A New Addition To Our Family (not a baby) PARR The Fish

I was at Wal-Mart on Friday and promised Jake that we could get him a toy. I usually just grab a toy and let him play with it while there (he looses attention after about 20 minutes) and then put it back, but this time I said I would get him one to go home (He was a good boy all week). I was getting things for the house and we passed the aisle for fish and he squealed with delight and said "oh mommy, I want a fish. Please can I go see the fish?" I said that we could go look but not buy one, and stopped to look. Jake persisted to ask and finally said that he would rather have a fish than a toy. I was ready to say no again, but after thinking about the pros -v- the cons, I realized that a toy would be about $10.00 (If I was lucky) and a fish was only $0.89. Well, you can only guess what my answer was after that; "Of course you can have a fish Jakie" We already had everything from our last fish "Pricoli", (the beta king) who died unexpectedly of the cold (when we forgot to have him fed, and turned off the heat during our weeks long trip out of town) at Christmas last year.

Jake was so excited and said, "I know which one I want. I want that one." He pointed to about the most plain fish in the tank (again nice because it was only $0.89). The helper put in the net and started to get a fish that was all black and Jake yelled, "no you have to get Parr." We both looked at him with blank expressions unsure of what he wanted. Jake stared at us for a second and then explained that the plain fish with only some black was the one he wanted and that his name was Parr. Jake loves to name his animals (real or stuffed) funny names. Some previous pets (real or stuffed) have been Pricoli (as mentioned before), Prince, Paddington, Redverd, Polly, Beaky, Mimi, Jaxon, etc. He is quite funny with the names.

Anyway, we finally got Parr and brought him home and Jake has loved him since. We placed him up high on a shelf to ensure his survival but Jake gets play time each day with him. Here is a video of him welcoming Parr to the family. Enjoy.

The Red Caboose

So, anyone that knows Rick knows that he loves to discover hole in the wall places that offer yummy (greasy) foods for cheap. He loves fine foods as well, but since we are semi-poor the trend is the first one mentioned. Well, I gave him a bang for his buck when I turned him onto the Red Caboose. It is a hot dog stand (essentially) that offers many types of hot dogs and toppings for like $0.70 - $1.50. My real estate agent told me about it when he was showing me a home in a really little community near by (The home was great but too far out). On the way back we passed this place and he could not resist. He said that he comes here every chance he gets and we tried it.

It was super yummy and the Pittsburgh news crews chopper in (yes, I said "chopper") in right before they do the news shots for the days. The place looked a bit shabby at first so I was skeptical, but when I saw that people chopper 20 miles out of their way to eat something, it would be good.

I took Rick on Saturday after I saw the house and true to form, the line was about 20 people deep (it is always that way) and Rick was excited. I think he really liked it and luckily for us, it is 7 miles away, so we wont go to often. I don't think his arteries could take regular stops there. It was fun to try though. I think that one of our favorite parts of being in new places is that there is so much to discover.

Come visit us and we will take you to try for yourselves.

Primary Pride

I just love Primary! I have been serving as 2nd councilor of the Pittsburgh 2nd ward Primary for about 1 month and I just love it. I get to be in class to watch Jake learn and almost as much fun, I get to watch all of the children of the ward grow and learn. My duties range from keeping time on meetings, aiding the president in her needs, conducting meetings, making cookies and ,I don't know, pretty much anything needed. I also get to teach sharing time every 3rd Sunday or so and I think that is my favorite thing to do. I have done a few now and each time I have just loved sharing my simple testimony with about 15 little tykes that really want to learn. I have been surprised by the nerves I feel as I prepare the lessons and right before I teach and hate those, but I am blown away by the spirit I feel as I tell them special truths.

