Wicked

      August 2nd we went to see Wicked at Capital Theater.  Before the show we went to dinner at the Cheesecake Factory.  It was good like usual and like usual I got the raspberry lemon cheesecake that I think everyone except for Jason thought was the best cheesecake. 
  The show was really great.  I did not know what to expect because I had never heard any of the music.  It was really fun and I did not expect it to be so funny.  My favorite character was Glinda because she was such an airhead it made me laugh.  Also I thought the girl who played her did a really good job.  I really had a good time.  I am grateful that Jason is so thoughtful to think of fun things for us to do.  Well I think that technicallly Tyler thought about it, but Jason agreed. 
    So watching the play made me think I should read the book The Wizard of Oz and so I downloaded it on my little Kindle I have on my phone.  I was surprised at how different it was from the movie.  The Wicked Witch is so important in the movie and she is really not in the book that much.  But the book was interesting and I thought it would be a good book for kids to read. 
     Also this weekend we went out at 3 am to see the Perseids meteor shower.  We did not get to see as many as I would have liked but we did get to see some meteors even though it seemed kind of hazy and the light pollution seemed worse than usual.  I really want to see it next year so I am hoping we can take a trip somewhere out of the city where the lights arn't as bad.  Also I need to remember to get some bug spray because the mosquitos got a nice little treat of my legs. 

Ten years

  Friday morning I was shocked when I woke up and saw that Jason was still in bed at 9 am.  I freaked out thinking that Jason had slept in and missed work.  I woke him up telling him that it was 9 in the morning and he needed to wake up.  Jason acted like he did not know what I was talking about.  Then he rolled over, looked at me, and said happy anniversary.  Well I did not know what to say because it was not really our anniversary and I was in shock.  Jason had taken the day off to surprise me with a weekend away to Park City.  He reserved a room at a bed and breakfast and had a special dinner planned for us at a fancy restaurant.  I got kind of worried because some bed and breakfast have shared bathrooms, and a romantic getaway is not as romantic if you are sharing a bathroom with strangers.  My fears were needless, as our bathroom was spacious and private.  In fact our room was huge because Jason got the master suite.  There was a door to go outside to a little deck, but unfortunately it was raining most of the weekend so we could not sit out there much.  We did some shopping in Park City.  The restaurant we went to was so great.  It was super expensive, but I think that I had the best halibut ever.  Jason got the Kobe steak, which was wonderful.  We also ordered a little appetizer sampler and it had these goat cheese wonton things which were to die for.  I could have eaten a hundred of them.  It was a wonderful weekend and nice to get away. 
   Then tonight Jason had a present wrapped up for me.  He let me open it, a little early, and it was a binder full of pictures and memories that he had compiled about our ten years together.  It was such a sweet gift that he had worked on for the past year.  I love how thoughtful he is and how much he obviously cares about our marriage and the ten years that we have been together.  It makes me feel good that even the little things mean so much to him.  The gift brought tears to my eyes and I am always going to treasure it.
   I am so lucky to have Jason and I am so grateful for our marriage.  It is hard for me to describe how much I care about Jason and how I feel so lucky to have found him and that he wanted to marry me.  He is one of the greatest men that I have ever known.  He is kind and caring, supportive, and loving.  He would do anything for me.  We have had a wonderful ten years and I hope that our next ten years are just as wonderful. 

Baby Shower

The last couple of months I have been planning and preparing for my sister's baby shower.  Saturday was finally the day of the shower and luckily it all went basically as planned.  I made her two diaper cakes that she loved and most of the food worked out the way that I wanted.  There was a good turn out and she got some great stuff.  It is weird when you plan something for so long and then it is done.  Now I am wondering what I need to plan.  I do know that I will not be planning another shower for a little bit, they take a lot of work. 

 Me with the food and decorations.  I made the little pom pom things on the ceiling.  Thank you pinterest.  My mom got the balloons.

 After the shower we all played in the pool.  It was so nice.  Jason got a new solar cover and it keeps the pool a lot warmer so we can swim longer.  We had piggy back races and thanks to Jason's stealth and long arms we beat my sister and her husband.  We had lots of fun. 



Birthday and Blessing

  Last weekend we went to Idaho to celebrate my nephew's birthday and my nieces blessing.  It was really fun.  Conner had an angry birds party, which was really cute and Elizabeth did such a good job.  The kids were really cute playing the games and throwing water balloons at each other.  One of the funniest things was watching Jason play with 9 kids at the same time.  He started by playing with our three year old niece and one of Elizabeth and Tom's nieces.  Within ten minutes all the kids were chasing Jason around the yard, hitting him with play sword and axes and hanging on him.  We all laughed so hard, because they were pretty funny and almost toppled Jason over a couple of times.  Elizabeth and Tom really have very sweet nieces and nephews. 
  The next day was Taliya's blessing.  She looked so beautiful.  Elizabeth made her dress and it was so pretty.  There were three blessings in her ward that day, which we had to laugh at because we could not think of three blessings in our ward for all of last year.  There are a lot of kids in her ward.  Unfortunately we had to leave after the blessing because we had the long drive home, but it was great to see them and share in their special day. 

 Isn't Taliya so cute.  And doesn't she look gorgeous. 

 I finally got her to go to sleep during the party.  She is so sweet.  Don't tell my other nieces and nephews, but she might be my favorite.

Jason pretending to put Conner in the next door neighbors yard.  Conner seems super scared, huh.  There were other pictures of him with the kids but I did not want to put pictures on our blog of kids that are not related to us without their parents permission.

The foolish man made his sewer line out of ...

pipes that can be broken (Catchy huh.  I am thinking it should replace the foolish man built his house upon the sand).  This week we found out that we have a twelve foot crack in our sewer pipes.  This has allowed water to seep out of the pipe, that has eroded the soil beneath the pipes causing them to sag, which has made our sewer line not work very well anymore.  So tomorrow the plumbers are coming to our house to dig up our front yard to replace that pipe.  The wonderful thing is that insurance or home warranties do not cover anything like that so we have to pay for the whole thing and it is not cheap.  So unfortunately we have to postpone going through another adoption agency presently.  We are still going through LDS Family Services, but other agencies are considerably more expensive and we don't think that it is prudent to go through another agency right now.  It is still something we are considering but after we pay for the sewer line.  So although that is a negative, there are a lot of positives to think about even though we have a broken sewer.
1.  At least it did not back up when we had a bunch of people here like it did one year.  It did break on a holiday weekend, but I just think it likes to break when it is the biggest pain in the butt.
2.  It is expensive, but at least we have the means to pay for it.  It is not what we were planning on doing with our money, but it could be so much worse.
3.  It is not in the street.  It does go under the sidewalk which is not the best, but it would have cost us a lot more to dig up the street.  My dad also pointed out it was good it was not under the house because they would have had to dig up our basement.  So that is a huge positive.
4.  There is a 50 year warranty on the work that is being done, so we don't have to worry about fixing that part again. 
5.  They are fixing it quickly so it is not like we have to live for months with a broken sewer.  Also we will still be able to use the sewer and water while they are working on it.
So I guess once it is done people can come over and use our new sewer line.  Haha, who would invite people over to do that.  Well I am glad that it will be fixed and that we will not have to worry about it for awhile (knock on wood).

last two weeks

    So the last couple of weeks since vacation and graduation have been fairly boring.  This is why I don't have a Twitter account.   My tweets would be things like, went to the grocery store, just cleaned the bathroom, threw a snail against the wall, played on my phone, watched t.v., ect.  Riveting stuff huh.  I would have like one follower and it would be a relative that felt obligated to follow me, lol.  But seriously the last couple of weeks I have been busy getting yard work and house work done.  I got my garden planted and already have some tomatoes on some of my plants.  My roses are looking really good and I am really happy with my new red one. 
     I have decided to start indexing genealogy records.  So what it is, is volunteers look at old census records or other records and type up the information so that when someone is searching through records they can just type in information and have it pop up instead of looking through thousands of names in the hope of finding the one they are looking for.  It has been interesting but kind of difficult because you have to read handwriting that is not always clear and is in cursive.  I am hoping it will give me something to do, that hopefully helps people who are trying to do their genealogy. 
    Well that is about all that is going on, I know super exciting.  I am hoping next month that we will go on a hike and we will probably have the pool working so I can start working on my tan.  Also next weekend is my nieces blessing and we are celebrating my nephews birthday so that should be fun. 
 

Graduation

May 4th I finally graduated.  Jason, my mom, Jennifer, my mother-in-law, Kirsten and Marianne all came to the actual graduation ceremony.  It was so nice of them to come.  I am so glad to be officially done.  Last week I got my actual diploma in the mail.  I am just so grateful for all the people that supported me, especially my parents and Jason who made a lot of sacrifices to ensure that I could go to school.  I am still not quite sure what I am going to do with my degree, but it is nice to have a sense of accomplishment that finished something that I started.

 

   Don't you love how my dad and brother wore Oregon Ducks shirts to my graduation celebration.  We laughed at that.  Go Ducks!

 

 Me, Jason, Kirsten, Janene (Jason's mom) and Marianne

Isn't it great how all gowns for graduation look like Mumus.