Charlee turns ONE

So our niece Charlee turned one last Sunday. We had a party for her last Saturday. I thought it's about time i put up some pictures of the big FIRST birthday party.

Charlee with her 1st birthday tiara.

Cousins, Karter & Charlee checking out the swimming pool conditions. Karter is 6 months older.

Charlee just having a fun time with the pool. Maybe she should get her suit on.

Charlee having a blast splashing in the water.

Singing "Happy Birthday" to Charlee.

Charlee enjoying her cupcake.

The cutest cupcakes I've ever seen. Shauna is SO creative!!!

A closer up view of the cupcakes.

Karter wearing the tiara...not so happy to be "a girl".

Jeff dunking Karter into the pool. Karter LOVED it. He was laughing so hard.

Karter really enjoyed letting the water out of the pool.

Karter trying to "hit" the pinata.

Lynn swinging as hard as he could...and TOTALLY missing. lol.

Jeff took a leg off the pinata.

I made a dent in the side, but nothing to be too proud about. lol.

Shauna decapitated the pinata. Body is flying through the air.

There is the head just hanging there.

We started pitching the body like a baseball. Kevin killed it good. Check out the candy flying.

Kevin & I with our friend Chad Barnes.

Fudge Stripe Fruit Salad

I had this at my niece’s party last Saturday. It was really good. So I thought I would pass on the recipe. A nice cool summer treat.

Fudge Stripe Fruit Salad

1 package vanilla instant pudding
1 cup buttermilk
8 ounces Cool Whip
1 can mandarin oranges
1 can chunk pineapple
1 can fruit cocktail
1/2 package Fudge Stripe cookies

Mix pudding, buttermilk and cool whip in a large bowl. Drain fruit and then add to the mixture. Crumble the cookies and stir into the mixture right before you serve it. Best served chilled.

Test update...

I got my test back today. I had to do a double take on the score. I GOT A 96%!!!!!! I was so freakin' excited!!!! WOO HOO!!!!!!!!!

A little Doodle

We bought a new white board when we moved into the house. Ours was really old, and too small to cover up the breaker box that is in the kitchen hallway. After Kevin hung it up he made a little drawing for me. I love it. Thought you guys might think it's cute too.

Making Jam

Well this weekend we headed out to Paul/Twin Falls for a birthday party for our niece Charlee, and for Father's day. Well my mother-in-law and I decided we'd make some strawberry jam. I had mentioned to her that i wanted to learn. So here are some pictures from my adventure in Jam making.

Yummy strawberries



Me mashing the strawberries...like my bedhead? lol.

mashed strawberries

While us girls were in the kitchen the boys were cleaning the garage from all the stuff to redo the counter tops. The mess had been in there for a month! I wouldn't have waited that long to clean it up. It would have drove me insane. LOL.

So i didn't get a picture of the final product, but i brought home about 1/2 of the containers we made...which i brought home 10 of them!!!

a shout out...

Just wanted to thank Heather for being such a good comment-er. I love everyones, so don't think i don't appreciate them. Heather has been excellent lately. :)

Have a great weekend everyone!!!

ugh...no results yet

So i had class today, and we still didn't get our tests back! I want to know what i got!!! Hopefully by tuesday we'll have them back. I think there are 2 girls in our class that still need to take it. I was on the ball and got it done right away. If i was really smart i wouldn't have missed it in the first place.

Work is good. busy.

We are heading to Twin Falls this weekend. It should be dang warm out there this weekend. I think we are supposed to hit about 87, which is hot for here. :) Especially when most places (homes) don't have A/C. Good thing is usually cools down at night. Plus we are attending a BBQ/birthday party for our niece Charlee who turns one on Sunday. I can't believe it's been a year. Time is flying! So we will be outside i think most of the late afternoon on Saturday. But we will be getting the last of our things out of Jeff's basement, which includes our ceiling fan we brought with us from CA. So it will be nice to have that installed in our new bedroom. I love ceiling fans.

Anywho...hopefully i'll take some pics this weekend. It would be nice to post some sometimes. :) So you have atleast something to look at while you listen to my ramblings.

test update...

