The Good Old Days

So there has been an infestation as of late in the blogging world. I won't say whether I condone it or not - it simply exists. Right now as I look at the list of all the blogs we link to, I would guess that half of them have jumped on the bandwagon. I'm sure you've guessed that I'm referring to the memory posting bonanza.

While I will do my best to reply to your memory request, I figure that I've done enough self-indulging ego-boosting. Remember this post? I promise I won't beg for comments for at least another month. That being said, if you feel the need to reminisce, far be it from me to prevent you....Even on my own blog...

No. Instead I plan on thinking back to years of old myself. I realized in reading these posts that I have had an enjoyable life. I also have accepted that I like to live in the past. This is my first installment. If you appear in these throwback posts, count yourself lucky.

This first one comes from EFY. My group was known as the "Zoot Suit Riot", which was much cooler than Jeff's "McDonald's Night-Shift Crew". All I can say is it was not as advertised. I was told it would be a 3:1 girl to guy ratio. It just so happened that my session was the freakishly abnormal session, in that it was equal. If you look at pictures of me when I was younger, you can see that I needed those odds.

On the left is me & Brad playing Speed. On the right is the amazing child star known as "the kid from Dumb & Dumber who bought Lloyd's dead bird". The highlight of my EFY experience.



Next is a tasty morsel from my senior trip to Lake Powell. It was an awesome trip. The picture on the left is the cliff that the 3 bravest from our group dared jump off. Whenever people try and top each other with hair-raising stories of adventure, I whip this bad boy out. You can see where Brad, Kayla & I jumped from (the ity bity person at the top is where we launched from). We were so awesome that we did it twice! Truth be told I only did it cause Kayla was doing it, and there was no way I was going to be shown up by a GIRL.

On the right you can see the gang. From left to right: Celeste, Adam, Brad, Becca, Hillary, Aaron, Me, Kayla, Emily & Ashley. Once upon a time I was fit. If you look close I'm totally sucking in and flexing. I also must say that the sun puts shadows in all the right places to help me out posing. Man, I looked good when I was thirty pounds lighter...

Bedtime Stories

Ryan was in charge of the lesson for family night tonight, and we talked a bit about the word of wisdom, you know, taking care of ourselves by eating healthy and exercising. Of course getting a good night's sleep is a big part to being healthy, and Ryan brought up the fact that Josh has a good bedtime routine...and that we don't. My first thoughts were, "Well, yeah, we're not under the age of 4", but the more I thought about it, the better the idea of a routine became. Ryan goes to school so early in the morning, and I've been wanting to start my morning out before Josh gets up (does anyone else use their baby as an alarm clock?). We might as well start off the "early to rise" saying with an "early to bed", right? So, here's our new thing: read a book together before going bed, finishing before 10pm. We've read a book together before, and I'm really looking forward to spending that last part of the day together....although it may sound lame to you nonreaders, I know my fellow "Harry Potter" and/or "Twilight" fans out there are eating their hearts out!
On a side note, does anyone have any really easy, yummy, camp-food ideas? I'm heading out to stake girls camp as the solo leader for our ward, and I tend to not cook outdoors very often....

Why not include a family picture in front of the White House?
We know you want to come visit us...

Who Says Gas Can Be Dangerous?

What doesn't kill you makes you stronger, right? I'm not sure that statement is totally true. Maybe it should be "What doesn't kill you makes you stronger, or else really paranoid." What brought this on, you might ask?

I think we've all heard a parent tell their child "You're killing me." What percentage of those parents do you think really mean that? My conclusion is .0087%. Don't worry about how I arrived at that number, it involves a very complex algorithm. My point being, 2 days ago I said those words to Josh - and I meant it.

A couple nights ago Katie and I were sitting together reading, when she asked (multiple times) "Ugh, what is that smell?" Being self conscious I scooted over. She seemed to think that it smelled like "an old person's home" - whatever that means... Shortly after we went to bed not thinking anything of it. The next morning I had to get up early to go to school, so I set my alarm for 7:30 - OK, so it wasn't that early...

I don't remember the last time I slept that well, and it was unbelievably hard for me to wake up the next morning. I felt like I could've kept sleeping for... eternity... Judging by the look in Katie's eyes, she was singing kumbaya around my campfire. Josh also slept well that night. He also took a 2.5 hour nap an hour after waking up in the morning. Is anyone connecting the dots? Katie did - at noon.

Come to find out Josh, ever the playful child, found a new toy in the form of our gas stove. We're not even sure how long it was left on, but we're guessing at least 15 hours. We all came to realize that natural gas is a very good sleeping agent. I however, do not support it's use. Trust me on this, Benadryl does the trick just fine. Needless to say, our nightly routine involves a bath for Josh, a drink of milk, brushing our teeth, reading a book, saying our prayers, checking the stove, and then going night night.

Holy crap, are we lucky to be alive. Don't worry Mom, soon we'll have detectors in ALL of our rooms. Hopefully this post will save some lucky reader's life, right?




Here is my random montage as well. Most of the pictures are from our recent trip back to Utah. Josh is the funniest little kid. He now loves to climb up on things, play in the water, make funny faces, play the piano (including turning it on and adjusting the volume as high as it will go), give high 5's, low 5's, high 10's, low 10's, smell flowers, call most everything "ffff" or "ssss", run around, fake laugh to get others to laugh, and as previously mentioned - turn on the gas.

We're home

We have been away on vacation for such a long time! It was so much fun, and I don't think we're quite back into the swing of things, but it's good to be back. P.S. Thanks to our great family and friends for making our stay in Utah so good. There's a lot we want to blog about, so I guess we'll take it one blog at a time.

Josh turned one in June, so my dad was kind enough to take his one year old photos. I was really happy with how they turned out. (Along with the other non-one-year-old photos....) Thanks dad.Me with my wonderful parents. Hmm, who do I look like?

By the end of our trip, Josh had adopted everyone into his group of favorites.
It was hard to leave.

Josh with our buddy, Jeff Brown. Josh loved him! He followed him around and loved going to him, which is big for our reserved little guy.

I Used To Think I Was Smart....

My little brother Matt forwarded me an email. Typically I hate forwards, but I felt really silly after this. I want to verify that I'm not the only moron. I guess I got a little cocky thinking that I was smart. I was waaay off!

Below are five questions. You have to answer them instantly. Don't think about them too much, just answer.


1) You are participating in a race. You overtake the second person. What position are you in?


Answer: If you answered that you are first, then you are wrong! If you overtake the second person and you take his place, you are second!


2) If you overtake the last person, then you are...?


Answer: If you answered that you are second to last, then you are wrong again. How can you overtake the LAST Person?


3) Very tricky arithmetic! Note: This must be done in your head only. Do NOT use paper and pencil or a calculator.

Take 1000 and add 40 to it. Now add another 1000. Now add 30. Add another 1000. Now add 20. Now add another 1000. Now add 10. What is the total?


Answer: Did you get 5000? Wrong!

The correct answer is 4100.



4) Mary's father has five daughters: Nana, Nene, Nini & Nono. What is the name of the fifth daughter?


Answer: Did you answer Nunu? Wrong!
Her name is Mary! Read the question again!



5) A mute person goes into a shop and wants to buy a toothbrush. By imitating the action of brushing his teeth he successfully expresses himself to the shopkeeper and the purchase is done.

Next, a blind man comes into the shop who wants to buy a pair of sunglasses; how does he indicate what he wants?


Answer: Like you, he has to open his mouth and ask... It's really very simple…