Teenage Tad Award

Sei and I went to the movies on Saturday. We saw "Cloverfield." It was ok. We only paid $2 so it wouldn't have mattered either way I guess. But OMGosh- there was some of *the* most OBNOXIOUS people ev-ah in that movie. TEENAGERS! Why they paid to see a movie is beyond me. They didn't shut up the entire time. And about 20 of them took up the 2 back rows and were talking VERY loudly in Spanish. Not real Spanish- it was more like Tex-Mex which drives me crazy because it sounds like they just couldn't make up their minds which language to speak. "Hey ese, quieres to sit aqui?" Wha? They were so rowdy a cop came in and stood behind them for about 20 minutes.

Or there was the girl in the mini skirt that barely covered her butt and her probably 14 year old boyfriend saying "You can sit on my lap..." Yeah- if I caught Isabel 1st of all- wearing a skirt like that, but then sitting on her "boyfriend's" lap I'd go Samoan on her and him, and I'm not even Samoan.

Then there was the hormone charged boy behind us talking all crude to the girls next to him. We finally moved, only to sit near 3 kids that talked the entire time. THEN at the end 1/2 the dorks started booing. I think they were expecting a real ending, but since the whole movie is suppose to be video footage found of course there wasn't a real ending. So, these kids start booing and someone threw a skittle at a big chick in the front. The girl goes, "Oh nuh uh. Ooh threw dat?? BI$#H!!!" like all psycho loud. Then a guy starts yelling, "Aight! Who threw da skittle?!?!"

By the time I left I was so thankful I have good kids and praying they never act like that in public. Or hang out with people who act like that in public. Or private. I guarantee you if my kids ever DO act like that they will get a lot more than a Tad Award from me. More like a fat lip or a boot up their butt. :)

***If you're new here and are wondering what a Tad Award is clickety here.

Tad award- Rude concert goers

Last nite was the Jonas Brothers concert. Isabel and I had a blast and I will do a review with Izzy tomorrow. We got there early and waited in line to get a tshirt that cost more than the tickets!! Then I bought a $5 diet Pepsi. It must have something special in it to jack the price up that much, huh?? Anyway, we found our seats which were actually pretty good. We were centerstage 4 sections back. We thought we'd be able to see perfectly!
Anyway... sitting in front of us was a mom and her daughter who I am guessing was about 10 years old. This lady irritated the crap out of me!! She stood up almost the entire time- even when her daughter was sitting. Now I'm not dumb, I've been to concerts before and I know standing is normal. But when it's a concert clearly for the teens and little girls there, the mom's really shouldn't be the one blocking a little girl's line of vision. I wanted to stand up, but rarely did out of respect for the tween behind me. I wanted her to be able to enjoy the concert! That's what moms do, right? Anyway, this lady- who was taller than me and, well, wider than me and Isabel, not only stood the whole time, she moved over and over again. I'd have Isabel stand directly in front of me so she could see and eventually the lady would be standing right in front of Isabel. I'd shift Izzy to the left, the lady would shift to the left. It was ridiculous. It was more annoying when her daughter was sitting and she was still standing. And the thing is- she still could have seen while sitting because there was a little girl in front of her- not a woman. It bugged. I think it bugged me more than Isabel, so that's good.
And next to us was some pouty teenager. I don't know what her deal was. But she left like 5 or 6 different times- which wasn't a huge deal, just kinda annoying. I don't know, maybe she had diarrhea... But when she left right at the very end of "S.O.S"- the encore song- it was rude! I mean, everyone is standing, clapping, jumping, yelling, relishing the final moments of the concert, and we had to stop, back up, let her thru... Kinda ruined the moment. But what-evah. Tad awards to y'all!
If I was 12 years old again I'd totally have Jonas Brothers posters up in my room. And maybe Menudo too... They opened for them and were so dang cute.
That is all.

Tad Award- Drivers

It's that time again- I have a few Tad Awards to hand out. For those of you who are new, Tad Awards are my way of dealing with stupid people. They irritate me and rather than beating them up ;) I give them a Tad Award. Tad was the name of the fish on Finding Nemo that says "I'm obnoxious." That's where the name came from. :) You can read about other Tad Award recipients by clicking here.

Ok, for today's award winners I will need you to refer to the carefully drawn diagram below. This is the drawing of an intersection. The little squares with tiny circles represent stoplites. The arrows represent cars and the direction they were driving. The big purple truck looking thing is an 18 wheeler. The driver of this 18 wheeler is our 1st winner of the day!! See how he's all turned out in the intersection blocking all traffic from driving anywhere? Yeah- he really did that. His lite was yellow, he's ginormous and he still turned a blocked any traffic from going anywhere. Cars couldn't turn. They couldn't go straight, nada. And he sat there, making it so no one could go anywhere for almost 5 minutes because all the other lites had to give their turns. It was ridiculous. You, 18 wheeler guy, have earned a Tad award.

