Napkin Heaven

Merry Christmas to me! I love folding napkins. It's a hobby I picked up when I was really young, living at my parent's house, decorating for special family dinners (like Christmas). When I got married I got a linen set with four orange, green, and yellow large plaid patterned napkins. It was a strange pattern and none of the napkins were quite square. So for the past 4 1/2 years I've made do with folding misshapen or paper napkins. For Christmas my sister gave me all the above napkins! I'm in napkin-folding heaven! Now I just need to get my starch out...

I love my sisters

Minnesota December 2, 2007
First time we were all together in 1 1/2 years.

O Christmas Tree

Here is our blurry Christmas tree (sorry, its the best picture of it we've got). We got a screaming deal at Target for this artificial tree and the much of the decorations ( I think all of them, actually). I like it, though it is a skinny-triangle-tree. We would like to see pictures of everyone's trees if you don't mind posting them.

Scott's Random Featured Quote

"I want to punch this cardboard box because I'm a boy."

Happy Thanksgiving!

Who says people are ignoring Thanksgiving to decorate for Christmas? They should meet our neighbors. Here's a taste: monster turkeys, pilgrims, yellow and orange lights all over...

Can you see Mr. Pilgrim winking in this one? I couldn't get a good shot of Mrs. Pilgrim from the street. These manekins are decorated differently for every holiday: zombies, pilgrims, Mr. & Mrs. Clause, lovers (for Valentine's Day). Scott refers to them as the corpses.

Vindicated

BYU 27

TCU 22

Last night Scott and I got to go to the BYU vs. TCU game (Happy Birthday to Scott! Thanks, Gary and Sherri). It was awesome! I know this is a little ridiculous, but I still felt bitter from the fall 2005 game at BYU and this win has finally quenched that. I felt like TCU joined the MWC just because they thought they would have easy wins and get a better ranking. Then that first season, 2005, they were overrated and set up to win the Conference title (ugh). When we played them (I was there) BYU looked clearly like the better team, but because of two major bad calls, in overtime TCU won 51 to 50. We were robbed! But now, two years later and with two wins over TCU (including last year @ TCU) I finally feel vindicated.

Guess who's birthday is today!

Happy Birthday SCOTT!

Happy Halloween

Isn't it fun to dress up?

Fall Farm-tastic Fun

Last night Brett, Sarah, Oliva, Sherri, Scott and I went to a corn maze. I haven't gone to a corn maze in over five years, and I have been wanting to! This was just perfect. (oh, except I recommend going to a corn maze when there's a little more light outside.)
We went on a hayride there, and that was a highlight. "Cornbelly's" had hired artists to carve dozens and dozens of pumpkins in recognizable images, portraits, cartoons, and they were really elaborate! It was amazing. The hayride drove us past all of them. Unfortunately, it was too dark to get good pictures.
Scott and Brett got a good workout on the jumping pillow and the pedal go-carts.
It took a little while for Olivia to get used to being outside in the dark and cold, but she warmed up to it and was such a little doll. I love her hat with the two baubles!
The cow train. Good clean fun!

Growing Up

Do you ever feel like you're still growing up? Last week was a week where I felt like I was growing up fast with too much responsibility. Here are some highlights of my week:

The week started with Sunday where I had to teach a joint lesson to all the young women about chastity. I'm sure I fretted more about this than I needed to, seeing as Scott was team teaching with me. Well I survived that, and it was actually pretty rewarding to know we did a decent job on a potentially tricky topic.

Monday I got to work and learned that the employee who I manage was still feeling sick from his wisdom teeth removal the previous week, so he wasn't there Monday or Tuesday. With deadlines creeping up constantly, I picked up a lot of his work load on top of mine.

The Young Women of the ward were planning a retreat over the weekend, and Mia Maids were in charge of dinner and an hour long spiritual class (which one of the other Mia Maid advisors was scheduled to do). I learned on Tuesday that I probably would be the only Mia Maid advisor there, our previous dinner plans weren't going to work, and I would most likely be teaching the class at the retreat. I met with my class presidency on Tuesday and arranged dinner plans for the retreat, and on Wednesday night, the girls came to my house to chop up enough vegetables for soup to feed 50 people.

Thursday at work was another crazy day with a new project decided upon to be released the next day. This required me to teach myself how to use a font program I've never used and modify, adjust and assemble a very complicated font by early afternoon because my employee wasn't able to come in until mid-afternoon and wouldn't have time to complete this project.

