Me, Myself, and I

Excited

2008-12-27T04:18:00.003-07:00

I'm getting married today! After the honeymoon I'll try to catch up on my blogging. It's been so busy! Please check derekandtawni.blogspot.com in a couple weeks for updates. That's the blog I'll be using 100% from now on. :)

One more day!

2008-12-18T11:33:00.002-07:00

Well tomorrow is my last day of work :) :( I have kind of mixed emotions, as you can see. I'm excited to embark on a new adventure. I'm excited to move to Logan. I'm excited to be with Derek! But I'm sad that I won't see the people I work with anymore. I hate looking for new jobs. And I will terribly miss Zupa's across the street.

This whole week I have been training my replacement. I think she'll be great. However, it has significantly lessened my blogging capabilities at work. I didn't want to train her on how I blog while I eat lunch.... She's working from home today because she lives in Provo and apparently the storm is really bad down there and parts of I-15 are closed. So I thought I'd update my blog. I've been emailing her all my files and explaining what everything is, so we're still being productive.

Whew

2008-12-09T14:03:00.001-07:00

Turns out one of my boss's arteries was 70% blocked so they put a stent in and kept him overnight. Hopefully he'll be back at work tomorrow.

Out sick

2008-12-08T10:44:00.000-07:00

My boss just had to go to the emergency room. I hope he's ok. :S

Washer and Dryer for sale

2008-12-03T14:51:00.002-07:00

Derek has a washer and dryer that he inherited that we are selling. We already have a washer that we bought and another dryer that we inherited. If anyone is interested, please let me know.

Whirlpool Washer - $75
- about 9 years old but has been sitting in a garage for a while since the owners purchased a new one
- the bearings that control the spin function have been replaced so it works great!

Maytag Gas Dryer - $250
- we have actually had an offer on this one and we're delivering it to a lady this Saturday, but just in case it doesn't work out I'm putting it on here.
- about 4 years old, but has been in storage for 2. Previous owners moved to a house that didn't have a gas hookup.
- runs great!

My scar

2008-12-02T15:17:00.003-07:00

There's a blog that I check every once in a while called One Minute Writing Prompt. Every day it gives you a topic to write about and you're supposed to write about it for one minute only. Today's topic is a story of how I got a scar, or some other kind of injury. Here goes:

I've never been injured really badly, but I do have a couple of miniscule scars. One I have on my finger that I got when I worked at Hogi Yogi in high school. I was cutting a piece of bread to make a sandwich for someone when the knife slipped and made a little slice in my finger. The knives we used were super sharp and in a split second there was blood oozing out of my finger. Needless to say, I wasn't the one to finish making the sandwich for that customer.

The end.

Christmas tag

2008-12-02T13:35:00.002-07:00

Welcome to the Christmas edition of getting to know your friends. Okay, here's what you're supposed to do, and try not to be a SCROOGE!!! Just copy (not forward) this entire post and paste into a new post. Change all the answers so that they apply to you. 'Tis the Season to be NICE!

1. Wrapping paper or gift bags? I usually wrap gifts because they're so much more fun to open!

2. Real tree or Artificial? I love real trees and we used to get them when I was little. Now my family has and artificial one, and Derek and I both have artificial ones, but we'd like to get a real one some year.

3. When do you put up the tree? Usually in the next few days after Thanksgiving.

4. When do you take the tree down? A couple days after Christmas.

5. Do you like eggnog? No! Gross. Sorry for you eggnog lovers out there, but it just isn't good to me.

6. Favorite gift received as a child? my Cabbage Patch doll. She looked like me with blonde pigtails.

7. Do you have a nativity scene? Yes, just a regular one. I bought one in Guatemala for my mom and now I'm wishing I would have gotten one for me too.

8. Hardest person to buy for? Probably my mom.

9. Easiest person to buy for? Right now it's Derek because I have so many possibilities. In a few years after multiple birthdays and Christmases I'm sure that will change.

10. Mail or email Christmas cards? Mail

11. Worst Christmas gift you ever received? I don't think there has ever been a bad one.

12. Favorite Christmas Movie? A Muppets Christmas Carol. Love it!

13. When do you start shopping for Christmas? Around October/November. Usually when I start thinking about what people would like.

14. Have you ever recycled a Christmas present? No, I don't think so.

15. Favorite thing to eat at Christmas? Hmmm cheese balls, cinnamon rolls, any Christmas treat from the neighbors.

16. Clear lights or colored on the tree? Clear, or a combination of both.

17. Favorite Christmas song? Christmas Shoes. The movie and book are also excellent. They always make me cry.

18. Travel at Christmas or stay home? Stay home

19. Can you name all of Santa's reindeer's? Dasher, Dancer, Prancer, Vixen, Comet, Cupid, Donner, Blitzen and Rudolph!

20. Angel on the tree top or a star? My parents have an angel, but I like either one.

21. Open the presents Christmas Eve or morning? We open one present on Christmas Eve and the rest on Christmas morning. We have to wait for everyone and then sort them and take turns opening them starting with the youngest.

22. Most annoying thing about this time of year? Dumb things like the Wal-Mart worker who got trampled to death in NY on Black Friday. Does Christmas have us in such a buying frenzy that we don't even notice if we're walking on someone?

23. Favorite ornament theme or color? Red/gold or blue/silver

24. Favorite for Christmas dinner? I like to pretty much have Thanksgiving dinner all over again. Or maybe steaks. Really good steak would be good.

25. What do you want for Christmas this year? Brown boots to wear to church. But I already know I'm getting them. :)

26. Who are you going to tag for this Christmas questionaire?? Everyone!

And if it so be that ye should labor all your days

2008-11-27T11:51:00.003-07:00

My brother Colton opened his mission call last night! We were hoping it would come yesterday so his friends that are up at school could be here, and so Derek could be here for the break. My mom had a big map for everyone to put a sticker on where they thought he would go. I thought about putting my sticker on New York, but ended up putting it on Ghana because I had no idea where he would get called to.

With a family room full of supportive friends and family he opened his call.

He asked if he had to read it out loud and we practically screamed, "Yes!"

"You are called to serve in the New Hampshire Manchester mission!" (Sorry the picture isn't centered, I was holding a video camera in the other hand.)

Yay! I'm so excited for him. I think it will be the perfect place for him and it's really close to my mission! It also covers most of the area of where my grandpa served a long time ago, when it was the Eastern States Mission. He leaves on March 4th to go to the MTC. Congratulations Colton, you'll do great!

Who was playing for who?

2008-11-24T12:20:00.005-07:00

I, like many of you, watched the BYU/Utah game on Saturday. I always root for both teams until they play each other, then I cheer for BYU. But in the end, I could really care less who wins. However, it was a little heartwrenching to watch all the turnovers because BYU's quarterback kept passing to Utah players. Other than that, I'm very happy for Utah's win and that they now get to go to the BSC (is that what it's called?) and all the mountain west schools get like $500,000 for their athletic departments now. Some of us speculated on whether or not BYU lost on purpose so they could get that money. I don't think they would lose on purpose. They have too much pride.

My family and Derek's family got together at Derek's house to watch the game. It was a lot of fun, even though half of us were cheering for BYU and the other half for the U. But I think we were all pretty good sports about it, and we got to stuff ourselves with pizza and garlic bread, so maybe that helped tone things down a little.

At work, however, the battle is still raging. We have some pretty die-hard fans on both sides and the comment/email war usually starts about a week before the game, with my boss being the instigator. He's the biggest BYU fan I know, and the lady who works next to me is one of the biggest Utah fans I know. Besides the emails that went out to the whole office, these two kind of had their own little private battle. First, my boss decided to play a little prank on my coworker's car. It looked like this:

Notice the nice combination of blue and red.

Then my coworker sent out an email with a poem and a couple of these pictures w/ my boss's head Photoshopped in:

The poem:
The game is coming the Cougars will yield,
To the Powerful UTES on Utah's own field.

Worried the officials cannot be bought,
Old Curt has taken it to our parking lot.

So this is their "Quest" Hall and Collie believe,
Such self-righteousness makes you just want to heave.

Go ahead, take it out on my poor little car,
Guess that's what Bronco calls raising the bar.

Dumbing down your schedule is a BYU fit,
Come on Cougars, just rise and spit.

So this morning I got to work and the first thing I saw was my boss's door:

Decorated by none other than my coworker, of course.

This is done all in good fun. It doesn't get vicious at all, thank goodness, or I'd have some major babysitting on my hands.

I'm so tired.....

2008-11-21T10:55:00.004-07:00

But Twilight was so worth it! Yeah, that's right. I'm crazy and I went to the midnight showing last night. I wasn't planning on going for a couple more weeks, but a few days ago one of my mission companions invited me to go with her because she had some extra tickets. It was at the theater in Sandy, which is really close to my work, but not so much to my apartment. So, since the movie ended after 2:00, I just slept at her house and then we carpooled to work this morning. We still only got about 4 1/2 hours of sleep, but I was willing to lose a few hours to have a good time. :)

We got to the theater at about 11:30 and it was INSANE. There were so many girls (and a few guys) there. It was busier than walking down a NYC street. And of course there were a few weird ones who dressed up, but not as vampires. They were wearing prom dresses and some even had corsages. I guess because Edward took Bella to the prom at the end of the book. I still thought it was kind of weird, but to each his (her) own.

Here are a few pictures of how many people were there before the movie started. All 16 or 17 screens were showing Twilight at midnight, and this isn't even a handful of the people that were there.

Me and Megan excited for the movie! We had the best seats a couple rows from the back smack dab in the middle. It was awesome!

Eating is my favorite thing!

2008-11-17T12:25:00.003-07:00

Although it does make it hard when you're watching your weight so you can fit into a wedding dress.....

So there's a new Pizza Factory opening up in Syracuse and my boss's daughter was transferred there to be an assistant manager. He was able to get some VIP FREE meal tickets for this last weekend before they open and he gave one of them to me and Derek since we live close by. The catch? There wasn't one! You could get whatever you wanted and it was all free. We had a hard time deciding, so we ended up getting 4 mini pizzas, a calzone, some garlic cheese bread, a dessert, and drinks for the 2 of us. Yikes. I kind of felt bad for ordering so much but we decided we weren't the only ones when we looked around at everyone else.

The waitress brought out our food and we started eating and then I noticed that all of the food was on Derek's side of the table. Not on purpose, but it looked funny. So here's a pic:

By the way, Derek's drink was a strawberry Italian ice and it was amazing. Mine was a strawberry lemonade and was really good as well.

The food was really good and we did have leftovers. I think we took about half of it home with us and ate some yesterday and I have the rest today for my lunch. I didn't notice any of the prices on the menu since we were getting it all for free, but I think they're pretty decent and the food is GOOD! I think it opens this Wednesday to the public, so go try it if you're interested.

Trans-Siberian Orchestra

2008-11-14T16:36:00.003-07:00

Derek has been talking about going to the Trans-Siberian Orchestra concert for a long time. We got tickets a couple of months ago and he's been so excited! Our friends Nick & Lynette got tickets too, and their friends (I can't remember their names...) did also. Before the concert we decided to go to Red Robin for dinner. Yum! Here we all are (Nick in the back is trying to drink the fry sauce):

They have the best fries. And they had something new that I decided to try. The Bruschetta Chicken Burger. Oh my goodness, it was so good. And it had pesto on it, and I love pesto.

Then we went to the concert, which was AMAZING. There was a sign that said no pictures so I didn't take any, but I think I could have gotten away with it. Let's just say there was a lot of fire, and that was Derek's favorite part. My favorite part was probably just the whole thing. And it totally got us in the Christmas spirit!

Last weekend

2008-11-13T14:48:00.007-07:00

I know, it's almost the weekend again and I'm just barely getting to what we did last weekend. Oh well. It's been a pretty busy week. On Saturday we met with our wedding cake lady in the morning and got that all picked out. Then we went up to Logan so Derek ccould show me the apartment that he had looked at the day before (pics on our other blog). We ended up getting it and it worked out so fast! Then we went to the Logan temple since we were up there and ended up being put in a Spanish session! Derek speaks Korean so he had to wear the headphones, but I went in without them and understood everything, thanks to the mish. It was the first Spanish session I had ever done and I was so excited.

Afterwards we drove back down to Ogden to I could do my monthly piano playing at the hospital. I asked Derek to take a picture of me because I don't have any pictures of my there yet and I've been doing it for a year and a half, and who knows how much longer I'll be able to.

Then we met our friends Steve and Vanessa at Firehouse Pizza in Centerville. Yum, that is definitely my favorite restaurant. Derek and I split a chicken cordon bleu pizza, some focaccia bread, and of course a ph'zookie.

Then we all went to the Gateway so I could scout out some places for my bridals this Saturday. Vanessa was really helpful and found lots of good spots and even took our picture in all of them.

We followed our ritual and got a chocolate at Rocky Mountain Chocolate Factory and then played a racing game at the arcade, which Derek won....usually I win the arcade racing games and he wins the Xbox racing games.

We finished off the night with hot chocolate and cider at Vanessa's condo. It was a really fun night and SO good to meet her finally. Steve has been telling Derek all about her and we finally got to do something with them. Thanks guys!

On Sunday we had dinner with our friends Nick and Lynette. They're the ones whose wedding we met at. So we just wanted to say thanks guys! Anyways, dinner was really yummy and afterwards we played a game called Mate something. It was so much fun and really hilarious. I can't remember the last time I laughed that hard. Thanks you guys for inviting us over!

Eww

2008-11-07T12:31:00.000-07:00

I had a dream last night, and I can't remember most of it enough to be able to tell the story, but I do remember the last part that happened before my alarm went off. A black spider bit me in the middle of the bottom of my foot and I was afraid it was poisonous, so I started to squeeze the venom/blood out. In about 2 seconds I had like a 1/4 cup of blood pooled on the bottom of my foot. Gross. I thought that would have probably worked to get the venom out, but then my foot started feeling numb. Then I woke up.

5 things about me

2008-11-06T11:27:00.002-07:00

Another tag! By Amy.

5 Fears:
1. Not succeeding in what I do - I like to win!
2. Financial ruin
3. Spiders
4. Sometimes the dark. Like when I come home at night and I don't know who might be out there.
5. Letting others down

5 Joys:
1. Counting down the days until the wedding!
2. Eating
3. Playing the piano
4. Watching my nephews (and soon to be niece) grow and learn
5. Knowing that whatever happens in our world or country, I'll be ok

5 obsessions/collections:
1. Books books books!
2. Food
3. Getting the best gas mileage possible
4. Whenever I go somewhere I usually buy postcards and/or a magnet
5. My Derek

5 surprising facts:
1. Ummmm.....I don't like seafood. At all. (I guess some people know that and some don't.)
2. Like Amy I can't stand messes, but I'm not the cleanest person in the world.
3. I don't think there's really much about me that's surprising. I like to travel a lot...
4. I really like to do "domestic" stuff, but I never do it. Recently I posted that I made jam and that was the first big thing. The next project is a quilt that I want to finish before I'm married. ...wish me luck...
5. I don't really like to watch too much TV. I haven't had television access for almost 2 years and it's been really nice, although I do miss watching The Office and the news.

Answers to an age old question

2008-11-05T12:22:00.001-07:00

I saw this on my friend Sheryl's blog and thought it was hilarious! Enjoy!

Why did the chicken cross the road?

SARAH PALIN: Before it got to the other side, I shot the chicken, cleaned and dressed it, and had chicken burgers for lunch.

BARACK OBAMA: The chicken crossed the road because it was time for a change! The chicken wanted change!

JOHN MC CAIN: My friends, that chicken crossed the road because he recognized the need to engage in cooperation and dialogue with all the chickens on the other side of the road.

HILLARY CLINTON: When I was First Lady, I personally helped that little chicken to cross the road. This experience makes me uniquely qualified to ensure right from Day One that every chicken in this country gets the chance it deserves to cross the road. But then, this really isn’t about me.

GEORGE W. BUSH: We don’t really care why the chicken crossed the road. We just want to know if the chicken is on our side of the road, or not. The chicken is either against us, or for us. There is no middle ground here.

DICK CHENEY: Where’s my gun?

