Arachnis deathicus

Roxanne Ritchi: The spider's new.

Megamind: Spider?

Megamind: Uh... Ah yes, the spyiiiiiider. Even the smallest bite from... "arachnis deathicus"... will instantly paralyze...

I'm not a big fan of spiders. I can tolerate them long enough to kill them. That's about it. (Michele likes to rescue them and return them to the wild.)

Anyways, late one night, I found myself taking out the trash. As I was walking down the path that connects our house to the street, I caught the faint shimmering of a spiderweb. Unfortunately, it was hanging under a tree branch smack in the middle of the sidewalk at head height. I moved in for a closer look and saw an enormous spider, the size of a ping pong ball suspended in the middle. Ughhh... Lucky for it, I didn't have anything that I felt comfortable killing it with, so I dodged around it, went to the dumpster, and hightailed out of there.

The next morning, no spider. But come 10 pm, there were THREE enormous spiders, spread underneath the branch, waiting for the unwary pedestrian. This continued for several weeks, and we made a point of keeping a wide berth. Apparently, these are some type of tree-dwelling spider that cast webs every night. (Any entomologists reading this?)

A few weeks later, I finally mustered the courage to take a photo. Even with Michele's super duper zoom lens, I had to get uncomfortably close...

The next morning, I had to go up to work early to quench some reaction that would probably take out half the floor if it warmed up to room temperature. I rushed out the door and was halfway to the street when all of a sudden I had the horrible feeling of spider silk all over my face and I felt something heavy and exoskeletal bounce off the back of my head. I freaked out, ran back home and asked Michele (while she was still asleep. I woke up to a screaming husband saying something about evil spiders. No joke. Weirdest way to get woken up.)  to conduct a thorough examination and reassure me that the spider wasn't about to sink it's proboscis into my neck.

Since then, we haven't seen any more spiders. In a way, I guess they aren't evil. We sure get a lot fewer mosquitos than one would expect, but still, I wish they would do their business somewhere I couldn't see them.

Daddy post

Lately Michele and baby have been listening to classic hits such as "I'll make a man out of you." I don't actually intend to make a man out of baby. After all she is a girl, but I hope that she picks up some of my unique skills:

1) The ability to electrocute oneself! This skill comes in real handy. One of my professors was so good at it, they made him head of the physics department. Seriously! Michele used to come to class with me just to see if he'd survive.

2) The ability to sleep anytime, anywhere. This is particularly important for things such as Sunday school, any sort of graduation ceremony, etc.

 3) The ability to make weird faces! It's a defense mechanism, like eye spots on butterfly wings. It's really just an ordinary goober, but you'd think you were dealing with a T-rex!

Pets n things

And as in uffish thought he stood,

The Jabberwock with eyes of flame,

Came whiffling through the tulgey wood,

And burbled* as it came!

Michele and I were discussing possible pets that we might allow our children to own. (Personally, I wouldn't mind avoiding the whole pet thing altogether, we already have a pet named Madeleine, a person-pet. But after three and a half months, I guess the novelty's worn off.)

Michele really wants a dog. I don't. I like animals that stay in cages. I don't like animals that desecrate both hearth and home. Michele's parents have a very special dog named Jasper. He can only turn left. Michele's parents make a special effort to clean him every time we visit, otherwise Michele's eyes turn an angry red and she can't breathe. Jasper loves human food, especially cheese, but he has also has quite a tooth for products from Victoria's Secret (and used baby diapers... ughhh!) Michele finally found the perfect dog last spring in Tennessee, a cute little Yorkie... that ate our camera charger! Since Michele wants a beautiful home full of nice furniture and undevoured undergarments, that means no dogs.

When I was a kid, I had a hamster. Hamsters are great! They are fuzzy and adorable. You can spend egregious amounts of money on elaborate hamster tunnels and habitats and then watch the creature run to and fro. Who needs a McDonald's playplace? (Although hamsters seem to chew holes in the tunnels a lot faster than toddlers do.) Michele hates hamsters. They are rodents. They have itchy-scritchy toe-nails and an uncanny ability to find themselves under your shirt. And worst of all, their average lifespan is two years. Michele hates death. Personally, I think two years is about right. I was so excited to get a hamster when I was 10, but at age 13, I had already grown out of it and moved on to skateboarding and drums. My poor sister decided she wanted birds instead, and the darned things haunted her through middle school and the rest of high school. I think they're still alive now. She couldn't do homework in her room because any time the light was on, the birds tweeted like they were brokers on Wall Street. Pets dying is actually a blessing in disguise. Kids get what they want. Then when kids lose interest, the parents aren't stuck taking care of the darned things for the next twenty years.

