[.What do hippos do for fun?.]

I finished my service project for school!  Thank you Tori for lending me your class(es) for a couple hours!  Unfortunately the weather wasn't on my side but it still worked out.  Here are the 3 classes that all ran/jogged/speed walked/slow walked for the "5K" [1 mile] run before the hail came!

 

They all were so good and willing to participate!

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.here is our new toy.

Even though Lance hasn't been feeling the greatest the last few days we still put it to use for the weekend and invited my family over for a barbecue.  Brooklyn found my camera and took everyone's portrait and about 15 pictures of Dora on TV!

 

Of course we went to do laundry for the week and here is what we found!  Brooke decided that we each had our own seats so she just had to mark our territories for us haha.  Gotta love the backwards J in Jake's name.

Jake, Jenna, Lance and I went to the Bountiful Temple.  Then walked along temple grounds for a while choosing which house we'd want if we lived up there.  It's going to become a regular tradition to go for Keva's after the Tempe! I love those things of deliciousness!
 We've been wanting to do more cheap dates so Jenna had the idea to make dessert!  We all kinda helped while she made most of it, but we made Apple Crisp!

As Lance and I were pulling into the driveway from the store we received a phone call to pick up oats!  Well, we were pulling into the driveway and didn't feel like going back so we made due with what we had.  I got an idea to strain the breakfast maple and brown sugar oatmeal packets!  Hey - I thought it was clever!  And we got most of the sugar out and only used 3 packages to get a whole cup worth of oatmeal!  It still turned out mm mm good!
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Drum roll everyone....

 I have waited a solid 4 years for this day!!
My husband and my furry rhino had a [bonding] moment!  I told Lance that whenever I was sick I would snuggle Doc to make me feel better.. Well ladies and gentlemen, he must have been feeling sick.  But here's my proof!  Lance doesn't hate cats after all.  Only when they shed, but he's even getting to the point of holding him and realizing that he can clean it off with a lint brush later.
I'm so proud!

Another thing that always makes me feel better is the hot tub!  Well I was so excited the hot tub was up and running because it always reminds me of summer!  So even though we didn't pack a swim suit we found other ways.  Thanks mom and Jake for the hot tub attire!  I can't wait for more "hot tubbing" nights!

[.Dear 16 Year Old Me.]

Holy cow you get to drive now!  No more asking friends for rides all over creation...finally!  Oh and did I mention that you can {officially} date that boyfriend of yours that you think you're going to spend the rest of your life with.  Don't get to attached though, wait sorry, you already are!  Just have fun for now, date around.  Even though you are shy now that will fade away eventually.  Just prepare yourself now for a r.o.c.k.y road, and not like your favorite ice cream either. (You really should cut back on that, it catches up to you!)  Prepare for heartache and a lot of tears.  But don't get too caught up with your emotions, be sure to focus on the positive things going on in your life.  You have close friends that are always there for you and you know you can go to them whenever you need to talk.  You have a very close relationship with your family and parents, unlike a lot of other teenage girls your age.  Learn now to never take anyone for granted.  See all these positive things?  Try not to focus so much on those tears.  They'll go away for a while.  Even though you are always home watching your little brother and sister and want to go out so badly with your friends, take advantage of the time you have with them, you'll care for them a lot more than you think you do now.  You'll love them to the point that you'd take them in a heart beat if needed and will protect them with {everything} you've got.  Actually, you will learn that you have a natural instinct to protect those closest to you when you see they are hurting, you'll be willing to sacrifice your happiness just to see them happy.  Be willing to let people help you at times as well.  You are a happy person, even though you think boys are lame and all they care about is...well, not your feelings, you'll meet someone (sooner than you think) that will make you feel very happy.  There will definitely be very high ups and very low downs, there will be arguments and passion, stubbornness and selflessness, but you two accept each others mistakes, are very compatible, love each other and work through tough trials together.  By the way, you [do] get married in the temple!  So, good on ya (or us, I should say)!  I know you always wanted to know if you'd be able to make it to such a special place, and let me tell ya it wasn't easy.  Satan knows how to tempt you but you learn when he is close by and know how to keep him away.  Just know, you'll learn a lot about yourself.  You probably already know this but it's a good thing that you'll be living at home for college.  You'll save a lot of money and probably a lot more heartache and by doing so it'll help you reach a goal you've always had - to go into marriage debt free!  Now that you know that, don't go spending each paycheck!  Speaking of a paycheck, it'll be going towards 5 years of tuition and books, not the 3 1/2 you're hoping for.  Wanna know why?  Well I won't tell you, just go read your patriarchal blessing.  Actually, read it when you get it :)  It's a spiritual experience you will not forget.  Something you should try and forget is trying to get rid of Paces.  Really, forget it, you'll probably be there forever.  Even if it is only once a week but you do make a lot of really close friends from there.  No matter how bad you think you stink or how much of a "high school" job it is, you'll still always love it there.  Sorry to burst your bubble.  Maybe something else to disappoint you?  You'll really want a puppy, not a cat.  Thought you had your mind set didn't ya?  Your once skinny cat is still living (luckily) so that should make you happy!  Really, you should be happy.  There is a lot to look forward to!  Things you think will never happen do, people you're close to and love now will be completely different and relationships will be changed, but you make the best of it.  You know life throws you curve balls but you learn to swerve from them or hit a grand slam.

