Another New Funny Blog

http://tackyweddings.com/

You have to check out this awesome blog! What's better than looking at wedding picture? Looking at tacky wedding pictures! Hello Kitty Wedding? Check! Child brides? Double Check! Hideous Wedding Dresses? Triple Check! Oh it's too much to handle. I'm giddy. And who knew there was so much paraphernalia for throwing a camouflage or denim wedding. If only I knew when I was planning my wedding...things would have looked a lot different!

Book Of Mormon Stories That My Teacher Tells To Me....

(And cue hand motions)

Today was the first day of school in these parts and with that comes the first day of seminary. Over the weekend, there were some changes made to Carson's classes so that required some re-planning and a change of point of view. But that's okay. The Lord has His reasons. Carson was originally called to teach one of the junior classes but then the freshman teacher was calling into the bishopric and Carson was reassigned to teach the freshman and they combined the juniors. So he now has 24 students instead of 11. So he spent most of yesterday reformulating his lesson plans to be tailored to students who had never experienced seminary before. Things went well this morning although all the students were very quiet and supremely deer in the headlights, shell shocked by the whole experience. They were all so quiet that during the opening hymn High On A Mountain Top Carson was pretty much singing a lovely solo. Needless to say it all was a very humbling experience for Carson but he is so excited to get these kids excited about learning the gospel. And through a lot of prayer and pondering, we know that that will happen. His goal is to get all 24 students to receive the stake president's award and to do all the requirement himself as well. It's pretty intense and includes things like memorizing all 25 scripture mastery as well as the stake president's favorite passage, learning all apostles in order, memorizing the title page, 95% attendance and a few other things. It won't be easy, but it will bless their lives. Also, ever the weekend, they decided to make me Carson's substitute so that's exciting as well. This new endeavor is going to be very time consuming and humbling but I know that is going to bless our family in ways that we can't even imagine. I've already seen amazing things happen in our household and I'm so excited to see what else lies in store.

Covered in Bees!

I have a love/hate relationship with pretty much every trivial thing in life. I need to make sure to clarify that becuase there are things like my husband, kids and family that I actually have a love/love relationship with. But pretty much anything that is trivial is love/hate. For instance, junk mail. I love it because sometimes that Latina magazine that I get every month for reason unknown actually has some useful and insightful information. And sometimes I find a gem of a coupon in the valpak envelope. But I could do without the credit card preapprovals and the such as it is an obscene waste of paper. Also, crumbs on my stove. I love them for two reasons. 1) If there is crumbs it usually means I'm cooking (not a totally rare occasion but also not a supremely regular occurence) and 2) I only make a mess cooking if I'm really excited about what I'm making. But, I have to clean them up...hence the hate.
But there is something in this life that I actually hate/hate. I try not to hate as I don't want to throw that out into the universe. But i really do hate this one thing. There is nothing that anyone can tell me that will make me like it...ever! I speak of the yellow and black striped, wing-ed beast that is the bee. I don't care if it's a honey bee..you would think that they would be great because they love flowers...but no. I don't care if it's a worker bee who obviously has great work ether. I could do without them. And the Queen bee, the epitome of an active feminist? She can go away with all the rest of them. I literally hate bees with everything that I can muster up.
Supposedly the world would completely implode or fail or something if they weren't around. I don't believe it. I think the world would find a way. The world is huge, would it really matter if the bees were not around. I find it hard to believe. I don't like honey so really it doesn't matter to me.
This undying hatred all stems from when I was 7 years old and I got stung by a bee on my tongue. That's right! My tongue. One of the most traumatic experiences in my life having to do with an animal...It might even trump the shrimp food poisoning incident of '86 which caused me to swear off seafood in all forms. I spent my whole life after the tongue sting avoiding bees and was very sucessful until the summer of '06 when a bee stung me on the back of my knee right as I was going down a water slide. It was horrible.
Yesterday at the park, we were having a picnic and this one bee kept coming around trying to get into our soda. I have not been that scared in a long time. Yes, I let a half inch long insect get the best of me and I'm not ashamed. Carson always reminds that they can smell fear. I'm not sure I believe it, but they always seem to gravitate towards me, so there must be some truth to it.




