Weekly Ramblings

    It's crazy to think that we have been in St. George for over a month!  Its funny how when you move to a new place time seams to speed up and then after a while get back to normal. I think we are all settling in to a routine here in sunny St. George but Lucy has been the best at making new friends. For the past couple of weeks our neighbor's daughter has been knocking on our door, she can't talk or anything she just rings the doorbell and stares at us when we answer the door. At first we didn't know what was going on until one day Lucy got to the door before me and before I knew it they were both heading over to our neighbors house to play which goes to show that Lucy already thinks were not very cool and is looking for someone else to hangout with!  She's been sick the last couple of days at first we thought it was allergies but now we are thinking she may be finally cutting her last few teeth, I swear that child could be from the south with the lack of teeth she has. I feel bad for her because she won't drink her medicine so she has been miserable the last couple of days. Though I think Jody doesn't mind because the only time Lucy will cuddle is when she doesn't feel good. We tried everything to get her to take the medicine, I even put it in ice cream but that only worked for a few bites until she figured it out. But other than that Lucy is having a great time here but I'm afraid she is going to be in for a shock when we have to go back to provo in July!

     Jody is doing great, she has started a sewing club with our sister-in-law Stacey and family friend Nicole. I have no idea what they are making or doing but there having fun so I guess thats all that matters. Both Jody and I have really gotten into biking over the last month. My parents have a bunch of bikes here and even a little kid trailer for Lucy to ride in. Though she is getting a little spoiled because now she has to have her own water bottle, books, and my iPod for her to come with us on our rides.  There are a ton of trails near our house so its been a lot of fun to go out together and explore St. George. I think what we both like about it is that afterwards you don't feel like your bones are going to fall off like they do after you run and its actually fun. We want to get some bikes when we get back to Provo but were not sure where we would put them. 

    I'm still going on strong with my internship with Dixie State, its not as structured as I thought it would be, for the last three weeks I've been on my own but I've been able to keep my self busy researching adverting and social media campaigns other universities use to increase attendance and community involvement, so now I have to put it all together so that it makes sense and see what things we can do here at Dixie State. This weeks main adventure was taking down all of the signs on the fences that surround the baseball field. At first I didn't think it would be a big deal there was only about 8 left but then I found about thirty more and three and half hours laters in the 100 degree sun I was done. And I have to admit for the first time in my life I broke into and trespassed but I rationalized it because I needed to get into the actual stadium to get all of the signs, I just didn't have a key!!

     We haven't had too many adventures this week but we did try to find some ducks to feed but every pond is on a Golf Course and I really didn't feel like getting chased by rent a cops on golf carts because if Duck Dynasty has taught me anything its that when the lights start flashing its every man for himself. (Duck Dynasty if you don't know is one of the greatest show on television today, check it out at 8pm on A&E, you'll thank me later!!)

    I think that about sums up our week, here are some fun pictures!!!

          This is what i found when I got Lucy one morning, yea not sure if we are ready to move her to a           big kids bed!!

                              These are the cinnamon rolls that I "made" for Jody for Mothers Day.

                        I actually did make this dinner, but don't worry Jody was there to supervise!

                                                                   My cheesy girls!! 

The Kings of St. George

We keep saying we need to update our blog but it seems like life always gets in the way and before we knew it two months have passed by!  I guess the best place to start is with the end of school. I have completed my first year of grad school at BYU, man it was tough last couple of weeks. I don’t know what its like for other grad programs but for communications at BYU we didn’t have any finals just three twenty page papers. I already miss they days when I thought a long paper was 8 pages, now a short paper is 15!!  But we survived. Jody and Lucy were awesome those last couple of weeks they sacrificed a lot for me to be at school full time so I could get all of my papers finished. I have to admit I was a little nervous starting grad school in a subject I had only taken a few classes during my undergrad but I had great professors and class mates who really helped me catch up and didn’t look at me like I was a complete idiot when I didn’t know what spiral of silence theory was or how to use SPSS. 

So here is the game plan going forward. I have my committee all set up and this summer I start writing my thesis. My thesis topic is about advertising recall and brand loyalty which means I’m going to have a group of people at every home football game and after the game I’m going to have them complete a survey that asks them what ads did they remember, what about those ads that made them remember and finally did their opinion of the company who owns the ad change because they advertise with BYU? My thesis has to be a hundred pages long and a large chunk of that is my literature review, which is were I basically find everything written about this subjects already and give a history of it.  This Fall I collect my data and then winter semester I’ll crunch the numbers and defend my thesis and hopefully graduate in April.  But before all of that takes place I needed to get some more real life job experience so on April 19 we moved to St. George Utah to work as an intern for the Dixie State Athletic Department.

