The Burton Bunch

I'm done

2010-04-09T09:54:00.003-06:00

The past few months I have been reviewing my life and everything I have going on. I have started to say no to things and am being really selective in how I spend my time. One of the things I have decided to say no to is my blog. I am done. And if we are being truly honest, I wasn't that good updating it anyway...

So long

Blog catch up-Valentines Day

2010-03-18T15:16:00.002-06:00

This year for Valentines Day we decided to do a romantic dinner for 4. Morgan and I secretly decorated the table while John was at a meeting. We had so much fun knowing he was going to come home and be surprised! I failed to get a good picture of the streamers that were hanging from the ceiling fan, we went all out!

Jude doing his usual, running around and trying to undo everything we were doing.

Here is Morgan showing how pleased she is with our romantic dinner set up.

Blog catch up-Morgan's Birthday

2010-03-09T09:46:00.004-07:00

Morgan's Birthday was in December and I thought it was about time I blogged about it. I told her she could invite 4 friends to the party, because along with her two sisters and herself that made 7 girls, which I think is still over my limit of fun! Here are a couple pictures of them being silly.

Morgan wanted to have a flower party; which is not an easy task on Thanksgiving weekend. It was not snowy but it was pretty chilly, so we decided to have an indoor picnic. We had a picnic table in the living room where they ate their cake and ice cream and were still silly...

We played pin the lady bug on the flower, as you can see in the background it was a homemade game. It was pretty good if I may say so myself. The girls thought it was fun, until we decided they were all peeking out of the bandanna. It got a lot harder after that and the fun factor seemed to go down.

Also, here is Jude enjoying his favorite thing of any party; the balloons!

Since I was feeling crafty and creative after making the flower game I decided to try to make a flower cake. It was a round cake with cupcakes for the petals. It was a pretty good try! Here is the birthday girl blowing out her 6 candles!

The adventures of Jude

2010-02-17T09:54:00.003-07:00

For those who are unaware, Jude is real busy-body. He is into EVERYTHING! At times it is funny and other times it is just plain exhausting. Here he sitting in a side table we have next to our couch. I have told him no at least a million times and he just happily does what he wants anyway. Notice the look of real pleasure on his face:

The only pleasure I can get in return these days is the fact that I will have many pictures with which to blackmail him with when he is older. One of many that I am saving for the future is this one of Jude in the "hair salon" getting his hair cut and dried.

A couple of weeks ago we put shoes on Jude for the first time. He acted like they were made of cement and he could not possibly be expected to walk!

He just stood next to the couch for about 45 minutes, but eventually he learned that if he was going to get anywhere he would just have to learn how to walk in those things.

I wish the novelty would have lasted 3 weeks!

The train

2010-02-02T16:01:00.003-07:00

Since we are beyond stir crazy at home, Morgan decided to make Jude a "train" to ride in. He loved it so much that he wouldn't let her stop pulling him around. Good thing she didn't have anything better to do...

Morgan Hatch Tooth

2010-01-28T08:23:00.002-07:00

Last night was a big night at the Burton home. Morgan lost her first tooth. It has been exteremly loose for about 2 weeks but she was hesitant to have anyone pull it out. Last night John asked to see it again and he twisted it and it popped right into his hand and Morgan didn't even know it came out until she put her finger in her mouth and her tooth was gone! She was giddy for the rest of the night. She promptly grabbed an envelope and labeled it like any good Kindergartener does, right?

And here is a picture of toothless Morgan

Ideas needed

2010-01-21T09:40:00.002-07:00

John and I are in charge of the Burton Family reunion this June and need some fun ideas for games we can play. We came up with a fun Family Feud night idea but that is as far as we have gotten. Anyone have suggestions for games for adults and kids to play together and/or separate? We estimate about 50 people will be there.

Not-so-little Jude

2010-01-05T16:31:00.003-07:00

I took a picture the other day that sums Jude up perfectly these days....

Here he is leaving the scene of his mess and moving on to the next. And he is also walking! 9 months old and walking! He sure has a lot of energy. I have to keep this post short because he is emptying out my pots and pans cupboard as I blog.

Primary presents

2009-12-31T16:13:00.003-07:00

As the Primary President I had to come up with something to give out for the birthdays next year. I put a lot of thought into it and came up with a picture of the resurrected Jesus in a frame. Our theme for Primary in 2010 is 'I know my Savior Lives' so I thought these pictures would correlate with that quite well.

Here is a picture of the teacher/worker gifts. The frames were $2.99 at Michaels. I painted them and my awesome neighbor Megan did the vinyl for me. I found the picture online and just printed them from my computer. They were super easy and I am so proud of how they turned out.

The pictures for the kids are much smaller. I found the frames at Dollar Tree and the picture is different, but I found it online as well and just printed them too. I don't have a picture of them, but I really hope the kids like them and will put them in their rooms.... I tested it out on Morgan and she thought they were really cool, but Morgan is such an unusual child that its hard to know if other kids will like them too.

Christmas 2009

2009-12-27T20:20:00.001-07:00

Well, Jude's first Christmas came fast. He was the happiest once he found the big yellow truck under the piano, his favorite place to hide and pound on the pedals. He pushed it all morning peeking each time around the room at his olders sister's gifts.
Morgan picked up one of her small gifts and said, "what if this is a ring box from Santa, because Mrs. Clause is being mean". Where does a 6 year old come up with things like that? The whole family had a great Christmas!

Halloween-yes I know that was forever ago!

2009-11-08T16:01:00.003-07:00

We decided that this year we would go to Gardener Village to check out the witches they have there. We have never been but I have heard that they are really cool and that the kids love them. We had so much fun walking around and seeing all the silly witches. Morgan loved the one that was riding her bike!

Here is our pretty cheerleader and cute little lamb.

And here are the pretty cheerleader and cute little lamb with their party pooper parents who didn't dress up for Halloween.

Could there by two cuter kids?

2009-10-19T10:33:00.001-06:00

We don't think so! Here are Morgan and Jude enjoying the fountains on temple square yesterday after our Regional Stake Conference meeting. Just wanted to share...

Park City

2009-09-10T10:13:00.002-06:00

We have a family tradition that we try to go to Park City on Labor Day to hang out and eat and just have fun. This year we went up and John took Morgan down the Alpine Slide. The wait was about 2 hours, but Morgan said it was well worth it!

Here is a self portrait of John and Morgan on the chair lift up the mountain.

Morgan preparing for the big ride.

Here is the crew waiting again to get into Baja Cantina to enjoy some delicious Mexican food.

And here is a completely unrelated picture of Jude in a hat. Doesn't he look so cute!!

Piano recital

2009-09-08T12:37:00.003-06:00

Morgan had her first piano recital last week and she did amazing. She was the first player and she remembered her song perfectly. Lots of her family came to see her play. Grandpa and Grandma Burton, Grandpa Nelson, Ra Ra, Jessie, John, Jude and me.

Then we continued on with our tradition of Maggie Moos ice cream to celebrate a recital. She enjoyed the all the attention and also the ice cream.

She did a lot better than I did at my first piano recital. I faked a stomach ache so I wouldn't have to play...

Morgan's turn

2009-09-03T10:26:00.003-06:00

We have been watching kids go back to school for two weeks now and today was Morgan's turn. It was her first day of Kindergarten and she was so excited. She has been waiting for Kindergarten for about a year now, she was ready! I did get a little teary-eyed watching her walk into the school, but she was so confident and excited that I felt much better.

And here is Jude wondering who is going to play with him while mommy works and Morgan is at school.

Last bit of summer fun

2009-09-01T12:50:00.003-06:00

With Morgan starting school this week I decided we needed one day of fun. I woke her up in the morning and told her to get dressed and come help me make some lunches because I had a surprise day for her. She was so excited! I took her and Jude to the zoo and it was such a great day. Not too hot, not too crowded. It was awesome.

Here are Morgan and Jude in front of the penguins. These were Morgan's favorite animal of the day.

Here we are at the bird show. Jude was bored until the doves flew over. He liked that part but then quickly went back to being bored.

And last, here are Morgan and Jude in front of the elephants. Jude was more interested in the people next to us than the animals.

She can now start school and I can have some peace in the mornings!

Jude's favorite things

2009-08-29T13:04:00.004-06:00

I thought I would do a post dedicated to Jude because he is learning something new everyday and growing so much!

1. He loves his ExerSaucer. He gets in and spins until he has played with all of the toys, then he starts all over again. But it is hard to take a picture of him in it because he never holds still!

2. He loves to eat. Here is a picture of him sucking on a peach. He just kept smacking his lips and saying "Mmmmm"

Here he is with a piece of licorice. OK, I know that 5 month old babies should not have that. But he is just so dang cute that I gave him one to suck on for a few minutes. I am a sucker for my little boy!

3. He loves to roll all over. He is so pleased with himself after he rolls over that I had to take a picture of him.

4. We love to look out the window and watch the cars drive by. I prop him up on my leg and a pillow and he plays with the blinds and follows the cars as they drive by.

5, And last, he LOVES Morgan. She plays with him all day and can make him laugh more than anyone else. He smiles the moment he sees her in the morning. She is a great big sister!

Congrats (?) to me

2009-08-27T09:04:00.002-06:00

Yes, congratulations are in order, or condolences... I am not sure which. I am now the Primary President of our ward. And for those of you keeping tabs, John is still the Young Men's President.

So, for those of you that are in Primary or have been, feel free to leave a bit of advice for me. I am a novice, especially after teaching Relief Society for two years. This will be quite a change for me....

Help!

24th of July

2009-08-09T21:22:00.003-06:00

Morgan got to do something really fun for the 24th of July this year. Her grandma and grandpa invited her to ride on the Wells Fargo stage coach in the Bountiful parade. She was so excited! This is a picture of Morgan and grandma Hatch and great grandma and grandpa Hatch too. Grandpa Hatch was helping to drive the team of horses.

And Jude found something fun to entertain him during the parade...his foot. This picture makes me laugh every time I look at it.

Morgan's new ride

2009-07-26T21:19:00.002-06:00

Morgan learned how to ride her bike a few weeks ago. John took her to the school across the street from our house and she rode for an hour straight and loved every minute of it. Now we just need to work on the start-up. She is still too scared to start on her own and needs our help.

And here is Morgan's fan club after the ride.

Check us out

2009-07-14T19:21:00.003-06:00

We got some new family pictures and I LOVE THEM! We actually have never had a family picture taken professionally since John and I got married and we were long over-due. Our friend Rochelle took them and I seriously am in love with how awesome they look. I can't wait to get the pictures back and update all the frames we have in our house with new pictures!!

