Excuses, Excuses!

Ok...forgive me. I have been reminded by many of you that I haven't had a single post since mid-November (yes I'm talking to you mom, Calista, Jeff, Marcina....)

Would you believe me if I told you that it is all Matt's fault because he changed the password to our gmail account (which just so happens to be linked to the blog) and I have been unable to log in since then? I know you are thinking - why didn't you just ask him. Well I did.... on several occasions... and everytime I forgot the darn thing before I even logged in. You see, you might not understand, unless you are married to someone who does computer security stuff for a living.

This type of career often takes the simplicity out of creating and remembering a password - he always wants to go way too technical for my taste and come up with passwords that God himself would forget. Matt's passwords are always so cryptic and obscure that I feel like I need to watch the Matrix to assist with translation. So, today, I promised myself that I would corner him after the kids went to bed and type as he talked so I could log in. Little does he know, but I have changed the password back to something less encryptic. Yes, I know, there is a certain amount of liability that I am taking on, but for some reason, I am pretty confident that there will not be a line of hacker dudes vying over the ability to break into the my blog to steal family secrets. I could be wrong but I think there are bigger fish in the world wide web than my little old family blog.

Although I think the password thing is a pretty solid excuse, I do have to admit my recent addiction to Facebook has also been a contributing factor as well. Okay, maybe it is the main factor!! After all, I think I set up my Facebook profile soon after my last post and low and behold here we are in March! Facebook seemed to provide that "instant gratification" effect that we all seem to look for every now and again in life. What other venue can you go from 0 friends to 200 friends in less than 2 months. Facebook also seems to provide that two way form of communication that a blog often lacks. There has been no time since high school that I know more about what the locals are doing in Wise, VA than my very own mother. For some reason it excites me to know information and random thoughts about people that I haven't seen in 15-20 years. I bet I am not alone in saying that when you sign up on Facebook, your initial intent is to be the causal user that logs in every once in awhile. But by the end of the 1st week you have discovered that you have now spent updwards of 12 hours looking through old friend's photo albums, finding out what books they read, what they do for a living, what weird religion they have converted to and reading their ongoing status updates that ask the simple question "what's on your mind" and must be answered in 140 letters or less. Now, that is excitement!

Although it has been fun, I must admit I have thought about my need to return to the blog and document our life that often portrays varying "degrees of normal". It is an outlet that I feel like I have deprived myself of... so, here I am once again making a commitment to keep my few fans updated about the Brace clan. Trust me, my lack of updates does not correlate to a lack of material. There has been plenty to talk about. So, I will share some of those fun moments in future updates.

So, instead of forcing myself to choose between Facebook OR the blog, I am excited to say that I can mesh these two fun communication tools and post my blog updates to my Facebook account. So, if you read the blog and we haven't yet befriended one another on Facebook, by all means, look me up and send a friend request! And, if you are one of the few that hasn't ventured into the Facebook world, now is a better time than ever to join the revolution! One last thing, if you look up Matt and can't find him, it's because he has his security features set so strict on Facebook that only the FBI could locate him. His college friends have only been able to locate him through my profile. I could't help to tell him that the whole purpose of setting up a profile on Facebook was so people COULD find you!!! But, try to tell that to someone lives and breathes computer security. Gotta love him!

Majority Rules

I am still learning how to be a parent to a set of wild boys. Afterall, I grew up in a house where boys were the MAJOR minority since my dad was the lone male among 4 women. I am living in my father's dream world - a place where the kids like to be rough and tough. They think everything was created to jump from and they are sure that most anything can withstand a good karate kick. They live for the moments to get their hands in the dirt (honestly, I think their fingernails have dirt in them more often than not). With each passing month Harper and Collier are solidifying their roles as partners in crime but most of all they are teaching me that boys ARE truly different than girls in almost every aspect.

This weekend, after what seemed like hours of running around the house evoking havoc on anything and anyone in their site, Collier decided he wanted to cash in and head upstairs. Harper was not about to allow the fun to end and took matters into his own hands. While Collier was climbing the stairs, Harper grabbed one of his legs and started dragging him back downstairs. From the corner of my eye, I caught a glimpse of this criminal act and quickly put an end to it. I explained to Harper that he cannot do this to his little brother because it could hurt him and Collier was not yet as durable as him. I ended the lecture with "How would you like someone to pull you down the stairs by one leg?"

Obviously this was a stupid question for a mother to ask a three year old boy who thrives on his father taking his legs out with a pillow when he is jumping on the bed. As soon as I finished my really dumb question, his eyes got as big as quarters and he said "Really... that sounds fun. Will you pull me down the stairs with one leg?"

I resisted my initial thought of trying to teach a lesson of empathy and decided "if you can't beat 'em, join 'em". I grabbed Harper's leg and pulled him down the stairs as laughter exploded between both of them. I realized that being a prude is not going to go over well with these two little guys. Something tells me that I will probably learn more lessons in the years ahead than the boys. After all, I am the MAJOR minority in this situation.

Living in a Bubble

There are alot of great things about living in Utah but election day may be the exception. In case you haven't heard, Utah is the REDDEST state in the nation! So red, that neither of the candidates put much energy into campaigning here. The democrats feel like there is no chance in hell and the republicans know they have it in the bag so the presidential candidates figure they can just expend their energy somewhere else in this great nation.

I have been watching the national news over the last couple of weeks and anticipated standing in a very long line today to cast my ballot. But, as you can see in the photo below, I arrived at my voting location (a local LDS church) and wondered if I had missed election day. No lines and no clamor of last minute people convincing you to vote for a particular candidate. Had it not been for the "Vote Here" sign and the American flags, I might have turned around and headed home to double check my calendar. Either way I cast my vote and am crossing my fingers - although I realize that my vote is not going to impact Utah's final outcome.