Anniversary gifts at gunpoint (kind of)

Today, as Nancy will probably mention in a later blog post, is our third anniversary! It's incredible to think that we've been married for three years already!

Since today was my last day of classes and I had several large papers due today (and one tomorrow I still have to finish), and since we're babysitting the Lewises, we didn't have time to do anything special this year.

Nevertheless, I was determined to get Nancy something today. The road from Midan Victoria to the Lewis' house is lined with florists. They're selling mostly poinsettias and trimmed bushes that look like Christmas trees, but they still have a large collection of "regular" flowers.

After getting off the bus, I headed over to the closest bank so I could test my hopefully-newly-fixed debit card. For some reason UCCU had the wrong expiration date in their system so my card would never work, and would always trigger a warning call and an account freeze whenever I tried it. I finally got that fixed yesterday.

The bank is on the ground floor of an apartment building, and is next to several other offices and shops, one of which was a reputable looking florist. My plan was to test my debit card and then get some flowers for Nancy.

I passed the surly looking guard with an ancient AK-47 and went to the special private ATM booth, only to discover that the ATM was out of order. I mentally scratched that off my list of things to do and quickly left the booth, to the guard's surprise. He immediately jerked up his head and stared me down suspiciously. Apparently not getting money from a broken ATM is suspicious.

I walked past him again and over to the flower shop, his piercing stare unbroken. I stood outside the shop and looked at all the fancy flowers. There were blue ones, purple ones, yellow and red ones--it was incredible. As I stood there in my flower-induced stare, the guard yelled at me.

"Move along! Go! Leave!"

I yelled back to him and told him I was just looking. He kind of nodded and finally looked away, over to the crazy traffic on Boor Said. I looked back to the flowers, deciding if I really wanted to buy any. I don't know how flowers work; did I have to choose which color combination and/or arrangement to use?

As I worried about it more, the guard yelled at me again, this time a lot louder. I turned around and saw him pick up his gun and walk over to me. He came over to me, and indicating with his gun, said,

"I told you to get moving! Leave now!"

Not wanting to provoke him (and his gun) further, I left. I passed some other florists on my way, but I turned back and saw that the guard was still there, watching me from a distance. I figured it was probably wise to not stop again, since the guy probably thought I was a bank-robbing spy/terrorist with an affinity for flowers.

So, have a happy anniversary, Nancy, despite the lack of celebratory flora! It wasn't worth starting an international incident...

1577846.298 minutes

1577846.298 minutes. 1577846.298 moments so dear. 1577846.298 minutes. How do you measure, measure 3 years?

A little over three years ago Andrew and I were doing what any normal engaged couples does. We were going over our finances and making plans about how we could pay for school and rent and insurance and food and fun and...

How many hours would I need to work? How many hours would he need to work? How much money could we afford to spend on rent? On groceries? How in the world were we going to earn enough money to fund that crazy study abroad in Jordan? How would we ever be able to afford textbooks let alone children? How were we going to merge our schedules so that we didn't have to be driving back and forth from campus all day? How were we going to afford to put gas in our car at all?

In short, we were budgeting. You get the picture, I'm sure.

I don't really know if normal engaged couples do this, but we're both kind of nerdy and I'm a major stress case so it had to be done. Andrew is not a major stress case, but he is a nerd and is as unfond* of the idea of going into debt as I am, and so was very willing to go over finances with me. It probably was not the first time we'd drafted a budget. I think we did this several times before we actually got married. Leaving the nest was a little difficult for me.

I don't quite remember the circumstances but Andrew made a promise to me.

"Give me three years," he said, "In three years I will be a millionaire."

Now, I knew at the time this wasn't a serious promise, but it kind of became one of those things we started to say to each other all the time. Whenever we'd wish aloud something both of us knew wasn't possible we'd say, "Three years!" Kind of like code for, "You wish!"

It's been three years now and although we aren't technically millionaires (ready for the mushy line?**) we are millionaires in love and happiness.