Check out her photography blog at all-seasonsphotography.blogspot.com

Thanks Rochelle!

Summer Haircuts

2009-06-27T07:58:00.002-06:00

Morgan decided this week that she wanted a summer haircut. Here is the before picture. As you can see, she was over due for a cut.

Here is the after. Isnt it so cute? Morgan climbed up into the chair and told the lady exactly what she wanted. Major improvement....

And here is our self portrait showing off our new haircuts.

The graduates

2009-06-01T21:59:00.004-06:00

After many hours of coloring, gluing and cutting Morgan has completed her last year of preschool. She had her graduation last week at Jordan High. They performed a couple of songs such as 'Going on a Bear Hunt' and 'It's a Small World'. The teachers made a scrapbook for each student that had pictures of them from the first day of school, every holiday and their VIK (Very Important Kinderbeet) Day, which is their birthday. It was really cute. This is my favorite picture from the graduation because of the little girl next to Morgan, she was a hoot the entire program...

Next was my graduation at the E Center. The program was slightly less amusing... but it was fun to see all the people I spent many hours with over the past two years. I thought since Westminster was a small school the graduation would be a small affair but it was a jammed-packed three hours of sweating under my gown.

I had no idea what being hooded was before I got there, but for a Masters Degree you don't move your tassle from right to left you get a cape put over you instead. Which does not help the sweating situation in the least!

Here are my two biggest fans. After the ceremony John, Jude and I were treated to an awesome dinner at Famous Dave's with my parents and John's parents. It was so delicious and a good time just to sit and chat with our parents.

The happenings

2009-05-16T09:44:00.005-06:00

It has been a busy month. I am back at work, well back at home at work and it is very stressful to juggle being a mommy and an accountant.

Morgan had a dance competition at Taylorsville High and did awesome. She was so stinkin' cute. Here is a picture of her cute costume.

Jude is growing so big. Here is a picture that shows off his "healthy" body. And by healthy I mean chunky. Isn't he sooo cute? We had his two month check up last week and he is in the 75th percentile for weight and over the 100th percentile for height. He is going to be just like John!

We also had Jude's blessing this month and it went very well. We were worried because it was supposed to rain that Sunday and we have a small house. But there was no rain and we were able to fit everyone in the house and yard. Here is a picture of Jude in his full blessing outfit. He didn't debut the hat that day but I just had to get a picture of him in it.

One year ago

2009-04-27T13:30:00.003-06:00

It was one year ago today that I was half way across the world in Cambodia. I can't believe it has been one year, seems like five years. But I think any year you are pregnant seems longer than a regular year... way longer!

Easter

2009-04-23T20:11:00.003-06:00

In typical fashion, I am blogging about something that happened two weeks ago. Here is the whole Burton Bunch on Easter morning... this was the best picture we could get with 4 kids.

As an added bonus, here is a sample of the 570 pictures I keep finding on the camera of Morgan (self-taken). As if that needed to be said.

Two kids

2009-04-15T13:56:00.003-06:00

Now that I have two kids, I have twice the work, but twice the fun too. Here is a picture of Jude smiling while he watches Morgan dance around.

Here is one of my favorite pictures of Morgan and Jude. Morgan asks to hold Jude about 50 times a day. He usually ends up crying and she says, "OK, come get him!"

Can you tell what we have been up to?

2009-04-07T15:20:00.003-06:00

The other day Morgan was playing with a stuffed animal and had been carrying him around in a blanket then put him down for a nap in his cradle. She then tells me:

"Mom, I already fed him, I am breast-feeding."

Jude's stats

2009-03-31T15:58:00.003-06:00

I took Jude to his two-week checkup last week and thought I would post his stats:

Weight: 9lbs 10 oz. 90th percentile
Height: 22 inches 80th percentile
Head: 30th percentile.

What a cute little bug!

Morgan's new hobby

2009-03-18T16:45:00.003-06:00

A couple of months ago we inherited this hand-me-down piano from my sister who got it from my mom who got it from her grandma. My mom just told me that it is over 100 years old. I thought that was pretty cool.

Anyway, we have a neighbor who teaches piano and I signed Morgan up for lessons with the agreement that we would see how she does, since she is young. We have been doing this for about 3 months now and Morgan is doing so awesome. She loves to practice and even goes back and plays the songs that she has "passed off" over and over. I just wanted to give a blog shout-out to Morgan for doing such a great job.

Meet Jude

2009-03-16T18:09:00.004-06:00

Here are a few pictures of Jude born March 8 at 2:21pm. He weighed 8 lbs 9 oz and was 20 inches long.

Big sister Morgan is over the moon about her little brother. She has been such a great helper and loves to hold him. Let's hope this feeling lasts...

Guess what I woke up to this morning

2009-02-24T09:45:00.004-07:00

Ok, so we know we don't live in the best neighborhood, and we have accepted that, but come on!

This is what I see out my front door. This is my neighbors house. I looked out this morning and was so mad that I called the police and told them to come take a look at it. They were there within 10 minutes and said it is not gang-related but just some punk kids. Oh, yeah, I feel better....

Anyway, the people that live in this house are in their 80's and he has dementia. So it is basically this old woman that lives there. Maybe that is why I am so mad, what is she supposed to do to take care of this??

Well I talked to her and her son and grandson happen to be visiting from Nevada so they are going to try some different things to get it off, but if anyone has any suggestions, let me know.

On another note, no baby yet... but I am hoping soon.

Accomplishments

2009-02-03T14:31:00.006-07:00

I have been busy this past week and I wanted to brag, I mean share. I finished a scrapbook of all my pictures from Cambodia and China. Isn't it pretty?

It didn't take too long. I just glued my pictures on plain paper and wrote a little explanation with each one.

Then I also got to pick up my diploma from Westminster. It was very anticlimatic, they just handed it to me with no wild applause or confetti or anything! Our graduation is in May, I guess I will have to wait until then...

Important Update

2009-01-27T16:01:00.004-07:00

I have an important update! Morgan wants everyone to know that she no longer has a crush on the teacher at school.

I really think she still does she is just tired of answering questions about him. And also her grandma told him she has a crush on him. If that doesn't take the excitement out of any new relationship, then I don't know what does.

My goal

2009-01-21T11:21:00.004-07:00

I have one goal before this baby comes and that is to be all caught up on my scrapbooking. I took a two year break from scrapbooking while in school and now I am paying for it. I just went and picked up 443 pictures from Costco and I have 7 weeks before my time is non-existent again. Think I'll make it?

My little Mary

2009-01-13T16:18:00.004-07:00

So Morgan had a big year this year and got to play Mary twice. Once in Primary and once at Grandpa and Grandma Nelson's.

This first picture is her after the primary program. She was so meek and mild during it and even stared longingly at "Joseph" while they read the part that he was her husband and he took care of her. It was hilarious.

This next picture is of the grandkids acting out the story of Jesus birth. Don't they all look thrilled? My niece Ally is the angel, with the giant flashlight. My nephew Jake is Joseph and my other nephew Luke is the shepherd who has an empty wrapping paper roll as a staff/sword...

Dance recital

2009-01-06T12:13:00.005-07:00

I just had to share these cute pictures of Morgan at her Winter dance recital. She did such a good job; she was by far the best one in her class. She was so good that her dance teacher moved her to the higher class for this year. And yes, I am bragging about my kid! I was just so proud of her.

She is the second from the left in the picture.

Merry Christmas

2008-12-24T09:01:00.003-07:00

I really do have good intentions sometimes, but these days my "to-do" list is far greater than my strength to do things. So, this will have to do for my Christmas card this year, along with a promise that next year you will see my Christmas card (and I don't mean on my blog again)

Merry Christmas!

This child of mine and Good News

2008-12-22T13:24:00.003-07:00

So the other night I went into Morgan's room to check on her before I went to bed and this is what I found.

Morgan really is asleep with this sleep mask on. I asked her about it the next day and she said she slept the whole night with it. I officially declare her 17 years old!

Also I am taking a moment to brag on myself. I have finished grad school... forever. I took my last final last Thursday and I am still waiting for the "finished" feeling to sink in. I cannot believe that I am finally done, I really thought this day would never come. Two and a half years is such a long time but well worth all the worry, tests, papers, stress, etc. that comes with an MBA. Yeah me!

Morgan's birthday

2008-12-17T10:34:00.009-07:00

Morgan's 5th birthday was on December 1st. We had a friend party the Saturday before. This was our first friend party and I was exhausted! Seven 5 and 6 year olds are a lot of work...

Morgan wanted a Littlest Pet Shop Party, so we started out the party with a bone scavenger hunt out in the backyard. I love the look of shock on Morgan's face when I was telling the kids what we were going to do... always the drama queen.

Next we headed inside the have cake and ice cream. I made this really cute doggie cake and in all my exhaustion I forgot to take a picture of it, but trust me when I say this, it looked nothing like the picture...

Next we opened presents and Morgan got four Barbies. I guess people really know little Morgan, she was thrilled.

Then all the girls wanted to do was play with the Barbies, so we brought up the Barbie house and let them play away.

We wrapped up the party by John reading them some animal stories. This was the winding down period, and it was needed. I was again surprised that the kids sat through 3 books.

All in all it was a great party and Morgan loved every second of it.

Another funny one

2008-11-24T08:08:00.002-07:00

So Morgan and I were driving a couple of days ago and here is the conversation that took place:

Morgan: Mom, Luke (who is her 3 year old cousin) said the A-word.

Mom: Really, that is bad.

Morgan: I know.

Mom: Morgan, do you know what the A-word is?

Morgan: I have no idea!

My mini teenager

2008-11-18T16:59:00.002-07:00

This morning while Morgan was getting ready for preschool, I was asking her about her latest crush. A couple of weeks ago she came home from school and said there was a new boy and she thought he was sooo cute. Well, after more questions I figured out she was talking about a new high school boy who was a teacher at the school. (She goes to preschool at Jordan High) What? What four year old thinks a high school boy is cute!?!

Since then, she has come home from school and announced to us if he was there or not and what station he was in charge of that day. She said she got to go to his coloring station last week and the whole time she was there she just stared at him and went "Hmmmm". Where does she come up with this stuff?

So, back to this morning. I was asking her if she thought the new boy would be there today. And she said:

"I hope so. He is so cute. Not handsome like John, but cute."

I told this to John, and he immediately announced that he wanted me to put this on our blog, just to give him a self esteem boost.

So here you go John...

Fall wrap up

2008-11-11T19:44:00.004-07:00

So what is new? I am about two weeks behind on my blog-updating again. Just wait until I graduate in December, you will all be surprised at how much more I blog after that! But don't quote me on that.

