Families are Forever

NEW BLOG

2011-02-18T06:59:00.000-07:00

For some reason our blog stopped working....all we can do is post and nothing else. SO if you do read our blog we are at...www.mandbhebdon.blogspot.com. JOIN US!

Meanwhile...

2011-01-10T11:12:00.000-07:00

A lot has happened since we last blogged. A LOT LOT LOT! We got home from the half marathon and went back to work. At the end of the week Brandon was unexpectedly called into the office where he was swiftly and suddenly laid off! The blame was solely on the economy. It was pretty crappy, especially since it was basically right before the holidays. HO HO HO Happy Holidays...your fired. So the next week we went to Megans brothers place in the Phoenix area for Thanksgiving and for the blessing of thier new baby. We came back, and Megan went to work, and Brandon started looking for jobs. He had a couple of interviews, and was offered a position! But it didnt feel like the right thing, and it would only be a year long, so he turned it down knowing that there was a higher power that had a better plan. So he kept looking, and had a couple more interviews. Then on December 23rd we left for Washington to be with Brandons family for Christmas. It was a great visit! We were in Royal for a few days, then spent a couple days at Ensign Ranch with the entire Kieth and Idris Hebdon family (Bs grandparents), then we spent a couple of days in Seattle/Silverdale with our awesome friends from BYU-I, then we flew home to California. On Monday (Jan 3rd) Brandon had an interview with the VP of a company that he had an interview with a couple weeks previously. The interview went extremely well, and early the next morning (Jan 4th) they called to offer him a job! and the next morning (Jan 5th) Brandon was headed to work again! WOW what a blessing! The job is in downtown Los Angeles, which is kind of a long commute. However, we carpool together till we get to the street where Megans work is and where there is also a train station. Megan goes to the gym nearby and Brandon gets on the 5:58 train for a trafficless and carefree ride to Union Station, then the subway takes him next door to the building that he works in. Quick and painless. On the way home is even better because Brandon gets to the station just a few minutes after Megan gets off work, and we ride home together again and live happily ever after.

We FINISHED

2010-11-14T16:57:00.000-07:00

This week Brandon and I geared up for our 1/2 Marathon that we were running in Malibu. I had two sisters come out from NC to run with us and then my mom and my other sister that lives in California walked while the rest of us ran it. It was great. The first eight miles I was pacing off of a lady and we were cruising doing about 8:30 to 9 minute miles. Brandon ran with me most of the first mile and then he dropped back after that. The first eight miles were great but then we hit a hill and it was a 6% grade. Most of you are thinking..."oh that's nothing..." I would love to see you say that when you have just ran 8 MILES. IT WAS BRUTAL. So at the top of that hil my hip flexors just locked up. They just decided they were not going to be doing any more flexing or moving. So I started to walk/run. I would walk for 5 or so minutes and then run for 10 or so because it just hurt so stinking bad and there were 6 miles of "rolling hills" which felt like the we were running in the Rocky Mountains. I am not sure what Brandon was doing but he said he was just going slow and steady and just trying to enjoy the scenery. It was beautiful but it was HOT. I guess that is a plus about running in Malibu in November. I have never gotten a sunburn in November before! So we finished and I just about cried when I got to the end. I tried to watch Brandon finish but I lost him in the crowd and we met up with him later to watch my mom, who has parkinsons and a brain cyst, and who nobody thought could do it let alone finish the race, finish. I got to wrap my arm around her and help her across the finish line. I AM SO PROUD OF HER! She is a champ and shows me that just because life gives us lemon's that we can't make lemonade! I was crying just at the pure joy that I had that she was strong enough and wanted to fight through all the pain just to finish a goal she had set. I think we can all learn a lesson from that. I am so proud of Brandon too. He didn't have any time to train working so much and it was so hard and he finished in around 3 hours. With both of us working full time it was hard for either of us to be able to train but we did it! We finished and that is all that matters! plus it was so cool to get a big honkin' medal and beach towel for participating.

Love you all!

We are Alive

2010-10-11T09:06:00.002-06:00

We haven't posted in forever...we know. Sorry about that. We are alive and we are well. We have been so busy between work, house work, and church work (service really...but I wanted to keep the "work" theme going). We have had a couple of fun adventures like when we got to go out to Greg and Adena's and be there for Ethan's beautiful blessing and being able to see our nieces and nephew play sports (full day of soccer and football).

The house is coming along...slowly...but it's coming. We did get a couch from Greg and Adena and that takes up a lot of room which is great because we had a lot of room to fill. It is mostly painted (besides the future kids bedrooms, downstairs bathroom which is bright orange at the moment and my craft room. We just figured that since we don't use those rooms very much right now that they can wait until we have more time and until we don't hate painting with a passion. We are getting free tile and grout from a hook-up that Brandon has through work so we are going to be tiling our bathrooms and we figure we will paint those at the same time. We are also getting a free pedestal sink from someone that I work with to fix up the downstairs bathroom...but again... that will wait until the floors are tiled.

We are learning that one of the hardest things in life is learning how to balance it all. Between our marriage, work, the house, church callings, and finding time to have a hobby or at least do something that we like....we are having a tough time but I am sure we will figure it all out in time. It might not ever get easier but life wasn't meant to be easy because you don't grow as an individual when it's easy...you have to "work out" your own salvation so that is what we are working on....and will forever continue to work on.

We love you all...and hopefully more posts will be coming since we will soon be getting internet at home! YAY!!

We got the keys!

2010-08-22T15:52:00.002-06:00

On Thursday we got a call from our Realtor who informed us that she had the keys to our wonderful new home!!! So of course we had to go right out there as soon as we got off work and get them. We waited for our Realtor to leave before we started to dance and go "OH MY GOSH THIS IS OUR HOUSE!" So we have some pictures for you. We painted friday night after work and then all day saturday and we have pictures of that too! We will post more pictures as soon as we move in and get set up!

Family Time

2010-08-16T15:14:00.002-06:00

We got a quick dose of family time when we made the trip up to WA last week for Skyler and Lisa's wedding. It was so great to see everyone and to be able to participate in such a wonderful occasion. We had a lot of firsts this trip;

First time flying in and out of pasco
First time meeting Auger Wayne Hebdon (and he is THE CUTEST)
First time being at one of Brandon's brother's sealings
First time helping decorate/take down for a reception
First time eating Brandon's mom's Rhubarb pie (for megan...def not for Brandon)
First time eating Lime Pear Delight (for megan...Brandon is a veteran)
First time meeting Aunt Leighanne and Brian and their kids.

So as you can see just from the list above we had a great time. We love seeing family and were very sad to leave. We can't wait until we get to visit with them again and hopefully it wont be such a quick trip. I have been trying to convince Brandon that we need to move up there but he reminded me of how cold it gets in the winter, how hard farming is, and how I wouldn't be able to find a job and that pretty much sealed the deal for us staying in California (at least until the babies come....then we might have to revisit the idea...I want my kids to know their family!)

We love the Hebdons and we love being Hebdons. It's always a blessing to know that we come from a long line of great people!

Pictures!!

2010-08-04T07:41:00.006-06:00

We have been promising pictures and so we will now deliver! (Sorry it took so stinkin' long!)

So the picture order goes from Left to Right on each line.

This is the front door and then what you see when you walk in. So the first thing you see when you walk in is the stairs to the left which go upstairs to the four bedrooms and two bathrooms. Then you see the dining room and to the right of the dining room is what we are calling the "reading room" because library sounds too posh. As you can see we are going to need LOTS and LOTS of primer and paint to cover up that dark dark red!

Then you can go left out of the dining room through to the kitchen, living room, green room (which will be my craft room until we have kiddies) and slider to the outside. The kitchen is nice and big and where our inspector is standing is a huge island so that is nice. Off of the kitchen you also have our laundry room which in a perfect world would be upstairs but hey...the world isn't perfect so we will make do.

This is the slider to the outside. My plan for this ONE DAY...probably when all of our kids have moved out and are married with kids we will change this to be three sets of french doors. We want the whole wall to basically open up to the backyard. That is our vision for right now at least. That will probably change by the time we actually have any money to do it. Anyway when you go outside we have patio and grass and then it looks out to a golf course. We are right near the putting green so we shouldn't have to worry about any flying golf balls or "Flight of golf balls" is what it says in our loan documents, we thought that was funny. Then you can see the back of the house which is pretty plain. The balcony on the second floor which is called a "sunning deck" apparently goes to the master bedroom which for some reason I don't have pictures of. On the bottom floor you can see that there are two sliders. One leads into the kitchen dining area (not pictured) and the other leads, like you saw, to the living room. I don't have any pictures of the front of the house but it has this big turret which is basically like a tower looking thing which Brandon absolutely LOVES.

So that is our house, in a nut shell. We love it and we are excited about creating many happy memories there. It will look different in about two weeks when we paint the whole thing and then the next step is to change the carpet, paint the cupboards white, and MAYBE tile a bathroom. We are going to do everything ourselves so it will always be a work in progress. We can't wait!

Big and Little News

2010-07-18T17:48:00.008-06:00

Okay BIG news first...We BOUGHT a HOUSE! It is in Yucaipa, California which is right near Redlands. Redlands has THIS...

So we are VERY excited! Not only to own our own home but to be 10 minutes from the Temple. Pictures of the house will follow but for right now you just to have take our word for it that it is GORGEOUS. Not as pretty as The Lords House (pictured above) but we are going to make it our little slice of Heaven on earth! We are going to take a lot of "before" pictures of the house because the previous owners LOVED color. They loved deep, rich, three coats of primer to cover it, color. The good news is, after painting there isn't much else that we HAVE to do to make the house nice. Everything else was pretty much done. It is a 4 bedrooms, 3 full baths, 2500 sq ft house. Two car garage. HUGE. So our plan is to be able to expand our little family and have enough space for the two kids, the dog (one day... against Brandon's will) and of course any friends who may want to come for a visit and stay a while. There will be good food, great conversation, and many many memories made in this home.

Okay on to the little things....

We went to the beach for the fourth of July with some of our friends. We went down on friday, put up the tents, built a fire and had a great time! Saturday we went to the beach all day and I THOUGHT that Brandon and I put on enough sun screen...but we didn't. So we both fried. Thats okay though...that's part of the whole 4th of July experience right? Our campsite was literally one row of tents back from the sand so we could hear the waves rolling and it was just sooo nice. The campground was packed and there were kids running around like crazy and they would ride their bikes around and all the bikes were decorated for the 4th of July. It was cute. We learned how to make some new foods over campfires. One thing we learned and which I will never forget because it makes smores so much easier is the Fudge cookies. So you know the Keebler fudge striped cookies that have the whole in the middle and they have the fudge bottom with the cookie top? Well if you take two of those and add a marshmellow in the middle then you have a ready made smore! SO BRILLIANT I KNOW! Our good friends Jake and Grace taught us that little trick. We also learned how to make breakfast burritos by cooking eggs and veggies in plastic bags and boiling them. They were so yummy too and last but not least Pita Pizzas. Which were grilled over a fire and were so great! On Sunday the 4th we went to a nearby town called San Juan Capistrano to walk around a mission and an old Basilica. When we got our group there we looked at the price and they were charging to go in. Now I have a problem with this because at the LDS church sites you DO NOT have to pay to go in! So BOO for historical landmarks that make you pay. So we decided not to go in but because we are so tall (the one time this was something that I was happy about) we were able to reach our camera over the wall and this is what we were able to take a picture of...

The Basilica had just finished having Mass in it so we were able to go inside and this is what we saw...

Beautiful isn't it? Different kind of pretty than I am used to but beautiful none the less. So we did go to church on the 4th of July even though we all smelled like campfire and non of us had showered for a couple of days (just swam in the ocean which DOESN'T count) and even though it was a Catholic church and we didn't stay for mass, we were still there.

OKAY....I am closing up here and this is my last section because I KNOW this is a LONG Post. Brandon and I have been refurbishing old things that we find or buy on the cheap. A couple saturdays ago someone put this in their trash and so we stopped and loaded up our findings with great anticipation to fix up this "junk" and make it into a treasure and I think we have pretty much succeeded but you be the judge. So here is the BEFORE Photos....

Everything except the "H" that is a decoupage project that I finished! Came out cute huh?

Okay and here are the AFTERS....

