A Weekend In St. Louis

So this past weekend we decided to go to St. Louis (partly cause we wanted to go see the arch and also cause we needed to cross Illinois off our list and it's right next door to St. Louis). We invited our friends, Jamie and Kevin (they have actually become our travel friends, it's quite fun!) and we had a total blast. We got in late Friday night, so the festivities didn't start til Saturday. Boy, what a day! We went to the arch and went up into it! It was actually pretty cool. I had always thought it was made of stone for some reason but it's made of metal. Anyway, the little tram thing you go up to the top in is ridiculously small. I pictured something like an elevator for five people but I was WAY off.... It is this super small little cubicle with 5 seats crammed in there and barely enough head room. You really had to get close to strangers and if your claustrophobic you can forget about going up there. So we made it to the top and looked out the windows over Missouri and Illinois and had our fill and went down. Then we took a ride and had our lunch on a ferry boat down the Mississippi River. After we drove over into Illinois, had some amazing ice cream from the good 'ol D.Q. and started our way back to the hotel.

This is where some excitement starts..... While in Illinois, we stopped at a welcome center and they had a weather radar thingy and it said that there could be tornado's in the area...... WHAT? TORNADO'S?? FLIP! It was a really cloudy day and the clouds were super low and moving really fast. So on our way past downtown St. Louis, the weather was flipping out and THE SKIES WERE GREEN! Um..... weren't the skies green in The Wizard of Oz before the tornado took Dorothy away?? YES, yes they were! I was startin' to get a little uneasy but was still hopin' that nothing would happen. Wellllllll........ it started to rain REALLY hard and even had hail mixed in it. UH, yah ANOTHER sign of a FREAKIN' TORNADO. It started to rain the hardest rain I have EVER seen in my 26 years of life. We could barely see the hood of our car let alone the car lights in front of us. IT WAS FREAKY! We were on a freeway and only able to go about 5 miles an hour.... LITERALLY! So the rain lasted for maybe 5-10 minutes and then it slowed up a ton. We noticed that there weren't really any cars out on the road so we were thinking "OH great.... all the locals know that they should be off the road and we are still on the road on an over pass trying to figure out what the "H" we should do!" Well, we went around a bend and then there was a stand still of cars. I couldn't help but thinking that a tornado touched down and ripped part of the freeway apart. Well, what happened was there was about a foot and a half of standing water ON THE FREEWAY just from the ten minutes of rain. ALL but one lane was covered in rain. WHEW! I was actually relieved that was all it was. So after about 25 minutes of shear terror things cleared up and then it was a beautiful night. We watched the news later and a tornado did actually touch down in St. Louis but it wasn't anything major. So now we can say we were in a tornado, which is pretty cool I guess.

We didn't really find anything else that tickled our fancy in St. Louis, so on Sunday we drove about 2 hours to Springfield, Illinois and saw Abraham Lincoln's home and also visited his tomb. It was really cool actually, but then again Jason and I are kinda history nerds. Our t0ur guide through his house was quite the odd duck, but none-the-less got the facts delivered. Lincoln's body was actually stolen and held for ransom early on so now they have this huge shrine for him and he is buried ten feet under ground in a cement vault. So don't go gettin' any ideas about stealin' his body for ransom! I really enjoy seeing how things were back then and just think how different life would have been back then. And I LOVE the old houses!I know. NERD! OH and I forgot to mention I got to touch the actual railing Lincoln touched (and of course all the other thousands of people that have visited there) I know.... you're jealous! The house had a lot of replica's since Lincoln sold most of his furniture and belongings cause they thought they were going to move back. So most of the things you see weren't the real deal except for the black horse hair upholstered couches and chairs, the candelabras and his desk and a few other things but I forgot. And, the lovely carpet and wallpaper you'll see in the pictures below were the actual colors and designs they had. WAY too busy for my taste! After, we drove back, took a late afternoon nap and then had yummy dinner at P.F. Changs :) So that's it. Our fun weekend in St. Louis!

So apparently I didn't get the good footage of driving in the blinding rain. But you can see that it was raining bad, so just imagine it being twice as bad and you can get the idea!

A few things

I am actually really mad at myself for slackin' on the posts and also the fact that I haven't taken that many pictures of me during my pregnancy :( I do have some but no so many in the early stages. Live and learn I guess-

So anyway, my sister Nicole (the one that lives in Nebraska) was in town visiting and wanted to help throw a baby shower for me while she was here cause she wouldn't be back til after I have my little ladybug. So we had a family baby shower with aunts and cousins from my moms and my dads side and also Jason's sisters and mom. It was really fun getting all these little girl things and made it that much more real for me! I got some super cute outfits, way comfy blankets, some adorable towels and the cutest little froggy baby robe you have ever seen! Of course I got some diapers, wipes, shampoo, lotion and ya know.... all that good stuff! It certainly was a success :) Here are a few pics...

Yes, my mom is a twin!!

