Calling all TAPP'ers

We had our first Annual TAPP (Ted and Pat's Posterity). For those of you who don't know thats our family reunion. We decided to hit up Roosevelt lake and do a little camping and boating. Everyone was there and we had a great time! It will probably be the last time we do anything with all of us for a long time since Preston leaves on his mission in August. We stayed all weekend. Buddy and Trisha brought their boats so everyone took a turn. We did a variety of sports from Wake Boarding, Wake surfing, Skiing, Tubing, and swimming. Even Chloe and Max jumped on the board. Tyson and Kim's kids aren't that comfortable around water yet so they didn't enjoy it as much. Hopefully they will warm up to it before next year so that they can have a little fun. Her are some pics from the weekend in backwards order. I always forget that they upload backwards!

Here is Trisha & Chloe, Sarah and Max
Dallin Being Cool. He celebrated is 15th Birthday on the lake! It doesn't get better than that!

Preston taking a corner. Buddy's new boat sure threw you out of the wake at top speeds.

My favorite pic of the weekend! Lindsey and Trisha FLYING. Lindsey landed this but got throw off minutes later. I don't think Trisha EVER got thrown off.

Okay this one TIES for first in the favorite pic category. HAHA. Poor mom!! Look at the face of terror!! Dad is enjoying every second of it though.

Max is quite the boatman. He loved helping out and driving the boat.

I took a nap up front only to wake up to a Chloe napping next to me. I must make a good pillow.

As we were driving the boat down to the dock Max pretended to be driving.

Annie PASSED out around the camp fire! That doesn't look comfortable but she played hard all day.

Brynn and Chloe had never been snipe hunting so everyone went on a hunt. Chloe was SOOO dissapointed to not catch one. Maybe next time. ;)

Buddy and Max surfing. I can't believe Chloe and Max are brave enough to jump on there with him. Buddy is a pro to be able to hold them.

Chloe is quite the Singer. She was so dramatic when she would sing. She kept asking if we could sing John Mayer songs. She may be his youngest fan. Adorable.

I told her to make a funny face and this is what she came up with. She MAY need to work on that just a little bit.

Max passed out the first day before we even hit the lake. He sleeps under the steering wheel. Wouldn't that be kinda creepy to wake up on a boat?

To open up the festivities Mom, Dad, Dallin, and Preston worked up a little skit to explain what TAPP was. It was quite the entertainment! This is them "driving" to TAPP.

Dallin and I were in charge of breakfast so we cooked up Chorizo and Egg Burritos. I asked him to buy eggs, He showed up with 5 dozen! LOL. Way to be prepared brother! ;0)

I have never actually had meat all packaged up like this! I thought it was only in the movies. It was fun.

Yep it did rain on us a but saturday morning. It cleared up by the afternoon and we were able to head back out on the lake.

So that was the trip! It was a lot of fun and I can't wait for next year. I wish I had more pictures of Tyson and Kim and their kids on the boat but we were never on the same boat! Oh well!

Top 10 Reasons Men Prefer Guns Over Women.

The Top Ten Reasons Men Prefer Guns Over Women
10.You can trade an old 44 for a new 22.
# 9. You can keep one gun at home and have another for when you're on the road.
# 8 . If you admire a friend's gun and tell him so, he will probably let you try it out a few times.
# 7. Your primary gun doesn't mind if you keep another gun for a backup.
# 6. Your gun will stay with you even if you run out of ammo .
# 5. A gun doesn't take up a lot of closet space.
# 4. Guns function normally every day of the month .
# 3. A gun doesn't ask, "Do these new grips make me look fat?"
# 2. A gun doesn't mind if you go to sleep after you use it.
And the number one reason a gun is favored over a woman .



