Slow and Steady Wins!

Well, with Christmas around the corner, all our bags packed for this christmas cruise, all our presents opened (totally weird to open everything before christmas) I just had to talk about my favorite thing as of late.

Sherlock Holmes!

So I saw the first movie, and I love it. So when this second one was coming out, I told Brad that I hoped it would be a good sequel and not like all other sequels that tend to be worse. Brad told me not to worry. I had a hard time waiting until Saturday, dec 17, to see it, but Brad had work on Friday and we went to a party Friday night. So early Saturday morning we treked out to the theatre.

Needless to say, I have never laughed so hard and long during a movie. Brad told me that everyone who could hear me probably thought we were watching a comedy. It was hilarious to say the least. Saturday night christmas dinner with Brad's Stevens side of the family. His grandma at one point had us all ready sections from a conference talk. I had such a hard time not laughing, because I kept thinking about Sherlock Holmes. Now I just have to think about the movie and I start laughing. Helps with the stress at work

So basically, everyone should see this movie. I almost went and watched it again last night, but it would have been a 9pm movie, it was snowing, and Brad had to work today. Oh well, I will see it again soon!

Merry Christmas everyone!

Catch-up Time

So, I haven't posted anything for a while. Oops. I keep looking at other people's blogs and being like, wow, they haven't done anything new for a month! Ha ha, neither have I. Well, I will quickly recap what I deem noteworthy.

Brad had a birthday. Kind of a lame one too, poor guy, cause it was on a Wednesday, so I came home from work exhausted. I did my best to make up for it with fun on Friday though and so we went to Red Lobster and he ate lots of shrimp and then we watched Captain America. Only a few more years and he will be the big 3-0!

We had our 4th anniversary, which also happened to be Thanksgiving. So we celebrated with lots of family, ate yummy food, and had everyone shocked it had already been 4 years. Crazy how time flies. We also got a threat that we better have a kid before Brad is 30. Fun times.

Brad got a best buy gift card for his b-day and wanted to make the best use of it, so we went to best buy on black friday. We didn't camp out, but we did show up at 10:30pm on Thanksgiving. I wore snowboarding pants, gloves, and a beanie. It was still cold. I read while in line, Brad played on his smart phone. Crazy people tried to sell us their tickets for tvs and computers. It did work out good thought cause Brad got 2 games for the price of one, we got an 8gb SD card for cheap, I got movies on my xmas list for cheap, and a few xmas presents for family. Then we went home to bed at 2am.

On December 3rd we had the option to go to our ward christmas party, or my work party. We picked my work party, because we didn't have to wear church clothes and it was at Rodizio Grill. Brad drank a yummy passion fruit limeaid and I had a strawberry limeaid (I missed the fact it was limeaid until I drank it). We had fun, and ran errands while down in good ol Utah Valley.

I have made a few christmas/winter decorations. I fell our space is very monotone because I have a white snowflake banner and a few white snowmen. The few gold stars and red ornaments don't add too much color. Oh well.

Next week we get to fly to Florida and go on a christmas family cruise with my mom's whole side of her family. Yay for family craziness. I'm excited to get out of fridged utah for a week. But I can't wait until we finally have a NORMAL christmas. Oh well, one day...

Merry Christmas too everyone!

How Do you Like your eggs?

I love breakfast! Probably because of my Dad, cause he loves breakfast and makes delicious breakfast goodness. So whenever I go out to eat breakfast at a restaurant I get pretty excited. However, I have learned that not all things restaurant are what I'm used to.

My Dad makes killer scrambled eggs. I love them. When I go to a restaurant I always order scrambled eggs, but they are not the same. My dad loads his eggs with milk, cheese, bacon, and seasoning. Delicious! Restaurants don't do this. They are just scrambled eggs.

When we surprise visited my parents and went to Awful Annie's, I explained my dilemma to my parents. I have never tried any other kind of egg. So they recommended over easy, which is what they always order. I tried this. It was good.

Well this cold morning, I decided to make my own eggs. I didn't have any meat to put in them, but I got everything else. And they were delish! I might be a scrambled egg snob, but what can I say, I know a good scrambled egg when I see one.

Freezing already

Well October is almost over. Crazy how fast time flys. And with October ending, the freeze has come. For the past few weeks, I have taken our big warm t-shirt blanket to Brad's softball games to wrap up in. Brad finds it ridiculous because he does not think it is that cold. Well last night, was the tournament. If they won their 6:30 game, then they got to play in the 8:30 championship game. For some reason, I did not think this through so when I told Brad I was ready, I was wearing jeans, a thermal long sleeve shirt, a sweatshirt, ankle socks, and tennis shoes. I also brought the big blanket. By the end of the 6:30 game, I could barely feel my toes. Smart. I should have worn my snow pants, long socks, and boots, and maybe even a big coat.

Well, they won the 6:30 game by a pretty big margin. There was almost a fight too. I'm glad Brad didn't get involved, but his Dad and one of the other teammates looked like they were going to take out the pitcher on the other team. He was a jerk. But we won, so it was fine. And thank goodness the teams kept the pitchers from killing each other.

Well, I explained my freezing body to Brad, so we went to 7-11 and got some delicious hot chocolate. My roommate Jen introduced me to 7-11 hot chocolate and the goodness of the coffee mixins (like french vanilla, half and half, and pumpkin spice). Yum, so i had a very creamy pumpkin hot chocolate. Which was great, but my toes were still frozen. So Brad had me put his sweats on over my jeans, which helped. The crazy guy played both games in just his shirt and shorts. Crazy! He is a snowman, I am not.

Well they lost the championship game. Sad, but they still got a big trophy for taking 2nd place. And they did get t-shirts for being the regular season champions.

