second try

In May, a few of us when to a painting class and here is my mostly finished product (there is a reason I am not an artist...it was a really fun class, though):

I went home to Kansas to have surgery after the tornadoes. Thanks, Mom, for coming out here, driving home, driving back, putting up with me, taking care of me, etc. You are the best!

My first day back, Nathan bought us all Sonic. We enjoyed eating/drinking it on the front porch (except for Caleb...) Thanks, Nathan!

Another Colorado picture:

And here's the picture of the snake (can you see it???):

colorado

Blogger is not being kind to me today. There are 3 more pictures I wanted to post but, it's not cooperating. I went to CO last week to visit Becca and Cheryl. I like that place. The company was excellent, too :)

We went hiking in Castlewood Canyon on Memorial Day - beautiful weather and a beautiful place. Before the hike, my brother-in-law told one of my nephews that we wouldn't see any snakes. About 2 minutes down the trail, guess what we saw. Yep, a snake. Soon after we passed the snake my nephew turned to my brother and said, "You said we wouldn't see any snakes!"


On Friday night, the girls went out for a girls' night. Dinner (Rumbi Island Grill is awesome!), shopping, and ice cream. I don't know how Lexie feels about this ensemble. I was trying to distract her from seeing what her mom was buying and she wasn't amused.

On Saturday we went to Becca's and chilled (and ate chocolate cake!). Oh, and there was some karaoke...luckily Jacob can carry a tune because I can't.
We went on a couple of walks. On one walk, we walked to where the sidewalk ends. Yes, we wear pajamas when we go walking (really, I was wearing my PJ's too...I think Cheryl was the only one who wasn't). We also went on a walk by the reservoir and that was really fun.

There was more game playing, some more good food (including lots of homemade strawberry frosting), playing "pioneers", and lots of talking. Thanks everyone for a fun trip!

Hopefully tomorrow Blogger will let me post my other pictures.

the internet

You know those websites that seem to steal minutes, hours, days from your life? Facebook, blogs, Homestar Runner (back in college), etc. Well, here's another one:



At least it's something worthwhile.

Now I need to go do the dishes...

sunday night

i felt the need to blog tonight. i really didn't have anything to say though, so i went started reading some xanga entries from my college days for inspiration. it didn't help too much but it was fun to reminisce a little about life "way back when." so much has changed and, yet, so much has stayed the same. for example, the first post i read was about staying up until 1:00, sleeping on the living room floor and then writing a paper from 5:00-7:00 for a class i had at 8:00. sounds like me.

there was also a reference to some "blueberry milk" we gave to some guys we were friends with. i have no idea what that's about. blueberry milk?

the entries made me wonder what has happened with some of the people i had classes with (my major was pretty small so we all knew each other pretty well).

summers in kansas were always fun. like the time we drove around the whole city looking for all of the jayhawks.

it makes me want to be a little more diligent about keeping a journal so i can remember things better. i feel a little guilty that the last few months haven't been documented. here's what i remember:

December - Christmas = awesome, seeing family = awesome, no work for a week = awesome.

i'd say i'm off to a good start...

January - my birthday = awesome (melting pot+kitchen aid), snow day!!!!!!=awesome, worked a couple of saturdays = not so awesome

February - chattanooga trip = awesome, did anything else happen in february???

March - spring = awesome :), it's not dark outside when i leave work = awesome, a lot of birthdays = awesome, a new niece = awesome

i'm sure i have missed many very important events from the past few months. i should probably check my camera to see what else has happened. oh yeah - we all went to florence in february. that was awesome.

in more recent news, last night we had a birthday party for a friend and we had a pinata!! please pretend there's a tilde over the 'n'. it broke after two people had a chance so i guess we have some pinata-making practicing to do.

tonight we had our friend sunday dinner (which is now penciled in for every sunday throughout eternity). it was a nice, relaxing evening with good conversation. and some awesome food (thanks for the recipes mom and stephanie)! it was a good weekend. i'm not sure if i'm ready to go back to work tomorrow. but i'll do it anyway.

the end.

i've been looking...

...for an excuse to go to kansas. this might be it: http://kcldstemple.blogspot.com/2011/02/temple-run.html

shopping

i like to play a little game with cashiers at the store. it's not really a fair game since they don't know that they are playing. i put my groceries up on the little conveyer belt in order of how i want them bagged. sometimes i even leave a little space between each set of items. so far, no one has bagged my groceries correctly. but someone got close last week (they just put the ground sage in the wrong bag). i was so impressed that i almost told them that they were the best cashier ever but...i didn't. good story.

fall/winter 2010

I finally have a "free" night for the first time in what seems like ages. So instead of getting ready for Christmas, paying bills or doing something essential, I'm catching up on posting pictures for the last 2 or 3 months. At least I have my priorities straight, right?


Okay, so there are a lot of pictures (and like usual, many are taken from Facebook).



Cynthia and I made dinner in pumpkins one night. It was so good! I think I've found a new Halloween tradition.

There is a funnel cloud coming down in between the clusters of trees. Luckily it was pretty far away.

I met up with one of my BYU roommates down in Birmingham a couple of months ago. We went and saw the Vulcan statue and went to the Botanical Gardens (which were free and therefore, awesome).

My cousins, Joanna and Valerie, came to visit for Thanksgiving! It was very nice of them to come and keep me company and I enjoyed having them here. We explored the area (and totally didn't get lost), went hiking, ate cupcakes (to make up for the hiking), went to a movie, went to some yummy restaurants, and had an awesome Thanksgiving Day.

This dog kept following us around:

Hiking (okay, so now that I think about it we didn't really hike that much since I was wearing flip flops that day and it was muddy):

Is cactus native to Alabama?

We also stopped by the temple on the way home from the airport. Moroni has a little friend on his trumpet...

Two of my best friends here got married recently :) It was a very happy day and I'm so excited for them! Here are some pictures taken by our very talented friend, Karen.

And here are some from Doug's camera:

Who needs a guest book?

Roommates (well, former roommates):

My stake puts on an AMAZING Christmas Festival each year. I love it. Here is a link to some pictures that a reporter took. Here is a picture that didn't make the news :)

And my favorite:

And, here is the annual picture of my tree. Yes, I know it looks the same as the past 2 years but I promise there are some new ornaments on there :) I never did get around to cutting off the top of the tree so the star was lower. I guess I got used to it.

pumpkin pickin'

Some of us went to a pumpkin patch this weekend. Here are some pictures courtesy of Laura's Facebook album.


Not quite the version of James 1:5 that I learned but it gets the point across:

Turns out I'm the same height as I was last Fall:

Corn mustache:

Laura:

I'm just pretending that the pumpkins are heavy...

Claire and I with all of the cool pumpkins:

All of us:


We had a great time (even if the weather was more like June weather than October weather) - there was a corn maze, some farm animals, beautiful pumpkins and...funnel cakes.

that promised day

"Pure inspiration."

Check it out when you've got an extra hour - great for a Sunday afternoon or a really long FHE lesson :)




This movie brings back memories of when my nephew, Caleb, started reading the Bible (or as he would say, "The Holy Bible") and was looking up every single cross reference and then the cross references in the cross referenced verses. I don't know how far he got. I love that kid.

**bonus points if you can find the can of WD-40 in this film**

i think i'm in love...

...with this town.