Walkers' World

Baby Shower

2012-01-07T17:08:00.001-08:00

     I had fun last night. I got to go to a baby shower for my friend, Erica. Erica and her sister, Sydney, were roommates of mine in college. I was blessed to have some really good roommates in college and Erica and Sydney were among my favorites.

     We had a fun game that we would play. It involved a little stuffed animal. We would hide it all over the house. The person who found it would be in charge of hiding it next. It was kind of fun seeing all of the creative places it could be hidden.
     These girls were also good examples to me. After President Hinckley died on January 27, 2008, we decided we were going to do “The Hinckley Challenge”. President Hinckley lived to be 97 years old.   We decided that we were going to read the Book of Mormon in 97 days. I grew so close to these girls as we read six pages and discussed them every night. When I had to move to Rexburg, I realized I was going to really miss these girls. The day that I moved to Rexburg, we only had 6 pages left to read. So that night, after I unpacked my stuff in my new Rexburg residence, I called them and we read the last six pages together.
     Erica and I actually got engaged to our spouses on the same day and our rings are even similar! It was fun to see her last night and catch up with her family. She’ll be an AWESOME mother.

P.S. That thing on my neck is NOT A HICKEY! I burned myself with the curling iron!

Gas Up The Lawnmower!

2012-01-07T16:31:00.001-08:00

Last Sunday (January 1st) I looked out the window and went, “Nuh uh!” Our yard is confused. I had to take a picture before I went to Church. Our backyard is actually greening up in JANUARY! Part of me likes it, part of me is afraid of what this might possibly mean for the summer. I’ve gotta admit, though. I’ve enjoyed this mild winter.

I Cry The Day That I Take The Tree Down

2012-01-07T15:35:00.001-08:00

We took our Christmas decorations and lights down today. I didn’t really cry, but it always reminds me of the Michael McLean song that says, “I cry the day that I take the tree down. I want the season to last all year ‘round.” It’s true. I get a little depressed as I drive home from work and notice the lights around town slowly disappear. I love this little reminder of The Light and Life of the World. I made Corey leave one strand up in our family room in the basement, saying it made for good “movie” lighting.

Christmas lights and decorations take me back to childhood. I mentioned to Corey that it would be fun to sleep by the Christmas lights one night, like a sleepover. The next thing I knew, he had hauled the air mattress and blankets into the living room. I’m glad that I have a husband that humors me once in a while. :c)

As I took the tree down, I thought I would highlight some of the Christmas ornaments that have special meaning to them. Mom did this on her blog and I thought it was such a good idea that I would steal it.

This is not my tree. But it’s cool. The light saber is a nice touch. I digress. Back to the blog…

Corey and I went to San Antonio on our honeymoon. This was on clearance for really cheap in a souvenir shop and even though it’s not an ornament, we thought it would make a good one.

Corey and I always have a friendly competition on which state is better, Idaho or Texas. Corey initially placed this ornament at the top of the tree, but it soon found it’s rightful place at the bottom of the tree. Hmmm… wonder how that happened? Heh, heh, heh.

One of my best friends from high school, Mark Day, gave this ornament to us as a wedding present.

I’ve always been a Jazz fan. I think my Aunt Maxine gave me this one. It always finds a place near the top of the tree, even when I was still living in Mackay.

Corey’s mom made this ornament for him when he was 3 years old.

This was Corey’s mom’s ornament. She liked Wedgwood stuff and he’s treasured this ornament ever since she passed away nearly seven years ago.

Corey gave me this ornament while we were dating.

Mom got this ornament after I was born. It has my name, what day I was born, what time I was born, and how much I weighed.

My Grandma Grace made this one. Corey has one almost exactly like it, only with red and gold beads instead of pink and silver. His Grandma Walker made his.

My mom gave this one to me. She said it reminded her of me because the angel has red hair. It’s so pretty. I love this one.

This is one of my favorites. Mom made it. She was so proud of it until Dad came in and said that it looked like Rudolph was “sloshed”. It’s so true! We laugh about it every year. Intoxicated Rudolph makes it to front and center on the tree every year. After I got married, I wanted one, so Mom made two duplicates for Brittney and I.

I have another favorite, but I don’t have a picture of it because it hangs on my mom’s tree. The ornament features Santa Claus, holding his hat in hand, kneeling on one knee in worship before baby Jesus in a manger. I love what it signifies. Another reminder of what the season is all about.

Christmas 2011

2012-01-07T12:40:00.001-08:00

     We had a great Christmas. This year we went to Utah, where most of my extended family lives. We spent most of our time at my Aunt Janis’s house. She lives in the house by herself now that Grandpa passed away this spring, so we thought it would be fun to keep her company on Christmas. The house doesn’t have a fireplace, so Dad improvised when hanging the stockings. "The stockings were hung from Blitzen with care..." Ha ha! Does this scream “REDNECK” or what?!

     On Christmas Eve, we drove around looking at Christmas lights. We were out longer than Dad and Corey wanted to be while mom had to stop and take pictures of some of the houses. When the words “…a day or two ago, I thought I’d take a ride…” from the song Jingle Bells came across the radio, Dad muttered under his breath, “That’s what I thought!” Those of us who heard it laughed SO hard! Dad, you’re hilarious!
     Christmas morning was a rush, trying to fit everything in before Church, but it was fun. We thought we’d start out the morning by focusing on what Christmas is really about, so we read The Living Christ before we dove into opening presents. I LOVE this document! It made me teary-eyed as we were reading it. If you don’t know what it is, you should follow the link above and check it out.
     Opening presents was fun, but not for the usual reasons. My mom decided to play a prank on my aunt this year. My aunt, bless her heart, likes to shop a lot. Her bedroom is full of shopping bags with items in them that haven’t even been opened. Well, my mom thought that she’d wrap a lot of these things and stick them under the tree for my aunt. On Christmas morning, it looked like my aunt had the mother load beneath the tree! The funniest part of this is that it took her a while to realize that she was unwrapping things that she had already bought! At one point after opening a present, she asked, “This is neat! Does it work?” Mom replied, “You tell me! You bought it!”. We had tears rolling down our faces as we laughed! I know. We’re mean. At least we know she liked all of her presents! ;c)
     After we opened our presents, we headed to my Uncle Butch and Aunt Connie’s house for our family breakfast and the annual opening of the UGLY GIFTS! This is a MUCH anticipated tradition in our family. It’s like a white elephant gift exchange….with a twist. All the wrapped ugly gifts are placed in the middle of the floor and a number is assigned to them. We then draw numbers and everyone laughs as the ugly gifts are revealed. The catch is that whatever you get, you have to display prominently in your home for the rest of the year. Since this is one of the rules, people try to give the ugliest, or biggest, or most embarrassing gifts they can find/ make. You can get rid of it two ways: 1) You can sneak it into someone’s house, but they HAVE to be there, and you just have to do it without them noticing. 2) They have to accept the gift. I got an ugly nutcracker ornament that was sneakily disguised as a “late birthday present” last year. It looked like a cross between a nutcracker and the creepy Burger King guy and it hung in my living room until I gave it away at my office’s white elephant gift exchange.
     Some gifts are funny because they keep getting recycled as they “evolve” into something even more ugly. For example: One year, my parents got a black sculpture/art piece that was about 3 feet tall. They kept it on their mantle. My dad mentioned one day that it was shaped like a bunny. So, my mom changed it into this to give away the next year…

     My cousins, Matt and Kelly, got it Christmas of 2010. They changed it into this: Stripper Bunny Lamp. Only my family…
     This is what I gave away this year. Some sort of pottery thing. I went to the D.I. and asked one of the workers to help me find the ugliest thing they had and told them why. She thought this was fun and elicited the help of another D.I. worker. In the end, we decided on this. The funny thing is, is that when I got it home, I realized it was naughty! How this passed by three of us in the D.I., I don’t know. So I placed a Band-Aid over the naughty part, saying “CENSORED”, making it even more tacky. My sister ended up with this one. The picture doesn’t do it justice. It’s uglier in real life.

     And this is the present Corey and I ended up receiving. It’s a lamp, with the lamp shade made out of an Almond Rocha can with all sorts of random objects glued to it.

     After Christmas day, we spent more time hanging out with family. We got to see Corey’s Uncle Steve and Aunt Kerry. ALWAYS a good time at their house. We also spent time with my sister, Brittney, and my cousins, Brian and Delsie. We saw the movie Courageous with Brittney for 75 cents a piece! Wanna to go cheap movies, too? The theater on University Parkway shows movies for 75 cents on Mondays, FYI. And the movie? It was AWESOME. We laughed, we cried, Brittney went back to see it again. I highly recommend it.
     After the movie, we met up with Brian and Delsie for dinner. Oh, my gosh. I haven’t laughed that hard in a while. The waiter was probably wondering why we were so goofy since he didn’t deliver any alcohol to the table!
     Anyhow, it was a good Christmas. It was nice to have a break and enjoy time with my family. I’m sad that Christmas is over. It always leaves me wanting more.

To Satisfy Mom’s Curiosity

2011-12-21T19:14:00.001-08:00

Mom was wondering what our house looked like since we decorated it for Christmas, so here ya go, Mom!

I love decorating for Christmas! I love more things in the house that remind me of Christ and I love the magical glow of the lights. Christmas decorations make me happy. :c) I’m a little sad that Christmas is coming so soon. I’m almost even sad on Christmas day, because I know that the day after, the “Christmas Magic” ends. I LOVE the anticipation leading up to Christmas, but the day after Christmas it seems like everything dies. Radio stations stop playing Christmas music, people start taking their decorations down, people stop giving as charitably, and stores start putting up stuff for Valentine’s day. It leaves me wanting more. *sigh* Okay. Tangent done. Here are the pics.

This picture is a little blurry, but it shows the glow in our kitchen when only the Christmas garland lights are on. I love it!

Corey did a great job on the outside lights. :c)

Thanksgiving 2011/ Texas Road Trip

2011-12-10T17:58:00.001-08:00

     Of course we spent time with family and ate a lot of food this Thanksgiving. That’s just what happens this time of year, so I’ll spare you those details and stick to the other ones since this post will be a long one.
     For Thanksgiving this year, it was Corey’s family’s turn. We opted to drive to Texas this year rather than fly in order to save on expenses. Oye! Honestly, I was a little opposed to the idea. I have never driven that far before and it scared me. I thought about driving in the snow in my little front-wheel-drive car (which I found out doesn’t have an anti-lock brake system). I thought about breaking down out in the middle of freaking nowhere (because there’s A LOT of “freaking nowhere” on the way to Texas). I thought of running into lots of critters during the nighttime while driving. I thought of falling asleep at the wheel after driving so many hours behind the wheel. All legitimate concerns, right?
     I have to say, it wasn’t as bad as I had expected. That doesn’t mean that I’m ready to do it again anytime soon, though. That was A LOT of hours sitting in a car with a numb bum.
     We left Rigby Friday evening at 7:00 and drove to Cortez, CO where we stopped behind a grocery store at 4:30 am to sleep in the car. At 6:00 a.m. a delivery truck started beeping and woke us up. Since we were awake, we thought, “What the heck. Guess we’ll just start driving again.” We arrived in Dallas at 11:00 p.m.
   A couple of observations from our trip:
1) It’s IMPOSSIBLE to sleep with swing/ big band jazz music and their accompanying brass sections blaring over the speakers. Keep that in mind should you ever want to drive long distances at night. It works better than any dose of caffeine.
2) I saw more shooting stars in two nights than I have my entire life. I guess that’s what happens when you stare out into the night for hours on end.
3) This is what the Monticello, UT temple looks like at 3:00 a.m. It was the Church’s first small temple and is about the size of a stake center.

4) New Mexico is bugly. It has some interesting rock formations, but most of it is just dirt that blows around with the wind. You know it’s desolate when some areas won’t even sustain sagebrush.

Continuing with New Mexico’s weirdness… I went into a restroom at a gas station and noticed something strange. Now, if a ladies restroom has a vending machine in it, it usually contains feminine hygiene products for that unlucky someone who finds herself stranded without them. Not THIS particular New Mexico bathroom. It had adult toys in its vending machine. Uck. Weirdos.
And continuing even more with the weirdness of New Mexico… As we were driving through Farmington, we noticed these two signs. We flipped a “U-ie” to get a picture!

Good for the Catholics! It’s pretty funny that they put that billboard up! I wonder if it affects the store’s business or not…

5) Albuquerque isn’t as big as I thought it would be. It doesn’t take long to drive through it. Salt Lake is much bigger.
6) I got to see my first armadillo, and he was big! He was sniffing around just on the other side of the white line on the road. I’m glad he stayed put. It would have been a pity to squish my first armadillo (if armadillos in fact “squish” with all that armor).
7) You know it’s flat when the horizon is parallel with the window sill in the car.

8) Texas cuts their trees to accommodate the trucks that drive through.

9) Corey and I got to see one of my best friends from high school (Garett) and his wife (Larissa) and their two boys. We went bowling, ate dinner, and then played games at their house. It was SOOOOO good to see them! Just like old times, complete with bantering. :c) Sadly, no picture of them.
10) We got to go to the Fort Worth Zoo while we were there. I was super excited! I haven’t been to a zoo (not counting the teeny one in Pocatello) since I went to the Hogle Zoo on my 6th birthday! I think I was as excited as our nephews were! We got to see this handsome boy in the zoo. I think that the big cats are my favorite.

Here are some family pictures that we took shortly before Corey and I left to drive back home.

11) On the way home, we discovered something about New Mexico that we actually liked. They have a radio station called Ed-fm. Talk about FUN music! We heard songs that we hadn’t heard in a long time and there were some songs I forgot even existed in the 80’s until I heard them on this station. All of the songs were upbeat, so they helped keep us awake on our drive home. We were bummed when we started driving into no-man’s-land and lost reception.
12) I think New Mexico lies. We saw signs out in the middle of nowhere stating that your speed was monitored by aircraft. A) Why would anyone go to the expense of flying aircraft over the area just to catch speeders? B) The only “aircraft” I saw were crows.
13) We stopped at Hole N’ The Rock (which is near Moab, UT) on the way home. It’s home to a 5,000-square-foot home built into the face of the rocky hill. This place also had the most random objects lying around, so it was fun to get pictures of them as well. There are so many pictures of this place that I’m just going to put them in here small and you can click on them to make them bigger.

All in all, it was actually a pretty good trip. We were blessed that the drive went without incident, we got to spend good ol’ quality time with Corey’s family, we got to see my friends, and we got to see lots and lots and lots and of new country, which was actually an adventure.

Why I Love“The Sing-Off”

2011-11-13T19:50:00.001-08:00

Remember back in THIS POST where I said that The Sing-Off was one of my favorite shows? Well this is why…

Fun At Work

2011-11-13T19:24:00.001-08:00

So….there’s this bra. It’s been sitting in our bathroom/changing room in the dental office for a month and nobody has claimed it or will admit that it’s theirs. It must belong to one of the girls who no longer works with us. Well, I couldn’t let a good bra go to waste…

This is the company vehicle that our office manager, Jeff drives. I watched from the window (during my lunch break) as five different people walked by without even noticing, including Dr. Hammond, thank goodness. Dr. Hammond is an emeritus Seventy! Jeff noticed it before he drove off, though. I guess that’s a good thing since it’s the company vehicle with our logo on it! :c)

I was told that Dr. Bauer tried to talk Jeff into putting the bra on, then putting a lab coat on, and then coming back to my operatory to flash me. Jeff didn’t. Chicken. That would have MADE MY DAY! :C)

Halloween…a little late.

2011-11-13T19:11:00.001-08:00

     Yes, yes. I know. It’s been a while. You know how you procrastinate on a blog, then you get behind on so many entries that the task of catching up seems overwhelming so you just put it off even longer? Well, that’s the case here. I’ve got a little time right now, so I have no excuse to procrastinate any longer.

