get me outta here

well friends we did our time. we were in primary for about 10 months and it was HARD. fun but hard. so we are done and i kind of miss the little nerds and mark is crying about it every day so i stroke his hair and rub his back and then he feels better. so here they are.
ctr6

they were so funny. they were crowding together like crazy

this is what mark looks like when he teaches and they STILL listen to him. I mean, i look like a million bucks up there and i am funny and witty and brilliant but it is mark they adore. boo hiss.
stupid kids.

so he got to be in all the pictures with them so they wouldn't cry when i came near them. i am going to ROCK at motherhood someday! oh yeah.

and they love him. what a cute little bunch of hooligans. sniff. they still call us teacher when they see us so that is super rad.

postwoman

dear this shouldn't surprise you,

you are a lame wad. suckiest blog in existence.

love, megan

dear honey,

your mullet is looking mighty fancy and i like your butt in your skivvies.

love, honey

dear mjarn,

your family is so cute. i miss you.

love mjeg

dear newest temp job,

you are the suckiest work place i have ever encountered. thanks for making me cry a lot, be really mean at home and still not make any money.

hate, megan

dear holidays,

hello. how are you? come quicker but last longer! thanks.

love meg.

dear grievances,

consider yourself aired.

sincerely, mrs. smith

jokesters

for some reason, college came in to my mind today. probably because i am a college grad and do not have a job or any jobs on the horizon and it is super sweet (and emoticon giving you a very, very sarcastic look.) anyhow, there was some crazy shiz that happened in my freshman dorm at utah state and i am going to share it with you here today. (an emoticon who looks at you jealously for getting to hear all these stories.)
anyhooter. when i was a freshman, i lived in a co-ed dorm. it was a blast. i loved it. for some reason, our apartment of 6 girls got into a prank war with an apartment of 6 boys and mayhem ensued. it was war! and sadly we got completely schooled. i don't remember much of what we did to them but it was harmless stuff like taking their mattresses and such. their pranks were downright ruthless. here they are.
1. they took ALL the labels of ALL the cans of food in our pantry. it was awful. if you wanted a can of soup, you ran the risk of opening a myriad of other things before you found the soup. it was so lame. so so lame but hilarious and brilliant.

2. they took flowers off the graves of the cemetery across the street and left them on our pillows. this creeped me out! not sure why. also, how tacky to take flowers from the graveyard. sheesh.

3. they put crickets in the beds of one of my roommates. also, the tore off their back legs so they couldn't hop away. and they gave them bits of food. so they were definitely there when she crawled into bed. yuck.

4. this was the WORST! we had a regular shower with a bathtub and then we had one of those little cube showers with a glass door and just enough room to stand up in. well, we came home from church and they had filled the entire tiny shower with leaves. so if you opened the glass door, they would all spill out. it was awful. and this was not the wort part. in the middle of the leaves, they had put a DEER HEAD. and not a taxidermied deer head, oh no, one fresh from the deer hunt. so so so so disgusting. ick. i still cringe.

5. a few weeks later, when we were watching a scary movie for halloween, they lowered the deer head from the apartment above right in front of the window and made it knock up against it. it was the freakiest sight of my life. eeek.

needless to say the boys won this little prank war and a truce was made so we could rest in peace. man alive, they were brilliant. still much hilarity abounded throughout the year which is probably the reason i pulled straight C's that year. awesome! go college! go aggies! love, megan

winner

everyone,
i just wanted you to know that i won my first GIVEAWAY in my life and i am so excited about it!!! i won it here at jess's blog (she is so talented). you should check her out and check out her etsy shop too for cute cards and such. now i have the hard task of figuring out what to get!!!!

while this may not be a trip to iceland , or a new baby or a new blogging gig, this is as exciting as mark and i can handle right now and we are thrilled!! what would you pick???

house guests from h*@!

guess what? we are SO excited. we are having visitors. and they are visitors that we LOVE and adore and can not get enough of. oh me, oh my. dave and mei li are coming to visit the wonderful city of spokane and mark and meg!!! wahoo!
lovely mei

handsome dave (or scary if you prefer that adjective)

dave and mei embracing

and here are the 4 of us reunited over christmas. do you think mark bears a striking resemblance to this guy ?

