Painting, remodelling, work and shingles...

So… Today I have the day off! Last night, I pinky swore with Lisa (figuratively, not actually since, sadly, we are in two different states) that I would do two things today… 1) update my blog since I haven’t for… 2 ½ months? And 2) Not go to work today. Not going to work sounds easier than it is… Especially if you know my family… We all tend to be workaholics, whether we want to be or not… But I’ll tell you more about work later.

As you may or may not have known, at the end of October, I had a few days off of work and was planning on repainting my room. I moved most of the stuff out of my room, then before I moved the rest, I decided I needed to pick a paint color before I started moving the rest of the stuff out. Picking out a paint color is a lot harder than it sounds. Looking at a color chip is always a lot different than what the color looks like on the wall… Also, any color I put on the wall looked especially yellow or green and just not right… Come to find out, testing colors on lavender/purple walls is harder than it sounds. Apparently purple is one of the colors that will bleed through other colors on the wall… So finally, after consulting TJ, painter extraordinaire, I got a color-block primer, and started testing colors, again, but by then, my weekend of time off was over and that was as much painting as I was able to get done… I was hoping to post a picture of it, but forgot to upload it when I had Amanda’s laptop… So… I’ll put up some pictures of that when I finish, I’ll put pictures of the whole process. Back to my room, Dad said he’d paint it for me, I just have to finish getting my room ready to paint. I’m hoping that if Monday through Thursday (Thanksgiving) of next week I do a little bit everyday, I’ll be done by Thanksgiving… Then maybe, hopefully, while I have some long days at work for Black Friday and Saturday, Dad can paint my room for me… We’ll see what happens! I’ve actually picked the color I want… Hopefully I’ll get it all together and completed soon and be able to post some pictures of the whole process and my hopefully soon to be newly painted and rearranged room…

I’m not sure why I decided to redecorate my room while the house was being remodeled, but I did… The main floor and my bathroom are starting to come back together again… Finally… The wood floors are all laid on the main floor, the cabinets are in, the appliances have been delivered. We’re waiting on the granite counter tops now for the kitchen, and a bunch of other stuff I’m sure… The tile has gone down in my bathroom… Hopefully soon, that bathroom will be back in use. I’m hearing it’ll be done about the first weekend in December… I guess we’ll see! I’m not so much looking forward to having to move out of the house for three or four days while the floors are being sanded and stained. I can’t wait to finally have a kitchen again… Be able to make some scrambled eggs in the morning when I want! I know, it sounds silly… How weird is it hat I really just want to make scrambled eggs and toast in my kitchen? I’m not really sure why scrambled eggs are what come to mind, but for some reason that’s the first thing I want to make in the kitchen…

Moving on… The bulk of my life right now is all things work. So I’ll tell you a bit about everything that’s been going on there… Thursday we had a huge corporate visitor come and walk our store. Dave Eske, a Kohl’s vice president/territorial manager, as well as our regional manager. Our store has been really busy the last few weeks preparing for this visit, and especially this last week… This past week we have been down to the wire, so I got a bunch of overtime… From Monday to last night, Friday, I’m guessing I have somewhere around 57 hours… A good bunch of that coming from an overnight I did on Wednesday night… Going into the store at 3:30pm, and finally heading home Thursday morning around 7am.

I don’t know how much I’ve told you about my job, my responsibilities and all of that, but part of my job is getting associates exited about credit and decorating the break room… Believe it or not, this is one of my favorite parts about my job… Every month I get to think of a new credit thing to decorate the break room with… It’s something that I get to think outside of the box, be creative, decorate, do something different than the everyday norm. Okay, I admit sometimes it’s hard thinking of new and creative things to do every month, but there are other months that I come up with something that I think is really good and just hit it out of the park. This is one of those months! Below are some of the pictures I tool of this month’s break room… I took some inspiration from Amanda… She loves fall, and I wasn’t ready for Christmas, so I took fall and ran with it! I love my tree this month! This is the part of my job I love… Being creative and having some fun.



