There’s an episode of Seinfeld where George decides to go against his natural instincts because his natural instincts have always steered him wrong. To prove the point he walks up to a pretty lady at the diner and says something like, “Hi, my name is George. I’m bald, I’m unemployed, and I live with my parents.” Instead of the “Get lost” reaction his natural instincts told him he should expect, the woman is intrigued and introduces herself right back.
That’s kind of the way I feel about my investments lately. Well, at least one investment – our house in Roy. The good news is that it has finally sold. We sent in all the paperwork over the weekend so it is officially a done deal. Normally this would have been cause for a celebration dinner or something, but unfortunately any extra money we had got sent in with the closing papers. My natural instincts have always said that if you buy a house then turn around and sell it after almost 4 years then you should probably make at least a little money off it. Well, unfortunately like George our natural instincts failed us on this one. It’s been kind of a hard pill to swallow, but the thing we keep having to remind ourselves is that at least from now on we’ll only have to make one housing payment a month. So if you want some investment advice, just let me know. I’ll tell you what I think you should do and as long as you do the exact opposite you should be just fine. :)
In other news, we’ve had a couple chances to use the web cam lately and it has been a lot of fun. We weren’t really sure how much of a response we’d get from Tyler, but he has been hamming it up for everyone. That little kid has so much energy now, it’s getting hard to try and keep up with him. And he’s strong enough now that if he wants down you have to really hold on to him tight or he’ll squirm his way out of your grip and take off like a lightning bolt. It’ll be nice to have another little one that we can just hold and snuggle with again. Just 2 1/2 more months! Now if we could just get a few more webcams in Utah, we could show Reagan off to everyone when she makes her debut. hint…hint…
So, nothing major has happened over the past couple weeks – not that eating at the Waffle House was anything major, but at least it made for a good story. Consequently, here are just a few quick stories of things that have happened recently.
We went to the Ordnance Museum at my work a couple Saturdays ago. If you’ve ever watched a History Channel documentary about a war and they showed the types of guns, rifles, or cannons used during that war then you’ve probably seen the stuff they have in the museum. The museum is actually getting ready to move to Virginia as part of the BRAC moves, so we wanted to make sure we got in to see it before it left. It was really interesting for me and Thesha, but for Tyler it was just a new place to run around. With all the cold weather, this was probably only the second or third time since we’ve moved here that he was able to get out and run around. There was one area of the museum where they had put up a clear plastic wall to keep kids out or something. Tyler was running around and slammed right into the clear plastic. It was hilarious. I tried to snap a quick picture with him flat on his back wondering what the heck had just happened, but this was the soonest I could get the shot off. If you look close maybe you can see his face print on the plastic.
No need to fear, after a slight whimper he was up and running around again. Unfortunately the clear plastic wasn’t the only inanimate object that assaulted him there. When he was running around outside he stumbled into a big rock. He wasn’t going to take that one lying down, however, so he started to yell at the rock and told it “Na, na” (Tyler for No, no).
Yes, Tyler is learning all kinds of new words and noises. The other day I was walking out to the car to head out to work and noticed I had a flat tire. Thesha and Tyler came out on to the balcony to ask if everything was ok and when I yelled up to them that I had a flat tire, Tyler’s immediate response was “Uh ooohhhh.” It’s one thing to say stuff like that, but when he uses it in the exact right context it just makes me laugh.
Another sound Tyler likes to make lately is his version of what a cat says. One of the gifts we got at the baby shower was a saucer that had a bunch of activities on it. One of the activities is a button with a Cat’s face on it and when you push it, it says “Cat, Gato, Meow.” I don’t know if that’s where he learned it, but the other day there was an episode of Super Why (PBS show for kids) on TV and they had to save the cats. Tyler was staring up at the screen and kept making a “meow” sound except it sounds more like a wolf howling than it does a cat. I tried to get a good howling video, but this is as good as I could get.
This is so cute when he really makes the meow sound. When the meow turns in to a howl, however, it’s freakin hilarious. The best, though, was when we were riding in the car the other day and the song Zombie from The Cranberries came on the radio and he just started howling away. Ok, so I can accept the idea that maybe The Cranberries wouldn’t make it on American Idol, but howling, really?
Tyler is also now officially in the nursery at church. We were kind of worried that he would have a hard time making the adjustment, but he only had a short time of uneasiness at first and then he settled right in. In fact, I’m pretty sure I was more on edge about him being in there then he was about being in nursery. For a year and a half I had said I couldn’t wait until he went in to the nursery so I could actually get something out of church again. As it turns out the only thing I did for two hours was wonder if everything was ok. That only lasted a little while, though, because now he seems to think that half way through the Sunday School lesson is the perfect time to poop. Yes, the feeling of “I can’t wait until he’s in the nursery” was only one stinky diaper away from coming back.
In non-Tyler related news, we celebrated Thesha’s 31st birthday today – actually a day early, but today worked out better for going out to dinner. I caught about 2 minutes of a morning talk show that came on after Tyler’s shows and it had Jessica Simpson talking about turning 30 and she said she was actually happy because now she was a young 30-something instead of an old 20-something. It’s pretty bad when you’re relying on the logic of Jessica Simpson to rationalize why it’s ok to get another year older, but I figure if she can figure it out then there’s no reason why we can’t feel good about being in our young 30’s. Plus everyone in our branch thought Thesha was in her mid 20’s, so she’s got nothing to worry about. Happy Birthday, Thesha!
Lastly, this should be the last blog post that we’ll have while we still have a house in Roy. We FINALLY sold our house and we’re scheduled to close on Thursday. Things didn’t exactly work out the way we would have hoped, but at least it’s finally going to be a done deal. Now if we could only find a 2,000 square foot, 3 bedroom, 2 bath house in Maryland for less than $300,000 we’d be set. Oh well, I guess we’ll just enjoy the razor thin walls of our “luxury” apartment for now.
Well, I (Tag) finally broke down and became an official resident of Maryland by getting my Maryland driver’s license. It’s always hard to make the switch because now you know that the next time you show it to the security guard at the airport with an airline ticket to Baltimore that they could say, “Heading home?” and you’d have to say yes even if you don’t necessarily feel like this is home just yet. For a driver’s license the picture turned out ok. Of course there’s a heart on the license because I’m an organ donor and a crab because – well, you know. : )
To celebrate our new-found residency, we got all gussied up in our semi-clean jeans and sweat shirts without holes and went to a fancy-schmancy dinner at the Waffle House for our Friday night on the town. Why not, there’s still time to make another bad decision. It was Thesha’s first time at the gas station bathroom turned restaurant, so it was quite an occasion. In her words, “Up until now I just knew the Waffle House as a Larry the Cable Guy joke.” It wasn’t until later that the “ affle House” punch line really started to sink in. We figured, why not get the hash browns smothered and covered? Grits, good. Biscuits and gravy, great. Diarrhea at 4:00 in the morning, well that’s just the icing on the cake.
Tyler seemed to enjoy it and was laughing and being a great little boy as always, but just so we didn’t stand out we did have to shout out “knock it off or I’ll beat your butt.” After all, we’ve got a Maryland driver’s license we had better start fitting in.
Of course no one describes the Waffle House better than Jim Gaffigan, so I thought I’d share a favorite clip even if it means revealing the source of a few of my jokes.
