Fun 3 weeks ahead!

Hello again! My move has slown down, but my life has definitely not... Before I get started, if anyone wants to mute my wedding music, just go to the slide show, and in the top left corner, there is a volume logo, and just click it, and it mutes.

Well, there are 2 more days of school for my children. And of course those 2 days are going to be nothing but fun. Last week, Taylor went to the Oklahoma Science Museum, and Ryan was able to go with her. They both had a nice time. Then Blake went (without a parent) to a place called "Jump-In", which is a place that has a lot of inflatable jumping equipment, and obstacle courses, etc... Then today, Taylor got to go on another field trip to a really fun place called Incredible Pizza. It is a pizza/pasta buffet with tons of things to do inside (like bumper cars, go carts, mini-golf, and lots of arcade games. So they have had a lot of fun in the last 2 weeks. Tomorrow they have a picnic at a local park, and then Thursday is it, the last day!!! AND... my sister, Sue, and her daughters are coming to visit on Thursday! They will be here all weekend, and then sometime in the next week, we are going to go to Arkansas to see some of my Dad's family. Then, on the 29th, we will be heading to the panhandle for my nephew's rehearsal dinner, then the following day is the big day for Shane and Courtney! I'm very excited. There is also a little sadness, that Steve didn't make it to see Shane get married. 3 DAYS before Steve passed away, he was fitted for his tuxedo for Shane's wedding. So that is going to be hard for everyone, just not having him to share the joy.

We will return home after the wedding, then the next day (31st) I have something very big planned, but I can't go into details, but I PROMISE that I will post about it shortly after ;) Then on June 1st, which is Blake's birthday, my whole family are all going to Frontier City, which is an amusement park in Oklahoma City. That is going to be a BLAST! Then, June 3rd is my sister Sue, and Ryan's birthday, then the 9th is mine. My sister, Peggy will be staying around for a week to two weeks after the wedding, and she will also be going to Arkansas, and I may go with her also, so I may be making 2 trips down to see my Dad's family. I know I'm rambling on and on, but now you see what the next 3 weeks are going to be for me, busy, but FUN!!!

Our 10th anniversary

I honestly can't believe that today is our 10th anniversary. It seems like it should be like our 5th, but certainly not our 10th. Time has really flown! Last year, Mary posted a blog about her 10th anniversary and posted some pictures from her wedding day, and I loved that idea, and decided to do the same thing. I decided it would be fun to make a slideshow of our wedding day :) Ryan and I are going to go out to eat somewhere in Oklahoma City and then go see "17 Again". We would have LOVED to went back to Dallas, but don't have the money at the moment. This day in age, I feel very thankful to have made it to our 10th anniversary. Most marriages are over by then. I am looking forward to more milestones in our marriage (our 25th, etc...) I love my husband and definitely look forward to many more years with him :)

My countdown has begun!

Life is finally starting to get better for us. We are officially moved into our new place, however I still have a lot of unpacking to do. We have been without our van for about one month. Ryan's uncle has agreed to help us put a new transmission in it, so Ryan is staying with his aunt and uncle and going to work on it with him, so I'm hopeful that we will have our van back very soon. I'm very happy about that, plus I'm so glad that this move is basically over. Those were 2 things that have been driving me crazy for a while!
This coming Friday is Ryan and I's 10th anniversary! I can't believe it is already here. I'm hoping we can go out to eat, if nothing else.
I am getting very excited because in 3 weeks, my sister, Sue, and her daughter(or daughters) are coming to spend a little time with me, and a few others before her son's wedding on May 30th. Then after the wedding, Sue, my mom, and my other sister Peggy (and her kids) are going to be coming to spend time with me. So I will basically have my family on and off for about 3 weeks! I am so happy about that. I get to missing my family so bad! Everyone is wanting to go down to Arkansas (where my Dad's family is from), and I'm also looking forward to that. It is going to be so nice having company!
Then after everyone leaves, there is a BIG possibility that my whole family will be going to Colorado for a month or so. My mom and sister (Sue) both have cherry orchards and it looks like they will both have a harvest. So they will REALLY NEED our help (even Taylor and Blake's). Ryan hasn't been able to find work, so this would be good for us, we can all work, and earn money, while helping my mom and sister out.
So that is basically what is going on in my life right now. It sounds like my life isn't going to slow down much for a while, but I'll be busy in a totally different way, not moving :P

It's nice to put faces with names, so I thought I would do that... Left to right: Sue, Me, my Mom, and Peggy

Left to right: Shane (the groom to be), Sue, Steve (Sue's husband who recently passed away), Savanna, Trevor (Vanna's husband), Jeremy (Steph's husband) & Stephanie

Peggy, Danny, and Kayla

Moving stinks!!!

