That momo suicide picture is freaking me right out

I can't even read the story about the momo thing because that picture freaks me out so much. I'm fine with spreading awareness about it, but can we please stop posting the picture? It shows up everywhere. I don't like the face distorting pictures anyway. There's a lot of trends on social media that need to stop. The "I know no one will share this" thing needs to stop. Or the "I know no one reads my wall" thing needs to stop like yesterday. When I see that I automatically scroll past. Baconsale did a really good episode on social media etiquette. I suggest everyone give it a listen: https://baconsale.com/2019/02/18/baconsale-episode-192-baconsale-approved-social-media-etiquette/
 We're headed down to St. George and Vegas this weekend, and the girls are very excited. Mirinda is excited because the family we're going with has boys that she really likes. They're cute kids, so at least there's that, but I know that kid is going to drive me to drinking with her boy craziness. I think I'm going to put her in karate or something. Maybe if I teach her the deadly arts it will help when she's a teenager. The main problem is she is so dang cute, and she's going to be beautiful as an adult. Just like her dad.
Priya has entered the terrible 3 stage with a vengeance. She's actually turning 4 next month, but we've found that when it comes to stages, both the girls have been about a year behind. Part of it is the family dynamic when they're young. There are actually chemicals produced when a baby is rocked or soothed that aids in their development. If they don't receive that, or aren't secure, those chemicals aren't produced, and there are developmental holes that need to be filled in. Many times they will regress to behaviors that help them fill in those developmental holes.
Priya's developmental holes right now involve balling up her fist and punching me in the face as hard as she can. I'm not talking like a little slap. I'm talking like Ivan Drago in Rocky 4. She's trying to knock me out, or at least send me to the dentist with a missing tooth. At some point I'm expecting her to scream "Tiger Uppercut!" and lay me out. (It's from Street Fighter 2, look it up). I'm really, really hoping that this phase ends quickly. She's still a sweet girl, and 2 minutes after the black eye she gives me she tells me how much she loves me. I'm pretty sure that's the definition of an abusive relationship. Mirinda was the same way when she was her age. She drew blood often.
Adoption brings up some interesting situations. We were at the butterfly symposium on Saturday, cause that's what you do on a Saturday when you have 2 girls. You go to look at butterflies. Priya had just got done beating on me, so I set her down in the playground area to be in time out and to calm down. I was standing right next to her, and she was sitting on the ground crying. These two busybodies and interferers started looking over at her and kept pointing and then talking to each other. I smiled at them to let them know that she was fine, but was in time out. I see the wife say "I think that little girl is lost". I finally yelled, "She's my daughter!" and they were so surprised and said, "Oh, we didn't know." It was annoying. I know she doesn't look like me, but they were there when I set her down, and I was standing right next to her. Put two and two together. I gave them the stink eye, and left it at that.
I've found out that my girls are the worst at hide and seek ever. They want to play, but all they do is hide in the same place every time and giggle or tell the person where they are. It's pretty amusing. One of our hiding places was under a blanket, and Mirinda totally dutch ovened me. That was the end of that hiding place.
My recommendation for this week is the Bombay Chef. He has videos on youtube and on Amazon Prime. I've made a few of his dishes and they turned out incredibly good. I've really been trying to improve my Indian cooking, and his recipes are helping. I made his butter chicken and it was incredible. Give it a look.
Thanks for reading! I'll give an update of our trip to St. George next week!

A Hazy Shade of Winter

It's supposed to get up to like 45 next week, and I can't tell you how excited that makes me. It gives me a glimmer of hope that winters cruel hand will finally be severed, and we'll be free again. I'm a little ray of sunshine though.
For Christmas Mirinda got Just Dance 2019. The girls like to play, but they weren't really into it, except for "Poco Loco" from Coco. I can now do that dance in my sleep. We decided to get Just Dance Unlimited, which gives you access to 400 songs, and now they want to play the game every night. If they had their way all we would do is dance to "How Far I'll Go" from Moana. Seriously I'm getting so good at doing the hula that I may start charging tickets. Plenty of people want to see a large white man artistically expressing himself through dance. That's my theory anyway. If you ever want to play let me know, but be prepared to be astounded.
We also got the new TV on President's Day, and the girls are pretty stoked about it. Almost once a day they remind me that I broke the old one. I remind them that I used their college fund to pay for the TV, so who's laughing now. It is smaller than the last one, so there's less chance that I'll break it, but we'll see. If I make money doing the hula I'll put that into the TV fund for the next time I break it. Win win win.
I just completed watching the entire The Office series, so that's a pretty big accomplishment for me. I've moved on to Arrested Development. Mirinda is pretty upset by this. She wants me to start watching The Office again cause she liked to watch it with me. I'm not sure why, but every time I turn on Arrested Development she says to turn it off. I think she may have a crush on Jim. Heck, I have a crush on Jim.
Priya' surgery is set for May 8th. There's a lot of things I'm learning that I never wanted to know. They're going to take a chunk of her femur to straighten it. Then they grind that chunk down, mix it with her blood, and shape it into a portion of her new hip. Seriously?! I feel like I should be in the next room preparing the sacrificial goat or something. It just seems really archaic to me, but apparently it's stronger than concrete. It's going to be a long 5 weeks for this kid, and for all of us. We bought a wagon the girls can ride in so Priya can still go outside and enjoy the warmth, if it ever comes.
I appreciate the feedback on Texas Roadhouse, even though most of it was wrong. Given the choice, I'd rather go to Sizzler, and I don't like Sizzler. I do love that cheese toast though.
The other day marked the 1 year anniversary from the day I met Priya. I had gone to India earlier than the rest of the family because of all the issues with her adoption. It's hard to believe it's been a year. That kid has really come so far. I was looking at videos of that day and it was so hard for her to get around. She didn't like that the other kids got to wear shoes and she didn't, so she used to put shoes on her hands and crawl around. She did that for a while when we brought her home, but stopped once she had her boot that helped her to walk. On Thursday we're going to St George with some friends, and on Friday we'll be in Vegas, and that will be the 1 year anniversary of the day we took custody of her. They call it the gotcha day, but I don't allow that because it's incredibly stupid. Instead we call it the one year anniversary of the day we took custody of her.
It's been amazing to see how Mirinda and Priya have grown together in the last year, and how much they love it each other. As hard as adoption is, I'd really recommend it to anyone. It's worth it.
I'm putting in another plug for Billy B's. Just go there and get the donuts. Honestly they're fantastic. I've found that not all the food is great there, but what is great is really fantastic. Just go get donuts for a Saturday morning, you won't be disappointed.
As always, thanks for reading! My buddy Jim Bob and I are going to be starting a podcast about local restaurants, so stay tuned for that!

