Love, True Love

Well, I had the mavelous opportunity to go to Tucson all day Monday to visit various doctors and run a few errands while my Aunt Dee Dee watched Noah (I think she is still recovering from that day). You know when you have new doctors and you have to fill out all the new paperwork and they have to ask you all the new questions about you and your life and your parents' lives and why you have a brown dog instead of a white one.

Well, as the doctor is asking about my family's health history, she askes, "Where does your mother live?"
"Well, it's a town out by Willcox." I replied.
"And your father? Where does he live."
"Um, in the same town as my mother." I say, perplexed.
"Oh," she says, suprised. "They live in the same town?"
"Well," I explain, "They kind of live in the same HOUSE."
"What? Wait...your parents are still married?" seemingly shocked.
"Yep"
"Are they both your parents? No step or half parent?"
"Uh...yep..Uh...nope" (I'm quite articulate, I know)
"How long have they been married?" She askes, incredulous
"Well, I thing it's been about 31 or 32 years. Their anniversary was in June"
"Did they have more kids? (yep, 2 younger boys). Are they stll at home? (nope, all moved out). And they are STILL married? (yep)"
"Huh." She replied, very officially-doctorly-like.
"Is that weird?" I ask.
"Oh, no. Not weird, just...unusual"


That afternoon, I was going through the same questions with the second doctor who asked:
"And your parents, what was their marriage like?" (notice the past tense)
"Um, good I guess."
"And where do they live now?"
"In a town by Willcox in the same house." I say
"So.....they're still married? (yep) And they are both your biological parents? (yep) And do they seem to like being married to each other? (well sure! I don't suppose they'd hang around each other if they weren't!)

Another modern-day medical personnel shocked. I'm loving it, and loving the fact that I never had to deal with the split vacations or the split holidays or the "he-said, she-said" (we get enough of that from outside influences!). I know that marriages like this are rare, but I have been soooo blessed to be surrounded by these types of relationships; my mom's sister and brothers are all still married to the person they had children as are my dad's two brothers. I guess I just kinda took it for granted, but I have to admit, it's very, very nice to not be a part of that niche.

La-Tee-Dah-Tee, We Likes To Pahty!

Well, this has been quite a busy Saturday for our little family. I had to run to W@lm@rt this morning to grab a last minute gift for a birthday party we were going to (yes, I suppose I was suffering from a brief, oh who am I kidding, PERMANENT bout of insanity to go W@lm@rt in Nogales on a Saturday with my almost 3 year old), then to a great huge BP hoopla from noon to 3:30 and from there we headed to 2-year-old Manuelito's birthday party.

The BP barbeque was nice: burgers, (some with cheese, some without), hot dogs, brats, a small fly infested salad, some pasta salad, lots of cookies and soda pop. Some kids got to break this itty-bitty pinata and grab a coupla suckers and run around with them while their parents yelled at them to stop. Since it was at the park just down the street from us, Noah got to play on the equipment for a few minutes and then we had to go to the birthday party.

Soooo...on our way to Lito's house (He is the 4th Manuel, so they call him Manuelito, Lito for short), we see this huge air filled bouncy thing in their yard, like the ones you see at the fair. That was just the beginning! We walked in and Lito's dad says he's glad that we could make it and he'd have someone bring us a plate of food. Since we had just eaten, we asked for a small amount and went to sit down. While Noah booked it to to the bouncy thing, we were brought a plate full of the most tender beef I have ever eaten, beans, potato salad, pasta salad, rice and a tortilla. Then we were offered any drink we wanted as well. As I shared as much of my plate of food with Noah and my friend Brenda as I could and listened to some kickin' Mexican jams, I couldn't help but notice a HUGE-MANTIC Lighting McQueen pinata sitting on the back porch. It must have been 4 feet long and so stuffed with candy that Helaman could hardly pick it up. We commented on it and he said the he (of course) got it in Mexico and since they were so cheap, he bought 3 instead of 1. Thinking that he was going put the other two away for another time, I asked where he was going to store them.

"Store them?" He asked, perplexed. "We stuffed them!"

So we had the jams, the friends, the food, the candy, the fun, and then...the dessert. Lito's mom told me to go into his room and check out the cakes. Yep, cakes. Plural. So I go to check them out. And there are these two giant cakes (full sheets), one with a penguin on it and another with a little Mexican girl on it.

"The first one is banana cream custard, and the second one is strawberry cream custard." She told me.

My mouth started to water.

So, while I got to carry on competely adult (ahem...I mean grown up) conversations (Noah would not come out of the bouncy thing), and listen to fun music and eat fantastic food and watch all the kids swing for their little lives at the scary paper mache creatures, I realized something...

DANG!!! These people know how to PAR-TAY!!!!

