Butterflies and Flower

Well folks, I finally did it. Some of you who are close to me know that, for a while, I have been wanting to get a tattoo. I mostly haven't for a number of different reasons, the top one being that I was TERRIFIED of the pain involved. It didn't bother me that this would be something that was on my body for the rest of my life, oh no, it was definitely the pain.

All last week I was pondering going and getting one. I recently got my tax return, and since Disneyland is paid for already, I had a little bit of extra money to spend. The tattoo was something that I had wanted, and I felt in a rather dangerous mood. So, all week I was talking to Ryley and telling her that I wanted to go get one, since I knew she would go with me. I was also trying to prep Duane, because he was adamantly against me getting one.

Friday rolled around, and I decided that I did definitely want to try to go get one. Try being the key word there. Anyways, Ryley and I hung out most of the day, and around 7pm we made it down to Lost Art, which is a really great Tattoo parlor in downtown Salt Lake City. I was very nervous about the whole thing, and was totally shaking the whole time I was signing the permission form and everything. However, they got me the only girl artist in the shop, and she was very nice to me. She even did just a little line at first to make sure I could handle the pain.

Obviously, it did hurt. I am not going to sit here and tell you that tattoo's feel like someone is tickling your back with a feather. However, it did not hurt as much as I expected, nor did the pain feel as I expected it too. It felt kind of like stinging or burning. At one point though, I was able to calm myself by singing Into the Woods in my head, and I could barely feel it. All in all, the whole experience took about 20 minutes.

And without further ado, here is the best picture I was able to get. The tattoo is on the small of my back, and would, informally, be called a Tramp Stamp. :)



The pink butterfly is for Katalina, the blue one is for Severian and the green one is for Ender. The flower represents me. There is also room to add a fourth butterfly if I were to ever have another baby. It was very special for me to get it, and Duane really likes it, despite his initial hesitation.

On a completely different note, Duane and I just spent 45 minutes watching scenes from musicals and discussing our top five Broadway shows. Let me express how much I love him.

Yeah, it's been awhile

Sorry it has been so long since the last post. I have been way busy for the last little bit, and for a while I did not have teh internetz. Here is a quick summary of events over the past month and a half:

1. I moved out of my apartment and in with my parents. While a little cramped this works better for everyone involved as it allows me to stay home with the babies. They have been much happier with me home, and they love having Grandma and Grandpa with them all the time. Also, they love the five dogs that come with the house!

2. I went to New Jersey over my Birthday. This trip was very fun, and I got to meet his parents. I also got to see my cousins new baby girl! She is beautiful, I would post a picture but I do not have any pictures from that trip on this computer. Plus I had this wierd eye thing going on cause I fell asleep in my contacts. no one wants to see that. Also, Duane got me a very pretty necklace for my birthday. He is such a good boyfriend.

3. Duane came here and met my family and babies! It was a great trip. My family loved him, and so did my babies, and he loved them. It was way cute too because he bought some workbooks for Severian and woke up with him every morning and did the workbooks with him so that Sev could get ready for Kindergarten. I am working with Sev now, but Severian loved that time that he got to spend with Duane. Katalina also claimed him as one of her many minions and Ender regarded him as Ender regards everyone, by pretending he didn't exist. That is, of course, until Duane left at the airport. Ender got very stressed when he left, and insisted on standing at the end of the security line until we could not see Duane anymore. Here are a few pictures of us from that trip:




4. Severian started baseball! This is a very cute activity for him, even though he does not have one baseball bone in his body. He has done some very funny things in the two games he has had. However, I think the best thing he has done is after not hitting the ball he spins a pirouette before he is ready to try again. It is machine pitch, so they get five tries before they hit off of a tee. He will only spin once UNTIL his fifth try, then, when he misses the fifth one (which, he generally does) he spins multiple times away from the home base. It is actually hilarious. He also told me the other day that he wants to be a ballerina. I am not really surprised. Here are some pictures from Sevs baseball:




His team is the Cubs, and I have more pictures of him in his jersey, but they are on my brand new digital camera (yay for tax returns!) I just took the pictures yesterday and haven't uploaded them to this computer, so, as soon as I do, I will post them.

5. WE ARE GOING TO DISNEYLAND! May 6th through the 12th. Rock on. Again, yay for tax returns! WEWT!

Again, sorry to have taken such a long break. I promise that I will be better about posting from now on, I just had to get settled in to the new swing of things in the new house.

LUFS!

I am to Crochet what Yoda is to the Force...or something....

