Hawaii

There is something hard about coming home from vacation

Especially after seeing so many amazing sunsets










I have seen so many new remarkable things










Experiencing a piece of history

Then there was the beach

And the sunrise

A small amount of hard work...for someone else that is

TONS of Waterfalls

Good bye Hawaii, and Thank you for the good times!

Happy October

In honor of the month that give us the only holiday...or one of the few holidays where I can dress up and feel confident with my decision to act like a child, that brings the warmth of hot chocolate back to our lips...unless you drink it all year round (mmm...yummy!), and reminds us why we planted pumpkins in the garden even though they took over EVERYTHING I have a video to share.

Video compliments of these two darlings. Thanks chicas! I am glad to see the self made mullet has grown out some since this picture was taken on the first day of school. Don't worry though, they haven't grown into those backpacks quite yet.

Utah State Fair!

I love the state fair! It is pure entertainment. You get to take all sorts of cool pictures like these:

Then there is the food:
A bit of real BBQ

The Fried goodness a snickers bar in fact:

Then there are the animals. I am not a huge animal person but when it comes to the state fair I get super excited about them.

If any one knows why the sheep are wearing coats I would like to know!

The piglets kept fighting or playing who knows whay they were doing.

And then there are the cows and they only ever show their best side.

Of course the section with the dressed up squash is always a favorite as well. Lets face it is you are going to dress up a veggie it might as well be a squash

Or a Gourd
Or maybe a Potato

Then of course what would the state fair be with out some really men dressed in costume

Who doesn't want to be a robot? (his line was WAY too long to wait in so I took a picture of him with this guy.)

Here is the one that concerns me...for some reason this guy had no line and let me take like 5 pictures of him shifting with the light.

That's right folks he is dressed up as a bottle of shampoo. Wow. Definately a confident person under there!

Well there you have it. That is the state fair in a nut shell. I realize this is a month late but better later then never.

Oh p.s. did I mention that I saw Boyz II Men? hmm...must of slipped my mind. I wouldn't want any of you to judge me after all.

When life gives you Lemons...

The old adage has never seemed more applicable in my life! First of all a follow up to my last blog...Santa did bring me jumper cables. It seemed a little less humorous then I meant for them to be considering I was in the hospital at the time and my life had just received a "jump start". I did however pen a new phrase which I hope someday to become a quotable adage "when life tries to kill you, have jumper cables on hand." Okay it seemed funny at the time.

So here is what happened in a brief-

I fell while snowboarding directly onto my abdomen (and just in case any of the medical personal who questioned me constantly- NO I DIDN'T HIT MY HEAD.) I had a joyous toboggan ride down the hill, and then an ambulance ride to the hospital. How was it you ask? Strap yourself down to the hardest piece of none pliable material you can find and start stabbing nails into your stomach oh and position yourself so your head is the lowest part of your body. You get the idea.

At the hospital I get scanned and they see a bleed and go in for my spleen. Luckily from this point on I was drugged. While digging out my spleen they discover it is actually fine and the problem is a 15 lb tumor just chillin' with my Pancreas. To bad they already removed Steve*(*means see the PS below to understand why I am referring to my spleen as Steve) After a touch and go day of fluids, more then a dozen blood and plasma transfusions (good thing I was sedated) they did another emergency surgery to remove the tumor. It was amazing how my body decided it could stabilize with out its 15lb nemesis.

Recover has been hard too, but at least it isn’t life threatening. I did get an infection which caused my doc to open me back up partially and not close me so I am now experiencing a wound V.A.C. If possible I recommend avoiding this opportunity, because it is a slow but effective healing process.

The plus side to all of this is I have watched more movies and TV shows then I ever have before. Not to mention actually getting sleep. Who knew I was missing out on that!

I can't give enough gratitude to all the people who have stuck by me through EVERYTHING. It has been one of the hardest challenges of my life, but it has been rewarding. My reward came in the form of flowers, cards, movies, Christmas carols and most importantly visits. It amazes me the community of people that have come to see me. From my dear friends who came almost daily to coworkers (who I know had better things to do for their holidays), many relatives and neighbors even my contractor came to see me. I am honored to know such amazing people. I have realized that I need to take the opportunity to reach out to more people and help them feel the same kind of love and support I have felt. Our world is so full of suffering and pain. It is so easy to get caught up in your own hardships. I tell you though, you do make a difference. I can remember every face that came to the hospital. I spent hours looking at each vase of flowers; they comforted me during some long hard nights. I still take time each week to look at the cards and notes of encouragement.

Here is what I learned-

When life gives you lemons or tumors, take a look around and realize life also gives us plenty of sweet for making lemonade. You just have to look a little harder to see it when you are so focused on the sour or pain.

*P.S. if you do ever visit my house please please don't over look my new coffee table reading material entitled Steve the Spleen written and Illustrated by Tyler. Hopefully one of these days we can add another book called Terence the Tumor, but until then...

Dear Santa or other generous backer or sugar daddy, whoever,

I have broken down my list of needs and wants accordingly please don't disappoint me.


I NEED jumper cables because apparently I am incapable of turning my light off in my car. Since I am not able to change my behavior it is vital that I get the gift of jumper cables to offset my future stupidity


I WANT a robot that shovels snow. Do they even make these? I promise though I would share him with my senior citizen neighbors just as long as my drive way gets done with out me having to get up an extra 20 minutes early.


