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Mother's Day is just around the corner...

I'm In A Funk

On Easter Sunday, my hubby's brother-in-law passed away. Keith was only 50 years old when his heart totally gave out. Just this past Monday was his funeral.

My kids went to their dad's house for that weekend we were in Montana. The house should have been locked up tight...I even left a note for the boys telling them to not forget to lock all the doors and window. Great plan! Except for one deviation. Jacob (my 15 year old) forgot how to use his brain and conveniently left his window open for his buddies to come in while nobody was home. And those "friends" threw a party. In my house.

So I'm about 1000 miles from home when my youngest son Jared calls me and tells me that someone broke into the house. They were getting dropped off by their dad. I was totally freaked out and couldn't do a thing about it.

But after we got home, we realized that Jason's laptop, all our stuff that usually sits on the counter top and on my entry way table had been hidden in closets and drawers (and the cops my ex called said that it was one of the boys' friends) So we forced a confession out of Jacob. I just wonder how he thought he could get away with that. He wasn't even here to enjoy the party with them!

We actually feel very lucky that the worst that happened was they ate lots of food out of the fridge, ate all our candy, dirtied every cup in the house, spilled booze on my tile floor and left it very sticky so I could spend an hour mopping it. Oh, and they stole the boys' Wii and my totally cool aprons that Suzee made for me! I mean, we aren't glad those things happened, but we could have come home to something like this.....

(this is the Pair-A-Dice Bar that had recently burned down in Paradise, Montana.)

I'm hoping that very soon I'll just snap out of this funk. It's hard when you are grieving the loss of one family member and wanting to kill your kid at the same time. Well, I don't really want to kill my son. But I would like him to suffer a bit. I've been told more than once this week that this too shall pass. I just wish it would have passed me completely.

A Weekend In Montana

Friday afternoon Jason and I flew up to Montana. His grandma had passed away and Jason was going to be gone for more than a week. He asked if I would like to at least come up for the weekend. Of course I did! I hurried up and put together a small scrapbook album for his mom so if she felt lonely in the days ahead, she could look at the family photos and know she's loved and appreciated.
Since meeting Jason, I have been to Montana 5 times in 3 years. I absolutely love it there. Being an Arizona native, I'm used to brown. So for me, being there is a feast for my eyes. Everything is different than I'm used to

This is a view from the airplane window. I love the snow on the mountain and the winding river down below.

Look at what is in the Missoula airport waiting to greet new arrivals. This bear is HUGE! (Don't worry...I'm not really scared!)

Jason was on the Plains high school football team, so I snapped this picture of the scoreboard.
I just can't imagine growing up in a town where the grass is green and the views of the mountains are regular features.

I was trying to get a shot of the football goal posts in the distance. I didn't notice at the time, but the local businesses seem to put up advertisements on the fence. Do all small town funeral homes advertise at schools?

Just beyond the grocery store is this little old jail. I love that it's still there. The sign says it was built in 1904. Jason tells me that the town would have a day when they'd lock people up and then they have to raise "bail" to get out. Then the money goes to benefit something (I wish I remember what).

Just up one of the hills is a new development for home sites. This is the view from one of them.

And this is just some of the forest just outside of the main part of town.

Something else that I think is wonderful is this natural mountain spring. You can just pull off the road and fill your bottles up for free. That water is really cold! I hope you notice the University of Montana logo on that bottle. Yeah, I'm such a tourist.

Something else that anybody from the greater Phoenix area would find amazing is that EVERY bridge you go over has WATER running under it. I'm not kidding you.

Easter Sunday, my last day, Jason drove me back to Missoula for my flight home. But first we visited the grounds of his Alma Mater. I know you probably can't tell, but there is an "M" at the top of that hill. (Jason tells me it's a hill, but anyone from my neck of the woods would know it's a mountain.) I thought it was cool that there is a trail that zig-zags it's way up that folks were hiking. If I lived near it, that's what I would do.

It's all about the GRIZ. These folks take their football seriously.

There are Griz claws everywhere. Trash cans included.

One more picture before we leave...

The time had come for me to board my plane and head for home. My boys were waiting for me and nail clients were on the schedule for Monday morning. My heart was breaking as I was leaving because we had just gotten the worst news. Jason's brother-in-law had passed away that night. I wanted more than anything to stay. I love this new family of mine and I hurt for their loss. May God bless and comfort them.

Happy Anniversary

Today Jason and I celebrate our 3rd wedding anniversary! Yes, we got married on April Fool's Day.
I never intended to get remarried so soon after my divorce, but I fell head over heels in love with Jason and I couldn't let him get away. I am one of the lucky ones who can say that they married their best friend.
When we began planning our wedding, we knew that we wanted to be able to enjoy ourselves. I have to tell you that I had so much fun and was totally relaxed from start to finish.
The day was beautiful and the sun was so bright. Jason and I loved our wedding theme of 'Gettin' Hitched' and we were 'Tying the knot'.

This began our journey of being a blended family. Looking at these photos now makes me feel like it was so long ago because all of our kids have grown up so much.

