I like to...

Again, a facebook thing. In all honesty I would probably never do any of these "tag" things, but I have nothing better to do than to waste away minutes of my short life completing these.

a. Go to Google
b. Type your name and the words "likes to" all in quotation marks. (e.g. "Stephen likes to")
c. Report back on the first ten things that come up for your name.

one. Julie likes to garden in the summer and spend lazy days at the beach. Very True.
two. Julie likes to holiday beside the seaside. Very True.
three. Julie likes to paint on Khadi paper, which is a kind of cotton rag made in India. Very True if I knew what Khadi paper was.
four. Julie likes to dabble in Flash video and produce web-based movies that feature her two English bulldogs, Daisy and Laverne. I've always wanted to learn flash. On the other hand, I have never wanted bulldogs.
five. Julie likes to visit the South Coast for its beauty and relaxed lifestyle. Mmmm...or not.
six. Julie likes to schedule every free moment of her time (and frequently mine). I used to;back in college I had a schedule of every hour of every day filled with my various activities, so that I could assure I would get everything done--from laundry, to studying, to watching TV. But now that every moment of my life is free time...not so much.
seven. what Julie likes to do might surprise you. "I'm a huge sports fan. I watch everything from boxing to NASCAR." Heck no!
eight. Julie likes to play by herself rather than with other children. Haahaha. In 10th grade we could take tests in groups. I asked if I could be my own group.
nine. Julie likes to play Beethoven, Mozart, and other classical compositions, as well as popular movie and show tunes. Yeah....suuuuuure.
ten. Julie likes to describe her true work as noticing the little things that many overlook. Why, Thank you.

Multnomah Fallsness

Hooray for a day off! We got free breakfast at IKEA (and grr on them for not having the chairs we wanted in stock!), then off to the Columbia Gorge with Daniel and Chelsea. These are the adventures of the day....

First Stop, Wahkeena Falls. Is that really how you spell it? I don't know.
The only pose that Michael knows....

Second stop...Multnomah Falls.

This one's for Chelsea...

Chelsea and Daniel... you can't really tell, but they are the ones with their hands up.



I tried to keep Benson awake so he could get a good nap in at home...I kept taking video of him and showing it to him, but alas, a boy has got to sleep.

THIS IS AWESOME!

Make your own font out of your handwriting! Super easy. You do need a scanner. You can borrow mine. I did mine with too thick a sharpie...I think something skinnier would look better. AH! Think of the possibilities!

Okay, I'll admit it....

I really miss school. You spend your whole life doing it, so then what? I really want to go back =(. But maybe next time to culinary school or to get my BFA. If only I had some alpacas.

Book of Mormon Giveaway,

Giving away a Book of Mormon is never an easy thing. Since, I didn't serve a full time mission, one of my goals has been to give away one of these guys. I consider myself very unconfident when it comes to sharing the gospel and lacking in the area of sharing my testimony. But today Michael and I gave one away! (I don't really think I can mark this off as giving one away, but it is a cute story).

As you know, we team teach CTR 6&7. One of our kids' is relatively new to the Church (his mom got baptized only a month or two ago). He always wanted to hang onto Michael's scriptures during class. One Sunday, at closing exercises, we found him fascinated by the BoM. He just sat there, quiet as can be, with his nose stuck in it--very unusual for a 6 year old to sit quietly and not be karate chopping the other kids in the head. We got the bright idea to bring him his very own BoM and this week we got to give it to him.

Again, this week he sat so quietly during closing exercises. He was SO excited! He said he couldn't wait to tell his mom that he got his very own scriptures. He whispered (again very unusual) to Michael, "Jesus is my brother. And he's in my heart."

This was supposed to go on facebook...

but I prefer blogging. Leaving notes on facebook is like looseleaf papers that don't belong under any folder. Ew. Messy.

So, here it goes....

