Babies!!!

Nope, not an announcement. :) Although it seems like we're getting hit from all angles. I started getting asked today at work "when are you guys gonna have kids?" Like I'm losing my child-bearing years, geez!

Anyway, this weekend was sorta nuts. We worked all night Friday night and Saturday morning I had Relief Society. We were doing a Super Saturday, which means mormon craft day! Yay! So, I signed up for a bunch of stuff because Mother's day is coming up and there were some REALLY cute things I could give to my moms, so I signed up for 4 crafts. They are all wood things that you paint and make cute and stuff. So, I was all sorts of excited to do them because I'm so UNCRAFTY but since there's someone there to help people like me, I figured I'd be OK. So I went, and got started. Totally painted my pants, which I had not intended to do, which sucks but I survived. I was rushing through the whole thing to get it done in time. I got there and started at like 9:00 and we were supposed to be done at 1:00, and I didn't get done until 1:15, but at least I wasn't the only one, there were other people still working on theirs when I left. :) You know when you see something cute and think "I can do that" and then it's time to do it and you notice that there was a lot more to it than you noticed? Yeah, that's what happened to me. There were these really cute blocks that were each painted a different color and they spelled "spring" and some of them had butterflies and stuff coming out of the top of them, they were really cute. Only when I looked at them I thought "blocks, I can paint blocks, that's easy" and then when we got there I noticed that they you have to paint everything, write the letters, do the wire things, put them all together, then add the moss, and speckle them. There was a LOT more to it than I realized, but we got them done - thank goodness!

I finally get home and we go do Redbox (I am SO glad that last week is over!) then we went to Spence and Stephs and watched Cellular, which was fun. Then we realized that we both had lessons to teach on Sunday. Josh got asked to substitute for Gospel Doctrine and I got primary. My visiting teaching companion also informed me that we'd be doing our visiting teaching Sunday morning so I tried to plan a lesson, the funny thing is that I realized that I'm teaching 3 year olds and they don't really listen anyway. So, I didn't prepare much, just found the appropriate pictures in the book. :)

Kids say funny things - that's what I learned at church this week. Josh and I were late to sacrament meeting so we sat in the back and there's this family in our ward who has a bunch of REALLY cute kids. So, there's 1 boy, he's probably 3 or 4 years old and he's squirming in his chair. They're probably 3 rows back in the chapel and we're at the VERY back of the chapel. Josh starts making faces at him, and he makes faces back and then giggles, peeks at his dad to see if he's getting caught or not and then makes more faces. This goes on for like half an hour! It was great. Josh is good at making faces, stretchy skin I think. :) Anyway, that was fun, then I went to primary where the kids were OUT OF CONTROL by the time I had them. It was hilarious because they all just wanted to run around like crazy and hang out and NOT sit still or pay attention. For all of you who are moms, I'm sure you already know that about kids, but it was still relatively new to me. Anyway, they all said funny things. We were learning about the creation and I had them all pick animals to put up on board and we talked about the animals and how Heavenly Father created them for us. One boy picked a giraffe, and I asked him what his favorite thing about a giraffe was, and without even missing a beat he said "I like them because we try to be like them." I'm not sure he really understood the question, but it was still funny. My favorite funny kid comment was during closing exercise when the bishop came in and talked about repentance. He asked who knew what repentance means. We hit almost all of the main points "say your sorry" "be really good" "ask for forgiveness" and then one of my boys raises his hand, gets called on and says "it means you have to STOP being SOO naughty! huh bishop?" I'm pretty sure they'd had that talk in their house before, I laughed. I think I'm gonna write a "kids say" quote book, because that will make you laugh no matter how hard your day has been. :)

The point is I'm thankful for kids and for the process of growing up. I'm glad we aren't born the contaminated and "intelligent" beings that we become. Innocence is much more fun.

AA Day

You know those moments in your life when you feel truly appreciated? For me they seem to be few and far between - except at work. Most days I really feel like my boss's appreciate my hard work and they do all they can to show it - most days. Today was one of those days. I was sitting at my desk working on a couple of projects and had papers all over my desk, and Sean and Gabe (the real estate agents I work for) walk in, followed by Kim and Sean is singing "happy administrative assistants day to you!" and I thought I was gonna die laughing. It turns out that today is what used to be secretary's day and so they were showing their appreciation with a hydrangia plant and a $50 gift certificate for me and Josh to Red Iguana. How nice is that? Way! So, we decided that since "administrative assistants" is too long for the Happy Birthday song, we'll just call it AA day. I'm an office AAer! :) I love my job today.

