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Salt Lake City, Utah, United States

Tuesday, December 29, 2009

Stay tuned...

I'm uploading Christmas pictures right now so they will be coming soon! Probably not tonight though because my head, ears, eyes, nose, throat, and body hurt :( Hopefully I'm feeling better by New Years! Wish me luck, and if someone would like to come and edit them all for me and put them on my blog, all nice and pretty, I will let you. :) If not, you can just fix my header for me, because it's off center and it's driving me crazy and I don't wanna make another one. For now I'm going to get some rest....and play Donkey Kong on the Wii. I think I'm well enough to do that. Actually, I know I am!




Monday, December 28, 2009

Christmas overview!

Wow, it’s been a minute!

Well, the holiday season is unfortunately *almost* over!

I was finally able to get all of my Christmas shopping done and I was so prepared, I even had about 20 minutes to spare before we opened presents!

Actually, that’s sort of a lie. There were two presents that were sort of “rain checked” till the day after Christmas. (I should maybe write a letter to Canon because they are stupid and their error messages are stupid and I’m no longer a huge fan of my printer because it is stupid. BUT, that’s another story for another day!)

Anyway, the thought was there though, and the presents turned out adorable once they were all finished! If you’re trying to think of a unique, personable Christmas present for a family member(s), this turned out really cute! I asked each member of my family (about 20 people) what their absolute favorite thing was about the person I was doing the gift for (In my case, I did it for my Grandma, Grandpa, Grandpa on my Mom’s side, and my Aunt who was here visiting from Alabama) It could be anything really, ranging from favorite funny story, to favorite memory, to favorite personality trait. I actually found that the mixture, mad it even better! Once I got everyone’s favorite things, I typed them up, with cute fonts of course, bought some nice 8x10 frames and printed and framed each one. When my printer decided it was done working for the day, I had to improvise because it was um…Christmas. So, the creative part of me came up with an IOU that, once framed, read:

"Due to printer technical difficulties, the "real" page will be ready tomorrow. In the meantime, here is a pretty picture to enjoy

:)"

It was a quick fix, and worked until I was able to go to Kinkos the next day!

Other than that, I basically took a break from posting because I was enjoying lots and lots of quality family time! My Aunt was here visiting from Alabama so that was nice! She was here for 10 days (but it felt like 2!:()

Here are a couple highlights from my long holiday weekend:

While Christmas shopping with my Aunt, we are talking about what she got my sister and everyone else for Christmas and she mentions how she really wishes she would have bought something for my sister that she could use at her new place. I look over and see DVD’s on sale for like 5 bucks and say OH! You could get her a DVD, she only has like 2 of them, and she watches one each night before bed. Right away she says "Does she have Hook?" "No, I know for sure she doesn’t have Hook." I say (wondering why she, so quickly would want to buy Hook for my 20 year old sister.) "Okay, I’ll get her that then!" and she throws it in the cart. Come to find out, a couple of hours later, she had changed the subject and was actually asking if my LITTLE sister, Mariah, had the movie. She thought Hook would be a perfect movie for a 9 year old and I agree. For a 20 year old though, not so much…although I couldn’t say anything at the time because it sounded like she was SO excited to get Hook for my sister!

The low-uh incident of course. (That one deserved its own post!)

Kassi opened up a wireless car charger for her phone and asked "How does it work if it is wireless??" It took about 5 minutes of family members explaining that it was a charger that would charge her “wireless” device, before it finally clicked!

Playing games! We played lots and lots of games! Board games, word games, and Wii! Grandma tried the Wii for the first time and loved it! We loved watching her try for the first time!

We finally got a classic controller for our Wii so we’ve also been enjoying old school NES games on the Wii! How rad is that? Very.

I made up my own joke, on accident.
Prior to Christmas day my Mom and I were talking about the Turkey she’d bought for Christmas. She’d mentioned that it wasn’t very big this year. On Christmas day as she was taking it out of the oven I started to say "That’s not too small of a (Then, thinking turkey and bird...out comes...) turd!" SO, what do you get when you mix a turkey and a bird? A turd.

