Check This Out

I just found this funny article on Yahoo! It made me laugh!

He's Done It Again!

Ever since J turned 19, he's made one crazy purchase or done one crazy thing on or around his birthday almost every year. When he turned 19 he entered the MTC (Missionary Training Center) to serve an LDS mission. When he returned 2 years later, he bought a Mitsubishi Mirage -- a little red skittle-car. Two years later he scrapped that one for a 1998 Ford Mustang -- a deep metallic red one. He says that I, his girlfriend at the time, suddenly got jealous of the car or the attention he was getting, but I still vehemently deny that. (Ok, so it may have been true, but I don't remember!) A year later, he decided that maybe that car wasn't fast enough, so he traded it in for a 1997 candy apple red Mustang Cobra. The year after that, determined not to pay anyone else's mortgage, he bought himself a house. A nice little red brick house in the great neighborhood that we haven't been able to leave. And the year after that? Well, he married me. Can't get any crazier than that. He gave it a rest for a few years, but then came the Audi and then the mini-van. Somewhere in there was the Bowflex. This year? Well, see for yourself:

So we drove to the dealership thinking we were just going to check out the Army Green color and four hours later we drove away with that. Yeah.

The Monkeys love it. They keep wanting to go for rides in Daddy's "Army Truck." My favorite part about the Japanese-made cars in general is that tall lanky white-boy husband and short stubby Asian wife can both comfortably drive it. My dad's favorite part will be the rear view monitor system. While I was in Bismarck, J kept the kids entertained by showing them the videos on Toyota's website of just what the FJ is capable of, so they are excited to take this thing off the road and crawl around on some rocks. My stomach may not be able to handle all that motion, but at least the whole interior is designed to be hosed down. Dirt? There will be a-plenty. Twigs, leaves? Those too. Vomit? Yeah, probably mine and S's. But we'll be building family memories and that's all that counts. Right?

We Love Threadless!

In case any of you were wondering about J's shirt in the previous post, it is yet another gem from threadless.com. J's been waiting for this shirt to be reprinted. When he finally received the email telling him that it was available, he lost no time ordering "The Communist Party"





Marx looks like the life of the party, no?




Here's another of J's favorites. So profoundly true. He gets a lot of stares when he wears it. One of the first times he wore this shirt, he ran into our Bishop (a church leader) at Home Depot. It was awesome!






This is the one that draws the most stares. A stare at J, a flicker over to me. Yep, I'm the one he wants. The thing I don't understand is, he got it at Target -- why aren't more people wearing them? Easily accessible, coolest shirt ever -- come on, guys! Be an animal for your woman!

I'm a Spoiled Girl

I'm a sucker for a good graphic t-shirt. I don't need anymore t-shirts, so the ones I like, I keep to myself. I don't tell J, "Hey, I found this awesome t-shirt..." because I know that it will eventually end up in my closet. Well, I slipped a couple weeks ago, made casual mention of one I liked on threadless.com and received it in the mail on Friday. It's called "Let Go." What do you think of it?


This one came too. It's called, "I'm like a bird." I'm fond of it, especially since I've wanted a giraffe for a pet ever since our zoo visit.

Material Girl

If you know me at all, you will know that I am not a wanter of things. It's true that I have a weakness for books, but other than that, there are not a lot of things I could say I want to have. It's evidenced by the way I dress (jeans and a t-shirt, anyone?), by the way my house is decorated (maybe 3 pictures hung up in the entire house and two clocks. no cutesy decorative stuff -- it would just get destroyed by monkeys 1,2, and 3), and by the scraggly appearance of my house and yard.

J's not really into too much stuff either, but when he gets in his head that he wants something, watch out! I get an anxious little knot in my stomach when he comes to me with that glint in his eye and says,"I bought something." He doesn't do anything small. He also is terrific at spoiling me. It all evens out since I have a hard time buying anything for myself.

For our running endeavors, he bought himself a Garmin with a heart rate monitor and GPS. I started running more and more consistently, so he decided I needed one. He gave me his old one and bought himself another one with the heart rate monitor and GPS. It's a lot more than I use and need, but it is kind of fun to see where I've been and how slow I truly am. When I made the commitment to run the Ragnar, I vacillated on the treadmill. They're huge, heavy, and they just stare at you when you're not using them, telling you that you will pay for that cookie in your hand later on. I mentioned it to J, knowing that there is great power in suggestion, and this is what he came up with:



The Nordic Track Elite 7500. It arrived on Tuesday. We had to have our neighbor come help us carry it up one flight of stairs and down two. He stayed to help us set it up, which was a blessing, because J is not allowed to lift anything too heavy, but was too eager to set it up and get it going. (Thanks, Jer!) When J told me that he bought a treadmill, he added that I would be proud of him because he didn't buy the fanciest, most expensive model -- he went four steps down from that. When we set it up I thought that while it wasn't the fanciest model, it sure was fancy -- too much for me. I just needed it to move and incline -- that's it. Later on, after the kids were in bed we met at the treadmill to check out all the features. When J hooked up the DVD player and put in Ocean's Eleven (the new one) and I got going on it, I fell in love. So glad that man spoils me. Of course, when I ran on Wednesday for 40 min on a 4% incline, I didn't love it so much. Overall, though, the treadmill is one thing I'm really glad to have.