Happy birthday Nanna and Boppy!

For her birthday, Mark's mom requested we take her to see "The Young Messiah." So,Saturday morning, we loaded up and headed to Buhl for the day. Chris, Julie and Tilson were not far behind us, but apparently Starbucks was much slower than Dutch Bros?

We met in Twin at Sizzler for lunch. His mom LOVES Sizzler and their bread pudding. Here are a couple pics of our motley crew...

Ladies table

As always, my selfie skills are amazing, aren't they?

Mens table

The girls had their own table which suited them just fine.

After lunch, it was off to the movie:

Aunt Bill and Syd checking things out while waiting for the group to show up!

Nanna!

Mark even bought me candy to go with my popcorn. He said I earned it being on restroom duty.

The plan was to go birthday shopping with his dad after the movie. He wanted a new recliner so the boys decided we would all chip in. I'm sure the employees at the furniture store could hardly wait until we left. Hooligans!

Cousins! Big feet or small heads? Probably both...

We did end up finding a chair. We also almost lost the chair out the back of the pick-up because we are idiots. :-) After Church and dinner all us Boise peeps headed home. I'm sure Nanna and Boppy both slept well that night! I know WE were exhausted for sure!

Surprise! Surprise that we finally got something done, that is...

So Syd had a birthday...7 months ago. One of her gifts was a re-do of her room. Mark and I finally got around to the paint update this weekend. The girls were gone the whole weekend so we definitely walked on the wild side. Ha to the ha ha.

Here is the before picture:

As you can probably tell, Syd got to pick her room color when we moved to the new house. It really is as obnoxious as it looks. In fact, more than once, I've walked by thinking she left the light on when in fact, it's just the loud paint.

Sydney has had trouble sleeping for the last few years. It finally dawned on me that maybe her wall color had something to do with it? So, we researched the best wall color to help sleep. And we came up with blue.

Unfortunately, we had a little bit too much "BSU" coloring around the house for a couple hours. Thankfully, we survived the embarrassment...

Here are a few "action" shots:

Impressive, huh?

Macie was really curious what we were doing too.

Mark and I are not the cleanest painters...

This doesn't even show when I bumped the wall with my entire arm. Oops.

Here is a "final" picture. We are still trying to decide what she wants on the sign I'm going to make for above her bed.

It's difficult to tell the color from my awesome photography. But here is the swatch:

She was pretty surprised when she got home. I imagine that is mainly due to the fact that her parents are totally unreliable dolts. I also think that if she wasn't so completely exhausted, she would have been really excited. She did thank us several times. So, there is that. Parenting win? Probably...if we weren't closer to her next birthday than the last.

Happy, happy birthday G'pa B!!

Today is the birthday of one of my favorite people!

This guy:

The one of the left...in case you were wondering. Yep, it's the Notorious G'pa B!

The one who does fun stuff with the girls like this:

And projects with his favorite daughter, like this:

Oh, I guess you can't actually see the project, huh? Well, let me just say, it was EPIC. ;-)

He also spends a lot of time with this cool chick:

So, if you see him  around today, make sure you wish him a happy birthday! I'm sure he won't be embarrassed. AT. ALL.

Lazy or Life Hack?

So, for the last few years, I've been much more of an online shopper than brick and mortar store shopper. Probably since I went back to work and my daytime hours became more limited.

Recently, I've taken it to a new low. I ordered products from Walgreens.com. I needed a certain shampoo for the girls that they don't carry in the store. When you order, if you spend $35 you get free shipping. So, I added things like deodorant, chapstick, and contact solution.

And I created a monster. I'm on my 3rd shipment. Part of me feels guilty for being lazy. But another part of me feels a bit liberated. Besides, it shows up in 2 days! Right to my office! And, I had to order the shampoo for the princesses online anyway.

We're going to go with life hack on this one.

Eighteen? 18!!

I remember my 18th birthday like it was yesterday. And today? My marriage is 18 years old. Man, time sure flies!

