Our New House Update

We went out to the new house this weekend and they FINALLY started framing! They have the entire downstairs framed and they only messed up on two things: the garage man door and my extended pantry space. GRRRRR!!!!! It is really frustrating having to babysit them on THEIR job, especially since they have the same plans we do! We are going back out today to make sure they have or are in the process of correcting things. Here are some pics of the progress so far, hopefully things will start to speed up a little.
We are also making our final move to Bountiful this weekend, so this is kind of a stressful week for us. You would think with all the extra time we have had that we would be almost finished by now, but think again, we have procrastinated our way to the very end. On the bright side, we are so happy that our initial renters flaked out and we got the ones that we did. They were definately worth the wait! You're Welcome to all of our current, soon-to-be-past, neighbors! :)

Our Summer so far...

We have been having a really fun Summer so far. We got to go to Idaho for our niece's graduation, Congrats Chantal! We have been playing golf like crazy, I love it! I am doing a golf clinic with two of my good girlfriends, Holly & Bekah. It is so much fun! I look forward to playing all summer long.We have also had some fun birthday celebrations, Happy Birthday Emily & Mack! Now it's time to buckle down and get moved out of our house so we can start enjoying the rest of the summer without stress and things to do! We've got two more weeks and then we can throw caution to wind and just have fun!

I am a lover of Superheroes

My love of comic book movies and Superheroes has really been on the surface lately. I think it is due mostly to my new found love of Ironman, which I am going to see for the 3rd time later today! Its funny how Ironman can go from not even being on my list to being in my top 3 favorite superheroes of all time list, right behind Superman and Batman, of course. Anyways, as I was laying in bed yesterday literally from the time I got off work until I started work again this morning, Batman Begins came on TV and how could I not watch it? This, obviously, only fed my impatience for the release of the upcoming Batman movie, The Dark Knight. It also brought up the question, of who has been the best Batman? If you would have asked me this 10 years ago, of course I would have said Val Kilmer hands down because when I was a teenager I was seriously obsessed with Batman Forever when it came out. However, I have really grown to love Christian Bale as Batman. It probably helps that he is in a few other movies that I love, The Prestige, 310 to Yuma, and of course, Newsies. So what do all of you think? Is there even a competition between Michael Keaton, George Clooney, Val Kilmer, and Christian Bale? Of course, since I wasnt around in 1966, Adam West will not be a part of my poll, but if you were then great, just leave a comment and show us all how old school you are. :)

And as a special treat, enjoy the preview of The Dark Knight. Release Date: July 18

I loved this quiz so much...

...that I made Troy give me his answers so I could do it for him too! More of you bloggers really should do it, it's super fun! :)

The rules are simple:

1. Go to http://www.flickr.com/.

2. Type your answer to each question in the “search” box.

3. Using only the first page, pick an image.

4. Copy and paste the picture into your blog.

What is your first name?

What is your favorite food?

What High School did you go to?

I didn't know what picture to put here b/c I had too many options to choose from! :)

What is your favorite color?

Who is your celebrity crush?

What is your favorite drink?

What is your dream vacation?

What is your favorite dessert?

What do you want to be when you grow up?

What is your favorite indulgence?

What do you love the most?

He may have just given me this answer b/c I was the one asking him the questions, but that's just fine with me! I love you Troy! :)

The latest in the Twilight series

I have two exciting things to post today that I found online. First, this is a sneak peek of the first chapter in Stephenie Meyer's 4th book in the Twilight series, Breaking Dawn. It comes out on August 2 for those of you who didnt know or who havent realized how close that actually is!! Here it is:

1. ENGAGED

NO ONE IS STARING AT YOU, I promised myself. No one is staring at you. No one is staring at you.

But, because I couldn't lie convincingly even to myself, I had to check.

As I sat waiting for one of the three traffic lights in town to turn green, I peeked to the right — in her minivan, Mrs. Weber had turned her whole torso in my direction. Her eyes bored into mine, and I flinched back, wondering why she didn't drop her gaze or look ashamed. It was still considered rude to stare at people, wasn't it? Didn't that apply to me anymore?

Then I remembered that these windows were so darkly tinted that she probably had no idea if it was even me in here, let alone that I'd caught her looking. I tried to take some comfort in the fact that she wasn't really staring at me, just the car.

My car. Sigh.

I glanced to the left and groaned. Two pedestrians were frozen on the sidewalk, missing their chance to cross as they stared. Behind them, Mr. Marshall was gawking through the plate glass window of his little souvenir shop. At least he didn't have his nose pressed up against the glass. Yet.

The light turned green and, in my hurry to escape, I stomped on the gas pedal without thinking — the normal way I would have punched it to get my ancient Chevy truck moving.

Engine snarling like a hunting panther, the car jolted forward so fast that my body slammed into the black leather seat and my stomach flattened against my spine.

''Arg!'' I gasped as I fumbled for the brake. Keeping my head, I merely tapped the pedal. The car lurched to an absolute standstill anyway.

I couldn't bear to look around at the reaction. If there had been any doubt as to who was driving this car before, it was gone now. With the toe of my shoe, I gently nudged the gas pedal down one half millimeter, and the car shot forward again.

I managed to reach my goal, the gas station. If I hadn't been running on vapors, I wouldn't have come into town at all. I was going without a lot of things these days, like Pop-Tarts and shoelaces, to avoid spending time in public.

Moving as if I were in a race, I got the hatch open, the cap off, the card scanned, and the nozzle in the tank within seconds. Of course, there was nothing I could do to make the numbers on the gauge pick up the pace. They ticked by sluggishly, almost as if they were doing it just to annoy me.

