How I know my husband loves me: Reason #527

There are so many different reasons why I know my husband loves me, but here is just one.



I hate for things to die! So when DH picked me up for lunch today, we were driving down the road when we drove over the top of something, not realizing until we were going over it that is was a snake. DH could see in the rearview mirror so I immediately asked him if it was still alive and he said he couldn’t tell. We backed up making sure not to run over it. DH got out and sure enough it was just sunning itself and lifted its head and started tasting the air with its tongue to check out DH. During this multiple cars drove by narrowly missing the snake. I told my husband that we couldn’t just leave it there to die, he rolling his eyes at me but got an umbrella out of the trunk. After the snake tried to strike about a dozen times, DH finally got it to the side of the road where it slithered off into the trees. Not every man would stand out there in the middle of the street to save the life of a 2 foot long snake, but DH did because he loves me and he knows it makes me happy. Isn’t he sweet?

Dedicated to my husband

Listen to this song (it also includes the lyrics if you want to read along)!



This is exactly how I feel about my husband!

I didn't post on his birthday (back in September) and I feel a little remiss about that, but in my defense, he NEVER reads my blog so he doesn't know if I blog about him or not. Quite honestly that's a good thing most of the time since he is a very private person and wouldn't be happy that I post about him at all...so yeah, don't tell him ok!

Anyway, I was just listening to some random songs on my mp3 player when this song came on and I knew I had to post about what an awesome husband I have. He is thoughtful and kind, yet incredibly strong when I need him to be. He is also very sarcastic, just like me. He's a great Dad and a wonderful protector.

He would do anything for me too. The other day we had walked to Ari's soccer game which was about a mile and a half away. Not far, but I jokingly complained about walking home after sitting out there in the 95 degree heat and asked my husband if he would walk home and get the car to pick me up. He said "sure", I was of course kidding, but Ari said quietly to me, "that's so sweet, do you think he'd really do that?" I replied "I know he would, because he loves me," and he would have too if I'd been serious. That evolved into a whole conversation about how it's a parents job to teach their children and make them into strong human beings (because he said he wouldn't do it just for her)but his he guessed that meant it was his job to make me soft and weak :)

Anyway, listen to my little dedication to my husband. He is wonderful and he deserves it and so much more.

Someone to watch over me

Are you ever just going along with your day and then realize that you are truly being watched over?

Last night was a pretty typical night for us. We only have one car which can make life extremely difficult at times. I work from 7:30 to 4:30 so DH can then take the car and drive to the next town over for his night classes (pre-requisites for PA school). Taking the bus or riding bikes is not an option because there just isn’t enough time between when I get off work and he has to be at school and somebody has to be home to watch Devyn. So last night Ari had Euro-soccer practice. Every year the soccer league she plays in brings in these guys from Ireland or Scotland to work with the kids on their soccer skills. (Because, you know, Europe and pretty much every other county in the world does soccer better than us). Anyway, we live close to the field where Ari has her normal soccer practices, but the Euro-soccer was a ways away. There just wasn’t enough time to get home from work and bike to her practice in time. Therefore, we dropped Ari off at soccer, I drove DH to the next town over for class, then drove back to pick up Ari, feed Devn, fix dinner and do a few odds and ends before turning around and going back to the next town over to make a trip to Target (because our liberal town doesn’t have one) before picking DH up from class.

Yes, I know this is a long story and it’s about to get longer so bear with me.
So we’re on way home and DH is driving on a couple country roads because it’s a more direct route than the highway. I was reading The Time Thief (The second book in The Gideon Trilogy, which I HIGHLY recommend by the way) so I wasn’t fully aware of what was about to transpire.

*Just a side note, have I mentioned that we love to read as a family? Every time we are going anywhere where we will be in the car for more than 10 minutes at a time we read. I love this habit that we have gotten into and we’ve found some great books that we all enjoy this way. Sorry for the interruption, I just thought I’d share that with you because it’s a great pass time in the car.*

So, we’re driving down a pretty deserted road that has a huge field to our right, and have to slow down to make a left turn onto a road that T-bones into the one we are on. No sooner had we cleared the intersection than I heard tires squealing and then I hear my husband say “Oh Crap! Somebody’s going to be hurt.” I of course had stopped reading at this point and I’m craning my neck to see what DH can see in his rear-view mirror. It’s dark out so all I can see are red taillights way off the road and dust flying everywhere being lit up by the headlights and taillights of that car. We turned around and pull over. DH is a certified EMT, and although he doesn’t actually work as an EMT, he always carries a medical kit in the car for emergencies. He grabs his kits and takes off, while I stayed in the car with the two girls and dialed 911. The car literally went all Dukes of Hazard and flew up in the air before landing a hundred feet away (true story, the police even paced it out), probably rolling twice (according to the police when they got there, because we were, after all, going the opposite direction and it all happened in a matter of seconds.

