Tragedy!!

In Memory of my William-Sanoma scallop edged cake stand, green:

I feel as though I have lost a good friend. You were a wonderful cake stand, unique to your kind. Your shade of green brought joy to so many parties. You will be missed. And though your time with me was short, I will always remember you and the good times we shared.


Tonight I suffered a great loss. I am a cake stand addict, and this really was my favorite one. I don't know what happened, but it fell off the shelf it was on and broke. I also had 4 dessert plates that matched and only one really survived the fall. I had to hold back tears. I'm not even kidding. I know it may seem silly, but I love cake stands and this one I found at William-Sanoma last year. Justin said,"It's okay, I'll buy you another one." Silly man, does he know nothing of retail? You can't always find the same thing a year later. It rarely ever happens. The plates I actually bought in Boston on one of my trips at the Outlet store. I really am sad. Please keep me in your thoughts in the coming days.

Happy Anniversary

Today is our 2 year anniversary. It has been a great 2 years, some times better than others. Just kidding! (sort of). But really, I can't complain. Justin is a really great person. He doesn't really let people see that side of him, but he is a very kind person. He always makes me laugh and he always takes care of me. He has been so great on my "bad" days. I LOVE you HONEY. Here is to more years to come.

Story and a 5K

I don't usually share a lot of personal information, my purpose in blogging isn't to share my personal life. But the last few days I just really felt like I wanted to put this on my blog, so here it goes.

Justin and I are about to celebrate our 2 year anniversary and for a year and a half of that time we have been trying to have a baby. Obviously we have not been able to. It was okay at first because most people don't get pregnant that fast, but then it was 3 months then it was 6 months. The hardest part when you are trying is when everyone around you is getting pregnant and you have to be happy for them because if not you look like a huge JERK. Well, it wasn't just that everyone was getting pregnant, it was people in my family, people I work with and church, that was a nightmare. Everyone in church is pregnant. It is hard to fit in when you don't have a baby and stories to tell. It has been hard. I was depressed for most of last school year. Here is where the 5k comes in. Because I was so depressed last year, I gained a lot of weight, more than I ever have. That was depressing too. I also found out that it is going to be hard for me to get pregnant. The good news just keeps coming. My doctor told me very nicely that it would be good to lose some weight. Duh, who doesn't want to lose weight.

My friend at work decided that she was going to start taking up running. I like running. I ran all the time before I met Justin. I love to exercise, okay I don't LOVE it, but it makes me feel better. So I decided that I am going to start running. I have the Nike + shoes and an IPod nano so I bought the sensor that goes in the shoe. It is AWESOME!! It tracks everything. It talks to you during your workout, it tells you how far you ran, how many calories you burned and some other stuff. I have been wanting to run a 5k for a few years, so I decided that I am going to train and I am going to run the Nienie 5K. I am excited, it makes me feel good. I just hope my knees can hold out. I know a 5K isn't a long distance or anything too amazing, but it is a good start for me.

That's What She Said

QUESTION: What is the funniest show on t.v.?

ANSWER: My new T.V. obsession. It has taken me 4 years to finally watch The Office, but now I am so glad that I am. It is so funny. There are a bunch of us at work that are really into this show. I had to borrow seasons 1-3 from friends at work to get caught up. It isn't the type of show you can just start watching and know what is happening, they always refer back to things that have happened in the past episodes. Needless to say I love it now.

State wide Stake Conferences

The church is growing, and it is making it impossible for the 12 Apostles to visit every stake in Arizona. Today we had a state wide Stake Conference that was broadcast from Salt Lake. President Packard was the speaker. He told a lot of stories about his time in Arizona and related some stories about President Kimball. It is an exciting time for AZ, as we will soon have 5 Temples in our state. I think it will be hard to not go to the Mesa temple, but we will have a Temple 20 minutes away from our house. It is very exciting.
President Packard also talked about the election on Tuesday. He encouraged everyone to vote that day. I also encourage everyone to go vote.

Happy Halloween

We went to Trunk or Treat with Jason and Melissa in their ward. It was really fun, I had good chili, cornbread and Logan and Maddy won prizes for their costumes. Maddy was Funniest for JoJo the Clown, and Logan's was for scariest as a Ninja. Jason and Melissa looked really good in their pirate attire. The real swords added to the pirate effect. (That is Jason's real beard). I just had this fun pink/red wig that I wore. Good times.

A Walk at Waldon Pond

My mom, dad, Elisabeth, Ansley and I took a nice walk around Waldon Pond. It was a beautiful fall day, amazingly, people were still swimming in the pond. Another beautiful site in Mass.

The Green Monstah

One of my favorite days was when we went into Boston to Fenway Park. The best part, it was a game day and there were tons of fans. Go Red Sox!

Love for NeiNei

My sister Suzie and me.

