Mini-vacation

"Are we officially boring old people?" I sighed to Andrew as we were driving home from our mini-vacation this morning.

"I don't think so," he said. "I think this pregnancy has been hard [insert short discussion of things I did while pregnant with Rachel and Miriam and Benjamin that we didn't even dare do this pregnancy, like traveling to Israel or camping in the middle of nowhere] and that's what's made life seem boring. With you having doctor appointments every week and not being allowed to drive more than two hours away we've been pretty much stuck since we got back from Utah in January."

"That, and soccer or cheer every Saturday and you being so busy finishing your prospectus," I said—because not everything's my fault, surely!

But it's true that we haven't done anything, really, and can't do much, so when Andrew's mom suggested we take a vacation I was wondering where and what'd we'd do. I had my doctor appointment on Thursday, Andrew needed to coach soccer on Thursday, and then Saturday morning we have soccer games. And we can't go far away anyway. I was like, "What is even the point?"

Andrew said "the point" was that I haven't ever been away from my kids, except to have another baby, so it was high time I experienced that because he's gotten to do it loads of times (always going off to conferences and leaving me behind with the kids) and it's awesomely relaxing.

So Andrew ended up booking a hotel in south Durham (how exotic) with a beautiful view of a lake. We skipped soccer practice on Thursday (it ended up being cancelled due to a thunder storm, anyway) and went to the temple instead. We went out for dinner at Chili's—Andrew wanted to do a more local "foodie" restaurant but with diabetes it's easier to go to bigger chains that have published their nutrition information online—and then went to Target and walked laps around the store to burn off the dinner we just ate (because food is the bane of my existence).

Movie Marathon

This afternoon while I had the washing machine going, the dishwasher going, and the food dehydrator going, I thought to myself, "Thank you, Twenty-First Century," because I'm really not sure how I would have managed to be a housewife a hundred years ago.

Andrew and I had a bit of a movie marathon this past week. We watched Saving Mr. Banks first, which was amazingly insightful considering I'm reading Mary Poppins out loud with the girls and we were all very confused by the character of Mary Poppins is in the book versus how she is in the 1964 Disney film. She's very hard-nosed in the book, perhaps even a little cold, and my girls both took a disliking to her from the very beginning (though I think they've warmed up to her now that we have a few good adventures under our belt).

Though she's still a bit of a killjoy in the movie, she's a much warmer and loving character than she is in the book.

Saving Mr. Banks explained this beautifully (and made me cry like a baby). Much of P. L. Travers' life story is fictionalized (though the basic facts of her childhood, exact conversations and other details were obviously made up) the record of her behavior in the studio is very well documented (since she insisted on having all conversations recorded). The actress who played her, Emma Thompson, did an incredible job. Because of how particular P.L. Travers was, Thompson had a lot of information available for her character study and she certainly used that to her advantage.

We didn't even recognize her...from Harry Potter! She's Professor Trelawny, for crying out loud!

I actually always appreciate it when I'm not able to recognize an actor. This movie was filled with actors that I knew and every time a new person popped up on screen I was like, "BJ Novak. Whoa. Bradley Whitford. Whoa. Paul Giamatti. Whoa. Tom Hanks?! Whoa!"

When it's cold outside, I've got the month of...

I did no little housework today because we spent the entire day outside (or at least as much of it as we could). It's December 6th and it was—get this—77°F (25°C)!

We pulled out shorts and sandals and partied like it was summer vacation...by hanging Christmas lights on the house (because that's totally what I do during my summer vacation) and gardening (because that's something that must be done year round here, evidently).

Actually, we spent the morning at playgroup and then spent the afternoon outside with the neighbour kids (at one point we had nine kids in our yard (which is pretty good odds considering how many kids live on our street (not many more than nine))).

The boys next door took turns helping me with the lights and corralling Benjamin away from the street while all the little girls played. When I finished putting the lights up they organized a round of hide-and-seek for everyone. They're very gentlemanly and call me ma'am and everything (which truthfully cracks me up a bit but I appreciate their manners nonetheless).

We were outside for about an hour before neighbourhood kids started coming home from school (two hours before Rachel came home from school) and stayed outside until nearly 5:00.

Musicals, Chocolate, and Love

Tonight we went to our stake's roadshow: Sing Down the Moon: An Appalachian Wonder Tale. No one from our family was in it, though the dress my mom took in for me to wear in the musical Steamboatin' (back in 1993) made an appearance on one of my friend's daughters. Part of me wanted to try out for it but...I can't drive to the stake center on my own. They found enough talent without us, of course. And it was a good (if not a tad long (over two hours!)) show, putting many unfamiliar spins to the fairy tales I'd grown up hearing (Jack Tales are a thing in Appalachia—he does much more than climb a beanstalk!).

