Out with the Old, In with the New

And no I'm not talking about Lydia.... we wouldn't get rid of that old thing.
I'm talking about my new piano. If you remember from my last blog way back when I got rid of my piano that had been a project for about a year and a half. Well we really wanted a digital piano this time and I had been searching for awhile before I found this steal. I got it off Craigslist and it randomly happened to be an LDS family selling it. They bought it for 1400, my price: $200! Really excited about it!
McCall has been having watermelon cravings and I swear that's all she does all day long is eat watermelon.

And finally, only 8 more weeks til our new addition! Lydia is sporting a shirt that my best sister-in-law Makana so thoughtfully made for her.

Sold

Awhile back I made an interesting purchase. I'm sorry, but my earning for a piano got the best of me and I made a greedy decision... I bought a piano, but... not just any piano let me tell you. It all began when I was searching on Craigslist and I came upon an ad for a baby grand piano for a 100$. It stated that it obviously needed some work but that it still played pretty well. Curious I called the number and the guy told me he'd deliver for me for free... I was sold. They came as promised and delivered the piano. As soon as they left however, I looked at McCall and she looked disappointedly at me and I knew i had made a serious mistake.

Why? Well first off, here are some pictures of the beauty:

You are probably incredulous at this point, wondering how this guy sold this for just 100$, and how I picked up such an incredible deal (sarcasm).

First off: We live in an apartment + the largeness of a baby grand = not a lot of wiggle room/space

Second: I failed to notice that the piano was missing the music stand (to hold the music)

Third: The first time I played the piano was when they (the movers) set it down in my apartment. I knew that it sounded pretty awful but what was I to do, say ok thanks for all the effort... take it back. So naturally, I kept it.

Despite my lack of intelligence in this purchase, I determined I was going to restore this piano and make a fortune out of it by selling it for ten times its worth.

So... I sanded it down, filled in the cracks with wood glue and put the primer on:

I love black piano's, so naturally that's what I did, I painted it black. But the worst part of it all... was the laquering. Remember we live in an apartment, with no garage, and not very good ventilation. If I had any other wife than my sweet McCall I would have been forced to stop my project right then. But being the good wife that she is, she encouraged me to finish it. I put 3 layers of lacquer on and each time I would leave all the windows to the apartment open and we would take off for a day or two to air out the horrible strong smell. I think I actually did damage to my nerves at this point because the last time I lacquered my arm started stwitching and still does. But I finally finished it so it'll be forever worth the twitching!

It took me a lot of work but I actually had a tons of fun doing it! One small problem, although it looks beautiful on the outside the piano doesn't sound too great. One day out of anger, I put it up on Craigslist, a lady fell in love with it, and before I knew it, I had bid my last goodbyes to my beautiful love. Good riddance!

Give me a piece of that KFC!

I know everyone has been wondering lately whether or not the first KFC really was started in Utah? Well why is it Kentucky Fried Chicken then? Well McCall and I have been stumped for years so we decided to get to the bottom of this and headed off toward Corbin, KY (3 hours southeast of Louisville). And we decided to bring Lydia and Maple along for the ride.

It took us awhile, but we were very excited to finally enter Sanders cafe!

We were surprised to find that they had made the restaurant into a fast food restaurant and museum combo, except that there was no tour guide... bummer, which means my millions of burning questions had to wait.

Here is the original kitchen!

Naturally we had to try some of the food, where's Lydia?

Here we found a statue of the Colonel himself.

Another pic of the outside

Also in the museum were more statues, lots of pictures, a bedroom where they slept, and a cashier who said she didn't get out much...

Here is Lydia finishing up the ice chips

So we really didn't go to Corbin just for KFC's sake, we went for a mini-vacation (pics on that later to come). But I did find out some interesting things. This dining area we went to was first named Sanders Courts and Cafe, he was so successful that the governor gave Sanders the title of Kentucky Colonel. He expanded his restaurant and added a motel across the way. When he prepared his chicken in his first restaraunt it took him 30 minutes, he thought... no way too slow... so he started frying his famous chicken.

What's with Utah? Well he generally served travelers on their way to Florida, but when the new Freeway came in and bypassed his restaurant he sold his restaurant and traveled the U.S. to sell his chicken to restaurant owners. The first taker was a guy in Salt Lake and they opened up the first Kentucky Fried Chicken outlet.

Hope that satisfies everyones burning questions about KFC, see ya next time.

