Her very own little blog.: 2010

Monday, December 13, 2010

So much to be thankful for!

Does anyone else know and LOVE that Josh Groban song 'Thankful'? I don't think it's technically a Christmas song, but it's on his Christmas album and one of my favorite songs.

I was feeling overwhelmed with gratitude this past week and wanted to share the experience. It's no secret that we live in a very low income area in downtown Ogden, and not all but many of the people in the area struggle to make ends meet. Plus there are many families with children and it's not always easy to afford the necessities, let alone extras like Christmas gifts. But a couple weeks ago we had a HUGE donation given to our ward.

A man from the Fruit Heights area donated about 60 large garbage bags full of tags on- brand new- name brand clothing. I'm talking expensive, high quality department store type of clothing! Men's, women's, children's clothing, shoes, socks, hats and gloves, some jewelry and body wash/lotion, perfume... it was unreal. There were around 15 of us organizing it and it still took about 4 hours, if that gives you a picture of how much stuff there was! We were able to go through it and organize it and deliver a lot of it to families in the ward, as well as have some people come to the church and go through it themselves to pick out things for themselves and their families. Even after all that, there was still a room full of clothing left!

We had our ward Christmas party on Saturday and the ward in Fruit Heights brought dinner, sang carols (including Josh Groban's 'Thankful', hence the blog title), and served the food for our party. They also brought some children's toys to add to the clothing that was left over, and everyone at the party had the opportunity to go through the clothes and toys and pick things out for their families. It was so great to see these people, many who wouldn't have been able to afford Christmas gifts for their children, be able to take a bag of new clothes and toys home for Christmas. I went into the kitchen to thank the women for all they had done, and couldn't get the words out without tears falling down my cheeks. It was such a wonderful example of charity and love, and the true meaning of Christmas.

At the end of the dinner a large box was sent home with each family. When John and I got home and opened the box, we just stood in the kitchen staring at it almost speechless.

Oranges, home baked bread, candy, hot chocolate, dry soup mixes, a book and picture of Christ, popcorn, peanut butter, granola, and a reusable grocery bag with personal hygiene products. All of this was sent home with each family, plus there were many of these boxes left over! I am so grateful for people like the man who donated the clothes and the ward who did such a great service for us. Being on the receiving end of someones service really makes me want to do more for other people and pass along that feeling of love. It's so easy to get caught up in the hustle and bustle and stresses that come along with this time of year but none of that is even relevant to what Christmas is supposed to be about. I often forget that, but it's so important to remember! I hope everyone who comes across my blog is having a wonderful Holiday Season and I love you all :)

Thursday, October 28, 2010

She's Crafty!

Does anyone else watch that Canadian show? She's Crafty? It's on all the time and I can't tell you how many times I have walked into the living room and witnessed John watching it. That's just kind of the way you roll when you don't pay for tv :) It's a pretty goofy show and she sometimes has the most INSANE 'crafts', if they can really be called that. One time she was making a *shrine* for her favorite pet. With pictures and glitter and all sorts of flashy things. We about died laughing over that one.

Anyway, this post has nothing to do with her. I made a bit of an impulse purchase a few weeks ago (we'll call it an investment!) and it has opened up a whole new world to me! Side note- Ignore the cute little puppy dog in the picture frame. This machine means business! I have never been the crafty type, but I've been having a ton of fun working on different projects in the last couple of weeks. It's kind of unreal how much STUFF there is on the internet, when it comes to crafts and sewing. A few of the projects I have finished are future gifts so I can't show them yet, but here are some of the things I've done.

Very first project- Apron. I received my machine in the mail Friday afternoon, then Friday after work I went shopping for the essentials (pattern, fabric, thread, DMD *that's diet mtn. dew for, you non-addicted folks*). I went home, threw a pizza in the oven and popped in some chick flick (must have not been that great considering I can't even remember what it was!) and was up working on this apron until 5:30 am, Saturday morning. Basically that's my way of living it up while the hubby is out of town! Anyway, here's the masterpiece. Excuse the amateur model, I tried getting a picture of it on a chair and it just didn't do it justice. Also, I don't generally run around in black pants and a black shirt but that's what I happened to be wearing last night :)

The next project- fabric pumpkins. Tara found the tutorial and made some, and they were so dang cute I had to try them out. The directions can be found here.