Ugh! We are still not fully moved! We have been trying to move for close to a month now. Half of our items are in the old house and half in the new house. We have had 2 setbacks during this move, first Steve passed away and we took a few days to go to his funeral, and now the weather is preventing us from moving. On Thursday, I was working on getting the last few things packed, I am ALMOST done packing up there, and then the weather got bad. So I headed down to the new house and it is a good thing, because this morning I woke up to a LOT of snow. All of Oklahoma has a ton of snow. I'm going to be working all this next week on getting the last stuff packed and getting ready for a yard sale. I'm going to sell as much as I can up there, and then have one down at the new place. So again, I'm so sorry that I haven't been on here a lot, but my life is absolutely crazy right now.

I haven't been able to upload any pictures of my new sweetie, Madison, but I will as SOON as I can. I have my cords from my camera packed, and that's the reason I haven't been able to. But I do have a picture of Steve that I wanted to share, so everyone could see what he looked like. It is a picture that I will treasure forever. It is a picture of me and Steve in 1986, I was 5 and Steve was 30. He had a beautiful funeral. It couldn't have been a more perfect funeral. There were Elvis songs (Steve was a HUGE Elvis fan). The songs were beautiful, the talks about Steve were perfect, then at the burial, they had a bagpiper, because Steve liked bagpipes. The song choices were: "Daddy's Hands", "I can only Imagine","Milky White Way(Elvis)","Amazing Grace (bagpipes)", "The Way that he Loves (Steve's favorite gospel song)." Like I said, it was a beautiful service, Steve would have been so happy. I think there were between 600-700 people. There were people in the basement, standing room only, there were even people outside. He was loved by SO many people. He was very outgoing, and anyone who had ever met him, has never forgotten him, he was quite a guy!

I sure do hope everyone is doing good, I am ready for life to get back to normal for me so I can keep up with every one's blogs. :)

We're moving...again :(

Hello again. Sorry again that it has been a while since I was on blogger. I wanted to let everyone know that for the next month, we will be in the process of moving to another town in Oklahoma. For my safety, I am not going to disclose where it is, but I will tell you that it is one hour away from where we live right now. It is MUCH cheaper to live in this little town that we are moving to, and I hope that we can get back on our feet while living there. We both have been praying about what to do, and we both feel that this move is what we should do. So I won't be on blogger very much for the next month. Then after that I am REALLY going to TRY to be on blogger regularly again.

On a sad note, there is a sister from the panhandle of Oklahoma that was in a car accident and died the next day. She was either a teenager or early 20s. I think she was a teen. It is so sad, so please remember her family and friends in your prayers. Her name was Charity.

I am also getting ready to be an auntie again. Melissa is due in just a few days. She has asked me to be with her in her delivery, which is such an honor to me. I'm nervous and excited at the same time. So please keep her in your prayers also. I will make it a point to post a picture of her baby (more than likely on her blog), as soon as possible.

Until next time, I hope everyone is doing well :)

Happy New Year!

Hello again everyone! I feel awful that I haven't been on here near as much lately. I am SOO far behind on commenting on everyone's blogs, so I may just comment on the latest one and TRY to keep up. We got our computer back a couple days ago. Plus, the busy season is over at work, so I won't be working near as much. Ryan has been working lately, thank goodness. However, his job is temporary, and will only last one month. At the end of January or beginning of February, we will be getting taxes back and plan to take a trip to the Northwest (yes Oregon), and stopping in Colorado, and Montana. We are praying for a change, we MAY be moving, but where to is still unknown. Until we KNOW where we are SUPPOSED to be, we are going to stay put. But I am REALLY in NEED of a change, of getting away from here. Life has been getting better, in most ways. I am thankful that Ryan is working, and for other reasons. But we're not completely out of this trial. But I am confident that we are getting back on track.

