The Hansens

Stinkin' Cute Christmas Pics

2011-12-15T22:04:00.000-06:00

Yes, yes, I know... my blog absence has been noted (if anyone even checks in anymore!) I've been a busy blogger over at my book blog and have sadly neglected my home blog! Alas! I would like to say that I'm going to do LOTS better... but lets be honest... I probably won't!

BUT...

Just in case any of you DID happen to click on that link directed to you by Rob and I's lovely Christmas postcard, I thought I better have SOMETHING new to share.

SO!

Without further ado... our Christmas pics, which were taken by my lovely friend, Jen Petty. She's oober talented and whipped them out in like a half hour flat. THANK YOU, Jen!!

This was a "test" shot... teehee...

Yeah... I kinda have a thing for my red hat... LOVE it!

Aww! Look at us! We're so cute ( :

Candid!

Love my man!

*snort* I love this one! Vroom, vroom!

We tried to do some cute vintage bike pics... yeah, they SO did not work out! Mostly they just ended with me catapulting off the front of the bike face first! Haha ( :

Oh, snap!

I ADORE you, Robbie Baby!

Hide n' Seek

2011-05-26T12:38:00.000-05:00

Sorry if you've been missing me, dear friends! I've been playing a bit of blogging hide and seek, as it were. The time consuming nature of trying to keep up two blogs is clearly having an affect on my "home" blog. But I have a solution!! If you've been desperately checking this site for my life's updates, only to be disappointed time after time again (hardy, har!), and you know you simply just can't live without me (teehee!), then I suggest you look here:

http://thebookmemoirs.blogspot.com/

...where my book blog has been commandeering most of my time ( :

Passed

2011-05-14T11:47:00.000-05:00

Angels and Demons

2011-05-14T11:46:00.000-05:00

I have been sadly neglecting my "home" blog over the past few weeks. My apologies! On the bright side, my book blog is flourishing... hooray! I even got a fancy schmancey new blog award... not that I'm entirely sure what the "Blog on Fire" award is supposed to mean, but it's definitely a good sign (means I'm getting more traffic!) So, if you're interested in any writing updates, that's your place to be. If you're wondering what else goes on in my life right now besides writing... well... I'm sorry to report that I'm way too far behind to catch up, so we're just going to have to baby step it from the present time.

One thing of note is that I've started running in the morning. I go to this sweet little park that has a pond and lots of trees and all that jazz. Its kind of fun, because it reminds me of Hyde Park in London, (although, not even close to the size of Hyde Park!) So anyway, on these fabulous runs in my Hyde-esque Park, I've noticed two things: Houston has Angels. And Houston has Demons. I'm not exactly talking about those fluffy winged cherubs portrayed in books and movies... although, as a matter of fact, these particular Angels and Demons DO, have wings.

We'll start with the bad guys

The Demons

In London, while visiting Glastonbury (which is where King Arthur and Guinevere are supposedly burried, for those of you non savvy English brutes), I saw this sign...

...which I pretty much thought was the funniest thing in the world. (I may have been operating on like 5 hours of sleep at the time. Its definitely possible I was slap happy). In my little sleep deprived state of mind, I couldn't figure out what about a silly little goose could be so frightening that they'd take the effort to post a "Stay Away from the Geese" sign on the lawn. Obviously, I got a hoot out of it, seeings how I went through the effort of taking a picture of that sign--out of all things--whilst visiting the grave of King Arthur.

Well this sign took on a new meaning during my morning runs this week. I suddenly realized oh-how-wise those English people were in posting said goose sign. There I was this week, minding my own business, enjoying the cheery, peaceful park on my morning run, when all of the sudden I hear this strange honking noise. Curious, I turn my head to see what was causing this odd, bird-in-serious-pain noise. Perhaps a helpless little duckling caught in a trap?

Ha. No. Imagine my shock when I see the mother of all gigantic white geese--beak forward, wings out--battle charging at me with full force.

I won't lie. I yelped and screamed like a little girl. (Have you ever been bitten by a Hyde Park goose while trying to feed it bread? Yeah. It hurts.)

And then I ran faster.

And the bird followed.

Luckily my legs outreach said goose by a good three feet. So, while that mother of all gigantic white geese was making a valiant effort on those two wobbly, webbed feet of hers, by pure length of leg, I managed to escape the wrath of the fiery demon.

I was feeling pretty smug. Stupid bird.

However, after I got over the general euphoria of beating down a bird in a foot race, I felt rather silly for letting a bird get the better of me. Ashamed, I vowed to never let it happen again. (I mean, cause really... I'm how many times its size??)

Yesterday, I had my big chance to prove my warrior strenght. As I'm struttin' along down the footpath, minding my own business, this same goose (or maybe it wasn't the same goose... I don't know... it LOOKED like the same goose) starts honking when I'm still a good 20 feet away. (Seriously? What is her problem??) But I don't let it get to me. I throw my shoulders back, head high, hair in the wind, and keep running. 19 feet. 18 feet. 17... 16... I was closing in fast and this bird was having none of it. At about 15 feet, psycho bird puts her beak down, spreads her wings and charges.... My initial reaction?

Run faster!!

But never fear, dear readers, in that darkest hour, I remembered my vow. So rustling up as much courage as I had, I stopped running. Turned to face the charging beast. Stomped my foot on the ground (for the overall intimidation factor), and yelled:

"You wanna piece of this?!"

And yes, it worked. Stupid, crazy demon psycho bird.

The Angels

But never fear, Houston has its angels too. Nestled in the park with the crazy demon geese, are lots of these fluffy cherubs:

And, really? Is there anything more cute that a baby duckling?! Awwwww!

Angels and Demons, folks. Angels and Demons. Right here in Houston!

Book Blog

2011-04-03T18:11:00.001-05:00

I've given my book blog an exciting new makeover! Get updates, read sample chapters and become a follower! Click here, or use the link on the side of this page to view the book blog. Enjoy!

Spring Break

2011-03-27T15:32:00.036-05:00

This March, a miraculous thing happened... ALL schools in which Baker children were enrolled, so kindly decided to scheduel spring break on the same week. All--that is--except for BYU, whoes nazi scheduel does not allow for such frivolities as a week off of school. Even still, that's a pretty hefty miracle when you think that there was an elementry school, middle school, high school and three colleges spanning four different states (Idaho, Utah, Arizona and Nebraska) involved. And when the fates align like that, who are we to argue with their decision?? Thus, a massive Baker family spring break vacation was planned!

The first bit of excitment during the break actually happened BEFORE the break even started. About a week before comencement of said massive spring vacay, Paul recieved a thick, white envelope in the mail from none other than church headquarters in Salt Lake City, UT! In an ever-impressive act of self control, Paul decided to wait until break to open his call, so that the whole family could witness the event. All I have to say is: Wow! Better men have fallen to such temptations!

Because of work conflicts, Rob was unable to attend the spring break festivities (Boo!) And after some minor thechnical difficulties with Skype (which, incidently, decided not to work at all), the drumroll started and Paul began opening the ominous white envelope! We were all breathless with anticipation and absolutely thrilled to learn that Paul was being sent to none other than...

Mexico City, Mexico! Elder Baker is sheduled to leave June 22 and will be speaking--much to Rob's delight--Spanish, of course! We're all so thrilled for you, Paul! Congrats!

After that exciting event, the whole family headed up to Island Park for some fun in the snow! I remember that before I left Texas, someone at church asked me "Are there really places that still have snow this time of year?!" CLEARLY, he was a native Texan. Yes, dear Texas person, there are PLENTY of places that still have snow in March! Admitedly, the snow was starting to get a little soggy towards the end of the week, but when you have 3-4 feet of snow on the ground, what's a little meltage, anyway??

The Gang

Natalie... in a rare moment of enthusiasm...Haha.

Me and my snow buddy, Lindsey.

Snowmobiling is great fun, but it's not without its casualties. Besides the overall general aching that sets in after WAY too many hours ridding (sadle soreness, anyone?!) there are other obstables--such as trees--that can be hazardous. Sylvi and Lisa--in particular--seemed to be quite adept at attracting said trees.

Yes, the snomobile IS on top of them. Here's a better view:

Luckily, no injuries. But a great photo opportunity! My dad also seemed to have a nack at attracting the trees:

Needless to say he was none too happy that I was both teasing him about running into the tree, and taking photographic evidence of the event, as he insisted it was "merely a ditch." Riiiiight. The final count: Sylvi, 2 trees; Lisa, 1 tree; Dad, 1 tree.

Little Scott also got his fair share of snowmobiling excitment, when late the first day, he did this to himself:

Yes, he DID bite clean through his lip.

It really wasn't his fault... he was riding with Paul, who can be a bit of a dare devil sometimes. No worries, though, I'm pretty sure Paul felt guilty! And lucky for us, our resident surgeon on hand stitched him up with no problems. The worst of it will be that he'll have a nice little scar to impress the ladies with!

Here are some other lovely pictures from the trip:

Feeding the ducks:

The outhouse... sweet relief burried under 4 feet of snow... and yes, I did brave the freezing toilet seat to aquire said relief. Teehee.

Me and Lisa (my snow buddy, day 2) got some air we got going over a jump! We had so much fun that we had to take a picture!

And of course, what's a winter wonderland without a few gorgeous pictures to show for it?

On the way home, Mark and Paul insisted we make a stop at Big Jud's, so they could do the burger challenge. I think Paul was mostly inspired because the last time he successfully completed the challenege, the camera broke right as they were about to take his picture for the challenge wall. Not to be defeated, he wanted to try again! This time, they upped the ante. Instead of the 1 lb. burger challenge, both Mark and Paul went for the 2 lb. burger challenge.

Although both did, in fact, complete the 2 lb. challenge, I doubt either of them will ever look at a burger the same way again. Nor do I think they'll make good on their threat to take on the 3 lb. burger the next time!

All in all? A successful snowy week, I'd say! Although next time, could we do the beach? SO much warmer!

Will the New Katniss Everdeen Please Stand Up?

2011-03-18T12:48:00.003-05:00

Yay! The wait is finally over! Lionsgate recently announced that Jennifer Lawrence has been cast for the coveted role of Katniss Everdeen in the new film adaptation of Suzanne Collins, The Hunger Games. I have to admit that when I first discovered who had been cast, I had to refer to my good friend, Google, because in all my movie watching I'd never heard of this Jennifer Lawrence. Incidently, I was actually happy about this. Sometimes these huge blockbuster roles just go over better if an unknown actor is cast, rather than a K-Stew or R-Pat. Anyway, when I Googled Jennifer, I discovered that while perhaps a little unknown, she's not inexperienced... I felt rather flabergasted to learn she was actually Oscar nominated (where have I been??)and the reviews about her had nothing but positive things to say. Futher, the casting director said it was the easiest casting decision he'd made in his life--despite the fact that Jennifer doesn't quite match Katniss's physical description. I'm excited to see her interpretation of Katniss! In the clips I watched of her she seemed like such a beautiful, strong, confident individual, and I'm sure she'll do an amazing job with this role. Now all that we're really waiting for is dear Gale and Peeta. Any guesses as to which lucky men will land those roles??

The Little Moving Company that Couldn't Jimmer...

2011-03-16T09:55:00.017-05:00

I'll get to taking pictures of my apartment... eventually. Every time I think about it, the apartment is a mess. Every time its clean, I, well, DON'T think about it. However, I did finish unpacking the last box on Saturday, so as of now we ARE currently living in a habitable apartment (hooray!) But sadly, still no pictures of said abode.

Also, you should know that I now hate moving companies. ESPECIALLY (but not limited to) the company that moved our junk from Nebraska to Texas, AND the company that moved our new couches from furniture warehouse to apartment. I don't want to bore you with the details as to why and how I have come to this conclusion, as I'm prepared to spare you that lenghty, drawn out discourse. But suffice it to say that when you are almost a week late delivering a person's junk to a different state, and you are a day late plus scratch-up-all-the-furniture-and-then-have-to-replace-it-again-3-days-later when delivering someone's newly purchased furniture, it tends to create some strong feelings that moving companies just might attract the most LAZY, INCOMPETENT, and UNRELIABLE individuals in the world (elders quorums not included). CLEARLY they couldn't "Jimmer"...

Anyway, moving on...

I actually had a really fun time cleaning out boxes this past week. This is mostly due to the fact that Rob and I had LOTS of help from my family to pack all said boxes, and I kept coming across things like this:

This...And this...

while unpacking boxes. I mean, how can you help but NOT have fun unpacking when you have the prospect of stumbling across a cute new note every couple of boxes?! These notes were mostly from my wonderful mom (who did a most EXCELLENT job packing up our Nebraska kitchen and was such a help during our move), but I also enjoyed seeing things like this:

written on the sides of boxes. I'm pretty sure Sylvi labeled this one, and I'm also pretty sure that it is SUPPOSED to say "tupperware"... you know, like the little plastic container thingys that hold leftover meatloaf? And, indeed, upon inspection, I discovered that the unidentified "tub-a-ware" box did--in fact--contained the missing "tupperware" items. Sylvi, I know you're embarrassed, but I got such a good laugh out of this label! Mostly because no, I didn't know how to spell "tupperware" either, and yes, I did have to look it up for the sake of this post.

My point? If you want to make unpacking a bunch of boxes a more enjoyable experience, have your family help pack!

Rob and I also enjoyed a good Mardi Gras party this week with some newly made friends:

But don't worry, no crazy, wild spurts of drunkenness were had in the making of these photos.

We've also had the chance to begin exploring our natural habitat in Houston's outer "burbs" (as in "Suburbs," people). Alas! We haven't made it to the city yet (Rob's been pretty busy with work) but during an eventful evening walk this past Sunday, I did discover a new species of bird that I would like to call a "Turkey-Duck":

Because, lets be honest, if a turkey and a duck got together and... well... you know what I'm saying... THIS is what it would look like. In addition I saw an otter for the first time:

I'm just astounded by the diversity of the wildlife here:

Teehee.

And lastly, I'm completely--and might I say, surprisingly--enamored with this:

And thus utterly and most absolutely excited for the prospect of this:

I heart Mia. What a talented little actress. Anyway, excited--as I was--to share the Jane Eyre love, I responded to Rob's request for a new book on tape by suggesting this. Unfortunately, his reply was: that when required to read it in high school, he bribed his sister Naomi read it for him. As an avid classics lover, Naomi happily obliged, giving him complete and detailed chapter by chapter summaries of the whole book. Thus, because he didn't want to waste all that good laziness, Rob explained he couldn't possibly read it now. During the course of this discussion, he also tried to convince me that no, this wasn't cheating, but rather, "using all of ones resources." I wonder how he'll respond to this same excuse coming from the mouth of his teenage daughter someday....

P.s. To make up for making fun of you, Sylvi, I suggest you read Jane Eyre. As a fellow Pride and Prejudice lover, I think you'll enjoy it every bit as much as I have!

P.s.s. Spell check doesn't recognize the word "Jimmer."

Addicted

2011-03-07T12:03:00.002-06:00

And not even ashamed to admit it.

Monkey in the Middle

2011-03-06T16:55:00.005-06:00

THIS week, Rob and I have finally taken the gigantic step into what feels like "old marriedhood," and gone couch shopping.... for NEW couches no less! Yay! It feels "old" married cause, who really has money to go couch shopping as newlyweds?! Not us! Admittedly, couches have been on our "to buy" list for some time now, but we didn't want to buy them right before we moved from Nebraska (extra baggage to move and all that such). However, now that we're safely in Texas, and because we had (literally) nothing else to do this week (our moving truck STILL has not arrived, but that's another story), we decided to go couch shopping!

Just so you know, Houston has NO zoning laws. One minute you'll be in what seems like a pretty decent area... the next... esta in la mexico!!... run down shacks and all. At first, Rob and I had the darndest time trying to find a decent place to go couch shopping. We always seemed to run into the stores whose large discount signs hung askew at one end and were manned by Jose, Paco or Amad. (Not trying to be racist here, just trying to paint a socioeconomic picture... you get the idea). Finally after a few dud hits, we found some stores we liked... and a few couches we liked. While most were your nomal hum-diggity-dum run of the mill furniture store, there was one store that sat in a class all of its own. For reasons I'll state, I seriously could not pass up the opportunity to blog about it. The store was called: GALLERY FURNITURE

Now, at first glance, this probably seems like a decent establishment, right? New paint, nice big sign, lovely modern art out front... I guess the first thing that should have tipped me off that something was off was the coral-type cage in front of the store. A coral? With hay? At a furniture store?? Did they have a petting zoo during the day? Weird. But figuring they just had some special event going on (a petting zoo to attract families with kids, maybe??) I brushed it aside.

