Saturday, November 22, 2008

My Christmas tree is up.....that's right, CHRISTMAS TREE!

Not only that, it's been up since Tuesday November 18th. I just couldn't wait any longer! I got a new Christmas Tree Skirt this year, and it has a cute Santa on it, and Santa has a pom pom for his nose and one on the end of his hat. I no sooner got it wrapped around the bottom of the tree when Chloe ran over, laid on her belly, and proceeded to nibble on Santa's nose. I'm not expecting it to make it through the holidays, but here's hoping!

Here is Chloe's stocking. I put it in the tree to keep it all in one piece.Here is the "star" on my tree. Isn't he cute? I bought a bunch of small sock monkey ornaments last year at Christmas time, and knew he'd like to join them.
This photo is proof positive that I will never be a photographer. Although my tree is cute, notice the "star" on the top? Of course you don't, because I cut it out of the picture!!

Thursday, November 20, 2008

Crack Free America



I propose a crack free America people, and I am NOT just talking about the drug!! I don't know why men working on their cars, size 18 women in size 10 spandex, or men with their boxers and their butt hanging over the top of the waistband of their levi's feel the need to show us the things that should be covered up! If I wanted to see a butt crack, I'd look at mine in the mirror! Please America, either pull your pants up, or your crack down!

Sunday, November 16, 2008

Nieces are fun

Hey Hollywood!
Jocelyn is so talented....bet YOU can't do this!
Ali was completely unwilling to cooperate so I could get a picture of her, so this is her headed after Chloe.
Notice her hair.....it was lovely! We had been playing in a tent, and her hair for the rest of the day looked like she was about to be struck by lightening.
Me and Lindsey got to babysit our nieces for a day about a week ago, and we had so much fun!

Friday, November 7, 2008

Halloweeeener Dog

Here is Chloe's Halloween costume. It took me a while to get this picture, and she wasn't about to cooperate the slightest little bit so this is the best we could do. I hope she isn't planning to pay me back!

Monday, November 3, 2008

Happy Halloweeeeeen!

Here are the non party poopers of my family who decided to dress up for Halloween....
This is Rob, Miranda and Jocelyn, what cute little bee!
Cutest little Kitten ever, smeared whiskers and all!
The Pac Man on the right is my brother....or so I'm told.

Tuesday, October 28, 2008

Magically Delicious!

See....dreams DO come true!!


This is my brother Kevin, I love this picture!

Saturday, October 4, 2008

Conference Weekend

It's been a while since I've had anything to blog about. Life is plugging right along as usual. I finally have all of my stuff put away in my house, and it's clean!! I never thought I'd be able to stay that!

It's conference weekend, and one of my favorite times of the year. I love watching conference. There is such a wide range of topics, and it's so fun to listen to them all. I know this picture isn't exactly current, but it is one of my favorites. I just adore President Hinckley. What a great man he was! He was able to accomplish so much in his life, and represented us well. I'm excited to watch President Monson progress in his calling. Sometimes I feel that it's a shame that the world isn't over-populated with men like these. (Only younger and SINGLE!)

Monday, September 15, 2008

Look what I did....

I'm finally done with the lower half of my house and up the stairs. The other bathroom and the bedrooms are going to have to wait until I get all stupid again and decide to take on another project. I'm hoping it doesn't take too long, because now my white walls upstairs look pretty boring!


The 3rd picture down isn't all that great, the lighting in my house was stupid and I couldn't get a good picture of it. I'd say that the 2nd picture is pretty much the closest to the actual colors in my living room.....







Friday, September 5, 2008

I am going to be a new Auntie!!


The new baby is due March 8th.
Is that exciting or what????
I think it's going to be a boy, but what do I know?
I'm sure this smile is because she is thinking of her favorite Auntie Julie!

Thursday, September 4, 2008

Go with your gut feeling

You know when your are going about your day, and as you're doing something you think to yourself 'this isn't going to turn out well'? What is it about us that makes us keep doing whatever it is we are doing, ignore this feeling, and hope for the best?



