4th photo in 4th folder in 4th folder

This is a tag where you go to your pictures folder and select the 4th folder. Within that folder, you select the 4th picture and post it online. Well, my organization of my photos required that I selected the 4th folder one extra time. So I went to 2005 (the 4th folder in my photos), then to Aug (the 4th folder in 2005) and this is the 4th photo that I found:


This is the San Antonio temple. I went to visit my my friend Ede who was having back surgery in San Antonio, and to visit my ex-in-laws (they were not ex at the time) who live in San Antonio. I decided to take a detour through a really fancy area of San Antonio to see the temple. I took lots of pictures and this is just one of them. I did fix it up in photoshop of course, and I cropped it a little. I hope that is not against the rules of the tag.

Well, now I get to tag some people. They are:
Booklogged
Katie
Candleman
Framed
Cassie
Julie

It's an easy tag to do, so I hope you will all participate. :)

Independence Day

I went home for the 4th of July and had a great time. We had the annual barbeque at my parent's house and about 35 people attended (from both sides of the family). After the fireworks, we decided to have some fun with my parents camera and take some cool sparkler pictures. Here are a few of the pics that turned out.

Kristi and Ronnie

Me, Cassie, and Katie

Then we decided to try and see what it would look like if we used a long shutter speed when moving around a neon necklace. The camera wouldn't focus on the necklace, so in an attempt to get a shot, I put my face inside the necklace so the camera would focus. Cassie hit the shutter button, and I moved back and started moving the necklace around. The results were awesome, and we spent half an hour taking alien pictures, that's what I called them for lack of a better name.

Me

Katie

Cassie

Jeff

Brinli

Eric

Hope everyone else had a wonderful Independence Day weekend!!

May and June Recap

Sorry these are kind of late...especially the May one. These two month can be summed up as busy.

1. Go to school
2. Go to work
3. Do homework
4. Repeat

That's about it. I did go home to visit my family the first weekend in May, I went to a friend's wedding in Idaho in June, and I went out to dinner and to see Laughing Stock with Cassie for her birthday, also in June. Jenny, John, and the kids came out to attend Megan's dance competition at Lagoon in May. They stayed with me, but I had to work the whole weekend, so I saw them very little while they were here. My friend, Denise, had her baby, Alexandra Mae, on June 10th, and she is such a cutie. I'm going to take some pics of her with my parent's camera (which I stole for 2 weeks...with permission), so I'll post a few of those when I get a chance. I think that's really all that has happened in the last two months.

Car Woes

I decided it was time to visit my family this weekend; since I hadn't been home since Christmas. On Friday, after I got off work, I drove home. My car has been acting a little funny, and the people at Les Schwab told me that I needed to get the sub-frame (or engine cradle depending on the mechanic) replaced. I was told it would cost $1500-$2000 to get it fixed. Since my car was not worth that amount, I decided to not get it fixed. I didn't think it was too bad, so I thought I should just start looking for a new car. I was used to the weird way it would jerk every once in a while, and I was able to compensate for this strange jerking motion when it happened.

On Saturday evening, Kristi and I ran to the store and she was terrified by my car. She suggested that I should have Nate look at it. We stopped by Nate's house and his conclusion was, "You're not driving this back to Salt Lake". Oh brother!!

I spent Saturday night and Sunday deliberating about what to do. Nate found the part I needed online for $381. I still wasn't sure if I was going to fix it, or try to find a cheap car to buy. On Monday morning (I took Monday off work before I went home), I went to the junk yard to see if I could get the part used. Hallelujah, they could get it for me for $250 (btw, they called the part the K-frame). Only problem, I was suppose to be back at work on Tuesday, but the part is scheduled to be delivered on Wednesday. I called in to work and told them I would be missing work on Tuesday and Wednesday, but that I should be back on Thursday. I hope that my part actually arrives tomorrow and that Nate can replace it for me. And...I'm really hoping this fix will keep my car going for a couple more years. Everybody cross your fingers for me!!

April In Review

Highlights:
April 19: My friend Denise had her baby shower. It was a lot of fun, and Lavynder (the host) had a lot of fun games planned. I won the word search game and got some good smelling Bath & Body Works products.

April 25-26: Park City Digital Scrapbooking Retreat. This was so much fun and definitely that best part of my month. Read more about the retreat in the previous post.

April 29: Took my Physics final and finished school for the Spring semester. There's more about this in the previous post as well.

