The Beer Shower

Yes. An interesting title for a blog post for people who don't drink but this is what we experienced yesterday to celebrate the end of the semester.

We live on the first floor and some people from the third floor were moving out. Apparently, these people recycle and didn't have enough time to take their beer cans and bottles to the depot. They had large, heavy plastic garbage bags full of these bottles and cans. Some movers, who were rather short, did their best to hold these bags up while they walked down but at least one of these bags were scraped on the cement stairs spilling the beer dregs all over. This normally is uneventful but these stairs are not closed off and have space in between each rung through which one can see. Unfortunately, Lindy, Anya and I were walking right below these stairs when this occurred. A beer shower. We all were sprayed with smelly droplets of sticky beer... Anya slobbers so much these days that she gave herself a shower afterwards (starting with the her shirt) but Lindy and I had to have a more conventional shower to clean up the mess... Enough showers for everyone!


But some better news is that my semester is over! My last class for Spring 2007 was completed yesterday morning and so only a few more final exams and presentations stand between me and the Georgia sun.

4 months = 700 diapers

Happy Birthday Anya!

Today Anya is 1/3 years old. She has another 25.67 years before she is half my age... As before, on her "even-month-birthdays" we celebrate by counting how many diapers we have used and just recently we crossed the 700 diaper milepost. Wow! 700 diapers! The use rate has definitely slowed down but that is still a lot!...(With one more data point, we should be able to plot the data and identify the trend for the use of diapers!)

But there are challenges. Lindy wants me to start throwing them out and says the box that holds them in our closest is starting to really smell. I thought it would be a funny thing to hold off until we reach a 1000 but our box can only hold so many and the neighbors have started to complain... They just don't make walls as thick as they used to... (However, I am starting to have headaches myself...)

Both Lindy and I were also honored to respectively have a burrito and a quesadilla named after us at Moe's restaurant. Due to legalities, Anya was not able to enjoy the same honor. She still can't sign her name and so Moe was worried about the "name waiver" documentation... (You may need to click on the picture to see a large image of the menu.)

Now I hope Moe's is okay with me talking about them. I don't work there and so my uncle's most recent publication would be applicable here... ;)

Marta Moment #4

This is a true conversation, which took place between a man and me.

[A man sits on a church step, smoking a cigarette with a cigarette pack in hand. I walk casually by on my way to the Marta.]

Man: Hey, man. Can I have some money to buy some food?

Me: Hmmm... Why don't you not smoke and then you would have some money for food?

Man: Come on, man. I gotta do something with my time.

Me: [After pausing] ... Well, then why don't you get a job?

Man: No man, I'm sick, I just got out of the hospital...

Me: Oh yah? What did you have?

Man: Lung cancer.

Me: [long pause]................ [walks away]

The Salmon Fest

Those of you who are well acquainted with Salmon Fests need no further description and can jump directly to the pictures. For those who have not been so fortunate to attend one you may need a little guidance.

A Salmon Fest is when more than 10 direct descendants of Jay and Doris Salmon gather together and wreck havoc on the peace and tranquility of the surroundings. I must be careful here as a number of their sons' immediate families can achieve that threshold by themselves (including my Dad if all his children and grandchildern are together...) and believe me when we are all together there is nothing tranquil about it...

Anyway, during our trip to Utah, we had a Salmon Fest in connection with my Grandfather's 80th birthday. It started in a local Pizza Factory restaurant and slowly expanded beyond critical mass. (I'm sure the poor waitress is still trying to figure out all the lunch bills from two weeks ago...)

It (referring to the Salmon Fest as a an actual creature independant of all else) slowly crawled up the canyon and placed itself in a small cabin the size of a large squash court. Pretty tight, pretty loud, but pretty fun. We took some great pictures and let Anya meet some new cousins.

Eventually parts of it spilled out and played an Ultimate Frisbee game. The game had everything you could ask for in a game: underdogs, wild fans, trash talk, questionable catches, unnoticed fouls, whiners, slackers, tired out-of-shape people, old man injuries and unpredictable heros. All part of a true Salmon Fest! (I was probably most of those...except for the hero...)

I was a little disappointed we didn't play Steal-Sticks but there's always another Salmon Fest around the corner!

Dinner followed and the food consumption knew no bounds. Salmons aren't the smallest people and we were worried little Anya would get lost in the crowd. But she kept her relatives' attention with her cuteness and avoided being overlooked.

We were planning to stay the night but Anya was no match for the Salmon Fest. One KO against little David and one loss after 12 rounds to the SF... A 1-1 record... Not bad for a little baby...

A four generation picture

(Grandpa, can you stay alive long enough to make it five?)



A four "in-law" generation picture. The four ladies here are only blood related through Anya!!!