     The Saturday before Halloween, Corey surprised me and took me to a corn maze. LOVE corn mazes and LOVE Corey. Thanks, Honey! After the corn maze, we went to the Halloween concert at BYU-Idaho, which was a ton of fun. All of the people in the orchestra were dressed up, as was the conductor.

     Halloween was fun. I’ve been WAITING for this day for 3 years…the day when I could finally dress up for work. The first year I worked here in Rexburg, Halloween fell on a Friday. I don’t work on Fridays. The two years after that, Halloween of course fell on Saturday and Sunday, so I was especially excited this year. Halloween is one of my favorite days of the year.

Probably the only picture I’ve taken where the red-eye is wanted and looks cool.

The girls from our office: Me, Kendra, Kayci, Jenny, and Jennifer. Christina was sick. :c( We missed you, Christina!

     Corey doesn’t get into the whole dressing-up thing for Halloween. Bah! Humbug! I don’t get it. I LOVE not being me for a day! However, Corey did get a little festive with me and helped to carve the pumpkin. :c}

     I like it! No cutesy-happy pumpkin for us! Halloween is for SCARY!

Weird

2011-10-08T15:09:00.001-07:00

     So, it was 82 degrees here last week, and yesterday it looked like this…

     Today, it looked like this! I was even able to mow the lawn! Craziness.

     Speaking of weird, I just thought I would add this piece of randomness to the blog. Work was a little slow at work a month or two ago, so we decided to catch and x-ray a pesky fly that was buzzing around. In case you were wondering what the x-ray of a fly looks like…

Another Wedding

2011-10-08T14:53:00.001-07:00

     This summer has certainly been busy with events! A few weeks ago, I went to another wedding. This time, it was for my cousin, Kelby. They were a cute couple, she was a beautiful bride, the day was perfect. It was a little windy at the temple for picture-taking, but all-in-all a gorgeous day for the end of September. They actually got married on September 22, fourteen years to the day that my Grandpa Sayer died. I can’t help but think that he was in attendance to watch his grandson get married and see his family.
     Corey didn’t get to go down to the wedding with me since the wedding was on a Thursday and he couldn’t take anymore time off. :c( But I still enjoyed myself and it was great to see members of my family, some of whom I haven’t seen for a couple of years.
     Kind of a funny thing happened at the temple after the wedding. Since the carpets in the temple are white, wedding guests have to take their shoes off, put on white socks, and put their shoes on shelves. After the wedding, my cousin, Marshall saw a pair of cowboy boots and thought that no one in that party other than my dad would wear cowboy boots to the temple. To be funny, Marshall started putting the cowboy boots on when he heard someone say, “Those are my boots!” Marshall had obviously grabbed the wrong pair of boots, because my dad did, in fact, wear boots to the temple! Marshall turned red and explained himself to the gentleman, who just laughed. :c)
     Anyhow, here are some images from that weekend:

     The reception was in Uncle Kim and Aunt LaRae’s back yard. It was soooo beautiful! They’ve put a lot of hard work into it. This was where my wedding reception was supposed to be before it got rained out. *sigh* If only. I’m glad that the weather cooperated for Carly and Kelby’s special day. :c)

Images From The Last Trip Home

2011-10-04T20:58:00.001-07:00

I going home. It’s good therapy. I love the smell of the mountain air and the fresh-cut hay, I love the sounds of the wind through the trees and of the birds, I love the feeling. Life is simpler. I love the people of Mackay and love going to Church there on Sunday. No one has Utah hair and no one cares about whether you’re wearing accessories or not. It’s as it should be. I also love how accepting everyone is of Corey as well. He’s part of the Mackay family now and even gets hugs at Church. I love it.

I’m just sharing more of what I love today.

What you’re seeing lying on the ground in rows is hay ready to be bailed.

Our ranch is so cool. It is literally surrounded by mountains. We’ve got our own Wasatch front, but without all of the people. I’m okay with that. Sadly, as you’ll notice in the video, many of the trees in our cottonwood grove have died. Cottonwoods drink an average 100 gallons of water per day per tree. When we had the drought, many of them died. :c( They were so pretty before.

A Bit O’ This And That

2011-09-27T19:45:00.001-07:00

I focused so much on the “All About Me” posts, that I didn’t write about what actually went on in my life for the past month or so, so here it comes in a whirlwind…

We had a blast with Corey’s family in Utah at his step-sister, MaryAnne’s, wedding. She was a beautiful bride and we’re so happy for her!

Root Canal. Yep. Me, the hygienist, had to have a root canal because my tooth died from trauma. It makes me more empathetic towards my patients. :c) Actually, it wasn’t bad at all. Didn’t even take an Advil. I can’t be so empathetic, I guess.

We went camping with our friends, Dallas and Heather. We did the usual camping things, played frisbee, and rode 4-wheelers. We had to laugh because our rather noisy and obnoxious (and probably drunk) camping neighbors were cutting down a tree and it fell on their ATV trailer.

We went to the Eastern Idaho State Fair. It’s tradition. I’ve been doing it with my family nearly every year since I was little. Corey and I even caught the rodeo this year.

We went to the annual Mackay BBQ again this year. This is also tradition. Have you ever seen Gilmore Girls? If you haven’t, you should. Love it. The first seasons are my favorite. Somehow I forgot to include it in the My Favorite Shows post. Sorry. Tangent. Anyhow, the town that Gilmore Girls is based in, Stars Hollow, reminds me of my small town. It’s a close-knit small town with a warm camaraderie and its own quirky characters. I love going home. I skipped my staff party to go to the BBQ. If you compete with the BBQ, you’ll lose every time!

And last but not least, Corey is now a shark. A Nova Southeastern University shark, that is. Corey started grad school this summer and is taking online courses. I’m proud of him. I don’t know if I’d have the motivation to do online courses. He got an A on his last big assignment, too! Good job, Hun!

Day 29 – A Picture Of Something You Want To Do Before You Die

2011-09-20T21:04:00.001-07:00

     Isn’t this post similar to the “dream” post? I guess not, since it gives you a lifetime versus one year.
     If you didn’t gather this from previous posts, I would love to travel. If you missed it, I want to travel to these places.

   After the kids leave the house, I would like to serve a mission for my church. Everything good in my life has been graciously given to me by the Lord. Being a member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints has helped me realize those blessings and has made me happy. I shudder to think of what my life would be like without my beliefs, because beliefs influence actions, and actions have consequences that shape your life. I want to give something back by serving a mission. If you’re not familiar with my beliefs, click HERE.

     Speaking of giving back, I’d really love to do something cool for my parents. What picture do I stick on here for that? Oh well, guess you don’t get one. I’d tell you some of my ideas, but then it wouldn’t be a surprise to my parents who read this blog.

     Well, we’ve done it. We’ve reached the last day of the “All About Me” posts. This has actually been really fun. It’s really made me think. Through this introspection, I’ve learned a little about myself and it’s been fun putting my favorite things, etc. down in writing.   So, I extend the challenge to you to do the same thing. As I said, Corey’s cousin first did this on her blog. I found it soooo interesting and had a lot of fun reading it, so if you do this, give me a shout-out and let me know you’re doing it so I can learn more about you!

Day 28 – Your Hopes, Dreams, Plans For The Next 365 Days

2011-09-16T14:38:00.001-07:00

Okay. This is going to sound sad, and don’t feel sorry because I’m not sad about it, but I’m not a dreamer. I have attainable goals, but not really dreams. I guess I’m too practical. It has it’s plus side, though. When I don’t dream big, I’m not disappointed. I could say that my dreams within the next 365 days would be to lose weight, start running, get in better shape, etc., but those just sound like New Year’s resolutions. Instead of dreaming, I just take what comes and try to do my best with the hand I’m dealt. As Elder Joseph B. Wirthlin said, “Come what may, and love it.” I just need to work on the “loving it” sometimes!

Day 27 – A Photo Of Someone You Could Never Imagine Your Life Without

2011-09-14T21:06:00.001-07:00

First of all…damage control. There are two important people who didn’t make the cut to have their picture on here for the following reasons: Brittney, you didn’t make the cut because I never see you, therefore making it easier to imagine life without you. This is a shameless ploy to get you to come and see me more often. :c)

And second…Corey. *!!GASP!!* I have a very good reason for this though! I can imagine life without him for the simple reason that he has only been in my life for two years. Do I want to live life without him? OF COURSE NOT!!! It’s just not that hard to imagine it without him because…been there. Done that. Somewhat recently. I realize this is horribly practical and not romantic at all. I must take after my father when it comes to practicality. :c)

So, here are the two people I couldn’t imagine life without; Mom and Dad, who’ve been there since the beginning.

Okay, okay. I can’t imagine life without Corey, either! …and he thought he was going to be left out. Brittney, you’re still cut. ;c)

Day 26 – Photos Of Where I Live

2011-09-13T19:27:00.001-07:00

Day 25 – My Worst Habit

2011-09-11T19:54:00.001-07:00

I’m very judgmental. I admit, when people act stupid or do unsavory things, I’m quick to think, “What’s wrong with you!?” before I try to understand things from their point of view. I usually pass judgment about their character right away. What can I say? I’m a work in progress.

Day 24 – A Recipe

2011-09-10T20:59:00.001-07:00

This is my favorite cake recipe. Mom made it one year for my birthday and after having it that one year, there was no going back. I asked for it for every birthday after that.

Chocolate Turtle Cake

1- Chocolate Cake Mix 1- 14oz Bag of Caramels

1/2 Cup Evaporated Milk 1 Cup Chocolate Chips

1 Cup Chopped Walnuts or Pecans
Mix cake mix according to directions. Pour half of the batter into a 9x13” greased and floured cake pan. Bake in a 350 degree oven for 15 minutes. Melt caramels with evaporated milk and spread over baked cake. Sprinkle with chocolate chips and nuts. Pour remaining batter over top and bake an additional 25 minutes. Can be topped with frosting or ice cream topping.

Day 23 – Something That Has Made A Huge Impact On My Life

2011-09-09T22:26:00.001-07:00

I know. I’ve been totally slacking on this for numerous reasons: 1) We’ve been busy with lots of things including a root canal, camping, and the state fair. More about this other stuff later. 2) I knew this post would be a long one, so I’ve been putting it off. 3) It’s somewhat personal. However, I decided that I don’t want to forget what happened because it was so special and I wanted it written down before I forgot the details so here goes…

I think at some point in everyone’s life, we ask, “Does God really love me? How could he with 7 billion people on the planet currently and so many other children past and future? Why would little insignificant me mean anything to Him?” I’m glad that every once in a while He opens the window and lets us know that He does, indeed care. This is a story of that.

I loved ISU and loved college, that is, until I got into the dental hygiene program. I HATED that insufferable program for many reasons, but that’s another story. Actually, it’s many miserable stories adding up to one horrible experience. Anyhow, I finally made it through the program and my board exams were coming up. I took a written general board exam, a written anesthesia board exam, a practical hands-on anesthesia board exam, and a hands-on clinical board exam. For the clinical board exam, we needed to find a patient before-hand that met certain requirements and on the day of the exam, we had to clean their teeth and gather certain information in a 2-hour time period.

The requirements for a patient to qualify for the exam were numerous. They had to have heavy calculus (tartar) on 12 teeth surfaces. We’re talking CHUNKS of calculus. They couldn’t have too much decay, they couldn’t have missing molars, they couldn’t have too deep of probe depths, they couldn’t have too high of blood pressure, etc. As you can see, it was very hard to find a patient that qualified.

I paid $800 for this exam alone, not counting the other exams. No refunds are given with these exams. They don’t care if you’re sick, if your patient’s sick, if your patient shows up the day of the exam and their blood pressure is too high…. No refunds, period. This board exam is also given in Pocatello only once a year, so if I didn’t find a patient to qualify, I’d have to pay $800 again for another exam, fly me and my patient (once I found one to qualify) to another city for the exam, and board and feed me and my patient in the other city for the board exam. I definitely couldn’t afford to do that!

I screened over THIRTY patients (to see if they would qualify) as the day of my board exam drew near. None of them qualified. I was sweatin’ it pretty good. I prayed over and over, “Heavenly Father, PLEASE help me fine a patient that qualifies! I’m doing my part and screening tons of patients. It’s not like I’m doing nothing and asking you to just drop a patient in my lap! I’ve come so far and gone through so much just to fail here. PLEASE HELP!”

I woke up on a Saturday morning and was getting ready when I got a phone call from Dad. He said that he was in Blackfoot and would be in Pocatello shortly. Why? He had been in the hay field that morning and got the impression that he should come to Pocatello.

When Dad got to Pocatello, we went to work making flyers to place around town in order to find a qualifying board patient. My flyers promised a $200 reward and a free cleaning to whomever I used for my board exam. We spent hours placing flyers. We targeted the poorer parts of town since they were least likely to have dental insurance, therefore teeth would have more buildup, and therefore they would come closer to qualifying.

It had been a long day and I was ready to go home when we drove by AMI Semiconductors. Dad suggested that we place a flyer there. I had had enough for the day and didn’t think that one more flyer would make any difference. Besides, it was a bunch of engineers that worked there, and I was pretty sure AMI’s employees had dental insurance, so I thought it was pointless. Dad insisted that we place one there.

Before he left, Dad gave me a blessing. It said that everything would be okay and that “patients (plural) would be in attendance for my exam.” Curious. Keep this in mind.

In the days following, I got a lot of responses to my flyers and I screened more patients, none of them qualifying. My family and I continued to pray.

It was two days before my exam and I still hadn’t found a patient. I tried to have faith, but I admit, I was getting a little nervous by that point! However, later that day I actually found two patients that qualified. I now had a patient and a back-up in case something happened to the other. And guess what. The patient that I ended up using for my exam was from…….AMI Semiconductors. He had just started there and his insurance hadn’t kicked in yet.

He ended up being the perfect patient. He showed up early for my exam and was great! He was funny, too. After my exam, as I was walking out with him, I asked him what he was going to do with the $200 and he replied that he was going to buy illegal fireworks! Hilarious!

I passed my exam and one of my classmates was able to use my backup patient. I went home, crying tears of relief and joy. I prayed, expressing gratitude for Heavenly Father’s mercy and for a Dad who loved me enough and who was in-tune enough with the Spirit to receive guidance to help me that day. And what do ya know? Heavenly Father loved me, too. Too many things came together for it to have been a coincidence.

You wanna know what the silly thing is? Sometimes as a hormonal girl, I’ll get depressed and wonder again what my relationship is with my Heavenly Father. I’m a silly fickle human. Wasn’t one HUGE example of His love good enough? It’s a good thing that He’s patient with me and reaffirms it over and over, since He knows that’s what I need. And whenever I start to get down again, it helps to have the memories of that one experience to fall back on.

Day 22 – Photos Of My Wedding

2011-08-30T16:59:00.001-07:00

I’ve already shared the big group-shot of us with our families a few days ago in this blog, so here’s the rest of the photos. Just click on them if you want to see them enlarged.

Day 21 – Hobbies of Mine

2011-08-29T21:11:00.001-07:00

Not very good at this one. It’s a work in progress.

Day 20 – A Talent Of Mine

2011-08-28T16:22:00.001-07:00

I was never Barbie-doll gorgeous. I didn’t sing. I wasn’t crafty. I hated practicing the piano. Instead, I was smart. I liked getting good grades. My report cards made me happy. I know, WEIRDO. I strove for nothing less than A’s, valedictorian, and scholarships. I wrote killer research papers. As a freshman in college, a professor told me that one of my papers was graduate-level work. I was the nerd who did extra credit when she didn’t need it...just in case. *SNAP!* That was my arm breaking while patting myself on the back. Sorry. I know I’m lacking in humility here, but you’d be proud too if it was the only thing you were good at! I identified myself as “the scholar”.

When I graduated from college, I thought, “Oh, crud. NOW what am I going to be? I’m not in school anymore! No more report cards. No more dean’s list. No more lectures, no more homework, no more tests, no more papers.” My identity was gone. I was lost. Well, I’m still not crafty, beautiful, or musically inclined, but I’m a good hygienist. Probably because I love my job. I get to meet some of the coolest people! Plus, my work stories are way better than Corey’s. :c) I like helping people, I like weird pathology, I like it when patients request me. It makes me feel special, and it makes me feel like I’m good at something again.