So the little bench is just that... a little stool bench thingy and it just needs a coat of lacquer and then its complete and then the second with the cool fabric is an old school file cabinet that is completely made out of wood. We sanded it down, stained it again, and put fabric in the sections to give it a cool new feel to it and not just but a block of wood. We LOVE it!!

Our next project is this....

We will let you know how it goes! Oh yeah and we close on our house on Aug 15th so we will be moving in at the end of August!

Baseball Games, Newport Beach Temple & Girls Camp

2010-06-14T18:55:00.004-06:00

Here are some pictures of the Angels baseball game that we went to. Afterward we went to the Newport Beach Temple and then a week later I went off to Girls Camp and had a blast. So here are some pictures for your enjoyment!

MUD RUN 2010

2010-05-25T12:18:00.002-06:00

Here are some pictures of the mud run that I participated in. It was so much fun and I can't wait to do it again. Although next year I will prepare just a little bit better. I finished in 38 minutes and was the first from my team. The guy that won did it in like 20 minutes and all he had on was a speedo and strap on sandals which is smart because the mud really adds a lot of weight on you while you are running. I felt like I weighed 20lbs more. It took me 45 minutes to get all the mud off of me and I for the first couple of days after I would blow my nose and dirt would come out (GROSS I KNOW!) I had it EVERYWHERE but it was well worth it! Brandon said he wants to do it next year too. He didn't get any pictures of me actually going through the obstacles because I was fast (not really....it was because I was covered in mud and so was everyone else and you can't tell whose who.) The whole event was to raise money for the sheriffs department and also the Children's Cancer Unit at Loma Linda University. They had bombs going off and guns shooting and people yelling at you throughout the course to make it feel more "military" I guess but it made me jump every time I heard them. They also had smoke machines and this pink smoke which made it hard to breathe while you are running but so did mud in your mouth and nose. I know a low of people probably are wondering "why would you put yourself through that?" but it is all about the high you get when you cross the finish line and know that you have pushed your body to do things you didn't think you could. It was GREAT!

1/2 Marathon

2010-05-12T21:33:00.002-06:00

Brandon has decided to run the 1/2 marathon with me! That means we will be training and running together! That is so exciting (at least for me)

AVATARD

2010-04-25T19:35:00.003-06:00

OKAY.....I am only doing this to get a laugh out of the sweetest husband in the world (Brandon that is.) Most of you don't know this because I think I may be the only person who has seen the real movie geek come out in Brandon but he LOVES LOVES LOVES the movie AVATAR. We went on a date and saw it in 3D and it was a good movie by my standards....I mean the graphics were cool, the movie was an overall good story, and watching it in 3D made me feel like I was physically there which was cool....but Brandon felt like he was REALLY there. He came home and told me that he wanted to have an Avatar of his own. So that was the first time we saw it and we watched it together and it was just a fun date....but it doesn't end there.

Brandon while working long weeks out at COD where he wasn't coming home very often would kill time out in the desert in the evenings by going to watch a show. I thought he was watching different movies each time. NOPE. He was watching Avatar...again....in 3D. In fact one night he went and saw Bounty Hunter first....THEN went to watch Avatar (paying for both movies...no worries)so as you can see Brandon is a little bit what some might call, obsessed, with this movie. So that brings us to last night. He took me on a date to see Judy Collins (most of you who read this blog probably doesn't even know who that is) but we got free tickets and it was a great concert after that we went to Wal-Mart to pick up some candy before heading home. We walk in and right there at the very front entrance is a big stack of movies...you guessed it....AVATAR. So we get out candy and we are checking out and Brandon says "Megan, Avatar is right over there."....(me) "Yeah, I see that but it isn't in our budget and we decided that we are trying to stick to our budget a little better.....but if you REALLY REALLY want it...go over and get it." (Brandon) "No... if you are okay with me getting it, then you go over and get it because I don't want to be selfish and just get what I need." OH BRANDON....you are too cute! After I told him that the Avatar that they just released was not the one with the special features on it he decided that he could wait until it was re-released with the special features before he bought it. That is why he now has the nickname "Avatard" oh how I love him! (oh yeah....He also bought the Soundtrack too hahahah)

Furniture we built

2010-04-11T19:10:00.003-06:00

These are pictures of the furniture that we built. They look really amazing if I do say so myself...and I do. We were going for the Pottery Barn look so what we did is we painted them with a color called "Heavy Cream" and then we roughed up the edges and painted those with a color called "Chocolate". So as you can tell we like colors that are named after food and are utterly delicious....just like our furniture! We got the plans for each one from knockoffwood.blogspot.com

Update!

2010-04-07T18:05:00.003-06:00

Wow! It has been A LONG time since we updated our blog. It's silly because we go read everyone elses' blog and they have such great wonderful things to update about but our lives are kind of boring so we just read the fun stuff everyone else does and then go do our own thing. So here are some updates that have happened since we last blogged.

MEGAN GOT A JOB!
I am working for the city of Ontario (it's about 5 minutes down the road) for their Economic Development department. It is only are part time job right now because it is technically an internship...but not in the "internship, I'm still in college" internship but more of a "probation" period where they make sure that I fit in with my co-workers and that I am somewhat smart or at least that I can make excel sheets look pretty :) I love it so far and I am learning so much and have so much more to learn but by the time I am finished with this job I will know about investing, redeveloping, finances, city housing, taxes, payroll, distribution, manufacturing, retail, industrial & commercial real estate and many many other important aspects that go along with having a government job in an economic development department. I am actually being "invested in" as my boss would put it and they are paying for me to take a couple of classes on the cities money which is nice and it will help me get a better handle on what I am really going to be doing. They use all this jargon at work like ICSC, NAIOP, COR-NETT, NET CAP, T-O-T, and ect. So I should be able to speak their language a little better after I take these classes. Which will be really nice. So I don't know how long I will be on this "internship" but a lot of the timing will depend on my efforts but more importantly on how much money the city can muster up to pay me :) okay....now for more exciting updates

WE ARE BUILDING OUR OWN FURNITURE (pictures to come)
Adena (our fabulous sister in law) gave us a link to a blog called knockoffwood.blogspot.com and the girl that does this blog gives you plans for building your own furniture and so we both looked at each other and said HECK YESSSS! and we built a bookshelf and a media center. Thats right....no more college furniture. No more build it yourself wal mart furniture and no more big metal racks (that are meant for garages) being used as bookshelves (it looks cute if you are going for the "industrial look", but we aren't so it just looks...odd) but it all worked while we had it and I almost feel sad. Like we are completely closing that chapter of our lives. awww tear* okay more updates

BRANDON IS FINISHING UP HIS COD PROJECT
COD means College of the Desert and that is where brandon has been working for the last year that we have been here. It has been a great opportunity and he has learned SO MUCH. The sucky part about that job is that he had to drive 1.5 hours each way which left him little time to spend with his hot wife :) so we are both glad for that reason that this project is ending and that he is going to be moving to the Cal Poly- Pamona Project which he will be able to start working on at the end of this month! We are both really excited because Pamona is only going to be about a 30 minute drive and about 15 minutes from my work. We are already planning to go on a lunch date once a week. We can sit under the big campus trees and eat our PB& Jelly Sandwich's together (awwww how precious). I say PB&J because that is all brandon wants for lunch almost every day. I don't know how he does it....I can't stand to eat the same thing everyday but that is my frugal husband for you! He is the greatest.

Update on my 1/2 Marathon training

I did injure my knee and so I had to take off a couple of weeks of training by running but I continued to cross train so that I didn't lose too much time. I have started running again and am loving it. I am up to about 5 miles and I think I will still be able to pull out thirteen by June 1'st but we shall see. I am also going to do a run in Malibu in november which I am SUPER stoked about because my Mom and a couple of others are going to go with! It should be great fun!

Other than that our lives are pretty boring. As soon as we finish the furniture I will post pictures of it and show off our handy work. Hopefully it wont be as long before we post again :)

1/2 Marathon and more!

2010-02-21T18:15:00.003-07:00

So we have not posted in FOREVER but we don't have too much going on to post about (or so we feel) We are just truckin' along with not too many changes from day to day. I am training for my first 1/2 marathon in June which I am pretty excited/nervous. I want to run another one in the fall but want to do one towards the ocean so that we can vacation at the same time. Brandon is starting up his furniture building again...he wants to build a Sofa Table, an Armoire and a bookshelf...so we will post pictures of how that is going. It's just hard because we don't have very much space for him to build in but he definitely needs something to keep him busy on saturdays.

This coming saturday we are going to be doing a service project at a Recreational Therapy camp that deals with the elderly and adolescents that are struggling. They use horses at the camp so we are going to help rebuild some stalls and signs and fence posts. It should be a lot of fun. It is for the Give a Day/Get a Day that you can do for Disney and if you give your day then you can get a free day at Disneyland. We are hoping to go for Brandon's birthday.

For Valentines Day Brandon showed up at home with a new painting for me. We had this huge BARE wall and it really needed some color and this picture fit it perfectly! I love my husband!!!

The second picture is of this awesome find that I got at target for 12 bucks and then the family blocks I found at Tai Pan trading for 12 bucks too....i love steals! The lemon picture was marked 75% off!!

I am still waiting to hear from the city of Ontario about the job but as soon as I know...you will too!

LOVE YOU ALL!

Pictures!!

2010-01-22T09:16:00.003-07:00

I am really bad about uploading pictures so here are some for your delight! These three are from a recent hockey game that we went to! Later I will upload pictures of our new place...

Rain Rain Go Away

2010-01-20T08:03:00.002-07:00

It has been raining here since last Saturday and it is making me sad. I like it when it is nice and sunny and warm. Hopefully the rain will go away soon!

Tonight Brandon and I are going to an NHL game. Yeah that is National Hockey League. Brandon got a steal of a deal on tickets through his work so we are going to go cheer for a team that we have never heard of and have a blast doing it! I will be sure to post pictures next time!

Ice Cream in a Bag

2010-01-17T17:04:00.002-07:00

We had a couple of friends over this last friday and we had such a good time. We had dinner (which was awesome) and then we made ice cream. But we didn't make it using an ice cream maker we made it with our bare hands :) kind of. What you do is you mix a yummy mix of whipping cream, milk, sugar and vanilla. Put that in a quart size bag and then put the quart size bag into a large zip lock bag. The large zip lock bag has ice and rock salt in it. Then you seal the bags and wrap them in newspaper and tape it all together so that the newspaper is really thick around it and that it wont come lose. THEN YOU SHAKE IT!!! You shake and you shake and you shake and then you pull off the newspaper and enjoy! You don't have to freeze it longer if you don't want but we had so much fun doing this. You could do it for FHE with the family and play a tossing game or pass it to each family member throughout the lesson or something but it sure is fun to eat what you have made. ** Side note is that it doesn't make that much so you may have to make a couple batches** Email me if you want the exact ingredients and amounts and I will be happy to email you back with those. It really is fun!!

meghebdon@gmail.com

Becoming a Foodie not a Baker

2010-01-15T09:06:00.002-07:00

So most of you know I always loved to Bake. BAKE BAKE BAKE....thats all I ever wanted to do but after a while you can only make so many things that are sweet and delicious before you actually have to cook real food...ya know the meat and potatoes kind of stuff. So with this new year I have decided to cut WAY back on my baking and start trying new recipes from all of my wonderful cookbooks that I have been collecting. (Thats right I collect cookbooks...kind of odd....but I do) And so I told Brandon that I am going to start cooking real food and he was so excited.... he said "yay! How much is that going to cost me?" hahaha

So last night I cooked a smothered chicken dish that I got out of my William Sanoma Comfort Food Recipe book (most everything in this book is cooked in loads of butter and cream...SO GOOD) and it turned out good. I mean everything was cooked as it should be but it wasn't like a blow your socks off recipe. Brandon was asked to pick one recipe out of this cookbook that he wanted me to cook and guess what he chose.....Sloppy Joes! Seriously Brandon? I was hoping he would choose the crab cakes or the bananas foster french toast....but he didn't and that is OK because sloppy joes are always good right?

The next big meal that I am going to be cooking is on saturday (tonight we are grilling steaks which is a no brainer) so Saturday I am making Linguine with a white wine clam sauce reduction! It is going to be wonderful I just know it!!!

