Brrrrrrrr

Since moving to Arizona there have been only a number of times I have said the words "Brrrrrr."  This past week has been unseasonably cold.  There were two days last week that didn't even make it into the 50's for a high.  I have NEVER seen it get below 55 degrees as a high so it was cold!  Especially since the week before it was in the upper 60's low 70's.  Does it bother anyone else that people say "expecially"?  Drives me nuts.  

We bundled up and I had some hot chocolate one morning after our quick poop walk (poop as in Jaitz....not me or Cru).  I am sorry for my Idaho family and friends--and the entire Eastern United States--for having to deal with the cold for more than one month.  I know many of you are SO sick of old man winter.  However, I do miss scarves.  I got nothing.

War is over

Christmas at our house was a little different this year.  Instead of a snowy (or rainy) window pane we awoke to bright blue skies and a balmy 65 degrees.  Rather than wandering around in sweats, ski socks (my feet get real cold), and a long sleeve get up, we dawned t-shirts and basketball shorts.  Yes this year we stayed in sunny Arizona for Christmas.  It was the first on our own but we rather enjoyed ourselves.  Yes it stunk not being around family and craziness but we made the most of this most wonderful time of year.

An old Seamons family tradition (back when my parents were poor....well, more poor than they claim to be now) a tradition in our household was to get KFC and cherry 7up on Christmas Eve.  We felt that tradition must be kept in our household.  So on the eve of Christmas we went to a GHETTO KFC in Chandler to pick up our bucket-o-chicken, tatoes and gravy and the tasty tasty biscuits.  We were the only white people there (that isn't what made it ghetto you racists....what made it ghetto was the fact that outside of the KFC they still had that HUGE bucket on a pole that people could see for miles and I'm pretty sure it used to spin.  Plus all the pictures inside on the walls were circa 1992.) As you can see from Zac's face - it was a hit.

Even Jaitz got a special Christmas Eve dinner.  He didn't breath while eating.  Just look how crazy his eyes are.  

After our tasty fried dinner we made our way to the fireplace to get warm.

This year we Skyped my family and participated in the shenanigans via the interweb.  Stan would take us around and whisper funny jokes that only Zac and I could hear.  It was nifty and felt like we were there in a way. 

Santa Claus visited us that night and we awoke to a heap of presents.  Zac and I woke up before Cru and we had to wait and wait until he woke up. He decided Christmas day was going to be a day he slept in until 9:30.  I know it will be different in a few years but still it was funny to have us just sitting there staring at each other, making noise, hoping that Cru would wake up.

He quite enjoyed opening presents!  He liked both the wrapping paper and the toy inside which was a plus.

Zac and I made pogacha (a Serbian bread) and made sandwiches that day.  Looks delish doesn't it.  It was. 

That night our dear friends the Moody's invited us to their families Italian Christmas bash.  I wish I had some pictures but alas, I do not.  It was AMAZING!!!!!  Gina has a hilarious and LOUD aunt that hosts it every year and we got to be a part of her huge family that night.  It was something I will never forget.  We lined up and had a WHOLE crap load of things to put in a pasta dish (I had shrimp, salami, carrots, broccoli, sun dried tomatoes, capers, onion, and 3 types of pasta).  The 'cooks' (Gina's cousins) slapped it all on the stove and tossed it in oil and garlic and then put a white and red sauce on it (and fresh basil and lemon juice).  I have been having dreams about that pasta every night since!  Holy CRAP it was amazing.  We ate outside (which I can now check off the list - meaning eating outside on Christmas Night) and caught up with our buddies since we haven't hung out with them as a couple for over a year (Bryce had to be a smarty pants and go to medical school in the Caribbean).  So amazing and I'm so grateful to have been a part of the fun. 

Thank you all (Mom, Mom D. & the Moody's) for making it a great Christmas even though we were on our own!

Do You Hear What I Hear?

I have been itching to put up my Christmas decor this year.  I think I have been anxious because this year we will be spending ol' Christmas here in the AZ.  The past two years I decorated for the lead up to Christmas but never really got the full enjoyment because we were in Idaho.  Since we are staying here, I was given an allowance to go and get some new Christmas decorations.  I have not purchased new decor since we got married over six years ago and half of that was given to us from people at our wedding reception.  Not sure who crocheted us our tree skirt, it was nice of you, but it must go now.  We put up our tree and then this happened.

 Cru can only roll one way and then he gets stuck in places.  Luckily this 'stuck place' kept him busy for a few minutes.  And-luckily-he can't reach any of the lights.