Day 19 – A Picture Of Somewhere I’d Like To Travel

2011-08-27T19:20:00.001-07:00

Oh, glory. Sooooooo many places! As I look at the pictures of places I would like to go, I realize that they’re mostly historical. Don’t get me wrong, sitting on a beautiful beach would be fantastic (especially during an Idaho winter), but I could only sit for so long. I’d much rather sink my teeth into history and see the world.

Church History: Palmyra, Nauvoo, Kirtland, Carthage

Italy

Egypt

Machu Picchu: Peru

Mayan Ruins

Neuschwanstein Castle: Bavaria Germany. Disney’s castles are modeled after this real-life castle. The circumstances behind this castle and its eccentric monarch, “Mad King Ludwig” are very interesting. Ludwig was somewhat of a recluse and wanted the castle to hide away from the world. He was sinking vast amounts of Bavaria’s money into the castle, so Bavaria’s government decided to depose him. A psychiatrist declared Ludwig insane in order to get Ludwig off of the throne. Three days later, both Ludwig and the psychiatrist were found floating in the lake below the castle dead. To this day it is still a mystery how they died.

Notre Dame Cathedral: Paris

You probably recognize this as being from the movie: Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade. This place is actually real! It’s called Petra and is located in Jordan. This treasury is carved right out of the mountainside. Amazing!

Salzburg, Austria. Backdrop for The Sound of Music.

Stonehenge

Smithsonian Museum

U.S. History Tour: Boston, Philadelphia, Washington, D.C.

Day 18 – A Photo Of My Favorite Memory

2011-08-26T13:19:00.000-07:00

Gosh. I have so many wonderful memories (most of which I don’t have pictures of). I have favorite college memories and favorite memories from my childhood.

I was blessed to have had the best friends throughout college. I probably had the most fun being involved in a HUGE prank war. Really. You don’t realize the scale of this thing and what we did to each other. It lasted for years. It would take too long to write it all down, so you’ll just have to ask me some time if you want to know. They were always fun pranks, though. Nothing too malicious or destructive. I must say, my group of friends were pretty creative.

Once the pranking friends moved on, I had active friends who liked to do a lot of things. We were always at someone’s house watching a movie or playing games. When the weather got warmer, we would play ultimate frisbee until it got too cold to stand anymore. And even then we’d still play and go out for hot chocolate after playing until 11:30 p.m.

Some of us even explored caves out in the Arco desert. It was a blast climbing through the caves, getting dusty and dirty. Large caverns would narrow down to small passage ways that we had to slither through on our stomachs to get through only to be led to another large cavern. SO FUN!! So dark, though. We just prayed our one and only flashlight didn’t go out!

My favorite memories have always involved getting out and doing stuff. There was nothing like growing up on the ranch for this sorta thing. We used piles of manure as ramps and would ride the 4-wheelers over them. I would wade down the ditch and collect water snails. I had a “secret spot” out in our cottonwood grove where there was a fallen tree that was perfect for sitting on and reading. I played with cows.

Starlight, Moonshine, and me.

Starlight bucked me off shortly after this picture was taken.

One of my favorite childhood memories was during hay season. At this time of year, Dad was so busy swathing or baling hay, that he often didn’t come in until after the sun went down for dinner because he was so pressed to get his work done. One day we decided to take dinner to him. Mom made our favorite meal which consisted of chicken, potatoes and gravy, corn, and some dessert. She also got out her fine china (which I don’t ever remember being taken out of the cupboard previously). We then loaded up a card table and chairs and took it out to the field. We had a fancy dinner on Mom’s china right there in the hay field with the mountains surrounding us. I’ll never forget it.

Day 17 – My Favorite Websites

2011-08-25T19:17:00.001-07:00

This is another boring post because my favorite websites are probably the same websites that a majority of people look at everyday. I, too like to “stalk” my friends on Facebook and keep in touch with people.

My newest time-waster is Pinterest. There are soooo many interesting things on this website! It’s fun to see what my friends like and what other people find fascinating. I’ve found so many good ideas for things on this website.

My #1 favorite website, however, is probably this blog. It’s basically my journal. Who doesn’t love looking back in their journal? It’s also a good reference/reminder when I can’t remember what I did on a certain day last year or the year before.

Day 16 – A Song That Makes Me Cry

2011-08-24T19:08:00.001-07:00

This song is called I Loved Her First. This is me and Dad’s song. We danced to it at my wedding. I cry every.. stinkin’.. time.. I hear it.

This one is a tear-jerker, too. It’s a new song by Martina McBride. So many lives are affected by cancer. Corey’s mom was taken by cancer 6 1/2 years ago. Thank goodness for family and friends who help us through personal tragedies.

Day 15 – A Photo Of Yourself And A New Friend You Met This Year. A.K.A “Boring Post”

2011-08-23T15:25:00.001-07:00

I’ve made lots of new friends this year! The problem is that they’re all patients and due to HIPAA (enacted by the government to secure privacy of health data), I can’t release that information. Sorry. I don’t even think I have a picture of me with them, anyway… I know. It’s a let-down.

School Daze

2011-08-22T18:14:00.001-07:00

Corey has decided to get his masters degree in computer information technologies with an emphasis in information management. I’m proud of him! I think it’s always hard to go back to school after one’s been graduated for a couple of years. I imagine it would be hard to get back into the grind of studying and doing assignments again.

Corey’s work will pay for his degree if he gets a “B” or higher in his classes. You just can’t pass up an opportunity like that! He will be taking online classes through Nova University.

Since today was his first day of school, I had to take a picture, of course! Deep down he’s excited about the fact that he’s going back to school and that I’m taking the picture… ;c)

Day 14 – A Photo Of A Person You’d Love To Trade Places With For A Day.

2011-08-22T17:58:00.001-07:00

I would love to trade places with two people for a day. Funny enough, they are from two of my favorite TV shows. I would love to be Travel Channel’s Samantha Brown for a day because the lady GETS PAID TO TRAVEL THE WORLD!!! I want to travel the world some day. I want to see where history was made. I want to see castles, cathedrals, monasteries, pyramids, ancient ruins, museums, foreign cities! Yep. Wouldn’t mind being Sam for a day.

I also want to be Mythbuster’s Kari Byron for a day. She gets to have fun doing scientific experiments while hanging with the guys. I miss having guy friends. You just can’t go shooting or blow up pumpkins or make Sobe bombs or get into as much mischief with girls. It’d be inappropriate to hang out with the guys now that I’m married. When I used to hang out with the guys, I was the fun tomboy. If I hung out with Corey and the guys now, I’d be the weird tag-along wife. That’s alright. I traded in one good thing for a better thing. :c)

As you can tell from the above paragraph, I’m somewhat of a pyro. Another reason I want to be Kari is that she gets to blow lots of things up and on a much grander scale than I ever did. She gets to do the most fascinating stuff on her show!

Day 13 – A Description Of What's Currently In My Purse

2011-08-21T19:05:00.001-07:00

Car keys, CPR certification, gift cards, chap stick, wallet, phone, and my Kindle. This is all that is in my purse with the exception of two things: 1) My camera, since I can’t take a photo of my camera with my camera. 2) I thought I’d spare the men reading my blog from feminine hygiene products.

I’m a minimalist. I hate carrying junk around. I don’t even like carrying a purse around. During the winter, I just stuff everything into my big winter coat pockets.

Day 12–Something I Am OCD About

2011-08-20T10:51:00.001-07:00

     I thought this picture was a good representation of what I am obsessed with. I am OCD about time/punctuality. I HATE being late! My watch is set about 8 minutes ahead. Even though I don’t have a key to the office and know I will have to wait before someone comes to unlock the office, I would rather wait than take the chance of being late. If I’m not at least 10 minutes early, I’m late!
     Even when I was in college and had to walk to the dental hygiene clinic, I preferred to wait outside, standing in the snow until the receptionist came to unlock the door. I liked to have as much time as possible to get into the clinic, set up, and prepare for the day.
     I like being early for events and church, too. I think it drives Corey nuts. He tells me to calm down. But when we go when I want to go, we always have good seats!!

Day 11–Photos That Make You Angry or Sad

2011-08-19T17:18:00.001-07:00

It makes me sad to see living creatures suffer; human or animal. Hence, the following photos.

Skin and bones. Horrible. I feel so blessed to have grown up and currently live in the conditions I do. I’m spoiled.

I have friends with piercings and tattoos and not everyone believes the same way I do and that’s fine. What makes me angry is when people go to the extremes, desecrating their bodies. Makes me cringe. I guess I don’t understand because I don’t see it as “art”. I see it as ruining something precious that our Heavenly Father gave to us.

Along the same lines…this next photo is of a woman before and after methamphetamine abuse. So sad. She’s ruined her life and likely the lives of those who care about her. Like I said, I hate to see things suffering, even when it’s self-imposed through unwise decisions.

Day 10-Photos That Make Me Happy

2011-08-18T22:25:00.001-07:00

This one makes me happy because I’m surrounded by friends and family; people who love me and each other. This is what Heaven will be like. :c)

This next photo may be the opposite of Heaven, but it makes me happy because it makes me laugh every time I see it (not because I'm strangling my sister). This is how we got along as children....I'm glad that now we love each other and are just playing in this photo! Brittney and I didn't fight a lot physically growing up; mostly verbally. However, there was this ONE DAY...we had a knock-out, drag-out, scratch-your-eyes out cat fight...right before picture day at school. Mom was soooooo mad! She kept saying, "I can't believe you two decided to pull this stunt the day before pictures!" We had to get up early that morning so she could put makeup on us to cover up the dings, scratches, and dents!

Day 9 – My Dream House

2011-08-17T20:51:00.000-07:00

My dream house is unrealistic and most likely doesn't exist. It's a conglomeration of a lot of different places in the world rolled into one. Growing up on a ranch in Mackay, Idaho made me love mountains, nature, land, and not living in a subdivision! Don't get me wrong, we have grrrrrreat neighbors, but it's nice to just have nature around you; the sights, the sounds, the smells, and nothing else interfering.

I want a house with nature all around it with BIG windows to see the beautiful surroundings. I want a river and lake to be my swimming pool and a mountain for my grand staircase.

Mountains and Water

Trees surrounding it that somehow don't obscure my view of the mountains:

Still a little modern with landscaping and lights.

Lots of windows! Maybe not as many as this, though.... I'd still like to change clothes and take a shower.

A big deck to barbeque on, have rocking chairs, and watch sunrises.

Doesn't this room just make you want to curl up with a book or watch autumn leaves and big snowflakes fall?

And with all of this serenity and solitude, I want civilization near enough to be convenient, but leaving me undisturbed. The lights from the city won't obscure the light from the stars, either.

Day 8 – My Favorite Quotes

2011-08-16T18:47:00.000-07:00

Oh goodness. I don't know! I like a lot of quotes. My favorite one is probably one Dad came up with. It makes me smile. At one point in my life, I was having a REALLY rough time that was seemingly endless. Dad said, "Remember, Amber. This too shall pass.....it may pass like a KIDNEY STONE, but it'll pass!" You have no idea how true that was, but the quote is still funny.

I also like this one by Margaret D. Nadauld:
"Women of God can never be like women of the world. The world has enough women who are tough; we need women who are tender. There are enough women who are coarse; we need women who are kind. There are enough women who are rude; we need women who are refined. We have enough women of fame and fortune; we need more women of faith. We have enough greed; we need more goodness. We have enough vanity; we need more virtue. We have enough popularity; we need more purity."

And last but not least: "The Grass is always greener over the septic tank." --Erma Bombeck

Day 7 –A Picture Of You And The People You Have Been Closest With The Longest

2011-08-15T19:53:00.000-07:00

I know I haven't posted every day. Sorry. I've been in Utah (more about that in another post). I didn't announce I was leaving for the weekend because that just screams, "Hey! Come rob my house!" Anyhow...

I would of course, have to put my parents and sister down for this one. Love you guys!!

Day 6- My Favorite Books

2011-08-12T19:11:00.000-07:00

THE HIGHWAYMAN OF TANGLEWOOD is one of my guilty pleasures. I just realized that my taste in books somewhat follows my taste in movies in that I like period pieces. It includes action and a gallant hero saving the damsel in distress.

One of my favorite non-fiction books at the moment is THE PRICE WE PAID. It is very interesting for a non-fiction book and I didn't get bored at all. It's about the Willy and Martin handcart companies. The thing that I like about this book is that it follows certain families all the way from England across the plains and doesn't stop with the tragedy on the plains. It follows some of the survivors into the Salt Lake Valley until they died later. One would think that after going through what they went through on the plains, they would have had their requirement of trials, but some of these people's lives were difficult even after crossing the plains. One woman had both of her legs amputated below the knees because of the frost bite and exposure. After the crude surgery, the skin didn't heal completely over her stumps, so she walked on sore, oozy stumps the rest of her life and never complained. This book makes me realize that my trials in life are so minuscule and pathetic compared to what others have to deal with. I'm so grateful for those pioneers who toughed it out and had the faith to keep going. They're an inspiration.

Last but not least, the book I've read more than any other because I love it so much: THE BOOK OF MORMON. This book makes me happy. The Holy Ghost was there when ancient prophets wrote it, He was there when it was translated, and He's there when I read it. It makes me want to be a better person. I see the downfall of a society in the ancient Americas and see similarities within our own society today and it makes me want to be prepared. I love how it is a companion to the Bible and is another testament of Jesus Christ. It entices me to want to come closer to Him.

Day 5- My Favorite Television Programs

2011-08-10T20:18:00.000-07:00

Okay. Now that we've established that I'm a nerd, I like shows that teach me something. I've always wanted to travel the world. Since I can't do that right now, I do that vicariously through Samantha Brown. I like her because she has a sense of humor and often takes you off of the beaten paths and tourist traps to other points of interest. I've learned a lot watching her show. There were places in the world that I've wanted to go that I now don't find so interesting since watching her show and there are places in the world that I never had a desire to go to that I would love to go to now that I've learned more about them.

A little taste of Samantha Brown in a place I want to visit someday:

Continuing with the nerd theme...I like MYTHBUSTERS. People send in possible "myths" about things such as, "If enough bug bombs hit a pilot light, will it blow up a house?" The Mythbusters take all sorts of scenarios, test them scientifically, and them deem the scenario "Busted", "Plausible", or "Confirmed". Most shows end up in some type of grand explosion. Working on this show would be my dream job. :c)

From this "All About Me" series, you've also learned that I love music, so I also love the show THE SINGOFF. It is soooooo much better than American Idol.

This is another show that is a favorite because I can live vicariously through someone else. It's called DOG WHISPERER. Since I don't have a dog, I watch this. People send Cesar Milan videos of issues their dog has, he goes to their home, then he teaches the dog owner how to fix the issue. It sounds lame. You have to watch it to appreciate it. All I hafta say is that when I finally do get a dog, I'm going to be one heck of a dog owner.

Day 4- Photos Of Me As A Child

2011-08-10T19:19:00.000-07:00

First of all, a big shout-out to Mom for e-mailing me the pics. Thanks, Mom!

Easter 1985

Me with Dad: 1982

I was a farm-girl and nerd from early on!

Day 3- My Favorite Movie(s)

2011-08-09T21:09:00.000-07:00

Gosh! This is nearly as hard as the favorite song post! Again, I can't choose just one and must categorize.

THE BUTTERCREAM GANG has been a favorite since I was a little girl. It brings back the nostalgia of happy childhood days. The movie is a little cheesy, but has a good message. I like movies that leave you feeling better after you watch them.

PRIDE AND PREJUDICE is another favorite, be it the 6 hour marathon movie, or the Keira Knightly condensed version. C'mon. Every girl wants a guy to be totally smitten with her. I like this movie as a romance because I like romances that are less about the kissy-kissy or lustfulness and more about the emotions and turmoil. I also like Jane Eyre for that reason. Hmmmm I sense a theme....maybe I just like historical/period romances.