COLIN POWELL: Now to the left of the screen, you can clearly see the satellite image of the chicken crossing the road.

BILL CLINTON: I did not cross the road with that chicken. What is your definition of chicken?

AL GORE: I invented the chicken.

JOHN KERRY: Although I voted to let the chicken cross the road, I am now against it! It was the wrong road to cross, and I was misled about the chicken’s intentions. I am not for it now and will remain against it.

AL SHARPTON: Why are all the chickens white? We need some black chickens.

DR. PHIL: The problem we have here is that this chicken doesn’t realize that he must first deal with the problem on this side of the road before it goes after the problem on the other side of the road. What we need to do is help him realize how stupid he’s acting by not taking on his current problems before adding new problems.

OPRAH: Well, I understand that the chicken is having problems, which is why he wants to cross this road so bad. So instead of having the chicken learn from his mistakes and take falls, which is a part of life, I’m going to give this chicken a car so that he can just drive across the road and not live his life like the rest of the chickens.

ANDERSON COOPER, CNN: We have reason to believe there is a chicken, but we have not yet been allowed access to the other side of the road.

NANCY GRACE: That chicken crossed the road because he’s guilty! You can see it in his eyes and the way he walks.

PAT BUCHANAN: To steal the job of a decent, hardworking American.

MARTHA STEWART: No one called me to warn me which way that chicken was going. I had a standing order at the Farmer’s Market to sell my eggs when the price dropped to a certain level. No little bird gave me any insider information.

DR SEUSS: Did the chicken cross the road? Did he cross it with a toad? Yes, the chicken crossed the road, but why it crossed I’ve not been told.

ERNEST HEMINGWAY: To die in the rain, alone.

GRANDPA: In my day we didn’t ask why the chicken crossed the road. Somebody told us the chicken crossed the road, and that was good enough.

BARBARA WALTERS: Isn’t that interesting? In a few moments, we will be listening to the chicken tell, for the first time, the heart-warming story of how it experienced a serious case of molting, and went on to accomplish its lifelong dream of crossing the road.

ARISTOTLE: It is the nature of chickens to cross the road.

JOHN LENNON: Imagine all the chickens in the world crossing roads together, in peace.

BILL GATES: I have just released eChicken 2008, which will not only cross roads, but will lay eggs, file your important documents, and balance your checkbook. Internet Explorer is an integral part of eChicken 2008. This new platform is much more stable and will never crash or need to be rebooted.

ALBERT EINSTEIN: Did the chicken really cross the road, or did the road move beneath the chicken?

COLONEL SANDERS: Did I miss one?

Another quirk of mine

2008-11-04T15:54:00.003-07:00

I guess this could be in addition to the quirks tag I did a little while ago. So here it is.

I HATE buying gas, and with my commute I have to fill up every few days. It has been wonderful watching the gas prices fall so quickly and being able to fill up a completely empty tank for $30. Anyways, so my quirk is that I kind of have a contest with myself to see how long I can make a tank last, or how many miles I can get out of a full tank. To do this I do the following:

1. Use cruise control all the time
2. Accelerate slowly
3. I have a manual, so I usually shift gears when the RPMs are between 2 and 3
4. I put it in neutral when I'm going downhill
5. Slow down when approaching a red/yellow light, even if I'm far away
6. This applied more in the summer, by I fill my tank in the morning on the way to work because (or so I've heard) gas expands when it heats - so the later in the day you fill up, the less gas you will actually get for the same expensive price.
7. One thing that I should be better at - making sure my tire air pressure is as high as is recommended. This helps with gas mileage.

There are a ton more things that can be done to save gas, but these are the main ones that I do all the time. If you drive with me you may comment on my granny style of driving, but I can get 480 miles from 12 tanks of gas! Ha!

Halloween after work

2008-11-03T12:40:00.003-07:00

After work on Friday I drove to Derek's house, where he was all ready and in his costume. I did his makeup for him and we took some pictures. He was pretty creepy looking. A neighbor kid came to the door trick-or-treating and he was scared to death of him. Then Derek wouldn't leave the poor guy alone and he almost fell off the porch. I think it was the fangs that really got to him.

Here we are in all our creepiness

Then we went to Burger King to get something to eat (I know, it's not the most Halloween-ish place to eat, but we had coupons that expired that day!) and then went to my parents' to show off our costumes. There were a few trick-or-treaters that came by while we were there, but none of them were scared by us because they were too enamored by Maggie the dog. She thought everyone was coming over to see her, of course, and all the kids in the neighborhood lover her so she got a lot of attention. I didn't take any pictures, but she wasn't dressed up this year anyway, even though she does have a lobster costume and a Santa outfit.

Then Derek and I went to the Institute Halloween dance/activity. There were a TON of people there - more than I have ever seen at an Institute activity in Ogden. We only ended up staying for about 1/2 an hour, because out of all the people there we couldn't seem to find anyone we knew. And they weren't playing any slow songs. In the past I wouldn't have minded that, but now that I'm actually with someone, a slow song or two would have been nice. So we left and watched The Office instead.

Oh, and today I found out the results of the costume contest at work. I tied for first in the Prettiest/Handsomest costume category!

Halloween at work

2008-10-31T10:27:00.009-06:00

I love Halloween! It's a great chance to dress up and be something that you would never be. About half the people at my company dress up. We have a costume contest and a department decoration contest. Then the employees' kids come in the afternoon and trick-or-treat around the office and have treats in our big conference room.

Derek's mom made my costume this year. I'm a vampire/countess and I love it! It matches Derek's costume (except his is red). He's a vampire and a mighty fine one at that ;). Here are a few pictures from work:

Me

Marci is "Miss MasterControl" supplying all our software solutions

Beth is a domino

I decorated our department with "dead" bodies and tombstones w/ personalized epitaphs for everyone. Here are a few:

Mine. It reads:
Here lies Tawni Jaco
Getting married you know
Her leaving's a blow
Now she's below.

Curt (my boss):
Here lies Curt the boss
A big BYU fan
He screamed like a madman
And lost his head due to their loss.

Jason:
Here lies Jason Clegg
All in all a pretty good egg

Michael:
Here lies Michael Bothe
For his good work ethic we gave him this trophy.
He didn't like it--he thought it was too scary
So he jumped in the river and yelled, "Death come and get me!"

Marci:
Here lies good ol' Marci Crane
She lacked a headline
And so missed a deadline
And that's how the newsletter became her bane

I'll post more pictures later after I see Derek in his costume.

Weekend catch up

2008-10-28T12:29:00.012-06:00

I always feel like I have so much to catch up on after the weekend! I got to go to Logan this weekend for Homecoming at USU. The dance was on Friday so I took the day off so I would have time to get ready. And I need to use up my PTO before I quit my job. It's nice to take a day off every once in a while just because, although I ended up being pretty busy.

I hadn't been to a dance since USU's spring formal when I was 20, so it's been a while, but it was a lot of fun! I went with Derek, of course, and we ate at Firehouse for dinner (yum!). His roommate works at the one in Smithfield, so we went there and he got us a free large ph'zookie. Oh baby. This is the only picture we took that night, right after we were done eating. You can't see my skirt but it was hot pink.

After the dance was True Aggie Night. We went. The end.

I stayed the night at my brother-in-law's parents' house so I wouldn't have to drive home so late. Thanks Rick and Cindy! The next morning was the Homecoming parade on Main Street and we went to it. College towns are so cool! I can't wait to live there. They threw out a lot of candy and some other things. Derek got this cow and a t-shirt.

Yay for parades!

We were going to go the game, but ended up looking at a bunch of apartments, one of which we liked. But we're going to keep looking a little more. If anyone knows of a 2 bed, 1 bath apartment for a good deal in Logan/Providence, let me know!

Then we went to our friends' house in Providence and ended up going SHOOTING. My first time. I was kind of nervous, but it was really fun. I shot a .22 rifle and pistol and hit a water bottle like 10 times.

In this one Derek told me to growl and show some teeth, so I laughed instead.

On Sunday after church we went to Derek's parents' house for dinner and pumpkin carving. Here's Derek scooping out the guts (my least favorite part):

This is what it's supposed to look like

The carving process

And the finished result! It kind of looks like I've tackled Derek into a wrestling hold, but I'm really not.

Derek loves candy corn.

Tagged

2008-10-21T12:42:00.003-06:00

Here are the rules...

1. Post the rules on your blog:
2. Answer the six "8" items
3. Make sure you tag 8 people!

8 Favorite TV shows:
1. Biggest Loser
2. The Office
3. ER
4. Anything on TLC (I don't have cable, so when I'm at a place with cable, I could keep it on this channel all day)
5. Ummmm....
6. The good old TGIF shows: Full House, Family Matters, Step By Step, etc.
7. I don't really watch much TV....
8. and American Idol I guess

8 Things I did Yesterday:
1. Went to work
2. Did some laundry
3. Went to two fabric stores
4. Searched the mall for neckties in the right color. There were none.
5. Found some ties online that were perfect
6. Drove home
7. Did some crunches (gotta get ready for the wedding!)
8. Talked to Derek

8 Things I look forward to:
1. Getting married!
2. Going to Cancun
3. Moving to Logan and getting a new job. It's just time for a change.
4. Christmas when both of my out-of-state sisters and their families will be home.
5. Thursday soup night with Derek's mom
6. Getting off work every day
7. The weekends when I get to see Derek
8. Halloween and Thanksgiving

8 Favorite Restaurants:
1. Cafe Rio
2. Zupas
3. Ruby River
4. Chili's
5. Mi Puebla
6. Cheescake Factory
7. Applebees
8. Firehouse Pizza! oh yum yum yum

8 Things on my Wish List:
1. Lose 8 pounds
2. Go to Peru
3. Get as many stamps in my passport as possible
4. Have a good family, strong in the gospel
5. A house someday
6. A stronger testimony
7. A lifetime supply of cinnamon bears and Tootsie Rolls
8. Money. Lots of it.

8 People I tag:
1-8: Whoever wants to do it!

Denver

2008-10-20T12:31:00.010-06:00

This past weekend was UEA for the kiddos and Fall Break for the college students. So I took Friday off and went with Derek, my mom, and little sis and bro to Denver to visit my sister Kaley and her husband Levi for a couple of days. They moved there a couple of months ago for law school. We drove both ways and it took about 8 hours, 6 of which were across the barren landscape of Wyoming. This was the most interesting part of that state:

No offense to those who like Wyoming. I just don't think I would want to live there. Anyways, we got there on Friday at about 4:30 and stopped by Kaley's work to visit her there. She didn't get off until 6 so we did a little shopping nearby. After she got off and picked up Levi from school, we went to a little fast food place called Good Times for some burgers and fries. After that....I think we just hung out at their apartment and watched TV and stuff. We were pretty tired.

Saturday came early when my mom woke us up at 7 (whatever happened to sleeping in?). It was a fun-filled day. First we went to a candy factory where you get a free tour and free candy! What more could you ask for?

Here are some of the employees making candy:

Free candy!

Yum

Which one?

Then Levi met up with us at ESPN Zone where we ate lunch in a very noisy room with a HUGE screen playing the game between Oklahoma and Kansas. It was fun and their food was way good. Outside the restaurant we saw some people dressed up as pirates. You can kind of see one in the background here, talking to the lady in the red/orange shirt.

My mom went up close and asked if she could take a picture and one of the guys said, "Of course. We are vain and self-centered and love to have our picture taken."

After lunch we went to a huge mall and walked around for a while. I got 2 Christmas presents taken care of (yes!) and then we were all exhausted so we went back to Kaley's place and chilled and watched TV for the rest of the night. Poor Derek had to sit through Bring it On 3 with us girls (disclaimer: I told him he could leave if he wanted to).

On Sunday we went to church with them. Usually they have sacrament last, but apparently they had combined that meeting with the earlier ward that day. We didn't know that, so we got our earlier than expected. That was nice because we got an earlier start on our drive home. 8 hours, 2 stops, and 10 wrap sandwiches later, we got home.

Chilling in Denver

I love food

2008-10-16T14:22:00.003-06:00

Besides the people I work with, I think I'll miss this place the most when I move to Logan:

Zupas! Soups, salads, and sandwiches. And they're so good. You can get a soup and sandwich, salad and sandwich, soup and salad, or just one individual item. They come in large and half sizes. There's something for everyone! It's really hard to decide what to get, but I have my favorites. I went there for lunch today and got the 1/2 size tomato basil soup with orzo (a short pasta).

Oh my goodness. I will never be able to eat tomato soup anywhere else. The best part about this place is, you get a chocolate-covered strawberry with whatever you order. And if you get salad or soup, you get a piece of bread. Yum!

Dreams

2008-10-16T09:36:00.003-06:00

Derek and I always talk about the dreams we have every night. His are quite vivid and he has them often. Mine are pretty rare occurences and I usually only get bits and pieces. It had been a while since I had a dream that I remembered, and I finally had one last night. It wasn't very exciting, but Mia Hamm was one of the main players (get it? "player"? Like a soccer player? Ok, maybe that's stretching it).

So I was at Mia Hamm's house. I'm not sure what I was doing there, but it was a huge house. Maybe I was like a new maid or something. Anyways, she asked me to take something up to her bedroom, so I did, and while I was there I figured I should look around a little because it was a HUGE room. And way nice. I went into the bathroom and she even had a top of the line washer and dryer in there. Then the thought came to my mind that I had been up there for a while and she was probably wondering where I was and I didn't want her to think that I was snooping around, so I quickly walked out into the hallway. She was coming up the stairs at that point and invited me to come back into the room. We went and looked at the washer and dryer and she pointed out that they weren't working and that some guy (she said his name, and I actually work with him. Not sure where that came from) was supposed to fix it, but everytime he did it still didn't work. So that was random. The whole washer/dryer thing probably came from....well Derek has a gas dryer and we need a washer to go with it. So maybe that's where it came from.

Then all of a sudden I was in some Latino country (probably Guatemala) and I was in a car with some kids that we were taking to live with a new family. I might have been one of the kids, I can't remember. Anyways, we got to the house, and it was mostly outside. Like the food/kitchen and everything was outside in a fenced-in yard. I just remember thinking that they weren't the most comfortable, sanitary living conditions. That probably came from the time I spent in Guate over the summer. A large portion of the orphanage was outside the building, including the kitchen/eating area.

So that's my dream. The coolest part of course was being in Mia Hamm's house.

Better late than never

2008-10-15T14:56:00.003-06:00

On Friday a bunch of us celebrated my friend Kristianne's birthday by going to Texas Roadhouse for dinner. The wait there is always HUGE, but she had called ahead so we got seated right away. Actually, I got seated and waited 10 more minutes for the rest of them :) But that was ok, because I had 2 baskets of fresh rolls in front of me to enjoy. It was hard not to eat all of them. They're the best rolls I've ever had at a restaurant, so if you go to Texas Roadhouse remember to call ahead and keep asking for rolls, cuz they're free. Anyways, we had a fun time and afterwards played games at Jenny's beautiful new house.

Jam recipe

2008-10-10T14:48:00.006-06:00

Here's the recipe that some of you asked for. Yum!

Mock Raspberry Jam

- 5 cups of green tomatoes finely ground in food processor or blender, drained a bit
- 5 cups granulated sugar
- 1 - 6 oz. pkg raspberry jello
Prepared bottles, lids and rings

Directions:

1. Combine the ground tomatoes and sugar. Boil until sugar dissolves, turn heat to low and cook 25 minutes, stirring often. (It seems like we heated it until it started boiling and then turned it to low. But I guess by that point the sugar probably would have dissolved anyway.)

2. Add the jello and cook 1 minute.

3. Pour into prepared bottles, wipe rims, put on prepared lids and rings.

4. Process in boiling water bath for 15 minutes. Makes approx. nine 1/2 pints.

*Carrie did tell me that she tried doubling the recipe once and it didn't work out, so don't double the recipe. Just follow what it says.

You can also make this into strawberry jam by using strawberry jello instead of raspberry. And I just found this recipe online for mock apricot jam. Sounds interesting!

