Birk Adventures

I feel nostalgic for our senior year St. Patrick's Day party. We had green pancakes, planned it to be at Heidi's, who lives on Greenbriar Circle, and designated JYV (my green Mazda protege) as the official car for the night b/c it was green. And of course I wore my dangly, sparkly 4-leaf clover earrings that I finally threw away about a year ago. Good times! Anyway, I feel like blogging has become like my journaling--quite sporadic with aspirations to be consistent. Oh well. Last week was a fun and busy week for us! My sister, Anna, was in town from Arizona which was so great! Before getting married and moving to Arizona she practically lived at our apt, so we miss having her around. Monday we went to Salt Lake for a bday party for all the March bdays in my family (6 of them if you include Melba, whose bday is Feb 28). Tuesday I worked, had an awful night, then came home to my personal Mission Impossible video and ensuing quest to uncover the clues asking me to the law school...

You know how sometimes you have a great idea that actually ends up being really lame? Well, when my co-worker who takes most the 6-hour shifts that I do had a baby, I thought it was a great idea to pick up a bunch of her shifts and make some extra money for us. It sounded like a great idea but has been really LAME going to the hospital 4 nights/week! Hence the reason I have not blogged in forever. This schedule only lasts this week and next--hallelujah! So I finally have an evening home and have loved catching up on all your blogs! Now I'll write about some of the highlights from the last month or so. Where to start?... First off, I need to say how wonderful Adam is. He has a beautiful voice, plays the guitar, and used to write songs. (He bought himself an electric guitar after the mission, but that's another story for another day...) Well, I've been begging him to write me a song for awhile and he totally surprised me on Valentine's Day with a song he wrote for me, plu...

Hi fans! (DISCLAIMER: Anything you might or might not read in the following post is not necessarily a statement of fact and does not represent the views, beliefs or opinions of BIRK Inc.) I. After Martha's comment on her last post I (Adam) felt that I should honor you all with my presence on this blog. Martha's quirks are kind of cool and actually useful at times. Not only does Martha make mathematical equations out of license plates, she also has an amazing ability to remember them. Let me take a moment to expound on this: When I think of our car I think "blue", "civic", "dirty", etc. When Martha thinks of our car she thinks "498 VFH." (When she thinks of me she thinks "number 1"). When we're driving around town and I think one of our friends is in the car in front of us I just ask Martha and she can tell me ("Oh, no, sweety, that's not the Martins; their license number is ........"etc.). What's funny is ...

I have been tagged by my sister Carrie to share some of my quirks. Surprisingly, I have had kind of a hard time thinking of quirks about myself. I think I'm just so used to being me that I don't what's weird and what's not. Anyway... I'll start with Carrie's suggestion for me: 1. I organize my fruit snacks and then eat them in a very specific order. I must end with red, but don't like to eat 2 of the same color in a row. So before I even eat one, I scan out the whole group of them and see where I need to start. Preferably I get down to one of every color then eat them least yummy to most yummy: yellow, orange, purple, red. I gave my family a lesson about the art of eating fruit snacks on the beach once but don't know that I have any converts yet. 2. Everything for me is numerical. For example, when I think of a month, I instantly think what number it is, so September equals 9 in my mind. Further, I hate not knowing what time it is. I feel all out of cont...

This is a little late, but I just want to wish Marian Happy #1 Birthday! She turned 1 on January 12. It's a strange milestone for me because I feel like having a one-year old should make me a seasoned parent or something, but I still feel like I have no idea what I'm doing! We had a fun celebration for her though. We had some friends over from the ward the day before her birthday and on her actual birthday celebrated with my family in Salt Lake. She actually did a good job of not getting too messy even though I let her eat her cake by herself! Marian staring at Robert Stong who helped her blow out her candle. It was great singing the "We're glad you're not 1, we're glad you're not 2, ..." song (which I sing faithfully to every family member, including my grandma who turned 95 last year) because it was an impressive "We're glad that you're 1!" Marian with her cousin Lizzie. Why can't birthdays stay this exciting? Adam was the amaz...

This was one of my favorite parts of Christmas--"dancing" around the Christmas tree. We held hands and walked around the tree singing carols. This is definitely something I would like to incorporate into our own family traditions. We called Denmark "Mordor" while we were there because it was always gray and cold. This is about as light as it would get during the day (except the two days the sun temporarily peeked out from behind the clouds). This is us walking on the road Adam's family lives on. These are the "nisse" or fairies/pixies that are part of Danish Christmas tradition. The Birks had a cute display of them in their house. Fireworks are a huge deal for New Year's. Adam's brothers spent hundreds of dollars on them. I was picturing little sparklers, but no. These are serious fireworks! (The illegal ones in America.) We had to wear goggles to observe (for some reason I just couldn't smile and try to look cute wearing them). We did some...

Denmark! We arrived after a long 24+ hours of travel on Friday and have been having a great time. Adam's family is always so gracious and welcoming to us. I've always thought Adam grew up how I imagine the Little House on the Prairie and this just confirms it! They live out in the beautiful Danish countryside next to 2 neighbors: a pig farmer and another house that is new but re-built just like an 1800 farm. The house is heated by a wood-burning stove that Adam and his brothers go out back and chop the wood for. Saturday we went and cut down our own Christmas tree and brought it back and decorated it yesterday. We also went around caroling yesterday to different friends of the Birks. It was freezing standing in the cold to sing, but the people were so excited we came and gave us delicious Danish candies (often homemade). It's all so cozy. Marian is having fun here, although the house is a little treacherous for a toddler, with a really steep staircase and balcony with slats...