Just for Andrea

It took a few days of discussing getting a tortilla press (discussing it several times a day) before we FINALLY got to the Mexican store in Corvallis to get them. We arrived on Sunday and it took until Wednesday to get these. Andrea and I were pretty thrilled about it.

We made a LOT of tortillas.

Jeff loved it too. He's such a good sport.

Jeff and Kyle just hanging out. They were kinda bored.

Ridiculously long drive home

We thought it would NEVER end. EVER. We left around 9:15 Oregon time and decided to drive through Bend. Beautiful drive...and took way longer than we thought possible. We made the usual stops but no more than 10 minutes at a time. When nature calls, you have to answer...and when I'm hungry, you have to feed me. It's just the way it is. Welcome to life with Jenny. This little cafe was in the middle of nowhere. Literally. We had to get out and switch drivers and pulled over at this place. There was NOTHING else around.
Except this little taxidermy station. It was one of those "things that are funny to me" moments so I had to get a picture.

And, here was another random little area we stopped to switch drivers and stretch our legs. Not exciting. The drive wasn't anything to write home about, but apparently it is blog-worthy.

The speed limit is 55 for a million mile long stretch of road. We went 65, but we can't afford speeding tickets so we didn't go above that. We stopped for some "real" food and gas in Burley, Idaho and checked out hotel prices because we were exhausted. We didn't budget for another $70 so Jeff got some caffeine and we went on our way again.

I chatted with my mom after that and she and my dad wanted us to stop, but we wanted to just get home. 15 hours later, my parents (THANK YOU THANK YOU THANK YOU) got a room for us in Tremonton at the Hampton Inn. It was a little piece of heaven on earth. The perfect ending to our stupid long day. We were so close to being home, but it was 1 a.m. and we really couldn't go any longer. I heart the Tremonton Hampton Inn. It was classy and had an amazingly comfortable bed and it was clean and had a big shower and lots of hot water and yummy breakfast and noon checkout. We went straight to Maddie's baseball game after we checked out, then went grocery shopping, and dropped stuff off to Joey and Amy. I've never been so happy to get home at 4 p.m. on a Saturday.

Thanks to the Williams fam for the fabulous trip! It was a much needed break from life in SLC. We love you guys! Welcome home, Kyle!

I should probably start seeing a therapist...

I have a confession to make. I have serious anxiety about having kids. It's not even the whole being pregnant and the actual birthing process. My anxiety probably stems from both Jeff and me being middle children...or something like that...we like to throw that in whenever we can.
See, our nieces and nephew are pretty much the greatest kids ever. And SO ridiculously cute. I can't get enough of them. They're smart, funny, super fun to play with and just overall great kids.

Here's my fear though: what if our kids are duds? I mean, what if they're not very cute and look super alien-ish? And what if they have zero personality and don't do anything funny?

I hang out with Maddie and Sam every Wednesday and every week I call Jeff with 1 or 2 or 10 hilarious things that they did. Every time I take them somewhere, people comment on how cute they are. I totally take credit because I'm the auntie and I'm never going to see these random people again so I just go along with the fact that they think they're mine. And then there's Kaitlyn who is absolutely adoreable. Seriously. Big brown eyes, great hair, everything. And Avery? She's brilliant and talented and just fabulous.

With all these super great kids around, what if ours turn out to be the lame ones of the bunch?
I know this is an irrational fear. I just had to get it out there so when we do have kids, you can all validate me and tell me how cute and funny and smart they are.

And this, my friends, is why I should probably be in therapy...not doing therapy for others.

Pre-Oregon Adventures

Oquirrh Mountain Temple:
Hydrocephalus Walk.
I just think this picture of Sam and me is so funny. He looks so confused. This picture is pretty much Sam in a nutshell. We love these kiddos.


I love these pictures of my dad, Maddie, and Jeff. I just think they're so cute.

Here's our cool team. Notice the cool shirts on the cool people walking for the cool cause. It was a cool day.

