Anniversary

Today marks the ten year anniversary of our first date. It was a great day then and it is a great day now. Back then we went to see The Grinch and had dinner at Chevy's. Today we went to see the movie Red (which we absolutely loved!) had dinner at the Olive Garden and had pictures taken by the very talented Tracy Layne. She has such an eye for photography and although I've only seen this one picture so far, I know the rest will be amazing.
It was such a beautiful day. Chris bought me a quad set of scriptures and a mini hymnal. Plus, he had my name embossed(is that the word?) on the front of both of them. I gave him a camera that is made for rugged use. Waterproof, shock and cold resistant. Plus a bunch of accessories to go with it. I told him that ten years ago we started making memories together and I want to always be able to capture those moments.

Chris, I love you more than fingers can type, more than words can say.

Our New Addition...

Well, after about seven and a half years of trying, Chris and I have some very exciting news. We have a new arrival in our lives!

He weighs 80,000 pounds and is about 68 feet long.

We are so excited to be taking this next step in our company. We hope to add slowly and steadily to our fleet over the next year so that we can get off the truck and start our real family. Ü

Our new driver is named Rick and we really like him. He has a lot of experience and is a really nice guy.


Chris has been unbelievably busy these past several weeks. We really were doing too much at once since we were selling our old house, buying a new one, moving (by the way, we moved but just up the street. Maybe I'll get around to blogging about that someday...), and then getting another truck, all in the month of October and November. Here is just a part of one of the lists of things that Chris has had to deal with (I'm just going to type what he wrote on his list since I don't know what some of it means):

form 2290 heavy vehicle tax
getloaded.com set up
wabash paid
prepass setup
ez pass
fuel card setup
setup fedex account
trip packs and info sheets
promiles online
IFTA
permit book
yard space
Buckner company
background check
setup payroll Quickbooks
setup direct deposit
fax bills
driver file
MVR
CDL 15 report
Past employment
card signs for decals
debit card and acct link
activate insurance
get directions/addresses
fax emp H57 request
Order comchecks
verification of fedex labels
compufact
broker packet
Oregon authority
alpha express
pet policy
per diem
governed 67
paper logs
fuel card
chock for wheels
maintenance
downtime
routes
chaining up
central dispatch
NASTC
per diem tax deduction
update truck number with EZ pass
update address with Humana
USTC plates
trailer title
FMSCA regulations book
GPS
W-9
I-9
security deposit
tires
truck/trailer VIN
Call Foley for drug testing locations
Sky Harbor
load locks
OOIDA member
trailer chain hooks

Now most of this has to do with after we found the truck, trailer and driver. He had a huge list just to get to this point involving finding the equipment, posting the job ad, looking at applications and backgrounds of different people and hiring. And since we've had Rick out on the road, Chris hasn't had a full nights sleep uninterrupted until last night. He gets a couple hours here, a half hour there, three hours, before he has to wake up to deal with something else. Hopefully we'll get into a groove pretty soon and it won't be quite as hectic but I know it'll get worse before it gets better. Ü It was very moving to watch Rick drive away on Monday knowing all our hard work had finally paid off. I'm so happy. I have such a wonderful blessed life.



Chris, you are amazing! (and a little short in that picture Ü) I love you.

Shopping With a Bad Ankle

I needed to go to Walmart on Monday but was really dreading the time and effort (and pain) it would require to hobble around that big store on my sad swollen ankle. So instead, when I got there I asked the Welcome Lady if I could use one of the electric carts. She asked who it was for and when I said "me" she looked me up and down. Obviously she thought I was faking it or something. She said that normally she would say no but today she would let me. Not sure why "today" was the exception but I'm sure glad it was. Even though the cart was slow, it was about ten times faster than I would have gone.

Wow, I am getting all sorts of new experiences out of this one incident. Ü

Handy-woman

Isn't it pretty? No, I'm not talking about the vase of flowers. I'm talking about the toilet handle. Ü

About a year after we moved in, our handle cracked. A few months later I forgot about the crack and cut my finger on it when I flushed. Instead of fixing it, I put a band-aid on it (the handle, not my finger) to remind me it was broken so I wouldn't get cut again. However, I finally got sick of it last week. I called up my friend Malachi who owns Goff Plumbing and he walked me through the steps of changing it out. He's so awesome! I went and bought a new handle and fixed it all by myself. No more band-aid, no more cut fingers!

Update On the Ankle

Still swollen, still uncomfortable, still truckin'. I was able to drive by Friday, thank goodness, although Chris had to do a lot of little things for me. I made it to the temple today and had the chance to be rolled around in a wheelchair. An experience I won't forget. Now I'm going to put it on ice high in the air...