Monday morning I am getting ready for my day, so I could meet my friend Nancy for lunch to do a belated celebration for her birthday. (...and a shout out to Nancy for her birthday.... Hey girl!!) So I get done putting on my makeup and set my makeup bag on a shelf above the toilet. As I am doing my hair, there is a bottle of hairspray that I need and it's sitting behind the makeup bag. As I am reaching for the hairspray and picking it up, I am looking at the makeup bag, and then at the open toilet, and thinking "this isn't going to turn out well", but does that stop me? NO it does not! As I hit the corner of my makeup bag with the bottom of the bottle of hairspray, and watch it teeter forward (unzipped mind you) and fall upside down in the toilet, I knew instantly that I deserved it. I should have listened to my gut feeling. Swearing did NOT make the toilet seat slam shut and save my makeup's life either. If I would have thought for one second that the items would have flushed down and not clogged the toilet, I would have sent them off to a better place, but instead I had to put my hand in there (gag) and fish the items out. Now that I have taken out a loan to replace all of my makeup (you know how expensive it is), and had my hand in toilet water, I think I've learned my lesson.

Tuesday, September 2, 2008

Women of Many Names...

1. YOUR ROCK STAR NAME: (first pet & current car) Sparky Honda
2. YOUR GANGSTA NAME: (fave ice cream flavor, favorite cookie) Rocky Road Butterscotch
3. YOUR “FLY Guy/Girl” NAME: (first initial of first name, first three letters of your last name) Jmer
4. YOUR DETECTIVE NAME: (favorite color, favorite animal) Purple Dachshund
5. YOUR SOAP OPERA NAME: (middle name, city where you were born) Ann Provo
6. YOUR STAR WARS NAME: (the first 3 letters of your last name, first 2 letters of your first) Merja
7. SUPERHERO NAME: (”The” + 2nd favorite color, favorite drink) The Red Cola
8. NASCAR NAME: (the first names of your grandfathers) Leo Melvin
9. STRIPPER NAME: (the name of your favorite perfume/cologne/scent, favorite candy) Dreamsicle Twix
10. WITNESS PROTECTION NAME: (mother’s & father’s middle names ) Webb Ross
11. TV WEATHER ANCHOR NAME: (Your 5th grade teacher’s last name, a major city that starts with the same letter) Beach Beaver
12. SPY NAME: (your favorite season/holiday, flower) Fall Daisy
13. CARTOON NAME: (favorite fruit, article of clothing you’re wearing right now + “ie” or “y”) Grapefruit Pantsie
14. HIPPIE NAME: (What you ate for breakfast, your favorite tree) Shake Quakey
15. YOUR ROCKSTAR TOUR NAME: (”The” + Your fave hobby/craft, weather element+ Tour") The Movie Spring Tour

Wednesday, August 27, 2008

Me and my bright ideas!

Now that Hawaii is behind me (*sniff*) I decided to take on a project. Somewhere in my tiny little mind, I decided that my house should no longer be white inside, and that I needed to paint. Instead of buying a gallon of paint and just hitting my kitchen as a small project, I decided to buy 5 gallons of paint and try to do the whole lower half of my house, up the stairs, and in the landing. You know how you can get a hairbrained idea to do something and it seems so do-able before you start it, and then you get in the middle of your project and wish you were dead? Welcome to my world! Here are a few of the "before" pictures, and hopefully before I die, there will be some "after" pictures to post along with them!

Living Room and Kitchen



Thursday, August 14, 2008

The city of Kihei in Maui

Here in the top 2 pictures, you can see the view we had from our balcony in our hotel room. The bottom picture was in front of the hotel looking out over the ocean. Rough life huh? :)


Turtles and Seals....

Are these little guys cute or what??? On Sunday we went to turtle beach. When we got down near the shore, there were 4 turtles up on the sand, and there were bunches of turtles just swimming around in the water near the shore. It was cute to watch them swim around, and every once in a while you'd see this little head poke out of the water and look around. They have volunteers on the beach to keep people from bugging the turtles too much. It's actually a $2,000 fine if you are caught picking up or even touching a sea turtle. Just south of Turtle Beach a few miles is Sunset Beach, and they had a Monk Seal up on the shore. She had been there for about 3 days just napping in the sun. They say there are propbably only about 1,800 Monk Seals left in the world. They can be a little agressive if you bother them, so when they are on the beach the park volunteers put up yellow tape to keep people away from them.


