The Rant

As most of you know, my husband is a high school teacher. Sometimes he tells me stories about things that happen at school and sometimes I FREAK OUT! I think I freak out because I know I will have to deal with my own kids growing up and going through school, but then I also freak out because I cannot understand how people can be so mean to each other. As some of you know, Tyler and I were asked to chaperon prom this year. Coming up to the big event, I asked Tyler about a kid at his school that doesn't have a great home life and has a sad background. I wanted to know who he was going with to prom. Tyler proceeded to tell me that he had asked about 3 girls, who had all turned him down, one after the other. One of the girls didn't even go to prom herself. I'll be honest, it was hard to hear...and it was even harder to see this kid show up in a suit to prom, dateless.

The topic of kids in general is a touchy subject to most moms and most normal people in general. I wouldn't stand by on the sidelines and watch my kids be bullied, and I wouldn't stand by while my kid bullied other kids either. I was never bullied growing up, but believe me if anyone had of tried to mess with me, I would have known how to handle myself! My mam always told us to never throw the first punch, but if someone hit us first then it was on!!!!!!! I was recently talking to my sister Mandy about the topic of kids. We always talk about how we will deal with things that are bound to come along as our kids get older. We've discussed how you can't always shelter your kids and protect them from every single thing (even though you might want to) and that the best you can do is raise them with good values, and morals and teach them right and wrong.

Anywho, back to kids...and not even kids, but people in general. Why are they so mean? I was recently reading a blog(which I actually cannot stand, but my sisters and I read it for a good laugh)....The author was commenting on an event and then posted a picture of a little girl from the crowd of approximately 50 million people (give or take) and said something about this little girl (that she doesn't know and never will) looking handicapped. Are you kidding me?????? I was appalled and disgusted! Who thinks something like that, let alone says it? I read another blog that is well known and pretty popular. This author is A.MAZ.ING! She has been through one of the hardest trials one can imagine, and has come out of it with nothing but a positive attitude. She is nothing but optimistic and honestly such an example for the rest of us. She came out of her situation with some visible scars, but is still one of the most beautiful people I know. She knows that she still has to get up each day to take care of her family and pretty much has the attitude of life goes on....which I think is awesome! Anyway, she posted a while back that while shopping at the grocery store, having been in a coma recuperating from this life threatening accident, that some lady came up to her and says "you look how I feel..." UH, WHAT?!?!?!?!? I don't get it. How can you sleep at night? I don't know how people contain themselves because I would honestly be doing some serious body slamming.

The other night at our bookclub...(which I love by the way) we were talking about how there are somethings that you just don't say, and basically how there are some people that just don't get it. Now, I'm not talking about the little foot in mouth comments that we sometimes slip and say, but the obvious things like: "You guys have been married for 10 years, why haven't you had a baby?" or "you look BIG, are you having twins?" You never know what people are going through, so please...Just don't say it!!!

Easter

Well....I didn't take any pictures from Easter. Best mom ever, I know. We had quite the Easter morning, and by about 9:55am, I was ready to go back to bed. We had stake conference at 10am. We got up, got dressed and headed out the door at about 9:45.....early even. Noah looked so cute in his Easter suit. The minute we sat down, Noah was D.O.N.E. for the day. His shirt was all un tucked and he was all but ripping his vest off! UGH! He wanted to crawl/walk all over the gym which was full of chairs for stake conference. Before our broadcast even started, I was up and out of there with him squealing in my arms. Not good. I know they say people don't mind when your child acts up in church but I feel like the same eyes are looking at me every week saying the same thing..."oh there goes her kid again." He calmed down in the mothers lounge so I thought I'd try it again. Went in, sat down, two minutes later....a meldown. Back out. Pacing the halls until I smelled a nasty diaper which was of course Noah's and I had conveniently left the diapers inside the chapel....STRESS! I won't go on. You get the picture. I was done, Tyler thankfully came out and relieved me so I could at least catch the final speaker. Church is a nightmare. It's right at Noah's naptime, but I think he'd be bad no matter what time church was at. Good thing I love him right?? We did come home and have a lovely dinner. I can't wait to eat the leftovers for lunch...and dinner today!!!

Here's a cute video and picture to make sure you do know that I really do love him ;) Also, please excuse how trashed my house looks...sigh.