So on a side note, I can feel her move around a lot more and I LOVE IT! They are still pretty small kicks but some are big enough that I can see my belly poke out when she kicks or punches. It's kind of wierd cause you actually realize there is another human being growing inside you but it still feels kinda alien like. I don't know. All I know is I'm so excited to feel her more and more. I know, you're probably thinking that I'll be thinking differently later on when she keeps me up, but to me it is really comforting. I know I'm just being a worry wort, and I honestly do feel like everything will be ok, but there is still part of me that has flashbacks to my previous loss even though it was really early on. ANYWAY, about a week ago, Jason was able to feel her kick for the first time! I loved it and I know it made things a lot more real for him. Oh my goodness, I am just so excited for her to get here!

Um, last item of business is that we are having a hard time picking out a name.... I want something that is a little more unique but not wierd (like apple, blech!) I just want a name that is not over used. But then on the other hand, Jason likes more traditional names and doesn't go for the not so common names. So, yah, that's the dilemma- Soooooo, do you have any suggestions?? I know, you probably don't want to say any if they are names that you would use for your future little girl, but I need help! I am only throwing this name out there because Jason already said there is no way we are naming her this name (even though there is still a glimmer of hope. Maybe if I say it enough it'll grow on him!) So I found this name in a magazine and liked it right away..... HMMMM, maybe I don't want to tell just yet, just in case Jason changes his mind. I know some of you already know, so if you do, don't post it in a comment :) Maybe I'll tell you later on but I'm still gonna keep it a secret :)

We Are Having.....

A BABY GIRL!!!!!!!

Yay! This was kind of unexpected cause a few people have told me that the way that I'm carrying the baby they thought it would be a boy. Of course that is all old wives tales, but it still got me thinking that it would be a boy. Then we saw a picture of her cute little bum and sure enough she's a little girl :) We got some really cute pictures of her and the ultra sound technician said that everything is measuring normal and she is a healthy little baby! We are so happy! No names yet, but I'll keep ya posted.

Time Flies When....

( I don't know why, but it's not letting me upload pictures! Sorry! I will try again later)


Time flies when you're having fun and SUPER busy! Yep, it's been awhile. How have all three of my readers been?? HA! I can't believe that it is already March. I obviously haven't been keeping up and I have a ton to blog about. But for the sake of time and space, I'm just gonna give a condensed version :)



**So in the middle of January, as most of you know, we went to the Big Island of Hawaii! Yay! It was super relaxing and a little different than most of our trips there. We didn't do nearly as much as we normally do and I can't blame anyone but myself and the little Button inside of me. I WAS EXHAUSTED! But we still got our snorkeling and beachin' in and even found some new beaches we really like. We saw tons of whales jumping out of the water and even a group of 50 or so Spinner Dolphins jumping out of the water! Oh and of course we had our share of shave ice! I also found my new favorite ice cream and of course they only make it at that particular store (I googled it and everything and it's really only at that ONE blasted place in Hawaii :/ )but it's called volcano ice cream.... It is banana flavored ice cream with chunks of Oreos and strawberry syrup swirled throughout. I know, it may not sound that great, but.... it's pretty much amazing! We also hung out with our friends, Walter and Alice, several times and always have a blast "talking story" with them! They are the nicest people you would ever meet and they would give you their left arm if you needed it. While we were there, they were celebrating the 10 year anniversary of the Kona Temple being built. So Walter and Alice's stake put on a huge show and food fest (you know how Hawaiians love their food, yum!) So we crashed the party and it was REALLY long but good. That's it in a nutshell. Hawaii. Eleven Days. Relaxing. Beaches. Snorkeling. Shave Ice. Friends = GOOD TIMES!



**Get the box of tissues, cause this next bit is pretty sad. So on our last day in Hawaii, we had dinner with Walter and Alice and then they dropped us off at the airport. We said our goodbyes and were already thinking about the next time we would be seeing them. We flew home overnight and were extremely tired, cause no one ever really sleeps on a red eye flight, lets be honest. What made it even better, is that I had my first doctors appointment that morning around 11. So Jason decided he would go put in a few hours at work before the appointment cause it didn't make sense for us to drive all the way home just to drive back out to the Cottonwood hospital in Murray for my appointment. After a nap and a bite to eat it was time to pick Jason up. When he gets into the car he tells me he has bad news...... I honestly had NO clue what to expect. He told me that last night, (while we were flying home) Alice had a stroke and was not responding. WHAT?? How? We just saw her literally hours ago and she was FINE! Nothing wrong at all. I guess she had a stroke in the middle of the night and passed out in the bathroom. Alice's mom (who was staying with them for the time) was calling her name and Walter got out of bed only to find his sweetheart on the ground not responding to anything. They called the ambulance and took her to the hospital and later had to transfer her to a hospital in Maui cause the neurological center is better there. ----SIDE NOTE: Learning about this minutes before my nerve-racking appointment (I was nervous and thinking the worst about my appt.) only made things that much worse. ----- So, Tuesday passed and no improvements. Wednesday comes and still no improvements. Early evening, I get a phone call informing me that Alice has passed away. I AM IN SHOCK. We just saw her. She can't be gone. How is Walter? How are their kids? She was only 55 and just retired a month ago. This can't be happening. I kept waiting for another call telling me something different. That she will recover and be fine. People survive strokes, why not her? One thing I know for sure, is if there is a line to get into heaven, she would be bumped right to the front. She was amazing. Her spirit. Her kindness. Her selflessness. So. The funeral. Her brother was in Iraq and they wanted to wait to have the funeral when he could be there. So it wasn't scheduled until two and a half weeks later. We made things work with time off and tried to get over there to the funeral. I say try because you have to remember we fly standby and only get on the plane if there are open seats. Well, it just so happens that it was over Presidents day weekend as well as Valentines day so flights filled up. We tried to go through Vegas with no luck and flew back home. Then we went to L.A. and flew to Kauai. We figured as long as we got to one of the Island we'd be able to Island-hop pretty easy. WRONG. It also happens that the volcano on the Big Island was erupting and people must have wanted to go see that cause ALL of the tickets were sold out until after the funeral. The only other thing is, Alice knew EVERYONE. No joke. She would always see several people she knew wherever we went with them. Everyone loved her. Plus, they were preparing enough food to feed almost TWO THOUSAND PEOPLE at the funeral. I told you. She knew EVERYONE! So we can only imagine people also had to island-hop. Well, we made it to Honolulu. Not to the Big Island. We were so sad we couldn't be there to support Walter and his family and to pay our respects. But we tried. WE LOVE YOU ALICE!






