Did you know?

I'm titling this segment "Did you know?" because here are a few things I've learned recently!

1) You should ALWAYS peel the skin off apples? Apples are the worst fruit for locking pesticides within the skin (even after a good washing).

2) This little cutie gets to be a "pirate" for the next three months? She has a 20% chance of needing another surgery and we decided to update her prescriptions and glasses...drum roll, over $1000 later. Ouch. She will have some darn cute frames next week, though!

3) You can learn to crochet by watching YouTube? I tried out a pair of leg warmers or, as Kya puts it, "warm leggers" out. Pretty fun!
Did you know these are two of my heroes? We wish we were out there in Utah, but Austen went into the MTC heading to Ukraine and missed Dallen (his brother) by over a week who came back from India. So they let them meet up at the MTC for an hour. (Poor Lynnae, rough countries!)

Don't you love their eyes? They shine.

I have the best nieces and nephews!

Hal's Publication...almost

Had to post this funny story:

So I swear Hal commented the other day about his recent publication in this journal that came out this month. Being a good wife, I logged it away in my brain and told him congrats this weekend when it came out!!

Well, he looked at me confused and pulled out the Dec 2007 journal. Apparently he published last year. Woops. But he did have another publication this summer in the bottom journal.

I lost major points for not being a good wife.

He wasn't too impressed that I had no clue when they came out.

Secretly, I'm just waiting for him to publish his AWESOME research! We've been working on some great stuff for about 3 years! It starts with the dark side of leadership (the dark triad of leader personalities - the Machiavellian, Narcissist, Psychopath) and the huge cost these manipulative personality traits have on an organization. They brilliantly creep up the ladder eventually costing companies tens of millions of dollars.

Anyhow, it's fascinating because we've ALL probably worked with someone in one of those categories! The greatest part is found, not by taking the high correlation between these three traits, but in the stronger negative correlation to an opposite trait: Humility.

Then you take Humility and you find it as one of the strongest personality traits in THE MOST SUCCESSFUL leaders. Usually seen as a weak trait, it's been really fun research. Anyhow, I've put thousands of papers on this in my garage - we are total geeks!

In some sense, it can be seen as the "good guy's" vendetta against the manager or co-worker that observes the "ends justifies the means" philosophy or has mastermined manipulation at the cost of the quiet, hard worker. Does that make sense? Seriously - have you guys ever worked with a "dark side" person?

Christmas Ideas Cont'd

So much for my 25 days of cute Christmas ideas!

Here is my attempt at making up for it!

I just found Carina after 9 years and she does amazing stuff with 2Peas! Here were some cute ideas from their site! It's fun to play around there!

(I still have images of lying on Carina's dorm floor listening to her practice for her Mandarin class - HILARIOUS!)

These trees were .33 cents at the craft store and done up with stuff around the house!
(ok, but "stuff" around my house is no where near as cute) Cute Magnetic Advent on a cookie sheet!

This was my FAVORITE discovery. How to make faux metal for your cards. There is a great video from 2Peas HERE! Kya is so excited to try it out - pretty darn cute.

Connected!

Ok, seriously, have you ever felt like this...

because I've been without my cell for more than two weeks and I WAS GETTING SO FRUSTRATED! To make a long story short, the fantastic "Pearl" should never break down so no one in the Bay Area carries parts for it (including us taking into the city twice) and so they finally shipped us parts in Hawaii. Nope. Only worked for about 2 days.

After another trek around the Bay Area, I finally got my replacement phone Wednesday night. HALLELUJAR!

I AM CONNECTED! And I've finally gotten to the point of truly enjoying the peace and quiet!

The BEST photographer!

So it's no surprise that I love a good photo

(it's just pure luck when I take enough that one of mine actually turn out!)

Here is the photographer we use when we go to Maui and we

can't say enough about him!

I loved this shot he took of my Grandparents

I'm guessing this will be in a Christmas card...