I NEED slip covers for my down stairs couches. Now I realized you think this isn't a need but remember how I ever so KINDLY let my room mate have a cat even though I swore no pets EVER? Well that generosity has led me to NEED couch covers. I know I know I only paid 20 dollars per hotel couch and that one slip cover will be worth more then all four couches combined. Just think how pretty my basement would finally look with them.


I WANT my own direct highway that will lead me everywhere I need to go. Preferably one that will get me to my lessons in Riverton on time. I realize the building of said highway may create a little back up for at least a few months so I propose we build during the summer when I don't drive out to Riverton twice a week so I will not be negatively affected by my own Christmas gift.


I NEED new materials for my ipod. Looking back on the year I have been particularly decent at being frugal. I have ALMOST completely cut out my spending that go towards entertainment such as movies and cds and mp3 books. Due to my faithfully frugal nature I NEED new ipod tunes or I will be insane by the end of 2010.


I WANT peace on Earth and Goodwill to all! After all it is Christmas and the world should be a happier place.


Now off to finish my Christmas shopping!

I stole instead of of thanked...

How did I get to this point? That is right, I stole something this weekend. In my defense...I didn't mean too and it was completely accidental. Maybe they will let me off easy. Lets review the weekend to figure out where it went wrong.


Thanksgiving= Good.
Turkey=Good.
Movie with roommate=Good.
Black Friday= DIDN'T HAPPEN

I think I see the problem.



Here is the story...I didn't go black Friday shopping, instead I went out for the 3 day sales on Saturday. I found myself in a happy place called ikea. In said happy place all reason walked out the door. My motor skills were still mostly functioning correctly as my mouth kept blabbing and my hand kept grabbing. I love Ikea. It is a truly happy place...oh yeah, the story. So you know when you get to the end and there are like 4 real checkout and approximately 400 self check outs? Well I should never ever use self check out. You ask why? Let me explain:

1. I get a panic attack every time the stupid this makes a noise.

2. There is always at least 1 item that will take me 2 minutes to scan which makes me start sweating profusely and makes the scanning process harder.

3. I am paranoid the people in line behind me will start chanting slow poke or something mean like that.

Then newly added reason:

4. They increase the odds that I will steal in my life time.

So I am checking myself out at the self scanner trying desperately to hurry but of course it is ikea and I don't want to buy a bag so I am trying to stack my stuff correctly as I scan it so I can carry it out like a pack mule instead of in a sack like a normal person. So I cut a corner...I know I am buying 4 count them 1,2,3,4 throw pillows. Since I was buying 4 throw pillows I instead of scanning each individual pillow cover I just scanned one four times. It saved tons of time.

When I got home I happily started putting my throw pillows together which I did have 4 of, but some how I ended up with 5 pillow cases. I double and triple checked my receipt and had only definitely only paid for 4 covers. I only needed four. But my over active deal grabbers and my lack of reason brain apparently couldn't do four in the pillow section. So blame it on whoever let this brain dead girl in that store but I stole extra pillow case.

The happy ending- I did go in and returned my stolen item and it went like this.
Sue- "I accidentally stole this and I want to return it to you"
Sales Associate- (laughing, laughing and more laughing)
Sue-"umm...I am so so sorry I didn't mean to" (starts to walk away maybe they will forget I ever spoke)
Sales Associate- (Still laughing) Hollers "Want me to have security follow you around this time?" (More laughing)
Sue- head hung in shame and mortification
Meanwhile the sales associate has all his coworkers rolling around on the floor laughing about the girl who stole.
Sue- Perks up as she goes for round 2 of ikea shopping. Though the sounds of laughter continue to ring through Ikea today, I am the proud owner of 4 beautiful throw pillow and 0 stolen items.

Now I know not to ever miss black Friday shopping again. It makes me do crazy things when I don't shop with the insane.

Pot Luck and Mass Chaos all in the same small moment in life...

Who likes pot lucks? Seriously? Don't lie. Either you do or you don't.


Some times you have good experiences sometimes you have bad ones. The person that you are is built on how straight a face you can hold while eating someone elses home made mayonnaise salad while telling them how delicious you think it is.


We had a pot luck at work a few weeks ago. It was one of THOSE potlucks. seriously, who doesn't put out a sign up sheet for a pot luck? In fact I hope who ever created the idea of the pot luck sign up sheet gets a Nobel peace prize for ending Chaos at company functions everywhere. Here is what happened at the no sign up sheet pot luck... 10 bags of tortilla chips, 2 bag of potato chips, 3 green salads which were luckily all different (Asian, Cesar, and olive garden varieties), 1 relish tray, 1 cheese ball, and 8 chip dips 5 or which were in fact different forms of salsa.


So the appalled pot luck guru's decided we needed a do over thus planning another company pot luck. This time not only did it have a sign up sheet it had a theme! WHAT??? Move over all you poor potluck planners our potluck is Themed. What was the theme you may be wondering about now...CHILI.

*Please note we are not actually eating chili peppers but chili the soup

Okay so the theme may be a little weak, but it could have been a no sign up sheet pot luck. Maybe I will come up with a catch phrase for the Chili themed pot luck.

Now the telling moment of this blog...did the Chili themed pot luck have a less disastrous demise then the no sign up sheet pot luck? I will let you be the judge.


Here is what we had:


BREAD BOWLS FRITO CHIPS CORN BREAD

With a little sour cream and cheese topping on the side and a few cookies for dessert.

I can't even remember the chili because I was so concerned about what to eat it with, but if you ask me it beats out no sign up sheet day any day.

Next time I will be in charge...theme Mass Chaos in the key of Blue. That would sure throw them all for a loop. That is right every one start pulling out your food coloring.