I wanted to post some pictures of our fun pumpkin day. We went to our usual patch to pick out some pumpkins.

This was the best picture I could manage with 5 kids... although in every single one I took, Morgan was perfectly posed... surprise, suprise.

Someone check that lady for pumpkin smuggling

After the patch we invited ourselves over to grandmas to carve. Why make a mess of your own house when you can make a mess of grandma's?

I recruited my mom to help me make "home-made" donuts. I used her Fry Daddy to fry Rhodes rolls and then made a glaze to go over them. They were pretty awesome.

Just look at my first satisfied customer.

Halloween 2008

2008-11-06T03:56:00.000-07:00

Isn't this the cutest witch you have ever seen?

Rock band and fall leaves

2008-10-31T12:38:00.002-06:00

A couple of weeks ago, our neighbors invited us over to have pizza and play rock band. I have never played before and it was so much fun. Now I can see what all the hype is about. Here are a couple of shots of the Hiltons, Westenskows and the Wettsteins. What great friends!

Then last Sunday I decided it was time to do our yearly drive to the mountains to enjoy the fall leaves before everything is covered in snow. We drove up to LaCaille and took some pictures of the scenery. Here is a typical Morgan picture.

Here is a picture of Morgan enjoying one of her favorite past times: running! The girl loves to run. She is training for her first marathon.

And here is a self-taken shot of us. We never have pictures of the two of us, so I thought I would share.

California 2008

2008-10-14T18:13:00.006-06:00

Morgan has been begging John and I to take her on a trip to Disneyland; so we went last weekend and it was so much fun. We flew into Long Beach and stayed up there and just drove down to Disneyland one day.

I had heard that you could make reservations to have lunch with the princesses where they come around to your table and talk to you and you can take pictures with them. So I made us a reservation and we got to meet all the princesses, (well the ones that were there that day). There was Arial, who Morgan announces to everyone that she was a human, and not a mermaid like she speculated, and Belle, Aurora, Jasmine and Snow White. It was really cool. They were very much in character when they talk to you; so Morgan thought it was soooo awesome. Here are a couple of pictures of her with the princesses.

Belle is our favorite

John thought Jasmine was dressed too revealing but I had a feeling he was only saying that because Morgan and I were there...

John thought Snow White looked terrible. I thought she looked great.

Here is Morgan waiting for our name to be called for the lunch. Eveyone thought she was Cinderella...

The next day we went to the beach and Morgan had more fun there than she did in Disneyland. She freaked out when it was time to go. Here are some pics of the beach.

Here is one last "classic picture" of Morgan posing on the lifeguard shack.

We are having a ... (this time it is for real)

2008-09-27T14:57:00.002-06:00

A Boy! John and I are in shock at learning that we will finally have a boy. We had the ultrasound yesterday and this little baby would not stop moving, I hope this is not an indication of things to come.... We even have a picture of him looking like he is about to do a back-sommersalt. I would post some pictures but they just don't look that great when you try to take a picture of them. But the next appointment we go to they will do a full ultrasound and give us a DVD of it; so we will have to share some of that next time.

We are so excited to have a boy but a little nervous. Do we know how to deal with boys?

Will they try on 75 different outfits before finally choosing one for the day?
Will they cry when you say no to them; even if it was because they were asking for a 5th Oreo cookie?
Will they want to wear makeup and talk on your cell phone all day when they are 4?

These are the questions that we are asking ourselves right now!

Octoberfest and John's Italian twin

2008-08-25T21:47:00.004-06:00

Saturday was the first day of Octoberfest up at Snowbird and John and I happened to run into our neighbor who was really wanting to find some people to head up with him. So we took him up there and had a great relaxing time. We walked around the booths and ate brauts (well the boys ate those...) then the boys went down the alpine slide while I enjoyed watching an assortment of drunk people ride the mechanical bull. I laughed pretty hard...to myself.

Well, to thank us for driving him up to Octoberfest, our neighbor paid a caricaturist to draw a picture of John and I. I think this picture looks a little like fantasy compared to reality; but whatever. I have found John staring at it more times than I would care to admit. The worst part is that he is admiring himself!

Then tonight I called John on my way home from school and he was dying for me to get home so he could show me a part of this Italian movie he rented. He said that there was a guy in it that looked exactly like him. I told him that nobody ever finds people that look like them; they only find people who look like other people; but he insisted. Then I come home to find him taking pictures of the TV to show the pictures to his sister; so she could agree with him too.
What do you think? John's illegitimate Italian twin brother?

If anyone wants a better view; head over and John will gladly show you the movie.

A couple good laughs

2008-08-20T09:19:00.003-06:00

My current condition of feeling nauseous and yucky all day means that I spend a lot of time watching TV, which is not something I normally do. But after seeing Sarah say on her blog that the show Wipeout was hilarious I decided to check it out. I laughed so hard watching that show and not because the contestants but because the announcer John Henson, who was the host of Talk Soup, which was also hilarious. John Henson just makes fun of the people who are competing on these crazy obstacles and he is so funny. I got my laugh of the day last night watching it.

Also, this morning Morgan and I were on our daily walk around the block when she said, "Look, the moon and the sun are out. That is weird. I don't know what Jesus is thinking doing that!" I got another good chuckle from this.

We are having a ....

2008-08-15T18:31:00.005-06:00

Bean! Sorry to get your hopes up; we actually won't know what we are having for another 6 weeks. But we did get to go to our first appointment and get a picture of our baby bean. (It is not a great pic, but you get the idea).

I came home and told Morgan we got a picture of the baby and I showed her this. She looked at me like, "That is not a baby!" I think she was worried that she was having a freak blob sibling. She has since realized that the baby just looks like a bean for now, but it will change into a real baby soon.

Now I remember when I went to my first appointment when I was pregnant with Morgan I remember listening to the heartbeat but I know I never got to take home a picture. Maybe that is a bad sign that technology has changed so much since the birth of my last child! Am I too old for this?

Yours, mine and... ours

2008-07-23T13:31:00.002-06:00

Well the Burton household is proud to announce that it will soon add one more to its crazy mix. Yes, we are expecting a baby! I am 7 weeks along so I am due in March, around the 12th.

We told the kids last weekend and they are so very excited to have a little brother or sister. Morgan said she doesn't care which one it is (a girl or a boy), as long as it is both.... She doesn't know that those kinds of thoughts cause nightmares!

I have been so sick the past week and a half that not telling people became 'not an option'. I was never ever sick with Morgan so I think I went into this pregnancy a little cocky. Boy have I been humbled. I am nauseous from the time I wake up until early afternoon. I have spent many days in my bed with my laptop next to me so I could work and moan at the same time. Let me say this again, thank goodness I work from home.

We have not even discussed names yet, but so far the count of people who think we are having a boy is about 1,200 and the number of people who think we are having a girl is 0. So we will see....

Fourth of July Party

2008-07-21T15:39:00.005-06:00

John and I hosted a neighborhood 4th of July party (and yes, I realize that that was weeks ago, but I am feeling blog-lazy). I just wanted to post some pictures of our awesome friends and neighbors.

Here are the new mom's Mindy and Rochelle.

Here is Mindy's huband Danny all decked out in his cowboy attire along with handlebar mustache. I just had to jump in this picture at the last minute.

Here are the other Missie and Jeannie

Here are our next door neighbors Melanie and Carl, with Stephen lurking in the background. Carl and Melanie moved to Riverton the day before, and I am still kind of mad at them for leaving us and for taking all of Morgan's friends with them. These are Morgan's boyfriends parents; so I guess I will see them more often when they are Morgan's inlaws. And everytime a camera is put in Carl's face his eyes automatically go cross-eyed. I think he needs professional help!

Here are the neighborhood tough guys, Aaron, Rod, and Matt.... don't mess with them... Actually I think they are the crazy shirt gang!

And then here is another person who needs to seek professional help, whenever a camera is shown, Morgan strikes a pose...

We had such a great night. After everyone left John and I counted up how many people were there and we came up with 53! Holy cow there were so many people there, but it was a great time. When the sun went down we started the firework show. Aaron, the neighborhood pyro, brought over about $350.00 worth of fireworks, but said his wife only allowed him to bring out about $150.00 from the car. It was an awesome firework show. He had a few of these huge cones that each lasted about 20 minutes each. I would have never bought one of those before but after seeing one I seriously think that next year I will buy one of those and call it good....

Life afer Cambodia

2008-06-27T17:01:00.004-06:00

Things have been quite busy since I got back from my trip. I actually came home and the very next day I went into work and gave my two weeks notice. I decided that I just couldn't keep up with my life anymore and I was tired of being tired and stressed and overwhelmed and... well you get the picture.

So I told Doug, my boss that I was quitting. He was not pleased but said he understood my decision if it meant more time with my family. The next day I when I went back to work he called me into his office and said that I couldn't quit and that he would do whatever it took to get me to stay there even if it meant I worked from home. Well I thought about it for the day and the next day I told him I would stay working there and work from home. So I have been doing that for about four weeks now and it is soooo awesome. It works out well. I don't have to worry about who is going to watch Morgan and she is so happy not to have to be dropped off somewhere every morning... And I get so much accomplished at home. I can do laundry while I work or whatever else needs to be done (just don't mention that part to Doug). So I am a lot less overwhelmed. I also don't need to work so many hours during the last two weeks of the month; it is our slow time so my schedule is not so hectic. So work life is really great.

I also just finished my summer semester this week, my second to last. I am actually done at Westminster College. The next time I see that campus will be at graduation, what a nice feeling! My last semester is at the University of Utah because of scheduling issues. Which is nice to save a little money on tuition and to be back at the old stomping grounds. I am looking forward to it; well mainly because it means I am soo close to being done.

Now a funny Morgan story. While we were driving last week:

Morgan: "Mom what would you do if I fell out of the car?" (This is such a typical 4 year old question, isn't it?)
Mom: "I would scream. What would you do if I fell out of the car?"
Morgan: "I would scream so loud that the people in China would hear. No wait, I mean the people in Shenzhen and Hong Kong would hear!"

Can you believe this little girl can remember that I went to Shenzhen and Hong Kong! I don't think John even remembers that I went to Shenzhen and Hong Kong!

She is one smart little girl; with a good memory that she will probably use against me for my whole life.

Day 11

2008-06-19T18:40:00.002-06:00

Day 11 involved a lot of traveling. We left our hotel in Shenzhen China at about 8:00am to drive across the border to Hong Kong so we could catch our place to LA. We had to go through China customs again and this time our guide got in trouble because we were all in one big line and they wanted us to be in two lines. The custom agents pushed Stephen, our guide, up against a wall and grabbed him by the neck. That would never happen in the US. It was kind of scary.....