I also remember the first day we met. It was not love at first sight for us. And it definitely took a lot longer for him to be interested in dating me. But, we got there eventually, and that's what counts.

So, our marriage can officially do the following:

Vote, serve on a jury, pawn stuff, get married, be an organ donor, buy tobacco, get a tattoo, and buy a lottery ticket. ;-)

Looking back, 23 is awfully young to get married. At least it seems like it now. Just look at those two babies!

We've grown up a lot together. We have our ups and downs. Hopefully always more ups. But, lets be honest, I can NOT be the easiest person to live with. To find someone who appreciates (most of) my quirks? Amazing! I'm sure there are a few that he could live without for sure. :-)

He is definitely all of those cliches for me; my rock, my happy place, the calm in a storm. So, what do I bring to the table? Besides chaos, of course. I think my role is to keep things interesting. The joke is that he spends half his time rolling his eyes and the other half shaking his head at my shenanigans.

He is still my favorite person. And for that, I'm eternally grateful!

Happy 18, Dude. You're stuck with me.

Bros Before...oh wait.

Ah, brudders.

Mark's oldest brother Scott came to Boise this weekend. Mark and Chris see a lot of each other because we live in the same town. But, It's not super common for all 3 to be in the same place at the same time. I usually try to get a picture for their mom when they are together. Although, this is the 2nd time the photo op has been at this same restaurant.

 It's always a lot of fun for me to watch the interaction between the 3 brothers.

I told them they needed to stand together for a picture. Of course they had to goof off. {eye roll}

Chris (the middle brother) decided they should do their best Anchor Man impression.  "OK, look down, and on the count of three, look up and smile."

The other thing I always notice, is how Mark looks smaller next to his brothers. He is 6'2", so not short by any stretch. But he seems to always stand in middle and look dwarfed!

Sunday morning, Chris came over since Mark and Scott were hanging out drinking coffee at our house. I was sitting on the couch drinking my coffee, but you would have thought I was nowhere to be seen. It was fun just sitting back and observing the conversation. They're all pretty cool, and I think it's especially cool that they genuinely like each other.

And looking at the pictures, there is no doubt they are related, huh?

"Brothers don't shake hands. Brothers gotta hug!" - Tommy Boy

A shout out to home towns and family and ridiculousness...

As per our usual, we took off Christmas day and started our annual drive to Washington. We had already decided that since we had people staying with us, we would only drive as far as Pendleton. A wise choice as we didn't end up leaving until almost 4 PM. Here is our obligatory start-of-the-trip photo:

You can't see the Dutch Bros. for some reason. Weird, since we ALWAYS make Mark stop.

Most of our drive the first day looked like this!

Which was a welcome sight since we had been getting a bit of snow before we left. I thought the drive was easy, but probably because I was in the passenger seat reading magazines.

We got on the road "early" the next morning...around 10. Which is fairly early when you have two teens.

When we got to Grandma Jeanne and Grandpa Brians, the girls immediately headed outside for some rock skipping. Love this view!

They were also mesmerized by the record player we got G'ma and G'pa. 

No trip to Washington would be complete without a trip here...

Along with the accompanying shenanigans...

And our selfie game is on point...or on fleek. Whatever these young whipper snappers say these days.

We spent some time here:

And even though I went to Fort, NOT Evergreen, I seemed to have spent quite a bit of time here my senior year for some reason. Weird.

We got to watch this chick (who goes to Fort, and never hangs out a a rival school) mix it up on the court.

We also got to hang out with these hooligans who are so, so much cooler than we are. 

They fed us drinks that were on fire for goodness sake!

And took us to a classy pizza place...

And to a place that only serves pie. Well, mostly they only serve pie...

 It's like they know my love language!

Obviously, the girls miss the days when I used to dress them alike...

Awkward.

There is no doubt I grew up in a gorgeous place:

We will sure miss it until the next trip.

Happy 2016! 

And in the interest of full disclosure, this was written while sitting on my couch in my jammies, snuggled under my new heated blanket, sipping a homemade flat white. I {heart} vacation!!