A new Sunday tradition!

I've decided to make it a tradition to post a few journal snippets each Sunday. (Until I run out of good ones!) I recently started reading my journal from January 2001-November 2002. This journal is packed with gems of embarrassment. It is also packed with missionary crushes, boys and pity parties. I was sixteen to eighteen years old in this one.

Feb. 4 2001
"I have some sound advice for anybody. Don’t pray for crazy things. I have never told anyone this before, but awhile back, while anticipating a combined activity when we would learn to swing dance, I would shudder at the thought of getting stuck with Seth. It would be an embarrassing, terrible night. So I prayed that I wouldn’t have to dance with him. Guess what? I did. And it was an embarrassing, terrible, but humbling experience."
Yeah. I learned my lesson! He was a boy in my Sunday school class whom I really disliked. As did most of the class.

Feb. 19 2001
Ahh, the sibling rivalry between Jason and me was paramount. I wrote a whole page about his guilty meanness and my picked-on-ness. The entry started like this,
"Jason makes me so mad I want to scream! Ahhgh" And ended with this, "I can’t wait till I move out."

March 20, 2001
"Yesterday was moms 46th b-day. Wow. Talk about old….I hope I’m never that old."
Hah! I actually have changed my mind. I DO hope I make it to 46! In fact, I hope I'm live long enough to hit age 50!

March 25, 2001
Okay, so there was this missionary, Elder Felix, (I even found out his first name was Jeremy) with whom I was in love. One week after church I got up the nerve to talk to him about someone he may have known from his hometown. I wrote two pages of our detailed, yet embarrassing conversation. Here is how I end it.
"By this time Jason was nearby and laughing at me. Dork. This is a day I will always remember. Pretty corny huh? Maybe I won’t."

April 10, 2001
One of my only discovered talents is my ability to play foos ball and then brag about it. :) Though the following passage isn't funny or anything, I will share it to boost my ego. We were visiting some relatives in Utah, a family with 8 boys.
"But during our visit there, I played some fose ball. I won Joe 10-3, I won mom 10-3, and Tyrell 10-3, Jacob 10-2, even though he was harder to me, he only got 2. I won Austin 4-10 and Jonathan (Jacobson) 2-10 or 3-10 I think. That was cool. O yeah, I won Ryan 3 or 4-10."
Go me!

April 26, 2001
For a Laural and Priest activity we went on a hike at Celebration Park after cleaning the church one Saturday morning. Here is part of what I said about it.
"I was all by myself the hole time, except when I was stalking the Neiders. Okay, I wasn’t stalking them, just following them around."
The Neiders are twin girls my age. I later became better friends with them. They are cool.
For the ride home....
"Jordan Millar took me and John Kunz home. That was awkward. I don’t think Jordon likes me very much. Not a single word was spoken the whole way home…The only thing said was 'Thanks for the ride,' from me when I got out and a 'Yup' from Jordan. I really don’t think he likes me. Not cause of that though. He’s a boy, so of coarse he doesn’t like me. It would be unnatural."
I wanna say that I was over-reacting, but....at that time in my life, I wasn't.

Cornbelly's morning

At Thanksgiving Point they have a little Fall celebration deal. There is a lot of fun stuff for kids to do, so I wanted to go. Admission was $10.50 normally, but thanks to a coupon we found on the internet, (thanks Sara!) we got in for $1 each! And Morgan was free. We definitely thought our fun morning was worth two dollars.

First we went to this huge inflatable lizard/dinosaur thing. It was a maze type thing, and was pretty dark inside and loud with the sounds of growling and snarling. Morgan eagerly ran through the opening, then got to where it gets almost pitch black and the growling is the loudest. Then he got scared and wanted to be held and pointed back to the entrance. So I took Morgan out while Aaron went through. He was much happier on the outside.

I thought this was a fun bench.

A totally cute and fun tractor pull ride. Morgan loved it and did great while far away from his parents.

Aaron and Morgan went on a hayride. I opted out due to the piles of fresh hay you'd have to sit in. Since I wanted to breathe for the rest of the day I instead went through the haunted lizard body and played games on my phone. :)

Fun slides off of a giant haystack. We sent Morgan down by himself and lamented that we didn't have the video camera. He had a hard time staying upright and kind spun sideways.

There were stairs to get on top of the haystack with the slides, but Morgan preferred this cargo rope thing. Aaron was there in case he needed help, but he did not. He went up a couple more times completely by himself.

This slide was funny. Just big plastic pipes. Like a conveyor belt of sorts. :)

The cutest farmer I've ever seen. Don't mind my head. I had to hold Morgan up because he was too short.

