We started at Winfield Manor

The Garage Debacle

2012-01-10T10:34:00.008-07:00

So there was this one time that I backed out of the garage without opening the door first. . .

It happened last month at the beginning of December. I was in a hurry because I was running late for a Relief Society activity and I thought I needed to be there in time to play the opening song (I'm the pianist). I usually hit the garage button by the back door but I had a plate of treats in my hand for the activity so I was just going to hit the garage remote in my car instead. Except that I spaced it and backed out. . .right into the garage door.

(This is after Michael hammered the door as straight as he could. I wish I had taken a picture of the big car-shaped dent! Even still the whole door was kind of in a crumpled Z-shape, none of the panels lined up straight. This picture doesn't do it justice.)

I just sat there in shock for a second, then jumped out of the car to see how bad the damage was. I walked to the back of the garage to see a huge, car-shaped dent in the door. I went back into the house and just started crying when I tried to tell Michael what had happened. Thankfully he was very chill about it and just sent me off to my activity with a neighbor while he took care of things.

Michael kind of hammered the garage door straight, but the door still wouldn't open so our cars were trapped and since it was nighttime the repair guy couldn't come until the next day, which meant we both had to miss work since we couldn't get out of the garage. The repair guy was able to get the door open long enough for us to get the cars out, but the bad news is that the door was beyond repair and we had to order a new one. It took a month to get in so up until last week we had to park on the street. We have been very spoiled with our garage parking!!

The new door cost a pretty penny, but it matches exactly so we don't have to worry about any problems with our HOA. And that is the story of my costly, embarrassing mistake. :)

A quick family life update

2011-12-21T21:31:00.008-07:00

Introducing our Wii Fit Family!

It has been a long time since I have done any real blogging. I would use the baby as an excuse, but really my blogging activity has been going downhill for a long time. I'm going to try to do better though so that I have a better record of our lives to look back on. That's my early New Year's goal anyway, we'll see what I can do.

I thought I'd give a quick update of what's going on with everyone in our little family. . .left to right :)

Bennett:
Baby Bennett turned 5 months old on the 19th. It is absolutely crazy to me how fast time goes by. He has brought such light and joy into our home. It is nearly impossible for any tension or argument to last long in our house because all our worldly stresses just melt away with a few minutes with Bennett. He is very small for his age - in the 5th percentile - partially due to genetics and partially due to the oligohydramnios that I developed in the last couple months of pregnancy that restricted his growth. But he definitely makes up for his size with his huge spirit! He is so full of life that he can barely contain it - it seems like he never stays still for a single second! Ever since he was about a month old he has been very interactive and engaging, just talking and laughing constantly. He hardly naps during the day but he is on a great routine so I've stopped trying to make him nap more because he seems to be doing just fine. He is very happy and mischevious. Some day he will be the naked 2 year old running down the street.

Natasha:

New mom life is going well. I absolutely loved pregnancy and delivery (I felt like both were fairly easy for me which I know is a huge blessing!) and transitioning into life with baby has been a good time as well. I'm definitely staying every bit as busy now as I was before the baby! I've always thrived on having a billion things to do at once though so I'm happy as can be. I have a great schedule right now. I work 2-3 part days a week at the office depending on need. I'm the office manager and I've been there for almost 6 years so my bosses were great about being flexible about how I wanted to continue working after Bennett was born. Aside from that I always have a dozen projects going on at any given time, plus getting the house organized and running on a good schedule. I am loving being Bennett's mom and feel like I've established a good routine with him that makes our days flow nicely. I currently am the Relief Society pianist which I love. Much less stressful after primary presidency. :) I have actually been a church pianist of some sort a couple times before, and I'm sure this won't be the last time either which is just fine with me.

Michael:

Michael is working on finishing his thesis for his Master's program. He has very little motivation to finish it because he'd much rather play with Bennett and I, plus once he finished his coursework in April he got a great full time job so he is very busy. His only real motivation may be so that I will stop nagging him about it. He is a team manager at Instructure (educational software) and loves it. He gets to go on short business trips every couple months or so which he likes. He is a great dad and comes up with all kinds of crazy games to play that Bennett loves. He still does most of the cooking in our house for which I am thankful (we tried having me do more cooking once I was at home a little more with Bennett but it was a disaster - I cook fine but I don't enjoy it and it takes me three times as long as it does Michael so we decided it wasn't worth my time) Michael will be turning the big 3-0 next month and is actually looking forward to that milestone.

Pocket and Red:

Did you think I could leave out the puppies? :) I just wanted to make sure to mention that they are doing AWESOME with Bennett and with sharing our attention. Red is very protective of him, and Pocket has a hard time understanding why he doesn't throw the toys that she brings to him. Bennett loves the pups and squeals happily when they lick his face or fingers. They will make great playmates for him in not too long.

Anyway! Just a quick update! I will try to do better at this blogging thing.

Happy Thanksgiving

2011-11-24T08:59:00.000-07:00

So true buddy. So true.

I Made These!

2011-11-19T22:36:00.003-07:00

In an attempt to be crafty, I decided to make a couple onesies with the magic of iron-on transfer paper and scrap material at the fabric store. Because I really have no craft talent these took forever to make in comparison to how simple they look. I'm really pleased with how they turned out though and think I'll attempt more in the future.

The owl was just an outline I found on google images that I sized to fit. The turkey is actually a tracing of Bennett's hand!

De-piller, aka Lint Shaver

2011-11-19T22:16:00.004-07:00

Many years ago, before I had even met Michael, a classmate at BYU told me about a wedding gift she had gotten called a "de-piller." Its' whole purpose was to remove the little pill balls that accumulate on clothing and blankets over time. She just went on and on about it. She raved about it so much that I've never forgotten about this crazy little invention, and have been kind of curious about it ever since but never really pursued it, didn't know what it would look like, and didn't even know where to find one if I did.

Fast forward 6 years. At JoAnns last week, I was standing in line to checkout and on the sale table up front was a small contraption labeled a "lint shaver" for $4. Thanks to its successful packaging I recognized it as the object I've been curious about all these years. So on an impulse I bought it because I figured even if it was total crap it would only be a waste of a few dollars.

Behold:

You can clearly see which sleeve I used the shaver on and which one I didn't. I LOVE LOVE LOVE this little machine! I was about to give all my sweaters to DI because I've had them for a few years and they were starting to look old, but thanks to this little contraption they look brand new again. Next up is all of the baby's changing table covers - I made the mistake of washing them with new towels and they've been covered with little towel fibers ever since, but I'm pretty confident this will restore them to their former glory.

And in case anyone's interested, you can find them in the laundry aisle at Walmart or in the iron-on transfer sheet aisle at JoAnns.

Some Fall Pics

2011-11-01T18:03:00.000-06:00

Halloween pics

2011-10-31T21:58:00.003-06:00

Thoughts on having a baby boy

2011-08-30T16:17:00.003-06:00

Confession: Originally, I wanted a girl. Not only did I want a girl, but when I was first pregnant I was POSITIVE that it was a girl. Mother's intuition and all that. In fact, in my mind finding out gender at the mid-way ultrasound was a mere formality. That is, until the tech announced, "And there's your little boy!" and in shock I responded "wha- really? it's a BOY??? I don't know what to do with a boy!"

Fortunately, I came around. Being pregnant with a boy put Michael and I on more equal footing because I have zero experience with baby boys, so I think that helped Michael feel more involved with the pregnancy because he could participate more in picking out baby things and in dreaming about raising a little boy.

It wasn't long before I was THRILLED to be having a little boy! What fun! I couldn't imagine ever wanting anything else and was already so in love with the little boy kicking at my belly. And I used all those emergency ultrasounds at the end to make sure it was STILL a boy because I was scared that he would come out and be a girl! In fact, when Bennett was born the first thing I said was "it's still a boy!" and I definitely can't imagine having any other baby but him.

Plus there is definitely something archaic about being able to hand a newborn baby to your husband and say "here is your son." Maybe it's just because I'm obsessed with Henry VIII era stuff and of course practically the only goal in life then was to have a male heir. At any rate, it has been very heartwarming and satisfying to watch how much Michael has already bonded with his little boy. I know he would have loved a girl too but he does adore his son and says so multiple times a day :) Maybe we'll have a girl someday but honestly, now that I know how much fun baby boys are I wouldn't mind always having boys!

Baby blue-eyes

2011-08-30T16:12:00.002-06:00

It's been hard to get a good picture of this boy's eyes but hopefully these will do. Who would have ever thought that this blue-eyed white boy would come from me!

4D ultrasound

2011-08-30T16:08:00.002-06:00

Can you see it? Just in case you ever wondered how accurate those 3D/4D ultrasounds are!

This is Bennett at 1 month old, the ultrasound was taken I think at 32 weeks gestation.

Bennett in pictures

2011-08-30T13:23:00.003-06:00

Eventually we will return to our originally scheduled program. . .I didn't mean for this blog to become the "All About Bennett" channel, but the facts are that I am not exactly doing a whole lot else at the moment. I am slowly coming out of my "confinement" and merging back into society though so I should start to have other things to blog about :)

So a drive-by of what we've been up to for the last 6 (!) weeks:

Two weeks old: Michael had a 2-day workshop kind of thing for his work in Park City. I couldn't bear the thought of being alone for 2 whole days with our tiny newborn so we made arrangements for me to go along. We stayed at the Cliff Lodge at Snowbird, it was a fun and adventurous getaway with such a new baby! (as a sidenote, you can see in this picture that Bennett at this time was still swimming in his preemie clothes!)

Three weeks old: I heart baby butt!

Four weeks old: Little slugger :) I tried putting him in a "newborn" size clothing to see how close we were to growing out of the preemie stuff. Not ready quite yet apparantly. Couldn't even snap the top couple snaps otherwise it would cover his mouth. He's just so cute and tiny!

Four weeks old: Little model pose. You can't quite tell but his shirt has circus animals on it. . .it's my favorite outfit from his preemie things. BIG thanks to my boss who bought out the preemie section of Gymboree when Bennett ended up being a couple pounds smaller than expected. That little wardrobe is all he's worn so far!

Bennett's blessing day, 4 1/2 weeks old. I am so proud to have a husband who is worthy to give our son his official baby blessing in our church. It was a beautiful blessing. I had planned on passing the baby around to all our family and friends during the rest of the church meeting but once Michael brought him back to our seat all I wanted to do was hold that newly blessed baby! Sorry everyone!

Bennett's Birth Story: Faster Than a Speeding Bullet (The birth, not the story. The story is long. Sorry.)

2011-08-02T11:18:00.013-06:00

Bennett Darian was born on Tuesday, July 19th at 10:22am via an emergency induction. He was 18 inches long and weighed just over 5 1/2 pounds when we brought him home from the hospital.

I've written down his birth story below. I apologize that it ended up being so long, but I wanted to write down every detail I could so that I have the full record for later and don't end up forgetting anything.

For the last couple weeks before he was born, I was having problems with very low amniotic fluid and the baby measuring smaller than he should have been. When they first diagnosed it (at what was supposed to be a routine 5 minute appointment. . .) my levels were low enough that they considered inducing right then, but since I was so early they didn't want to induce unless they absolutely had to. They admitted me to labor and delivery immediately and got some monitors hooked up to me; thankfully the baby performed well on the stress test so they decided to continue monitoring me until birth but to try to squeeze in a few more days of gestation if possible. The hope was that the longer we could keep baby in, the lower my chances of having a c-section, which I really really wanted to avoid if at all possible. If we induced too soon we were afraid we'd have to resort to c-section if my body resisted the artificial labor.

The main fear with this condition (oligohydramnios) is that there's not enough fluid padding for the baby which increases the risk of the cord compressing and cutting off nutrients and oxygen to the baby. It also restricts fetal growth.

Under doctor's orders, I went to Labor and Delivery every couple days, early in the morning, to have repeat AFI ultrasounds (to check fluid levels) and stress tests (to check baby's heart and oxygen) with the understanding that they would induce if any results got worse. As long as the results at least stayed stable we could continue to hold our breaths and drag things out. Every time I went to the hospital my doctor would come visit me in my hospital room and we'd discuss how to proceed depending on that day's results. For a bit my levels were actually improving a little but then the day came that they started to drop again. My doctor decided at that point that the risk of leaving the baby in was greater than the risk of getting him out where they could monitor him better and we decided to induce. So they admitted me and got things started.

When they started my Pitocin drip they told me that a first time labor will usually dilate about 1cm every hour and a half, so to settle in and get comfortable. Instead, this is how the sequence of events went:

6:30am - Pitocin drip started to induce contractions, already at 3cm dilated/80% effaced

7:30am - Doctor breaks my water, I'm at 4cm dilated/80% effaced

8:25am - I call for the epidural, they check me right after and are shocked to find I'm at 7cm dilated/90% effaced

10:00am - 9cm dilated/100% effaced, Baby has been having problems for a little bit now, Hospital staff starts rushing like mad to get all the machines and instruments into the room

10:22am - 10cm dilated/100% effaced, Baby Bennett is born

Now for your background details:

I was already 3cm dilated and 80% effaced when I went into the hospital for my tests that morning so everyone was optimistic about my body responding well to the inducement. I had noticed that the baby had dropped a couple days earlier (I thank Michael Jackson Wii for that!) so I was expecting to be at least somewhat dilated but was really happy that we were starting off on such a good foot.

