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Salt Lake City, Utah, United States

Wednesday, June 15, 2011

What we've been up to...

As you can see we've been up to lots!! These are the most recent pictures from my phone. I really hope I can put all (or most) of this stuff into separate posts because we've had some huge milestones, good times, and great stories that I'd love to keep forever! Here are the pictures though. That's a huge start!


Trav, Kass, and I went to Viva Salt Lake this year with our friends Devan, Kelli, Laci, and Chris to begin our summer concert fun!! There were quite a few bands performing this year.  We were only interested in the later bands so we showed up around 6 pm to see Royal Bliss, Ed Kowalczyk (of Live!), and Fuel.  I was mainly excited about Royal Bliss (we've seen them before, and they are great!) and of course Live!! We grew up listening to their stuff, so it was such a build up knowing that we were going to see him performing live! Neither band let down, either! It was such a great way to officialy welcome summer!!


After Royal Bliss played, Kass, Laci, and I went on a mission to meet Neal, and we were totally successfull! He's a badass, and I'm so glad we got to hang out with him for a little bit!

Waiting for Live to set up!

Chillin with Neal!

Kass came out with heels and we all asked her "You're wearing heels to the show?!" Her response was "Uh..yeah..I always wear heels." --This is the result :)


Lots of graduations!! We went to 3 Graduations this year, and unfortunately missed one :(.  We're so proud of everyone who graduated!! (Auntie Tammy with her Masters in Special Education, Katie--High School, Laci--High School, and Daniel--High School).  The Graduations were...well...as fun as Graduations can be I suppose! I will say that no matter how boring it is to sit and listen to talks and a million names...I still get chills every single time I hear a friend or family member Graduate! Such a wonderful feeling!



Auntie Kristine was a really great sister and planned an awesome, awesome surprise for Auntie Tammy's Graduation!  *Uncle Mike, Uncle Tom, Auntie Boop, Auntie Pam, and Bubba all came down from California to be there when Auntie Tammy walked up to get her diploma!* We had such a wonderful time, I wish we all lived closer together so we could see each other on a weekly basis!! (Love and miss you all!!)


Idaho trip to see the bestie!!

My favorite little girl turned 2!! She's getting so big!


Birthday festivities were at the park this year with a RockStar Diva theme! (So fitting!) We hung out, ate some good BBQ, and played Catch Phrase by the fire with the fam! Presley was so adorable opening her presents--Every single present brought a HUGE smile to her face!

Baby birdies!!!





Despite the poop all over the place, these little guys were adorable!! PS..don't ask me how I got the second picture so close up without zooming.  It would be embarrasing if I had to tell you that I tried to balance on the tire of my car, and in the middle of the snap fell down to the ground.  Man..our neighbors should pay for the shows that I put on almost on a daily basis!

Lovin me some nephew!

He is perfect, and beautiful, and I love this little guy!! Even when he throws up on Auntie Jess.  We're in the process of working on that one!

Photoshoots for mom!

I made my mom a block letter set that said "Mom" for Mother's Day!  The O was a heart, and I put a picture of us on it.  It turned out adorable, and our mom loved it!  We had lots of fun taking pictures, too as you can see.

The hardest part is having two sisters pick a picture to give to mom to display.  I don't suggest doing that anytime in the near future.  Word of advice and future note to self..don't give your sister an option :)

Crafts!!

I've been steadily busy with craft projects!! I started selling on Etsy as well as a craft store near my house, and I've shipped orders out each week for the past few months!  I love it, and I started a US map where I color in each state that I've shipped to! So far I'm at 13 states!!

Fishing Trip with Grandpa!

I absolutely adore fishing, and so does my Grandpa.  He actually professionally fished for quite some time when he was younger!  We're in the process of making a video of our fishing trip.  Hopefully I'll have it ready soon to post on here! It was one of the best days I've had in a really long time, plus we caught some nice fish!! Since then, Trav have gone back to that spot, and caught some even bigger fish!! In fact, I caught my biggest trout at that (secret) spot!  (4 lbs 22 in)

Gardening!


It was a LOT of work this year, but we pulled through, and planted our garden! We waited way longer than last year to plant because of all of the rain we've had lately.  But Trav and I manual labored it up all day!  Our plants are much smaller this year, and we tried that black weed stopper stuff! I can't wait to not have any weeds to pull!!!

Vegas!!

K, Vegas totally needs it's own post because I have a ton of pictures, and lots of stories!! We had a blast though!