Friday morning I woke up and quickly assembled four crock pots of soup before leaving to teach yoga. After Yoga, I had to rush to work to reach a newsletter deadline.

When I got home in the afternoon, I discovered that two of my (favorite) soups for the retreat had overcooked and were no good. I had to leave in an hour and only had two crock pots of soup to feed 50 people.

My hero, Scott, was so helpful at this point, and ran to the grocery store to get sandwich ingredients while I threw clothes and toiletries into a bag and frantically tried to think of how to beef up a spiritual thought to last an hour.

Well, I survived the dinner (though I don't think I really tasted any of it) and my class managed to last 40 minutes, which turned out to be just right. I maybe slept four hours that night, and then it was Saturday.

After I drove the girls in my car home, I went home planning on spending the whole day working on several freelance projects that I had been putting off because of my busy schedule. Well, I decided to put them off a little longer and took a break to watch the BYU football game and enjoy my Saturday.

I see some women who live at this pace constantly and I don't know how they do it! Looking back, it was a good week, but I'm glad every week isn't as busy as last week.

I cut my hair!

Before

During After

Thanks Sarah!

My Celebrity Look-alikes

Eva Longoria? I don't think so. And 76% Brendan Fraser?!

Our Nephew Sammy

Sam is my nephew through my brother Jon and his wife Kristen. During conference he entertained us with some spontaneous spinning. Now edited for your viewing pleasure, I present Sammy Spinning.

Work or Play

I work at a company that designs alphabets for scrapbookers. These are some of my Halloween alphabets that I'm excited to release. Just thought I'd share...

(they should be transparent, but oh well. You get the idea)

Cake Master

A few weeks ago I saw this picture in the grocery store:

Looking at it's delectible frosting and delightfully seasonal colors and layout, a passionate longing to be able to make good cakes from scratch emerged within me. Since then, I have made two cakes. The first one, although tasting good, sank in the middle and looked like a mess. The second one, using the recipe from the magazine above, was a little better:

I still need lots of practice before I feel confident about my cake making skills, so now I need people to feed cakes to. Any takers?

An Adventurous weekend

Last Saturday, Scott and I went on an adventure.

We boldly went where no man had gone before... (except maybe the man who built the bridge)

We went to perilous heights...

With dangerous drop-offs...

Through deep, dark caves...that were oh, so scary... (see Scott's smile-o-fear below)
Throughout it all, we had to dodge ferocious animals...And evade the hostile natives who were following our path...
But it was worth it for the breathtaking scenery.

Thank goodness we made it out alive! What a great trip.

eight random facts, revisited

These are about me, Scott.

1. Britta tells me I "jerk" and that my body convulses immediately after or before (she's not sure, it happens so quickly) I fall asleep each night.

2. I don't believe that's true.

3. I live my life by one major maxim (and several little ones, which won't be itemized here): Never do anything which may be recorded and held against you in the future in front of friends, family, or an uncaring public, whatever the case may be. Consequently, I refuse to be videotaped while dancing in the home, tape record my voice singing, or any other potentially embarrassing display. Sorry. I have too great inhibitions.

4. I am certain I know everything, even knowing that I don't (but then I do, don't you see the meta-level there?) until someone (usually Britta) convinces me I am wrong to which I quickly distance myself from my previous error by either twisting my previous position to show I actually was right, after all, or by ignoring the fact I was wrong completely, usually by changing the subject quickly or by making a joke..

5. I have spent much of my leisure time this summer reading political biographies about George Washington, Harry S. Truman, and Abraham Lincoln (each of them HIGHLY recommended). I have fallen in love with our political and national history and now plan on reading additional biographies of John Adams, John F. Kennedy, Teddy Roosevelt, and Alexander Hamilton. Next, I will likely dive into some modern political themes, but I'm holding off on that for now.

**author's note: #4 and #5 are not related.**

6. I am planning on owning three cars when Britta and I have a family and a stable career. #1. Our Hyundai. We have both loved this car. Loved it. We would buy another Hyundai in an instant. We plan on keeping this car for our teenagers to drive; so that would be at least 17 more years. (absolutely no announcement is implied by the previous statement. . . that is just the biological possibility) #2. A good family car: which may be either an SUV or a minivan . . . undecided as of yet. #3. A date car. This car will serve two purposes. a) a nice car to go to nice places together. b) motivate our children to have ambition, because they will see it but won't use it. I am thinking something like a Lexus SC 430 in British racing green or jet black.

