Finally!

I got a new phone with a better camera.

And my pineapple is ready.

Gus, what do you think?

A Cindy Quickie

On the way home from church today Luke was asking me about some people he didn't recognize in Sacrament meeting.  I told him I didn't know who they were, but that they were probably just visitors or investigators.  Cindy then asked me what the difference was.  I told  her that visitors could be members who are simply attending our ward for the day and investigators are non-members who are learning more about maybe becoming members of the Church.  Cindy replied very surprised, "Ohhhhh.  I thought "investigators" were people who come to inspect the church and if it isn't good enough, they take it away."  Well, no wonder she never introduces herself!

Addie Up!

My niece, Addie, got baptized last weekend and she asked me to speak at the service.  She obviously doesn't know very many people, so I had mercy and agreed.  I took the kids and hitched a ride up to Atlanta with my parents for the weekend.  

8 hours in the backseat with these guys? What could go wrong?

 I would like to point out here that on the way up and on the way home my mom made us speak in a different accent on the 15s of each hour that we were awake.  Seriously.  

We spoke French, Italian, English, Southern, Red dot Indian, Russian and Mexican.   

Which was actually more like quoting famous movie lines that feature these accents.  Harry Potter, Beauty and the Beast and The Godfather, anyone?

Hotel pool!

Gravity does not apply in Georgia

Saturday at 2pm we had the baptism.  

Everyone else took these pictures:

I took this one: 

Saturday night we chilled at their apartment and the kids spent the night with their cousin.  This Love Sac chair had nothing to do with their motivation.  

Saturday night we also got to eat Heirloom Korean BBQ- which gets 4.5 stars out of 770 reviews on Yelp.  I give it a 5 star review.  I would like to go back there :)

Sunday morning we hit Sacrament meeting before the drive home.  This was after, not during. 

Then we took a few pictures....

Oh, Cindy's picture face.  How I loathe you sometimes...
And Oh, JennyEllen, how we all adore you always :)

And then we said our goodbyes:

This is how Dave hugs you goodbye.  I am surprised he could lift me!

All of us being the worker bees that we are, we had to get back home for the work day on Monday. A super quick trip, but well worth the drive :)

*Cindy would also like for me to immortalize here the memory of when Luke dropped a piece of his cinnamon roll in his BBQ sauce container at Bojangles.

Ft. DeSoto Park Triathlon- Sibling Style

A few months ago my brother Chris sent me a text out of the blue that basically said, "I am fat and lazy and need to do something. How about a triathlon?"  Heck yes!  And so I started training for what would be my fifth overall sprint triathlon but my very first in the ocean.  My last triathlon was in 2009, so the fact that my swimsuit and bike shorts still fit was one of the best parts of this entire experience.  And doing this with my brother wasn't half bad either.




Pay no attention to the Old Spice guy behind me.  But do pay attention to Chris' game face.

But first, let us take a selfie

The drive in to Ft. DeSoto at 5:30am was dark yet full of lightning.  There were some storms way off the coast that were giving us quite a light show.  By race time, however, they had all faded away to produce a lovely sunrise.  This picture was taken just after we had waded into the water to test our goggles and then watched a guy step on the wing of a sting ray.

Thanks for the goggles, bro!

The ocean swim turned out to be nothing more than a glorified lake swim.  Winds were calm, no waves and I was thrilled with how my weeks of swimming had really paid off.  I was not happy, on the other hand, on how I got stuck in a pack of backstrokers (really??!) or the saltwater that basically sets your throat on fire by the time you get out, but hey, look Mom, no sharks!


This course had a pretty good bike route.  Mostly flat and at one point you have a gorgeous view of the Sunshine Skyway Bridge.  AND, no hairpin switchbacks! I know I could be faster on the bike, but considering I use no clips or cages and my bike is 117 years old, there is only so fast I can go and it ain't half bad!

Look at me go!

I won't sugar coat it- the run totally sucked.  I made a rookie mistake and did not actually take at least a full minute or two after the bike to let my thighs un-seize and by the end of the first half mile, I was pretty much done.  The good news is that it was also like being on the surface of the sun, so we thought this through.  