We sat down next to an elderly couple. Benjamin's started to be really friendly to people so he immediately started trying to make eye contact with the woman beside me. He kept leaning across me and into her lap so he could peer right into her face and smile, as if to say, "Ignore me not!" She seemed to enjoy his company.

In the middle of the show, right after Jack earned a bag of money from the king and brought it home to his family, the cast came out and threw chocolate coins to the audience (which I imagine turned out much messier and more dangerous than they'd imagined it would be (but only because I saw how messy and dangerous it was (Andrew got hit in the face by a rogue coin and the coins that fell on the ground shattered so when you opened them up the chocolate inside crumpled all over the place))).

I let Benjamin eat one of the coins (while his sisters greedily devoured the rest) and he was in heaven. He went around begging for chocolate coins for the rest of the intermission, though I don't think anyone really understood what he meant when he came up to people with his hands outstretched, his face pleading for them to begin throwing that chocolatey goodness around again.

That was before he noticed all the bits of broken chocolate on the floor. I suppose he only spent half of intermission begging people for chocolate coins and spent the second half eating the unwanted bits that had fallen to the floor.

When I first spotted him pick something off the floor and pop it in his mouth I quickly went to investigate. Rachel followed me (Daddy and Miriam were in line at the bathrooms).

"What have you got in your mouth?" I asked Benjamin. I then pried his mouth open. He then reluctantly let me peek inside his mouth. "More chocolate! Where did you find that? On the floor, obviously. The floor's pretty gross. You probably don't want to be eating off of it..."

My prattling trailed off because just as I was telling Benjamin to beware the filthy floors that I spotted Rachel nonchalantly eating bits of chocolate off the floor. She was literally crawling on the floor, picking up specks of chocolate, and eating them.

"Rachel!" I said in surprise.

"What?" she shrugged. "I'm hungry."

But believe it or not, this post isn't about how two-thirds of my children were crawling around the cultural hall eating chocolate off the floor. It's about the woman I was sitting beside.

Temple Date

Now that I know Benjamin will tolerate being left with a babysitter we're planning on going out a lot more often. We went to the temple again this morning to celebrate my friend's son's first birthday. He was born with half a heart and deemed too weak/little to be operable. My friend was told he'd die within a few hours of birth, but he didn't. He's been fighting ever since!

He had an operation a couple of months ago to put a stent in to help open his arteries. The doctors are hoping they'll strengthen/enlarge so they can do full-blown heart surgery.

So far, though, this little guy is going strong. He's a medical marvel. For some reason, against all odds, this little guy just keeps staying alive.

His mother attributes all his progress to faith and prayers. Prayers to heal the baby. Prayers to guide the medical experts. Prayers for their family unit to thrive despite all the stress of being in and out of the hospital.

Dating

On Friday night we left our children in the care of our friends while we went to the temple. We never leave our kids with babysitters so they were really excited about this, though they didn't quite know how to call it. Miriam said she was excited for the Farneses to come "watch over" her. 

I was so worried that Benjamin would scream the entire time we were gone, but he apparently behaved marvelously (which is more than I can say about his behaviour today). 

We had a bit of trouble pinning down a weekend and kept changing dates on the Farneses, but they were so accommodating and even told us to go out afterwards (we went to Cici's Pizza—classy, I know), which was lovely. Andrew and I haven't been out together, alone, since.... Wow. I frankly can't remember. I know we went to the temple in April when Karen came to watch the girls while I was in Utah (obviously we went before I'd left) and we've done plenty of things together as a family. I really think our last "date" was the time we went to Kneaders for breakfast either right before or right after visiting Benjamin in the NICU. The last date we went on before that was when Auntie Emily babysat for us when we went to Arabian Nights at BYU, just a day or two before Benjamin was born. 

So, that about sums up our out-of-the-house dating for the past two years. Fortunately, we have plenty of board games and movies and neither of us minds staying in most of the time. Still, it was nice to go out for a change. 

Our temple trip was lovely, even if we didn't make it there in time for our session (we got stuck in traffic). Instead we did sealings, which was just as nice. 

The kids had a blast with the Farneses and now that I know Benjamin can handle being separated from me (and I know that I can handle being separated from him) for that long we'll have to try going out more often. To that end, I recently entered a babysitting swap with a friend (who has two girls and a boy who are just about the same ages as our two girls and boy). We'll see how it goes!

