Whit and Rich

Dinner Out

noreply@blogger.com (Whitney) — Sun, 04 Aug 2013 03:12:00 +0000

We had dinner with Meme tonight. Mom, dad and Addison were going to join us but we met Meme at her room. We met all her friends along the way - Dell was a cute little old lady who grabbed Rich's hand and announced he could stand with her. I started teasing him about his girlfriend later.

The rest of the crew showed up but Addison was feeling antisocial. She wouldn't talk to Meme or her friends and most definitely wouldn't look up. Mom remarked many times that she was behaving like me at that age. I asked her if that makes it nature or nurture since Addi and I both spent the majority of our days with mom at that age. Mom just laughed.

Addison took looking at the menu very seriously although she took umbridge at me taking pictures of her (once she caught me!).

Uh oh! I've been caught!

The Berlin wall is up.

It took a bit for our food to get to the table and after collecting all of the plasticware in the middle of the table, ordered dad and Rich to put on their napkins, and drank a cup of apple juice followed by chocolate milk, she was clearly bored. She wanted to go! Once I commented on it Rich and dad, who were sitting closest to her, promptly began a conversation about ponies with her - just to entertain her. It was hilarious but they are most definitely my heroes!

Mom, Meme and I were at the other end of the table and spent the meal eating. Meme and I both ordered egg salad on rye although she went for light rye and I went for dark. We talked about the time she and GGP took me to a bakery somewhere to get rye - the first time I had it. I've loved it every since. She told me then how proud GGP was of me which I hadn't ever realized. It was nice to hear. She took it as fact which amused Rich and I!

While the rest of us were finishing dessert and Meme's friends were stopping by to say hi, Addison started dancing around like a ballerina. All of the ladies thought she should be put in dance classes.

Le Princesse insisted we all return to Meme's so we trooped down to see Rainbow/Buttercup/Poopsie the beta fish before heading home.

Kamikaze Potato

noreply@blogger.com (Whitney) — Tue, 09 Apr 2013 03:33:00 +0000

Today was one of those days when I wonder why I work and put myself through that pain. Instead of hiding in the den I threw myself into doing dishes and cleaning the counters (about time!!). I'm on one of those "being organized" kicks again so dinner was in the crockpot - I just needed to get potatoes in the oven and nuke veggies approximately 4 minutes before dinner.

So I did all of that and even prepped my breakfast and lunch for tomorrow. Totally checking item after item off my to do list. Be impressed I have a to do list this week.

I was actually enjoying myself but then it came time to pull the potatoes out of the oven. Potato number one... made it out alive. Potato number two? Might have accidentally slipped and landed on the floor. Oops. Rich, hearing my cry of despair, runs into the kitchen to see what body part I've burned this time (we will not discuss the fiery sunburn on my shoulders right now!!!). By now the offensive potato is sitting on the oven top and I'm debating whether I can just rinse it off. In theory it seemed sound but I didn't know if it was weird. Rich made the suggestion I do that and said he would eat it. Since he's kind of picky I figured it must not be weird.

OK 10 minutes later we have dinner. I'm weighing and measuring my food like a pro (I've actually lost significant weight before - I can do this!) but I keep seeing Rich dropping food onto his lap and the table. I politely don't tease him about it. Until part of his potato went flying off his fork. Stupid kamikaze potato - it did not want be eaten!

Things were quiet around the house until Rich mentioned cookies. I was wanting something sweet but only had enough points left for one cookie. So I ignored the suggestion. Only the seed was planted. Rich thought we should make cookies. I ixnayed the idea - I just cleaned the kitchen! And I could only eat one cookie. This would end in tears.

The idea wouldn't go away so I came up with a great idea! Instead of making a batch of cookies we'd go somewhere, like Paradise Bakery or Eegees, and buy one cookie each. We'd have our sugar fix and limit the damage. I know... slippery slope.

Somehow this turned into going to Subway to get 3 cookies for $1. For each of us. OK. I've made better life decisions but the white chocolate chip macadamia nut cookies? Worth every bite. Even if I am going to be working them off for the rest of the week! OK, next two weeks.

