The Collom's

Merry Christmas!

2011-12-15T12:03:00.003-07:00

It's nothing fancy or spectacular (hence the reason I'm not mailing any out), but here is a little Christmas card from The Collom's! Hoping your holiday season is filled with love, family and charity!

Disneyland!

2011-12-05T13:51:00.024-07:00

Picture overload!!! 3 years ago my parents decided instead of buying birthday and Christmas presents for everyone, they would put the money towards a family vacation, and every 3 years we would go somewhere new. Well we had our first family vacation in California! We fit 20 people in 4 vehicles and drove the whole way. These pictures are not in order, but the week was pretty mushed together anyway.

We spent a day at the beach and took family pictures and played in the ocean.

All the grandkids (with 2 more on the way)

We ate at that little restaurant at the end of the Pier called Ruby's while the sun set over the Ocean.

We couldn't keep our eyes open

Much better. I love all my sisters!

I found a sand dollar!

Dustin bein' a loner

Family photo

Butt shot

Such a loving family

Poor Leah couldn't see without putting her hands to her eyes.

The gap is for Nathan to be photo shopped in

Aren't we cute?

One night we ate at the Rain Forest Cafe in Downtown Disney, it was good, but super expensive (as was everything there)

There was this cool walkway along a cliff next to the ocean.

There is nature in LA! We spent most of one day searching for the Hollywood sign. My brother Jeremy heard of this park where you could see it and hike to it, but once we were there we realized the hike was like 5 miles, so we drove around some more trying to get a good shot of it for a picture, but we never did!

The leafs at the park were HUGE!

We were waiting for some of the fam to get off of Splash Mountain. The wait was only like 10 minutes because everyone thought it was too cold (70 degrees!)

The girls got to meet some of the Princesses. Here is Savannah and Tiana.

Kambria and Ariel

Lizzie and Belle

I love this picture! Abby is such a girly girl and absolutely LOVES Princesses, and she looks so happy here! But my favorite is her mother, Andrea's, reaction in the background!

They got to meet Minnie

Will walked up to Goofy and stomped on his foot haha!

Goofy and Lizzie

All the girls with Tinkerbell and some other Fairy

There was a GIGANTIC Christmas tree with huge ornaments and presents underneath, it was neat!

Watching the sunset on Venice Beach

The Santa Monica Pier behind us

They Disney Castle

Proof that we were all at Disneyland!

Yay!

Dustin got a hold of the camera and took pictures of my butt...

On Thanksgiving we ate a great Thanksgiving meal at Mimi's!

The Tower of Terror, I love Leah's face in this picture (back row behind Dustin and I) she looks so pale and serious haha.

Kambi cut her head, but Disneyland paid for a new shirt for her!

The first day at Disneyland, by the time we were ready to leave pretty much all the kids were zonked out! This was after we watched the 'Fantasmick' water show which was pretty cool, we had to carry them all to the vehicles.

I don't know how Will fell asleep sitting up like that!

Evalynn...

Abby

Kambi

The kids all got lanyards and pins and they could trade them with any of the workers, they thought that was pretty awesome!

I love this baby girl, such a cute 'fluffy' girl.

The week went by so fast, but it was so fun to be with family, and especially fun to see the kids having such a good time! Dustin and I ventured off and did our own thing one of the days at Disneyland, and we found ourselves pretty bored without all the kiddos. Some of the highlights of the trip would be our first time on Star Tours, the 'spy' in our ship was Dad. (They randomly take a picture of someone and post it for the whole 'ship' to see). The Haunted Mantion was all changed up to The Nightmare Before Christmas. The Pirates of the Carribean ride re-opened after their remodel. Abby tring to get Dustin and I to kiss because "yow in love" and then Abby telling Dustin to kiss her mom so that her dad could beat him up haha! Trying to find our hotel in pouring rain when my phone (GPS) died just a few miles from our destination. (For those of you who have never drove in the Anaheim/LA area, if your not in the correct lane you will be thrown completely off course onto another freeway going a completely different direction!) Dad deciding to drive like a Californian and mom and I freaking out. Amanda leaving her bag unatended and having the D-land police dog come and sniff it out. Trish getting stopped by security for her dangerous apple slicer. There were lots more, but this post is already stinkin' long!

Ultimate Dog Tease

2011-11-01T14:43:00.001-06:00

I just had to share this, I think it is so funny!

Slacker!

2011-11-01T13:48:00.006-06:00

UPDATE:

This is a good pic of the sock bun curls 1st thing in the morning, this time I used gel and hairspray.

Ok, so it's been a while since I last blogged...whoops...I haven't been documenting much of our happenings with the camera, so I'll just talk about the ones I did. It's getting much colder and I worry about my lil' Soph freezin' her butt off, so I rummaged through some old clothes of mine and resurfaced this pink jacket I never wear anymore. She doesn't mind wearing it either! I think I'll sew it to fit her better though... My Gangsta puppy!
Just chillin' in my chair

My mom went back to beauty school and got her license to become a nail tech! She has opened up a little salon in her basement 'Tips2Toes'. She can do all sorts of fun stuff! These were my 'Halloween' nails, it's a process called water marbling and they look so cool!

I found this tutorial on Pinterest for sock bun curls. This is the end result (mind you this was at the end of the day so the curls had become super lax, and I didn't use hairspray or gel or anything either)

Here is the 'sock' bun on top of my head the night before.

We finally got our sprinkler system in and threw down some seed, this is proof that it's really done!

And we got a propane tank and filled it so we won't have to fill the little 100 galloner every month this winter!

Dustin had to go get his jeep from his dad's for a project.

I think it's like a 1969 or something like that, super old but way vintage and cool!

We went for a little ride in it, and it definitely needs some work done. Wasps have been living in it for years (I got stung on our ride) the brakes don't really work, and the tires are basically bald. We ran out of gas on our drive up in the mountains too, that was quite the adventure.

I let Dustin spend some money on his truck, and this was the end result. He painted his bumper black and bought a black grill. I think it makes the truck look nice.

Lot's of other stuff has been going on, but nothing too exciting so I won't worry about boring you with the details. Here is a little video of Sophi and how curious she is.

Trek/Yellowstone

2011-07-29T09:57:00.006-06:00

So this year our Stake did a trek at Deseret Land and Livestock in Woodruff Utah and since I've never been on trek before, I volunteered to go along as an ACT (Adult Company Trekker). I had high expectations since I have heard so many great things about it, but to be honest, it kinda sucked. I think if I would have been a Ma, or a youth in one of the families I would have had a completely different experience, but since I was a loner I felt really left out and like I didn't belong anywhere. I did meet some amazing people though, I got to hang out with the staff and we have some pretty amazing people in our Stake! I didn't see the 'spiritual' aspect of it because I wasn't in a family. The families did devotionals and testimony meetings and such, and I didn't participate. I didn't take many pictures, but here's what I got. This isn't even all of the youth, this is about half, I think we had around 600 people! This is our cheer 'Hurah for Israel!'
These are all the ACT's

Our attempt at a 'jumpy' picture haha (I'm the one in blue with the bonnet on so you can't see my face)

These awesome ladies took me in and gave me a 'roof' over my head! They had an extra spot in their tent and let me sleep with them. Everybody was so overly kind!

The first night they had a 'Hoe Down' and oh boy did it look fun! I was so sore I could hardly move so I just sat and watched, but I wanted to jump in so bad!

This is one of the only times I felt the spirit. This is the famous Women's Pull. They had all the men head up the hill while the girls stayed at the bottom with the handcarts. Then they each had AWESOME devotionals and then the men lined up and watched as the women struggled up the hill. There was absolute silence as we watched them struggle and urge each other on.

I love this picture. In the cart is sweet Megan who has Downs, and in the background you can see the men with their hats off for respect for the women.

Some carts had several girls pushing, and others just had 4 like this and you could really see their struggle.

This is the other time I felt the spirit. After a devotional about being Covenant Keepers, each of the adults grabbed a youth and with a lantern we led them to the Temple. It started to get quite rowdy but the adults all started quietly singing 'I love to see the Temple' and it was amazing how quickly it became silent and the spirit was so strong!

I got home late Friday night and then early Saturday morning we packed up and headed to Island Park since we didn't get to go over the fourth this year. It was a nice relaxing weekend. We even brought Sophi with us. I thought for sure she'd go swimming since she's learned how now and loves to do it, but I guess the water was pretty cold cuz she jumped in and instantly hopped back out. We went through Yellowstone like we always do, and we actually saw quite a bit of wildlife this time (no bears though). We saw a wolf, tons of buffalo, lots of antelope and some elk. This is Gibson Falls (I think).

I tricked Dustin and got a pic of him, but not a smiling one...

In Mammoth there were ground squirrels everywhere.

They would take the food right from my hand. One even got really eager and bit my finger! When we stopped for lunch, there were even more squirrels! One guy was sitting on the ground and they were all over his lap, crazy! One tried to steal my wedding ring, I held my hand down with no food to see what they would do, and it reached up and grabbed my ring!

Lots of Buffalo. I am constantly amazed at how stupid people are. Every year we go to the park there are people standing mere feet away from the wildlife taking pictures, it's not a zoo people, these are WILD animals!

You can see the upper falls back in those trees.

Here are the lower falls

We hiked down the steep trail so that we could be right at the top of the falls. It was kinda freaky to watch all that water tumble over the edge!

Dustin actually smiled and let his Grandma take a picture of us! He looks great, but me on the other hand...my excuse is that I just got back from Trekking!

Huge bull elk!

We got to go fishing one morning with Grandpa, it's one of my favorite things to do when we're up there. The temperature is always so perfect up there in the Summer, it was a great weekend and I wished we could have stayed longer.

Just Checking...

2011-07-14T10:57:00.002-06:00

Either I am super boring or no one looks at my blog anymore, or no one looks at my blog anymore BECAUSE I'm boring...either way, no one has left me a comment for over 3 months! So I just wanted to check and see if anyone stops by anymore. I mainly blog for my own personal journal, but it's still nice to see that others care about me and whats goin on in my life. So, if anyone out there still reads my blog, please leave me a comment to let me know I'm still loved ;)

Go Go Go!!!

2011-07-05T13:18:00.010-06:00

That's how life's been the past 2 weeks, GO GO GO!!! We headed up to Stockton Friday to go camping with Dustin's family. Here is his parents 'home'.Here is our 'home' and 'vehicle'. This was my first real time camping in a trailer, and I must say that I loved it! Especially at night when you can turn on the heater when it gets cold!
We did some shooting

I was very impressed with Jakes shooting abilities. That kid is very comfortable and a good shot for only being 4 years old!

We did some 4 wheeling, cute little BrookLee is fast asleep.

Dustin entertained the kids

BrookLee loves her uncle Dustin!

Sophi made some new friends

She became the watch dog while we were there. Every night at dusk she would not sit still, she had to patrol around the campsite and growl into the darkness. The first night there she practically jumped into the fire chasing a mouse, needless to say, she was in heaven!

She became a lap dog once again, Sadie and Jake loved playing with her and showering her with attention.

It don't matter how big ya are, she'll still sit on your lap haha!

Love this girl!

Right before we left Monday morning, a squirrel ran up this tree and Sophi FLIPPED out!!! She tried to climb up the tree for at least and hour! The poor squirrel was completely stuck, if it went down the dog would get it, but if it stayed where it was at the birds kept attacking it!

She walked around the tree just like this on her hind legs, it was quite funny to watch.

The poor squirrel found an old woodpecker hole and hid in there where the birds couldn't get it, see it's little head poking out?

So we headed home Monday and as soon as we got home I showered and packed for Girls Camp. Luckily this year it was just at Glendale so I didn't worry too much about forgetting something cuz I could just run home if I needed to. Monday night we had 'Family Home Evening' and invited the families to come and we had shiskabobs and a great devotional. Then early early Tuesday morning we headed up to Willow Flats to hike and watch the sun rise. There is so much run off this year that we couldn't hike up to the spring, in fact most of the campgrounds were underwater! Here is the sun finally up.

Don't we all look so happy to be up so early?

This was right as the sun came over the mountain, it was so peaceful and beautiful! We all took a moment to sit and take it all in. We carried around 'survival packs' that had our breakfast in them and also our scriptures and our journal, but the most important thing was a brick. That's right, we all carried around a brick to represent the trials we all have to carry.

The beautiful nature God has given us to enjoy.

The wild sunflowers were EVERYWHERE!!! We had to stop and get a picture. As you can see, we didn't have many girls come to camp this year, in fact we don't have many girls in our YW at all! But what we lack in numbers, we make up for in greatness!

There is a small spring that Maelee was dying to drink from. but it was a little difficult to reach. That didn't stop her!

Nice bum, where you from?

When we got back from our hike the girls played in the lake (Glendale) for the rest of the day. It started to get pretty windy that night, and one of the paddle boats wasn't tied up tight and the next thing we knew it was floating away! Maelee saved the day and jumped in with her clothes on to rescue it! Here she is paddling back.

The storm continued onto Wednesday, and it got pretty gusty! We packed up early and headed to the camp directors house where we watched Johnny Lingo and had testimony meeting. It was a fun year and we had a lot of spiritual experiences! All the girls got along and became great friends! My favorite part would have to be when we saw a poor little puppy swimming across the lake and all the girls ran to the shoreline to rescue it when all of a sudden they all came running back screaming at the top of their lungs as a badger walked out of the water! Ha ha, that is a moment I will never forget!

On Sunday we went to Twin Falls to catch a plane to go to VEGAS! We weren't supposed to depart until 9:40 at night, which would have put us in Vegas at 10:10 their time, but there was a storm and our flight was delayed 3 hours! We didn't get in until 1:30! It was a short flight and we weren't in the air very long, but it was a little creepy not being able to see anything but black out my window. But the lights of Vegas were awesome to fly over! We got a hotel and got a couple hours of sleep then we headed to Desert Volkswagen to buy us a car! Ever since my accident we've had nothing but stress about cars. We bought the awesome Acura, but it wasn't getting the fuel economy we needed, so we sold it and kept our eyes open for a Jetta TDI (Turbo Diesel Injected) which is much more practical for us. We looked and looked and NOBODY is selling them right now because they get 50 MPG and in this economy everyone is holding onto the money savers! We finally found one in Vegas and bought it the day it was put on the Internet because they are selling like hot cakes! We weren't able to go get it until this weekend. I wanted to make a little mini vacation out of it, but Dustin just wanted to head home, so we spent the 4th of July driving! Can't you see how excited Dustin is about being in the car for 8+ hours!