The next winner was the person behind me at this same red lite. There's a lot of construction going on in this area so traffice gets conjested a lot. I was sitting where the reddish arrows are pointing in the same direction the truck. When my lite turned green the truck was gone but there were already 2 cars in front of me with the last one kinda hanging out in the intersection. So, I didn't go because I didn't want to get stuck out in the intersection like the truck had! A few cars turned in front of me and then the butthead behind me HONKED at me!! Where did he want me to go exactly?? So I gave him the finger and ... just kidding, I didn't. I just made a mental note that he was receiving a Tad award.

The last winner is the dumb lady driving on the highway that needed to HANG UP AND DRIVE. I admit occasionally I have talked on the phone while driving but never when trying to merge and never if it was impeding my driving. This woman was swerving and driving like 15 mph too slow. I mean, it was dangerous. At 1st I thought it was a really old lady, then I realized she was just on her phone. That pisses me off so much. She's endangering everyone around her just because she doesn't want to hang up. Yep- Tad award all the way.
So, there you have it. The Tad Award winners all found in a 2 hour span yesterday. All I want is when you're driving: 1) be polite and 2) hang up your freakin' phone! Is that too much to ask???

Tad Award to Riot Grrl

I received a comment the other day on my 100 Things About Me post. (I deleted it because no one would see it there. I thought it'd be funner to make it more public!) I'm guessing this person has never read my blog before and only read my 100 Things Posts and Tori Tidbits. And since reading those 3 posts makes Riot Grrl (who I'm not sure is actually a female or just without ballz) an expert she felt she could leave me this comment:

**Riot Grrl has left a new comment on your post "The other half":

Re: #95. I can understand quite a bit of Spanish, but I don't really want to learn to speak it. Don't get me started on my reasoning behind that.

AND the Canada; gay uncles commentsa

You're probably a scary woman underneath this Carol Brady facade. I have this gut feeling that you're really somewhat racist and homophobic deep down inside but only discuss your stereotypes and misconceptions about other cultures with your close friends and family, who probably think the same way you do. **

Well... after discussing this comment with my Samoan husband and Mexican brother-in-law I thought it'd be fun to address it. (And since you came back like every 10 minutes for the next 2 hours I'm pretty sure you were hoping I'd respond...) We all know how I feel about anonymous comments, but I guess Riot Grrl missed that post... Now it will be easy for her to find because it is filed under the "Tad Award Winner" label also. :)

Let me 1st address the Spanish issue Ms. Grrl: I understand quite a bit of Spanish and my husband is fluent in Spanish because he served an LDS mission in Venezuela and - oh no- he's also Polynesian. (So according to your "gut" I probably hate him too, huh? Oh the horror!!) My ex-husband was fluent in Tex-Mex, meaning he could speak Spanish slang. I tried to learn to speak Spanish and his family laughed at me when I would try. They also talked to me/about me like I was stupid even though they couldn't speak English after being the 3rd generation born in the USA. That turned me off big time and I no longer desire to learn it. I don't have a problem with hispanic people or Spanish speakers in general. HELLO- my 3 oldest kids are 1/2 hispanic and I love them just as much as my 1/4 Samoan kids. :P I just don't have the desire to learn Spanish anymore because of my experiences in the past. And for the record: When my hubby speaks in Spanish now I think it is HAWT! And he doesn't laugh at me when I try to speak Spanish. I also heart Enrique Iglesias singing in English or Spanish.

Canada: 1st, my loyal reader & friend Yvonne lives there. Hi Yvonne! I'm sure this part just bothered you because you're commenting from Canada. I admit I make Canadian jokes- much like Canadians make American jokes- but it's all in fun. I've been there several times & my husband's ex-wife lives there as do my step-daughters. They tease me about my southern accent and I tease them for their Canadian accents. And if you had read more on my blog before you jumped to your ignorant assumptions (And everyone knows what ASS-U-ming can do...) you would have known that. So, just chill, eh. Be proud to live in the country leading the world in being just north of the United States. You go Grrl.

Gay uncles: I just found it interesting that my ex and my husband both have gay uncles. I don't know anyone else who's ex and husband each have a gay uncle. How does that make me homophobic? My brother-in-law is gay also and I love him. Any arguments or whatever I've ever had with him have had nothing to do with his sexuality.

So, Riot Grrl, any other dumb assumptions or accusations you and your gut would like to make? You didn't link to a blog so I could find out more about you so I only have your ignorant comment to go by which is really sad. It's totally won you a Tad Award and I know right where you can stick put it. Congrats. Also, ANYONE who has read my blog for the past year and half knows that I am SOOOOO not Carol Brady. The whole "Brady" thing has to do with our family- his, mine and ours- and the fact that I'm full of silly Brady trivia. What, your "gut" didn't tell you that? Don't mess with Texas Chica (Like my Spanish?) because you know we're all rednecks carrying shotguns...