Stop the winter, I'd like to get off

On Wednesday morning I was getting ready for work, and I was checking the weather as I am wont to do in the winter time, cause I like to know when this hell will be over. I don't check it in the summer time cause all it will show me is I'm going to be happy. But in the winter time I check it every day just hoping to get above 30 degrees. I looked at the weather that morning, and it said it was going to be 50 degrees that day and the 10 day was going to be in the 40's and 50's and I got super, super excited. I decided not to wear my winter coat, I wore my jacket instead. I was praising the groundhog and thinking that the long depressing winter was finally over. Then I went outside about noon and it was rainy and freaking cold. I checked the weather app to see how it could have betrayed me, and I realized I was looking at St George weather. I was furious, and thought about burning my phone in effigy. After a few minutes I realized I'd still have to deal with the bad weather and buy a new phone on top of that, so I went on with my life still looking for a glimpse of the warmth that the groundhog promised me. If it doesn't happen by March, I'll be having groundhog for dinner.
Priya is doing well with her cast. You don't realize how a cast will effect your life, like forcing you to buy a new TV. We have a small TV set up to the big TV so the girls can watch their shows when I just can't handle watching Sofia the First for one more second. Or Llama Llama. Man I hate that show. The TV sticks out a little bit, and I hit it with my hand all the time. Every time I do that I think one day I'll break the TV. The other night I was carrying Priya to bed after brushing her teeth. I turned around with her and her cast knocked the TV right over and broke it. The Priya proceeded to tell me off because it was too loud. I'm not entirely sure what she said, but it was terrifying. The next day she told me off again about it. At least it's President's day weekend. It means I can go to RC Willey to get a TV, and stop at the IKEA to get some meatballs. Silver lining people, silver lining.
I'm happy to report I've kept up my new years resolution of exercising for 30 minutes a day. I'm really digging it too. My rule is still if it sucks I'm not doing it, but I've lost a few pounds and I notice I don't sweat as much when I open the refrigerator.
We got a little more information on Priya's hip surgery. Right now her femur isn't straight on her leg, so when they do the surgery they're going to take a chunk of her femur to help make the new hip for her. I'm not sure what they're going to do with the hole, and how they're going to fill it in. I'm sure they have something, but it's kind of weird to think about. That will help when they do the leg lengthening because her femur will be straight. Still if there was anyway we could get out of doing this I would, just to not put her through this. The time will come and go either way, and hopefully this will help her be able to get around better. The fantastic news is that there is a specialist in town that will be able to do the surgery. All he does is hip replacements. That's a tremendous blessing. Honestly she handles it all so well, and heals so quickly I'm anticipating things will go well with this.
The girls loved Valentine's day. We always do Indian food for Valentine's because no one is there. I don't mind going out to eat but I don't want to wait for an hour and a half with a bunch of teenagers. You can actually smell the hormones raging. So I had egg curry, and didn't have to smell hormones.
Please stop going to Texas Roadhouse. Seriously it's very mediocre. I will say that their mushrooms are amazing, but next time you want to go there just call me. Give me the $80 you were planning on spending, and I'll make a much better meal for you and pocket the rest of the money. That's my recommendation for the week. Stop going to Texas Roadhouse.
Thanks for reading! Feel free to share this blog. I used to have 250 readers on average, but then I got out of the habbit of writing every week and it went down significantly. Or I offended everyone else. Both at possibilities.

We come back and it snows 1 foot overnight. We're the bad luck charms.