So about two weeks ago my Aunt was in town to see my Grandparents. This was a lot of fun because I love to see my Aunt. I went over to my Grandparents house at one point, and she was making a baby blanket, because my cousin Tracy is having a baby in like, oh, like right now. So anyways, she was making this blanket and I said to myself " I want to learn to crochet!" My Auntie Ann, being awesome, bought me a crochet book that came with hooks, and some yarn so that I could learn how to do it myself. However, I am the type of person that needs to be able to see it visually too so that I know I am doing it correctly.

When I got to a stitch that I needed some clarification on, I thought to myself "hmm..I wonder if there is somewhere I could see this stitch so that I can see how to do it properly..." ENTER YOUTUBE. First, let me just say that I love youtube. There are so many things on there that are not only awesome, they teach you something too. I found a whole youtube channel devoted to crochet! AMAZING HUH?!

So my friends, if YOU would like to be just as awesome as ME, then point your little clickers on this link here:

http://www.youtube.com/user/tjw1963

That is the youtube channel. You can learn all the beginning stitches there, and also learn how to do squares for blankets and hats and such. You can also go to the gals blog here:

http://crochet-mania.blogspot.com/

And there is a lot more stuff that you can sort through. It really is very awesome. And now, I know how to crochet! WEWT!

Dinosaur Museum

So on Saturday I took the kids to the Dinosaur museum at Thanksgiving Point. I went with my ex-inlaws, Nancy, Colby and Dawn. This excursion was a whole lot of fun. We met up with a friend of Dawn's and her son. The little boy that came with us was also 5 so Sev had a little friend to play with. I had also done Katalina's hair all sorts of cute that day, so I was very excited about life.



When we first got there Severian and Ender were very scared of the big dinosaurs. For the first half of the day Ender refused to be put down. Of course, he looked around and chose the biggest and strongest of all of us, Colby. He stayed with Colby all through the museum until we got to the parts that were interactive.

The Dinosaur Museum is a really good place to take kids to. There was a water "erosion" table, which is basically this big thing of chlorinated water and sand that the kids can build things in and watch how the water "erodes" the sand. There are all sorts of toys in the table to play with, like little dinosaurs and trees. Severian actually made a Dinosaur swimming pool, complete with tropical trees!



There was also a place where the kids could color, and "Build a dinosaur", which is basically where you stick big stuffed legs and heads to a velcro body. This would have been cool, except the velcro was all worn out on the body, so nothing stuck. The kids still had fun coloring and playing with the puzzles though:




They also had little excavation pits for the kids to "uncover" dinosaur bones in:





And a cave that Severian and I climbed into:



It was a lot of fun, and surprisingly, not very expensive. The kids had a blast, and it was highly interactive for them. Even Katalina had a good time!








On a side note, I think Severian and I may have contracted Ebola from the erosion table, cause the next day, we were both very sick with the stomach flu. So, if you are able to steer away from that area without having the little ones play, I would suggest walking past it. Although it smelled strongly of Chlorine, and although we washed our hands thoroughly, I am still pretty sure we contracted baby Ebola from the water. It was NOT good times. I'm just sayin....

Another Sev-Ism

Today I went shopping after work. Mind you, this means that we go a little later, and we didn't even get to WalMart until about 7 in the PM. Shopping only took about 45 minutes cause I had my Mom with me to help, but at the end of the night, this is what Severian looked like:



He was so tired that he had fallen asleep in the shopping cart! So freaking cute!

Which way the wind will blow....

Here it is! The blog I am sure so many of you have been waiting for! This may seem like quite the conceited statement, however, I have already been asked about this blog like three times, sooooooooooo I know it is true :)

So I went to New Jersey to see Duane, and it was amazing. I got in on Friday night right on time, and he was standing, looking very handsome I might add, at the bottom of the escalator. I ran over to him and gave him big hugs and kisses, and then we got my baggage and went back to his house to drop everything off. We then went to dinner with his friends Janet and Josh. They were very nice, and it was a good evening. This is us that first night:



The next day was the day that he had been planning for a while. That was our New York day. He took me to New York, where I have never been, and took me to see Mamma Mia. He also took me out to a very nice dinner in the city. We took the train from New Jersey to New York. Here are some pictures at the train station:







We took the train from New Jersey into New York, which was actually very fun. I really like trains, and it was fun to see different parts of New Jersey. It was also very neat to ride into Pennsylvania Station. You ride through the tunnel for about 5 minutes, and then it opens up, and you look up out of your window and see the huge buildings of the city. It is almost like a movie set. They only give you that brief second of a preview though because then you are underneath the ground while the train parks. We got out, and went up into New York.

