The Best Ab Workout Ever

I meant to write a post earlier in the week, but it never happened. It's been sorta busy around here. We started our Fall soccer season, and we had two games last week. We won the first game, but lost the second. I have shin splints for the first time in a long time; I'm not used to sprinting.

Yesterday David and I went to Boise to see Jim Gaffigan. It was so much fun! We laughed so hard the first five minutes of the show that we actually thought, "He'd better slow it down; there's no way I can handle laughing like this for an hour and a half." He was just talking about bowling. Who knew there was so much humor in bowling? David noticed that the lady sitting next to him didn't laugh the entire show. I wonder what was wrong with her? I noticed that the usher was laughing uncontrollably. I would love to be an usher for events like this. The show was totally worth the ticket price, but getting paid to see such hilarity would be even better.

So now I'm hooked on comedy shows. I've seen tons of them on TV; I usually record my favorite artists on Comedy Central. But seeing them live is so much better. We didn't stick around for the meet-and-greet after the show; I kind of wish we had, but the rest of our party didn't really want to. It was okay, though. I'm sure I'll be seeing Jim Gaffigan the next time he comes to our area, and I'll stick around to meet him at that show.

So what else is new?

*Samantha's birthday is Wednesday. I can't believe she'll be one already! This year has zoomed by! She is getting more talkative. She babbles a lot, and yells her gibberish at Drew and Owen. She has a few "words" too:

• Aya (hello. She puts the phone to her ear and says, "Aya," and then she giggles. It's so cute)
• Mum (more or milk. She does a bit of sign language so I know which one she means)
• Ee-oo (thank you. I handed her a cracker one day and she said, "Ee-oo" in the same tone of voice that I say "thank you" when she gives me whatever tiny item she's trying to put in her mouth)

*Drew has become increasingly interested in bodily functions. He burped the other day, but didn't know it was called a burp. He laughed and said, "I fart out my mouth." It was so gross, but I couldn't stop laughing.

*Owen has become the tantrum-thrower of the family. Drew's tantrums have mostly stopped--they're fewer and further between, in any case. But Owen has suddenly become very high-strung and takes everything personally. Today, when we were at our friends' house, he asked me for a brownie. He'd already had one, and I think he knew I was going to say "No" because he started crying even before he asked.

*David is going to start Engineer training at the railroad. He'll have a week of training in Pocatello, then two weeks in Salt Lake. Then he'll be a "Fireman," which is a railroad term for "Engineer in Training," for six months. He'll take a pretty big pay cut for those six months, but it won't be too bad, and after the six months he'll get a nice fat raise and have a little bit more seniority. That'll be nice, because work at the railroad is expected to be slow for the next couple years and when things are slow, the guys at the bottom of the proverbial totem pole get laid off. It's not like a typical job where if you're laid off you're done; they keep you as an employee, but you don't work and you don't get paid until business picks up again. So it makes it hard to find a different, decent, can-provide-for-the-family job when you can't tell your potential employer how long you expect to be there; it could be two weeks or two months, or longer.

So that's about all we're up to. Not a ton, but it keeps things busy enough for us.