"Baby Girl" Burning

Upon seeing this picture, you may think the Alba's are kind of sick, twisted people. But let me explain.

On the birthdays of the two youngest Alba boys, they have a tradition of burning a Barbie doll. Zach, the second youngest, absolutely loved to play with Barbies when he was little. They used to buy him one for his birthday every year. But one year, when he unwrapped the doll, he decided he was too old to be playing with dolls {and he realized that boys don't usually play with dolls.} He and his older brothers decided to burn the Barbie in the driveway instead, and a tradition was born.

For Nick's birthday this year, we burned a "Baby Girl." We couldn't find a Barbie at the store.

Before:

After:

It was quite amusing, especially because the Alba's young, impressionable, innocent cousins were there to witness the event.

They absolutely loved it!

Poor, poor baby girl! We're sorry!

Pablo

Meet Pablo.
He is the newest member of the family that I nanny for.
He's the cutest little ball of fur I know.

Pablo loves to cuddle, play, and give kisses.
He is utterly charming and will melt your heart.

But don't let his innocent little face fool you.

He pooped on the carpet 3 times today.
I had to pick it up with a plastic baggie on my hand.
And not only did he poop on the carpet, but he pooped on the carpet while I was answering the door, and as I was closing it, I stepped back and stepped IN IT with my bare feet!
Oh my goodness, it was disgusting.
I don't think I've ever stepped in dog poop with bare feet before.
I sure hope it was my last!

It's a good thing little Pablo is so adorable,
or I don't think I would have been able to forgive him so fast!

Swine Flu (maybe?)

I came down with the flu pretty bad on Thursday night and got progressively worse through the weekend. We were supposed to go to Lake Powell with my family on Friday, but there was no way I could go with the way I was feeling.

I'm kind of a hypochondriac and I freaked out when the bishop sent out an email saying that there were people in the ward who were confirmed to have the swine flu. The sister of a boy in the Sunday School class that Adam and I teach was confirmed to have the notorious H1N1 virus. I had a sore throat, body aches, a cough, and a headache and was sure that he'd passed it onto me. I called the Utah health department and told them that someone I'd been in contact with in the past few days had been confirmed to have it, but they told me that doctors would test me for the swine flu unless I needed to be hospitalized.

So I've spent the weekend taking naps and watching movies, which sounds kind of fun, but really wasn't. I get really restless when I don't do anything, and I went kind of crazy. Adam hasn't felt well either, so we spent time together taking Nyquil and Ibuprofen. Luckily, we're both doing better and won't have to miss work this week.

I guess we'll never know if we had the swine flu or the regular flu, but it hasn't been fun either way.

ClearPlay

A few months ago, we got a ClearPlay dvd player. It has been so much fun because we can now watch all of the movies we never would have watched before because of bad content. It filters out violence, sex, nudity, language, etc. You can pick the level of filtering you want for each movie you watch. You have to get a subscription, but it's only like $5 a month. When a new release comes out, the filter is always available that same day.

We've watched Shawshank Redemption, Slumdog Millionaire, There Will Be Blood, Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind, Little Miss Sunshine, No Country For Old Men, and Fight Club.

I highly recommend it!

May you rest in peace, Bob Dylan

Our time together was short, but sweet. I have so many wonderful memories of your little squawk, your frizzly feathers, and your big dark eyes. Sorry you drowned in the baby pool and your life had to come to an end.

Yes, the Alba's have chickens (and ducks!) in their yard. There was an unfortunate accident yesterday, and Bob passed to the other side. He was a really cute little guy and we'll all miss him. He was my favorite of all the chicks. R.I.P. Bob.

Let's go fly a kite!

Friday after work, I took Adam on a surprise date to Sugarhouse Park to fly kites and have a picnic. It was so much fun!

Adam had an Ironman kite (which unfortunately broke on its inaugural flight!) and I had Barbie.

It was a perfect day for kite flying. The wind was really strong and the kites flew easily.

This is what summer is about- being barefoot in the grass with no cares in the world.

I felt like a little kid again! I hadn't flown a kite for years!

Adam really got down with his kite.

He wanted me to watch him do "cool tricks" with the kite. I was so impressed.

It couldn't have been a more perfect date.

Our Drive to the Wild Wild West

Yes, I should have blogged about this 3 weeks ago when we got to Utah, but don't judge me, I'm behind.

Day 1:
We left Virginia early on a Tuesday morning, with our poor little Sentra loaded to the max with all of the things we needed in Utah this summer. We literally used up every square inch of that car. I'd had this dream that we would be able to fit all of our belongings in the trunk and that I'd be able to sprawl out in the back seat with some magazines and a pillow and blanket while Adam drove, but..... as you can see, that didn't happen. That didn't even come close to happening. No matter.


We visited these states on Day 1:




While we were driving through Ohio, I was talking to my dad, and he mentioned that Kirtland was only a short ways off I-80. Adam and I talked it over for a few minutes and decided to take a detour to see the church history sites there, even though we hadn't planned on it and it would make our already 12 hour drive even longer. We had a great, spiritual experience there, but I'll save those stories and pictures for another post.
Because of the detour, we didn't pull into our campsite at the KOA until 11:30 p.m. Yeah, it was a really long day. We'd been on the road for 16 1/2 hours total. Yuck.

Day 2:
We drove through these states:

And we even got to visit this!!! We felt so lucky!
Iowa and Nebraska are surprisingly big and take forever to drive through. There wasn't much of anything besides this:

We got absolutely terrible gas mileage, much worse than we had planned because of the wind. When there aren't any mountains or hills to protect you from the wind, you pay for it at the pump. We couldn't believe it as we watched our gas mileage reader on the car fall, and fall, and fall even more as we drove. There wasn't much we could do about it though!
The second night we camped at this beauty:

The Gothenburg, NE KOA. It wouldn't have been as bad if the drunk loner hadn't come over to our campsite 5 separate times to ask us to move our tent closer to his, warn us of the skunk that had been wandering around the campground during the past few weeks he'd been there, and tell us "not to worry about him murdering us because he was a preacher." No joke. When someone actually says that to you, it tends to have the opposite effect.

Day 3:
We were on the final stretch! We drove through these states:

Wyoming took a long time to drive through but its landscape was much more interesting than we'd seen in awhile.

But when we got to Utah, man! Was it beautiful! I swear I'm not being biased when I say it was by far the most beautiful state we drove through.


We were very grateful that the trip was safe and are very happy to be home!

Mattie and the Rock

The Alba family dog, Mattie, is totally crazy. We really think she must have a screw loose somewhere inside her head. She does flips, licks walls, howls when a harmonica is being played, and does this:



She attacks rocks! She pushes them around the yard with her snout and barks like mad at them. We can all get hours of entertainment from this strange behavior. It's so funny! I really don't understand why she does it and always wonder what she's thinking while she's doing it.