Camping and Jewelry-making

Jeff and I went camping up in the Uintahs for almost a week. It's nice to get away (from work and civilization), but I was ready to come home after a few days. I probably didn't enjoy it as much as I probably could have because the night we got up there, I came down with a cold, so I was sick all week. I still have a little bit of a cold, but I'm getting over it. We spent Friday evening (July 17) shopping for the things we needed, then we were packing all Saturday morning and afternoon and didn't get out of the valley till maybe 7:00-ish or a little after. We didn't get up there until 10:30. I am not doing that again. If we don't start packing until the day we leave, I don't want to leave until at least the next day. We also didn't sleep well that night because we have a cot with an air mattress on top and it wasn't holding air. We would fill it up, get what sleep we could before it ran out of air and we'd have to fill it up with air again in the middle of the night. We had to drive a couple or so hours to Vernal (the closest city with a Wal-Mart) to buy a new air mattress, so we would have better sleep the next night. I didn't take any pictures up there (like I did last year), so I don't have any pictures to post from the trip.

I do have pictures of some jewelry I made for myself while we were up there. My mother-in-law and sister-in-law started making jewelry (necklaces and bracelets) a few months ago and have been selling some. A day or two before the end of our trip, I decided I wanted to make a couple bracelets. It was really fun and I thought it would be fun to start making some to sell. I'm not sure when I'll start making some because I'm slowly getting the stuff I'll need to make them. If anyone is interested in necklaces and/or bracelets (for themselves or as gifts), I'll be trying out this small little business on the side. :-) They won't be too expensive (like other jewelry), so it'll be quite affordable. My mother-in-law has so many colors, shapes, and sizes of beads it was hard to choose what I wanted for my bracelets. I also decided to make myself a necklace so I could learn how to make those. Here are the pictures of my bracelets and necklace I made ....





The third bracelet down, my mother-in-law liked so much that she made the exact same one to sell. :-)

Once I get things up and running (hopefully in a few months), I'll have to do some advertising somehow. :-) If anyone has any tips or ideas on how to do that, let me know!

Jason's mission call (Jeff's younger brother)

This is a picture of Jason, Jeff's brother (picture taken on our cruise this past January) ....


On Wednesday, he received his mission call and all the family (plus a couple cousins and a friend) was able to see him open it and read it. He was called to serve in the Argentina Mendoza Mission (Spanish-speaking) and will report to the Missionary Training Center in Provo on November 4. It was exciting to find out where he would be going. He'll be an awesome missionary!!!

Love this quote ....

"Our lives are not determined by what happens to us, but by how we react to what happens, not by what life brings to us, but by the attitude we bring to life."

On Facebook, I am a fan of Chalene Johnson, the one who came up with Turbo Jam (my exercise videos) and she had the quote above in her status. I need to apply it in my own life. :-)

Bloggin' Dyin' Out

I think my blogging has sorta fizzled out. Maybe because we're such boring people, haha! If anything exciting happens, I'll be sure to blog about it, but I probably won't be blogging very often. We're still alive, though!

Craziest Busiest Work Week EVER!

I am SOOOOO glad this work week is over!!! I got hit with about 3 or 4 projects that my team needed to get done and QC'ed by the end of this week. I must say I have never had a busier week than this past week. I even put in some overtime, working 9 hours each on Monday and Tuesday, 10 hours on Wednesday, and 11 1/4 hours on Thursday. This morning was finishing the last little bit up and catching up on other QC of other projects that we're still working on. I still got to leave early (before noon) today, but got 5 1/2 hours overtime for the week. It has been one crazy week and I will sleep SOOOOO good tonight (I hope)! Sorry for not posting as much... not a whole lot going on, but we're doing well!

Hmmm, What to Blog About?

... That is the question. Not much has been happening lately. Just good old work, work, work. And there's a bug going around that I caught. My sister Rebecca was sick last weekend, as well as a couple other people at work. It started in my throat (like all my colds do), but mostly has been a sinus cold with my ears plugging up. And today, my muscles have been achy. And I was extremely tired. So I took a couple hour nap early this afternoon after work. I just need more sleep. Hopefully I feel better tomorrow.

Turbo Jammin'

I love this workout video! It gives me a really good workout and it makes my calf muscles hurt in my legs and it gets me all nice and sweaty! I love it even more than running on the treadmill. After we got Turbo Jam, I was doing it every day (except Sunday) for a couple weeks, but then I caught a little cold, but now I'm all better and have been getting back into exercising this week. It feels so good to exercise! One of these days, I will have a body like most of those on the video.

I wish we could go on another cruise so I could make some more blog posts about that. But when all we do is work and we don't do a whole lot, it makes for not very many blog posts. Oh well!

We're on the Titanic!

I was looking through our cruise photos below and thought, "Wait, I think I'm missing one. Where's the one with the Titanic background?" So I counted them and yep, sure enough, I was missing one. So yeah, it looks like we're on the Titanic, but it was just a background. :-)


Unfortunately, this is definitely the last cruise post. I want so much to go on another cruise! But gotta save the money!

Our Third Anniversary!

Today is our 3-year anniversary. Where does the time go? It's been a good 3 years, though, and many more good years to come! We went to eat at Outback Steakhouse today. It was good.

Yesterday, our new dishwasher was delivered. The one that came with the condo gave up the ghost a couple months ago (a few days before our cruise, I think). We bought a Maytag at the Maytag Store. Hopefully it'll last us a while.

When we were in California before going on our cruise, we saw an infomercial on TV in our hotel room of Turbo Jam (exercise videos). I really wanted it but was worried about getting it, especially when I went to an infomercial scams website and read a few negative comments. But there were more positive than negative, so I finally broke down and called the number to order. It was shipped to us really fast. And I've been using it every day. Most days, Jeff and I use the Fat Blaster video (what a workout!!). A couple times, I've used the 3T Totally Tubular video (more muscle building and using weights or a stretchy rope like what they sent us for free if we bought the videos). There are other cardio party mix workout videos that we have yet to try, but for now, we're using the 2 I mentioned. I think those videos make working out kinda fun. :-) And I feel good afterwards, which is most important.

Anyway, this isn't really an exciting post (compared to the cruise posts I did), but just wanted to post about a couple things so nobody would think we dropped off the face of the earth!

Professional Cruise Photos (Formal)

We had so much fun getting pictures taken on the cruise! It's where we spent the most money, buying the pictures. But I think it was worth every penny, and the pictures will help us remember the fun times we had that week.

THE FAMILY




JEFF



VICKI




JEFF & VICKI

These next 2 weren't my favorite, but got them because of the backgrounds. But all of them after that turned out pretty well, I think.












In the picture above, even though Jeff's head got really sunburnt earlier that day (in Cabo), I wanted it because my complexion looked so good! Haha! Why can't my complexion look that good all the time??? Anyway, leave a comment and let me know what your favorite is! :-) I'll be the first to leave a comment ....