Yes, the streak is broken.  My pride wenteth before my fall.  Leah puked today.  IN PUBLICK.  So that ought to make up for a few years of my non puke experience.  For those of you just joining us, I have been a mother for 7 and a half years.  My only experience with throw up has been once when Nathan was like 9 months old when I went to get him in the morning he had some sort of... who can say... spit up?  Throw up?  Couldn't tell because he'd slept in it all night long.  But there was something there, don't know what it was, and until today, that has been my only experience with the dreaded kid vomit.

So we were at Wahooz.  The boys and I went this morning and our friend (thanks Cherie) watched Leah.  Of course, I had no idea that she would get sick later that day, so after Ryan got home from work, we went back to use to rest of our pass for the day.  And at that time, we took Leah.  I just thought she was tired.  Turns out she was just about to throw up.  So she did.  Like 5 times.  At least we were outside.  Too bad we were sitting next to a very sweet man from Bosnia who was just telling me how beautiful he thought Leah was.  I hope he still thought that after seeing her puke.  Cheers. 

Well, let's talk about Wahooz in the morning before we had Miss Lou with us.  First, we rode some cars.  My passenger:

Pretty frighteningly fierce, right?  I mean RIGHT???  Too bad the fiercest of them all isn't pictured.  That's right, IT'S ME.  Look, I was all humble about it last time I blogged about Wahooz but I can keep silent no longer.  Me + Laser Tag = Awesome.  I played about 7 games today and I was the high score in every. single. one.   EVEN when competing against 14 year old boys who care about laser tag A LOT and grown men who are trying to impress each other and such.  (And I will now tell you an experience that I was too humble to tell you about last time we went to Wahooz.  Kay, so my mom and I were on a team with Nate and Code.  Our opponents?  Two quite large Polynesian type men and their sons ages... eh... 10ish to 14ish (but size wise?  Those boys were QUITE large.)  Kay, so an old lady (you don't look old, mom, you just are), a mom and 2 kids?  Against 4 hefty fellows?  Should be an easy game, right.  Uh, yeah.  FOR ME.  I outscored all them boys and won the game (even with little Cody who offers a certain.. handicap shall we say).  So yeah.  I guess long story short, I'm great at laser tag.  Thanks for listening.

And we would know because MC Hammer was headlining at the Boise Music Festival this year.  Yeah, you heard that right.

Anyway, but we also know that Grammatime is way better!  We got Grandma Weed with us from Friday to Monday and we made the most of it!  Swimming with friends at the Natatorium until well after dark...

 

As Ryan's fortune cookie said this evening at our anniversary dinner, "Hang on.  The best is yet to come."

Happy Anniversary, fella.  I love you.  Thanks for hanging on through these past 9 years with me.  :)




(In contrast, mine just said I should have dessert.  How true, how poignantly true... MAN, those fortune cookies never miss, do they?  Poor Ryan just has to keep "hanging on" while I get to enjoy myself and eat Nanaimo bars.  It's quite illustrative of our marriage.  Well, life just isn't fair, but that's kind of what the man signed up for when he married me, you know?)



PS-Thanks to Aunt Heather for watching Leah whilst we all floated the river.  Thanks Grandma for watching ALL the kids while Ryan and I frittered the afternoon/evening away watching HP and going out to dinner.  You guys are the best.

As you may or may not be aware, our 9 year anniversary is rapidly approaching.  Husband is cute and planned a surprise date a few days early!

Though he did a VERY good job of keeping it a surprise (a feat for the man who just can't WAIT to tell!), somehow I knew what we'd be doing.  It just seemed like the right thing to do.  It was glowing, for lack of a better explanation, so even though he didn't slip and tell, I knew we'd be going to the Idaho Shakespeare Festival.

Someday, when we've got all the money we want to throw at stuff like this, we'd like to have season tickets.  For now, we settle for the cheapest seats on the hill.  BUT, we got there quite early and actually ended up with better seats than some who paid for a SEAT seat.  :) 

As we waited, we picnicked and chatted and I may or may not have eaten my weight in fresh strawberries and Nutella...

So in Primary (the organization for kids) this year, the kids have been learning the song Praise to the Man. Frankly, that's a fairly lofty goal, as it includes lots of big and difficult to understand words such as "communed," "dispensation," "extol," etc. BUT, our chorister has been trying and trying and I have to say, it's paid off with my kids. Even Leah knows it... kind of... Please listen carefully right after the first line...



Untitled from Bethany Weed on Vimeo.

Ha ha! Did you hear? She sings, "Jesus A Mormon" instead of "Jesus anointed..." He he! Also, do you not think that her pronunciation of "Jehovah" is about the cutest ever?

Then we have Sir Cody who gets it a little better, though a lot gigglier. This was, however, the best recording I could get of him, as all of the other ones were SO giggly as to be entirely incomprehensible. So here we go...



Untitled from Bethany Weed on Vimeo.



Before I offer my commentary on this, I have to remind you about the movie Kung Fu Panda. You know how the bad guy is named Ty Lung? Now, either he giggled through it or it's just vaguely POSSIBLE that I waited too long to take this video and he has now learned the CORRECT words, but he usually sings, "trai-tors and Ty-LUNG now fight him in vaa-aaa-aaa-aaain." (Instead of "traitors and tyrants") I like to imagine Ty Lung fighting him in va-aa-aaa-aaain. This is funny.


And then, of course, Mr. Nathan has it very well down. I would draw your attention to the chorus. Those of you familiar with the tune may notice that he goes off it a bit...



Untitled from Bethany Weed on Vimeo.


