Looking back...

I don't know if anyone else has realized (probably not because it doesn't affect any of you) but if I would have gotten to stay out on my mission, I would have came home this past week. One of the Sisters I was in the MTC with emailed me telling me that she was home from her mission. It makes me think of what I have done since I have been back. So here is my list:
1. Had knee surgery and was on crutches for 6 weeks
2. Went back to my job at West Valley for the 4th time (they must really love me)
3. Got to be here when my grandma died
4.Got engaged
5. Went to my first family reunion (which was for Casey's family)
6. Got married
7. Moved to Arizona
8. Moved back to Idaho
9. Got my job back at West Valley for the 5th time.

10. Enjoying my life

Even though I really do wish that I had gotten to stay out on my mission, and even though it was a devastating thing to be sent home and told they don't want you to come back. I wouldn't change it, I probably wouldn't be married to my husband right now if I would have stayed out, and I love my husband so obviously God knows what he is doing even when we don't. I am glad for the challenges and the trials I have been faced with in the past 1 1/2 years I think they have made me a stronger person for going through them.

For Everything there is a time and a Season....

Well it's been awhile since I last blogged about anything. We are still living at my parents house, there are now 8 of us that live there so it is a little cramped quaters but it seems to be working out okay. Wendi moved in until she moves to Spokane, she has been there for the past 15 days or so interviewing for jobs, she got a call back on one and had to do a skills interview she will find out if she gets the job on Mon the 8th. If she does, then she will be moving down there the next weekend instead of May like she thought.


    Bo is doing well, he finished basketball which is his favorite sport to play, and had about a week off or so and is now doing track. He is a runner, and I think he also does the long jump or something like that. He gets to swim every Friday for track practice because his coach lives across the street from the track and he has an indoor pool.


    Shandi is pretty much the same, just working and looking after Tage. Tage however is growing, and boy is he a character! He is such a smart kid, sometimes he is to smart for his own good. He is eating more things, we went to Costco the other day and he tried all the samples they had there and he asked for more of a lot of them so that is a good thing. When we all get ready to go somewhere Tage asks " we going to walmart? we going to Caries (Carie is one of his daycare people), we going to Costco?" Tage loves to go places, when we are going and leaving him behind he will run to the door and say " I ready, I ready" and when we leave him he cries. It is kinda cute!


   As for my parents, there isn't to much going on with them. My dad turn 50 on the 3rd of March so now he is "an old man." Both my parents are pretty much just working and running Bo around to scouts, and mutual, and school. Bo did get his drivers license, but he still can't drive by himself.


   Casey and I are just chugging along, I have been working full time at the hospital  because one of the girls had surgery so I am covering her shift. Then there is another girl that is having sugery after the one I'm covering for so I am covering her shift so I will be full time for atleast til the end of May. Right now I am working a 4am to 230pm shift and in the middle of April I will switch to a 8pm to 6am shift. Casey is still working for the Temp agency, he has been working quite a few days at Coke, running their machines on the graveyard shift because one of their guys hurt his back so he might have atleast part time work until when he leaves in August. Casey and I are planning a trip to my Grandma Mahurin's house this next Thursday 3/11/10, we are going to help her with stuff around the house and I am going to a quilting thing with her, it should be fun to get away for a few days.


    I have a few exciting things going on with me though, I have been selling burp rags at a store, I sell 4 burp cloths for 12.00 I have made about 180.00 so far and I am sewing more because she is all out of my boy ones. Casey is trying to get me to go online and sell them, with some of my apliqued onesies and stuff like that, that I make. The other really exciting thing that happened is we got our tax return back, and it paid off all of our bills, we only owe a little money to my grandpa and we will be debt free! YAY!! Well that is all I have for now, sorry it is so long and there are no pictures. There will be pictures next time I promise. Love to all!

Valentines Day

I ended up working Valentine's Day and it was Sunday, so we went out the night before. Casey and I had saved our money so that we could go out to dinner and spend the night in a hotel. We started the day out, with going to my little brother's basketball game. Then we made our way over to Boise, we went to the mall, looked around, had lunch and then went and checked into our hotel. We stayed at the Double Tree Riverside which was across the parking lot from the place we were going to have dinner at. We then went shopping at a used book store, and then went to Deseret Book and we each picked out a book (our valentines gift to ourselves.) We then went to dinner at Joe's Crab Shack, Casey had never been there and it was a fun place to go. The waitress took our picture which is the one at the bottom of this post. We had a really good time, Casey wore a bib, I chose not to but I should have Casey was flinging stuff at me and dropping stuff in my butter, it was hilarious. Then we drove and picked up some Cheesecake at the Cheesecake factory and took it back to our hotel. We then ate our cheesecake, and decided to go to the hot tub. (Casey had worked at the coca cola plant the day before and was sore) We got back up to our hotel and there was 4 inches of gross water that had backed up in our bathtub. (it was grey and brown, Casey tried to stop it from coming up by plugging the drain but it ended up pouring out of the over flow. So we called the front desk and asked to be moved so we could shower and that we wanted a discount on our room and they told us that since I have bought it third party off the internet they couldn't but that they could give us free breakfast. So we got upgraded and finally got to take a shower. We had breakfast in the morning, it was like a continental type breakfast that they charged 10 bucks for, and it was awful. The manager of the hotel happened to be there and Casey told him about all of our problems, and stuff and the guy just said, "we'll make it up to you the next time you come" It was the worst hotel I have ever stayed at, like we will ever go back there again. Besides the problems with the hotel, we had a really good time. It was nice to not be in a hurry and just do whatever we wanted. Hope all of your Valentine Days were good.

