A Day/Weekend of Thanks!!!

Here's my plan: To accomplish ono event, from the holiday months, a night. You think I can make it before the rush of Valentine's comes (that gives me a week)? I don't know either! But I can tell you this, I sure as heck am going to try! If I can accomplish this and the stress of Valentine's- along with the joys of everyday life, then WOW, what a boost that would give me! The race is on...

So, Morgan and I spent Thanksgiving in Vernal this year. We had a great time! It is always fun spending time with the Beede family! On our way to there, we stopped and picked up Morgan's oldest brothers (Kenneth) kids- Trevor and Austin. I had never met them yet so that was fun for me! We had the most relaxed Thanksgiving I had ever experienced! It was great! We had a turkey, stuffing, corn, rolls left over from a funeral the day before, an easy jello salad, and some yummy home-made pies. Talk about easy, low stress and very enjoyable! It was just Morgan's parents, Kenneth, Trevor and Austin and us at the table. We had a bigger family gathering on Sunday. We didn't get any pictures of Thanksgiving day, sorry! But keep going, there are other pictures!


I don't remember if I've included any pictures of Morgan's parents on here yet so here's one. It was taken in Salt Lake and it was the first time I had ever met them


The day after? Thanksgiving, a whole bunch of us got together and went shooting! Brian, Morgan's friend from high school brought his collection of guns for all of us to play with! And play we did!!! He had an old school revolver- cowboy style, his "cop" style handgun and his 12 gauge shotgun! Here are a few pictures showing off our fun!

1st pic: Trevor using shotgun; Middle: Austin using cowboy gun and Last is me using shotgun! I even hit a few clay pigeons!

On Sunday we celebrated the blessing of our new nephew: Drew (can't remember his middle name, oops!) Timothy. Son of Danielle (Morg's sister) and Clark Timothy. It was a wonderful day! Especially since their house was full of sick kids in the days prior to the blessing and they managed to be free from illness long enough to make it through all the festivities! What a blessing! Drew is one adorable little guy! You'll know what I mean when you look at the pictures below!!

Sweet little baby faces... Ooo! Ahhh!

Some of the family enjoying little Drew...

The proud Aunt and Uncle (and of course the coolest!) with Drew (Morgan sure will make a cute daddy!!! What a stud!!)

Grandma Beede (Morgan's mom) with baby Drew and proud big brother Chucky (aka Devin); Kenneth (striking a pose!) and his wife, Tracy, with Drew.

We all had a good time hanging out with the fam. before we ate dinner. In taking a closer look at some of these pictures, I am realizing that some were actually taken at Mom and Dad Beede's house and David (Morg's brother) and Jamie's house. But they were all taken the same weekend so I decided to keep them in the mix!

D.J.- I wonder what he wants to be when he grows up...; Brooklyn trying to hand off Jackson

Austin just chillin'; Jackson trying to walk- and if i remember correctly, he likes to walk on his tippy-toes!

Danielle, the proud mama of Drew; l-r on couch: Jaime with Drew, Trevor, Jonathan

Carston, too cool for the camera!; Jenna and Jonathan (about to get hit by a nerf football- the red blur in front of the plant)

Katelyn and Kayla resting on the bar counter (Kayla was starting to get the flu); Chucky with his funny face- he didn't want to give us a serious smile!; and me with baby Drew and Chucky!

I tried to get the best pictures I could but some of them weren't great! Sorry! And I realized I am missing a few people in the family... Sorry Grandpa Beede, David and Clark! I guess we were never in the right spots at the right times! Next time for sure! And when we were taking the pictures they were just at random. We wouldn't have forgotten you if we had an agenda!

Well, That's Thanksgiving weekend in a big, coconut sized, nut shell! Thanks to the Beede clan for a fun weekend! Hopefully we'll be able to head out there soon. We miss you and love you!

As for the rest of the holidays... baby steps!!! I like the whole "one event a night" plan! Keeps me motivated and less stressed about all the catch up I have in store! So stay tuned, there's more to come! Wish me luck!!!