Upon entering the store, we were greeted by a sales guy, who hurriedly hustled us around the store. It was huge! Lots of stuff to see... nice furniture to buy. A pretty decent place, I was thinking... that was, until I saw these in the middle of the store:

I kid you not. A huge cage full of monkeys sat in the middle of this store. When I asked the strange sales guy why there was a cage full of monkeys in his store, he shrugged and nonchalantly said: "They're our board of directors." At which point I was seriously contemplating the likelihood that transfiguration performed in Harry Potter was actually possible, and these poor monkeys actually WERE said board of directors, trapped under a spell by the evil sales guy. You can imagine then, that after my utter surprise at seeing a monkey cage in the middle of a furniture store, the large glass case full of these:

was not shocking in the least bit. The shareholders, perhaps?? Seems suspicious... Apparently the coral I saw out front housed ponies during the day... what the?? Am I the only one that finds this whole situation REALLY weird??

Although we did see a few couches at Gallery Furniture that we liked, the whole time we were there I couldn't help thinking that that the store was a part of some huge conspiracy I was missing out on. Like Hanzel and Grettle and the evil witch... who knew the Gingerbread house was just a trick? Or all those stone statutes in Medusa's garden... Percy Jackson and the Lightening Theif, anyone? If, in fact, the poor animals WERE real people trapped under a real life spell by evil furniture sellers, does that make me a co-conspirator for not trying to free them from the clutches of the story's wicked and coniving antagonist??

By the way, we DID happen to find new couches we liked. They're red (yesssss!) and they're being delivered tomorrow, horray!

And just because I know you're wondering, no, they did not come from the evil monkey store.

Updates!

2011-03-02T16:50:00.006-06:00

Well, what to say, what to say! So much has happened recently, and yet I feel--as many of you probably inexplicably often feel--that I have nothing to write about! Alas, I shall just have to conjure something up to the best of my ability.

Update #1: I took the bar.

It seems strange that something so dreaded and so unwelcome in my life was over so quickly. In a matter of three short days (which I realize, yes, is quite long for a single exam, but is still quite short in the scheme of things) my entire existence for the past three years (give or take a few months) was reduced to my performance on one simple exam. And yes, that "simple" exam contained over 12 hours of writing essays, performance tests and 6 hours of brutally hard multiple choice questions, it seems strange that my past three years of life are resting so solidly on the completely unpredictable pass/fail ratio of a three day exam! Yikes. I will know on May 13th whether or not I passed. For those of you thinking, "So long?!" I echo your sentiments, although I understand that with over 1,500 people in my testing room alone (not to mention the other room full of occupants and 5ish other testing sites around the state of California) I think I understand the length of time devoted to grading. For now, I'm trying to enjoy the blissfully free feeling of my pass/fail ignorance while adamantly praying I will not have to face that exam for round two (or three for that matter!)

Update #2: Drove to Texas!

Ignore the fact that Rob and I (okay, just me, really) were unable to capture the beauty of both ourselves and the "Welcome to Texas" sign in one picture. At least no one can say we didn't TRY to capture that moment! Also you should think about ignoring the not-so-stylish, I'm-traveling-so-haven't-showered-greasy-windblown hair I'm sporting. Not cute. In fact, why I'm even posting this picture is kind of a good question. Comic relief, perhaps? Anyway... we drove to Texas. Actually the trip started in Utah, which happened to be one of the snowiest days of the year. Which is obviously due to well-known Murphy's Law that states: what can go wrong will go wrong. As a result, we ended up taking the southern I-70 route from Utah to Nebraska to avoid the wintery I-80 Wyoming road conditions. Its a route I don't recommend taking if at all possible. The 11-12 hour drive took us an unanticipated 16-17 hours to complete. Ugh. Google maps SO lied. Anyway, in Nebraska we packed all our junk into a moving truck (which thankfully, we did not have to drive), saw friends, played with my sissy Lisa and began the track to Texas. The drive from Nebraska to Texas was slightly more leisurely... we splurged and did the 14 hour trip in two days instead of one. Heehee. On the way down we frequently eyed the car's temperature reading, which steadily crawled upward the closer we got south. Temperature upon arrival: 80 degrees. [Sigh].

Update #3: Moved into New Apartment.

Rob and I both bore the hopeful jitters of all those who decide to rent an apartment online, sight unseen. We were optimistic that all would be well, considering the apartment was only a year or so old and we were the FIRST tenants EVER!! (A first for me...I've lived in many ghetto student housing complexes where I more likely than not the one thousandth tenant). Thankfully, the apartment is, well, perfect. Soft, squishy carpet, brand new paint, very shiny new black appliances and even a security system to boot. Yes, we were quite pleased! In fact, the only thing I do NOT like about the apartment is the proximity to the freeway, which can be a little noisey in the master bedroom sometimes. But I'm sure with time, even that will fade into blissful background music. Rob--who originally questioned my selection--has since recanted his doubt and placed me in charge of finding apartments for the little sales reps that will be coming out to work this summer to work for him. I would send pictures of said amazing apartment, but owing to the fact that we were forced against our will by Rob's "Boss Man" to get to Texas two days early, the moving company was unable to accommodate the accelerated schedule and all our stuff has not even arrived yet. I would feel bad posting indecent pictures of our apartment's nakedness online and hence, the "where I live" pictures will have to wait until a later date.

Update #4: I'm reading a Book.

I usually devour books. Even in law school I found that despite my busy schedule, I still couldn't make books last long enough. I just went through them like candy. Or chocolate cake, which I probably eat more of. Any-who, bar study was different. In law school, you generally knew what what kind of effort you did and didn't have to put in to pass. The bar?? You never know if what you've done is enough. As a result, most bar preparers probably kill themselves OVER-studying (at least that's what I'm hoping I did... it would be tragic to learn that all that effort was actually LESS than required...) And as a result of THAT, I didn't read nearly as much. I was book starved. Thus on my trip to California, I read two books. I am Number Four (which is, of course, better than the movie, even though the movie was still quite good), and The Forgotten Garden, by Kate Morton. I'd never heard of her but after Googling the book I realized that she has actually published quite a few books. I am happy to report that I have LOVED the Forgotten Garden and will probably check out other titles she has written. There are no swords or dragons in this book, so any action-hungry guy will probably be sorely disappointed. But for those of the feminine persuasion that enjoy a good mystery, this is your book! Anyway, here's to hoping that with my new found freedom stretching across the horizon, I will soon have more books to blog about!

That's all for now! The highlights of my recent life wrapped up into 4 small updates! I'm sure there is more, but for now, that's all I can think of and as the sun is setting, I'm finding I'm a little chilly sitting out here on my Houston porch. Guess it DOES get a little cool here now and again ( :

I LOVE...

2011-02-13T17:31:00.024-06:00

YOU, because you are without a doubt the most epic partner in crime I have ever had...YOU, because I have never laughed so hard nor had such a good time flooding dormritories, playing hall tag, plotting, schemeing and causing an overall ruckus on BYU campus than I did with you four...YOU, for being the best roomate I EVER had (by far!), our mutual love of Pirates of the Carribean, your unconditional love and support, the sweet notes of encouragement I could always find after a bad day, and for sitting on that toilet slathered in icy hot...YOU, for being my home away from home, giving me diet coke, sharing your closets and for giving me memories that I will hold dear for the rest of my life...YOU, for being my Nash-Ga partner, the late nights we spent talking about missing our boys, all the fun we had abroad and at home, forcing Rob to propose in Paris, and for "HANDLE-ing" my entire wedding...YOU, for writing those letters I always looked forward to, being at every single family reunion I can remember and for being the best friend and cousin a girl could EVER ask for...YOU, for being so stinkin' cute, so stinkin' smart, so stinkin' sassy and for being so excited to see me every time I come home...YOU, for coming to see me and eating all my Otter pops this summer, for your crazy enthusiasm for life, for being such a tough guy and for your big bear hugs when I come through the door...YOU, for talking my ear off with the CUTEST stories every time I'm home, for your eagerness to share your talents with others and for a sweet spirit that never seems to dampen...YOU, for having such a kind heart, for being so thoughtful to your friends and family and for being such a good little ball player...YOU, for being so full of compliments, for being so responsible and grown up and for being such a beautiful example to everyone around you...YOU, for being so much like me, for making me laugh and for being equal parts sweet, handsome and studly...YOU, for all the late night chineese and chicken basket runs, the chick flicks, the upside-down mario kart tournaments and for your wonderfully ditzy moments that life just wouldn't be the same without..."Christina????"....YOU, for being such a great example of what a "good guy" is, for all our late night "girl" talks in high school, and for being my first best friend...YOU, because you are the best of what is good in our family, the glue that holds us together and for believing in me enough to force me into all that piano practice, I'll be forever greatful for all you've done...YOU, for reading every single paper I've ever sent you, for your wildly fantastic embarassing moment stories that get everyone rolling with laughter, and for being the dad that everyone wants and I get to have...And lastly, but certainly far from the least, I LOVE YOU, Rob...for being the kindest, most generous, loving, caring person I know. For making me laugh every day. For understanding me when I don't understand myself. And for being my very best friend in the entire world. I love you more than words can say!Happy Valentine's Day!

Weddings?! I love weddings! Drinks all around!

2011-02-09T15:33:00.013-06:00

Rob's cousin, Caroline, got hitched to a completely amazing, wonderful guy this weekend! We had a blast attending all her wedding festivities... despite all the awkwardness that came with running into one of Rob's ex's along the way (haha!) Here are a few pictures. Enjoy!

Caroline was absolutely gorgeous...she looked like Winter Bridal Barbie 2011!! Woot, woot!

Me and my niece, Princess Sophie... isn't she so cute?!Princess Sophie loves taking pictures...Um, and by the way... we kind of still love each other... teehee.

Water for Elephants Trailer 2011 HD

2011-02-04T13:04:00.003-06:00

Eeek! So excited for this film, guys! You might remember me blogging about the book a while back, and how excited I was that it was coming to the big screen... what can I say? Its one of my favorite books! The films is coming out in April, with Robert Pattinson (who, despite all the crap he gets for being a Twilight actor, can actually act quite well, I think [see Remember Me]) and Recee Witherspoon as Jacob Jankowski and Marlena Rosenbluth, the two leads. I was sorley disapointed when I discovered that Sean Penn didn't make the cut for August (Marlena's crazy husband) but I'm still so excited for the film. Check out the trailer... its so magical!

In other Media news, Disney is set to bring another favorite book of mine to film later on this year. I've also blogged about this in the past, so you might remember my post about The Help, by Kathryn Stockett.Its a fabulous story about a young writer in 1960's Missisippi, who defies the social norms of the day and writes a book about the way black women are treated in the south. Its inspiring and heartwarming. I loved reading it and I'm--once again--thrilled its coming to film! No trailers yet, but they'll be soon coming, I'm sure!

The thing about hair....

2011-01-26T10:31:00.009-06:00

...is that it gets REALLY annoying once it reaches a certain length. Sure, it can be beautiful (on those rare NON bad hair days). And true, people around you will try to convince you that you have some kind of social obligation to keep said long hair once you have it. But after rolling over onto it in your sleep, catching it in your zipper EVERY time you put on a jacket or coat, going through twice as many shampoo bottles and doubling the bathroom time in the morning, you get to the point where despite said ongoing obligation to society, you just can't take it anymore! A change is in order! Yesterday, I got to that point. Actually, I've wanted to do it for a while now, kind of a "Whoo raw! I graduated from law school!" kind of thing, but I just haven't gotten around to it. And then once I got around to it--and I knew that deep down I really wanted a change--I kept having these mental up and down battles of "Do I REALLY want to cut all this off?" It was hard. I get attached to my body parts, what can I say? Heehee. BUT, in the end, I decided to do it. But of course, not to let me off too easy, as I'm standing in line at the bank RIGHT before my appointment, a bank manager passes me and tells me "Oh your hair is so beautiful and long." Sure, bring on the guilt for passing on my social obligations. But don't worry, even THAT wasn't enough to make me recant my desire to redo my "do".

BEFORE

AFTER

I happen to LOVE this new look!! Short hair is so sassy! And, might I add... it feels WONDERFUL to have all this:

off the back of my neck!

Crafty-ness

2011-01-24T16:52:00.007-06:00

First of all, at no point did I ever claim to be the world's best seamstress... still, despite the obvious flaws in my mad sewing skilzz, I thought this turned out pretty goodish!Even though I am a died in the wool, true blue, through and through BYU fanatic, my mom thought I'd appreciate some memorabilia from my brief time hailing as Nebraska Husker. So she made me a Nebraska blankie! She didn't have time to tie it though (no surprise there, if she's trying to take on the making of 10+ quilts for Christmas!)so I finished tying it just the other day. She actually made one for Rob too, which has not been tied (on account of I made too many mistakes on the first Nebraska blankie and went through a whole bundle of thread re-tying it). However, Rob looked so puppy doggishe and forlorn when he gazed longingly on the BYU blankies she made for Scott and David Christmas morning, that I got the extra fabric from my mom to make Rob a BYU blankie too. Something tells me that Rob won't be using the Nebraska blankie all that much....

But on that crafty Nebraska note, I also made this for Shleesha:You have no idea how much glitter was shed from those strips of tulle in the making of this tutu. I was quite literally covered from head to foot in a coat of red and white glitter. Luckily, some of said glitter remains on said awesome tutu for an extra piz-aaaz of sparkly flare! Lisa will pretty much be the most stylish thing since Herby Husker at next season's football games.

Another Lisa-ism

2011-01-23T18:27:00.003-06:00

Lisa called me with another funny/embarrassing moment this week. Bless her for calling me about these things! It gives me something to blog about!

This particular moment happened while she was enduring a Spanish tutorial from a friend. During the tutorial, Lisa was trying her darndest to remember what the word "cabesa" was. For the life of her, she could not remember it, although she knew it was one of those words you learn in high school Esponol one-oh-one and should have remembere it. (Its "head" for all you wondering). Lisa, perplexed, asked her friend to use it in a sentence, so he said:

"Estas loca en la cabesa."
(You are crazy in your head)

Lisa furrowed her brows, and after trying out several WRONG answers yelled:

"BED!!!"

Her friend burst out laughing. Poor, innocent little Lisa still didn't understand exactly what she said until her friend said:

"You are crazy in bed??!"

Lisa was mortified.

Ah, sissy... I sure do love you!

Talks

2011-01-12T20:03:00.005-06:00

Nevermind that we haven't been in the ward more than a week. Or that there are hundreds of other possible candidates for speaking. Or that we'll be leaving this fair state in less than a month. Rob and I are giving talks on Sunday.

How did they even notice us sneak in??

Did I mention that this ward vomits into the overflow of the chappel EVERY Sunday? I'm not talking a few late stragglers here and there... no. A good half the gym is COMPLETELY filled. It feels like I'm in stake conference.

Do you think we might be in Utah??

Its a little nerve-wracking to think about speaking in front of a stake-conference-sized crowd of strangers.

I also have NO idea what I'm going to talk about. Usually I don't have this problem. I just slap together a bunch of stories from someone ELSE's life, squeeze in an inspiring poem or two and wrap it up with a little carisma. Voila! Instant talk! But this week the subject is on "How your service in the church has brought you closer to your Savior Jesus Christ."

Errrrr....

Memo to new bishop: I hate service!! No joke... I accept callings because every time I think aobut getting up enough nerve to REJECT one, I hear my mother's guilt ridden voice in my head telling me callings come from the Lord and that saying no is like giving a big fat slap in the face to the man upstairs. Hence, I just don't reject. BUT... if it was up to me I would just sit quietly in the back and twiddle my thumbs all through sacrament meeting and slip out the door before Sunday School, thank you very much. Easy schmeasy. So you can see how I don't have a lot of fodder for talk.