I was oober excited!

Here's the interior, nothing like the Acura, but sometimes you gotta sacrifice luxary for practical.

Here is proof we were in Vegas haha!

I was thinking about how many cars we've been through in 3 years, and I've got to say we've been through quite a few! I've only got pictures of some of the cars, but we've also been through a few 4 wheelers, road bikes, some trucks and a snowmobile!

Here is the wonderful Maxima

Here it is again, not so wonderful

The sexy Acura TL

Man, that was a good lookin'car!

And here is latest and greatest 2006 Jetta TDI

It doesn't have the xeon lights like I like, but oh well...

Cute little car

So there's our little adventures the past few weeks, I think we're really gonna like this car. The fuel light just barely came on today on our way to work, which means we drove it all the way from Vegas plus some on one tank of diesel!

Memorial and such

2011-06-13T15:59:00.015-06:00

WARNING: This post contains MANY pictures! Mainly of my dog :/ . Dustin's family always spends memorial weekend at the lake (Glendale). The weather was pretty drab as always, but we still enjoyed each others company. Sophi got spoiled beyond belief! She developed quite the liking to great grandpa as this picture shows her lying at his feet. There were a couple of other dogs there for her to play with as well. Izzy and Willow are both labs and LOVE the water. We were hoping that she would see them retrieving the toy and jump in with them, but the little wuss she is, she just ran up and down the dock watching them.
Here is Makayla preparing to throw the toy with Sophi and Willows full attention.

Willow just about to jump off the dock after the toy and Sophi keeping her distance.

She loved all the kids around to play with!

Dustin is teaching her to sit before he throws in a stick.

Good girl!

This is about as far as she will go in by herself.

'Look, I got wet!'

Dustin trying to coax her into jumping off the dock.

Enough coaxing, just throw her in!

Shake

Her ears look funny in this one

After getting thrown in, she went and hid

Dryin' off by the fire

This was 'her' rock. It was her favorite place to sit

She became a lap dog during the weekend. I didn't mind, she kept me warm. These next few pics I think are quite funny. Sophi was mimicking Dustin. Whatever position he put his head to hide from me, she did it too!

Snuggling with Dustin

She looks so peaceful when she's sleeping

We are getting SOO close to having a yard! We have awesome neighbors who let us borrow their tractor and tiller and we mixed some compost in with our clayish soil to make it more apt to grow good grass.

We bought our first tree and planted it.

It is a flowering plum tree which will be extremely pretty in the Spring!

The pile of compost

Our rock wall is finally complete. Now that we've spread out the compost and placed the flags where the sprinkler heads are going to go, all we need to do is get a trencher up there and we can install our sprinkler system!

Here is a little video of Willow jumping off the dock to leave you with.

A little bit of Springtime

2011-05-16T11:49:00.004-06:00

Spring feels like it's finally arrived, but like always it won't last long. Here are some of the things we've been doing lately. Dustin's brother Jason's horse just had a baby on Sunday.
It was just a few hours old, this cute little gal is all legs!

On Friday we took a little field trip to see how high the Blacksmith Fork River was.

Here they are trying to clear out debris under this bridge, the river is over 100% flood stage, it's been a crazy Spring!

We've been working more on our yard, we are hoping to get a sprinkler system and lawn in this year. Here is the progress of our rock wall.

Dustin placing the rocks.

I realized I've never posted any pics of Dustin's truck, so here it is!

It's not bad for an older truck, I just don't like it because we had to dump a bunch of money into it right after we bought it but it's been convenient to have.

My little model

This is the neighbor dog Scooby, they are best friends!

He looks like a moving rug haha! They are funny to watch, they fight over who gets to chew the bone, and Sophi usually wins because she's a little brat. Sophi is also much faster than Scooby and she will run circles around him and make him so mad. They're crazy.

Just another pic of the house

Watchin' Dustin work

Love my dog

Dustin harrowing gettin' everything all level

There's lots of work to do at our house, but we're hopin' to get it all finished up, as long as the weather allows us to!

Easter and Stuff

2011-04-25T17:35:00.004-06:00

Ok, so there is no rhyme or reason to these pictures, they are pretty much at random. This is Soph all wrapped up in her chair, doesn't she look comfortable!
Rockin' the shades

Hot stuff

Ok, so we cleaned out the garage a couple weeks ago and we had a pile of tires stacked in the corner. Well when Dustin picked them up to move them, this is what we found! That is about 3 gallons of dog food, mixed with mice nest, decon and there were a couple dead mice in the mix as well! The dang little buggers had been stealing Sophi's food! It just makes me cringe to think of how many mice we have living in our garage...

This picture better shows how high this pile was!

Last weekend we went to Dustin's cousins wedding in Bountiful, and since we were down that way we thought we'd drop our car off at the Acura dealer to have a check up since it's still under warranty. Well we woke up early and gave ourselves plenty of time to drive to Salt Lake and drop off the car before the wedding. Little did we know there was a stinkin' marathon going on in Salt Lake, and every road we turned down was blocked off! We drove around for 45 minutes and finally stopped and talked to one of the cops to see if there was any road that WASN'T closed, and he directed us clear back to where we first got off the freeway. We were so frustrated we just called the dealership and rescheduled for later that day and headed to Bountiful for the wedding. It was a beautiful ceremony and that is the 2nd time I've been to that temple. The first time was when I was 8 and they dedicated it. After the wedding we headed back to Salt Lake and while the car was getting checked out we went and took a tour of the Conference Center. Here are a couple of pics of our day in Salt Lake.

Dustin never looks at the camera for me, I at least snapped this before he got his hand up haha!

It was such a sunny and beautiful day

Easter weekend was filled with lots of family and fun. We spent Saturday with Dustin's family. We went skeet shooting and I only hit 3 skeet! I definitely need to practice! Then we all went to Texas Roadhouse for lunch. When we got home, the boys went for a horse back ride then we all watched a movie that night. I'm a bum and didn't take any pictures that day. On Sunday we met at my parents for lunch and had a little birthday party for Kambria and Natalie. We brought Sophi, and Leah LOVED playing with her! They were so cute to watch!

This was my attempt at getting a pic of the 2 of us...I always fail...

It's tradition to do the 'Easter egg lips'

Aren't we hot?

This is Nathan's dog Sara. She is such a sweetheart and I just love her cute face!

Sophi was supervising the kids while my mom took pictures of them blowing bubbles. It was a fun weekend, and the weather was perfect! In fact I got a little sunburned!

Day 30 - What I've learned in the past month

2011-04-18T11:17:00.003-06:00

Ok, so I've been putting this last post off for quite a while now, so I better just get it done! I've learned to keep our front door locked at all times or you might just receive a little intruder. I've learned that my dog would rather live at the neighbors. I've learned that I suck at shooting skeet, and that I ache forever after. I learned to never drive with your arm sticking out the car door, it just might slam shut with your arm still in it. I've learned that I really need to get into shape! I've learned that landscaping is tough work that takes lots of time. I've learned that birth control was the cause of all my stomach problems. I've learned that aliens are going to battle the Savior in the second coming (this is not true of course, I just have a special friend at work that believes these things and tells me all sorts of stories) I've learned that I am addicted to solitaire. I've learned that driving in Salt Lake is a COMPLETE JOKE! Um....that's all I can think of for now.

Rock Sugar - We Will Kickstart Your Rhapsody

2011-04-12T12:12:00.001-06:00

ROCK SUGAR-Don't Stop The Sandman

2011-04-12T12:03:00.003-06:00

Rock Sugar - Dreaming of a Whole Lotta Breakfast

2011-04-12T12:03:00.002-06:00

Rock Sugar - Heaven and Heaven

2011-04-12T12:02:00.001-06:00

Day 29 - My Favorite Song

2011-04-12T11:13:00.004-06:00

I took the advice of my sister and switched up the last 2 posts because this seemed like an odd post to end on. My favorite songs change quite a bit, but I recently found this band that I absolutely LOVE!!!! They take lot's of different classic songs and mix them up, some of them are mind blowing! These guys are awesome! They call themselves Rock Sugar, I'll post a couple of my favorite of their mixes. I'm a little retarded though and I only know how to add them from youtube, so they will be their own separate posts. For some reason the one called 'Crazy Girl' wouldn't load, but it's pretty awesome too!

Day 28- A picture of me from last year and now, how have I changed since then?

2011-04-07T10:39:00.002-06:00

This is me last year, I didn't have as many zits, I had an awesome haircut that I loved, I did my makeup a little differently, that's about all of the physical things I can think of that changed.

Then here is me a year later, face full of zits, hair needing to be cut very badly, a little skinnier (not for long though, I'm starting to gain my weight back! :( ) The years seem to be going by so fast now, I am getting them all confused together. This past year wasn't as exciting as some of the years before. It seems like we didn't do as many fun things, we're becoming more and more boring as the years go on! It's been almost exactly a year since I was put in YW's, and I have learned and changed so much since then! These girls are so strong, and bright, and they really know what's up! I have become more comfortable teaching and planning activities, and I have become so close to my fellow leaders. It's also almost been a year (couple months shy) since we got Sophi, and I've learned a lot about myself by having a dog! I have quite the temper, and I get frustrated very easily, and I don't like it when I am not obeyed! I've also learned a lot about Dustin too! He is so laid back and easy going and patient! My kids are gonna hate me cuz I'm gonna be the 'mean' mom, and they'll always go running to dad for love and support. That's why we don't have kids yet, I am SOOO not ready! I'm learning to be more patient and give Soph a little more freedom, and since I haven't been cracking down so hard on her she has actually been a pretty good puppy! We just let her run around outside while we are gone and she hasn't run off yet and if she isn't already sitting on the porch waiting when I get home, then she comes running as soon as she sees my car. I've also noticed that I'm happier when I don't get mad at her so much. Before, I would just watch and wait for her to do something wrong so I could punish her, now I praise her whenever she is doing something good. I have a feeling that this next year is going to be full of new and exciting things!

Day 27- Why am I doing this 30 day challenge

2011-04-07T10:29:00.002-06:00

I saw people doing a similar thing on Facebook, and then my sister did this blog challenge and I wanted to join in. It's given me something to write about on my blog lately because I don't have many exciting things to blog about otherwise. (Aside from my accident) I hope all my friends and family that read my blog will do this so that I can read more about them!

Day 26- What do I think about my friends

2011-04-05T07:40:00.002-06:00

I've got many different kinds of friends. My church friends, my friends from High School, my Preston friends, our married friends, my work friends, and I think highly of each of them! They wouldn't be my friends if I didn't respect them and think that they were great people! What a weird question....

day 25- What you would find in my bag

2011-04-01T11:12:00.002-06:00

Wallet, checkbook, lotion, keys (lots of keys!), I used to have a bunch of pens and chapstick but most of them flew out when I got in the accident, but I still have most of my chapsticks (like 5, don't ask me why I need so many). Gift cards, pocket mirror, comb, makeup, stamps, the occasional tampon, hairclip, bobby pins, gum, camera, pills/meds, and that's all I can think of that's in there...

Day 24 - Last 5 Facebok stati

2011-04-01T11:11:00.002-06:00

FINALLY bought a new car. Pics coming soon

I am thankful to be alive today! I totalled the car this morning on my way to work, and if I wasn't wearing my seatbelt, who knows where I'd be. I walked away with only a banged up knee. I know I have a gaurdian angel!

There is SOO much snow in Island Park!

I've had to miss work TWICE in the past month, why do I keep getting sick?!!!

‎3 years today! It has gone by so fast! I'm looking forward to what this next year will bring us, love you Dustin!

Day 23- Something I crave for a lot

2011-03-30T11:46:00.003-06:00

Oh my gosh, doesn't that just make your mouth water?! I am in LOVE with Costa Vida's Sweet Pork Salad!!! I could never get enough of this stuff! I made it once, and it was a lot of work, but oh so yummy!!! I think maybe I'll go sometime this week and get one haha!

Day 22- What makes me different from everyone else

2011-03-29T15:16:00.003-06:00

Hmm....this is hard...I'm just the average joe kinda person...The only thing I can think of that sets me apart from most people I know, is that I have been diagnosed with IBS (irritable bowel syndrome). I've actually lost 20 lbs since I found out what was wrong with me, which I don't mind, but at first I was really unhealthy. I was weak and pale and I never felt good, but as time passed and I got on some meds, I began to feel and look better but still kept off the 20 lbs. I just barely went to my doc and I wanted to get off the meds because I hate being reliant on drugs, so as of Monday I am completely drug free! So far so good, I haven't had any 'flares' and my anxiety hasn't been too bothersome. So that's what sets me apart from most people, even though 20% of people have some sort of IBS, that's 1 in 5 people and it is more common in women than men and symptoms usually start around early 20's. I am just one of the lucky 20% that has it, but I'm pretty sure if I can control my anxiety, then it will greatly reduce the IBS symptoms.

Day 21 - Pic of something that makes me happy

2011-03-25T08:51:00.004-06:00

Designing house plans makes me very happy! I just can't get enough of it! I am loving this new program, and I'm teaching myself so much. Here is a 'Farmhouse' design that I really like. It only took me about 12 hours to get the majority of this plan done. All the architectural part is done, I am just fine tuning everything and adding all the small details (that is the most time consuming part).

Day 20 - Someone I love

2011-03-24T11:06:00.003-06:00

This woman is such an inspiration to me! She has got so many talents and abilities and I find myself always calling on her for help. I love you MOM!!!

Sidenote: I was reminded of 2 more nicknames that I completely spaced from yesterday's post. Stace-face, don't ask me where it came from, it just did. And Yayita, it was my spanish name in 8th and 9th grade. There were many great times in that class! I can't remember what it means either...