On a good note, the Cardinals won last night, while Brad and I were sleeping buried in our blankets and with the heater turned on high.

Time to turn on the space heater for the basement so I don't freeze all day. I already am cold now. I'm too scared to look at our thermometer to see what the temp is down here. Upstairs it is only 65. Freezing. Can I just say how excited I am for November and December when it only gets colder?

Surprise!

Not a picture of THE surprise face, but this was funny candid. I would loved to seen my dad's face when he saw our car in the driveway though, next time I need to have hidden cameras to capture such priceless faces

2 weeks ago, Brad text me at work asking if I could get off early the following Wednesday (Oct 6). He told he was going to try and get thursday and friday off. When I asked him why, he told me that we could go and surprise my parents! Awesome idea. So we both got the time for this impromptu trip. Then the weather decided to play a funny joke on us.

You see, we seem to have a knack for driving to Sacramento whenever there is a huge storm. Like Memorial Day 2009 when we drove through a snow storm over Donner pass. Fantastic!

So when the news all of a sudden started talking about this rain/snow storm coming through, I just wanted to laugh. The storm was supposed to be leaving California Wednesday and coming into Utah Thursday. So Brad started to check the weather over the pass like crazy. The storm then seemed to move faster then planned so when we started our journey Wednesday at 4pm, we drove through rain in Utah, a little snow in East Nevada, and then clear skies. Caltrans kept reporting no chain control over Donner pass, so it was looking like our timing paid off!

At 11pm we crossed in California, passed the fruit patrol, and Caltrans still was not reporting chains. Then we hit Truckee. I hate that city so much, cause there was chain control. It was snowing, and not sticking cause it was so wet. It was now 11:30 (CA time), and I wanted to punch the guy who told us we HAD to put chains on. Hello! We are from Utah! No one puts chains on, especially when there is no snow on the ground!

So we pulled over and put the chains on. By we, I mean Brad. He is so wonderful. I was trying to help, but it was cold, the metal was hurting my hands, I was exhausted, and had started to cry. Turns out I was also low, so I sat in the car eating and crying, while my wonderful husband messed with the chains. So we finally get past chain control and are moving at a speedy 30mph. Woohoo! Then the whole line of trucks stops. No one was moving. We were stopped for an hour on top of the mountain. Brad was once again prepared and had loaded some Dino Rider episodes onto his phone (it's an old 80's cartoon show that Brad loves). I tried to sleep, but I just couldn't fall asleep, plus I was still made at the situation. We finally started to move again. After 3 hours, we were able to take chains off. Yup 3 hours! Normally, it takes tops 2 hours to get from Reno to Rocklin. This time it took 4!

So we showed up at my parents at 3am PCT. I had been up for 23 hours. I have a key to my parents still, but Brad was worried we would wake my parents, so he insisted we be ninja quite. I was failing at this ninja quiteness. Brad was concerned my Dad would come after us with a bat. Our work friends were concerned by Dad would hear us and shot us. I however, know that my parents have slept through very loud slumber parties, that my dad does not own a gun, and that Brad and I were much closer to the bat then he was. So we slept downstairs on the living room floor.

In the morning, my dad got up early to go running. Now, my dad is not the most observant person. He had to come downstairs and practically walk right by/in front of us to go out the front door. He didn't notice us. It wasn't until he got outside and saw a car parked in his driveway. He started to flip out wondering who had the audacity to park their car in his driveway. Then he saw the Utah plate and went "What?!" He came back inside and finally noticed us. I heard him stand there for a few minutes. Then he went upstairs and woke up my mother. My dad is quite, my mom is not. We heard here screaming from upstairs. So down they came laughing and shocked. I had text my mom the day before telling her I really wanted her to buy my awfuly annies and mail it to me (it's an awesome breakfast place). So when she came downstairs she said, "You sure did come a long ways for breakfast!"

The breakfast! Yum! Can't beat apple cinnamon french toast like this!

We had a fun few days in Rocklin. We went to Awful Annies, Buffalo Wild Wings, BJ's Brewery, Six Flags Discovery Kingdom (formerly known as Marine World), saw The Help, and went to the newly re-opened mall. Oh and I went to my friend Tamie's house and hung out with her and Katie for a bit. It was fun, the drive not so much. But at least the drive back was okay. And I was kept plenty busy with cutting my fabric for my halloween wreath.

Needless to say, I told my Dad that I would not mind it at all if they moved to Nevada so they were on the right side of the Sierras.

Getting Crafty!

So a few weeks ago I was talking with my fantastic friend, Shalise, and I mentioned how with all my free time on my days off, I would love to do crafts, but that I never know what to do. Shalise then told me about Pinterest. For those who haven't heard of it, it's like an online blog where people "pin" things they are interested in (ie: crafts, clothes, food). Facebook helps connect you with people you know so you can see what people like and find all sorts of awesome blogs/websites. I LOVE it! It's so addicting and fantastic!

So, through pinterest, I have found all sorts of halloween crafts to do. I have made pumpkins out of toilet paper rolls, hung up bats, made spiders, and am now finishing this wreath. It's awesome!

I must say though, the websites were you can find the crafts, don't always state the important things. For instance, from Country Living I found all of these simple halloween crafts. So i cut out bats to cover my walls. Country living said to use double sided tape to hang them inside. Great! However, the bats started falling after 5 minutes. Even with loads of double sided tape, they were dropping like crazy. I was not very happy, and Brad thought it was the funniest thing ever. So I had to create plan B: hang them with fishing wire and 3m hooks. No more falling!