Watching flowers bloom!

This is my first little bloomer for this year!! Yay for perennials!


New toy!

I bought the May 2011 Macbook Pro.  She is my baby, and I totally daydream about her!



Saturday, May 28, 2011

Happy.

I'm laying on my couch right now, and the tears are flowing. The greatest tears. Happy tears. Tears that are burning as they run down my (very!) sunburned face.

This has been one of the greatest days in a really long time.

I have so many pictures to upload from today and they'll be up really soon! I just wanted to get a few things out first.

My Grandpa called me yesterday and asked if I wanted to go fishing early this morning. Now, if you know me, you know very well that I could *never* turn down a fishing trip. I'm the girl in below 0 weather, begging the guys to stay for just a few more hours. Fishing is my passion.

Enough to where I met my Grandpa this morning at 6AM. Showered, and ready to go.

The weather was perfect. The fishing was amazing. The fish we caught today are the biggest that I've caught in a really, really long time. The company (Grandpa and I) was much needed and long overdue. I learned so much, and aspire to one day be able to fish like my Grandpa.

10 hours fishing, and we were both down to keep fishing but decided when putting one foot in front of the other was a struggle, that we could call it a day. 10 hours though. I love that my Grandpa will hang with me for 10 hours for no other reason than to fish.

If only I could talk Trav into that!

***

After coming home, showering, BBQing some Fish, and telling fish stories (which will come soon--with pictures--promise!) I laid down to relax and check my usual pages online. One of them being my sales at a local craft store.

Every day I log in to this site to see which crafts have sold. I've been selling out of that store since February, and so far I've had to pay booth rent every month because I'm not getting enough sales to cover commission and booth rent. (If only I was selling at this store like I am on Etsy--)

Until today.

May will officially be the first month where I can walk into Quilted Bear and say "I'm here to pick up my check, please."

What a perfect, perfect day.

Life is good.



Thursday, May 26, 2011



Sunday, May 1, 2011

It was the greatest sandwich ever. All 5 bites.

Hi, hello. My name is Jessica, and I'm sort of (deathly) scared of spiders. The following story is one that I can only hope I'll forget..but I know that's completely out of the question. Especially because I have evidence.

And the evidence is too funny not to share.





You see, the evidence is a sandwich all mayonaise down on the rug that I'm a freak about. Serious.

...

Kass and I woke up pretty early this morning, and started watching TV. Tummys started grumbling a few minutes later so we went into the kitchen to make the best sandwiches ever.

Pickles, cheese, and (the last of the) turkey. Yum!!

I grab a soda, and sit down on the *loveseat.

*Usually this is not the case. About 6 or so months ago, I went to sit on this couch and before sitting down, I simply moved the pillow to the side. Good thing I did because there was a spider in between the cushion of the couch and the pillow. Now, each time I sit on that couch, I do a spider check. Except for this time. :(

So, we're watching *The Voice*, and I say to Kass "Man, these sangwiches are delicious. Best ever!"

A few minutes later at the exact same moment, Kassi and I jump up! (We have spi-dar like cats have reflexes.)

*THERE WAS A SPIDER CRAWLING ON MY LEG!!!!*

Moments later the sandwich was flung, tears came flowing, I moved faster than I have in a long time, and I was rockin' some Olympic worthy knee touch foot stomp moves.

This lasted for a solid 5 minutes until Kassi came into the back room and said "Jess, I'm pretty sure he's a goner."

...

Now, the worst part of this story besides the fact that I wasted a pickle, had a spider crawling on my leg, and the mayonaise on my rug is the fact that:

*The spider is not dead, and is still somewhere in my living room.*

It's going to be a rough week avoiding that room. It's sort of a common place to hang out.

Oh, and if you're wondering about my empty tummy and turkeyless fridge, Kassi was nice enough to share her sandwich with me. :) Sisters are totally the greatest!





Tuesday, April 26, 2011

Takin the gloves off.

I've been laughing uncontrollaby lately. It feels like the times in High School where the teacher stares at you because you and a select few are laughing so hard, and you can't stop.

And then you look over at a friend to help calm you down, and it only makes the situation worse as you realize they are red in the face and failing to hide an outburst.

So, I should work on this. How do you work on holding in laughter? Oh, maturity? Well then...nevermind.

...

At least yesterday...I wasn't alone in the laughing outburst.

