valentines day update

ALENTINE'S DAY!
how i hated valentines day while i was single...candy and cookies to make you fat and a real sense of loneliness that you didn't have a date. being married on valentines day is the bestest! specially when you happen to not work and your husband doesnt' work either!

the bad part to all this is that i am my father when it comes to gifts creativity and tasks! sorry dad but it's not a complement! i totally stink at thinking of creative things. i'd rather have danny shop with me for me to get him a gift so then i'll know that he'll like it or i'm so excited that i got a present, that i'll want to give it to him right now. i show my love with hugs and kissess and telling danny that i love him like a hundred times a day...ok maybe not a hundred but diffenetly at least 3 texts throughout the day (that's just text messages, not verbal). the worst part about all this is that danny show's his love with tasks and gifts. he'll clean the house or buy me a book to read, or be super creative. so to sum up our languages of love, i'm touchy and verbally lovey, and danny is gifts and tasks....i'd like tons of loving, and danny'd like visual expresions of love like gifts, cards, or tasks. this means that i stink at showing my love to danny!

i search the internet for ideas of gifts or ask my mom what i should do. something cheap...is my mom's suggustion. so what to do! i was kindof proud of myself! i went to the store on valentines day (while danny was at work) and i bought a music card, wrote sweet words on it, and then made betty crocker sugar cookies with frosting bc i know how much danny loves cookies (not homemade bc i was running out of time). i also got a cheap movie (don't worry danny knows how much i got it for). it was Footloose (filmed in payson, utah, Danny's hometown and my new hometown!)

danny got me 3 roses, representing our 3 valentines together. one yellow, for when we were just starting to date (which he brought me a yellow rose that first valentines day as well,) and then 2 red roses for last year and this year. he also gave me a big chocolate kiss and balloons. he then banged on the door and had me open it to see the surprise while danny was hidding. he also wrote a great love letter which totally means a lot due to the fact that i like hearing how much he likes me!(told ya danny was much more of a thinker inregards to gifts.)

then we made sushi and wontons, which we've done before. i, however, made it with the wrong rice and the rice didnt' stick and the sushi was very messy...but it was good and fun!

then we decided to go to the place that we had gone to the first valentine's we spent together. pudding on rice. it is located in provo and serves rice pudding of all different flavors. i think last time i got 1/2 almaratto and 1/2 rum (i think). so we drove up there (20 min drive) and it was closed! like permamently closed. like it closed down. so so sad. then we decide to go to a place by our old apartment which had italian ice! yum! don't worry, this place was closed down too! darn economy! we ended up going to A&W and got rootbeer floats.

the rest of the night does not need to be written.

on another fun day, we went to jamie and ashley (my bro in law and sis in law) house. they live in spring city (by manti). along with us there was my other bro in law and sis in law-aubrey and nathan, our good friend Rick, and ashley's bro and sis in law- brye and adam and my other sister in law Bailey. we made indian/curry food! it was so fun! i happened to make (by volunteer) a cocunut chicken curry with rice, a veggie cocunut cury with rice, naan bread, and the best ever chocolate cake, plus we brought ice cream. jamie and aubrey made more authentic indian food which was super good...i don't remember the names of them--samosos and then...a ciniman curry rice. long story short i had a blast and it was so fun and i think we need to start making it a tradition. next month possibly mexian/argentine meals. i also was pretty excited for myself that i made this all and didn't get too stressed out!

this is becoming a long post!

along with all that has happened this past week--
-i started school on tues--my last semester!
-danny sanded half of the front room's floor--there is wood dust/sawdust EVERYWHERE--but

The picture looks a little fuzzy because of all the dust! Everything is covered.

the good new's is that we are getting closer to being done!
-i'm starting my intern this semester and i think the nurse i'm following works nights..ek
-danny and i are still in bagpipe band and our next event is for st patricks day--march 14th (a sat)
-my birthday is 12 day's away--i'll be 25
-my graduation is june 6th at teh provo tabernacle
-i have been 5 day's with out caffienee...i decided that i can drink it every once in a while--but the bad headaches had to go when i withdrawaled. my next goal is to not buy soda period! wish me luck

well i'll just end saying that i don't feel bad if you didn't read this all. sorry there is no pic...i'll past the ones for our v-day sushi party. tootles!

living in a small-er town

payson, utah-- danny says it's grown tons since he was a boy but i think it's still small. here are examples to living in a small town in utah:

1. on fast and testimony sunday-- the older people in the ward let us know who's alive and who's not doing so well. they talk about people i've never heard of. i'll look at danny and he'll shake his head in awknowledgment to whatever the man is saying. when he realizes that i'm lookin at him he'll tell me that it's the sheirf son or the old stake president.

2. when i go to walmart (yes walmart is the "biggest" store around) i see people with weird mustaches, the kind that go down to their chin, and they wear tight clothes with plaid shirts on and boots. the girls have their hair so high off their head! teasing your hair is a sport down here!

