The Time Has Come My Little Friends...

Thank Goodnes for Car Insurance

2011-09-19T14:20:00.000-07:00

As most of you already know, I was involved in a car accident a week ago. As I was leaving my apartment someone back out of their parking spot in front of me. I didn't see them and I ran into them. They were driving a 1996 GMC Sierra 1500. I was driving my 2002 Toyota Camry. I was only going 10mph, or maybe 15mph. The impact was just above my bumper so it didn't absorb anything. This is what my car looked like.

It was declared a total loss because the headlight, bumper, both fenders, the hood, and the grill all needed to be replaced. Both doors needed to be painted. The radiator was severly damamged. There was also damamge to the belt and the brakes. And of course, there was hardly any damamge to their vehicle. This is what it looked like.

The good news is that we got more money than what we owed on the Camry. So my loan was paid in full and we were able to get enough to put a small down payment on a new vehicle. Let me tell you, going from two vehicles down to one vehicle is very very inconvenient. Brianne had to take me to work a couple of times so that she could have the car.

So over the weekend we went car shopping. We checked out several cars online before going anywhere. We went to a dealership in Portland to look at a Camry. When we got there we found out it had been wrecked in a test drive and would be in the body shop for a couple more weeks. So we test drove a 2010 Toyota Camry SE. It was really nice. However, we weren't prepared to buy it at that time because we were originally looking at the LE model. I didn't know much about the SE and I didn't know if I would get a good deal.

The next day we went to the Toyota dealership in Salem. Brianne was friends in high school with the car salesman. We found the same 2010 Toyota Camry SE. It was the same color, had the same options, and it had 2,000 miles less. They were asking about $1,000 more for it. But because we knew about the one in Portland we got them to drop the price. This is our new car. The SE model is sportier than the LE model. It comes with alloy wheels, and fog lights. The driver's seat also has adjustable lumbar support. This car is definitely a big upgrade from the 2002 Camry we were driving. We really enjoy it.

Fun Times at the Hospital

2011-01-28T12:30:00.001-08:00

I promised to start posting more, so here is a little story about our misadventures in the emergency room a couple of weeks ago. As some of you know I get really sick every month when it comes to my "woman troubles". I've been to several doctors and all of them say the same thing: there really isn't anything they can do for me. Despite my disillusionment with the medical profession, we took yet another trip to the ER this month to get my usual "treatment". Actually, we went twice this month. The first trip was at about 6:00 that night. We drove to the hospital in Salem only to wait around for two and a half hours before getting bored and going home. We decided that if I was going to sit around, I should do it on the couch with my heating pad.

Here are some of the lovely accessories they gave me at the Salem hospital

I thought I was starting to feel better, but at about 2:00 in the morning it got WAY worse. This time we went to the Silverton hospital, which is a lot smaller but I've always had better service there (it's sad that I have a preference, but you start noticing these things after you've been doing this for ten years). They got me in right away and hooked me up to an IV. After a few hours they sent me home as usual, but I was pumped full of all kinds of good stuff so I was okay with that.

The breakfast of champions

I spent the next few days on the couch, and eventually I was able to keep real food down (thanks to the anti-nausea pills they prescribed me). I was back to normal after about four days. Josh was very sweet and took care of me the whole time I was sick. I don't know what I would do without him!

Sweet Freedom!

2011-01-05T13:39:00.000-08:00

My husband loves me so much he bought me a car!!! As most of you know, I don't get out much. This is partly because I have an aversion to wearing anything besides sweat pants, but mostly because I didn't have the means to get anywhere. But that's changed now that I have this little baby! Isn't she beautiful? It's a '96 Toyota Tercel with only 126,000 miles on it and one previous owner. The only problem I have with it is that there is no radio. Or speakers. But we're going to fix that! My mom offered to buy me one so I won't have to drive in silence anymore. Now I just need a job and I can start being a productive member of society again! Woo hoo!

The Last Few Months...

2010-12-30T16:37:00.000-08:00

Hello all,

Well, now that it's 2011, I decided that it was a good time to reflect on the past year and catch everyone up on the past three months or so that have been without a blog post. First of all, sorry about that. There really wasn't much to say. It wasn't until we received several complaints from family members over Christmas that I realized that people actually read our blog, and that we should post more often to avoid suspicion that we've died or something.

So here we go...

After my week of playing mommy, I got to go on a well-deserved vacation. My uncle bought me a ticket to go down to California for a week. I spent part of the week in San Jose with my uncle and part of it in San Francisco with my aunt. I had my camera with me, but I forgot to take pictures. I didn't really have anything to take pictures of anyway. I just did a lot of shopping. I did go to this AMAZING art exhibit at a museum in San Francisco that was doing a series on impressionism with paintings from the Musée d’Orsay in Paris. Seriously. Amazing.

After a week wearing shorts in October (it was awesome!) I drove back to Oregon with my uncle so he could spend some time with my siblings. He grew up in the Bronx so he's never been to the pumpkin patch. We needed to fix that. I don't think he was very impressed with it, but he sucked it up for my brother and sister.

In November I did another huge favor for my step mom (she owes me BIG TIME). She was planning a wedding for her friend's daughter and she needed a caterer. Here are a few pictures of what I did.

Macaroni and cheese shooters

Baby red potatoes filled with garlic mayonnaise BLT bites

Asian chicken salad cucumber cups

Christmas has come and gone. We had a lot of fun in La Grande, but as always, it's nice to be home (especially after a seven hour drive that should have taken five). As usual, Bert and Ernie tried to destroy Christmas. I was worried about leaving them unsupervised when we went to La Grande, but the tree was still in tact when we got home. I was impressed that they were able to practice self-control. Here is a picture of Bert in his Christmas attack zone.

That's all folks! I'm really going to try and be better about posting on the blog this year. Because we don't have kids, go on vacation, or really do anything of interest, this means you're probably going to get a lot of posts about completely inane events like what I had for breakfast (toaster strudels). Maybe I'll just start making stuff up. I don't know. Keep checking back to find out!

Brianne

I'm not sure I'm cut out for this...

2010-10-09T22:01:00.000-07:00

Seriously y'all, parenting is HARD. My step mom hired me to babysit my brother/sister/step brothers last week while she was out of town and my dad was at work. For the most part I just had to make sure everyone made it to school on time. My biggest job was to take care of Devin and Sam, who both have autism.

Autism is a tricky thing to deal with, especially when you aren't used to it. The condition itself is actually a huge spectrum of developmental issues that can be vastly different from one child to another (as is definitely the case with Devin and Sam). Devin is eighteen years old but functions at the level of a six-year old, so he needs to be under constant supervision. Sam is eleven years old and is higher functioning than Devin. He was able to get himself ready in the morning, but is easily upset and has difficulty communicating his feelings.

My step mom explained to me that people with autism think in black and white. There is not gray area. They need structure and concrete evidence that this is the way things are supposed to be. One of the highlights of the week was when Devin freaked out on me because I didn't use the timer when I baked a frozen pizza. I never use the timer at home because our oven doesn't stay a consistent temperature. So when a frozen pizza says bake 23-25 minutes, I check on the pizza after about 20 and continue to check on it until it's done. This doesn't work for Devin. To him, the pizza is done when the timer goes off. Even though the pizza was done, he refused to eat it when I took it out of the oven. So I had to put it back in, set the timer, and take it back out when the timer went off. Even though the pizza was burned, Devin was happy.

That is just one example of what I had to deal with all week. The worst part for me was how early I had to wake up. It seemed like no matter how early I went to bed, 5:00 AM came way too fast. It's a lot earlier than I was used to getting up, and as one who needs to be heavily medicated just to get to sleep every night, early mornings aren't typically fun for me. But, with Diet Coke in hand, I was confident that I could pull this off.

Overall things went pretty smoothly, although there were a few hiccups along the way. Sam faked several illnesses to get out of going to school, and usually threw a tantrum when it was time to take his medicine. Devin had a few issues (the pizza fiasco was the most notable), but he's generally pretty mellow. He spent most of the day watching cartoons, which he would pause every few minutes (they have a DVR) and ask me what I thought about them. It was really hard getting any homework done, so I eventually retreated to another room.

The week was starting to take it's toll by Thursday. I don't know if it was the hours of cartoons, the lack of sleep, or the stress, but I was starting to lose it. I forgot to wash my hair in the shower, which was a great way to start the morning. Sam, of course, didn't want to go to school. I was out of Diet Coke. It wasn't a good day. For anyone.

This is how I looked when I got home that day:

Not pretty. But I managed to survive. And I didn't cry once. I believe I have earned my vacation now, thanks. I also learned some things about myself along the way:

1.Josh and I will not be having kids for a loooooong time.