Dress Rehearsal

Last night the girls had a dress rehearsal at the Carolina Theater, which they were very excited for. The strangest part was that we just dropped them off and then had nothing to do. It was the weirdest feeling because the past few months have been such a frenzy of costume-making. We'd walk into the theater and be bombarded with yarn and fabric and scissors and glue. Even just on Thursday night we were all slaving away, trying to finish the Nana costume.

But last night we just dropped them off. We were instructed to be back to pick them up by 7:30, when hopefully they'd be finished. So we left.

We stood outside on the sidewalk puzzling over what to do with two hours free from children (except Benjamin, who was strapped to me...like always).

"We could go on a date," I suggested.

"I'm hungry," Andrew said. "Let's go out for dinner."

"Where should we go?" I asked.

We stood on the sidewalk and puzzled over that some more. The theater is right downtown. There are dozens of upscale (when compared to McDonald's) restaurants to try but we didn't even know where to begin, nor how much we wanted to spend. We don't have an eating-out category in our budget because we don't usually do it. After walking around downtown hand in hand (because we weren't wrangling children) and surveying a few menus, we settled on around $20 and found a cute pizza place called Pop's Trattoria. We're suckers for Italian food (especially Andrew).

They open at 5:30 and we arrived at 5:40, walked right in, and asked for a table for two.

"Do you have reservations?" the hostess asked.

"Do we need one?" Andrew asked.

"No," she said, looking through her book. "Do you want a window seat or would you rather sit in the dining room."

We opted for a window seat, even though the tables were abnormally high for dining.

"It's okay," the hostess assured us. "I can just stack a couple of high chairs for him to sit on. You can pick any table you'd like!"

We found our table and sat down to look at the menus. Their wood oven-fired pizzas are $10 a piece so we thought we'd each get one. That's how we survived our honeymoon—we'd find the cheapest pizza joint we could and then we'd each order a margherita pizza since that's typically the cheapest thing on the menu. It's somewhat normal to eat a whole pizza in Italy, according to Andrew (and my observations). Andrew asked the waiter for two pizzas, but then I went and asked how big the pizzas were.

"They're pretty big," he said. "There's no way each of you are going to eat a whole one. But half of one might not be quite enough. I'd recommend getting a pizza to split and then a salad or something as well."

So that's what we did. And it was good, though I'm pretty positive we each could have eaten a whole pizza.

We had bread while we waited, which was good. They gave us a dish of olive oil...but no vinegar. Sad day. Andrew still did a lot of dipping, but I didn't.

We also had a nice view of the bar but only realized that we were sitting in the bar when one of the owners/managers stopped by to ask Benjamin how he was enjoying sitting at the bar.

Temple Trip

Karen arrived on Tuesday evening and I was leaving on Thursday morning. Andrew had class on Wednesday night so Karen treated us to a Wednesday morning date—our first time going out together without any children since the one time we went out to breakfast at Kneaders after or before visiting Benjamin in the hospital.

We went to the temple and it was relaxing and wonderful and rejuvenating and very much needed.

Date night

Yesterday I convinced Andrew to go on a date with me—like, one where we actually leave the house and don't just watch a movie downstairs or play a game at the kitchen table. That kind. It was rather spur-of-the-moment and I didn't even ask him until after the girls were sleep. Then we took advantage of the fact that we live with his parents by asking Karen to "babysit" our already-sleeping children, grabbed a 2-for-1 coupon to Menchies and sneaked out of the house.

We got our ice cream and sat chatting about our life and our future, reenacting one of our first dates. Just six days after he got home from his mission we held hands for the first time after going to the temple, then went out for ice cream (at SubZero, not Menchies...same difference). We sat and talked about "our future" and that was the first time we'd ever really used the terms "us" and "we" and "our." We didn't make any real plans over ice cream, just silly ones like, "We should go to Italy!"

"I'm going to retire in Pescara," Andrew joked—he loves that city. "Want to join me?"

"Sure," I said. "I love Italy."

He asked me to be his girlfriend as he was dropping me off that night but didn't kiss me until several days later. And then several days after that he asked me to marry him...sorta. And then a few weeks after that we got married and honeymooned in Italy. So perhaps we made some real plans after all.

Anyway, sometimes it's still fun to go out for ice cream and chat about "our future," whether it's a serious chat or (like in the case of our first ice cream date) a hypothetical one. Last night's chat was serious (in that it was real since we have some potentially life-altering decisions coming up...such as where to go for his PhD) but still lots of fun. We didn't decide anything official but talked about each location in detail—he leaves tomorrow for his grand tour: Indiana the first half of the week, Duke the second half. We'll be making the decision sometime after he gets home.

