Finishing Up Christmas...

Okay, so I put "to be continued..." at the bottom of my last post with the hopes that I would remember to take some pictures at my in-laws house and post those on here as well, but I forgot to take pictures!! Oh well, here's what I got!

1. A mug tree! (It's so cute, it's cast-iron and has 6 really big mugs to go on it)
2. Picture Frames that actually match! (I've REALLY been needing these, and they're also super cute - a black border with brown on the inner border)
3. Some cute stuff to decorate my kitchen (it says "Cafe" and it's made out of wood, it will look awesome on my red wall once I get shelfs for it, but for now it makes a really cute center piece for my table, then there's also a cute dish for serving appetizers or breads or something that I just love)

Then Jon got...
1. A 2-burner propane heater for ice fishing (Yay! Now I'll be even more toasty warm inside our tent!)
2. A gift card to Game Crazy so he can get more videogame stuff (eh.) <---Just kidding Josh, it's awesome!

It was really fun being over there and being able to watch all of the nieces and nephews open their presents (they are just so dang cute!) and being able to see Jon's family and stuff. Anyway, that was the end of our Christmas, now for some stories that happened slightly before Christmas!

First, my neighbor made some cookies for us, and her daughter Cameron (who is 7) wanted to come and give them to us (she's my partner in killing weeds and spiders). So she came over on Christmas Eve, only she didn't quite make it to the door. I heard my dogs barking outside, and after a while decided to go get them to be quiet, only when I went outside I saw that they had Cameron cornered just inside my fence! She had her hands up by her face and was too scared to move, so I called the dogs over and put them in the house and went to go help her. That poor girl had tears just streaming down her face and I'm asking her if she's okay and if the dogs tried to bite her or anything (luckily they didn't!), and she holds out the cookies and says, "My m-mom m-m-made these f-for you...M-m-m-merry Chris-(sniffle)-tmas". It just broke my heart, I felt so bad! Especially since she usually comes over to play with them! I've never seen my dogs act like that before, I mean sure they bark, but usually it's at people who aren't scared of them so they back off. I've never seen them bark like that at a kid before. I'm sure Molly was just wanting to play and was giving in to the influence of Ricky, but I think that Ricky forgot I was home and was trying to "protect" our house. It's a good thing they're both lap dogs and couldn't really do any harm, but I still felt bad. Don't worry though, Cameron was okay and she even invited me over to see her Christmas presents a few days later. :)

The other story happened the Tuesday before Christmas. Jon and I decided to go ice-fishing so he could try out his new powered ice-auger. So we got home from work around 2AM, went to bed around 2:30-2:45AM, and then woke up at 3AM (at least that was my schedule, Jon just didn't sleep because he was too excited). Once we were driving and heading towards Scofield I started to doze off. Well, around Provo area (this is about 4:45AM) Jon is cruising along at about 65 or so with the cruise-control on, when he hits some black ice! The roads were perfectly clear before that, but suddenly there it was! So he says something (I can't remember what) and it wakes me up to our truck swerving over all three or four lanes of traffic while Jon's trying to get control of the truck! As we're sliding, I'm preparing for us to crash, especially when we were turned and facing/sliding towards the center barrier. As I'm going through my mental checklist for the impact (I had a neck pillow which was good, seatbelt, I was bracing myself by holding onto the door, but then tried to relax so that the crash wouldn't hurt as bad...) we turned again and faced oncoming traffic! We had done a complete 180 before we stopped sliding! Luckily, traffic was still clear back behind us, so Jon had time to get the truck turned around and back on track. I was still in shock while Jon starts doing one of those laughs that you get after you almost die and saying how scary that was and stuff, and we started to slide again! Don't worry though, this was a tiny slide that Jon in his amazing driving skills was able to pull out of, but I still freaked out and started crying and telling Jon that I didn't want to slide anymore (keep in mind that I had been sleeping, so my mind was all over the place!). He got me calmed down and we quickly realized that we hadn't said a prayer before leaving, so we hurried and said one right then, definitely letting our thanks be known for protecting us already! I'm just so glad that Jon is good at getting out of slides like that - if it had been me I would have just crashed! Plus it wouldn't have been as bad if we hadn't had the cruise control on, that's what got us out of control in the first place. But we're okay now. :)

So with those fun stories and the fun drive through Sardine Canyon on Christmas day (it was a white-out for a bit, but we made it!) it was a very eventfull holiday. Let's just hope that New Year's goes by without incident! :) Happy New Year everyone!

Merry Christmas!

Hooray for Christmas! So for the last few years for Christmas, Jon and I go up to my parents house for Christmas Eve (my whole family is still very kid like on Christmas morning, it's so fun!) and then we go to his parents house later on Christmas day. So, I've taken a bunch of pictures of my cute little Christmas decorations at my house, our Christmas presents, and pictures of Christmas at both parents house. Enjoy!

Here is our cute little hand-me-down Christmas tree with our cute little hand-me-down ornaments.

Here's kitty playing "Scary-Jungle-Cat-Who-Attacks-Things-Very-Ferociously" under the Christmas tree. Luckily she didn't completely destroy it this year! :)

I decided that my house still looked very non-Christmas-y, so I added some tinsel to the windows....

And some bells on the wall. It ended up looking half-way Christmas like in my house!

This is our early Christmas present from my parents - my dad loves to have excuses to get new toys, and his best excuse is giving us the old whatever so he can buy a new one! :) So they gave us their old TV so they could get a new HD. This one is huge compared to our old one! It's 37inches!

Jon is soooooo thoughtful! I've been wanting a piano since I moved out of my parents house, and since a real piano won't fit in our house (we physically can't get it into a room without tearing down a wall, which I had no objections to, but Jon didn't want to), so this year he got me a digital keyboard. It's great because it has the weighted keys and touch sensitivity and the actual pedals, so it's a lot closer to having a real piano then we were before! :)

Here's another picture of the keys...

So Christmas morning we designated 7AM to be the present opening time. If we all look super exhausted in these pictures then that's why! Anyway, here's Jon and Phillip (above), my (my beautiful morning self) and Jon in our new Utah State hoodies! (We turned him into an Aggie!) Don't worry Hunter family, I got him a BYU hoodie too. ;)

Ha ha, we're both a little crazy looking in the morning aren't we?

I didn't quite get my camera fast enough to catch all of the chaos, but basically how we decided to do presents in my family is we divide them up and then on the count of three, we all open our presents as fast as we can, yelling our thankyou's as appropriate. Then we have one person designated as the "Garbage Collector". This year it was Julie because she was sitting in the middle, so we all got to throw our wrapping paper at her. She put it in the bag as fast as she could, but still ended up getting buried under a 2 foot mound of it! But this is her trying to clean up after we got our backup garbage bag. It's fun this way. :)

Here's some of our random presents that we got. We got the popcorn bucket with candy from my Grandma Daugherty, with some money to get a movie with. Then we got some floor lamps from my Mom and a bunch of movies from randoms. Fun times!

Then possibly the best present we got (well, that Jon got!) was Jazz tickets! I gave him four tickets so that he could bring a friend, then I also gave my parents 2 tickets so that we could all go together. I can't wait!

