YEAH ME!!!!

Our First Wreath

2010-12-13T22:10:00.000-08:00

I grew up in a very crafty home. This is not to say that I am crafty, but my Mom is. She had a good eye and the ability to make things with her hands. She can sew, quilt, woodwork, etc. (the list could go on and on). She even used to sell her stuff at craft sales (you know those sales that usually take place in school gymnasiums with table after table of everything craft-like). I remember going to lots of them as a kid and being bored out of my mind (sorry Mom). When I got old enough to do my own thing I promised myself to never attend another one of those, which of course was a lie to myself. However, I go to them very rarely.

My house does not have a lot of cutie crafty things in it. My tastes run along different lines. Because of this, I really haven't developed my non-existent craft making skills. This year Tom and I decided to buy a wreath for our door (we have a very ugly door with a very cool "No Smoking" sign on it), we were hoping it would cover it up a bit. Obviously I was not going to make it from scratch or buy a brand new (expensive) one. What we ended up doing was buy a used, but pretty nice looking wreath from Goodwill and replacing the ribbon. I did the amazing feat of making my own bow our of new ribbon (thank you YouTube videos)!!! We will now have a moment of silence to commemorate this amazing fact. I think I did a pretty good job for a first attempt. Here are my before and after pictures with a close-up of the before bow (gag).

As an added bonus, here's a cool picture of Tom in his new prescription safety glasses for work. Isn't he studly?

An Uncomfortable Day

2010-12-01T21:15:00.000-08:00

So as many of you might have heard, western Washington had a nasty snow storm last week. Rain we're used to...snow added with wind and freezing temperatures knock us all for a loop. Now don't get me wrong, I'm an Idaho girl so I'm obviously used to cold snow and I lived in Rexburg for quite a while so I'm also used to frigid winds. However, what I am not used to is living in those temperatures without heat. The snow wasn't really the problem, it just added to the fun with icy roads people couldn't navigate. It was the wind that really caused the damage. I don't think our pine trees are used to being abused the way they were. Trees were fallen all over Kitsap County (unfortunately they took anything with them that was in their way....most obvious to most of us were the power lines).

We lost power around 7 pm last Monday night and didn't get it back again until Tuesday evening around 5 pm (we were the lucky ones...some people didn't get power back until Friday or Saturday). The first night wasn't too bad. However the next day (which Tom and I both got off of work due to the weather) started to get pretty chilly! Towards the end of the blackout I was starting to try to talk Tom into going to Kirkland to stay with his cousin (in her heated house). Just as he was starting to consider it, the power came back on. Pretty much the whole day I was wearing my coat (inside our house), it was a balmy 45 degrees in our living room. Our fire place wasn't much help either. I think it's pretty much for looks. We ended up moving our couch up right in front of the fireplace. That helped out quite a bit. We also have a gas stove, so we could still make warm meals and hot chocolate.

This experience showed us we might want to look into getting a generator just big enough to power our heat & refrigerator. I don't mind being without light or television/movies/etc, I actually kind of enjoyed that part. However, I'm a modern woman who isn't used to living in the freezing elements!

Cashew Chicken Recipe

2010-10-29T15:02:00.000-07:00

So I made a new recipe a couple of days ago that we really liked. I got it from this amazing recipe blog that I read. Because I liked it so much I thought I'd share it with all of you. For anybody that knows me well, you know I love Oriental food. Fortunately for me, Tom likes it too (just maybe not as much as I do). But he is more than willing to try any recipe I run across. It doesn't call for vegetables, but the next time I make it I'm going to cut the meat in half and add vegetables. I also didn't take a picture of it, so if you want to see a picture, click here.

Cashew Chicken

4 chicken breasts, cut into pieces

1 tsp sugar

4 T cornstarch, divided

1/2 tsp salt

1/4 C soy sauce

1 tsp vinegar

1 tsp Worcestershire sauce

3 T oil

2 C hot chicken broth

2 tsp lemon juice

1/2 C cashews

Rice

Combine sugar, 2 T cornstarch, salt, soy sauce, vinegar, and Worcestershire sauce. Dredge chicken pieces in this mixture. Drain and save dredge; then stir fry chicken in hot oil in frying pan or wok until chicken is lightly brown and tender. Remove chicken from oil and drain excess oil from the pan. Add remaining cornstarch and the dredge drained from the chicken. Blend well, then add chicken stock to the pan and bring to a boil, stirring constantly. Cook until thickened. Add lemon juice; add chicken pieces and reheat. Do not boil. Taste to correct seasonings. Add cashews. Serve over hot rice. Makes 4-5 servings.

Enjoy!

The Cool House in Keokuk, IA

2010-08-31T12:50:00.000-07:00

Tom's family is composed of his parents, the three boys (Byron, Tom, & Shaun), their spouses (Kari, Me, & Alicia), and Byron & Kari's kids; the 4 grandkids (James, Michael, Emelie, & Eliza). We live in 3 different states, so we don't see each other very often. We try to get together every 2 years. This year we met up at a house in Keokuk, IA (it was a short drive to get to Nauvoo, IL). It was a old style mansion type house that was absolutely huge. Plenty of room for all of us and an extra floor on top for the owner when she was there (which she wasn't the whole time we were there. This is the house.

The Front of the House

The Staircases

Our Bedroom (you can see the air conditioner in the window - very important there)

Sunroom

Living Room (otherwise know as the movie watching room or playroom)

Dining Room #2 (otherwise known as the Office - multiple laptops at all time)

Library (aka Game Room)

Kitchen/Dining Room (we actually used this one as a dining room)

Outside BBQ/Pond area

Train Trip from Chicago to Iowa

2010-08-30T13:21:00.000-07:00

After our day in Chicago we had to make our way to the AmTrak station for our train trip from Chicago to Iowa (we had arranged to get picked up at the train station and driven to our rental house where the rest of Tom's family was waiting for us). The walk from our motel to the AmTrak station took a little time, but our train didn't leave until later that afternoon so we had plenty of time. Although I have to admit we looked like a bunch of tourist walking down the street towing our suitcases with us!

After we got to the train station we had a little while to waste before our train left so we wondered around. We started with lunch of course, then we decided to locate the older section of the train station. It was pretty cool! It was a huge open room that looked like your normal train station with benches everywhere. It also had some pretty cool pillars that I made Tom pose with me in front of. Aren't we just adorable!

While we were there a train got canceled and all the people that were going to ride on that train got moved to a later train (luckily not ours). When we were lining up to get on our train the other train was doing the same thing with twice as many people as there should have been. It was kind of hilarious seeing that many people try to line up for two different trains in the little room we were in (this was obviously not the room pictured above).

The train turned out to be a lot more comfortable that I thought it would be. Tom and I actually thought of taking the train all the way from Washington but it was going to be too expensive. They have rooms with beds you can purchase for a lot of money, so we obviously didn't do that. For out trip from Chicago to Iowa we didn't need a bed because the trip was only a few hours long. We had really comfy seats that we got to spend the trip in. Unfortunately I didn't get any pictures of them, but the seats were plenty big and with plenty of leg room.

We also were allowed to move around the train as much as we wanted. They had an observation car where you could hang out and watch the scenery. They also had a dining car (although we didn't use it). Tom and I want to take the train again and use the dining car this time (but we will still probably not upgrade to the beds).

It was a nice train ride that we all enjoyed! Definitely a lot funner than by car or plane!

Chicago

2010-08-17T20:43:00.000-07:00

So, it seems that July has come and gone. I was only home for half of the month. There was way too much that happened to fit into one blog. So, I'm going to start at the beginning and work forward. For the first week of July we traveled to Illinois, Iowa, and Indiana. We were meeting Tom's family for a family reunion near Nauvoo, IL. We decided to start the trip by meeting Tom's brother Shaun & his wife Alicia in Chicago. The original plan was to have all night there with them (they were coming from SLC, UT). Unfortunately, their plane was delayed and they didn't get in until around 10:00 that night. We flew in earlier that afternoon after a very early flight from Seattle. We took a little commuter train to get to the downtown area and checked into our motel room and was able to get a little nap.

(View from our motel room)

The motel was a little bit scary. It was right next to the train, which made it easy to get to the motel but a little annoying once we were there. It was also a pretty old building that made me fear for my life anytime I got in the elevator. The bedroom was pretty good, but it had two smaller beds again (this is becoming a bit of a tradition with us in motels), plus it didn't have a great walkway to the bathroom. Definitely not somewhere I will stay again, but it worked for one night.

(Motel Room)

Later that night we wandered around downtown Chicago waiting for Shaun and Alicia to arrive. It was a nice walk, especially when it cooled down (remember we are wimpy Washingtonians now....it was hot). Once Shaun and Alicia arrived we took off for this little pizza joint called Uno's to have us some official Chicago Deep Dish Pizza. It was surprisingly delicious. My previous experience with Deep Dish Pizza hasn't been the best. I think in general they are greasy and heavy. I don't know how they make theirs differently, but it wasn't greasy and very delicious! We also chose to get a couple of appetizers (did I mention that we didn't eat until around 11:00 at night) we were quite hungry. We were surprised how big the appetizers ended up being. We got "Onion Crisps" and a "Vegetable Tray". Everything was delicious. Luckily we walked all the way there so we had to walk all the way back to the motel, so we had to wear off some of the food before we went to sleep.

Downtown Chicago was interesting, but that's about it. I enjoyed our experience there, but I don't think we'll go back. Definitely my favorite part was dinner that night.

(Cool Art Eye)

(Downtown Chicago Library - we loved the metal on the top)

Wild Waves

2010-06-29T12:55:00.000-07:00

For the past month I've spent a lot of it on the go. I've had two funerals and a wedding that I had to travel out of the state for. It's been happy, heartbreaking, and exhausting. It's also been pretty stressful. A few weeks ago, my cousin Jana invited us to join her and her husband Josh at Wild Waves this weekend. Her employer was having a special weekend at Wild Waves that offered us the opportunity to buy tickets for half off. Tom and I considered not going due to financial situations, but I'm so glad that we decided to just go ahead and go. I really needed a fun laid back day to just relax and have fun!

I've never been to Wild Waves before. I had just assumed it was a water park. For those of you that are like me and have not been there personally, there is a small amusement park along with the water features. When we first got there it was a nice day, but typical to Washington a little overcast. I was a bit worried because I'm not a huge fan of being cold. Because I was born and raised in Idaho I'm not a complete stranger to cold temperature and have learned how to deal with it, but not in my swimsuit! Brrrrrrr!

Luckily as it go closer to noon, the clouds went away and the sun came out to play. We played on the roller-coasters in the morning and after it got warmer changed into our swimsuits. My cousin (and Jana's brother) Tony and his wife Tiffany joined us later in the afternoon. This early in the summer the parks hours end earlier (probably due to Washington weather). Starting in July the hours extend. The park closed at 6 pm. It wasn't terribly hot outside, but it was comfortably warm. The only negative part of the whole day was walking around the park barefoot in my swimsuit. My feet are very sensitive. I am so rarely barefoot that when I have to walk around without my shoes it's not fun! My feet still hurt the next day.

Everybody got a little sunburned. Luckily I don't burn easily, but when I do it heals quickly. I got a little sunburn, but it was pretty much gone the next morning. Now I get to deal with the excitement of a peeling nose and chin and an itchy scalp! But even dealing with those, it was an amazing day, and a day I seriously needed!

Weekend in Boise for Grandpa's Funeral

2010-06-23T15:41:00.000-07:00

Graveside Ceremony

Austin making Addi laugh

Addison smiling

Pallbearers at the Gravyard

Grandpa Higginson

Blake, Ashley, and Addison

My family at the graveyard

Military Presentation

Top of Grandpa's Casket

Good-Bye Grandpa

2010-06-17T21:29:00.000-07:00

Last Friday one of the best men I've ever known passed away. My Grandma and Grandpa raised 5 children (my Dad is number 3). My Grandma Higginson passed away around 8 years ago. Together they raised my Dad's youngest brother Brent (who had Down Syndrome). My Uncle Brent passed away around 3 years ago. Since then my Grandpa's health had been slowly decreasing. My Grandpa has been missing my Grandma since she died. It's been heartbreaking to watch. I think he held on so long because my Uncle Brent needed him so badly.

I've had a huge conflict of feelings over the loss of my Grandpa. I love and miss him terribly, but I'm so happy that he can finally be with my Grandma again. This whole thing has also made me realize how much I miss my Grandma. They were the most loving and accepting people I've ever met. They have shown me through example the kind of person I want to eventually become. Although financial success was not always the easiest for them to achieve, they were happier together than a lot of other more successful people. It has made me realize that to be successful in the this life has little to do with our monetary level and everything to do with how we love and treat not only our friends and family but everyone we come in contact with.

Thanks for the amazing example you were to all of us Grandpa! You will always be loved and missed!

Weekend of Delicious Food

2010-06-07T14:42:00.000-07:00

We had an amazing weekend filled with delicious food! There are some foods that I absolutely love, but don't eat very much due either to price or calorie restrictions. I got two of those meals this weekend.

The weekend started on Friday. A few weeks ago, we got an email from Tom's Aunt Janet. She is a lawyer in Las Vegas and was going to be in Seattle for a couple of day for a training she had to attend. She made us the offer that if we could get ourselves to Seattle, she would take us to dinner. Add that amazing proposition to the possibility of Tom getting to ride a ferry and there was no way we were going to turn that one down. So, after Tom got off work Friday we took the ferry over to Seattle. We spent a couple of hours wandering around downtown Seattle and visiting a few novelty shops (of course Ye Old Curiosity Shop was one of them). At 7:30 we met Tom's Uncle Ken & Aunt Martha (who live in Tacoma) at Ivar's for dinner. For those of you who aren't familiar with Ivar's, this is an amazing Seafood Restaurant that is famous for it's Seafood and Clam Chowder. I had the most amazing Salmon dinner of my life. I'm still thinking about it. I had grilled King Salmon with Asparagus. It was absolutely mouth watering. I also got to taste Janet's "Acres of Clams". It was also delicious! Good company and good food makes for an amazing dinner. Thanks for the dinner Janet!

Saturday we spent the morning making a trip to the dump to finally get rid of the wreck of a gun cabinet the previous owners left here as well as a bunch of other miscellaneous junk. It was quite the experience. Turns out a lot of other people had the same idea. Long lines at the the dump are not my idea of fun. That night we went to our ward temple night. Afterwards we joined 5 other members from our ward to go to an Indian restaurant. Tom always jokes that we had to go all the way to Japan to figure out how much we like Indian food. The food was absolutely delicious! I had Coconut Chicken Curry, Rice, and Cheese Nan Bread. Nan Bread is a kind of flat bread! It's delicious. I might me biased, but I think my dish was better than anybody else. Absolutely delicious!

Memorial Day Celebrations

2010-06-04T11:45:00.000-07:00

This year for Memorial Day my cousin Jana invited us to join her and her husband Josh on a trip to the beach with their two dogs. Jana has had Lexi for quite a while, but they recently got a puppy that we hadn't met before. He's really cute, they named him Delorian (sp?) ....they use a shortened version that I can't remember when they are talking to him. Jake wasn't quite sure about him when they first met, but the puppy loved Jake. I think he found him less intimidating than Lexi (due to their size difference).

Now, beaches in Washington are not the same experience as beaches in California or Hawaii. For me, it never gets warm enough (even at the warmest time of the year) for me to want to get in a swimsuit and in the ocean here. We knew that going into this, so we made sure we were dressed accordingly.

Jake had an absolute blast at the beach. He got to chase after Lexi, birds, and the waves. Of course because he is Jake, he does not like the water. He accidentally found himself in the middles of a puddle a couple of times because he was so focused on following Lexi that he wasn't watching where he was going. It was quite funny to watch him look down and realize his was in water and jump out as fast as possible. Towards the end of our time at the beach Jake started warming up towards the little puppy. They started wrestling around in the sand. The cutest thing was watching him reach up and biting Jake's ears. Jake's usually the one doing the annoying, it was funny seeing him on the other side.

While we were up there, we had pizza at a local pizza store. It was really tasty, although Tom was not a fan of the sun-dried tomatoes. He piled those in a little pile on his plate. We also went to a little souvenir shop that had a cool brush system for everyone to get the sand off their shoes before they entered the store. The purpose of the visit was to buy some salt water taffy they had there. They had about 20 different flavors to chose from. They were pretty tasty! We still have a bag of it in our kitchen.

It was a great day and when I got back home Jake and I crashed on the bed for a nap! Perfect end to a perfect day!

My First Potluck That Went Splat!

2010-06-02T11:59:00.000-07:00

So, it turns out people love hotdogs. My calling in church is the activity chairperson. In our ward we have monthly potlucks most months. The trick is coming up with new ideas each month. I decided to try something a little different this month. It's June and the start of summer (yes it's Washington and still raining). So, this month I thought we'd do a hotdog potluck. I figured I would supply the hotdogs and have everyone else bring the hotdog buns, condiments, side dishes, and desserts. I calculated the number of hotdogs we would need by the number of people we usually have at our potlucks. We have a pretty good showing every month, but nothing like this month.

I went to Costco and bought 126 hotdogs. That should have been enough in my mind. I did not factor in the obvious fact that I guess people come out of the woodwork for hotdogs. Who would have known. Also, people wanted many more than one hotdog. That created a bit of a trial for the hotdog supply. Tom was the best husband ever and helped me not only get ready for the potluck (thanks also to the Loynd family for their last minute help with setup!), but also with the hectic preparation of making more hotdogs than I thought we would need. We were lucky to get any food, we were so busy making sure every piece of food available was ready to eat.

It's definitely something I'll do again, because everyone seemed to really like the hotdogs. However next time I will make sure I over-plan on the number we will need.

Washington History Firsts & Facts

2010-05-29T20:01:00.000-07:00

I read these facts the other day....thought I'd pass them on!

1. Seattle is home to the first revolving restaurant. (I've been to this one!)

2. Washington is number one in the country in the production of apples, hops, pears, red respberries, and sweet cherries

3. Washington state has more glaciers than the other 47 contiguous states combined.

4. Everett is the site of the world's largest building, Boeing's final assembly plant.

5. Starbucks, the biggest coffee chain in the world, was founded in Seattle. (I almost applied for a job with them until I realized it's dumb to work for a company you would never shop at)

6. The Gov. Albert D Rosellini Bridge at Evergreen Point on Lake Washington is the longest floatin bridge in the world. (I've crossed this bridge...it floored me that it was floating)

7. The Grand Coulee Dam is the second largest electricity producer in the US.

8. The world's first soft ice cream machine was in an Olympia Dairy Queen.

9. Before it became a state, Washington was called Columbia, after the Columbia River. When it was granted statehood in 1889, the name was changed to Washington, supposedly so people wouldn't confuse it with the District of Columbia. (Ironic since we still get confused with Washington D.C. all the time....that accomplished nothing)

Self Employment

2010-05-26T10:53:00.000-07:00

Since I have lived in Washington I have been looking for a job. I've come pretty close to getting a job a couple of times, but have always lost the job to someone else because that person has a person connection to the company in some way. It can be quite frustrating when I am the more qualified applicant, but I don't have the connections. I've gotten to the point that I'm tired of applying and looking at jobs. Recently I've started looking at other options. Due to Tom's job, I don't need a job to totally support me. I just want to be able to bring in a little extra money to help us a little.

I'm thinking of a few options. I am looking into selling things on Ebay, beling a Mary Kay consultant, and possibly a Mystery Shopper. All of these would be a slow progression type of business. I would start slow and figure things out as I go. I know that trying to make money quickly will only lead to failure, but if I take it slow and steady I should be able to do it.

On Ebay, I'm going to start by selling some personal things around the house to get a feel for it. Then my plan is to buy a few things through discount or used item stores and slowly start to figure out how much people would pay for them. My plan is also to only try to get a little profit from each thing and have more items out for sale. Like I said this will go slow, but I am doing a lot of research before I start so I can be smart about my decisions.

Shortly after I moved to Washington I remember hearing a statistic that listed Utah on a list of the most vain cities in America. Before Washington I lived in Utah for almost 10 years. When I first heard this statistic, my first response was dis-belief. I figured I was a pretty typical person in Utah and I did not consider myself vain at all. I thought I just took care of myself and I liked to look my best. I still think that to a certain extent, but I've come to kind of understand how Utah arrived on that list. There is quite a difference in the amount of effort the average person in Utah puts into their looks (including hair maintenance, make-up, surgery, etc) the people I have met and interacted with here in Washington.

This is my main concern with trying to sell Mary Kay here. I love the product and use it myself, but I'm not sure how the people here will react to it. Will I be able to sell anything here? Will it be worth it? Like I said, I'm not looking to make it rich, I'm just looking for something I can do to bring in some extra money. I would not consider myself a good sales person, but I do like to share things that I love with others and I love the Mary Kay product. I like how it makes my skin feel and the superior quality of all the products.

The mystery shopper angle makes me a little nervous. I know experiences exist, but I'm unsure exactly how to go about it. From what I understand I would get hired from a company and get jobs through them. Kind of interesting, but I can't really find a lot of information about it.

One big benefit of being self employed would be making my own schedule. I could decide when I was going to work and be able to take time off when I needed to. What do you all think? For any of you Washington people, how do you think the Mary Kay thing would work? Does anybody have any other ideas?

