The thing about hair....

...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

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

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

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!

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

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...

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

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

Expiration Date: Nov. 4, 2010

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!

Harry Potter Cast tries to speak "America."

Movie Trailers - Movies Blog

Where We're Headed...

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

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!!