smart husband compensates for not so smart wife

we moved into our house about 3 weeks ago. the day we moved in our washer and dryer was delivered by the guy we bought it from off of craigslist. dave quickly realized that the plug and the outlet for the dryer did not match, making it unusable. the next saturday (1 week later) we headed to ace hardware and picked up some supplies to make the plug and outlet compatible. dave headed home and played handyman and we were back in business. or so we thought. later that day i went to check the clothes in the dryer and while it appeared to be working, there was no heat. this meant lots of drying cycles for one load and who has time for that?! dave came home and i explained the situation. he hopped online and we realized it could be a variety of problems (heating element, etc. etc.). life got in the way and the dryer situation fell by the wayside while the dirty laundry piled up. finally it became necessary to do the laundry (i was on my last clean pair of unmentionables). so i threw in a load last night before i went to a meeting and asked dave to keep the dryer going so they would get dry. when i got home dave asked me, “did you ever check the lint trap?” turns out the dryer wasn’t broken. the lint trap was just stuffed to the brim = no heat. dave had assumed that i had checked the lint trap when i discovered the no heat problem and i had assumed the previous owner had cleaned out the lint trap so i didn’t even check. but you know what they say about assuming…it makes a…well, you know. good thing i have a smart husband! and now i have loads of clean laundry!

the blog-o-sphere

i have always loved people watching. i often watch others and wonder what is going on in their lives. i look out my window as i drive down a busy street and wonder where each person is going, what do they do for work, are they happy or has it been a rough day. the airport is one of my favorite places to people watch and i’m always curious about where people are going. are they traveling for business or pleasure? are they going to visit someone they haven’t seen for awhile? i love people and relationships and i am just so intrigued by other people and their lives. suddenly a whole new world of “virtual people watching” has been opened to me. i know that dave thinks i have an “unhealthy” obsession with blogs and perhaps that is true. however he should understand since he has some “unhealthy” obsessions of his own (and a little quirky i might add…but i love that i know those quirks).

i was just sitting and thinking about what it is that sucks me into the world of blogging. it’s almost like an addiction where i need my daily fix and i am disappointed if there aren’t sufficient updates. i have realized that i love stepping into someone else’s world to observe the significant and insignificant happenings of their days and lives. it doesn’t matter if they live across the country or down the street, i love getting a glimpse of people’s comings and goings. it is my “virtual people watching.” some people have the amazing ability through their writing that makes me feel like i am watching their experiences from a corner of the room in their house, gaining incredible insight into who they are. i admire that talent and wish i had it. i love feeling like i am a part of their life, even if it is only virtually.

i am inspired by what i “see” (read) happening in their lives: their patience with their children, their ability to laugh at the small things, their courage in pursuing their dreams, their capacity to love their children even when it’s not easy, their steadfast faith in trials, their willingness to admit when things are hard or not perfect, their love for others, their pursuit of living passionately, their goal to take pleasure in day to day life and their desire to be better. it motivates me to be a better person. i love the blog-o-sphere!

the seasonal struggle

VS.

this past week it seems as if fall and winter have been at war, battling it out to see who will be victorious. if you would have asked me on saturday i would have bet on winter. but now i’m not so sure. today it even seems that spring wants in on the action. no complaints from me. i will happily continue to drive with the window down and run in shorts and a tank top as long as possible, with yellow leaves crunching under my feet and the warm sun shining. speaking of running i almost took out a woman today on my run. she swerved right and i swerved left and we almost had a head-on collision. almost. phew.

is it rude to lick the pot?

i love to eat (i’m sure that doesn’t come as a surprise to anyone who knows me)! this past weekend dave and i had a fantastic food experience at the melting pot (and yes, it was an experience). i decided to surprise him for our date night and it was killing him not knowing where we were going (and i was loving it. aren’t surprises the best? i *love* them). he asked for clues and these were the three he got:

1. we’ve never been there before
2. i might actually be more excited about the place than you will be
3. we’ve never been before because it is too expensive
needless to say, he didn’t figure it out.

we had so much fun and *everything* was *amazing!* i am salivating just thinking about it all…the spinach artichoke cheese fondue (so good with vegetables and apples…who knew). and of course the steak, chicken, salmon, shrimp...mmmm!

but by far the s’mores chocolate fondue was the highlight of the evening (trust me, it tasted better than the picture looks). it didn’t matter that i was already full, i couldn’t get enough. in the end the “i’m so stuffed i feel a little sick” feeling was sooo worth it!

to top it all off we didn’t pay a dime, thanks to the generous gift card from a vendor i worked with. we even walked out with $25 cash in our pocket…the balance on the card! it really doesn’t get much better than that!

