Growing Old In Style

This last week, we celebrated Chris' birthday. I won't say how old he is, I wouldn't want to embarrass him. To celebrate, we went bowling with most of his family and some friends. It was a good time. Bowling is pretty much self explanitory, so here are some pictures.
This is Chris' mom Mary, who has quickly become one of my favorite people.

This is Chris with one of his brothers, Jay, and two friends Dunham and Buddy. I'm a little sad that Dunham shaved off his beard before I was able to take a picture of it. It was full and bushy and kind of reminded me of the Dominoes commercial where the guy has oreo pizza all over his face which grows from a tiny mustache to a full beard in just a couple of shots. Dunham's beard kind of grows like that too.

This was taken after our two games. I suppose I should be a little ashamed of myself for beating Chris in both games on his birthday, but he wouldn't have wanted me to throw the games, right?

This is Chris and three of his brothers, Tyler, Jay, and Mark (who is proudly holding up a fry that he "borrowed" from me) and also his dad.

Brothers don't shake hands, brothers gotta hug.

Chris' dad bowled his best game ever that night. 129!

Cheers!

Happy Birthday Chris.

My Education Continues

I don’t know if it’s too late to write about the first Utes’ game of the season, but it was so much fun that I thought I’d go ahead and do it anyway. Back in a previous life (college) I obviously didn’t learn the lessons I was supposed to about college football, so I’ve been brought back to try again and hopefully get it right this time. With the help of my trusty football Guru, Chris, I’m learning all the essentials of:
Tailgating – a portable satellite and flat screen television set up under a tent to watch and boo on BYU are a must have. The czar of tailgates must arrive a good six hours before kickoff to begin preparing the smorgasbord of ribs, potatoes, rolls, salad, crumb cake etc. Of course the smorgasbord can vary from game to game to include elements of mascots of rival teams (such as Frog Legs when we play TCU). Manly chanting (Buck, Buck, Buck, Buck, Buck) is encouraged, though not requisite. Wives are allowed to come a mere 2 hours early, but any man arriving so close to game time will be teased unmercifully.
At The Game – The Utes are awesome.
After the Game – Results may vary, but according to my Guru (who is definitely biased against), staying for the fireworks is definitely not acceptable even though we will be walking right under them on the way to the car. A quick stop over at Maverick for more talk about the game and how the Utes are awesome and how BYU sucks is a good idea. Then one can go home and revel in the after-a-great-win euphoria. Here is a picture of my Guru and myself reveling in our after-a-great-win euphoria.

Congradulations!

Chris has officially passed the bar! He opened the letter last night and no sweeter words were ever printed than "Mr. Glauser, We are pleased to inform you...". We were at some friends' house watching a football game when Chris got a call from one of his law school friends (Jamie, no relation) asking if he had gotten the news yet. Jamie had opened his letter and found out the good news for himself and wanted to know if Chris had passed. Of course we hadn't been home all day to check the mail and wouldn't be home for a few more hours, so we had the fun of enjoying not knowing as we watched the rest of the game, which had almost lost its appeal (but not quite since our team won by quite a large margin), and enjoying a long drive home from an area that is so close to being BYU territory that it's almost wrong to be a Utes fan living out there. But we finally made it home and now we know that Chris can almost officially practice law legally (after another payment to the bar, who always seems to be ripping us off, and another ceremony where all the brand new lawyers swear to be honest, ha ha). I'm so proud of him. I wanted to somehow document how much smarter Chris had become since passing the bar and the best I could come up with was pictures before and after passing the bar. Does he look smarter to you?
Before & After

It's Finally Here...Football Season

I’ve written about this on another blog at another time, but I had to put something about it here on my own. Chris loves football. He loves everything about it and I almost never see him as excited as when he talks about Fantasy Football. Last year he was the proud owner of three fantasy teams. He swore that he would only have one this year, and thus far has been able to control himself and is a member of only one league. Today is the first game of the season, for the football players as well as the fantasy players. Things will be a little different this year. I’m a little sad that both Chris and I are at work and I won’t get to see him skip merrily to the computer like a kid on Christmas morning to check on the status of his players, scores of the games, yards gained, touchdowns, field goals and whatever else is included in that favorite of all games. Also, now that we’re back in Salt Lake, the games will have already started by the time we get home from church, so there will be no time for the traditional Sunday nap before sitting down in front of the television for a good 8 hours of football watching. He’s actually going to miss a bit of the first games that are on, which I know irks him to no end, but, contrary to what he would like, he will not be skipping parts of Priesthood to watch kickoff. And I don’t care what his friend Eric says, there were no compromises made on how many days of church Chris is allowed to skip every year.