3. i tell people that i live in the old Letham house. it's the family who use to live in our house. everyone knows who they are. they seem cool...Ben was the patriach in the ward and Barbra sang in the tabernacle choir. everyone has had either piano or voice lessons from Barbra. one person giving a talk in church was talking about having lessons at the Lethams house.

4. we'll be at smiths and danny will see people he knows (which probably isn't so weird due to the fact that he is from here.) then he'll tell them that we bought a house in the old Letham's house and they all seem to know where that is. danny saw the mayor at smiths.

5. i got my hair cut in payson-- they teased it! i've never teased my hair ever. i went home and pointed it out to danny and he laughed and laughed!

6. everyone talks about 4-wheeling and hunting! we were at a church activity last night and one of the gals who's hair is super high off her head said that their 4-wheeler caught on fire

7. there are multiple generations who live in our ward (i guess maybe taht's not so weird bc we have families and their kids family living in my home ward.) some people have never moved out of this ward. i was chatten with a fellow at this activity last night and he said that he's lived in this ward since 1930! and was the first missionary to be sent out from this ward!

8. people say-- "i were going down to the store." or " We was doing something..." proper english my friends! i'm not that great with english but i know when it sounds wrong!

9. Sometimes i see people at walmart or smiths with cowboy hats on!

10. there are 2 exits and 7 stop lights for this town (that i can count at this time, danny probably knows exactly how many.) 2 of the lights are new since i've known danny.

and finally

11. let me tell you a story that happened last night! i had finished a movie and went to bed with danny who was already sleeping bc he had to work in the morning. it was 1045. ten min or so had past and i hear sirens! multiple sirens. at first im' thinking, geez that accident was bad, but it kept coming closer and soon i could see the lights in my windows. crap! our neighbors house is on fire, is what i'm thinking! i look out my bedroom window and the lights and sirens are right in front of our house! Maybe it's our house! danny yells to get some real clothes on but i'm so bewildered that i didn't do anything except look at the window. danny and i run out of our bed to the family room to look. i remembered my other neighbors wife from the party last night said that her husband (who has had a stroke a few years ago) was not feeling well! crap, my neighbor had another stroke, is waht i'm thinking. as i'm looking out the window i see a fire truck, police cars, and an ambulance all drive slowly by my house! then i see tons of cars. they are all honking their horns! what in the world is goign on! i said, maybe the war is over? then danny hears someone yell from their car, GO PAYSON! danny remembers seeing in the news that payson high school was in state for wrestling! guess waht, payson wrestling team had won state champs and decided to drive all the way up main street (the street i live on) to the high school honking their horns! i was so pissed. who does that! who wakes up the whole town for high school wrestling! and to make it worst, the ambulance, fire truck, and police cars, were allll involved! i was just glad that it wasn't me who had to work at 6 oclock in the morning! man!

living in a small town is weird!

would like to take a few minutes today and express my intense dislike for wallpaper! Some of you may be saying to yourself, wallpaper is nice, and it looks pretty. I hate to be the one to inform you but your precious wallpaper has an evil side. I believe it was actually first created by the Devil himself in his attempts to make Hell a little bit nicer. Somehow this evil creation has been passed down through the generations until it ended up on my walls. Unfortunately after learning this information I am sure there will still be those of you who insist on using this vile product, for those of you with this little sense I would like to give you some guidelines that I hope you will follow.

1. Never use wallpaper!

2. If you still insist on this practice, never ever ever! did I say never, paint over your wallpaper. If you decide that wallpaper is not what you thought it would be, all I can say is I told you so, remove it before you paint over it. Failure to do this causes ugly lines on the wall and endless hours of torturous paint removal for the person who finally has the sense to do what you should have done in the first place.


3. If you wall paper, remember that it is called WALLpaper, not ceiling paper. It does not belong on the ceiling. this once again causes many hours of neck straining scraping for something that never should have been done in the first place.

4. If you still find the need to use WALLpaper on your ceiling, please refer to guideline # 2. DON'T PAINT OVER IT!!!! Remove it if you want to change it. Painted over "ceiling" paper is even worse than painted over wallpaper.


and
5. Always refer to guideline number 1 before attempting any redecorating or remodel of your home.

he holidays were a amazing, but unfortunately its back to the real world. Erin and I spent much of the holiday season working on our house. Its coming along but I think its going to continue to get worse before it gets better. The renovations started the day after we moved in. Erin woke to me in the front room tearing the carpet off the floor. She understood that was the plan eventually, however, I don't think she thought that I was going to start that soon.

But she soon caught the vision when she saw the wood floors.

Erin began to get into the tearing things up mode.

Things are progressively looking worse
but our hope is that they will soon start to look progressively better.

