10 Cool Things That Happened on My Christmas Vacation

1. John Peter Lewis (from American Idol) sang at my cousin’s wedding, because he’s my cousin’s cousin.
2. I swam with a giant sea turtle in Hawaii. I also swam with a nasty, mean-looking eel and tons of cool fish, but the sea turtle was the most exciting part.
3. My nephew (the cutest-little-momma’s-boy-in-the-world) started to like me a little bit, after ten days of persuasion and cookies.
4. My family spent Christmas Eve on our own private beach; singing Christmas carols, telling stories, and watching the waves roll in.
5. My brother gave me a pink ukulele for Christmas. What’s cooler than a pink ukulele?
6. On Christmas morning, Ben and I got to talk to his brother, Seth, who is on a mission in Florida. This was the view from our balcony while we were talking to him.
7. Be got an XBox for Christmas, which means we don’t have to buy him one for his wedding.
8. Ben found my $100 check from his mom, which I had lost and given up on two weeks earlier, in his wallet. You might be wondering how it got in his wallet. I am too.
9. The flight from Hawaii to LAX served strawberry-banana smoothie fruit juice. If you think it sounds gross, because room-temperature strawberry/banana-flavored water is nothing like a smoothie, you might be in for a real surprise. It was YUMMY!
10. The flight back to Utah was 4 ½ hours late because it was raining harder than Californians know how to handle. Since we got in at 4:00 a.m. yesterday, I went to work late and didn’t even feel one bit guilty about it.

Momma's Boy

In 13 minutes I’ll be heading to the airport, which means I’ll officially be on my way home. I’m so excited I could pee my pants. I haven’t seen my nephew in 1 ½ years, and he’s only 2 years old. Last time I saw him he was a baby, and now he’s a little boy who walks and talks and eats real food. I wonder if I’ll love him as much this time as I did 1 ½ years ago. I also wonder if he’ll hate me as much this time as he did 1 ½ years ago. Wish me luck on becoming friends with the cutest little momma’s boy in the world.

I Guess You Could Say We're Ford People

For about 8 months out of the year, I drive a teal Ford Escort. But, since I grew up in California and I still suck at driving in the snow, my husband and I switch cars during the winter because his car has 4-wheel drive. So for the past few weeks, I’ve been driving his Ford Explorer.

Last night when I walked out of Albertson’s, I walked straight to the teal Escort in the closest parking spot and stuck my key in the lock. I opened the door and got in, and then realized that it smelled strongly of cigarette smoke. I looked around for whoever was smoking, but I didn’t see anyone in the parking lot. As I was setting my bag of groceries on the floor of the passenger seat, I noticed a black and yellow hairbrush. I didn’t think we had a black and yellow hairbrush, so I started to get suspicious. Then I noticed a pack of Kool cigarettes on the dash, and I KNOW we don’t smoke Kool cigarettes. We’re Marlboro people. Or…I’ve never smoked a cigarette in my life and I just had to do a Google search to make sure I spelled “Kool” and “Marlboro” correctly. So my first thought was that Ben was cheating on me, because I still haven’t totally gotten used to this whole marriage thing, which is totally different from the whole dating thing (where it was perfectly fine to cheat on your boyfriend because you’ll probably just break up in a few months anyway). Then, my second thought was that I WAS SITTING IN SOMEONE ELSE’S CAR, which was followed closely by my third thought: Why in the world does the key to my Explorer unlock the door to someone else’s Escort??? And then my fourth thought: Is the owner of this car watching me, and is he/she about to pull out his/her gun and shoot me for trying to steal his/her car? Then I remembered that I’m not in L.A. anymore. I’m in Utah, so if the owner was watching me, he/she was probably on his/her way over to make sure I had a key to the ignition, and then send me on my way with some canned food and toys and a warm holiday greeting.