Our Crawlspace

2010-05-25T09:19:00.000-07:00

So this winter we started being a little concerned about the drainage in our yard. We had a few holes in the yard when we moved in mostly around the edges of our yard next to the fence (however Jake did add a couple himself). As the winter progressed and we got the Washington winter rain, the holes became little puddles. The puddles stuck around all winter. Tom had a whole idea about developing dry wells throughout the yard to get rid of the standing water. Honestly, it made me a little nervous. Tom has a lot of experience with construction and engineering but the thought of digging big holes in my yard with something neither of us had any experience with and we weren't sure would work was a little nerve wracking. We decided to get someone to come in and give us an estimate for the job. The main reason I wanted this done was mostly to get a professional opinion on what the yard and house needed. I didn't want to spend a lot of money and effort on something that either wasn't needed or wouldn't work.

It turned out that we were told we didn't have to worry about installing any dry wells. He said all we needed to do was fill in the holes that we had in the yard and the water would drain naturally. He said the main thing to be concerned about was that the crawlspace under the house drained properly. Water itself under the house isn't the problem, it's having standing water under the house that creates the problem. Standing water can bring a lot of germs and infection under the house.

Tom decided this was something he could do himself, that we didn't need to pay someone else to do it. He would prefer to do all the work himself if he could. So, he bought himself this jumpsuit type thing at Lowe's to wear over his clothes and has been spending lots of time down in our crawlspace. When we first had our house looked at before we bought it, we asked the sellers to clean the garbage out of the crawlspace and lay some more plastic down. When we had the crawlspace checked later it looked better with the new plastic and we thought they had fulfilled their side of the bargain. Turns out we were wrong. They just laid new plastic over the garbage that was there. Tom has had the fun experience of cleaning out the garbage and plastic from the crawlspace.

Tom's still working hard on it. It's been dirty and crazy, but we still have a long way to go! I've attached a couple of pictures of Tom working hard & Jake trying to figure out what in the world was going on.

A Fast Weekend to Utah

2010-05-22T17:45:00.000-07:00

A little over a week ago Tom received a call that we knew was coming. His grandma passed away. Although everyone is going to miss Vena, we're glad that she doesn't have to worry about her physical limitations any more. Her husband passed away around 41 years ago and she never remarried or to anybody's knowledge dated anybody. Tom felt strongly that he wanted to be in Utah for the funeral. Tom's Mom offered to fly him home with some miles she had available. Tom however wanted me to come, so we piled into the gas guzzling Landcruiser with our dog Jake for the long 16 hour drive to Salt Lake City.

Then there was the issue of where to stay. We love having Jake in our lives (he's like our child), but whenever we go anywhere there is always the issue of finding someone to either watch him or find somewhere we can stay with him. That's never an option at Tom's parents because his Mom has a dog allergy problem. Usually my girlfriend Shelli is understanding enough to let us crash at his townhouse, but she was already booked solid by her Mom and Grandma. So, we had contacted Tom's brother Shaun and his wife Alicia to stay at their apartment. Unfortunately we found out after we were already 4 or so hours after we were already on the road (with Jake) that their landlord said no. This kind of put us in a tight spot with very little time to figure it out. Luckily a good friend of ours, Travis, stepped up and let us stay at his house. Luckily he loves dogs and was very excited to have Jakey there.

Although the reason we were there was very sad, it was fun to see everyone again. Tom's Mom flew in his older brother Byron and his oldest son James for the funeral. The three brothers were able to hang out and go to dinner together. Tom really enjoyed his time with his brothers and the rest of his family. I also got to see my girlfriends while I was there. We hung out Sunday night and then met up to go to dinner Monday (without the boys). It was so much fun to see them (as it always is). Like usual I forgot to take any pictures of us together. Maybe next time!

Early Tuesday morning we woke up and drove all the way back to Washington. Fun trip, but we were all excited to get home (especially Jake). Jake doesn't mind road trips, but thinks these 16 hour ones are stupid. Can't say I blame him, but Tom and I are both thankful that he does such a good job on these long trips. I'm so thankful that for our next trip to Utah in June we get to fly. I hope we can find someone to watch Jake before we leave! Wish me luck! (I've attached a picture I took of Tom, his two brothers and our oldest nephew all playing legos. Yes, he is an adult! They all seemed to be having a great time.)

I Can be Crafty!

2010-05-21T13:49:00.000-07:00

Last night we had an enrichment activity that was crafty. Usually, I don't go to these. I'm not a very crafty person and in general I'm not that fond of decorations like that. However, these were really cute and I decided to give it a try. I figured the worse I could do was really mess it up and not hang it in my house.

I have to admit, there were a few rocky parts. But I had a great time visiting with the women in my ward and learning a new skill. It was actually a lot of fun and I really enjoyed myself. It was one of those situations where the people in charge had already done all the painting and word-making and all we had to do was assemble it. The hardest part for me was rubbing the word onto the wood and metal. I don't remember all the terms for the things, but I had a rub the words with a little stick and then peel away the tape and the word "Family" was then printed on my board. Pretty snazzy. I took my time and made sure I did it as good as possible (Like I said earlier, I thought it was cute and I wanted to hang it up in my house...that wouldn't happen if I didn't like how it turned out). Thanks to a lot of help from everybody there, I actually finished it and it turned out pretty good.

The round things are decorative magnets we made that go with the board. I also thought I'd attach a picture of our frozen pizzas. As a fund raiser for the young women in our ward, they sold pizzas that they made to order for $10 a piece. The money was for the girls camp they are going to attend in July. I signed up for one pizza and unknown to me Tom signed up for another two. Instead of canceling one of the orders, we decided to keep them all and freeze the pizzas for future use. So far it's working amazingly. Last week we tried cooking them after they were frozen and it worked great! The pizzas are delicious, plus we got to help out the girls in our ward.

Grave Sight

2010-05-12T14:05:00.000-07:00

I've recently started reading a couple of new book blogs. One of them blogged about this book. I was already familiar with the author, but I had never read this book. She is the author the Sookie Stackhouse series. Some of you might have heard about the TV show on HBO called "True Blood". This TV show is based on the books. I tried watching them, but they were a bit graphic for me, but I've always liked the books.

This book had a more juvenile feel to it. I really enjoyed it, but I found it more predictable than her other books. One of the things I really enjoy about paranormal books, is they can really be off the wall. Sometimes the authors come up with unique story lines that I never see coming. Because I read a lot of books, I'm pretty good at knowing where the author is going before they actually get there. I had this book figured out before it actually happened, except for certain details. So the destination was figured out, but the journey was still very enjoyable. Very cute book, and a series I will continue to read.

Our Last Weekend With the Henrichsens

2010-05-07T12:28:00.000-07:00

When we originally moved to Washington 1 1/2 years ago, we were very lucky to move into a wonderful ward where we made a lot of amazing friends. One of the many wonderful things about The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints (or Mormons) is that no matter where you move, your ward has the potential of being an extended family. This was definitely one of those situations (we are just as lucky with our current ward too). One of the amazing families we met there were the Henrichsens (I will be using the alias first names they use on their blogs instead of their real names our of respect for them). We've been over to their apartment multiple times for dinner and/or game nights. We've also had them over to our house for the same reasons. Wood is a member of the Navy and recently got transferred to a teaching position in Arizona.

Although this is a very exciting thing for their family because he will be able to stay with them all the time instead of being gone for months at a time, it is very sad for us. We loved hanging out with Wood, Woodine, and their two children MaryP and Atom. We got together for dinner at their house their last week in their apartment. While we were there, they asked us if it was okay if they stayed at our house the night after they check out of their apartment. Of course we were totally okay with this, we were actually happy to have a little more time to spend with them.

They showed up that evening and we had a wonderful evening. We had dinner and had a great time playing a new board game. Jake of course was unbelievably happy to have new friends in our house (because everybody is immediately his friend no matter who the person is). He's particularly loving towards children, which can be a bit overwhelming for the poor children. Their daughter MaryP was a little skittish of Jake, but their baby Atom absolutely loved him. Jake would lick his fingers and he would just giggle and giggle. One of the sounds I love best in the world is the sounds of a baby laughing. Very contagious.

MaryP however did show us her dancing. She has fallen in love with ballet dancing. According to her parents, they showed her a video on the internet of a portion of a ballet (I forget which one). Ever since she has been acting it out in detail. She even found tissues to use as props and goes off-stage at the appropriate times. She is very entertaining. Her Dad will lift her in the air as part of a dance. It was quite the show!

The next day they left around noon to go see family of theirs near Seattle for a couple of days. Then they started the trek to Arizona. Tom and I are both hoping they want to move back after his contract with the Navy ends. We miss you guys already. We wish the best for you in Arizona!

The Joys of Blogging

2010-05-05T12:38:00.000-07:00

I recently read a blog by a friend that talked about the joys and pitfalls of blogs. I just want to put it out there right now.....I love blogs. Now, I understand for those of you with children, there is sometimes the fear of privacy issues. I have some friends that use pretend names for each child. I have others however that just use the real names. My feelings on the matter are whatever works for you! I try not to give specific information in my blogs about addresses, phone numbers, or jobs. Just for my OCD issues, even though we have no children to be afraid for.

Even with all these issues exposed, like I said before, I absolutely love blogs and what they can do. Generally with most situations, I only read blogs that belong to people I know personally. However I do have a few blogs I check regularly that belong to people I don't know, and probably will never meet. These are blogs that have to do with recipes or cooking, home remodeling, repairing old furniture, or any other topic that I find interesting. I think the blogs available out there are full of interesting information that we can learn from other people. I am the first person to admit, I am not the most creative person in the world. That's one of the reason I love blogs, I can learn and grow from other people experiences. It gives me ideas and helps me save money at the same time (one of my favorite things by the way).

However, the main reason I got into blogging was to stay in contact with the people I know and love! I am lucky to be a member of a family that are very close and tight! By close I mean emotionally, not physically. I haven't lived in the same city as my parents or any of my siblings for about 10 years. When my husband and I lived in Utah, we tried to make regular trips to see all the members of my family. That's not so easy here in Washington state. I've already missed several holidays and family events. That's just the way our life is going to be when we live so far away and can't afford a lot of plane tickets back and forth. Blogging enables me to stay in contact with with my family and my friends from all over the place. I'm able to watch my nephew and nieces grow up without being able to be there. I'm able to stay in contact with old friends and my cousins from all over the country!

I also love hearing comments from my blog posts. I can't describe the little thrill I get when I see that someone commented on my blog. I figure everyone feels the same way, so I try to reciprocate whenever I read someone else's blog that connects with me. Thanks to everyone that always makes my day! Let me know if you have a blog that I'm not aware of! Keep them coming!

Tom's First Weekend Home

2010-04-26T15:02:00.000-07:00

My husband if finally home from Japan! He had a great time, but is happy to be home again. Needless to say, Jake was very excited to see Tom (I just posted the video of the reunion on Facebook). Tom had the weekend to recuperate and get her sleep cycle back on Washington time before he had to go back to work on Monday. He came home with a plan to accomplish that!

His plan was to stay up as long as he possibly could on Friday and go to bed around 8 pm that night. That means it would be around noon Japan time. This would require him to stay awake for over 24 hours. He got a hour or so of sleep on the plane, but as most people know sleeping on a plane is not a real fitful sleep. I had also not had a real great night sleep the night before. We were both a little tired as the afternoon progressed. By 7 pm that night we were both ready to call an end to the day.

We did a lot of running around with the grocery store and other places that we needed. We also took Jake to the dog park. Like always he had an absolute blast and loved interacting with the other people and dogs there.

The next day Tom woke up around 3 am and was up for a few hours and then came back to bed to sleep for a few hours. While we had been in Japan the grass in our yard had gone crazy! It was growing up like crazy. It's kind of confusing to me what makes the grass suddenly start growing here in the spring. It gets a little warmer and it rains a little less, but not by an extreme amount. What makes the grass and flowers suddenly start sprouting like crazy?

Our backyard was a jungle. Although I really think Jake enjoyed it. Tom mowed the lawn on Saturday. It was pretty much an all day experience! He did an amazing job and it looks tons better. Through the experience of seeing our grass grown everywhere, we realized there are portions of our yard that are not grass. We're not exactly sure what it is, but we know we eventually have to replace it with actual grass or something else.

Sunday, after church we went to dinner at Aaron and Christine's house. They are friend of our from Silverdale that are sadly moving to Arizona at the end of this week. We brought a bunch of ingredients to make tacos to the their house and mixed with some ingredients they were trying to get rid of! They had some delicious Peach and Mango salsa that we ate with chips as a side dish. It was a lot of fun to see them and hang out and of course the food was amazing! After dinner they made brownies (one of my weaknesses) and relaxed around a pan of that! We're excited to see them again on Friday. They're staying at our house that night on their way out of town after they check out of their apartment. We'll miss you guys!

Tom's Coming Home

2010-04-21T18:37:00.000-07:00

The whole Japan visit is finally winding down. Tom and I left for Japan on March 1st (almost 2 months ago). I've been home for 3 1/2 weeks now. I've been alone with Jake since I got home. Tom and I have done our best to stay in contact during this time. We've used the instant messaging feature on Facebook a lot as well as speaking a few times from phone calls through the Navy Base. The difficult part of this has definitely been the time difference. There is a sixteen hour time difference between here and Japan. Japan is sixteen hours ahead of me. This means that if I wait for Tom to get home from work in Japan to talk to him it is 1 am my time. A little tricky, but we deal with it anyways.

Today is Tom's last day of work in Japan. Tomorrow morning he takes off for the airport. I am picking him up here in Seattle at 9 am Friday. We've decided to leave Jake at home when I go to pick him up. We're anticipating him going a little crazy when he sees him and thought it would be easier to handle here at home than in the car. I'm sure Tom will be exhausted when we get him, but he'll have to spend a little time bonding with the little monster.

I'm counting the hours babe! Fly safe!

"Friends"

2010-04-18T22:48:00.000-07:00

As a lot of you might know, I've got a thing for TV shows. Just like books, I prefer stories that continue for more than one show or book. In books, I like it when an author writes books in a series so that a story or character continues for more than one book. It's the same with movies, I like it when I get to see characters for more than one movie. This is one of the many reason I like TV shows. In TV shows, the story goes on for more than one story or one situation. You get to see the characters grow and change with each episode. However, at the end its sad to see it end.

One of my favorite TV shows is "Friends". Before I got married I had about half of the seasons on DVD. It was a TV show I introduced Tom to and he actually liked. It's also a show that no matter how many times I watch it, it makes me laugh and giggle. This is the main reason I own the seasons.

When we went to Japan, we brought a bunch of movies and a few seasons of Friends with us. I went through those DVDs quite quickly. When I got home, I finished watching the Friends seasons I had here and convinced Tom to let me buy the last four seasons. I now own all ten seasons! It's also been fun to watch all the gag reels and extra features.

Watching all the seasons in a short amount of time was a lot of fun. It was so interesting to watch the characters evolve and progress. One of the things I think is so endearing about this show is that all of the characters are relateable. There are certain parts of each character that reminds me of myself at times. The last season particularly was kind of an emotional watch for me. In it Chandler and Monica are dealing with the fertility issues. Their issues are very much in line with what I'm going through right now. At the end of the season they end up adopting two adorable babies. I'm hoping my story ends in such a beautiful way!

At the end of the series everyone reaches a point in their story that it's able to end happily ever after. I absolutely love that in a show!

Girls Night

2010-04-17T21:48:00.000-07:00

While I was in Japan I was trying to think of things I could do to break up the time a little bit while Tom was still in Japan. One thing that occurred to me that I thought would be fun was to get together for a girls night with some people.

So, I asked a few girls if they wanted to come. So Jenn, Marcie, Jana, and Tiffany all joined me at my house. I decided to have a special pasta that I had made previously (that I really liked) called Grilled Chicken and Pesto Farfalle. It's really good and it was a hit with everyone else too. Everyone else brought green salad with home-made dressing, rolls, drinks, and Lemon Meringue Pie. Everything was so delicious and I have to admit I ate way too much. But that's part of the fun of a get together.

It was a really great night and I think we all had a great time hanging out and visiting. Although we all love our respective spouses it was fun to have a girls night where we could talk all night about kids, puppies, and jobs. No guns or shipyard discussions all night long. We all decided unanimously that this was something we would definitely have to do again! Thanks for joining me girls! It was an absolute blast!

Lactose Intolerant?

2010-04-16T20:14:00.000-07:00

I have to start this post off by saying I've never been terribly fond of milk. Part of that I'm sure is due to our family being raised on a product called Powdered Milk. I don't think any of my siblings like milk very much. Ever since I left home I've bought milk from the store (either 2% or skim depending on who I was living with at the time).

But even with the regular milk, the only time I really ingested milk was a little bit with cereal, cooking with it, hot chocolate (which barely counts), or chocolate milk. I never drank a glass with a meal or even with cookies or brownies like some people. I'd much rather drink water any day.

All that stopped when I started herbalife a while ago. The nutrition shakes are a powder that you mix with milk. I drink 2 shakes a day and each shake is 8 oz of milk per day. I started noticing changes in how I felt. I was getting nauseated and gassy after I drank the shakes. I changed to soy milk and all the sick feelings went away.

Now, I've started up on herbalife again. I tried milk again because I haven't had any sick feelings since the original feelings. After about 4 days of shakes, once again I'm nauseated and gassy. I'm ready to change back to soy milk again. I did a little research and I have all the signs of lactose intolerance. The level of it varies from person to person I guess I only show signs when I drink a fair amount of it. I never have those feelings when I just have other small quantities of dairy in any form.

I guess I'm lucky to be able to monitor what I eat and know how to deal with it. It could definitely be worse. I'm 34 and I just learned I'm lactose interlerant.

My Affair with Food

2010-04-14T22:55:00.000-07:00

I've loved food for as long as I can remember. Luckily while I was growing up my Mom didn't have a lot of junk food or sweets around, so I ate pretty healthy. In addition to food, I've always had a bit of a sweet tooth! I would always look forward to the Sundays we would make chocolate cake or brownies! I guess that's not so unusual for a young person (however it really hasn't changed much). There really were only a handful of food that I didn't like (macaroni & cheese and split pea soup).

When I went on my mission I really learned to love oriental food and rice. They had the most delicious fruit and vegetables. They also had some of the most delicious dishes! Luckily or sadly, my native companions were unbelievably awesome cooks. This is where my love of food backfired on me. It started doing what had never been a problem in my life before. I started to gain weight. Of course I was a little older, so I'm sure my metabolism slowing down didn't help matters (or every house we visited giving me food and sprite, because we couldn't drink unboiled water). Whatever the issue, my body would never be the same.

When I got back I dieted to take off some of the extra weight. It worked pretty well. I never really got back to my college weight, but I was definitely not overweight. I was able to balance my lover for food and my weight for the next few years. Of course when I got married, the typical thing happened and I put on more weight than I had gained previously. That's when I reached my limit and was willing to try something I had never tried before. Diet Supplements. As some of you know, my in-laws sell Herbalife as a side business.

It really helped me at that period of my weight loss. It helped me manage my appetite and slowly learn the amount of food and the kind of food I should be eating. That was really the start of not only me become more healthy, but the metamorphosis of my love of food to my love of cooking. I would have never guessed I would love it so much or be pretty good at it. Since then when I look at a recipe I automatically judge 1. if it's calling for an ingredient I've never heard of before and will never use again and 2. how healthy the dish is. If the ingredients are too hard to find the recipe gets scraped. Also if the recipe is unhealthy I probably won't even add it to my list, unless it has amazing reviews than I might consider it.

I am once again in dieting mode after Thanksgiving, than Christmas, than a month eating out in Japan. I'm trying the whole Herbalife thing again, but I'm not sure how well it's working this time around. Obviously I don't have as much weight to lose, so it's not coming off quite as fast. But at the same time I'm not quite sure if the cost of the product is worth it. I have come far enough now that I could probably do it on my own. Tom's also going to try it again when he gets home.

What I've learned is food can be one of the best sensory things in the world. I love the social interaction that tends to happen naturally around food. But at the same time I've learned to be smart about it in most instances. There are delicious dishes out there that are very good for you! You just have to be willing to sometimes step out of the box and try something new.

Thanks babe for always being my guinea pig when I cook something new!

Party & Park

2010-04-11T00:26:00.000-07:00

I am very thankful for a loving family. To save me from a boring weekend by myself at home my loving cousin Jana invited me to a birthday party at her house. It was a combined birthday party for my cousin Tony's wife Tiffany and my Uncle RV. The lovely benefit of having dinner at Jana's house is I can bring Jake with me. I never enjoy leaving Jake for long periods of time if I don't have to.

So, Friday Jake and I took off for Jana's house far far away in Grapeview with our salad ingredients (that was my assignment for the dinner). It was an absolutely delicious meal. We had grilled steaks with mushrooms. I forget what they marinated the steaks in, but it was absolutely amazing! One of the best steaks I've ever had!

Like always it was a lot of fun to hang out with everyone! Jake really enjoyed himself as well! As soon as I told Jake we were going bye-bye (one of the words he know by the way) he went crazy ballistic. He had so much fun with Jana's dog. There were a couple of times though that Jake got a little energetic for her and she had to show him who the bigger dog in charge was. Serves him right!

This morning (or afternoon) when we got up I took Jake to the dog park. Like always he loved it! He had a lot of fun sniffing everything and other dogs bums! Very exciting! For most of the time, he was a perfect angel. There was a moment towards the end that I lost him for a little bit. The dog park is very big, and for a moment I couldn't locate him. A little scary, but I eventually found him and it all turned out okay.

It managed to completely wear him out! It worked out great because I had to spend the afternoon writing a lesson and putting together some handouts for the service project next weekend.