Domesticated

2008-10-10T12:52:00.002-06:00

So yesterday I did the first "big" domestic thing in my life. I made jam! That's a big jump from frozen dinners, let me tell ya. Not that I don't like to cook, I just don't have a lot of time to do it. Anyways, so the jam. Derek's mom helped me make it out of green tomatoes from her garden and raspberry jello. What kind of jam is it you ask? Mock Raspberry Jam. I tried some that she made a few weeks ago and it's soooo good and tastes just like raspberry jam. And it's a whole lot cheaper to make. It was really easy, just took a little time. We got 10 jars made though, which is about half of what I need.

Free handbag

2008-10-08T11:22:00.001-06:00

www.handbagplanet.com is giving away free handbags, one every hour for 24 hours! Go to the site to enter and choose which bag you'd like to win.

Weezer and a ring

2008-10-08T09:54:00.004-06:00

Life is just flying by! Only 80 more days until the wedding ;) and time is going so fast. Yesterday Derek came down and we met at the ring place to pick it up. Click here for pics.

Another reason Derek came down was to go to the Weezer concert. It totally rocked! They opened with some band called Tokyo Police or something. They were okay. Then Angels and Airwaves came on and they were much better, although the lead guy had kind of a potty mouth. THEN Weezer came out and the crowd went wild. It was seriously awesome. Derek loves Weezer so he was really excited for this. He had a smile on his face the whole time and was singing at the top of his lungs. His younger brother was in general admission and we saw him get in trouble for crowd surfing - it was pretty funny. I didn't take my camera because I didn't want to have to keep track of it the whole time, but here's a pic of us excited to go in!

General Conference

2008-10-06T14:46:00.002-06:00

I love conference weekend. Most of Saturday was spent ring shopping, but we listened whenever we were in the car. There were some good talks that day that I think we missed, so I'm looking forward to downloading them. On Sunday Derek and I went to the morning session which was fantastic. I really liked Elaine S. Dalton's talk, even though it was directed to the young women. I'll always be one at heart though right?

On the way to conference I noticed this on the mountains:

Snow! Sigh. :(

It rained and rained all the way down to Salt Lake and was still raining when conference started, but we came out to a beautiful sunny day.

Silly Maggie

2008-10-06T11:11:00.002-06:00

I love love love my family's dog Maggie. She's a Jack Russell terrier who loves people, cuddling, and chasing other animals. She also loves to despise anything that makes a loud noise - plastic grocery bags, the vacuum, etc. Derek and I have this thing with hand buzzers. You know, the kind you use to play jokes on people. We got one on our first date as a prize at the arcade and now we both have one and are always "getting each other" with them. Well, we found out the other day that Maggie doesn't like those either. I think we could have entertained ourselves for hours winding it up, pushing the button, and watching her attack it. Her ears perk up when you start winding it up and then she stares at it with full concentration, waiting for it to do something so she can pounce. In the pic below my dad is holding it above his head - when he started winding it, Maggie jumped on him and almost stood on his face, she got so close. Sometimes I feel bad that we tease her so much, but she's so funny!

Mission reunion

2008-10-04T18:49:00.002-06:00

Well it's that time of year again. General conference always brings mission reunions. Mine are only held in the fall and it was last night. Derek came with me and met some of my companions and people that I served with. It was a nice, casual reunion this time. We had a potato bar for dinner and then we could mingle or play Chino ball (a form of handball we played in NY) or leave or whatever. It was great to see some of my companions and their spouses and some of the elders that I served with. It's crazy to find out what has gone on in people's lives the last couple of years. And it's funny to see what elders wear when they're wearing normal clothes, because when you see them in a shirt and tie every day for two years you can't tell what their real style is. I'll just say there were some interesting styles there.

I forgot to take my camera out :( so I don't have any pictures, but it was a really fun night and I'm really glad I went. Derek even "knew" someone from his mission - and elder that I served with in Brooklyn who is from Korea where Derek went on his mission. He lived in Derek's first area and then got called to NY. Crazy!

Officially: Me, Myself and Derek

2008-10-02T12:30:00.002-06:00

Well, I'm engaged! That was the "thing" I was going to write about later. It's later! To see the full story go to derekandtawni.blogspot.com. This is going to be the blog I use to post wedding plans, etc. and then after we're married it'll be our family blog and I probably won't post on this one anymore. :) :) :)

High school tag

2008-10-01T12:43:00.003-06:00

1. Did you date someone from your school?
Nope, I was pretty shy and not really interested in dating.

2. What kind of car did you drive?
I finally got a car two days before graduation. It was a Plymouth Sundance....?

3. Did you pass your drivers license test on the first try?
Yep, and I even ran a red light.

4. Were you a party animal?
Heck no. I had really good friends and we had parties, but not party animal parties.

5. Were you considered a flirt?
Nah. See answer to #1

6. Were you in band, orchestra, or choir?
I was in choir all three years.

Where is number 7?

8. Were you on any varsity teams?
No...I always wanted to try out for the soccer team but I hate trying out for things so I never did. It's probably my only regret.

9. Did you get suspended/ expelled?
No

10. Can you still sing the song?
I don't think I ever could sing the whole thing. I remember "The Knights of Northridge proud we stand....." and that's about it. I remember the alma mater from choir though.

11. Who were your favorite teachers?
I really liked Mrs. Robbins for sophomore honors English, Mrs. Barnard for accounting, and Mrs. Bridges for marketing.

12. Where did you sit during lunch?
When I was a sophomore we sat in the commons because nobody really had a car. When I was a jr. we went to Target a lot and would get a bagel and sometimes a bagel and a donut. When I was a senior I remember going to Chick-fil-A every other day and getting a kids meal with ice cream instead of a toy :)

13. What is your schools full name?
Northridge High School

14. School mascot and colors?
Knight, silver and cardinal

15. Did you go to Homecoming and with who?
No, I went to Prom though.

16. If you could go back and do it again, would you?
No I don't think so. I'd go back to college in a heartbeat though. It was much more fun.

17. What do you remember most about graduation?
I was down with the choir the whole time and it was really long. The senior all-nighter was really fun though.

18. Where did you go Senior skip day?
We didn't have one.

19. Were you in any clubs?
I was in FBLA, DECA, the ski club (we never did anything), I think I was in National Honors Society....that's probably about it.

20. Have you gained some weight since then?
Yes, unfortunately. I weighed the same all the way up until my mission, but eating rice and beans in large quantities for a year and a half will do a number on you.

21. Are you planning on going to your 10 year reunion?
Most likely. I went to the 5-year and honestly....I thought it was still like high school for the most part. And there were only like 50 people there. But I think the 10-year will be better.

23. Did you have a job while in high school?
When I was a senior I worked at Hogi Yogi.

Volleyball

2008-10-01T12:27:00.004-06:00

Last night I went to my parent's house to do some planning with my mom for the thing that I'll be writing about in the future. I forgot, though, that my youngest sister Bethany had a volleyball game at Layton High that day, and that's where my mom was when I got home so I went and watched too. Bethany was on the team at North Layton all 3 years and now she's on the sophomore team at Northridge. They play best out of 5 and I guess usually they win the first 3 so they don't have to go on after that, but this time Layton won the first one, we won the next 2, then Layton won the 4th and finally we won the 5th. It was really fun to watch. I haven't been able to watch her play for a very long time and this will probably be one of the last times I get to.

Getting ready for the serve

The reason why she's wearing a gray shirt while the rest of the team wears red is because she is the labero (sp?). A labero can sub in for any position on the back row, while the other players can only sub in for certain players/positions. She made some pretty sweet saves back there!

My brother Colton was there too. We were sitting by some of our neighbors with there 3 little kids who all happen to love Colton. As soon as he sat down they jumped on him. Here he is with two of them. The youngest is sitting on his other side.

Things

2008-09-30T13:52:00.003-06:00

Well sorry I haven't posted for a while. Things have been a little crazy the last few days. I'll let you know why later, like maybe next week? so stay tuned!

Anyways, on Saturday all of my mom's side of the family went and saw Forever Strong because my uncle is in it for a few seconds. If you've seen it, he's the one that takes the tooth out of the rugby player's forehead at one of the nationals games and says "anyone missing a tooth?". We're pretty proud of our movie star. It was a really good movie and had a great story. My uncle, who played himself as the team's athletic trainer, said that pretty much everything in the movie actually happened (like the tooth in the forehead), but over a period of many years. The player that came from Arizona and was in the correctional facility actually came from Washington or something in real life.

After the movie my mom and I went to my stake center for the Relief Society broadcast. My stake fed us dinner (Olive Garden) and then we watched the broadcast. It was so good. I especially liked Elder Uchtdorf's talk about not getting down on ourselves for not being perfect. He basically said a lot of women have a "problem" with expecting too much out of themselves. We're not perfect of course, and it's hard sometimes to deal with that fact. I'm so excited for General Conference this week. I love conference weekend.

After the broadcast Derek and I went to Cold Stone because I had a gift card. Mmm mmm good. I love it when he comes home on the weekends!

"Can I please put you back on hold?"

2008-09-25T12:16:00.002-06:00

You know, life would be pretty boring if we didn't have challenges and stressful things come up every once in a while.

At work one of my things is to book travel for people in the Marketing department and for Sales guys that go to our tradeshows. We have a tradeshow starting next weekend and at the last minute one of our Sales guys was added to the group of people going. Not a problem really - there just weren't a lot of choices for flights. But I found one for him, booked it, and that was that. That was on Monday I think.

So the next day he calls and says that 2 days after the tradeshow ends he might have to be in Boston for a demo and doesn't think it makes sense to fly home and then fly back out to Boston. So he said he'd let me know asap.

I get a call from him today saying that he does need to be in Boston 2 days after the show, and can I please change his flight. Well, I usually book flights through Delta, but this time I used Orbitz because the only flight available on Delta was an overnighter - that wouldn't have worked out. So I go to Orbitz.com and cancel the flight, which happened to be non-refundable. In order to get the cost of the old ticket applied to the new ticket, I had to call Orbitz directly.

So I called, and tried booking it that way. It was extremely difficult to hear the lady I was talking to, and she couldn't hear me very well either. Maybe they should consider a new phone system. We finally got all the flights needed for this guy, and then......errors, errors, errors. Apparently their system wouldn't let her book a multi-city flight or something like that.

So after being put on hold more times than I can remember, she came back and told me that all she could do was book a flight from Long Beach (where he lives) to Montreal (where the show is) and from Boston (where the demo was) to Long Beach. All we were missing was Montreal to Boston. So I told her to go ahead and do that, and then I booked the missing flight myself online. So an hour later (I was seriously on the phone for an hour), I had all the tickets I needed for this guy.

All I can say is, I'm glad this is coming out of the Sales budget instead of ours, because this is one expensive flight.

The second best part of my day

2008-09-24T12:01:00.004-06:00

is now the drive home from work, thanks to the new Legacy Parkway! I know it has been open for a week and a half, but I only got to take advantage of it one day last week because of the conference at Snowbird. But this week, for the last two days, driving home from work has been a dream. I used to dread the drive home, knowing that I would be stuck in traffic from N. Salt Lake to Farmington. Now it's a smooth drive, never going under freeway speeds, and getting home in less than an hour. Can't beat that! Note: I still take I-15. That's how great it is!

Oh, and the first best part of my day is at 9:00 every night when Derek calls. ;)

Free day at Disneyland

2008-09-24T10:25:00.002-06:00

So apparently in the year 2009 you can get into Disneyland for free on your birthday. Click here to read more. It seems pretty legit, but if you're really interested, I'd probably do a little more research just to make sure.

The letter K

2008-09-19T18:45:00.005-06:00

Remember Sesame Street? That show always had the letter of the day or something like that. Well, today's letter is K and I've been tagged and have to come up with 10 things that I love that start with that letter. This is going to be a tough one.

The Rules: Comment and I'll give you a letter; then you have to list ten things you love that begin with that letter.

1. Kiwi - Mmmmmmm, I love fruit, especially the sweet stuff like strawberries, raspberries, nectarines, and KIWI!

2. Kissing - now please don't think I'm a tramp for putting this. I don't go around kissing every guy I can - I'm not like that. But....I have to admit, kissing is really fun. :0)

3. Kraft cheese - I love any kind of cheese, and Kraft sure makes good stuff!

4. Knuckles - like I said in my "Quirks" post, I love to crack my knuckles - on people, on furniture, etc.

5. Kered (that's Derek spelled backwards :)) - He's pretty much the greatest thing in my life.

6. Kittens - I really don't like cats much, but really, who doesn't love kittens? They're just so LITTLE and CUTE.

7. Koalas - I used to have a stuffed koala bear, and ever since then I have loved them.

8. Knowledge - I love learning things. It would be sweet to be a professional student, without all the tests of course.

9. Kelly Clarkson - I still think she's the best American Idol.

10. Kids - I love kids because a) they're cute, b) they say and do funny things, c) they're good cuddlers, d) they have some amazing perspectives on life.

So there you have it. Leave me a comment and I'll give you a letter! I'll try not to do something hard like Q or Z.

My quirky self

2008-09-19T18:35:00.005-06:00

I was tagged by Julie a few days ago, and I'm finally getting around to it. Here are the rules:

- Link the Person who Tagged you.
- Mention rules on your blog.
- Tell about 6 quirks of yours.
- Tag 6 fellow bloggers to do the same.
- Leave a comment to let them know. (Just so you know, I don't usually leave comments to let people know that I tagged them. I figure if they want to do it, they will. If they don't, that's fine.)

1. I roll my tongue a lot. I didn't used to be able to roll my tongue
at all. Then I was called on a Spanish-speaking mission, and I was a little worried that I wouldn't be able to roll my r's. By the time I came home I could kind of roll them a little, but not too well. Then I took a few Spanish classes at school and got a little more practice in. A few months ago, maybe more towards the beginning of the year, I would just randomly practice. I still wasn't very good at it, but one day out of the blue my tongue just started rolling! And rolling and rolling and rolling and I could do it perfectly! So now....I just roll my tongue a lot. And it's always random. I can roll it longer than anyone I know, so that's pretty cool.

2. I hum and sing to every song, even if it's the first time I've heard them. And sometimes I randomly start singing a song. Actually, I do it a lot, just ask Derek. He'll say something, even just one word, and it'll trigger a song in my head. For instance, if I hear the word "forever" I automatically think of a song from Saturday's Warrior and I will usually start singing it.

3. I'm kind of OCD when it comes to putting the silverware in the dishwasher. I like the little holes to have even numbers of forkes/knives/spoons in them. Actually I'm OCD about a lot of things that deal with even numbers.

4. I pop my knuckles a lot, and Derek said that I even pop them his back (like when I'm scratching it I guess), which I didn't realize.

5. This one is kinda embarrassing. Well, not really embarrassing, but it kind of drives me nuts that I even do it. Ok, so when I was 10 and lived in Cali, we had an earthquake and it was pretty strong, a 6.something. Ever since then my head gets these little tremor things going on, and they're actually kind of hard to control. I really have to concentrate if I want to make it stop. There have been periods of my life where they have lessened or stopped all together, but they always come back. The last few months have actually been worse than usual. So if you ever see my head doing something weird, it's probably that. Just ignore it or tell me to stop and maybe I will.

6. When I sleep I like to have a blanket next to my face. It's just more comfortable that way. I've heard of other people that sleep like that, so I know I'm not the only one!

Well that was kind of difficult. I tag Brea, Amy, Kaley, Tiffany M., Melody, and Sheryl. Have fun!

Goodbye Snowbird

2008-09-19T18:18:00.005-06:00

It's over!!!! After months of planning and three days of conference meetings, the Masters Summit at Snowbird is finally over. I can't really even describe how good this feels to be done with something that has taken over my whole existence (at least while I'm at work). Oh, and I forgot to bring my hairspray, so I was hairspray-less the whole time. It was a really good conference though, and everyone, customers and employees, had good things to say and thought we did a great job - especially for this being our first one. I think it went pretty well too, especially thanks to the Snowbird staff. They really did a great job.

Last night dinner was "on your own" so my coworker Marci and I decided to be antisocial and just stick to ourselves. We ate at the Mexican restaurant here called El Chanate and then walked around outside a little. It is sooooo beautiful here. Even for the few days we have been here, the leaves have changed more and more. We took a few pictures on our jaunt:

I was hoping to get more of the fall colors in this pic, but oh well. It still looks pretty good.