Here is Maddie. She's holding a picture of the Jon Dansie Band because they're pretty much BFF's. I don't know how we got this shot of her looking so thrilled, but it's pretty lucky because she was a lit'l overwhelmed with everything going on.

Maddie telling Jeff a secret and probably giving him some random present or something. She has a great imagination.

We heart the Jon Dansie Band. Check out the rockstar pants and boots. Seriously. They're fabulous and love Maddie and she loves them. It's a good thing going on.

Thanks to everyone who helped us with the fundraising! There were a lot of truly awesome people involved in this and it was so great to see people make such a huge effort to raise money and awareness for the Hydrocephalus Association.

My Wife

I would like to take this time to say a few things about my wife. I love my wife very much. She makes me increadably happy. My wife is smart, wise, loving, kind, patient, and strong. She is an increadable woman.

Vegas, how I loathe thee

The last time I visited Las Vegas, I left with the intention to never return; and I had every intention of keeping my intention. I HATE Las Vegas. The only way it would be cool is if you:

1. have tons of money with which to gamble
2. enjoy drinking alcohol and smoking (any kind of herb)
3. enjoy looking at strippers
4. enjoy the company of prostitutes
   

I:

1. am poor (no mon, no fun, your son)
2. don't like to drink or smoke (I like my reasoning skills and [generally] my health)
3. don't like to look at strippers (Wife)
4. don't enjoy the company of prostitutes (Wife, ...Wife, STD's)
   

However, I do love the OSU Beavers. I'm not sure why. I guess it has something to do with loyalty. I'm like Ron Weasley, intensely loyal with bouts of hatred. So I love my Beavers and needed my yearly fix (I was unable to get to a game last year). The Beavers were playing the UNLV Rebels a couple of weeks ago, so we decided to make the drive. Recipe for disaster, nay, annoyance:

• 6 hour drive
• 4 guys
• 3 Williams brothers (love ya)
  

Anyways, to make a long story short (which this has turned into [long, not short]) we went to the Beaver game. The Beavs barely made it through with the win (typical beavers). We left the next day. My favorite part was how many Rebels fans there were after their loss who kept yelling "Beavers Suck!" to which I reply "Um... we won moron" Here's a couple of shots from the bar before the game (we needed a place to watch the other games that day). Kevin was down for a conference, so was able to join us for the weekend, that was fun.

Spencer spent the weekend on the phone arguing with Carly. It was pretty funny and quite annoying. I think there were even a couple of hang-ups. They are engaged now, btw. Congrats guys. (the arguing continues) -Love ya.

Road trip...

...is coming up. Jeff's brother Kyle is coming home from his mission on Monday. Jeff got a ticket to fly home for the event. With school and practicum, it didn't seem feasible for me to go. On Tuesday morning before leaving for work, Jeff suggested that he cancel his flight and we drive up to Oregon together. 14 hour drive each way. Brutal. I thought about it during the day and talked to my practicum supervisor who is absolutely fabulous and, well, we're taking a road trip. Totally last minute and we're excited to see Jeff's family and I get to meet Kyle and to have a few days away from our school/work/homework routine. Wish Jeff luck! I'm not so pleasant during loooooong drives.

Funny husband

I have no attachment to the U of U. I'm going to school there because it was a convenient choice for my second time in college. Jeff LOATHES the U. We happened to each be wearing school shirts so here is the picture. Jeff titled the picture 'Good vs. Evil':



Our house is kept at a pleasantly cool 69 degrees. We like to have it a little chilly and love curling up under blankets. We'd both rather be cold than hot. I believe this picture was taken on Labor Day as Jeff was doing his homework. Yes, he is wearing a snuggie. These things are great! He bought them for me for my birthday after we made fun of them and then I decided I wanted one:

This was taken at the Ephraim cemetary. I was done with the day. Jeff has a knack for capturing these oh-so-attractive times of mine. I look pregnant, but don't be alarmed. There is definitely NO bun in the oven yet:

And, here is my cheesey hubby at the Manti temple after my cousin's wedding. Apparently this is the same smile our brother-in-law Kevin does sometimes.

