Running

Growing up my mom went running every single day of her life. She ran marathons, my dad ran marathons, my sister followed their footsteps, and I could never understand why anyone would EVER do that to themselves. I've established that nobody really likes it, and people that run are just masochists. Think about it, when was the last time you saw somebody running with a big fat smile on their face? Never! People don't really like it, they just do it because they have to.

However, once in a while (like maybe once a year.....if that) I get the urge to "go running" which for me is not really running, it's like run for 2 minutes and walk for 5, run for 2, walk for 5. Usually it's a stress relief thing, a get out of my house and listen to music and ignore real life situation. The funny thing is, that running makes me crave JoDee Messina. Not sure why, but it does. So, I always listen to JoDee Messina when I "go running".

Yesterday I decided I wanted to "go running" when I got home. So, I ripped my JoDee CD and put it on my ipod. I drove over to Liberty Park and started the run. I've heard that Liberty Park is a mile if you go around the path. So, I figured I'd just do a quick mile and go home and be happy and satisfied. I cranked JoDee and ran about half of it and thought I was going to die. Pretty pathetic if you ask me. I walked some, and ran some more, but ouch! I did feel good afterward though, I just think it's sad that it was that hard for me. Maybe I'll do it again, and maybe I'll get good at it. Who knows. In the meantime, I decided I really like Liberty Park. There's a pool, tennis courts, Tracy Aviary, and tons of "park", ponds, birds, etc etc etc. It might be my new favorite place.....we'll see. In the mean time, I'm sticking to the idea that nobody really likes running, and that I kindof enjoyed it last night, even though it hurts today. :)

The PERFECT weekend

Yes, we had the perfect weekend. It's true, there's no point in trying to top it now, because as long as I live, I will never have a better weekend.

Friday night after some debate as to whether or not it was worth it, Josh and I decided to go to Alexander Lake. Josh has this thing about chicken, monopoly, and mountains. I guess when he was a kid they would get KFC and go play monopoly in the canyon. Anyway, I've tried more than once to fulfill that, but it's been a little rough. We've done monopoly, and we've tried for chicken, but it's hard! So, last time we went to Alexander Lake we stopped at KFC on our way and ate in the car. The problem was, they got the order all wrong.

Josh: "Can I have a #2 with wedges instead of mashed potatoes and a biscuit"
Order guy: "kshht (in the radio voice) that's a #2 with mashed potatoes, no biscuit."
Josh: "no a #2 no mashed potatoes, and a biscuit"
OG: "kshht what to drink?"
Josh: "lemonade."
OG: "kshht got it. anything else?"
Josh: "Yes, a 3 piece leg and thigh combo, with corn and cole-slaw"
OG: "kshht leg & thigh combo, slaw and potatoes."
Josh: "no. corn and cole-slaw."
OG: "kshht got it, kshht what to drink?"
Josh: "lemonade."
OG: "please pull up."

We pull up, pay the guy, and he hands us 1 drink, and the bag of food.

Josh: "Didn't we get 2 drinks?"
OG: "kshht (now he's just making the noise with his mouth, it's not the radio sound) they only come with meals."
Josh: "didn't we get 2 meals?"
OG: "no, you got a meal and a combo."
Josh: "you asked us what kind of drinks we wanted twice."
OG: "didn't you want lemonade?"
Josh: "yes. 2 lemonades."
OG: "you only get 1 drink, they only come with combos."

At this point Josh is beyond frustrated and decides to just drive off. As we drive off we look at the order, Josh wanted 3 chicken parts and only got 2, the 1 lemonade we did get was water, I didn't get a biscuit, and they gave him mashed potatoes instead of cole-slaw. We were disappointed, but in a hurry, so we went anyway.

This time we decided we'd give it another try. We pull up to the window, hesitating and trying to decide if this is the best choice for us. We were brave enough and pulled up to the order place.

OG: "kkkshhht. may I take your order?"
Josh: "one moment please."
OG: "kkkkshhht. ok. That'll be 95 cents for the first moment, each moment after that will be 83 cents, and the moments will begin counting at the beep. beeeep."
Me and Josh look at each other, laugh, and knew that it would be OK this time. We both got what we wanted, NO mashed potatoes, YES corn and and cole-slaw, NO water, just lemonade. It was perfect.