Here is our jump shot although nothing compares to our rad one from 2006! (Check out the first shot on my slide show up in the corner)

We had a great time. Kya was a perfect little angel on the flight! I couldn't have programmed a better little kidd-o! Especially after she threw-up through the red eye last time!

As soon as she could brave the ocean, she was a little fish. We got a little boogie board with a window in it and she LOVED it! She was thrilled to see a "puffer fish."

On a more personal note, it was really good to get away. I've been feeling (okay, you have to picture my fingers squeezing) "THIS LITTLE" lately. Kinda just a bit down...maybe you've all been there, maybe I'm just a little crazy, who knows! But I loved, loved the sunsets!

I'm Thankful for...

...a little break!

(the girls)

(Luckily Hal wasn't permanently stuck in the lava tube when the tide came in!)

Coming to a theater near you!!

Sometimes you just need to escape

(ok, at least I need to this week)

It's here this week!

Free photo book offer

This was sent to me from a friend:

Click Here

for a free 20-page 8"x11" photo book!

The deadline was for midnight tonight, but there is a note on Snapfish that it's been extended one more week.

Enjoy!

Anyone want FRONT ROW tickets?

Hey all, I'm selling my front row tickets to the 9ers game

on Nov 16th.

Let me know if you know anyone interested!

(I'm selling for less than value)

Take Courage!

12 Days of Christmas!

"Is this lady losing it??" - YES!

We have FOREVER until Christmas but I realized that you only see the best ideas for Christmas usually AFTER you need them! So I thought I'd post 12 days worth of fun ideas!

Don't you love this advent calendar?? Click here to see better photos!

Talk about cute little treats for your kids class! The instructions are by Nicole Anderson:
*Royal Biscuits - couple of packets
*melting chocolate
*pretzals (broken)
*glazed Cherries (chopped in half)
*dried blue berries - you could use your currents if you wanted to.

Melt chocolate, dunk the royal in it - attach glazed cherry as nose, blue berrys for eyes, pretzal as antlers. put in firdge to set!!

Halloween Letters

I've been holding down the fort for the last week and a half while my parents were off playing in Europe and decided to finally finish my Halloween letters while I was stuck here at the house!

Kya, of course, did not want to be left out during crafts so she painted this lovely haunted house. Her carebear now sleeps in it and she wakes up every morning yelling "BOO!" into it to "wake him up." ha!

Quick Rewind

It's been forever since I've posted and even really read anyone's blog! Maybe I'm still in my funk?! Who knows... meanwhile, I doubt anyone is even reading anymore!

We loved having my nephew, Austen, out for a weekend to check out Stanford. Hopefully he loves the Bay Area as much as we do!!

Spent the weekend cruising the city and I love this shot of Hal running around with Kya.

We took a quick trip back to Utah for Ben's wedding (I'll have to get photos up) and had an incredible time catching up with some great, great old friends.
We really needed that trip. I got to spend some quality time with my sisters-in-law who I love. I needed the talks, laughs, and just time to feel sane again. We really miss you guys!
I was driving around and had to snap these shots to remember how I felt. It was so rejuvinating to visit family and see the bigger picture in life again! Sometimes I feel swept up in the day-to-day out here along with everyone else (and I vowed to try not to when we moved out here!!!). Why in the world should I care if my purse or hair color isn't right??? I actually LOVE my silver strands! (ok, ask me in 5 years, though)

So I loved these scenes. Something simpler, something more to life...It reminded me of all the things I truly value.

Cutting Edge!

HUGE VICTORY TODAY!

Over the last two years, it's been interesting to see the effects of her surgeries and her confidence in her fine motor skills is slightly hindered.

Kya has been refusing to cut or use scissors -- EVER. Today was the first day she willingly tried it with her new little left-handed ones.

I can't even begin to tell you how proud I was of her and how excited I was to see this! I absolutely fell in love with her little chop job!! Is this not hilarious?!

I was SO proud of her. Here is her commentary:

"Mom! I am great! I thought in my heart I was worser!"