The whole time he was on these fancy tire swings he said, "wow, wow, wow."

It's amazing how big furniture can make you look so little.

We also went through a corn maze. But after ten minutes we were tired and thirsty and, oh so hot! Who says summer is over? That wasn't fall weather we were experiencing. So, we cut through the corn and made our own exit. It was probably against the rules, but we didn't get caught, so it was okay, right?

Yay for volleyball!

I am thrilled to report that our stake does womens volleyball! Every week a game, and at the end of the season there is even a couple wards from the stake who go to regionals. None of the wards I was in in Idaho had volleyball tournies and I was vastly disappointed. I grew up thinking that volleyball tournaments came with any ward. Mom always played in them and even went to regionals a couple of times.
Is it just a Utah thing? If so, I might just want to make Utah my permanent home. :) So far I've played in three games. (There were two games before I was completely aware of it.) Anyway, I have no hope of our ward going to regionals, but I'm having a blast anyway. Oh, and my serves are suddenly okay. Every other time in my life that I've played volleyball I had very sketchy and unpredictable serves. They rarely got over the net. And while I still sport the wimpy underhand serve, it rarely doesn't go over the net. Heck, I even score lots of points with my serves as they invariably fall in awkward spots. Completely accidental, but I'll take it.
Yay for volleyball!

Lagoon

Aaron and I went to Lagoon on Saturday. The weather was great, (except for the torrential rain) and the lines were nice and short, particularly when we first got there. The only ride we didn't just walk right up to was Wicked, the new roller coaster. It's a pretty fun one.
We left Morgan with some reletives and had planned on making it a whole day date. But, we kind of ran out of things to do. We went on the good rides several times and the mediocre ones at least once. We were tired, so we left in the afternoon.
The baddest news is that somewhere in Lagoon is Aaron's fancy Palm phone. We don't know where we lost it or when, we just know it's gone. We checked at the Lost and Found a couple times, but they didn't have it. :( We're going to try on Saturday to check again. So if you need to call us, call my phone.

Only a ham on his terms

The other day was pretty cold and wet, so I rejoiced that it was finally cold enough for me to put Morgan in one of his cute new outfits. It looked super cute on him. So I got out the camera and asked him to pose for me. Nope. Just a smile? Nuh-uh. He wouldn't even look towards me or stay standing up. He actually would escape. I tried a couple more times later that day, but he wouldn't do it!
I was changing his diaper and the idea came to me. I would take his picture while he stood on the changing table. He couldn't run away then, right? (I still use the changing table, even though Morgan is too big for it and we don't even have the cushiony pad anymore!)

But would he cooperate? No he would not. He's cute here, but you can't get the full effect of the outfit. (without the super cute jacket.)
Oh, and he STILL tried to run away! He's never gotten down by himself, so I thought he would just dangle and then get back up after chickening out. But I guess he thought the basket of dirty clothes, (and balloon? wha?) was a good landing, because...
Oops. And while he was there whimpering for my help I just took a picture. Rude Mommy!

Oh, and this is just cute.

Eww Gross!

A few nights ago, probably around 11:30, we were almost asleep. Aaron tells me that he heard a BZZZZZZZZZ Thump! and then a chirp. I didn't hear any of this. I was brought to further awareness when Aaron suddenly jerked and started. Then he apologized and turned on the bedside lamp. "Ah-hah!" He says, then picks up something from off the bed which started hissing! What the? Aaron said he heard the sounds I mentioned above, but didn't think much of them, since he was almost asleep. However, when something started crawling up his leg that was sticking out of the blanket, he was much more awake and swatted at the invisible intruder.

What you see here is a Long-Horned Beetle. Gross! They're huge, they FLY and they hiss! They are also known to sneak into homes in the middle of the night and invade the beds of the sleeping occupants. So Gross! I'm just glad it didn't land on me.

Besides this huge bug and the crickets that have moved in, I've noticed an influx in spiders. In fact, the other day I found a Black Widow in a nice web in the corner of the ceiling in our garage. Aaron failed to do his manly duty by dispatching of it when I reported it to him, and the next day it was gone. Mysteriously. Now I'm afraid of the garage. It could be anywhere! I just hope it isn't inside the house!

Lovely Car

Aaron sent me these photos today without explanation. I didn't know why at first. I thought it was supposed to be funny, and I just wasn't getting it. Was it funny because there was a box that said FRAGILE on it in the back of this car skeleton? Then I noticed Morgans coat. This is how our car looks now, or has looked recently. Aww, poor thing!

More journal excerpts

Today I just finished the reading the journal that I previously wrote about. Here are more choice tidbits. Please keep in mind that I am using all the same spelling and such as was in my journal. More authentic, you know.