Hope everyone had a super Christmas and Happy up and coming New Year!!



Wednesday, December 23, 2009

Wink and stuff.

A long, long time ago I was introduced to one of my favorite things in the world.

It’s called “Wink”

No, not the kind of “wink” that I only try to perfect when no one is looking. (You should be glad I only try this when I’m by myself because let’s just say...I’m not a good winker and you would probably think something is seriously wrong with my face.)

Anyway, it’s the AVON perfume, Wink.

I used to be the happiest Jessica in the world because my little AVON lady would have my next bottle of Wink ready for me, whenever I needed it.

Then I became the saddest Jessica in the world because I went to tell said little AVON lady I was out and she informed me that she couldn’t get anymore, because AVON discontinued it. Um, hello?? AVON, what were you thinking??? I bought enough of that crap to support you for ever, and ever, and ever. Stupid decision.

Then, once again, I became the happiest girl in the world because I found a store called AVON! It was located in a *ghetto* nice little indoor Swapmeet.

By this time, Kassi had jumped onto the Wink bandwagon so I called her up and told her the good news.

Then I became the saddest Jessica in the world once again because apparently this Swapmeet/AVON store didn’t actually have any new bottles of Wink…they just decided it would be a fanfreekintastic idea to display the tester bottle, and then watch the look on peoples faces when they decide they love it and want their own bottle, and I also think they like to watch people (my sister and I) fight over who gets to buy the tester bottle (which P.S. I totally won that battle). Whatever the reason is, I think it’s mean.

Anyways so, I’m hoping this is where the whole "People from all over reading my blog" thing comes handy.

Here’s what I’m thinking…If anyone reading my blog can find me a bottle of Wink, let me know. I will buy it, no battle. Then I would probably love you so much that I would buy you a bottle too! It would be a super deal, so check it out, tell your friends and let this sad girl know!




Low. Uh.

If you were (which you should have been) hangin out with us last night…you would have heard my Sister ask my Aunt if Low-uh was a city in Alabama, after hearing my Aunt reference Lower Alabama. This goes to show that:

1) Kassi is obviously oblivious to accents.

2) We all laughed our pants off.

3) Auntie Kristine has been in “LA” for far too long.





Monday, December 21, 2009

I've been writing a lot of letters recently.

Dearest Kayla Aimee,

1) I absolutely loved your love story. It is beautiful and you should write a book!

2) I’m looking at my "Keyword Google Searches" today and one of them leading the reader to my blog goes like so..."How do I access Kayla Aimee’s shifting sand?" Well...as it turns out, I am wondering the same thing! Lately when my excited little finger clicks on the link for some inspiration, we are let down and it can’t find the page. I was hoping you could help me and fellow google searchers.

Sincerely, Jessica




Wednesday, December 16, 2009

200th POST!!



Kudos MacKay, this is so funny. If anyone wonders what my meetings at work are like, watch this video. You can probably relate.



Sunday, December 13, 2009

Dear Lysha Mae,

I was really, really busy today watching my boys dominate (11-2 now, WOOT!) and then entertaining my Dad, 2 brothers, one sister, one Travis, one Travis's friend, one step mom, one Treydogg, and one brother's girlfriend and at the same time putting extensions into Camille's hair, so I must say that although I wish I could have played around with the amazingly cute pics of Matix and other scrapbloggers amazingly creative ideas, I was only able to create one layout. So, here it is.


Of course you would insert Matix's cute little face in the empty spaces

I don't feel as bad about only coming up with one idea because after checking back with your blog, it turns out you already made one! YAY :) I'm sure it's adorable and I'm excited to see it!

P.S.- Did you listen to my Home Grown Christmas Playlist song? Totally reminds me of us and our kick ass Christmas mixes that I miss dearly.

Much love,

Jess.


Wednesday, December 9, 2009

A good reason to learn the phonetic alphabet.

On a call today at work—

Sprint representative to me: Ma’am can you please spell that out for me?