# 1. YOU CAN BUY A SILENCER FOR A GUN .

TOMBSTONE

Okay, I was out with a boy a few weeks ago and he found out I have never watched Tombstone. He actually made fun of me for having never watched it. I couldn't believe it. Apparently its a big deal in the movie world because I haven't met another person who has never seen it. SOOOOO, the nice boy that he is, he came over last night and insisted that I watch it. Here is my take on the movie. A. Was the mural of the naked lady in the background necessary? Was it necessary to have her there for a good 10 minutes? Awkward! B. GREAT cast! Maybe thats what makes it so popular. C. I like how they NEVER run out of bullets. Its not that they never run out either but they never have to reload the rounds! haha. D. (warning. If you have never seen the show don't read this next part because I AM going to talk about the ending.) I was upset at the ending, until it was explained to me. I couldn't believe that Wyatt Earp ran off and hooked up with the actress. I was ticked that he didn't go find his wife. It was explained to me that she died. How convenient for him. E. I would have been bored being a lady back then. They just sit home and chill all day. No thank you.

All in all it was a great movie that I would watch again. Doc Holiday was stupendous. He had so many great little lines. Is there anyone out there that hasn't seen this? Does anyone even read my blog to answer this question? Probably not.

LOST

What an interesting night! A group of us decided to go out to Oracle to go through the Peppersauce/mud caves. Good idea right? We thought we would have a little good, CLEAN fun. Well it turned out being quite the adventure, but a fun one! We parked at where we "thought" we were supposed to and where the caves where. We started walking, and walking, and walking. After about 3/4 of a mile someone says, I have been here before and we didn't walk this far. GREAT. Kruz and Josh run back to get the truck. At somepoint Casey had wandered off and we didn't know where he was. GREAT. We all loaded up in the truck and headed further up the road. The girls say ummm...Shouldn't we look for Casey? The boys say... .NAH I am sure he is there by now. He knows what he is doing. So after we had gone another half mile up the road we said, So you boys think casey came this far up and let us all go in the wrong direction? No, so Zach hopped out of the truck and ran back to find him.GREAT. Why didn't we all go back to find him we? Now there are 2 of them out there. They ended up meeting us at the cave so no big deal but as girls, we naturally worried. Inside the caves was LOTS of fun. It was Damp and dark. Lots of mud and dirt. There were plenty of small spaces to crawl through. The hard thing about caves is you have to watch your footing because it is so unstable, but at the same time you have to watch your head because rocks pop out of nowhere! So exciting. I banged my knee on something and tried to take out a wall with my shoulder. It was all worth it though. The coolest part was when there was a rope that you had to use to drop down about 10 feet. The walls and floor were covered in mud so it made everything slippery. I don't know how I got back up but it was a thrill. I wish I could have got a picture of this but my hands were too muddy to get my camera out. In another hole was a ladder that was bolted into the wall. It went down about 12 steps and there was a huge pool of water at the bottom. Really cool. In one of the caverns we stopped to rest. We turned off all the lights and took advantage of the acoustics in the room. Julie has such a beautiful voice. I would like to speak to the talent department because I am ticked that I didn't get her talent. Its amazing how a song can bring the spirit into a wet, damp, dark cave. On the way out of the cave we got lost! There were arrows pointing in which direction to go but there were so many ways to go and arrows going everywhere. We were going around in circle for a bit. We stopped and said a prayer and somehow found our way out. It was well after midnight! We walked back to the car and changed clothes. I brought a bunch of extra shorts and T-shirts just incase someone didn't think about that. Luckily I did because noone but Jakeb thought to bring anything. It was weird seeing all these girls, and boys walking around in my clothes. lol. We were supposed to be home at 11 but didn't get home till after 3. GREAT. It was worth it though! :) Here are some pics from the trip.

Josh and his KILLER socks.

Everyone preparing to take off walking in the WRONG direction.

Our version of see no evil, hear no evil, speak no evil.

This is just amazing! How did she do that face?!?!

We played a faces game on our way up the mountain. GREAT

Mary Ellen, Mern, and Julie excited for the adventure.

Just climbing along.

The ladder that went down to the pool.

This is how Julie and I roll. LOL.

This part was hard! It was very narrow and the floor slopped down and was covered in mud.

This was me first entering the cave.

