My Quirks: Prepare to be Amazed

I have been tagged by my good friend/co-worker Megan. This is a fun tag because it gives you insight to the quirks that we all try to hide in person, but feel brave enough to write about on our blogs. I was tagged about a week and a half ago and I have been taking time to decide which of my many quirks to let you all know about, so here goes nothing:

1. I am a total neat freak. It has gotten to the point where it really annoys me sometimes. I hope to be able to conquer this quirk sometime during my lifetime.

2. I am a total watch fanatic. I don't know why, but I just love watches and I always have. Right now, I have 11 watches up and running. (well almost all of them are running) And yes, I wear them all. Although, I hate thinking about all the watch batteries I go through.

3. Whenever I make food, I have to clean everything up before I begin eating. This puts a little bit of a damper on the temperature of my food once I get around to eating it, but hey, at least the kitchen is clean!

4. I love all the pure sugar candies that everyone loves as kids. I absolutely love candy corn, conversation hearts, and cotton candy!!

5. I don't think I have ever eaten a full candy bar by myself. I just don't really care for chocolate. I know all of you are probably freaking out right now, but it's true. This doesn't mean I won't eat chocolate, it just means that I would rather have something else.

6. And for the weirdest of all: I am left-handed, therefore, I always have to be on the left side of Spencer whenever possible. For example, I sleep on the left side of the bed, I have to sit on his left side at church, on the couch, at the movie theater, at the dinner table, even on rollercoasters. Scary I know!

I am now tagging Steff, Emily, Lindsey, Shaylee, Annie, and Katie: Lucky you!!

The Long Awaited Vacuum

I never thought I would be saying this and I'm kind of embarrassed to admit it, but I am way pumped about the new vacuum we got yesterday. It's a central vac!! I have been waiting to get this vacuum since we moved in. Our house was plumbed for central vac when we moved in, but we didn't realize how much the actual hose and vacuum cost. The hose is where they get ya, you can't vacuum without a hose. :) Anyway, yesterday Spencer went down to the Beam store in Bountiful and brought me back my long awaited vacuum. Yay for vacuuming!!

Another successful Bear Lake trip

Last Thursday we left on a short family vacation with the Richins family. We were able to go up to Grandma and Grandpa Bitner's condo for the weekend. It was a blast. The weather was way nice. We golfed, swam, rode bikes, played games, and watched movies. It was nice to be able to get away and relax for a weekend.

Weigh in #1

The Blue Team had our first weigh in yesterday. I was a little nervous, but it went way good. I'm sure my team wouldn't appreciate me telling you how much weight each of them lost, but I will tell you that as a team we lost 12 pounds!!  We are all really excited and motivated. Now it's onto week two!!

Parents of 5

Noah Skateboarding

Oliver getting out of the bath

Henry (Soulja Boy) playing the computer

For the last eight days, Spencer and I have been parents to 5 little boys. Oliver-5, Henry-8, Noah-10, Cole-13, and Jace-14. The Wilkes boys are our absolute favorite, so we agreed to watch them while Clay and Marie went to Lake Powell. Today is our last day, so I thought I'd post some pictures (of the 3 youngest, at least). Can I just say that it has been crazy going from zero to five kids all at once!! Now I know why they come one by one, or for those who are lucky enough to have twins :) two by two. All in all, it has been a fun week. I have been able to work from their home which has been nice. Now I know how working moms feel and I don't encourage it, unless you want to constantly be going, going, going. Anyway, its always fun to stay with the Wilkes. Never a dull moment here.

Blue Team

Megan, Mandi, Mom, Me, Emily

We went to our first weigh in yesterday and have now started out Farewell to Fat program. I think it will be really fun. We get to have 4 personal training sessions and 2 trainings with a nutritionist. (who is the same person, by the way) That's ok though. We got our bandana's yesterday and we're apparently the Blue Team for lack of a better name. I suggested the Blue Blobs, but no one went for that one. ???  Oh well, I thought you would all enjoy our way cheesy picture. 

