Happy Father's Day!

Prologue: I wanted to put some pictures on this from our camping and such, but I lost the cord to plug our camera into the computer. sorry.

In church on Sunday, the young women spoke about their father's and how amazing they were. All their secrets and strengths and quarks were brought out and we laughed and cried. I thought of my own daddy and how much he means to me. He told me once how he went to my 3rd grade parent-teacher conference. A concerned Mr. Alder told him that I had loudly bragged in class once, "All I have to do is give my daddy a kiss and he'll give me anything I want!" Mr. Alder was taken back when dad said, "Ya? Do you have a problem with that?" Oh dear. No wonder I'm spoiled rotten. No, that's not why I love my daddy. It's because he is, in a word, extraordinary. He is strong, kind, silly, handsome, intelligent, intuitive, adored, beautiful, tough, spiritual, bubbly, fluffy-haired, and in my Aunt Kathy's case: worshipped. He is Sunshine. He can write things in an incredibly beautiful way that people can't even find words for in their mind. He is the best teacher I've ever had. He loves EVERYONE. And I mean every single person. He taught me that everyone has something special about them, everyone is beautiful, and everyone is a brother or sister. He is absolutely incredible. A lot of little girls say this, but it's true when I say it: My daddy is the best daddy in the whole entire universe!

I googled him to find a picture of him- as good as he looks here, I wanted to find one with his beard in it. No dice. He's so cute here, but in person he's absolutely adorable!

Now onto the future daddy in my life, Christopher! I couldn't help thinking this Father's day of him. It melts me to even think of the day when he becomes a daddy. This is how I see it in my mind. I'll be sitting in that hospital bed with a precious, tender, little gift in my arms. Chris will be sitting next to me in the bed, one arm around me and the other arm around mine, cradling our sweet little baby. I can't describe to you the look on his face, but I can see it. I can't tell you the feeling I'll have, but I can feel it a little now, imagining it. I'm overwhelmed. It feels like my heart is brimming and smoldering. Both of us will have tears streaming down our cheeks and I will feel like I want to shout and never speak again at the same time. Never will I want that feeling to go away and it will be like it's just us in the world. We are the center of the universe and everything else has stopped to give us our own moment to be in wonder. This is me only imagining and I am simply overwhelmed. It will be absolutely unreal when that day actually comes. Chris will step into his new role with easy grace. He might feel completely uncapable and unconfident, but from the outside you will know he was born to be this man. This child's world. And he will be. Just like my daddy is my sunshine, Chris will be the light for our child. And he'll cry his eyes out watching our little one singing with the other Primary Kids on Father's Day. I can't wait! Well, I CAN wait, but I'm excited :)

On another note, I'll tell you about our crazy weekend! Chris got down to Logan around 3 o'clock and we started getting everything ready to go camping! We loaded up the truck with pallets and candy mostly, then headed up to Porcupine Dam. Jamie and Derek, Mallory and Brady, Kelsey, Jade, Melissa, and about 5 other people met us up there. We had chili dogs for dinner and sat around the fire drinking pop and eating garbage until about midnight, when Chris deemed the rocks ready! That means the rocks he put in the fire 5 hours ago are hot enough for the "Sweat Lodge"! I don't know if you've ever heard of this, but w.o.w. It's a home-made sauna/torture chamber. Made of PVC pipe and tarps tied down, about 10 people can fit inside. You dig a pit in the middle of the "tent" and put the hot rocks in the pit. Then make sure any holes to the outside world are sat on so no cold air can come in, and the fun/torture begins. A few people have buckets of water and they splash the rocks. Hot steam spews and your eyes start burning. Then the sweat starts. My hair was soaked and my nose was literally a faucet on high. Mallory and I cheated- we lifted up the tarp enough to get a few breaths of blessed oxygen before the boys noticed the cold air coming in. When we thought we couldn't take it anymore, Chris passed out the ice cold Cream Soda's that tasted like clouds. Honestly, they were glorious. I've never tasted anything better. Then came the cries of "Do it!", "Man Up!", "GET IT!" and the buckets dumped everything they had left. It took about 4 seconds before everyone was moaning and screaming like they were on a slave ship. We ripped the tarp open and everyone (almost) made a mad dash to the lake. The "almost" was me. After everyone dried off a bit, we retired to sleep. Ha. Our tent was a "two-man". What a joke. Maybe if the two men in question were twelve year old girls. SO SMALL. We didn't sleep a wink. The next day consisted of 2 nap sessions, a trip to the new Beehive Grill (which was fabulous), and a midnight movie- The Proposal (also fabulous). Somewhere in there, we fit in Singing in the Rain, and five episodes of Entourage. Sunday consisted of church, breakfast for lunch (a Sunday tradition), another nap, finishing Entourage season 1, Rounders, and a walk. Such a good weekend. Even the Sweating Torture Lodge.