To all my other readers- especially those who have met me in real life- am I a "scary racist?" I try to wear a wig at all times to cover my skinned head and all my tats before meeting any of y'all... Did my disguise work?? ;)

Almost a Tad Award

ALMOST

The other day I was pulling into a gas station to get gas. Ok, this is how the pumps were laid out:

X X X

X X XY

Each pump had a nozzle, or whatever it's called, on each side. I was going to pull into the blue one, on the far side, but someone was backing up and thought they were backing their car up to that pump. So, I stopped at the orange pump. I am represented by the black Y. I get out of my car and I'm fiddling with my purse trying to find my gas card when I notice this car behind my Yukon. I thought this old lady was gonna hit me. Then I realized she thought I was leaving. I waved her around so she would know I had just got there and I went to get the thingy to pump my gas. Then I noticed the car that had been backing up actually didn't go to the blue pump. Oh well, the lady had P L E N T Y of room to go around and pull into the blue pump. I'm positive 2 of my big ole Yukons could have fit. Well, this old lady was mad. She backed up like 3 or 4 times and would try to turn her wheels to go around my car. I seriously don't know what the problem was. I finally walked around the back of my car to see if I really was taking up so much space. The whole time she's all bitchin' at me behind her wheel. When I got to the back of my car I saw how much space she had and I said, "You can go. You're clear...." and she whipped around my car and said something rude out the window and nearly side-swiped me in the process. I was thinking "You are sooooo lucky you're old & senile, lady!!"

Anyway... It doesn't end here. She pulls in front of me and then backs up to within a few inches of my bumper (Fender? What's it called in the front?) Anyway... she backs way the heck up and nearly hits my car!! It was so obvious she was doing it to be a butt because she had to yank and pull the gas pump WAY hard to get it all the way back to her tank- she was so far away from the pump. It was hilarious. :D And the whole time she's mumbling about me not leaving her any room, blah, blah blah. And right in the middle of her bitchin' a BIG truck, like a "Hi! I am a manly cowboy man driving my huge truck that requires a small step ladder to get into..." BIG truck drove around the same side of my car as she had had so much "trouble" getting around! It was classic. I just smiled at her, got in my car and drove away as she stood there looking like an idiot. I would give her a Tad Award, but since she was old and obviously grumpy and probably lonely and hasn't had $ex in years.... I'll let her off with a warning.

Weirdness & a Tad Award

I've been thinking about weird things I do and I was wondering if they really are "weird" or if anyone else does things like this too...

~ When I'm vacuuming and something is too stuck down in the carpet so the vacuum won't pick it up, I'll pick it up and move it back in front of the vacuum so it can suck it up.

~ If I get one hand wet, I have to get the other one wet. Like today I got some jelly on my right hand, but when I washed it off I had to get my left hand wet too.

~ I'll go downstairs to get, oh let's say some paper towels out of the laundry room, but while I'm there I'll start doing laundry, reorganize the shelves, vacuum, and then an hour later I'm thinking "Why did I come down here?"

~ When I am filling my car with gas (in the gas tank for all those people making fart jokes at my expense) I have to stop on a number that ends with .00 or .50. Sei will often stop on a random number just to annoy me.

~ When I buy a new jug of laundry detergent, even if I still have some left in my other jug, I have to use some of the new one- especially if it's a new brand or scent. This goes for shampoo, lotion, hair spray, new brand of baby diapers for Livie, etc...

~ If I know the quotes to a movie I can't help but quote them while I'm watching it. It drives Sei crazy.

~ I think I told y'all this before, but I swallow my gum. I chew it for 10 minutes tops and I have to swallow it.

~ When I'm going to the airport to catch a flight I will check probably 37 times to make sure I have my tickets. Even if I KNOW I have them, I still have to check over and over again.

~ I have the strong need to defend Texas. Like today, Sei and I were talking to a guy and he said something like, "Well, I grew up in Texas and we aren't real great with numbers..." Oh no you DIHN'T! I said, "Hey! I'm from Texas!" I think that caught him off guard. He was all like, "Oh, well... I just use that joke up here in Utah because people usually look down on Texans like we're stupid." Gee, I wonder why dumba$$. I was bugged. Bad. Tad award to you POSER TEXAN. No REAL Texan would talk trash about Texas.

You Are 40% Weird

Normal enough to know that you're weird... But too freakin' weird to do anything about it!

How Weird Are You?

Dear Anonymous

It's time for a Tad Award. It's been a while, which I guess is a good thing. But, I feel the need to hand one out to ANONYMOUS commenter. I, personally, haven't had any rude, anonymous comments. (And maybe I'm asking for it now...BRING IT.) I have had irritating comments under weird names, but I was always able to trace them back to my husband. Thanks Babe. Anyway... just lately I've noticed ANONYMOUS comments on other people's blogs- RUDE comments at that- and I just think that's wrong.

