21st Century, Here We Come

With almost two years of marriage under our belt, we have experienced a few holidays, birthdays and celebrations that involve gifts. My loving Sam, bless his heart with his wonderful intentions, has vocally gifted me quite a list of items over this time....

two wedding bands to balance my engagement ring
a kitchen table
a gorgeous picture of the San Diego Temple
tivo
a Melting Pot dinner

All of which I am still waiting for, at least until today. My Graduation/Easter/Valentine/Birthday present has finally arrived!!! (we are choosing to overlook the fact that I have been done for quite awhile, these holidays are long over, and my birthday is coming up sooner as opposed to just past)



I can finally watch my shows on the big screen, instead of coming to terms with missing them or sticking in head phones and watching them on the computer!!!! Hurray!!! We are in the big leagues now.
(And I will take my present and not even care about the fact that there are more of his soccer games getting recorded at the moment than my shows.)

For all you husbands out there, Sam is on to something great. He gets to use the same gift as multiple presents, and does not have to spend any money at all. And I guess I always have a someday to look forward to.

Here's to looking forward to the day when I finally receive the rest of my list of presents.

Gross Medicine

If you come to my house, and you see these treats sitting on the counter (which doesn't happen that often because they are usually gone in about two days)



And you ask Sam what they are and if you can have one, he will tell you they are gross medicine and take them out of your little hands and hide them so he doesn't have to share with you.

Yep, I witnessed him do this to a child two days ago. Pretty shameless Sam.

Connie's Birthday....Shout Hooray!

When you are the oldest kid in the Galeria family, a lot of things happen:

1. You turn out to be a pretty cute baby even though you cried a lot, making mom want more kids and giving the rest of us a chance to be born.
2. You get to go to school first while Rob and I had to stay home.



3. You always got control of the remote, and the ability to choose to watch shows like Rescue 911 and Chips (Erik Estrada! Ya you all know you watched it too)
4. You develop a lot of responsibility early on and never miss a day, or show up late to early morning seminary. And you let me have it if its my fault we are running behind.



5. You learn to drive first, and never live down the first accident.
6. Or the time you hit that duck on the way to seminary. Boy did those feathers fly :)



7. You learn to study hard, and set the bar high with your almost masters in nursing, making my political science degree and sushi serving look bad.
8. You learn to vacuum the house and clean the bathrooms well, unlike the younger kids.
9. You get really used to always having little people around you to boss :)



10. You learn really fast how great dining plus really is, so that you can take advantage of it when it's my freshmen year and I have it.
11. You always get to be the teacher when we play school.
12. You get to go to high school first, and teach mom that it's okay for us to join sports' teams.



13. You get all the new clothes, while the rest of us girls just get hand-me-downs.
14. You somehow mastered the early to bed early to rise shenanigans that fell on deaf ears when it was taught to me.
15. Yet, you also learned to sleep through anything, including fire alarm sirens set off right outside your room, that time I almost burned our house down.
16. You've learned to be the best big sister I could ask for.



17. And hopefully you have learned forgiveness, so that you won't hate me for posting this picture of you. It is my all time favorite and makes me smile every time I see it :)

Happy Birthday Connie!!!! We Love You!!!!

Marie, long time no see...

We set out on what we thought was a regular Costco outing. And who did we run into?
None other than our good friend Marie Osmond.



When Sam first saw her, his first comment was, "didn't she just go through a divorce with Donny Osmond?" I replied with a confident, "I sure hope not."

Thank you Utah Valley. This now puts our tallies to two celebrity sightings. First it was serving some sushi and potstickers to Lindsey Lohan, now its seeing Marie Osmond at Costco.
I wonder who we'll see next.

Tax Day Procrastination

Who would have expected anything less from us? Leaving the house at 11:00pm, headed towards the post office.

I reminded Sam to bring the envelopes he had nicely filled and addressed after his ten hour day of working on them, and then his wallet to pay for the stamps that have just been raised 2 cents.

We literally hiked to the car, because for some reason mother nature decided to dump a million tons of snow on us, and started our trek. Fortunately, we live at the bottom of a huge hill so our car just barely made it up the hill as we attempted to pass the ten cars pulled over because they were stuck. After slipping, sliding, and almost not making it because an idiotic white truck pulled in front of us and made us slow so much we lost all of our momentum, we made it to the post office.



