18 months old yeah...

Here is the latest picture of Kate.. 18 months old, she now goes to nursery hooray... and she actually loves it hooray again.

High school reunion

Those who went to high school with me... I just found out that our 10 yr reunion is on June 28...
You can click on the Mountain View site to the right or here for more details.

Bed of Roses or bed of nails?

So most of you know that Ryan teaches 3rd grade.. well they had a science assembly and did a demonstration of Ryan lying down on a bed of nails, then they placed another bed of nails on top of him. After that they put a cinder block on top of him, then they broke the cinder block with a sledge hammer. Crazy huh.... I would have been totally freaked out, but he said it didn't hurt at all... anyway here are some of the pictures.

Condo for sale.... anyone, anyone?

We are selling our condo if anyone is looking!

3 Beds
2 Baths
3rd floor
Granite Counters
Knotty alder cabinets
Vaulted ceilings
Water softener
etc...

Flashback Friday.... The summer Slaves... and the Green bowl!

There they are folks your two victims. Yes the two sisters Mandy and Rachel Free (at the time) got suckered into a "wonderful summer spent with the Walkers"... Job description:

"Come have a great time with the Walkers at their summer home there will be light pillow fluffing, an occasional dog walking, and when needed, help entertaining guests."

there was no side note stating that we would be working over 100 hours a week and only getting paid $200 a week. Oh and the pillow fluffing was a twice a day thing, put them out on the porch in the morning and take them back in at night, not to mention that when it rains you must take them in and the second it stops put them back out. We're not talking one or two pillows we're talking 3 decks worth.....anyway, the dog walking, that was every 3 hours because heaven forbid little modelle get cabin fever, and the guests well that was the whole summer non-stop it would become a novel if I wrote the details of that.

Summer of 1996 Mandy and Rachel decide it would be a neat adventure to take this job. It started at the Walkers home in Washington, Connecticut at this estate on 50 acres which was located on Hinkle rd. named after Dr. Hinckle that lived and died there.
Dr. Hinkle decided to have a pet cemetary and also had a poem written for him after he was to be cremated...So we (switching from 3rd person) started and the freaky hinkle house then moved after a month to the "SUMMER HOME" in the Adirondak mts. near Lake Placid, New York. (I do have to say that if we weren't under the circumstances that we were these places were truly beautiful and I would love to visit them again just not as a peon.)

Upon arriving in New York, we were in the process of unpacking dishes, food, clothes, etc...and we came upon a green bowl. Mandy started to put it away and both Julia and Carter stopped her and said "ahhh girls, you might want to put that in the dishwasher and let it run through a few cycles" so we asked why and they basically just said trust us on this one. So for the majority of our time there we just left the bowl in the dishwasher cuz we were all afraid of what had been in it. I'll get back to this subject later.

In New York we were busy night and day with an occasional break to go for a swim in a river or hiking in the area, but we were always on call in case they needed us.

Their meals consisted of Breakfast: the table was set the night before, and the coffee ready to be turned on, they had a cantelope wedge, blueberries, and cereal or eggs. Lunch: a sandwich, or fruit in a bowl with cottage cheese, 2 cookies and a drink. They sometimes wanted to eat at the table inside, or when the weather was nice they ate outside on the patio. Dinner: we always opened the bar so they could have a drink, and there was always something out of the Martha Stewart cookbook that they had to have or try. along with sorbet for dessert. Dinner was always served with wine, and there was a specific way that you were to serve the food to them and a specific way to pick the plate back up.

I apologize if this is boring, Mandy might enjoy it though, and it is super fun for me to reminisce.

On a particular occasion, Carter or "Pansy" we liked to call him behind his back, came in after we had just put the pillows out and cleaned up breakfast, and said"ahhh girls, (as he always began his sentences) " for my lunch I would like a nice bowl of assorted fruit arranged neatly with some cottage cheese on top, and I would like to eat it on the patio."