The worst one I think I've seen is the one on Lauren's blog last week. The dork anonymous not only swore, but she/it used the Lord's name in vain to (get this): DEFEND AN IMAGINARY WIZARD- Dumbledork or whatever his name is. Wow Anonymous- your ignorant comment totally made me want to defend this fiction character also! (not) I mean, ok, I love Jacob Black, but I'm not gonna swear to get my point across about how totally HAWT he is & how he loves me. Just like I'm not really going to really beat Aubrey up for saying she loves him too. He's not real. I realize that... kinda. (Do you know how hard it was for me to write that???)

Lauren's loser anonymous wasn't the only one I've seen- but it was recent and it

was really, really lame & pretty pathetic.

Sometimes we're going to disagree with what people post. Other times we may interpret it wrong. I'm so sarcastic I'm pretty sure I'm offending people right and left. But does leaving a rude or hateful comment make you feel better?? If I offend anyone with my posts it is truly by accident. If you write a hateful comment you are purposely trying to hurt the blog owner. How is that right? And if you leave it anonymously how does that help? Anonymous- didn't your momma ever teach you "If you don't have anything nice to say, don't say anything at all"?? That goes for non-anonymous commenters too.

In closing I'd like to leave you, Anonymous, with a quote by Faith Hill (after a fan grabbed her hubby's privates!):

"Someone needs to teach you some class, my friend."

Tad Award: We've been served

Welp, it's official. Sei and I are being sued. I'm not worried about it at all. Our car insurance is providing the lawyer, so it's not a big deal. But this guy deserves a Tad Award and a kick in the butt. I know y'all are busy and don't have time to go read all my old posts, so I'll give you a quick recap. Last July Sei and I were in a car wreck. We were headed east and had turned left (north) onto a street. We had passed the house we were looking for, so Sei was turning almost an immediate left into a drive way for us to turn around. Well, Mr. P (as I will call him from now on) comes north across 5 lanes of traffic (speeding obviously) and then he notices we're turning into the driveway. So what does he do? He swerves around us to the left!! He rammed into our left front fender and the whole front fender fell off except for a little part hanging on. Mr. P jumps out of his car (which had a scratch down the right side now) and stands there with his hands up in the air yelling, "What the F&#K were you thinkin' Man?!?!" I got out to keep Sei from getting in a fight and the guy keeps cussing at us and yelling. Then he walks over to his car and yells "F^#K!!!" really loud & kicks it. Sei just ignored him and called the cops. I stared at Mr. P like he is a complete loser and said, "We're all fine I think. I'm gonna check on my babies." (Taj wasn't even 3 at the time and Livie was almost 6 months.) His face was like, "Crap." He got all nice, "Oh, you have kids in there? Are they ok?" I just wanted to say "Shut up you freakin' butthole and go kick your car some more."
When the cop got there Mr. P told him we were bustin' a U and he was trying to avoid us. Again- why would he swerve left instead of right or since we were in front of him, why didn't he stop? Doesn't make sense. Obviously speed had to have been a factor. Anyway- the cop didn't assign fault to anyone. He knows that the way the guy swerved didn't make sense, but since Sei didn't use a signal (Sei doesn't think he did since he had just turned...) it put him in a weird situation.
Anyway... Mr. P went to the freakin' hospital that nite claiming his neck hurt. Um, ok. It was our van that was thrown 10-15 feet. His SUV had a scratch on the right fender. And usually if you're gonna be stiff or whatever it's the next day. I knew he was gonna be the type to try to get money out of it. So now, over a year later, we have been served with a lawsuit. He's suing for more than $25,000 for medical bills and pain and suffering. I told Sei that I could come up with some injuries. We could blame Taj's temper tantrums on the accident or something...
I am SOOOOOO hoping we go to court. The only witnesses besides the drivers were me and Mr. P's friends. So, the insurance company said that if his friends were gonna be witnesses, than so could I. I would LOVE to be on the witness stand and say, "Maybe Mr. P injured himself when he jumped out of his car screaming profanities at us or perhaps when he kicked his car he pulled something..." It's all ridiculous and rather comical, I think. It will be interesting to see how it turns out.
So anyway... Mr. P, instead of $25,000 you get a fish trophy. Congrats butthead. :P

"Holy Tad Award Batman!!"