Day 19 - Nicknames and why I have them

2011-03-23T10:21:00.002-06:00

I think the first nickname I ever recieved was from my mother, 'Stacey-baby' because I'm her baby. Then my sil named me 'poo licker' because I was eating a melted candybar once and she said it looked like I was licking poo, sick I know.... Then after High School, I was named 'kink'. This came about in a weird way. I started hanging out with some of the boys who went to School with my sister Amanda, and I guess she whispered or licked or something, in this kids ear and he said it was really kinky, so since I was her sister, I got named kink. And then every little thing I did became 'kinky' to them. It got really old really fast, and I stopped hangin out with them. I don't think I've ever told Mandy that story, so sorry I'm telling the world first, maybe I should have asked for her permission ;). Those boys tend to blow things out of porportion, so I'm sure she just was talking by his ear or something and he made a real story out of it.

Day 18- Plans/dreams/goals I have

2011-03-22T10:54:00.010-06:00

My 'ideal' lifestyle and where I hope to be someday is at home with my kids. I want to have my own business of designing house plans (Serenity Home Design.)

I would just have all of my equipment set up in my office and people would come to my house and I'd sit down with them and we'd draw up a house. That way I can be at home all the time, but still be working and bringing in an income. I know I'm spoiled and selfish, but I would like to be in a bigger nicer house someday too.Not that I don't love my house, but there are already things I would change about it, and it's not our favorite place either. For right now it's fine because there are only a few houses up there, but once our subdivision fills up, we don't want to be there anymore. We want to be secluded up further in the mountains.

I wouldn't mind having a little farm with a couple cows, some pigs and some horses, and possibly chickens.It would be lots of work, but if I'm home all the time, then I wouldn't mind the work at all. I'd like to become more self sufficient, so when the end is near, we will be prepared and we can depend on ourselves and not be dependant on grocery stores and such.

Day 17 - Who'd I switch lives with for a day and why

2011-03-21T11:27:00.002-06:00

I would love to be a performer, someone who has a fantastic voice and awesome dance moves. Someone on Broadway. I loved doing theater in High School, but now I am terrified to do things in front of people. I don't even really sing with my husband around, I've become very self conscious. I think it would be fun to be either Idina or Kristen being on Broadway in the musical 'Wicked'. I miss the thrill from performing, but I would be way to nervous to do it now, so to switch places with one of those women would satisfy my need for a thrill.

Day 16 - Another pic of myself

2011-03-18T06:44:00.003-06:00

I decided since I didn't take a current picture of myself for the earlier post, that I'd take one now. Don't mind my face full of zits, and my nasty hair. I've been needing a haircut for the past 3 months!

Day 15 - Ipod shuffle

2011-03-17T08:00:00.002-06:00

Well, I don't really have an ipod, I do have an mp3 player, but it's burried somewhere at home. So I'll just put my playlist on shuffle and write down the 1st 10 songs.

1. What a Catch, Donnie by Fall out Boy
2. Thunder Rolls by Garth Brooks
3. Thriller by Michael Jackson
4. Lucky by Jason Mraz
5. Bohemian Rhapsody by Queen
6. Born Free by Matt Monroe
7. Thanks a lot by Third Eye Blind
8. Every Breath by The Police
9. Human by The Killers
10. Take on me by Aha

Day 14 - Pic of me and my Family

2011-03-16T08:20:00.004-06:00

This is a really outdated picture, and not everyone is even in it, but it's the only family picture I have of Dustin's family. This picture is also outdated, but not quite as much as the one above. There are 2 new members added since this pic. We'd have to get a family pic every year to keep it from being outdated! Everyone keeps having babies!

Day 13 - A letter to someone

2011-03-15T07:35:00.002-06:00

Dear Mr. Luck,

Where have you been? We have missed you so. Without you here, things tend to fall apart. Since you've left, I totalled the car, but you did show up for a second to make sure I was ok. The dog chewed up all the wires to Dustin's truck, which he had to find out the hard way that he had no brakes. The alternator in the Honda decided it couldn't live without you. The rains came down and the floods came up, causing our basement to flood once again. And car shopping has been so horrible without you! Please! We beg of you to come back! Whatever we did to offend you, we are sorry!

Sincerely,
The Collom's

Day 12 - How I heard about blogging

2011-03-11T07:36:00.002-07:00

My beautiful SIL Andrea MADE me start one haha! She helped me open one up, and I posted one thing and forgot about it for quite a while. Then I started blog stocking a bunch of people and decided I'd keep mine updated. It's been more for me than anything else, it's been a sort of journal for me. I think it's a great way to be informed of all my friends and family that I don't get to see or talk to much anymore. I feel like I am still involved in their lives somehow when I read about their lives in their blogs.

Day 11 - Another pic of friends

2011-03-10T15:04:00.003-07:00

I love my sisters!!! And mom, you look young enough to be my sister too!!! They are truly my friends!

Oh how I love these girls!!! I consider each one of them a dear friend!

Day 10 - Songs that make me happy sad hyped etc..

2011-03-09T17:21:00.002-07:00

I've never given it much thought...I don't think I have a certain type of music I listen to for my different attitudes. Sometimes I'm in the mood for country, other times I like pop. Classic rock and oldies and of course show tunes are also in my mix of moods. I pretty much like any type of music aside from rap. It seems like every Spring I love to listen to Vanessa Carltons 'White Houses'. It brings back such great memories of driving around with friends and the sun shining and the air warming coming out of the depression of Winter. That's about all I can think of for now.

Day 9 - Something I'm proud of in the past few days

2011-03-08T10:27:00.002-07:00

I made cookies on Sunday. It's no huge accomplishment or anything, but we haven't had home made sweets around our house for a long time! I really can't think of anything better than that...guess I'm not challenging myself enough if I've got nothing to be proud of.

Day 8 - Goals for the month

2011-03-07T16:39:00.003-07:00

My number one goal/priority is to find a car! I can't tell you how much I miss my Maxima! Car shopping is so stressful, and you never know if your going to buy a lemon or not. We got such an awesome deal on the Maxima and it never had ANY problems. It was perfect! Our rental car expires this Thursday, and then we'll have to start driving the truck to work till we find a car (expensive!!!). Another small goal that is in the back of my mind at the moment due to the crisis at hand, is I want to finish up my Levi blanket. I am so close, and I just got burned out. My poor dining room table has been covered in Levi's and sewing stuff for the past 3 months! I would also like to get Sophi trained to stay home. She's been running off lately, so we finally decided to get a shock collar. She has done really good and listened when we call her, because if she doesn't, she gets shocked! I know there are lots more goals I would like to get accomplished, but those are my higher priorities.

Day 7 - Pic of biggest impact in my life

2011-03-04T08:34:00.003-07:00

Being married in the temple and sealed to my husband for eternity has definitaly had the biggest impact in my life! We don't go near as often as we should, but the spirit felt there is so comforting, and the blessings are life altering. I am thankful for this Gospel, and for an amazing family and parents who raised me to always look to the Temple. I made it a goal as a young girl to be married in the Temple, and it wasn't always easy, but I finally made it there.

Day 6 - Fav Superhero and Why

2011-03-03T12:00:00.002-07:00

Oh heck, I dunno...I've never really given it much thought. The only thing that really comes to mind is Superman because I used to watch Smallville all the time. I like Wolverine, but only cuz the actor who plays him is hot haha! I never really read or watched superhero stuff when I was a kid.

Day 5 - Pic of somewere I've been

2011-03-02T15:58:00.003-07:00

We've never been anywhere too cool or too special, but we did go to Hoover Dam on our Honeymoon. You can see the starting of the bridge behind us. It is now completely done.

Day 4 - Habit I wish I didn't have

2011-03-01T10:43:00.002-07:00

I'm not sure if it's a habit, but I always squint when I'm outside and it always gives me a headache. My eyes are super sensitive I guess. Even when it's cloudy overhead, I still have a hard time keeping my eyes open. So if it's raining and you see me with my sunglasses on, you'll know why. Another habit is my body always tenses up. Periodically I find myself flexing my leg or shoulders or something and I have to tell myself to relax, but if I'm not concentrating on relaxing then I go right back to tensing up. Weird I know, a lot of my habits that I wish I didn't have are things that are in my head. So I guess I need to learn how to control my mind and overcome these silly little things.

Day 3 - Picture of Friends

2011-02-28T10:07:00.003-07:00

I've got so many great friends, I couldn't just post one pic. This is the 'gang'. We were all in Theater together in High School and we did everything together! These are our 'Tremonton' friends, we always laugh a lot and have a good time when we're with them.
These are my 'Preston' friends, even though I moved clear back in 7th grade, we still kept in contact.

And this is my besty. She's been there for me through thick and thin.

#2 - Meaning of blog name

2011-02-25T08:03:00.003-07:00

Well, my blog doesn't really have a name, 'The Collom's' I guess is it's name, and it's named that because that's who we are. This isn't part of this 30 day challenge thing, but I wanted to thank my Heavenly Father for sending me a guardian angel. I was in an accident yesterday that totaled the maxima, but I was able to walk away with only a banged up knee. I am very lucky, no, I'm very blessed to be alive. I was on my way to work yesterday morning, and the roads were a little slick from the snow. I was coming up on an intersection and I could see the Semi coming the other direction in the turning lane with his blinker on. He didn't see me and proceeded to turn left, and I, going 60 mph, swerved to try and miss him, but he still clipped the car just right behind my door. The next few seconds flew by, yet I can remember little details of what happened. I remember watching him actually hitting my car, and where I should have hit my head on the window I didn't feel any pain (thank heavens for side air bags!). My door flew open and snow was flying up in my face, and I felt a sudden pain in my knee. While the snow was hitting me in the face, I remember thinking that I really hoped that the car didn't roll, cuz if I was upside down and stuck in the snow I would get really claustrophobic and freak out. I also remember thinking that I had broke my knee, and the full force of the pain would hit me later. I could feel the back of the car hit something and then it was all over. I sat there for a minute, amazed that I was still breathing, and I was brought back to the real world when a young man who witnessed the whole thing from across the street, came running over asking if I was ok. I knew I got the worst of it because he came to my car first (and because it was a semi that hit me, he barely had a dent in his bumper and his headlight was broken). There was a weird pink thing by my head that was in the way and I remember being annoyed by it. I reached for my phone because I had to call Dustin immediately, but it wasn't there. I stepped out of the car, told the man I was ok, and turned around to access the damage. This is what I saw...

I hit one of the reflector posts on this side, notice how crooked the back tire is.

I hit the powerline that goes from the pole to the ground with the back of my car, that's what made my trunk fold in half like that.
You can see how lucky I was that the initial impact was just behind me and not at my door.

I'm not sure what hit my door and bent it all up and made it fly open, but I think whatever it was is what I hit my knee on. And the annoying pink thing is the airbag that prevented me from cracking my head on my window.

There were pieces of my car everywhere! I told the clean up crew to keep their eyes open for my phone while they were picking up all the other pieces of the car, and thankfully they found it...in front of the car? How the heck did it get up there?

All the chapstick that was in my purse was scattered all over the car, and my sunglasses that are in a little compartment above my head, were clear in the back seat. I borrowed the man's cell phone and called Dustin. I very calmly told him that I was in an accident and totaled the car. He thought I was joking because I was so calm about it. When I got in that little fender bender a couple years back in the Honda, I called him balling my eyes out. And then when I'm actually in a serious accident, I remained completely calm. I know that was Heavenly Father comforting me. I was even calm just before and while the accident was happening. I just knew that everything would be ok I guess. The witness was actually a kid I went to High School with, Gavin. He told me that when the Semi hit me, my back end flew straight up in the air and I was spinning on the nose of the car. When the back end finally came back down, that's when I hit the powerline. I actually knocked out the power of the house right there that I was lucky enough to miss. Now that a day has gone by, my knee is really swollen and hurtin pretty bad, and my back and neck are starting to ache. I think I'll get it checked out today and make sure everything is ok. Now comes the fun of car shopping...which is stressful because we have to buy one fast, but we are always real cautious buyers and it usually takes us a month or so to find one and make sure it's a good deal. Well, there's my story, and I am grateful to be alive!

Day 1 - 15 Things

2011-02-23T12:57:00.007-07:00

(I didn't have a recent pic, and I didn't want to take one, so here is one from a while ago)

1-I can't stand to have my hands dirty. I can't even pet my dog without running to the sink after. I eat finger food a certain way so I only get the minimal amount of food leftovers on my fingers. And I can't stand to have ANYTHING under my fingernails!

2-Drool is my worst enemy! Baby drool, dog drool, sick kid drool, ick! I gag if I even see it!

3-I have a morning routine that I've followed since High School, and the way I remember it is to the song Eyes, ears, mouth and nose, but it's hair instead of nose. Eyes is to make sure I've got makeup on, ears=earrings in, mouth=brush teeth and hair obviously means to do my hair. I'm not a very high maintenance girl.

4-Lately I can't eat a meal without HAVING to have a sweet after. I know it's probably really bad for my health, and my weight, but as soon as I'm full, I won't be satisfied until I eat a treat.

5-When I drink from a glass cup, I can't drink in the same spot twice. I can see where my lips have previously been, and I turn the glass so I don't drink there.

6-I can't even get pricked with a needle without getting light headed and sick to my stomach. I can't watch people getting poked with needles on TV! I am terrified of them!

7-I am a plant killer. I have never been able to keep any plant alive, even one that my neighbor gave me and she told me it would be near impossible to kill it because it was so low maintenance. Well, it still died. I did keep a goldfish alive for over 3 years though!

8-When I get something in my head, I am determined that it will happen that way. For instance, if the weekend is coming up and I want to get the kitchen cleaned, and get some work done on the house, or go out with friends, I set up a little schedule in my head and I get really upset if it doesn't happen my way. I'm kinda a brat.

9-I am a list maker, big time! Dustin always makes fun of me for it, but I love organizing my thoughts and tasks onto paper, especially since I have such a horrible memory.

10-I, like my sister, can't leave any toothpaste in my mouth after brushing my teeth. When I'm done brushing, I rinse out my brush and put it back in my mouth and brush some more, spit, rinse out brush, brush teeth, spit...etc...until my mouth is free of paste.

11-I have to read the owners manual of anything I buy, even if it is something so simple, that is just common sense, I still read them just to make sure I do everything correctly. It's come in handy a couple of times when Dustin just dives right into installing something and runs into a problem, I can tell him what to do.

12. I buy S'mores pop tarts in bulk and I eat one every day, but I eat it raw, I never toast it. What a nutritious breakfast huh?

13. I am not a very observant person. I don't pay attention to peoples facial features, or height, or color of hair or anything, so if I were ever burglarized, even if I saw the guy, I wouldn't be able to describe him. I can drive past the same thing hundreds of times and only notice it when Dustin points it out, like a new building, or a car at a dealership.