June 30, 2000 (16 years old now)
Preface: I was at the God and Country Rally in Nampa with my mom and 3 younger brothers.
"At the Rally my family was being embarrassing so I mostly walked behind them."
I can't think of what would have been so embarrassing that I had to disassociate myself with them while we were walking around the park. Oh well.

July 31, 2000
"When Jason was at Scout Camp for a week their was no fighting or anything in the house. It was also clean."
Jason, my brother who is 2 years younger than me, and I didn't get along for a lot of our teenage years. But, even though we get along now, I will attest to the truthful bit in the cleaner house without him. :)

Sept. 25, 2000
Preface: I had been writing and speculating about my future husband and lamenting all the years that I wasn't knowing him.
"I bet that in a year or so, I will look at these pages and embarras myself because of the weird things I write. I have done it before."
Well at least I KNEW I was weird.

Nov. 14, 2000
I was writing about hanging out and talking with my older brother and sister and cousin Jeremy.
"It was fun. Although, I mostly just listened. That's what I do. If I talk to much I always end up embarrasing myself. No need for that. I'm not cool enough for them. Steph and Chris are kinda cool. (Now that they're gone.)"
My view on talking remains true to this day! :) Oh, and my siblings were both living far away from home at this point. Hence the, "now that they're gone" part.

January 2, 2001
"Hello. Chris and Stephanie came back for Christmas around the 11th. The first few days they're here it's kind of exciting and fun, cause I geuss I unconciously missed them, but after awhile, they are the same annoying, mean sibling they were before they left. . . . They just put off the impression that they're better then me. They say it too. 'Your so immature,' 'you are so defencive and take everything the wrong way.' 'your paranoid.' Oh yeah, they're fun to have around."
I hope you don't mind me posting this Stephanie. Notice the elipses? I did edit. So, just focus on the fact that I geuss I missed you when I was sleeping. Haha!

January 14, 2001
"I wasn't sad or anything when Stephanie and Chris left. It's kind of like when reletives visit, you're happy they come, but after awhile you want things back to normal. Thats how it was when they left."

January 14, 2001
"Mom and Dad are bugging me and snooping in my journal and trying to sneak peaks at my heart on th front page."
I do believe that it was when I was right there. They were doing specifically to raise a reaction. All in fun, all in fun. But boy did I need to protect that heart!

Oh how festive!

I am not a particularly crafty person. I enjoy doing them when the opportunity is thrust at me, but I don't go out and find things to do on my own. I don't really have the know-how. That is why I'm so proud of myself for this little fall-floral arrangement. Honestly, it might look tacky and amature to the trained eye, but my eye isn't trained, so I kind of like it.

A few months ago we got a beautiful basket of flowers from somebody. When the flowers died I plucked them out of the green foamy stuff and for several months I was displaying a basket with green foamy stuff on my piano. I finally went and bought some fake flowers and stuff and made this arrangement. I plan to do one for each season.

Dumpster Driving

On Wednesday Aaron got a semi-annual performance bonus at work. This was the first we'd heard of it and were pleasantly surprised with the $1,000 check. We planned to stash a bunch away for Christmas, use some to go to Lagoon as a celebration of our Anniversary, which we haven't really done yet, due to finances. (Our anniversary was in March!) And we'd put some toward boring things such as bills. And save some.

Thursday morning I woke up in the wee hours, noticed Aaron was still next to me, looked at the clock and saw 5:32. Wonderful. Aaron's vanpool had left 10 minutes earlier. Aaron would have to drive to work. It just so happens that the pass Aaron would have to drive through to get to work is on fire and they have that road closed. The alternative way is a little dirt road that Aaron wasn't comfortable driving our little Hyundai on. So he drove the Durango to work. Here's a little bit of trivia for you: To drive our gas-hog Dodge to Dugway and back costs $30.

So, Aaron got home from work last night and the following charming conversation commenced:

Aaron: "Wanna hear the dumb, dumb, dumb, dumb, bad Aaron news?"

Me: ". . . . . . . . . . . . . .No."

Long pause.

Me: "But you want to tell me?"

Aaron: "I probably should, yeah."

Pause

Aaron: "I backed the car into a dumpster today."

He then explained that it was too short and out of his line of site, so while pulling out of a parking spot he hit it. CRUNCH!

See how happy this makes him?

Now for some backlog. When we first bought the thing we notified Geico and got it put on our insurance. We've been paying for it and everything. But one thing that had to be done was a check by geico people to make sure that there were no bumps or scratches on it already. So we paid to have that done, got the receipt, and expected it to be taken care of. WRONG! The guy never logged it into the system. Many phone calls, failed faxes, claimed unreceived emails, and months later, Aaron finally got it all figured out. I think Tuesday was the day that we were all official with insurance. Phew!

