Winter

I know, I know I haven't posted in forever. I keep thinking about it if that helps..? No? Well *shrug* whatever.

The other day I went with Jessica to get out Christmas tree tags so we can cut down a Christmas tree this year. Super excited about that. We came prepared to wait in line for hours but instead were given a bracelet to come back sometime before 11:00. So we went for a drive looking at some houses for fun and went to breakfast with the boys. It was so much fun!! So often I forget how much I love my family! Maybe I just got used to not having them around that I don't remember that as an option of ways to spend my time...did that makes sense. I love being close to those boys!! After we got our tree permits we went for a walk on the paths around where we were. The boys needed to get out of the car for a while and came prepared to play in the snow so we did just that! I used my phone and got some pics of the boys...

Uly had a stick as wide as my wrist, and about 3 in. wide. He used it as a snow-eating utensil. He would scoop up snow on it and bite or lick the snow off of the stick. Most of the time I saw him spitting snow out but I'm sure he was eating just as much of it!

Gar. He loves me!! It just melts me. When Adam and I go over to visit the other day he saw Adam and said 'Hey uncle Adam...Aunt Olea!!!!' and ducked under Adam's arm to get to me! I like to point it out to Adam how much he likes me!

Mag.

How can you not giggle at this little face!! I have to fight the urge to squish him!

Anyway, That was SO much fun with Jess and the boys. I cant wait till we all go cut down our trees, I think its a start to a great tradition!

That's all for now, I Am trying to write more... even though I'm not succeeding very often.

I am a Domestic Goddess!

I have canned!! Thats right, you did not miss-read. I have become quite the domesticatic women. A few weeks ago I canned green beans with my aunt. Granted, I just assisted her with it.... but this past week on Thursday and Friday, I canned pears and peaches all by myself!

I know, I know.... its not that hard. But for the first time I did it all alone and I am very pleased.


Here is a picture of my beautiful canned goods!!


It's only just begun....

sitting here

I am sitting at the front desk here at Telos. I dont mind sitting here doing nothing. It is a nice change from working with the boys which can be like hearding cats. Adam and I had a friend over last night for dinner and it was a lot of fun. Adam really likes working with him and I thought he was really funny. So...yeah. I am so excited for the Family reunion coming up! We have to go buy a tent, sleeping bags and sleeping pads still but we are very excited about it.
I am getting over a wicked cold right now and am looking forward to my day off tomorrow.

So... I just had an interview with my boss. He offered me the supervisor position of the mon, tues, sat afternoon shift. Which means that I will work 2-10pm. I kinda like that. I get to do some seriously fun activities with all the boys. That also means that I need to get better at consequencing the boys at the spur of the moment. I am making a list of things to get training on before I officially start the position. I also get health benefits and a $2 raise. I am telling you all this before I even tell Adam only because I cant really talk about it over the phone right now! I will keep you all posted about how it goes.
Adam got a $2 raise too. He was totally surprised. He has never had a job where they actually gave positive feedback to employees. They have told him that they recognize his hard work and willingness to learn. Finally an employer that sees how hard he works!!

So...now what?

I know, I know, I really stink at this whole blog thing!
I feel like I have been working a lot lately but when I really count up hours I have not been working nearly as much as I did while in NC. Maybe because it seems like that's all we do? Adam has been working on a sculpture of Christ's hand that he is going to make some bronze casts out of. He is pretty excited about that. His boss thinks he could make a couple thousand if he sold 1 of them. But I guess the trick is to find the buyer first!
We knew that we were supposed to move to Utah. But now what? We both had great ideas about what could happen here but knew that it all wouldn't happen at once. It feels kind of stagnant now. So...now what?
I woke this morning with a splitting headache and feeling nauseus when ever I stood up. Eating helped for a little while but now I feel crappy again. Which isn't helping the feeling of having to wait for something. We are sure that we can't just sit around waiting for something to happen to us so we are doing what we can by working and keeping a float I guess. It broke my heart not being able to go home to the Rez and seeing pictures from that didn't help.
So here is what my positive attitude training from my mother has taught me; I am setting little goals of things to look forward to. Mom and Da are coming to Moab at the end of September and we are going down there to go camping and spend time with them and attend the Walker Reunion. After that I dont know.... it seems this year is flying by, but with little events for us to freckle the year with memories.
I have had a lot of fun visiting family and am helping out at Randy's Mechanical Inc. while all the Farnworths are at Gramma's Lake. Something different.
Work is going well and we are not hurting to bad financially....Just feels like someone in the room is holding their breath.
So...now what?