Running Against the Wind

2010-01-12T10:19:00.003-07:00

okay so I have ALWAYS wanted to run a 1/2 Marathon but I would get up to about seven miles and then I would get bored and say forget it. With the new year and motivation from my best friend I have decided to do it! I am going to run a 1/2 marathon in June and I am going to finish! SO i can run about 3 miles...I say about because sometimes I get a cramp and so I stop and walk for a min and then start running again. I am not fast by any means (the tortoise did win the race) but I figure that if I am consistent and I really work at it that I can run a half marathon after training for six months! On biggest loser they have people that were the biggest couch potatoes and after 3 months they are running 1/2 marathons so I am pretty sure NO I am 100% sure that if they can do it...SO CAN I!

Yesterday I ran 3 miles in 36:22
(Again...not claiming to be fast)

Self Analysis----- FINISHED

2010-01-08T16:10:00.002-07:00

OKAY.... So in my last post I was trying to figure out what it is in life that I was "called" to do...besides be a Mom. and I think this is a lot like the belief in soul mates. The myth is that you have just one person in the whole world that you are supposed to be love. Prophets (and Apostles) have since corrected our silly ways of thinking and have said that there is no such thing as a soul mate and that there are plenty of people that we would be compatible with and that we could love....that being said I am SURE (most of the time) that Brandon is my soul mate :)

Moving on I think that jobs are the same way.... I think that we are taught that there is one true calling that we have and that we would be good at and that we would enjoy where in reality there are TONS of things that we would love and be good at and could totally rock if given the opportunity. So I have decided that it is more about your frame of mind then what you are actually doing....so I chose to become a Teacher. Let me explain all the positives to this....Lets start with the most important; June, July, August. Thats right...three months of paid time when you are not working... downside you don't get paid that much- upside- the more education you have the more money you make. Plus you get to help mold the minds of youth in the Latter Days which is a pretty important time to be molding...if you know what I mean. In reality I was looking for something that I could do that would be family friendly if in fact I do have to work after having children and teaching would be that perfect job for me. Not only that but there are opportunities to coach as well which would be SO exciting! So you get every possible government vacation day even ones like President's Day (thank you for whoever thought that up) plus you get two weeks off for Christmas which means no worrying about having time off to see family no matter how far away they are.

Now you are probably wondering what subject it is that I would like to teach...and although I wish Volleyball, Basketball, and Soccer were it's own class, they aren't, so I am left with my next favorite...HISTORY!! I love American Government and I love the History behind it all and I find history of different countries and people all over the world fascinating as well, so I think it will be a perfect match. Hopefully I can help change the country one young mind at a time. Now I just have to go back to school....but only for a couple more years!

Change

2010-01-04T11:46:00.002-07:00

Change is so great! It is a time of growth and a time to renew. We have made some changes in our lives recently and they are going to be really great for us. First.... I quit my job. THANK GOODNESS! There were some not so great things happening at work and I just didn't want to but my spirit in such a toxic place anymore and so I quit! Then we decided to move because there was nothing for me to do on the mountain as far as job opportunities and or school and so we moved to a place called Rancho Cucamonga (I know it sounds like a name I made up but it really is a real place....) and it is BEAUTIFUL! I really feel like I live in Southern California now! We have palm trees and Banana trees right outside our front door and when we were unpacking our Uhaul it was seriously 75 degrees....and it is JANUARY!! Can you believe that? If we were still in Idaho I am pretty sure we would be freezing our tails off...instead we were thinking of jumping in the pool because it was so hot! I love it! Our apartment is small but it is so perfect for us and it is helping us to get rid of a lot of the "stuff" that you acquire without really realizing that you have acquired it....if that makes any sense? So we are healthy, happy and looking forward to a new year. I am still struggling to figure out what I want to do with my life and trying to decide if I want to go back to school or find a job or what. I feel kind of lost but I am determined to figure out what exactly the Lord wants me to do with my life. Some of my options are Teaching (college level... I don't think i could handle any other age) Law, Getting a Masters in Business with an emphasis on Human Resources, going to Culinary school, becoming a stewardess so I can see the world, and Vampire slayer yet the hours could be bad for a family. So as you can see I have a lot of ideas yet no real direction...maybe some of you could help me figure it out or at least tell me how you figured it out for yourself?

Anyway we are sorry we haven't posted in a long time but we are alive and we do love you all! Happy New Year! Let's make 2010 the best year yet!!

not getting a house

2009-12-13T15:38:00.002-07:00

So this saturday was our home inspection on the house that we talked about in the previous post. It was also pouring cats and dogs while the house was getting inspected. We walk into the master bath and there is water running down the walls!!! Needless to say the whole roof needed to be replaced among many other problems so we will not be buying that house. When we prayed we asked Heavenly Father to stop us if it was wrong and it rained! Thank goodness for answered prayers!

Getting a House!

2009-12-07T11:35:00.003-07:00

Our how has come through~ We are so excited, scared, nervous, sad (to be leaving wrightwood) and every emotion that you can think of! We are supposed to close no later than Dec 31st and we are supposed to be moving in no later than Jan 4th!!! WOW... I KNOW! Here are some pictures...enjoy!!

So Excited!

2009-12-01T09:26:00.002-07:00

Many of you who know me may already know, but CHRISTMAS is my FAVORITE time of year!! Not because of presents or anything like that.... I don't even want ANYTHING for Christmas this year (don't forget that Brandon). I just love the feeling that is in the air around the Holidays! Everyone is nicer, people go out of their way to give, and it is just so loving. This year I get to spend Christmas with a lot of my family members which is really exciting because I have not had a holiday with so many family members on my side since I was about 5 or 6. I am sad that we will not be seeing Brandon's Mom and Dad and all of our friends and family that live in Washington...but hopefully they know that we love them and that we hope they have a wonderful Christmas. Next year we will be in WA for Christmas and for the Family Reunion which means we are going to be there for about a week or so! WAHOO! Anyway, just wanted to let you know how much I love Christmas! I posted some of my favorite Christmas Tunes...so I hope you enjoy them too!

Twilight!!

2009-11-22T17:36:00.002-07:00

This past Saturday, Brandon and I went and saw TWILIGHT: New Moon...and we loved it. Brandon even loved it which was surprising! We invited a whole bunch of ladies from the ward and we had 12 women show up and a couple of them brought their husbands so Brandon wasn't even the only guy there!! It was exciting and it was fun because the whole crowd would cheer and laugh and cheer and cry and cheer....ect. It was just plain ol' fun. Afterward we went to our favorite fast food place (Chik-fil-a) and saw that a screw had punctured our tire so we had to go to sears and get a new tire....not so fun! But at least we got to see Twilight!

Closing the Gap

2009-11-19T09:14:00.002-07:00

When I hear the word "Atonement" I always think of what the word means if you break it down "At One" with God and that is so true. Only after we repent for our wrong doings can we truly be "At One" with God. Sometimes we make really dumb mistakes in our lives and I think that as we get older we have better judgment and the sins get smaller.... if that is even possible. Not smaller per say because a sin is a sin, in God's eyes, but I guess you can say you are more in the "fine tuning" process. The more I come to understand the Atonement and the consequences for each thing that I do the better I want to become. That being said, I recently made a huge mistake in my personal life which re-opened a partially healed wound from my past. I wanted that person to know exactly what I thought of them because of the pain that they had caused me. As my friend Rachel would say... "I took the low road." Even though I have apologized and tried to repent there will always be that rift between my sister and I because of it. When I think about how I would of handled this a long time ago... I probably would have said the same thing (if not worse) and then walked away saying and thinking... "She deserved it." And to never think about it again but in reality no one deserves "it." No one deserves to be treated with disdain. The Lord teaches that we should LOVE. Love our enemies and to pray for those that may use us. He teaches that we need to love our neighbor as we love ourselves and yet.... I did none of those things. Satan would have us to feel hate and anger and discontent. I am so grateful that I have been taught the Gospel and that I do have the opportunity to Repent and that my Savior is willing to forgive me for mistakes that I made and make in my life. I am not blogging about this for my sister or family to see because frankly none of them read my blog. It is important to me that people know that I do have a testimony of the Gospel. That I do love my Savior and I know that He lives and that He loves me even though I still make mistakes. I am so Grateful and I have a testimony that we can all be "At One" with God because of the wonderful and blessed sacrifice that is made on our behalf. Life is so hard... and as I am trying to become the women that Heavenly Father wants me to be, that I need to be. I pray that others will understand that I am a work in progress. I am working at closing the gap between what I know to be true and how I choose to live my life.

I love the Ensign

2009-11-11T07:58:00.002-07:00

Yesterday we received the Ensign in the mail! I am just SOOOO excited about reading the words of our Leaders. Last night when Brandon got home he was like "OKAY... ready to go to bed?" and I was like NO I want to read longer... we just got the Ensign! So we got to read one of the talks together and it seems like everything applied to us right now! The Leaders of the LDS Church are truly inspired men and you can tell when you listen to their voice or read their words. I am so thankful that we can read their talks for the next six months until we get to watch again!

LOVE

2009-10-29T13:08:00.002-06:00

I put some of my favorite Kenney Chesney songs on my playist because whenever I listen to him it reminds me of how much I love Brandon. The first time Brandon took me home with him it was Thanksgiving and we were already engaged. I WAS SO NERVOUS. Luckily my roommate Maren wanted to come too and needed a place to go or I think I may have been even more scared. Anyway, while we were there Brandon took me for a ride in a tractor that his dad had on the farm and it happened to be the one that Brandon had driven many of nights while bailing hay or doing other stuff you do on a tractor.... (I just proved how much I really know about farming) anyway so i can remember thinking of that song while I was riding with Brandon because there is nothin' hotter than a man on a tractor (esp my man... no offense to all the other men that drive tractors) I have even been trying to convince Brandon to move back home and farm so that we can have a more simple life and hopefully spend more time together than we do now.... he tells me that I have false views of how much time we would really have together if he farmed, but as long as he is happy than I am happy too. I just love him SO much! We are coming up on our four year anniversary and although that seems like such a short time I feel like we have both grown so much and look forward to progressing even more. Love you babe.

Fall Baking

2009-10-23T08:12:00.003-06:00

Anyone who knows me even the slightest knows that I love to cook. Yes I love to cook normal everyday things but I also like to bake which for most people isn't a normal everyday thing but as soon as Fall hits I seriously can't stop myself. (Poor Brandon has to eat it all too) I even find excuses to bake. Example: "Oh you got the swine flu? Have some pumpkin chocolate chip bread!" YIKES I KNOW! This week alone I have made my mother-in-laws DELICIOUS homemade rolls (she was so kind and taught me how to make them a couple of thanksgivings ago) and I have been working on a recipe to copy that of Great Harvest with their YUMMY and OH SO DELICIOUS Pumpkin Chocolate Chip Bread (which I think I have pretty much mastered.... but that is my own humble opinion) and not to mention on saturday (yes tomorrow) I am going to be making Sugar and Spice doughnuts. Did I mention that our favorite show to watch on the internet (because we don't have cable) is The Biggest Loser... how did that happen? But it just doesn't seem to matter because it is FALL! Fall is the time when you want to come home to a warm house with cookies and breads and biscuits and scones and apple pie and anything pumpkin... to snack on!(Caution: don't have all out at the same time) So if you are ever in the Wrightwood area, ya know within fifty or so miles or even 150 please please please stop by. It gives me even more reason to bake for someone and then you can take it home so that I don't have it all sitting around my house!

Sunday Together

2009-10-18T21:22:00.003-06:00

Today has been an AMAZING Sunday! We have spent the whole day together and have loved every minute of it. We went for a drive and all the pictures that you see are less than 10 miles from our house! We live in a pretty amazing place and we are surrounded by Beautiful Vistas. Check it out!

Beehives

2009-10-12T10:11:00.003-06:00

I have been given a new calling!!! Can you guess what it might be? That's right... I am the new Beehive Teacher!!! I am so excited... if you couldn't tell. I am really looking forward to working with the YW in our ward and I look forward to re-learning all the wonderful teachings that our Heavenly Fathers wants us to know about being a Women in the Latter Days.

FIRE!!!

