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!