After all of this we all went back to sleep for a bit before heading up to the in-laws....

To Be Continued...

Great News!

So, my best friend in the whole wide world Katie has just informed me that SHE IS ENGAGED!!! I'm so happy for her! I just got off of the phone with her a few minutes ago, but we're already planning stuff. :) I did a little avatar of her in her wedding dress (okay, so she hasn't picked one out yet, but hey! At least it's a picture!)



Oh, isn't she just the prettiest bride ever! :) She's getting married sometime either at the end of August or in September. It's going to be wicked awesome, and she totally deserves to have the best wedding ever.

So yeah, I just thought that I would announce it because I am so excited! Katie has been my best friend since we were in diapers (it was easy since we're cousins!) Anyway, just wanted to say cheers to Katie and Ben!

Update On My Nothingness :)

So I'm over here at the in-laws house for our Sunday dinner (every third Sunday we go to Jon's parent's for dinner and get to see the whole family, it's so fun!) and my sister-in-laws were bugging me about not writing anything in here since Thanksgiving (which as an update, we ended up leaving work shortly after 5AM!) so here is my update:

First of all, I had the last 2 weeks off from work. HALLELUJAH! It was soooo nice to just relax! The whole first week I didn't do a thing. Heck, I didn't even put on makeup! I did have to go to work on Friday for a few hours to attend a training, and it was my classes last day so I popped in to say Hi.
Other than that I just slowly cleaned my house. Then that Saturday we had a party for my co-workers that was voted to be at my house. I've never really hosted a party before. Sure I can help pull one together and can help plan, but I've never had one at my house before. Luckily, Bab's did all of the planning and entertainment (thanks Bab's!), so when everyone got there we had Rock Band to play as well as a really fun game called Partini. We also did a pot-luck dinner, so there was little stress on me. However we didn't plan as well as we could have, and ended up with three main courses that were all drenched in cheese! We had cheesy enchiladas, tator-tot casserole and lasagna! Let's just say that while the food was all delicious, we were all really sick of cheese by the end of the night. Thank goodness for Ben bringing chocolate chip cookies to save us from a cheese overdose! I just want to point out that I work with some of the coolest people ever, and that they definitely made the party as fun as it was! So yeah, we played Rock Band until almost 4AM and then my carpol tunnel was hurting too bad so we had to call it quite. Plus I was barely keeping my eyes open while watching for the drum beats! Ha ha, it was way fun.

Last week I just did Christmas shopping. Oh, and I bugged Baby Brother Jeffrey for an hour and a half to have him help me label songs that he burned for me (he gave me 8 CD's and none of them were labeled!) That was fun, my Baby Brother is the coolest. On Saturday we had our Nielsen Family Christmas Party. I love our family Christmas parties, they are so much fun! Plus since I have a handful of cousins who are just babies, I just have a blast playing with them. I spent most of the night playing with little Zane and Gracie. They are so stinking cute! I'll have to see if Jen (aunt, not sister-in-law!) will send me some pics so I can post them (wink wink).

Now for the actual exciting news - Jon applied for Pharmacy school this month! Yikes! He applied for Southern Nevada University, so if he's accepted, then we'll either be moving to Nevada (at least it's warm!) or we might stay here in the valley because they recently built a branch here in Salt Lake! I really hope we can stay, because then we can stay in our house for longer. If not, then we're sort of SOL. But yeah. He's not taking any classes this next semester, he's just going to be studying for his PCAT to take in the spring. I really feel like our lives are finally moving forward!

So yeah, that's me. Nothing really exciting, but hey! At least I'm writing something! :) I'll try to post some pictures after Christmas, (this time I'll remember to bring my camera so we can get some fun ones!)

Thankful

So, in light of Thanksgiving, and since I'm stuck here at work at freaking 4:30AM (I got here at 2PM, btw...), I've decided to list all the things I am thankful for. :) Now, if this were a complete list then it would never end, so I'm just going to mention the ones that come to mind right now. (Keep in mind it's very late and I'm very tired, so if some of these seem silly, then blame it on that!) ;)

1. I am thankful for my wonderful husband who is just so darn perfect!
2. I am thankful for my house
3. I am thankful for my dogs, even when they leave me little stinky presents...
4. I am thankful for my fat cat, especially when she attacks my toes when I'm sleeping. :)
5. I am thankful for my sexy car, because I feel like a million buck when driving it.
6. I am thankful for my job, that sometimes keeps me here until all hours of the night/morning. Even if I don't get paid overtime, it's still nice to know that I have a steady income that I can count on, and I do get a lot of satisfaction out of it.
7. I am thankful for Cherry Coke. Moreso for the lack of it since I've stopped drinking it.
8. I am thankful for Gatorade in the vending machines, because they help me stay away from that delicious elixur of life, drink of the gods, that sweet nector that is the Cherry Coke.
9. I am thankful for comfortable tennis shoes. I felt guilty when I bought them because they were so expensive, but 5 years later and they still look practically new, and I'm happy about that choice.
10. I am thankful for pumpkins, for they allow me to make pies.
11. I am thankful for turkeys, because I can eat them.
12. I am thankful for pigs and cows for the same reason.
13. I am thankful that no one really reads these posts, because I don't think I'm making a lot of sense.
14. I am thankful for those who do read these posts, because we get to laugh at me later.
15. I am thankful for my Mom and Dad, because they freaking rock.
16. I am thankful for my testimony and faith, without them I'd be lost.
17. I am thankful for both mine and Jon's families - I think that combined we have the coolest family ever!
18. I am thankful for my pillows, blankets, and bed, because right now I really, really miss them.
19. I am thankful for the internet, because I can post crazy stuff like this and everyone can read about my insanity.
20. I am thankful for my highschool friends - even if we don't talk much, we had some pretty awesome times
21. I am thankful for my wedding ring - it's really pretty.
22. I am thankful for my BFF Katie, because she is by far the coolest person in the world, and she does my hair for cheap and I just freaking love her! (Though I don't think she reads this...)
23. I am thankful for my sister
24. I am thankful that Baby Brother Brian is serving a mission, and that Baby Brother Jeffrey is in marching band!
25. I am thankful for people who don't send stupid forwarded emails that threaten death if you delete them without forwarding them first. (I deleted three today, so if I die then I blame those that send the stupid emails).
26. I am thankful (some days) that Jon and I are able to enjoy being married without the stress of kids. Even though I would love for the time to be right for children, it's nice just focusing on us for a bit longer.
27. I am thankful to all my sister-in-laws who have kids so I can get my "baby fill" through them.
28. I am thankful for my contact lenses so I don't look so dorky in my glasses.
29. I am thankful for rainy days so I can appreciate all of the sunny ones
30. And last, I am thankful to know that Jon and I are going to be together forever and ever and ever and ever and EVER! I love him so much and I'm most thankful for him above all, which is why I'm starting and ending with him. :)

Well, that's what I'm thankful for. It's now 5AM (I was working in between writing), and I think (and hope) that I'm going home soon. For those of you who are waking up now to feed your kids or excercise or whatever it is you do, you are crazy, as I don't think that 5AM should exist. Okay, I'm going now. I hope everyone had a happy Thanksgiving, and may your blogs be more interesting than mine! :)

M.

