The Washing Machine Inside

Just as I was wrapping up Sundance I began to grow overwhelmingly obsessed with my belly. It seemed to have suddenly poked out so fast that I was convinced I'm having twins. My pants are starting to feel tight, and though I've barely gained a couple of pounds, the belly does seem to stick out more. All the better for belly fondling. Here's me trying to stick it out.

Yesterday Tyler came with me to meet my midwife. I can't think of another time in my life when someone ever went to the doctor with me. It was fun having him there and listening to the heartbeat, like a little washing machine inside of me, going 160 beats per minute. We only picked up one baby heartbeat so I'm probably in the clear regarding twins.

Sundance 2008 Part 2

Day 7 (Thursday): After a busy day at work, we have another fairly slow night at Sundance, despite the films having some big names in them. After the first show, an older gentleman comes up to talk to me. He tells me that he'd really like a McDonald's hamburger but he doesn't walk 3 blocks down the street. I recommend that he go to Squatters across the street and tell him the food is great, but it can be real busy. He tells me he doesn't drink, and I assure him he doesn't have to, the food is great. He comes back an hour or so later, in time for the next show. He thanks me for the recommendation and tells me that the food is great, and that he got escorted to the back room where there was a private party and didn't even have to pay for his dinner. This makes me feel great.

Day 8 (Friday): I have the night off for the festival and do very little. I'm exhausted so I take a nap when I get home, then eat some dinner and watch Pulp Fiction with the HB before I go back to bed again.

Day 9 (Saturday): I sleep in late and barely make it to my shift at the theater by 11. I bargain with the other manager to sit in the first movie, one I really wanted to see. We work it out. It's called "Incendiary" and has Michelle Williams and Ewan McGregor in it. I absolutely loved it. True it was kind of depressing, but even it was beautifully done. The story of a woman who loses her husband and son to a terrorist bombing at a soccer match in London and the aftermath. About 10 minutes before this movie was over I stood up to text the HB back and prepare for the patrons to exit. But momentarily I felt that all-too-familiar sensation that I was going to faint. And like vomitting, I thought I may be able to control it, to hold it back. I sank down to the floor and sat in the aisle leading to the box seats in the balcony. But everything was still going black and suddenly I was sweating everywhere. I think I laid down there for a minute, but kept telling myself I couldn't be there when they came out. I crawled up a few steps and was at the entrance to the regular balcony seating when I laid down again momentarily. Then I made it to the top of the balcony entrance and into the bathroom where I again laid on the floor. And after a minute there, I made it into a stall and sat on the seat for about 10 minutes, resting my head on the wall. I heard the patrons leaving the theater, and some come in and use the bathroom. I had my radio on and just wanted to let the volunteers know I'd be down soon to help out, but I was too exhausted. So I waited there until finally I could feel my body going back to normal. And I walked out and found a chair at the top of the stairs and sat there. Soon, Tyler and Caiden were there with some lunch for me and they helped me get down to the green room where I could take a break out of the public eye.

I soon felt better and resumed my duties. After my shift I stayed to watch the movie "Assassination of a High School President" with Bruce Willis and Mischa Barton. What made this movie great was a killer soundtrack (some Band of Horses songs), and good performances. Plus the director, writers, and some crew members came. Having the filmmakers come for a Q&A is really what makes the experience of seeing a festival movie. The director was so excited to finally have an audience watching his film rather than himself in a dark editing room. It was his first movie and he gave us some great insight into how he was able to get the deal.

Afterwards I headed over to my bro-in-laws to meet up with the HB and some of his family as they finished filming some scenes for his zombie movie. It was a late night.

Day 10 (Sunday): We had a big showing for the first film of the day, a Crosby Stills Nash & Young documentary-type. Other than that, an easy day for us as the festival winds down. Heard some reports from the awards party I didn't attend and finished up some paperwork. I got off at 4 and just enjoyed the rest of the day at home.

Day 11 (Monday): The festival is offically over, but tonight we'll be showing 3 'Best of Fest' screenings at the theater I'm at. Since my shift starts at 2, I took the whole day off work so I could relax a little more.

