Short vs. Tall

Several months ago I was leading the choir, and I had everyone stand up. Then I could no longer see all of them. A solution to the problem: stand on a chair. Here I am standing on a chair next to our really tall friend, Nate.

I still need Jason to get the pictures off of his phone that he took of me while I was leading.

6 Months: continued

Just some more random stuff:
This is how Erica and Tim's kids can often be found in front of the TV. I love it.


Jason makes my lunch often. I also make his often. We are definitely a partnership when it comes to making lunches. This is how he prepared my sandwich one day.





We have some great friends that host a tailgate every home game. I have lots of fun eatting and hanging out. Here I am with some of the ladies.


I ran another 5K in October. It warmed up quite a bit that day and it took a lot of us by surprise. I was not expectig the heat. I improved my time and had fun. I look forward to running more 5k's next year.

6 Mo of Happenings: Random Summer and Fall Stuff

Over Labor Day weekend, Jason and I went to a hibachi grill with some friends. I had never been before. It was a neat experience, and the food was good.


Just us being silly

We are so bad about taking pictures so maybe some silliness will make up for our lack.

We watched the kids for a couple of hours on a Saturday early in September while Erica and Tim went to the temple. We thought it would be fun to go swimming, but the pool was freezing cold even though it had just barely stopped being extremely hot. I think the kids still had fun though.

6 Mo. Continued: Blackberry Picking with my Mom

My mom came out to visit this summer and we were able to spend sometime with her. My sister, Erica, always has fun things planned when my mom comes to town. This time we went to a blackberry farm in Broken Arrow to pick Blackberries.


Jason and I unfortunately did not put our berries to use.

My mom, us, and Erica and Tim's kiddos

After picking berries, we went over to Bluebell's factory in the Tulsa area for their annual Taste of Summer celebration. This is an amazing event for those in the area. It cost only $5 to get in (I believe the kids were free). You get to sample (their samples were huge) as much ice cream as you want, tour their factory, and let the kids jump in the bouncehouses. I love their Triple Caramel ice cream.The only bad side, it is in the hot sun.

6 months of Happenings: Zoo and Anniversary

A lot has been going on in the last six months. Some pictures and brief recaps will fill you in.

We ended our fun with the Curtis family back at the end of May by going to the Oklahoma City Zoo. A picture of Jason and I monkeying around-or should I say "Gorillaing."


My sexy hubby. This was taken on our anniversary. We celebrated 5 years on June 10th.

We just went out to dinner and had a low key night, but it was nice to go on an actual date. We sometimes let those dates slip, and we do not even have kids yet!

Thanks Jason for the five years so far. We have had many, many bumpy roads, but we have also had lots of fun, laughs, and memories. Looking forward to another five and eternity. I love you, Jaby.

Is there anything wrong in this picture?

Do you see anything wrong with this picture?! My feet cannot touch the ground. This is everyday life for me. In a classroom, they don't touch the ground. At work, they don't touch the ground. On my couch, they don't touch the ground.
Often at work I do not have my shoes on. I feel it is natural that if your shoes are not of the ground to kick them off. My boss does not mind. I usually end up sitting Indian style in my chair because that is comfortable. If you are fortunate to have you feet touch the ground, you are unaware of the pressure and pain it causes your lower back. How do little kids do it all the time?

Memorial Day at the Memorial

We have family, Heather, Delvin, and kiddos, come visit us for the weekend. We decided to go to the Oklahoma City Memorial. This place gets me every time. I just love the design of the memorial. We still need to go into the museum sometime.

There is church across the street from the memorial and they have a statute of Jesus with his back turned to the memorial. There is a plaque at his feet that says, "And Jesus wept."

Each one of these chairs represents a person whom lost their life in the bombing. There are smaller chairs that represent the children.

At night, the bases of the chairs light up. Jason and I keep saying we are going to go down there at night sometime.

Our crazy story from the OKC Memorial. We go to park the car in a paid lot. There is a guy standing at the entrance and we are trying to figure out if he is a parking attendant. We decide to park and see what happens. The guy walks over to us to get our money. We pay him. He seems very official. He is talking about how they are really going to start cracking down across the street at the Post Office because people are not supposed to be parking there. The guys look at the parking stub that he hands them and feels something is fishy. The stub looks used and the attendant shack is locked up. I see a cop pull up across the street, and Delvin goes to talk to the cop. In the meantime, we look over and the "parking attendant" is hightailing it out of the parking lot. The cop eventually talks to Delvin and says that he knows about it. The guys does it all around town. The guy probably made some good money for the day. We were out $5, but we walked away with a story to tell.
If you have not been to the memorial before, you should go. It is absolutely amazing.

