Christmas 2009

Trav and I had a great Christmas holiday. We spent a week in Hawaii (pics to come later) then came home and spent time with both our families. It was a great break from work and we had such a nice relaxing time the whole week! It was one of the best Christmases in a while! I told Trav that I just wanted to go shopping for clothes this year for my gift so I hit all the after Christmas sales and got tons of cute stuff. But Travis did buy some cute little stocking stuffers for Christmas morning. My absolute favorite gift of all, including all the clothes I got, was this:

It was $1.99 but hands down the best thing I got! For those of you who aren't familiar, the slang term for this is a "Jesus fish." It's a metal ornament people put on that back of their cars. The history is that during the time when Christians had to worship in secret they created this symbol that they would draw in the dirt with their foot to signal to other Christians that they were planning to meet that day. Also, sometimes people would draw half of the symbol in the dirt and wait to see if someone drew the other half. That's how they identified themselves as Christians to other people. So in a state where there isn't a majority population of Christians, this is how I'm identifying myself to others. :)

The Holidays in New York City

At work, our Christmas...I mean Holiday party was themed "The Holidays in New York City." I had originally wanted to call it "Christmas in New York City" but my boss wouldn't let me. Things are a little different in Las Vegas. :) Anyway, it was a great party! We had employees sharing their talents all day in a talent show. I included the picture of the guy playing the ukulele because last week, he left a message on my office phone asking if he had to audition. Just to be safe, he played me a song over the phone! It was awesome! I also had a guy who plays the tuba ask if he could perform. I also had several singers, 2 bands and a Liza Manelli impersonator. It was a great day!

Christmas Tree...Oh Christmas Tree!

Trav and I had a great time yesterday picking out a real tree from a lot by our house. I was surprised at what a difference a real tree makes! I'm a little stuffed up so I can't smell it's wonderful smell but there's a definite feeling about having a live tree in my house that makes me happy! I decided to go with an icy, wintery theme for the decor. I even sprinkled fake snow on the branches! Behold...

Christmasalatizing

I've officially started Christmasalatizing my house! We decided to get a real tree this year so we're going to wait one more week for that. Here's what I've done so far.

Anonymous

Has anyone ever been left an anonymous letter from "A Neighbor" before? When we first moved in we let Jane and Tuck stay outside all day while we were at work because Tuck would chew on the furniture if we left them inside. Then we got an anonymous letter stating that our dog was barking "literally all day." Even though I refused to believe Jane was actually barking for 9 hours straight, we decided to leave her inside all day, and leave Tuck outside all day since he doesn't bark, but chews! Keep in mind, I got a second dog because I felt guilty that Jane had to be alone all day. Now I just have two lonely dogs.

So, whenever we're going to be gone for short periods of time, we leave the dogs together outside. When we got home from church today there was another anonymous letter stating Jane had been barking for an hour and half straight and that several neighbors would appreciate us not letting our dog outside during the day while we're gone and not to let them out so early in the morning on weekdays!! Does this sound unreasonable to anyone else? We NEVER let our dogs go outside after 9pm and because I have to leave for work at 7:45am I have to let Jane out between 7am-7:30am because, keep in mind, they requested I not leave her outside during the day! I'm just furious with the whole situation! I would completely understand if our dogs were outside at night keeping people awake. But they're not. And I don't understand who gets mad about a dog barking in the afternoon! Furthermore, at some point during the day, my dog HAS to go outside. Apparently my neighbors get to decide when that is. That is all.

There's an app for that

I feel like I could create an individual blog entry for each reason I love my iPhone. I will start with my most recent app (short for application-something you can download to your phone) which is called "Lose it." It's a calorie counter/miracle worker! First you put in what your current weight, height and age is. Then it asks what your goal weight is. You then choose how aggressively you want to loose weight (1/2 lb a week, 1 lb a week etc.) Then it tells you how many calories you can eat in a day to get to your goal weight.

Each day you add everything you ate. It has a huge data base of foods and it budgets how many more calories you can eat that day.

It also lets you add exercise and tells you how many calories that burned. The more you burn, the more you can eat!

I'm trying to tone up a little before our trip to Hawaii next month. The other day I ate a piece of cake for breakfast and by dinner time I only had 10 calories left in my budget. So I went and danced for 1/2 hour and earned (or burned) enough calories to have dinner! It's great!

