Hash Brown Emergency!

Don't you love one of those mornings? You know, you wake up puking (or just icky), you try to take care of your family and while making pancakes, your sweet child wants to join in while the pan is sizzling, so you carefully move him away, beg your husband to take him out of the kitchen just to have the glass bowl filled with pancake mix fall from counter and shatter all over? Then you get the honor of cleaning up the mess for the next 25 minutes making sure its ALL cleaned up. So at this point of starving, not wanting anything in the house, I called for a hash brown emergency! I walked out of the house exactly the way I looked waking up, plus a shirt and shorts (no bra, and still with gross breath) with little dude still in his jams. And McDonalds came to my rescue. Some days, you just have to be grateful for the little things...like hash browns.

And the Surprise Photo Winner...

Last night was the youth missionary fireside. So while singing the opening hymn, I was looking around to see where the pictures would pop up...and guess what I found!? SURPRISE! No pictures at all. They didn't have time to get the projection equipment out. Kinda bummed. But whatever, it was really a great night. So glad I was invited to be part of that evening.

I think my top two favorite parts were:
1) President Rudd (2nd counselor in our stake presidency) singing I am a Child of God in Fijian. I had no clue of his musical talent. (Side note: I'm SOOOO excited his family is moving into our ward!)
2) Shaunna Sanders sharing her very sweet testimony of her mission in France and all that experience has meant to her. I didn't even know she served a mission. She touched my heart so much last night. So many missionaries are always concerned with numbers but she spoke of how she never got to teach one person the discussions 1-6. But she did bring souls to Christ. And the most important soul was her own.

Other things I enjoyed:
- Hearing others and their experiences that made their mission so special to them. Positive outlooks, testimonies in the language they spoke, and how we all truly believe our missions were the best...but I know the truth.
- Our Stake President letting the young men know that when they leave, not to worry about their girlfriends...there will be a missionary coming home to take care of her. And the don't worry part comes in because when they return, some other young missionary will leave a great girlfriend behind for him!
- Seeing the youth and so many of my young friends.
- Realizing I was the ONLY former missionary out of about 25-30 to NOT set up a table. Cause then I got to walk around and see everyone's tables. You know; South Africa, France, Guam, Las Vegas, California, Argentina, Netherlands, Brazil (which that one may have been the most festive, he even dressed in a Brazilian get-up), Figi, Texas, Oregon, Las Vegas, Idaho, Mississippi (mayo and all), Florida, Colorado (not me), Utah, Missouri, Montreal, etc. The world was well represented in our stake last night. Most brought treats from their areas to share. And really, what special Colorado food is there? I wasn't going to serve Rocky Mtn oysters. Other than that, I was going to whip up a Texas Sheet cake...but I didn't want to upstage TX with my TX-by-way-of-Colorado sheet cake.

I was most certainly blessed to be in GREAT company last night.

Surprise Missionary Fireside

I got an email asking me to open the attachment and "HELP!" I'd been invited to join in on a youth missionary fireside, where I would speak for maybe 5 minutes about my mission and either share a funny story or a spiritual story. Dang. Do I really have to choose? There will be others sharing stories as well. And they asked us to send in 1 picture they will place on the projection screen while we speak. Well, I never replied because we had talked about visiting my husband's family this month.

Out of nowhere, I got an email asking where my picture was. So I didn't have a choice. Which is fine, I sometimes like being bossed around, ask my big sister! ;)

So here are my photo options I've given. Even though they said only 1 picture, I decided I'd send two and they could surprise me. I have a bunch of pictures elsewhere and glued and cut up (as if I'll ever finish that mission scrapbook, Amber!) I figured everyone gives the usual before baptism picture, so I wanted something that would bring a smile or maybe add character, since I don't have a forgeign language to share or a "dress caught in the pantyhose" story.

Here Sister B and I were at a birthday party. It was June and there flies everywhere. Sis. B couldn't handle it, so she put us to work while others were eating cake and opening presents. It was a good time. Those flies didn't know what was coming.


