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.
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.
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?
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.
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.
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.
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!
I was born and raised in California. My husband and I were married in June 2005. At the end of 2007, we moved half way across the country. I received my bachelor's degree in December 2010 in Accounting. I work as a utilities accountant and I love it.
