not 300 anymore

Okay whitney.I get it. You are tired or stalking me and getting no results. I guess I should post something. But the question is what? For so long my blog has been a play by play. Merns travels. Its fun and I don't regret it but I think I need a little more emotion and thought on here. A little more depth. I don't have a computer at home and don't feel comfortable bloggin from work anymore so I will need to figure something else out. I am doing this from my phone and it's like the text message that NEVER ends. Imagine that. I hope all you peeps are well. I still read your blogs and sent warmth and happiness your way! MUAH!!

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300th post! WOW

I miss the days of cookie parties. I was reading about my cousin Mal at college and her cookie parties and random parties with boys. sigh. those were the days. So what am I going to do about it? Have a cookie party! Invite random people over and have a good time, just not this week. This week is too busy. :)

Camping @ Big Lake on Labor Day

Almost heaven....

ummm....

Just checkin out the fire. haha.

wait, are we wearing matching underroo's? why yes, yes we are. haha

Going on a ride looking for some good fallen wood.

Dallin has a new hobby. Photography. He is really good at it and just scored some BLUE ribbons at the state fair. Well he wanted to get some good shots of my truck going through the puddles. I think he was positioned a little too close to that puddle. haha.

Mom and Dad! HUGS

Just beautiful

Enjoying the camp fire.

i know why i feel jipped.

its just a normal day at the mall. your walking through the hallways either on a mission for the perfect camel colored jacket for fall or just sauntering through looking at whatever catches your eye. all of a sudden you are bombarded by a sales person! eek! you know the ones. they ask you how your day was or compliment your shirt. ones you respond you are done. they want you to try their product. the product that you shouldn't live another day on this earth without. how could you possibly have lasted your life this long without it!???
have you ever bought something from them? i know i have. you know what? i kinda felt jipped. was it a bad product? no. was it a fair price? mostly. but it was how they got me. like it was one of those games at the carnival. the ones that look so fun but is rigged that there is little chance you can win. you know the product at that carnival game is crap because they stand there begging people to play, and people do for some strange reason. they play knowing they are giving their money away. so kiosks at the mall might be more successful if they weren't begging like a carni.

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Camping in Payson on Labor Day

Jakeb, Zach, and Travis put together a camping trip at the Tonto Recreational area over labor day. Christi and I stopped for the night on our way to big lake. There were a few other peeps there but I didn't know them. It was fun.

Cuddle to stay warm!

more thumbs up for good camping. yes her bed completely deflated in the night but oh well, my cot never lost its air. haha.
In the morning Jakeb made a grand breakfast that fueled us for another fun filled day at big lake with my family.

Camping on MT. Lemon

Jenalee moved to Tucson for a job. She loves it and wanted us to come visit and meet her new boy. :) We did a little camping on Mt. Lemon and then helped with a stake service project.

Christ, Cornel, Jenalee, Juliann

A horney toad! I remember catching these when we were little! When I say we I mean my brothers. I would never touch them. ew. This one is just a little baby!


Cornel would get closer to it than we would.

we are so goofy and thats what makes us so fun.

take one wrong step and off the cliff you go.

Such a pretty makeout point. I mean look out. It's at a girls camp so just a lookout.

I love my feet. they take me so many great places.

Happy Birthday Brynn-O

Trisha threw a great party for Brynns GOLDEN birthday. :) Robert put together an amazing video of all Brynn's closest friends. It was legit.

Mern, Antonio, Jilario, Nic, Robert

I talked the partiers into playing the bag game. It was EPIC. haha

Good memories.

JOHN MAYER

We had so much fun going to John Mayer. It has never been a secret that Sister-In-Law Sara would leave Buddy in a heart beat for John Mayer... haha jk.... but seriously.... she just might..

Here she is with her ticket.

Trisha and Brynn went to. They ended up ditching their seats and sitting with us in some empty seats.

Lindsey and Robin were sitting on the lawn. So we were all there but in different places!

Owl city opened for them. They are not so good in concert. They had some seriously ridiculous dance moves.

not joking this picture is not planned. She was seriously screaming like that when John hit the stage. haha.

