um....

Are they for real joking? Or are they for real really cool? (or at least they think they are)
Joking. Right?

Flashback Friday, itttt's the Suman Sisters...

I promise that one of these days I'll post pictures of Casey. I planned to today, but just realized that his photos are in Lucy's room where she's napping. Thus, it's the Suman Sisters!
I can't remember if this was for a school talent show or at church. But regardless of the location, if there was a talent show my mom signed us up. I think we enjoyed it. I'm not sure we were any good. But three sisters in pigtails and matching outfits must have some endearing charm. We sang the song "I Am Learning How to Spell" from Songs for a Mormon Child. It's actually a really cute song and I sing to Lucy sometimes. (Camille, Saunja, and Me:)
Two years later we sang "You're Never Fully Dressed Without A Smile" from Annie. Okay, seriously? The tuxedos? I think we're too old for the act (whoa, check out my mom's heels in the background. I just noticed that. Sassy Cindy)
It's been really fun growing up with two older sisters. We've spent hours singing, dancing, and acting crazy together. And though I probably felt silly at the time, my mom did a fabulous job getting us to perform together. She was very creative with her song and dance routines. And I know we had fun doing it.

The rest of Wednesday and most of Thursday

As I said, our day started out with smiles. We went to the Irvine Spectrum with Rachael, Karen, Camille, Laura, and all the kids for a little Wahoos:
Then we spent some time walking around. Lucy loves the variety of fountains and probably wishes she could jump in this one. This picture is funny to me because she's holding a raisin box which she started eating in the car as we drove there:She held on to these raisins during lunch, she walked around this fountain with them, and she continued to clutch them as we played in the jumping water fountains an hour later. She is THE slowest eater I know. This is why she rarely eats a meal at the table. We would spend hours sitting there. Instead, I give her finger foods.
Ava has an obsession with strollers, regardless of size. She totally went for Rachael's heavy double-jogger and started pushing it around the Spectrum. So funny!We finally made it to the jumping fountains. Laura and Aunt Karen:
A very rare picture of Owen actually sucking on his pacifier. He really doesn't like the thing but when he's really tired he'll go for it:
Lucy taught Ava how to say "Cheese!" at the camera this weekend. And now she's addicted. I love this picture. She's got the cheesiest adorable grin and all sorts of cracker pieces in her mouth:
After the Spectrum we went back to Gram's house and some of Jeremy's friends came over for a playdate. They're all 6 year olds, but they were real cute and let Lucy tag along. Mostly she just stood there watching what they were doing. But every once in a while I would check on her and the kids would say, "oh she's fine! We're taking care of her." It was really cute. Here they are making a snake (like a chinese dragon), while Lucy stands there watching:

(Insert ER episode here) and here are pictures when we got home:

Thursday morning Lucy was in good puffy spirits, so we decided to stick with our plans and headed to Disneyland with Camille and Jeremy. Yay! Red was the color of the day:

Jeremy was brave and wanted to try Indiana Jones when we got there. So Lucy, Owen, and I went on the carousel. We took her on one at the mall last week and she bawled when she had to get off. Now she could ride as much as she wanted:
We went on it twice and almost did a third ride, but I spent too long feeding Owen and she got distracted and forgot.
Next we went on Pirates:
and the Haunted Mansion. Lucy's still at an age where she doesn't think the dark is scary so she seemed to enjoy both of the rides. And besides, there were pirates!

Camille and Jeremy left before us so the kids and I headed to California Adventure. We didn't go on a single ride. Instead, we just hung out in the front main area. We got Burrbank Ice Cream, watched the waterfall, and walked around the seating area near the big Sunshine. Lucy loves flowers (whoops, I didn't realize that she picked those. I don't let her do that, I promise):
And while Lucy wandered my body got a break while Owen chilled in the red stroller, no longer attached to me. Red really was in style:
We left by 7pm, had a great drive, and when Casey got home he and Lucy did puzzles. We also found the cutest note with two little flowers in our mailbox. From Owen Hunt, "Get Well Soon Lucy!" It was so sweet and adorable.
A well-spent Thursday!