Camping

For my birthday, Jason "surprised" me by taking me camping. I say "surprised" because whenever Jason plans a surprise, it never stays a surprise because he gets too excited and tells me or he tries too hard to conceal that I have a surprise coming, and I figure it out. We took the Friday off before my birthday and headed out to Robbers Cave is southeast Oklahoma. There were trees everywhere and the weather was nice.

We went hiking the first afternoon. We probably only hiked 5 miles. After we went hiking, we discovered the park had shaved ice. It was the perfect treat for after a hike.

We then went back to camp and relaxed. We had hobo dinners and smores for dessert (you CANNOT go camping without smores). We read and played games until about 11 and then called it a night.

Jason bought this hammock in Guatamala over 10 years ago, and it was used for the first time. I wish we had some big shady trees in our backyard.

Originally on Saturday, we had planned to go on a long hike. Unfortunately, we were woken up at 4:30 by some loud drunks across the way. I had to go to the bathroom and we decided to walk the quarter of a mile to the restroom. I was in some flip flops that I have not worn in awhile. I ended up with a blister on my foot. When we got back from the bathroom, I went back to bed and Jason decided that since he was up, he would read. Just as I was about to fall asleep, I hear a woman moaning. I just passed it off since I wanted to go back to bed. When I wake up a few hours later, Jason says to me, "Not only do they wake us up early, then we have to hear them have sex!" Well, hopefully they had a license to do so.
We ended up just having a lazy morning. Jason cooked breakfast, we read, played games, packed up, and grabbed another shaved ice on the way out. We stopped in Tulsa and had a late lunch/early dinner at Red Robin.
This is just the beginning of our Memorial Day weekend. More posts to come with of course more crazy stories. You can usually count on a crazy story when I am involved.

Half Marathon

Back in December, my sister and I talked about running a half marathon. We committed ourselves to it and even my brother-in-law joined in on the fun. Training started well in January. I was on track for being able to run it nonstop. Once Spring Break hit, training was pushed to the side because I had at least one exam every week through the end of the semester. I contemplated not even running this half marathon. I decided to still race and just do my best. I was not able to run the whole thing, but that did not matter to me. All I wanted to do was finish. The last mile for me was hard. I felt I had the energy to still run, my legs were strong enough, but my feet were killing me. My sweet husband came out the run the last 1/2 mile with me. I have a picture of me crossing the finish line, but I would only post it if I wanted to be blackmailed for life. So instead, here is a picture of Jason and I taken over Easter Weekend.

I hope to run this same half marathon next year and run it nonstop.

New Calling

I received a new callings a few weeks ago. I got called to be the Ward Choir Director! I cried. I LOVE Ward Choir. I would not consider myself musically talented, but I love music. I have basically been in a ward choir since I was 15. I love the power and peace that come with music. The song we are working on right now is Lead Kindly Light(#97). This is not a well known song in the LDS Music community, but I wish it was. I love the message it brings. Through all the bad things world and through all the mistakes that we make, our Heavenly Father is leading the way. We may not know all the answers, but we are willing to take it one step at a time as we rely on our faith in Jesus Christ.

I know this calling will be a very rewarding one. I also know it will be tough. I know I will learn a lot because I have a lot to learn!

It has started again

Jason's football season has started again.... Games have not started yet which means I still have my Saturdays, but Jason's Saturdays are busy with practice. The games do get us out to other cities and hopefully this season I will take advantage of being in Oklahoma City at least once a month and go to the temple.

I was spoiled

*Late post, I know

Jason 'surprised' me with a Valentine's getaway. The reason I say 'surprise' is because he ended up telling me because he was afraid he might forget to pack something for me. I kind of suspected something was up anyways. The Friday before Valentines's day we had already planned to be in Tulsa.
He bought tickets to the Sleeping Beauty ballet performed at the Tulsa Performing Arts Center. We also stayed at a hotel right next door, The Crowne Plaza. We had a nice dinner at the hotel in their restaurant called "The Daily Grill." I was still in jeans and a t-shirt from the day. With a name like "The Daily Grill" I did not think twice about what I was wearing. Does a 4 course meal of Crab Cake, spring salad, prime rib, and Creme brulee seem like jeans and a t-shirt type of restaurant? No. The crab cake was the best thing of the entire meal. Jason said it was the best crab cake he has ever had.