We knew first labors were typically long; we figured a Pitocin labor would be even longer since it would take a while for my body to react to the medicine. Michael suggested we try to sleep until 10 or 11 since we had to get up early and were tired, and conserve our energy for later in the day when things started moving. He settled down into the pull-out couch and went right to sleep. I was tired too but couldn't shut my brain down so I just texted people and started looking through some of the paperwork the hospital had given me. I figured I'd go to sleep in an hour.

So imagine my surprise when, an hour later, my doctor and 2 nurses walked in and checked me (4cm) and announced that they were going to break my water. Apparantly they had been watching the monitors and I had been having nice, regular (painless) contractions for a while so they decided to take the next step. I hardly had time to process, let alone wake up Michael who somehow was sleeping through the chaos. So the doctor broke my water (it felt like a lot, but they said it wasn't very much at all thanks to my low fluid levels) and the nurses told me I could have my epidural at any time. I told them I didn't need it yet since I wasn't really having any pain. It was then that I noticed a very confused and groggy Michael sitting up in bed in the corner looking around at all the people who were suddenly in our room. As soon as they left the conversation went something like this. . ."what just happened?" "they broke my water" "WHAT?? are you serious?" "yes" "why didn't you wake me up?" "it wasn't the most attractive position for you to see me in. . ." He got right out of bed and came over to be with me while he tried to mentally process what he had missed in his short nap.

Things after that progressed FAST. Almost immediately my contractions started to get stronger and I started having some pain with them. The nurses came and checked on me every 10 minutes (I didn't know this at the time but they were checking on me so often because they were watching the monitors outside and were surprised at how quickly my contractions were progressing). Every time they came they offered me the epidural but I kept saying no because I knew that once I had the epidural I was tied down to the bed, and if I was going to be in labor all day I wanted to walk around a little, right? Michael and I had come prepared - I had plans of laboring in the jacuzzi tub, we brought tennis balls for Michael to massage my back with, I wanted to take one last belly pic while wearing the hospital gown, we had books and movies to keep us occupied during the long day of labor. . .we just didn't realize that we would end up using none of those things because we didn't have enough time!

It only took about 20 minutes before the contractions got strong enough that I had to start using the breathing techniques to get through them. And of course I thought I'd have several hours to review the breathing techniques before needing them, but instead things were moving so fast that I started to panic and forgot everything we had learned so Michael pulled out the sheet and gave me a drive-by review in between my next contractions.

I broke down and had Michael call for the epidural only 55 minutes after my water broke. My contractions were really strong and coming almost on top of each other so I didn't have time to catch my breath in between anymore. I felt like a wuss for only lasting an hour but felt much less wussy when they checked me right after the epidural and found that I was at 7cm/90% effaced! I was really proud of myself for unknowingly laboring on my own to 7cm; had I known I was dilating that fast I probably would have gotten the epidural sooner!

Things settled down somewhat after the epidural but only for about 20 minutes. I was getting drowsy and was dozing comfortably when the nurses came in to discuss some concerns they had with the baby's heart rate levels on the monitors. They said the monitors were showing "variables". . .which meant that every time I had a contraction, the baby's heart rate would go down. It would recover once the contraction was over, so they weren't too worried yet but wanted to be cautious so they helped turn me so that I was laying on one side. They thought the variables were probably caused by the baby's cord being compressed so by turning me they were hoping to take pressure off the cord.

Well, that didn't help, so they had me flip to my other side. Which didn't help. So every few minutes they had me flipping sides. Which messed up the monitors since they had to be adjusted every time, so they decided to do away with the external monitors and do internal monitors instead (poor baby, he still has a scab on the top of his head from the wire they put into his scalp to read his heart rate!) Then they decided the best option was to put fluid back into my belly to give the baby his fluid padding back. So they started pumping a bag of saline into my uterus. It was helping slightly, but not as fast as they liked, so they put me in an oxygen mask.

We could tell something was happening because it seemed like all of a sudden there were people running in and out of the room like mad, bringing in blankets and machinery and instruments. In the midst of that the doctor came to check me and I was already at 9cm/100% effaced. I remember thinking that the doctor looked more serious than I had ever seen him before. (I didn't know this at the time, but Michael told me later that he had been watching the monitors and could see that the baby's heart rate was plummeting with contractions again, he could also see the notes that the nurses were putting into the computer and the most recent one said that they had sent the doctor a message saying "Come FAST") The doctor said we should probably try pushing in a few minutes and then quickly discussed with us how concerned he was about the baby's heart rate and the need to get him out quickly. He briefly went over the options between using a vacuum and doing a c-section and I told him I definitely wanted to try the vacuum first. He just nodded and said he'd be back in a few minutes with the nurses.

The actual labor was a little scary although I didn't realize how much so until afterwards (which was a blessing. . .everything was happening so fast that I didn't have time to mentally process, if I had time to think things over I would have realized how serious the situation was. . .as it was, Michael told me later that he was scared but didn't want to tell me all the things he was seeing because he didn't want me to worry too) The doctor and nurses came back into the room and he checked me again, he emphasized that we needed to get the baby out immediately and offered to wheel me to c-section again, I told him I wanted to try the vacuum first. He checked me and I was at 10cm and he could feel the baby's ear right there so he agreed to give pushing a chance first. They adjusted the bed and the doctor instructed the nurse to have me push through the next contraction while he hurried to get his gown on. I pushed 3 times during the first contraction, once it was done the doctor said he was going to do an episiotomy to try to get the baby out faster. While he was quickly doing that he told the nurse to call for the respiratory team ASAP. The monitor wasn't picking up any heartbeats from the baby and I realized that if I couldn't get the baby out NOW we were going over to c-section. So even though I couldn't feel anything I was extra motivated to push as hard as I could. I pushed 3 times again through a second contraction and the doctor put the vacuum in place. I think I only pushed once on the third contraction when I noticed the doctor and nurse get extra animated in their encouragement, so I snuck a peek and was shocked to see the baby's head. They didn't even have me pause for them to suction the baby's mouth, instead they had me push again immediately to get the rest of Baby out and he kind of shot right out. So altogether I pushed for maybe a minute and a half. I remember being scared for a brief moment because the baby's face was blue. . .for a split second I thought we hadn't got him out in time. So I turned my head away because I didn't want to see him but immediately heard a weak little wail. Michael was like, "did you hear that??" and I did and was so relieved. I also noticed that the cord was wrapped around his ankle which they later explained was probably causing the variables on the monitor because it was compressed.

As soon as the baby came out and gave that little cry the doctor exclaimed, "why, it's just a LITTLE peanut!" and handed him to the nurse. He tried to hand the clamp to Michael and said "here you go dad!" which was when I looked over and noticed Michael starting to hyperventilate (he's REALLY squeamish about needles and umbilical cords and other gross medical things) so I told the doctor that Michael couldn't do it, the doctor asked if I wanted to do it and I said no (although looking back I kind of wish I had, but I just wanted them to hurry and cut it and attend to the baby). So they rushed the baby right over to the warmer to suction him and clean him up while everyone tried to guess how much the baby weighed. Everyone was certain he was under 6 pounds and they were right.

It was probably about 20 minutes or so before I held the baby. Because of all the problems he had right before birth the respiratory team and nurses had to take some extra measures to make sure he was doing okay, but we were very fortunate that he was doing well enough that they didn't have to take him out of the room. I had tore further than my episiotomy so Michael went over to start taking pictures of the baby while I was being sewn up. After about 10 minutes the medical team was confident that the baby was doing well enough to stay with us and wrapped him up and gave him to Michael to hold. He held the baby for about 10 minutes while they finished with me then handed him over for skin-to-skin. I couldn't believe how incredibly tiny and soft he was. The baby was already rooting on Michael's fingers while he was holding him so they had me try to feed him right away and he latched immediately and did great (I thank our breastfeeding class for how easy that was!)

Unfortunately we didn't get to keep him with us for quite as long as we would have liked at the beginning - after I fed him the nurse took him for a second and noticed that his body temperature was low, so they took him to the nursery. They tested his blood sugar there and found it was low too (apparantly low body temp and blood sugar are somewhat common for such tiny babies) so they spent a couple hours trying to warm him up and running additional blood draws for glucose; if his levels didn't pick up they would have had to have given him a bottle for instant sugar, but thankfully they improved just enough that they didn't have to. After a couple hours they were able to get his body temp high enough to bring him back and so he came back to me wearing 2 shirts and 2 blankets for warmth. Poor kid had to have his blood drawn every 6 hours though to keep an eye on his glucose, his heels were black and blue by the time we brought him home.

All in all, while things got scary at the end I would definitely say that I had a GREAT labor experience. It was also very heartwarming to see how quickly Michael bonded with the baby. I had always been afraid that I would bond immediately and that it would take a little longer for Michael, but instead it was almost the other way around. It was very cute for me to look over and see Michael stroking and cooing at the baby on the warmer minutes after birth. And then Michael just had the hugest grin on his face while holding the baby for the first time and kept telling me how gorgeous the baby was (no conehead, bruises, or swelling thanks to the lightning fast delivery!)

We are very blessed that the baby was able to be delivered safely and quickly and are so in love with this little guy! Having him home with us has felt very natural (although exhausting, no doubt) and we are so lucky to be his parents!

Introducing. . .

2011-07-22T20:01:00.002-06:00

This is baby Bennett.

I made him.

Earlier than expected, but loved all the more for it.

Details to come.

Pregnant Women are Smug (and other baby-related stories)

2011-06-09T12:38:00.000-06:00

I don't know if it's this way for everyone, but it seems like no matter how long you've been married, at the beginning you obsess about trying to impress your in-laws. I always heard from my friends that it changes when you have kids. I would definitely agree with this. As I met my MIL and SIL in the airport last week, they immediately started to exclaim over the large belly, and somewhere in the back of my mind a superhero voice exclaimed "Yes! I bring you the gift of life!" Smug indeed. Not that I don't still want to impress the fam, it's just that I kind of feel like I've done my duty, you know? "Here is your first grandchild. Blood of your blood, a shining achievement. And now if you don't mind, I'm going to take a nap." Even better that it's a boy since that carries on the family "tradition" on my husband's side of the family, with the firstborn always being a boy.

On a more serious note, last weekend my in-laws flew me to NY for a baby shower with their side of the family. It was completely fabulous! (Here's me and my SIL on shower day)

So from what I understand, my FIL was a legit rockstar back in the day. You'd never suspect it now since he is one of the cleanest, sweetest men I know! Of course he no longer sports the rockstar hair he had 30 yrs ago :)

Anyway, he recently got back into a band called Attitude Joe. (Funny story - I accidentally called it "Conscientous Joe" once so that's what I call it now when Mike and I talk about it) I was lucky enough to be in NY the same weekend as one of their gigs so I got to go. It was really cute - my FIL apparantly told the rest of the band members that he was excited because his grandson was coming to the gig. No mention of the mother currently carrying the grandson in her belly, as far as I can tell. :)

(At the bar to watch Attitude Joe with said grandson. Not bad for 7 months pregnant, huh? I can still clean up okay)

My FIL works for the church in possibly one of the coolest jobs - he is responsible for the Palmyra facilities including the temple and the Sacred Grove. So on Sunday after church we took a walk through part of the Sacred Grove.

(My gorgeous MIL, FIL, and I in the Sacred Grove)

It was a fantastic weekend and I am so lucky to have married into such a great family! I love them so much!

Mike isn't in any of the pics because he was not able to come. So I flew by myself which would make me nervous anyway, but even more so being so pregnant. It went much better than expected though, and it actually really touched my heart to see how many strangers in the airport went out of their way to do small nice things for me when they could see that I was pregnant and travelling alone. So to all those strangers. . .thank you.

Snips and snails and puppy dog tails

2011-06-07T11:45:00.002-06:00

So I'm a tad roly-poly at the moment and need some help setting up the nursery. Any takers?

Indian Party

2011-05-10T10:55:00.002-06:00

My cousin graduated college so we had an Indian party to celebrate last weekend. Here is Mike and I looking glam in our coordinating Indian clothes.

New Car

2011-04-22T09:41:00.002-06:00

We bought a new car and it looks like this!

It's a 2010 Dodge Caliber. . .less than a year old, brand new condition. It's a good car and we negotiated a steal of a deal on it thanks to my charming techniques. :)

Cool detail - it has a beverage cooler.

And now for my next trick, I will make a person! Ta-da!

2011-03-18T11:56:00.004-06:00

A few days ago at a great sale, we bought this. . .

. . .so that at the end of the summer we will have a place to put this. . .

. . .which currently resides in a belly that looks like this!

Explanation on the Erasure video below

2011-02-10T08:40:00.002-07:00

(For some reason Blogger won't let me type anything into the same post as the video, which is lame, so this will just have to do)

I kind of imagine this is what an acid trip would be like.

Yes, he is creepily combing her hair. And yeah, they are definitely stuck in a giant snowball. And oh my, it looks like he defeated the monster with the power of love.

I was going to make a list of just ALL the things that are wrong with this video, but I've watched it about 2 dozen times now and every time I watch it, it gets more ridiculous.