Wild West

Andrew and I watched "True Grit" last night—the 2010 version directed by the Coen Brothers. It was fabulous. I have only seen a few of the films the Coens have directed—"O Brother Where Art Thou," and "Raising Arizona," both of which are fabulous, if not a little quirky. "True Grit" was also quirky and fabulous.

When Karen asked us how it was and if it deserved all the awards/nominations it got, Andrew said that it certainly did. It was "funny."

"Funny?!" I gasped.

It is not funny. It is a drama. But it is a quirky drama.

For example, there was not a single contraction in the entire script, which almost made the language sound stilted, especially when the ruffians were speaking, but somehow it ended up sounding natural. When Tom Chaney declared, "I am not happy," I wanted to die laughing...but because it was such a tense part in the movie I could not.

I'm, you're, and couldn't've were all I am, you are, and could not have.

There was not even an ain't to be heard, however you expand that contraction.

All day long I have been noticing how many contractions I use. I use a lot. I imagine they did back in the days of the Wild West as well. Even when I am typing I like to throw in contractions because it reads smoother to me. But the lack of contractions was a quirk I enjoyed, as unrealistic as it may have been.

The movie helped me to understand where the term "midwest" came from. The story takes place in Arkansas and Oklahoma. At first it was hard for me to think of those states as part of the Wild West...but they were. For some reason I have no problem linking Texas + Wild West in my brain but it took me a while to get over Arkansas. But when Mattie arrives to collect her father's body and you see that the train tracks end right there (but that they have obvious plans of going farther) it hit me that they really were in frontier county.

Valentine's Day...finally

On Valentine's Day eve Andrew invited me to go on a mystery date with him on Saturday, for Valentine's Day. He put "date with the most beautiful woman in the world" on the calendar and he wouldn't tell me what the date was...for about an hour...before he caved and told me because he can't keep secrets.

Aida

Sometimes we're spontaneous. And when we're at a family party (thanks, Auntie Judy!) and my mom says, "Do you want these tickets to see Aida? I'll babysit your girls..." we say yes. Even though the show starts in an hour and a half. That's spontaneity. You can tell it's spontaneity because of how it is.

There were originally four tickets and we were supposed to find someone to give away the extra two to but we failed. 35 of the 35 people we invited to take them were not spontaneous enough (and that doesn't include the open-ended invitation we put out on facebook). So we went alone and gave away the tickets at the door because we're nice like that.

My little sister was supposed to go on a double-date with the tickets but her date got stomach flu so the tickets fell into our hands. They were hand-me-down tickets, but I don't mind hand-me-downs at all.

We went into Aida blind. We had hoped that the Aida (the opera) would play at the Cairo Opera House while we were in Egypt, but that didn't happen. So we went to see Aida (the musical) today...still not knowing the story.

BYU Traditions Ball 2011

Last night we went to the ball. It took a little bit of effort on my part to convince Andrew that he could neglect statistics for three hours in order to focus on me. Not that I'm high-maintenance but, seriously, how many hours has he neglected me in favour of statistics? A whole lotta hours, that's how many. I realize that he is slugging through school so that he can (one day) be a good provider for our family but, let's be honest, grad school is a real drag. 

He really is hard-working and high-achieving, though, and I really appreciate that. Rachel said to me one day, "My daddy sure is a long-worker because he works for so long! But that's okay because if he works lotsa time then we will get lotsa money."

And then I told her that we were paying lots of money to have him work lots of time. She was like, "What? That doesn't make sense!" But that's grad school for you. 

Anyway, we went to the ball and had a great time.

Rachel said I looked like Cinderella, and although I don't really agree with that (Cinderella dressed in black?) I will admit that I felt a lot more glamorous than I have in a long time, thanks to the help of Sarah and Jody and everyone else who was so excited for us to go. 

I ended up borrowing one of Sarah's formal dresses from a high school dance. 

Five years

Our anniversary was yesterday so hopefully after today I can stop talking about it. I feel like I've been talking about it all week. We've been married for five years now—that's 20% of my lifetime. Yesterday was also day five on Emily's wedding countdown as well as Sarah's five-month-versary. It was a cosmic day, though most of it was really quite ordinary.

I worked and watched children. Andrew worked on (and finally finished) his final—it only took him nine hours to write! After he sent it into the teacher we got ready to head out for the evening. Rachel went to my parents' house to play and Miriam stayed with Andrew's parents.

