the family ward

So I'm trying out the old family ward these days. I may have been in the single ward scene for a while but as far as I remember cheerios and fruit snacks (and pink mints if you sat by Grandpa Coy) were a staple for little kids at church.

So imagine my surprise when the little family in front of me had the following "treats" during sacrament meeting: peppermints, oranges, pickles, bananas and peanut butter sandwiches.

Last time I checked Sacrament was only an hour. I didn't realize I needed to pack a lunch.

Saving Souls...

I'm tired... like need a stiff drink and a massage tired. Diet Coke can only do so much ya know?

It's the craziest time of the year for us: travel, presentations, events, tours, open houses, more travel. We're all just really, really tired.

We just finished out 8th of 12 open houses. Last night we were in Provo- Cougar Country. We had over 500 people in attendance. I like to think of it as saving souls from Utah County. Last night we saved a lot of souls. Kate reminded me of a very appropriate quote last night..."And if it so be that ye should labor, all your days and bring just one soul unto me, how great shall be your joy".

I'm joyful... and tired.

No sad faces Niners fans...

You know what I love? Sleeping in hotel beds, couches and air matresses that deflate during the night and the plastic sticks to you when you wake up in the morning. It is so much nicer than sleeping in my own bed... especially since I got that 3 inch memory foam on there. It's that time of year again... when no one gets to sleep in their own beds because we are on the road recruiting ALL THE TIME.

I've spent the last three weeks in Arizona and California, but I did throw a few days in there to spend with my new nephew. I'm lucky to work with such great people though. They all give up their lives this time of year and who wouldn't want to have this guy in the room next door right... diet coke and all?

I flew to Cali a couple days earliy to spend a couple days with the nephew. He's 8 weeks old and couldn't be more perfect. We had a couple days to hang out...just the two amigos.
We slept...

hung out...
ate...
drooled... (well he did)
laughed...
... and cried.
and we loved every minute of it.

Then the next weekend my whole fam (including surprise visits by the extended fam) came out for TC's blessing. We decided to cram as much in two days as possible. We started off with family pictures that included David, the homeless man who told my brother and dad how haaaaaaaunted Hanford was. He heard people died... at 12 midnight.

We had the blessing (which my dad did such a great job with) and then a bbq.

I guess there was some confusion on who rented the facilites for the bbq because when we got there there was already a party going on with loots of booz, poker, rap music and lots of 4 letter words that burned our baby's ears. It was kind of like if Carrot Top got stuck in a room with 50 Cent... yeah it was awkward, no one knew what to do and I loved every second of it.

It cost me $50 bones but it was worth it to watch my cousing Chels yell cannonball and jump in the pool fully dressed. (see ab's blog for video proof)

Then the next day we went up to see the 49ers game. Now, I'm not much of a Football fan, but I'm not going to lie I've always loved the Niners. I love Jerry Rice and Jo Montana and like every other mormon girl on earth, I was positive I was going to marry Steve Young. I have never been to a NFL, and I have never seen so many crazy, drunk fans in fb jerzees in my entire life. A fight almost broke out on the row in front of us becuase someone had touched one of his 'boyz'. It was awesome. They lost but that didn't dampen spirits... one guy stood at the bottom of the escalator and gave every single person a high five and said "no sad faces niners fans... no sad faces".

So good to be home, but miss Ab, Matt and that little bug already.

Go Cougars... Priceless

Learning the words to Rise and Shout: $ 0
BYU license plate tee from bookstore: $25
Stylish sunglasses: $49
Dinner with date at the Brick Oven before the game: $50
Below the knee length cargo shorts: $55
Gold CTR ring in the language of my mission: $150
Sony camcorder to tape the big game: $399
Enjoying a good smoke at halftime: Priceless

Crackle, Pop... Snapped

So I realize I'm getting old. That I don't live the "freshmen" life anymore. I love having the house to myself. I love my flower garden. I love quiet.

Luckily, I get some dumb ass 17 year old boys next door to me this summer that remind me why I'm so glad I'm getting old. These boys are a real treat. One of them has such long hair that for the first month I swore he was a girl. They like to do really fun things like jump the curb on their scateboards into my yard, sit on my side lawn and drink beer all night, play hacky sack for hours on end and smoke weed in the lazy boys they have on the porch. These are some real classy boys living the life.

So a couple nights ago they thought it would be fun to light fireworks... until 2:30 am. Then when I went to work the next day they were all over my lawn, and luckily the sprinklers had gone on so they were nice and wet for me to pick up. Then last night they started a little earlier, lighting all sorts of fun ones like fountains, firecrackers, roman candles and something that had this nice screaching sound for a good 10 seconds. They did them so close to my roommates car that she went outside, chewed them out and moved her car. So I guess to be nice they moved them to the back of the driveway... right by my bedroom window... till 1 am.