Rob said I should just try saying that I hate service. Riiiiight. That would go over well.

However, I DID just finished reading Harry Potter 7, and since I have nothing better to talk about during church, perhaps I'll just think of a way of how to incorporate HP into a talk about service. There's gotta be a connection in there somewhere...

Yee Haw!

2011-01-09T12:02:00.002-06:00

Last night we celebrated Rob's brother Dave's big three-oh birthday. As a part of the festivities, we went country swing dancing! Whoot, whoot! It has been FAR too long since I've been dancing and besides the new faces, that little dinky place on 5th and Freedom (you know which one I'm talking about, Provoites) hasn't changed a bit! It was SO much fun! I felt slightly lumpy and out of shape, though, when I about died trying to dance through ONE song! It was vaguley pathetic. I'm vowing to stay in better shape for the next time we go. My brother's Mark and Paul tagged along for the event. Although Rob and I were having a BLAST, Paul was NOT enthused to be country swing dancing. Never mind the fact that his big bulky line backer frame could EASILY pass as a 20-somethin' RM and the place was swarming with hot girls. Mark, on the other hand, took FULL advantage of said girls and was dancing until the very last dance (much to Paul's dismay, who became more and more disgruntalled as the night went on). I don't think Paul realizes the opportunity he has here... I mean, with his muscles?? Puh-leeeeease. He could easily toss a girl up in the air with nothin' but his pinky finger. Memo to Paul: chicks dig sweet moves.

The week hasn't been all fun and games, though. Lately, I've been putting in a good 5-8 hours a day studying for the bar. Most in the house feel that is excessive and Rob n' fam have been trying desperately to get me to stop studying as much, saying I'll burn out at that rate. Riiiight. As if I could just walk into the bar and pass it without blinking an eye. Not happening. This test is ridic, just in case you were wondering. I'm starting to wonder if I just need to start memorizing the ENTIRE BARBRI outline book. I'm freakin' out here! I can't wait til March....

Any-who... until next time!

Tee Hee

2011-01-02T12:23:00.002-06:00

I just thought this pic of my Sissy was too good NOT to post...Remember when I said Lisa gave me a seemingly endless supply of fodder for hungry bloggers? See what I mean?! My blog will be useless without her!

By the way, this is Lisa Christmas morning after she stole Lindsey's tutu and started wearing it around. You should have seen her crushed expression after mom made her take it off, for fear of stretching it out. No worries, Sissy, I'll make you a tutu too!

By the way...

2010-12-30T21:46:00.013-06:00

I graduated! Feel free to call me Julie T. Baker Hansen, Esquire from now on. Muahahahaha! I've basically decided to make it a new fad for law school grads to actually use their hard-earned suffix! Haha ( : This is a pic of Rob and I doing the happy dance. Said happy dance will be much more happier in March after the stinkin, rotten, stupid, no good bar is over and done with... BUT... for the moment, graduation from law school required at least a small happy dance! Here are a few pics from graduation... of course, just when you want your camera to work is the time it DOESN'T work, so many of the pictures taken were blurry. These were the acceptable ones and I'll be ordering more from the pro photo guy who was flashin' everyone with his camera later. But for now, this is what you get!Recieving my diploma after getting hooded. Told you the photos were blurry. Smiling for the camera!December grads! There were actually about twice as many as this, but we were the only ones who wanted to dress up all fancy schmancy for a ceremony. The way I figure it?? I sacrificed sweat, blood and tears for that degree... you betchya I want to get my hood!Professor Gardner and I. He was the faculty professor in charge of the J. Reuben Clark Law Scociety with me.My fan club!Me and my sissies!They posted the names of all the graduates on the electronic announcement board in the law school. Whoopee! That's my name! (Although they left out the Baker part... grrr).Mary Barber and I at graduation. We bonded the first week of contracts... law school was never the same after that!

Anyway, that's the that on Graduation. About a million other things have happened before, during and since then... Thanksgiving, moving, Christmas, a wedding, you know... all that sort of stuff that requires a blog update or two. BUT it probably won't happen... I've basically given up on catching up. Sadly--barring some crazy event were I get either really bored or really ambitious--entries will probably just start here and go onward!

Memo to the blogging community: I am now back on the social networking scene! Hooray!

MIA

2010-12-09T19:45:00.001-06:00

Don't worry, I'll be back after finals.

Expiration Date: Nov. 4, 2010

2010-11-21T16:55:00.002-06:00

I just ate a thing of yogurt with that expiration date.

It totally tasted like lime yogurt... was it supposed to tasted like something else?

I'll let you know if I throw up said lime yogurt later. Yum!

Hilarious!

2010-11-18T17:18:00.001-06:00

Harry Potter Cast tries to speak "America."

Movie Trailers - Movies Blog

Where We're Headed...

2010-11-15T11:53:00.005-06:00

We finally got our location for Rob's new job (horray!) After graduation we will be headed to....

Houston, Texas!!Rob will begin training for his new job in January in Salt Lake City. This will be for about a month or two (depending on how fast he picks it up). We will be camping out with the inlaws for a few weeks while this takes place, which should be pretty fun. And then after training, we're headed to Texas for a year! Niether Rob or I have ever lived in or even visited Texas, so we're pretty excited about this opportunity to experience new things! After our brief stop over in Texas, we will be headed to Los Angeles:Which will be our "permanent" location. Permanent is relative, though, since we obviously reserve the right to change our plans at any time for any reason ( :

Anyway, thought you all would appreciate the update!

Halloween Weekend

2010-11-10T13:17:00.020-06:00

In my crusade to keep my blog more updated, I decided I should probably get going and post the pictures from our Halloween weekend.

Rob has been traveling a lot recently. One of his trips was schedueled to take him to Salt Lake City at the end of October. Sick and tired of being left behind, I insisted on accompanying him! (Okay, actually it was HIS idea, he's such a sweetie!) So we bought me a plane ticket, packed our bags for the weekend and headed out west for some much needed R & R.

It started off with this:

It was $15 extra for a camero upgrade at the rental car place... honestly, what's a guy to do??Rob was quite thrilled. Here's me wanting in on the "hot car" action too:

We stayed at Rob's parents house. Ever wanting to bribe the grandkids into coming to stay, Gram and Gramp Hansen have built this monstronsity in their backyard:

For those of you thinking "Oh, cool, a treehouse!" Think again. Its more of a tree "boat" or a tree "pirate ship."

I'm certain there are probably some zoning violations somewhere along the line, but regardless, you have to admit, this is COOL!

I'm certain the use of this tree pirate ship will be employeed by more than just Hansen grandkids... 5 bucks says next summer Hansen family reunion will find Rob and Dave camping out up there. They might up cmaping out under the premis of "babysitting" the little kids sleeping up there, but make no mistake they'd be up there, babysitting or not. (Rob has a secret obsession with Swiss Family Robinson).

And what's a trip to Utah without a little J-Dawgs? On Friday, Rob and I went down to Provo to visit my little brother Mark, studying at BYU. We all went out for some good ol' J-Dawgs and were shocked that the "dawgs" were no longer housed in the little red shack, but had upgraded to a spiffy new building. (An actual buidling... for J-Dawgs... can you believe it?!) This is all three of us standing in frong of the poor, lonely red shack.

The food was delicious, of course! Mark ate two whole J-Dawgs, half of mine and insisted he could probably eat one or two more. I stopped betting against Mark and his stomach when I lost a bet to him at age 10, when he ate an entire chicken at Disneyland. Still, it never ceases to amaze me how much my brother can pound down! Even when at my BYU graduation he ate an entire length of party sub sandwhich (him and Rob were competiting) and then still had room for a huge slab of chocolate cake. Oh, and yes, he's still a skiny twig. Ever notice how the skinny twigs eat like line backers??

Later, we carved pumpkins. Mine was clearly the scariest:

Look at that face... if that doesn't strike terror into small children sleeping at night, I don't know what will! Rob and Mom Hansen had good pumpkins too, although the pictures didn't turn out quite as well:

I also helped my sister in law Amy decorate the totally awesome play house in their front yard (from which trick or treaters got their goods Halloween night). I thought the house was so cute all decorated:

We had a good time handing out goodies to trick or treaters. It was the first time I'd ever really done that! It was so fun to see all those cute kids all dressed up!

On Sunday we went down to Springville for the baby blessing of the twins, my niece and nephew, Sophie and Jonathan. They were just too stinkin' cute! I couldn't get a picture of both of them together (Jonathan was NOT cooperating) but I got a few cute pictures of them separately:

It was a VERY fun weekend! Our time was packed, so the "R&R" I spoke of earlier didn't actually really happen. We probably came back to Nebraska more tired than when we left, BUT we certainly had a good time!!

New owner of a...

2010-11-01T16:35:00.003-05:00

Smart phone.Do I know how to use it?? Absolutely not! But it LOOKS pretty spiffy...

What would I do without my sissy?

2010-10-25T11:23:00.006-05:00

I don't know what I'm going to do when Rob and I move away and Lisa no longer lives with us. I believe my blog will truly suffer. This is because Lisa is just FULL of plenty of funny (she would say "embarrasing") stories to write about (remember the burned boiled eggs??). When I move away I'll really have to put in the extra effort to keep up on the embarrassing story circuit. Her latest funny story involves this injury: We were making chicken curry last Sunday. Lisa was supposed to be steaming the chicken, carrots and onions in the big pot. The lid was on and the pot was steaming. I turn around for five seconds and all the sudden there is this huge crash as the pot lid falls to the flour. I turn around to find my sister half laughing half crying and holding her arm in pain.

Me: "Lisa! What happened?!"
Lisa: "I burned myself!"
Me [confused]: "How?"
Lisa: "I don't want to tell you, you'll laugh at me!"
Me: [death glare]
Lisa: "I wanted to make the pot look like a dragon."
Me: "Eh??"
Lisa: "Well, if I opened the lid just a crack, all the steam would come on the one side, and it'd look like a mouth blowing fire. Like a dragon!!"

Oh dear.

For those of you who don't quite get the visual, she wanted to make the pot look like this:Don't worry, I didn't quite get it at first either.

Apparently in the process of cracking the lid in order to make the pot spew steam like a dragon, Lisa burned her arm. Heehee. I know I should feel sorry that she has a huge burn on her arm, but I just can't stop laughing!

And in light of Lisa's mishap with the dragon lid, and this picture I took of Rob:I gotta wonder... are we all really just kids at heart?!

Alms for the Poor?

2010-10-11T18:42:00.004-05:00

I'm thinking about starting up a collection... the "Help-Julie-Pay-For-Her-Astronomical-Bar-Application" fund.Seriously? $450 bucks just to process my Moral Character application? $700 more to take the bar?? That's not even including prep course fees (we won't go there, it's depressing). I'm thinking of selling a kidney. Anyone with black market connections is welcome to step forward. Until then, grocery bill, you ARE on the line for this month... and next month... hell, maybe forever!

Sorry for all the complaining. The bar application process will be over soon and you will not have to listen to me anymore.

Picture Vomit

2010-10-02T17:03:00.018-05:00

Here are a whole bunch of pictures I just haven't had the time to upload until today. Enjoy!

I'm sorry Sherie and Trent, but Rob IS a Yankees fan ( : Luckily, the Yankees happened to be playing the Kansas City royals ON his birthday, so I took him to a game:

Unfortunately, it was a bad weekend for weather. After the game was delayed for rain three times, we finally left. Those other pictures were snapped JUST as the rain began. This is what the field looked like most of the time we were there:

You can't see it very well, but it happens to be POURING! Luckily, Rob was still able to enjoy his funnel cake:

Although the game was rained out and--unfortunately--the Yankees ended up losing, we still had a grand time in Kansas City. We stayed in this adorable little bed and breakfast and spent the next day shopping and sight seeing in KA City. Here's a picture of us in front of the art museum:

Later, we enjoyed cake and ice cream with friends back at our apartment in Lincoln! Yum!

In other news, Rob FINALLY talked me into reading glasses. I refused for so long because--of course--glasses are for OLD people!! But when my headaches wouldn't go away, I finally decided to give it a shot. He dragged me down to Walgreens and I picked out the cutest, NON-old person glasses I could find. Lucky me, I haven't had a headache problem since! An appointment with the eye doctor is pending.

We also had a big project sanding and staining one of our bookcases. This wasn't NEARLY as backbreaking and time consuming as the table we stained in April (didn't get pictures of it, but Lisa and I definitely did all the work on that one!! Rob was a lazy butt...) but it still took the better part of a Saturday. Here's the before:

And the after... TA DA!!

Pretty spiffy, eh? Yeah, I thought so too!

And, as it does EVERY fall season, the TV now seems to be on non-stop every Saturday for college football game day. I love my Cougars, I always will, but I have to admit the game day excitement is quickly losing its luster for me. ESPECIALLY after that heart braking, embarrassingly painful game yesterday against the Aggies. I probably won't show my head in public for a while, but nonetheless, we still love our boys in blue:

The Huskers, on the other hand, seem to be rolling pretty high on the hog, which makes miss Lisa quite happy, thank you very much: We went to her homecoming parade last weekend and I enjoyed snapping and editing pictures of her in her band uni.

I couldn't help feeling like my dad, though... I remember my good ol' days in the BYU Marching Band and seeing my dad scramble down the sidewalk trying to keep up with the parade march so he could snap pictures of me. Funny now I'm the one scrambling to keep up! Rob and I had a good time supporting Lisa:

And Lisa and I had a good time goofing off afterwards! I love you, Sissy!

Anyway, that's about it picture wise! Right now Rob is pretty busy with work. He'll be traveling quite a bit during October (I'm jealous!), while I'm pretty busy with law school, applying for the bar, editing my book AND tackling cub scouts (my new calling). There's hardly a dull moment around here anymore! We love it! I'll try not to let it go too long without posting pictures from now on ( :

Dear ABA, I hate your stinkin' guts...

2010-09-22T16:57:00.005-05:00

I'm slowly growing to hate the American Bar Association and all its silly antics to get us poor lowly law students educated, registered and enrolled to take the bar. Everything from the BARBRI monopoly over good study materials to the extremely invasive background application to fill out before I can even take the test is just ridiculous. Did I mention I was fingerprinted before I could take the LSAT?! Yes. Quite ridiculous. Do I even need to start mentioning the legal geniuses in our country's history who never so much as sat through a law class? Now-a-days its jump through the hoop after hoop after hoop full of background checks that are more invasive than one of those bloody tests that sticks a rod up the you-know-where, and thousands of dollars of student debt just to get a reputable degree.

They're probably even monitoring this blog post right now... I guess if I get booted from law school tomorrow for a "lack of moral character" you'll know why...

Ridiculous.

Remembering

2010-09-11T20:08:00.003-05:00

It was early. I mean like REALLY early... at least it felt really early, and as I look back on it I can't believe that I habitually forced myself to go through those early-morning rituals. But I did. It was early, and I was at marching band practice. It was a Tuesday, so we were at the Holt Arena. For those of you who don't know, the Holt Arena in Pocatello Idaho was the first indoor, enclosed football arena for college football and the second overall (right behind the Huston Astrodome). Anyway, early morning practices on Tuesdays and Thursdays were extra early, since we had to beat the ISU football team to practice. I seem to remember having a call time of around 5:45 a.m. Perhaps the early practice was why most of us totally missed the inital drama...

The actual practice was normal. Nothing out of the ordinary. We warmed up, marched, set drill and worked the kinks out of our show. We had a competition coming up so it was nearing crunch time. Around 7:30ish, our practice ended. I must have been listening to a CD... I don't remember hearing anything on the radio, which I'm sure I would have if it had been on. I remember racing another boy back to school. I can't remember who won, but it was fun. Just another day.

My first period was Spanish with "El" Senior Bell. I walked into the room and noticed the t.v. was on--it was odd. I don't ever remember walking into a class before that and seeing the t.v. on. I distinctly remember walking into the room and plopping my bag down onto the floor with a plunk and staring at the t.v. Senior Bell was writing something on the board and he turned to look at me starring at that t.v. with the oddest expression on his face... like he expected me to comment on the t.v. program... like I would have some profound opinion on whatever was going on. Looking back now I expect that he thought everyone already knew. Which, of course, I didn't.