**I really hope this doesn't sound bad. But since we flew all the way over there and Jason's sister, Jen, was in Oahu with her family for the week, we decided to stay for awhile. Ok, a week. But Jen said we could crash with them for free. How can you turn down a free place in Hawaii? Plus Oahu was the only island we hadn't visited. So while we were there we went to Pearl Harbor, which is very humbling and made me so sad to think all those men and women died so unexpectedly. We also went to the Polynesian Culteral Center, which is pretty dang cool! It's expensive unless you know someone that can get you in for half price (which of course we wouldn't have gone if we couldn't get in for half price). It's one of those places that you need to visit, but you really only need to visit it once and you're good. It's really interesting to learn about all the cultures and stuff. OH, for all you Skywester's out there, I saw and met Siu's brother. You remember our "awesome" commissary manager?? Ya, his brother is totally different and SUPER funny! And really short. Even I was taller than him and I'm only 5'3"! Ha! It was really funny. While we were there we also stopped at the Dole Pineapple factory for some pineapple icecream, yum! We even stopped by a roadside shrimp shack a couple of times and had fresh yummy shrimp and the biggest prawns you have ever seen. We are really greatful that Jen and her family let us crash with them and have a good time with them! THANK YOU!






**Other than that, I've been working five days a week at Marriott and it has been pretty busy. So needless to say, when I get home, I just want to lay in bed and not. do. anything. Even update my blog! I know this post is still really long and I'm sorry for that. You obviously already saw my post about my first doctor's appointment cause you saw my baby's cute picture :) Everything is still going great! I will find out what we are having on April 2nd, which is just a hop, skip and a jump away! YAY! I will post some more pictures of my baby bump (which I absolutely love!) Who would have thought I would ever say that I like my big belly!

Our Little Button

So here is a make-do picture of our little Button. The little Button looks so very comfortable in the little peanut he/she calls home for the next several months! If you look to the x on the right you can see the profile fo the face. I must say it seems our baby will be super smart, cause the head looks like it is bigger than the body! But it's just that the legs are just chillin on the other side of his/her body cause I saw the whole thing on the actual ultrasound! I can see the little Button has a cute little "button" nose! (HA HA! I'm so very clever) Oh, I'm so excited to see what our baby will look like and to find out if we're having a boy or a girl :)

I forgot to include yesterday, that I actually found out I was pregnant on my birthday!!! Happy Birthday to me!! Best birthday present EVER! And another important point to note, is that I have been on leave from Skywest since January 4th and will be until the end of November. OH HAPPY DAY! It's been nice only having to work one job lately :)

I CAN'T WAIT ANY LONGER

So Jason has the memory stick thingy that has our pictures on it but I can't wait any longer......... I have a few other things that I should post before this so you'll have to visit my blog again in a few days or so (give or take). But now that the cat is out of the bag with our family it's time to tell everyone that........................

I'M PREGNANT!

YAY! I'm so super excited that I cannot even write it in words...... I'm now about 12 weeks pregnant and had my first appointment last Tuesday and everything is normal and looking really good! My due date is August 21st, but the doc said that I'm actually measuring a little bigger, which he thinks I just ovulated earlier than usual, which means my due date could be August 15th. As you can imagine, that's why I waited to tell everyone just to make sure that things were going ok. So now I can vent. I AM TIRED! Holy canolly! It's insane how exhausted I am. I mean I have had people tell me it's a different kind of tired and yep, they were right. AND my boobs hurt and I have to pee ALL THE TIME! Even in the middle of the night it's ridiculous! HA! And I know it's only the beginning, and I couldn't be happier! I've actually been SUPER lucky with the whole morning sickness stuff cause I don't really have it. I mean, I get queezy every now and again and sometimes there are just some smells that don't sit right in my nose and it gives me the dry heaves, but other than that I have been really lucky. I had no problems or complaints while we were in Hawaii, other than I was tired and we weren't nearly as busy as we usually would have been. We did a lot more relaxing and it was SOOOO NICE. But enough about Hawaii, that'll be in a different post. So stay tuned!!!

