Saturday, September 30, 2006

New Template

So after inspiration from Lisa's sweet template I decided to try it out for myself. After quite a few hours and 2 attempts at different formats, I finally was able to do what I have wanted to do forever. Create something more original. Anyhoo, today is Saturday and Michael and I are watching Conference while we clean up and do laundry, and all that good stuff that usually gets put off until the weekend. The first session was great so far, and I enjoyed Elder Ballard's talk a lot. After receiving my new calling, I must admit I feel very overwhelmed by how I can possible compare to the previous presidency. All of us in the presidency right now are starting out in life with our families, and we don't have the baking, cooking, creativity, planning, and organizing skills that the previous presidency had. Sometimes I wonder how we'll make it so that the girls love Young Womens. Anyway, his talk reassured me that we just need to serve and follow the guidelines we have been given. I enjoyed his talk.

Well most of our families are out of town right now. The only people still around are Lara and Sean, and Kandice. It's strange to have most of the family gone. I'm going to do something with Lara and the kids while the men are at Priesthood tonight. After that we were invited to play some games with some people in the ward, so that should be fun.

Other than that, not a whole lot is new. I was feeling pretty sick last night so I laid low until about 10 when Michael took me to Peter's for some food. We then drove around for a while and talked while we ate. When we finally got home, we just talked and talked until I fell asleep. It's nights like those that I really enjoy. I like to just take pleasure in the simple things. I'm a total home body, and I love to just be in my space. It's been a year today since we got this place, and I still love it. I'm so glad that we're at this point instead of this time last year, where we were afraid we'd made the biggest mistake of our lives. We had to do a bunch of work to make our condo seem a little nicer.



This is a picture of me when I was in my last year of BYU. I got to go to Conference with my family. The April Conference of 2002, I was able to go to the last session in the Conference center and sit in about the 2nd row with my roommate Melanie. Anyway, on the cover of the Ensign for that Conference, you can see me in my pink dress. So here I am pointing to myself on the poster right outside the Conference Center. What a wonderful experience that was!

Well, I'm rambling now. I still have some more things to do before the second session starts. I am grateful for Conference and the inspiration it gives me and for the desire I have to do better after listening to our wonderful leaders.

Tuesday, September 26, 2006

Cool shots

I just liked these, thought I'd share, that's all.

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The Office-Quotes

Ok, so I'm glad to see there are some fellow Office watchers out there. I found a few quotes I thought I'd put up for your sheer enjoyment! I love this show

Dwight Schrute: I have been Michael's number two guy for about five years, and we make a great team. We're like one of those classic famous teams. He's like Mozart and I'm like Mozart's friend. No, I'm like Butch Cassidy and Michael is like Mozart. You try and hurt Mozart, you're gonna get a bullet in your head, courtesy of Butch Cassidy.

Michael Scott: Presents are the best way to show someone how much you care. It is like this tangible thing that you can point to and say 'Hey man, I love you this many dollars worth.'

Dwight Schrute: Question, is there fire wood on the island?
Jim Halpert: I guess.
Dwight Schrute: Then I would bring an ax, no books.
Jim Halpert: It has to be a book Dwight.
Dwight Schrute: Fine, Physician's Desk Reference-
Jim Halpert: Nice, smart.
Dwight Schrute: ...hollowed out, inside-waterproof matches, iodine tablets, beet seeds, protein bars, NASA blanket and, in case I get bored, Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone. No, Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban. Question, did my shoes come off in the plane crash?

Michael Scott: Yes, I've heard 'women and children first', but we do not employ children. We are not a sweatshop, thankfully. And women are equal in the workplace, by law, so if I let them out first... I have a lawsuit on my hands.

