congrads.

HE. IS. DONE!

Our entire family of five is so thrilled and overjoyed and relieved that Greg is finally finished with his MBA from Duke University! The past almost two years of school have been a whirlwind as Greg has traveled all over the world and studied like a maniac into the night after work each day.

Meanwhile I was busy being a single Mom, and then being a single and pregnant Mom, and finally, a single Mom pregnant with twins. I mean, he definitely had a lot on his plate, but I felt like I deserved a diploma or something, too ;)

In all seriousness, Greg is one of the hardest workers I've ever known. His ability to balance a demanding job, growing family, and one of the top MBA programs in the country truly amazed me. He is determined and disciplined and so smart. He accomplished everything he set out to do, and we couldn't be more proud of how well he did it all. I remember a few years ago when we were trying to decide if and where he would get an MBA--and how the hell we would survive the experience if he did decide to go--I never could have imagined how the time would fly and how much our family would be blessed throughout the experience. Evie grew from a baby to a toddler, we added 2 new family members, and somehow, despite all the stress, we managed to come out stronger and happier than before.

Congratulations, Greggor! Your family loves you too much!

(A few pictures from his graduation party)

PS. Places visited:

SHANGHAI, CHINA
LONDON, ENGLAND
DUBAI, UAE
NEW DELHI, INDIA
ST. PETERSBURG, RUSSIA
DURHAM, NORTH CAROLINA

the difference between you and me.

the other day i decided to be a hero and pick up some cupcakes on the way home from the pool. you know, from the sweet tooth fairy. for g, naturally. i picked red-velvet for me and salted caramel for him, plus a whole bunch of cake-bites for good measure. the whole car ride home those cake-bites taunted me from their little plastic cup holder thing and promised me a lifetime of happiness if i'd just take a bite. by the time we arrived home 10 minutes later, each one had been sampled and declared to be very delicious.

when g got home from work that night my red velvet was half way gone. and now riddle me this: how does one avoid eating a red velvet cupcake when a red velvet cupcake is staring you in the face, because i surely don't have a clue. i forced myself to save the other half for the next day and i must have walked past that cupcake 57 times in the next 12 hours examine it's moistness and sniff it's frosting and promise we'd be together soon.

the next morning, i ate it for breakfast.

meanwhile, g didn't touch his salted caramel. he barely batted an eye when i reminded him of it after dinner. "there is a cupcake waiting for you!!" i told him and he smiled his half smile and nodded his norwegian head and went and whipped himself up another gosh darn green smoothie.

and now this is where i wonder about that man of mine. i mean, what is wrong with him!? i felt seriously concerned about him all night. should i have taken his temperature??

the next day that salted caramel cupcake continued to taunt me from the kitchen table. there it was all chocolatey and caramely and salty and just waiting for someone to take a bite. but friends, i didn't touch it! i am so proud and partly horrified to tell you that cupcake sat on our counter for 2 days before my husband even bothered to crack open the case and give it a sniff. TWO STINKING DAYS!

finally, last night, i couldn't take it anymore. "eat your freaking cupcake!!!" i demanded! and so we put the baby to bed and settled in and he made his way to the kitchen, unwrapped the little beauty and brought her out to the living room on a white plate. "it's happening!!" i yelled, "wait! i am taking a picture!" and that was the part where he threatened to turn back and crush all my hopes and dreams if i made a big deal out of this (blogging doesn't count as making a big deal, just fyi).

g took the first bite and had virtually no reaction. i took the second and wanted to die. it was moist and creamy and rich, with a bed of caramel frosting on top and just the right amount of salt. it made my heart go pitter-patter. it made my mouth water. it made my life make sense.

i snuck one more bite before i returned it to him and then he polished it off, wiped his hands on his napkin and pushed play on the remote.

"well?!" i begged.
"it was good" he declared, "it was fine."

and now this is the moment where i really fell in love with that norwegian of mine. also, the moment where i realized i don't have a clue what goes on in that head of his. i mean, good and fine?! after two days of waiting? GOOD AND FINE.

i will never understand that boy i married. he who says no to dessert and cares deeply about the quality of the socks on his feet and LOVES TO MOW THE LAWN. he is such a mystery to me sometimes! i will love him 'til i die!

a traveling man.

g love is currently taking the world by storm, with his latest endeavor being a trip to india. we miss him so much when he travels, but he is great about skyping us and checking in often. i love seeing that cute scruffy face on the screen and missing him while he's away.

evs and i are getting by alright without him with lots of help from my sweet mom. thanks to me witnessing a 4am attempted break in across the street a few nights before he left (and being the one to call 911 and get the criminal arrested, thank you very much) i am waiting out this trip at my parents house. that night sort of depleted what little courage i had for sleeping home alone with the baby, but staying with my parents is about 100x more fun than being home alone, so i'm not complaining.