Here's to being organized - 8 pm has hit and all the chores are done, lunch is made and food prep for tomorrow night's dinner is completed. I could get used to do. Maybe I can start scrapbooking outside of General Conference weekend. Check out my creation's from this weekend!

I did a speed scrap one night where the picture(s) had to be something that makes you laugh. Ever since then I love to scrap pages with that theme and this one, from our recent trip to Disneyland, fits the bill.

Since my actual birthday party was coupled with Easter (and David's 3rd party) that'll take me longer to scrap but I thought I'd commemorate my birthday lunch with mom and Addi. Seriously my birthday takes a good 2 weeks to celebrate with all of the families. It's fantastic!

What's that on the hill?

noreply@blogger.com (Whitney) — Fri, 15 Mar 2013 04:09:00 +0000

Today we left for Alamosa, CO for the funeral for Rich's grandmother. We rode up with his entire family and did the very long drive through nowhere New Mexico in one day. We're safe in our Best Western and have had dinner with the various cousins and aunts and uncles. Here's a few highlights from our day/things I learned:

1. I wanted to geotag the photos so we could tell apart dessert NM scen3ry 1, 2, 3, etc but apparently the GPS function of the camera doesn't work in a car. Why in the world would I need that functionality now? I know I'm in Alamosa!!!

2. One of Rich's cousins, Steven, really wanted to have someone sung to while we were at Chili's for dinner so he turned around (we were at 3 tables in a row) and asked Rich if any of the Dunn's had upcoming birthdays. Rich looks at me, and in all seriousness, asks "Should I throw you under the bus?" I'm sure you're shocked that Steven heard him. So I was sung to and got some yummy ice cream we shared with the group.

3. One cannot simply drive past the retired train sitting 5 miles north of the Colorado border. Jake and Andy risked life and limb climbing into the train. Great pics but Andy almost took a nose dive off the engine. Good thing the county hospital was just done the road. He must explore every ER.

4. Alamosa is 34 miles north of the Colorado border. This is not the part of Colorado I like. I want Colorado Springs!

5. I found a cemetery for OCD people. Amongst all of the plethora of tiny cemeteries in dusty ghost (nearly) towns (to which Rich said I can bury him in the LDS cemetery in Tucson as long as I promise not to bury him somewhere like that) this one was a on a grassy hill. Every headstone was the same size and shape and were evenly spaced apparent in both rows and columns. Rich says it looks like a cemetery from a movie. I suspect mom and my sisters will be changing their requirements on where they are to be buried now that I've found it.

Countdown to the Happiest Place on Earth

noreply@blogger.com (Whitney) — Mon, 04 Mar 2013 02:28:00 +0000

If we're honest the countdown to Disneyland started in January but I've been too busy with 12 hour days to get excited. Friday night I was looking forward to a weekend without work and hanging out with Rich. I was laying on the bed when Rich, who has been much more excited than me about our trip, exclaimed "I can see Disneyland from here!!!"

I scramble over to see him staring intently at his phone! Just a few days left!

I Spy

noreply@blogger.com (Whitney) — Mon, 25 Feb 2013 04:16:00 +0000

We got together to celebrate Nikki's birthday tonight and spent a bunch of time with Addison. Once I've had time to clean up the photos I'll post about the party but for now... Addison cuteness!!

Addison was a little frustrated while we were playing kareokee and she told me she was going to Grandma's room. A little worried about what she was up to since that a bit unusual I followed her to the back of the house. She announced she didn't like singing (reading between the lines she was mad about the songs we were singing) and asked me to stay and play with her. I don't get to spend as much time with her as I'd like too so I said sure. We decided to play "I spy".

Addison is so incredibly descriptive for being young! "I spy with my little eye something blue, with a little yellow and lots of holes on the side" she chirped to me. All the while pointing at the blue with yellow handles laundry basket. So we have to work on not pointing at the object but super descriptive.

My favorite was "something red with snowflakes and Target wheels and it's red!" to describe a huge, Christmas themed bag.

I spied a cute little chickadee - love you Addi!