So just. . .enjoy.

Oh. . .oh dear

2011-02-10T08:38:00.000-07:00

How to Make Yummy Homemade Butter

2011-02-02T14:42:00.006-07:00

Basic how-to steps at the end. But first, some background.

For the last month I have been subbing for the 4 year old class at church. It's been pretty fun and I've enjoyed planning games and crafts. When I used to do Sharing Time for the entire junior primary I was always terrified, but I have no problems teaching in smaller groups. Usually my companion teacher (my friend) and I have had 4 kids each week so it's a nice small class with a great student-teacher ratio.

Somewhere along this month, we got overconfident (read: I got overconfident) in our teaching abilities and we planned something big for our last lesson. We were supposed to talk about Joseph Smith's childhood. . .so basically like what it was like to be a pioneer child. So we (I) had this great idea to let the kids turn cream into butter. I thought it would be a fun activity for them and would hopefully help the lesson stick a little better. I did a "practice jar" the night before with great success so I felt pretty good about things. Taking 4 kids to the kitchen and having them shake jars of cream for 20 minutes? Easy peasy.

So we were shocked on Sunday at church when kids kept coming. . .and coming. . .and coming! By the time we had to go to class we had 7 kids! No idea where they all came from this week! However, we stuck with our plan and after doing a short pioneer lesson we headed to the kitchen.

Madness.

If you decide to attempt this activity with children, here are my suggestions:

Do this in a smaller group. 7 four-year-olds was just craziness. One or two kids per adult would have been much better.
Unless the child has a lot of patience, do it with an older age group. These kids simply weren't physically strong enough to shake the cream through to the butter phase. A couple kids got to the whipped cream stage which was impressive, but not far enough.
Add a marble to the jar, and use a glass jar. When I did my practice runs the night before for some reason I couldn't ever get it to work in small tupperware. So instead I bought tiny pint sized canning jars and added a marble for extra force. That seemed to work well, but I knew I couldn't bring marbles to church - too loud.
If you do this with your kids, maybe let them start it off until they get tired, then scoop it into a mixing bowl and finish it off with an electric mixer. I even did this with my practice one because I got bored after 2 minutes :) Anyway, it goes much faster with a mixer.

So here are some simple directions for making homemade butter, should you want to try this. I will actually probably do this again at some point - I've really liked using the homemade butter instead of store-bought, and with the way the butter prices go up and down it would often be cheaper to make homemade butter.

Buy HEAVY whipping cream.
Pour the cream into a mixing bowl making sure it's big enough to allow room for the cream to expand.

Start mixing. . .and mixing. . .and mixing. The cream will go through stages of consistency- milkshake, whipped cream, dry/chunky, then back to a soft butter.

Spoon the butter onto a stack of paper towels and press the extra liquid from it (might have to do this a few times to get all the liquid out). Sprinkle some salt over it and mix in. Voila! butter!

One last optional step - for my practice butter I put the block of butter into a blender with a little bit of water, blended it for about 10 seconds, then strained it through a sifter. It's called "washing" the butter which some sites recommend to avoid the possibility of spoiling if there's any leftover buttermilk in the mixture. My "washed" batch did turn out firmer, which I like. However, my unwashed batch seems just fine, just a little softer which is actually easier for spreading on toast and things. No sign of spoiling, but I keep it in the fridge so maybe that helps? Either way, both batches taste YUMMY!

The Game of Luck

2011-01-28T09:38:00.004-07:00

Please don't laugh at what I am about to reveal to you.

I am part of a Bunco group.

I know, right? Old people game? Anyway, I live in a small townhouse community so walking from one end to the other takes like 5 minutes. Last year some girls in our neighborhood decided to start a Bunco group. I declined the invitation because I didn't want to commit, but I did sub a couple times last year.

The verdict? The game itself. . .I could pass on. If you don't know what it is, basically Bunco is a dice game. You play with 3 tables of 4 people each and roll dice - you're just trying to roll the most of a certain number, then at the end of the round the losers switch tables and the next round starts. There is absolutely no skill involved, which is unfortunate, because I also apparantly have quite bad luck, perhaps I'd do better with a game of skill. :) Anyway people take turns hosting each month and you have a big dinner together and there are a few prizes at the end for people who won the most, lost the most, etc.

Anyway, the game itself I don't really like. It's kind of boring, honestly. However, when they were planning this year's group and asked if I wanted to do it this year, I said yes. Quite frankly it's embarassing how few girls in the ward I know after living here a year and a half, and I figured I should try to make some new friends. So I'm doing it just for the social aspect. Last night was our first game of the year, and I definitely had fun socializing both at dinner and then after the game was over. So I think this will be a good thing.

Oh yeah. . .and I also won a prize. :) A cute little serving dish that I will definitely use a lot.

MoTab Christmas Concert 2010

2011-01-27T09:55:00.003-07:00

This year I had the great opportunity to once again be a dancer for the MoTab Christmas concert! So every day had the same routine - go to work, leave work early to go up to SLC for dress rehearsals/concerts, come home at midnight. Rinse, repeat. And yes, I did get to meet David Archuleta. Nice kid although I have a suspicion that his social skills aren't entirely up to snuff thanks to his huge success so early in life. It definitely was cute to watch his ad-libbing to the audience (like when he was explaining why he chose the songs that he did for the concert, etc) in between numbers. You can tell that he's still very young, his speaking skills definitely weren't super polished the way past performers have been. I kind of liked that though. Anyway, our costumes were pretty cool this year. Here is a picture:

I don't know why I'm totally not looking at the camera. . .but it's the only picture I have where you can see the full dress. I took a ton of pictures, but my camera must have been acting up because I only have like 5 that show up and they're all of either just my face or scenery or other things.

Because 2010 marked the 100th anniversary of the Tab Choir, the concert was supposed to have a "look back in time" kind of feel, so our number was supposed to have a 1860s feel. At first when they told us we would be wearing plaid skirts I was like, "uh, are you serious? gross." But you know what? I think I actually liked these costumes more than the ones in past years! They just make you feel so feminine! With the puffy underskirt to boot.

So as you can imagine it took me like a month to feel caught up on sleep after that. In the midst of the concerts, my co-worker gave her 2 weeks notice. WHAT. In reality, it was a blessing, because we were going to "let her go" anyway so it just saved us the awkwardness. But, since I am the acting office manager, I deal with hiring, so that means I spent 3 weeks in December and January reading through about 100 resumes a day (often in the evenings, which Michael didn't care for) and doing all the 1st interviews myself over the internet to narrow down the list, then setting up 2nd interviews in person with the doctor and his wife. Anyway, it was a long and tiring process but we were able to hire a girl the first week of January that is really cute (both looks and personality) that I think will work out well. So for the last few weeks I have been training her. Which basically means that I have been doing the job of 2 people since mid-December. I usually blogged on my lunch break, but I've been working through most of my lunch breaks and the ones I haven't I've just been too tired to do anything but goof off online.

So anyway, there's a little look at the craziness that has been my life these past couple months, and hopefully sufficient reasons for not blogging.

Blogger's Block

2010-12-23T12:52:00.002-07:00

Guys.

I SUCK at blogging this year.

The last 2 years I did around 85 posts each year. Definitely not a lot at all, but that's like 7 posts a month, average.

This year I have done 30 posts so far. Pitiful! Pathetic! A worthless excuse for a blog!

I'd like to do better for 2011, but I really can't promise anything.

Happy Thanksgiving!

2010-11-25T09:05:00.001-07:00

Happy Thanksgiving!

We have SO MUCH to be grateful for in our house.

Halloween 2010 - Puppy pics

2010-11-06T20:55:00.003-06:00

Because we don't have any babies we get our kicks out of dressing up the puppies!

Pocket was an adorable pumpkin for Halloween.

Red was a cluster of grapes.

Do you like our "studio" set up in Red's picture above? We have a Halloween dinner tradition with our friends, and because we're all lame like this, we decided to make a backdrop and take pictures of all the dogs.

Have you ever tried to photograph 3 puppies? Holy wiggles Batman! Most of our pictures turned out something like this. . .

But we finally got at least one picture with them all looking at the camera!

(Our friends' dog was a bat, btw)

I love Halloween, I really do. Our neighbors throw this awesome party every year and I'm totally jealous of her decorating skills. We took a lot of pictures of our decorations, but they must be on our other laptop because this is the only one I can find:

I used to decorate our door at our apartment complex like this but I didn't do it last year because I didn't buy the ribbon in time. . .plus my neighbor did hers like this so I figured I'd skip a year. :)

Little Red

2010-11-04T09:07:00.003-06:00

Michael took this picture on Sunday. Red is hitting new milestones every day now as far as transitioning from a scared, sad shelter puppy to a confident happy puppy. We cheer every time she picks up a toy on her own or comes to us for cuddles. Taking in a shelter dog was really hard at first, but the personal rewards have been overwhelmingly huge. We feel very blessed that we are able to make a difference in this pup's life.

How to Get Tickets

2010-10-12T08:41:00.000-06:00

Tickets to the Christmas Concert are free but you have to register for them. The ticket selection works like a "lottery" - last year over a million people requested tickets but of course they can only seat 84,000 over the 4 performances. So if you are not interested in going but would like to try to help increase the chances of my family getting tickets, maybe you could register and send the tickets to me if you win? :)

Go to http://lds.org/events/info/0,8197,726-1-767,00.html and click on "register for tickets" and follow the directions from there.

The registration ends OCTOBER 18 so do it asap!

MoTab Choir Christmas Concert

2010-10-07T12:45:00.002-06:00

So just so you know - I did make the MoTab dance team again this year, and just found out that I will be dancing to the vocal talent of guest performer David Archuleta!

Stay tuned - ticket raffle starts Friday and I will update this post with info on how to get free tickets.

Indian Party

2010-10-03T15:46:00.004-06:00

Yep, it is that time of year again. . .the time where we start itching for a big Jai Ho Jam. My cousin got called to the motherland on his mission. . .the Indian motherland that is. . .so he decided to have a mission reunion this weekend and of course we were invited. The timing was good - my mom just got home from a 5 week trip to India and brought like a billion sarees home. There is no way we will ever wear them all but it is fun to think that we'll always have a brand new saree to wear to these Indian things!

I took my friend Rachel to the party. She was out of town when I got married so she missed the Indian wedding party. I had fun getting her all dressed up. Isn't she gorgeous? And so very dramatic - that was our personal theme for the night. :)

Me and my sis Ish.

My mom, my cousin, and one of my other sisters. I usually wear a solid colored saree but I felt daring so I decided to go for the orange/red one. Figured it was nice and fall-appropriate.

And what else? Oh yeah I totally got HIT ON by one of the ex-elders! It was awesome, honestly. Nothing like being hit on (by a nice guy) to make you feel attractive. :)

Johnson Mill

2010-10-03T15:28:00.001-06:00

The second B&B we went to was Johnson Mill in Midway. I was pleasantly surprised by what a cute little town Midway is. There's a ton of pics on their website so I only took a few while we were there:

This was the view from our private balcony

We were in the "Waterfall Room" and could see the waterfall looking down from our balcony.

These crazy swans kept coming right up to us while we were canoeing.

Castle Creek Inn

2010-10-03T15:08:00.003-06:00

Michael and I don't usually do anything for our anniversaries (in fact we've only both been in town for our anniversary a couple times) so we decided to spoil ourselves this year by going to not one, but two bed and breakfasts.

The first one we went to was the Castle Creek Inn in Sandy. We've been there before and really like it. They have a gorgeous pond landscaping in the back with the cutest little hidden swinging bench. Every room has lighted jacuzzi tubs and a medieval theme (which is totally my thing). We stayed in the "Camelot" room. Here are some pics.

Seriously?

2010-09-22T12:46:00.004-06:00

Sometimes I feel like the universe hates me. Today I took off work to go visit my BFF in Ogden, which is all I've wanted to do in the whole wide world for the last several weeks, actually. I was all prepared: filled the gas tank and had my oil changed this morning. It had been storming on and off all morning so I had actually already stopped a couple times on the way to try to wait out the rain and just was driving in between the storms, however, my plans were ruined when I started encountering this kind of action:

Followed by my car FLOATING THROUGH A PUDDLE. At that point I said to myself, "Self, today you are surely going to die" and got off at the next exit with plans to take backroads up to draper. Then I turned on the radio just in time to hear them announce a severe thunderstorm warning with "violent winds, damaging hail, and torrential rains" and encouraging everyone who didn't absolutely have to be on the roads to go back home. There were cops at a couple places waving people away from the flooded roads. The storm was traveling north which is the direction I was heading so I would have been in the storm the whole way. I had already gotten off the freeway and was taking back streets in Highland because the freeway was flooded, and once I started encountering all the closed roads due to the rain I had to finally just call and reschedule my day with BFF. Sucks.

Of course, once I got back to Lindon the weather was great. I keep checking the weather advisory every 5 minutes to convince myself that I didn't make the wrong choice by turning around, and it's still showing the storm. Still sucks though. My plan is to go back up on Friday no matter what the weather, take back streets at 5mph the whole time if I have to. I will not be thwarted by mother nature again!

Anyway, there's no point to this post, I just wanted to rant like a lunatic for a little bit.

Little Red

2010-09-03T11:20:00.003-06:00

This is the adorable sleeping face of our new puppy, Little Red. We were open to the idea of getting a second dog because we really wanted Pocket to have a constant playmate other than us, especially since winter will be here in a few months and we won't be going outside much. So one day in July we went to Petsmart where they were having an adoption fair, "just to look." We looked at a couple of the dogs, but for some reason this one kept catching my eye. We took her out mostly because I felt bad that nobody was even looking at her even though she was one of the only dogs that wasn't barking in that stressful environment. We went to a quiet aisle and sat down and this dog just curled right up in Michael's lap. He was really going back and forth for about 30 minutes since we hadn't really planned on taking a dog home that day, but at one point Red looked up at him with such a pitiful little expression that immediately melted him and he decided to take her home. It was really important to me that Michael pick our second dog, because Pocket was supposed to be Michael's dog but she is more of a mama's girl. :)

She is such an EASY dog to take care of. She was so starved for affection that she is perfectly content just to sit by our side for hours. All she wants is love and cuddles. You can pick her up and put her in all kind of positions and she won't even fight it, she's just so happy for the attention. She doesn't even run or get into things, she just sits and watches everyone else having fun. It's really sad and heartbreaking. I can't imagine why on earth someone would have given her up!

The first few days were a little rough for everyone as we all tried to adjust to our new life. There were many tears of frustration shed on my part but after a few days everyone started to get settled in and things have been great ever since! We definitely love her tons and look forward to developing the same kind of bond with her that we have with Pocket.

Johnson Mill getaway

2010-08-27T10:34:00.003-06:00

Figured I should write and let you all know I'm still alive despite not blogging for over 2 months. I just haven't really been in the mood to blog - not that there's nothing to talk about, but I just got sick of it for a while. I have been faithfully reading YOUR blogs, does that count?

Above are some pictures from the beautiful Johnson Mill bed & breakfast in Midway where we will be staying in a couple weeks for our anniversary! I would highly recommend checking out their website, the grounds are absolutely gorgeous (26 acres!) as are the rooms, and they have the coolest amenities such as paddle boats for the lake. We are staying in the room by the waterfall!

We don't usually do much of anything for our anniversary (my fault, things like holidays and birthdays and anniversaries just aren't as big a deal to me as they are for most people) but this year we are BADLY in need of some relaxation so we decided to splurge just a bit. Plus we are too poor to go to NY for the holidays like we usually do so we figured we should get in some kind of mini-vacation this year.

This was kind of a last minute thing (I just thought of it yesterday and we booked last night) but I am actually really excited! So a super big thanks to our friends for watching the puppies overnight - Pocket is going with our friend to hang out with her BFF Puppy Callie, and Red is staying with our neighbor and her methinks Puppy-Boyfriend Cash, who is the only dog besides Pocket that she seems to really get along with. I figured it would be easier to split the girls up so that someone didn't have 3 excited puppies to deal with for the weekend! (Although I've done it and I think it is a blast!)

I'll post pics after we get back, and hopefully blog again before that. No promises.

Eat Pancakes Like a Scholar, Scholar.wmv

2010-08-08T21:06:00.003-06:00

This was inspired by Study like a scholar, scholar. I'm so close to my goal of 200 views! FYI, this is Mikey not Natty.

Update: This video passed 200 views sometime this morning! Yee haw!

New Years Resolution Update

2010-06-15T10:49:00.002-06:00

Well, since it's June I figured I should take a look at how my New Years Resolutions are coming along.

Read 50 books - I figured this would even out to be about 1 book a week. I keep the list, in reverse chronological order, on my blog layout, in case anyone's interested in seeing what I've been reading. So far this year I've read 25 books and we are on week 24 of the year. I used to be about 4 weeks ahead of schedule, but the Cleopatra historical book I just finished was 976 pages so it took quite a while. I think we're good to finish this goal by the end of the year. Next year I'll probably increase the number, but not by more than maybe 15. This seems to be the perfect amount to get me to turn off the tv more, yet still have a life outside of work and books. (As a sidenote, I've been listening to some book on cd recently, but have decided not to count that toward my total. It's just not quite the same to me.)

Figure out how to fast - I've really bombed this one. I haven't really been trying. Two months ago I managed to fast breakfast only, which is huge considering my hypoglycemia. The problem is, I can only do that when it's at it's very best and not acting up at all. So, we're still working on it. And I haven't really focused on giving up something else besides food for 24 hours. Last month I tried to give up anything sweet, including cereal, and that was pretty hard for me so that may be the way to go. I'll try that again next month.

Double our saving account - Yeah, there is no way this will happen. I've managed to add a couple hundred to it, but that's about it. We're simply spending our money on other good things, so I don't regret it. The good news is (1) I paid off my car last month, (2) our savings isn't any LESS than what it was, and (3) every time we put something on the credit card we manage to pay it off fairly quickly.

Sick Puppy, ex-film star

2010-06-02T17:15:00.009-06:00

After we got home from the hospital on Sunday. Pocket has spent the last 4 days snuggled up on our laps like this since she doesn't have enough energy to play much.

Pocket gave us quite the scare on Sunday. She got really, really sick. She couldn't keep anything in her stomach and she refused to eat or drink. Michael stayed home from church with her and all day she just laid on our laps and slept. But it was such an agitated, restless, feverish sleep. At the same time she was completely listless and increasingly unresponsive which is SO not typical for our puppy. Then in the afternoon she started getting really shaky and started throwing up blood, which is when she looked at me with sad, scared watery eyes and I said "okay, we're taking her to urgent care." The only after-hours urgent vet care is in north orem so we hopped in the car and made the 30 minute drive.

It. was. HORRIBLE. While we were there another dog got put down, a really old lady came in worried about her sick cat, and a tiny doggie that had fallen and was having seizures came in with parents and a little boy, all 3 were bawling. I had to block all that out of my head in order to concentrate just on Pocket.

They took an xray to see if she might have eaten something that was stuck in her digestive track, but nothing showed up. So rather than spend a fortune on additional diagnostic tests, we decided to treat the main symptoms she was having, which was dehydration and possible bacteria infection. So they sent us home with antibiotics, some prescription dog food that is super basic on a sick tummy, and they injected this weird gel fluid pack under her fat layer. It's basically the equivalent of an IV, except it absorbs into the body over 24 hours. (The doctor wanted to do a lot more than that, and we would have had no problems doing any treatments necessary to make her better, but since after-hours care is very expensive we decided to treat her main symptoms first and see if she improved at all. If she wasn't doing noticeably better in a few hours we would have gone ahead with the rest of the treatments.)

Quasi-Pocket. You can see the gel pack in her left shoulder where they injected it.

We brought her home and my mom and I sat outside on the lawn with her since she seemed to like the warm sun. Michael brought her frisbee outside (which is her favorite thing in the world) to see if he could get any kind of response out of her, but she wasn't interested. But finally, after about an hour, she stood up and walked a couple steps to my glass of water, took a couple licks, and then laid back down. But we were thrilled that the fluids were helping so much! It was the first voluntary step and drink she had taken all day! Over the next 24 hours she started to seem more like our happy puppy and less like a ragdoll, to the point that she was able to play a very short game of frisbee with Michael on Monday night. She trotted instead of her normal breakneck speed, but we'll take it.

She's very close to being back to normal now. She lost 10% of her body weight during her sickness but we're hoping she'll gain it back quickly now that she's eating again. She's still weak, but she's got her personality back. Now we just need to help her build her strength and energy back up. She'll play for 10 minutes and then sleep for hours to make up for it. In fact, right now it's 6pm - she's been asleep since 1pm after I took her to go get the mail and let her see the neighbor dog for a quick moment. BUT as long as she continues to eat, drink, and be happy we'll let her take as long as she needs to get her strength back to her normal super-puppy self.

Pocket thinks it's funny when I put her crime-fighting cape on her. She has fun running up and down the stairs with the cape flying behind her.

This experience definitely reaffirmed how much we love our tiny snuggly pup. There was a short period of time on Sunday where we didn't know if we would be bringing home a puppy. It was terrifying. Our whole holiday weekend revolved around her and none of our housework plans happened. But that's okay. We're just so glad she's okay and love her so much. She's our baby for now! I never knew the kind of love you could have for a tiny fluffy animal. :)

The other sucky thing is that Pocket was supposed to audition for a movie this morning (I'm not allowed to write the name of it but I'll tell you if you ask me). Her trainer called us a couple weeks ago and told us about the opportunity for a movie about dogs that is going to be filmed in SLC. We've been going up to training classes with the other dogs that were invited to audition a couple times a week to train for the audition. Pocket was actually doing really good, but today when we got to the time that we had to leave for the audition I had to make the tough call that she was just not well enough to go. Plus I have this fear that she was sick because of a flu bug or something that she picked up from one of the other dogs at the training. It's the only thing I can think of that happened in the last few days that was out of the norm for her. So I am hesitant to have her work with a bunch of strange dogs for 7 weeks while filming. Naturally we're disappointed but her health is more important. Like I said, we're just glad she's okay.

Lagoon

2010-04-30T10:20:00.002-06:00

On Saturday we went to Lagoon with Jordan and Rhonda to "get away" for a bit. And you know, rekindle our dating life and all that crap. But mostly for the rides! :D

I hadn't been to Lagoon in like 10 years. I was SO excited! I felt like a little kid in a candy shop! The best part is that since it's so early in the season, and since we got there right when they opened, there were like no lines for the first hour. In fact, we parked like 3 stalls away from the entrance. I could've ridden Wicked like 10 times in a row, and I kind of regret not doing that. It was AWESOME. Since I hadn't been on any big rides in so long, I really didn't remember if I would get sick or anything, but thankfully I didn't. In fact, Rhonda and I outlasted the boys!

We had them follow us around for the last little bit while we went on a bunch of smaller (yet still exhilerating) rides. Pictured above is an action shot - the ride was actually in motion when this was taken. You can see me squishing Rhonda to death from the centrifugal force.

Anyway, it was a BLAST. Thanks guys for going with us. :)

ps. Mike's car got hit by another driver when we stopped for ice cream on the way home. BOO to bad drivers. Mike's been having "fun" dealing with all the insurance stuff. Thankfully Rhonda had brought her camera and could take pics of the damage moments after it happened. Quick thinking! It definitely made me realize the merits of putting a disposable camera in my glovebox should something like that ever happen!

Closing sale

2010-04-08T18:24:00.003-06:00

Just a little FYI - Provo Craft (which is actually in Orem) is closing and has some amazing sales right now. I went yesterday and bought a bunch of super cute Halloween decorations (don't ask why, I just LOVE Halloween!) and only paid about 20 bucks. This lady in front of me bought 3 CARTS full of scrapbooking stuff and only paid $120! I couldn't believe it. If I was into scrapbooking at all I would have gone nuts.

Anyway, if you're interested, the store is located on State Street right on the border of Orem and Lindon, by Utah College of Massage Therapy.

FLAN!

2010-03-26T08:34:00.002-06:00

I have had flan like 7 times in the last 2 weeks.

So, I thought I hated flan.
I have eaten flan maybe 2 times in my whole life before now, and it was always the cheap stuff and was way to gelatin-ous for me, which is why I've always thought I hated flan. In fact, when I started talking to my coworker about it yesterday, she was like, "you like flan? I've never heard of anyone who likes flan! I thought it was nationally hated!"

But about 3 weeks ago, for some inexplicable reason, I started craving the taste of flan (or creme brulee, they kind of taste the same to me).

Ironically, a couple weeks ago my friend Rachel brought a big flan for dessert. And it was DIVINE. She gave us plenty of leftovers, and since Mike is only passive about it, I got to eat them all. So I had flan 3 days in a row.

Then I ran out of flan. And I couldn't stop thinking about it. FLAN!

So I went to the store and bought one of those cheap Jello flan packets and made 4 small flans. Much less gelatin than I remember, more like a pudding - must just depend on how long you boil it. So I had flan the next 4 nights in a row.

I'm still craving it. I wonder when this weird obsession will end! And more importantly, how can I get more FLAN??

Filling in the Blanks

2010-02-23T20:29:00.007-07:00

So I FINALLY have done something with my over-the-cupboard space. Between my frugal shopping at thriftier stores like Ross, Big Lots, and the For Every Body outlet, the whole thing only cost like $20! (sorry, I don't know why this picture looks so far away)

I heart ivy, so that's what all the greenery is. On top of this corner cupboard are 3 hurricane jars. The only thing I haven't figured out is what to put in them. Any ideas???

On this side of the cupboards. . .a wicker/canvas basket, bronzed picture frame, our "families are forever" plaque, 2 asymmetrical candlesticks and mottled green candles, and a wine birdcage rack (filled with cider) on top of the fridge.

These pictures really don't do it justice, because it actually doesn't look very good in these pics, but I love love LOVE it!

The Ugliest Doll Ever

2010-02-23T20:14:00.002-07:00

Found this in Cali. Creepy.

Cali

2010-02-23T19:53:00.003-07:00

I went to Cali over President's Day weekend with my mom, sister, aunt, and cousin (yes, that means that Michael and I spent Valentine's Day apart. Since we don't celebrate that holiday, it wasn't a big deal.)