We continued our journey, and listened to a book on the way, had great conversation, laughed, and enjoyed the drive. We pulled into our camp site just as it was getting dark, set up the tent, built a fire, and had a great time! We poked the fire and made s'mores and looked at the stars, and hung out until time for bed. In our search for firewood, we walked down by my family's camp site, and found a painted rock in the lake. :) My family rocks.

First thing in the morning we built another fire, cooked breakfast (yay for camping pancakes and eggs!) and then decided it was time for a game. We broke out monopoly and Josh pretty well kicked my butt at that game. Then after sitting in the sun for so long we decided that we could go for a swim. Wow, what an adventure.

We brought a tube with us, and wanted to float on it. It was big enough for both of us, but we still had to balance. We launched from right by our camp site, which didn't have a beautiful shore, but we were brave. It was slimy and muddy and dirty on the bottom. Somehow we both got on the tube, and used lily pads for oars. Josh kept trying to tip it, and leaning on my side, I kept laughing and telling him to stay on his side. Finally we both jumped off and it was COLD! But so much fun. After coming in and drying off we decided we were ready to go home, so we packed up and headed home from the beautifullest place in the world. *sigh*

Saturday night we wanted to play games with someone, so we called Katy and Randy. They fed us dinner (nothing like inviting yourself over to dinner...) and taught us how to play pinnacle. Wow, that's a good game. Kate and I kicked trash, and the boys were ready to go home with their tails between their legs. EXCEPT that we played spades afterward. Turns out Josh and Randy rock at spades. We taught them how to play suicide, and oh man, that was funny. They kicked our trash and Josh and I headed home.

Sunday morning I went visiting teaching (yay! I'm a grown up) and Josh went to the most productive missionary meeting we've ever had. He got all of the things I needed him too, and now I don't feel so bad about going to my meeting on Thursday. Hopefully it will be a success. After church we made dinner, and Josh started chasing me around the house. Before long we were wrestling and laughing HYSTERICALLY. We played games, and laughed and laughed until everything we said/did was funny. I love being in that mood. Josh has the greatest air-sucking laugh of all time and we had a great night. We really had tons of fun, and went to bed early. So, this morning we weren't that tired.

I LOVE weekends like this! I feel like I could take over the world, and that makes me happy. I'm excited for a new week and to finish up everything I've now started. :) Happy happy weekend!

Death by a salesman

A couple of weeks ago, I was sitting at home, minding my own business (aka watching so you think you can dance) when the doorbell rang. Now, because I have no friends that just "drop by" I was 99% sure it was "the mormons" as I so affectionately call them. Only the mormons stop by unannounced. So, I do the quick checklist (as I stand up to make sure I look appropriate for door answering) home teachers were here last week, visiting teachers haven't come in months, I paid my tithing, I have a calling, Josh has a calling, we both did our home/visiting teaching, it's the beginning of the month, neither of us are teaching next week.......by this time I'm walking toward the door mostly out of curiosity and as soon as I open it my heart sank. I knew immediately I had made a mistake. I tried not to let it show in my face, but I wanted to rewind the last 30 seconds and go hide in the back room pretending I wasn't home. There, on my porch stood a "poor starving college student, just trying to make a difference, change my life and earn some money so I can go to college, no I'm not asking for a donation, in fact you'll get more out of this purchase than you ever would have dreamed possible 20-something year old door-to-door salesman". I hesitated before opening the glass door, and stood in the doorway so I wouldn't have to let him in.