Being in the city was quite surreal to me. Most of the time it felt like I was on the back lot of some film studio. It was freezing in the city, but it was really neat how we could walk anywhere. Pennsylvania Station is on 7th Avenue, and you just keep walking up the street, and you find Broadway. Mind you, most of you know me to be quite the little Broadway girl, so to actually see the sign that said "Broadway", my heart stopped just a little bit. I was in Lindsay Heaven. In New York, on Broadway, with a wonderful man. Yep. Lindsay Heaven.




Anyways, Duane took me to see Mamma Mia at the Winter Garden Theater. Which is also the theater where Cats played for so long:




The play was really fun and really cute. It was wonderful to see an actual Broadway production as the quality of everything was really fabulous. And it was such a cute, fun and light show. It was perfect, and my baby had gotten us fabulous seats.

After the show, he took me out to a real New York dinner! It was at a little French restaurant just North of the theater called Maison. We got three courses, and all of them were very good. I got a little Pizette, which is like a little pizza, roasted chicken, and then a Chocolate Souffle. The dessert looked so scrumptious that I took a picture of it:



After dinner we had to walk back to Penn Station to catch our train back to New Jersey. It was beautiful to walk through the city at night, although it was utterly and bitterly freezing. We thought about taking the subway, but I hadn't gotten a picture of Times Square when we passed through it in the morning, and I wanted to see it all lit up at night, so we braved the freezing temperatures. Here are the pictures:






What I haven't yet told you is that I have a little bit of city anxiety. And, by a little, I actually mean quite a bit. It was so cute cause Duane took care of me to calm my fears in this respect, but as we were walking back to the train station, after Times Square, there were two corners where we had to walk through two huge groups of black Islamists. The first corner we walked through the group and the preacher dude that was speaking said "These white people, they don't know what we're talking about, they don't understand" I was like OMG! THEN on the NEXT corner there was some chick who looked to be like a masters student or something ARGUING WITH THEM! I was pretty sure someone was going to get shot. No one did though, so that is good. We got to Penn Station and had a little while before our train. We started to wander around but at that point my anxiety got the better of me, and we had to go back to the part of the station where I was familiar with. Poor Duane with poor anxiety attack Lindsay. But, he was so sweet about it and hugged me and held me until the nerves had passed.

The train ride is about an hour each way, so because we were looking so cute, I decided to take a bunch of pictures of us. I am going to post them cause they are so cute:






The next day was a pretty lazy day. We hung out for a while, and went to brunch, which was really good. We went over to his sister Tammy's house, and I got to meet her and her boyfriend. They were very nice, although both a little under the weather I think, so that was too bad. Tammy has just gotten a cute little puggle puppy. Which is a mix between a beagle and a pug. As I am blogging this I am kicking myself for not getting a picture of the puppy cause he was so cute. But, alas, another time. After that we went back home and I got to see a lot of old videos of Duane's. He was in drum and bugle corp in high school, which is like an amazing marching band which tours the country over the summer, so he showed me a video of that. And, I got to see some of his college piano recitals that he had been in. They were all very awesome.

The next day was sad because it was Monday, and I was leaving. :( I didn't leave until late afternoon, so we did get a lot of the day together. Duane was able to show me the music from the children's musical he had written, which was very good. He also played the accordion for me! I added the clip below:



Duane has quite the extensive instrument collection. All of which he can play very well. I took a picture of his string instruments which hang on his wall:





They are all named, from the left it is Mandy, Bassy, Banji, Lecty, and Cousty. And his accordion is Courdy:



I also took more pictures of us. And yes. I am that girl that takes pictures of me and my baby kissing, and then I POST THEM. Deal with it.





Duane is amazing. He is kind, sweet, handsome, funny, smart, and more talented than I knew. I had such a wonderful time with him and I miss him very much already. He is more wonderful than I think he knows, and one of the most amazing people I have ever met. I am very lucky to have him in my life, and I appreciate him every single day. No matter what he can make my day brighter. The trip was great, and he is great. And I love him.

The end of this blog. There will be more I am sure. We are way cute though amirite? :D

Accio!

So tonight I was perusing youtube, NOT doing laundry like I should have been. BUT, my boredom payed off, this is what I found:



What what? An entire song about the release of Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows? Pretty freaking awesome.

That is all.