Happy Birthday Lisa. Later on you can remind me how to get the cool Happy Birthday Graphic to display here.
Today is Approximate π day because you can approximate the value of π by dividing 22 by 7 – 22/7. And if you write the date with the day before the month (which I do) today is 22/7.
So we had raspberry turnovers for dessert. Because turnovers are approximately pie.
Brett would like to point out that every value of π you’ve ever seen is approximate. Some are just more approximate than others.
Brett also successfully donated blood today for the very first time. They took good care of him so he didn’t pass out (a friend of ours was actually working the blood drive, but she drew my blood not Brett’s).
So we gave approximately 2 pints of blood to help out today between the two of us. And because I’ve lost count I couldn’t tell you exactly how much I’ve donated in my life, but I’ve probably donated approximately 2 gallons by this point.
We got t-shirts for donating too (plus the cookies). Yea for one more day to put off doing laundry! (It’s amazing what I’ll do for a t-shirt.)
I’m not nearly as bad as my mom (there are stories), but I regularly dream. If you ask me while I’m eating breakfast what I dreamed about I’ll barely be able to recall the details, and by lunch they’re basically gone unless I’ve consciously been thinking about them all morning. But I’d say at least half the time I have a dream at night. And they are almost never the lovely butterfly and rainbow variety.
Twice now since getting married I’ve woken up an hour or so before the alarm because I was having a bad dream where bad people were chasing me (one time it was the Nazis). The first time it happened I rolled over and started stroking Brett’s arm. He eventually woke up just enough to roll towards me and put his arm around me. While I was stroking his arm I was thinking how I just really needed someone to like me right then. He didn’t wake up enough to really remember it though. And then I was able to go back to sleep.
It’s nice having someone who likes me 
, even when he’s asleep. 
The monsoon season officially starts on June 15th. And if we thought last year’s was pathetic, it was nothing like this year’s. In the first 30 days of the season we are supposed to get one inch of rain. As of last night we’d only recorded 0.01 inches of rain. Abysmal.
While we were out shopping today, bemoaning the heat and the clouds that keep taunting us (which keeps reminding me of the first half of the movie Lagaan), I told Brett to do a rain dance. So he did a little dance in the car.
It worked.
About 10 minutes to 5pm it started to really rain here. We went out and stood on our patio to watch it and enjoy it. Aww. How sweet.
BOOM!!!
Lightning struck the street behind us. I saw a HUGE yellow fireball from it and we could smell the smoke from the strike. I thought we could drive around later and see what had been hit when I noticed through our neighbor’s tree what looked like flames. Going to the other side of our yard we were able to see what had been hit. A palm tree was on fire. By the time I snapped the picture we’d heard the fire trucks arrive (there’s a fire station just around the corner really).
The palm tree will have to come down, but at least it wasn’t someone’s house.
Using Google Earth I’ve determined that the tree (red star) is 63.82 yards from our back porch (blue star). That’s close.
Less than an hour later and the storm has blown past. Hopefully it’s the first of many (although we could do without more trees being struck by lightning).
Our travels in the last month (Giles reunion, Grand Canyon, Desert, Dennis reunion) left us with lots of memories, lots of pictures, and a few new sayings.
My mom gave us, “The food of my people.” We have been modifying it to, “The water of my people,” and have found it works quite well that way too. 
From Brett we got three sayings.
- “We’re wandering from cow to cow and haven’t found you.” Which is what you say when you are lost in Wyoming and the only real landmarks around you are cows.
- “It reminds me of Ireland in the dark.” We’ve discovered you can apply this saying to just about anything.
- “That goose is creepy even with my pants on.” Oddly, we’ve discovered there isn’t a whole lot you can apply this saying to.
Lisa likes to talk about the “suburbs of Kanab” partially because Brett insists they don’t exist.
Then there’s, “Take me to bed or I’ll go there myself.”
And Lisa is convinced that they say, “He asked of Pluto,” in the Greek New Testament that Brett has been listening to. 