7. One of my life's ambitions is to own a plane. I have been trying to bring Britta on board for about two years now. I think this has to do with listening to G'Pa Pete's stories of flying from back in the day. I feel that there is something romantic about the freedom of flying which draws me, as well.

8. I love to make others laugh. the end.

8 Random Facts About Britta

Okay, Sarah, here are my 8 random facts:

1. I have never retained a mosquito bite in my life. I have even watched them bite me and see their little bodies fill with blood, but I feel no itch, I get no welt, no reaction at all.
2. My nickname is the Human Radio. I can sing to songs on the radio I didn't even know I knew. I can hear a song once and practically have it memorized. It doesn't work for all songs, but many.
3. As an extension from my last comment, I have almost every nuance and breath memorized in over 125 Disney movie songs.
4. I still have two baby teeth. The dentists have said that if I take good care of them I can keep them until I'm 30-40. Ultimately I'll need implants or something.
5. In my short work life since I graduated High School, I have worked in 13 locations that I can think of off the top of my head. In the three years since I graduated college, I have persued three separate career paths.
6. I really like my feet. I think some feet are ugly, and some are just strange, but I really like my feet. Except I wish that shoe companies routinely made size 11 shoes.
7. I drink lots of water, and I prefer water to any other beverage. Of course, I enjoy a good juice or hot chocolate on occasion, but water is always top on my list.
8. Umm... I can't think of an 8. I'm wearing an orange shirt today.

Biggest Cantaloupe Ever!

This cantaloupe came from a garden on the farm. It's the biggest one either Scott or I had seen! And that's saying something, seeing as Scott was raised in Cantaloupe Capital, NV.

Olivia's 1st Cake

What's this thing in front of me?

I guess I'll eat it.

Hey, it's not that bad!

The telephone is ringing... Hello?

Whopee!

Look at me, everyone!

I know this isn't a cake one, but I couldn't resist.

Case Closed!

Overall, my time in jury duty was quite interesting. It takes way more focus than I realized, especially for a five day case. I had to pay rapt attention and take notes for ~7 hours a day, learning intimate details of the Plaintiff's life. Being wholly consumed by the information presented, it was an additional trial to not talk about it to anyone! (Not even my fellow jurors.) By the end of the week everything was reminding me of the case, I would dream about the case, I would constantly be thinking about it. After it was done I decided to type up a summary of the information presented to purge myself. If you're interested in reading about it, check here.

Here are some things I learned during jury duty:

• Judges look bored most of the time, not avidly paying attention, like on TV.
• Lawyers really are just actors who are hired to fight someone elses argument, at least in my case.
• I think I would get depressed if it was my job to convince 9 people that the witness is a pathological liar. Who would want that as a job?
• Jury duty can be really fun if you get along with your other jurors. I think our jury was exceptional. Seven out of nine had at least a college degree, or were working towards it. Everyone was friendly and talkative. Every time we had a break, we would find things to laugh about. Sometimes we would all enter the court with grins on our faces. The lawyers must've thought we were crazy.
• When focusing on somewhat depressing things for hours on end, the strangest things become funny. I had to refrain from laughing several times during very serious discussions, just because of a facial expression or a gesture, or a completely unrelated thought in my head.
• If you care anything about your health, pack your own snack food.

Court is now in session

On Monday I was called in for jury duty! There were about 40 of us in the selection process. I was juror #20. First we filled out a two page questionnaire asking general questions, and then questions about our automobiles and car crashes and our feelings about people who sue. When the judge came in, he asked a lot of questions about our biases, and our magazine and newspaper subscriptions. Then the lawyers and judge called in each juror individually to expound upon their answers from the questionnaire. All in all, the process took almost five hours. The judge reminded us that in some states (i.e. California) the selection process can take weeks!

Well, I was selected to be on the jury. The opening statements were given 45 minutes after the jury was selected. I can't say anything about the trial because I'm commanded to not form an opinion until I've heard from all the witnesses. But I can say that jury duty is kind of a neat experience. I've also decided I never want to be a lawyer, not that that was on my agenda anyway. I can also say that the jury room is loaded with junk food! Today, day three, I finally gave in and ate some... I had at least a little of each the following just today:

Skittles, Nutrigrain Bar, Red Vines, Starbursts, Werther's Original coated in chocolate, string cheese, Cheetos, cheddar-flavored Sun Chips, Triscuts, and frosted animal cookies with sprinkles.

Yuck. I plan on having better self control tomorrow.