'The Dark Knight'

Olea and I just saw 'The Dark Knight' and I was very skeptical because of all of the hype around Heath Ledger's death. I thought, as many probably do that have not seen the movie, that all of the hype was in honor of Heath. I have to say that this movie is one of the best movies I have EVER seen. Heath Ledger's performance was riveting. All hype aside. His work on this movie is an Oscar MUST! Not only was Heath's work amazing but the whole experience was something to remember. The story line keeps you guessing. The characters' voice was clearly defined. This has got to be an archetypal movie of our time. I wanted to cry at the end because this was the death of not only Heath but of Batman himself. No one in there right mind would make another Batman movie. It would be like someone trying to remake diVinci's 'Mona Lisa', or Michelangelo's 'David'. It should never be touched again. It is a work of art, a thing of beauty. If you have not seen this movie, or don't have plans to see it, change you plans immediately and go watch this movie.

Adam

PS thank you Olea for letting me post on your blog. I love you!

time flies when your working your butt off

well here I am. I'm still alive I promise. It has been forever since I have posted. I realize that I promised I would right more often. So far I have not followed through on that promise!
Today was crazy!! I did a 14 mile bike ride 7 miles up the canyon and 7 miles down. It was a lot of fun although I feel like I got my butt kicked! It is very soar! It's hard to motivate teenage boys to keep pedaling as your gasping for breath. Actually I did pretty good for not having done anything that intense in a long time.

I promised some pictures of our teeny little abode and here they are:

This is our cute little living room! It has this great little shelf all the way around so we were able to stack our wine boxes up and make a bookcase/DVD case.

Can you tell we are used to bigger space! We are trying hard to downsize constantly!

This is our cute little kitchen and beyond is out cute little bathroom, I mean laundry room, no wait I mean bathroom.....
We are doing well here.
Our landlord is super cool. We invited him to dinner...using his BBQ 2 weeks ago, and this week we helped celebrate his daughters 11th birthday with him and his family. It is amazing the horror stories he has told us of past renters he has had. People who don't want to be disturbed by him or think that he is privileged that they are renting from him. Dumb people! He is a really cool guy, we are blessed that his renters were moving out when they did.
Adam is enjoying his job. He struggles with it sometimes, but he admits a lot of his struggle is just because it is like no other job he has ever had.
I am loving my job and am looking for a salon to work at. I think I may have found a place to rent a booth from. I don't know all the details about it, but I will keep you posted!
That is all for now.

well, well, well.

Where to begin...

We are in our apartment. We found (well my aunt Xanthe found) a one bedroom basement apartment for $500. A pretty good deal. We are close to everything we want to be close to. Our apartment has 6 big windows so for a basement apartment it is very light and we are starting to get settled.

The update that everyone wants to know is that transferring my license hasn't gone as smooth as it was supposed to. So as of today we are still waiting for all the right information to be sent to Utah state department of licensing. ARGH!!

But the good news is today I got a job! I interviewed last Tuesday for a mentoring position @ Telos school for boys. They told me I would know by that Friday (the 11th). I didn't hear from them so I figured I would keep looking. Today I got a call from them offering me the Mon, Tues, and Sat morning shift. Also 1 Sunday a month I will pull a double shift. The cool thing is that all the boys (teenagers) have to go through triathlon training and I will be working out with them. It's a really great program that encourages healthy lifestyles along with healthy thinking. YEAH!!! So all the other days I will be able to do hair and build a clientele and soon open my own shop!

Over all Adam and I are having a really good time here. We go on little adventures together to get lost and then find out where we are. We have been having a lot of fun getting to know my cousin's and their families. Especially little Olea. She is soo squishy!! I love the thought of being around as she grows older! We have been to IKEA 4 times since we have been here and 2 of those times were with Ben and Kristina. Then on Ben McPherson's birthday, Adam and I went to IKEA with him....twice. It was really pretty funny, although I'm not so sure Ben had as good of time as we did!