Kim and I also talked a little bit about having me do some of the accounting work that she's been doing, which is pretty exciting to me. She didn't want to force me into it because she feels like she got forced into it, but I am more excited about it than she was, so that's cool. She's going to have me do closes and other important "double checking" things, and she feels good about that because she thinks that I have "the general knowledge and ability to think" that it requires. Yay for me! I have knowledge. Today I feel like my job is very important to me and it helps me feel like I am a capable and useful human being. That is a really great feeling for me - there are far too many days when I don't see any good reason for me to be around, but days when I feel "irreplacable" do my heart good. (How's that for an old person phrase?)

A decision a day...

I think Josh and I made an actual decision this morning - that is something pretty amazing if you ask me. Here's the thing, he has always wanted to go to massage school, he loves that stuff, and before his mission he looked into it and then went on a mission. Then on his mission he talked to a chiropractor who told him that if he is a man he shouldn't be a mesuse because he will never get a job. Girls prefer girls and men prefer girls to massage them so he'd never have anyone to massage. So, that guy told him to be a chiropractor or something else instead. So, when he came backhe started nursing prereqs. This semester is the end of the prereqs and then he is on a 2 year waiting list, so we're trying to decided what to do for 2 years and the massage things comes up again. So, I told him I would support him if he wanted to go to massage school, he talked to a rep at UCMT who told him about the night classes and thd ay classes. He could do either one, and I think that's really what he wants to do. I would have to work while he does that, so that means no babies for a while, but that's OK. It gets him closer to waht he wants to be when he grows up and that's really cool and exciting. So, we talked about it all morning and I think we really will make it happen. I'm happy for him. I really hope we can get it all to work out because UCMT is expensive! But, I think with me working it will all work out. Plus he'll have tons of good training and contacts and they have a 95% placement rate, and he is good at massage already so he'll be sure to get a great job. He kinda wanted to go be a mesuse on a cruise ship, but now he got married and I don't really wanna be a waitress on a cruise ship, so maybe he can get a different dream job. :) We'll see. The point is, we actually kinda decided what to do with our lives for a minute anyway. Yay!

Birthday dinner

Yesterday was an excellent recovery from my embarrassing moments on Saturday. Josh had a meeting at 11:30, so he got up and started getting ready before I did, after he got ready, I started to, and while I was in the shower and getting dressed, he made breakfast!!! Now in order to truly appreciate the kindness and generosity my husband showed, you need to know 2 things, 1. He grew up thinking that pancakes are like the only true breakfast food. 2. I grew up KNOWING that everybody knows waffles are better, but people just eat pancakes because they don't have time to make waffles, but everyone likes waffles better, pancakes are just a substitute. Also, there's this song by Jack Johnson (on my playlist if you've never heard it, it's a GREAT song) called Banana Pancakes. There's the line, "makin' banana pancakes, pretend like it's the weekend" and Josh and I sing it ALL the time!!! We always want to "pretend like it's the weekend". So anyway, yesterday Josh made banana pancakes for him, and (that's right AND) waffles for me! Is he great or what? So we had a lovely breakfast, and then went to church. His little brother, Braden, got ordained to the office of a Deacon yesterday, so we went so Josh could stand in the circle which was fun. We saw his old bishop who is REALLY cool and talked about how great our sealing was. (We hear that a lot actually, I like it. People who were there always tell us how amazing it was. And they are right, we think it was cool too.) On our way into the bishop's office we saw all the missionary wood things with pictures, and the scripture, and the country. (Turns out I don't know how to spell plaque, cuz that's the kind that's on your teeth....I'll have to look that up sometime.) And there was one from a couple that had this as their picture on the wood thing: It was cropped so it was just around Shrek and the princess, but that's funny and I don't care who you are! When me and Josh grow up and go on a mission, we're stealing their good idea. Funny!

Anyway, after all that we went to the Fugal house for a big birthday celebration! It is Randy's birthday on Wednesday (happy birthday Rand!) and mine was a while ago. So yay for birthdays and good lasagna and breadsticks! That was good food! We had a grand ol' time. We played Greed, which is a FUNNY game with my family. Actually most games are funny with my family. I like that about them. I have a great family. Josh was playing with Ryann Elise and Tyler and I think it made him really baby hungry. It made me feel like I would be the world's worst mother. But, someday when we have kids, I know he'll be a really cute dad. He's one of those people that loves to play and wrestle with kids and somehow he can make them laugh, like the really hard "belly laugh" as Katy calls it. I LOVE that, because then it makes him laugh and that's just plain cute.