DTDD(door-to-door-dude): "why you must be the princess of the house."
Me: what does he mean princess? is he trying to be nice to me by telling me i look young? that's not flattering until you're like 40, does he think I look 40? oh my gosh, do I look 40? "Uhh....I guess you could say that."
DTDD: "Well is your mom here? I have something here that could change her life."
Me: Duh. He meant that he's been talking to people in my neighborhood who have kids my age. I'm such a dork. "Umm...actually I'm the grown-up here."
DTDD: "You at such a young age! Amazing, you're the queen of the castle then!"
Way too much enthusiasm. Since I'm still regretting opening the door and not quite following everything he's saying, he's speaking WAY to fast. The fact that he's from Chicago and doesn't speak the same language is Utah, doesn't help.
Me: "I guess you could say that."
DTDD: "Well let me show you this revolutionary product............"
Me: Oh no, I've let him start his sales pitch, I need to tell him now that he's wasting his time because I can't afford whatever he's selling. Is he ever going to breathe? I wonder if I should listen to what he's saying.
DTDD: "-So, do you?"
Me: Do I what? Help! What did I miss? One wrong answer and he'll launch again, how do I get him off my doorstep. "I'm really not interested in your product. But good luck."
DTDD: "Why you haven't even seen what it does yet! Is this your front door?" He points to the front door.
Me: Nope, that's my pet dog. Here's your sign. "Ummm.......yes."
DTDD: "Well, that is a shame, would you look at these waterspots?"
He then proceeds to demonstrate all the abilities of this super-duper cleaning stuff. It's perfectly natural, safe, and will replace all of the harsh chemicals in your home. "You don't want your kids getting into those hard chemicals, do you mama?"
Me: Don't call me mama you sico. "I don't have kids."
He washed a part of my front door, then felt the need to prove it more since I obviously wasn't going to buy it. He rattled off a list of chemicals that it would replace, he was talking so fast I couldn't even understand what he was saying, but it was an impressive list. "How long has that spot been there?"
Me: What spot? Don't point out my dirty house. Oh good, he's pointing to the driveway. "Longer than I have."
DTDD: "Well, with this revolutionary new product I can take the rust spots off your driveway. Yes, that's right, just one squirt, a little scrub with my little brother's toothbrush and look at that come right off."
Me: "Wow! Rust off the driveway! That's pretty cool." How did I get out on my driveway with this guy? This is crazy, but did you see that? And he did clean my front door....and he actually drank some of this.....it's strong and safe and natural. Josh would be pretty impressed with this stuff.
DTDD: "All this, this solution is only 2 tbsp concentrate, and the rest of this squirt bottle is filled with water. In face, I'll even mix your first bottle for you."
Me: "How much?"
DTDD: "You can get these 3 enormous bottles, plus these scrubbies, toothbrushes and squirt bottles, for just $100."
Me: "My husband would kill me if he comes home and I tell him I spent $100 on a window cleaner."
DTDD: "This is not just a window clean-"
Me: "I don't have $100 for you. Sorry. I'd love to take your card, see a website, or order it another day, because I really think it's cool, I just can't give you $100."
DTDD: "Well then, today is your lucky day. I'll sell you just one bottle for $30*"
*plus tax, title licence, and fees, in only 4 easy payments of $29.99
Me: "I can spend $30, that's a lot of cleaner. Come in and I'll write you a check."
DTDD: "You don't have cash?"
Me: "Do I look like I have cash?"
DTDD: "Of course, you're so young, living in such a nice neighborhood......"
Me: Again with the flattery, that's weird. "Check or nothing."
DTDD: "OK. Check it is. Let me write up your receipt."
I give him the money and he goes on his way. I suddenly have the desire to clean everything, too bad it only lasted long enough to clean my tub, then I didn't want to anymore. However, I do have a HUGE bottle of cleaning stuff, that I can drink if I want to because it's safe. It doesn't have that horrible strong smell like when you clean with other stuff, AND it took hard water off all of the glass in my house. It works wonders, and I am impressed with it, I just felt dumb for buying it.

Enter Josh: I bought some cleaner from a door to door salesman tonight. Josh chuckles like "oh you poor little thing, got sucked into buying a piece of crap because of a salesman."
I quickly defend myself. "No, it's really cool. Look at this clean spot on the front door. I didn't finish cleaning it yet, but look!" Josh just laughs some more and we forget about it.

Fast forward to last night. I pull in the driveway from work and Josh is all excited to see me. "I have to show you the coolest thing we got at work today!" He whips out a bottle of the cleaning stuff. "They did this demonstration and you can use this stuff on ANYTHING in the whole house, plus it's safe! The guy even licked it!"
Me: "I know! Isn't that cool? AND it will take rust off the driveway, not that I'm going to scrub the rust off the driveway, but I could if I wanted to!"

It just goes to show 2 things, #1 DTDD can suck you in faster than anyone else I know. I just wish I had gotten him to clean more things in my house. #2 When you know the mormons don't need you, it's probably not them.

Aaahhhhhh!!!