I got the fall wreath from this "Sassy Sanctuary" blog. She makes it sound so easy! You just buy fabric, cut it into 1" by 6" pieces, and tie onto this wire wreath. Easy right? Nope! It is extremly time consumning! Oh my goodness. It is turning out really cute, but I'm getting blisters from all the tying. Basically, I tied a bunch on and thought I was almost done, except I still had a ton of fabric I hadn't used. Wierd. So Brad takes the wreath and uses his man power to shove the fabric around so I had tons more places to tie fabric. That was nice the first time, but he has done it 4 more times. I love him, and he is helping, but not the best thing to do when my hands hurt and it's 11pm. So after a week, I am hoping to finish today! If you decide to do a cloth wreath like this, plan on lots of time. The cutting takes lots of time, especially if you are just using a ruler and scissors. Luckily my mother-in-law has a huge fabric cutting board thing that made the cutting go by much faster. I would recommend doing the tying while watching tv/movies. It helps take away from the monotany of tying.

So there are my 2 cents. I love Pinterest and can't wait to get started on christmas crafts next month (I will not start them in October cause that is just wrong).

Finally Done! It wasn't till finishing that I realized I had read the directions wrong and used 4X as much fabric!

Oh well, it looks cute at least...

This is Fun Right?

So last Saturday, Brad and I went to Ogden for the 5K Foam Fest. I was super excited. This was a run with obstacles along the way. Sounds fun right? I even had been running the 2 days before to be better prepared for this 5k than I was for the last one.

So we get to this park and I notice lots of trees. That's good, we won't be melting in the sun. As we are walking to registration, we cross over part of the trail that we see goes up a very large hill. Fantastic! This is when my montra turned into "we aren't here to win, we are here to finish". Before I had wanted to finish the whole thing in 30 minutes. After listening to the 9am heat running in with a lot of people coming in at 40, 50, and even and hour after the start, I realized that maybe a 30 minute goal was out of reach.

After stretching they foamed up the starting line for us. And off we went. The first half of the run was all running. And that running was up and down hills, BIG hills. I started out great, but after going up and down several of these, I was tired. My muscles were fine, my lungs were fine, but I was running out of gas. Brad however, who has not been running, was doing fine. What hills is he running that I don't know about?

After running up and down up and down, we come to the first obstacle: climbing over 2 6 ft walls. I had thought that obstacles would be could breather opportunities. Wow, was I wrong. Brad would go first and wait for me. Poor guy, he is such a good husband waiting for his slow wife. After the walls, I needed to walk. Then Brad got me running again. At this time we are in the nice cool trees. So we are running around a nice trail and then come upon a steep incline. Yay! And we get to go up this incline on stairs. I think stairs are worse then just a bare hill. I ended up walking up these stairs cause jogging got exhausting. I haven't done the RB stairs for over 2 years, so stairs are not my strong suit.

After Brad patiently waiting for me at the bottom, we came to more obstacles, like climbing under a chicken wire (supposed to be cargo net I think), running through tires, walking along pieces of wood (for balance), running through creeks, avoiding trees and things thrown onto the trail, etc. All this while running in between. I was tired. Then we came to the river with the string of tubes tied together. You had to cross the river on the tubes (or give up and swim). Now walking into the race, we saw the 9am heat do this and it was funny to watch. Doing it myself, EXHAUSTING! Once again, Brad turned out to have some amazing strength and durability.

I wore out after 5 tires and tried just using my arms to pull me (bad move). After seeing a guy just jump in a swim the whole river (cause this obstacle was a huge road block), and having a guy pass me on the tubes, I finally just slide off the tubes and walked/swim the rest. While this was much faster, I forgot that the water would be freezing so I started to hyperventilate. But I made it across to Brad, caught my breathe while walking through a string maze obstacle thing, and then saw the foam slip-n-slides. The fun part. Brad used this to try and motivate me to keep running, because of course we had to run around before actually getting to the obstacle. After that didn't work, he told me that we had to beat the fairies.

Some people dressed up for this race in matching outfits. Like the lifeguard team with all their floaties. There was also this family with white tank tops and red fairy wings. They were behind us. Brad wanted to keep it this way. The slip-n-slides were fun, except with all the foam, you had to be careful of when to breathe. The first one you could breathe fine cause there wasn't that much foam. Then we went through the human car wash (just a bunch of foam and noodles, and then a big foam slip-n-slide that was in some blown up thing that incased the foam inside. Meaning don't breathe till you think you are out. Brad went first and scratched up his face on the dirt that was on the bottom of the slide. I went and stopped sliding a little before the end, so I was covered in foam and trying to clear my face to breathe and see. They gave us towels and then there was a water slip-n-slide. Brad had fun this whole time till he scratched his face. By now, the finish line was in sight, so we ran it in. We finished at 43 minutes. I was pretty happy with this time.

At then end they had everyone take pictures in a foam bath. Fun, except there was no place to hose off afterwards. So we used our water bottles. Now I can say that the run was fun, but if I do one of these again, I need to run up and down hills. I told Brad that this race taught me that I should never go into the military.

But hey, we finished. And we got some really fun shirts out of it! That's what counts right?

We were a little too tired to do anything fun in the tub, sorry.

We love Futbol!

When I got to work this monday, everyone was talking about the weekend. Some completely avoided talking about it, and others couldn't stop. Why? Because of the BYU Utah rivalry game. My friend/co-worker Mckenna asked me if my weekend was ruined (which hers was not cause she likes Utah). I looked at her and said, "Ruined, I went to the ReAL game and they won and then we stayed for the One Republic concert. Oh yea, and had some yummy free frozen yogurt." Good weekend.