I totally forgot!

K so I totally forgot to mention in my "review of December" that I HIT a DEER! Ok Ok, so I really didn't full on "HIT" a deer, it was more of a tap. I remember it like yesterday....

It was a cold night and I was making my long journey home from the airport and I actually had to stay a little late so by the time I was close to home it was about 11:30pm and I was pooped! I had the heater on cause I was still cold from workin' out in the snow and the eyes were getting heavy. I was seriously struggling to keep them open. I was actually smacking my face every now and again to try to stay awake. I finally turned off the heater and it sorta helped....ok not really....but needless to say all you need to see is a deer right in the middle of the road to make your eyes go the size of softballs. I had always learned that your not supposed to swerve in the direction that the deer is headed because he'll most likely keep going that way, so your supposed to just stay straight. WELL.... since it was my first time having to slam on my breaks, my instinct took over and I started to swerve and slam on the breaks with both feet. (Luckily I had learned that I needed to push on the breaks as hard as I can when you need to stop cause I didn't realize that 15 days after I got my license and hit a Domino's pizza delivery guy) So I was thinkin' of that moment and knew I needed to use all my force. Anyway, I stopped just in time for my car to BARELY knick the hind legs of the ginormous deer. I'm not kiddin'. That thing was a huge buck with huge antlers and it was standing directly in front of my car! I swear it looked at me like, "Uh....what the eff? I'm just tryin' to cross the street here!" and then he ran off. I'll tell you what, my adrenaline was soarin' and I didn't have heavy eyes until after I got home. My immediate reaction was, "Oh, I gotta call Jason" but then I was thinkin', he's probably asleep and nothing actually happened... I'm ok and my car is perfectly fine. So I got home and sure enough he's sound asleep and so I waited til morning to tell him!

So that's my, "I hit a deer story"! I like the fact that it sounds worse than it actually was, but now I can say that I've hit a deer! Hopefully that is the last time too!

(Ok, I'm not trying to rub it in but...... I am leaving for Hawaii in three days!!! Yay! 10 days in the nice warm weather! )

December Review

So just a recap of things that happened in December:

*We flew into Philidelphia and drove down to Florida, with stops along the way... of course. (This was actually in November, but I thought it was worthy of making the review!)

*Me and my moms birthday! I'm the big 26 now and she is still 30!

*Working out in the snow on the ramp at the airport in less than ideal conditions

*Clawson family party with lots of food and presents to enjoy

*Button family party with more food and funny white elephant gifts

*Discovering that Jason still got me a gift for Christmas even though we weren't doing anything for eachother since we are going to Hawaii in January. (I love him!)

*Ringing in the New Year like old people do....Layin' in bed watching t.v. (I know we are party poopers!!!)

So that's it in a nutshell. I haven't been that great on updating lately, but I am going to try more often for ALL MY READERS..... (All one or two of you that is)

Oh and PS........ I really do like comments and I know it's hard to comment on a lame post like this one, but you can still say something.... even if it's only a laffy taffy joke!!

The North-East and Ben Affleck

This is way behind but it's better late than never right??? So for our anniversary and for our quest to conquer all 50 states together we decided to take a North-East trip. We flew into Boston October 23rd for a four day weekend. It was short but WAY fun! There is so much to do up there we are for sure going to have to go back someday. Jason is a huge history buff and I think it's pretty cool too, so we saw a lot of historic stuff like Minute Man National Park, the USS Cassin & Museum and Old Iron Sides. We even drove down to Plymouth to see "THE" Plymouth Rock. But you don't think we went up to the North-East and just stayed in Massachusetts do you??? HEAVENS NO! We also drove into Connecticut, Rhode Island, New Hampshire, Vermont and of course Maine! We stopped at a couple of places in each state and saw what there was to see that close to the boarder. We went to an Armory in CT and it was pretty cool to see how the guns and rifles have evolved. Granted, I still don't quite understand how someone can come up with that kind of stuff, but it was still cool. OOH and did I mention the leaves??? Oh my goodness! I am a freak about autumn and I LOVE LOVE LOVE the colors of the leaves. I love trees. There is just something about them that is so mysterious. Just think of the things they have been able to see? I love how they can get to be so old and all the intricacies of how each branch is entwined with the other.... I KNOW, I'm a tree hugger (in a different way.)

So some other fun points are:

*Going to the Family Guy Corn Maize
*We saw the actual Oscar Meyer Wiener mobile driving down the road (it was awesome!)
*We tried to go the the site of the Boston Tea Party but "Aunt B" (aka, our GPS) got us lost to many times and with all the toll roads we were having to pay, we gave up.

Side Note---Jason and I are Family Guy addicts. This is one of our guilty pleasures. I know, it's crude but it is JUST SO DANG FUNNY! We actually saw a commercial about the corn maize and decided that we HAD to go. A corn maize is a corn maize and you really can't tell if it was Stewie and Brian that we were walking through, but it was still cool.

