What's in a name?

Not Claire. So I just wanted to let y'all know I'm changing our name to reflect our new family status. I'm going to change it on Wednesday, November 4th. If you wish to keep following our insanity, please update your bookmarks, links, feeds, etc. to:

http://beefourwewerecrazy.blogspot.com/

I've thought a lot about this so if you don't find it amusing, don't tell me. I'm assuming the significance is obvious. I'm not sure if this will change my email address or not, so standby for further details. Happy reading!

Another person to miss for a while.

"An Angel sent here to help other Angels get their wings."

An Amazing Mom to everyone, a Wife to one, and friend to all, has crossed over to a new Journey, on March 26, 2009. On her way to heaven, we are sure she will stop to retrieve her very loved pets: Mickey, Lacey, Freddie, J.D., Peaches, and Buddy.

She leaves behind all the loves of her life. Husband, James; Son, Bryan; Daughter, Racheal ; Stepdaughter Marlo (Tony); Stepson Jason (Deborah); Four Grandchildren, Tyler, Madeline, and Jaylen, and Mason; Brothers, Steve (Susan), Larry; Sisters, Sher, Kim (Steve), and Leslie (Dan); and many, many nieces, nephews and a TON of friends and work associates. Preceded in death by parents, Dres and Darlene and brother Gary (Kathy).

Her passions were the care of her family and serving others with everything she had - body, heart, mind, and soul. She also enjoyed family outings, camping, theater, her country music and dancing. A private celebration of her life will be Sunday, March 29, 2009. In lieu of flowers please send donations to: www.secondchanceanimalshelter.org,

God be with you Mama. Guest book at: www.memorialutah.com

If you knew Lyn and are interested, go here to leave a message in the guest book.

Maybe it came unexpected,
Maybe I'm left unprotected
And that's the last place
I want to be, the last place
And there is so much we don't know
So we love and we hope that it holds
--Uncertainty by The Fray

Cheesy as it may sound, I use this blog as a journal/history for myself and our family. Although most of it is Mason cracking me up (he does that all the time), I think there's a little space on here to be serious for just a moment, too. Forgive me if it seems maudlin or lame, I promise I won't go on forever.

My aunt Lyndy died this past week. She had a heart attack, remained for a couple of days on life support, and then her kidneys gave out and her children and husband made the decision to remove her from life support and put it in God's hands. Although I agree with their decision, and believe that there is a degree of suffering in the state she was in, I know it wasn't easy for them. It's a loss that will be felt by our family forever because she was the glue in so many ways. After my grandfather died, she was the one who took on the holidays for the family. We were always welcome at her home. She worked hard for all of us and would do anything for someone she loved-- and that was many people and animals. She had a huge, open heart.

That may have been most proven to me when she took on her younger sister's bratty kid so her younger sister could work full time (I would be the bratty kid in question). I spent many summers, trips to the zoo, and school breaks up at her house with my aunt Lyndy and her two kids, Racheal and Bryan. Even though I'm six years older, we grew up together in a lot of ways. And how do you forget the person who taught you everything you needed to know about doing housework and taking care of your family? Long after I was married, I could call her with any stupid question (and frequently did!)-- how long do you bake potatoes for? How do I season ribs before I put them in the oven? How in the WORLD do you get your whites that clean, even when the kids were small and we were playing in the mud all the time? She never complained, usually just chuckled (probably at how much I still have to learn) and gave me the answer I was seeking. I think I'll be keeping a list for when I see her again; until then, we'll miss her lots.

Family Pictures

So we actually had these taken a while ago, but we gave our parents framed copies for Christmas so I didn't want to spoil the surprise. If this timing trend keeps up, we'll have family pictures in another three years or so. And we weren't specifically told not to post them on our blog, so I'm assuming I have the right to do so! No copyright infringement is intended.

Knowledge is power...

Vote!

More than ever, we are facing hundreds of important dilemmas with the upcoming elections. More than ever, it is so important that we vote. I have voted every year I could since I turned 18 and I will continue to. It may not be pretty- Alan and I don't always agree and the debates around our house can get heated. My dad and I refuse to talk politics at all because we are polar opposites. But you know what matters more than that? Feeling like I did something important. People, especially women, fought very hard for me to have the right to vote; (If you haven't seen that email, I hope you do!); feeling like I did something that might give my son a more secure future.