I know I couldn't stay on the program forever but it's great for a short term goal. It also gives me a good feel for what foods are extra high in calories and how much I should be eating and exercising each day.

Stay tuned for other reasons why I love my iPhone.

Holiday Decor

Lately I've been really into decorating my house for holidays. Trav and I spooked up our front yard for Halloween and yesterday I went to the craft store and went a little crazy with the Thanksgiving and Christmas decorations. I bought stuff to make a beautiful Thanksgiving centerpiece and all new tree decorations for Christmas. Last night Travis asked if I wanted to put up our tree next weekend since he knew I was so excited about the new decor. It was then that we realized we don't even have a tree! Last year, all the the prelit lights on our tree went dead. We tried to fix them but no success. It ended up looking terrible stringing new lights over the thousands of dead lights already in the tree. So we tossed the tree and decided to buy a new one this year. I had obviously forgotten all about this since I was justifying spending a little extra on decorations thinking I wouldn't have to buy a tree this year! Maybe the tree will be my Christmas present from Trav! :)

Hunting Husband

Trav went quale hunting this week and he got some new gear. He looks super adorable. My dogs look a little like Hanibal Lector.

Somewhere over the rainbow...

Travis and I have this dream of owning 20 acres of land in the mountains of Southern Utah and building an awesome house where our kids and dogs can just run free in the wilderness! For fun we started looking at land for sale near Cedar City and saw this.

Is it perfect or what? There's even a dog running in the pic above! Who wants to help me buy it?

3 and counting...

I now have a whopping 3 whole dance students! Last week my boss asked me if I would teach his 2 1/2 year old daughter ballet once a week. I'm trying to get my neighbor to put her 2 1/2 year old in the same class to make it more fun for everyone! Tonight was our first class and she was adorable. I guess I shouldn't tell my boss I'm thinking of quitting and teaching full time or he probably won't let me teach his daughter anymore! :) I think I need a few more students before I can quit my job! Tomorrow night I have my two 10 year olds. Any other takers out there? I teach adult classes too.

The patience of Job...'s dog watcher

Okay, I will in no way compare myself to having any of the trials of Job, but lately my dogs have made me feel very prepared for anything that would test my patience! In honor of keeping the Sabbath day holy, here are a few of the verses from my book of patience this weekend...

1 The carpet cleaners show up bright and early on Saturday morning to clean the much needed rugs and carpet from months of my dogs trampling in dirt, mud and cleverly using both as backup toilet paper/rear end scratcher.

2 After 45 minutes of the dogs running through the house playing because it's 9:30pm and still 100 degrees outside, Tuck throws up all over the newly cleaned rug.

3 I finally sit back and relax after a long weekend of cleaning and running errands and I hear Jane barking like it's the second coming outside. I run outside to see her laying down in the back yard apparently just barking because she likes the sound of her own voice.

4. Before bed I have to run outside again to manually turn off our swimming pool pump because sometime last winter, the dogs found the wires that connect the pool equipment to the controller in our kitchen. Just as I run back inside before I break a sweat (still 100 degrees outside) I step in a pile of dog poop as big as my foot.

And it came to pass that I then believed, having kids has to be easier than this. :)

My favorite barre

This weekend we finally put up a stretch barre in my dance studio. It's amazing what a difference it made! It all the sudden officially looks like a dance studio! We were walking through Lowe's last week and saw a banister and some mounting brackets and realized, that's really all we need! So I stained and sealed it and Travis mounted it on the wall yesterday. I love it!

Finally!

Swish....AAAHHHHH....that's the sound of fresh air traveling through my nose for the first time in....26 years! For the last 3 years I've been in and out of the doctor's office trying to figure out why I'm always sick and why I can't ever breathe normally. A few weeks ago I finally found a good doctor who referred me to see an ENT (Ear Nose and Throat) Specialist. He took one look at my sinus CT scan and said, "How have you been functioning like this?" He was apparently amazed that I was even able to walk around. I reminded him that I'd been hospitalized before for not being able to breathe and that my hearing goes in and out because my ears get so plugged. So even though I was walking around, I wasn't functioning that great!

So last Thursday I had surgery to clean out my sinuses and fix my deviated septum. Today I went for a follow up appointment and he took out the splits that were in my nose. Suddenly, it was like a whole new world! I honestly don't remember the last time I had this much air going to my lungs!

