My Baby Brother is Going To...

My baby brother got his mission call!!! He's going to Milwaukee, WI....

Just a mere 3 1/2 hours from me here in Iowa... interesting!



Congrats Elder Jesse Kissell!!!

P.S. Found this out AFTER I first posted this. One of his best friends from our hometown that he has known since he was 4 is going to the VERY SAME MISSION!!! Leaving on the VERY SAME DAY!!! What are the odds of that?!

So congrats Elder Jesse and Elder Blake! Watch out Wisconsin!

Faith in technology

Hi everyone,

This is Paul by the way. I just thought I'd share a little story. I don't know if any of you use a sonicare toothbrush, but they're pretty awesome, and they turn off automatically after two minutes! Well, the other day I was brushing my teeth, and for some reason my toothbrush forgot to turn off. I think I brushed for about five minutes before I realized what was going on. As a result, my teeth got really really clean. I just think its hilarious how much we trust technology sometimes. I've let myself become too lazy to tell my brain to pay attention to how long I brush my teeth... yeah... that's pretty lazy.

Then I got to thinking about my cell phone. I'm pretty sure I have two phone numbers memorized out of all the numbers programmed in my phone. That's ridiculous. I hardly even know how to drive anywhere besides school and church, because all I do when I need to go somewhere new, is follow the instructions on my phone. And so... if I lose my phone, I won't be able to call anyone I know, or be able to get to any of their homes... luckily though, it does work, so maybe I can use the stop watch function on my phone as a back up to the faulty timer on my toothbrush. That way I won't have to use my brain... because its sooo difficult! lol

My New Favorite

I haven't blogged for a while... so I figured this one should be a doosie!!!

And now I will wow you all....

My new favorite thing in the world is... Yoplait Cherry Pomegranate Yogurt. DELICIOUS!!! I'm trying to lose all my post wedding weight... ugh. Gained back every ounce that I worked for months to lose. And this is my new delicious addiction. You should all try it. I found it at WallyMart.



I also bought the blueberry acai but haven't tried it yet. I'll keep you posted. I KNOW you'll be at the edge of your seats just waiting. ;)

Just for fun!

The first FIVE people to respond to this post will get something made by me! My choice. For you. This offer does have some restrictions and limitations:

1- I make no guarantees that you will like what I make!

2- What I create will be just for you.

3- It'll be done this year. (might be a little while)

4- You have no clue what it's going to be.It may be a story. It may be a joke book, autographed picture of myself, handmade bag, or a little invention of my own! I may create you a blog header or paint something for you with my food. (That would be scary). I may bake you something and mail it to you. Who knows?

5- I reserve the right to do something extremely strange. Believe me... it may blow your mind!

The catch? Oh, the catch is that you must re post this on your blog and offer the same to the first 5 people who do the same on your blog. The first 5 people to do so and leave a comment telling me they did win a FAB-U-LOUS homemade gift by me! Oh, and be sure to post a picture of what you win when you get it! Sounds like fun, right? So, let's play!

Money makes me grouchy!

So today my wonderful proactive husband made an appointment for us to get pre-approved for a home mortgage. We've been doing a lot of TALKING about buying a house, but not a lot of DOING. It was amazing how as soon as he got off the phone and told me we needed our W2s, paystubs, and bank statements I got really really grouchy!

Anyways, ended up being a really good meeting and we both felt really good coming out of it. But it all goes to show this will likely not be a fun experience for me, considering that I was stressed just holding a folder with my financial story in it. I HATE MONEY!!!

p.s. if anyone has any homebuying tips send em our way. We are CLUELESS when it comes to this stuff. Especially considering my ability to run and hide when it comes to talking about money matters.

This Weekend

This weekend we finally went back to the temple... it was hard for us to get the nerve up to go back down to Nauvoo considering our traumatic experience last time. Recap for those who are new: Paul's car overheated on a bridge over the Mississippi, totally broke down, got picked up by a SUPER nice guy who ended up letting us stay at his and his wife's house in Nauvoo for 3 days. So this time we took MY reliable, faithful, beautiful car (oh yeah, and we just got my car out of the shop with a newly fixed strut and heat shield thing AND Paul's car has the check engine light on AGAIN!). My car worked like a champ. No overheating, no wierd noises of any sort and it got us there in great time.

We got there early so we had time to stop by our favorite Nauvoo bakery (did I mention we spent 3 days in a town of 1100 so we got to know the local shops quite well) for doughnuts and a sandwich. Then went to the temple... I LOVE the Nauvoo temple. LOVE LOVE LOVE!!! P.S. It was a beautifuly day... it was 67degrees as we headed into the temple. BEAUTIFUL!!! Such a nice change from our lovely mid-west winter.



After the temple we stopped by the house of the couple that saved us for a quick chat and headed on home, once again no mishaps.