Happy Thanksgiving!

So I went up to my Mom's house for the weekend to celebrate her birthday (on the 22nd) and my dad's birthday (on the 11th). It was so fun! I just love my family! Anyway, we had to take pictures to send to my Baby Brother Brian on his mission. I can't believe he's been gone for over a year! Crazy! Anyway, here's some of the pictures we took. They're all posed, which is fine but not very exciting, but at least it's better than just reading! :)

Jon and Me! (I have four chins and Jon has a drugged look on his face, but it's all fun!)

Jeffrey, Dad and Mom (Jeff is over 6ft now and he's 15! Crazy!)

Here's a little bit of a better picture of me and Jon.

And here's Phillip and Julie - Julie showing off her cool new Yoshi shirt. :)

Jon, Me and Dad. (Don't ask about the cane, my Mom said pictures and my dad brought out his cane that he used after his motorcycle accident. Weird.) :)

I know, not very exciting, but it was a super fun weekend! We had a fake Thanksgiving dinner and then went to see Twilight on Saturday (I can't tell you if it's good or not because I was so annoyed and angry that the people behind me wouldn't shut up that I couldn't concentrate on the movie...) and then we just vegged out and watched Sweeney Todd (my Dad's birthday present, good but VERY gorey.) We all spent the night and left the next day after watching Kung Foo Panda. It was fun.

Anyway, I just wanted to leave you with a Thanksgiving poem and I'll leave:

*A game warden was driving down the road when he came upon a young boycarrying a wild turkey under his arm.

* ***He stopped and asked the boy, "Where did you get that turkey?"

****The boy replied, "What turkey?"

****The game warden said, "That turkey you're carrying under your arm."

****The boy looks down and said, "Well, lookee here, a turkey done roostedunder my arm!" ****The game warden said, "Now look, you know turkey season is closed, sowhatever you do to that turkey, I'm going to do to you.

****If you break his leg, I'm gonna break your leg. If you break his wing, I'llbreak your arm. Whatever you do to him, I'll do to you. So, what are yougonna do with him?"

****The little boy said, "I guess I'll just kiss his ass and let him go!"

****May your stuffing be tastyMay your turkey plump,May your potatoes and gravyHave never a lump.May your yams be deliciousAnd your pies take the prize,And may your Thanksgiving dinnerStay off your thighs!

****Happy Thanksgiving Everyone!*

Some Days...I Love My Job!

So, the class I'm teaching at work is awesome! Let's face it, no one likes to sit through a training class - especially when the material is as dry and boring (LOTS of reading from the overhead, not a lot of action). I do my best to make it fun and enjoyable and to mix up the training a bit, but it's hard. This class I'm training right now though just made me feel great! I told them a few days ago that today was the first annual "Training Appreciation Day" for Convergys because I would be a little late to class for it so someone else was coming in to teach them the quality part of the job. We all thought it was silly, but we went, had sandwiches and cake, and had our bosses say nice things about all of us and give us lanyards and zippy things for our badges to go on. It was fun, gave everyone feel goods, then it was back to class.

Well, when I got back to class, I was setting up my computer and my class came up and said, "All right everyone, we have a quick announcement to make!" I was a little leary (usually these end badly, don't ask) but helped them get the classes attention thinking that they were probably going to discuss tomorrow's pot-luck for our training graduation party. Instead, they said, "Because today is Training Appreciation Day, we thought that we should recognize the best trainer in our business, and that's Mindy!" I was a little surprised at this, as I wasn't expecting it, but I was even more surprised when they gave me a bag of caramel Hershey Kisses and a big envelope. Inside the envelope I got 2 cards! One is huge! I'ts about 1 ft by 1 ft and it's one of those cards that says "A long, long, long time ago..." then on the inside it says, "You were born." but then under it they wrote in "And Destined To Be Our Trainer!" and when you open it, it plays the Star Wars theme song! It was so cute! Then the other card was a standard "Thanks!" card, but still. Everyone signed both cards and it was just so stinking sweet. Some trainers get gifts and cards and stuff like that from almost every class they train - I really don't get them all that much. Usually classes will just say that they liked me a lot and thank me for their training experience, but really I've only ever had 2 classes do something like this. It just felt nice to be appreciated after getting so burned out over the last few months.

Ha ha, a bunch of them even stayed after class just to talk, and when I told them to go home and get some sleep, they said, "Well, training is going to be over tomorrow and we don't want to leave, so we're milking every second of it while we can!" I finally had to kick them out after they stayed half an hour after the end of their shift (keep in mind that class ends at 11:30PM!) Anyway, it was just very thoughtful and made me feel good.

So good news! I'm going to my parents house for the weekend for my Mom's birthday. While I had to sell my Twilight tickets and Jon is missing his coveted BYU vs Utah game, I'm way excited to spend time with my family. I plan on taking some pictures and using their computer to post them! Yay! We'll see if I have time though! Ha ha.

Well, that's all for now. Goodnight!

M.

40 Things You Now Know About Me

So, I was reading through some of my friends blogs that I never see anymore, and I saw that Heather had this fun "40 Things" questionnaire. It looked like fun, and since I know that my posts are boring, I thought that this would at least bring some structure! :)

