Road Trips, Rodeos, and Reminiscing

When I finally pulled together my footage from July to September, I had well over two hours. TWO HOURS! Let me tell you, paring that down to four minutes took me forever. But here you have it! Observations I made while editing:

1) I am in this round's movie way more than I ever have been before.
2) My voice sounds higher on camera than it does in my head.
3) Sam thinks I am attractive when I look really pathetic.
4) Rodeo falls are much more entertaining than rodeo successes.
5) The kids obviously get their dancing skills from me. Have I mentioned my dance talent before? Oh yeah, I have. All the time.
6) WOA! Sam's beard used to be huge! I knew he cut 4" off, but I don't think I quite appreciated the difference until I saw some of these clips. He says it's a really nice scarf now that things are getting chilly.

You saw it here first!

I always think it's dumb when news reporter say, "You saw it here first!" Because if they really are the first ones with the story, obviously I'm seeing it here first. Thank you for pointing out the obvious. On that note, I have a quick vid that you will definitely see here first. Hopefully you will only see it here, because I would feel really dumb if it somehow leaked.

When Sam got home from his very first shoot, I asked him what the other actors were like. Among all his stories, I got two random details.

1) The actor playing Matthew does a killer Arnold Schwarzenegger.
2) The actor playing Jesus is a trampoline jumper. Apparently that's a thing.

I later got proof of both. Here you go! Hopefully seeing these guys like this doesn't ruin the movie for ya (whenever it comes out).

Stream of Consciousness

I feel like I need to blog, but I have nothing to say. So I compiled a list of short drafts that I had in blogger, and voila! a stream of consciousness post.
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Occasionally when I leave phone messages for people I don't know, they hesitate to call back because they think I'm crank calling them. Apparently Janae Ricks sounds a lot like "generics" and my phone number includes the sequence "01234x678." So I come across as a phony. No pun intended.
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This last summer a builder here in Utah built an exact replica of the house from the movie Up! I wanted to buy it. Desperately.

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When I was pregnant with Seara I craved and drank pickle juice and soy sauce. True story. I think I must have been sodium deficient. At least I didn't lick walls like giraffes do.
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First day in the first grade. Anyone else singing the song from the Veggie Tales Jonah movie?

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Sam and I don't argue. Ever. But not for my lack of trying. I come from a verbal family, where nearly every emotion is stated and all opinions/disagreements/frustrations must be hashed out. I never feel anything I don't say, at least to Sam. He, on the other hand, comes from a really quiet family who never really talk about, well, anything when it comes to what they think or how they feel. And to top it off, he's a peacemaker. Hence we don't argue. But man, if I was married to anyone else on earth, we'd surely have it out at least once a month!
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Seara finally lost her first tooth this last summer. After she lost the second, she wrote this letter to her kindergarten teacher:

Der Ms. Hokinson
I lost 2 teeth. Plez mark 2 lins on the wigte tuth that sez my naime.
Love Seara

Apparently she thinks the teacher still has the blank tooth up marking how many teeth Seara lost during Kindergarten. So cute!
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I have no clue what or where this is. My kids on a moose?!

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Did you know that I had never heard of the last name Ricks until I met Sam? Really, I hadn't. Oh, I had heard of Ricks College up in Idaho. But it was Rick's College, see. First name, not last. Yes, I really am that smart.

Worst Days of my Childhood

Barring personal tragedy, I would venture to say that most of us had pretty idyllic childhoods. Most of our really tough trials probably didn't come until we were older.  That said, I can still recall with vivid clarity the worst days of my childhood. Like the day I was put on public display to graduate from Primary, or when my mom told my dad I had finally become a 'woman' (kill me now), or when I *spoiler alert* found out Santa was not real. (Although that last one cleared up a lot of confusion about Santa's connection with Jesus--I could never figure out whether he was an apostle or prophet, and I could only assume he was given the same living forever thing like John, but did that mean that John gave out gifts too? Yes, I was entirely too old when I found out the truth about Santa.)

Well, I would like to add yet another worst day to that list: the day that I realized that David and Goliath was the same guy as David and Bathsheba. Why do they never tell you that lion/bear/giant-killing hero boy also had at least 8 wives, 10 concubines, was a cheater, and a murderer?!

Yeah, that was a bad day.

my handwriting