IT'S A MAD MAD MAD MAD WORLD is one of my favorite comedies. This is probably one of my favorites for the nostalgia as well. My dad loves this movie and I have watched it and laughed over and over again with my family. It's an oldie but goodie and features so many classic comedians of the '60s including Mickey Rooney, Buddy Hackett, Sid Caesar, Miton Berle, Ethel Merman, Spencer Tracy, Don Knotts, the list goes on. When the director was asked why he used so many "Mad"s in the title, he said, "Because three mads weren't enough!"

PIRATES OF THE CARIBBEAN: CURSE OF THE BLACK PEARL This movie has both the comedy and adventure for me. Johnny Depp cracks me up in this movie. I think it's the best out of the four in the series.

THE COUNT OF MONTE CRISTO Action. Sword fighting. I'm seeing another theme here....

THE HUNT FOR RED OCTOBER Totally a "man movie", but I love it. I like suspenseful movies that keep you guessing or keep you on the edge of your seat. RED EYE is another favorite for that reason.

Day 2- My Favorite Song

2011-08-08T19:47:00.000-07:00

Oye. Where do I even BEGIN?! I like soooooo many different songs for soooooooo many different reasons! I have a favorite for each category: Country, Gospel, Pop, etc. I heart music and I listen to a lot of it. As a matter-of-fact, I pride myself in being the "Name The Artist" champion at work. Let me explain. At work we listen to a satellite radio station all day and we try to stump each other on who sings what songs. I'm a foe to be reckoned with.

This is also a hard post because it's really personal! What music you like tells a lot about who you are! Everyone will now find out that I'm a big 80's/ Boy-Band/ Pop nerd. That's what my playlist below screams, anyway.... I like upbeat songs. I hate it when I'm jamming to music and all of a sudden someone slams on the brakes and throws in a slow song. Thank heavens for MP3's! Alright. If I share a part of me with you, you have to agree to no snickering. Got it?

Like I said, I can't pick just one, so let's categorize a little. I'll start with a song that moves me right now. I nearly cry during this rendition every time. COME THOU FOUNT OF EVERY BLESSING

This is probably my favorite new song along with Adele's Rolling in the Deep, but I thought I'd post this one instead because you probably haven't heard this one. Written by Gaga and performed by Michael Bolton. Yes. Michael Bolton. Stop your snickering right now! You promised! MURDER MY HEART

Favorite country song at the moment: LITTLE RED RODEO, by Phil Vassar. So much better than the Collin Raye version.

I have two favorite songs from musicals. You probably know Defying Gravity from Wicked, so I'll post this one from Hairspray. COME SO FAR

That's just the tip of the iceberg. I'm not even sure the videos I posted of are my favorites! I like too many! As I said, the playlist below gives you a general idea.

All About Me (Day 1- A Recent Photo)

2011-08-07T17:29:00.000-07:00

Corey's cousin did this on her blog and I thought it was a fun idea (slightly narcissistic, but FUN) So, what the heck? I'll give it a go. It's called the "All About Me" game. Each day you post something about yourself to delight or bore your audience, depending on who they are. It goes a little something like this:

Day 1 – a recent photo of you

Day 2 – your favorite song

Day 3 – your favorite movie

Day 4 – a photo of you as a child

Day 5 – your favorite television program

Day 6 – your favorite book

Day 7 – a picture of you and the person you have been closest with the longest

Day 8 – your favorite quote

Day 9 – your dream house (description or photo!)

Day 10 – a photo that makes you happy

Day 11 – a photo that makes you angry/sad

Day 12 – something you are OCD about

Day 13 – a description of what's currently in your handbag/purse/diaper bag!

Day 14 – a photo of a person you’d love to trade places with for a day

Day 15 – a photo of yourself and a new friend you met this year

Day 16 – a song that makes you cry

Day 17 – your favorite website

Day 18 – a photo of your favorite memory

Day 19 – a picture of somewhere you’d like to travel

Day 20 – a talent of yours

Day 21 – a hobby of yours

Day 22 – a photo of your wedding/future wedding plans

Day 23 – a photo of something that has made a huge impact on your life recently

Day 24 – a recipe

Day 25 – your worst habit

Day 26 – a photo of where you live

Day 27 – a photo of someone you could never imagine your life without

Day 28 – your hopes, dreams, plans for the next 365 days

Day 29 – a picture of something you want to do before you die

So, to follow the requirements of Day 1, a recent photo. This is the most recent photo of me taken two weeks ago. I know. It's classy. What can I say, some days it's fun to act juvenile.

Anniversary

2011-08-07T17:28:00.000-07:00

Tuesday was the 8th anniversary of my 21st birthday. Nothing crazy spectacular happened because I was sick, but seeing as how this blog is also my journal, I thought I would chronicle it here. That way, when I can't remember what I did for this particular birthday, I can look back and BAM! Here it is.

Corey does a good job at trying to make birthdays special and it's his personal quest to surprise me, because I usually ruin surprises. I shake and rattle presents until I can figure out what they are (remember when I not only guessed that I was getting a book, but guessed the title as well, Nichole?!) and put clues together to guess what people will do for my birthday. Corey has learned to pack presents tighter and tighter. No rattling. I'm left to guess on weight alone. And he packs them in a box so I can't feel the shape either. Party pooper.

This year, my present didn't even come in a box! The Saturday before my birthday, we drove to Idaho Falls, passing places that I suspected we might go for my birthday. I was totally baffled when we stopped in front of Teton Running, because I hate to run! I love sports because I can get a good workout while having fun! When I run just to run, my mind focuses solely on the fact that my legs hurt and my lungs burn. So, as I said, this was a surprise.

When I went into the store, they had me try on different shoes and run on a treadmill. It was as I suspected. I over-pronate when I run, meaning that my ankles turn in. So, I needed a shoe with more stability to correct my over-pronation. I got a pretty pair of Sauconys and it looks like Corey and I will take up running. What're ya tryin' to say, Hon? Actually, I am excited to get into better shape.

My birthday was on a Tuesday, so I just went to work, but I was able to get off early. Bonus! Corey got off of work a little early as well. That's when I started to get a sore throat and feel exhausted, so we just went on a drive through the country (good therapy for me any day), ate at Stockman's Steakhouse, and went to bed early.

Prior to getting sick, I wanted to go to the boat dock, hang my feet in the water, and skip rocks. I know. Simple minds, simple pleasures. There are two families in our neighborhood who are having kind of a prank war right now. I also wanted to stay up late at night to play a prank on them and watch them point the finger at each other. Looks like that will have to wait for another day. Mwa-ha-ha! Thankfully none of them read this blog. 3:c)

Thanks for another great birthday, Love!

Prepared

2011-08-05T21:33:00.000-07:00

As I mentioned in posts prior, Dad is really big into personal preparedness. His theory (which I think is a good one) is that it doesn't do any good to have emergency preparedness things if you don't know how to use them when an emergency arises. Brittney and Aunt Janis decided to make the drive up to Mackay for the weekend as well, so when we were in Mackay a few weeks ago, our family had fun pitching a large army-type tent and using a solar oven and rocket stove to cook our meals.

Coreyface and Dad

This is an outdoor shower....with a major design flaw. You can unzip the windows down from the OUTSIDE! Why helloooooooo there!

Here we are making dinner over the rocket stove. These things are so cool! Using minimal fuel, they sure put out a lot of heat! We cooked several hot dogs using just a few pieces of kindling. It would have taken a couple of logs to do the same thing over a regular campfire.

We also cooked a chicken and some ears of corn in the solar oven.

You can see how hot these things get inside. Pretty remarkable.

We usually have deer on our lawn in the evening, but there was something unusual about this evening. Aunt Janis was sitting on the lawn in a chair and the young buck didn't even notice that she was there. He took off when Dad pulled into the driveway.

But It Has PEE On It!

2011-07-17T20:40:00.000-07:00

I had a great day last week! I got to spend time with one of my best friends from college, Nichole. It had been around a year since I last saw her, so a visit was LOOONG overdue. We decided to go out for ice cream and then catch a movie. FYI: The new Rolo shake at McDonalds is actually delightful!
The funniest thing happened before the movie. I told Nichole she could go on into the movie and I would meet her in there, because I needed to use the restroom. When I went into the restroom, there was a $20 bill in my back pocket. When I turned around to flush the toilet, the twenty was floating in the bowl. Ohhhhhhh the internal conflict going on in my mind! It went something like this:

- "It's a twenty!"
- "But it has PEE on it!"
- "But it's a Twenty!"
- "But pulling it out would be disgusting!
- "But it's a $ TWENTY $ !!
- "What am I going to do with it once I pull it out?"
- "Who cares? It's a twenty! Do you know what I could buy with a twenty?!"

Now, if it was a $1 or a $5, it probably would have gone around the bowl and down the hole, but since it wasn't......I fished it out. I got some strange looks as it dangled from my right hand with my left hand cupped beneath it to catch any drips as I left the bathroom stall. I wondered whether to wash it or not, for fear that if I tried to wash it, it would fall apart. I then concluded that it would be fine since the bill couldn't be any more water-logged than it already was, so I washed it. It flapped away as I dried it beneath the hand dryers. Pretty funny lookin'. I'm sure onlookers knew exactly what had happened. Don't worry. I washed my hands thoroughly afterwards.
Nichole wondered what had taken so long in the bathroom, so I told her and we had a good laugh. The giggles started again as we watched a preview for the new SMURFS movie, because during the preview, a Smurf falls into the toilet.
I had every intention of dousing it with Lysol before placing the twenty back into circulation, but Corey took it to buy eggs before I got around to it. My mom always told me not to lick my fingers while counting money. Now I know why.

Back to the day with Nichole... After the movie, we went back to my house in Rigby for some grilled steak made by none other than the king of the grill himself, Corey. The man is perfecting his craft and I think his burgers and steaks are better than most places we eat out at. We ate and talked and caught up. It was SOOO fun! Nichole is easy to talk to and fun. I've missed hanging out with her. Sooooo....when are we going to do it again? ;c) *Wink, Wink*

4th of July

2011-07-10T20:12:00.000-07:00

I heart the 4th of July. I love the spirit of patriotism and freedom and I'm so grateful for the country I live in. We had a good Independence Day Weekend that kicked off on Saturday. On Saturday, Rigby shot off their fireworks from Rigby Lake. We climbed on top of our roof to see if we could see them, and if it weren't for one inconveniently placed tree in the way, we would have been able to see a good show.

We have the cutest neighbor. This is the same one who gave me pansies to plant after Grandpa died. She is from Brazil and she saw us standing on our roof waiting for the show. She said we needed some rocky road ice cream while we were waiting. Well, I couldn't disagree with her. I think we did indeed need some ice cream. In return, we gave her some peach cobbler that we had made earlier that day.

Coreyface on the roof.

Since the firework show was a flop from our roof, we decided to light some in our driveway.

Sunday was a real treat. We went to a free patriotic concert in Idaho Falls. At the concert, actors reenacted the scene in the House of Burgesses with Patrick Henry's famous words, "Give me liberty, or give me death!" Ooohh. Did you get the chills? People from the community sang patriotic songs and Glenn Rawson (a former instructor of mine at ISU) shared some history with us. It was a great night that brought a tear to my eye.

On Monday, the 4th, the two missionaries working in our stake got permission to go to the firework show in Idaho Falls with us. I had pictures and video of the event, but because I'm special (and thinking that I'd already uploaded them to my computer), I deleted them from my camera. :c( It was fun. We ate at Outback Steakhouse and played SWAP with the missionaries while waiting for the show. It was a great show. Idaho Falls does a great job.

It was funny because the missionaries kept saying how weird it was for them to be out past curfew. This is actually the 2nd time we've had the missionaries out past curfew. We're going to get a bad reputation! Heh heh!

Since we waited nearly an hour trying to get out of the parking lot last year, we tried a different strategy this year. 1st of all, we parked back-end-in so we could pull straight out when it came time to leave. We had read in the paper that the show was 31 minutes long, so we took a stopwatch with us. When the stopwatch hit 29 minutes, we quickly loaded our chairs into the car and watched the grand finale from the car. As soon as it stopped, we jumped in the car and got out of there with no problems.

We actually extended our festivities up to yesterday when we went to a concert at the new BYU-Idaho Center. It was called Patriots and Pioneers. It celebrated those who fought for our country and those who braved the wild frontier to achieve religious freedom. It. Was. AWESOME!! The performance included a full orchestra, a choir, and featured guest tenor, George Dyer. I loved it. It was fun for this hick girl to dress up and get a little culture.

Fun with the Inlaws

2011-07-10T19:18:00.000-07:00

After our week-long trip to Utah, Corey's parents swung up to Idaho to visit us. The mission this time was to make their trip a little more exciting than last time. Last time they came, it was winter, and we all know what a swingin' place Rigby, Idaho is in the winter. Frankly, I think they were bored to death last time. Hopefully this time was better.

One of my favorite parts of their visit was going on a hike with Nelwyn while Corey and Mike worked. We went hiking to a beautiful area called Cress Creek. (I didn't have my camera with me this time, so if you want to see pics of the place, visit the link to the left.) The placard said that Cress Creek has the largest cottonwood grove west of the Mississippi. It was beautiful. We even saw a bald eagle protecting its nest atop an old railroad bridge. The hike provided for some good quality and "quantity" time. It's always fun to learn more about my in-laws and Nelwyn proves to be very easy to talk to. We have a lot of things in common, and as Anne Shirley would say, Nelwyn's a "kindred spirit".

The next day we went to Jackson Hole. Nelwyn had never been there or seen the Tetons, so we also went up the road to see them. Jackson Hole is beautiful and it's fun to window-shop there. There was still a couple feet of snow on the mountain pass we took to get there.

On Sunday, Corey's family came over to the house for BBQ. Corey's parents and grandparents went to church with us that morning. His cousins, Jacob and Katie, joined us later for the BBQ. Corey enjoyed cooking ribs in his new smoker and they were delish! The man can work magic with a grill.

I Need a Nap

2011-07-10T18:31:00.000-07:00

Not quite feeling the blog thing today, but I know I desperately need to update.

Talk about a whirlwind of a week! A few weeks ago, we had an 80th birthday party/ 60th wedding anniversary party, an after-party barbeque, a wedding open house, a high school graduation, and a funeral within the expanse of ONE WEEK! I had to come home and work to get a rest from our Utah vacation! There were SO many things that happened. I should just take the easy way out and refer you to my sister-in-law's blog since she has already covered a lot of it, but I suppose I should include a little bit on here as well.

Uncle Curt gave the kids pony rides.

I got to give rides as well. It was one of the highlights of my day. It's been a long time since I've done this.

At the birthday/anniversary party, many members of the family participated in a talent show. This is Nelwyn and her grandkids performing as California Raisins.

The Walker sisters and Nelwyn singing a song for their parents.

This is Corey singing at the party. Sorry it's sideways. I don't know how to get it the other way.

Grandpa and Grandma Walker dancing. I love these two. They treat me like their own granddaughter, which is special to me since I have none of my own living now.

Cade sportin' the glasses. This kid cracks me up!

Speaking of a crack-up, check out his moves. And if you'll notice, he's wearing a new pair of glasses as well!

After the party, we went to an after-party party at Matt and Jenny's house where we mingled, 4-wheeled, and played a little kick-ball. This week we also went to Graham's High School graduation and Katelyn's wedding open house.