Grievous Wound

This afternoon I stepped out of the truck as normal. Sadly, the ground must have been a bit lower than I expected because as I went to step away I rolled my ankle really bad. I (so un-gracefully) fell backwards onto the grass just missing the big railroad tie that borders the parking area. It hurt so bad that I couldn't even get up to knock on the side of the truck to get Chris. Luckily there was another trucker who happened to see me (lucky except for my embarrassment) and he came over to offer assistance. He had to bang on the truck twice to wake Chris up because he was so deep asleep. But once Chris was awake he was amazing. He looked at my ankle while I cried in the grass. Then he helped me into the truck (quite the ordeal requiring lots of hopping and him pushing me from behind). Then he went in to get our check and got a big bag of ice in the process. Then he gave me a blessing. Then he drove when it wasn't even close to his turn. He fueled and drove some more. He went to Walmart (while I laid in the truck like a baby) and bought some cold packs and an ankle brace and then he bandaged me up quite nicely. I have the best husband. Right now, I'm loaded up on Ibuprofen and ice. I feel discomfort but not pain unless I try walking around. I hopped into Farnsworth and everyone teased me. :) But they did push me around on a rolly chair so that I didn't have to hop to the bathroom. I love these people we work with. Chris is now catching up on his sleep so he can still drive out tonight giving me more time for the swelling to go down. We don't think it's too bad, it's only about the size of a golf ball (only?) but we'll see how I feel by this weekend. I'm supposed to go to an endowment session for my Aunt Cindy and Cousin Margaret at the Salt Lake Temple (which of course requires a bit of walking) so I'm hoping that I'll be able to manage that. And next week I'm planning on doing the Subway at Zions National Park. Here's hoping...

It's pretty amazing but in seven years this is only the second grievous wound I've received while on the truck. I count that as a major blessing.

Oh, What a Beautiful Morning

This week we got home from the truck right as the sun was about to come up. It was gorgeous!


And aren't these two of the CUTEST kids you've ever seen? I love them to pieces! My niece Addy and nephew Oliver. Love them.

Eight Years!

For our anniversary this year Chris and I went to Yellowstone. It was such an amazing trip. We got up there on Saturday in the early evening and stayed until Monday mid-morning. We decided to stay at the Canyon Lodge instead of in a tent which saved us time on packing and setting up camp. Our room was as near to perfection as anything could be. We were on the backside so we had a great view and could hear a brook babbling. We left the windows open pretty much the entire time even though it was a little chilly. So beautiful!


On Sunday we went for a hike. Chris found a great Hiking Guide Book For Geezers that had a bunch of trails that weren't too strenuous. Right at the beginning we had to take a detour because there were some buffalo right on the trail. Chris has nicknamed buffalo Yellowstone Rats because they are so common. Ü




We hiked to a beautiful view of the Grand Canyon of Yellowstone. The pictures look fake but I promise we were there.




After admiring the view for a bit we turned around and hiked back. I think it was about a six mile hike in all.


It was about 4:00 when we headed back to our room and on the way we saw this sign:


How cool is that. It was perfect timing. We got to go to Sacrament in Yellowstone! It started pouring rain but luckily they had an umbrella for us. We sang and partook and listened to a speaker (when we could hear him. The rain was pretty loud on those umbrella's). It was such a special experience.

That evening we went for a drive to view some wildlife. We had stopped because Chris saw something down by the river. It turned out to be some beavers.



But while we were standing there watching them (and we were very close) we heard a big commotion on the road. A grizzly bear ran across the road and jumped into the river. We got to watch him swim across to the other side and then slowly meander his way back into the trees. It was SOOO cool. I haven't seen a bear in Yellowstone since I was a really little girl. As it turned out, this was a great trip for bears.




When we left the river we drove to Hayden Valley and got to watch a coyote hunting and then saw another grizzly bear up on the side of the mountain. Another vehicle stopped and the Dad had a big spotting scope that he let us look in. His son told us it's the "fancy pants" one. He kept saying "you can look in my dad's fancy pants". It was too funny. (We just got a scope and plan on calling it fancy pants. Ü) We didn't get any pictures of this excursion because I was too busy looking through the binoculars.

We slept wonderfully with the windows open and the heater on. Totally wasteful but totally worth it! We woke up early on Monday to do some more wildlife watching. The sunrise was gorgeous. It was so refreshing to sit and watch it rise with nature all around us.


We drove up to Lamar Valley and saw a ton of wildlife. We got stuck in a traffic jam that lasted for about fifteen minutes.


And then we saw a black bear, then two more black bears, then another grizzly. It was walking along the river area. It's the brown spot in the middle of the frame with several buffalo nearby.