A Beautiful Day

2010-04-08T16:34:00.000-07:00

Today was the first really beautiful day that we've had since I returned from Japan. It was still a bit chilly but it was sunny and gorgeous! I had to post a couple of pictures of my dog Jake enjoying the sunlight. Jake's always loved the Sunlight and warmth that comes with a beautiful day! He's a big wuss when it comes to being cold and he will do anything for a warm day or a warm blanket!

Harry Potter (The 2nd Time Through)

2010-04-07T00:17:00.000-07:00

My romance with the Harry Potter books began soon after I got home from my mission. I was bored one day and looking for a book to read. My mom told me I should read Harry Potter. At first, I was really not into it. In my head, I figured it was a kids book. But I was that bored, so I started reading it. Long story short...I obviously loved it. That was the start of it all.

After that, I read every book as it came out. I was usually too cheap to buy them when they came out. So I'd just wait until my girlfriends read their copies and they would let me read theirs. Thank you very much Tammie & Shelli! Tom has since read them all as well.

We own all the movies as well. While we were in Japan, I had the opportunity to watch them all ......twice. I only made Tom watch them once. Watching the movies made me want to read the books again. So that's what I did when I got home. I pulled out my one and only copy (happily the first one) and started reading it.

The funny thing was as I was reading it, I realized I had remembered parts of it as they happened in the movie instead of the book. Very sad! It made me wonder how many other things in the rest of the books I've remembered wrong, by that I mean I remember them as the movies instead of the books. I have the 2nd book on hold at the library!

It's still fun the 2nd time around.

How To Train Your Dragon

2010-04-03T22:19:00.000-07:00

Tonight I had dinner with my three cousins, two of their spouses and my Aunt (can I still call her my Aunt if she's no longer married to my Uncle?). It was a delicious dinner and like always I thoroughly enjoyed myself. Thanks Tony & Tiffany for hosting the dinner.

Afterwards we drove back to Port Orchard and went to a movie. Port Orchard's movie theatre isn't the nicest or the fanciest in the area, but it works. We went to the movie "How To Train Your Dragon". I wasn't sure about going to the movie, but it ended up being really cute! It made me laugh, tear up, and get nervous. I would totally recommend it to anybody. It's also a really good kids movie for anybody interested. I know it's about a dragon, but the boys relationship with his dragon really reminded me of Jake. That probably has nothing to do with Jake being my pet.

Back to the Real World

2010-04-03T01:02:00.000-07:00

Well, I've been back in Washington for a few days now. The trip back was a lot more difficult than the trip to Japan. The flight takes pretty much the same amount of time, but it seemed to take so much more out of me than the original trip. Of course someone said to me it might have something to do with the excitement of the trip that I wasn't as tired. They could have something there.

A positive aspect of the trip back to Washington was that I gained a day instead of losing a day. My flight left Japan on Monday afternoon and after 9 hours in the air I arrived in Washington on Monday morning. That's always how travelling should work. Too bad it happened coming home instead of going on the vacation.

By the time I got home and ready to fall asleep around noon, it was about 4 am in the morning in Japan. Because I can not sleep on airplanes I was pretty exhausted by this point. I couldn't pick up Jake yet though because Josh and Jana weren't going to be home until around 6 pm. So I set my alarm to wake me up 5 hours later. Then I got up to make the drive to pick up my baby! I was pretty excited. Most people wouldn't get this. For Tom and I though, Jake's our kid. We both missed him a lot. There were 2 different occasions that Tom and I gathered around the computer and watched the videos we had taken of Jake.

When I got to Josh and Jana's house Jake was pretty excited. Of course sometimes it's hard to tell because he gets excited about any visitor. But he did seem to remember me. Jana's dog Lexi and Jake were getting along great! She acted like a normal older sister putting up with the crazy younger brother. The seemed quite fond of each other. Jake even whined for a little bit when we were driving away. I'm so glad he had such a great time. Tom and I were both really happy that he was with people that would take such good care of him! It really enabled us to enjoy ourselves knowing he was in such good hands.

He got a bath a couple of days later and shed more hair in that bath than I have ever seen before. Then I washed his blankets and bedding and more hair everywhere. It was crazy. We usually give him a bath every other week. Add the 4 weeks we were gone to the change is seasons and dog hair everywhere! I've attached some pictures of his bath time.

I miss Tom, but I'm so happy to be with Jake again! We look forward to Tom to come home and be with us again!

My Last Night In Japan

2010-03-28T04:28:00.000-07:00

Well, the sad day has come. Tonight is my last night in Japan. We were good this week and actually went to church instead of sight-seeing. I was glad we do for a couple of reasons. I got to say good-bye to my friends Shari & Kate. I also got to see a few of our ward members. Brother Carter, one of our bishopric members was here for a short time, was there along with Brother Wilson & Brother & Sister Martin and their kids. Brother Wilson & Brother & Sister Martin still have a while to hang out in Japan. Everyone is here basically for the same reason. It was a lot of fun to see some more familiar faces! It's kind of funny that I could be in a strange branch in Japan and have so many familiar people from 2 different wards in Washington.

Another reason I was more than happy was it was freezing! It wasn't raining (for which I was grateful), but it was still cold and windy. When you are wearing a skirt, not so much fun! Especially when we walk everywhere and I did not bring my winter coat! Brrrrr!

Last night we had quite the entertaining evening in our motel room. We were just hanging out watching a movie and all of a suddan our stinky smoker neighbors started yelling at each other. It was quite exciting, if not a bit white trashy. Tom was at the door looking through the spy hole trying to see if anything was going on in the hallway. Tom eventually called the front desk and they said we were the 2nd people to call and they had already sent someone up. This whole episode lasted for about 5 minutes or so. Very entertaining, if nothing less! The joys of motel living!

Now, most of my bags are packed and I will head to the naval base tomorrow morning to hopefully catch the bus to the airport. If that doesn't work out we have a back-up plan, but there shouldn't be a problem with the bus! It all depends on how many people sign up vs. how many seats are available. But good for me, I am priority 2 our of 6 so I have a pretty good chance even if they are booked full!

Tom won't be home for about 3 1/2 weeks. Sad for me!!! But I'll still have Jakey to keep me company until then and lots to do to catch-up on at home. I also have some vacation weight to loose. I guess my vacation is over!

Some Things I like about Japan

2010-03-24T18:42:00.000-07:00

I've been in Japan almost a month now. I've had a lot of time to do my share of people watching and wander around the towns. I have to admit, there is a lot about Japan that I wish the United States was more like. First and foremost is their amazing respect they show one another and anybody them come in contact with. Usually, one of my biggest pet peeves is when people are disrespectful towards one another due to thoughtlessness or just general selfishness.

One story I was told was about an American that was living here. He either owned or rented a bike and every night he would lock it up in front of his house. When he came back to his bike the next time the lock would be cut from his bike, but the bike would still be there unharmed. This happened to him several times in a row until finally someone informed him what was actually happening. The local police officers were cutting it off his bike. They said that a locked bike to the locals shows a lack of respect and that you think one of them will steal your bike. In reality nobody would show disrespect to you and steal from you. My friend said that crime the majority of crime in this area is caused by the navy men and women. Isn't that sad. it makes me feel kind of sad that we're responsible for making a country worse.

I've also noticed that city streets are clean and well kept. It hit me when I was on base doing my laundry. There was garbage and laundry sheets everywhere. It made me realize what a lack of garbage there was out in the normal streets. I absolutely love that. It's so annoying to me that people can be so lazy to not pick up after themselves.

As much as I love it here as well as the wonderful people of Japan, I'm excited to return home. Living out of a suitcase and motel room has gotten a bit old. However, I will miss Tom until he returns.

Enoshima Island

2010-03-22T18:55:00.000-07:00

On Saturday we decided we wanted to go back to Kamakura to see some of the things we missed the first time. Keep in mind there is probably enough to see in the little town of Kamakura to keep a tourist busy for a week straight. It's an absolutely beautiful and amazing town. Our original plans were to take the JR train to Kamakura and then catch another train line (Enoden) to take us in another direction to some other sights. We decided to start at the further away sight we wanted to see and work our way back into Kamakura, this was Enoshima Island. It turned out to take us a lot longer to investigate this sight then we anticipated, but it was beautiful and a lot of fun! It's a little island right off the coastline. There is a bridge that connects the two.

When we got off the train everyone started walking down a little street with markets and food stands on each side. We figured that was probably the way to head! So, we joined the throng. We stopped at a little shop along the way that had adorable jewelery and a bunch of wind chimes that Tom and I both loved (Tom liked the wind chimes, not the jewelry). The majority of Japan operates pretty much on cash system. The only people that I've run across so far that accept credit cards are in the malls. It might be a bit different though in Tokyo. We didn't have enough cash on us to buy the items we wanted in the store. We're going back this weekend for that!

Part of the attraction for me going to the island is the ocean. I love the ocean! I think the ocean is one of the most beautiful things on the earth. It was a windy day, so the waves were incredible. On the island there were street vendors and small stores lining the streets. I finally got to try the sweet potato ice-cream. I have to admit, it was a lot better than I thought it would be but I still liked the mango-apple ice-cream better. Tom preferred the sweet potato version. There were pathways and attractions all over the island. There was also an escalator you could pay additional yen to use if you were too lazy for the stairs everywhere. We toughed it out and walked everywhere.

There were a few places you could pay and enter a special section. We didn't pay to enter any of these areas. There was a lighthouse and a garden that I might look into entering when we go back to the little shop. There were a couple of little shrines to look at around the island. There were also many beautiful walkways. There are several sights around the island where there were beautiful view of the ocean. We really enjoyed our little tour of the island and the train ride that took us there!

Sushi

2010-03-21T22:54:00.000-07:00

I was not an adventurous eater as a child, but at least I wasn't picky. Unfortunately some of the things that are my favorite now, I didn't like when I was a child. I'm sure my parents would have liked it if I had. It will probably shock the people that know me now to know, I didn't really like fish, pasta, or oriental food when I was a child. I would eat them when my Mom made them, but didn't really enjoy most of them. Now days, I've done a complete 180. These are some of my favorite things to eat, especially anything with rice or an oriental flavor to it. This was one of the things I was most looking forward to in coming to Japan.

However, one of the things that I've never really been able to get the courage to try was sushi. Many years ago I was introduced to it for the first time by a good friend of mine. It was one of his favorite things to eat and he wanted to share that with me. I have to admit, I didn't really appreciate it to the level it deserved. About all I remember is being surprised that it didn't taste like any fish I had eaten before. By this time, I had developed a taste and really liked fish. I think the main problem was getting past the point of eating raw meat. My entire life I was told that was a bad thing. Even though logically, I knew this was different and completely harmless, emotionally I couldn't quite get into it.

Since then, I have really developed a liking for simplified sushi, for example things like California rolls. Barely counts, I know. When we were planning on coming to Japna, I told Tom that we had to try sushi here. Another thing that always concerned me back home was if the place we ate the sushi at actually knew how to prepare and take care of raw fish so it stayed at healthy as it started. I knew if there was one place I could count on that happening it was here. Another thing I always wanted was someone to come with Tom and me and tell us what to order. Neither of us would have the slightest idea what to order. 2 1/2 weeks into our Japan experience I was beginning to wonder if it would happen. There's no way Tom would go after I went hom since I was the one that really wanted to try it. Luckily for me, I have a couple of friends here that I had lunch with about a weeks ago. Shari offered to take me to a 100 yen sushi place she knew about. There are a lot of sushi "go-around" places here. Basically the sushi makers make up plates of various sushi dishes. These go around a conveyor belt and everybody takes off of the moving belt the plates that they want to eat. At the end of your time there, they just charge you for the number of plates you've eaten. Most of these places charge around 300-500 yen a plate. Every dollar is worth 90 yen. I usually round $1 for every 100 yen. Because the place we went to was on 100 yen per plate, that enabled us to try multiple dishes we would have never tried. It was absolutely delicious and I loved every minute.The next day I took Tom back to experience it. He admitted afterwards that he wasn't all that excited about it. He went because I was so excited about it. But afterwards he was really glad we had gone. He also really enjoyed it. The only thing we had that we regretted was squid. Can I say yuck! I bit into it and it squished and spewed. It was very salty. I've been told the little ones taste much different than the big ones and I should try the big ones. I don't think that will ever happen. Everything else we tried though was absolutely delicious! I definitely want to go back again in the next week to have more...just not the squid. I also loved some of the dessert they had. There were some tasty sweet potatoes fried in a sugary substance that I could have eaten all night. And some sticky rice that was wrapped in a sugary won-ton type wrapper. Sooooo good! Plus sushi has to be about the most beautiful food that exists!

We've since hear that there is a tasty sushi place in Port Orchard. Definitely going to be trying that! I think I've become an addict! If you're interested in Tom's spin to this subject, check out his blog by clicking here.

The Trials and Benefits of Motel living

2010-03-17T22:34:00.001-07:00

For the past 2 1/2 weeks we have been living out of our suitcase in a motel room. I'll be doing this for another 1 1/2 weeks and Tom will be doing it for another 4 1/2 weeks. One of the benefits for Tom's stay here is he gets free breakfast every morning and his laundry done 2 times a week. Luckily we have a refrigerator, a microwave, and a hot water kettle. Enough for me to make me breakfast in the morning and have snacks available for throughout the day. Although it's never fun living out of a suitcase, it's not terrible either.

The biggest benefit for me of living out of a motel room versus at home is the maid service. As long as I leave the room once a day before 3 pm in the afternoon, they will come in and clean the room. Since I'm not a big fan of house work, but I love a clean house this fits me just fine!

The biggest pain for me of living in this particular motel is the uneven heating of the water. For a while I thought I had it figured out, but not so much any more. Taking a shower in water that constantly changes temperature is the not the funnest experience in the world. The water will be comfortable and then a second later be scalding hot. I guess it could be worse, I could be unable to get any hot water like on my mission.

Overall, we've been pretty blessed with our room. It's in a nice hotel in a nice section of town. It's within walking distance to the main shopping section, several train stations, and the navy base. The only thing I question is why there is a floor that the elevator won't stop at (I think it's floor 18). That just makes me more curious and I need to know what is there.

Zen Temples in Kamakura

2010-03-15T19:55:00.000-07:00

On Sunday we were hanging around in our motel room just hanging out until it was time to get ready for church. Tom opened the drapes and it was an absolutely beautiful day outside. The sun was shining, the wind was not blowing, it was the most beautiful day that had happened since we had arrived in Japan. Since weather here is kind of like in Washington, we're never sure exactly what we're going to get, we decided to rebel. We decided to use the day to go sight-seeing. Not far from us is a cool town called Kamakura. Kamakura is a town with a lot of cool things to see. There are a lot of temples, shrines, and statues.

We discovered the train line that would take us directly there (we had never used this particularly train station before....didn't even know it was there). We also discovered a water side park along the way we also had never noticed even though it was pretty close to our motel. It was actually a beautiful walk just to get to the train station. For this trip we actually thought enough in advance to bring a sandwich and a granola bar with us to eat as lunch so we wouldn't have to buy anything. So, we went on our short train ride. Tom had gotten a walking tour of a lot of the sights online. Right after we got off the train there was a map of the city (which we have actually gotten pretty good at deciphering). So, we were able to verify exactly where we were heading.

We went to two different Zen Temples and walked through a space with a shrine. We didn't actually see much of the shrine, but we still enjoyed the walk through the garden that it sits in. For some reason there were tons of people there. It was like it was a city fair that we didn't know about. While we were walking through the park area, I was even able to see a tree that had bloomed into cherry blossoms. All the other trees in the area were naked, but for some reason this one had bloomed. There was also a path down the middle of the main street that is tree lined. It will be absolutely beautiful when the trees bloom there also.

The Zen temples were really cool! Tom and I both loved them! The only Japanese temple I've ever been to was in Hawaii (does that count). This was much different. These temples have been around for a very long time. Both of the temples were still active temples too, so certain parts of the temple are inaccessible because they are being used. Both sites had multiple buildings and displays in them. The first one even had a hike of steps to climb in order to see a "National Treasure", which was an old bell. It about killed me. Yet somehow some of the older Japanese men and women seemed to have no problem at all. Yes, I am that much of a wimp. It was also funny because at the 2nd Zen Temple there was also an old bell there that was a national treasure but without the hike. There was also a cool lake with some animals. For a while I was sure the animals were made of stone, but then they would suddenly move. Very good at acting like statues.

After the temples and shrines we walked through what I'm assuming was down-town Kamakura. There were a lot of cute shops and an ice-cream shop that had sweet potato ice-cream. The thought of sweet potato ice-cream was not that exciting for me though. Although I think I want to try it before we leave. We'll see what it is like, I'll let you know. By the time the day was over my feet were so tired. It's three days later and my legs and feet have finally stopped hurting.

Yokohama China Town

2010-03-14T23:12:00.000-07:00

On Saturday, Tom and I decided we needed to go on a road trip. We'd been here a couple of weeks and had really only seen the local area. I wanted to see some historical sites instead of just shopping areas. There is only so much window shopping I can do, I've never been much of a shopper. Unless I have money burning a whole in my pocket, which hardly ever happens except on my birthday.

We had this whole plan of where to go. Unfortunately, when we got up it was beautiful outside except for the crazy wind. The trip Tom had planned included a fair amount of walking and a boat ride. Not something you want to do on a windy day. So, we tried to think about another option of somewhere we could still go, but somewhere it wouldn't ruin the trip with wind. So, we took the train to Yokohama. Of course we had to stop at the big electric store (that they call a camera store). It says it's a camera store, but it has everything from computers to watches. Of course we stopped at the camera floor and let him salivate over the expensive camera equipment.

Afterwards we took another short train ride to China Town in another area of Yokohama. Tom and I thought it interesting that no matter where you go in the world, there's always a China town. We walked all around China town and had lunch in a little restaurant there. The food was really good, Tom thought the egg drop soup there was the best he had ever had before. I have to agree with him. There were cool stalls all over the place that I had a lot of fun walking around and looking at. We also wandered across a Temple in the middle of China Town. It was really cool! They had incense burning and the ceiling was very ornate.

Afterwards we wandered over to a park alongside the harbor. It was beautiful. There were a lot of people there enjoying the weather. There were also a lot of people with the pet dogs. We walked through the park and enjoyed the beautiful scenery and people watching. There were also birds flying everywhere. It was very entertaining and gorgeous. We also stumbled across a street performer in the middle of the park. He was absolutely amazing. He seemed to be very amusing too. Although, we wouldn't know because we couldn't understand him. But he had tons of personality and was very amusing to watch. We watched his entire hour performance, which included juggling things that were on fire.

It was an amazing day! Lots of fun had by all!

Household Days

2010-03-09T17:57:00.000-08:00

Even on vacation there are days when you either don't venture out a lot or you really only venture out to do maintenance jobs. Monday and Tuesday were definitely those days (especially during the day time). The motel we are staying at does Tom's laundry twice a week at no additional charge. Some kind of benefit they have lined up with the Navy. Not so lucky for me though. We either had to pay to have it done through the motel (I didn't even want to ask what that would cost) or do it ourselves off site (because of cours they don't have a laundry mat at the hotel). Luckily, I have a friend on base that let me come use her washer and dryer. So I spent most of Monday, while Tom was at work, getting ready for it, waiting for the time that was available for Shari, and then doing the fun activity called laundry. Her family is a lot of fun though, so I have to admit I thoroughly enjoyed myself at her house listening to her kids and husband do normal family after-school activities. I was also able to watch NCIS online. For those of you that don't know (this was me about a week ago) any online viewing of TV shows and movies are impossible outside the United States. Something to do with licensing and such. The base is different though. Because of the special circumstances of Navy life, they are the exception to this rule for obvious reasons. It's a good think Tom and I brought our own movies with us!

That night (after the laundry was done) Tom and I wandered around Yokosuka and decided to try this little Chinese Restaurant. We decided to split a meal & an appetizer. It was one of those restaurants where you sit at the bar and can watch all the cooks behind the bar preparing everyone's meals. Here in Japan chopsticks are a must. It's a good think I knew the basics of using them from when I was little (thanks Dad) or I'd be lost. I've gotten a little better since we've been here. Tom has always liked using them, so he's a little better than me. There are also a fair amount of american restaurants around. I'd like to formally apologize to the poor people of Japan for introducing MacDonalds, Burger King, and many other fast food restaurants to their diets. This can not be a good thing. We ran across a KFC. Most of you know I previously worked with KFC, so I have an emotional attachment to this company. I had to take my picture next to the life size Colonel Sanders!

Yesterday the weather was horrible. This is not weather that would have phased me back home, because I can go anywhere I want to go in a car and run into any building I'm going to. It's a little different when you walk everywhere. I have to admit I hibernated in my motel room for most of the day. I would look outside and see little people scurrying around with their umbrellas whipping every which way and rain coming down like crazy. Call me nuts, but I didn't want to go out in that...brrrrr. So instead I stayed in an watched the entire show of V, that I have on DVD. This is the original 1984 show, not the current ABC version. It's old and little corny but I still love it!

