Tucson on the Map

Saturday morning Evan had to work for a few hours and on his way home he gave me a call the conversation went something like this

A: "Hello"

E:"Good Morning, I'm driving home from the hospital now. I decided to head to Best Buy to play some Madden on the way home since I was so close"

A: "Oh sounds like fun"

E: "Yeah. But I was driving on Oracle and there were a bunch of cop cars in front of the Safeway. I was thinking that there was a bank robbery or something because of all the traffic so I pulled over to ask what was going on"

A: "Oh really? Was it just an accident or something?"

E: "Someone shot a congress woman"

A: "WHAT!!"

E: "yeah pretty crazy huh? Some guy just opened fire and started shouting people"

A: "Oh my gosh!! Is she dead?"

E: "I don't know, but it's pretty crazy huh?" (they he preceded to tell me how he was going to get home)

I quickly jumped on the Internet to figure out what was going on and called my mom to see if it was national news. The information was horrifying and at this point the media didn't really know what was going on. Some news casts were reporting the congresswoman dead others said she was in critical condition. When Evan finally made it home we went over to the gym so we could watch the new on TV. The number of victims injured and dead kept rising. It was a pretty odd day as we just watched the news dazed. After the newscasts stopped reporting new information we headed home. We took down the Christmas tree and decorations and that night we watched the movie "Dinner for Schmucks" the first part is funny the rest of it is just silly.

Sunday after church we headed over to the Safeway shopping center to see what was going on (just out of curiosity). The entire shopping center was blocked off with yellow crime scene tape and close to 2 dozen sheriff vehicles lined the perimeter of the shopping center. The intersection was open, but filled with a bunch of looky-lous like us. Across Ina facing the shopping center there were half a dozen media outlets with their vans and cameras.

Even though we live 3 miles from the Safeway and I pass through that intersection weekly as I make my way to the mall, Target, or Best Buy it doesn't seem real that a tragedy of this magnitude happened in my backyard it is still a little unreal.

Here is a link to the AP story of the event http://www.kold.com/Global/story.asp?S=13807898

EVAN'S 29th BIRTHDAY!!

I Love Evan's birthday. I love it more than my own birthday. I love that he gets so excited over the littlest things. I love that he is so easy to please. I love being able to serve him and give him a special day.

I woke up early and made Evan breakfast burritos. I would say this is his favorite breakfast ... but I've only made it for dinner! Then I told him I'd meet him for lunch and asked him what he wanted. He replied, "the tuna you made for my lunch yesterday was good." See what I mean he is so easy to please. So I brought him tuna, but I thought that was boring so I also bought him a Chipotle burrito.

Here is the birthday boy at lunch. This is outside the OB/GYN office Evan is rotating at this month in a little courtyard. Before lunch Evan got to see a C-section of a little boy being born. Evan said he doesn't think he'd get sick of watching babies being born. He has really liked this rotation so far.

After work at Black Angus. Thanks to my favorite website, hip2save.com, I signed Evan up for about half a dozen restaurant "birthday clubs." So we had a buy one get one free dinners. Evan ordered the special with steak, lobster tail, and shrimp. Our total ended up being 17.45 before we left a tip!!! I think we'll be going there for my birthday as well. It was way tasty, service was great, and....

They gave Evan a free dessert. Like a real dessert!

I asked Evan what he wanted to do after dinner, maybe see a movie or rent a movie? He said, "How about going to Best Buy and playing Madden!?" See what I mean about being easy to please? So he played Madden, while I watched and played the new Xbox Kinect (SO FUN).

Then we went home and he opened his presents. I made him a quilt with his BYU T-shirts. It's only the top part...but I'll eventually finish it!

Blowing out the candles on his birthday brownies. (and see Chelsey and Morgan...those are shorts not a skirt/kilt)

Snoqualmie Falls

The last day we were in Washington we went to visit Snoqualmie Falls. It was really cold! I have only been there in the summer time. It is was less impressive in the winter since all you can see is the mist and fog coming off the falls. And they have made some changes to the viewing area and have made it more touristy. Lame! Oh well we went to the outlet mall after this and that made up for the disappointing falls.

Bowling

I found a coupon for a bowling alley near my parents house and I thought hey that would be a cheap activity...WRONG! Do you know how much bowling is these days? It was 9$ a person per game! That's more than the movies and you have to wear someone else's shoes! We ended up paying for a party pack so we could bowl for 2 hours instead of per game. I stink at bowling, but I had fun anyways. My dad had a great game with his personal best score 180!

Christmas

Evan trying to locate his stocking since Santa likes to hide Norby stockings...just another way to add to the fun of the day

Before

The classic "stair" picture...we probably have about 15 of these pictures now

Our "7th grade" pose in our twiner jammies my mom made us

Hannah is so excited for Christmas

Traditional NORBY tradition: Eggnog toast after opening gifts. I did this last year for the first time with Evan's family, but this year I opted for apple juice.

Christmas Eve BINGO

I'm not quite sure when this tradition started but each Christmas Eve we play BINGO...which also includes awesome BINGO prizes some highlights from this year included a box of toothpicks, Zip ties, that awesome apron Hannah is wearing, root beer flavored lip balm which Nathan refused to trade, paint yourself race car piggy bank, socks, Barbie booboo ice pack and more. My mom always finds the best prizes she thinks she's being funny, but they are rather useful gifts. We also read the story of Christ's birth after one of the Elders shared a message with us and we even sang a Christmas song together.

Murder Mystery Dinner 12.23

My mom hosted a murder mystery dinner after we visited "The Troll." The theme was Chicago in the 1920s. We each had a different character to play, except me. I played 2 parts since we were short a person and the character no one wanted to be ended up being the murderer.

Although our acting was sub par, our 1920s costumes and "Chicago" Pizza diner were awesome.