For the ladies...

Now I know the title of the post may mislead the zero readers we have, but this post is not a collection of photos of hunks from the 70's and 80's. If you do want that you will be happy to know there is actually a book I saw at Barnes and Nobel that is exactly that.

Anyway, in all of my internet perusing there is really only one writer that I read every single thing they write and that it The Sports Guy on espn.com. Every Friday he makes his picks for the NFL season and then as a test case lets his wife do the picks. Well it turns out that she killed him this year so he let her write the entire article this week. While reading it I realized that her thoughts regarding her husband probably mimic those of Tracey as evidenced by her Zelda post (Anya, you may also feel the same way). For this reason I would highly recommend it. click here

Ok so for those who actually read this despite the disappointment , here is one picture

The Best/Worst Gift I Could Have Given My Husband

I have been chastised for my lack of posting so I better write something. Let me tell you about Ben's Christmas. I decided to buy the DS Zelda for Ben as a Christmas gift. This choice has ended up being a double edged sword. It's great because he really enjoys it and has spent HOURS being entertained by it. The bad part is, I have COMPLETELY lost my husband. I have never seen him so captivated by anything. Yesterday morning, he was literally playing within 10 minutes of waking up. It's really quite hilarious. Have you ever seen the Home Depot/Lowes commercial where the wife is asking her husband about remodeling the house and he is so wrapped up in the football game that he isn't paying attention to the fact that she is about to spend thousands of dollars on the house? Welcome to my life. If any of you were hoping to hear from Ben this weekend, I would recommend calling him tomorrow. He's fighting "the last guy" as we speak.

Temple square

So after last year I swore that we would never go see the lights at temple square, at least when there were hordes of annoying teenagers roaming around and singing Christmas songs. Man I hate teenagers, but that is the subject for another post. We met Nathan, Kristy, and the kids at Little America and rode Trax to temple square.Here are a few selected pictures of the event.

Us in front of lights Cameron insisted were orange

Nathan and Kristy with the midgets posing nice

Paige just being Paige

A nice one of us

Nathan and Kristy in their natural state

Anyway, fun was had by all especially Cameron who took the opportunity to eat as much snow as he could.

A Christmas video

I know I have been posting a lot of videos recently, but I could not resist posting this one. It contains some of Tracey's great loves: Disney World and cookies.

Christmas Season...

I would like to officially say that Tracey and I are way ahead of the game this Christmas season. I realize that by stating this fact and bragging a little bit I am just asking for problems. I am expecting to go to check on my secret present stash only to find that they have spontaneously combusted or something else equally unlikely will occur which will destroy all of my hard work. We have finished getting all of our gifts for family members and I only need to get one more thing for Tracey and I have a pretty good idea on that one. Of course things aren't perfect for us because we have one final task to do, the ever dreaded Christmas card photo.

First of all I would like to point out that no matter how good the photo ends up being, it will almost certainly come in a close second for the greatest Christmas photo of all time. The absolute greatest photo occurred about 4-5 years ago and involved me wearing a women's Christmas sweater. The sweater was an amazing find from Savers. It had stuff dangling off of it and built in shoulder pads. I wish there was an digital copy of this photo out there so that I could post it, but alas there is not. Lets just say the camera at the Walmart photo department almost exploded from an awesome overload.

The next problem is finding the correct setting for the photo. You want something to be Christmassy (I know this is not a word, deal with it) but the setting can't be so busy that it either looks like the North Pole threw up behind you or have so much going on that it could cause seizures like the old video games warn about.

Finally, once the right setting is found, you need to figure out a way to take the picture. Since, as Tracey will tell you, I am a cheap ass, there is no way I am going to pay someone to take the photo,. I also hate imposing and asking someone else to help. This is a major problem. Fortunately, it allows me to put to use one of my few hidden skills, tower building.I am the master of stacking random crap to make a tower for the camera. In fact, there is a test one sitting on our coffee table right now.

Luckily Christmas is far enough away the photo is not a super pressing issue but it is a major blemish on an otherwise perfect season

Merry Christmas

This goes to show #1 the Killers are awesome and B. you can write a song about Santa and guns and still make it cheery

Ben Hanson Bowling Invitational

Last night (Saturday) we had the somewhat annual Ben Hanson Bowling Invitational where literally a few people competed for the coveted Ben Hanson Cup (pictured to the left, please ignore it is actually a trophy and not a cup).

In atypical BHBI fashion, it was actually a fairly exciting match coming down to the final frame with, Nathan, Berkeley, Johnny, and Ben within about 10 pins of each other. To make it even more exciting I was in the lead going into the final bowler (Johnny). Unfortunately he completely cheated and ended up winning. The last photo is the one which will be placed upon the Ben Hanson Cup until next year.

The Family all bowling, hoping to win

Cameron watching the action

The winner Johnny doing the pose that will go on the trophy

It speaks for itself...

I would just like to say this video contains 3 of my favorite things. 1. High School Musical 2. Home made choreography and 3. Not letting a thing like not really knowing the lyrics stop you from singing in public. With that said, please enjoy...

Get it Straight

The correct phrase from Shot of Love (see Ben's post) is "You still have a shot at love.  Are you interested?"

My death of reality TV

I think at this point it is a firmly established fact that Tracey and I have been big fans of reality tv, specifically dating reality shows. Now I say have been since, even though Tracey still loves these shows, I have finally had enough and can no longer stand reality television. My distaste for these shows can be directly tied to the horrible, horrible show Shot atLove with Tila Tequila. First of all let me say is there really such a shortage of people to put on these shows that MTV has had to scrape the bottom of the barrel to give a show to a person whose only real talent/claim to fame is posting slutty pictures of herself on MySpace? I mean her personality is pretty much nonexistent and her head is a perfect cube, but I digress.

This show has also crossed the line in that I believe they went out of their way to find people with serious personality disorders. On a recent episode, a guy who had spent probably a total of 30 minutes alone with cube-head convinced himself he was completely in love. This lead to him attacking another contestant when he "didn't have a shot at love" and then spending an hour screaming "Cube-Head!" (or maybe it was her name... I get the two confused) outside like that would convince her she made the wrong decision. They have also added the aspect where she has to decide if she likes girls or boys. I really think they should change the name from "Shot at Love" to "Dad, will this make you pay attention to me?"

Also, why do all of these shows feel like they have to have a little catch phrase during the elimination ceremony. Personally, I blame the creators of Survivor for starting it with "The tibe has spoken." How this eventually morphed into "you still have a shot at love, will you take it?" I think they then should be forced to drink until they all get alcohol poisoning, preventing me from listening to these morons trying to have conversations. I could go on and on but I will refrain.

Mini-Vacation

Ben has been on my case to post something so I thought I would take minute to get everybody up to date on the family.

Kent is home and pretty well recovered. He has been really lucky. The doctors finally cleared him to drive and work so his incarceration has ended. It's really good to see him back to normal. It's a good thing that he has his freedom back, I'm not sure my mom could deal with the two of the taunting each other any more.

A couple weekend ago Ben and I got to get away for the weekend. We went to Enterprise and saw my grandparents. Ben got to go on an outing with my Grandpa Dannelly and my Uncle Dwight. He learned all sorts of exciting things like the logistics of cattle herding and how to butcher a cow. The most exciting part was when Dwight let him drive the semi. Some of you may not know this but my dad and uncles drove truck for many years and in a effort to relive his youth my dad bought a Volvo semi last winter (purely for recreational purposes). Anyway Ben could hardly wait to slip into a conversation that he likes driving Peterbilts better than Volvos. (He's never driven the Volvo) He finally got the chance and my dad had a good laugh. However, he got an even bigger laugh when Dwight called my dad and told him that Ben drove a Kenworth, not a Peterbilt. Dad made sure he called both me AND Ben to give Ben a hard time.

The other fun part of our trip was going down to Vegas to see Sam and Anya and their kids. We had such a good time that Ben came up with the great plan of buying a house behind them and making one "Big Love" style backyard. At least this way Anya and I could start a support group to discuss our crazy husbands. I also got a new boyfriend while I was there, their cute little Noah. He took me on a couple of "dates". I even got a big kiss on the lips. Ben was a little jealous but I think it's fair since their dog, the giant Daisy, slobbered all over him.

Halloween

So I have not been posting in an effort to get Tracey to write something but Halloween is coming up so I thought I would link to the most awesome video of all time. Click here for one of the funniest videos of recent memory

Family stuff

So I thought that I should take a little break from posting horrible videos and attempting to be funny to try to do some family news. First lets start with Kent. It really is amazing how much he has recovered from this entire ordeal. This is not to say that he is completely back to normal, he still has some nerve damage on the left side of his face. This is not completely bad since now he is undefeated in one eye staring contests with his primary class. His being "half retarded" (his words) has slowed him down a little bit with the ladies, but I am sure if he wore his eye patch a little more that would all change since women love a guy that looks dangerous. Now he needs an awesome nickname like Snake or one of the nicknames of any of the American gladiators. My personal favorite is Nitro or Laser.

I think that ought to fulfill my postly quota of family stuff. Now is the portion of this post where I rant a little. So tonight Tracey and I went to Cafe Rio, which is always nice because there is nothing I like more than eating so much I feel sick. After we ordered, the dude behind us placed his order. At first I was not paying attention but when I heard the question "black or pinto beans?" answered with "negras" I was filled with rage. There are few things that make me as angry as someone thinking they are cool by ordering in Spanish. It is not as if the restaurant worker does not speak any English and it made his day to have someone say 5 words in his native tongue. All it does is make everyone in the restaurant think "hey there is some douchebag that can't let his Spanish speaking mission go" Then again I probably should let it go but I probably won't

Friday vieo

I know I have been in a video posting mood recently and there has not been a ton of family stuff in here recently, but I could not resist posting this video. Not only is her outfit so awesome that my eyeballs almost exploded but the acting and dancing are about as good as it gets. For your Friday, I present this video....

Where I spend my time...

Recently I have been afflicted with an unpleasant disease. I will not go into the details since they are unpleasant but lets say that I think it is salmonella due to my love of cookie dough and licking the spoon clean when Tracey makes cupcakes. Now normally I really try hard to not steal other blogs posts but since this has a lot to do with where I was spending the majority of my time. May I present the most awesome toilets of all time:

Awesome video

So Tracey and I were driving last night and I started singing some Rick Astley. First she was surprised I knew who sung the song, but second she had never seen what he looks like in real life. Now I read a sports column from "The Sports Guy" and he has a thing called the Reggie Cleveland All-Stars of people with names that do not seem to match up with their ethnicity. I feel Rick Astley should have his own category of people that have voices that do not match their bodies. The reason I am naming this after him can only be demonstrated by this amazing video

Church Unveils "Slow-Track" Program

Here's an article I thought our readership might enjoy

In order to better meet the needs of "our most average members," church representative Howard S. Jeppeson announced the creation of a new slow-track membership program. "This program caters to those members of the church who may not be top-level celestial material but who are still willing to put in a nominal effort toward their own salvation," he said.

The slow-track program includes the same components of normal church membership, but at a more relaxed pace. Members who sign on for the program are required to read scriptures and have personal and family prayer once a week, attend church once a month, visit teach or home teach four times a year, and watch one session of general conference every other year. If slow-track members can commit to these requirements for five years, they can earn a temple recommend stamped with an S for "slow track," after which they are expected to attend the temple semiannually. According to Jeppeson, the church may create a shorter, condensed version of the temple ceremony for S-track members "in order to better accommodate those members'
Shorter attention spans and lower levels of ambition."

Social historian Jane Schippen, PhD, a long-time scholarly observer of Mormon society, hails the new slow-track program. "Mormonism pays a great deal of attention to its high achievers, like those who are stake president before they turn forty or women who have eight children and maintain a spotless house," she observed. Similarly, she continued, "Mormons spend a lot of time and energy worrying about those on the other end of the spectrum, the less-actives." She sees the slow-track program as "a way to acknowledge and honor the vast majority of Mormons, those who will never hold high positions of leadership but who are nevertheless active - the sloggers, if you will."

Logan Stake president Gary L. Hackett agrees with Schippen and says that the new slow-track program "will prod the lazy ones into progressing at least a little bit, which is an improvement." He estimates that implementing the slow track will cut administrative tasks, such as nagging phone calls to complete home or visiting teaching, by as much as 75 percent. "It's about time we recognized that not everyone in the church is that top ten percent of the celestial kingdom material," he notes. "And, really, that's okay. I mean, the bottom two levels of the celestial kingdom are supposed to be pretty good too, right?"

Most members seem happy with the soon-to-be-implemented system. "Let's face it," says local member Larry K. Whiting. "I'm not cut out for this high-paced, pressure-oriented Mormon lifestyle. I mean, home teaching four families every month? The scheduling alone takes way too much time. And then I have to go over there and pretend I care about these people when I'd rather be home watching ESPN? Give me the slow-track program any day."

Local member Kendra Koenig agrees. "Do you know how much fun it is trying to roust five kids out of bed for family scripture study and prayer at 6:30A.M.? I am sick to death of nagging them about it, and you can believe it's not doing our family harmony any good." She praised the slow-track system for offering a more realistic temple-attendance schedule. "Like anyone who has a life can manage to get out there twice a month? This slow-track program is the answer to my infrequent prayers."
One Elders Quorum President read this announcement to his Quorum. He had so many wanting to sign up that he had to tell them it was just a Joke!

The return of Karate Chop

So I highly doubt that anyone is even checking this page anymore but the Kent break has gone on long enough. This event has led Tracey and I to realize that maybe we need to post about family stuff and things we have been doing instead of just unsuccessfully trying to be funny so there will probably be lots of posts about awesome tv shows and movies but there will also be stuff about us trying to visit friends only to get rejected (you know who you are) and family get togethers. To mark this occasion I have decided to link to this awesome video.

Kent

Tracey's little brother Kent has had a really serious accident so this blog will be inactive for a while so we can update people on his condition at the new blog we created

http://kentdannelly.blogspot.com/

Thanks

Crazy teenagers...

So recently I have noticed a disturbing trend in the generation of kids that are about 10 years younger than Tracey and I, in other words teenagers. This trend is to be constantly taking pictures of themselves and then posting them all over sites like myspace. If that is not bad enough by itself, they seem to think it is cool to pull some goofy face. Now I am aware that these are teenagers so maybe they aren't doing the face on purpose, and they may just look goofy but I think this is a small percentage. The reason I noticed this trend is Tracey's 17 year-old sister Bethany is constantly taking pictures of herself. Not only that but in every picture she is doing one of two faces. First of all is the mouth to the side, demonstrated by Tracey's brother Adam.

So that people don't think I am making this up next to the Adam picture is another taken directly from Bessy's myspace page. I add the disclaimer that Adam's pictures were taken first and then I found the Bethany ones

You can see that the two are nearly identical..











The next pose is what I like to call the "oh I am surprised that a picture is being taken as you can see by me looking off to the side in a "cute" manner." They hope that you completely forget that they are taking the picture of themselves and probably took like 5 of them to make sure it was framed correctly. Again here is Adam and then Bethany

Again the two pictures are almost identical










Finally I would like to point out this picture, again taken from Bethany's myspace page:
I could go on about what is wrong with this picture but I think I will let this video speak for me

Kate and The Killer Headband.

Someday I will have my own my kids and I won't have to shamelessly promote my niece. Here is Kate fighting off her accessories while her mom looks on a laughs.

Uncovering lies

So while waiting for a program to compile at work ar downloading a paper or something I occasionally like to check out the news of the day. I was shocked and dismayed at the exceedingly shoddy reporting I found today on the msnbc web site. I noticed an article titled 10 low-cost locales where jobs are plentiful. To be honest, I could not help but notice the article when it was emailed to me as well. Before I get complaints, I am not ripping any city, just the reporting. The first sign of shoddy reporting was the fact that somehow Idaho Falls made it to 2nd on the list but let's look a little further.

First of all there is no way I am going to believe that Idaho Falls has an area population of 110,000. Doing a little internet sleuthing, I found that as recent as 2005 the population of the entire bonneville county was approximately 91,000. Now that is a pretty big area to be counting and it is still about 20,000 off. The same thing would occur when I was growing up there. If someone ask ed how many people lived in Idaho Falls, the number would be about 20,000 more than was on the sign at the city entrance. According to a 2006 census Idaho Falls is only the 5th most populous city behind Boise, Nampa, Meridian, and even Pocatello.

My next issue is that they claim the city has "decent amenities." First of all, there is no Costco. Second, due to the lack of a food court, the Grand Teton Mall can not even be considered a mall. I guess with the ability to buy anything on the internet, shopping is not as big a deal.

I could go on and on about this terrible article and how they try to make Logan sound great as well but I will refrain. They did fail to mention a couple good points about Idaho falls. The most important being that it is home of the IF Tigers. Go Tigers!

For the married folks...

This video is for anyone who is married or in a long term committed relationship.

Cougar of love: episode what the....

I must explain why the episode recap has been delayed. We were at a birthday party for my nephew Romney Monday and I forgot to set the Tivo (by the way, Tivo is possibly the greatest invention of all time. I do not know how we survived without it). I had to watch the episode online which now that I think about it is pretty sad. Ignoring that depressing fact, his show has gone from amusing to completely insane. I will focus on a couple moments.

The show opens with the girls getting to watch a video from Jayanna that she made after she was eliminated from the show. I have never ever seen this done on a reality show before. Of course, she was bitter and talked trash about Amanda (who is completely insane but I will mention later). The video did no good since the girls watched the video and not Mark. That set the tone for this crazy episode.

So they do their dates and of course there are plenty of chances for the girls to slut it up. I thought it was funny that Amanda complained about the shortness of a dress she picked out. Also Maria actually started looking her age when dancing for 20 minutes just about gave her a heart attack. She was sweating as much as Clay Aiken in a hot dog factory (ok that was a tasteless joke but this was a tasteless episode).

The next date was the 21 year old at high tea. This had such forced humor that it was painful. We get it, she is 21 and immature and doesn't know about stuff like high tea. The producers have all of the subtlety of my Clay Aiken joke.

Finally, there was his date with the super cougar. This was the only date that was actually romantic, which gave Amanda an opportunity to act super insane and jealous. I am a little surprised she did not start walking around the city looking for them. At the end of the date there were some "massages" exchanged, and we will leave it at that. Of course, super coug goes back and tells the girls about it sending Amanda's insanity to Britney Spears level, except not so white trash. I don't think she has ever seen a dating show, or knows how they go. Yeesh!

So of course Maria says she will eliminate herself and in the biggest shock of the season she actually does. The real crazy part was they were supposed to fly to Australia and 21 year old was so scared of flying she just left the show rather than fly for 14 hours. Has she not heard of a benadryl and nyquil cocktail for flying. Anyway, a crazy end to a crazy episode

Coug of love: episode stalkertastic

So in case you don't know, I (Ben) am a complete expert on reality tv shows, especially reality dating shows. You can ask Tracey, I was able to correctly predict which person would be eliminated in this episode about 10 minutes after the start of the show. I hesitate to reveal my secrets since it greatly reduces the intrigue of eliminations, but I will share the smallest of my secrets. If the producers spend an inordinate amount of time on one girl and the girl repeats in the interviews they are positive that they will be there until the end, then the chances of them being eliminated is the same as seeing multiple girls on the Rock of Love swinging on the strippers pole. In other words 100%. On to the recap.

I could go on and on about the brilliance of this episode and how it demonstrated that even successful, mature adults can act like 14 year olds. Instead, I will talk about two girls that had their own unique brand of crazy.

First of all there is Jayanna, i.e. the "manipulative" cougar. In these dumb reality shows there is always one person who think they are smarter and more clever than the other girls. This is demonstrated by them attempting to spread doubt about the bachelor's sincerity. The amazing thing is that sometimes this technique actually works. How dumb do these girls have to be to believe a single word that comes out of the other contestants mouths. That is like Bill Gates calling up Steve Jobs and convincing him that Apple's next big release should be a new banana hammock based ipod. Of course this ended up biting Jayanna in the butt but the fact that she even tried to mess with the other girls heads is just stupid.

Next is the token stalker Amanda. I do not know if she is actually this crazy or if the producer just edited it to make her look that way, but this episode she showed that she is not above acting like a jealous 12 year old. There was a 15 minute period in the show where she went from the girl who got caught up and fell way too hard, to the future target of a restraining order. Her wandering around the woods in an attempt to find Mark and Jayanna's date was stalkertastic but nowhere near as creepy as her deciding to sleep in Mark's tent. I would not be surprised if she cut a lock of his hair while he slept and made some creepy voodoo doll. Yikes!

One final note, did anyone else notice that they made it seem like the girls and Mark had to make a long hike to the campground and yet after eliminations the RV was a 5 minute walk away? Just something interesting

Real genius

I just wanted to post this awesome video of what happens when someone, probably killing time between Jerry Springer Show appearances, smashes a can of wd-40. Fortunately my brother Eric never tried this during his youth while blowing up refrigerators by the way I posted this with the audio off, there is swearing so you may want to turn off the sound

Why it doesn't pay to be a floozie. . .

Many of you (all 5 of you who read this) have heard Ben tell the story of how when we first started dating I ignored him. While this is not ENTIRELY true, I can't deny that maybe, just maybe, he didn't get my full attention because I was dating other dudes. I was a floozy, I admit it. All of those who side with Ben will be happy to know that he was vindicated today at lunch.

So there was this guy, Jerry, that I went out with a couple of times starting the weekend after my first date with Ben. Without going to into the gory details I'll just say I may have had amorous relations with this guy. (Not THOSE kind of relations! Get your mind out of the gutter!) Unfortunately for me, these relations occurred right before the World Series. Even more unfortunately I was ranked lower on the importance scale than his beloved White Sox. So the dude didn't call for weeks and Ben being the great guy that he is put on the friend hat and consoled his future wife. My attention span is shorter than the World Series and by the time it was done, Ben and I were good buddies. Such good buddies that we got engaged a short time later. The really funny part happened about a month before our wedding when Jerry showed up at Ann Taylor to "say hi" and see what I was up to. (In others words, "Let's hook up.") I'm not going to lie, I took GREAT joy in informing him that I was marrying the dude I went out with the week before I went out with him.

Anyway . . . Back to flooziness biting my in the hiney. I met Ben for lunch today, and who was sitting at the table behind Ben and facing me. You got it, "Scam and Jam" Jerry. Needless to say my husband quite enjoyed seeing me squirm when I realized who was staring me down in the middle of Noodles. He also really liked that part when he got up to get a drink to check him out. I think I'm going to be hearing, "You almost ditched me for THAT?" for quite some time. I hate karma.

The moral of this story, don't date lots of dudes at one time because chances are you are going to run into one of them and then NEVER hear the end of it from you spouse. Now if I can just keep him away from Myki . . . .

(Yes, that's how my ex really spells his name. Don't get us started on him)

Cougars: part.. (breaks down sobbing)

Due to a request by Anya, I am going to give a recap of the Age of Cougars. I have been a little busy and I have fallen behind on these recaps, so this is a catch up post. I am completely convinced that the editors of this show go out of their way to make the youngsters look dumb and immature while they make the cougars look smart and confident. There has not been editing this biased since Cinderella. They make Cinderella look like the the victim when her step mother was just trying to instill a strong work ethic and provide her with an appreciation for cleanliness and valuable work skills. They completely leave out the part where Cinderella is out late partying like a long ago Lindsay Lohan. I also think Mark needs to put more tennis terminology into the elimination. A possibility would be when he gets rid of a girl he could say something awesome like "Game, set, match and you are done" or just yell "out!" like the line judges.

Because there has been so much going on, I am just going to talk about three of the contestants, and why I feel their actions are the equivalent of a poke in the eye. On to the mockery...

First of all, there is Amanda. In every reality dating show there is always a girl that gets caught up in everything and falls hard for the guy. Amanda fits this role to a T. She has decided he is the perfect man and they are destined to be together. To further fulfill the stereotype she is convinced that even though Mark is dating all of the girls and making out with all of them that he really just cares for her. It is always fun to see the girls go off on dates and her just getting jealous and catty.

Next there is the cougar Maria. Now Maria is just completely insane, and has caused me to consider not watching the show. First of all, she thinks that there is no chemistry between her and Mark because he is not ignoring everyone else and just focusing on her. This makes her decide she is wasting her time on the show, and proclaim to the entire apartment that she is leaving no matter what Mark says. Of course, when she is in elimination and all the attention is on her she thinks she feels something she decides to stay. She has hijacked the show and needs to be stopped.

Finally there is my favorite person Mary. I kind of feel bad laughing at her since I feel she is just not emotionally equipped to deal with a reality dating show, but not bad enough to actually not laugh. Of course she was also one of the girls that was talking tons of trash in the early episodes about how the cougs did not have a chance and how dudes were always hitting on her. This girl will cry at absolutely anything. A perfect example was when in a previous episode someone told her to shut up and she cried. It is the highest of high comedy. The funny thing is that she did not cry when she was talking to Mark and he walked away while she was in mid sentence. Awesome. You just can't predict crazy

Slideshow

I am just doing a test of how to do a slide show. These are from last night at Los Hermanos

Flight of the Conchords

Ok, so I hate to be hopping on the bandwagon since this show is huge all over the internet and is getting a lot of press but Flight of the Conchords is really funny. Now we do not have HBO so I have not seen any real episodes but I have watched enough video online to know it is good. It is 2 New Zelanders (kiwis) who have a fake folk rock band. Anyway, here is a video for your Friday enjoyment

Primary sign language

So recently I have been struggling to think of stuff to blog about. It seems like my brain has stopped working and I have nothing to say. I thought about Tracey and my calling as primary teachers and I realized I must speak out against one of the most horrific practices inflicted upon children in the church. This needless act is the unnecessary incorporation of sign language into primary songs. To make this worse, the songs are typically performed in some sort of sacrament meeting program making this unusual torture highly public.

Before I get a bunch of hate mail from people with deaf family members (yeah right, there are like 5 people that read this blog and I know all of them), let me say that I think sign language should be everywhere to help those that are hearing impaired interact with the world. My issue is when sign language is unnecessarily forced upon kids who have a hard enough time singing loud enough that people can hear them.

To make matters worse the person teaching the children doesn't actually know sign language making it a learning experience for all parties. Now I know it is a lot of work and I commend our chorister for that but I just think the effort could be better spent elsewhere (I was going to make a comment about choosing clothes that don't look like they were made for a renaissance fair but that would be too mean). The best was when the other chorister (that is right, our primary has 12 kids on a really good day and requires 2 choristers) tried to tell the kids what one sign meant, only to be corrected by one of the counselors that actually knows sign language.

I could go on for much longer especially about the video where the person is making ridiculous faces while signing the song but I will refrain. The point is, this practice needs to stop, for the sake of the children and for my sanity.

Quick Post

Just a quick post of a trailer I think looks really good. You can't go wrong with Vince Vaughn and Christmas

My wife the thief

Ok so fist of all I need to say that my original title for this post was "My wife the snitch," but I was worried that people might confuse my intended definition of someone who thieves things with the more common definition of someone who reveals information which they should have kept secret. I didn't want people to start worrying that Tracey was in prison and was going to get shanked in the yard and various other prison cliches.

Now I fully believe that Tracey worked hard to keep this behavior in check during the dating process. I am guessing that this was due to my adamant refusal that we would be one of those couples that would share food (by the way I was kidding myself if I thought I could get away with not doing this. Not only do we share but I am now always tapped for food clean up duty, eating anything Tracey does not finish. I am sure that this will just get worse when we have kids). Once we were married all bets were off and now if I have something delicious and turn my back I can guarantee that she will snitch a taste. I was going to post a picture of her in the act but she is so sneaky that I am not able to catch her with the camera. Maybe I need to set out one of those scouting cameras to catch her.

Maybe I am to blame. I recall in the past that my sister Margaret would always steal a bite or two any time I made a sandwich. I may need to do some further investigation and/or look into some sort of food protection devices.

Here are a couple videos. First of all this awesome video of Natalie Portman that I hope I have not posted before.

Second is this video specifically for my wife since she loves this skit.

Finally this video is for Sammy who will get this song stuck in his head for the rest of the weekend

Anti Popped Collar Technology

All is well in the world for Ben. He discovered a shirt that prevents douche bags from popping their collars. He found it at Old Navy. There is a little button on the back side of the collar that keeps the collar attached to the shirt itself. We can all rest easier knowing that evil douche bags will be thwarted. Now we just have to protect certain nephews from their parents. Parents who pop their son's collars and cause our darling nephew to become a 2 yr old Guido. You know who you are!!! Leave the kid alone!!!

This image has been blurred to protect the innocent.

Ben's Birthday

Ben is FINALLY 28 so now I can stop hearing about how 28 is so old and how I already have one foot in the grave.

We had a party at our house consisting of Ben's siblings and their rugrats as well as my mom and two brothers. We ate in the backyard and it was so stinking hot that I was afraid Ben's awesome birthday cake would melt. For those of you who don't know, my husband LOVES Costco cake and there is half a sheet cake in our fridge right now waiting to be consumed by Ben and only Ben. It was hard enough to get him to share it at the party!

Despite the heat we had a great time. Our niece Miriam just learned to walk and it was fun watching her toddle around. (She almost stepped in Cameron's cake . . . that's a new thing to have to watch out for. We watched various kids pick cake up off the ground and shove it in their mouths. Doug (Ben's sister's husband) provided a valuable service and got some of the younger more persuadable nephews to play a neat game of "Let's throw the apples in the hole in the garden so Uncle Ben doesn't have to pick them up to mow the lawn!" Perhaps the best gift ever given to Ben. We also learned that when there aren't enough toys for kids to play with, they will find things to become toys. In the case of Grant, Thomas, Paige and Sterling, these toys were pipes from the garden. How exciting!

Ben got AWESOME birthday presents including steak knives, a game for the Wii and a hitch for the Tuscon. It doesn't get much better than that does it? Sterling and Grant gave him some silly string that I may need to hide out of self-preservation.

All in all, I think it was a pretty good birthday for him. He probably likes the left over pizza from the Pie and the leftover birthday cake the best.

Camping with the family

Every once in awhile my husband reminds me how freaking funny he is.

This weekend we went camping with my family. Camping means hanging out at the campground, going on ATV rides and eating a lot of junk food. Additionally on this trip, Ben got to hear me perform fantabulous hits of the 70's since they were the only CD's in my dad's Excursion. We had to drive it up instead of our car as extra towing power because my dad was afraid his new Semi wouldn't fit into the campground. Shocking thought isn't it. (Don't worry, I'm sure we will post on my dad's semi and all his crazy toys.)

Ben is relatively new to Dannelly style camping. This means he is constantly being trained by Paul (my dad) on various camping skills. My siblings and I have learned that this is how life with Paul goes. You are always being directed to do something. It might be the classic "Hold your plate with both hands!" or "You need to shine that flashlight on (blank)." No matter what the direction is, you sometimes wonder whether or not he forgot you are his offspring and not his employee. These directions/commands have good intentions because he wants us to learn things. The funny thing is that he often thinks that we need to learn something that it pretty much common sense.

On this trip Ben "learned" that he had to let the diesel light turn off before turning on the Excursion. He also "learned" that when cleaning dutch ovens, you don't want to scrub the black off and if you are going to lift a hot dutch oven lid with the pole, use both hands! He also learned how to cook (keep in mind Ben does almost all of the cooking at home) potatoes and that you can't mess with them or they fall apart. My dad is so stinking cute sometimes. All of these lessons are particularly funny because Ben is a chemical engineering PhD. student and pretty darn smart to boot.

One of the funnier moments of the trip has been documented by these photos. I have a little brother who likes to steal my helmet for his hoochies and then forget to return it to the trailer. As we prepared to ride on Saturday I found that the little punk had done it again! GRRRRR!!! This meant that we were short a regular helmet.

Leave it to my husband to solve the problem. When my parents first purchased our ATVs they also purchased the "Dumb and Dumber" helmets. As you can see, Ben found them. He completed the ensemble with some super awesome goggles and gloves all while leaving his ever present baseball cap on. My husband is H-O-T-T-T! Not to be outdone, Bessie (my little sister Bethany) donned the white helmet and the two made fashion history. He now plans to add stickers to increase the helmet's awesomeness. Possibly a glittery Virgin Mary or simply letters across the back stating the obvious . . . "Ben Rules!" I think my mom was a little embarrassed because she kept offering him her helmet.

Cougar recap eps 2

First of all Tracey has been complaining about the plethora of Saved by the Bell clips that I have been posting recently. To be honest, I think she is more concerned with my obsession with a tv show that was a large part of my childhood. I mean, this show was truly ahead of its time. It dealt with such subjects as drug abuse, why white people should not rap, and how to make friends. To prevent my wife from worrying about my obsessions I will attempt to limit my use of Saved by the Bell clips.

Now on to other things. So last night was the second episode of Age of Love or as I like to call it young girls with fake boobs versus older ladies with fake boobs. I have just a few observations about this awesome episode.

First, what is the deal with Mark Consuelos. I mean he really is the best reality show host recently by being likable without being intrusive and trying to steal the show. He is also married to Kelly Ripa so he has plenty of experience dealing with a future cougar. I do have two issues with him being host. First is should they really have both the host and the star of the show have the same name. I know this is minor but it makes writing about the show a pain. Second is when you see the two Marks standing next to each other I always wonder if one is a giant, or the other is a midget. Maybe it is a combination of both, but when they stand together they look exactly like this.

Next is this show is far from impartial. The way they edit the show you would think that the 20 year olds are complete morons that just sit around and say mean things about the 40s. This is completely different from the portrayal of the cougars. The cougs are shown to be interesting, accomplished, and still full of energy and fun. It is obvious what segment of the population the producers are tailoring the show for.

Finally, the show is still awesome. Just when the tennis player forgets how much older the cougs are, they throw in a moment where the oldest coug drops the bomb she has been married twice and has a son that is 25, almost the same age as tennis dude. Just a reminder he is dating someone that is the same age as his mom. Awesome

Family Update

I figured that I would buy into Ben's new plan to give family updates. So here's the big news . . . After nine months as a temp I was offered a full-time position with BMW today! YEA!!! This is awesome for many reasons. First of all, I don't have to worry about Synthia (my awesome boss) packing up my belongings and fedex-ing them to my house because I smell funny one day and haveing the temp agency call and tell me that BMW doesn't need me anymore. I'll be much harder for her to get rid of this way. (Synthia, you know I'm writing this for your benefit!) Second of all I get awesome new benefits. I'm not going to go into detail because it's none of your business!

This is a little bit sad though because I moved from BIG desk to a smaller one. However, my new desk has an awesome view of the Salt Lake Valley and it's inversion (see picture). I only get this desk because my friend Maria is really nice and let me have it when she moved. What a sweetie! It's also a little sad because I have to move out of "man central" where all of my neighbors were guys who provided me with endless entertainment. Now I get Mandy and Synthia as neighbors which will be fun for a whole different set of reasons.

Friday post

First off, if anyone was trying to remember the name of the rock start that was in the Saved by the Bell episode that the drug commercial came from it is Johnny Dakota.

Well it is the end of the week and it is time for the typical Friday post where I attempt to be funny, badly fail, and then try to provide some time killing links to hopefully pass this Friday afternoon. First of all after reading Sam and Anya's blog (well mostly Anya and the two boys with a few appearances by Sam) I realized that Tracey and I may need to put more family stuff or perhaps more what we are doing in case anyone is curious (highly unlikely). Keep an eye out for these types of posts and I will try to label them so those uninterested can just skip on by.

Ok this first link has been all over the internet recently but for the two people who have not seen it yet, here is an awesome parody of those lame David Blaine street magic shows. This is actually the second video in this series but in my opinion it is the more funny of the two.

Next is a link to the AFI 100 greatest movies 10 year anniversary edition that was recently released. I would like to point out that this list is a complete fraud since there is not a single movie on there starring Will Ferrell or Steve Carell. This oversight of these supremely talented actors has to be one of the greatest tragedies of all time, possibly rivaling the time the Zack Attack almost broke up.

Speaking of the Zack Attack and since I seem to be on a Saved by the Bell kick, here is a clip of their great song Friends Forever. I just realized that even though the song is about them being great friends, Jesse is nowhere to be seen. My guess is she is off popping caffeine pills , trying to get ready for the next Hot Sundae video. I hope that helped with your Friday afternoon.

Amazing video

I know I have been posting a lot but when I saw this video I could not resist. A good message to get you through your Wednesday

The rise of cougars

Last night Tracey and I were watching television and we got sucked into what will become my summer guilty pleasure, Age of Love. Before you judge me for watching one of those lame dating reality shows, let me explain why it is so good. First, it is a train wreck on the level of Flavor of Love, but the ladies on this show are much classier than the Flavor of Love girls. They do not look like they just polished off a 40 of Old English seconds before the cameras were turned on. The second reason is not since Kim Bauer somehow got caught in a bear trap and was almost attacked in the second season of 24, have cougars been so prominent on a television show. Lets just say that they should have this sign in the ladies apartment.

For those of you who do not know about this awesome new phenomenon, a cougar is a lady of advanced age who refuses to admit that they are older. They often spend hours and hours at the gym to keep their bodies in good shape. This is necessary because they also wear the same clothing as their 16 year old daughters. They typically are on the prowl for younger men often in bars or other places with dim lighting. This lighting scheme is cougar camouflage, it prevents their prey from being able to determine the cougars age from their face and emphasizes the scantily clad cougar body. I found this helpful poster to identify a cougar but it is specifically for Canadian cougars so you may have to modify a few of them for the states.

Anyway, this show prominently features a pack of cougars against much younger women. There has only been one episode but the show looks like a winner.

Finally, on a completely unrelated note, I would like to share this awesome video of Steve Carell doing this video of the German who says nice things

I love lamp

So last night we were over to Tracey's parents house to see the baby before she is shipped via ups to California. Ups or they are driving, one of the two. Anyway, VH1 had the 40 greatest soft rock hits, and due to Tracey's weakness for list shows we ended up watching it. Now, Afternoon Delight was on this list and it is one of the dirtiest songs but in a sneaky way. I decided to post this awesome video for your Thursday morning

Anchorman - Afternoon Delight!

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My wife's obsession

First off I do not want anyone to think that I am disparaging my wife in any way for being obsessed with something. I would like to come clean that in the realm of becoming obsessed because I am about a million times worse. Once I get focused on something I will literally spend weeks researching it and spend all my waking time thinking about it until I get burned out. A perfect example of this was my obsession with the xbox 360. When it first came out, any time we were in Target I would come up with some excuse to walk by the electronics department just so that I could see if they had them in stock. I did this even though I had no intention of actually buying one. I have also blogged about my unhealthy obsession with Disney as well so I am comfortable with my history of obsession. I think this personality trait is rubbing off on Tracey because she has recently become obsessed with all things relating to cupcakes.

Now I have no idea when his started but it began to manifest itself a couple of weeks ago. Tracey suddenly began to spend hours (ok, so maybe minutes) searching the internet for the perfect cupcake recipes. Now since I am an experienced obesessor (I made that word up) I was quickly able to recognize the signs. First, wanting to make cupcakes every night despite the fact that her husband is roughly the size of an orca whale and definitely does not need more cupcakes, although I will be more than happy to eat them. Second, the increased purchasing of cupcake memorabilia. Now you may be thinking, what the hell is cupcake memorabilia and do such things even exist? The answer is yes and if it exists we own it now or will shortly. Again I have no room to complain because Tracey is an awesome wife that lets me have a Wii despite the fact that I am 27 and probably too old to own one. Finally, she spends a large amount of time on the internet searching for cupcake recipes. This is the most glaring because the internet is filled with awesome stuff to look at such as this video or pictures of unicorns and she is looking at recipes. It is not a problem unless she has a secret boyfriend whom she calls cupcake and then I am going to be super pissed.