At work I'd done some testing with an agent. Another supervisor slides over and here ya go:

"Oh hey..she's already been tested. She's great, we just have to wait for a schedule to come up that she's able to work. There's no need to test her again."

"Oh cool...Um, is that in a report or something so I can check first before I bring them up here to test?"

"Well..not exactly..but..it's on my "to do" list today! So, in the meantime, if you just want to tell me the name before you bring them up, I'll let you know if they've already been tested or not."

(Trying to picture a visual of my list of people to test today when "Nau"--another agent-- pops into my head.)

Me: "How about Nau?" (Pronounced "now")

"Oh..um..like, what do you mean? Make the list now?"

I said it with such force. He was a little scared. We cracked up a little. The end.



Wednesday, April 13, 2011

Attempt at couponing...

Ahh! I'm extremely behind!! I need to finish going through my trip to New Orleans pictures and *start* going throuhg Vegas pictures!!

They will make it one day.

I promise!

In other news (as you probably know if you follow me on facebook) I've been selling things left and right lately!! It's so exciting for me. Each week I find myself in the post office, shipping something to a different part of the world. It's great!!

Finally..the purpose of this post.

I've always sort of admired the organized mommy bloggers who post about their couponing experiences. *Look!! I got 300 dollars worth of stuff, and only paid 17 dollars!* I've never really had the time or patience to even know where to begin.

I'll start reading through their *how to* and I'm usually lost within the first paragraph.

I'm not going to commit to anything crazy like that...but I'm (*we're) going to attempt it.

*Travis was so excited to show me something when I got home from work yesterday. I went to sit next to him on the couch and he said "Grab a pair of scissors!" He couldn't believe that each week, we'd been throwing away all of these coupons! It was the cutest thing. He even knew what a "manufacturer" coupon was, and I had no idea.

I think it will be sort of fun looking through all of the coupons, and cutting them out. :)

Wish us luck!! And..if you have any tips/tricks that you'd like to pass on, feel free!!





Monday, March 28, 2011

Highly Educational Conversation.

Katie: We should go to the festival of colors tomorrow.
Me: Oh! It's going on tomorrow, too?!
Katie: Yes! From Twelve to Noon.
Me: Really? Only for 2 hours?



Tuesday, March 22, 2011

The neph--Pics that make you go "Oh!"

Kass and I had the pleasure of visiting Otto and the fam last night! They were nice enough to have us over to their house for a BBQ. (Thanks!! It was delicious!!)

It had been a few weeks since we've seen the nephew, and we were *so* excited!!

Turns out, little has changed...and he's still a sleepy head.

At least he's learning to sleep in style, though.



blake8

He was crackin us up with his random faces.


blake7

It's the most wonderful thing.

Especially, when I found out that tickling his chin, causes this face...



blake6

Poor blake..because after I found that out..he was non stop getting chin tickled.



blake5

Unless I was taking pictures.



blake3

Which (finally) eventually woke him up.



blake4

Halfway-ish.



blake1

He wasn't so excited to be awake...so I let him snuggle up and go back to sleep.

Either way, it's a win-win.



blake2

Love you Blakey!

-Favorite Aunt Jess.



Monday, March 21, 2011

How does he know?!

I'm talking to my dog this morning as I'm searching my closet for something to wear.

"Hey hun, let's go potty!"

He looks at me like um. no..I'm good.

"C'mon Trey, let's go potty!"

He stands up, and stretches. Taking his time, he makes his way over to me.

Seeing that I'm still looking through my closet, he makes a split second decision and takes a hike *back to his bed*!!

This, apparently, isn't his first ro-dey-o.





I so love this dog! :)



Tuesday, March 8, 2011

Trav's dropped jaw was priceless.

Travis got a new iPhone (finally!) on Sunday. He was so anxious to get it up and running but he needed to get a sim card for it before he was able to make/receive calls or text.

"I'll go first thing when I get off of work tomorrow, and get a sim card. Tonight I want to put music and stuff on it though. Can you delete the data and stuff from the previous owner?"

"Sure babe..I'll just restore to default."

That's where the adventure began.

We found out that when you "restore to default" it locks the phone up until a sim is put in. You cannot access music, or anything else on the phone. Oops.

So, we hop in the car (in the pouring rain) and drive over to Grandpa's house. I'd given them an extra sim that I had so we were going to give that a shot.

--Insert Trav's hopes going back up here.

We get the sim, I call ATT and they are closed.

Bummer.

