Gardening Pro

Ok, so I was home and I noticed this random stalk of corn. Usually my parents will grow just over a 1/4 acre of corn which is great to come home and steal some corn from. Things were so crazy with Jami this summer that they didn't get anything planted. They do have 3 tomato plants, but that's it...so I thought. On Saturday I noticed this stalk of corn they were trying to hide from me.



It's probably field corn, but it's just funny that there's a random stalk by the side of the road.

Craft Fun

So last weekend my mom and I decided to be all crafty and stuff. We went to dollar tree and got some frames then painted them black and used our vinyl cutter to cut out the lettering. It was actually pretty fun!!!

Happy 30th Birthday to Me!

So my birthday was officially last week, and I did go out with my parents. Tonight some of us went to Chuck E Cheese though...so fun!!! I'd actually never been before so it was a VERY pleasant surprise.

Chris and Lissi performing on T.V.


I whacked a mole...


Chris whacked a mole...


Chris got some major tickets on Deal or No Deal...


Tammy popped some bubbles...


Tammy and I TOTALLY got fake id's made...mine says I'm a cheerleader :)


Chris even played in the jungle gym thing...


Yummy birthday cake!!! They wouldn't let us put 30 candles on it (something about a fire hazard)...thus...we have 3.


Chris cut the cake...check this out...lol :)


Needless to say...it was a BLAST!!!!

Hmmm...who's color blind

So my mom has been on a mission to finish cleaning things and get her and my dad moved back into their bedroom rather than upstairs. She has been working on the closet and the past couple of days she has been painting the ceiling. The first color was wrong, so she painted it again. That color was the wrong one too so she painted it a third time. I show up this morning and this is what I find...



The color on the left is the color she painted and the white is what she was trying to match. Now, when I asked her what happened she said it was late and it was dark...LOL!! Hopefully fourth time's a charm :)

Bread and Fish or Potatoes and Chicken

So lucky me was put on the FHE committee. Please...don't all be jealous at once now. I must admit I never go to FHE so I guess this is my punishment for never going. Plus, because I'm an antisocial nerd it's going to be an adjustment to have a "family" that I entertain once a month (thank goodness it's only once a month that I'm on my own). I was put in 2 weeks ago and then I got an email saying that tonight was going to be their dutch oven dinner and if anyone had any dutch ovens to let them know. Well...in a previous life my dad and I dutched ovened...well....a lot! It was so fun and we were in lots and lots of cook offs so we have lots and lots of ovens. There was already a guy in charge and I didn't want to step on his toes so I said I'd bring the ovens and he can just tell me what to do. In talking to him yesterday I was worried that there wasn't enough food. I am a control freak (it's so bad), but I also hate stepping on people's toes. I talked to the main person in charge and we decided we'd just go buy extra stuff and then just add it in. This way he feels like he did a great job (which he did) and we make sure we have enough food. Today at work they were teasing me how fast and testimony meeting would be "I came to the activity with only 2 bags of chicken and was able to feed 100....it just kept appearing out of no where...it's a miracle" Oh my gosh! I was laughing soooo hard at work! I did tell him that we had more stuff coming and luckily we had just enough food, but my coworkers were cracking me up with that analogy :)

I left my heart in Elwood

So, I really think it's time for me to write a song about Elwood. I'm in San Francisco this week for a conference and to be honest...I don't see what the big whoop about San Fran is. Everywhere I go I have toothless stinky people begging for money. I know some of it is that I'm not used to big cities. We had a homeless person in Tremonton once and people gave him jobs and took care of him. To see all of the homelessness and drug usage and stuff is different. Plus the cab drivers scare the gageebers out of me! We did go to a fun Italian restaurant last night, but Elwood has JC's Country Diner which is fun too :) My coworkers can't believe that I'm not a fan of this city, but I think a lot of it is every time I come here we stay by Union Square and go to the wharf one night, but that's about it. One time we had a friend that is local take us on a tour and I got so motion sick I had to have her pull over so I could go throw up in a bush in front of EVERYONE...lol...yup...they believe that I get motion sick now. The streets are so curvy and up and down and around and around and for my whimpy stomach it's just too much. This isn't from this trip, but here we are on the wharf in June. Yes...it's June and it was freezing!


