Gayle, in memoriam

This is a picture of me playing my old trumpet Gayle. She was crushed in a car accident after I played a gig at the Church on the 4th of July in '99. She was a very nice, very expensive horn and I took good care of her. We were going to run away to Boston together until the accident separated us forever. I miss her and the beautiful music we played.

This is my new baby, I don't have a name for her yet. She's australian made and about 1/4 as good a horn as Gayle was. She'll have to do for now. It's been a long time since I played so I'm getting my chops worked up, but it was clear form the first note, she ain't no Gayle. I thought about naming her Grace because I'm going to need a lot of it to get back my old self. But I'm not sure I want to give such a classy name to a horn that is a filler until I can get a new girl. Maybe I'll call her Maude, a good classic name, but not too pretty, kind of like this horn...good, but not too pretty. We'll make music together but it won't jive as well, it will be hard to find the groove and stay in the pocket...Maude. I think I like it, it fits. To Gayle, in memoriam.

-El trompetista de la triste figura

Thinking Inside the Box

The other day Evelyn and Jillian decided that the apple box sitting under the window was a great toy. They sat in it and laughed well past their bed time. After Jilly was taken to bed Evelyn decided that she needed to sleep in the box. So I gave her a blanket and pillow and put the box on her bed. She popped up every now and again and she stayed in there for quite some time. I thought she might even sleep in the box but it became too much of a distraction. Enjoy the pictures!

Ben & Me

This is a tag I took on from our friend Ashley.

What is his name? Ben

How long have you been married? 5 years in October

How long did you date? 9 months, engaged for 3 months

How old is he? 28 (Going on 12)

Who eats more? It depends....I have my days where I just have craving after craving, but I think overall he eats more.

Who said I love you first? Ben did. I think I felt it first though. I was scared to get too mushy too fast. Shaunie, tell them how you chased me to Utah and tried to put the moves on me in the conference center! Not to worry anyone, there was absolutely no making out in General Conference. This part of our dating story is too long to put into a blog.

Who is smarter? It depends on what you're talking about. Health/Science stuff and kid/parenting stuff are my strengths. Music/Literature/Cultural/Movie stuff are Ben's strengths. I think I'm the more scatterbrained of us both. After I've stayed up late though or all night, and fall asleep after work because I'm exhausted, and Shaunie tries to wake me up, I always have to ask what day and time it is before I can function. He really does not know what is going on in situations like these. He usually doesn't even remember the conversation. We have hilarious stories because of this.

Whose temper is worse? As I type this, Ben says, "well, that's easy." I wouldn't call it a temper here, he just gets frustrated when things, especially technology, are not working like they should. We both used to get really frustrated with Evelyn, which only happened when she was being Capt. Whiny-pants, but we've been working on being more patient with both girls and are making some good progress. It just doesn't work to be mad in most situations. And how can you get mad at a face like this?!

Who does the laundry? Usually me. Once in a while he'll start a load, and help me sort and fold. But where he's so busy with school, I do it most of the time. I don't mind it. I kind of like doing laundry. I like doing laundry too, our washer/dryer are just real loud so daytime is best to run them. I really like dryers for some reason.

Who does the dishes? We both hate doing dishes. But Ben hates it a little more than I do, which is why I usually do them. Once again, he's got lots of homework. Now that we have a dishwasher, it's not such a big deal to do them. Before dishwasher days, we would do them together. After they had piled up for 3 days and we had no utensils, bowls or plates left. Pretty sad. I must admit he is really good at rinsing his dishes after a meal. I'm terrible in that department.

Who sleeps on the right side of the bed? Right now, Ben does. We've switched sides more times than I can count. The deciding factor is whichever side is closest to the door, so I can get to the baby faster in the middle of the night. Which side is the right side? Why do we think North is up, it's not, North America could very well be on the bottom of the map, it doesn't matter. Derrida would say that this is another binary opposition where our culture has ingrained the superiority of our position blah blah blah blah... Ben is a bit of a philosopher and thinker, if you can't tell.

Who pays the bills? I think it's about half and half. If I haven't been able to catch Quicken up that week and bills, Ben will do them on the weekend. Thankfully, or else we'd be financially sunk. Shaunie made a nifty budget and bless her heart, I have an allowance!!!!! BOOKS BOOKS AND MOOOOOORE BOOKS!

Who cooks dinner? I do. Ben cooked dinners when we were dating, but I'm the better cook, so I do it. He says he wants to learn though. (I cross my fingers when I say that. Food is good, but I'd rather be reading).

Who drives when you are together? Ben drives when we're together, if I'm not taking him to BYU. Then I drive. I trust his instincts and reaction time more in all this crazy Utah traffic. I like to drive like a Californian sometimes. I can out drive any of these Utards any day of the week...armatures. (Sorry Ashley, this doesn't apply to any of our friends/family, but your fellow states-people don't know how to drive).

Who is more stubborn? We both are, but we're not stubborn about a lot of things. So it doesn't come up much. Our first argument was about whether or not the BYU-I modern dance troupe was dancing correctly. After that we realized how dumb it is to argue and it hasn't happened much since.