It was one of those days yesterday. I had way too much to do and way too little time. I was supposed to go to the Collin Raye concert with my super-cool mother-in-law. Then work was CRAZY. I have 12 projects sitting on my desk that all have to be done yesterday afternoon and I was stressed. I needed to finish my family history names because it was the last day, I needed to go grocery shopping so my poor husband could eat lunch, make lunches, make dinner, clean my house, do 3 batches of laundry, water the lawn, pick the garden, plan my lesson for our missionary meeting, file my mound of paperwork, pay the bills, plan my primary lesson, AND I really wanted to read a couple of books I just got. Instead I came home and cried and my husband was nice to me. He laid down with me for a few minutes while I cried because I was too stressed, and then I fell asleep. He woke me up right before I left, and I had to call mom to tell her I couldn't go to the concert because I had a huge work project. So, I worked on a couple of my projects for work, I got my family history names done, watered the lawn, changed the laundry (only once though), went grocery shopping, and made Josh's lunch for today. It doesn't sound like I did that much, but I really was busy the whole night, only I didn't feel good about. Sometimes I feel great after anight like that, like I've just conquered the world, but this time, I just wanted to cry the whole time. I was just stressed and anxious and not happy about the whole thing. Blah blah blah!!! I didn't want to do any of the things I was doing, I wanted to take a long bath, read a book, take a nap, go to a concert and just relax. But, today I feel a little more like my life is in control...not completely, but closer. I just plain tired, that's all there is to it.

Technology advances

First of all you have to know that I "heart" the Salt Lake County Library System. You have access to like a million different libraries and you just pick a book, put it on hold anywhere you want it, and go pick it up. It's fantastic!

Anyway, I had a book on hold, and went to pick it up last night. Pulled it off the hold shelf, and went to use the self checkout. Now, I've used my fair share of self checkouts before, but nothing like this. It's just a touchscreen computer, and no scanner or anything else. I fancy myself somewhat of a computer literate person and thought I'd have no trouble with the cool checkout system. So, I push the "touch screen to start" button, and it flashes that I need to put my library card into the counter. Yes, that's right, into a tiny slot in the countertop. So I do. It sucks my card in (not like I'm putting it in and swiping it back out, it just sucks it in. I jump a little (like an old lady who's never had a computer talk to her and it does for the first time), and then decide it's OK that the countertop ate my library card (sounds like a good title for a children's book huh?). In the meantime I had set my books down on the counter (while I dug through my purse to find my library card which is topic enough for a whole other blog....) then, the screen pops up with a notification that I have a book on hold. I'm thinkin' man this computer is pretty dang smart, knows who I am and what I want to read! I say "OK" because I (like the computer) already knew that I had a book on hold and had even located it on the hold shelf all by myself. The computer tells me which books I have selected. Keep in mind that only one of the books I had was on hold, and as far as I knew, the computer had no way of knowing what other books I had wandered around and selected from the shelves. But it knew, right off the top of it's head. It popped up with the title, author, and isbn on each book I had. I'm thinkin' Wow, this thing is good! then it pops up with the instructions, that I'm supposed to set each book that I want to check out on the counter in stacks no larger than 4 and it lists them. I look for the barcode reader, and it isn't there, I kinda look around a bit trying to figure out how this is working, maybe it's a really fine tuned scale and it knows the exact weight, or number of pages of each book and figures it out that way. Maybe there's a scanner in the ceiling. Maybe that librarian has extra good vision can read from across the room and is just typing in what the title is to impress people. Maybe there's an x-ray under the counter and it reads the barcode through the counter. Maybe - and the nice male-librarian comes up and asks if it's working.
Me: I look down embarrassed and say "yes, I just wanted to see how it worked, so I was playing with it."
Library-man: "OK, just wanted to make sure it was doing it's job."
Old library-lady: "there are microchips in each book. When you put them on the reader it knows what you have."
Me: Feeling like I'm about 100 years old and should've known that. Thinking this is worse than the time the kid at the grocery store asked me if I "wanted help out to my car with that MA'AM". "Nice."
old library-lady: "Yep, technology has made some pretty significant advances these last few years." Like this is old news and I'm way behind the times.
Me: "Sure has. Thanks for your help!" yeah right, in the last few years, what do you know, you still use bobby pins in your hair! I'm way more technologically advanced than you are, and I know it. I'm the queen of technology, I invented microchips in the books that the scale can read! mean old library lady.