40 Little Secrets
one: Who are your last 4 texts from?
Uh, I think they were all from Katie? Oh, and Stacey sent me a picture...I don't get a lot of texts like I used to...Hmm.
two: who was your last picture you took of?
Ha ha, probably a fish! (Oh, and my husband in the background) ;)
three: What's your middle name?
Amazing! Ha ha, just kidding I don't have one. :)
four: Whats your current favorite color(s)?
Depends on the day! I like yellows, greens, and bright-ish blues, but not to wear those colors. I've always liked deep reds, and neutral colors...so I'd have to say that my favorite is clear.
five: Does your crush like you back?
Well my "crush" can be anyone from George Clooney to Edward Cullen - the point is they're all either famous or imaginary (thank you Stephenie Meyer!), so in my dreams, yes, they like me back. :) My real "Crush" however is my husband, so I sure hope he likes me back or that's going to be an awkward eternity!
six: What is your current mood?
Tired, but for some reason I'm really "chipper-y" Just in a good mood, I woke up that way, strange...
seven: When is your birthday?
January 16
eight: What color shirt are you wearing?
black (I'm dressed like a Ninja right now!) (p.s. not really) (p.s. I am wearing all black though) (p.s., but not in a "gothy" sort of way) (Okay next question...)
nine: If you were going on a TV show, which one would it be?
..hopefully What not to Wear <----I totally agree with you Heather!
ten: Are you imagining anyone naked right now?
Nope, that's gross. :)
eleven: Did you ever sneak into an R rated movie?
No, I just waited until they were on video - I mean - I've never seen such a thing!
twelve: Ever had a near death experience?
kind of
thirteen: Something you do a lot?
Work, sleep, eat, watch TV and read.
fourteen: Do you love someone?
Yessirree!
fifteen: Do you want to see somebody right now?
I would like to see my friend Katie. And Sharece (and her baby Jason). And Mattie. And Heather. And a lot of people...Hmmm.
sixteen: How many piercings?
two, just my ears. although that did remind me of how eternally grateful I am that I didn't pierce my belly button when I was 18.... <---Again, I'm stealing Heather's answer. Dido.
seventeen: Do you have any tattoos?
No, they say that you should hang a picture of what you want on your wall for 2 weeks to make sure you still like it, and every time I thought about it, I would get sick of it after a day. Plus I always think of how it would look when I was all old and saggy and wrinkly and stuff...
eighteen: Who would you do anything for?
My family :)
nineteen: Who are your heroes?
My sister, Katie, my husband, Superman, and Abraham Lincoln (that guy is amazing!)
Oh My! There's no number 20! I guess I'll have to make one up...
twenty: Who is your favorite Superhero?
Well duh! Superman! Of course, he's overall favorite. I love Spiderman because he has amazing just an amazing heart - he's constantly getting hurt but he never stops trying to help. I love Wolverine for his stamina - it's never a question of "Should I do this?" for him, it's "How much pain am I willing to go through for this?" - amazing! Then Batman because he really wants to make the world a better place, even though he doesn't have any superpowers, he does what he can - plus it's nice to see the "rich kid" who becomes the hero, instead of the poor downtrodden kid. To name a few...
twenty-one: American Pie or Superbad?
Stupid question, moving on.
twenty-two: What's your biggest fear(s)?
failure, being alone, spiders
twenty-three: Who is your ex and where is he/she?
Which one? I know that one is now happily married (yay Will!) and I haven't heard from the other two in years. One I hope is okay, the other I really don't care to know how he's doing.
twenty-four: Would you ever take one of your ex's back?
Ha ha, it was fun while it lasted and is was hell when it ended, but I wouldn't take any of them back because I'm happier with Jon than I ever was with anyone else. :)
twenty-five: What did you do last night?
I worked, then stayed up late helping Jon study (I felt bad, I fell asleep!), then this moring I watched Heroes and Gossip Girl (Yay!)
twenty-six: what's the first thing you said this morning?
Hmmm....I know I talked to Jon when he left for school, but I was still sleeping, so I'm not sure...
twenty-seven: Speak any other languages
No
twenty-eight: Whats your favorite smell?
Odd question...cookies? Homemade Pumpkin Pie? Filet Mignons? Mostly just food products... Or Aqua Di Gio Cologn, yummy!
twenty-nine: do you like to sleep ?
Hooray for sleep!
thirty: Have you ever been kissed in the rain?
Yep, it was wet.
thirty-one: Do you like rain?
Depends - is my hair curly, or straight?
thirty-two: What are you thinking about right now?
that Jon's probably waiting for me to finish...and I need more shampoo...and how much I hate mouses without scrolly thingies on them...
thirty-three: What should you be doing right now?
Going home
thirty-four: What's your favorite memory?
The first time I met Jon and I saw his face when he looked at me, and then when he proposed, and then when we were kneeling in the temple getting married. :) Perfection!
thirty-five- What are you listening to?
The clickity keyboard and the air conditioning fan.
thirty-seven: Who was the last person you yelled at?
Jon - unless I can count dogs, then it was Ricky for eating Molly's treat. Mean old Ricky...
thirty-nine: who is the last person you said i love you to?
Jon
forty: Who is the last person that made you smile?
Jon! (And Katie when she called me last Saturday) But Heather's blog made me smile, so maybe it was Heather then! You all made me smile! :)

Okay, hope you enjoyed the random questions. I'm going home now! G'Night!

M.

Playlist

So, even though I know that my playlist was awesome, I decided that it was time for it to go. Every time you pull up a blog with a playlist it takes F-O-R-E-V-E-R for it to load, that and the fact that I've heard rumors of a lot of viruses coming from http://www.playlist.com/ made me decide to let the playlist go the way of the DoDo (is that how you spell it?). Anyway, just in case anyone was devastated by it (which I just KNOW you totally were!), that is why I now have no playlist. The End.
(Now I have no new pictures AND no music! I know, I'm so boring.)


Actually one more thing. I cut my dog Molly's hair for the first time all by myself last week! I forgot to mention it in my last entry because I was mostly asleep (I dread reading over it again, I'm just sure that it makes no sense!) But yeah, Jon was studying for a test and he normally does it, so I decided to be brave and try it out. I did such a good job! (If I say so myself!) The only part that doesn't look good on her is her little mustache thing - I wanted to keep it cuz it's cute, but I was cutting with the scissors and by then she was fed up so they're uneven. Oh well.

Oh, and I've also finally stopped having dreams about work - Hooray! Only 3 more weeks to PTO!


M.

Holidays!

So I'm totally excited for the holidays! It seems like forever since I've spent a lot of time with both families (okay, well we've been spending a lot of time with the Hunter crew, but not so much the Daugherty crew). I'm going to Cache Valley next week to visit my Mom on her birthday (Happy Birthday Mom!) and have a fake Thanksgiving dinner. Me, Jon, Julie and her husband Phillip will be spending the weekend there! It will be awesome! Then at Christmas we get to hear from dear Baby Brother Brian. I can't believe he's coming home in less than a year! Time has flown!

I don't know if I've ever mentioned how stinking spoiled Jon is - but if you haven't known before then you know now. I spoil him! For Christmas last year (or maybe the year before, I can't really remember now) I got him an ice fishing tent that was about $300+, then for his birthday I got him a set of golf clubs and a Nintendo Wii. Aside from that I let him buy all of his tools to fix cars with (welder, paint gun, air compressor, the whole works!) and all of his random fishing stuff (i.e. underwater fishing camera, regular video camera to record the underwater stuff, automatic underwater fishing camera turning tripod thingy, new fishing poles, lures, random other contraptions, etc.) He's spoiled. I told him that he owes me this Christmas, but I don't think he has any idea of what to get me! Ha ha. The thing I really want I can't get right now anyway, so everything else is just kind of pointless. (Yeah, and Laura you can stop complaining about your horrible working conditions, because you're about to have two of what I don't have!) ;) Oh well. Maybe next year.

Oh! So I heard the most exciting news today! So you know how they redid/are redoing the Batman movies to make them more life-like-ish? Well, apparently Marvel is going to redo all of the Superman movies that way as well, so they're more like the comics and less "slap-stick" and stuff! My boss (also a superhero nerd) told me about that today in our meeting, and I'm super stoked! The only thing I don't like is that they're getting yet ANOTHER actor to play superman. I don't know who yet, but it won't be Brandon Routh or Tom Welling from Smallville. If this is true then I am so excited! The problem is I can't find any actual information on it online. I saw some interviews where Brian Singer is directing the sequal and that they're working on writing it, but I thought he had a contract with WB? Anyway, I hope they do this. They're also "supposedly" working on the Justice League movie, but they put that on hold. :( I'm just excited to see these things progress, and frustrated because they're taking so long! Oh well, at least in the meantime I have Smallville to keep me happy. :)

Anyway, I know that this is totally lame without pictures and only having my random rantings to read. Maybe one of these days (when I have time) I'll take my pictures over to the in-laws and use their computer or something. Well, I think that's enough for now, I'm going to go home and get some much needed sleep! :) TTYL!

M.

Burn Out!