Anyway we flew out of Hong Kong at 1:00pm on Monday afternoon and landed in LA at 1:00pm on Monday. It is weird that you can fly for 14 hours and it is still the same time when you get off of the plane. Now you know why my sleep pattern was so messed up!

We then had a five hour layover in LA before we flew back to SLC. Two of us managed to catch an earlier flight home and I was sooooo happy! We got home at about 3:30 pm and I have never been so glad to drive on I-15. Things seemed so different, I couldn't beleive I had only been gone for 2 weeks... it seemed like 2 years.

That wraps up my 2 week trip and it only took my 5 weeks to blog about! Now I can finally talk about what has been going on since I got home.... but on another post.

Day 10

2008-06-15T21:51:00.004-06:00

Day 10 was another Sunday but we were in China and didn't have a clue where we could find an LDS church anywhere so the LDS kids decided to do a sacrament meeting in one of the hotel rooms. One of the guys in our group had gotten permission beforehand to conduct one, good thinking on his part. So we gathered in their room and sang an opening song and had an opening prayer then took the sacrament and then decided to open the floor up to anyone who didn't get a chance to bear their testimony last week in Cambodia to do so here. So a couple of the guys got up to bear their testimony's. What a great meeting this was. I felt the spirit so strongly in that hotel room in China with only 10 of us. I will always remember my church experiences on my trip. I felt like I was right where I should be at that time. I needed to experience the things that I had seen and heard on this trip. The whole trip was such a testimony builder for me.

Well we finished up with a word of prayer and then were off to do our last two business visits. Yes, the people in China were all working on Sunday because they had a day off during the week for a Chinese holiday and were making up for it on Sunday. Our first trip was to see a container/shipping company. This was not cool for us; we got to see a company from on top of a hill looking down on them. Apparently civilians cannot enter container company grounds. Why we went to see one then, don't know!

Our next, and last business visit was to a garment manufacturer (not that kind of garments) where they made women's underwear. It was pretty interesting to go see, the working conditions were better than I imagined a manufacturer in China to be.

That night a group of 12 of us decided to head down to the pier and find a nice place to eat and celebrate it being our last night in China and the last night of our trip for that matter, well one not spent on a plane anyway. So we found this Thai restaurant that was sooo good. We sat at this giant table with this huge lazy susan in the middle. We all just chatted and ate and most everybody drank. It was a good time. Here are Blake and I with our curly kiddie straws that they give you when you order a Coke and not a beer. We were the only two non-drinkers at the dinner and we had to make fun of ourselves with these ridiculous straws.

Here is what everybody else looked like:

Here is the last picture I took on my trip. It is looking out to the ocean and to Hong Kong from Shenzhen China. Doesn't this look more like Hawaii than what you thought China would look like??

Day 9

2008-06-12T17:50:00.003-06:00

Day 9 was a very chill day for me. The group went to tour Shenzhen city and go on a couple of guided tours. The thought of getting back on the bus was enough to make me scream. I decided to sit this day out. The hotel had a sweet pool and I wanted to just relax. A couple of us hung back at the hotel and just napped and hung out by the pool. Here is my roommate Angie smoking Joel's cigar....sweet huh?

Then we went out and decided to walk down to the ocean. It was so close to our hotel. We found some cool shops and restuarants and just had a good time. This was a much needed day for me. Here we are down by the ocean, interesting statue, dontcha think?

I don't have any other pictures from this day... what a boring post!

Day 8

2008-06-08T16:19:00.004-06:00

Day 8 was another long exhausting day. It may not sound like it from the condensed version of my trip on the blog but we were all so tired from jet lag and from running around everywhere that I just wanted to lay in bed and sleep for a week.

We got up early and had to check out of our hotel; we were driving to Shenzhen China that night but we had a day full of business visits. The first one was to Emerson (I can't even remember what that company did.) I was so tired that I can barely remember even sitting in their conference room...

Next was to the Hong Kong stock exchange; which I was very disappointed with. The traders were all just sitting at their desks trading online. It was so quiet in there, I thought it was going to be like the NYSE where people are running around yelling "Sell! Sell!" But no. As you can see from the picture they were all staring at us while we were staring at them...

Here are Denise and I pretending to be stock traders...

Here is a picture of us going down an escalator into the depths of hell, oh they actually call it the subway. I was having a major anxiety attack right about here going underground two levels into this hot crowded train.

This was the highlight of the day, seeing the torch come through Hong Kong. About 20 minutes after we left the Hong Kong stock exchange the torch was going to come right through downtown. We found ourselves this great spot to stand and see the handoff of the torch. Really cool to see. See the guys in the blue, I think they are pretending to be athletes but are really Kung Foo masters that can kill you with their pinkies. (Sorry, I saw Kung Foo Panda yesterday).

After our business visits it was back to the tour bus for the 45 minute drive to Shenzhen. This drive may actually take 45 minutes but when you have to go through two checkpoints to get there it takes about 3 hours. The first checkpoint is in Hong Kong. Everyone must get off the bus and fill out another immigration form (by this time we have filled out a dozen it seems like) and wait in line for a half hour then present your passport to the officers. Then everyone gets back on the bus. Then you drive 30 more seconds to the China immigration office where again everyone must get off the bus but this time with your luggage and have it x-rayed then show them your passport then get back on the bus. By this time it is about 7:00pm and we haven't eaten for hours, we are all getting car sick and we are still in our business attire and I have totally lost my sense of humor.... I already have a bad attitude about going to China, then I am feeling like we are getting farther away from home and I am getting more homesick! Anyway, we asked our guide "Stephen" (they all have these American names they tell us, when we know their real names are Xi Lui Chang Zguyan) why we have to go through two checkpoints to get to China and he says that one is the democratic side and one is the socialist side (or communist). Ok now I am really wanting to go home!

Day 7

2008-06-05T18:58:00.004-06:00

Today we got up and said goodbye to Cambodia. I had such a great time there and really didn't want to head out and move on. I really grew to like it there and could just head out and go find cool things to do and see. But it was time to move on with the trip. We flew to Hong Kong and got the spend the afternoon/night there.

There was a guy on the trip with us who looked exactly like Justin, who is my ex-husband. I finally broke down and told him this and we all had a good laugh. Here we are at the Phnom Penh airport; I thought everyone who knew Justin would get a good kick out of this pic.

The first thing a couple of us did when we got to Hong Kong was head out to find the temple. I really wanted to see it and I was really disappointed to remember that my recommend was in John's wallet! We took a taxi there and pulled up to see about 25 missionaries who were standing in the front. I can't even tell you how comforting it was to see American missionaries. We chatted with them for a couple minutes; they were very curious about why a group of American students were traveling around Cambodia and China.

Here is the entrance to the temple:

We walked around and took pictures of the temple for a while, and then decided to come back at night to see the temple all lit up. So what do a group of American's do with one night in Hong Kong? We go find a McDonalds!!!

It was not good... The fries were really salty and they only had one hamburger that was like a Big Mac that had this really spicy sauce on it. I really enjoyed my Coke if that counts for anything.

So we went back to the temple after dark and got some really good pictures.

After that we took another taxi to this place right off the ocean that was exactly like the Hollywood Walk of Fame with the stars in the sidewalk; except they had all Chinese actors. We did see Jackie Chan's star; which was the only name I even recognized. They had this laser show there that played along with music. It was kind of lame-o but cool to look off of the Kowloon side of Hong Kong over the the Hong Kong side; which are separated by the ocean. There were lots of huge buildings and they lit up along with the music.

After that we walked to Nathan Street; which is like their "main drag". We only stayed there for about 1/2 hour because we were all shopped out and were so tired. Here is my cheesy grin on Nathan Street.

Let me show you the view of the hotel pool from my hotel room door. It was freakin' huge, but it was closed because it was winter; which just made me laugh because it was about 98 degrees outside. The rooms reminded me of the BYU dorms only smaller. I was clausterphobic just standing in the room. You had to walk sideways to just past the foot of the beds. If that is not ironic, that the rooms in Cambodia were far better than the rooms in Hong Kong.

Day 6

2008-05-29T18:18:00.006-06:00

Day 6 was a great day but the most emotional day for me. We had two business visits that day in Phnom Penh. The first was to a manufacturing facility that made prosethics because there are so many active landmines in Cambodia there is a major need for prosthetics. We toured the facility and saw them making the legs and arms and also making wheelchairs.

The thing that I most admired about this facility was the fact that they employed so many people who were disabled. There was even a man who was blind who was drilling holes in the wheelchair wheels. It may seem comical but it was really sad to see. But you have to admire the fact that he was there working hard and doing his job.

Here is our whole group with the director of the facility. (I look like a geek!) I got to present to him a donation that our group put together for the facility. I was in charge of all humanitarian activities for the trip, I will tell more about this shortly.

Then there was a children's surgical center next door to this prosthetics lab. We all wanted to go visit it so our professor walked over and asked if there was someone who could come talk to us. So one of the coordinators came out to talk to us. Since we were a large group in a small area I could not hear her so I just hung back and were playing with the kids and laughing with the mom's. This surgical center mostly focuses on cleft paletes and other cosmetic things. They said if they were to open the center up for trauma then that's all that they would do and no one would focus on these other kinds of things. This center is actually run by a Western Doctor who has dedicated his life to running this facility. The coordinator told us that a common surgery they perform now is skin grafts from acid burns. The people in Cambodia are so poor that they cannot afford bullets or guns so they have resorted to throwing acid on each other. Doesn't that just make you sick!

Here is a picture of a cute little guy who was waiting for his surgery. This is a dark pic, but he was soo cute. And they don't have diapers in Cambodia..

Here are more kids that thought we were so awesome, they were all hanging out at the surgical center.... we don't know why. This is my friend Ericka whose husband is in the program with me and the two girls standing in the back were our "helpers". They are members of the church and were so awesome to show us around and to translate for us. I will also tell more about them later.

At the surgical center they let you walk up to this window and just watch what they are doing. Really cool but really gross....They also let us walk right into the recovery room. I could not believe some of the things that we saw there. I just stood there with tears in my eyes and watched these poor kids. I still can't even tell people what I saw there.

After these business visits we decided to do our humanitarian project that we wanted to do. Like I said I was in charge of it. So I just gathered money from everyone who was there. If you can believe it I got over $400.00 from the 34 people who were there. I was shocked to get that much. I think everyone really wanted to help the people we saw there and were really getting to like!

