123/365 - My blogging apologies...

In order to fully enjoy the teeny tiny bit of summer vacation I have left, I am going to take a few days off blogging. You know... no pressure days. Nothing on my to-do list, brainless time with my hubby, no cares or worries. I'll be back to resume my 365 days worth of continuous posts. I guess I'm a bit of a continuous post failure now. But don't worry... I'll be back shortly. I'm sure all 3 of my reader/followers will survive.

122/365 - Ouch!

I was mowing the lawn this morning when I got the sting of my life! I'm really not sure what got me. It could have been a bee, wasp, spider... who knows! All I know is that 14 hours later my leg looks like this...

Maybe it has to get worse before it gets better?? It's still a little painful. We'll see what it looks like in the morning.

121/365 - Flat as a pancake...

Ken and I will be taking a little...

I took my car into the shop to have them look at things. My car is a 2009 with 23,000 miles on it (I bought it in 2008 with 2 miles on it. Yeah, I don't go anywhere) so it's not that old but it's also not new. I ended up having the rotors resurfaced and putting on a new set of good tires. I was into it a big chunk of change. The fantastic new tires went on the car yesterday. Woohoo!

BUT...

Today as I was driving, the car seemed to suddenly get loud. I pulled over, got out and saw this

My rear passenger tire was as flat as flat could be. I was sitting on the rim. I hurried and put on my hazard lights and called the mechanic who had put the tires on just yesterday.

He came over within a few minutes (thankfully I was close to home AND close to the mechanic) and put air into the tire using a portable air compressor. I was happy to be rescued! I did, however, have a nice guy stop and ask me if he could change my tire. I thought that was really nice. Yippee for the fact that there are still some Good Samaritans out there.

It turns out that Toyota uses some special sensor on the tire stem and evidently the seal had broken on that tire stem and air leaked. I guess it's a pretty random thing. So with air in my leaky tire, I drove to the mechanic shop. They fixed the problem and had me on the road within fifteen minutes.

I'm thinking of it this way...

Maybe my tire was supposed to go flat to so I didn't drive any further. That was my first thought. As crazy and paranoid as it may sound, maybe there was some huge accident, small fender bender, or little kid I could have hit in the middle of the street awaiting me had I gone further. Who knows! The car felt funny and sounded loud suddenly. But rather than be upset that I had a little one hour delay hiccup in my day, I'm grateful it happened in town where help was easily accessible and not on the road trip in the middle of nowhere! Pretty random event though.

120/365 - Anniversary, Expired Licenses and Rejection...

Yesterday was our anniversary. But it was also just a normal day. Ken worked until 3:00 p.m. and I went about my day as normal. Before we went out to dinner, we decided to run to the DMV. Ken's drivers license expired on his Cake Day without him realizing it. Since we're taking a road trip, a valid license is a must. So, we went to the DMV, filled out all of the forms, stood in all of the lines and waited for our turn. Things were looking good until...

He couldn't pass the eye exam portion. 

They sent us home and we were no further than before we had gone there. It was really frustrating. Ken's new glasses hadn't come in yet. There wasn't much we could do. His drivers license renewal application was...

With that less-than-lovely experience behind us, we went home and got ready to go out to celebrate our first anniversary. I had made reservations at an upscale restaurant in Orem. When we got there, we were seated and handed our fancy menus. Immediately, I knew we were in trouble. There were only about 10 meals on the menu that night. I knew that Ken was disgusted with the daring selection and duck breast with goat cheese wasn't sounding very appetizing to me either. Ken and I chatted for a couple of minutes about whether or not we should leave and the waiter brought us water. I finally pulled "wife rank" and told Ken we were leaving. He didn't really want to because it would have been embarrassing. But I told him I REALLY wanted to go somewhere else. So, we got up and walked out. I think Ken was pretty relieved we did. I've never done that before. It was a little liberating.

By now it's 8:00 p.m. and we were both hungry and tired. I decided to drive from Orem to Salt Lake to take our chances at the swanky Roof Restaurant in the Joseph Smith Memorial Building on Temple Square. We had just eaten in that building the week before but I wanted to try the nicer restaurant. 

We got there about 8:40 p.m. and the views were amazing!

The food, which was a wonderful buffet, was fantastic and they have an all you can eat dessert bar. The creme brulee was divine! We were both so glad we left the other restaurant and had a delicious meal that we really enjoyed. I think we found our new "nice dinner out" spot.

Ken also got me some roses for our anniversary.

We had a rule... because of our upcoming trip, no one was to get the other anything other than a card. Ken claims he didn't break this rule because he didn't get anything... I did. The flowers were for me and not him. Therefore, he didn't get anything and the rule wasn't broken. His logic left me speechless. But I secretly loved that he got me flowers!

This afternoon, we went back to the eye doctor. Ken's new glasses were finally in (he's wearing them in the picture) AND they printed him a certificate saying his exam is current and he could be exempt from having to take it at the DMV.

We drove back the the DMV, waited in all of the lines again and guess what!

He went ahead and took the eye exam with his new glasses. This time he was...

I'm glad Ken is street legal and can see. Whew!

119/365 - 365 days of being Mr. & Mrs.

We have been married for one year today. Seriously, I can't believe it has been a year. Sometimes it feels like a lot longer and sometimes it feels like a lot less. Without sounding offensive, it has been the longest short year of my life. We've had up and downs that I never expected or could foresee. But through it all, I can honestly say to Ken...