Me and the Naked Cowboy

Sundance 2008 Part 1

Day 1 (Friday): My shift starts at 2pm so I leave work around 1:30. I'll be there until midnight. It's the opening night Gala and will be very busy. Both showings are the same film--"The Great Buck Howard." For the first couple of hours, we're not sure what we're supposed to be doing. The movie begins at 6:30, the starts are supposed to show for the press line around 5:30. The governor to arrive at 6 pm. But there's already a few die-hards for the waitlist and we let them line up downstairs. Skip a few hours. Myself and the other volunteers do crowd control while we watch John Malkovich, Tom Hanks, Colin Hanks, and Adam Scott go through the press line and do some quick interviews. Malkovich has on a killer velour orange blazer type of jacket. And a green scarf. He can wear anything and be cool. The HB brings me some spaghetti with mizithra cheese and I sneak him into the second screening of the movie and he loves it.

Day 2 (Saturday): The HB and I watch the Animation Spotlight before my shift begins. They are great, my favorite is the first one, a sort of eerie stop-motion called "Madame Tutli-Putli." I head over to my theater for my shift 5-midnight. I see some friends from my day-job at the screenings. I get frustrated at volunteers that just want to watch the movies on their shift and not help out. I think I must be a really bad manager even though I always thought I was good with people. I say hi to a member of my former singles ward bishopbric who is there to see the movie "Good Dick." I think he was hiding from me at first, but he should know I'm not about to judge another person for their film choices, and from what I saw, it was a great movie.

Day 3 (Sunday): I bring the HB to watch "In Bruges" before my shift starts again at 5 until midnight. It's totally hilarious and full of obscene language. We love it.

Day 4 (Monday): I have the night off and decide to go see a show with some work friends. We see "What Just Happened?" and I"m not that impressed. Plus I can't stand it when movies end with the main character giving a quick run-down of subsequent events in the lives of the other characters. It seems really weak, like the ending wasn't good enough and the directors have an urge to sort of "wrap things up" more, even though the audience has no need. Just make a good ending.

Day 5 (Tuesday): Shift begins at 5, ends at midnight. One of the box office volunteers quit because she was offended by the nature of some of the films in the festival. It's our first slow night, the first screenings that we haven't completely packed every single seat of the theater.

Day 6 (Wednesday): I'm pretty exhausted at work. My baby is now the size of a lime and I'm 12 weeks along. I go to the Outdoor Retailer show at the Salt Palace during the day with my co-worker. I get my picture taken with the Naked Cowboy. After work I meet my sister, mom, little brother, and little sister at the Broadway for a documentary. It's called "Stranded" and is about the rugby team that crashed in the Andes mountains in the 1970's. My sister and I have read both the book "Alive" and "Miracle in the Andes" and are huge fans of the movie "Alive." We're excited to see real interviews of many of the survivors, but unfortunately don't get into the showing. Out waitlist numbers were 26-30 and they cut it off just before we could get in. I'm mad the movie was so popular that we couldn't get in. My first couple of years at Sundance I worked the Broadway and I thought the first 30 in the waitlist line were a sure bet. I feel like I let them down after convincing them to come.

legitimately sick

Tonight I feel really sick. I woke up stuffy and with a sore throat. My eyes feel sticky and my head heavy. This is not a good way to go into the beginning of a 10-day sleep-deprivation event (Sundance Film Festival). It was also not a good way to start the day I spent in Vernal for a business presentation. However, I did make the sale of a new website design for Dinosaurland. That felt good. Then I rested a little as soon as I got home.

The last few weeks have been really rough. I've been feeling sick nearly every evening. No doubt it can be attributed to being pregnant. But I've been trying to keep that info on the down-low for now until ready to tell the new employer. Which makes a sickly ironic situation. The twisted world that is corporate America makes it so that women in the early stages of pregnancy, when most prone to nausea, exhaustion, and complete lack of interest in food, etc., are unable to really express any symptoms of illness. So by evening I'm purging while cutting chicken breasts, by day I'm consumed by thoughts of food that sound good until any of it is actually placed in front of me.

My next temporary goal is to just survive the festival. I'm excited for it, but am hoping that right about when it's over is when I'll enter that blissful-sounding phase of 2nd trimester, supposedly devoid of the current conditions. What I can say is that this time around I'm taking full advantage of the unabashed self-fondling that's permitted during pregnancy. I have no reason to feel ashamed of this bump.

