Construction, Anniversary, and other Happenings

First things first...the pipe drama is over!!! Well, knock on wood and hope for the best I guess. We had our pipes replaced and it has brought a huge sense of relief to us. It was stressful knowing that at any moment we could have a pipe burst. Even though it was expensive to fix we are happy that it is done and we can move on, and hopefully the value of our place will stop decreasing!!!

Here's the damage





Luckily everything has been restored to its proper order and it only took a week! Plus, our downstairs neighbor finally had his ceiling replaced (thanks to a few reminder emails from Jer to the owner) so we no longer have to listen to his insane ranting and raving from the shower every single night!!! I think I might be more happy about this than I am about the pipes even.

Jer and I also celebrated our one year anniversary this month. Yep, that's right, we made it a year! Since we are poor now we had to utilize a gift card I won in my company golf tournament and went to dinner at The Cheesecake Factory. Jer was then able to score a sweet KSLDeal and get us a room at The Armstrong Mansion, a local bed and breakfast. We wanted to go mountain biking at Snow Basin the next day but turns out the lifts are closed for the season so we ended up going to Heber and golfing with my brother Collin and then having dinner with him and my dad. On Saturday we were able to hang out with my friend April and her husband Ben who were in town. We went to The Scarlet Pimpernel and really enjoyed it. It was really fun to see them and an overall, really good relaxing weekend.

We've also had a fun sporting month. We got free Jazz tickets for the final preseason game because we donated some food to the food bank. We are REALLY looking forward to this NBA season. Go Jazz!!

We also got tickets to the BYU vs. Wyoming football game and our seats were sweet and BYU actually won so it was a great game to attend.


And finally to end this blog post of randomness, two final random thoughts. Have you tried this?


Cafe Rio Queso. Try it. Love it.

And...

I don't know what this guy is listening to or taking, but I want it, because anyone who is that energized and in to his workout must be doing something right.

The Truth Game

I've been thinking of ways to make my blog more interesting, or at the least to start blogging more, especially since Jeremy is in school and we probably won't be traveling too much anymore, at least for the next year. The best idea I have come up with so far is to have a weekly Truth Game blog. I love the Truth Game. Not sure if it is a real game or just something I made up, but I've been playing it for years. The Truth Game is pretty simple, you ask a question and the person HAS to tell the truth, it's a rule. I love this game and I love to make people play it even when they roll their eyes at me. However, I also love to break the only rule, and never tell any truth about myself. I think this is fun! It tends to bother others for some reason though.

So I will now be doing a Truth Game blog where I reveal an interesting, unknown or unique truth about myself or Jeremy. I included Jeremy since I figured it might be easier to post things about him than about myself.

So for the first truth....drum roll please...my secret lifetime career goal is to own my own commercial lawn mowing business. That's right, lawn mowing. I said it.



I've had this dream since I was young. My parents bought a lawn mowing business from our neighbors so that they could teach us to work. I'm sure I am remembering this experience being a lot more positive than it actually was but whatever the reality was I look back on that and think it is the perfect job for me. Whenever I walk into work and the lawn mowing company is there working on the landscaping I get ridiculously envious. I picture them outside all day doing some nice manual labor, and me trapped in the prison of my little cube starring at my computer screen all day. And then I begin the cry. Okay, it's not quite that dramatic but seriously, what is better than being outside all day? You get to be really tan. I'm sure you lose a lot of weight by being so active. People think you are cool. And the biggest perk? You get to set your own schedule!!! It's perfect.

I envision having this fleet of trucks with attached trailers loaded with the latest in lawn mowing equipment. I of course would have a clipboard and look very official as I organize my troops each morning and send them out across the valley to mow, trim and weed.



It would be awesome.

I don't know if I would actually do the mowing. Probably at first before my company becomes a really big deal. After I have run every teenager based mowing company out of business I would probably be too important and busy to do the actual mowing, I would just run the company. I seriously still have dreams of doing this. I feel like it is perfect because you could work really hard during the warm weather months and then just hibernate in the winter; or use the trucks to open a snow removal business. I haven't decided if I find the snow removal as magical as the lawn mowing though.

So there you have it, I desire to be a professional mower and some days I seriously consider it. I feel like it is a really viable career option because people generally hate mowing the lawn and no matter how bad the economy gets, the grass is still going to grow.

Wasatch Crest...Sort of...

We have wanted to ride the Wasatch Crest trail for a very long time. Supposedly, it is one of the best mountain biking trails in Utah. We finally decided to try it last Saturday. The first two miles of the ride are basically straight uphill and commonly known as 'Puke Hill'. This hill was a beast and I basically pushed my bike up the entire thing. Lots of other bikers were doing the same thing though so I didn't feel so bad. Once we were done with the brutal hike we were ready for the famed downhill ride that takes you across the crest of the mountains from Big Cottonwood Canyon all the way into Millcreek Canyon.


Once we started heading down the trail we were having a blast! The trail is in great condition and was absolutely beautiful. We rode all the way to Desolation Lake to a spot where we had to once again walk our bikes through a very technical area. This is where we made a critical error. There was a fork in the trail and we went left, when apparently we were supposed to go right. However, we did not know this at the time so we went on our way having a good ole' time.


