Definitely Blogworthy

I posted an abbreviated version of this on my Facebook account today, but I think it deserves a more lengthy post, it was that good.
Our zoo membership expires tomorrow, so we decided that we would go to the zoo one last time, until we renew. It was your ordinary day at the zoo, a bit hot and sweaty, lethargic animals, excited and grumpy children, you know....pretty standard.
The story starts, however, near the old polar bear exhibit. Dave and I both spotted this family composed of a man, a woman, and two boys who were probably 6 and 7. The 35? year old man had no shirt, a mullet, sunglasses, shitty tattoos on both shoulders, and a "hard" looking face.
The woman was wearing a long black tight dress (kind of biker style,) with spaghetti straps. She had long blond hair and probably had about 190 pounds on her 5'10 frame.
The boys were both dirty blonde with goofy faces. They both had missing teeth, dirty clothes, and really, it was hard to get a good look at them because they were running wild.
Here comes the best part: The family had rented a green zoo wagon (big enough for maybe a couple toddlers to ride in.) They had stacked 4 coolers in this wagon and the woman was being pulled around on top of the coolers in the wagon, by the man. No, she was not doing this to be funny, she was lazy. She fell off several times, would get after her husband, then back on. Dave and I were having an EXTREMELY hard time not staring with our mouths agape.
The two back tires of the wagon were bent outward at an angle, and the rubber on one wheel was completely torn off, the other wheel's rubber was shredding and flapping against the pavement as the wagon rolled on. He wheeled her down to the penguin exhibit (if you can picture it, there is a small hill.) Then he wheeled her back up the hill, huffing and puffing. At the top of the hill, a wheel fell off, and the woman started cursing up a storm about the "shitty zoo wagon!," and how they were going to exchange it for a better wagon. She then started yelling "why do I gotta carry everyone elses F*#$ing stuff?" She was carrying nothing - everything was in the coolers. SERIOUSLY?!? I mean - REALLY?????!!!!????
I was beyond disgusted.
We thought that was the last we'd seen of her, but as we were leaving at 6 pm, letting Isaac play with the big water ball near the entrance, we see dudette, throwing a MAJOR fit, and causing a huge scene. Apparently they had behaved inappropriately all over the zoo because I heard security telling her that they'd had about 30 complaints from zoo-goers, plus they saw disorderly behavior. It was like a movie. Everyone was staring. Security was trying to escort her out, telling her that her party was being asked to leave. Instead of leaving, she was grabbing her kids arms and running toward the train, telling the kids to hop on the train. The husband was yelling at zoo security telling them they were going to sue their asses for everything they had - they would own the zoo after this was over. I could see parents of other children putting imaginary earmuffs on their kids' ears. Oh, also, the man was pulling a *different*zoo wagon full of coolers at this point. They then started screaming at the zoo security about what effed up people they are - kicking kids out of the zoo? How dare they? Their kids should be allowed to ride on the train dammit (as she continued to hop over the bars toward the train entrance) Apparently the woman also thought that the train people would just go along with her plan and take the family for a spin, disregarding security. Duh. Finally, they had to physically escort the family outside the gates to where a police car awaited. The other best part is that they never let go of that zoo wagon, it left the zoo with them (Thank you - it's probably tainted.)
My first thought was - REALLY?!?!? My second thought was - Dear God, please do not let this family move into Roosevelt's boundaries. My third, fourth and fifth thoughts were REALLY!?!? My last thought was, these people deserve to be caged more than these animals.
How do people like this even exist? How do they survive? How are people like this fertile enough to have children? REALLY?!?!? Seriously.

Mr. Bodygong

This blog received its title from our beloved Isaac. For a few weeks, he would often randomly say “bodygong” (said exactly how it’s spelled.) I started calling him Mr. Bodygong after that.
Isaac has some bizarre nicknames and some run of the mill nicknames. Some of the nicknames that he has had in his 15 months include:
Boog
Boogie
Booger
Boogaloo
Bugs
JubJub
Mr. Vagoo (it’s the hard g, people!)
Mr. Bodygong
Mister
Sweetheart
Bud
Buddy
Budge
Budgie
Budgeroo
Fuss Budget
I am sure I could add more to the list, but those are the ones that come to mind right now.

In other news...
I am entertained through and through by the words Isaac tries to use. My current favorites include:
Gunk (skunk,) pees (please,) yemin (lemon,) beans!, sooz (shoes,) tick (chick.)
It seems a little embarrassing, but I can’t really say what Isaac’s first word was (besides names like mama/dada/bee/daydee). He began saying things fairly early (around 8 months,) but his method was very bizarre. He would say a word almost clear as a bell, then he wouldn’t say that word again for weeks or months. I guess if I had to choose, I’d say “ball.” He’s been saying ball pretty regularly since around 8 mos. He’s going to be a little chatterbox when he learns how to ask questions.
Lastly, Isaac (Mr. Bodygong,) will be 16 months old on Sunday. We still think his eyes are changing colors and haven't settled yet. They went from being dark blue (as many newborns are,) to brighter blue, to greener, to greyish blue, to this:
What color would you say they are? (you may need to click to enlarge the eyes)

A Dreadful Language?

