Diesel is $4.55 in Las Vegas!

We are kind of getting tired of having a mobile business - the cost of gas takes all the fun out it!




Allan Peerce and his horse Hitman make their way through the town's traffic to do his banking in Leitchfield, Ky., Monday, May 12, 2008. Peerce rides Hitman, adorned with signs of protest, to bring attention to the high cost of fuel. (AP Photo/Ed Reinke)

Book Club, Anyone?

So, I speed-read through the Twilight series so I'm excited to get started on Stephenie Meyer's next book, The Host, that just came out yesterday.

I bought it today and my sister Becky and I are starting it together with high hopes. But can this book really live up to the expectations we all have?

Is anyone else reading The Host?

Third Anniversary - May 7th

Tomorrow is our Third Wedding Anniversary, traditionally considered the "leather" anniversary. What is with that? I think those yearly gift suggestions are so strange - I can totally get the gold and silver anniversaries, but leather? I guess I could expect a nice new purse or a wallet - but that's kind of boring. Maybe they should all just be the Diamond anniversary? :) Matt has it pretty bad for the month of May - our annivesary, followed closely by Mother's Day and my birthday.

So, we are getting new cell phones for each other this year - not that exciting but we need them, and need an excuse to splurge. We switch back and forth on who is in charge of the celebration - one year I have Valentines and Matt has our annivesary, and then we rotate. So this year I have our anniversary. We went out to dinner last Sat and then went to see Iron Man, which was actually pretty good. It was only our second time leaving Claire with a babysitter (Matt's mom) and our second movie since Claire was born. We realized that we need to go on more dates. We go out a lot, to dinner and friend's houses, but we always have Claire. Anyway, I digress.


My last post was on traditions - one fun anniversary tradition we have is that we always eat Nothing Bundt Cake, which was our very non-traditional wedding cake (Matt's choice). And the other tradition is that we make a CD every May that represents the past year. We had a CD as a party favor for our wedding reception and we have done one every year since then. The songs are just songs we like, songs from movies or concerts that we went to that year, songs from road trips or songs that remind us of the year. Like this year we have a baby theme. In no particular order, our play list is:

1. Let My Love Open the Door, Sondre Lerche (Dan in Real Life Soundtrack)
2. I Saw God Today, George Strait
3. Brown Eyed Girl, Van Morrison
4. Modern Nature, Sondre Lerche
5. Little Wonders, Rob Thomas (Meet the Robinsons)
6. My Little Girl, Tim McGraw
7. What You Thought You Need, Jack Johnson
8. To Be Suprised, Sondre Lerche
9. Lullaby, Dixie Chicks
10. Ever the Same, Rob Thomas
11. My Girl, The Temptations
12. My Hands are Shaking, Sondre Lerche
13. Lullaby (Goodnight my Angel), Billy Joel
14. Same Girl, Jack Johnson

Traditions

Someone told me once that the fun part of life is actually more the anticipation of the event, more than the event itself. And I have decided that for most things, that is true. It is fun to have things to look forward to and plan for - it makes time go by quickly and you get excited for what's coming up. For example, we have a Johnson Family reunion coming up this summer in lovely Stanley, Idaho, and a Cousins Weekend Trip in the Fall.

This idea of creating anticipation has made me think about creating traditions so my family has specific things to look forward to all year long, and if we start now, then Claire will never remember a time when we didn't do these traditions.


Long story short, my new tradition is to celebrate Cindo de Mayo with Mexican food and homemade Churros (we went all out in college and had a pinata and an enchilada cook-off every year so I have enjoyed this holiday for awhile now). I made some churros last night and they were pretty good - I was very impatient and ate one right out of the hot oil and burned the roof of my mouth. I HATE when I do that. Anyway, mine did not look as pretty as this picture - Matt called them "churro turds" because they were small little pieces instead of the long pretty ones like at Disneyland (yum). But I liked them - here's the recipe for anyone who wants it. I will have them perfected by next year! :)

Firsts

We tried the teething biscuits. One word - MESSY! But still cute :)

Born to be Wild!

Here are some pics from my Dad's visit last week - once we cooled down from the towing experience we really did have a great time. He watched Claire for me on Friday while I was at work promoting a program called The Governor's Cup (a business plan competition for NV college students) so I know he got some good quality grandpa time in. And he made it back to CA safe and sound. Thanks Dad!

The Harley


Ok, so you can see my hand, but what kind of mom do you think I am? :)


Brunch at the Egg and I

Homeowners, unite!

Yes, it is 1:00 am, yes I am blogging, yes I am so upset about this that I need to get it off my chest!

My car just got towed from our own driveway!!!! Well, some good Samaritan neighbors were driving by, saw the tow truck, and thought how messed up it was that they were towing my car so they stopped and rang the doorbell... I had parked my car behind my dad's motorcycle to protect it from being stolen or messed with by the bratty teenagers that live in our neighborhood, and that meant I was partially blocking our tiny little sidewalk. Apparently that is grounds for being towed in our neighborhood. BUT, if you are parked in the street, which is an actual violation of fire code (we have narrow streets in our neighborhood) then they have to warn you once before they tow you. Does that make any sense to anyone?


The tow truck driver (the most hated job in America, I'm sure) said that someone from our HOA management called it in an hour earlier (it was about 11:30 pm when our neighbors came to our rescue). But, those same neighbors went to find our "security guard" to complain and he said he was the one that called in the tow truck. Thanks buddy.

The tow truck driver also said that the reason they towed us was because essentially the sidewalk is like a handicap spot - we can't restrict people with disabilities from being able to use the sidewalk. Well, I apologize now to all those people in wheelchairs who couldn't make it down the sidewalk wheeling by at 11:30 pm. Plus, my dad, who is a fire inspector and has to approve plans for communities like this before they are built, said that the sidewalks don't meet the ADA requirements anyway.

I am soooo ready to move and live somewhere where I can actually park in my own driveway, park in the street even, oh my! OK, I had to get this out of my system. I am all worked up.

Long story short, thanks to our nice neighbors (our new friends) we were able to get the car off the tow truck for $100 (which my dad graciously paid) instead of $300 from the impound yard. Matt has to get up in 3 hours for seminary - I guess we should go to bed.

I think I will rally our neighbors and see if we can all go to our next HOA meeting -I'm sure they will faint away from surprise that anyone actually showed up! Anyone who has been towed from our development, let me know!