Bulletin Board Princess

Yep, that's me. The bulletin board princess. At least I'm the princess of something. Here's my newest bulletin board...

It's kind of hard to see, but we're making a super cute FHE board and/or a magnet board that says "family." So the bulletin board says, "Want to make this **arrow** or this **arrow** sign up here **arrow**." Quite easy, but quite cute I think.

How can I make such super cute bulletin boards you ask. Well, one answer is I'm talented. The other answer is that I have a GREAT helper - "Is this straight? Do you think we need this?" (Thanks Tina!!) And the final answer is that I have a cricut!

A cricket you ask? To which I reply, nope, a cricut.This trusty bit of machinery joined us at Christmas time and I love it! It's basically like a printer that cuts things out.

Who thought of this?? Well, Provo Craft...

And, I've recently falling in love with cutting vinyl. Super awesome!

So, long live the Bulletin Board Princess. And long live my cricut!

Hope You Didn't Eat What I Ate...

...because I am NOT feeling well. I don't know whether it's food poisoning or a stomach flu, but today is not my favorite day. Which is neither here nor there.

Then the power went out. Which is also neither here nor there. It's back on now....if you can't tell.

I sit here thinking that I haven't really said much about Brent being in Japan except for the fact that he was going. Well, he made it - duh. (Sorry I'm in a weird mood and as I said, not feeling so super great.) He went to work Saturday morning then found out he was going to be working the 4:30 pm to 3 am shift. Which actually works out really well for me. You see, here that's 12:30 am to 11 am. So, we can talk in the morning - about 11:30 - then he can go to sleep and we can talk at 9 pm after he wakes up and then I can go to sleep. For a little while, I had visions of having to get up at 1 am to talk to him. Which wouldn't have been every night. I mean, I love the guy, but not quite that much. :)

The only confusing part is that it's the next day in Japan. Like Brent's mom said, it's like talking to someone in the future.

Things are going well over there. He's not on the boat this time so he's seeing a bit more of the area. I'm hoping for some pictures when he gets back. And maybe a blog, if he remembers the password.

Other than that, I'm fine here. Except for this flu, oh and the power going out. But, really, that's neither here nor there. :)

Cutest Horse Ever

Can you believe how tiny this little colt is?

They say he's only 6 pounds, but I have a hard time believing that because Daisy is 7 pounds, and she's a lot smaller than he is. But he's still so tiny. How cute is he?

I always wanted a black and white horse. I was going to name it Newspapers. This one you could almost have as an indoor pet. Hmm....Brent is gone. **Just kidding**

What I Learned Yesterday

As I went through my day yesterday, I realized I was learning a lot of stuff, so I thought I'd share with you what I learned.

• Whenever you want to work outside, it rains. Whenever you don't really feel like it, it's sunny. (At least in my neck of the woods.)
• Cats will eat all kind of bugs, but not spiders. Oh no. She just chases spiders and makes it hard to kill them. Then sulks because I took away her play thing.
• Weeding is way more fun with people to talk to.
• Some people really understand what it is to be a visiting teacher. I haven't quite figured that out yet, but I'm working on it.
• Japan is 18 hours ahead of my time. Which means right now, as I write this, it is 2:30 am there. Brent's about to get off work. Which is really nice for me, but not so super great for him.
• When you're five, you can be braver, but not until that point.
• The greatest cure for a somewhat blah-I-don't-want-to-do-anything day is good friends, good food and getting my hands dirty.

Hope you learn something today!

And, a big old happy birthday to Brent's mom today!

The Job Strikes Again

Why is it when things are just getting back to normal that something happens that sets things in a tizzy again?

Brent came home yesterday and said, "Guess who gets to go to Japan?" To which I hopefully replied...well, basically all the names of the people he works with. But, no, it's him. "When are you leaving?" I ask. "Thursday." Meaning, well, tomorrow. Awesome. He'll be gone for two weeks. Awesome. And I'm not going. Awesome.

Anyway, enough lamenting. I must do my Pollyanna moment to get over my grumpiness...hopefully...

1) I think it's awesome that when something goes wrong, he's the one that is sent. He knows his stuff and that's cool.

2) I'm glad that I won't be getting my extra garden plots because that would just mean that I had to plant them.

3) I'm glad he's leaving so quickly because that doesn't leave me time to ruminate about it.

4) I'm glad I'm not going because who wants to see another country? And get a stamp in my new passport - even though I've been to Canada three times with this passport but that's another story. (You may be asking why I'm not going. Well, it's just not "fiscally responsible" to buy a last minute ticket to Japan. Also, he's going to be working non-stop so that wouldn't be too fun.)

5) Ok, I can't think of a number 5 right now. Oh, wait...yes I can. When Brent travels, this means I get a new purse. I think it's a good rule, so last night I go this:

Not that I don't still love my panda purse, but I needed something new for a while.