We had a whole list of things to do but didn't end up getting to everything on our list because we got hopelessly lost doing item #1—picking up Andrew's "present," a bunch of games I found listed on Freecycle.org. My great-uncle Clyde would have loved Freecycle. He was a penny-pincher to the very end—I even recall a story of him finding a box of cookware for Aunt Beulah at the dump that had never been used and giving it to her for Christmas. Of course, there's a chance that I am making all of this up since I haven't heard this story for a very long time. Still, if it was Uncle Clyde happened to have an affinity for junk then I'm sure he would have loved Freecycle (also, the internet).

Picnics is hard (but date nights is awesome)

To celebrate the 24th of July—also known as Pioneer Day—we went to a neighbourhood picnic, which was a lot of fun. Rachel, however, hasn’t seen many picnics in her day. In fact, I think the only picnic she’s ever been to was a teddy bear picnic we had in Cairo with some friends. It was pretty much a new experience for her.

We spread our blanket on the ground to claim our spot and then got in line for the food, which was plentiful. There were hot dogs and steak, corn on the cob (which Rachel loved—it was her first time eating corn on the cob and she probably had like three), salads, fruit, breads, desserts, a whole smorgasbord of dishes. Potlucks are fantastic.

Among the desserts was a beautiful strawberry cake. I took a piece, making room on my plate by crowding my actual dinner to the side. Andrew also took a piece, but he put his piece on a separate plate.

We returned to our blanket and began the juggling act that eating a picnic dinner with a three-year-old is. We didn’t even have Miriam at the time because Grandpa had walked off with her. Trust me, it was difficult enough with one child, drinks, plates, and feet to worry about.

Bushswackeling the Cucumber Cake Premonition

Yesterday marked our four year anniversary and we’re all just as silly as ever.

While Andrew was at school Karen made a banana cake—which was really just banana bread in a cake pan since we don’t have any loaf pans. He came home and hurriedly wolfed down his dinner before deserting us in favour of homework (the semester is over now, so hopefully that won’t happen again for a while).

“Oh, but there’s cake!” I said.

Andrew peeled off the tin foil covering the pan and peered inside.

“What kind?” he asked.

Snorkeling at Ain Sokhna (August 8)

Signing up to go snorkeling was pretty nerve-wracking for both of us. We’ve been wanting to go for quite some time since the Red Sea boasts some of the best snorkeling/scuba diving destinations in the world…and here we are in Egypt, just an hour and a half away from the Red Sea.

This weekend we found ourselves up at Ain Sokhna, with a babysitter no less! We decided to drop by the dive center to ask about things and the next thing we knew we were running off to find my mom so that we could ask her if she wouldn’t mind watching Rachel for a few hours the next day while we went out to the reef. She said she would, so we went ahead and signed up for the trip.

And then we started to get nervous.

I’ve always had a lot of reservations about the open sea. Sharks, for one thing; then there’s the whole Gilligan’s Island scenario; and jellyfish and stingrays and waves…among other things like knowing that I’m too far away from shore to swim back without dying of exhaustion first.

That night I had a dream that my stomach had been filled with seawater and tropical fish. I could feel the fish moving around and everything; it was the oddest sensation. I woke up thinking what a strange dream that was, then realized that my stomach was still moving and I kind of freaked out.

And then I remembered that I’m pregnant.

We spent the morning at the beach, wearing Rachel out so that she and Naanii could go back to the condo for a nice afternoon nap while Andrew and I went on our snorkeling trip.

Andrew was so jittery while we were waiting at the dive center. I don’t know if I was visibly nervous since I can’t see myself, but Andrew was obviously edgy. He couldn’t even remember his shoe size when it came time to pick out our flippers and mask.

Granted, they wanted to know his European shoe size, but still. I couldn’t remember his shoe size, either. I used to know what size of shoes he wore, both in European and North American sizes, but I have too much to remember to keep that information near and dear to my heart. I figure he’s a big boy and can keep track of his own feet, which don’t grow, while I try to remember what size of shoes Rachel needs. We’re constantly moving her shoes into the “it fat* yesterday” pile and it’s all I can do to keep up with her.

He wears a 40-42, we found out. At least in flipper size. I’m not sure how well that translates into shoe size, but when I asked for my size (36-38) the flippers fit perfectly, so apparently it’s pretty accurate.

After we tried on our equipment, we sat and dithered a while longer while the two other couples who had booked the same trip as us backed out. We ended up getting the whole boat to ourselves, besides the captain and our guide.

We took a little dingy from the shore out to a larger boat. I almost laughed when they told us to climb from the dingy over the railing of the big ship to get on deck, but I heaved my huge belly on board, anyway, and then we sped off away from the mainland, watching somewhat torpidly as the people, trees, and beach umbrellas faded off into the distance. As if that wasn’t enough to shake up these two mainlanders, the water had the gall to turn a brilliant, beautiful blue, proving to us how deep it was.