Now wouldn't it be cool if that happened at the grocery store checkout. No more of that annoying voice "an unexpected item is in the bagging area, please remove the item." "item removed from bagging area, please replace the item."

Bourne

Oh man. Coolest movie of the summer. No doubt about it. Saturday night we went to see Bourne Ultimatum and it was SOOOO cool! I have loved the series, but that one just keeps getting cooler and cooler. The stunts, fights, and story were awesome. I was pumped after seeing it, that's the sign of a good movie. We had to sit on the 2nd row of the theater cuz we got there right before it started, but it was still really good. Josh said he got a little sick watching it, but I just loved it. Highly recommended viewing.

Alexander Lake

Yes, it was everything I hoped for and oh so much more. :)

Turns out that we got off work early Friday afternoon and headed up to the lake. So, we had time to swim and hang out on Friday night. We looked at stars and I saw a shooting star for the first time in my whole entire life. We built the raft, the zipline was already up, we ate banana boats, what more do you want?

The little boys were HILARIOUS and Tyler (Sarah's youngest) was the mascot for this year. We looked at pictures after and he and Ryann were the subject of most of the pictures. It was good times. Tyler kept throwing "wocks" (rocks) in the lake because they were like "bombs!" He was hilarious. He's just wander around gather rocks and throwing them in the lake.

Right when we got there I was ready to jump in the lake, so I did, and then we waited while the big strong boys built the raft. Sarah and Katy were nice enough to get in the lake with me so I didn't feel so lonely. They're nice. We swam and swam, and played in the water. Big Josh (he got a new nickname because both my nephew and husband were there, so we had to start making the distinction between the two of them) played with his guns and then even he got in the water! The in-laws in my family are notorious for boycotting all cold wet activities at the lake, but Josh wanted to play and I was SOO glad he did! It's certainly my favorite part of the lake, so I was relieved that he had fun doing it too. Randy is the other brave in-law and spends as much time in the lake as anybody else. He's brave too.That night we made banana boats (which were a big hit, thanks Reilleys!) and sang songs around the batter-powered-lantern. We couldn't have any fires at all, which was funny because some people across the lake did, and the little boys kept yelling at them "you're breaking the law!" wanted to make sure they knew that they were being really naughty and when their mom's found out they'd be in big trouble. :) We sang some really funny songs and I learned some things about my family. There's this horrible song that we all grew up singing and I realized just how horrible it is.

"I'm a villan a dirty rotten villan and I leave a trail of blood where e're I go (I go)

My chief delight is to pick a fight And I beat little kids on the head 'til they're dead.

I have gotten a rep for being rotten I put poison in my mother's shredded wheat (her wheat)

I put a stain on the family name And I eat-raw-meat!"

The best part is that I was like 10 or 12 years old before I knew that it wasn't the same song as
"I'm a mormon, yes I am!" Horrible. But we also know a lot of nice songs too, so that's good.

I guess a couple of years ago when we went Clint (Sarah's husband) started the legend of the cyclops. The cyclops lives on the other side of the lake and he eats naughty little kids, so you're not allowed to go over there without a grown up. Well this year, Clint stopped by Best Buy and found a victim of the cyclops which quickly made it's way up to the lake. They hid it, with a note, where the cyclops lives for the little boys to find on one of their walks around the lake. Needless to say, it worked.

The next day on the lake, there were pirate ships, and attacks, and bomb squads, and all manner of wickedness. At one point Randy literally jumped from the homemade raft to the other raft, grabbed Josh and brought him down into the lake. Meanwhile 5 year old Dallin is "manning the ship" all by himself. He was so brave, he knew he'd be fine and just sailed alone for quite some time. Until Captain Spence came and jumped back in the raft, nearly tipping it. Oh man we had fun. I'm sure our neighbors appreciated our shouts of "attack!" "direct hit!" "we're goin' down!" "we're commandeering another one!" "avast ye maytees!" it was a regular pirate war.

Saturday Josh helped me go down the zipline, it scared me. You had to walk off a home-made plank, which was way worse than the actual ride down the zipline. I was fine on the ride part, but balancing on the log and walking off it made me REAL nervous. I'm a big baby. This is Spence building it - he's braver than I am.

All in all it was a great trip, and I'm glad that Josh came with me so he could understand why it's the happiest place on earth for me. He's really good about appreciating the things that I love. He had a great time, and I'm fairly certain that we'll go back. :) Mission successful.

