Our 2009 Garden!

Well just like last year I have taken pictures of the beginning product of our garden and I will continue to post pictures of our garden as it grows! So sorry if you aren't too interested in this stuff, but we just get really excited if we grow anything!
This year looks more promising then last year.. but I guess you never know how it will turn out!! This year I have planted 10.. yes 10 tomato plants. What happened was I bought two cherry tomato plants and my mom bought 8 regular tomato plants and she decided to give them to me.. so now I have 10 plants!! OH MAN WHAT DID I GET MYSELF INTO!?! Last year we had five and we had soo many tomatoes that I couldn't pick them all in time before they would be too ripe! Sad story! Well Im sure this year will be the same thing.. so if you guys want any tomatoes let me know! Besides the tomato plants we also have cucumbers (hopefully!) and then we have planted a cantaloupe and a watermelon plant. And this year as a first we have decided to plant string beans.. That one was a bit random, but I am proud to say that we have already made progress with our garden!! Check these pictures out!!

Our cantaloupe plant!

Our watermelon plant.

My tiny cucumber plant that just sprouted yesterday.

One of the string bean plants that just sprouted that much in one day!!

The other string bean plant! Im so proud of them!!

These are my 10 tomato plants.. some of them look dead because my mom didn't give them to me until they were dying! They will be ok though!

The other tomato plants!!

Six days until my birthday!

Well this past weekend we got to go to Bear Lake! It was a lot of fun!! We didn't really do a whole lot up there and I think that's why we enjoyed it so much! A few of us got there Thurs night and set up our tents and talked for awhile, man the nights were FREEZING!! Everyone else came up Friday. The lake was beautiful and so much fun!! The boys had fun playing water football and ended up with some major scratches and marks on their bodies.. the kids had fun playing in the sand and making a mess. We got plenty of shakes and I was glad to see that my favorite place to get shakes (Chevron) was still there and making the delicious shakes I remember. We really like this certain Chevron because their shakes are made from real hard ice cream.. instead of all the other places use those stupid ice cream machines! So we were glad it was still there! We played a few games like Left, Right, Center and Steven won $10!! Wahoo! That is a fun game when you gamble with real money! lol.. we played lots of Bolo, which was fun.. and Steven and I are pretty darn amazing... we only lost once! I didnt take alot of pictures and Im pretty bummed now that I didnt.. so my plan is to wait for Rachel to post her pictures and then Im going to steal them and put them on my blog! But I did take one picture.. so I am going to post my one and only picture of Bear Lake.. its the picture with the tree's and the sun shinning.. (thats me trying to be artistic again!)



Okay.. now to our garden.. today was the day I ate my first home grown cucumber! How exciting is that?! Pretty exciting I think! So I decided to take a few pictures of it for you. I talked to the garden experts (Ryan and Rachel) and they told me that I prob should pick my cucumber because it was getting so big around! So I did! And it was delicious! I am quite excited to be able to pick a few more! I have some more growing that will prob be ready in a week or two! So I am pretty excited that my cucumbers finally grew! Better late then never right!? My tomatoes are also doing pretty well.. I ate some today and have more sitting out there ready for me to pick. Besides those two things, our garden isn't doing that well.. No watermelon, cantaloupe, or peppers.. but I am not going to be too bummed since I got some cucumbers! So below are pictures of our sad garden.. and also pictures of me with my first cucumber I ever grew!