Have It Your Way

noreply@blogger.com (Whitney) — Mon, 11 Feb 2013 04:44:00 +0000

My dad came to my primary class in a bid to save my sanity. It's no secret that I love children and rowdy boys are not a problem for me. In my class we rarely stay sitting the whole time. We act out the scripture accounts, go on "trips" to the places in the stories, we vote with our feet and so on - all because I have an energetic group. The flip side is that while we sit on the floor for a scripture chase there are times we have to be reverent. Most of my kids get this. One of them doesn't. Yet without fail anytime I try to have a spiritual moment he disrupts and derails the class (even if I ignore him). I have tried every trick I have, prayed and talked to the Primary presidency yet 6 weeks into this year going apostate seems more palatable than having to deal with this child for one more week.

So enter in our very special guest: Brother Kaplan. The kids liked him straight away and he managed to correct sliding out of seats, burping at odd moments, yelling out of turn and the chewing of the scripture bookmark in such a way if I hadn't been hyper aware I wouldn't have realized correction was given.

Dad also has a better depth of knowledge when it comes to the gospel. I've thought I was good at making it relatable but he makes it memorable!

The lesson today was on Martin Harris loosing the 116 pages. When asking the kids why Heavenly Father told Joseph Smith "yes" the third time, dad related it to Burger King's "Have it your way" slogan. The kids just lapped it up!
This was the first Sunday in six weeks I've enjoyed church and been willing to go back! Thanks dad! The primary doesn't know what it's missing not having you in there.

But dad, if the parents start calling because their kids learned Joseph Smith frequented Burger King I'm sending them straight to you!

Possum Tales

noreply@blogger.com (Whitney) — Sun, 26 Aug 2012 05:58:00 +0000

Well I should have more to say on the trip later but here's what I've had time to write up so far...

Well a possum attacked me this week. OK, attack is perhaps a little strong. I was heading out to the fitness center when I heard something plop down in the forest like area right outside our door. I turn my head and there’s a furry critter on the ground! My first thought is ferret but then I remembered ferrets don’t have long, furless tails like rats. My second thought was a possum but as I’ve never seen one outside of a Disney cartoon I wasn’t too sure. He scampered off before I could get a better look (probably for the better!). Later I googled possums and sure enough, that’s what I saw! They look significantly meaner on google then this one did.

I may not sleep for weeks after seeing this. Seriously - they're creepy little buggers!

Who would think possums lived in California? Of course, who would think that dressing a hotel off the highway up as Hawaii and having a forest and river area inside one of the towers would make good sense. Probably the same person who imported in a possum to live in the trees.

The next morning there was this horrible, screeching, clanking noise that reverberated around your skull. Groggy as I was it took me a few minutes to realize it was the fire alarm. We all jump (or rather stumble sleepily) out of bed and start grabbing the essentials. The items that I grabbed, in the order that came to mind:

Glasses

Cell phones

Wallet

Room key

Shoes

I’m proud to say neither my ipod nor my netbook made it on the list of priorities although I would have been really upset if I’d lost them to a fire. Before we can leave the room, the phone rings. Mom stops to answer it (not sure why) and who’s call but the front desk to give us our courtesy wake up call. Because we might have slept through the screeching noise, of course… not! By the time we all got out of the room and over to the nearest exit (thank goodness we were on the first floor!) the alarm stopped. We went back to our room and waited about 7 minutes and then decided to take a shower. I’ve started the shower and am about to strip when the alarm goes off again! I ended up just washing my hair by leaning over the side of the tub like I used to do in high school and if I didn’t have enough time to shower.

At breakfast I announced I knew what set off the alarm – the possum!! Clearly the man eating possums had been chewing through the wiring. Why you ask? Why to lure us humans out of our rooms – hello – man eating possums!

That night I was texting Rich. I tell Rich that I could talk to him but I’d have to go out to the porch (mom and dad were sleeping) and that I was so exhausted I’d probably fall asleep and freeze and then the possums would get me!!! He texts me back and tells me not to worry, he’s got it on good authority possums don’t like frozen food. LoL. Guess I’ll be safe after all.

P.S.