happy october!

we’re only 9 days into october, but already it’s been great. here’s what’s made me happy this october (and the last weekend in september if you want to get technical):

• beautiful weather
• finding a baker’s rack i like at the container store (LOVE that store)
• getting a new computer
• cheese pizza and frozen yogurt at costco for dinner
• getting my dvr back…it’s been 2 years since i lived someplace where i can have satellite tv, but more importantly the dvr!
• general conference
• a sweet email from dave
• getting our house organized (although this is still a work in progress)
• a surprise visit from erin and john (dave’s sister and her husband)
• attending the relief society broadcast with my mom
• getting our whole security deposit back from our apartment when we moved out
• setting family and personal goals
• playing kickball with the young women and young men (even if we lost by 1 run)
• teaching a lesson on temple marriage in young women’s
• no lines at elitch’s (our amusement park) which meant we rode all the good rollercoaster’s multiple times…a few in a row (without ever exiting our seat…that’s the best)
• heroes – crazy!
• the office – yea pam and jim!
• candy corn
• the best husband who made my tough day better. this included comfy pants, mac 'n cheese with chicken from noodles and company, roses, purchasing and watching episodes from season 1 of scrubs
• talking to my friend ashley on the phone (she actually updated her blog too!)
• babies being born – edyn and owen
• scripture study where i really felt like i was tutored by the lord
• shopping with dave
• talking with my sister and brother on the phone
• seeing halloween costumes for little kids in the stores...so cute!
• the changing color of leaves
• watching falling leaves
• running

i can't wait for the rest of the month!

conference weekend

i start looking forward to conference at least a month before it happens. this wasn’t always the case. i remember when i was younger conference seemed eternally long and my brother and i would play the dot game or draw on each others back to pass the time (until he decided he wanted to pay attention…what?!). i remember making deals with my parents when i was a teenager that i would go to the saturday sessions of conference if i could sit with my friends (which probably meant i didn’t get much out of it). when i was in high school i had the opportunity to attend conference in the tabernacle and it was an amazing experience. it was powerful to be in the presence of prophets and apostles and general conference came alive to me. since that time i look forward to conference rather than just endure it.

on saturday morning we had some friends over for waffles and to watch conference. we tried to keep the kids occupied with trucks and cars – sometimes it worked, other times it wasn’t as successful. it was nice to have a backyard for them to play in.

we also had my parents over for lunch and conference on sunday. really, there’s nothing better than friends, family, food and conference! isn’t it incredible that we have a living prophet of god on the earth?! we are so blessed to be taught what god would have us know today, especially when the adversary seems to be working overtime to confuse us of what is right and wrong and distract us from what is most important. i am grateful for the truths of god that prophets continue to teach (as they always have), that are unchanging despite the trends of society. i don’t know what i would do without the guidance of gospel truths, along with the spirit, to teach (or usually remind) me what i can be doing differently or better in my life.

my friend mindy’s family has a tradition that she has introduced to us in denver (since all her family is in utah). during the priesthood session all the women and kids get together for soup and homemade donuts (obviously the donuts are the main attraction). the guys join in the fun after the priesthood session (and hope there is food… especially donuts left) and share one thing they learned from the priesthood session. it was a lot of fun and dave ate about 15 mini donuts…that sounds like something i would do with my mega sweet tooth! i think it turned his world upside down when mindy told him they were made out of potatoes aka spudnuts.

my mom even joined in on the fun! it was fun to have her meet my friends

donut masters! jaimie mixing the glaze and mindy and katie frying them up! yum!


sacsha discovered water this night. she wasn't happy when her mom took away the cup.

me, haley, katie and mindy

mindy and i serve in the young women's and haley is one of our awesome young women. katie doesn't turn 12 until january, but we are lucky enough to have her attend our activities already. these girls rock and we are so happy to work with them!

if you need a couch moved...

we bought our couches 1 year ago and had them delivered by the furniture company. by the time the delivery guys made it to our 3rd floor apartment they were dying and wished us luck getting the couches out when we moved. well, we moved 2 weeks ago and as you can imagine we weren’t looking forward to moving our couches out. after all, the professionals who move furniture for a living struggled getting the couches around the corners of our stairwell and we are just amateurs. leading up to the move dave repeatedly said that he wanted avoid the stairwell altogether and just buy some rope and lower them over our balcony. so that’s what we did. thanks to our skillful (and buff) brother-in-laws, john and sterling, the couches made it down without incident (i will admit i was a little nervous)!

thanks to all our great friends and family who helped. and since the guys who helped us move don’t read this blog, thank you to their wives who shared their husbands on a saturday morning.