Besides, we've recently added another "You wish!" phrase to our familial dialect. It goes like this, "After Egypt!" It gets used after a certain someone mentions a desire for a certain iPhone, but I'm not going to mention any names.*** Our original "three year" plan has been extended to include a rather indefinite time period known as "after Egypt" which is a subcategory of an even larger-scale indefinite time period known as "grad school."

We're happy, even without the iPhone, and that's what counts!

Andrew is so amazing! He works so long and hard to take care of me and Rachel. He stays up late doing homework and gets up early to go to school and still takes time to make sure that we're happy. He is such a great Daddy for Rachel. Her first word in the morning is usually "Dada!" They play so cute together. A little too rough for my taste, but still cute. Rachel loves him! He's so great with kids--even after taking care of 5 extra kids all week he's still happy and has his sense of humor about him.

He is always helpful around the house and will do the dishes or clean the bathroom or cook dinner or put out the laundry to dry or whatever I ask him to do. I don't even mind that I have to ask him to help out because a) he always helps willingly and happily and b) he's really too busy to notice that things get left undone. That said, I don't mean he never helps out without being asked, because he often surprises me with a clean kitchen or folded laundry. He's so wonderful!

Sometimes he just stares at me with an awed expression on his face until I say, "What?" and he says, "You're just so beautiful!" I love that he thinks I'm beautiful even in my sweat pants and an old t-shirt. And I love that he sometimes will pick out a necklace or earrings or a favorite shirt of mine and ask me to wear them. I think it's cute.

And I love how absolutely smart he is. He has taught me so many new words and expanded my world view and is most definitely the ridiculously good-looking knight in shining armor of my dreams. I'd go on but I've used up my quota of mushy lines for this entry. In short, I love him!

Thanks for making me a millionaire of happiness, Andrew!

*Technically not a word.
**What good is an anniversary post without a mushy line?
***Andrew, it's Andrew! Andrew wants an iPhone!

A big slice of bedtime

When ReRe came over yesterday to clean the house, neither Sam or Rachel were up yet. Sam's continued his lovely trend of waking up to terrorize the night with his screams which means he sleeps in a little later in the morning.

"They are still sleeping?" ReRe whispered when she came inside.

I told her that they were and she knocked on wood for me. How thoughtful.

"My son," she said, "wakes up at 6:00 in the morning everyday!"

"Oh, ReRe,that's awful! Rachel doesn't wake up until around 8 or 9, usually, but we put her to bed pretty late for a baby her age."

"What time do you put her to bed?" ReRe asked.

"Between 8 and 10," I said.

"And she sleeps all through the night?" she asked.

"Yes..." I trailed off when ReRe started talking again.

And this is where I remembered that I was speaking to an Arab.

"I put my boy to bed at 1:30 in the morning," she said. Her son is about a month older than Rachel, "And he sleeps until 6 in the morning and then I take him and drop him off at my friend's house and he goes back to sleep until about 1 in the afternoon."

"Oh, ReRe! How do you do it?" I asked.

"I take a nap everyday for 1 or 2 hours," she answered simply.

Optimally, so do I. Optimally I'd be in bed by 10 and up by 7 and have a nap everyday. I don't think that's happened once this semester though. It's been rough. I like my sleep.

Arabs, as a culture, seem to think they can do without it. How can ReRe go to bed after midnight, get up at 6 in the morning, take care of her son, and then show up to work by 8 AM with a smile on her face and work all day long only to go pick up her son and care for him until after midnight? And when does she nap? I try to live by the rule of not napping after dark because if I go to sleep when it's dark I want to sleep forever. ReRe must not use that rule.

When does she nap, then? When do Arabs sleep?

I've yet to figure it out. We were talking with a Palestinian taxi driver on our way home from Thanksgiving dinner (obviously a few weeks ago) and Andrew asked him if he actually gets up and goes to the mosque for the middle-of-the-night dawn adhan or if he just kind of rolls out of bed, prays, and jumps back in before the bed gets cold.