We've got a doozie this time. What is the correct spelling of "Doozie" anyway? Doozy? Doozee? Whatever the correct spelling is, this woman and her children... my head is hurting just thinking about them. Ok, here's the story. Sei and I had some killer coupons (Thanks again Gina!!) for Chuck E. Ch33se. So, we loaded up the 9-seater and took the crew. When we got there it wasn't too busy. I found a couple of booths that were like 2 booths away from a mom and her 4 or 5 kids. From the get-go I noticed this totally obnoxious kid dressed in green. I'll call him Green from now on. This boy was Rosemary's baby. I'm positive. There is no way he wasn't the spawn of Satan. He was jumping on top of the kiddie rides- surfing on a yellow Hummer right in front of his mom. Livie was riding in a trolley and he came and basically slid in on top of her. Ok, Green is probably 10 years old. Livie is 1 1/2. It scared her when he crawled in on top of her, so she jumped out. Then he started crawling on top of the trolley almost stepping on Taj's head as he did this. I told him "Don't crawl up there." He just looked at me like I was speaking in French and crawled on top. I saw him and his siblings yell at other kids, slap each other, push kids out of games, and eventually tear up their tickets and put them in the ticket counting machine one piece at a time. This helped triple their tickets. All of this while their mom was watching. Now, I try not to judge other moms too harshly because I know my kids and I am not perfect. But, I know if my kids were acting like Green and his siblings, someone would be calling 9-1-1 about a mom beating her kids in between the Skeeball games and the Wheel of Fortune. My description can not do this story justice. This kid and his siblings were HORRIBLE. Sei moved all our stuff to another table because we were so irritated with his mom's lack of... ANYTHING. She never told him to get down off the yellow Hummer. He told her how he was cheating the ticket counter machine and she just said "Ok, well hurry up." She watched him slap his sister and didn't even have a concerned look on her face. I call my kids "spazzes"- ok, they are freakin' angels compared to this kid. When games wouldn't work right he would get this psycho look on his face and start beating the machine. Kicking it and shaking it. He was running and ran head 1st into a padded pole. Why? I don't know. But I think maybe he's done that 1 too many times. He was a little off. He was jumping over booths, dancing on tables, running full speed thru the little kids playing... Mom just sat there and pretended not to notice. As they left the restaurant I wanted to start clapping, but no one would have heard it over Green screaming at the top of his lungs, "I LOVE CHUCK E. CH33SE!! I LOVE CHUCK . CH33SE!!!"
And for all this Green, his siblings and most of all HIS MOTHER earn a Tad Award. You can't buy that with stolen tickets.

And yet- another Tad Award

I know, I know. At this rate I may be the only person not to receive a Tad Award and that's probably only because I'm the one handing them out. The award today goes to Stockton To Malone Honda in Sandy, Utah. Seiuli's truck was on the fritz, so we heard a great lie deal on the radio about $189 a month for a new Honda. Now, we aren't stupid. We knew there was going to be more to it, but when Sei got there they wanted like $4000 down and it was actually a lease so he'd owe a balloon payment of like $16,000 in 3 years. Yeah...moving on. They found a used Accord and started working out a deal. Sei told them we were poor wanting a low monthly payment and it's like they had never heard that before. It took hours and hours to get a deal worked out. Sei was there for like 6 hours calling me every half hour to see how the deal sounded since I spend all the money handle all the finances. Ridiculous. I say ridiculous because when we bought our Yukon it took like 2.5 hours from test drive to taking the car home. Ok, so Sei works out this deal and writes them a $2000 down payment check. They cashed it electronically.

Fast forward a week.... I'm balancing our checkbook and was stressin' it. I was off somewhere- WAY off. There was still a check out for our sprinkler system for like $1200 and we had like $800 in the account. Whaaaa??? I pull up our account online and I'm looking for where the heck I screwed up. And then I see it- Stockton to Malone Honda in Sandy, Utah had cashed our down payment check electronically and then also deposited it into their bank. So, our $2000 check went thru TWICE. That would be $4000. Ok, for some people that's like chump change. For us- that's HUGE. I quickly transferred money over from savings to cover our outstanding checks.

Ok, that was on Friday nite. Sei called Stockton to Malone Honda in Sandy Utah on Saturday and they were like, "Oh. Oops. We'll cover the cost of any bounced checks and we'll cut you a check today that you can pick up at the front desk." They were very apologetic, but they acted like it wasn't that big of deal. So what if they would cover bounced check fees? Bounced checks make me look bad. What if my mortgage payment had bounced?? I had like 4 online payments set to go thru a couple of days after I realized what had happened.

I realize mistakes are made and that, thankfully, nothing major happened because of this mistake. I just feel Stockton To Malone Honda's (in Sandy, Utah) customer service was lacking. I remember when the grocery store made a mistake on my mom's purchase and the checker brought her a gift certificate for $50 to her house. Another time a smaller dealership screwed up on a repair that put us way behind in our Christmas travel schedule and they brought our van to our house and cut the price in half. That is customer service. Telling us "Uh, sorry. You can drive 35 minutes to come pick up a check..." is not. So... there you have it. The newest recepient of the Tad Award.