alaskan cruise

in august i left for 10 days to beautiful scenic alaska and didn't bring my camera battery charger with me...don't ask me what i was thinking. oh course the inevitable happened...a couple of days into my trip my battery died. so i have been hounding my co-workers for their pictures since we got home. i *finally* got some and figured it was time to blog about it. so i am warning y'all now...there are bound to be a lot of pictures (what can i say, alaska is really picturesque). but i did try to collage a lot of them so it doesn't seem so overwhelming (and you can click on the collage to make it bigger).



the cruise was awesome and i definitely couldn't complain about being out of the office for over a week on an all expense paid luxury cruise...it's a tough job but someone had to do it! the only downside was dave wasn't with me and 10 days is a long time to be apart (although i am sure i won't be getting pity from too many people). even though i was working, it was everything a cruise is supposed to be: relaxing (i got an hour massage and what made it better...dish network picked up the tab), plenty of time to read (i read "breaking dawn"), great food (i tried lots of different kinds of fish: mahi mahi, salmon, halibut, swordfish), all the virgin pina coladas i could drink (and i can drink a lot), meeting new people and seeing incredible places (in this case, lots of cool wildlife like bald eagles, whales, sea otters, puffins etc.) more than once i wished i had a big fancy camera because my point and shoot just couldn't capture how breathtaking it was everywhere i looked.

our logo made out of white chocolate (on a table full of desserts...yumm!)

our first stop was KETCHIKAN and despite the rain i loved it! it was a darling town. we walked creek street, a boardwalk in the old "red light district" of ketchikan where dolly's house is located, one of the towns most infamous brothels from back in the day. we also ate the "burger queen" which was awesome. i have to admit that sometimes after a couple days of fancy food on a cruise, a greasy cheeseburger really hits the spot.

we also attended the great alaskan lumberjack show in ketchikan and it was awesome. those guys do some crazy things and they totally look the lumberjack part..short stocky guys wearing flannel!

another stop...another rainy day. WRANGELL. i'll be perfectly honest, there wasn't much to do in wrangell...it was kinda a podunk little town...and not in a cute way. i don't recommend it. i did take a nice long walk (as in multiple times i thought i had missed a turn because it took so long) to the petroglyphs, followed up by a long walk back to the ship in pouring rain. on the way i passed a house decorated with buoys. never seen that before.

we finally caught some beautiful weather in JUNEAU! and apparently it was pretty rare because they only get about 90 days of sunshine a year (and not usually in august). i took the tramway to the top of mt. roberts where there are tons of trails winding through the southeast alaska rainforest. it was absolutely beautiful and i wish i had had more time to hike around and explore. i would definitely love to go back to jueau because our time there was so short.



we left juneau early to head to TRACY ARM FJORD, a narrow slice of ocean surrounded by 3,000 foot high granite walls that weaves through the tongass national forest. we were trying to make it to sawyer glaciers, known as one of alaska's most dramatic glaciers. there were tons icebergs that the captain had to manuever around and eventually the fjord was too ice packed that we couldn't make it to sawyer's (at least we wouldn't have been able to turn the ship around once we got there, which would have posed a problem). we did get to see some beautiful landscape...icebergs and glaciers...and this was the day that i really felt like i was in alaska. about half the ships' guests crowded into the observation lounge at the front of the ship, drank hot chocolate and watched the scenery for hours. below are a few pictures. they really don't do it justice. the only word i can think of to describe it was breathtaking. alaska is simply breathtaking.

about 20 miles beyond this spot was sawyer glaciers. we just couldn't get there.

iceberg...that is a serious chunk of ice

if you look closely you can see a glacier (it is a bluish color). so cool!



our last port was SITKA. we were lucky enough to have another beautiful day. we wandered through the town before our "sea otter and wildlife" excursion. you never know what you will find. that is a furry tiger print jock strap. what you can't see is that it has a raccoon tail attached on the back. no i didn't buy it for dave. it was $34.99.

pictures from our excursion

that night starting at midnight they were opening the area for king salmon fishing. so all the fishing boats were staking out there area. it was really cool to see. definitely a different way of life.

our cruise ended in SEWARD. it was a 4 hour train ride to anchorage where we flew out of. the train ride was fantastic! i don't think i've ever been on that long of a train ride. and one last chance to see beautiful alaska.

hallelujah! i FINALLY posted about alaska and that is a great feeling (i can finally cross it off my to-do list)! i know others don't really care, but i wanted to make sure i recorded the experience. plus now my family can finally see some of the pictures! congrats if you made it to the end of this post!