After the banquet tonight dad had me stop to show him where the possum fell. There is so an indent in the ground! I think he’s a little skeptical about possums in California but I swear it was there!

Picture Time!

noreply@blogger.com (Whitney) — Thu, 19 Jul 2012 01:55:00 +0000

Well I had intentions to catch up on the blog tonight but I managed to burn my fingers today (short but embarrassing story) and 5.5 hours later if I take my fingers off the ice for more than 30 seconds it burns nearly unbearably!

So here's a teaser of my scrapbook pages of recent events - we'll do funny stories when I can type again...

Here's the link to the Fourth of July web album - if you don't have permissions ping me!

I Canz Spell!

noreply@blogger.com (Whitney) — Mon, 09 Jul 2012 01:34:00 +0000

Found at Nikki's house:

I'm so proud! LoL.

Brent's Brithday

noreply@blogger.com (Whitney) — Mon, 09 Jul 2012 01:33:00 +0000

June 23, 2012

Tonight we celebrated Brent's birthday at Nikki's house (Nikki's Brent obviously!). It was a low key affair but fun. Nikki made a German chocolate cake and all the family came over.

Addison wasn't being very cooperative about pictures:

The party goers hanging out in the backyard:

Too cute!!

Happy Birthday Brent!

4DX Coaching

noreply@blogger.com (Whitney) — Mon, 09 Jul 2012 01:27:00 +0000

June 19-21, 2012

This year I volunteered to be a coach for the Four Disciplines of Execution (4DX) program from Franklin Covey which we use at work for goals. It's a great program but frankly, I didn't want to do it. My manager, at the time, talked me into signing up because it would be good to develop my leadership skills. Whew - it has already!!! This week was the big leader launch - starting Monday afternoon I was busy from about 8 am to anywhere from 7 - 9 pm at night for this. The first full day, the entire leadership team was introduced to the "Partners in Leadership" program from the company which produced the Oz Principle.

It's a really interesting program all about getting different results. I can see lots of applications for it outside of work. What's really stuck with me is the saying they started out with - "you are 100% perfectly aligned with the results you get today." It seems simple - if you want a cleaner house, more money, or to lose weight - you've got to do something different than what you're doing now. Yet, it's hard to get there. So the program is all about changing your experiences which will change your beliefs - because those are what drive your actions and eventually your results.

One of the trainers is from Georgia and he talked about how awful the mud is and how you don't want it in your house. So there's a family rule that when you come in from the garage you have to take off your shoes. Only in their house there's stairs right there and his girls were always leaving their shoes on the stairwell. No matter how many different attempts were made, in different ways and moods - the shoes always got scattered on the stairs and people kept tripping on them.

Finally, his wife and he decided they need to change the experience their daughters were having. Their belief was that they didn't need to put away their shoes because what did it matter? It was never enforced! So a rule was made that the shoes had to be put away or they lost the shoes. 3 weeks later when his eldest daughter had to go to school, in the snow, wearing sandals one size too small because she'd lost all of her other shoes the beliefs changed and they haven't had problems since then.

The week was really draining but a great experience. I had dinner with the CEO a couple of times, various directors and got to know the Sales VP pretty well. This is just the beginning of my responsibilities for the rest of the year but I'm glad that week is over! Developing the goals and lead measures are exhausting!

No pictures this week - it seemed weird to pull out my Ipod or camera or grab a shot.

Father's Day!

noreply@blogger.com (Whitney) — Mon, 09 Jul 2012 01:15:00 +0000

June 17, 2012

We spent time with both families for Father's Day and had a great time. Here's a few of my favorite pictures (scrapbook pages to follow... sometime in the next 6 months!):

Dave was really confused about why the cupcakes had straws in them until Nikki pointed out they were supposed to look like juice boxes - too cute!!

Dad testing out his new toy from Alei - a yonana!

I managed to get all of the grandkids (who were there*) outside for a picture. This was a feat! By the time they were all out there Addi was ready to go inside so Dad had to hold her. Then we had to get shortie to actually look at the camera...

*Chase was at Philmont and Andy had already gone home.

