Blessings from Above

Christian had to make a little trip to the dentist today to have two small cavaties filled. How fun for him. However, he did get to watch "The Ghost and Mr. Chicken" during the procedure. Just as an aside, that is one of the BEST movies ever! I absolutely adore Luther and his big boat of a car screeching down the street. The theme music alone is worth the price of the DVD, not to mention all of the great lines in the film: Who doesn't love "atta boy Luther!" and "let me clarify this," and "they even used bon ami!" They just don't make 'em like they used to.

So back to my original thread of thought (sorry for the detour). The receptionist at the dentist's office was asking me how Ashley's wedding went, and how the newlyweds are doing, etc. I was reminded once again of how proud I am of Ashley and the choices that she has made in her life up to this point. She is such a good example as she is working so hard on her schooling, she has chosen her eternal companion very wisely, and she made the very important decision to marry in the temple. And those are the things which will make all the difference in her future. How very blessed I am to be her mom!

Uh, So Yeah. Can We Get Fries with That?

First let me tell you that I am not really mastering this blogging program. That's fairly obvious I think. As a result, the spacing and placement of pictures turns out all screwy and wrong. When you read the previous blog, "It's a Birthday Bonanza!" be sure to continue to scroll through the entire thing to the bottom or else you might miss something witty (yeah, right).

Anyway, I love reading the newspaper. Love it. For it is through reading the newspaper that I am assured that there are human beings out there who are dumber than me. Whew!

The latest in dumbness comes to us from a couple of guys in Boise, Idaho. (Shout out to the spud state!) These two guys are a couple of cards short of a full deck because, as reported in the Salt Lake Tribune, these two clucks decided to take a break from their jobs as ice-groomers for the city of Boise. Their empty stomachs were getting the better of them, and they decided to make a midnight run to the local Burger King . . . wait for it . . . yep--in a pair of Zambonis! An anonymous tipster reported seeing the two big machines chug through a Burger King drive-through and return to the rink around 12:30 a.m. The huge vehicles have a top speed of about 5 mph, and these two nuts drove about 1 1/2 miles to make their burger run and had to negotiate at least on traffic light. The result? They had their burgers AND got fired on the spot.

Even I wouldn't dare to attempt that.

It's a Birthday Bonanza!

It's birthday time for Jordan, Ashley, Judy and Dustyn!



I don't know if anyone is admitting their age--especially old man Dustyn, but don't they all look so great!











Birthday boy Dustyn, his brothers Bretton, Kason and Nathan all played a mean game of Bozo Buckets earning them some fun swag: Silly Putty, Hot Wheels, Paddle Ball/Bouncy Ball toy thingy, and lots and lots of candy (with apologies to Judy). Kason who is just three worked out a grand secret password system with Sean to snag himself some extra candy. Try as we might, Kason wouldn't spill the password to the rest of us. He knew he had a good thing going.

























We enjoyed another celebration for Ashley and Jordan at the Hard Rock Cafe in SLC. The visit brought back great memories of our Chicago Hard Rock Cafe, as well as the London Hard Rock Cafe for the honeymooning Ashley and Jordan. We struck gold and sat at the table right under The Beatles' wall of awesomeness.


























Yummy food! Loud music! Great company! What more could you ask for?


















Grandma Bea was a great sport to put up with the crazy music and wild videos.


















Marian (the kids' second mom) always makes a party feel more like a PARTEEEEE!























"Heavy, heavy hang over thy poor head. What do you wish this person with a bump (ouch!) on the head?" Yeow! Look at Ashley--she's loving it!























Can my little girl actually by 22 years old? Holy smokes where was I when THAT happened?






And the birthday girls get a big "shout out" from all of the restaurant patrons while she stands in the place of honor atop of the birthday chair!

Can You Post My Bail?

So, as Sean tells it . . . (big inhale here--brace yourselves), he was out with his AP English buddies (read: brainiacs), filming a version of Chaucer's Cantebury Tales, of all things. Sean's car has a belt problem. When the weather turns cold the car makes an earsplitting screech which is loud enough to rip your ear drums right out of the sides of your head. Anyway, during the filming of the movie, a woman who is apparently so high strung she could be a stand-in for Richard Simmons runs out of her house demanding to know if Sean and his gang have been speeding up and down her street. (See, the screeching fan belt sounds amazingly similar to a car pealing out in order to show some machismo.) But, no, none of that was happening. The speed limit was being obeyed, and the only law being broken was Sean's passenger standing up in the topless convertible hanging on to the front windshield for dear life as he screamed "I'm king of the world!" (Not really, I added that part about the king. But he really was doing the impersonation of a ship's masthead thingy.)

The next thing the boys see is an unmarked police car pulling up behind Sean's car. Wouldn't you just know it--the complaining Richard Simmons/woman is married to a cop! More cops are called and records are checked. Sean tries to frantically wipe off the dayglo pink lipstick he is wearing for his part as "the wife" in the movie before the cop has time to come up to his window and wonder why his gender on his driver's license doesn't match the person he is shaking his night stick at. Meanwhile, one of his buddies is asked by another cop, "Uh, why do you have all those guns?" Oops. Well, the guns were actually little pink and blue fake guns, but to someone who wields a big shiny gold star on his chest, IT IS NOT FUNNY BUSTER! Apparently teenagers waving guns in the air while riding in a motor vehicle is not acceptable behavior in this particular city.