blessed and named

look how sweet baby eleanor is. we got to go to payson after the wedding and see her get blessed. she looked so pretty in her dress.
that face is so sweet. and her "stork bite" is cute too!

sweet shoes and her legs are starting to get chubby.

getting mad. oh well.

millie did not like me this trip so she refused to look at me but insisted on being in some pictures and holding her little sister. haha. she is such a little spitfire.

still not looking but henry and max were good sports. love these kids.

still ignoring me. she also told me she didn't like me and was promptly told to tell me sorry which she did a little too grudgingly so i know she didn't mean it. i WILL win her over.

she slept the whole day, this baby.

if you read marnae's blog, you might not know she has a new baby, since she NEVER updates!!!!

nice day for a white wedding

well friends, we were in utah again for a quick visit to attend the wedding of mark's favorite cousin and my favorite cousin in law-BEN!!! mark was the best man (duh, no brainer) and so he got all duded up in a sweet tux. he looked hot. here is some photographic proof. mark and ben might not be the most photogenic.....

but erica is. she looked so so pretty and she is on her way to taking over ben's spot as favorite cousin in law.

see, so pretty. also she is poser for pictures so we were kindred spirits.

me and my hunka hunka.

mark-sour face but hot sour face. he is going to love this post.

the smith family. there is a plethora of them!

mark and ben had to do this gay hand on shoulder thing. it was awkward and funny to watch because they are not the touchy kind AT ALL! i loved watching them be awkward. go ahead and judge me.

the groomsmen. nice, gentlemen, nice.

so, the wedding was in the salt lake temple and then the festivities were at solitude and it was lovely. it was a fun wedding even though i got a huge fat sunburn in the 200 degree weather waiting for them to come out of the temple. good thing i don't hold a grudge, ben. we were lucky in slc to get to stay in the house of the rosenfields. i used to nanny for them in college and they were in new england and left us a key to stay. so it was like we had our own mansion-our own hundred and ten year old mansion. it was dreamy. it was a fast trip but we did get to see both fams. and eleanor got blessed so i will show you those pics soon.

we had an anniversary shout hooray

well friends, we made it to one year. who woulda thunk? i mean, i am totally a brat and mark has put up with me for a long time! go him. anyhow, since we were a bit poor this year, we stayed local and went to a place in the couer d' alene mountains called silver valley. it is a bunch of mining towns. they are small and quaint and pretty. we wandered around, holding hands and sweating our a**$# off but it was fun to be together.
this is wallace. so pretty. see that green awninged building? that is where we partook of lunch and it was delightful.

apparently, wallace is somehow the center of the universe. anyway, i think mark took this picture because i am the center of his universe (obviously).

here is honey, eating lunch (ps. anyone who hang s out with us knows we have the annoying habit of calling each other "honey" all the time. it started out as me trying to bug mark-who hates pet names and has resulted in the honey talk all the time). he's cute.

wallace, pretty wallace.

we wish. how awesome is it that you can win a gold mine!? for maybe $5!!!!

and yes, there is a bordello museum in wallace so we went in and looked around. and guess what?! it only closed in 1989!!!!! is that crazy to anyone else? a bordello! in my lifetime!

and if some of you are wondering why this town seems so familiar? well, it was in the blockbuster hit starring pierce brosnan and linda hamilton duh. so if you come to spokane and want to go to wallace, let us know. but not on our romantic anniversary trip please.

ps. i love mark lots. he is a good husband and i was lucky to bamboozle him into marrying me!

seriously, i have issues

i think no one checks this blog anymore on account of its lameness but i will try to make up for it. I have about eleventy hundred blog posts in the works. they will make you laugh. they will make you cry and they are on their way. anyway. mark and i went to utah about 2 months ago and here i am blogging about. my sister had a baby-eleanor and i went to "help". she is more than capable. she is like wonder mom. whatevs. so i just gazed at the baby and played with the cousins. so here is eleanor and rocco (kole's baby). we put them to sleep in the swing and the little angels slept like babies ( i kill me) for quite sometime. sweet little things.
some other highlights were a trip to sundance fro some hiking and ski life riding and family togetherness which we love love love. max and nash were so dirty!