**DiStRaCtIoNs**

To all my friends and family out there with better blogs than mine (which is everyone!), this one's for you! I tried to update my blog tonight but all your blogs got in the way! As soon as I get on here, I want to check everybody's before I get started on mine. There's where the problem lies! I get distracted with reading all your blogs that I run out of time to do my own! And I don't get on the computer very often so there's a lot of back-tracking to do and it takes even longer to go through them all! I am beginning to wonder if I will ever win on this thing!!! If everyone would be more like me we wouldn't have this problem! After thoroughly enjoying everyone's great blogs, I've become sleepy and am off to bed! Maybe I'll blog tomorrow... Hmmm... We'll see! Goodnight!

Friends...

So I've just gone on Facebook and added a bunch of friends blog addresses. So I hope nobody minds. If you do, I'll remove it! I still feel new to the blogging world so I'm not really sure what the blogging etiquette is for adding people... especially when they don't know... hmmm... Anyway, I'll do a better update later... you know, the holidays and such... Adios!

Just a little something...

So, I spent way to much time fussing with my blog background that you're not getting much tonight!

I added a recipe to the side bar that I just love!!! It's so yummy, I could eat it with a spoon! But I'm pretty sure that's not the best idea since it's loaded with butter and sugar! But Mmmm... It's down-right tasty! I made note that I like the crushed pineapple- that's the only kind I've tried, but I like the way the crushed spreads over the ham. And we served it on the sliced pieces but I'm sure it would do alright on a pre-sliced, lump of ham. Anyway, this is tried and true and thoroughly enjoyed! I'm actually making a big pot of it for our ward party tomorrow night. Hopefully it goes over well!

So here's something for you... We've had an unusually mild winter so far. Temperatures in the 50's or higher, sunny skies, etc... We've had a few cold and blistery days but nothing too bad... A touch of snow, nothing stayed more than a few hours... Well, the other morning I woke up and what did I see?! WHITE!!! And lots of it! (And by lots, I mean more than I've seen all season! But probably nothing compared to what I'll see later in the season.) And it actually stayed for a day or so! I was going to take a picture but I got too caught up in getting myself ready for work- Sorry Aunt Fay! I'm starting to remember to take pictures, I'm just still forgetting to keep the camera on hand! I'm bound to get better, right?! Anyway... the snow... So, we got a cold spell after the snow so we all know what happens... ice. Well, in coming home from work today I noticed that the big ice patch that seems to collect on the walk from the carport to the front door was nearly gone! You can imagine my glee! No more thinking about each step I take so I don't fall on my bum! But alas, that glee didn't last for long because I remembered about this dreaded storm that is supposed to beat us to death this weekend! Grrr! What can I do, right?! I'm the one who chose to live in a valley that sits in the middle of two large mountain ranges that the snow seems to be drawn to! Oh well! So, I met a customer today that shares my dread for winter. In our chat about the upcoming storm, I mentioned that after 5 years you'd think I'd be used to it. His response was that after 27 years of it, he's still not used to it! There's no hope for me!! However, he gave me a better outlook on the part of winter I seem to hate the most- February, March, April, May... He said it is these early months of winter that he particularly dislikes because it is just the beginning of a long 4-5 months of blah, but that in Feb, Mar, Apr, we may still be experiencing winter, but it's almost over! I can agree with that. However, there are more distractions in the early months that can make it less of a bother; and December and Jaunary always seem to fly by so fast so I really can't decide if I fully agree with him. And in the later winter months we are supposed to be experiencing spring: the melting of giant snow piles, blooming flowers, tiny green buds of new growth that glitter the trees, birds coming back, flies (I'm only grateful for those when we first start thawing out, and that doesn't last for long!) and other things that mean warmth is just around the corner! But around here, those later months are just ugly and cold and the reality is that spring is becoming extinct! And to add to that, not much happens during that time so it seems to drag on and on and on... The truth of the matter is that I just have to deal with it! There's no winning when it comes to winter... The beginning can stink and so can the later part! And it's coming whether I want it to or not!! And honestly, the positive outlook is great until I have to trudge around in it! Then poof! It's gone!!!!