Wow! I felt like I was so busy this month, but there aren't really very many highlights. I hope I haven't missed anything. Mostly I was just working, studying, and getting ready for the retreat. Work is going good so far. I like it for the most part, but not so much that I'm excited to go to work or anything. :)

Books read/Listened to:
Bartimaeus Trilogy: The Amulet of Samarkand by Jonathan Stroud
Bartimaeus Trilogy: The Golem's Eye by Jonathan Stroud
The History of Love by Nicole Krauss

Scrapping Retreat & Finals Finished

I know that it is the last day of April, and tomorrow I will be posting the April in review, but I still wanted to announce that I took my last final yesterday!! I actually had my Physics final and my Physics Lab final yesterday. They both went well, and I know I have a B for sure in that class...it might be a B+, but we'll see.

On the Physics final we had to answer 10 out of 12 questions; our choice of the 10 to answer. I had to laugh at the las question which was: No doubt you have really studied a concept that didn't appear on this test. Make up a question about this concept and answer it. I thought it was really nice of her to give us a freebie. I decided to make my question about equivalent resistance, and after class I found out that my friend did equivalent capacitance.

The other thing I wanted to mention was the Digital Scrapbooking Retreat this past weekend. Digital Scrapbook Memories hosted this event at the Marriott in Park City. A few months ago, April, the owner of DSM, contacted me about teaching at the retreat. Of course I said yes because the deal included not having to pay to go to the retreat. I wanted to go so bad, but couldn't afford it, so this was perfect.

I got a little stressed out trying to finish all my projects while working and going to school, but it was all worth it. I had so much fun! I arrived on Friday at 3:30 and checked into my hotel room. Talk about an amazing room! Here's a picture of half of the room; there are actually two beds in the room, and yes that's a down comforter.


I spent the next two hours painting recipe boxes for one of my classes. April helped me paint, and we had a wonderful conversation. It was really fun getting to know April better.

Cassie came up to be my roommate and she was able to go to the classes as well. She arrived just before the classes started...that's her knee in the bottom corner of the picture above.

After classes on Friday night, a group of us stayed up in the Lobby until 1:00am. Quick note: many of the people at the retreat are active members on the DSM message boards, so we know each other pretty well. I have met some of the girls before this weekend, but this was the first time meeting others. After the late party in the lobby, Cassie and I headed back to our room and ended up talking until 2:00am.

I had to teach the first class in the morning on Saturday, so I called for a 6:00am wake up call. The wake-up call was unnecessary, because I woke up at 5:00am...wide awake! What was up with that?

At 8:00am I had my first class; a bonus class on decorating recipe boxes. You can go to this link to get a template and instructions. My second and third class were both for matchbook albums. It was split into two classes, one for beginners, and one for more advanced digital scrappers. You can go to this link to get the template and instructions for this project. And, in case you were wondering what they looked like:


The retreat ended around 6:30 on Saturday, and I headed home...exhausted. It was such a fun weekend and I am so glad that I went. I wish I would have had more time to hang out with Cassie and to chit chat with my DSM friends, but I did enjoy every minute of the retreat!! Here's a picture of the whole group.

Fours

I was tagged to do this meme by my friend Kelli. I also received this (or something similar to this) as an e-mail from Katie & Kristi, so I figured I better do it already. I'm not going to tag anyone. If you want to do this meme, feel free!

4 Jobs I have had
Air Force - F-15 Avionics Technician
DOD - Contracting Squadron receptionist
Forest Service - Program Support
Staples - Copy & Print Center

4 movies I could watch over and over
Pride and Prejudice
Emperor's New Groove
The Lord of the Rings: Fellowship of the Ring
Empire Records

4 places I have been
Italy
Germany
Tijuana
Saudi Arabia

4 places I have lived
Lakenheath Village, UK
Wichita Falls, TX
Salt Lake City, UT
Goldsboro, NC

4 tv programs I watch
Chuck
Heroes
Lost
Take Home Handyman (I love Andrew Dan-Jumbo)

4 radio shows I listen to
104.5
92.3
X96
Hmm, there is another, but I don't remember the actual station numbers...it's #3 on my program buttons

4 favorite foods
Pizza
Brownie Fudge Sundaes
Thanksgiving Dinner
Pancakes

4 places I'd rather be
Visiting my family
Traveling
Visiting friends
Somewhere warmer

Hawaii Chair on Ellen

Oh my goodness!! I haven't laughed this hard in a long time. You have to see this...