And 6) Wait, I had it. What was #6. Oh yeah! I got my lawn mowed yesterday even though that's Brent's least favorite thing. I think he was trying to butter me up.

Anyway, Brent's leaving for two weeks. And I have to go try to get Daisy out from under our bed. I think she knows something's up. I am taking her to her favorite place today - the vet! (Do you remember that Far Side that had the dog in the car talking to his doggy friends, "Hey, I'm going to the vet to get tutored!" Hee hee. I tried to find it online, but it was surprisingly hard to find, so you'll just have to use your imagination.)

Have a great day!

Oh, and Happy Birthday Alyssa who is now 6-years-old. Where has the time gone??

Sadly...

I received this comment from Jenny:

okay either Ashley is channeling Brent or Brent wrote this post?!!! So sorry to hear about the silly tv...blow up, move to the country and eat peaches!!!Love ya

And thought...man! I've been married to Brent too long.

Sadly...it is thus. I am the one who wrote this post. And I have been married for 12-1/2 years. I hope we're not starting to look like each other too! :)

Stupid TV!

Stupid TV

Here I am...sitting...waiting for the tv repair guy...AGAIN! We've been having some problems with our tv. First, it stopped working...completely...wouldn't turn on. Luckily - and yes, this is a plug for Costco - we bought it at Costco so instead of the normal 1 year warranty, it was a 2 year warranty. We found out that we have about a month and a half left on the warranty, so all this is FREE. Woho!

Anyway, didn't work completely, they came to see what was wrong - had to call in another company - they said it was the panel (which is basically the whole tv minus the stand) and another card. So they replaced that, but the card was defective so they had to come back another time and replace that. Woho! The tv is fixed - or is it?

Then I notice a line down the right hand side of the tv. Awesome. Call up the place..."Hmm...they're going to have to come see what's wrong with it." So he does...spends about 2 minutes looking at it...then says that the panel is defective so they have to order another one. Awesome.

So, they call and say that they got the new panel, tested it, and it too is defective. Huh?

Must order in a new panel...again.

And now I wait for the repair guy to get here between 1 and 3 pm. It's now 3:10. I don't think he's going to be here between 1 and 3.

To sum it up:
Number of new panels: 3 so far...don't want to jinx us
Number of visits from tv repair men: this will be the 5th one

Patience for more tv problems:

Nearing empty, but not quite there.

Any guess as to whether we'll end up getting a new tv out of this?

***********************UPDATE****************************************
My patience gauge is now PAST ELEVEN!! They called and said that this panel is defective....WHAT?

So I call Costco and they say they can't do anything about it. They transfer me to Panasonic and they say that there is no way that they've gone through 3 panels and not "escalated" the claim. She says that they wouldn't have gone through more than one panel before "escalating" the claim. So, basically, someone is lying to me and it's not the panel. I am so frustrated with this whole thing! GRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRR!

I must have jinxed myself with this post. Bah!

Camila's Blessing

Yesterday was baby Camila's blessing. It was a beautiful spring day! Perfect for a blessing. Ryan did a great job! We were really glad that we got to be there.


Camila did great! She had her big blue eyes open for the whole thing. Then she snuggled up on me for a bit of the time - too fun!


Here a some pictures from the day...

The woman of the hour - Camila! Her hair has darkened a bit since we last saw her, but it is still definitely reddish-blonde. I hope her hair turns auburn. I always wanted to have auburn hair!Reyes is mostly definitely a Northwest kid! She will NOT open her eyes in the sun. I had forgotten about this. Last year when we were in Utah, she would run into things when we went outside because she had her eyes closed. Silly. (Although I wear sunglasses most of the time so I guess I can't fault her too much. I don't run into many things though...)
As soon as she got in the shade, her eyes popped right open. See the stuffed frog she has? When Marcela went up to bear her testimony, Reyes followed and was dancing the frog all over the podium. It was funny.



It was a quick trip for us because responsibilites at home called, but it was still a lot of fun.

On a completely different note, we watch The Princess and the Frog last night. I LOVED IT! It totally is a Disney movie. While I love the Pixar stuff, I'm a sucker for the old time musical cartoons!

And...Happy Birthday Eli! He's turning 2 today. Man, time flies.

Have a good day!

An Abrupt End to My Experiment

Sadly, my science experiment must come to an abrupt end. My rain gauge has kicked the proverbial bucket and no longer wants to work. Which makes tracking how much rain we get somewhat difficult. I am looking into a new system - perhaps one that measures wind too - so stay tuned...

The grand total from November to March was 36.56 inches of rain. A relatively quiet year for us.

Don't you just love science??

