Gag me with a yogurt taco...or pregnancy will do it too

If you are wondering, "gag me with a yogurt taco" was one of my favorite valley girl sayings from the 80's.

Yick. Bleck. I feel sick! I am so afraid I am going to get as big as a house because the only thing that seems to keep my nausea at bay is to constantly feed my face. My sister lived an entire pregnancy on Werthers Originals and Rootbeer. The only thing that sounds good to me are chipotle steak burritos. Yeah, that's gonna get pricey. Every time I think about the sensation in my throat I mentally say the word "keck". I think that may be a barfing sound effect...I'm not sure.

Anyway, random stuff is starting to gross me out. I am going to start an official pregnancy gag list on my sidebar. I'll update it as need be.

So ladies, what made you gag during your pregnancies?

Summer Vacation

When I stood on a cliff looking over this view I felt my ribs unzip and my heart practically float away.

We're finally home from our summertime escapades. We've been gone for almost two weeks and had such a good time getting out of the city and back to nature. We went camping with Nic's clan in Duck Creek Utah first and then came home for one day...shook the dirt out of our shoes, washed the clothes and took off to do the whole small town fourth of July thing with my family back home at Pablo Canyon. I wanted to share some of the pictures.

Pablo Canyon

One of the main events back home is to load everyone up in a 4-Wheel drive vehicle and bounce up to Birch Creek where we have a cook-out and let the kids play in the creek. Then we drive all the way to the top of the mountain and go down the other side to Austin to play at the park, swim and eat at the Toiyabe Drive in Frosty.




Afton and Evan at Birch Creek


Evan sporting his new sheriff hat

Afton at Birch Creek cook out

Here's a video of our fist night at Pablo Canyon. This is the ranch where my parents live and Nic and I stayed in one of the empty rental trailers in the main yard. Everyone showed up to have a true country ho-down. We had a great time cooking up a big bunch of cowboy beans, corn on the cob and staying up late to tell ghost stories. Even Afton and her cousin Ellie got in on the action!

MMM!!! One of my favorite back home meals...there's a cup of brown sugar in those bad boys!

My dad Frank and Nic at the very top of Birch Creek canyon. You can't really see that well because there was a haze from the California wildfires, but we were so high and could see for a hundred miles in every direction. It was windy and exhillerating up there!

My mom Sandy taking the kids for a quad ride up pablo road. Evan cared more about the motorcycles than eating. We had a scary moment when we lost him for about 15 minutes and we found he had wandered up the ranch and found a riding lawn-mower to "drive".


Here's the sweet 10 ft wide trailer Nic and I stayed in. The porch also doubled for our talent show stage. This is my dad telling red neck jokes. Ashley Stout and I performed a Tahitian hula and can I just say how completely heart-broken I am that my hubby didn't get it on video!? In case you don't know, one of my items on my life checklist was to learn and perform a real hula. Humph. Sigh. So sad. I am praying Ashley will put it on her blog. Nic played the guitar and we sang Allison Krauss's "You Say it Best When You Say Nothing At All". Afton did princess dancing with her cousins.

I love this uncertain expression on Afton' face as she greeted a surprise visitor.

Duck Creek

The Larkin crew including Papa Larkin


My favorite activity of the whole Duck Creek trip was our family hike to Cascade Waterfall. It was the perfect hike. Not to long for little kids, yet still makes you sweat...breathtaking views (the first picture on this post was during that hike), varied landscape, not all uphill, and an awesome destination. It was the perfect family hike and I want to do it every year now.

Cascade Waterfall...Nic and Evan testing the waters

Afton on her first real hike.

Local Wildlife

Can you say Velveeta CHEESE?!




Phew...this whole vacation has been so fun, but also so exhausting because Evan had diahreah (cha cha cha) the entire ten days and...I'm Pregnant!