In not giving up without a fight, I look online to see if maybe there is a 24 hour service number.

Finally find one, call them, and find out that you can only have a number assigned to a sim card once.

Back to square one.

The rep at ATT said "You can buy sim cards from Kiosks in Wal-Mart or Best Buy, though. It doesn't have to be the actual ATT store"

Sweet!!

--Insert Trav's hopes going back up here.

I call Best Buy. Sunday. Closed.

I call Wal-Mart. ATT Kiosk closes at 8. It's 8:30.

We decide to make the trip to ATT anyway...maybe we'd get lucky.

Go out in the pouring rain for a second time.

Find the ATT kiosk, and ask for sim cards. Find out they are 25 bucks, and that they *do* have one!!

--Insert Trav's hopes going back up here.

Realize we both forgot our wallets.

Back out into the pouring rain, grab the wallet, and go back to Wal-Mart.

Buy the sim card, get home, and I call ATT.

I work with a nice lady from India for close to an hour. We needed to activate the sim card, change Trav's number, and make sure everything was set to go. Trav is pacing the living room at this point, anxious and asking every 3 minutes "Is it working? Is she going to be able to get it going tonight? Did you ask her about this?"

Then he sits down and I put it on speakerphone.

"Sir, you have 3 choices to pick from for your number. They are blah, blah, and blah."

"The first one sounds great"

"Okay, let me just go ahead and activate that for you. One sec. Okay, your number is going to be 801 254 (Silence)"

Trav and I immediately notice the very large letters at the top of my phone that say "Call Failed".

I guess at this point my dropped jaw was pretty priceless, too...but I could only see Trav's and it's been enough to keep me giggling all week!!

Thank goodness this nice lady called us back, and we *were* able to get him up and running that night. It only took 4 hours. No biggie.





Thursday, March 3, 2011

Trip to Alabama--Part 2--Section C

I started this post yesterday, and posted it today, so if you'd like to read about it...it shows up under my birthday wish thank you post :)



Happy Birthday to Me!

This is just a quick pop in to tell everyone thank you so much for the birthday wishes!!

I worked during the day, and then Trav took me out to Friday's and then bowling (my favorite)! We hit up the arcade again and Trav's high score on the basketball hoop was still there from the last time we were there. After a couple of tries I *finally* beat it!! Only to have him try some more and beat *my* new high score!! Ugh..maybe next time! :)

I want to give a shout out to my cousin Amy Loo...I loved your "Happy Birthday" Grandma used to sing to me every morning, so it was so great to open up your text and hear you singing to me!

I loved it so much..I even made Trav sing Happy Birthday to me last night just before bed. It was absolutely adorable.

Thanks again everyone, for making my day so great!!



Wednesday, March 2, 2011

Trip to Alabama--Part 2--Section C

When I found out I was going to Alabama, one of my very first thoughts (besides palm trees) was fishing. I absolutely love to fish, so you can imagine how excited I was knowing I was going to be next to water with all different kinds of fish. Fish that I've never even seen before. I was so anxious.

So, to start out day 2...we went fishing!!


Fishing2

At first we fished off of the pier in Fairhope. (About a mile away from my Aunt's house.) The weather was not really the greatest. It was super windy, and sort of later in the morning, so the fish weren't biting.

Determined to show me an *Alabama* fish, we picked up and went to another spot. We were on a mission!

At the second spot (a few docks down), the luck wasn't any better. We did however see a friendly little man on a motorized wheelchair cart. He'd come and talked to us while we were at the first spot, and then he'd made his way down to spot number 2 in the meantime. So, we got out and asked if the fishing was any better at this spot, and found out that it wasn't. He did tell us a pretty cool story though. He said that on this dock, there is usually a Pellican. One that was hurt when hurricane Katrina came through. He said that lots of the locals know about him. They've named him Henry, and they bring him food because he's not able to fly very well anymore.

At the time he was telling us, it was just a story. I'd tried to picture what Henry looked like, but I really wanted to see him!

Lucky for us, a few minutes later...in flew Henry!!


Henry

He stayed for a little bit, let me grab some pictures of him, and then was on his merry little way.

As were we.

We got in the car, and tried one last place. "Fish River" at Weeks Bay. I mean if there were fish anywhere..it would have to be fish river, right?!