Well, love to all those who have been harassing me for an update, and since Benji (Stier) let me use their laptop for my computer I promise I will keep updating more often.

We have arrived!!

We made it! With only a few near death experiences, we arrived at Jessica's house late Saturday night. Things were fine all the way across the states until the last 15 miles when we got hit with a freaking blizzard! Adam and I were a little freaked out when we both got stuck in the snow and couldn't move anywhere, him in the truck with all of our belongings and me in the Honda with a walkie-talkie to communicate with him. We were a little spooked but we made it. 15 miles took us an hour and a half but we made it safe and sound.
We are staying with my big sister and her husband and 3 little boys. So much fun!!! These boys are so silly! which of course is perfect for Adam!
We are trying to find an appartment now. nothing over $650. We really dont want anything too nice because we dont have any furniture! We have our first appointment to see a place that my aunt Xanthe set us up wth. It sounds nice. It is a one bedroom appt. with 6 Windows! I like the idea of all that light coming in. It would really do my plants some good!! We made some calls to talk to a few other places about their availability but so far we haven't heard anything back. I will update as soon as anything interesting happens. It's exciting to start over and I was really ready for it.

on the road

here we are at 5:30 am. We are getting ready to leaving Shanon and Matt's house. We said our tearful and silly goodbyes last night. Both cars are all packed up and the trailer and truck have had their weight test runs. We stop in Memphis tonight! We will see ya'll in Utah!!!
Please keep us in your prayers as we are worried we may hit some inclimate weather.

yowsers!

Here we are. Not counting today I have 2 more days of work left. I am so excited! We have officially moved out of the house and are staying with my sis-in-law. I am off of work and am briefly typing this before running to the house to help Adam pack a few things and clean like crazy! Tomorrow is our last Sunday here and I am spending the afternoon with the girls from the shop. I will update you as the days grow closer.

Two Weeks and Counting

The official countdown has begun. There have been other count downs but none of them as official as this official countdown. In exactly 2 weeks we will be experiencing our first day on the road. The last few days have been chaos. Fun, but chaos.

Thursday was the funeral for Adam's Grandmother. Nellie Rowena Mills was buried in a pink casket. It was beautiful! Adam, his brother Jeremy and myself sang Nearer My God to Thee. It went off without a hitch. The boys held back the tears and the voice cracks until right after the last note. It really was beautiful. Jeremy sang bass, I sang the alto part and Adam sang the melody.
There are a lot of family visiting from out of town for the funeral. Adam's brother has 2 teenagers and a small baby. We gave up the house that we live in to them and the in-laws that own the house, and are staying with Jeremy and his wife Bonnie (Bonzaii) We have been having soo much fun!!! We stayed the first night on wed. We all woke up together and went to the funeral on Thursday, stayed the night. Friday, Bonzaii and I had to work, but we stayed the night again. Saturday i worked but it was a short day and now we are going to stay the night again. SLEEP OVER!!

It has been really fun. The family staying at our house went home Friday!! We have been meaning to spend time with Jay and Bonzaii but it has been crazy hard trying to coordinate our free time, but this was a really great opportunity to have 2 on 2 time with them. We will miss them a lot. I think Adam will really miss Jay when we move out there so Bonzaii and I have been encouraging them to go off and do their 'brother stuff'
I better go I think we are going to play another board game.
Things are coming along great!