Today my lesson was on being reverent and thinking of baptismal covenants during Sacrament. I prepared a lesson that was pretty sound in doctrine but cut out each principle and put it on bright colored paper and made little reverence books (you see them in the Friend this month) for each child to do at home. As I taught I spoke of what the Sacrament is, why we have it, and what we should do during it. We learned thought songs, colored cut-outs, wiggle activities, and pure testimony. I really got a bit choked up as I told them of my testimony of its importance. I had so much fun with them and was shocked by their intelligence. Those are some really smart kids! They knew the answers to everything and really listened! I loved it. I think my favorite part of the lesson was when the little sunbeams in the front row came up to me after my lesson with their arms stretched wide and said, "we want to hug you." I hugged 3 of them and they said thank you for your lesson. AWWWW! How cute, huh! I seriously almost cried. They were so sincere and they just wanted to love me for teaching them. I love kids. Jakie hugged me too and then promptly licked my face and laughed so I was brought back to reality, but it was sweet anyway.

Well, I sure hope I get to do this calling for a while because I think experiences like that are what it is all about. Isn't Primary great? I am so glad that Jake loves it. I think it is so good for him and I just love the chance to help him grow closer to the Lord each week.

What the ????? Movie Review

Okay everyone, I just saw the freakiest, most whacked out movie ever!!! We took Jake to the $1 theater today to see Space Chimps and wow, I seriously think someone was on crack when they made that movie. The graphics for the film were okay for some parts and really primitive (like the aliens scenes). I am 29 years old and I had a hard time following what was going on for about 1/2 the time (bad writing, not because I am slow). Have you all seen it? I hope you got to see it for $1 like us. I wanted my money back and it was only $1, so I could only imagine how much it would have irked me to have paid $9.50 per person in a regular theater. If you paid full price, sorry. If you are contemplating taking the kiddies, well, do it on a night when there is nothing better that you could possibly be doing and don't pay more than a $1 for it!

Rick and I thought, what the heck are we watching the whole movie, but the funny part is that when I looked over at Jake he was loving it! I guess that if I think about it, there is not much for kids his age to dislike. There are chimpanzees, a space ship, random aliens and bright colors. What does a little thing like no plot, psychadelic scenes, funky aliens that make crazy noises (like loonie bin noises) matter? I guess that is why Rick and I go see these movies in the first place, fun time with Jakie. In the end that is all that matters on our family night out.

Tender Moments!

I just love the tender moments with Jacob when I see what a sweet, funny, expressive little man he is. We were walking home from getting the mail and Jake decided to practice skipping. He was laughing and looked back at me while in motion and fell. He skinned his little leg and his ankle started to bleed.

Jacob is much like me and does not like the sight of blood. Rick can see a hand hacked off and not get too phased, but paper cuts and scrapes make me woozy and even cry if it is mine. Jake cried when he fell out of embarrassment, but when he saw blood on his ankle he freaked out. He cried saying that he did not want to be broken and battered. (YEP, his word for hit is battered. We love it when he uses that word. He thought of it on his own.)

So, I picked him up and carried him back to the house, cleaned him up. His reactions were so funny and cute that I decided to film his sorrows. Here is what we saw:

Don't you just love him after that pitiful display! We sure did and we did give him a popsicle (his favorite treat!).

Our Apartment:

Mom, this one is for you! My mom loves to see where we live so she can imagine where we are when we are talking on the phone so I took pictures for her of the apartment to see. The upstairs in generic and nothing to show but the downstairs is where we spend 90 percent of our time. Take a look and enjoy.

What An Interesting Night!

What An Interesting Night! Rick and I decided to change things up last night and take Jake bowling for the first time. Rick got home at 6:30pm and we headed right out the door. We decided to go get dinner first and Rick suggested Chick-fil-A(amazing chicken sandwiches etc. Love it). I was not in the mood for chicken and I had a craving for Chinese food so we searched for the closest Chinese food restaurant on the GPS and found that it was 2 miles away. They must not love Chinese food here, because in Seattle there were literally 30 restaurants within a 1 mile drive or less.

We headed to the Royal Chinese Restaurant with excitement only to find 20 minutes later (yes, 2 miles here takes 20 minutes because everything is so hilly and I swear that the city planners were drunk when they made the roads!) that the restaurant was closed! UGH! I was ticked.
We decided to just got to the bowling alley 2 miles away and find something to eat near by. We headed over to the bowling alley and one rude attendant later our name was on the list for a lane and we were off to find somewhere to eat. We set the GPS to a Pizza Hut near by and lo and behold... they were closed too.