Well, my "little something" has turned into a lot of somethings! That's just seems to be the way it goes when I get on here! Hope everyone is getting excited for Christmas and handling the winter okay!! It really hasn't bothered me much so far (*knock on wood*). The things I probably dislike the most are driving in it and all aspects of the ice! The driving part worries me the most with the storm coming. I fear hitting black ice and losing control of the car. Eek! Oh! I hate the constant spread of diseases during the season! Something spread to me and I woke up this morning feeling super congested and it's been getting worse all day! Tis the season!!! But, I have tomorrow off and I couldn't be more thrilled!! I get to sleep in! Wahoo!

Happy Holidays everyone!!!

Halloween

This is the first Halloween in my entire life (to my knowledge) that I have not dressed! I had absolutely NO Halloween spirit whatsoever! How sad is that?! At work they allow us to dress up for the festivities! In the past, it was always the day before and the day of. I would always get way into it. Usually doing two costumes: the first day would be an easy costume (hula girl, witch, etc...) and the day of would be the outfit that took careful planning (cowboy with gunshot wounds to the face, pirate, Garth from Wayne's World {my co-worker was Wayne}, fancier or scarier witch, Cardinals fan that got beaten, literally {year of the Red Sox vs. Yankees World Series... good game!!} etc...) This year... NADA! I didn't feel any festiveness at all! I usually decorate my department, too. But even that got neglected. Poor store! But I think these are the reasons for my lack of festiveness: I am trying to find a new employee for my department and until I get one I don't get a day off if my Saturday help can't work a Saturday (which has already happened a couple times), I had two weddings and a funeral the weekend of Halloween, on top of that, the lack of help has added many more hours to my week, oh, did I mention that I'm cranky about hiring someone new? I liked my former girl and didn't/don't like the fact that she had to leave me but at the same time, I understand why she had to go. Bitter sweet... Also, the two weddings were quite large for what I'm used to! And they were both for Saturday, the 1st, and were being picked up in the morning. You can imagine my stress! All that, and getting off work at 8:15pm on Halloween, lead to no desire to get festive! The fun part of the day were the Trick or Treaters! The store invites youngsters from all over to come to the store and ToT at every department. That has to be the best part of the day! All the cute little kids in their costumes learning that the traditional magic word "please" doesn't work on this day, but the real magic words are "trick or treat"... and "thank you" still applies!! There were some pretty cute costumes! My favorites were probably the little babies bundled up in their fuzzy monkey, turtle, bunny, lamb, lion, doggie, etc... It just makes you want to snuggle with them. Funny story... my co-worker had her husband bring their baby girl in- she was a fuzzy lamb with pink hands and feet (adorable). While there, some friends from their ward came in with their baby boy... he was a lion... Get it?! The Lion and the Lamb... they were so incredibly cute! Where was the camera when we needed it! Anyway... Morgan's work, Maceys grocery store, allows dressing up as well. He didn't want to be festive either! How pathetic are we?! The most unfestive ever!! Oh well! There's always next year! But there's good news... I promise to be festive for Thanksgiving and Christmas! Can't wait!! As a matter of fact, I get to start my Christmas festivities next week! I start decorating the store with fancy trees and garlands for our Holiday food show on the 15th (we show and sample all sorts of holiday goodies giving people more ideas and inadvertently encouraging them to buy more... HA HA HA!!! j/k :-) ) Hooray for holiday festiveness!
Well, I'm getting tired, so I think it's time to quit! Hope everything is going well for you! At the end of my last blog my goal was to have a new post on here in less than a month... check out the dates... I'm five days shy of a month!!! Wahoo! Congratulations to me!! Maybe next time it'll be 10 days shy of a month... Hmmm! That might be pushing it!!! Aufwiedersehen...

I'm Fired!!!