The mountains in Nevada had snow on them! Crazy!!

The weather was FANTASTIC!! So warm! I wore short sleeves the whole time. It definitely changed my mind about the requirements I have for where we go for Mike's PhD. Yeah. . .I'm going to have to say that winter weather has been moved to priority #1 in my book. Anywhere I can wear short sleeves in the middle of winter is A-OK with me.

Check out that sunlight!

Goals for this year

2010-02-10T15:12:00.003-07:00

So I have never been the type of person to make New Years resolutions, and I still don't consider the goals below to be that, but I have decided I need some more direction in my life. I've decided to post these goals so that I will have to be accountable to someone. All too often I find that all of a sudden a week, a month, a year has gone by without accomplishing more important (to me) goals simply because I get distracted by everyday life.

These are a few things I would like to accomplish this year:

Read 50 books - I have no idea if this is an accurate number or not, so I will adjust it around June. Thanks to the library, I do read quite a bit but honestly probably watch more mindless tv than I should, and I think I should convert some of that time to books instead. I do love books, and it's true that it exercises your mind in ways tv never can, so I'd like to spend more time on that this year.

Figure out how to fast - Thanks to my hypoglycemia, it's probably been at least a year and a half since I've actually been able to fast 2 meals, let alone one. Usually I have to munch on things at least every couple hours otherwise I start feeling like I'm going to pass out. Realistically, that is not going to change anytime soon. So I am welcoming ideas about other ways to "fast" that would still have kind of the same meaning behind it. For instance, what did you all do when you were pregnant and such and couldn't fast in the traditional sense?

Double our savings account - Our savings account got pretty much wiped out a couple summers ago due to all the ER and instacare visits. Add in the fact that Mike is a full-time grad student, we are paying a mortgage, pay travel expenses each Christmas, had a couple thousand in car repairs bills this year, etc etc. . .well, we are definitely not rolling in money!! (lol) Plus, our whole marriage so far we have focused more on trying to pay down our debt, and as a result don't have much in the way of savings. Hopefully (barring unforeseen expenses) that will change in a few months when we have our cars and credits cards (see the above travel and car repair expenses) paid off. At that point, everything we had put each month toward debt we will be able to put into our savings account instead. It will be a glorious day when that happens.

I'd definitely appreciate any input or advice you have on how to meet these goals!

It Would Melt the Hardest Heart

2010-01-27T14:06:00.003-07:00

You HAVE to watch this. HAVE to. It's 30 seconds of THE CUTEST THING EVER!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lHAshi4vdbg&feature=player_embedded

It probably saved my marriage :)

2010-01-18T12:42:00.002-07:00

Let me draw your eye to the unassuming object newly attached to our sink.

So amazing. This little $5 doo-dad has changed our lives. 3 years of me freaking out over finding wet gross sponges in the sink every day. . .gone. Because of the holes in the bottom, I find a clean dry sponge every time. Bliss.

The Magic of a Target Gift Card

2010-01-18T12:31:00.003-07:00

In which this. . .

. . .becomes this:

Thanks Sandy :)

**there were 26 pairs of shoes in that pile. Twenty-six!!! I'm ashamed that we even own that many shoes!

HUGE SALE TODAY

2010-01-16T12:03:00.002-07:00

Okay peeps! Between myself, Mike, my sister, and my mom, we came home with like 6 bags of clothes for something like $50 altogether! I don't usually shop at Old Navy, but Mike heard they were having a huge sale, so we went over there. The sale is 50% off ALREADY CLEARANCED ITEMS! Which means that I was bringing home sweaters and tops that cost like $2 apiece. We found men's khakis for $3! Such a good deal, let me know if you benefit from this!

Christmas

2010-01-11T16:39:00.005-07:00

Waiting at the airport early Christmas morning. We put Pocket in a Santa jacket with the hope that she'd charm all the attendants into being nicer to us. For the most part it worked.

Our Christmas this year was fun. We got to go to New York to be with Mike's family for Christmas and New Years. Unfortunately, now that we are once again relegated to student status. . .and student income. . .this will probably be the last year we will be able to go out there for the holidays. It seems like plane tickets keep getting more and more expensive. We're not planning on going anywhere this year, but our hope is that maybe next year we'll be able to find some dirt cheap tickets in an off-season time.

A sleepy Pocket and Michael on Christmas morning opening presents. For some reason this crazy puppy loves to be swaddled for her naps. I doubt that's common in dogs. :)

So you guys tell me if you have this same problem. Anytime I finish a visit with my in-laws I either feel like they must be ever-so-lucky to have me as their one and only child-in-law, or that I'm a complete failure. This visit was definitely the latter. I was NOT on my A-game this visit. I kept saying and doing things to embarrass myself. I don't know what my problem was. It was like I was 16 and on my first date all over again. Shameful.

Joel and Robyn taking their vows

So one of the main reasons for our visit this year was a family wedding. I've never been to an Eastern wedding before. It was really fun! Even more fun because they got married on New Years Eve!

One of the finger food tables

The reception was amazing, and much different than what I'm used to. There were even waiters that would walk around with plates of hor dourves! They had an open soda/alcohol bar and served pizza at midnight (yes, the reception went until 1:30am!).

Snowflake wedding cake

On the other side of the room they had a projector set up and were showing Twilight Zone episodes. Then of course there was a dance floor in the middle of the room that actually got used, especially as the night progressed and people got more and more liquored up.

In our wedding attire

I was so excited about my first big Eastern New Year's Eve party - I had all these grand plans for my hair, nails, etc. However, it just wasn't in the cards. I do love my "little black dress" though. This pic does not do it justice.

And one of my favorite parts of the trip - getting to visit my friends in the hospital. Baby K finally deemed the world worthy of her entrance, a week late, but just in time since we had to fly home the next day. She belongs to one of my closest guy friends that I've known since 5th grade, and he's the first one in my group of high school friends to have a baby, so it was really special. I'm lucky enough to have even become friends with his wife and that she never acted weird or anything about the friendship. (hi nicole!)

Dancing with the MoTab Choir

2010-01-10T15:11:00.009-07:00

I had the wonderful opportunity to once again be a dancer for the Mormon Tabernacle Choir Christmas Concert. A huge "thank-you" to all the many family and friends who came to watch! And a huge "you suck" to my sisters who didn't. (Yeah. I wrote that.) This is my 3rd year making it through the auditions. I'd like to possibly do it again this next Christmas but we'll see what happens. It is a really big time commitment and it might be nice to be able to take Christmas at a slower pace this next year.

This year's concert featured Natalie Cole, with guest performer David McCullough. For the record, David McCullough is hilarious. He would come hang out with the dancers. It was fun. Natalie didn't hang out so much, but she would stand by the stage entrance and say hi to us as we came offstage. Her 2nd dressing room was right by my stage entrance so that was cool. Also, Edward Herriman happened to be in town and attended the first performance, so I got to chat with him for a moment backstage. Uber cool. This year was especially cool because my stage placement put me slightly stage left of smack dab center stage. . .and President Monson walks up the stage on stage left to present the performer's their gifts at the last performance. Last year I was on the other side of the staircase and I was in awe to have him walk up the stairs 5 feet away from me. THIS year, I was instructed to take a step backward so that President Monson could pass by me and stand 5 feet away the whole time. It was amazing. To watch Kristi, Brittni, and I stand there grinning like idiots, I mean, as the prophet passed by us. The first night as he was walking out he looked at Kristi and I and said, "good job tonight." Kristi froze solid with a smile plastered on her face, but I managed to squeak out an unnaturally high-pitched "thank you." That last night, he actually stopped for a moment to admire Brian's costume, who was next to me, so we got to chat with him for a moment. And by "chat" I mean that he said nice things and the rest of us grinned and giggled nervously like morons.

I thought you might like to see some "behind the scenes" pictures. :)

This is what the costumes looked like this year. The skirts were either blue, dark green, or maroon.

The most annoying part of the costume was definitely the lace-up sides, pictured below. It would have been much easier to have a hidden zipper up the back. As it was, we had to redo our laces every time we put our tunics on over our leotards. It was a pain in the neck, especially for me since I'm so OCD that I would take an extra 30 minutes on each side trying to get the dumb ribbons to lay flat against my leotard instead of twisting and looking more rope-like than ribbon-like. Hope that makes sense. Here is a picture of my hard work one night. Lovely.

Here's me with my friends Brittni and Kristi. Kristi was in it last year too so we already knew each other. I had a blast hanging out with these girls on down-times.

Did you know the Conference Center was wired to do cool things like this?? I sure didn't. This was what the background looked like for the Jamaican dance. They had lights that shone down through a palm-tree stencil to create this cool effect. Did you also know that they have lights on the organ to turn the pipes any color you want?? I think I saw those pipes turn every color of the rainbow at some point or another. The whole organ doesn't have to be the same color either! They can do stripes or chunks of color on it, although it seems that their favorite is to make the "forward" sections of the organ a different color than the recessed pipes, like you see here. And compare this photo to the one after it - the difference in the lighting creates such a different effect! Sorry, for some reason I'm FASCINATED with this. I wish I could just post all the different pics of the organ I have so you could see all the different lighting options! I bet that most people in the audience never even realized the organ was slowly turning different colors throughout the show.

This is the effect for the "O Christmas Tree" finale. They actually had this huge tree emerge from the middle of the stage halfway through the song (thanks to trapdoors and hooks from the ceiling) and "grow" until the song ended. It was very cool and we were under strict instructions from Mac Wilberg to not say a word until performances actually started, under penalty of "you die."

The Russian dancers' costumes.

Brittni and I snuck onstage between performances one day and had fun taking pics with all the stage props. (That is my highly coveted VIP Talent Pass you see hanging from my neck. Heaven help a person who lost or forgot theirs. Security is very tight at the Conference Center.)

Lloyd Newell and I. Have to get a pic with him every year! Lloyd Newell is the guy who does Music and the Spoken Word each Sunday, as well as the voiceover for Conference Sessions. I took a couple classes from him at BYU and he is AMAZING. So every Christmas when I see him at the concerts I have to get a pic with him.

Kristi and Roxanne in their Irish costumes. Isn't their hair fun?? Those wigs were crazy!

Thanksgiving

2010-01-10T14:46:00.005-07:00

This was our very first Thanksgiving on our own. In the past we have always been with one of our families. This year we decided to try something different. We rented a GORGEOUS condo in St. George where it was warmer than here. :D

I absolutely loved the decorating. It's definitely my style, and if I had all the money in the world I would decorate my house exactly the same way. We went down with our friends Pete and Rachel, so this 2 bed/2 bath condo was perfect for us.

The whole reason we went to St George was to hike through Zions. We didn't get to do as much real hiking as originally intended, because the weather was pretty gloomy and drizzly the day we decided to go. It was still fun though! We also stopped at this weird petting farm/old style playland on the way. Here's me with a llama.

He's not as snuggly as he appears to be in this picture. Also, Rachel and I (the boys did clean-up) cooked the entire Thanksgiving dinner on our own! This was a first for me! I think we did really well. We had turkey, homemade cranberry sauce, potatoes and this amazing gravy with pearl onions, corn, biscuits, homemade cranberry stuffing, sweet potatoes, and homemade grape juice. Very tasty! My mouth's watering just thinking about it!

Halloween

2010-01-10T13:31:00.006-07:00

Yes, these next couple posts are quite belated, but better late than never, right?

Halloween this year was quite uneventful for us. Usually it's a pretty big deal in our house, but we were just too busy this year and didn't have our usual ward party to dress up for. So instead on Halloween our friends came over to help pass out candy and we just played board games.

My friend Rachel has a tradition of making Dinner in a Pumpkin every Halloween. It is amazing! Unfortunately, I didn't get a picture of it. I did get a picture of the "dessert" portion of our dinner. We made homemade caramel apples and Spiced Cider - yum! This one is a caramel apple rolled in crushed Reeses. Tasty.

And here is Pocket in her Indiana Jones costume. Too cute.

Notice

2009-12-15T09:09:00.001-07:00

So I'm thinking my blog may be going private. Email me at natasha dot 515 at gmail dot com if you'd like to be invited.

Wish Me Luck!

2009-12-10T08:26:00.005-07:00

Well, after months of commuting up to SLC all the time for rehearsals, the concerts are finally here. I'm so happy to be a part of this for the 2nd year as a dancer. It's very rewarding. Not to mention very cool to see all the secret places in the building that you thought were just myths.

Also, for those who are interested, last year's concert will be airing on Dec 16th, 24th, and 25th on PBS. The DVD just came out a couple weeks ago, so naturally we bought it and it's very good. Love both Brian Stokes Mitchell and Edward Herriman (aka "Rory's grandpa"). Also very relieved to see that I wasn't making any weird faces when the camera was on me. For those who don't know, the yearly christmas concerts are not released for tv airtime or onto DVD until the following christmas. That way they're not driving themselves nuts trying to edit everything in like 1 week. Plus the DVD contains a lot of "behind the scenes" film and other bonuses which take time to put together. My guess is that it doesn't take them the full year to get it done, but just that it doesn't make sense to release it in mid-summer or something. It's all very confusing, especially when you're trying to explain to someone that wants to watch it that they're going to have to wait a whole year.

