Unique experiences with Ellen

At the dentist office this week, the dentist asked Ellen if she had ever eaten dog (she never has) and Ellen replied: "Well, everyone knows that black dogs are the best, then yellow, then spotted, then white. The brown dogs are not as tasty." It is important to note that one of the dental assistants had her black poodle right there in the office. The dentist then explained that he lived in Japan for awhile when he was in the military. Ellen then said, in front of all the assistants "Did you ever start liking asian girls over there? Did you ever fall in love with asian girls?"

While reading from the BoM this morning, Ellen said "Oh good, there is a footprint for this word!" (footnote)

The past two mornings, I have woken up and fixed breakfast. This morning, Ellen got up and I could smell the eggs and bacon. I was getting really excited for a good breakfast, and was surprised to find this on the breakfast table:


Mmmm, breakfast spaghetti with yogurt drink! I know your all jealous!!

The hotness of a pregnant woman (when she is your wife)

Ok, my friend Dan was explaining to me awhile back that when your wife is pregnant, they get this glow, and their is just this special hotness to them, which is above and beyond the usual levels of hotness you find in your wife.
Now I am experiencing it for myself. I just thought my honey was so dang cute today, and although she is at 23 weeks, she just has that sum'n sum'n that makes me smile!

Travel to Tahoe

We took a quick trip to Lake Tahoe for the weekend, so here are some pics. Luckily for you, there aren't pics of me and Ellen in the swimming pool together, so you can't play "guess which one's pregnant?"

We got a good deal on the lodging: $84.00 for a room with a view, including unlimited access to heated pool, spa, indoor tennis, racquetball, and basketball. If we we wanted to ski, there was a gondola and high speed quad lift about a 5 minute walk from our room. It was all pretty nice.

Dinner: We ate at this mongolian barbecue joint called "Fire and Ice." I liked the concept, because you go to this raw bar and pick out your noodles, meats, veggies, and sauces, then some dudes cook it all up on a big grill. Ellen figured out real quickly how to load up three or four different dishes on the grill at one time, and then got the timing down to where she would finish one dish just as another was being done. I think both her and the baby got their fill. Heck, I gained 5 pounds just from smelling all the food Ellen was eating.

Nighttime Entertainment: After cruising around Tahoe and taking some pics, we settled in and Ellen crashed while I played and won a mean game of "Phase 10" with some friends that came with us, and some Japanese friends of theirs. Its always good to sharpen the Japanese skills....which are admittedly rusty.

Final thoughts: I thought it was a great little getaway, but we need to spend some more time there. We never ran into any hippies or granolas, everyone was outwardly oriented the way we prefer: ladies liking the gents and gents liking the ladies, we ate good and fairly cheap, and the natural beauty of the place is breathtakingly beautiful.

Rich kids and poor kids

I was reflecting today on the modest upbringing I had, so I decided to list some of the differences between rich kids and poor kids in school. Now, I am not going for extremes..just the subtle differences. Also, "rich kids" as used below does not mean kids whose families actually had a lot of money, just kids whose parents spent more money on them.

Crayons
Rich kids always had the Crayola box of 64 with the "built in sharpener." I had K-mart waxy sticks, the kind that smeared on the paper in glops. The cool thing about the box of 64 was the semi-sparkly gold and silver crayons. Think the K-mart wax sticks had those colors? Heck no. I had to wait like a vulture, hoping a chunk of someone else's gold or silver crayon fell on the floor, then covertly snatch it up and drop it into one of the slots in my 8 pack that had a missing crayon. (I always got rid of brown because it looked poopy).

Lunch Boxes
Rich kids, if they didn't just pay for the hot lunches, always had the coolest lunch boxes, with cartoons or T.V. shows that were in prime time. Kids had B.A. Barakus or the Incredible Hulk or Knight Rider. I had a lunchbox picked up from a garage sale, so it was some show I never saw, like the 6 million dollar man or Kojak or something.

Lunch itself
Rich kids had hostess cupcakes, twinkies, and ALWAYS had a bag of frito lay chips. Rich kids had lunchables or slim jims, or cheese and crackers. Me, if I had chips, it was some generic brand, put into a ziploc bag. My hostess twinkie was usually an apple or an orange. No slim jims or cheese and crackers. Guaranteed I had a bologna sandwich, or if it was a good day, "cotto salami." You know, the spicy-looking lunchmeat. One benefit of being a poor kid is learning how to trade, although it was unfair trade. I felt like Bangladesh trying to trade with the U.S. "Um, I'll give you all of my generic chips plus my orange for one half of your hostess cupcake. Ok, you can scoop the filling out before I get it too."