This has been a question burning in the back of my mind for years but I've always been too tired to get up at 4 AM and stumble to the mosque to check for myself. So I assigned Andrew to ask someone about it for me. And apparently they--at least this taxi driver--actually get up for the day after that prayer.

Prayer is better than sleep, after all.

I have no problem getting up early in the morning. When we lived in Burnaby my dad used to leave for work before anyone else had to be up and I would often go climb in bed with my mom after he left and would try to talk to her. She'd always tell me to go back to sleep for some reason. When I was four that didn't make much sense to me, but twenty years later I can see it's because she didn't want me chattering away to her about my favorite color at the crack of dawn.

I used to get up and go to work with my sister when she would have to open the pool by herself at 5 AM. Quite willingly, too. I would come home when my mom was coming home from dropping kids off at early morning seminary and then instead of going back to bed I'd just stay up and do my schoolwork before the day had really even started. I homeschooled myself for 2 years and usually had my schoolwork finished before Josie woke up.

Then I started early morning seminary myself and stopped going to work with my sister. But then I moved to Utah and started working opening shifts at the pool the summer I turned 16.

I have no problem getting up early. Except now. I do now. Because I love sleep so much.

All through university I tried to be in bed by 10 PM, except on weekends and holidays and extenuating (homework) circumstances (like the time my laptop crashed with my 20 page paper on it a few days before it was due and my thumb drive copy corrupted and my floppy disk copy corrupted and I just about died). And I would usually have class or work first thing in the morning.

But then I married Andrew and as much as I love sleep, I love Andrew, too. And he's a night owl.

So I switched. I learned to sleep in royally and stay up later than I've ever stayed up in my life.

Staying up for New Year's used to be torture. Now it's like midnight schmidnight.

The idea of getting up at 4 AM makes me shudder. I wake up to kiss Andrew goodbye and then I sleep in until Rachel gets up. And then when she takes naps (which is never consistent anymore--who gives up naps at 1.5 years old?) I take a nap as well. I just love sleep.

And as much as I'm a converted night owl, I'm not an Arab. I don't understand how they can have dinner at 10 or 11 or 12 at night and let their kids stay up that late and then get off to school and work in the morning. I just don't get it. When do they sleep?

As a side story, we had FHE last night and were having cake for our treat. Poor Jessica's been working hard this week. She's had several projecty things and performances this week and has been such a great help around the house. She's pretty exhausted and she likes cake, too.

Emma didn't want her cake because I put some crushed up candycane on the icing and she doesn't like peppermint so she ate the bottom of the cake and was just pushing the rest around on her plate. Jessica is a growing girl and can often be found volunteering to eat other's leftovers. This night was no different.

"Hey, Emma," she asked, "Can I have the rest of your bedtime?"

She said she was just thinking about the two things she wanted most in life at that given moment (cake and bedtime) and they just got mixed up coming out of her mouth. She still ended up with Emma's cake (and Sam's) and I told her about the dangers of eating others leftovers. I was notorious for spitting in my ice cream (to help soften it up so that I could stir it) and then not finishing it. My sister would always, always volunteer to eat it and my parents didn't clue her in until just a few years ago.

I no longer spit in my ice cream, but I do like cake with my bedtime.

Happy Birthday from Rachel

Dear Grammy and Grandpa,

I drew you a picture today for your birthdays! I chose a pink paper because I like pink. I drew with a white crayon like I usually do but was a little disappointed to see that it actually showed up on this paper. So I put that crayon back and instead used a light pinky-orange color to do most of my coloring. It matched the paper perfectly! So perfectly that you can hardly see any of my scribbles at all.

I also used grey because Mommy said that you like pink and grey, Naunie.

I asked Mommy to help me trace my hands. It was so fun we did it over and over again! I helped. Then I wanted Mommy to trace my feet, so I stood on the paper. It was harder for me to help trace my feet than my hands because my legs kept getting in the way.

I even traced my nose for you!