Tom had to stay a little late at work, so when he finally got home we got all our warm clothes and rain coats on (we're to tough for umbrellas) and ventured into the cold weather. Tom had asked around a found out that at the Yokohama train station there is tons of stores and restaurants within the station and we wouldn't have to even leave. The question was how to get there. The train and bus lines here are a constant way of life. There are cars, but most people only use them on the weekends. The rest of the week they walk, ride bicycles, buses and trains to commute to and from their various destinations. Very cool! The problem we ran into was reading the train schedule. Try figuring out how to use a system you are not familiar with in a language you don't know. Luckily they did have the different cities listed in English so after much studying and consulting one with another we figured it out. The trains were an experience. The trip up to Yokohama wasn't too bad, but the trip back was like sardines in a tin can. Hilarious! It was actually fun, just because it was so different! The Yokohama train station was huge! We wandered around it for a while and had a delicious meal. It was our first real Japanese restaurant, with a menu in Japanese, and waiters that pretty much didn't speak any english. A lot of pointing and gesturing but we eventually figured out how to communicate well enough for them to know what we wanted. Overall an educational trip that was a lot of fun!

Curry & Church

2010-03-07T14:18:00.000-08:00

I know, It's not the two words you would expect together in a post. But I have a lot to catch up on! Saturday's weather was less than desirable. I don't know if I've mentioned it before, but the weather actually reminds me a lot of Washington. Although I have been told last week it was beautiful. Lucky us we missed it...typical (I've also heard the weather back home is gorgeous right now). One thing I did notice was how many umbrellas there are around here. In Washington hardly anybody uses an umbrella. There's kind of a unwritten joke there that if you see someone with an umbrella they are obviously visiting. However, back home I pretty much go from house to car to store to car to house. Not a lot of time to really worry about the weather. People spend a lot more time walking around here though.What we decided to do instead of spending a lot of time outside was investigate the big mall across the street from our hotel. We invited Tom's friend Jordan along for the ride. Unfortunately, i's pretty much a typical mall. I was hoping for some more local flavor. But it was still fun to wander around. Tom and Jordan really seemed to like the music store (they had some cool guitars) and the toy section of a couple of stores. Boys and their toys! There were a couple of stores I wanted to investigate more, but I figured I could go back at a later date without them.

That same day at our motel, there was a cool performance going on. The women were in full Japanese outfit and were playing some cool instruments. Not only were we fascinated, but there was a whole group of local folks surrounding them enjoying the performance. Very cool!

That night we went on a double date with my friend Shari and her husband Karl. There was an Indian place that was a little drive away that is a favorite of Shari's. It was absolutely amazing! It was by far the most we had spent on a meal so far, but we thoroughly enjoyed it. The customer service was also amazing there. There is a young man that works there that always remembers what Shari wants. Tom and I had been to an Indian place a couple of days ago with Jordan here in town, but it wasn't near as good. I'm glad we had the opportunity to try this place. It's one of those places we would have never experienced on our own.

Sunday we went to church with the Navy branch. It is held off base in the random building. Sacrament is on the 3rd floor and the classes are on the 6th floor. There are three different families from our Silverdale ward that are now here and in this branch. I think it is so funny that one ward in Washington has such a large number of members in a little branch half way around the world. They've started calling it one of the Silverdale 6th ward Annexes back home. It was a lot of fun to see everybody. I was also able to hook up with my friend Kate. We're getting together later this week to hang out. Kate and I were both in the Young Women in Silverdale. I thoroughly enjoyed church. Everybody was very friends and welcoming!

As you can probably tell, Tom and I are having a great time. We've even talked about maybe moving here for a few years in the future. We should probably wait until Tom's fully certified before we do that though. I guess we'll see what life offers us.

Grilling my own dinner

2010-03-05T15:14:00.001-08:00

Last night was a total blast! As a little back story, I have a couple of friends from my old Silverdale ward that now live in Japan (their husbands are Navy and Military). One of them, Shari, spent last night showing us around the Naval Base as well as parts of town. She also introduced us to this cute little restaurant that I'm sure Tom and I will return to.

I can sign up to get my own pass to be on the base, but it's a little slow coming. It has to be signed by Tom's superiors here in Japan. You can imagine that takes a little bit of time to round up. It also takes about 3 days to process the request. So we have the request turned in to get signed, but it has yet to even get turned in. So, at this rate I should get the pass about the same time I get to fly home. Until then though, I can get a day pass as long as I have someone to act as my sponsor. Both Tom and Shari can do this. Of course both of us have to go to the office to get the pass. Fun times. Anyway, we did this yesterday so Shari could show us around.

It was a lot of fun to kind of see the other side of where I'm living. One of the first things I realized, was how wiggy it is to drive on the other side of the street. I kept trying to get into the wrong side of the car, much to Shari's amusement. She's been driving this way for a while, so it's 2nd nature to her but every time she would turn a corner my instant response was to think we were driving into traffic. On base the driving was backwards but pretty normal. Get into town though and you might have to fear for your life. All the cars kind of wedge themselves into little spaces and crevices of waiting cars. If there is a little gap, it will be filled by a waiting car. Too funny!

Shari's husband had to work last night. So after we picked up her kids we headed to one of their favorite restaurants (the kids love it). The restaurant is called "Pepper Lunch". I asked Shari about the name. A lot of the recipes call for pepper, but the lunch part is a mystery. She said usually there are some girls there that speak english. Not so last night. There wer two Japanese men there that we were having problems communicating with. They actually forgot Tom's meal and had to figure it out. So, you walk in the door and have to go up to a machine (similar to a vending machine), insert your coins, and press the button for the meal you want. You then sit down at the bar, give the little slip of paper the vending machine gave you to the chefs and they cook and bring you your meal. The meal is served to you on a hot skillet. The meat is still semi-raw and you mix and cook the meal yourself on the hot skillet until it is the way you want it. There are also sauces you can add to the mixture to your taste. Pretty fun and really good!

We then went to this mall area. There was a grocery store in the basement, similar to Central Market in Washington. They had all sorts of fun displays and seafood. We got some tasty gelato for dessert there and spent about half an hour just wandering around looking at the Japanese form of the grocery store we are used to. There were some really cool food there. If we lived here, I would have great fun in that store!

I'm starting to kind of know my way around. It's kind of nice not to be completely lost! I can't wait for the next adventure. We're also going to be joining Shari and her family for church tomorrow! We were planning on going to the temple with her yesterday, but that didn't work out. However, she did tell us how and when to go to the temple for the english session. So we'll be doing that at some point before I leave!

Keep tuned!

Our First Night

2010-03-03T22:24:00.000-08:00

We're on our third whole day in Japan. So far it's been a really cool experience. I feel like I've spent a lot of my time sleeping. Probably because I do it in stints. I can't seem to sleep past 4 or 5 am. I think my body is still trying to figure out the time difference. So, I wake up (along with Tom) early in the Morning and then I'm tired again a few hours later. Fun times!

On our first night we went to dinner with a friend of ours that is also out here for temporary duty. He's been here a couple of weeks already and will go home next week. He's been here before, so he showed us around a little bit and showed us a cool Thai place to eat. It was absolutely delicious! We all ate different things, but tried all the dishes. Every time I tried a different dish, I thought it was so good! We'll definitely return to try that place again. They also gave us the most unusual dessert afterwards. It was a strange combination of sweet custard-like stuff combined with a gelly-like substance. We thought it was probably partially for soothing the heat from the food. It was really good, just unusual.

Yesterday, I spent a couple of hours just walking around. When I saw a store that was interesting, I just wandered in to look around. For anybody that loves to shop, you would absolutely love this place. I'm not a huge shopper, but I love the different culture in the stores that I would visit. There are also quite a few dollar-type stores. Very fun to walk around and see what's available here vs. at home. Another cultural thing here is the number of scooters and bicycles. They are everywhere. I've included a picture of a scooter parking lot. It's near the shopping areas and the train station.

I've also included some pictures of the outside of our motel as well as a couple on the inside for anybody that is interested. Everybody should also check out Tom's bl og. He'll also be posting regularly all our experiences!

We're in Japan!

2010-03-02T22:38:00.000-08:00

This is a picture of us right after our plane rides (Do we look tired enough?).

I was going to write this blog last night (at least our last night) and then again this morning, but I ran into a couple of problems with that. First we were exhausted. We flew in around 5:00 in the afternoon here (that was midnight back home). By the time we got to our motel room it was around 9:00 pm, so by the time we went to sleep it was around 4:30 a.m. our time. I was okay, but Tom was a walking zombie (it's not uncommon for me to stay up pretty late). 2nd our laptop has a power cord that wasn't adaptable to the outlets in the walls here. They don't have 3-pronged outlets. Tom bought an adapter at the navy commissary today while he was at work. 3rd I was having a little problem with the language in google. It automatically changed to Japanese. Needless to say, I don't know how to read Japanese. It would bring up English when I searched, but all the screen links were in Japanese. It took me a little while to figure it out. So here we are!

The plane rides went well. The only problem I had was actually getting off the ground. My plane was suppose to leave around 1:00. First it was delayed by about an hour and then when we were a actually taxiing down the runway we had to turn around and go back because someone put a bag on the plane that wasn't suppose to be there. Tom and I were on different flights because it saved us about $600. My flight was suppose to get to Tokyo about 10 minutes before his. I was a little concerned, but it turned out fine. We only got there about 30 minutes later than we were scheduled to and after I went through immigration and got my bag he was there waiting for me. The flight was about 10 hours long and we had 2 meals and a couple of snacks. I don't eat that well at home! The food was pretty good too. Plus I could watch movies the whole trip. I rode with Delta and they have this cool On-Demand like setup. Everyone has their own TV and you just go in and select the movie you want. I watched 4 different movies. It was actually pretty enjoyable. Along with my puzzle book, the time flew pretty fast. So much better than my trip to the Philippines!

The shipyard had a bus and escorts waiting for us at the airport with a bus. We all just climbed into the bus and were driven to our respective cities. There were two different cities that people stayed at. I think we lucked out we ended up in a pretty nice hotel in a town called Yukosuka (pronounced Yukoska) within a 10 minute walk to the naval base where Tom will be working. The other place was an hour train ride away. The bus ride took us a couple of hours from the airport to the base. We passed through about 10 toll booths along the way. I heard someone say that if we drove by ourselves the tolls would cost around $150. Insane! For the entire ride, all we could see were buildings everywhere. We were passing through different cities, but there wasn't a break between them. One huge freakin' town. Although the type of building changed a little the further we got from Tokyo. In Tokyo the buildings were mostly high rises and they changed to pretty normal city building as were were driving.

Our motel room has 2 twin beds instead of a queen. I'm not sure what they accomplish by doing that, but oh well. So, not cuddling for me unless we want to revert to our pre-marriage cuddling on our twin beds (yes that's as far as it went). Our room also has a couch, a desk, TV, small refrigerator, & microwave. We're happy about the fridge. A benefit of the Navy's relationship with the Mercure Hotel is Tom gets all his laundry done for free, plus a free breakfast buffet every morning, and a free drink every day. However, I do not get these benefits. So, we've got to figure out how we're going to get my laundry done. Another benefit is Tom gets a daily allowance for his food. If he doesn't use it all we just get to keep the extra. If we're careful we should have enough money to pay for both our food and have some extra left over.

Tomorrow is Tom's first real day at work. He had a training class this morning, and is currently taking a nap. Jet lag. Lucky for me there is a mall across the street from our motel and many little shops around. We also brough many movies and the laptop. So I should have plenty to keep me occupied while he's working!

This is a picture from our motel room window (I'm such a skilled photographer you can see me in the reflection)!

Ready for Japan?

2010-02-27T22:21:00.000-08:00

Jake bathed & ready?......check

House clean?.....check

Laundry done?.....almost

Flight, shuttle, and ride arranged?.....check

Packed?....Ah, crap! (any volunteers?)

Tom and I are getting ready to leave for Japan in a couple of days. We're very excited and very busy. We're taking Jake to my cousin's house tomorrow (where he will be staying until I return). We both have different flights, but both flights leave Seattle and arrive in Japan within an hour of each other. If I had taken his flight it would have cost me almost double. I'll console myself with the money I save! We can't wait to see and experience the Japanese culture and see some friends that are there. Keep tuned for updates!

My Uncle Brent

2010-02-22T15:05:00.000-08:00

A couple of weeks ago at church I witnessed a beautiful occurrence that really reminded me of my Uncle Brent. My uncle was an amazing man that unfortunately passed away a few years ago. My uncle is my Dad's youngest brother. He had down syndrome and one of the biggest hearts in the world. I remember hearing that when he was born they recommended to my grandparents to put him into a special home for his special needs. That of course did not happen, that is something that would never happen and something my grandparents would have never considered. My uncle actually helped the entire family. I think his beautiful example for us made us all better people.

In our ward we have a young teenage girl that has down syndrome. At church a couple of weeks ago I noticed something that was unbelievable. This girl has a hard time speaking and uses a little sign language. One of the girls in her age group took it upon herself to learn the Young Women Theme that they recite every week in sign language to help her. This was not something we was asked to do, she just did it to help someone that needed it.

I'd like to thank everyone out there that takes a little time out of their own lives to help someone else in need just out of love. I miss my uncle and thank him for his wonderful example in my life!

Chicken Gyros

2010-02-03T19:19:00.000-08:00

Since I've been staying home with our dog, I've been trying to work on my cooking skills. This has always been something that I've wanted to improve. I feel like I've come a long ways in the past year and a half. Since I got married, I've been collecting cook books. My husband used to make fun of me, because I kept buying cook books but never used them. I've recently found out I can find a lot of really good recipes on the web, no purchase required.

A while ago my cousin Janssen made a blog about some recipes she had made that week. A lot of them sounded really tasty, including the Chicken Gyros (pronounced Yero..for those of you that don't know). Tom introduced me to Greek food when we got married. I'd never had a Gyro before. Now I love them. This recipe was amazing. It's pretty non-fattening too (not including the pita). As a warning, it is a little time consuming but pretty easy. It takes straining the yogurt (to get the excess water out of it) and peeling and grating a cucumber. The straining is what takes the most time.

If you like greek food or Gyros I totally recommend this recipe. The recipe also has a link for homemade pitas (which I did not make). They're suppose to be really good, maybe I'll make them next time.

For the recipe click here.

Here's a picture of me holding my Gyro.

Japan

2010-02-02T13:20:00.001-08:00

A little while ago, Tom had the opportunity to volunteer to go to Japan for about 6 weeks to do a temporary stint on their help desk. I've always been supportive of anything that he felt he wanted or needed to do for his career. I also think that it is always a good career move to volunteer for anything that comes across your desk that is even remotely interesting to you. So, Tom put his name in for the experience. We've been knowing this was coming for a while now.

The only thing that has kind of made it strange was that I was always unsure weather I was going to accompany him. There was a part of me that would have loved going to Japan, but there was also a part of me that really wanted to find a job. If that happened, it was impossible that I could have asked for time off to go with my husband to Japan so I kept postponing the decision.

Recently I've come to the decision that there might be a reason that I'm not aware of that I haven't found a job. I just need to have faith that if I make the right decisions, things will happen in the best way for my life. So, Tom and I are looking for a ticket for me. Originally we were planning on riding in the same plane. Unfortunately, by the time we found out what flight that would be the ticket price was through the roof (it's a direct flight). So, we're probably going to buy a one-stop ticket for me on another flight. This will mean I won't be with him and it will take me longer to get there. But, we'll save a lot of money doing it this way.

Tom's leaving on March 1st and I'll leave somewhere around there too. He'll be there for about 6 weeks, but I'm only going to stay a month. We have some friends that have agreed to watch Jake for a month. That is a really long time to babysit a puppy. I kind of feel bad that I had to ask them for this favor, but I know I can trust them to take care of him while I'm gone.

Trip to "Point No Point"

2010-01-30T21:57:00.000-08:00

A year ago our YW/YM youth group went to a place called Hurricane Ridge for our big combined activity. This is one of the few places in this area that gets regular snow fall. The kids got to play in the snow and have chili afterwards. Because Hurricane Ridge is in the Olympic National Park there was an entrance fee. Instead of just paying the one-time fee Tom decided he'd just buy the yearly fee. Have we been back, no of course not. This yearly membership is going to expire pretty soon, so Tom decided he wanted to go back. We were planning on doing this today. Unfortunately, when he went online to check the road conditions there the roads had been closed for the next 6 weeks because of a rock slide. Needless to say he was totally bummed. He'd been looking forward to this for weeks. So instead we decided to go to a place called "Point No Point". It is one of the most northern spots in Kitsap County (that is my county).

One of the benefits is it cut the trip by about a third. The day was pretty nice for Washington. A bit drizzly, but pretty clear. When we got out there, it was this cute little spot with a lighthouse and a beach. The funnest part of it was Jake. He loved the beach! Lots of things to smell and look at. We walked down the beach, while Tom took pictures of everything. Sounds pretty typical huh? While Tom was taking pictures he noticed a container ship that was just bookin' through the water. A little while later the waves from the container ship started hitting the sand beach (it's very exciting to have a sand beach, most beaches here are rock). The waves were pretty big and Jake hated them! Jake is not a big fan of water. He takes baths only because he absolutely has to, but other than drinking it completely avoids it at all costs. We have yet to get him to go play in the water anytime we go to the beach. The waves started coming in and almost got him wet a few times. He backtracked up the beach very quickly so his little feet wouldn't get wet and then just started barking at the water. It was hilarious! It was a great day and I really enjoyed it!

Happy Birthday Mom!

2010-01-29T21:53:00.000-08:00

This is one of my favorite pictures of me and my Mom when I was little. Today is my Mom's birthday. I guess my sister pointed out to her that she is the same number of years as the year she was born. That won't happen to me for a very long time.

I couldn't have asked for a better Mom growing up. She was also very supportive of anything I was interested in. She always knew exactly how to stand somewhere between a friend and a Mom. I always felt like I could talk to her about anything I was concerned with, but at the same time she was not afraid to put on her Mom hat when she needed to.

I love you Mom and hope you're around for another 55 years! I'm glad you had a great birthday!

My First Activity Meeting

2010-01-28T17:55:00.000-08:00

Yesterday I had my first Activity Council meeting. It was an interesting experience to say the least. Most of the people on the committee have been a member of this or some other activity committee for a while. I am not only the newbie, I am also in charge. Interesting predicament. I get to make the final decision on things I really know nothing about. There were several times last night that they told me I was suppose to do something that I had no idea about. It's kind of a fine line, having them help me figure out what I am doing and at the same time staying in charge and keeping authority. I'm also a lot younger then most of them.

Another thing that was a little strange about last night was the amount of effort they want to put into each activity and the time for planning they want to expend. That just isn't me. I like to keep these as simplified as they can possibly be while still having things be nice and put together. I'm a big believer in delegation and not doing everything myself. I've found that the pickier I am with things the more stressful it become. They seem to think we should alread be planning activities months in advance. I should mention that in this particular ward, the majority of our activities are monthly potlucks. Not a lot of planning needed....which is fine with me.

I guess we'll see how it goes. I think I'll just have to learn how to be confident with something I'm not at all confident with. I'm sure that will come with time.

Jake's Issues

2010-01-26T13:01:00.000-08:00

Ever since we moved to our new house Jake has had very itchy ears. It's so sad to see him with his itchy ears. He would try walking across the floor and have to stop every couple of steps to scratch his ears. It got to the point that he would scratch at his ears so badly that he would actually draw blood. Also at the same time, his skin was itchy also. As sad as this was, it developed the funniest quirk. He started to scratch his butt on everything he could find. His favorite spots to do this was on the railing of our bed and in the car on the back of the seat. At the same time, he would raise his head way into the air and bark and lick the air. Hilarious!

At first I honestly thought that he was having some kind of allergic reaction to something in our new yard. Then I thought maybe he had a little bit of an ear infection (those big floppy ears make him prone to them). I went through periods where I would give him a little bit of allergy medication. Sometimes it seemed to help and sometimes it didn't. It all seemed very confusing. Finally a couple of weeks ago I took him to the vet to try and decide what was really wrong. Tom thought he had mites, but I had my doubts. The vet gave us medication for the itchiness as well as steroids for the swelling in his ear canals. They couldn't verify completely weather he had an ear infection because his ears were so swollen for him scratching them. They did take a skin culture and were pretty sure he didn't have mites but the only way to be 100% sure is to do a biopsy. We decided to hold off to do that until we could verify it wasn't anything else. The vet also said if there are any allergic reactions it could be absolutely anything (including anything we were feeding him).

That night I tried to think of anything I changed with him in the past few months. I came up with a couple of options. I changed the snacks I was giving him as well as the laundry detergent we were using. I decided to change back to our original laundry detergent and snacks just to either solve that problem or rule it out. After the first night of medication there was an obvious improvement in him. Now we are through with the itchy medication and only have a couple of more days of the steroids but he is a completely new puppy. He's back to the happy relaxed puppy he was before. I'm pretty sure he was allergic to the laundry detergent. I guess time will tell, but I completely anticipate his happiness continuing because I changed laundry detergent.

Watching "Lost"

2010-01-25T13:43:00.000-08:00

I've always been a fan of entertainment. I enjoy all the different mediums, including television. I'm a bit of a television junkie. For the past several years I've listened to people I know talk about the show "Lost". However, I was never really into it. I don't know why. I remember when it first started, I watched the first few episodes out of curiosity. It wasn't that I didn't like it, it just didn't grab me for some reason.

Since we moved into our house, we stopped getting cable TV. Because of this I found out how many shows were available online. This is how I stumbled back on "Lost". Because my sister Ashley had been talking about it a lot, I decided to give it another try. I have to admit, now I'm hooked. We've been at our new house almost 4 months now. I have watched all 5 seasons in that time and am looking forward to the final season in about a week.