Stories

Moments like these make being a dentist fun:
Patient #1: Normally when you start working in a patients mouth, that is their clue to STOP talking, right? I think this is common sense to most people. One of my patients does not understand this concept I guess. I realized when I met her she was one of those talkative types, but I thought to myself, ok, now that I'm actually giving an injection maybe she will stop talking... nope, talked right through it. Then I thought she'd quit talking when I actually started drilling on her tooth.... nope, talked the entire time. Maybe for the filling... nope, you get the picture. And I'm not very good at multitasking nor am I good at being rude, so I would just mutter "uh huh" every minute or so and act as if I was anxiously engaged in what she was telling me and also try and suppress my laughter.
Patient #2: I actually prescribed bananas to a patient. The first time I did dental work on him, he started moaning and groaning, I stopped and asked, "Does that hurt?" No. Seconds later the same thing. Again, "Are you feeling this at all?" "No, cramps," he barely whispered. "Um... ok....do you need to stretch?" "No, I'm ok." Moments later as I was filling the tooth, apparently he couldn't take the pain any longer stood up, banged his head on the light, and started stretching his calves. For those of you who don't know dentistry, the silver filling sets up in a certain amount of minutes and if you don't place it fast enough, you have to start all over. So I'm sitting there, confused as ever, while my patient is moaning and groaning while stretching. Other people are starting to look just about now. "Um, can I help with anything?" "No" he says grimacing. "Um I kind of need to place that really fast... can you sit back down." "Oh, yeah," and he sits back down. Well that happened a few times that day and other days... eventually I prescribed bananas for him.. and he forever became endeared to me as "Banana legs"

Maggots

So as you can see we have ourselves a visitor.

We noticed their company ever so often on the headrest of our bed, along the lining of our sheets, and yes, even on our pillows. YUCK! Finally after seeing so many of these lovely creatures we decided to find the source of all evil. So we started pulling our bed apart.

Layer after layer we found more and more of these unwelcomed visitors. We pulled our sheets back and found 3 under our covers. Pulled the bottom sheet off and JD found 5 along side his side of the bed. We lifted up our mattress and yet found a few more on our box spring. By this point I didnt' want to go any further because I was scared of what we would find... since we had used the room under our bed for storing who knows what. But we held our breath and lifted the box spring up.

We found these nasty maggots all over our stuff that we had stored under our bed. JD was a saint for cleaning all of them up. I would stand on the side lines and he would just tell me what he needed and I would gladly go get it for him if I didn't have to touch the little buggers.

Finally we found the JACKPOT!!

It was our 72 hr kit! Ya, I know if there happened to be a disaster, we would be toast. Anyways we started to open things up and pull things out of this nasty back pack and kept on finding more and more of these lovely creatures....Until....yes.. we found the mother load.

It was the nastiest maggot infested cliff bar EVER! There was one tiny whole in the package and Jd had to open it. What we found will forever scar my memory and I swear I can never look at a cliff bar again. This thing had the plumpest, most nastalgic, and satisfied maggots I had ever seen. There was so many of them just nestled all snug in that package, it basically just looked like a maggot bar with some granola bits. I am pretty sure that we will never eat the TWO boxes of cliff bars we already had in our food storage.

So there you have it, I am sorry if we have thus ruined your personal taste for cliff bars having seen these quite disturbing images. Just remember to check your 72 hour kits every so often. Amen.

Lydia is ONE!

I can't believe my little girl is already one year old! To think that about one year ago we were bringing her home from the hospital just blows my mind. She has already learned so much and has her own little personality. I just want to share with you some of my favorite things about my cute girl: She has the most amazing pot belly, taking after her dad. I think McCall and I forget how big it is, because we chuckle every time we take her shirt off. (Pic doesn't do it justice) She loves to point at everything and anything, especially dogs. She has a cute immitation bark for a dog.

She LOVES, loves, loves going outside! It was our biggest mistake as parents to introduce her to the outside and to teach her the sign for bye bye because she must sign it about a 100 times a day.

She still acts like her carseat is the torture chair but usually does ok when mom just holds her hand (literally, if you take the hand away its screaming and gnashing of teeth). You can also notice her scab on her forehead that she suffered when she tripped herself and skid on the cement.

This picture brings out 2 things: One is that she has had a hard time growing her teeth (she only has 4 to this point), but they are pretty cute and she has a smile that melts McCalls heart. Two is that she soaks all her clothes in drool (I think she gets so concentrated with things she wants to do that she forgets to swallow) One of my favorite things is that Lydia loves her books. If I tell her to get one of her books she squeals with joy, picks up the book and comes to sit in my lap. I think it's because I bring the books to life and she lives in a short lived fantasy world. You can also see from this pic her bruise that she suffered by falling on an exhaust pipe in the parking lot (she's had many injuries)

I love playing stuffed animals with Lydia when I come home and bring them to life for her. I love playing dog and chasing her around the house. I love how when you tell her no with a stern face she just gets a huge smile on her face and keeps on doing it. I love her fake laugh that she has perfected. I love when I lie down on the carpet she comes over and gives me big ol slobbery open wide kisses. I love when I try to shut the fridge I can't because I realize that Lydia has somehow snuck in there.

I could go on and on, but basically what I'm saying is.. I love this little girl.

Facial Expressions!

Lydia has developed some pretty sweet facial expressions:

This one is "OH WOW" (you can skip the first 5o seconds they're kind of boring)

This is Lydia watching her favorite princess show...