August Re-Cap

We have had so much fun lately, but haven't had a chance to share. So here is the condensed version.

First and foremost...my sister's family is here!! Woo-hoo! We are loving having them here. If you live near here and haven't met them, you really need to. They are so cool!

Second, we continued our family tradition of going to State Fair, where everyone tried a new ride:

Third, we went to Utah for Kari & Erik's wedding (those are my kids in the picture, not theirs! We still believe in "First comes love, Then comes marriage, Then comes baby in the baby carriage.")

There was lots of fun with cousins and the girls loved spending the morning with their very cool Uncle John and Aunt Danielle up on Temple Square. (Danielle, I don't think you wanted me to post the only pictures that I have of you, sorry. The girls took them so they aren't really in focus.)

The funniest thing about that day was after the beautiful dinner at Thanksgiving Point Gardens. We watched the happy couple leave to go to their very messy, very decorated car. Only, there was a small glitch. The Honda with California plates that had been decorated was not the right Honda with California plates! So, someone later came out of the Gardens, maybe with a date, or maybe married 20 years, and they were greeted with a very messy, very decorated car that said, "Just Married!!" Needless to say, none of us stuck around to watch. Whoops! Hope they have a good sense of humor!

We also had our very own Corrigan Family Adventure! If you are part of my family, you know what that means. It usually involves my dad and lots of things going wrong. In our case, it started by us going to Deer Creek Reservoir to go waterskiing. This was the first time in 8 years that I had skiied, so I was excited. And my dad REALLY didn't want to disappoint us, so he got his boat all ready for us, even though he hadn't used it at all this summer. We should have known when we got it into the water and it wouldn't start. But between my dad (MacGuyver) and my intelligent husband, they jimmyrigged the truck's battery to the boat battery and got it all started. We went out in the lake and after everyone had a chance to get invigorated by the fresh, cool water, I got my chance to ski! I asked T to take pictures, although after 8 years, the shots he could have gotten are numerous:

Me totally biffing it

Me, a few hours later, in a total body cast

Heck, he could've even gotten the one where I'm trying desparately to keep my shorts up because they were causing drag when I forgot to take them off before jumping out of the boat.

But instead he got:


Yes, it's me! The form may not be great and I'm on 2 skiis, but I'm up!!

Immediately after I end this run (in a total wipeout) the boat's engine cuts. For good. And the next hour is spent trying to flag down some help, trying not to get blown onto the rocky beach, and going through 3 ropes trying to get pulled back to dock by some very nice and very inexperienced boaters. I tried not to freak out, since we had to catch our plane a few hours later. But we made it back to Christie's house where T & I threw our luggage together, each took a 5 minute shower, and then raced to the airport. Made it!

Other fun Utah adventures pertaining to my family can be found

here or

here (scroll down a little if you want to see what we look like photoshopped in with the rest of my family. It kind of makes me feel like we're the embarrassing illegitimate children. Not even invited for the real picture, just snuck in after. Interesting piece of trivia: The shirt T is wearing is the same shirt my brother-in-law is wearing. I don't mean from the same rack at the same store, I mean, the exact same shirt. Photoshopping is a modern day miracle, I tell you.)

or here (for a funny story about and cute picture of Avandra)

How's that for an update? Told you we had fun!

Bloody Mess

Congratulations to Avandra, who has gone from looking like this:

To looking like this:

And kudos to T, who was able to stay there coaching ("Twist, push, Did you hear it pop? Wow! It's sticking straight out when you do that! Can you taste the blood?") while I ran, hid, closed my eyes, and covered my ears. Yuck! And how many times do I have to go through this again? Thank goodness for T!! And Avandra is SO proud of herself, since she's one of the latest kids to start losing teeth. So Hooray!

Hooray! Politics is Interesting Again!