Mommy said she wished she had the camera ready so that she could snap my picture when I put my nose down to be traced. I don't know why since you can clearly see that my nose got traced. Oh, well. Mommy is so silly; she's always taking pictures of me.


When I was finished with my picture, Mommy asked me to sit on the couch and hold it up nicely for you so that you could see it. So I did! Didn't I do a good job? I was concentrating so hard on doing a good job, that's why I couldn't smile!

I hope you both had happy birthdays. It was fun to get to see you today. Thank you for looking at my belly button. Sometimes my bellybutton gets lonely because no one ever wants to see it. I don't know why.

I love you lots and lots and I'm taking care of Mommy! Happy Birthday again!

Mommy and Daddy both say hi! And my bellybutton says hi, too!

Love, Rachel

Primary Nativity

At the branch party yesterday the primary performed the nativity pageant we've been working on for the past couple of weeks. It turned out alright, but was rather stressful for me (and Phyllis and Michelle) because Simmone, who was basically the "director" and who is also our pianist, and Deneece, the chorister, both ended up sick at home.

We were left to scramble around and get everything organized, but, as I said, it turned out fine. Carolee played the piano, I led the music, Michelle and Phyllis cued the children. It was...busy. We had the children bring their own costumes but brought garland for the angels. It was a good thing we did because there ended up being several more angels in attendance than we'd ever had in primary. Several of the Arab males in our branch have families, but their families aren't members of the church so they only come to parties, which is great!

All the children that showed up wanted to participate, though, so we had plenty of angels. A heavenly host, really.



Grant was the star--he's the one wrapped up from head to toe in garland. It was itchy, apparently. He was so funny though! When his part came up he stood up on a chair and stretched his arms out wide, smiling for the whole world to see. He did an excellent job!


We had a hard time taking pictures because I was leading the music and Andrew was busy chasing Rachel and Sam around. And the layout of the chapel is really awkward and there's this huge pillar right in the middle of the room. We did get a few pictures, however, focusing mainly on Jacob, Emma, and Megan since their parents weren't there to watch them. Jacob and Emma were Joseph and Mary; Megan was an angel.

Mary (Emma) and Joseph (Jacob)

Megan was upset about her dress all day. It's the same dress she wore to be a fairy for Halloween.

"It's not an angel dress, it's a fairy dress! I can't be an angel in a fairy dress!" she cried.

Emma told her that fairies and angels are almost exactly the same thing.

"No, they're not," she insisted.

"But they both wear pretty dresses," I said.

She perked up a bit when Andrew brought out the garland and we made a halo for her. But then, about a half hour before we left for the party, she was goofing around--walking on her knees or something like that--and she fell over and landed on her head. She got a huge goose egg on her forehead and cried about how angels don't have bumps on their heads, etc. So we brushed her hair and pulled it down kind of in front of her face so that it covered the goose egg and she was happy enough to leave the house.

She was supposed to wear a shirt under her dress, but when the time came to get on stage she was so concerned about it and started crying, so Michelle helped her take off her shirt and go out in just the dress. She ended up being a rather immodest angel, but I don't think anyone noticed. I think you can see the goose egg in this picture...on the right hand side.

Angel Megan

The Young Women sang Mary's Lullaby for the primary. It was so beautiful. They rehearsed so long and hard for it, learned the harmony, and memorized all the words. They did a great job! Jessica is in the bright turquoise shirt.


Andrew, Jessica, Carolee and I also sang a number in the pageant: A Shepherd's Carol. It's a round and Simmone was supposed to get a group together to sing it, but she forgot. So at 5:30 when we arrived at the church I grabbed up Andrew, Carolee, and Jessica and we practiced for all of 5 minutes. We did not sing as well as the Young Women, but I think that's okay because there were a lot of other songs sung by the congregation, and more importantly by our primary.

Nothing invites the spirit into a room like a choir of children singing, especially when they're all angels!

Ho, ho, ho! Who wouldn't go?

We were outside on the lawn of the church villa eating a lovely Christmas dinner yesterday when Santa arrived in his bright red suit.

