onomatopoopa

Do you watch The Colbert Report? Well it's time you start -- because I'm going to be on it!

Okay, so that isn't entirely true. But I am going to be at it, for Monday's show. Katie got us tickets to the filming of Monday's (3/16) filming! (This is no small feat. Just for the experience, go to the website and try to get tickets. You'll find that there are no tickets left -- not only for the next several shows, but for the next several years.)

So we're spending a three-day weekend in New York to celebrate our anniversary and my birthday, and to attend the filming.

I love you, Katie. I'm the luckiest guy in the world.

Bart and I drive to work together every day. Sometimes we have interesting conversations about government, Church stuff, how lame my boss is, etc. Sometimes we have conversations that are a little out there. For example, yesterday we talked about how we could totally live as farmers. So, in the event that our economy completely goes to crap, we concocted a plan for how the Andersons/Fords/Lays would survive if America reverted to an agrarian society. Here are your assignments:

Andy: Head Farmer--you are by far the toughest and the strongest, read further down the list to see who will be your assistants
Richelle: Teacher--you can educate all of our children because I most certainly don't want to be left in charge of that
Shawn: Mechanic--you are in charge of creating farm equipment that will help our farm destroy the neighboring competition
Mindy: Cook--I like brownies--please figure out how to make those over a wood-burning stove
Bart: Doctor--he said in the car that he wanted to do something else, but we have to have a doctor and he's the closest thing we've got; he can also be the mid-wife
Katie: Print shop/newspaper editor--another way we will make money and force our neighbors to read about how awesome we are
Derek: Crop duster--you will fly the crop duster that Shawn will invent
Becca: Seamstress--but don't make just aprons; I don't want my bumm hanging out in the middle of the winter
Kurt: Hunter/fisher
Bonnie-lass: Ranch hand--you can lass-o all the animals back to the corral. (hehehe. See what I did there?)
Jon: banker/store owner
Ashley: barber/assistant to the store owner
All the children: field hands--probably sounds kind of harsh, but isn't that the whole reason people had kids back then? Someone needs to start having some boys... Not it.

For any questions about your assignments, please contact Julie, she's the only one who's actually lived on a farm.

Because of the lame-ness of Frontier airlines and because we can't do anything about the fact that we are flying with them yet again after much turmoil and frustration (we wanted to use $200 in vouchers because of the mistreatment from our last trip--redeeming them should have been an issue in a different post, but I'm trying to release the bitterness I feel toward Frontier and the airline industry in general), Bart and I are going to have a contest on who can guess how many times our flight times will change between now and the time we arrive in Philadelphia after our trip. For those of you who don't travel often, it might be difficult for you to imagine that this number could be pretty high, but BELIEVE me. It will be high. Here are the rules for the contest:

1) This is NOT Price Is Right. As much as I adore that show, for the sake of this game, we are going to say that the person who has the CLOSEST guess--higher or lower--will be the winner.

2) You are ONLY guessing in regards to the Frontier leg of our trip. It is a one-way ticket from SLC to Philadelphia.

3) I will check the flight times once weekly (starting today) until it is 30 days before our flight. That will be 17 times that I will check the flight time. At the 30-day point we will be receiving phone calls to let us know the updates.* I will create a tally of how many times our flight time changes.

4) The tally already has one mark in it because it has already changed since we purchased it last week. So be sure to guess higher than 1.

5) Delays incurred while we are at the airport on July 15th DO COUNT so factor that into your guess.

6) Here is the flight information we had when we bought the ticket:
Depart SLC on July 15th at 11:25 am. Arrive in Denver at 12:55 pm.
Depart Denver on July 15th at 2:55 pm. Arrive in Philly at 8:25 pm.

The winner will receive a surprise obtained from one of the following cities in honor of our time spent in the airport:
Philadelphia
Cleveland
Seattle
Anchorage
Salt Lake City
Denver
or any other place we might get rerouted to

**we were guaranteed by a ticketing agent that the flight will change and to not bother looking at the flight times until 30 days prior to the trip.

For FHE last night Bart and I played squash-ish racquetball. And today, well, my arm feels like jell-o. I think I was holding the racquet too tight. Regardless, I was unstoppable. Or at least the amount of time I spent looking goofy didn't stop. But since Bart is such a wonderful coach (see post about swimming from 2008) we had a pretty fun time. He even told me I was surprisingly good. I don't know why he was surprised though--I did play t-ball for 2 whole years.

Hey family! We are super excited because we are officially coming to Alaska and Utah this July. Mark your calendars for the following schedule. (Oh man, we are really anal and controlling--can you tell we don't have kids yet?!) You all have permission to be this ridiculous when you come visit us!

July 3 at 11 pm: Bart and Katie arrive in Alaska. Will promptly greet Richelle, Andy, Savannah, and Gabe (assuming they are still awake), hopefully see some moose or elk or something, and then fall asleep because it will be 3 am Philly time and we will have been traveling for 13+ hours.

July 4-8th (all day): Bart, Katie, Richelle, Andy, Savannah, Gabe, and new moose friend will have tons and tons of fun exploring Alaska and seeing the Lays in their element. Katie is particularly excited to go fishing! (Minus the worming her own hook part--do you think Gabe or Savannah will help me out with this?)

July 9th-ish: We will take a red eye around 1 am to arrive in Utah at 8 am on the 9th and hopefully head up to Logan via one of our loving relatives... hint hint...

July 9-12th: We are thrilled to be able to attend Sydney's baptism and hang out in Logan with the Anderson family.

July 12-15th: Next, we will head down to Layton after Syd's confirmation in order to hang out with Katie's parents and Granny.

We are so grateful that we can come visit everyone and know that the trip will be way more fun than this lame post sounds!