2. When we do have kids, they will not be allowed to watch cartoons. They are the worst.

3. I might be addicted to Diet Coke.

Mad props to all of you parents out there. I don't know how you guys do it.

What happened?

2010-08-29T21:49:00.000-07:00

Where did the summer go?

It didn't help that the weather didn't start to look summery until mid-July, but seriously, what happened? Apparently Josh and I now have two more beautiful nieces that we have yet to meet (congratulations Heather/Tony and Chris/Audra!!!). I just realized that it has been over two months since we updated our blog! Here's a quick run-down of what we've been up to (it's going to be a very short list):

1. We went camping at the sand dunes with my dad's side of the family. It was pretty fun, but I was sick so it really wasn't that fun for me. Josh really likes riding on the dunes. So much, in fact, that he ordered his own helmet and gloves for next year.

2. I've been up to a whole lot of NOTHING since summer term ended. I did find a new favorite blog to read. This blog takes pictures from home decor catalogs (like Pottery Barn) and created a family that "lives" in the catalogs. That description doesn't really do it justice. Just go here and revel in the hilarity.

3. Wow. I have seriously run out of things to say. Sorry, no pictures of delicious baked goods. Maybe I'll have more interesting things to say some other time. I just wanted everyone to know that we're still alive!

A Love Story

2010-06-20T21:34:00.000-07:00

Once upon a time there was a little boy...

...and a little girl.The little boy and the little girl eventually grew up and went to college. They went to a magical place called Oregon State University.At first, the girl didn't really think the boy was interested, but he must have been, because he asked her over to his place to eat pizza and play Wii. This was the beginning of a beautiful relationship.

One day, the boy decided he wanted to take their relationship to the next level, so he proposed to the girl. Apparently the girl isn't very good at taking hints, because she didn't see it coming.
She said yes, and six months later they were married.
It has been two years since that beautiful summer day in June. A lot has happened since then. They adopted two cats (an idea that the girl is still not completely sold on), bought a new car, moved to a new city, got rid of their stupid futon, and learned how to be grown ups. The last two years have been incredible, and the girl is looking forward to seeing what is in store for them in the years to come.

The End

Summer has officially begun!!!

2010-06-13T12:00:00.000-07:00

Hello everyone!!!!!!

It's been a while since we posted anything! Things have been surprisingly busy. Now that things have calmed down a bit, I can give y'all a quick update of what's been going on with us these days:
1. We went to La Grande for Memorial weekend/Josh's grandma's 80th birthday party.I made strawberry cupcakes for the festivities--this time with a little help from Elsa.

2. Josh's birthday was last week. We kept it pretty low key. Josh took a half day, we went to Olive Garden for dinner, and we bought him this:So far the cats have been using his present more than he has, but the weather is FINALLY starting to perk up, so hopefully he can get some quality longboarding in this summer. Here is a gratuitous picture of his birthday cake:
You're welcome. Chocolate cake with peanut butter frosting, topped with chocolate peanut butter ganache. It was deadly, but it was FANTASTIC.

3. My brother's birthday was also last week. He turned 12!!! (sorry, no pictures)

4. My sister graduated from high school!

I'm so proud of her! Everyone is getting so big! I feel old. Also, I have bangs now!

Happy summer everyone!

Look Mom, I'm on TV!!!!!

2010-05-18T19:08:00.000-07:00

As Brianne mentioned in our last blog post, there was some excitement at our apartment complex last Friday morning at about 4am. Yesterday Brianne and I were on TV! We were interviewed by KPTV Channel 12 and KGW Channel 8. The interviews were aired at 10pm and 11pm. The videos were posted on their websites this morning. Here is the video from KPTV Channel 12 called Feds Arrest 3 In Drug Raid At Salem Apartment. This is the better news report.

This video is the one from KGW

This is a written article entitled Agents Arrest 3 In Salem Drug Raid where we were quoted.

~Josh

Trouble With the Law

2010-05-14T13:12:00.000-07:00

Some of you might remember our little run-in with the FBI last year. You know, the one that didn't actually happen?

Guess what?! Something really happened this time! Unfortunately Bruce Willis wasn't involved...

At about 4:00 this morning we heard a loud crash coming from upstairs. People were walking past the bedroom window with flashlights and we heard a voice over a loudspeaker telling us to stay in our apartment. I couldn't resist; I looked out the front window and saw a S.W.A.T. truck in the parking lot! We didn't know what was going on until a detective saw me peeking out the window and knocked on the door. He was pretty vague, but I guess the neighbors were stashing a bunch of drugs and guns in their apartment. The crash we heard was a flash grenade from the S.W.A.T. team. They had been watching the apartment for a while in a van (the S.W.A.T. truck left before I thought of taking a picture but I thought the blog post needed some visual interest) and for whatever reason decided that 4:00 AM was an appropriate time to bust the door down and arrest people. I have to admit, it was pretty cool. Stuff like this just doesn't happen in the suburbs of Salem.

The Surveillance Van

Here is the link to the story from the local newspaper. It doesn't really do it justice. And the reporter spelled heroin wrong. But it was exciting!

A few of my favorite things

2010-05-01T10:18:00.000-07:00

Everyone who reads this blog knows I love cupcakes. I also love strawberries. So it was only natural to combine the two. This is my new favorite cupcake recipe.

These cupcakes totally blew my mind. I got the recipe from Martha Stewart's Cupcakes, but her website has the same recipe. Make them now.

Labor Law

2010-04-04T16:20:00.000-07:00

About two weeks ago I got an update on my former employer. The company I used to work for was a farm and food processor. Labor laws in Oregon dictate that farm workers are exempt from overtime pay. The definition according to the Oregon Bureau of Labor and Industry is: "A farmworker is any person who works for pay in the production and harvesting of agricultural commodities, including crops, animals, and horticulture specialties." While many of the employees fall into this definition not all did. However, they considered all employees as farm workers.

My former employer sent me a letter stating that there had been a lawsuit filed against them for non-compliance with wage and hour laws, particularly overtime pay. The lawsuit is being considered for class-action status. To avoid a class-action lawsuit they were offering a settlement to everyone that may be due overtime pay. The offer was for all overtime pay plus 9% interest.

If I were to take part in the class-action lawsuit and we won then I would be awarded my overtime pay, interest, plus state and federal penalties, minus attorney fees which would be about 1/3 of my winnings.

I decided to accept the offer because it wasn't worth it to me to be a part of the class. I went down to Corvallis and signed the settlement agreement and picked up my check.

With my money I paid off some bills and I used some of it on fun stuff. I bought a Blu-ray player, a movie on Blu-ray, and a Barbecue (or a grill for those of you who are accustomed to southern BBQ...Jordan). I didn't realize that the BBQ required full assembly. We've used the BBQ three times in the last two weeks, and only three times because the weather has been cold, rainy and windy. Over the next few months we will really enjoy the things that we got with this surprise.

~Josh

Ah, The Wonders of Technology

2010-03-13T12:58:00.000-08:00

As most of you now know, we got a new TV. To be honest, I'm a little intimidated by it...I think it's perfectly justified. SO MANY CORDS! I usually avoid the back of the TV for this very reason. But the other day the internet decided to stop working, and of course the cords for the modem were back there. I ended up sitting behind the TV for over an hour unplugging every single cord and plugging them back in. I also tried to organize them a little bit (because that's what I do), but this is the best I could come up with. It is a pretty huge improvement from the mess that it was. I think some of these would help:

http://www.containerstore.com/shop/workSmartOfficeSale/officeMustHaves?productId=10026185

THESE ARE GENIUS. I love the Container Store!

Despite all of the stress the new TV has caused me, I will admit it's pretty sweet. Ernie seems to be enjoying it as well.He's so cute! He loves watching things in HD. Sometimes I think it's a little too realistic for him though, because he tries to play with the things on the screen. He especially likes to do this when Josh is playing a video game. Then it's not so cute.

Tax Returns = New TV and New Couch

2010-03-10T07:18:00.001-08:00

Brianne and I have been planning what we would do with our tax returns this year for quite some time now. We've been needing a new TV and a new couch.

The TV we had I bought at Goodwill more than 2 1/2 years ago for $25. It was a good size, about 26", and it served its purpose because I was a single college student living in an apartment with three other guys. However, this TV was just so old that it was starting to die even before I bought it. The TV had a big color spot on it (it was usually green but it depended on the color being displayed) that was a result from built of electomagnetism. This can easily be fix with a deguassing tool which TVs and computer monitors used to have. But my TV was too old and it didn't have that feature. I had to buy an electromagnet and wave it at the TV as if it were an magic wand and that would fix the problem, for the most part. It would never go completely away and it would always come back.