We had a GREAT Christmas. I had thought that only half of Ryan's siblings were going to be here (the ones that live here), but the other 2 were able to make it and it turned out to be a great Christmas. I actually made 2 projects before Christmas, for my mother and for my in-laws. I made a picture calendar for 2009. I scrapbooked 24 pages altogether (12 for each family) and took them to Office Depot and they took the pages and made the calendar. They all REALLY loved it, it turned out nice. I couldn't think of anything better to give for Christmas. I somehow forgot to take a picture of Ollie and Sharon opening theirs, but my sister e-mailed me a picture of my mom with hers:

Then came New Years. It was actually not as great. We REALLY wanted to be invited somewhere, anywhere, but no one invited us to come over and spend the evening. That little fact actually brought me to tears. We don't feel like we are even thought of here. But, we watched the countdown on TV, and then went outside right after 12:00 am and lit off some fireworks. There were several people on our street doing the same thing, that was the highlight of the night.

Then yesterday morning, my niece from Colorado called me and said that she had flown in Oklahoma City for a wedding this weekend, and hoped that we could come see her, (because she was without a car). So we got in the van and headed to OKC. Normally we wouldn't be able to afford going to OKC, but the gas prices are AWESOME right now ($1.35)!!!! We didn't do much, just ate lunch and went to see a movie. We watched "Bedtime Stories". It was a pretty good movie. But it was nice to see some family. I always take advantage of that :) I have a nephew that is actually moving to Oklahoma in January. Btu unfortunately he will be on the other side of Oklahoma. He will be about 3 hours from here, but maybe we'll get to see him once in a while.

The first half of 2008 was a great year. My two highlights of 2008 were: Ryan and I got to got to Dallas for our 9th anniversary, and I got to go to Colorado for 1 1/2 months with the kids . Then when I got back from Colorado, things really unraveled. I hope that 2009 will be full of highlights that can be remembered forever. There are several big things in 2009 that I do have to look forward to: Mine and Ryan's 10th anniversary, my best friend's (from high school) wedding in Colorado, my 10th high school reunion (also in Colorado), and HOPEFULLY a fun trip , and POSSIBLY a big move for us :) I hope everyone else has a HAPPY NEW YEAR!

Writer's block...AGAIN

Hey everyone. I first of all want to apologize about not being on here as much since my trip to Colorado this summer. After getting out of the habit of posting blogs, I just can't seem to get back into the groove. Plus, I've had A LOT of ups and downs in my life happen. Mostly downs. I'm not really myself lately. Please continue to pray for my family. My husband and I have been through some rough times in the last few months. The adversary is REALLY trying to split us up. He hasn't worked in over 2 months, and I've found myself losing my patience with him. That's why I've been working lately, so we would have SOME income, certainly not even close to enough to pay all of our bills. We are in a desperate situation. Something needs to change, and FAST. We can't keep going like this. So please, keep us in your prayers, and please continue to have patience with my blogging, I will return to my old self, after these trials pass. I care for each and every person that I've gotten to know. Until next time, take care :)

Major catch-up & PRAYER request for my mother

Hello, I'm so sorry I haven't been on here in a long time, and even more sorry that I haven't been commenting on your blogs. I've been a busy lady lately. I finally have a day off today, but will mainly be catching up on my house today. But I have the first half of next week off and I will try to get caught up on everyone else's blogs. A lot has happened since my last post. First of all, I got a different job, the hotel did have a couple perks, but had wayyy more downfalls. So now I am doing something I love, and that is taking pictures at the Wal-Mart Portrait Studio (PictureMe). So far it is really fun. I enjoy taking pictures and I love kids/babies, which is the main people getting their pictures done. So that has been going good so far. I don't plan on being there forever, but until we can get back on track/caught up.
Our lives have been really confusing and stressful. Ryan quit his job, and things have just been... not good. But, Ryan has figured out what he wants to do and is going for it now! I'm happy for him. He is starting, on Monday, to take online courses to be a Personal Fitness Trainer. It will take 10 months to get his certification, and then he will be doing what he has always wanted to do. And he also got a job that he is excited about. I hope this job goes good for him, he is very optimistic about it. He just started demonstrating Kirby vacuums. He doesn't have to sell them, but he does show people what they can do. So we'll see how that goes.
I haven't been myself, I've just been so stressed and I'm finally feeling like myself again after praying that things would work out, things are starting to go good again.
This past weekend was the Henryetta campouts. Ryan and I took our tent down there and we all stayed in a tent (which was FUN) for 3 nights. The whole weekend was SO wonderful and UPLIFTING! We got to visit with so many brethren, and the meeting on Sunday was WONDERFUL! I will post some pictures in a couple days when I have a little more time.
I really need to go for now, and get back to my chores, and just be patient with me, I WILL be commenting on all your blogs in just a few days :)
I do have ONE more thing to ask of all of you... PLEASE pray for my mom, she has been down, unable to walk for a week or more. She has been down with Gout in her right foot. Her name is Nora, and she REALLY needs prayers.
We'll talk to you all very soon ♥

Catch-up pictures!!!