Well, I have NOT been fired from my job, however, I feel I ought to fire myself from attempting to be a blogger! I'm terrible at this, and I must apologize for my short comings! But here's my thing, when I get on the computer, I have a tendency to be on for a long, long time! I get lost in cyberworld! My solution, I avoid the computer! Leading to my failures as a blogger! It's a vicious cycle! My other problem, I'm not a super fast typer so that takes longer, also deterring me from my blog. And yet another problem, I'm very particular, at least I try to be particular, about my wording and grammar. In which case, I put a lot of time into what I write. Leading to the "long, long time" spent on the computer. Vicious, vicious cycle! Oh! here's one more problem to add: I don't feel like we lead the most exciting lives to blog about! Work, school, work, school... BORING!! I'm just laughing at myself as I write this... yet another issue, if something exciting does happen, we never have a camera to document it cuz the batteries are usually dead!!!
**I know some of you are laughing at the word "cuz" and a link to the comment I just made about my particular notice of wording and grammar... but that is one word I don't care about- as far as I'm concerned, it's in the Dictionary of Corinne and that's good enough for me!! Besides, it's so much easier than writing "because" all the time! Too formal for me!**
Back to my excuses... I have no more, at least not at the moment!! So here's to our not so exciting lives...
Morgan is in school and working. He's taking Math 1050, Chemistry 1220 and Human Physiology. Yikes! Yeah, it's been a rough semester for me! ME, you ask? Yes, I'm the one suffering here!! I never see him anymore! It's a hard knock life for me!! When there are no classes and no work, he's usually on campus studying. However, I am very proud of his dedication to studying. And very impressed! I am trying really hard to be supportive and encouraging, but I find it difficult, A LOT! If I were him, I'd cave... fast! But he's doing a great job. So far, he's made good grades on some very difficult tests. All as a result of his hard work and diligence! Not a bad beginning to the semester! And how sad is this, we've already figured out how long till the end of the semester!
We are super excited for the holidays! The plans: Thanksgiving with the Beede Family and Christmas with the Jenkins Family. And somewhere around Christmas we'll make our way to Vernal to have more Beede time! I can't wait for all the family time and festivities!!! We haven't been to Cali since we got married... almost a year!!! Can you believe it? I can't! This is the longest time I've spent away from home and it has been very, very HARD! My only survival has been Morgan, Tanna & Jeremy and the kids and Morgan's family in Vernal! I'm glad to have his family close. It's still far enough away that it really is a vacation when we go and a whole lot more feasible than trekin' to California. And, luckily, we've had the opportunity to go to Vernal a few times this year. And I LOVE living like 2 miles from J& T! It's great! The kids are my pick-me-up on bad days (when Morg isn't here) and when I'm bored (consequently, also when he's not here). And Morgan... he's my lifesaver, my biggest pick-me-up! I just love him!! Family is great... Life's greatest blessing!
So Christmas... I've have already started the Christmas shopping... not just for me!! hehe! I figured with all the time I have on my hands, with Morg being gone a lot, I should get a head start. It's so fun! But that's all I'll say about the gifts... no hints!! And I do have to say that it has got me so stinkin' excited for the holidays. I can't wait to decorate and bake and listen to the fun music and decorate and eat festive treats and decorate!! Ooo! I can't wait! The one big thing I could do without is the snow, which I hate to say, is coming this weekend! Eek! Enough about that, it makes me cranky!! Well, some things I am enjoying about the change in seasons are the fall colors. They are so pretty! The leaves changing, the crisp air, the pumpkins, my sweatshirts- I love them, the Corn Maze, ahh... Autumn! We went to the corn maze on Wednesday with our friends and had so much fun! It made me really want corn though! Anyway, Fall is great!
Well, that's the latest on us. My apologies for not updating regularly. Hope all is well with everyone! My goal is to be back in less than a month... Baby steps...

Where do I start???

Okay, I am so ashamed of myself! I can't believe it's been so long since I've updated this! My excuse is the weather and Morgan's work schedule!!! Over the past couple months, the weather has changed DRASTICALLY!!! We've gone from freezing our buns off to roasting like turkey's on Thanksgiving!!! We seem to be out and about enjoying the higher temps more than staying inside the house. Although, we do enjoy some nights inside where we have the luxury of a nice, cold Air Conditioner!!! Another plus to summertime is that Morgan is working more morning shifts rather than night shifts. He's working tonight, which is why I am actually spending time on the computer!

