Goodbye Tumbleweeds, Hello Cave Nation

So, Lois and I have lived at my parents' house in Eagle Mountain for over 5 years now.   Mom and Dad have been great to live with.   I think I could count the number of times I've mowed the lawn with my shoes on.   Well, I always mow the lawn with my shoes on.   I just mean that I could count the times on my fingers and wouldn't need my toes.   No, I don't really need my toes to count that high, it's just a silly saying!   Okay, forget it.   I'm saying that Dad almost always mows the lawn.   I guess he figured he can't give me chores to do since I work for Lois now.   We've also had the benefit of Mom and Dad volunteering to tend the boys (for free!) so that we can go out on dates.   It's nice when we can just put the boys to bed and go for a drive, and since Mom and Dad are in the house, we have no qualms about leaving the kids.   And sometimes you're just in the mood for nachos and Mountain Dew, right?

The city of Eagle Mountain is not without its charms.   You know in the old Peanuts cartoons where Snoopy's cousin Spike makes "snowmen" and "Christmas trees" out of tumbleweeds in the desert?   It's kind of like that.   Who wouldn't want to live in a place like that?  

But, the time has come at last for us to bid a fond adieu to the tumbleweed capital of Utah County.   We're moving to American Fork, which my sister Carmela very helpfully pointed out is called "Cave Nation."   I learned this mere hours after closing the deal on the house, so there's no turning back.   Now, I admit that most school mascots are kind of stupid.   I grew up in Orem, home of the Mountain View Bruins.   I was always under the impression that a bruin was a certain type of bear.   But it's not.   It's simply another word for bear.   But it's really not even that.   It came from an old Dutch fable, where the bear was named "Bruin," which is the Dutch word for "brown."   That's just silly.  

But come on, the Cavemen?   How does anyone even pretend that cavemen represent anything that a person would want to emulate?   Cavemen lived in caves because they were too stupid to build their own houses.   Their marriage ceremony involved conking a cavewoman on the head with a club and then dragging her by the hair back to the cave.   Expressions such as "living in a cave" have become cultural metaphors for a modern human who displays traits of extreme ignorance or uncivilized behavior.

Here's one of my favorite Jack Handy Deep Thoughts: I bet when the Neanderthal kids made a snowman, someone would always end up saying, "Don't forget the thick, heavy brows." Then they would all get embarrassed because they remembered they had the big hunky brows too, and they'd get mad and eat the snowman.

So anyway, we're going to live in American Fork, aka "Cave Nation."   When it comes to it, "American Fork" is kind of a silly name for a city too.   It used to be called Lake City, but settlers renamed it in 1860 after the American Fork River that runs through it to avoid confusion with Salt Lake City.   I can see how a caveman might confuse the two.  

We are pretty excited about the new house.   It is a rambler built in 2001 with a fully finished basement and a 3 car garage.   It has 3 bedrooms and 2 bathrooms upstairs, and 2 bedrooms and 1 bathroom downstairs.   There's also a little kitchenette downstairs with a fridge, sink and dining area.  So, I guess if we wanted to, you know, have dinner in the basement or something, it would be that much easier to do it.

Before we knew we would be closing on the house, I booked a trip to DC for work, which is where I am currently.   We didn't want to delay the closing, which was scheduled for the 12th, so I notarized a Power of Attorney document which allowed Lois to sign all of the closing documents.   So while I was eating fish & chips at McGinty's, Lois was buying our house.  

It's all taken care of now, and we're going to move this Saturday.   If you know me and are looking for something to do, feel free to stop by the house to move a few boxes, or maybe a refrigerator or dresser.   We'll get started around 9am.  Also, this Saturday is my Mom's birthday, so there's that too.