More Aloha....




Last Thursday we got up at the very buttcrack of dawn, (3:30 to be exact) and drove to Honolulu to get on the ferry and go to Maui for 2 days. Lets first talk about the ferry. Who invented that thing? It was such a rough ride, I was absolutely green the whole way, and my good friend Lelia was a lot worse off than I was. The ride out was so bad, that it made us dread the trip back. (Although our fear of seasickness made us come up with quite the anti-nausea cocktail, and we did great!) Our main purpose for going to Maui was to drive the road to Hana. Its a 52 mile road that took us about 3 hours to drive due to the fact that the road is very narrow and winding, having 620 curves, 59 bridges-46 of which are one way so you have to take turns crossing. You drive through rainforest's, get to see waterfalls along the way, and there is a black sand beach that we were able to stop at.

Aloha!!




I'm back from Hawaii, I know you all missed me. We had a great trip!! My friend Lelia and I went to visit our friend Julieanne in La'ie on Oahu. We were there for 8 days, but it seemed more like 8 hours. Here are my partners in crime. Lelia is on the left and Julieanne is on the right. Aren't they cute?? This picture was taken at the Polynesian Cultural Center right before we went to our Luau for dinner. MMMMMM, delicious!






Here to the right is a guy that was passing the sacrament on sunday, then we ran into him again at his work. Quite a change I must say! After watching these students in their performances, you know they love their jobs. They were fun to watch.




Here is a little waterfall at the Polynesian Cultural Center that I thought was kind of pretty. Everything there was so beautiful, it was nice to just walk around and enjoy the landscaping as well as going to the different shows. We got to watch them climb a coconut tree, make coconut bread, and I even learned to dance in the Fiji section.....I'm sure it wasn't a pretty sight.

Saturday, July 19, 2008

Thought for the day....

It's been a while since I have written, only because I have nothing interesting to say. When I tell people that 14 days from right now I will be in Hawaii, they just don't seem to want to listen. Oh well, it's still fun to say out loud! I will leave you with one of my favorite quotes...

"Just because someone agrees with you doesn't make you right. It just means there's someone else out there as stupid as you." -- Nathan Reed

Have a great weekend!

Thursday, July 3, 2008

Seagulls.....from Heaven or Hell?


Animals.....God's creation. Some provide us with comfort, joy, warmth, companionship, even unconditional love. They are happy to see you when you get home, cuddle with you on a cold winter night, or are just content to be wherever you are. However, there are others that have a mean streak and I'm quite certain they were part of the 1/3 of the heavenly hosts that choose to follow Satan. I speak of the seagull. I had nothing against the seagull, until July 1st, 2008 at about 8:06pm. Let me set the stage.....

My alarm went off at 5:30. That time of the morning should be against the law. I hit snooze twice because I just couldn't make myself get out of bed. Due to a late shift at BYU, I rolled into bed at about midnight so I didn't get much sleep. I finally got out of bed and had to hurry to leave on time. I got to work with about 2 minutes to spare, and from the time I logged into my computer and took my first phone call, until I left work 10 hours later, we were busy. We had just taken over dispatch for Lindon that morning, so we were a little bit out of our element but not too bad. It was just a busy stressful day. I had to stop and grab some protein shakes at Sams club on my way home, and I knew it would be packed. I was right. It took me forever to get out of there. I finally got home, scrounged up something to eat, then ran and changed my clothes because I had a meeting with the Stake President at 7:00pm. I really had to go to Wal Mart and pick up a few things. As much as I would have rather had a mammogram than gone shopping, I decided that if I didn't go that night I wouldn't have a chance to go again until Saturday, so off to Wal Mart I went. I was working off of a list, so I wouldn't forget anything, and I could just get in and get right back out. No time would be wasted inside that store. I had some sleep that I needed to be getting and I planned on wasting not one minute. Is there anyone out there in the world that has EVER used the self check out line at a store, and NOT had to fight with it? I strongly believe that they have some internal scanner that can detect your stress level, and from there it decides the degree of difficulty you are about to have during your transaction. Every single time I scanned something (and mind you, I probably only had maybe 15 things in my cart) it flashed the 'skip bagging' screen, so I then had to push the 'skip bagging' button and wait for 10 seconds for it to clear and let me continue. Apparently the number of items it will let you push this button on, is one less than what I had, because after the very last item I had to scan it froze up the transaction and then gave me the 'wait for an associate' screen. (Somewhat like getting the blue screen of death on your computer at work.) I learned that the internal scanner that detects your stress level also is the system on which they decide when to send their associates that clear the 'wait for an associate' screen to break. After sitting there for about 5 minutes an associate wandered by, sipping the last of her Mtn Dew and eating her last Frito (typical break food) and cleared it for me, so I was able to continue. I swiped my debit card, grabbed my receipt, and walked out the doors. Finally! I'm on the home stretch, I can almost picture my wiener dog waiting for me at the front door.

