New Year’s Eve, Blooper Reel Edition

New Year’s Eve, Blooper Reel Edition

After a lovely week with family in California, I’m pulling a solo couple of weeks again, while Tony and the kids spend some more laid-back grandparent time. Fortunately, it’s not summer this time around, so the lawn looks to be in a fairly dormant state (which for Florida means bright green still, but not shooting up like a jungle). So I don’t think I’ll have to mow it, which is good, because I hate mowing the lawn, it takes me forever, and I’m terrible at it. I may trim the bushes, which I actually enjoy, and which by itself goes a long way toward preventing our house from turning into The Haunted Mansion.… Read more

Footloose and kid-free in San Francisco

Footloose and kid-free in San Francisco

This year, Tony’s parents gave us the best Christmas present ever-a totally kid-free anniversary! Like so many BYU students, we got married between semesters (I seriously have at least half a dozen friends with the same anniversary as ours). It seemed like a good idea at the time, but having an anniversary two days after Christmas can make it difficult to have the energy or resources to plan anything special in the middle of the holidays. It’s been at least five years since we went a full 24 hours without seeing our children.

So celebrating our anniversary in San Francisco alone together was pretty much the most enjoyable thing we’ve done in a long time.… Read more

Period Presents

I try to stay away from those braggy “my husband is so awesome” types of posts, because I know they’re insufferably annoying. Typically, I only indulge when Tony is off in California for weeks on end without me, because I feel like if I have to suffer through living without him, the least the rest of you can do is indulge me in my mushy ramblings about how dreamy he is.

But we’re going to California at the end of this week, and I’ll be coming back a couple of weeks before he does, so I guess I’m already in gushy romantic mode again.… Read more

Flunking the Holidays

So, here’s how Thanksgiving actually went down: shortly after I published my somewhat pathetic blog post about our (virtually nonexistent) plans for Thanksgiving, we received an invitation to Thanksgiving at the home of our friends, the Larsons. They are also the first people who invited us over for dinner when we moved to Florida almost three years ago, and the family who invited me over when I went to Church alone while Tony and the children were in California last year (and the year before). So, good people. And good cooks too.

Thanksgiving dinner was delicious, and followed by an impressive selection of pies, AND a gorgeous Brazilian flan contributed by another guest.… Read more