Say what?!

Sometimes Jeff says funny things that he means to be flattering, but they come out a little weird. We were putting flowers at the cemetary in Ephraim after my cousin's wedding and I wanted three of Jeff's M&Ms. Jeff handed me these and said, "I'm giving you three yellow M&M's because you're the prettiest flower in the cemetary." Now that's love.

I had already eaten one of the yellow M&M's and then Jeff said, "Let's take a picture! Turn your ring around so there's some bling in it!" We thought orange was close enough to yellow (we really chose orange because of the Beavers).

Classic

At the beginning of August, we went to my cousin's (congratulations to Alecia and Sam!) wedding in Manti. When we were outside after the ceremony, we saw this other bride who was wearing a cloak or something. And a long sleeved dress. And remember that it was a million degrees outside because it was August. Try to ignore the other person in the picture. I had to be sneaky and this was the best one I got. Imagine the glory of the cloaked bride.

Vernal and July 24th

Bees game pictures from July 24th when there wasn't actually a Bees game but a homerun derby:

Here we have Barry, his girlfriend, Adam, and Tara. Plus Kayleigh's arm.

Megan, Crystal, Lydia, Me, and Jeff.

It was fun hanging out with all our friends again!

Here are the Vernal pictures...I'm sure you've all been anticipating this moment...


This is the view on the drive. Very boring.



Here we are. It was very bright and very hot.


Here is a cool view. Don't mind the finger in the corner.

Here we are again. We're just off to the side of the doors.

The whole thing. Very small. Very pretty.

I saved the best for last. This was at the Bees game. This guy was sitting just a couple rows in front of us.

WICKED comb-over. 'Nuff said.

Homework

It's been a pretty busy semester with both of us back in school. I have mountains of homework. However, I have successfully (every day for the past 5 days) found every other thing that needed to be done and have been really productive on those things, but I just can't seem to get these papers done.
I'm very much about taking breaks during homework. Especially when writing long papers or reading textbooks (which is all my homework is). Unfortunately, I feel really proud of myself after writing one or two sentences and have decided that measely amount of work merits taking a break.
Let's just say it's going to be a long 2 more semesters for me...but come May 7, 2010, I'm FINISHED! I can't wait. Either can Jeff. :)
Jeff has been great with his homework. I even helped him last night instead of doing my own. I know, I know. What a good wife, huh. He's super focused and gets things turned in. I, on the other hand, struggle.
If anyone has new and exciting tips on motivating me to do homework, post them. I'll read them instead of my textbooks.

One of those days...

Ever have one of those days where you
-get up late (this is a daily thing for me. I love and hate the snooze button)
-have the shower turn ice cold while you have conditioner in your hair and soap on your body
-miss the shuttle and drive to school instead (to pay $8 for parking at the library) only to make it to class later than the time the next shuttle would have dropped you off
-have to stop for the trax train in the traffic circle
-have to stop at a light that's not even an intersection so people can cross the street
-finally get parked and into class where only front row seats are available because on time people naturally sit in the back
-then realize you have forgotten an absolutely crucial object that normally goes in the small right side pocket of your jeans? And without this object, you immediately start freaking out because you don't know how you will last the entire day (6 hours in 2 classes with a 20 minute break in between and then the drive home again) without it? Upon discovery of not having said item, your lips become ridiculously dry even though you just applied said item before you left for school and you haven't had anything to eat or drink since then. I think I kinda know how drug addicts feel when going through withdrawals. They can't live without their drugs. I can't live without this:

My Niece Kaitlyn

Kaitlyn is so cute.

A little help?