Me: “Oh, sure!! It’s A as in apple. C as in Charlie. P as in Pee” (this is the silence where I realize it’s awkward and start to wonder who around me heard that.) …“ter.” (I say quickly to try and make it sound like Peter. But really it doesn't. It sounds just like I said it. Pee.....tur.

Oh well, I give myself an A for effort in trying to save myself from that one.



Tuesday, December 8, 2009

Christmas in our house!! (Take two.)


O Christmas Tree! O Christmas Tree!
Thy leaves are so unchanging;
O Christmas Tree! O Christmas Tree!
Thy leaves are so unchanging;
Not only green when summer's here,
But also when 'tis cold and drear.
O Christmas Tree! O Christmas Tree!
Thy leaves are so unchanging!




O Christmas Tree! O Christmas Tree!
Much pleasure thou can'st give me;
O Christmas Tree! O Christmas Tree!
Much pleasure thou can'st give me;
How often has the Christmas tree
Afforded me the greatest glee!
O Christmas Tree! O Christmas Tree!
Much pleasure thou can'st give me.


O Christmas Tree! O Christmas Tree!
Thy candles shine so brightly!
O Christmas Tree! O Christmas Tree!
Thy candles shine so brightly!
From base to summit, gay and bright,
There's only splendor for the sight.
O Christmas Tree! O Christmas Tree!
Thy candles shine so brightly!


O Christmas Tree! O Christmas Tree!
How richly God has decked thee!
O Christmas Tree! O Christmas Tree!
How richly God has decked thee!
Thou bidst us true and faithful be,
And trust in God unchangingly.
O Christmas Tree! O Christmas Tree!
How richly God has decked thee! !





Monday, December 7, 2009

It's a start!

We *finally* got our Christmas tree tonight!





We are going to decorate it tomorrow though, haha. I can't believe it's already almost 9:00! We just barely got home from work and finished with dinner!

Anyway, I'll post pics of the finished tree tomorrow! :)




Sunday, December 6, 2009

NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!

I don't think Minnesota is going to win this one!! What makes it worse is how crappy they played :( Lame Sunday.



Love little kids.

Two things I learned today:

When my little sister says "Hey Jess, do you like...have the heater on or something?" It really means she's cold and wants the heater on.

Also, after fixing her something to eat when she says "So, like..what other rules do you have for your couch..like, I know you can't put shoes on it...but...what else? What are the other rules?"

It's going to completely confuse me but it really means she'd like to know if she can eat her food while sitting on the couch.

Haha, such a cutie. Love you Mariah!




I'm sore.

...and it's all because of this little console of magnificence.


It's worth being sore. Definitely. I'm excited about you little Wii.

Saturday I randomly decided I wanted a Wii so I called the Wal-Mart by my house to see how much they were and they informed me that they were sold out.

No big deal, I thought. I'll just call the one right up the street.

They were sold out as well. Apparently everyone decided they wanted a Wii on Saturday night too. Or, maybe it was because they were on sale.

I finally found a store that had THREE left. I informed the lady I was coming from about 15 or 20 minutes away and asked if she thought there would be one there when I got there, or if they were going pretty fast...

She said they were selling about 12 an hour.

Crazy.

We still decided to go out in the blizzard and at least give it a shot.

One hour later, we were driving home, with the goods.


Thursday, December 3, 2009

2009 Christmas Dance Recital "Edna the Elf"

Thursday night I went to the annual Christmas Dance recital. This year was especially special as my sister and two cousins were performing. It was extremely, extremely hard to get a decent picture because a) the seating arrangement and how far away we were b)apparently dancers don't do a very good job at holding still while performing and c) there was a flash Nazi in front of me. (Alexis and her actually went rounds. Almost.) But I did the best I could! It was really nice to have a family member in almost every dance! Everyone did a fantastic job!



Katie was "Edna the Elf" (Main character in the recital) so she was in about 90 percent of the dances. It was really cute!! She did a fantastic job!



How adorable is my cousin Megan?! Her dances were again, very hard to catch...but it was easy to catch her smile, so that makes up for it!


This is my little sister, Mariah. It was her first dance recital ever! She did great and I can't wait to watch her grow and continue to improve! Good job sissy! You looked beautiful out there!











