Dodger Memoir

Our sweet little kitty passed away recently. I know that a lot of people will argue the sweet part. But even though he didn't like people a whole lot, we know that he loved us. He would cuddle up with us and always talk to us and seek out our attention. Our dodger cat became ours in a funny little twist. While James made his first visit to Monticello to ask my dad the big question and to meet the rest of my family. We also discovered that one of the barn cats had a small litter of kittens. of these 3 cute little kittens Dodger was one. We oh and ah and cuddled with the new kittens not thinking much of it till about a month later when we were down in Monticello again. This brave little kitten now a lot bigger strolled right up to us and cried till we picked him up. Then he cuddled right into our arms. we ended up taking that kitty home. James did it cause he thought I wanted the kitten and I did it cause I thought James wanted him. Either way we had him. We picked Dodger for a couple reasons. First it fit, and second cause after he got out of the house the first time and we were certain of never seeing him again, but he came back. I made a joke about him dodging danger and it kinda stuck. Dodger was our little kitty, but he still had a little wild in him. After all he was a "Monticello Cougar" as James liked to call him. Dodger liked to spend most of his time out doors, we thought that after he got fixed that this would change but it didn't. We would see him more often but that was pretty much it. He would cry to get outside and cry to be let in again. He would only spend a few hours to a day eating and sleeping before he would want back out again. After getting his tail pulled on by our nephew he never really liked kids much after that. Except my friend Karen's little girl. He was a no-nonsense cat who told you what he wanted and when he wanted it. If you were getting on your nerves he would only give you one warning before he wouldn't take it anymore. He loved Rosko and tolerated Toto. He did love James and I and we were the few that he would curl up with and take a cat nap. We love our little kitty and will miss him.

March 17, 2011

HAPPY ST. PATRICKS DAY EVERYONE!

March Birthdays

March 6:
This is Josh. He is our miracle baby on my side of the family. My sister and her husband waited years (and I mean years) for him to come along and sure enough while I was on my mission my sister sent me a letter telling me she was pregnant. Josh is true blue through and through B-O-Y. he loves to help his dad work, whatever his dad is doing. Josh is right beside him. He loves all things boy, Big trucks, 4-wheelers, dinosaurs, mud, etc. But he is also a loving little guy with a quick smile and hug. Josh is a sweet little guy and I'm happy to be his aunt.

HAPPY BIRTHDAY!!!!

March 7:

My sister in law celebrated her birthday on this day. Lisa is an avid reader that can put a lot of people to shame. She's the first person that I have seen and been in the same company with who can start and finish a book in one sitting. Lisa loves her family and spending time with them. She loves playing with the "kiddos" and looks forward to game time every Sunday dinner. Hope you had a great day! :)

HAPPY BIRTHDAY!!!!

March 10:

This is my niece Alexis...Lexi for short, and today's her birthday! :) Hooray! Lexi is a fun and outgoing girl who loves making new friends and hanging out with old friends as well. She is spunky and fun to be around. When you're with her you cant stop laughing and having fun. Lexi is the oldest girl in a family of boys. Her mom would always tease her and tell her that Lexi is her favorite daughter. :) Some also very exciting news about Lexi is she is going to be graduating with her Bachelors in MAY! YAY! What an awesome accomplishment. So here's to you Lexi on your big day.

HAPPY BIRTHDAY!!!!

Presidents day, Birthdays, Updates.

*WARNING* This post might be boring. :p

For James birthday I was going to surprise him by taking him to IHOP for breakfast, but due to a rather lengthy game of Mario brothers (one of his presents I got him) the night before we didn't wake up till about 11:00. So we decided on lunch instead. :p We called Mom A. cause she wanted to take James shopping for clothes for his birthday. We met up at Savers where James found some pants he liked. Then went to JcPenny where he found a whole outfit he liked. :) Then Mom and Dad A. surprised us by treating us to lunch. It was so much fun spending the day with them. After lunch/dinner, James and I ran some errands and then played the Jungle book game (what you wanna do, I dunno what you want to do) to decided on what to do next. We didn't really have money for what we wanted to do...either that or what we wanted to do was closed. So we headed out to Mom and Dad's house for a movie night. Mom recommended Prince of Persia. It was a really good movie and an overall great day.

For Presidents day we wanted to get out of the house and have a fun date day. We have heard a lot about the new exhibit on temple square. They have a small replica of the temple inside and out. i got to see it awhile ago after I dropped one of the work cars off for maintenance and had to walk back to the college. I stopped in to take a look. But James hadn't seen it yet so what a great chance. So we headed into Salt Lake and really made a fun afternoon of it. We stopped at the Joseph Smith memorial building so I could get some stuff at the distribution center then we headed over to the South East visitors center . The whole visitors center has changed since last time I was there. It was fun to read about the pioneers and the many wonderful and miraculous stories about the sacrifices they made to build the temple and then we went and looked at the model. It was so neat to take the time to really look at it. We got to talk with one of the sister missionaries and she told us that they call it God's doll house, It really looked like it to.

My sister and her husband met us there, and they went with us to the Church history Museum. I never even knew this museum existed till last fall when my friend Dawn took me there. I always love the wonderful spirit that I feel when learning more about the prophet Joseph Smith and the wonderful pioneers who sacrificed all for the Lord. We had a wonderful time reading the stories and immersing ourselves in the history.

A replica of a wagon that crossed the plainsThe actual death masks of the Prophet Joseph Smith and his brother Hyrum Smith. It was hard for me to pull away from this. I love how peaceful and serene the Prophets face looks This is the wedding dress of the great,great,great grandmother of one of the missionaries that works at the museum. I thought that was so cool.