2009-10-07T11:00:00.003-06:00

On Sunday morning at about 4am we got a knock on the door. Standing on the other side was a San Bernardino County Sheriff Deputy telling us that we must evacuate our home immediately due to a fire. Luckily we had already began packing because our friends warned us that part of the town was being evacuated and that we would be next. So we loaded up the cars with things that we thought were valuable and that we didn't want to replace (except I forgot my KITCHENAID!!!) and we headed out to our friends house to help them pack. The part of town that they lived in didn't get evacuated until around 8am so we stayed there until 8 and then headed to my sisters house. She is only about an hour away so it worked out great. We were able to stay there for the next couple of days. Brandon ended up going to work and then getting a hotel room in the Palm Springs area so that He didn't have to drive 3 hours each way to work. Thank goodness that they were able to put the fire out and yesterday we were able to come home and unpack our things. It is so nice to be home and out of harms way. We are so blessed!

Basketball

2009-09-29T09:32:00.002-06:00

This last Saturday Brandon and I were invited to play basketball with the missionaries and an investigator. It was SO MUCH FUN! Brandon does have too scraped knees and I honestly thought I was going to have to wheel him out of there on a hospital bed but overall we both played well (Brandon's height allows him to be a cherry picker!!) and it was really good exercise. This weekend we are going to go down and see chad and abby play soccer which is always fun and exciting and we are really looking forward to General Conference. We even got the Primary packets that we can fill out while we listen.... like color in the color of tie of each apostle. Primary is turning into a fun calling... I am learning more and more about how to deal with emotional six year olds which has been quite a challenge for me. I haven't cried in a couple of weeks which is a good sign. Brandon is still teaching his boys (he has 3, 8 and 9 yr olds) and they look up to him a lot. You can tell because they look back at him and stare at him all through sacrament. Other than that there is nothing really new and exciting in our lives. Hope all is well for you all!

FOR THE LOVE OF FALL

2009-09-22T17:58:00.002-06:00

OH how I love FALL. The leaves are turning (well not where we live because all we have are pine trees... but they are turning colors in NC) and the smell of fires burning to warm up homes is filling the air. Not to mention it's FOOTBALL season and that is ALWAYS exciting. One of my favorite things about fall is that it still gets warm in the afternoon but stays cold in the morning and evenings. It makes it so nice when you go outside and the air is crisp. I am planning on making candy apples and witches brooms and all the yummy treats that Brandon and I love to make and snack on (we give most of it away so we don't get too full of sugar). We are so blessed and fall just always seems to remind me of that.!

NOT REALLY

2009-09-20T10:16:00.002-06:00

Our family is not really full of nuts... especially on brandon's side! They are the same part of our family tree. It's my side that is the "not so sane" side.

Missing Sports

2009-09-20T08:46:00.002-06:00

Yesterday I had the opportunity to see Chad and abby play soccer. They both lost and it was a really hot day but it was still a great time. My brother and sister were laughing and telling me to make sure I never coach my kids because I get WAYYYY too into the game. That's what happens when you play a sport since you were four and haven't played it in about 3 years. I am thinking of joining some sort of sports league just to get back to having a good time being competitive and it always helps to get a little more exercise. If you could join a club or sport or do something that maybe you did in high school.... what would it be??

Yummy Goodness

2009-09-17T16:29:00.004-06:00

SOOOO this morning I decided to get myself out of bed and make homemade cinnamon rolls and they were DELICIOUS! So I had to take pictures and post them on here because they came out just so perfect. (Patting myself on the back). For those of you who haven't been to visit us (shame on you) we have included pictures of our house and our back yard because when we moved in it was all dirt. Now it's beautiful (mostly because of brandon)

I hope you are enjoying the music that we have posted on the blog. They are some of our favorite soundtracks from some of our favorite movies!

I have also included a couple pictures of me with my birthday presents. Enjoy!

Washington we miss you already!

2009-09-14T22:15:00.002-06:00

Brandon and I just got back from our trip to Washington! It was a great trip... seemed too short.. but still a great trip! We didn't however remember to take any pictures (we are kicking ourselves for that) and so all we can do is tell you that we got to see Rhen receive her Endowments and then we got to see Shadd and Rhen be sealed! It was great! We also got to spend just a little bit of time with Mom and Dad which we LOVED! We are thinking that we may have to go back for Thanksgiving if we can get work off and spend a lot more time with the family.

No news is probably good news?

2009-09-03T16:49:00.002-06:00

So we haven't had much going on the last couple of weeks. Brandon is still commuting 1.5 hours each way to work but we are still appreciating the check that we get for him making that drive. I am STILL waiting tables... trying to figure out what I am going to do with my life. I am thinking nursing school OR law school. I have always wanted to go to Law school but it just hasn't seemed practical since we have always been thinking about kids BUT NOW we aren't thinking about kids for a LONG LONG time (thank you Bishop for calling me into Primary and opening my eyes) and so Law school is seeming more and more practical everyday... but then so does nursing.. so you can tell I am in quite a weird spot.

Anyway.... we have been house hunting which is fun but very tiring and we are thinking of buying a house up here in Wrightwood since that is where we have figured out is the BEST and COOLEST (as in temp) to live in all of SoCal. I was driving home from Rancho Cucamonga and it was 110 degrees there. By the time I got home my car temp dropped to 84!! WONDERFUL COOL AIR! So we decided that we like it here. We put an offer in on a house, ITS A SHORT SALE, now most people think.. oh short sale that means it's only going to take a couple of weeks right... WRONG short sales are generally the longest to go through so we have at least a month before we even find out if our offer is accepted, then it takes about another oh, two or three months, for the sellers to prove their that they can't pay their mortgage and that the bank should let them do a short sale and THEN we MIGHT be accepted by the bank to get the house as long as we still, at that point, qualify for loan to buy the house. So as you can see it is a bit more complex than just buying a regular house from jo-shmo down the street. So we are expecting it to take around 8 months total but we REALLY like this house... so we are going to try and wait it out...unless of course we find something better then we will drop that house like a bad habit.

So there is pretty much our boring lives for the last couple of weeks. Sorry there isn't much more exciting news! Have a great one!

Thought you all might think this is funny!!! ENJOY

Summers ALMOST over

2009-08-19T08:17:00.003-06:00

It is so sad to think, let alone to say, that "summer is almost over." Why is this so sad I ask myself? We have wonderful things to look forward to such as the leaves falling, the air becoming more crisp, MY BIRTHDAY, football season, and decorating for fall/halloween. There are TONS of things to love about the fall... but oh how I will miss the days of summer!! Here are a couple of pictures that make me excited for fall!

What are some things that you look forward to in the fall season??

Fire Proof

2009-08-09T19:43:00.002-06:00

So Brandon and I have been watching a lot more movies lately (we don't have tv) and we are HUGE netflix-ers and we got this movie called FireProof. The acting is pretty horrible (comparable to some of the badly done church movies) but the over all message was really good. It kind of has some southern "I love Jesus" moments in it (which flooded me with memories of home) but still the message was really good. Its about a firefighter that is having a REALLY tough time in his marriage and his dad gives him this book that has forty days worth of things to improve his marriage and he "dares" him to try it. It is a really good, clean movie and I would recommend it to anyone to watch. It deals with things such as pornography, selfishness, pride, bad communication, making sure to have Christ as the center of your marriage and lots and lots of good messages. There is also a website... www.fireproofyourmarriage.com

Age

2009-08-05T18:22:00.002-06:00

I have been thinking a lot lately about what it means to get old. Probably because I am going to my brother in-laws birthday party on sunday and he is turning 41... I can remember when he was turning 30 and I thought that was old. Now I am coming up on my 23rd birthday and I feel young but at the same time... I remember when I was young and I thought 23 was old. I used to look up to the 20-somethings and think how much they knew and how "cool" they were... and now I am one of those and I don't feel too cool and I know I don't know a whole lot... so I think I was misguided.

Anyway, I was working and someone asked me why I was married and so young (Not to sound cocky or "I am so sexy"... but I think he wanted to be married to me) and I told him that I had met the man of my dreams and I didn't want to pass up the opportunity to take him off the market and this thought dawned on me...We're so arrogant, aren't we? So afraid of age, we do everything we can to prevent it. We don't realize what a privilege it is to grow old with someone. Someone who doesn't drive you to commit murder or doesn't humiliate you beyond repair. Lucky for me I met that person when I was 19. Not to say that he doesn't have his moments or that I don't have mine... but growing old together and so in love... is definitely a privlidge... not a death sentence.

Things that I would LOVE to have

2009-08-04T21:44:00.008-06:00

Laura inspired me with her "Things that she wants some day post" so I thought I would share my wish list too!

This bed from Pottery Barn just makes you want to jump right in and snuggle with someone you love!

I think my family would look AMAZING at this table...

My TV would be hidden by this big Armoire

My Family would snuggle on this couch!... what you can't tell by the picture but I know because I sat on this couch is that it is so deep-set that me and Brandon can barely put our feet on the floor... GLORIOUS COUCH

AND Last but not Least.....

We would enjoy summer BBQ's out here!

I guess I have expensive taste... the trick it so have expensive taste but to know how to find the expensive things cheap! Then you get the best of both worlds...

If you know of any AWESOME websites for getting cool things cheap (such as furniture and home decor)... send me the link!

EUROPE

2009-08-02T17:33:00.002-06:00

Brandon and I are planning a trip for Europe, but not any old, stay in a hotel trip, we are going to be backpacking! LITERALLY walking around Europe, staying in Hostels, and have everything we need (besides food) on our packs on our back. We are planning on doing it as a birthday present/graduation present/anniversary trip once I finish nursing school. We have started planning and looking at different sites but we are just so excited about this adventure we thought we would share it with you. Even though it will be in about 2 to 3 years the thought of it just makes me SO HAPPY!

Other than that not much has changed in our lives. We are still enjoying being in wrightwood and spending time with friends and family. We have been eating A LOT of watermelon (Thanks Greg and Adena!)and are looking forward to the many family visits that we will be having in August.

Blythe

2009-07-28T10:25:00.002-06:00

Blythe is a real hot place! But we had the greatest time with Greg and Adena and the kids and Adena's Family. We got to go out on the boat and the jet ski and spent all Saturday afternoon on the Colorado River and sunday afternoon we spend time talking, eating dinner and playing games! It was a really relaxing weekend and time well spent with family! We can't wait to go back!

Exciting News!

2009-07-20T10:29:00.002-06:00

So I haven't posted in a while because not much has changed for us here in good ol' SoCal. But we have had a couple of pretty neat experiences that we would like to share!

1. I had put in my two week notice at my job because I HATED have to work every sunday! So during this period I was praying and praying to be able to find something that would let me have more time so spend with Brandon and that I wouldn't have to work on Sundays. So later in the week I was at work and my boss said, "Megan, even though you have been here a few short weeks we are really going to miss you and I wish there was something that we could do to get you to stay." So as you can guess I said... THERE IS! You can give me sundays off! And so she did and so I can keep this job that I have that is so close to home and is going to help me pay for school and I don't have to work Sundays... but it gets even better... she is going to give me more weekends off too.. maybe even every weekend since most people want to work weekends cause it's good tip money. I would rather spend time with Brandon.. so it all works out! THANK YOU HEAVENLY FATHER!

2. Most of you know that we have been preparing for adoption and getting all the paperwork finished and we had an appointment set up with LDS Family services and so a couple of saturdays before our appointment we went to the temple to get a final confirmation that we are doing the right thing and that we should pursue adoption. We get into the celestial room and Brandon said that he got the impression that we should wait... and so we left the temple pretty confused. What we are trying to do is a righteous desire so why wouldn't the Lord want us to do it (thats what we were thinking) So since I was still pretty confused about it I went back to the temple on the following wednesday by myself. When I got to the Celestial room I prayed and prayed and Heavenly Father gave me the answer that "It's not time right now... but that he will prepare us when the time is right and we will know what we should do." When I got out of the Temple I called Brandon and he said he had been praying about it while I was in the Temple and that he got the same exact answer! How amazing the Lord is! So the Bishop calls me into his office on Sunday and wanted to know if me and Brandon still wanted him to fill out the paperwork.. because he had had it in his office for quite some time (the part that he was supposed to fill out) and just could never fill it out.. and that he thought we should follow the Lord's prompting and that it wasn't quite time for us yet. WOW!! He then proceeded to talk to me (Brandon was teaching his primary class) and he said he felt prompted to give me a blessing and so he did and it was one of the greatest spiritual blessings I have ever received and that is simply because the Spirit confirmed in my heart that Heavenly Father knows our desires and our hearts and he will bless us when the time is right. How I love the Gospel and the Blessings that it brings into our lives. Even when times are hard we know that we can have peace in our Savior and that is so comforting!