That particular day we had HAD it with him, so I was bugged and started to get the fruit out and cut it up while Mandy disappeared around the corner then said "how bout this bowl?"We both busted out laughing and couldn't stop because she had pulled out the Green Bowl to put his fruit in. We were laughing the whole time as we arranged the fruit nice and neatly and dished the cottage cheese in so carefully. The time came for us to take it out and I made Mandy do it, she said that when she handed it to him his eyes just popped open and he was speechless. Ahhh what a beautiful moment that must have been. We laughed all through lunch cuz we totally felt we got him back for all of his dumb stuff he had done to us. it was great.
When we went to clean up lunch he said "ahhh, girls next time can I have my fruit on a plate so that i don't have to DIG for it... ?" and of course we just said sure...Julia his wife was pointing a finger at him and laughing. I think it was a great moment for us all.

We survived and I have to say that as horrible as it was at times, I would never have traded that experience with Mandy for anything!
We were going through a hard time with our family that summer, my parents got divorced while we were gone and I think it was just the right thing for us to be able to be together and support each other, we laughed a lot cuz if we didn't we probably would have cried. Sisters are great!

And there you have it, sorry I got long winded

Frustration in Photographs

We got our family pictures taken a few days ago and were able to look at a few of the shots he was getting, I can tell that I'm going to be disappointed when we get them back....not because of the photographer but I hated how I did my hair, I felt like this poor woman...trying to smile, but looking more confused , I kept blinking when he took the picture, and basically needing to just start over...Kate wouldn't cooperate so we were all in just random positions, and they were just blah... nothing exciting, so we will have to try that again with a different strategy. Even though Kate was a "pumpkin" during the process I think we got a couple of good ones of her for her 18 month pictures.... Anyway... what can you do try again I guess.

First Haircut.

No more mullet... mommy gave me my first haircut (besides a bang trim here and there)

DDR...."The HOTTEST Party!!!"

So we got Dance dance revolution (DDR) for the wii and have been doing it every night. Now I am so competitive with myself that I do it when Kate is napping and I've been trying to beat my scores and it is so exciting when I do. The good thing is that I'm getting exercise the sad thing is that I'm basically getting really good at a skill that is pretty much only useful in an arcade. oh well i guess i could keep up with the teenagers at trafalga right?

So the obsession is getting so bad that last night I dreamed about arrows going up the screen and that is all i dreamed about. yikes! Anyway I guess it's just a phase but truthfully I'm really loving it, good purchase...

Dancing kate

here's Kate dancing on the table it's not a great picture but it was really dark so that's the best I could do on picasa.

Dramatic Kate

Here's Kate Dancing at the later mentioned educational sing-a-long. Very dramatic, it sort of reminds me of My cousin Ashley's dancing while I'm singing God bless America.

Educational concert night.

The other night Ryan, Kate and I went to the Orem Library for the education sing-a-long concert put on by Deerfields very own Mr. Felt. Ryan works with him and he invited us to come. It was so cool, he teaches using music and the kids love it. he kind of has a Jack Johnson sound to his music but he writes about punctuation, and reading and monkeys etc.... The cutest part was that Kate was dancing the whole time on the table, she loved it.

"CHEEEESE"

This is Kate's latest picture taking face. It is so funny, she can be full on crying then you pull out a camera and she totally cheeses it. I love it.

Snowboarding and flashbacking

I had so much fun this Friday, and I guess you could call it a flashback because I haven't snowboarded in over 7 years and my friend Katie and I went and it was so much fun! Surprisingly we did pretty good for not having gone for a while I guess it's like riding a bike. The weather was so beautiful that I got hot wearing just a jacket, it was t-shirt weather truly euphoric. But I think the best part was just being able to not have responsibilities and just having fun with friends. I am so sore today though. When I got home I had an hour or so before Kate came back with Ryan and I had the house to myself, I cleaned and it stayed clean, I showered then read my book!!! it was great! thanks Mandy for watching Kate.

Anyway as a flashback I remember some fun times snowboarding with friends. one in particular was with my cousin Ashley and Yvonne ( a friend of hers) we decided to go find a random place to camp the night before then get up and go snowboarding the next day. We just drove up Provo canyon and I think it was a place on the way to squaw peak that we pulled off and slept in the car then got up-bad breath and all- and went snowboarding at Sundance. We thought we were pretty cool being all "natural" and everything. I had a fun life growing up, Not too many regrets.