We really had a great time. After the museum we said good bye to Kari and David and headed up to Layton to spend the Red Lobster gift card that James got for Christmas from his work. We had a really great day. It's nice to get a date night with James ever now and then, and what a great chance to relax right before midterms. :)

Valentines Day

Well I wanted to share what we did on Valentines day. Since it was on a Monday this year James and I decided to celebrate on Saturday the 12th. We don't have a whole lot of money this year so we decided to make each other presents. Most of the morning was doing homework cleaning and me being exiled into the computer room at Mom and Dad's (A.) house so James could make his Valentines gift. Everything took a lot longer than we thought so by the time we got home it was well after 9:00. So we exchanged gifts and then cuddled together on the couch and watched Penelope (If you haven't seen this movie you really need to. Its such a good movie). I gave James a 20 page short version of our life together so far through pictures. The great thing about it is I got this promotion from Shutterfly to get this book hardbound for Free. All I had to pay for was shipping. I was really excited and I think he really enjoyed it. Then he gave me his gift...a two tiered Ghiradellis dark chocolate Fudge cake...without the cake.

Yup that's right this whole thing is FUDGE! I snapped this picture after we already started to eat it. But he decorated it himself (Mom helped with the flowers) and said he had a lot of fun making it. Because I smelt chocolate while I was in the computer room Mom made brownies to go with dinner to cover the evidence. have to say it worked. :p Sunday I decided to make cupcakes to take into work. They were a lot of fun to make. Monday I wasn't really planning anything fun...maybe some laundry, and just clean the house up. But my friend Karen called and said she was going to surprise her hubby and take dinner to him and asked if I wanted to go. Karen is a good friend of mine and we spend at least 1 day a week hanging out. Her husband and James work together so I thought that would be way fun. So we made enchiladas and I brought more of the cupcakes and we went on out to surprise them. James though I was going to embarrass him the way another co-workers wife embarrassed him by doing a candle lit dinner thingy at work. I let him fret about it but in the end it was just the four of having dinner together...well 5 including Karen's cute little girl. Over all it was a great weekend. :0) Hope everyone had a great Valentines day!

February Birthdays

Feb 6 These cute little twin girls got to celebrate a birthday this month. Becca (left) Lizze (right) are super fun and spunky little girls. Becca is rough and tumble get right in your face and Lizze is more shy and reserved but once she warms up to you she'll cuddle and chatter all the time.



HAPPY BIRTHDAY!!!!

Feb 19

This day is was my wonderful hubbys birthday. James really is wonderful. he has such a big heart and cares for all he comes in contact with. He likes to find common ground and make friends with those he's around. He has big dreams and goals that he works hard to achieve. James loves martial arts, camping, hanging out with friends and family and just doing things. to the simpleist thing as tacking a nice relaxing drive up into the mountains to the extreme of going on a 2 week vacation to California with his family. He loves to be apart of it all. :)

HAPPY BIRTHDAY!!!!

Feb 24

My sister in law Nikki's birthday is this month. Nikki is one of my utmost favorite peolpe EVER! I have learned so much from her and really cherish the relationship we have. She's a wonderful mother to 1 girl and 3 (soon to be 5) boys. She loves to writeand is working otwards her Bachelors degree in English. She loves spending time with her kids...pretty much doing anything with them. Shes a wonderful wife and mother.

HAPPY BIRTHDAY!!!!

Winner

I would like to thank everyone for your participation and support. This was a very successful year and I feel like we really were able to help spread a little more awareness. This is my 2nd year doing these little contest to help spread CHD awareness and you can pretty much guarantee that as long as I have this blog I will be continuing to spread awareness throughout the year and doing something special every February. Suggestions,comments and questions are ALWAYS welcome. Now to the moment that has you biting your nails, sweating profusely and screaming at me to just announce the winner and stop blabbing. :)

Well ok. How I chose the winner is I assigned each one of you a number then went to random.org and entered in the numbers then the computer randomly selects a number. I am so grateful to all of you for your help and support that I wish I had prizes for all of you...maybe something to think about next time. Well the winner according to random.org is....Number 1 and that is....

KARI NITZEL!!!!!

Congratulations Kari.

Again a big THANK YOU! to everyone who participated and helped make this a special and successful awareness week.

Day of Heart #14

I wanted to share a few websites that I have been searching and getting information about CHD awareness.

Congenitalheartdefects.com

tchin.org

A Day of Hearts

Perfect Broken Hearts

National Heart,Lung and Blood Institute.gov

Health.Utah.gov

Americanheart.org

Please give them a look to learn more about CHD.

Day of Heart # 13 Celebrity Spotlight

Dont forget to enter for you chance to win this beautiful necklace. All you need to do is help spread CHD awareness. See THIS post for more information. Remember you only have till midnight tonight to enter. I will be announcing the winnre tomorrow.
A lot of you may have heard of the Award winning pianist and musician Paul Cardall but did you know, Paul Cardall was born with a serious Congenital Heart Defect. Putting his faith in God and his Redeemer is what carried he and his family Through numerous open heart surgeries...including a heart transplant. HIm like many others are thriving and kicking CHD in the butt. :)

Day of Heart #12

Well another week gone and another prize to give away. Again I want to say Thank You to all for your participation. Well without further ado. I would like to announce the winner of the watch which is this weeks giveaway. And the winner is.......

Erin Cherry!

Congratulations Erin I will get the watch sent to you as soon as you can.

Don't forget everyone to enter for your chance to win the sterling silver and diamond necklace.