Another cool place we went to and it was totally appropriate for the time of year, was Salem, Mass.! Yep, where the Salem witch trials were. The town gets so into Halloween it was really cool. We drove there on Sunday and it was PACKED. So we decided that we'd come back on Monday. After seeing the town, I got really excited to go the next day. (So instead, on Sunday we drove up to Maine, saw a light house and had a Lobster lunch). So, Monday came and we went to the Museum and I was soooooooo disappointed! I mean, this was supposed to be real cool and have all this cool stuff about the trials and witches. NO. NO. You pay ten bucks per person and go into this room where they have scenes set up around the room, and mind you the mannequins looked like they were made in the 60's and the people who made them were high or on something else cause they were way old and out dated and looked like they were melting. So they just spotlighted the scene in the story from a recording that I swear was first made when recording was possible. It was way ghetto. After that, they took you in a "museum" that had pictures of witches from movies and all that and then at the end they had a little Wicca (today's witch religion) schpeal saying that, "If you meet a Wiccan you should stop and listen to what they have to say" UMMMMMMM. I'm gonna have to pass. Thanks though :/ WEIRD. Oh well. Now we can say that we have been there and DONE that and it's checked off the list.

Ok, so another cool history thing we saw was Bunker Hill. It's right in Boston and it's this way tall obelisk lookin' thing so that the soldiers could see way far away for when the enemies were coming to attack. Anyway, you can climb up to the top if you want. I mean it was ONLY 244 stairs up. What's the big deal, right?? HOLY SORENESS! The thighs felt like they were just going to melt right off my bones. I really didn't think 244 steps was that big of deal..... until I climbed them. It was actually pretty cool when you got up there. The view was awesome but you really could spend like 45 seconds up there and be done. But after climbing all those stairs, I wanted to make it worth it so we stayed at least 7 minutes or so. I think it was mainly so our legs wouldn't give out on the way down and make us tumble down 244 a stony, winding staircase. I was grateful for the break.

Here's a story in a story for ya..... While we were driving around the block, past all these really pretty and really old houses (which I absolutely love!) we saw a bunch of cameras and film canisters and trailers and all that junk. I was like, "Cool, they must be filming a movie here!" So before we took the exhausting trip up to the top of the obelisk, we asked one of the guides what they were filming. He was like, oh they've been here for a few months. They are filming a movie, The New Town, with Ben Affleck. COOL! Not that I'm a huge fan of Ben, but I thought it was pretty cool that I could possibly see a major movie star. It would be my first. So after we took the journey up the stairs we walked down where all the commotion was, and there he was. It was really weird actually..... He really is just a normal person. You always think it's gonna be this way cool thing to see someone so famous but it was just like, oh. There he is. Wow. Ok, take a few pictures just to document the occasion and lets go. It's not like he knows me or anything so he's not gonna come up and strike up a conversation. It was still cool and I did get a little giddy, if you will, just cause it was a famous person and I can say I saw him in person.

So there you have it. Our little weekend up in the North-East. It was short, but full of adventure and LOADS of fun. I love the fact that we will be able to tell our kids all the places we went together and all the cool things we've been able to see. So after this trip, we only had 9 more states to visit before we've gone to all 50!

'Til next time........

Thursday the 12th....