Weber County Fair

This past week was the Weber County Fair. I ,of course, signed up to work a few days. I had a lot of fun! Not only did I get some vacation hours for this weeks Bear Lake trip, but I got to go in free to the fair all day any day, got free food, free pop, and got to hang out with cool people all day.. Oh and not actually be at work! But all I know is that by the time friday night came I was soooo tired and ready to be done! Now I am just freekin excited for thursday night to come!! But the fair was fun. My dad had me go around and take pictures of all different county things for our little awards slide show at the end of the year.. so it was kinda fun going around taking random pictures. The first two pictures are me trying to be artistic! haha.. trying is the keyword. I thought the picture of the flag turned out pretty cool, so Im gonna give myself Koodo's for that one! :) I also put a picture of my dearest father cooking.. we had constant hamburgers, hot dogs, and chicken going for all the Sheriff employee's. The next picture is my cute lil nephew Ryker wearing my hat! He is getting so flippin cute! Talking lots and wanting to do everything! They are getting so cute! And the next picture is Brit and I. We got to drive the drink cart around all day Thursday and it was a blast!! So thanks Brit for hanging out with me!! :) And the video (if it works) is of Brittany driving the cart. Capt Haycock is on the back of the cart.. Haycock had taken us on a drive a few minutes after that video and almost killed us! ha ha.. he took that cart out in BFE and drove up and down ditches and hills! I was in the back and almost fell off, but man was it fun! Anyway.. that was my fun fair days! I did see a few of my old friends.. I saw Megan pushing her cute lil girls, but unfortunately I was in the cart and couldnt stop to say hi :( I also saw an old friend Mary Brandon with her cute two kids! So that was fun! On Saturday Steven and I went swimming and then went to Ryan and Rachel's house to.. of course.. play Dr. Mario. So Rach and I got to go see the Sisterhood of the traveling pants. I liked it and thought it was nice to go hang out with my sis! So thanks Rach for coming with me!! :) Lets do it again sometime! It was also nice on Saturday because Casandra and Dan were in town for a few days.. so we got to see them and the cute kids! They will be coming to Bear Lake this week, so we will be able to see them more! It's nice to have them back for a little bit. Well everything else is normal! My garden is doing great.. for me! I have quite a few cucumbers, and some are getting big and turning dark green! Oh man I am soo excited!! We are getting plenty of red tomatoes so that is exciting as well! Nothing new on the cantelope and watermelon.. looks like we wont be getting any of those.. oh well! Oh and I am currently reading BREAKING DAWN.. so no one ruin it for me! I am almost halfway through it.. I just got it saturday night and cant put it down! Oh man I totally wanna finish it! Its soo good!! Well thats all!

The best month of the year!! Happy August!

Well nothing new is going on in my neck of the woods.. just making it through the summer! Steven and I have been pretty busy doing random stuff.. it felt like this week wouldn't end! Everyone wanted us to be everywhere. So we did our best and had fun doing it. We figure we might as well party it up because in 3 weeks we will officially be anti-social school/work boring people! Of course school starts the day after my birthday.. Happy birthday to me! I'm a little excited for school only because Steven and I are finally taking classes for our majors.. and that is a huge relief and even though we have a few years.. there is a tiny light at the end of the tunnel. I feel like we are truly blessed with our families.. they have helped us soo much with school and we will forever be grateful! All I know is that I am going to be one happy women when I am done with school. We will be able to buy a house, which makes me excited.. we will be able to have an option of having a kid.. and of course we will be able to be in our career! So sorry for everyone if you dont want to hear about us going through school.. cause that's our life for the next few years! Oh and we got our diploma's the other day and my mom got us some frames, so I put them in the frames and will be hung up in our spare bedroom! Yeah!!
Our annual Bear Lake camping trip is next friday (15th) which I am extremely excited about!! If anyone wants to come up and stay a night you are more then welcome.. just let me know and Ill give you the info! Anyway.. So we do this annual camping trip.. it started out that I wanted to do a last hurrah before my sister left for 2 years to grad school.. so I invited my family and Steven's family. The first year wasn't the greatest.. but last year it was a blast!! Everything went well, everyone got along and we just had a nice, fun, relaxing time. So Im pretty excited for this years. I am usually the one to plan this, and it always seems like I am the one to plan anything fun, but I guess I figure if I dont plan it, then we wont do anything fun ever.. so I would rather plan and have fun, then not plan and not have fun.. Right?! Im pretty bummed that Ryan and Rachel dont get to come this year.. I was really looking forward to having them there! But I guess I dont always get everything I want! lol.. We are all pretty excited because Casandra and Dan are coming down for the trip.. and we havent seen them in quite awhile! So that will be fun! I will definitely have some pictures to post when we get back!
This week is also the Weber County Fair. Im pretty excited about it for a few simple reasons.. well I work for the County so I get a choice to work the fair or not.. so of course I jumped right on that! I get to work there getting free pop and food instead of working in the office getting nothing free.. so that will be nice! I am working 3 shifts.. so I will be working a few extra hours which will give me the hours I need off for Bear Lake! Wahoo!! I dont have to take any vacation time off, and Im definitely happy about that! So I got my wonderful "deja Moo" shirt lol.. and I will be wearing that bright neon shirt all week! But at least Ill be getting a tan! Oh and the other cool thing is that Ill be working with my bestest buddy Brittany so we totally get to chat ALL DAY!! Which is the total opposite at work. We usually get in trouble if we even look in each others direction! lol.. so that will be fun!
Our garden seems to be doing pretty good.. I think! We are getting lots and lots of tomatoes.. they are even getting red! Wahoo! We are finally getting some tiny little cucumbers! I am soo excited!! It looks like we will only be getting one pepper this year! So that kind of sucks.. and everything else is just kind of growing.. I dont expect much of anything.. but its our first garden so even growing something is pretty good!
So that's my week in a jiffy.. I will hopefully be posting some pictures soon!