The last project that I just finished up is a grocery bag holder, which can be found here. I made one for my mom yesterday, and then I made this one today. I feel a little bit bad because the one I made today turned out lots better than the one I gifted! Sorry mom :) I'll trade you if you want! I'm excited for this because currently our grocery bags are taking up WAY TOO MUCH SPACE under the kitchen sink, so this will be a good way to take care of that. (It looks a little wonky, but that's just because it's empty)

Anyway, in other good news, I had a totally wonderful 6 days in Anaheim with John. So wonderful that I felt guilty for having so much fun while John was in training! For 3 of the days that I was there, he had to work from 8-4:30. Those days consisted of waking up, working out at the really nice gym inside the hotel, going swimming, lay by the pool (the weather was purrrfect), get in the hot tub, lay by the pool some more, read my book by the pool, drink a dmd by the pool. Grab lunch. Shower. Go walk around and shop/do whatever until John got done at 4:30. HELLO. It was fab. He was a good sport for letting me be spoiled while he sat through mind numbing classes. On the days that he didn't have to work, we did all sorts of stuff. Went to Venice beach, Laguna and Huntington beaches, found sweet stuff in tide pools, went to the Medieval Night's dinner (which was hilariously awesome) and so forth. It was a GREAT way to spend some time together after being away for a month!

I also have to show you these. While I was in Idaho a few weeks ago, I got a text from John "If I was a color, and you were a color, what colors would we be?" I said blue for him and purple for me. It turned out that he was at Venice beach and a person had a booth set up selling these.

Salt and pepper shakers that are little people embracing. Is that the best thing you've ever seen or what? I love them.

Monday, August 23, 2010

Etc. Etc. Etc.

John and I were talking the other day, and he asked me what my favorite camping trip this summer has been. And after racking my brain for a few minutes, I realized I have absolutely no clue! Not just because we have been on countless camping trips, but I couldn't really remember them all individually. And that made me a little bit sad.

For those of you who were around for my first blog, you know I blogged a ton. I loved being able to look back on old posts there and see pictures from different little trips we took and things we did, because otherwise those memories are mostly lost to me.

So here I am :) Making a point to take pictures, and blog more. Simply for my own (and John's) good. Because we do lots of fun stuff and I want to remember it! (Well the good stuff anyway!)
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We don't go to a lot of concerts, but in the past couple of weeks we went to the Tim Mcgraw + Lady Antebellum concert, and the Jack Johnson + G Love concert. Both were really fun! One thing is for sure- if you sit in the grass at Usana... you will witness some interesting things for sure! Take this lady for example:

Yes. That is her butt cheek.

This lady was sitting right in front of us at the Tim concert. She reached down and touched it a couple of times, so she definitely knew the rip was there. Just imagine when she bent over... there was nothing left to the imagination my friends!! All the people next to us were snapping pictures with their phones and cameras... I wasn't sure weather to be emberassed for her or just disgusted! Overall the concert was really fun, and I sat and stared at John in amazment as he sang along with most of the Lady A songs. Neither of us were sure how/why he knew them, but he did. I fell in love with him just a little more that day ;)

While we were waiting for the Jack concert to begin, we went down into the area that had little hippy booths set up to walk around. And out came Jack and G Love on this little platform to perform a couple songs! It was awesome. We were really close to the front and there were just maybe 100 or so people gathered around. It was like a mini private show. Also Paula Fuga did a couple of songs with them.(Click her name to see a video) She is SO talented!

G Love and Jack Johnson

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For John's Birthday we had an awesome bbq rib dinner at his parents house, and Hillary made his Birthday cake. It was pretty creative looking, and tangerine flavored.