And here we are again. I think this one speaks for itself. I can't look at this picture without laughing. Possibly one of my favorites.

So now, which one would you choose? I think the flyswatter picture is a little dark, but I do love them both. I'll let you know which one surprises me tomorrow night. Hopefully they won't have to give me the your-two-minutes-are-up light!

Col. Sanders Strikes Again

I was wondering where in the world (literally and figuratively) I'm getting views, so I decided to check my blog stats. Good news, When doing a google search for Col. Sanders, evidently my blog comes up because I found it hilarious that my husband thought Col. Sanders was fictional and I chose to blog about it.

So friends from around the world, please feel free to continue dropping by, comment, (in whatever language you speak) and visit again soon. Cause really, fried chicken unites us all.

Thursday?

Man, all day yesterday I thought it was Thursday. Even though I watched my Wednesday shows last night, I still woke up this morning thinking "FRIDAY!" But, I'm wrong. I guess that gives me an extra day to get my house ready for the weekend. Yep, that's what I'll do. Hope you have a productive day.

Baby Names

My husband obviously has great taste in women. I'm pretty sure that's where the great taste (or any taste at all) ends because his taste in music, movies, fashion, and now baby names...not the greatest. He wants to name this baby (if a boy) Zeus. I shot that down. He doesn't understand what's wrong with Zeus. But seriously, what is right it? Just so you know, Zeus is NOT on the list of names for our baby.

He told me to take it to Facebook and see what others thought. He said "I bet you'll be surprised at how many people actually like the name Zeus...I'm betting at least one third of your friends will shock you and love it." Well, in the event you didn't see it on Facebook (Amber), maybe 5 people liked it out of like 51 friends. And people had some hilarious things to say.

My husband's cousin, Troy, said "Just think of this..... what would Uncle Mark say about the names....... I can hear it now............'ARE YOU HIGH?!?!"

Biggest Mark always wins! So maybe I'll have to keep that quote in my back pocket. Naming Marky was so easy--it was done for me in 1956. Grandma Gentle did a great job.

Other names Mark loves: Chaos, Thor and Mayhem for boys and girl names: Evangeline, Victoria (not terrible but I can't see "Victoria's..." without seeing/hearing/reading 'Secret' to follow) and one more that we (thankfully) can't seem to remember.

{Side note: I went in the bedroom to ask Mark what his other girl name was, he said "why, so you can put it on Craigslist to make fun of it with all your friends?" Laughing, I said, "Yes, Craigstlist! It would read 'Free to a good home, terrible baby names."}

Man, no one told me this naming a baby thing was so hard on a marriage. ;)

Satan's address

I went to church in Middleburg yesterday with my sister's family. The first Sunday of the month is always Testimony meeting. I was sitting in the foyer with Mark, Marky, my dad and my husband's best dude. So as people are bearing testimonies, we're playing name that voice. Then Mark was chasing after our wild man and this is what the rest of us hear from the woman at the mic:

"Satan is alive and real, and He lives at my house."

So Mark's best friend and I look at each other with big questioning eyes and he says "Who is that? I want to stay away from their house."

It was awesome. And good news for those of you who live elsewhere, Satan is evidently residing in Middleburg, FL. If you're tempted, it's not him personally. So, you have my permission to shoot his messengers.

The Grocery List

I haven't exactly been great at things dealing with food lately. I can't even really tell you what I'd like to eat. Nothing really sounds good. Mark has been a trooper through this. So he made a grocery list for me and it reads as follows (spelling included):

bananas
cereal
juice
milk
paper plates
frozen pizza - Red Baron cheeze
Mac & Cheese
bread
fruity
tookys (obviously cookies, but he loves nicknames)
stuff for chili
tomatoes
stuff for fajitas
fruit cocktail for His Royal Highness
skeet-skeet-skeet
plain and tortilla chips
stuff for sheepless pie
stuff for beefless tips
burritos
salad

One of these items is not available at the grocery store. I guess later I'll get that personally delivered. One of my favorite things about Mark is his ability to make me laugh everyday!