Our wanna be garden!

Well I decided to finally take pictures of our wonderful.. not growing.. garden.. so you can all see!
Here are my wonderful tomatoes.. Tomatoes close up.. see.. I have plenty and plenty of lil cherry tomatoes that are growing.. just nothing else!
This is our cantaloupe plant.. Not doing too terrible.. just not that great.. but if you think this is small.. check out the next picture of our other cantaloupe plant! ha ha
The sad version of a cantaloupe plant!

The Orange Peppers.. or should I say the one yellow-ish green pepper! Pretty sad.. I know

Our watermelon plant.. yes, I zoomed in very much.. it's like the size of my palm.. ha ha.. I dont think we will be getting any watermelon!
The cucumber's.. well the leaves, because as you can see.. we dont actually have any cucumbers growing! But hey, it looks nice right!?
So that is my garden.. I guess its not too shabby for the first garden ever! I would be extremely happy if I got some cucumbers too! :) Oh and I took this online IQ test a few minutes ago.. and from the test.. it said I got a 136 which is.. Gifted.. and just below Genius.. So, just call me the gifted Alyssa! ha ha.. and Im just going to pretend like that quiz was a real IQ test! Besides that we are just working and hanging out.. we will be camping with Steven's family on Wed night for a day.. so that will be nice, and Im sure Ill update it then! Hope you enjoyed the pictures!

100 lbs lifted off my shoulders!