Am I really that ridiculous?

Yes. In fact, I AM. Drove to Blackfoot last night after work. I got there at 7:30 PM, and woke up at 5 AM to get to work on time. Total time spent in Blackfoot? 9 and 1/2 hours. Total driving time? 4 hours. Completely worth it. I picked up a pizza on my way there and stupidly, let Chris eat his own dinner in order to keep my arrival a surprise. Silly Annie. I won't do it in the future. We watched Game 3 and I was actually very much into it! I like Rafer Alston and Dwight Howard. They look like the only players in basketball who aren't crusty grouches. I know it's kind of silly to base my preference of players on how much they smile and look like they're enjoying themselves instead of on talent, but what can I say? I'm sick of these 7 foot tall, 250 pound guys gritching and moaning about EVERY LITTLE THING. They crash to the ground and clutch at their ankles when a breeze whispers through the stadium. When the ball goes out of bounds, it's NEVER their fault, and the ref's always favor the other team, of course. I've seen 5 year old girls who are tougher! Honestly fellas, grow a set. Oh and freaking Gasol is the worst! (He's on the Lakers and we hate them.) After the game, we watched Clint Eastwood in Gran Torino. Huh. He's a pretty ornery guy. All in all, a good movie. We made it to bed around 12:30, 1 ish and I slept like a rock for a few hours. Sang really loud on the way home to stay awake. I love me some Black Eyed Peas. As I am at work, I thought this was an accurate portrayal of what I feel like doing.

Our weekend.

I know you are all thinking, "Oh Annie! What did you and Chris do this weekend? I just can't live without knowing! I can't believe you would wait clear until Tuesday to even give us a hint!" Calm down, my friends. I know you live vicariously through our crazy, some may say extraordinary, lives, but we DO have things to do and sometimes I just don't have enough time in the day to keep up the blog for your entertainment. Ok, I'll cut the crap now. Wanna hear what we did this weekend? Too bad, I'm telling anyway. So, for our first week apart, I did ok- I thought. This first night I had nightmares and didn't sleep at all, but the rest I just had nightmares and slept great, so I think it will get better with time! I'm trying to be tough :) So when Chris got home Friday night, we rented a movie and ate all the garbage I baked for him and just enjoyed being together again. Saturday, we bought a camera!!! I would show you a pic, but how do you take a picture of your camera with the same camera? We took pictures all morning, at the house, at the temple, and some of Marilyn (his motorcycle).

I really hate taking pictures, but I wanted a camera, so I just tried to suck it up and put on my glamorously photogenic face :) So that night we went to dinner with my brother, Bo, and his wifey, Michelle. We ate at Noodles and Co. So dang good.After Noodles, Chris and Bo watched Game 6- i think Labron against Howard? Chell and I had our books out, but couldn't concentrate very well with the loud comments from the boys :) Then on Sunday, it was Stake Conference, so Chris and I skipped and decided to go for a hike! We drove the bike all the way (met up with about 40 bikers and rode with them through the canyon. I, personally, felt exceptionally cool to be in a biker gang for about 20 minutes) to Tony's Grove before the rain started- it felt like little bullets- so we turned around, leaving our new found friends and headed back to hike to the Wind Caves! I am the biggest baby kitty whiner. Poor Chris. This is me: I have a rock in my shoe. How long is this going to take? This gets my belly when I look over the edge. Don't make me stand by the ledge- I feel like it's going to reach up and pull me down! I don't want to climb that cliff! I'm scared, Chris! Wow, he had it bad. We made it home, with many mumblings under my breath, and got ready for game night at Mallory and Brady's! We played a game called Dirty Minds- it gives you dirty clues to guess a clean word. I won't give an example :) It was super fun except after awhile, my body started acting weird. I'm assuming the hike set it off, but we have some other theories too. It's happened before, but it hurt all over, way painful, and I wanted to go home. So we went home and I cried while Chris tried to distract me by reading me the Book of Mormon in Spanish. It really did distract me. It was so beautiful, and I felt the Spirit more than I ever had reading it in English. So now I'm going to make him read to me every weekend. So that was it! Very eventful and we had a great time together. I love being with him every minute, even those few seconds when he drives me up the wall :) Just kidding, boo. You are so perfect that you never drive me up the wall....wait......gum.