Oh Susannah. I only have one ya know.

This fella, Forrest Barnard, is who my lil sister is marrying on Friday, April 22nd 2011. I only have one little sister- i spent most of my time being a little sister too so to have one that i could torture and yet be best friends with was so great. p.s. nana you know im still sorry i was such a bum to you at times growing up. i wuv you. this post is for you.

these are my most recent pics- obviously from our weddin day. but its hard to get pics when they live in idaho. we just needa be better at carrying a camera.

i love this picture. i just love it. sisters are sisters forever ya know? forever. and i'm like tearing up thinking about this lil sis. i love her. i'm so happy for her. i'm gonna bawl this weekend. she looks so pretty in her dress- refer to my cousins blog on the left hand side click on "Amy & Drew" and you will find some of her bridals.

random photo i had on my comp. funny- susannah and i sometimes (especially now that its even more special when we get to see each other) like to sit really close. hence, this is a small recliner, we both are in this recliner. and of course our cutiepatootie niece grace is sharing with the love. nana and i are nerds.

obviously you cant see her face, but her camo jacket, john deere hat w/flames, and her big ole shades make it impossible to not know its her. :) hahaha. this was us trying to figure our way through utah on a little road trip adventure in which we had to go pick up one of my good friends. this was fun. just fun. we needed that trip. nana, lets do this again sometime.

this was just another random pic- us at general conference last april i believe. its a pic from a phone which explains why it kinda looks weird.

i just wanted to dedicate a post all to my lil sis. because you know, she is my buddy for life and even after. i forget sometimes that there is one other person in this world who really does think a lot like me, talks like me, (cant tell the difference between us on the phone) laughs at the same exact stuff as me, and even laughs at my dumb jokes, and idk- someone to tell me im pretty when im feelin the opposite. she's always made me feel like i'm important. even when we were little she always wanted to be my twin (which drove me completely insane) it still made me feel good to know she wanted to be like me. but see, she was always the loving sister who wanted to go around and give the world a hug. and secretly i really wanted to be like her.

ya probably didnt know this, but when nana was little (im not gonna get into alll the details) she got really sick. we almost lost her. i still remember being a little gal laying in my bed and crying cuz i didn't want her to leave me. i knew my life wouldn't be the same if i didn't grow up with her. somehow, thanks to a loving Heavenly Father who answers prayers of little girls and of loving mothers (and everyone) susie q is still with us. and is doing awesome. i'm so lucky to have a good sister like her. i love my whole family- they are all amazing, but this post is dedicated to the baby of the fam- the caboose, the little gal who we tricked into believing bum was spelled bumb. (that was me and jesse who did that, still funny, high five jesse!) but it just goes to show how trusting she was and still is, and her innocent and loving spirit will always show us all up.

Forrest is about to be sealed for eternity to an angel. I couldn't have picked anyone better for her to spend the rest of her life with. I love these two amazing people. I am so excited for this weekend-most of all to be there to see my little sister get married in the temple. wow...it will be an incredible experience. I love you nana! Congrats on gettin hitched! :)

last of all, a poem, i wrote this for susannah December 12, 1008. she was feelin down and so i decided to throw somethin together quickly and it turned out great.

Dear Susannah,

You Rock My World.

Your just that kind of girl.

Rainbows are not as pretty as you

Thank good you have a normal size shoe.....................(if you know me you know i dont)

Lifes gonna get better i promise dude

I hope the laundry detergent i bought works for you..(i know, but it rhymed and i did buy some)

I love christmas-i know we'll have fun

even if this year isn't the 'best' one.

Life will keep goin after this new year,

everyone will be talking about how samuel killed that big deer (i am sooo random sometimes)

I love you sister don't ever forget

I promise that life will be good ready, get set!

You are a hottie no matter what anyone says

But even on the inside your prettier than flowers

This hard stuff ain't your fault

Don't hold up your feelings in a vault

Be strong---you go girl

Simply because you rock my world.

Love, Sammy

it made her laugh. thats what its purpose was. so there ya go people i have the best lil sister in the world. just sayin.

Little Addition to the Family...

Did I scare ya? cuz i not prego. no no no. and the addition to our fam is littler than most of its species.

