So, our car got towed.

It happened last Saturday and I'm still coming to terms with it. And it was for a dumb reason but I don't know what to do about it. We had parked by the Cinemark Dollar Theater- for those of you who are familiar with it, you know that stretch of curb in the back that's continuous with the parking lot, behind that line of other buildings? We parked there, right behind a red zone. I'm acutally very paranoid about parking in the wrong places and checked all around to make sure there were no signs that said it was illegal to park there. I spotted none. But there was one, in the red zone itself, on the other side of where we parked. I hadn't even thought to check there because it's a red zone- a red zone sign's going to tell you that you can't park at a red zone, right? Not this one, it stated that no "non-stall" parking was allowed. Blast!

It's funny, we had so many chances to NOT see the movie: the showing we wanted to attend was sold out, we decided not to go to the other dollar theater but buy tickets for a later showing at the one we were already at, then at the later showing, the fuse kept bursting but finally worked. It was my punishment for going to a movie instead of finishing up my church lesson. Pricey punishment.

I want to be mad at someone but I don't know who. Whoever decided to put that sign in the stupid red zone. But who's that? Sigh.

5 Years

We've been celebrating a bunch of "firsts" anniversaries, recently. It was five years ago last week that Sean and I first met. I was sitting alone at a cafeteria table when Sean sat by me and we had our first little chat. Blooming love. We celebrated that anniversary by going out for dinner, walking the mall, and seeing a dollar movie. As Sean put it, it was "in memory of the things we always do!"

We were cute little spring chickens back then. That's such a weird expression, "spring chickens."

Two days ago was our fifth anniversary of our first hand hold. It was so sweet- we were sitting, both hands on our legs, when Sean did a "pinky test" to make sure I wouldn't recoil in disgust from his touch. Hee, that was far from my reaction. Look how young we are. The good ol' dorms, twas they that brought us together.

Today is the anniversary of our first kiss. How tender

This was actually right before Sean went off on his mission. He was already set apart so he couldn't touch girls beyond a handshake. Including me. Ugh, it was awful.

It's funny thinking back on these times, because we didn't know how things would end up and how things would work out after Sean's mission. It sure worked out great!

On a totally different note, while looking at old pictures, I came across this one of Pogo all cozied up in my bed.

a.d.o.r.a.b.l.e.

Fruit Flies

It's always nice to return home to your own home and bed after a long vacation. But when we returned, we had some unexpected visitors: spiders and fruit flies. Ugh, is there anything worse than the shock of discovering an eight-legged fiend on your shower curtain? Or the incessant annoyance of a fruit fly circling your head? Sean even discovered a spider on his arm while on the phone with me. Boy did he flip out!



I think we've mostly gotten rid of our arachnid problem but the flies just won't go away. And they just gave me a reason to deepen my hatred of them. One little bugger landed on the bathroom mirrors and I automatically tried to slap it to death. But something strange happened. Something small and somewhat white fell from underneath my hand.



I instantly knew what it was. I'm not sure I've ever made quite this gasp of horror and shock. I looked at my left hand and, yes, one of the diamonds from my engagement ring had popped out.





Sean came running in confused. He's quite an expert at all my gasps (spider finding, forgetting something, injury, etc.). This one was new. And when I told him, I think he might have made the same gasp. We started hunting. Wouldn't you guess where it ended up? On the sink drain. When we moved in, there wasn't a stopper so we bought a mess cover thing. I think if we had a regular stopper, the diamond would be lost! But as it was, it got caught in between the drain and the cover. Man, were we ever careful retrieving that puppy. (Please don't judge my sink, that's as clean as it'll get, dang it)



So my diamond is saved. But I'm still mad at the fruit flies.

My kind of town

When sean started the blog, our lives were utterly boring, absolutely nothing blog-worthy. But we've just returned from a two week trip home to Chicago. Which is definitely worthy of a post! We did so many things on this trip that the time flew by.

Our first excursion was to the Blue Man Group show. My parents and I had already seen it a few years ago but it was Sean's first time. And it was right up his alley! There was so much great entertainment and music and twinkie eating and paint splashing and toilet papering. What a blast.

See the lady standing behind Sean. She kindly reminded us that we were NOT to take photos in the theater. Heh...

A few days later the mom, dad, sean, and I drove on over to US Cellular Field for a White Sox game!

Like my hat?

We were also joined by my brother, Brian, and his wife and kids. They've got team spirit.

It was a great game against the Mariners. Because we clobbered them. The first inning was iffy- we blew a double play that would have ending the half, then gave up 3 runs. But we redeemed ourselves with great hitting in the following innings with much better fielding. I think there were 4 home runs, for which we were treated to a little fireworks display. Oh yeah, we also got to witness a fight a row away from us. Such a good idea to sell beer at games.

Sox won 14-4. At least I think that was the score...

Another treat was a trip to the musical Wicked! It's no Les Mis but it's wonderful in it's own right. Holy cow, Glida CRACKS me UP! And can anyone not feel overwhelmed during Defying Gravity?

Psst, I got a secret for you. What if there was more to the Wicked Witch than we thought...

One night we went to the Richardson Farm Corn Maze. I love the corn maze. I live for the corn maze. This years theme is the election. But, agh, every year I get a t-shirt. It's important to me. And wouldn't you guess it, they weren't in yet this year. I'm devastated.

Um, we went there at night so I couldn't get any good pictures, so I stole this from a little place called the "internet"

Because my mom and all of Brian's family have season passes to Six Flags Great America, they used their free guest passes to let us into the park a couple days. It was a ton of fun! It's been a few years since I've been there and they've got some awesome new coasters. Plus my nostalgia for the old ones.

This Superman roller coaster flies you along the track on your stomach. Woah.

How cute, Sean and I are on the Demon together. We had a blast trying out all the rides... until Sean lost his phone on one. sigh. No one likes paying for a replacement phone.

We had a great time just being a home with the fam, watching the olympics and playing games.

The kids got pretty good at Set. I'm still not terribly good, however.

I had the best time staying up late to chat with mom, learning to make new meals, working on projects with dad, and playing with my loveable pooch. She's just the most adorable thing in the world.

It was a wonderful, relaxing, fun, care-free trip that ended much too soon. At least the flight home provided some lovely scenery.

Beautiful, no? I guess Utah has some redeeming qualities.