Follow Up

Gary and I were finally able to start taking tours of the houses we liked. We went and saw 4 yesterday and of course, the first one we saw was the one we loved. It's much smaller than our origional dream house, but it's more practical and so cute! My only hang up was the color of the cabinets (too dark for my liking), but I'm sure I'll get over it. This house is perfect for our price range and our realator is talking to the seller about bringing it down more for us.

Another important thing to add is that we went and saw Monsters Vs. Aliens last night with Gary family. Such a cute movie! Little Calvin had us all rolling with his dancing and commentary during the whole thing. He was pretty wired due to the enormous amount of Sour Patch Kids he had been sneaking. During one scene when something had fallen and crashed, Calvin yells out "Uh Oh!" So cute! I hear it's in 3D but we didn't see that version.

Simply Amazing!

I don't even have words to say how wonderful today was! My friend Brooke, whom I work with, told me about the Spring Special Olympics, and we decided to take today off of work to go volunteer! We were assigned to be motivational support at the bowling games. I didn't know what to expect on the way to the bowling alley, but I left with such a great feeling! Brooke and I were assigned to two lanes, and 7 participants. Benny, Josh, John, Charlie, Nate (my favorite), Laurie and Amanda. Amanda is deaf so we didn't get a chance to communicate with her or get to know her as well as the others. We got to spend time with each of these kids as they all took turns to come up and bowl. They took every chance they could to hug us, high five us, or in John's case, tickle us! Everyone had such a sweet and positive attitude and surprised me when they threw their ball down the lanes. These kids are definately very special people. I couldn't help but love them after just a few minutes of spending time with them.

Here is the whole team!
Josh was a gold medal winner! He had the strongest throw of them all, and got lots of strikes! That's Charlie in the background!

Benny was our other gold medalist. Benny was the happiest one among us all.

John really wanted to be Brooke's boyfriend, and my boyfriend at the same time. What a little tickle flirt!

Last but not least is my little Nate. He was my favorite of the day. Nobody could ever be as sweet as this guy!

I'm so glad that I got to experience this today. What a rewarding and humbling experience. One of the best parts was the compliments and gratitude from the parents of the participants. They were so happy that their kids had such caring helpers. It was too impossible not to adore them!

As a side note, everyone was encouraged to take a pledge that they would stop using the "r" word. I hope it never slips from my mouth again.

Thoughts and Shtuff

Yawn! I'm awake fairly early for a Sunday morning. I'll probably go back to bed after this blog, seeing as how our church doesn't start until 1pm. Gary and I had a great weekend! Things have been so stressful for both of us lately, so it was good to have the weekend for just the two of us. Friday night we drove up north and met Gary's momma for some delicious Mexican food at Garcia's, and then to my parents house for a little bonfire/s'mores night with some of my brothers friends. I mostly played with Dan's new baby lab puppies! So cute! So cuddly! Don't ask how I left without one in my purse. This one is my favorite! I named him Milton Snavely Hershey...after the founder of Hershey's chocolate! Of course, Milton will be sold in a few weeks and I'll never see his fat face again...sad.I guess Friday wasn't a "just us" night after all, but Satruday was. What better way to start a Saturday than by sleeping in until 10 in the morning?? We did lot's of overdue cleaning of our little apartment before heading out for the day. Both of us wore shorts which was AWESOME!! Too bad today is going to make me forget how warm Utah can get. Moving on, we drove up to Northern Salt Lake/Woods Cross to do a little house hunting. I have been SO nervous about buying a house and not as thrilled about the idea as Gary. We have looked at a few areas and I didn't like any of them at all. But yesterday was different. We looked at areas that I could actually see myself living and I finally got excited about it! We still don't have any for sure plans as far as buying a house, but at least I don't hate the idea anymore. This is the one we both really like a lot.
We did the rest of the usual weekend stuff...grocery shopping and other errands. We even went to IKEA for the first time. Will I be the first one to say that I wasn't extremely impressed? Granted there were a few things I liked, but mostly not. It's just not my style. Another thing we did was meet my brother and his wife for some yummy cheesecake where we discussed more of the housing idea. Luckily I had the cheesecake to distract me from this rather uninteresting discussion. After the matter, Gary let me spend lots of time roaming around Barnes and Noble...one of my favorite things to do! So, I'll keep everyone updated on what the heck we're going to do as far as a house goes...if it even goes there.

Cute Little Guy!

I just think Gary is the cutest boy ever!! I never think of him as being a short dude until I'm wearing high heels or until he's standing next to his exceptionally tall friends. It just makes me smile to see pictures like this!

LIVID!!!

Back in August, I received a phone call from a lady who claimed she was with my Visa company or some such nonsense, and that I had won some sort of drawing and that I would get a 3 year subscription of any 4 magazines I wanted. So I said “okay, send the magazines…whatever.” Well, apparently they had my credit card number and were going to charge me for these magazines which I didn’t hear until the end of the call. Ew! After the call, I Googled the phone number. “SCAM!” “FRAUDULENT!” and “@$$ HATS!” were the results of my search. My next move was to call my bank, cancel my credit card and get a new one. I thought that would help, but unfortunately, the charge had already gone through for $80. I was able to have the money refunded back to me thank goodness for America First, and I put the International Magazine Company out of my head. Well, since then they have tried to contact me because they hadn’t been getting any payments for the magazines they never sent to me. Each time I talked to them, I explained that I would not pay them, that I knew they were fraudulent, and to leave me alone. AND THEN!!!!!!! Yesterday I got what I hope is the very last phone call. Some winner named Jeff called me, reprimanding me for not paying them, and that they were going to send me to collections for not paying. I yelled at him for a good 10 minutes for stealing my money, deceiving me and others, etc, etc. Then I said that I KNEW he couldn’t send me to collections because he only had my name. He didn’t have my SSN or birth date or anything else to go on. He insisted that he could send me to collections, that he was not stealing my money and that he was just trying to help me. Again, EW! I was so angry I was shaking and kept calling him a filthy liar which I don’t think hurt his feelings at all. I asked him what collection agency he was going to allegedly send me to, and he said “we don’t know yet.” So anyway, he got tired of my argument and said “okay, I’ll send you off to collections.” To which I said “Thank you for the magazines you never sent me.”

If anyone else wants to call these jerks and yell at them, feel free. 866-394-9149