Dwight Shrute: [on the phone] Cumberland Mills? And how did you get my resume? Oh no no, I’m flattered, don't get me wrong. I’m just not sure it's my official resume, or if its just something a satisfied customer posted online. What does it say under martial arts training? Oh... okay, I’m going to have to supplement that. What’s your fax number?
[later]Dwight Shrute: So you got the fax? So why didn't you add it to the resume? What do you mean? Of course martial arts training is relevant. Uh excuse me, I know about a billion Asians who would beg to differ! Uh yeah, I get a little frustrated when I’m dealing with incompetence! Well you know what? You can go to hell too, and I’ll see you there. BURNING. FINE. Oh wait, so you'll let me know when you made a decision? [other end hangs up]

Jim Halpert: Well, I'm not asking for a raise, I'm actually asking for a pay decrease.
Dwight Shrute: Uh, that is so stupid. What if he gives it to you?
Jim Halpert: Then I win.

Jim Halpert: Today is Thursday, and Dwight thinks it's Friday, and that's what I'll be working on this afternoon.

Michael Scott: Think about this: what is the most exciting thing that can happen on TV or in movies, or in real life? Somebody has a gun. That’s why I always start with a gun, because you can’t top it. You just can’t.

Michael Scott: Funny story. The way I got into improv was- I got into improv- oh, the story about me getting into improv was that I was walking down the street and a racecar pulls up, and the guy says, 'Hey, you're funny. You're the funniest guy I've ever seen. Or my name is not Dale Earnhardt.' [laughs] And that, was an improv. [pause] Um, the real way was that I found a flyer.

Jim Halpert: What happened to you?
Michael Scott: Captain jack has a problem with authority.
Jim Halpert: Oh, right, 'cause you announced that his ship was sinking.
Michael Scott: He just totally lost it. If you ask me he caused the panic.

Michael Scott: Sometimes you have to take a break from being the kind of boss that's always trying to teach people things. Sometimes you just… have to be the boss of dancing.

Pam Beesley: What do I want, what do I want... Oh! A pencil cup.
Dwight Shrute: Oh no no no no. That's my pencil cup.
Pam Beesley: I don't think so, I just bought it.
Dwight Shrute: Uh, I think so, and you're gonna hand it over to me.

Michael Scott: I enjoy having breakfast in bed. I like waking up to the smell of bacon- sue me- and since I don’t have a butler, I have to do it myself. So most nights before I go to bed I will lay six strips of bacon out on my George Foreman Grill. Then I go to sleep. When I wake up, I plug in the grill. I go back to sleep again. Then I wake up to the smell of crackling bacon. It is delicious. It’s good for me. It’s the perfect way to start the day. Today I got up, I stepped onto the grill and it clamped down on my foot. That’s it. I don’t see what’s so hard to believe about that…

Michael Scott: Last week I would've given a kidney to anyone in this office. I would've reached right into my stomach and pulled it out for them. But now, no. I don't have the relationship with these people that I thought I did. I hope they ask, so they can hear me say, 'Uh, no, I only give my organs to my real friends. Go get yourself a monkey kidney.'

Michael Scott: I am a victim of a hate crime. I think Stanley knows what I’m talking about.
Stanley: That's not what a hate crime is.
Michael Scott: Well I hated it! A lot!

Michael Scott: Pizza. Great equalizer. Rich people love pizza, poor people love pizza, white people love pizza, black people love pizza... do black people like pizza?

Michael Scott: This is a business trip. I would have to be a raving lunatic to try to talk to Jan about what happened between us. Her words, not mine. She sent me an e-mail this morning.

Dwight Shrute: Women are like wolves. If you want a wolf, you have to trap it. You have to snare it... and then you have to tame it. Keep it happy, care for it, feed it... lovingly, like an animal deserves to be loved. And my animal deserves a lot of loving.

Michael Scott: Look, it doesn't matter what you say. It just matters that you're saying something that people care about. Yeah? Alright. Here we go. Watch this. [walks into the main office area] Attention everybody. Attention please. I have some very great news from corporate. We had a wonderful quarter and as a result all of you are getting bonuses for one thousand dollars!
Dwight Schrute: Yeah!
Michael Scott: Congratulations. [returns to conference room with Dwight] You see that? You see how they responded to me? In that moment, I had them.
Dwight Schrute: That is so great about the bonus!
Michael Scott: No no, it's not true. I was just talking. So, just go out there and say anything. They'll eat it up. They're a great audience.
Stanley: [on the phone] Go ahead. Get the wallpaper. Wallpaper the ceiling if you want.

