A letter to my Dad

Dear Pops,

It’s been two months. Two months since the last time I talked to you. Two months since I last heard your voice. Two months since I got the phone call. The phone call that you had passed away.  That was a bad day for me.  I still came to work because I knew I needed to get things ready before I left.  I’m glad I came to work that day.  I cried between every class but I knew I had to keep it together in front of my students.  That is the only thing that kept me from falling to pieces.  It sort of worked.  They knew something was wrong but I couldn’t find the words to say “my dad passed away this morning.”

There were so many people at your funeral.  I felt bad that everyone had to stand in line that long but it was amazing to see all the love and support from everyone.  At one point I looked over and I could see you smiling.  I don’t know who was talking to you but they must have said something funny because I could also hear you laughing. That is one thing I miss the most is hearing you laugh.  I always loved watching funny movies with you because of how much you laughed.

We are doing ok but we’re not.  Everyone misses you. I don’t know if being away from everyone is making this easier or harder.  Easier because I can sometimes forget about it and that helps get me through to the next day.  Harder because I’m not around family and I really miss everyone.

Somedays I think I finally have patched the hole in my heart with a little bit of putty and it’s finally starting to heal a little.  Then I see something or hear something that reminds me of you and the putty gets ripped out and I wonder when it’s not going to be painful anymore.

Well, I know you are busy so I will wrap this up. I hope you are finding some time to go fishing with Ritchie because that was one of your favorite things to do.  Give Mutley some grapes and string cheese for me. Finally, watch out for Mom on the golf course and get her with as many sprinklers as you can!

 Love ya Pops!

P.S. Keep the pennies coming. They really help!

I like you too...

In honor of Valentine's day I present to you a love story: (don't worry it's not sappy)

I was not an easy person to date.  Bless his little heart Brian didn't give up on me.  Even when he told me "I love you" and I patted him. Yes you heard me right. P.A.T.T.E.D him. Most of you have heard this story before but it didn't happen until it's written down. Right?

It was during the summer and Brian had come to Bear Lake to see me.  We had just finished a movie and we were sitting there all snuggley when he said those three little words "I love you." Most girls would have been thrilled! I was completely shocked and scared. I didn't know how to respond.  I liked Brian a lot but I didn't know if I LOVED him.  I didn't want to say it if I didn't mean it but I didn't want to hurt his feelings. I thought of comebacks like "I like you too," or "thanks." I even thought about pretending like I had fallen asleep but I had just been talking about ten seconds before so that wouldn't fly. So I did what every sane person would do.... I did the three arm pat.  AND not even just a three arm pat the reeeeeeaaally slow awkward three arm pat that means "That's nice...You are special." I rolled away and slowly left for bed. I heard Brian give a really big "I can't believe I just did that, I'm so stupid SIGH."  You know the one.  He left the next day and I got a phone call from one of my roommates who sort of chewed me out for what I had just done to that poor kids self esteem.  Luckily, Brian didn't give up on me!

However, still to this day if I tell Brian "I love you."  He will reach over and slowly give me a three arm pat!

Out On Bail

I had to go to the Roseville police station today to get my fingerprints taken.  Now before you let your mind run wild with possible crimes I could have committed, I will tell you it was only for a job. But while I was there it reminded me of the time I went on a date to the Logan County Police station.  That wasn’t our original date plan either.   
 

I had dated a kid in high-school but he left my junior year on a mission.  I dated other people, but we still wrote each other frequently.  So when the two years were up and it was time for him to come home, I was really nervous to see him again.  However, true to his style he called me the second day he was home and said “I’m coming to Logan tomorrow and we’re going on a date.”  I immediately called my mom who promptly told me she was coming over to Logan so she could see him as well. (He was pretty good friends with her).  

 My roommates had heard stories about this kid so as the time of our date approached I noticed a strange trend emerging.  All my roommates were slowly migrating to the couch to watch this awkward reunion.  The knock came when I was in my bedroom. I ran calmly walked to the front room.  There he was. After two years I was finally seeing him again.  He hugged my mom first, shook all my roommates’ hands, and then, to my roommates delight, gave me the weirdest handshake hug.  I shoved him out the door before we could embarrass ourselves anymore. 

At dinner we had an interesting conversation about dates. We talked about cool dates and lame dates. He thought the lamest thing a guy could do was take a girl to the temple to walk around.  Since he is not the lamest guy in the world he would take a girl to a park instead. That way you could sit on some swings or go down some slides. If you were really cool you would find a park that had all of this and that overlooked the temple.  He said he was an expert at taking girls on non-lame dates.

After dinner we hopped back in the car and as we were driving to our non-lame date activity we got side swiped by a truck. Everyone was OK and nothing really serious happened except the front bumper of his car was mangled.  

The police came. Took statements, and told us to wait.  I could tell my date was very embarrassed and uncomfortable so I tried to make the situation better by saying this was definitely a non-lame date.  He didn’t appreciate it. That’s when things got really interesting.  The cop in charge came back to our car and said:

Cop: “Since you are out of state we need you to come down to the station with us?” 

Date: “Why”

Cop: “You were involved in an accident and blah blah I don’t remember everything he said but something to do about a fine for being in a wreck and blah blah since you live out of state we have a lot of runners so we need you to come down to the department to pay your bail.”