He is just so beautiful.

Oh I wish I was that guitar....

Did I say that out loud???

2 thumbs WAY WAY up for a good show.

Cricket Pavillion in the middle of August makes for a HOT show. A really really hot show. But as you can see it didn't effect our enthusiasm! :)

Camping and fish hatchery

A group of the coolest kids in the valley got together for a small one night camping trip up to Tonto Recreation area. We stayed the night and the next day headed to the fish hatchery and then to box canyon.

Matt, Jakeb, Josh, Whitney, Amy

Matt, Jakeb, Cash, Ashley, Josh, Whitney, Amy

So many fish! They had food fore sale for a quarter. You could feed the fish! Fun for kids.

As you went up the hill to the different ponds the fish got smaller and smaller.

Cash dominated some fish.

okay so they were already out here dead but so cute right?

Suicidal fish. RIP.

JAKEB. Don't touch the fish.

Didn't get any pictures of box canyon. Mern, water, and camera's don't mix so better safe than sorry. :) Very cool spot though. Didn't get to explore as much as I would have liked but I can't wait to go back!

VIOLIN LESSONS

I am LOOOOOOVING my lessons. I was taught so incredibly wrong growing up. well maybe I wasn't taught wrong but I wasn't taught right either. I hold my violin wrong, my thumb is in the wrong place. my bow hand has amazing skill that I never knew it had because I wasn't holding my bow right! grrrr. so now I get to re-train myself. what fun. I have much to work on. I am doing scales and learning how to play in 2nd and 3rd position. I was never able to in school because our orchestra was so small that we had 1 girl who played all of that stuff and I got stuck with the 2nd and 3rd violin pieces. Those were the easy easy ones. I never complained though because that meant less practicing for me. SCORE. So things I am working on this week

1. Holding my bow correctly
2. Keeping my thumb lower on the kneck
3. Bringing the thumb along to 2nd and 3rd position
4. G and D scales

The half hour lesson FLEW by. I couldn't believe it. My teacher, Christi Porter is amazing. She is a teacher for a middle school and a ton of fun. I also loves that she compliments my musical ability a million times in a lesson. She better since I am paying her to. haha

peace.

And we're off!!!

Labor Day weekend. Yippee... Labor day means camping. It has for the last many years. In fact I met my first boyfriend on a camping trip over labor day weekend. Lets see if this weekend can meet that high standard!



Tonight I am headed to Payson to camp with some friends. There should be about 20 of us there so I am really excited. I don't think I will pitch my tent but just sleep in the back of my truck. Saturday morning I will hop up and head up to THE REAL GODS COUNTRY. (yes Chuck I am talking to you. Pima is second best.) Mom and Pops and little brother are going to be waiting for me to head up to Big Lake to chop down some timber trees. Gotta stock up for the winter right? I want to learn how to use a chain saw this weekend. Maybe I will make a deal with pops. I will do your grunt work of moving the logs into the truck if you will teach me how to massacre a tree. Deal?

Just things on my mind.

HI HI HI! I have missed blogging!! I haven't because things are pretty intense at work right now. I want to make sure I am doing the things that I should be doing, (and I don't have a computer at home.) Lots of changes. Hopefully for the better!! They are changing our performance evaluation process but they haven't said exactly what we will be graded on, just what we won't. So we are all in limbo and things are completely different than they were when I was hired 4.5 years ago.

The past few weeks have been good. I have done some camping, crafting, cleaning, practicing, laughing, enjoying, and running.

I was pondering about my Grandma haws the other day and her life and how amazing she was. Everytime I went to visit her she was cleaning, baking for someone in the ward, canning, pulling weeds, reading her scriptures, quilting, knitting. She was always in the service and it hit me that the things she actually enjoyed doing were things that she should be doing. Things that helped her progress and help others. Thats where I need to get with my life. Now don't get me wrong, I enjoy doing these sort of things but I also enjoy watching movies for hours on a saturday. I enjoy reading books that have no meaning other than to entertain me. It's these types of activites that I choose to do most often and I need to work harder at aligning myself with the path that my grandmother chose. As I write this I reflect on my mother as well and she is the same way! Always serving, always reading and studying and working and progressing. Sure she watches tv in the morning but its a morning scripture study through BYU. It's information on current political issues. I have been epicly blessed in my life to be surrounded by amazing women to teach me the way that I should be.