So I started taking an ESL endorsement (English as a Second Language.) The endorsement is an intensive program through Weber State University, and essentially, it is meant to instill good teaching practices so that teachers may better help students who are English Language Learners (which we have a lot of in Utah!)
Anyway, I have been putting off getting this endorsement for three years now. One excuse after another (I’m going to Europe, sorry. I’m pregnant and feeling sick, sorry. I’m on maternity leave, sorry!) Those are all valid excuses, but mostly, I did not want to give up two weeks of my precious summer with Dave, and this year, with my Isaac! I decided, however, that I better just buck up and get this done! I finished the very time consuming 80 hours (two weeks) of class yesterday, and am happy to report that it isn’t as bad as I thought it would be. I will be in class every Wednesday night until next April finishing up the remaining 12 credit hours. After I got my Master’s degree a few years ago, I was sure that I’d never have to go back to school (at least a university setting,) so now that I am, I feel a little crabby about it, and a bit resentful that I am spending my time doing this. However, I am sure I will take plenty away from this class that will be helpful, and I will be glad that I did it after I am done!
I learned some interesting things about language acquisition, but my favorite class was phonology and syntax. Did you know we are born knowing, and using over 300 sounds, but as we develop language we narrow those down drastically? Those of us that are born into the English language narrow the sounds down to 44. It’s different across languages/cultures, but I find that pretty amazing. I never put much thought into the whole concepts of accents, until this class. Obviously, when we speak another language, we can’t hear our own accent. I didn’t realize though, that it had to do with not hearing the difference in sounds. For instance, Japanese often will pronounce the initial “s” sound of a word using a “sh,” so instead of saying seat, they would say sheet. If you were to say sheet and seat to them, they would not hear the difference. Interesting, I say! This is just one of thousands of examples. Did you know that most languages have 5 vowel sounds total. English has 14 vowels sounds, making it one of the most difficult languages to learn to speak, not to mention READ (see below!!)
Here is a poem from a letter published in the London Sunday Times in 1965. I think it sums it up!

A Dreadful Language?

I take it you already know
Of tough and bough and cough and dough?
Others may stumble but not you,
On hiccough, thorough, laugh and through.
Well done! And now you wish, perhaps,
To learn of less familiar traps?

Beware of heard, a dreadful word
That looks like beard and sounds like bird,
And dead: it’s said like bed, not bead—
For goodness’ sake don’t call it ‘deed’!
Watch out for meat and great and threat
(They rhyme with suite and straight and debt).

A moth is not a moth in mother
Nor both in brother, broth in brother,
And here is not a match for there,
Nor dear and fear for bear and pear,
And then there’s dose and rose and lose—
Just look them up – and goose and choose,
And cork and work and card and ward,
And font and front and word and sword,
And do and go and thwart and cart—
Come, come, I’ve hardly made a start!
A dreadful language? Man alive!
I’d mastered it when I was five!

Georgia

We have been back from vacation for 6 days now and I have been a serious slacker – more about that later. We had a great time, though, enjoying Georgia and spending time with Dave’s side of the family.

First, I must say, I was quite nervous about Isaac traveling on a plane for nearly four hours (not to mention car, airport, waiting time, etc.) Isaac is not a kid who likes to sit still for more than 3 or 4 minutes at a time unless he’s sleeping – and I’m not exaggerating. We were able to get the bulkhead so we had extra space in front of us, which also meant no kicking of his wee little feet on an innocent passengers chair. Yes! Off to a good start. It was a Christmas miracle. Isaac was my traveling hero this trip. He didn’t make a fuss at all on the plane. He was content with napping, watching a portable DVD player, playing with tissue (of course,) and reading books with us. He also played peek-a-boo with the people behind us. He also had to travel in the car for five hours when we went to Tybee Island, and on the way home he had to travel 5 hours by car, airport, and 4 hours by plan, car. He did just as wonderfully. WA HOOOO!!!!!!!

Dave’s brother, Jiri, married his fabulous wife Jen back in January in Argentina. How lucky are they? They had their wedding reception (Vala Garden Party) in Atlanta a week ago, so that was our main motivation for going to Georgia. It was a beautiful reception for a beautiful couple. Congrats to them! Unfortunately, we didn’t have the camera at the reception, so no photos of that.

Isaac was so happy to see his Grandma and Grandpa Vala (Baba and Pop, self named by Isaac) again after four or five months of not seeing them. We spent about 5 days with them, Jiri, and Jen at a beach house on Tybee Island. It was wonderful catching up, laughing, and watching Isaac enjoy the beach for the first time. He enjoyed the water, and we all thought he was going to LOVE playing in the sand since he loves playing in the dirt and with rocks, etc. He was a huge fan of the ocean, and the waves, but the boy does NOT like sand to be stuck to his body, especially his feet.

We did get some photos of the rest of our vacation.

In Atlanta, we did a little bit of this:

But when we went to Tybee Island, Isaac did a lot of this:



Some of this:







And of course, plenty of this :)



And maybe a little too much of this (again with the tissue! he did this himself...)