…until I moved to Utah…

Growing up in a military family, I lived in many, many states. Both coasts, up north, down south, Puerto Rico, you name it, I probably lived there. With such an extensive states resume’, I’ve heard and seen my fair share of regional and local nuances, sayings, and stereotypes. Which is why it’s surprising to me that I’ve found myself saying “I’d never heard of _______ until I moved to Utah,” lately.

Granted, Utah is in itself a rather unique place. Still, some of these things I should have known about prior to living there. Especially growing up as a member of the Mormon church. Which brings me to numero uno:

#1- “I’d never heard of GENERAL CONFERENCE ON SATURDAY until I moved to Utah.

You may find this incredulous and hard to believe, but it’s true. My parents were baptized when I was 3, so really, there is no excuse. I don’t know if they never went, or what, but I was clueless. It was a Saturday in October 1999, and some friends and I were headed up to Salt Lake to go to The Big Ass Show, an all day concert event. My roommates and I went to the basement of the dorms where the vending machines were to grab breakfast (probably a chicken burrito) before we left for SLC. There were dozens of girls in their PJ’s wrapped in blankets watching a tiny TV and all taking notes.

I muttered out loud to my friend, “What the heck is going on down here?”

She looked at me like I was crazy and said, “Duh…General Conference!”

I responded, “On a Saturday???”

Then she looked at ME like I was crazy. Who knew?

#2- “I’d never heard of NORDSTROM’S until I moved to Utah.

I guess I just never lived in enough hip cities to have one, but I’ve never heard of or stepped foot into one until going to BYU. My friend Maria’s dad once remarked how her favorite store was “Nordie’s” and I had no idea what he was talking about, but I probably just nodded and said, “Oh yeah, mine too.” To this day I’ve never purchased one thing inside of a Nordstrom’s except for MAC makeup, and that doesn’t really count. What can I say, I’m more of an Old Navy, $15-for-a-pair-of-jeans-everyone-can-wear kind of gal.

#3-“I’d never heard of a NAVAJO TACO until I moved to Utah.

This might be a Utah-specific thing, because I have yet to hear of it outside of Utah. I was with a guy I was dating (I use that term loosely) down in Emory County Utah and at some local fair. He asked if I wanted one and I had no clue what it was. It was tasty enough, but let’s leave the tacos to the Mexicans, ok?

#4-“I’d never heard of PIONEER DAY until I moved to Utah.

Again, mostly a Utah/Mormon thing. Almost bigger than Independence Day there. Parades, fireworks, the whole gamut. But some stakes around the country celebrate it. Just not the ones I lived in…What’s funny is that I worked for a company here in WI that had a branch in Bountiful, UT and the floating holiday here was Good Friday for all the Catholics and Pioneer Day for the folk up in Utah. Somehow I wound up working both anyway. Lame.

#5-“I’d never heard of HAWAIIAN PIZZA until I moved to Utah.

Maybe I just didn’t eat enough pizza growing up, but it wasn’t until ordering late night pizza from Pizza Pipeline that I’d even heard of putting pineapple and Canadian bacon on a pizza together. I like them both individually enough and I will eat them on a pizza, but it’s not my most favorite combination. Still, I don’t think this is regional…how had I never heard of it? Speaking of Pizza Pipeline, I could really go for some Tricky Stix right about now…

I feel like there are many more I could add to this list, I just can’t think of them right now. I’ll keep you updated as I think of more.

Oh, and feel free to mock at will. I deserve it on some of these…

Facebook is killing my blog

I’ve been such a slacker blogger lately, and I blame Facebook. It’s so easy to sum up what’s going on in one neat little status. I guess it’s just as well, though. Apparently I’ve been offending everyone and their mother with my posts lately.

If' I’ve offended you, well that’s just too damn bad. Just kidding. I’m really sorry. It’s never my intent to offend anyone…at least not any one individual….Really, you can’t take anything too seriously on here. It’s called The Wet Donkey for freak’s sake. I’m not waxing philosophical or anything. Let’s all lighten up, eh?

Moving on…

We had our home inspection today, and it went great. Tom, our inspector, explained everything to us, and while most of it was a foreign language (R2 insulated, electrical bus bar??) we learned a lot already about our new little home and where everything is. I was getting so excited just walking through every room and picturing our things in there and the little changes I want to make. Because really, there are no huge changes that need to be made. We could not do anything and it would be fine. (But come on, who doesn’t want to have their own choice of paint on the walls?) Speaking of paint colors, who wants to be my colorist? I need help. I have ideas, but I’m such an amateur when it comes to this stuff.