Holy cow! I am so sick of working 10-14 hour days!!! Right now, I would so love to say "yeah, I work a 9-5 job", but no. When people ask when I work, I have to say "As early as 12:30pm or 1pm, but usually closer to 2-2:30pm, then my classes end at 11:30 but I don't leave until Midnight some days and 2AM other days, just depending, then sometimes I have to come in in the mornings for meetings or conference calls or whatever". Ugh. This sucks. Don't get me wrong, I really like my job as far as teaching and working for Bank of America - I'm just tired! Then since I'm on salary, I don't get paid any extra for this extra time I put in. Grrr. Frustrating. I'm tired. And I don't have internet. And they didn't show Heroes this week because of the election. Grrr.

Did you know that having nightmares about work is a sign of burnout? Well it is. Guess how many nightmares I've had the last few weeks? At least 1 nightmare every night. I even had one that my boss went on a killing spree - that one was just odd. Anyway, just wanted to vent a bit and let you all know that I'm tired. I'm really, really, really tired. That and I ran into a table today while training and I have a bruise on my leg now. At least my classes have been really good though...Okay, I'm rambling now, sorry my life isn't more exciting. :(

M.

All about Jon!

About Jonathan Hunter

I was clearing out mine and Jon's combined email account (funny, but we just never check it!), and I saw this email from forever ago that Jen did about her husband, and since I have nothing going on in my life worth mentioning and I have no pictures, I thought this would be a great way to fill in some space. ;)

What is his name? Jonathan David Hunter
How long have you been together? married 2 1/2 years...together for about 3 1/2 yrs. (We met in March of 2005 and got married May of 2006)
How long did you date? We dated for 8 months until he proposed, then were engaged for 6 months.
How old is he? Just turned 26
Who eats more? Ha ha, it's pretty equal! He almost never eats breakfast and I usually fill up my cereal bowl more than once, but he eats more on the other meals, so it equals out.
Who said 'I love you' first'? We both kind of did - I "implied" it in my journal, which I knew he would read ;), then I sort of squeezed it out of him verbally before I actually said it.
How tall is he? 5 ft 10 in
Who can sing better? Probably him (at least he thinks so!) :)
Who is smarter? He's smarter book wise, I'm smarter culturally
Does he do the laundry? Ha ha, I don't think he knows how to anymore! ;) No he helps when he can, but he's almost always studying or doing homework, so it's not very often.
Who pays the bills? We usually do auto-pay options, but either way I usually leave it up to him.
Who sleeps on the right side? Depends on which direction you're looking at the bed...Jon sleeps on the side next to the alarm clock, I sleep next to the wall.
Who mows the lawn? He usually does, but I have to go around and pick up all the pine cones first. :)
Does he cook dinner? Not usually, unless it's steak, he cooks the best steaks ever! Or if he's sick of boxed dinners he'll cook. ;)
Who drives? Usually him because we're always in such a hurry to leave that I just do my makeup in the car - and that doesn't work well when you're driving...
Who is more stubborn? He is! ;) We're both stubborn, but we both know when to let up. Jon's more outwordly stubborn though.
Who kissed who first? Ha ha, Jon did. I was sitting on his lap and he flicked my lip, so when I turned to see what that was all about, he said, "You have really nice lips" and the rest is history. It was cheesy, but very cute.
Who asked who out first? Technically Jon's cousin Melissa asked us out for eachother (blind date), but our first official date was me - I took him clubbing! Hee hee*
Who proposed? Jon did, with a fake ring at 1AM that he threw into the pond at his parents house before showing me the real one. :)
Who has more friends? Jon does. Most of my friends I've lost touch with since moving to SLC, so I'm just kind of adopting his friends. Outside of his group, I only have 2-3 good friends.
Who is more sensitive? Ha ha, that's another tie. I cry more when I'm upset, but Jon's just as sensitive as me!
Who has more siblings? He does, he has 2 brothers and 2 sisters, and I have 1 sister and 2 brothers.
Who 'wears the pants'? I like to let him think that he does, but we all know that I run the show! :)
So, now you know a little bit more about the man I love. Feel free to consider yourself TAGGED if you read this, so you can tell us about the man you love! (In otherwords, you can put this back into an email format and send it to people, or be like me and use it as an excuse to put in your blog) :)

Going to the Stone Age...

So, due to a conflict with our current ISP, Jon and I may not have internet in our house after today. Funny enough, I'm writing this at work, so really it could already be turned off and I wouldn't know. What does this mean for my awaiting public?? Probably nothing since I don't think a lot of people really read this...(wink)...but it does mean that it will be harder to post pictures to my blogs, which means that everyone will get really bored with what I write. Anyway, update on us:
1. Our car is awesome.
2. Both Jon and myself are no longer working for DIRECTV, we are now working with Bank of America (Yay!) but this means that we also no longer get free DIRECTV (boo!) and we may turn that off to save some money (double boo.)
3. Our house will still be a freeway someday but we don't know when
4. My hair is still currently blonde
5. We still don't have kids.

Alright, that's about it for now. We'll see how this progresses over the next while. Until then, goodbye civilization!

M.

Finished Product!

From this view, you can see the sweet bumper kit that my genius husband located on the internet. The complete kit (front bumper, rear bumper, and both side skirts) cost less than just the front and rear bumper from the dealer! Also, check out the sweet grill! That was also my husband's genius at work! It only cost 20 bucks!

Another sweet view of the awesome paint job, and custom front end! The headlights are HID XENON lights, and are very expensive, but totally worth it! They are so much brighter than regular halogen bulbs! Also, they have a feature that allows you to push a button on the dash to raise or lower the angle of the headlights!
Another sweet view!
Here's the side view, showing the sweet paint job, and the side skirts with their sexy curves! Oh, as you can probably see, this car is painted black. The original color was a metallic black, but my genius husband suggested adding a little pearl to the color. Not too much that you'd have to paint the inside of the car, like the door jams, but enough to make it look a little different than any other mazda 3 on the road! So we added some red pearl! In the right light, the red pearl makes the metallics look maroon. So we decided to call this our sexy vampire mobile!
I can't decide which curves are the sexiest- the curves on the front, or the curves on the rear! This view shows the custom LED tail lights! I absolutely love them! Jon found this set of all 4 tail lights on the web for less than a hundred bucks! Normally, each tail light would have cost over a hundred! My husband is a freakin genius! What would I do without him!

Favorite Album...Right Now

So, I know that this is probably not too interesting for some, but I wanted to tell you that the album "Broken Bride" by Ludo is fantastic! I ordered it on iTunes after purchasing their other album, "You're Aweful, I Love You" (which is also awesome! They have a really funny and creative edge to their music). Anyway, after ordering it I was listening to some of their other tracks from other albums, and saw that Broken Bride album. It was cheaper than the others and only had 5 songs on it, so thought it was worth reading the reviews. The reviews were all great, saying that this was more of musical theater than anything else, and how it was a beautiful love story. I decided to give it a shot and bought it. The first few times I listened to it - even though I listened to it all the way through - I didn't really get the storyline, I just heard the music. The music itself is great! It has a lot of different styles and varieties in it so it can pertain to a lot of different tastes, in my opinion. Over the last few weeks, however, I've really started listening to the lyrics and now I can't listen to the all of the songs without crying!

The first song, Broken Bride Part I, starts with the main character, if you will, saying how his bride died in May of 1989, and how he's been working for 15 years to create a time machine to stop her from dying. (All of you Sci-Fi haters, I know it sounds weird but just trust me, it's amazing). Anyway, he has his machine built and tries to go back in time but something goes wrong and he ends up in pre-historic times, hiding in a cave so he doesn't get eaten, basically. So, thinking that he's failed and he will die in vain, he tries to write his story on the cave walls, but the glaciers wash his words away.

The next song - Save Our City - I'm not sure how but he goes forward into the future again into a war torn city. Gets kind of weird in that they are fighting against Zombies. Anyway, doesn't really have the main guy in it, it's just talking about this place and their King.

The next song, "Part II: Tonight's The Night" is the main guy again, and he's really hopeful and he's fixed (or is fixing) the time machine so he can try to go to the right time again to save his love.

"Part III: The Lamb And The Dragon" is where it really explains how the main guy went forward in time, and it's at the "end of days". So maybe Save Our City should be after this song, but whatever. Anyway, so in the first part you can't really tell what he's saying, but basically it says that he barely escaped the dinosaurs (he mentions raptors specifically) and his machine threw him to the end of days. It talks about the war that's going on, there's a distinction between the religious side calling for "The wrath of the Lamb!" to aid them while the other side is calling for "the Dragon" to rise. A few of the lyrics actually pull ideas from the bible (revelations). It turns to the view of the main character again getting ready to use his machine again, but something happens and his machine is destroyed and it somehow saves the "souls" of the people fighting from "the Destroyer of Worlds", so maybe it killed the dragon? Anyway, I think this blast killed him, and he sort of recounts what he's done to try and save her and how he wishes he could have one last chance to see her to say goodbye on the morning that she died, and it transitions to him in their old apartment seeing her sleeping. (That's the part that makes me cry)

Then the last song, combined with the previous is probably my favorite, "Part IV: Morning In May", he's with his love again and he talks about how happy and terrified he is at seeing her again and how he's sort of taking in everything about that moment as well as remembering the time after she died and how hard it was to deal with losing her, then when she wakes up and has to leave, he's torn because he knows what's going to happen and that he can't stop it, (by the way, she was killed in a car crash), and at the last minute he stops her from driving away and gets in the car to go with her. So basically, he's with her during the car crash and they die together. This song also makes me cry like a baby.

High School (I stole this from Jen)

Your High School's full name: Mountain Crest High School



High School Colors: Navy Blue and Orange



School Mascot: Mustangs



Did you date anyone from your school? Ha ha, need I be reminded of THAT mistake! Okay so through most of high school I dated a boy named Cameron (let's not talk about that again please...) and for the last few months I dated my friend Will and later (after High School) a friend named James.



It's Friday night where are you: Probably at a football or basketball game performing at halftime or hanging out with then boyfriend.



Were you a party animal: Ha ha, everone THOUGHT that the band members were such party animals because we always went "social drinking" after football games, competitions, performances, or just because. What they didn't know was that "social drinking" occurred at McDonald's and consisted of free water and icecream. Then we were told that we couldn't go to McDonald's anymore, so we moved our location to Arctic Circle for Junior and Senior year.



Were you considered a flirt: Apparantly I flirted without really knowing it. I just thought I was being nice, but other people thought I was always flirting.



Were you in band, orchestra, choir, or other group: I was in Band (clarinet! Yay!) and Colorguard. I loved them. Oh, and in Band I was on the Band Council as first the sophmore rep and then the Colorguard rep.



Were you in any clubs: Um, Band and Colorguard and Band Council?? (Can anyone say, geek?) ;)



Did you ever get expelled or suspended: Oh no, I played it safe. When I sluffed, I just told my mom and she would excuse me, or we would get our band director Mr. Bentley to write excuse notes for us (Thanks Mr. Bentley!)



Can you still sing the fight song: I could probably fumble my way through it, but mostly I know that I could probably still play it on the clarinet! Ha ha



Who were your favorite teachers: My band teachers, Mr. Bentley and Mr. Francis, then my colorguard instructors, Tiffany and then Bobbie Jo, and both AP Biology teachers, Mr. McMillan and the other one that I can't remember the name of...hmmm.



Where did you sit during lunch: At the band table, or when I sluffed band I would sit through both lunches with my bff Katie over by the al-a-carte line because the lunch ladies would give me the extra peanut butter squares! It's all in who you know...



Who was your prom date? As a sophmore I went with He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named or as my dad called him, "Speedbump", Junior year I didn't go because said bf didn't want to spend money on me, and Senior year I went with Will.



If you could go back and re-do high school would you: There's definitely things I would have done differently, like not date a certain someone ;), and I would love to be able to perform like I used to, I really miss that. Really though, I'm so happy now that I wouldn't want to go back and deal with all of that crap again.



Were you a nerd? Ha ha, please refer to the questions about what clubs I was in and you tell me if I was a nerd or not! ;)



Were you on any varsity teams? Varsity?? Hmm, Colorguard??



Where did you go senior skip day? I can't remember...I was probably either hanging out with my friends or at Will's apartment eating chips and salsa.



Have you gained some weight since then? LOL, why do you think I try not to post newer pictures!?!? Ha, yeah I've gained quite a bit of weight.



What do you remember about Graduation: Being pissed off that I had to play Pomp and Circumstance with the band because we only had 4 clarinets and 2 of us were graduating, then laughing because the drumline was sitting behind me making rude comments about all the people that were walking. Ha ha, it was awesome!



Are you planning on going to your 10 year reunion? Depends on how good I look. ;) Just kidding! I'll probably go. We'll see.

Intolerance

So, I really don't want anyone to get offended by anything I write here - just keep in mind that I'm trying to be fair and I'm talking in general, not pointing anyone out. Also, I'm not encouraging or discouraging who you vote for this November - as I myself have not decided who I will vote for myself, I don't want anyone to think that I am trying to convince you one way or the other in this very personal decision.

Now with the presidential election coming up, of course as always there are a lot of emails going around saying "Support him!" or "Vote for him because...". I really don't mind those - everyone has their opinions on the election and as long as they are promoting the good things in the election, then I'm all for it. However there seems to be a lot more of the emails in regards to "He's a bad person because..." "He's not a true American because..." "Can you believe that he believes in...". Up until now I've been quiet and frankly have just been deleting emails without reading them if I think that that's what they are going to be saying. That is until someone in my family decided to stand up to it. She wasn't harsh or demeaning, but she was realistic. Here's what she said:

"I found the e-mail about if Muslims can make good Americans completely offensive to me and to several friends that I have that are Islamic. Yes they are allowed to befriend others. What I learned from these people is how alike we are. I gave a talk from an Ensign Article about nine years ago in Smithfield called "On Islam" (I think). This was before 9/11. The foresight of the first presidency is incredible. The article pointed out how much we have in common and the values that we cherish. I will look the article up and forward it to everyone. Hopefully we can learn a little more understanding and tolerance before we leap to judgement and political rhetoric. Calling Barac Obama out for his religion is no different than say Mitt Romney would be subject to the Prophet's every whim if president or a Catholic would only answer to the Pope. Let's try not to be absurd."