We have a $500 deductible to pay. So much for Christmas.

Trivia: To drive the gas-hog Dodge Durango to Dugway and back costs $530.

The gift that keeps on giving

Recently we have noticed an influx of house flies. The flies of October came a month early. They annoy.
On Monday we got a couple birthday packages in the mail for Aaron from his sister Chanel. He got the game Bohnanza, (totally fun) and a super tennis racket bug zapper! He can die happy now. So he immediately took the zapper out to the packaging and was on the hunt for those pesky flies. Apparently though, they got the memo that there was going to be an eager man wielding death to any passing flies. We couldn't find any! We had to go outside before we could test out his new toy. Let me tell you, it makes a very satisfying pop upon making contact with unfortunate bugs. But we still don't find any in the house. I guess all you have to do is possess one of these babies and all your fly problems will disappear.

Neither of us has been able to convince the other to touch it yet, so we have no reports on that front.

Poor Morgan wasn't allowed to play with the racket. But that's okay, he found the box and plastic peanuts to be plenty entertaining!

Thanks Chanel!

Chocack

In our house, we love the movie Charlie and the Chocolate Factory. The new one with Johnny Depp. And now it is currently Morgan's favorite movie. He always wants to watch Chocack, (which he called soup, for the longest time, and I could never figure it out) not Elmo, not The Incredibles, not Shrek, Chocack. Right now Morgan is downstairs by himself watching his favorite movie and I'm not worried about him getting into things because this movie keeps him riveted throughout the entire thing. None of the other kids movies we have can entertain him so completely. Honestly though, I don't get tired of this movie either. I would much rather have Charlie and the Chocolate Factory playing than Elmo's World.

Morgan also likes the DVD case. He often holds it as he watches the movie.

Journals!

Recently I've been reading my old journals. I started keeping a journal when I was seven years old and am now on my seventh volume. Here they all are, from my first to my current.

Right now I am reading my journal from 1998-2001. So, I was 14-16 years old. And I was weird. It's really very entertaining to read. Even though I have a pretty darned good memory there is a lot that I apparently forgot. I am happy to announce that my hand writing has definitely improved since I was fourteen. But my journal writing habits have worsened. I used to be much more faithful than I am now. Gah.

Here is the front inside cover of that journal. It lists all my crushes and some other randomnesses that I can't account for.
The back cover, bad quality photo of bad quality doodles. How old was I again? Seriously!

Here are some of my favorite passages from this journal. I will give them to you just as they are in the book. Bad punctuation and spelling included.

July 30, 1998 - "Today is Jason's birthday. He turned 12. I had to get up at 8:15 just to watch him open his preasants. I was hoping to sleep in."
These days, if I got to sleep until 8:15 it would be a marvelous day!

August 6, 1998 - How's this for poor misunderstood teenager? "Nobody knows me that well. They think I'm just a stupid lowlife with no feelings at all. I'm not understood." It goes on, but I will spare you, (and my pride) and stop it there.

January 17, 1999 - "When I'm married I want to have 8 kids, 4 girls and 4 boys. If I do I will name them, Brittany, Ashley, Tiffany, Jennifer, Zackary, Erik, Kenny and Jacob or Matthew. But maybe in a couple of years they will all be differant. Cause I like alot of names I didn't put on here. If I had twin boys I'd name them Jacob and Joshua, If I had twin girls I'd name them Heidi and Haily, if they were one boy and one girl I'd name them Matthew and Michelle. But if my husband had any of these names I wouldn't use them."
Honestly, I wouldn't mind having 8 kids still, but really, the only name that I would consider for a child is Zachery. I still like that name.

April 11, 1999 - Speaking of a certain boy, "I probly sound obsessed. I don't think I am, I just think my harmons are at my strongest." Tee hee! This makes me a little bit embarrassed, but it's funny to me. By the way, that would by hormones, not harmons.

April 25, 1999 - "Yesterday was Saturday, another word for that would be yardwork day."

I'll leave it at that, since I suspect that I enjoy this much more than anyone else would. :)

Visit with Grandparents

The other day Aaron's grandparents came over. Morgan LOVES his great grandpa Nelson and was very excited when they came in. See how happy he is sitting on Grandpa's lap?

Grandma was happy to note that Morgan seems to be warming up to her. Before he didn't quite know what to think of her, but this last visit he felt comfortable enough to steal her sunglasses and even give her a big hug goodbye.