There is a long funny story behind the interesting look of that cake, but you kind of had to be there. Bottom line is it was delicious, and hilarious. Happy 27th Birthday Johnathan, you old man :)

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We recently had a campout at Ledgefork with my parents and Tara and Darce and their boys, and Drey. The weather was great and we had lots of fun! Boston and Drey are both 2 and it's so funny to watch them play together. I snapped just a couple of pictures when John and I took the RZR up the mountain. The clouds were rolling in and it was so beautiful.

Nap time

Drey and Uncle John. They're pretty good buddies!

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So due to my lack of blogging altogether, I haven't mentioned that John got a new job as a Revenue Agent for the IRS. We are both really excited! When he found out that he got it, he said "It feels really weird to have a job that you need a degree for." That made me laugh. He finished school last December, but nothing really changed with graduation- other than he didn't have to go back to school when January came around. So i'm really happy for him that things are changing now and his hard HARD work and dedication to schooling is starting to pay off. So far he is loving the job and is doing really well putting his knowledge to the test.

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Last weekend we had the opportunity to steal Drey for a couple days. It's so fun to have that little guy around. My mom dropped him off at my work at 11, just in time for a nap! I was worried about how he would do, but I threw a couple blankets down and turned out the light and he was out for 2 solid hours! The hardest part was keeping myself from locking the Credit Union door and curling up next to him.

We don't really have any extra space in our bedroom for Drey, so we put up the blowup mattress and slept upstairs, with him on the couch. Drey helped John blow up the mattress and thought it was the coolest thing ever. The expression below says it all!

Then there was blow up mattress wrestling, which was undeniably entertaining! (And I promise- there were no tears involved!)

Over the weekend we played at the park (3 times, 1 in the rain) ate cupcakes at Vintage Cupcake Co. (most delicious and prettiest cupcake you will ever have, btw!), went to the farmers market (where we watched a guy get arrested like 15 feet from the big toy at the park... gotta love O-town, right?), took naps, watched the Little Mermaid, and went to a BBQ at Zac and Hill's where Drey played with Harrison and Trevor. It was a busy weekend but we had lots of fun!

Thursday, August 19, 2010

Indian Trail

Prior to yesterday it had been a good 2 or 3 weeks since I had worked out. It's funny because for the most part, I have been sticking to a work out schedule quite well for the past year or so. But in the last month I have been under a lot of stress which = the NEED to get exercise. So naturally I didn't do it when I needed to be doing it the most. It seems like a lot of things go that way and I'm not sure why.

Anyway, it hit me yesterday that if I don't get back into the habit of exercising, I will quickly get back into the habit of NOT exercising. So I texted John and told him I wanted to do the Indian Trail hike here in Ogden, which is kind of hardcore and really gets your blood shooting through your veins within the first 3 minutes and hardly lets up until the end. He was down with the idea as usual. I almost tried to back out at the last minute since it was 98 DEGREES, but we decided to just go for it.

We have done this hike once before, but we only went for an hour and then turned back around. When we did this, we figured we had almost finished it... or that we at least had made it 3/4 of the way... so ever since then I was really wanting to go back and do the whole thing.

So off we went! It's incredibly steep at first, and there are a few spots where the trail is really narrow and gravely with a serious cliff hanger drop off on the side. Like one trip or slip of the foot and you are without a doubt tumbling down the mountain side hundreds of feet to your death.

According to my heart rate monitor, we made it up the first part in 46 minutes, as opposed to an hour the first time. Then we thought here we go... lets finish! Surely it's all downhill from here!

And it was downhill for a couple minutes, and then started to have switchbacks heading back up the mountain side. And then it would go down for a while, and have more switchbacks going up again! And then for a while it was really steep going down. After about 20-25 more minutes of that we were incredibly confused as to how the trail would be ending anytime soon. We stopped to debate our options. Either turn around and go back the way we came. Or keep going, because surely we had to be really really close to the end. And somehow find a ride back to our car that was parked at the trailhead where we started. John wanted to turn around and go back the way we came, but I figured finishing the trail would be pretty quick and easy.