I can't WAIT!

Oh man. Today is the day. Yes, that's right, we're going to Alexander Lake! It's been a crazy week, we originally thought we could just leave today after work, but it turns out that some people in my family really want to be home Saturday/Sunday. so they are leaving Saturday. So, we're trying to do everything in our power to get up there as early as possible today. That way we'll have all day tomorrow, and half of today to hike, swim, canoe, etc. But, it's been a crazy week getting ready to go. Josh went up to Layton on Monday to get his movies so he could start his route and be done by Friday - only one of the titles he was putting in machines wasn't there. And it wasn't there Tuesday, and it wasn't there Wednesady. So he started Wednesday afternoon, hoping to be almost done on Thursady. so he had 2 days to do his weeks worth of work. Gross. Fortunately my husband is amazing and nice and is almost done! Yes, it's Friday morning and he only has a few machines left, so maybe we can leave at noon today! Now I just need to make sure I do my work so I can leave as early as he can. I can't wait!!! It's better than Christmas.

It's a small world after all

It seems like this past week has been one where I talk to a lot of people I don't normally hear from. It's been really fun. Old roommates, friends from high school or the BC, etc etc etc. I actually kindof enjoy weeks like that because it means people remember who I am which means at some point they knew I existed. I always think I know a lot more people than know me. Like I know who they are, but they wouldn't have a clue who I was.

Anyway, one of those "old friends" (geez, I sound like I'm OLD and attending like my 30 year high school reunion or something!) was Anna from Student Council at the Business College. She was one of those people who absolutely shocked me the more I got/get to know her the more I like her and the more I think we have in common.

Student Council was a bit of "stretch" for me (understatement of the year), but she was always really nice and accepting even though I didn't feel like I fit in that position very well. Anyway, the point is that she e-mailed me! And then I told her about facebook, she got on, I had a comment about going to Alexander Lake, one thing leads to another and it turns out that she and her husband were there last weekend!

Alexander Lake is one of those places that I grew up thinking was built just for my family. Like when God was creating the world, he put Alexander Lake there and showed my daddy how to get there so we would have somewhere to go on vacation. And nobody else knew about it, much less went to it. Turns out the older I get the smaller the world is and the fewer places are "secret".

Anyway, I got all kinds of excited that someone else knew where it was, and that they went and loved it too! It really is my favorite place on the planet. It's filled with happy memories, and all of the things that I think are required for beauty. After I get back I'll post some pictures and maybe you can see why....but pictures just don't do it justice. Turns out that the older I get the smaller the world is and more and more people have random connections in my life.

At work we deal with one specific title company a LOT. They send a "runner" up to our office all the time, and this person changes quite regularly. It's usually some high school kid that doesn't want to work at work, so he thinks that driving around all day is the perfect job - he gets to talk on the phone, listen to music, and hang out and get paid for it. Anyway, the newest runner happens to be dating our Project manager's daughter. So he called and said we should give him grief and make his life miserable. So far I haven't thought of anything really funny to do, but I'm workin' on it. All he does is come pick up some papers every once in a while so there's a not a lot of interaction, but we'll figure something out. Good times playing practical jokes on people. I'm open to suggestions......

Slip 'N Slide!!!

Oh man! My family is hands down the coolest family of all time. So with the Fugal's from Washington here we are doing fun things all the time. Tonight was FHE and for activity it was Slip 'N Slide! So, we had our lesson about how "everybody is special" and we don't need to worry about stars and gray dots, and they can just fall off instead.

Then came the fun part. At my house we don't just buy a slip 'n slide. We do industrial grown-up sized slip 'n slide. At the beginning there is an old waterbed mattress filled with water, but it leaks and we keep it nice and wet and my dad even adds dish soap to make it extra slippery. Then is a big stretch of black plastic and the goal is to get clear to the end of it and slide onto the grass. So we did. We slipped and 'slode' (yes that is the proper past tense of 'slide') all over the place. Here are a couple of highlights.

You can't even tell, but that's nice FLYING down the slip 'n slide. You'd be surprised how much speed you can get off of these things!All of the boys were nice enough to hold still for a picture. That's Josh showing off his muscles (not my husband, my nephew), Nate in the t-shirt, Randy with grass stains on his front, Spencer, and Dad. Some of my favorite boys in the world.