So obviously, we have had some difficulty finding common ground. So far, we have only found two possible candidates:

1) Lizards

When Michele lived in Florida, the girl next door found a five-foot lizard and decided to keep it. Somehow, she coaxed the creature into the bathtub where she fed it and kept it moist. Unfortunately, she forgot to tell her mother who decided to take a shower. Later on, they managed to sell the lizard for around $600. Heck, if my kids can turn it into a business, I'll be pretty pleased!

2) Hedgehogs

Aw... c'mon!

Anyways, we have decided that the pet will be named Jabberwocky. Hopefully it is a Boy, since Jabberwocky is not a very good name for a Girl.

Speaking of the Jabberwocky, today we went to the BYU Bookstore (a horrid place that charges through the roof and preys on unsuspecting alumni and visitors) and bought something (you think we'd know better.) Actually, we only spent seven cents. I somehow wound up with a $10 BYU gift card. The bookstore also had a promotion: if you could recite a poem from memory, then you could get 30% off of a children's book. I memorized The Jabberwocky for the occasion, one of the greatest works of literature the world has ever seen. I'm pretty sure that it pokes fun mercilessly at Beowulf, but I could be wrong. Anyways, my recitation went fairly well. I think I forgot a few words, but since most of them are made up anyways, I didn't feel guilty inserting a few of my own. Anyways, we got the discount. Oh frabjous day! Callooh! Callay! We chortled with joy! *(I'm not sure what "burbled" means, but I'm pretty sure baby does it, whatever it is.) Anyways, after eliminating Tuesday, Shark vs. Train, Pingo, and some book about a ballerina mouse, we ended of getting Tea Rex, a practical guide on etiquette when inviting large extinct reptiles to tea parties. Apparently it was released on April 9th, so we are pretty up-to-date on current literature.

Friday night we celebrated Jake's birthday. Jake is Michele's favorite brother who isn't currently serving a mission. Since it was his 18th birthday, naturally we took him bowling at Fat Cats. It was really fun! About halfway through, they dimmed the lights, turned on a bunch of crazy lasers and UV lamps, and blasted really loud music. And best of all....

Yep! That's right. Baby Madeleine weighs MORE than the bowling ball. Way to go, Madeleine!!!

1 year

Matt and Michele have been married for 366 days. Wow! That's a lot of days. How have things changed since Matt and Michele decided to tie the knot? Let's turn the time over to our chief analyst for some one year anniversary statistics.

Okay. I'll admit, this graph is pretty boring. Either you are pregnant, or you're not. No in betweens as long as you don't time travel too often. NEXT!

Here is the number of books on Matt and Michele's bookshelf over the last year. As you can see, I've super-imposed their net assets as well. Probably a spurious correlation.

You can never have too much pie, and Matt and Michele have been eating it by the dumptruck load. Take a look at that!

And last but not least; is the love still alive? The verdict is yes! But apparently Matt is quite a monster at the end of the semester. Here are some other random statistics.

Dishes broken: 2

Gallons of paint used: 1.5

Nanny episodes watched: a lot

M+M's consumed: (we're talking the M+M apocalypse here)

That's all, folks

One ring to rule them all...

(A Matt post)

Here's a photo from the archives. Michele hates this photo because she's wearing pajamas and her knees are too close to the camera, but I think she looks cute!

An interesting side note: This photo was taken on March 23rd, 2011 at 12:26 PM. For those of you who don't know, that was approximately one half hour after Michele agreed to marry me. Just sayin...

Michele looks happy! I look like I'm bursting with some mixture of ecstasy and "Holy smokes! What did I just do?" But you can't really blame me. That's the first time I ever proposed to anyone. It's not my fault I got the wrong hand AND the wrong finger when I was trying to put the ring.

Also, for those of you wondering, "Who proposes at noon on a Wednesday morning?" my response is sometimes you just gotta go for it.

Go-carts and Dip n' Dots

A few weeks ago I decided that we were going to to race go-karts for date night. Michele had never driven one before, so she didn’t quite know what to expect. First, we took the bus up to Lehi, because that’s how we ride, literally. 

Matt waiting at our bus stop

We ate a quick dinner at Rubio’s in American Fork, and headed off to Trafalga. 