We walked in, got in line to pay for postage, and right then Sam solemnly decided to confess that he had forgotten to put the checks in before he sealed up the envelopes (yep, that's right, we freaking owe money. BOO). Me, not surprised, gave a little eye roll, as we trekked back to the car, down the slippery scary hill, and back to our house so we could get the checkbook and give the government our hard earned money.



Then we got back into the car and once again barely made it up the hill and to the post office. The good news is:
We got our taxes to the post office before midnight.
We got to see several cars hit curbs and other cars.
And I got to eat candy the whole time.

Can't complain about that.



And yes, that is Sam wearing sweat pants and church shoes. I tried to make him change, but apparently dry feet and pants mean more to him than not looking ridiculously silly.

I'll Believe It When I See It

Word around our house is that Sam is all done with classes as of today.

Finals start Friday....so after four important tests and a huge paper he should be done with school. That makes me pretty happy. I think we are both tired of our evenings getting spent like this...



Of course, graduation still requires a three month research project, a forty page paper and a few religion classes....so call me a pessimist, but I am going to have a hard time being relieved until I actually hold the diploma.

Oh ya, and know the MCAT score and find out where med school takes us.

And then there is residencies to worry about....I call that I have ulcers in less than two years.

Tonight's Menu...

After being cut from work early, we decided to grab some dinner. Poor Sam had no idea that he would have to please an indecisive girl craving everything disgusting.

Mashed potatoes, baby hamburgers, tacos, and salad were all things that sounded decent. So we headed out to fill the gas tank and grab some fast food take out.


The first stop after filling up the tank: Kentucky Fried Chicken because of their addictive mashed potatoes.


Next, we drove four blocks south to the golden arches. I needed my baby hamburger and a side salad.


After Mcdonalds we wrapped up our fast food frenzy by literally driving across the street to Burger King to get two crunchy tacos and a strawberry milkshake with the biggest straw I have ever seen.

The saddest part of the whole excursion? When we got home I wasn't even hungry.
But I ate it anyways.

Ice Cream and Baby Spoons

Hey Jana, I think you left one of baby Will's spoons at our house...and Sam is pretty happy about it.

Sam's Heaven: watching tv and eating chocolate ice cream with a baby spoon after a long day of school and shadowing.

Oh ya, thanks for the birthday ice cream that we forgot to eat with the cake. Sam was pretty happy about that too.

Things That Make Me Laugh...

1. Quietly hiding behind the corner in our pitch black room when Sam got up to get a drink in the middle of the night, and then scaring the heck out of him. I hope when I get to heaven and watch that on replay there is night vision technology so I can actually see his face along with hear the noises that came out of him. Best scream ever and totally worth the next few hours of him being completely mad at me.

2. Reading about 400+ students getting accepted to NYU on April 1, only to get their true rejection letter an hour later. April Fools to the extreme.
3. When I am at work and customers ask me if our chicken is cooked. Silly people, of course it is.
4. Remembering that one time a co-worker slipped on an edamame pod. Closest thing to a cartoon banana peel slip I think I will ever see.
5. Fighting over the shower with my sisters whenever I go home.

6. Seeing Jana do the finger dipstick method to check Will's diaper. You can guess what happens next.
7. Listening to an older Costco Sample lady tell a little girl to wait her turn when she tried to sneak to the front of the line and eat before a few adults.
8. Waking up to Sam yelling "Stop, Stop, Stop, Stop...." in his sleep. Must have been some nightmare.
9. Also waking up to Sam asking me "Where have all the boys gone?" Not quite sure what this dream was about, and not sure I want to know either.
10. Falling off the curb at the intersection a hundred feet from my house as I am leaving to go for a run. I scraped my knees up pretty good and rolled my ankle, but at least I was entertainment for all those cars waiting at the light.

11. Sam stopping to help some old people who's car had broken down; then getting back in the car and telling me to tell everyone I know about the good thing he had just done.
12. Pretty much everything Kevin did to those burglars on Home Alone.
13. Watching Ellen
14. Typical Sam forgetting to take the ring on the boat ride across Seattle, the night he was supposed to propose to me.
15. Watching a rhinoceros spray the wall with pee at the zoo.
16. Taking three swings to actually hit the golf ball when I meant to do it on my first try.
17. Sam, Quinn, and three huge bags of dirty laundry riding the little motoped 7 miles from Quinn's house to ours.

18. Sam tucking my cute new shoes into his socks in lieu of shin guards so he could play in his championship intramural soccer game. Ruined my shoes, but at least he won.
19. Bob's comments
20. And cutting onions with goggles.