My Talk for Grandpa's Funeral

2011-06-12T21:16:00.000-07:00

Here's my talk from the funeral (for the most part). Instead of writing everything out word-for-word, I usually write my talks out with key words and bullets so I go more by memory and have more eye-contact with the audience rather than reading my talk word-for-word. So, here's what I can remember saying with a little help from my abbreviated notes:

I'd like to share a couple of memories of Grandpa. These were compiled by his kids and grandkids. When I talked with Grandpa's kids and grandkids, nearly everyone mentioned going hiking, fishing, and camping with Grandpa. Grandpa was a nature-lover. The outdoors were a big part of his life.
Grandpa loved to hunt. He even won a Boone & Crockett National Big Game Award for a deer he once shot. There's a funny story that comes from a hunting trip he went on with Dale and Marsha. One day they were out hunting and Grandpa shot a deer. After he field-dressed/ gutted the deer, he started packing it down the mountain on his back. After a while, he needed to stop and rest, so he put the deer down and laid his gun next to a tree. Dale stepped on the antlers of the deer, causing it's head to move. Grandpa whirled around and grabbed his gun, ready to shoot the deer again after it had already been gutted! Dale and Marsha got a good laugh out of that.
Grandpa also liked to fish. There are stories from kids and grandkids about how he would take them out at the crack of dark (4:00 a.m.) to go fishing because that was when the good fishing was and because that was before the pay booths opened!
Grandpa also liked animals. Whenever we went on car rides, he always had his binoculars out so he could look for different animals. He was also a member of the Pheasant Club and he raised pheasants to enter into bird shows. I remember as a child that Grandpa had a lot of bird pens out back and we would go through the pens gathering eggs and he would tell me about the different kinds of birds. He would also hatch eggs in the basement of the house with incubators and he would tell his kids and grandkids what kind of birds would come out of what eggs, how the heat lamps worked, etc. One time, he told Bridget that eggs were good for our hair because they made hair shiny. She took him literally and one day decided to crack an egg over Nathan's head. Unfortunately for Nathan, it was a rotten egg. They ran upstairs to show Grandpa and Bridget thought that she was in trouble. Instead of getting mad, Grandpa started to laugh! Bridget said, "He understood our mischief, as he was the king of mischief when he was younger."

As you can see by all the things he did with his children and grandchildren, Grandpa was very family-oriented. He'd say, "If you ain't got family, you ain't got nothin'." And he believed it and lived it. He'd often pull pink peppermint candies out of his pockets for the kids and he'd pull quarters out from behind our ears and let us keep them. He also taught most of his kids and grandkids how to fish and hunt. He was always there for the important events such as ballgames and dance performances. He was also there for the weddings, baby blessings, and baptisms, so most of his family remembers him as being a spiritual man.

Grandpa loved the temple. He started doing initiatories in the Provo temple got hooked. He always felt like he should be doing more, and so after the Mt. Timpanogos Temple opened, he started going to the temple for a couple of hours a day, sometimes doing 102 names in one day. He averaged doing work for 1,500 people per month. He went so regularly and consistently that if there was a day he didn't show up, the temple would call to see if he was okay! He did a lot of work for a lot of people. It makes one wonder at the size of the welcoming committee that greeted him after he passed away!
Our family would lovingly joke around and call Grandpa "Prophet James", because if he said something was going to happen, it happened. Grandpa had his secret spot somewhere in the low hills where he would pray for his family if they needed help. At one time, Maxine was hospitalized and the doctors weren't sure if she would make it. Grandpa fasted two and a half days for her and went to his spot in the hills to pray for her. After he returned, he said that she would be okay. He was right. When Clayton was younger, he got osteomyelitis in his leg and the doctors thought the might have to amputate it. Grandpa again went to the hills to pray and when he came down he said that Clayton's leg would heal and that it wouldn't have to be amputated. He was right again. Grandpa even knew little details about situations. I needed a surgery a couple of years back and before I went in for the surgery, the doctor told my parents that I would be very swollen and black and blue, especially since I was a fair-skinned redhead. Grandpa went to the hills to pray again. After he prayed, he told me that I would come through the surgery just fine and that I would be a little swollen, but I wouldn't bruise. Right again.

As you can tell, Grandpa loved his kids and grandkids. He also loved Grandma, and was even a bit romantic! This is Grandpa's wallet. When Grandpa and Grandma started dating, he took her to a dance. This is the ticket from that dance. He kept this ticket in his wallet for 67 years until the day he died. He loved her so much.

Grandpa was also a handy-man and jack-of-all-trades. He built his own house, poured his own cement driveway, and did his own car repair. He also took pride in his garden. He would show some of his kids and grandkids how to take a branch from an apple tree and graft it into another tree, making a hybrid.
It seems like Grandpa always had a piece of wood in his hands. He would carve the most beautiful gun stocks out of a single piece of wood. And I don't know how he did it, but he would carve chains out of a single piece of wood. Now, he didn't carve individual links and put them together, he would carve the chain already linked! I still can't figure out how he did it!
Grandpa was also a gunsmith, and as such, he even made his own bullets. Dale tells of a story where he and Grandpa were helping one of Grandpa's friends reload rifle shells in the basement. Grandpa was putting the primers and gun powder in the casings and his friend was putting in the slugs. The friend asked what would happen if one of the slugs happened to go off and Grandpa replied that it would probably blow them all up! It was another opportune time for one of Grandpa's practical jokes. Grandpa put just primer in a casing without the powder, put it in a rifle, and gave it to Dale. He told Dale to stand behind the friend and pull the trigger just as the friend was pulling the lever to put the slug into the casing. This resulted in a loud pop and the friend "about went through the ceiling and began calling me (Dale) things that I better not repeat."

This story sets the tone for what we all probably knew Grandpa best for; his good sense of humor. One day Grandpa and a bunch of family were driving up a really steep hill and at one point, you could only see the sky through the windshield. Grandpa threw his hands up and yelled, "Where'd the road go!"
There was also a time when the family was up Daniel's Canyon and a bunch of the grandkids were in the creek chasing a fish around, trying to catch it. Grandpa grabbed his deer rifle and said, "Want me to show you how to catch that fish?" He fired the gun into the water, thinking that it would just stun the fish, and ended up blowing a bunch of mud and water all over himself instead!
Grandpa also had a bunch of funny sayings that he told over and over and that we heard over and over! For example, when we asked him to go caroling with us or asked him why he wasn't singing, he would reply, "The only song I can sing is HIGH ON A MOUNTAINTOP and everyone'd prefer I sang it there!"
Grandpa loved to fish, but wasn't as big a fan of ice fishing. When friends would ask him to go ice fishing, he would say, "I'm not much for ice fishing. By the time I get the hole big enough to put my boat in, I'm too tired to fish!"
When you asked Grandpa how he was doing, he would often reply with, "I'm finer than frog hair." When he was asked if the fish were jumping, he would say, "Of course not! Fish don't have legs!"
Grandpa was also pretty smart for only having a 10th grade education. He always knew how something died, whether it be a bird, or a fish, etc. It always died "because it's heart stopped"!

Towards the end of his life, Grandpa couldn't get out as much, so he didn't do the hunting and camping that he used to. He loved to take rides up the American Fork canyon, though. Whenever I asked him what he wanted for his birthday or Christmas, he would just request gas money so he could go on his rides up the canyon.
Grandpa loved westerns. Since he couldn't get out as much, he spent a lot of time watching them with Janis. Even when I called his hospital room and asked him what he was doing, he would tell me that he was watching a western movie.
Grandpa also liked to watch ball games with Janis. He particularly rooted for the Utah Jazz and the BYU cougars. Just a few days before he died, I called him to see how he was doing. Now, I didn't want to ask how he was doing in the rehab facility because I knew he didn't like it and that he wanted to be home, so I tried to find a different topic, and we talked about basketball. One of the last things he told me was how he was so "tickled" that the Dallas Mavericks swept those arrogant Lakers in the NBA Playoffs!
Grandpa had one last saying that he started using a year or so before he died. He would say, "I figure I'm gonna die on account of being shot by a jealous husband." Well, it didn't exactly happen that way, which was probably good! This just goes to show again, how funny Grandpa was. We'll miss him so much. He'll be missed for his love, his example, and for his humor. He left quite the legacy to follow.

Brittney's Life-Sketch for Grandpa

2011-06-12T18:27:00.000-07:00

As mentioned in the previous post, Brittney wrote Grandpa's life sketch for the funeral. Here it is in it's entirety:

James Charles Grace was born in Highland, Utah on April 7, 1925, to James William Grace and Mary Louise Greenland. He was the first of 4 children. His siblings are his brother Leland, and his two sisters, Elaine and Edna.

James grew up in Lehi during the Great Depression. He once stated, “I don’t know why they called it the Great Depression because I couldn’t see anything ‘great’ about it. Nobody had anything.” He said, “At the time we were growing up, there wasn’t any water in any of the houses or indoor bathrooms. Instead of four rooms and a bath, we had two rooms and a path.”

James attended grade school in the old school house that once sat where the Legacy Center is currently located...That is he attended school most of the time. James said that one day he got in an argument with his dad about going to the first day of the new school year. His father told him that he could quit going when he was smarter than the teacher and then proceeded to take him to the school house. When he walked into the school the teacher asked, “What is your name?” With that question, James figured that he knew more than the teacher did so he ran out the back door. His father did send him back upon arriving home to find that James was already there. James never was a big fan of school and it didn’t help when he fell behind two years after becoming ill with meningitis. He quit school once he reached the tenth grade and came of age.

When James was about 10 years old he got an infection in the bone behind his ear that never cleared up and finally he had to undergo surgery to have the infected bone cut out. Unfortunately he still didn’t get better and the doctors had to go back in and take out his eardrum which left him with hearing in only one ear for the rest of his life. Following these surgeries he developed meningitis and had to spend a good amount of time in the hospital.

James loved big yellow seedless grapes as a kid, and his parents used to bring him some when he was staying in the hospital. Pretty soon after his parents left the same nurse would always come to his room to visit, and while she was visiting with him, his grapes would disappear one by one until about half of them were gone and the visit was over. One time when his parents were at the hospital James said that same nurse told his parents, “You don’t have to worry about him. He’s too mean to die!” His parents wanted to know what he had done to make her say such a thing, and the nurse told them that he had tied a top onto a string and was jumping up and down on his hospital bed, twirling the top over his head. His nurse said, “If that top had come off the string it probably would have killed everyone in the room!”

The nurse was right in that James did recover, and he was the first person to ever be cured of meningitis. He said that about two weeks after he recovered, his doctor came into his room and told him that they had cured another boy in California using the same drug that they had used on him.

James loved the outdoors all his life, and he loved to tell stories of when he was a child and would hang out with his uncle, Josh Grace, who was a year or two younger than him. They used to follow behind the wagons that took sugar beets up to the Lehi Sugar Factory, and pick up all the beets that fell off the back. They would then put the beets under their coats and take them home to eat. Both of them were crazy about hunting! Together they used to fish and trap in a creek that was just down the hill from third west and above state street. They would trap skunk and muskrat and sell the hides for $2.00 each. Both were sent home from school more than one time for smelling like a skunk. They also went hunting for pheasants whenever they could, which led to a few encounters with the game warden. One time as James and Josh were walking home with with a couple of sugar beets under their coats the game warden pulled his truck over and stopped them. He asked, “What have you got under them coats?”

“Sugar beets.” they said.

The warden then asked, “Are you sure those sugar beets don’t grow feathers?” He then made them open up their coats in order to prove that they didn’t have pheasants under them.

When James was 19 years old, one of his favorite hangouts was an old bakery and ice cream parlor on Main Street in Lehi. He always went with Josh Grace and Lee Smith, and the order was always the same; A quart of ice cream and a dozen donuts. One night when he was there he met his future wife Verna Davis. He was there for his usual treat, but this night he was there by himself. He said that he noticed a young woman working there and he thought to himself that she sure was beautiful. When James walked up to the counter to pay for his food, he heard Verna tell her boss Bob that she would need a ride home because it was raining. James spouted out, “Make her walk Bob, ” and Verna replied, “For that I oughta make you take me home now.” James did take her home and three months later on June 16, 1944, they were married in American Fork, Utah. On their twenty-third anniversary, James and Verna were sealed as a family for time and all eternity in the Salt Lake Temple, along with their five children, Maxine McCoy, Kenneth (Butch) Grace, Janis D Grace, Dale Grace, and Marsha Sayer.

Throughout his life, James was a hard worker and he provided for his family by working as a carpenter, a gas station owner, a tire dealer, a gunsmith and gunsmith instructor at Utah Trade Technical College, and finally as a maintenance worker and supervisor at Toole Army Depot.

James was also a faithful member of the LDS church and held several callings which included being the Elders Quorum Secretary, Assistant Ward Clerk, and a Home Teacher. He loved to do temple work and at one time told me that he thought he was addicted to it.

During his life, James was an avid hunter and fisherman, and he loved to go for car rides to see the beauty that was all around, but nothing was more important than family. Shortly before he died, James said “If you ain’t got family, you ain’t got nothin’.” James left this earthly life to be reunited once again with his eternal companion Verna Davis Grace on May 27, 2011. He is survived by his 3 siblings, 5 children, 11 grandchildren, several great grandchildren, and many nieces and nephews. He was a great man and will missed by the many people who loved him.

Brittney and Grandpa: September 2010

Grandpa

2011-06-12T18:11:00.000-07:00

It's hard to know where to start with this blog entry. It makes me sad. My grandpa died two weeks ago; May 27th. It kind of came as a shock. Grandpa had fallen a few weeks before and broken his hip while trying to do service for some cousins across the street. That's the kind of guy he was. The fracture wasn't in the socket and wasn't complicated to fix. He came out of surgery well and had been staying in a rehab center to get physical therapy on his hip before he went home. One day while in therapy, he reported being light-headed. He then passed out and was gone.

I was out mowing the lawn when it happened. When I came in from mowing the lawn, I saw a ton of missed calls from Mom on my phone and I thought, "Oh, crud. Either something bad's happened or she REALLY wants help with her blog!" Just as I started talking to her, I heard the garage door open and wondered why in the world Corey would be coming home from work so early. Apparently, since Mom couldn't get a hold of me, she called Corey at work and told him what had happened and he came home to be with me. I married a good one.

I was going to drive down to Utah the Thursday Grandpa broke his hip, but my family assured me that he was doing well and that since the break in his hip wasn't a bad one, the doctors were optimistic that he would do fine. So, I made several calls to him while he was in the rehab center and looked forward to Wednesday, June 1st, when I would be heading down to Utah to see him and do stuff with Corey's family. Grandpa died the Friday before. Ugh. The woulda, coulda, shoulda's.

Plans changed and instead of going to Utah with Corey on Wednesday, I headed down earlier on Saturday with Mom. It was weird and surreal going to Grandpa's house. It felt like he was just out and about somewhere and should be walking in the door any minute. Of course, he didn't. Oddly enough, it was comforting to be in his house around family, though. It had been a while since I'd seen all of my aunts and uncles from my mom's side. A bittersweet family reunion. Funny thing, though. You can't turn your backs on them. I left the room and came back to find out that Brittney and I had been nominated to give the life-sketch/memories portion of the funeral. I was flattered and honored, but wondered if I'd be able to keep it together well enough through the tears for people to understand what I was saying! It actually proved to be kind of a fun process gathering memories of Grandpa from my relatives to put into the talk. I learned a lot of things I didn't know about him.

My aunts and uncles let me tag along while they made arrangements at the mortuary and picked out the casket and flowers. They even let me pick out the bouquet of flowers for the grandkids since I was the only grandchild there. The mortician was a friend of my grandparents and the funeral director was so nice to us. One of my aunts told me that when the funeral home came to pick Grandpa up from the rehab center, they told our family not to worry because they'd take really good care of him. That was comforting and a sweet thing to say.

I'm not much for viewings and I don't think I'll ever understand that ritual. I understand the part about giving sympathies and condolences to the family, but looking at someone in a box...I don't get it. When Grandma died, I refused to look. I wanted my last memories of her to be while she was alive, not...well, you know. I peeked at Grandpa during the viewing and wished I hadn't. It was a nice viewing, though. People came in steady for an hour and a half.

Like I said, I don't like viewings, so this is Brittney, Dad, Corey and I waiting outside in the hall during the viewing before the funeral.