Yesterday in the afternoon our Elder's quorum has scheduled a "temple day" kindof, we were going to meet in the cafeteria at the temple at 6:00 pm. Josh and I figured we would go to a session before and then meet them there. Josh also had a LOT of Redbox to do because one of the people in this area was on vacation, so he was picking up part of the vacationing person's route. So, yesterday morning, we got up, had breakfast, and went to do Redbox. We were up north - Layton, Clearfield area all day, and it actually looked like we'd get done in time to hit the 4:00 session. So, we hurried home, got ready and ran out the door to go to the temple. I've never been trhying to go to specific session before, and I don't think I realized how long the whole process takes. Anyway, we made it there, and rushed in to change our clothes so we wouldn't miss it. When we went to the chapel, it was EASILY the biggest session I've ever seen. Usually there is plenty of room, and I've never been to a full session before, so that was new to me. Not just new, but intimidating. The room was hot and stuffy and I was REALLY uncomfortable. I was in such a hurry, that I forgot to button up the inside button on my shirt. (It's like a man's jacket, with the button that shows, and the one that buttons underneath where one side overlaps the other....I had only done up the button that shows.) So, I sat down it came undone, i was sitting next to Josh and just buttoned it back up subtley. (I should have taken that as some sort of sign.) That was fine, but I knew it was going to be a problem through the whole session and I couldn't button up the inside button subtley - I decided to keep a close eye on it (we were already late and they were starting) and we'd be OK. Maintaining my level of discomfort, we continued through the session, at one part, I dropped the name card (the person I was doing the work for), and I couldn't find it anywhere, I went to look for it (with the help of the temple workers), and felt really bad, but we couldn't find it anywhere. Everyone was VERY nice, but I was SOOO embarrassed! I started to cry because I'm a big baby, and I couldn't stop, and I couldn't breathe normally and it was horrible! I was not in the room with everyone else, and they were waiting to go on in the session for me, and I couldn't calm down, I don't know what the deal was. I finally kindof regained my composure and went back in the room, still sniffling and gasping for air. We went on through the session and I just kept crying, I was soo embarrased and the whole time I just kept thinking abouthow embarrassed I was, and that made me cry more, making more embarrassed etc etc etc. Anyway, we finally made it through, and people in the session kept coming up to me and telling me it was OK and it wasn't a big deal (if it wasn't a big deal, why did everyone in the room know anything even happened?) and that made me cry more. My husband took me home quickly (he's so good to me) but on our way back to the dressing room I slipped down the stair and just about lost it again. In the dressing room more people came up to me and hugged me, and told me it was OK and I just wanted to go home! I was so relieved that nobody from our ward was there, and we missed the Elders Quorum thing, but Josh did someone else who was coming in as we were leaving and they were nice and didn't know how crazy I am. That was comforting. Now I can laugh about it, but oh my goodness! I thought I would die!!! I did learn a few things though:
1. When people feel the spirit (like in the temple) they are nothing but kind, accepting and loving.
2. One of the workers told me (when I was apologizing) that "the Lord's work happens on his time and it all gets worked out in the end, time means nothing to him".
3. Everybody has embarassing moments, and EVERYBODY understands what that feels like. Even though I'm a bigger spaz than most, nobody in the room came up to me and said "you know, I've never done that before, you should feel stupid because most people aren't so clueless". Not even one person! That's pretty cool.
So all in all, it was a really good session with lots of lessons for me to learn. :) Thank goodness it's over!

It's a beautiful day in the neighborhood!

Ya gotta love this! OK here are the pictures from this morning. Yes, that is fresh snow and a clear look at the valley - from my basement window view. I love my job on days like this! Now, here's the best part, these pictures:

These pictures are from Temple Square when I went to lunch with Jamie. yes, that's right, same day, same city, 5 miles away. :) Crazy eh? I love living in Utah, and I love living so close to the temple, what an amazing blessing!

I got chastised by mom for not mentioning my phenomenal lunch date with her and Sarah and Katy. It was fun. :) Now mom can be satisfied. :)

Had a missionary meeting tonight, sometimes I get really excited about doing missionary work, and sometimes its just overwhelming, tonight was more exciting. I thought of a lot of people to visit and some good work we can do, so I hope that we can get some really great things done - that's the hope and prayer anyway. I guess since a picture is worth 1,000 words and my husband just got home, I'd better start doing other things now. I'm out for the night.

Merry Christmas!!!