Marci and I sitting on the Alpine Slide

Whoa!

When we got back we watched The Office in my room. It was the season 4 finale to get ready for next week's season premiere! Yes! Then I talked to Derek and went to bed, where I slept for 8 hours. It even took a full minute or two for me to hear my alarm this morning.

I got up this morning hoping that things would go smoothly for the last day and that it would be stress-free. I should have known it wouldn't really be stress-free. A couple of hours before lunch our CEO decided he wanted to take some customers on the tram ride during lunch. So we had to figure out how to get them box lunches to take with, order the tram tickets, and set up a sign-up sheet because the place making the lunches could only make a max of 15 in the amount of time we had given them. I know this doesn't sound like a lot, but we also had some set-up problems this morning, so this just added to it. So they got to the tram right before it left, and the food wasn't there....apparently it really was and they just hadn't unloaded it. So they missed the 12:00 tram and ended up eating their lunch on tables at the loading dock, and then went up on the 12:30 tram, which made them a few minutes late for the next sessions, which started at 1. But it's ok because they had a good time, although I heard it was actually snowing a little at the top. It's a lot colder today than it has been the last couple of days.

The rest of the afternoon was very calm though, and now I'm just sitting here in the lodge waiting to leave. I'm heading to Pleasant Grove to have a sleepover with one of my mission companions, but she doesn't get off until 8:30, and there's no way I'm driving back home to Ogden and turning around to drive down there. So I'm catching up on my blogging while I wait. Yay, it's Friday!

Masters Summit and Jason Hewlett

2008-09-18T11:41:00.004-06:00

The rest of yesterday went amazingly well. Everything was so smooth, mostly thanks to the conference staff at Snowbird. It's a good thing they know what they're doing. Meetings ended at 4:30, then they started setting up for our dinner and entertainment that evening. From 5:30-7 we had a reception in the ballroom lobby, mostly for the benefit of our partners, so they could get to know some of our customers and forge new relationships. During this time we had amazing appetizers (the food is seriously the best part about being here) and I got to play the piano for background music. After a while though, there were so many people in there and it was so loud that the piano could only be heard by the people right next to me. So I ended at about 6:40.

Dinner started at 7 and it was really nice. NY steak, salad, applewood smoked bacon mashed potatoes, rolls and cheesecake. Dinner was served in one of the ballrooms, then at 8:30 moved to the other ballroom for our evening entertainment: Jason Hewlett. For those who haven't heard of him, he's pretty much hilarious. He's a SLC native, but travels all over the country and even the world performing his act. He does comedic impressions of singers, bands, actors, you name it. If you'd like to check out his promotional video, click here. We got to see people like Jim Carrey, Ricky Martin, Elton John and Michael Jackson.

Elton John in the 70s:

Elton John in the 90s (making friends with my boss Curt):

Michael Jackson:

So after all that I went back to my room at 10:00, called Derek and crashed. I was so exhausted. But I slept for a good 7 hours in my nice king-size bed.

So today I thought that things would have calmed down and people would have just gone to meetings and I would have just sat at the registration table all day with nothing to do. But it actually hasn't been that way at all. I've been running around just about as much as yesterday. We had a slight fiasco when I realized that I had forgotten to print the slides as handouts for one of our presenters a couple of weeks ago when he sent me his file. The printer we brought with us is extremely sloooooooow and it took me two hours to print 20 copies of his presentation. 20 minutes after his presentation started, I was ready with his handouts. But it's ok. I try to just let things roll of my shoulders. One of the projectors we brought with us decided to quit working, so we got one of our employees to bring up another one just a little while ago. And there have been other things go on, but nothing too bad. Tonight is a free night (yes!) and some of the employees are getting groups together to go to dinner, Park City, etc. but the rest of us MasterControl workers are going to dinner together, and then I plan on chilling in my room and watching a little TV, since I finally figured out how to use it (I'm not really good with TVs).

Tomorrow is the last day and I'm pretty relieved that the weekend is almost here.

Work has is benefits too

2008-09-17T09:05:00.003-06:00

For the past few months, most of my working hours have been taken up in preparation for the Masters Summit. The 'Summit' as we affectionately call it, is a user group type conference for our customers. This is the first year we have had one - and it officially started today! It has actually been extremely stressful up until now. Seriously, you never realize how many little details there are and how much planning goes into something like this until you are the one doing it. I didn't have to do it all by myself, thank goodness. Our Strategic Partner Relations VP was in charge, and I was the assistant. So between the two of us we did it all. It's been a long time coming and we should have started planning before we did, but I think it's going to go well. So far it has gone without a problem, but it's only 9:30 on the first day, so we'll see. But, as my title said, there are benefits to this whole thing.

1. We're holding the conference at Snowbird at the Cliff Lodge, and yes, the mountains are beautiful and the leaves are starting to change.
2. Starting last night until Friday I get to stayat the lodge.
3. I was on the list as a "VIP", so my room was upgraded. Can we say king size bed? I had the best sleep of my life last night until my alarm went off at 4:45.
4. Free food. Need I say more?
5. My awesome pink vest

So, the vest. I'm heading up the "support team" for the conference. Basically it's me and two other girls that I work with and we run the registration table, help people with questions, etc. And we all got vests to wear. The catalog said they were raspberry colored, so we are known as the Raspberry Girls or Raspberry Team. Here we are!

So, even though this whole thing has been stressful, it has been kinda fun too. Yesterday my boss told me to pay attention to how I feel on Friday afternoon when everything is about over. I can imagine it's probably a combination of relief, exhaustion and accomplishment. Well, wish me luck!

Why does the weekend always go too fast?

2008-09-15T13:04:00.002-06:00

I feel like I just barely blogged about last weekend, and now here it's time to write about another one. Lately, for me at least, the weeks have been DRAGGING and the weekends have gone by in a flash.

Derek came home this weekend! Yay! On Friday my parent's ward had a picnic in the park with pizza and stuff, so we stopped by there for dinner (I never say no to free food!) and from there went to my friend's house for a bonfire - the last one of the year :( It was lots of fun, thanks Stacey!

On Saturday Derek's family had a yard sale. They're trying to sell their house so are trying to clear it out. I looooove yard sales. They're great places to do a little people-watching. And the weather was so nice that day, perfect for a yard sale. I picked up a few things, including a really sweet birthday present for my mom. Growth in Grandmothering cassettes by Barbara Smith. Nice yeah? Just kidding - I did give it to her, but it was just her joke present. I got her something else too.

Later that day I got to play the piano at McKay-Dee Hospital. A couple of days previous I found out that Maci, a sister from my mission was in the NICU there with her premature twins who were born just a couple of weeks ago. While I was playing her mom came down and said, "Hey, I'm Maci's mom! Go up and visit her!" I was so glad she came and found me so that I could visit. One of the twins had already been taken back down to the hospital in Provo (where they live), so I only got to see one of them - she was so tiny! I had never seen a preemie in real life before. Pictures really don't emphasize how small they really are. It was really good to see Maci as well - it's been a while!

Then Derek and I made chicken cordon bleu; it was the first time I had made it and it turned out pretty good. We finished off the night with a little Forrest Gump, my fav movie!

Sunday we had a relaxing day and celebrated my mom's b-day a couple days early. There's nothing better than cake, ice cream and a bunch of family all together on a Sunday afternoon!

A day to remember

2008-09-11T11:34:00.003-06:00

I can't believe it has been 7 years since that fateful day we will all remember and never forget - September 11. I still remember (as I'm sure all of you do) where I was and what I was doing when I first heard about what was happening in the great city of New York. It was my first semester at Weber State and on Tuesdays and Thursdays my first class didn't start until 11:30 (those were the days). So, as this was a Tuesday, I was still in bed in the waking up stages when I heard some commotion on the news in the next room. I lay there in disbelief as I listened to the reports of a plane crashing into one of the Twin Towers. I got out of bed shortly after the second crash and watched the news for another hour or so, still shocked at how something like this could happen in the United States. I do remember going to class that day, but I don't remember much about what we did, other than everyone was talking about what had happened.

I can't even imagine what it must have been like for the people there - wondering if their loved ones had gotten out alive; feeling lost, alone and violated; thinking that maybe the end of the world had come. I'm grateful, as they were, for all the men and women who risked their lives to save a few more.

Of course I can't think about 9/11 without thinking about my mission. I had the amazing opportunity to serve where this event took place. Unfortunately Manhattan was part of another mission, so I was never able to go there, but I did spend the majority of my time across the bay in Brooklyn and Queens. From many places you could see where the towers would have been had they still been standing. When I was in Brooklyn a couple of our zones had the chance to do some service in the Twin Towers Memorial Garden. It was directly across the water from where they stood and the garden was shaped like them. Two long rectangles of grass and flowers, with paths in between and around them. It was a lot of work to fix the place up, but a lot of fun!

I actually got this picture (below) from another missionary. It was taken on 9/11/2006. The blue lights represent the towers.

A sad passing

2008-09-09T11:54:00.004-06:00

I just found out a couple of days ago that one of the kids at the orphanage in Guatemala passed away. Her name was Lydia and she was the 3-year-old who weighed 8 pounds when she came to the orphanage. She had a lot of disabilities, but still had the sweetest spirit.

The orphanage owner sent us some pictures of the funeral. I think it's so sweet that the pall bearers are other children from the orphanage.

The cemetary is above ground, so this is where the caskets are "buried".

If you'd like to read more about the details of how she died, click here or click on the link on the right for 'Casa de Sion'.

Work work work

2008-09-09T11:03:00.002-06:00

Have you ever had a day where everything comes at you all at once?

Weekend update

2008-09-07T18:50:00.009-06:00

On Friday some friends and I went to Firehouse for dinner to kind of celebrate my birthday. It was as good as ever. I have to make a slight correction though - the last Firehouse post I did I said the dessert was a ph'zookie, when it's actually spelled fh'zookie. Our waiter didn't even ask us if we wanted one, which I thought was kind of funny. He just brought us our checks when we were almost finished with our food. He probably could have made more money if he had asked, because I probably would have ordered one. Oh well. I probably saved myself another 500 calories.

Here's all of us at Firehouse. I just love these girls!

After we ate we swam in Kristianne's pool. While we waited for her to get the cover off Julie and I decided to jump on the tramp. We tried to take jumping pictures and were finally successful with attempt #4.

The pool was heated and it felt sooooo good because it was a little chilly outside. But after we got used to the temperature it started getting cold, so we weren't in for very long. So we got out, changed, and went to a bonfire that another friend was having. It's probably one of the last ones of the summer :( so I'm really glad we went.

On Saturday I finally got to see Derek! I drove up to Logan and got there in time for us to make lunch together and chocolate-covered strawberries. Yum. Then we decided to drive up Logan Canyon. I've been up a few canyons in my life, but this one was probably one of the prettiest. I just love being outside (or in a car driving through a canyon) and away from life. We kept driving and ended up going all the way to Bear Lake, which really isn't that far - maybe about 1/2 hour. I was excited because I'd never been up there before. It was beautiful! The water was so clear, it was like looking into a pool w/ a sandy bottom. The weather was so nice too. It was just a great day.

Then we drove back and did a couple of errands and went to Chili's for dinner, then got Aggie ice cream. It was so good, and I forgot to take a picture! Sigh. After that we drove over to the fairgrounds for the demolition derby, which was awesome. It was the first time either of us had ever been to one and we really liked it. Especially Derek. What guy doesn't like watching a bunch of trucks run into each other? He had a smile on his face the whole time, it was so cute :) At one point he was standing up and I looked up and saw him grinning away so I had to take a picture. I think I startled him, but I think it's cute.

Some of the trucks going at it. Notice the smoke coming out of some of them. These trucks were all pieces of junk, so they died pretty quickly.

Women and jewelry

2008-09-05T10:38:00.003-06:00

So I had my Cookie Lee party last night - thanks to all those who came! As the consultant was setting out all the jewelry before the show started, I couldn't help but gaze and drool. Why is that? What is it with women and jewelry? I asked her that and she laughed and said it's the same with women and chocolate. We don't really know why. Then we discussed the possibilities. It makes us feel pretty, it's sparkly, and we feel more feminine. And it has something to do with shopping and putting outfits together. Accessories are a must to help women feel more "put together".

So the party started and I tried on jewelry with everyone else, but I also kind of sat back and watched. It was really interesting watching people look, try on, and then debate with themselves - this one or that one? darn, I wish I had money. should I really spend this much? At one point I walked in the room and saw my friend with like 5 necklaces hanging from her wrist. I couldn't help but laugh, especially when she bought them all. ;)

I admit, I also got caught up in the whole spree. Actually, when I went to a Cookie Lee party that my friend hosted a couple of months ago, they had to give me a basket to put everything in because I just couldn't decide what I wanted. Last night, since I was hosting, I got some pretty killer deals and ended up getting 6 pieces of jewelry for $60 incl. tax. If you divide that up, it's $10/piece which is about what you'd spend at Target or Wal-mart. Actually, I take that back. The jewelry that I got wouldn't be that cheap even at those stores. Maybe at Claire's, but theirs would be cheaper quality. So I justified this expenditure by telling myself that it was a GREAT deal. And I really did get some nice stuff which I'm excited to wear. Unfortunately, I'll probably have to buy some new clothes to go with it.

Cookie Lee party!

2008-09-02T13:16:00.002-06:00

Hey everyone, I just thought I'd post real quick to let you all know I'm hosting a Cookie Lee (jewelry) party this Thursday. You're all invited! Details:

Date: 9/4
Time: 7:30-9 (it's an open house, so come and browse whenever you want!)
Address: 2731 N 1525 E, Layton

It'll be way fun, and I know the jewelry is a little expensive so please don't feel pressured to buy anything.

Also, just to put in a plug for my friend Mary....she just started doing Mary Kay so if anyone is interested in hosting a party or buying stuff from her, let me know and I'll give her the word. Thanks!

More birthday fun

2008-09-01T12:47:00.006-06:00

Sorry to bore you with more birthday stuff, but it's kinda been like a birthday week. It's been great! Friday night Derek drove home for the weekend :) and on Saturday we did all the stuff that he wouldn't tell me about before. First we went hiking up Adams Canyon, which we'd been talking about all summer, and then we had a picnic at Layton Park with all my favorite foods and a birthday cake! Then he took me home so I could take a shower and then we went down to Salt Lake. This whole time I was trying to guess what we were going to do (because he wouldn't tell me). I never did guess right. We ended up going to Desert Star, which is a playhouse/dinner theater type of place that does spoofs on movies. The show they were doing that night was Scary Poppins. It was hilarious! We got to eat while we watched it and it was way fun.

Last night I thought we were just going to have some cake and ice cream with my family and Derek's family, but apparently my mom decided to surprise me and invite all my friends and family over as well. It was a big surprise and so much fun!

My mom made a bunch of cupcakes and put them all together to make them look like an ice cream cone. And yes, there were 25 candles, and yes I blew them all out in one breath!

Birthdays are fun

2008-08-29T12:56:00.003-06:00

Even when you turn 25. First of all, thanks everyone for all the birthday wishes! I just thought I'd write a little more about what I did yesterday to celebrate my annual holiday. I'm the "birthday" person in my department at work - i.e. I have everyone's b-days in my calendar and I make sure they get cake or a card or whatever, because my boss doesn't remember. I certainly didn't have anything planned for myself, but everyone else surprised me (unlike last year when I didn't tell anybody it was my b-day until I left early and I put a note on my boss's desk explaining why. My birthday is now in his calendar). I was sitting at my desk, minding my own business and getting my work done, when 2 of my co-workers popped their heads over my cubicle wall and said hello. Then my boss came over and popped his head over. Then I looked to my right and there was the whole department. Ay ay ay. One of my co-workers asked me what day it was and I said "August 28th" and he asked me again what day it was, so I gave in and said, "It's my birthday!" and then they all sang to me while I blushed like the worst I've ever blushed in my life. My boss said, "Look, even her arms are getting red!" I didn't know I was capable of a full-out body blush.