I still don't really know where they are headed (what the big picture is). It's kind of fascinating to watch the character development on the show. Pretty much all the characters are messed up in one way or another, but they all have good sides as well. It's kind of interesting. It's like a garden of eden where the good forces and the evil forces are battling over the souls of people on the edge. Can't wait to find where they are all going to land.

Not a Morning Person

2010-01-24T11:01:00.000-08:00

Pretty much anybody that knows me at all could tell you I'm a night owl not a morning person. Don't get me wrong, when I actually have a day job I get up and am to work on time. However, given the choice I would much rather stay up late into the night and wake up late the next morning. Through our 5 years of marriage, Tom has come to learn if he wants me up early he needs to schedule it with me ahead of time. (Although I do get up every morning around 6:00 am to take him to the ferry for work....I know I'm an amazing wife! You can say it, I know! When I get home though, I fall right back in bed and it's snoozeville for me for another few hours). I've also trained Jake to not wake me up unless he's starving to death. One day while Tom's parents were here, he nipped Tom's toe to let him know he wanted to get up and see the people outside (he sleeps in our bedroom on a floor pillow). He knows better than to try that with me. I'm the rule person, he tries that he gets put in the crate. So not cool! Tom just laughed.

Anyway, with my new calling at church it turns out they didn't take my sleeping requirements into account. In my last ward they had ward council at 7:30 (or something like that) on a week day. Peeeeerfect! Not here though. 8:30 on a Sunday morning. Are you kidding me! Sunday still qualifies as the weekend right. Even in a world where there are jobs, the weekend is sacred! Crazy people. I got up and went this morning for the first time and it was okay. I got up at 8:00 (the last possible moment to get there on time of course). I was showered and dressed. That was all they got. My hair was brushed but not done and no makeup!

I guess I better get used to it though huh? But I still doubt I'll ever get me fully put together that early!

The Shipyard Job Fair

2010-01-23T15:40:00.000-08:00

As a lot of you probably know, I've been having quite a bit of a hard time finding a job. I've tried everything from things I'm qualified for, to local grocery stores or variety stores. I've had a couple of bites, but no official job offers. It is very frustrating on several different levels. I'm not used to not having a job & I am tired of constantly looking for something and getting nothing from it. A couple of months ago I decided that I might need to widen my search to things I'm not really comfortable with. I started to consider some trade jobs at the shipyard. I am completely unqualified for anything like this, but in a lot of situations they are willing to train you.

They have a couple of programs at the shipyard where they train you and pay for your education to get the education needed. Friday and Saturday they had a job fair for all the trades positions they hire for. I was very uncomfortable and nervous (due to feeling out of my element), but I went anyways. It was a little crazy. Something I've never experienced before. When I got to the location, there was a line the wrapped all the way around the building. Lots of people, all there for the same reason. Luckily the line went quickly. Being the shipyard, there was a metal detector that we all had to walk through and of course security people that checked baggage.

Once we got in, the warehouse was completely packed with tables and exhibits to help people understand what each department does. I was able to give my resume to an HR company, apply for their programs, and visit a couple of their booths. Due to my math classes being over a decade old, I get to take a test to prove I have the math skills to take their training classes. It won't be a problem. I took one of their practice tests and decided they need a math person to help them. Several wrong answers on the answer key. Oh, well.....the actual test is given my the local community college, it shouldn't have a problem. There were two areas that actually fascinated me. I guess we'll see if anything comes from it. Even if nothing does, it was a fascinating afternoon!

The Book I Just Finished

2010-01-21T23:25:00.000-08:00

Elantris
by: Brandon Sanderson

A while ago, a friend of ours recommended a fantasy book to me. At the time I was in the middle of another series that I was reading. I've always been really interested in Sci-Fi and fantasy stories. I guess I can blame that on my parents for our many family activities of watching Sci-Fi TV shows and movies as a family. Now as an adult, I really enjoy reading Fantasy books. Recently I got tired of the skanky sex scenes I was finding in my books. I had been trying to ignore that part of the books because I liked the rest of the stories so much. Finally, I decided no matter how good the books were it wasn't worth it to put up with that crap. I asked for some friend to recommend some good fantasy books to read that didn't have that kind of stuff. Than I remembered that Aaron had recommended a book to me a while back. Aaron would never recommend something that wasn't completely clean!

The book is pretty long, so it took me a little while to read it. It takes place on a planet or something other than earth. It's not an alien book, just a completely different culture and reality than on our earth. The book is about political and religious unrest in a world that has experienced a lot of problems in their world. Mix that with a lot of cool fantasy story lines and it was a completely entertaining and fascinating book that I thoroughly enjoyed.

My Birthday

2010-01-21T14:00:00.000-08:00

I just had my illustrious 34th birthday. One of the fun things about my gene pool is I happen to look a lot younger than I actually am. One of the fun moments I experience constantly is when people find out how old I am. I constantly get looks of shock and surprise. Hilarious! The only thing I have to show for my age are a few gray hairs starting. I wish I had inherited the lack of gray hair from my genes as well!

I had a pretty great day! I did a few household chores, and then read my book for a few hours. This is usually something I would love to do, but don't have a lot of time for during the day. I really enjoyed it. When Tom came home, we hung out for a while and then went to dinner with some friends. I love oriental food and one of my favorites is a good Chinese Buffet. We did find one in Silverdale that we would go to occasionally. A couple of months after moving to Port Orchard we happened to pass one on the street. I've been wanting to try it ever since. This is where we went. And I loved it! We'll definitely return. We had a great dinner and a fun time with friends we haven't see in a while!

Thanks to everyone that gave me birthday wishes and gifts! I appreciate all the loved ones I have in my life! Thanks for the flowers Tom. I love you babe!

Our Utah Visit

2010-01-19T19:30:00.000-08:00

Because we brought Jake along for the trip, we had to find a place to stay that was okay with a little puppy. Normally, we would have considered staying with Tom's parents, but his mom is allergic to dogs. It's different when she comes to visit us and can leave at the end of the week. But if we brought Jake into her house for an entire week, she'd have a hard time weeks after we left. We asked my friend Shelli to let us stay at her house. Normally, she doesn't like dogs in the house but luckily she felt like she could trust us enough to allow us to stay at her new house with Jake.

The first things we did when we arrived in Salt Lake City was go and visit Tom's brother Shaun. They were very nice and fixed dinner for us. Jake also loved their train set they had around their Christmas tree. He would watch it go around one side of the tree, not understanding it would soon come up behind him from the other side. There were a couple of times he did some fast backpedaling to get out of the way before the tree bowled him over.

During the week we had, we had some great time with our friends and family. With my girlfriends, we were able to get together for several of the nights. We went out for pizza, went and saw the movie Avatar, and played lots of games. Like usual, I loved spending time with them and I wish we could do it more often. For me, that has been one of the hardest things for me about being in Washington. I really miss being able to spend time with my friends and family. These girls are almost like my family in a lot of respects. We've been friends for more than 20 years now, and have been a part of my life since we met.

We were also able to spend a lot of time with Tom's family. We got together with them for a couple of different nights. Because we were able to come to Utah after Christmas, Tom's family decided to postpone their Christmas celebrations until we could be there. We had a fun night of present sharing & food. Then on New Years day we got together with the immediate and extended family for some family time. We were able to hang out with most of Tom's Mom's family. It was great to see everyone and hang out for a bit.

We loved our trip to Idaho (see below) and Utah! We wish we could got more often ans see everybody on a more regular basis!

Christmas with the Family

2010-01-08T15:10:00.001-08:00

This is the second time I'm writing this post. The first one I deleted because I was writing too much information and it became too long. So, here we go again!! Maybe with the important stuff this time.

Tom and I were originally not going to spend Christmas with my family. We were going to spend it at home and drive to Utah for the "Week of Tom". Since we moved to Washington about 1 1/2 years ago, I've been back to Utah 2 times but he hadn't been back any time. The shipyard gives most of their employees the week off between Christmas and New Years. He decided he wanted to go back to Utah for the break.

We were planning on spending Christmas here in Washington and heading to Utah the day after. Instead we ended up changing our plans a little bit, left a little earlier, and stopped in Idaho Falls first to spend Christmas with my family. We were able to get there in time for the Christmas Eve celebration at Alli's house, Ashley's sister-in-law. I think it was the first experience I had with a fancy traditional Christmas Eve dinner. We were also able to have a family picture taken. The pictures turned out great! Tom's still finishing the finalization of the pictures. I'll post some when they're done.For Christmas, everyone bunked at Ashley's house. We had a couple of air mattresses and Blake on the couch. Luckily Ashley had a fair amount of space. It was nice to see everyone again and spend Christmas together. I don't know when we'll have that opportunity again. Christmas day was a lot of fun, but pretty laid back. After the present festivities we were blessed with a delicious breakfast made by my loving sister. I think the grand hit of the day was my Mom's creation for the grandkids. They were miniature houses, made from cloth. To see a picture click here. All the kids absolutely loved it! I am not too proud to admit that I spend the entire day in my pajamas and took 2 naps!The next day (and our last day in Idaho) the entire family went sledding. Everyone had a really great time! The high point for me was probably watching my nephew stand in the door of his parents truck, pull his pants down, and relieve himself. Ahhhhh, the class! It made me laugh! Tate on the other hand was fearless. He had already sled down the big hill with his Dad, but when we tried to get him to sled down the smaller hill he was not into it. He pointed to the steep hill instead. He's his fathers son for sure. Kinsey, true to form, was good for a laugh too. While we were getting all our snow clothes on Kinsey started freaking out. Ashley was trying to get all her clothes on her while Kins was trying to climb out the window of the Landcruiser. Turns out Grandpa was on the 4 wheeler with Austin and Tate and she was terrified she was going to get left behind. She was screeming Grandpa over and over. Don't worry, Grandpa waited for her.

We were able to bring Jake along for the ride too. Luckily he is a good rider in the car, long though the trip may be. He loved hanging out with everyone, but especially Kinsey. They bonded over the weekend. They even went so far as to both sit on the floor and scratch their ears with their feet together! Too cute!

Thanksgiving Weekend......a little late

2009-12-21T00:36:00.000-08:00

Thanksgiving was a very exciting time for us. We had a pretty big group staying with us and an even bigger one at Thanksgiving dinner. The excitement started Saturday night when T's parents showed up. We hung out for the rest of the week until his brother and sister-in-law showed up around midnight the night before Thanksgiving!

In preparation for Thanksgiving I made potato rolls (a Higginson family tradition) and a cheesecake recipe we got off the back of a Candy Cane Kiss bag (Candy Cane Kiss Cheesecake). I messed it up a little bit, but it still turned out great! On Thanksgiving day I had the opportunity to cook my first real Turkey (I had only previously made a Turkey Breast...not quite the same). We bought a roaster so we wouldn't have to use the oven for the turkey and would have room to cook everything else. It turned our really good, thanks to the help I received from my mother-in-law!

Later that afternoon T's Aunt, Uncle, and two of his cousins joined us at our new house for our first T & C Kruger family Thanksgiving! Everybody that attended brought or made lots of food! We had more than enough for all of us! Plus plenty for everyone to have for several days to come! I personally ate way too much! I don't know why I do that to myself. I think everyone really enjoyed the food and the company!

Tom's brother also brought his WII along with the country band game. I was happy he brought the country version, because I actually knew the songs. I've played these games before, but I never could sing with them because I didn't know the old rock and roll songs that are on those games. Country however is up my aisle. Everybody had a great time!

My New Table and Jake's Fun with a Wrapping Paper Roll!

2009-12-18T20:02:00.000-08:00

As a lot of you already know, I was finally able to purchase a new kitchen table (or I should actually say, my husband purchased one for me with his hard worked overtime hours). I've been wanting a new table for a long time! Like most things involving our furniture choices, it took quite a while for us to come to a mutual decision. Sometimes we have very different tastes in furniture!

Jake loves to play! We discovered we can recycle our old empty Christmas Wrapping Rolls into toys for him. Here are some pictures of him thoroughly enjoying himself.

An Exciting Sunday at Church

2009-12-16T13:15:00.000-08:00

We've been in our new house now for almost a 3 months now. This week we were finally read into our new ward! We just never gave them our information until recently. The awkward part about getting read into the ward was that we also gave a talk this week. So not only were we read into the ward, but we got to see everybody staring at us while it happened. Then we got to give our first talks in the ward. I gave mine on "the Ministry of Jesus Christ" and Tom gave his on the "Atonement". I think they went pretty well and through it I think we both learned some things. That's the way it's suppose to work huh?

Also that day we got new callings. Tom is the new 11-year old boy primary teacher and scout master (or something like that). He's very happy with this new calling. He was really hoping for something with scouting. My new calling I am less excited about. It is the activities chairman. I am not the most creative person, so this sounds kind of painful to me. I was on the enrichment board once and did not enjoy it. Luckily in this ward instead of doing a lot of different activities they just do a monthly pot-luck. This aught to be interesting......

Present Wrapping

2009-12-10T22:14:00.000-08:00

First of all, you can thank my lovely sister Ashley for the beautiful scenery change on this blog! She's got the creativity gene inherited from my mother. I always look at stuff like this and would love it do it, but never get around to it. Thanks Ash!

Yesterday evening my new ward had our Christmas Enrichment activity! Tom decided while I was gone he would wrap a few of my presents! Lovely job huh
There actually were other packages he had fully wrapped under the tree, but I got a kick out of this one!

Painting

2009-11-22T21:50:00.001-08:00

From the moment we moved into the house I wanted to repaint. Of course, I had no real world knowledge how expensive it would be. After Tom did the math on our house vs the cost of paint we decided with all the other little changes we were having to make right now, we could only afford to paint half of the house. We decided to start with the common areas of the kitchen, dining room, living room, and hallway. We also decided to paint the wood trim (because it was horrible). When the previous owners had painted (which in my opinion they decided to do to see the house) they were not very careful and got paint on the wood and cupboards along the edges. It seems to have been done in a hurry even though the pain was in pretty good condition and I liked the color. After many trip to Lowe's looking at their paint displays and many conversations about the color we wanted the trim and the dining room we finally made a decision. I had to do a little convincing for the color I wanted the dining room, but it turned out gorgeous and Tom really likes it too! We're really happy with how it turned out and I'll post some before and after pictures later. In the mean time here are some pictures while we were painting and the disaster our house became for a little under a month. Needless to say, I'm very happy to get my kitchen back and our lives kind of back to normal. All we have left to do it tack the trim back up in the hallway. Yeah!

My Review on V

2009-11-09T19:07:00.000-08:00

Most of you probably know that I've a sci-fi freak! I like almost anything that is related to science fiction or fantasy. I do have my restrictions though. Anything with vampires, x-file type stuff, alien invasions are pretty much guaranteed to be found in my Netflix queue or as a book on my bedside table.

For those of you that read my sister A's blog, know that we were raised in a Sci-fi household. It was common to have our family bonding around the TV watching StarTrek, Star Wars, or V. I guess this is kind of an inherited obsession (from my Mom's side of the family mostly).

When I heard they were going to remake V, I wasn't sure how I felt. The old version of course was a bit corny and old fashioned, but I love it because I loved it back then. Plus, regardless of the bad special effects, I like the story and the meaning behind it. It shows what a civilization will do when threatened. It brings out both the best and the worst in people.

The difference between the old and new versions to me was very suttle. Same basic story, much better special effects, and some swapping in the sex of the characters. What used to be a girl character is now a guy character and vice versa. I'm still waiting to see whos going to play the crazy Diana chick character. There is more depth to the characters and there are some additional characters that weren't in the original.

I look forward to seeing where the show will lead and how it will either shadow the original or branch out and become it's own entity. This show has the potential of being really great or a total bust. Only time will tell!

Finally....pictures of our new house!!

2009-11-03T12:07:00.001-08:00

This was us right after we signed our papers. We are in the picture with our mortgage lady and our real estate guy. They were both amazing!

This is the front of the house. The truck belongs to a friend of ours that came to help T do some heavy lifting because I'm a wimp! Thanks to everyone that has done that over the past month!

This is a view of the back of our house from our back yard! We love the deck and the backyard has a lot of possibilities!

Our backyard! As you can probably see, the fence needs a little work. We're trying to figure out who exactly owns the fence. Jake loves the backyard. You can see in the lower left hand corner where he's dug a little bit. We're trying to kick that habit. That's where I want to put a little garden anyways!

Our cool new BBQ. Tom loves it! We got it on sale along with a family donation! Thanks for the help, we've already used it!

Here's the dining room. We were given the table about a year ago. We're on the lookout for a bigger one!

Here's the kitchen! I actually love it, but we're planning on updating it in a few years! I was pleasantly surprised how much cupboard space and counter space there was! All my kitchen stuff actually fits now! The door leads to the garage (I didn't take a picture of that...sorry).

This is part of the living room (from the dining room).

The living room from the other direction. I love the windows in this house! Plus there are a lot of strange angles that are really cool.

Living room again!

Bedroom #1

Bedroom #2

Bedroom #3

Master Bath. There is also a walk-in closet to the left.

Entrance way. Absolutely love this!

Hallway

2nd Bathroom

Office/Gym??? The blanket on the floor is where Jake hangs out when I am working out. This is still and work in progress but people were asking for pictures. There's also a third bedroom that I didn't take pictures of. It's kind of a staging area for everything we don't know what to do with yet (mostly decorations).

Office/Gym #2

Well, I hope you all enjoyed the pictures. We're in the middle of painting right now, so I'll post more pictures later!

Coupons

2009-10-26T20:20:00.000-07:00

For the past several years I've wanted to learn how to use coupons to save us money. This is something that completely confuses me. I just don't get it!

I've read articles, seen tv shows, & heard stories about how to use coupons. That still doesn't seem to help. We even got the newspaper for about a years while we lived in Salt Lake City thinking there would be coupons that I could learn how to use. Pretty much the only "coupon-like" things there were, were the weekly notices from the grocery stores. It wasn't coupons, it was just the weekly sales. I've heard stories about being able to double coupon things, but in order to have that work I need coupons. I'm not sure exactly what to do.

If any of you have any websites that could help me, or books, or anything like that please let me know!

My life right now.....

2009-10-15T13:24:00.000-07:00

Our life recently has been pretty crazy! I'm starting to wish for the days when my most exciting activity was cleaning the house a looking for a job. Although, I guess I am still cleaning the house, but much more aggressively. We've been looking for a house for the past 3 or 4 months. We made an offer on two different houses and got them both (at different times of course). The first one was a short sale (that I have previously blogged about) and the one we eventually purchased. Our house was more expensive, but had several really nice features to it that I will talk about when I blog with the house pictures.

We signed on our house about 2 weeks ago and honestly the past 2 weeks have been a bit of a blur. We signed on Wednesday Sept 30th, had the carpets cleaned the next day, and moved in Sat Oct 3rd. The house was previously being rented to the previous owners daughter and family. She said she didn't find out we were signing on the house until the couple of days before and she thought she had another week to move and clean the house. Weird considering the date we signed the papers was the exact date that we had scheduled for over a month. Don't know if she was full of it or not, but the house was not clean! I'm still in the process of leaning out drawers an cupboards with cleanser and deep cleaning the bathrooms! Anybody know how to get stain out of a toilet bowl. Extreme non-cleaning is the only reason I can come up with for the state of some parts of the house. We've already started replacing some the things in the house. T's loving being Mr. Fix it!

The Monday after we moved into our house, we had our 5 year anniversary! Tom had told me previously my gift was the house he was getting me! I told him he's going to have a hard time doing better than that in the future! On Monday, we completely forgot about our anniversary. The only reason I remembered is I was making an appointment with my doctor and wrote it in my date book and it was marked! We spent that night and the next cleaning our old apartment! Very romantic I know, but we got almost all of our deposit back because of it!

I know some of you are waiting for pictures of our new house. I know we've been living here for 1 1/2 weeks, but we are still not fully unpacked yet. When that happens I will post pictures of our house with all our stuff in it. Of course it will not be decorated for a while. Still need to paint.

Fun in Utah

2009-09-25T21:42:00.000-07:00

Tuesday morning we left for Utah. One of the things that made this trip kind of nice, was we listened to a book on tape for the whole trip. It was "The Host" by Stephanie Meyer. I was a huge fan of the twilight books and hope to eventually have all of them in hardback at some point. Shockingly though I have never read "The Host", although Mom did lend me her copy on the cruise in May. Have I read it yet....nope. All my new books have come out in the past 4 or so months. Now I really want to read it, because we weren't able to finish it on CD. It's going to have to wait until I finish a couple of books I have though. If I don't read them now, I go to the bottom of the hold list again and some of these books have around 30 holds. Yuck!!! Anyway regardless of what my Dad thought ,I loved it. Very entertaining (if at sometimes creepy) book.

Our first stop was Orem to see my baby brother B. He's going to school there in construction management. He seems to really be enjoying himself. He helped me buy myself new sunglasses and then we went back to his apartment and I got to meet 2 of his roommates and his friend C. It was a lot of fun, plus I got to drive in his cool car with the top down. I felt stylin'! He than gave me ride to S's new townhouse.

My friends S & T.J. both bought new townhomes a few months ago. I actually heard about it the first time while I was at one of our stops on our cruise. I've been wanting to fly down to see them since they bought the houses. I kept looking for a good deal on airlines but wasn't having much luck. Riding down with my parents gave me that opportunity because I only had to pay for a one way ticket. Both townhomes were absolutely amazing. I was also able to see the townhome of their cousin L. All 3 townhomes are in the same community and within walking distance from each other but are different floorplans. All of them had different floorplans and had definite nice things about each floorplan. I liked that L had a small living room and a small family room and her kitchen island. I liked T.J. big valted ceilings and extra windows. I liked S kitchen and huge laundry room and linen closet. Both T.J. and S had an unfinished basement as well. They are also brand new and have gas fireplaces. Nice places girls!