So, the hydrocephalus walk is coming up in just a few weeks. Jeff and I have struggled with the whole fund raising part for us. My brother in law is doing awesome and the rest of us...not so much. I posted about it a little while ago, but just as a reminder, our niece, Maddie was born with hydrocephalus and spina bifida. We're trying to raise money to go towards the hydrocephalus association.
If anyone wants to donate to our team and sponsor me or Jeff, click on the link above. Or, if you know anyone who has lots of money they don't know what to do with, send them to the link as well. Any little amount helps! Thanks!

Space Bag Magic

Before:


After:


Any questions?

Funny stuff

My sister Emily sent this to me and I was dying of laughter! It's so funny. I don't know where she got it from, but the subject of the email was something about random thoughts from 25-35 year olds. I enjoyed it and think we can all relate with at least one of these situations.

-I wish Google Maps had an "Avoid Ghetto" routing option.

-More often than not, when someone is telling me a story all I can think about is that I can't wait for them to finish so that I can tell my own story that's not only better, but also more directly involves me.

-Nothing sucks more than that moment during an argument when you realize you're wrong.

-Have you ever been walking down the street and realized that you're going in the complete opposite direction of where you are supposed to be going? But instead of just turning a 180 and walking back in the direction from which you came, you have to first do something like check your watch or phone or make a grand arm gesture and mutter to yourself to ensure that no one in the surrounding area thinks you're crazy by randomly switching directions on the sidewalk.

-I totally take back all those times I didn't want to nap when I was younger.

-Do you remember when you were a kid, playing Nintendo and it wouldn't work? You take the cartridge out, blow in it and that would magically fix the problem. Every kid in America did that, but how did we all know how to fix the problem? There was no internet or message boards or FAQ's. We just figured it out. Today's kids are soft.

-There is a great need for sarcasm font.

-Sometimes, I'll watch a movie that I watched when I was younger and suddenly realize I had no idea what the heck was going on when I first saw it.

-I think everyone has a movie that they love so much, it actually becomes stressful to watch it with other people. I'll end up wasting 90 minutes shiftily glancing around to confirm that everyone's laughing at the right parts, then making sure I laugh just a little bit harder (and a millisecond earlier) to prove that I'm still the only one who really, really gets it.

-How the heck are you supposed to fold a fitted sheet?

-I would rather try to carry 10 plastic grocery bags in each hand than take 2 trips to bring my groceries in.

-The only time I look forward to a red light is when I’m trying to
finish a text.

- LOL has gone from meaning, "laugh out loud" to "I have nothing else to say".

- I have a hard time deciphering the fine line between boredom and hunger.

- Answering the same letter three times or more in a row on a Scantron test is absolutely petrifying.

- Whenever someone says "I'm not book smart, but I'm street smart", all I hear is "I'm not real smart, but I'm imaginary smart".

- How many times is it appropriate to say "What?" before you just nod and smile because you still didn't hear what they said?

- I love the sense of camaraderie when an entire line of cars teams up to prevent a dirt bag from cutting in at the front. Stay strong, brothers!

- Every time I have to spell a word over the phone using 'as in' examples, I will undoubtedly draw a blank and sound like a complete idiot. Today I had to spell my boss's last name to an attorney and said "Yes that's G as in...(10 second lapse)..ummm...Goonies"

-What would happen if I hired two private investigators to follow each other?

- While driving yesterday I saw a banana peel in the road and instinctively swerved to avoid it...thanks Mario Kart.

- MapQuest really needs to start their directions on #5. Pretty sure I know how to get out of my neighborhood.

- Obituaries would be a lot more interesting if they told you how the person died.

-Shirts get dirty. Underwear gets dirty. Pants? Pants never get dirty, and you can wear them forever.

-I can't remember the last time I wasn't at least kind of tired.

-Bad decisions make good stories

-Is it just me or do high school girls get younger & younger and wear less & less every year?

-If Carmen San Diego and Waldo ever got together, their offspring would probably just be completely invisible.

-Why is it that during an ice-breaker, when the whole room has to go around and say their name and where they are from, I get so incredibly nervous? Like I know my name, I know where I'm from, this shouldn't be a problem....