If you aren't registered to vote, please do so. You can follow the link on the video, or just click here: http://www.maps.google.com/vote . Put in your home address and it will let you know what all the time limits are for you to register. I believe, by now, you have to register in person in the state of Utah. I know we are all sick of politics, sick of hearing debates and the elections, but this stuff is important--pay attention to it. We're picking a leader for almost the next decade, and do we really want to end up worse off than we are now?

I will say it to anyone in person--it is so important that you vote. You can do it in person or by mail. Just do it! Otherwise, you have no license to complain about our leadership in the next four to eight years.

National Child Passenger Safety Week

I'm beginning to think they have a week or a day for just about everything, seriously. But when it comes to your kids' safety, can you ever be too careful? I've heard statistics that say a surprising number of carseats are not properly installed or because the kids aren't properly buckled in.

I think our carseat is okay. Alan put it in and I typically have to use some sort of a tool to get it undone. He literally presses his knee into the seat while he tightens the straps. In spite of this, I plan on stopping by one of the places below in the next few days just to be sure. It would just kill me if anything happened to Mason because of something so preventable. I'm sure I'm not the only parent out there who feels this way!

I found a listing of upcoming checkpoints in case anyone else is interested:

Saturday, September 20
*Babies R Us at 1122 East Fort Union Blvd (7200 South) from 10 a.m.-1 p.m.
*Wheeler Historic Farm 6351 South 900 East from 10 a.m.-2 p.m.
(spanish speaking assistance will be available here)
*Sunset City parking lot at 85 West 1800 North in Sunset from 3 p.m.-6 p.m.
*Utah Valley Regional Medical Center at 1034 North 500 West in Provo
from 11 a.m.-1 p.m.
*Tooele County Health Dept. at 151 North Main in Tooele from 10 a.m.-noon

Tuesday, September 23
*Babies R Us at 106 East University Pkwy in Orem from 3 p.m.-5 p.m.

Wednesday, September 24
*Jorgensen Ford at 1000 South Cove View Road in Richfield from 3 p.m.-6 p.m.
*Syracuse Fire Department 1751 South 2000 West in Syracuse from 3 p.m.-6 p.m.

Fore more information, see Safe Kids Utah or the Salt Lake Tribune article.

Seeing Red

One night last week, we were out in our yard doing some weeding. We love to save this task for after dinner because the our house faces east, so by this point in the day our front yard is fairly well shaded.

Typically while we weed, Mason is riding his bike in front of the house or playing in the dirt, and the dogs are dozing in whatever sunshine they can find, or next to one of us while we curse the morning glory.

Well, this night wasn't particularly typical for a couple of reasons. First, my fantastic neighbors across the street let Mason come over and play with their kids and a few other neighborhood children because they were working in their own backyard. He loves spending time with their cute and fun kids so it was really generous of them to invite him.

Also this same neighbor also warned us about an older woman who takes a nightly walk down our street and will confront you if your dogs are off-leash outside, and she's really aggressive about it. Alan and I both hate confrontations about this because we know the leash laws for our area, and people frequently express strong opinions about our dogs. (For example, we once had a woman at the off-leash dog park attempt to remove Samson's electronic collar after she had told Alan she believed "bark collars" were abusive. Alan tried to tell her it was not a bark collar (dogs bark--can you train it out of them?) and that, on the say-so of our dog trainer, we were using them because we needed our dogs to be off-leash obedient for their training.)

Anyway, not too long after our neighbor's description of what happened to her, the walking lady approached Alan. I happened to be across the street checking on Mason and Samson had followed me and decided what I was doing wasn't interesting enough for him so he was going back home. Apparently, this lady was walking by just as he finished crossing the street back into our yard and plunked himself down. She felt justified yelling at my husband to get our dogs on leash because "it's the law!". Alan immediately replied it is not the law in our area and he would do no such thing as long as they were not behaving in an aggressive manner. She threatened to call the police department and told him that she had been bitten by a dog exactly like ours so she doesn't like them and they need to be on leash.

It's probably a good thing I wasn't there. I have a big mouth that gets me into trouble, combined with a firm knowledge of police department and animal control procedures. At the very least, I have a feeling the police would have been needed for an in-progress civil problem.

I have a huge problem with people who feel comfortable telling me how to handle my dogs unless I've asked them to (like a trainer). My dogs always follow commands given by me or my husband and don't engage in threatening behavior (they don't bark or charge at passersby, they don't chase cars, and they have never bitten outside of commands to do so). We have invested a lot of time and money into training to make this possible. Furthermore, our dogs are always supervised when they are out in the front yard. We recognize that while negative behavior isn't typical of them, it is still possible and they need to be watched.