"Ho, ho, ho!" he laughed and, like the pied piper, was followed by a trail of cheering children all the way into the church.

But not Rachel. She screamed and ran to me, instead. I took her inside to meet Santa and she was not impressed. She watched with horror as each of her friends went up and sat, willingly,* on his lap. She could not believe her eyes.

Finally it was her turn. I tried to get her to walk up to Santa all by herself, but when it was obvious that wasn't going to happen I went up with her. She totally wigged out. That blur in the pictures? That's her.


She didn't want anything to do with Santa at all. When he tried to give her a present she shoved it back at him and yelled, "Nooooo!"

The best picture of Rachel (with Santa) that we got

I took the present for her, anyway, since I knew she'd want one and we retreated to the farthest corner of the room (by Rachel's insistence) to open it. Inside was Kaleidoscope the Cat, which Rachel thought was totally awesome. They also got a little package of candy, which Rachel devoured in no time flat.

Rachel and Sam comparing clinging to their toys

The funniest part is that Santa was Brother Fife, not some strange man in the mall. He did have a good makeup job, though, and it took me a while to figure out the true identity of our branch's Santa. Maybe next year Rachel will be more willing to visit with Santa.

*Sam, Lydia, and Finn also were not so willing.

Straight from the dinner table

Today was kind of crazy. We went to bed shortly after midnight last night--Andrew and I were up writing and editing papers, respectively. It felt like our heads had just hit the pillow when I heard some stirring from Sam's room.

"He'll go back to sleep," I thought. But he didn't.

About 10 minutes later there was a full-on temper tantrum going on in there, complete with yelling, kicking, and screaming. If he knew profanity I'm sure that would have been involved.

"Sam," I said gently, "What's wrong, buddy?"

My question was answered with even louder screaming and flailing limbs directed at my face, so I backed off and started 20 questions.

"What do you need, Sam? Do you need to go potty? Do you need a diaper change?" More screaming. "Do you want to read a story? Do you want your mom? Do you want some milk? Do you want Brother Heiss? Do you want to go to sleep?" More screaming.

After a few minutes I went back to the bedroom and told Andrew it was his turn. He fared no better than I. And his screaming woke up Rachel so she was now screaming, too.

So I got her up and we both joined Andrew to see if we could get Sam to calm down. I got him a cup of milk while Andrew continued to question him. He refused the milk and kept on screaming so we kept on guessing.

"Do you want to watch Lion King?" I asked. I think we've watched that a good 50 times already and we've only been here 4 full days.

Sam stopped screaming. He stopped flailing his arms. He stopped kicking his legs. He took a deep breath.

"Yeah," he said. I had guessed correctly.

We gave him the milk and Andrew cuddled him while I cuddled Rachel.

"We can't watch Lion King right now because it's still time to sleep." I said, but it wasn't that easy to convince him to go back to bed.

45 minutes later and Sam had finally quieted down and I was able to turn my attention on getting Rachel back to bed.

It was a sad moment when the alarm went off at 6 AM! Most of the kids, including Rachel and Sam, woke up a little grumpy. So today wasn't a very good day and I was quite grumpy myself by dinnertime.

Still it was humorous. Always humorous. I am so happy that Rachel's starting to talk now because I really want to hear about what goes on in that little head of hers.

I made stroganoff for dinner tonight. Emma and Megan didn't really want to try it since it had mushrooms in it. Sam said it was "nasty." Who knew he even knew that word? Eventually Emma and Megan decided that plain noodles were bland and tried the sauce. They seemed to like it. They ate everything on their plates, but I'm not sure that counts as evidence because this is what Emma said,

"Sister Heiss, we've had such wonderful meals while you've been here...so..."

Long pregnant pause.

"Can we have McDonald's tomorrow?" she gushed out.

Everyone else seemed to enjoy dinner. That or they were great actors. Plus, Emma doesn't like strawberry ice cream (or fruit at all) so her opinion doesn't really count.