Date: “Wait, what? A bail?? I’m on a date. Can’t I pay this another time?” 

Cop: “You can come pay it willingly now, or we need to arrest you.” 

Date: “OK I’ll come with you.”  

We followed the officer to the police station and I noticed he was a K-9  cop.  So I asked him about his dog. Could I see his dog?  Could I pet his dog?  Had his dog ever done drug searches in schools?  He had!! Well had he ever done drug searches at Rich High school because that’s where I had gone to school. The whole time my date was mortified and was trying to get me to hush up. “Lindsey shh,” “Lindsey it doesn’t matter.”  As we walked into the police station I looked around and said very loudly “Hmm this is the first time I’ve been on a date to a police station before!!”  My date gave me the dirtiest look and walked to the window to pay his “bail.”  As we walked back to the car I couldn’t help but make one more insey teeney weeney comment, “You’re right, this is much better than walking around the temple!!” 

And that’s how I ended up at Police station on a date!

My Favorite Part

Admitting You Have A Problem

The first step in getting better is admitting you have a problem so here goes.

Hi. My name is Lindsey and I leave the cupboards and drawers open in my kitchen.

When Brian first started accusing me of this I thought "How rude to accuse me of something so terrible. Of course he is the one doing it and I get the blame." Then one day while I was listening to/singing Phantom of the Opera and Les Mis, I walked into the kitchen to do something, (I wasn't really paying attention to what I was doing), I walked back out of the kitchen and did something else for about ten minutes. When I walked back into the kitchen..... This is what I saw...


























My shame is great

Wedding Adventures

Last week Brian and I drove to Vegas for my brother's wedding. Depending on the time of day you looked at the map, the driving times ranged from 8.5 hours to 9 hours and 45 minutes. We left right smack dab in the middle of rush hour so we were graced with the longer time.  It was OK though because I had my driving slippers on.


















We arrived in Vegas at about 2:30 am.  I forgot how cool all the Vegas lights look at night.

The next day was the big day!! I don't think anyone thought Rusty would ever get married. He went and proved all of us wrong though!

It was a very simple and easy wedding.  Everyone met up at the park and as soon as everyone was there they got started.

The guy that married them said some nice things about marriage.

They exchanged the rings.

Gave each other a smooch

And just like that I have a new sister, three nephews and one niece!!

In order to be less "city" my mom let me wear her boots so I could "fit in" with my brothers! =D

After it was all over we went out to eat at the Luxor.

The little girls had some chopsticks and Brian and I tried to show them how to eat with them.  So of course Hunter had to try.

He just ended up stabbing the bread which was much easier!

After dinner we all went our separate ways and I found my Safari hat!!

I told Brian I had two dreams in my life 1) to own a real legit safari hat and 2) to own a real legit park ranger hat.  One of my dreams came true!! The store was going out of business and my regularly $50 hat was now on sale for $15.  Brian told me there was no way I could pass up that deal and I'm so glad I didn't.  I wore it the rest of the night!  This hat will now be accompanying us on all our adventures.

On the way home we were both kind of sick of the car so we made a little stop at some roadside attraction.

There was shooting

A petting zoo

And lots of birds

Brian tried to make me take a picture with the stupid chickens but every time I would get close they would make their stupid squawking noise and lean closer to my face.

This one was giving me the evil eye and I just knew it was going to peck my eyeballs out so I tried to hide behind the food thing.















It was fun being able to spend some time with my family and I am very excited to have a new sister! I have been very lucky in the sister-in-law department!

Congratulations Rusty and Kelly! Love you guys!

Slimy things

Brian and I thought it was raining while we were at the Redwoods. However, we soon found out it wasn't raining it was fogging.  The trees take all the moisture from the fog and it builds up on their leaves until it gets too heavy and drops to the ground.  It was very foggy while we were there so it was also very wet.  Since it was so wet there were lots of slimy things to see.

There were mushrooms EVERYWHERE!!

Some were fuzzy

Some were green

Some had spots

And others looked like Toad from Mario

Some liked growing on trees

And some I have no idea what it was

And some were larger than my Iphone

The slimiest thing of all though was our dinner guest


Tater the snail.

All day long we had searched for a snail/slug. The ranger lady said we had a pretty good chance of seeing one since it was such a wet day.  I was excited because my last slug sighting was Sammy.

Which is a pretty good sighting if I do say so myself. So you could understand my disappointment after searching for a snail/slug all day and all I found was nothing!



 We got to our campsite and went about our way doing our thing. No snail......We went to the beach and enjoyed a little ocean breeze on our face. No snail...... We got ready for dinner and put our tinfoil dinners on the fire...No snail.   I pulled out all the condiments for our dinner and set them on the table....No Snail..... Took my tinfoil dinner out to check if it was done and......SNAIL....SNAIL!!!! He just appeared. All slimy and cool like.


















I took a bazillion photos and even maybe broke the table a little bit in my excitement. But it turned out OK because as we sat down for dinner I gave Tater a potato and he decided to stay and eat with us.

I may have accidentally dropped the potato in the dirt

 After he devoured the potato, he checked out our hot chocolate mess (those are marshmallows in the background)  and decided he had had enough.  So he took off over the side of the table and disappeared.

I wonder what slimy things we will discover next!