So i took my test this morning at 9:15am. I had to sit at the front desk of the secretary of the department. It was interesting. LOL. I think i did rather well, other then one of the essay questions. I don't think i got it "just right", so who knows what i will get. I'd say atleast as good as i did before, if not better (I hope).

For treats i just bought some mini candy bars because i just didn't have time to "make" something nor did i want to heat up the house with the oven. I was not the only one that forgot. There were 9 people that forgot out of her 3 classes. I was glad to see that i wasn't the only one. We didn't get our tests back today, because there are others that need to take it. So, maybe by thursday we'll get it back and i'll let you know how i did.

Monday

Well we had a good weekend. Thursday we had our friends over for a BBQ and games. Friday we watched "Superman Returns" vegging in the bean-bag. Saturday we went to the Temple, lunch, ran errands while in Idaho Falls, went to a work dinner and a concert at the school. It was a WAY good show. You should check them out...

Ryan Shupe and the Rubberband. http://shupe.net/

I realized saturday night at 7pm i had FORGOTTEN all about a test that i was to take that morning. luckily with some pleading with my teacher and the promise of treats for class, i get to take it tomorrow morning. I will never let that happen again. Ugh! I can't believe i forgot!

So tonight i have to make/buy some treats and study for a test and do some homework. fun night for me.

We are getting more settled into the house. It's coming along great. We even have a few things hung on the wall. :)

House story

OK, since Heather is so curious, here is the story why "house house house" is so funny (to us atleast).

My best friend Kate was getting married (May 98) right after i finished a semester at Ricks College. Well i stayed with her & her family in UT till after the wedding and then went home to CA. Well, we moved Kate & Josh's stuff into their apartment and i was staying with Kate there the 2 days i think before they got married. Well Josh & Kate went out with his family or somewhere and i decided not to be the 3rd wheel and stayed at the apartment. Well i am not a night person, so she got home fairly late and i was already in bed. Either she woke me up to tell me she was home, or i just woke up because she got home. According to Kate this is what i said to her..."Jani called and she is at your parents house house house" and i drifted back to sleep. I don't recall making that statement, but this has given us a good laugh over the years. :) So that's all it is. So whenever i say house, kevin likes to say it three times back to me. Silly guy.

Which Character are you?

I got this from my friend Heather. I am Elinor Dashwood (i don't know how true that really is about me). :)

You are Elinor Dashwood of Sense & Sensibility! You are practical, circumspect, and discreet. Though you are tremendously sensible and allow your head to rule, you have a deep, emotional side that few people often see.

Take the quiz and see who you are... http://www.strangegirl.com/austenquiz/

ham update

Our ham was really good. I think we might have over cooked it a bit. But it's still very tasting. We have TONS of leftovers. I bet we will be eating it into the weekend.

My finger is good. I took off my band-aid last night and i cut it a little higher then i originally thought. I got it right at the nail cuticle (sp?). I cleaned it real well, so hopefully it won't get infected. I've got it covered up again today for work.

I didn't have class on tuesday and i must say i missed it. I've got it today and i am really glad. It's a nice break during the work day and a very informative and entertaining hour of the day.

Happy Thursday everyone. The weekend is almost here. YEAH!!!!

* oh yes, sometimes i reply to comments in the comment area. So if you place a comment on a posting, you might want to check and see if i've replied to it. I'll try to be better at it. :)

Can I start over?

OK, so today has been "one of those days". I woke up at 6:30am which is just before my alarm is supposed to go off, so i just got up. Well it's a good thing i woke up because i forgot to set the alarm last night. I decide to just finish putting away the last of the kitchen stuff before getting in the shower. 45 mins later i finally got in the shower. I then ate breakfast. Then i realized i hadn't thought of how to cook the ham i thawed yesterday. So i grab my crock pot recipe book and found a recipe that i have everything for. Shouldn't take to long i thought. WRONG! Took me forever and i had to enlist Kevin to help when he came downstairs. Then i totally cut my finger and I'm bleeding everywhere. Get that under control. Leave Kevin to finish putting the stuff in the crock pot. Try to get ready with a bloody finger tip. Get to work an hour late (I have Comp time so it's totally OK, plus NO one is here except for Kathy, me and the students). I get here and listen to 2 phone calls from the lady that schedules events and tells me that she has cancelled ALL of them and i have to resubmit them under my name because of a change that happen in the Fall. So i was frantically doing that and i was swearing at her in my head because she is an idiot for cancelling them before talking to me. UGH! That makes me mad. Now i have to look at all the reservations under the other person's name and tell her to put it under mine now. I am so tired already. I had to go get a Pepsi to make it through the morning. And it's only 10:30. Can i start the day over...PLEASE?!?!