Honestly, the biggest emotion I felt was confusion. As Senior Bell watched me--waiting for me to say something, expecting me to say something--I sat there staring at that television wondering what the heck replay movie Senior Bell was playing, because I definitely didn't remember any burning World Trade Centers from any of my history classes. I was wondering how I missed that lesson in all my 15 years of life.

That's when I saw the little word at the bottom of the screen that said "live."

It was about that point I finally did say something. It wasn't profound. It was in disbelief.

"What is this? Is this live?!"

He nodded with a somber expression on his face and told me of how early that morning two terrorist had hijacked some air planes and run them into the World Trade Centers. I was shocked. Dumfounded. I couldn't believe what I was hearing. Wasn't it just a year ago that I stood atop those building in awe at their height, beauty and the sheer genius it took to build such incredible masterpieces? Wasn't it just mere months before that my brother and dad stood in those buildings? As the day unfolded I watched in horror as those masterpieces crumbled to the ground in a shower of debrie, choking black smoke and flame. I couldn't believe what I was seeing. Questions surged through my mind.... Why? Who were those awful terrorists? Why did they hurt all those people? What if that had been me? What if it had been my family? But mostly just why.

I suspect we will all remember where we were and what we were doing on that fateful day in American history. In time we'll be able to look back and tell our children what happened and tell them that, "Yes, I lived through that." I knew so-and-so who was killed that day. I felt the pain of recovery as the nation mourned our great loss. I felt the hope as it pulled us together for a brief time. I remember the heros that immerged that day and in the days passing--those who went bravely in, while everyone else was trying to get out. We each have a story from that day. And we each remember it in our own way.

I don't know why I tell my story today, I guess its just my way of remembering.... my way of reminding myself of the percariousness of life and remembering lives lost and the heros who came forward on September 11, 2001. May we never forget.

"We here highly resolve that these dead shall not have died in vain; that this nation shall have a new birth of freedom; and that this government of the people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish from the earth." Abraham Lincoln, Gettysburg Address, 1863

Incredible

2010-09-09T10:18:00.001-05:00

This moved me to tears.

Rise and Shout!

2010-09-06T11:38:00.002-05:00

Its that time of year again, Cougar fans!!

Rob has been eagarly counting down the days until college football like a little kid waiting for Christmas. He's glad its finally here so he can happily veg in front of the T.V. all day Saturday, completely saturating himself in football. I'M glad its hear so I don't have to hear the count down anymore! But we're BOTH glad its here because we LOVE BYU football!

Go COUGS!

Book Updates

2010-09-03T08:40:00.004-05:00

Still posting updates on my book blog! I'm getting much better at writing and soliciting agents and publishers... I really feel like I'm getting the hang of it. Sometimes while I'm editing, I'll find myself getting lost in my book, even though I already know the storyline front to back. Makes me feel like publication is a LOT closer! Very exciting stuff!

And in other book related news, if you STILL haven't picked up the Hunger Games (even though I've recommended it AT LEAST a dozen times on my blog) GO READ THEM NOW!!! Third and final installment just came out on Tuesday last week. The Mockingjay:Was a fabulous ending to a fabulous series. If you haven't read them yet, get on it! You will not be dispointed, I promise!

4 Years and Counting!

2010-08-22T12:50:00.007-05:00

Today is Rob and I's 4th anniversary!!Horray for surviving 4 years of...

..........flowers "just because"............

......."I love you" notes tucked in my sock drawer....

........the man who will politely put up with being second place (next to my teddy bear) as my cuddle buddy at night....

............my biggest fan.......

.......the guy who enjoys cooking dinner more than I do.....

.........footrubs.......

........a man who actually OFFERED to take me to the midnight showing of Twilight....

.....the same guy who actually read all 4 books of Twilight.....

......laughing til I cry.......

....and to my best friend in the ENTIRE universe!! I love you with the kind of kiss-til-it-hurts-cry-my-eyes-out-when-you're-not-around-foot-stoppin'-bear-hugging-his-and-hers-towels kind of love, babsey! Here's to another 4 great years to come!!

Vampires Suck

2010-08-09T15:05:00.008-05:00

Don't get me wrong, I love Bella, Edward and--okay, fine--Jacob as much as the next hormonally charged teenage girl... but I can also appreciate a good spoof, and this one looks hilarious! For some reason, the screen doesn't fit perfectly onto my blog, but I think you'll get the idea...

Vampires Suck Trailer

You can also see the trailer here: http://www.vampiressuckmovie.com/

All the girls were jealous of me today...

2010-08-02T22:36:00.005-05:00

Cause Rob sent me flowers!! His reasoning? He missed me!
*Swoon*

Probably don't even need to say this, BUT...

2010-07-28T20:52:00.002-05:00

This was a FANTASTIC movie! I highly recommend it. Five bucks to whoever can figure out the ending. Heehee. Jk!

A LONG post!

2010-07-24T21:50:00.053-05:00

Crazy how time flies! One minute you're like "Oh yeah... what a long summer I have ahead of me," and the next you're lookin' around thinking "What the freak?! It's the end of July?!" And then in the same breath realize that you haven't posted anything on your blog... in like... yeah... FOREVER! So this is for you Karen... hopefully you haven't removed me from said blog list yet ( : heehee. Here is my summer in review:

My Wittle baby brudder, Elder Mark Ensio Baker returned home from his mission in May from the San Jose California Mission (shoot! Has it really been since MAY that I posted something?!):

We've enjoyed torturing him as he's adjusted from the post-mission weirdness. Hehe. Whoever said big sisters were nice?

My OTHER baby brudder graduated from high school. He was valedictorian, by the way, Mr. Smartie pants, with a 4.5 somethin' GPA. Gave the whole speech at graduation and everything. Yeah, I know, sick, right?

As a side note, these baby brudders are suddenly looking not so babyish anymore. I can't believe how old it makes me feel that PAUL is graduated from high school! EEeks! He'll be leaving in less than a week to start school at Eastern Arizona on a football scholarship. Sniffle, sniffle. My baby brudder is all grown up!

Oh, and by the way, said baby brudder graduated on my birfday... which... ROB WAS HERE FOR!! What a sweetie! He drove all the way out from Nebraska for my big two-four and made it in time for graduation. Awh!

For my birthday, Rob and I stayed at the Lion's Gate Manor. Its this freakin' sweet house up in the middle of beautiful Idaho mountains at Lava hot springs. The rooms are all themed, and Rob and I stayed in the Phantom of the Opera. It was amazing! We had a very good time enjoying the hot springs and our freakin' sweet room... which was complete with a mirror with a phantom behind it. Kind of creepy, but very cool at the same time ( :

(By the way... bad hair day for this particular pic... ignore the frumpiness, it was a late night... heehee)

Nat and her hubby Steve also came up from Utah JUST for my birfday! Okay... not really. They actually came to hear Mark's homecoming talk... BUT... I like to pretend they came just for me! As always, our time together was much too short! But Nat and I had some good times making cookies on Sunday, which were delicious Sour Cream Chocolate Chip yumminess!!

In other happenings, I had a slew of mice that fell into my window well and subsequently DIED in said window well (seven, to be exact). The fearless leader in the mice escipades all started with this little guy, whom Lisa and I named "Chester": There was also Cherish, Chex, Charlie, and Charlotte... we finally stopped naming after a while... there were just too many to keep track of! They were cute, but very stinky after dead. Luckily, I think I've finally fixed the problem because there have not been any mice sightings in over a month. (Knock on wood).

I also DE-junked the boxes I've had stashed at my parent's house for the past 6ish years or so since high school graduation. For those of you who know me, you know that I'm quite the pack rat.... I couldn't believe some of the junk I kept! This is me in front of only SOME of the trash:And here are some of the more interesting items discovered in the boxes... INCLUDING my wedding boquet, which, by the way, looked like something straight out of Charles Dickin's Great Expectations:
Also, in other news, my Dad finally reached the big five-oh! Woot, woot! We all wore black and went out to dinner. Haha!

Paul also had a birthday. 18... YIKES!!Natalie and Lindsey thought it would be nice to give Paul nail polish and braclets for his birthday... heehee. But not to dissapoint them, Paul, of course, graciously accepted his presents! Hopefully it didn't scar his big tough football image TOO bad!
And possibly the WORST part of the summer was my implant surgery. Ick. And please, no judging these pics... I was on drugs at the time!

Luckily, I got to see Rob for a second time this summer at a Hansen family reunion in Utah. The Hansen clan is starting to expand a little... hard to get everyone together now-a-days! But this time, everyone made it except Sara, who is serving a "mish" in Georgia. Here's some pictures from the reunion:
What fun times to be with family and see Rob again! Our 4th was WAY too short!

In other news, I've gone to a few wedding receptions, played with friends, gone to All Star/All State football AND baseball games for both Paul AND David repectively and just generally enjoyed being home for a summer. Here are a few more random pics:

Sooooo anyway, as you can see, it's been an eventful summer! I've had an enjoyable time, but I think it goes without saying that I can't wait for it to end!! I miss Rob WAY too much! Two weeks, five days and counting...

Until next time! (Which hopefully will NOT be two months from now!)

Memo to the World:

2010-07-20T20:50:00.001-05:00

Yes, I AM still alive.

Cookie of the Week

2010-05-23T22:28:00.008-05:00

Okay, today I actually have TWO cookies of the week. I didn't post last week's cookie out of pure laziness. And I almost didn't do two blog posts this week out of the same said laziness. But I decided to suck it up and post it.

Rob and I got this fabulous cookie cook book for our wedding that we've yet to really use. Occasionally we'll break it out, but its never really recievced the love and care that it should. Hence, I brought the cookie cook book to Pocatello with me this summer, and Lisa and I decided to make a new cookie each Sunday. Last Sunday's cookie was the Soft, Spicey Molassas Cookie:

This week's cookie was the Coconut Cream Cheese Cookie:

We've been lucky two weeks in a row... normally my cookies look horrible! But these were very photogenic... not to mention they were absolutely declisious too. Stay tuned next Sunday for Sour Cream Chocolate Chip cookies... David picked it out ( :

Time passes slowly...

2010-05-23T21:07:00.018-05:00

...but only when you want it to go fast. I never knew how long one week really was!

But don't worry, there was only ONE emotional "I-miss-Rob" break-down moment this week. And several factors probably played into that besides just plain sappniess. One of those factors was that I had just finished watching Gone with the Wind (an INREDIBLY sad movie... I mean seriously, Scarlet, way to screw up your life!) and I was exahusted. Those factors combined, along with the countdown on my wall displaying WAY too many empty hearts (I color in a heart every day til I go home) just made for an emotional night. But I count myself lucky that there was only ONE emotional night!

Other than the lonliness that inevitable follows when you're separated from your BBF for life it was a pretty good week! I started a new job... and with that of course, came all the stresses and awkward moments that come with new jobs. Other than calling my boss--whom I affectionately refer to as "Boss Man"--"mean" (yes, I really did call him "mean" to his face) I'd say I'm off to a pretty good start! I did find out that I absolutely HATE mediation (long boring hours on end trying to come up with a settlement agreement... I mean really... two lawyers trying to agree on something... oh yeah, it takes FOREVER!) And I truly cheris my lunch break (I hate sitting for hours on end... its rough and my breaks are sacred!) Also, my most favorite room in the building is one that I like to call the "pop room." Filled with boxes and boxes of every kind of beverage you can imagine, it's all there and its all free whenever I want it. Cuts down significantly on my Diet Coke bill. Heehee.

Here are also a couple pictures I took this week from David's baseball game and Lindsy's dance recital:

And in other news, my brother Mark comes home from his mission in San Jose California on TUESDAY! Can you believe its been two years? I can't. Sheesh. But is it lame that I'm more excited to see Rob on Thursday than I am to see my brother on Tuesday? Its only been ten-ish days since I've seen Rob, but I'm much more excited to see him on my birfday weekend than I am to see my baby brudder, whom I haven't seen for two years. Sorry, Mark! I'm just in wuv with my Robbie Baby!!

Unfortunately, I have a sinking suspicion that this weekend with Rob is going to go by MUCH faster than this week did. Grrr. Stupid time!

The first day of a Looooong summer...

2010-05-15T22:15:00.007-05:00

I've been absent from the blogging arena for a while. But you already know that. Finals are sort of an all-emcompasing event that greatly effect both your pre AND post final activities. BEFORE finals you're so busy studying that you don't really have the time for anything else (or else you just don't want to spend the precious free time that you have doing silly things like blogging! Sleep is better...) and AFTER finals you're so preoccupied binging on laziness that you literally don't get out of bed for anything! But I'm back, dear friends! I know, you were worried...

Anyway, today marks the beginning of a VERY long summer for me. For a variety of reasons that I won't bother getting into right now, I was unable to get a job in Nebraska. However, I did manage to score quite a nice internship in Pocatello. The pay was good, the experience was good, just about the only thing that was NOT good was the location! Still, it was too good to pass up. So for the next 91 days (yes, I'm counting) I will be working in Idaho. Flying solo. Rob-free. Gah. This sucks.

Still, it IS fun to see the fam. They were very sweet welcoming me home! After a ridiculously scary flight into SLC airport (lots of turbulents!) my in-laws spoiled me with Mexican food, pedicure and a movie (Robbin Hood). Then it was off to Idaho! As I walked in the front door, I was welcomed with screeches of "Julie! Julie! JULIE!" Lets be honest, its hard NOT to be tickled pink when a bunch of cute little kids are excited to see you! There were welcome banners on the front door, my bedroom door and a ridiculously awesome "Robbie countdown" on my bedroom wall. Here are a few pics from the first day of my loooong summer:

Cool "welcome home" banner on the front door

The parent's casa... my home away from home for the summerPretty tulips in the front yardDan the dog... what a big nose you have, Dan.. All the better for smelling with! Heehee.And my personal favorite... my Robbie countdown... mom's idea and expertly executed by her and Sylvi! Thanks guys! You're the best!!!

Wish me luck! 91 days and counting...

Every once in a while I get it in my head to do a crazy thing...

2010-04-24T23:23:00.001-05:00

Like audition for Glee.

Check me out here!

Gold stars are appreciated.

Sharing the Love

2010-03-29T17:34:00.005-05:00

As always, I feel the need to share the love on some of the literary works of genius I've recently come across. If you're looking for something to break up the boring monotony of life, try a book! Here are a couple good ones I've read recently:

The first is Bloodroot, by Amy Greene

And the second is called The Help, by Kathryn StockettBoth are first time, debut authors, who have defied the odds and gone and gotten themselves on the best seller lists! I feel a weird connection to people like that... When I hear about the success of first time authors I want to point and say: "See! See! Look! People CAN do it!" Or more appropriately: "See, look if they can do it, so can I!" In any event, if you need a good read, I highly recommend both of these works. They are fabulous!

A fantastic, wonderful, crazy, so-good, very-awesome week!

2010-03-29T16:41:00.023-05:00

(Not to be confused with a "terrible, horrible, no-good, very-bad day"!!)

Okay... time for me to fess up about Rob and I's totally hectic week! I shall preface this post by stating that we live on the 2nd floor of a 3 story apartment building, with neighbors to our right, our left, above us and below us. Our particular apartment, #208, has ONLY 2 bedrooms, and was--for some strange reason unknown to us--built with extremely thin walls and floors.

Getting the picture?

Okay, now put 11 people into it for a week.

There were people on the love sac...

people in front of the TV...people on the couch...playing cards on the porch...and eating on the floor...

(There were also sleeping people stuffed into various closets and storage facilities as well, although I failed to document those adequately.)

Needless to say, our little apartment took some abuse. (Luckily there were two bathrooms... although that factor did not solve the lack of hot water problem...) To be fair, the fam ended up getting a hotel after their short jaunt to MO to see church sites, and that did help with the noise control. But it was still hectic!!However, the abuse our poor apartment took was NOTHING compared to the abuse our poor neigh boors suffered. I had to keep reminding my parents that I had to live in the same building as these people after they went home, and eventually the gravity of this situation set in... however not before the whole building was forced to go buy ear plugs in order to sleep through the Wii tournaments that were taking place 24/7.

