i know it’s the poor craftsman that blames his tools, but i really can’t help it. the reason i haven’t been blogging lately is because the computer that i use is terrible. truly, truly terrible.

many of you know that justin recently got a free upgrade from apple to a brand-spanking-new macbook pro because the case on his 2 year old macbook kept cracking. over the winter justin sold some of his music equipment and we sold all our cds and we were planning on buying justin a new macbook pro and having me take over his macbook. well now, as soon as apple announces that they’re upgrading their macbooks, he’s still going to buy a new computer at which point i’ll be the proud owner of a gently used macbook pro.

until that day doing anything but basic internet browsing is a chore that i prefer to avoid. so sorry if you all miss me, but i’ll be back, just as soon as apple gets on the ball or until justin just can’t wait any longer.

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so we’ve been pretty much snowed into our house since last thursday, you know, snowmaggedeon and all that. on thursday, as the snow started its descent upon us, justin reminded me that he has next week off. you see, he has to request his days off at the very beginning of the year and not knowing what else to do with that time we figured we’d take the week of president’s day off (4 days to take off instead of 5).

“so what are we going to do that week?” justin asked me. “well, we could go to texas,” i said half-jokingly. justin served his mission in san antonio and austin 10 years ago and has never been back. in the meantime we have been back to my mission areas in italy twice, france 3 times, and circled the globe. he’s always wanted to go back, and i’ve always wanted to go. so we planned this awesome road trip through the south, going all the way to san antonio, with stops in austin, new orleans, atlanta – that would take a week. we were totally pumped, had motels and restaurants picked out, and were ready to go…until last night, when we started to worry that our car wouldn’t be able to make the 3000+ trip, not to mention the fact that with the itinerary we had lined up we wouldn’t be able to make many stops to get elliott out of the car and save our sanity and his.

so we started looking up plane tickets. wow, it is expensive to fly to texas. and the cheapest option would have limited our trip to only 3 days and we realized that we just weren’t going to be able to have the texas trip we wanted to have. so with great sadness we scratched our trip.

however, we need to get out of town. so we did a search for the cheapest flights out of d.c. and amidst the cheap flights to upstate new york (we’re already suffering enough from seasonal affective disorder, thanks) and florida, was a cheap flight to arizona. so, after making sure it was alright with brandon and julie, we’re going to tucson for a week! while it isn’t texas, we’ll still get to achieve many of our goals for this trip – we’ll be out of the cold, we’ll get some good mexican food, and BONUS we’ll probably get to go to mexico!

and did i mention that the forecast for next week is sunny and mid-seventies all week long? oh man, this is going to be heaven…

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yes, i know it happened a month ago. but guess what, our christmas tree is still up (although it is unadorned, at least we’ve made it that far) so the christmas spirit lives on in the bytheway household!

we had a great christmas vacation with my dad and sister. we ate waaaaay too much on a daily basis and went to d.c. staple ben’s chili bowl (oh, half smoke, i want to devour you again…) and ate crab cakes on the potomac. we also watched lots of movies and went to colonial williamsburg.

christmas!

christmas morning elliott woke up to lots and lots of presents thanks to his grand-santa-parents. we got him one gift this year – his very own chair.

he loves dragging it around the living room, standing on it, using it as a step stool to get on the couch, and occasionally actually sitting in it. grandpa daniel got him lots of plastic noisy things and the grandparents bytheway got him books and puzzles – all of which he loves. he still picks up him christmas presents and brings them to me saying “oohOOHooh.”

a couple days after christmas we decided that it was time for elliott to have his first haircut. here he is pre-cut.

he pretty much loved the experience and can’t wait to have his hair cut again, as you can see.

for a few days after his haircut i had to choke back tears every time i saw him. who is this little boy and what happened to my baby?!

anyway, for the most part we were so busy enjoying ourselves that we didn’t bother to take out the camera to prove that we enjoyed ourselves in the future. trust me, though, we had a great vacation.

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thanks aunt sara! elliott LOVED his christmas present. who says it was for 3 and up? it’s never too soon to get your child ready for his nba career.

p.s. a word of caution, you probably want to have the sound down pretty low for this video since justin and i got a little too loud and proud, if you know what i mean…

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i’ve come so far in ten years.