We got a 2004 Honda Rebel. size: 250. (all i know is that means its a small motorcycle, and i know that for sure cuz the guy who sold it to us said the reason for selling it is cuz he was too fat for it.)

This is not the motorcycle, but ours looks exactly like this. We got a screeeeamin deal on it, and long story short- the bike only had 24 miles on it. ya, the guy also didn't know anything about motorcycles in general...including how to read the trip odometer vs actual mileage.

its been fun cruising around on this here and there. i'm not gonna get on it till i get me a helmet tho- and i need to get a helmet that i actually LIKE- so im gonna be a stickler about that. we're actually trying to sell it- see if we can't make a little extra money on it, but i kinda wanna keep it... normally i'm not a fan of motorcycles, but this one has a hard time goin over 60 mph so i'm not too worried.

oh blogger blogger.

well, i want to i guess its called, "export my blog" but my sis tells me it dont work right, and i dont wanna pay to make it a book, but eventually im planning on saying goodbye to the blogging world...

until then....

here's whats up.

House Plans. That's whats up! i am getting excited! i am lookin and lookin and believe it or not i keep turning to Mexican Style anything! ya know the beautiful awesome tiles such as these:

this is where the tiles would be placed, backsplash of our kitchen. this is just an idea. i dont love the white cupboards though, i'd go with something else. ivory with a rustic/brown wash to em, most likely. i want to paint my own tiles, but seeing how brushfire pottery no longer exists (sadface times ten) i prob wont do that.

here's the conclusion i came to, i love rustic cabin looking homes/decor, but they lack color 90 percent of the time, i like color. not crazy crazy colors, but i like color. so somehow in the mesh of color and cabins, i have found how much i love mexican style. cuz they bring everything together beautifully. but then there's the touch of Africa that i want somewhere in our house with all our stuff from Ghana, and there's just lots of ideas running through my head. people are gonna think i'm crazy for trying to mix Africa, Mexico, Cowboy, and a little bit of contemporary into one home. However, many thought i was initially crazy to do an African themed wedding with animal prints gallore- and i think with the help of an amazing mother-in-law it was very successful. i think i can do a sweet looking house. i really believe it. even with all my likes. oh and ya wanna know what other country has awesome style? Greece! Mamma Mia! thats what i'm talkin about.

i like dark wood, pretty much across the board (that was kindof funny how i said that) so idk i just have lots of ideas. hope i can figure it all out! haha pretty exciting tho.

Serious Coupon Trip

So tonight I got 70 32 oz bottles of powerade for 6 dollars (and i think 41 cents but not sure). Thanks to awesome ladies in my fam and ward who occasionally clue me in when they're about to get a serious deal i now have powerade for a long time. i guess including the coupons (which we got off ebay) i spent 12 bucks. but i believe that still evens out to 17 cents a bottle. if you dont count the price of the coupons- and still count what we paid for them at the store with dang tax- we got em for 9 cents a bottle. sweeeeeeeeet huh. yep. thought i'd share that with y'all. :) i'm excited. OOOOOoh and i only have to finish the border to my quilt and i will be all done with it:) score.

Washington DC!

So, what happened was, on Tuesday (a couple weeks ago) we got a phone call. It was from Colten's brother- he asked if we wanted to go with the Young Farmers and Ranchers group (sent by the Farm Bureau) to Washington DC to tour it, and to talk to our senators and representatives from the state of Utah about issues regarding agriculture....we were to leave that Friday. Well, initially both of us were like, ahhhh we have jobs, we have school we can't miss all of this... but then Colten's bro gave colten a talking-to and he was right, this is a once in a lifetime oppurtunity and so we took it! It was soo much fun. Now y'all get to take the trip with us! The above picture is of the changing of the guards outside the "Tomb of the Unknown Soldier" which is in Arlington Cemetary.

This was IDK what but it was also in arlington, and i didn't think colten was allowed to go sit down there so I didn't go down to that part but colten sure did and we got a pic of it.

These pictures are all in backwards order by the way because this was the last day we were there. This was at the Smithsonian Air and Space museum which was a pretty cool place.

Arlington Cemetary- what a special spirit that resides here! Very cool.