So in retaliation I decided to leave work early. I met my mom at the Bountiful temple for the 3:30 session, after which we drove home to pick up my dad and go to Cafe Rio (sorry Danika....). I got my usual chicken tostada and it was amazing as usual. I just have to say...I love Cafe Rio. I usually go there once a week for lunch and the one down on Ft. Union in Midvale has the fastest lunch crew ever. It's amazing.

Then my mom and I went to see Errand of Angels, a new LDS movie about sister missionaries. It was actually really good, and totally took me back to the mish. I even got missionsick a couple of times. It's about a girl who gets called to go to Austria and while she was there had the normal trials: bad companion, self-doubt, frustrating days, investigators who 'believe' but don't see why they should get baptized, funny language mess-ups, etc. If you're in the mood for a relaxing, no action movie (the most action was when she and her companion fought over who got to answer the phone), you should go see it.

After the movie I went to my parents house to open a few presents. For some odd reason, most of what I opened turned out to be food. I guess they know how much I like it. I think I'm set for a while.

This has nothing to do with my birthday, but the other day I visited my friend whose Yorkie had a puppy about a month ago. He's grown so much and is soooooo cute! His name is Cubby. Awwww....

My quarter-life crisis

2008-08-28T09:58:00.004-06:00

So today I turned 25 - whoa, 25? For reals? Anyways, I thought I'd give a list of 25 things that have happened to me in the last 25 years. (I kinda got this idea from my friend's blog when she turned 25 a little while ago)

1. I was born
2. When I was a baby my parents took me to Tijuana and some of the natives there wanted to buy me. Just think, I could be totally fluent in Spanish right now! But I'm glad they wanted to keep me.
3. We moved from San Diego to Ventura when I was 9 months
4. I got my first little sister, Danika, when I was almost 2
5. We got our first dog, Boats
6. My family and I got our picture in the paper for the flower costumes we wore in a parade
7. We moved to Layton when I was 11
8. I finally got out of jr. high and started high school
9. I got to go to Anaheim with the high school choir where we won in like every category!
10. I graduated from Northridge High
11. I started school at Weber State
12. I joined PBL and made tons of great friends!
13. I went to Denver
14. I went to Dallas
15. I went on a mission to NY
16. I went to Chicago
17. I moved to Ogden
18. I graduated!
19. I started my first real job at MasterControl
20. My family got our cute dog Maggie
21. I moved to Salt Lake
22. 4 months later I moved back to Ogden
23. I met Derek
24. I went on my first date with Derek
25. I turned 25

So there you have it. It's actually not as bad to be 25 as I thought it would be. It'll just take some getting used to.

So I just got surprised at work with these awesome flowers! Thanks Derek!

37 random things

2008-08-27T13:16:00.003-06:00

I saw this on someone's blog, and I decided to do it because I need to post more often.

1. Do you like blue cheese? I love any kind of cheese
2. Have you ever smoked? Nope
3. Do you own a gun? Nope
4. What flavor Kool-Aid was your favorite? Cherry, or anything red
5. Do you get nervous before doctor appointments? I've never really been to the doctor that I remember, but if I went I'd probably be nervous
6. What do you think of hot dogs? Love them!
7. Favorite Christmas movie? Muppet Christmas Carol! I even watch it in July.
8. What do you prefer to drink in the morning? Water. I hate milk.
9. Can you do push ups? Maybe. I haven't tried in a long time.
10. What’s your favorite piece of jewelry? Probably my brown earrings.
11. Favorite hobby? hmmm...does eating count as a hobby?
12. Do you have ADD? Not technically, but my attention does divert quite often
13. Do you wear glasses/contacts? No, I got glasses before my mission, but I never wear them. The prescription is probably wrong by now.
14. Middle name? Marie
15. Name three thoughts at this exact moment. I wish work was over so I could go eat dinner with Derek's mom. I wish the Masters Summit at work was over so I could relax. I wonder what I'm going to do on Saturday.
16. Name three drinks you regularly drink. Mostly water, sometimes V8 Splash, once in a while Sprite
17. Current worry? Everything about the Masters Summit at work.
18. Current hate right now? Getting emails from a certain person at work
19. Favorite place to be? Anywhere with Derek! :)
20. How did you bring in the New Year? I think this year I was at my parent's house and it took us 3 hours to get through a game of Phase 10.
21. Where would you like to go? On a vacation! Or just somewhere relaxing.
22. Name three people who will complete this. I have no idea.
23. Do you own slippers? Yeah, but I rarely wear them. I like flip-flops better. Although one of my mission companions called flip-flops slippers, so if you call them slippers, then yes I own quite a few pairs.
24. What shirt are you wearing? A white shirt
25. Do you like sleeping on satin sheets? I don't think I ever have
26. Can you whistle? No
27. Favorite color? Blue, pink and green
28. Would you be a pirate? Sure
29. What songs do you sing in the shower? I haven't sang in the shower in a long time.
30. Favorite girl’s name? I don't really have one right now
31. Favorite boy’s name? Brighton
32. What’s in your pocket right now? The pants I'm wearing don't have a pocket.
33. Last thing that made you laugh? When my boss poured a big bag of peanut M&Ms in his candy bowl, ate some, and then scolded himself for pouring them all in the bowl because now he'll eat them all.
34. What vehicle do you drive? Mazda3
35. Worst injury you’ve ever had? Um, a bruise?
36. Do you love where you live? Eh, it's ok.
37. How many televisions do you have in your house? 2

No I don't have a fever

2008-08-26T16:36:00.004-06:00

So call me crazy, but I'm kinda jealous that I didn't get to start school yesterday. Right now going to class and having a part time, non-stressful job is sounding kind of nice.

Moving Day

2008-08-26T16:15:00.004-06:00

On Saturday we moved all of Derek's stuff up to Logan so he could start school at USU yesterday! It was kind of a bittersweet time. I'm way excited for him to be up there and I love Logan and everything but...I miss him. He says he misses me too, so that's good.

His dad and brother helped move his stuff up too, and after we got everything into his apartment they took us to lunch at El Sol. We all got the lunch special - $4.99 for a bean and cheese enchilada and a bean tostada! Then they left and I went with Derek back to his place. I tried helping him by organizing the clothes in his closet and putting his lamp together. Then I laid on his amazingly comfortable Sleep Number bed while I watched him do the rest.

If you think you've seen a busy Wal-mart, you need to go to the one in Logan on the Saturday before school starts. We went to return something and it was insane! I've never seen so many people at Wal-mart in my life. You could tell they were all students going on their first grocery shopping trip. A lot of them had parents with them. I saw one shopping cart loaded with food and an ironing board. Very necessary.

Later we went and walked around campus with Derek's friend Scott to find the buildings where his classes are. There were a lot of cool statues around, like this one:

For dinner Scott and his wife Raquel and their two kids joined us for dinner at Firehouse Pizza. Oh man, if you haven't been to Firehouse Pizza, you need to go. There's one in Logan, one in Smithfield, and one in Centerville. They have the best focaccia bread and an amazing little dessert called a ph'zookie. If you haven't had the honor of eating a ph'zookie let me know and I'll go to Firehouse with you.

After dinner we watched a few episodes of The Office, and then it was time for me to leave so I wouldn't fall asleep driving so I said goodbye to Derek :( and drove home. I don't think I've ever been so excited for the weekend!

The Elk and the Pig by Tawni Jaco

2008-08-22T10:03:00.007-06:00

Once upon a time there was a big strong elk who lived in the mountains. One day a guy came along and shot it with a bow and arrow. He died and ended up packed into a freezer.

There was also a very large pig who lived on a farm. One day the same guy came along and shot it with a bow and arrow. The pig died
:( and found himself in the freezer too.

I apologize if that was too gory for some of you. I was trying to think of a way to introduce my post and that's just what came out.

So anyways, last night Derek and I had dinner with his coworker, Russ and his girlfriend Tasha. They grilled some elk steak and the biggest pork chops I have ever seen. Seriously, they were the size of a dinner plate. It was the first time I had eaten elk, and it was soooo good! Russ really did shoot it with a bow and arrow...I think. He might have used a gun with that one. I know he shot the pig with a bow and arrow. Well, three arrows. It was a private hunt that you had to prepay for, and we kept teasing him that he killed the pig on a farm. So he made sure to point out to me that the land was 10 square miles, not a farm, and the best part is you're guaranteed a pig or you get your money back. Sounds like a pretty good deal to me. The pig he shot was 850 lbs! They showed us their freezer before we left and it really was packed full of meat. I know we're supposed to eat meat sparingly and everything, but it was really really good and it would be so nice to have that much meat and not have to buy it for so long. Russ did give Derek a bag full of meat though, so that should last a while. :)

It's been a bird-filled summer

2008-08-19T12:57:00.017-06:00

On Saturday while we were at the Tracy Aviary Derek said, "It's been a bird-filled summer." He was right! We've fed ducks at the Layton park, gone to a bird show at the zoo, and as I just mentioned, we went to the Tracy Aviary on Saturday where we saw birds of every feather and another bird show.

But first....we went to the Davis County Fair to check out his little sis' 4H entries. Congrats Delsi on going to State with your Oreo Truffles! They were amazing! When we got there the first thing we saw were the tractors. If you will remember this post, you will understand why it was so pertinent that we take pictures (we couldn't get on them unfortunately).

Then we walked through the 4H building and looked at all the entries. There was some amazing stuff. I had no idea you could enter so many different things. After that we got some cotton candy (one lady was selling it for 5 DOLLARS, and another guy just across the grass was selling it for 2) and looked at some more stuff and then......we got a fried Twinkie. Oh man it was so good. For anyone who hasn't tried it, I would suggest going to the fair and getting one. We split one, which was perfect because I'm sure they have about 1,000 calories. They deep-fry it, then cover it with raspberry sauce and whipped cream. Scrumptious. I was so excited to eat it that I forgot to take a before picture, but here's an after pic:

Of course whenever you see one of these things you have to take a picture:

Then we headed over to the aviary for a bird-filled afternoon. We got there just in time for the bird show, Avion Idol. Every bird had a talent that they showed, and then we voted for the winner. The winner at this show was Winky (I think that was his name), the horned owl. He looks kind of angry, but I think he really was happy. He just didn't know how to show his emotion.

Flamingos!

These cute little guys were so friendly. I think they're pretty accustomed to people because if you pay a bunch of money you can go inside their cage and feed them. So they all flew up to the fence thing and let us touch them.

I think Derek forgot I'm shorter than him. We tried to get a picture with the golden eagle behind us. You can kind of see his head right behind my head.

Feeding time for the pelicans. They had humongous mouths.

Then we went to Hard Rock Cafe for dinner. Mmmmmmmmmmm.

Me and Donny go way back.

Then we went to Clark Planetarium for the U2 laser show. It was awesome! Afterwards we did a little traveling. We went to Mars:

and the moon. "No way. We landed on the moon!" - name that movie!

And finished off with some weather predictions right here in Utah.

We also stopped by Dick's Sports to get a b-day present for my dad. I ended up getting him a bbq lighter that looks like a rifle. He liked it a lot.

The End!

Regression

2008-08-13T12:58:00.002-06:00

Before I went to Guatemala I felt like I was doing really well with my weight loss/exercise goals. I had my routine down pat, from the foods I bought to what time I exercised every night. Two things interrupted my routine:

1 - The trip to Guate. This was a big throw off because of course, I couldn't follow my daily schedule or prepare my own food. Don't get me wrong, I loved the food down there, but there was a lot of it. My exercise really suffered as well. I went "running" a couple of times (the only place I had to go was the hall of the hotel), but other than that I didn't get much done. So when I got home it was harder to get back into the habit I had previously formed. I was also used to eating a lot and kind of fell back into my old habits of eating more than I should.

2 - A new roommate. You wouldn't think this would be something that would throw off my routine, but I think any major change affects whatever routine you may have. Also, when I use my exercise dvds I don't like anyone else to be around (I'm just weird like that), so I have to get used to when she is and isn't home.

So when I stepped on the scale this morning I was pretty horrified by the numbers. Time to get back to the routine! So the last couple of days my lunches have been smaller and I've tried to exercise a little. It'll take a little while to get back into the habit, but if I did it before, I can do it again.

It's too bad I don't hate eating.

Cool blog

2008-08-12T14:41:00.003-06:00

Google's choice for Blog of Note today is an interesting one. Dave Durante's Olympic Journey is all about Dave Durante, men's gymnastics alternate, and his Olympic and pre-Olympic training experiences. Check it out.

A fun weekend

2008-08-11T10:26:00.007-06:00

As usual, the weekend went by too fast, but at least it was fun! Friday night I watched the opening ceremonies, which were amazing! The Chinese sure know how to do it right. I don't even want to know how much they spent on just the fireworks.

Saturday was moving day for Kaley and Levi, so Derek and I went over bright and early to help load the moving truck. A couple hours, 3 boxes of donuts and 3 rolls of tape later, we were about done. We left before they started cleaning.

My mom made me climb in this box to tape it on the bottom. I actually went in headfirst but after I came out she wanted to take a picture, so I got back in like this.

Bye Kaley!

That night we went to the Jon Schmidt concert up in Wolf Mountain. It was amazing, as usual. The opener this year was Jon's 15-year-old son and his band Painting the Finish Line. It was their first gig and they were actually really good. I think I've heard Jon Schmidt play about 10 times and I never get tired of it because he's so awesome!

Waiting for the concert to start.

We got these sour gummy worms but accidentally left them in the car all afternoon. Apparently gummy worms melt.

Jon with Steve the cellist playing the famous Pachelbel Meets U2

08.08.08

2008-08-08T21:01:00.002-06:00

What a fun day! One of my friends did a blog entry of 8 sets of 8 things each that she likes, so I thought I would do kind of the same thing. So here goes.

8 things I did today (it won't be too exciting since I worked all day)
1. Slept in until 7:15! then went to work
2. Picked up some hooks for one of our tradeshow booths
3. Ate leftovers from dinner that Derek's mom made the other night. Yum!
4. Went to a budget meeting
5. Booked travel for people
6. Ate a chicken salad sandwich for dinner
7. Talked to Derek :)
8. Watched the Olympic Opening Ceremonies. It was amazing!

8 of my favorite foods
1. Mashed potatoes
2. Cafe Rio chicken tostadas
3. Chocolate chip cookies
4. Hogi Yogi meatball sandwiches
5. Pupusas
6. Tostadas and tacos
7. Fiber One bars
8. Peanut butter M&Ms

8 of my favorite movies
1. Forrest Gump
2. Pride and Prejudice
3. Pirates of the Carribean (#1)
4. Bourne movies 1-3
5. The Princess Bride
6. Singing in the Rain
7. The Labrynth
8. Finding Nemo

8 things I did or want to do in 2008
1. Went to Guatemala
2. Moved back to Ogden
3. Lost 7 pounds
4. Started dating Derek ;)
5. Go to Trans Siberian concert
6. Lose 7 more pounds
7. Go to San Diego
8. Learn how to make ice cream

8 things I'll do tomorrow
1. Buy donuts
2. Take them to Kaley and Levi's and load their moving truck
3. Wash my car
4. Go to the grocery store
5. Eat tacos at Mi Puebla
6. Play the piano at the hospital
7. Play games
8. Go to the Jon Schmidt concert!

8 of my favorite books
1. Twilight series 1-4
2. Harry Potter 1-7
3. The Kite Runner
4. A Thousand Splendid Suns
5. A Tree Grows in Brooklyn
6. To Kill a Mockingbird
7. Work and the Glory 1-9
8. The scriptures

8 things I like to do
1. Hang out with Derek
2. Read
3. Sleep
4. Eat
5. Play soccer
6. Learn to cook new things
7. Travel
8. Learn about other countries

8 countries I want to go to
1. Peru
2. Korea
3. Australia
4. India
5. Sweden
6. New Zealand
7. Italy
8. England

I'd like to dedicate this to one of my mission companions, Megan (Collier) Pace, whose favorite number is 8! Happy 8 Day!

Congrats Kristi!

2008-08-08T13:53:00.002-06:00

Last night I went to a baby shower for my friend Kristi. It was so fun to see her again! We used to see each other every day when we were in school because we had so many classes together and were always working on group projects. She's having a little girl and will be such a cute little mom!