The Salmon Fest before the feast

A little out of focus but still very cute!

Fashion Sense

Because of the generosity of many friends and family, we have yet to purchase a single item of clothing for Anya. And we figure we may not have to until she is about 18 months old. We love it! Thank you! So, Anya has been exploring the world of fashion lately. One day I was surprised to see her father had dressed her in this:


Yes, the pants are pink (she had no socks or shoes on--despite the fact that we were about to go outside and it was cold) and the hat is her Christmas hat (red and white) from the Calloways. Fortunately her smile makes up for it.

While in Utah, we decided to go on a walk one bright, sunny day. I mentioned to my mom that I should get a hat with a brim and in a few seconds she handed me a bonnet. Anya would have made a cute pioneer.

Anya was blessed on April 1. For this special occasion she was able to wear the same dress her mom, her mom's sisters, and cousin Sariah Jo were blessed in. And yes, she left her signature mark on it--slobber. (We were glad it was the slobber signature mark, she has some other signature marks that wouldn't have been as pleasant.)


And lastly, here is Anya Jo sporting her new, pink sunglasses she got from Grandma Salmon. By the way, Happy Birthday Great Grandpa Salmon (on the 9th) and Grandpa Salmon (10th).

Merry Easter!?

I was thinking about Easter this morning while I was taking my shower and among other things I was wondering why we say "Merry Christmas!" but "Happy Easter!"...

With that introduction, Anya's first Easter Sunday was fantastic! She received some chocolate kisses and lots of real kisses and even a new little pink dress from the Bonners. I was fortunate enough to get the go ahead from Anya to eat most of her chocolate treats... I asked her this way: "Anya, if you don't say anything, I will take that as permission granted to me to eat your Easter candy." She didn't say anything so I chowed it down. She didn't seem to mind. She kept on smiling and staring at me with her big blue eyes and chewing on her hand... It was like stealing candy from a baby... ;)


However, Anya did like chewing on the Smarties' box.


It's a good deal we have set up. I eat the inside of the candy boxes and she eats the outside. We almost feel like we are native Americans who would never waste any part of the buffalo... but in this case it is a box of candy... All is of value... to someone.

In addition, the Easter bunny came and hid two large eggs. Lindy and Anya still have yet to find them. I was able to find them but I'm worried they never will. The eggs were hid a little too high and thus both Anya and Lindy probably can't see the eggs from their altitude...
(Maybe if they read this post it will give them a clue.)

So, our own family Easter egg hunt is still ongoing. (I guess we will have to keep you posted on that one as well). This reminds me of another Easter when I was younger where my siblings and I weren't able to finding all the eggs and after a week or two the living room was smelling pretty nasty... Oh well. If that happens again, I suppose we won't be living here forever...

Anyway, we want to wish everyone a Happy Easter and a.... Merry 2007 tax season!

Family First

I know you've been waiting a long time to read a post about little Anya's trip to Utah. In fact, there were so many things that happened on the trip that we will have to break up the full report into a number of posts. So, like it should be... Family First...

One highlight of the trip was having Anya meet Grandma and Grandpa Marler and four of her great-grandparents for the very first time. (We were worried that at least one of them wasn't going to see Anya...and move on with their "life"... but the health concern seem to go away...) Some quick math will show that the average age of Anya's four living great-grandparents is 84 years older than Anya's current age. That means they have lived (on average) 337 times longer than Anya!


In fact, Anya met 4 new uncles, 4 new aunts, 4 new great uncles, 6 new great aunts, approximately 30 cousins (once removed), 6 first cousins on the one side, 4 second cousins, a cute little girl named Phoenix who liked to wear a very scary rabbit mask and her own younger first cousin, little David! (who is no longer "little"... I will probably not call him that anymore...he's going to be bigger than me at the rate he is gaining weight!) Anyway, Anya had a blast punching, jabbing and round house kicking him in her very first boxing match. As you can see in this picture, she was able to knock David right to sleep! Her first KO! She better get her punches in now because David sure will when he wakes up... For more coverage of the boxing match, click here.


Anya loved her Grandma Marler's cooking (indirectly) and Lindy did too! Grandma Marler read lots of books to Anya and a little bird told me she is sending a book for Easter. Oh boy! An Easter surprise!


Uncle Wes was excited to meet yet another niece that will make him play Barbie's in a couple of years... Sorry Wes...


Aunt Kari was glad to get away from work and spend the whole day with Anya. Hopefully we didn't scare her off from future motherhood.


That's all for today but come back soon as we have a number of stories about our trip to share including the Buick, the Salmon Fest, No-longer-Little David, the hand, the flight home, CKB, and much, much more!

Also, thanks for the laugh "my mom and I..." for the comments on Comments on Comments...