I have mentioned in my past posts that I would post some pictures that I wasn't able to, because I am missing my USB cable. Anyway, I made a disc and am able to upload. Here they are:We went camping at Silver Jack reservoir. I hadn't been camping since I was about 3 months old, which I definitely don't remember. So I was VERRRRY happy to finally get to see what it was like. And I LOVED it!!! I can't wait to go again.

We had a shapshot of our family taken. It will be on our Christmas cards this year. It isn't professional, but I thought it turned out really good!!!This is one of my very closest friends, Beth. She is great!!!We ran into some ugly weather on the way home from Colorado. This is about 1 hour from Denver. Yes, it is snowing in August, how crazy is that?!?!
And last but not least, here are my children on their first day of school. Aren't they CUTE!!!

Finding long lost items makes me SOOO happy!

Yay! I am a very happy person right now. When we moved from Grand Junction to here, it was a SUPER fast move and a lot of things were just put here and there. Well, I had lost a certain family picture (the picture above) that I have wanted to put up but didn't know where to find it. Well, I found it today. It was inside an envelope inside of a photo album. I had searched high and low for this picture. So I am very happy.
I have almost gotten everything back to normal. I've been working a lot, inside and out of the house. Weeds had overrun our yard, and they are finally gone. I'm pretty happy to have the inside back to normal as well. It just takes constant work to keep it looking good, and when you're gone for over a month, it REALLY takes a lot of work to get back to normal. I can't even start to describe how HAPPY I am to be home. The kids have been in school since the 20th. I took some pictures of their first day, but I can't find my cable that connects my camera to my computer, so I can't upload them yet. Hopefully I can get that done soon.
Now that I am getting the house back to normal, I also want to start back into scrapbooking and working on a couple quilts that I have halfway done, LOL.
It seems like the blogging world is very slow right now. So I guess it's not just me that's been super busy ;) Hope everyone is doing good!

I'm HOME!!!

YAY! I'm finally home. However, I still won't be on here a lot this week because I am going to be SOOO busy! I have a 1 1/2 month "bachelor" house to clean up after. This evening I have been mowing my back yard (I'm taking a break RIGHT NOW) and cleaning the swimming pool. Plus, our kids start school on Wednesday. So I'm also preparing for that. I will post pictures from my niece's wedding very soon. I will also comment everyone, but it may take a little while for me to get back into the swing of things. I was VERY homesick, and am VERY glad to be home!!!!!! We'll talk to everyone soon :D

Uplifted

Friday night Ryan, with help from Bill P. got a new fan belt on our van. So I'm feeling so much better now. Plus... Bill found something under our hood that he said was making our van get TERRIBLE gas mileage. The vacuum had come loose. He put it back together and said it would help at least 4-5 miles a gallon better. I knew that we hadn't been doing very good on gas mileage. I just wish I would have known why a long time ago. Who knows how long it had been loose. I don't exactly know what it does to improve gas mileage, but I trust Bill, he knows a LOT about cars. I'm so glad that he found this problem before our trip to Colorado in August. We should also be getting that tax check soon, I HOPE!!! Then we will get our A/C fixed. So slowly, but surely, things are coming together.

Then last evening I took the kids to Henryetta where they were having a fish fry at the church. It was really nice. Then they had a bunch of homemade ice cream. Yummy. Afterwards we drove home and all of us went to see The Incredible Hulk. That, by the way was an AWESOME movie. Blake absolutely loved it!

Today we had such a great meeting. There was a lot of visiting brethren, and it turned out to be a very uplifting meeting. Ryan G. gave her hand to be baptized. So this evening was her baptism and ordinance supper. I was really down at the end of last week, but this weekend definitely uplifted me :)

Things I'm looking forward to

Okay Marisela... you opened a door. Me and Cherrie have already followed, who else is going to? LOL. I'm not trying to be a copy-cat, but I really wanted to post something, and my life is dreadfully boring and I couldn't think of ANYTHING else to post about, so here it goes ;)

1. Going to Colorado in August for a week or so.
2. Going to my niece's wedding (in Colorado) on 08/08/08. Taylor is going to be a candle lighter and Blake is going to be the ring bearer.
3. Getting family pictures done in Colorado while we are there.
4. Going camping for the FIRST time. (We plan on going camping while in Colorado).
5. Losing weight (I've already started and already feel GREAT!)
6. Getting our tax rebate check! It's taking forever. I REALLY want to pay off some things!
7. Getting our air conditioner in our van fixed (when we get tax check)
8. Fourth of July!!!
9. Taylor's birthday (July 15th)
10. Eating Olathe Sweet Corn at the OSC Festival while we are in Colorado (I forgot about that one) Maybe staying for the Travis Tritt concert.
11. Something happening so I can think of something to write about, hehe ;)

27

Today is my 27th birthday. Only 3 years left of my 20's :( HEHE. It's crazy, I can VIVIDLY remember my 7th birthday, which was 20 years ago today. My sister, Sue and her family lived down in the bottom of the Black Canyon in Colorado. By the way, there is only ONE house in the bottom of the canyon. Anyway, my birthday party was down there. It was one of my most favorite birthdays, because of where it was. Also, my parents put together a scavenger hunt for my last birthday present, a new bike. That was fun! There are SO many fun memories down in the canyon. My brother-in-law worked for the water users, so that is how they were able to live there. My nephew, Shane was actually born down there (probably the only person to be born there). From my home in Olathe, if you could go straight to the canyon, it would only be about 15 miles. But... You actually had to drive about 40 minutes to get to the bottom of it, and we went almost every day for 2 years. It was so beautiful down there. In the summer, we had a bonfire almost every night. I could go on and on about it, but I'm not going to ;) But, on my 7th birthday, we had the party down there, then we came home. Sue called us almost exactly when we got home and told us that Stephanie (2), my niece, had fallen into their well and was bleeding and hurt. So we went back down there. She ended up being just fine, but it was scary. It's hard to believe that was 20 years ago. Thanks for taking a stroll with me down memory lane :) Have a good day.

My news experience

Yesterday, I told everyone that I was in the newspaper. Then "Neena" asked why I was in the paper. So I thought I'd go ahead and post what it said. This happened last August. I was at work at Al's Route 66 Cafe (the owners is the Shamburgs from my church) and this guy came in and said that he was from the Sapulpa Herald and said that he randomly picks one person and week and does a thing called 'Meet your neighbor" and asked if he could interview me. I was a little hesitant because I looked terrible, I was hot and tired. But he talked me into it. So here I am in the newspaper! It's so weird.

I know the writing is very small so here is what it says:

Even though Sapulpa is a long way from Montrose, Colo,. Julie considers Sapulpa her new home.
"My family and I have only lived here in Sapulpa for five months but we love it," said Julie.
Julie is a waitress at Al's Route 66 Cafe and her husband Ryan lays tile.
Julie and her husband have two children, girl Taylor, 7, and Blake, 5.

Best Memory:
"I guess my best, first memory would be the first time I went skiing. I was three years old at the time."

Most famous person you've met:
"I got a chance to meet Collective Soul backstage at one of their concerts," said Julie. "That was a great experience."

Most embarrassing moment:
"When I was 7 months pregnant, I was dreaming about spiders and jumped completely off the bed until I was standing straight up. Scared my husband to death. He still talks about it."

Best place you've traveled:
"California. The beaches in Malibu are absolutely beautiful."

Last day to live. What would you do?:
"I would take my kids to Disneyland. And my husband too."

Favorite thing about Sapulpa:
"I love the parks here. They are great for our kids. They really take care of the town here."

Great weekend, but glad it's over

I am sitting here in peace and quiet, and LOVING it. We had some company over this weekend, and had a WONDERFUL time with them all. We had great visits. They have several kids and other brethren came over that had kids, so my house was a mad house last night. I REALLY DID enjoy them all, but it was definitely a little chaotic. We all acted VERY goofy, especially while playing : (which by the way is the FUNNEST game on Earth!) It was all great while it lasted, but then there's the mess to clean up! That's what I'm doing today, but I got a little tired and am taking my break ;)

Blonde

Yesterday my niece, Savanna, gave me blonde highlights in my hair. I've been wanting to get highlights for like 6 months or more! It turned out very good. It honestly looks pretty natural. I'm really happy with it.

11 years!

Today is Ryan and I's 11th anniversary. Not of marriage, but of being together. I met and started dating Ryan at the hayride in Oklahoma City 11 years ago. We dated long distance (he lived in Oklahoma, I lived in Colorado) for 2 years before we joined lives. I can't believe how fast time has flown by! I'm so happy to be his wife, and love him SO much!