Sunday Tradition

One of my favorite traditions we've started since being married is Sunday breakfast. Every Sunday we make a mondo huge breakfast - much like the one in the picture minus the coffee - stuff ourselves to the point of misery and then relax, study scriptures or veg (sp?) until it's time for church. I hope we'll be able to continue to do this once we have kids, it's hard to say, but in the meantime - I love it! Today we had french toast, hashbrowns and scrambled eggs.

Notice my plate, I'm a separatist. If the syrup touches the eggs or hashbrowns they become inedible.

The other thing I love about Sunday (besides church) is the time we have together. Usually we get off to a rough start, almost always having some petty argument on the way to church, but afterward we have dinner, discuss random things from the day, and end with a board game or a movie. It's also the day we Skype Alex's family and get the scoop on the week's happenings. I'm glad we're able to stay in the loop even though we're here, in Utah and they're back home, where I'd like to be at times.

Sunday used to be my least favorite day of the week. It was like having a built in day of restriction every week - no shopping, going out, television. It was a designated stay home and spend time with the family day, which I did not appreciate. Now that I'm older and a smidge wiser, I'm grateful for Sunday. Having a day to rest up and spend time with family is exactly what I need to feel refreshed and get me ready to go into a new week. It's also the one day that I don't have to feel guilty that I'm not cleaning the house or working in the yard. What a great day!

...almost forgot, how about the after church naps? Those are the best.

The New "Contributor"

I guess I'm a new contributor to the blog. I'm not very good at writing and I'm even worse at expressing feelings and ideas but maybe this blog will be good for that. Kristine's blogs are funny. I think she was inspired by my cousin Kristin whose blog entries always leave us in hysterics. I hope that I can live up to the expectation.
Getting straight down to business, what did happen to our pumpkin? I think it was probably eaten by the dog that consistently defecates on our front lawn whenever we're not there to see it. I liked that pumpkin. It was my brainchild. (Pretty sad huh. I haven't taken an art class or done anything artsy since 8th grade. That's 7 years already!). I was hoping that it would be a barfing masterpiece but with our marital theme of OCD and dislike for the gross pumpkin guts, it was not to be. I really was all about the X's for eyes. It reminded me of the Japanese cartoons I used to watch with Austin. That's all for now.

New and Improved...

I was reading Bonnie's blog the other day and noticed that Tyler had posted the latest entry. At that moment, an idea was born - why not add Alex as a contributor so he can post to ours? Duh. I'm a little slow. I'm not sure how often he'll post, but now he has the option... watch out world, here he comes!

P.S. I take no responsibility for the content or opinions expressed in his posts.

The Case of the Missing Pumpkin

This evening marked a strange occurrence in the Booth household - our pumpkin was nabbed by a pumpkin thief! Alex and I arrived home shortly after 5:30 and immediately noticed something was missing. No more pumpkin! Neither of us touched it. We thought we might find its nasty carcass in the garbage. No such luck. I can only assume one of the neighbors got tired of looking at it and pitched it for us...


We soon forgot about the pumpkin and quickly moved on to our first priority of the evening (besides dinner) - our newest board game. We spent the last of our birthday funds on a game called Ticket To Ride (Thank you Melissa for the suggestion - we love it!). I won't go into detail now except to say we both really enjoyed the game and look forward to playing it in the future. It's another strategy game, which is our latest guilty pleasure... Click here for more info on Ticket to Ride.

The rest of the week has been pretty uneventful. In fact, I think I've blocked most of it from my memory since it involved being crazy-busy at work and not-so-nice to Alex while I was at home. More on that later when it's not 1:00 am.. In the meantime, I'm sure Alex will continue to pray for me to have patience... and I'll keep having trials to break me down until I finally learn that wonderful (and seemingly difficult to obtain) virtue.

This Place I Like To Go

After taking a 3 month hiatus, Alex and I finally made it to the temple for dinner and a session. We went to Mount Timpanogos since it was the closest (I worked in Highland today)... and because it happens to be one of my favorites. I feel bad that we didn't get there a month or two ago, but at least we got there, right?
From what I can tell, Fall may be officially over. Last night it snowed; not just on the mountain, but in our driveway and all over the cars. I had 3 inches on my car this morning and it took me an extra 20 minutes to get to work. So, basically it went from windy Fall-like weather to ridiculously cold and snowing overnight... the weather here is just weird like that. I'm not ready to deal with Winter in Utah, 6 months of freezing butt cold, chapped skin, yuckiness.. and, like usual, I don't have much of a choice. I would have posted a picture, but I'm still in denial.

Hmmm... but on the bright side, maybe now I can justify buying myself a cup - one cup, not two - of hot water with a hint of chocolate from Maverick. Maren, if you were here we could even go together, I know how much you crave that stuff. I'd even splurge and buy the M&Ms just for you. Good times. :)

You are cute, but EEEK!

Alex noticed this in the bath tub while he was brushing his teeth a few minutes ago:


Three questions...
How did he get in? How long has he been chillin' in the bath tub? And did he bring any friends?

The idea of little mice cruising around the house while we're sleeping (or awake) gives me the heebie-jeebies. I have to stop thinking about it.

We were in need of some entertainment this evening and decided to play a board game. Alex Hildebrand sent Alex Carcassonne back in September for his birthday. We still hadn't played it, so tonight was the night. In some ways it reminds me of Settlers of Catan, but this game is a little easier and takes much less time to finish (Scott & Liz, you need to play this one if you haven't already, I think you'd like it). We played two games - I won the first, he won the second and thankfully so. We both have the tendency to get quite competitive when we play games. On a bad day, it can be just the thing to start a fight. I recall playing a game of monopoly at the cabin in August and someone (we won't name names) was a little upset when his wife beat him at his own game (prior to that we was considered to be the Monopoly Master). To be fair, I did make it nearly impossible for him to win when I refused to sell him any properties...
He was a little discouraged this evening when I won initially, but quickly regained his confidence when he trashed me during the second game. I told him he should be thankful that his wife is any competition at all - I don't know that this made him feel any better, but it was worth a try.

The Happiest Place on Earth

That's right... this evening Alex and I visited the happiest place on earth, Walmart! It was an extremely efficient one stop shopping experience - we were able to buy the thing we came for, say "Hi" to a friend, and enjoy a constant supply of people watching entertainment that Walmart is known to provide. No matter what state you're in - the weirdos flock to Walmart. This evening was no exception.

Throughout the store we saw many couples still dressed in Halloween garb, others were taking advantage of the 50% off candy shelves (I intended on doing so, but my waist said no), and then there was the one guy that really gave us a chuckle.

After making our way to the front of the store, we surveyed the lines and nestled in behind another couple in the self checkout. This line was the shortest, unfortunately that didn't mean it was the quickest. We stood, and waited... and stood, and waited... the line did not move. After 5 minutes I finally got curious and looked ahead to see what the holdup was. The guy at the front of the checkout was paying for his groceries and was in the process of inserting coins one by one. No biggie, we all pay with change once in awhile. I looked even closer and realized he was paying in pennies. No quarters, dimes or nickels.. just PENNIES! The people in front of us were getting impatient and at one point the husband leaned over to his wife and said,"He has $15.00 to go..." I just about died. Apparently he's never heard of Coinstar, which would have made his, and our, shopping trip much faster. Needless to say, we too had grown impatient and quickly moved to another line.

The joys of Walmart. If only you could have seen the look on his face... and the look on the faces of the people waiting in line behind him. Priceless.