I was also able to visit my old job while I was there. It was really nice to see everyone. It really made me miss my job and the people I left behind. Like every job there were things that drove me crazy, but overall it was a great job! I was able to see almost everyone I wanted to there. The only person I really didn't have time to talk to very much (except in passing) was my boss. I'm very glad that I made time to go see everyone.

One day while T, S, & T.J. were all at work I was able to hang out with my mother-in-law. We also picked up my sister-in-law A, and we went to Olive Garden for lunch. It was so tasty! Soup, salad, and breadsticks. You have to love it! My mother-in-law M also bought us some delicious appetizers which I always enjoy! After lunch we did a little shopping and then were able to stop by and see my husbands grandma K and grandpa C. It was great seeing them! They are both sharp as a tack and a lot of fun to talk to. I really enjoyed the whole day!

S, T.J., & T all took Friday off so we could spend the day together before my flight that night. It was a great time. We all went and got pedicures, did a little shopping, and went to see the movie G. I. Joe. The pedicures were a lot of fun and I've really enjoyed having "pretty toes" (as the daughter of a friend recently told me). I wish I could get a pedicure more often, but the fun part of the experience was really just hanging out with my girlfriends both on Friday and for the rest of the visit. I really miss that! The movie was a lot of fun too! I'd wanted to see it. It was very exciting and fast moving. I told my husband that we definitely need to go see it. I think he'll really like it! It's kind of a guys show that girls will enjoy as well (as long as they like action flicks I guess).Thanks to everyone that gave up time to spend with me! I loved seeing all of you and hope I can repeat it again soon! I love you all!

My exciting 1 1/2 days in Idaho

2009-09-22T22:10:00.000-07:00

I was lucky enough to see my brother and sisters recently when we went on our family cruise. However my little nieces and nephews were not part of that experience, so I hadn't seen them since I was home for my brother B's mission homecoming in November. I also hadn't seen my grandparents since I stopped through Boise on my way back to Utah after our trip to Oregan over a year ago. My grandpa H was recently put into an assisted living place and about a month ago was moved from the one in Boise to one in Idaho Falls so he could be closer to my Aunt M.

When I originally thought of hitching a ride to Utah with my parents on their way home, the plan was just to go through Boise and on the Utah. I hadn't made up my mind weather to do it or not because of some job application issues (for those of you that don't know, I've been looking for a job with no luck). However when my parents offered to drive through Boise than on through Idaho Falls so I could see all my grandparents along with both my sisters, brothers in laws, and all my nieces and nephews on the way to Salt Lake to see my girlfriends. it was too good of an opportunity to pass up.

So, after the week my parents spent with us I left with my parents on early Sunday to drive to Boise. While in Boise, I had the opportunity to see my grandpa's house (everyone is in the process of cleaning it out) and see my grandma & grandpa B. It was great to see them and we had a couple of hours of great conversation! I really enjoyed the time I got to spend with them and hope to do it again soon.

Monday morning we took off for Idaho Falls. We stopped at A's new pad. She's been renting a house from a friend of her's for a nickle. This is the first time I've had the opportunity to see it. It's a beautiful house and she's very lucky to be able to stay there for the deal she's paying for it. On the way to see grandpa h's new pad we stopped for lunch and once of my favorite Pizza places, Craigos. For you unfortunate souls that have never been there, it is an awesome sourdough pizza place. The only said thing is that they don't serve their delicious breadsticks they used to have when I was in college. This by the way, is a travesty! But they do have an amazing pizze/salad/pasta bar that makes my mouth water just talking about it! It was delicious!

When we got to grandpa h's place, we had the opportunity to sit and chat with him. He seems to be doing okay, but it's still a little sad. He's changed quite a lot from the energetic man he was a few years ago. He said kind of a funny thing while we were there. We asked him why he hadn't been hanging out downstairs and plaing BINGO with the others. He said simply, "I don't like BINGO". It made me chuckle and made total sense to me. Life has changed quite a lot for him in the past 7 or so years. I can't even imagine how it feels for him to have loss my grandma and my uncle brent all within a few years. That would be so hard! My heart goes out to him and I can't really blame him really if he would rather be with them than where he is. Although I would hate it if he wasn't here anymore.

Later that afternoon Mom, Dad, and I took off for T's house. I also hadn't seen her new house she had gotten. They recently bought a piece of property that had an old house and a double wide (?) on it. The house, they are hoping to refinish and use as a possible rental property. They are living in the other house. They are pretty happy with it and they have tons more room than they had in their previous 2 houses. S loves it and they got it for an amazing deal! We had dinner that night with A and K joining us and hanging out for the rest of the night. D wasn't able to join us because he had work, but I was happy I had the opportunity to see him for luch before he left for work. Anyway, it was a delicious dinner and we loved the company. For a couple of hours, the girls and grandkids hung out in one room while S and Dad hung out in the other room watching TV. I think the girls had more fun!!!!

My Parents Visit

2009-09-19T17:55:00.000-07:00

We just had our first anniversary here in Washington. During that time, we have blessed enough to have some visitors. My girlfriends came to see us after we had been here only a month. Tom's parents visited us last January. We were also able to she Shaun & Alicia when Tom's cousin Carolyn got married last fall. Since we moved here we've had my parents visit scheduled. Originally, they wanted to come the same weekend my friends were coming. Because of the small apartment we were moving into and the limited time we would have, we decided this was not the best idea. So, they scheduled the following the following Labor Day Weekend instead. I have been looking forward to this visit now for months!
My parents arrived on Monday afternoon, Aug 31st and stayed through Sunday morning May 6th. During that time, we had the opportunity to show my parents around our town, show them the new house we are trying to purchase, and gave my parents a couple of days to take a drive to the Olympic National Park and then to see the famous Forks, WA (which my Mom specifically loved!).

There were several things that really stand out in my mind of their visit here. First is our trip to our new house. Their visit here coincided with our inspection on the house. Tom and I both wanted to be present for this, so I invited my parents along so they could see the house before they returned to Utah. They seemed to like the house and the inspection went pretty good, with just a few things we asked to be repaired. We are suppose to close at the end of the month. We'll let you know how that goes and if it actually happens. Trying not to get too excited until it actually happens.

On Friday Tom of course was at work all day. Here in the town we live in, there is a cool set of trails that run through the entire town. Because this is Washington, we have lots of trees....so you can't even tell you are in the town. It's a beautiful walk and one that Jake loves. So Mom, Dad, and I decided to take Jake on a walk. It was a beautiful day so we all enjoyed ourselves, including the dog the got lots of sniffing done. We then headed over to one of our favorite places, "Central Market". It is a huge grocery store with lot of fun things that we love to hang out at. Most people may think that we are huge dorks for hanging out at a grocery store, but it's a lot of fun. They have a bulk food section that is amazing, a seafood and produce section that is unbelievable (they actually have live crab swimming in tanks), plus a deli section that is as big as a gym. My Mom said she was extremely jealous.

On Saturday night, Tom and I took my Dad to a local restaurant called "The Boat Shed" that we like. It's a cute little spot that sits right on the water. In good weather you can even eat on the deck and look out on the water. However, because it was a little chilly we ate inside. Like always it was delicious and we all enjoyed dinner!

My parents and I left early Sunday morning. I decided to hitch a ride with them so I could see some family and friends. I'll talk about that in my next blog! Thanks for coming to visit Mom and Dad. Come back any time!

Freakin' Short Sales

2009-08-13T21:39:00.000-07:00

For those of you not in the know, Tom and I made an offer on a house about a month ago. It was a pretty good deal for the house. There were a few issues on the house, but things we were willing to overlook because overall the house was a good buy. Tom might have a different perspective on these things, but for me....here are my issues.

The look of the front of the house is not your normal look I would choose, plus the driveway is really short and the plot is a very strange shape. It's also built kind of on a slope, so the backyard is sloped down on part of it. The backyard is also not landscaped at all, so it will take a lot of work and sweat equity to make it into a workable space. Because the house is built on a slope, the back of the house is a long way from the yard. It has 3 different balconies, but no back entrance into the backyard. What this means is when Jake needs to go outside, at this moment, we would have to go out the front of the house and walk around to the backyard.

However, there are a lot of really good aspects to the house that I love. It is a split entry house, that is fairly new (built in 1995). The inside of the house is in really good condition. The kitchen (which has become kind of important to me) is pretty large and the kitchen, dining room, living room, and upper hall ways have wood floors. Plus there are a lot of open windows and good lighting & a gas fireplace. It has 3 bedrooms and an additional living room downstairs.

So, I like the inside of the house not so much the outside. However, with a lot of work it has potential. Here's the problem we're running into though, it's a short sale. For those of you that don't understand what I'm talking about, a short sale is a house that the owners can't pay the mortgage on and hasn't had any luck selling the house for the amount they owe the bank. So, the bank has agreed to accept less (or short) of what they owe. The problem with this for buyers is that your offer has to be approved by the owners (who get nothing from the sale so probably could care less) and any bank or banks that are owed money for the house.

When we were considering weather to make an offer we were told that the seller's agent said she had spoken to the bank and had a verbal agreement for the sale price. However, we knew from other stories we had heard that it was iffy. Turns out we were right. We put 30 days as the expected time to hear back from the bank. Our 30 days are up on Monday so we have little hope that we'll hear back on anything in that time. Last we heard it would be probably the beginning of Sept. Than another month or so to close. However, we have friends that are in the same boat and are still waiting to hear on their house that they were suppose to know about a month ago. I personally don't have a lot of faith in this process. The most annoying part is not having any idea when we'll know. It seems their process is to say we'll be getting an answer any day and then say the next thing the next day to string us along. ANNOYING!!!

So now we're thinking maybe we'll spend more money than we were originally thinking. This has been kind of difficult for us. Going from real estate prices in Utah and Idaho to here in Washington has been a bit of an eye opener. It takes some mind warping to not freak out at the higher prices. And now to go even higher than we were originally anticipated is even funner. The reason for this is the quality of the house. You go from a house you're so so about to houses that are actually in pretty good neighborhoods and are in good condition. It does bump up our monthly price by about $150 per month, but there is a part of me that thinks it might be worth it.

What do you think? Not that it will change my mind, but I'd like to know what you think!

The Weekend

2009-08-11T18:43:00.000-07:00

This weekend was kind of fun! Although this may all be very boring for all of you folks, I have decided I should blog more. My main problem with blogging very much is I just don't see why people would possibly be interested in all my movements. However, I know that I'd rather know what my sisters are doing regardless how interesting they thought it might now be.

Friday: Just as I was getting ready to exercise Tom gave me a call to invite me to lunch. There is a little place down there that serves pancit and lumpia (this is Filipino food for those not in the know....where I served my mission). I had told Tom that I wanted to come to lunch with him so we could go back there again. It was delicious of course. I had chicken adobo with rice and pancit. Tom had Teriyaki chicken with fried rice and pancit. Teriyaki is not really Filipino but it goes well with the rest of the food and is widely liked. We both enjoyed it and had enough left over to eat it for dinner that night. That night after "dinner" we got to finally go see Harry Potter at the movie theatre. Loved it. It had been long enough since I had read the book that I didn't remember every single step of the movie, but still remembered enough to understand what was happening in the grand scheme. (As a side note, Tom had just recently started reading this book). I thought they did a really good job with the movie!

Saturday: We spent the morning cleaning our church. We only have 2 wards that share our church so we have cleaning assignments every other month. They have a pretty effective method here than I've ever seen. They have a peg board with about 10 jobs hanging from them with laminated paper. You grab a job and move it to the "done" pegs when you're done. When all the slips of paper have been moved to the done spots you are finished. It only took about an hour. That afternoon Tom's office had a picnic at a local lake & park area. We brought sugar cookies that I of course bought at the store not made by hand. Sugar cookies are impossible. Especially the frosting. If anybody has an easy frosting recipe I'd love it! I ruin it every time I attempt it. Anyway, I got a little off topic. So, we went to the picnic. Tom of course had volunteered to take pictures at the picnic. It turned out to be pretty fun. It was kind of a chilly day, but I know myself well and dressed for it so I stayed pretty warm. Tom had a few guys that he originally started at the shipyard that work in the same "department???" as him that I had met before that were there. Very nice guys. One of them brought his fiance that I had previously met as well. Overall (including the food) it was an enjoyable evening.

Sunday: Sunday evening we had the enjoyable experience of having Tom's cousin Jared and his wife Nicole over for dinner. Luckily for me Tom decided he wanted to make dutch oven for them. Than means very little prep for me...yeah!!! I had made some bannana bread earlier that week and made a green salad. Tom did most of the work by making BBQ ribs. They were very good, but a little spicy. Plus we both agreed that the next time we make these we will buy a better cut of meat. These were a little fatty and lean on meat. The dinner was very good, but the company was even better. We had a lot of fun and even got to walk around the dock area when we dropped them off. Jake was pretty good with them too, so everyone had a great night I think. Plus they brought cheesecake!!! I love cheesecake and it was delicious!

Awesome weekend!

New Challenge

2009-08-02T23:59:00.000-07:00

Yesterday in church a young man, who recently graduated from High School, bore his testimony. In his testimony he told about how he had read the entire Book of Mormon in one month. He figured out that if he read around 18 pages a day he could do it. It was a very interesting testimony and idea. To just read the book consecutively without doing research along the way. It's something I've heard before occasionally, but never really considered doing personally.

After the talk, Tom decided this was something he wanted to try. It had been a while since either of us had read straight through the Book of Mormon. I tend of jump around a lot and go really slowly. I also usually do a lot of research as I'm reading as well. I decided this was probably a good idea for me as well. We decided not to do it together (too difficult) but we are reading approximately the same passages on the same day....just separately.

I've done it two days so far and have really enjoyed it. Of course I am very familiar with the stories I am reading, but to reading it as a story instead of looking deeply for lessons that I should learn from it has opened up new emotions. It's going to take a lot of dedication and focus to make sure I complete this goal. I hope I'm able to complete it. It helps that Tom is there to encourage me along the way!! I love you babe!

Girl's Camp

2009-07-25T21:57:00.000-07:00

For those of you not in the know, a while ago I was put in as YW President in our ward. One of my first jobs (which I failed at by the way) was to find 2 camp moms for girl's camp. This was an alien idea for me. When I went to girl's camp, many many many years ago, we did not have camp mom's. Pretty much it was the YW presidency. Also, in my era it was a stake acitivity, but operated on a ward level. Not so in the here and now. In my stake, each ward sends 2 camp moms to girls camp, but the girls from my ward (which I call "my girls") do not actually stay with the camp moms all in the same cabin. They seperate all the girls by age. However, if there are more than 1 girl from your ward in the same age group, they do keep them together.
I have a very small young women group right now. I had 4 of my girls graduate this year. Not a big deal for most young women groups, but four our small group it was quite a hit. Most of our young women attended camp, all 6 of them. One of them was what is called "YCL" which is a Youth Camp Leader, but in addition we had 2 1st years, 1 2nd year, and 2 3rd years.

I tried talking to almost every mother plus multiple other members of our ward. I also tried emailing the entire Relief Society. None of these things worked. I finally ended up beggin my friend Nicole to come with me (she also happens to be my 2nd couselor). Fortunately for me, she agreed to come with me because I couldn't find even 1 person to agree to go. It was very frustrating but we both enjoyed ourself. I think it helped for us that we were already friends, at least it helped me.

We were assigned to a cabin of 1st year girls. This automatically meant we got our 2 first years got to be in the cabin with us. As time drew near, I have to admit I was quite nervous. I haven't been to girls camp in about 17 years. It suddanly occured to me part way through camp that almost all the girls there had been alive less time than I had been not going to girl's camp. It made me feel kind of old actually!

Another difference between girls's camp now and when I used to go as a teen was the actual camping emphasis. They gave us a list of requirements for each year that had to be done before they went to camp. They said this was because there wasn't enough time at camp to finish the requirements for every girls. It's an interesting idea. I don't really know how I feel about it though. There is a part of me that thinks you should use girls camp for actual camp related activities and EFY for EFY activities. The Young Men still go camping and do scouting activities. They haven't replaced it with EFY. However, most of the girls seemed like they had a great time!

Our First Cruise

2009-05-24T21:47:00.000-07:00

I've been wanting to go on a cruise for years. Tom and I actually had been planning on going on one after he graduated from college. He said it would be my graduation present for supporting him through school. About 1 1/2 years ago, my parents decided to take all of us (my siblings & spouses) on a cruise as a celebration for my brother's return from his mission (when I got home from mine, we went to Hawaii....but we had no spouses at that time). Needless to say, we were all very excited. None of us had been on a cruise before, so this was a new experience for everyone. My parents decided to take us on a cruise to Mexico & we all counted the days until it happened. Unfortunately, we had no way of predicting Swine Flu.

Royal Caribbean had to change our ports from Mexico to Oregon, Washington, & Victoria B.C. because of Swine Flu. Unlike some other cruise lines however they gave us several different options even though we didn't have insurance on the cruise tickets. Regardless of the fact that the trip would be a lot colder than we planned & I am from one of the ports we still decided to go on the scheduled cruise. Because of the change of ports the price of the tickets went down, so my dad got a big refund from the tickets and we got and additional $350 per room for on board purchases & $350 per room as credit to use on a cruise within the next year. We couldn't change to another cruise or cancel our flights due to uncooperative airlines. Alaska Air (my airline) was pretty cooperative, but Delta (everyone elses airline) was not helpful at all. The problem was they were only willing to refund them or transfer if they were flying directly to Mexico. Even though we were going to Mexico, we were landing in L.A. This will make me double think using Delta in the future.

Regardless of the colder weather, we had an absolute blast. This was due mostly to the customer service that Royal Caribbean offers. My husband enjoyed the cruise because he's an engineering geek and loves anything ship or plane related. He spent a lot of his free time on board walking around the ship taking pictures! I enjoyed the cruise because I found out I love being pampered & I also loved the entertainment on board. I'm also very passionate about customer service and they went above and beyond in every area to make sure everyone had a great time!

We loved our stateroom attendant, and dining room waiters. The dining room assigns everyone a seat at the beginning of the week and you sit at that table for every dinner all week long. Because we were traveling with such a big group (9 people), our table only included people in our group. In most situations though this enable you to meet other people on the cruise as well as develop relationships to your dining staff. Our table was on the third floor (the "Sound of Music" floor) of the dining room and on the outside so we had a beautiful view every night through a window. Our first night we were even able to witness a group of dolphins leaping through the waves. Very cool! The food in the dining room was very good too! Some of the guys in our group even tried multiple dishes every night. It was all included in the price of your ticket. Our stateroom attendant would leave us animals every night made out of towels. Think balloon animals but made with towels instead of balloons. It was something I looked forward to every night. She was always there with a greeting and a smile every time I saw her. Plus she pointed me in the right direction a couple of times when I got turned around on that huge ship.

I will definitely go on a cruise with them again and I would recommend them to anybody interested in going on a cruise that wants to do more than gamble and drink. There were a lot of activities and other things to do every day. My husband and I even liked our days on the ship cruising better than our ports of call. Of course that could change if we went places we had never been before. The next time I go, I will do a few things differently though. I will book at least one on-shore excursion through the cruise line, I will schedule my dinner for the late schedule so that it wouldn't conflict with shoreline activities (however if you have kids this might not be the best choice), and I will only eat 2 meals a day (being full all the time not so much fun).

In short, I loved the experience and can't wait to go again!!!!

The importance of developing your talent!

2009-04-13T15:37:00.000-07:00

This is a topic I've had drilled into me since I was a wee tot! At church, school, & home......yet did I learn this painful and embarrassing lesson? Anybody that knows me will automatically know the answer to this question is "heck no...that would be way to easy"! Then I wouldn't have to do things the hard way and have a learning and a growing experience instead...right? At least that is what I've been telling myself for the last 24 hours.

I had the blessing of being born to two extremely musically talented individuals. They both have amazing voices that they have developed through their entire life. Being their oldest child I spent a lot of my growing up years striving to be as good and as talented as they are. The mistake I've made recently is not keeping up on the practice to keep that talent fully developed. This mistake caused me a bit of embarrassment.

As some of you know, I was recently called as the Young Women's President in our ward. This has been both fun and challenging. It's fun because I already love the girls in the program and I really enjoy spending time with them & the other leaders involved with the program. It's challenging because I feel like a juggler sometimes. I feel like I have to sometimes keep 10 balls in the air at one time. For the Easter lesson this year I decided to have our Laurel Advisor give a joint lesson to our entire young women. Brittany is a very talented teacher and all the girls love her.

She had a no talking lesson with a lot of props, videos, & music. She had already asked a couple of amazing singers in our ward to sing 2 songs, but was still in the need of 1 more. I made the mistake of volunteering. I only had to sing "I believe in Christ". I thought this would be a piece of cake because I've sang in a million times in church. However, I neglected to remember I hadn't sang a solo anywhere for years. I didn't really get nervous until the last second....then my knees started shaking & my voice was quivering. Nice and embarassing for no reason, since I knew everyone in the room. But I was disappointed with myself and my performance. Oh well!!! I finished the song better than I started it and I learned a personal lesson.

It's February........Right??