Thursday the 12th was far more evil than Friday the 13th this time around. The plans for Thursday were good and I was excited for the way it was Supposed go. I had to bid a new schedule at Skywest at 9:40 in the a.m. and Jason had to be into work at 8a.m. so I was just gonna drive with him and go into work to bid instead of calling. All was well until we hit bangerter and 4700 South..... This is when the TROUBLE started. We were just stopped at the stop light and when we started to go, the car wouldn't GO! The car was still turned on and the lights were functioning but it wouldn't accelerate. It would just putt along like how it does when you take your foot of the brake. So we turned off of Bangerter into this LIFE CHURCH and were just baffled. We tried going around the parking lot a couple of times and turning the car on and off and it didn't change anything. Luckily we have insurance that covers tows. So we called them and they said it was gonna be an hour until the tow truck would get there. Instead of just sitting in the car we took a walk over to Smith's and bought some cereal cause it was on a really good sale and then we went back and played UNO in the car til the guy came. At this point it was about 9:20 'ish and I was supposed to bid in 20 minutes! Of course I forgot my packet that had all the shifts available since I was just gonna go into work but now I obviously just had to call. We get to Pep Boys and they just run a diagnostic test and come back and say that it wasn't working at first but they just drove it around the parking lot a couple times and it seems to be working. So we go to Discover Card so Jason can check in with work since he was supposed to train a class at 9 and I just sit in the lunch room trying to figure out my bid and what I'm going to choose. At this point I had already talked to them and they gave me the line numbers that were available but since I didn't have the packet I had to pring them out at Discover, which was a complete failure. It printed the excel sheet GINORMOUS and so I was trying to piece the shifts together. So that took a little bit but then I just waited and waited in the lunch room for about an hour and a half while Jas was figuring things out. He only ended up having to stay for 2 hours and then we left. The car started AND accelerated so that was a good sign. Jas was gonna get on the freeway but then I was like, what if your car stops again.... We don't wanna be stuck on the freeway. So he turned back onto Bangerter and I kid you not, in the SAME EXACT PLACE! 4700 South and Bangerter is CURSED I tell you! So we putter along BACK into the LIFE CHURCH parking lot and wait. We thought that since the car was turned off for awhile and it worked we could do the same thing again and at least drive to the car dealership to have them look at it. WRONG!!! After we played a couple games of UNO in the car again we tried to turn the car back on and this time it wouldn't even turn over. So we looked around and had a guy jump start our car and it started but wouldn't accelerate AGAIN! So we called the insurance company again and it was going to take ANOTHER HOUR for the tow truck to come and get us. This time we had them take us to the Nissan dealership to have them look at it since Pep Boys obviously missed the problem the first time. So we finally get down there and at this point it was like 2:30 or 3 in the afternoon. SO MUCH TIME WASTED ALREADY! So they said they were just gonnna do a diagnostic test again and then let us know what was up. So we just decided to wait til we knew how long it was gonna take and then we would go grab a bite to eat cause we hadn't eaten since 7 a.m.! So much for that...... it ended up taking them an hour before we went and asked what was going on. So a guy went back to see what was going on and 15 min later came back and told us the (insert heavy sarcasm here) "oh so good news!". We needed a new alternator and it was going to cost $650. OUCHY! That hurts the wallet. Oh and the other "good" news was that there wasn't a place in UTAH that had the kind of alternator we needed! FAN-diddly-TASTIC! Jason was in awe that not a single place in Utah wouldn't have one and they were like, "oh, well the companies that we work with don't have one but we can call auto zone or checker and see if they have one, we just won't be able to guarantee the part". FINE, whatever, we don't care, we just want our freaking car back! So they found a store up in Bountiful that had a part but obviously we weren't gonna get our car back til the next day. So my LOVING mother came and picked us up and drove us home. ALL DAY CONSISTED OF WAITING, SITTING AND MORE WAITING. We didn't get home til 6:30pm!

All I can say is that I'm going to be a lot more leery of Thursday the 12th than Friday the 13th.

-That is all

HELP!

Ok, so I really want to make my blog a lot cuter by adding different fonts and all that so I "Googled" how to add more fonts on blogger and basically was told to edit the HTML on the layout page manually..... Well that is pretty much a foreign language but I did figure out how to change a couple of the fonts (yay me!) but it was purely by luck. If any of you out there would want to teach me how to do this in an easier way PLEASE DO SO. I also want to make my header or whatever it's called cuter too by adding pictures or scrapbook-esque type stuff in the title. MAYBE I just need to go back to school to learn all this crap...... BUT I REALLY DON'T WANT TO! ANYWAY, your help would be GREATLY appreciated. That is all. BYE :)

Can I just say.......

Happy Birthday Jason! I love you so much!

The BIG 3

On this day three years ago I married my best friend, soul mate and eternal companion! I can't believe three years has already passed! I just want Jason to know how much I love him and that we will be together forever! Thank you for such a wonderful three years and I know we have many more to come :)

Again!

It's Thursday again? ALREADY? WOW!

This week I'm thankful for....

1. The opportunity to go see my sister in omaha (even if it was only for 2 1/2 days)

2. The fact that my sister can color and cut my hair for way cheap! (Thanks sis)

3. That I made it home on the flight and didn't get bumped!

4. That I got the money from the EAGeR study early! (it's about time I get some more money :) )

5. That Jason and I have such a close relationship and love each other so very much. It's been hard being away from him for the past couple of days while I was in omaha and he is hunting with his bro's and dad til Saturday! Absence makes the heart grow fonder! I MISS HIM!

Thankful Thursday

Yay! I remembered to do this!

I'm thankful for....

1. The snooze button on the alarm clock. It was a WONDERFUL invention

2. My sweet hubby and the fun that we have together :)

3. The delicious cookies that I make. I know that I shouldn't be thankful for them cause I know they are going to make me large, but they are SOOO GOOD!

4. The tips that people leave in the hotel rooms for me for cleaning their room

5. Hot chocolate! MMMMM! Blankets, sweatshirts, the hair dryer and the heater in my car. Thank you for keeping me warm on the chilly days we've been having!

Maui... Wowee!

So this time we decided to visit Maui and it was sooo beautiful. But I guess all the islands are like that! We planned this trip with our friends, Kevin and Jamie Pickett. We had such a good time on our cruise with them that we decided they are going to be one of our travel buddies! Anyway, I don't want to drag this post out since it is late but we had a blast!

