Mystery Decoded!

For those playing along at home, I will now remove the shroud of mystery surrounding Luke and the backpack items of questionable circumstances.  Dad, you were very close.

1.  Gunnar's dad came in to talk to Luke's class about working at the airport and the souvenir he gave out was from a deck of cards featuring airports of the Greater Midwest.

2.  Meet Evan, otherwise known as 'Grimace', who was Luke's kindergarten book buddy.

3. Luke's dry eraser sock, for when he was practicing math on his individual dry erase board.


I threw the sock away and I am not sure where the four of diamonds went, but Evan is gonna stick around for a while.  That guy just makes my day :)

Why The Internet Always Wins

Last week I got a text asking me if my "bearded dragons were still available."  I did not respond to that text as I was pretty sure that I was being punk'd by someone and I didn't want to give them the satisfaction of making me look silly. (If you must know, I thought it was my brother Dave.  But apparently he has been so busy with his ward's water basketball league that it couldn't have possibly been him.) Well, today the mystery texter surfaced again.  And I could not resist....

Luke: Man of Mystery

I have now spent two days cleaning out my children's rooms.  For some it may be drudgery, but I actually kind of salivate at the chance I get during the first days of school when my children leave and I get to throw away, I mean, "re-organize" their stuff.  I finished Luke's room yesterday and, while cleaning out his backpack from the end of school back in June, I found three things in the front pocket.  Three things that have completely baffled me and made me think I am sleeping in a room next to a total stranger.

1. 

A playing card (four of diamonds) with a diagram of the Tulsa, OK airport on the back.

2.

A foam bookmark with the greatest school picture in the history of school pictures ever stuck to it.

(I may or may not be making this into a Christmas ornament for my tree this year.  

I don't know who this guy is, but I gotta have him.)

3.

A baggie filled with a disgusting sock.

And I thought Cindy having 154 fun size Skittles wrappers under her bed made me nervous! While I do some reconnaissance on these items, go ahead and make your guesses as to why these were in his backpack.  If you go three for three, I will give you a playing card with a diagram of the Tulsa, OK airport on it.  What can I say? I have connections...

Move Over, Grumpy Cat

Ah, heck, who am I kidding? Grumpy Cat moves over for no one!  But Franzie the hugging cat is still pretty darn great.  I just wonder how you discover your cat can do this...

A Wyatt Quickie followed by a Brian Quickie

I am working on a very amazing "end-of-summer" post for Sweeneyville, so while I finish that up, please enjoy two quickies, courtesy of my nephew, Wyatt and my brother, Brian.

The other day my brother Chris took his almost 5 year old son, Wyatt, to the Florida Aquarium.  The highlight of the day apparently was when they walked up to a giant painting of a manatee hanging on the wall and Wyatt asked, "Dad, where are we on this map?" 

After spending the day on Tuesday over at Chris' house, Brian, Kelly, Olivia and I were driving home that afternoon on a back road to avoid school traffic around their subdivision.  We passed many houses that were set on several acres of land, surrounded by cows and horses.  One house in particular had a huge barn, that looked straight out of a movie.  It was set back under some trees and was very cool.  I said, "Wow, look at that barn! It's awesome!"  Brian, who was in the passenger seat, squinted his eyes as we drove by and finally said quietly, "I bet there are so many spiders in there..."

Happily Ever After

Some have already seen these pictures on Facebook, but I need to put them in Sweeneyville where they will last forever.  On Tuesday my parents celebrated 40 years of marriage.  Which is only hard to believe from the standpoint that 40 years have actually occurred since they got married. It's craziness!!  Technically, they have known each other since they were somewhere about 8 years old. My dad told me one time that he knew he was going to marry my mom when he was about 14 or so?  He said it was at a combined youth activity (pool party) at a leader's house and that was the night he knew. (She was unaware of this revelation.) At least that is what he told me, so if that is not true dad, well, you got some 'splaining to do.

And now, 5 Things we learn from these photos:

1.  Brian now looks exactly my dad did back then.  Scary!
2.  My parent's wedding invitation is awesome.  If I had a do-over, I would choose that design.  It's simple, classy, it has a black and white photo included- I absolutely love it.
3.  My mom's hair in their engagement photo is pretty much my dream hairdo.  It's even more miraculous than my dad's hair.  Which, when you think about it, is pretty miraculous.
4.  People actually wore those tuxedos with ruffles in the front in real life and not just in movies!
5.  My parents were married on a Monday. A MONDAY. No one does that.

You might be cool, but not 'getting married on a Monday' cool.