2009-02-20T21:57:00.000-08:00

Ok, so I'm a little confused. Now you have to take into account I'm an Idaho girl pretty much born and raised. Plus before we moved to Washington, I had lived for about 9 years in Utah. But this is like no February I've ever experienced before. Logically I know that it's February, but my body seems to think it's April or something like that! It's absolutely beautiful outside here in Washington. However I do have to admit days like this don't come along a lot here in Washington. It really doesn't rain as much as people think it does.....or at least as much as they made me believe it did. But it is overcast here a lot.

People were outside without their coats, walking their dogs, or just taking leisurly walks around. The sun was shining the grass is green & I even could hear bird singing in the breaze! I love Washington!

And with all this gorgeous weather here in this beautiful area....what did my husband and the scouts do tonight??? They went camping. I know what you're thinking. That sounds logical right. But I'm not quite through yet. They went winter camping at a place called Hurrican Ridge. Now, I have yet to visit this place, but that will change tomorrow morning. The Young Women and families will join the Young Men there for our combined activity to go sledding. This does not mean I'm going sledding however. I am going to catch a ride with my friend Nicole (because I have no car...my husband has our sole transportation) and I will add for moral support to everyone having fun in the snow. Brrrrrrr.

Our First Birthdays in Washington

2009-02-08T20:47:00.000-08:00

Today is Tom's 29th birthday! Happy Birthday sweetie!!! Yes, he's still in his twenties and I so am not! Oh, well.....
As most of you know, I recently celebrated my 33rd birthday a couple of weeks ago. It was a very nice enjoyable couple of days. I got to string out my birthday celebration a little bit because Tom's parents were here the weekend before! We had a lot of fun with them here and were sad to see them go the morning of my birthday. Tom's mom though is allergic to dogs, so by the time she left I'm sure she was excited to get home to her clean no dog household!
For my birthday, I decided I wanted to take Tom to a Thai place here in Silverdale that I had been previously with my friend Nicole. Nicole & I go to dinner every month when our husbands are on the insane winter campouts with the scouts. I think we get the better end of the deal! I thought it was a really cute place. It has the feeling as if you are sitting on the floor, but because they have the tables elevated and the floor dug out beneath them, there is actually a place for your feet and so no body parts fall asleep on you! I also liked the food, but Nicole wasn't very impressed with her Duck she had there. I stuck to chicken and it was delicious. Tom also really enjoyed his food there.
The next day, I got to go to lunch with a bunch of friends from our ward. Because I don't have a job yet....in this economy who knows when that will happen; the only people I really know are in my ward. Tom and I have been really lucky with our ward! We love the ward we are in and the great friends we have made here. Anyway, because I love oriental food I chose a place called Oriental Sushi. Of course, I didn't have sushi because I am chicken. But the food was great and I even got dessert that was like an oriental version of a bannana sundae. It was really good & I definitely want to take tom back to try that dessert! I loved it! It's so much fun to be surrounded by so many really nice people!
For those of you that are reading this and are one of the new people in our lives....thank you for making us feel so welcome and loved!

Surprise.....Jake loves the snow!!!!

2008-12-23T21:46:00.000-08:00

So this week in Washington, everyone's been knocked on their butts. For those of you not in the know, Washington road crews are not equipped to handle snow. They usually don't get a lot of it, so they haven't really invested on the necessary equipment to handle the situation when it does happen. What this does is shut the area down completely until either the rain washes it away, it melts, or as has happened this time.....enough people have just driven on it to mash it into flat ice-like formations! Now don't get me wrong...I love it here. I am very happy we got the opportunity to move here. I love our ward and all the people I have had the chance to meet and get to know here. This snow situation just cracks me up.

When we first got Jake about 5 months ago, he was the biggest wimp. I don't know if those of you who live outside Washington know this but.....IT RAINS HERE. Sorry, inside joke. I was told that about 20 times before we moved here. Jake didn't want anything to do with the rain when we first got him. Luckily he's gotten a little used to it. He would go out of his way to avoid walking in the rain. When we would go on a walk, he would walk under the parking stall covers so no rain would fall on him. When we got to the end of one stall, he would dart to the next one. If we were walking somewhere where there wasn't anything to cover his poor little head from the mean rain, he would pull on the leash and wimper the whole time. Big wimp huh!!!!

When we got this huge snow storm, I was afraid Jake wouldn't want to leave the apartment. Boy was I wrong....he loves it!!! He'll just sit in front of our sliding glass door and beg to be taken out so he can play in it. The snow comes up to his stomach, so he basically has to jump around like a rabbit to get around. He always comes back soaking wet, but totally happy!
Here are some pictures!

Bras

2008-11-18T15:30:00.001-08:00

As a warning to the males reading this post, just close the window now and look at something else. My husband is quite used to my "inappropriate for male ears" topics, but most others probably would like to pretend that words like bras and tampons are not even in the English language.

So, I've needed a new bra for forever. Always in the past I've bought my bras at swanky stores such as Walmart, Target or Kohls. Love these places, but they aren't really known for the feminine lingerie lines. Tom and I were in the mall the other day and passed "Victoria Secret". This is a store I visit a couple of times a year because I use their nummy smelling lotions. I decided to go in a take a look at their bras. I had no idea what I was really looking for and I hadn't really been officially sized for one before.

The lady there asked me if I'd like to be sized. And I thought why not. As I've mentioned before, I've lost some weight in the past couple of years. Ironically, my cup size has gone up while my measurement has gone down. The lady thought I was probably wearing the wrong cup size because I was wearing one too big around. I bought an expensive bra at that store in my right size, just to try it out. I really like it so far. I think it supports me better than previous bras have before.

Here's my question to all you females!!!!! In your opinion, is it worth it to buy the more expensive bra for a specialty store? Does it matter?

Halloween

2008-11-04T11:49:00.000-08:00

It's been a while since I last made a post, so I thought I would tell you of our exciting Halloween. It's probably one of the more busy Halloweens we've ever had. For the last 3 years we had maybe 2 or 3 trick or treaters total at our apartment. This is mostly because we were living in an area of town where there weren't a lot of trick or treating age kids and we lived in a basement apartment on a little dead end road. Not a lot of traffic on a good day anyways!

This year was a little different. Tom & I both recently got new callings in our new ward. Tom got his first, as assistant to the teacher's quorum. This was very exciting for him because he loves working with the youth and he enjoys the scouting program. He gets to do both with this calling. I was really happy for him and so far he has really enjoyed it. I tease him that now he gets to work with people on his own wavelength!!! I'm really just teasing!!!! A week later I got my calling as 1st counselor in the young women. I've always wanted to serve in the young women! So, I was really excited about my calling too. One of the benefits of our callings is we end up at the same place at the same time a lot. Which is a good thing, because we still only have one car. Plus we've made some friends in our complex (Derek & Nicole Bird) that also work in the young mens and young women, so we have some alternate ride options if something ever happens.

For Halloween the young men and young women had a joint haunted forest activity that they put on for the rest of the ward. First let me say, I'm not a big Halloween person. Dressing up seems more trouble then it is worth most time and it usually costs money that I either don't want to spend or we don't have. Plus when Halloween in over you can't wear it again for another year.....well I guess you could, but people would probably look at you kind of funny! So, we had to get costumes. For those of you that don't know.....I really like vampires. Not in real life obviously, but I love to read and watch fictional stories about them. So, I dressed up as a vampire, Tom dress up as a convict, & Jake dressed up as a crab(my mother-in-law sent us the costume). The only pictures we got of course was Jake. Surprisingly, we're not very good at taking pictures. You'd think we'd be better with mister camera guy living here. Plus I hate haunted forests, houses etc. I don't like people jumping out at me and scaring me. Luckily for the night I had the job of sorting everyone that showed up into smaller groups to go through. Tom was in charge of a table he made where they stick their hands in 2 bowls of yucky stuff and then a third hole where he grabs their hand and scares them. He really enjoyed it! This happened on Halloween eve.

On Halloween we went over to our church parking lot and took part in the trunk or treat for the kids for the 2 wards that meet in our building. It was the first time since we got married that we ran out of candy! Yeah!!! I don't like to keep it in the house...it's not good for either of us. I've almost reached the 40 lb lost point in a little over 2 years. Go me!!!!

Rotini with Chicken, Asparagus, and Tomatoes

2008-10-08T20:45:00.000-07:00

This is my most recent amazing recipe. Tom and I both thoroughly enjoyed it. It was absolutely delicious! Of course true to form I did change a few things in it!

8 oz uncooked rotini
1 lb skinless chicken breast, cut into 1/4 inch strips
1/2 tsp salt
1/2 tsp ground black pepper
1 C slices asparagus
2 C cherry tomatoes, halved
2 garlic cloves, minced
2 T chopped fresh basil
2 T balsamic vinegar
1 T olive oil 1/4 C crumbled goat cheese

Cook pasta according to package directions, omitting salt and fat.

Heat a large nonstick skillet over medium-hihg heat. Coat pan with cooking spray. Sprinkle chicken with salt and pepper. Add chicken and asparagus to pan; saute 5 minutes. Add tomatoes and garlic to pan; saute 1 minute. Remove from heat. Stir in pasta, basil, vinegar, and oil. Arrange 2 cups pasta mixture on each of 4 plates; top each serving with 1 T cheese
4 servings

***I used the noodles we had on hand and I didn't mix them with the mixture but topped the mixture on the noddles. We also used feta cheese because Tom loves it and it is easier to find!!!
Here is a picture before and after the cheese was added.

Tagged

2008-10-01T21:16:00.000-07:00

I was tagged by both Michelle & Brittany for this blog! I'm suppose to share 7 random and/or weird facts about myself & tag 7 randam people and the end to continue the chain. Since I'm one of the most random people I know the first part shouldn't be difficult. However the 2nd part should be interesting!!!!

1. I hate the sound of nails on a chalkboard more than anything else in the world probably. Even thinking about the possibility of hearing it makes me break out in chills. When someone even acts like they are going to do it I go craaaaaazy!!! Eeeeeek!

2. I've always loved old musicals. It started when I was a kid. My Grandma & Grandpa Borgholthaus introduced me to my first loves in that field Jeanette MacDonald & Nelson Eddy. Most people have no idea who these people are. I've always loved their movies. Granted they can be a bit corny when viewed in today's world, but still thoroughly enjoyable. Of course my girlfriends and husband are not near as enthusiastic as I am, but they don't know what they're missing.

3. I'm a huge fan of useless information. I can be one of the most random people at the oddest times. Sometimes it takes a little bit to get used to. My girlfriends actually gave me a book once full of useless information! It was one of the most fascinating books I've ever read. I thoroughly enjoyed it! I had wondered myself many of the items in the book!

4. I'm fascinated with vampires. Don't get me wrong, I would never want them to be a reality and I don't dress up like them and pretend they are a reality. I'm not that far off my rocker. But I love reading fictional books and watching fictional movies about them! I think Tom thinks I'm a little batty. He once told me he didn't think I could surprise him with the topic for one of my books. I've read everything from vampires, warewolves & witches to "normal type" books. I enjoy them all!

5. I don't have a hometown. Growing up we moved every 4 or so years. My Dad used to work for First Security Bank. We moved all over the state of Idaho as well as Clarkston, WA (for those of you not familiar with Idaho & Washington Clarkston is just over the border! If my count is right, we moved 7 times before I graduated from highschool (that would be 8 locations). Of course 2 of the locations we lived at twice. It always makes it difficult when I'm explaining where I'm from.

6. I've had a very difficult time picking a major. I am 32 years old and I've finally decided what I want to be when I grow up. Typical of me huh??? I think I've had about 6 different majors that I was sure was what I wanted to do. I am very interested in many different subjects. I had a hard time chosing which one of them I would want to do for the rest of my life. I don't know if that makes me well rounded or undecided. I've finally made my decision. Assuming I don't get pregnant, I'll start my new vocation at the ripe old age of 35 or so. I'm hoping someone will be willing to hire me.

7. I have a strange fascination for cookbooks. Even before I started really cooking, I found myself buying cookbooks I probably would never use. Luckily it was never out of control. It's not like I have a empty room full of them or anything. However I must confess that I have gotten rid of a few of them because I didn't see myself using them. Now that I actually cook I wish I still had them. Ironic huh???

Now I tag Tara, Ashley, Tom, Alicia, Janssen, Leslie, Marie, & Merrick. That's 8 people, but oh well!

My Filipino Dinner

2008-09-24T17:31:00.000-07:00

For those that don't know (which is probably most of you) Tom's cousin Christine also went to the Philippines on her mission. However she's been home a much shorter time than I have; so she is still very fluent at Tagalog, where I am not at all!!!! Since Tom and I moved up here we've been talking about going out to dinner to one of the Filipino restaurants here. (It turns out there is quite a large demographic here that are Filipinos! Yeah me!!!!! It's very exciting for me....you probably don't understand how weird I am about this.) One day, a while ago, I mentioned to Christine that we had seen a couple of Filipino restaurants while we've been driving around.

Last week she gave me a call to propose a great idea she had! Her sister (Carolyn) recently got engaged and is getting married next month. Yep....obviously a cool girl to pick the coolest month of the year to get married (our anniversary is Oct 5th!!). We hadn't had the opportunity yet to meet Carolyn's fiance, and she wanted to take him on a ferry ride. So, Christine thought it would be a lot of fun for the three of them to ride the ferry over to our side of the pond and then we could all go out to a Filipino dinner together. The place we were going to go was already closed when we got there (don't ask me why they close at 3 pm on a Saturday???). So, Tom remembered where he had seen another one on google maps. So, we drove over there and eventually found the little Filipino Diner.

We had a great time and I totally enjoyed the dinner. We ended up treating the dishes "family style" and shared several different dishes. Unfortunately, they were out of my favorite dish so I'll have to go back again to have that!!! Bummer! My favorite (I don't even remember what it was called) was a dish I hadn't had since my mission. It had ginger & papaya in it and I pretty much inhaled it! I didn't even remember it, but as soon as it hit my tongue I remembered it in a flash. Tasty!!!

Delicious Recipes

2008-09-23T13:52:00.000-07:00

I was told I was suppose to include the recipes for any dishes that I talk about. I don't want to include all the recipes I spoke of, so I'll include my two favorites (which were new recipes I had never made before. If you would like any of the other recipes, let me know!

Summer Tortellini Salad (This is a cold dish)
**I'm also one for using what I have, so I used regular tomatoes, regular onions, parsley out of a bottle, & I grated the cheese we had; but this is what the recipe said. I don't have a picture, but it was very pretty!

1 pkg (9 oz) uncooked refrigerated cheese-filled tortellini
1 medium zucchini, thinly sliced
1 large carrot, peeled and chopped
1 pint cherry tomatoes, halved
4 green onions with tops, thinly sliced
1/4 C snipped fresh parsley
1/2 C fat-free Ranch Salad Dressing
2 T grated fresh Parmesan Cheese

Cook tortellini according to pkg directions; drain and rinse under cold running water. Set aside.

Slice zucchini, chop carrot, cut cherry tomatoes in half, & thinly slice onions.

Add vegetables to tortellini in a bowl. Pour salad dressing over salad. Grate cheese over salad & mix gently. Cover; refrigerate at least 2 hours before serving.

Chicken Tortilla Soup

4 Corn Tortillas (I used Flour)
1/2 C Onion, chopped
3 boneless, skinless Chicken Breast halves (about 12 oz)
1 Garlic clove, pressed
1/4 tsp Chili Powder
1/4 tsp Cumin
2 cans (14.5 oz each) Chicken Broth
1 can (14.5 oz) diced Tomatoes, undrained
1 can (4 oz) chopped Green Chilies, undrained
4 tsp fresh Cilantro, snipped (didn't use)
2 oz reduced-fat Cheddar Cheese, shredded (used what I had)
4 thick slices Fresh Lime (optional) (didn't use)

Prehead oven to 400 degrees. Cut tortillas into 1/2 inch strips & place on flat baking sheet or stone. Bake 7-8 min or until crisp

Meanwhile, chop onion & cut chicken into 1/2 inch pieces. Heat soup pan over medium high heat. Spray with vegetable oil. Add chicken; cook and stir 3 minutes (I just cooked them until they were done). Add onion, garlic, chili powder, & cumin. Cook & stir for 2 minutes. Stir in broth, tomatoes & chilis. Bring to a boil. Reduce heat and simmer 10 minutes.

Snip cilantro. Devide tortilla stripps among 4 bowls. Ladle soup over tortillas & shred cheese over top. Sprinkle soup with cilantro. Garnish each bowl with line slice, if desired

**I've also had it with a dab of sour cream on top!!

I hope you enjoy these recipes. Tom & I really enjoyed them!! I made banana bread last week. A little overcooked but pretty good if I do say so myself!!! Yeah me!!!

Cooking

2008-09-19T09:43:00.000-07:00

I've always been kind of insecure about my cooking skills. That was actually one of our first fights (if you can call it that....we didn't argue really), when Tom said something jokingly about something I made and I of course took it personally because of my insecurities. My friend, Shelli, was there at the time and quickly informed Tom that cooking is not something to tease me about. Friends are great aren't they!!!!

As some of you may know, I'm being a housewife right now while we're trying to get our puppy trained enough to be able to leave him for longer than 3 hours at a time. (At least we can go on a date and to church!!!) Because I'm not used to being home all day every day I'm trying to make myself useful while I'm here. I keep the house clean, all the housework done, & I'm trying to become a better cook. Don't get me wrong....I did cook, just not a lot. (Because I worked a lot, cooking was way down the list of things I wanted to do when I got home after a 10 hour day....EXHAUSTED!!!!) (I'm just not a superwoman like my cousins...you know who you are) Also, I generally didn't branch out a lot. I stuck to my handful of recipes that I was pretty good at. I'm a pro at stir-fry and Lo-Main. I also had a few recipes that I learned my my girlfriends when I was living there. I've also made Potato Rolls a few times (it's my Mom's recipe)....it's always a hit. If you've never had Potato Rolls let me know and I'll email you the recipe. It's one of my favorites!!!!

Most nights when Tom gets home I'm trying to either have a homemade meal or leftovers from a previous meal. I'm also trying to be better at only buying the groceries I'm actually going to use. I was horrible at that!!! Some of the meals I've made, haven't been terribly pretty but they've all tasted great. Which is really what's been important to Tom. I've made a few recipes that were great, but I neglected to take pictures of them! These are the recipes: Summer Tortellini Salad (Pampered Chef), Chili Cornbread Skillet (Pampered Chef), Chicken Tortilla Soup (Pampered Chef), Chicken Enchiladas, & Savory Chicken Squares (Shelli's Cookbook)

I was able to get a couple of pictures.....they're not very good though. They looked so much better in person.

The first picture is ChickenTortilla Soup & the 2nd one is Savory Chicken Squares (which I have cooked before)

Weekend With My Friends

2008-09-15T15:32:00.000-07:00

For those of you that don't know my girlfriends (Tammie, Shelli, & Tracy) they are insane travelholics (is that a word?). They go on several trips a year all over the world. This benefits me because they are very sweet and bring me presents!

Before we even moved to Silverdale, they were planning their trip here. Unfortunately for my parents, they planned the trip before my parents told me they had thought of coming up the same weekend. Unfortunately for me, now I have to wait a year for my parents to visit me. They think they have to wait until the next Labor Day (why I don't know). Anyway, my girlfriends bought their tickets to come visit me for Labor Day before we left Salt Lake City. I was really happy about this because I was not looking forward to saying goodbye to them and this kind of broke it up and made it a little easier.

They arrived early Friday morning (Aug 29th). The airport is actually over inbetween Tacoma and Seattle, so I had to get up a little early in order to be there on time. Because Jake was still very little we couldn't leave him at home all day (still can't actually). He's sometimes a little difficult to control when I'm the only one in the car so Jake got to travel to the airport in his crate. He wasn't happy about this at first. He wined for a bit to let me know he was not happy. Shelli & Tracy (who sat in the back seat) entertained him for the rest of our traveling that day so he didn't have to travel like that again. That day we found our way (luckily because I had never driven there by myself) to Pikes Place Market which is one of the many famous attractions of Seattle. It's an open air market that actually reminds me a little of the Philippines. They sell fish, vegtables, fruit, flowers & many kinds of decorations. It's a lot of fun and definitely a cool experience if you've never been there. Jake got to spend a little time in his crate in the car waiting for us because they don't let animals in the enclosed building with the food. He had a nice nap, but was happy when we returned. We then returned to Silverdale and they got to see our new apartment and we met up with Tom after he got off of work. We then went to dinner at a cool harborside restaurant called The Boat Shed. We all had a lot of fun and I think we all loved our meals.
Saturday morning we left to go on a drive up the Olympic Peninsula. We stopped at several different light houses. It was a beautiful drive and we really enjoyed ourselves. As a side note, we picked up an area information paper with a note about Forks, WA. For those of you poor uninformed people....that's the location of the fictional characters in Stephanie Meyers Twilight books. They have started a Stephanie Meyers Day on "Bella's" birthday. What a hoot! Not something I would go to, but an entertaining thought!

Sunday was of course a relaxing day with church and an easy day hike. I use hike very loosely. There is this cute trail that meanders through town (however there is tons of trees so you would have no idea you were in town at all)! We took a nice leisurely walk through this trail. It was very pretty, relaxing & a nice Sunday outing. Jake also enjoyed it, but by the end he was pretty beat!