Well first of all I would like to announce that the CAAP Test Results came.. and boy was I nervous!! I was scared and almost didnt want to open the envelope.. but since it had been 3 flippin weeks since I took it, I couldnt wait! So I opened it! Couldn't really understand what it was saying, but after a few minutes I realized that I PASSED!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Oh my gosh I was thrilled.. now the only other thing that could make the day better was if Steven passed his CAAP test as well.. so I sat outside not very patiently.. but none the less.. I was sitting out there until he got off work.. and then he came in and opened his.. and guess what?! HE PASSED TOO!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! So we both passed, and we were both thrilled!! What a relief!! One hurdle done with.. now about 900 more! Steven went and talked to his Education Counselor and she let him know what classes he needed to take.. looks like we will be going to school for the rest of our lives! We aren't too excited to start school in Aug because we will once again have NO LIFE!! I will be going to work at 7:15, which if you know me.. I am soo far from a morning person, its sad! And then I will have class until 8 or 9 at night.. So we are going to be big fat losers! Steven's schedule isn't looking any better then mine! Hopefully our works will continue to work with us during school or we just might become homeless! ha ha..
Well the past week has been really nice! I got to go to my nephew Ryker and niece Kyla's birthday parties.. they were fun and it was nice to see the families. Steven and I got to go to the Drive In Friday night.. I was totally excited! We put the cuddle bag in the back of the truck and we were on our way! It was nice and comfy! Hopefully we will go to a few more before the summer is over! On Sunday we went to the pops.. it was really nice and relaxing! We just drove our scooter right up and sat in the shady soccer field.. I have a few pictures so maybe Ill post them tomorrow. My mom and dad and sister came. And then my In-laws came over and joined us.. so it was fun! We played a few games, ate snacks, and watched fireworks!
And now its Monday.. Monday's truly are the worst day of the week! But its almost over and the week should fly by! I checked on my garden today.. as of today I have 19 tomatoes.. not bad, but not good.. and only one poor little pepper.. it doesn't seem to be getting any bigger. My cucumber plants are doing pretty well.. they are growing and growing! Everything else is just kinda there.. Maybe I don't have a green thumb after all! Oh well! It's fun to do anyway!
Well last Tuesday one of the Bishopric came over and informed us that we had to speak on Sunday.. so I basically just ignored that fact until Saturday night. Steven wouldn't write my talk so I had to do it all by myself! Sad.. and sadly enough.. my talk lasted prob 8 mins.. lol. that will show Steven to write my talk next time! But he did good and filled up the rest of the time for us. All I know is that I'm glad its over! Woh.. I really don't like speaking!
Well this week BATMAN comes out!! Oh man are we are excited!!!!!!! I think I will just go buy our movie tickets in the next day or two.. so if anyone wants to come with us Friday night, let me know and Ill get ya some tickets! Well I think that is about it! Hopefully I will have a few pictures to post tomorrow.

Happy July! I love Summer!

Well this past week was a lot of fun! We spent a lot of time with our families and it was nice. On thursday night we got to go to the ReAl SLC soccer game, we went with my parents, Megan, and Rachel (who you see in the picture above). We had tons of fun and after the game we got to go down on the field and watch the fireworks! I was so excited! It was so cool to go down on the field and see what the players see! On friday (4th of July) my family went down to Megan's place in Orem. It was my first time seeing her new place and it was really nice! Then we headed to the Stadium of Fire! The video was taken from that (if it works!) It was pretty awesome! Miley Cyrus sucked and there was soo many little girls screaming and so excited that she was there.. all I know is that I was sure excited when Miley was done! Oh and the blueman group was there and it was awesome! I want to go see them in a full concert one day! But the fireworks were AMAZING!! It went on for probably an hour and it was a nonstop finale! Crazy! Saturday I got to spend the day with my mom, grandma, and sister in Orem. We went to the mall and ate at Noodles and Company (delicious!) and then I came home, went swimming in the pool, then went to Wise guys! So we had a packed weekend! Also on Sunday we went to a family friends house (our cruisin buddies) and saw their new baby fainting goats. They were soo cute!! We also had a bbq and got to play lots of fun games! We all had a blast! And now its Monday and things are slowly settling down again, unfortunately! We dont have much planned for this week, we wanna try to hit a drive in, but we will see! And of course we will be partying for Ryker's 2nd Birthday! Yeah!!

Our garden is doing okay.. I keep thinking that its doing really well.. but then I see other people's garden and it makes me a lil sad! But the good news is that I do have about 12 tomatoes now! Yeah!! My Cucumber plants are looking pretty good, they are getting pretty big, Im way excited about those! And of course the watermelon and cantelope are in question if they will even attempt to grow anything.. so we are just keeping our fingers crossed!

We finally got our back porch cemented.. it only took a year and a half! But it is nice! We are still waiting on our CAAP test results and Steven and I are both convinced that we didnt pass all of it.. but I am going to keep my fingers crossed that we did pass it! Oh, that would be such a huge relief! So we will prob find out next week sometime! Well.. thats it for now! I hope I didnt bore you too much!