henry max and nash hanging out outside the sundance shop.

kenz, marg, koley, millie and i rode the tram. millie was freaking us out leaning clear far over. man alive. good thing i had a death grip on her. i let her sit on her own but she scooted way up to the front and it was too freaky so back to the lap she went.

here is the whole gang hanging out. see wondermom and brand new baby? whoa

so there were a lot of fun times. we went to the RODEO. it was boots and chaps and cowboy hats and spurs and latigo. and awesome. here are some of the girls. dan, marg, kole and marn.

the whole group. i have a crush on all of them.

the best part was that when i called mark to say we were going to a rodeo(he was in price) he agreed tocome and he showed up in the SWEETEST outfit i have ever laid eyes on. oh man alive. get us a room. the end. i heart utah and it's inhabitants. and arkansas's as well.

i wish the pants had been a little tighter.

lucky

mark is so lucky. this is what he gets to wake up to every day of his life. it is a wonder he has not had a heart attack yet. and guess what. this is one of my bettter morning hair days!!! one morning i looked exactly like this.luckily i start to transform........

.....into a lovely swan. how do the rest of you compare with sweet morning hair?

lucky man, that mark. *wink*

i've been creating

i created a pot rack for our tiny dwarfish kitchen. yay, more space.

i created a bag which mark ripped yesterday. ugh

i created a dress for millie. it's pretty sucky but i made up the pattern. holla.

i created a skirt for marn. also patternless.......wonder why none of my creations are being worn. hmm.

and one more bag

the end. still have not created life.

utah here i come

guys

i am an aunt again

eleanor jane was born yesterday

i am coming to see her on sunday

so i will be in utah from the 12-31.

call me

let's hang

if i have a car

or you really love to come to payson

the end

here she is

so sweet

when goose comes i'll be anyway

you know how lyrics can get kinda tricky? oh not for you? just me who can not understand a lyric to save her life? well as i sing along to my ipod, i realize how few lyrics i get right. they sound close but still not quite right. here are some of my famous ones and a few of my favorite wrong lyrics:

the real lyrics: "how my poor heart aches with every step you take"
my version: "i'm a pool hall ace with every step you take" (even though i know the real lyrics, this is still what it sounds like to me.

next, from the little mermaid (my sister loves this one and made fun of it for one whole vacation): "the men up there don't like a lot of blabber, they think a girl who gossips is a bore yet on land it's much preferred for ladies not to say a word, after all dear what is idle babble for"
my much better version : just replace blabber and babble with glamour. so chic. ps my lyrics never make sense.

from brant
the real lyrics: "hold me closer tiny dancer"
brant's version: "hold me close, i'm tired of dancing."
now when i hear tiny dancer, these are the lyrics that sound correct to me.

from koley
the real ones: "by this shall man know, ye are my disciples"
kole's version: "by this shellamenno ye are my disciples"
my favorite part of this is that she asked her mom as an adult with children what a shellamenno was!!!! hahahaha

brown eyed girl:
them: "hey rodorigo"
me: "hey where did we go?"

here is one where i had almost all the lyrics wrong. eraure's star
them: " we go waiting for the star"
me: " we go out for the saaaaa"
them: "not a satellite of love but a laser shooting out it's tiny tongue there"
me: "not a sano white of love but a laser shooting out a tiny thunder"
them: " in who's hands are we anyway?"
me: " when goose comes i'll be anyway"
and it goes on and on

there are more. maybe it should be a weekly segment. does anyone else have some funny ones? i can't be the only humiliated one here.

one of the top 31 birthdays i have had

i know my birthday was 17 years ago but we went on a fun little road/camping trip for the weekend and it was so pretty and so fun so here are some pics.

we drove all the way across the state past seattle and got on a ferry to take us to the olympic peninsula. we were on our way to olympic national park. has anyone been there before? it is so so pretty. you should go there. it is also tres romantisch (i like to mix my languages). so i was the planner (because who doesn't love to plan their OWN birthday surprise getaways?) and i did not account for a bridge being out so we had to go the LONG way to get to where we were going. good thing it was a beautiful scenic long way. also i made mark drive almost the whole way because i hate it. so here are some get-out-of -driving tips.