We were lucky enough to visit Maui for 11 DAYS and stay in a condo with a mini-beach in back. There were GINORMOUS turtles in the water right off the beach. I promise they were bigger than one of those round sleds. Jason snorkeled with them quite a bit. I went out once and when they started to get to close to me I decided that I'd just let Jason enjoy them! I'm not sure how familiar ya'll are with the Island of Maui but there is the volcano, Haleakala, where people will go up there to watch the sun rise. The only catch is, you have to be there BEFORE the sun rises in order to see it. So we woke up at 2:30 AM!!! It actually wasn't that bad cause we were still on Utah time which was really 6:30 am for us. You would never think you'd need a full on coat while you're in Hawaii but you do if you want to go to this place. Of course we didn't pack coats so we layered on the clothes we could and brought a blanket from the condo.... ya, we still froze our cabooses off! It was sooooo cold. It was really pretty though. For some reason, almost every morning there are a bunch of clouds over the island and since we are up 10,000 feet we were well above them, which made the sunrise that much prettier!

One of the the other things we did is we drove to Hana. For those of you that don't know, the road to Hana is SUPER narrow and EXTREMELY winding with one lane bridges and all. The sad thing is, it is really only like 40 miles from where the Maui airport is but it takes you like 3 hours to get there because of how slow you have to go. It was really really pretty and we made our stops along the way which included swimming under a waterfall (a wimpy one), the black sand beach and the red sand beach. Most people just drive to Hana and then go back but we decided to drive all the way around. It was amazing to see the difference in scenery. It went from lush greenery with waterfalls to dry deserty look, much like Utah.

Another fun thing we did is we went on a snorkel cruise to Molokini crater. It is supposed to have the most clear water and an abundance of fish. But the waters were kind of choppy when we got there and I didn't get to see that many fish. The water was stil really clear but it wasn't as cool as we were hoping. I think we just didn't have good timing. It was still fun though!

We also had fun going to different beaches and eating shave ice (not necessarily on the beach). One of the beaches we went to was Big beach. It was sooooo pretty with the yellow sand and the green and blue waters..... one thing. The waves crash HARD!! I had never seen such a thing. I mean they weren't huge surfing waves by all means but when it came to the shoreline they would all of the sudden just break. We were out there on our floaty's with our sunglasses on havin' a grand 'ol time but then I was thinking maybe I should take my sunglasses off and put them in our bag. Well, Jamie was thinking he same thing so she started in and when she was about to get out she totally got beached and her sunglasses were washed off her face. Which only made me want to take mine off even more. SO, I start my way in and I thought I was gonna make it and the SMACK.... a wave totally pushed me over. Now, I am one of those people that HAVE to plug their nose when they go under water, so it really suprised me when my first instinct was to hold my sunglasses on my face and let the salty water go straight up the nose! But I was successful, I saved them! The amazing thing was, that we actually found Jamies sunglasses and got them back! Since the waves just crash on the beach, they didn't have a chance to get washed away so she got them back!

Well, this is entirely way to long, but moral of the story is, WE LOVE HAWAII and will continue to go there as much as we can!

Thankful Thursdays

Ok, so I would like to take credit for this brilliant idea but I must give it to my cousin, Celeste. She came up with the idea of writing things you are thankful for every Thursday, thus the name, "Thankful Thursday". How cute is that?! I thought it was a great idea so I am going to attempt to copy her. It should be fun and easy so there really shouldn't be an excuse to miss a day, but with the way that I am, I'm sure there will be a few weeks that it doesn't happen. So these are the things I am thankful for this week.

1. The nurses at the EAGeR study who have supported me and tried to figure out what the crap is wrong with my body. (I will miss them since I can no longer participate in the study cause I'm not pregnant :( )
2. I am thankful for the opportunity to see some of the most beautiful sunsets and rainbows while I am working out on the ramp at the airport.
3. The fact that it is now officially my favorite time of year! I love when the leaves start to change colors and the "cool, crisp, bite" that is in the air in the fall.
4. I am thankful for my dad coming to my rescue when my tire blew out on the freeway. He made it so I wasn't late to work! Thanks DAD, I love you!
5. And I am thankful that I was able to run across four lanes on the freeway, without getting squashed, to safety after parking my car on the wrong side of the freeway after my stupid tire blew out!

I know this is only supposed to be about what I am thankful for, but I forgot to share this bit of info on my last post! So two Sundays ago I'm on my way to work singin' my lungs out when all of the sudden I hear this wierd noise... It sounded like a big truck was about to pass me, but when I looked, there was nothing there. So I decided to pull over to the side of the freeway (and since I was kinda panicking I pulled on the left side of the freeway since I was in the fast lane, SMART). I honestly didn't think anything was wrong but decided to pull over just in case. I get out of my car with the cars on the freeway whooshing past me at 80 mph and see that my front right tire is blown. FANdiddlyTASTIC! For some reason I have the worst luck with tires, so by now I am pro at changing my tire. However, I had flip flops on and was like, CRAP! I called Jason first and he DOESN'T ANSWER!!!! What if I got in an accident and he didn't answer.... nice. It was a good thing I was right by my parents house on the freeway, so I call them to tell them whats up and to see if my dad could come help. I was thinking that I was just going to have to call into work (which I didn't want to cause we have this whole point system with tardies and absences and I didn't want to waste a sick call on THIS). So my dad comes to pick me up and take me to work and says to just leave my car on the side of the road. I was trying to tell him where I was on the freeway but we failed to discuss what SIDE of the freeway I was on. SO he gets on the on-ramp and is like where are you? I then told him I was on the left side of the freeway. He was like, "why would you stop on the LEFT side of the freeway, that's how people get killed?" GREAT! Thanks, I really didn't want to think about that right now. So I'm waiting to get ready to run across I-215 in FLIP FLOPS with all my crap I had to bring to work.... Well, obviously I made it, but I'll tell you what... my heart was about ready to jump outta my chest! It was scary. I made it on time to work and in the mean time my dad changed my tire into the spare and also had to jump my battery cause it went dead from the emergency flashers. We have just had some really annoying problems with my car (like having to buy three sets of tires, changing out the stupid headlights every 6 months cause they burn out really quick for some reason and so on) Oh. I forgot to tell you the day before, Jason got my oil changed and they said that one of my tires was wearing thin and needed to be replaced. So when the tire blew, I was thinking that it was the tire that already needed to be changed. NO SUCH LUCK! Now we had to throw down for TWO tires instead of one. That was a $200 expense I really didn't want to pay. After all this and all the other crap my car puts us through I decided to call my car P.I.T.A..... which thoughtfully stands for PAIN IN THE A**! :) HA! I'm so clever, it kills me!