Monday was their last day here and we decided we would go back to Seattle on the way to the airport (their flight wasn't until that evening) to see some of the rest of the sights. This time instead of driving, we took the ferry to Seattle. Luckily we got one of the big ones with the open walkway on the top floor. Tom and I took one of these big ferries one night a few weeks ago. It was so cool to stand on the top floor and look at the open water in the dark night!!!! Beautiful!

For lunch we went to the world famous restaurant Ivars, my Dad has ranted about their clam chowder since he went to a business school here years ago. I wouldn't know though since I don't like clam chowder so I didn't try it. Tracy did though and said it is the best clam chowder she's ever had.

After dinner we went to the aquarium. It's a really neat aquarium. The coolest part was when we saw a octopus. We only got to show them the Space Needle from a distance because downtown was shut down for a yearly event they have every Labor Day. But it was close enough that they got to see it really well. Maybe next time we'll go to dinner there! We also went to see the Troll under the bridge that Tom tells me is in the movie "10 Things I Hate About You". I don't remember it. I guess I'm going to have to watch it again. This was also the day Tom got starstruck and saw his celebrity sighting. See his blog for more info!

That was the end of our sightseeing, but we have enough things to show them to last us maybe the next 3 trips they come to see us!!! We had a lot of fun and I hope they come again soon!

Jake Videos

2008-09-07T13:17:00.000-07:00

My New Plates

2008-09-03T07:11:00.000-07:00

I've mentioned before how when Tom & I got married we had an interesting group of furniture and accessories. Most of which we inherited from Tom's parents. The plate set was one of those. We had the exciting experience of getting married at about the same time that Tom's parents & my parents were moving. The benefit of this was everyone was getting rid of stuff (especially Tom's parents because they were moving into a smaller place now that their kids weren't living at home). So we didn't have to go into debt to buy a lot of furniture, but nothing really went together! The joys of being young, in love, & newly married!

One day I was visiting my little sister Ashley and noticed her plate set. It was the first time I remember seeing square plates and I loved it! I've really started loving the modern feel to a home. I decided that I had to have square plates. As a student, we couldn't afford to buy a new plate set. But as all of you know, that changed recently. We decided to wait until we moved to buy the plates so there wasn't any chance of anything getting broken. But we did get rid of the old plate set we had before we moved. Tom's brother Shaun recently got married and needed to inherit a few living items. They inherited a lot of the stuff we originally got from Tom's parents. Keeping them in the family! So we living out of paper plates & bowls for about 2 weeks. Fun times!!! It makes you appreciate the real things.

So for the past couple of months we've been looking around for a square plate set that we liked. We found a couple of options that were possibilities, but nothing we really liked. When we were staying at Tom's aunt and uncles house, they had a plate set that I loved the look of but weren't square. I thought, if I could find a square plate set just like that I'd buy it in a second. Well it didn't happen. I did however find a round set that was very similar to the set I saw at Tom's aunt and uncles house. The question was do we choose a round set that we love or a square set were unenthusiastic about. We ended up choosing the round ones and we love them!!!!
Here they are!

Our New Home

2008-08-19T09:47:00.000-07:00

I've been wanting to write a blog about our move for a while. Unfortunately for me, my husband has been extremely effective with his blog posts since we moved out of our basement apartment in Salt Lake City. Every time I thought about making a post, I couldn't think of anything to add that my husband hadn't already blogged about. So I decided to just add a few snippets .

I haven't been very good at blogging recently. This hit home to me a while ago when I realized my cousin had bumped me from her lists on blogs. I need to do better with this, especially now that I am so far away from my family. Although, I'm sure I'll still talk to them on the phone and email like always.

For those of you that read my husband's blog, you know that we've been in the process of moving for the past month (physically) and for the past 6 months (mentally). Tom got his job offer back in January, but of course this was in the assumption that he graduated. This happened last May! So, after he graduated we then went through the exciting but unsure time of having no idea how to arrange for the transportation of our stuff. Very exciting!! Hahaha! Luckily everything worked out.

I won't go into the details of our move up here, because Tom detailed it on his blog. But needless to say, we got here all in one piece along with all of our stuff with only a couple of issues. Right after we got here we were talking about getting a puppy. We've always wanted a dog. Unfortunately (or should I say stupidly) I thought we should get one as soon as possible. I thought it would be better the longer we had him because it would give him more time to get used to us and the situation before I wanted to go back to work. I say stupidly because I had absolutely no personal puppy experience. It ended up being more difficult than I thought it would be, specifically potty training. It's being a bit of a challenge. Plus I have learned I won't be able to go back to work as soon as I wanted to. Right now we can't leave him alone for very long. He just doesn't have a very reliable bladder. The good thing though is he's doing better. Some days he doesn't have any accidents, some days he still does occasionally. But there has been a huge improvement.

Tom went to work yesterday (Monday) for his first day at work. He was very excited. We did have a minor anxiety attack when he realized he had forgotten ID badge that he had picked up on Friday and we had to turn around and go pick it up. But, we got it and arrived at work before his group went onto the shipyard! Whew!!!

The house is still in a slightly chaotic state. Due to the puppy, whose name is Jake by the way, it's taken us longer to get the house ready than it should have. We can't leave him alone in a room full of boxes or he'll leave us surprises that we don't want. We're starting to see it change and organize itself. Plus our new bedroom set is going to arrive on Friday! I'm excited to get everything where I want it to be!

I'll let you know how it goes!

Remember This....

2008-07-15T21:27:00.000-07:00

1. Add a comment on my blog, leave one memory that you and I (or Tom) had together. It doesn't matter if you knew me a little or a lot, anything you remember!

2. Next, re-post these instructions on your blog and see how many people leave a memory about you. It's actually pretty funny to see the responses. If you leave a memory about me, I'll assume you're playing the game and I'll come to your blog and leave one about you. If you don't want to play on your blog, or if you don't have a blog, I'll leave my memory of you in my comments. I can't wait to see what people remember.

Our Trip to Oregon

2008-07-13T17:54:00.001-07:00

Some of you may know that we went on a weeks vacation to Cannon Beach, Oregon! It was a absolute blast. It was fun, enjoyable, and relaxing! Cannon beach is a little town on the Oregon coast about an hour from Portland. It was kind of a family reunion for the Kruger clan. I say kind of because most of us still currently live in Salt Lake City. However Tom's older brother and his family (including the only grandkids) live in Indiana. The only downside was the long drive it took to get there.

We drove up to Oregon with Tom's brother Shawn and his fiance Alicia. We decided to split the trip in two days both for the reason of not having to drive for 13 hours straight and so I could see my grandparents in Boise. Grandma and Grandpa Borgolthaus let us all crash at their house for the night. I was able to visit Grandpa Higginson and Uncle Jerry too! It was a lot of fun! I actually learned some new things about my Dad from them that I had never heard before. Later we went to Grandma & Grandpa B's house and had the fun experience of hanging out in hot Boise in a black-out! We were very happy when the electricity came back on and we could turn the fan on! I really enjoyed hanging out with all my grandparents!

The next day we took off for Oregon. The further we got from Utah and Idaho, the more beautiful and green it got! I loved all the green everywhere. Parts of it were definitely beautiful! It took us most of the day to get there, but we were so happy when it happened. Tom's Mom and Dad had rented a little house there that belonged to some women that his Mom knew. It had three bedrooms and 2 bathrooms and fit our needs pretty good! Tom and I got the other queen bedroom.

We were there for a couple of days before Tom's older brother Byron, his wife Kari & their three kids James (4), Michael (2), & Emelie (1). They were a bit of a handful (just because they were kids in a new place around a bunch a people they could only vaguely remember). Overall they were really good kids and were a lot of fun to be around!

I think my 2 most favorite things about Cannon Beach were the shops down the main street & of course the beach! It was usually a daily occurance to go take a walk down the main street (picture a miniature Park City) and walk back on the beach. It was something I really loved doing! There is just something about the beach that I really enjoy. It something about the power, smell & basic feel of the ocean! The ocean part of Cannon Beach is actually what it's known for. There is a gigantic rock right on the beach that is quite well know. I've actually seen it in a number of movies.

We also took a bunch family pictures on the beach! It was a very interesting experience. Especially with 3 little kids that just don't know what it means to sit still and look at the camera all at the same time. I think the pictures that eventually ended up being picked just had all the kids looking in kind of the same direction. It was a bit hilarious! But we all survived.

The kids loved the beach more than anything! They loved the beach and flying their kite on the beach! Because the beach usually had a constant breeze, the kites flew pretty much by themselves. Which worked well for little kids flying the kites. As long as they didn't let go of it, it flew! The water was way too cold to swim in by any sane person, but whoever said a 4 year old was sane obviously has never spent any time with one! The only member of the family that spent any time in the water voluntarily with my 4 year old nephew James & one of him parents to keep him from doing a face plant when he was hit by a wave. He loved it! One time he even lost his pants due to the water making them too heavy to stay on his little hips. It was pretty funny!

We also got to go to the 4th of July parade there in Cannon Beach! This was the first parade the kids had been to that they threw candy at. It was pretty funny watching them first be confused on what to do with the flying candy and then dive into it face fist with full gusto! Most of the time they were too busy eating candy with one had to pick up all the candy around their feet with the other. We had to keep reminding them about it. It's so hard to concentrate when your surrounded by nummy goodness! The funniest thing I saw in the parade that I had never seen before were a group called something like the "Chair Clackers" They were a group of adult people that walked down the street in two rows with foldable chairs. They would stop and they would play some music and they would clack their chairs together along with the music. It was hilarious & very entertaining.

I would totally recommend this to anybody that wants a relaxing enjoyable vacation. Don't count on any swimming on the beach (too cold), but it fun to fly kites, take long walks etc.

Crazy Insane

2008-06-24T18:27:00.000-07:00

It's been a while since I've written. This is partially due to my laziness & partially due to Tom and me madly getting ready to move. We have every weekend from now until we leave planned out. It's a little crazy, but we want to make sure we get the opportunity to do everything and see everyone we want to see before our time's up.

The good news though is we have an apartment lined up. I'm pretty excited about it. I like the floor plan and they allow puppies, which Tom and I have wanted to get for a long time! It seems like a pretty nice place. We're going to Oregon next week & we're going to come home via Silverdale so we can take an actual look at the place. It's called The Outlook Above Silverdale and it's near the mall & Costco.

The exciting part of the whole thing is the change. I've been working at the same place now for 8 years now. I like my job (most of the time), but it's very stressful and I'm excited for something different. I have 4 1/2 weeks of actual work left! Of course I'm not counting the week we'll be in Oregon because I don't have to be at work that week! I'm not counting down at all!!!!

My First Trip To Zions

2008-04-02T18:30:00.000-07:00

Tom's graduation is right around the corner! He's very excited to say the least! We're going to be moving to Washington at the first of August. I've lived in Utah for about 8 years now, but have never been to Zions Park. This has always been somewhere I've wanted to go, but have never had the opportunity! I love red rock, I think it's absolutely beautiful! Zions Park took my breath away. You're out in the middle of nowhere, when out of nowhere these hugc mountains come out of nowhere. I loved it! We went on a couple of hikes. Tom took pity on me and gave up his wish of going on the "Angels Landing" and we went on a less scary hike. For those of you that don't know, I'm not a big fan of heights! I've seen pictures of the Angels Landing hike and all I could think about was......ahhhhhhh! Plus did I mention there was a little bit of snow? The thought of being on the little skinny rock with snow....yikes! Instead we went on another hike near the weeping rock. It was a lot of fun, with a little snow and ice. I was glad there were parts with chains attached to the rock to hold onto.

It was a lot of fun!

The Most Adorable Message Ever

2008-03-05T17:15:00.000-08:00

Last night I got a very enjoyable voice mail right before I went to bed. I was just putting my cell phone to bed for the night when I noticed there was a call I missed earlier that night and a message to go with it. I've been getting some strange voice mails recently from lawyers looking for people that they were given my phone number to find. Very annoying, I've stopped answering them. So, I listened to the message and was very happily surprised. The message started with my adorable nephew's voice (that would be my 3 year old nephew of my sister Tara, not my nephews in Indiana or my newborn one that was born 5 days ago.

Anyway the message was very cute. I could hear Tara in the background telling him what to say and then he would relay it to me. He told me hello, that it was Austin (big stumper that one), then he proceeded to tell his mom that he wanted to talk on his own. He then got very confused when I wouldn't answer him. He just couldn't understand how he was talking to me, but I wouldn't talk back. Mom and Tara cracked up in the background with that one. He then told me goodbye and he would talk to me later.

What a cutie pie! I can't wait to see him in a couple of days along with his new little brother Tayten. Here's a picture of the two boys with their daddy.

Ode to Frank

2008-02-22T11:47:00.000-08:00

It was a very sad day a couple of days ago at the Tom & Chelsea Kruger household. A couple of years ago, we bought a beta fish at Walmart. He's been our pet for the past 2 years and unfortunately that time has come to an end. Frank has died and been put to rest in the big toilet bowl in the sky. This picture is a good representation of his living quarters for the past couple of years, except Frank was red not blue!

Frank used to be so fun. He was so active in his bowl. He would swim around like crazy, especially when we were in the room. A few months ago he started to slow down. I knew that was not good news. I knew it was getting bad when I cleaned his bowl and he still kind of sat there not doing anything.

We weren't allowed to have a dog at our apartment, so we chose Frank instead. He's been a great addition to our household for the 2 years we've had him.

My Soul Mate Sweetie

2008-02-16T16:39:00.000-08:00

Earlier today I read all about my sister Ashley talk about her husband David. It was a lot of fun. Since most of the people that read this blog also read Ashley's you know exactly what I'm talking about! Now I get the same opportunity to talk about my sweetie!

What is his name? Thomas Juergan Kruger

Profession? Senior at the University of Utah. He will be graduating with his Mechanical Engineering Degree in May & will be starting a career soon after that at the Puget Sound Naval Base.

How long have you been married? 3 1/2 years now! We're not really newlyweds anymore, but we still act like it! Ask any of our family!

Who is older? (this question was added by Ashley, but I kept it in) I win more than anyone I know, even though I know a lot of girls that could answer yes to this question. I am 4 years older than Tom almost to the day. Tom's birthday is only 3 weeks after mine!

How long did you date: This question is a little tricky and I had to think about it. It all started with my 28th birthday (Jan 20) and we got engaged in July. So that makes it about 6 months, but Tom was living in Seattle for about 3 months of that time. Then we were engaged for about 3 months more. I guess it's your call of 3, 6, or 9 months!

Who eats more sweets? Well, right now it would be Tom, but only because I'm on a diet. Usually we both have the same neverending sweet tooth. Nummy! I wish we didn't.

Who's taller? Weeeellllllll, we're both kind of short. I always tell Tom if we ever end up with kids they stand no hope. But they'll be cute shorties! Tom's still taller than I am though, by several inches.

Who has more speeding tickets? I think him, since I only have one. But I'm not very sure about that. He's not here right now to ask.

Who can sing better? No idea. Based on the number of times each of us gets asked to sing it would be Tom, but I've been singing longer so who knows.

Who is smarter? That would be Tom as well. I married a very talented and intelligent man. He's very smart and hard working. I'm not a slouch in that department either though, if I do say so myself.

Who does the laundry? Me usually, we've gotten into kind of habit with that. Tom helps me put it away and he does mid-week loads though. He even cleans the bathroom and does the dishes. A saint among men!

Who pays the bills? That would definitely be me. We've learned there needs to be one person in charge of that particular responsibility or things get forgotten. I do it because I have the time and I don't have other distractions.

Who cooks dinner? This one is definitely half and half. We both do this depending on who has the time and the desire. Our favorite thing though is neither of us! We both like to cook on occasion, but not all the time.

Who sleeps on the right side of the bed? I always hate this type of question. From which direction? The right side when we're in it or facing it? When we're in it, it's me. If you talking about when we're facing it, it's Tommy.

Who drives? Tom drives most of the time because he enjoys it so much. It's one of his relaxation mechanisms. Since I really don't care, I let him do that. It's actually kind of nice when we're traveling. I get to sleep, which a driving car puts me into very quickly. And Tom doesn't mind, good for me.

Who is more stubborn? Definitely a toss up. We're both hard headed, but we respect and love each other enough to be willing to compromise.

Who proposed? My loving romantic husband. Such a sweetie.

Who has more siblings? Me. I have 2 sisters & a brother, Tom has 2 brothers.

Who wears the pants? I'm lucky enough to say neither one of us or both of us. We work more like a team. This goes back to the stubborn thing. I'm way to stubborn and hard headed to allow anyone to tell me what to do, but I will make a joint decision.

Well, that's it. Tom, you know how much I love you. You make me very happy!

Tom's Birthday Week

2008-02-12T18:50:00.000-08:00

Many of you might wonder, why I would title this blog "Tom's Birthday WEEK". The reason I say this is because I started celebrating his birthday at the beginning of the week. I started singing happy birthday to him on Sunday even though his birthday wasn't until Friday. Luckily for me and him he's used to me making a fool of myself with singing. I do it in the middle of Walmart sometimes. He is such a patient man with me. I'm just glad he loves me!

Tom told me previously that he wanted the first season of a show called Samarai Jack. This of course is a cartoon (those of you that know Tom won't have to ask why). Tom enjoys this show, but it is not terribly common or easy to find. I had to do a bit of looking to locate it in town. I didn't really want to have to order it, because I wanted him to be able to open it on his birthday. Well, I found it and it was a hit. Buying a present is so much easier when someone requests something specific!

For dinner on his birthday we went to a place called Cafe Rio. It's one of our favorite places to go for dinner. Tom loves mexican and I love their salads. I have a salad every time I go. I was very careful this time because of my weight loss goals. I was very careful with the dressing and I didn't eat the tortilla (even though they are freakin' nummy). I had my normal Pork salad & Tom had a burrito served enchilada style. I think we both really enjoyed it.

We then headed over to REI. This is an outdoor store, that sells anything outdoorsy. It's nirvana for Tom. He loves outdoor sports and entertainment. It turned out they were having a huge sale. So Tom got to buy himself a bike riding jacket. He wants to ride his bike when it cold outside. Nutty if you ask me, but I am totally supportive of him staying healthy in a way he enjoys.

Last but not least, was our trip to the U to shoot some pool. This is an activity that Tom has always enjoyed. I've become okay at it, although I'm still far from good at it. But we had a lot of fun teasing and cheering each other on. It was amazing how much time both of us spent chasing the last little ball around the table. It was kind of hilarious!

Well, happy birthday Babe! Here's to another year! I LOVE YOU!!!!

Thaifoon

2008-02-03T14:17:00.000-08:00

On Friday Tom & I finally had our first taste of Thai food. This is something we've been wanting to try for a long time. Ashley used to tell me how much she liked Thai food and ever since then every time I would pass a Thai restaurant I would say the exact same thing to Tom: "I want to try Thai food sometime". After 2 million times of hearing the same thing over and over he finally got the hint. Just kidding....he wanted to try it too. It was a lot of fun. Plus it is suppose to be free. Tom's boss promised to buy us lunch because of all the help Tom did with their office move. We'll see if we ever see that money.

First of all, it's very important to know how much I love oriental food. It's one of my favorite things to eat. It doesn't really matter what version of oriental food we're talking about. I love them all. So, we walk into the restaurant and they have an indoor waterfall. By waterfall, I actually mean there is falling water coming down a transparent glass wall. Guess where we got to sit. Right next to it! Very cool. I love running water. Very cool ambiance.

Then there came the food. I got to try some soup, Miso Soup. Now, I don't know exactly what was in this soup. I know there was Tofu in it as well as some miscellaneous stuff. We have no idea. I would compare it to chicken broth with other stuff. I know, I'm great at the English language! We both had different individual dishes. Tom had "Firecracker Chicken". I think the name said it all. I tried a piece and had to drink my water and Tom's water to cool off my tongue. It was a bit much for me but Tom loved it. He'd order it again in a second. I had Pad Thai, which was chicken and shrimp over rice noodles. It was very good. I enjoyed it a lot.

For those of you that visit Salt Lake City, this restaurant is located at the Gateway mall near Barnes and Noble. It was a lot of fun and the food was very good. I would recommend it. The name of the restaurant is Thaifoon.

Of course I have no idea how genuine this cuisine is.

Biggest Loser

2008-01-27T14:36:00.000-08:00

First thing that needs to be explained before I start is a phenomena at work that we like to call the "Horizontal Shift". It's unavoidable where I work to not put on weight. #1 We sit on our butts all day long looking at a computer #2 They are constantly feeding us junk food there (not all from the company, people bring all their left overs in as well). Now some of us have more self control then others. I'm not great at this particular skill, but I'm getting better.

Because summer is approaching and some people at work wanted to lose some wait before this happened, we are having our own "Biggest Loser" at work. Some of us have been trying to lose weight anyways, so we decided to join this competition to keep us from cheating while others are in it for the prize money. Here's the buzz.....we all pay $3 per week for 15 weeks. For those of you that are mathematically challenged, that is a total of $45. They divided us in to teams of two and we get to weigh in every week. They give out a weekly award and at the end of the 15 weeks the winner gets a big chunk of change to split between the two team members. This is based on body fat % not necessarily pounds. Right now the guys are doing amazingly, but I think the girls will be the ones to beat at the end of the competition! My goal is only 2 pound a week. For 15 weeks that is a total of 30 pounds! I think it's doable and healthy!

I'm not in it to win the money, I just needed the incentive to stay on the program. We can use any diet of exercise program we want to use. I just hope nobody cheats or abuses their body to much so people don't get frustrated. As long as I continue to lose weight I'll be happy!
I'm going to look HOT for that cruise!