I'm Alive! Lots of pictures to come soon!

Hi everybody!! I am alive. The last two weeks have been SO crazy! We were in Dallas to see Jordan and Robyn get married and then it was off to Salt Lake for my busy convention week at work. I have lots of pictures to post!

The wedding was beautiful! I LOVE Dallas! We had such a good time. We went to the JFK assassination museum there and it was awesome. We took some pictures on THE GRASSY KNOLL. It was great.

Convention was amazing. I worked A LOT of hours... i had a lot of 16 hour days and one 18 hour day (good grief) but it was all worth it for the BEST seat in the house for the Goo Goo Dolls concert last night! I talked to the band for a moment and I have AWESOME pictures! Yippee!

Stay tuned! Well, I am off to take a nap! All work and no sleep makes Jaala a useless girl!

Rest In Peace: Doug

Doug you were a beautiful spirit, you brought us so much joy in the three short years of your life. You gave Dennis a companion when no one else would. You kept us all entertained. You made Jaala sneeze. You were our greeter when we would visit and though sometimes you were temperamental we knew that you had love for us deep down inside.
Heavenly Father took you too soon and we will sorely miss you. There will always be a place in our hearts for you, and we will certainly see you again.
This is a big up from all of us in the family and just remember that we will never forget you, you have left a hole but it will heal. Peace!

Robyn's Last Weekend as a Free Woman

This weekend I was invited to Robyn's Bachelorette Partay! It was fun. We ate dinner at The Pie in Salt Lake. It was very good pizza and then we went and saw The Duchess (by the way it was a good movie) at Jordan Commons in Salt Lake as well. We had a good time and I am sure that Robyn had a good time with her former roommates one last time before she gets hitched next weekend.

What funny sister in laws we are going to be!

Robyn, Lauren, Kristen, and Pam!

Lauren, Kristen, Pam, and ME!

The weather was awful last night. You can't really tell from this picture, but it was starting to snow! Yes, you heard me right... SNOW! It was nuts. This picture is leaving the restaurant... but when we left the movie at about 11:45pm... there was at least a 1/4 of an inch of snow on the ground. I actually had to brush the 4Runner off before I drove home! STUPID UTAH!

Another Photo Shoot

Over the weekend we took our good friends Gary and Amanda (and their children) to the Sundance Resort in Provo Canyon to take their family pictures. Here are a few of my favorite. Harrison and I are really enjoying experimenting with our photography skills.

(Ryker was yelling at me)

(and over he went)

(let the tears cometh)

(after almost two hours of snapping photos, Ryker is still a happy camper)

Thankful Thursday

It's been a while since I have done this. So, there should be a whole slew of things to be thankful for, right?

My New iPhone
Oh yes, I am LOVING it. It is amazing. It does everything that I could ever hope for. I would recommend this phone to EVERYONE!!!!!

My Family
My parents and youngest brothers are coming to visit this weekend. Happy day! It makes me so happy when they visit. I tend to miss my little brothers a lot. So its always a good thing when I am able to go and see them or when they are able to come and see us.

My Co-Worker Hector
Hector is a student who is studying English as a second language here at BYU. He has been here in the US for only 5 months. He is from Mexico. I work with him at BYU every week night as a janitor. I help Hector with his English (his English is pretty dang good for only being here 5 months) and he tells me all about Mexico (did you know that burritos are NOT Mexican food... Nope... Americans made those up.. HA). I have so much fun with him every night. Viva Mexico (that's for you Hector).

Fall Colors
While I am sad that summer is gone and the cold weather is looming in the air, I am sure thankful for all of the beautiful colors around. I loved the flowers in the spring time here in Utah and the autumn colors and leaves are just as beautiful. I can't believe how many colors there are! I don't remember autumn ever being this beautiful in Las Vegas. Hip Hip Hooray for Autumn.

A Lovely Vintage Find

Oh my goodness. So, I FINALLY got Harrison to agree to coming with me into the HUGE antique mall close to us in Springville, Utah. He has been fighting me on it for a while, but I finally convinced him. So, we were walking around and I was showing him all the different things that I want on my Christmas list. I was talking about how I would love to have a bunch of different pieces of antique china for entertaining (enough for lots of people to eat off of, but nothing would match... do you see my vision here people?... By the way, thanks for that fabulous idea Jane!).
Anyway, I was showing him what I liked and........ TA DA!!!!!! There was this set of antique CAVALIER china sitting on a shelf with a price tag of $24.99... NO WAY!!! This is too good to be true. I asked the owner of the antique store if it was true... sure enough... it was! Harrison was so good to give me his blessings and let me purchase them! YIPPEE!!!!

They are just dreamy, don't you think? And I love the gold detail on them! It is the best deal I have found on an antique since... well let's be honest... in my entire life. The owner of the antique shop didn't believe that the dealer was selling them for so cheap! They are made from egg shells (a little fun fact).



I know the pictures aren't great, but I couldn't wait for better light to take them. I wanted to share with the world what amazing china I found! WhooHoo! Thanks for letting me buy them hunny! You really do spoil me (all $24.99 worth)!

A Bit of a Change to the Blog Entries

Just an FYI for everybody... I have deleted some information out of some of my past blog entries... Personal information to be exact. I have taken out all last name from my blog. I would hate for any harm to come to any friends or family because of my blog... so, those are the changes.

THANKS!!!!

She's at it again!

I have been crafting again! I am so proud of these Halloween themed banners! I am done with the letter cards and now I am just waiting for my amazing garland to come to me in the mail from Speckled Egg (click here for the site).

I used an old book for the rosettes. Some of the scrapbook paper is from a new line by Jenny Bowlin (click here for her site). I thought about putting step by step directions on how to make these amazing banners, but I totally forgot. So, if you want to know how to do them, leave me a comment and I will be happy to email you some directions. It is so easy and pretty dang fun!

I also made a "SPOOKY" banner for my good friend Jane. She requested I make her one for her birthday (since her birthday is in October and Halloween is pretty much her favorite holiday).

An Unwanted House Guest

Harrison and I came home for lunch a couple of days ago and look what was meeting us at the door! Oh yes, that's right. A big BLACK WIDOW!



So, what did I do? I waited for Harrison to snap some pictures of the little wench and I got the bug spray and sprayed the life out of it. Or so we thought.

This picture is of the spider coming back to life after it tricked us into thinking it was dead. So gross. So, I just squished it with my shoe after that. So now it is gone. I hope to the heavens there are not anymore in or around the house! What a way to kick off the Halloween season!

The Goal Has Been Met!

So a couple of weeks ago Harrison and I went to my orthodontist to sign the last check I will ever have to write to them! YAHOO!!!! Through all of our hard work and dedication we met our goal of paying off all of our debt this summer! What a neat thing for us.

This is me explaining that this is our last payment!

Yippee Skippee! The last invoice letting us know that there is a $0 balance. I want to shout it from the rooftops that we are DONE!

Paying off our debt was no small feat. It was hard both emotionally and physically. I am proud that we reached our goal though. For anybody who wants to know where we got the courage and words of wisdom for this endeavor, click here to check out Dave Ramsey's website. It is great. It tells you all you need to know about getting to be debt free!