Jim Halpert: Dwight, if you could travel anywhere in the world, where would you go?
Dwight Schrute: I can travel anywhere, except Cuba, and I will travel to New Zealand and walk the Lord of the Rings trail to Mordor and I will hike Mount Doom.

Jim: Ow ow ow ow. You broke my hand.
Dwight: There is no way that hurt.J
im: Really? Because she's pretty strong Dwight.
Dwight: Little girl, come over here. Shake my hand. Come on I don't have all day... I don't feel anything. Nothing. [to Jim] You are so weak.

Dwight: The Schrutes consider children very valuable. In the olden days, the women would bear many children. So we would have enough laborers to work the fields. And if it was an especially cold winter, and there weren't enough grains for vegetables. They would get the weakest of the brood. [laughs] No, they didn't eat the children... It never came to that.


Michael Scott: Can I ask you all a question? Do you know what it’s like to be disabled?
Phyllis: I had scoliosis as a girl…
Michael Scott: Never heard of it. No, a real disability, not a woman's trouble.
Creed: When I was a teenager, I was in an iron-lung.
Michael Scott: Wha? How- how old are you? The point is: I am the only one here who has a legitimate disability. Although I am sure Stanley has had his fair share of obstacles.
Stanley: I'm not disabled and neither are you.

Well for those of you who watch the show, I hope you had a laugh, and for those of you who don't these probably sound so dumb, but I promise, they are not. I had a good laugh myself just looking them up! I've got to watch it all again.

Catch up

Well after my horrible posting experiences at home, I decided I would just take a few minutes out of my lunch break and fill everyone in on what's been going on with me lately, since I've been MIA. Well not a ton of interesting things have been going on. Michael and I are still in the market for a new car. He keeps bringing all of these options to the table and it makes me crazy. I've just decided to wait it out and see what happens. So, who knows what we may be driving in the next little while. I however, have 2 new obsessions. First, I am obsessed with Turbo Jam. It's an awesome workout program and it's honestly so fun. It reminds me of the aerobics class Amber, Tasha, and I would take at Ricks with Cardio. Oh, the good ol' days! I loved that class because Kristy would get right in your face and make you work harder, and this workout does the same for me. I've never really been one to LOVE working out, but I figure it's time since I had to get out my bigger pants again. Sad. Not for long though if I can help it!

My other obsession is The Office. I LOVE, LOVE, LOVE this show. It's hilarious and there is the best love story in it. I highly recommend it for anyone looking for a new show to watch. Michael and I watched the second season last week and we laughed a lot. I know most people have their shows they are addicted to, but since Friends, I haven't really had one that I HAVE to watch, but I do now. I'm also very curious about Grey's Anatomy. I saw the recap show right before the season premiere, but that's all I've seen. I will say I was interested. Any thoughts?

Other than that, not much new. Michael and I have a few new food favs for the moment. I love salads with cilantro right in there. It's amazing, and then virgin ceasars. Mmmmm. You know the post is struggling when you're talking about the food you like at the moment, but I'm at work and don't have pictures to talk about so I'm doing my best. Well, I'm excited about Conference this weekend. It always feels like I should be in Utah since it was sort of a tradition in my family. I got to go to sessions every time while I was down at school, so it makes me feel like I should be there, but we're not going.

Oh, and the last thing. I'm totally in love with fall right now too! I know it's a favorite for a lot of you. I'm in love with the smells, the sweaters, the leaves, but NOT the getting dark earlier. I wish I could custom design a season. Well now I'm going to go and use my next 20 minutes for eating. So much better to just post at home. I would do it this week but I'm going to the cannery with Erin and Mom tonight, tomorrow I have my activity, and then on Thursday a presidency meeting and THE OFFICE, so I'll be busy enough at night!

