The Lucky One

No, I haven't seen the movie yet but I did LOVE the book.  But that's not really what came to mind by 'the lucky one.'

The past few days I have not felt all that great so I have spent a lot of time just laying in bed or the couch. This has also allowed me lots of time to 'browse.'  I have just had a cold but I have been following the story of a couple casual friends that have far worse than COLDS.  I truly am a lucky one.  One girl has been in the hospital about ten less days than she has been married.  I can't even imagine.  I have very healthy parents.  I am a lucky one. I have a friend that has a father that is very very ill and probably won't make it too terribly much longer.    I have come to appreciate just how great my life is.  I complained about Brian's med bills, but I am so blessed that he is healthy, I am healthy, my family is healthy.

I also learned another valuable lesson this week.  I have been making homemade bread once a week and last time I made it I was in a time crunch so I 'skipped' some steps.  My recipe says to mix the dough, let sit, mix fast again over, and over and over again... 6 times, or like 50 min.  Well I got lazy and didn't do that.... and when it came time to shape the loaves, I got lazy there as well.  Long story short, by bread, (2 loaves) had a giant cavern right in the center of them. They looked great on the outside and continued to do so until you tried to cut them and then they sunk.

I was concerned about time.  I skipped 40 minutes of the 'procedure' and ended up wasting every second because I still spent plenty of time on it and couldn't enjoy a single bite of it... Sad day.  Lesson leaned: don't skip corners!!

cookies

My blog title has nothing to do with anything.  I just don’t know what else to call it. It was the first thing that came to mind.  It has been an interesting week.  It has been cold and windy.

I have been on a Disney kick.  There are new documentaries on Netflix that have really sparked my interest.  It has also led me to watching some of the classics.  I watched Beauty and The Beast, Pete’s Dragon, Chitty Chitty, Bang Bang, Homeward Bound and I don’t remember the other one… 

I have loved it!  I even looked online and found a 168 disk set of Disney movies!!  I really wanted it but I don’t have the money right now.  Stupid bills.  How come things always hit at once?  Insurance renewal, several medical bills, and gas at $4.20 a gallon and something else big that I can’t remember. 

It has really been fun to watch the movies.  Number one, they are just clean and wholesome movies.  They don’t have all the filth that you see everywhere now.  And two, it brings back so many memories.  I remember when I was a little girl I would put on my purple silk pajamas, Mom would wear her silky blue ones, Dad would wear his tight ankle grey sweats and we would have movie nights.  Mom would always make homemade popcorn and we would use our really large pillows Grandma Tingey made all of us and we would watch a movie, probably  Chitty.  Oh, don’t forget Chief.  He was always right there with us. 

I want to take a trip to Disney World!!  I have wanted to go back since the day I got home when we went, (I was in second grade and it was December J  Yes, I have been counting for a long time. 

We are having a fundraiser next Saturday.  I am stressing.  I really don’t think I would stress as bad if it weren’t a fundraiser!  If I could just plan an enjoyable evening for everyone and not have to worry about every stinking penny I think I would not stress as much.  I can’t wait for it to just be over!! 

We had a wonderful BBQ tonight. A young couple in the ward invited a lot of the young couple over and we had a nice time.  As much as I loved it, it made me sad in a way.  Why you say?  Well it is just me feeling sorry for myself. 

 It made me miss home!  A lot of the people there were from here and talking about their families and it made me miss mine.  We have looked at a few houses here, NOTHING SERIOUS FOR US, but needless to say, we have looked at a few.  I want to have people over for BBQs!  If I lived in Idaho I know exactly where I would want to buy a house.  I could even buy a house for 60k less than I can here!  I could buy a house with a basement, a house with a yard, a house where people don’t live in their garages, a house where you don’t have to worry about creepy neighbors 24 hrs a day!  And we could have a fire-pit and we could have fires and roast hotdogs and marshmallows!  If we lived in Idaho, granted Brian would have a fantastic job there too, I wouldn’t have to stress over finding the money to come home in two weeks for Mother’s Day, or coming home a couple times in the summer at $600 bucks a pop!  And since we would live in Idaho, I wouldn’t have to take two weeks off to see family, which would mean less ‘vacation’ and I could actually hold a job!  A job for Jessica means more money for Jessica and Brian to do fun things.  And we wouldn’t leave the state as often so I could have my dog!  And when I did, Mom and Dad could watch my lil’ Cooper!  Doesn’t it sound just all so wonderful?!  I like this dream. 

Like I said, it was a fun BBQ but it just made me sad in a way.  Anyways, enough of that.  Brian is going to Edmonton again next week and will be in Wyoming the next week and who knows where the week after that.  I need to come up with some projects that I can do to keep busy.  Any suggestions? 

Last night we fed the missionaries.  At first I was bitter because they always call us on Thursday night and ask if we can feed them Friday.  Friday is date night!!  One of the missionaries is really ‘off’ and I just particularly care for him ha.  Mean right?  So I went in to the night with a bad attitude.  We went with them to teach a new family that is getting ready to be baptized.  It was so wonderful.  We had a lot of great discussion with them and overall it was a great, uplifting evening.  

