Seis Puerqueños

Dear Self,

Don’t do lunges. You will be sorry and not able to walk for at least two days. Don’t be an idiot, just don’t do them ever again.

Love, Self

and two days. That’s how long we’ve been married.

On Friday, Kelsey called me at work while she was out shopping. She wanted to know if she should get the pork spare ribs for our barbecue on Saturday. For our anniversary BBQ!

That’s right. My wife is so cool that she thinks it’s a great idea to have a BBQ to celebrate the first anniversary of our wedding. Of course, she was pretty cool to be willing to have a BBQ for our wedding reception as well.

I made sure all the guys at work knew how cool my wife is. And I told her to get 4 packs of ribs.

So we returned to the scene, Luther Burbank Park on Mercer Island, one year later (minus two days), invited a bunch of friends, and proceeded to barbecue. This time Kelsey let me man the grill. For our wedding, her stepdad, Todd did the honors.

We had enough food for 40, and it took many trips to the car and back to haul it all. Finally, around 1:30, I started the coals. At 2 o’clock the first guests showed up right as I was putting the first rack of ribs on. They thought it started at 1. Only a trickle of guests were there by 3, so I sat down to enjoy the ribs (not my best, but easily in the top 10) and Kelsey’s famous pasta salad and brownies (not mixed) and chips and pop and cherries and grapes and some banana bread Suegra brought.

Before long, there were a ton of people, and I was putting more chicken and ribs on. The coals were dying down and running out, so I gathered up some sticks with Eden’s help, and got the fire going. This batch was even better than the last.

There was no dunk tank, but I had to go wash my hands in the lake, and ended up getting a little bit wet.

I’ve been eating leftover BBQ chicken for lunch at work this week, and I was a little sad to learn this morning that Kelsey ate the last of the ribs. But I still love her, and we’ll give another year a shot.

So, since we moved we have been trying to figure out which ward we are in (which church we should go to based on our address). From the morning ward we learned by looking at their map that we were not only out of their ward boundaries by a few houses, but also out of the stake as well. But they assured us that we could be in their ward anyway. We figured we better try the afternoon ward, as it seemed to be our actual ward based on where we lived. Even if it did meet at 1pm. So after sacrament meeting the bishop zooms over to meet us, and after we are whisked away to his office to look at an awesome huge map of the ward and stake boundaries. We are not in their ward either. By a couple of houses. We look at the tiny map, and we are still not in the ward. The bishop calls two other guys in to look at the maps and tell us we are not in that ward. Then a discussion ensues of whether we are in the Renton or Bellevue school district. We don’t know, but if we can find out, that will tell us which ward we belong to. The bishop takes our names and number and says he will let us know. Aaron jokes after Sunday School that since we are out of all ward boundaries we will just start our own branch. Later after church he decides that we are probably still in the Bellevue 1st ward because it would have originally been within the boundaries and since it belongs to no ward, nor stake, that is where we go by default. I explain to the relief society ladies about how I may or may not be in the ward, and they all make convincing arguments to stay in their ward, and I feel really genuinely welcomed and wanted. By the end of church the bishop has talked to someone else, and has decided we are in their ward, but only barely. We are excited to hopefully have found our ward, even if we are nervous because the nursery has 17 children, and you know where they put new couples.

Totally did the dishes earlier. But then made spaghetti because I was hungry.

Full of food for tomorrow’s party.

It was a tie. Both horrifyingly dirty. I’m sorry.

This required two photos because I have a real nifty deep side closet thing. My closet is obviously exploding, and the second picture is my bags of craft stuff, mainly cloth.

Totally did the laundry today. Boo-yah.

Kicking up a storm. Excuse the spots from the mirror, and weird shadows from the shower. Oh, and my naked belly.

This is the craft room part of the kitchen/front room. Also future home of the office as well.

Oh what a creative angle of a toilet photo…

Oh warm beach, wherever you are…

Here I am.

I tag…
1. Billie (you have to do it right when you get home. Serious do it.)
2. (P)amy
3. Esther (if you can muster enough energy)

Yesterday he just wanted chocolate milk all day long. And when I say wanted it, I mean I drank a lot of it. And today he was just begging for chips. I am already such a permissive parent.

Totally exciting day on Friday, because the baby decided to kick for Aaron to feel. My dad asked if I was ever going to start calling the baby Harmon, it’s future name. I said probably not until it comes out, because people will just think I’ve named my fat belly, and am crazily talking to it. The word baby seems necessary still.

Last night laying in bed I said to falling asleep Aaron:

“It’s too bad that you can’t feel this baby kicking and moving around yet, because I sure feel it”

Aaron said:

“mmmm”

A few minutes later I feel a real good kick to my hand placed on my belly. Continue to bug drowsy husband:

“Hey! He kicked! Feel this!”

Aaron proceeds to half wake up and put his hand on my belly for several minutes, and nothing happens. I apologize and Aaron tries to get to sleep again. But this baby is a trickster and he waits a minute until Aaron is gone, and does it again. And so I play games where I tighten my belly and wait a minute and then feel the kick or movement again. I don’t bother to wake Aaron up again, because he actually has to get up in the morning, but my baby and I have a fun time playing our game for a while, like it’s a special secret for just us. It was pretty cool.