New Shoes, New Shoes. . . .

When I was a little girl,
Every time I got a new pair of shoes I would be filled with
excitement as we drove home from the store.
Not only because I got to wear the shoes, but I was excited to show my dad
so he could sing me the

"New Shoe Song"

Let me share with you this beautiful childhood memory:

"Jessie's got new shoes, new shoes, new shoes
Jessie's got new shoes on today."
(repeat 3x)

My dad sang this to me while I danced twirled in my new foot wear
with a proud smile on my face.
I would make my dad sing this song to me well into my teenage years.

On Saturday these babies arrived for me:


And I taught Adam the song and then informed him
that he was now passed the torch of singing the "New Shoe Song"
not only for our children but for me.

The drive home from Salt Lake was filled with:
"Jess' got new shoes, new shoes, new shoes
Jess' got new shoes on today"

"Jess' got new shoes, bright, red, shiny, shoes
Jess' got new shoes on today."

(We got a little creative)

BiRtHdAy GiRl

Today is June 11-the day my best friend was born!!
Whitney Kaye Stice-The person who has been there for me since 3rd Grade

(Sidenote: Because Adam and I are currently living in the dark ages with no internet I could not use the pictures I had planned cause they are on my computer, and I am at work!)

Happy Happy Birthday My Dear!!

In honor of your special day I wanted to share a few of my favorite memories of you!

1. Playing with our American Girl Dolls after school everyday after we got them for Christmas.

2. Our own "Silly Subject News" Newspapers (especially our Dear Abby Section)

3. Our first attempts at Scrapbooking

4. Playing "Hide and Go Seek" in your unfinished basement

5. Writing and then typing adoption papers for both of our parents to sign
so that it would be "official."
( I think we had Caitlyn do it to)

6. Eating a whole bag of Salsa Verde Chips in one sitting

7. Our Jamba Runs

8. Sunday drives listening to music

9. Our many sleep overs

10. Our fascinating American Heritage Class (that kicked both of our butts!)

11. No matter how long it has been since we last talked, everytime we get together we
just start where we left off-like no time had ever passed.


I love you very much, you mean the world to me, and I am so grateful for our friendship.
I feel so blessed to be a part of your life, and have you as a friend
I hope you have a wonderful day!!

You are a incredibly beautiful and so full of happiness and a wonderful example to me!

I am trying to get back into the world of blogging again,
so I decided that today I was going to post some stuff about me.
I always enjoy when others blog about themselves and give us some glimpses
into their thoughts, feelings, worries, and personalities.
So this may be quite boring, and I am not quite sure what is going to come out, but here it goes!
And it may be very long, so maybe it will give you something to read if you are bored at work (like me!)

1-I love stormy days-when I wake up in the morning to the sound of the rain bouncing on the roof I am filled with excitement. I love the way the dark clouds look in the sky,
and the loud claps of thunder.

2- I am a very sensitive person. We are talking way sensitive.
Being sensitive is not a bad thing-when you have a good balance, something that I lack.
I can get my feelings hurt over the silliest things, and words that were never meant to be taken personal- I take them personally.
I am constantly trying to sprout a thicker skin, and it is something that may take me awhile to conquer. This job has helped a lot in this area, because when angry customers call in and yell at me for something that I did not cause, I have learned to let it roll off.
Being sensitive is not all bad- it does help me to care more for other people,
and helps me be less judgmental. It also causes me to cry in every movie we watch-doesn't matter if it is a horror, comedy, or a cartoon. I can only imagine what I will be like when I am pregnant!!

3- I love love LOVE cookie dough- plain cookie dough, as an ice cream mix in, or completely frozen. It is a terrible addiction, luckily I have gotten my cookie dough desire under a bit more control from the no-sugar goal, but man I just love to eat it!! I rarely eat my finished cookies after they are baked, instead I just happily savor the raw dough straight from the bowl. I always look forward to a trip to Cold Stone so I can order my usual "Cake Batter with Cookie Dough." Because of my insane addiction, I bake cookies only once in awhile.

4- I stink at video games!! I am one of those people that uses her whole body to steer the car, or move my character! It is embarrassing!! I never had any type of video game when I was growing up, and so was never taught the skills. Last Christmas I thought this would all change when we got a Wii, suddenly it was advantage that I used my body while playing-I quickly became a tennis and bowling pro!! But this sad dream ended when we got Mario Cart a few weeks ago-sadly all of leaning, grunting, and twisting no longer helped, and I was back to video game slum!!

5- I am in a continual battle with my knee. It has been five years since I tore my ACL, and Miniscus, and I still get frustrated with the pain and swelling. The surgery was great, and everything went well, but I guess the image I always had of a perfect knee post surgery was not reality. I have a dream goal of running a marathon, but the reality is-by running a marathon, I choose to have more and worse long term knee problems. Most days it is just fine, the knee doesn't ache, and I forget that one is a better than the other. But currently I am training for a 10K in July and so in preparation for that race I have been running three times a week, which leads to more pain and swelling. I am grateful to still have a functioning knee, and that I am able to run the amount that I want to right now, but sometimes I look over at those people on the treadmill next to me and see their beautiful running strides, and 10 miles on their screen, and I turn green with envy!!

Favorite

Well, the weekend has come and gone, and SURPIRSE,
I still have not posted my high school tag, or pictures of our new home.
I could start by giving off a list of excuses, but browsing my past posts, I have already listed a bunch of excuses.
So my fellow readers, there is only one thing to say:
"I am a slacker."

My high school tag is ready to go, all I need to do is add pictures.
I have been hesitating with the home tour because I want everything to be "perfect" and so I have a few decorating projects that were supposed to get done this past weekend,
but did not.

So I have learned a lesson, I will not make any more deadline promises on my blog, because lately I have not been delivering,
and at night when I should be sleeping, my head is filled with stress
because of my broken blog promises.

My blog is something that I should enjoy, not something to add to my stress list that usually appears at night.
So dear friends, those two specific posts will be posted soon, and I am going to work harder at jumping back on the blog wagon.

Now after that intro, I wanted to share two of my favorite side dishes that
I have been enjoying lately.

The pictures that I am posting do not do the dishes justice, but I wanted to provide visual aide.


This is known at our house as "Yummy Corn Salsa"
It is very delicious, and fairly easy to make just requires a bit of chopping.
It is sweet with a little kick, Adam and I can eat this bowl relatively quickly
(kind of gross I know),
but it is pretty healthy so does not cause much damage!
The recipe is pretty broad with measurements, so that you can add as much or as little as you want.

1 Can of Corn Drained
1 Can of of Drained Garbanzo Beans
2-3 Chopped Tomatoes
Bunch of Cilantro
Bunch of Green Onions (4-5)
Avocado
Orange and Yellow Pepper (I use one of each)
1 Envelope Good Seasons Italian Salad Dressing
1 Lime

Chop all the ingredients in a bowl, add the dressing and the juice of the lime and
Bon Apetit!

This is my other favorite side dish or snack, it is a very simple salad,
but tastes delicious.



I just use some :
Spinach
Chopped Red Onion
Sliced Strawberries
Almond Slivers
(If I am feeling really adventurous, I candy the almond slices)

Then I use this Poppy Seed Dressing:


I have yet to find a good homemade Poppy Seed Dressing, and this one is delicious, so it will work!

Enjoy!

Slacker

I just wanted to apologize for my absence to all my devoted readers (like 2 people!)

We still have not gotten our wireless set up, and so I have not been posting.

But this weekend two exciting posts:

1-The high school tag from Jamie-get ready for some sweet pics

2- And a house tour!!

PrOvO

(Jamie- I did not forget about your high school post, in fact I have it ready, just need to add pictures, but because we don't have our wireless set up I have procrastinated!)


8- Number of times we have eaten at Cafe Rio since we have been here

2- Number of times we have had FrEe MeAls at Cafe Rio (we saved all our cards while up in Idaho, and are glad we did!)

6- Number of Boxes I still have left to unpack

0- Number of times I have cooked since we have been here- (or does a frozen Stouffers Meal Count?)

41- Number of Hours I have been working each week

3- Number of loads of laundry that are waiting for me at the house

4- Number of decorating projects for our house that are waiting to be started

10- Number of minutes it takes me to fall asleep at night (believe it or not, I have not had a sleepless night since we have been here-knock on wood!)

4- Number of days we had to live without hot water-we forgot to call on a Friday, so spent the whole weekend minus hot water!! (Thanks mom and dad for letting us borrow your shower every morning!)

UPDATE

I am sorry for the slack of posts!
We arrived safely last Saturday night after a long day of moving!
Although the move was stressful we were blessed with family and ward members
that willingly devoted their time to ease some of the burden!

We are currently living in my parents basement,
and will be moving into our condo on the 29th.
We are very excited!

We just made our first purchase as " a married couple" by buying a
"Sactional" from Lovsac, so we are excited
and feel very grown up!

I am working at the Prosper Corporate office down here, and am enjoying it,
Adam started work with Van Buren Inc. on Monday and has been
smiling ever since.
He is already made quite an impact on the company and is becoming a driving force!

We feel very happy and blessed to be back and feel like this is where we are supposed to be.
Don't worry we have eaten Cafe Rio three times now, in the 6 days that we have been back!

I will post more soon!