At first I thought, "How funny-he knows the whole thing so well, I wonder why he sings the chorus that way... OH." Then I remembered. His Primary teachers are two men. Two men who both sing in the ward choir. (One of those men happens to be his daddy.) When it comes to the chorus, both of these strong male singers belt out the harmony part, so that's what Nathan has picked up. Cute, huh?

This weekend, Ryan and I

1.) Read a Choose Your Own Adventure book.  OH YES!  I was at the library the other day with Nate, trying to convince him that there are a FEW other good books out there besides Magic Treehouse, and I spotted these.  I KNEW he'd love 'em.  When I explained how they worked, cogs and wheels and other mechanical things started whirring in his brain.  Just the idea of having so much power... so much control just thrilled him to no end.  So he's been enjoying them.  But one night, Ryan and I snatched one of his books and read a little CYOA.  And it was really cool... for awhile.  :)

2.) And then, since I was feeling all 8 years old, we played Guess Who, like the OLD version.  I know some McKinnon gals will appreciate that.


3.) And THEN since we broke out THAT old game, I started thinking about Battleship.  Still an excellent game.  So we played that, too.


And Ryan also painted my fingernails, but that's not very throwback because you know I didn't have any manservants around back in the day to do that sort of thing.

And all the other stuff that didn't fit into any other post from the time that Grandma/Grandpa/Emily/Mark were here...


1.  Grandma, Daddy and the kids went bowling at Boise State.  No pictures, but lots of fun.

2. We all went to Kung Fu 2.  I love going with my kids to an actual movie theater.  No pictures, for obvious reasons, but let me paint a picture for you.  Nathan: sits motionless, except for the continual popcorn consumption, completely entranced by the big screen.  Cody: so thrilled and excited and wrapped up in what's going on on screen that he's prone to outbursts like... "Awesome!"  or yelling, "This is SO COOL!"  He believes that he's part of the show.  Also continual consumption of popcorn.  Leah: kind of likes the show, really likes the popcorn, loves the freedom of meandering around the dark theater, up and down the steps, trying to be a little more daring and get a little farther from mom and dad each time.  Great time.  (As far as the movie goes, we liked it, and I have nothing to UN-recommend it, but we did like the first a little better.)

3.) We went to Wahooz.  Veeeeeeery few pictures because I didn't carry anything (no purse, and certainly no camera) with me.  These are two that Grandma took on her phone:

Nathan, being a very safe and responsible driver on the go carts.  Almost as though he thought that if he did a good, careful enough job on the carts, someone would look at him and realize, "Hey, this kid is so responsible, he could really drive!  Break all established procedures!  Give this kid a 7 year old driver's license!"

The boys also loved the bumper boats and the laser tag.  OH how they loved the laser tag.  I probably played 12 games of laser tag.  It was my first time playing and it was fun.  But I have realized that laser tag engenders a certain cult following.  There were career laser taggers in there.  Boys who dressed head to toe in black, played over and over again, and obsessed about which suit they got.  Why?  Who cares?  Aren't they all the same?  Yes they are, but they each have a comic book name attached.  So a kid who has had previous success with suit number 17, "Magneto," might push and shove his way into the room to try and make sure that he gets to be Magneto this game.  Crazies. 

But Cody LOVED it.  He was just barely tall enough to play, so he was about the shortest little storm trooper in there.  But he crept through the maze, slowly, surely, completely believing that he was dangerous.  REALLY dangerous.  SO CUTE!  I hope to get a picture someday.  So very very endearing.  Nevermind that his scores ranged from -275 to 25 or so... :)

4.)  I watched this man earn a PhD in 90 seconds for his most amazing doodles of things found in a science lab.  Incredible.




5.) I re-learned the hilarity of the self-portrait.  I don't know why I forgot after high school, but it's still funny.  I'll be doing this a lot more often. 

 This is my friend Emily:

I am here to tell you that there are no coincidences in this life.  Emily and I "randomly" became roommates, but I am certain that we were always meant to be friends.




I want you to know that I searched through pictures for about an hour before settling on just those two from our college days.  I started thinking back and trying to remember exactly how we became best friends... and I think it was that when she spoke, I heard myself.  What she thought, I thought too, even if I hadn't realized yet that that's what I thought.  I recognized her.  Our friendship was so immediate that really, a starting point can't even be identified.  Plus, she's funny as heck. 



So we got to hang again after an absence of 3 years.  Over the space of 2 weeks, I've been trying to binge on real life, face to face friendship- crafting, eating at French bakeries, shopping and staying up late... things that husbands generally aren't interested in.  Naturally, nothing has changed.  I had a goal of getting a picture that really captures our relationship.  Hard to do.  But I think this one comes the closest:


Late at night, laughing so hard that that you cry and lose the will to control your facial muscles.  Yeap.  That's pretty accurate.

Thanks for coming to visit, friend.

We've had visits from Nathan and Cody's first friends this week.  (See?  I told you we'd had a super busy week!)

First up-Nathan's first friend, Simon. These two go way back.  No, I mean WAAAAAAAAY back.

 

 









And also, a few pictures of their siblings:









Then, we had a visit from Cody's first friend, Broden.  They were also friends in utero, but I don't have a picture of that.  In fact, the only picture I could find of just the two of them together is this one:






And here they are today.  Too bad we don't live closer, because these two could be famous friends.

And a shot of all the siblings, then and now...



Yes, apparently the only time I took pictures of our friends the Sillitos was Halloween.  Sad because we really hung out a lot more than that.  :)  And I'm also regretting that I didn't take a picture of the parents.  This might be my only picture of Jenni and I don't even own a picture of Dan.  Sorry, friends.  We like you.  Next time, I'll remember to photograph adults as well.  :)





Nathan and Jacey were quite good friends in Texas...





But the intervening years have changed things a bit.  Now they keep a chaperone between them: