I Survived!!!

What exactly did I survive you ask? Well, Friday night I had the achievement day girls from church (ages 8-12) over for a slumber party. One of the girls will be leaving our group to go to Young Womans ;( so we HAD to have a party for her. Three out of the four were able to make it. Unfortunately the last one was sick, so we will be doing another later on. I was completely nervous at having these girls over in our TINY ONE BEDROOM apartment, but they were great! We had a lot of fun! We ate pizza, chips, ice cream, cake, cookies, candy, donuts and more! Of course there were tons of leftovers too...so I got "stuck" eating all these unhealthy things ALL weekend! I was going to post pictures but the computer for some reason is being WAAAAY too slow. So maybe I will do it maybe I won't. Other than the sleepover....I did ABSOLUTELY NOTHING! We are down to one car right now and Josh had it. He also was studying aallllllllllllllllllllllll weekend. On Saturday, I recovered from the sleepover by cleaning up and SLEEPING! Well, that's about it. Wish us luck on yet ANOTHER test week ;)....The only thing that is keeping me going is counting down til I get to spend the weekend with my sister in Tennessee!!!! In 10 days!!!!! Well, I hope everyone has a GREAT week!

Finally!

Since it is now half way through the month, I thought I should FINALLY post something. We have actually been keeping ourselves quite busy! The weather did warm up for about a week and pretty much all the snow melted! It was sooooo nice to have that break! I only wish that it could have stayed that warm. It is back to being cold and snowy again, but there isn't nearly as much snow as there was....Knock on Wood. Anyways....On to what we've been up to! We watched my boss's dog Woody for a long weekend while my boss was out of town. Don't worry, we watched him as their house and not ours. We aren't into indoor animals and this "opportunity" only confirmed that to us. AnyWho, here is a picture of Woody. Now this dog snores LOUDER than any human I know of! Even worse that Josh! It was way bad!!


Last weekend, I also had an activity with my achievement day girls. One of the girls was in charge of teaching the other girls something new. She chose to go ice skating! I had a blast! It was WAY fun!! The girl who put this together is way sweet and one of my favorites! She has only been ice skating for about 10 weeks now, but you would think she had been for a LONG time. She completely amazed me. I was the first one to fall flat on my rear end, but not the last. I actually only fell once too! The place where we went in outside but with a roof. It was a pretty cool place and you couldn't beat the price of only a DOLLAR to go ice skating!!!!!! It really was a lot of fun! Here are a few pictures I was able to snap:

Josh and I did an early Valentine's date with just the two of us this last Monday! We went out and splurged quite a bit of money, but it was worth it! We went to The Cheesecake Factory. Josh had never been there and I had only been there once and hated what I got to eat, but I have since wanted to give it another try since everyone else says it's soooo good. It was good too! I got the Raspberry Lemon cheesecake after my yummy burger! And Josh got Key Lime Cheesecake after his Mexican dish. It was way good and we even made it back in time to watch "The Bachelor" together. I know....we are totally lame!

Then yesterday we went to some friend's house and had a blast!!! I think we were there for like 7 hours....Hopefully we didn't overstay our welcome, but we had a great time. They are just really fun people. We played Battle of the Sexes, True Colors and "Friends" Scene It Game. Even though I didn't win at any of the games, it was still really fun! Thanks guys!!!!

Well, that's about it.....Hopefully I will write a little sooner next time! Happy Late Valentine's Day Everyone!!!

My Trip to Canton!

Josh has been studying ALL day long today and I didn't just want to sit around the house all day. Plus my wedding ring warranty requires my ring to be inspected/cleaned by the store every six months....the closest store is in Canton, which is about an hour south of where we live. So I went down to Canton this morning. When I left, the roads were TERRIBLE! After almost hitting another car, I ALMOST decided that I should maybe just go back home. But I had to get my ring cleaned by the end of the month, so I thought I should just keep going. This is what it looked like driving down there:

But once I got down there....THE SUN WAS SHINING!!! I was TOTALLY excited. It had been soo long since I really have been out in the sun. I heard from someone that Cleveland is actually like the second or third cloudiest city in the US and I believe! I just HAD to take pictures of the BLUE sky and the sun. So, here they are:

Even though I am not the BIGGEST fan of the cold and snow, I do think that it is very beautiful! I've been wanting to take pictures of it too, so when I got back that is exactly what I did. I hope you enjoy them! The snow flakes were HUGE and it really just looked beautiful....For all of my friends/family back in Oklahoma, this is what a real winter looks like EVERYDAY!

I Know, I am totally Lame

So, no pictures again on this post. I keep trying to get myself to go outside and take some of the snow, but for some reason I just can't ever get off the couch to go do it. There is tons of snow and although I am not crazy about, I do think that it looks very beautiful. I just wanted to let everyone know that we did come home to hot water on Sunday after church! So all is good there! Other than that, not much has been going on. We have the new Chronicles of Narnia movie at home from Netflix. I hope to be able to watch it tonight. Has anyone seen it? Is it good? I hope it's good, I don't want to get my hopes up though. Oh and I didn't watch American Idol at all this week, did I miss anyone that was just amazing? Let me know!

January....YUCK!

A few weeks/months ago I wrote a post about it being cold. I now wish that I had that kind of cold instead of the cold that we have now! To say the very least, it has been EXTREMELY cold here. The high on Friday was only SIX degrees!!! YIKES! That was cold. Oh and the wind was blowing. It's gone way into the negatives at night too. (Being from Oklahoma, this is totally new to me!) The schools in the area were actually closed due to the cold. I thought it was funny that they closed for cold but not for a foot of snow!!! It has snowed just about every day this week....sometimes it's only been an inch or so though. Last night I think we got another 6 inches though! Life in January in Ohio is getting pretty boring. I don't enjoy sliding all over the roads constantly or being in the cold with the wind blowing! So, I have been pretty much staying inside. We haven't really been up to anything new. I have been working and Josh has been going to school and that has pretty much been our lives for the last little bit.

If you notice though, I am actually posting on a Sunday...Something I hardly ever do. But we don't have church til 1PM and..........WE GOT A NEW DESKTOP! That's right, we have an actual computer to use! How exciting is that! It's been something we have wanted for a while. We have been shopping around quite a bit and found a GREAT deal at Best Buy and couldn't say no to it. So, we now have a REALLY nice desktop/monitor/keyboard and everything! (Ok, the keyboard came with the computer, so it's nothing spectacular, but I LOVE it) I am totally excited about having the computer especially when Josh has the laptop when he is studying at school! I now have something to do!!!! YEAH!!!!!!!!!!

The other thing that I have been doing this week is watching TV! I think I am a total addict now! But I have only found good shows to watch in the beginning of the week. It seems like there isn't anything good on on Thursdays/Fridays. Maybe that's a good thing though. The shows that I now HAVE TO watch are:

• The Biggest Loser---I have never watched it before, but I love it! It's very emotional though. Josh was making fun of me last week for crying at the end. But I couldn't help it!
• American Idol---I haven't followed this show since the second season, but I am totally going to get into it this season!
• The Bachelor---I always made fun of my roommates/sisters for LOVING this show, but I have now joined them and I really like it!
• Momma's Boys---It's almost over, but I think this show is HILARIOUS!
• Law & Order SVU---Can't get enough! I even watch old season on Netflix Online!

I better stop there or everyone is going to know what kind of total loser I have been!

Total change of subject, but I just thought that I could post about this! Yesterday afternoon, we lost our hot water! We still don't have any. Since today is Sunday, we took sponge/cup baths this morning. Hopefully we smell decent enough to go to church! We got a note on our door this morning that said that they are working on it, but we still have no hot water!

I hope you all have a great Sunday! And enjoy MLK Day tomorrow while I am still stuck at work...Yuck! I do plan on taking a few pictures today outside, so I will try and post those later, but don't count on it. Until next time that I decide to write something!

My Mom is Celebrating Her __st Birthday Today!