-You never know when it will strike, but there comes a moment at work when you've made up your mind that you just aren't doing anything productive for the rest of the day.

-Can we all just agree to ignore whatever comes after DVDs? I don't want to have to restart my collection.

-There's no worse feeling than that millisecond you're sure you are going to die after leaning your chair back a little too far.

-I'm always slightly terrified when I exit out of Word and it asks me if I want to save any changes to my ten page research paper that I swear I did not make any changes to.

- "Do not machine wash or tumble dry" means I will never wash this ever.

-I hate being the one with the remote in a room full of people watching TV. There's so much pressure. 'I love this show, but will they judge me if I keep it on? I bet everyone is wishing we weren't watching this.. It's only a matter of time before they all get up and leave the room. Will we still be friends after this?'

-I hate when I just miss a call by the last ring (Hello? Hello? Crap!), but when I immediately call back, it rings nine times and goes to voicemail. What'd you do after I didn't answer? Drop the phone and run away?

- I hate leaving my house confident and looking good and then not seeing anyone of importance the entire day. What a waste.

-When I meet a new girl, I'm terrified of mentioning something she hasn't already told me but that I have learned from some light internet stalking.

-I like all of the music in my iTunes, except when it's on shuffle, then I like about one in every fifteen songs in my iTunes.

-Why is a school zone 20 mph? That seems like the optimal cruising speed for pedophiles...

- As a driver I hate pedestrians, and as a pedestrian I hate drivers, but no matter what the mode of transportation, I always hate cyclists.

-Sometimes I'll look down at my watch 3 consecutive times and still not know what time it is.

-It should probably be called Unplanned Parenthood.

-I keep some people's phone numbers in my phone just so I know not to answer when they call.

-Even if I knew your social security number, I wouldn't know what do to with it.

-Even under ideal conditions people have trouble locating their car keys in a pocket and Pinning the Tail on the Donkey - but I’d bet everyone can find and push the Snooze button from 3 feet away, in about 1.7 seconds, eyes closed, first time
every time...

-My 4-year old son asked me in the car the other day "Dad what would happen if you ran over a ninja?" How do I respond to that?

-It really pisses me off when I want to read a story on CNN.com and the link takes me to a video instead of text.

-I wonder if cops ever get pissed off at the fact that everyone they drive behind obeys the speed limit.

-I think the freezer deserves a light as well.

-I disagree with Kay Jewelers. I would bet on any given Friday or Saturday night more kisses begin with Miller Lites than Kay.

-The other night I ordered takeout, and when I looked in the bag, saw they had included four sets of plastic silverware. In other words, someone at the restaurant packed my order, took a second to think about it, and then estimated that there must be at least four people eating to require such a large amount of food. Too bad I was eating by myself. There's nothing like being made to feel like a fattie before dinner.

The end.

That is some funny stuff!

Deer Whisperer

I owe the title of this post to my sister, Emily.
A little background info is necessary to truly appreciate the experience I am going to share.

A couple of years ago, we (Emily and her fam, my friend Crystal who is more like a sister, and my mom) were staying at my grandma's house in Ephraim for the Scandinavian festival. My grandma was sick and in the hospital at the time so we were going back and forth between Nephi and Ephraim quite a few times that weekend. It was pretty late at night and Crystal and I were in the mini van driving super carefully through the canyon and watching for deer. We were doing great and right outside of the canyon, a deer comes out of the brush and runs into the side of the van! We were traumatized, but the deer ran off and there was only a small dent in the van. That was my first experience involving a large animal while driving.

+

= a traumatized Jenny.

Back to my recent experience...

On Friday morning, I was driving along Foothill Boulevard. For those who don't live in the area, it is a main street between the U of U and I-215, so it's super busy the majority of the time.
I'm driving along and not even being distracted and off to the right I see a large thing coming toward my car. Right as it runs INTO the side of my car, I realize it's a deer. In the middle of Foothill Boulevard. Just hanging out and following me.

