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Every year our friends host a “white elephant” gift exchange at Christmas time, and I often struggle to come up with a creative idea for a gift that’s both cool and lame at the same time. But a couple of years ago a thought struck me, and I’ve been working on it since then.

Behold, two thousand dollars in Amazon gift cards!

Because my credit card rewards program offers gift cards as an option, both Laralee and I have been cashing out our rewards as Amazon cards for years. It’s an easy way to buy books and games without feeling too “guilty” about spending the money. Well, I’ve been saving them for a couple of years now and have a stack of eighty that have all been used. I’ve slipped one unused card into the pile, so the lucky recipient of this gift will get twenty-five dollars. However, they’ll have to type in the fifteen-character codes on the backs of every one of these before they find the one that’s valid. Mwah ha HAAAA!

Cool! And lame!

I’m not quite sure what to make of this…

I’m ordering a Christmas gift, and I have two shipping options.

Hmm, tough decision. Free, by Christmas, or pay fifty bucks and get it four days later?

I like this.

Megan saw this at the grocery store and sent me a photo. She was thinking of Zaque, of course.

Today in church, we were reminded that complimenting someone can be a great way to show our love and respect for them.

I turned to Zaque and said, “I really like your eyebrows.”

He responded, “I really like how you have two nostrils. No more, and no less.”

I busted up laughing, which of course was a little awkward because we were in the middle of the church service. Thanks a lot, Z.

Zaque frustrates me sometimes because he isn’t a very good planner, and just sort of throws things together at the last minute. My frustration isn’t necessarily with that– it’s with the fact that regardless of how poorly he plans, somehow things always work out anyway.

Take, for example, last week. College applications for BYU were due on Saturday at midnight. Something went wrong with transmitting his SAT scores, and he didn’t find out until late Friday. It was too late to do anything, so he could only hope that the scores would magically be sent. Also, one of the teachers he’d asked to provide a recommendation hadn’t completed it yet, and of course it was also too late to remind the teacher. Keep in mind that Zaque had months to get all this done, but only in the final 24 hours did he figure out that stuff was missing.

It looked like he would miss the deadline, not get into college, and end up as a hobo living under a bridge.

But nooooooo. Not Zaque! We found out today that the deadline has been extended until this Thursday. That’ll give him time to remind his teacher about the recommendation and figure out the SAT scores. And once again, his procrastination works out fine.

How does he do it?

When Zaque plays video games with friends, he uses a headset and a chat application so he can talk with them in real-time while they’re playing. (LAN parties are so early 2000’s!) Since we can only hear his half of the conversation, it makes for some interesting times.

He often gets, shall we say, very animated during these games, and absolutely screams as he’s playing. Some of my favorite recent lines have been:

(does he even know what the Thunderdome is? That was, like, early 80’s)

(sung at the top of his lungs to the tune of Bon Jovi’s song, of course)

I think this sums up kids and moms throughout history.

Today one of the kids in Laralee’s church class– a ten-year-old girl– gave her a little note after class.

How sweet! And dang it, why didn’t I think of that first?