Wow! What a day! Yesterday, April 18, 2007 it snowed like CRAZY! There are tulips and daffodils all over the yard, and they're COVERED in snow. As I drove up this morning, the view over the valley was BEAUTIFUL. So, I had to take a picture, which really doesn't do it justice, but here it is anyway. This is the view from the basement window - which is pretty rad when you think about it. How many people have a view like this in their basement? Not many, and that makes me happy. (I just realized that I can't post the picture because I'm at work, and I have no way to get it off my camera. Maybe I'll post it later.)

It was a really good morning for some reason - probably because I had a pretty good night. Josh and I went out to dinner with the Egberts for my birthday - which was an adventure. Then we went to play Settlers with Ben, which was really fun. When we got home, we were both really tired, but had one of those really good heart felt talks, which makes me happy. :) So, this morning I woke up feeling loved and happy. I love it when that happens. It's a pretty good day!

Life, or something like it....

I thought I ought to explain my life a little bit, I figure it can't hurt, right? I also just made a resolution that this blog will be a place of honesty, so all of my real live honest thoughts will go here. That's really scary to me because most of the time I'd rather tell people the things about me that I like to, and hide the things I don't want anyone to know, but here we go with honesty.

I have recently become addicted to pictures because they are fun to have around, and that's a new thing for me. I used to hate them because I don't like to look at me, but Jamie taught me a better way and so I do the picture thing now. The one I posted here is here because it's the most recent picture and even though I hate it (not a flattering shot of me) this picture is what I look like right now. So, that's me and my loving wonderful husband Josh. He rocks. Jamie took it with her really cool new camera - it does that color trick where you can pick what color to pay attention to and all the other colors are just black and white. That's why our lips and cheeks look a little funny - it's not a popsicle stain, I promise.

Our lives right now are....well...they just are. We stay busy with work, school and church and that is a good thing. I work for David Allen (a private real estate investor) so I get to learn lots about a LOT of things. I rock the small claims court, I can water plants like nobody's business and I can learn how to use any PDA phone in a matter of minutes. I'm learning lots about investing, and about the real estate world (it's a whole different world) and that is awesome. Josh works for Redbox (google it if you don't know what it is) and he does emotional processing, AND he does handyman stuff with his dad. He's also going to SLCC to learn about nursing, although this week I think he'll go to massage therapy school while he waits to get into the program. He's one of those people that never ever gets done learning and I truly think he'll take some kind of classes as long as he lives. He's great at being dedicated to school so it's a good fit. The eternal student. :) Anyway, he's trying to get his processing business up and running so that he can help people to heal their stuff and make them feel better emotionally and physically.

I went to school for a little while, then got a job, and still don't know what I want to be when I grow up. Today I just feel like being a mom. I want to cook and clean and make beds and do laundry and cook dinner. I know that doesn't sound fun every day, and there will be a time in my life to do all of those things, but today I wanted that to be now. So, no more schooling for me. We'll see what happens in the future.

Josh is so rad that he got himself a real live grown-up calling as Ward Mission Leader, so I am a ward missionary. We have weekly meetings, we feed the missionaries every monthish and we try really hard to go out and visit people to make contact and find people to teach. It is seriously a hard calling, I'm not naturally a "lets go talk to strangers" kind of girl, so it's definitely a stretch, but it's also helping me in ways I never would have thought. (Check me out being a grown up and admitting that something I don't like is good for me!) So between work, school, and church. That leaves little time except Saturdays. Lately we've been having Barbeques and we play badminton in our backyard. The Burch's come over, we play some games, hang out, talk, eat good food (turns out that Josh is an excellent cook!) and have a good time. We are getting pretty good at badminton in the dark, and are VERY thankful for our backyard. Last night Jamie and Cameron came over after we went out to eat and we played for quite some time, it took a while before someone noticed that it was dark and we should go in. But, both Jamie and I got some hits in before that happened! Jamie and I rock that game, plus we're really graceful even if we miss the "shuttlecock" (thank you Kendall for the proper terminology) our husbands told us so.

All in all, I'm happy with my life, I'm thankful for good friend, and an amazing husband. We have a great time together and I can't wait to keep on living the life!

Back to work for me!

Look at me, I'm a blogger!

OK remember that movie with Bill Murray in it, and he has to take "baby steps down the hall, baby steps to the elevator, baby steps ONto the evelvator, baby steps riding the elevator etc etc etc" well, later in that same movie, he's being real brave and he is tied to a sailboat on the front of it like an ornament or something, and he has his arms stretched out like he's flying and he yells "Look at me! I sail! I'm a sailor!" and he's real proud of himself. So now, look at me, I blog, I'm a blogger! Here's how it happened.

Jamie (my roommate and closest friend (except my husband)) was bored at work and reading Laura's blog and we both got inspired to become bloggers, so here we go. :) I'm officially a blogger.