So we are going back to the waiting game as far as starting a family but we are committed to having fun and learning a whole lot along the way. The positive side is that Brandon and I get to spend a lot more time together and get to experience a lot of fun things on our own before the little ones come! How blessed we are!

San Diego Zoo

2009-06-25T17:40:00.002-06:00

Brandon and I decided that we needed to take a mid-week vacation so we went to the San Diego Zoo! We had a blast... take a look!

Can't believe it!

2009-06-22T16:32:00.002-06:00

Today I set up our first OFFICIAL appointment with LDS Family services to turn in all our paperwork that we have been filling out... there are quite a few forms! So we are officially on our way to becoming parents! Even though it could take a long time... 2 to 3 years to get placed with a baby it could also be SUPER fast... like by Christmas! We are both really excited about becoming parents and we would love it if all of you could keep us in your prayers. Also most placements happen because of someone that they know, knows someone... so if you do know of anyone who may be looking into adoption for their baby please tell them about us!

WE LOVE YOU ALL!!

The family unit is fundamental not only to society and to the Church but to our hope for eternal life.-Elder Henry B. Eyring

FUN COMES IN all shapes and sizes

2009-06-15T21:59:00.004-06:00

I have learned that fun comes in all shapes and sizes. For Brandon fun is installing a new door for my sister and her family, that takes all day, two trips to Home Depot and Costco, and some new tools that he thought were "totally awesome!" I think it was a table saw and a miter saw... I don't know the difference but Brandon thought it was pretty cool that he got to go with Greg (my brother in law) to go buy them. For me fun comes from going shopping and getting a hair cut with my niece Sarah. She is 14 and I talked her into cutting her hair because she hasn't cut it in seriously like 10 years. It is SO LONG and because she doesn't feel a need to brush or blow dry it it looks pretty ummmm raggedy I guess is the best way to describe it. So I talked her into going to get our hair cut (cause I can always use a new do). She seriously paid 40 dollars to cut an inch off and thats it.... I could have done that at home with some kitchen scissors. ANYWAY after we got our hair cut we went to the mall and went shopping ALL DAY! It was so much fun because I got her dresses (which she only owned one previously and only wore that to church with Brandon and I.. the one time she went) so while we are shopping I text my sister Chris and ask her what she wanted me to get Sarah. Chris replied and said "get her what she needs." OKAY.... I am the aunt... I DON'T KNOW WHAT SHE NEEDS! But that makes me the cool aunt because when we walked into the door at home... 400 dollars later my niece sarah was glowing because she got all this new stuff. When my sister asked "how much do I owe you?"... she wasn't as "glowy" and told me I could never take Sarah shopping again without a set list of items to get... OH THE FUN OF BEING THE AUNT AND NOT THE PARENT!

I GOT A JOB!!

2009-06-02T07:47:00.004-06:00

So I have been looking for a job ever since we got here and I have been looking for something close to home so that we didn't have to spend a lot of gas money commuting. Well we live in a pretty small town and it only has a population of about 3000 people so finding a job here is pretty tough... but I DID IT! I am going to be a server (not the most glamorous job... but a job none the less) at a restaurant called the Evergreen Cafe. They do breakfast lunch and dinner and so I could be working a variety of hours but I am SO EXCITED!

Pictures of Fun times in Cali

2009-06-01T10:49:00.003-06:00

Abby is on the left... she is the youngest of the Bluhm Family (meg's sisters daughter) and so cute... you can tell she had her fill of Smores

Sarah and Abby both ADORE Brandon and just can't get enough of him

Brandon at the Indie Race... the car is a LITTLE small!

Gratitude is an Attitude

2009-05-21T13:25:00.002-06:00

Recently Brandon and I have been very very blessed and sometimes it's about taking time to realize that your are SO blessed. I have been feeling pretty down lately because I don't have a job and because I don't have kids and well because I live in california... a long ways away from North Carolina. But the more I realize how truly blessed I am with a roof over my head, a sweet husband, and cute little Lola, the happier I become. So I have decided to have an attitude of gratitude and to stop complaing and to start showing gratitude to my Heavenly Father with ALL that he has blessed me with. I have amazing friends who inspire me, a Testimony of the Gospel, a Temple Recommend, an amazing relationship with the LOVE OF MY LIFE and my baby... Lola. How could it get better than this?

(A cruise for my birthday... with the Frys, would AMAZING.. that would make it a little better I guess)

They say your car is a reflection of your personality... I have no car.

2009-05-07T10:42:00.005-06:00

So as most of you know... I don't have a job yet! So I the great privilege of being at home all day (I would rather be working) and so after the first week or so I had cleaned the house everyday, organized the cupboards in the Kitchen, the bathroom, and of course the bedroom closets. I have prepared for my primary lesson about ten times (although you can never be too prepared for seven year olds) and have finally decided to sit down and update the blog. But what is really sad is that I have pretty much updated you already! Wait I lie. We do have some very good news... WE GOT A PIANO. Now neither of us know how to play it and we don't quite know how we are going to get it up and into our house but WE GOT A PIANO! We bought it at a yard sale for 100 bucks and it is in good condition it just needs to be tuned. The yard sale was for the people that my sister is buying her house from and so it is currently in the house that they are waiting to move into. Greg (my brother in law...Chris's husband) and Brandon both tried to pick it up and they couldn't even get it off the ground... like not even an inch, so moving it will be REALLY interesting! It's times like that... when people are moving really heavy stuff... that I am so glad that I am a girl. I get to say "okay move it over here... watch out for the door frame... is your back okay sweetie?" That's my whole job. Well I would have to dust it, of course, but I don't really have to lift a finger.. just a duster!

This past week

2009-04-26T21:13:00.002-06:00

So this past week was a good one. I will start at last Sunday. Bruce, the owner of the house we are renting, and the father-in-law of my brother-in-law Montana, works for Clabber Girl, and the owner of the company is also the owner of the Indy Race League. So, Bruce is able to use the indy races as shmoozing of sorts for clients or potential clients. So he sent some of his clients, and had an extra ticket...FOR ME!!! So we got there at 9 am-ish. We walked around the stands, then we used our VIP tickets to get into the race car garage with the drivers and teams and all kinds of cool stuff, including the paddock club which is where the famous people eat. So we ate breakfast with Jonny Rutherford. He has won the indy 3 times. Then we walked around and looked at the cars and stuff. Then we talked with Bruces boss and some of his clients and his boss, then we went and looked at some of the exhibits and all kinds of neat car stuff. Then we had lunch with Patrick Dempsey. But i didnt get any pictures of him because we ate in the VIP section of the VIP section. and the chef for the day has cooked for 3 U.S. presidents and Gorbachof. (spell check on that one). So then came the race, vroom...(2 minutes passes) VROOM (2 more minutes pass) VROOM!!!, etc etc etc. 85 times around the track. oh ya, and somewhere in there we saw Gene Simmons, Mr. Kiss himself, minus the face paint, but plus one frikken ugly face and hair do. We got free t-shirts and ball caps. the whole day was AWESOME!!! (the computer wont upload the pictures i took, so those will have to come later.

MARY KAY

2009-04-21T17:00:00.002-06:00

Megan has started her very own Mary Kay business as a skin care consultant! She is just doing this for fun and isn't trying to earn a living off of it but wants everyone to have the opportunity to have inexpensive high quality make up! For all friends and family for the month of April she is doing a 50% off sale which means that you will pay half of the original price! YAY for sales! So just send us an email or leave a comment if you know of anything that you might be interested in!

Fun in the Sun!

2009-04-21T10:24:00.002-06:00

We are having SO MUCH FUN here in Southern California! Brandon started his first day of work yesterday and he got his phone, some shirts, some polos, a water bottle, a coffee mug (or hot chocolate in his case) and just some other cute little things. This is such a great company and we are SO BLESSED to have a job right now! We were talking the other day about how we should post on the blog about how this job fell into place and then our house and the moving and all of that good stuff so that everyone else could witness the Lord's hand truly being in our life. So here it goes...

Last fall (October-ish) we went to a couple of meetings on campus for companies that come and recruit. This one time I happened to be able to go with Brandon so we went to the first one and it seemed to be a not so good company and we got kind of discouraged and so we were going to go home but we got the feeling that we needed to go to this next companies meeting. So we go and the company seems wayyyyy to good to be true. After the meeting we went up and introduced ourselves and they really took a liking to Brandon. We were talking to some of our friends and one of the BIG GUYS for CW Driver came up and said "Hey I want you to come by and talk to me tomorrow at the career fair." Well Brandon wasn't going to be able to go to the career fair because he had classes straight through the day and so he told Greg (the BIG GUY from Driver) that he wouldn't be able to make it. So Greg says "Well why don't I take you and your wife out for lunch" ( I WAS SO EXCITED) We left that meeting feeling so good and on the way home we talked about how we knew that this was the company that Brandon was supposed to work for... we both felt the feeling so strongly! Well at that lunch he tells us that he definitely wants Brandon to work for them and that he wants to fly us down in December to meet with some of the other guys in the company and to get a feeling for southern california. It couldn't have been better because when we got to Ontario (where brandon's office is) it was so nice and warm which was quite a change for us since we were coming from Idaho! I loved every minute of the hot sun... needless to say I was so ready to move down there! Well we get back home and life went back to normal and I got to thinking about California and how expensive it was and how they were dealing with the Prop 8 and just all that horrible stuff (It was Satan trying to persuade me to not go) and so I decided that I didn't want to live in Southern California because it just seemed to fast paced, expensive and corrupt and thats exactly what I told Brandon. He didn't agree and so we were kind of at a weird spot. So I started talking to my sister in law Brittany about living in Southern California and she told me about Wrightwood, which is where she grew up and how it was up in the mountains and you don't deal with the hustle and bustle, 15% of the town is LDS and how everyone was so nice and that it was one of the safest places to live. It just so happens that Brittany's parents - The McEwen's were wanting to move to Utah but they couldn't sell their house in Wrightwood because the market had just fallen so much and nothing was selling. They didn't want to rent so they seemed to be stuck in a hard spot. Debbie (Brittanys Mom) told me later that she would pray everyday for something to happen so that they could move to Utah to be closer with their family. So we told the McEwens that if they did consider renting out their home that we would be happy to rent from them because I told Brandon that the only way I was moving down here was if we lived in Wrightwood. It all just fell into place for us after that. The McEwens felt really good about renting their house to us (they said the wouldn't have rented it to anyone else) and I finally felt at peace with moving down here. When we got here we knew that this was the place that we are supposed to raise our children. The first Sunday everyone in the ward was so nice and would come up and hug us and tell us how much they looked forward to us arriving. I have honestly never been in a nicer ward. Last night Brandon and I were taking Lola for a walk and we just talked about the feelings that we have about this place and how Heavenly Father has truly blessed us to have such a beautiful house in a beautiful place and have such a wonderful job. Although I am still working on being employed I don't have any fears about making it work because I know that we can trust in the Lord and the he will provide and take care of us. We are supposed to be here and he has whispered that to us so many times that it has just made us feel so secure. We know that if we follow that Lord we shall not fear.
We have also been having a lot of fun with my sister and her family who live about an hour away. We have more pictures to follow and Brandon will be posting about his AWESOME experience at an Indie race... just to give you an idea of how cool it was... HE GOT TO EAT LUNCH WITH PATRICK DEMPSY!!!! so watch for pictures and more post from SUNNY SOUTHERN CALIFORNIA!

WE MADE IT!!!

2009-04-12T08:16:00.002-06:00

Were here in California. We left on the afternoon of the 8th and drove down to Provo to see Montana and Brittany, Megans brother and his wife, and we were also able to see Michael for an hour or so over breakfast at a little place called Kneeders. We took off the next day at 9 and drove and drove and drove and drove and drove and drove and drove and drove, you get the picture right? as we began our trip, we wanted to listen to the radio... pushed the scan button and it went clear through the whole spectrum of stations 3 times, not one signal could be picked up, and we were in town!! so next we tried to use our ipod dock that transmits through the radio, but the cigarette lighter didnt have any power to it either. So the whole drive was music-less. We finally got into Wrightwod at about 8:30 ish. We werent as sore as we usually are when we drive the little sentra, the seats in the uhaul are more comfy, but they dont recline, bummer. So our address, our physical address is 2035 outer hwy 2, Wrightwood, CA 92397. and our PO box, (because they dont deliver mail here) is PO Box 2615 same city and zip. Our phone numbers are the same for now. mine will be changing as soon as i start work, and I guess megans will be changing about then too. We have tons of extra room. there are 4 bedrooms in this house. So if you want to come down and visit, DO IT!! we are 2 hours from San Diego, 1 1/2 hours from the beach, a half hour to the air port in ontario, we have skiing 5 minutes away. and there are plenty of placed to camp and hike.