Jakie was now pretty irritated and said he still wanted pizza so we set the GPS for another pizza hut (when we got there 10 minutes later... )and they were take out only. No dining area!
So now we are all really hungry and ready to eat and there is no where to eat that is open or does not require us to eat in our car. I was beginning to think that a pizza on the tail gate of the van was in order but, luckily, we saw a tiny hole in the wall Chinese restaurant on the way back. We stopped to go in and found a dirty, empty restaurant that only had 2 tables (one open) to eat at. Things were over priced and the conditions looked scary! So, once again, we got into the van with Jake, crying about not wanting to get back in the car, and headed off to go anywhere that was open and clean.

All cravings were out the window at this point! We just wanted to eat somewhere, anywhere. We were all frustrated and I thought," hey, I saw a DQ not to far from here" so we headed in that direction. How many of you think we go to eat there???? Well, if you bet against us eating pizza, you were right! No luck for the hungry Shumways! We pulled up trying to smooth things over (promising Jake a dipped cone if he ate his dinner) only to find, moments later, that they only served desert. They did not offer any food! Since when does a restaurant only serve desert???

I could not believe that we had hit our 4th place and that an hour after we went looking for food we were still hungry. So, with Jake loaded up once again, listening to whimpers of starvation and frustration from Jake, we headed to the one place that could not fail, the one place that is last resort, sure thing, never gonna change, always gonna suffice: McDonald's. We saw the golden arches and with a sure mind filled Jake's head with visions of dinner, ice cream and the "tubes" (the play area). We once again pulled up, unloaded on the back side of the restaurant and rounded the corner to the front only to see that the freaking drive Thru was under construction and that they whole McDonalds was CLOSED! It was closed!! Since when does McDonalds ever close!!!!??? It is always open. Why else would we choose it! I could not believe it. I thought, we are in HELL!! I stopped in the middle of the drive thru and thought, "oh my gosh, Jakie is going to have a nervous break down." I picked him up, mid fit, and rushed back to the van to tell him and strapped him in and broke the news that they were closed. I was so irked that we had just spent so much time finding somewhere to go and we were now going to a place that we had passed over an hour ago! I did not care at this point. I was going to eat paper if need be.

It was now about 8pm and too late to eat and get to go bowling so we abandoned our activity in search of Chic-fil-A and hoped that their play ground area was still open. When we got there, we were in luck. They were both open and Jake went into the play area after a nice meal (we were starving!!). Our dinner conversation had been about us missing great friends like we had in UT and Seattle. We love it here, but we really wanted to meet more people that wanted to spend time and get to know each other.

Rick and decided to join Jake in the play area, to be sure he was not killing the 2 other kids in there, and while watching Jakie, the man next to us (father of the other 2 kids) started to talk to us. He was from the moment he spoke one of the most genuine, interested people I have ever met. Rick and I love people like this. All of our friends are like this in one way or another. He said his name was Dan and we began to talk about work, Utah, Seattle, Pittsburgh, family, kids, food, you name it, we were talking about it. He was probably 8-10 years our senior but still just a fun guy. His wife was home having some alone time and he was taking time with his boys. Jakie played happily with Dan's 2 Children (Johah and Josiah) and we chatted happily. The kids decided to be super heroes and called to each other as it was the others turn to "die".

We ended up letting the kids play for about an hour and 1/2 as we talked and at 9:30pm we realized that we were past bedtime. We told Dan it was a pleasure and on our way out he invited us to dinner to meet his wife and hang out. They have a lovely home here in Jefferson Hills on 13 acres not far from our apt so we were close and could accept the invite. We left sure that we had just met one of the nicest people in Pittsburgh and as we left Rick said, "well, now I know why everything was closed or did not serve food. We were supposed to come later, that's all." I had never considered that but I guess if you wine for something like we did, the Lord can certainly make it happen. In our case, it was just a fun friend to hang out with. I bet his wife is just as fun as he is. We will let you know. I was glad to see that our night was not in vain. Jake had fun and we met a friend.