I was obviously totally freaked out, but kept driving. What else do you do? The deer ran over to the sidewalk and started running along that. When I looked in my rearview mirror to see if anyone else experienced the deer like I did, I saw it running across all 6 lanes of Foothill.

My first phone call about the experience was to Crystal since she was with me the last time a deer hit me. Seriously. Who does this happen to?! I then proceedto tell the story to my family and finally Jeff when he was available to chat for a minute. Everyone was laughing hysterically (except Jeff...he did find it very humorous though) and said it's something that would only happen to me.

+


=

I didn't report a claim to my insurance because February was a rough and expensive month for us and Jeff's car (he had a few mishaps...) and it's not like the deer has insurance to pay for the damage. So, I have a really dented car and it's ugly, but I'll just deal with it for now. I don't know why these deer insist on coming to me. I don't even really care for the dumb things.

Deer have officially been moved to my list of stupid animals that I really don't like. Pigeons are number one. Deer are now number two.

Thank goodness the deer was a girl and didn't have any antlers because it hit me hard and those things would have gone through the window. I'm also really thankful that I didn't get hurt and that no other cars were involved in my deer whisperer experience. FYI: they should put deer crossing signs on Foothill Blvd.

You can't make this stuff up. I wish I could though.

Maddie's Birthday

Jeff made this!!

Sunday was Maddie's birthday. She turned 5. We had a bbq at Emily's. It was actually a combined birthday for Mads and Ben. When you're birthday is combined with a kid's, the adult will always get the shaft. I feel you Ben.

The John Dansie band was there to sing for the Mads. The leader is the husband of Maddie's pre-school teacher. She is great and the band was great. The music was fun and the guys were really great. They also created and designed the Maddie Shirt for the Hydrocephalus Walk. Check out their website: thejondansieband.com



So cute:



He's a natural:

I Rock!

By Jeff:
Maddie had her 5th birthday on Sunday. It was fun. Check out the card I made:

The Videos

Thank goodness for Picasa 3! It allows you to crop videos so they are under the 100 mb limit. I still need a good, free, way to reduce the size, but that's for another time...

Here are the videos of Maddie and Sam that i wanted to post before (sorry for the shakes):

Maddie:

And Sam:

I Rock!!!

Lazy Days

Jeff and I decided to stay home and just hang out today. It's so great! We slept in and cleaned up a little. It's 2 p.m. and neither of us have gotten ready for the day or anything. I love lazy days! The plan for the rest of the day is probably watching movies and/or reading. Life is good.

Rockstar baseball player

First of all, Jeff forgot to put this picture on his post. I think it's hilarious. Jeff put his bandanna on because he was sweating so Maddie had to be cool and wear a bandanna like him.

Maddie is pretty much the coolest kid ever. She's the poster child for the new adaptive baseball field that was built in West Jordan. They had the dedication of it on Wednesday evening and Mads threw the first pitch. I'm such a proud auntie!! I'm gonna be psychotic with my own children. I've warned Jeff, though.

Go to this link. Scroll down to the videos and find the one that says "Athletes of all abilities given adaptive baseball field in West Jordan" and watch Maddie throw the first pitch. She's so great. Ignore me though. Just watch the cute kiddos.

(Maddie loved the Bee at first and chased him down. Later on, she HATED the Bee and totally shunned him...)

It's just an amazing experience for all these kids in wheelchairs and with other developmental disabilities to have a place where they can go and experience just being a kid and not have to be "different" from everyone because of things they have no control over. The Rotary Club men who are probably all my dad's age or older are absolutely in love with Maddie and she was a little celebrity. I had a blast being her "buddy" on the field. Emily couldn't get out of work, but we recorded it and took lots of pictures! I won't even attempt to upload the videos, but here are some great pics of our fun night.

Thanks to Jeff for keeping Sam occupied all night! He was great to run around with a toddler so I could be a ridiculously proud auntie for Maddie. Mads and Sam are like our surrogate children. I get fiercely protective of these little guys. I already feel bad for our future children.