This is a clip of Eddie Izzard, one of our favorite comedians when he talks about Bee Keepers. I thought it was fitting. Start watching at about 2:20. Or watch the whole thing, because it's all funny really!

Things I Love About Today

*My kids want to spend so much time with me that they can't leave me alone long enough to clean the bathroom.

*The girls love their little brother and want to spend so much time with him, that it becomes neccassary to wake him just to be in his presance.

*Siobhan took great pleasure in informing that Audrey is now able to say the following words, 'Pennies', 'Lion', 'animal rides', and 'vaccum'. I don't remember her really having trouble with those words, but it was definitely news worthy!

*Despite all of the arguing and yelling, I have two clean bathrooms...I'll get around to the third very soon.

*Going on an animal hunt through the house using stuffed animals and vaccum wands as our binocculars.

*The evidence of a properly working digestive system on the back of Mr. Will's onsie.

*The feeling of hydrogen peroxyde bubbling away in the my mouth....it's the only thing that will quell the pain issuing from the gaping ulcer that is the kanker sore on my cheek.

*The sunburn that was earned by playing at the river park with the kids yesterday.

*The cute little cellulite filled bunda that I see running around as Audrey frequently decides to remove her under layer. Such junk in her trunk!

*Knowing that Daddy's going to be home in a few short hours and then our family will be complete.

Some Fun Pictures

I love this picture of Siobhan. It's from when Meredith and Molly and all the kids were in town. We went to a park that had a stream going through it. She just looks so peaceful.

Ms. Audrey. We took this picture the same day as the one one top. Love those bright eyes!

Mr. Will cuddling with his Daddy. Funny thing, we all call him Mr. Will now but Audrey can't say 'Mr.' so she actually called him Sir Will. So cute!

Two a Day Challenge

I usually try not to admit my faults in a public forum (mostly because there are so many), but I'm going to right now. I am not very good at regular scripture study. I tend to go through spurts but especially since becoming a mom, I have moved it further and further down my priority list when it really should have been moving further and further up. So I decided on Sunday that I would take the challenge that President Hinckley issued four years ago in Aug 2005. If your not LDS or you and have been living under a rock, that was the challenge that he gave to read the Book of Mormon by the end of the year. You can read about it here. I tried to take the challenge the first time around, but I failed. I've always been disappointed in myself. So Carson and I decided that we're going to do it. I'm so excited and I can already see the blessings coming to my life. He said in the talk that if we read a little more that 1 1/2 chapters a day, we would be able to finish. We decided to round it up to 2 chapters and day. I know this is going to bless both of us. And by the way, Carson was just called to be an early morning seminary teacher and their topic this school year is the Book of Mormon.

Well, at Least I Know I Can Dance....And That's All That Matters!

At last the moment you all have been waiting for....the Audition post.

The romantic version goes like this: I went to Salt Lake to Audition for So You Think You Can Dance and while I didn't make it past the filter round, I had a great experience and I'm so glad that I went. That is all true, but if you want the full version, keep reading.....