So… My final update for today is a story about my leg… Yes, my leg. A week or so ago, on the inside of my calf, I started having this weird/painful sensation. I kept feeling pain, varying from a punch of pin pricks to a cutting/stabbing sensation. I kept looking at my leg where it hurt, but there was nothing there. So I kept ignoring it, then would look there before I went to bed and see if there was anything there, or if I was just going crazy and imagining things… After a couple of days of that, I had a red, bumpy rash appear where I had been having the sensations. I kept having the sensations, but there was so much going on at work that I just kept ignoring it… I’d look at it at night, take some ibuprofen for the pain, and just kept working. Finally, Thursday morning after my over-night, I was finally able to see mom for the first time this week. The rash was getting worse, was still painful, and I was afraid I was going to be right about what it was… but I wanted to get another opinion before I went to the doctor if I was wrong and it was just something like hives. So, I showed it to her, and she, unfortunately, confirmed what I was thinking, as did Amanda… Shingles… So, while I really wanted to sleep, I called the doctor and made an immediate appointment… He confirmed what we were thinking and immediately put me on a steroid, an antiviral medication, and gave me lidocaine patches to help with the pain. He asked if I was under any stress… Apparently that’s often a trigger of shingles…

I don’t want to whine… it’s no fun though! I still have a while before it’ll go away, and I don’t know how long the pain will last… So I’ll just keep doing my best and going along… It just couldn’t have come at a worse time! I’m just gearing up for my 2 busiest months, especially now that I’m a manager… I’ll make it through though. :o)

As I always say… I’ll try to update more often! And just know, if you try and call me, and I don’t answer, don’t be offended… It’s just a crazy time for me! I’ll try and call you back, or send a text at the very least. Lots of love!

Summer Nightastic

Okay… So I didn’t do so well with keeping up with the blog the last couple of weeks… Last week I actually had some fun! I was able to get my work schedule to have two days off in a row, so I decided to take advantage of the time and take 1 last trip to Disney as a Cast Member. (For those of you who don’t know, I am no longer a campus rep. When I went full time at Kohl’s, I had to make a decision on what to take off of my plate. Taking some school, working full time, being a campus rep and trying to have a life was just too much to take on. So, something had to go, and that was the easiest one to drop.) I was going to go by myself, then I found out that a friend of mine was going with 100 other EFY counselors, so I was going to meet up with them for a while… Then I found out that a friend from work had never been to Disneyland! Shocking, I know… I was actually able to convince her to come down for the first day! I was really excited. Laura, my friend from work, and I took the early JetBlue flight into Long Beach Tuesday morning. We had quite the interesting take off… Apparently we were having a medical emergency, but the people didn’t know how to communicate it correctly. When the flight attendant went to check on them, they just asked for water, not explaining what had happened. They just kept ringing the flight attendant button. I’m not going to lie; I laughed when the frustrated flight attendant finally came over the speaker and said, “If you are bleeding, if you are having a heart attack, if you cannot breathe, push your flight attendant button again. Otherwise, you must wait until we are in the air and it is safe for us to move about the cabin.” I’m evil; I was happy that they didn’t push the button and make all sorts of delays to our flight since the clock was ticking on our first day of Disneyland. So, after all of the drama, we landed in Long Beach. We found out near the end of flight, the medical emergency was a kid passed out. An ambulance met our plane and took him out on a backboard.

So, we were finally on our way to Disneyland! I took Laura to Disney’s California Adventure first. The very first ride I took her on was Soarin’ Over California. I made sure that we were sitting on the very top row of the hang glider. I was so happy that I had talked Laura into coming when I looked over on Soarin’ and Laura was tearing up and turned to me and said, “Thank you!” That was probably one of my favoring moments of the trip. After spending a couple of hours in DCA doing different attractions, walking around, taking lots of character pictures, of Laura, not me believe it or not, we headed over to Disneyland!First, I want to tell everyone that they are working on bringing back the Disney Gallery! I’m so excited! Russell and I have both missed it so… It’s going to be on Main Street now, next to Moments with Mr. Lincoln, which is also working on its return. We got some fast passes for Indiana Jones, looked in some stores for some Shag art I was trying to find for Russell, and then headed to lunch. Okay, if you’ve ever been to Disneyland with me, you know where I took Laura to lunch, Pizza Port of course! For some reason, that darn pasta is my absolute favorite! We had a great lunch, and headed to some nice relaxing/classic rides… It’s a Small World! I absolutely love this ride. I know everyone thinks I’m crazy for it, but I love that ride. I am so happy that they put the Disney movie characters in as well… After that, we went on Mr. Toad’s Wild Ride. :o) What can I say? It’s an original and always fun! We also did something that was MY first time to do in Disneyland… The castle walk through has re-opened. I really enjoyed it. It was fun to go through the story of Sleeping Beauty again. Then I took her on some more of the classics… We got some Dole Whips and enjoyed the Tiki Room, followed by Pirates of the Caribbean, and Haunted Mansion.