This morning Paul and I took a little drive down to the Mississippi to look at the bald eagles. Apparently they spend the winter along the river, right next to downtown Davenport. Initially it was rather disappointing, didn't see a thin. But finally we saw one in a tree... it flew away... that's it in the middle. Funny thing about this picture, I took it right after almost biffing it in the mud trying to chase the poor eagle down.



Then we saw these after we drove down another road... pretty darn sweet eh?

I Miss My Daddy...

Today is the day that I set aside the full day to miss my Daddy. He passed away 4 years ago today. So here are things I loved about him:

His hugs - he would always hold me sooooo tight and soooo long. I loved it!

Him being there after some dumb boy broke up with me - he would always tell me they were dumb and not good enough for me and that there was some wonderful boy out there just waiting to sweep me off my feet.

His laugh - his laughter was infectious, loud, and wonderful.

His smell - he smelled like... a man. Outdoorsy, machine oil of some sort, and sometimes Brut.

His jokes - he told the BEST jokes ever! He used voices, accents, and he told them like stories from his day... you sometimes didn't know till the punchline that it was a joke.

His work ethic - he would work SO hard! I hated it sometimes, Saturday was always work day and LONG work day at that. But I inherited that from him to an extent and my employers appreciate it.

His love for my Mom - he would always hug and kiss her when he or she got home. I loved the visual signs of their love for each other.

His pride in his children - I LOVED pleasing him... with grades, good choices, art work, etc. I LOVED how his entire body would beam with pride and joy.

His love for the outdoors and nature - he LOVED being outside. He loved nature. He saw nature as a sign of God's amazing love for us... beauty all around in every detail, from a spider web to a mountain range.

His cooking - he was a great cook. Made awesome fajitas, cinnamon rolls, calzones, sweet and sour pork, sourdough pancakes, yeast waffles... DELICIOUS!

His love of his Heavenly Father and the gospel - he had an awesome, unwavering testimony of the gospel and always knew his Father in Heaven loved him.

and last of all... I just loved HIM. Everything about him. He wasn't perfect, but he loved us and we all knew it. That's all that matters in the end.

Happy Birthday Natalie!!!!!!!!!

Yes, today is Natalie's birthday, and of course, its one of the weekends that she has to work. No worries though because while some husbands would do really nice things and make their wife breakfast in bed on their birthday... I went the extra mile, or actually the extra 2.4 miles, in my car, in order to bring her some McDonalds breakfast in bed.

Also, I may have picked myself up a little something while I was there... good stuff! It took me 10 minutes to tip-toe quietly through the house, pull a jacket out of the closet, get the keys off of our very noisey key chain holder, and open three doors plus a garage door and car door without her waking up. I felt like a Ninja! Funny thing is, Natalie sleeps through anything (I could seriously have a 2nd life at night and she'd never have a clue) so she had no idea I was even gone. Little did I know that it was -4 degrees and FREEZING outside! Definitely might have cooked something at home had I realized that.

Anyway, when she gets off work, we'll be going to watch "The World's Toughest Bulls and Broncs" at the Iwireless center.

Natalie loves rodeos, and usually we get to them late and have to climb on a fence in order to be able to see what's going on, but we got great seats so we're excited.

1,136

... that is the number of drugs that I alphabetized today in my pharmacy. We were organized in an amazingly antiquitated manner, by the drug's BRAND name with it's generic equivalent sitting next to it. Meaning for example you would have Lisinopril alphabetized under Z for Zestril or Azothioprine under I for Imuran. It was all sorts of confusing to get used to and I finally got fed up and just started doing it without permission, then finally got permission to do the bulk of the pharmacy. It was a bit of a logistical nightmare, we were moving ALL the drugs in the pharmacy while we were open. Meaning that the people who were filling prescriptions had little to no idea where anything was... but we got it done... in 6 hours. UGH. But it was lots of fun for me... I have an odd love for organizing.

Holy Freezing Batman!

When we moved here everyone went on and on about how bitterly cold it gets here in the winter. Thus far haven't been too impressed, but yesterday.... holy cow! Our high temp was a balmy -8 degrees with our low being -25. OUCH! It hurt to breath, your nose hairs stuck together (I call that booger freezing cold) and steam was coming out of the sewers and off the river like crazy!

I had to work late last night and was having an awful time convincing myself that I wanted to leave. In fact there's this big project I need to do and I was telling myself that I should spend the night and do the project... that way I wouldn't have to go outside... and sit in my FREEZING car! But my awesome hubby showed up about 10 minutes before I closed and said "i'm here to be your remote start" seriously the greatest thing ever! I had a nice warm car to go to!!!

As a side note... Paul would like me to mention that if you include the windchill factor it was over 100 degrees hotter in SanJose CA, where the other Palmer campus is that he wanted to go to, but that I wouldn't let him. sigh... makes me want to rethink being to scared to study for the CA pharmacy boards.

BRRRRR!!!!!!!! Ok Iowa... I give in. I'm impressed!