New blog and new hair cut

Okay, I finally decided that the best solution (for me) to the picture and video problem (see a couple posts down if you have no clue what I'm talking about) is to go ahead and have a separate blog for pix and vids. So, if you want words and boring pictures of me or the house, you can look at this blog. If you don't want to read much, just look at the pictures of the kids *cough*mom*cough* then you can just look at that blog. But, it is private, so if you want to check it out, you'll have to let me know. Just email me or leave me a comment. Thanks! I will only update that one when I have new pictures, and I'll warn you on this one if I do put up something new.

And, here are the boring pictures. If you want the pictures of the kids with the squirrel or Stinkerbell in a tiara, you'll have to go to the other one. Sorry. I know it is a pain that I now have 2 boring blogs, but I couldn't think of a better solution. I want to keep it public so anyone can see what we are up too, but keep the kids pictures and such private because you never know.

*Update* Okay, looks like I am already getting things confused. I accidentally put up the squirrel slide instead of the fence one. Sheesh. This could get confusing. Be patient with me! :)

True before and after (sans make up)

I know I just did a whole post about how I'm not from Los Alamos, but since they aren't coming out with a White Rock shirt any time soon, this one will work great to remind me of home. This was a shirt, by the way. I went ahead and framed it. THANKS MOM!

Breaking Dawn - updated with pictures!

Okay, I'm officially back in the world of the living. I turned my ringer back on. That last part is a joke actually, as I never got a chance to turn it off as Brad was working until 6 tonight. Anyway, I finished the book awhile ago, and it was of course, AWESOME! So, if anyone else is done and wants to talk about it, let me know! :) I don't want to call and bug anyone in case they are still reading.

***UPDATE #2*** I've gotten a couple of emails asking how I finished so fast. Well, for one thing, I'm a really quick reader. For another thing, I'm a night owl by nature. I started about 12:30 am and didn't sleep until 7:30 am. That is 7 hours of uninterrupted reading (if you don't count poor Brad's pager going off a bunch). Then I slept until the kids got up at 9. Got them cereal and read until lunch when I made them PB&J. Brad took them out to dinner when he got home at 6, so I didn't have to worry about that. I rented some movies at Blockbuster and pretty much let the boys watch movies and play computer all day. They did great for the most part. Stinkerbell spent most of the time she was awake in my bed with me, either on my lap or reading her own books. The only things I ate all day were leftover cookies from Max and Erma's and 2 ham and cheese lunchables. I traded days with Mark so I wouldn't have to teach my Sunday School class today. (This was before I got released today. And for the record, I did not ask for the trade, he did since he will be gone next week.)

***UPDATE*** I went and read some reviews on the book, and I have to say that I really don't agree. Stephenie is not out there to teach young women how to be independent and be their own person before they get married. She is writing a story about a dream she had of 2 people. 2. This is Edward's story just as much as Bella's even if he isn't the narrator. She is writing a love story. If you don't like love stories, then this probably isn't something you would enjoy. Do I like stories where everything ties up nicely with a nice little bow? As a matter of fact I DO!! I really hated that HP killed off some of my favorite characters. I like happy stories. Happy endings. Tied up story lines. Happily ever after. I tend to avoid sad. I don't like sad. There is quite enough in the world, thank you very much. Give me happy endings any day. And of course some of the book is far fetched. Hello! It's a vampire story for crying out loud. What isn't far fetched about any of it?!

Me and Shan at the party with our tiaras!

My loot. Tiara and bracelet, necklace, button, stickers, and chocolate.

Yes, the tiara was silly, but you have to admit this necklace is pretty fun.

Sorry for the interruption

If you happened to check in the last day or so, you might have noticed that the blog was set to private. I'm not really going private, I just needed to take it down really fast without deleting the blog and starting over, and it was the quickest way I could think of.