Saturday

Here are some of the things I need to do today:
Make a pie
Do the dishes
Do the bulletin for church tomorrow
Figure out how much money we have
Mow the lawn
Plant some stuff in the garden
Get ready for the RS Night next week
Make sure Daisy doesn't pull out any of her stitches
Figure out what to have for dinner tomorrow...hopefully out of stuff we have because I don't want to go shopping
Take a shower
Cut Brent's hair

Here is what I want to do today:
NOTHING

What will win out? Maybe the pie because that sounds good. :) And I might have to do the dishes to clear out the sink for all the dishes making the pie will create. Sigh....

Utah fer Real

Did you notice the "fer" in the title. Yeah, I thought that was funny too!

Well, I'm back from my snowy-spring-in-Utah adventures. Brent left a week before me so that he could watch NCAA March Madness...his absolute favorite thing in the world. And, it happened to work out, not that it was great that it did work out, but it did work out, that Brent's Grandma's funeral was during his time there as well. Our newest nephew, Jackson, had his blessing too. I missed much, but if you are at all interested you could go here or here or here or here to see a little more about those things. They also dug up his Grandma's dog...quite the interesting story. I missed a lot! (I did send Brent with the old camera, but he didn't come home with any pictures.)

Then, I got there and the real fun started. Just kidding, but it was a good time.

We spent some time with my parents

This was at a real fancy - ok, not so fancy - bbq place that my dad LOVES. I can't remember the name, but it was definitely man-type food.
We spent some time with Brent's mom and the family that was still in town.
This is Jackson, our newest nephew!
Jayson playing with Brent.
Me and Tay - we share a name you know...
Rylee is quite the singer, and she also knows all the words. She was singing a Taylor Swift song and a couple of times I thought, "Oh, that's what she says..."
Brent is not a fan of babies. He doesn't mean any offense, he just doesn't want to hold them, or touch them, or really even talk to them. Once they start walking and talking, he's much more friendly. So this is Jess chasing him around with Jackson trying to get him to hold the baby. He never did. I did. I like babies.
Why do all kids like to hang over the edge of something and say hi?

The next few pictures need an explanation. When Brent's family was together, they thought they would devise a catapult system so they could throw things. Because you really need to throw things. So, what did they decide to throw - among other things, a flaming match. And who did they get to catch said flaming match? Jared - the youngest. Can't you just see it? (I'm pretty sure had I been there, they wouldn't have done this because I am a FREAK about things catching on fire.) Anyway, after the others left, Brent built another catapult to show Tay, Rylee and Jayson what the fun was all about.




We also got to go to my youngest cousin's wedding. Let me explain my cousin situation for all of you from HUGE families. Brent has 30+ cousins on each side - so he has like 60 cousins. I have 6. All together. That's it. Two on one side and four on the other. I'm closest to the four on my mom's side. (Although Facebook is helping me get to know my other side cousins too!) We're a lot more like siblings than cousins because we grew up together at my Grandma and Grandpa's house. So I really wanted to be there for James' wedding.
Here's the happy couple. James and Chelcie.
Here's my cousin Jennifer and her husband Danny.
Jennifer, me and my other cousin Jenny
My Uncle Joe. I am embarrassed to say that I never noticed that Joe had such blue eyes before. Weird.
Me and my Aunt Linn - Joe's wife. James, the groom, is Joe and Linn's son.
Me and my little - I mean, younger cousin James. I love being short.

I'm the oldest out of my cousins and everyone was always so excited when they got to be taller than me. Why? I'm not that tall so if you don't get to be taller than me, it's just sad. (Sorry Jen - she's quite a few inches shorter than me.)
Me and Jenny
This is me and Sarah, Jennifer and Danny's daughter. She got to be the flower girl. She did a great job!
Mom, Adrian - Jen and Danny's son - Dad, and me.
And here's my family, minus Brent whose taking the picture, my Aunt Jackie, who couldn't make it, and my cousin Adam and his family - he wife Cherise's dad passed away suddenly.

When I figured out that James' wedding was going to be the same weekend as Conference, I decided to try to get tickets to Conference since I've never gone. Luckily we did get tickets, pretty good tickets too. It was AWESOME to be in the same room with a Prophet of God. Too cool.
Here we are waiting in line. Sadly even at the Conference Center, you have to go through security.
Look at all those people. The Conference Center holds 21,000 people. Amazing!
A nice way to end the post, don't you think? (If you would like to see some more pictures from the Salt Lake Temple, go to my Made by the Sea page.)

Utah was fun, snowy, cold and tiring. We had another adventure trying to get home, but it turned out well in the end. The short story is that our plane was coming from Las Vegas where there was a HUGE windstorm and they couldn't take off. So our flight kept getting pushed back and pushed back, it looked like we were going to be in the airport for a while...then they cancelled a flight going into Spokane because of weather and we got to take that plane to Seattle - leaving on time. Woho! A much better time than the last time we flew out of Salt Lake. (There was much running in Spokane. Wait, maybe it's Spokane that's the unlucky airport.)

Utah

Went to Utah, came home...blog later...must finish Fablehaven.

:)