*my ham better turn out good. LOL.

house update

Well, we are in our house and completely out of our apartment. We had our "check out" appointment yesterday at 4:30pm, it was like having a "white glove" clean check from when we were in college. Hopefully we get our full deposit back. We did a GREAT job of cleaning and probably spent too much time doing it. The house is partically put together. There is stuff we need to rearrange and figure out where to stick some stuff, but it's coming along nicely. It's so weird to be in there now after watching it being built. I don't know when i'll get used to it. It's surprisingly quite in our neighborhood with all the little kids that live there. But summer has just begun, so we'll see how loud it gets. I bet it's mostly during the day when we aren't home they will be out and about. We are SO greatful to our friends and family members that helped with the move. It went smooth. So that was nice. THANK YOU THANK YOU THANK YOU!! Kevin is very excited to have his "own room" for his art studio. I am too because i can close the door and not look at the mess. ;)

By the way...all those deleted comments were "test" comments i was making in trying to help my sister figure out how to post a comment. So i wasn't getting any sort of nasty/mean comments.

house house house

We are offically HOME OWNERS!!! What a wonderful feeling after renting for so long. We signed papers yesterday and got the keys to our Townhouse. We can start moving in TODAY! It's changed a bit on the outside since landscaping has been done, and there will be no blue around the front windows. It's a long story, but that will be covered up soon!

Man on the Moon?

So last night it was pretty warm in our apartment, so i opened the front door. I don't do this too often because i don't want the lights to attract bugs. I looked outside and thought the moon looked so cool with the clouds. I don't know why some of them are brighter then others, because i never used the flash. I guess i should learn how to use the manual settings on my camera.

a couple shout outs & weekend news

CONGRATULATIONS to our friends the Mazuran's for their new arrival Lillian May, born 5/22/07. I can't wait to see pictures. I know she will be beautiful!!!

THANK YOU to Naomi for doing the "MEME". The only one of who i "tagged" to do it. You are very cool! :)

This past (Long) weekend was quite nice. Friday i took off about 1.5 hours early to do a little "sprucing up" of the apartment before Lynn & Shauna arrived. We went to game night, which was way fun. I think this month of June we will he hosting. Which should be interesting. LOL. We hung out with L&S for the morning on Saturday and then Lynn took Shauna to meet her friend so she could stay with them for the week. Lynn came back to hang out with Kevin and I for the rest of the weekend. Saturday we went and purchased the window blinds for our townhouse and then had dinner & went bowling with the McDonald's, for Calvin's b-day. That was alot of fun. Even though i got my behind kicked. LOL.

Sunday was church and then we BBQ'd some burgers. Then Lynn left to go back to SLC so he could work on Shauna's car. Lynn will be back up this coming Friday night so he can pick up Shauna. It will be alot of fun to see them again so quickly. BUT...this weekend should be a crazy one...we should be moving into our house! YEAH!!! We are so excited. But aren't getting too ahead of ourselves. The family is on "stand by" to see if we will actually get the keys.

Oh yes, Sunday after Lynn left we decided to go on a bike ride. Well kevin always makes me pick the route, so I just started riding. Well we ended up at Poleline Road and we had to turn either left or right. I was thinking right, kevin said left. So UP UP UP this stinkin HUGE hill we went. I had to walk two times cause i just couldn't make it. So my goal by the end of summer is to make it up Poleline without having to stop. Wish me luck!

Monday was a day of cleaning, homework, and making treats. We went down to the Larsen's to have a BBQ and watch the Spurs/Jazz game. Alex and Taryn came with us and it was tons of fun. Thanks for a great Monday night!

Well i guess i should get some work done. Happy Tuesday Everyone!

MEME

Thanks Eliza Jane. Now i have to do a MEME. ;) Why is it called MEME?

So here it goes...