Project Prom Dress

Last night the HB and I were watching Project Runway. Heidi announced the challenge to create an outfit for the most important day of a woman's life. It turned out to be some high school girls' prom. At that moment I paused to express my utter bewilderment and outrage at the suggestion that that's the most important day of a woman's life. Surely these women will go to college? Surely we've realized that reinforcing the importance of being beautiful and sexy is far more damaging than pointing out other opportunities in life available to young women? The HB could hardly agree though, he said that for them it probably was everything. I'm sure that many high school girls are only obsessed with clothing, makeup, looks, and friends and boyfriends. However, I don't think we should encourage that attitude. Maybe I look down on it because in high school there was nothing I wanted more than to get out of my house so it's hard to imagine being comfortable enough there to obsess over clothes and friends. But I'll also admit that I did go to the prom, that it was one of the worst dates of my life, and that I wished I'd had the chance to ever go to a dance and feel beautiful with someone I love (went to one in college, also awful). I asked the HB to go to my University's homecoming with me the first year we were married, but he didn't want to. I guess the 5 or 6 times he went to prom and all of the other high school dances did him in.

Up All Night 'Til Two

The HB wanted to have a Halo party for New Year's Eve, so in all efforts to maintain my reputation, I totally sucked on the round I played. Besides my sucking though, it was a great time until I started to feel royally ill and exhausted around 12:30, so I wasn't up much longer. The next day when Caiden's mom brought him over I asked him how late he was up. Caiden proudly reported that in fact, he'd never been to sleep, but what had happened was that at 2 a.m. he closed his eyes for a second and then a huge blast of light hit him and it was the next morning. Even as I tucked him in last night and reminded him he'd been up very late the night before and had school today, he reminded me that, "actually, I never went to sleep last night." I'm glad he thinks he's such a party animal.

Books read in 2007

In no particular order, these are the books I completed in the year 2007.

Master and Margarita--Mikhail Bulgakov
An Unfinished Life--Mark Spragg
The Mission Song--John Le Carre
The Last of Her Kind--Sigrid Nunez
Doctor Zhivago--Boris Pasternak
Little Children--Tom Perrotta
Lolita--Vladimir Nabokov
The Road--Cormac McCarthy
Corelli's Mandolin--Louis De Bernieres
Voyage to Arcturus--David Lindsay
Snakes and Earrings--Hitomi Kanehara
Jacob's Room--Virgnia Woolf
the Hours--Michael Cunningham
Salome--Oscar Wilde
Ender's Game--Orson Scott Card
Garden of Eden--Ernest Hemingway
Atonement--Ian McEwan
Flashforward--Robert James Sawyer
The Bus Driver who Wanted to be God--Etgar Keret
Tropic of Cancer--Henry Miller
Black Sun--Edward Abbey
men are from mars, women are from venus--John Gray
Miracle of the Andes--Nando Parrado w/ Vince Rause
Devil in the White City--Erik Larson
The Girls Who Went Away--Ann Fessler
You're a stepparent…now what?--Joseph Cerquone
Collapse--Jared Diamond
Lone Survivor--Marcus Luttrell
Between a Rock and a Hard Place--Aron Ralston
Rasputin, the saint who sinned--Brian Moynahan
Bad Childhood, Good Life--Dr. Laura Schlessinger

Truck Update

We were told by the officers to stand ready to pick up the truck within the hour that they call us to notify us that they've found it. So when our phone rang at 2 a.m. we were expecting to jump in our car. However, it turns out the truck made its way to Twin Falls, Idaho. So the HB is on his way there in the morning thanks to the good nature of our wonderful neighbors who are giving him a buddy pass on Skywest. Of course the Guitar Hero III game wasn't recovered, but it sounds as if the truck and most of its contents were left in decent shape.

Truck Stolen

Christmas Eve morning:
Dressed in my gym clothes, I go outside to start the truck. I return inside to make a piece of toast. I pick up my bags and open the door, the truck is gone. Wasn't it just there? I immediately knew it had been stolen. The HB calls 911 and files the report, the officers show up within 10 minutes. The Christmas present I bought off Craigslist for Tyler and Caiden was in the backseat. The officers say they usually recover the vehicles in 2-3 days. Tyler sends me to the gym and I come home to shower so he can take me in for my half day of work today. We'll see how it goes I guess.

end of an era

For the past 5 years since living in Utah I've had a routine of working out at the gym, showering there, and going to work. Occasionally this is thrown off by missed alarm clocks, forgotten items at home, or too late of nights, but rarely.