The next morning

Well, just as I suspected, Lucy woke up looking worse this morning. I think the swollen eye is from sleeping on that side but we'll see as the day goes on:
This picture is a little blurry but you can see how swollen the bridge is between her eyes:
She actually got a really good night's sleep and slept like a rock (which kinda scared me, but I made sure she was breathing.) And she slept in till 9:30. Her face looks pretty crazy though, potentially verging on Eric Stolz in Mask? Okay, it's not that bad. And of course, I still think she's adorable. It's mostly cute that she doesn't know what she looks like. Although when she woke up the first thing she said to me was "uh oh, nose???". Good thing she just had her first dose of Tylenol! Here's a hint of smiles:

Puffy

Our day started out like this:And it ended like this:
She looks like a cartoon caricature of a turtle:
Poor little thing. We were hanging out at my Aunt's house. Rachael and I were inside talking. The kids were in the backyard playing and next thing we know, Lucy is face down on the concrete with a heavy plastic kitchen set on top of her, pining her to the ground. In retrospect I should have run out there faster but it didn't look that serious, until I got closer and saw blood coming from her nose. Rachael and I got the kitchen set off of her (still not sure how it fell. Did she pull on one of the cupboards too hard? Was she climbing on it? She has been known to climb) and I brought her in the house to clean off the blood. She bawled every time I touched her nose. We took her next door to my parent's house, turned on Yo Gabba Gabba and she still bawled. And it was a different sort of cry. She was really in pain. So, we went to the ER at Mission Hopsital in MV. (Thank you family for taking care of little Owen for me.) I wondered if I was overreacting but perhaps her nose was broken or she had some sort of concussion. We actually got in fairly quickly to see the doctor (considering this was the ER). We took Xrays (a horrible experience that I won't bother going into). But the bright news....at the end of it all, nothing was broken. She is fine, just very puffy and swollen:
I have a feeling it may look worse tomorrow when she wakes up.
Of course there were some bright spots in the evening (aside from the fact that the ER lost my driver's license. Lovely). Papa came down to stay with us:
I was so glad to have him there. It was so thoughtful, which is just how he is. And it was nice to have someone else there so that I didn't second guess everything I was doing. Lucy loved having him there. Half-way through our ER adventure she warmed up and started babbling her Lucy talk and even smiled a bit at Grandpa.

Another bright-spot, she eventually got to take off that pesky ID bracelet. Funny girl, she HATED having it on:
And lastly, she got to climb up in their cozy bed, just like Ikea! (only this Ikea came with probing doctors and nurses. She didn't like that part):
We're glad our little girl is fine and healthy. Some friends of ours had a very tragic accident happen to their daughter this past week and it's really got me thinking about how quickly things can turn upside-down.

Make mine a Latte

Owen's been doing great on the Soy formula (and the tests came back negative). The only downside: he gets a little backed up. So every couple of days we give him a Tbl of prune juice with his milk. Yum.
I couldn't decide if the color was melted rootbeer float or latte. I think it's latte. Maybe that explains why he's up all night...

It wasn't all that bad

So maybe I should start posting some cuter pictures of myself in the Flashback Fridays. I mean, my younger days weren't all that bad. Okay, they probably were. I had no style. I had a headgear twice. I wore homemade clothes. I'd like to think I grew up and grew out of it.

And since some of you couldn't move beyond my butchy short hair to remember me as normal Dana default, I promise that the short brown hair was actually kinda cute. At least I thought it was. So here are a few more pics when it had grown out a little (my last year at BYU). And of course once I got sick of the brown, I chopped it off again and did the blonde:(making the montage was actually kinda fun. When I have time, I'll make a more expansive version. But only if Kam makes one too. Her's would beat mine any day for most varied hairstyles)

Why I love Hollywood...

...because there are huge billboards like this everywhere (sorry Mark, no pictures of the ginormous Apple billboard):
I worked at Universal this past Thurs/Friday and Friday was an early closure day (due to Memorial Day holiday). Casey's work also let them out early, so we really took advantage of my mother-in-law's fantastic babysitting generosity and went to see Indiana Jones at The Acrlight on Sunset. I love this theater. You're assigned seats, so there isn't the dread of ohhhh, where are we going to be sitting??? as you walk inside. There's an usher that shows you to your seats. There's not late seating, so you're not interrupted by bozos. The previews are actually PREVIEWS and not commercials for Coke or cell-phone interruptions. And the lobby is beautiful, big and open with a nice restaurant/bar, a fun shopping area with bizarre trinkety books/bags, and cool old movie photos are framed on the walls. We like to see films here whenever we can:
I've heard some bad criticism of the Indiana Jones movie, but I gotta tell you, I really enjoyed it! *WARNING* Some Info, but no spoilers - It was fun, Harrison was great, it was fun to see the old girlfriend again, I laughed multiple times, I liked the red ants, and I even bought into the alien thing. Casey found it a little cartoony, which it was. And on the critical side, there were many far-fetched things: swinging from vines fast enough to keep up with army vehicles, surviving 3 waterfalls, and well, I could go on. But overall, it was just fun. Go see it.


And mostly, I love Hollywood for this:
Even as I'm posting this, I'm laughing at that picture. I mean seriously, how great is that billboard? I don't think any Sandler film will ever live up to Happy Gilmore, but the trailer for this looks SO great. So great.

