9

James and I are SO excited for this. I really want to try and go watch it opening night...that's how excited I am.

"The story of 9 takes place in a post-apocalyptic and alternate reality future where all of humanity is gone. The remaining inhabitants are rag dolls but their very existence is threatened by fearsome killing machines determined to hunt the rag dolls down to extinction. 9 (voiced by Elijah Wood) is created to help protect the remaining raggies, but rather than guide them to safety, 9 convinces them that their only chance of survival is to fight back."

YAY! So excited! Anyway just thought I'd share. :D the new song on our play list is from that trailer.

Happy Birthday!

Well we didnt have to many birthdays in July so to end our birthday for this month I actually have two people I want to wish a happy birthday too...The first is to my sister in law Jill. Jill was born and raised in California and met my brother Byron after his mission. She is the mother of 5 girls, one of which is no longer on the earth, and grandmother to 2 and 1 on the way. :) Jill is a loving mother and wife. She loves spending time with her girls and her grand kids. She loves to spend time outside in her pool and doing projects with her husband. She also loves camping, swimming, boating and kayaking. She is also devoted to the church. She loves her church callings and participating in any ward activities. She has a strong testimony of the gospel and of her savior Jesus Christ which I know her girls love to hear. So here's to you Jill on your birthday :)

HAPPY BIRTHDAY!!!

The next birthday is to my father in law Gregg. Gregg is so sweet I am truly blessed with wonderful in laws who I absolutely love. I love hearing the stories that dad tells about his childhood on the farm that he use to live on with his mom and grandma and grandpa. I have learned so much from him and look up to him with great respect and love. Dad Armstrong has a great laugh that is completely contagious especially when he laughs so hard he starts to cry. After James and I got married we had family come over for dinner and we opened our wedding presents. One of the gifts that was given to us was a head massager. Both my dad and Gregg were laughing so hard both of their faces were bright red with tears streaming down their cheeks. Dad Armstrong kept saying it was the goofiest thing he'd ever seen and then burst into a new set of laughs. Dad is always concerned for his kids whenever we go over he always makes sure that we have ate or he'll feed us. I truly feel like I am one of his daughters. I love you Dad!

HAPPY BIRTHDAY!!!

Date Night

So James and I had our first real date night tonight in a long time...it was really nice. We went to see the new Harry Potter movie. It was really good, James and I both liked it a lot. It got both of us wanting to read the 6th and 7th books again. Except for a few things we thought it did a good job cfollowing the book and those few things were a great add in. We are really looking forward to the first part of the 7th movie. It's kinda neat and weird at the same time to see these actors growing up and to see hoe differently they have become from the 1st movie to the 6th.

Pioneer Day in Utah.

On the 24th of July we celebrate the day that Brigham Young saw the Salt Lake Valley and said "This is the place."....Pioneer day :) Every year there is a HUGE parade in Downtown Salt Lake, plus tons of other fun stuff all over the state of Utah. The Business College makes a float that they drive in the 4th of July parade, the Pioneer Day parade, and other parades as well. This year our float won the community award YAY! Way To Go LDSBC! :) This is Louise Brown on the left (Assistant Director of Public Affairs) and Craig Nelson on the right (V.P. of Public Affairs and Advancement)Unfortunately James and I didn't get to watch the parade because we don't have TV :p... but I heard great things about it and was able to see these awesome pictures of it. :) Louise did an amazing job. Well since it was a 3 day weekend James and I thought it would be fun to go on our first camping trip this year. Both of us have really been wanting to go camping so now was our chance. :) After some quick packing and shopping we were on our way. We headed up Ogden Canyon towards Monte Cristo and found a awesome campsite at this place called dry bread pond. (I think that was the name of it) Rosko was really excited...especially when he discovered that we were camping next to a family of chipmunks. We had a lot of fun we roasted hot dogs and marshmallows. It wasn't till it started getting dark that we realized that we forgot flashlights...oops. So we waited for the fire to go out then we went to bed. The whole night I could have sworn that I heard something walking around close by our camp...but every time I asked James about it he said I must be imagining it cause he didn't hear anything. Well the next morning James said that something big came into camp last night and he did hear what I was hearing he just didn't want to scare me. :p Such a nice guy. We think it was either a bear or moose. We didn't find tracks and we never saw it but both is us (even though James said he didn't :D) definitely heard that it was something big. James was getting upset cause Rosko kept barking at it so he had to zip up the windows in our tent to get him to stop. We only stayed that one night and then came back to go over to our friends house for dinner and games. James and Karen have lived in Syracuse for...I think about 6 months now and with second jobs and different schedules it's been hard to get together. Well finally we did and we got to see they're new home. The family that lived in it before them must have liked the southwest cause their whole house was in these pretty red's,brown's, and oranges. It was really very pretty. it was so good to them again. Karen cooked a very yummy dinner for everyone then the rest of the night was games, fireworks and more games. Rosko had a lot of fun playing with their dogs peanut and mac. Although mac was a little rough sometimes. :) Sunday after church was family dinner at mom and dad's and since we didn't get to light off our fireworks on the 24th we decided to do it Sunday night. I think the kids had a lot of fun picking out the fireworks that they wanted to set off . Over all it was a really great weekend. :)