We are going to the Mesa Temple tomorrow to set up chairs for the Christmas festivities....well, Zac is.....so I had to get Cru a new hat.  I mean, it will be in the fifties tomorrow evening.  We are going to peruse the grounds and hopefully check out the lights if they are up while Zac does his man thing.  Then we are going to Costa Vida.  OH SNAP!

This is me getting the dreaded boogers out of the nose.  There are a few things I am anal about and a main one is boogers.  I HATE boogers.  They must be ridden of.  I thought he was pretty cute trying to bat my arm away.  Just for the record-I won.

Accio Wand!

There are few things more fantastic than a person or friend that can hook you up with things.  Wether it is a trip to a cabin (as mentioned before), a free bucket of golf balls to hit, or back stage passes to N'SYNC.  I have said many times that I could not own a business because I wouldn't make any money.  I would be giving everything away for free.  I had to watch myself when I worked at a golf course because I seriously wanted to give people free stuff all the time.  Basically-I love having connections and I wish I was the person that had the connections.  

Instead I must mooch off others who actually have the connection.  Cue (or is it Que) Michelle.  She hooked me up with a special screening to Harry Potter (SEFFAN) and the Deathly Hollows part une.  That's right-instead of waiting in a line that spanned most of the block to get into a midnight showing, I nonchalantly walked up to the ticket man and showed him my VIP ticket.  In case you didn't know, VIP means very important person.  I then walked into a theater that was rented out for a private screening and walked to my assigned seat.  AND Michelle had an extra Harkins cup so I got a big ol' pop for only a buck.  Did I mention that it was 7:00 pm?  Well-it was.  That's right-not sure how they got away with it but I pretty much got to be at the premier.  I am surprised that Daniel Radcliff wasn't sitting next to me-that's how important I felt.

Serious.

Here is the gang-me, Michelle, Mel, and Aunt Nancy.  And the creeps behind us that I am pretty sure haven't read the book since they seemed shocked at every turn.

 And this my friends, is how people get their nerd on.  There were an array of spectacles to look at including THE Lord Voldemort and Harry Potter.

 Here are a couple snitches (two dudes in bedazzled biker helmets)

 I thought this one was the most accurate-as far as nerd dress upers go.  Bellatrix Lestrange.

 Here are a couple house elfs.

And if you can tell by my sweet panoramic function on my camera-this is the line to get into the midnight showing and I took the picture after I saw the movie (it was about 9:45 p.m.)

I will admit to any person and I am not ashamed that I am a Harry Potter fan.  It was such a fun time and the movie was very accurate compared to the book...which I like....so it was good.  I felt like a super star getting to go to the private screening-like I belonged to some sort of club.  Some sort of wizzarding club....some sort of DA club.

Sweet Potato Pie

To get the full potential of this video, you should push pause on the music player on the right hand side. :)



I like him because he thinks I'm funny.

I'm in a $3,500 suit! C'mon!

Things in this world I could do without.  Do you see that black dot in the photo below?  Looks like possibly a candy wrapper-maybe a rock...

 Zooming in you can see the horror that is eight creepy legs, a color blacker than Mark May's soul (don't be a hater Mark), curled up SICK body and oh yes a bright red hour glass on it's abdomen deeming this one of the most poisonous spiders in the universe (okay North America)-the she devil herself-THE BLACK WIDOW.

This is just one of six fetchers we've found at our complex.  Zac unloaded half of our spider spray killer on this jerk.  I see their webs everywhere in our complex.  Luckily these ladies are not aggressive and prefer the outside compared to the inside but still.  I have a baby chow and a curious dog so you must die. C'mon!!!!

In brighter news-It was Zac's 29th birthday!  We celebrated by eating.

And we watched the BSU game.

That is all you really need in life.  Cupcakes and football.

The Verdict is in....

This is where I have been spending the last eight days of my life - the Ada County Courthouse in Boise Idaho.

It was an unseasonably warm April afternoon in 2004 when I was driving my dodge stratus listening to my newly purchased CD and dreaming about new loves, boating, schmorgasborgs, and snow cones.  You see it felt as though summer was just around the river bend (should I marry Kokoum?) and I was thrilled for the change in the air.  Plus it was Friday and back then that meant a variety of things could happen from a night game of tennis, to crashing the young single adults dance, or creating a hand clap band.  Needless to say, a few things were on my mind as I approached the section of lights on state street that I will refer to as "Does there seriously need to be this many lights in a row" and for short term will be referred to as "Stop Light City".  Now the stupid thing about all these lights from about 13th street to 25th street is that they aren't timed lights.  Everywhere else in the City of Trees if there is a section of lights in a row they are timed but oh no, not this section.