Because of this routine, it's also necessary to pack my breakfast with me, and eat it on my way to work, or just after getting there. Usually this is a yogurt, and a plastic baggie with grapenuts poured into it and mixed up.

Until this morning. The last few days this breakfast has tasted like the worst thing on the planet. I got halfway through this morning and just couldn't do it. Even as I bagged the grapenuts last night the thought of my breakfast was disgusting, but I did it anyway. I should have known better.

So I stopped at the gas station, bought some juice and a maple bar, and for the first morning in a week, it didn't seem like a chore to eat breakfast.

Juno post 2

Last night the HB and I were able to see the movie Juno. I've been waiting months to see this movie, ever since I heard about it. Unfortunately, I think the story of girls that give up their babies for adoption has gone untold for the most part. And yet every personal account I've ever read, be it modern stories or from a book about women that did so in the 1950's, every girl said it was the pivotal point of her entire life.

Watching it made me really sad in some ways, but I totally loved it as well. And it was crazy to realize how young we all were when those decision had to be made.

Because it was an advanced screening we all got free t-shirts named after the running group in the movie, the "Dancing Elk Condors."

The weird thing was that last night I dreamt about my baby boy. He's 9 years old now and in my dream I was watching him play baseball. And he was sooo beautiful.

Go see it.

The Speer House Rules

The HB and I recently did our first groundings. Caiden may be too young for it, I'm not sure, but after a few days of really poor behavior at school, we made him stay in his room at night and only come out for dinner, no computer games, nothing (though he did have the toys in his room). It seemed appropriate, but he's so young too. I"m not sure if it helped though since he didn't seem too phased. He's such a great kid anyway.

I was grounded a ton, but grounding didn't do much because there wasn't much I was allowed to do in the first place, and I was always in trouble, regardless of my degree of adherence to rules. Here are some of the rules I had growing up. They are harsh, but the rules weren't even the hard part of it:

Jeans can only be worn to school once a week
A dress/skirt must be worn to school once a week
No name brand clothing
No solid black (black top with black pants)
No listening to any radio stations except for soft rock
No phone calls to boys
No talking on the phone except to make arrangements for meetings
No dating non-Mormons
No two-piece bathing suits
Shorts and skirts must reach your knees, tank tops or sleeveless shirts
No playing with friends on Sundays
No jumping on the trampoline on Sundays
No swimming on Sundays
No cussing
No funky hair colors or cuts
No tight clothing
No big earrings
No smoking/drinking, etc.
No tv shows with innuendos or opposite sexes living together (why i've never seen 'friends' or most tv shows on in the 80's and 90's)
No mtv ( we didn't have cable anyway)
No spending time with non-mormons, male or female friends not of the faith
No grade lower than a B and anything less than an A also incurred lectures

unspecified, but frowned upon (might as well be a rule):

Too much make-up or none at all
Wearing a piece of black clothing too often
Receiving phone calls from boys (this could result in huge trouble)

Chichen Itza

I think 9th grade was the first time I actually wrote a research paper about the Maya, though I remember checking out library books on them long before that. That paper was 25 pages, doublespaced. Then I didn't do another one until I was a freshmen at BYU. I took a 300-level class called Mesoamerican Archaeology from Professor Stephen Houston, a world-famous Mayan expert. I was unaware of his reputation for being such a hard professor, and I think it impressed him that I was brave enough to take his class the first semester. When it came to paper time we had to discuss our idea with him for further advice. I wanted to write on the ruins in Tikal, in my mind, the most magnificent because they harbored the tallest Mayan pyramid. So he suggested a set written by Michael Coe based on his excavation work there. Later, I walked away from the library with all 14 volumes, half in my backpack, and half in my arms. I bore through page after page of reports that sounded like recipes--recordings of how many meters or centimeters of dirt had been removed and in which 1 meter x 1 meter quadrangle a certain piece of wall had been found. But eventually I devoured the chapters on the Temple of the Giant Jaguar and found plenty of good stuff for my paper. The history of the building, the architectural technique and style, the message of the carvings, etc and I wrote my paper on that.

I learned more about other Maya sites in the class too, Palenque, Uxmal, Chichen Itza, Bonampak and more. I took another class in Maya art, the symbols in their writings and in their carvings, the historic records of battles and successions. The more disgusting the information I learned, the more fascinated I was. I guess nothing makes me feel quite more alive than all that thinking about blood, though I'd feel guilty describing them as not much more than brutal tribes because they were skilled astronomers, mathematicians, artisans and more.