P.S. The pictures of us camping was taken from James' camera phone...I forgot the camera too. :s

Sunday Thoughts

This whole month James and I have been focusing a lot on temples. It has been awhile since we have been and this month we recommitted ourselves to getting to the temple. The Lord has really blessed us with this goal and has really helped our focus on the temple increase. The beginning of this month we were able to tour the temple above. The Oquirrh Mountain Temple. It is such a beautiful temple James and I both didn't want to leave. being able to go through this beautiful temple has fueled our fire to get back to the temple. Then these past few weeks our lessons in Sunday School has been on the temples and how through them we can be with our family forever. Well this past Sunday our lesson was about the temple again and I think it helped the teachers out more then it did the kids. After church we had one more push. My visiting teacher came over and we talked about the trips we have taken to the open house. Then she talked about the lesson for this month on....Qualify for and partake of temple worship. I really loved this message and it has really helped remind me of the testimony I have of the temple and the power they have. One of the quotes she read was by President Hinckley: “Every man or woman who goes to the temple in a spirit of sincerity and faith leaves the house of the Lord a better man or woman. There is need for constant improvement in all of our lives. There is need occasionally to leave the noise and the tumult of the world and step within the walls of a sacred house of God, there to feel His spirit in an environment of holiness and peace.” James and I have committed to going to the temple tomorrow and I am so excited. We have had a really hard few years and James hasn't been able to go with me to the temple, so I am very excited to have him by my side tomorrow.

1000 favorite things

I was thinking today about the people who have affected my life for the better. As I went through my life in my head I can remember quite a few people. But one in particular stood out to me as well as something she did. After high school I had a really rough life that it seems I am still trying to overcome. To help severe some ties with a certain group of people my family huddled around me and helped me to sever those ties. My sister Kari let me live with her in Washington while I got back on my feet. While there I worked for a company called Unisource and met a good friend of mine Darla Elliot. She helped me see life in a whole new perspective. She had had some horrible things happen to her but continued to remain positive, upbeat and genuinely loved life. One of the things she told me about was her list of 1000 favorite things she said when ever she was feeling down she would read over the list and add to it. She said it was a list of blessings she can remember and things that make her happy and that she loves. Including people. I decided to start my own list and while I dont have the original anymore. I continue to start a new list if I lose an old list. I even started a list on my mission. So I would like to make a list on this website of people who have effected my life for the greater.

My mom and dad-they have put up with a lot of my nonsense over the years and I love them for standing by me.

Shelly and Nathan Riggs, Kari Earl, Nancy and Gary Peterson- There are alot that these family members have done for me that I dont think I could ever thank them enough. They almost quite literally helped me to change my life around for the good.

Darla Elliott- She helped show me that no matter how many bad things may be going on in the world you can always find the good.

Sister Kapeliela and Apple Jane Atanante- These two sisters helped me remember to keep my chin up and the harder we work the more we are blessed

Sister Defa, and Sister DelaCruz- These sisters taught me the importance of having fun while you work, and that there is beauty in myself.

Pesi- She is the one that got James to ask me out. She helped remind me to go for things I want. even if its simply a date from a guy I liked.

You Mean I Get To Sleep In?