After those, we headed to the monorail to take us to Downtown Disney. We looked through some stores, and then headed to Goofy’s Kitchen for dinner. Laura loved taking pictures with the characters, so I decided to book us at Goofy’s Kitchen for dinner. I admit, I like breakfast better there, but then again, I’m a breakfast person. We still had some great food, and got some fun pictures with the characters, as well as had quite a show from a few! Goofy started a sword fight with Prince Phillip. It was quite hilarious. We also got to do the twist with Goofy and Phillip. Chip was HILARIOUS when he came to visit us… I love the ‘munks. After a little more shopping at Downtown Disney, we headed back to the hotel to crash for the night.
The next morning, I woke up early to take Laura back to the airport. After that, I came back to the hotel to crash and get a little more sleep… I was on vacation! I was going to live it up. After I finally woke up and got ready, I headed to Company D to check out what they had. I got a few things and headed to In-n-Out. I have to get it once on each trip! It’s such a happy memory for the family. After that, I went and picked up Michael and took him to Company D to share my discount. We both got a couple of good things. After that, we headed to Disneyland together. We got fast passes for later that night, walked around a bit… We also got some popcorn, which is always fun! We did a little more shopping, I had to get some Nightmare Before Christmas baby stuff for Amanda, and I got Michael a NBC shirt with my discount. After that, we headed back to Michael’s hotel to meet up with all of the other EFY counselors for pizza dinner. It was really fun. We were by their hotel pool… so you can imagine how much fun is there. Michael and I got out just in time before people started to get thrown in the pool.

He and I headed to catch a couple of rides at DCA that I hadn’t done yet before we were going to meet up with the group for the Monster’s Inc ride and fireworks. We went to another one of my absolute favorite areas, the animation studio! I could just sit in there for hours… I hadn’t done Toy Story Mania yet, so I had to hit that one. I had so much fun! I, of course, won. After that, we got fast passes for Tower of Terror, and went to meet up with everyone for Monster’s Inc. It was really fun! There was like 12 of us who went on it. Edna is hilarious at the end. I love that she interacts with the people. After that, we went to hit Dad’s favorite ride, Tower of Terror. After that, we headed back to Disneyland for the fireworks! I had to stop and buy a blanket, of course… We just hung out as a big group and waited for the fireworks to start… If you’ve ever been to EFY, you can imagine the energy that the group bought. We were there early to make sure that we could get a good place to see the fireworks from, so while we were waiting for them to start, we were singing Disney songs and just having a great time.

This summer, Disneyland had Summer Nightastic going, so there were new fireworks, as well as some extra fireworks and blasts during Fantasmic! At first, I was a little sad that I wasn’t going to be able to see Remember… Dreams Come True, it’s been one of my favorite firework shows for a long time… But I was surprised and absolutely LOVED Imagine! I just about cried when Dumbo came out and started flying!! I was also incredibly happy when they announced that they were adding another Fantasmic! show! I wanted to see it, but I wanted to see the fireworks a little more. After the fireworks, we went to hit some of my favorites before we had to head to catch Fantasmic. We started with Star Tours, then headed so I could do Small World again. Yup! I had to do it another time before I left. After Small World, we used our fast passes for Indiana Jones that we had gotten earlier in the day. After Indiana Jones, we went to get our place for Fantasmic! I love Fantasmic! I’ve loved it since when I first saw it. It’s such a fun show. Michael was laughing at me because I knew all of the movements, the music, everything for the show. After we finished watching that, we turned around and ran into Pirates to catch one last ride before the park closed. Pirates was a wonderful way to finish the night. After that, I went back to the hotel and pack and all of that blah blah blah… headed back to the real world and work the next morning… and that was the end of my whirlwind fun trip. It was a great way to finish out my life as a campus rep. This week, work was crazy! We did inventory, and last night I did an overnight at wok, which is my lesser favorite thing. So, that’s the end of my catch up blog… again… Hopefully next week I’ll be able to keep up a little better!

