The Consequences of Exercise

So Tristan has been doing his best to try and stay active despite his very busy school schedule. I am glad he is trying to stay healthy, but he says he does because his belly can put my sister's in-law's bellies to shame and they're pregnant. I have fun going and watching him play...he's so much bigger than the others. For example, Tristan started to play in an intermural basketball league, and it's like...well, pretend you are playing against a wall. :) During the last game he caught an elbow across the bridge of his nose. It was only about half an inch, but it was quite deep. Then this weekend he was really excited because they started up his Saturday mourning football league again. He played like he was back in college. Anyway during the game he made an amazing catch by diving for it. The grass on the ground still hadn't grown and when he landed they was a big poof of dust and dead grass. He got pretty scraped up and the best part was when he came over to me he had grass in his teeth. Now that's playing! Here are some pictures from the latest battle wounds.

Blah Blog

I'm always excited to open up my blog every morning and see if it's been updated. What a disappointment to learn it won't do that on it's own.
I just wanted to say I just cleaned my house and now I get to go to Lowe's because our tub is dripping, our sink faucet is dripping and our toilet is running...what fun! Oh yeah, and I love spring weather! For those of you who are still reading this and care we are taking Spring Break next week to put in grass. I know you've been on the edge of your seats for updates of our backyard. We are ALMOST there. :)

Video Help

So, as you can see, my video is not working. On some computers it doesn't even show up. I can see it and it works in preview...It's SO SO funny. How can I get it to work. Any ideas, anyone?

March Madness

This has nothing to do with basketball. I'm just catching up on our very outdated blog. We have gone to the zoo often since recently buying a zoo pass. Here a some pictures of those outings. Watch the video, it's hilarious. It'll be on the birds at first, who aren't very exciting, but the end is GREAT!! The deer in the picture was bucking the fence and running back and forth with Tristan...it was so funny.



The other day we got some free tickets to a Blazers hockey game. Anything free is great! We met up with friends there but had to leave early to watch the UFC championship with some neighbors.
Turns out, we don't have pictures for all our little adventures, so I won't bore you more. I must say though, we had our first tornado warning on Sunday and as excited as I was before to see one, I think I've changed my mind.

Gas Prices

I took this picture at the shell down our street. I think I'll start buying plus unleaded.

Valentine's Day

Here we are on Valentine's Day. Look how magic we are...a picture with us and one without!! Ohhhh! So we had a GREAT steak dinner that Tristan put together...I contributed a salad and some Jello Jigglers shaped like hearts (thanks to Abby for the mold). Looking at the pictures now, those steaks look like brownies...maybe I'll go make some. :) For dessert we had chocolate pudding. It's been forever since I had that! And we took some leftovers to a friend and hopefully he enjoyed it as much as we did. Happy Day After Valentine's Day...now I'm going to go look for some brownies.

February Weather

We hear there is a lot of snow in Utah...we just wanted to share what the weather was like here yesterday. You can come here if you are a fan of sunshine and warmth. We took a trip to the zoo with our friends, Chris and Bri and had a blast. Our first stop was an area where you could feed birds and hold them. I had small clips in my hair and I guess they looked like bugs because one bird tried to eat them. :)
We also were watching as the elephants were being trained. One didn't want to get in the water, so he would barely step in and reach his trunk out to get the food that was thrown in there.

Later in the day we biked around Lake Hefner again, only to realize that halfway around, it was blocked off, so we had to turn back. I didn't mind so much...last time we went riding was October, and I was ready to turn back once we left the parking lot.


Okay okay, before you buy those tickets, we forgot to mention the 30 mph winds that picked up today and are absolutely freezing. But yesterday was nice nonetheless.

Tagged

So, I was tagged by Jen before, but I kept putting off replying...so I now get to reveal my inner self to you all. How exciting! :)

I've been tagged by Jen Skousen, so here it is:

Rules: Answer each question about yourself, then tag 5 people by posting their names and leaving them a comment on their blog.