Seriously it snows a foot overnight. I was surprised they closed school, but good for them. I was missing being a teenager for like a minute. Not in middle school though. Every time I drive by Union Middle I think they should burn that place to the ground. On a Saturday of course.
We had an absolutely amazing time in California. We flew into Burbank on Sunday, and when I walked off the plane it was 75 degrees, and I smelled that green smell for the first time in a while. I felt sadness and depression from the winter melt off of me. In the Lord of the Rings when Aragorn, Legolas and Gimli are chasing the Uruk Hai to get Merry and Pippin back, there is a time during their chase they come close to the woods, and Legolas takes a deep breath and says, "Ah, the green smell! It is worth many nights of rest!" That's exactly how I felt at that moment. If I had a bow some orcs would have been shot. Yes, I'm a geek.
We spent Monday in Universal Studios. I love it there because I can geek out. I learned that a 3 and a 5 year old don't really work in Universal Hollywood though. We went straight to Hogsmeade and bought Hermione's wand. I was so caught up in geeking out that it took me a second to realize why my little girls weren't geeking out too, then I realized they were 3 and 5. The next time we go they'll be into it more. They did like casting spells with the wands (we already own the Elder Wand. Told you I am a geek). We tried butterbeer hot, frozen, and cold. I like the cold the best. We also had pumpkin juice and pumpkin fizz, and I ate bangers and mash in The Three Broomsticks. I was going to buy the girls house robes (gryffindor of course) but they were $115 dollars a piece. I love spoiling my girls, but I'll just wrap them up in a sheet and call it a house robe if they really want one.
Spent some time in Springfield, ate a huge donut and a ribwich. I cried when Optimus Prime thanked me for helping him. I always do.
The highlight of that day was in the Despicable Me section of the park. Edith, Margo and Agnes characters were out taking pictures with people. Mirinda was terrified, but Priya walked right up to them to hug them and dance with them. When the employees told the characters the two girls were adopted, they were so sweet to them. It actually made me tear up. It was a cute moment.
On Tuesday we made our way down to Anaheim, and decided to go to the Santa Monica Pier, which was very cool. I didn't know it was the end of Route 66. We played on the beach, and ate on the pier, then made our way to Anaheim. It was a pretty chill day.
The next day we went to Disneyland and it was a perfect day. The key to Disneyland is to take your time. People that don't have a good experience don't go for enough days, and because they're spending so much money they want to make sure they do everything. As a result the kids are cranky, the adults are upset, and everyone is miserable. If you go for enough days, and let your kids do what they want, you'll have a much more enjoyable time. The girls loved meeting Minnie and Mickey. They especially loved meeting the princesses. We ate so much good food. Ate a plethora of churros. The next day it was going to rain, so we decided to stay at Disneyland instead of driving to the San Diego zoo. It never rains in southern California, which leads me to believe we're the bad luck charms. It rained hard for a few hours. We finally went to downtown disney and bowled. There's a new bowling place called Splitsville. That's an interesting experience, when you calculate how much you're paying to be in the park, and then realized you just payed $60 to bowl while you're paying to be in the park. The girls loved it, and we got them dried off, then went back to the park for the evening.
On Friday it didn't rain, and we spent the day in California adventure. We got fast passes to the Cars ride. Priya wasn't tall enough to ride, so I took Mirinda on it once, and then Amy took Mirinda on it once. Mirinda absolutely loved it. We rode Little Mermaid like 20 times. I went on the Incredicoaster and I think it's faster than it used to be. It felt that way anyway. My sister Ashley and her husband Jared met us later in that day, which gave my back a break. Mirinda wants to be constantly held, and so Ashley got to take a turn. It was a blessed opportunity.
The last day in Disneyland my mom and step-dad came into town. We rode some rides in the morning, then it rained hard again, so we went to Ashley and Jared's hotel room and hung out. I tried olive brittle and goat cheese ice cream. It was actually fantastic until you hit the aftertaste. I like goat cheese, but it didn't work. About 3 the rain stopped, and we went back to the park. No one was in the park. We walked right on to most rides. We got Mirinda and Priya to ride Pirates of the Caribbean and the Haunted Mansion, which was a really big accomplishment. We ended the night with a trip to Mickey's house, and then the girls got to see Minnie one last time, and Mirinda gave her a hug. That was one of the biggest victories of the trip.
On Sunday we flew home. I was really happy with the way the trip worked out. The girls were really good, and we had an amazing time. We're going to Disneyworld next year, so I'm excited for that.
As an update on Priya, she has a cast on her foot again to help with the club foot issue. She took it in stride like she does with everything else. We're looking to schedule her hip surgery for late April. She's a flower girl in my niece's wedding, so we'd like to do it right after that. We learned yesterday that they are actually going to take a section of her femur out and use it to help form the hip, as her femur isn't straight. That way when they do the leg lengthening surgery it will help because her femur is straight. I'm trying not to think about it honestly. You know it needs to be done, and that in the long run it will change her life, but if there was any way we could avoid it we would. She'll be in a cast for 5 weeks, but that is why we're doing it early so she can enjoy the summer.
Long post today, but it was a fantastic week. As always thanks for reading!