14. I love my church calling! How often is it that you get called to exactly where you wanna be? I knew from the first time I met the Young Women that I needed to be involved in their lives. I have grown so much and learned so much from them. They are strong girls, and even though it wasn't too long ago that I was a Young Women, they definitely have some hard temptations to deal with.

15. I have worse acne now then I ever had in High School. I don't know what the deal is, but I can't get my face to clear up!

30 Day Post Challenge

2011-02-23T12:37:00.002-07:00

I've been seeing lots of people doing these things on facebook, and now I guess it's transfered to the blogging world, and I wanted to join in!

day 1- recent picture of you and 15 interesting facts about yourself
day 2- the meaning behind your blog name
day 3- a picture of you and your friends
day 4- a habit that you wish you didn’t have
day 5- a picture of somewhere you've been to
day 6- favorite super hero and why
day 7- a picture of someone/something that has the biggest impact on you
day 8- short term goals for this month and why
day 9- something you're proud of in the past few days
day 10- songs you listen to when you are happy, sad, bored, hyped, mad
day 11- another picture of you and your friends
day 12- how you found out about blogger and why you have one
day 13- a letter to someone
day 14- a picture of you and your family
day 15- put your ipod on shuffle: first 10 songs that play
day 16- another picture of yourself
day 17- someone you would want to switch lives with for one day and why
day 18- plans/dreams/goals you have
day 19- nicknames you have and why you have them
day 20- someone you love
day 21- a picture of something that makes you happy
day 22- what makes you different from everyone else
day 23- something you crave for a lot
day 24- your last five facebook status'
day 25- what I would find in your bag
day 26- what do you think about your friends
day 27- why are you doing this 30 day challenge
day 28- a picture of you from last year and now, how have you changed since then?
day 29- in this past month, what have you learned
day 30- your favorite song

I don't have access to the internet on weekends, so I'll have to put it on pause for a couple days. It's been fun to read about others and learn more about them!

Weekend in the snow

2011-02-21T11:23:00.003-07:00

We had the opportunity to go to the cabin up in Island Park this past weekend. I've only been up there one other time in the winter, and it is so beautiful with all of the snow! There was at least 3 feet of snow, and much much more up in the mountains. We spent the majority of the weekend watching movies since Dustin doesn't have a snowmobile. There were 7 of us there, 8 including Sophi, and 4 snowmobiles, so we did get a chance to do a little riding. Dustin made me ride my own to try to teach me how to turn, and it was a disaster! I am not strong enough, or coordinated enough to jump around from side to side to get the dang thing to turn, and I don't like the feeling that I don't have complete control. Here are some pics from the weekend.

This is the view from the back door of the cabin, notice the mound of snow by the door!

This is one of the gas stations, you could not even see it because of the wall of snow!
Another view of the gas station

Grandpa, Dustin and I went for a little drive up to a little cafe called Shotgun, and I took some pictures of the crazy high snow on top of some of the roofs!

That's gotta be HEAVY!!!

Everyone had to dig their ways to their cabin doors!

This is the cabin after half of the snow had slid off the roof (that's the reason they go up in the winter, so the snow doesn't cave in the roof). I love that everywhere you go there are walls of snow on either side of you.

Showing a chunk of snow that came off the roof. You don't wanna be under that when it falls!

The snow was as high as the first level of the cabin!

Sophi had the time of her life! She LOVED running around and acting crazy in the snow! She got super spoiled this weekend too! She had TONS of attention and everyone kept giving her food (I don't like giving her human food cuz it gives her BAD gas!).

She liked to sit in her chair and look out the back door and watch the ducks on the river and bark at the snowmobiler's driving by.

Even though I was the only female there, it was a good relaxing weekend. On a side note, we took our truck which is only a 2 door extended cab, and on the way home we had to fit 6 people, plus the dog, plus all the luggage, and we pulled the snowmobiles home! It was a very squishy uncomfortable ride, but Soph loved crawling all over everybody!

Chairs and Levi's

2011-01-27T12:58:00.002-07:00

So we finally kicked Sophi out of the recliner, but I thought it only fair that we gave her something else to call her own. So we bought her this chair. I thought it looked pretty comfy, and it wasn't too terribly ugly to have in my living room, but she didn't like it! It took her 2 days to finally jump off of it on her own (such a baby!) She was scared because instead of just stepping off of it, she would leap and it would send the chair flying out from under her.

So, they've been repainting my office the past week, and we've done some dejunking. There were quite a bit of chairs and stuff that my boss didn't want around anymore, so we inherited this nice leather chair! Sophi seems to like it LOTS more than her other chair. It's much more sturdy, but she does make a lot of noise when she moves around.
Here is the progress on my Levi blanket. Oh what a pain it's been! I have no idea what I'm doing and I've just made it up as I go, and pray that it won't fall apart haha!

I didn't really do any measuring, and you can definitely tell since nothing seems to match up!

This is a close up of the top half before I sewed it all together.

I've spent ALOT of time on this thing, and I hope it is worth it in the end!

The Holidays and such

2011-01-11T11:18:00.003-07:00

They went by real fast this year, and I lent my camera to one of my Young Women, so I have no pictures of our Holiday season. We had a good time with both of our families, and enjoyed spending time with everyone. Dustin and I started a movie at midnight on Christmas Eve, and when it got over at 2, we talked ourselves into opening our Christmas right then. Dustin is always such a great gift giver! I got lots of cute clothes and new boots, and he also gave me a 'Vac then Steam' Shark cleaner for my birthday which I LOVE!!! Having an indoor/outdoor dog, I find that my floors are NEVER clean (always little paw prints EVERYWHERE!), but with my new toy, it only takes about 10 minutes to vacuum and mop my floors. I got Dustin a bunch of stuff for his truck. We got Sophi a rubber chicken squeaky toy, and I was so excited to give it to her! She wouldn't touch it for the first little while, and every time we squeaked it she would run away and cry. She eventually started carrying it around and chewing on it, but every time it squeaked she would still cry.

Well, we left her alone with it for a couple hours and when we got home it was shredded to pieces! She must have really hated the squeak, enough to tear it out so all that was left was the rubber body of the chicken. Dang dog.... Anyway, we both got sick the week of New Years, but were feeling good enough to throw a little New Years Eve party at our house. We had great food, fun games and awesome guests. Of course, the girls lost Taboo, but no surprise there! We also played a game called Things, and we laughed so hard! It was a good time! That's about all the events I can think of right now of our Holiday season.

I've been getting better at my Home Designer program, and I wanted to show off a little of my work. If anyone is thinking of building, please come to me, I need lots of practice!

Well, that's all, I hope you all had a great Holiday!

Surprise! More crafts...and a REAL Tree!

2010-11-30T15:26:00.004-07:00

Here are a few more of the crafts I've been working on. There are still more to come! These 'WELCOME' blocks are actually multifunctional! They can spell about 20 different words! I haven't decided if I like them on my 'Believe' shelf or not, but I'll play around with them some more.I found this idea online for cute candlesticks and I just had to make some! I found some scrap wood from Icon and turned them into something fun! (the blocks are scrap wood too)
Dustin and I went up Strawberry Canyon on Saturday and searched for a tree! My mom says we used to have real tree's when we were kids, but I don't remember, so I'm considering this my first real tree! Every turn off in the canyon was packed with cars (all UTAH plates, go cut down your own trees!) But we finally came upon a small turn off and began our search. The snow was up to my thighs in some places and it was hard to get anywhere. Sophi had a BLAST in it! She would disappear from time to time sunk in our tracks, but she would fight herself out. It didn't take near as long as I thought it would and we came upon a decent tree. (They always look fuller in the mountains, but as soon as you put them in your house, they turn into Charlie Brown trees) I really wanted to take pictures and document the whole thing, but of course my batteries were dead! So here is the finished product. Nothin' special, but I love it, and it smells so good!

Kinda blurry, and it's hard to string lights on a real tree, so the lighting job isn't too fabulous.

This pic is a little clearer. It's only got maybe 20 or so ornaments on it and I want to get a big bow for the top with streamers that drape down the whole tree. The tree was about 11 foot when we cut it down, and we only had to cut a foot off the top for it to fit with our vaulted ceiling, I love having such a tall tree!

Now I just gotta convince Dustin that we need lights on our house, but we don't have any rain gutters to clip them to...so that probably won't happen again this year...someday...

Feelin' Crafty!

2010-11-04T10:54:00.005-06:00

For some reason the Fall makes me want to craft so bad! So this year I gave myself plenty of projects to work on. I think I counted 8 in all hehe. Here are some pics of the ones I have completed thus far.

They call this the 'Magic Cat'

Somehow it got it's head through the window and got stuck! Probably from chasing that mouse...

I've always wanted to make a quilt out of my old Levi's, so I finally started. But I've already run out of Levi's haha, so this project is on hold temporarily.

Found these online and thought they were so stinkin' cute, and easy! (and free since we have a bunch of 2x4's sittin in our basement, oh wait, I think I paid like $2 for the ribbon at Wal Mart)

'Gauzy Ghosts'. Just what they are! Scary ghosts made from gauze!

This was one of my wards super Saturday crafts that I just HAD to have! The turkey doesn't have eyes yet, but you get the picture.

The beauty of all these crafts is that I have hardly spend anything on them! The Gobble was $15 and it was by far the most expensive thing! I have several more projects in the works right now, and I will post pics of them when they are finished.

Hunting, or lack thereof...

2010-10-18T14:35:00.002-06:00

Hunting this year has been pretty uneventful, for me anyway. Dustin got his deer opening day with his dad and brothers, and then as the week went on, everyone else got their deer (some pretty big ones too!) But the first time I went was on Friday, and I wasn't very motivated. (I'm a lazy hunter) I talked to the farmer that owns the mountains around our house and he was nice enough to let us hunt his land on Friday. We didn't get up super early and we just took it nice and easy. It was more like a nice 4 wheeler ride then it was hunting. Sophi came along for the ride, she LOVES 4 wheeler rides! She sits behind me and sticks her nose out as far as she can without falling off. We didn't see anything, not even a doe! But it was sure a pretty day! I love Fall! We went hunting again Friday night in the hay field by our house and didn't see anything either, then it got too dark and we headed home. Well Dustin's dad dropped by our house to drop off some gravel and he called and said that there was a little 2 point on the road right in his headlights! Geez! We should just drive around our house to go hunting! We might actually get something! I've got all of this week to hunt, but I'm not too concerned about getting one. I am way too out of shape to put forth a lot of effort into hunting this year.

This is Cub River

That is the backside of P hill, it looks so awesome with the auburn leaves!
This is Mink Creek

And this is Preston!

I tried to get some action shots of Soph and I

She looks so funny with her ears flapping in the wind!

Sniffin the air

This would be a good pic if I didn't look like I was in extreme pain haha!

I hope the weather continues to be so good, we have actually had a Fall season that's been longer than a week this year!

Canning/Cement/Life

2010-10-06T10:27:00.004-06:00

Ok, so life has actually been pretty eventful the last little while! Some of it good, some of it bad. The reality we call life seems to always hit all at once! And for some reason it always happens at the end of the year for us (just in time for Christmas). We had a lot of goals we wanted to accomplish this summer, rocking the house, finishing driveway and stairs, staining door, water softener, fascia and soffit, deck, and the list goes on and on. We had our savings built up so that we could accomplish most of our list. Well...obviously summer is over, and the only thing we accomplished was rocking PART of the house. I was fairly disappointed. But, the past week we have done a few more things to counter my disappointment. We stained the front door (I love the way it makes my house look) and today we poured the driveway and stairs (that was the one MUST get done that I kept insisting on, but also one of the most expensive). We were almost not able to afford it because like I said, life hits all at once! Dustin got a truck the beginning of August, and low and behold, it broke and cost us half of our savings. Then we had a huge fuel bill coming due, and I had been planning a trip to the cannery and the case lot sales that was gonna cost a pretty penny. Then the Honda decided to hate us and has been working off and on, we're not sure what the problem is yet. So it's pretty stressful right now, but we are blessed and we know we can make it through. So a little about this trip to the cannery, I kinda put the whole thing together, which was stressful, (especially since this is only my 2nd year going), but ended up being quite a success I think. We had about 8 people there and we canned 400 lbs of chicken, 60 lbs of pork and around 300 lbs of potatoes. It was an all day project to say the least! But I am very relieved to have the food storage, it saves a ton of money in the long run! So that's life as we know it, I'm sure I'm forgetting some of the other minor stresses, but we'll just pretend there is none. Here are some pics from this morning, oh and another stressful thing (we always have such bad luck!) The one week that we are finally ready to pour our cement, is the one week that it decides to rain for the past 3 months! There were definitely some threatening clouds overhead, but let's pray that the rain can hold off until at least tonight when the cement has had a couple hours to set up.

Pouring the driveway (Go Skyview! haha)

Nice and pretty
The stairs/the enemy

Hope it all settled good and we have no air bubbles!

Kind of a dark pic, but the stained door completes this room!

That's all for now, and hopefully we can build our savings back up for Christmas, or there may not be one for us.

Sophi

2010-09-22T15:56:00.006-06:00

I just couldn't resist making a post about the cutest dog ever! After almost a year of begging Dustin for a dog, he finally gave in. She was born May 21st, and she became a member of our family on July 9th. I wanted a boxer really bad, and I found an add on KSL for a 'purebred' boxer that wasn't papered. We went to look at her and I could tell immediately that she was not a purebred, so I talked him down quite a bit in price. We've decided that she is a boxer german short hair mix, they call them a boxapoint (point because german short hairs are bird dogs that are known for pointing). She has been very fun to have around and fairly easy to train (only 3 accidents in the house). I have learned quite a bit about myself and my personality from owning her. I am definitely not a patient person and I get mad over little unimportant things (definitely not ready for kids yet). She's been pretty spoiled, and I don't care what Dustin says, he loves her and spoils her just as much or more than I do!

This is a picture of her the day we got her, she looks so tiny!

She was very sad and depressed for the first few days, it was heart breaking!
This was just a couple weeks later, and she's grown a ton!

You can't resist those mopey eyes

My favorite thing she does is she tilts her head at things she has never seen or heard before, there are times she just keeps tilting it back and forth and back and forth.

