Caucus Salad

New experiences.

Two significant milestones for us this last week. We attended our first ever Republican caucus. Hilary voted in Utah’s primary last election but it was completely new to me. Many people do not know how caucuses work. This includes the people who have already participated. The basic idea is that you get together with a bunch of people from your precinct. About 32 people showed up in our precinct. Then you elect delegates to represent our precinct. They go on to county elections and then some delegates go on to state elections which elect the delegates who go to Tampa to represent Nevada in picking our candidate.

You elect delegates before you know who they support. Our precinct was to elect 9 delegates. We only had 8 volunteers. Can you guess who they were supporting? (Hint: There were 8 people who voted for Ron Paul in our precinct).

After picking 9 delegates people gave little speeches about who they want to support. Then everyone votes for one of the four candidates. Then you tally the votes. The delegates are obligated to vote proportionally for whoever our precinct decides at the county level but after that they can vote for whoever they want.
So here’s the breakdown for our precinct.

Mitt Romney 17 votes














Ron Paul 8 votes












Newt Gingrich 4 votes








Rick something or other 3 votes

Hilary was appalled by the next part. We had to figure out how to allocate our 9 delegates. Clearly it is 5 for Romney, 2 for Paul, and the last two each get 1. I don’t want to point any fingers but some of the Paul supporters were really bad at math. They were convinced that Romney should get 4 and Paul 3. Hilary’s math teacher brain was exploding.

Then came the part where we realized almost every single delegate was a Ron Paul supporter and would say things like “I cannot in good conscience vote for Romney”.

Most people were normal. I don’t want to point any fingers but some of the Ron Paul supporters were crazy. One Paul lady said she wanted to beat the expletive out of Romney because he hates disabled people..? She also said she is supporting Paul because her kid was totally normal but then the law said he could only eat food the FDA approved and he became severely mentally retarded. She said that only legalized cannabis can cure her son.

The moral of the story is we should just do primaries and avoid that 2-hour long disaster. For any Paul supporters reading this, we do not intend offense. We like a lot of what Paul says and I find him to be completely honest, genuine and true. It’s not his fault he attracts some crazies. Wanting to legalize drugs may have contributed.

The other significant new experience was that Saturday night we had a salad for dinner. For the first time ever we bought a salad, prepared it and ate it. We even enjoyed it. I guess we’ve become grown-ups.

Brian's Birthday

Brian has joined his wife in the 26-year-old club. Happy Birthday, Brian!! One of Brian's favorite snacks is popcorn... so for his birthday, I gave him a popcorn popper. The night before his birthday, while he was in class, I popped a bunch of popcorn and seasoned it all different ways. I think it will be a fun little machine to have. Of course, Brian still has about 38 bags of microwave popcorn left from our most recent trip to Costco. We'll see how long it takes him to go through those.



We went to PF Chang's for dinner. It was delicious! When we got home, Brian chose to watch "The Mummy." I fell asleep in the middle, which reminded Brian of our dating days, when I fell asleep during every movie we watched.


In the background you can see the 1000 piece puzzle that Brian put together almost exclusively by himself.

Brian is so wonderful, and I am lucky to be married to him! Happy birthday, Sweetie! I love you. :)

Hilary is Hard Core

Hilary is very embarrassed by this but she understands the necessity. Just start watching at about a minute twenty.



Wow.
This was a long time ago. Before you were born.
March 2006 in New Zealand.

Red Rock Canyon

Look at this beautiful pancake I made for my wife. This came from pancake mix the Allens gave Hilary for Christmas. Thanks Allens, It was most delicious. If the Allens know anything then they know Hilary likes pancakes. Over Christmas Mom asked if people wanted pancakes or waffles. The Allen kids all wanted pancakes. They gave the following reasons. Hyrum and Kate wanted to know "if it really is true that Hilary can eat SOO many pancakes" Lucy wanted to try to "win Hilary" in a pancake-eating contest. Hilary is so proud.




We went hiking in Red Rock Canyon and were most surprised to find rocks that were red. Hilary was more surprised that her husband would go driving up into the mountains with the fuel gauge on "E". She thinks it means "Emergency" while I think it means "Enough gas to go another 50 miles". Fortunately we found the little town of Blue Diamond where I could fill up before driving around the canyon.





It's a funny little place. As we drove through it Hilary said she felt like we just drove into an old movie. At the gas station I had to ask a few times before the "attendant" stopped playing his guitar long enough to help me fill up. Afterwards I realized it was the gas station/sheriff's department/several other things. Similarly the library (which was the size of an outhouse) was also the bike rental/repair shop. Later the people at work told me that every time they've passed through there have been burros wandering through the streets. I bet they get sick of Vegas folk coming down to laugh.

Eventually we got to hiking and found these mysterious foot prints.

Yes indeed we see a left foot on the right and the right foot on the left. Someone was born with their feet on the wrong legs.

That's the story of our Red Rock Canyon experience.

sledding

Hilary and I were both lavished with gifts over Christmas. I subtly suspected that I didn't have to do as many dishes as usual because they couldn't ask me to do work without asking Hilary. You know, we still have to be nice to the "new" member of the family.

We sure did have fun in Colorado. We would have had fun even if we did have to do dishes but we had fun regardless. One of the many gifts that thrilled Hilary was Photoshop. She insists it has nothing to do with the fact that she can now make her husband less "gross."

Anyway she excitedly accompanied us on a sledding trip to gather photos with which to hone her skill.


Here's a great action shot of Kate

Lucy



Sam



Hyrum was a snowball slinging machine.

They were all good sports when snowballs hit them on the noggin.

Tommy gets a pic even though he didn't go sledding.

One of the Christmas activities was a PUZZLE RACE!!

It was as exciting as it sounds. Two groups of people and two puzzles with the same amount of pieces. It was pretty intense.

Two days ago at work Hilary texted me. The missionaries called to say the 9 year old girl in our primary class last year wanted one of us to give the talk on the Holy Ghost at her baptism. The question was which one of us. Well Hilary gallantly volunteered.

.....to have her husband do it. So last night I spoke at the baptism. Bigger surprise was after we got there and I was feeling a little nervous the missionaries told us they wanted me to confirm her on Sunday also. Yikes. I've baptized people but this will be my first time doing a confirmation. I'm really nervous.

Test

I'm just testing to see if I can put videos on blogger easily.
Here's a video of a game we all play with baby Tommy.



While I've got your attention, here are some funny kid Quotes:

Kate: "Hilary, have you ever cut your finger nails?"

Later Justin asked his kids what they though our(Hilary's and my) kids would be like.

Lucy said, "If they are cute they will look like Hilary, if they are not cute, they'll look like Brian"

Merry Christmas

Merry Christmas Everybody!

Hilary and I celebrated part of Christmas at our house on the 23rd. Later we celebrated for real in Colorado with most of our family.



I rediscovered this year that the problem with getting presents for your wife is that those are the presents your wife can't wrap for you. Each attempt just got worse.







In keeping with Christmas traditions we built towers with kapla blocks. Both Lucy and Kate got turns being "mummyized". Building a tower around Kate took every single block in the house.








Martins have had lots of cat issues in Sicily. Here is my holiday suggestion. Enjoy.