You see, Brad and I of course are big BYU fans. I'm not saying that the fact BYU lost miserably did not make us sad. But, we happened to plan for better activities. It actually was a complete coincidence too. We love going to the ReAL games. They are fun, we love soccer, and the mexican section is crazy. When we saw that they had a game with a One Republic concert right after, we decided we couldn't miss that game. So we talked to our connection and got tickets. When last weekend finally came, I finally realized that we were missing the rivalry game. This did not make me sad, because I hate watching that game. I have pride, and watching my team lose kills it. Brad does not love watching games with me cause I will get up and leave when the football team is sucking (a beauty about watching a game at home and not being at the game). Last year we went and saw Tangled in theatres during the BYU Utah game.

Of course, after returning home from our wonderful Saturday evening, Brad and his sister, Christine, wanted to watch the rivalry game. I didn't. I went downstairs and looked up the score on ESPN. Right in time too, cause seconds later my dad text me about the game. I went back upstairs to get a drink and saw the first fumble/utah touchdown. Brad asked me if I wanted to sit down and watch with him. I told him 'sorry, but I would prefer to miss this game and just go to bed'. He was disappointed, I was tired, so I went to bed. When he came to bed, I could tell he was bummed. Brad will sit through an entire miserable game cause he is a good fan. I'm not, my happiness is more important then watching the a game crash and burn over and over again.

It took my manager a few days to talk about the game. She is a BIG BYU fan. I heard Dr. Ockey say that he didn't want to talk about it. Poor Brad had to listen to all the dumb insults at work from his Ute co-workers. I say, good job Utah for winning so well and making something of all those fumbles. I still love BYU and will always wear blue. I just won't always watch the games. I will keep watching ReAL though. Futbol is a game that makes sense to me and I love, even though all the flops can be retarded. And guess what, ReAL's colors are navy, red, and yellow. Funny huh, so at the ReAL game we saw people wearing the colors with a Utah or a BYU hat. Brad wore a red ReAL shirt and I wore my navy one. Always good to find some unity in Utah.

Brad was not cooperating with taking pictures, so that's why this ain't a good picture of us.

Side note, One Republic was awesome, even if I'm too short to see the stage over all the tall people's heads. We enjoyed watching moms dance, high schoolers act retarded, and the poor little kids who were falling asleep in their dad's arms. Good concert.

The Whole Band (picture taken on tip toes with arms up high)

Jacob's Run

There is a little boy in our ward who has a regressive neurological disorder, where he was born normal, but his body was always behind regular progression until he is now unable to move at all. He is the cutest kid and always smiles. Our ward decided to do a 5K run/walk for him to help his family with all of his medical costs. The whole community pulled together and it was so much fun.

This was my first 5K in 5 years I think. Needless to say, I was out of shape because I have not been running every day, and to top it all off, I had a head cold. Brad had his 2 pulled hamstrings (one from spring softball and another from 2 weeks ago during fall softball). I had taken dayquil, had tissues and cough drops in my pockets, and thought that I would just stay behind with Brad when he needed to rest. Ha ha Brad ended up staying behind with me. I did okay the first 2 miles, but I was out of gas after that. So we walker most of mile 3, and then Brad got me to run in the last .3 miles or whatever it is. With all the little kids in the race, some ran/walker, but others were on bikes or scooters. I really wanted a scooter. But I'm glad that I pulled through, with the encouragement of Brad. They had a big breakfast to welcome us all back after the 5K, which was awesome. There was also a silent auction with some really neat stuff that was all donated. It was fun day, and we found out that the event brought in 17K (after expenses) which is so awesome.

Brad and I just laugh because we ran in together at the end of the race, and yet they have our times listed as a minute apart....Now there is a 5K Foam Fest that I want to do. Do I enjoy running? Heck no! But this involves obstacles, mud, and a giant foam slide. So at least the 5K is spice up with stuff (plus the shirt looks pretty cool). Maybe, now that it is starting to cool down to Fall temperatures, I will go running so I'm not so out of shape.

Summer Adventures

In order to catch up on the fun things we have done this summer, I'm gonna attempt to do it in one post with pictures even! So this year was pretty exciting fireworks wise, since aerials were legal in Utah. For the weekend of July 24th, my parents and little sister came to visit. That morning Brad and I saw HP 7.2. We were both a little disappointed with some of things that were changed. Then my family got here and we went to the Real game!

There was a fireworks show afterwards and it was awesome!

My dad was excited about the aerials, so we went to a stand and he bought quite a few. Sunday we set some off for our own show. Then on Monday, July 25th, it was supposed to be nice and warm, so we went to float the Weber River. Too bad the sun never came out and it started to rain. So we got a little cold (Robyn and I especially). It was still fun, just not what we were hoping for.

The first weekend in August, we went up with our friends Ashley and Sean, to Snowville UT, where Ashley's family owns a lot of property. We road 4 wheelers, horses, and Brad and Sean had fun with a potatoe gun.

This last weekend, Ashley, Sean, Brad, and I all went up to Island Park. It was nice and cool. Ashley and Sean had never been to Yellowstone, so we went and saw all sorts of geyers, hot spots, and stood on top of a volcanoe (Grand Prismatic). Ashley and I were very happy that Yellowstone did not decide to explode right then. We also went to Mesa Falls and Big Springs. Both gorgeous areas in Idaho.

Young Love

I teach the 5 (turning 6) year old class in church. There are usually 9 kids and they are cute, but can be quite a handful. While being extremely loud and rambunctious, they can say the funniest things though. This last Sunday, when we were leaving Primary to go to our class, on of the girls asked me if she could go tell Landon something (Landon is 8 and in a different class). I told her that she could after class.