MEME INSTRUCTIONS:Remove the blog in the top spot from the following list and bump everyone up one place. Then add your blog to the bottom slot, like so:
1) Eve
2) Melissa
3) 4 B's in a Pod
4) Fairbanks Fun
5) Brown Spot

Next select five people to tag: I choose to tag, Jack Family, Naomi, Wente Family, Glauser Family, Burch Family. I doubt ANY one of these will do it, but i thought i'd atleast list them.

What were you doing 10 years ago?
I was finishing my first year of Jr. College at San Bernardino Valley College. And getting ready to attend Ricks College Summer semester.

What were you doing 1 year ago?
I had just started my new job at BYU-Idaho in the alumni office. Just learning the ropes around here, and completely enjoying NOT commuting any more. LOVE IT!!!

Five snacks you enjoy.
1) Candy
2) home made popcorn - you can choose how salty/buttery to make it
3) apples
4) nuts
5) ice cream

Five songs that you know all the lyrics to.
1) Grace Kelly by MIKA
2) Love Today by MIKA
3) Alot of 80s songs that i can't think of titles right now
4) All songs in Little Mermaid by Disney
5) others that i am having issues thinking of. i'll write them if i think of them.

Five things you would do if you were a millionaire!
1) BE DEBT FREE!!!
2) Go on a month or two trip to Europe
3) Get a trainer
4) get a dog or two or three :)
5) probably do a little shopping spree

Five Bad Habits - (Amen Eliza Jane, i'll just leave yours here.)
1) PROCRASTINATOR!!!!
2) voice my opinions too FAST!
3) Habitual blog checker
4) Eating way too much chocolate and sweets
5) MANY MANY MORE that I can't name them all.

Five Things you Like doing.
1) Watching/playing Volleyball
2) Sewing...If I got better at it.
3) Singing in the car
4) taking pictures
5) bike riding

Five things you would never wear again.
1) a size 5
2) Tappered leg jeans
3) Tank tops
4) spandex shorts (played v-ball in them for YEARS - when i was skinny)
5) Bangs - i love having my hair all one length. WHY didn't i do this in High School/College???

Five favorite toys.
1) Digital camera
2) cell phone - How did we live in CA for 5.5 years and not have one? I LOVE IT!!!
3) bike
4) PS2 - i LOVE tetris. But i get WAY TOO competitive.
5) sewing machine

Comments

OK, so i love comments. I love making them on other's blogs and i love getting them on mine. I don't know if i sound cheesy in my comments or unoriginal and they might not be very exciting comments, but it makes it known that i read their blog and appreciate comments and updates.

So if you are a friend of mine and a read of my blog...PLEASE comment. I don't care how cheesy it may be or unoriginal. I just like to know people out there like hearing from me.

What the heck?!?!

So this morning i wake up and it's a bit colder in the house than it has been the last few mornings, but i think nothing really of it. I get out of the shower, dressed, and i look out the window and saw this...

It was SNOWING!!! Hello?!? Does mother nature know it's May 22nd?!?! An hour after i had taken these pictures and i was leaving for work, it was snowing harder and there was about an inch of snow on my car. It is still snowing as we speak. Ugh! I said i wouldn't mind rain. I didn't say i wanted snow!

Saturday Trip...

...to YELLOWSTONE NATIONAL PARK. Can i saw that i love we live only 1.5 hours from YNP. It was so nice to go up on Saturday spend the day and then come home. I really didn't want to spend the gas $$ but it was so nice to get out and enjoy the day and the beautiful-ness of YNP. Got some pics, so i hope you'll like them.

As we entered the Park we got stuck in a herd of buffalo walking along the road. We got quite up close and personal. I had my window down and they were literally like a foot & a half from my side of the car. It was pretty cool to hear them breath as they shuffled by.

Buffalo on the road

Kevin driving us through the herd. I bet we were behind them for about 20 mins.

We got by them, but the HUGE line of cars behind us didn't quite make it.

Baby Buffalo with their moms. They look pretty much just like calves, but they are orange.

This buffalo was laying in the sun in a dirt patch. We walked on a board walk probably about 20 feet from him and another buffalo. It was really cool because when we breather you saw the dirt fly. I didn't get a picture of that. dang it.