Am I alone?

So... Last night I had a dream I was getting married. (granted it was to Lance Sweets from Bones, but I guess that's what I get for falling asleep while watching Bones...) I was so happy in my dream, I had finally found my husband. Then, I woke up and was disappointed to realize that I was all alone.
I started to think... Am I really all alone? I'm not. While my close circle of friends is smaller than it once was, everyone in that circle is amazing. I have friends who would do anything for me. Friends who would climb under my feather bed with me, curl up and watch Doogie Howser, MD for hours just to help me escape from the world for a while. A friend who would wake up really early to take a hike so they would have the right light to take a picture of the mountains because they know I miss my mountains back home. Friends who are willing and excited when I ask if I can come crash their place because I want to get away from Utah for a while. Or are willing to take a trip with me to a random place just for fun and to go somewhere new. Friends who know something is wrong when I'm lying to them and saying everything is alright, because sometimes they know me better than I know myself. Friends who call or text me just to say hi.
I'm amazingly lucky because I don't just have friends who care about me, but I also have a family who cares. I have 5 great siblings. While when we were younger, life was more fighting about who gets to control the remote or who has to drive me somewhere because I wasn't old enough to drive myself etc, we are now actually happy to spend time together instead of dreading it. We get excited when we get to plan an event or a time when we can all get together and just be silly. My siblings care about me and my future. They truly want me to be happy and enjoy my life and all that it has to offer. Not only do I have wonderful siblings, but they are all married to incredible people. I don't consider them in-laws, but 5 new siblings that I've gotten as I've gotten older. They care about me just as much as my siblings. I enjoy spending time with them and talking to them. They let me come and visit them, spend time with them, even though having in-laws visit can be stressful and obnoxious. Not only have they shared their lives with me, but they share their fantastic children. I have seven, soon to be eight, cute and loving nieces and nephews. They will always give me hugs or kisses... or say something funny to make me smile and laugh, whether they mean to or not.
I also have incredible parents. My parents are amazing. They are wonderful examples to me of how to live. They are two of the most open, loving, caring, hard working people I've ever met, and I'm not just biased. They take people in, help people out, and never ask or expect anything in return. I hope someday just to be 1/4 as amazing as they are.
Not only do I have a close and amazing immediate family, but I have a loving and caring extended family. I have aunts, uncles, cousins and grandparents who love me, no matter what. I get texts and calls all the time from my aunt, just checking in on me and wanting to say hello and that she loves me. I have cousins who I am so close to, that they are more like siblings than cousins.

So, am I alone? Definitely not.

I'm back....

Okay, I admit, I’ve done some major slacking when it comes to my blog… In fact, I'm not going to lie, I was even called the worst blogger ever for not updating. I just need to keep in the habit of blogging every week, and not take a break for any reason. So… Here goes my catch up blog!

The happiest, and most recent news is… Tasha had her baby! Tuesday afternoon, we had the kids over playing and Amanda got a call that Tasha was on her way to the hospital. After mostly getting the kids to bed, Mom and Amanda went to the hospital to check on Tasha and seeing how she was doing. Calling Hans to see how things were progressing, they were surprised to find out Tasha had already had the baby! Baby Nathan and Tasha are doing fine. Nathan is a healthy, 9 pound 12 ounce baby. He’s a big baby boy! Unfortunately… I haven’t been able to see him yet.
A couple of days before Nathan was born, I started not feeling well, and by Sunday was full-blown sick. Thankfully, I started antibiotics Monday. It’s only a sinus infection, but it definitely knocked me on my butt. I’m getting better though. :o)