As of late, the TV has been a bit fuzzy. We would turn the TV on and it needed to warm up before we would have a clear picture. This started about two months ago and as the days went by it took longer and longer to warm up. We knew it wouldn't be long before it gave up completely.

For the past few years I have wanted to get an HDTV. In recent months, as I knew we would have the money from our tax returns, I have been studying about HDTVs so I would know what I wanted when the time came. We had gone TV "shopping" before and on Monday we went TV shopping for real. We checked out Costco, Video Only, and Walmart. We originally intended to get a 37" TV (Brianne wanted a 32", but I wanted between 37" and 42") and we check out the prices and features of the 37" TVs. As we were shopping I convinced Brianne that if we were going to get an HDTV we needed to do it right. No buying an HDTV for the sake of having one. No settling on the cheapest one just because it's cheap. And no getting one that was already bottom of the line and soon to be gone.

I wanted one with 1080p, a refresh rate of 120Hz or higher, and I wanted one that had built in internet so we could stream Netflix straight to the TV. We found several that had that. However, the cheapest one was a 42" at Costco. The 40" ones that had those features cost $150 more at Video Only.

Needless to say, we got the 42" HDTV. It is a Vizio 42" LCD 1080p 240Hz and has built in Wifi. We still only have Standard Definition Digital Cable, but it's still a HUGE improvement (yes, the pun was intended 42" is huge compared to 26"). We hooked up our xbox 360 and it has completely changed the way I play video games.

Our next item up for purchasing is a new couch. Once again, it is time to upgrade from my college student bachelor days of having a futon. We are trying to get rid of the futon before we buy the couch just because there wouldn't be much space if we still had the futon when the new couch was delivered. We've got the futon posted on craigslist for pretty cheap, I'm only looking to get enough out of it to go out to dinner. Hopefully it will go soon so we can buy the couch that we need and Brianne desperately wants.

~Josh

Scary Wii Accident.

2010-03-09T06:19:00.000-08:00

Ok, So I saw this article online and I had a couple thoughts on the matter

It has been confirmed that a three year old girl in Tennessee, US has been killed – following an incident where she mistook a Nintendo Wii ‘gun’ peripheral for an actual gun, fatally wounding herself in the abdomen.

According to AllAboutTheGames, the accident happened on Sunday night, where it was revealed that the girl’s Stepfather left a real gun on the living room table, who was apparently asleep when it happened.

First, scary!

Second, who leaves a gun on the table while sleeping with a three year old kid around? Especially a loaded hand gun? I mean, Come on!

Third, this isn’t Nintendo’s fault at all because the gun peripheral they have doesn’t actually look like a gun. Some third party made a gun-like wii-gun.

Fourth, this just goes back to my original argument that the parents need to teach their kids that video games aren’t real. My previous example of this was that the parents of two kids (ages 12 and 14 or something around there) who shot at cars on the highway with a .22 rifle and wounded several people shouldn’t have sued Rockstar Games for making Grand Theft Auto III and they shouldn’t have sued Walmart for selling the game because it was rated M so the parents must have bought it for their kids because Walmart doesn’t sell rated M games to kids under 17.

Fifth, sad, very sad.

For the full article go here http://www.product-reviews.net/2010/03/09/nintendo-wii-three-year-old-kills-herself-by-mistaking-gun-for-wii-peripheral/

Dr. Funke's 100% Natural Good Time Family Birthday Solution

2010-03-04T20:48:00.000-08:00

Cupcakes work better than Teamocil!

I've been on a bit of a baking hiatus since Christmas. I've made the occasional batch of cookies here and there, but nothing exciting. I usually only pull out the big guns for special occasions. Well...this week was my mom's birthday so naturally I needed to make something special. She requested coconut cake (her favorite). So I made coconut cupcakes, but I went a little crazy when I started decorating and they turned out like this:

I'm going to be honest: they look awesome. They were also pretty tasty. My sisters and brother and I skipped school to go up to Portland on her birthday and surprise her. She was so surprised she started crying! She doesn't get to see us very often since she moved to Portland and it's even more rare to have all of us together. We spent the rest of the day with her watching movies and eating pizza (and cupcakes). I also brought my camera so she could have some current pictures of us. Here are some pictures of our photo shoot:The siblings. and the dog.
My mom and brother. And the dog.
Our attempt at getting a picture of all of us. Including the dog.

I'd like to thank the academy...

2010-02-26T21:36:00.000-08:00

So...my friend Katie nominated me for this award:

Thanks Katie! I'm pretty sure it's not an actual award, but I'm flattered nonetheless. So with this award I am supposed to say 7 interesting things about me. Hmm...

1. I don't have a middle name.
2. My favorite color is black. People tell me black isn't a color. They are wrong. If there is a black crayon, then it is a color. It's simple logic, people.
3. I collect books and I don't always read them. I think I just like how they look on my bookshelf.
4. I'm allergic to codeine. It's in a lot of cold medicines so I have to suffer whenever I get sick.
5. My mom has a gender confused Yorkshire terrier named Fifi.
6. I'm REALLY bad at math.
7. I played the violin in 4th and 5th grade.

Interesting enough for you? I hope so. That wasn't easy for me.

Now im supposed to nominate some people.

I nominate Heather & Tony and Chris & Audra, because they are the only other blogs I read.

Happy Valentimes!

2010-02-17T16:21:00.000-08:00

Josh and I had a pretty good Valentines Day. Which is refreshing, because despite having Josh as a permanent Valentine, it has never been my favorite holiday. Usually something traumatic happens in my family or I fail a test or something. But not this year! It was a Sunday so Josh and I spent most of the day at home. I cooked dinner and made Josh this giant cookie:
It was quite delicious if I do say so myself. Josh surprised me with some gorgeous flowers.
I don't usually get flowers because the cats like to eat them, but they are surprisingly still in tact! That's all I really have to say about Valentines Day. My main purpose for this post was just to update everyone on life for us here in Salem, but I wanted to add some visual interest. Here is a quick list of everything else that has been happening:

1. I'm back in school. It was a little hard to transition from doing ABSOLUTELY NOTHING, but I'm getting back into the swing of things.

2. Josh has managed to lower his cholesterol by 2o points! I'm so proud of him!

3. Our cats are still idiots. But we've been training them to do tricks:
That's about it. We really need something exciting to happen around here.

Annual Compensation Review

2010-01-21T22:19:00.000-08:00

I was reading a survey a couple weeks ago about pay raises. Out of the many HR managers surveyed, only about 60% of all companies will be giving out raises this year. Of those giving out raises, only about 30% were giving out more than 3% raises, and even less giving out more than 6% raises. Many companies are still uncertain about the near future of the economy even though it has seen a recent spike.

For the last couple months my company has been reviewing our compensation plan. I haven't been terribly involved in the process. I was mostly involved at the front end with updating job descriptions and deciding which jobs had more responsibilities.

We determined that some people were being under paid for the position they held and for the length of service they had with the company. Some people received large raises, and some small raises. Almost everyone in the company received a raise.

I was told today that I would be getting a raise that would be effective on this next paycheck. It's a conservative one of only 3%, but it's better than no raise. However, the cost of living here in Oregon actually went down this year (no minimum wage increases for 2010), so it's really like getting a bigger raise of about 5%.

Even with the announcement of raises, some people were still upset when they were told how much they were getting. They felt like they were entitled to more. I think at least 6 people complained today about how "little" they were getting. I was a bit disappointed in them. A "little" is better than nothing. Sure it would have been nice to get a bigger raise, but I'm not going to look a gift horse in the mouth. Brianne and I are grateful.

~Josh

The Lasting Musical Influence of My Father.

2010-01-08T16:15:00.000-08:00

We were driving back to Salem from Albany. This is what I played on my ipod:

House of the Rising Sun - Animals
Ain't no Sunshine - Bill Withers
Grandma's Hands - Bill Withers
Lean on Me - Bill Withers
Lola - The Kinks
Summer in the City - The Lovin' Spoonful
One - Three Dog Night

And it turns out that I don't have Cover of the Rolling Stones by Dr. Hook & the Medicine Show. I thought I did.

I not sure whether I should thank dad or not.

~Joshua

This is a metaphor

2010-01-04T21:57:00.000-08:00

I think I'm losing my touch.
I honestly don't know what went wrong. It looks like a Salvador Dali painting.

Merry Christmas, from Corporate America

2009-12-20T13:03:00.000-08:00

Apparently the meat packing industry is doing just fine during this recession, because Josh's company managed to throw a pretty rockin' Christmas party.
Seriously, it was NICE. It took place at a hotel in downtown Salem (not a bad one considering the location).
Here is a gratuitous picture of food. The company really went all out. The prime rib was especially delicious.I don't know why but my arm looks WAY fat in this picture. It's really distracting.This Santa Butt was one of the centerpieces on the tables. We got to take this one home!