2000 – college student, girlfriend
2001 – community college graduate, byu student, true convert, ex-girlfriend
2002 – byu student, girlfriend? then definitely an ex-girlfriend, in fact an ex-FRIEND and ex-best friend, then member of the best crew ever assembled with lots of best best friends
2003 – college graduate, missionary
2004 – missionary, half-orphan, even deeper convert
2005 – ex-missionary, girlfriend, fiancee, law school student, WIFE
2006 – law school dropout, english teacher in japan
2007 – english teacher, justice court clerk
2008 – court clerk, MOM
2009 – wife, mom, east coast resident

it’s hard to believe it’s been ten years. it’s hard to believe all the changes and stages and milestones i’ve seen in the past ten years – the tragedy and joy. and i have a feeling that the next ten years are going to be even more exciting, which is kind of unbelievable. i can’t wait.

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as soon as my family leaves i’ll be able to clear my head and post about the holidays in full, because they’ve been pretty fun, mostly because elliott’s been really fun. but for now i thought i would write down my new year’s resolutions somewhere.

1. turn 28. (you always have to have one you can definitely keep, right?)
2. finish the quilt i started a little over 2 years ago.
3. knit a sweater.
4. make elliott a baby book before i forget everything that has happened in the last 18 months (18 months?!?! 18 months!!!)
5. read at least 4 classic novels. right now i’ve thought of les miserables and moby dick…i’ll try and think of 2 more. any suggestions?
6. get another stamp in my passport.

i think that’s enough for right now to keep me pretty busy for the next 12 months.

**edit: i think i’ll add a tale of two cities to that list as well. just one more book to figure out!

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so as anyone who has been following the news knows by now, we are in the middle of a blizzard back here in the east and it’s not as great as dairy queen would lead you to believe.

we had big plans today that involved finally buying elliott a winter coat and boots (a day late and a dollar short on that one…), going to see the temple lights with some friends, and then picking up my little sister from the airport. all of that turned into being snowed into our house. although we did venture out to the grocery store across the street (one of many times i’m very glad we live across the street from a grocery store) and got to see what the world would be like right after a nuclear holocaust. there were no cars on the street and it was so quiet and empty except for the others on foot who were also going foraging for supplies.

now that the snow finally seems to be winding down it looks like we’ve got about 2 feet of the white stuff on the ground. my sister’s new flight comes in tomorrow night and we really hope the world around here will come back to life or at the very least that the freeways will be opened back up and plowed tomorrow so we can go pick her up. we have all the time in the world tomorrow as church has been canceled!

in other news, we’re doing well. elliott has been so fun this week. he’s turning into such a little boy, it’s ridiculous. and he’s so stinking tall. he’s able to reach up and grab just about anything off our kitchen table and counters. as you can see here we can no longer leave anything on our table, especially not open boxes of cheerios.

oh, don’t worry, we totally let him sit there and eat them until he got bored and started walking around dropping cheerios all around downstairs like he was hansel and gretel trying to find his way back out of the forest. he’s this close to being able to open doors, at which point life’s going to get much more interesting.

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happy birthday to the justin and sarah bytheway family! congrats to us for making it 4 years! and double congrats to us for eating at outback steakhouse to celebrate!

(i’m starving)

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it’s that time of the year when the local oldies station turns into only christmas music, which is both good and bad. because there are some good christmas songs and then there are some good christmas songs with terrible renditions, and then there are just some terrible terrible christmas songs. in my humble opinion the three worst christmas songs of all time are as follows:

3. step into christmas – elton john

woof. i think my MAIN problem with this song is that christmas is a time for mellow music and for relaxation and mr. john’s energy is WAAAY more than i can handle in this song. it’s so jarring. luckily, though, it is rarely played during the season and so i can forget about it more than the next two.

2. christmastime – smashing pumpkins.

sorry billy corgan, you’ve sung one too many times about how pointless and terrible life is for me to believe you as you drone on about the wonders of christmas. and listen to those lyrics! “christmas time has come, toys for everyone.” killing me with your depth, william.

1. wonderful christmastime: paul mccartney.

UUUUUGGGGGGHHHHH. seriously, this is wings-era mccartney at his worst, and that’s saying ALOT. so boring and droning and terrible. you can tell how middle-aged someone is by how much they like wings and start thinking that paul mccartney is the best beatle. i’m sure by the time i’m 35 i’ll have changed my mind about this song because none of us can resist aging, but for now this is definitely the worst.

now that i’ve tortured your ears a spell, let me give you a treat. it’s hard to pick a top 10 or a top 3 list when it comes to the best christmas song. however, it is not hard to pick a number 1:

good luck not having the christmas spirit when you listen to that jam, scrooge mcgrinch.

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