Get Carried Away

San Jose?
la la la la la la la la la laaaaaa.....
We do!
Flew to San Jose for a wonderful weekend- seeing family and good friends, and a beautiful wedding.
A-girl's first plane trip! (but I didn't take one picture)
She did AMAZINGLY well- not one tear.  Before we left Daddy taught her...
Daddy: Airplanes are...
A-girl: very noisy.
Daddy: So A-girl has to be a...
A-girl: brave girl.
And she was.

On the way there, Mr. Braunalicious threw up twice on the plane- motion sickness that's he battled since he was a kid.
On the way home, he took Dramamine, didn't barf, but was a total sleepy zombie for the rest of the day.
If it was up to me, I'd have him barf twice and then be done :)

The wedding we attended was of one of Mr. Braunalicious' close college friends, the wonderful and beautiful Shannon.  She was a radiant bride, and the wedding was gorgeous- so well thought out, with tons of little touches that brought everything together seamlessly.   The ceremony was outdoors, and after they said their vows but before walking down the aisle, they released butterflies.  Incredible.  Congratulations Shannon and Kerry!

Great weekend- now we're just resting up for the next few exciting weeks.
Happy Memorial Day, and thank you from the bottom of my heart to all the military men and women and their families who have made the ultimate sacrifice for us.  We don't celebrate you enough.

It's 10pm, and I am sitting on the couch next to my husband who is eating...

Dinosaur chicken nuggets.  Seriously.
And the sound of his chewing and swallowing and saliva-ing is making me absolutely want to do one of the following 3 options.
1. Punch him in the mouth so hard that he has to have his jaw wired shut and drink from a straw for a few months.  Although he's not exactly a quiet swallow-er, so that might not solve the problem.
2. Run around the room screaming, "OMG.  What the h*ll is wrong with you?  I can hear every single morsel of food in your mouth swimming around and my ears are going to bleed."
3. (My current choice) Sit, plugging the ear that's facing him with my index finger, and every so often when there's a ridiculously loud smacking noise, cast an evil look in his direction.


Good news is that I only want to punch my husband when he's eating.  I know a lot of people who want to punch their husbands a lot more often than that, so maybe we're doing something right.
I think we can all agree that what we've learned from this is twofold...
1. I'm a four year old.
2. My husband has a hidden microphone in his esophagus that makes everything that travels down it extremely loud.
Any noise that drives you THIS crazy?
(Well, maybe not this crazy, but bugs you a lot?  Or a little?  Give me SOMETHING here people.)

Just saw "Letters to Juliet" and LOVED it.
I had NO idea that Casa de Guilietta existed,

much less that volunteers from Verona ("secretaries" of Juliet) actually collect every letter stuck between the damp crevices surrounding the area and respond.
To every. single. letter.
They say that some write for advice, some write of great love stories, some write of wishes or dreams or hopes related to this great thing called love.
While adorably predictable, the movie got me thinking, 'What would I write in a letter to Juliet?'
I have no need for romantic advice (unless Juliet can get my husband to both clean the dishes AND wipe the counter in the same evening!) and I'm only 11 years into the greatest love story of my own life, but here is what I'd like to tell Juliet.

Dear Juliet,
Thank you. 
You give hope to the hopeless, romantics a reason to continue to believe in love, and yearning women the bravery to write a love note to a complete stranger and stick it on a wall with chewed-up gum.
Despite the fact that you're fictional, women flock from across the globe to the place where you might have lived had you actually, you know...been alive.
But sometimes, this is what we need as women.  As reason to have hope and dreams and think that love is this everlasting, eternal, bigger-than-us wave that can sweep over any one of us at any time. 
Even for us old married women, at least for this one, a smoldering ember of romanticism still burns.  And sometimes it takes a force outside ourselves to keep that tiny flame alive after years of marriage and babies and late nights of exhaustion and minivans and... where was I?
Oh, right.  Thank you.
Love, Carrie

...would have told me that my "cute hairdo" this morning,
(the one where I took the front piece and twisted it back and pinned it with one bobby pin and felt like a hip young mom)
perfectly showed off a gray hair in the front.
Lame.

Super cute hip mom?  Fail :)
At least I'm still smiling.

The conversations that take place between father and daughter during bedtime are HILARIOUS in our house.  A sampling, all overheard this evening...

A-girl: Go up and take a bath
Daddy: No, no bath.  Just jammies.
A: Ernie upside down.  Pengiun pants (repeated until Daddy understands penguin)
D: Oh, pengiun pants.  Cool. What's this? Pajama shirt?
A: Yea!  I love that stuff!

D: Did I put your diaper on right?
A: I did it!
D: You did it?!?  Daddy did it!
A: Put on shoes?  I can do it!

A: I go for a walk! (repeated)
D: How about we brush your teeth instead?
A: That sounds yummy!
D: What do we sing when we do this?
A: The alphabet
D: (slowly singing alphabet to allow extra teeth brushing time)
A: I'll do it!  (takes toothbrush and tries to sing alphabet and brush.)

A: Like a baby!
D: Hold you like a baby?
A: Like a baby, daddy.  And sing Belle.  Thank you.
I love this kid.

It was a simple Mother's Day at the Braunalicious house, which I'm hearing is not unlike a lot of other people's Mother's Days. 
Leave it to the moms of the world to keep it simple.
Two cards for me, and a squeaky clean, vacuumed, mommy-mobile.

Perfection.

On the way home from the park today,

A-girl quietly slid her little sticky palm into my hand.
It was a sweet moment, one that made me silently smile.  And instinctively, I turned my hand a bit to let her grab my two middle fingers so she could get a good grasp and we could move forward.
A-girl stopped, wiggled her fingers around, and held my whole hand.
She's old enough to hold MY WHOLE HAND.
We walked the rest of the way home, holding hands, talking about insects, smelling flowers, and listening to the pattering steps of her pink shiny shoes on the sidewalk.  It was a good day.
Someday, this will be us.
I hope we're still holding hands.

Went to RoadRunner and bought shoes and running capri's and a red running shirt.  A cardinal red, high v-neck, sleeveless shirt made from that slippily material that is supposed to wick away moisture and keep you smelling rosy.

Mind you, in January of 2009, I'd not run a day in my life that was not required of me by a P.E. coach.  The only "training" I'd endured was Mrs. Mitchell yelling at our 7th grade class with her open-topped straw hat, "Keep your breathing steady and you can run forever."
Honestly, I'm NOT built for running.  You know, those lithe, thin, bouncy people who eat carrots for lunch and have a gait like a filly.  I'm more the thick-thighed, burger-eating, plodder/stomper type.
Nonetheless, I was in need of a goal that required me to get my "baby weight" off.  My husband is one of the areformentioned annoying people who could run forever, so I chose running so we could do it together.

That first day, I wriggled into my running goodies and took a good, long look in the mirror.
The red running shirt looked horrible.  It was too small and too tight and too ridiculous.  Replaced with a baggy t-shirt, I set off for my first mile.  And almost died made it whole mile.

Fastforward to June of 2009- A-girl's birthday.  Goal completed- lake run with Mr. Braunalicious.
Fastfoward again to my birthday in August of 2009.  I'm still running, but not with the same fervor in the beginning.  Decide I need a new goal.
365 in 365 is born.
I'm going to complete 365 miles in 365 days.