Twilight in one page. It's. . .so true. Thanks Chelsea.

2009-11-30T12:04:00.003-07:00

*Click to enlarge*

Little Things

2009-11-22T20:24:00.003-07:00

I find it's the littlest things in life that make me happy.

For example. Right now I'm working on the computer with a sleeping puppy on my chest. Only the puppy is a little stuffed up so her breaths come out sounding like "a-heh, a-heh" intermixed with quiet snoring. It's cute!

And it melts my heart. :)

Random, also cute pics

2009-11-22T20:00:00.003-07:00

So I tried to recreate the photo in my last post, but failed miserably. You see, when the photo came out naturally people starting screaming "hoax" which I could definitely believe, but doesn't make the pic any less funny. The theory is that someone typed in the phrase "black people stole my car" but misspelled "black" prompting Google to provide a correction. Then, that same person changed the search word to "white" without hitting enter, and took a picture of it. (Make sense?) So I tried to recreate the scenario. . .unfortunately, it looks like Google fiddled with the search engine to make it impossible for it to suggest the phrase "black people stole my car." Even when I typed "blak people stole my car" it gave me NO correction, which is rare, and instead just showed search results.

Anyway, none of this really means anything, I just found it interesting for some reason.

And now the cute pics.

Pocket was a cowboy for Halloween

My sister bought this sweatsuit for Pocket. She looks like a little thug!

Oh Dear. . .

2009-11-11T13:38:00.001-07:00

My friend Miri had this on her blog. I didn't stop laughing for like 10 minutes.

p.s.

2009-10-22T10:02:00.002-06:00

This is MY blog. I do not apologize for anything said here. I deliberately do not keep a private journal, so this blog is all I have when I need to get out raw emotion. No longer will I write a blog post and then go back and edit it 20 times to be nice and polite for my readership, especially the readers I had never planned to tell about the blog in the first place.

That is, until I inevitably wake up tomorrow in a better mood and go back and make the last post all nice and crap.

The Proposal

2009-10-22T09:01:00.006-06:00

I saw The Proposal the other night. Although I was previously undecided on Ryan Reynolds, as talked about in this post, he is now officially added to my man-hotness list. Yummy.

The movie itself I am still undecided on. The first half was great - absolutely hilarious, and I thought for sure I'd have to buy the movie. However, a few issues in the second half made me a little too antsy - although I know full well that it's just me and my craziness, not really more than that.

For example: I about threw a hissy fit in the theater when Ryan's parents suggested (nay, insisted!) that he and Sandra Bullock get married the next day there at the house. Did they not stop to think that she might possibly want a guest of her own at her wedding? I mean, they were in Alaska visiting HIS family, so the groom's half of the church would have been full and hers would have been empty. And how they forced her to wear that horrible wedding dress. And how they didn't let her have input on anything. And treated her to that awful bachelorette party that she obviously would not have chosen. And how they guilted her into getting their way on everything. And yes, yes, I know that the marriage was a sham anyway and that's hopefully the only reason Ryan and Sandra went along with it, but the nerve of those parents! It just made me so mad because even though it was supposed to be funny, it hit a little too close to home. When I was engaged and getting married, I woke up to the realization that weddings are for everyone else, but not the bride. The disenchantment was a little heartbreaking. Pretty much the only thing that was 100% my pick was the wedding dress (and it was gorgeous, I still sigh over it). I realized pretty quickly that brides have very little control over their wedding day and that you have to work around everyone else's schedule, even though it should've been the other way around. I did not get married where I wanted or when I wanted, due to scheduling conflicts with our families. I did not get the reception I wanted. I hated most of the bridal party's dresses and still cringe at pictures. I had one bridesmaid in particular that was a terror and made an already extremely stressful time in my life more stressful. Nobody let me enjoy my reception! They kept making me do things that were completely unecessary! I didn't even get to eat anything when the reception was over and I got to finally sit down because I had 12 people trying to get me to do different things.

I mean, seriously, it's no wonder I was having complete meltdowns all the time. I was planning a wedding, going to school full time, and working full time. I was SO tired all the time, both physically and mentally, and even now I still can't understand why other people made that supposedly happy event so much harder for me than it needed to be. If I could've subtracted a few key people and issues from the day, it would have been fine. I wish I could say that my wedding day was the best day of my life, but it's far from it. In fact, even now (3 years later) I can't think or talk about my wedding day too much, because all of the specific issues (I've been wonderfully vague in this post) still make me so mad that I get all worked up and teary (obviously, I mean just look at how long this post has gotten.) My dad offered to just give me the money. . .there are so many times I wish I had taken the money and run! The one memory from my wedding that I will always cherish is hiding out in a dark hallway (how did I escape the reception?? I don't remember) for a few minutes with my BFF in our gorgeous dresses, hugging and talking and crying. Is that pathetic or nostalgic? I can't decide.

What's sad is that my story is not singular. I hear SO many stories, especially in Utah, about other brides that felt the same way about their weddings. My personal theory is that it's a horrible never-ending chain: because so many people were unsatisfied with their own weddings, they try to live vicariously through their children or friends who are getting married and try to create a wonderful party for themselves. In return, the bride gets jilted and watches sadly as her romantic dreams of her wedding day crumble. So at the next wedding, she is first in line to live vicariously through others and create the perfect party! And so on and so on. It's a vicious chain. I will do my best to break the cycle with my sisters and my children.

Anyway, I apologize for the rant. I'm sure most of you had perfectly lovely wedding days. Kudos to you. I hold no ill-will toward you. Just please don't be offended if I don't want to hear you go on and on about how great your wedding was. :)

Humbug

2009-10-21T16:00:00.003-06:00

We're a full 2 months away from our Christmas flights and I'm already pissed at Delta.

After last year's fiasco I swore I would never fly Delta again. (We had four flights total and each and every one was either delayed or cancelled leaving us stranded at JFK overnight). Unfortunately, I booked our flights through Northwest not realizing that the two companies are merging. So while our tickets say Northwest, all the policies and everything are dictated by Delta, and they are the ones I have to deal with.

Note to Delta: Considering I just dropped over a grand on tickets (seriously????) and apparantly have to give you a second chance, I am far less than thrilled when you suddenly delay my connection by 3 hours, thereby guaranteeing that I will not get to see my family on Christmas Day until 9pm. Grumpy hormonal lady + unhappy puppy who is not allowed out of the kennel + 6 hours stuck in the Detroit airport = imminent disaster.

Update

2009-10-10T11:19:00.006-06:00

I know, I KNOW, it has been forever and a half since I blogged anything worthwhile. There just has been so much going on! I have lots of pictures that I will have to put up. . .someday. . .as well as the knowledge that my 200th post is just a few posts away! So if you have any requests or questions you want answered or anything, I will choose that post as the day to please the masses.

This may be the last of the picture posts, as our wonderful camera suddenly stopped working, and we will have to wait until Christmas sales to get another one.

So a little on what has been going on:

Puppy Parenting: We hired a trainer for Pocket, who was a fairly well-behaved pup to begin with. She's doing quite well with it, although we have decided not to comply as strictly to what the trainer wants to accomplish. For example, Pocket is supposed to be so mellow and unattached that when we come home she greets us with a "slow to medium tail wag." What?? I LIKE that she is happy to see us when we come home! The training has helped a lot with her separation anxiety though, so she doesn't cry when we leave anymore, and she goes into her kennel mostly willingly. So I feel that we're reaching a happy medium.

She is also almost done teething, FINALLY. She is a late bloomer as far as losing her baby teeth goes. Her 4 new canines are in but we're still waiting for the baby ones to fall out, and then we're done. Teething seems like it's been physically taxing for her because it's made her quite drowsy lately.

I like this pic of Mike and Pocket dozing on the couch, I think it's cute!

DIY Crown Molding: Die crown molding, die! I will never do it again! The living does look fantastic, admittedly. I'll have to find a way to take some pics of the finished product. However, my advice to anyone considering this is to hire it out. However, I did get to buy an air gun and an air compressor for the project, which I am stoked to own.

Visit from the in-laws: Mike's parents visited over conference weekend, which was great! My MIL took lots of pics so I'll have to do a separate post detailing that. Meanwhile, here is a pic of the guest room. It will likely never look this organized again, which is why I figure I should post the pic while I can.

Dance practice: I made the dance team again - and I have to be vague because we're not allowed to say the name online. But it's the same dance team I made last year, for those of you that know, so I'm pretty excited. Although I will be glad when the performance is over in December, because I hate commuting to Salt Lake so much.

Attending the Jim Gaffigan show at Kingsbury Hall: Jim Gaffigan is a hilarious comedian, he's on Comedy Central all the time for those of you who have cable. He came to UT a few weeks ago on tour so we went to see his act. It was great!

How do you like my new glasses? After 22 years of 20/15 vision, I finally had to give in to the fact that my job staring at tiny print and computer screens all day was straining my eyesight.

Exploring St George: We went to Zions and also to a real live dinosaur excavation site!

Hanging out with BFF: And getting to taste the yumminess of Leatherbys again! So sad they pulled out of Provo!

And don't you love this giant rocking chair??

House Organizing: This one's more me. I have been trying to get a lot of little projects done once I finished the crown molding. Pictured here. . .organizing the spice rack (I know, it's stupid, but it's been driving me nuts for months) and finally hanging blinds in the 2 extra bedrooms.

Next up: Trying to buy plane tickets for Christmas. We always have the debate about whether we can afford the extra hundred bucks to get an extra day out of the vacation, which we usually say yes to, but this year we probably can't since we'll need that money to fly the pup with us. It is expensive to fly pets! However, Pocket is still a baby and there's no way I'm going to leave her for that long. Next year she'll probably be old enough to be left somewhere for that long, but not this year for sure.

Shout out to my followers. . .and do you want me to follow you too?

2009-09-15T11:33:00.005-06:00

So when I read the comments on my last big post, my first thought was, "Adrienne Whittle reads my blog! Cool!" b/c I always thought she was a cool mom (ie. my first memory of her parenting style was when Luke ate some grass at our ward football game and all she did was laugh and wipe it off. . .no freaking out or anything. Very cool.) So thank you for finally coming out of the woodwork so that we can some kind of communication again!

And Jo. Where have you been hiding??? Do you have a blog too? How did you find me? Anyway, very cool to hear from you. Holla. Also, I happen to agree with your stance. More on that later, depending on how brave I can be to face the inevitable controversy.

And to everyone: I need you to tell me if you have a "follow this blog" app on your blog, because I will gladly become a public follower. What I notice ends up happening is that I will subscribe to a blog (which is different, for those that don't know) which means their blog ends up on my GoogleReader, but the person may never know I read their blog since I am not a public "follower." Since I do everything through GoogleReader (hence never actually looking at the blog itself) I never know when someone has that button on their blog or not. So if you tell me you have one, I will go to your web address and sign on. As a sidenote, I also have a "Follow" app, so if you are not already a public Follower I'd love for you to become one. Also , I try to remember to add friends' blogs to my blog roll, but again, since I use GoogleReader that's mostly for the benefit of anyone that looks at my blog website. So if your name is not on there and you'd like for it to be, let me know and I will add it on.

Wow, I said the word "blog" like 10x just then. Blog blog blog.

Where I've Been

2009-09-09T21:53:00.001-06:00

I've been in San Diego.

And it was awesome.

And yes, that is a real plumeria in my hair.

Thanks

2009-09-03T08:21:00.002-06:00

Well, all I can say is that I am immensely impressed with the depth and quantity of comments left on my last blog post. There were a total of 15 comments, and each one was its own little narrative. I really appreciate all the honesty that went into those. I felt like the blog became frank and raw for a short time, which is a good thing. Those comments helped spark some good conversations in our house and more than that, helped me not feel like a beast for waiting. You guys rock.

When the day DOES come that we decide to move forward with family plans, you'll be the first to know. :)

Opinions on my Uterus

2009-08-24T09:17:00.004-06:00

**I have lots of other blog posts and pics coming, but since this was already written and in drafts, it will be published first.**

Lol, I bet THAT title got you reading this! Anywho, the fact of the matter is that I need advice. So I am going to do something I've never done before and open this blog post up in a personal forum type of way. Because of the topic matter, I would most like opinions from those my own age who are married, because you are the ones who will most relate.

The topic is babies. More specifically, how do you know when you're ready to have one? I welcome both advice on how to know you are AND how to know you're not. Or do you EVER know for sure? The reason I ask is because my coworker just told me she's pregnant so we've been having lots of conversations, hence, I've been thinking about this a lot, and I'm worried my current reasoning is way off. So let me cue you in to my way of thinking. Forgive the word vomit that will inevitably follow.

Update: The word vomit is bounteous! Just leave a comment with your advice if you don't want to read the rest.

See, I'm a little worried that I've made up my mind about this too LOGICALLY. For example, Mike and I are both the oldest and will likely have the first grandchild on either side, but I'd really like my children to have cousins their age. I had tons of cousins my age and Michael had none, and I can really tell the difference between the family bonds. Since neither of our siblings are even close to being married yet, that means the likelihood of one of them having a baby isn't a possibility for at LEAST a year (if something miraculous happens), more likely 2 or more.