Last year for my birthday, my parents, knowing how many books I have and imagining how many books Brett has, gave us money to go to Ikea to buy a bookcase. Except the bookcase we wanted wouldn’t fit in our car. And because Ikea is in Tempe and we’re in Tucson, they would’ve charged $100 to deliver it to us, more than the bookcase itself costs.
We thought about borrowing/renting a pick-up and getting it on one of our monthly trips to Mesa, but just hadn’t done it yet.
As if one drive to Utah wasn’t enough, we went up again last weekend! (Yes, two trips in three weeks. We are not driving anywhere again for a very long time.) This trip was for the Dennis reunion.
(I’m taking this photo. Someone somewhere has one of these with me in it.)
Thursday afternoon we had a great BBQ and enjoyed each other’s company in Bountiful. Sorry. I didn’t get any pictures of that. I was a little busy.
Friday Brett and I went to his “favorite” restaurant with his brother and his wife – El Matador. And then more BBQ in the backyard before driving up to Idaho for the next two nights. While my parents say I’ve been to Idaho before, I have no memory of it (it was apparently on our way to Yellowstone when I was 8 or something). So we took a picture so that now I’ll remember going there.
Saturday we drove in to Wyoming, Star Valley specifically, to look at the old family stomping grounds and eat cheese curds. I decided that it’s called Star Valley because of the star on the mountain, but my nephews didn’t believe me. We also had a few problems getting lost. “We’re wandering from cow to cow and can’t find you.”
Brett took a picture of himself reflected in my sunglasses.
The lilacs were in bloom and smelled so good. The irises were blooming where the old family cabin used to be.
Did you know people run for coroner in Wyoming? I’ve never heard of such a political race. I thought it was just a job you got hired to do. Now I’m wondering if I prefer Democrat or Republican coroners. This guy had a lot more signs than his opponent.
We saw two moose (my favorite plural word) on the way back to Idaho. I gave Brett my camera to take a picture. He didn’t zoom in. But considering he didn’t even think he’d pointed it in the right direction, I guess he did okay.
Saturday night was fireworks time in Idaho Falls. We were along the river to watch them.
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Happy Independence Day!!
Don’t some of those photos remind you of Hubble shots of space?
He kissed me and there were fireworks!
It was a good weekend, but it’s good to be home too.
Before they left Arizona I took my parents out to the desert (Arizona Sonora Desert Museum). Because that’s what we do when people come to Tucson. We take them to the desert and we take them to Beyond Bread (and Bookman’s). So we saw both things Arizona is known for – the Grand Canyon and saguaro cactus. Luckily a few saguaros were still in bloom.
Leaving Utah last Monday morning, my parents followed us home. So we stopped at the Grand Canyon. My mom had been there as a little girl but the rest of us had never seen it. We arrived around 6pm and were able to take advantage of the great dusk lighting to get some fabulous photos. The place is amazing!
We camped there for the night. The thermometer says it was ten degrees colder at the Grand Canyon than it was in Utah, but it felt a lot warmer while we slept. In my half awake state in the early morning I accidentally let all the air out of Brett’s mattress while he was still sleeping. Oops.
Last weekend we drove up to Utah for the Giles 2010 reunion. It was for all the descendants of my Grandpa. He and Grandma had 5 kids. Then they added 22 grandkids. The current count for great-grandkids is 29. Brett missed being the newest person in the family by 10 days when the 29th great-grandchild was born. Number 30 is due in the next two weeks. With marriages that makes 78 people. All but 10 were there. And we added 11 people to the family since the last reunion 3 years ago.
To help keep everyone straight, we get shirts each year. Each of Grandpa’s kids has a color. So Uncle Joe’s family was all blue this year. Aunt Jeanette’s family was green. Our family was yellow. Uncle Steve’s family was orange (they are missing four people in their family, so that’s why it looks so small). And Uncle Brad’s family is red. It makes for a great family photo. We look like a bunch of skittles. It also helps us figure out who all the great-grandkids belong to as they are running around.