Thank you Gov. Sarah Palin, for making me care about this election again!I was so burnt out but she's breathed in new life. I actually WANT to vote now. For who? I don't know yet. But I'm actually motivated to study it out, whereas 1 week ago I couldn't have cared less. I think it's exciting that no matter which party wins, we will be making history in the White House, either with race or gender. And my first impression is that she's a far more acceptable woman for me to vote for than Hilary ever was.

I Should've Known

When I said that I didn't have to worry about Sports Illustrated Swimsuit covers again until Februrary, I was sadly mistaken. Grocery shopping last week, I was greeted at the check out line by their "Special Edition Painted On Swimsuit Edition". Oh, Joy. Of course I spoke politely to the manager about removing it or covering up the picture. I got a polite but non-commital response from him. If any of you see that, will you please speak or write a note for the manager? I really appreciate that.

I was talking to my husband's cousin the other day, and she mentioned that their Relief Society is doing an Enrichment activity based on President Hinckley's 6 Be's. The key-note speaker was covering "Be Clean" and it is a therapist who will be speaking on how to keep safe from internet porn. (S--Correct me if I got any of this wrong, okay?) This cousin also mentioned how in her husband's extended family, an 11-year old boy was given a link to a pornographic website from his "friends". He checked into it, started experimenting, and had to be removed from his own home because he was making it an unsafe environment for the other family members. This cousin realized that she needed to start talking to her older boy (is he 10?) about what he was seeing. When she asked if he'd ever seen any inappropriate pictures, he said, "Yes, in the checkout line at Walmart." It's exactly like JoAnn Hibbert Hamilton says in her book, People Speaking Out for Decency:

"Phil Burress, President, Citizens for Community Values, Cincinnati, Ohio, said at Impact America Conference, April 2000, "Ninety-five percent of our children have already been exposed to pornography. Much of this early exposure was in store checkout lanes. ...Of the hundreds of addicts I have spoken to in the last four years, about 95% of them said that their addiction first began with swim suit images, often seen for the first time on or in a magazine. Donna Rice Hughes, Kids On Line, stated that....Often in play [children] act out what they have seen."

This cousin also said that Sister Beck talked in the BYU Women's Conference about needing to do more in the community to protect our children. I haven't been able to find the transcript and I wasn't there, but it sounds good to me!

My Take On Breaking Dawn

I finally finished the book. Wow, that was a bit of a surprise and a bit of slogging through. I'll follow Anne Marie's example and post my thoughts as a comment, so as not to spoil if there's anyone on the earth who hasn't finished it yet. But here's a small spoiler: My comments are not all positive.

Ice Cream Junkie

Those of you who know me, know that Ice Cream is a staple at our house. I come from a long line of ice-cream-o-holics. The kind who consider a serving of ice cream to be less like 1/2 cup and more like 1/2 a house. The kind who say "Do you mind if I polish this off?" as a euphemism for "I'm going to take the final 3/4 of the carton." And it just so happened that I married a man after my own palate. Which is why I am thoroughly devastated that the ice cream conspirators decided to shrink the carton size. Which is also why I was ecstatic the last time I went shopping and scored this coup! Among all the other shrunken cartons, I found one last tall and proud one. And it cost me the same $2.88 as the little ones. Take a good long look below because this may very well be the last full-size ice cream carton you will see in your life.

P.S. This ice cream is already long gone.

A Stephenie Meyer/ JK Rowling Romance

I'm in the middle of re-reading the Twilight series before I launch into Breaking Dawn. So last night, as I was curling up in bed with my warm-blooded husband, I naturally said, "You are my very own werewolf." Obviously a compliment. So I was stunned when he whispered back, "And you are my amoeba."

Pause. Blink, blink.

My brain was trying to make sense of that comment. Tee was a microbiology major...is there more to being an amoeba than I had previously assumed? Was he unintentionally offended by my werewolf compliment? Has our marriage fallen apart completely without my being aware of it???

"An amoeba?" I repeated in confusion.

Which is when he laughed and said, "No, my veela." OH....Okay. I may be going deaf but at least we still have the fireworks!