She sleeps in the funniest positions!

We call this one the Michael Jackson..Oow!

Drinkin' a dew

She pulls some pretty funny faces when we're playing around. I took this after I had been poking her and driving her crazy. That's her 'your gonna get it' face.

So serious

The warning look, I'm gonna get nipped if I don't quit haha!

She does not like to be blown at

This is her favorite commercial, every time it comes on, she tilts her head at it.

2nd Annual Rawlings Reunion

2010-08-18T10:56:00.002-06:00

This is the second year that my family has put together a family reunion. Last year it was at Glendale, this year we went to Toelle. To be honest, I was expecting to be camping out in the sage brush, and I wasn't too thrilled. If you've been to Toelle, then you know what I'm talking about. Well, I was pleasantly surprised as we headed further and further into the mountains in our new truck (pics coming soon), things started turning green and tall and it was absolutely beautiful! It was fun and relaxing to just sit around talking and playing games and of course snacking like crazy! Sophi had the time of her life! There were tons of kids to play with and so much to smell and explore! I caught her eating pine cones every now and again, and I would make her spit them out. Well apparently she must have snuck a few because she spent the first night throwing them up! I felt so bad for her, you could tell she wasn't feeling good at all. All she wanted was to be held, and she slept a lot, and she was very mellow. She slept with us in the tent in her kennel and I think she about froze to death, but she never whined once. Our air mattress had some holes in it that we tried to patch up, to no avail. Halfway through the night it was all I could do to keep from rolling into Dustin. He was completely flat on the ground and I was clear up high on the other end. The second night we stayed at Jeremy and Andrea's and we all got to shower (I know, we're wusses). We drove up to the top of the Cennicot Copper Mine (sp?) and had the most amazing view of the whole valley! We spotted 6 temples, Provo, Timpanoges, South Jordan, Oaker, Salt Lake, Bountiful, and I swear there was one more we could see, but I don't remember which one. The mine was soo cool to look down into. You could see those HUGE trucks that the tires are 20 feet tall, and they looked like little tonka trucks! It was a good little get away weekend.

Sophi exploring

Look at those puppy dog eyes!
She found a chair that was just her size!

This dog sleeps in the WEIRDEST positions!

You would think that would choke her, but she seemed to be plenty comfy.

Chillin'

We had 2 campsites, Mike and Trish, my parents and us were all in the 'upstairs' campsite (it was up a little hill from the other site) Jer and Andrea and Curt and Mandy were in the lower part. This picture is of the upstairs taken from the downstairs.

Isn't that view AMAZING!

This is the mine, it is lots bigger than it looks

Man's best friend

The 4th + Stuff

2010-07-13T10:15:00.007-06:00

I've got some catching up to do! We went to Island Park for the 4th like we always do, and it is always such an adventure! Since we sold the truck, we couldn't bring our 4 wheeler this year, but luckily there was an extra one for us there. We got there Thursday night and went over to Ron and Donna's (they are related somehow, but don't ask me how!) for a pot luck dinner, and Donna made immaculate ribs! We went fishing Friday morning and caught quite a few. Then at 1:00 we (Gpa, Gma, Pat, Timorie, Dylan, Dustin and I) met up with Ron and Donna and their crew (Blake and his wife and 3 kids, and Hank and his GF) and went for a wheeler ride to 2 Top. When we left, Donna said something about having to hurry or we wouldn't be home by dark, and I thought she was joking! But no, she was absolutely right! We didn't get home until 9:30!!! It was a nice beautiful ride, and the view at the top was amazing!

We weaved in and out of Montana

The whole crew, quite the caravan!
That's right, That's snow!
That is West Yellowstone, we were riding in the forests right next to the park.

It was probably around 4 when we reached the top, and we decided to go back on a different trail which brought us within 10 minutes of West, so we decided to stop and eat! Then we had to hurry and race the sun to get back home. I was very sore, but it was worth the pain. We had the traditional fish fry on Saturday and then headed out on the lake for the fireworks!

Doesn't Dustin looked thrilled!

Nice...

The fireworks were amazing as always, but this year there almost was a way bad accident. One of them went off in the air about 10 feet then came straight back down and blew up! It caused a couple more to ignite, but luckily no one was hurt.

Dylan loved going fishing with us every morning. We told him he was gonna scare all the fish away with his blue mohawk.

We went through the Park, but didn't see anything but buffalo and one elk...boring! We came back on Monday and went to my parents for dinner and fireworks with the fam. It was a nice long weekend of fun and relaxation!

Some other exciting news is Dustin got a motorcycle for his birthday and I got a puppy! I've been bugging Dustin for about a year cuz I wanted a dog, and he finally told me if I could find one for under $100 I could get one (He didn't think I would be able to cuz I wanted a purebred boxer) Well, a guy in Logan just happened to have some purebred puppies he was selling for $200, but I talked him down to $50 cuz I could tell they weren't completely purebred (which I decided was ok). So far she has been such a sweetheart! I am very impressed with her potty skills, it's almost as if she is already house broken! She sleeps in a box next to our bed (for now) and she has not 'done the deed' in it at all! She is even good enough to whine and let me know when she needs to go out. She sleeps a lot and loves to cuddle, and I'm in the process of teaching her how to fetch.

We've decided that she can be in the house with us as long as she is in her box, or on our laps. She sleeps in some of the weirdest positions too!

Her cute profile

'What in the world is that thing your pointing at me?'

My little Sophie, such a sweetheart!

I gave her her first bath last night, and she did pretty good! She didn't whine or try to get out, she just stood there as if she was in shock, looking at me with those puppy eyes wondering why I was torturing her. Then she zonked for 2 hours, I guess I wore her out!

GIRLS CAMP 2010 My Run To Zion!

2010-06-28T10:03:00.004-06:00

I just got back from GIRLS CAMP! Oh how I love my calling! It was Stake Camp this year, and our theme was 'My Run To Zion'. The church owns this awesome campground up past Porcupine Dam, and it is absolutely gorgeous up there! But no one mentioned to me that the road in is not meant for cars, especially really nice low to the ground cars like mine! It took us about 45 minutes for the last mile, the road was horrendous! Huge rocks, massive pot holes, narrow roadway, not good! But we survived, and the car did too. Every night at devotional, 3 or 4 wards were supposed to perform their skit, we were scheduled for the second night. The girls had spent most of the first day there practicing for their skit, and what happens that first night at devotional? Another ward does our EXACT skit! The girls started freaking out! But have no fear, they are all creative geniuses! We threw together a skit that was much better than the one the other ward stole from us, we did synchronized swimming! They were lacking one girl, so since I look like a Young Women, they asked if I would help out. Holy cow! What a workout! I am still sore from practicing! Thankfully we had another girl show up right before we performed and she took my spot, there was no way my muscles could take any more! (I know, I'm weak) Here are some pics of us practicing.

Figuring out the timing

Doing the wave
Leg kicks!

The bunch of us, don't mind my huge butt right in the front!

This is the actual performance, I ended up holding the 'water' which I was very relieved about!

Ha ha, leg kicks turned out cool!

Drowning!

At the end of the skit, the 'water' drained out and they all were laying in a pile moaning and groaning, and then one of them jumped up and said "Guys! Why don't we try RUNNING to Zion instead of SWIMMING". I thought it was very clever and cute!

We combined with another ward one night and taught them a bunch of games, I learned a couple new ones this year! I think our all time favorite game was DIP.

This was one end of the reservoir. The girls got to go canoeing and cliff jumping, but of course, I didn't bring my camera for it.

This is me and Miya, we are the 'Young' leaders haha! She is 21 and I'm 22, we're just one of the girls!

Ok, so a couple of the girls want to be beauticians when they grow up, and Kelsie is going to beauty school this summer, and I really needed my bangs trimmed. So I thought I would give them some hands on experience! This is them wetting my bangs.

Starting the cut! I was a little nervous...especially since they were cooking scissors!

Still nervous

Look at all that hair!

The finished product! They turned out awesome! I am going to recommend everyone I know to Lilli and Kelsie!

Sorry for the lack of pictures, I hardly took any this year, guess that means I was having way too much fun! On our first day there, we were warned to watch out for rattle snakes, and to make sure our food is put away at all times because of bears and raccoons. That freaked us all out a little! We never saw any rattlers, but we saw plenty of blow snakes and water snakes! The first 2 nights were way windy, and I could swear that I could hear a bear sniffing my tent! (What your mind does when you have anxiety haha!) The last night the wind didn't blow at all, and i woke up around 5 AM and I heard this grunting noise. At first I thought it was just another one of the leaders in my tent grunting in her sleep, but then it happened a couple more times and I could tell it was coming from outside. I listened very closely and could hear something moving around out there. Then I heard this clicky noise, and I knew it was raccoons! My mind started racing! I tried to think if I had left any candy or food out that they could smell. The bottom zipper of our tent wasn't done up, so they could have easily come in. Luckily they didn't and everything was fine and dandy! Every time I spend time with these girls, my love for them grows more and more! They truly are a chosen generation, and they are so strong, and I learn so much from them! I know it wasn't long ago that I was one of them, but still just within those few short years, their spirits are much more noble and valiant than mine. It was a great year, and I'm sad we are losing our seniors, but I wish them the best of luck with life!

Snomobi...I mean 4 Wheeling

2010-05-17T10:38:00.002-06:00

So we're sinners, we planned on working on the house all day Saturday, but our Tremonton buddies just HAD to call and invite us to go wheelin' with them. Of course, we couldn't resist (we haven't gone for over a year!) We went to Bull Canyon in Malad, and it was a gorgeous day, making it an awesome ride!

We loaded up to the max!

Breathtaking
I didn't have goggles, so I had a pretty dirty face when we were done

Shane(red) and Jordan(green)

Nate and Taryn

As we got higher and higher we started to hit patches of snow, then pretty soon we were hitting patches of dry (meaning that the trail was covered in snow) We had a GREAT time playin' in the snow. I can't tell you how many times we got stuck though! The snow was at least 2 feet deep and up to 4 feet deep in some spots!

Jordan got stuck pretty bad, so I thought I'd get a pic of it! This is all the guys tryin' to get him unstuck.

Ha ha! He almost flipped the wheeler cuz he hit a soft spot

This was when we hit what we thought was just another patch of snow, but from this point on, there was no dry!

In order to stay on top of the snow, you had to gun it 'Give it Hell' as Shane would say. As soon as you slowed down or stopped, you sank!

We stopped quite a few times to decide if we wanted to go any further, and we did! We almost made it to the top, but then the sun was melting the snow pretty fast and it was getting really soft.

At one point on the trail, Nate got stuck so Dustin had to sit on the front of his wheeler to give him traction so he could get out. Well as soon as he was free, he just kept going cuz he didn't want to get stuck again. I listened till I couldn't hear their wheeler anymore, and I knew they were quite a ways up the trail and Dustin wouldn't be coming back to get me and the wheeler. So I gathered up all my courage and 'Gave it Hell'! It was such a rush! Your cruisin' just as fast as the wheeler will go, your tires spinnin', and every now and again you would hit a soft spot and the snow would throw your wheeler! I was so proud of myself when I finally made it to where they had stopped! It was quite an adventure and I'm glad we decided to go, even though that's just another weekend we wasted not working on the house. Oh well, you gotta live a little right?

Progress!

2010-05-10T11:32:00.003-06:00

We were finally able to get things accomplished on the house this weekend! Dustin's Grandpa Collom (bless his heart) came Friday morning and worked the land with the backhoe while Dustin and I were at work. Then he spent the night and got us started on rocking the house! It is going to take us a LONG time to finish, 4 hours worth of work and only a corner is done! We are going to have to dedicate EVERY Saturday to this project! But I am very excited that it is finally happening (2 years later)! Here are some pics.

The men hard at work!

We put our shutters up (totally changes the look) and finished the siding on the porch gable.
It takes a TON of mortar to get these to stick to the wall!

It's pretty hard to pick which rock to use next, it's like a jigsaw puzzle. You don't want to get a lot of the same color together in one spot.

This picture was taken last weekend before the land was all sloped and the rock started.

I am also somewhat proud of myself. I tried to be a good little house wife and I cooked for the men. Friday night was dutch oven tatoes (my first time ever making them by myself) and bbq ribs. I had a hearty breakfast all planned for Saturday morning, but no one was hungry so I didn't cook. Then for lunch I made some hamburgers (literally, I thawed out ground beef and made patties) and grilled them on our new grill (also a first for me). The meals weren't perfect by any means, but still, I'm impressed with myself for going out on a limb with my cooking abilities. Pray for good weather every weekend so we can continue to complete our home!

Randomness

2010-04-28T16:04:00.005-06:00

Here are some random pics in no particular order, I just thought I'd share some of the things we've been up to.

We went to St. George a couple of weekends ago for my nieces birthday party. We made a mini vacation out of it and stayed a couple nights. We went to the Temple on Sunday before we headed home. (The sunglasses look super lame, but it was so bright that I couldn't even open my eyes)

I loved these purple flowers
This is the Birthday girl, Kambria, gotta love that cheesy smile!

I was trying to get a pic of me and Dust cuz we don't have very many of us, and this is how it turned out...Me looking completely disgusting and Dustin being Dustin...

This is the view from where the party was held, and it was such a beautiful day!

This is 'the look' Kambi would give to Dustin. She was terrified of him haha! She could be completely happy and content, then as soon as she saw him, her whole body would just freeze and she'd stare at him! Dustin loved teasing her.

That face is 'pure' joy! Too cute!

OK, so going a whole other direction, here are some pics from our Easter celebration. The stripey one was my masterpiece.

We made A TON!!!

Changing subjects again, we finally had a chance to work on the house a little this last weekend. The weather was PERFECT, until later that night it got pretty windy. Dustin's niece and nephew came to see us and they love to have Dustin take them on 4 wheeler rides.

Jason and Lacey had their baby on Sunday, and she is ADORABLE! She has tons of hair, and it is the prettiest auburn color! Congrats to them and their new little Brookley (sp?)

So there you have it, some very random things that we've been up to lately!

Just Kidding!