Cabo Baby!

noreply@blogger.com (Whitney) — Mon, 09 Jul 2012 01:06:00 +0000

June 13, 2012

Every June Sunquest has the annual awards ceremony which spans 3 continents, multiple time zones and it's all live. This year it was held at the Reid Park Doubletree and I got there a little early to grab breakfast. None of my coworkers were there at the time so I sat with some of the people I worked with on the ICU team. The directors and executives were wandering around so I talked to some of them. A number of awards are given out each year - most of them go to the Sales' teams. The rest are usually given for leadership and contribution to the company. Most of those remaining awards are a dollar amount given to a charity on behalf of the recipient. Then there are the Circle of Excellence awards. These recipients, in addition to the Sales' awards, are normally sent to a tropical location for a leadership summit (read: bask in the sun and drink...).

This year, the awards were given out based on the values the executives are rolling out this fiscal year - Seek It, Break Boundaries, Think Solution, Stand Tall and one other... I think Drive it? Anyway...

Much to my surprise, I received the second "Seek it" Circle of Excellence Award!!! Usually 1-2 are given for each category. My manager was recently let go so without him around I figured no one on my team would receive an award. My coworker Wade Oliver also received the COE award.

All I could do was text Rich "We're going to Cabo baby!". Oh yeah, Cabo San Lucas is our destination this October. We're going to a great all inclusive resort. I'm a little nervous because all of the executives come but over the last month I've spent more time than I would have expected with a number of the executives - they're not as scary as I thought. When I think about it I'm still surprised I received the award - it's a big honor! It's nice to be appreciated for all of my work.

Rich and I decided to celebrate by ordering Pei Wei for dinner and I loved my fortune cookie - so accurate... if a little late ;-)

P.S.
This is where we're staying... Peublo Bonito Pacifica Resort and Spa

Happy Birthday Rich!

noreply@blogger.com (Whitney) — Wed, 04 Jul 2012 21:32:00 +0000

We celebrated Rich's birthday at my parent's playing Wii games and we have a BBQ. We made the Ultimate Hamburgers which everyone loved.

Then it was time for cake! Here's Rich seeing the cake for the first time

Dave decided to get in on the action - I think he was feeling a little left out.

See?? Look at all that attention he cries out for!

Happy 31st Love!!

Surprise number 3 for Rich - I got his Dr. Who Van Gogh framed. I got it for him 2 Christmas's ago and we keep forgetting to frame it. I decided now was the time.

Everyone loved the cake - it was so delicious! Dave said "It was surprisingly good - put it away before I eat more!" LoL. High praise indeed.

After cake and presents was time for kareokee.

It was a great time - and we still have cake left over (I think I've gained 10 lbs from that stupid cake!).

Birthday Preparations

noreply@blogger.com (Whitney) — Wed, 04 Jul 2012 20:46:00 +0000

Rich got a long brithday - we had steaks on his actual birthday at home, a birthday party with my family the weekend before and the party with Emilee at his parent's the weekend after. We also went out to eat on Friday since we hadn't been out in a while.

Rich's birthday party took awhile to prepare for and, since he's clever and always guesses what I'm up to, I had to do it while he was at work. Luckily I have afternoons off with my split schedule so I was able to do a lot of it while he was at work. I finished up my preparations on Saturday so he was banned from the kitchen and the backyard at various times.

The first surprise was his cake - the TARDIS from Dr. Who! The details on how I made it are here This beauty was a labor of love and ended up super heavy!. And delicious. The image wasn't ideal for a transfer (too many small lines) but lesson learned - the next one will be awesome!

Sadly, despite all my precautions, the picture of the TARDIS was at the bottom of the papers we were using for Scouts that week and Rich saw it. So while he didn't suspect the TARDIS he knew the cake was Dr. Who related!! Darn.

My second surprise was new t-shirts. Rich always has t-shirts he wants but they're never quite big enough so I decided to use a technique I found on two different blogs to use bleach to make a one-up mushroom shirt and a Zelda triforce shirt. I followed the instruction from Six Sisters Stuff which uses a spray bottle of bleach but I think if I do this again I'd use the bleach stick technique.

