Lentil Festival!

this weekend the holbrooks partied hard at the lentil festival.

we ate lentil ice cream.

You have to taste it to believe it, I think.

we listened to yodeling cowboys in neck ties.

you can even buy custom-made bouquets of dried wheat, feed to your llamas in your back yard with, I suppose.

Tina, you fat lard! Come get some DINNER!

and then we sat around while my Holbs took a phone call.

It smelled like vinegar outside. I don't suppose that has anything to do with Lentils, though.

The Kids Are All Right

Saturday night there was a youth dance. I was there to chaperone. Let's be honest though, I was there to be awesome.

For this dance, we hopped in our rigs, drove 40 minutes even further into the middle of nowhere, parked in a grassy lot in the middle of rolling wheat fields, and set up a DJ stand under a giant tree.

While we waited for the dance to start I wandered to a nearby barn and watched a few chicks hatch, said hello to two skittish goats, and then stepped in some poo. Then I found a pig sty and flirted with some very amorous hogs.

I think they fell in love with me, just a little bit.

Anniversary!

It is rainy out. And I like it because there is a skylight above my little cubicle so I can listen to the rain fall all afternoon.


We celebrated five years of marriage last night by having a Certified Senior Citizens' Night. This is where we go to dinner at 4:30, eat half our plates, squabble over which dessert we will order, finally decide not to share and each get our own, and then walk the mall for a few minutes until deciding we are pooped and then go home at 7:00. We are such party animals.

This is Barney, and he approves this message.

Five Years Ago Today

Folks, today I have been married for five years.

The Holbs and I got married on a Tuesday afternoon in the Portland, Oregon Temple. We had our reception that night in a stable in Aloha.

The Holbs still has gloriously red hair. He is afraid of the spiders in Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets. He built me a patio this summer. He leaves his empty cereal boxes on the kitchen counter for me to throw away. 

The Holbs cries at good movies. He plants trees and lilacs in the ground and worries for them in windstorms. He loves his dogs. He has a beautiful mouth and a dimple square in the middle of his chin. He has the greatest arm hair on the planet. He loves my goofy little brother.

Here's what have I learned in five years of marriage.

Men don't consider steamed vegetables to be a balanced meal.

Costco is a great place for a cheap date.

You should marry your best friend.

Praying as a couple, reading the scriptures together, and making it to church a little early somehow make your marriage so much stronger. But praying as a couple, reading scriptures together, and making it to church a little early somehow are somehow the hardest things in the world to do. I have no idea why that is.

Making babies can be a lot of fun. You should try it.

Let's Get A Little Personal, Shall We?

Aunt Flo is visiting this week. Aunt Flo was not invited.

For three months I've kindly let Aunt Flo know that I've needed a break from her. A nine-month-plus break. I've asked her sweetly and reminded her gently. This time I am pleading. No more, Aunt Flo. Please, no more.

I know it hasn't been long enough for me to be upset. Three months does not exactly infertile make. Four months, or even five or six, would be completely normal. It's just that it wouldn't be just four or five or six months. It would be four or five or six months plus five years. And I have a certain feeling about this. I can't really shake it.

The other day I held a friend's baby. Some of my friend's babies are cute and all, but this one just has something about her that makes me die from anticipation whenever I see her. It could be that she is a dark-haired thing, just like me, and maybe I see in her what my babies might look like one day (assuming Holb's power Nordic genes don't pulverize mine into smithereens). Or maybe I'm nothing special and she makes everyone fall under this trance when they're near her, but when I hold her she just conforms to my shoulder, spreads her arms out across my neck and arms, and soaks right into me. Once when I was holding her, swaying with her back and forth while softly tickling her back, I actually felt light-headed. Everything around me turned a little blurry, noises dulled in the air, and I felt so strongly as I rocked her that this was what I was meant to do. I was good at it. She had been fussy and as soon as I held her she settled in and just looked around the room.

 I had been fussy too.

No more, Aunt Flo. Just for a while.

What I Did This Weekend

This weekend, we drove through Idaho.

We visited my family.

My sister got married.

And then we drove home.

The End.