So, I am going to try to not make this too long of a post, but there seem to be lots of updates so I'll do my best. First, my girls night, including slumber party, with Sydney... We had a blast! We got all dressed up, Tanna even gave Sydney a special hairdo! We loved the play- Syd had so many questions about the play! She wasn't the biggest fan of the Beast when he was unhappy, but she was so excited when he was nice! And she loved Belle's yellow dress. She kept asking me when she was going to wear it! After the play we got to meet Belle, Gaston, Mrs. Potts, Luigi and Coggsworth (and a few more, I think) I have to say, Luigi and Coggsworth were definitely my favorite characters! They were hilarious!!! Syd and I had a late night full of fun! She will tell you we stayed up till 10:50 (way past her bedtime)- she was so excited, she payed special attention to the exact time she went to bad! The next morning we, with Morgan, got up earlyish and made a yummy waffle breakfast for the rest of her family. Even Jeremy came over! That's a special treat for us, since he's usually up and working early in the morning! Our girls night turned out to be a big success!!

The month of May was nuts, but I survived!!! Hooray that it's over!!! As an end to May and a kickoff to our summer, Morgan and I made a fun purchase... We our now the proud owners of a brand spankin' new Bar-B-Que!!! It's all shiny and pretty and we are loving it!

The beginning of June brought us summer! Wahoo! June 7th was a fun day! My good friend, Sterling Fife, was sealed to Alex Hogge in the Logan Temple. Morgan and I got to attend their sealing. It was wonderful! It was especially nice since we haven't been to a sealing since our own. Marriage is so important and it's always good to have a refresher course on how to have to best relationship with your spouse. I also had the opportunity to do their flowers! Alex loves Gerbera Daisies and her colors were a light/medium pink and a hot pink! Those colors and those flowers equals were super cute!!! We used a bed of white Hydrangeas and tucked in lots of gerbs, in the 2 colors, in her bouquet. The white background made the gerbs pop! Then we used hot pink gerbs for all the corsages and boutonnieres! Simple designs but so incredibly fun!! Congrats Sterling and Alex! Thanks for including us in your festivities and giving me the opportunity to do your flowers! We had a blast! And thank you especially for your friendship- it means so much to us!

The one downfall to that weekend was that I got sick! What a way to start out the summer! Luckily, it didn't last that long! And I owe most of that to Emergen-C! When I am sick, I live for it! It makes me feel so much better and kicks the cold so much faster! Thank you, Mom, for recommending it to me!

With summer here, Morgan has been itchin' to be outside- camping especially, but also fishing! He has some fishing equipment, but I don't have any! So we went shopping and bought me a fishin' pole and a 365 day fishing license!! I am actually really excited to own it! I love fishing, it's so relaxing, and yet exhilarating... that is, when you catch something!! I've been out a few times, Morgan more than me, and we've loved it! We are going to Vernal this weekend and are planning to go fishing on the Green River. I just hope we catch something there!

So, as you can see, June has already turned out to be a busy month! But wait, there's more! Sunday, June 22 was Morgan's 23rd birthday. Happy Birthday to you!!! We wanted to go somewhere different than the usual Layton, Ogden, Salt Lake, etc... So we decided on Jackson Hole, Wyoming! The Wednesday before his birthday we ventured out for our day trip to the Hole!We ate lunch when we got there, hit up all the shops- we were on the hunt for sweatshirts! While on the hunt we ran into a funny sign on the side of the street... We took the old fashioned pictures- one day I'll try to scan it in so you can see it! We watched a pretend gun show in the middle of the street- too many people, so no pictures! We fancied ourselves to a horse drawn carriage ride (it looked like the old Wells Fargo wagon)
And ate super tasty Hagen Daz ice cream! And of course, we took the traditional pictures with the famous antler arch!
On our way home, we took a small detour to Freedom, WY. All I have to say is beautiful country!!! Okay, so I have more to say! But really, it is beautiful! Freedom is where my Grandpa (Papa) grew up and is buried. It was so nice to go back and visit. The sun was setting as we got there and cast the most beautiful glow on the hills. I only wish I had snapped a picture of it. All in all, we had a great day!! It was just too bad that we couldn't stay another day! Oh well, we'll just have to go back again! Well, there's more to say, but it's late and I'm so done with the computer! We don't get along very well... I've already gotten really frustrated with it tonight! I guess I should quit while I'm ahead! I'll be back soon... that's a promise! It's my goal to stay on top of this thing... I'll believe myself when it happens!!!! hehe!!!