Now the thing is, I don't necessarily mind waiting longer, except that I'm starting to get nervous that maybe I should feel differently. After all, we've been married for 3 years already. The original plan was to wait a year before we started trying, but when that year came I was like "are you kidding me?? that went too fast, and I'm still way young! maybe in another year" and then THAT year came and I was like "yeah, still too young for a baby. next year!" and now here we are at THIS year and I'm like "hehe, no thanks. . ." Which sometimes leaves me at night wondering, what the heck is wrong with me??? My cousin got married 3 weeks before us and they already have 2 kids. Not to mention all my classmates from high school or even college that have jumped on the baby train. Am I missing some kind of baby-sensitive vibes that I'm supposed to be getting? Because quite frankly, I'm really happy with my current lifestyle and I know a baby is a 24/7 job on it's own. . .plus I already reap "snuggling" benefits from the pup, who I love dearly and is easier to care for.

The funny thing is that I would have NEVER expected to feel this way. All growing up the only thing I wanted was to be a cute pregnant newlywed and then have an adorable baby.

Newsflash: Not all pregnant woman are cute, and eventually those babies grow up.

Both are important to consider. I was about 15 pounds heavier in high school and looking back at pics, the difference definitely shows. So it has done WONDERS for my self-confidence to be able to stay at a consistently low weight these past few years. And frankly, I don't know that I have enough self-esteem to deal with the possibility that I will be one of those pregnant women who gains weight EVERYWHERE, not just on the belly.

And about those babies growing up. . .see, I actually have no problem with the baby itself, even right now, because I know I can handle a baby. The problem is that I don't think that in 5 years I'd be ready to parent a 5 year old, does that make sense? Not to mention that I don't want an only child, and I would want my kids close together, so that would mean that another 2 or 3 years following the first I would need to have a second child. But maybe that my overly logical side kicking in again! Although. . .that means if I waited a couple years for my sisters to catch up, and had a kid in a couple years, then I'd be having another kid in like 4-5 years. . .and that would mean that in 5 years I'd have 2 kids! Whoa! Definitely not ready for that! Especially when looking back at my already 3 years of marriage, a younger me would have expected to have 1 or 1 1/2 kids by now, and I'm so glad that didn't happen - so I don't know how much I should expect my current opinions to change in the next 3 years? Bah.

I would guess that a lot of it depends on the child you get too. 2 examples, one good and one bad. When Maddy-cakes lived here, she was absolutely the highlight of my day. Being able to play with her every day was definitely what helped me through some less-than-awesome times and I was always so sad on the rare days I didn't get to see her. She was such a perfect little doll (although her mother may disagree, I don't know) that I always would think "oh yeah, I could totally do this". . .and even if she was cranky and screaming on the odd day out I'd still want to just hold her and love her.

Now fast foward to a seemingly innocent trip to the Provo library last weekend. They were having their semi-annual book sale downstairs so we went browsing. And I kid you not, I seriously wanted to smack each and every one of the children in that room. They were all screaming or crying or otherwise being horribly obnoxious and we actually left early because of it. True, a lot of that was probably due to parenting styles (seriously, where were those kids parents???) but I still walked out feeling horrible that I felt that way at all.

Um, okay, let's backtrack - because I see all my nursery babies' mothers gasping in dismay at my reaction. I RARELY got fed up with nursery. I loved playing with "my kids" each week and felt that we had a good routine and good methods of disciplining. Even one of my boys who others thought was maybe too rambunctious or moody ended up being one of my very favorites, and I was the only one that could always get him to calm down and participate, and over the years we developed quite a little bond. In fact, he's the one that finally made me decide I'd be okay with having a little boy someday, a little Trev of my own. So is that the trick? Familiarity? The reason people say it's easier to take care of their own children than anyone else's?

So what I DON'T want to do is have a baby out of obligation. Yes, I'm sure I would love the baby, but I would like to want the baby before I got pregnant with it. :) Except that now I'm worrying that feeling will never come.

Anyway, opinions please.

Any Scott Westerfeld/Uglies fans out there?

2009-08-19T19:19:00.002-06:00

If you're a fan of Scott Westerfeld and his Uglies series, or have just heard of Uglies and would like to read it, you can now download a PDF of Uglies FOR FREE.

Check out how at http://scottwesterfeld.com/blog/?p=1294

Really, this works. I downloaded it already.

Puppy-sitting

2009-08-07T22:39:00.003-06:00

Anyone want to watch the pup in a couple weeks while we're in St George?

The condo won't let us take her.

Nope, just fat apparantly

2009-08-06T12:03:00.003-06:00

In response to a few well-meaning (I hope) inquiries lately, no, I am not pregnant, I am just gaining weight. Apparantly 5 pounds makes all the difference. Nor are we planning on having kids anytime soon. Mike still has 2 years of grad school then his PhD so I am not planning on leaving my job anytime in the near future. Also, although I've had the occasional baby craving here and there, I've never really felt like it was time yet, so it really doesn't matter what anyone else says about the matter.

To be fair, a lot of my patients are on the elderly side and tend to say anything that comes to mind. For example, the following conversation:

Elderly woman: Dearie! You didn't tell me you were pregnant!

Me: Actually Thelma, I'm not.

Thelma: Are you sure? Because you look a little thick around the middle.

Me: Pretty sure. But thanks for asking!

Thelma: Well maybe you should wear more form-fitting scrubs. . .

Me: I'll look into that.

If it were just my more. . .absent minded patients asking, I wouldn't think twice. But since my coworker also asked me. . .yeah. Let's just say I am picking up a couple Gold's Gym schedules on my way home today. I usually do a lot of exercise classes, but to save money I didn't enroll in any this summer, so I haven't been working out consistently since April. However, the money is definitely worth it so I'm going to return to my prior routine.

In other news, we now have health insurance again! Yay! The past 7 months without it have been a little scary, but we were trying to wait until the semester was closer to starting since Mike is required to have it for grad school.

Anyway, toodles. I'm going to the gym.

Rodeo

2009-08-06T11:57:00.000-06:00

So last week we went to the Heber rodeo. Although I knew I probably wouldn't be as excited and intrigued by it as most of the people around here are, I expected to at least have a passive interest in the tricks and skills that would take place.

Well, that didn't happen. About 20 minutes into it I apparantly became a PETA activist when I started crying because the way they were treating the animals was making me sick to my stomach. Needless to say, we left and just walked around the booths outside the arena for a while.

Now, the rodeo around here is HUGE. It seems like everyone goes, and everyone loves it. So please do not think that I am condemning anyone who likes the rodeo, because I was as surprised as anyone when I realized how much I did NOT like it, and why.

swagbucks.com

2009-07-15T20:12:00.002-06:00

So I rarely post on this here blog but I came across something recently that makes a lot of sense to me. Swagbucks.com is a website that rewards you for using their search engine, which is a combination of google and ask.com. Now, when you sign up and begin using their engine, you get swagbucks, which you can then redeem for cash, gift certificates, various prizes, etc. Since just about everyone uses search engines anyway, over time this is a nice way to earn a little prize. If you click the banner you'll sign up under my name, and I believe we both get point benefits for the connection. Cool beans, huh?

http://swagbucks.com/refer/MilRuko

4th of July

2009-07-06T20:48:00.002-06:00

We had a great holiday! The Balls and the Smiths came over for a BBQ at my parents (because we are house-sitting while they're on vacation) and we had a lot of fun!

Jamie and Catherine made their own Kube (sp??) game! 85th ward, remember playing this a lot at Bishop's? I can't believe they made their own, it turned out so good!

Catherine, Chloe and I waited all night for a strobe firework so that we could dance around it. Here's what happened when we THOUGHT this was a strobe, but then backed away shrieking when we realized there were hot sparks flying at us. Jamie happened to catch the picture.

I found this pic on my camera - I think Ryan must have taken it sometime. . .I think it's a cool pic though. We did a tiki theme for the BBQ because my parents have a bunch of tiki torches.
We had a lot of fun setting up multiple explosions.

Thanks for coming over guys! It was a fun holiday! Also, Catherine should update her blog. The End.

Follow Me

2009-06-29T12:03:00.002-06:00

I added the Followers sidebar, check it out and follow! Also, I will work on getting a profile pic up so that I don't show up as a mysterious murder scene outline on other people's follow charts.

Funny (and real!) Test Answers

2009-06-29T11:47:00.003-06:00

If you google something like "funny exam answers" or "funny test answers" you will find loads of hilarious real life answers teachers have gotten back from students. These are a couple of my favorite.

Another great giveaway people!

2009-06-29T09:18:00.002-06:00

If you still haven't gone to this blog, you should do it now.

http://therhouse.blogspot.com/2009/06/just-pictures-giveaway.html

p.s. I was one of the winners for the last picture giveaway. We get a free photo session!

No Hawaii For Me

2009-06-25T09:58:00.004-06:00

Well, at 4am this morning my family went to Hawaii. Well, realistically, they're probably still on planes, but you know what I mean. This Hawaii trip has been in the works for about a year now, and originally we had planned to go with them. (Hence the Waikiki countdown that used to grace the top of my blog) Sadly, with Mike's change of jobs we no longer got paid vacation, and so it was kind of a huge bummer to have to each take 10 days upaid leave, although we still were planning it. But then once we started looking at houses, and calculated up how much money we wanted to put toward the down payment, etc. . .well, it just wasn't going to work.

On my calendar at work it says "Nat Hawaii!!!!" on the next 10 days, so patients keep saying, "ooh, is someone going to HA?" and I keep having to say "no. . .I bought a house instead."

Short term bummer, but better in the long term, hopefully.

I'm actually not as heartbroken as I expected to be. After crunching the numbers like 10 times, there just really is no way we could have afforded to take 3 weeks (combined) off work PLUS pay for tickets PLUS entertainment PLUS mortage. . so it's hard for me to feel too sad when it's just simply impossible. Plus what would we do with the pup? She's only 12 weeks old and still such a baby, I couldn't imagine leaving her behind, although I wouldn't want to leave her in a hotel room in HA all day either while we went galavanting.

Okay, okay, maybe I'm rationalizing a bit to make myself feel better. But then I remember how I haven't been on any vacations with the fam since I was 18 that have turned out well. I always come home frustrated, stressed out, crying from all the teasing, and vowing to not see them for a couple months while I recover. I think that most of us just have too strong of personalities to be in that close of contact for so long with no room for escape, one member in particular. If I'm going to be spending money, I'd much rather do it on a vacation of my choosing, like when I went back East with my sis Ayisha last year. That was completely freaking awesome!! Such a great trip that we weren't able to squeeze in everything we wanted to, and I really would not mind doing a repeat to catch all the things we missed (which we are actually considering doing in December. . .) Also, there have been rumors of a possible trip with the New York fam next year, which would be pretty fun since I get along with them quite well. It's much nicer being the one and only DIL because you get treated like a princess. :)

Anyway, now I'm just rambling. Ciao.

I can fit a lot of places you can't. . .(says Pocket)

2009-06-16T20:21:00.003-06:00

Chocolate Mousse Cake

2009-06-16T20:12:00.002-06:00

Yesterday there was a surprise birthday party for my mom, so I made this chocolate mousse trifle cake thing (I haven't decided what to call it yet). The bottom layer is brownie cake, the middle layer is chocolate ganache, and the top is cream. It turned out fantastic and tasted oh-so-good.

Unfortunately, the following is what it looked like after a few minutes in the sun!

no, those are not cheetos!

2009-06-16T20:04:00.002-06:00

Last week we put my favorite childhood foam-filled pillow through the wash.

This is what happened.

I have no explanation for the explosion. But man, was it a beast to clean up!

Do you need 4th of July plans?

2009-06-16T08:31:00.003-06:00

Cuz we do.

We usually spend holidays with my fam since they're 15 minutes away, but they will be in Hawaii this 4th of July (lucky them. . .we were supposed to go too but we spent our money on a down payment instead).

So we have no plans for the 4th of July. If you are also in this situation and would perhaps like to BBQ together or something, please let me know! I really don't want to just sit around by ourselves that day. We'd love to host a small party for anyone who also needs plans!

The R House

2009-06-14T10:34:00.002-06:00

If you have never been to this blog before, I highly recommended. You will definitely become addicted as I have . . . I've been following the blog for 2 years now. I also have this blog button on the right side of my blog under my contacts list, for those who haven't noticed it before.

Right now they are doing a great photography giveaway. Check it out!

http://therhouse.blogspot.com/2009/06/rlt-photography-giveaway.html

Oh the Irony

2009-06-09T10:57:00.005-06:00

Well here's a bit of irony for you, 85th ward!

Right after I wrote that last post about how everything was good and great, I thought "uh oh. . .this can never last. . .seems like things can't be this perfect for more than a couple months." And I was right!

Mike and I got callings yesterday at church. He got called to be a teacher in Elder's Quorum. He was kind of expecting this calling and has done this before and really likes it, so he was really excited. It's a pretty easy calling because he only teaches once a month. Nice contrast to how time consuming the bishopric was.