After dinner the floor opened up for dancing and gambling (with fake money). Josh played black jack and I played a few hands of poker. At the end of the night we cashed our chips in for raffle tickets. We ended up winning $150 in cash! My favorite part of the night was when I met the owner of Josh's company, and his gorgeous (and young) Brazilian wife told me I was "very fashion." That made my day.

All in all, not a bad night!

It's beginning to look a lot like Christmas!

2009-12-11T10:45:00.000-08:00

I've pretty much had that song stuck in my head since October when stores started putting out their Christmas merchandise. Now that it's December I don't feel so stupid singing it. I don't know why, but I'm REALLY excited for Christmas this year. I made Josh help me put up our tree the day after Thanksgiving (after some Black Friday shopping and a nap, of course). Decorating the tree was always one of my favorite things to do during the Christmas season. Josh and I had a lot of fun decorating the tree and listening to Christmas music. Now that we've had the tree up for two weeks, I thought I should post some pictures.
Here, it appears the cats were enjoying themselves as well. This is a lie. They were really familiarizing themselves with the Christmas decorations so they could plot this year's scheme to destroy Christmas. I'm sure some of you remember last year's fiasco (I can't make a link to the post, but you can look it up). Little did they know we were prepared for their attack and bought a new tree that doesn't have detachable branches, so the only thing they could do was pull the ornaments off and chew on the lights. Ha ha!Last year Josh and I decided to start buying each other an ornament each year. This is the ornament I bought Josh this year. He has kind of a snowman thing (most of his childhood ornaments are snowmen), so I bought him this one made out of a light bulb.

Josh bought me an Eiffel Tower ornament last year, and this year he bought me Big Ben. I really like it, but I'm MUCH more excited about this one:
Yes, it is a pickle. My family always had a pickle ornament hanging from the tree, so I decided that I needed to get my own. It's some weird German tradition I guess. All I know is that you're supposed to hide the pickle in the Christmas tree and whoever finds it gets a prize.

Here is the finished product:I have already done plenty of my other favorite Christmas pastime this year: baking! I volunteered to do the dessert for our ward Christmas party this year. I wanted to make cupcakes, but not everyone likes cupcakes (stupid people) and I wanted to give people a variety to choose from. So I decided to make two kinds of cupcakes and an assortment of cookies. I made gingerbread cupcakes with cream cheese frosting and chocolate cupcakes with peppermint buttercream. I made a TON of cookies as well. I made chocolate-covered cherry cookies, eggnog cookies, sugar cookies, peanut butter blossoms, orange thumbprints and pecan bars. They went too fast at the party to take any pictures, so I think it's safe to say they were a hit. Here is a couple of pictures that I managed to take before the party:
We have plenty more Christmas events to blog about this month, so keep your eye out! Bye for now!

My Side of the Story

2009-11-02T16:24:00.000-08:00

Someone said that they wanted to see my answers to these questions. And just so you don't all think that I ignore my wife when I get a new video game, I just want you to know that I was pretty bored when she got a new game called Scribblenauts for our Nintendo DSi.

What are your middle names? Mine is Tyler, Brianne doesn't have one. Interesting story though, when Brianne and I got married we considered giving her a middle name that started with 'M' so her initials would be BMW.

How long have you been together? June 21st was our first wedding anniversary, but we've been together almost 3 years! (just like she said)

How long did you know each other before you started dating? It was a couple days short of 4 months, and I wasn't afraid of her-I was dating someone else.

Who asked who out? I asked her out, but to be honest, she didn't realize it was a date at first.

Whose siblings do you see the most? Definitely hers. If anyone lived closer then I would see them more often.

Do you have any children together? Nope. And none apart either.

What about pets? Two adorable kitty kitties. We do treat them like our spoiled babies.

Did you go to the same school? Only if you mean college.

Who is the most sensitive? Definitely me, I get emotional over thinking about one of our cats getting run over and the other one being left alone without his brother.

Where do you eat out most as a couple? She asked me this question so my answer is the same. Although, we do like Papa Murphy's too.

Where is the furthest you have ever traveled as a couple? I picked her up in Ontario once and then we stayed in La Grande for a couple days, and then drove to Corvallis. That's a little bit farther but it's only a technicality.

Who has the worst temper? Her for sure.

Who does the cooking? Usually Brianne, but I do some too. And I help.

Who is more social? Her. I don't like to be social, I like to stay home and watch movies and stuff.

Who is the neat freak? Brianne is right up there with Jordan and Mom.

Who is the most stubborn? I'm part English and Welsh, she's part Irish and German. You tell me who's more stubborn.

Who hogs the bed? I probably hog the bed, but she hogs the blankets.

Who wakes up earlier? Me, and not just because I have to.

Where was your first date? I invited her over for Pizza and Wii Sports.

Who has the bigger family? This is debatable. Even though I have over 40 cousins, she has to use diagrams to explain how her family works (and she complains about trying to keep my cousins' names straight, I have to keep marriages straight). You should ask her to explain it sometime.

Do you get flowers often? I used to get her flowers more regularly, but two things stop me from doing it so often now: the cats eat flowers and we don't have a vase. I never get flowers.

Who eats more? Me... :(

Who sings better? Me, I can do melody and harmony, she only does melody.

Who does the laundry? I do help with laundry, but I'm not allowed to fold the clothes. Any questions, see the question about who the neat freak is.

Who is better with the computer? Me

Who drives when you are together? Me

Who picks where you go to dinner? I usually end up picking, but only after we've argued for 15 minutes about the fact that I never pick. Her argument doesn't make sense because I usually pick, but after 15 minutes I'm too hungry to care about being right anymore.

Who is the first one to admit when they are wrong? Like she said, she's never wrong. The problem is that I'm always right.

Who wears the pants in this relationship? Her because at some point I stop caring about being right.

Who eats more sweets? We both have our moments.

Who cries more? I think I do. See my answers to the emotional question.

What's your best day together? Brianne forgot to mention the food part. Food is a very important factor as to how good the day was.

Where did you honeymoon? Newport and Lincoln City on the coast.

Favorite date night? I don't know if staying at home and watching a movie is our favorite date night, but we sure do that a lot. Besides, we can't stand the other people in the movie theater who talk and text and are loud and annoying.

Couple I imagine us growing old like? I first want to point out that this question is worded in a way that I'm not sure I understand it. Am I supposed to name a couple that I think we'll be like or am I supposed to describe how we will be as a couple? That being said, I think we'll be like Grandma and Grandpa Waite. We'll sleep in separate rooms. I'll have a farm for all of my kitty kitties so Brianne doesn't have to put up with them. She'll yell at me, I won't hear her so I'll just agree. The TV will always be on and really loud and the house will be 94 degrees because Brianne is always cold.

I hope you enjoyed my answers.

~Josh

Bad Day for Bert

2009-11-01T11:36:00.001-08:00

Poor Bert!

Friday was not a good day for this appendage of the Waite family. I was getting ready for what was supposed to be a fun day of shopping and scrapbooking with my step-mom. I was in the bathroom taking my morning medication (I'm secretly 80 years old so I have a regimen of morning and evening pills--maybe I should get one of those plastic things with the days of the week on them) when the phone rang. I left the pills on the counter and went to answer it. When I walked back into the bathroom, the pills were gone and Bert went streaking out the door. Both of our cats are often suspect to disappearing (or broken) objects because they always act so guilty (as Bert did at this instance). Obviously, I panicked. I called Josh to tell him what happened and then he called the veterinarian to see what we should do. We needed to take him in. Josh raced home from work and we took Bert to the nearest vet. The nurse told us they needed to get him to throw up, and then feed him charcoal to keep him from absorbing any of the pills he might have digested. They were going to have to keep Bert for a few hours to monitor him, so we said goodbye (he was already hooked to an IV and several other tubes) and left him. When we arrived back at our apartment, Josh found the pills under a blanket on the couch. Apparently I took them with me when I was on the phone and left them there after I got off. So we called the vet to tell them that we found the pills and Bert was fine, but they had already fed him the charcoal, AND they still wanted to keep him for a few hours, just in case. So it was all a mistake. An incredibly expensive mistake (I think the pet health care system also needs reform). And to add to my guilt, Bert came home looking like this:
They had shaved him in several parts of his legs, and one of them was covered in a bandage to keep him from bleeding. Luckily he bounced back pretty quick. Once we took the bandage off he calmed down and went back to being his usual, playful self. I'm glad Bert is alright, but I really wanted to go shopping...

I was bored

2009-10-30T19:03:00.000-07:00

Josh got a new Halo game today so I needed something to do with myself. Enjoy!

What are your middle names? Josh's is Tyler, I don't have one

How long have you been together? June 21st was our first wedding anniversary, but we've been together almost 3 years!