New Layout!

Well today I was EXTREMELY bored at work today and started looking at some new layouts. And I came to a conclusion that I'm not into the brown right now.. but I am however always interested in hearts! So hopefully you like the new layout. Steven helped me pick it out and I copied the main picture idea from Brittany. So Thanks! :)
It is finally Friday!! Thank goodness! This week has been okay, it has been kind of a relaxing, chill week. Steven is still at home trying to get better. These past couple days have been the worst and its not seeming to get too much better right now. He doesnt like that very much and I think he is just sick of laying around. Thank goodness for his mom! She has stopped by while I have been working and have been getting him Jamba Juices and keeping him company! I think that it cheers him up a little bit. So that's a start. But I would say he is about the same as he was tues, wed, and thurs. So cross your fingers that this is the last bad day!!
Our garden is doing good! I am soo excited to have our first garden doing so well! This hot weather made it sprout! We now have little sprouts for all of our seeds. We started little this year with the tomatoes, peppers, cucumbers, cantaloupe, and watermelon. So hopefully we get some stuff and will want to do it next year! As of today, we now have little watermelon sprouts!
Our test is tomorrow morning for 4 hours.. we are not excited and I just wish it was done and over with. The even crappier thing is that we wont even know if we passed for about 4 weeks! blah! I dont do good with waiting! Im worried about Steven taking the test because he is still on some major drugs and I am not sure if he will be able to concentrate all the way, but it was the only day to take it until September.
Well that's about it for today!

Day 7 of Steven's Recovery

Well as of today at 1:00pm, it has officially been one week since Steven got his tonsils out. It has been a little worse then the last time I blogged. Go figure the first day that I got back to work was the worst day for him!! And now that I am back to work, it doesnt seem to be getting any better. He says it is worse these past few days then it has been all together. I'm kinda sad that I cant stay home the rest of time to take care of him. So hopefully today he will start to feel a little better. I think he is about done with being sick and not being able to do the stuff he wants to. The medicine makes him really tired and dizy when he gets up, so he doesn't have much energy for a lot of things. He has been a very good paitent.. so that's good. He even ordered me my favorite pizza yesterday and had it delivered to my work for my lunch! :) That was pretty nice!
Other then that, not much has been going on.. our garden is slowly but surely growing. I was extremely excited to see that I had some sprouts yesterday from my lil cucumber seeds! Yeah!! Our cantelope plants aren't doing as well.. but now that we decided to start watering them (lol) they are doing A LOT better! We only have one pepper growing, but its getting pretty big! Our tomatoes are slowly getting bigger and we are finally getting some flowers, which is very good news!! So hopefully we will be getting some lil tomatoes in the next little while. And sadly our watermelon seeds haven't shown any signs of improvement. But there is still hope!!
My nursery calling has been nice. I have only been once since it was stake conference, but it was a lot of fun. It seems like there might be almost too many workers in there. There is about 10-15 kids and there was 6 workers.. Im not sure how many actually are called into the nursery and how many are just coming in to help, but Im sure Ill find out soon enough. But it is lots of fun!
Oh and Steven and my CAAP test is Saturday morning for FOUR HOURS!! Ahhh!! Its like the ACT all over again!! I am sooooo not excited!! Im sure Steven isn't either. For those of you that dont know what the CAAP test is.. its the general test that you have to take to get into the Teaching program. You have to pass Reading, Math, Essay, and one more I cant remember. If you pass then you are one step closer to getting into the program.. if not.. then you have to retake the area's that you didnt pass. I am pretty scared about it because well I just dont do well on any type of tests!! I hope that we both pass it!! So cross your fingers! If we pass it then we will aim for applying and interviews around September-ish, then if all goes well Steven and I will both be in the program in January of 09!
Well I think I have talked long enough! I hope I didn't bore you too much!