g is studying hard and playing hard, while i single-mom-it here at home and basically just try to stay awake. yesterday, during a skype conversation, he kept asking me if i was doing okay and i kept insisting that i was, despite his constant questioning. when i finally asked him why he was so concerned he told me he had counted 7 yawns so far in our 10 minute conversation.

seven.

so, yah.

the meal of love.

g had a pretty rad birthday, in case you were wondering. he had to work late, so we stayed home that evening and i cooked him the meal of his desires, including meatloaf, garlic mashed potatoes and dessert (which deserves it's own paragraph!). i proved my love by making him meatloaf, which i have despised my entire life (meat! in a loaf! no thank you!). but thanks to my friend, i scored a brand-new meatloaf recipe that was heavenly and i enjoyed the meal of love just as much as the birthday boy, can you even believe it?

let's talk about the dessert for a minute, can we? listen, i know that picture up there does not look appetizing in the slightest, but holy mother, dessert was good. i wanted to give him everything he has ever wanted in one dessert, so i knew it had to include chocolate, hot fudge, caramel and salt and DO YOU WANT TO KNOW WHAT I DID, PEOPLE!!

i made him a mini molten chocolate cake, which is basically a tiny chocolate cake filled with hot, delicious fudge that oozes out when you eat it and then i served the whole thing with salted caramel ice cream. OH YES I DID!

i'm pretty sure i'm his favorite sister-wife, but don't tell the others.

date night.

friday night was the big 5th anniversary date, so we lined up a nana-sitter, put on some snazzy outfits, dropped off the evs and hit the town.

we had reservations at 4 separate places because my husband is the most indecisive person who has ever lived and refused to give any sort of input on what he wanted to eat. i spent most of the afternoon calling him and then calling restaurants to schedule and cancel reservations, which eventually led to me talking on the phone with ruths chris while bathing the baby while DROPPING MY PHONE INTO THE TUB AND THEN LEAVING IT THERE FOR TEN MINUTES BECAUSE I DIDN'T NOTICE.

yes.

(and it still works, mothers!!! can you believe it!? we have now declared the olsen bathroom to be a "no phone(or ipad)zone" due to the fact that my previous cell phone was dropped in the toilet (and then continued to work for an entire YEAR), my previous ipod touch was dropped into the sink while hand washing and my current cell phone was dropped in the tub. obviously i am really responsible and not at all accident prone. can you even believe my husband bought me an ipad?!)

moving on....

so the phone went in the tub and i didn't notice for ten minutes because i was busy drying, lotioning, dressing and nursing evie. when i finally went into the bathroom to drain the water i saw it there and proceeded to say the words i always say when such things happen (look, i'm not proud of it either) and so no more reservations or plans where made until the husband came home.

after we dropped off evie i told g all the places that were expecting us and we attempted to make a decision (it's never easy). we finally ended up at tiberon in sandy.

what happened next is a true story.

so we walk into the restaurant and immediately notice how tiny it is. i also notice the fact that it isn't decorated at all and there are no candles on the tiny tables, but maybe i'm just weird for caring about such things? so, we take our menus and get seated in between an elderly couple and a first date. the tables are way too close to each other and we can hear everything everyone is saying and the restaurant looks like a dungeon and the chicken dish costs $39!! what the what?!

g looks at me and i look at him and we're basically saying "hell no" to one another with our eyes because if we are going to spend $50 a plate on dinner i want a cozy, private table, candlelight, music and perhaps a pony or something, i mean, am i right?! i am right. so we left. we got up, i handed the menus back to the waiter and told him thank you so much but some thing's come up and out the door we ran.

there were a few high-fives and go team!'s exchanged in the car and then we headed to a new restaurant where there were peanut shells on the ground, country music in the background and we paid half the price. g ordered the largest steak of his life, the lamplight was dazzling and we scored ourselves a free anniversary dessert.

this is my "here is my dinner!" face and also my "what in the world have i ordered, because i am not a steak-eater and the waiter talked me into prime rib?" face.

(the prime rib was so good, you guys. so so good. who even knew horseradish could taste like that?!)

we spent the rest of the night at the movie theater and out and about town and getting sugar and red-bulls for g's energy levels. he stayed up til like 2am, friends! the whole night was just a triumph. if only anniversaries and best-dates-ever could occur weekly, right? a girl can dream.

the end.

we had ourselves an anniversary!

 our babysitter is scheduled for tomorrow night, so that's when the real partying is set to happen, but we did have ourselves a nice little family date night to grab a burger, fries and a grasshopper shake to share. i got some pretty flowers and g got a little scavenger hunt around the house with notes telling him things i love about him.

i'm particulary proud of the final note, which so lovingly said this:

and of this picture of us, taken with the self-timer that took probably 6 attempts to achieve (and is still pretty terrible)...

until tomorrow night, lover!

five years.

dear husband,

do you remember that time six years ago when we finally talked in the parking lot of exit realty? we stood against my car until it started to rain and then we climbed inside of it because we weren't finished yet. you were nervous and you fidgeted with the car vent in front of you as you spoke.