How long did you know each other before you started dating? About 3 months. I'm pretty sure he was afraid of me up until that point.

Who asked who out? Josh asked me. In person!

Whose siblings do you see the most? Mine. None of his even live in Oregon.

Do you have any children together? Not yet (and not for a while).

What about pets? Two cats. They are our children.

Did you go to the same school? Yeah.

Who is the most sensitive? Josh. But I have my moments.

Where do you eat out most as a couple? Cheap Chinese food at this restaurant across the street.

Where is the furthest you have ever traveled as a couple? La Grande, Oregon. Woo hoo!

Who has the worst temper? Definitely me.

Who does the cooking? Usually me.

Who is more social? That would be me.

Who is the neat freak? ME!

Who is the most stubborn? I'm going to go with Josh simply because I refuse to admit that I'm stubborn.

Who hogs the bed? I often find myself waking up with Josh's elbow in my face.

Who wakes up earlier? Josh.

Where was your first date? Josh's apartment for pizza and Wii bowling.

Who has the bigger family? Josh for sure.

Do you get flowers often? Not really, but it's fine because our cats always try to eat them.

Who eats more? Josh.

Who sings better? Probably Josh.

Who does the laundry? Josh isn't allowed to do the laundry.

Who is better with the computer? Josh!

Who drives when you are together? Josh again.

Who picks where you go to dinner? We cant make that decision. Ever.

Who is the first one to admit when they are wrong? I'm never wrong.

Who wears the pants in this relationship? I guess I do because I'm the loudest.

Who eats more sweets? That's a close call. I would say we're about equal.

Who cries more? I've been crying a lot these days.

What's your best day together? Staying home in our pajamas watching movies all day.

Where did you honeymoon? The beautiful Oregon Coast

Favorite date night? Staying home in our pajamas and watching movies all day. We need to go out more.

Couple I imagine us growing old like? We're going to be the old couple that all the neighborhood kids are afraid of. I'll bake cookies for our grandchildren whenever they visit but they never do because our house smells like cat litter and my cookies are made with Splenda because we both have diabetes. We'll probably never leave the house, but if we do we'll just go to Wal-Mart and use the self checkout line even though we have two carts full of canned cat food and frozen dinners. It will be glorious.

Go Beavs!

2009-10-12T10:49:00.000-07:00

Josh and I haven't been to an OSU football game in a really long time. Luckily, we have Josh's parents to take us to games! Before the game we ate at Local Boys (fantastic Hawaiian-style food loaded with carbs) and walked around campus. The OSU campus is GORGEOUS this time of year, and whether or not you are a football fan, it's impossible to ignore the pre-game excitement. Our seats were really high above the field, as depicted below. Here are some photos of the festivities:The view from our seats. I told you we were up there.The boys coming out of the giant helmet.This is Stanford's mascot. I thought they were the Cardinals. Apparently they are the Dancing Trees with Top Hats. Whatever he is supposed to be, I thoroughly enjoyed watching this guy.

I can honestly say I have no idea what's going on here.Touchdown!

The Beavers beat Stanford with a score of 38-28. Everyone was saying it was a good game. I wouldn't know. I have a really hard time focusing on football games. It was a lot of fun being in Corvallis again. I can't express enough how much I LOVE Corvallis in the fall. It's so beautiful. Just look:

Thanks Reed and Debbie for the fun weekend!!

Oktoberfest!

2009-09-21T21:34:00.000-07:00

Brianne's birthday was on on the 14th of this month. As part of her present we decided to celebrate her German heritage by going to Oktoberfest the following weekend. For those of you who don't know—and most of you probably don't since our blog followers are predominately mormon—the Mount Angel Oktoberfest is kind of a big deal. Especially if you like beer.

According to Wikipedia "Mt. Angel is well-known locally for its annual Oktoberfest. The Mt. Angel Oktoberfest is one of the largest of its kind in the U.S. The festival can attract upwards of 350,000 people and includes beer and wine gardens, softball tournaments at Ebner Ball Park, a local football game and volleyball invitational tournament, carnival rides, crafts, a wide assortment of German food, and a two-day car show."

No, we didn't go drinking and dancing on the tables as I've heard some people end up doing. We went for the food. We got sausages (which were made by my company) and apple cake with butter sauce (which are delicious). The biggest attraction, and possibly the most disappointing, was the wiener dog races. Not that it wasn't entertaining, but they ran so fast it only lasted about two seconds. I barely managed to take one picture. We only saw the third and final race so we didn't get to see a whole lot of it.Sausages loaded with sauerkraut

Mmm...apple cake.Weiner dog races

We also went to the Catholic Church and listened to a men's choir concert for a little bit. We watch the glockenspiel at 4 o'clock, but we decided it was kind of creepy. While we walked around and looked at the different booths Brianne had to pull me away from the one that sold cork guns. It reminded me of the cork gun I had so long ago that we bought at Wallowa Lake. She saw the look in my eyes that told her I had reverted back to when I was about eight years old; and that's never a good sign.

Inside the Catholic churchThe Glokenspiel

One thing we bought Brianne was a bar of homemade Pearberry soap. There were several different scents in giant slabs that they would cut into chunks. I liked the smell of the Sandalwood soap, but that was definitely a masculine smell so she didn't get it.

Throughout the day I kept up with the scores of the football games on my phone. I was surprised to see that Washington beat USC, disappointed to see that BYU lost, delighted that Oregon beat Utah, and distraught that that Cincinnati beat OSU.

We left Oktoberfest as many people were arriving. We figured that it would be best to go in the early afternoon and leave around dinner time to avoid all the drunkenness. The food was good, but we took prilosec before we went just to be prepared. Everyone should take part in Oktoberfest at some point in their lives. It's quite an experience and was a great way to spend a Saturday afternoon.

~Josh

Cats, Cakes, And Concussions

2009-09-13T02:07:00.000-07:00

Well, it's 2:00 in the morning and I'm awake. Unfortunately, this happens to me a lot. Like, every night. I was actually thinking about starting my own blog dedicated to insomnia and the inner workings of my mind that so often keep me up at night. But I don't know; it could be scary. What do you think?

This week hasn't been particularly eventful, but I thought I would share some stories with you for your entertainment.

Story #1:
Ernie likes to watch me when I'm in the shower. I don't really know why. He will sit on the counter and stare at me from the time I turn on the water to the time I get out. Sometimes he falls asleep, but most of the time he just stares at me with his eyes bugging out of his head. I think it's because his only experiences with the shower look like this:
He probably wonders why I would subject myself to that kind of torment on a daily basis. Ok, that was the prologue, now here is the story. Ernie was staring at me the other day, as usual. But this time when I got got out, he was sitting in the sink. I thought it was pretty cute.
(I actually had to put him back in there in order to take the picture. I scared him when I came bursting out of the shower to grab the camera)

Story #2:
I have a new favorite website. It's called Cake Wrecks and it is pretty much the most hilarious thing I've ever seen. The author of the blog posts pictures of professional cakes that have gone, and I quote, "horribly, hilariously wrong". Readers can also submit pictures of cake wrecks that they have witnessed. My latest project is to go to the bakery section every time we go to the grocery store and take pictures of scary cakes with Josh's Blackberry. The pictures aren't the greatest, but here are a few samples of what I saw in the Wal-Mart bakery this week:This cake isn't hideous, but if you notice the detailing, you will see that the cake says "Go Beavs" in orange, but the little plastic football players are wearing green jerseys (for those of you from out of town, the arch enemies of the OSU Beavers are the Oregon Ducks, who happen to wear green jerseys).This, I think, is supposed to be a lumpy purple monkey with its arms growing out of its head. You can't see from this angle, but this cake is actually made of a bunch of cupcakes, hence the lumpiness. I'm sorry for being graphic here, but my main concern about this cake is what color my bowel movements would be after eating this.

This one also concerns me. It says on the label that it is a "Cupcake Critter: Alligator" so one can only assume that there are cupcakes somewhere in there. Again, my main concern lies in the color of my bowel movements. But I would still totally eat it. It's an alligator MADE OF FROSTING.

Story #3:
This story doesn't involve cute pictures of kitties or pictures of strange cake creations. This story doesn't have any pictures at all because I haven't been keeping up with my physical appearance for the last couple of days.