1. only look at the scenery not the road

2. swerve crazily when you realize you are drifting

3. go really fast and then really slow and alternate these sporadically

4. yawn a lot

5. complain that it is your birthday trip so you shouldn't have to drive

(all of these work like a charm. you're welcome)

since we had to take the scenic byway, we didn't get to the camping spot we wanted to but guess what we still got a rad one right on the strait of juan de fuca. (unfortunate name, juan.) it was in sequim which you think would be pronounced as such. it's not. it is pronounced squim. but it is still pretty.

here is a view of the strait

here is a view of us and our campsite

and here is a full body view....lucky you. look at how lush (the scenery since we are teetotalers)

a somber reminder with life jackets to use. how kind. apparently adults float though because they were tiny. i tried one on. don't take your super chubby kids here.

this shot is cool. it is me running from the automatic timer and not quite making it. ( it was a long pier). so i made mark do it next time and guess what, he broke the camera. he says it is my fault but it is so his. so the rest of the pictures are from a crappy throwaway camera that we got in FORKS uber excited. (slash not really excited) but man that town LOVES their twilight. there were nerdy signs EVERYWHERE. also we went on the quileute indian res and they said no vampires allowed so i felt safe.

the park is so pretty. it has mountains, a rain forest and beaches. all in like a forty minute drive. the followning few pictures are from the hoh rain forest. in this top one mark is at the end of that fallen log. can you see him? the moss was so pretty and the trees were HUGE.

this is lake crescent. i want to live there. the water was so clear and blue and the trees were so green

check out that clarity

this is how hot we looked. also this is probably mark after i bamboozled him into driving again. also he loves pictures.

see! i told you the trees were huge.

the beaches were my favorite part. they were so pretty and rocky.

look at this spectacular rock formation

this is rialto beach. we gathered so many rocks here. our pockets were bulging. the driftwood was cool. huge.

this was by one of the beaches. a huge cedar tree. the roots were rad. also so were my socks and flip flops.

this was my fave beach. ruby beach. we went at low tide and so we saw tons of cool tide pools and no one was there or if they were they were lost in the fog.

star fish

it was a fun vacay and a great birthday. if anyone wants to go here, count me in. i am all ready. see you soon. bummer that my crappy disposable camera pictures will not enlarge. boo. google olympic national park images for a real treat.

do as i say not as i do

i have a problem. it involves me not putting the lid on tight of anything. nothing, people. spices are my favorite to leave the lids on loose but everything is given their fair turn. it drives mark CRAZY!!! i can not tell you how many times i have had the "it is not that hard to put the lid on tight" lecture. still i persist. not sure why. anyway. a few weeks ago we were driving home from church and we took the long way to see if the lilac gardens were in bloom. as we were driving home, i kept getting a whiff of something that i couldn't put my finger on. well i turned around to the back seat and lo and behold, our laundry detergent (we do laundry at our friend's house) had spilled all over. this was not a small thing of laundry detergent. it was the costco sized kind. the kind that costs 17 dollars and does 1 million loads. this kind:

and it was ALL over. mark was not pleased. i kept saying, "how are we going to clean this up?" and he kept saying, " you mean, how are YOU going to clean this up??" then i got the lecture and then we got home.

here is a semi close up but it does not show the depth of the spill. lots of detergent

looking great

here is me having no idea how to clean it up. what would you have done??
amazed at how cool i am

mark, mad in the front seat. hahahahaha. so, we had to take it to the car wash. and 85 ,000 quarters later it was presentable. there were SO many suds. it was ridiculous. i guess when they say "super concentrated", they mean it. i think i learned my lesson.........except i have had the lecture 2 times since.