yep i'm still here...it has been a really crazy month for me... it started with a week in april after my birthday that i taught relief society two weeks in a row then taught fhe monday and our enrichment wednesday. then that weekend i had my 15 hours of pre-licensing class training to teach life insurance agents after a 45 hour work week. i think i caught an ear infection from miss mya and i have allergies from hades that has turned to a head cold. it's 100 degrees here already and i started my period for the first time in 5 years. all fun and games here. this weekend I had m & h sleep over since colls and jules were gone. we ate at "marvs" and played mall madness, kings corners and watched "transformers" and "lady and the tramp" - they each got to pick one. in the morning we ate at "village inn" and went and hung out at "barnes and noble". on memorial day i watched jamaica's kids for them as it was their anniversary and they went to zion's to hike keyhole. we had a ton of fun cleaning their house and then going to the water park. i squeezed a shower in and the kids were back for pizza while j & d went to dinner. i did get some me time with my buddies warren, bart, kara, keena, etc at "angels and demons" that night. tom hanks really does work for satan. monday was followed by tuesday which was michael's 11th birthday. we went to "night at the museum 2" which I think I saw most of it between keeping an eye on mya who kept screaming "puppy" at ever quiet part of the movie - it's the only word she knows. we had pizza and opened presents and sang the song.

sent them to the opening roadrunner baseball game. i went home and passed out and haven't done a darn thing since. michael's little league team plays in the semi-finals of their championship tournament tonight so i'm sure that will have a story or two to tell. go michael #8. other than that...i'm just hanging in there.

HAPPY MOTHER'S DAY MOM!

VIVA LAS VEGAS!

.My Dad was in Vegas this weekend and actually until Wednesday so the girls met him down to hang out a little on his days off of his work seminars. Dad got about an hour at the pool which is where I should have gotten off the train too. BUT no I was out for 3 hours and am a complete raspberry now!

We ate at PF Chang's the first night and are all looking for a pirated recipe for their lettuce wraps now! We then went to this really funny comedy club with three comedians (one of them was pretty funny). By the end of the third one I was laughing mostly because I was so loopy and tired!
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Dad took us to dinner at "Lawry's" for PRIME rib and it was UNBELIEVABLE! They served this salad that was out of this world, prime rib and a lobster tale and they served the prime rib with these incredible mashed potatoes! The dining room was very classy and our "waitress" Miss Murray was so great! Dad surprised me with a birthday strawberry shortcake dessert and he's more of a chocolate guy so he got a chocolate sundae!!!

THANKS DAD I LOVE YOU!

LET'S DO THAT AGAIN!

HAPPY BIRTHDAY CARRIE!

Our great friend Carrie had her birthday yesterday while we were in Vegas, so we got to celebrate with her tonight. She wanted to take Cafe Rio up on the Dixie cliff and watch an episode of "Dr Quinn"! It was great! The birds were soaring in the wind and the sun set was amazing! We laughed so hard at "Dr Quinn" mostly because we relate SO well!

THE DIXIE CHICKS!

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THANK YOU!

I want to thank all my very giving friends and family for all my gifts this birthday season! I sort of challenged everyone to get me something practical for self-preparedness or food storage since I seem really unprepared for any sort of disaster or pandemic. Everyone did awesome! I'm really impressed with the creativity!

Click on the present to find out more about preparedness!

EMERGENCY POD-E ~My own creation thought you would be interested~

EMERGENCY WASHING MACHINE ~Thanks to Trish my preparedness cohort~

KAITO VOYAGER KA-500 SOLAR & CRANK RADIO (AM/FM/NOAA weather, SW-MultiBand Radio with Cell Phone/iPod Charger) ~Thanks Hansen Fam~

FOOD SAVER WITH JAR SEALERS ~Thanks Mom and Dad~

MORE MASON JARS and CANNING UTENSILS ~Thanks Jules~

STOCK POT ~Thanks Carrie~

I also received MARVELOUS gifts from Bath and Body from my roommate Colleen and my great friend Andrea.

BIRFDAY GIFT REGISTRY!

Ya so me and Hitler's birthday is coming up so I thought I would post my wish list. I'm just way into food storage and canning and preparedness ETC... be creative OR here are a few items on my wish list...