On Thursday night, as is routine, I was awake at around 2:00 in the morning. On this particular night I was picking at my face in front of the bathroom mirror and I accidentally made myself bleed. After cleaning it up I turned to throw the tissue away and as I stood up, I hit my head on the corner of the towel rack. It really hurt. My ears were ringing, my eyes were watering, and there was a lump on my head the size of a silver dollar. Luckily I had some leftover vicodin from my recent trip to the emergency room (ruptured ovarian cyst=not fun) so I took that and went to bed. I didn't wake up until after noon the next day. My head was still killing me and my ears were still ringing. I couldn't stand up for long without losing my balance or just getting really sick. I turned to my oldest and dearest friend, WebMD. I'm kind of a hypochondriac, so this website is like the Bible for me. It said I most likely have a concussion. This was a reasonable diagnosis. Usually, I come to the conclusion that I have some kind of cancer. So I have a concussion. That's really all there is to the story. I'm not enjoying it and I'm honestly surprised that I'm not sleeping now because that's about all I've been doing for the last two days.

That's all folks. I want to try to go back to bed, but Josh is snoring now, so that may be difficult. Hmm...

We're still alive!

2009-09-04T17:23:00.000-07:00

Hello all,
Sorry we haven't updated in a while. It's not like we've been too busy to blog (that is far from the case for me), we just haven't thought about it. Since I recently took the time and effort to give our blog a makeover, I thought it would be appropriate to write a little. So here is an update of our life since our last post:

June
In June we got to take our first camping trip as a married couple. We went to the dunes of Winchester Bay (south of Florence on the Oregon coast) to go four-wheeling with my family. We were only able to stay one night, but I didn't have a problem with that. We discovered that sand is not nearly as comfortable to sleep on as we initially thought. We were sleeping right on the dunes. Here is a picture of me fully equipped for our ride:
Shortly after this picture was taken, we took a pretty nasty spill going up a rather large dune (Josh was driving). We were fine though. Sand is soft when you are rolling down a hill made of it. Here is a gorgeous picture Josh took from the top of one of the dunes:
It was pretty fun. June was also Josh's birthday. I made him the salmon dish from the last post with sauteed summer squash and homemade rolls. I went through this cupcake phase for a while so he specifically requested NO cake for his birthday. So I made berry cobbler with homemade ice cream instead. It wasn't cake, but it was still delicious.

OH! June was also our anniversary! That was the weekend we went camping. On Sunday we decided to be bad and go to the Konditorei (our favorite local bakery) to get some cake. It was totally worth breaking the sabbath for it. Seriously. You just have to try it sometime.

July
We went to La Grande for the 4th of July. Sorry, we forgot or camera. We had a delicious southern style barbecue with red velvet cupcakes for dessert (Josh couldn't keep me from cupcakes for long!!!)

Josh's brother Jordan also came to our side of the state for a weekend. We went to the beach and shopping at the outlet mall. July was REALLY hot over here for about a week. I spent three days lying on the floor in front of my homemade air conditioner. Basically, I put a tub of ice water and a wet towel in front of a fan.

August
August started off with Josh's parents spending the weekend with us. They went to the beach for Reed's birthday and then stayed with us Saturday night. I made this German chocolate cheesecake. It was very good. I made it again a few weeks later for my dad's birthday.
I've been doing a lot of baking lately. It's my dream to open up my own bakery some day. I decided a while back to start preparing to make this dream a reality. I'm going to start small, just making cakes and other desserts for baby showers, birthdays and holidays. This way I can practice baking and decorating and get some extra income. Then I'll just go from there.

I'm still planning on finishing school and getting my teaching license. This is obviously going to happen a while down the road, but I'm excited to think my ultimate dream could be a reality!

Besides baking, I've been feeling pretty crafty in general. My step mom has got me into scrapbooking and now I'm a little obsessed. This is one of the first pages I actually have done: I have a lot of partially and nearly finished pages. This book is going to be a chronology of my life with Josh so far. It starts with when we were dating and ends at our first anniversary. This is a picture of us dressed as Wayne and Garth from Wayne's World. I have a page of when he proposed to me, our first Christmas together, our engagement pictures, our wedding and our children (Bert and Ernie). I don't really have anything else to scrapbook until we start having human kids, so I'll have to take a hiatus and get a different hobby for a while.

Now
Speaking of Bert and Ernie, they're doing well.In fact, they are HUGE.

Josh is busy with his new job. Right now he is busy trying to convince the workers in the plant not to unionize. I'm still not really doing anything. This month is exciting for me. My birthday is in a little over a week! And I'm (hopefully) going back to school at the end of the month! I have never been so excited to go back to school! But I haven't been able to get a job here and I missed the deadline to get financial aid for summer classes, so I've been stuck at home. My newest project (besides scrapbooking) is watching entire seasons of television shows on DVD. Right now I am loving Mad Men. But I ran out of episodes. I need season 5 of The Office to come out!!!

That's about it. Sorry it's so long. But if you think about it, this is really like six blogs in one. I hope you enjoyed our fascinating life and I promise we'll update more from now on! Bye y'all!

My Personal Chef!

2009-05-31T18:21:00.000-07:00

When Brianne and I met she couldn't even make Macaroni and Cheese from a box. With some help and encouragement from me she started making desserts and basic dishes for dinner. Today she is quite the chef. She has learned to love cooking. She likes to watch the Food Network. She has recently become fascinated with a new show called Cook Yourself Thin. She got the cookbook and has begun making dishes from it. The basic idea of the show/cookbook is to substitute certain ingredients to significantly lower the amount of calories without sacrificing the taste.

Here are some pictures of Brianne's wonderful Garlic Herb Butter Salmon and Mashed Potatoes served with a side of Spinach Salad.
This is the salmon she grilled.

This is only part of the mess she made.

And this is the finished gourmet dinner.

And all of this at about 500 calories.

~Josh

Standing tall with viagra

2009-05-27T09:12:00.001-07:00

I just wanted to share this with everyone. I was skimming through the Fortune Magazine yesterday and I saw an article entitled "How Business Can Stand Tall Again." Next to this article I saw an ad for Viagra. It wasn't too hard to make the connection.

HELP!!!!

2009-05-03T10:57:00.000-07:00

At 8:47 this morning I was under attack. The FBI came storming into my apartment. After a bit of a scuffle involving some gunfire and a few punches to the face, I was on my knees with Brianne next to me. They were looking for a package that I didn't know anything about; but they seemed to think I had everything to do with it. I had no way out of this situation and if I didn't do something soon we would be dead.

Then I realized something. I had something heavy in my pocket. I knew that if I could shift my weight and lean against it I could call someone. I wouldn't be able to talk, but they would be able to hear what was going on and get help.

I was in luck. I managed to lean against my phone and call the one person who would know what to do. My mom. She heard someone talking about the FBI and someone yelling "where's the package" and "shut up." She immediately knew I was in trouble and was able to get me help right away.

Brianne and I were saved by mom. We owe our lives to her.

Actually, that is what my mom thinks happened. Here is the real story.

I was getting ready for church. Brianne takes a lot longer to get ready than I do. I was done and sitting on the couch waiting for her. I turned on the tv and was watching part of Live Free or Die Hard. At some point I must have butt dialed mom.

The best part about this is that she came to the conclusion that I was in trouble. She tried calling me back and I didn't answer. My phone was on silent because I was about to go to church. When I step out of the car I felt my phone vibrate. I had just missed a third call. One from mom, one from dad, and one from Jordan.

My first thought was that someone had died or something bad like that. I listened to my messages and realized that I had butt dialed mom and now she was worried because I wasn't answering.

I called her up and found out that she could hear the movie. Brianne and I laughed because mom's first thought was that we were in danger.

~Josh

P.S. Thanks mom, we love you.

Ch-ch-ch-changes!

2009-04-18T17:23:00.000-07:00

I thought this particular David Bowie reference was appropriate for what has been going on with our lives lately. Josh and I are taking some big steps into adulthood.

We bought a car a couple of weeks ago! The old Honda just wasn't cutting it anymore. We were having problems with the battery, and it seemed like every time we went in to get an oil change there was something new wrong with it. So we decided to get something a little more reliable. Our new car is an '02 Toyota Camry. When we got it, the car only had 75,000 miles on it. We took it for a test drive to La Grande last weekend for Easter. The mix of cruise control, plenty of space, and Harry Potter on audiobook made the trip MUCH more pleasant than anything with the Honda. This car didn't die a few miles outside of Pendleton (like the Honda did at one in the morning!

The trip to La Grande was fun. We hadn't seen Afton since Christmas and she has grown so much since then! We don't have any other pictures of the trip except for a few adorable pictures of our niece, so I thought I would share one of my favorites. After Easter dinner we drove home in the luxury of our new car.

Since we've been back, nothing very exciting has happened. Josh has been busy with work, I've been busy watching entire seasons of America's Next Top Model, and the kitties have been busy torturing me.

We did plant a garden today. We have been talking about starting a garden for a while now. Since the weather is starting to warm up, we thought today would be perfect! We're growing tomatoes, strawberries, bell peppers, herbs (rosemary, chives, and cilantro), and a few mums to add some color to our quaint little "garden". I can't wait until the strawberries start to come out! This summer is going to be delicious!