We decided to go to the maternity hospital that was just around the corner from our hotel. We thought we could get them sarongs (skirts) that the women wear. We also got shampoo/combs/toothpaste and then we brought over 500 toothbrushes with us, thanks to a wife of a student who is a dental hygenist.

So the two "helpers" took a couple of us to their local market to go shopping because we could get a better deal. We had so much fun getting all this stuff. And because we were at the local market I thought I would take advantage of the good deals and I got John a Rolex watch. One of the girls helped me get an awesome deal.

So we went back to our hotel and assembled the packages. We just took over the lobby, I am sure the Cambodians were wondering what these darn white people were doing.

After we had them all assembled we took off to the hospital. Now we don't have a single contact there, we just decided to show up so we were not sure what kind of procedure they had. So here we are in the lobby while our professor went with one of the "helpers" to see if we could leave these packages. Of course Jamon was tying balloons for the kids...

We were shocked when our professor came down and told us that they would let us go into the rooms and pass these packages out to the people, as long as we were not a political group. So we got to walk from room to room and personally hand out these packages we had put together. These people were so grateful to us for these small packages. There were about 12 beds to a room and each family got one bed, so it was very crowded and very hot, the only rooms that are air conditioned are the rooms you get when you are having your baby, but as soon as you have it you go to these other rooms.

Look at these cute babies.

Then look at these moms who are sitting up and taking care of their babies.

I just walked from room to room and cried at the thankfulness of these people. And I felt so blessed to have the hospitals that we do, and I also just missed my little baby.... Morgan, who is not so little anymore.

Day 4 and 5

2008-05-27T08:22:00.006-06:00

Day 4 found us up at 6:00am which may sound early but most of us were up by at least 4:00am every morning anyway... the joys of jetlag.

We caught a plane to fly up to a northern city in Cambodia called Siem Reap where they have these old rock temples called Angkor Wat. It was soo cool to walk through these ruins that were hundreds of years old and be able to touch everything. We decided that in the next couple of years they probably won't let people climb all over these things.

There was evidence of the Khmer Rouge war all over the temples. This picture you can see that most of these statues have new heads put on them. The Khmer Rouge came through and destroyed these statues, they knocked the heads off and there are gun shot holes all throughtout the temples.

This is a picture of the actual Angor Wat temple. It was so amazing to see. There were monks inside praying. It reminded me of a movie set for an old Roman movie. Well, minus the monks. Oh yeah, it was pouring rain on us here... so enjoyable to be wet from the rain and still sweating from the humidity and heat.

Here is a picture of a couple of faces that they made out of the rocks.

This is something we saw a lot of at Angkor Wat. These trees that are hundreds of years old had roots that had grown over the rock ruins. It was so amazing to see, but as I look back at the pictures now, I am so creeped out... I don't know!

This is our prop plane that we took to fly from Phnom Penh to Siem Reap. I am such a dork to pose out in the front of it like that. I think the guy in the tie was telling me to get away from the luggage...

Here is our hotel in Siem Reap. So when I told you I had been in Cambodia, did anyone ever think I would be staying in something like this... me either. I thought we would be in cots with mosquito nets around us. This was the nicest hotel we stayed in on our entire trip. Every room had these dark wood floors. It was beautiful.

Day 4 was also known as the down fall... this was the night I got sick. During the day at Angkor Wat we stopped at this tent and ate lunch in the middle of nowhere... should that not have been my first clue. So by about 1:00 in the morning I was not well and it lasted all the next day... But I hung tough. Really you have no choice.

Day 5 started with us touring around Siem Reap waiting for our plane to leave to take us back to Phnom Penh. We went to a place called Angkor Artisans where you can watch people make these handmade crafts that are for sale. I got the coolest painting of an elephant. There were these 16 women who were handpainting these pictures and they were all deaf.

Well one of the guys in my class whose wife knows sign language started to talk to them and they were so happy to have someone to talk to. They just kept laughing and telling her how embarressed they were to talk in front of all of us. I guess to have 34 people staring at you can be a little intimidating.

A couple of us found a pizza place and it tasted so good.... I thought I might live after eating normal food. Then we found the convenience store. Notice the name... I thought it was funny.

I also managed to slice my finger open on Day 5 (day 4 and 5 were not good to me). I was in the bathroom at Angkor Artisans and the latch got stuck and I had that panickly feeling that I was going to be left to die in a bathroom in Siem Reap Cambodia, never to be heard from again... Anyway I ripped open the latch and my finger was sliced open. I seriously thought I was going to have to get stitches in Cambodia. Not a fun thought. Luckily one of the guys from school was an EMT up at Alta Ski Resort and he had his first aid kit and he cleaned it up and bandaged it. It was touch and go, but I made it.

Actually I will be honest with you, I missed John and Morgan so much and I was sick and I cut my finger.... I wanted to go home!!!!

Day 3

2008-05-23T15:36:00.006-06:00

Back to the trip journal...

Day 3 was our first Sunday in Cambodia. We tracked down an LDS branch very near our hotel and the "LDS kids" went to church. I already told the story about the Vietnamese branch and how I bore my testimony while a missionary from Layton translated for me. What a cool experience.

After church we had to rush back to our hotel because we had our first business visit. We were going to the rice fields to eat lunch with the farmers and see how they are learning this new way of farming rice. The LDS church is partnered with an NGO in Cambodia called CEDAC and they are there teaching these rice farmers how to double their rice production.

On the way out to the fields we stopped at these road side markets and bought bread and fruit for the farmers and us to all eat together. We saw some pretty interesting food dishes, it started out with the usual dead fish hung from hooks and in bowls of water, then went to the dog head, etc. I have pictures but I decided not to share...

After that we got to the fields and the farmers had this big hut that was on stilts that they laid out these mats in and we all sat in there and ate. Then we got to ask them questions about farming and then someone asked them if they had any questions for us. The only thing they asked us about was farming in America, which most of us (myself included) had no idea about. But we had some laughs about the fact that they only could think to ask us questions about farming...

Most of the farmers that were at our lunch were women and when we asked where the men were, the women said they were in the fields because the women wanted to see the people from America... they were so funny. When we would take a picture of them and then show them it on the digital camera they thought it was the funniest thing they had ever seen.

Here is our lunch spread. We had to eat sitting on our legs tucked under us because our guide told us to show them the bottom of our feet was disrespectful. This picture does not do this justice but it is about 125 degrees in this hut.

This was a little boy at the lunch who was sooo cute. He kept playing games with the guys and we all wanted to just scoop him up and take him home.

Here is a group picture we took with the rice farmers. Is it that obvious who the Americans are??

Here are some of the people there who were waving goodbye to us. Did I mention that everywhere we went we took candy and little toys for the kids. We were like the President of the US over there, we had such a big following every where we went. Can you see how happy these people are? It always amazed me to see the smiles on their faces.

Okay, one last picture. This is a van passing our very large tour bus on the way to the rice fields. This is such a common thing to see in Cambodia, a van full of adults and about 10 kids sitting on top. Now this is a very bumpy dirt road that we are driving on. Anyone want to throw their kids up on their car sometime??

And now one last story. After we got back from the rice fields we were exhausted and really hot so a couple of us decided to go get a massage. You can get a one-hour massage on every street corner in Phnom Pen for about $12. So Blake (my trip buddy) and I went to a place and got our massages. Well when I got out from the room he was sitting in the waiting room looking like he was going to cry. He jumped up and ran out and I followed and asked him what was wrong. He said that he was "violated" during the massage and got so freaked out that he jumped up and told the lady he had to go... mind you I am in the other room and he has to wait for me... guess he didn't really think that all the way through. Now he wouldn't tell me details but I could imagine what kind of massage a guy gets on a street corner in Cambodia...

Word about his incident spread quickly and soon we were all laughing because it is always the guy who is the most tramatized about this stuff that these things happen to, isn't it? Poor Blakey Poo (that is his real nickname).

Ok, one more story.. So after the massage "incident" Blake and I decide to just head out of the hotel and find something cool to eat for dinner. We find this Thai restaurant that is outside and you eat under all these cool plants. Am I getting the point across, it was cool. So we go in and order and get our food and just as we start eating the sister missionaries that we met that morning walk by. Blake (who is a return missionary himself) runs out and is like ,"hey sister missionaries, how are you, do you want to come in, we will buy you dinner."

They are very nice and say hi to us but say they have to get home. Now it is like 6:00 in the evening and Blake is saying to me, gee that is weird why do you think the missionaries have to be home by 6:00pm. And I am looking at him like, uh. really? And I say "Blake you just invited the sister missionaries to come eat at this restaurant with us on Sunday night..."

He was mortified. He wanted to scour the city looking for them to apologize then explain why we had to eat out on Sunday, as if they were thinking "Why didn't they plan ahead and buy some extra food on Saturday to eat on Sunday?" No one in Cambodia has a fridge...

Anyway I had another pretty good laugh, at some else's expense (the best kind of laugh).

2008-05-22T08:26:00.006-06:00

I have taken a break in my trip posting this week. My grandpa Fyans passed away on Sunday and I just wanted to do a little tribute to him on my blog. He was 90 years and one day old. He was such a loving grandpa and the thing I will always remember about him was that he would always ask us if we knew how much he loved us. Then he would ask us if we knew how much he loved our parents. He was very good at expressing his love and appreciation for his family. I stole this pic from my little sisters blog (thanks for tracking this down Julie).

Last night was grandpa's viewing. We were told that it started at 6:00pm but that the general authorities wanted to meet with the children and grandchildren at 5:30pm for their own special viewing. (My grandpa was an emeritus General Authority). So we got there at 5:30pm and saw Elder Hales leaving just as we walked in. Then we saw Elder Perry and Elder Gonzalez spoke with them for a minute. Others saw and talked to Elder Cook and Elder Ballard. Then a security guard came in and told us President Monson was coming in. We were all shocked I think. He came in and the security people blocked the doors so it was just my family and the prophet. He talked to my grandma for a minute and expresses his condolences. Then he said, "well I am not shy," and then started telling us stories about my grandpa when they were in Australia. Then President Monson told us more stories about him and how he watched wrestling years ago. He had us all laughing and crying at the same time. He said his wife was not as well as he was and gets tired very easily.

He was there talking with us for probably 20 minutes. What a great exprience. I cannot put into the words the spirit that was there. He was such a nice and engaging man. I will always remember his face as he said, "goodbye Tom." to my grandpa as he left.

Here are some pictures that my brother in law took with his phone as the prophet was talking to my grandma.