It was an adventure, to say the least! My dear family decided to take their spring break in Lincoln Nebraska this year! Why Lincoln Nebraska? I have no idea! See when I think spring break, I think sun tan lotion, sand and margaritas... but spring break has many faces. For some its a dreary cold March day in Nebraska... see how cool I am?! I attract people wherever I go! Heehee. Just kidding... of course. This trip was especially fun for me because my little baby brudder Paul even showed up for the spring break road trip...

This is quite a great accomplishment in and of itself since Paul is usually too busy stuck in a musty weight room with a bunch of butt-slapping boys training for football to come on any family vacations.

We had fun going to the zoo, going out to eat, playing card games and sword fighting with Rob's nerf swords. But the undeniable highlight of the trip were the Wii tournaments! Mom won't let David and Scott get their own Wii (can't imagine why!), so they thoroughly gorged themselves in high tech digital gaming for a good chunk of the time. Rob was delighted to have Wii buddies... apparently I don't show enough interest in it for his taste!

Here are a few more pics from the week:

The fearless leader... and his apprentices...Sylvi's closed captioning: "Like what, seriously?"

We love you family! It was a crazy, hectic outta this world kind of week, but the funny memories will last forever, and we're glad you came! ( :

Happy Days!

2010-03-14T17:48:00.000-05:00

Scan the Book Blog for good news! (Link to the right!)

Something I've been getting quite good at...

2010-03-08T22:28:00.006-06:00

Banana BreadWhich is basically another way of saying that I'm really bad at eating my bananas before they go rotten. Still, its the one good thing about salvaged, otherwise-unedible fruit! Yum!

Sisters

2010-03-08T22:14:00.003-06:00

Despite her prone-to-attract-accidents-practically-out-of-nothing sort of a personality, my sister, Lisa, is probably one of the sweetest people in the whole wide world! The other day we woke up to this on our kitchen table:In case you can't tell... those are sticky notes! I can't even imagine what posessed her to spend all that time lining sticky notes up on a kitchen table in the morning when you're pressed for time to get out the door, but it was so stinkin' cute and made me laugh! Thanks, sissy poo!

Basketball Baby!

2010-03-01T17:02:00.005-06:00

Last Friday, Rob conned Lisa and I into attending his highly anticipated big rival CHURCH basketball game. (Oh brother... eye roll to church ball!) Although I wasn't the most thrilled, we did end up going, and actually enjoyed watching Rob and his smooth moves! I was, of course, the nerdy wife with a camera (you Londoners know the drill... I take the pics and everyone begs them off me later), but unfortunately since I have a new camera, I'm still learning the ropes on shutter speed and lighting, and as a result, they are a little blurry. Still, you should get the idea.Sadly, Rob's team actually did NOT end up winning. Both teams were tied, neck to neck for most of the game, however the other team pulled ahead in the last few seconds. This, however, can mostly be attributed to Mike... whom you might as well just refer to as "M.J." the all-star black athlete on the other team. M.J. was a friend of a guy on the other team, and almost all the steals and half the points can be acredited to his athletic prowess! Without their star player, I'm sure the game would have favored Rob's team by about 40 points!

Now if I was REALLY into church ball, I might suggest we start recruiting our own "M.J.'s" for next season... heehee.

Still, you're a winner in my book, babes!

New Job

2010-03-01T16:50:00.003-06:00

So about a month ago, Rob lost his job at Bailey Lauerman. This was, of course, no fault of Robs... the advertising firm was just suffering from the effects of a bad economy. They had just recently lost two major clients (Union Pacific Railroad and Allstate Insurance) and he was let go with about 5 or 6 others (including a few who'd been working there over a decade). I was impressed with how very graciously he took things! I would have stomped out of the room in a flury of scattered papers and knocked bookstacks with a carefully (albeit, probably not too original) expression such as... "You can't fire me! I QUIT!!" But not so with Rob. He understood the company's perdicament and despite the obvious stress of being out of work in an unstable economy, we were happy his employment with them had ended. The job was a great experience and a nice resume builder for Rob, but they did not treat us very well financially and he was paid much lower than market value for his work. Still, Rob loved the people he worked with, so he never would have left on his own. So in more ways than one, this job loss was actually a blessing!

Happily, after only a month of job applications, interviews and waiting, Rob now has a new job! Yay!! The job is with the National Research Corporation (NRC) and is basically a corporate sales job (or so I believe... you'll have to check with Rob on the details). He's on a sales team that sells something (sorry, I don't know what!) to big companies. The job not only pays more than his job at Bailey, but gives better benefits and vacation time! Yay, yay, YAY! He also has the opportunity to get a 10% commission on each of his sales to the companies (quite a chunck of change). We're very excited to have work and Rob is thrilled to have founds such a nice replacement job!

February 25

2010-02-25T10:45:00.000-06:00

Happy Birthday, Leash!!

All my love, Rottweiler ( :

Above and Beyond

2010-02-24T16:38:00.000-06:00

This week, I've been sick. As such, yesterday Rob chivalrously volunteered to go to the store to get me some chicken noodle soup (as our cupboard seemed to be empty of all suck "sick food" items). He returned home with....

Not 1, but 3 different kinds of chicken noodle soup options,

A box of Saltines,

Flowers,

A Redbox movie (chick flick, of course)

and a new release book from Barnes and Noble.

Swoon. Best. Husband. Ever.

I love you!

2010-02-21T18:36:00.000-06:00

This is coming a little late... but Happy Valentine's Day! I love Valentine's Day!! What a day to express love and gratitude to the ones we love. Do I need a holiday to give me an exuse to tell my man how much I love him? No way! But is it nice to have one? Absolutely!

I've never quite understood the animosity that some people feel towards this "fake" holiday...

why is this day--set aside specifically for the purpose of showing the ones we love how much we appreciate them--so frowned upon? Rob says the only people who hate Valentine's Day are single people.... maybe. Maybe not. I know a few who aren't single who hate it, so that can't be ENTIRELY true. Or perhaps its because it's a Hershey/Hallmark conspiracy? Could be. But then again, doesn't the corporate world--as a general rule of thumb--seek to take advantage of EVERY holiday? What makes V-day so special and different that we feel the need to hate it so badly. I don't know! For any Valentine's Day haters out there reading this... if you hate the holiday, PLEASE SHARE! I'm genuinely curious of your reasons!

In any event, I had a good holiday. And here are a few pictures from our festivities:

Now with all these festive, heart-warming acts of kindness... how can you really hate Valentine's Day??

Water for Elephants

2010-01-22T13:13:00.000-06:00

So excited! Today I heard that one of my favorite books is being made into a movie! Water for Elephants, the story of Jacob Jankowski and his adventures in the traveling circus, Benzini Brother's Most Spectacular Show on Earth, has supposedly already casted Reese Witherspoon as the lovely Marlena, and possibly Sean Penn (Eeek!) as her crazy husband, August. Robert Pattinson, it seems, is thinking about accepting the role of Jacob Jankowski... and my only question is: is there even a question?! Why would you even hesitate to take such a spectacular role alongside such a dynamic duo as Reese and Sean?!?! As an-the-rise-A-lister, this could be Pattinson's chance to really break out of the Twilight role in another big movie. The filming is slated to begin in June of 2010 and I can't wait to see this book adaptation on the big screen!

Needless to say, if you haven't already read this book, get down to Barnes and Noble today. Its a fabulous read... one in which I would highly recommend to anyone!

My Little Sister.... the Human Piggy Bank

2010-01-20T10:45:00.000-06:00

Unfortunately, however, the change slot wasn't quite wide enough for the quarter and dime, both of which got lodged inside the Human Piggy Bank. Said dime and quarter were surgically removed last night and doctors happily concluded the Human Piggy Bank will make a full recovery.

The only lasting damage is Natalie's wounded pride.

Christmas 2009 in Review!

2010-01-14T16:20:00.000-06:00

They say a picture is worth a thousand words... and since I'm lazy and do not want to WRITE an 18,000 word blog post (and lets be honest, you don't want to READ something that long)... here's my attempt at Christmas in review in picture form. Enjoy!

By Request... London Calling!

2010-01-12T23:52:00.000-06:00

So sorry to all you Londoners out there who were not able to make it to the London reunion at Riley Lord Voldermort's casa.... (which, by my calculations, was almost everyone)... it was truly wonderful to see those few that came and we deeply missed everyone who couldn't make it! Sadly, it seems as though that will probably be the norm for any future London reunions to come. After all, with jobs, grad school and other such activities taking us to new places around the globe, it will be harder and harder for all of us to be together again. However, we DID have a splendid time this holiday, and by popular request, I'm posting pictures (this one is for you, Allie baby!) So without further adue and with no more gilding the lilly... I give you... photos!
Anne and Justin... two peas in a pod

Melanie, Riley and Tina's oh-so-famous Banana Cream Pie! Yum!
Me enjoying said amazing Banana Cream Pie Justin's pervert faceAnd then there were 8...

And then there were 8 making truly hideous ugly faces (not "cute ugly") except for Riley, of course, who missed the memo...

I'm sure the feeling is mutual when I say that the night ended all too soon! It was SO good to see dear friends, and we missed all of you who couldn't make it. Hopefully we'll have a better turn out for the next reunion (fingers crossed!) But until then, let the good times keep rolling, London gang!

P.s. Anyone who is interested in seeing some hilarious videos from our little party--including the LC's best kept secret (no, not the location to Steph's missing argyle), check out my facebook page!

Snow days!

2009-12-09T12:50:00.000-06:00

On Monday evening it started snowing.....
...... and snowing...............

......and snowing........
......................and snowing................

............and snowing..............................

.... and snowing.....

...........and snowing.......

It snowed from Monday night until the wee hours of Wednesday morning! Oh, did I also mention, it snowed most of Sunday as well? Our back porch looked a little something like this:

School was cancled for Tuesday afternoon (a real pain in the butt for the law students, who had to have exams reschedueled) and school was also cancled for all day today (Wednesday). I was supposed to have an exam this morning, so I'm not exactly thrilled about it. Rob and Lisa, on the other hand, were both thrilled. As an undergrad, Lisa's finals don't start until next week, so all she had was canceld class. And Rob got out of work early on Tuesday and didn't have to be into work until noon today. As for me... sleeping in was nice... but lets face it, wouldn't YOU rather just get your finals over with, rather than drag out the impending doom??

Go Cougs!

2009-11-30T16:00:00.000-06:00

Over Thanksgiving break, my dad managed to land tickets to the much anticipated BYU v. UofU game! My Cougs did me proud and won in overtime, 26-23!
More Thanksgiving pictures to come soon! ( :

Mamma and Padre Baker to visit!

2009-11-18T16:21:00.001-06:00

I feel sort of like the discarded, cast-off eldest child. You know, like the new toy that suddenly isn't new anymore and gets thrown into the closet to collect dust. Or the puppy... yes, the puppy (my Dad's analogy) the puppy who is so delightful when small, but forgotten and neglected once it turns into a grown dog. This often happens when you're the oldest child... and other oldest children can surely attest to this trend. Here we are, the first of the baby birds to leave the nest, and the parents can't wait to get rid of us! (So much for the sad, teary-eyed mother, broken-hearted that her baby girl is moving so far away). Oh no, no such tears for us eldest children. For us, the parting is joyful... and possibly (dare I say...) anticipated?? But fear not, I actually have a theory as to why this happens... and that is, it's because we "broke them in" as parents, so they probably have many, many scarring memories they are trying to suppress, and the very sight or mention of reuniting with their eldest of children suddenly adds AT LEAST 10 grey hairs to their head. (Or maybe that's just me?!)

In any event, I've found that since my itsy baby sister Lisa moved out to live with us, there has been a sudden spike in phone calls from home, emails from home, letters from home, and (gasp!) even VISITS from home!! Its incredible! And as I sit here, reveling in the happiness that comes from being rediscovered (like that toy, or the dog in the backyard) and loved again, I try my darnedest to repress the truth that this spike in attention is only because my baby sister (who is--in case you hadn't caught on--NOT the oldest child in the family) is now living with me.

Sigh.

Okay, so I might be acting slightly factious... but, it IS true that my parents flew all the way out to Nebraska to see dear Lisa (and yes, I'm pretty sure the motivating factor WAS Lisa...), and so I like to play up the whole cast-off child act... its fun ( : Anyway, I'm being silly, because whether or not Lisa was their ulterior motive for visiting, honestly, it WAS really fun to have them out to visit! It was a really random, last minute decision to come, in which they spent a lot of money to get a last minute plane ticket and a lot of money for last minute tickets to the Nebraska/Oklahoma game (an amazing feat, in an of itself, given the level of obsessiveness that Nebraskans place on their football team, AND the fact that Oklahoma is a big rival). It was sort of a whirl wind visit for them, but it was great fun! My only complaint was the moron sitting behind me at the game with the really loud whistle... not to mention his buddy who's entire vocabulary was made up of the word F*** (you know the one I'm talking about).

But it was fun to have them here... and the best part is, they weren't here long enough to drive me crazy!! (Haha, kidding mom)

Here's a few pictures:

This is Lisa marching down to the staduim... you can't see her cause she's so short! Heehee.

This is what she looks like when she's not being covered up by tall people:

The Pride of all Nebraska!!

Julie and Robbie Baby! Rob and I both have this complex about wearing red to a football game... it just goes against our nature as true blue Cougar fans. Still, I swallowed my pride and wore a red Oxford jaket. As you can see, Rob, on the other hand, couldn't even do that!

Remember, remember...

2009-11-05T17:18:00.001-06:00

Remember, Remember the 5th of November,

The gunpowder treason and plot,

I see no reason

Why the gun powder treason

Should ever be forgot.

Happy Bonfire Night, Londoners!

Gasp!! Where's the fire?!?!

2009-10-30T13:17:00.001-05:00

My sister, Lisa is living with Rob and I right now. And you know what? Living with Lisa is just always an adventure. This is mostly because her life is so unpredictable. And she is unpredictable because she seems to attract accidents like a magnet. And I'm seriously not kidding! No one gets in as many accidents as Lisa. (I swear, she has a whole slew of guardian angels assigned to her and they're ALL working overtime!) You think I'm kidding? Let me demonstrate...

How 'bout the time she electrocuted herself while trying to fix her radio while it was still plugged into the wall... (lots of "green flashing light," some singed hair, and a couple of minus of unconsciousness and the radio worked again!)

...or the time she tripped while changing into her pajamas and smacked her head on a rusty bed frame while camping (15 stitches later and she still has a scar... who walks around while taking their shirt off anyway?!?!!)...

....then there was that time she ran into her friend's car WHILE IT WAS PARKED in a restaurant parking lot(just one of many car accidents for Lisa)...

...and did I mention that while on band tour last Christmas break she walked into a pole at Disney land? I seriously thought that only happened in movies! I didn't know people actually ran into poles in real life! Lisa+pole=broken sunglasses, black eye and 7ish stitches above her left eye....

....oh, and that same Christmas break she managed to land stitches above the other eye when the dog scratched her....

... and it'd be a shame if you forgot about the time she sewed her finger into the sewing machine (yes, the needle broke off into the tip of her finger)...

... and Lisa also has the perfect Frankenstein Halloween costume after she slipped on the ice at school, broke her finger, had to get pins surgically put into her finger. Now she has a scar that quite accurately resembles what I imagine a Frankenstein finger to look like....

(sigh) Never a dull moment with Lisa!

Her newest accident: burning the eggs at 6 in the morning.

Not a big deal, you say?? I woke up this morning to the fire alarm screaming above my head. I freakin' thought the apartment was on fire!! We jumped out of bed and opened the bedroom door to asses the damage. But no, no... no fire. It was just Lisa burning her eggs. Her face was so funny when Rob and I barreled out of our bedroom door. She was just grinning sheepishly and said, "Don't worry guys, it's just me."

Oh, right. I forgot. I have an accident magnet living under the same roof as me.

(Heaven help us!!)

Scarecrow Smackdown

2009-10-23T09:16:00.000-05:00

This is hilarious!

Novel Bloggness

2009-10-07T22:27:00.001-05:00

Hey friends!