She would totally KILL me if I told the whole world how old she is turning today, so I decided to play nice! I did want to tell her Happy Birthday though! My mom is awesome! I wouldn't trade her for anything in the world....except for maybe a million dollars :)...Although she can be totally dorky sometimes, I know that she would do ANYTHING to help out her kids in any way possible! Growing up, she taught me that it was ok to skip school/work on your birthday in order to go shopping, which I still have done every year so far. (I just feel bad that she is actually "working" herself today.) She is a GREAT example to me too. As I have gotten older, I have learned quite a few things about my mom....some good and some bad, but one of my favorite things about my mom is that she is one of those "Secret Spiritual People." I'm not sure how to describe it, but she WAY more spiritual about things than what most people probably guess. She goes to the temple often, reads her scriptures pretty much everyday and when I go to her with a problem, her part of her solution always is something spiritual. I love you mom!!! Happy Birthday!

(At work and don't have access to all my pics, but here are a few of my mom!)

Vacay Part III

That's right Part III of my vacation! Who knew there was so much to write about! This is the last segment I assure you though.

Just like on my way out, I had lots of problems on my way back. Only this time they weren't from flying, they were from riding the shuttle! Here is the Shuttle Story:

First, the shuttle was 10 minutes late. No big deal, right? But once we are on the shuttle we wait for about ten minutes for a few people that never showed. Ok, stuff like that happens. Then we have to back track because the driver left people who were there at his last stop. So, before we even "get on our way," we are running 30 minutes behind. So, I am thinking "ok at least I am not trying to catch a flight, I am just going to spend the day with my brother and dad." At our next stop, the bus driver decides that he can go into the unplowed part of the parking lot and be just fine even though we are only picking up one person and that person is in the plowed part of the lot....and of course, we get stuck in the parking lot. After about 20-25 minutes of pushing and shoveling done by the males on the bus, we are freed and on our way again. I am now thinking "ok, we should be good from here on....what else can happen?" Well, we had to slow WAY down because of a snow storm. Then we had to pull over so the bus driver could clean off his wiper blades, then we hit stop and go traffic due to an accident. I was so ready to get off that bus after the hour and a half of DELAYS!! Thankfully, my dad and Logan were there waiting to pick me up!

I then got to spend the rest of Saturday and most of Sunday with Logan, Dad, Nola and Brayden! It was quite fun! And I am sooo thankful I got to see Logan again before he left on his mission. He actually reported to the MTC this morning! I love you Logan and will miss all your crazy text messages! Here are a few pictures from the weekend.

Logan:

Logan and I

Logan again ( a cutie, huh!):

Brayden, me and Logan:

Brayden:

My dad and myself:

Vacay Part II

Our vacation did get lots better once we FINALLY made it to Idaho. We enjoyed great homemade food (something that we never get in our home), fun and laughter with family and being able to be completely lazy! On Sunday when we got there, we kind of just hung around for a little bit and then when to both set of Josh's grandparents' homes. There was tones of snow the whole time we were out there. It was really bad for a few days especially with the wind. Josh's brother, Andrew, and his family all came for the week too. I am not quite sure which day they came; you know how it is when your on vacation, you have no idea what day it is. But we did have a lot of fun with them. On Tuesday we went to Paige's (Josh's sister) violin recital! She did a great job and so did all the other kids. I think it was on Christmas Eve that we went to a museum that had tons of Christmas stuff on display. On Christmas Eve, some of Josh's extended family came over and we played a game then the younger kids acted out the Christmas story. Christmas Day was great. We got awesome thoughtful gifts and were able to stay in our PJs all day!!! Josh's family got a Wii for Christmas, so a lot of time was spent playing that! We also got to talk to Josh's brother, Chase, who is serving a mission in Des Moines, Iowa! It was great to talk to him and it sounds like he is doing a tremendous job out there! We really had a great Christmas and were very happy that we were able to spend it with family! I didn't really take a lot of pictures, but here are the ones I did take:

This is our niece, Rylee, and Josh's mom, Jill:

This is Rylee again in the Gingerbread house...She kept asking if she could eat the houses that were in display :)

This is Josh and his two brothers, Taylor and Andrew with the three wise men:

For Some reason I only get pictures of Josh when he isn't looking:

Rylee:

Rylee in her princess dress and shoes with Taylor:

What I thought was a beautiful sunset:

Rylee "smiling" and me:

Thanks Wray family for a GREAT CHRISTMAS!