The show decided to have their auditions on July 24th in SLC (not the best planning in my opinion considering that day is a bid deal in Utah-but what do I know) so they weren't able to open the doors until 1pm. I decided to get in line at 10am thinking that if I was too far in the front or back, I would be judged differently, so I ended up pretty much in the middle, maybe a little further back. While waiting, I watched an participated in the silly shots of the kids running and dancing around that was pretty fun. I tried to get to know the kids in front of me, but they weren't interested and neither was the girls behind so I listened to my iPod and read a people magazine most of the time. There really wasn't much info on the website as to what to expect out the process so I prepared a solo and spent a lot of time in line going over in my head making subtle changes here and there. At 1pm they started herding everyone into the theater which took an hour and half. We had to go through security where they checked our bags and went over us with the metal detecting wand. And as of when I walked in, I was the first person to bring a breast milk pump. That was kind of funny for the security lady. Once we were all seated int he theater, a British man came out and talked to us, I think it was Simon Fuller the main executive producer of the show, but he never introduced himself so I can't be sure. He talked to us for about 45 minutes about what to expect from the first round of auditions. We were going to be put in groups of 10, taken up on stage and we would have to improv for 30 seconds to whatever song they put on. We would then be given a 'golden ticket' which would put us through to the next round with Nigel, Mary and the guest judge. So that solo I prepared? Didn't need it. Kind of said because it was pretty good. So we waited and waited and waited and then he brought out Anya and Pasha from season 2 and had them do a ballroom routine for about 2 minutes. And we waited and waited and waited. I think the average amount of people that I saw make it through was 2-4 from each group of 10. But there were some groups where no one went through. We also saw and requisite delusional with no coordination and the goofballs who wasted their entire day just to go on stage and make a full out of themselves (many from both groups made it through-so maybe their day wasn't wasted, maybe I should have done that and come back the next day and blow everyone out of the water). They also handpicked a young man out of the audience and let him dance to about six different songs who also got a golden ticket-not entirely fair in my opinion because the rest of us didn't get six tries to impress them. By the time they finally got to my section of the auditorium, it was getting pretty late. They took a group of 10 up to get warm and I knew that I was going to be in the next group. Then out of nowhere, the crew member that was assigning the the groups came and told me that there was a spot left and I needed to go take it. Oh yeah, I would also be #1 in the improv order. So I went backstage and started to warm up. But I actually only got about a minute and half to get warm, stretch and get my feet used to the stage. When they started the music, I was expecting something along the lines of Jewel or Sarah McLachlan like all the other contemporary groups. But no, the music started and it was the song Send in the Clowns. If you watch the show regularly, that was the group dance from last weeks results show. I wanted to turn around and ask them if it was a joke. Its a fine song, but really hard to dance to let alone improv to, in my opinion. So I did my thing, as did everyone else. When all was said and done, only four people from my group made it through and I was not one of them. So to some up, I got in line at 10am, got on stage at 9:40 pm and was ushered out the door into a dark alley at 9:45 pm. My parked expired at 10:05 pm. When I left there were still probably another 600 dancers waiting their turn. I'm sad that they don't give you more info on the website of what to expect, but now I know should I ever choose to go again. But when it comes right down to it, I think the hardest part wasn't even dancing in front of the producers, it was having to dance in front of that many of my peers who, while they were supportive, you know they were wanting you to fail because it would leave a spot open for them. So would I do it again? Yes, but I would do a few things differently. I would have a completely different mindset going into it and I would work on my improv (as a dancer, I feel that you have to be in a totally different mindset to do things off the cuff). I also would have gotten in line sooner so I would have been seen earlier in the day. I also wouldn't travel to audition. Luckily for me, I used skymiles to pay for my ticket and stayed with my in laws so there really wasn't anything out of my pocket, but it's all the principal of the matter. I did have a good time and I have new understanding for how the show is run. When I watched last week, I'm not going to lie, I was a little bitter. But I've gotten over it. I did see some amazing dancers and did end up meeting some fun people. I also got to try a Gibbon Slackline while in line and that was fun. Thanks for all the well wishes and support everyone, I really appreciate it!

Cat Deeley did end up making an appearance in line. These are some pictures that I illegally snapped. (Seriously, one of her handlers actually put his hand in front of my camera, but I already had taken 3 so who's laughing now?) She's actually much shorter in real life.

In these pictures, the guy is teaching her the Native American Hoop Dance
That kid was so smart. You know he's going to get face time on the show, he made it into the Salt Lake Tribune and got a golden ticket. He was actually really a good contemporary dancer on top of it, so it wouldn't surprise me if he makes to Vegas.