P.S. This is not a real frog. It's a plastic frog that one of our younger neighbors must have dropped. We thought it made a nice accent to our strawberry plants.

New Apartment/Hair Cut

2009-04-05T19:18:00.000-07:00

We've gotten a few requests to post pictures of our new apartment. I thought now would be a good time since we've been here for two weeks. We're not done decorating yet. And eventually we'll get rid of the futon.

This is one corner of our living room. It's significantly bigger than the living room in our old apartment. Actually, the living room and kitchen alone are about the size of our entire apartment in Corvallis! No joke.

This is the bathroom. It's bigger than our old one, with a full counter and plenty of storage!

This is our new dresser. We got it at Ikea last weekend. It took us over 2 hours to put it together! We also have the matching end tables (in the next picture). The lamps in the other picture are also from Ikea. I really like that store. Can you tell?

This is the bed. Don't our kitties look good with the decor?

Here is the kitchen. It is SO much bigger than our old one! We don't have to put our table in the living room anymore! I really like the pear mat and and towels we got.

**Also, in celebration of the new apartment, I got a new hair cut! It's actually like two hair cuts in one. I can wear it with bangs...

...or without! And both look amazing!**

P.S. Josh is really liking his job (especially now that he doesn't have to commute), and our kitties are doing really well in our new place.

Two weeks!

2009-03-06T14:03:00.000-08:00

We found an apartment finally. We had been looking at one place in Salem and they looked really nice, but the managers were not very helpful and weren't there when we told them we would be coming by to turn in an application. So we gave up on them and started looking around again.

Last Friday we got a lot of addresses that we had gotten off of craigslist and on Saturday we went to check them out. We ended up driving by two places that I had seen on my commute before we checked out the ones on our list. We liked both of them, but the managers were out to lunch at the first one. So we stopped at the second one to ask about it and to make sure they were pet friendly.

The manager talked to us for a little bit about the apartments and then showed us hers. Then we went to look at an empty one and we really liked it. We applied right then. After we applied we decided to check out the other apartments we had on the list and that we would wait to hear back from these ones before we applied for any others.

On Tuesday, we got a call from the manager letting us know that we got approved. We were excited. We had to pay the deposit to reserve it until we move it. Now it's just a matter of waiting, packing and moving.

Well be moving in two weeks; on the 21st. We'll take pictures after we move and post those.

~Josh

Funny Kitty Pictures

2009-02-07T11:20:00.001-08:00

I just thought you might enjoy some funny pictures of our kitties.

This is Ernie yawning while inside of an empty Bisquick box.

Ernie and Bert still playing with the Bisquick box. Zoom in on their faces. Ernie's tongue is sticking out and Bert is yawning.

I hope you enjoyed their funny faces.

~Josh

Once a Month

2009-02-02T16:09:00.000-08:00

I thought I'd keep up with my tradition of posting once a month by taking the opportunity to let everyone know that I got a new job. To answer your questions:

No, I wasn't looking for a job, it was looking for me.
I mean, I was called by someone who unofficially offered me the job and then I had to apply and jump through other legal hoops to get it.
His name is Jacob, I used to work with him at ********* ****** *****, ***. (I have been asked to not mention the name of my company on my blog).
In two weeks, on the 16th.
Yes, it still is HR and Safety.
Yes, speaking Spanish is something I'll continue to do.
No, it's not agriculture...but it still is food processing.
Meat Packing.
Yes, it pays more.
Yes, better benefits too.
We'll see...(I'm not sure what it was you asked that time, so I thought I'd give a vague noncommittal response).
No, it's not in Corvallis.
Silverton, OR.
I know, I hadn't heard of it either.
It's a small town about 15 minutes NE of Salem.
Yes, we will be moving.
Salem.
No, we haven't found a place yet...but that's okay. We won't be moving until the end of March.
We are waiting almost two months to move because Brianne finishes the term then.
I'm not sure yet (I didn't hear the question, but I didn't want to ask you to repeat yourself).
No, she won't continue at OSU.
Yes, she will continue school.
Probably at Chemeketa, and then at Willamette.
I know, Chemeketa is a weird name for a school, but I didn't choose it.
No, I didn't forget to mention the name of the new company.
I figured since my current employer doesn't want me to name the company I shouldn't name the new one either.
Ok, if you really want to know what it is, google "meat packing, Silverton Oregon" and it will pop up.
You already asked that.
Yes you did.

This month I will probably post more than just this one time. I have some funny pictures of our kitties to show and I'll let everyone know how the new job is. If you have any other questions, they weren't worth answering so I didn't bother. Just kidding, feel free to ask. I'll answer if I'm not bound by confidentiality agreements.

~Josh

Good Kitties.

2009-01-04T12:28:00.001-08:00

Just a couple days ago we took our cats to the vet. We found a nice veterinary clinic here in Corvallis. They were a bit nervous going in because we put them in their pet carrier (which they don't like so much any more after our trip to and from La Grande). Everyone at the clinic told us that they were adorable, and they really are.

The vet weighed them and it turns out Bert weighs 6lbs. 5oz. And Ernie weighs only 5lbs. We are not sure why because Ernie always seems to be the pig. The vet also took their temperature and they did not like that (it was done the old fashion way).

The vet took them to get blood samples and to help them relax she gave them cheesewiz. Who would of thought that cats love cheesewiz. They taught us how to trim cats nails (I bet mom wishes we had learned before we went to La Grande with them). They got their shots and we'll be going back for boosters soon. They also gave them some flea medicine which is really helping. That night I saw the fleas dropping like flies off the kitties. I kept picking them up and flushing them down the toliet.

The grossest part of all of this is that the doctor asked us to get a fecal sample. Luckily they went poop right as we got home and I just had to scoop it up. It smelled really bad and the thought of having kitty poop in a couple viles on the dash as I drove back to the vet was gross.

So $600 dollars later (we paid for all their shots and visits and everything up front) our kitties are healthy and doing fine.

~Josh

How the Grinches Stole Christmas

2008-12-11T14:04:00.000-08:00

Our kitties are adorable. We know they are also pests, but we didn't know they were Grinches! We were really excited to set up our first Christmas tree, but apparently Bert and Ernie didn't like that idea. At first they were cute and took a nap together under the tree.

Then they decided to play in the tree.

And then completely destroy it.

And then burn my festive holiday oven mitt.Actually, that last one was me forgetting to turn the stove off. But we decided to punish them anyway. We put them away in the kitty drawer for a while to think about what they did.
They both crawled in there when I was doing dishes so I couldn't help myself. I closed the drawer and took a picture. You can kind of see Ernie's head poking out of the crack. They are quite a handful, but they're pretty cute. They're currently snuggling next to me as I type this. I think they feel bad for destroying Christmas.

Hair cut!

2008-12-05T12:39:00.000-08:00

Hello again!

I got a hair cut! It's been about 2 weeks now so I think it's about time to let the world see my new makeover!

This is a picture of what my hair looked like before. This is the longest I have had my hair since I was 3 years old. Also note how curly it is. This is weird because my hair has been straight most of my life. Ask my mom, it actually used to stick straight up!

I had kind of a hard time getting a good picture of the haircut, but you can get the basic idea from this picture. I was home alone and Bert was attacking the camera while I was taking the picture. I really like it. I think Josh wishes it was still long but I don't care. I wish his hair was longer. So there.

Just for fun, here is a picture of my dog! Isn't she cute?

This is Fifi in her favorite position: belly up. She LOVES to have her belly scratched. This is also one of the few instances that she's sitting still (she's a little psychotic).

Kitty Kitties!!!!

2008-11-09T21:20:00.000-08:00

We haven't blogged in a while. I figure it's mostly because we don't take many pictures, but it could also be because not much changes in our lives.

However, this weekend something did change. No, Brianne isn't pregnant. We got two kittens. We've been tossing the idea back and forth for a while now and we finally decided to get a kitten. I say "a kitten" because that was the original plan. Friday night we started looking at cats on craig's list. There were not many in the Corvallis so we decided to look at the Salem area. Brianne's sister, Alannah, was staying with us for the weekend, so we figured we could get some cats up in Salem. We found one in Silverton (the place where the movie Bandits was filmed).

After Brianne got off work on Saturday, we went and bought some cat food and a litter box and a couple toys for the cat. Then we drove to Silverton to go get our kitty. When we got there we met Dorris. Dorris is an older lady who rescues cats. She takes cats in that have been abandon or neglected. She nurses them back to health and then gives them away. We met several cats. There were four grey kittens with blue eyes that were absolutely adorable. They had been found in a burn pile and they were singed. They were fairly well recovered but she wanted to keep them a couple weeks longer. The kitten we were there for was black and white. They call it a tuxedo cat because it is black with white on its chest, stomach and paws. When we got there we found out that our kitten had a brother. They looked almost identical. It was too hard to choose one and I didn't want to separate them so I had to convince Brianne that we should take both of them. She said ok. We took them home.