We finally got out! It was great to have some fresh air.

Ponder this....

Is this the secret to life?

Believe you will, and act as if its happened.

There is so much to think about in that quote! WOW.

BAd DaY?

Well I am kinda having a bad day today. Don't worry, I will live. Lindsey says it is because Mercury is in retrograde. Whatever the reason is things have just been crappy lately. I don't know if they have really been that way, or if I just have a glass half empty mentality. I am sure things will look up soon.

Today, however, I did have a HUGE breakthrough. We went out to lunch and I didn't leave with our lunch number card thing. :) Those of you who know "The Real Mern" know what i am talking about. ;0) Thank you sir! Hopefully this is going to start a new life for me.

Also this past weekend up in Eagar I fell in LOVE!! Yahoo! It finally happened. His name is Jake. Not to be confused with ex-boyfriend Jake. :) We had a great time together hiking and watching movies and cuddling on the couch. He actually lives in Thatcher but was just visiting for the weekend. I was sad to see him go and will hopefully visit him soon. Here is our first picture taken together.

Eagar was a fun trip. Preston and his GF Alyssa were there. Preston had to work at Safeway so Alyssa and I went on a drive up to Greer to see the ducks and the ponds. We also drove to Greer lakes and then on down to South Fork. We decided to get out and hike a bit in South Fork. I was in flip flop wedge sandel things. Today my butt is REALLY sore so I think I should go hiking in those more often! LOL. Alyssa is a sweetie pie and I hope that she waits for Preston to come back from his mission. That is the plan but things always change right? Preston got his mission call!! He is going to Birmingham Alabama. He is excited because he didn't want to go foreign and he didn't want to learn spanish. He leaves August 12th! That is so soon!! I am excited for him though.

As promised....

My sort of best friend the wooden doll. Many, Many months ago, maybe even a few years ago, I was at my favorite store at the time, Ikea. Side note: I should probably write a blog about Ikea sometime because there are many wonderful things to be said about it. Anyway, there, in a bin, was a collection of wooden art dolls. You know the ones but here is what they are...
They looked fun and were cheap so I picked up 2 and dragged them to work to take up space on my desk. I rummaged through my desk and found a black marker and lovingly placed a M on the base of 1 doll and a F on the base of the other. What great fun my co-workers had with these. Each morning I would come into work and my doll friends would be in different poses. Some appropriate, some not so appropriate. The fun part was the rule stating I was NOT allowed to touch or rearrange the dolls in any way shape or form. So until someone decided they wanted to fix them they would stay in their current pose. Make sense? This went on for a long time until something happened. One of my good friends Jon was getting moved across the building into a different room! Instead of shedding tears and missing each other I simply gave him one of the dolls to put on his desk to remember me by. He chose the female, go figure. Sometimes I would go visit his doll and he would come visit mine. Jon left the company just under 2 years ago and he passed the doll onto someone else. I see it every now and then on some strangers desk and long to go over and give it a high five but that would seem weird to the stranger who now owns it! They don't know that her and I go way back. So that's the story of how the dolls got started and where the female has ended up, just collecting dust on a shelf...

The male however is quite the story. He has become a cross dressing party animal. One day he grabbed a margarita off a cupcake and hasn't put it down since. He fast ran out of drink and luckily we had some ketchup around to fill it up. Since that day he has not been without his ketchup margarita.

On Valentines day he received a heart. I guess someone decided he had been heartless long enough. If you look closely you can see it peeking out from under his dress.

Cube mate BEN likes to shake my cube up every now and then. He will grab the wall that is attached to my shelf and shake it. He will laugh wickedly as male tumbles over SO male had to be "protected" with a Easter egg hard hat. Luckily it was Easter and we had one lying around or he would probably have suffered death by concussion by now.

Male is advancing in the world and now has clothes. I was sick of looking at him so I put him behind my computer out of sight. Manager walks by and says "Mern, where is your doll thing" I explain what I had done and why and she said "Well maybe you just need to give her a new dress." Apparently she hadn't seen the M on the base marking it as male. So I think to myself, "Self, that isn't such a bad idea." I get to work right away and come up with the masterpiece that he is now wearing. The new dress IS just what he needed and he is back from hiding from behind the computer ready to party and help me through my day.