Just thought I'd let everyone know that I now have a blog to log my progress on my novel publishing adventure! If you feel curious at all, the link to the blog is at the side of the page. Basically, it's just a compilation of some of my thoughts and progress updates on this one-of-a-kind roller coaster of a ride to a published product! At this current stage in the game, I'm working on my query letter/synopsis. Its a kind of cover letter and summary that is supposed to go to agents along with a sample section of the book to wet their interest in the full manuscript. As I move along in the process I'll be sure to keep you updated on all the rejections and hopefully small successes that I encounter along the way.

I would love all the comments and support you have to offer, and I hope you all have a chance to read the finished product someday! (fingers crossed!)Love you all!

Romantic Sunday Walks

2009-09-28T22:34:00.000-05:00

Last night Rob and I went on a walk around our spiffy new apartment complex.

We found a bridge.

There was water running under the bridge.

Bridge and water inspired a spitting contest.

Gues who won....

I did. Hands down. Three to zilch. Rob didn't have a prayer... he wasn't even close enough to argue that it should have been a tie.

Were my best friends growing up guys? Oh yeah! You bet they were!!

My High School's Cheer Squad... oh dear...

2009-09-25T14:27:00.001-05:00

[Eye roll]... cheerleaders...

Steph's "The Host" to Become a Movie!

2009-09-23T14:21:00.001-05:00

Sooooo excited!! Just read this article on the MTV website:

After the November release of "New Moon," there may be only three more movies (at most) to come from Stephenie Meyer's "Twilight" vampire saga, but it looks like the author will continue to be present on the big screen for a long time to come. Meyer's first adult novel, "The Host," is being adapted for a feature film, according to Variety.

Published in May 2008, "The Host" tells the story of how a species of compassionate aliens called "souls" have invaded Earth and assumed control of the minds of almost every human on the planet. A soul named Wanderer invades the body of woman named Melanie Stryder, who manages to make Wanderer share her body instead of taking it over entirely. They set off on a journey to locate Stryder's lost love, Jared, who is one of the last unaffected humans and remains in hiding.

Andrew Niccol has been tapped to write the script and direct. Niccol's writer/director credits include the Ethan Hawke sci-fi flick "Gattaca" and the Nicolas Cage action movie "Lord of War." Niccol also wrote the Jim Carrey-starring "The Truman Show." According to the Variety report, producers first began to consider Niccol after Meyer said her favorite sci-fi films were "Gattaca" and "Truman."

Meyer had previously rejected bids to adapt "Host," but eventually gave the OK after producers made a substantial offer and a displayed a willingness to collaborate with her on the project.

"We wanted Stephenie to be involved in the adaptation and have her endorse and be part of the creative decisions," Nick Wechsler, one of the producers, said. "['Twilight'] has proven she knows more about what works than most."

Wechsler, along with Steve and Paula Mae Schwartz, used their own funds to acquire the rights to "The Host." All three receive producer credits on "The Road," the upcoming adaptation of Cormac McCarthy's Pulitzer Prize-winning novel.

Back in April 2008, Meyer told MTV News what her dream cast for "The Host" would be. "With 'The Host,' I think the actors could be really big names," she said. "That would be cool. I'd love to see Robert Redford put on a beard and be Jeb; he would be amazing. ... Matt Damon has some very Jared-esque qualities, and then [I'd love to see] Casey Affleck as Ian and Ben Affleck as Kyle. Imagine the interplay."

Dude.... where's my band??

2009-09-23T09:45:00.000-05:00

Notre Dame wide receiver Golden Tate scored the winning touchdown in Saturday's victory over Michigan State, but what has everyone talking about Tate three days later isn't the score itself, it's the way he celebrated afterward: Tate did a flying leap into the Michigan State band.

Tate explained that as he launched himself into mid-air, he was thinking it was the Notre Dame band he was going to celebrate with:

"I thought the people were going to catch me, but I forgot that was Michigan State's band," Tate said. "And, like, I jumped up and they scattered real quick and there was the ground hitting me hard."

Heehee...whoops! Blonde moment!

Miracle Crashes

2009-09-21T11:00:00.000-05:00

In the 1980 Holiday Bowl, where BYU was matched up against SMU, BYU was spiralling down out of control. For all the effort they were putting into the game, it seemed as though BYU's defense just couldn't handle the strength of the SMU offense. Down by three touchdowns in the 4th quarter, with only 4 minutes left in the game, there were many a stalwart Cougar fans leaving the stadium, convinced that the game was about to end in another crushing bowl defeat.

But the game wasn't over, not for Jim McMahon, that is. Furious at the lack of support from the BYU crowd, McMahon screamed at the fans that the game was not over yet. It was when LaVell Edwards was about to kick the ball off at a 4th down that McMahon decided to take matters into his own hands. "How am I supposed to win the game, coach, if you kick off right here and don't allow us to convert to a first down?" (This was the story relayed to me by my dad... if there are any indescrepancies, take it up with Papa Bear). "Alright Jim," I can just hear coach LaVell Edwards saying, "go ahead and get us a first!"

And he did!

Again, and again and again. With the future NFL quarter back, Jim McMahon, leading the way, the Cougar offense scored two 2 more touchdowns, putting them at 45-39 with the SMU defense, less than a touchdown away from victory. With 13 seconds left in the game, the Cougar offense took over at the 41 yard line. After two incomplete passes, and as the clock expired, McMahon threw a Hail Mary into the end zone. Smothered by SMU defenders, BYU tight end Clay Brown somehow managed to leap up and haul in the football, scoring one of the most miraculous touch downs in college football history!! With the score tied, BYU's Kurt Gunther kicked for the extra point, giving BYU a 46-45 victory over the Mustangs.

This spectacular 4th quarter come-back game was appropriately labeled the "Miracle Bowl."

Wearing our Cougar Bule on Saturday, thoroughly defeated and depressed, and upon contemplating why BYU didn't have any more of those "Miracle Bowls" left in them, my sister Lisa pipped up from the back seat, "Well, at least they have Miracle Crashes!"

Truer words have never been spoken! Looking at BYU's past losses, its amazing--and, dare I say "Miraculous"?--that when they lose, they don't JUST "lose." They TANK! And I'm not just talking about their spectacular 28-54 loss against Florida State on Saturday. Take last season, for example. After passing most of the season with flying colors, winning finally got the best of our beloved Cougars, when they were slaughtered by TCU, 7-32. And then lets not forget that painful Utah game, in which we lost, 24-48. The bowl game, while slightly better for ware, was still lost by a good touch down and a half lead by Arizona, ending the game at 21-31.

So as I sit here looking for the bright side in this sad turn of events for the 2009 Cougar football season, I'm forced to admit that although my Cougars might lose a game or two, at least they lose spectacularly!!

Eeeeeek!

2009-09-14T08:40:00.001-05:00

Rise and Shout!!!

2009-09-05T22:37:00.001-05:00

BYU: 14.... Oklahoma: 13
Sorry, I couldn't resist a post.... it's a great day to be a Cougar fan!! Good job to the boys in blue!! They played great tonight!! RISE AND SHOUT COUGAR FANS!!! WHOOOOOO!!! Rob and I in Cougar Blue, out tailgating and watching the game!

Catching Fire

2009-09-04T14:46:00.000-05:00

I hate to bother you all with yet again ANOTHER book reccomendation, but I have just finished the second book in the Hunger Games trilogy, Catching Fire by Suzanne Collins. Last year I read the Hunger Games (or maybe it was early this year?? I can't remember) and reccomended it on my blog. Seriously... this is not a reccommendation to ignore!! These books are fabulous! Absolutely, 100% fabulous! They will keep you up late at night mulling over every little plot line twist and turn and wondering if things could have turned out differently. You'll get lost in the characters and the complicated world of Panem. But most of all, they will leave you salivating, hanging on the edge of your seat for the thrid and final installment!! (That being said, if you don't like to be left waiting... maybe its best to wait til all three are out so you can just go through them all at once!) Take my advice, clear you weekend when you start them... The Hunger Games are every bit as addicting as Twilight and HP (for all you Twihards and HP fans!)

Happy reading!!

Another Good Read...

2009-08-31T15:49:00.000-05:00

I know I just barely recomended a book, but I have another one for you to read! This one is called "Water for Elephants" by Sara GruenIts a fabulous book if anyone is still looking for a good "end-of-the-summer" read!

This one time, at Band Camp...

2009-08-26T18:09:00.000-05:00

Its crazy how sometimes you can be so busy and yet feel like nothing has happened at all. This is how I feel at the moment. Although it is quite clear that I've been a big fat blogger-slacker lately, despite the fact that I've been ridiculously busy, I don't feel like I have anything to write about! This is obviously untrue... if I was really THAT busy, I would have lots of things to write about. So here is my pathetic attempt to come up with something worthwhile to say....

First thing is first... after a dramatic exit from Pocatello, ID (you'll have to ask her the whole story sometimes) my sister Lisa came to live with Rob and I. She has since settled into Lincoln quite nicely... and has just barely become a member of the UNL marching band! Sorry BYU fans, Lisa is going to be a Big Red fan. She now gets to experience the joys of college marching band--including all the practices and ridiculously long game days! I'm so proud my little sissy is going to be a college band nerd like me!! Here she is at her opening performance:By the way, did I mention that about 10,000 plus people show up to this band performance?? Yeah... crazy! That's what I thought too! My sissy poo is so cute! I'm sad she's not going to be a BYU fan like Rob and I, but it's still so fun to see her doing college band! Go Lisa!

Other than that, school has started again. I say "started again," but really, it's just that I've gotten more classes. Since I've been doing summer school all summer, it's not much of a change, other than I have more credits on my plate. This semester I'm taking education law, con law I, entertainment law, advanced legal research and law and medicine. Should be some good times! I'm most excited about entertainment law! It'll be a fun class!

Rob also celebrated his 26th birthday! He's officially sounding old to me... yikes! What is scary is that I'm going to be 26 in only 3 short years... oh dear... okay, I don't really want to think about that right now. Scary.

Oh yeah, since Lisa has moved in, we're moving to a different--MUCH NICER--apartment in a month. Yay! I'm seriously counting down the days til we get out of this dump...

Also, during my blogging hiatis, I read a really great book. You might have heard of it because there is a movie that just came out about it. The book is called, "My Sister's Keeper," but Jodi Picoult:I haven't seen the movie yet, but the book was FABULOUS!! I highly reccommend it to anyone who needs a good read... and even though its kind of a girly book, I'll probably even reccomend it to my football stud brother, Paul. ( :

Anyway, that's all I have to write about right now. I'll try to do better with keeping everyone updated now that I've sort of settled into a routine!!

Cheers!

Cockroaches the size of house cats!

2009-07-08T11:04:00.000-05:00

Last week I mentioned to my mom (who is absolutely revolted by roaches) that Rob and I hadn't even seen a cockroach in our Lincoln apartment. Lots of crickets--yes.... lots of spiders--yes, but no roaches. There wasn't any wood available, so I couldn't knock on it. But I should have.

Yesterday, Rob and I were watching a movie on our couch. The movie had just ended and I was snuggling up to Rob all comfortable like. Then all the sudden I glance up and I see this HUGE blob of shadow scuttling across the back of our couch. Poor Rob. I think I might have busted his ear drum with my shriek. I jumped up and flipped on the lights as fast as I could. To my horror, there was a HUGE cockroach on the back of our couch.

EEEEEeeeeeeeek!!!!!!!!!!

GROSS! This thing was the size of a small mouse!!! Rob chivalrously killed it (with my binder, no less... now I have cockroach guts all over it) and then spent the next couple minutes trying to identify what kind of roach it was. I finally had to tell him to give it up and throw it away before he pulled out a microscope to examine it further.

Boys *eye roll*.

Moral of the story? Always knock on wood....

**Scroll down for more new blog posts!**

The only thing worse than a broken air conditioner on a road trip...

2009-07-06T17:08:00.000-05:00

... is when you've just BARELY paid $400 bucks to repalce it. Yes that's right. Remember when I told you that we were planning on getting our AC fixed for the road trip?

Well we did.

Fix it, that is.

The problem is, that Tam the mechanic conviniently forgot to clean out the water tubes connected to the AC. Without the water tubes being cleaned out, it wouldn't matter that the AC was fixed because there was still gunk clogging the water tubes. Which essentially means that whoever is sitting in the passenger side seat will be resting their feet in two inches of water. This little forgetfullness on the part of Tam is frustrating in and of itself, because Rob's conversation with Tam went a little something like this:

Rob: Tam, can you make sure to clean out the tubes too so we don't get water on the floor?

Tam: Sure, sure. No problem.

Later that day after picking up the car...

Rob: Tam, did you clean out the tubes?

Tam: Oh yeah, tubes cleaned. No problem.

The next day, half way to Utah we start getting water pooling ALL OVER the passenger side of the car (which happened to be MY side of the car at the time). Rob called Tam.

Rob: TAM, YOU MORON!! I THOUGT YOU CLEANED OUT THE TUBES?

Tam: What? No, cleaned out filter but not tubes.

Rob: TAM!!! I HATE YOU!!!

Tam: So sorry. Bring it in right now. I fix.

Rob: TAM! I'M HALF WAY TO UTAH!! I CAN'T BRING IT IN!!!

Tam: Car still under warranty. Bring in when you get back.

Okay, so Rob wasn't really that mean to Tam. That's actually what I was thinking--that AND a long list of profanties which I'm probably not going to mention in a blog. Rob might have been a little bit more nice. He usually is. I don't remember though, because I was kind of distracted mopping water up from around my feet.

Fortunately the AC still worked, we just had to deal with water soaking the carpet of the passenger side the whole trip.

Other than that, our trip to Utah was very fun! We got to see my family and Rob's family... although I wasn't exactly thrilled about the "seeing Rob's family" part (long story short: I don't get along with my inlaws), it was still as enjoyable as it could be.

On Thursday we went up to Layton to see my friend Crystal who has been kind of under the weather lately because of a bug she picked up in some third world country. It was SO fun to see her! She made me swear that this pic wouldn't end up on facebook... but I figure she didn't say antying about a blog, so....This is Crystal, my partner in crime since 6th grade. We are truly kindered spirits (as you can see). Life is never dull when we're together schemeing and planning on how to take over the world!

We also got to meet sweet little Joshua Monson on Thursday! Isn't he precious?! So tiny and such a little joy to Nat and Steve! Congrats, you guys!

Also, on a side note, I forgot my camera. Hence the crapy quality of the pictures, due to the fact that I was using the camera on my phone.

On Friday we visited with my family. Due to the many, many delays that naturally follow around a family of 12, we didn't actually get to spend as much time with them as we wanted. We met them at a family reunion in Heber, UT. It was fun to see them for a couple of hours, but like I said, not enough time!! I love this pic of me and Natalie! She's so cute! She was a bursting bundle of energy... I have no clue where she gets in from. I wish I could harness it and sell it in bottles on eBay. ( : Heehee. I finally got her to calm down a little bit by taking pictures of us on my phone. That seemed to distract her from destroying things for about five minutes!

On Saturday we visited with Rob's brother down in Springville, Ut. He's got four kids--three boys and one girl! The last two are twins: Sophoie and Johnathan. They're SO cute! We had fun eating yummy food, lighting things on fire and playing with toys (big kids never get to play with enough toys!) Rob especially enjoyed the swords and the play house that the Make A Wish Foundation built for the oldest boy, Skyler. Oh, and did I mention? I also earned 20 bucks from Rob's crazy sister, Sara. She didn't think I could launch a ball all the way across the baseball field and over the fence with a water ballon launcher. Thirty seconds later I was twenty bucks richer as my ball bounced cleanly over the fence--securing the title for the farthest launch.

And no, niether Sara OR Rob made it over the fence with their launches.

Sohpie's 4th of July outfit! So cute! I also made a crown for Sophie out of flowers. She mostly enjoyed destroying whatever progress I made and most definitely did NOT like wearing it once I finally finished it. But I managed to snap one pictures of her with it on! Rob and Johnathan.Skyler's Make a Wish play house. It's sweet!

Anyway, we had a good time visiting with friends and family! It was good to get out of Nebraska and back to Utah for a while.