We love St. George so we jumped at the chance to live and work down here. Both Jody and I love being warm and Lucy can’t get enough of playing outside, it’s a daily battle to get her to come in for dinner! My parents have their retirement home here so they have kindly let us stay here, which is awesome. The house is in Santa Clara which is a small town connected to the western part of St. George. It’s really nice to be able to go to the store and not have tens of thousands of college kids running around. Santa Clara has some amazing bike trails, which we have already taken advantage of and Lucy loves to ride in her bike trailer.  Our first week here we went to Las Vegas just for the heck of it. I had never been so I wanted to see it for my self and I can safely say my Vegas canteen is full and I don’t ever really have a desire to go back. I mean if we got tickets to a cool show then I would go but besides that I can’t really think what we would do there. But it was cool to see all of the casinos and sites in Vegas. I was tempted to play the slots but I refrained but it would have been hilarious if I had won.  We even swung by the Pawn Stars shop on the strip but the line was out the door so we just drove by.

We also hiked Snow Canyon, which is just by Tuacahan in Ivins. Snow Canyon was awesome and it was Lucy’s first official hike. To say I was worried would be an understatement, not that she wouldn’t have fun because she did but because my daughter loves to explore and the last thing I wanted was for her to start chasing some lizard and run in to a cactus. Luckily she avoided all of the cactus’s and she had a great time. Though it was pretty funny to see as we were walking about to the car, she just was so worn out she collapsed into my arms and slept as we walked back. For those of you who know Lucy you know this never happens!! But Snow Canyon is awesome and we need to go back and explore more of the trails and canyons.

Lets see what else, we celebrated our 4 year anniversary with a trip to one of our favorite places in Utah, Anasazi. They grill your steak on a rock right in front of you and they have the best chocolate fondue I have ever had and it was just fun to be on a date together. We also stopped by the Ironman finish yesterday, Jody and Lucy saw the first runner come in but I missed it because I had to get to a the last Dixie State baseball game. It was pretty incredible to see these people compete in the race, they just looked like they were in pain the whole time. For those who don’t know and iron man race consists of a 2.4 mile swim, 112 mile bike ride and to finish it off a full marathon. Yea I would like to do a sprint triathlon but not an Ironman I don’t think my body could handle it!  I think that about sums up our last couple of months, we will be here in St. George until the end of July and then its back up to Provo. The other day Jody and I were talking about if there was anything we missed about living in Provo and they only thing we could think of is all of our friends who we left behind so here is just a big thank you to all of the amazing friends we made in Provo over the last four years and if anyone wants to come hang out in St. George they have a place to stay!!

Green with envy

Well. I think we have had a break though. Well a realization to something that is why Lucy is so crazy...

Lets rewind to last Wed night. Ty was headed off to Phoenix for a little March Madness with the boys for 4 whole days!! To say the least I was really nervous. I was nervous that I wasn't going to handle wrangling the "Lucy Bear" all by myself. I was scared. Well can I just say how FANTASTIC our weekend was! Lucy was an ANGEL. Seriously, she was perfect. I think she was in time-out maybe twice the whole time he was gone. Usually she is in time out at least twice in one day. We had so much fun and she was so cute and funny. She was saying new words everyday... Then Sunday came and she was CRAZY! Since then she has been a handful. And it started pretty much when Ty got home...

Well today earlier I had a quick nonchalant thought that maybe she was jealous of Ty, that she had to share me. But then I just dismissed the thought and went about my day. Well Ty was talking to his mom and she said THE SAME THING!!! That maybe Lucy IS jealous of Ty. Well we thought about it, and the more we thought about it the more and more we are pretty sure it is true. Lucy is certifiably jealous of her father.

I have to say I am rather flattered... But we have a problem. Obviously daddy is going nowhere, and Lucy isn't going anywhere either. We thought after 2 years of living together that she would be used to the guy. Apparently not... Maybe she will snap out of it. Hopefully sooner rather than later. Wow, I hate to think what she would be like with 2 competitors!

Lucy's 2 year pix

Here is it more than a month after Lucy turned 2 that I am FINALLY posting her pics we took. I just got them edited. It was kind of nightmare-ish taking them so I was surprised more of them turned out than I thought. So without further ado...

She looks kind of mad. But this one is a definite FAV

This one is also a fav. What a cheeser!

Pointing to her nose

Playing with bubbles

...And dipping her hand in the water

Ranting and Raving

Warning: What you are about to read is very long, and whiny. Read at your own risk!

Sheesh! The past week I have been stressing out about finances, future, and life in general. I don't know what my deal is! I am usually pretty level-headed and chill when it come to all this stuff, I just do what needs to be done and don't worry about the rest. But this week, this week is different. I am what i like to call the "snowballer" I think about one thing and it stresses me out, but then that thought will lead to 10 other equally stressful thoughts and before I know it i am spiraling out of control in my in my brain. Usually this is cured by a good cry and a good nights rest.
First off, my thought of the fact that this year will be 9 nine years since graduating from high school and that time has felt more like 5 years, it has gone extremely fast for me. Then I thought (my first thought that triggered my insanity) was "wow look at everything that has happened in 10 years!" Then I thought "wow what does the next 10 years have in store" which led to "holy crap in 10 years I'm going to be 37" (37 years of age PEOPLE!!!!!) which of course lead to "I will be basically 40, which means I'm over-the-hill, which means i can officially say I'm getting old, then retirement will come and i will be a grandma, which means I've basically lived my life and i may as well throw in the towel!" (see what i mean about the whole spiraling thing) So in a total of 3.7 minutes i had a mini pre-midlife crisis. Im 27 Jody, not 85! Pull it together!