[.Always, Sometimes, Never.]

I always
"misplace" my keys or phone
press the snooze button at least 4 times before waking up
make to-do lists, sometimes I even make lists about making lists
learn things the hard way
try and make time for my family
thought I'd be a dental hygienist
enjoy life
people watch
wear heels or flip flops



I sometimes
drive too fast
think I'm funny
"forget" to do things on purpose
offend people unintentionally
forget what I'm talking about in the middle of a conversation
eat a chocolate shake for dinner
like to pretend I'm a photographer
procrastinate
try to look intelligent by using "big" words
am really quiet
am really loud


I never

have regrets
 stay angry for very long
wear any jewelry besides a few rings
sleep with my socks on
have chapstick when I need it
have enough color in my wardrobe
go a day without dancing in my car to music

[.Injuries and Haircuts.]

Lance has seemed to be accident prone this past week.  His first accident was last Tuesday.  He was getting his bike all nice and ready for the sand dunes for Easter and Conference weekend.  Lo and behold he accidentally burned his left hand on the exhaust pipe!  Luckily his mom had some very nice burn treatment!  They immediately got it wrapped and taken care of!  He wasn't mad that he didn't get to finish his bike! Nope, he was upset that he probably wouldn't be able to go golfing!  Well, when it comes to golfing, he'll bear through the pain.  He still went.

.For some reason this reminds me of Edward Scissorhands.

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Then just today he told me he had cut his finger on his right hand at work!  It was actually pretty deep.  I don't even want to know what will happen next.

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A couple weeks ago we went to Costco.

(We've learned not to go very often because we spend way.to.much!)

Well we got a Men's hair cutting kit.  For some reason we thought it could be a way to save money and cut Lance's hair from home!  After we bought it I got nervous!  I've never cut hair before, what the heck am I thinking?  Well last week I came home and Lance was all ready for his haircut from his very own professional barber! Me! Not!  Once again, what was I thinking!?  I told Lance I hadn't even done my research of how to cut guys hair!  So for the next couple days I tried to youtube a couple tutorials.  All telling me different things...

"Make sure the hair is dry when cutting it"

"Don't ever cut the hair in this direction"

"Only cut the hair is this direction"

"Cut the hair when it is wet."

Can't anyone make up their mind!?

So, I prepared my self all day.  Telling myself I could make it look fine and not like my little sister had just done it.

I got home and took a deep breath then told him to take a seat!

Here it goes!
Well it only took us about 40 minutes!  Hey for the first time that is pretty good, right?  Well that's what I'm going to tell myself!
Even though Lance doesn't have much hair anyway it still looked like we shaved a sheep in he bathroom!  And little did I know how itchy little hairs are down the shirt!

eh?

Don't mind the stache.

[.Sometimes, I give up. But I never give in.]

I've noticed that all I normally talk about is our weekends... I should probably start doing things in the middle of the week. But they are always so monotonous. So today I will start with Thursday!  The girls "quilting" night at the Fischer's.  Except I'm not exactly the quilter at this time in my life, so I've found a couple crafts to do and make it my "craft" night.  I saw this idea and knew it's what I wanted to do on our absolutely BLANK and BORING wall above our couches.  When making these I was pretty unsure about them, but they turned out better than I thought. Or maybe it could just be that I like that the wall isn't so blank anymore!

BEFORE

AFTER!!

And only $14!

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Friday night we went to Jake's region basketball game. Before the game even started we sat there waiting for the teams before us to stop tying! It went into double overtime, and then tied again! Thank goodness they didn't do another overtime! Because it was already 35 minutes after our game was supposed to start at 7:00! (Not to mention we were supposed to leave at 8:00 to get to our movie in time!) But Jake's game finally started and we cheered him on this whole time with his gimp ankle!  They didn't win, but it was pretty close!

We ended up leaving the game around 8:30 knowing we wouldn't' make it to see the movie in time, so we decided we'd just go see it the next day. 