It wasn't bright out — a typically drizzly day in Forks, Washington — but I still felt like a spotlight was trained on me, drawing attention to the delicate ring on my left hand. At times like this, sensing the eyes on my back, it felt as if the ring were pulsing like a neon sign: Look at me, look at me.

It was stupid to be so self-conscious, and I knew that. Besides my dad and mom, did it really matter what people were saying about my engagement? About my new car? About my mysterious acceptance into an Ivy League college? About the shiny black credit card that felt red-hot in my back pocket right now?

''Yeah, who cares what they think,'' I muttered under my breath.

(c) 2008 by Stephenie Meyer, reprinted with permission from the Eclipse Special Edition published by Little, Brown and Company.

And now for the second exciting teaser, a new scene from the Twilight movie. Enjoy!

• MTV
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• Entertainment News

Side note to my cousin Dana: I know we briefly talked about this in Oklahoma, but I just thought I would tell you that with no job and no boyfriend around, you have NO REASON not to at least attempt to read these books! I promise you wont be disappointed! The first one is called Twilight by Stephenie Meyer. You won't have a problem figuring out which one is next! Happy Reading! :)

My true Celebrity Crush...

On a recent post, I declared John Cusack as my celebrity crush, while I do love John Cusack I felt ashamed of myself after seeing my sister, Amy, so openly declare her love for Kid Rock as her celebrity crush on her blog. As all of my close friends and family already know, my celebrity heart undeniably belongs to none other than Eminem. (Troy, don't roll your eyes, you knew this before you married me!)

While the need to declare this may seem silly to most of you, it is something that I need to do on my quest to get back to my roots and get reacquainted with myself again before I turn completely into someone else. So, Amy here I am, right beside you as you declare your love for Kid Rock, I am putting my developed embarrassment aside and declaring my love for Eminem and reclaiming a shred of myself.

While I don't listen to Eminem like I used to anymore due to the regained feelings of true peace and happiness in my life, he will always hold a special love and appreciation in my heart for being a light, yes a light, during the darkest time of my life. Thank you Eminem...
...for sharing your life
...for having so much passion
...for being a lyrical genius
...for making us laugh
...for expressing the anger that we all feel, but can't express
...for relating to all of us that know what its like to feel absence from a father, craziness from a mother, and the feeling of being at rock bottom
...for helping me to remember that despite everything that is wrong in your life you still have the only thing in the world that you need, the people that you love and would do anything for

And thank you to both Kid Rock and Eminem for still being able to keep it real and say to the world, "I'm a piece of white trash and I say it proudly!"



May we all have to courage to remember where we came from and be who we really are...



So next time you see me driving down the street with my windows down and Eminem blaring from the car, just know it's me...just being me.

Enjoy the new temporary play list...I tried to keep it as clean as possible. :)

"Where we love is home,Home that our feet may leave, but not our hearts."

We just got back from our short visit to my home, Oklahoma. We had tons of fun just hanging out with my Ganny, my cousins, and my stepdad, and his wife. Most of our time was spent eating ourselves sick at Ganny's house or all of my favorite hometown restaurants.

When we weren't eating, we were going on walks at Ganny's house, visiting Jerry's farm and worksites, spending time with my cousins (I'm so mad I didn't get any pictures with them!), meeting up with old friends, and visiting all of my old stomping grounds.

It was so nice going home and spending time with the people that mean so much to me. I am thankful for my step dad, Jerry, for giving us so many good memories and for loving us like his own kids. I am thankful to Ganny for taking care of us and giving us a stable environment and a place that will always be home.

Let the digging begin!

We had our pre-dig meeting for our new house last Friday. Here are some pics of our lot before the digging started.

The view of our friends house from our house.

We drove out there last night and they are really making progess. They should start framing next week. At this rate, they will be finished by August, we can't wait!!

Fun Quiz

I saw this on my friend Bekah's new blog, it looked so fun!

The rules are simple:
1. Go to http://www.flickr.com/.
2. Type your answer to each question in the “search” box.
3. Using only the first page, pick an image.
4. Copy and paste the picture into your blog.

What is your first name?

What is your favorite food?

What High School did you go to?

What is your favorite color?

Who is your celebrity crush?

What is your favorite drink?

What is your dream vacation?

What is your favorite dessert?

What do you want to be when you grow up?

What is your favorite indulgence?

What do you love the most?
Now it's time for all of you to do it!

Official New Twilight Trailer

Need I say more?

My new favorite thing

I have been wanting a new phone for awhile that would be easier for texting because you guessed it, I am a textoholic. I got this new Blackberry Pearl for free, that's right, you heard me, FREE! Thank you so much Ty!! I LOVE it and I dont think I am going to get any work done today because I am just going to playing with my new toy. Now I am going to have to upgrade my cell phone plan so I can enjoy all of it's cool features!

Spring is here! Yay!

Other than a day of yard work, yesterday was the first day I have been able to get out and really enjoy the nice weather we have been having. We went golfing with some good friends of ours. It was really fun even if I did have a couple of melt downs where I wanted to curse the name of golf forever. We all finished strong though and look forward to a summer of golf, tennis, and camping and hopefully moving into our new houses! :)

Happy Earth Day

I was planning on making an Earth Day post today, but I dont think I could say it better than my sister does, so I am just going to refer you to her blog. For a nice insight to Earth Day, click here, http://vanderlindenclan.blogspot.com.

P.S. We are trying to get rid of our pointless Toyota, so if anyone wants it, let me know! :)