Where has time gone???

Wow! I can't believe it's been so long. I hate it when I do this because then I don't even want to post because it'll be a flippin' novel. So I just decided that I'll quickly recap recent events and be DONE!!

In the middle of July we made our annual trip to Kentucky, which I love! It's sooooo pretty there and I love the grandparents, they are so very cute! We always have such a good time and manage to find new things to do there everytime. We hung out with Jason's cousins quite a bit which was pretty fun. We went to the zoo and shot guns (those were two different occasions. We didn't shoot guns AT the zoo!), smashed pennies on the railroad tracks and saw more hisory thats in Kentucky. Oh and of course we went to the Gap outlet. Gotta love those deals! Man, now that it's been two months since we were there, I don't really remember much else. Sad!

Update on trying to get pregnant is, that I'm not. But I went to my doctor and am now on Clomed. Now it's just a matter of having a period so I can start taking it. Seriously, my body just needs to be rebooted or somethin. If I wasn't trying to get pregnant, it'd be nice to have 80 days in between those lovely times of the month. But it's just annoying right now.

Well I guess not much else happened from July to August, just work, work, work. Somedays I wish I didn't work at both places but then I stop and think that I'd rather have the variety instead of working ALL the time in just one place. But let me say this...... Some people are just pigs! They leave their hotel room a freakin' mess and it takes me TWICE as long to clean it! There is this one guy that doesn't know what shower curtains are made for cause there is FIVE GALLONS of water on the bathroom floor! HELLO! Why would you take a shower OUTSIDE of the shower?? I don't get it. Anyway, I've got some pretty good stories about housekeeping that will haunt me forever, like walking in on a HUGE naked guy sleeping on the bed..... GROSS! But those will wait for another time.

Alright, so I lied and I'm not going to recap EVERYTHING that has happened in this post. We went to Maui for 11 DAYS at the end of August, so I'll post that separately. But who know's when that'll be! Not now! HA!

A Different Kind of Road Trip

In our quest to visit all 50 states together as a couple we decided to take a road trip through the southern states. Let's face it, we didn't really have a desire to visit Alabama, Mississippi or Louisiana. SO my super sweet husband with his mad skills at finding deals, found a deal on a one way car rental from Orlando to New Orleans for $10 A DAY! We knew we needed to jump on that like stink on poop cause we have priced out one way car rentals before in the south and it was PRICEY! So the evening of June 23 we hopped on a plane and headed to Orlando. We landed later at night so we crashed at a hotel (yes, a Marriott hotel of course) to get ready for our drive the next day. On our GPS it said that it would only take about 6 hours from where our hotel was, so we knew the drive was totally do-able in one day and that we had plenty of time for stops if we needed. So off we went! The longest part of the drive was in the pan-handle of Florida. It really only took 45 min to an hour to get through Alabama....

and then another hour for Mississippi.....

We did stop a couple of times to get out and stretch our legs but when we would open the car door you really didn't know what hit you. It was seriously like a huge brick wall of extremely hot muggy sludge hitting you and making it hard to breath. YUCKY! I really don't know how people live there. It was disgusting. You were instantly covered in sweat/muggy humidity the minute you got out of the wonderful air conditioned car. So after our first stop, we really didn't make too many pit stops cause every time we did we always wanted to hop back in the car as quick as possible. I do have to say we did see really pretty scenery. But we didn't see any alligators or crocs on the side of the road. That would have been cool! Terrifying, but cool. Mississippi is a state full of nice people. We stopped at the welcome center to get our free state map and they were handin' out free fountain drinks! How cool is that! So needless to say, we lingered around there for awhile til we had our fill and then hit the road.

When we finally arrived at New Orleans we came to a quick decision that we never wanted to go back. The old antique buildings and houses were so pretty but other than that, it's hot, sticky, dirty, stinky and full of yucky things. We were glad we only had about 3 hrs there til it was time to hit the sack and get ready for our plane ride home in the morning. That's it! Three more states knocked off our list and only 19 more states to go!