Feels so good.  To be done.

This race was uber cool because they gave each participant a print out of their official times.  I came in 8th place for my age group- and as you can see, the run was just horrific.

But just look at us, man!  Who would have thought that Binghams could do this??!

Way to go, Chris!  And you're not even wearing an ice vest!

(For the record, this triathlon had great finish line food.  Once the feeling of vomiting left, the burgers, fruit, cookies, bagels and beverages were fantastic.) 

That makes five

So will Chris and I be back in action together soon?  Stay tuned...

A Luke Quickie

Tonight we went to Chick-Fil-A and all dressed like cows for a free meal.  (Well, okay, almost all of us did. Apparently sacrificing your self respect is not worth $7 to some people.  Jacob *cough*)  Jokingly I told the kids how grateful I was that Chick-Fil-A had already solved my problem of what they were going to be for Halloween.  They were horrified when I said this and  immediately told me what they were actually going to be instead.  Cindy wants to be Little Red Riding Hood and then Luke said, "I want to be Ant Man!"  I was very surprised by this choice and said, "Really?"  To which he logically replied, "Well, I'm already tiny." And suddenly a movie about a tiny superhero is just fine with me.

How to Celebrate the 4th of July in 12 Easy Steps

1. Suffer a massive 5 hour intestinal attack at 3am
2. Get three hours of sleep and take a lot of drugs
3. Miss the annual ward pancake breakfast
4. Somehow manage to make sugar cookies with your kids four hours later
5. Barely eat anything the rest of the day
6. Sluff off your kids at your parent's house
7. Donate plasma
8. Fail miserably at taking a nap
9. Remember you have to do Sharing Time the next day at church
10.  Pick up said kids from your parent's house
11.  Watch your redneck neighborhood's fireworks display on the way home and count that as your "festivities"
12. Take one picture the entire day:

You gotta admit, these are pretty amazing.
Nothing says Independence Day quite like Yoda, a dolphin and an ice cream cone, am I right?

My Official Review of Jurassic World

Since I kinda sorta remember seeing the original movie Jurassic Park, I thought that Jacob and I should go see Jurassic World.  I mean, this movie made $500 million on opening weekend so we pretty much had to go and see what the fuss was all about. And now I can safely say, I am not exactly sure what the fuss was all about....


Cons

Super. slow. start. Just start eating people already!
Screenplay was horrible
Aunt Claire was horrible
Her ugly white dress was horrible
The fact that Owen liked her at all was horrible
HER HIGH HEELS WERE HORRIBLE  (Hey, you know how you can run faster in a fashionable pump? Umm, no...)
Vincent D'Onfrio turns out to be a creepy bad guy??!  No. Way.
The Indominus Rex is part raptor??!  No. Way.
The mission control guy tried so hard to be the comic relief character but it just failed miserably

The whole 'military' angle of training raptors for battle was........a little out there and obviously inserted by the anti-military Hollywood crowd

The ending was ridiculous on so many levels.  ("Why, thank you T-Rex for coming out and trying to eat only the one thing we hoped you might.  And thanks for running slow and ignoring everyone else because you somehow knew we needed your help.  You're swell!")
The biggest takeaway:  Pterodactyls ruin everything.


Pros

Chris Pratt looks great in zookeeper attire
You came to see guys get eaten, and dangit, you got to see guys get eaten! (eventually)
The older brother looks just like a young Sean Astin in Goonies
I did love the part where mission control guy tried to kiss mission control girl and she completely denied him
They did use a lot of the original music from Jurassic Park, which I love
Used a gift card to buy the tickets (cha-ching!)
Got to see a new Minion trailer
The movie got out at 4pm, which was perfect timing to get a half priced Nutella shake at Stake 'n Shake

I would have to give this movie 2.5 out of 5 stars.  It was entertaining, yes, but as Jacob and I discussed, there are only so many things a director can ask the audience to accept even though they are completely impossible.  This movie just had way too many of those impossibilities.  Minus four thousand points for Bryce Dallas Howard's awful red hair and a bonus 18 points for the fact that everyone in movies always drives a vintage motorcycle with giant headlight on the front.