This week was a very nice relaxing weekend. Friday after work I was able to do something I haven't been able to do in about 4 months... have a scrapbook night with Dawn. :) YAY!!! Well before I went over I had to take James and the rest of his carpool buddies home. While we were at home I got the remainder of my pictures I was waiting for so I could scrapbook them. James asked if I wanted my present on Sunday or now I told him that it was his choice. He gave me the 5th season of Inuyasha this Japanese anime that I like. Yay! The it was off to Dawn's...it took me a little longer cause traffic was horrible. but I got there in peace. :) After a quick stop to Joann's to get some scrapbook supplies (another birthday gift) and then a stop at Arby's we were ready. We watched 27 Dresses while we scrap booked and Twilight. Dawn was having a hard time focusing and I felt really bad. But she still seemed like she had a good time. I was able to get done 9 pages. Yay including completing my pictures for Christmas of 2007. On Sat James and I were able to sleep in till 10,...something we haven't been able to do in a very long time. So it was nice to catch up on some much needed sleep. Mom Armstrong wanted to take me shopping for my birthday so we met her at the mall. We got a lot done. I brought my ring in to drop off at Morgan jewelers so that I could get it re sized and mom had the chance to go to Victoria Secrets to get some lotion. They had some awesome deals and she got me a couple too. The off to the clothes. After much searching and trying on things I found some cute slacks for work, some khaki capri's for...well staying cool and then a cute dress suit for church/work. :) Overall a good find. Thanks again Mom! :) the rest of the day James helped Justin and Dad while the girls stayed inside and talked and relaxed. After we all left James and I didn't really know what to do so he called Nikki and Justin to see if they'd want to have a movie night. We love movie nights with Justin and Nikki they are so much fun. Sunday after church I was able to do a couple more scrapbook pages till I decided I just wanted to sleep :p before family dinner. Dinner was awesome. Everyone was there and we had kabobs with fresh Utah sweet corn Yum That night was also the Weber State's firework show. It was a really good show this year and always complete with music and cannon's. Overall a very good weekend. :) Thanks everyone!

P.S. The pictures aren't that great. They were taken on James' phone.

Happy Birthday

Today is my nephew Addison's birthday. Addi is currently serving a mission in Argentina and is loving every minute of it. He is one of those people with a fun loving attitude and ALWAYS looking for the next adventure. He loves the mountains and anything you can do in them from camping and 4-wheeling to snowboarding and fishing. He also loves his family very much. Addi has been serving for over a year now, it has been a little rough for him. Before he left he tore his ACL when he was snowboarding well after visiting the doctor quite a bit and having his date to enter the MTC pushed back. He finally was able to have a date set again as to when he could enter the MTC and start his mission. Then he broke his nose (snowboarding again I think if I remember correctly) but after consulting with a doctor he could still enter the MTC with a cast on his nose. Hos whole mission has been like this...he even had to return home for a month to have surgery on his leg. Everything is fine now and he is taking in as much of it as he can. :) So here's to you Addi on your big day.

HAPPY BIRTHDAY!!!

Birthday Fun.

Well to start off I have to apologize cause I did forget my camera so I don't have any pictures of this day...
Yesterday was my birthday and it was a really great day. I only had to work a half day which was VERY nice. A little after i got in the office I was greeted by Dawn who announced that she was taking me to lunch and that Maryanne, Katherine and Whitney were joining us. Then I got a call from the help desk with Maryanne and Katherine singing to me on the other end. This was really funny cause the help desk is down the hall from my office so it had this surround sound effect. It was great! Thanks guys! Then I got a call from my wonderful hubby wishing my a Happy Birthday...again. :P that one brought it up to 3. James your the best I love you so much. For lunch we went to McGraths fish house. James isn't a fan of fish and he gags when ever I cook it at home. So needless to say I don't eat fish as often as I like so this was a real treat. It was so fun going to lunch with the girls. I asked them to not tell the people at the restaurant it was my birthday because this place puts this HUGE wooden fish hat on your head, takes your picture and then sings to you...not worth it for a tiny cup of ice cream in my opinion. Well Maryanne wasn't around when I made this request and let it slip that it was my birthday. But our waitress was really great about it. She surprised us by bringing a little dish of ice cream out and she didn't make me wear the fish hat or sing...it was great. Thank Girls for a great lunch. It was TONS of fun. After lunch Dawn said she wanted some ice cream so off to dairy queen and then a nice walk around the gateway. We also got roped into one of the kiosks where this guy was trying REALLY hard to sell Dawn some skin care products. She did buy some but he was very persistent that she buy more. He even tried his best charming smile and "seductive" ways meaning he would whisper in her ear with his thick accent the great deal he would give her and the great price. Dawn's face was CLASSIC she was trying So hard not to burst out laughing. It was pretty funny. One of the deals that he gave her though was if she bought the nail car set she would get another for free. She ended up giving me the free set for my birthday. Thanks Dawn! You really didn't have to...but the selfish side of me says I am really glad you did. :p Later that day James and I met up with his family and my sister and her family to go to the Oquirrh Mountain Temple Open House. The temple is beautiful. I cant even express how pretty it was and big too. When I saw the temple pulling up it looks all cute and small but then when you go in it was so big. I couldn't believe it. Well after the temple I realized that that was as far as I had planned I didn't really think of any other activities that we could do. Oops! Well things kinda stopped right there for awhile. Before we went in the temple our little group got scattered a bit so while we waited for the rest we were trying to figure out what to do. The kids started to get a little fussy so the decided to go. After we met up with Lexi and Anna Lee we went out for dinner at...Joe's Crab Shack. I was really surprised that James let me pick this place. But he just kept saying it's your birthday. It was so much fun laughing and talking. Then Gary did the same thing that Maryanne did. But once again I lucked out the waitress brought the dessert and no singing. From what I understand I REALLY lucked out too. Nancy told me that they have you put a tiara on and give you a wand and make you dance around your table while they sing to you. NO THANK YOU! We did eat outside so it probably wouldn't have been that bad but still...no way. Overall it was a really great day and I am sorry there are no pictures. Thanks Everyone for making my day so special!!!