You Could Have Bowled Me Over With a Feather

Remember two days ago when I said that this blog is to document when amazing and wonderful things happen to me?  Well, I got one more for you.  Last night Jacob and I went on a double date with Brian and Kelly at the bowling alley.  During the second game, I bowled five strikes in one game, four strikes in a row, including two in the tenth frame. This gave me a new PR for bowling, beating the previous score of 172 I have been stuck at for about 12 years.  Notice all those 9's Jacob was posting- he was definitely cursed.  Seriously, I think he was on candid camera.  It was so ridiculous.

Visual proof that we all need to join a league together.  Look at those scores, man!

Photobomb Level: Brian

Tebowling: An oldie but a goodie.

Sunrise, Sunset

And so begins the first day of 2nd grade for Luke, the first day of 5th grade for Cindy and the beginning of year EIGHT for Jacob.  The kids were very pleasant this morning and Cindy even let me put a braid in her hair.  And that right there, people, is the exact reason I blog; to document when amazing and wonderful things happen to me. Luke was wearing a sweet new Ninja Turtle backpack and Cindy had on her new Adidas cinch sack, which I got for $5 with my super sweet couponing skills.  Cindy got a MAN teacher this year, which was a little bit of a shock, but I think she will benefit immensely from the experience. Yep, school is officially in session, which really just means only 5 more months til the cool weather gets here.  Baby steps to December....

Bless Luke's little heart for holding that smile as long as he could while my
camera took its sweet time. 

Get your fists ready...

Brian, Kelly and Olivia are here for a visit and yesterday we hit the beach.  Chris and Molly and the kids met us at Ft. DeSoto and together we frolicked, seagull punched and even did a little robot dancing...

This was the first time little Livers had ever seen the beach!  It's a fair assessment to say that she loved it and definitely wants Brian to do his residency in Tampa.



There was also a little water football...

Clam races???

Sandcastle building, shark floaties, mesmerizing handstands.....

Cousins, weather, very ominous weather....

There is just something about a turtle nesting ground that makes you 

want to do the robot, am I right?

Hey, who's ready for the show?

But best of all, there was seagull punching!  

Chris took it to the next level with the seagull uppercut!  Nice work.

And finally, the money shot of the day was the Street Fighter pelican punch!  

In your big fat bill, pelican!

To the end the day, we busted out the timer feature on the camera and took some very poorly lit group pictures.  Which I have poorly edited so you can see our faces.  

Until December :)

A Luke Quickie

Yesterday morning Luke was eating his breakfast at the kitchen table and was totally lost in thought as he silently ate his Reese's Puffs.  I wondered what he was thinking about and then he suddenly spoke and answered my silent musing.  He looked at me and said, "I can't wait for cockroaches to be endangered."  And there you have it. Roaches.  He is thinking about the future of roaches. While eating cereal.  I think I liked it better when I didn't know.

A Luke Quickie

For the past few days we have been indulging the kids by playing Call of Duty with them on the Xbox.  (Parents of the Year, I know.)  Needless to say, I am the worst of the four of us.  By a long shot. Yesterday I was playing a one on one round with Luke and I actually found myself doing pretty good! I killed him about four times in one game, instead of my usual zero.  Finally, it dawned on me that Luke was probably letting me win, so I asked him if that was the case.  He said, "Well, yeah, because if I didn't you would have ZERO points." Operation Ego Deflation has been successful, sir.  Move out!

Well, technically she never said "no"

I asked for permission to put this picture of my mom on the blog and I don't remember her being adamantly against it, so....

Here is the greatest picture ever taken of my mother, Linda Bingham:

Look while you can, I may have to remove it in the next 24 hours....

6 Things I learned This Week

1.  Washing your washing machine feels weird but is extremely gratifying.
2.  Venus is the most inhospitable of all the planets. What, you were expecting something silly? Space is no joke, people.
3.  I should never, ever be allowed to play Call of Duty right before going to bed.
4.  Heavenly Father loves me because even though he made me the Primary President, he lets me go to Ward Council every week and sit by my dad.
5. No burger is complete without fresh slice of grilled pineapple.
6. Childbirth is less painful than getting dandruff shampoo in your eye.

He's a Fan of Delicious Flavor (And avoiding haircuts, apparently)

This is actually pineapple #3 (of 7) that we have cut.  It seems like they are all starting to turn yellow almost overnight! I wish my blog had smell-o-vision so you could at least smell these things. And don't even get me started on how delicious they taste.  Store bought pineapples might as well be wooden shoes compared to these guys.  If we ever move, my first priority will not be turning on the water, painting or even setting up my bed.  The first priority will be planting about 14 pineapple tops in the yard so we can get to the harvest as soon as possible.


In related news, this print I found on Etsy (for $3.50) will very soon be hanging in my kitchen:

link