**I promise, I'll try to write about something more uplifting tomorrow. :)

Full House

Welp, ALL the kids are here. FINALLY. (Happy dance!!) But not without a few bumps along the way. Kelsea and Karlea actually arrived 10 minutes early, so that was nice. But there are few Tad Award winners involved in getting Tristan, Alec and Isabel home.



Dear Southwest Airlines,
I'm sorry that you overbooked my children's flight home by 7 people. But, that is not MY fault. I understand that 7 people had to be bumped off the flight. Fine. But how does it make sense to bump a 12 year old who is traveling with his 8 and 10 year old siblings & no adult? Why not bump a guy traveling by himself? Was every effort really made to get my son on that flight? Or was the man who brought them to the airport more than happy to take your travel voucher and book them on the last flight of the day, that had 2 stops? I am not impressed with your lack of service, but since I was not there to see if the man who brought my children to the airport was assertive in any form or fashion, I will not hold you totally responsible. But I will also avoid sending my children on a flight provided by SW ever again.
Tori :(

Dear Person Who I Have No idea How I Was Ever Married to You,
When an airline tries to bump your child off a flight, you need to fight. I realize it didn't really inconvenience you any, but considering all 3 of the children started to cry when they realized they couldn't go home yet, you maybe should have made more of an effort. Did you really think having them fly home on the last flight of the nite was a great idea? What if something had happened at one of their 2 stops and they were stuck in another city in another state by themselves? Not to mention they arrived at 1:10 AM and were sooooo worn out. Poor babies. Also, why didn't Tristan have his cell phone with him? Why was it packed in his suitcase? I realize you like to practice the whole "I respect their decision even if it's wrong" parenting technique, but that's because you have no idea how to parent. There are times when you need to say "That's not a great idea...." and guide them in the right direction. I realize it was a phone that Sei and I gave him, but you do realize YOU could have called him during their long, 2 stop trip home to make sure they were safe, right? Instead, NO ONE could get a hold of them. So, thanks for that. Oh & when luggage is going to arrive 12 hours before the people that belong to it will arrive, you should probably TELL ME! I'm lucky I accidently made you mention something about baggage claim tickets. How would I have known that although the kids didn't make it on the 9:20am flight, their luggage did? Kinda important information to have. And for future reference, please don't have my 12 year old call to try to explain anything important to me. You're the adult (by default) so you should call. And if I text you to ask if the kids left on time CALL ME BACK. Don't tell Tristan to tell me not to text you anymore. I'll mail you a freakin' nickel to cover the costs.
Thanks so much for the plastic bag filled with 3 pairs of mud-caked shoes that was packed inside Alec's suitcase. I understand the children got them muddy while fishing- three days before coming home. Would it have really killed you to wash them for me instead of sending them home for me to wash? (Not to mention it made all the clothes packed in the suitcase STINK!!) I've had my fair share of mud-caked shoes to clean. You like to play "parent" for 6 weeks in the summer. Cleaning muddy shoes is part of the deal.
Everytime I tried to approach any subject with you about anything you'd say "Well, I was just respecting (fill in child's name here) wishes..." or "I just respected their decision..." That gets old and most the time you were just shifting blame. I know it's hard for you but you really need to MAN UP. During those 6 weeks I need you to do your best to impersonate a parent. Ok?
And if I call and leave message for the kids I shouldn't have to call back 4 more times before I finally get a call back. And if I am paying for the cell phone for the kids, there is no reason they should find it in your backpack, on silent. If you really "found" it like you told them you did when they discovered it hidden, why did you answer "It's not my problem..." when they asked if you had seen their phone?
I could go on and on, but what good would it do? I'm just glad the kids are home and that I don't have to deal with you until Christmas- for 4 days. I can handle that. Congrats on being the only 2 time winner of the Tad Award.
Tori :(

I really am happy to have the kids home, but getting them here was ridiculous!!! Oh- I was excited to run into Emily at the airport. I'm glad you recognized me because I am so NOT observant. How random was that?? :)

:( Sad & grumpy, Down in the dumpies :(

My little sister, Nicole, used to sing a song:

It's alright to cry. Crying gets the sad out of you. It's alright to cry. It might make you feel better. Sad & grumpy, down in the dumpies. Hoppy, happy, sloppy, sappy. Change & change & change.

It's getting to the point where I feel like I'm walking around with tears covering my eyes. You know how you sometimes feel like your eyeballs are having to suck back tears so you don't look like a "big bawl baby"? That's me. I miss my kids. I want them home. They've been gone 4 weeks and the last 4 days I haven't been able to get a hold of them. They have a cell phone- but voicemail is picking up on the 1st ring. That leads me to believe it's turned off. I've called their cell twice, and left a message at the house twice. I've also sent 3 text messages. Nada. The whole reason we sent the cell phone with them was because it was always so hard to get a hold of them. I'd leave message after message after message that they would say they were never given. Why? Why does this happen? How hard is it to say "Your mom called. You need to call her back"? I have never withheld phone messages from the kids from anyone. Why do I get this treatment? I'd like to say "Payback is a bi-otch!" but I'm not like that. So, instead I'll award "him" and "her" a Tad award. And I know just where they can stick put it...