Tuesday, December 1, 2009

New new new!!!

Thirty something super awesome Christmas songs!! ENJOY! :)



Sunday, November 29, 2009

Chrismas in our house!

Christmas is coming and I'm so excited about it!! This weekend, I was able to get some decorating done :) Check it out!



Happy Holidays!!

Thanksgiving 2009

Hope everyone had a wonderful Thanksgiving! We certainly did!

Trav and I started out at my Aunt and Uncle Smith's house. My Aunt is an amazing cook AND she does everything from scratch so it's extra yummy! There we were able to have dinner with my mom and brother, aunt and uncle, 8 cousins! and Grandpa Smith! Dessert was probably my favorite! It was "Pumpkin" themed so we had the choice of regular pumpkin pie, pumpkin cheesecake, brandy pumpkin pie, and carmel pecan pumpkin pie! SO many choices, it was a hard!! This part of the family lives about a half our away so I was extremely sad when I went to pull out my camera and the battery was dead :( No pictures this year :(. I will have to get double next year!

Next was onto dinner at the Wooten's. Grandma, Grandpa, Jessica, Travis, Dad, Kassi, Camille, Kyle, Harley, Mariah, Auntie Tammy, Uncle David, Alexis, Chase, Katie, and Megan were all there to feast on the turkey, ham, mashed potatoes, emerald salad, fruit salad, candied yams, olives, cranberries, brussels sprouts, peas, corn, mustard potato salad, regular potato salad, macaroni-shrimp salad, deviled eggs, veggies and dip, pumpkin pie, banana cream pie, stuffing, frog-eye salad, and a delicious pasta salad! Whew! Try and say that all in one breath!

The cooking and prep was a ton easier this year because Auntie Tammy, Megan, Grandma, and me all started the night before! We were up cooking until 2:30 in the morning! It was worth it though! It was nice to be able to just pull things out of the fridge on Thanksgiving :)

Highlights from this year's dinner:
We learned to read directions after making 4 emerald salads, instead of the normal 2. (Apparently it's not good to double the water and only use a small pack of Jello. The Jello gets a little picky and decides not to set. The nerve.)

After all these years, Grandma finally made a decision...this decision came after the FOURTH time we'd been to Harmon's (Grocery Store). She has now created a list! This list will be saved and used each year so hopefully we'll only have to go to Harmon's three times, instead of four.

Auntie Tammy had a battle with a knife and lost. The result was two band-aids. Jessica had a battle with the same knife and sort of lost. The result was Grandma wearing one band-aid. Yes. I accidentally cut my innocent, dish doing grandma. :(

Alexis (newb to the "living on your own" thing) had a wonderful idea and showed up with bags of Tupperware for some yummy leftovers!! Good call! Kassi (also a newb) thought it was a fantastic idea as well and hit up Wal-Mart for some similar Tupperware.


Time to eat!! Also time to see what Alexis looks like when she thinks she's not in the picture.


Most of the time, Kassi was doing what I should have been doing...


That being said..thanks for these pics, Sissy :) I had to steal them!


Everything was deeeeelicious!!

After dinner and clean-up, we always play games. This usually lasts until we are basically falling asleep at the table! This year was no different! We played Scattegories, Buzz Word, the "Who, What, Why" game (hilarious every time!), and more Scattegories, ending at a whopping 3am! Good, debateful, arguementative, funny times.


Oh, how I love Thanksgiving! In one day, we were able to see at least 30 family members that we don't get to see as often as we'd like! Holidays are such a fantastic time of the year!


Tuesday, November 24, 2009

Awkward little situation!