Now I've always hated it when "old people" complained and ruined the fun, and I always vowed I would never do that person, but guess what... the patience is wearing thin. Very thin.

God Bless the USA

If you know anything about me (and Lisa Watkins) you know I love the good old USA. I love fireworks, rodeos, parades and hot dog eating contests. (Seriously though did you see that guy in NY that ate 68 hot dogs in 10 min... totally impressed). I think we are so blessed to have the freedoms that we have. So in turn, I love anything that celebrates the red, white and blue.

I'm not going to lie, I get a little teary when I hear lyrics like:

"Only in America... where they dream in red, white and blue.

Only in America... where we dream as big as we want to."

or the ever popular...

"I'm proud to be an American, where at least I know I'm free.

Ain't no doubt I love this land... God Bless the USA"

and for our Neil Diamond fans...

"We're comin to America.

Today... My country tis of thee... Today... Sweet land of liberty."

and for all you country lovers...

"Yes there's a lady that stands in a harbor for what we believe.

And there's a bell that still echoes the price that it cost to be free."

(Ok, but seriously, when I was in Philly at the Liberty Bell this is the only thing I could think about and I couldn't stop crying).

Anyway. So we had a fun filled patriotic weekend. Started with Logan fireworks and ended with the Cache Valley Cruise-In. Nothing says USA like old cars... especially since foreign cars are taking over.

The best part about it though is my parents and I did it all on our scooters... yeah the three amigos were three happy chappys. We didn't drive a car once all weekend. Farmers market, shopping, fireworks, cruise-in. Nothing could hold us back, not even when my dad bought 6 pairs of shoes. I'm totally obsessed with the scoots. Seriously was one of the funniest (and funnest) weekends ever.

Where the stars and stripes and the eagle fly.

Where the stars and stripes and the eagle fly.

Loving Summer? No Doubt about it...

Summer vs Winter... or as I like to call it Good vs Evil. I mean seriously. Everything good happens in the summer, evil in the winter. Let's just break it down.

Winter:

Let's see there is snow, ice and cold. I don't enjoy winter activities so I guess my winter activities include shoveling snow, slipping on ice and just being cold. It's always dark, dirty and cold.

Summer:

-Sunshine.

- Pool. Plus subscription to People magazine.

-BBQ's. Curt's Juicy Lucy's and Blue Mandarin Steaks. um delicious.

-Scooters. Uh yeah, I bought this.

- Moochs. Diet Coke with fresh limes.

- Snow Cones. 6 within 5 min of my house.

- Hammocks. The perfect summer nap.

- 4 Wheeling and camping. Bring it.

- Concerts. No Doubt last weekend was fantastic.

I love summer. K bye.

Curse?... or Blessing

Allergies. Horrible allergies. Like the kind that close your throat off, make your eyes swell shut and nose constantly plugged. I get these allergies in the spring, the summer, the fall. Ouside, inside, on the farm, around animals. It's very convenient.

So after years of double to triple doses of claritin, allegra, zyrtec I decided to go to the doc and see if I could get some shots or something. Luckily it wasn't just allergies... apparently I had a deviated setpum and some pissed pollups in my sinuses that blocked 95% of my breating capacity. Oh and did I mention I had lost my sense of smell? So luckily I had this $10,000 surgery which did absolutley nothing. Now I take some medicine that makes my nose bleed and tastes like acid is going down the back of my throat. It's very pleasant.

If you're wondering if my smell came back the answer is no. Going on three years now. Sometimes it's nice... like when a family member or co-worker has gas or when someone cooks fish in the microwave. Other times it sucks... like when you can't smell perfume and have a nervous breakdown in the mens section at Nordstroms... or so I hear.

I know at times I've had a baditute about this and I just need to make some lemonade, whatever the hell that means. Abbey sent me the following article on CNN which I think puts everything in perspective:

"(CNN) -- We've all been there: reached for our food in the office refrigerator, only to recoil from the stench from the crammed containers of decomposing food. When a worker at an AT&T building in San Jose, California, took it upon herself to clean out an office refrigerator during her lunch hour Tuesday, the smell from the moldy food was so noxious that it sent seven of her co-workers to the hospital and prompted the evacuation of all 325 people in the building.

The refrigerator had been unplugged for some time and moved into a conference room for cleaning. When the woman tried to scrub down the mess, the stench from the cleaning chemicals combined with the rotting food. "It caused some to vomit, some to just get nauseous. And it, for us, activated a hazardous incident," Capt. Barry Stallard of the San Jose fire department told the television station.

Firefighters set up a triage area in the building's parking lot. In all, 28 workers reported feeling sick. Seven were taken to hospitals for evaluation. Not among them: the woman who volunteered to clean the fridge. She suffers from allergies, firefighters said, and had had nasal surgery. She didn't smell a thing."