Noah was excited to find these in his Easter basket :)

Flashback Friday

During the summer of 2007 I was going to school at BYU-Idaho. I had just gotten back from living in Vegas from Jan-April where I worked for an attorney. As I was returning to school that summer, he hooked me up with a job at this resort up in Island Park that his family owned. Now I won't lie... I had this picture in my mind of what this job would entail. I was thinking that I would work with a bunch of cool young people, like myself :) and that my summer job was going to rock!!! I also had a vision of hot guys waxing boats..shirtless. I seriously did, and I was seriously wrong!!!! I was the only girl. My boss (the attorney's brother) was pretty cool....for a 40 yr old married man with 6 kids. There were 2 guys who I worked with that were super ghetto. They talked like ex-cons and I swear they more than likely did time for crime. I did not give them the time of day, but also didn't want to be too rude....just in case they were convicts, for real. After working for a couple of weekends, my boss said that busy season was starting (memorial weekend), and if I had any friends that wanted to come up and work they could. I went home and asked my roommate Nellie if she wanted to come with me next week. She agreed.

We set off to Island Park the next weekend together. It was nice to work with someone that I knew, liked, and could relate too. Nellie was HILARIOUS with our shady coworkers. They would attempt to converse with us by trying to act all BAD-A and she would make it her business to shoot them down, or say something like..."Um, I doubt that happened." hahaha. It was so funny. One Saturday morning we sat off to head up to work at the resort. I usually drove my civic up, but Nellie had gotten back from Boise the night before and had her parents pretty new Ford Expedition and wanted to drive. Her parents (who I was pretty close to, her dad had been my bishop for a couple of years) were in California and she said it wouldn't be a problem if she drove.

About 30 mins into the trip, it began to snow. Did I mention it was the month of May? It really was May, but it was Idaho so I can't really say we were too surprised. We joked about the snow, but were deep in conversation and continued up the pass. All of a sudden, the suv began to drift across the 2 lane highway. Nellie was in total control and got us back on our side. This happened 3-4 more times, except the last time we never made it back to our side of the road. The next thing I remember was grabbing Nellie's hand while screaming every obscenity known to me as the expedition went down a hill, flipping 4 times end over end on the way down. We thankfully hit a tree which thankfully wasn't a big tree and it stopped the car. I felt immediate pain in my knees as they had hit the glove box each time the car flipped. My first thoughts were...(and I'm not even joking) "Please let me stay alert so that the EMT's don't cut my clothes off and see me naked." haha.

Most of the windows were gone from the car and it was freezing. We were wearing t-shirts and jeans. Not good. To say I was freaking out is an understatement. Nellie was as calm as can be. I remember she nonchalantly looked at me and said, "Do you need to say a prayer or something?" She ended up saying the prayer because I was still freaking out. These German tourists arrived on scene first with blankets. They had seen us go off the road. The cops and ambulance then arrived. We had to get out through a window and slide down a backboard. The whole time I was making sure my clothes were still on me. Not kidding.

The EMTs took us into the ambulance. They were asking us what hurt. I was still making sure no one would be undressing me, so I said I was fine. All that was visible were some seat belt burns anyway. I remember the ambulance doors flying open and our boss just standing there with the biggest look of fear in his eye. I think he thought we were dead. I was in total shock. Crying hysterically one minute, and then laughing and joking about holding Nellie's hand as we were going off the road.

My hair had been in a pony tail and the EMTs said they had to take out the hair tie because there was some glass in my head from when I hit the window. As they pulled the hair tie out, I remember seeing a long piece of hair fall by my shoulders. I guess I just assumed it was my hair because it was pretty long. Then I noticed Nellie's face..she was just kinda staring at me. The EMT's said something about my hair and asked if I wanted a mirror. Nellie told them not to give me a mirror. I took the mirror and looked in it and saw my luscious, long hair accompanied by a FULL ON MOHAWK! I mean...I didn't even care about the whiplash, the burns, or anything at this point. I was sobbing about my freshly cut mohawk! I sported that bad boy for months. Always had to wear my hair in the utah bump. It was devastating. I never went back to that job, and my hair took about a year to fully grow out!


And now....some pictures!!!




This is the hill we flipped down.



(pictures stolen from Nellie's facebook....Thanks;)

Eat your heart out Kim....