This is Katy and Randy. They're cute. Katy's fun at things like this, but she did get cold, and was even brave enough to admit it!

The little boys didn't quite slide like the rest of us so we did "surfer man!" instead. We'd have them just stand and drag them down on their feet, which they thought was AWESOME. Then we invented, double surfer man! They both got to go at the same time. It was RAD.

Then they figured out that they wouldn't get in trouble for jumpin' on the bed. Good times.

Spencer and randy started a contest to see who could go the farthest down the track without running, just a single jump and dive, all three of them made it clear to the end on one dive, that was pretty rad. Then they started trying "with style" and oh man, the competition was fierce. Spencer and Randy figured out that you can barrel roll while you're going down the thing - good discovery. Then Randy was pullin' some crazy somersault, and flippin' moves. It was a good time, that's for sure.

The little boys LOVED being "surfer-dude" (which I'm pretty sure they think is a hero) and laughed and giggled till they couldn't anymore. I must say, I have the cutest nephews on the planet.

Tender Mercies

I really think that since Elder Bednar's talk the term tender mercies has been stretched to mean "just about anything good that happens to me....EVER". At least I know I've stretched it.

A couple of years ago (shortly after the aforementioned talk) I was waiting at a red light to cross the street to temple square. It's one of those "pedestrian" lights, meaning that it has no purpose other than to let people walk through the middle of the road. The light seems to be cursed for me because I have NEVER seen it green for anyone. You always have to wait until there's a handful of people waiting for it before it turns green. However, on one particularly hot day, I had been waiting for the light for a couple of minutes and some sister missionaries walked up behind me. The exact second that they approached the street, the light turned green. I quickly pointed out that the light turns green that quickly only for sister missionaries. She responded "that's just the kind of tender mercies you get when you're serving the Lord!".

Today however, I have been given a real live tender mercy. Last night Josh and I wanted to make something yummy in the middle of the night. I wanted it to be peanut butter bars, he doesn't really like peanut butter-y treats. So we settled for the greasy Blondies instead. Just now Neil (a guy who works in my office) brought down a plate of something yummy that he said his wife made him promise to share. You guess it, peanut butter bars. I told him it was an answer to my prayers. :) Thank goodness for tender mercies, no matter how small!

Cafe Rio

I'm starting to love 1:00 church. Well, I don't really, but I'm appreciating it for the time being. Yesterday we didn't even start to get ready for church until 12:15, yes we really were that lazy, we woke up, but stayed in bed all morning just being lazy and boring. I liked it. :)

Then I decided I wanted to make cafe rio salads for dinner, so I hurried and threw the chicken in the crock pot so it would be "almost ready" when we got home. Ha! That totally didn't work. I barely had time to get the chicken cooking, and definitely didn't have time to arrange it nicely in the crock pot. so since it was frozen, it stuck out the crock pot a little bit making the lid not quite closed. Well, when it thawed, the lid didn't quite seal, so it wasn't quite done when I got home. So, I rearranged, and let it sit for a lot longer. Then we bummed around some more, and at like 7:30 started to make the rest of the dinner. Oh man! That was some GOOD grub! Josh wanted to make homemade tortillas, so he did (all by himself, he's pretty good at that actually)! I made the yummy tomatillo dressing, and the rice. Mmmm! It was GOOD! We didn't even eat until like 8:00, but it was well worth the wait. Now I can't wait to turn the leftovers into enchiladas, and eat those too! Yummm!!!

At about 11:30, we were ready to go to bed, and Josh was starting to fall asleep, but since we had slept ALL DAY LONG I wasn't tired enough yet. So I made him wake up and talk to me, the I remembered about these things called blondies. I hadn't ever heard of them until I was visiting teaching, but they're like brownies, only vanilla flavored. So I really wanted to make them, and Josh just wanted to sleep, but I wanted him to keep me company. So he woke up with me and helped me make blondies in the middle of the night. I love my husband. Turns out the recipe I found online for blondies wasn't that great - REALLY greasy. Maybe that's how they all are, but it kinda grossed me out. They didn't taste bad, they were just like eating baked crisco and sugar. Anyway, if anybody has a good recipe for blondies......I'm looking! Otherwise I'm goint to start experimenting, and that might be scary!