Conference

2009-04-05T10:26:00.003-06:00

So I (brandon) had the awesome opportunity to be a part of the choir that sang in the priesthood session of general conference this go round. It was so cool. It was a combined choir comprised of current and past members of choirs on BYU-I campus and there were also some school employees. Some of the choir drove themselves down, but the rest of us rode on two busses. it was a good time. I listened to the music that we were going to be singing as we rode down. We got to the conference center and rehearsed in a little theater that is just inside the doors # 1-3. I didnt even know it existed. Then as we walked to take our seats in the auditorium, the led us through a series of stairwells and tunnels and all kinds of back stage areas. When we entered to auditorium I was amazed at how big it was. I have sat in the congregation/audience, but sitting up in the choir seats made everything seem even bigger. and when the organ plays...holy cow its loud, awesome but loud. When our session of conference was over, the organist, Richard Elliot, played a few hymns as everyone left. His version of the hymns was incredible!!! it was the best performance of "let us all press on" and "put your shoulder to the wheel" that i have ever heard or probably ever will hear. Then on the way home i watched movies on the ipod...what a good invention those were. The only bummer was that it took all day, we left for Utah at 10 and didnt get back till 1 in the morning. So megan was home alone and bored all day. well maybe not so bored, she had a different color hair when i got home, and she had packed up some more of our things. I dont have any pictures of the experience because they didnt allow us to take cameras in, but oh well. OH! the flowers behind the speakers are FAKE!!! I touched 'em.
So from now on, I am taking finals till wednesday, megan is done with work, and were packing up to leave on wednesday. WOOHOO!!! i hope the weather stays good for us as we pack the uhaul and drive down.

2009-03-29T12:17:00.004-06:00

Here are some pictures of our newest family member! Lola Coco Hebdon. Although I know most of you who read our blog don't believe that pets can be considered family members, we are definitely taking Lola in as our own little baby.

These are the days of our lives

2009-03-28T11:46:00.002-06:00

So I promised ya'll that I would let you know how I did this week without eating sugar. Let's just say that I had an epic failure. I could make 100's of excuses but the truth is.. I LOVE SWEETS! But more importantly I learned this week that it is important to have balance. So instead of saying I am going to eat and I am not going to eat that I am saying "the heck with diets" and I am sticking to the good ol' theory of moderation in all things. Plus it would be a shame to go through the easter season and not eat one of the mini cadberry eggs. You know the ones I am talking about.... the thin candy shell with the delicious milk chocolate inside. What a little gift from Heaven above! hahah I don't know if thats blasphemy but what can I say... I am grateful for the little things in life!

This week has been a pretty normal week. We are getting more and more excited to move and our house is pretty much packed. Brandon even made me leave out just enough clothes to get by with for the next week 1/2 so that he could pack the rest of them. He has been the one that is packing everything! What can I say.. my husband is the best! He is amazing! Speaking of Brandon he did have a Birthday on Friday and he can now legally rent a car in California without having to pay extra renters insurance! He is 25! I am still a young buck at just 22... so he is getting on in years while I am staying young and beautiful! hahah JUST KIDDING.. he is still as handsome as the first day I met him, if not more. He has taught me so much lately. Yesterday I took out our (he got it for christmas) sewing machine and he taught me how to thread it! I know i know, I should be stoned for being a woman who doesn't know how to sew but I was more of the athletic type growing up... not so keen on the sewing and cooking thing. Now that I am married I wish that I would have been more open to trying those things when I was growing up so that I could cook and sew and even scrapbook. I am definitely not the creative type but give me a ball and I could teach you how to do some pretty cool tricks! I guess it all depends on what you like and what you're good at. Anyway, back to Brandon's birthday... we went out on friday and picked him up a gun and a scope and today I came home to an empty house. He took Lola (our lab) and went shooting. What he is shooting... this I do not know... hopefully nothing that he could get into trouble for.

My last thought of the day is this... This week I have learned that Heavenly Father will bless us in the ways that we need in our lives at that time. I would like to argue with him and say "NO I NEED THIS!" but I know that he knows what I need better than I know what I need. So I am grateful for the blessings that I do have and will keep praying for the righteous desire that we have not seemed to be blessed with yet. Anger about others being pregnant and not myself is a waste of energy when I could be using that same energy to be happy and excited for them and to serve others. I know that my Heavenly Father loves me and I know that I will one day have the blessing of being a mom, I just have to have faith, trust and patience.

Insulin Resistant Sugar Addict

2009-03-22T18:27:00.002-06:00

OK... so I am insulin resistant which means that my body doesn't use the sugar that it already has... it stores it as fat... basically my body doesn't know how to process it... which is a HUGE problem because I am addicted to sugar. I made "healthy cookies" today which really means that I replaced the butter with applesauce. Well I should of just eaten the applesauce and not made the cookies because I ate 8 good sized cookies!!! Can you believe it... 8!! Brandon was working on his homework and I was blog-hopping and just sat there and ate one cookie after another after another... etc etc etc. When I was walking out the door to take Lola on a quick potty run (she has to go outside or else she will pee on the floor and brandon gets REALLY upset if that happens!) Brandon walks out of the den and says "SWEETIE... I ONLY HAD TWO OF THOSE COOKIES AND THERE IS ONLY ONE LEFT!" Not only do I feel gross for eating 8 cookies... even though there was no fat in them (except in the chocolate chips)... I have now noticed my growing thighs and Brandon is starting to question my eating habits (as you can tell by the above statement). Oh husbands! I just love them so much! Just as much as I love sugar! What can I say... I am an addict. I guess I have started on the right path because what do they teach in AA?... that admitting you have a problem is the first step. Maybe since I have now broadcasted this to the entire blogging world you can all help me do better and give me tips and tricks of other fellow sugar addicts out there! I can't be the only one... or at least I hope not! So with summer coming and bathing suit season coming with it, it is really time to buckle down, work out more, and eat better! It's just that dang natural man tendency! Let me explain how it works... I can tell myself that I am not going to eat chocolate.. as soon as i see a piece my mind goes... CHOCOLATE!! CHOCOLATE!! I LOOOOVE CHOCOLATE... and then i cave in. So then it goes in cycles from there on out... I eat the chocolate.. feel guilty... eat chocolate to make myself not be sad about it anymore... and so it goes... like the pride cycle without the whole blessed/cursed thing. So here is my goal... to see if I can go an entire week without eating any candy, cakes, muffins, ice cream, candy bars at work, cookies, and chocolate chips ( i have bags and bags of them in my cupboard... what can I say.. the sugar addict finds good sales on sugar!). I will post next week and let you know how I did. I will need all of your prayers this week!

POLICIA

2009-03-20T11:54:00.002-06:00

So, this is just a fair warning (from Brandon). I have dubbed myself the official "enforcer of updating blogs" for people that don't update their blot frequently enough. And just in case you are wondering how often is frequently enough...it's about once a week. consider it kind of like a speeding ticket, only not quite. I am sure we have all heard of people getting pulled over for driving too slow, (at least in movies), well... if you don't update, you are going too slow. and no, we are not exempt, and if I am slacking, I expect you all to tell me how hypocritical I am being, then I will make up something to write about, and tell you the lame stories of stuff that happened throughout the week.

LOLA

2009-03-12T08:00:00.003-06:00

We got a PUPPY! She is a black lab mixed with golden retriever. She is all black with a little white patch on her chest. She is wonderful! Brandon even loves her... which says a lot!

Time Frame

2009-03-08T21:26:00.002-06:00

So we are thinking that we will be leaving on thursday afternoon (April 9th), we will stay overnight in Provo, then drive the rest of the way on friday. We arent exactly sure which day I will start, but it will be in april, so we might have time to make a couple small trips, but not the money to make a big one yet. I was offered a little bit less than we expected, but we are just glad to have a job with the economy the way it is. We are so happy that the Lord has blessed us with this opportunity.

Done Deal

2009-03-06T20:01:00.002-07:00

So, no more waiting. Were moving to California!!!

2009-03-06T11:17:00.004-07:00

so I (Brandon) get on the blog every now and again to see how everyone is doing, and occasionally I will post something, (but Megan has been doing most of it) but when nobody has posted it kind of rubs me the wrong way...I don't get mad or anything, but dang it!! if you're gonna have a blog, update it!! so I have been thinking that for a couple days, and I realized that we hadn't updated either. How lame am I. But in my defense... if you have seen a day in our lives recently, you have seen a couple months. Nothing much happens differently from week to week. We are in the middle of the process of receiving a job offer, which is very nerve racking, so we have been praying and reading our scriptures extra hard (if one can read hard, we are doing it!). This morning we went to the 6:45 session at the temple and enjoyed the experience there. (I bet we are the only ones in our little blog world that could comfortably go to that early of a session since we don't have to drive a couple hours to get there). But it was comforting to go, and we feel very confident about getting the job. Cautious but confident. My contact said that we should definitely know by monday, maybe today. They are doing the decision making today.
Ah, another different thing that happened recently... so there is a family near Rexburg that has 4 kids in wheelchairs. They hired a contractor to build them a house out in Hibbard (north west of Rexburg about 10 minutes). They got the concrete poured, walls framed up, roofed, sheathed (plywood on the outside), electrical HVAC and plumbing done, and drywall up mudded and taped. then... the contractor went bankrupt. So it has turned into somewhat of a extreme home makeover where most of the hard work was done. So on Saturday I went and trimmed out the house with a couple people from my classes, they had to leave at 1:00 and I stayed for a few more hours and finished up. We used up all of the wood that they had for us to use. But I tell you what... I never would have stayed if I knew how sore I was gonna be the next day. My legs were KILLING ME!!! stand up, kneel down, stand up, kneel down, stand up, kneel down, stand up, kneel down. etcetera, etcetera, etcetera. (copyrighted by "The King and I). But my legs ached for most of this week. It hurt to walk, stand up, stair especially sucked. Megan and I like to race from the car to the stair case, and she has been kicking my trash for the past few days. its almost like running when your leg is asleep, except its both legs. (go ahead try it, but make sure you have the video camera, cuz if its half as funny as it feels, it will have you rolling!!!) that reminds me of back home when I woke up one morning and habitually spun my body around swinging my legs over the side of the top bunk to jump to the floor. SPLAT!! It was off the side of the red bunk, I had done it so many times before and just never used my legs except to land... boy was I surprised. If anyone was there it would have been Greg, but I can't remember. oh boy, thats funny. do you ever laugh out loud even when nobody else is around? its weird, but I just did it.
another random story. So at the beginning of the semester, one of our friends at melaleuca gave us a baby orange tree because his wife didn't want it anymore. He grew/planted it in one of his classes. So we put it by the window to let it get some sun, and we put some miracle-gro slow release stuff in it... they are the size of nerds candy. A month went by and the tree didn't grow a bit. not even a millimeter. So I took matters into my own hands and crushed up those little stinking plant candies and dissolved them in water myself, then watered the plant with it. And by golly, it grew! it has grown about an inch in the past week and a half! The moral of the story is don't by miracle gro plant candy version of willy wonka nerds. crush 'em if you got 'em, but don't go buying them.
time for class..... gotta get.
but not yet....the weirdest thing just happened, i just posted this blog....and viewed it in a new window...and it ended up on someone elses blog.. haha, pass the salt was the title of it. want proof??? go here http://cup-of-sugar.blogspot.com/ do it quick, before they find out.