And she was very appreciative of Friday's dinner--we made pancakes with blueberries (and special blueberry-free ones for Little Miss Fruit-Hater Emma)--so appreciative, in fact, that she drew us a picture.

The likeness of Rachel is amazing. That's pretty much what she looked like on Friday. I wish we had taken a picture of her in her dress so that you could see how exact this drawing is of her. The drawings of me, Andrew, and Emma not so much. But that's pretty much Rachel right there. In fact, I didn't even need to take a picture because Emma drew her so well.


If you can't read the words, it says, "Thank you for the pancakes! From: Emma, To: the Heisses"

Emma's speech bubble says "They taste delicious!" and the sticker she's talking says, "Good job!"

Rachel's speech bubble sticker says, "suh-weet!" I wish the flash didn't erase it--it also has a monkey face on it and I think it's hilarious.

Anyway, later this evening Emma was in the kitchen and I heard her yell (at the dishes?), "Die, fi-end!"

I didn't have the heart to tell her that's a one-syllable word. She was actually doing her job and I didn't want to interrupt that. She's been having a hard time dealing with her dish duty--she has it for the whole month, which might seem like a long time but then she gets two months off so in the end it works out.

She was pretty upset that we had ice cream after she loaded the dishwasher (with Jessica's help) and Megan was sweet enough to wash the dishes, by hand, for her. Megan just wanted to play in the water and I told her that she could...if she washed the bowls and spoons. So there she was, happily washing away when Emma walked into the kitchen and yelled,

"Hey! That's my job!!"

Seriously?? She's been complaining about having to do the dishes all week, and here's her little sister kindly washing the dishes for her. I pulled her aside.

"Emma, think about it for a minute."

"But she's doing my jo-ob!" she whined, again making a two-syllable word out of one that should be singular.

"Exactly," I said.

She looked at me and cocked her head. A coy smile spread across her face, "Oooooh..." she said.

"And don't yell at your sister," I sighed, "It's not nice."

Don't worry; we still want more children. They're just too funny to pass up, exhausting as they are. I can't imagine not wanting children. One of my childhood friends, Lindsey, is also playing mom right now and she's decided that she never wants kids and babysitting just reminds her of that fact.

Let's remember that Lindsey...can barely manage to take care of herself, let alone children....C. and I both have to work Thursday. WHO IS GOING TO PICK UP THE KIDS? I start to flip out more because 'whoisgoingtopickupthekids' isn't a conversation that I've had with C. Conversations involving children are more those involving NOT spawning anything from my uterus, EVER.

I can't tell you how sad I felt when I read that. My life would be so empty without Rachel; I can't imagine giving up my birthright willingly. So many people I know are having a really hard time having children naturally and it's really, really hard for them to deal with. Families are essential.

They are also kind of hard, but once the kids are all in bed and you write down all the funny things they said during the day it makes it all worth it.

It's a hit!

Staying in the Lewis household has really expanded Rachel's vocabulary. This morning Sam and Rachel followed me into the kitchen, squabbling, as usual. They really are good friends and like to play with each other--it's just that Rachel is an oldest/only child and is used to getting her own way and Sam is the youngest/baby child and is used to his older siblings giving him his own way. Since they both always want their own way they run into a lot of conflicts.

Oh, and Rachel thinks she has to hold/touch Sam all the time and he's not too fond of constant hugging. It's kind of nice for me because she doesn't follow me around all day long holding onto my legs. Instead she follows Sam around.

Anyway, they ran into the kitchen yelling and screaming.

"Achel! Push!" Sam tattled.

As soon as he said this Rachel shot back, "Sam! Hit! Hit!"

She hit herself just to make sure I knew for sure she meant to say hit.

Isn't it great how educational family living is? Rachel has learned how to tattletale and to say hit all in 4 days. Amazing!