Mindy Gledhill

Her two daughters (so cute)

My sister Suzi and I went to a benefit concert in Mesa last night for Stephanie and Christian Neilson and the pilot Dough Kinneard. You can read about their story at http://blog.cjanerun.com/. It was a really great concert. The singer, Mindy Gledhill has a beautiful voice. She is a friend of Stephanies and came down to help raise money. The best song was when she had two of Stephanies daughters come on stage and sing this song with her about a mother singing a lullaby to her baby. I don't think anyone had a dry eye. It is an amazing story and my prayers go out to the family. I hope she can recover from this accident. Stephanie is an artist and she does silhouettes and her sister-in-law owes a bakery and they made these silhouette cookies and sold them to also raise money. I had a really great time with my sister and after the concert we went to Neilsons Frozen Custard and had vanilla custard with Captain Crunch Berries mixed in. I thought the same thing before I tried it, YUCK, but it was so good.

P.S. it is pronounced Knee-Knee

The BIG Cheez

These are my two punk nephews. They are characters that is for sure. On our way back to Arlington from Maine, these two road in the car with me and Nana and Papa. I thought it was because they wanted to spend time with me, but I later learned that A is not an easy baby to travel with as she screams a lot. Needless to say, I think they just wanted out of the van.
But that is not my story here. As we were driving back, Nicky and Noah wanted to tell stories. We decided that we would take turns. I told a story, then Noah told a short story in which he restructured my story to make his own, and then Nicky told a story. I told scary stories and Nicky told stories about Cheese. It was very funny. Sumo Bob and the cheese, parts 1,2 and 3. We had some good laughs and enjoyed our trip back home.

Family, thats what it is all About

Here is the reason I must go to Boston each year. My brother Ben and his family live there. They actually live just outside of Boston in Arlington. It is such a cute city. Ben is my oldest brother and he is married to Elisabeth, she is from Arlington. They met while they were both attending BYU Provo. They now have 5 kids, 4 boys and 1 little girl. Before I got married, they were living maybe 2 miles away from my parents house. I loved being able to just go over and see my nephews or Elisabeth whenever I wanted to. It was hard when they moved to the other side of the U.S.. I have been lucky that I have been able to go visit them so often. I love my visits though. I love to watch Elisabeth cook. She is a really good cook, and I always go away with more ideas for what I can make when I get home. I also love doing projects with her. Every time I have gone, we have made a project. In March we made Easter decorations, last year we made pumpkins and this time I learned how to make these cute Turkey's and I watched her make these cute dolls from the Martha Stewart wed site. So I think this has to become a tradition.

Oh how hard it was to leave those kids behide, especially this cutie.

Camden, Maine

I love going to the East coast. It is so nice there. You find so many more family owned businesses, and I must say that the people are a lot more friendly. They will actually talk to you and ask about your day. I went into a shop in Camden and the owner had a lot of things with dogs on them. I picked up a cute card that had a Westie on it, he noticed and said, "you got a westie at home?" "yes" I said and he is a really good dog, and he agreed and continued to say that those are good dogs and how that his merchandise with westies goes quickly. Now, I know that we can have this encounter here in AZ, but it isn't the same. People don't stop and listen to what you have to say they just want to make the sale and move on.
I also like how the towns really get into fall. There are pumpkins all over, and hay, scarecrows and I really love how people decorate their front entries for Halloween.



This is one of m favorite pictures. Elisabeth took it in one of the shops. It is "wicked" and I did hear many people use the word "wicked" when describing things.
Those cute Beutler brothers sitting by the water.

A day with pie, pumpkins and chowdah

We stopped at this diner in Rockport, named . . . Rockport Diner! It was so delicious. The bread was home made and so was the pie. Noah really loved his piece of Blueberry Pie. Not only did he eat a huge hamburger and all his fries, plus a piece of his brothers fish, he had room to top it all off with pie! It was so funny watching him eat it. He had his face really close to the plate and was shoveling the bites into his mouth, he kept saying,"This is good pie." It was so cute. As we drove through the town, they had these gigantic pumpkins all around and they were all decorated differently. This is the only one my dad slowed down long enough for me to take. And the last picture is a picture of what I think is the best Clam Chowdah. I don't claim to be a clam chowder know-it-all, but from what I have had, it is the best. I have been back to Mass. 3 times in the last 2 years and have gone to Perkins Cove, Maine mostly just to have this chowder. It is really good.

View from the Top

After we walked around Camden, my mom and dad said we had to go to Mt. Battie to see the view of Camden. I'm so glad we did. Look at how beautiful the town looks from the top of this mountain! It looks like the trees are on fire; the colors are so amazing. I also love that you can see the church steeple above all the rest. The tower was fun to climb up. If you look really close you can see three heads peeking over the top.

The Maine Event

Bridge going into Maine

Nubble Light House

Belted Cows

Camden Maine

My trip to Boston was fantastic. The day after I arrived, we took a trip to Maine. It was so beautiful there. The leaves were changing color, they had been getting some rain so the autumn breeze felt cool and refreshed. I enjoyed being able to wear a jacket and scarf. When you come from Arizona anything below 80 degrees is cold. We were on our way to Camden and stopped to see the "belted Galloway" cows. It was so funny how everyone was so into these cows. We had a nice time in Camden. It was such a quaint town, very picturesque. I will be posting more pictures, I took most of my pictures from this trip using my moms camera as I didn't want to try to take my Nikon. These are just a few pictures I took with my smaller camera. We also made a stop in York to see the Nubble light.