This is Senator Orrin Hatch. May I just mention that we were on the front row during this part because our assignment was to talk to him personally, and somehow colten snuck in a picture- and it really wasn't a moment where it was appropriate for picture taking but he still did it anyway. We took another picture with him where he put his arm around me and said, "I like it when the women stand by me in pictures" we have yet to recieve that pic from email but it was cool too :) I loved this man, he's been doing his job for a loooong time, and he knows what he's talking about.
He said a lot of great things and I agreed with everything he said. Colten and I spoke to him about Estate Taxes but we were telling someone to agree with us when he already whole heartedly did haha. (which we knew but we still had to talk to him) Basically, estate taxes are dumb and he knows it and he is trying to abolish them.

This was us outside the capitol. aren't we cute? :) p.s. i was cold 90% of the time we were there. and everyone kept saying "Oh you guys got good weather to come and enjoy here" and i kept thinking "um, i'm from southern utah people. i dont do well with any cold at all." so i'm wearing this jacket in every pic basically.

Also at one of the smithsonians... the natural history one....this is the BIGGEST DIAMOND IN THE WORLD. and its blue:) kinda cool.

Big mouth shark. Real big mouth shark.

Irish Elk- apparently they were huuuuuge. like this fella for example. its funny, when i went with my fam to england/scotland/wales- in Scotland (i think) in one of the castles, there were antlers on the wall about this same size and they also said it was from an Irish elk- so they couldn't be tooo old but they were huge thats for sure.

In the same museum they also had an african section which i thought was a little random, but there was a lot about Ghana so of course Colten about died of happiness. This is how he would actually barter with ghanaians (whatever it is he's doing with his hands) so we had to take this picture.

She was a nice lady too.

The capitol. Cool pic huh. We thought so.

This was at Old Ebbit's Grill which apparently has been around for like um, forever. Pretty much every president has eaten here and it's a favorite of them. I had crab cakes that were scrumptious. my hair looks a little funny but it rained that day so give me a break.

In the capitol, each state gets to contribute 2 statues of people from their state that are special basically. So ours were Philo T. Farnsworth (who invented the TV and who i'm related to cool huh) and none other than the admired Brigham Young who is shown above. we thought that was awesome.

While touring the capitol our tour guide made us wear head phones so we could hear him talking the whole time, but we were probably only like 5 feet away from him 90% of the time so it was dumb that we had to wear them but i still followed the rules. i was also a little bored of him cuz he was a rude tour guide. but the capitol was cool.

in this room in the capitol there are like 6 huge paintings, and of all people pictured, one of them was Pocahontus (the real one, not disney fantasized one) on her wedding day, idk we didnt take a pic of that cuz i wanted to, but oh well.

inside of the capitol dome

Another picture that was inappropriate to take but colten snuck one anyway, this was where we were learning a little more about all the issues we were to talk to the big guys about.

Public transportation. Interesting. Kinda gross and just exactly what ya see in the movies. I definitely felt out of place every time we used the metro system. Especially if colten was wearing his cowboy hat- we stood out like....i wont say, we just really stood out.

The place Abraham Lincoln got shot. Fords theatre. I couldn't tell ya why but i didn't have a good feeling in this end of town.

The most chinese part of china town was this thing over the road. But we still lived it up in Chinatown.

All of our tour guides told us the same thing, there are about 3 chinese restaurants in china town. So after trying desperately to find somewhere to eat- we ended up following the other couple we were with to a place i wont ever eat at again. i dont look unhappy in this picture, but i was. some of you know where we ended up eating, but i dont wanna tell cuz i am embarrassed about it.

this was in Gettysburg Pennsylvania. Yet again another very interesting tour guide. this was right above a place i cant remember the exact name of but the majority of the people died here. :(

I love my nerd hubby.

All we got to see of the washington dc temple. right there. and we only saw that much cuz we convinced our bus driver to take a small detour. its pretty though.

