Failure

Just in case anyone was wondering how I did on my test.... I didn't do so well. I was pretty disappointed at first but I had some really lofty hopes to pass it with just 4 days of study. Some guys that already do green building as a profession study for months or even a year. I came pretty close but no cigar on this one. It was one of those tests where you get 4-6 choices and you have to choose 2-4 of the choices. If you miss any of the choices on a particular question, there's no partial credit. So, it's like 4 or 5 questions all wrapped into one. I'll take it again later this summer and I think I should be ok. No big deal, but I figured the blog shouldn't be all sugar and spice. Sometimes life is like the demotivational poster: "Failure. When your best just isn't good enough". :)

Missing Daddy

We miss you Chris!

Good luck on your test!

An Abomination?

Isn't that word fun to say? Abomination. I don't even really know what it means besides something "not good."


So, my Grandpa Bunker has said before that he feels that dishwashers are an abomination. I myself feel that they are heaven sent and love the presence of the working dishwasher in my kitchen. But, today while I was washing all the dishes by hand because the so called "abomination" was broken, I was thinking that maybe he has a point. Maybe there is some good that we don't often get to experience that comes from going without this convenience. Washing dishes by hand is work that is conducive to visiting with those around you in the kitchen, visiting with whoever is kind enough to help you, or just giving you time to think. You are forced to stay in one spot focused on one thing that really doesn't require that much focus. Today, I was able to appreciate this work especially because it gave me time to think. I don't really take that time or even make that time very often it seems. I will say that doing dishes in front of a large window with a view of a beautiful flowering yard on a cool comfortable Spring day does make it a much more enjoyable experience. And for some reason, washing someone elses dishes at someone elses house never seems nearly as horrible as washing your own. So in conclusion, I would say that I am very grateful for my functioning dishwasher and I could never call it an abomination, but I can be grateful for sporadic (emphasis on sporadic) times of having to wash the dishes by hand and recognize the good that can come from that.

Ben Folds

For those unacquainted with my musical tastes, Ben Folds has been my favorite artist for years running. Although his appearances in Utah are very rare, I was able to get tickets to a show he did yesterday. Jen and I traveled all the way out to Magna, UT to see it. Although everything leading up to his entrance was very unpleasant (they opened the doors an hour later than planned, and had 4 artists play before him, and I'm just not a big fan of standing in one place for a long time with people crowding me from all sides) his performance was great! I went to a concert of his about 8 years ago and it was just as incredible as I remember it being then. His lyrics are clever, simple, and funny. His piano playing blows my mind, and all-in-all his songs are just really catchy. If I've convinced you to check out his music, don't go to Itunes so quickly. I wouldn't recommend him to the soft and innocent ears. He's pretty crude, and in some of his songs he just swears like a sailor. I'm reminded of the "mormonad" that has the ice cream with a cockroach in it. Except for (fill in the blank) it was great! That's probably a good description of the show. We loved it! He even sang our song "the luckiest" just before we left. It was incredible! (except for those parts we'd like him to cut out)

Grant LOVES his dad

"I dig my Dad"

The boys reading together.

The boys wondering why mom keeps taking their picture while they are reading.

Dad reading scriptures to Grant. His face says it all.

The curly haired ones

Tom and I claim that title in our family. Only when I straighten my hair I don't end up looking like this.



He actually went out in public like that. He went to my sister Emily's stake dance. What a courageous or....maybe.....crazy boy!

And just so everyone out there realizes what a good looking kid Tom really is. Here is one after he got his hair cut. I took it on a Sunday which explains the missionary looking picture.

A shout out of love to Tom for letting me take pictures and blog it up. You're the best!

A little about me

So, a long while ago I was "tagged" with a couple of these different question survey things and I never did any of them. I was thinking recently though, that it would be fun to have a record of some of these and that I would just pick and choose the questions that I would like to answer. So here it goes.



What I was doing 10 years ago:
10 years ago I was almost done with my Junior year of High School. And thank goodness too. That was a really hard year for me. I ended up not having any of my friends in my classes and was assigned a locker that wasn't by any of them either. And although they still tried to include me in things, most of the time I felt out of the loop. I did however, have a couple of friends that were a grade lower than me, Ally and Carina, that were so good to me and helped me through that year. I was also working for Advance Insurance part-time after school instead of being on the Swim team like I had the 2 previous years.


What I was doing 5 years ago:
This was the first April in a couple of years that I was actually living in Provo instead of in China. I was living with Meesh, Kat, Megan (had you left on a mission yet?) and Diana in the house that's no longer there. And probably sitting outside on the front porch or on a blanket on the grass whenever a warm sunny day came along.


What I was doing 1 year ago:
I was 3 1/2 months pregnant and struggling with my job. Chris and I were enjoying living in Tanya's basement in south Provo.