todays snowballing started out by me reading this article on the D-news about going from two income home to one and how to do it when financially it doesn't seem like it would work. It was a pretty good article for me right now because, I have failed to mention, I have put in my last day of work to be on March 16th!!! Can I just tell you the relief this gives me. I have been waiting for THIS day for 5 years!!!! But that is a whole other post for another day. So i thought about how I need to assess our finances because lets face it, we are probably the worst budgeters in the world and we have no concept of spending vs. saving vs. loans and even though in the past we have instituted a budget, it would only last about 3 days, kind of like a diet. We basically look at our account see how much money is in there and just spend and thats it. So I thought I was going whip ourselves into shape and bust a cap on our spending (not like we are crazy spenders, we are poor people!). Then that got me thinking (here we go again) about how much money we DONT have and thinking about our future. In our near future we are going to need to save for a home (I am REALLY jones-ing for a home right now), save for a future car (I'm sure we are going to need one in the next 5 years), save for an emergency fund, and save for our future children's college (aka 529 plan). All these savings made my heart and stomach crawl into a ball and shake. So i signed us up on mint.com (which is super cool) and got a good start on our financial planning and whatnot. The heart palpitations started when I set up our goals. I looked at the "buying a home" goal and it basically said we are going to need around $40,000 for a down payment on a home. SERIOUSLY $30,000! WHAT THE HECK!!!! And thats on the cheap end. And we would need to set aside $666/mo. to reach this goal in 5 years. I am pretty sure that will take us 20 years just to save up for a down payment on a home, not to mention all the other costs and a mortgage payment. That means I will be 47 by the time we can afford to buy a home. THEN i actually did sign lucy up for a college 529 plan through UESP and it said on average (in future costs-inflation) we will need to have saved $150,000. That is for 4 years of college, paying for everything. $150,000 PEOPLE!!! Thats for ONE CHILD! Ok I thought, we have approx. 16 years to accomplish this (and our kids are TOTALLY getting jobs) so we can get a good chunk of money saved in 16 years. Then it said to reach this goal we will need to put aside $450/month! Ya right.  Not to mention I am quitting my job to be a mom and moving to St George for 3ish months and neither myself NOR Ty will have a job. Which means no income which means we won't be able to save the $1100+/mo in order to be on track (not like $1100+ is even attainable WITH a job, but thats added stressful thoughts going on inside my brain). Not to mention loans we have to pay off and every other expenditure we have.
So here I sit, eating away my feelings (literally eating, I just put away the bag of chips!) and wallowing in sorrow because how on earth is a person supposed to get ahead in life!!!

Sticky situation

 So yesterday at work I get a text from Ty saying "Guess what Lucy just put all over in her hair". knowing my child i knew this was not going to be good. Turns out she got a hold of a Vaseline bottle and thought she would style her hair. Boy did it turn out pretty!

Looks like she just got out of the bath right? Nope thats 1 1/2 hours after the bath with 2 hair washings. Still as plastered as ever.

We discovered the Vaseline doesnt come out of hair. Lovely. But I did read some remedies to help out a little. One of which, corn starch.

Cornstarch didnt really work and after I let it sit in her hair for about 10 min I washed it out with dish soap cause I heard that works too. 3 washings later, while a touch better, still in there.

So then I heard you have to get the super powerful dish soup that fights grease. So today i let that sit in her hair for a BRUTAL 5 min, 2 times in a row and it worked!!! So bottom line, HIDE THE PETROLEUM JELLY! And get some Dawn Power Clean for all you household (and personal) needs!

My big girl!

 This sat was Lucy's bday. I couldnt believe she was two already. Wow. I have lots and lots of pictures and a few stories to share so bare with me.

 The morning of her birthday i made chocolate waffles, she loves waffles and she loves chocolate so it was a hit!

Then we headed off to Discovery Gateway and played with the hundreds of kids. this was the first time we had been and it was awesome! lucy would have stayed all day long if she could have.

Riding the plastic horse at the museum, she was a little nervous about this.

This is one of the gifts we gave her, a box full of Disney princess dress ups. She is modeling Bell. We aslo got her a Tinkerbell movie. such a girl!!!

This was the cake i made for her. I wanted it to look like a ruffled skirt or tutu because she is obsessed with tutu's and super girly things.

Inside shot of the cake. So the middle layer is a tad darker than I wanted. I wanted it to go dark to light. oh well.

 All in all a pretty successful day! I cant believe two years ago I was in the hospital with a newborn. We love you Lucy!!!

                                 Then....                                                                          And now!