It was so beautiful that by the time we reached the reef, we were pretty excited to jump in. We put on our flippers and mask and practiced breathing for a minute before taking the plunge. Breathing in was easy enough, as long as you remembered to always breathe through your mouth. Breathing out was a little more difficult since you have to exhale and clear any water out of the snorkel so you end up breathing out in short, powerful blasts. I felt like a whale the whole time, spouting out a column of water and air every time a wave washed over me.

I was a little embarrassed that they threw the life ring to me to carry around while we swam since I’m a pretty strong swimmer, but I was glad to have it in the end. I guess they were worried about me because I was pregnant, and pregnancy really does take a toll on one’s endurance. I got tired of battling waves pretty fast and my feet kept cramping up from having to be pointed for so long. When I had had enough, the guide half-towed me back to the boat because I wasn’t swimming fast enough for him and then offered me a bed in the cabin, which I didn’t take.

Aside from pregnancy complaints, though, it was an amazing experience. Kind of surreal, like how I imagine going to the moon would be—a completely foreign view of our world.

The fish were looking at us all curiously and we were looking back at them with the same look of awe, I’m sure. We felt like we were thrown into Finding Nemo. We saw clownfish (anemonefish), angelfish, and even some blue tang (which are also known as dory fish, making Dory’s name on Finding Nemo rather ironic since no one ever seems to know what kind of fish Dory is. She’s a dory). We also saw some carpet fish, several kinds of butterfly fish (including lined, chevron, bannerfish and raccoon), Forster's hawkfish, Emporer’s angelfish, and Arabian surgeonfish.

The coral reef, itself, was an amazing conglomeration of color and shape with varying kinds of urchins and anemones nestled in crevices of the brain and branching fire coral. The vibrant and flashy fish were darting in and out of the coral and anemones. The big, ugly fish were slowly swimming on the ocean floor. It was amazing. We even got brave enough to dive below the surface to get a closer look at things.

We swam through schools of small silvery fish and swarms of moon jellyfish. The fish avoided us, but the jellyfish are at the mercy of the current and could do nothing to avoid hitting us. They’re much more solid than they look and feel more like silicon than jelly. The small ones are barely noticeable when they bump up against you, but the big ones get quite heavy and crash into you with considerable force. Not enough to hurt, really, but enough to surprise you with how heavy and solid they are.

They’re completely benign—we were poking them back and forth at each other in the water and on shore people pick them up and throw them at each other like balls—but it was still so strange to swim through a whole swarm of them. We are so conditioned to fear jellyfish, and while there were a few “dangerous” jellyfish lurking about they never got close enough to be alarming.

I don’t think we would ever have wanted to leave if we both didn’t get headaches from breathing funny and tired from fighting against the sea. Poor Andrew also got completely fried. For some reason he decided to take off his “beach shirt” but I didn’t put sunscreen on his back before we left because he was wearing his “beach shirt.” Andrew doesn’t touch sunscreen, see, so I basically have to tackle him just to smear sunscreen on his face.

We were out swimming by the coral reef for over two hours, belly down the whole time. From the back, Andrew looks like a lobster, but he’s still smiling.

Now we’re tempted to get scuba certified…. We had so much fun on our little snorkeling adventure, we couldn’t help but think of what else we could do and see with some more training and practice…and equipment. Obviously this will have to wait until I’m not pregnant and we have more money to spend on things like this…

*Otherwise translated as “too small.” Once Andrew accidentally used “fat” as the past tense of “fit” and we’ve been saying it ever since. Especially in the context of “it fat yesterday.” I believe those were his exact words when he made that error. It’s been years, but we don’t let these things slide by in our family. Because we think they’re hilarious.

Don't do Dido's

My mom wrote a blog post about our favorite Italian restaurant back home, Gloria's Little Italy. That got us craving some good home-baked Italian food but it was already so close to dinner time that we were already starving and neither one of us felt like making dinner. We had an appointment later on in the evening and thought we'd splurge a little and try out the new Italian restaurant that opened up on Road 9. Dido's al Dente, it's called.

We went up to the restaurant (it's on the second floor) and found it filled with locals. Completely filled. The place is tiny. They found room for us, though, and we ordered our food. Since we were starving we ordered some garlic bread for an appetizer.

When we saw the waiter approaching with our bread we got all excited. Garlic bread can do that to you.

But then he sat it down in front of us. It was green. Little pieces of toast smeared with an unappetizing paste of green.

Andrew and I looked at each other, swallowed uneasily, and picked up a piece of bread. You have to try everything once, right? And the restaurant comes recommended, so it was probably good, right?