So… back to when I went to Arizona! Russell and Jodee were extremely kind to let me make some last minute plans and come to visit them and the boys for 6 days. It was a fantastic 6 days. Russell and Jodee are ALWAYS fantastic and extremely hospitable whenever I go to visit, and this time was no different, even though they both had a lot less sleep because of the boys, especially Jodee. I had a very relaxing week, talking with Jodee, playing with the boys, helping with feedings... I saw Nacho Libre for the first time at Russell's insistance... (my favorite part being that Russell and Jodee laid on the couch together and were both IMMEDIATELY out for the count. I watched the rest of the movie by myself and let them sleep.) Below is only one of the promised pictures of C & W. Per request, the rest will be posted on Facebook where I can make them a little more private. I love my nephews! I wished they lived closer... They have 2 such distinct personalities. C will DEFINITELY let you know when it's feeding time, and when he is hungry. He's such a good little eater, well, I should say good BIG eater... He started mush while I was there! He was so cute because he couldn't quite figure out how to eat it, but he sure wanted to try! W is definitely all about the chillaxin', once again, up until it comes to feeding time... Though he's the opposite of his brother C, for some reason, he doesn't like to eat. W and I have definitely bonded over his feeding times... With the vacuum on to soothe, he and I would work on getting his bottle all eaten. He started tying, and even beat his brother once or twice! I was so sad to leave them...

The next week was mostly back to work... Though I also got to spend some time with my cousin, Lexy, visiting from Atlanta. It was a lot of fun to hang out around with her in the house... We also got to go spend some time at 7-Peaks Waterpark together. It was a great amount of fun! Lexy and I were both COMPLETELY convinced that we were going to flip at some point on one of the waterslides... We even went on the Boomerang... The Boomerang a 3 story half pipe that Ramona and Kat both broke their butts on. (sorry Ramona and Kat, I had to throw it in there, because that's the whole reason we went on it!) While we were sitting on the edge, waiting to go, I started to ask Lexy, probably pretty loudly, "WHY ARE WE DOING THIS?!?" to which she also responded, nearly as loudly, "I DON'T KNOW!" The little boy behind us told Lexy that it wasn't that scary... I completely disagree with him! I screamed the entire way down, back up, back down, back up, back down, back up, and back down once more... We went within a foot of the top... I had gone skydiving the week before, and I'm not going to lie, I'd MUCH rather skydive again than go on the Boomerang.

Alright, so I know this hasn't been the greatest blog... But I promise to keep updated better!

Skydiving in Denver!

Two updates in one week!

That's right folks, you're getting TWO blog updates in one week! That's mostly because I don't know if I'm going to have/take the time to update next week... But we'll get to that a little bit later...

Since nothing exciting has happened this week... I'll tell y'all about my skydiving experience! That's right... I've said I wanted to do it forever, and now I actually have! I flew out to Denver to go, because Aaron was the only one who I could figure out that wanted to do it with me, and would actually follow through... Until I found out that Dennis wanted to go, but by then my trip was already planned and booked. (I should have just assumed that Dennis wanted to go skydiving... He's always up for something extreme.)

My weekend in Denver started out really relaxing... Just lots of hanging out, time to read and even get a nap or two in! I also finally got to see Up! for the first time. I thought it was really good, and quite enjoyed the movie. (SQUIRREL!) After the movie, we also got to walk around an outdoor mall for a while, listened to a really not impressive oldies cover bank, and walked around Borders. I don't know how well you know my obsession with books, but Borders is a very dangerous place for me. Any any given point, I am in the process of reading 2 or 3 different books. I almost always have a book in my purse to pull out and read while I'm standing in a line, waiting for something to start, eating, just about anything. I escaped Borders with only buying 2 books, which is really good. Trust me, I could have bought a cart full.

So, Sunday morning finally came. After a skydivers' breakfast of bagels, fruit and yogurt, we were headed off to meet Kristen, Aaron's older sister, at the Longmont Airport. (on a side note, we tried to google what skydivers eat for breakfast, but to no avail. Aaron decided that Norwegians are hard core and they have a spread similar to what we ended up eating, so that's how we decided what a skydivers' breakfast actually had.) We got there and filled out all of the paperwork, signed I wouldn't sue if I was injured or killed... Then waited, and waited and waited, and waited. Finally, they called our names and we started suiting up in purple and black jumpsuits and fantastic harnesses. I wish I had a picture of any of this, but we had to empty out all of our pockets before we could jump; there wasn't any place for me to leave my camera that would be locked up, and I wasn't really in the mood to leave my camera unattended and possibly get stolen. After that, I was lucky enough to be the first one to meet my instructor/jumping partner- his name was Nick. I was actually really glad I had the instructor that I did. I was the only one who really got any instruction on the ground. After Nick showed me the positions and everything that I'd need for jumping, we were headed to the truck to take a ride out to the plane.

