Every two years

About once every two years all of my brothers and I are able to spend about a week together and it is always so much fun. Last time Ellie was about two weeks old, Milo was 6 months old, and Lindsay was still pregnant with Jackie Day, so it was really great to see these little babies so grown and playing together. But I love being with my brothers and laughing, making fun of each other, reminiscing, and watching them physically abuse each other after throwing a ball as hard as they can at each other because someone dropped the ball in their made-up game "banana hammock." But Josh, Lindsay, and the boys were off today and Tucker left on Wednesday, so now I thought I would post some pictures of our week together, which include the 4th of July in Oakley at our Aunt Margaret's "cabin."

A pleasant surprise

As I was walking home from the park with all of my brothers, nephews, and nieces (pictures I will post later) I saw that the Young Women from my old ward had decorated my door and left cookies on my door step and it was such a great surprise. I miss those girls and the other leaders so much, even though we are still in the same neighborhood, but it was nice to see that they might miss me, too. Either that, or they couldn't think of a mutual activity and someone had leftover cutout hearts from Valentine's Day and wanted to vandalize me. Either way, it was a really nice surprise. And don't get used to pictures of me pregnant because as you can see, I'm slowly becoming an orca whale.

As I'm sitting on my couch on this rainy day in Utah while little Ellie sleeps, I received a call from Hubert who tells me that Mark-Paul Gosselaar was on the Jimmy Fallon show, but not as Mark-Paul Gosselaar.  So I Youtube the episode and out on the stage walks Zack Morris from the timeless Saturday morning show, "Saved By The Bell," and don't act like you don't know what I'm talking about.  Now, not only was he dressed like him with his fabulously hairsprayed hair, pegged pants, and white high-tops, he was actually Zack Morris and I have to say that it made me laugh pretty hard.  So to all of you hardcore "Saved By The Bell" fans, here you go.

A one-sided conversation

Last week, Ellie and I ventured out and visited the Layton Park where there is often an eclectic bunch of people most of which we like, but on this particular day there seemed to be a field trip from a nearby junior high and me over-hearing their conversations and praying I wasn't that dumb as a kid. But besides that, it's a good park. But the best part are the ducks and geese and at this time of year they have all of their little babies that Ellie loves to see so we decided it would be a good day to go and feed them. And after walking around for a while, Ellie eating the bread instead of giving it to the birds, and that incident where two ducks seemed to be violently mating which was sufficiently awkward for every watching, the fun began. You see, Ellie has quite a large vocabulary for a 21 month old and loves to talk and talk, so you can imagine how excited she was when right in front of us there were two geese just standing there. I found this to be so funny because she was chasing after these poor ducks, while yell/talking to them, and trying to feed them. And this was her conversation with accompanying pictures.

Ellie: "ducks, Ducks, DUCKS!"

Ducks: (looking up at her)

Ellie: "Ducks. What are you doing, ducks?"

Ducks: (Slowly waddling away)

Ellie: "Ducks. DUCKS! Where are you going, ducks?"

Ducks: (More quickly waddling away)

Ellie: "Ducks, momma say bread for ducks. Ducks, eats bread, ducks."

Ducks: (One of them stops and slowly walks toward her to actually get the bread Ellie is holding out)

Meagan: (starting to panic)

Ellie: "No ducks, bread for Ellie, not ducks." (Walking away)

Ducks: (Confused)

It was a good moment.

You had me at mango salsa

For so many years of my life my television viewing has been interrupted by meaningless commercials at the most important times in my favorite shows. Will Dylan and Kelly finally get together even though Brenda disapproves on 90210? Commercial. Will Billy and Allison work through their differences and make their relationship work with the evil Amanda living right below them on Melrose Place? Commercial. Will the underdogs, Lisa and Screech, beat Slater and Kelly at the dance-off at the Max on Saved By the Bell? Commercial. But finally, the dreaded commercials became a thing of the past thanks to the Cavemen of Geico. From the very first time my eyes met yours sitting angrily at that restaurant with one of you ordering the "roast duck with the mango salsa," while the other vindictively said, "I've lost my appetite," you had me.

When I saw you casually standing on the floor mover in the airport enjoying your upcoming tennis match only to have your enjoyment rudely interrupted by a poster showing a caveman in stereotypical caveman clothing and holding a large stick, you had me.

And finally, when you could take it no more that you had to see a psychiatrist and had your session interrupted by a phone call and your response to your therapist was, "I need to take this, my mothers calling," you had me.

Cavemen, thank you for making the times between episodes of LOST bearable. Thank you for not making me throw a pillow across the room every time Jim and Pam were interrupted when they were about to say something meaningful to each other on The Office. And thank you for helping me to stop biting my nails when Tony was about to kill a relative on the Soprano's, but was delayed. You have given me back more than you know and all I can say is, again, thank you.

Oh, and I know these commercials aren't new, but they are recently coming out with new ones and it brought back my love for the cavemen, so I felt I needed to express my feelings.

Why Men's Synchronized Swimming Should be an Olympic Sport

The other day NBC played all of Saturday Night Live's shorts, both old and new.  And although most were funny, this one had me in tears, and it's not the first time.  It came out in 1984, so I was only 4 years old, but I remember my parents watching this and my mother laughing so hard she cried.  Also, I think that they actually recorded it on a, now stick with me, video cassette.  And as I have seen this throughout the vast years of my life, it only gets funnier.  From Martin Short's inability to swim and ridiculous hairline to Christopher Guests' off the shoulder sweatshirt and spandex pants, it is by far one of the funniest things I have ever seen and only hope that others out there will appreciate this as much as I do.  Also, I have to apologize that it's not the whole skit, but this was all I could find. Please enjoy.

Houston, we have a ...

GIRL!

For Mother's Day my dad thought it would be a nice gift to take me to Fetal Foto to find out what species of child I will be birthing in 5 months and he said that he had never seen a baby ultrasound, so he was pretty excited about that, too. Well, it wasn't too hard to see, as it seems my unborn isn't the most modest child, but we are lucky enough to have another little girl and Hubert and I couldn't be happier. Now, all we have to do is figure out a name. Any suggestions?