10 Years Ago: I was in 8th grade and had just recently got my first perm. That was a huge step for me because I could never wear my hair down...I hated having it loose and in my face. The thought scared me to death...thank goodness I am over that. I was taking classes like German and in stage crew. Oh yeah, I hated boys, but only because they didn't pay attention to me. :)

Things On My To Do List Tomorrow: Update my journal for the last 4 months, call about 10 people I've been meaning to forever, clean the refrigerator, if it's nice weather, pull the dismanteled shed from the back for bulky trash day, deep clean the kitchen, finish filling out the Quicken forms, register Tristan's car and finsh the laundry. Let's guess if I'll get it done! (hint: No).

Snacks I enjoy: Popcorn, cookies, nachos, tater tots, cheetos, nibs, Dr. Pepper, ice cream...man I'm getting hungry! Um...I'm sure I love everything that I can't get myself to buy because we can't afford it.

What would I do if I were suddenly made a billionaire? I would pay off our loans and pay for Tristan's school. I would hire people to take care of the trees in our backyard, I would start remodeling our house, I would buy a new wardrobe and I would invest most the rest. I'm sure I would go grocery shopping and buy tons of those foods I listed in the last section. :)

3 Of My Bad Habits: 1. Putting things off...I always find something to do besides what I should be doing. 2. TV - I really like the show Monk, and then I find excuses from there. 3. Tristan - I'd rather be with Tristan when he is home than do chores, or exercise or anything.

5 places I have lived: Falls Church, VA; somewhere else in VA I can't remember; S. Jordan, UT; Provo, UT; Alpine, UT; Oklahoma City, OK

Jobs that I have had: Where to start...I hate to admit, I have had over 20 jobs. :) Substituting, several administrative assistant jobs, food kitchens, grocery stores, a laundromat and one of my favorite, an usher at sporting events.

Things most people don’t know about me: I talk too much, so there isn't much people don't know about me. I've been pulled over twice, but never got a ticket. I used to eat the open candy in the store when I was little. I think my stuffed animals have feelings. My favorite music is 80's. I never sing in the shower. I like to mix strange foods for snacks.

I tag: Abby, Courtney, Bri, Carma and Marla

Bad luck............or Cursed?

One would think that it's when a car is in motion that you are at risk of possibly getting it damaged.  Evidently fate has chosen to use me to prove this line of thinking wrong.  Maybe a little history should be given at this point.  I have been the principle driver for three cars in my life time.  This is important because they all seemed to share the same fate.  My cars seem to be a magnet for things to hit them when they are parked,  especially in parking lots.  Here are but a FEW examples: in the church parking lot where a big brown suburban drags it nose across the entire length of my passenger side.  Construction workers driving the corners of some boards deep into my hood.  My personal favorite, cracked windshields from Nato our landscape guy cleaning out my parent's garden area with a weed wacker.  Today another chapter has been written.  Coming out of the grocery store I opened the back door and heard an awful creak. I looked down and with little surprise my door had been dented in to the point where when I opened the back door it scraped against the front.  This is in addition to a new long scratch and dent over my rear passenger wheel well.  Another interesting thing about all the incidents that have happened over the years, including today's, is that no one ever leaves a note.  Tricia says it just bad luck but I am beginning to think that something else is responsible...........      

The Birds

The other day as I was cleaning, I kept hearing a loud rushing sound. Over and over I heard it and had no idea what it was, until I went into our back room and opened the windows to let in some light. I saw a group of birds sitting in our juniper tree out front. The tree drops little blue berry things and the birds love them, so they would slowly come and eat the berries, then something would spook them and they'd all take off, hence the rushing sound. Aren't they cute?!

Tree Cutting

A long day of sawing wood...I wish it was sawing logs, but maybe next Saturday. :) We are still in the process of taking trees out of the backyard so we can plant a garden and grow grass. It's funny when you cut a branch way up in the air, thinking it's about 5 feet tall and as it comes crashing down you realize it's 15 feet tall. Our friend, Brent, brought his chainsaw, which helped TONS and TONS!! We have far to go, but for now were proud of our progress.

