People younger than me keep in touch with texting and Social Networking sites. People a little older than me keep in touch with phone calls and really old people keep in touch with fax machines. So, I'm going to act my age and start this blog.

I've also noticed that girls write about funny stuff their kids do and guys write about wierd stuff they observe about everyday life. Since Tina thinks she'll never write in a blog, this might be just about random stuff I think about. We'll see.