So upon finally visiting my first Mayan site, I recognized some of the carvings I'd studied. Chichen Itza is, I believe, the ruins with the most buildings remaining standing, though I know there are many uncovered mounds and buildings throughout Yucatan and the rest of Maya land. It was so much fun to explore the area with Tyler and actually see and touch some of the buildings. Much to my chagrin, we weren't able to climb the pyramid, but other buildings we were allowed on and there was plenty to see.

As for the rest of our vacation, Tyler is writing some great detailed day-to-day reports so check out his blog here

And I think I resisted any overseas shopping blunders, but am sad that many of the souvenir gifts I bought ended up broken in pieces in my luggage.

Thirsty Thursday

I didn't do much drinking on Thanksgiving, but it seems that Henry was parched because while cleaning his cage I held his water container for him and he guzzled like a camel. My hand looks the size of Dave Grohl's in the Michel Gondry video to "Everlong."



At my parents' house April and I and her boys climbed on the hay in the old chicken coop and posed for pictures. Tyler tried picking fights with my parents most bad-A goat.

Friday we took Caiden downtown to the Church History museum. He loved seeing the old guns, some were as tall as he is.

And ever since the game ended on Saturday, I've been packed for our trip to Cancun. I made myself wait until Monday to start reading "Tropic of Cancer" because somehow I thought it the appropriate book for bringing on my trip, despite that it takes place in France. (Maybe I just need an external excuse to read something bawdy every now and then, even though I feel no internal shame in doing so). One more day before we leave.

Overseas Shopping Blunders

We've all done it when overseas. You feel like part of the community there, like you belong somehow because you get to be yourself completely. And so you purchase the native goods, feeling so at one with yourself and with them because you feel good about yourself.

In Israel I bought an Arab style dress like all the women wore at the market. The simplicity was so beautiful and serene to me. I wore it a few times during my semester over there, but never after bringing it back. I ended up giving it to my roommate who had some interest in it, though I'm not sure she was ever able to wear it either. I bought a set of glass painted bracelets there too. They were so beautiful, but in the end, not quite my style. Like artifacts, I love ethnic jewelry but the bracelets seemed more my sister's style, she looks good in anything and goes for more natural looking things. I've never been able to pull off the crinkle skirts or peasant blouses so I'm left with few outfits to wear ethnic jewelry with.

When I lived in Japan I bought Christmas gifts to bring home for my family and friends. At a loss for ideas, I thought it best to go with what all the Japanese were buying for gifts. They shop at large department stores, where things like fancy dishes and fabrics are on display. And because that was what was popular there, I found the platters elegant. Of course, personally I've never had a need or desire for fancy platters, who wants expensive dishes when you don't hold dinner parties or when your house is never emaculate? But I bought one for my boyfriend and I think my parents too, I honestly can't remember. I don't know what I was thinking then.

So I'm vowing now not to make stupid shopping blunders while in Mexico.

Free Pass

I got my first free pass to get away alone for the weekend. Been waiting a long time for it since I was sort of accustomed to being able to and it felt soooo good. The HB wanted to tile the bathroom and go to some of the high school playoff games so he sent me off. I met up with some of my old roommates on Friday and then headed to Cedar City. I went to Cedar Breaks where I hiked to the far overlook of the amphitheater and then also around the half frozen alpine pond. I found a tree that looked like a desert mermaid to me: The top branch being her hair trailing behind her and the bottom branch her body and tail.

That night I watched "The Door in the Floor" on my laptop in my crappy hotel room. My favorite part was when Jeff Bridges reads his short story aloud to an audience--I love to be read to and it was an intriguing story.

In the morning I got off early to hike to Kolob Arch in the north end of Zions. It was 13 miles in all and all beautiful. I loved seeing how the creek wore the rock away and couldn't resist plunging my feet in on the way back, despite the chill.

I might have considered eating the mushrooms if I hadn't been afraid I'd think myself a Sasquatch.


On my way home I stopped by the Parowan Gap Petroglyphs. It's a set of elaborate Fremont style glyphs that supposedly make a kind of solar calendar. They were fenced off and normally I would have loved to take a closer look but was honestly not that into it. I bought a huge ice cream sundae and drove home.