And the winners are....

It's that time again. Time for the Tad Awards!! I have a few nominees for today....

LADY AT JC Penneys: I was trying to finish up some shopping and Liv had not been cooperating at all the entire 2 hours. (No, I wasn't in Jc P for 2 hours. I was there maybe 15 minutes.) I had bought her some cookies at Wal M@rt in an attempt to keep her entertained. As we were leaving JC P she spilt all her cookies right outside the door. I stopped to pick them up as 2 women passed. Woman #1 said "Uh oh!! She dropped her cookies!" and I said jokingly "And my sanity..." Woman #1 laughed as woman #2 said, "What did she say?" Woman #1 repeated what I had said and I could clearly hear #2 as she walked away "Oh that's great. Bribe them with one cookie. Then they're going to want 2. You can't bribe children..." Ok lady- 1st of all: I beg to differ. You can totally bribe children. And it works for me on a daily basis. :) 2nd of all: GET A GRIP.

MAN SPEEDING THRU NEIGHBORHOOD: Yesterday I was going to meet Sei for lunch and the main road I usually take was blocked off. So, I turned and tried to find a way thru an unfamiliar neighborhood. As I was driving the speed limit (25mph) a man passed me on the left going about 40 mph. Yes- thru a residential neighborhood. And he couldn't see if kids were in the street or anything. Why would you do that Mr. Fast Driver? That's so unsafe. I hope the 5 seconds you may have saved was worth the chance of running over a small child.

LADY TALKING LOUDLY ABOUT LIV AT THE AIRPORT: I am 1st to admit my children were not the best kids on the flight home from Texas. I was embarrassed and frazzled by the end of the flight. I apologized to everyone sitting around me and they were so nice about it. But I heard a lady from my flight at baggage claim telling the group she was with while they all looked at me and Liv, "Oh, and she would be totally fine and then just start screaming...." Yes, I know. I was holding her for 2 1/2 hours. YOU were 2 rows back. Lucky.

FLIGHT ATTENDANT WHO KEPT TELLING ME I HAD TO HOLD LIV: I understand safety issues on flights, etc... and everytime there was any kind of turbulance or we were taking off or landing, I had Liv in my lap. But a lot of the time I sat her on the floor in between my legs and she was sooo happy. She'd play with toys and read her books. But it never failed every time this one flight attendant would walk by she would say, "You need to hold her in your lap." And everytime she told me that I would pick up Liv and she would promptly begin screaming. So I ask you Miss Flight Attendant: Why was it only you? None of the other 4 flight attendants had a problem with Livie on the floor. Thank you. You helped make an already sucky flight even MORE sucky for me and the surrounding passengers.

There you have it. The winners of the highly coveted TAD AWARD. Enjoy your... fish trophy.

Tad Awards: Pet Peeve Edition

This edition of The Tad Awards I will list off things you can do that will increase your chances of winning the coveted Tad Award- besides saving parking spaces and being a pushy door to door salesman.

~ Talk in baby talk. My sister-in-law always does baby talk to Livie and it DRIVES ME CRAZY!!!!!!!!! Sei does it just to bug me.

~ Use bad grammar. I know I'm not the perfect journalist, but most of my mistakes are typos. I think.

~ Live in the United States and don't make an attempt to speak English. I knew a hispanic woman who was in the hospital and all her adult children were mad because the nurse couldn't figure out what she was wanting. She wanted some juice, but didn't know how to say it in English. Um, ok?! She was born in the USA and 80 years later she still couldn't say "Can I have some juice??" I could go to Mexico and say "I want juice" in Spanish and I've only spent 8 hours in Cozumel. "Quiero jugo." What's her excuse??

~ Talk about divorce like people that go thru it must have done something totally wrong and acting like as long as you pray your marriage will be perfect. There was a dork who once made the comment "My good friends are getting divorced and I just want to ask them 'Were you going to the temple?' 'Were you reading your scriptures??" I wish I had been there (Sei told me about it). I would have said, "Why, yes I was- That's why my ex had time for a girlfriend." People that have never been there just need to shut up. They don't know crap.

~ Run people off the road and don't stop. I was taking Izzy to gymnastics, cruisin' down the highway at 70 mph and this car totally came into my lane. I'm sure I jerked the wheel a little too hard because it freaked me out but I totally went off the side of the road, totally out of control. I was waiting to hit a tree or flip. Seriously. It was bad. And no one stopped!! And I wasn't just a little off the road, I went down a freakin' hill!