Fishing1

Fishing3

*Right!!!* It was at this place that AK pulled this beauty out of the water!!! They weren't super excited about it because it's "just a flounder" but I couldn't really contain my excitement...I mean, this "flounder" is totally the fish on Finding Nemo with 2 eyes on one side and *none* on the other side (See exhibit B). It's completely flat, and if I wasn't obsessed with Finding Nemo, I could honestly say that I've never seen anything like it in my life!! It was awesome!

They said it was pretty rare to catch a flounder out of this river because they generally sit at the bottom and you have to use a jig to tap them on the side because it's not like the swim through the water, and can actually see the food. It was sort of a hit and miss type thing. It was fate. I had to see an Alabama fish!! Plus, if you look at exhibit a, you'll see that apparently this little guy was starving. He tried to put his teeny tiny mouth on a not so teeny tiny piece of shrimp. Way to take it like a champ Mr. Flounder. It was worth the sight of you.


Flounder

After fishing, the plan was to go back home and shower/get ready for the day. That soon changed when I realized we were only about 30-45 minutes away from Gulf Shores. (The beach town that we'd stopped at on the first day) I begged and begged to just keep on heading that way, and make our way back to Gulf Shores to see the beach just one more time. (Just kidding...I didn't really have to beg. AK was pretty much like hey..this is your time, we'll do whatever you want. It was so great. Thank you AK :))

Soooo...back at Lulu's we were. For some crazy reason...I put my butt in the butt bucket. For picture purposes I guess. I did put a fresh layer of sand in there though, before my bum came anywhere near the bucket!


ButtBucket

Lulu's has the most amazing, neverending sandpit behind the restaurant. I so love this place!!


playininthesand2

I played with the sand as long as I possibly could. It was so fun to just relax, and play in the sand. No worries. No stress. ...Well...it was kinda stressfull when my sand castle collapsed. Turns out you have to mix a little bit of water with the sand in order to build. So technical.


Playininthesand1

We took a few pictures on some ginormous chairs.


Bigchairs

Played a little ring game.


GameatLuLus

Played in the sand a little more...


playininthesand

And then we left. We were all starving, so we went down the road (still in Gulf Shores) to get some grub at a place called *The Hangout*


Footsteps

And oh man!! I thought I loved Lulu's!!!!
The Hangout was just as wonderful!! Instead of a neverending sand pit, they had a *beach* behind their restaurant.


TheHangout1

Actually...the beach was more to the side of the restaurant. So, as we were eating, we were watching the parasailers. It was crazy windy that day, and this one dude was catching some mad air!!

After we ate, we of course couldnt leave until we went to the beach. I wanted to bring some sand and seashells home.

So, we seashell hunted. Which for me only lasted about 2 minutes. I was so distracted by drawing in the sand...


livelaughlovesand

And feeling the sand between my toes (my favorite!!!)


footsteps2

And learning about how the oil spill is still in full effect...and actually seeing that on the shells...


oilonshell

And taking pictures...


TheGulf

And chasing waves. (Yes, the water was freezing. No, I didn't care.)


TheGulf2

I couldn't get enough of the whole feet in the sand/water thing. And I sooo miss that.


feetinsand

It's unfortunate that it was so cold and windy. I could have stayed at the beach allll day!!

I was happy to see that rollerblading on the beach is prohibited, though. I was super worried about someone trying to perfect that sport. Thanks beach rules. You probably save lots of lives.


windy

At first I started with just my feet in the water. Then I wanted to walk in a little more, so I rolled up my pant legs. Then AK wanted to take my picture...I turned around (back against the waves) and a huge wave washed up against me. The result was an "Oh, well...already wet...might as well keep playing" attitude, and some very wet pants, necessary of changing.


WetPants

The hangout had the raddest decorations! They had a wall full of old school lunch boxes, and this wall with pez dispensers!!! So great!


PezDispensers

Then it was time to beat the storm, and head home. Thank *you* Gulf Shores. You were beautifully wonderful!!


gbyegulfshores

To end the perfect second day of my vacation, we got ready (finally around 8ish), and went to a local bar to play some poker. I do have to say that Alabama "poker" is like nothing I've ever played before...but it was fun, and friendly (for the most part. ;))


Pokerandeverythingelse

We couldn't call it a night without pictures (basically a photoshoot) by the famous fairhope clock, so that's what we did.


Fairhopeclock

It was another very, very busy, packed tight day but every single bit of it was worth it!! It was packed full of good times, and great memories!!

Tomorrow we'd wake up bright and early, and head to "Nawlins".



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