March In Review

I'm 30!! I guess that's the big news for March. I lot more happened this month than in February.

Highlights:
March 4: My parents decided to come visit me on their way home from Arizona. They took me out to McGrath's for a birthday dinner (we invited my friend Denise to come along) and stayed the night. It was really nice getting to visit with them and see them for my birthday.

March 5: My birthday!! I decided to skip class since it was my birthday. Dad went and picked Grandma up from Aunt Carol's house and then came back. We all visited for about half and hour before they headed home.

I went out for 20 minutes to pay my rent and pick up some lunch. When I got home there was a cake and balloons on the counter. I was a little freaked out that someone was able to get into my apartment when I wasn't home, but not too freaked out since I figured the "intruder" was Cassie. The cake was beautifully decorated and Cassie's the only person I know that decorates cakes so wonderfully. I decided to take a picture of the cake before lighting the candles and pushing play on the tape player sitting next to the cake (these were the directions on the cake). In my delay to follow the directions, I started thinking, "what if someone is still here". I glanced through the apartment briefly and almost went back to the living room when I heard someone's keys. That's when I found Cassie in the spare room. I kind of ruined the idea she was going for, but I was still surprised and it was a great birthday present...and the cake was delicious!! You can read more about it at Cassie's blog. (Cake count: 1)

That night Cassie and I went to a digital scrapbooking get-together with some of the girls from the DSM forums. The plan was to work on our own individual projects while chit-chatting, etc... Well, I got no digital scrapbooking done, but it was a lot of fun getting to know some of the girls better. They even had a cake there for me, and sent me home with a quarter of the cake. (Cake count: 2)

I received a lot of birthday wishes too!
Phone calls: Denise, Jason, Kellie, Kristi, Ronnie, Ede, Julie, and Jen and family.
Texts: Tori, Daryl, Naomi, and Mike
E-mails: Katie and Matt
MySpace message: Randa

It was a good birthday, and I'm surprisingly okay with being 30.

March 7: My friend Denise invited me over for a slumber party (no, we are not too old for that). We stayed up late and most of the time just watched The Office. I've always heard great things about The Office, but had never watched it before. I have to say that it is hilarious!! I will definitely be tuning in from now on. Denise and Lavynder made me a cake for my birthday. (Cake count: 3) They tried to send the left overs home with me, but I conveniently forgot it.

March 8: Went out with Cassie and my friend Kellie. We went out to eat at California Pizza Kitchen (excellent Hawaiian pizza) and went to Laughing Stock. Laughing Stock was hilarious, even though our favorites weren't there.

March 10-14: Spring Break...a woo-hoo!! Actually, I spent the week concentrating my efforts on finding a job. Filled out a bunch of applications and only got one call back. Job interview scheduled for the 19th at Office Depot.

March 19: Got another call-back for an interview at Staples. I was offered this job, and decided to take it. I didn't go to the Office Depot job interview because they couldn't really offer me something better.

March 21: Started my job at Staples...its Easy (get it?). I'm working in the Copy and Print center on the evening shift, part time. I will definitely be continuing my job search, but this job should do for now.

March 28-30: Julie and Cassie came up to stay with me for another cousin's weekend (I've lost count of how many we've had now). We went to Red Robin on Friday and Julie treated me as my birthday present. It was definitely our most lazy cousin's weekend yet. We hung out, talked a lot, and watched movies/tv. It was nice though to just be able to relax. I think Julie appreciated the relaxation the most because she has been so busy with life lately.

Books read/Listened to:
Inkspell by Conelia Funke

February In Review

Well, nothing too exciting happened in February, but I'll still go over a few of the things that happened.

Highlights:
Katie moved home so I'm back to living on my own. I miss Katie, but I'm enjoying not having a roommate again.

I decided to drop my Chemistry class. I now only have Physics this semester.

I am currently looking for a job...if anyone has any good jobs they know about, I'm all ears.

I took my friend Kellie out to dinner for her birthday and we went to see a movie. It was nice catching up with Kellie again. It's been a couple of months since we have had a chance to hang out.

Books read/Listened to:
The Thief Lord by Cornelia Funke
Angels and Demons by Dan Brown
Princess Academy by Shannon Hale

Movies watched in Theater:
Jumper