Birthday Boy

Yesterday was Tom's birthday!

We had a ton of fun and Thomas had a lot of surprises. Our morning started out with a breakfast in bed of cold cereal - yum!

Then, Tom's best friend Josh came up from Tucson to visit for the day. We went to a store called Fry's Electronics where Josh let Thomas pick out a present. He chose a game called Overlord II.

After that Josh took us out to eat for second-breakfast at a Waffle House.

Around 1:00, we drove to Tempe Town Lake and went on a two hour segway tour. None of us have ever been on a segway before. It was a ton of fun! It was really easy and relaxing.

At 6:00 that evening, Thomas had his biggest surprise, a party! For the past few months, I have been secretly planning to invite some of Toms family over for dinner.

The only thing that I told Thomas was that I was going to make him dinner for his birthday, and that he had to wear a "cowboy outfit." He guessed that I was taking him horseback riding or to a rodeo after dinner.

Instead if a horseback ride, or a rodeo - we had a Murder Mystery Dinner. It was so much fun and everyone dressed up like they were in the Wild West.

Thomas was very happy and surprised!

MONSTER TRUCK

Thomas and I have something that we refer to as our "white trash" list. Our white trash list is a list of things that we think some people would judge us for doing. If something is fun to do and you can find people in cut-off jeans or wearing mullets, then we put it on the list.

This list includes things like:
1. Visiting the county fair
2. Going to the X-games
3. Attending the rodeo
4. Watching Nascar
5. Seeing a demolition derby
6. Going to a music concert (Thomas has never seen a live band perform)

A week or two ago Thomas and I went to a monster truck rally. The mullets there were glorious to behold! And I don't think I have ever seen so many tattooed bodies in one building. Since we didn't want to stand out, we dressed-down for the occasion *note the fashionable orange ear plugs*.


For those of you who have never been to a Monster Truck Rally, let me give you a little insight... First of all, trucks have names. You don't cheer for a particular driver, you cheer for your favorite MONSTER TRUCK! They have names like "Grave Digger," "Ultimate Destruction," "Bullseye," and "Superman" (pictured below).


There are 2 parts to the Rally. The first part of a Monster Truck Rally is the race. Only 2 cars race at a time, and the 2 cars do not race side by side; it's too dangerous and they're too large for that. They start at opposite ends of the arena and the finish line is in the center of the track. Pictured below are Bullseye and Grave Digger racing (Grave Digger won this round).


The racing is done tournament style with the winner of each race moving up in the bracket to a quarter-final, semi-final, and finally the top 2 trucks have a final race. The winner of the tournament was Ultimate Destruction. He was so happy, he did a victory roll and had to be removed from the arena by a bulldozer.

The second part of the rally is the Freestyle Event. Each truck is given 2 minutes to do as many insane tricks as they can. They are judged on their difficulty level and accuracy - sort of like gymnastics only it's cars on steroids. The freestyle is way more fun to watch, and is everything I imagined it to be. They do things like wheelies and jump over buses.



The best freestyle show was done by Grave Digger, but for some reason, all the good trucks always seemed to finish up upside-down.


It was tons of fun and just as "white trash-y" as I always hoped it would be! But the most important thing that I learned was that you should always remember your fashionable orange ear plugs.

Family Fun!

The past couple of weeks have been filled with good times. We have been fortunate enough to spend some time with a lot of our family.

First, Thomas had his Liljenquist family reunion in Bear Lake in July. It was a lot of fun and 13 out of the 15 living Liljenquist kids were able to make it. The cabin that we all stayed in was HUGE! My favorite part of the weekend was the Karaoke night where I was impressed by all the talented singers. Unfortunately, I didn't take any pictures I stole this one off the internet.


Secondly, Congratulations goes out to Ben and Shawneen on the birth of their son, James. We got to go see him about a week after he came home from the hospital. This photo is of my sister-in-law Shawneen holding James. I love it when new grandkids are born because it makes me feel like I'm not the new one in the Liljenquist family anymore.


The next week, we started a new training class for our dog Tarzan. He's a quick learner and is having a ton of fun with the class. He now knows several new commands and is learning all about how to be a polite K-9.


Finally, my mom came to visit us last weekend. It was really great to have her here. We didn't do anything exciting but I am finally caught up on all my laundry! Thanks Mom!