We were taking our time getting down the mountain and even paused to shoot a few video clips of Jeremy hitting some 'sick kickers'.




Shortly after shooting this video we ran into an old friend from the ward and we were telling him how we were headed to Dog Lake and then into Millcreek. He kindly informed us that it was a climb to Dog Lake and we began to worry. We had already killed ourselves getting up Puke Hill and we didn't have much left for more climbing. Sure enough we came to another fork in the trail and we had to climb up a trail not made for bikes. It was MISERABLE! I wanted to just sit on the trail and cry but the trail wasn't even wide enough to do that. So up we went. By the time we got to Dog Lake we were both spent. Luckily, from there on out it really was all downhill and we had a lot of fun. By the end of the ride we had gone 24.63 miles. We are still recovering.

Back to School, Back to School

It's that time of year again, and this time Jeremy is headed back to school! Jeremy was accepted to the Masters of Information Systems program at the University of Utah. It is a full year program and so far he is loving it! We are SO glad that he decided to go back to school because the day we returned home from Kansas City he was laid off from his job. His boss decided to sell the VOIP portion of the business and that is what Jeremy was doing. It was a bit of a shock to come home and find out that his job was gone. We are so glad we had a back-up plan! His program has been much busier than he anticipated so it has been working out really conveniently that he hasn't been working. His classes are at night and I was sad that I wasn't home to see him off on his first day because I was at work. Luckily, Jeremy documented the glorious event for me!



New backpack and everything!



And off he goes...

Kansas City Adventures!

In August we were able to go to Kansas City to visit Jeremy's sister, Melanie and brother-in-law Ashwin. Jeremy's parents, grandparents, two aunts and cousin also made the trek. So it was a mini family reunion so to speak. Luckily for us, there was a high heat warning for the duration of time we were there. WOW, was it ever hot! But we still managed to have a really good time.

We visited the Hallmark museum where we saw how packaging ribbons are made and learned the history of a good hallmark card.



Watching old Hallmark commercials.



We also went to the Federal Reserve and learned all about money.



And of course we had to see the Yankees play the Royals while they were in town.



A foul ball was hit right towards us, we didn't get the ball but we did get some good pictures with it.




It was so hot at the game the number from the jersey Jeremy wore was marked in his t-shirt with sweat.



Other pics from the games...




My BFF April and her husband Ben were even able to come for a day and hang out with us. I didn't get any pictures with them though. We had fun window shopping at the Cabella's.



All in all we really liked our visit to the Midwest! It was really green and had tons of trees, which was a pleasant surprise. I thought it would be a lot of flat corn fields. I wish I had done a better job of taking pictures of our various activities but I didn't. Next time I guess!

Cooking Fun!

I hate cooking. I find it stressful. Jeremy hates eating quesadilla's and cold cereal for dinner every night so he ends up doing most the cooking around here. I tell myself he does it because he enjoys it, it makes me feel better for being such a bum. Here is his latest endeavor.

Homemade wings, wing sauce and blue cheese dressing.



Best wings we have had in a long time.

Did that just happen?

Sometimes at church I find myself asking, "did that just happen?" This week the gem came from testimony meeting when this was said:

"I'm so thankful that I didn't quit church when they did the realignment cause I was so mad, but I decided to go bowling and I got some strikes..."

Yep. That just happened.

That's not even the most memorable quote from this particular person. This is may favorite:

"I have had a really hard week because I just found out why I haven't had my menstrual cycle in five months...I'm menopausal...(followed by many tears, and said over the pulpit to the entire congregation).

Yep. That just happened.

Hiking Lake Blanche

On Saturday we decided to head up the canyon and hike the Lake Blanche trail. I was glad that Jeremy made this suggestion because we haven't been hiking at all this year and it was good to get out and enjoy the mountains. Plus, we will be hiking the Subway again this year in about a month and I needed to be reminded of how hard hiking can be. This hike kicked my trash!!! I was SO sore on Sunday. Jeremy wore huge blisters into his heals and didn't complain about it once on the hike. If that had been me I would have sat on the trail and cried and demanded to be carried down the hill. Luckily he didn't do that!

We started hiking around 8 and I was glad we got up early to beat the heat because on the way down the mountain it was pretty hot and I was glad we weren't hiking uphill. The lake was beautiful, as were the mountain views. We had lunch at the top and then hiked down. It was really nice because we were done around 1 and still had the rest of the day to relax. It was a great Saturday activity.

Here are the pics:

A1A - Beachfront Avenue!!!

We recently returned from a fun getaway to Sunny Florida. We decided we needed to use up all of our free flights before Jer goes back to school so we decided to go visit family and the first trip was to Florida to visit my sister Janene and her cute family. We had a blast but were very happy to return to Utah and be out of the humidity. It was HOT in Florida. We decided that we were not built to live in that kind of heat and humidity. It was ridiculous. It is not natural to sweat that much. Just not natural.