Congrats Levi!

2008-08-05T21:35:00.002-06:00

I don't know why I keep forgetting to post about this, but better late than never I guess. About 3 weeks ago, my bro-in-law Levi found out he got accepted to law school at the University of Denver! He had applied to some schools a while ago and got wait listed at two of them and finally found out he got accepted. Needless to say, things are a little stressful when you have a month to find a place to live, a new job (for Kaley), and get ready for such a major change. Levi has been my carpool buddy since the beginning of the year, so it'll be weird driving by myself everyday. No more stories about what he does in the office (seriously, some of the things they do are just like in The Office. Once they even put their coworker's phone in the ceiling), no more chatting about my dating life, and I'm sure Levi will miss his own personal chauffeur while he took naps in the car. And I will definitely miss my sis. We've been much better friends since I've been home from my mission and it's been great! We'll miss you guys, but this will be awesome for you! Congratulations!

Animal Day

2008-08-03T13:37:00.010-06:00

Yesterday me and Derek had a fun-filled day with my sister Kaley and her hubby Levi. Well, first of all I got the new Twilight book. Then we started our day. First we went to the zoo. Derek had a lot of fun. First he drank out of a lion's head and then he flirted with a monkey.

We saw lots of animals like tigers and llamas and giraffes and penquins and an elephant show. And we saw the bird show, which was really cool. Kaley and Levi had a lot of sugar while we waited for the bird show.

After the zoo, we went and ate some animals at Rodizio's. It was just a day full of animals. By the end we were all stuffed. Who knew you could eat a whole cow, chicken and pig in one sitting? Oh, and a whole pineapple. And we had the best stawberry lemonades EVER. We sat there for a while because we couldn't move. And Derek looked 9 months pregnant (he told me to put that).

It was really hot that day, so then we went to Gateway and sat on the Lovesacs for about half an hour. But before that we went to the arcade and tried to win a stuffed animal. But we didn't. So we played Skeeball.

Then we decided to invite Batman along on our animal day, since he kind of represents an animal. Really, we just went to watch it at the Gateway theater, and it was pretty much awesome!

We still felt bloated when we got home, so I just went to bed to sleep it off and Derek disappeared and he says he doesn't know how he got home and into bed, but he must have driven himself because he woke up in his bed. The funny thing is, I weighed 1 pound less this morning than I did yesterday morning. Go figure.

Me, Myself and Derek

2008-08-01T12:24:00.002-06:00

I had a request from my dear compa Melody to give a little introductory spiel about Derek. Some of you may have noticed a bunch of blogs and pictures of him recently and may be wondering - who the heck is this guy? Well, let me tell you.

On June 6 my friend Nick got married to the lovely Lynette down in Manti. I didn't feel like driving down all alone, so I asked my friend Steve, who was also going, if I could get a ride. He said he was riding with none other than.....Derek! I had never met Derek before, but I had heard his name a lot from Nick & Steve. So I asked Steve if he thought he would mind if I rode with them. So he asked and it was ok so at 7 am on the 6th of June I met them at Derek's house and we all rode down together. Derek's dad actually came along as well to spend the day with his mom-in-law helping her set up her iPod. So that was the first time I met Derek and we were basically together the whole day. It was a 3-hour drive down, then there was the wedding, then pictures and the luncheon. Then we spent a few hours at Derek's grandma's house and then went to the reception, went back to the house, and then there was a 3-hour drive home. During all that time I just thought he was a really nice, funny guy. He even let me use his suit jacket when the wind kept lifting up my skirt!

Sometime during that afternoon someone brought up Ironman, and I hadn't seen it yet and I mentioned that everyone else I knew had already seen it so I didn't have anyone else to see it with. Well, Derek took the bite :) and said, "Well I'll go see it with you" and I said "Ok" and he asked if I was doing anything the next night (Saturday). Well, I had a date the next night so I had to say no, but we scheduled our movie night for the next Saturday.

So Saturday, June 14 rolled around and we went to Ruby River for dinner, went to the arcade where we won some bouncy balls and a buzzer, and then saw Ironman. It was so much fun and I really wanted him to ask me out again. A few days later he called and we went out again! And again. And again. And it just kept going. I think I've blogged about most things we've done. Wednesday, July 23 we were officially "in a relationship." We even changed our relationship status on Facebook and everything :).

So that's the jist of it. Thanks to Nick getting married (which I thought would never happen ;) ), I met Derek and now I can't imagine not knowing him! Thanks for the good times Derek! :)

It's nice to feel appreciated

2008-08-01T12:22:00.000-06:00

The Services Summit ended at 12 today and at 11:30 I was called into the conference room where they were holding their meetings. There I was presented with an appreciation gift certificate to a spa! $50 to spend any way I want! Maybe I'll try a massage and see if a "professional" one will tickle.

A long week at work

2008-08-01T10:37:00.003-06:00

Twice a year at my company we have a Sales Summit and a Services Summit. Everyone from the Sales and Services departments come in (a lot work offsite) for a week-long conference type thing. I'm not part of either department, but the Services VP "recruited" me to help with their summit (Sales has an admin to do all their dirty work for them, Services doesn't). So this week I was the admin for Marketing and Services. It really was fun because I like to be busy, but I have to admit I'm kind of exhausted.

Every morning this week I've arrived at work around 7:30 to make coffee and put out drinks and snacks. Then I have to make sure the fridge is restocked so the drinks will be cold when I put them out. Then periodically during the day I restock drinks and snacks and also make sure that their lunch gets ordered and delivered/picked up. Then after they're done for the day, I clean up and get the snack trays ready for the next day and leave around 6. It doesn't really sound that bad, but it is a lot of work and long days. I haven't even gotten a whole lot done for my department this week because I've been so focused on the summit. And I've already worked 40 hours, so it's unfortunate that I'm on salary, otherwise I could get overtime. Darn.

Every summer during the Summits our company has their annual Summer Carnival for all employees and their families. It's a lot of fun with water games, face painting, rock climbing, etc. for the kids and whoever else wants to join in. We also have dinner (catered bbq) and an awards ceremony. I celebrated my 1-year anniversary with the company so I got my 1-year hat (everyone gets a hat on their anniversary. This year it's a dark blue fishing hat. Very cool.) I haven't taken a picture of it yet, but I will.

For part of the time I was assigned to the registration table to give people nametags as they arrived. Derek came with me, and Marci from my department was also there. If I look wet in this picture, it's because I am. Derek and my boss both thought it would be funny to squirt me with the water guns we all got (notice the gun sticking out of the back of Derek's shirt). I tried to get them back, but it didn't really work out.

Goin' fishing

2008-07-29T21:53:00.005-06:00

On Saturday Derek took me fishing for my very first time (unless you count trout farms) and it was awesome! We drove up to the beautiful Uintas, making a very necessary stop at Wendy's on the way, and stopped at a lake whose name I can't remember. It was so pretty though.

We brought an inflatable raft up and tried fishing from that for a while. It was so fun and relaxing to just float along, casting your line into the water over and over.

We didn't have any luck with the fish in the raft, so after a while we decided to get out and hike down 1/2 a mile to Fehr Lake and fish from the shore. Here's me getting ready to cast:

We had probably been at this particular lake for 1/2 an hour or so when I felt a tug on my line. I had a fish! I started reeling him in, but I guess I was going too slow because Derek told me to go faster. He grabbed the video camera to catch it all on film and he captured the fish coming into shore and then jumping off the hook. But don't worry! Derek saved the day and caught it with his hands before it could get away. He also set the video camera down without turning it off, so we have a fun video of the fish, and then the ground. Right then this guy came along and asked if we wanted him to take a picture, so then he took the camera and got us both on film. But it kind of has a Blair Witch Project thing going on for a little while.

Me and my fish!

A little while later it started raining so we sat under a tree to see if we could wait it out. Well it didn't seem like it was going to stop, so we hiked back up to the truck in the rain, which was so fun! Then we ate dinner in the truck, and it stopped raining. So then we decided to go back out on the raft and see if the albino trout would start biting. We stayed out there for a while with no luck. Those darn albinos. Before we left, though, Derek made me gut the fish. Ugh. I actually ended up just starting it and he finished it because I accidentally ripped the head off. Oops.

So fishing was pretty much awesome and I can't wait to do it again!

Happy Pioneer Day!

2008-07-25T14:32:00.005-06:00

For those who live in Utah, July 24th is celebrated as Pioneer Day. I unfortunately didn't have the day off, but I did take the morning off to go to Good Things Utah! It's kind of like Good Morning Utah or Good Morning America. My friend Julie got tickets so we all went. It was fun; it's the first time I've ever been on a TV set!

Us with the Animaniacs

With the ladies of Good Things Utah

Pretending we are the ladies of Good Things Utah

On the night of the 23rd there was a big parade and fireworks in Bountiful that Derek and I and some of his family went to. It was awesome! Definitely the best parade and fireworks I have ever been to.

Derek, who was on the ark float again? ;)

One of the ladies in my Guatemala group has a sister who lives down there. So while we were there, her sister's cook made a bunch of black refried beans for anyone who wanted to take some home with them. So for dinner last night, we had a Guatemalan meal, complete with the black beans (topped with crema, which is more Mexican than Guatemalan). It was so yummy!

Here's a fun game

2008-07-25T13:46:00.016-06:00

1. As a comment on my blog, leave one memory that you and I had together. It doesn't matter if you knew me a little or a lot, anything you remember!
2. Next, re-post these instructions on your blog and see how many people leave a memory about you. If you leave a memory about me, I'll assume you're playing the game and I'll come to your blog and leave one about you.

Guatemala 4: el turismo (the touristy stuff that we did)

2008-07-25T13:46:00.015-06:00

The last two days in Guatemala were play days. On Thursday we went to the famous market in Chichicastenango and spent money like crazy! First a few of us took at little tour in the Mayan/Catholic church.

There were a couple of guys waving incense in front of the doors. I don't like incense very much and it was really strong. Then when we got inside this guy asked if he could give us the 15 minute explanation/tour thing, so we did. It was really interesting; all the Mayan stuff was up the center of the church, and all the Catholic stuff was on the sides. I don't know if that makes sense or not, but I don't really know how to explain it. Basically the main Mayan thing I remember is that they have stone slabs all up the center aisle and the slabs have white candles and red & white rose petals on it. The candles are for the boys and the rose petals for the girls. There are 12 slabs and each one is for something different; the first half are for asking for things and the last half are for thanking. The ask and thank for things like children, family, health, safety, good crops, etc. One tradition he told us about is this thing they do when there is going to be a marriage. The Mayan witch doctor person, along with the bride, groom, a hen and a rooseter go up the mountain to do a little ritual. He (or she) pricks the ring fingers of the bride and groom, squeezes a few drops into a bowl and mixes it up. This is supposed to keep them together for eternity (like sealing?). Then he cuts the heads off the rooster and the hen and spreads/pours their blood around the groom (rooster) and bride (hen). I don't remember what that signified.

After we did the little tour thing we shopped! It was really really crowded, but there were so many stores and so much to look at. It was awesome!

One lady I was with wanted to buy some incense and they still weigh it like this:

I bought a lot of cool things, including a hammock that I have no place for yet. Someday.

On Friday a bunch of our group went to Tikal, but a few of us who stayed behind went horseback riding up a volcano! Probably one of the coolest things I have ever done, although I was a little saddle-sore for a few days afterward.

My horse (or mule, or whatever it is):

I was a little nervous.

I know it looks like I'm leaning, but the guy who took the picture just didn't know what he was doing I guess.

We were on the horses for an hour going up, and the whole way it felt like we were just on a mountain. It was just grass, trees and dirt. No lava yet. But then we got to a point where you have to leave the horses behind (with the guides) and hike up the lava on foot.

We got to see real lava flowing.

This stick burst into flames a few seconds after we threw it down there because of the heat. We could feel the heat rising up from the ground we were walking on.

And we roasted marshmallows! When the mallow's a-flamin'...(name that movie! Hint: I've quoted it on my blog before. I think.)

So that's pretty much the end of my Guatemala pictures. I had a great time and met a lot of really awesome people. It's definitely something I want to do again, whether I go with the same group or decide to go to another country with someone else. If anyone is itching to do this next summer, just let me know and I'll get you the contact info.

Guatemala 3: el hotel y el Lago Atitlan (the hotel and Lake Atitlan)

2008-07-22T22:51:00.002-06:00

The whole time I was there I could not get over how beautiful Guatemala is. It's so green everywhere and the vegetation is very thick. Guatemala actually means "land of the forest" in a Mayan language. I can imagine that before any of the land was settled it must have been pure forest and vegetation. The most beautiful sight, however, would have to be Lake Atitlan. For those of you familiar with the Book of Mormon, this lake (along with many other sites in Guate and Mexico) has been about 99% archeologically proven to be the Waters of Mormon. It's so big that I could never fit it all into my camera. Our hotel was called Hotel Atitlan, and just happened to be right on the shore of the lake. It gave us a pretty nice view all the time, especially during breakfast and dinner where we had a huge window looking right at the lake.

The hotel is one of the nicest in Guatemala. It's actually a pretty famous site for weddings and receptions. In fact, there was a wedding held there during our stay. I think their music was still playing at 3 am. I liked it though. I could hear some reggaeton in there and I love that kind of music.

Branching out

2008-07-22T15:16:00.004-06:00

Right before I left for Guatemala (more posts will be coming about that by the way), I told my boss that I would give in and try sushi after I got back. He and a bunch of others in the department love to walk over to Mikado's for lunch and get sushi. I went once and got ginger pork. I love trying new foods, but I have this thing about fish. I don't like it. My boss is always giving me a hard time about not liking seafood and such. To him, it's a great crime.

Anyways, so my first day back (yesterday) he reminded me of the commitment I had made. Then today they decided to hold me to it. They thought it was a good day, seeing as how Tuesday is 1/2 price sushi day at Mikado's. So we walked over and I got gyoza and then tried not one, but three different kinds of sushi (off of the others' plates). I tried a California Roll, a Caterpillar and....I can't remember what the other one was called, but it had eel in it. I was quite proud of myself for trying that many and not getting sick. Unfortunately, I forgot to take a picture! But here is a picture of what it looked like:

It's probably not something I would ever actually order, but at least I got through it without hurling and my boss can't make fun of me anymore.

Guatemala 2: la bodega (the storage room where we organized all the donations)

2008-07-21T19:13:00.005-06:00

The bodega was the other place I worked at. When we got there, there was one set of shelves with clothes on it and everything else was just thrown into bins or scattered on the floor. We had a big job ahead of us! Along with organizing what was already there, we had to go through all the suitcases of donations that our group had brought, plus others that were already there.

Some of the men in our group spent their time building shelves for the bodega, and tables and benches for the orphanage. Thank goodness for those shelves! We filled them all.

I worked with a great group of ladies at the bodega. Claudia, Maria, and Kathy were the main ones. We had a lot of fun! Especially when we found the box of Halloween costumes...there are a couple of pictures mixed in with the rest, so if you take the time to watch the slide show you'll see them.

The fun ladies! L to R: me, Kathy, Maria, Claudia (we used her scissors a lot, that's why she's holding them up).

Guatemala 1: el orfanato y los niños (the orphanage and the kids)

2008-07-21T18:23:00.002-06:00

I have so many pictures of all the things we did in Guatemala, so I decided to do a few different posts and divide everything into categories with a slide show in each one.

First of all, Guatemala was awesome! I had such a good time and am so glad I went. The weather was perfect the whole time, even though they are in their rainy season and it should have poured every day. It was about 70 degrees the whole time and even though it was overcast a lot of the time, it only rained a couple of times at night. This was an awesome blessing because a lot of the members of our group wouldn't have been able to work if it was raining.

I think my favorite part of the trip (besides the shopping) would have to be playing with the kids. They are so much fun and just love the attention! Our first day there we brought bubbles and they had a blast. One girl, Ana Maria (8) went through a whole bottle. It took her about 3 or 4 hours, but she did it. There are a couple of babies there that we got to hold a lot. There is also a 3-year-old girl, Lydia, who only weighed 8 pounds when they got her a couple of months ago. She has gained a few pounds since then, but she is still so tiny. She was severly malnourished and I think has fetal alcohol syndrome. She was very sweet and loved to be held or pushed in her stroller.