What I was doing yesterday:
Trying to pick up the Accreditation reports from Kinkos for Power-Glide (they still weren't done); organizing our family calendar for the summer, cleaning up the house and making dinner, making treats for everybody (my family) that came over to watch American Idol with us.


5 things on my to-do list today:
Check my email for work, do laundry, clean my room, return something to Target, exercise for 30 mins to make my goal.


5 (or rather 3) places Id rather be:
Right now, any place that is warm so Las Vegas with the family, Hurricane with G&G Thorley or Arizona with Shelly.


What snacks do I enjoy:
homemade fresh salsa, cheese and crackers, ice cream


What would I do if I were suddenly a billionaire:
Pay off the rest of Chris's school and the school loans. Pay the tuition for school for anyone in both Chris or my family. Pay off everyone's house and cars. Buy a car to replace my Mazda. Buy Tom a car. Buy my mom a car. Who else doesn't have a car and needs one? Kate? Set aside money for our retirement, missions, kids schooling. Sponsor a couple family trips. Chris, Grant and I would go visit Carina and her family in Senegal, Africa. We'd also probably take a trip to Brazil to visit Chad. And we would go visit all of our friends that live far away from us, Brett & Kendra, Barb & Steve, Jon & Dorsey, etc. Donate to the Perpetual Education Fund, BYU, and then I would have to research to choose some other organizations to donate to. So, I think if I keep thinking about this for awhile I will keep thinking of more and more things to spend that money on. I better stop now so we can save at least some of it.


5 places I've lived:
Las Vegas, Nevada
Wintersville, Ohio
Wuhan, China
Provo, Utah
Orem, Utah


5 jobs I've had:
Power-Glide, doing a little bit of everything
BYU Math Department, student secretary
Trimm Technologies, purchasing assistant and sometimes receptionist
Summerlin Library, page
Advance Insurance, office assistant


And that's it. Thanks for indulging me on this.

April Fools remembered

I didn't do anything to celebrate the day today. My creative juices just weren't flowing and I couldn't quite think of anything that would be funny without it being too annoying or even slightly mean. So, instead I reminisced on the glory of past April fools days. And I just wanted to shout out some love to those who participated with me. They will appreciate this post the most. I apologize to all other readers as you are only getting a very condensed and not nearly as entertaining version of these events.

So, to begin with, my brother Tom reminded me today of the time when my cousin Annie and I snuck out in the middle of the night and stuck tape all over our brothers. We were at the Reynders house for spring break. I don't know what we were thinking, but it just must have been too good of an opportunity for a couple of thirteen year olds to pass up. The boys were all sleeping out in the living room and we stayed up late to sneak out after they had fallen asleep to put pieces of tape all over them. Somehow we managed this without waking them up. Needless to say they were not too thrilled about this when they eventually woke up. And yes, looking back, I'll admit that tape on the legs and arms might have been going a bit too far. Tom was just claiming that my mom had to cut some of the tape out of his hair. Whatever! That is totally not true. I do remember that we thought it was hilarious and they did NOT.

The next memerable April Fools occured my freshman year of college. I still laugh every time I think of this. It's too long a story to tell it all but lets just say that it involved some Ambesol (that gum/mouth numbing stuff) and all of the utensils and cups in our guy friends apartment. Oh, and the top part of a couple of cans of soda. Hehe. The sweetest part of this little trick was these guys were convinced it was their neighbors who had done it and never even dreamed it was us for the longest time. It was the coolest prank to them until they found out that some girls had gotten the better of them. :) Ha ha! Oh and a special thanks to our roomate Sarah and her sneaky master key connection.

The last April Fools day memory to share is when I lived in the house on 620 North. (It's gone now and replaced with apartments.)Anyways, I had really talked big for days before April Fools came. I'm good at that. Talking big but not always pulling through on my words. And all my "talking big" ended up with me being the one to get most of the pranks instead of doing them. I woke up that morning to the classic "cereal bag upside down in the box with the bottom opened" trick. Then my roomate Diana unscrewed all of the lightbulbs, covered them with tape and then screwed them back in. Brilliant! She is a smart one that girl. The funny thing about this too is that all the other roomates thought that I had done it since I had been the one talking so much about how I was going to get everyone. So, while I was out studying, the other girls, Megan, Meesh and Kat retaliated against me with cool aid on the towel and short sheeting my bed. {How do you do that anyways? I never learned and you never know when that knowledge could come in handy.} One of the perpetrators, Megan was that you?, felt too bad about the possibility of dying me red and warned me. I had a real good laugh and then got them back with the good ol' freshman year trick of ambesol. This time on their toothbrushes.

So there you have it. Happy April 1st everyone!