The funniest thing happened while we were waiting in the hall. Brittney was telling us about a 93-yr-old woman she was working with in physical therapy who didn't like her very much. After all, who DOES like the physical terrorist? Anyhow, to try and get out of physical therapy, the old lady will say things like, "Do you know how old I am? What if I die?" After saying this to Brittney over and over, Brittney said that she wanted to say, "Well I've heard of different things to get out of therapy, but that would take the cake!" It wasn't until after she said it that she realized how it related to the day's events and she gasped! We couldn't stop laughing. Thanks for the comic relief, Britt!

When we went in for the family prayer, and before the casket was closed, I remained behind while everyone else took one last look. To my surprise, Uncle Butch came over and gave me a carnation that he had picked from the casket spread. It was a touching gesture that I won't forget.

The funeral was nice, and after Corey gave me a blessing (that morning prior to the funeral), I was able to hold it together enough to speak. Brittney gave the life sketch before I spoke and I was glad to be standing behind the pulpit together as sisters. I tried to keep my talk light-hearted since my grandpa was most-known for his humor. Following Brittney and I, Dad spoke. I was especially glad to speak before Dad, because Dad speaks with the influence of the Spirit and I knew he would just make everyone cry (including me, and I knew that if I started crying, I wouldn't be able to stop)...and he did. Butch and Connie and their girls also sang, which added a nice touch. I'm sure Grandpa was proud.

We proceeded to the cemetery. Now, when Grandpa and Grandma first started dating, Grandpa took Grandma to a dance. He kept the ticket to the dance safely tucked away in his wallet until the day he died, 67 years later. We were going to put the ticket in a shadow box with a picture of both Grandma and Grandpa when they were younger, but while at the grave-site, we decided that since Grandpa had kept the ticket with him all those years, he deserved to keep it still, and we shoved the ticket into the lid of the casket.

After everyone left the cemetery, I decided to kiss Grandpa goodbye one last time.

Is this a sad post? Yes. But it's also happy, because I know of the Plan of Salvation. Grandpa had been missing Grandma for seven years and it was time to be reunited with her. As the world goes on, in time it will be my turn to be reunited with them, and so-on and so-on. I'm so grateful that family relationships last beyond the grave and that families can be together forever. This knowledge is a great comfort to me. Someone jokingly said, "Birth is the leading cause of death, you know." And it's true. It's how it's supposed to be.

See you later, Grandpa.

GRANDPA'S OBITUARY

Square Foot Gardening

2011-05-22T20:02:00.000-07:00

Our garden was a dismal failure last year. Our dirt is mostly clay and has little drainage. We tilled a bunch of stuff into it last year, but it didn't help. Since the soil isn't loose, plant roots (with the exception of weeds, of course) have a hard time growing through it and what produce we did get was pretty small and insignificant. The pests seem to love it, though. We had plenty of slugs, wire worms, and other unidentifiable nuisances eating up what little food we produced. This year we decided to take our bad soil out of the equation and do square foot gardening, hereafter known as SFG. We went to a class on it and the lady said that SFG grows more produce with less space and requires a lot less work. It eliminates the weeds that grow up from the ground and you only have to pick out the occasional weed that blows in. I'm excited about having fewer weeds to deal with because our garden grows weeds like, well, a weed! I feel that it's a losing battle. Our garden grows them faster than I can pull them out, so hopefully this works.

This was our garden before preparation. There was a huge pile of leaves on the right because I dumped the leaves off of our lawn there this fall, thinking that I would just till them under in the spring. It was a pain to move all of the wet leaves back out of the garden, but as a plus, no weeds grew beneath them. The cardboard boxes are down on the ground for weed control. Since we've had such a cold and wet spring, I didn't want the same thing to happen that did last year, where we weren't able to get to the garden for so long, that by the time we did, the weeds were waist-high. The cardboard seemed to work well until we were ready to work with the garden. There was a LOT less weeding to be done this year than there was last year!

Like I said, with SFG, the original dirt isn't used. Boxes are made and filled with the perfect mixture of compost, peat moss, and vermiculite; which is apparently ideal for vegetation growth. While I was busy cleaning out our garden space, Corey used the new toy I got him for our anniversary to make the garden boxes. We got a killer deal on the lumber at Home Depot, where we only paid $1.68 for each 6-foot board!

After I cleared out the garden space, we laid down layers of newspaper and cardboard to stop any weed growth and covered it with a tarp. It looks so much nicer! We'll mix our special soil combo and plant on Monday. Hopefully it turns out better this year.

Corey's Straitjacket

2011-05-22T19:11:00.000-07:00

Corey wanted his hair cut the other day. He usually wraps a towel around him to keep hair from getting all over him. This presents a problem in that a towel collects too much hair. Even after shaking the towel out, it leaves a ton of hair in the washer and dryer. Since I've been to cheap to buy a cape (that may change), I decided it would be a good idea to cut a hole out of a garbage bag and slip it over Corey's head, because the hair wouldn't stick to a garbage bag, right? Here was the result:

Yeah, so the bag was a little tight. Can you tell by his face that Corey really wanted his picture taken? The best part of the situation was that he couldn't do anything about it because his arms were pinned! I should put a plastic bag over his head more often!!....with a hole cut out, of course! ;c)

Mother's Day

2011-05-22T18:51:00.000-07:00

Mother's day was pretty chillaxed this year. We went to Mackay. We didn't get to spend much time with Dad because he was planting the fields, but we got to relax and spend a lot of time with Mom, which was good, seeing as how it was Mother's Day!
My mom always sends pictures and narratives from her life via email. I told her that these were perfectly blog-worthy things and that she needed to start a blog because frankly, emails take up space and are eventually deleted. Blogs are like an online journal that don't get deleted and she can reference back to her blog any time she wants. So, this weekend, I taught my mom how to blog. You can check her blog out at marshasayer.blogspot.com.
I also did something that I'd never done that weekend. I ate out of one of those Mexican food buses. I've always kind of avoided them because I thought, "Food out of a bus...yuck! How sanitary can that be?" My mind has been changed...about the one in Mackay, at least. Mom and Dad raved about it and Mom took Corey and I there for lunch. It was AWESOME!! My mouth is watering thinking about it. The cook washed his hands, too. I watched.
We took our food home and since it was so nice outside, decided to eat out on the picnic table. Things were great until a dirt devil came along and blew a bunch of dirt into our food. That was the end of the meal for Corey. Mom and I didn't let a little dirt stop us from scarfing down the rest of our Mexican food deliciousness.
Hope you had a good weekend, Mom. Love ya! And I can't do a Mother's Day Post without giving a shout-out to my mother-in-law, Nelwyn. Love you, too!

!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! WICKED !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

2011-05-15T21:30:00.000-07:00

We had the best Cinco de Mayo ever! On Thursday morning got up at the crack of dawn to leave Rigby at 7:00 a.m. Our Wicked tickets were for the matinée at 2:00 p.m. in Boise. Yes, I know it doesn't take seven hours to get to Boise from Rigby, and Corey wanted to sleep in, but I have waited TOO LONG for the opportunity to see Wicked and NOTHING was going to make me miss it. I wanted a nice cushion in case anything were to go wrong. No chances.

Of course nothing went wrong. We got to Boise at 11:00. The weather was an awesome 77 degrees; a far cry from the 40's and 50's we'd previously seen in Rigby. Since the weather was so nice, we decided to eat our packed lunches outside on a bench and bask in the glorious long-awaited sun.

The performance of Wicked was on the Boise State campus in the Morrison Center. Since the performance was on Thursday during a school semester, there was no parking on campus. We drove to a parking lot down town where there were shuttles waiting to take Wicked-goers to the campus. Smart move on Boise State's part.

Aboard the shuttle/Corey enjoying his chocolate cookie.

Corey with his best "Wicked" look. Pretty creepy.

Since we were an hour early, we decided to kill time walking around the BSU campus. I'd never been to the BSU campus before. It was beautiful! I was surprised to see that the campus was built right next to the river. There were a lot of cottonwoods next to the river and it smelled so good! It reminded me of home. Part of me almost wished I would have gone to BSU! The river and trees would have been my sanctuary. However, I would never trade the good friendships I made and the good experiences I had at ISU for anything. Besides, if I had never gone to ISU, I wouldn't have become a hygienist and I never would have met Coreyface. I was right where I needed to be.

Campus buildings next to the river.

Hard to believe this picture is taken from a bridge that connects the BSU campus to a park. This looks like it would be further from civilization.

Before the show began, we went to the Morrison Center and checked out the souvenir Wicked shirts, keychains, programs, etc. The prices were outrageous, so we left without any souvenirs.

When the show started, I actually got a little teary-eyed. I'm weird. I do that when I get super-excited. Rember Vegas, Brittney, Marilee, and Jessica?! The show itself was awesome. I've always loved the music (Corey and I listened to it to and from Boise!), but the combo of the show and music together was magic. The lights, the smoke, the costumes, the set, the music....my limited vocabulary can't describe it! I loved the show and I loved the surprise ending. It was family-friendly and I would recommend it to anyone. To anyone who hasn't seen it, I thought I would post the video below to share the experience....and make you jealous. ;c) I hope you consider going now, 'cause BOYYYY, are you missing out!

I was on a high after the show. Corey and I talked a lot about it. We rode the shuttle back and got into our car. As we were in our car, BANG! We got door-dinged while sitting IN my car! That's the second time that's happened to me. Good feeling gone. Grrrr.... My car is the one inanimate object I own that I'm a little obsessive over. I worked hard for it. Moving on... We then ate dinner at Fudruckers (good feeling back) and then headed back to Rigby. It was a flying trip, but sooooo worth it.

Disney Weekend

2011-05-14T20:01:00.000-07:00

This post isn't necessarily anything about me. It's more to remember: "I was [here] when [this] happened. The weekend of April 29th through May 1st was what I like to call a "Disney Weekend" because a prince got married and the bad guy met his fate. Of course I'm speaking of the royal wedding and of the death of Osama Bin Laden.
I didn't get up at 2:00 a.m. for the royal wedding. I figured there would be so many highlights throughout the day that I wouldn't miss a thing if I slept in. But I have to admit, I did get up a little earlier than I usually do on Fridays (my day off) to start viewing the coverage of the wedding. I'm sure a lot of you are rolling your eyes right now because you're sick and tired of hearing about the royal wedding, but I admit that I found it enchanting. The last royal wedding (that mattered) was over 30 years ago! And let's face it, all little girls (and maybe some of us big girls) dream about being a princess, so we're interested to see what the dress will look like, what the venue will look like, etc. Kate Middleton sure looked the part of a princess. She was GORGEOUS!! Part of me is a little jealous. Every bride wants to look that good on her wedding day.

I think she made a wise decision in picking her dress. It will always look beautiful. What do I mean by that? Princess Diana's dress was stylish for the 80's, but it now looks very dated. It looks like she got married in enough material to make a hot air balloon. I think that Kate's dress, on the other hand, will always look classic and regal, befitting a princess.

Now for my favorite parts of the wedding:

The runaway horse...

...and the clergyman doing cartwheels following the wedding! I'm sure he was glad the wedding happened without incident.

I'm glad the wedding happened without incident as well. In a world with terrorists and other crazies, I'm glad that nothing happened. Kudos to the security and to the masses of people who peacefully participated in the events of the day.

Now for the bad guy. No picture of him. Osama isn't as pretty as Kate Middleton or Prince William. Corey and I were surprised when we turned our tv's on in the evening to find that Osama Bin Laden had been killed. A lot of people have expressed different opinions on the event; some rejoicing, others saying that they will not rejoice in the death of ANY man, even if he is wicked. I can see both points of view. I have to admit, though, I was glad to see him go. I see it as kind of like Nephi killing Laban: "It's better that one man should perish". While his goons may try to do other things, at least he's not alive to mastermind another 9/11 or kill more innocent people. I don't know how I feel about the celebrating in the streets. It kind of makes us look like them, but you can't blame a lot of people for feeling happy and feeling like they now have some justice.

Easter / 2nd Anniversary

2011-05-13T19:49:00.000-07:00

When we got married, Corey and I never thought that our anniversary would fall on Easter Sunday. This year it did. Needless to say, we didn't party-hardy too much on the day of our anniversary, so we celebrated it later. We were curious as to when this event would happen again, so Corey looked it up on the Internet. The next time our anniversary will fall on Easter Sunday will be in the year 2094! Needless to say, we probably won't live to see the day. Since this was the only anniversary on Easter Sunday we will see in our lifetimes, we considered it pretty special. After all, it was the Savior who made it possible for Corey and I and the rest of our families to be together forever.

The week leading up to our anniversary/Easter was interesting. My sweet Grandpa, while trying to do service for someone else, fell and broke his hip. Luckily, the fracture wasn't in the socket of the hip and was in a place easily fix-able with surgery. Since Grandpa was in the hospital, Mom went to Utah while Dad stayed behind to work. Corey and I went to Mackay to keep Dad company. It was a great weekend! The mice and voles took their toll on the yard this winter, so Dad and I spent a lot of time raking up the dead grass. It was fun just being able to work with dad and chat with him one-on-one again. The weather was AWESOME and Mackay just smells good. It does my heart good to smell it's deliciousness and see it's snow-capped mountains around me.

Following our yard work, we decided to cook a chicken in Dad's solar oven. It worked a lot better than I anticipated! The chicken was moist and fall-off-the-bones good! A solar oven is definitely something I'm going to look into getting for our personal preparedness.

On Easter morning, Corey had an Easter basket waiting for me when I woke up. Cute, huh?

The Easter basket contained the usual Easter basket sweets with a little something extra........

*SQUEAL*!!! I was sooooo excited! I have wanted to see Wicked since I heard about it at least four years ago. I only got Corey a circular saw. Why do the gifts he gives me always have to be better than the ones I give him?...Not that I'm complaining. I just feel guilty.

A couple of hours after Church, we drove back to Rigby. I had something special in mind for Corey to celebrate our anniversary on Monday night. First of all, we went out to eat at Carino's. When we got home, Corey was banished to the bedroom while I set up our downstairs room to simulate "A Night Under the Stars". It was totally cheesy, but fun. I stuck glow-in-the-dark stars on the ceiling and wrote Corey's name on one of them. When he came down the stairs, I had the song "Waiting for a Star to Fall" playing. I presented him with a fake certificate from the International Star Registry (where you actually pay to name a star after someone). I had a blanket on the floor with a telescope and he had to find his star before I could give him his gift. I selected his gift from a "wish list" he had made for Christmas. Since I didn't get him everything on his wish list for Christmas, I got him one of his "wishes" (the circular saw). We then ate STARbursts and watched a movie. I was thinking of maybe STAR Wars, but thought that STARdust was more romantic. Like I said, the night was cheesy, but fun.

Hair Update/ For Chelsea

2011-05-02T20:59:00.000-07:00

This post is partially for my friend, Chelsea, who told me today that I haven't posted in FOREVER! A'ight! Ya happy now?! ;c) Don't worry, I've got a lot to write about since the last time I posted, so there's more to come. You may just experience "Walker Blog" overload!!

I am happy to report that (...drum roll...) my hair has stopped falling out!!!...at least it stopped falling out in clumps. :c) Now it is definitely back to normal hair loss. It stopped falling out about 4 weeks ago and I am sooo happy to see that I have about an inch of regrowth. I'm also glad that as long as I pull my hair back, I look like a normal person. If I let my hair down...let's just say it's a little scary, but that's okay! I'm just glad I'm not completely bald, because when my hair first started falling out by the masses, I seriously thought I was headed toward being completely bald and I cried a lot about it. Human hair grows from a quarter inch to a half inch each month. My hair has always grown fast, so I'm hoping that by next March I'll have six inches of thick hair that I can actually wear down.

I know. It's disgusting that I've kept my hair, but I wanted to keep it for the sake of curiosity. This DOESN'T count the seven inches that I cut off. Now you know why I thought I was going to look like Howie Mandel and Patrick Stewart!

If you were grossed out by the world's largest hairball, sorry. Tomorrow's post won't include something that Simba might have horked up.