80's Dance Party, More Like Fashions of Today

Last night Tristan and I went to an 80's party for the dental students. There were neon bracelets, sequins, short shorts (on the guys), cut off shirts and spandex galore. Tristan went as Bill from Bill and Ted's and I just pulled out my favorite outfit. :) We were hip to the max. Totally. The food was good, the music was loud (my ears are still ringing) and the people were fun. Anyways, everyone was blown away by my dance skills, I can shuffle my feet and point to the sky like no other. Did you know Tristan can shimmy with the best of them? He surprised a few people. 

Natural History Museum

So we had a 3 day weekend.  It has been miserably cold.  It's totally deceiving.  You look outside and you think that it is a beautiful day.  As soon as you step out you realize that it is in the 30's and the wind is blowing 20-30 miles per hour.  The wind chill is into the low 20's.  With these conditions in mind we wanted to go out and do something.  We heard from Chris and Bri that the natural history museum at the Norman Campus was really neat.  We went saturday morning and we were really surprised at everything they had there.  The coolest thing they had was actually a full skeleton of a Pentasaurus.   They had it stored in their archives and it sat there for 50 years.  When they finally took time to prepare it, it turned out that it was a world record for biggest dinosaur skull ever found.  They also had several other full skeletons including an Apatosaurus, Allosaurus, and a Wooly Mammoth.  One of Tricia's favorites was the howling mouse.  The little guy could really hurt your ear drums, she's weird like that............

They don't make them like they used to?

I always thought that this was just a saying. It turns out that this is completely true. In our back yard we have an old post up that was once used to hang up wet clothes to dry. It was probably put up when the house was built. I started to dig it out thinking that it was probably only about a foot deep. I started to dig around the concrete and I kept digging and kept digging until the ground got too hard to dig and the thing still wouldn't move. I actually broke the pole off trying to push it over. We were left with this huge block of cement in the yard. We finally broke down and went to Sears to buy a sledge hammer. I went out there today and started pounding away at the cement block. The cement block broke easily enough and I thought to myself, "Nothing that good old fashion muscle can't take care of." I reached down to pull the pole out and it didn't move an inch. To make a long story short a humbling hour later I pulled out the tube. It turned out that it was cemented down 2 1/2 feet. I am sure that it made the original owners feel good to know that a tornado could tear the house apart but at least their clothes line would still be standing. Tristan (returning back to the gym with humility)

Christmas Vacation

So finally I can update this now that it's almost one month overdue. We returned from Utah about 3 days ago. It's 70 degrees here and I love it! We had all the snow we wanted in Utah. I even went sledding down Tristan's parent's front yard. I took Thomas down with me. I guess dogs don't really like sledding. And finally for the first time in so long it snowed Christmas Eve and it was a white Christmas and the snow stayed on the ground for...well, at least until we left. It was beautiful! When we first headed out for Utah, we took a detour to Phoenix to meet up with Ben and Brittany and their 3 girls. We picked oranges from the trees but they were so hard and unripe, we had to wait about 10 days to eat them. They were pink inside but SO tasty! On the way from AZ to UT we stopped at the Grand Canyon. It was awesome! It was quite the grand canyon. hehehe... One night we played Cranium all night and I always struggled through the red cards, so we went through them to practice, and now we can't play anymore because I know all the red card answers. To solve this, Ben and his wife Brittany were a team, and Tristan and I were a team. When we landed on red, the husbands would answer the question while the wives had to hold a shock ball. It was a gift Jake gave Tristan for Christmas. If the wife dropped the ball before the question was answered, they lost. I dropped the ball. :( Not that it hurt, but it was so scary. Anyways, here are a few pictures from the trip. Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year! Love the Taylors.

My REALLY fat cat, Freddy

Happy New Year 2008