Boys and Men

So we have the new mac, right? And it has all these really awesome features, right? (As you have no doubt seen with the photo booth pics I have been posting) Wanna hear about the next cheesy yet cool feature of the Macs? They have this really cool voice recognition application that you can set to the specific tones of your voice and you can make commands with a kind of "hands free" option. Well, needless to say, Helaman started working this whole thing out in about oh, 2 minutes and he was able to say things like, "Close this application" and it would. Then he would ask, "What time is it?" and the female voice of the computer (you can set it to man or woman) would say, "It's one o'clock".

Well, this was really fun until he found that he could set a "word-prompt" to say before each command, so the computer wouldn't just close an application if you were talking about it. I was thinking a good prompt would be "hey" or "please" because it would be easy to remember. Oh, well for cryin' out loud, that just didn't happen because I'm married to HELAMAN and he is who he is. You wanna know what word he chose as a prompt?!? WOMAN. Really. Like, "Woman, get over here and do the dishes!" or, "Woman, get over here and rub my feet!".

Now, I am a very independent woman and I don't like to let anyone push me around, and I thought, "Maybe he just needs to tell SOMEONE what to do" so I let it slide. It was kind of fun to say "Woman! Tell me a joke" and hear the computer woman's voice say "Knock,Knock" to us. Well, little did I know that our silly commands would come around in a funny way to bite me in the rear-end.

While Noah and I were shopping in W@l-M@rt (which I would totally avoid if there was a Target within 50 miles), on Monday I was in the aisle next to the cheese when I hear Noah mumble something that didn't sound very appropriate.
"What did you say, Mr. Bentley?"
"Woman!" he replied, "Let's go!"
"What?!?!?" I answered, shocked.
"Now you say, go where?" he said.
"Go where?" I replied, wondering where this could lead.
"Woman, go get me some cheese!" he stated.

Now, I tried to calmly explain to him that the word "woman" was only to be used when talking to the computer, not to Momma. But while I was letting him know that it was disrespectful when to me in that manner, I happened to glance over and see a small group of grown Mexican men, laughing hysterically and pointing to my son. As we know, the Mexican culture isn't exactly known for how they hold doors open for the female counter-parts in their society and I can only imagine that they thought this little red-headed American boy was right on track.

I think I'm going to have to change the word-prompt to "Sweetheart".

Our Family Grew By FOUR Feet....

Well, when you are cute, single, female missionaries always dressed up out in the ghetto, things can get a little creepy at night. Sooooo creepy that you might call your Mission President, and tell him that you have been STONGLY promted to leave your home immediately (after some creepy-heeby-jeeby guy has been callin' all hours and finally asked the question: "Are you home right now?").

When you return home the next day, you might be feeling a little silly - but not silly enough to stay another night in the heeby-jeeby house, so you go stay with a nice member in Rio Rico who happens to have a spare room available for a week. Or three. Whatever.

And that's how these beautiful missionaries came to be in our home and how they are able to study all the time and feel the Spirit and never goof off and make funny faces with our mac or cook instant cakes in the microwave at 10:30 pm, or sit around on P-day and clip coupons and eat junk food.

And so, life goes on as usual in the Lambson household....or unusual...Whatever

Out Of The Stone Age..

And into the light!!! Wow, it seems very silly to be this excited about having internet, but sheesh....I really missed it. Since I haven't posted since June, I thought I'd just let anyone (if there is anyone left out there who still checks this page), ask what they want about what we are up to and I'll just write a little blog and tell ya!

Sooo....We live outside of Nogales, Az in a little place called Rio Rico and we are doing very well. Busy, but doing well. Helaman passed his last test in August, which was a HUGE relief and helped alieviate some of the pressure he was feeling about losing his job. He'll be on probation for another year, but as long as he doesn't do anything EXTREMELY dumb, we'll be set for the next 15 years or so. He is working the night shift, so he gets to go to work at 12 am and get home at 10 am. We don't mind it so much because he gets to spend some time with us all morning, have a big lunch with us, then he hits the hay till 10 pm. It seems to work well.

Noah is doing well also, and he will be turning 3 on October 25. He is very excited about it and has been telling everyone about it for about 3 months (since my birthday). He can count to 20 (though he always seems to miss 14 and 18) and is very proud that he can write his name now ( I know it's short and easy, but he's pretty proud of it nevertheless). We are having a few issues with him "pushing buttons", especially when Daddy gets home, but he's just acting like a normal almost 3 year old, so we just have to deal with this stage of toddler-hood.

I, Sarah in the flesh (Well, I guess not really in the flesh, but you get what I mean), am doing ok as well. Hoping that things will just go well during the course of every day. We have the Sister Missionaries staying with us for what looks like a couple more weeks, and they are the greatest company ever!! They make me laugh and one of them is a music junkie so she has shared a couple of awesome singers/bands with me. She's also a showtunes guru (she played the Narrator in Joseph and The Technicolor Dreamcoat and loves all musicals), which is just AWESOME as well.

So, as this day fades off of the clock and the next day technically begins, I must bid ya'll farewell until the next time that everyone is asleep and I can sit and type in peace. Thanks so much fer yer visits, I'm much abliged.