For those of you that follow my blog, you are probably surprised by 2 posts in the same day. Hey, I'm surprised too. But, I had to document the following conversation I had with Marin tonight, before I forget exactly how it went. I was putting him into his pajamas following a bath. He was lying on his changing table looking up at his Predators ice rink art work and being all quiet.

Marin: "Predators Zamboni soon?"
Me: "Yeah, we'll go ice skating this weekend and you can see the Zamboni then."
Marin: (shaking head and looking at me like I'm nuts ) and says "No, Predators Zamboni."
Me: (thinking he's just tired and rambling on like usual)
Marin: (gets this look on his face like he's trying really hard to think of the right way to explain something to me).
Marin: (face lights up with excitement)
Marin: "Marin hands." (shows me his hands)
Me: "Yes, those are your hands."
Marin: "Mommy hands clap."
Me: "No, Mommy isn't going to clap right now. She's busy putting your clothes on."
Marin: (blurts out the following sentence with as much gusto as he can)
"Mommy clap! Red light turn on! Marin wear ear muffs!"
Me: (too stunned to speak).
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He actually remembers going to hockey games this past season! I had no idea he remembered anything from the games. Not bad for 2 years old! That's my boy!

For those of you that don't follow hockey, let me explain about the significance of the red light. A red light comes on near the net when a goal is scored. I can't believe the kid knows that. And, you bet that Mommy does a whole lot of clapping when that red light comes on! Marin also wears his ear muffs religiously during the games, as it gets quite loud and rowdy down at The Bridgestone!

You betcha we will see "Predators Zamboni soon" my little fella. Pre-season starts in September! Ahhh, our brainwashing has been successful! (*insert sinister laugh*).

It seems as thought a post a week is my going rate these days. Thursday evening seems to be the only time I have available, as Marin is out of the house for 2 hours then. He has a standing activity with Matthew every Thursday evening. As such, Thursday just happens to be my current favorite day of the week. :)

Marin has been talking for quite a while now, but usually we were the only ones that knew what he was saying. Now, his ever expanding vocabulary is recognizable to complete strangers. He makes people laugh (and me cringe) on a daily basis by what he says out in public. I know that this is MY blog, but what Marin has to say is more funny than anything I could come up with, so here it is.

"All done almost?! All done almost?! All done almost?!
-said in the most panicked stricken voice as I'm trying to apply sunblock to his face at the pool.

"Pink one, fall down!"
-said in response to an "accident" at a local eatery where he threw a jar of pink raspberry jelly across the room. Now he says this every time we go there and it cracks the workers up, especially since it happened months ago.

"All done sitting ground!"
-yelled to us while he's being made to sit in time-out while out in public and we are trying to ignore him.

"Oh gracious!"
-works in a variety of situations. If he drops something, accidentally runs into someone, etc.

"Baby! Baby! Baby!"
-reserved for pre-schoolers still using pacifiers. I want to crawl into a hole and die when he points out a "baby" in public.

I'll pick up at this point again soon....I hear the garage door opening....Man that was a quick 2 hours!

This past Monday afternoon, Marin and I were sitting outside on the front porch when Matthew burst out the front door looking all excited. He had this crazed look about him. Why? He'd come across 2 tickets to see Britney Spears in Nashville--in less than 3 hours!

Did I want to go? Of course I wanted to go! Uh, wait, what about a baby sitter? Should we just take Marin with us? Wait...there are only 2 tickets and he's over the age of 2 so he needs his own ticket now....well, crap! What do we do?!

I tell Matthew to say yes that we want the tickets and then I go into a full out scramble mode trying to find a last minute babysitter. An hour later, I had one! So, Marin got to hang out with our friend Jamie and Matthew and I were on our way to the show!

Britney was fantastic. Whether you like the gal or not, she sure can put on a show. We both thought it was awesome. I've been a Britney fan for as long as I can remember, so I was thrilled to see her live. Bring earplugs if you go to her show. It was unbelievably loud, but fun.

Britney's 2 boys were also in the audience. I think they come to all her shows. You can spot them near the front of the stage, wearing hearing protection ear muffs. They come out about 30 seconds before she hits the stage with bodyguards and who I assume are their nannies. Too cute!

I didn't really care for her opening acts. Yes, even Nicki Minaj. I will admit that her song Super Bass was great live. Even better than the radio version. Jessie and the Toy Boys were ok. Jessie was sort of a Britney clone. The two girls from Australia that were mixing techno music were a weird addition to the show. They would have fit in great at a club, but it seemed kind of strange to have them do their act at a concert, where everyone is sitting down. They weren't bad, just didn't really fit in.

Once Britney hit the stage I don't think anyone sat down for the rest of the night. Everyone there seemed to have a great time and I thought that the newspaper was pretty hard on her with their after concert critique. I guess if you aren't a fan, you just aren't a fan. It certainly didn't have anything to do with her performance on Monday night. It was incredible and I'm glad I got the chance to go!

Every Monday starts out the same way around here.

Early. Really. Early.

As in 6:30 a.m.

Now you may be asking yourself why in the crap does a stay at home mom get up at 6:30 a.m. if their kid will sleep in? Believe me, I ask myself that same question each and every Monday.

Marin's gymnastics class is on Monday mornings. This is our first summer being in the class. We started around Thanksgiving this past year. It was nice and toasty in the heated gym all winter. As we have discovered, is also nice and toasty in the non-airconditioned gym in the summer.

So, our class time was moved up 2 full hours, in order to take advantage of the small window of time in which the gym does not feel like an oven. Apparently, baking a handful of 2 year olds in the name of sport is frowned upon. The parents of the early risers in the class were giddy with excitement. I, feeling like the lone dissenter, kept my mouth shut and agreed to the earlier hour.

Now every Monday at 6:30 a.m., I literally try to kick my own ass.

Since we returned from Yellowstone, Marin and I have had a hard time getting settled back into a routine. Both of us just want to sleep and/or lay around all the time. I don't know if it is the heat or the simple fact that real life isn't as cool and exciting as being on vacation. Either way, we are both bummed and seriously bored of looking at each other. ha!

Not much else is going on except dreaming of more trips! Matthew and I have our yearly adults only anniversary trip next month! We are all booked and ready to go! Marin will be staying at home with Mimi (my mom) coming down to keep him. We are already counting down the days!

Marin came to me yesterday carrying a seashell that he collected on our last trip to the beach. He held it up and said, "Shell. Want more shells. Marin. Beach." Man will he be super pissed if he finds out he is staying home! Shhhh! Don't tell!

Matthew, Marin, and I just returned from Yellowstone National Park. It was such an amazingly beautiful place and we are already talking about our next visit. You can see all the pictures over on Marin's blog. Be sure to click the link to "Older Posts" at the bottom of each page. We took so many pictures on the trip and ended up posting close to 50 pictures per day on the blog. So, the posts got "bumped" quicker than they normally do. We (and by We, I mean Matthew) :) plan to go back and label each photo and let our readers know what exactly it is that they are seeing. We also have plans for a cool video. Be patient with us though. We're now trying to get unpacked and settled back into a normal routine. Thanks for following along!