Tuesday, September 19, 2006

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Tuesday, September 12, 2006

Better Together

Well really quickly before I get to bed I thought I'd just update my blog really quickly. Michael and I spent the weekend at our Ward Youth Retreat in Radium. I was just called to be the Second Counsellor in the Young Women's and so we got to spend some time out there with all of the youth getting to know them a little better before I was sustained. We had a blast, and of course I had my camera, so I put together a little slideshow of all of the pics I took. Anyway, I know this is short, but I'm wiped so I'll post more tomorrow, or maybe Thursday. We have to deliver a ton of food drive bags tomorrow. We are having a city wide multi stake food drive this weekend! Anyway, check out the slideshow here.

Wednesday, September 06, 2006

Michael and Madison

This is a video I came across just now from a while ago. The quality is bad, but it's sooo cute of Madi and her Michael

Madi and the air darts

Another one with Madi and Brett and his friends. They were shooting these air darts at her and the noise she would make was so cute. I can't believe how big she is now compared to this. Cute girl!

By popular demand

Sorry if you don't like this Amy, but I figured you and I could go up together. I wasn't too thrilled at the thought I skiing at all, but I forced myself to do it. I didn't want to do anything but two since I didn't want to risk bailing and getting a mouth full of that water. Amy showed me up big time!!!

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Random shots

I was just messing with the camera as always. Michael was making fun of me tellin me that he's excited to see all of the flowers from all of the trips we take. What a punk, but I just tell him I'm experiementing. I have to see what the camera can do for me.
The grasshoppers there were honestly sick. If you walked out onto the grass they would come out all over the place. The whole place was being taken over.


Just another pretty flower.


On the way home we got to see this moose. It was huge and thankfully I had my camera ready to go. Those things really aren't that nice looking are they?

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The moon

It was amazing to see what my camera really could do out there. I was able to find a setting that gave me 52x digital zoom. Not the best for quality, but as you can see it can seriously zoom. I took about 100 of just the moon, and these are a few that I really liked.Here's the moon just as it was coming out. It was so beautiful to see it start to shine while it was still light out.

This was the moon when it was totally dark out. It was reflecting perfectly on the water below if you can tell. It was so cool to see it shine on the water. This picture isn't as nice at it was in real life obviously, but I did what I could.
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The people

I wish that I had taken more pictures of all of us at the lake. It's hard for me to take pictures of people sometimes because I don't wan to annoy them. I like to take pictures that they don't know about and since I couldn't really hide what I was doing, these are the only ones we got the whole time. We spent the weekend with Kevin, Cyndi, Jeffrey, Emily, and Brett. It was beautiful weather and the only thing that could've been better was if we had Kandice, Heather, Gannon, Madi, and Nixon there with us. You guys were sure missed! We didn't really do a whole lot, but that's the way I like it. We just lounged around watching movies, and playing games.


Here's Michael and Joey. He loved Joey. Sometimes we have to go into his parents house just so he can say goodnight to him. So funny!


Cruddy pic, but I have to prove I was there right?

T
The parents to be. Emily is getting cuter and cuter everyday. I finally got to see baby Palmer move. My bet is that we'll have a baby girl Palmer! We'll see if I'm right!

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Amy's wedding

Well over the Labour day weekend Michael and I seemed to spend most of it in the car. We drove out to Invermere on Friday, and then back on Saturday morning for our good friend Amy's wedding. We were thrilled to invited and loved every minute of it. Amy and Jeff were married at Baker Park, and they looked wonderful. We were able to see tons of friends from highschool and share in this special day with Amy. It was so much fun!

This is Amy with her parents as they walked her down the isle.


Amy and Jeff right after they were pronounced man and wife.


Walking back up the isle after the ceremony



At the reception. They had it at the Winter Club, and it was so nice. The only thing that wasn't nice is that we had to leave early to drive back up to Invermere. We were sorry to go, but we had that drive ahead of us again. We got to sit with Ashley and Darcy at the reception and that was so nice too. Too bad none of us were able to take part in the open bar, although I did have a few virgin ceasars that were mighty tasty.