First I had to print out the image I wanted to put on the shirt. Our printer decided to not cooperate so I kicked Rich out of the den and traced out images on the monitor (thank goodness it's an old one!). Then I kicked him back into the den and out of the kitchen so I could trace the images onto freezer paper. I cut these out and arranged them shiny side down on the t-shirts so I could use the iron to make them temporarily adhere.

I had to hurry to get this done while Rich was out running errands. I NEVER iron and I was biting my nails the whole time hoping he didn't come back because I knew he'd start to suspect if he saw the iron out (remember - he's tricky and I can NEVER sneak surprises past him).

Once the freezer paper was staying still I slipped cardboard inside the shirt and took them to the backyard. I took my spray bottle and sprayed away! I think I sprayed too much on the blue shirt because it wasn't showing up as much at first. Be patient! It will!

I think the mushroom came out best but next time I would spray bleach more evenly over all of the shirt so more than just the top half was affected - this would make it more even. If you don't want little spatters then use a bleach stick and trace it out.

My favorite part of this surprise was that I'd told Rich I had to buy a spray bottle to put bleach in for cleaning. When he asked me how I made the shirts and I told him I used bleach he said "OK". Then a few days later I pulled out the bottle to disinfect something and I said "Good thing I bought this bottle after all". He was totally surprised and admitted he hadn't clued in at all on what I was doing. One surprise worked!!

My third surprise...? Well, I'll show you when we get to his actual birthday party.

Play Date with Addison

noreply@blogger.com (Whitney) — Sun, 17 Jun 2012 03:50:00 +0000

June 8, 2012

My plan for today was, once I got out of work at noon, to work on Rich's birthday cake. I needed some supplies so mom and I went out shopping. Addison had fun at first but started to rapidly melt down to the point, in Target, she started crying desperately "I want a nap!! I want a nap!!". Mom needed to meet Alei so I offered to take Addison back to my house for a nap. She was thrilled.

In the fashion of a true toddler, she laid on the coach waiting Netflix for her nap. She loved my quilt and snuggled up to it. Then demanded a snack so I cut up an apple with some Goldfish. While she was resting I was in the kitchen baking the first layer of the cake, starting the dough for whole wheat pitas and doing some cleaning.

Once Addi was "awake", we played with my blocks with "Spring" painted on them (she's been begging to play with them since I bought the blocks).

We also pulled out the musical instruments that I had left over from a work conference and rocked our hearts out. You haven't lived until you've heard "I Am a Child of God" accompanied with maracas!

We rounded out the day baking the second layer out the cake. She even cracked the eggs!

Moral of the story? Buy more blocks - 6 blocks just don't cut it.

P.S. A post all about Rich's cake, with the much asked about questions, is coming soon...

Girlfriends

noreply@blogger.com (Whitney) — Sun, 17 Jun 2012 03:35:00 +0000

June 7, 2012

I went with mom to pick up Bella from day camp. Addison was nearly bursting from her joy in getting to see Bella. As soon as we got off the playground and were heading outside, Addi grabbed Bella's hand and they ran along. She'd been terrified of coming down the stairs and mom had been lamenting how much Addison was scared of the stairs but the bravery imbued by Bella's presence she ran right up.

Too cute!

Play Date with Bella

noreply@blogger.com (Whitney) — Sun, 17 Jun 2012 03:30:00 +0000

Tuesday I picked up Bella from day camp and brought her back to my house. She gave me a great excuse to not work on the kitchen reorg I've been starting (oh twist my arm!) and I learned about the ummm... joy... not terror, not at all, of My Little Pony (Netflix you have much to answer for!).

Our big activity for the afternoon was making puppets. Bella really wanted to make a parrot puppet so we pulled out my ipod so the great Google could give us picture ideas of parrots. She got frustrated and moved on to coloring (my tablecloth will never be the same!!) but I finished the puppet for her as well as one for myself. The part even had a tail - I didn't know I could be that talented with paper crafts.

Bella was over for dinner so we had the Skinnytaste Baked Macaroni and Cheese. When Dave got there he was surprised that she ate dinner without complaint - she had a large helping of the pasta and even a decent sized salad. Dave dived into the macaroni too and his response was that it was surprisingly good. I love the recipe - I make a few changes to it which I'll post on the food blog.