No Heroic Claims

As an afterthought to the post below, I wish to say that I don't believe I have any more grasp on life than anyone else, and that I don't think my personal philosophy on life better than any other philosophy on life. I have practically forced myself to make every move meaningful and purposeful so that the decisions I made in my past will have been worth the cost. I have to live life the way I do. And I suppose everyone does the same for themselves.

Atlas Shrugged 50th

I used to have a bumper sticker that read: "Who is John Galt?" Sometimes people left notes on my dashboard saying "we love that book too!" referring to Ayn Rand's 'Atlas Shrugged'. This year is the book's 50th anniversary. I read it when I was 19 years old. My friend Stephanie recommended it to me. I loved it, but had a hard time describing why to my friends or even what it was about. To me it was sort of about the economy, sort of a story about a woman, and mostly about knowing what you want out of life and not being apathetic. I think that's why the book affected me so much was because at that time I didn't know what I wanted. I was headed back to BYU, partly out of ignorance of what other possibilities I had. I was going to study archaeology because I loved it, and somehow I thought it would bring me adventure. I did know that I didn't want to be another person who talked about doing things but never actually did them. So the book sort of got me started on being unafraid to go after what I wanted. Some people call it selfishness, but for me it was about self-actualization. Why should I stay in Provo after graduation just because I had a boyfriend there? I wanted to get out into the world. I've had a lot of great times with people that didn't know what they wanted--and I think there's a difference between being a happy wanderer and being completely direction-less. But just knowing what you want to get out of things made everything more meaningful for me.

Having seen a lot of articles about the book recently because of the anniversary, I was reminded of all the things it did for me, or at least helped me realize so I could do them for myself. It gave me a sense of control and authority over my own life. It felt empowered to do the things that I dreamt of. I still have a huge problem with guilt, and in some ways, my sense of responsibility holds me back as well. So I'm still working on it, but I do believe that if you're holding the world on your back and it's getting heavier and heavier and you don't know why you're holding it, why not just shrug? Why continue to do things that have no meaning for you?

So if you've never read the book and most likely never will (it's a daunting 1000 pages), I'm sharing a poem I found a few years back that shares a similar philosophy. It's an alternate version of the famous 'Desiderata', the original version is quite beautiful and you can find it here

I like to call this version the Ayn Rand version and mine too. (On a side-note, my version generally represents my path through life--fighting against everything handed me, while the original seems like the approach of my two favorite people, my twin sister and my husband, two people who admirably sort of happily float through life and what it brings them--just my perception guys, we can argue later):

Desiderata Too

23 August 1995

Don't go placidly amid the apathy and lethargy. Remember that your silence is consent and there can be no peace where there is injustice.

You can't please all the people all the time, so shout your truth from the mountain top and don't accept nonsense from the bigoted, the ignorant and the self-serving.

Don't avoid people who are upset. They may have good reasons and your care and interest may make them less aggressive.

Be tolerant of the diversity that makes everyone special and be aware that there are no persons greater or lesser than yourself.

Don't live in the past or future. Enjoy the present.

Don't become obsessed by your own career. It cannot give you security or possession of anything or anyone.

Exercise trust in your dealings but be circumspect, as the world is full of materialists.

Become yourself. Express affection for all people and all species.

Be sceptical about romance for it is as transient as a summer flower.

Don't become tired in your ways and never surrender your sense of wonder. Don't be defensive. Be optimistic and imaginative.

Fatigue and loneliness are born of fear. Be rigorous in accepting responsibility for your actions and their consequences.

You are a child of your less than perfect parents and like the trees and the stars your time will pass. And whether or not it is clear to you, things are not working out nearly as well as they could.

Whatever you conceive God to be, also be aware that every single thing you do actually changes the world. Dreams cannot be broken and they will give you no peace if you don't act with integrity.

Unfortunately, this world is becoming uglier each day.

Be brave.

Strive for the right of all people to make their own paths.

Found in a South Australian kitchen. Copyright 1992 Andrew Bunney.

Walking with the Ghost

Much to my chagrin, Caiden didn't want to be a pretty princess for Halloween (actually, I just like to tease him about how pretty he is). So shortly after hanging our Grim Reaper door decoration he decided that was who he wanted to be. His cousins didn't even recognize him at first, that's how good of a job Tyler did on his makeup.


Also, we've taken a lot of pics of Henry, the hamster, but none look too great. This one though shows his little loft that I'm jealous of--wouldn't it be awesome to have a glass-ceilinged bedroom up above your house?