The Time My Wife made me Steal Ice

I'm a hardened criminal.

Okay, not really.  I didn't actually steal anything.  I don't actually have the ability to do that.  However, it was very similar to stealing.

Here's the story.

On Saturday my wife went grocery shopping.  That's a true act of love, because I hate grocery shopping.  (I hate shopping in general, but grocery shopping happens to be a subset of shopping.)  After performing this great act of love and sacrifice, Robyn came home and let me bring all the groceries in.  (In exactly one trip, as per my lifelong commitment to never take more than that.)

I brought everything in and then suddenly Robyn gave a shout of sheer pain and exasperation:  "Oh no!"  To properly understand the urgency of the situation, you would have to hear her tone.  But just believe me when I say that it was clearly a big problem.  I quickly asked her what was the matter.

"I bought the ice but I forgot to pick it up!"  It was one of those situations where you tell the cashier that you want to buy a bag of ice, but then you grab it yourself on the way out the door.  She had forgotten the "grab it yourself" step.

It was very urgent because we were having a friend over for dinner and she wanted to do Italian sodas.  I offered to run to the store and grab the ice.

She gave me the receipt and told me to walk in and talk to customer service to get permission to grab the ice.

I drove to the store.  I walked over to the ice machine.  I grabbed a bag of ice and got back in my car. I didn't talk to anyone.  I just took it.  I had the receipt in my hand in case anyone questioned me.  But no one did.  So as far as everyone was concerned, I totally stole it.

I'm not gonna lie.  It was kind of exciting.  Even though I wasn't stealing it, since it was already paid for, it still felt like I was going to "get caught".

But more importantly, the Italian sodas were delicious.

2014 Year in Review

I normally write this post at the very beginning of January. As you may be aware, it's almost February. But I'm writing it now because this is when I got around to it. Here are some of the cool things I did in the year 2014. It was a pretty good year. Clearly, not as good as 2015 is going to be. But no year can compete with 2015. Am I right?

 Without further ado, here are some of my favorite events or accomplishments of 2014 (in no particular order):

• Walked/Ran 591 miles
• Biked 632 miles
• Went on a cruise
• Set foot in 9 states
• Utah ( I live here)
• Idaho
• Washington
• Texas
• Pennsylvania 
• New Jersey 
• Wyoming
• Arizona 
• Nevada
• Set foot in 4 countries
• United States (I live here)
• Honduras
• Belize
• Mexico
• Lost 11 pounds  (After getting off diabetes medication, my weight loss significantly slowed down.  But at least it's going in the right direction.)
• Did our first Scuba Dive in the Ocean
• Wrote on this blog 90 times (not my best year)
• Took up backpacking
• Went inside 4 LDS Temples that were new to us
• Ogden Utah
• Houston Texas
• Rexburg Idaho
• Idaho Falls Idaho
• Acquired 2 new nephews (I know it's totally offensive that I wrote about one but not the other.)
• Ethan
• Logan
• Read 72 individual works totaling 17,461 pages.

It was a pretty good year, if I do say so myself.

Snow Shoeing

As you probably know, Robyn and I have been making an effort to be more healthy and more active.  During this process, we've taken up hiking, biking, scuba diving and various other activities.  However, we've discovered that all of the aforementioned activities are primarily summer activities.  This doesn't mean you can't do any of them in January, it's just more difficult.  (But next week there is supposed to be a low that is above freezing for a few days.  I'm totally biking to work.)  Because of this, we have ventured on a quest to expand our horizons to include more winter activities.

Our first winter activity that we decided to embrace was snowshoeing.  We called up my BFF Jared W and invited ourselves on a snowshoeing adventure with him.  Jared probably thought to himself that he wanted to do something more hardcore, but since he's awesome he planned a trip that would not kill his fat friends.

We went up Guardsman Pass in Big Cottonwood canyon.  Jared supplied the snowshoes, and he took us on an adventure.

Look how cute we are.

It turns out show shoeing is hard.  Have you ever hiked in sand?  You know how you kind of take one step forward and sink a half step backward?  Ya, that happens.  Only, it's like if you were hiking on sand with 25 pound weights strapped to your feet.

The people we were with were hardcore.  Bryce, in particular, likes to get a good workout so he intentionally strays from the trail to make it more difficult.  I told him he could get a way better workout by just being fat.

You're not hardcore unless you live hardcore.

My fatness definitely made it so that my heart rate stayed up as I was climbing that mountain.  I was sure glad I wore shorts.  I was dripping sweat like a maniac.  (I'm not really sure if maniacs sweat more than the average person, but let's just say I was sweating a lot.)

It was hard work, but the scenery was beautiful.  There's nothing like an untouched blanket of snow in the middle of a forest.

Hiking beyond the horizon.

It was hard work climbing up that mountain, but it was almost as hard coming down.  Jared just rolled down.

It looks like he's falling to his death, and he is, but it was on purpose.

I wasn't quite that adventurous. I did my best to walk.  But as I was walking down the mountain in 4 feet of powder, my feet would slowly slide and my mind was too blown to be able to keep me balanced.  I fell down several times, and when you fall you sink.  You don't realize how deep the snow is until you're trying to stand up and everything you put your weight on sinks 4 feet below you.  It was an adventure but I totally got out alive.

All in all, I'd say it was a success.  We had a good time in nature with some great people.

The peeps

I'm pretty sure we need to get in better shape before we attempt it again.  But it was fun, and Robyn sure was cute.

Changing a Lightbulb is Hard

Before you get too far into this, you should know that I'm well aware that I'm not handy.

But the following story possibly takes it to a new level.

Robyn's brake light on her car went out.  This means that she needed a light bulb replaced.  One would think that replacing a light bulb would be a fairly simple process.  It probably is fairly simple for most people.  But Robyn didn't enlist most people to assist her.  Robyn enlisted me.