Flashback Friday: Why our song is our song

Some relatives gave us some money for Christmas, which we quickly spent...mostly on Amazon.com. Our entertainment in Egypt is rather limited. We have satellite TV but 90% of the channels are music videos or shop-from-home stations. Mostly we watch MBC 1, 2, 3, and 4. If we watch at all, that is.

We rarely turn the television on. Occasionally Rachel and I will watch some cartoons that were translated into Arabic from English from Japanese, or sometimes if we know there's going to be a good movie on we'll schedule a time to watch it. But mostly we do other things, which is great.

But there are times we just want to watch a movie and we don't really have many to choose from.

And our Christmas collection is pretty skimpy. We don't even own Elf--except for the fact that we just purchased it from Amazon--and it's "our" movie. How could we not own "our" movie?

Lucky for us, the Lewises own it so last night after we got all the kids (their kids and Rachel) in bed Andrew and I sat down to watch it together.

As per his request I'll explain why it's special to us for this Friday's Flashback.

I'm sure I've mentioned before that we got married in December, right around Christmas. Everyone told me it would be awful and that I'd regret it forever--the date, not the marriage--but I don't. Granted, it was a little stressful at the time with finals and the wedding and Christmas just around the corner but I think it would be stressful no matter what time of the year we had gotten married.

We chose our date for a number of reasons:
a) Finals were over. Not a huge deal because I was only taking internship credit and Italian so I only had one final. I believe it was on December 13th, so it was a couple of days before the wedding.
b) We wanted to get married before Andrew left for his study abroad in Amman, Jordan. Mostly so that I could go with him because we couldn't bear to be separated for that long.
c) We wanted to get married before my brother David left for his study abroad in Brazil. Mostly because I wanted him to witness our wedding because my dad wasn't able to be there.
d) The temple was available that date.

Our most pressing issues were really B and C. David was leaving for his internship in Brazil in January and wouldn't be back until April. Andrew was leaving for his study abroad in Jordan in May, just days after David arrived home. And we really didn't want to be married that soon before moving to the Middle East together. Not that that would have been a bad thing and no offense to anyone who's done that (ahem, Joneses...Schillings?) but I just figured that getting married is stressful enough and didn't want to throw culture shock into the mix.

So we got married in December. The 16th, to be exact. A Friday. At 3 o'something in the afternoon. In the Mt. Timpanogos Temple. In sealing room 6 (or 4...I can't remember but I have it written down).

Wouldn't it be romantic if I could actually remember all those details off the top of my head? Unfortunately I've entered the haze otherwise known as 'motherhood' and my memory just ain't what she used to be.

We had our reception the day after we got married, which was nice because then we weren't all exhausted and/or jittery. The day after our reception we went to church in our new ward since we hadn't left for our honeymoon yet.

I had to introduce myself in Relief Society and said something like this, "I'm Nancy Heiss and I just go married. We moved into the Dillenbeck's old apartment..."

"Oh, when did you get married?" someone asked.

"Friday," I answered.

"Well, no wonder you two were so cuddly!" someone else called out. Many other embarrasing comments ensued. I just sank slowly into my chair, beet red. I couldn't wait to get out of there. And lucky for me we did get out of there and all the way to Italy.

That sounds romantic, I'm sure. The only reason we went, though, was because I had already been planning a trip to Europe and couldn't cancel my tickets. Some friendly people at my father-in-law's office pooled together to buy a ticket for Andrew, which was so very nice of them!

We flew out December 20th and had to fight other passengers to change seats with us so that we could sit by each other on every leg of the journey. It was kind of a hassle, but worth it because we just couldn't bear to be separated.

With it being Christmastime and all the radio station that you can listen to with the headphones (that they used to give out for free but now charge you for) was playing Christmas music and since Andrew and I like Christmas music (and since we were given headphones for free) we were listening to it.

When Baby, It's Cold Outside came on I tapped Andrew on the arm. We both pulled our headphones off.

"I like this song," I mentioned.

"Okay," he mumbled sleepily, put his headphones back on and started dozing off again.