Fortune smiled on the boys when a sherrif pulled up and recognized one member of the gang as a kid in his neighborhood. This boy must have kept his nose clean and didn't ever T.P.
this guy's house because the sherrif vouched for him and got the other cops to climb down from their high horses, put their tasers and their handcuffs away, and let the kids go with only an obligatory lecture. And the boys listened. Because they were scared out of their minds.

And so the moral of the story is reading Chaucer can actually get you in a big ol' heap of trouble!

Three Blind Mice

Three blind mice,

Three blind mice,

See how they crash!

See how they crash!

They all got stinging drops put in their eyes,

None can see much to save their own lives,

They hold their breath as Dee crazily drives,

They're three blind mice!

Too Cute for Words

Our baby boy is growing up! Having been asked to the girls' preference dance at his school, Sean got all gussied up in all of his awesomeness and had an extremely fun time going to the Spaghetti Factory, strolling the mall, and then hoofin' it at the dance. Thankfully (and a very smart move on the girls' parts) there are six other couples in the group so the dreaded "awkward silences" are almost non-existent. This is one lucky girl, wouldn't you agree?

Poor, Poor Jack!

Poor Mr. Jack-O-Lantern met his doom at approximately 5:30 p.m., Sunday, November 4, 2006. Let us all take a moment to reflect . . . .

At first glance, one would think that this was the malicious work of some of those "juvyniiiiile dolinkents" we hear so much about these days. (Look your doors! Close the curtains! Heaven helps us all!) But no, actually, it was our wholesome FHE activity marking our annual "Pumpkin Pitch." The idea is to hurl each jack-o-lantern off of our third-story balcony into the neighboring vacant lot causing the pumpkins to say bye-bye. The contestant to pitch their pumpkin the farthest and cause it to splatter the most is the big winner. This year Dave took The Great Pumpkin Prize. Congratulations to all of our contestants!

Note: We doing R & D on a pumpkin catapult for next year's competition.

Comfortably Numb

An unwritten and unspoken rule about being a part of the Sagers family is the requisite love for all things Pink Floyd. I don't know, it's just like we all came out of the womb with an involuntary affinity for Pink Floyd's indescribable music--it's sorta psychadelic, sorta wierd, sorta hard rock, sorta ballad-ish--it is hard to put their music in a specific genre. Whatever it is, it is truly spectacular, and we love it!

I'll never forget when Ashley was about 12 years old, and she put the ol' rumored legend to the test by playing Dark Side of the Moon while watching The Wizard of Oz. (Click here to get specific directions.) And guess what? It works! IT IS SO FREAKY! Anyway, we love the fact that she married Jordan who also shares our passion for PF (at least to a certain degree . . . . Okay, he likes the band enough that he isn't completely annoyed with us going on and on about it all).

Sean and Christian are way into Pink Floyd too (understatement), so we thought it would be a grand outing for our entire family to go to the Australian Pink Floyd concert. And we did! We had a blast. We especially loved the giant inflatable pink pig with red eyes. Too cool for words. I made the silly mistake of thinking I could take my camera into the arena to get a cool family group shot in front of, oh I don't know, maybe the concession stands, the staircase, the restrooms? I don't know what I was thinking. Anyway, I was told at the door that my camera would not be allowed into the building so Dave had to high-tail it back to the car to put my camera away. We did accost some poor guy in the parking lot after the show to take this shot of us all in front of the E Center. Then it was " . . . home, home again. I like to be here when I can." You gotta love it. Really.

Mummies, Zombie Toes and Worms! Mmmmm!

Since the creativity gene wasn't really kicking in for me on Halloween, I copped out by making an easy meal and assigning creepy names in the hopes that the family wouldn't notice that it was merely hot dogs, fries and jello. To be truthful, I really like jello, but sometimes jello creeps me out regardless of its name if it is made with too little water and devlops that "glucky" texture that seems to appeal to certain people looking to eat those jello jigglers, which, by the way, qualify for admittance into the "nonfood" category if you ask me. (Can that be good for our constitution to eat such a concentration of gelatin at one time?)

On to more Halloween fun! The feller and his band of merry-makers went trick or treating throughout the neighborhood and came home with enough candy to last him until he is winding up his master's degree in college. Here is what will happen with the candy: the Snickers, Three Muskateers, Reeces and Butterfingers will be eaten within the first 48 hours, and not just by Christian. Ahem. All of the rest of the stash (suckers, hard-as-concrete bubble gum, Tootsie Rolls, and toothpaste(!)) will sit and sit and sit in the bowl until I finally realize that, "Hey! I didn't pay for this stuff! Why do I need to feel bad about throwing it away, especially now that it has an inch of dust piled on it?" So out it will go. But only when Christian isn't looking. Although he will never in a million years eat any of it, he would certainly feel violated that I unceremoniously tossed his suckers into the "circular file."

I know I should just do the dumping deed right now and get all of that high fructose corn syrup out of my sightline. To be truthful, there is a little part of my brain that always nags at my conscience whispering that there are sure to be some needy kids somewhere in China who might love the rootbeer flavored DumDums that I so callously chuck in the garbage, and how dare I be so wasteful? Yeah, maybe I'll just hold off for a few days, and then dump, just to make me feel a little less guilty for depriving some little Chinese kid of some unneccessary cavaties . . . .