As I approach my car I popped the trunk open with my remote in hopes of making a fast getaway. Then it happened... and I actually heard it hit. As I stand there (in clean clothes that I have worn for about 60 minutes at this point) a seagull flies above me, and craps on me as he goes by. It hit the top of my head, splashed (yes I said splashed) onto my arms, and the rest dripped down the front of my shirt and my skirt. Normally I would have been about 4 shades of pissed off at this point, but I just stood there. Frozen in time. Just when you think that your day has been long enough, and you start to see that there is an end in sight, it only takes one little 2 pound seagull to bring you back to reality. Quite a humbling experience I must say.

In the future, I don't believe I will dwell on the fact that my day has been long and stressful, and that I have 20 things to get done after work before I can go home. I'm going to be thankful that I have been able to go one more day without being crapped on. But just in case, I think I'm going to start carrying an umbrella in my purse.....just to be on the safe side.

Saturday, June 28, 2008

Me.....from A to Z

Ok Shauna, here it is.....all about ME!!

This is me from A-Z!

A-attached or single? single, single single!!
B-best friend? Andrea will be ticked if I don't say it's her, but I have lots of great friends!
C-cake or pie? yes please!
D-day of choice? I enjoy Sundays with my family, but any day off of work will do!
E-essential item? gum, lipgloss, and a diet coke
F-favorite color? purple
G-gummy bears or worms? sour gummy worms
H-hometown? Provo, Utah (wow, haven't I made it far??)
I-indulgences? lately, it's been grapefruits....go figure
J-jan or july? I love the 4th of July
K-kids? I have a furbaby named Chloe, she is a 4 year old wiener dog
L-life is incomplete without? laughter, family, and friends
M-marriage date? maybe in 2010? everyone has to have a goal right?
N-number of siblings? I have 3 brothers and a sister
O-oranges or apples? oranges
P-phobias? snakes, spiders, and skunks
Q-quotes? "It's better to keep one's mouth shut and be thought a fool than to open it and resolve all doubt"
R-reason to smile? my nieces, they are the best!
S-season? spring and fall because it's so pretty
T-tag another person? Miranda and Lindsey
U-unknown fact? I'd say how cute I am, but that's no secret!
V-very favorite store? Deseret Book
W-worst habit? eating junk food....but it's so good!
X-x-ray or ultrasound? ultrasound, I've never had one before
Y-your favorite food? grapefruits and kneaders breakfast...yummy
Z- zodiac? Gemini-explains a lot doesn't it?

Saturday, June 21, 2008

My First blog....

My friends made me do this.....seriously! It was under duress, and I had to agree to be a part of this, or they were going to continue to make a blog of me, without me. It's always a good idea to be a part of something I guess, but you will soon find out exactly how boring my life is and wonder why I have one of these in the first place. I'll post pictures of me getting ready for work, driving to work, sitting at work, and the ever popular LEAVING work. If you're really lucky, I'll take a picture of my lunch and post it. Now there is a good time! Stay tuned for more excitement.....