Pictures

Anybody who's ever tried to take a picture of more than 5 people at a time will probably be able to relate to my weekend.

My brother, Spencer, and his wife, Emily, and their 3 kids, are here from Washington to visit. Given that we had our most recent family picture taken like 2 years ago, and there are 2 new adults and 4 new kids since then, my mom decided on Thursday night that while they were here we needed to take a family picture. So, she called to see when we're available. Kudos to my mom for coordinating 6 family's schedules with the photographer. We went, we survived, we did a great job. Here's hopin' for no more babies/weddings for a while, because I know I can live without that stress for a while.

Mom said the reward for smiling really big at pictures was a barbeque at her house. Which was a success as always. Here are a couple of pictures that I took while they were doing individual families pictures.

This is Katy and her baby Ryann. That lucky girl got her mom's eyes!

This is my little brother Nate, and Sarah's youngest boy, Tyler. Nate can make that kid laugh like nobody else! They're bestest buds.

Crypt Raider

OK. Jamie got me addicted to this new game so I added it to the blog. It's called Crypt Raider and the point is to get all of the "mystical-magical-balls" through the doorway. Level 1 is really dumb, but once you get up there....it's cool and I PROMISE you'll get addicted.

Just a day just an ordinary day

Today seems to have been an extraordinary day. I keep seeing things that you don't normally see. Like on my way to work, I'm driving up state street (just below the capital) and it's lined with trees. It's a beautiful street. Anyway, as I'm driving I saw a couple of little green apples fall off the trees. It's one of those things that you wouldn't normally see, it just happens when nobody is watching, but not today. Today I saw it - sounds dumb, but it was kinda cool.

As I continued to follow a big fat truck up the hill, he started to pull up his back wheels as he was driving. I know that's not really that exciting, but I've never seen it before, and I won't lie, I half expected the truck to turn into a giant robot and start 'roller-skating' down the street. My life is straight out of transformers.

The weekend is getting closer and closer, and I can't wait! It's been a crazy week, but it'll be an even crazier weekend. My brother and his family are here visiting from Washington and I can't wait to see them, and meet my brand new neice, she's cute I already know. :) The real adventure is that we're getting family pictures taken. Now THAT will be fun. Ha ha ha!!! Wish me luck!

Manna from heaven

Sometimes I'm AMAZED at how prayers can be answered. You know when you really know you should be doing something, but you drag your feet and drag your feet and then all of a sudden it's like Heavenly Father just says "if you're not going to do it by yourself, I'll do it for you!" and drops a pile of whatever it is that you should be doing in your lap and you're kinda forced to do it? Yeah, that's how I feel a lot of times.

When I was on Student Council I felt like that and decided that we are often given opportunities to grow, and when we choose not to take them, that's when we're given "experiences".

Well, the summer before Josh and I started dating I really felt the need to do temple/family history work. I even thought about going through the temple and then couldn't because I wasn't old, or missioning or marrying. But I still thought I should start doing family history somehow. THEN I met Josh, we got married, go to the temple regularly and I kinda thought that would satisfy the urge, but I still thought I really ought to learn how the family history system works. We had a lesson about temples in Relief Society a couple of the ladies in my ward talked about the family history work they do. They do indexing for the church once a week and love it. I asked them about it afterward, and they couldn't really give me any solid answers - but I knew you could do it from home, and it's basically just entering data from old records into a good computer format. So, I thought I'd look into it, I did a google search one night and didn't find anything that looked really fruitful. So, I guess you could say I tried, but I didn't do much more than what was convenient. I should've done more.

Yesterday the Ensign came. If you haven't seen it yet, there's this huge article about the new indexing website and it has the website in the article, and you just sign up for it and it's SUPER easy. There I go again, getting hit with a 2x4. "Do it! You've been pretending like you were going to for 2 years, it's time to get off your but and get at it!" That's what I heard in my head. So, I signed up for an account, and maybe I'll get some done tonight. :) I'm sure that the article touched more people than me, and I'm sure that a million people will start doing the work now, but it really was exactly what I needed, so I'm excited to get started.

The rest of the Ensign was pretty amazing too, I didn't read the whole thing, but I did my flip-through, and am really excited to read a lot of the articles. Sometimes I think I'm more in tune with the spirit and recognize the things that I can get out of the Ensign much better than other times. This is one of those times that I'm really excited for.