Who proposed? Ben did, twice. Once in his apartment at Rexburg, when we were having a nice leisurely conversation about the future. He says he doesn't remember it, but I do. We went ring shopping a few weeks later. The official proposal was in California at Laguna Bay, the same place Howard W. Hunter proposed to his wife. It was the 4th of July, so Independence Day has a little double meaning for us. Ahh, nostalgia, I used to go there all the time as a kid and watch the waves and the sunsets.

Who has more friends? I think Ben does. He's got a lot of grad student friends he sees everyday that are like a little family. I'm more limited to the blogging world, e-mail and telephone. Which help people stay in contact, but I've still lost contact with a lot of people. And I still have a slight bit of shyness hanging around from my childhood. My friends all use me as an excuse to visit Shaunie and the girls, I don't blame them.

Who has more siblings? I do. He's got 2, I have 5.

Who wears the pants in the family? We make big decisions together, but I do defer to Ben as the patriarch of our family and priesthood holder. But Shaunie does all the stuff that makes our apartment look nice. I decorated once, someone referred to it as a 'bachelor's pad', so I felt bad and let Shaunie do whatever she wants and the place always looks great! She also helps me eat well, exercise, and remember important things because basically I am a space case and I live in the fictional world of books and film right now. If we weren't married Shaunie could probably earn money as my personal manager. But I like things the way they are. My pants are too tight anyway, so I usually put on my pajama pants at home, that have pictures of hamburgers and fries on them.

As you can tell, we really do love each other and have a great relationship with added humor and ridiculousness. Ben is the only reason I'm not as serious as I was 6 years ago. I Hope you all have some love for the Valentine in your life! (yes, that was really cheesy, but I felt like I had to tie Valentine's Day in there somewhere). Alright, someone else out there can do this. I love reading these things on other's blogs!

The last month in pictures

I've been meaning to post pictures for a couple weeks now, but never got around to it. So this lengthy post is the result of my procrastination. I guess we haven't been up to anything really exciting lately, just trying to keep warm and busy until this arctic cold decides to go away. It seems to just keep snowing and snowing here, but we're supposedly supposed to have a break this weekend. At least everything is white and pretty, instead of dead-looking. I've taken the girls out to play in the snow, and they enjoy it more each time they're out playing, until their hands start freezing. Then the whining begins. I look forward to next winter, when they'll both be bigger and better able to get around in the snow.

They just wanted to stand on the sidewalk most of the time and step a little ways into the snow. Evelyn attempted making snowballs, and would then throw them at Jilly. I wouldn't really call them snowballs though. More like snow puffs.
Jill walks around with this face when she's happy. If you click on the picture, you can see her little buck teeth biting her lip.

This is probably their favorite snow activity, eating it.
A cat wanders our complex, I don't know if it's a stray, but he's sure friendly. He lets these two do just about whatever. Evelyn told the cat, "Go to sleep, kitty." And then just pushed him over. He laid there, maybe listening to Boss Evelyn's command. Jilly just likes to follow him and get really close to his face and say, "ne-ow, ne-ow."
Ben likes to make forts of all kinds with the girls. So he brought out our camping tent, which barely fit in the front room. Evelyn thought it was time to go to sleep, so she got a blanket and pretended to sleep with Dad.
Evelyn raided my drawer one day, found my black slip, and pronounced it her dress. I used a hair clip to tighten it, and she put on my black shoes. She's holding my new purse, which I made out of a place mat. It is very cute.
Jilly has a "surprised" face that she likes to make. She likes to do it whenever something is really exciting, or we do it and she imitates.
Evelyn has an obsession with my make-up, and she pulled out my eye shadow and put it on herself. Her entire face was a shade of pale pink. She put some on Jilly too, but not much because Jilly didn't tolerate her eyes almost being poked out by the make-up brush. This picture also looks like one of myself when I was about 4, in Grandpa Gibbons' motor home, using my crayons to 'put make-up on.'
This is crazy to me, Jilly just barely turned 15 months, and she already wants to go potty. She'll go in with her diaper on, and do something. Maybe I'll get lucky and she'll potty train before she's two!
Evelyn decided last week that it was time for Daddy to go to bed, so she brought out her blanket, Pooh bear and baby, gave them to him, and tucked her blanket in around him. He actually did go to sleep for about hour.
Evelyn is going to be my little chef. She always has to be right there with me when I'm cooking. She wants to help chop, mix, stir, and anything else I might be doing. It's scary when I am chopping something up, and I tell her she can't help. So she grabs a butter knife, and takes a piece of whatever it is I am chopping and tries to cut with a butter knife. She's happy doing it, and I know she won't chop a finger off. And the dress she's wearing is Jilly's. This day she decided it was her favorite, put it on and said, "Ohhh, so warm!" It's made out of fleece.
Last picture off all. I got all the toys re-organized, and Jilly couldn't reach something in the bottom of the bin, so she climbed in. And had a mischevious face to go along with it.