And here is the little artist proud of her work.
Here are some other Kya-flip-flop-isms that always bust me up:

"Candy-cotton" = cotton candy

"print paws" = paw prints

"Headfore" = forehead

The last one was HILARIOUS because she fell asleep at her desk watching a video and literally zonked, fell over, knocking her head on her table making a nice goose-egg. Poor kid. Then I heard "my headfore" hurts all day long...

Powerful Moment

WSJ - August 22, 2008

Fell in love with this photo. I've looked at it several times since I read the article.

But the opening paragraph said it all:

"In stifling heat, she finished first against opponents clad in bikini-like uniforms."

I've thought a lot about the symbolism of this shot. Not only the increase in presence of women in the olympics, but also of her ability to hold to her values and race shoulder to shoulder. She stands out and I absolutely love that. I won't even go into my thoughts - you can form your own just by looking at the photo.

I believe that in some regard, we can each see a portion of ourself in her. Or even a hope of what we can become...

Major Blogging Funk

Ok all, I am in a MAJOR blogging funk this month. Even I'm annoyed when I log onto my site!! AGHhhh! So here is a random fact I liked as I was sitting on my butt watching Hal workout and listening to Influencer...

Daniel Gilbert:

"...most research subjects strongly belive that another $30K a year in income would make them much happier.

And they feel equally strongly that adding a 30-minute walk to their daily routine would be of trivial import.

And yet Dr. Gilbert's research suggests that the added income is far less likely to produce an increase in happiness than the addition of a regular walk."

Older and Wiser, too...

Ok, well maybe that title was pushing it...haha! In case you can't tell from our awesome nametags, Hal and I got to spend some time at Education Week! We are total geeks and love to go (yes, we definitely feel "old" when we go) but it was SO NICE to actually see my husband for once this month! Of course, we dropped in on a few of our favorite scholars...

and I dared to go with my niece and nephew to John Bytheway. I know - I felt OLD AGAIN but it was quite FUN!

We spent the weekend in LA and then took off to Utah to see Hal's fam. We love to visit them! Kya ran, ran, ran and ran with cousins - seriously, I absolutely loved watching her play and have the time of her life!

And the boys played,too! Mikey showin' off on the wakeboard...

Somehow I managed to take a trip and didn't even whip out my camera! Man! So you only get a few shots (you can let out your sigh of relief!)

Rock Band baby!

They threw up the projector and screen and entertained the neighborhood!

I love seeing family and second to that, I was SO EXCITED to get my letters!! Aren't they fun!? Major happy-dance going on over here!!

So we are planning on doing "BOO" ones for Halloween - open invite! Let me know if you're interested and I'll get more info!

Flashback

I love Stephanie's flashback sign so I had to steal it for today. Hope that's okay, Steph!

I was having a moment of "woe-is-me" needing to unload another trip from the moving truck, I got a flat tire, had a few homes I was supposed to go look at today, picked up Kya from Cooking Camp, ran to a picnic (forgot everything), ran errands then ran home, and realized I ran out of time to go pick up Brooklyn this afternoon...yadda yadda.

So I sat down and saw my box of photos Hal just brought back from TX and this is one of the first ones I pulled out. This is Becky and I at BYU volleyball camp in high school.

Needless to say, a feeling of gratitude swept over me and my heart changed entirely.

Then I found Jenny and myself at girls camp. It's still a trip that I was back at Camp Ritchie!
Me and Jac at camp
fast-forward a few years and us at BYU.

Smokin'

So this post is a little early - that works, right?
We're taking off to So Cal for a few days...see ya next week!

Have a GREAT weekend!

On the Road Again!

A huge thank you to everyone that helped with our move. Mikey even flew out to help Hal haul it all back. Can you tell Hal is exhausted? Poor guy was totally burnt out.

They had a great time crossing half the country and here is their tribute to "Whiting Bro's!"

Very funny!

Thanks again to everyone!