I am alive!

I haven't made blogging a priority lately so here is an update of the last few months. 

We went to California with my family over thanksgiving and stayed in a house a block from the beach. We had a great time. We went to Disneyland, the beach, had a delicious thanksgiving, played games and spent time with family. 

 My parents had gotten some wet suits. They made the cold beach so much more enjoyable. 

 Family pictures by cousin Hillary.

 Grandma Jean photobombed. 

 This is the Grubbs family! We are so lucky to have such great family on both of our sides! This was after Jen's orchestra concert with EVMCO. It was amazing. 

Last but not least, my smarty pants graduated from ASU. Those maroon and gold cords mean he is awesome and graduated with a 3.8-4.0! I am so proud of him for working so hard and being so smart. Now he has to figure out what he wants to do with his degree, and the rest of his life for that matter. 

3 years together!

We recently celebrated our third wedding anniversary. It has been awesome. We treated ourselves to dinner and a movie on a weekday. Have you ever been to the movies on a weekday? It feels so rebellious and the theater is so empty. It's fabulous. While on the topic of marriage, I've been thinking about this something for a while and I thought I would share an insightful tidbit I learned in a book I read over the summer.

It was a cute read. If you are going to read it, stop reading this post because it has a spoiler. The novel is about a woman who forgets 10 years of her life. The last thing she remembers is being in love with her perfect husband and pregnant with their first baby. She wakes up with three kids and in the middle of a divorce with her husband who she was so happy with 10 years earlier. Throughout the book the reason they split up is a mystery to her and to the reader. In the end, it's not because of infidelity or financial problems or abuse.

The main character stops trusting her husband with going to the grocery store because he gets the wrong thing. She gets frustrated when he dresses the kids because they don't match. He would load the dishwasher the wrong way. He got tired of feeling like he was failing at home. To avoid the feeling of failure, he slowly stopped trying and focused on work and other things that he could feel successful in. It was a subtle theme but I've been thinking about it for months. It is so easy to be guilty of both parts of this relationship and it could tear apart a marriage without either person knowing it. I know I've done that without thinking about it. And since I read the book, I see women innocently doing it all the time. 

Honestly, being married right now is so easy because 1. Mike is inhumanly sweet, sensitive loving and supportive. 2. We don't have kids. 3. We've only been married for 3 years. And other things I'm sure.
When marriage gets harder I want to remember this little piece of advice. We are a team!

Mikey...

Mike seat belted a wedding gift in a car next to the wooden mallard we keep in the back seat at all times.

He is cool.

life lately

Mikes Sister Jamie came to town last week and stayed for over a week! We took advantage of that and snuggled  and babysat wittle Danny boy. Of course I didn't get any pictures of all of us. My camera just has a magnetic pull to people under the age of six. 

 Daniel with his Grandma! She loves him so much! 

 Brother in law Dave is the grill master. He made the largest steaks ever. They.were.amazing. 

This past weekend went camping with the Robinson clan. Our intent was to ride kayaks and shoot guns.

We had a few mishaps and neither happened.

My parents had a new kayak rack on the top of their truck that apparently does not work very well because all four kayaks fell of the top while they were driving on the highway! Luckily they didn't fall in the middle of the road so no accident was caused. They hid all four of them in some bushes on the side of the road and kept on driving. So no kayaking for us... considering they were hiding in some bushes on the side of the highway for a day. But the lake was still beautiful and Mike fell in halfway so it was still hilarious.

And shooting guns was restricted for a ridiculous range around where we were camping so that didn't work out either.

We did get some mountain biking in though, thanks to Curtis and Ashley and I learned that I am a wimp.

Mom and dad aka the best grandma and grandpa ever! 

 Snuggling around the campfire is the best.

 The kids found a horny toad that they all fought over until we had to release it back into the wild. Good times. Also that is our tent being blown over in the background. Oops.

I am definitely a woods kinda girl. I love being outside. I want to make camping a bigger part of our life. Anybody wanna go for my birthday weekend??

On another note, this semester is KICKING MY BUTT. I have an extra online class this semester, and my on site classes seem to require more homework than last semester.  I'm still working five days a week, and trying to spend time with Mike and our families. Lets just say I am learning time management the hard way.

It's a dang good thing I enjoy going to work and I enjoy going to school, or else I'm pretty sure I would explode. I am learning so much in my classes and I can even apply a lot of the strategies and methods currently in my job. 

Life is a little bit crazy and a lot good.

you will love me for this

This is one of my favorite meals ever. It's supposed to taste like Applebee's oriental chicken salad. We eat it at least twice a month, especially in the summer time when I will not turn on my oven.

Oriental Chicken Salad

Dressing:
3 Tbsp honey
1 ½ Tbsp rice vinegar
¼ cup mayo
1 tsp Dijon mustard
Whisk together. Pour over:

Your favorite lettuce/spinach
mandarin oranges
sliced almonds
chow mien noodles or crushed ramen
chicken

 You can basically use any chicken but here is the best/easiest way I've found to do it. This method has taken me years to perfect. You will thank me.