The next bunch of pics are from Mount Vernon- George Washington's home. this was part of the farm where the slaves lived and the little hut up there is actually a very big grainery. it was cool.

the river down the hill from the house. colten is purposely posing like that fyi. aint he a cutie?

a door down to (what they told us) was where some folks were buried at one time or still might be i can't remember....

just walkin around mt vernon and its hugeness.

view from ole George's back porch. a bit jealous? yes me too.

his house. fun fact for ya (guess that movie) outside of his house looks exactly like it has white bricks covering it. but actually, its wood cut out to look like bricks then covered in the white stuff. who knew?

Washington Monument. This thing is tall. We saw it more close up the first night but that night we didn't have the camera.

This is my hubby outside the White House Visitor's center in which we watched a movie that toured us through the white house because we couldn't go in the actual white house. everyone else on the tour could but we couldn't because we were called short notice--which was because we were in place of another couple that was supposed to go. They apparently do a background check six months in advance. but everyone told us the white house tour was lame. so i think we actually got the better end of the deal.

thats all folks! we had a blast! now i gotta go pack cuz we goin campin. woot woot. yeah for allergies. they;ll probably be awesome on our camping trip.

Funny Hubby Part 2

(even though there could be way more posts like this I can only remember so many- but this one was classic)

First off, definition time, NPF stands for (in my family) "Natural Physiological Function" and it's a nice/funny way of just saying FART. yep i capitolized it cuz sometimes it's funnier that way.

I'm gonna just make this quick and to the point because i don't want a super long post about a fart, but this is what my hubby said to my mom and I when (for some reason i can't explain, but every family at one point or another discusses the subject) we were talking about NPFs and how the acronym came about,

"My NPFs don't have an odor any more than a snowflake"

Thanks again to my dearest hubby, for making us all giggle every now and again.

Thoughts. What do you think?

There were like massive awesome moments of today. Example #1- going to the temple with some cool gals. Sammi, Charlee, Brittany, and I went today to the most beautiful place in the world. I have loads and loads to learn as far as temples go, but I know one thing, I'm pretty sure the feeling there is a lot what heavens gonna be like- sweeeeeet.

Thoughts of today: As a result of an interesting book which I am still reading, (the survivors club) I have come to some conclusions and I wanna voice my opinion. To not be exact- but to tell the story quickly and efficiently-- there was a 72 year old woman who lived in an apartment complex that she managed in somewhere in california. One night she heard noises outside and went out to check on things. There was an extreeemely drunk man out there. She told him to stop whatever it was he was doing- and he followed her back to her apartment, broke in, and did to her things that should not be mentioned in detail on this blog. In other words, he was inappropriate enough to go to jail for it. Well, although the doctors took care of her, she ended up dying approximately 1-2 months later of a number of problems, pnuemonia (sp?) "brought on by advanced lung cancer and the failure of her heart and kidneys" (pg 243) ( don't worry this post will end positively) So, her lawyer decides that he's gonna charge the drunk guy with homicide too----why you ask? because this lawyer claims that the man not only hurt the woman, but he "killed her will to live."

(jesse i'm using more paragraphs :) love ya ) Now I wanna know what you guys think, really, tell me. because this is how I feel, you can't kill someone elses will to live. Before we came to this earth, we fought for agency, or the ability to choose- for lack of the better definition i have at home for this word. This was a gift given to us that we can really only take away from ourselves-- right? They say that the woman in the story was a cheerful, happy, fun loving woman until she went through this horrible trial. AND not to say that I would react a ton differently, but she chose to lose her will to live- if in fact that was what really killed her. She turned into a very sad person, and that was how she chose to look at her situation. I personally feel that although this man did horrible things to an innocent woman, he can't take away her will to survive. No one can take that from me, no one can take it from... anyone else but themselves! We choose how we will react to every situation. We choose how to survive. We choose to turn that frown upside down people!

I know one thing for sure, on either side of the story this would just be a tough situation. My heart goes out to anyone who has suffered like this woman did. But, trials come- but they also go! that's the beautiful part! they come, and then they go. yeah, they may come back, but they will leave again. and life is about enjoying to the fullest the moments that bring joy. One of the most beautiful parts- is agency- the blessing is in the part where either we choose to let he moment bring us down, or we let the moment make us soar. Our desires direct our agency, and the choices we make directly reflect what we really want out of this life. So, all I'm sayin is make good choices. it all comes down to that. Our moms were right. Go figure.