Rewind

I just sniped some pictures from my sisters blog from the family reunion. So, we will re-touch on it in picture form.

The back of the shirt that Aaron designed for our family. Originally he had it other colors in it as well and it was rock-awesome, but we had to scale down. It's still incredible.
The crown/Martin idea is credited to my mother though. Aaron added the sword and put it all together and drew it.
The theme of the reunion was "We are all enlisted" like the hymn, so the sword goes with that, and the "there's a bright crown in store." part of the song brought about the crown. Ah, clever.

Here is Christine in our hotel with a tiny towel. Also, the front of the shirt. It's less serious than the back. Some of my younger brothers have a thing for possums. So we have two possums as part of our crest. The shield is Latin for The Possum Lives or something silly.

Morgan and Emmy playing on the benches.

Practicing for our talent show. Jason on fiddle, Mom on flute, Casey on guitar.

Cute cousins.

Some of the family at the talent show. The row of red is obviously us.

Here we are singing the song at the end of the skit. We kinda stunk. Fortunatly, Morgan was doing acrobatics up in front which kept everyone entertained and happy.

Followers

A test. I've added and new gadget to my blog. Underneath my list of blogs that I frequent is a Followers thing. Because I am curious about who reads my blog I decided to add this. But you have to click on it and tell me that you are a follower basically. Anyway, so if you don't mind doing it, and if you consider yourself a follower of my blog, let me know who you are. Thanks! The very first follower I had was an old roommate (Hi Paige!) who also has a blog which I didn't know about, so now I'm really curious to see who pops up!

Sticker Fun

In the mail we got an invitation to join the Disney movie club thing. This particular piece of junk mail had included a page of Disney stickers. We had fun with that. Morgan would point to the sticker he wanted, I would give it to him and he would find a place to put it. I must admit that sometimes I helped. Though not always!

Smarties!

On Friday Aaron dropped me off at the doors of Wal-Mart so I could run in and get a cookie sheet. I'd been hankering Texas Sheet Cake recently but my large cookie sheet, which was poor quality had turned to rust, so I needed a new one. So I was just going to run into the store and get it, then we were going to go to lunch and then a movie. (Batman! Woo!) On my way to the kitchen isles I pass isles of Halloween stuff, and in the middle isle they had a bunch of Halloween candy. So early! I was walking past these displays in the middle of the main isle and noticed that there was a huge 3 1/2 pound bag of Smarties for only $1.97! Could this be? There was the huge price tag, clear as crystal, which was an all encompasing price for other candies as well. But I have a weakness for Smarties. Plus, this was about the same price as you could get the little bags for! So I got a cookie sheet, (good quality this time) AND a giant bag of Smarties. We were planning on stopping at a dollar store before the movie anyway, for treats. So I just was contributing to the movie treats.

So I go to pay for my wares. The only lines that aren't HUGE are the self service ones, so I went there. I rang up my two items and paid for them, and only when I looked at the receipt did I notice that the Smarties were actually $5! Oh no you don't! So I go to the lady who monitors the self service lanes and tell her that they have mislabled the price of the Smarties. I wouldn't have gotten the Smarties if they were $5. I only got them because it seemed too good to be true. (Apparently it was.) So she runs back to look. Yes. They are labeled $1.97. So she calls a CSM. We tell her the situation. She looks at the size of the bag with disbelief as I tell her I thought they were $1.97. She thinks I'm making it up. So she goes back to look. She returns and says she saw completely different candy for that amount. Not Smarties. Well, I know I am right, so I go back through the store and show her what I mean. She can no longer deny that I found a 3 1/2 lb. bag of Smarties for $1.97. So she tells me to go back and tell the first lady to give them to me for the discounted price. I think she was going to stay at the candy to try to sort out the pricing issue. So I went back to the first lady and conveyed my message. But apparently in order to refund some money the CSM has to use her special key! Great! So we waited for her to return. She did. And she came back with a verdict. The sign with the price had been swiveled. The bags of candy on the other side of the sign were supposed to be $1.97 while the candy on the side with the Smarties was $4.98. But I still got my money back! Hoowaa! Let this be a lesson to you. I will not be had! Consequently Morgan has a love for Smarties that must be hereditary, (I guess I did give him something besides my crooked pinkies and allergies!) and always requests them. I had the open bag on the counter too close to the edge. Morgan reached up and pulled the whole bag to the floor, then snatched handfuls of the candy off the floor and ran away giggling. It made me laugh.

Just some pictures

We have this patriotic tin can/bucket in our bathroom that has been used for holding magazines or toilet paper rolls and occasionally, Morgan. He certainly adds to the decoration of the bathroom. :)