On our quest of finding food we found this sign at Chili's
"10 minute parking, All others will be crushed and melted"

When we walked in, there they were, little cars whizzing around a small concrete track track. Michele looked at me kind of dubiously, but we got our tickets and went to stand in line. And we stood there forever. Apparently all of the twelve-year-olds with the free “Pass of all passes” had realized that they could just swing under the fence and cut about half the line. I wanted to strangle them, but Michele didn’t mind and just laughed. Eventually, we made our way to the front and it was our turn. Michele apparently had a larger chest than most of the thirteen-year-olds there, so it was really funny to watch as the awkward high school attendant tried to loosen her buckle touching her.

Evil Grin

Anyways, we were reluctantly crouched at the starting line, engines pumping and thumping in time. The green light flashed, the flags went up, and as Michele accelerated, she suddenly got this evil smile on her face and started driving like a madwoman! She was drifting around the turns and careening off the curbs; I think she would have gotten a life sentence for reckless driving if she were on the roads. A definite success.

Matt was a much nicer driver than me. He even tried to let the other people pass him!

Later on, Michele had Dippin’ Dots for the first time. The most novel part of the experience for Michele was that they stuck to her lips! Who knew, right? Michele had me kiss them off, and we scarred a few young children for life. 

A few seconds after Michele tried her first dip n' dots

A few arcade basketball games later (we were awful), we had enough tickets to get matching tattoos, Chinese handcuffs, and a little whirly plastic thing. And that was our date! We recommend it, unless you don’t like being around a lot of middle-schoolers. 

Lies "The Little Mermaid" taught my wife

Get this. The other night, we went to the Red Lobster and ordered a plate that included shrimp scampi, scallops and stuffed flounder. Considering how far we are from the nearest ocean, it was pretty good. Michele especially liked the flounder and made some comment about them being "cute." Huh? I thought to myself, Cute?

After some discussion, I ascertained that Michele's perception of a 'flounder' was the following:

"Oh, no!" I said, "You've been horribly deceived! Flounders actually look like this:"

I realize that my timing was off. Michele probably did not want to learn that her cute fish friend was actually a demented-looking bottom feeder while she was eating it.

I tried to reason with Michele. Why would she want to eat a cute fish? And if it were ugly, what better purpose could it serve? In the end, we agreed that our favorite version of the flounder was this:

Errrrr...Happy Birthday?

I’m really bad at keeping secrets from Michele. Maybe it’s my goofy smile or the incessant fidgeting, but she seems to know everything.

Case and point: The other night, I decided to go get Michele some of her favorite ice-cream – extra dark chocolate peppermint with fudge, brownies and oreos. Most chocolate ice-cream is kinda brownish; but this stuff is black, like middle of the Congo black, (not to sound racist or anything.) The only downside is that Coldstone only carries it in December. With a few days left, I thought I would win a few brownie points.

“Michele, I think I’m gonna go ride my bike for a little while.”

“Why? It’s 10 pm. You should stay here.”

“I need a little more exercise.”

“You’re going to Walmart to get some chips aren’t you?”

“No, I’m not!!!”

“You should get me some dark chocolate peppermint ice-cream from Coldstone.”

(Momentary smirk.)

“You are!!!” (Michele jumps into my arms.) “You’re so sweet.”

“Arrrggh!!! I can NEVER surprise you!”

Isn't that ice cream dark or what?

On Tuesday, I was thinking about what to get Michele for her birthday which is coming up pretty soon. I’d toyed around with several ideas, but then I got this brainwave! It was perfect!

The next morning, I told Michele I was going to work (I did! just a few hours later) and biked up to Joann’s. Next thing I know, Michele calls me up to tell me that she’s bored and that she’s going up  to her parents house for the day to use the very apparatus I was currently browsing for!

I guess it was a sign, and it also meant Michele was out of the house so I had some hope of sneaking it in. I left the store carrying a 25 pound box balanced on my bicycle and maneuvered towards the bus stop. I was intercepted by some lady horrified that I was going to break the thing, and her husband drove me home in the end. After stealing a bunch of free newspapers for wrapping paper, I tried to find where I could hide something roughly the size of a mini refrigerator in a 500 sq. ft. apartment. Impossible!

Michele got home with three new pillows (I couldn’t believe she’d made them in four hours) and then went on facebook to find that one of her friends had just received the same item and how she’d really like one. The next thing I knew I was just dying, aching to tell her (how awesome of a husband I was.) 

Our new pillows

I made it about two days and finally decided that on her birthday she would be so immersed in schoolwork that I should just gift it to her now. And so I did! She was surprised, partly because her birthday isn’t for another month, (heck, I even got the wrong year)… so now I have a new record of keeping a surprise for 53 hours!!! Woot!

Michele's new sewing machine