My Visit to Cities I Don't Really Like, But With People That I Do

That's not a very nice title. But alas, Phoenix and Denver are cities I don't quite get and don't really care to. As an exercise in trying hard not be be a total jerk, I will list things I do like about each dumb city:

                                     PHOENIX:

1. Good Mexican food

2. Amazing ladies' hair-dos

3. Really bad "cool dad" tattoos

4. In-N-Out

5. Nice bird sounds

DENVER:
1. The pretty mountains
2. The Tattered Cover bookstore
3. Good beer
4. It's pretty clean
5. The airport has a really great satanic-looking horse sculpture

In Phoenix, I stayed with my sister who is also pregnito and due 6 days after me. When we went to collect my luggage at the airport after my 16 hour journey (I don't want to talk about it anymore. It was horrible.) the luggage lady cried when she noticed we were both pregnant and I told her my sister didn't announce she was expecting until 2 months after I did because she didn't want to "steal my thunder." Then she gave me my suitcase.

The next day, we met up with my mom who took me to a baby super-store: 

I was horrified with the name of the store! Really? Oh well. My parents bought us a really nice stroller there. That was very, very nice of them. The young dude in the stroller department was very smug about his stroller knowledge. He aggressively demonstrated how each stroller collapses and folds back up. He was about 20 years old.

My visit with my parents ended with an elaborate sandwich spread at their house, followed by more gifts and a weird impromptu game where my mom held up a cardboard target and we took turns shooting at her with a toy gun that shot foam bullets. It's important to remember where you come from, I guess.

Then, my sister, brother-in-law, my 3 year old nephew and I headed to Denver to see our other sister and her family. The car trip was 14 hours long and my nephew yelled at me every time I tried to sleep. I finally figured out that if I wore sunglasses and kept an open magazine on my lap, he assumed I was reading and left me alone. Kids are dumb.

Micah met up with us the next morning and we all had fun being together. I had a great time telling my sister that she has a giant ass (she doesn't), making fun of my brother-in-law for making the same jokes he has since I was 15 ("Hey Em--I got some tri-tip just for you!"... I'm a vegetarian) and making fun of my other sister's every move. I know they all love my jokes!

Almost the entire trip, my sister and I wore matching outfits:

I can't believe Christine didn't break that planter with her enormous ass!

Our last day of our trip, Micah's family joined mine and we had a "Baby-Q." It was a hoot. We ate great food and enjoyed ice cubes that had plastic babies frozen inside! Then we came home to the terrible heat wave and discovered that Micah forgot to flush his pee down the toilet and it sat, permeating the bathroom, which by then smelled like a bus station restroom situated in the center of the amazon rainforest. But, the plants in there looked great!

So, even though I feel that Phoenix is hot and scary and Denver is impotent, the people I know there are great and not impotent!