For ordering convenience click on the picture to take you to the website! :) For all of you very un prepared people :) These are those stinkin crazy vacuum food sealers that your mom might have shoved in the back of her pantry after she only used it once. What I REALLY want (they are out of stock on the website so whoever can find one wins) is a jar sealer to go along with the sealer. It allows you to reseal jars with food in them so that they last longer after you open them! They also preserve dry food from the air making them last longer! A lady demonstrated that you can keep chocolate chips this way for 10 years and they won't go all white and chalky! YEAH!

I'M OFFICIALLY A CANNER!

Last October I went for a life altering job on a Saturday morning. I went at the time with the intention of missing our Stake Preparedness Event. I was jogging back home and had to pass the Stake Center and all of a sudden I had a strong urge to just go in so you can say you went. SO I did and sat in the back on the stage and ended up being there for over an hour! It was amazing! The booklet that they handed out is available to print online called EVERYTHING UNDER THE SUN by Wendy DeWitt. They also showed the VIDEO of her going over the booklet and what she has experienced. This made SO much sense to me and it helped me wrap my brain around food storage and how I can do it while I'm single too. Totally amazing please check it out!!! Check out her BLOG too!

I went straight home after the Event and called my mom and told her that I wanted a Pressure Canner for Christmas! That's exactly what I got too! Santa picked it up from the CANNING PANTRY online. It looks completely scientific and sorta freaked me out so I haven't really tackled the sucker UNTIL this weekend!

What better to do on General Conference weekend but some canning! One of the most motivating things on the video is that she encourages that we can our own meat. The meat will last with all the nutritional value on the SHELF, not frozen or refrigerated for one YEAR! She also said that the meat is more tender because it is pressure cooked! She has tried her chicken that she had canned in jars for 10 years and said it was fantastic! I thought it was genius, so chicken was on sale at Harmon's last week so I bought 5 packages of it and canned the little guys! I now have 8 jars of chicken breasts, that is 14 breasts :)

The jars look like those jars from 7th grade science that have pigs feet in phermeldahyde but I was still very proud and my roommates were encouraging and supportive of the venture! One of the jars didn't make it, it didn't seal right so Colleen took our chances to see how it tasted! It was so tender and tasted amazing!!

HAPPY 1st BIRTHDAY MISS MYA!

Miss Mya is a ONE year-old today! YEAH!

We had a party on Sunday cause this week is crazy. Here she is looking at her birthday card from me! She did SO good and opened all her presents on her own. She grabbed her cupcake with both hands and got the frosting all over her. She wouldn't go any further though because she was so distracted with her hands being dirty.

I also made Mya a picture book of my favorite pictures in the last year of her, so here are a few!

BRONCHITIS 101

There are some things that you can not escape when it comes to getting to know me. I have allergies and I usually get really sick in March. I have for the last 3 years had bronchitis. Didn't know much about it other than it sucked, so trying to stay up so that my medication will have time to digest before I go BACK to bed, I found some info for everyone. My brother-in-law has it too and I guess pneumonia comes next so watch out people!

Chronic bronchitis is most frequently caused by long term irritation of the bronchial tubes. Bronchitis caused by allergies can also be classified as chronic bronchitis. Chronic bronchitis is caused most often by exposure to airborne pollutants such as cigarette smoke, excessive dust in the air, or chemicals. The bronchial lining becomes inflamed and the constant exposure to such pollutants begins to cause damage in the bronchioles (the smaller airways in the lungs).

Nice.

Bronchitis is an inflammation of the bronchial tubes, the part of the respiratory system that leads into the lungs. Acute bronchitis has a sudden onset and usually appears after a respiratory infection, such as a cold, and can be caused by either a virus or bacteria. The infection inflames the bronchial tubes, which causes symptoms such as fever, cough, sore throat, wheezing, and the production of thick yellow mucus. If acute bronchitis occurs because of a bacterial infection antibiotics are given for the treatment. Otherwise if the infection is viral medications can only be given to alleviate the symptoms. Although acute bronchitis is relatively common, some people are more prone to it than others.

My symptoms:
fever....CHECK
cough... CHECK
sore throat... CHECK
production of thick yellow mucus... CHECK CHECK!

Thanks to Trish and Jamaica for covering all week at work, Kristen for bringing me movies that I wish I could stay awake long enough to watch, and Julie and Colls for letting me quarantine myself in our house...sorry if you get it even after sterilizing everything every time I go back to bed.