At work we are in the process of moving to another building so lately we've had people up on ladders and in the ceiling getting different wiring, or whatever they are doing, I'm not 100 percent sure. Anyway, they've been around lots. So, today I am at work taking calls and some guy comes like RIGHT next to my desk and plops his ladder down, climbs up it, and goes into the ceiling. I'm just at my desk, minding my own business, taking a call and talking to some operator with some company who's relocated to India. The guy on the ladder comes down from the ceiling and walks away. As he's walking away, there is a extremely loud noise! Like vacuum times 32. So, being DIRECTLY under this noise, and on a call...I try to ignore it and hope my Hearing User can still hear me as I'm relaying the call. The guy comes back and goes back up into the ceiling. This time he is carrying a bucket. Thinking nothing of it, I continue with my call. While on this call, the India operator I'm talking to all of a sudden puts the call on hold. No notice or anything. I thought that was kinda weird. So, then he comes back from putting us on hold and says Sorry, I uh...had uh...a...um...emergency, please repeat your question. As he is saying this to me, guy in ceiling is just chillin. The loud noise is still going on, and I am trying my hardest to just relay this call normally. At this point, I can only see ceiling guy from his knees to his feet and all of a sudden, there is a downpour. Let me be specific. There is a downpour of water from the ceiling to my desk. The guy jumps down from the ladder and apologizes over and over. I assure him it's okay and feel bad for him because cmon...how to do you say sorry to someone when you just spilled an entire bucket of water on their desk. I was pretty sure the shock on my face told him enough, and even if it didn't the first and only thing I could come up with to say was "It's okay...I didn't really need these papers anyway." I'm sure that made him feel like a champ! Poor kid. So I tried to let him know it was no big deal. I then continue on with my call and I get to thinking. What in the world could have been "India Operator's" emergency that he needed to place us on an immediate hold, only to return a few seconds later, ready to go on with the call? Maybe they too are moving to a different building and have maintenance men in the ceiling? I'll never know, I just found it rather hilarious that at the same time he was having an "emergency" I was getting a bucket of water dumped on my desk! What a coincidence! haha





I'm thankful for...

So, here we are! Only TWO days from Thanksgiving! Geez, where has this year gone, seriously?! I'm going to be a busy, busy Jessica these next couple of days so I'm going to wrap up the "I'm Thankful for..." posts and this will be the last one!

I'm thankful for so many things that I could honestly do an I'm Thankful for... post every day of the year, so to wrap this up, I'm just going to list some final (in no special order) things that I'm thankful for!

My sissy. (Couldn't have asked for a better one.)
My family. (I wouldn't be the person I am today if it wasn't for them, and for that I am extremely thankful.)
Travis. (High School sweetheart, still my sweetheart!)
My best friend, Mari. (Bestie since 6th grade! Just like a sister to me!)
My car. (Love my little Elantra. Pretty good little first car.)
Freedom. (Something we so often take for granted. As I am sitting here with all of my luxuries, men and women are out there, risking their lives and working hard to give each and every one of us our freedom. Amazing.
My house. (Such a nice feeling to have my own place. No roomates. Just me, Treydogg, and Trav :))
Good weather, fishing season. (Very thankful for fishing season, just wish it would last a little longer. Ice fishing is not the funnest thing in the world!)
The Internet. ('Nuff said.)
My lappy. (Definitely one of the best purchases I've ever made!)
My phone. (BlackBerry all the way! Especially when you have Pandora and Google Maps. Such amazing technology!!)

and many, many more!!

I hope everyone has a wonderful Thanksgiving!! (I'm ready for his holiday break to begin!!)




Travis knows me all too well!

They say opposites attract, which is generally true. I mean in my relationship it's about 98 percent true. Travis likes the crunchy french fries, I like the squishy ones. Travis hates to cook, I don't mind it. Travis is not a fan of decorating and therefore just goes with the flow, I am a fan of this :). Travis doesn't like pickles, I love them...you get the point.

There is one thing, however, where "Opposites Attract" should be changed to "Opposites equals battle" It's temperature.
-Temperature of the car.
and
-Temperature of the house.

You see, Travis seems to like sitting in a sauna. While that can be nice at times...actually, I'm lying. It's never nice. I, on the other hand like to be cooler and I love to be able to grab a sweater or blankie to snuggle up with.

This is often a battle in the house and car! Usually what will happen is I will let Trav do his thing with the heat and then when he's not looking, I will do my thing with turning it off, or down at least.

Except for last night, my plan failed.