When we were getting towards the end of class, this same girl (Quincy) was talking to one of her friends and I heard her say that she liked Landon. Then all the girls (there are 7 in the class), started talking about this boy Landon. Quincy and another girl, Gracie, talked about how they both really liked him. By this time, they were practically shouting. I told them that they should be more quite, or Landon would know that they like him. Quincy then looked at me and in all seriousness told me, "I don't like Landon, I LOVE Landon. I'm going to marry Landon. I want him to know that I love him too." Then Gracie told me that she also loved Landon and wanted to marry him.

Now, Quincy is a kid who believes that what she says is fact, and all the other kids act that way as well. So, she looked at Gracie after this and told her, "You can only marry one person and I'm going to marry Landon." Well, this devastated Gracie. She came crying to me. I hugged her and told her that it was okay. I then told her that I liked a boy when I was 5 too and that guess what, I did not marry that boy. Gracie looked at me and said "Really?" I told her that it was true and that I did not meet my husband until college. I told her that she had a long time to meet lots of boys and pick one to marry. Gracie seems consoled by this and then looked at me and said, "I hope Quincy forgets about Landon."

I had to try so hard not to laugh. A few days later, I heard that Gracie made a present for Landon. These girls are so cute, and their little resolves to get this boy crack me up. I want to warn Landon's parents that he has a few admirers in my class who are pretty serious about their son. It will be funny to see what happens when they all get older.

Leonard

I love music! Between the ages of 16-20 I was pretty obsessed with music and found out about a lot of good stuff. Probably helped that I had some boring summers with not enough work so I did was listen to AOL radio.

Well, when I got an ipod for christmas in 2008, I put all this fantastic music into itunes and continued to collect more music (thank you friends, roommates, and siblings). All was fantastic and my 30gb ipod was filling up really fast, until my computer decided to have some hard drive breakdown. So when my computer could only be on for maybe 5 minutes before the blue screen of death came on, I stopped syncing my ipod and adding music. My last sync was January 1, 2010. Yes, I do remember it well, and that I turned on my computer to add Lifehouse and then turned it off.

Brad continued to add music to his computer, music I liked too, but to sync to his computer meant losing all the music he did not have. So I have not synced it for almost 4 years. Brad has tried countless times to fix my laptop, but it would not fix. So when we bought our fantastic desktop, and after much of Brad's coaxing, I finally decided it was time to sync my ipod. So over the past 2 months, I have found all my cds, put them on the new computer, and had Brad help me to get some of the music that was vital to my ipod that we did not have on cd. It still took another 2 weeks, but I finally updated, erased, and synced my ipod (who is named Leonard), today.

Brad thinks I'm ridiculous. I was worried that the process would kill my poor ipod, but Leonard is hanging on. And I am getting more music, while still losing some (like Faith Hill, Tim McGraw, etc). But I can finally buy more music and actually put it on my ipod. Now I just have to get some missing music/cds from my older sis and all will be well.

Babies Everywhere!

Due to all the facebook announcements of babies/pregnancies, an old youtube video came to mind.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JC2gIPnUCgw&feature=player_detailpage

As Blogger won't post youtube videos, please use the link.

This commercial was big my college freshman year, at least big with my apartment (all thanks to Dave Hansen for introducing it to us).

WARNING: This commercial is weird and I sure hope it was not ever broadcasted. It is best enjoyed during late hours when anything is funny.

Old memories can lead to funny Stories

With our new computer, Brad and I have been trying to get everything from our laptops onto it. As my poor laptop is practically dead, this was quite a feat, but Brad is amazing. We managed to get all my music of it and some other files that I had completely forgotten about. I came home from work one day and Brad looked at me and said, "So, did you ever find out what happened on the doorstep with Joe?" I had no idea what he was talking about. Brad kept going on quoting a file he had found on my computer that was about some dream I had had during my freshman year of college. Oh my goodness, I had forgotten all about them. And now, Brad will make sure that I never do because he thinks they are hilarious. My dreams about my crush. Things that part of me wishes I would have deleted. But a bigger part of me has found it all hilarious too because it's funny to remember what I was like when I was 18.

Along with some of these funny dreams, I also found my electronic copy of my apartment's quote wall. Oh man, Brad finds nothing on it funny, but I can't read it without cracking up. I don't even remember what all of the quotes are in reference to, but goodness are they funny. Thank goodness for word documents that Brad salvaged for me, so I can remember my ridiculous self and the fun times my roommates and I all had!

How Fast are you? Ella Fast!

In high school, Brad and his friend Josh loved to go to speed street to race in these fast go carts. Brad loves to talk about the time when they had the whole place to themselves and did 100 laps. So, when Brad found a coupon for Fast Karts, he got really excited. Now, I am not much of a speeder. I like safe speeds, especially when we are talking about little carts with other people zooming around you. But, Brad told me that it would be fun, so we went with our friends, Sean and Ashley.

Luckily, we were able to run the track with just the four of us. You start with 5 qualifying laps, to decide what order you will do the remaining 15 laps in. I was third and Brad was of course first. It was actually pretty fun, but I ended up going the slowest out of everyone cause I would really slow down around turns. I never got lapped though! And Brad got stuck behind Ashley for a few laps and couldn't get around her, until he of course bumped her so she spun out (which is against the rules). Ha ha. But we had fun.

The place has you get a "driver's license" where you have to give a racing name. As Brad had already been to this place, they already had him as Caboose. We also had Holjiecow (Sean), Bashley (Ashley), and Ella Fast (me). Brad had to come up with my name, cause I was at a lost for anything. It was fun, even if I went 2 seconds slower than Brad (and my face was probably very similar to the girl's in the picture).

