I am finally back from my fabulous vacation to Virginia! It was so much fun. Dan, Sam and I arrived in Charlottesville on July 2. After a few hours at my parents’ home, we packed up and headed to West Virginia to go white water rafting down the New River. On the 3rd, Mom and Dad watched Sam and his cousin Carter while Kirk, Gretchen, Candice, Craig, Dan and I went rafting with our hilarious guide, Heather. Heather was the best. She picked on Kirk the whole time (which was funny for the rest of us), and called Gretchen and Candice her “pants-less wonders.” She had a ton of jokes and told far out stories which ended up not being true. Random, but I guess it’s probably fun to make up outlandish stories of near-death experiences for strangers you’ll never see again. That day we drove back to Virginia.

On the 4th we attended our first Earlysville parade. My parents have lived there for 12 years but never went before. It basically included anyone who wanted to participate, and people in the crowd got lots of free candy. I was all over that! I was beating 7 year old boys to get to those tootsie rolls. They were too slow. Sam hated the fire trucks. Later that day, K and G created a scavenger hunt for us on the downtown mall. Dan and I won. We’re the bomb. Once again, Mom and Dad watched the boys while we went to the fireworks. This is getting long so I’ll summarize the rest faster.

Sunday I got to see my friend Katrina. It was so great to spend time with her and see her cute pregnant belly!

The rest of the trip included the UVA cemetery, Bodo’s Bagels, a driving range, a date with Dan to Putt-Putt, slurpees, a peach orchard, a splashpark, haircuts, games, a movie, more Putt-Putt, walks, bowling, a picnic, more slurpees, good food, and great company! I really wish Ryan, Teresa, and Zoey could have been there, too. I miss my family so much already!

When I arrived in Houston it was 97 degrees or something. And I saw Chloe from Project Runway at the airport.

It’s nice to be back with Dan, but this weather is ridiculous!

5 Years

Friday, June 26th, was our fifth anniversary. Dan was a sweetie and took half the day off of work so that we could go on a date. My aunt and cousins from Sugar Land graciously agreed to watch Sam for 4 hours so that we could go out. We hadn't seen a movie in ages, so we headed to the theater to watch UP. And not just regular style, but in 3D. It was a really cute movie. I liked it so much! Dan liked it, too. We collectively rate it 9.5. Two thumbs up.

The movie theater was right next to a mall and lots of restaurants. After the movie we went to the mall and I got a new shirt because of my budgeting skills. (I'll talk about that later for those who are interested.) Then we went to P.F. Chang's for dinner because Dan had never been. It was nice except for the 16-month old baby at the table right next to us who thought screaming his head off for no reason was adorable. Hello! We took our baby to a sitter to AVOID being around babies. Oh, well. They left about halfway through our meal so it wasn't too bad. My aunt claims that Sam did well while we were gone. I hope he really did!

It was so nice to go out with Dan alone and it was a great anniversary.

Today Houston set a new all-time June record of 104 degrees. 104 DEGREES! Killa!Sam instictively squints when I pull out the camera now. He doesn't like the flash, I guess. Did you see what he's reading? "Secrets of the Baby Whisperer." He's just trying to figure out what makes the baby girls tick.

The Curious Case of Benjamin Button = 2 hours and 43 minutes of my life wasted, never to return. Definitely the lousiest movie we've seen since Twilight, and we've seen some lousy ones--Last Chance Harvey, Valkyrie, and Paul Blart Mall Cop, for example. I can't imagine how anyone would enjoy Benjamin Button's story without first having some sort of perverse obsession with the sexual escapades of a young man in a really old man's body, but, apparently, there are a sufficient number of such persons submitting reviews on Yahoo movies to earn the movie an A- from Yahoo users. We both gave it a 1 out of 10 without reservations.

In other news, I want to wish my dad a happy father's day. Here's to a great dad!

Dad, I hope you had a good day, though you probably won't read this message, if ever, until a month from now.

