The Pressure of a Name

My grandma went to school with a girl named Nancy Ann Ciancy (pronounced Nancyannciancy), my parents knew a guy names Phillip Muweenie, everyone called him Phil (feel my weenie), we had a librarian at my high school named Gaylin Fagg but she went by Gay (Gay Fag) and my brother has a friend who named their child Cannon, which is actually cute except that their last name is Ball (yep... Cannon Ball). Are you wondering why I'm telling you this? Well... names have just been on my mind lately. We're trying to come up with something for baby girl Rhodes and it's much harder than I ever would have anticipated. When I was in elementary school, I thought I had my kid's names all figured out. I'd have twins, a boy and a girl and their names would be Tony and Tawny. For some reason, Tawny just doesn't have the same appeal as it once did.
So... like I said, names have been on the brain. I don't want our little lady to have a name that is going to traumatize her for the rest of her life like those listed above. How come it wasn't this hard with Owen? Tyler and I pretty much decided on that name while on our honeymoon and it stuck. No such luck with this little one. Our options thus far: Elliott (my choice), Brooke (Tyler's choice), Sienna (both kinda like this one) and Nemo (Owne's choice).
Every time I tell someone over 30 that I am rooting for Elliott they automatically think of this:

 But this is who I think of when I think of Elliott:

 Isn't she cute? I think so. Plus, I think even if you do think of ET when you hear Elliott, the second you meet our little girl, you will start thinking of her instead.
Luckily I don't really care what anyone else thinks about the name. As long as Tyler and I are in agreement on what it's going to be, I'll be happy. But that's the hard part. We have seven weeks left though. Plenty of time...
Is this blog post boring you? I know, I'm lame. We just don't have a lot to blog about right now. We did head to Orlando last weekend for a couple of days. On our way up there, Owen was asking for some book in the back seat, I was handing him every one that I saw back there and finally figured out that this is what he was wanting to read:

I don't even know what that magazine is or where it came from. Junk mail we left in the car? Probably. Should it worry me that he wanted that magazine over his book about trucks that was right next to it?
We spent some time at the pool and at Sea World while we were there but Owen's favorite part... the shuttle bus to and from the park. When Tyler asked him that night what we had done all day, the bus is what he kept talking about. Look at this smile:

I mentioned that I was lame earlier right? Well, it rings true with taking pictures as well. I took maybe three pictures the whole time we were there and this was the best of the three. Remember when I used to ask him to say cheese, he would at least attempt somewhat of a smile? It's somehow morphed into this face. He does it almost every time. Closes his eyes and scrunches his face like that. I love it.

I also lost my wallet for five hours. It wasn't fun. Has that ever happened to you? Well, it sucked. Luckily, some super nice, honest guy named Victor turned it in so all was well. Doesn't it just make you so happy to know there are really honest people out there?

Tyler had to head to another location from Orlando so it was me and Owen on our own for the drive home. I had given him a pen and a Mickey Mouse coloring book to keep him entertained while we were on the road. He was being so good just in the back coloring away and then eventually fell to sleep. When we got home, this is what I saw:

No wonder he was so happy back there. At least it kept him entertained.

Leprechauns and Love... Could a day get any better?

YAY! Happy St. Patrick's Day (a little late). We woke up and had some green eggs for breakfast. My mom always made green apple pancakes and green eggs but since Owen doesn't really get the whole St. Patty's day thing yet, I figured green eggs would be good enough. He wasn't quite sure about them at first (why are they green?) but once he tasted them, he didn't hesitate to dig right in.

Please excuse the bedhead

Next on the docket to celebrate this great Irish holiday was a leprechaun treasure hunt that my creative friend McKenzie invited us over for. It did not disappoint. She sent the kids on a hunt for different colored shamrocks, until they hit the end of the rainbow colors and reached the treasure (a bag of rolos, bubbles and playdough).

Owen really loved when he would find the right color shamrock

She had also prepared rainbow cupcakes and green slushies. Didn't I say she was a creative lady?

Owen and his buddy McKay really enjoying their slushies

After the St. Patrick's Day festivities, we moved onto the more important celebration of the day. Me and Ty's Anniversary! I can't believe it's been four years since this day:

We kept on with our Anniversary tradition of fondue for dinner. So yummy. I love the Melting Pot.

Tyler really loved the fondue as well (a little too much?)

Man, I love that handsome guy. Really, every single day I wake up and realize I love him even more than I did the day before. A few weeks ago we were cleaning out our storage closet and found a box of "things I adore about Tyler Rhodes". WhiIe we were dating,  I wrote down 50 things I loved about him on strips of paper and left them in his car one night for him to find later.  I loved going through and reading all of the things I adored about him while we were dating and realizing as we read them that there are a million more things I love about him now (super cheesy right? I don't care, it's true). Today I want to write down a few of those things... or maybe more than a few. How about 20 things I love about him? Just because...