Movie Night!

Last night we thought it would be fun to take Gavin to a movie. He hasn't had any one on one time with us and with the two oldest in Montana with their grandma we also figured it would be a great time. Nikki was going to go with us but decided against it when her youngest was just not in a good mood. Gavin had a lot of fun. Nikki gave him his very own money to spend at the snack bar which he was very excited about. Shortly after we got to the drive in and got set up he was saying he wanted to get snacks. He picked out popcorn and a drink and was excited to pay the cashier. (my supervisor Valerie) While we ate our snacks and waited for the movie to start Gavin had fun standing on the console sticking his head out our sunroof. At one point one of the bigger planes (I don't know what kind) took off from the base and flew right over our heads. Gavin got really excited over that. The rest of the time he would point out the birds, planes and he even made a little friend and would say hi to him out the window too. It was so fun watching him. The movie was really good. James thought Gavin would have fallen asleep (as well as himself) about 45 min into the movie my guess was 30. But he sat with his blanket right on the console in between us and watched the whole thing. He LOVED it. His favorite of course was the dinosaurs...they were the whole reason we went and saw it. :) We had a great time with Gavin...Thanks Nikki for letter us take him. Next time we are going to kidnap you too. :p

Another blog

So after much thinking and debating... I have decided to start a book blog. It's nothing to fancy but I am really excited about it. It's called Love 2 Read and I wont be posting as often on that one as I do on my other 2. It does take me quite a few days to finish a book. But I look forward to any comments or idea's to better the blog. :) It's very simple right now but I will be adding to it later. Check it out. http://booklvrslounge.blogspot.com/

Blogaholic?

Okay so I need some input....I discovered with the last book that I read that I wanted to do a little more in depth of what I thought of the book without it taking up a lot of space on the side of this blog. Currently I have 2 blogs and 1 unused blog. I have my main blog this one then I have our Money Makeover blog which is only covering our journey of getting out of debt. Then I have my Mary Kay blog which I am currently not using right now but havent deleted it in hopes that I will use it again someday when I start up my Mary Kay business again. So my question is with all these blogs that I have now would it be silly of me to start another blog about books? I am thinking yes but I am unsure. What do you think?