Supercross

Here are some of the pictures from supercross at Lucas Oil Stadium. It was an interesting supercross, we have only been to races that are in outdoor stadiums, so being indoors was pretty different. And to be honest it was not our favorite, setting off fireworks, screaming bikes, and the audio system turned up loud enough to drown everything else out... it was louder than being front row at a rock concert!! Next time we are bringing ear plugs,   Jessica had to sit covering her ears through the entire introduction.  And the vent system sucked, well it actually didn't suck anything. All the smoke from the bikes and fireworks just drifted around the stadium, we couldn't even see to the other side of the track. But there where some good things, there didn't have an open pit area. You had to buy tickets online, wouldn't sell them at the race, so there where only a handful of people in the pit area. I got up close and personal with several of the riders, including home town buddy Jake Weimer. Overall we had a good time but will do things a little different next year.

James Stewart, wrecked on the first lap of the race!

Jake Weimer!! Talked about the days he rode a Bill's pipe RM80 out in Kimberly. He didn't remember but I did stuff him into a corner one day at practice at Rock Creek haha.

 Jimmy Button!!! Was paralyzed in a nasty crash in 2000, 1 year later at my very first supercross experience he made his first public appearance after the wreck... Walking!!!! The loudest cheers I have ever heard at any supercross was that night. It was a special experience for me to see and talk with him. Now he runs an organization called Miles for Miracles, specializes in research for spinal cord injuries. Honestly this was the highlight of Supercross for me!!

Easter

We had a good Easter weekend.  Brian did not have to work on Friday, Good Friday, so we spent the morning sleeping in, going golfing, grilling with Jim and Elizabeth and tilling our garden! Yes, that's right we are doing a garden with them!  Should be fun.  Saturday we spent the day running errands.  I baked up a little storm!  Rolls and homeade cupcakes!  For those that don't know, I have been on a cupcake frenzie!  You can't find a good cupcake here and Cake Boss makes it too hard not to want some!  I made Snicker chocolate cupcakes with caramel frosting.  All I can say is YUM!  J & E came to our house for dinner and we played cards again.  The girls are on a winning streak. Like a major one!  But don't feel bad for the boys, they killed us for like 15 games straight!

Yesterday we had a wonderful Easter program filled with music.  Our ward has some talent!  We came home, had naps, went to J & E's for dinner, ( I was in charge of rolls and dessert AKA cupcakes), we even got to do an easter egg hunt!  We had talked with them about Easter traditions and ours were really quite similar.  Elizabeth said that Brian and I had eggs too!  I didn't know what to think at first because I thought oh wow, she is being nice and wants to do eggs for us too.  We start opening up our eggs and we see words distributed throughout the eggs. It didn't take us too long before we realized that they were from my Mom and Dad!!!  It was the best suprise ever!!  And never fail, we got our Silver coins! :)

Thanks mom and dad! Sure love you and missed spending Easter with you!

Oh April

Back in March we had the most beautiful weather.  Hot even.  We were in the 80s for like 15 days straight.  We were able to enjoy every minute of it.  We went to Supercross the second weekend and we had a lot of fun. San Lucas Stadium is awesome!  There really is not a bad seat in the place!  There was a lot of injuries so the race itself was kind of boring.  One race they even had to stop it and start it over because of the wrecks.

We have played a lot of tennis and golf in the warmer weather.  I still am quite terrible at golf but I have enjoyed getting outside and really have enjoyed playing with Brian.  He loves golf and he feels very lucky to have gotten himself a new set of clubs.

March was also quite nice because Brian didn't have any trips.  He had some classes here in Lafayette and some engines came here instead of him going out.

And thus we have April...
The weather has been in the low 60s for the most part.  We get these crazy rainstorms.  One minute it is bright and sunny and the next it is pouring rain and windy as all get out.

Conference weekend was nice. We spent most of our time at our second home.  The Gardner's.  Friday we played cards.  Boys won. Boo! Saturday we listened to conference and did some things around the house, looked at a house, had dinner with the Gardner's, boys went to Priesthood, girls talked, and then the girls had to win a game of Canasta until 1 in the morning.  Sunday we woke up and went out to their house for breakfast.  Elizabeth makes cinnamon rolls each conference.  We were all so tired from the night before that staying awake for all of conference was a challenge.  We had a lovely BBQ. The weather was beautiful!  We finished conference off with another game of canasta.  The girls killed them!  That is an under statement.  We also played a game called the Last Word.  It is really fun!

 Brian is here this week.  There is a really high profile engine that broke down and got back to Lafayette about an hour ago.  Brian will probably be working through the night and the rest of the week for the tear down.  He loves what he does.

There are some big trips on the horizon for him so we will see if the happen first before I say anything.  His job changes so fast.  Things come up just as quickly as they fizzle.  I will say I quite enjoyed having him home last month though.

I am looking forward to Easter.  I will miss all of our traditions though.  I am going to try to keep them going but things aren't the same if you don't have the people you created them with here with you.  Time to make new traditions.  Make sure you color your eggs Logan and hide one for me that I can come find next time I am home.  Are you ready to ship Duke to me?

I am going to ZUMBA training next Saturday and I am really looking forward to that but the whole thing is actually quite scary to me.  I have a vision in my mind of what I really want it to be cut I don't know if I will be able to accomplish it.  Well my show is on, the VERY last episode of One Tree Hill so I have to go!

Jess