I was laughing on my way to my car thinking about the time when I was probably 8 years old and I was constantly stuffed up then too. I remember thinking "If I had one wish, it would be that all the mucus would be sucked out of my nose." Kind of a weird wish I know but this week, it very literally came true. Moral of the story, don't stop yourself from wishing something just because it seems silly....except when I wished, and prayed that Full House would be on every day. But that also came true so my point still stands!

American Idol

Who else is super excited about American Idol tonight?! Go Adam!!!

Uhh.....

Is anyone else wondering what Danny Gokey was thinking last night? I totally love him but I think he may have gone a little overboard last night in a very bad way. I hope he doesn't get kicked off because of it!

Disneyland!

Last weekend was my sister-in-law Autumn's birthday so the family decided to surprise her with a trip to Disneyland! We had a great time. It was so beautiful in California and the park wasn't too crowded in the morning. Here are some fun shots of our trip.

I especially like this one of Trav and our nephew Aidan. So funny!

Explanation

I know, it's been a long time since I've blogged. I've been a little preoccupied with my renewed hobby. My birthday was last weekend and Trav put in the mirrors in my dance room. Every night after work I've been dancing and also painting the room to get it all finished. It still needs floor boards and a stretch bar. All in good time. I do have my first client though! A lady I work with has a 10 year old daughter who wants one on one private dance lessons. Hopefully we'll start lessons next weekend.

Thanks Trav! You're the best hubby ever!

I'm also excited to show off what Trav got for his birthday last week! We found it on Craig's list for a steal! We don't have helmets yet so we haven't actually ridden it yet, just around the block the night we got it. Trav is on cloud nine!

Adventure

We had a great adventure today in the mountains with our dogs. It felt just like home! I also discovered this cool program with our camera that makes these cool videos!

Ears!

Does anyone know how to fix my ears?? They've been so plugged up for 2 weeks now. I've been getting pretty good at lip reading but most of the time at work I just ask people to email me because I can't hear what they're saying to me! Of course when I made an appointment to see my Dr. I couldn't get in until next Friday!!

On the bright side, I opened a facebook account this week and got in touch with several good friends I haven't talked to in years! The joys of technology!

3 things I'm thankful for

I got this idea from my sister Mindy's blog. I haven't updated in ages and I figured this would be a great way to start back up again. Here are 3 things I'm thankful for today:



1. Today in church the young women's choir sang a rest song between the speakers. Travis leaned over to me and asked if this was "the song and the prayer before Sacrament meeting is over." I told him about how we used to ask my mom that same question all through Sacrament meeting and he's never forgotten it. I was instantly grateful for a loving and caring mom growing up and for a sweet and hilarious husband I get to be with every day.



2. Last week we were borrowing my mother in law's car while Travis's car is in the shop...long story. Her car was stolen from our driveway a few days later...another long story! I'm grateful that 4 days later the police found it in perfect condition. Lots of prayers were answered that day!

3. Last night we had dinner with Trav's mom and sister and we had a long discussion about how to be prepared for "end of days" or any type of emergency situation. We all decided that it would be a good idea if we all had predetermined responsibilities so we could make sure everything was taken care of. I was instantly taken back to being 5 years old and having mom read me the story of the mother bunny who had so many bunny babies in the house. Each one had a specific job or responsibility. There were even bunnies whose job was to sing and dance to entertain all the other bunnies while they worked. Whenever the entire family was helping mom clean the house, set the table etc I would ask mom what my job was. She would always reply, "You're the bunny that sings and dances." It was a very simply statement and probably not anything she really thought would impact me that much. I was so grateful for that statement, not because I ended up making singing and dancing a big part of my life but because it taught me the lesson of helping everyone to feel valuable. Trav's family always likes to hear these kinds of stories about what it was like growing up in a family of 10 kids. Thanks mom!

Fun Weekend

Our Christmas gift to Mom and Kent this year was tickets to see "O" at the Bellagio here in Las Vegas. They came here this weekend to see the show and we went with them. We had a great time seeing the show. The only suggestion we have is to book your seats more than 5 days in advance. We got the last pick of seats and had a little bit of a limited view. We still loved the show.

Mom and I also went shopping on Saturday and almost bought matching dresses! They were a tiny bit too short or we may have done it. The picture is not great because it was taken on my camera phone.

What a great weekend!

Fat guy in a little coat

Last month we took some pictures of our dogs dressed in Trav's clothes. I was rolling on the floor laughing so hard at these!