I agree with this 100%, and frankly am so glad that it was said. As members of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints, or even just Christians or good people in general, how can we really support some of the slanderish emails that have been circulating? Deep down I'm sure everyone's thinking, "Well I just want to make sure that my rights are protected." That's just fine! By all means, send the emails saying "Look what this person is going to do for our country, rights and beliefs?" rather than resorting to prejudiced and bigotted opinions of people that we only hear from other ignorant closed-minded people? I'm just as guilty of this in the fact that I haven't said anything until now - just months before the election. I'm not saying that you have to vote for Obama or that you have to vote for McCain - this should be a very personal decision for everyone. Frankly I don't know who I'm going to vote for right now, but I can tell you that circulating emails that are prejudice or ignorant is not what's going to turn my vote one way or the other.

For those of you who are LDS, there have been countless talks on prejudice in the church. Here's some quotes that I found:

"In this gospel view there is no room for a contracted, narrow, or prejudicial"
-Howard W. Hunter The Gospel—A Global Faith

"It was George C. Marshall who wisely said, 'We must take the nations of the world as they are, the human passions and prejudices of people as they exist, and find some way to secure … a peaceful world.' Peace must be a triumph of principles."
-Marvin J. Ashton Peace—A Triumph of Principles

"We might deny ourselves a nearness to our Savior because of our prejudices of neighborhood or possessions or race—attitudes that Christ would surely condemn."
-David B. Haight Love All

"Prejudice is hardly new. But he also knew that until the surface features of habits and traits were accepted, prejudice would keep men apart."
-Victor L. Brown Jr. Minorities: A Latter-day Saint Definition

"President Spencer W. Kimball stated the Church’s position well: “We do wish that there would be no racial prejudice. Racial prejudice is of the devil."
-Alexander B. Morrison “No More Strangers”

These talks, while oftentimes are talking about prejudism within our own church, are just as meaningful to those not in our faith. Especially while looking at the history of the LDS church, and how our ancestors were treated when just trying to live and worship as they wanted. How can we then turn and speak of someone else in this manner?

Please, when voting this year for who will be our next president, all that I ask is that you don't vote for someone or not vote for someone based on the color of their skin, their religious beliefs, or any other petty argument. Remember when Obama first started running for president and there was a controversy over his middle name?!?!? That is just ridiculous! Don't let that sway your vote. Please Please Please Please, do your research! Vote for our next president based on his political views, not his religious. If you don't agree with either of them, then write in someone new!

Also remember that when the elections are over, regardless of who becomes our next president, that it is stated in Article of Faith #11 that, "We claim the privelege of worshiping the Almighty God according to the dictates of our own concience, and allow all men the same privilege, let them worship how, where or what they may."

Again, I just want to point out that this is not aimed at anyone directly, and that if you feel that I was aiming it at you then I wasn't. I hope I didn't offend anyone too much by this, and if so then I'm sorry, as this was not my intention. I just want to be fair.

If you want a post with pictures, then there's an update on my car below - much less heated post. :)

~M.

Welding

So Jon has been working night and day to get everything together for my car (sorry that my life is so boring that I have three posts about cars in a row!) Mostly he's been ordering parts and/or tools, which surprisingly has been really hard! Because it's such a new model we can't buy a lot of the part wholesale like we usually do. For example, we couldn't get the bumpers from our usual place (Intermountain AutoParts, I think it is), so we had to buy those from the manufacturer which was so expensive that Jon decided to just get a body kit for it. That was about $800! So yeah, it's been a job in and of itself just getting parts.



Last Monday we got the new quarterpanel, and yesterday Jon got his new welder! I'm thinking that he's enjoying getting new tools so much that he doesn't mind that I wrecked the car anymore! Ha ha! Anyway, we got up early this morning to start welding the quarterpanel onto the car. It was pretty interesting to watch, but I definitely am not a fan of sparks flying at me! Anyway, here's some pics:

So this is the quarterpanel before - Looks like someone crunched some tinfoil and then tried to lay it out flat again.

Jon had to cut the old quarterpanel off, and this is what it looked like afterwords - yikes!

The new quarterpanel after Jon glued it on - did you know that most of your car is actually GLUED together?? Jon says that the glue holds better than welds, but they usually do both for added hold - weld around the edges and glue for the bulk. I thought it was a little weird, personally...

Jon getting ready to weld! (BTW, he's wearing a jersey because he went to work right after and it's ESPN Gameplan day for DIRECTV)

This is Jon welding. It took a minute to figure out the new welder and then he went to town! He's not quite done - when he does I'll probably post those pictures too! :)

Anyway, that's all for now. I'm actually going to do another post almost immediately so you can read that in a minute. :) Bye!

New Car!!!

Hooray! Jon and I finally found a car that we can buy! It's a broken little car, but that's why I'm so glad that Jon is so talented when it comes to automotive repair. For those of you who didn't know, Jon used to work for an auto collision repair shop, so he is a professional autobody repairman! It's really come in handy, because the accidents that car-which-shall-not-be-named was is were all repaired by Jon! Plus we're getting a really nice car at a fraction of the price because it's broken and he's gonna fix it! :)
So the new car is a 2007 Mazda3. It's black with black leather seats (I know, sounds like a summertime sauna!), and it has the stereo controls on the steering wheel as well as seat warmers! It needs a bit of work - all on the passenger side of the car. It will need at least new front and rear bumpers, new passenger headlight and taillight, back windshield, passengerside quarterpanel, a new antenna, and some dents fixed. When we're done we'll have repainted the majority of the car (again, I'm so happy to have such a talented husband!) which means we can paint it any color we want. After painting El Diablo earlier this year, I'm not even nervous about helping!
Anyway, if you'd like to see it (for the time being), you can go to http://www.getwwa.com/vehicle_details/5216/MAZDA/MAZDA3. I just put the deposit down today, and we should be getting our loan approved within the next day or two (takes longer when you don't work the same schedule!) and then the car is ours! Once we get it I'll post some pictures, along with our progress as we fix it! :)
Well that's all for now!

R.I.P. El Diablo (aka: Monty the Cavelier)

In Memorium

So, some of you heard that I wrecked my car Monty (yes, that was his name even if you didn't know it). Well, it's true, I did. It was on the 18th of this month. Here's the story:

I was driving back from having dinner with my bff Katie, and I was heading west on hwy 201 at about 7:20pm. Some of you know that at this time the sun is directly in front of your face practically, so you don't see cars in front of you - you see a bright orange light and some shadows that you assume are cars or some sort of horrible monster. Usually they're cars. Anyway, it just so happens that there had been another accident that they police were still taking care of, so traffic was stop and go past there so everyone could "rubberneck" to see the damage. Once we passed the wreck, traffic started going faster. Thinking that we were done with the whole stop and go, I decide that I'm being completely blinded by the stupid sun, so I try to adjust my sun visor to cover it better. Well, because I was focusing on my visor and the sun, I didn't see the shadow cars in front of my come to a stop until it was too late. I had just enough time to see the cars, panic, slam on the breaks and then slam into the poor little Prius in front of me. Anyway, the people I hit yelled a lot - which I don't really blame them too much but I was afraid to talk to them because they were so angry - and one of the cops from the other accident came over and took care of us, but my car was leaking antifreeze and the driver's side headlight was dangling on the side of the car, so they had to tow it away and I had to call a neighbor to come to my rescue (thank you Lynsay!)