Day 2 continued

2008-05-15T20:24:00.004-06:00

Ok I am ready to continue with Day 2. After the Killing Fields we went to a place called Tuol Sleng prison. It was originally a high school that the Khmer Rouge took over and used it for a prison/torture chamber. This place was also very somber. There were a total of four buildings that we toured, but I could only handle the first two. The first one we went in was Building A where there were all these rooms that were full of beds frames with hand cuffs on them and pictures of dead people in these beds. Very gross.

Then building B was full and I mean full of pictures of all the people that had been killed in Tuol Sleng prison, men, women and children. Then the pictures of the dead men who had been electrocuted and were naked. That is when I said "I'm done."

It was all very depressing but I feel like people need to know about these things, so we can prevent them from happening to these poor people again.

Ok I am done with all the gross depressing stuff. After Tuol Sleng prison we went to a local market called the Russian market and shopped for cool stuff. But let me tell you it was a giant tent that you walk into and it goes on forever and it is all twisty and they have smelly food all over and it is, of course, about 120 degrees, so I didn't want to hang out too long...

Mike (who was our guide for Phnom Penh) introduced a couple of us to a friend that he had in the Russian market. She was a Cambodian who had burns all over her hands and face and was selling these pencil drawings for $2.50. But she said that if we were friends with Mike that she would sell it to us for $1.50. She was soo nice. So I bought one from her and gave her $2.00 and she was so grateful to get it. The guy I was with, (Blake, who you will hear many stories about) gave her $3.00 for one of them. It is amazing how grateful she was for so little.

Then we took a TukTuk back to the hotel. This is a cart on the back of a little moped and they are everywhere. Now you remember how I said the driving is crazy, well try to experience this on the back of a moped with cars zooming about 2 inches from you, what an adventure! Our goal was to take the best picture of crazy moto drivers. Here is a dad with two kids, the little kid is on top of two boxes on the back and they are not tied down... This is totally normal for Cambodia

We had heard about a restaurant where the proceeds went to the children's street fund in Cambodia so a group of us headed out that night to find it. It ended up pouring rain on us as we wondered all over the city trying to find it. We never did find it, but we sure had a good laugh at ourselves.

Day 2

2008-05-12T22:51:00.007-06:00

Day 2 was much better than day 1. Day 1 I was seriously ready to jump on an airplane and fly home. I was so homesick. But Day 2 I made some new friends and I realized that just about everyone was ready to jump on airplane and fly home, so I felt better.

So we were in Phnom Penh (pronounced Nom Pen) Cambodia and it was our day to do tours and see the city. We started off at this city park where there were all kinds of people walking around selling stuff. This is a pic of Jamon from our group who knew how to tie balloon animals and tied them for the kids everywhere we went. He was a huge hit.

Here is a picture of a couple people in our group that rode an elephant that was giving rides in the park. I told them that in Cambodia when you ride an elephant with someone of the opposite gender then you are now married, they didn't think that was funny.

Next is a picture of my cute roommate Angie and I at the Royal Palace in Phnom Penh.

Next we went and saw the Killing Fields. Now I had no idea about any of this stuff until we had to do research on Cambodia before we left. Look up the Khmer Rouge and the Killing Fields to learn more about this, it is very tragic.

Here is a memorial that was built for all the skulls that the people found after Pol Pot (who was basically like Hitler) and the Khmer Rouge came through and killed everyone who was educated in anyway. Inside the memorial are hundreds if not thousands of skulls of men, women and children who were killed and buried in mass graves. After you walk through the memorial you walk around the back and there are holes all over where people had dug up these mass graves and left the holes, so you could see just how many of them there are. There are also clothes all over that had grown into the roots of the trees and into the dirt. It is a very sad feeling walking through this field. Looking at the clothes that were still in the ground really made it hit home for me that thousands of people were beaten, killed and just thrown into the ground. You can't even imagine the creepy and sad feeling there is at this place.

Day 2 will have to continue tomorrow. I am soo tired. I am STILL jet lagged, I cannot seem to get my days and nights back to normal!

Day 1

2008-05-10T23:41:00.006-06:00

Since I was really terrible about keeping my blog updated while I was on my trip I thought I would just post an entry for every day we were gone and share a couple of pics.

Day 1:

We flew from L.A. to Hong Kong and got there at 5:00am Hong Kong time. We had an 8 hour layover until we flew to Cambodia so we went on a city tour. I was so tired that I think I slept walked the entire day. Despite what you think, it is not that easy to get a good night sleep while sitting straight up, with your knees touching the seat in front of you for 14 hours....

Here is a picture of the city scape of Hong Kong from the highest point, called Victoria's Peak. It is very foggy because it was so early in the day. I was surprised at how tropical it was there. I felt like we were in Hawaii, it was early in the day so it wasn't so blasted hot yet, but it was humid and green.

And this is what I look like when I have not slept, showered or changed my clothes for two days...

Then we got to see some shrines (which I think we only set up for the tourists, which really takes the "specialness" away from them). But here I am posing anyway...

We then caught another plane at 3:00pm and flew two hours to Phnom Penh Cambodia. I was so exhausted by the time we got there that I think I fell into bed, which was like sleeping on a piece of plywood. The beds were so hard there, I thought it was a cruel joke at first, turns out it wasn't. Those were the beds we were going to be sleeping in for the next 4 nights....

Still alive

2008-05-03T23:26:00.001-06:00

Just thought I would do a quick update. We are in Shenzhen China now and have seen so much and done so much I don't even know where to begin. I will have to share many pics and stories on here after I get home and get organized. I have been writing everything down in a notebook so I won't forget anything.

I have had a couple life changing experiences here, I have seen things you would not believe. Will share much more later.

We fly home tomorrow and I am sooo ready at this point that I am ready to start walking to the airport, just to feel closer to home.

So for now, wish me luck on another 14 hour flight!

2008-04-27T06:32:00.000-06:00

We toured the rice fields today and got to eat lunch with the people and ask them questions and they asked us questions. It was really fun. But so hot I thought we were all going to die! The church is here teaching the Cambodian people how to farm their rice. It was cool to see all the things they were learning.

A group of us also got to go to church this morning at the Vietnamese branch. We got there and our guide asked the branch manager if he wanted a few of us to bear our testimony's and he said yes. So Mike, (of course) asked me and another kid to bear ours. So I got to get up and bear my testimony while this missionary from Layton translated to the people. It was a really good experience. Good thing that teaching relief society has made me unafraid of talking to crowds!

We have also seen a lot about the Khmer Rouge here and the war. I have pics to show you when I get home. We fly out again tomorrow up to Northern Cambodia to do more touring. We are all so exhausted but we have been having fun together. I have had some pretty good laughs about the things we see here. you would not believe the driving. The stops signs and lane painting are useless here, the people drive in both lanes and every which way and they use the horn as their turn signal. It is really a site.

I made it

2008-04-25T18:21:00.002-06:00

Well it is 7:30 am in Cambodia, and it is like 500 degrees. Can't wait to go outside and start sweating. I did not bring my cord to download pictures so you will have to wait until I get home to see this world over here.

It ha seen interesting to say the least. We toured Hong Kong yesterday and other than that we have been on a airplane/bus/airport, so hopefully now that we are finally here we can start to see more.

I will update when I can.

Five days

2008-04-18T09:31:00.003-06:00

I have five more days before I am on a plane to China and Cambodia.... (And five more days before Megan and Aaron go to St. George, HEE HEE)

It has been such a busy couple of weeks that blogging has been put on the back burner. I am going to try to post some pictures while I am on my trip. We will see how many Internet cafes are in Cambodia...

Wish me luck and I will keep you posted.

Morgan's Talk

2008-03-24T21:04:00.002-06:00

Morgan had to give a talk in Primary yesterday, yes she loves the spotlight....
So I asked John if he could go up and help her this time, since I have done it about five times now. So they go up to the microphone and he starts to whisper into her ear and she is going along just fine. But then she turns and whispers something in his ear, and I can only imagine what that little girl is telling John.

When the talk was over, John came back to sit down and said, "Morgan turned to me in the middle of the talk and wanted to know why you were not watching.!"

Heaven forbid I avert my eyes momentarily while she is giving her talk!!

Morgan's Scripture

2008-03-13T19:56:00.002-06:00

Morgan had to give the scripture in primary last week. So on Saturday night we sit down to find a scripture that works with the topic they gave us. Well I turn to the topical guide and tell Morgan we are going to find a good scripture that she can give in Primary. She says to me, "I don't want to say 'And it came to pass' that is just embarassing.

Where does she come up with this stuff??

Where did my memory go?

2008-03-07T08:18:00.002-07:00

So you know how you use the same pin number for years and then one day it is absolutely gone from your memory? This has happened twice this week. First was at work where we use a password to sign on to our server computer. Well I was working on Saturday from home and had to sign in and could not for the life of me remember this password, even though I use it 10 times a day. I ended up having to call my old boss at home and ask him, boy did I look like an idiot!

Then last night I went to the grocery store and when I was paying the debit machine just kept asking me for my pin. After I put it in 5 times I told the cashier and she said, "Oh, it really only does that when you are putting in the wrong number." And to my embarassement I was putting in the wrong number! And to make things worse, my pin is a very important date I should remember! I told the cashier that I was putting in the wrong pin and we both laughed at my stupidity... well I probably laughed harder.

But seriously, I think I am losing all memory of my 5,987,356,388 passwords and pins I have to remember, I better start writing them down.

Morgan's Crush

2008-02-24T12:55:00.004-07:00

On President's Day I drove up the the house after running errands and found this homemade Valentine's card on the front porch. It was for Morgan from our cute little neighbor boy Caden who is in Kindergarten. Isn't this the cutest thing you have ever seen?

I love how all the O's in the Valentine are hearts...

So when we got home from church today they were out in the yard talking; so I made them come in so I could take their picture. Here is the happy couple..

I have to enjoy the "cuteness" of this now; because she isn't allowed to date until she is thirty, and so far she is fine with that!

Are you kidding me?

2008-02-16T16:05:00.004-07:00

So Morgan got to go to grandma Hatch's house last week to spend the day. This is my ex-husbands mother, who I never talk to, she just called me up and asked me if she could take Morgan for the day.... like I am going to turn that down!

Anyway, Morgan came home and said that grandma Hatch had given her a Valentine's present. She showed me this huge stuffed panda bear that was really cute, then she showed me this...

For those that cannot see clearly, this is a Barbie doll with blonde hair but black hair underneath, a really skimpy tank top, a short skirt, and fish net stockings. I think my brother-in-law hit it right on when he said it looked like a tranny! Who in their right mind would give their granddaugher this toy! Are you kidding me?!

This may just have to "disappear" one day very soon.