1. I love that he can always make me laugh
2. I love that when Tyler makes ipod mixes he will put rap music, soundtrack music (you know like the soundtrack to braveheart), Phil Collins or some other 80's band, and church music all on one mix. I also LOVE when I try to tease him about it, his response is "hey, what's wrong with that? They are all good songs."
3. I love that he is always up for whatever things I plan. Like spending the day at a giant swap meet or going to friend's houses for the bachelor finale and he acts happy about it.
4. I love that he actually really loves the Bachelor as much as I do.
5. I love to watch him play with Owen. He is really the best dad. Really. They play so super cute together AND he always comes up with more creative games than I do. Then I watch in awe and wonder how come I never came up with the creative game he is doing and then when he isn't around, I steal his ideas and use them to make Owen happy.
6. Speaking of Owen, I love when Tyler will get out the rock band instruments and fake play the guitar or the drums while Owen sings. It's one of my favorite things in the world to see.
7. I love that he loves spending time with us. At night and on the weekends, he is always trying to think of things for us to do together as a family. I love that.
8. I love that he is such a good listener. I can talk to him about the lamest of things and he acts like he is interested (most of the time anyway)
9. I love how much he loves watching Gold digging shows. You know, like Alaska Gold Rush and Gold Fever (side note: I also love how he sings this theme song for Gold Fever all the time and tries to teach it to Owen).
10. I love his hot butt.
11. I love when he speaks spanish. It's so so sexy to me.
12. I love that he can get along with anyone. We can go into a new setting, new people and he can make conversation with whoever is there.
13. I love that he makes me want to be a better person every day.
14. I love that he makes everything fun. No matter what we are doing, if Tyler is there with me, it's a good time.
15. I love that Tyler has an alter ego that talks like Donald Duck
16. I love that when we are trying to come up with names for our new baby girl, he will come up with the most random of names just to make me laugh.
17. I love that he is so helpful around the house and with Owen. For example, when I went to girls camp this past week,I got home on Saturday exhausted. I expected Tyler and Owen to be home and for the house to be somewhat of a disaster from them playing for the past two days.  Instead, I walked into a spotless house. What a fantastic surprise right? He spent the morning cleaning so I wouldn't have to worry about it when I got home. He is always doing stuff like that for me.
18. I love his lips. They were the first thing I noticed about his handsome face when I met him nine years ago and they are still one of my favorite features on his face. Plus, he is a really good kisser (another good reason to love those lips)
19. I love that he is such a gentleman. He still opens doors for me, gives up his seat for older people, and is willing to help whenever help is needed.
20. I love that he has such a strong testimony and has the same eternal goals as I do.

I am so happy that I was lucky enough to meet Tyler nine years ago and that five years after that he finally gave in and married me. Can't wait to see what the rest of our lives have in store for us! Love you T Mophat!

YAY for Younger Brothers!

Really... don't you just love them? Well, I do, love mine. He's the best and he just came to visit for five days. It was  fantastic. A little run down of our time spent...
First stop... the beach, because when you've come from 30 degree weather with tons of snow to 80 degree weather with sand  five miles down the road, why not hit up the beach  first things first?

Owen had a blast with his uncle playing in the waves. Derek also had a little time to just lay in the sun and relax.
Derek took a red eye out here to Florida and only slept for maybe an hour or so on his way over, so the second thing on the list of must do's for this guy was a nice little nap, or nice big nap, three and a half hours to be exact. Doesn't he look comfy?

That night we took the bikes for a spin, got some frozen yogurt (mmmm... yummy) and hung out by the water.

On the agenda for Thursday was canoeing through the mangroves over at one of our local parks.

Not on the agenda, running into almost every tree along the way. Derek really knew what  he was doing with those paddles because he earned  his canoeing merit badge once a long time ago. I on the other hand have not ever earned any sort of thing and mostly just laughed when I would make us go the wrong way with my paddle.  Oops...

Unfortunately, it rained for a good part of the day but that just made it a prime opportunity to hit up the outlets and do a little shopping and hang together. Oh, we also took him to one of our favorite restaurants here in  Fo Lo... Anthony's. I promise you it's the best pizza I've ever had. Amazing.

So it looks like Derek is hating this but I promise he loved it too

We also hit up Shark Valley because what would a trip to South Florida be without checking out some gators? Friday we decided to bike around the everglades for a few hours.  It was a complete success. We lost track of how many Alligators we saw while we were out. Such a good time.

Friday night it was time to teach Derek a little something about making sushi. He was a natural. Seriously, his first sushi roll was perfect. Good work little brother!

Saturday Derek and Tyler was super manly and worked on the boat while Owen and I headed to the grocery store.  Once they were finished we went over to our local St. Patrick's Day Festival to find us a little luck of the Irish. Have I mentioned that I love St. Patricks Day? I do... and I love all celebrations for that holiday. Just a few things found while at the festivities:

Handsome Men



Owen's favorite part

Loved this little calf. He kept sitting in front of him, waving and saying hi. Cute.

A guy on stilts who was super awkward holding little boys like Owen

Had us some traditional Irish food. Tyler opted for some corned beef and
cabbage while I felt more like fish n' chips.

Derek decided on a more traditional American meal.
Pizza and funnel cake. Yumm

And a new friend for Owen.

Unfortunately, even though Tyler and Derek spent most of the morning working on the boat, it needed more fixing so we had to change our nightly plans. We still wanted to take Derek out on the water though so we decided that the water taxi would have to do. And it did...

We checked out nice yachts, huge houses and Ft. Lauderdale beach at night. While there we ate some yummy frozen bananas and ice cream. We also found out we may have a little environmentalist on our hands.

The last day he was here we decided we had to check out South Beach, because you know it's touristy and all that stuff and when you find yourself in South Florida on vaction, you need to do those touristy type of things. You might wonder what there is to do in South Beach... mostly there are just a lot of things to look at. Like crazy cars:

I know, who cares about cars right? Well this last car... it's a Bugatti. Who cares about that either right? I thought the same thing but then we realized that this particular car costs $1.7 Million. Yes, you read that right. Can you even imagine buying a car for that kind of money and then actually daring to drive it? Ridiculous.

There is also lots and lots of people watching, especially during spring break. Owen wasn't enjoying the cars and people as much as we were so we decided to visit the park on the beach for his enjoyment. And enjoy he did.

Such a sad day Monday when he had to jump on the plane home. We already miss him like crazy, Owen keeps going to the guest room and asking where Derek his. He misses his uncle... COME BACK DEREK!!!