So, I'm laying in bed waiting for Travis to fall asleep because he has the heater turned up pretty high, and that needed to be fixed. I thought to myself "Self, as soon as Travis falls asleep, you can get up out of bed...act like you are going to the bathroom and then just on the way out the door, you can quietly adjust the heat. You will have to do this pretty quickly and quietly though, or else he will wake up!"

As soon as Travis turned over, I gave him a few minutes to get into a deep sleep and up I went! As soon as I got around to the other side of the bed, I looked and his eyes were still closed! We were in business :) So, I open the door quietly, start to walk out and adjust the temp. Success, right?

Wrong.

The second I put my hand on the thermostat, Trav woke FROM A DEAD SLEEP and said "I know you didn't just turn the heat down!!" Then, I did the worst thing I could do. Being the startled Jessica I was, I SAY "No, I was just going to the bathroom!" and then I go get right back in bed...apparently forgetting what had just come out of my mouth.

I was caught.




Monday, November 23, 2009

Music equals everything.

Today, and yesterday, and last week, and a year ago, and tomorrow, and the rest of my life I will be/was/am thankful for music! It is so powerful. It can honestly do anything I need it to. If I'm having a bad day...I turn on some music and it can completely take my mind off of everything, and instantly have me singing along and improve my day. If I need to clean the house, but I'm not really in the mood, I plug in the pod and put on a good play list and I'm ready to clean my little heart out. It keeps me entertained. There is SUCH a great variety of music out there that I'll never get sick of it! It wakes me up in the morning, and puts me to sleep at night. It gets me through long drives, and helps me do yard work. It is the greatest thing ever. Without music, well...I don't want to think about that.

I just want to give a big fat thank YOU to all musicians!!! You truly are the greatest.




I'm thankful for...

my blog! It may seem like a crazy thing to be thankful for, but here are a few reasons why:

-If I have a story to tell, it prevents me from telling it 823728 times, to 823728 different people. I can just blog about it and tell 823728 people to read my blog :)
-I have fun with changing the fonts and backgrounds and making it a little festive peice of goodness.
-(My favorite one)It's a journal, except for kind of in disquise...because if my mind knew it was an actual journal...it wouldn't be as happy about posting posts because any journal I've ever attempted, failed after the first 1 or 2 days. This way though, I will always have it! I'm excited to be able to look back at this when I'm older and remember all these good times!

So thank you blog. You're a peach.




A good excuse/THANKFUL for....

Last night after yelling at Travis for turning the lights off while I was in the bathroom and telling him how childish that is, I walk out of the bathroom to find out that he, in fact didn't touch the bathroom lights...and the rest of the house looked the same. :(





So, after apologizing, we go around the house, lighting all of the candles and gathering our flash lights!





We'd been home from Price for like 20 minutes so at the time, Trav was doing the dishes and I was about to start laundry, then blog. This being the "Good Excuse." I called the power company and they said it was estimated to be off until 9:30! (It was 5:30 at the time) The first thing I do is look at Travis and ask what we were going to do for dinner now (knowing in my head that the reason I'm asking the question is because I already know we can't cook anything) and he says "I don't know, we won't be able to cook anything though." I reply with a nice little "Way to go, Captain Obvious!" He laughed and then said he was just telling me that because I was asking what we would do for dinner. Um, duh...

After a few minutes, we decided to go to Subway with the hopes that when we got home, the power would be back on. (It's really no fun sitting at home with no power. Although, we were pretty hooked up. Wrapped in a blanket, listening to Pandora on my phone, and passing the ipod back and forth after every "game over" on the most amazing game ever.)

While at Subway, I looked out the window and noticed how bad it was snowing and how FAST the snow was flying. (Note: Travis was NOT looking out the window) I nicely said to him "Wow, look how fast the snow is flying!" he not so nicely replied "Way to go, Captain Obvious!" Funny, except for his didn't work as well as mine. Not even a little bit. He seemed to think he was pretty funny, though.

Anyway...I think something that we take WAY for granted is power!! Last night made me definitely realize how thankful for power I actually am!





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