So my oldest sister Kim has been making salsa for years! It's way good. Like so good that she's even had natives beg her for the recipe. You would think that being family, she would let us in on her secret recipe....but no. When Tyler and I were dating, he was introduced to the salsa and told me that it was my duty as his future wife to get the secret recipe and make the salsa. I begged Kim, but she wouldn't break. I honestly think my brother in law (her husband) was making her keep it hush, hush because he thought they could market it and become billionaires....Nice try Spam. Anywho, one summer a couple of years ago...Kim and her family had left for Florida. My other sister Mandy and her husband and Tyler and I were heading over to Kim's house to swim in the pool. Kim had texted us and said that she had left some salsa ready to go in the salsa maker and all we needed to do was blend it. So.... I picked through the ingredients, taste testing every single one of them and now I make the same salsa. What can I say? I'm not just a pretty face;) Don't worry Kim, I won't tell anyone.

xoxo

Noah Can Walk!!!!

My baby is walking!!!! Noah started to take a few steps a couple of months ago. Lately he has just taken off! He has to put his arms straight out in front of him while doing so. It's cute ;) Sorry the videos are sideways, it only took me about an hour to figure out how to upload them. LOL! I included the third one just because I love how Noah is staring at me like a psycho...what can ya do?

What are you watching?

-It is not news that I love TV. I never watched it in college or while I was single, but once we were married, we started finding shows that we both liked and wanted to follow. I won't lie, there are some that Tyler refuses to watch because he thinks they're chick shows. Whatev...

-Why is Scotty McCreery still on Idol? He actually had the cajones to say "I picked this song (from the movie Pure Country) because I wanted to go back to my country roots." Well Scotty, when have you not sang country on this show, or ever in your life? Seriously, it's not even him that bothers me....it's really just his face and how he holds the microphone. PLEASE GO HOME NEXT!!!!
How annoying is his face?!?!?!?

-Moving on....Everyone knows that my husband has had a man crush on Steven Tyler since he was 8 years old (not kidding). So obviously, when they announced the new judges for this year, Tyler was jumping up and down like a school girl (also not kidding). At first I was semi annoyed because I felt like Steven was perhaps replacing me. Then after the first few episodes, I started liking Steven too. I loved J Lo and could stand Randy even though I felt like he was trying to be hardcore or something. At this stage in the game....I'm over all of them and just want my boy Simon to come back. I feel like all three judges do not judge. They all say the same things EVERY SINGLE WEEK! Also, someone can totally suck (Scotty) and I will cringe through the whole performance and then the judges will give it a standing ovation. WHAT? I don't get it.

-In other news, all my favorite shows are coming to a close for the season. It's sad. BUT, let's be honest...they'll be replaced by other awesome ones for the summer. Here's a few of my many favorites (in no particular order):

Parenthood








I love this show, but what I don't love is having to hear Tyler talk about how great Tom Selleck's mustache is every episode. Seriously!

I don't care if you judge me for watching this show. We've been watching this show since we got married. They have marathons on USA and the local channels, plus they are still running the show, so we watch the new ones every Wednesday. Only problem is, I can't watch it right before bed or there will be no sleeping. Haha.

What are some of your favorite shows?

Flashback Friday

As most of you know, my family is from Ireland and moved to America in 1994. Since the beginning of time in Ireland, I remember our "summer holidays" being a big deal! School would get out for the summer and we would literally be packed and in the car heading for the country immediately. We would spend THE ENTIRE summer down in the country and we wouldn't have a care in the world. My mam had been doing this her whole life with her parents, and so the tradition just sort of continued for us! We had a summer place and would call it home for the next 3 months. Included in this summer place, was a private access to the beach and up the road, through our friends land was another private access, but this one was to an actual private beach! I won't lie, it rocked!!! We would get up at the crack of dawn, pack a lunch and spend the whole day on the beach. My mam would even have us line up and do exercises as a family...glad we didn't own a video camera. haha.

In the nights, we would go into Gorey (town) because there was usually something fun going on. They had a summer fair, which had a music division and I remember us entering into the contest and singing on the huge stage, or going to The Tara Vale for their dance nights and all the kids that were there on vacation would get up and dance. Those summers are seriously some of my best memories from growing up! It was so awesome to get away from the city and just live a carefree life in the beautiful country. I'm so glad for these memories and experiences and hope to be able to create some kind of tradition with my own kids like this!

Here is a picture of Ballymoney Beach where we used to spend our summers ;)

THE BIG NEWS!

It's official....We just purchased plane tickets for IRELAND! So excited!!!! We will be touching down here on June 1st:



And, staying here for 16 days:


And, will visit here:




Here:



And...maybe even here:




WE.CANNOT.WAIT.

OMG!!!!

I forgot Flashback Friday. My sister Bev was right when she said I would start slacking. How sad! I will be back on track next Friday. But, in the meantime I will leave you with this: We have some very exciting news to announce..... and no, I'm not pregnant!


-xo-