4th of July

This 4th of July was really fun, James and I decided that we wanted to try and make it to the parade in Brigham since we missed the kids bike parade. So we headed up to Brigham City, there was car show next to the parade route so we decided to go to the car show first..There were so many nice cars there were a lot of mustangs there was even these really neat Hudson's. They had some old model T's, stingrays, old racing cars, one of my favorites the cuda and more kept showing up...it was so much fun. we tried to catch the parade but we missed it... so we decided to go get dad instead. We went back to the car show with dad and by this time a few more cars had shown up it was great. Dad kept telling us stories about his old camero and other cars he use to have. While we were there we also got to see some parachuters, one of them had the flag streaming behind him. That was really neat...I've never seen that before.After we got back from the car show Bob had shown up. So Lisa, Bob, James and I went to the park for some baseball fun. After the first few tries at trying to hit the ball I realized that I was really rusty and needed a lot more practice. the boys didn't seem to be that rusty though they were hitting almost everything, a lot of them were going over the fence too. those were not fun to run after, after awhile it got to hot running after all the balls. That's when we decided to do a home run derby. This was fun to watch I wonder if it's just a natural instinct for boys to play sports. :p By this point it was just to hot, we headed to sonic for some drinks and then back to mom and dad'sAfter we got back we didn't have a whole lot of time to relax. :) The kids where there when we got back and after just a little break from the fun Abby asked if I wanted to have a water fight...I said if it was ok with her mom and if James and Bob joined in then I would. Pretty soon we were filling up guns and handing them out. When all the guns were filled I realized that I didn't have a water gun and here came to attack. I didn't have a water gun..but I did have a hose hee hee hee. Next thing I knew it was boys against girls and the boys had a pitcher that they kept filling up. After awhile Bob noticed that James wasn't that wet so everyone except Nate teamed up to try and get him soaked. Nate had the hose by this time and was just enjoying the chance to spray everyone. We noticed poor Gavin shivering and no longer wanting to get us wet but the flowers and grass and dinner was going o be ready soon so we called it for the night. The kids seemed to have a lot of fun. After dinner I had to go to work at the drive in but I left the responsibility of the camera with James. After they ate they had some day fireworks for the kids...snaps, smoke bombs, tanks and a parachute man. James said the kids had a lot of fun with these. Nate was able to claim the little army man that came out with his paracute and Gavin and Abby enjoyed the smoke bombs and snaps.

the drive in wasn't very busy at all, the snack bar was empty and Valerie ( my supervisor) said that only a few people had come in. In the box office Stephanie and I were just talking about things we did that day. It was so boring we would have one maybe two cars every few minutes. Valerie let me leave a little early so I called James to what was going on. he said they were about to light the fireworks I asked if they could wait for me and then I drove back up to Perry. (kinda a waste of gas to drive from Perry to Riverdale just for a couple hours of work and then drive back. Katie I'm so sorry we totally could have gone to the fireworks with you guys.) Well I got back just in time we set off our fireworks and watched the neighbors set there's off as well. We have these fun ones that I think are cute, it's the egg laying hen. Gavin thought they were pretty neat to he would go and hand James another one and then go back and sit in Bob's lap clucking like a chicken. It was so cute. Abby and Nate had fun pretending they were from Hogwarts with the extra big sparklers we got. After our fireworks were done we sat on the lawn and watched Brigham City's firework show. It was a great show that everyone seemed to really enjoy. I think everyone was happy to go home to bed after wards though. :p

3 day weekend

Well quite a few things happened this weekend so I'm going to break it down into a couple post's. Well Thursday we were really excited to go to work and get through the day cause we had plans to go camping...well...that didn't really happen.I don't know if you can see it but this is looking outside of my window at work. It got very cloudy very quick then came the rain, thunder and blinding lightening. So our camping plans kinda went out the window. Friday we got quite a bit done. James and I went grocery shopping and firework shopping. :p We found out about a couple of things going on North Ogden was having their cherry days and there was a fun carnival and rodeo in Ogden we decided to go check out the cherry days...while after checking a few parks and a grocery store we couldn't figure out where it was. So we went back to Ogden to find rodeo and carnival...but they were setting up for it and it wasn't going to open for quite some time so after some thinking we thought it would be fun to go grab Rosko and just take a drive up the canyon. The trees and wildflowers are so pretty. James says he's never seen it that green or Pineview lake so high. We drove up to Snow basin to see if the wildflower gardens were in bloom they weren't but we saw tons of beautiful wildflowers along the road. We did find a cute little stream to play in for awhile. Rosko loved it as soon as he saw the water he went running right into it. :p I cant believe how much of a water dog he is. He laid down right in the middle and just laid there drinking the water. It probably tasted really yummy to him...it was from the snow on the mountain so it was extra cold. Great for a drink but not on the feet. :) We had a lot of fun playing in the water and enjoying the scenery. James and I really love it up there. After we got back I had to get ready and go to work. it was a crazy night at the movies. we sold out on our 4th screen (Up) and almost sold out on our 2nd and 3rd (Ice Age 2 and Transformers 2) over all a good day. :) here are some pictures of our drive....Enjoying the wind. :p
Pineview was so pretty and blue. We also found out dream home going down this windy road...I'll have to try and get a picture of it next time.

Exciting News.

We have some really exciting family news that we wanted to share with everyone. My parents have decided that for their 50th wedding anniversary they want to go on another mission. :D Yay! We are very excited for them. They are hoping to leave the first of Oct. so they can be back sometime around spring of 2011. So Congrats to mom and dad and we will keep you posted on where they get called to. :)