This lady has now become my mentor and my hero. I have a lot to live up to.

May the Fourth be with you...

As my Jedi friends would say... May the Fourth be with you.



I'm sorry, I couldn't help it.

Look Both Ways...

Ever since I was little I've learned that when you cross the street you wait till the light is red, you get a light up sign of a man telling you it's ok to walk, you look right, you look left and IF and only if there are no cars coming you cross the street.

So imagine my surprise when a grown man darts in front of my car. I had two choices... slam on the breaks and hit the man... OR... swerve and miss. I chose the latter. I'd like to call that defensive driving.

Apparently that was the wrong choice becuase next thing I know I got the red and blue flashing lights behind me. As I pull over I see cop cars lined up down the side streets. hmmm.
Come to find out the man sacrificing his life is a cop and they've staged the whole thing to see who will yeild to the pedestrian darting in front of your car.

Some vital things to keep in mind:

• It is about 7:40 pm and I'm heading East which equals the sun is about eye level
• I was going the speed limit
• The man was in a crosswalk, but not at a light or stop sign... just the middle of a street
• Do I find it a coincidence that it was the last day of the month? Well not really. Quotas perhaps?

As the cop pulled up he explained that they were running an expirement to see how many people stopped for the man. They had pulled over 30+ people that evening alone. He was very impressed that I was not on my cell phone and said things like "you look responsible, I'm sure you have license and registration on you"... well no shit sherlock, I'm a law abiding citizen doing everything I should be doing and a man just jumped in front of my car. He apologized that would have to give me a ticket (undisclosed amount so this should be fun) but he would knock of $10 for wearing my seatbelt. Thank you so much officer... you've always been so good to me... like when you came over with my hate crime and did absolutley nothing.

So next time a man runs out in the middle of the road I'll try and decide whether it is better to kill the man or get a ticket. I'll decide this when I see the amount of my ticket.

Welcome to Wingers

So we just survived the week from Hell... Scholars Day and A-Day. So to celebrate we thought we should do the challenge some can only dream of. Wingers is having $10 all-you-can-eat sticky fingers. Name on the board in the front and bragging rights.

The competitors:

Corey Mikkelsen- previous accomplishments include eating his height in subway sandwiches.

Trent Hunsaker- previous accomplishments include eating so much on superbowl sunday that he had to have his head propped up with pillows to see over his stomach.

Scott Klein- he's a rookie but previous accomplishments include eating 37 pieces of pizza in one hour and 12 Del Tacos in 10 minutes.

The challenge:
Make the top three names on the board. Personal best.
$5 buy-in, choose the winner and the number of fingers.

Tactics:
Drowning in ranch, dunking in water (apparently goes down easier), belching... and other bodily functions, baby bites and soda. After 20 or so... they didn't look quite so happy to be there. There were meat sweats, pants undone and laying down in the booth. Yet they ate through the pain.

Accomplishment:
Combined total= 82.5 strips...30,000 calories...1,350 fat grams...450% recommended daily intake...three very full boys.

Board now reads:
1. Trent Hunsaker- 30
2. Scott Klein- 28
3. Corey Mikkelsen- 24.5
4. Who knows...
5. Who cares...

Congratulations boys- you made us proud!

The 801...

Thank you Dave Ackerman.
He's an Aggie... An Ambassador... A Bingham Miner. I thought we had a lot in common. Guess not.

Wedding Weekend

It's been an eventful furlough so far. Ab and Matt had their wedding reception, Matt's best friend Trevor came into town from Atlanta for a few days, the assholes that are working on our road busted the sewer line out front so it floods our basement every five minutes. So we get to shower at the gym and go to the bathroom at the neighbors...real cool. In fact it got a little ugly this morning with my dad the the project manager almost came to blows... all I heard was things like "I'm going to sue your ass and the sons a bitches". Curt had to literally step in between the two of them... who would have ever thought of Curt as the peacemaker. Sorry dad but that guy was huge, my money would have been on him.
Oh, and Curt bought a new handgun. So naturally we had to go try it out... along with the shotguns, rifles, muzzleloaders and two black city boys who had never shot guns "legally" before. Let's just say it was entertaining.

The latest family photo.




My brother is trying to talk me into getting a little handgun. So if "anyone tries to go all Katie Gildea on you, you can take matters into your own hands". I guess that his new phrase for being robbed.

Pretty sure Matt looks like some sort of sniper here.

Trevor thought he looked pretty bad ass in this one.

Someone please tell my mom not to close her eyes when she shoots.


Old Dead Eye.

This is us trying to look tough. Abbey just looks like she smells something rotten.

I know you were expecting wedding pictures, but this is what you get. JaLae don't act like you don't love this about me... you knew what I was when you picked me up. Can't wait to see what the rest of this week of furlough has to offer.