Our freezer has an ice maker. I love that. It’s the little things, right?

Home, Sweet, HOME!

I’m still in shock that it’s actually happening, but we bought a house! Who knew all it would take was 5 offers and re-signing our lease?

Our realtor was selling the house for friends of his and let us know about it. So we walked through it, loved it, and decided to take it. It never even made it onto the market which meant we were the only ones who knew about it, the only ones who were bidding on it! We sealed the deal sitting on the tarmac at the Milwaukee airport via text message. How’s that for modern technology?

It’s a 3 bedroom, 1.5 bath ranch in Menomonee Falls. It has a finished basement with a full wet bar and an attached office. Laundry is downstairs on the unfinished side. Also on the unfinished side is an enormous room the owners use as a woodshop. They’re leaving all the workbenches for me and it will become my glorious CRAFT ROOM! I think I might be more excited about this than anything else.

The kitchen is the only thing that needs any updating really, but even still it’s livable. And roomy. The dining room has a fireplace, where I can already picture our stockings being hung with care.

There’s a good-sized patio off the back and they are leaving the playset, which is awesome. I love it! We close Oct. 21 and depending on when the current owners close on their new house, we may move in by Oct. 28 or sooner.

         

We have been so blessed since finding this house. Derrick’s job has been going well, and our apartment managers are letting us cancel our renewal and we just have to pay one month of a month-to-month contract. We were prepared to have to pay a full month’s rent to break our contract so this is a huge relief.

We’ll be broke as a joke, but I know we’re going to love owning our own home and making new memories and growing our family!

The Big Easy

We went to New Orleans this past weekend to see the BYU/Tulane football game. We met up with the O’Neill’s and Scott and had ourselves a good time, as usual.

Highlights:

• The FOOD
• The architecture
• The FOOD
• BYU winning 54-3
• The FOOD
• The boys saw a few sets of boobies
• Did I mention the FOOD?
• Summer got her first set of beads. And no flashing necessary!

Lowlights:

• It rained ALL weekend
• A teething Summer up a LOT during the night, which wouldn’t be too bad except we were sharing a room with Scott and I felt really bad for him.

The food was great for me. For Derrick, who’s allergic to shellfish, not so great. We ate at The Napoleon House, NOLA (one of Emeril’s restaurants…amazing!), Deanie’s, Cafe du Monde (MULTIPLE times), and Remoulade. Look, I took pictures of everything we ate! Red beans and rice, po-boys, muffalettas, gumbo, jambalaya, shrimp and grits, and beignets. A dozen beignets, at least. We went everyday for breakfast, and sometimes we went back again during the day. Delicious fried little donuts of goodness. With about a pound of powdered sugar on each order of 3. I brought back boxes of the mix so I can keep on eatin’.

It rained all weekend, which sucked royally. Especially since we walked everywhere we went. New Orleans, despite it’s amazing food and music, is a dirty, filthy town. Katrina knew what she was doing when she tried to wipe it out. It’s just old. And dirty. And gross. Mostly just Bourbon St., but I wasn’t too impressed with the rest of it either. Bourbon St. is Satan’s lair, mos def. Strip club after strip club after bar after bar. We saw our fair share of girls in their underwear dancing on the sidewalks trying to lure in customers. We heard our fair share of drunk people puking in the bushes. Sirens all night long. Tons of cops and safety officers out at all times. It was ridiculous and disgusting. But at the same time, I was kind of loving it. Shhh….don’t tell.

The game was fun. There was hardly anyone there. We pretty much sat wherever we wanted. At the end there were almost no Tulane fans left. Scott actually counted them. 869. Pathetic. Summer got to meet Cosmo, which I was happy about. And isn’t she just the cutest little cheerleader???

   

We walked into a shop and the shop owner just started gushing over Summer and insisted on giving her something. So she picked out a string of pink beads with pink duckies on it that squeak. Summer wasn’t quite sure what to make of them.

             

Despite the crappy weather, we had a good time. Scott did mention that it was probably the first trip together where we didn’t eat at The Cheesecake Factory. We’ll make up for it next time, I’m sure!

Ra, ra, ra-ra-ra, ra, ra, ra-ra-ra, ra, ra, ra-ra-ra, goooooo COUGARS!