I learned that if I asked, people would tell me what they were looking at through their scopes and then direct me where to look. By doing that we saw several bears that we never would have seen otherwise. I decided to ask one guy if he knew a good spot to see some wolves (something we have never seen in Yellowstone). Unbelievably, he did. The night before he had been watching some feed on a buffalo carcass and told us about where to look. When we got there we weren't the only ones that wanted to see.



We had to hike up a hill for the best view and when we got there we found out that there was now a grizzly involved. He was fighting 5 wolves for the buffalo. Holy cow it was one of the neatest things I've ever seen and I could have sat there for hours watching. A very nice lady let us look through her fancy pants as well. Our binoculars worked well enough but the action was so far away that we couldn't tell details unless we were looking through her scope. In the middle of the frame just below the tree line are some brown spots. That's what we were looking at. And this is with my zoom all the way zoomed. Ü


Chris finally dragged me away and on the drive back we saw two more black bears (these guys were young) walking just off the road. I about fell out of my window taking pictures. Ü


Finally, we went back to our room, packed up and left. We hit construction on the way out of the park (I think it follows us) but made it home in good time.


What a wonderful anniversary trip. Chris bought me a cute moose card (the one animal we didn't see was a moose but that's ok, I see them a lot) and a moose blanket and some moose socks and a moose shirt that I love. What a sweet husband I have. And not because of the moose paraphernalia. He is so loving. He works so hard for us. He takes such good care of me. He makes me laugh every single day. I am so blessed. So happy.

Eclipse

I went to see Eclipse on the 3rd of July with my mom and sisters. Once again, we had a blast. I enjoyed the movie quite a lot. I laughed at Jasper and wondered at his sudden southern accent. I thought Bella was a little more believable. I thought Edward actually had some cute moments. I'm totally a traitor because I am Team Edward in the books but Team Jacob in the movies. :) I brought some Sweethearts I had bought that were Twilight themed but they tasted terrible so we threw them away.

While we were waiting for the movie to start we were extremely obnoxious (we did quiet down once it began). We were laughing really loud and taking pictures of ourselves. It started out with a couple group shots and then a self portrait of everyone. Then it turned into really frightening pictures of us (which I promised not to publish but if you want to come over and see them... Ü) and pictures of random things in Mom's purse. I love my weird wacky family. After the movie we went to McDonald's where Mom bought us a treat. Camey had some fries, Robyn and I got the berry smoothies and Shian and Mom got McFlurries. But then Robyn regretted her decision and stared at Shian's ice cream so long that Shian had to give her a taste. And I shared my smoothie with Camey. All in all it worked out just fine. We had such a great evening and I can't wait until Breaking Dawn comes out (more for the experience than the actual movie Ü). Love you, ladies!

It Took Some Time...

Today Chris and I finished reading the Bible. Completely. Every single "inasmuch", "begat", and "Thus saith the Lord". It took us at least four years (I can't remember exactly when we started but I know we had just moved into our house when we were in Deuteronomy because I gave an answer in Relief Society about it and for some reason the memory stuck). We didn't read every night but I would say we read most nights. I am so proud of us. It is a major accomplishment. This is the first time either of us has read it all the way through. Now hopefully we can get the Book of Mormon read before our stake conference in November...

My Food in San Diego!

I ate so much good food in San Diego that I want to write pages and pages about it. Instead, I'll try to keep it brief.

My first food at Chevy's in seven or so years. I inhaled it. There was no thought of a picture until after it was gone. Ü


Then there is the salsa. I probably ate enough salsa to count as my meal.


I bought a pound and a pint before we left. A pound of chips and a pint of salsa. I kept it at the hotel and ate some for breakfast almost every single morning. Ü


Our dinner with 'Nara was at Casa Guadalajara. It was a favorite restaurant of hers on her mission. I had a smothered chicken burrito with extra sour cream:


Chris and 'Nara's food:


For the wedding luncheon we went to Marie Callender's.
My chicken pot pie:


My lemon meringue that was heavenly:


Chris's chocolate mousse pie that was also heavenly:


On Friday we went to California Pizza. It was the first time I've eaten there and I was impressed. I can't remember what kind of pizza I ordered but it was pretty.


Chris got something a little riskier. He liked it but it was a tad too spicy for me.


For the wedding Charlie and 'Nara chose to have it catered by Cafe Rio. It was such a great idea. I love Cafe Rio.


And then on Sunday we went to Chevy's again. This time I managed to take a picture before I gobbled it up. Chicken soft taco, beef crispy taco, charro beans, sweet corn tomatillo or whatever it's called. Mmm mmm good. I love Chevy's!!!


I ate so much delicious food in San Diego. It was bliss.