Now I didn't get a good look at the damage before it was towed away because frankly I didn't really want to know how bad it was - I was really upset about the whole thing and didn't want to make it worse. So the next day Jon and I (I got work off to take care of everything and see the doctor for whiplash) went down to the tow yard to look at it and the second I looked at it I decided that he - the car - was no longer Monty. No, now he was El Diablo. I'm convinced that this car is cursed and is not happy unless he's broken. Here's a rundown on his story:

1. When I bought him he had been a salvaged car from a front end accident, the damage reaching parts of the engine compartment as well as needing to replace the whole front end (fenders, hood and bumper).



2. After buying him, the air conditioning didn't work.



3. About a month after buying him, I was driving on Bangerter Hwy and after a stoplight was trying to shift from first to second and the clutch went down but didn't come back up. I had to drive from I-15 and Bangerter all the way to Redwood Rd in first gear because the clutch wasn't working. Apparantly a cable with clutch fluid had sprung a leak.



4. About a year after I bought him, while being polite at work and waiting for someone to pull out of their parking spot with plenty of room (keep in mind my car is in neutral and I'm just waiting), a Ford Explorer backs up into me. I saw him coming and blared my horn but he couldn't hear me over his music. He broke the bumper, the headlight, and dented the hood as well as the latch for the hood so it wouldn't catch on it's own - to close it you had to open the latch completely then shut the hood then close the latch. Then to top it off he gave me expired insurance and ran off, but because it happened on company property they couldn't even fine him for it!



5. A month (or less) after that, after Jon had bought a new replacement bumper and headlight (this is also when we found out that originally it had been replaced with 2002 parts instead of 2004), we were almost ready to paint the new bumper. We were at Jon's parents in Bluffdale (our house was still being revamped), so after wet sanding the bumper he told me to drive it out to our new house so we could paint it and that he would meet me there. Well, I got onto Bangerter Hwy and right about the time I hit 65mph, my hood flew up into my windshield, shattering the window inwards, wrapping the hood around the car and denting the top of my car in about 6 inches. Luckily there was about four inches under the hood that I could still see so I was able to pull over to the side safely. A cop drove by me and didn't even help, by the way.



6. Last winter - approximately 1 1/2 years after purchasing him - Jon is driving back from school. The car in front of him has to hit his breaks hard and is sliding a bit. Now even though there was more than 2 car lengths between him and the car in front of him, when Jon hit his breaks he slid all the way into the other car. He only needed about another foot to stop, and barely tapped the guy, but for some reason the other guys car didn't even have a scratch, but half of our bumper blew up/broke off. The cop just laughed at him for it because it looked so ridiculous.



And that brings us to the incident I first mentioned. So, it is with great happiness that I tell you that El Diablo has been declared a total loss. Hooray! Now, while this does mean that I have to buy a new car and I'm completely broke so that kind of sucks, I'm just glad that I'm not longer having to drive a kamikaze car anymore. I think Monty was just unhappy that he was yellow at first, and he had a trailer hitch that made absolutely no sense. Of course, we painted him black this year, and it didn't make a difference, so yeah. I love that Jon can paint and fix cars...Anyway, rest in peace El Diablo, your work is finished until they fix you and sell you to some other poor sap who can deal with your curse. :)

Jon's Birthday!

Ha ha, so this is almost a month late, but that's okay! Jon turned the big 26 on August 10, and since the last two years we have been too poor to buy any real presents for him (we always had to use the money to fix the house or pay for school or fishing or whatever), this year I was bound and determined to make up for it! So, for his birthday, he got a Nintendo Wii and a new 16 piece set of golf clubs! I had so much fun planning his present, and originally it was going to be the golf clubs or an iPod and fishing lures or the Wii, but once I decided to get the golf clubs (because I couldn't find the Wii), my sister called and said that she found a Wii and that my family would go in on it to pay for it, so we got both! Anyway, I didn't get any wrapping paper because I decided it would be a futile effort to try and wrap the golf clubs, so Julie (who came to bring the Wii for Jon) and I improvised our wrapping jobs! :) Here's the pictures!

Jon's reaction to the golf clubs! (And just the birthday surprises in general!)

This is called Redneck Wrapping Paper.

This is cooler than any wrapping paper you'll ever find! It's fleece!

He's laughing at my wrapping job - I thought it was creative! ;)

Unwrapping the presents

He was soooo surprised to see a Wii!

The Clubs

The Bag

Julie showing us how to use the Wii

Jon's turn to play!

Jon trying out his swing

Even Ricky liked the golf clubs. Here he's playing "Dog Pound".

It was a way fun birthday - it felt good to finally be able to get Jon something nice. Jon went golfing the next day before work to try out the new clubs, then we went on the Saturday after. Anyway, that's it! Happy Birthday Jon! I love you!

Vacation!!!

Alright, so to make up for the last few blogs with no pictures, I'm going to have a LOT of pictures in this post! So be prepared! This post is in regards to the vacation we took August 1st through the 3rd. We went up to Strawberry Pinnacles with a bunch of friends and it was so fun! Here's the pics!

Me four-wheeling! (BTW, I'm terrified of things without seatbelts!)

Me and Amber being our fabulous selfs on this rock that we totally conquered!

Me and Jon

We are such daredevils, hanging off of the side of cliffs and what-not.

Jon and Josh actually getting along! This picture will be worth money someday!

Secret Agents!

All us girlies!

The Preggos

Dipping our feet in the river (It was freezing! It took me about 10 minutes before my feet got numb enough not to feel it anymore!)

Jon is so cool. :)

Shawn and Stacy (With a small glimpse of Jon's boat in the background, he'd like that mentioned.) ;)

Tiff getting "Practice" with Amber's baby Owen

Owen and Dillan on Dillan's very own 4-wheeler

Dillan is such a rockstar!

One of the pinnacles

I'm pretty tired in this picture, having stayed up all night fishing and reading the Twilight books again.

I caught the first fish the night before (we spent the night on the boat, way fun!), and after that I sort of tapped out. But Jon was catching at LEAST one fish every 15-20 minutes all night and throughout the next day. This is the only one we took pictures of though, because they were all pretty smallish.

Dillan getting ready to tear it up! (He had some pretty wicked moves on that thing! Drove over every hill he could find!)

Cute Dillan!

Brian and Tiffany with Owen

Amber and Owen

Brian was the first to brave the freezing waters of Strawberry River...

But it soon turned into "The Man Test", where all the boys had to see who was the toughest and could stand the cold waters.

Overall it was a way fun vacation! Sorry it took SOOOO long to get this posted! Pictures take forever to download. :) Anyway, it was very fun and I enjoyed it a lot. Someday I'm going to get around to posting pictures from Jon's birthday and then I'll tell you all the scary tail of El Diablo. Until then, I hope you enjoy! :)