2010-04-12T12:05:00.002-06:00

Ok, so my last post was about my awesome new calling as Secretary in the YW, well they released me... Then put me back in as 2nd Counselor!!! I am SO excited! The Beehives are so cute and naive and shy, and I can't wait to open them up! I guess I better catch you up on our other recent happenings (not that there are really any, we are boring). Our Easter was very chill and relaxing. Saturday we had dinner at Dustin's parents house and hunted for some eggs. Then on Sunday we had dinner with the Collom's in Tremonton. It is always fun to see them, but I always come back with bruises cuz they like to pick on me haha. Icon had 'Spring Break' this last week, so there was NOBODY in production, but maintenance still needed to come in and work on projects. But since there was no production, there was no swing shift! So Dustin and I got to drive together every day and work the same shift! It was SOOO nice, but now we're back to normal... Dustin and I went on a short 4 wheeler ride on Saturday just in the mountains around our house. Even though it was overcast, it was a very nice ride, and surprisingly warm! Hopefully we can get more use out of our 4 wheeler this year than we did last year. I love going on long rides in nature! We finally got our antenna up so now we don't have to sit in just the right spot to get reception. (We had to get into some uncomfortable positions to have certain stations come in) Dustin's dad Don is selling some of the lots up by our house, and he is putting an option to build the house on it for the customer, so he has turned to me to help him get some house plans. It's been really fun to get them drawn up for him, it makes me feel like I have a client! I've really been seriously considering starting my own business in home design, but it takes money, something we lack. I've already set up a page for my 'business' and posted some pictures of my amature work. Check it out! It's www.serenityhomedesign.blogspot.com I signed up for the Chief Architect (the program I want to use) class at Bridgerland, but the week before it started, they called and canceled it because I was the ONLY one to sign up. I was very upset, but hopefully they will have another one soon and more people will be interested! I think that's about all that's happened recently, told you we were boring!

So long Primary!

2010-03-15T10:25:00.002-06:00

So last week in Primary, one of the members of the Presidency approached me and said that she heard a nasty rumor about me. I was very confused and asked her what she was talking about, and she said 'You're leaving us!' Again, I was very confused and told her I had no idea what she was talking about, so she shrugged it off as a rumor. I had a hunch that I was going to be put in YW, but I didn't want to get my hopes high. Well yesterday morning a member of the bishopric called and wanted to meet with me before church. My hunch was right! I am now the YW Secretary! I couldn't be more excited! I feel so blessed, it isn't very often that you get the calling that you want! Primary was good, and it definitely took me out of my comfort zone and made me grow, but last year when I went to YW Camp, I fell in love with the girls and wanted to be more involved in their lives, but I couldn't really with being in Primary and all. I never thought I'd say this, but I think I'm going to miss Primary! The kids are so loving and accepting and I will miss their innocence, and miss them sitting with me in sacrament, and miss their little notes and pictures they draw for me. Hopefully they will remember me and still say hi to me in the halls or when I see them at the store. The Primary President told me she cried when they told her they were taking me away, that really touched me and made me feel like my work in Primary was noticed and appreciated! I've definitely got my work cut out for me now...Personal Progress here I come!

BOOTS!

2010-02-22T14:15:00.003-07:00

I am just so excited about these boots that I had to post about them! Smithfield Implement had one of their big sales, so Dustin and I stopped by on Saturday. I have been in need of new boots for a while now. I've had mine for almost 3 years now, and they have been through many camping, hiking, hunting, 4 wheeling trips, and whatever else we've done, and you can definitely tell they have been used! So, they didn't have any that I liked out on their floor, so I looked through their book, found what I wanted, and ordered them for the sale price! I am so excited! Now I have to wait 2 weeks, and it's about gonna kill me! I love that dark brown leather look, they will be very nice 'date' shoes for a night out on the town. Who knows, maybe someday I'll be brave enough and where them with my skirt to church haha! That's what the girl that sold them to me said she loved about her boots. I prefer to wear them with pants and cover up the 'cowgirl' look. I just don't think I'm quite ready to be a cowgirl haha!

Mom's Valentines Cards

2010-02-17T12:06:00.003-07:00

For those of you who don't have my mom's blog, I thought I'd share the Valentine Cards she posted. My mom has always loved to photo shop peoples faces onto others bodies and vice versa, and over the years she has become pretty expertise! Here are the wonderful works of Tamra Rawlings...

Dustin and I as Bella and Jacob

Tonia and Nathan (the sexiest man alive haha!)
Jeremy and Andrea Rawlings

Michael and Patricia

Amanda and Curt

She's pretty crazy sometimes, but it sure makes for a good laugh!

Valentines

2010-02-15T12:03:00.003-07:00

I wanted to do some special things for Dustin this year, so I have been planning for the past couple of weeks. I had been going over to my mom's any free second I had to conjure up a picture movie of our 'history' (will post later). I also made a special coupon book for him. I spent all day Saturday making home made sugar cookies with home made frosting. The cookies weren't just for him though, I gave them to my primary class as well. With Dustin's help, we made a very delicious home made chicken cordon bleu, real mashed potatoes, gravy, jello salad, and chocolate covered strawberry meal. I realized that it takes a ton of effort to make a nice home made meal, no wonder I cheat all the time and make the easy stuff! On Friday Dustin bought me some cookie cooler racks which I have been wanting for a while. Dustin was helping his brother wire his barn all day Saturday, and when he came home he brought me these beautiful flowers! He was also very cuddly and lovey dovey all day Sunday which I loved! We had a very good Valentines day, and I hope we can continue to do so in the many many years to come!

I made these delicious strusels, they don't look super pretty, but they still taste amazing!
My beautiful flowers
Cookies before I frosted them

Craft of the Past

2010-02-03T10:12:00.002-07:00

So, I started this craft back in September with my sister-in-law Lacey thinking it wouldn't be that hard. Well here we are 4 months later and it's finally done haha! It ended up a lot cuter than I ever expected though, so it was worth the time and effort. Now I just need to decide where I want to put it...

2 YEARS

2010-01-19T12:24:00.005-07:00

Wow, has it really been 2 years? Sometimes it feels like 10 years and other times it seems like it was yesterday, but one thing still remains...we are in love! As I reflect on these past few years, there has been many trials, but along with those trials there has been many blessings.

-The house was obviously a huge trial in our first year, and it continues to be a trial as we are very slowly trying to finish it. But, of course, it has been one of our biggest blessings as well!

-Our biggest trial this year has been getting used to working opposite shifts. We both work in the Icon Maintenance department, but I work in the day and he works at night. Our shifts overlap for a couple of hours, and sometimes that's the only time we see each other.

-Our callings have been both a trial and a blessing. Dustin is the Priest Advisor for the young men in our ward. He likes it, but feels like he can't serve to the best of his ability for the fact that he can never be there for mutual due to working the night shift. I helped out with girls camp this summer, and I fell in love with the young women! I was hoping maybe they could find a place for me in young women's so I could spend more time with them, but the Lord had other plans for me. I now teach CTR 5 in Primary. When they first called me, I wanted to say no so bad, but of course I couldn't. I was terrified and for the first month I came home crying every week because those kids walked all over me. But I decided to change my attitude, and the difference was like night and day! I became their friend rather than just their teacher. Of course I still have 'good' weeks and 'bad' weeks, but that's what kids are all about!

-Planning for the future is always a trial. We've been going back and forth about going to school, we know we need to, but with what money and what time? We've been praying about it, so hopefully everything will work out in the end.

This is just to name a few. We have big dreams for our future, and some of them we've already fulfilled, but there are still plenty more to come. On this special day, I wanted to pay a little tribute to Dustin, let him and all of you know how much I love this guy! Here are just a few of the qualities I love about Dustin.

-His smile always touches his eyes

-He is a kid magnet! I don't know a kid out there that doesn't love him!

-He is very smart with money and finances

-He never buys anything until he has thoroughly researched everything about it

-He is a hard worker

-He is proficient at a lot of things

-He is dedicated

-His sense of humor

-His patience

-His bluntness and honesty

-The way he can always put a smile on my face

Dustin, I love you, and I love you more now than I did 2 years ago! I didn't think that could ever be possible, but it's true! I can't wait to spend the rest of eternity with you and to see how much more I could possibly love you in the years to come. You are my best friend, and you have had so much patience with me as I am learning to become a homemaker. Happy Anniversary Dustin, I LOVE YOU!!!

Girls Night

2010-01-11T12:07:00.005-07:00

My good friend Shannon is getting married in February so she has been in town the past couple weeks to get wedding plans all put together. So we took advantage of the fact she's in town and we had a girls night!

Me, Kate, Natasha, & Shanny

We spent hours taking pics of ourselves, haha! This is the monkey face.
I was trying to be sexy, I don't know what everyone else was going for!

Cute

We also spent hours doing Yoga and playing the Wii fit! This is down dog position.

The warrior pose

Tree stand!

It was so good to play with these girls! I haven't seen them for what seems like ages!

The Holidays

2010-01-11T11:19:00.002-07:00

I guess I better document our Holidays this year, don't be mad, I didn't take any pictures of anything! Christmas eve we spent the evening with the Fellows family. We had a delicious chicken and ham dinner and enjoyed a variety of snacks throughout the night. Santa came and we all got to sit on his lap and tell him what we wanted! Sadie wasn't quite sure she liked him and only sat on his lap if her mom sat with her. We had some good laughs with our white elephant gifts especially the ones Jason and Lacey brought ;). Then we did our gift exchange and I got the coat I've been wanting for so long! I found this coat a couple months back and it was a little too much money than I wanted to pay. As Christmas got closer, I kept checking on the coat and it came on sell for half price! I begged and begged Dustin and he was being stubborn and kept telling me no. I gave him crap about it all the way till Christmas when I received the coat, now I know why he was being such a stink about it! Dustin's parents gave us this awesome grill, and I can't wait till our deck is done and we can have BBQ parties at our house! We slept in our own house that night, our first Christmas in our new house! My highlight of Christmas morning was the one surprise I was able to get Dustin, a helicopter! But of course, as soon as he picked up the box, he guessed what it was! Every year he does that so I have banned him from touching his presents till he opens them! Dustin got me the Wii Fit and I have loved every second of having it! I've been doing Yoga and strength training and tracking my progress and I love it! That afternoon we drove to Tremonton to spend the day with the Colloms where once again we had lots of good food! We played dodgeball on the Wii and we all fell in love with the game! It is probably one of the funnest games I've played! So all in all we had a pretty good Christmas! It's been tradition for the past 3 years that we spend New Years with 'The Gang', consisting of Davin and Leah, Ryan and Emily, Matt and Alice, and Dustin and I. Dustin brought his helicopter and the boys had landing contests to see who could land it the fastest. We always play games boys against girls, and the girls always get our butts kicked, but we won every game that night! It was a fun night enjoyed with good friends. On New Years Day, my family had our Christmas party at Mike and Trish's home in Salt Lake. We spent hours and hours playing Rockband! We all recieved money this year to go towards our trip to Disneyland in the year 2011. That's right, we are taking a huge family vacation to Disneyland! That's just a few of the highlights of our past couple weeks, I hope you all had a wonderful Holiday season this year (well technically last year)!

Christmas Happenings

2009-12-23T14:20:00.002-07:00

So, the week of Christmas is finally here! Am I ready? Pretty much, am I excited? Sorta, does it even feel like Christmas time? No...I am feeling a little depressed this year because I haven't gotten into the 'Christmas Spirit'. It's not that I haven't tried, I mean I set up the tree, did Christmas shopping, been listening to Christmas music, been to quite a few Christmas parties, but it just feels different this year for some reason. I hope I can really feel that spirit in the next few days before it all goes away for another year. Here is some of the Christmasy stuff I've been up to lately...

Christmas with the girls!

Katie gave me a much needed makeover, cute huh?!

We had our work Christmas party today with Pita's from Pita Pit and pot luck from all the guys. It was very yummy and fun to sit and chat with eachother. My boss got us all these awesome hoodies!

And he also made us all unique pens, that's right, I said MADE! He makes all sorts of awesome stuff, you should all check out his website...
www.simplywoodcreations.com

There has been lots of fun Christmas stuff going on, so I hope I can get in the 'spirit'!

Christmas Card

2009-12-16T12:38:00.002-07:00

Even though I am not going to mail these out to anyone, I still wanted to make a Christmas card, so here it is! I've been trying to think of what I would say if I did a newsletter, but I can't think of anything. This blog would be my newsletter! Blogging has become my own personal journal. I enjoy going back and reading the different posts through the past few years and remembering all of the fun things and the blessings we've recieved! That's all....

Some pics of recent happenings

2009-12-14T11:25:00.003-07:00

My friend Taryn is a nail tech, and she needed some models, so of course I volunteered! She did a cute Christmasy cheer on me with red green and silver. Once again, I am struggling to get used to having them, but I'm getting better!

I have been working on this little craft for the last little while to give as gifts to neighbors and friends. This is the blue style...

And this is the pink style.

We were gonna get a real tree this year cuz this one was a hand-me-down tree from my sis-in-law and it is sorta falling apart, but of course we never got around to it, so here is the ol' tree. As you can clearly see, I am not very good at spacing out my lights evenly haha! Oh well...

Here is a better close up pic of my awesome Temple pic I made...I am so proud of this thing!

This was one of my birthday presents this year. I woke up to this awesome rug in my living room!

We are finally starting to get some decorations and stuff in our house! Here is the living room with all the new stuff. I still need to get some navy blue throw pillows and some blinds/drapes and then this room will be complete!

Pics

2009-12-04T10:38:00.003-07:00

So I found some pics from the past couple events, and since I didn't post them on my last post, I'll just post them now. This is a crappy pic of the cool craft I made at Andreas. I took it while we were driving and it was sitting on the back seat, but at least you get an idea of how cool it is! This is all us girls waiting in line for New Moon on Thanksgiving day! Mom was trying to hold us back haha!

All the sisters!

