America the Beautiful

One of the interesting things about living overseas is that you find that you miss out on a lot of current events, pop culture, and media coverage of things you might have followed very closely in America. While we keep up on CNN.com and have access to DirecTV Puerto Rico, people here aren't talking about the GOP debates, the current candidates, what Paris Hilton was wearing last night, or any number of things that might interest us. Also, when syncing my iPod to iTunes, sometimes I'll look at the top songs and won't recognize any of them. Why? The best (in my opinion) radio station here plays a mix of 60's, 70's, 80's, 90's and some 2000 rock. So the playlist might look something like this: New Kids on the Block, Ozzy Osbourne, Aerosmith, The Rolling Stones, Red Hot Chili Peppers, the Bangles, and on and on. They do not, however, play the latest Maroon 5 or Cold Play songs.

I would like to follow the campaign news a little more closely, it just takes a little more effort. On a positive note, BYU's independent status and new contract with ESPN allows me to follow the football team better from afar. Not that it did me much good last night after we gave the game to Texas after not putting the game away. As much as I liked Doman as a player, he's got to get in the end zone and learn to play to win, instead of playing not to lose.

This week we finally partook of an interesting phenomenon in our neighborhood that I will call the 'car wash on a bicycle.' So I always see this guy cruising around our neighborhood and washing my neighbor's cars while they're parked on the street. He spends a ton of time on each car (inside and out). So I talked to him and he's going to start washing our car once a month. He just needs a spout and a plug and he's set. The spout because he brings his own bucket, hose, pressure washer; and the plug because he brings his own vacuum. He showed up about 8:30 Saturday morning and spent just over an hour and a half on our car, washing/vacuuming every nook and cranny. Cost for us was about $15 and worth every penny. He'll be coming back in a few weeks to do it again. The guy was telling me that he used to work for a veterinarian washing the animals. When he quit working for the vet, he had a client who lived by us who wanted him to keep washing her dog. He did, and word spread so he has enough clients to keep busy all week washing animals. Then he began washing the original client's car on the weekends... then word spread again... and now you have to plan a week in advance so he can fit you in. We know folks in other neighborhoods who also have their "guy"... Awesome.

The kids are back into their routine and are doing great. We were getting a laugh this week as every morning Caroline will walk around the house yelling 'Paula', our maid's name. When she wakes up, she starts with the general moaning and complaining... then it's the occasional 'mama'... then a stronger 'MAMA'... then she cries and will scream 'MAMA!'... If nothing still, she'll yell 'PAULA! PAULA!'. It's hilarious. On Saturdays, she'll walk around the bottom floor of the house yelling 'PAULA!'. She wander through the kitchen, in the storage room, in the laundry room looking for her. She'll peek out the curtains wondering when she is coming. Caroline is such a sweetie.

I know it's been a while since I've posted pictures. We're in the middle of some organizing and cataloging of our extensive digital photo holdings, which has made it less of a priority to regularly download the pictures we've taken. But rest assured, our kids are still super cute and our life is exciting.