Making it through...

Just to catch you up on what has been going on lately, Casey still doesn't have a job he has turned in applications galore but not a single person has called him for an interview. We did however get lucky, my grandpa Brogan is getting some freight in, and we are going to help go through it and inventory it and price it. We have also been moving some stuff around and making room for the new shipment that is coming Monday. Then he has some furniture that Casey is going to put together for him and I think were gonna paint some too. So that will atleast get Casey out of the house and doing something physical, (I'm sure he gets bored being in the house all the time.)


Well I am still working at the hospital, I work one or two days a week most weeks, in March I'll be covering a shift for a gal while she has surgery so I will get 75 hours a pay period for three pay periods which will be great and then I am also covering some vacations in July, and Feb. I don't know if you all remember but I sell burp rags at a local store, (I did a posting on them a while back) Well I have sold quite a few lately, so I am making more. I am so glad I went the day after Thanksgiving to Joann's and I picked up a bunch of flannel it has saved me so much money!


So now that we know Casey is deploying in September we are talking about what I should do, should I stay here, and rent a house in Nampa and work PRN (as needed) at the hospital. (we get a housing allowance while he is gone, plus his pay. And I plan on working cause I would be bored stiff if I didn't work since I don't have kids or anything) Or we were talking about me going back to school while he is gone, I don't know what I would go for though. Or should we move before he gets deployed somewhere else in Idaho, or should we stay have him get deployed, and then I would move somewhere. I am taking suggestions if you think one of these ideas is good let me know, or if you have an idea of your own I'm open to suggestions.


Other than that we are doing pretty good, just taking things as they come. I am gonna do something kind of different with this post, I have a recipe that I would like to share it is my favorite soup and I thought I would share it so here ya go. Love to you all!

Chicken and Wild Rice Soup

½ cup chopped celery


½ cup shredded carrots


1 can of cream of chicken soup


1 can of cream of celery


16 cubes of chicken bullion


1 small carton of heavy whipping cream


3 chicken breasts


3 cups of wild rice


Garlic pepper


3 Tbs of flour


Put chopped celery and shredded carrots in sauce pan with a little butter and sautee until soft.


Cook chicken either in pan, or in crock pot and cut into little pieces.


I cook my rice in a rice cooker but whatever way you want cook your rice.


In big pot put 8 cups of water, and the 16 cubes of chicken bullion, bring to boil. Add the cream of celery, cream of chicken, heavy whipping cream let boil for a few minutes. Then add the sautéed celery and carrots and then add the cooked chicken and rice in, stir and add garlic pepper to taste. (you can really put any seasoning you want I just really like garlic pepper) then put some water in a bowl add the flour and mix together, then pour into soup this will thicken it.


When this is all done it makes a big pot of soup, I feed 5 of us and most have two bowls the night I make it and it still feeds us the next couple of days for lunch and stuff. It is a good leftover, I just put it in a bowl and warm it up.

Just an Update...

I can't remember if I have said in previous postings that Casey is going to be deployed in September. Well when he went to drill this past weekend they gave him tentative dates for his training and deployment, he will go for training on August 16th, and he will leave for a year long deployment on September 11th. If the dates change, I will let everyone know but for right now that is what we know. Love to all!

Our first accident...

Today we had our first big accident with Tage. My mom called me at work and said they were heading my way because Tage was at daycare, he was dancing in the kitchen and he has new shoes, and he caught the toe of his shoe (they have really good traction on the soles that goes up on the toe which is what happened the traction caught) and he fell, hit his head on the cupboard corner and split his head open. My mom called cause I had his spare car seat in my car, and shandi was at work and had the other carseat so she ended up calling the bishop's wife and borrowed one from her to bring Tage in. He did really good for most of it, (he did a good job on splitting his forehead open) they numbed it and then laid him back and put a cover over his face to protect the steril field and he FREAKED out, he didn't like his face to be cover where he couldn't see MaGa and Auntie J. So I took some pictures to show his mom and to post on here, again they aren't the best quality cause they were with my phone camera but you can see that the slit is pretty big. I put borders around the pictures to make them less gross, for you people with weak stomach. :) love to all.

The next one is after he got stitches, they put 6 stitches in and put butterfly stitches on top so it would be a little covered.

January fun...

So we have enjoyed the first two days of 2010, we have celebrated my birthday and have went to hang out with some friends. Today we slept in which was awesome, and then we went grocery shopping and came home and chopped and stacked some wood with my family. Tonight were going to play games and then have cheesecake for my birthday. Here are some pictures of us chopping wood, they are a little fuzzy I took them with Casey's cell phone so they aren't the best. I will also post later some pictures from our vacation in Texas.