do you remember how i suggested that i would set you up with one of my friends and you turned and looked me right in the eyes and said, "why don't you set me up with you instead?". it was pouring rain all around us as we sat inside my little black jetta and i just knew.

i'll never forget that.

remember the day we got married?

remember how you couldn't find your car in the parking lot after the temple ceremony? i waited for you, in my wedding dress, on the corner of temple square for 45 minutes. do you remember how when you finally found the car in the parking garage and came to get me i was laughing because i was so embarrassed about everyone who had stopped to ask if the poor little abandoned bride was okay.

remember how i thought i could do my own hair and makeup that day (dumb) and then you surprised me by hiring kalai to come and sing to us and i proceeded to ugly cry all of my makeup off and i looked nothing like a bride by the end of the night, but i was just so happy i didn't care.

that night, we went back to our new basement apartment to grab our luggage for the honeymoon and you proceeded to run into our apartment, forget what we were there for, put the keys on the counter and then run back out and lock the door behind you. we were stranded in the driveway with no car keys and no way to get back in on our wedding night. remember how we laughed and laughed in the darkness as we waited for tyler & jennie to come rescue us so we could get our things and head to the hotel?

***

remember how you never once farted in front of me until we stepped onto the cold tile of our honeymoon suite that first day? remember how i had no idea you knew how to grout a shower or fix a car until our dishwasher broke and you confessed to all of it. the first time i cooked you dinner i tried to make a grilled cheese sandwich in the george forman. we still had so much to learn about one another.

remember when we closed on our first home? we slept in the basement on a mattress on the floor. we played scrabble next to the fireplace and i bought sparkling cider.

remember how we decided to get dogs. sometimes i think that was a really dumb idea, getting those dogs, but then evie goes to sleep and i see them sleeping on the floor next to our bed. i remember how we used to be this little family of 4 and i love them for filling that place inside of me for awhile.

remember the thanksgiving eve we spent eating canned chili and drinking milk by candlelight? remember all the nights i woke you up because i couldn't sleep and all the blessings you gave me on a kitchen chair in our bedroom. remember all the times i dragged you to the park to swing under the stars and all the walks we've taken with just us, the pups, and the setting sun. remember that time when i thought i couldn't get pregnant and i made you promise me over and over again that i could.

remember last night as i rocked our baby before bed, you heard me in there with her and you left your online study group to come stand with us in the darkness before i set her down. "don't you try to put her to bed without me!" you joked, so we stood there, our little family of three, taking turns holding her and smiling at her and kissing her as your class moved on without you.

remember that?

today, we've been married for five years. 

sometimes, when i can't sleep, i love to remember how i felt about you before i really even knew you. because even then, i could just picture this future with you; the handsome blond with the briefcase who smiled at me from across the office. i could feel that i belonged with you. i could see our memories and our babies and this whole life together.

and now, here we are, five years later.

i remember all of it.

beat the blahs.

all weekend i was feeling the blahs.

i cannot lie to you, my friends!
i've been feeling the blahs.

i don't know why. i mean, i have no right! friday night my sweetest mother-in-law gave up her entire evening to come to my house and play with my baby so i could go on a date with my very own norwegian lover. and he took me to sushi at happy sumo, even though it doesn't fill him up (bless him) and then to a movie, which i ended up loving with my whole heart. we spied on some really gross couple fondling each other outside the theater and examined new pants at the gap and then i found a stray stuffed bat to bring home to j bubba and really, good heavens, how could any of this lead to the blahs?!

the next day, we even packed our little family of 3 up in the car and went to the zoo! the air was the perfect combination of warm and cool and there was a faint dusting of leaves on the pavement. we sat through the bird show (where the famed owl flew right over g's head!) and spent plenty of time with my lovers, the elephants, so i don't know how any of that could have led me to the blahs, either?

i don't know, my friends! i tell you, i have no idea.

last night, while pondering all of this, i decided i'd had enough. dinner had been cleaned up, the baby was washed and in her crib and my norwegian lover was in the bedroom watching a football game as i sat in the living room watching the emmy's (because really, we just cannot compromise sometimes) and then, there it was, so i went into the bedroom to declare it!

"i've had enough!" i cried. "no more football, no more emmys! even if it kills us we are just going to sit on this bed and stare at each other (or something??) until i feel better!"

so off the tv went and out came all of my irrational, completely random and totally bizarre thoughts and feelings for all the throw pillows to hear. g listened as well as any norwegian lover can and then, somehow, i found myself receiving a back tickle in return. soon the back tickle turned into a body tickle which always makes me certain my life is going to end right this very instant if you don't stop tickling me!! and then i paid him back with a healthy dose of face touching (which can i just tell you, g the norwegian LOATHES) and soon, i had him begging for mercy.

like magic, that made me feel better! (?)