Speaking of, I was excited to have him released so that I could spend some time with him on Sundays and Wednesdays finally (he always had meetings these days). . .BUT that is not to be! In a crazy twist I was called to be 2nd counselor in the Primary! At first when they told me I was like, "okay, well I was primary president before (although it was really more like nursery president, and in this new ward there are about 60 kids), so this is alright" But the more I learned about it, the more I realized this is going to be a lot of work! I will be teaching Sharing Time once a month, which scares the bejeezies out of me. Not only do I have meetings on. . .*shocker*. . .Sundays and Wednesdays, but apparantly I am over the cub scouting program. Scouts!!!! I just stared at the bishopric in horror when they told me that. I don't have any brothers and Mike's ward growing up wasn't super into scouts, so I have no idea about anything!! This means that in addition to attending all meetings and Primary activities, I will also be expected to attend all the scouting events and activities, which I'm told happen 4-5 times a month. They called me right before church started, and then the Primary pres wanted me in there right away so 2 hours later there I was! It was a crazy flurry of a day.

I am a little sad about it because I really wanted to stay in Relief Society. I had trouble making friends in my old ward because I was absent from Relief Society so much because of primary. I had really hoped to be able to make friends and fit in better in this new ward, but this is definitely going to make things tricky. I have been trying to really put myself out there despite my timidness and introduce myself to someone every week, but I found the best place for me to do this was in Relief Society in the few minutes before and after when people are just chatting. Sooo. . .if any of my existing friends would like to come visit me (or I can come to you) I would be more than thrilled, as I try to adjust to this new life of mine.

Oh, also, Mike can't stop giggling maliciously about my new calling. I am sure I will grow to love it, it is just quite overwhelming right now, especially since I had already felt pretty worn out from being nursery president! At the end of primary the pres said something like "well, we're excited to have you, you came very highly recommended" and since I don't really know anyone yet I said "by who??" and she said "your old bishop." Geez. Thanks a bunch Bishop! I'm. . .only half teasing. :)

May was a good month

2009-06-05T19:35:00.004-06:00

I was reflecting the other day and realized that we were incredibly blessed last month! It was a very eventful 31 days!

May gave us. . .

A house. . .

A puppy we have completely fallen in love with. . .

A stronger relationship. . .

A raise. . .

Work benefits. . .

A birthday. . .

A party with our old ward friends. . .

The sun, FINALLY. . .

Acceptance for Mike to work with his mentor of choice this fall at grad school. . .

. . .and so many other little things that I can't even list them all! I am so glad that even though we had doubts about buying the house, Mike going back to school, etc - we followed through with what we felt we were supposed to do, what Heavenly Father's plan was for us even though it meant sacrifice - and we have been blessed tenfold in return!

What made me reflect on all this was something Mike said a few days ago while we were snuggling under the covers in our new bedroom with Pocket (yes, I admit it - since she sometimes wakes up as early as 5am and starts crying, we sometimes get lazy and desperate for sleep and just let her come into bed with us). Out of the blue he said, "are you happy?" and I thought for a minute and said, "yeah, I am" to which he replied, "it's nice, isn't it?"

And it is. It is nice to feel like after everything that's happened the past few years, things are finally falling into place and we can finally start our lives.

Anyway, Pocket's been napping on me and she somehow keeps shifting more and more onto the keyboard, so I better get off the computer while I still have a few keys to type with. Tehe! She just opened her eyes, looked at me, and gave one of her HUGE yawns where she makes the cutest little "ahhhh" noise! Life is good!

p.s. The Name

2009-05-25T10:17:00.003-06:00

Since everyone's asking, we've decided her name is Pocket. Stef suggested we name her Winfield (Winnie for short) as a solution to my blog title problems. I absolutely LOVED that idea, good one Stef! She definitely looks like a Winnie! The problem was that we had already been calling her Pocket for a couple days and she was starting to respond to it, so to keep things simpler (third name change, anyone?) we decided to keep going with Pocket. But the next one will be Winnie. :)

Also, I way overestimated her weight. I found that out when I took her to the vet last week and they weighed her. She was only about a pound and a half when we first got her!

All this girl does is. . .

2009-05-24T18:55:00.006-06:00

As we speak, she is sleeping on my lap.

Prayers Please

2009-05-19T08:24:00.002-06:00

Well a little nephew of sorts is here. . .but much earlier than hoped for. My cousin just delivered her baby at 24 weeks gestation after a stay in the hospital doing everything they could to stop the labor. He weighed 1 pound 13 ounces when he was born. The little guy is definitely a fighter - there have been a lot of ups and downs already in his short life, including some hemorraging in his brain.

You can read the full story and see pictures at their blog here: http://rayandjanet.blogspot.com/

This little guy can use all the prayers he can get.

Our New Puppy!

2009-05-15T19:57:00.003-06:00

Meet our new puppy!

She is a Yorkie/Jack Russell Terrier mix, but she definitely looks more like a Jack Russell Terrier. Which is fine, because she seems to have inherited the Yorkshire Terrier personality! This little girl LOVES to snuggle! We picked her up today around 1pm, and all she's done all day is snuggle up to us and fall asleep repeatedly. She is about 2 pounds (maybe 3, if you push it) and somewhere between 4-8 weeks old. The breeder said she was 8 weeks, but according to her vaccination schedule she was born April 17th. So we're not exactly sure, but pleased to have her nonetheless. She's a good, mellow little dog, except for the 10 minutes right after she wakes up from a nap when she is ready to play, Jack Russell style! We don't think she'll get any bigger than maybe 12-15 pounds max as an adult. She is a TEENY little thing but oh-so-cute! One more thing: We haven't QUITE decided on a name. . .I called her Tater most of the day, but Mike didn't like that, so we've been trying out "Pocket" since numerous people today have said something along the lines of "she's pocket-sized." So we'll see what we end up with!

Snuggling. . .

Snoozing. . . (Kristin, Melanie, and Rachel came over with the toddlers so we all had fun playing today. . .the idea was that they could play with the puppy, but instead she slept through most of the afternoon on my lap!)

Ready to play!

Title Unknown

2009-05-12T14:44:00.002-06:00

Added the question marks at the end of the blog name, because as Stef pointed out, we no longer live at Winfield. Hmm. Never really thought about that when I created the blog. . .easy enough to change the name, but the url?? Unknown what will happen. . .

Movie Review: Star Trek (2009)

2009-05-12T10:19:00.003-06:00

Surprisingly good, although since I've never really been into Star Trek I didn't understand some of the subtle jokes that the rest of the audience would laugh at. I thought it did a good job of introducing Star Trek even to people like myself who don't know the back story. Highly recommended, not because I care about Star Trek (which I don't, really) but because it was a great action movie with good acting and casting. (Sylar as Spock, anyone? I can't imagine anyone else who would have been better!)

Pics of the New House

2009-05-10T10:59:00.004-06:00

Living Room

Entryway

Kitchen (back door leads to garage)

Stairs to 2nd floor

Nice big landing

Bedroom 1

Bedroom 2

Guest Bath

Walk-in closet in master bedroom

Master Bath

Large Master Bedroom

My favorite room in the house!

Her biggest crush

2009-05-10T00:09:00.003-06:00

'Nuf said.

****disclaimer!! The hubby posted this under my name and waited (giggling all the while) for me to discover it.****

And the list gets longer

2009-05-09T11:10:00.002-06:00

After seeing Wolverine last week (awesome movie btw, highly recommended) I have a couple names to add to my celebrity crush list, which previously included only George Clooney, Tom Welling, and Brad Pitt, in that order (yes, I know George is old, but he's still friggin' hot. . .he's got that boyish charm, you know)

In case you've been living in a cave and don't know who any of these people are (mostly Tom):

Ahh, hotness. Anyway, I'd like to add a new name to the list:

Hugh Jackman. I didn't want to jump on the bandwagon when the original X-Men movies came out, but after seeing Wolverine, I'm going to have to throw the towel in and swing with the crowd.

Ryan Reynolds also has the potential of someday making the list. I'm not sure yet though - I'll have to see him in something else before deciding.

And in case you've noticed, yes, I like the white boys. It's true. Despite my own mocha coloring, I am drawn to white boys. The only brown boy I have been attracted to is Sayid from Lost:

. . .and maybe also Mohinder Suresh from Heroes:

We bought a house!

2009-05-01T08:55:00.003-06:00

And naturally, both camera and camera cord are lost! So once I find them I will post pictures of our new house. I would have posted a notice sooner, but the last week has been CRAZY.

Last Wednesday at 9:30 I got a call from our lender asking us if we wanted to close on the house at 11am, a day early. So we scrambled and got our documents together and closed on the house after signing about an inch worth of paperwork!

We had to be out of our apartment by Friday afternoon, so pretty much Wednesday through Friday was nonstop carloads and U-Haul loads between here and Spanish Fork. And then we only got our cable and internet hooked up a couple days ago. It was a lot harder going without those than I would have imagined! If I had one or the other it wouldn't be as bad but without either it was quite interesting. I'm the kind of person that needs background noise in the form of talking, not music, so I usually have the tv on when I'm cleaning and things.

Thank you to everyone who helped us move everything down! Special shout-out to Pete and Rachel, who not only spent 6 hours helping us lay the hardwood floor a couple weeks ago, but who also spent several hours on Thursday helping us move things down despite the fact that they were busy with graduation that day. Also special thanks to my parents (who never read this blog anyway but oh well). They have been tremendously helpful, what with my dad helping me lay the hardwood floor and then transporting our new fridge down from Farmington, and then my mom spending most of Friday with me helping me clean the apartment for our cleaning check and running carloads down to the new house. Couldn't have down it without any of you! Also a big thanks to my sister Ayisha and to my in-laws who have been incredibly helpful. And last but not least to Kristin who helped me paint back when the house was just sheetrock and cement, and then being our first official visitor!

The best internship EVER

2009-04-28T08:36:00.002-06:00

So my favorite cousin Darian just got an internship at NASA.

NASA people!

I am SO proud of my bloodline.

In other news, I've decided I definitely need a trip to New Jersey. Yep.

For Sale

2009-04-22T08:13:00.003-06:00

We are selling our air conditioning units since our new house has central air (yay!) We've used them for the past 2 summers and they have been great. If you are interested please let me know ASAP since we are closing on our house tomorrow!

8,000 BTU $80 (works best in a room up to 17' x 20') *brand new, box isn't opened*
6,000 BTU $60 (works best in rooms up to 10' x 20')
5,000 BTU $50 (works best in rooms up to 10' x 15')

Random Musings

2009-04-17T08:14:00.005-06:00

I have given this some thought recently, and I have concluded that if I could be any animal, I would be a bear. Specifically, a polar bear, because I think they are absolutely stunning compared to their forest counterparts.

Why do I want to be a bear? Because I have noooooo problem waking up, seeing snow outside, and curling into a tighter ball in my bed and falling back asleep. My body has some inherent feature where it naturally wants to sleep more when it's cold out, even if I don't know at the moment that it's cold out.

Also, I don't mind stuffing my belly with food, and I admittedly go a little longer between leg shaves in the winter than I do otherwise. I need that fur for warmth!

I recommend Jim

2009-04-08T15:40:00.003-06:00

For anyone who is even halfway CONSIDERING buying a house, I recommend my realtor, Jim Cannon.

He totally rocks.

For instance, take today: I emailed him because I was freaking out that the builders still hadn't signed their half of the contract, when it was supposed to be done last Tuesday. We weren't allowed to paint or lay our flooring until they signed it, and I was freaked because we sold our contract and have to move in 2 weeks whether the house is ready or not.

So, he called and yelled at the builders, and got the approval for me. Yay!

He has also been EXTREMELY patient with me, since everyone knows I'm very detail oriented. . .to the point of being almost OCD, but he didn't complain when I would send him 20 listings at once that I was interested in seeing. I also felt like he gave us the same amount of time and attention as everyone else, despite the fact that our price range was lower than a lot of his other clients.

Also, let's not forget that's he's the one who found this little gem of a house. . .after the rebates, it will fall into our price range, plus it's BRAND SPANKING NEW and 500 square feet bigger than anything else we had found on our own. Not to mention that it's the only house Mike and I have agreed on! Jim's amazing!

The Secret. . .Revealed

2009-04-04T20:18:00.004-06:00

This makes it official! We are buying a house! I didn't want to tell anyone until our Buyer Option Sheet (pictured above) was approved, because once that's approved that means the builders start customizing our house and that it's definitely OUR house, and won't be going to someone else. I had taken Kristin down to see the house today, and while we were there the builder came in and taped this to the window. So of course we went over to see what it was, and were thrilled to see my name on it claiming the house! (sidenote: I am STOKED that I will be living on a street called "Dragonfly Lane"!!!!) Also, Mike was already on a plane when Kristin and I were there, so he doesn't know yet. So anyone who reads this post tonight will find out before him probably!

Below is a picture of what our house looks like from the exterior (don't know why I couldn't get it bigger, sorry). It is a townhouse in a brand new community just off the freeway.

Since it's not even finished right now it looks like this. . .

. . .but after it's done it will look like this! (picture taken from the model home)

So YES to Bea, Chelsea, and to all others who have been trying to dig info out of me (or out of Kristin, for that matter). Yes, we are buying a house! More in the next post!

I Done Good

2009-04-03T15:33:00.000-06:00

Today I sold my contract AND the Millers contract.

I done good.