Until next time!!

Couldn't put it down...

2009-07-06T14:58:00.001-05:00

I can't help it... I have another recommendation for all of you! This book,Warbreaker, is by Brandon Sanderson. Sanderson actually works at BYU as a creative writing professor. I'm kicking myself for not having discovered him before I graduated because he's quite possibly one of my new favorite authors... okay forget "new," he's been one of my favorites for a while now! If you'll think back to January, I posted another reccomendation for the series called Mistborn. This is the same author. He is fabulously original and his works are like a breath of fresh air to the science fantasy world. I highly reccommend this book to anyone who needs a good summer read. I couldn't put it down!

ENJOY!!

June Updates!

2009-06-23T14:04:00.001-05:00

I feel like I've neglected my poor little blog long enough, so its probably time for an update!

So this week, Nebraska has finally decided to embrace summer. I'm trying to decide if that is a good thing or not. Up til this week it pretty much rained EVERY SINGLE DAY... non stop. Not like the tiny little baby rainstorms that we see occasionally in Idaho and Utah. No, no! These are the "pouring-a-bucket-of-water-over-your-head-would-get-you-less-wet-than-these-rain-storms" kind of rain. It's ridiculous! I was starting to get a little gloomy over the weather, but then this week the rain suddenly broke and we got sun!! But wait! That's not such a good thing now, cause now instead of being soaked by sheets of pouring rain, I'm being soaked to the skin by my own sweat! Ahhhh!! Where's the dry heat?! I hate humidity!! Anyway... lets just say I'm excited to go to UT for the 4th so I can escape from the miserable heat of Nebraska summer.

But the heat brings me to another point... our AC is out in our car. Yeah. Figures. So if we can't get it fixed before next week, we're going to be driving with all 4 windows down at 60 miles an hour all the way to UT! Sounding like a fun trip yet? Oh yeah!! Cross your fingers for that AC getting fixed thing...

Other than duitfully bearing the heat, all I've really got going on at the moment is summer classes. I took a Constitutional Law class that focused on first amendment rights and now I'm taking an Education Law class. Linned up for the rest of the summer (assuming I still can't get a job) is an Advanced Torts and Advanced Crim Law class. Whoot, whoot. I can't wait. (Note sarcasm) I have a few out-of-school projects that I'm working on outside of school, but other than that I really have no life!

Rob is still love his job. His company just finished working with Papsi and are now tackling some projects for Union Pacific RR and Office Max. He just loves his job. Yay for him! That always makes going to work a little easier!

On Friday we went to this ethnic festival called Celebrate Lincoln. Its where a whole bunch of different ethnicities in Lincoln get together and throw a mini-state fair type kind of thing. There are booths with cultral food, clothing, music, etc. where you can experience all the different cultures in Lincoln. I have to admit, I was surprised to discover that Lincoln was hope to so many different cultures! Some of the more noteable booths were Greek, Irish, Arabian, African, Indian and Greenland. Sadly, I didn't see any booths for England, but oh well!! Here's a picture of us at the event... we're supposed to be standing in front of this string of flags, but you can't see the flags, only our heads ( : And what's a fair without cotton candy? (Allie... "Where's the cotton candy?!?!") We had a good time!

Also this weekend Rob had a softball tournament. It went on FOREVER!!! 3 games in one day! Sorry babe, I love ya, but that is a LOT of games to sit through! My butt and the bleechers were fighting by the time it was over. And unfortunately, Rob's team didn't do as well as they would have liked. When it was over Rob and I were so hot and exahusted and wanted nothing more than to sleep. But guess what? We couldn't go home. Why couldn't we go home? Because our car wouldn't start! AHHHHHH!!! The key wouldn't turn in the egnition and everything was all locked up. We ended up having to get it towed and it wasn't actually fixed until Monday. (No, the AC was not fixed, just the lock cylindar).

So this weekend was filled with ups as well as downs, but overall Rob and I are happy and are excited to be going home for a short visit next week! More updates on that soon to come, I'm sure!! ( :

Because I can...

2009-06-02T11:09:00.001-05:00

THE TWILIGHT SAGA: NEW MOON trailer in HD

My WICKED birthday post!

2009-05-30T10:54:00.001-05:00

Rob is pretty good with surprises. As Allie and Co. know well... at one point he even flew to Paris to surprise me with a proposal. But Rob is also really good with presents. I feel like such a schmuck because his birthday presents to me are always SO good, and mine to him suck in comparison! This year was, once again, no different!

So Rob has been giving me these hints for the past month now on what my birthday present was. I knew it came by mail... it topped the other presents spectacularly... it yellow and blue (or a combo of the two--as I figured out later)... and he gave me the words "ancho via" in Spanish to chew on for a while. To be honest, I had no earthly clue what he was talking about.

But the morning of my birthday came and Rob made me breakfast--blackberry waffles, yum!--and then we opened presents. They were all awesome... a yoga mat, smell goods (lotion, candles, etc.) but nothing that even closely resembled any of the clues he gave me. So I cornered him on it. He got this big goofy "Rob grin" on his face and said that there was a mess up in the mail and so I would have to wait til our anniversary to get that present. I begged him to tell me (I had been waiting for SO long that I wanted to know at this point!) but he just kept grinning with that silly "Rob grin" and didn't say anything.

Well later that day I was supposed to meet Rob in Omaha. He had to work there that day and I was going to meet him there for dinner. During dinner he was still acting so weird and I also couldn't figure out why the restaraunt we went to was overcrowded with people. I mean, come on, it was a Wednesday night! What's the occasion?! When I asked Rob if he had any ideas he just smiled that big goofy "Rob grin" and shrugged. Well, after dinner, Rob suggested we go for a walk and see if there was anything else we wanted to do in Omaha before we left. I pretty much figured he had something up his sleeve by this point, cause he was grinning like a fool and acting all weird. So I told him I thought he had something planned already and he just grinned and said "Really? you think?" Oh yeah... something was DEFINITELY up.

Anyway, we're walking down the street and all the sudden we're passing one of Omaha's big theatres. There are all these posters for future productions and I start naming them all off "Cats.... Stomp..." etc. trying to figure out if it was a show we were going to be going to, when all the sudden I spotted it: the Wicked poster!!!

I knew that was what Rob had planned as soon as I saw the poster! I started squealing and I'm pretty sure there might have been some dancing up and down going on. Rob told me to open my purse, and inside there was two Wicked tickets!!! I was so surprised! I didn't even know Wicked was playing in Omaha!! Anyway, needless to say, Rob was tickled that he surprised me like that again, and we BOTH quite thoroughly enjoyed the production! (Okay, I won't lie, I LOVED it!)

Sine we got back so late, we had birthday cake the next day... ...so it was almost like having TWO birthdays! ( : Haha. Anyway, it was amazing! The best birfday EVER!!

23 Things...

2009-05-27T15:13:00.000-05:00

So it was my birthday this week! On Tuesday May 27, 1986 at approximately 8:45 am I entered the world (probably kicking and screaming) to grace everyone with my presence!! (Haha!) And so the nightmare of raising me began for my parents! And since it is my 23rd birthday (I'm starting to like what age I'm at... is there any way to slow this aging thing down?!???) I thought it would be fun to list 23 things I like/love/am thankful for.

So, in no particular order... 23 Things...

(1) Lemon Oatmeal cookies from the Cookie Comapny in Lincoln
(2) Good Books (its impossible for me to pick out just one, so I'm just going to geneeralize by saying I love ALL good books!)
(3) MomDadMarkLisaPaulSylviSuzyDavidLyndseyScottandNatalie = My fam!
(4) Foot rubs
(5) Hot, hot, HOT bath water
(6) Mountains
(7) Good friends
(8) And Family
(9) Cheese! (Rob hates cheese... it's been quite a burden being married to him when he doesn't like it!!)
(10) Flip flops
(11) Winter and LOTS of snow
(12) Lap tops, cell phones, running water, electricity, etc... modern technology in general!
(13) Talented actors/actresses and writers in the entertainment industry that keep me--as they are paid to do--entertained!
(14) London
(15) Schwarmas
(16) The United States of America and the rule of law
(17) Music that gives me goose bumps
(18) Pianos
(19) Mini Coopers
(20) Dancing
(21) Paris
(22) Marching band and BYU football!

And last but FAR from least...

(23) Robbie Baby!

Twilight Maddness

2009-05-16T13:29:00.000-05:00

I love Twilight, but I can also appreciate a good jab at it once in a while. Hence, here are my two favorite "non-Twilight" Twilight youtube videos! Enjoy!! ( :

Twilight... which Cheeseburgers:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=daTTOyu-E1w

Twilight Trailer Spoof:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dompotjTeIA

(Sorry... I haven't really figured out how to insert links into my blog yet, so you'll have to copy and paste to check them out!)

The UNL golden calf

2009-05-16T12:52:00.000-05:00

Law students are funny.... and I bet you didn't even know, they're a little bit superstitious. Or maybe it isn't even superstition, but a desperate desire to do everything and ANYTING they can to get those good grades. Whether it's wearing years of unwashed lucky underwear, offering a sacrifice to the test gods, or performing the sacred test day war dance, the weeks before law finals are filled with these superstitious rituals that are taken--would you believe it--VERY seriously in the law school community. While all of them are somewhat mildly humorous, this one, is my particular favorite.... Meet ROSCOE. I have no idea who ROSCOE is, or what he did or even how he's special to the law school. Nonetheless, there is a statute of ROSCOE sitting front and center in the lobby of our law library. Now, over the years, students (probably desperately thinking of more ways to increase their luck on finals) decided that rubbing ROSCOE's nose was lucky. (Which is why his nose is all shinny in this picture) But the buck didn't stop there... oh no, not by a long shot. See what probably happened, is one or two of these students did fabulous on their finals, after rubbing ROSCOE's nose. They, of course, attributed this good piece of fortune to rubbing ROSCOE's nose, and soon a harmless amount of nose rubbing turned into a full scale Bible idol worshiping. You know, like when Moses went to the mount and came back to find his people worshiping a cow (or calf, whatever). Well ROSCOE is none other than UNL's very own golden cow. Pictured here are the various sacrificial offerings given to ROSCOE in the weeks before finals. You probably can't see it, but one of those folded pieces of papers offers ROSCOE his soul in writing (a binding contract, for all of you law students who know what I mean... unless you count finals as being under duress or undue influence???)

Anyway, as I eagerly await the results of my grueling first year of law school, I can't help but hope that the small amount of ROSCOE nose rubbing (or brown nosing, I suppose you could call it) that I participated in (yes, I participated in the worshiping the UNL golden calf) might have helped pushed me my grades UPWARD in the right direction.

But then again, if it didn't help, I suppose I could always offer my soul next year... heehee.

Done.

2009-05-08T14:28:00.001-05:00

What more is there to say.... MY FIRST YEAR OF LAW SCHOOL IS OVER!!!! WHOOOOOPPEEEE!!!!

Shoulda, woulda, coulda....

2009-04-28T15:31:00.000-05:00

So I used to be in the marching band. Yeah. I know. Nerd. But it was fun; we competed and did all sorts of cool stuff. And despite the nerdiness, we were pretty hard core. Let me lay out my fall high school band scheduel for you:

5:45 am-early morning practice (drummers had to be there 15 minutes early)
8:00am-first hour: drumline
10:00 am-second hour: marching band
Tuesday at 3:00pm-snare sectionals
Wenesday at 5:00pm-evening practice
Thursday at 3:00pm-drumline practice
Friday at 7:00-11:00pm-game days
Saturdays (all day)-competitions

And as if we weren't all completely exauhsted from eating, sleeping and breathing marching band 24/7, my band directer used to always say (among other things), "It's crunch time. It's crunch time. Shoulda, woulda, coulda won't cut it."

And I got to thinkin' about that this week... "Should woulda coulda won't cut it." And I thought to myself:

Tomorrow, when I'm in my Civil Procedure final (3 hours long... not quite as long as the 3 1/2 hour Torts exam on Monday) and I get stummped on question 5 when it asks about right to a jury trial, and the REASON I don't know the answer is because I spent all my study time blogging instead of studying, does "shoulda, woulda, coulda" cut it in that situation?

Maybe I should stop blogging and start studdying....

Looking Backwards....

2009-04-21T11:48:00.000-05:00

Today, England's very own Queen Elizabeth II celebrates her 83rd birthday! Horray for her! But how, might you possibly be asking, do I remember that today is the Queen's birthday? Well, today, Tuesday the 21st of April, also marks three years since the last day we spent in London for our awesome Winter 2006 study abroad! And something happened THAT day, that would forever remind me of the dear Queen's birthday. Because the 21st of April 2006 is the day of our illegal trip down into the vault of London's Hard Rock Cafe!

Okay, so in our defense, we didn't exactly KNOW that what we were doing was illegal. We wandered into the cafe (which is very cool, by the way) in search of only one thing: the vault. We found the stairs leading down into the basement... and what do you know... nobody was standing at the top of the stairs making sure unwary tourists didn't wander down the stairs and into the vault. No rope, no guard, no nothing. So what did we do? We went down the stairs! It was practically a must anyway... Riley was about ready to wet her pants because she was so excited to see Jimi Hendrix's guitar.
And it wasn't until we actually got down INTO the basement that we realized that we could quite possibly have gotten shot for wandering down there with out the guidance of a faithful tour escort. ESPECIALLY since--as the angry body guard informed us--it was the Queen's 80th birthday. Oops!

The story has a happy ending, though! Riley got to see her guitar: The scary body guard named "Jimmy" decided NOT to cuff us and haul us off to the Tower of London for torture, but instead became my new boyfriend: And we got to see a whole heap of other cool stuff in the vault used by many famous and telented musicians...

Other things happened that day too, of course, like.... one last trip to the Nash Ga: Trafalgar Square: The London Eye for Wonder Waffles: Taza's for schwarmas: Westminster, Big Ben and Buckingham Palace: We also took one of my favorite photos of the whole trip (look at what the street says...):

However, despite all the other things that happened on this fun filled day, breaking into the Hard Rock Cafe vault takes the cake, hands down! From now on, it will be really hard for me to forget April 21st as Queen Elizabeth's birthday!

So in the spirit of this wonderful April day, long live the queen!! I miss you, Londoners ( :

Rain....

2009-04-13T14:28:00.000-05:00

What is it about big rubber boots that makes you want to jump into every puddle you see?

Another fabulous read...

2009-04-06T14:44:00.000-05:00

Hey all!

Being the little book worm that I am, I have recently discovered another series that I am entrhalled with! This new series is the Mortal Insturments by Cassandra Clare. It starts with this book: City of Bones. There are two other books in the series, City of Ashes and City of Glass. The third book just barely came out, so the series is complete. In addition, there are a couple of prequels that are going to be hitting the market in the Fall of 2010.

It's an amazing series for all you Edward-starved-Twilight-craving fans out there!

And as always, if anyone has recently read any good reads, I'm all ears for recommendations!!

SURPRISE!!!!!!!!

2009-04-01T10:54:00.000-05:00

Rob and I are ESTATIC to announce that in November this year, we will be having a new addition to our family!!! On Saturday March 28 last week, we went to the doctor and had our suspicions confirmed. WE'RE GOING TO HAVE A BABY!!!! Here is a picture of the ultrasound: Isn't she so precious?! This ultrasound pic is aabout a picture of the baby about 8 weeks old. She is so tiny right now!!! Of course we don't exactly know if it is a boy or girl yet...it is much to early to tell, but I want a girl! (Rob wants a boy... something about wanting to start his own baseball team or something...) We'll take whichever, though and are so happy about this precious little being that is being sent to our family!

The official due date is November 25--just two days shy of my sister, Lisa's birthday!! I think it would be so cute if she was born on the same day! We're so excited and thought you all might want to know!!

HAHA!! I had you going there for a second, didn't I?

Come on, guys.... seriously?! You believed me?!

HAPPY APRIL FOOLS!!!!