And Then There Was One

This last weekend, another one of my brothers moved out and went to college. He's going to Great Bason community college, which is located in exciting Elko Nevada. Chris and I went down there over night on Friday to visit with my family (who Chris hadn't seen in 2 years) and we had a great time. The thing that surprised me the most about the entire trip was the lack of tears from my mother. Since there are seven kids in our family, I'm sure my parents never thought they would have us all out of the house, but we're all getting older and with Joe moving out, there is only one left, the baby, Jordan. My mother usually starts to get all weepy when she realizes that she's going to have fewer of us around, but I have to say that she did very well this weekend. I think that part of the reason she was able to keep herself from crying was the fact that so many of us were there to help with the moving process, and when we all get together, it's like some kind of crazy, hyped up dinner party where the guests are loud and boisterous and do back flips in the parking lot of the Wendys (Jordan). My mother didn't have time to remember that she was only going to have one child left at home until we had gone, and I'm willing to bet that the tears started flowing once she got home and just had Jordan to look at.

At Last

My Chris was offered a job yesterday! After years of law school, then months of preparation for the Bar exam and then weeks of sitting around watching movies, Chris’ hard work has been rewarded. He’ll be working at a firm down town so he won’t have a bad commute, he’ll be doing litigation work which will be similar to work that he’s already done, and he’ll be making money instead of accruing more loans, which is a huge relief. Of course I’ll miss being his sugar momma, what with the great jokes and all, but I suppose it will be nice to have Chris be making more than I do. All joking aside, I’m so proud and happy for Chris. Congratulations, love.

Thanks to Chris' Dad

I don’t usually read non fiction. I’ve been sticking with the classics since my high school days with a few exceptions (Harry Potter, Twilight, etc.). But normally when I deviate from the classics, I stick with fiction. I’ve been reading quite a bit of non fiction lately (thanks to my in-laws who have quite a different array of books than me. My father in-law especially has inspired me to read many of the non-fiction books that he enjoys) and I wanted to write a bit about them here because I’ve been pleasantly surprised.
Founding Brothers – Joseph Ellis
I found this book to be really interesting. Just as it sounds, this was about the men who had a hand in shaping the country during the revolutionary period. Just like everyone else, I read 1776 and I also read a book called Founding Mothers which were both set in the same time period, and the amount of insight you can gain into the lives of these great people by reading these books is enormous. I did have to laugh a little bit because Joseph Ellis was blatantly bias against Thomas Jefferson. He couldn’t write a sentence about the late president without inserting some sort of slur against Jefferson’s character. I couldn’t tell if Ellis did this because he disliked Jefferson for himself or because he was so obviously enamored with John Adams, America’s new favorite dead president. Either way, I did have a bit of a giggle every time Ellis couldn’t put aside his prejudices long enough to write his book in an unbiased way.
The Devil in the White City – Erik Larson
This book was fascinating. It was about the World's Columbian Exposition held in Chicago in 1893 to commemorate Christopher Columbus's discovery of America. It talked about all the problems that were had during the construction, the arrival of new inventions including the zipper and the Farris Wheel, and the impact the fair had on the people and economy at the time. It also talked about one of the most horrific murderers America has ever seen. The man was murdering women left and right completely unsuspected for years before finally being caught.
The Glass Castle – Jeannette Walls
This was a memoir. It described events in the life of the author that would have brought a lesser person down. She endured near crippling poverty, a drunken father, an irresponsible mother and numerous other hardships. One of the more interesting aspects of this book, for me, was the fact that the author never shows any self pity. She seems almost detached at times, looking back at what sort of life she led objectively, able to accept things the way they were without complaining about the circumstances that she was placed. Not only did she have a very interesting and difficult childhood, but she was able to rise above where she began to become a health happy adult.
All in all, I think that I may read more non-fiction in the future if my father in-law feels inspired to suggest any more to me.