When we first got home they were a bit freaked out. Every time we moved they would jump because they were afraid we were going to get them or something. By the next day they had warmed up to us quite a bit. In fact, they are both sitting on or near Brianne right now as she has her head resting on me. They've jumped on the computer a couple times and I had to correct their typos.

Since their only distinguishing difference is their noses (one is black the other is pink) we decided to get them collars of different colors. One is blue and the other is red. It took us a while to pick their names. We finally did, and we chose Bert (blue collar) and Ernie (red collar). I hope you enjoy their pictures as much as we enjoy their company.

~Josh

...To talk of other things.

2008-09-27T07:15:00.001-07:00

Of shoes and ships and sealing wax, of cabbages and kings. I love that poem. Although the actual version from the book Through the Looking Glass, is much more disturbing than the version from the animated movie Alice in Wonderland, which is still among my favorite animated movies.
They say that the Walrus and the Carpenter represent religion and the oysters represent everyone in the world. Obviously, the Carpenter represents Christianity in all of it's forms. And the Walrus represents all eastern religions, Buddha because he's fat (even though that is just a Buddha and not the real Buddha) and Ganesha because of the tusks (he obviously doesn't have six arms like Ganesha but you get the point). It appears to me that Charles Lutwidge Dodgson (aka Lewis Carroll) had some issues with religion. He was actually a deacon in the Angelican Church and at the appointed time to become a priest he requested to remain a deacon, which was against the rules and he could have been expelled. However, they let him stay as a deacon. He often wrote in his journal that he was a "vile and worthless" sinner. So clearly he had some issuse, but who knows what they where. It is all left up to your own speculations.
Then there was the drug contraversy about the book Alice in Wonderland, with the consumption on mushrooms and other "growing" and "shrinking" foods, and of course the hooka smoking caterpillar. This very well could be the result of hallucinogenic drugs. During the Victorian age a lot of these drugs were commonly available from your nearest grocer. It was legal and a lot of them were common pain killers of "the aspirin of the era." Notwithstanding, there is no conclusive evidence that he used those drugs. It's all just the Anti-hippy people's speculations from the 1960's.

You may all wonder why I posted this on the blog. Well there really is no reason, it's 7am on a saturday morning and even though I would like to be sleeping, I can't. I'm getting used to getting up at 4am everyday to go to work at 5am, but I don't have to work on the weekends. And since I can't sleep and Brianne is still sleeping, I figured I'd look at everyone's blogs and then I decided to post myself. I hope you enjoyed learning a little bit about Lewis Carroll's (only his pen name) writings.

~Joshua

Brianne's First Blog!

2008-09-18T16:08:00.001-07:00

Hello all. This is my first attempt at blogging. I was a little hesitant at first because I really don't have anything interesting to say. But today I was bored so I thought I would try this and see what all the fuss is about. I am going to blog about our apartment, because as far as I know, none of you readers out there know what it looks like. I'm still in the process of getting things decorated. I'm actually really excited to do this. Once everything is done, the place will look fabulous!

To begin, this is the lovely view from the front door. You can't see (but you can certainly hear) the highway that is only a few yards away from the building we live in. It's not as bad when all the windows are closed but we can't stand going for very long without the windows open during the summer. So we choose to suffer.

This is our living room in its current state. My plan is to someday get rid of the futon and crusty (although comfortable) love seat. The table that the TV is on is actually a coffee table. We found a TV stand at IKEA that we are going to get once we make it up there. I'm also planning on taking the birthday cards off the shelf and replacing them with some more black and white photos.

This is our table we got at IKEA. It's pretty small but it's great for now. We got the whole set for $120. You can also see the wonder food shelf in the background! It's tacky but we don't have enough cupboard space in the kitchen for our food and everything else. Our kitchen is very small.

This is a view of the kitchen from the living room. It gives you an idea of how small it is. Basically, the kitchen ends where the picture ends.

Here is another view of the kitchen. That little space of counter in the corner is pretty much all of the space I have to cook. I manage though.

This is the bedroom. As you can see, we have a walk-in closet (which I LOVE). There really isn't much to the room besides the bed and the closet at this point. Eventually we want to hang a shelf over the bed and put some bamboo and tea light candles to give it an Asian feel. I would like to point out the number of throw pillows on the bed (this is for you Debbie). They rarely make it back on to the bed in the morning, but it looks pretty good when they do.

Last but not least, this is the bathroom. The cupboard under the sink was really the only storage we had, so we got the shelf that goes over the toilet. It's pretty nice. You can also see that it is small. A lot of things in the apartment are small, but it works when there are only two of us! I hope you enjoyed the tour of our apartment. Now that we're getting the hang of this marriage thing and things are settling down it's really starting to feel like our home.

Trip to La Grande

2008-09-10T14:42:00.000-07:00

Last weekend we went home to La Grande. Because Taylor recently passed away I wanted to go see Lady. I also figured that I could take pictures of her since I have a new camera. We left after work on Friday and made it home without any problems this time. We watched the BYU game on Saturday and ate pizza. We worked on out thank you cards too. We got about half done and ran out of cards so we bought some before the game and worked on them during the game. On Sunday we packed up our things and headed back to Corvallis. We stopped at Multnomah falls and hiked part way up. We took a few pictures. We got a good one of us two with the waterfall in the background. It was a pretty good weekend.

New jobs, new opportunities

2008-09-01T16:02:00.000-07:00

I figure since I'm now a blogger I should take the ball and run with it. By now you all know that I have a new job. I'm not exactly sure what my new title will be but I'm assuming it will be Manager, Human Resources and Safety. Jacob, my predecessor, is leaving at the end of this week. He has taken a job in Silverton, OR at a meat packing plant. It's called BrucePac. They are paying him a lot more money than he was making here at ********* ****** *****. With his new baby he figured he should take the job. I was offered his job a couple days after he gave his two weeks notice. I talked about it with Brianne for a couple days and finally decided to take the job. I'm going to be incharge of seasonal labor, working closely with managers to make sure the farm and food processing plant are well staffed. I'll also be in charge of safety working with SAIF on workers comp claims, and with OR-OSHA to ensure occupational safety at ********* ****** *****, *** (I was asked not to put the name of the company in this).
This does mean that I'm working full time and I'm no longer a student. But that will change. I'm looking into getting an online degree from the University of Phoenix in Business Management. I'm hoping to start classes by January. This means a lot of new changes for Brianne and I. I'll be making more money for one, and we'll be insured for another. We figure this is a great opportunity for me/us and such opportunities don't always come around a second time.
Since accepting the job I joined the social network of http://www.linkedin.com/ which is a social network for business professionals. I figure I should starting making contact with people I know so that I have chances to move higher up. The sooner I start the better off I am. So if anyone is already on linkedin.com they should look me up and add me as a contact.
Sorry everyone, I don't have any pictures of work I can post with this. I hope to bring my camera to work someday and take pictures of the plant and our fields so all of you can see the where I work.

~Joshua

Cameras lead to blogs

2008-08-31T22:40:00.000-07:00

This is my first blog. We recently got a new digital camera so I figured I'd start a blog and post pictures I take. So I'll start with our most recent event, a game night with our cousins. Patxi and Jessica came to town because it was Labor day weekend. They are staying at Joseph and Ivy's apartment. Sunday after church we had dinner together. They made tacos and it was pretty good. I think it was the first time I had tacos using pork. We brought dessert; Brianne made lemon bars and I made brownies. After dinner we played a couple games. First it was guys against girls in a game of outburst. The guys won, but just barely. Then Patxi, Jessica, Joseph and I played pinochle while Brianne and Ivy played Yatzi. Joseph and I won, but again just barely. Then it was on to pictionary. Guys against girls and the guys won by a huge margin. The girls had only moved a few spaces. Then we split into three teams, couples and played again. It was taking quite a while to play. Brianne and I got out in the lead and then got stuck for a little while. We finally made it to the end but it was an all-play so we had to beat everyone in order to win. After much tribulation, we finally won. It was an intense game and we came close to winning several times, only to be delayed in our victory. The hardest thing to draw was "hiccup." It was an all-play which means that we went until one of teams got the answer. It took us like five minutes and I kind of cheated by making the body motion of a hiccup because no one was getting it. At the end of the night I took a picture of all of us. I figure what's the point of getting a new camera unless I document our lives with photos. That's the reason I'm starting this blog. Later we will put up more posts from the past and the future as our married life goes on.

~Joshua