In addition to the blessing of a new home over the Christmas break we were blessed by an abundance of snow. I have now experienced one major drawback to owning a home.
With all of the work, Erin and I did have some time to play during the break. My sister Jamie came over and made candy with us. It was a ton of fun Jamie and Erin worked on candy,

while I taught our niece and nephew to rock out!

Even with the mess we were able to set up a cozy little family room in our basement, which was perfect for opening presents.

It was fun having family and friends over to our new house during the Christmas season.
After Christmas we took our two mentor kids rock climbing. The little girl, loved it! Apparently the little boy is terrified of heights. He got stuck half way up the wall, we sent his sister up to rescue him but finally it was the Amazing Erin who saved the day and coaxed him down. He was up there for about twenty minutes.
This is the little girl trying to help her little brother off of the wall. the experience was sad but I had to laugh a little.
Well that was our holiday. It probably seems a little boring but we had a blast!

MOM's birthday

So my mom's birthday is 12/27. it's the big one! there are multiple big ones but this is one of the biggest or i mean bestest. We thought it was appropriate to list one reason why we love mom for every year she was born!


50 reasons why we love MOM
1. Generous in talents, gifts, and money
2. Faithful to family, friends, and to church
3. Excellent cook
4. Loving
5. A great example
6. The best IN-LAW
7. Happy and Fun
8. Forgiving of mistakes
9. Genuine
10. Amazing listener
11. Super funny
12. Killer Zumba instructor
13. Good friend—The best-est
14. A Leader
15. Great genetics (Danny thinks☺)
16. Smart
17. Amazing chocolateer
18. Patient
19. Supportive of her kids positive choices
20. Service oriented
21. Devout member of LDS church (and comes by it so naturally)
22. Good boulder-er- Go MOM!
23. Super fit—more fit than Erin and Danny
24. Erin’s own personal therapist
25. Loves her family
26. In style and hip
27. Great waker-uper- squirt gun was the least favorite
28. Fun movie buddy- game to see any and all kinds of movie
29. Great linguist- Stacey-ism!
30. Expert reader
31. The only morning person in the family
32. Super Inspiring- I wanna be like you
33. Great teacher
34. Very accepting
35. Hard worker
36. Independent- now as well as when she was a kid
37. Makes beautiful kids
38. Good looking
39. Out-doorsy
40. Good sand hill climber in Moab
41. Aggressive driver in time square- that was scary
42. Allows Erin to call every other day and answers her phone almost every time she calls
43. Excellent wedding cake maker/caterer/hostess
44. Great missionary
45. Sweet dinner bell ringer
46. Amazing soccer mom- literally
47. Active volunteer for her kids school classrooms- teaching chocolates, etc.
48. Feminists- specially for church oriented camping trips
49. Great father-son team for camping
50. Will be great grandma! (P.S. I’m not pregnant)







Hope you have an amazing birthday mom! Happy 5-0!

A New House For Christmas

e made it! The move was awful but now that we're in our house we couldn't be happier. We love the house, its a great Christmas present. Right after we moved in I started pulling up carpet and taking off wall paper. The house has so much character that is covered by lots of tacky 1960's remodeling. it's cool to see the different time periods that are in layers on the floors and walls. We have paint over paint over wall paper on the walls and 80's carpet covering traces of brown shag and beautiful wood floors that will need to be redone. in some places we have carpet over linoleum over wood floors. It's kind of exciting to see what we might find. Needless to say, we're in a bit of a mess. We have set up our living area in the basement until we can get the floors upstairs finished. Everyone is welcome to come and visit, just be warned we are in a mess but we would love to have some company to show off our house to. We will post some pictures of our mess when I can find the fire wire. We hope to see some of you soon. Merry Christmas

oly Cow! I still can't believe it but we bought a house! After looking online for the last year and walking through places for the past month and having two other houses taken from under us, we have finally put in an offer that was accepted. We just have the inspection and closing left. The house is a cute 1935 house in the historical part of Payson. It is right across the street from the old Payson Park witch is awsome! The park is where all of the Payson Onion Days festivities take place and the Payson Scottish Festival. Every sunday night in the summer they have free band concerts and the big Payson parade goes right in front of our house. Erin and my favorite restaurant is just a couple of blocks away. It's this really cool little Thai resaurant where the people don't speak English. The house itself is so amazing. It has a lot of character. Lots of custom built-ins, a cool fireplace, 4 bedrooms, 1 1/2 baths, a great backyard with mature trees which are perfect for a slackline. The Kitchen is a good size which excites Erin. The house is in good repair but outdated. We are going to be taking down wallpaper and pulling up carpet, which is covering beautiful wood floors. It will be a lot of work but we are so excited.

The front of the house.

Some of the custom built-ins

Some other exciting news is that Erin passed her LPN boards and started working as a nurse 2 weeks ago. The expectation of this is what solidified our descision to buy a house. Anyway, thats our news.