The two guys in the car are probably late teens early 20s and are beyond drunk and were getting all combative with DH. DH stayed there to flag down the emergency vehicles with his flashlight and talk with them about what had transpired since he got there. DH is on the CERT (Community Emergency Response Team) team here in town and knows some of the firefighters, so he got pretty much the whole scoop of what was going on. To make a very long story a little bit shorter, they blew at 3 times, yes I said that correctly, 3 TIMES the legal limit of alcohol.

(Our view as we were waiting for what seemed like forever)

After all was said and done and I really stopped to reflect on the situation after sitting there for an hour waiting for the police to take our statement and everything I was pretty upset that the irresponsible actions of a couple of kids could have very easily destroyed my family. As it is, we are all fine and our lives go on like normal, but if we had been literally two seconds later I’m not sure any of us would still be here. According to the police they were traveling at around 85 miles per hour when they hit the ditch on the other side of that road. They flew for over 100 feet and rolled at least twice. Can you imagine what that would have done to us if they had broadsided our car? DH said the driver was very thoughtful and concerned and said he was sorry and just kept saying things like “my mom is going to kill me” and “I’m going to jail, I’m going to jail” and I do feel for him because I know that we all make mistakes, but when his mistake almost destroyed my family my compassion lessens a little. Luckily neither one of them was seriously injured, and they were both taken away in handcuffs. When we got home we thanked our Heavenly Father for watching out for us last night as it could have so easily ended with a different outcome.

I wonder how many times we are being watched over when we don’t see the eminent disaster by way of squealing tires and almost accidents so we have no idea that we were being watched over in the first place. So today I’m grateful for all those times when Heavenly Father has made everything ok and I didn’t even realize it!

I'm Proud to be an American

I can’t even begin to tell you how proud I am to live in this country and call myself an American. I feel truly blessed by the freedoms that we enjoy and am continually reminded of how blessed we are when I hear stories of human rights violations or tyrannous governments that don’t have their citizens best interests in mind. I realize this is a few days late, but we had a very calm and relaxing 4th and I wanted to share a little of what we did.

Our day started off with…

Ari and I were messing around on my bed when she fell off onto a screw that was sticking out and got this nasty scratch. Not the greatest start to the holiday, but she was fine after Daddy bandaged her up.

Then we went and did some of this…

Ok, I didn’t do any of that because I won’t put my body into a swimsuit. But everyone else did. The local community pool was free for the day so we took advantage and the girls had a good time. It was Devyn’s first time in a public pool.

We painted these...

Which got kind of messed up while swimming.

Finally we went to the park and did this…

and Dante did this...

While Devyn did some of this…

and this…

and this…

This was Devyn's first time on one of these types of swings and we thought it was hillarious how she kept "running" through the air as the swing decended.

and then she fell asleep while we ate some of this...

Which was made mostly by Ari, and it was delicious!

and watched some…

I hope your 4th was as fun and relaxing as ours and I hope you had a chance to reflect on how blessed we are for the country that we live in. I wish I could personally thank all the men and women who have ever fought to give me the rights and freedoms that I have. I will forever be in their debt.

Backpack, Backpack

You know you're a mom if you are singing the Dora the Explorer song in your head right now because of this title.

Way back in October my husband's work called me and said that they wanted to have a surprise baby shower for him and could I make it to the party. He was a little annoyed because he had a lot of stuff to do and they kept bugging him about coming to some luncheon, until I showed up and he found out it was really a luncheon and baby shower for him. He wasn't annoyed anymore after that :) They wanted to do something more for him as a dad so they got him this really cool backpack that the baby goes in. Devyn is so nonchalant that she just goes with the flow. She was just chillin in the backpack as we took Dante out on a walk.

I have been trying for some time to capture Devyn's total admiration for Ari in a picture. She idolizes Ari. Devyn does not smile easily. She's a good baby and perfectly content, but she doesn't tend to smile for just anyone, but Ari can always make her smile. She has this look of complete admiration that she gets when Ari walks into a room. Well Ken bent down to pet the dog while Devyn was in the backpack and she caught sight of Ari and just smiled and laughed and looked at her with that look of awe in her eyes. Boy does Ari have a big job ahead of her being a good example for her little sister who obviously thinks she can do no wrong.

Happy Anniversary Baby!

Today is my DH and I’s 3 year anniversary. Ari was so cute and got up early to make us breakfast in bed…she is so thoughtful and it was so cute.