Flashback Friday - Travel Bug

Casey and I love to travel. And since we got married when we were both "older" (I was 27, he was 30), we've had extra time to see some sites before our little family came-to-be. This flashback is dedicated to the roots of our travel bugs.

Dana's Bug:
Exactly 9 years ago, after graduating BYU and working for KBYU TV, I was able to go on an archeological dig trip to the jungles of Guatemala. Myself and 2 other guys (co-workers) went down to document the dig (since BYU students were involved, among other Universities). It was my first real time out of the country- discounting trips to Tijuana and British Columbia. Those just don't seem to count. I got my passport, got all sorts of shots, and chopped off my hair. I had died it dark brown months before and was ready to bring back the blond. Thus, a trip to the jungle with a low matainence hairstyle seemed appropriate. We flew to one city in Guatemala, took a suburban ride to meet Pablo at "the green house" (no addresses in this town, just the color) and then took a 12 mile hike with mules into the jungle to Piedras Negras. While we were there, we slept in tents, used a hole in the ground for our business, ate papas fritas made by the locals, and bathed in this river each night:
It was the coolest trip. Rustic and adventurous. I swung from vines:
In case you're wondering, I'm the one on the left. And yes, I should have re-thought the haircut. Not my finest 'do. It's okay, you can say it. Butchy. But it worked for the situation. (Casey told me that if I ever do that again, he'll grow a combover): The subject matter wasn't always the most interesting and far from Indian Jones. But we spent each day documenting the excavation, the lab work, the surrounding ruins, etc. To be honest, I doubt my camera work was any good since I never saw the piece air on KBYU (haah). But I sure had a blast being there:
Here I am, Lilith Fair groupie, with my co-workers (who were more like friends. Really cool guys. Fun to travel with), Kendall Wilcox and Rusty Dailey:
On our way back home we stopped at the ruins in Tikal:
As I said, the trip was a blast and was probably the first time I got the real travel bug. I love seeing our home country and my parents were great about taking us on vacations all over these states when we were kids. But there's something fun about getting out and seeing the world. Since Guatemala, I've been to Belize, the Yucitan penninsula many times, and various European countries. There's so much more to see! And just to defend that my haircut wasn't all bad, it looked a little better when dolled up with cute clothes. This photo could be a Flashback Friday in itself. Tia, me, and Rachael in front of the house we rented in Provo, summer of '99. It was the dreamiest place I lived in Provo. If you've lived in Provo, I'm sure you've driven by. On 9th East across from what used to be Kent's market. What is it now? The creamery? (sorry we're so small in the picture)And just for kicks, here's when it was slightly more grown out. Me and Rachael:

Casey's bug:
Now I can't claim this was the first big trip Casey had taken out of the country. At this point he'd already been to Argentina, Nicaragua, and many many trips throughout Mexico. But I'm pretty sure this impromptu trip to Tahiti stands out as a traveling highlight. Some friends in the single's ward were going and he joined them. Stacie Perkins, Nicolene Kniskern, and Casey eating the local fruit: Amazing scenery. Looks like a postcard:
The rest of the group included Chad Lillian (on top of the tour truck), Amber Hollingsworth (now Lillian as well...ooooo), and Dave Broadbent:
Something odd about Tahiti: there are cats everywhere. Just random stray cats. I guess they were brought over to help with a rat infestation. Now there's a cat infestation. Another strange thing about the cats: they wouldn't eat canned tuna (to which I asked, why did you have a can of tuna in Tahiti?), but they would eat coconut.

Random happenings , "I was somehow convinced that I could find a black pearl, keshi, I think it's called. So I found an oyster one day, about 20 feet under water, sitting there with its mouth open. I took a leatherman and cut him out of the water, it took like a half hour to dislodge him. I brought him on shore and used a few rocks to break him open. It was pretty cruel but fun to try. Anyway, there was nothing inside." - Casey Casey went climbing. Trees like this were everywhere: He also got the worst sunburn he's ever had on his back. After a couple days it started to itch like crazy. So he took a towel and scratched it off. Then it burned like fire. Bad idea. Since Tahiti, Casey's travelled to Cancun on our honeymoon, Hawaii, and other US destinations.

Thus, it's time for another adventure! Here's our next stop:
Machu Picchu, Peru. Thanks to our AMAZING parents for watching our children (we really appreciate it), we leave in a couple weeks on our 7 day adventure. We'll stay with my cousin Linsey in Lima for a couple days (her husband's job is there...for another few weeks that is and then it's off to Venezuela. She's been more than helpful with travel tips/arrangements. Thanks!) I've already had a taste of strange South American customer service as I've been planning our flights. But I sure look forward to seeing a new country and exploring these amazing ruins. I hope the green is just as brilliant in person.