This is the story of M and F. I hope to have many more adventures with M in the future.

Shrek, Denzel and Beyonce

Shrek, Denzel Washington, and Beyonce' were all having lunch
together.

Shrek said, "I have always thought that I'm the strongest man in the
World, but how can I be sure"

Denzel Washington said, "I'm pretty sure I'm the hottest man alive
but I've never had it confirmed."

Beyonce' agreed. "I'm told I'm the sexiest of them all, but sometimes
I wonder."

They all decided that the best way to find out if their beliefs were
true was to approach the wicked Queen's mirror to confirm for them
whether Shrek was strongest, Denzel Washington was the hottest, and
Beyonce' was the sexiest.

They agreed to meet again the next day for lunch to discuss their
findings.

The next day Shrek walked up with a smile. "Well, it's true. The
Mirror told me that I am the strongest man in the world."

Denzel Washington walked in and boasted, "It's true, I am the hottest
Man in the world."

Beyonce walked in, with tears in her eyes and asked, "Who the heck Is Mary Ann Haws?

Flirting

Remember the good ol days of high school flirting? The days when you would stick 100 suckers on someones car and say "I am a sucker for you". Or stay up all night and go fork their lawn? I miss those days!

What are some things like this you did in high school?

MI MADRE

I have been blessed to have the GREATEST mother. I have read a few blogs about a few other moms and the whole time reading I thought yep thats my mom, oh my mom does that too, oh my mom mastered that too! So I have come to the conclusion that since my mom is made up of applause worthy talents of ALL the other moms she is 100% the best. Here is a little photo that has been hiding in my photo bucket on my phone waiting for just the right day to be brought forth... I think today is that day....

She was always there to lift me up after a bad day, or go to battle for me when it was too much for me to handle. Many times I would forget my Violin music, my work clothes, or my art project and she would drop all the cleaning and preparing she was doing (for me) at rush it down to me. She was always there at school plays, teachers meetings, graduations, and birthdays.

She has a strong faith in God and has not only taught me principles to follow but been a great example of them as well.

She always makes my trips home so comfortable! Clean sheets on the bed, Fresh vegetables in the fridge, and a huge hug when I walk in the door. These are the little things that make visiting her so much fun. BUT lets not forget reruns of 'That Girl', Trips to the Gym, Grocery shopping, and chips and salsa dinners. :)

I love you MOM!!!

Slow Down...Time is a flyin...

BLOG update per the request of NATALIE. Here are a few things that have been going down. I am still looking for the pause button on this remote for my life. I haven't found it yet but will continue to look!

The weather here is VERY nice in the evenings but VERY hot in the day. The other evening Lindsey and I went and got dinner and sat outside and ate it. It was fun. When we were almost done Mom and Karen showed up. Mom was in town to watch Tyson and Kim's kids while they went on a cruise and Karen was just along for the week to visit her Mom

Zach is Teaching me to play Tennis. Let me say it is harder than it looks!! I kept hitting the ball WAY to hard and it would go over the fence. I told zach they should make the fences higher and he said that the point is to hit the ball low.... LOL I think I did good for my first time though and should be to the olympics in no time. For all you racqetball fans out there, TENNIS IS MUCH HARDER.

Tyson graduated from Grand Canyon University last weekend! CONGRATULATIONS BROTHER. Last time he graduated I graduated with him. :( ANYWAY... Mom, Lindsey and I rode the light rail there. It was a first time for all of us. The ride was quite enjoyable. MOM almost got left at the station though! The doors started closing right after Lindsey and I walked on. Oh no wait, she almost got left because she was taking the picture below. Thanks mom for the candid shot! :)
The graduation was fun! We sat with his wife Kim and her mother. It was weird that they sold hot dogs and ice cream at the graduation. I felt like I was at a baseball game, only it was really boring...so the same as a baseball game. ;)

Time for a truck??