Black holes, The Bermuda Triangle, and Me

On Saturday night I went shopping at Superwalmart. I knew it was going to be one of those nights because when I went to open my car door it shocked the co-co puffs out of me. Sometimes the universe aligns in some bizarre way in which I get schocked by just about anything. When I got to Walmart I put my keys in my purse which also created an electrical shock. By this time I am gun-shy. I go to get my cart and I sort of slapped the handle first to test it out and of course it shocked me. A painful one too! I then got shocked on the dairy case handle (twice) and then on a can of tuna. WHY?

So I made my way to the produce section sort of relieved I was done buying stuff involving metal only to realize every time I let go of the shopping cart it would shock me again when I touched it to move somewhere else! Then the weirdest thing happened. I GOT SHOCKED BY A GALL DANG AVOCADO! An avocado people! Since when have avocados been superconductors of electricity? At this point I can't help at least wonder if God is just messin' with me.

God: Pssst...Saint Peter..leave the pearly gate duty to someone else and come check this out.

St. Peter: Who's that girl?

God: That's Angie Larkin. And that my friend is a mountain of avocados in which I have added 5000 volts of electricity to every single one.

St. Peter: Hee Hee.

God: And guess who has "guacamole fixins" on her shopping list?

St. Peter: This oughtta be good.

Okay...I know my shocking problem isn't God's fault, but it does sort of...oh I don't know...defy every natural law I've ever heard of. It is a unique feeling to be scared of an avocado. So you just remember that next time you are in the produce section of Walmart.

Older than Dirt

My baby turned 30 yesterday! 30 feels so old and I would continue to make fun of him and his AARP magazines that are sure to arrive in the mail any day, but I'm older than he so I'll shut up now. But the upside of turning into a geezer is that you get cool things done for you!

I dropped the kids off at my sister's and then picked up Nic from work. Just walking in that place stresses me out...I love him for doing a scary job everyday. Then we went to a bakery to get this ridiculously tasty vanilla bean lemonade. There were whole beans floating around in the lemonade bucket and little black specks stuck to the Styrofoam cup. Yum. Nic was so cute, he took me there to just show me snippets of his life. Then he wanted to take me to this hilarious hotel that he had a networking thing at. It was so ridiculously creepy! If vampires ever vacation in Vegas they stay at the Artisan hotel. Black walls and ceilings, leopard carpet, goth furniture, paintings on the ceilings, candles, heavy curtains, suits of armor...So creepy. I laughed because on one of the big book shelves in the lobby there was a big red book called "Sweet Torrid Surrender" next to a book called "Entertaining with Regis and Kathy Lee". I guess even vampires throw dinner parties.

Then we went to Town Square for some shopping, dinner and a movie. We saw Get Smart which nearly made me wet myself. I highly recommend it. The kids stayed at my sisters for the night and we got to go home and have run of the house...so nice for a change!

Happy Birthday my sweetheart.

Your Mom.

Nic and I are big on your mama jokes. They have become the response for just about everything.
Nic: Hey babe? Can you wash some shirts for me?
Me: Your mom.

Me: Sweetie, can you fix that broken light switch before the weekend is over?
Nic: Your mom fixes light switches.

Me: Can you move your smelly feet away from my face?
Nic: Your mom has smelly feet.

Etc...Etc...

A couple of weeks ago Nic asked me to do something to which I replied "your mom" forgetting his mom was in the next room until I heard her say..."HEY!"

So Afton must have picked up on this playful banter as this morning she asked me to do something to which I relplied, "your mom". She looked at me and totally one upped me in Sunbeam style by saying "YOUR mom drinks coffee!"

If you aren't Mormon...sorry, this won't be funny to you. But suffice it to say, that mama joke is about as dastardly as a four year old Mormon girl can get.

Tuesday Tidbits

The older I get, the more I'm starting to learn how to appreciate small moments that make me chuckle. Little moments to celebrate. I celebrate this fantastic storytime craft we made at the Library today. I also celebrate the fact that Afton asked for and actually ate spinach and raspberry vinaigrette for snack. All in all... a pretty good day.

Ninjas, among other things