Another Home Decor Adventure

2011-03-20T17:31:00.000-07:00

First of all, happy belated St. Patrick's day. This is about how festive it got around our house... (see picture below) Don't worry. No one was whizzing green. Just a few drops of food coloring added to the toilet bowl water. When Corey went into the bathroom, I anxiously anticipated to hear a laugh, a giggle, SOMETHING, when he lifted the toilet seat. No such reaction. He just flushed it and continued with his business. How anticlimactic. *sigh* Hmmm. I just realized it looks like a bowl full of antifreeze. Maybe that's why dogs like to drink the toilet water or vice versa... :c)

This week we continued our adventure looking for things to decorate our house with. I must say, we ran into some really random stuff. We went into a neat antique shop in old town Pocatello. The antique shop is located in an old soda shop complete with the soda counter with bar stools around it. The building still had the original floor and lights in it. It was kind of a fun atmosphere. In it we found this...

An old trunk with legs. It would have been cool if someone hadn't of stuck cherry legs on it.

An end-table made out of an old suitcase. What is it with this place and sticking legs on stuff? I guess it's okay if you want your end table to have lots of storage space!

We also went to a place called Maple St. Sit and Sleep. This place was every hide-and-go-seek player's dream! It was crammed FULL of furniture and knick-knacks with small aisles between the stuff. It was like going through a maze! We actually had to climb over recliners to see some sofa tables they had! I wish we had a full day just to see everything there! While we were in there, we saw this suit of armor. Apparently this is the English suit of armor. They were going to show us the Spanish one, but they couldn't get to it because of all the stuff piled in front of it!! Ha! For only $3,500 this little baby could have been ours. Tempting, but we decided to pass. It doesn't match the rest of our decor. ;c)

Possibly the coolest sword I've ever seen. Darn. If only we would have gone for that medieval look in our living room...

Visit From Mom

2011-03-13T19:35:00.000-07:00

Mom and Dad are on a huge food storage/preparedness kick so Mom came to Idaho Falls this weekend to buy stuff. I've decided that my personal preparedness plan is to just keep my gas tank full so I can drive to Mom and Dad's house! ;c) Just kidding, guys! Corey and I have been working on preparedness as well and I've even had fun in the cannery canning my own stuff. ...sorry I got side-tracked. Anyhow, since Mom came to Idaho Falls on Friday, she decided to spend the night with us and continue her shopping spree on Saturday. It's always nice getting to spend time with my family. Love ya, Mom!

I look like a fat-head. I'm gonna blame it on being closer to the camera...

While mom was shopping for preparedness stuff, Corey and I continued to look for stuff to decorate/furnish our living room with. Let's see, Mom and Dad are following the prophet and buying preparedness stuff and I'm buying stuff to decorate the living room....feelin' a little guilty here...

I thought I would share something funny I found on our shopping spree, though.

That's right, the artwork and even the mirror in the women's bathroom have price tags!

This has got to be the first time I've seen artwork for sale in a restroom. I don't even want to think about all of the germs and nastiness that are all over those pictures!

Corey's Birthday (Part 2)

2011-03-13T19:16:00.000-07:00

As I mentioned in the last post, since Corey is a sports nut, I decided to get him tickets to a Jazz game. I planned this whole event to be a surprise. After I planned it, Jerry Sloan (the Jazz coach) and Deron Williams (star player) left. I was thinking, "NOOOOOOOO!" and expected the game to be a huge, disappointing blowout. I was a little miffed, but hey, it's always fun to just be in the Delta Center. The atmosphere is electric. And yes, I know that it's called the Energy Solutions Arena now, but it'll always be the Delta Center to me. Besides, "Energy Solutions Arena" has NINE syllables! (Made you count!) It's too long to say. Don't you think that they should have nick-named it "Energy Arena"? That sounds much cooler and has fewer syllables. If anyone with any clout reads this post...think about it!

The game was Saturday night, so Corey went to work early all week so that he could get off work early on Friday. We drove down on Friday and spent the night with Corey's uncle and aunt Curt and Diane. (Thanks guys!) Saturday was a BUSY day! We actually met up with Corey's cousin, Shana, to work on my Christmas present. Shana is an interior decorator and I took her pictures of my house so she could give me ideas and input on what to do with my house. We then went shopping for things to decorate my living room with. I usually HATE shopping, but actually had fun with Corey and Shana because of the excitement of being able to make our living room look nice. It's been too bare for too long.

After shopping for living room stuff, Corey and I met my sister, Aunt Janis, Aunt Maxine, and Uncle Dean for lunch at Sizzler. I miss those guys! I don't get to see them nearly enough, so it was nice to catch up. After lunch, Brittney went with us to shop for scarves to cover my head. After getting discouraged at the prices of nice scarves (ones that aren't too flowery and grandma-looking), I finally just decided that I'll wait to see if I need them for sure and go shopping then.

After scarf shopping and before the game....see, I told you Saturday was busy...we went to a birthday party for Corey's cousin, Jennifer. Corey and Jennifer's birthdays are nearly a week apart. Jennifer's birthday party was in the cultural hall of the church, where we played basketball and a different version of dodge ball that I'd never played before. We didn't get to stay for too long before we had to head out to catch the Jazz game.

Our seats weren't too bad. We were pretty close to center court.

Happy birthday (part 2) Corey!

As an added bonus, the game wasn't a total blowout as I had feared. It went into overtime where the Jazz won by 9. I'm glad it was at least a fun game for Corey. We found out something funny the next day. My friend, Chad, from Pocatello was at the same game across the aisle from us and two rows up and we didn't even know it!

Before we went home on Sunday, we stopped by my grandpa's house to say a quick hello. My grandpa has found the fountain of youth! He is really into natural remedies and herbs. Believe it or not, his gray, balding head, is getting more hair on it and his hair has started getting darker! Brittney told me about it, but I didn't believe it until I saw it for myself! It's amazing! He's on so many herbs that I just wish I knew which ones were affecting his hair!!

Corey's Birthday (Part 1)

2011-03-06T20:52:00.000-08:00

Corey's birthday was last Saturday. He totally scored on free meals. Corey signed up on a couple of websites which gave him free food for his birthday. He ate breakfast at Denny's for free, got a chocolate brownie sundae at Chili's for free, and a burger at Red Robin for free. Dang. The man sure knows how to work the system.

The birthday boy in anticipation of another free meal.

Doesn't it look good? L-O-V-E Red Robin!

Apparently, Corey thought that you get sloshed on your 31st birthday... He's a little confused between 31 and 21. Or maybe he just wishes he was 21. ;-)

The folks at Red Robin were nice enough to embarrass him by singing to him and giving him balloon "ears".

Following eating lots and lots of food, we had friends come over to the house for games and more food. Is there a theme here?

I am the worst at trying to figure out what to give people for presents...especially guys. With girls, you just get them something that smells good like a candle or lotion and you're good to go. Unfortunately with a guy, there is no one-size-fits-all gift. If there is one, would someone let me in on the secret? Anyhow, I thought that since Corey is a sports fanatic, I would get him tickets to a Jazz game...to be continued in the next post.

The Haircut

2011-03-06T20:35:00.000-08:00

For those of you who keep bugging me to put pics of my haircut up here, here ya go.

It's still coming out. The wads of hair in the bottom of the tub don't look as big now, though since I cut my hair. Each hair has 7 fewer inches on it!

The haircut wasn't as bad as I thought it would be. I thought that it would be pretty short after Candace (my hairdresser) was done with it, but she said that I could keep more length than I had originally thought. As I lose more, it will probably get shorter. I'm glad I had so much hair to lose in the first place that things still don't look too bad as long as I style it right. These pictures were taken a week ago. I don't look bald now. I just look like a girl with thin hair. For that, I am grateful.

Awww....Corey interrupted my picture-taking.

Candace added layers to my hair to add body so it would look thicker. I'm not sure if I like it short and curly yet.

This picture shows a little more of the thin-ness than the other ones do.

P.S. Thanks for all of the kind comments that have been posted on this blog! I'm truly blessed with such kind and caring family and friends. Love you guys back!

The Funny Side

2011-02-22T20:48:00.000-08:00

So. I've noticed some funny things about this ordeal.

1) Maybe this really is a trial of humility. I noticed that the "Jinxed" post closely followed my "Tooting My Own Horn" post! Coincidence? I think not!

2) I'm incredibly vain. I didn't cry at all during the whole ordeal in November, but now that my hair is falling out, you'd think it was the end of the world! My priorities got screwed up somewhere! :c)

3) They say that the longer you're married to your spouse, the more you start to look like them! Wow. We haven't even been married two years and we BOTH have thinning hair! What's next? A beard?!

4) I'm considering in investing in the iGrow. It's very stylish. Sure, it costs $695, but the company is so confident in its miracle helmet that it's offering a six-month money-back guarantee. I've got nothing to lose! ...but my hair.

Jinxed

2011-02-19T16:03:00.000-08:00

A couple of weeks ago, I got to go to lunch with my former roommate and good friend, Brynne. Brynne is amazing. She's intelligent, accomplished, fun, easy to talk to, and gorgeous. I'm convinced that the reason some guy hasn't snatched her up yet is because there just aren't any around that are good enough to even compare to her! Anyhow, we talked about a lot of things, and I'm convinced we've jinxed each other. We talked about skiing vs. snowboarding. I'm a skier and she's recently taken up boarding. I was saying how I haven't tried boarding, but it looks like people crash harder on boards because they either face-plant it or fall backwards and either way, have to catch themselves with their hands to keep from falling. I'm afraid to take up boarding because I don't want to break my wrist, since my hands are my livelihood. She said that she thinks it's easier to crash on a board because the board just rolls with you. Here comes the jinx part. The next day she went boarding and broke her wrist. :c( Not cool. I hope it heals quickly.

Now for my jinx. Brynne asked how my life was going and I literally told her that things were going well for the Walkers and that we were just waiting for the next trial to come around the corner...because it inevitably does. One can't be complacent for too long. Well, the trial has hit a mere two weeks later. I usually clean my hairbrush out once every week to week and a half. Now, my hairbrush looks like THIS every time I use it.

Last Friday night when I got out of the shower, the bottom of the tub looked like this. Thank goodness for the hair catcher, or we'd have to call Roto-Rooter! Corey came home to find me a sobbing mess. I pulled it together in time to go to a Valentine's dinner/fundraiser put on by the young women in our ward.

Two days later, the bottom of the tub looked even worse.

This has been hard. My pride especially has taken a huge hit. No one compliments me on my eyes or my smile, etc. Everyone compliments me on my hair. It's the one and only thing that I've felt makes me unique. It's the only physical feature I have that I feel is pretty. It's hard to see it go. My hair is so thin now. Since it is long, it just looks haggard and stringy. It no longer feels soft. It feels coarse and dead. I've made an appointment to chop it off on Tuesday. Ouch. Hard decision. I ask myself what I'm supposed to learn from this trial. Humility?

My sweet Corey still tells me I'm beautiful and tries to make me feel special. I'm so fortunate to have him. I know he didn't marry me for my hair. I wonder if this is what his mom felt like as she was going through chemotherapy.

I went to an out-patient clinic last Saturday (since my family doctor's office was closed) to see what their thoughts were. They thought it was my thyroid. They decided to draw some blood for tests. It took three different people SEVEN tries to get blood. I'm kind of tired of being a pin cushion. The tests all came back normal. I later went to my family doctor and to a homeopathic practitioner. I believe in combining the opinions of the two because of past experiences. Where one fails, the other might have answers. I believe there's a place for medicine and I believe there's a place for homeopathy. About six years ago I was really sick. The doctors didn't know what was going on because tests didn't reveal anything and they eventually fell back on the opinion that it was all in my head and a psychological issue. It was NOT in my head! Frustrated with the doctors, and as a last resort, I went to a former MD who had turned to alternative medicine. He cured me. Since it worked last time, I figured I'd try it this time. My family doctor thinks I have traumatic alopecia (hair loss from trauma), meaning that my hair loss is a manifestation of the ordeal I went through in November. He said that if the hair loss doesn't slow down in two or three weeks to let him know. At the rate I'm losing hair, I'm going to be BALD in two to three weeks! The homeopath that I'm seeing thinks it is something else and I'm following her regimen. Hopefully it works! If not, I'm doing slightly better emotionally than I was earlier. I've kind of accepted the fact that I'm going to be bald and that I'm going to be scarf-ing it for a while. On the bright side, it won't take as long to get ready in the morning!

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2011-02-18T08:02:00.000-08:00

Touring the BYU-Idaho Center

2011-02-05T15:15:00.000-08:00

Thursday night, Corey and I were able to tour the new BYU-Idaho Center (hereafter known as the I-Center) and the newly remodeled Manwaring Center. Pretty impressive, especially the I-Center. This building is MASSIVE with 434,859 square feet. It has 10 basketball courts in it and the auditorium seats 15,000 people (6,000 fewer than the Conference Center) with seats for a 300-member choir and room for a 90-piece orchestra. The auditorium looks similar to the the one in the Conference Center.

The screens on the wall are actually bigger than the ones in the Conference Center.

The cameras used in the I-Center are actually the old ones from the Conference Center.

Before this building was built, the students would gather in different buildings for devotionals. Now, they can be gathered in one area to increase the spirit.

These windows have a really cool view of the Rexburg Temple. I wonder how many proposals will be done in front of these windows! :c)

The weird disks on the ceiling are reflectors/solar panels. They reflect light to light up the interior of the building and also absorb energy. It's one of the ways that the I-Center is trying to "go green".

The cool part about this is that a building of this magnitude is in REXBURG, IDAHO! Makes you wonder what the Lord has in store for this place. Exciting times! :c)

Tooting My Own Horn

2011-02-05T14:44:00.000-08:00

   Okay. It may seem like most of this post is bragging...and it probably is, but like I said earlier, this blog is also my journal and I want to remember good things and achievements.

   Thursday was just an all-around good day. It started with work. I am blessed to work in such a great area. I meet such great patients every day who make me smile. I like working with the people in this area and I like the people who I work with. It makes me smile when people request me to be their hygienist. It lets me know I'm doing a decent job. I had a patient on Thursday who told me that her husband came into the office earlier that week and was "bummed" that he didn't get me. Triumph #1. *smile* I also had small triumphs with two patients who are usually hard to work with. Both of them have some mental and behavioral issues. One of them, we'll call him Joe, does NOT like coming to the dentist AT ALL. He tries to hide from his mother before he comes to the dentist and usually when he comes in, you can expect him to yell and scream the whole time, even for just a cleaning. He yells that he doesn't want to do this anymore (even though we've just started) and that he wants to go home. He's around twenty years old. This particular morning when he came in, our suctions were frozen and wouldn't work since we have had sub-zero temperatures. This patient has a full set of braces on, and poor hygiene, so there is heavy plaque and food debris EVERYWHERE! I couldn't use my water sprayer or my ultrasonic because I didn't have suction, and I thought, "Oh, great! Of all the days and with all of the patients, the suction had to go down with this one. This is going to be a challenge." And it was. But it turned out all right, and by thinking out-of-the-box, I was able to get his teeth cleaned. I also noticed that when I tried to be friendly and ask him questions, he would get agitated. So, I just quit talking to him and ignored him. This seemed to work for him. He went into his own little world and didn't yell once. His mom actually had to come back and see what was going on because she couldn't hear him yelling from the waiting room, which is the norm for him. Triumph #2.