Anyway, as far as obsessions go this is a pretty mild/awesome one because it provides me with plenty of desserty goodness so some day I can become as large as these people. (warning, do not click on this link if you are eating or planning on eating soon)

I don't know if you've noticed, but Ben seems to refer to BYU with a slight note of disdain. He really doesn't hate BYU, he just thinks some of the people are crazy. Ok . . . A lot of the people.

Often as a BYU student or alumni, you run into people like my siblings who dislike BYU and claim that they would have never gone there. (I often wonder how many of these people would have even been admitted.) I think part of these people just don't want to live in Utah County because of it's special social demographics. Some people think BYU is too Mormon . . . Uh, duh, it's a church school.

Some of these people say "I would never sign the honor code, it's so dumb. They can't tell me how to live my like" To that I say, nobody is forcing you to go there. If you don't like it. . . Don't go. However, some people do like it, so let them live their lives.

Other people LOVE BYU. It's a great school. You get a great education. Students are in the top 20 for the happiest college students. Granted it is more difficult to get into and once you arrive the competition can be fierce. Average ACT is 27.8 and the average GPA is 3.78. Students may be naive but they are no dummies.

I believe people like Ben have the best perspective. Ben's undergrad is from BYU and his Phd will be from the University of Utah. He has experienced both sides. BYU is full of crazy people and classes can be harder. The U is a bit more "normal" but the sometimes academic experience is less competitive. (I'm not saying it's bad . . . I'm just saying it's not as competitive)
BYU is full of REALLY young couples with lot's of kids (see Ben's Ikea post). I can't say anything bad about young mothers because my mom was only 19 when she had me (and look how I turned out) but sometimes I wonder what these people are thinking! I think it may be one of the only campuses in America where you can see babies in class on a regular basis. Sometimes I wonder why they don't adopt Disney World's stroller parking

Students at BYU also have their own language. It includes words like heck and fetch. Due to the missionary culture a lot of them also speak foreign languages. I can't tell you how many times I've walked across campus and heard guys speaking to each other in Spanish. I think they do this so they can freely talk about passing women.

Perhaps the strangest things about BYU are the mating rituals. Ben has already mentioned into nerd love. The weirdest thing I ever heard of was tunnel singing. That's right, students will go to tunnels on campus and sing (they like the acoustics). Believe it or not, this often constitutes a date. Mormons can be very musical people. (It's because nearly everyone is forced to take piano lessons) Sometimes this translates into loony behavior.

Recently I was studying in the student center. The room was full people quietly minding their own business, hunched over text books and laptops. All of sudden some douche bag decides that we would all benefit from his impromptu piano performance of a stylized hymn (you know this is the only song he knows and he memorized to impress people, specifically females). GAG!!!! I instantly IM'ed my husband who reminded me that this was the mating call of many BYU males. Unfortunately this ploy did not work as all the girls who would fall for it were attending the Tuesday devotional. My guess is that he made is way over to the Marriott Center to join his barbershop quartet where the attempted to snag women.

The funny thing is, this is that at BYU, the men might think they are chasing the women, but I assure you Mormon women sneaky. Just ask Ben.

Ikea thoughts

I know I have been posting like crazy recently but it will probably be dying down soon so enjoy, or hate, it while it lasts. I just wanted to share a couple of thoughts and maybe a video or two to help pass the time on a Friday.

So Last night Tracey and I decided that Thursday night might be an ok time to actually brave Ikea since it is the middle of the week and the crowds would not be as bad. Man were we wrong. I should have know how it would be when the 5 cars that got off the freeway in front of us all went the same direction but we drove all the way down there so we proceeded.

First off, the store is ginormous. To put in perspective how large it is, you could put all of the pregnant 18-19 year old BYU students belly to back in the place and you would almost be able to contain them. I know this because we saw a large portion of this population waddling around the store. Now after seeing the store I am amazed Ikea took this long to come to Utah. I mean they have free day care (which was already full causing parents to let their kids run wild in the aisles, I know I was shocked too), they have a "restaurant" that has kids meals for $0.99, and their furniture looks ok and is dirt cheap. You put all of those together in an area with 2 university and approximately 10,000,000 married couples in or barely out of their teens with 3 kids and another on the way and you have a recipe for success.

As for the furniture, it was exactly what you would expect. It is very minimalist, very cheap, and not so comfortable. In other words it is perfect for people that want their apartment to look really nice and don't care that their couch feels like it is filled with Swedish meatballs. They did have some cool accessories but I would stay away from the big furniture.

Ok, for some time wasters here is a link for a funny video of Paul Rudd on the Daily Show which reminds me I need to watch the Daily Show more. Here is another funny clip from Conan for those of you that have watched Studio 60 on the Sunset Strip

A cool video

I just wanted to post this cool video I came across last night, plus I wanted to try to figure out how to embed video into the blog. As a warning the video is 16 minutes long and there are 3 songs. Enjoy!

Summer Movies Part 2

So back by popular demand, and by popular demand I mean that I can not think of anything else I can possibly think to write about, it is the list of movies that I have never seen and all I know about them is what I have seen in the trailer. I think I said the list was supposed to be 5 long so I will do two more and then finish it up later on. Now I know that you are dying to hear about the most hyped, most highly anticipated movie of the summer Bratz but I do not think that I did it justice so you will just have to go see it in the theater just like every other person on the planet. The only questions left is how soon can they make a sequel and how high the box office records will be. Anyway, on to the precaps.

3. Knocked Up: aka The 40-year old virgin 2 the electric bugaloo. Ok so maybe this movie is not the sequel to the 40 year old virgin but it has the same writer, same director (which isn't too hard since the writer is the director), and almost the same entire cast. From what I hear even Steve Carrel has a cameo as himself. This is like one of those "Frat Pack" movies that has the same core people but it is about 100 times dirtier than any of those movies with Vince Vaughn or the Wilson brothers. If I did not know people that talked like the characters in the movie, I would think it was fake. Precap rating 3.97 stars

4. Ratatouille: How Steve Jobs continues to suck the cash out of my wallet. I was going to say that these two movies could not be more different but Tracey was nice enough to point out to me that one movie is made for kids and the other is about making a kid so I guess they are not as unrelated as I previously thought. Anyway, this is a Pixar movie so you know it is going to be really good for kids and with enough adult humor that grown ups will like it as well. Throw in the fact that it is about cooking and I am sold. Precap rating 3.76 thumbs up

The final Movie precap coming some time in the future

Kate Lauryn Staples

So in case you did not know Tracey's sister gave birth to their first child and the first grandchild on the Dannelly side on Thursday. If you would like to see one or two pictures I took of the new little girl you can go look here.