For us to be threatened, in our own yard, for circumstances that have never occurred at our home, is absolutely infuriating to me. If the dogs had even looked up from their nap when she walked by, she may have been justified. In this case she was not and I'm still angry about the whole confrontation. I understand that not everyone likes dogs, and some people are legitimately terrified of them (especially dogs as large as ours). I'm not asking her to walk up and pet them, I'm just asking her to keep her mouth shut when she walks past as long as there is no problem!

This is a long story to make this point: if you have a pet and aren't familiar with the animal ordinances in your area please take the time to get familiar with them so you aren't "caught" as we were. We had vaguely checked into the law when we first got Rio, but we never had a need for the specifics until last night, and so we weren't entirely prepared for this woman's tirade. Next time she walks by, we will be.

Here are links to some of the animal services sites for the Salt Lake Valley Area and beyond: Salt Lake County Animal Services, Davis County Animal Control, Utah County Animal Control, Draper City Animal Services, Murray Animal Control, Sandy City Animal Services, South Jordan Animal Control, South Salt Lake Animal Services, West Valley/Taylorsville Animal Control, West Jordan Animal Control, and I couldn't find a direct website, but here is the contact information for Midvale City if you want to reach their Animal Control. They work a lot with South Jordan Animal Control, so their information may be very similar. Also, here's a link to Cottonwood Heights for Adopt a Pet; I think their animal related items may be under Ordinances, but they don't have a dedicated page for Animal Control yet.

Our vicious beasts: Rio on top and Samson on bottom

One Scoop or Two?

Why, yes. That was Alan in the newspaper this morning, and on the news for the past couple of days. (Sorry, I couldn't find the footage of him hauling the gurney, which I was told was much more obviously him.) Please email me and let me know what flavor you would like if you saw him before this! So far, all I have is Joey would like anything chocolate.

If you don't know what I'm talking about, disregard and have a nice day. ;)

I would also like to add that I'm so glad the officer involved was not killed and is said to be doing as well as could be expected. I sincerely hope he and the others involved are able to fully recover from this nightmarish event.

P.S. I double-triple-quadruple hate KSL news, and I wouldn't link to them if they weren't the only ones I could find the with the footage I was trying to link to. Please don't think I endorse them or appreciate their reporting because on the whole I do not.

Happy Father's Day!

After Mason's first bath, January 2006

2/26/06

First camping trip, Whitney Reservoir, July 2006

7/31/06

I guess if I had been thinking ahead properly I should've done a Friday Five that was Father's Day oriented, but I didn't, so Alan gets this whole post to himself instead, in case he ever decides to look at my blog.

Most know that Mason was a complete surprise. We weren't planning on or expecting a child any time soon. In fact, we had just decided that we wanted to wait a little longer. It was only three months after that conversation we found out we were going to have him.

It truly took us for the pregnancy, and possibly beyond, to prepare. If we're being totally honest about it, I thought I was going to end up doing the child care myself for the most part. Alan worked so much (still does) I didn't think he would be extremely hands on.

I have never been so proud to admit I was wrong about something! When Mason was first born, if I wanted to keep my job, I had to return back to work. At that time, I had to work more than full-time, since we had mandatory overtime to the tune of about 10 hours a week. Thanks to some outside help, but more thanks to Alan stepping up, we made it through all that in one (three) pieces. Alan took on the majority of the child care through that time, and I'm sure at times he felt like a stay-at-home dad. I know being home with a tiny baby is more work than it is fun. It was a pretty tough time for all of us.

Now, Mason is more into things Alan can relate to. Their play has always been physical and dirty, and I expect it to get moreso. Mason may be getting a little too big to throw around with the greatest of ease, but Alan seems to be perfectly in-sync with him anyway. They play in the dirt, Alan teaches him how to make slides in race tracks, and they come up with all kinds of silly little games. The latest thing they do is "bounce" up the stairs. Mason loves it and will be giggling so hard he has hiccups by the time they reach the top. Mason is especially excited and happy on days when dad is home. When dad is home, often the two of them are in their own little world and mom is tagging behind with the camera (thus, the overboard number of pictures attached here).

Thanks to his Dad, Mason will know how to play golf (working on it) and hockey (have to wait to work on it until we can find small enough skates). Mason has already learned about doing yardwork (more on that in an upcoming post), digging in the dirt, drinking water out of a hose, and how to ride a 4-wheeler. Alan has a knack for including him in things when I'm at a loss for ways he can "help" us, because the more mobile and able he gets, that is what he really wants to do. There are things a mother simply can't teach and Mason will be a better man someday for having learned them. They are just some of the reasons I'm glad Mason has an awesome dad and a "man's man" around to teach him.