Tornado Touchdown

2009-03-24T11:22:00.000-05:00

Yesterday I had another experience with new Nebraska weather--the kind we don't get back west. This winter it was freezing rain, this spring, it's tornados!! Never a dull moment for weather in NE. This is not an actual picture of the tornados (yes, there was more than one!) that touched down in the Lincoln/Omaha area, but they looked something like this. The sky was this exact same color of black/grey nastiness. It was intense! The tornados touched down on the East side of Lincoln, farther away from where I live, more into the farming area on the outskirts. I was kind of disapointed that I didn't get to see them, I wanted my own picture! But, oh well, it's probably safer that way, eh?!

Dating Application Guy

2009-03-19T19:31:00.001-05:00

I am currently married to the most awesome guy ever!! But lest be honest, those of you who know me, know that I had quite the dating history before I got married. For those of you who don't know me all that well... lets just say I had a LOT of fun! ( :

So I'm just sitting there chatting it up with my friend Aric today on facebook, and we're having a good laugh about his most recent blog post in which he revealed the very funny story of his first kiss. And I gotta tell you, it was hilarious!! But since his blog is full of dirty little secrets, and it's an exclusive "read by invitation only" sort of thing, I'll just have to leave it at that. ANYWAY... while we were chatting, one thing led to another, and pretty soon I'm spewing out all these funny stories I had while I was still on the dating prowl. One story in particular I thought was quite funny, and I decided to share it with everyone else via blog post!

This is the "Dating Application Guy," some of my favorite freshmen roomies might remember this one ( :

So there I was, a crazy little freshman sitting in one of those mass required classes that every little newbie has to take. You know, the Biology 101's or the English 110 classes? Yeah, one of THOSE classes. This particular class, I'm pretty sure, was American Heritage. Yes, all you BYU grads will remember that one quite well--most with horrific memories, no doubt! However, I do NOT look back on my American Heritage days with horror. On the contrary, I had Professor Holland: Many of you will recognize him from another familiar guy, well known and loved by all of us: Anyway, Professor Holland was amazing! I L-O-V-E-D his class! He was extremely entertaining. One day he had a couple of volunteers come up to the front of the class and have a dance off in MC Hammer pants for rights to a box of doughnuts. There was never a dull moment in that class!!

But anyway, I'm getting off topic... as fun as that class was, that is not the subject of my post today.

So I'm sitting there in class--American Heritage, minding my own business, just one in about 500 people in the class. And in walks a couple of upper classmen. One of them in particular, I noticed, was kind of cute! This was him. He didn't have a very wide selection of photos available on facebook, so I was forced to pick one where he was wearing sun glasses. You get the picture...

Anyway, so Yancy walks in with this other girl, and I keep my eye on him as they trek up to the front of the class and start giving some kind of announcement. I honestly can't remember what it was about... most of that stuff just went in one ear and out the other. I THINK it was about doing some service project, because as a recall, you are required to do a certain amount of service hours in order to pass American Heritage. A perfect target for all those on-campus service groups that are hurting for members--which I'm pretty sure this announcement came from. Anyway, I didn't really pay attention to all of this very well--I have to admit, I was mostly focused on the cutie named Yancy at the front of the room. From what I remember, the guy was pretty funny--cracking jokes through the whole presentation, etc.

Just my kind of guy!

Unfortunately, there was one little problem. Remember how I said I was in American Heritage and there was about 500 people in the class? Well, short of standing up and screaming at him, I was seriously doubting that I was going to be able to get Yancy's attention. And screaming probably wasn't the best option either. At this point I was thinking "date." Guys don't usually ask crazy girls out unless they feel sorry for them. And I wasn't interested in pity dates.

Dang it.

But then I was saved! To my delight, at the end, of the presentation, Yancy and his cohort started passing out little neon blue fliers with contact information on them. And I'm thinking: "Puurrrfect!" I nonchalantly grab one of the little blue fliers as they are being passed around, pretending I was interested in whatever it was that they had just spent the last 15 minutes trying to pitch to a bunch of rowdy freshmen. (To my credit, I actually did end up doing whatever it was that was on the flier... just for the record!)

Anyway, later that day I type out a short, but to the point email that says something along the lines of:

"Dear Yancy,

You don't know who I am, but you came to my class today (American Heritage) to give a presentation. I was just wondering... how does a girl get a date with you?

Sincerely,
Julie"

May I insert a comment here--I was NOT afraid to ask a guy out, as you can see! I was (and am) a very assertive person, and I had no qualms about asking a guy out if I was interested! Who said the guy gets to do all the choosing? Seriously girls, sometimes we just need to take things into our own hands!

Anyway, not so later that day/week... I can't remember how long it was before he got back to me. Not very long... anyway, his response went a little something like this:

"Dear Julie,

Funny you should ask, my roommates and I were just wondering how we were going to handle the sudden influx of girls that all want to date us. To make the process run a little bit more smoothly, we have attached a dating application. Please feel free to fill it out and send it back at your earliest convenience. We will get back with you on your results as soon as possible.

Sincerely,
Yancy"

HAHAHAHAHA!!! I wish I still had a copy of that application! It was hilarious!! I found out later that after Yancy had access to all the student profiles on campus. Because of his job, he was able to look up anyone's personal profile. Needless to say, as soon as he got my email, he looked up my picture and all the information that BYU had in their data base about me. After determining that I was worthy of a response, him and his roomies all clamored around Yancy's computer and spent a couple hours coming up with this ridiculously funny dating application!

Of course, after receiving said dating application, I then sat around with all of MY roomies and filled out the dating application, and sent it back to Yancy. Needless to say, I got a date out of it. Several, actually! Yancy was a lot of fun! I have no idea where he is at now, but I do remember that we had a lot of fun while it lasted!

Anyway, that was one of my more memorable ways of asking a guy out. I have LOTS of funny stories where that one came from! I am considering posting a few more of the more noteworthy ones... We'll see!

Stayed tuned!

Nasty Neighbors

2009-03-17T11:54:00.000-05:00

So I'll be honest.... we don't exactly live in the best neighborhood in town. Yes, I live almost directly across the street from the law school, where you would think that the neighborhood would be teaming with students.

Ha! Wrong!

More like teaming with illegal imigrants. Now I'm not the racist type of person or anything, but there is one little thing that I find wrong with Mexicans. Call it a "cultral flaw" if you will. Now this flaw is nothing too serious, in fact, I'm pretty sure that it doesn't bother Rob at all. But it bothers me!! Especially when we have Mexicans living on either side of our paper-thin-walled town house. You want to know what this flaw is? Well tough, I'm going to tell you anyway....

Its their obsession with loud, blarring Mariachi band music.

And when I say "loud and blarring" I MEAN "loud and blarring." It would be only a small annoyance if all I heard coming through the walls was the pounding beat of a bass drum. But I'm not quite so lucky. These guys BLAST their music so loud, that I can clearly hear EVERY SINGLE WORD. It's so loud, that when I go over to their house to ask them to turn their music down, they can't even hear me knocking on the door.

What's worse, is one of them is some kind of Mexican DJ, so not only do I get to hear loud, obnoxious mariachi music, but I get to hear variations of the mariachi music--slow down, speed up, stupid techno repeats, etc., etc. It's a nightmare.

Like I said, only a minor cultrual flaw, but one that is driving me absotlutely insane! I'm going to have to bust a move on their little fiesta one of these days!

Who's the smartest lawyer?

2009-03-12T14:12:00.000-05:00

I love lawyer jokes... they're great! Nevermind that they all make fun of my future profession ( : One of my teachers attaches a lawyer joke our assignment docmuent that he posts each week. A couple of them were really good, so I started to send them to my Dad. This sort of started an exchange of lawyer jokes between us and there is now an unofficial competetition to outdo each other on the "best lawyer joke of the week." Sadly, I got beat thoroughly this week!

Here's what I would like to call the "Case of the Smartest Lawyer":

*************************************************************************************

This took place in Charlotte, North Carolina. A lawyer purchased a box of very rare and expensive cigars, then insured them against, among other things, fire. Within a month, having smoked his entire stockpile of these great cigars, the lawyer filed a claim against the insurance company. In his claim, the lawyer stated the cigars were lost 'in a series of small fires.'

The insurance company refused to pay, citing the obvious reason, that the man had consumed the cigars in the normal fashion. The lawyer sued and WON!

(Stay with me.)

Delivering the ruling, the judge agreed with the insurance company that the claim was frivolous. The judge stated nevertheless, that the lawyer held a policy from the company, in which it had warranted that the cigars were insurable and also guaranteed that it would insure them against fire, without defining what is considered to be unacceptable 'fire' and was obligated to pay the claim.

Rather than endure lengthy and costly appeal process, the insurance company accepted the ruling and paid $15,000 to the lawyer for his loss of the cigars that perished in the 'fires'.

NOW FOR THE BEST PART...

After the lawyer cashed the check, the insurance company had him arrested on 24 counts of ARSON!!! With his own insurance claim and testimony from the previous case being used against him, the lawyer was convicted of intentionally burning his insured property and was sentenced to 24 months in jail and a $24,000 fine.

This true story won First Place in last year's Criminal Lawyers Award
contest.

*************************************************************************************

Clearly the insurance company had a smarter lawyer on their payroll. Better luck next time, dude!

If anyone has any good lawyer jokes, please send them to me. I would very much like to outdo my dad next week...

The Twighlight Obsession Continues: New Moon Update

2009-03-09T11:04:00.000-05:00

To my fellow Twilight Obsessors... I just found out this awesome news! Dakota Fanning has just been officially casted to play Jane in the New Moon movie (which is coming out this November, just in case anyone was wondering!) When I read about Jane in the books, I was picturing an adult who loooked "child-like." I didn't actually excpect them to cast someone so young. However, I really like Dakota, and I'm excited to see her in this film! I think she's going to do a great Job! I found this article online:

It's official: Dakota Fanning joins 'Twilight' sequel 'New Moon'

As previously dished by The Dish Rag, Dakota Fanning has finally gotten a role she can really sink her teeth into.

A Summit Entertainment rep confirms to People that the 15-year-old actress is officially set to star in "Twilight" sequel "New Moon."

She'll play Jane -– a particularly sinister vampire with a sweet, youthful exterior -- who is part of the Volturi branch of the bloodsucking breed.

Filming is set to begin in Vancouver this month. But Dakota's scenes may take place in Rome.

The movie hits theaters in November. (Hooray, something to live for!)

Presumably, Dakota is speed-reading the book now.

Are you happy, annoyed or just totally, like, sick of people talking about Dakota starring in "New Moon"?

Who cares! Do you?

No more mooching...

2009-03-07T14:59:00.001-06:00

So I have to be honest, the primary reason for my "slacking-no-blogging" attitude recently really all comes down to the fact that I can't mooch anymore. In an attempt to save a few bucks this year, Rob and I cut out the internet/cable bill. Rob has internet access at work, I have wireless at school, and until a couple weeks ago, there was an unsecure wireless line in my aparetment complex that I could "mooch" off of! Alas, all good things must come to an end! The unnamed, non-password protected good samaritan in my apartment complex moved (or just got smart and installed a password) so I no longer have access to internet at my apartment. Which essentially means that on the weekends (when I usually have the time to blog, etc.) I can no longer do all these things unless I want to truck it to the law school and use their wireless. That is my lame excuse for not blogging recently... HOWEVER....

I'm sitting in the Miami International Airport right now with NOTHIG to do for 8 hours (yes, you read right, 8 hours) and so I figured not would be a good time to actually install another blog post!

So this week, I was a slacker, and I'm not talking about blog slacking. I'm talking about law school slacking! I'm pretty sure that Dean Pierce (who we have nick named "Chicken Little," because the sky is always falling) would probably blow a gasket if she found out why I skipped school all this week. But it was worth it, right? I mean, how many of you would pass up an all expense paid cruise in the Caribbean to go to a week of law school?!

Yeah, that's what I thought. I figured I made the right decision to go ( : So Rob and I spent the week in the Caribbean with my family. It an office trip that my Dad and his partner took the work crew on (kind of an office bonus) and Dad decided to bring the whole gang. As a result, this was our home for the past week:
(see all the masses of people moving like cattle off the boat! "Mooooo" Haha!)

We started in Miami:

And hit up Puerto Rico: St. Martin (this hotel's cliffside suites go for about $8,500 per night!! Can you say, "only for the rich and famous?!"): And Haiti (it was rainy and cloudy that day, but still very beautiful):
What made this trip especially fun was that my dad's sisters came! I haven't seen Auntie Sonja or Vicki since I was 10. I quickly discovered where my crazy side came from. Its all making sense now! I got it from my dad's side... it must have been a recessive gene in him, but Sonja and Vicki definitely got it! They were so much fun! We definitely come from the same mold! My cousins Shaun and Tony came as well. Here is a picture of them at dinner. They are the two guys in this picture that are NOT Rob... who thinks its funny to try and stick his head in EVERY single picture I take....
Shaun also brought his wife, Cristi and his daughter Jasmine (both of whom I've never met). It was so fun to hang out with them and get to know them better!

Anyway, we had a good time...
... but we are glad to be getting back into the swing of normal life!

More pictures and fun to come later!!

Big Hair... "bump it!"

2009-02-03T15:14:00.001-06:00

I thought this was freakin' hilarious!

My friends were talking about "bump it" today at school and I had no clue what they were talking about. Expressing my confusion, I was then educated on the new "fad" that the long line of "Utah Big Hair Girls" (yes, the ones I always made fun of) will be happy to know now exists. Apparently, big hair is not just a Utah thing. And girls of all ages, shapes and sizes will be happy to know that making your hair "big" just got a little easier...

The "No brainer"

2009-01-23T15:06:00.000-06:00

I'm pretty sure that it's every law professor's ultimate goal in life to make the first year students feel like they SUCK at life...

So I'm sitting there in class today minding my own business, just listening to the lecture. But my teacher isn't just lecturing... she's LECTURIG. She was being a little too enthusiastic and theatrical for a simple first year property class. And it kept getting worse as the class kept going. She was waving her hands in the air, and saying crazy stuf... it was actually quite humorous! So what's a girl to do? I couldn't help it... I started laughing at her! Don't judge... you would have laughed too. Well, apparently she didn't appreciate that too much, and she decided to enact her revenge by ruthlessly calling on me throughout the whole class.

One time, she calls on me and asks "So can the creditors get the husband's share if they are co-owners in a tennancy in common?" And like a good little law student, I say, "Yes. The creditors can come after the husband's share only, but not the wife's." Which... FYI... THAT'S THE RIGHT ANSWER!!!!

But for some reason she keeps talking.... and talking.... and talking about this hypo, explaining in detail why the creditors can come after the husband's share but not the wife's. And then FINALLY, at the end of her monologuing, she breathes a deep sigh, throws her hands in the air and says... "Wow, I'm really glad I went over that! I thought that question was a no-brainer!"

WHAT?!?!? Come again?!!?!?! I got the answer right, crazy woman!!

And then of course, the entire class laughed at me and I recieved several facebook messages making fun of me for missing the "no brainer" question that I actually DIDN'T miss!

*sigh*

The joys of law school....

Inaguration Day!

2009-01-20T21:35:00.000-06:00

As you can see... I'm feeling very patriotic today... Unfortunately, the moment that our new president was sworn into office, I was in Civil Procedure trying vainly to both listen to the lecture at hand, and watch MSNBC News on my lap top. I think my teacher might have noticed my only "half attention" attitude, because he called on me to ask a question! Curses! I faked my way through an answer, but by the time the grilling was over, so was the inaguration. Dang it. Thank goodness for internet and replays!

I'm excited and optimistic about President Obama and all that he's bringing to the table. No, he's not exactly what I want in a president . . . but then again, who really has it all? Honestly? It would be impossible to elect a president that pleases every single American individually. I'm encouraged by his attitude for change and am impressed with many of his platforms (again, not all of them, but enough to be excited). And I also think it's a wonderful achievment that America has been able to move past the racial violence and tensions that have tainted our history for generations. A man should not be elected president based on the color of his/her skin: black or white. But I'm thrilled that we have a president that is both a good man, AND one who can prove to the world that America is a place of change and optimism.

And say whatever you want about his politics, but you have to admit, he's a good man who loves his family. It was so sweet watching him with his wife and girls today. I got all teary eyed watching them dance! You can really tell they're in love! (Won't that be a White House change?!) God Bless America!