A Rather Strange Occurrence...

So...it's a tradition in our little family to finish all of our Christmas shopping before Halloween. It's all due to Ty. He's the guy that's always on top of things around here. He thinks ahead. He plans stuff, and he's super organized. I am SOOO very grateful for this, because although I do have many fabulous qualities, being a super-organized planner is not really my thing. But if you want to know THE RIGHT WAY to load my dishwasher, or THE ONLY WAY to organize my silverware drawer, I'm your girl.

Anyway, this year being like most others (despite the fact that my classes are keeping me crazy busy with massive amounts of studying), we went...well...Christmas shopping. (Shocking, right?)

We went to Salt Lake, to the Gateway, in fact. There, I hoped to find all of the things that I was looking for at the time: A gift for my mom (failed--I ended up finding something elsewhere), a gift for my sister (failed--didn't have what we wanted, had to get it online), and certain elements for my chosen Halloween costume for this year (found about half of what I needed--had to go to two other stores to find the rest). I also wanted to make my traditional homage to my favorite store: Lucky Brand. I'm incredibly obsessed with their fabulous, high quality, leather handbags. In the end, I actually ended up getting a new one. It's so pretty. So very, very pretty...

Ahem...er...moving on...

Anyhoo, in our time at the Gateway, I noticed a pattern. A very unusual pattern.

I'm used to seeing a bunch of faces at malls and other such shopping centers, you expect such things, right? But this time...well...about 75% of the faces I saw were...Asian. I mean, authentic, from Asia, don't speak English Asian. Groups and groups of them. It was very unusual--and that's not even the strangest part of the day.

While we were waiting outside a shop for Ty to finish up a purchase and join us, the chiddlers and I were just sitting on a bench. Well, to be more accurate, CT was sitting on the bench, and AJ was climbing all over it while I stood there and worried that she would fall off and crack her head open. You know, the usual.

Then...about three Asian women stopped and one of them started rummaging around in her bag. She pulled out a cell phone and started fiddling with it. She handed it to one of her friends, and then looked at me and gestured toward AJ. Her meaning was clear: "May I take a picture with her?" I nodded, and the girl sat by my daughter, had her friend take a couple of pictures, and then nodded to me and put the phone back in her bag. All of the women fawned over AJ for a couple of seconds, one of them just touched her chin with her finger tips and smiled at her. Then they all walked away just as Ty was joining us.

I mean, I know my kids are adorable. Irresistibly so, actually. But strangers wanting photos with one of them was rather unexpected. Especially since they pretty much ignored my son throughout the whole incident. I considered the idea that she was wearing an Angry Birds t-shirt...but I can't be sure that that was the reason. At least, that's the theory I presented to CT as an explanation.

Oh well. Now I have an interesting story to tell, I guess.

Oh, and here's a picture I took in Barnes and Noble of what has to be THE best book title I've EVER seen. (I burst out laughing aloud. A lady was passing by and gave me the old "I'm totally judging you right now" look. Screw her. It's not my fault she has no sense of humor!)

PS: We did drive past the big arena in town, and saw that there was some huge Nuskin/electronics-type convention in town. Ty saw most of the Asian visitors at the mall wearing badges for it, so that's more than likely the reason they were all in Salt Lake that weekend. Just in case you were wondering.