Day 80 (3/21/11) - More Rain!!

More rain...yesterday it just poured and we had thunderstorms in the middle of the night. This morning things looked better, but no such luck. Jared called me at 11:00 to pick him up from school because he was sick. We went to the grocery store to get OJ and cold supplies under ominous clouds. Shortly after we returned home, it started pouring again. If this keep up, we are going to have build an arky, arky. Oh by the way, when you have tile roofing, it acts like a funnel and basically all comes down in certain areas flooding your poor plants. Luckily my hydrangeas love the water.

Day 79 (3/20/11) - Rainy Days and BBQs

I didn't check the weather reports before I planned on tri-tip for our Sunday dinner. Matt and Jared were bound and determined to grill that tri-tip. It's just not the same on the indoor grill. They went out with the umbrella and wheeled the BBQ around to the front of the garage and grilled it there. It was delicious. For dessert, we had this six layer chocolate cake. No big deal.

Day 78 (3/19/11) - Road Show

Stake road shows were Saturday night. I'm so glad they are finally over so we don't have to hear Matt complain any more! Ours was a beach theme so here is Jared as a crab. I had to get a picture of the gnome family too because they made me laugh. We also had a pretty cool little band...not in the picture is our pianist who used to be in a bluegrass band when she lived in the south. Roadshows are so cheesey, yet we found ourselves enjoying them and laughing the whole time. Nikki Sixx, the bass player for Motley Crue was in the audience. He tends to stick out a little bit. We didn't get a picture since it was dark in there, but a kid in our ward had his guitar autographed by him.

Day 77 (3/18/11) - Temple Day

Matt and I went to the temple today. It's always nice to have some quiet time away together. After we took advantage of our time together and ate dinner at Pei Wei. Maelen was such a good sport to pick up the kids and get them dinner even though she needed to drop off a job application.

Day 76 (3/17/11) - St. Patrick's Day

St. Patrick's Day!! We have to celebrate St. Patrick's Day in a different way since my family is not big on corned beef and cabbage and my kids don't like anything mint. We had these cookies - just chocolate chip with green food coloring (no mint). Maelen made us a fruit rainbow....so yummy.

Day 75 (3/16/11) - Finding the Beauty in Chore Day

Wednesday is one of our chore days. Maelen was vacuuming the stairs and when she got upstairs, I unplugged it for her and the cord landed like this. Maelen was excited and pointed out it was a heart. Trust Maelen to find the happy, cute things in life.

Day 74 (3/15/11) - Signs of Spring

Ahhh....Spring. One of my favorite signs of Spring is the opening of Thackerberry Farms stands. They have the best strawberries ever. Also, when Spring rolls around it is evident on the apricot tree in the backyard. New little buds letting us know we will have some yummy apricots ripening soon. That is, if the wind and rain storms don't wash them away.

Day 73 (3/14/11) - Proof that I have no life.....

So sad. This is my life...our pest control guy came today. I was busy updating my blog so I didn't get to have my normal chat with him when he dropped off the bill. Yes, it's true. Irons, steam mops, laundry and pest control. It's my life.

Day 71 (3/12/11) - Todd's Car

On a happier note, here is my cute nephew Todd. He just returned from a mission in El Salvador and has been working hard to buy a car. Oh, not just to get around in, but so he can date too. He thought it might be uncool to take a date out in his mom's mini-van. Saturday he came over to show us his cute new Jetta wagon and took us for a drive down the beach. It is a nice little car and it was cute to see him open the door and take a deep breath in of the new car smell. I love this boy.

Oh..by the way...I'm getting lax in my picture taking. I sent him a text after he left to tell him I was sad I didn't think to take his picture with the car while he was here. Being the dutiful nephew he is, he went home and had somebody take this picture.

Day 70 (3/11/11) - Tragedy

Obviously, these are not my photographs, but since this is serving as a journal of sorts, I had to include this horrible tragedy. On Friday afternoon in Japan, there was an 8.9 magnitude earthquake under the ocean. So not only did they suffer earthquake devastation, but also a tsunami caused by the earthquake. This country has basically been demolished. Tens of thousands of people have lost their lives and counting. The first picture is a before and after satellite picture of Japan. My heart goes out to these people as they suffer through this time of crisis.