Perhaps it's because I had only recently became aware of the song, or perhaps it's because the song suddenly got really popular in Italy in December 2005, but either way we heard the song all over for the rest of our honeymoon. All over. In metro stations and train stations and air ports and restaurants. We heard it so often that it kind of became the unofficial theme song of our honeymoon.

After spending a day in London and touring through Rome (Andrew's mission stomping grounds) we went up north to Vicenza to visit my...aunt.* It was a lot colder in northern Italy than we were expecting. It was rather drizzly and my coat, we found out, was not waterproof. After spending a half-day in Verona and freezing our little tushies off, we decided to call it a day and go back to the Eldredge's to relax and warm up.

No one was home so we decided to watch a movie. Andrew chose Elf because neither of us had remembered seeing it before. Imagine our surprize when Buddy and Jovie started singing Baby, It's Cold Outside.

Andrew and I both burst out laughing because we'd heard that song so many times already it was getting to be ridiculous. It seemed as if fate was trying to assign us a "song" and since we didn't previously have a "song" we stopped fighting against the inevitable and adopted Baby, It's Cold Outside as our song. And Elf as our movie because, hey, why not? It's just one more reason to get sentimental and lovey-dovey.

*What do you call someone who was your aunt's best friend growing up, who was also friends with your mother, who married your aunt's husband's cousin, who is also distantly related (like 3rd or 4th cousins) to your mom and aunt anyway? I don't know, either.

Growing up we mostly just called them "The Turkey Cousins" because they lived in Turkey for several years (their dad is stationed with the army as a civil servant/school administrator guy). When I was little and we were visiting my aunt at the same time they were I asked my mom if they even spoke English. That's how much I thought they were actually from Turkey. They don't live in Turkey anymore (they don't live in Italy anymore, either) but I still call them The Turkey Cousins.

Fear Day, and other quotes from the Lewis children

Dear Sara and Kevan,

Just in case you were missing your brood, we thought we'd share with you some of the lovely things they've been saying and doing the last few days.

We took Sam and Rachel swimming on Thursday morning; we had a pool at our disposal and we couldn't resist. Sam wanted to spend most of his time in the baby pool, therefore Rachel wanted to spend most of her time in the baby pool, therefore we both spent most of our time in the baby pool. We had fun, even if it was a little crowded and cold.

"Brudda Heith! Thplash Achel!" that means, "Brother Heiss! Splash Rachel!"

"Heiiiiiiith! Heiiiiiiiiith! Baby poo told!" that means, "Heiss, Heiss! Baby pool cold!"

"No, Achel! Thplash Tham!" that means, "No, Rachel! Don't splash Sam!"

"No Wache, No Wache, No Wache," means "No Rache, No Rache, No Rache."

"Doe, Brudda Heith, doe!" meant "Go, Brother Heiss, Go!"

Sam wasn't the only one talking up a storm. Rachel was also having a fun time. Most of what she said was nonsense, but she did get a few words out.

"Yeah, yeah, yeah, yessssss!" was said as she walked from one side of the baby pool to the other.

"Dada! Nooooo!" was yelled when I took her out of the baby pool and into the big pool. She wanted to stay and play with Sam and Daddy but I was too cold.

Rachel has been copying everything Sam says, even outside the pool. She's repeated Pispaus Tee (Christmas Tree), Brudda Heith, and even said potty today.

We are also getting a kick out of the other kids.

Megan and Emma declared today "Fair Day" as in "let's all be fair and equal." Somehow I don't think they thought we were being fair. Megan drew me a picture, kind of as an invitation to Fair Day, but I think her original plan was to try to make me feel guilty about not being "fair."


I wasn't sure if I should be afraid or not. I think my favorite parts are the "not" and the frowny face that are scribbled out. "Happy not fair fear day!"

In conjunction with the absolutely fair day Emma and Megan were having, Megan said this, "Emma, will you please get me another piece of paper of whatever colour you are going to use?"

And lastly, from Jacob, "That's the main artery in my leg! You pinched it!"

How could you not laugh everyday?