Valentines 2008

2008-02-13T21:40:00.006-07:00

Since I have class on Valentine's Day, we had to celebrate it early this year. John and I went to Famous Dave's on Friday and ate and then ate more. It was so good. I have to enjoy Famous Dave's while I can, after next week I don't get 50% off from work anymore. I am "kind of" getting a new job, I will explain later. It is a long story.

Anyway... on Sunday we had my sister Julie, Darren and Colby over for dinner and Julie brought some sugar cookies to decorate. We had so much fun and I think I ate about 16 of them, they were so good. Too good.

Could I be more of a dork?

Here is cute little Morgan who was so busy decorating her masterpieces that she forgot to eat a cookie, but I made up for it...

Long lost art of scrapbooking

2008-02-09T18:42:00.000-07:00

Last weekend when we had all the kids, Brittney (the seven year old) and I were looking through the scrapbooks I had done the first two years of Morgan's life. We had so much fun. I thought this would be how it is when Morgan is a little older and we can laugh about all the fun (and not so fun) things from the past. So I was thinking I would start to scrapbook again but when I went to see the pictures I had from the last two years... none! Who gets actual pictures when they have a digital camera, not me! So I spent a good six hours organzing all my digital pictures I had, minus the ones I lost on my old laptop. It was so much fun going through all of them, this inspired me even more to scrapbook them and not just rely on my blog for keeping our memories. I now have about 100 pictures to scrapbook, now I just need to figure out when I have the time to do this...

Gotta love kids; don't ya!

2008-02-04T10:56:00.000-07:00

So on Thursday night I left school early feeling like I had been ran over. My head hurt, my throat hurt, and every muscle in my body hurt. I was so looking forward to a nice soak in the jetted tub and just close my eyes and feel better. But really with kids, does it ever work out that way? Justin brought Morgan home about the time I was walking in the door. She was so excited to tell me all about her day. So I told her she could come talk to me while I was in the tub. so I get it all filled up with hot water, turn off the light and lay down and let me eyes close, but then there is Morgan!!
"Mommy, why are you in the tub? Look what I can do! Mommy, don't close your eyes, watch me! Mommy, what is that? Will I have that when I am a mommy? Look what I can do! Do you feel better now mommy?" etc, etc, etc.
Isn't this just how life should be!

Malaria, Typhoid, Diarrhea, oh my!

2008-01-27T15:28:00.000-07:00

So I went the the doctor on Friday to get my immunizations for my trip to China. Our trip coordinator told us to go at least 6 weeks beforehand to let the immunizations really take over, or something to that effect. So I go and give them my list of cities that we are visiting in China and Cambodia. The doctor comes back with a whole list of things I get to start worrying about three months before our trip, one of the drawbacks of going so early! I get to take two different prescriptions before I go, one for malaria and one for typhoid fever, which both sounds so pleasant. He also prescibed me some anti-diarrhea medication, but instructed me that I am only to take it if I have diarrhea more than ten times in one day. Yeah, like up to that point it is normal and you should really not worry about taking anything! I also requested some medication for an anxiety freak for the plane ride, so he gave me Xanex. On top of all of this I got two shots, one for Hepatitis A and the other was a tetanus shot; one in each arm.

Well which ever shot I got in my left arm was a shot full of pain. Later Friday night it felt like someone had punched me in the arm and it kept getting worse and worse. Saturday I couldn't let anyone get within 5 feet of my arm, it hurt so bad. I can't lift my arm and even my shoulder and up to my neck hurt. Well this morning as I was in the shower I notice my arm is all swollen, it looks like a giant goose egg on my arm. John insisted that this happens, but I am not really convinced.

If this is any indication of how my trip will be, I may decide to quit now!

Snowmobiling

2008-01-16T12:50:00.000-07:00

A couple weekends ago John and I got to go on a snowmobiling trip with his family. We went to Strawberry Bay and had such a good time. I got to hang out with John's siblings that I don't ever get to see. We also got to go with no kids! So it was a little mini vacation for us. The trip just happened to fall on one of our "alone weekends". I guess that is one of the perks of being divorced is that every other weekend we have no kids...!

For all of you that asked... I am going to China in April. I will be gone for 12 days, so maybe you can all take turns calling John to make sure him and Morgan are not starving.

2008-01-12T13:42:00.000-07:00

Here it is another Saturday afternoon and I am at the library of Westminster college studying, well Ok I am taking a break right now. Last week my laptop completely died (the guy at PC Laptops basically told me to throw it in the garbage), so I have been behind the blogging updates, not to mention I think I lost most of my pictures. Anyway, moving on to the good news, John's ex-wife just got engaged and I'm pretty sure John and I are more excited than she is. John pays her alimony until she gets remarried, so this fact alone made us jump for excitement. Not to mention that she just needs to move on and start being nice to John, which I am hoping this accomplishes!
Also our international school trip, where I was going to go to Israel, got cancelled because of the instabilty in the country,(who can argue with that?). I really had my heart set on going there so I was so dissapointed to have to choose another trip to go on. But I have finally decided to go to China and Cambodia. For those of you that know me, this is going to be quite a stretch for me, I feel like China may as well be on another planet, not to mention the fact that I am a terribly nervous flyer and the flight is around 18 hours! So needless to say I have been having nightmares for the past month about going, but I am really excited. I also have an assingment for all you faithful bloggers, please post an idea of what I can do on the airplane to keep me occupied so I don't freakout and want to scratch and kick at the door to get off!

The Nutcracker

2008-01-09T12:42:00.000-07:00

Morgan and I went to see the Nutcracker at Capital Theater last month. It was such a fun time. We decided to take Trax down there so we didn't have to trudge through the snow from our parking spot 3 miles away. So anway, we get on the train and we sit across from each other and there were very few people on when we got on. Well each stop we made more and more "interesting" people got on. Apparently Morgan is a people watcher, just like me. She sat there looking at everyone and after about 10 minutes she said to me, "Oh my gosh mom, I almost forgot you were here, I was so busy looking at everyone." The guy across from us was laughing so hard at her, and so was I.

Then after about another 10 minutes of "watching" she asks me in her very loud 4-year old voice if I would still love her if she was Chinese....

I wanted to laugh and cry at the same time. Very embarrassing! But I assured her I would and then tried to concentrate on my shoes.

Life

2007-12-17T22:07:00.001-07:00

Tonight was Morgan's dance recital. Will post pictures soon. She did such a great job, I am surprised that she got up and danced (but should I be, really?) She had so many people come and support her, G&G Nelson and Burton, Julie, Darren and Colby and daddy and Holly (this is daddy's girlfriend). I can't beleive this little girl I have is so grown up. She turned four a couple of weeks ago (during my blogging hiatus). What a sweet and fun little girl I have, well... when she isn't yelling at me that I ruined her life or that I am mean and nasty....but besides that...

I also took my last test of the semester on Saturday, oh blessed Christmas break. It is good to be free and not sit and think that I should be studying while I do normal life things. Two more semesters and I will actually join real life again, until then, I am just a mirage...

I also vow to keep up on my blog more often. I have figured out that the longer you go without blogging, the easier it is to say "I have too much to write to go back and start again."

Morgan update

2007-11-20T21:45:00.000-07:00

I just wanted to update all about the relationship between Morgan and John, it has dratmatically improved in the past week. Last week we were talking and she said "Mom, that was really stupid of me to not talk to John, huh?" We do not say stupid in our house so I told her that it was not stupid and we don't say that. But she kept on pushing that she was stupid for doing that. Finally I just told her that it was stupid for her to not talk to John. Hey, it was stupid, I really couldn't argue.

Morgan... again

2007-11-16T15:18:00.001-07:00

Totally random Morgan moment

We were chatting the other day and she mentioned to me that if she had to go to jail that she wouldn't like it but she would still be brave...

Not sure where that came from.

Great new diet

2007-11-05T14:31:00.000-07:00

I have been on this great new diet since last week and I think I have lost about a pound a day. This diet has been around a while, but not many people utilize it. It is called food poisoning.... and it is lovely. I think I got my new diet by eating at this Chinese food restaurant across the street from work. So if anyone is interested in this; let me know and I will give you the address of the "diet place."

Girls Night Out

2007-10-28T10:30:00.000-06:00

Last Friday (yes it has taken me more than a week to get these pictures up here) the girls in my ward did a girls night out. We had so much fun, I have such an awesome ward! We went to Sweet Tomatoes and then to Becca's house for some games, which was really more just talking and laughing than anything. Just wanted to share some pics of the night. The first pic is everyone in awe of my amazing ability to draw stick figures.

Typical Morgan

2007-10-26T12:45:00.000-06:00

So as a few of you know, Morgan has not spoken to John in weeks and I mean weeks. Everytime he talks to her she turns around and huffs at him. Well we finally had a talk with her a couple of nights ago and the truth (we think) came out. She told us that her and Amanda (her friend from preschool) do not talk to boys. John and I just looked at each other and laughed. This is so Morgan... I tried to explain to her that John is not a boy, he is her step-dad, and she needs to be nice to him, but she wouldn't have any of it. She is still ignoring him. Any suggestions?

Pumpkin Patch

2007-10-22T17:22:00.000-06:00

Morgan and I had a fun little outing on Friday, we went to the Pumpkin Patch and picked out our victims for the pumpkin carve. We had a lot of fun walking around and looking at all the pumpkins that had "goopies" on them. (Her word) . We were supposed to do this as a whole family outing, but with snowing on Saturday I figured Morgan and I should go out on Friday to pick them out. I really didn't feel like trudging through mud and snow to pick a pumpkin. I took a couple of pics and thought I would share them.

Passport

2007-10-22T13:12:00.000-06:00

I decided that it was time to get going on getting my passport for my school trip next May. So I got online and filled out that applications, printed in all out and went down to the post office turn it in. I walk in and there are two ladies behind the passport counter just chatting away and not a soul in the room. I tell them I need to get a passport and they tell me I will have to sign up on the list, and that the next opening they have is on the 30th. I think I just stood there are stared at her like "are you kidding me?" When they didn't laugh and say gotcha, I took the clipboard and signed up for two weeks from now! So I have never gotten a passport before, but seriously, I have to wait two weeks to get my passport when I have the application in my hand all filled out! Does anyone have any suggestions for me?

Fall Festival 2007

2007-10-19T16:02:00.000-06:00

Wednesday was the Fall Festival at our church. It was a great time. We all brought soup and ate and chatted and the young men and young women were in charge of games for the primary kids. I had to wake Morgan up to go over to the church so she was a little out of it and hesitant to go around to the booths with all the kids dressed as witches and zombies. But anyway, after we ate she perked up and told me she was going to walk around for some "lonely time". What a hoot she is! She had so much fun walking around and talking to all her friends, who all happen to be adults. I swear more people know Morgan than me... The picture is of us in our awesome costumes, which in no way were last minute and cheesy, well Morgan's wasn't.