I will say that the weather this trip has been refreshing. It's in the 70's and a gentle breeze downtown which is a beautiful break from the 100 degree weather in Salt Lake.

One of those weeks

Work and crafts have been keeping me busy. I've been cutting lots of glass and my fingers have the cuts to show it. They aren't deep, but for some reason no matter how hard I try I get small cuts everywhere. On Thursday I cut a little deeper on my middle finger so on went the band-aid. Then on Friday I was opening my mail and got a deep paper cut on my index finger, so on went another band-aid. Now...today I had a torch worked glass Christmas ornaments class (which was fun). Normally I'm really careful and I've NEVER done this before, but I had a "duh" moment and I touched a way too hot piece of glass and heard a sizzle, smelt a horrible smell and felt some wretched bad pain on my index finger and thumb. I totally scorched my fingers. Luckily, it is a bad enough burn that it doesn't hurt as bad now...essentially I just branded my fingers and it feels like I have a sensitive callous on them. The main thing it hurt was my pride. I don't know as though anyone noticed in the class, but you could smell it...ewwww...I forgot how bad that can smell...On the good side you can see the imprint of the icicle I was making...lol...kind of a zig zag pattern.

Oh...and sorry for the slow posts. They blocked blogger at work (so dumb) so I can't type during boring conference calls anymore :( I have to type when I get home and recently I've been working later or I have stuff going on so I keep slacking off...I'll get better :)

Jami's Garden

Well, so Jami made us promise that we wouldn't do anything shrine like for her. We only put in a 12,000 lb wall and made a garden...hope that doesn't count :)

We have been busy busy making fused glass flowers for people. The love and support we got through all of the craziness of the past couple of years has been amazing. There is no way we could ever repay people. My mom, Jami and I started taking stained glass classes together several years ago and one day Jami saw a fused glass sample and thought it would be really fun to learn. I thought it would be dumb, but the first time I saw the glass glow bright orange I was in love!!! I don't know why it fascinates me so much to see it all molten, but it does. We decided we'd make a few fused flowers for people...well...nothing is small for us so we've been making lots and lots and lots of flowers.

On Tuesday my Mom, Dad, and I went up to the hospitals (Huntsman and the U) and brought around cards and donuts and then flowers for some people. The flowers are cool because they are glass and you can put them outside, but I'm kinda sick of them just because you can only cut so much glass and heat the kiln so many times. When we were walking down the hall at the hospital people would actually stop us and ask us what they were and where we got them. When we gave them to the nurses and staff they were actually pretty excited. We figured they were putting on a front for us, but someone from the gift shop saw them and wants to talk to us about selling them in the gift shop. Don't worry, we're not quitting our day jobs or anything...lol...we'll see if it happens and then if we actually do sell anything. I think if we do tag them we're going to put a tag on them that they are from the "Jami's Garden" collection or something like that. It's kind of a cool tribute to her. I took the picture with my blackberry and it's a little blurry, but here's a bouquet with quite a few flowers so you can see some of the colors.

Grandpa's 80th Birthday

I can't believe how crazy things have been. Let's start with last Saturday. It was Grandpa Petersen's 80th birthday party. It was fun! We had lots of people come and it was fun to see everyone again.

We started with Family Pictures...



Then we ate and sang happy birthday to Grandpa...


When I danced I got money...


Marilyn thought she'd give it a try, but all she got was a picture...



Sorry Marilyn...guess you need to work on your skills :)

I don't have the second half of the pictures yet...shoot!! Don't worry...I'll get them posted as soon as I can :)