Pool Party Take... 6?

noreply@blogger.com (Whitney) — Wed, 13 Jun 2012 03:26:00 +0000

June 2, 2012

We got invited to Dave's house for a goodbye swim party for Noah and Ethan. I captured something on camera I haven't seen since I was 5 or 6 (and only barely remember) - a rare sighting of Dave pool side (with the intent to get in the pool)...

OK... maybe not the intent. I don't think he actually got in. But he was closer than I remember seeing him in about 2 decades.

Like the glower?

Yep, that's my brother poolside - clearly having the time of his life ;-)

Scrap Day

noreply@blogger.com (Whitney) — Sun, 03 Jun 2012 05:00:00 +0000

June 2, 2012

My goal today was to get some time in to scrapbook. The split schedule at work has been great because the house is cleaner, I'm cooking more from scratch (for which PCOS thanks me) and I'm spending more time with the family. The cost is that the time at night I normally scrapbook is being taken up by work. Between that and the extra hours I was putting in to get our year end project done I haven't had much time for me. So today I was going to plan the week's meals, shop and do laundry. Maybe swim. Then I was going to spend some time scrapping.

I've been struggling with the Walt Disney World scrapbook because it's just such a big project! So to defer that project a bit longer I turned to working with Bryce's graduation pictures. Do you know how hard it is to put together elegant pages for a boy? I actually just got a kit (the first one I've gotten which wasn't a freebie) called "Geek Boy" but it was too playful for a solemn rite of passage. Streaming through the hundreds of embellishments in my folders there were beautiful, elegant and refined options but they were all flowers and pearls and buttons - just kind of girly.

Once I got through the first page I felt they could be a little more relaxed and the rest flowed. Enjoy my teaser page!

Teach them young...

noreply@blogger.com (Whitney) — Sat, 02 Jun 2012 05:12:00 +0000

June 1, 2012

That sewing is awesome!! Addison wasn't thrilled about going to Joann's today so I tried to entertain her.

While mom browsed we touched fabrics of different textures. She loved the sheep fabric but I think the fleece was her favorite.

She announced she was going to take a nap on it.

We let her bring in her My Little Pony which, since she didn't have a name for it, I declared was Epona (from Legend of Zelda for those of you out of the loop). For a while Addison referred to her toy as Epona so my wok here is done.

This photo is hard to see but while mom asked my opinion Addison got bored and she started working Epona up into a bolt of green fleece so the pony could take a nap (seeing a theme??).

Addison was adamant that we had to leave Epona there to sleep so while she and I walked on mom stopped to fish the pink pony out. This girl is one smart cookie - she suspected what we were doing and started calling to Gramma to leave Epona alone! I reassured her that Gramma was looking at more fabric and she would leave Epona there **wink, wink**

I stopped to look at the pattern books and Addi really wanted to look at her own so I passed her a book. She was very serious about flipping through the pages. Until she ripped one...

Oops!!

About then Addison started to panic that Epona was gone. We had to go back for Epona. So as we walked across the store I started telling her that I bet the pony had woken up and was wondering the store trying to find us. The entire time my hand was open behind my back while mom fished the toy out of her pocket and placed it there.

"Do you hear neighing?"

"What?" Addison started looking around.

"I think I can hear Epona!" **slips horse into my purse** "Hey my purse is wiggling - what's going on?... Looks it's Epona!!"

Addison was thrilled. We just won't speak about how the horse appeared there.

And that dear readers, means I am caught up on the picture of the day blogs. I will strive from now on to be no more than one week off.

...

Really I will!!!

...

Stop giving me those looks!

Letter of the Week: O

noreply@blogger.com (Whitney) — Sat, 02 Jun 2012 05:00:00 +0000

May 29, 2012

Saw this in the kitchen while dropping off my lunch in the fridge at work. It may not be Cake Boss quality but I'm still pretty impressed.

May 30, 2012

All I have to say is yes, I want an orange kitchen please!!

Especially this bowl!

