Welcome Home Elder Williams

The big day! Yes, my husband made the "We loves you" and the big heart with a K in it. He's an artist.
Please get in the van. Please. Just get...in...the...van.

Kaitlyn's starting early.

We got to Portland pretty early, so we ate at Ikea and then went shopping. I got an OSU Beavers hoodie (I'm officially in the family now) and Jeff got this vest. Well, not really. But as you can see from his face, he really really wanted it.

Waiting at the airport. Lookin' good, Kev.

Kevin and I were the cool ones who got to hold the sign.

Yay! Kyle's home! It was my first time meeting him. He's fabulous. I have the coolest in-laws. Seriously.

Reunited. The siblings. Jeff, Spencer, Kyle, Andrea, and Joey.

WELCOME HOME KYLE!

Hanging out at the Williams Home

Playing Up and Down the River...
You look great, Joey.
Kaitlyn decided to step in and help Susan.

Jeff's "UDR" face.

Andrea saving the day and helping Kyle fill out job applications. Something really funny happened here, but we can't remember what it was.

Kaitlyn's cool hairstyles:

Brotherly love.

Building shelves

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!