Bob's Brain Freeze Continued

The greatness of Bob's has now spread to the office of BMW Bank.

Typically, my cubicle neighbor Jeremy (that dude on the left) doesn't like things that I like. He makes a POINT of not like things that I like. I personally believe that this is just his way of antagonizing me throughout the day. However, I talked about Bob's enough that this afternoon he suggested an outing to get try the joint out. Jeremy had my personal favorite, Pirate Juice with ice cream. Although he may prefer it without the ice cream, even the thought of me enjoying it did not deter his appreciation for "only the best shaved ice in the entire world." It must be good.

As for those of you thinking "Who is that handsome devil with the Styrofoam cup and where can I find him?" We'll find him for you, you just let us know! After all he is most eligible bachelor in the office, if not Utah itself.

I may even post a blog about him. . . <<0601071523a.JPG>>

Concert douchebags

First of all I have to apologize for a lack of recent posts. The beginning of summer and an increase in work has led to the blog getting neglected. I will try to do a little better. Ok, so I am going to interrupt my summer movie precap to make some comments about the Killers concert Tracey and I went to last night. First of all I would like to say that it was a very good concert. The Killers sound almost album quality live and Brandon Flowers is a pretty good front man. Plus, their drummer looks like a cross between a 70's porn star and that guy that is in his 30s, a philosophy major, and still living in his frat's basement. In other words, awesome. Anyway, it was a great show but I do have some things/people to complain about.

1. The super tall moron in the center of the crowd. Ok, I am not against tall people as a group, mainly because they can do that thing where they put their hands on my head and then I can try to punch them and just swing at air. Anyway, this guy was like 6'8" to 6'10" which meant he could see the stage from anywhere but insisted on standing right in the center blocking the view of a large group of people. He needs to get his goofy looking self out of the way.

2. The potential serial killer in the red polo shirt. Ok so I was fascinated this guy. He sat through the concert with a minimum of movement and the same facial expression the entire time. Now I am old so I no longer get in the middle and jump around but this guy was just like a statue. Super creepy

3. The overexcited couple in front of Tracey and me. This is a combination of two morons. First the girl who had no rhythm and would jump and whip Tracey repeatedly with her ponytail. Now if that sentence ended differently it would be a completely different thing. My hatred of her was just compounded by her douchebag boyfriend that was way too excited about the show, would thrash around, make lame gestures, and sing along way too loud. I could go on but I am getting worked up just thinking about him.

4. People who just don't understand how a concert works. Ok, I know you want to rush out and get in your car so you can get to the long exit line super fast, but unless the house lights and music come on, chances are the band is going to do an encore. Now I could write an entire post about how mandatory encores are stupid, but that is how concerts work. I am not complaining too loud since after half the people left we got to move a lot closer for the last couple songs.

Ok, that is just a small list of things that prevented a great concert from being perfect and I am obviously neglecting things like crowd weasels that try to squirm to the front even though they are late to the show and girls who wear flip flops and then complain that their toes get stepped on. I think that is enough ranting for now but hopefully I will be back with the precap on Monday

To get you through your Friday

I know that it is Friday before a long holiday so almost everyone is just looking for a way to kill time to get through the day so I decided to do a quick post to help you through the day. First of all I would like to announce the glorious opening of Bob's Brainfreeze the greatest shaved ice of all time. Tracey and I have waited for the opening of this amazing place. It is so good we drive all the way to it's location on 33rd S in the Milo sports parking lot even though there are many closer shaved ice places. Check it out but a word of advice, don't go too late when the place is overrun with teenagers.

Next is a time killer to get you through the work day, a site with their top 10 The Office moments. watch but have another window to switch to if your boss walks by.

The Joys of Marriage

Ben was right, I haven't been a very good contributor so I will attempt to redeem myself.

Our 1st wedding anniversary is this Sunday so I thought that now would be a good time reflect on the institute of marriage. This blog is not designed to make anyone who is NOT married feel bad. Nor is it meant to make anyone feel bad about their own spouse. (Although mine is Super Awesome!) It is designed to point out to everyone why being married is such a great thing.

(This is cheesy. . . Watch out!)

1. No more crappy nights trolling for "the one". (If you ARE married and STILL looking for this person, you may want to review your marital status.) No more trying to look super cuter and compete with all the crazy BYU co-eds who get up WAY too early in the morning just to look cute for the 8:00 am class that all the dudes are sleeping through anyway. You've got your perma-date. You know how the night will end . . . without awkward doorstep situation. Plus you know he'll call you in the morning AND he won't be looking at every girl he sees for the next best thing.

2. You always have someone on your side. When friends, family or work is driving you crazy you know that your spouse will always take your side and tell you, "Yes honey, (blank) is the worst. You are so much (prettier, smarter, nicer, skinnier) than (blank)." or "I can't believe (sibling) did that! You are the best kid in your family!"

3. Brains begin to work as one. You see the lady at the store with the horrendous fashion choice and all you have to do is look at each other. Or when you yell "Get off your phone and drive!" and your husband just laughs!

4. Normal schedule. No more nights of staying up until midnight and then trying to wake up a six. Hubby is sleeping in the same bed as you so you don't have to convince him to stay until you go to sleep. (Sometimes he thought you were asleep and would try to sneak out even when you weren't! Snoring doe not equal sleeping!)

5. Support for all your endeavors. He'll buy you heelies even if you are the only adult in America that has them. He'll banish himself to the basement so you can write your stupid thesis. He will even buy you ingredients so you can pursue your life long dream of being a cupcake master.

6. A husband will teach you cool new things to say and witty retorts. Ex. You say, "Honey, you need a haircut." He'll respond with "YOU need a haircut." Or when you say something like, "That's what (blank) said about (blank)." He'll reply with "What does (blank) know. Nothin' . . . That's what!" He will also increase your use of words like "douche-bag", "Awesome" and "Yow-zah!".

7. He will ALWAYS make fun of your crappy ex-boyfriend as long as you sporadically supply him with new material. The only bad part he will almost always follow it with, "You were with him for HOW long?!"

8. He ALWAYS thinks you cute . . . Even if your not.

9. He always makes sure you are taken care of. He'll buy you a brand spankin' new laptop to write your stupid thesis. He'll make you treats to enjoy while you work on your stupid thesis. He'll trek to the library to pick up books for your stupid thesis. He'll even Tivo all of the "Girls Next Door" so you can watch it when you are done writing you stupid thesis.

10. Marriage is the natural state of things.

I used to work with a bunch of women who complained about their husbands incessantly so I always thought that marriage was hard. It's not, I love my husband and I think he's the best.