We had a nice evening, but the fun could only last for so long. We had to head home early Saturday morning. On of these days, we will actually be able to take it some of the things Tulsa has to offer. We often go to Tulsa, but it seems we had never taken in the sites or even gone hiking in Tulsa. If I have my way (and the weather cooperates), we will hopefully be able to do something fun in Tulsa this Saturday morning.

Thanks honey for the wonderful evening, laughter, and memories.

Not the best picture, but the only one we got for our Valentine's.

Cranium Fun

Last weekend we hung out with some friends for dinner and games. The boys were too funny. I wish I could have captured all the funny moments.

We had a lot of fun with great company.

Rock Band

My sister and brother-in-law got Rock Band after Christmas. We had so much fun playing. My favorite is the drums. I am not good, but practice makes perfect, right? We hope sometime this year we will have this addition in our home.

My Shadow

Meet Eliza. She is my shadow.

It may seem like I do not care about my other niece and nephews, but that is not the case. She is attached to my hip whenever I am around so I get many opportunities to get pictures of her. I have another niece and nephew in state. I also have 6 nephews and 2 nieces in California. How I miss them all.

I was watching Madi, Andrew, and Eliza a few weekends ago, and this is what Eliza was doing. She had so much fun going in and out of the dog kennel.

Christmas Snow Storm

This is what work looked like on January 4th.

In order to get to this door, you have to go up five steps. That is how much snow we got.

Native Oklahomans have told me that they had never seen this much snow in Oklahoma. It has been fun, but I hate the ice; especially yesterday morning when I went out to the car and fell. It did not feel too good. This is winter has made history for Oklahoma.

Just Because

These were delivered to me yesterday at work with a note that said, "Just because. I'll love you for an eternity. Love, Jason"

Sledding

I apologize; its a pictureless post. Yesterday Jason and I went sledding by my work. We did not bring the camera because we did not want it to get ruined. It was fun while it lasted. Our sled was amazing. My first run down, Jason barely gave me a push, and I went zooming. I went further than anyone else out there. Jason went down next and told me that the sled was breaking. We still had a couple more runs to go. I was not leaving yet. We went down together next. That was a lot of fun. Some one brought their dog, and the dog would often run along side me as I went flying down the hill. After a total of maybe 5 runs between Jason and I, I went down the hill and the dog followed. Next thing I know he is biting at my arm. I could feel his teeth through my big Columbia jacket. Looking back at it now, I do not think he was doing it to be harmful, but it scared me. I became hysterical immediately.
My senior year of high school, I was attacked by my friend's dog whom I had know for months. I did nothing to this dog. I was at my friend's house watching a TV show. When the show ended, I got up to leave to go home. Well, apparently the dog did not want me to leave and jumped up and bite my right elbow. I was wearing a thick jacket and the dog bite went through skin. It was not horrible. I just bleed for a little bit.
When this dog bite me yesterday, it was in the same exact spot that I was bite 7 years ago. I am okay. I have no marks from this dog bite. After the dog bite me, I jumped off my sled and started screaming to the everyone at the top of the hill, "Who's dog is this? Get him away from me!" Everyone probably thought I was a psycho. Jason came down and found out what happened. The dog owner shortly followed suit. We decided to do one last run together and then leave. So if you were on the hill at Hall of Fame and Western yesterday, I was the psycho who freaked out.

Checklist

• Prepare for Christmas
• Mom and Dad come to visit
• WHITE Christmas at Erica and Tim's
• Dejunking-It feels so nice to get rid of things you no longer need that take up space
• Read lots of books
• New Year's
• Train for 5K on March 6th, Half Marathon on May 15th (and trying to decide if I want to be gutsy and sign-up for St. George Marathon in October)
• January Book Club
• Start a new semester which should be my LAST Spring Semester (one more Fall semester to go)
• Realize that Accounting is not as objective as it seems
• Explain to professor that I am not questioning his authority. I am just the type of person that cannot take, "This is the answer." I have to truly understand how to formulate the answer even if it takes some explaining. He said as a professor he admires that.
• Catch-up on blogging with pictures...NOT DONE

My camera is not with me; otherwise, I would post actual posts with pictures. More to come.