Lagoon - It's what fun Is not

Apparently in Utah and surrounding states, the only theme park is Lagoon. I have always heard about Lagoon from people in Utah and they make it sound fun. After marrying Brad, a utahn, I finally got the opportunity to go (I believe this was in Oct. 2009). Well, let's just say that it was packed (and I hate crowds) and short rides were not worth the extremely long lines. And Brad did not enjoy it much either, even with all the halloween stuff.

A week ago, Brad suggested that we buy a book at Deseret Book so we could get discount Lagoon tickets. I'm all up for any reason to buy a book, so I agreed. So we went to Lagoon on a Saturday, when it first opened. Within 1.5 hours, we had ridden 8 rides. We then walked around pioneer village, got hungry and left after being there for a total of 3 hours. 3 hours for $32 per person. Lagoon is doing this bounce-back program where you can go back within 10 days of your initial visit, for only $10. Due to lack of other activities, we decided, why not? As we did all the rides, we decided to do all the water activities. However, after waiting for friends, who flaked out on us, we got there around noon. The park was packed. The lazy river was so packed, it was not moving. (Lagoon has a water park portion called Lagoon-a-beach). It was miserable. We went on the Ferris wheel, rattlesnake rapids, and then left because every other line was ridiculously long and lockers were expensive.

I have sworn to never go to Lagoon again. Now, growing up in NC and California, I had the opportunity to go to many other theme parks (Magic Mountain, marine world, universal studios, paramount great america, and busch gardens). These parks have decent rides that last longer than 30 seconds, safer rides, and are cheaper than Lagoon. So after wasting money on a ridiculous park that has been around since my grandparents were young kids, I will never go again.

On a side note, there was a rumor going around that Six Flags was going to buy Lagoon, and when I heard that, I laughed.

Proof of Mexico

Well, here are pictures from our cruise.

<- This is a picture taken while one of us was parasailing in Cabo San Lucas.

We swam with dolphins in Puerto Vallarta.

One of the elegant dinner nights.

We walked along the beach in Puerto and it was a gorgeous sunset. ^

The whole group: Sean, Brad, me, and Ashley. And of course while in So Cal, we went to BJ's! We got Sean and Ashley hooked.

Also while in Cabo, we went to Lover's Beach and the Arch. You have to take a water taxi there and because the arch is at Land's End (the very southern most point of Baja Mexico) the waves are crazy dangerous.

We had a fun time.

Another Month Gone

I can't believe it's June already! This year is flying by. Well, lately we haven't done too much exciting stuff. We have played lots of mini golf. We played mini golf at every place down in provo, but now that we are up in kaysville, Brad wants to try every place up here. So far we have done 3 different ones. Brad also is playing softball and he is on two different teams. He loves softball, and I am the silent wife who watches the games/beats his fruit ninja scores. The game last friday he pulled his hamstring running to first base. Poor guy. His mom and I laughed really hard when he had to have his Dad run for him.

For memorial Day, my sister Robyn came down and stayed with us. She did homework, we played mini golf, and watched movies. Brad had to work memorial day, so Robyn and I just hung out and played cards. We attempted to play eygptian war, but we both couldn't remember the rules, so it turned into regular war.

Last weekend, my good friend Katie, from California, was in town. So we got together and went to kneaders for breakfast. Their french toast was really yummy. It was all you can eat, but we were too busy talking to get more food. But we sat outside and enjoyed some sunshine and had fun catching up on the past year. It was fun and my nose got pink.

I have been reading a lot on my days off. I have read Work and the Glory 1&2, The Gurnsey Literary and Potatoe Peal Pie Society, The Year of Fog, and I started the Screwtape letters. I didn't like the year of the fog and the screwtape letters didn't hold my attention. But I will keep finding more books in the house, and eventually get a library pass in davis county so I can find more books to read when Brad isn't home.

We did get a new computer! Exciting for us. We found an awesome Memorial Day special and since Brad's laptop is dying and mine is dead, we bought it. Windows 7 seems cool. I haven't done a whole lot with the computer, so maybe today and tomorrow I will have time to dink around and figure it all out.

We finally have all the pictures from our cruise, but it is a huge task to go through them all. I tried this morning. But maybe I will get up the gumption to post some of my favorites. Till then, I hope everyone is enjoying some good, much awaited, sun shine.

If I Was a Betting Person...

I have determined that I am going to die from a heart attack. And not because i'm unhealthy.

For all who know my husband, he loves to laugh. He also loves to scare people. Well, I startle very easily. When we lived at Wymount and had a walk-in closet, I knew Brad was in the closet, but when I walked in and saw him, I jumped. We both can laugh about it now cause it is ridiculous that I jumped when I knew he was there. But, that's how jumpy I am.

Brad's favorite thing to do, is hide around a corner and jump out when I turn it. Most of the time he is walking right ahead of me and its just after I turn the same corner he did that he jumps out at me and I scream. He told me that he does this cause it's funny and I always hug him right after. So, I stopped hugging him for comfort after. Now I hold my heart. I tell him that it hurts cause I can feel my whole insides jump, causing my chest to hurt, but he still does it.

Soon, I'm gonna be like Hermione and carry a mirror with me to look around corners. Except, I would probably jump when I saw his reflection.

So, when you have heard of my death some day, I'm sure it will be because my heart stopped and couldn't take the jumping anymore. (No worries, I'm not planning on dying soon, I just have to tease Brad. I guess its his way of making up for all the scary movies I refuse to watch with him).

Oh, and I promise that I will attempt to post some cruise pics...soon.