Farewell 2 Fat

Gotta start packing on the pounds before Thursday!

I am starting an 8 week program at the at the Clearfield Aquatic Center called Farewell 2 Fat. It is kind of like the biggest loser. During the 8 weeks, you have a personal trainer and a nutritionist. Each week the nutritionist gives you a different nutritional goal like cutting all sugars out for the week, or cutting all soda out for the week. Everyone is on a team of 5 and you workout with the trainers and weigh in each week together. Then at the end of the 8 weeks, whichever team has lost the most percentage of weight wins. I am way excited to do it. Not so much for the weight loss, but I think it will help me be more healthy and motivated. And hopefully get me through the holidays without wanting to eat everything!!
Our team is me, Emily, Mandi, Mom and Megan. Our first weigh in is on Wednesday, where they take all your measurements, give you t-shirts, team bandanas and take team pictures. I know it sounds kind of corny, but I think it will be so much fun. There are a ton of girls in my ward and neighborhood that have done it every year and they say it is awesome. So we'll see. I'll have to post my teams picture after we weigh in on Wednesday. Wish me luck!!

Sod Saturday

This is what it looked like in the beginning. 

Spencer working hard

I know that it looks like I didn't help at all, but I totally did. 

Ryan and Spencer

The finished product: I am so proud of our new grass!!

This morning Spencer and I woke up with plans to prep the back corner of our yard, so we could put sod down sometime soon. It supposedly used to be a "garden," for the people who used to live here, but I'm not sure they ever used it for that. We just figured we could sod it and make our yard bigger. It was about 400 square feet of nothing but trash and dirt. 

Then Ryan (Spencer's brother) called this morning saying that someone in their ward had a ton of extra sod they needed to get rid of. We had to first get all the weeds out, rodatill it, and level it out with a few loads of dirt, but we got it done and we were able to buy the sod for a way good deal. Amazingly enough, it worked out that we had just enough sod to cover the back corner. I thought this little project was going to take about 3-4 Saturdays and we're done! Yay!! Thanks so much for all your help Ryan and for thinking of us. 

Utah State Fair

Yesterday Spencer and I made our yearly trip to the state fair. It was awesome- I love hangin' out with all the carnies. I feel like I can act however I want and no one is going to judge me. We started out by Spencer getting a foot long hotdog and me getting a giant bag of kettle corn on our way to the rodeo. Then we went to the Freakshow, where we saw a cow with two noses and a cow with 6 legs. They were just sitting there minding their own business while everyone pointed and stared. I kinda felt bad for them. Then there was this girl called the human tripod, she only had one leg and it was about a foot long. She was doing all sorts of tripod tricks to show off her freakiness. It was really awkward actually. Then we saw the animals, got cotton candy and corn, always a must, and watched the hypnotist. We had a way fun night at the fair.  I absolutely love everything about the fair: the food, the people, the rides (I sadly missed the zipper this year), and I love all the decked out cowgirls walking around. It was awesome. 

Midnight Sun Postponed Indefinitely

I have really sad news about Midnight Sun. For those of you who don't know anything about this book, I'll give you some background info. Midnight Sun is the next book Stephenie Meyer has been working on. It is the Twilight story, but written through Edward's perspective. She has been working on it for a while now and is about half way done. She has the first 11 chapters done. (almost 300 pages!!) Somehow one of the copies of her rough draft got into the wrong hands and got posted on the internet. Her website tells all about it and how she feels violated and very disappointed. She says that she has a good idea of who did it because there are only a few drafts around. Because this has happened she is going to put it on hold until she isn't so angry. I think that is so sad that someone would do this. At first she asked that her readers don't try to find and read her draft online because it is very rough and could ruin the final draft in the end, but then she decided to just post it. So you can read the first 300 pages on her website. Honestly, I haven't read it yet, and can't decide if I will or not. What do you think??