Happy Mother's Day to Charlotte

(People put pictures up for different reasons.  My reason: Dang my wife looks good!!!)

Today in Sacrament meeting, one of the speakers referenced a survey of 8000 women, asking them what it takes to be a mother.  Some of the things they listed were: cooking, cleaning, doing laundry, raising the children, etc.  This same article then calculated that mothers work approximately 96 hours a week doing "motherly" things.  And if there work were to be calculated monetarily, mothers would earn a rough estimate of $66,000.00 a year.  

I don't know about you, but Charlotte is worth a heck of a lot more money than that.  Not only does Charlotte take care of, clean up after, and raise our son Keido (which is a feat in and among itself), she also cooks, cleans, does the laundry, grocery shops in a foreign country without a vehicle, and she even finds time to support her weak little husband.  

(DANG!)

Just to give you a better picture of how awesome my wife really is, I decided to compile a SHORT list of how cool my wife really is. Charlotte is:

1. Drop dead GORGEOUS!  Period
2. Super athletic.  Maybe too athletic.  It's funny how hard I have to try to beat her in things, and I'm not going to lie, she beats me more times than I'd like to admit.
3. Amazingly talented.  She can play just about any musical instrument you put in front of her.  And she does it without even breaking a sweat.  I can't even sing the right musical note.
4. Almost annoyingly too friendly.  When we lived in Utah, I was always surprised at how many people knew Charlotte.  I always told myself that it's because she's from Idaho.  But when we moved to Maryland -- to MY home -- nothing changed.  We'd go to grocery stores, and before I knew it, she's off chatting to what seemed like long lost friends.  And to top it off, living here in the Bahamas, she knows more people than I do.  And the sad thing is that I sit in the very same classroom, with the very same people, every single day and they only know me as Charlotte's husband.  What can I say, everybody loves Charlotte!
5. Very knowledgeable about cars.  One time Charlotte had me take the car in to get the oil changed, and I didn't know what I was doing.  The mechanic told me something about the filters needing to be changed or something, so I told him to fix that too.  Being super excited and cheery that I went the extra mile in "fixing" the car, I came home and told Charlotte what I had gotten done.  Charlotte's response: "Thanks Boyd, but next time, I'm taking the car in."  Apparently, all mechanics tell people to get their filters changed.  Haha, whoops.  

While I could go on for days listing the many wonderful attributes about Charlotte, I'll spare you the soft mushy stuff that nobody cares about.  I just wanted everyone to know that I have the greatest wife in the world.  Happy Mother's Day Char!

 (Luckiest Guy in the World!)

Written by Boyd

Catching Up

(Keido after mom spent 20 minutes trying to wake him up -- darn those heavy sleepers)

Almost everyday, Boyd says to me, "You should blog about this,"  "maybe you should put that in the blog," and "I think 'we' should write this in the blog."  So, I guess it's about time that I put some of the little things that have been going on into our blog.

(Don't you love my buck teeth?)

I think I will start with today.  Keido has been loving the birds here.  Whenever we go to the beach he spends more time looking at the birds than playing in the water.  Our good friend, Lemuel, gave us a loaf of older bread to feed to the birds and we have been excited to use it.  This afternoon, I saw two pigeons just outside our back door.  I ran to get the bread and Keido and I hurried out to throw them a few pieces. I always thought pigeons were pretty dumb, but I think these ones are especially so, because they just flew away.  Disappointed, we were about to go in, when some seagull type birds started swooping down for the pieces the pigeons left.  In about 30 seconds, we had a whole flock of squawking birds flying around our heads and yelling for more.  Keido was in heaven.  I raced back in for more bread and we fed them for about half an hour.  The funny thing is, the birds were so loud, all the students in the complex couldn't study...whoops.  Boyd was actually getting frustrated with all the squawking until he looked out the window and realized that it was his family causing all the commotion.  We had no idea that we would attract a whole flock, but soon realized, maybe we should just feed the birds at the beach instead.  Plus, they pooped all over the pool area.  Sorry maintenance man.

(Charlotte and Keido ruining everyone's study time)

On Monday, our good friends, Brittany and Kurtis, took us grocery shopping and then came over for some grilled cheese sandwiches.  Kurtis is 2, and Keido thinks he is pretty cool.  As Kurtis would run around our apartment, Keido would just chase right after him.  At one point, Brittany and I were chatting as the two played on the rug.  All of a sudden we hear a big "SMOOCH!" sound.  Brittany says, "I think Keido just kissed Kurtis."  I didn't know whether I should tell him "good job," or "maybe you shouldn't kiss Kurtis anymore."  However, from the look on Kurtis's face, I knew it was the latter.  (We are so grateful for Brittany and Kurtis!  They are great friends.)

(PB&J Face)

We've spent a lot of our time watching tractors and trucks from our parking lot lately.  Today we watched some people fixing up a lawn with a front end loader.  It went behind the house for a little bit, but when it came around the side Keido shouted, "Happy, Happy, Happy!"  I guess I know how to make him happy:)

(Keido just after he got back from the beach)

Keido's recent words have been: Help Me! Happy! apple, something that sounds like "I'm just saying," trackty, noodle, why, daddy, mom, weee, ball, ouchie, oh no, outside, up, and his favorite, "NO, NO, NO!"

Keido likes to hide under the couch cushions.

(Keido thinking that no one can see him)

He also likes sunglasses these days.  In particular, Daddy's expensive Oakleys ;).

(Keido pulling off his Matrix look)

(Keido wearing Boyd's sunglasses and Boyd wearing my female sunglasses)