Vacay Part I

Well, I am back from my FABULOUS vacation. But then again, what vacation isn't fabulous??? Josh and I did hit many bumps on the way though. Right now I am at work and bored out of my mind, so who knows what this post will be like ;) First, let me tell you how our vacation all started....(Once again, no pictures from the no computer at home problem. That should be fixed soon though)

Our plan was to leave Cleveland on Saturday the twentieth day of December. This did in fact occur, but not quite the way it was planned. Nola (my stepmother, no she's not wicked) had listed us on a flight from Cleveland to St. Louis that left at approximately 9:25 in the morning; it had a good 30 empty seats on it, so we should have totally gotten on this flight. I told Josh that we should be at the airport at eight in the morning. He insisted that we really didn't need to get there until 8:30am. So, of course we get there at approximately 8:30. As soon as we walk in the doors, we see this HUGE line and wonder which airline it was for. Of course, it was for Southwest! I get a little upset and say to someone "I told you so." So, we wait in line for quite some time. When we get up to the counter, there is something wrong with how our itinerary was set up. There actually wasn't anything "wrong" with it, it's just that our bags wouldn't make it. So the lady takes her time to help other customers and eventually fix the problem, mark our bags and get us on our way. She told us that she would call down to the gate and tell them that we were on our way there. We drop off our bags and attempt to go through security, but of course we are both "randomly selected" for additional screening. And the TSA guys take their time searching us and our belongings. Once we are cleared, we have about 10 minutes to get to the gate. I run down there as fast as I can. I get there with FIVE minutes to spare; yet, the plane was already gone! The lady that said she was going to call down, never did and the plane left early because "everyone" was on board. I tried asking the lady at the counter where we should try to go but she basically told me she was "too busy."

We end up going to Las Vegas with thinking that if we don't make a flight out, then we will just drive the rest of the way up. The flight from Cleveland to Vegas left about 2-3 hours later and was suppose to be a four hour flight. The four hours ended up being more like five hours from a high wind that was blowing against us. In Vegas, we have to go to the complete opposite end of the airport to get to the gate that the flight to Salt Lake was out of. We didn't make the first flight; it was too full, but we did make the second one! We get to Salt Lake and are completely happy to be there. Then we go to the baggage claim. Our bags are no where to be found. We have no idea where they ended up! Did they make it on the flight to St Louis? to Denver? to Vegas? Who knows?....no one does! Since we were flying standby, Southwest wouldn't ship our luggage to us when it showed up so we wanted to wait until the last flight came in to see if it was on it. That flight kept getting delayed and more delayed. We missed all of the shuttles to Idaho. We ended up waiting another couples hours for our luggage that never came and then staying the night without our luggage at Josh's aunt and uncle's house! It was quite nice of them! They even gave us toothbrushes! We got up in the morning and luckily were able to pick up our luggage and make the first shuttle to Idaho! We made it to Josh's parents house at about two in the afternoon. Wow! It was totally one thing after another, but I am so glad that we were finally able to make it and then enjoy a GREAT week/Christmas with family! More to come about our actual vacation...

A New Kind of COLD!

Not having a computer at home and being REALLY busy at work has made it quite difficult to blog, which is why I haven't done so! Also, nothing too exciting has been going on. We had a GREAT Thanksgiving thanks to Brady/Julie and everyone else who was there! I didn't take any pictures though...The last couple months a little Oklahoma girl, me, has been living in Ohio and has noticed many differences between the two different places. The one that I have noticed the most lately is that of what "cold" really means.

In Oklahoma, REALLY cold means:

• somewhere in the mid-thirties as a high for the day
• upper 20s as a low for the night.
• a nice winter coat is needed but not much else
• the sun comes out at least once a day

In Ohio, just plain cold is when:

• the temperature high for the day is only in the mid-twenties
• The lows are in the teens
• the wind is blowing snow into you
• a winter coat, scarf and gloves are all FULLY NECESSARY
• you NEVER see the sun, always cloudy

I am a little worried to see what REALLY cold is like in Ohio...I'm sure I will be fine, but I will say that this whole no sun thing can get pretty depressing. I always get WAY excited when I see the blue sky! Anyways, like I said nothing too excited is going on. I just thought that I needed to post SOMETHING and thought that my observations would be enough for now. (Oh and I do want to apologize to my brother in law, Taylor, who said I need to post more pictures and less text....hopefully next time, Taylor ;)