Truck shopping STEP 1. Today after work I am going to check out the credit union to see what I can get approved for!!! ahhhh...

I think I have decided on a Dodge Ram 4X4

Check it out. $8500 for that bad boy.

MERN LIKEY

Tailgate EXTRAVAGANZA

The other day I was telling my team about a DELICIOUS recipe that I like to make. Mamma D says, "Mern, You should bring it in!" So I did. We decided to celebrate Cinco De Mayo a little early. That is the 5th of May for those of you who don't speak Spanish ;). It turned out very well and everyone like it.

This is what it looks like inside my work. SOOO exciting.

This is my burrito

Erin and Ben. He is kinda creepy.

Dina and Lara. Poor Lara sits behind me. She sees me more than my mom does. See creepy Ben lurking...

So that was our lunch today. OH we called it Tailgate because you have those BEFORE a game and our meal was BEFORE Cinco De Mayo. Now the moment you all are waiting for.... The recipe right?

Mexican crockpot chicken

3 chicken breast

1 can black beans

1 can chili beans

1 can diced tomatoes

1 can green chili

1 packet taco seasoning

Put chicken in bottom of crock pot. add ingredients in order listed. cook on low 7-8 hours. take out chicken, shred and return to pot.

Enjoy as burrito or over chips or salad. Let me know if you like it! >:)

QUESTION FOR TODAY

If you keep achieving all your dreams, what on earth are you going to dream about?!?!

LIKE NEW..... almost.

Well, Yesterday I did something I have been wanting to do for a long time. I WASHED MY CAR. Thats right, I washed it. Not at a car wash, not at a drive thru car wash, but at my house. I got the bucket, the sponge, the water, car soap, car wax, interior shiner, and a microfiber cloth. Holy crap it was a work out and the sun felt great! You know how when people get a make-over they do a before and after shot? Well you guessed it, BIANCA got a make-over, so naturally we needed before and after shots. I think she looks GRRRREAT. Note: she is for sale so if you like, please feel free to purchase. :)

BEFORE.

CLOSE UP.

AFTER

So its not PERFECT but it looks pretty dang good. I also shined up the rims and took a Q-tip to the vents. It was like a Bianca spa day. Now...about MY spa day.... hmmm.... yeah thats not happening.

If you need a good distraction I would recommend washing your car. Its kind of theraputic and it feels good driving around in a clean whip.

I met an Angel.

[ANNIE]Yesterday was plain awful
[WARBUCKS]You can say that again
[ANNIE]Yesterday was plain awful
[WARBUCKS]But that's
[ANNIE]Not now
[WARBUCKS AND ANNIE]That's then

This explains my day yesterday! Plain awful! You know those days when everything is building and building and at the end it just all clashes together in what you feel at the time is the storm of the century and nothing will every be in its right place again. I can just see my bestie Meagan B. reading this and shaking her said saying "yep" "uh hu" and then saying "aw poor mern" Don't worry Meagan, you don't have to poor Mern me BECAUSE I met an Angel at the end of it all. :) I want to focus on the part of the song that says "BUT thats not now, thats then!!!" I really met an angel, at walmart of all places! He was a random old scary guy that I wanted to run from at first. I am glad I didn't though because he said EXACTLY what I needed to hear. The only way he could have known that is if he was an angel. If I would have run away from the "scary" situation I never would have felt the peace that my father in heaven was trying to give me. He reminded me that I am a Daughter of God and he loves me. He is mindful of Mern and her retarded problems of self doubt. This life isn't going to be easy and dissapointments happen, but only to help us grow. I am glad to be a better person today than I was yesterday. Being perfect is the goal, but it takes day by day to get there. Now in looking for those Annie lyrics I found the following picture and it made me ROFL so I had to include it....

Lucky for me the sun did come up today and its going to be a great day! As grandpa would say

IT'S A GREAT DAY FOR THE RACE! THE HUMAN RACE.