Butterfield Canyon 10/1/06

First Christmas 2006

Easter 2008

May Day Festival 5/10/08

Renovation complete!

So I finally had the courage to change my layout (with some handholding and a lot of encouragement from Nicol via IM-- thank you, man). Sorry if you thought you had the wrong website! Let me know what you think.

A New Addition to the family

We are excited (I guess) to announce that we have purchased another vehicle. I hope the title of the post had you going for a second.

This more practical purchase is brought to you by an actual adult decision-making process. (Our parents are still trying not to die of shock). Recent gas prices being what they are, I would not advocate driving a large pickup truck. The hundred dollar fill-up was the final straw. Alan often has to make unavoidable 60-120 mi round trip drives for work, and I didn't realize what a strain it was on our budget until Quicken showed me I was very wrong.

When all is said and done, it was hard to justify the extra car payment. That is, for about ten seconds until we did the math and realized we would save enough money to get my truck paid off in record time.

It should be noted that we have extended our typical large-item purchase time by days here. We started talking about this on Tuesday and didn't sign all the paperwork until Friday. Could that be considered progress?

The Name Game

This post is brought to you by the awesomeness of my my friend Nicol. (I previously introduced you to her here.) She explained the reasoning behind her blog name and asked what had prompted her readership to name their blogs the way they did. Rather than risk a long comment on her thread (which I am guilty of on a regular basis anyway), I thought I would instead steal her idea and use it here. Thanks, Nicol! It's not theft if I give proper credit, right?

Well, first off, I didn't want to include anything extremely identifying. I'm kind of paranoid, and also figured that anyone I have invited to read this already knows our personal information so there is no need for me to include it. Secondly, it is on the internet and I know from working at a bank you have to be careful what you put out there because of fraud and theft. So a "the****family.blogspot.com" sort of title immediately wasn't going to work for me. Yes, our last name starts with the letter "B", so that's as close to identifying as I was comfortable getting. Congratulations, identity theives, I have narrowed it down to 1/26th of the previous options for you.

Next off, I wanted to include all of us in the title in some way, even if the posts are mostly about Mason. I didn't want it to be specific to any one of our family members since it will talk about us all from time to time. Thus, the three. However, including the number of family members wasn't so simple because we also have the two dogs, so it's not just the three people. Also, "thethreebees" was taken, as was anything I could come up with involving a five.

In the end, we have "two" because of the two dogs, and "three" because there are three people in our family, and "bees" as described above.

I wish I had an inside joke or humerous story about our blog name, but I don't. For me, it was really just a process of elimination and using what was available, as well as finding something that didn't make me cringe to repeat. I had to play around with it until it "sounded" right, and I really can't explain that further. Will the name change if we have more children? I don't know. I may just find a way to tweak the meaning of what we have now. For anyone wondering, this was much the same process we used to name Samson and Mason (we had Rio's name picked out--apparently it's names of the boy variety we can't agree on). It was tedious and it took forever. Naming anything with a degree of permanence is hard!

Support Your Local Cop

Every year, the week of May 15th is known as National Police Week. May 15th itself is set aside as a day for fallen officer memorial. If you see flags flying half mast on Thursday, that may be why.

This isn't something most of us think about. We seem to only think about police officers when we need one, and it often comes down to a situation of blame--the officers weren't there fast enough, they weren't compassionate enough, or they weren't competent enough.

Please take a moment to check out their website (although this one is the national base and tends to focus on the Washington DC area). Officers face injury and death at an astonishing rate. The next time you see a police officer in your neighborhood, before you get upset or wonder why they are there, pause and think. This person chose this career in spite of the negativity often surrounding it. This person is doing their best to make sure your neighborhood and/or school is safe. This person will be there for you if you need them. This person may go home tonight emotionally devastated and trying to process a horrible crime they had to investigate. Or this person may not go home to their family at all.

Their job is not easy. Not everyone can do it, and even fewer are willing to. I know, probably better than some, that it is hard to be grateful for someone who is pulling you over or giving you a citation. But they are just doing their job. They will still be there, still doing their job, if your personal crisis ever needs them to be.

Follow up with their sergeants and other leaders for a job well done...thank them when they help you where appropriate. Or at the very least, try not to get too defensive when they catch you doing something naughty (like speeding with your tail light out--oops). Support your local cop... I know I do.