We continued on our way for about 30 minutes (which somehow managed to be uphill again) and thought we must be getting really close by now. We finally came to our first sign. Telling us that we had gone 2.6 miles total, and still had almost 2 miles to go! I about died!! We knew the trail was 4.5 miles long, but for whatever reason we both thought we had gone much farther than we actually had. We stood there for a few minutes wondering how we could have been so clueless, and continued on our way. Luckily from this point on was all downhill. We jogged part of it and we finished the entire trail in 2 hours and 12 minutes.

And then there we were. In the canyon at one trailhead, while our car was at the other trailhead about 5 miles away. I thought about calling and asking someone for a ride, but we took our chances and hitch hiked. It literally took about 20 seconds for a car to stop, a friendly looking young guy, and he was heading in our direction so it worked out just great! He was Dave. Worked for a window company, not in school because he couldn't decide what to study, and spent the last couple summers driving tour busses in Alaska for cruise lines. Definitely my first and most likely my last time ever hitch hiking. But it was quite the adventure!

We were about a .75 mile from the end when we were suddenly in this meadowy forest area. It was soooo pretty and I regret not taking more pictures. Until next time!

Tuesday, June 29, 2010

Our little babies.

How did I know that putting the word babies in my title would capture your attention?

So at the beginning of the month, John and I came home from a camping trip to discover a cute little bird nest in one of our hanging flower pots. Not really thinking much of it, John took the nest out and set it in the yard. We had birds in our hanging pot last summer and it was kind of obnoxious because it's right on the front portch where we spend a lot of time in the summer evenings.

Two weeks later we returned again from another camping trip to discover 2 little blue eggs in the flower pot, right where the nest had been sitting. John grabbed the nest from the yard and scooped the eggs into it, and sat the nest back into the pot. Two days later we discovered that there were now 4 eggs in the pot! So that was fun and cute and we didn't really think much of it again.

Then last week John went to water the plants, and discovered that those eggs were hatching! Right that very minute. 3 of them had already hatched but the last one just had his little egg cracked, and he couldn't seem to get out.

We left them alone so the little one could finish hatching in peace, and checked them later that evening and saw that the little runt still wasn't out of his shell and seemed to be struggling. At this point, we got 2 pairs of tweezers and took turns for about 30 minutes trying to help the little guy get out of his shell. It was so nerve racking! We didn't want to hurt him, but it was pretty clear that he was stuck in there. We think we had scared the momma bird away earlier in the day and that she was probably supposed to be there to help it finish hatching. Anyway, we got the little baby out of his egg and crossed our fingers that we had done more good than damage to the poor little thing.

The next day, they were all still there and all alive, even the little runt! We were so happy :)

At one day old. They are SO tiny! And ugly!

At 6 days old. They have almost doubled in size!

And that's the end of our baby bird story.

In other news, we have already been on quite a few camping trips this summer and have been having SO MUCH FUN. We are lucky that my parents love going camping, and invite us along wherever they go. We can't seem to get enough hiking, biking, and rzr riding lately. I will leave you on that note, with an ample supply of pictures from our summer adventures thus far.

We were soaking from head to toe after this plunge.

Cooling off after a big hike.

Andrew. He is such a little lovie.

Handsome!

Stuck!

Drey. The little ones LOVE rzr rides.

At the end of one hike John and I went on, you had to either cross the river to get to the main road, or backtrack the 90 minutes of bushwhacking we had just done. I'd had enough trailblazing for one day, so we chose the river. Then I chose to walk through rather than attempt to cross on the plank because I didn't want to risk falling in. Glad you can't see the tears welling up in my eyes at this point! Ice cold water + bare feet and lots and lots of rocks + fast moving water = not a happy girl.