To make a long story short, because my blog is public, I have a site tracker on so I can see who is looking at my stuff. A week or so ago, I noticed that someone found my site using some suspicious word searches (not bad, just suspicious depending on how you look at it). I watched for other hits from that person, to see if it was someone I knew. Well, when I checked again yesterday, that person was back using the same search words. I decided to take it down so that I would have time to remove all of the pictures and videos of the kids and any links to them. (I think I got them all). I hope that at some point in the very near future I will have a place for pictures and videos on our secure, password protected server. Or maybe I'll have a blog link that is private for just pictures and videos of the kids. I'm just not sure yet. I do know that I'm not going to have time to do it for awhile as a certain book is coming out tonight that takes precedence over blogging.

If you don't mind, it would ease my mind if every once in a great while you would leave me a comment to let me know who you are, so I know that you are someone I know and trust. Sorry to sound like paranoid mom, but my kiddies come first!

2 slides

Thought ya'll would like some pictures. First slide is kiddos, second is some new flowers.

Twilight Shirts

Robyn's blog has Twilight shirts for this week's contest. :)

http://www.ilovegiveaways.blogspot.com/

Been awhile

I thought I'd take some pictures of our grass and such since I haven't put on any house updates in awhile. Brad bought me some new plants tonight, so maybe I'll have more pictures later too!

I should be in bed since I have cardio tomorrow. Thankfully, I don't have to go alone as my volleyball buddy Deanne is going too. YEAH!

MDA Fundraiser

My brother Tylerr's sweet fiancee Becca is going to jail for Muscular Dystrophy.

We love her and would rather have her out of jail. :) If you could make a donation of even a couple of dollars, it would be greatly appreciated. The deadline is 8/7/08.

Check out her page here:

https://www.joinmda.org/2008ftcollinstelu/rfellers/

We love you, Becca!

Betcha didn't know...

With yesterday's confession of my ABBA obsession, I thought I'd admit 2 more things from my past that most people don't know about me.

My name is actually spelled with an apostrophe on my birth certificate. Melisa' Jones. My parents wanted to give me a unique name since Jones can be common. They thought the apostrophe would help people pronounce it right. It didn't. I got tired of trying to tell people how to pronounce it, so I started going by Lisa in school. Finally, at BYU, I decided that I liked my name the way it was and people would just have to adjust. :) I still get called Melissa a lot, and I don't really mind any more. My family can get away with calling me Lisa, but that's it! I've debated re-adding the apostrophe to my signature. Or changing it to MeLisa (or maybe Me'lisa) to emphasize the Lisa part, but I always just end up writing Melisa again.

While playing a game of "do you know..." with my college roommate (who coincidentally IS a Melissa - which made for some interesting mix ups - like when she almost got my church calling), I realized that I rarely tell people where I am actually from. When people ask, I usually say, "Los Alamos, NM." But that isn't really the truth. I grew up in a suburb of Los Alamos called White Rock. I find people who know Los Alamos, owing to the whole nuclear bomb thing, but people never know White Rock unless they grew up in the Santa Fe area. It is a really small town that only had 1 stop light the entire time I lived there. They got another one after I left. Whoo hoo, look who's moving up! The town will probably never get any bigger because it is surrounded by land owned by local Indian tribes and the United States Government, and a lot of canyons. There is no where to expand to!

So, that is my real name and where I am really from. Now, how many of you knew that?

Another obsession

For the first time in a really really really really long time, Brad had a weekend night off at the same time that I could actually find a sitter. I was thrilled! We've had a gift certificate to a nice restaurant here for nearly a year (Brad won it on the radio). And with uninterrupted Brad time, I wanted to see a movie with him as well. As my college roommates can attest, I have loved ABBA for 31 years. And it was hitting theaters last night. The same time as that Batman movie. I knew how much Brad wanted to see it, so I thought I'd give him the option, as he rarely gets nights off to see movies. To his credit he said, "You want to see Mamma Mia right. Let's go to that one." He is so amazing. The dinner was fabulous. I got my "steak au poivre" and we got these incredible spinach pillows for appetizers. Ohhh, I must have that recipe! We made it to the movie and I think he was one of 5 guys in the theater. I actually started crying during Dancing Queen. Not because it was sad, but because I was just so happy to be watching it. I know, I'm a freak. And no, I won't be crying while watching Twilight. At least not out of joy to be watching it. After the movie, we shared a Molten Cake at Applebee's, only to have our sitter call and say that she has a migraine and needs to go home. I know my kids give me headaches, but that was pretty fast! Oh, how I need a reliable sitter with a driver's license! Is that so much to ask?!