Soon, we were all aboard the plane, and headed up to 12,500 feet... At 6,000 feet, we levelled out for a couple of minutes while 3 single jumpers went. Then we continued up to our altitude. When the guys jumped out at 6,000 feet, Kristen's fear jumped up as high as we were. All morning Kristen was talking about how nervous she was. Her boyfriend told her that she could back out and he wouldn't make fun of her. That's probably true... but she knew that Aaron would make fun of her forever. So, she was there. We decided that on a more positive note, if we did die skydiving today, we wouldn't have to go back to work on Monday morning. :o) So, when the singles jumped, Kristen realized what we were really doing, and went totally white. After, she said she didn't know we could all tell she was really that scared... Trust me, the whole plane knew how scared she was.

If you think a sitting by the engine on a commercial airplane gets loud, you should try a little unsealed airplane. :o) At 12,500 feet, we finally levelled off again, and our tandem group started going! Kirsten was the first one out of the plane... I wasn't so sure that she was going to go after how white she turned. But she did it... and you could hear her scream from inside the plane.

I was the last one out of the plane. Up until that moment, I had been a little scared/nervous, but nothing too bad. I don't know that it had really sunk in that I was about to jump out of a plane. I was all attached to Nick, and standing on the edge of the plane ledge, looking down at the ground and everything, and I started to wonder what the heck I was doing! But, by then it was too late. I was all attached to Nick, and before I knew it, he was pushing us out of the plane. I'm not really sure how my mind did it, but I actually went through all of the steps and positions that Nick had gone through with me on the ground. If I thought that the plane was loud, free falling was that much louder! Imagine driving at, what I later found out was, 142 mph and sticking your head out the window... That's about what it was. After free falling for nearly a minute, Nick pulled the cord and we got to drift down. It was absolutely amazing. I got to look at the mountains, and just the land as far as I could see in every direction.

Now, for future reference, if you ever go tandem skydiving and the instructor asks you if you like roller coasters, the answer is no. He asked me, and not knowing why, I answered yes. He then directed the parachute so that we started spinning really fast in circles! YIKES! If you know me, then you know that I DO NOT like spinning. I always skip the Tea Cups and the Orange Stinger at Disney. This was by far the closest I got to losing my breakfast... Once we were all back on the ground and were talking about our experience, Kristen and I agreed that going on a roller coaster and rapidly spinning in circles at 6,000 feet in the air are two very different things.

As soon as we landed on the ground, Nick checked our stats. Like I said before, during free fall, we got up to 142 miles per hour. Nick told me that tandem jumps usually only get up to between 120 and 130 mph. Nick told me I'm just really good at making myself aerodynamic. :o)

After leaving the airport, we all headed to Pearl Street in Boulder to get some lunch. After having an enjoyable lunch together, we decided to just walk around Pearl Street for a while. There was an art festival going on, so we got to walk around and look at all of the art and make some comments on it... Kristen and I agree on a lot of things I noticed... One of them is that we don't like modern art... Apparently we just aren't cultured enough. There was also another booth where a woman was selling 'fun' art... In other words, it was bright colors and child-like subjects like rubber duckies and horses. I would definitely not pay her for that... I'd rather pay Marlene to draw something for me. It would come out a lot better. I'm sorry, I'm being mean.... Either way, her art was not for me.

Later that night, after nearly missing my plane home, or so I thought, I got to have a whole new flying experience... But we're not going to talk about that one. I get frustrated thinking about it all over again... It was unbelievably obnoxious and not fun... I was really wishing I was falling out of that plane rather than sitting on it.

So... Onto the happier news of why I'm not going to be around next week to blog! I was surprised and able to get ALL of next week off of work when I got back!! I also received my Rapid Rewards free flight on Southwest for all of my travel over the last year... So, since I had a whole week off, and a flight that was free no matter how far in advance I booked it for, I called Russell and Jodee to see if I could come visit, and they said YES! So, tomorrow afternoon, I'm off to Phoenix to see Russell, Jodee, Calvin and Wesley until Friday night! I'm so excited to be able to go see them, spend some time with Jodee and the boys, not have to share the twins, and just relax. I can't wait! I'll get some picture of the boys while I'm down there and post them when I get back.

No smart titles for me...