Happy Anniversary to us!

I love you, Ken!

118/365 - A midnight visitor...

We were laying in bed last night when all of a sudden something strange appeared on my side of the bed. (I wish I had a picture of it but I don't) Last night, about midnight, Ken's cat jumped up on our bed. Now I know this may not sound like a big deal, but this was monumental for the cat. She is permanently banished to the basement. She'll sit at the top of the stairs and torment the dog, but she has never once attempted to be part of our family. So, last night we had the two of us, one small dog and one big cat all in our bed. Tank had absolutely no clue the cat was in bed. Ken and I were amazed. So to you, this all means nothing. To us, it means Ken's cat may actually want to be a part of our little family. We'll see.

117/365 - A place to start...

I went out with my friend Amy tonight and when I got home Ken had a little surprise for me. Guess what he did while I was gone. He turned a bedroom downstairs into a...

JUST FOR ME!

Take a look at what he did (on his own without any prompting or hinting whatsoever) with his very own two little hands! He had to clean the entire room out, find a new home for everything that was in there, and move all of my crafty-crap in. Whew! That's a project!

He cleaned out AND organized this closet.

I kind of like ribbon...

The man even boxed up and labeled all of my gift bags and wrapping junk. He labeled everything appropriately with titles like "assorted fluffy stuff". I'm not joking about this either.

He even set me up a card-making table! 

What. A. Man.

And an "other project" table... in this case there is a giant box of books that need to be repaired and put back into my classroom.

My new craft room may not look like this...

or this... YET.

But Ken gave me a starting point tonight to turn my little creative space into something really fun! I can't wait to get started. As a side note, I've been wanting to buy a sewing machine. I want to learn how to piece quilt. Now I have a place to actually keep a sewing machine. This room may turn out to be a very, very bad idea. 

I'm just saying...

116/365 - Happy July 24th!

I like to think I would have been a good little pioneer, but I know that is absolutely not true. There is a reason I was not born into that dispensation when the Mormon church was still new and they were being cast out no matter where they settled. I think I would have struggled with Brigham Young. Although he was somewhat controversial to many of the early Saints, there is no doubt in my mind that he was the only one who would be able to lead the Saints westward. He was a prophet of God. I'm glad that I wasn't in the company when they entered into the dry and desolate Salt Lake Valley on July 24, 1847. I would have been a big-haired lousy pioneer who was in desperate need of some diet Coke.

But I am grateful for my ancestors who were truly chosen to live in that time period and make sacrifices to better their lives, the lives of their families, and the future of their posterity. That's where I come in. I'm the posterity. Although I cannot begin to comprehend the trials and hardships of my relatives many generations back, I'm grateful for the life and freedom I have now. Theirs was a calling of patience, endurance and love.

Maybe I'm a pioneer in a different way. Maybe I'm facing challenges and trials that will benefit my posterity as well. I'm not sure. Maybe one day someone will be thankful for the choices I made in my life. I'd like to think somehow I will pay it all forward in the end.

"We suffered beyond anything you can imagine and many died of exposure and starvation, but did you ever hear a survivor of that company utter a word of criticism? Every one of us came through with the absolute knowledge that God lives for we became acquainted with Him in our extremities! I have pulled my handcart when I was so weak and weary from illness and lack of food that I could hardly put one foot ahead of the other. I have looked ahead and seen a patch of sand or a hill slope and I have said, I can go only that far and there I must give up for I cannot pull the load through it. I have gone to that sand and when I reached it, the cart began pushing me! I have looked back many times to see who was pushing my cart, but my eyes saw no one. I knew then that the Angels of God were there. Was I sorry that I chose to come by handcart? No! Neither then nor any minute of my life since. The price we paid to become acquainted with God was a privilege to pay and I am thankful that I was privileged to come in the Martin Handcart Company."
-Francis Webster, Martin Handcart Company

Happy Pioneer Day!

115/365 - Pioneer Commemoration Concert...

Last night, Ken and I went to the Conference Center in Salt Lake for the Mormon Tabernacle Choir's Pioneer Commemoration Concert. 

They had all kinds of fun lighting effects on the walls.

We got there about 45 minutes early and were able to get pretty good seats. It was sort of empty when we got there, but the conference center filled up quickly.

The set was beautiful!

I made a discovery that took some of the "magic" out of the MoTab. There are big screens in the back that run the words the choir sings AND the words the speakers and soloists say and sing. I guess that's why it's all so flawless. It made me kind of feel cheated a little bit.

Richard Elliot's solo... maybe Ken's future job??

Once it was over, people started filing out.

And this was our view as we exited the conference center. Beautiful!!

We decided to walk over to the Joseph Smith Memorial Building to eat at their restaurant. It's always amazing to walk around the foot of the beautiful temple.

We went up to the 10th floor of the Joseph Smith building to eat at The Garden.

There are some amazing views from the picture windows up there.

The roof of the restaurant was open while we ate.

And toward the end of our meal, they closed it.

Ken had Parmesan chicken and I had fettuccine with pancetta and shrimp. We shared some yummy chocolate cinnamon cake for dessert.

After dinner, we strolled back to our car and passed the temple once more.

What a fun and inspiring night!