We saw quite a few Elk as well. But never any babies. They must have been hiding in the tree line.

This guy was pretty big. People were asking if it was a Moose. Come on people, look at his face. It's so not a moose. Which we didn't see any of those either, Moose.

We did see some babie geese. They were so cute. There were probably three bunches of babies right there by the river and they were the only ones we saw all day. So i'm glad we pulled over when we did.

Kevin tweaked his ankle playing basketball thursday night, so he thought he would "ice it" in Lake Yellowstone. I think he was frozen up his shin. That water was cold! He has to put his feet i think in every body of water we have visited.

Kevin walking along Lake Yellowstone.

Lastly, us at Lake Yellowstone. It was a BEAUTIFUL DAY!

Big Brother

So Mother's day weekend we went out and saw Kevin's family. It was a BUSY weekend for Kevin. He was helping his brother put in new counter tops in the kitchen. It wasn't the kind where you buy them pre-made and just drop them on. it's where you ahve to put the wood down, put the formica on it and everything. They did it ALL saturday afternoon till about midnight and then from about 9:30am-7:30pm Sunday and it wasn't even finished when we left. Hopefully it's done now. We should call and see. But we did get some news the week prior to going out. Jeff & Barbara are expecting #2 in October. They should find out at the end of this month what they are having. I'm saying Girl. We'll see if i'm right. Well here is the ONLY picture i took the entire weekend. It's of Karter who is going to be the big brother. Isn't he just cute?!

thought this was cute...

The only survivor of a shipwreck was washed up on a small, uninhabited island. He prayed feverishly for God to resuce him. Everyday he scanned the horizon for help, but none seemed forthcoming. Exhausted, he eventually managed to build a little hut out of driftwood to protect him from the elements, and to store his few possessions.

One day, after scavenging for food, he arrived home to find his little hut in flames, with smoke rolling up to the sky. He felt the worst had happened, and everything was lost. He was stunned with disbelief, grief, and anger. he cried out, "God! How could you do this to me?"

Early the next day, he was awakened by the sound of the ship approaching the island! It had come to resuce him! "How did you know i was here?," ask the weary man of his rescuers. "We saw your smoke signal," they replied.

The moral of this story: it's easy to get discouraged when things are going bad, but we shouldn't lose heart, because God is at work in our lives...even in the midst of our pain and suffering. Remember that the next time your little hut seems to be burning to the ground. It just may be a smoke signal that summons the Grace of God.

Friendly Reminder

I got a friendly reminder from Tiff that i haven't written in a while. I guess there hasn't been too much to write about. The weather is beautiful; and actually quite warm. It's hard to be inside all day. Work is good. Busy. The house is coming along. We still don't know when we will be in. It's quite annoying but i guess that is part of the process everyone has to deal with. We are so close though.

We are heading to Kevin's parent's this weekend. We are picking up our bikes. We are SO excited to be able to go riding again. We've been wanting them for a while know (they were storing them for us through the winter) but we just figured they could bring them when they help us move. Well since we don't know what that will be and it is Mother's Day this weekend...we thought we'd head out there.

Hopefully I'll get some pics this weekend to post. I haven't really taken any lately. I'll try to see if Kevin can get some of me to post. LOL. Not that you really want to see me, but maybe a few of you might. LOL.

We were supposed to have game night tonight, but it got canceled. I'm sad, but Kevin is kind of relieved. He is pretty tired from basketball last night. They played later then usual last night. He didn't get home until 12:45am!

Class is going good. I really like it. I got a 90% on my first test. Well actually an 86%, but she gave us all 4 percentage points extra. Excellent! Thank you, I'll take them.

Guess that's about it for now. Have a great weekend everyone!

tales from Denver

So i had a great time in Denver for my conference. I arrived at noon on Saturday and met up with some people from BYU-Provo for a ride over to the hotel. They were renting a car, and i was just going to take a shuttle. But i'll go for a free ride, then pay for a ride any day. Got to the hotel, checked in and was starving. So from my HUGE window in my room i could see a Quizno's right down the street. So i headed down there and found out it wasn't even open. I think they were still in the process of hiring, etc. So i went wandering try to find somewhere to eat. I ran across a Cheesecake Factory. I wasn't going to go there by myself for lunch. So i kept wandering. I ran into this "mall" and saw they had a food court. So i went up there to see what i could get. Low and behold i found...
PANDA EXPRESS!!!