Tired of Being Pasty

This has been one extremely long winter, and I know this for a fact because Brad told me that the other day that he is sick of winter. And for all who know Brad, that is saying something. Needless to say, we have both been wanting to escape the cold and go somewhere fun. And we love cruises! I mean come on, it's a vacation that is already all planned. A floating hotel, endless amounts of food, and activities, all while traveling to fun places. We really wanted to go to the carribean, but air fare costs as much as the cruise (at least). So we are going to the Mexican Riviera. We have done it before, but it's close and 7 days long. And we are going with some friends.

I'm excited to say the least. No work for a week. Plus we will spend some time at the beach in So Cal and hit up BJs to have the best pizza in the world and a pzookie or two :) And this is all around my birthday! Now, I just have to pack...the hardest part of trips. Brad will be surprised to come home and find clothes strewn across our bed. I'm still trying to pick out my outfits. Oh well, soon we will be on the road for a fun adventure in the sand. And a tan wouldn't be bad either.

Graduation!

Brad had his graduation last weekend! My parents were in town for it and all of his family was there! It was fun and the sun finally came out after friday's graduation, so us and the parents walked around campus and enjoyed the nice nature walk.

I'm so proud of him! I feel like his graduation ceremonies went faster than mine, but that's probably because I was sitting with family and got to run around being Brad's personal paparrazzi. I just felt bad that he didn't get to sit by any of his friends cause they had assigned alphabetical sitting. Oh well.

Jello!

I opened the cupboard today and saw boxes of jello. One of the boxes had a thing on the back talking about Jello Jigglers. As a kid, my mom made these all the time! And us kids loved them! She would always do the good flavors too, like strawberry and raspberry.

I remember standing next to her as she cut out the shapes, so I could eat the scrap jello. She made dinosaurs for my brother, and eggs at easter. So yummy. Now I want to go by some cookie cutters so I can make my own jello jigglers!

Happy Easter!

Long Days and Gradudation

So I survived my week of working 3 13 hour days. And now that it is Thursday, and officially my weekend, I have to say that I love it. 13 hour days really are not that bad. It did not feel extremely long like I thought it would. Plus, I work with providers who love me and think i'm terrific and Mckenna, who makes me laugh and helps me out a lot. So overall, good. I did get yelled at by some patients, but I also had plenty of patients tell me how cute I am. And I have also discovered Healthy Choice and Lean Cuisine meals, which are pretty good. Biggest bonus, is that I avoid all the gossip and bad feelings of the other side of the office.

With all this work change, I have completely lost track of time. I keep thinking that it is still March and catch myself trying to write march on paperwork at work. Then yesterday, Brad reminded me that he is graduating next week! Crap! He hasn't ordered a tassel yet or mailed out announcements! So today I mailed announcements and called a bunch of places online. I found one place that won't make me order a billion tassels. I just hope it gets here soon, cause we kind of need it in 7 days!

But Easter is next week and my parents will be here! I'm so happy! I just love spring and easter, if only the weather would help it to feel like spring.

I saw this craft at Roberts, too bad I missed the class to make it. Oh well.

Work

Work is such an awful name of dread. Maybe if work was called Play it would be more enjoyable, you know, change everyone's outlook or something. The only time I like "work" is when I'm listening to Jimmy Eat World.

Well, on that note, I am changing my work schedule. I have been working 5 8's, which was great when I lived in Provo. But now that I live in Kaysville and drive an hour to get to work, driving to Utah Valley every day sucks. So when my managers proposed the idea of me working 3 13's, I had to say yes. Granted, I'm really worried about getting off at 9ish and driving home. I'm not very good at sitting still and staying awake when I'm tired. Hence why I fall asleep in sacrament meeting, why I fell asleep in early morning seminary, and why I fall asleep in morning meetings.

But this change will hopefully be better for more than just not having to drive so much. Work has been driving me crazy lately. I feel like I am pulling a lot more weight around the office than other people. I run myself ragged trying to get everything done and it wears and stresses me out. To top it all off, what do my fellow employees think of me? That I work hard, but that I do more paperwork stuff and avoid answering the phones and rooming patients. When they told me this I wanted to scream! I am on the phone all day, or rooming patients, and barely have time to get my notes and packets for tomorrow's patients done. I miss lunches trying to get my packets done and all my questions answered. But because my desk is separated from all the other MAs, they seem to not notice everything I do. Apparently when I walk past them to get a patient's chart to room them, they don't notice. Granted, they are all talking together, so who can blame them right? On top of this, there is a ton of drama in the office and I'm sick of it all. I just want to work in peace and for everyone to pull their weight.

So, how does my change in schedule fix this? Well the office is split up, so one side has physical therapy, psychology, and 2 providers who see regular follow-ups, and the other side is the rest of the 6-8 providers. I am going to sit on the PT side with the 2 providers and just help them all day. I like these providers, we get along great, and I will be away from the drama of the other workers. So hopefully it works out great and I can stay awake during my drives. I start Monday and I can't wait, cause even though my desk space is a lot smaller, I think I will be much happier (or so I hope) and not hate my job so much.

So now I just have to get some books on tape and hope that those will help my drive.

We Own a Shark!

So, with me working in Orem and Brad working in West Valley, we needed to get a second car. During Brad's month and a half of no job/school, he looked online for cheap cars to use to drive to work. After much looking, he found an auction in Salt Lake with a bunch of "good" cars. So he bought one. And yes, I was there and did not mention that I hated it, thought it looked like crap...he had just been looking for so long and I wanted to get out of there.

This is the best picture, there is some pain missing. And I just hate Focus'. Well after buying the car, we had to replace the battery and we were told the head gasket may need to be replaced. Great. So Brad decided to sell it. Which he did. By this time, he was working, so we had to carpool. Which meant he had to wake up really early so I could drop him off and hour early and get myself to work barely in time. Not so much fun. So then he looked for a new car. And looked, and looked, and looked. It was pretty much an obsession. Brad always was checking KSL and calling on cars that sold minutes after they were sold. We were starting to think we needed to maybe get a newer car, but then, Brad found this Hyundai Tiburon.