And in yet more news, Sam showed off his first dance moves this weekend, other than the random shaking of the hands that is as much dancing as the random "Da!" is taken for his saying "Dad!" (You'd like to think it was dancing, and you'd like to think it was "Dad," but let's be honest, he doesn't know what he's doing.) This time, we are positive that Sam was getting jiggy with it, and the song that he chose to dignify as dance-worthy, if you're interested in knowing, was Gwen Stefani's "Ain't No Holla Back Girl." Sam's awesome.

Did you know that there is not one single 7-11 in Houston? Man, on these super hot days, nothing sounds as good as a wild cherry slurpee. Icees don't cut the mustard. The good news is, I'm headed to VA in a few weeks. Not only that, but I'll be there ON 7-11 so you KNOW I'm going to get myself a free slurpee. One for me, and one in honor of Dan. And maybe one for Sam, too. We'll see.

Did you also know that Houston doesn't show Jeopardy? I guess that's good so that I don't watch as much TV, but still. Houston is the fourth largest city in the US and no Jeopardy? It's just un-American. Oh, I miss Alex Trebek in my life.

A Tribute

For my ninth birthday, while we were camping in San Simeon, California, I got my very first camera: the Kodak Jazz. At least, that's what I remember it being called, but I couldn't find any pictures of it online anywhere. It was flat and hot blue and totally awesome. Maybe it was the Kodak Star? Anyway, I loved that camera. Over the next few years, I took some fabulous pictures. I was looking at some of them this week and scanned a few of my favorites - either because I just think they're fun or they're sentimental.

Camping - San Simeon

Camping - San Simeon

Kirk jumping over a canal with a huge drop-off on the other side. He did it while Mom wasn't looking. Per usual, he probably could have died, but didn't.

Grandpa Cheney's 72nd b-day! I love him.

Candice will probably kill me for this, but I think she looks cute!

I don't know why Kirk is lifting his shirt. Kirk? Care to explain?

Grandpa O'Brien's grave. I wish I knew him better.

Old Faithful.

Ryan.

I still haven't decided what to do about getting my hair cut, but in the meantime, I'd like to share a few people I consider my hair icons... Maybe with enough time, money, patience, and my own personal hair dresser, I could eventually achieve the gorgeous tresses of the likes of:

Blake Lively

Evangeline Lily

Carrie Underwood

But let's be honest. In Houston, my hair looks more like:

Sebastian Bach
Weird Al

or Robert Plant

Dan said out of those three, it's most like Robert Plant's. *sigh* I guess I just need to get over it.

Is a $90 haircut worth it if you only get it cut twice a year? I NEED a haircut and the only good recommendation I've gotten from anyone is a place that costs $84 (plus tip). I can't imagine spending that much, but I haven't gotten a cut since November and it was from a beauty school in Utah ($8 total). No one ever cuts my hair well and this place has straight 5-star reviews from Citysearch. But $90? Yikes. Thoughts?

I find it ironic that Sam's BYU onesie (what with the BYU Honor Code and all...)

is his most revealing.

I usually think of myself as an independent woman. I think that's changed a bit since I got married, though. Friday night, Dan had to go on a boyscout campout so I had the place to myself. Well, Sam was there, but after he went to bed, it was like I had the place to myself. I watched a chick flick and then stayed up entirely too late not doing anything in particular, just putting off going to sleep. I wasn't scared, but then I got to thinking, "I'm not scared, but if I were to be scared, what would I be scared OF?" So then I start thinking of all of these scary things that I could be scared of and then I successfully scared myself. Mostly I was thinking of the freaky nighttime zombie people in "I Am Legend." I don't know why, but they are like the creepiest things to me. Thankfully, I realized that I shouldn't be scared of nighttime zombie freaks and peacefully slept for 6 hours... Until Dan's alarm went off at 6 a.m. He forgot to shut it off before he left.

Last Birthday Post - I Promise!

Sam's birthday was pretty laid back. We had hot dogs, ate cake, opened presents, and hung out. I had been thinking about what to do for Sam's cake for months. A train? A monkey? A giant cupcake? In the end, I couldn't ever really think of anything so I just made a "1". With the leftover cake, I attempted to make blocks. Let's just say they left something to be desired. Oh, well. They tasted good.My idea of an outfit:Dan's idea of an outfit:Here's Sam right when he started to dig in:I think he liked it.