sick-O

Here we are. Three weeks and counting until the move and Adam and I are sick as dogs. Things are absolutley chaotic!! Where to begin....
A week ago, I had come home from work to a lovely mac'n'cheese dinner and a movie (3:10 to Yuma) prepared by my sweet hubby. All of a sudden in the middle of a movie I felt like my eyelashes were folded into my eye. I went to the mirror to look and what did I see? I watched as a blood vessal burst in my eye. WEIRD! So for the last week I have has a Zombie eye! I forget about it because I dont feel it at all.
We went through the drive thru at the bank and the teller kept staring and smiling at me, I couldn't figure out why. As we were driving away I asked Adam why she was acting so odd. He had to remind me that I had a Zombie eyeball.
So needless to say I have been a little stressed. I got sick about 4 days after my eye incident and Adam is only 1 day behind me in our crumminess. I stayed home from 1 and a half days of work and didn't go to church this morning.
And now for the Grand Finale!!!!!!
Adam's grandmother, his last living grandparent, passed away about an hour ago. Adam is in good spirits about it though, she was 84 and smoked like a chimney. All her grandchildren would joke and say that the niccotine had petrified her. The last conversation Adam had with her was really good! She was in a rare 'good mood' and joked and giggled with Adam about how they used to play scrabble together. Also, a few days ago out of the blue she spoke to her younger sister who she hadn't spoken to in about 60 years!!!!! Her sister didn't stop the car when grandma Nell (Adam's grandma) needed to use the restroom, and she wet herself, and told her sister she would never speak to her again. 60 years ago!!!!! Too much work for me!
Crazzyness!! We are very glad that she finally felt like speaking to her sisters. ( I've met them both. They were always so sad whenever Nell came up. It would break your heart!!)
So...it is very chaotic around here and I wish I would write more but i am usually exhausted by the time I get home. We have sold almost all of our belongings. (The big stuff at least!) We only have boxes to bring to Utah now. I guess in a way it is better that Grandma Nell went before we moved because who knows if we would be able to afford travel to come to the funeral.

Update

Wow! Time has just flown by! A whole lot has been going on in our neck of the woods. We have started to buckle down and really get ready for our move. (yeah!!) We have sold our couch and big puffy chair, our kitchen table, and one of our bookcases. So we are making a little extra money and puting it in our savings to get a place to live when we get out there.
I have officially put in my notice! My last day of work is February 26th. I can't wait!!!! I'm sick of it, not because it's a bad place to work but because I am excited to start our next adventure.
It snowed here on Saturday. Just about 2 inches. It didn't stick to the pavement but Adam and I enjoyed watching it fall. We had some friends over for dinner so we rant o the grocery store right as it was starting to really come down to get some makins for dinner.
Other than that we haven't done much. We are just truckin' along trying to pack all of our aquired junk and get rid of the things we dont need. I feel like a pack rat sometimes!
I'll keep you posted on our progress!

OLD SKOOL!!!!!

It's the Walker kids! I stole this pic from mom a long, long time ago. And I wont ever give it back!! It's the only pic I have of all my siblings when we were kids, not to mention the only pic of me that is younger than 15.

Fresh Face

ALLRIGHT!!! I will write another entry! I have been thoroughly harassed to write another entry. I have such a hard time writing on here.... I think about it a lot though.

Mom wanted me to erase that last entry but I'm not going to. That kinda thing doesn't happen very often and I understand it's not good to nurture the negative thoughts less they get burned into your subconscious. But I don't plan on reading it, and I would also like to have a comparison. If I erase it I will forget what I felt like and if I ever get frustated with my hormones and am typing I will be able to remember and stop myself from writing it.

Anyway, I will tell you all about my lovely holidays:

Three days before Christmas I got the Christmas Spirit. It took so long coming this year. Because of our big move coming up Adam and I didn't do any gifts between us, but we did a really good job of gifts for everyone else we needed to give gifts to. I felt like the proficient wife that I am striving to become! On Christmas eve we spent time with my sis-in-law, Shanon. Watched The Christmas Sory ( I love it!!!) and played with the kids (8 and 2). After helping put them to bed we played a game with just the four adults. Stayed awake way too long!!!! It wa the longest game of Settlers of Zarahemla that we have ever played!!! Needless to say we all stayed up way too late. Because Adam and I had kept them up so long playing a game we helped them put their Santa stuff together and it was a lot of fun! I had never done that before. I think it means that I am officially grown up. EEK!! We awoke fairly early (for us!) Christmas Morning and had our special christmas breakfast which has become our family tradition. This year we just had a cheese danish, in the past we make a big flamboyant breakfast, but we had to be at my mother-in-laws house by 12:00. Went to Mom-in-law's, had the gift exchange and ate too much food and had some laughs. Adam and I left after a few hours. Everyone had other family things to do and so the crowd dispersed and us with it. Although the only other thing we had to do was to sit on the couch and do nothing. We watched The Lord of the Rings the Extended version, and followed it up with the next 2 movies over the next couple of days. It really was a perfect Christmas.

That's all for now.
More to come. New Years....

We had a party!!