There were a couple of boys that were about two, Carlos and Abraham, that loved to be held as well. Carlos would pretty much attach himself to you and if you tried to put him down he would collapse and start crying. So if you were holding him, you were stuck with him. Which was totally fine with me. The only bad part was when you had to leave for the day and give him up. It was heart breaking to watch him cry.

There were a few teenagers there that I would talk to a lot. It's really sad that they have to be there, but that's how it is until they turn 18.

The orphanage itself is....probably not a place I would want to live in. The kids mostly hung around outside, because most of the orphanage is not enclosed. The bedrooms are, but that's about it. Thank goodness they're building a new one about 1/2 an hour away that will be much nicer.

There were about 3 kids that I would have gladly adopted if I could have. Unfortunately adoptions are closed in Guatemala right now :( But I am SO glad I got to go down and help at least a little. It was amazing!

After nearly 12 hours of travel tme

2008-07-19T22:25:00.001-06:00

I'm back! Guatemala was super awesome and I loved every minute I was there! It is good to be home though. I'll hopefully get some pictures up tomorrow or Monday so keep your eyes open. I'll probably do a few different posts because there is so much to talk about.

See you next week!

2008-07-08T17:36:00.001-06:00

Well, I'm off to Guatemala tonight! I'll be back next Saturday, so expect lots of pictures!

Whatever happened to Squeezits?

2008-07-07T12:31:00.004-06:00

I'm sure you can all remember your elementary school days when you scouted the cafeteria tables looking for the people with the good stuff. Trading sandwiches for chips and carrots for goldfish crackers was pretty big. But do you remember Squeezits??? Those awesomely fun plastic bottles with a small hole on top where the juice squeezes out and into your mouth? Well, they don't make them anymore, sadly enough. Apparently they were replaced by Kool-aid Bursts. But they taste and look exactly the same!

The reason I bring this up is because Derek and I were scouring the stores this weekend looking for Squeezits. I ended up googling it and found out that they are no longer in production :(. So we got some Kool-aid Bursts instead to try them out. We took them to the drive-in on Saturday and ta-da! A trip down memory lane.

We also got pizza from Dominos because I can't say no to fundraisers. I walked out of Wal-mart the other day and there were two guys outside selling Dominos coupon card things for their football team, so of course I bought one. So if anybody needs pizza and really wants Dominos, just let me know.

At the drive-in we saw Wall-E and Prince Caspian. They were both really really good! I recommend them to everybody. Especially if you have small children; I hear they really like Wall-E.

Parade of Homes #3

2008-07-06T15:39:00.045-06:00

Saturday was our last run through of the Parade of Homes. We made it through 12, all in Mountain Green. They were all nice homes, but by the end I was tired so I really just wanted to get through. I still have a ton of pictures though, so once again, bear with me.

House #1

I loved the hallway, esp. the picture at the end.

Flip-flop hooks!

Really cool magnet board for a bedroom.

House #2
There were kids with golf carts driving people up and down the driveway, so I took this picture on the way down.

There was an airplane in one of the many garages.

The ultimate guy's bathroom.

The guy's bedroom. Check out the nightstand.

The girl's bedroom. Love the colors!

House #3

Master bedroom fireplace.

House #4

My favorite part, right inside the front door.

Front entryway.

Downstairs room.

I love this faucet!

Scrapbook room!

Cool sink.

House #5

Pirate room.

House #6

The master bathroom shower had a window!

Downstairs room.

House #7

This was right inside the front door. I really liked how they laid out the pictures of their kids.

Cute girl's room.

House #8

A really cool place to keep your curling iron and blow dryer.

Living room. I liked the dark orange accents.

House #9

The ultimate scrapbook room!

Nice to have in the bathroom.

The view from the kitchen/living room.

Downstairs. All the balls on the shelves are signed. The basketball was signed by John Stockton.

Theater room.

House #10

Right inside.

Most houses we went to had stereo systems set up throughout the house, with speakers on every ceiling, and one of these on a wall in every room.

A phone booth!

House #11

Living room.

House #12
This was a townhouse, going for $260.

The coolest headboard I have ever seen.

This was the first year that I have gone to the Parade of Homes and it was a lot of fun, although after a while the houses started to run together and all seem the same. It's something I would definitely do again, but maybe not every year. It's fun to see what's "in" now though!

4th of July

2008-07-06T12:39:00.010-06:00

I love the 4th of July, and this year was no exception. I had a blast! We started the day at 8:30 with breakfast at Derek's house with our families and some friends. After stuffing ourselves with the best pancakes, hash browns, sausage, bacon and eggs that I've ever had in my whole life, we went to the Layton parade. It was at the parade that I witnessed 3 things.

1) Derek wearing his Chinese hat that he got on his mission in Korea. He actually only wore it for a few seconds, just so I could take a picture.

2) Derek's dad. He didn't sit down the whole time. He danced, he yelled for candy, and he yelled at people in the parade to do somersaults. He actually got half of Northridge's cheerleaders to do standing back tucks in a line right in front of us. I got a picture of him dancing; you can kind of tell he's waving his arm.

3) The third thing I witnessed was...oh yeah, the parade.

Everybody at the parade:

Derek's dad looking happy after the parade was over. He had a great time!

After the parade, we walked through the park a little and got these gigantic snow cones. Mine was a small, the other two are larges. So while Derek and Steve battled endless brain freeze, I happily sipped away at my small snow cone.

After walking through the park for a little while, we decided to go see Hancock. Good movie, it would be better if some of the language was cut out. But it was good. Will Smith is a funny guy. Then Derek and I went over to my parent's house for a bbq. My mom has this funny tradition of making everyone wear these Statue of Liberty hat things every year so she can take a picture. I think this is the 3rd year that we've done this now.

We also made s'mores and I think we quoted Sandlot about 10 times while doing so. That is such a great movie.

Then Derek, Steve and I met Derek's family at the park for fireworks. They were stupendous! I forgot to take pictures there, but I figure this post already has plenty of them. Happy 4th of July everybody! Let freedom ring!

Parade of Homes

2008-07-03T11:18:00.025-06:00

Last night was Part 2 of my and Susan's home touring. We met in Centerville after I got off work and made our way up to Layton, going through 6 homes before we called it a night. There are a lot of pictures which are mostly for my benefit so I can remember the cool things I saw and what I really liked, so just bear with me.

House #1 - Centerville
This was a townhouse, which is going for around $230 I think. It's nice, but I don't know if I would pay that much when I could buy an actual house for the same price.

I really loved the color scheme of the whole place. Mostly greens and browns. The tile in the kitchen was really cool. It was kind of clearish.

The living room

House #2 - Farmington
This was a pretty nice house too, but there weren't a whole lot of things that made me go "wow".

I did like this clock.

The view of the living room from upstairs. I LOVE high ceilings.

House #3 - Fruit Heights
This house had some fun features, as you will see in all the pictures.

I was standing in the living room to take this picture. Through the window is the staircase. Who has a window in their living room wall? I thought it was pretty sweet.

This was my absolute favorite. I'm definitely keeping this in mind for when I have a house of my own. The first picture looks like just a normal piece of wood.

But then, you open it, and it's a spice rack! So cool! There's an identical one on the other side of the stove too. What a great idea.

The little girls' bathroom had a little step you could pull out for the small people.

This had to be my all-time favorite funny feature. This miniature toilet was in the little boy's bathroom. It's a real toilet and probably goes up to my knee.

The music room!

House #4 - Fruit Heights
This was a smaller house, nothing too special.

I did really like the colors. Greens and browns again.

House #5 - Fruit Heights/Kaysville
This house was huge! If you can see in the picture, it actually wraps around a little bit, I just couldn't get it all in from where I was standing. It had a humongous backyard too. I'm guessing that with the size of the house and the yard, it probably took up 3 lots.

Living room right inside the door. I took this picture because of the piano and the harp. I play the piano but I really really want to learn how to play the harp.

There was an awesome playroom upstairs, decorated with a "It's a Small World" theme. This was the playhouse, which had real stairs and a slide. It was like a building within a building (the other building being the real house of course).

A jewelry closet?

We asked the lady that was working there what the owners did for a living (because it's a $2 million home) and she said that the husband is an attorney and the wife used to teach ballroom dancing at BYU. So....this is their ballroom dance floor downstairs, complete with mirrors on the left (kind of cut out of the pic) and a nice bar to the right.

House #6 - Layton
This was just a nice house with some cool furniture.

A circle crib!

The living room with a view into the kitchen.

Argh! I had fun on the pirate bed.

So that was it for this visit. We're going again on Saturday, so stay tuned...

Blog Award

2008-07-01T21:55:00.003-06:00

Wow, thanks Amy for awarding me with a blog award! The winner of this award must follow a few rules:

Rules

#1 - You have to pick 5 blogs that you consider deserving of this award, whether for creativity, design, interesting material, and/or also contributes to the blogging community, no matter the language.

#2 - Each award has to have the name of the author and also a link to his or her blog to be visited by everyone.

#3 - Each winner has to show the award and put the name and link of the blogger who has given him or her the award.

#4 - The winner and the one who has given the prize have to show the link of Arte y pico blog, so everyone will know the origin of this award.

#5 - The winner must show these rules.

So the following 5 are the winners I have chosen, in no particular order:

Danika Humphreys
I might be slightly biased in this one, because this blog is mainly focused on my cute nephew Luke! Unfortunately this blog is private, so unless you are invited, it's not viewable. But I occasionally post pictures of the little guy, so you can still see his cute face.

Andrea Uhrey
Andrea has got to be one of the best writers I have ever known. I love reading her witty comments and her descriptions of the small nuances we call life.

Janel Christensen
Janel also has quite the witty side. She has also just started a two-week blogathon (along with Andrea), in which she will post something everyday. Go Janel!

Tyler D'Hulst
Tyler is going to graduate school up in Idaho, so his blog is mainly on his adventures in good ol' Pocatello, whether it's mountain biking or stitching up a cow's tongue. Yum.

Julie Peterson
Julie also has a great talent for writing. She writes about a lot of her dreams, which are really fantastic!

So basically, everyone who I just awarded this award to has to do the same thing I just did. Thanks for having blogs! It's so fun to read them!

Blah

2008-07-01T12:39:00.002-06:00

I just need to vent about work for a minute.

I'm stressed!!!!!!!!!!!!!

K, that's it.

Also, have you ever noticed that when you're warming up a frozen dinner in the microwave at work with a line of people waiting behind you to warm up their food, that the 3 minutes it takes to cook a measly serving of rigatoni seems like a century?

Lagoon: It's what FUN is!

2008-06-29T17:22:00.008-06:00

So yesterday I went to Lagoon for like 10 1/2 hours and it was a blast! We started the day with Wicked, which probably had the longest line of the whole day:

We went roller coaster crazy for a little while, then got a little nauseated on The Rocket so we took a little break and took a picture of the stamp on our hands.

I don't know what it is about getting old that makes you sick on the good rides, but we kind of had to take it easy the rest of the day. We still rode all the good roller coasters and the Music Express and all that, but we rode some of the tamer rides in between. We went on the Sky Ride:

Saw the tigers from the train:

Rode the carousel:

And Rattlesnake Rapids twice. This was after our second time. It's hard to tell in the picture, but we were pretty much soaked.

A couple of funny things happened while standing in the lines. I don't know what we were doing, but little kids kept talking to us. We were in line for the bumper cars and this kid who was probably 9 or 10 turned to us and said, "So how are you guys doing today?" We said we were doing great and then he kept asking us questions like where we were from and stuff. It was so...odd. Nice kid though. Then later we were in line for Jet Star II and there were 2 little girls about the same age as the other kid, in front of us. One of them was doing the potty dance and she turned to me and said, "I have to go to the bathroom! We've been drinking soda all day!" Then the other girl started getting all hyper and Derek asked her if she'd ever had a Rockstar, and she said no, because they made her fall asleep because she has ADHD. She said all of this super fast and then they just went off about all the rides they had been on, and they were jumping up and down this whole time. They wore me out just watching them.

So we had fun. Lagoon is what fun is, after all. Thanks for going with me Derek! :)

Parade of Homes

2008-06-28T08:26:00.015-06:00

Yesterday Parade of Homes started in Davis, Morgan and Weber counties. I have always wanted to go to this awesome event, and this year I finally got the chance! My friend Susan has gone a lot with her mom so she said she'd go with me this year. Last night when I got home from work we went through 3 homes, starting at the bottom in North Salt Lake and working our way up. These houses are awesome!

House #1 - North Salt Lake

The master bathroom shower had two showerheads at different heights. His and Hers?

The kitchen downstairs had a TV!

I think every house had a theater room.

A cute bedroom.

This is half of the closet. The other half is behind me. It was bigger than my bedroom.

House #2 - Bountiful
This house was humongous.

Living room. I liked the windows up by the ceiling.

Basketball court; view from the exercise room.

House #3 - Bountiful
This was my favorite house. The colors and the way it was decorated inside were so beautiful.

Living room. I love the ceiling beams.

You can clean yourself with the toilet in the master bathroom.

The elevator.

A really cool bench! Someone pointed out to me that it's a ski lift chair. So cool!

My favorite room ever! I love pink/black/white.

I love looking at houses so this was a lot of fun. We're just getting started though! I think we're going to go again on Wednesday night, so watch for more pics!

Promptings

2008-06-24T15:58:00.003-06:00

So today a couple of things happened that made me grateful for promptings we receive from Heavenly Father. They weren't big by any means. Just small promptings (more like nudges I guess).

The first one was this morning. I realized I forgot to set my alarm last night when I work up this morning at 7:05. Usually I am alarmed at about 6:45, after which I hit snooze until about....oh, 7:05ish. Now I am not normally an early riser on my own, so the fact that I woke up all by myself at the exact time that I needed to was nothing short of a miracle. Or maybe just a little nudge.

The second also occurred this morning, as I was driving to work. There was a truck in front of my loaded with stuff, and on top of all the stuff was a big box that looked pretty precarious. I noticed it wobbling a little bit and I thought to myself, "I hope that box doesn't fall off right in front of me." I also noticed that I was driving a little too close to the truck, so I tried backing off a little (I get that from someone in my family, but I won't say who Mom). Maybe about 30 seconds later I was startled when the box flew off the truck, right in front of me. I was still a little too close, but was able to swerve around it. It didn't seem like there was a lot of stuff in it, but who knows if it would have done damage to my car if I had run right into it. I'm grateful for that little nudge as well.

Isn't it funny how promptings come? I usually never notice them until after they occur, whether I followed them or not. I had a mission companion tell me once that someone had told her to always follow any thought she had as long as it wasn't bad. In other words, a lot of promptings we receive are through our thoughts, and it's very difficult to discern where those thoughts come from. So if it's a good thought, or it's not going to hurt anything or anyone, then follow it. It sounds a lot easier than it is, and is definitely something I need to work on.

Happy Birthday Luke!

2008-06-22T22:24:00.010-06:00

Saturday was my nephew Luke's 1st birthday! We had lots of fun eating cake, opening presents and going to the duck park to feed the ducks. Here are some pics documenting the exciting event:

Balls!

He got a lot of presents. This is a really cool book that you can put your face in.

Luke with his cousin Hayden

He was really excited for his cake!

The Cake:

He actually didn't like the cake too much. Maybe it was the color?

He didn't really like his hat either. Oh well.

He really liked the ducks!

And the swings!

So that was his birthday. We all had a lot of fun and wore the little guy out. I can't believe he has been around for a whole year! It seems like just yesterday I was holding him in my arms at the hospital *sniff*. I love being an aunt and playing with my nephews. We sure love him and get so excited when he gets to come visit!

Fun with the fam (and one more thing checked off the To Do list!)

2008-06-19T14:03:00.009-06:00

Last night Danika, Dan, and I went to the Real game! It was so much fun. The weather was perfect, the sun was in our eyes for only 10 minutes, and we didn't lose! Although we did tie 0-0. BUT we should have won. Kyle Beckerman (the one with the dreds) had a beautiful header in the second half that should have counted, but they called him offsides, which he wasn't. He was in line with the defender. Then there were like 3 other times when Real could have scored and it just didn't work out. Oh well, it was still fun.