So there I am just driving along through Stop Light City when I notice to my right out of my peripheral vision, a car suddenly comes to a screeching halt.  It is about this time that I realize I am heading into the intersection and once there I decide to look up at the light.  Once I looked up, I saw the very color I was hoping I wouldn't see - that being red of course - and took appropriate action to slam on my breaks and make a gurgled noise in my throat that I figured would help stop the car at a faster rate.  Just as I am slamming my breaks, a white object was looming in front of me.  I thought for a split second of the split second that all of this took place that I might be able to stop and avoid said object.  Unfortunately, I was unable to stop and hit what happened to be a van on the back quadrant (you may say I T-boned them).

I think I said the word crap and avoided the swears (to my credit) and then proceeded to a nearby parking lot to get information and what not.  Thank the stars alive nobody was hurt and we chatted and I cried and then the police man came and I didn't get a ticket and we all went on our merry way.  I chalked it up to learning experience and got on with my life.

Almost seven years later and after my marriage, graduation from college, Zac's graduation, a move to Berkeley, trips to Mexico, Washington DC, Ohio, California, Idaho, Utah, Nevada, a move to Scottsdale Arizona, a move to Chandler Arizona, the birth of my first born son, and tons of other adventures in between, I was being sued by the man in the van that I hit.  Why you say?  Supposedly this 'fender bender' has caused him years of pain and suffering and thousands of dollars in medical bills.

For the past week and a half, I have been stuck in a court room from 9-2 everyday with a 12 person jury trial dealing with this weak little accident.  I THANKFULLY have had my mother here to be able to help me out with Cru.  They have basically set up shop in a conference room on the back side of our court room where he could sleep and I could feed him.  She took him on walks and has been the ultimate lifesaver in all of this.  This trial has been set, moved, canceled, and settled for almost 4 years now and the dude finally got his day in court with me.

Thankfully I have an ALL-STAR counsel that have been working on this case for years and have found over 1,000 pages of medical history on the man I hit.  It basically boiled down that he claimed he received a closed head injury from this accident which has caused him to be unable to sing publicly, caused tinnitus, caused the left side of his face to sag, made him anxious, caused his allergies to get worse, and caused him to forget things and caused problems with his speech fluency.  He told 3 or 4 doctors that he did not hit his head in the accident (and it was documented) and then about 2 years later he suddenly remembered that oh wait! he did hit his head.  The evidence was stifling but you just never know how a jury is going to rule.

The icing on the cake was a video that is on the Internet that was found of him at some Christian news channel in Colorado.  In court he was this fragile man who couldn't hear, think, or respond to questions because he was in so much pain and confused.  His head shook worse than a leaf in Autumn and I really did feel bad for him (not thinking that this accident ever caused this, but that in fact he was pretty ill).  So then this video was found and WOAH it was a completely different person.  Full of energy and could speak well and answer questions with no problem and didn't even show his head shaking once!  I think the jury saw right through that.

So yesterday the verdict came in.  I was found unanimously guilty of inattentive driving (which I thought might happen).  He was found not guilty of inattentive driving (which I also thought would happen).  So then it came down to the damages that would be a awarded.  SIDE BAR: In closing arguments my lawyer asked that the jury award him $25,000 or less (because I did cause minor whipblash and minor damages to his car) and his lawyer asked for $250,000 to cover future medical expenses.  I was expecting the jury to come back with $25,000 or more.  So to my surprise, the judge read that the jury awarded him $4,100.  You should have seen my lawyers face - his eyes were bigger than Cru's and his mouth opened up and then he smiled from ear to ear.  We couldn't have asked for a better verdict.  My insurance was going to settle with him for $38,000. Whoops on his part.  I think the jury was TICKED that this silly little accident turned into an eight day trial!  I don't blame them.

Needless to say it was a draining week and a half, full of TONS of information and I did get to learn a lot how the judicial systems works.  I felt like justice was served in this case.  Me and the bailiff became buddies and traded candy throughout the trial.  We had to do it discretely because he isn't suppose to show bias.  He said if we got caught he was going to tell the judge I made him give me candy.  His parting words of wisdom were "Don't get in anymore accidents!"  And I hope I never have to do that again.