For the few

For some of you who haven't read Twilight and have no desire to, perhaps this trailer would appeal to you more...

http://video.yahoo.com/watch/3119388/8858452

Ode to Becky

Okay, it isn't an ode. I don't write poetry, but I miss you already, Becky! We had the substitute instructor at class on Monday and she kicked my hiney with her workout. Besides having us run the floor, I think my jaw dropped a couple of times as she jumped all around the bench. I couldn't keep up, let alone figure out what she was doing! And there were 5 new people there today I'd never even seen. So, at least I wasn't the only one who had no clue what Pam was doing. Man, she can shake her groove thing like nobody's business! Someday I'll get it. Well, I'll never be able to shake it like her, but I hope to be able to actually move my feet like her at some point. And now, I'll never be able to do an abs workout without thinking of this. Have fun in your new home, and know I'll be thinking of you MWF at 9:50 when she starts abs! :)

BD quote

This is just WRONG!

http://www.twilightlexiconblog.com/?p=1148

I knew the Alaskans would come in sooner or later, but I don't have to like it.

Ouch! I've been tagged!

Okay, technically, Jill tagged me on this about a month ago. What I slacker I am. And not only am I a slacker, I also have a terrible memory. Unfortunately, blogging is my only form of journaling and I haven't been doing that long enough to answer most of these questions. Even I was bored reading this post. Feel free to skip!

20 yrs ago - Uh, I was 11, so I have no idea. My youngest brother was a year old. My parents were in the process of building a new house (that they still live in).

10 yrs ago - Again, uh, I have no idea. I was 21, so I guess I had just graduated from the Y in Provo and was working at Big Planet.

5 yrs ago - J was 1 and I was pregnant and constantly puking with D. Brad was starting his second year of med school.

3 yrs ago - You know what, this is really hard for me. Uh, I think Brad had just finished getting his MBA. I was glad to be done with that!

1 yr ago - Oooh, oooh, I know this one! We had just bought our first house and moved out here to start Brad's intern year. This day specifically, I was registering D for pre-K.
this year - Hmmm, more medical stuff. Imagine that. He finished intern year and is now an official resident.

yesterday - We had some new friends over for dinner.

today - Swim lessons and hopefully get a sump pump put in our backyard to avoid future floods. Happy birthday, Resa. We love you and miss you!

tomorrow - Brad's on call, so probably nothing that is exciting. My cardio class. The Y with the fun baby pool. Movie night with the kids.

next year - This is still up for debate at this point, but if we decide to have 4 kids, it would probably happen late next year. And yes, more residency stuff. Aren't we exciting?

Now you know how boring I am and how bad my memory is. :)

Yeah!

Blockbuster sent me the first two Monk Season 6 discs. Just about died laughing during the first two episodes. I'm so happy right now.

EW!

Ewwww! Am I the only one that thinks this picture is gag-inducing?

http://www.thetwilightsaga.com/blog/stephenie-in-the-media

I think she is gorgeous, but he looks awful! Button your shirt, dude!

Monkie Junkie!

Do you know what today is? July 8th! The day Monk Season 6 comes out on DVD! YEAH! Of course, my local video stores doesn't keep Monk in stock, so I'll have to wait to get it in the mail. If I just had cable, I wouldn't have to wait to see my new Monks for so long!

Phew!

Okay, I just called and a local bookstore is indeed having a midnight Breaking Dawn party. What a relief! I was getting concerned!