Picture Time

2007-10-19T15:51:00.000-06:00

Ok, I got tired of waiting for John to show me how to download the pictures from our digital camera to my laptop. I just got everything out and it took me about 15 seconds, kind of embarrassing...

So here are the pictures from the Jordan High Homecoming dance. Doesn't seeing these bring back memories, it does for me. Going to all the dances with Kevin Butterfield, yeah baby.

One year anniversary

2007-10-16T12:47:00.000-06:00

Last Sunday was our one year anniversary. Boy does time fly, actually we talk all the time that it seems like we have been married for years.... not in a bad way, just in way that it's hard to remember life any other way (which is a very good thing). So on Friday night we went and stayed in The Inn on the Hill. It is just down the street from the capitol. It was awesome. I would highly suggest it. We got the "romance package" which meant that while we were out eating dinner I called and told them we were on our way back and they lit candles all over our room. It was so cool to walk back in and have candles everywhere and a CD playing. I loved it. They had a jetted tub and this great antique furniture. And in the morning we got breakfast in bed and we didn't have to check out until 1:00pm! So it was a great time.

But we also talked about how good life is for us. We have a great marriage, a great family, great kids, a great ward, a great house... life doesn't get much better than this. But don't get me wrong, life is not all smiles and rainbows over here...I just told John this morning that I felt like our weeks are like Ground Hog Day. Get up, go to work, go to school, take care of kids, do homework, go grocery shopping, clean the house, blah blah blah... But I guess if you are happy that is all that matters. And I am happy! John is such a great guy, I could never say enough good about him. He is so caring and willing to do whatever is needed around the house or for me. When I was divirced I often pictured who it was I was looking for, because trust me I wasn't going to go out with any old Joe Shmoe, but I found John. He is everything I always wanted. Trustworthy, loving, funny, good-looking, loves the gospel, loves kids, and most of all I guess, loves ME.

I love you John, Happy Anniversary!

I am a dork

2007-10-12T10:17:00.000-06:00

Ok, I think I am finally ready to tell the world what a fool I am. So last Tuesday night Julie, Morgan and I had a girls night. We decided to go eat at Famous Dave's and it was so good. Well while we were walking out I ran into an old friend who I have not seen for about six years. He was with his two kids and told us he was going through a divorce and that things were hard right now. Well he also said that is soon-to-be ex-wife was there with them and soon she came out and we all chatted for a moment. (Really this has nothing to do with the story, just trying to give the whole background of the situation). Well Brandon (my old friend) and I decided we would get together one night and catch up and compare divorce stories so I gave him my number and we left.

So Julie, Morgan and I walked to my car and got in, well Brandon and his "wife" were parked next to us and were getting in their car while we were going to leave. Well there was no car parked in front of me so I decided to pull forward instead of reverse out and risk any embarassment. So I pull forward and run right over the cement parking strip that was in front of my car and if that is not bad enough I also run over the one in the stall in front of me. It felt like we ran right over a curb, no two curbs! And to make it worse both Julie and I could hear Brandon laughing at me and my windows were up! I wanted to crawl under a rock for about 10 years. Julie laughed so hard I thought she was going to pee her pants. I laughed, but not as hard as Julie, because I felt too dumb to laugh. There is no way to play that off like you meant to do that.

I tried to convice Julie that I had ran into Brandon a couple of weeks ago and we came up with this elaborate plan just to give her a good laugh, but she wouldn't buy it.

So there it is... and I know it sounds dumb now, but it really was humiliating. But the good news is that I think Julie might have laughed off two years worth of stress.

Tagged

2007-10-10T12:26:00.000-06:00

I too have been tagged. So here goes nothin'...
The rules:
A. The rules of the game are posted at the beginning.
B. Each player lists 6 facts/habits about themselves.
C. At the end of the post the player then tags 6 people and posts their names, then goes to their blogs and leaves them a comment, letting them know that they have been tagged and asking them to read your blog. Just to forewarn you, I think everyone I know has already been tagged... so I will not be passing this on. But it sure has been fun reading all of them.

1. I eat a peanut butter and honey sandwich every day for lunch- no seriously, everyday.
2. I love to make people laugh.
3. I really love to read, so much so that I have to ban myself from reading novels while I am in school. I am afraid I would read myself right out of school.
4. I love to do yard work-call me crazy-give me yard work over housework anyday.
5. This weekend I have officially been married for one year--and it is awesome.
6. I made a complete idiot out of myself last night while I was out at girls night with Julie. I might post it online, but I need to get over my mortifying embarrassment first.

That is as exciting as it gets...

2007-10-02T15:11:00.000-06:00

Last night while we were reading scriptures Morgan just had to interrupt us tell me that she wanted to be a cowboy when she grew up, which I am not sure if that is better than the policeman she wanted to be last year. Anyway.... I was just reflecting on what I want to be when I grow up. I am going to graduate school to be an accountant and have a financial accounting class this semester. Well, we have taken 5 tests so far this semester and I have not gotten above an F on any of them, which is not a motivator, let me tell you... It has made me wonder if I am "cut out" to be an accountant. So I have chatted with a few people over the past couple of weeks and have come to the conclusion that my professor stinks! I am going to be an accountant whether I do well in his class or not... I am just not planning on telling my boss that I am failing accounting, this may not be a motivator for him to give me a raise....

Homecoming

2007-10-01T14:04:00.000-06:00

Last weekend I got to be a chaperone at the Homecoming dance for Jordan High School. The twins in my ward asked us if we could do it, but John was at home with all three kids and insisted I go so we didn't disappoint them. It was such a trip down memory lane to go there. To see the preppy kids all decked out in their dresses and tuxes then the weirdos who dressed in Levi's and t-shirts then the even weirder kids who dressed in these clothes from the 80's. At least I assumed they were making fun of the fashion or maybe they really dress that way, either way, pretty funny for me. I took a couple of pictures, (like my own kids were there??) I was so excited to go and see all my friends from Jordan, yes, I now have friends in high school. I think it was more fun for me than for them! I will post the pics soon...

Life

2007-09-27T14:37:00.000-06:00

Life has been very crazy the past couple of weeks; between school, work, church, kids, husband, household duties, babysitting other people's kids, I could go on and on. I proclaimed to John that this week is my week of no. I am not going to volunteer for anything, I am not going to watch anyone's kids, I am just going to say no. And it feels great!

We went to dance class again on Saturday and Morgan was very excited to dance, as long as I was glued to her.... So it was the day they got measured for their costumes, and her teacher proclaimed to the seamstress that they would have to sew a "big" outfit for Morgan's mommy 'cause it looked like I would be on stage with them.
Great, something else to look forward to...

Dance class and dance video

2007-09-17T19:06:00.000-06:00

You will have to pardon my long absences, I am finding school a little overwhelming at the moment. But to update everyone on Morgan and her dance class. We went on Saturday and she again didn't want to dance in front of everyone. We sat and watched for about fifteen minutes and I kept asking her if she was ready to go out and dance. I was really thinking about leaving and not ever going back. So then I asked her if she wanted to dance and I would go out there with her, she finally said yes. So out we went to dance. I had to stand behind her the entire time and "help" her do the dance. You know how you always feel less stupid when someone is making a fool of themselves with you, I guess this was just one of those situations. I just never thought of Morgan as someone who would need a "stupid buffer". I guess she is a "Nelson". But to make a long story short, she finally danced. Now let's see if she can dance next week without her buffer.

Now on to the dance video portion of the blog. In our ward there are these cute set of 17-year old twins, a boy and a girl, who have adopted John and I ever since we went to Youth Conference. A couple of weeks ago, Stephen, (the boy) asked us if we would help him ask a girl to the homecoming dance. We, of course, said yes. Who doesn't love to re-live these moments without any of the awkwardness!? So him and his friends came over to our house and I recorded a dance/singing video to ask this girl out. It was sooo hilarious. John was front and center of the video, so much so that Stephen's mom said this poor girl wouldn't know who was asking her to the dance, Stephen or Brother Burton! Well I am trying to figure out how to post it on here. It is something we can all enjoy! Just don't tell John.

Missy Homemaker

2007-09-12T15:02:00.000-06:00

So tell me if you have ever felt this way. In relief society they ask for volunteers to sew some book bags for a humanitarian project. I, of course, volunteer. I haven't sewn much in the past 20 years, so really what am I doing volunteering for that? I guess I had a moment of weakness. Anyway, after reading the instructions 5,000 times and going back to the relief society president three times for more handles (how embarrasing), I finally complete my bags. So we are supposed to bring them to our Super Saturday activity that we had last Saturday. Well the Sunday before I see someone else's bag and it looks really different than mine. I am sitting there trying not to be obvious looking at it and really the only thing I can think of is, "Well I am NOT going to start over!" So on Saturday I show up at the church for Super Saturday and quickly put my bags in the middle of the stack of other bags. This little lesson will make me think twice about volunteering my sewing services again!

Life is still going well. John likes his new job, but he says the only part of the day he gets excited about, is going home. Join the club! He is also feeling much better about his Young Men's calling. Last Sunday was his first real Sunday and he said it went very well. He had more young men than he thought. Which is a good sign...

Morgan is also still loving preschool, but still insists that she has made no friends. I don't believe her...

Un-dance class

2007-09-10T10:37:00.000-06:00

Morgan started dance class on Saturday, well, we went to dance class on Saturday, but the only one of us that danced was me! We got there and Morgan just wanted to watch for a while before she felt like she could go out there. So we sat and watched.... and watched. Finally the owner of the dance studio hopped up and took Morgan out there with her. Morgan just stood there looking at her new dance shoes...that's it! So I got up and went out there, still nothing. So after the class I asked her why she didn't dance in dance class. She said she wanted to dance, but not in front of all the other people. I tried to tell her that that's exactly what dance class is, dancing in front of other people. We will see what next class brings. I am willing to bet we do lots of "watching" again.

It has also been pointed out to me by my Aunt Kay that I never divulged what John's new calling is in church. (I can't even keep up with my own life!) He is the new Young Men's President. He is very excited but more overwhelmed right now. We have good young men in our ward, but it seems like most are really struggling in life right now. And since John and I were in charge of Youth Conference this year, and the kids just loved John, the bishop said he was the man for the job. Good Luck John!

Speaking of John, he started his new job today. I can't wait to hear all about it. I'm sure he is hating it right this minute, isn't that the way it is with new jobs? But I told him that after 3 days, it will get much better...