Oatmeal

It has been said that Ken is like Oatmeal. What does this mean? Well, no matter what you do to it, it is still Oatmeal. You can add cinnamon and sugar, or milk, it is still Oatmeal. Occasionally you can make something super yummy like cookies or cake with it, but then it goes right back to oatmeal. Kenny is the most level person I have met when it comes to emotions. When he is sad, he looks the same as when he is frustrated or happy. After almost seven years of marriage I am able to tell the difference, but I am one of the few.

Others liken him to Seinfeld. There is one episode where they tease him that everything evens out for him. If one friend has something bad happen to him, something good happens to another friend. If Jerry looses twenty dollars, he gets twenty dollars back from someone who owed him. Again, This is Ken. Everything evens out for him.

Why do I bring this up? Well listen to his week. Eight Months ago, Ken started a new job. His Boss is very...strict. He expects you to do what is asked of you in a timely manor and better than expected. If you disappoint him, he remembers it and brings it up often. Ken has flourished under him. He LOVES accountability, deadlines, honesty and frankness. Monday, his boss presented him with The Employee of the Month!! HOORAY KEN! He really has done a great job over there. I am so very proud of him. He has been able to get his most difficult employees to work together, he has completed a client remodel (well almost completed it, just waiting of furniture), his team knows what is expected of them and most of them respond very well to him. You are awesome sweetie pie!!

What is so bad about that? Nothing. Wednesday he went to the gym without me. He was sitting at the light on the inside turn lane, waiting to turn. The light turned green and the car behind him FLOORED it. They smashed into the back of Ken and damaged the back bumper of our 3 month old car. If this wasn't bad enough, as they were moving out of the intersection so they could exchange information and get out of the way of traffic, the other driver DROVE OFF! There was no front license plate, no back license plate, nothing. Ken called the cops and had a report filed. He is a car guy and has a cop for a mother so he was able to give a very good description of the people and vehicle that hit him. There was also an eye witness that left his name/number for the cops to contact him if needed. Thankfully no one was hurt. Ken is fine, the car will be fine (it is just a car after all), and hopefully the drivers will be caught.

I love my husband. I love that he is so oatmeal like. After all, I can get emotional and irrational from time to time. It is good to have someone balance me out. Him being oatmeal keeps me on my toes. Last night he had a great night at bowling. He even beat Lamont in a game. I am on the lookout for what will balance him out today or tomorrow!

Easter Cookies with the nieces

Ken and I are blessed with Nine little nieces and Seven little nephews (with four more nieces on the way!). last weekend, we invited some of the nieces up to make easter cookies. Unfortunatley, Ashley was not able to make it with her two girls but we still had five little girls under the age of 6. What a great time!
We had 15 different easter cookie cutters for them to choose from. They cut about 4 dozen cookies out. By the time the last cookie was cut out, the first cookies were ready to be frosted and decorated.

Eliza is pretenting to eat her first one with the frosting on it. here is the finished product

Sofie discovered the sprinkles near the end. She covered one of her cookies, at one point we didn't think there was a cookie under the sprinkles.
Each girl got thier own plate to put their cookies on so they could enjoy them later. They all did such a great job! i really thought they would decorate one or two and be ready to move on to something else. They didn't, they each decorated about 8 eggs. Here are the finished products.

we only had one little oops. When Savanah was leaving, she tripped and dropped her cookies. Poor girl! They were a crumbled mess. She has the saddest face ever! Luckily, we had a few of the cookies that she had decorated and given me so we were able to "fix" the crumbs. he she is when she is smiling! She looks so proud of her bunny!

I am so glad Nate and Kate and Sarah and Eric were willing to make the trip. We had so much fun playing with them. Each girl is so unique! We truly are blessed to have so many little ones around us.

Getting lost

I don't know how we do it, every time we go for a ride, we get lost.

Sunday was such a beautiful day, we couldn't spend it indoors. We decided we wanted to go for a drive. So we jumped in Morphius, grabbed an atlas and hit the road. HWY 6 east was our route of choice. It looked like we could get off in Spanish fork, head to price, get on HWY 10 which would take us back to I-70 and them to I-15. At i-15, we could get back on hwy 6 (going west this time) and head home via Tooele. By our calculations, it should have been about 4 hours all told.

Everything was going great. We stopped in Price for lunch, looked at the map and headed out. Well, we missed our turn. We ended up staying on HWY 6 a lot longer than we had planned. We may as well have gone to MOAB! Four hours into our drive, we made our way back to I-15 near Scipio. We decided to can the Tooele detour (which would have been another 2-3 hours) and made a b-line for home.

I don't know how we do it. Once we decided we wanted to go on the mt nebo loop by Nephi. We got to Scipio and realized we were in the wrong place.

On the bright side, Utah is a beautiful state! We were able to see a lot of countryside we hadn't ever seen before. OK, we think we had seen it before but it all looked new. I love the diversity this state has to offer in way of landscape. What a beautiful place we live in!

Next time, Rand Mcnalley will be the co pilot. We never go wrong with Rand!

To shave or not to shave - that is the question

Here is our beautiful puppy! She is a great pyranese. Gin is 7 years old, a senior for her breed.

Her favorite season is winter. If it is snowing, she will stay out side for hours!! For Christmas, we give her a gravy soaked chew bone and have her eat it outside. This year it happened to be snowing and I was worried about her being out there. she didn't seem to mind though. Three hours later, she had finished her bone and wanted to come in. She was COVERED!!!!

Her breed has a really thick coat. They are used on some farms as sheep herders. Anyhow, because of her thick coat, she gets REALLY hot in the summer. We shaved her a few years back. She went through a little identity crisis at first. She refused to go on walks for about a week, she would go out to potty and then come right back inside. Once she got used to it she was fine. She kind of looks like a lab when she is shaved, here she is.

So, here is our dilema: to shave or not to shave. This summer, we are thinking about shaving her again. I hate to see her go through her identity crisis but she will be so much cooler. What do you think???

For the record, Ken says yes to the shave, I am on the fence.