Well, in honor of our anniversary I thought I would post a little background story of us…

I was the shy girl in the front of the high school Physics class; he was the outgoing, good-looking guy that sat at the back of the class making friends. He was friends with everyone, but most especially girls!

He says that from the moment he saw me I took his breath away and he knew he had to get to know me. Being the shy quiet type that I am, I didn’t make that easy for him. In fact I think I sort of brushed him off at first. Not willing to accept defeat he kept trying. On an occasion when we had a particularly hard test in class he used that as a ploy to talk to me, asking me how I thought I did on the test. I knew I had done horribly, which he couldn’t believe, so we made a bet. I don’t remember how we set up who won and lost, but he lost and took me out to lunch at Scotty’s, a little drive-in burger place not far from the high school.

For the rest of our junior year we became better and better friends and started hanging out with a lot of the same people. I was dating someone else, and I still remember, when as a big group of friends we went to pick up Ken’s date who was a girl from another school, I was totally and completely jealous! It was then that I realized that I liked him as more than just a friend. Luckily, neither one of our relationships ended up lasting. We still didn’t end up together right away though. I think we were both afraid to admit that we liked each other as more than friends. As the summer went on we spent more and more time together, eventually ending up dating and then becoming high school sweethearts. He treated me so well, even opening doors for me wherever we went. We talked about getting married and starting a family, but he also talked about joining the army after high school. This was in 1991, and Operation Deseret Storm had just happened. I wasn’t ready for such a big commitment in my life, but more importantly, I knew that guys who went into the Army also went to war and died. One day, out of the blue, I told him we couldn’t be together anymore, and that was that. I cried after he left my house that day, mostly because I didn’t even understand why I was ending such a great thing. As the years have past, I have come to realize that one, I didn’t feel like I deserved him, and two, I was afraid I couldn’t handle losing him, which was a distinct possibility with him being in the Army.

The end of our senior year was difficult, he was my best friend and we just stopped talking. I didn’t even see him the night of graduation, although I thought of him all night. Summer came and I spent a lot of my time working to save for college. He called me about two weeks before he left for basic training. We went out one last time to catch up and say good-bye. It was awkward. I still cared deeply for him, yet he had changed so much in just those few short months.

We kept in touch off and on for a couple years, but he eventually ended up getting married and I wasn’t comfortable continuing a friendship with some other woman’s husband so once again in our lives, that was that!

Fast forward 12 years when I was a single mother living in Logan and I get an email from my Mom (who lives in Idaho Falls) saying “you will never guess who just stopped by.” She said he had stopped by to say hi and that he was in town after living out East or out of the Country for a number of years, and did I want his phone number? NO! He was still some other women’s husband and I didn’t want to deal with that. Well I said something to that effect in my response email to my Mom and then she mentioned that he was “no longer married.” Ok, maybe I did want his number then, but I couldn’t act too eager since my Mom had told me and everyone else way back in high school that if she could pick my husband it would have been him. I couldn’t let my Mom know that she might have been right so I played it cool. After getting his phone number and making that first awkward call, things just clicked. We ended up getting married in less than a year. I never thought I would have gotten married so fast, but with our history and our connection it just worked. I don’t know if everyone has a soul mate or not, but he is definitely mine!

I am a real boy (er dog), Geppeto!

Our dog Dante does not act like a normal dog in any way, shape or form. One of his quirks is that he does not like to play with toys. He has never played with any type of toy since we got him over a year and a half ago. He does like to play with other dogs at the dog park on occasion, but he's really unique in that he can tailor his style of play depending on the dog he's playing with. If it's a small dog or puppy he's really gentle, but his favorite is when he finds another dog with dominant tendencies that he can play rough with.


Well, today he decided to actually play with a BALL. What!?! We had been out playing tennis and we were just sitting under a tree hanging out getting ready to put the tennis balls away when Dante decided to pick one up and start running around with it. DH and I just looked at each other in total shock and amazement and DH said "I wish we had a camera". Well, being fully prepared for any occasion, I did have my camera in the stroller so I started snapping pictures in case this was the only time he did this. We think he might have been abused or hit with balls before we got him because he has always run from the tennis balls or soccer balls whenever we were playing with them. Ari was so excited to see him playing like a real dog! That is his tennis ball now!