We each took a bite, chewed slowly, and swallowed.

"This? Isn't right." I concluded.

"I'm pretty sure it's basil," Andrew said optimistically.

"No," I disagreed immediately, "It's not basil. It tastes more like seaweed than basil but I can't quite place it."

I sat, contemplating the flavor in my mouth.

"It's parsley! It's pureed parsley. This is pureed-parsley bread, not garlic bread."

I'm pretty sure that you are never supposed to puree parsley and use it as a spread. Ever.

Unfortunately, a quick Google search has proved me wrong. However, my opinion still stands firm. Parsley was not meant to be pureed. Would you puree a Caesar salad? Would you? I prefer my leafy greens leafy. That's why they're called leafy greens.

While I was busy sulking about the pathetic state of our "garlic" bread, Andrew was resourcefully using his butter knife to scrape the parsley spread off the bread. Genius.

"It's much better without it on there," he noted.

Rachel wouldn't take another bite after she had her first, but Andrew and I managed to polish off (read: stomach) the bread somehow. It was a good 45 minutes after the bread fiasco that our meal came out.

At first, when I stared at my painfully barren plate, I wondered how it could take them so long to cook up such a tiny portion but, when I stuck my fork in it and my lasagna basically dissolved before my eyes, I realized it was because they had cooked my noodles to death. My food came partially digested. It was disintegrating before it even made it into my stomach.

Rachel was excited that we had more food for her to sample.

I, however, was less excited. My lasagna was green, too. I have nothing against the color green. In fact, I even like broccoli. I can even handle Brussels sprouts. (Just not ground up, and put on toast.) My lack of enthusiasm was dulled by hunger pains and the cheese on top of my lasagna did look mighty good, but I couldn't shake the description I had read in the menu. Nothing could dull that.

Lasagna. With mice meat.

Egypt, Egypt, Egypt! Mince meat does not sound appetizing when you don't have a typo that turns it into mice. Everything here is mince meat. The word "ground" is descriptive enough, but at least it doesn't give me the heebeejeebees. And it still allows for categorization so you actually can rest assured, when you purchase your meat, what exactly it is you're eating.

"Is that ground beef or ground turkey?"

"Actually, this is just meat. Mince meat. Don't know what. Could be anything. Mice, maybe. They could have just stuck the en in there by accident. Whoever heard of mince, really?"

I probably shouldn't have gotten the lasagna, but nothing else on the menu looked very appetizing, either. So I ordered the lasagna and that's what was brought out to me. I think.

My first bite wasn't bad, but it wasn't the lasagna I had been hoping for. Rachel was just about crawling across the table to get at my plate so I gave her a bite, too. That was the only bite she asked for the entire time we were in the restaurant.

She spent the rest of the evening playing by the window. The second storey window. That was open. From floor to ceiling. And had no screen.

I made sure Andrew blocked her way to the open window and made her play on the window sill by the closed portion, which she was not happy about. It was like the glass was blocking her view or something.

Meanwhile, Andrew and I continued to try to choke down our meal. I was hardly chewing, primarily because my lasagna had turned into mush while I was trying to convince Rachel to not throw herself out the window (the restaurant wasn't that bad), but also because there were chunks of unchewable gristle and hard bone-like pieces that I just couldn't handle. And it tasted rather gamey to me.

"This? Isn't beef." I concluded.

"Sh-sh-sure it is," Andrew choked out, successfully not gagging up his meal.

"I'm pretty sure it's actually water buffalo. And probably the cheapest one they could buy, too." I suggested.

Not that I have anything against eating water buffalo. I've eaten it several times here (probably more often than I've known). Only the wild ones are endangered. Not the ones they have here that they work to death before slaughtering. Those things are so skinny and worn out there is not a whole lot of meat on their bones, which is probably why you get so much other...stuff...with it.

When I buy meat here, which I haven't done since September, I choose a cut of meat labeled "cow" or "beef" and ask the butchers to grind that. Then I know for sure that no other...stuff...accidentally got mixed in with my mince meat. I never buy the prepackaged mince meat because that usually is water buffalo. Not that I have anything against eating water buffalo, but...I just don't like "stuff" in my meat.

We finished everything on our plate because we did have to pay for it, but we definitely were not happy with our meal. It wasn't my worst dining experience. Definitely a bad one, but not the worst.

I mean, I didn't cry or anything. And I have cried over meals before.

Like the time I accidentally ordered a whole chicken (what?!) in Jordan and when they brought it to me it was bleeding still. Dripping all over my plate.

