My Mighty Max

Brooke sent me these old time pictures a while back and they made my heart ache for those days. As soon as I would get off work I would run over and spend time with the Max for a few hours and was amazed by how much I loved and adored that little boy. I think he was about 2 years old here. So about 4 1/2 years ago. My goodness how time flies.


Isn't he cute!!!


The whole family went to St. George for an extended weekend.


Here Steve, Max and I are hiking and enjoying the desert landscape.


Max enjoying an ice cream cone from Hatch Family Chocolate that was across the street from Brooke and Steve.

Spring has sprung and is still springing......

Spring has sprung here in Tuscaloosa. On Friday night we went to try a new BBQ place here in T-town called Moe's Original BBQ with Mike. Thad and I left a little early and went for a walk on the University campus. It is so pretty on campus and especially right now, the grass is green the weather is perfect and everything is blooming. Here are some pics I took on our walk.




I was on-line trying to figure out what kind of tree this is and I am pretty sure this is an Athene Magnolia Tree.

My Formative Years......

There are two places I consider to be home.....Walnut Creek, California and Park City, Utah. My parents moved to California when I was three months old and we stayed there until I was almost 14 years old. I have not been back there since right after my mission and honestly that place just sings my childhood. So many good memmories there of playing with my neighborhood friends, visits to Curly's and Swim team (The Larkey Sharks).

So my brother Quentin and his cute wife Christie were able to visit Northern California and I made them promise they would take pictures. A lot of people I know, when they think of Cali, they think Los Angeles, traffic and movie stars. Northern California couldn't be more different from Southern California and in my opinion should be different states. Here are some pictures that take me down memory lane.


The green rolling hills of Northern California


Our house that we lived in for a few years. We use to ride our bikes up and down that driveway.


Our Larkey Lane House. This was our house that we grew up in and this is the house my parents remodeled.


Same house and Q is sitting on the steps. It use to be grey with a white porch and the trees were all trimmed and pretty and there was a nice front door. I still don't like seeing someone else live in my house! :) We planted all those plants and they are now huge.


Behind Q is the tree house my dad and our neighbor Steve build for us in our backyard.


Here is Q at Larkey Park, this park was one house over from our house and we spent hours playing here. There were two playgrounds and an animal museum here.


Q in front of Curly's which was our favorite corner store which was a few houses down from our house.


Where you see Rite Aid is where our favorite store Thrifties use to be. They had an ice cream counter and we would go get ice cream cones for Family Home Evenings.

(Pictures courtesy of Christie and Quentin, Thanks guys!)

One can dream......

Ok so I am here at work and I have just been dreaming about Buffets. I want one for my dinningroom because I have run out of room for storage in my kitchen and would love a place to store all my platters and china. So I have been looking high and low at some of my favorite consignment shops and have also been looking online at stores and Craig's List. I thought I might have found a buffet that would have needed to be refinished and loved a little bit (which I was so willing to do) but he was not willing to come down enough for me in price.

So here I am left, without a buffet and am left to dream. I much rather get something old, used and has some history to it, than something bought new at the store. So here is what I would get if money was not an option. These items are from the 17th century in France and are gorgeous. My mom and dad purchased a beautiful buffet (and other gorgeous peices) while living in France that look and are very similar in style and color. Too bad they cost over $4,000.

Here are a few of my dream peices.......


and another one......


and another beauty......

Groundspeak's Geocaching iPhone Application

Ok this is the coolest App on the iPhone or even if you don't have an iPhone it is still fun. Our friend Mike is staying with us and on Sunday evening we wanted to get out of the house for a little walk. We decided that we were going to do some Geocaching(pronounced geo-cashing). Geocaching is a all over the world and "they" describe it as hiding and seeking treasure. This is how "they" describe it and can do a better job than I can. "A geocacher can place a geocache in the world, pinpoint its location using GPS technology and then share the geocache's existence and location online. Anyone with a GPS device can then try to locate the geocache."


So essentially you go out looking for a hidden treasure with your GPS and find a little bag or box. There are little treats or trinkets that someone has left and you take one of whatever is in the box and then leave something in place of what you took. Hopefully I am making sense. As we went hunting in the forest across the street, we got close but never found the treasure. People can go on and leave comments about that particular search or treasure, for this hunt that we were on, people commented that they had to go two times to find it. So we are going to head back and try to find it for a second time. Try it out, you will have a lot of fun finding a hidden treasure!

"Pinching your pennies"

On Monday, I was at work and sorta bored, so I decided to go through the sale adds in the Sunday newspaper. I cut out coupons and by the end had a whole little envelope full of coupons. One place that had a lot of coupons was Walgreens. I know my mom loves the deals at Walgreens and so I cut out a lot of coupons from there. I then went shopping there yesterday after work and used my coupons. I was able to save $15 there but was the annoying woman in front of you in line who is sorting through her coupon purse, trying to locate each coupon for each item. I was pretty proud of my savings.

So then this morning I saw this link called Pinching your pennies ,went to the site and was impressed with the deals. It is laid out like a blog format and it easy to sort through. This site also gives you a heads up on deals in the area such as Panda Express has a coupon that is good for only today to try their new honey walnut shrimp entree for free and you can just click on the coupon link and voila.

I will be checking this site everyday for great deals and just thought I would share.

Lemon Heads and Curly's

My co-worker Candace and I share a love of fruity candy, the ones that over time ruin your teeth, like Mike-N-Ikes, Starburst, Mambas, Skittles, Swedish Fish, Sour Patch Kids and the list goes on and on. So the other day she pulled out some Candy and I squealed, I had not seen Lemon Heads since I moved away from California when I was 14 and they brought back a flood of memories.

We lived on Larkey Lane in Walnut Creek, California and there was a corner store that was the next block over. We would come home from school and gather up change from around the house and go down to the corner store called "Curly's" and buy ourselves candy. Lemon Heads were sold there and I loved my fruity candy even way back then. I cannot remember the owners name but he was a nice man, because often times to buy our candy we would throw down millions of pennies and he would patiently count them out. We would then ride bikes, go the park or play in the tree house or on the rope swing.


Here is a picture of Curly's, it is no longer named that but to me it will always be Curly's.

Those Lemon Heads just triggered all of that and yes I helped myself to some and they were just like I remembered them.

Dear John

Thad and I were able to see the new movie "Dear John"a few weekends ago. It is worth seeing. It dragged on a bit but enjoyed the love story thoroughly. Thad on the other hand was just sweet to come with me, I know that it was not a movie that Thad would have picked out but sometimes you sacrifice your desires for the one you love and so Thad did just that, thanks babe.

Here is a better movie summary than I could give ""Dear John" tells story of John Tyree, a young soldier home on leave, and Savannah Curtis, the idealistic college student he falls in love with during her spring vacation. Over the next seven tumultuous years, the couple is separated by more of John's increasingly dangerous deployments. While meeting only sporadically, they stay in touch by sending a continuous stream of love letters overseas -- correspondence that eventually triggers fateful consequences."


My love of Channing Tatum goes back to my single days. My girlfriends (you know who you are) and I went together to see the movie Step Up which is a dance/love story. We all fell in love with the main character Channing Tatum and were hooked on the dancing featured in the movie. When the sequal came out about 20 of us gathered to watch Step Up 2 the streets. Which produced an amamzing soundtrack.


I must confess that I started to cry from the very beginning (true to fashion, I am sure my brothers would roll their eyes if they knew that since I have been known to weep in movies).

So thank you Channing Tatum for staring as a leading man in a great love story and thanks to my leading man for coming with me.