Tag

2009-02-21T08:25:00.003-07:00

8 favorite TV shows: (I've listed mine in no special order)
1 The Office
2 Biggest Loser
3 Dirty Jobs
4 Man vs Wild
5 the news
6 home makeover shows
7 cooking channel
8 how its made

8 things I did yesterday: (brandon)
1 washed the dishes
2 wrote a paper and powerpoint about philippine business environment
3 took my project management mid term
4 worked again on my philippine stuff at home
5 met with my business class group about the same project
6 worked some more on my project at home
7 picked up megan from work and picked up some groceries
8 made homemade pizza. hawaiian and bbq chicken. they were awesome!!

8 things I am looking forward to: (brandon)
1 getting a good job
2 moving to CA
3 adopting as soon as we get there (starting the process anyway)
4 getting dog (for megan)
5 building a boat (im really gonna do it!!!)
6 getting a pickup/truck
7 being close to family
8 getting a new table

8 favorite restaurants:
1 Anthonys Fish Gratto in San Diego
2 Wingers
3 Olive Garden
4 Sol Rio
5 Carrabbas (megan, NC)
6 Capital City Bistro (megan, NC)
7 megans diner/kitchen
8 corvette diner, san diego......cadillac grill, Jackson WY

8 things on my wish list:
1 baby
2 truck
3 boat plans, materials, tools
4 new audio system for the car (half of the speakers dont work right now)
5 take megan to europe
6 finish this semester with at least a C in my concrete class and my statics class (they are really hard classes!!! who knew that concrete could be so difficult and confusing)
7 have an eternal family (not in order)
8 a garage for my tools and space for a workshop

8 people I tag:
not gonna... its kind of like a chain letter or forwarding an email... it can be fun, but it can also be annoying when 13 of your friends send you the same one. so if you want to be tagged... consider yourself tagged, if not, then...thats boring.

One week down!

2009-02-20T22:30:00.003-07:00

So Brandon and I were talking about how fast this semester seems to be going because he only has SEVEN WEEKS of school left. That is just one month and three weeks! That is AMAZING! In turn that means that I only have 6 weeks of school left! Time fly's when your busy! We are still doing great and not much and we are just looking forward to the future. We just want everyone to know that we have been so blessed and that we are so grateful for everything that Heavenly Father has given us. We have a great company offering us a job when most people are wondering if they are going to be laid off or maybe even have been. I have a job that pays most of our bills and we have food on our table and a roof over our head. We have great families and friends and we have the gospel in our lives. Heavenly Father blesses us everyday and we would be ungrateful if we didn't tell everyone how grateful we are to be so blessed in these hard times. We are putting in our adoption papers! We have been wanting to do it for about 8 months now but our social worker with LDS family services counseled us to wait until we got to a permanent location... so we did. Now that we know we are moving to SO-CAL we contacted LDS family services in that area and got all the paperwork that we need to get the ball rolling. It's going to be expensive because our insurance doesn't cover any part of the adoption BUT once we get a baby it will have 100% insurance! If anyone has any good ideas to raise money send us a message so that we can find ways to pay for the adoption without having to take out a loan! If you know anyone that has an adoption blog send me the Link so I can get ideas for our adoption blog as well! THANKS! WE LOVE ALL OF YOU!

Pictures from Reno

2009-02-16T20:28:00.002-07:00

RENO

2009-02-16T20:14:00.002-07:00

Over Valentines weekend Brandon and I piled into our little nissan sentra with two other big guys in the backseat and headed down to Reno for a Job Fair that Brandon and the Guys were wanting to go to. Brandon found a killer deal online to get a really nice hotel for really cheap so the hotel was quite impressive. We left on friday and got to Reno at about 9 at night. We are unloading the car when Aaron (one of the two guys) realized that he did not have black shoes to wear with his suit the next day. So we get to our room drop our bags and head back out to find shoes. We drive around until we find a Wal-Mart and he gets a cheap pair of shoes. Then we went to Olive Garden where we were going to play the "it's his birthday" joke on Aaron. It was awesome! The brought him a nice big cake and they split it between the four of us... little did we know the joke was on US not on Aaron because our waiter gives us our bill and yep... you guessed it... we got charged 6 bucks for a cake that didn't even taste good. That was the most expensive joke we have ever played and will never play again. One of the weirdest parts of our trip actually occurred on the drive to Reno when we stopped so that I could use the restroom (also so that the guys could buy some snacks... it was their goal to buy snacks from every gas station). So we stop at this little shell station that had a tire shop to the side of it. Now you have to picture... we are in the middle of Nevada... there is NOTHING around... and so when we pull in I jump out the car really fast and a guy walks out and is like "Hey you gotta headlight out"... and he helps brandon fix it. Well i come out of the bathroom and the guy is looking at our tires with a flash light and inspecting them. He then tells brandon to back up into his shop so that he can lift the car to get a better look. Brandon proceeds to pull the car into this shell station in the middle of nowhere Nevada. The guy lifts the car and begins to explain to brandon that our tires are going to wear down at anytime and that we need to replace all of them. This whole time we are all looking at the tires and the guy is giving us these crazy eyes and he was swinging a wrench around and making phone calls about different tires in the shop. He proceeds to tell us that "them tires are dangerous and if you wont make it much further... you will NEVER (emphasis added) be able to make it." Brandon is like... hey man we gotta get going we aren't interested. The guys continues to tell us that we are going to die as we are pulling out... it was SO FREAKY... (probably one of the funny stories you had to be there for) So we did make it to Reno without changing our tires but it was my job to get them changed while the guys were at the Job Fair. Everything went great at the job fair and we are even more excited about working for CW Driver in April. After the job fair we hung out and went to a movie (Twilight... don't see it... the books are wayyy better) and enjoyed an evening together. Sunday we drove home... great Valentines day..... riiiiiiighhhhhht

The little things

2009-02-09T20:42:00.002-07:00

Today was an awesome day! Not just because I was able to go to work and make a good day's livin' but because I woke up next to the man that I love. We have set goal to be a lot more diligent at reading our scriptures and saying our prayers MORNING AND night! Morning's are the hardest for us because we love to sleep in and that leaves us little time to read scriptures together but it HAS to be done. So last night we talked about what exactly we were going to do to make reading our scriptures and saying prayers possible. So this morning Brandon woke me up with a kiss and I just had so much love for him and we were able to read our scriptures before class and work and start our day off on the right foot. My whole day went better and I was better able to handle everyone that I came in contact with. Brandon was so sweet and brought me dinner and is washing the dishes as I sit on my rear end and blog! He is such an amazing person and the longer we are married and the more I learn about him the more I love him. I used to think marriage had to be full of romance to be a happy marriage... now I realize it is just the "little things."

Aww Sugar, Sugar

2009-02-08T13:49:00.003-07:00

Okay so I need to preface this story with letting you know that Brandon and I both set goals this January to look smokin' hot by the time we moved down to California so we wanted to eat healthier and work out more. Working out... is the easy part! I love to bake and I love to bake treats for others. So yesterday I hosted a baby shower for one of my good friends and I made... 2 batches of cupcakes, rice krispy treats ( a HUGE pan of them) and muddy buddies (one of my all time... can't stop eating them... favorite desserts). So because I was baking them all Brandon was my official taste tester so he was full of sugar, just like me. We felt so gross after eating all those sweets so we went to THE BIGGEST LOSER website on nbc and re-motivated ourselves to live a healthier lifestyle. Now part of the process, we decided, was to get rid of all the goodies that we have in the house. We threw out everything that was causing us to eat so much sugar... even the sugar itself!!!! That was huge because sugar is a staple, but we figured that if it wasn't in the house then we wouldn't be tempted to make delicious treats! So on Sunday, at church a wonderful couple from the ward invites us to dinner. We accepted and said that we would be glad to bring something! Well... just our luck, she asked us to bring DESSERT! Because it is sunday, we can't just go to the store and we don't have anything at home to make treats with... it's all in the trash. Brandon suggested (don't worry I would NEVER do this) that we just take the sugar out of the bottom of the TRASH CAN! (but he was just kidding!). So here we are... dessert-less and all we can think to bring is... JELLO... with no fruit in it and no whip topping to go on top. I'll tell ya, never throw out the sugar!

2009-02-05T09:08:00.000-07:00

School, work and more School

2009-02-05T08:59:00.002-07:00

So Brandon is right in the middle of his last semester in college! I am STILL working as a Corporate Trainer for Melaleuca which is a great job but I am tired of working and am looking forward to being a MOMMY! Brandon and I were reading the Ensign together this past sunday and we were reading the article about adoption. Although the article is geared more towards those who are dealing with the birth mother and father side, we really felt the spirit strongly encourage us to pursue adoption. We have some fears and we have some doubts but just because we were prompted by the spirit doesn't mean that it is going to be easy, but it definitely means that it is worth it. My sister in law was adopted and she is so grateful that she was raised by a strong LDS family which is a shining example for me and brandon. Her parents definitely did a great job in making sure that they all understand what it means to be an eternal family know matter how your family came to be. I spoke with someone from LDS family services and they said that it would be better to start the process after we get to where we are going, most likely California. We will keep you updated about the progress that we make and the excitement that we have. For right now, we are just enjoying each day as it comes! Love you all!

People we Love!

2009-01-25T15:58:00.007-07:00

We were able to visit our greatest and truest friends while we went back to Brandon's parents for Christmas. Jake and Rachel let Brandon live with them over the summer while he did his internship and for this we owe them greatly! They have a new addition to their family which we haven't met in person yet, but we already love him so much! Jack is still in Rachel's tummy for the family picture but if you visit their blog they have some very cute pictures of him up. Cooper became one of Brandon's greatest friends while he lived with them and I am so grateful because it made Brandon want to have kids even more. Cooper got an Elmo for Christmas which he absolutely loves. It sings and dances and tells stories. I don't know how many times we heard the Elmo stories while we were there but Cooper never got tired of it! He is quite the entertainer (cooper... not elmo). When we first got there he was asleep and when he got up we figured it would take him a long time to warm up to us but after about 5 minutes he was hopping around and showing us everything he could do. He has gotten so big. We love Jake and Rachel and we have even gotten to know their families and love them just as much as our own. It is so wonderful to have such great family!

The Holidays

2009-01-11T12:08:00.004-07:00

B-Jo was hanging out after opening presents

The family spending time together christmas morning. We had a great time at the Hebdon's!

Tawney and Brayden were helping brandon cut the french fries for homemade fries! It was so cute. Brayden would put his bum on the top of the slicer and jump up and down until the fries were all cut. Tawney didn't weigh enough and so Brandon put her on it and tried to help her slice the potatoe but she didn't like that at all! She was content just watching.

The Holiday season started right after graduation for the Hebdon family. This is a picture of Tawney and Adena opening Tawney's present from Grandma and Grandpa Hebdon. Isn't she adorable?

Graduation Photos

2008-12-22T21:30:00.002-07:00

2008-12-22T21:26:00.002-07:00

Here is a picture of Brandon's Final. It is the Columbia River Temple and he did an awesome job!

BEING DONE

2008-12-13T22:33:00.002-07:00

Wow! We finally did it! We Graduated! It is a very exciting time for us as we start moving towards our future. Even though Brandon has one more semester he walked with me this past friday and it was SO COOL! We were one of 42 couples graduating together. We were so glad that family could be here with us to celebrate this wonderful time. I don't really know what I am going to do with so much time so I am posing a question to all of you... What is a cheap, fun hobby that I can do to keep me busy while Brandon goes to school and does homework? What are some books that you would recommend?

Well we hope to enjoy a calm and stress free holiday season! We love you all and Thank everyone that has helped us along our journey!

Graduating

2008-12-05T20:05:00.003-07:00

I just realized that in seven days i will no longer be a college student! On one hand it is so exciting to be done with school and on the other it is sad to think that from here on out I have to educate myself instead of having a teacher to be there guiding my thought process. I tried to teach myself to play the guitar one time and yeah... I sold my guitar if that tells you anything. It is crazy to think but I have been in school for 17 years now and it is finally coming to an end. I guess there is always the chance that I will go to law school... but that is far down the road.