I was so excited! I love this place and we don't have one near us. So i quickly got in line and filled up on yummy food!

Then after i was suffienctly full, i went out to wander the streets of Denver LoDo to see what i could find. I walked for about 2.5 hours. It was a beautiful day. Here are some pics of things i saw...

Cool train station that they use for trips to ski area's and other places around the Denver area. I could also see this from my room.

This cool building shared the parking lot of the train station.

Just some cool fans above a door way on the streets in Denver LoDo.

Coor's Baseball Field! Home of the Rockies. It's a way nice stadium!

Another view of Coor's Stadium.

I went up to the gate's and tried to get an inside shot of the field. It wasn't so blown out when i was looking through the lens. You could see some of the field, but all you see is bright light. Oh well.

This building looked like a warehouse at one time. But i had a good chuckle about first two names. :)

This was the first building a came across that had a painting on the side of it. I thought it was really cool. As we were making our way back to the airport via the shuttle, we saw alot more. I wish i could have gotten some pics of them.

Just another cool sign painted on a building.

OK, so i saved the best for last. During my travels i saw an Asian Market. So i was curious to see what they offered, since i use to live in "Asian Nation" in CA. I just couldn't believe what i saw. Above a few of the aisle's they have BUG ZAPPERS just hanging there killing bugs in the store. I was so shocked. I just had to get a picture of it but didn't want to be too obvious. So that's why it's at a weird angle. LOL.

So after my walking I went back to the hotel and cleaned up and got ready for my dinner with our Alumni Ambassador's. I invited my past roommate Eliza and her husband to join us. It was SO awesome to see her again and meet her husband and little daughter. I am so glad that Eliza met someone that makes her so happy. Bryan you are a good guy! After dinner i hung out with Eliza & Bryan for a while. They took me to walmart for a few things i needed then back to the hotel.

Sunday my coworker Kathy arrived just in time for check in to our conference. we checked in, ran to get some lunch and then back for the beginning of the conference. The conference was for the company that makes our system for keeping track of our Alumni, etc. So they are coming out with a new program and it was telling us all about it and the new feature's etc. We will be really excited to get it, but to our dismay we were told it might take a YEAR to get it. We are hoping sooner.

Monday we had classes for the conference all day. We did sneak out during the afternoon because we didn't want to attend those classes since they didn't pertain to us. LOL. So we tried going to the Denver Mint. We missed it by 5 minutes. We were sad. But then we decided to stay "out and about" and went shopping. Kathy spent the money, i just encouraged her. LOL. She bought me a shirt to go with the skirt she bought for my birthday. I can't wait to wear it. I'll have to take a picture.

We went back to the hotel and met our dinner group for dinner. We went to the Cheesecake Factory, we were hoping for PF Chang's but we got out voted. LOL. It was still really good.

Tuesday, conference first thing in the morning and then headed to the airport. Got home in to Idaho Falls at 5:30pm. Kevin picked me up and we headed it. It's great to be home. I like our small little town, though it was nice to have all those stores and resturants. But there are WAY TOO MANY one way streets in Denver. It drove me nuts!

So that is my trip in a very large nut shell. :)

I'm back

Well, i guess i've been back for about two days now (in about 3 hours), but things have just been busy. I plan on giving a review of my trip to Denver and some pics i took there. But that will have to wait because i don't have the pics i want to show you here at work with me. I'll try to bring them tomorrow.

I want to give a CONGRATULATIONS shout out to Russell & Katie on the birth of their little daughters born yesterday (5/2/07).

Madylin Joy - was born first. She was 3 lbs 15oz and 16in.

Morgan Grace - was second. She was 6 lbs 3 oz and 20 in. - little piggy stealing her sisters food. LOL.

They did a c-section and they ended up having to put Katie all the way under because the other meds weren't doing what they should have. The girls were breathing on their own, but i think taken to the NICU for precaution. Russell says they are BEAUTIFUL! :)

They are identical twins, except for their size difference right now. Congrats! I can't wait to see pictures!