Here we are at halftime. Dan is eating a piece of licorice for those wondering if his mouth is really like that.

I got a frisbee!

Dippin Dots! Mmmmmm.

It has been so much fun having Danika's little family here from Missouri. I know we're all going to miss them when they leave, especially Luke. He's so much fun!

He's getting so big!

He can almost walk on his own!

And he loves to go up and down the stairs!

I just love this picture. My mom actually took it and I think it's so funny because there is Luke in the background petting the bunny (he can actually say "bunny" now, it's so cute), and then there's Maggie in the foreground with a classic look on her face like she wants to say, "What the heck is going on."

Luke loves to go outside. Whenever I come home from work I always stop by to see him before he goes to bed, and he usually holds his arms out for me because he knows I'll take him out to see the bunny. It's so cute!

A Look Back at Life

2008-06-18T09:44:00.002-06:00

I've seen this tag on SO many blogs, so here it is on mine. Thanks Steph for tagging whoever read your blog :)

20 years ago:
- We lived in Ventura, CA (I think we had just moved into a new house)
- I was about to start kindergarten
- I had a red and white dress with apples on it

10 years ago:
- We lived in Layton, UT
- I was just about to start high school
- I babysat a lot. My favorites to babysit were the Newman kids.

5 years ago:
- I had just started dating someone, which turned out to be a pretty long relationship
- I worked at the computer lab in the Telecom/Bus. Ed. building at Weber State
- I was nominated (and actually made it) for Homecoming Royalty at WSU - that's pretty much my one claim to fame.

3 years ago:
- Exactly three years ago I was in Brooklyn, NY
- My companion was Kaili Auna from Hawaii
- We did service every week at Prospect Park, where I was bit 10 times in one day by either a centipede or a pincher bug or something. I'm not sure which. I didn't see them til the next day and I freaked out because I thought they were bed bug bites (those came in a later area).
- We met and taught Norma Cruz y familia - the best family on my mission
- I had gained at least 5 pounds by then - gotta love rice and beans in extreme quantities!

1 year ago:
- I graduated from Weber State
- I got my first "real" job at MasterControl as a marketing assistant
- I bought my Mazda3!

So far this year:
- I moved back from SLC to Ogden
- I signed up to go with a group to Guatemala
- I put approximately 13,000 miles on my car just driving to and from work

Yesterday:
- I worked
- I went to Zupas for lunch
- I took my nephew outside to see the bunny
- I played soccer

Today:
- I'm working
- I'm going to the Real game tonight
- I'll probably eat a hot dog at the game

Next year:
- Hopefully my car will be paid off
- I really want to go to NY again
- Maybe I'll find a job closer to where I live?
- Who knows what the next year will bring!

I tag whoever wants to do this that hasn't already done it.

Weight Loss

2008-06-16T13:31:00.002-06:00

A few people have asked me what I've done to lose weight, so I thought I'd do a short post on it. There are basically two things I have tried to focus on in the last month or so. 1 - portion control, and 2 - exercising.

Portion Control
I work with a lot of people who like to eat out for lunch. For almost a year, I went with them a lot. Sometimes 4-5 times a week. Not good for my tummy, or the rest of my body. Especially since I can always finish my meal and never take leftovers home. So as part of my "diet" I decided that I would only eat lunch out a max of 1 time per week. The rest of the time I bring my own lunch and try to keep the portions small. I also have been trying to eat a lot of foods that contain fiber. Nobody gets enough fiber in their diet, and I actually heard a couple of months ago that fiber helps break down the fat in the body, thus making it easier to burn. Or something like that. It sounded good to me, so I've been eating a lot of carrots. I also really like Fiber One bars, granola, and Go Lean Crunch cereal. Other fiber-heavy foods are: broccoli, corn, peas, apple w/ skin, prunes/raisins, beans & legumes, and anything whole wheat/grain. A lot of fruits have fiber in them as well.

I haven't tried to go on a "real" diet because I know that it wouldn't work for me. I love food too much. So the portion control thing is a lot easier for me to do, especially now that I've been doing it for about a month now. If I feel like I ate a lunch that was too big, I won't eat dinner or I'll just have a snack. Just do what you know you can do without putting a ton of calories into your diet. I found this on wikiHow. It has some pretty good info and tips.

Exercising
I hate running. For me to exercise it has to be fun, and it's nice to put a little variety into it. I like to play soccer, hike, do kickboxing, do one of my hip-hop videos, or go country dancing. These are all pretty good cardio exercises, and I know my metabolism has gone up in the last month. Working in an office can take its toll though. I work on the first floor of my building, so I can't do the whole 'take the stairs instead of the elevator thing'. Sometimes I'll take a break and just walk around. Or sometimes I'll turn things I have to do into an exercise by standing up and moving around a little more.

So there you have it. Happy eating!

A Great Weekend!

2008-06-16T13:07:00.004-06:00

This weekend I once again got to cross 2 things off my To Do list! On Friday my ward went camping. I have been dying to go camping for a long time. I honestly don't think I've really been since before my mission, so I was pretty much ecstatic for this little trip. It was a lot of fun even though it was FREEZING cold. I didn't think it would be that bad since we were just up Ogden Canyon. But it was. However we didn't let that fanagle our fun. I shared a tent with my roomie Mary and our friend Susan (thanks for bringing the tent Susan!)

We:
- ate a wonderful dinner cooked by the guys (surprisingly I forgot to take a picture of my food)
- went on a bear hunt (that thing they do at Scout Camp; the guy in the middle of the picture is the leader and we all followed him)

- hung out by the fire pretty much the rest of the night, due to the freezing weather. One guy kept putting logs on the fire and kept it at a pretty good blaze. This picture really doesn't give justice to how big the fire really was.

The ground we slept on was amazingly comfortable. If it wouldn't have been cold, I think I would have gotten a good night's sleep. However, I think I've mentioned that it was freezing, so no matter how much the 3 of us cuddled, I still woke up every half hour from the frigid temperatures. Oh well, it's the experience that I really enjoy, and I always know that I won't get the best sleep of my life.

Saturday after getting home and taking a 3-hour nap I went to the hospital to play the piano for a couple of hours. You know, I've never been a big fan of hospitals, but I have to say that this one is probably the most relaxing hospital I've ever been in. Add to that the fact that I'm playing the most beautiful grand piano I've laid my fingers on, and I'm one happy clam. Two hours goes by way too fast. I guess sometime I should have my mom or someone take a picture of me there for the memories.

After that I went on a date ;) in which we had the best cheese fries ever, played ski ball and other fun games, won some bouncy balls, saw Iron Man (the other thing crossed off my list: go to a movie), and threw the bouncy balls in the parking garage. Really, how can it get better than bouncy balls?

Sunday was Father's Day, as everyone knows. Happy Father's Day Dad! We had a great dinner with all my favorite foods. Well, maybe not all of them. That would be way too much food. But we had steak, chicken, garlic-cheese mashed potatoes, rolls, cookies, and...oh yeah, there was corn too. Later we watched My Turn On Earth. Most of you have probably never heard of it, but it was a play/show thing from the 70s. It just came out on DVD at Deseret Book, so of course my mom had to buy it. We used to listen to the soundtrack all the time when we were little. Road trips with my family consisted of My Turn On Earth and Saturday's Warrior. And my mom used to sing one of the songs to us when we went to bed. So we have pretty good memories of this show, although this was the first time any of us had actually seen it. Wow. I'll just say that it was definitely made in the 70s. I think the favorite part for all of us was the little dance number in which everyone (guys included) had pom poms.

So that was my weekend. I'm back at work for the week, and as you can tell, I am currently working very hard. :)

Waterfall Canyon

2008-06-10T14:47:00.007-06:00

On Saturday (sorry I'm so slow in posting) a couple of friends and I crossed off two things on my Summer To Do list. I've been wanting to go on a hike for a long time, so finally I just invited people to come and whoever wanted to could just show up. Unfortunately a lot of people had to work and the weather was pretty rainy, but Andrea, Julie and I braved the weather to ascend Waterfall Canyon. That was the first thing I crossed off my list.

It didn't start raining until right after we started hiking, and then it rained and hailed for most of the way up. But did we let it get us down? No! We tramped our way up, with a few stops along the way, until we made it to the top where there was a beautiful waterfall and blue skies to greet us.

On our way up we:

Found a heart-shaped rock! Second thing crossed off the To Do list.

Crossed a log bridge surrounded by a 'raging river of death!' (Name that movie)

When we got there we:

Took pictures of the waterfall and the awesome view.

Ate our snacks.

We stayed at the top for about 45 minutes just chilling (literally. The mist from the waterfall was freezing), eating and hiking around a little more. We ended up looking for more geometrically-shaped rocks and found a perfect square, a triangle, an oval, and later found a circle. The way down the mountain was much quicker than the way up of course, and the sun was shining and it was almost warm - ok I'm going to go off subject a little bit here. What is the deal with cold weather in June?? Has anyone seen the forecast for tomorrow. The high is in the 50s!

Anyways, I had a great time on the hike. Thanks for coming Andrea and Julie! You guys are great!

Wedding bells and tractors

2008-06-08T22:30:00.004-06:00

On Friday my friends Nick and Lynette got married in the Manti temple, so I tagged along with some friends, Steve, Derek, and Derek's dad for the long ride down. On the way down I mentioned something about wanting to live on a farm and Derek's dad said "I'd like to see you on a tractor." Then he mentioned that his mother-in-law (where he was going for the day while we were at the wedding) had a tractor and I would have to drive it around while we were down there.

So we got to Manti and went to the wedding, which was beautiful of course. The weather outside was also beautiful except for a pretty strong wind that would not leave my skirt alone. After flashing everybody one too many times, Derek offered me his suit jacket to help hold it down. It definitely did the trick. Unfortunately I was so busy trying to keep my skirt down that I didn't ever take any pictures of the bride and groom! Oh well. I'm sure they'll have plenty. Then we went to the wedding breakfast and afterwards went to the house with the tractor. When we got there I got a BIG hug from Derek's grandma (she gave great hugs) and his dad reminded me that I needed to get on the tractor. So we went outside and he went into the shed to get it out. Things seemed a little fishy when I noticed that the shed was a little small for a tractor. When he brought it out I started cracking up because it looked like this:

Derek, Steve and me with the tractor:

Apparently this tractor has been around for a very long time and it's still in fabulous condition. I had a great time with it and will always remember the first time I got to sit on a tractor.

Later we went to the reception held in Gunnison, Lynette's hometown. Then we returned to the house with the tractor again and hung out for a little while, ate pizza, and watched TV before the long drive home. It was a long day, but a lot of fun.

Memories #6 - Pets

2008-06-05T12:17:00.007-06:00

I thought I'd pay a little tribute to the many pets that have come and gone in the lives of my family members and I. Mostly we've had dogs, with an occasional goldfish and some rabbits. Here they are, mostly in order of when we got them:

Boats:

We got Boats on Christmas Eve when I was five. Some lady had Queensland/Australian Shepherd puppies in the back of her truck in the grocery store parking lot and was selling them. My dad and I and maybe Danika just happened to go to the store that day. Being the dog-lover that he is, my dad just couldn't stay away. So we got a puppy and brought it home. I'm pretty sure my mom didn't know about it until we brought him home. I remember that I loved to carry him around and hold him like a baby.

Boats was an outdoor dog. He drove my mom crazy by doing things like this:

Our hose was never the same after that. He chewed on everything and really needed people who would play with him more. And maybe a bigger yard. So we eventually gave him away.

Winky:

I think I was about 8 when we got Winky. She was a cute black terrier mix that we got from the pound.

My mom let her live in the house because she was small. She was great. She let us hold her, she didn't bark at strangers, and she loved us. She only had one fault. Every time the front door would open she would try to get outside. Most of the time we could hold her back, but every once in a while she would escape and go racing across the street (I think there was a boy dog that she was friends with). We lived on a semi-busy street and she ran across one too many times. She ended up getting hit and killed. It was awful. I remember crying and having a runny nose. And eating an orange popsicle. I also remember having soccer practice that night and my coach was really nice about it and he told the whole team what happened so they would know what was wrong.

Tricksy:

We got Tricksy not too long after Winky died, so I think I was still 8. We got her from the pound as well.

I'm still shuddering at the outfit I'm wearing in that picture.

Tricksy was a good dog, but she wasn't quite as nice as Winky. She wouldn't let us hold her and she barked every time the doorbell rang. She didn't like strangers at all. She was a good guard dog. And she never ran across the street. We ended up having Tricksy for 15 years (she was about a year old when we got her). She grew quite plump during the last half of her life, but near the end she lost a lot of weight because she only had one tooth left and couldn't eat much. She was also very weak in her old age. I remember one time after my mission my mom woke me up at about 2am to tell me that Tricksy had peed on the floor (she had also lost most of her bladder/bowel control) and had slipped on it and couldn't get up. So together we got her back up and laid her down in a more comfortable place. I remember it was really sad because she was struggling so hard to get up and couldn't because her legs were splayed out all over and she didn't have the strength she needed. She ended up wandering off one day and my parents got a phone call saying that the pound had her and asked if we wanted to put her to sleep. So that was that.

Maggie:

We got Maggie about a month after Tricksy died (even though my mom had said no more dogs). She has got to be the best dog we have ever had. She's a Jack Russell Terrier (dog from: The Mask, Frasier, Wishbone) and my dad and Bethany got her at PetSmart.

She's so friendly and curious and loves to be around people. For the first little while that we had her she had a really hard time when nobody was home. She has gotten much better but still gets SO excited when someone comes home after she has been alone. It's nice to feel loved, even by a dog. She's also really smart. She understands the word "walk" and gets really excited when she sees my mom putting on her walking shoes. And she will eat anything. She really likes grapes.

We have also had 3 rabbits, but I only have a picture of our current rabbit, Sammy:

I haven't ever really paid much attention to the rabbits we have had; they're mostly Bethany's. I'm more of a dog person anyway. Sammy loves bananas and running around in the yard. When you take her back to her cage, she just jumps right in. My brother likes to bring her in the house, much to my mom's dismay.

We've also had several goldfish over the years, but they never lasted long of course. Except one actually lived for a year and a half. I don't remember any of their names though.

First Guatemala donations

2008-06-04T09:21:00.003-06:00

Just wanted to post real quick to say that I have received my first donations to take with me to Guate! My sister Danika brought some formula with her from MO (her husband will be bringing more stuff when he drives out). When I got to work today there were like 6 small garbage bags of stuff by my desk. I got so excited when I saw it! I can't wait to go through it tonight. At the rate I'm going though, I might not have room in my suitcases for everything. A guy I work with said he has a really big duffel bag that I can use if I need it. I just might.

Weight loss update

2008-06-03T12:53:00.003-06:00

I stepped onto the scale this morning and I have now lost 6 pounds! I was a little worried for a couple of weeks because I plateaued at like 3 pounds, but I guess my body was just adjusting. Maybe I'm like a turtle. Slow and steady wins the race.

The weekend

2008-06-03T10:45:00.005-06:00

I just love the weekends. I like to leave work and just forget about all the craziness for a couple of days. And there are always fun things going on! Friday a few friends and I went to see Ryan Shupe and the Rubberband at Deseret Book in Layton. Turns out Ryan was in the hospital for an emergency appendix removal, so we really just got to see the Rubberband. But it was still fun.

Afterwards we went to Chili's (my favorite). When we left we decided to climb over the fence instead of walking around.

Saturday my sister Danika and nephew Luke flew in from Missouri. They'll be here for a whole month! It was so good to see them.
Me and Bethany waiting for their arrival at the airport

Here they come!

Luke gets a ton of attention when he's at our house because everybody wants to play with him. I love to help him play the piano. Here's the little Mozart in action:

Congrats Colton!

2008-06-01T17:10:00.003-06:00

On Friday my awesome brother graduated from Northridge High. Poor guy was sick, but that didn't stop him from eating plateful after plateful at Asian Buffet afterwards. Here he is with his game face (the only way we can get him to smile for pictures is to tickle him):