It also makes me think long and hard about getting in gear with my emergency supplies. The second picture is a line of people waiting to get water. They have none. Right now they probably have nothing, but water being a neccessity, they are waiting at this school for hours. Do we all have our water supplies? At the very least that is something we can do NOW!

Day 68 and 69 (3/9/11 and 3/10/11) - Projects and more projects

I decided to take on cleaning out my craft supplies in the play room. That sent my allergies into overdrive, but it felt soooo good to get rid of tons of junk! I am also looking in to selling my old Sizzix die cut machine and the die cuts. I wonder if anyone would buy them? Anyway, I saw all the projects in waiting and decided to get a bunch done and out of the way. I finally finished this quilt from a quilt-a-long. The Christmas fabric I have had for YEARS! I decided to throw that together into a rag quilt. That went together pretty quickly and now I have the fabrics I love in a quilt that we can keep and use!

Day 67 (3/8/11) - Walk Through California

Today was Kendall's "Walk Through California" day at school. They were not required to dress up, but she really wanted to. We didn't have a cowboy hat, so I thought the bandana was a cute addition. I should know better - as soon as got to school she took it off and tied it on like a bandit. Also, a friend brought her a cowboy hat to wear. Ah well. I tried.

Day 66 (3/7/11) - Cinnamon Bread

My mom gave us some cinnamon rolls last week and boy did they go fast. Jared was wishing he could have one this morning, so I decided I would make cinnamon bread. It's nice to know my yeast is still good which is evident by the dough almost rising over the bowl! It felt like an I Love Lucy episode. Needless to say, Jared was thrilled to come home to toasted cinnamon bread for a snack. Yum!

Day 65 (3/6/11) - Emily's 18th

We celebrated Emily's birthday today. Sunday is our regular get together day for parties because during the week is too hard with everyone's schedules. As usual, Vicki made a fantastic dinner of Hawaiian Haystacks. I'm not gonna lie, after yesterday it was so nice to not make a dinner. I was exhausted!! It's also great to spend time with family and play with the twinnies.

Day 64 (3/5/11) - Women's Conference

Women's Conference turned out pretty good if I do say so myself. Here is just a portion of our ladies enjoying lunch after a full morning of classes.

Here is our "wait staff". You gotta love the High Council. They come and serve with a smile on their face. What would we do without them?

This guy was a champ. He showed up early and worked hard the whole time. Before he left he thanked US for letting him be there. He told us how much he enjoyed being part of the day. Heaven knows we will be inviting him back next year.

Alright, so what do you do when you have a building full of women? You turn one of the men's restrooms into a women's restroom. Nothing like a good fern to camouflage the urinals, right? Awesome.

Day 63 (3/4/11) - Setting Up for Women's Conference

Just a few pictures from our set-up of Women's Conference. Everything was turning out beautifully! We had a great committee helping but it's always a lot more work than you think it will be.

Oh! We also got the van back today! Just as good as new. I never thought I would say this, but I really missed driving this van. P.S. A scrape appeared on this side within just a couple of days of getting it back. Aaaarrrggh!!

Day 61 & 62 (3/2/11 and 3/3/11) Blur

Again....no judging. I have resolved myself to the fact that I won't have a picture every day of my humdrum little life. These two days were a product of much procrastination so they were spent getting everything together for my two talks at Women's conference, handouts, and whatnot. So busy, but at least I'm staying out of trouble.

Day 60 (3/1/11) - Barbies are for all ages

I was in the play room/sewing room working on a project when I was lucky enough to have Maelen come in and chat with me. She saw the box of Barbies sitting out and became a little upset with the fact that many were in the wrong outfits or not dressed at all. And I won't even mention her feelings on the state of their hair! She sat down and busied herself getting them back to normal. Unfortunately (or fortunately?) with her attention span, that only lasted through a few Barbies and she was over it.

Day 59 (2/28/11) - Taxes!!

Taxes today. Ugghh. This is the one thing I dread from January 1st all the way until April 15th. I have found though, the only positive thing that came from Matt's furlough days is a lower tax bracket. This year I was pleasantly surprised at the outcome. Still not my favorite day though. Blehhh.