Hey folks! So, it's true, I've started a blog. It's also true that I started the blog because of Lisa. Lisa just moved to San Jose, California because she's all grown up and married and moving on with life... And I'm still in Utah. She misses our family, and of course, we miss her. I was trying to think of a good way to help keep her connected and close, while she's still so far away.

I guess I should preface this by saying Lisa and I are especially close, at least from my point of view. I love all of my siblings, of course, but whether it's just because we're so close in age, the two youngest, or what, she and I have become really close. I am going to miss her like mad. Lisa can always make anyone smile. She is one of the most caring people I've ever been able to associate with. I remember one night, I was absolutely heartbroken, and I started talking to Lisa about it. I started crying just out of pure pain and sadness and she was in such pain because I was hurting, that she started crying too. This is most definitely not the only time that's happened, but just one example of how fantastic she is.

Last night, I started thinking of how I was going to start out my blog... So, I thought that since it was a blog that I started because of Lisa, I'd post some different pictures of Lisa and I... Trust me, there are PLENTY, so I just picked some favorites. (sorry for any formatting mistakes... This is all new to me!)

Here's a picture of where it all began... The three girls, Amanda, Hayley, and Lisa. I was the ripe old age of 2 when Lisa was born. She's so cute.

I knew I always loved Pluto! One of my favorite things to do as a family, and a place I have a million and a half memories, is Disneyland. I found bunches and bunches of pictures with different characters at the park... and it's always Lisa and me.

This is Lisa and I at Oma's house in Avon Lake, Ohio. We would go with mom for a couple of weeks every year. We would bum around and shop (So THAT'S where my shopping addiction started?!?) go to the zoo, and just spend time with Oma and Opa. I'm not sure if this tree is Lisa's or mine (each grandchild plants a tree with Oma and Opa) but you can definitely see our personalities. I'm perfectly happy to just smile, and Lisa needs to be a little extra interesting and get the attention. :o)

I'm sure Amanda and Lisa are going to hate me for posting this picture... But this is another favorite thing of mine... Having everyone climb into a big bed, just talk and be silly. So, even though none of us look fantastic in this picture, it's one of my favorites.

Here's another picture of us at Disneyland, in front of the castle. Lisa and I have been extremely lucky. Being the two youngest, we have been able to not only take the trips with the whole family together, but we've also been able to take a lot of trips with just us and the parents. I'm pretty sure this is one such trip.

Just looking at this picture makes me smile. One Sunday, after church we were hanging out in the family room when it started to dump rain outside. This wasn't just the typical Utah rain that kind of sprinkles, it was literally pouring rain. Lisa and I got so excited, we grabbed an umberella and went outside to play. This picture was taken before we ditched the umbrella and started running in the rain and jumping in puddles... I love this picture, and kept it framed with me both times I moved to Florida.

Okay, so one more picture... Lisa brought up our past of clogging... So I had to post a picture of one of our clogging... Recitals? Performances? Either word, this was I'm pretty sure one of the first ones... Lisa's the one in the center back with the white tights. :o)

So I cheated and made my first post mostly pictures. Last night and tonight have been a great walk down memory lane. It was so much fun to look through my oodles and oodles of pictures and decide which pictures I wanted to use. It was fun to think of all of the different things I've done over the years with my family and friends, and especially with my big little sister.

I LOVE YOU LISA!!

The Story Behind the Blog

Hi, this is Lisa, Hayley's big little sister.

Right after moving to California, I created this blog for Hayley as the result of a text I received from her, "I was thinking about you this morning . . . I know you're really busy studying for the cpa. . . But sometime over the next few weeks, if you set up a blog for me, I'll start a blog. Specifically for you and to keep you in the loop and I'll promise to clog once a week, even it it's just telling a story from work. I held off on having my own blog for a long time, so this is especially for you and to show you I love you."

Now, future blog readers, you are my witnesses that Hayley has promised to clog for me every week. I can't wait to see her try to tell me stories from work through the brilliant medium of clog dancing. This may seem like an insane promise unless you know that Hayley and I were, in fact, once on a clogging team together as youngsters. *sigh* However, if she runs out of clogging routines and decides to blog instead, I guess that will have to suffice.

**An Explanation for the Blog Name**: I created it as a tribute to three of Hayley's greatest obsessions: Shopping, Traveling, and Disney.

Enjoy!