So, if any of you local ladies would like to do a dinner, or a party or some such thing before heading over to pick up a book, please let me know. The store party starts at 10, but I don't care if I go to that at all. I just want to be there at midnight. :)

For the record, I never said I wasn't a nerd.

Happy Mother's Day!

What? It isn't Mother's Day, you say? Oh, well, I got my Mother's Day present yesterday. Brad let me buy flowers for my yard! Well, flowers, trees, shrubs, etc. I'm so excited!

My yard angel (aka Debra) gave me a tour of her yard and gave me lots of ideas. Truthfully, before we even went shopping we'd probably spent hours in planning. We arrived at the store, and the fun of looking around began. So much to chose from! I didn't have the biggest budget in the world, so when the first smoke trees we saw were close to $90, I foresaw some problems. I really loved choosing the plants though. I wanted to bring them all home! I have lots of places to put plants, as we were pretty much starting from scratch, but I needed to buy just enough to get some color and interest as this is a work in progress. Next year, more can be added.

In order to work within my budget, we bought smaller size plants. It allowed me to get more and get more variety. Now I just get to wait patiently for them to grow.

So, this is what I got:

1 Blue Prince Holly
1 Blue Princess Holly
1 Variegated English Holly
2 Dwarf Spruce
2 Young Lady Smoketree
1 Molten Lava Flowering Crab
2 Red Heart Althea (hibiscus)
2 Red Prince Weigela
1 Purple Butterfly Bush
2 Lavendar Doll Daylily
3 Prairie Blues Little Bluestem
7 Cleome (Sparkler Blush, Cherry Queen, Sparkler Lavender)
4 White Nancy Spotted Dead Nettle
4 Um, I can't find the tag, but are the same color as the nettle, only triangular
pack of Celosia

So, all of that and some peat moss and I only went $30 over budget. Not too shabby!

We got started getting the plants in their places and even managed to get a few planted before Brad had to leave for work. That's when it got crazy. C found holes filled with water to be quite irresistible. She got pretty muddy. She thought my white shirt made a nice canvas for her muddy hands. I think D got a picture or two of me where you can see it.

After a few hours and lots of craziness with kids running around, we managed to get all of the plants in. It took a lot of bugspray too. And we still got some bites!

It was fun because I think we had probably 10 people stop to tell us what an amazing job we've done with the house. We get a lot of dog walkers and occasionally a few bikers that stop to compliment us, but we had a few that actually stopped their cars to tell us (really! check out D slideshow). Most of these people we don't even know, or we met because they frequently stop to compliment us. It's fun. I'm excited to see the changes as the plants we put in mature. Of course, for all things plant the kudos go to Debra. She put in hour upon hour in planning, shopping and then planting. Her knowledge was invaluable and I know it wouldn't have been the same without her. THANK YOU THANK YOU THANK YOU! Every time someone says how wonderful our yard looks, I'm going to think of you. :)

Now, on with the pictures. The first slide show has the pictures that I took. The second, D was behind the lens. It has a ton of pictures of me, which is quite rare. There aren't a lot of pictures of me. And for good reason. But, now that I've lost 40 pounds, I might as well put some up. Yes, I'm wearing my 40 pounds ago pants, but it isn't like I want to ruin good pants! Might as well wear pants that are too big, right?

Okay, this was pretty funny. It is from an LDS (Mormon) guy's perspective.

http://mormonhusbands.blogspot.com/2008/02/twilight-series-for-dummies-and-totally.html

http://mormonhusbands.blogspot.com/2008/02/truth-about-edward-from-twilight.html

Bad memories

Ugh. So another storm, and another lake in our back yard. Ahhhh! I'm running out of ideas here! At least the ditch kept all of the water from the gutters and the sump pump away from the house. That makes me happy. No we have to find what to do with the water that drains to the lowest part of the yard, which is unfortunately at the door of the walkout.

We were at Wal-Mart during the storm, and Brad found this hat he can wear for surgeries. He said he liked it because it reminds him of me. Awww.