"Once you've been tagged, you are supposed to write a note with 25 random things, facts, habits, or goals about you. At the end, choose 25 people to be tagged. You have to tag the person who tagged you. If I tagged you, it's because I want to know more about you."

one. I hate running (because I am terrible at it), but I like the results. So, I do it anyway.
two. I hate leaving voicemails.
three. I am really bitter that some lame-o guy won the Western Club logo contest when he just stole the PBR logo and added his own words. If this were a real logo (used to sell something) I think it would be against the law.
four. I am a juice-aholic.
five. I take pictures when I am bored. I should share my Star Valley pictures from when we lived there. I got bored quite often. I have a lot of pictures.
six. I own over 50 pairs of shoes. That isn't including flip flops.
seven. I have a love obsession with food.
eight. I need to lose weight. I am 1/3 of the way to my goal!
nine. When I watch shows about fat people, I always wonder how they got so big. And then I finish my bowl of icecream.
ten. I hate folding laundry.
eleven. I can't have any white on my nails showing; I have to cut it off.
twelve. I want to someday write and illustrate my own children's book.
thirteen. I am scared of death and I don't like it when people say you shouldn't be if you have "everything in order". It frankly doesn't matter. It's like moving, but bigger. Dying is freaky. For that matter, so is birth.
fourteen. I hope to someday have curtains. What a dream.
fifteen. I used to get in trouble in elementary for beating up kids on the playground. They made fun of me for being small. I showed them.
sixteen. I want a cherry tree.
seventeen. I cannot for the life of me play monopoly and not get mad. I dispise that game.
eighteen. I own a really dumb guinea pig. She has discovered the vertical sliding door blinds and is quite entertained by figuring out how to go behind them when they're shut. Stairs frighten her; I left her on a step for 20 minutes to see if she'd go down, but when I came back she was cowering in the corner.
nineteen. I love Elvis.
twenty. I sometimes pretend I am on the Truman Show while doing my day to day things. You should try it.
twenty-one. I am going to attempt to grow an avacado tree. We'll see how that goes...
twenty-two. I'll admit to liking country music. Dang you, Michael.
twenty-three. About every night for a week I thought about punch-dancing before going to sleep. We finally had to watch Hot Rod one night. I haven't thought about it since...well, except for right now.
twenty-four. It's almost been about 8 months since Michael has done the dishes. I am lucky if he takes it to the sink. I am really lucky if he rinses. Lately he's been much better (thank you, ant invasion). But I don't have a job or anything else to occupy my time with, so I do them.
twenty-five. I am a control freak. I have a hard time watching people do something that I am trying to explain without jumping in and doing it myself. I feel bad everytime Michael tries to help make food. We have to make seperate dishes.
twenty-six. okay...I know it was supposed to be 25, but help me to not chop my hair! I really miss my faux-hawk. I am trying to grow out my hair...longer than shoulder length.

If you read this, consider yourself tagged. HA!

Primary Quote of the Week

Michael and I have decided that we need to remember these precious times we have as primary teachers and save all our favorite quotes. We teach CTR 6&7 (so most of them are 5&6). It shouldn't surprise me at all anymore of what comes out of their mouths, but sometimes we can't help but laugh. Our favorites thus far have been....

After a whole lesson of interruptions about batman, spiderman, etc...
me: Would Jesus fight bad guys or would he forgive them?
kid: No, he wouldn't fight them because Jesus doesn't have swords or guns.

* * *

me: What are you drawing? Who is that?
kid: That is Jesus. And this is me down here. I am a ninja saving Jesus.

* * *

During singing time a teacher kept tying a sunbeam's shoes and he kept untying them. He never got mad at his teacher (which I would've expected because he was obviously flustered), but he did raise his hand to the chorister to say, "Can I keep my shoes untied? 'Cause it'll be easier to take'em off when I get home." We still had 1.5 hours of church left! Same kid later the same day, "I just can't stop yawning because I am SO tired!" We had just switched to the 9am schedule.

* * *

A kid asked the primary president who was wearing dark nylons, "Why are your legs brown?"

* * *

During sharing time the teacher was explaining a story from the Bible and somewhere in her explanation she said "captives". The story goes on, she asks a question to the group, picks on a kid with his hand raised, to get this response, "Did you say cactus? Because I swear you said cactus."

* * *

And now this week's favorite quote! We had made our class these pictures where Joseph Smith is on the bottom of the page and Jesus and Heavenly Father are up above. BUT if you pull a string they come down to visit Joseph Smith, thus, reinacting the first vision. As I show one of our kids how it works he recreates his own version of the first vision. As he pulls the string, instead of saying "this is my beloved son" etc. he introduces Joseph to the two descending by saying (in the best Elvis impersonation ever), "Hey...I'm Jesus."

I freaking love being a primary teacher.