Taking a light bulb out and replacing it with a different light bulb is fairly simple.  The problem with this particular light bulb is that you have to take apart the whole light assembly in order to access the light bulb.  Then you have to put it back together again.  Do you see where some level of handiness is necessary?

It started out fairly simple, I unscrewed one screw and that totally worked.

The second screw was where the whole process fell apart.  The head of the screw was stripped so that the screwdriver couldn't grip it.

My knowledge of taking stuff apart consists of 1)Insert screwdriver into screw head and 2) turn screwdriver counter clockwise.  When those 2 steps failed, I was at a loss.  I then spent the next hour trying larger screwdrivers, trying to grip it with a wrench, and other such useless tactics.

Then it occurred to me that being handy is no different from the rest of life's endeavors.  Anything life throws at us can be solved by Google.  (Feel free to cross stitch that last sentence and hang it on your wall.)  Google said to put duct tape on the screw head, and the tape would fill in the gaps.  It totally worked!

In the end, we successfully changed a light bulb.  It only took about an hour.  It was not a success that made me feel confident in my handiness, but it sure increased my confidence in Google.

Aren't you so proud of us?

Totally Not a Criminal

As you may or may not know, Robyn and I are trying to adopt.

We initially completed all the paperwork and completed the hoop jumping process in January a few years ago.  That means that every January we get to jump through hoops again to renew the certification so that we are still qualified to adopt if the opportunity presents itself.

One of the things we have to do is get a criminal background check.

The process isn't all that difficult, but they do their best to make sure you feel like a criminal in the process.

First, the building you go to is called the Bureau of Criminal Identification.  Do you know what I think of when I imagine criminal identification?  I think of those lineups where they pick the criminal out  of a line of random people.  I've always wondered who all the other people are in that lineup.  I'm pretty sure it's people who are trying to adopt who walked into the Bureau of Criminal Identification  and wandered into the wrong room.

Luckily, I didn't end up in a lineup.

We got there and they had us fill out a bunch of paperwork.  They took our fingerprints and then we ended up in prison.

Okay, not really.  But it was kind of like prison.  After they took our fingerprints they told us the computers were down and they had no idea when they would be back up.   They had a waiting area where they said we could wait if we desired.  We were trapped there for an undisclosed amount of time.  It was probably worse than prison.

I went and sat down and looked around the room.  There were only a couple other people there, but I was thinking to myself, "I wonder what they're in for."  In my mind, they're either trying to adopt or they are violent criminals.  (Don't even try to convince me there are other reasons for being there.)

In the end, my prison sentence was only about 15 minutes.  They called our names and told us the computers were back up.  I'm pretty sure the computer was never down, they just wanted to make it seem like we'd be there forever to make it feel more like prison.  So it was still prison-like, but it was more like a minimum security prison.  (The DMV is like a maximum security prison.)

And the best news?  I'm not even a criminal!

Aren't you so proud?

Ringing in the New Year

As I've already mentioned, the biggest event that happened for our New Year's celebration was that we got a new nephew.  But, I thought I'd mention the other festivities that we participated in as well.

Robyn's family has a tradition that she and I have incorporated into our family.  On New Year's Eve, we try new foods that we have never tried before.  It's a way to bring new experiences into the new year.  Sometimes we try things that sound delicious.  Sometimes we try things that sound strange.  Sometimes they are delicious, and sometimes they are gross, but the expectations don't always match the reality.

This year there was nothing super crazy.

There were however, some unexpected things.  I was excited for the Maple Bacon chips because BACON!  They didn't really taste like bacon but they were still good.

The grossest thing was the carrot chips.  They didn't taste like carrots, they juts tasted like the plastic container.  Fun fact:  plastic tastes gross.

The runaway hits were the butterscotch root beer and the lime and sea salt white chocolate.  They both made me a happier man.

After partaking of our new experiences we went to our friend Melissa's house to party it up all night long.  We had warned her that we are old, and may not stay all night due to sleepiness, but a great miracle happened.  We got into party mode and were totally still awake at midnight.  Who would've thought?

You get us going on karakoe and we can't be stopped.

The moral of the story is that we're totally young and hip, and can totally stay awake until midnight.

Also, for extra credit, the second moral is:  Happy New Year!

A New Nephew For the New Year

New Year's Eve was a big day for my family.  My mom finally became a Grandma.

I should note that she's been pressuring me to have children since the day I got home from my mission.  At the time I tried to explain to her that there were some behaviors involved with having children that I probably shouldn't do when I'm a single person fresh home from a mission, but my mom would have none of it.  She wanted grandchildren and that was the end of the discussion.  (In her defense, she hasn't nagged us about having grandchildren since we announced we were trying to adopt.)

Despite not nagging Robyn and I for grandchildren, Mom's desire to have them hasn't been any less.  So I was very happy when I got up on the morning of New Year's Eve to see that my sister-in-law had given birth and Ethan had entered the world around 3 AM.   My Mom finally got to be a cute little granny and hold her new grandson.

Isn't she the cutest Grandma?

I was sleeping when Ethan entered the world, and after that I was working.  So I didn't get to see Ethan until the later afternoon, but I did get to come meet him and wish him a happy birthday.

Look at that preciousness.

The picture looks kind of like he's a redhead, but he's actually super bright blond.  He's a pretty well mannered baby.  He only cried when is parents did cruel things like move him or change his diaper.

Zack was a super cute little Daddy.  He was just enamored with Ethan and only ran in terror once when he had a poopy diaper.

And Robyn was a super cute little aunt.

We're excited to welcome the newest member of our extended family.  Ethan is probably the second cutest Stockett behind Robyn.