Or the time I found a chicken heart on my pizza in Russia. A whole chicken heart comfortably nestled under some innocuous-looking cheese. A whole heart.

Or when I showed up at our school in Voronezh for breakfast before teaching all day long (and I swear the lunch ladies stole our food) and all they gave us was one hardboiled egg each and some flower tea. And I was starving that day because my host mom had served mystery meat patties the night before and they were red inside still so I could hardly take a bite. And all I got for breakfast was an egg.

No, this was not a meal worth crying over but I certainly wouldn't recommend Dido's to anyone. Not even my worst enemy.

Well, maybe my worst enemy.

Courtesy of the Muslim Brotherhood

I accidentally locked Andrew out of the house last night. I left the key in the door on the inside, which meant that unlocking the door from the outside was next to impossible. So instead of just opening the door, Andrew rang the doorbell. When I opened it for him, he presented me with a cute bouquet, wrapped up nicely in cellophane and tied with a ribbon.

"For you," he declared, sweeping a chivalrous bow, "Courtesy of the Muslim Brotherhood."

It took me a minute to register what he was saying. Andrew so rarely brings me flowers--he knows that I prefer live plants to cut ones--so it was a bit of a shock. Why had he brought me flowers? Had he joined the Muslim Brotherhood? Had he purchased the flowers from a member of the Muslim Brotherhood? What exactly was the Muslim Brotherhood? It used to be illegal in Jordan, was it illegal in Egypt? Why had he even been in contact with the Muslim Brotherhood? And what did they have to do with flowers? Did I forget some important anniversary of ours?

I had so many questions floating around in my head that eloquence failed me.

"What?" I asked stupidly.

And then I corrected myself, "I mean, 'Thanks for the flowers....What?'"

That morning Andrew's Arabic class had a guest speaker, a parliamentary member of the Muslim Brotherhood. Andrew said it was very interesting to hear from him and he brought everyone in the class a small bouquet.


So that's how I came to have a bouquet of roses from the Muslim Brotherhood sitting on my dining room table, just in case you wanted to know.

I Won You!

Andrew's family took a little trip to Elmo, Utah over Spring Break. There is nothing of note about Elmo--about 350 people live there--they just went to say that they had been. Since they were down in that part of Utah and discovered there was little to do in Elmo, they visited the dinosaur museum in Price.

While walking around they had a discussion about Utah's state dinosaur, which apparently used to be the Allosaurus but is now the Utahraptor. Having just ended the discussion they stumbled upon the Utahraptor display, whereupon Jacob whispered to Emily,

"What's a Uta-ha Raptor?"

Utah, Jacob, Utah. Not Uta-ha.

He's lived here, in Utah, his whole life, which only adds to the hilarity.

Of course, I wouldn't doubt that, having been a Utah resident for almost seventeen years, he's picked up on the phrase "I won you!" to express a triumph, where others might say, "I beat you!"

That phrase has always bothered me. I first encountered it while playing games with a group of friends shortly after moving here. Since I was the only non-native Utahan in the room, I was severely outnumbered. I don't remember much about the game, except that I didn't win.

Whoever it was that won declared, "I won you!"

"Don't you mean, 'I beat you?'" I asked naively.

Everyone in the room was quite sure that the correct phraseology was in fact, "I won you!"

I have yet to be swayed, but I do like to use the phrase periodically in derision. Such was the case tonight. We were playing Triominoes. We like that game.

I had just won three games in a row and, contrary to Utah-belief, I didn't win Andrew at all. I won the game. I beat Andrew. I beat him over and over and over again. He was feeling a little sad so decided to challenge me to a "winner takes all" match, which I promptly declined. That would be like putting all my bragging rights on the line.

"What are you?" he asked, "Chicken? Come on, double or nothing!"

"That doesn't even make sense," I said calmly, "We're not gambling."

"Chicken!" he accused.

"Fine," I said, "If you get up and dance around the room like a chicken, I will think about it. If your dance is good enough, I'll play."

Apparently he really wanted to play another round because he stood up so fast that he chair fell over. His first attempt at a chicken dance was a little pathetic, due in part to the shock of knocking his chair over. I told him it was a no go. He got much more enthusiastic after that, flapping his arms just so and bawking at just the right time.

He was busy strutting around, bobbing his head, and pretending to peck at invisible feed when I finally gave in to his request under the condition that even if he won this round I would maintain my bragging rights.

And wouldn't you know it--I lost! But I'm perfectly fine with that because the truth is that I beat him fair and square in 3 of 3 games and he danced around the kitchen like a chicken for a good five minutes. He may have beaten me, but I certainly won him!