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A horrible awakening

Well I've been meaning to post a story that happened to us (Me, Michael, Kevin, and Cyndi) not last weekend but the weekend before, but I knew it would take some time and I haven't had a lot of that lately. The day after I got back from Utah, Michael and I left for Invermere with Kevin and Cyndi. They were nice enough to drive us out in the truck, and we left about 6 o'clock on a Friday. We were just past Calaway Park when Cyndi noticed a car on the opposite side of the road flipping out of control. We all watching in horror as this car toppled over and over and over on the highway. It was honestly like watching a kid throw a toy car across the room. It must've honestly gone over itself about 6 or 7 times. It didn't really seem real to me that we would have to do anything about it. It just seemed like we could watch and keep driving and that no one could have been hurt or anything, it just felt like a scene out of a movie. Well it wasn't until Kevin pulled right over and told Cyndi to call 911 right away that the reality of it sank it. He and Michael jumped out of the truck and ran to the sight of it all. A few other cars had already stopped and were running to the car, but what most people didn't notice was the man about 4 meters from the car on the ground. Kevin noticed him right away and was the first person to him, with Michael not far behind. Cyndi was explaining to the operator where we were and what the situation was as best as she could. We watched as people helped the 2 people who were still in the car, and as a crowd began to gather around the man on the ground. A doctor joined Kevin and tried to help assess the situation and they all tried to do anything to get this guy to breath a little better and to come to a bit. He was breathing and his eyes opened now and again but the situation wasn't good. The driver of the car was a girl about 20 years old and she was really shaken up, but didn't appear to be injured. I stayed in the car as Cyndi ran out to tell them not to move the guy and to help the ambulance find where the people were. It seemed to take forever for anyone to show up. Another man came on the scene. I think he was an EMT driving in his own car so he ran to help to. It was amazing just how many people were more than willing to stop and help in any way they could. Any way, we noticed shortly after that they were starting to do CPR on this man. The situation didn't look good and by the time help arrived, they had been working on him for quite some time. After much effort, they pronounced him dead and covered him over. Now the girl driving had no idea. She was being helped by the EMT's and she just had no idea that he was gone. It was horrible to witness all of this. I never got out of the truck thankfully, I stayed in there with Cyndi. Kevin stayed with the crew trying to help the man, and Michael was standing outside of the truck leaning on the door. He had seen things I hope to never see and watching his dad right there with that young man was just making him think that it could have just as easily been his dad on the ground. Anyway, after a few more moments of watching this, I heard a dull thud. I looked around for Michael, and he wasn't at the door. I scanned the scene again to see if he had walked back over to the accident and he wasn't there either. I looked out my window and there was Michael, laying on the ground with his legs half under the truck and his head about a foot from the shoulder of the road. He had completely passed out. I screamed "Michael just passed out" and jumped out of the truck. I dropped to him and grabbed his head. I kept calling to him and slapping his cheeks and moving his head and nothing. He just stared blankly at me. Now I've never seen someone pass out before except in the movies, and when that happens, they jump right back up. He wasn't coming to. I was so scared because like him before, I was thinking about how Michael could just as easily have been the young man I had just seen die. I was on the verge of tears the entire time, and then staring down at my Michael, who's not responding to me, I lost it. I started to cry and kept calling to him to wake up, and then Cyndi jumped out and slapped him and he finally snapped out of it. We got him back in the truck and he was so pale. We layed him down and got him comfortable, and after realizing that there was nothing more that could be done, Kevin got back in the car and we drove away. You could tell Michael wasn't feeling well, none of us were. We debated on just going back home, but instead we plugged on in silence for a while. It was a horrible experience and one I'll never forget. This young man was not wearing his seatbelt unlike his 2 friends who basically walked away from the accident. He was only 22 we found out later. After that Michael and I always wear our seatbelts and we do not speed. We are also now looking for a car that has as many safety features as possible. We are all too aware now of just how fragile life is. It has changed our perspective on things a great deal. I just thought I'd share that story with everyone, and I hope it has changed your perspective a little too. We may have no control over what might ultimately happen to us, but we can make sure we protect ourselves the best we can. Our thoughts and prayers go out to this young man's family, and especially to the friends in that car.