I always thought that if I planned my life out perfectly that everything would fall right into place and my plan would take me right where I want to go. BOY was I WRONG. You know that country song that says "If you want to hear God laugh tell him your plans" well that is the truth! Here was my plan... go to BYUI for one more semester and then either transfer back to UNC or go to BYU-Hawaii. Either way it was to finish at another school, any other school, than BYUI. After that it was law school and while at law school I would meet a charming lawyer who would marry me and I would enjoy a life of luxury and ease with lots of children, lots and lots of children. Little did I know that the Lord has his own plans for me and they didn't include any other school except BYUI nor did it include waiting until law school to get married. I must say though I sure have a great catch as a husband, even if he isn't a lawyer and doesn't like talking to me for too long about all the political "stuff." He is still very charming (as most of you know) and he always keeps me laughing! Most of you who know me also know that we don't have any children yet, YET being the key word. We have been trying and trying and I have spent many hours praying to Heavenly Father about it but the longer I wait the more love I have for children and the thought of being a mother. I know Heavenly Father will make it happen when it is supposed to. Another country song says that The lord gives us mountains, so we can learn how to climb and that is exactly what I am doing, learning.

So with Graduation only seven days away my excitement grows! I'll keep you posted on how it goes :)

Recipe for Christmas All Year Long

2008-12-02T09:00:00.002-07:00

Take a heap of child-like wonder
That opens up our eyes
To the unexpected gifts in life—
Each day a sweet surprise.
Mix in fond appreciation
For the people whom we know;
Like festive Christmas candles,
Each one has a special glow.
Add some giggles and some laughter,
A dash of Christmas food,
(Amazing how a piece of pie
Improves our attitude!)
Stir it all with human kindness;
Wrap it up in love and peace,
Decorate with optimism, and
Our joy will never cease.
If we use this healthy recipe,
We know we will remember
To be in the Christmas spirit,
Even when it's not December

TURKEY RECIPE

2008-12-02T08:40:00.002-07:00

This is that great recipe for Turkey! Enjoy!
ngredients:Serves 10

Marinade:

1 1/2 cups Dijon mustard
3/4 cup soy sauce
3/4 cup fresh lemon juice (do not discard lemon rinds)
Turkey:

1 (15-pound) free-range turkey
2 bunches fresh poultry herbs
2 to 3 cups hot water
To make marinade: Combine ingredients in a bowl. Whisk until smooth and creamy.

To make turkey: Preheat oven to 350°.

Clean out cavity of the turkey and rinse well, inside and out. Pat dry and place turkey in a large roasting pan. Pour the marinade over the turkey.

Tie turkey legs together and cover tips with foil. Stuff cavity of turkey with lemon rinds and one bunch of poultry herbs. Place the second bunch of herbs in the roasting pan. Place turkey breast-side up in roasting pan. Insert thermometer in the thickest part of the breast. Cover with foil and roast for 2 hours.

After 2 hours, add hot water to the bottom of the pan. Stir to make gravy for basting. Baste turkey and cover with foil. Roast turkey another 30 minutes and repeat basting process. Continue basting every 15 minutes until the thermometer reaches 180–185°, approximately 3 to 4 hours.

Remove turkey from oven and place on cutting board. Cover turkey well with foil to keep warm. Let it rest 15 to 20 minutes before carving.

FIRST TIMER

2008-11-29T21:21:00.004-07:00

Okay,
So I (meg) feel really guilty because this is the very first time that I have written on our blog. In fact, this is the first time I have done ANYTHING on our blog. My wonderful husband has been doing such a good job, hasn't he?! Well we took some pictures and if you notice in one of them I am holding Mr. Boots, who was our kitten. We picked him up on a Tuesday, by Friday my face was swollen, my throat was itching, my eyes were watering, and ... you guessed it, I was allergic to my all time favorite kitten. Brandon took Bootsy to an adoption agency. I had to stay home because I was so sad. (I cried!) I never thought I would cry over a kitten but Mr. Boots just made me feel like a mommy! It was great! Brandon felt so bad so he promised that I can get a dog, that I am not allergic to, as soon as we get to California and move into a place. YAY for dogs! I have been researching some of the best ones so if anyone knows of any great ones, that don't shed, then let me know! So I am graduating on DECEMBER 12th! What a great thing! Not to down education but I am SO READY to be done. I am working as a Corporate Trainer right now for a company called Melaleuca. I love it! I have an interview with the same company that Brandon is planning on working for. They are interviewing me for an Human Resource Rep position, sounds great! I am really looking forward to moving to a REALLY WARM place. It's great because my sister Christian will be close. She is the greatest! She has three kids who are wonderful and is probably the second smartest person that I know. I only say second because my constitutional law teacher is the smartest man alive. We will also be closer to Greg and Adena and Adena's family which is so great because we can't wait to be able to spend more time with them. Brayden and Tawney are going to get SO SPOILED from their Aunt and Uncle. If we can't have kids we might as well spoil everyone else's! (That's my theory anyway, Brandon .... not so much) On Thanksgiving night Brandon and I kept my family tradition and went and saw a movie. It was great... and we were down in Idaho Falls so we decided to camp out at Target! we were second in line! It was crazy... Channel News 8 wanted to interview me because we had been there so long. Boy were we tired the next day.. we didn't have ANY SLEEP and I had to go to work! It was a KILLER day! Anyway we got lots of great movies AND all the seasons of The Office! Greatest show EVER! Going back to Thanksgiving... I made THE GREATEST TURKEY EVER! It was soooo moist... Brandon said it was the BEST turkey he ever had (no offense Mom Hebdon) so if anyone wants the recipe I will be glad to post it! Really... it was amazing... everyone should at least TRY it! Okay... you twisted my arm... I will post it! So good! Anyway... HAPPY HOLIDAYS!

2008-11-29T21:08:00.001-07:00

cat in the hat

2008-11-10T22:44:00.003-07:00

so, megan has been asking me if she can get a pet ever since she could talk...almost, and today she got one. Dont think that i am a great enough husband to get her one...because i didnt really want a pet...ever. but one of her friends from work is moving, and they have a 4 week old kitten that they needed to find a home for...so she volunteered, and i have no choice. but its not so bad, little kittens are kind of fun. Its the old ones that drive me nuts! all they do is sit around and take charge of stuff, as if they were the dominant species. I will add a picture later...his name is MR. BOOTS, because he is black and has white feet/paws. I would have called them socks...but megan says theyre boots, so theyre boots.

class

2008-11-04T21:14:00.005-07:00

here is something that i created in my Building Information Modelling class. (that means that you creat a complete model of a building with all of its components and run estimates for cost, schedule, and materials by using the information created in/by the model. cool hu? the bottome one is an enterior shot of the left side of the building...there is a glass floor that the stairs go up to. i guess its kinda hard to see.

I WANT YOU

2008-11-04T21:00:00.004-07:00

here are some funny text messages that went around today...voting day.

"due to the long lines, democrat voters are requested to vote tomorrow"

at 2:00 "initially it looks as though Obama has the vast majority of the votes...that will change in a couple hours when all of the...(im not being racist)...when all of the white people get off work."

a knock on republicans...but still funny "i will give ten dollars to all republicans who agree to vote tomorrow, that is double the rate that they were payed to just vote"

its almost over (sort of)

2008-11-04T20:27:00.003-07:00

Im not sure who all knows this, but I (brandon) have a pretty good job opportunity in Southern California, (LA area) that is probably going to be where we will end up for a while. I met the company at an information session that they did here on campus and after it was over, I talked to him (Gregg Riddle) about setting up an interview with him since I would not be able to make it to the career fair to chat with them. So he invited me and Megan to go to lunch with him the next day! The interview went very well and he is going to fly us down to see the company on Dec. 18th until the 21st. They are putting us up in a hotel and getting us a rental car as well. THATS COOL! My friend Gavin was the other candidate that they chose to go further in the interview process, and he just got back from his trip to see the company. He said that it was even better than what we had expected. He is expecting his offer this week (he graduates in Dec.) and I will be getting one shortly after our visit. The pay is great, projects are awesome (Universal Studios, and disney land, etc.) and to top it off...they pay 100% insurance.

So that is all exciting, another exciting thing is that we only have 5 weeks of school left, and it looks like my grades are going to make the mark. I had 2 As, 4Bs and 1 C, and since mid terms, i have bought that C up to a B. Graduation is on Dec. 12th and Megan and I will walk together. That will be cool. So if any of you want to come, let us know, we would love it if you were able to make it, but understand if you can't. I already got all of my classes registered for next semester, and I am set to graduate for real in April. Megan and I are excited for next semester because she wont have any classes and mine dont start until 9 and i am done at 4, which is basically her work hours, so we can actually have dinner together!! and we will see each other more that 1 or 2 hours a day. (that really is about what it has been) and my credit load will be significantly lower as well, i never would have though that i would say this...but i ONLY have 18.5 credits next semester. It is going to be a breeze. especially after this semester.

oh, and another thing, Adena, you will love this...LET IT SNOW, LET IT SNOW, LET IT SNOW. oh wait...no..NO! dont let it snow! but it is. its not sticking yet, but the weather outside is frightful...(is that corny? sorry) it has been quite nice until today. i guess we will see how bad it gets when we wake up tomorrow.

Weather

2008-10-15T08:48:00.002-06:00

So it snowed this past weekend, not as much as Brayden was playing in, and it did melt by noon, but on Sunday we got about a quarter inch! It has been super cold here in the mornings too, all frosty and stuff. Durring the day isnt so bad, but I wouldnt really know for sure becasue I'm not outside hardly at all because of class and workign on projects. We are taking mid-term exams this week and next week. We are excited that the semester is already half over. For me, the semester has gone by quickly so far, but Megan says that it has been so slow for her, she doesnt have her tuesday/thursday classes this week so she gets to relax a bit, so that is good since her semester seems slow. But either way, were half done! actually, I am in class right now waiting for everyone else to finish the test. It is my rendering class, (drawing perspective views of buildings) and he already graded my test...I got a 94%!! Yaya!

2008-10-09T18:01:00.003-06:00

WERE ALIVE!!

2008-10-06T19:43:00.003-06:00

well hello! so its been what??? 4 months. the only reason i know that is because every time i go to moms blog and see my name over on the right...it keeps telling me how boring i am. My boringness can be measured in months. It's not that I'm boring at a football game for 2 hours, or while we drive for even 10. But I am more than 2,976 hours boring. Can anyone beat that?? come on, I'm waiting, lay it on me.

anyway, school is long. taking 21.5 credits is quite possibly the thing i hate most in the word right now. well, that and all of those guys wearing skinny girl pants with their underpants hanging out, which of themselves don't quite cover everything that they should. who invented those pants anyway? they should be extinctified. so school, Monday Wednesday and Friday I have classes from 7:45 (not too bad) until . . . 5:30 (BAD!!) SOLID!!! i have no breaks. not even time to speed home for a sandwich. not even time to run to the food court for a sandwich! but its OK, Megan loves me and makes sandwiches for me to take. It is a tough semester though, and next semester i am gonna have 19.5 credits, so its gonna be just about the same bad(ness).

Megan however, is going to be completely, 100% done with school this coming December. she just got her work approved to count as an internship, so she doesn't even have to do anything extra for that. Yesterday she was in despair wondering how she was going to keep warm come Christmas time and beyond...then she turned to me, smiled and screamed...I DONT HAVE TO GO TO SCHOOL NEXT SEMESTER, I CAN STAY HOME!!! right she is...except for that job thing, which is inside as well. So she will be graduating in December. We were going to try to graduate together, but with her internship getting approved, she is jumping ahead of me. Good for her.

All in all we are doing great! were happy, healthy, and all of the good stuff.

2008-02-26T10:34:00.002-07:00

Brandon and Cooper! THEY ARE SO CUTE! Cooper is our best friend's baby. They are back in Seattle (too far away) I'm sure cooper is MUCH BIGGER now!

2008-02-26T10:30:00.001-07:00

Don't worry .... She's a stuffed beast!

2008-02-12T23:33:00.000-07:00

Arabian nights, and days

Ok, you got me. So this isn't a photo that we took, but Megan has been there.

2008-02-12T23:30:00.000-07:00

DAD!!! I FOUND YOUR BOAT!!!

2008-02-12T23:29:00.001-07:00

Bob the builder

Brandon at the place where he did his first internship.

The Rexburg Temple!

2008-02-12T23:27:00.000-07:00

IT'S SNOWING!!!

It may not seem like it, be we don't like the snow that much

2008-02-12T23:19:00.000-07:00

gaining experience. i just wish we would have taken pictures of us throwing the apples with our "apple atl" (an atl atl was an old weapon that flung an arrow, mostly just a stick throwing a stick)

2008-02-12T23:13:00.000-07:00

I wish you would step back from that ledge my friend