   Triumph #3: My other patient was around seven years old and is much nicer about being in the chair, but he is so antsy that he can't handle being in the chair for long. It was almost all I could do to convince him to stay in the chair long enough to finish the cleaning, but we did it. During the exam, Dr. Hammond said that he needed sealants because his old ones had come out. They came out because the last time we tried to put sealants in, the patient was so squirmy, that we couldn't keep the field we were working in dry enough to make the sealants stick. So, we needed to replace them. I thought, "Oh, boy. This is gonna be fun since he's already had enough with the cleaning." But he did great!! The sealants are in, and I think these ones are going to stick. *smile*

   Triumph #4: Thursday night, Corey and I went to the Open House of the new BYU-Idaho Center (more about this later). Before I moved to Rexburg, I had so many fears. I was leaving all of my friends in Pocatello and starting from scratch. I didn't think I would have any friends, but while touring the BYU-Idaho Center, I ran into 11 different groups of people that I knew, many of them being patients who came up to me to say hello. It made me realize, "Hey! I actually know people!" Something that was such a concern nearly three years ago is no longer such a concern. *smile*

Boots and Date Night

2011-02-05T14:10:00.000-08:00

Another week, another fun date night. I love living in a college town because there are so many opportunities to go and do things. Last week, a male a capella group, Vocal Point, came from BYU to entertain the community. We went to their concert because we love a capella stuff. It was date night and I wanted to look nice, so I had to do something about my boots...

Before: My favorite, most comfortable pair of boots. Scuffed toes.

After: Now they look "sharp"! Ha! Okay, that was actually cheesy. But hey, it worked. Stacey and Clinton would have a fit if they knew, though.

Coreyface During Intermission

Michael Jackson's "Beat It" performed by Vocal Point.

We were able to go to the concert with Brian and Carol Rheese and Chris and Christi Pigg. Following the concert, we went to Twizlberry for dessert. They have over a dozen flavors of frozen yogurt and a topping buffet. You make your yogurt concoction however you want it and then pay for it by the ounce. It's kind of a college hang-out place and it was packed when we went there. It has kind of a fun atmosphere. They even had an XBOX Kinect there with a dance game on it. The Kinect scans your body and can tell what movements you are making. In the dancing game, you try to follow the choreography of the person on the screen, and if you miss a step or don't do it right, points are deducted. It was fun watching people try to dance with this game. Some people were really good and others looked horribly awkward, but they were having too much fun to care, so we had fun and laughed with them.

Happy Birthday, Mom(s)!

2011-01-22T17:16:00.000-08:00

Today was a good day. We got to celebrate both Corey's mom and my mom's birthdays. Corey's mom's birthday is today and my mom's birthday is tomorrow. My parents came to Rexburg to spend the day with

us.

Corey's mom passed away 5 years ago after battling brain cancer. In commemoration of her birthday each year, Corey's family goes to the temple on her birthday. It's neat that we can perform service for someone else in her honor. My parents wanted to go to the temple this weekend, too, so they came with us. The temple was PACKED! So many people. It's good to see the temple packed. That means there's a lot of good work being done that day and a lot of people are cheering on the other side. :-) The session that we wanted to get into was already full and the next session 45 minutes away was filling up quickly. Since the 10:15 session was already full and we didn't want to wait until the 11:00 session, we decided to do sealings. I love to do sealings. I think of the husbands and wives that we seal together and it makes me smile that we can help give them their "happily ever after"!

After our trip to the temple, we treated Mom and Dad to dinner at Applebees.

Earlier in the day before we went to the temple, we had Christmas in January. We have taken all of our Christmas decorations down, and have even taken all of the ornaments off of the tree, but the tree is still up. Since we didn't have Christmas with my family this year, my parents brought up our gifts they didn't get to give us. It was fun to be able to put the gifts beneath the tree.

Mom also opened her birthday gifts.

I got season one of She-Ra for Christmas! Ha! Sweet! Corey says that I can watch it while he's gone on Thursday nights playing basketball. Party pooper. C'mon! If I don't mind watching He-Man, he can watch She-Ra, right? ;c) He likes blondes!

Love you, Mom and Dad! Glad we got to spend the day with you. Happy birthday, Mom!

Date Night

2011-01-21T20:10:00.000-08:00

We had the BEST date night last week! It was soooo fun! To start out, we went with two other couples who are friends of ours to a new Chinese restaurant in town called Yin Yang. Good food. A little pricey, but good food. It was fun just sitting and eating because when we get together with these two other couples; Brian and Carol, and Matt and Melissa; the conversation is so funny and one of my favorite things to do in life is laugh.

Following dinner, Corey and I went to a play at the University called "Forever Plaid". Unfortunately, the Mengs and Rheeses couldn't join us because when they tried to get their tickets to the play, it was already sold out. The show was hilarious! It was put on by the cast of the Playmill Theater in West Yellowstone, so it was really good. The play was about four guys who were trying to make their big break in singing. They were on their way to a gig when they ran into a bus of Catholic school girls and died. Then somehow, they came back for one more night to perform the gig they never got to perform. It was really good and the cast had so much fun with audience participation. At one point, one of the actors did the cliche thing of picking out a woman in the audience to harass by sitting on her lap and crooning to her. Then he did something very un-cliche. After he finished the song, he turned his cheek to her and pointed to it, wanting a kiss. When she went up to kiss his cheek, his head whipped around and he planted one on her lips and she SCREAMED! It was pretty funny and the audience reaction was awesome. The rest of the night, the actor kept winking and waving at his victim. There were three old ladies in front of us who really enjoyed the play. Half of the fun of being there was just listening to these old ladies cackle at all of the jokes.

Following the play, we went back to the Rheese's house for games. Brian and Carol are the king and queen of games. Brian got two new games for Christmas, and they always get games that are so fun that no one has ever heard of. The one we especially love, and played that night, is called BANG! It is a lot like Mafia, only it is a card game. There is a sheriff, a deputy, outlaws, and a renegade. No one is supposed to know who the other people are. You just try to figure it out as the game goes on. The sheriff and deputy win if they kill the outlaws, the outlaws win if they kill the sheriff, and the renegade wins if he kills everyone and is the last man standing. In this particular round, Corey was the sheriff and I was an outlaw. Is it weird to say that I've never had so much fun trying to kill my husband?! ;-) Probably because he was SO HARD TO KILL this time! Even after two outlaws died, we came back as ghosts and had one more chance to kill him, and we couldn't get the job done. It's a fun game. I highly recommend it.

Christmas in Texas

2011-01-20T18:50:00.000-08:00

First of all, I apologize for lots of boring words and a lack of pics. I had two SD cards with pics and video and left one of them in Texas...of course it would be the one with the most pictures on it... :c( This makes for a most boring blog entry.

This year we spent Christmas in Texas. We spent nearly two weeks there and it was wonderful! I especially appreciated it because before now, I haven't really spent a lot of time with my in-laws since they live so far away...at least not enough time to feel comfortable and be myself around them, even though they're great and there's absolutely no reason at all to be intimidated, it's just me. When I don't know someone, I'm usually quiet around them and totally awkward. Once I get to know someone, I get louder and goofier and I'm sure they're wishing I didn't know them again!

Getting to Texas was an adventure. We were supposed to fly out of the Idaho Falls airport the Wednesday before Christmas at 6:00. Corey likes to get to the airport oober early, which is probably a good thing, so we arrived at the airport at 4:00. We boarded the plane and waited...and waited... It was snowing so bad that the plane couldn't leave the airport and the snowplow (Yes, SNOWPLOW. As in singular. The Idaho Falls airport is really small.) couldn't keep up with the snow on the runway. After waiting longer, the snow died down a little and the pilot thought he could attempt to take off if the load on the plain was lightened. They asked for volunteers to de-board the plane and stay in Idaho Falls. Since the plane was so late, we would have missed our connecting flight in Salt Lake, so we decided to just get off the plane and try to get a flight out the next morning.

We were able to leave on the morning flight. Christmas was a little different for me this year since this was the first one I've spent away from my family. Luckily, my sister sent me video of the "Ugly Gift Exchange", which is a family tradition of ours. That way I didn't' feel like I had totally missed out on everything. Thanks, Sis!

This Christmas was good, though. It was fun to see little kids excited for their Christmas presents. I was also very excited about one present I received. Like I mentioned in earlier posts, I don't have a creative mind when it comes to decorating. I don't know how to piece things together and make them look nice. Corey is very thoughtful in his gift-giving, and knowing of my dilemma, contacted his cousin, Shana. Shana is an interior decorator and kindly offered to help me decorate my house and Corey gave me some spending money to complete the job. I'm sooo excited!

I hate sitting and doing nothing. I get antsy. Thankfully, Nelwyn is a kindred spirit in that regard, so we played lots and lots of games! Other members of the family joined in and it was fun. We played Monopoly Deal (Monopoly, but a card game version), Mind Trap (gotta buy that one), BANG!, and Mexican Train dominoes.

We also ate a TON of food! Enough to kill a horse, really. Instead of eating out all the time or putting the burden on one person to do all of the meals, everybody took turns taking charge of dinner for a night. I was exposed to new southern food (mmmm mmmmm good!). I've never had gulliver corn, dirty rice, jambalaya, or hot grog before. Oh, man. I need to get the recipes. Jambalaya was a pleasant surprise. I had always expected jambalaya to be spicy and fully anticipated my tongue bursting into flames when I tried it. That was not the case. It was sooo good! Hot grog is a comfort drink, like hot chocolate, that makes you feel good. It has cinnamon, cloves, and citrus taste to it. Yummmmm.

I was also excited to play racquetball with Mike and Nelwyn while we were there. Corey and I haven't played since before we were married and I LOVE RACQUETBALL! Mike and Corey are especially good at it. It had been about twenty years since Mike last played and he was tearing up the court! I'd hate to play him after he had some practice! He did give Corey a pretty good welt when he shot the ball into Corey's elbow, though. It was pretty impressive!

The weather was really nice some days while we were there. Some days were in the 50's. Nelwyn and I took Boston, Cade, and Kaitlin to the park. We taught them games like Duck, Duck, Goose!; Red Light/Green Light; and Red Rover. We also played hide-and-go-seek, made a train on the slide, and tried to see how long we could hang from the monkey bars. It's been a long time since I've played on a playground. It was so nice to get outside and play! Long Idaho winters take their toll, so it was nice to have a break.

Corey and I also found a pretty sweet deal on a picture (about 3.5 x 3 feet) of the Nativity with a GORGEOUS frame with scroll work all over it. The picture was originally $100. Heck, the frame alone was worth that, but we got it for 80% off at Hobby Lobby! Now how were we going to get it home....hmmmmm. We went by the UPS store and they said it would cost $60 to ship it home (their cheapest). WHAT!? That's $40 more than what we paid for the silly thing! So what did we do? Thankfully, I'm a light packer and my luggage was small enough to be considered carry-on and we checked the picture! Yayyyy! There was no shipping cost because we flew Delta and our checked baggage was FREE! Just had to pay for the cardboard box and packing peanuts.

I also got my first. manicure. ever! It was kinda fun. This cute little Vietnamese girl actually got my dingy, cuticle-ridden fingers to look half-way decent! I'm cheap, so I don't know if I'll ever pay for one again since my cuticles grow back within fractions of a second....that is unless I get to have fun and go with the girls again! It was fun just talking with Nelwyn, Julie, Melinda, and Mary while getting pampered. We also went out to eat together at some deli afterwards. Mmmmm!

While in Texas, Corey and I also had fun shopping with Mike, Melinda, and James; playing with glow sticks, eating good ol' southern BBQ, and just having fun.

It was hard to say goodbye to the good weather and the good company.

Sorry folks, these are the only pics that actually ended up making it back home with me.

Our nephew, Boston "trapped". It was fun drumming on it while he was in there. :c)

Fun with Mentos and Diet Coke

The Bad Stuff

2010-12-18T12:02:00.000-08:00

Since the last post was entitled "The Good Stuff", this post is entitled "The Bad Stuff" because it makes me sad. I don't remember crying at all during the past couple of crazy weeks. But now, I can't help but squirt a tear when I think of the other day. My dog, Chip died this week. He was old, really old. And he was suffering, but somehow the selfish part of me wanted to keep him around just a little longer while the other part of me couldn't stand to see him suffer any longer and was glad that he was put to sleep.

Chip has been in our family since I was in 5th grade! We've had him for seventeen and a half years. He grew up with me. I went through a lot of stages with that dog. I went from harassing him all the time (in elementary) to appreciating him for the loyal companion he was. Dang it! Can hardly see the computer screen now and I've barely started!!!

You probably think I'm silly for devoting such a post to a dog, and for getting so sentimental about it, but he was as good as family.

Good/funny memories of Chip:
1) He would climb the tree to get the tennis ball.
2) The dog would actually throw up if something scared him or caught him off-guard.
3) When us kids pestered him, he never growled or snapped. He patiently took it in stride.
4) He loved to ride the 4-wheeler, but would get car-sick!
5) He wasn't a hyperactive dog, just kind and loving.
6) He would get jealous and bark at Dad whenever Dad hugged Mom.
7) He would run laps around the yard and actually wore a path around it. Even when the snow was two feet deep, he would have worn down a trench going around the yard.
8) He would "bump" the couch. Don't worry, nothing gross, but my family knows what it is.
9) When Dad would get down on his hands and knees to play with Chip, the dog would go crazy.
10) He liked to eat Chapstick and I don't even know how many pounds of chocolate he got into. Maybe chocolate isn't so bad for dogs after all. He lived a long time!
11) He couldn't smell hardly a thing, for being a dog.
12) He would hunt all over the house when Mom hid from him until he found her.
13) He loved his family and would lay outside our bedroom doors at night and even outside the bathroom door when someone was using it.
14) Oh yeah, and he couldn't start the day without eating a piece of bread. (Thanks for reminding me, Alicia!) I wonder how many loaves of bread he's gone through in 17 1/2 years. I should do the math some time...

Gonna miss him!

The Good Stuff

2010-12-11T15:17:00.000-08:00

So, being sick wasn't all horrible. It had its interesting/funny moments.

1) I messed my pants for the first time since I was in elementary. Now, if that isn't humbling...

2) I saw what it was like to gain 20 lbs. Dr. Lofgran told me that I had instantly gained that much weight because of all the fluids that were pumped into me by the IV's. My skin felt tight everywhere because I was so swollen! Thank heavens it went away! Seeing what I would look and feel like that much heavier gives me incentive to never go there!

Before and After the Swelling Went Down:

3) I found out my nose was much bigger than I had thought. The doctor pulled TWO of those silicone things out of my nose after surgery.

4) I got to have a cool E.T. finger for a while. Mine didn't work as well at healing as E.T.'s did, though.

5) Thankfully, my insurance company offers more coverage than my hospital gown does! (I'm wearing two here.) Also, forgive the Mahana look. I haven't taken a shower or brushed my hair for a week here....

6) The hospital food wasn't all that bad, and hey, I didn't have to cook!

7) I've decided that I'm definitely glad I'm not a nurse and I appreciate them even more now for what they do. I am perfectly satisfied working from the neck-up and the only bodily fluids I have to worry about are blood and saliva.

8) My doctor told me to drink caffeine for the first week after getting out of the hospital to increase my heart rate. I HAD A DOCTOR'S ORDER TO DRINK DR. PEPPER!

And now on a more serious note...

9) My doctor was AMAZING. His two-year-old daughter was ran over by a truck and killed in the McDonald's parking lot just two weeks before I went into the hospital. He remained so professional and kind, and I owe so much to him. I still don't know quite what to say about that, or how to fully express my gratitude. He saved my life, and I'm so sorry that his daughter lost hers.

10) We received many phone calls from concerned family and friends and some even put my name in the temple. It's nice to know that people care.

11) This experience brought me even closer to people that I love. My mom was so wonderful. She stayed with me for a week and helped clean my house, and cooked meals, and even made Thanksgiving dinner, which I got out of the hospital just in time to eat! She's one good momma who loves her girls. It was fun to watch movies with her or just sit and talk with her. Love my momma! Corey was so wonderful as well. He was so kind and caring when I was sick. He attended to my every need and even cleaned up some of my nasty messes. What a guy! He was so worried about me! He has definitely seen me at my ugliest, nastiest, and smelliest....and he still manages to love me. Wow. Love this guy so much!

12) I'm so grateful to be a member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints. I'm grateful for priesthood blessings. When I felt utterly miserable, I had the assurance that everything would be okay...and it is. :c)