He had almost bought one in high school and has always liked them. So when we went and met up with this cute and very honest hispanic lady, she told us she just replaced a ton of the engine (radiator, hoses, etc.). The car is in good condition, has a nice radio, and she lowered the price for us because we were a young couple.

So now Brad goes thumping down the road in his cute little car. He just has to get used to sitting so low to the ground. I'm just happy we don't have to look for a new car anymore, cause it's a pain (and I really didn't do anything except drive in them).

Not so Clean

I used to think that rain was clean. It would rain and I would think, well good, now the earth will be a little cleaner. I came to a rude awakening the past 2 weeks when I walked outside in the morning to find my car like this:

Nastiness. So much for clean rain. Hopefully it will stay clear enough for me to wash my poor car this weekend.

A Happy Thought

I don't know about everyone else, but this winter has felt like it would never end it's joy tormenting and freezing me and the rest of the world. So I was pretty happy when I walked outside and saw these cute little flowers popping up! Yay!

The tulips are working on budding too! I just love spring! Thank goodness for flowers.

Exercises...check!

So, I have learned that I have a horrible short term memory. Every monday, my co-workers ask me how my weekend is and it takes me like 10 minutes to even remember what we did. Hence, why I suck at thinking of interesting things to write about that Brad and I do.

Not today though! I injured my right knee playing intramural soccer in Oct. 08', almost broke my LCL, and was on crutches for 1 month. Fun times. When an orthopedic surgeon checked me out, he told me that my knee was structurally fine and that I could do PT, but he thought I would be okay without it. So I didn't. Well, my knee didn't really get better and still hurts a little to this day. On top of that, my left knee had started to hurt randomly during finals in April 08 and the doctors didn't know why without cutting it open. So I avoided surgery and just took advil. Well, now I work with physical therapists, and Gordon took pity on me. He gave me some PT exercises to do to try and strengthen my weak right knee out, and I just found out this week that I had a bursitis, arthritis under my patella, and a tight hamstring tendon (all on my left knee). Ha ha I have 80 year old knees.

So I had these exercises for a while, and got bad at doing them. As I'm excellent at procrastinating things, Brad came up with a rewards system for me. In a 4-week period, If I do my exercises for a certain number of days, I get something (reeses, tator tots, dove, cream slush, paradise cookies, coldstone, and Outback). Well, we have learned that my favorite foods are a great motivator! Brad is a genius, and I am doing my exercises and getting yumminess!

So I am exercising my knees, and obviously not trying to loose weight. Not that getting toned for the summer wouldn't be nice...I just need something good to motivate me for that...ha ha

I love 5 year-olds!

So, now that we have moved and are in a new ward, I was called to be a Primary teacher for 5 year-olds. I have always wanted to be in primary and work with the kids and these 5 year olds are great. Every Sunday, there are typically 6 kids: 5 girls and 1 boy. The girls are all very talkative. I used to think that there were a few quiet, reserved girls, but I have learned that they can all be loud. The things they talk about and how animated they get, makes me laugh. I have a hard time being upset that they aren't paying attention cause they are so funny. And, even with all the talking, they do actually hear most of what I try to teach.

Last sunday, Austin (the one boy) wanted to say the prayer, and what did he pray for? He was thankful for tv and video games and asked that we could have fun playing them. It was so hard not to laugh during his cute little prayer. All the girls will start to talk about their "babies" (their younger siblings). It all starts with one girl talking about her baby, and then like dominos, they all talk about them. Quincy, is the most animated about every thing. If I tell her to sit still/pay attention, she will give me this look that makes me want to laugh so hard.

5 year olds are great though, because they all want to help. They all want to pray, give a talk, hold a picture, etc. And I can't blame then for having short attention spans after being in church for a few hours. I'm ansy too. So every week we play games and color and they all show me how good they are at writing their names. I just want to take them home with me, but one hour is perfect, cause then their anxiousness stays cute and they smile at the end.

On a different note, Brad started his job as a physical therapy aid! He likes being able to finally do something, and even though his patients' ages aren't ideal (they are virtually all elderly and not all motivated) he gets to use what he studied in school. Plus they are moving into a brand-new facility (Hunter Hollow), that I got to tour last week. It is super nice and big, and does not smell like a decrepit nursing facility. Yay for work!

Moving...again

So 4 moves in 3 years. I guess that's a little excessive, especially since we aren't in the military. Lets review our different apartments, just for kicks.

1. Wymount prison cell. Yes that's what it felt like with the cinder block walls. But that pantry was huge and you could store everything in that apartment (there just wasn't any living space).

2. Old house. Emphasis on old. Lots of living space, no bathroom outlet, and no heating control. No bueno.

3. 300 S. Apartment. Liked this one. Looked nice, enough living space, and we made the storage space work.

4. Now, we have moved to Brad's parents house and are in the basement.

Why? Because the price is right. That really is what it comes down to. Health insurance is such a joke this next year (and I can't currently find the new cards in this moving mess...not good). Plus we have a car payment now. And I'm applying to nursing school. And all of Brad's possible jobs are up here in salt lake/davis county. Bad parts: We are in a cold basement, the closet feels microscopic, we share a kitchen, and my commute to work is ridiculous. (FYI: Brad's parents live in Kaysville).

So I'm working on focusing on the positives and enjoying being with family. I do love my in-laws. So that's nice, however, some of the way they do things...well it will be an adjustment. But for now, it really was the best option for us and we appreciate their help. So yipee for 1 hour commutes!