Get this in the frozen section. It's not the cheapest but it takes two minutes to cook and you don't have to turn your oven on or dirty dishes. Worth it in my book. It's also probably not the healthiest chicken out there.. but we're putting it on salad right?! We actually usually get the fry's brand, they are both good.

Okay so microwave it for two minutes or so until it's just heated through. Here is the magic trick... wait for it... then put it in the toaster! It's gets the chicken crispy and delicious without the hassle of the oven. Use a skewer or something other than a fork to get it out I've learned.

Chop it up and put it on your delicious/easy/healthy/fast meal!

together again

The girls were back together again for one day when Beth came down from Hawaii for three days. 

So naturally we started early in the day. One AM to be exact, when we picked her up from the airport and  went out for breakfast at dennys. The next day we ate "breakfast" at costa vida, target, a quart of turtle custard with extra fudge, and caught up and played with Rhone on Hills couch. 

Good times. Now we just have to wait until Hawaii gives us Beth back for two weeks in December.

Vancy pants

 I am an auntie again! To this little precious, Vance Dieter. I love hospital visits. Hopefully this little dude will help cure my baby hungriness until I can finish school and it's our turn.

 Brenly Bell was the cutest big sister. She kept reaching her arms out to him whenever someone but her was holding him. Then when it was her turn she would just point at his face and say "oh!". Jessica seemed so happy even though she was in surgery just two hours prior. What a trooper.

 

This is us with two kids. Presh.

i.love.the.cabin!

We had a grand weekend hanging out in this...

 Flagstaff is beautiful in July. 70 degree and sunny in the morning time, and it always rains in the afternoon.

We did a lot of worm hunting. 

 

  The girls love worms like Lincoln loves Michael. He's not even sleeping here, just cuddling. If you know Lincoln then you know how rare his snuggles are.

Looking at the horses

 Sister Livy and her new bff

 Brother Clark

 This is a picture Rhett drew of the haboob and a ball that's flying at his head. 

 They love their uncle Michael 

 Me: Smile guys, smile! Rhett that's not a smile, smile for the camera!

Mike and Rhett:

 Matchy hats. 

 Me and Grandma Jean Crying because we must leave the cabin. We have this exact same picture when I was 12. 

 

Napoleon, it's pretty cool I guess...

Sunday

I love going to church with this dude and teaching nursery together. We have fun. 

reads

I have been reading these...

They are all so good! Years ago a read Ender's Game and Ender's Shadow and I really enjoyed them, but I  had no idea that they were a whole series.  Mike figured it out and read all of them and really loved them, so I took the plunge and started reading them again. 

Guys, Ender's Game is so freaking cool. I've read it twice and each time throughout the whole thing I think to myself, "this book is so cool". Then at the end I think, "this book is so freaking cool".

I highly recommend them. All three of the later ones are so different than the first one and not quite as exciting in my opinion but still really good. 

There is another series that is about one of the characters and goes off in a sort of different direction. Ender's Shadow is basically the same story as Ender's Game but from someone else's point of view. Sounds like it could be lame to read the same story again even though you already know the ending but it is actually awesome.

I'm only on the second one in this series but I'm loving it already. If you're looking for some reads, I recommend these. Let me know what you think if you do! 

cousin party

Last night me, Ben and Rachel threw a little cousin party for Rhett, Stella, Roxy, Lincoln, and Brenly. We went swimming, then watched the end of Monsters inc., then ate mac and cheese, then made funfetti cookies, then turned off all the lights and turned on Pandora Justin Bieber radio and had a dance party. It was good times. In case you haven't figured it out, I love being an auntie.

Summer goals

Every year I make little summer goals for myself. Usually goal setting is for people who are ambitious and productive right? I do things a little differently. Pretty much every summer I make goals to be lazy. Last spring break my goal was to feel boredom at least once.

2012 Summer Goals

1.) Read a book. Check check check check and check. I've read five so far. And the summer is not yet over.

2.) Leave work early and see a manatee movie by myself. Check. This is one of my favorite things ever. Maybe because I feel like I'm doing something wrong seeing a movie in the the middle of the day and by myself but I always feel slightly giddy ordering "one ticket for _______ at ____". And then I smile to myself as I walk to the theater.

3.) Go on a vacation. Check- Alaska. Check- Porter family reunion.

4.) Drink a slushy. Check.

Between all this laziness I have actually been a bit productive believe it or not. I taught my own summer school class, have been working everyday, am taking a summer school class Mondays and Wednesdays 5-10. And we even cleaned and organized our tornado I mean bedroom which is a task and a half.

I tell myself I deserve all these little indulgences because I work so hard both with work and with school, but to be honest, I don't think I'll learn the meaning of working hard and being tired until I have kids. I admire all you mamas out there.

But for now I don't have kids and I do have time so I'm going to spend it on silly things that make me happy. And I hope I can still do that to at least a small degree when I have little people running around calling me mom.

Planking Anchorage

Cool.