This says it just about right.

So we live out in our old van
Travel all across this land
Me and you
We'll end up hand in hand
Somewhere down on the sand
Just me and you
Just as free
Free as we'll ever be
Just as free
Free as we'll ever be
Drive until the city lights
Dissolve into a country sky
Just me and you
Lay underneath the harvest moon
Do all the things that lovers do
Just me and you
Just as free
Free as we'll ever be
Just as free
Free as we'll ever beand ever be
No we don't have a lot of money
No we don't have a lot of money
No we don't have a lot of money
All we need is love
We're free as we'll ever be
Just as free
Free as we'll ever be
So we live in our old van
Travel all across this land
Me and you

East Mesa Institute

Yep. I have started it up again. It's been a journey. Institute is interesting. The goal is to never miss a week*. Ever. In my adult life I have NEVER completed an entire institute class. sad right? Not even when attending Eastern Arizona. It was too easy to sleep in, nap, lay around, play. sigh. so many fun things to do in those days.
So this is it. My first one. I will complete it.


* I will however have to miss if I ever go watch one of little brothers football games. They are only on Thursday night and seeing him sack a few is very important to me as well. :)

El Rey Cafe

A few weeks ago we crawled into a magical white box on wheels and went to globe for dinner. Why you ask? Because we can. And because it was half way for us and our buddy Chuck. I have been wanting to check out a mexican place there for a while so this was the perfect opportunity. El Rey Cafe. I have heard it is amazing. and it is, if you like butter and cheese. Lakes of butter and mountains of cheese. it rains butter and cheese in this place. never in my wildest dreams, no make that nightmares have I thought of making mexican more fattening than it already is!! WOW. ANYWAY......

Little miss hottie midget killian, Mern, Clinton

The sunset. Isn't arizona amazing? All the colors and palm trees? I love it. My favorite sunsets are in Arizona and Mexico.

Did you know there is NOTHING to do in Globe? Well take this as your warning.....

August

Where were you last year at this time? August. One year ago. If you think back on it, I bet you will remember the activities you were doing and think, WOWWW that doesn’t seem like that long ago. I can’t believe it has been a year already. That’s what happened to me today. I was reading back on my blog for August 2009. That was fun to do and makes me grateful that I keep this blog. It’s not everything I want it to be, but its more than nothing. So looking back to last year and looking forward to next year I wonder where I will be. What I will accomplish in the next year. What will be my success and failures. I have some goals, and a few different strategies. With a little luck, and a whole lot of prayers, and just a spoonful of sugar, all will be well. :)

The big surprise

Wellll.... I have decided to do it....

I once played the violin.

I played it for 9 years.

I haven't picked it up in 6.

If I never pick it up again I will have thrown away 9 years of practice.

So I have been looking into private lessons, community orchestras, etc.

In church, when singing hymns, I practice getting familiar with what finger is put on what string for that note.

I thought I had forgotten, but I haven't.

I am eager to work on my talents again.

Freedom

I am ready for it.

I love the feeling of freedom, and i love the feeling of being in control. This is a problem in the mornings when I drive in to work with the windows down. The curly hairs on my head are free, and I am not in control of them.

Camping this weekend. I bought a little grill to go over the fire. Then i bought raspberry pepperjack chicken hotdogs. They sound epic. then Bacon. pancakes. eggs. cobbler. Does anyone else love camping just for the food?? mmmm

I also bought a frisbee. and glowsticks but not the hammock that I wanted. We leave at 4 and 4 can't come fast enough.

I love my Grandpa

I have the coolest grandpa in the entire world. Just the name Earl Jensen sounds like greatness!