Jason's family traveled from all over to be there to celebrate with us. These women did so much for us to help make sure everything was beautiful.

My family lives fairly close so of course they were there. My sister Suzee helped me make the invitations. They were super duper awesome. She's so generous with her time and is such a hard worker. I'm glad she was there as my matron of honor.
Every time I think back to this day, I feel so happy. I wouldn't ask for anything to be different.

The boys had a lot of changes in their lives in such a short time. They have rolled with those changes pretty well. I'm very thankful for them and for the way they've handled these last few years.

Here we are, doing what we do so much of....Laughing! He can always make me smile, even when I want to be crabby.

I love you Jason. I am so proud and happy to be your wife. I can't wait to see what the future looks like with you by my side.

How To Tell If You Are In Sun City

Today Jason and went to lunch with our friend Michael Shane. Don't ask me why, but we ended up in Sun City which is a place where old folks live so they don't have to be around young'ens here in Arizona. Anyway, this was in the ladies bathroom...

Yes, this is the reason we must always carry a camera with us when we go places.

This Made Me Laugh Out Loud

When I was dropping Jacob off at school, I saw something that had me laughing. I didn't have my camera with me (I should know better than to ever leave home without it). On my next trip out I went back and got a picture, just so I could share it with you.

Did Someone Say CAKE?

These are my adventures in making cake balls. Since I had never made them before, I read a few ideas from folks who have made these and most said to not mix the frosting when the cake is too warm, so I waited until it was a little cooler.
This is the delicious devil's food cake in the bowl. I know it's delicious because I sampled a piece. (or two)

I chose to mix in chocolate fudge frosting. Jared approved of this.

I used all of the frosting even though some people who made this said they didn't need all of it. The bags of chocolate chips in the picture were later melted down to make the coating...it was too messy for me to get any pictures.

I'm almost done scooping all the cake. It is really creamy and smooth with the frosting mixed in.

I went back and rolled all the scoops with my hands to make them into tighter balls.

Here they are with their chocolate coating, cooling in the fridge.

I actually forgot to get a photo of them finished and on a plate until a day later. Here are all that's left of the two full cookie sheets.

So I had some left over melted chocolate and couldn't bear to toss it out and knew that if I just ate it I would get a sick tummy, so I grabbed the bag of sliced, frozen strawberries and dipped a few into the chocolate until the water ruined the chocolate. These are yummy.

I hope your mouth is watering and you are thinking about chocolate now. I think I'll go eat a cake ball for breakfast.

Tomorrow My Baby Turns 13

I just can't believe it's been that long. As Jason says, "Fun flies when you're doing time". So in anticipation of the big day, I thought I'd blog tonight to tell you what I'm doing. Instead of the traditional cake, we will be having Cake Balls (not to be confused with Schweddy Ball you've probably seen on Saturday Night Live).


First you bake the cake. Then once it's done, crumble the warm cake in a bowl and stir in a can of frosting until it's blended. Then you use a melon baller (or since I don't have one, a small cookie scoop) and dip balls of cake into warm chocolate. Cool on wax paper until set. I can't wait. I plan to take some pics.

Just wanted to post some pictures of Jared
This is Jared when he was only 2 and a half years old. Just love that grin.
And this is Jared today. The hair is longer and he is a lot taller but he's still my baby.

Just One Question

I was just wondering if you think my ring holder looks like a boy cat with my rings hanging on it? Uh, no? Oh, me either.

Let's Have A Garage Sale

Moving really does suck. Jason and I came to the conclusion during this move that we needed to condense our belongings. When we got married, we each brought a whole house full of stuff with us. I couldn't part with much of my own property because after my divorce from Jerry I was gun-shy about long term commitments. I had this fear in the back of my head that warned me to save it all because Jason could leave, too. Now it's 3 years later and I am much more secure in my marriage and realize Jason is here for the long haul.

So, as we began the awful process of packing and moving, we started to give a lot of stuff away. I was prepared to just drop everything off at D.I. (for those who didn't grow up in an LDS home, D.I. stands for Deseret Industries, which is a second-hand store) and be done with it. My sister Suzee had been doing all my packing helping us move and suggested we have a garage sale to get rid of our extra junk. I really hate to have people poke through my things, but she pointed out that $1 for something we were just going to toss is more that we had before. So we had a garage sale...

Jason bought us donuts to give us the necessary sugar high we needed to get set up. Olivia was our helper for the day. She is the only one of our 4 kids willing to help. Can you read what's on the blue tape? We had to stop people from asking how much we wanted for the things that still needed to be moved.

I took my camera because I blog and everyone knows that bloggers take their camera everywhere. I took pictures of our crap saleable items.
Just looking at it makes you wish you'd been there to get the good stuff, I know...

These office chairs are still available.

And another picture of our goods. I think out of all the things you see here, only that VCR and DVD player actually sold.

Being an Arizona girl, I had to go sit in the sun to warm up. I mean, it was only around 70 degrees. So you can imagine how cold it was in the shade.

This last picture tells it all. We are on our way back to the new house. I took a nap, too, once we were home.