We arrived late on a Thursday night, and because we used free flights we had to fly separately. By the time Jer arrived at our hotel in Orlando we were both famished but it was almost midnight. Luckily the front desk had a menu for a late night pizza place that would deliver and so we ordered some pizza. I don't know if it was because we were so hungry or what, but it tasted like some of the best pizza we had ever had. I ate like four pieces in about four minutes and then promptly fell asleep. Later that night I was not enjoying the pizza as much....HAHAA!

Janene and her family drove to Orlando on Friday morning and picked us up (in their swagger wagon) at our hotel to head to Disney's Blizzard Beach. We had a great time. I am so glad we decided to do a water park and not a regular park because I think I would have died of heat exhaustion. Oh course, because it was a vacation for me we had about an hour-long downpour of rain but it didn't really effect us because it was still HOT! I can't go on vacation without at least one rain storm. We had an absolute blast hanging out with Leah, Corban and Bricey at the park.



It was so much more fun having kids to play with. And those kids are little water rats, they are way more brave than I ever was or even am when it comes to those water rides.

Here are some pics from Blizzard Beach (had to steal nearly all photos from my sister)







After our fun day in Orlando we drove back to Gainesville to stay with my sister. On Saturday we headed to Crescent Beach for a fun beach day.





Jer was a great sport and let us bury him. He was even a good sport when I dropped a completely full bucket of heavy wet sand on his leg while he was trapped.

On Sunday we just spent the day relaxing in Gainesville and then on Monday we headed back to Orlando to do some outlet shopping before we were nearly cooked to death and had to go to the hotel pool to cool off. The highlight of the Orlando shopping trip was that I really wanted to eat lunch at Margarittaville because they have the most amazing nachos. I had them when I went to Hawaii and I love them and have wanted to go back ever since. Little did we know you had to park at Universal in order to get to the restaurant and before we knew it we were in the line of cars entering the park and had to pay $14 to park! So yes, we paid $14 to eat nachos plus the price of the actual nachos...pathetic I know.

Funny phrases from the trip:
1. Me to Jeremy on the drive home from the beach after Corban had a bit of a melt down: "Does this trip make you want to have kids more or less?" Jer: "Based on this car ride...less."
2. Corban to Jeremy, "Hey, Jared!"
3. We were all racing on a toboggan ride at the water park but Leah and Corban always finished last because they don't weigh as much and couldn't go as fast so we told them to pull up on the mat so they wouldn't slow down. As soon as the race finished I jumped up and ran back to where Leah and Corban had finished and Leah was so mad she said, "I pulled up just like you told me! Maybe this is as far as kids are supposed to go?" Me: "Yep that's as far as kids are supposed to go!"
4. Corban to Jeremy, "Hey Josh!"
5. Corban after Jer and I just got out of bed for the morning, "I heard Aunt Denae do a stinky in the room."
6. Corban to Jeremy, "Hey Jared!"
7. Leah talking about her upcoming school year and having to wear school uniforms, "they look like boy shirts! I can't have any sparkles or anything! I hate them."
8. Corban to his Primary class: "The best thing that happened all week was having Aunt Denae and Uncle Jeremy (got the name right) come to visit."

All in all we had a great time and realized once again that my niece and nephews are by far the cutest kids in the world!

Random Thoughts and Updates

I was driving home from work today and remembered that 1. I have a blog, and 2. I'm not very good at updating it regularly. So I decided I would just do one random update with things we've been doing or random thoughts.

Fourth of July - For the second year in a row Jeremy and I went north for the fourth and spent the long weekend with his family in Soda Springs. The fourth of July is THE holiday in Soda Springs. Anyone who is Anyone in Soda can be found cruising the town during the patriotic festivities. On Saturday the city hosted a co-ed softball tournament. Some of Jeremy's high school friends put together a team and invited us to play. I was very nervous about this because I am NOT good at softball, however, I am VERY competitive and so sometimes those two things don't mix. Our team wasn't the greatest and we lost our first two games and were out of the competition but we did have a lot of fun. Jeremy was the best player on our team and had tons of good hits and even a home run. I was just happy that I didn't strike out.

On Monday we attended the parade where we were given these.





Now really, what is more American than an American flag made in China? My answer is nothing! This represents America perfectly. Why would we spend time making a silly cheap flag, when we can simply outsource it to a country that can mass produce it at a much cheaper cost? So I proudly waved my Chinese born American Flag and thoroughly enjoyed the parade. Needless to say we enjoyed our time in Soda.

Basketball - Jeremy and I have recently been pretty obsessed with the NBA's free agency circus. I cannot believe how ridiculous and out of control it has gotten. It has really made me start to hate professional sports. However, I have LOVED the Jazz since I was little and cannot abandon them so we continue to watch and speculate with everyone else. I have a co-worker who grew up in Cleveland and he is OBSESSED with sports, particularly Cleveland sports teams, even more particularly the Cavs and Lebron James. Needless to say, he was absolutely crushed when Lebron left. In hopes of helping him feel better, my co-workers and I prepared a little gift.











And finally to finish off my random post I have a story about my lunch today. Jeremy prepares our lunches everyday because I am SUPER slow at getting ready in the mornings. Today I was at lunch enjoying my nice sandwich with my co-workers when I bit into something that tasted kind of funny. Here is what I found: