Something To Think About...

I went bowling with all of my special ed. students on Friday and they taught me a valuable lesson. Each one of them would get all excited after they bowled, it didn’t matter what their score was or the fact that they only knocked down 2 or 3 pins each turn, they were happy. They weren’t competitive, just happy for the opportunity to bowl. If they can be so happy over something so simple, it makes me wish we could all look at the positive side of things.

"Trick or Triit"

As you can see we had a little theme for our pumpkins this year, but aside from that and the title I will spare you from any more "ii" jokes. It was another fairly uneventful Halloween this year. I guess that seems to be the way it goes until you have kids, so I will have to enjoy it while I can, although I have to admit the kids look pretty dang cute in those costumes.

Val and our neighbor Jessie took a couple of kids from the ward around because their mom was at home with a new-born and the dad is in the military, so that was a fun glimpse into the future for her.

I on the other hand stayed home to pass out candy to all 25 of the kids that came by (that is however triple last years turn-out) and as I do every year spent several hours doing my pumpkins. It is always something for me to look forward to and I even bought one of those fake pumpkins to try out this year. I am going to see how it turns out and if I like it I will use those from now on so I can just keep the ones I do and add to the collection each year. Well, hope everyone had a good Halloween this year, and now it's time to start letting out your pants in preparation for the "Real Holidays!"

Being Productive?

So many people have asked me what I have been doing during my 2-month break from work and school. Besides catching up on sleep (AKA sleeping in), watching So You Think You Can Dance, Project Runway, and watching re-runs that I have already seen 3 or 4 times of Charmed, believe it or not I have spent some time doing productive or semi-productive things like…

Making beads and jewelry that I have sold to friends and family. Here are a few of my favorites…

Watering the garden (As you can tell from the picture the cherry tomatoes have turned red! This is so exciting for us!!!) and the grass, which is time consuming when you have to do it by hand.

Re-programming all my friends and family in my contact list on my new iPhone. Brandt and I love them! We highly suggest getting them, they are totally worth the money!!!

Going golfing for the first time in my life! Brandt says that I am the only person in the world who actually gets sad when the ball doesn’t land in the sand. Call me weird but my favorite part about golfing is hitting the ball out of the sand and chipping – I think that is what it is called. Ok so I need to tell you something that happened while golfing that was hilarious. At the 6th hole on the Logan River golf course there are a bunch of geese and I was scared that I would hit one. Brandt told me not to worry because he has golfed there many times and no one ever actually hits one. Well my first ball that I hit, hit a goose right in the buttocks- it literally scared the poop out of it. I love golfing and I will definitely go again.

A few other things that I have done but I don’t have pictures of are working out every night at 9pm with my friend Jessie, reading “No Doubt About It”, and attempting to cook. I’m not a natural born chef like Brandt is (it took me 3 hours to make lasagna, by the way Kristina thanks for the recipe, it was a hit!) but I figure after 5 years of marriage placing a bowl of Brandt’s favorite cereal in the oven and telling him that dinner’s in the oven is just not going to cut it anymore.

25 Years Old!!!

It was my 25th Birthday on Monday! Some of my favorite things about my birthday were: Spending time with Brandt and our friends, having 2 parties (one on Monday and the other on Tuesday), and being blessed with awesome friends that made me a cake and put sprinklers on it. Some of my favorite gifts were: a cute pink and green apron that says, “Born to shop, forced to cook!” (Thanks Jessie and Sean, you guys know me so well) the only problem is that it is so cute that I don’t want to wear it and get it dirty, the movie “My Fair Lady”, and a gray purse! Thank you to all my family who called to wish me a Happy Birthday. That really helps make the day extra special!

One Of My Many Weaknesses

I am only revealing this weakness to help those with the same weakness to keep this from happening to you and because it is a funny story- at least now it is. I am a fairly organized person but when it comes to mail – not so organized. Brandt and I pay some of our bills online and the rest are on auto-pay so we rarely check our mail. Once a week when I do check the mail I pull out all the fun stuff like wedding announcement or shower invitations and put the rest of the mail in a pile. After the pile accumulates for 1 to 2 months (this is so embarrassing). I have Brandt go through it and throw away the junk and file the important stuff. This last Saturday (July 26th) Brandt was going through the pile and saw “Jury Summons” that was sent on June 24th for Brandt to appear in court from July 9th through the 11th. As you can imagine our worry quickly turned to being freaked-out when we read the following, “If you fail to appear as directed, you will be in contempt of court and may be fined for up to $1,000 AND jailed for up to 30 days.”




Every 2nd Sunday for over a year now I have enjoyed people’s reaction when I tell them that Brandt (who is the Elders Quorum 2nd Counselor in our ward) is in jail. Just to later explain that he has a calling to teach Sunday School and translates Spanish to all the Logan criminals that attend the jail branch. But I never thought that I would be telling people that Brandt was in jail for up to 30 days for not showing up to jury duty, and it was entirely my fault.

After finding this mail in the pile all we could do was wait for Monday to come so that we could call and see what was going on. It turned out that that specific case was settled out of court. Besides lots of prayers, one good thing that came out of this was now I check my mail more and go through EVERYTHING before putting it in the pile and eventually maybe even get rid of the whole "pile" process.

Congratulations Gavin & Mallory!

I know I'm not as fast or as thorough as Gentry, so if you want to see details from the whole day go here, but I figured I would put a few of our favorite pics from the day up as well. Really we just want to say congratulations to Gav and Mal and wish them the best! We love you guys!

What a cute couple!

I think Mallie is pictured-out, that's what 5 hours of sleep does to a 2 year old.
A couple of my favorite ladies!
Handsome pink tie'd devils!
What a great idea!
Signing off until next time.

July 2nd to July 6th

My Family had a 5-day Reunion. Usually this would sound crazy but it was on my moms side and all I can say is that Mexicans and Polynesians sure know how to party! Unfortunately on the 2nd I was studying all night for a final for one of my classes. And on the 3rd I was taking a final and had to miss out going to Lake Jordanelle to Jet Ski with my family. This was a good thing though because I am allergic to something that is in that specific lake and 4 of the times that I have gone there I have broken out into hives. So instead Brandt and I went to see the Granite High School fire works with my friends. I was a little worried about how good the fire works would be if it was anything like the girl who sang the National Anthem, if so then we were in for a pitchy treat (Gavin, you know what I mean). Fortunately we were so impressed with how good the fire works were. I swear that the finally was 5 min. long.


On the 4th of July Brandt went golfing with the Davis’s which he does every year –all 18 holes. Later that night we had a big potluck dinner with my family and watched the fire works at Provo. They must have spent all of their money on getting Hannah Montana to perform there and ran out of money for the fireworks, GHS was so much better. But it was nice to see family that I haven’t seen in a really long time!


Along with everyone else, Brandt is just in love with my cousin Julie’s little baby. Isn’t she a cutie pie! Everyone knows that once Brandt holds her, no one else can hold her the rest of the night because he has got her.


On July 5th my family had a talent show. Ethan my nephew played his violin for everyone. I was so proud of him, he didn’t look nervous or mess up! Way to go Ethan!!!


On Sunday July 6th after church we had lunch together and a family home evening. This is a picture of my family with my grandma Escobedo.


And of course it isn’t the 4th of July without our tradition of Brandt painting my toenails. Good job babe, you did wonderful as you usually do!!!

My version of “I Just Forgot” by Mercer Mayer

A while ago Brandt and I went camping with our good friends and neighbors Jessie and Sean, they live across the street (which in a trailer court it’s about 5 feet away). This was our first time ever having a more active role in planning a camping trip, so Brandt and I were way excited. We planned for this thing months in advance and it was only an overnighter.

Brandt remembered to bring his GPS and Palm Pilot…

I remembered to bring my eyelash curler…

We remembered to bring starbursts to roast on the fire, yumm…

Brandt even remembered to bring his “invention” to make biscuits for breakfast, which, by the way turned out beautiful!

See!

But we forgot to bring enough cash to pay for the camping spot at Bear Lake. Luckily we had enough loose change in our cars to pay the rest of the $23 fee. We also realized once we got there that all 4 of our tin foil dinners were still in our refrigerator at home, oops! So after we set up our tent, we drove to the town and had pizza. I hope that this doesn’t make people not want to go camping with us. I promise Brandt and I have learned from our mistakes.

Weekend With The Crawfords

This weekend we went to Salt Lake and got to see Brandt's sister Gen. She had knee surgery on June 16th and will be on crutches for 4 weeks. Gen is so sweet, even though she is in pain and has a hard time getting around (which is really hard when you have an adorable 2 year old running around everywhere) she still has a smile on her face! She amazes me.
This is going to be my new sister-in-law! Mallory is marrying Brandt's brother Gavin on July 19th. I had a fun time at her bridal shower. Yes, we are going to have 2 Mallorys and 1 Valerie. Maybe I will name my first born daughter Valerie just to add to the confusion.
Little Mallory (my niece) is so cute. I wish that we could see her more often. 
A tradition that we started last year and hopefully will continue each summer with the Crawfords is going to a drive in movie. I think Shah specifically asked me to put this picture on my blog. So this one's for you Shah.

Happy 5th Aniversary! I LOVE YOU BABE!

June 12, 2008

This is the B&B where we stayed on Thursday night after the Cheescake Factory.

Here is my hot wife!

The gift basket that was in our room when we got there.

Wake up the bubbley, the Martinelli's Bubbley that is.

Val loved the robes. (I hope she didn't keep 'em)

That's a big tub!

What a view from the room.

$10 bucks says I win.

What's the fire code in buildings built before 1900???

Val's favorite part, and not just because she didn't have to cook it.

Garden Fever

I have never been the garden type of person. Last year the only reason we had a garden is because my sweet momita saw all of my overgrown weeds and weeded and planted tomatoes for me when she came to visit us in Logan. This time when my mom came to visit me she once again saw my weeds and started to weed it for me. Although my mom likes to weed and garden I wanted her to relax during her visit, so I made her stop weeding and I promised her that I would weed and garden. Brandt and I planted tomatoes, cherry tomatoes (my favorite), cucumbers, and pumpkins. Later we will plant lettuce and peas. I am proud to say that gardening is definitely growing on me!