Silicone. . . yes please!

Tonight I made some banana bread, using some silicone bakeware I got for my wedding 2 years ago. Sadly it was the first time I've used it. . . but not the last! It is amazing.

We have once again been screwed over by the UVU parking services morons. Allow me to elaborate. Just before the end of school Jen and I received a letter in the mail kindly stating that the school that we had just finished paying $10,000 in tuition to was requiring more money from us in the form of a parking ticket. This is strange for multiple reasons.

A. The letter in the mail was the first we had heard of this as we had received no prior notification of a parking infraction such as a slip of paper under our wiper or a notice on our window.

B. We had tried to avoid this very thing by buying a parking pass for $85 at the beginning of the semester assuming that this allowed us to park in the parking lot.

Not only were we being charged for parking but we were being charged a LATE FEE for this phantom ticket we had never heard about. Needless to say Jen's eyes blazed in that way they do right before I know I should make myself scarce and she grabbed me by the arm and up to the school we went. After stopping outside the door to slap shoulder pads and butt helmets we entered like a whirlwind daring anyone to look at us sideways. After we "explained" our case to the girl at the front desk in the obscenely low cut shirt and burned through acres of bureaucratic red tape we were finally seated in front of a corpulent woman with the worn look of a woman that has had to listen to copious amounts of complaints about a school bent on gleaning every ounce of monetary substance from their hardworking students. We lit into her about as nicely as the confederates on Fort Sumter. After hearing our complaint she stuttered over her keyboard evidently trying to find the reason we had been ticketed. After researching out the cause of our distress she unwisely said, "What I am seeing here is that your parking pass was put too high up on your windshield." Since the full weight of this statement can not be put into words I have drawn a picture.

Now I think you can see why that statement caused us to become further incensed. We exploded. She said that her poor parking cronies had had to look ALL OVER OUR WINDSHIELD to find our parking pass. We accused her of hiring blind idiots. She told us that her people shouldn't have to search all over everyone's windshield to find a parking pass. We accused her of hiring lazy idiots. We threw everything we had at the fat lady but evidently she had been trained by Satan and was unyielding so being powerless to alter our situation we paid the ticket and left in a flurry of swear words and idle threats.

Today is Thursday June 25th 2009. We have just barely gotten over this nefarious confrontation. We decided it would be good idea to check up on our classes to make sure we are all signed up the way we're supposed to be. I logged on with very little trouble and found that my classes are ready to go. Jen on the other hand found a hold on her transcript which has caused one of her classes to be dropped. A class that is now full that she registered for a month ago. Guess what caused the hold. Yep an unpaid parking ticket. The same parking ticket unjustly distributed to us before. Part of me is hoping that a less sane person than I would burn the parking services building to ashes and the other part of me is hoping that the parking services building is not burned down because in the event of arson I have now written a blog that would make me the primary suspect, however, all of me is hiding in the back room of my apartment until Jen stops throwing things.

Two years. . .

Well two years have come and gone. I must admit the second year has been a lot more fun than the first. Here is a glimpse into our last two years together. . .

Our honeymoon in South Carolina!

Frozen after snowboarding.

Trick-or-treating (with Whitney of course).

Cheering on BYU at the Las Vegas Bowl (thanks for taking the picture Joseph).

Being silly.

Babysitting the in-laws cat, a whole different story in itself.

Mountain biking trip in Fruita Colorado (this is when I finally started enjoying mtn. biking).

Getting ready for the Clemson game.

For those who had a vested interest

Well so you have it. The long locks have bit the dust. Tis a sad day.

This is 2 weeks before i cut it. Jen thought it would be funny to dress me up like a little dutch girl. At least she thought it was funny.

And this is what it looks like now. Hope you're happy mom!

The Safest Place on Earth

As most of you may know, Joseph and I love BYU sporting events. We love watching them whether on TV or in person (mostly in person). We love cheering for them, or as a true cougar might say we bleed blue. Recently we used our all sports passes to go to the BYU vs Wake Forest basketball game that was held in the Marriott Center in Provo. We had spent the day in with Joseph's family at his grandmother's funeral and rushed to the game hoping to catch tip-off. We pulled up to the Marriott Center just as the game began, yet we still had to park and walk the 2 blocks from the parking lot to the game. Hastily we jumped out of the car and literally ran to the game. The game was very exciting. BYU recorded it's second largest crowd in basketball history. We had to elbow our way to some open seats, but we sat excitedly scrunched between sweaty loud fans. Due to the fact that it was blazing hot we all took off our coats and laid them under the seats to not only be a bit cooler but to also be more mobile for our cheering abilities. After the game (a sad, but close loss) we trudged our way back to the car with my dad and youngest sister (who had parked only a few spots away) enjoying each other's company and sulking our loss. As we approached the parking lot Joseph began digging in his pockets for our car keys. Pants pockets. . . nope. Coat pockets (there are many). . . .nope. At this point we began panicking that we had lost our keys somewhere in the vast Marriott Center and would have to walk the 2 blocks back to search for our keys. Luckily I had a spare set in my purse so we decided we would drive up to the Marriott Center or call tomorrow to see if they had come across our lost keys. I gracefully tossed the keys to Joseph who began trying to unlock the car, now from only feet away with the key "fob." However, the lights never flashed informing us that the car was unlocked. Joseph pressed the button many times as we said our goodbyes to my family and as we approached the car. When we came within a foot or so we noticed that the dashboard lights inside the car were on, and the car was warm to the touch. We became skeptical that this was actually our car. We checked the license plate. . . correct. Joseph opened his door and we realized that in our rush to get to the game on time WE (so as not to hurt Joseph's feelings, although he WAS the driver) had just jumped out of the car not only forgetting the keys but forgetting to turn off the car. Not only had we left our car running for 3 hours, but we had left it running unlocked in an unsupervised parking lot. How it was still there when we returned we'll never know. I guess we're just lucky to live in "the safest place on earth!"

Tis the Season. . .

Over the last few weeks I've reflected on the many things that the cold month of December brings me. I'll share a few with you.

Snow

Finals

Food (way too much)

Christmas

Family

Annual Gyno visit (can't say this is my favorite part)

Shopping

Snowboarding

Gotta love December!

My moustache!

So i would ask all my siblings to not tell my mother about this but its the coolest thing i have ever done and i had to show as many people as i could. Excluding mom. It took me 2 weeks to grow and I have one more day to wear it. Or as long as I want Jen to not speak to me.