Birthday presents
Rich kids got Nintendo games, Transformers. I got practical gifts, like socks, a coat, or mittens. Hey, aren't kids supposed to get those things anyway??

Shoes
Rich kids got Nikes. My nickname for most of my elementary school years was "Pro-Wings." Never heard of them? They were a payless shoe source brand who tried to be Pony, Puma, or Converse. I would have been happy with those brands, but I wore Pro-Wings like I had an endorsement deal with them. When I finally bought my first pair of Nike's, I rode my bike all the way across town, paid most of my paper route savings for them, then felt guilty about it for months, trying to conceal my extravagant purchase from my family for as long as I could. I still feel guilty about it. Still, it was worth not being called "Pro-Wings."

Television
Rich kids have a T.V. in their room. We had a family T.V., which always had a problem of one kind or another. We had one particular T.V. that, at random, wouldn't turn on, so you had to wait 30 minutes, or if someone messed up and tried to turn it on before waiting 30 minutes, an hour wait. How many countless hours were wasted in frustration waiting for that darn T.V. to turn on.

Eating out
Rich kids eat at all kinds of restaurants, and frequently. When we ate at a restaurant, it meant we were on the road traveling and someone forgot to pack a cooler of food (see lunch topic above), or it was my birthday, or we accomplished some major family goal, which reward was eating at a restaurant. Seriously, rich kids get sick of going to McDonalds. I can count how many times we went to McDonald's growing up on one hand. (If you see me today, you realize I have more than made up for missing out on Mickey D's as a youth).


Now, in all honesty, I wouldn't have had it any other way. Raising 6 kids is a financial burden for sure, and we were able to see most of the western U.S. on vacations, went camping a lot, went to parks and had picnics all the time. I was always proud that when we went on vacation, we actually crossed the Mississsippi river (I grew up in Illinois). I always felt sorry for the kids who went to Decatur to see their grandma, or went all the way to Chicago (a 2 hour drive) to see relatives. I had a Dad who played catch with me and my brothers in the backyard, a mom who took us to the library and made up fun activities for us, and parents who really let us use our imaginations and creativity. Can't complain about that at all. Plus, wearing Pro-Wings and eating bologna sandwiches for lunch built character.

Chicken Soup for Someone's Jacked-up Soul!

I apologize for the second food-related post, but I just couldn't pass up the chance to show you the soup my beloved was CRAVING today. I have learned over the 2 years of marriage that when she says she is making something, I cannot rely on standard pictures or concepts of what something is. (See the post regarding bread below). So, when she said she was going to make chicken soup, I knew it would be different from my mama's cold-fixing heart-warming noodle-laden bowls of chickeny goodness. If your interested, I'm sure she would be willing to send you the recipe. Make sure you can find a lot of chicken feet first though!

The big let-down

One morning last week, Ellen proclaimed that she was going to bake some home-made bread. I haven't had good homemade bread for at least 5 years or so, and I was surprised and excited to hear that my sweetheart was about to engage in the mixing, kneading, waiting, punching, waiting, punching, shaping, and baking required to make good bread. I patiently waited throughout the day for the unmistakable pleasure on the palate that is warm buttered white bread. When the nostalgic smell of baking bread hit my nostrils, my stomach leaped with joy (this is actually visible to the naked eye) although I am not great with child. Finally, Ellen shouted "Trev, come have some bread!" and I rushed to the kitchen. Then, with shock and horror, I gazed upon these little round mounds of yeasty tragedy: The blobs on the left are topped with chopped green onion (naturally) and the blobs on the right are topped with mayonnaise and bits of ham/bacon (of course!) I was so dissappointed in my nose, since it had been telling me for at least 40 minutes that 2 loaves of wonderful white were baking in the oven. Not once did my snouser detect the smell of onion, ham, or mayonnaise. Ellen couldn't understand why I looked so underwhelmed. After all, who doesn't loved hot baked mayonnaise?? Anyway, I'm working on teaching my wife the difference between American bread and whatever those abominations in the picture are called in Taiwan.

Daddy's little little little girl

So today was one of those small but significant milestones for us, the 20 week ultrasound. After a failed pregnancy last year that was tough for us to go through, it looks like life is forming on schedule, and our little one is making progress. Although I was personally hoping for a boy, the technician had a clear shot of the pelvis..and no equipment was visibly present. By default, that means our baby is a lady, not a gent. We are listing our favorite names, and as of today, here are the top three: Broomhilda, Bertha, and Helga. Personally, I really like Broomhilda, a three-syllable name with that extra long "broom" part. SWEEEET. Actually, our favorite name at this time is Raley (like the CA grocery chain). We are considering several spellings: Raley, Reili, Raylee, Reyli, Rayli, Rayleigh, etc. Please vote!