Thanksgiving & Birthday

2009-12-02T11:56:00.002-07:00

I'm a slacker and took absolutely no pictures, so please bare with me as I try to describe these past few events. On Wednesday, the ol' high school gang and I went to New Moon together for our monthly get together. It was so fun to catch up on each others lives and act like high school girls drooling over Jacob! After, we tried out the new frozen yogurt shop Tummy Yummy's, and boy was it delish! On Thanksgiving we went to Tremonton to the Collom Family Dinner at great Grandma and Grandpas. It was nice to see everyone there, but we crammed about 30 people into their tiny house, and it was squishy! Then we headed to my parents house to eat another Thanksgiving dinner! My entire family was there, including Curt and Mandy and cute little Kambria all the way from Vegas! We weighed in again this year, and I only gained 1 pound! Curt won again with like 6 pounds or something...the kid never stopped eating! (For those of you that might not know what I'm talking about, we started a tradition where you weigh in before you eat, and then after, and whoever gains the most wins) That night, all the girls went to see New Moon together (even though I had gone the night before, I still went). Of course we all loved it and couldn't stop talking about Jacob and his nice bod! My sis in laws Trish and Andrea decided to pull an all nighter and get to Old Navy at 2:00 AM! Then the rest of the girls joined them for black Friday shopping! Dustin and I did our own black Friday shopping and I only joined up with the girls shopping fun for the last hour or so, and that's enough for me! Friday night we packed everyone up and drove to Preston to the Festival of Lights, only to discover that they only do it on Saturday starting this year! So we made the best of our time in Preston and ate at Big J's! On Sunday night, Dustin and I helped out doing the Sacrament meeting at the Nursing Home, and what a joy that was! They asked the Primary to come and sing some songs, and a couple of kids from my class were there! I was so happy and proud of them for coming, even though Makayla looked terrified haha! Yesterday was my 22nd birthday...I'm an old fart now. I woke up to an awesome rug in my living room! Dustin had put it there the night before while I was in bed. It fits so good with my 'theme' for that room! And I got a new purse! It's about time! I outgrew my old one a long time ago, and I've been stuffing it fuller and fuller every day till I can't ever find anything. My sis in law Andrea was invited to this craft night and she invited me to come, so we drove all the way to Toelle yesterday to make a super cute craft, and she made it very worth our while! She made me an awesome 'Olive Garden' meal and cupcakes and gave me presents, and it was so much fun! We spent the night there and then drove to Logan this morning for work. All in all, I would say it was a pretty good birthday! Thanks to everyone who sent me birthday wishes!

Oh the boring lives we live...more like the busy lives we live!

2009-11-24T13:15:00.002-07:00

Yes, we live boringly busy lives! It seems like we are busy busy busy, but nothing exciting has been happening! Between work and primary and upkeep on my house, and trying to spend every second I can with my hubby when he's not working, time has just been flying by us! I did get a hair cut a couple weeks ago, so I'll post about that because it is somewhat exciting! Here is the before pic... And here is the after (don't mind the super cheesy smile)
It's not a huge difference, but I didn't want it to be. I just got a trim and added some layers and changed my bangs up a bit. So far I have really enjoyed it! Well, that's about all for me. Happy Thanksgiving everyone!

Old Hallow's Eve

2009-11-02T11:04:00.004-07:00

Halloween was a very eventful day this year! My nephew Ethan got baptized!!! He is the oldest of the grandkids so it was so neat to go and support him on his big day! I can't believe that he is already 8! I remember being 8 and my baptismal day, and it doesn't seem that long ago, so to think that he is that old...it just blows me away, and makes me feel really old!

When we were done at the baptism, we hurried home to get things set up for our little Halloween party we threw. Dustin thought I was going way overboard with the party, but I wanted to go all out! I borrowed some decorations from my mom, and tried to spruce up the house a little bit. (Notice the clump of white, that would be Dustin's spiderweb. He didn't understand that you have to stretch it out to make it look like a spider web, so he just left it all clumped up)

This was at the top of the stairs...our basement is like a dungeon right now!

This would be my spiderweb...

I guess at night, these cast shadows outside that look pretty cool

Becky and I used to always carve really extravagant pumpkins, so I went to her house this year to do it with her, but I got lazy and did a boring face.

Cool tiki torches

So I did go a little crazy with my baking for the party...I found all these awesome recipes and I couldn't just choose one, so I did them all! These are witch finger cookies...pretty gross looking!

My sister-in-law Andrea made these for Ethan's baptism, so I had to steal her left overs to bring to the party. They are donut holes dipped in white chocolate.

Mummy cupcakes!

These turned out awesome! Chocolate mice!

The spread, I also made some pumpkin chocolate chip cookies...my favorite!

Taryn likes to eat mice...

I think the party turned out pretty good! We had a good turnout of people and even thought the girls lost every time, we still enjoyed each others company playin games all night!

Pumpkin Walk

2009-10-27T12:08:00.006-06:00

It's pumpkin time again!!! Becky and I are making a tradition of going to the pumpkin walk every year, it's the only festive thing I really do each year. This years theme was advertisements, and the main thing was M&M, every exhibit had a hidden M&M in it. This was a Band aid advertisement, but I thought it was hilarious!

Can you guess what this is? Serta mattress!

So easy even a caveman can do it!

Michael Jackson!

Fruit of the Loom

This was our favorite, The Jolly Green Giant and his awesome garden!

Farmer Bill...

Ha ha!

These guys arms were on strings and they would move back and forth and up and down so it looked like they were really playing! Very clever and cute!

These were amazing!

Arry Potta

Expeliamas!

Our traditional picture

Becky's house is decorated SO CUTE for Halloween! I just couldn't resist taking a picture of some of her decorations above her kitchen. This only shows you just a glimpse of how the rest of her house is decked out!

I had a great time and I'm glad Becky and I are making a tradition out of this! Happy Halloween!

Hunting Trip

2009-10-20T11:03:00.006-06:00

It's always tough to come back from a week of relaxation...The fun started early Tuesday morning (4:30 A.M.) with a trip to the cannery with my sister in laws. I had never been to the cannery before, and let me tell you, it was quite the experience! You can basically can anything you want there! I was so perplexed and amazed the whole morning! I just did some pork and chicken just because I wasn't sure if I'd like it or not yet. It's not all that hard to prepare it, and then the pressure cooker does the rest! When we were done at the cannery, we met up with our men and helped them get everything packed up, then they were off...leaving us all widowed. Lacey and I decided that we would finish our super Saturday craft we did a month ago, so we worked on it, but it's still not finished! We went out to Olive Garden that night, and then it was off to bed alone... Wednesday morning Lacey, Marcie and I headed to Wayan Idaho at the Wyoming boarder where our men had set up camp the day before. It was beautiful country over there!

This is Caribou Mountain, it has some really good Elk hunting on it, but you have to draw out a tag for it, and we didn't get it, so we just hunted in the surrounding hills.

Here is our camp

They have these awesome canvas tents with no floors and wood burning stoves in them. I was a little nervous sleeping in them because it gets pretty cold in the mountains in October, but they were surprisingly warm and comfortable! We put the tarp on the back half on the second night because it rained pretty good and the tent didn't get waterproofed all the way, so the boys got soaked!

This was the food tent.

Inside the food tent

Other half of the food tent with the stove

This is where we slept. We have carpet to put on the ground and then cots, and we even had an air mattress on top of our cots, so we slept real nice!

Other half of the sleeping tent with the stove

The girls never actually went hunting, we just stayed at camp and read books and talked and prepared the meals and made watchlets!

The boys went hunting quite a bit, sometimes on foot, sometimes on four wheelers and sometimes on the horses, but they never saw anything. The area they hunted was so thick, they saw all the signs of elk and deer and could even hear them at times, but never were able to see them. We decided to pack up Friday morning and try our luck back home. But before we left, we went on an awesome four wheeler ride through that breathtaking country!

Dustin and I on the four wheeler ready to go!

Here is our caravan of wheelers

Isn't it amazing!

We found this awesome scenery shot and decided to take lots of pictures there

The Fellows clan from left to right: Dustin, me, Wayne, Jonathan, Marcie, Lacey, Jason

A father and his sons

This is Bob, he is a good family friend and he was so fun to have along! He is a superb hunter and a very knowledgeable man, we loved to just listen to all of his stories. He really freaked me out one night. He has this call that has almost any animal you can think of on it, and he was playing some of them for us. He played the mountain lion and the bobcat, which were truly terrifying! So then the whole night I kept thinking we were gonna have a mountain lion show up at our camp trying to find the female in heat he had heard.

And here we are with our wheelers, ready to continue on our ride

Even though we weren't successful with our hunting, it was still way fun and nice to get away for a week and do whatever our hearts desired! We got home Friday night and got everything unpacked. Even though the tents were more comfortable than I imagined, I still had a hard time sleeping with all the snoring and the occasional coyote howl, so it was very nice to be home in our own bed. Saturday morning we headed to Stockton with the wheelers to try our luck hunting there (it is just north of Preston). We had a good ride, but once again we came out unsuccessful. I really don't mind if we don't get anything this year, even though it is my first year actually hunting, I just love being out in nature in the beauty of the fall weather!

Hunting season ends on Saturday, so I'll keep you updated with any other hunting stories that might come up, but don't hold your breath!

Opening Day

2009-10-12T11:55:00.005-06:00

Saturday was opening day for deer season, so of course we had to go! This is my first year as an actual hunter! The last 2 years I've just been along for the ride, but this year I packed my gun and bullets and everything! We woke up at 5:30 to get everything gathered up and ready, then we met up with the rest of the fam at 6:30 and headed up to Bear Creek. Nothing too exciting happened...we all spread out and sat and watched...and watched...and watched... The only thing we saw for the 4 hours we were in the mountains was other hunters. It hasn't gotten cold enough yet, so there are still too many leafs on the trees making it nearly impossible to see any deer unless they are out in a clearing. It was very beautiful and peaceful though, and I enjoyed being out in nature and watching the sun rise and slowly light up the valley! This is also the first year I haven't froze my butt off, thanks to the coveralls I bought. I got a little bored so I pulled out my camera to capture the beauty around me.

I kinda look like a man haha! This is my angry face because we hadn't seen a thing!

I absolutely love this pic! I always have to take pics of Dust when he isn't aware, or he pulls a face or hides. I don't know why I like it so much, I guess I just like the scenery and him just watching, waiting...

So we drove back home all depressed that we were so unsuccessful, when all of a sudden we spotted a small herd of deer munchin on some hay right off the road. Sometimes I swear those bucks know when hunting season is and they know where they are safe! Hopefully we'll have better luck this week when we go camping/hunting at the Wyoming boarder.

Lake Tahoe!

2009-10-05T11:35:00.011-06:00

Ok, just to warn you, this post is chuck full of PICTURES!!! Our buddies from Tremonton have a condo in Lake Tahoe and they invited us to join them this weekend. We did a lot of driving, but it was lots of fun and so good to get away. We left Friday morning at around 9:00 and arrived at Lake Tahoe around 7 :00 but we had done quite a bit of stopping and stretching along the way. There were 6 of us in a truck, so it was not a very comfortable ride.

This is Lake Tahoe greeting us as we came over the summit.

I love going through tunnels!
Friday night, we got settled into the condo, which was AWESOME! Then we grabbed a bite to eat and spent the rest of the night in the hot tub trying to relax our stiff muscles from the 8+ hour drive. Saturday morning we decided to do some site seeing. There was plenty of it to do, but we only chose a couple of things. This time of year the salmon spawn in the rivers, and we thought it would be pretty cool to go see that.
On our way through town, we saw lots of interesting people, like Santa and his wife on Harley's

There were so many beautiful shots that I took of the lake, but I only chose just a few to post

Here is one of the rivers that the salmon swim up to spawn

There were some freakin huge pine cones there!

I made Dustin take at least ONE picture with me...he looks thrilled...

They had made this cool glass case along the river that you could watch the fish

I was pretty proud of this pic, I got the trout right as we was surfacing to eat a bug

The wives...Me, Kim, and Taryn

All of the salmon just chillin in the river. While they are spawning, they start to loose color, so the whiter they are, the closer to death they become. How would you like to give your life, just for the slight hope that your eggs will all hatch and live on.

I couldn't resist taking this pic of the river. Everything was so beautiful!

The only pic we got of all of us. From left to right: Me, Dustin, Nate, Taryn, Shane, Kim.

We took this beautiful drive through the mountains that line the shores of the lake, and it was breathtaking!

There was this little cove with this cool Island on it. There were some ruins of a castle of some sort on it.

We decided to take this steep mile hike to go and see an old castle on the shore

View from inside the castle courtyard

Dustin actually suggested we take this pic just because the little island was soo cool!

The castle had grass roofs

Inside the courtyard

Other side of the courtyard

All the intricate work was so fascinating to see

Awesome stone work as well as wood work

After we saw the castle, we were all pretty pooped from the hike, so we just chilled at the condo for a bit, playing ping pong and watching Celebrity Cribs. Then we had a night on the town. We did some penny slots (and as you can see I really enjoy losing) and ate at the Hard Rock Cafe.

When we got back to the condo, we relaxed in the hot tub again. It started to snow while we were out there. That has got to be one of my favorite things! Chilling in a hot tub while the snow comes down all around you. But let me tell you, it was a very cold walk back to our room! Here are some pics of the condo.

This is the living room

The dining room

The kitchen

This is what we woke up to on Sunday morning...3 inches!

We didn't think we would have needed to bring the snow scraper with us!

Cool story about this garbage can...when we first checked in they warned us to watch out for bears when we took out our trash, because they had been rummaging through it the last couple nights. So on Saturday night while we were in the hot tub, we kept hearing something slamming, and we all joked that it was a bear in the garbage can. Well pretty soon we heard a cop siren and then a gun shot. We ran back to our room to see the cop shining his lights on a momma bear and 2 cubs. They had sounded their sirens and shot the gun to try to scare them off, but they just ran to the next condos garbage can.

Pretty nice place to stay huh?

The snow had made everything so much more beautiful!

I took this video on the way home, it was seriously such a boring drive! Everything looked the same for 8+ hours! Absolutely nothing to look at but sage brush.

Even though most of the weekend was spent driving, it was still a lot of fun, and so good to spend 3 whole days with my hubby!

More crafty things I've been doing

2009-09-22T11:27:00.004-06:00

Here is another craft that I've become addicted to (no thanks to my Mom). These watchlets have become a big hit for this valley, and my mom and I have jumped on the band wagon! For those of you that don't know what a watchlet is, it is basically just a watch face and you make the bands for it so they are interchangeable! Here is some of the watchlets I have made.

This is my Halloween one I just made, do you like the spider?

My blue one and my spontaneous one. It came to be because my mom saw me wear my orange skirt one day and she said I just had to have a watchlet to match it, so there you go!
My green and my pink one

One for every outfit! I've just started too! My mom's got about 30 now haha!

What up

2009-09-21T11:18:00.005-06:00

I know I'm a little late in posting about it, but Erin is married! On September 12th her and Randy tied the knot! Her reception was beautiful and so was she! I am an idiot and didn't bring my camera so I have no pics, but it was wonderful! They had the coolest strawberries I had ever seen! They call them tuxedo strawberries or something like that, but the chocolate that covered the strawberry looked like a little tuxedo! So cool! In other news, the landscaping is coming along very slowly! I think it's gonna have to wait till spring, which really irritates me because we have done nothing on the house this whole year! We might get the cement for the driveway poured hopefully this week, but the way things go, that probably won't get done till spring either. On a happier note, Icon had their employee Lagoon day on Friday. Dustin is no fun when it comes to amusement parks and refused to go, so I took my best friend Becky! Becky used to always take me to her dad's work Lagoon day, and we have made a lot of fun memories there. The new Wicked ride is sooo awesome! And because Icon had the park all to itself for the whole night, there was absolutely no lines for anything! Unfortunately, I got sick and made us leave earlier than we would have liked, but we still got to ride some pretty fun rides and make some more great memories! And once again, I am an idiot and didn't take any pictures! I have been pretty bored at home lately since Dustin works nights, so I have started to become a little crafty. We'll see how long it lasts, but so far, I think it's a hobby I could really enjoy! My sister in law Lacey invited me to her wards super Saturday, so last Tuesday I went over to their enrichment leaders house to look at all the different crafts I could sign up for. They had this really cute seasonal one that had a cute sign and cut out for each season. That's the one I signed up for, and this last Saturday we did it. Well, sorta...it is a lot bigger project then either of us expected it to be, so we only got 2 seasons worth of stuff painted, and decided we would have to get together another time to finish the other seasons and put it all together. When I had gone to the enrichment lady's house, it was decorated soo cute with all sorts of awesome crafts she had done. She had this cute shelf and the word 'FAMILY' cut out in wood sitting on the shelf. It was super cute and gave me a great idea for my own house. I started looking for wood letters for my 'FAMILY', but nobody had the size I wanted for a decent price, ($12 a letter!) so I decided to make my own. I went to Lowe's and bought a board for $7, found a cute font I liked and printed out the letters the size I wanted them, traced them on my board and my mom helped me cut them out. I spent another $7 on paint and paintbrushes for my letters, and a week later they are complete! So for a mere $14, I have a dang cute decoration for my barren house! What do you think?

This is a close up to show how I outlined the edges in white and then smeared it into the middle to give it an antiqued/worn look

Here they are sitting up on my shelf

Here they are at a distance, I think they fit the room nicely, but I will buy some navy blue throw pillows to replace those red ones.

A close up of all of them before I mounted them on their stands.

Marathons and Lingerie

2009-08-31T11:35:00.013-06:00

Saturday my crazy awesome sis-in-law, Andrea, ran the Top Of Utah half marathon! She ran 13.5 miles in 2 hours! She did soo awesome! There were over 2,200 people who ran this year!

My brother Jeremy and his kids Lizzie and Abby waiting for Andrea to cross the finish line!

The streets were lined with people for miles!
Lizzie and Abby are so proud of their mommy!

Andrea pretending she is dying in the back of the ambulance

You did so awesome Andrea, we are all so proud of you! After I watched Andrea run, I had to bust my buns to get ready for a wedding shower my friends and I were throwing for our friend Erin. We did a luau theme with lots of fruit, a chocolate fountain and shishkabobs. Erin got a lot of cute lingerie! Don't worry Er, I won't embarrass you and post the pics ;).

Erin (with her cute home made veil, its tradition) stabbing the chocolate fountain

All of the yummy food we could dip in chocolate...mmmm...chocolate...

Our cute decorations and all the gifts

In the kitchen makin' shishkabobs!

Karrie Shalese and Aubs...so cute!

Don't they look delish?

Madi had a boo boo with the chocolate

Like my cute hair ornaments? I had to protect my flower from the rain!

Shalese and I

Karrie and I

The wedding girl and I

Katie and I

I didn't get a pic of Aubree and I, how sad! Don't feel bad Aubs! I still luv ya! When I got home from the shower, I was pleasantly surprised to find Dustin and his brothers working on our landscaping! It's about time we get some work done on the house! They pretty much got everything shaped the way it needs to be, and the dirt slopes away from the house now! (We don't want any more flooding this coming winter/spring!) Now we just need to get our rock walls done and plant grass! Oh and pour our driveway, and set up the propane tank, and get the A/C unit hooked up, and...the list still goes on and on.

Landscaping doodles

2009-08-27T16:35:00.003-06:00

Alright, I haven't posted anything for a while, mainly cuz nothing too exciting has happened, except maybe the fact that I GOT MY HUNTING LICENSE! I had to spend a week in classes with a bunch of young boys, but I passed with flying colors and I am all set for hunting season this year! Anyway...this post is about my doodles. We have hardly even touched the house this year, and it has been very frustrating, but we both work ALOT! But recently we have been really trying to get a little bit of landscaping done before snow flies (I know that seems like forever away, but honestly, its only about 2 months away!) So I have been doodling some of my ideas on what we should do. If you have any suggestions or opinions, please let me know! We have an acre and a half of land, but we are NOT planting the entire thing in grass! Here's my doodles, they are kinda small, so sorry if you can't tell what stuff is.

Left: this is a birds eye view, the lines with circles are rock walls. The other 3 are different sides of the house (front, side, back)

This is just a 2 dimentional view of the house and how the rock walls will be

They ain't nothin fancy, but let me know if you have any ideas for shrubbery and tree's and all that. I'm pretty sure the rock walls are gonna be like that just because that is how our land is already shaped. I need ideas! And I have no idea where I'm going to plant my garden. This will be easier for those who have been to my house and kinda know how the land is, but I am open for any suggestions. Thanks!

Pics of our Girls Night Out!

2009-08-12T09:58:00.004-06:00

Alright! I got those pics from my mom, and here they are!

All of us at the fabulous Texas Roadhouse!

Tonia, Mom, Andrea and Kambi! (She got passed around a lot as you will see in the upcoming pics)Amanda, Me, and Trish

Kissy faces!
More kissy faces!
This was our first attempt at pulling a sexy pose, Trish couldn't handle it haha!After several minutes of trying, this is what we came up with for our sexy pose

They seem to have it down pretty good!

Mom and Kambi...

Manda and Kambi

And yes, I even held Kambi...

Tonia told the waiter that it was Amanda's birthday, but she didn't want to ride the saddle, so I did it for her haha!

Past Coupla Weeks

2009-08-10T12:25:00.004-06:00

Alright, I have been wanting to tell you all about our fun weekend adventures but never got around to it, so I finally am (if I can remember it all). Unfortunately, I was so busy having fun that I forgot to take pictures to document it all, so this will be a very wordy post. We'll start with 2 weekends ago (Rodeo weekend). I always love it when Rodeo Weekend comes around, Preston just gets this exciting vibe to it! My friends Stacey and Shannon were driving a float for their uncle in the parade and they invited me to ride along with them! It was fun to party with them and wave to all the cute kids watching the parade. That night, Stacey and I went to the carnival together (both our husbands were gone). We only went on 3 rides because the lines were soooo long, but 3 was plenty for me! Stacey made me go on the zipper with her, and I swear we were going to die! But we lived, thankfully, because I hadn't gotten my cotton candy yet! I have an addiction...it's called fluffed up sugar and I love it!!! That is the one thing I look most forward to every year is the cotton candy! So I got my fill of sugar, and we were off to Big J's for some dinner, considering it was 11:30 and neither of us had eaten. The whole day was so great and I was able to see a lot of my old peers from when I went to school in Preston, and surprisingly, they all remembered me!

This is Stacey and I before we went to the Carnival!

Then on Friday, all my sisters got together in Salt Lake for a girls night out! Tonia and I had to work on Friday, so we weren't able to meet up with them until later that night for dinner, which was at the amazing Texas Roadhouse!! That is my favorite restaurant and I am so excited that Logan is finally getting one! We had a good old time talking and laughing together. The best part was when we tried to take sexy pictures of each other! I'll try to get pics from my mom so you can all see how funny we are! Tonia and I spent the night in Logan at my parents and then Saturday morning I helped her get ready for her high school reunion. I must say, she was a sexy beast when we were done! Dustin and I did some shopping in Logan and then headed to his Ogden family reunion. Then we went to the sidewalk sales in Preston and watched the parade with Dustin's family. The Preston parade is probably the best there is around here! They throw out shirts, notebooks, Popsicles, Gatorade, milk jugs, and of course tons and tons of candy! Unfortunately we didn't get any tickets for the rodeo, so we just hung out and played games with some friends Saturday night. On Monday, I was able to ride with my parents to Brigham for our Cater get together. I haven't seen my Carter cousins for a long time and it was so good to sit and talk and laugh and remember old times with them! Then this last weekend we went to Ogden on Friday to look at this rifle for me to shoot this year for hunting season. The gun hadn't even been opened or anything, and it was in perfect condition! So we bought it! I am so excited! On Saturday morning we went to Tattles for breakfast with the fam, then we headed to Dustin's parents house to reload bullets for my new gun! I was very fascinated to see the whole reloading process. So we hurried home and took it out to shoot it! It has a kick to it, but nothing I can't handle! Now I just gotta practice practice practice so that I can actually shoot a deer this year! Ok, anyway, our friends Davin, Leah, Ryan and Emily and ourselves had been planning a camping trip to Bear Lake for this weekend, but when Saturday morning rolled around and it was raining outside, we decided to postpone. We still camped out though. We played games and shot guns all day on Saturday, then we spent the night at Leah's parents house up Mink Creek in their racket ball court. It echoed pretty bad in there, but it made for an interesting night! If I closed my eyes hard enough, I could imagine us up in the mountains, in tents, with the cold breeze blowing, and the bears growling outside. It was easy to imagine since the window was open and Ryan's snores echoed loud enough to sound like bears growling haha. We had a good time, and we hope we can reschedule our camping trip soon, because Bear Lake and Minnetonka cave sound super fun!!!

This is the only picture I got of us shooting guns. This is Ryan shooting Matt's pistol...it was freakin loud!

So there you have it, your all updated on our weekend adventures, if your made it through the whole thing that is!

Hiking+Buck+Snakes+Tubing+New Car+Truck Pulls+Primary=Eventful Weekend!

2009-07-28T13:50:00.007-06:00

Oh man...where to start! My friend Shannon and I have been doing a weekly hike for the past month and so far I have really enjoyed all the hikes we've been on. Well our last hike was on Wednesday and it was hard! We had no trail to follow and we ended up trying to side hill some very steep slopes! I got really exhausted and made us turn back. We did run into a little 2 point buck hiding in the wheat, and also a disgusting blow snake that I almost stepped on! Shanny just loves snakes so she had to play with it for a minute.

On Thursday night, a few of my friends made the long journey to Preston Idaho to spend the night at my house. Katie and I rode in my good ol' Honda while Karrie and Erin rode in Erins new beautiful Ford Escape. Well...I haven't driven my car at night for a long time, and I was frightfully surprised to find out that my interior lights and tail lights don't work when my headlights are on, and vis versa. Needless to say, it was a nerve wracking drive to Idaho (not really, I figured out how to jerry rig it to where they both worked). On Friday morning we woke up bright and early to make breakfast and go to the lake, but found that the weather didn't want to cooperate. We went to the lake anyway, and it ended up being perfect because the threatening clouds kept all the other boaters off the lake and we basically had the whole lake to ourselves! I am terrified of the tube, but they made me go, and it wasn't half bad I guess... Here are some pics and video of our day at the lake.

The before picture all happy and full of energy!

This was our first attempt to fit all 4 of us on...lucky Katie gets to carry my weight haha! It worked for a while but Erin and Karrie got pushed off!

This was the second attempt, it worked a little better... The after picture, all tuckered out and tired!

I bummed out first and just let the 3 of them ride it. Here is a video I shot of them. They catch some air right at the end!

That night, Dustin and I took our friends Nate and Taryn to Pocatello with us to look at a car. We've been car shopping for about 2 months now and I was getting real sick of going to look at cars, but Dustin is not an impulse buyer and always shops around for the very best deal. Well I'm glad he does, because we finally found it! We knew exactly what we wanted in a car and we found one in Pocatello that fit all our criteria. When we got there, we took it for a spin and instantly knew this was our car. So we bought it! I am so happy and relieved to not be driving that falling apart POS of a Honda that I've been driving for the past 4 years! It's still a good little car that gets great gas mileage, but it is not fun to drive at all! So now it is Dustin's commuter car, and the Maxima is mine! Here are some pics of the car. It's a Nissan Maxima that is fully loaded with leather heated seats, sky roof and power everything! I am in love!

Beautiful dark blue...mmhhmmmm....

That's right, it's a V6...plenty of power!

I couldn't get a good side shot...I was in the parking lot at work and there was a truck in the way

Sky roof for the front and back passengers

Beautiful leather interior with the Bose sound system

So I'm spoiled...I know...but this is going to be a car we keep for a long time and can have kids with it and all. Anyway... on Saturday we went to the Tremonton Truck Pulls. For those of you who are city people and don't know all the redneck sports your missin out on, I'll tell you what a truck pull is. There is this big machine that they call a sled that you hook onto the back of your truck like you would hook up a trailer. This 'sled' has a big blade in the front and weights at the back. As the truck pulls the 'sled', the weights start to move forward, causing the blade to dig deeper into the ground, making it more difficult for the truck to pull. Whichever truck makes it the furthest wins. Basically people soup up their trucks with chips and pipes and turbos and all that jazz and show off what their truck can do. They are very loud and they blow ALOT of black smoke! Sometimes, if you're lucky, you get to see them brake something like their tie rods or their turbos or blow head gaskets or something. It's something my husband really enjoys, and I don't mind it too bad, so we go every year. Then on Sunday I started my new calling...teaching Primary! I am not too thrilled, but I will survive. I teach CTR 6 and 7 because we have a tiny Primary and we have to combine classes. They weren't too bad, but now I know not to stress to much over the lesson because they don't really listen anyway. They sure say some funny things though! Anyway, so that was my very eventful weekend. Hope you all had a great 24th!