Today he had his one-year check-up. He had sprouted! He's now in the 90th percentile for height. Still 90th for head (duh!), and 50th for weight. He got four shots and a finger prick to test his iron. Funny story: He got a little band-aid on his finger from the finger prick. He was kind of sucking and chewing on it. In the car on the way home from the doctor, I heard him sort of gagging and I look and his band-aid is gone! So I swap my finger around in his mouth and didn't feel it so I kind of gagged him and out it came. Super gross.

Today's the day!

I had been wanting to figure out Windows Movie Maker for a while and decided that I would start with a video slideshow of Sam's first year. Dan and I love him so much and are so grateful that a loving Heavenly Father sent such a sweet baby boy to our family. Happy birthday, Samuel!

I've never been much of a foodie. In the past few years, most of our meals have been things that are prepared quickly (ramen, hot dogs, pasta) and easily. I blame it on the fact that I worked full time and Dan studied full time. Ever since Sam was born, I've gotten more interested in cooking and expanding my culinary horizons.One of my favorite recipe websites is AllRecipes. In case you don't know what it is, people post their own recipes and then others use them and rate them on a 5-star scale and leave comments. (That's probably like a lot of other sites, too. I just like this one a lot.) So when I want to make something, for example, a cheesecake, I'll search "cheesecake" and then sort the list of cheesecake recipes by rating so that I can see the recipe with the overall best rating. That way you don't waste time making stuff that's just ho-hum and most of your food turns out great. Some of our favorite recipes from this site are:

B and L's Strawberry Smoothie (but we use ice cream instead of yogurt)
Chantal's New York Cheesecake
Double Tomato Bruschetta
Pizza with Pepper, Onion, and Feta

And there are so many more that I want to make. Are there any recipe sites that you love? I'd love to hear about them.

In other news, Dan and I rented Last Chance Harvey from Redbox. Yikes. What a bad movie. I was hoping it would be good but you spend 3/4 of the movie wincing at how sad this dude's life is, then he meets this lady and they just talk all day and he follows her around and then they fall in love. Not to mention, the cover says the movie is "Richly funny" but I think we laughed out loud maybe once. Dan's rating: 2 out of 10. My rating: 3 out of 10. I think I'm more lenient when it comes to movies...

Tomorrow is Sam's birthday. I can't believe our baby will be ONE! I made a video of pictures of his first year. I'll have to shrink it down a ton in order to fit it on the blog, so the quality will be really bad. I'll try to get it all figured out and post it if I can. In the meantime, here are some shots of the soon-to-be birthday boy! He wasn't feeling too photogenic that day... And yesterday we chopped his hair off.And I saw this gem on a walk the other day. Pure Texas.

Fifty-two weeks ago today, Dan graduated from law school. I was as big as a house. Sam came one week later. I wore the same dress today that I wore then, but it fits much better now.

Today we took a walk. We saw a dead frog, a dead bird, and a dead kitten. We also saw a few cats, lots of birds, a rabbit, lizards, and a homeless man. One time on a walk we saw a crazy homeless man get in a fight with a really mean limo driver. On a different walk, we saw a car full of guys ask a man walking by for directions. The man ignored them and turned around to walk the other way. It was strange.

We went to look at our house this weekend. It's really coming along. The brick work is almost done and the drywall is done, too. It's supposed to be finished in 2 months. I can't believe it!Are quinceañeras big in any other cities besides Houston? It's a Mexican tradition where girls who turn 15 have a huge party. We see girls walking around like this all the time getting their pictures taken. They have entire entourages of "bridesmaids" and "best men"-type looking people, too. They make a huge deal about it. So much so that instead of just a bridal expo at the Reliant Stadium this weekend, it was a bridal and quinceañera expo. They act like it's a wedding. (We even saw a girl turning quince getting her pictures taken at the temple this weekend. -- Dan)