DH is Dante's favorite person and DH is Dante's favorite (over other dogs even) to play rough with. So, when they start to play around, DH has gotten him to play with his tennis ball a few times since then. To Ari's dismay Dante won't play rough with her because he knows she is the "puppy" of the family. He will play with me if DH isn't around, but when I was about 8 months pregnant and on blood thinners I had to take him out for a walk because DH wasn't home. He ran up behind me and chomped down on my arm (like he does with DH) and left a huge bruise about 3 inches across on my arm because of the blood thinners. He doesn't break the skin because he is play biting, but it hurt, so I discouraged that pretty quick. He doesn't play rough with me much anymore!J


A little background…

On a Friday afternoon in late July 2006 Ari was in Idaho staying with Grandma and Grandpa for a few weeks and I had taken the afternoon off to spend some extra time with DH. He was doing research at the time at some vineyards about 45 minutes away from where we live and I went with him to see where he had been working. He had been telling me of these two dogs that lived at the vineyard that didn't belong to the owners and were starving and emaciated and how cute this one yellow lab was. The other dog was a Rottweiler that pretty much stayed away from people. He and his co-researcher had been taking dog food and feeding them but we decided on this day we were going to try and find the yellow lab and take him to the SPCA. We looked and looked for the yellow lab but couldn't find him. I really wanted to see this dog because my DH had talked him up so much and had even said he wouldn't mind keeping the dog if we had more space (we live in a townhouse with a tiny backyard). We were about to leave but I suggested driving around one more time and that's when we saw the Rottweiler. He was miserably hot and so skinny that he didn't even have the energy to get up when we went to give him food. My heart just broke. We talked to the manager of the vineyard who didn't really speak any English but we did get "you want, take him" out of him. He could hardly even stand he was in such bad shape and DH had to lift him into the back of the truck. We called the local shelter and drove him there to drop him off. They checked him out but said that because of where we found him they couldn't take him and we'd have to drive him to a different shelter. The girl also said that the other shelter only kept animals for 72 hours and if they weren't adopted by then they euthanized them. It was about 4:30 in the afternoon and there was no way we were going to make it to the other shelter in time so we stopped off at a local pet store and got a cheap collar and leash and a small bag of dog food to last through the weekend. On previous occasions we had talked about what kind of dog we would get when we had space for one and I was pretty emphatic that I didn't want a Rottweiler. For some reason I have always had some kind of prejudice against them. My DH on the other hand had owned a few Rottweilers in his life and really liked them. My husband also really wanted to get a pure bred dog because he said you're more guaranteed in what type of temperament and such that you are going to get, but I was also emphatic that it needed to be a rescue since there were plenty of good homes for pure bred dogs, but that rescues need good homes. Well, after having this Rottweiler for the weekend I fell in love, and DH got his way on the Rottweiler issue and I got my way on having a rescue. We spent close to $1000 on vet bills to get him healthy again and it's our joke that he cost as much as a pure bred without the papers or guarantees.

After Ari got back from Grandma and Grandpa's we sat down and talked about names as a family and came up with Dante! (You know, Dante's Inferno about the 9 layers of Hell…Rotweilers are said to the dogs that guard the gates of Hell so we thought it was a fitting name for such a mean looking dog) He is the sweetest, most gentle dog you would ever want to meet and a scaredy cat too. One time a delivery driver knocked really loudly on the door and he ran upstairs to hide, no barking or protecting…nothing. Nice guard dog huh? Everyone is afraid of him just by the way he looks though. I have taken him out on walks after dark and never been worried because people will cross to the other side of the path or take the long way around us once they see him, makes us laugh because we know the truth, but a nice visual deterrent if nothing else. He's also great because he doesn't chew on things so he doesn't tear up the house and since we don't have a yard we (mostly DH) take him out for two walks a day and he's perfectly ok with just going to the bathroom on those two walks. He is just sits there when the neighbor kids like to hang on him and play with his tail...he just sits there and takes it and just looks at us like "why are you letting them do this to me?" He is definitely the perfect dog for us.

SWF

So, I've been informed by DH that I'm not allowed to talk about him or post his picture on my blog so I guess as far as the blogging world is concerned I'm a SWF (Single While Female)! I'm a little annoyed by this because this whole blogging thing is supposed to be all about my life and my family of which he is a major part, but to keep peace at home he will have to be left as an International Man of Mystery. Have a great weekend.

Oh Yes It's Ladies Night (or day rather)

DH had a scouting trip yesterday as he is the Assistant Scout Master for our Ward. They went up to North Lake Tahoe for some type of winter jamboree or something, but I digress, this post is about the ladies of the house. When DH leaves, our house is only girls, with the exception of Dante (our dog) which doesn’t really count. So we decided to have a girl’s day out. We didn’t do anything major, but I’m starting to discover that when I can get Ari away from the norm she shares the basics of her everyday life with me more. She’ll talk about friends and boys and things she likes or doesn’t like, and I love that she does this.So, we went to Applebee’s and got two, count them two, desserts to share, a Sizzling Apple Pie and their Triple Chocolate Meltdown. No, I didn’t need the calories from either one, let alone both, but Ari thanked me about a million times and it was worth it to have the time to just sit and talk and make her happy.