Well, none of us were really tired so we decided to go to the 10:00 showing of Bounty Hunter!  My mom, Jake, Lance and I packed some snacks and off we went!  I enjoyed the show, I always love a mindless predictable comedy.  I think my mom and I were probably the loudest ones laughing during one of the scenes.  It reminded us both so much of ourselves.  Jake and Lance on the other hand may have thought it was a little slow.  But we still all had a good time.  After the show we went back to my parents house so Lance could finish watching the recorded Jazz game with Jake.  I didn't have much interest so I went back in my mom's room with Brooke to have "Girl time".  Once the game was over we went back home to enjoy our wonderful bed!

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We woke up Saturday planning to be really productive.  The productive way, not the fun way.  But I woke up to Lance's phone ringing off the hook three times in a row!  I thought, this must be important!  I found out it was Matt and that now we'd be going golfing rather than grocery shopping and cleaning.

Which I really didn't mind, any excuse to put off cleaning is a good excuse for me!

It's all about the form!

Glad it didn't hit the sand!

Tori and I only stayed 9 holes and went to IceBerg while the boys hit the last 9.

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My parents invited Lance and I to go to dinner with them later in the evening.  After golfing we met at my parents and went up to Ogden to the restaurant Jasoh's.  For how expensive it was I thought it would be better than it was.  We had $50 bucks there and so did my parents so all together our meal only cost $24!  So I guess it was worth it.

Lance of course couldn't miss the BYU basketball game, so we made sure to record it.  The game was actually on at the resaurant but luckily we were sitting far enough away from the TV not to see the score.

Unfortunately BYU lost but at least the Jazz won so it wouldn't be such a bummed night.

[.Playing Catch Up.]

 Wow, its been a while!  Life just always catches up to ya!

A couple of weekends ago the Fischer's all went up to Logan to celebrate Brad's birthday.  It was also Kamie's birthday that weekend so a group of us went to Texas Roadhouse.  Waiting to be seated was actually pretty fun and a lot of people were probably annoyed but we all enjoyed ourselves!  Thanks to Kari she informed me that each roll was 400 calories! So I had to stick with only two of them:( [which is still WAY past my quota] but that's okay. Worth it!  We stayed Saturday night, watched some basketball, Tosh.O and left Sunday morning unfortunately missing Jenny's amazing cooking!  Maybe next time.  

Lance and I went to my parents to...take a wild guess... get some laundry done.  We made some cookies and set up an awesome fire!  Well, I made the cookies..Lance started the fire.  It was nice to sit by the warm fire, but it made me sad wishing summer would get here sooner!

We really needed some s'mores or something to go along with it!

I have felt very productive lately!  I organized our bathroom closet so now all our medicines are in little baskets and not .scattered. through out the closet!  For the most part I also kept up on keeping things clean rather than just letting things lay around.  And I even made a chart of what specific room to clean for each day of the week.  We'll see how long this lasts!  But I have felt much better about it so hopefully that is incentive enough for me to keep it up!

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My dad was in town this last weekend, (which doesn't happen very often) so he came up to Jake's basketball game with my brother Braydon and my Grandpa.  My dad brought his camera [a nice new one by the way] and had NO idea how to use it!  He could have pushed the ON button:)  But I was more.than.happy to help him run it!  I've been wanting a new {expensive} camera, but that won't happen for a while.  It was fun to play photographer!

While I was at Jake's game Lance went to hit a bucket of golf balls with his dad and brothers.  They were going to play a game but the weather kept them from their dreams.

After Jake's game I went to take two tests and met Lance back at the house to head down to my dad and Tracy's for dinner.

I am so surrounded with such great cooks that you think I'd be able to take some lessons

(maybe in the future).

Jake and Jenna met us down there a little later.

We sat around talking for a while, looking at Cortnie's funny friend videos on the computer, played SONIC THE HEDGEHOG (on SEGA), and BATTLETOADS on the old nintendo (oh my gosh how it brought back fun memories, when those were considered "good graphics")went to the Gas station (to spend $12 on treats), and then back to the house to watch Old Dogs.  Well, I took a nap as usual, while everyone else watched it.

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Sunday after church we went to Lance's parents house for Family Home Evening and Dinner.  FYI, the best part of being newlyweds: We mostly get free de~lic~ious meals on the weekends!  Of course the boys watched their basketball while the girls sat around to talk.  While Jenny and Kamie left for a bit I got to play with Brad and Claire for a while.  They seriously are the cutest and have such personalities!

Later on Lance and I went to pay the phone bill and visit some family friends, I always need to be prepared to stay longer than I think we will cause there is always so much to laugh about!  Homework will have to wait, I enjoy laughing way more:)

[.Dear Quickutz Silhouette.]

I can’t wait until we meet!:)

[.A piece of me.]