~ Cuss really loudly in public. Attention STUPID TEENAGERS: YOU ARE NOT COOL!! Do you realize how dumb you sound?? And I have a 3 year old with me. "Adults" that cuss- you're even worse. Please just Shut the $%#@ up! (hee hee)

~ Give advice on raising children- yet you don't have any of your own. A girl I knew when Tristan and Alec were maybe 4 and 2 was always telling me how when she had children they weren't going to dress like mine (tshirts and shorts) but her's would wear polos and khakis. And her children would know better than to throw toys. And, *gasp, "You let them listen to Genie in a Bottle??" Yeah- I saw her last summer at church totally struggling to keep her very hyper son quiet and entertained. It was awesome! You can't decide on how your unborn children will be. If we could then Taj wouldn't have an ugly cry or hit himself when he's mad.

~ Be a citizen of another country and tell actual US citizens who they should vote for in the next election. I was watching the Grammys a few years ago and Chris Martin of Coldplay actually dedicated his Grammy to "John Kerry- who should be your next president." Who asked you? Go back home to Apple. I still can't listen to Coldplay without getting bugged.

~ Say you'll move to France if Bush is elected and then never leave. So, I guess technically Alec Baldwin, Sean Penn, Barbra Streisand... & whoever else, are already winners of The Tad Award. I'm still waiting for them to go to Pansyland.

These are just a few ideas you can do if you would like to win the Tad Award. And if you don't want to be my friend.

The Tad Awards

This is Tad. He is from the movie Finding Nemo. You may remember his big line when describing himself:

"I'm obnoxious!!!"

Well, in the last few days I've met other "Tads" in our world. And let me tell you, there are some obnoxious people out there! (No- I'm not talking about anyone in my family, but maybe yours...) The other day I heard someone knock at the door. Since I don't really know anyone I didn't bother to go answer it- not to mention I was still in my blogging attire. (pjs pants, no br@ and my Def Leppard tshirt.) I heard knocking again, this time a lot louder. Then the doorbell rang. I knew whoever it was had heard Livie squealing. So, I threw on some shorts and went to check out who it was. I looked thru the peephole and it looked like this guy from our ward at church. When I opened the door and saw it was not this man and he had a bag with him I thought "Oh crap. He's selling that Advant@ge cleaner- or going to chop my head off and put it in that bag." And I was right- about the cleaner that is. He started his spill- the same spill I'd heard a few months before. I actually bought some of this cleaner before, but I rarely use it because I forget I have it. I told the guy straight up, "I already have this and I'm not buying more." He didn't even flinch, like he hadn't even heard me. "I already have this. I don't need more." This time he acknowledged I had spoken and asked 'What color is yours?" "Yellow." "Well, now it's green and it cleans a lot more..." he said as he shoved a bottle in my hand. I barely glanced down and I said, again, "I'm not buying any." "It cleans gum, blood, oil, permanant marker..." "I am not buying any!" He proceeds to demonstrate how it cleans permanant marker out of a towel while asking "What would you do if your little one colored with marker on your new dress???" "The same thing I do now- clean it with the yellow stuff I already have." I was trying to hand him back his bottle the entire time and was so bugged that he wouldn't shut up. He kept trying to get me to sniff the stuff. I was sooooo ready to shut the door and take the bottle in with me. I finally pushed the bottle of cleaner at him, hard, and said "I AM NOT BUYING ANY." I think he finally got it and said,"OK ma'am. Well have a good day and God bless you." Was that to make me feel crappy? At least he didn't say something like, "If you buy this it will help send me to college." I always tell those salesguys "And if I don't I can send my own kids."

Moving on to obnoxious person #2. Ok, this person was rude. Just plain rude. The kid's school was having a carnival so we loaded up the car with our 4 million kids and headed to the fun. We're driving around the school looking for a parking space when we saw one. SCORE! We turn into the basically one way parking area and Sei turns to pull into the spot. When he turns in we see a man standing in the spot talking on a walkie talkie. Sei rolled down his window and said, "Excuse me. We're trying to park." and with that the guy didn't say anything. He just pointed to a van turning into the parking lot. He was saving a parking space by standing there and then using the walkie talkie to direct his wife where to go. Sei was so bugged. Soooo bugged- his upper lip was curling like it does when I know he's ready to go Samoan on someone. And we were trapped. The only way out was to back up and we couldn't because the van was behind us. We sat there, expecting the van to at least back out so we could get out and find a spot since Dorkman (who btw actually looked like he could be named 'Tad') wasn't moving. Nope- the van stayed there. Then all the sudden she pulled in beside us and was like (I kid you not) 2 inches tops from our Yukon! What the!?!??! Sei said something like "Are you freakin' kidding me??" out his window and Dorkman came over and Sei said, "She nearly hit our car." The man said "Oh, she was very careful." Sei rolled the window up in the middle of the guys sentence. I wasn't really bugged, I just thought it was really rude.

Give our "Tad Award" winners a round of applause. Guys- you totally deserve it...