June 1, 2012

Bottle war!! I think the Orange wins... or at least had the best sneak attacks. And it does start with the letter of the week.

Memorial Day

noreply@blogger.com (Whitney) — Sat, 02 Jun 2012 04:54:00 +0000

May 28, 2012

3 of my 4 grandparents are veterans of WWII. Grandpa Bill was in the Air Force, Grandpa Kaplan in the army and Gram in the Marines. I spent some time today reflecting on how blessed I am to have come from such honorable people who were willing to sacrifice and fight for my freedom AND that they came home. I need not mourn them on Memorial Day but celebrate them on Veterans Day.

It's not a national summer holiday without a BBQ though. A last minute swimming party was arranged at Dave's so Rich went to his family's house without me. If I can get the pictures off his phone from him at some point I'll share those. For now you'll have to accept my pictures.

For the BBQ at mom and dad's we had chicken, hot dogs and the Best Hamburgers Ever. No seriously, that's their name according to the blog I got them off of. The recipe will be up soon on our recipe blog with the minor modifications we made to get the hamburgers to hold together better. I also brought over Portuguese Sweet Rolls I'd made the day before for buns for our dinner. Google swears these are the best hamburger rolls if you don't go with the white bread buns you buy at the store.

For dessert, I made Red, White and Blueberry mini cheesecakes from Skinnytaste. Sooo good! I wasn't sure if one batch was enough so we also brought the fixings for root beer floats. I didn't consider that some of my sisters have problems with dairy... whoops!! But I love you Nikki :)

All in all, a successful cooking weekend. Which is yet another perk of my split day schedule - I have to time to cook and bake like I enjoy. Rich is hoping my manager will let me keep this schedule more long term.

Hat's Off to the Grad

noreply@blogger.com (Whitney) — Sat, 02 Jun 2012 04:42:00 +0000

May 26, 2012

As Anna used to say about me all the time, **sniff**, my baby's all grown up and savin' China! OK, so maybe I'm not Mushu and Bryce isn't quite saving countries but he did graduate from high school.

He did a great job giving the welcome speech - I was very impressed. The ceremony was long but unlike Andy's I was expecting this since his graduating class was about the same size as mine (23) and I knew each grad would have a student speak about them. My estimate was off by an hour though - I think the teachers talked more! It was still a lovely ceremony and I'm proud of Bryce for his hardwork. He's going off to NAU in the fall which I find fitting because during the processional, with his mustache and the cap, for just a second he looked like my friend Chris who went to NAU.

Bryce told a story about the summer before his freshmen year when he was doing summer school at ACPA. It was my first summer teaching and he was doing an English class with me. Often I left him doing independent work while I worked with my math students and he managed to get himself in some trouble with Mr. Mendoza. The story made me chuckle. He's grown up so much since then. AND he even patiently waited for us to take pictures of him before taking off with his friends.

Here are just a few of my favorite pictures from that night:

A hug from Mr. Rainey just after receiving his diploma.

Manly hug with Papa

That's one to frame!

The siblings. How dare they look at their mother's camera and not at me - what were they thinking???

The Miller family

Posing with the Dunn's

All hail the Grad!

(Soo not what we'd actually been doing but we'll let him believe he's that cool). I'm sparing you the bunny ears photo although that may be my favorite.

Seri - anxiously awaiting her turn!

Congrats Bryce!!

Doggy Door Peek -A-Boo

noreply@blogger.com (Whitney) — Sat, 02 Jun 2012 04:27:00 +0000

May 25, 2012

Since my split schedule is allowing me the luxury of afternoons off and not having to go into work on Fridays (after a couple of morning conference calls) I went to mom and dad's for lunch. We picked up Eegees - my favorite! I was also lucky enough to see Bella who was spending the day at mom's since she's out of school. Addison was home with Brent but she came over while we ate lunch to see Bella.

Addi wanted to play outside so she was going in and out, in and out of the doggie door and I managed to capture her doing it.

After she saw me do it, she started stopped and posing for more shots. The first one was the cutest though.

Not to be outdone, Bella also posed for me but sadly all I had was my ipod which came out a little fuzzy. You can't miss the beautiful smile though!