I just wanted to put this post up to thank my sister-in-law for the help she gave me with my totally blank living room wall. Even from across the country, she was an enormous help. It looks way better now, even though my options are seriously limited in an apartment!
It looks way better in real life than in this picture, though...plus I didn't think about cleaning up the TV area when I took this picture. Oops.
And look how crafty I'm getting these days! I made it all by myself! Yay!
Jordan was asked by the Primary presidency to be King Benjamin at their activity this morning. He was the cutest king ever.
We had to make a tower (I made it late last night, so it's not my best work...) and then he spoke to the Primary kids from it about service and loving one another. All the Primary kids just adore Jordan (we were substitute teachers for just about every class when we moved into the ward) so they all paid very close attention.
During his speech (?) the kids would sing songs. I love this new one the Primary learned last year:
A long time ago in a beautiful place, Children were gathered ’round Jesus. He blessed and taught as they felt of His love. Each saw the tears on His face. The love that He felt for His little ones I know He feels for me. I did not touch Him or sit on His knee, Yet, Jesus is real to me.
Chorus I know He lives! I will follow faithfully. My heart I give to Him. I know that my Savior loves me. Now I am here in a beautiful place, Learning the teachings of Jesus. Parents and teachers will help guide the way, Lighting my path ev’ry day. Wrapped in the arms of my Savior’s love, I feel His gentle touch. Living each day, I will follow His way, Home to my Father above.
Chorus I know He lives! I will follow faithfully. My heart I give to Him. I know that my Savior loves me.
Most of you know I haven't been too thrilled with Georgia since I've been here, but this week I found a reason to love it.
75 degrees and sunny in the middle of February? Love it! I really, really don't miss the five months of snow in Utah. And even in SacTown, the weather is crappy until March. This is sooo awesome.
Anyway, we've been enjoying it. Jordan and I spent today (Saturday) playing tennis and sitting out by the pool (the pool is still much, much too cold to swim in, although Lexi sat in it on the top step). I've got an awesome sunburn!
Here are some pictures from our week. Jordan was working in Cochran, GA, a tiny little town in the middle of nowhere. I didn't want to not be with him for Valentine's Day so I drove up Monday afternoon and we spent the night at a bed and breakfast. Here's my presents to him:
Candy bar bouquet (that I made!):
And presents (Catch Phrase, Monopoly Deal, and The Confession by John Grisham.) Yes, I'm still reusing gift bags from our wedding...
Here's a cute Southern House at the bed and breakfast we stayed at, but they didn't let us in a cute house because we had Lexi with us. Lame. We had to stay in a FREEZING cabin.
Jordan had left for work by the time I got around to taking pictures, so Lexi had to be my photo buddy.
Sidenote: She's wearing a Halti, which helps her not to pull on the leash. People always think it's a muzzle, and parents freak out when they see her coming towards their kids. I'm thinking of having her wear a sign: "This is NOT a muzzle."
Pretty fountain.
Thursday night we went to a rodeo in Perry, Georgia. I loooove rodeos. I am strange. I like both the events where they tie the calves up. When I told Jordan this, he said, "I like the event where they put a little bomb in a calf and make it explode." He's so mean...
You know how they always say, "Who's from _____?" and you all cheer? Well, the rodeo clown said "Who's from California" and of course I was the ONLY one who cheered. He said, "Well, welcome to a state that can pay its own bills!" He was kind of a mean clown...
The half time show was this guy who trains horses for movies. He's under the box waving the flag. You can't see him. He was amazing, though.
And of course, like I mentioned in the last post, Lexi and I frequented the Macon Dog Park every day, which was the best dog park ever. They had a fun stream...
...and Lexi actually loved it! I'm so glad she's over her fear of water. She has always been terrified but then a couple of weeks ago we went hiking and she jumped in a swamp. She could have been eaten by alligators, but at least she isn't scared of water anymore!
And there was an agility course. It was awesome. Lexi and I loved it.
We made lots of friends, especially this old guy with his two labradors. He liked me a lot and asked me for dog training tips. He was a cute old guy.
Anyway, we've been enjoying the weather and seeing our new state! I don't say it often, but hurray for Georgia!
We've been in Perry, GA this week, and since we don't have a dog park in Albany, I made the drive up to Macon and checked out their dog park. Imagine my surprise when they had a full on agility course in the middle! My heart lept for joy. I was soooo excited. I know, I'm a dork.
Lexi has never done any of the contact obstacles before, and she rocked them like a pro, like she's done this a million times. I was so proud of her! A bit of brag--some of the other dog owners saw me doing it and brought their dogs over and they wouldn't even put their feet on it. I'm so glad that Lexi seems to have the talent and the desire to become an agility dog!
Anyway, check our my proof of how awesome my pup is! I'm so proud of her!
I'm not sure how many of you know about the holiday of Gijumshpunkel. It's awesome. And you should all celebrate it. When I was about 15, my good friend Starlene decided that it wasn't fair that purple didn't have a holiday. Green had a couple holidays, red had three holidays, blue had one, and so on...but she so loved purple and purple didn't get to be in a holiday except Easter, when it was pastel and not nearly as cool. So, anyway, Star created Gijumshpunkel, which is on February 5 and is the day of purple birth, and it's little representative is a purple dragon named Shpunkel.
This came up in playgroup (yes, I attend playgroup childless sometimes) since my friend Megan looooves purple. She dresses her daughter in purple everyday. Anyway, I mentioned that Gijumshpunkel was coming up and all my friends in Albany agreed to celebrate the day with me (I was glad, because I've worn purple and celebrated this day ever year since Star made it, but usually it's just me).
I was so excited that I decided to make a cake. NOT cupcakes. Wow. A real, honest to goodness, cake.
Here it is before frosting.
Here it is after frosting and piping.
Then I added some spikes made of melting chocolate.
Megan is so cute (she decorated with cute purpleness, as you can see in the first picture). We always have playgroup at her house and this is what was on the door when I showed up:
And most the kids were in purple. They aren't smiling, but that's what happens when there are lots of kids.
Jolly Gijumshpunkel to all! And may Shpunkel the purple dragon make all your wishes come true!
It was the Youth Temple trip, and I had planned a couple of weeks ago to attend. We had to go alllllll the way to the Columbia, South Carolina temple (about 5 hours away) and stay overnight because the Atlanta temple is being completely redone right now. Jordan was going to stay here with Lexi...until we found a car to buy in Columbia.
I should probably back up a bit.
Did I mention that I totalled the Camry (it was NOT my fault) at the end of October? Well,I did, and we've been a one car family ever since. We figured we could survive for a few months since we would be in Texas together and only needed one car there, but ever since we've been back we've been looking for a car. Anyway, the car we ended up buying just happened to be close to the temple. What a blessing!
But back to the temple trip...we left on Friday when everyone got out of school. Our car left 45 minutes late because we were waiting for our digital piano to arrive (more about that later). The delivery people said that it would get here Wednesday night...then Thursday...then Friday morning...and it finally got here at 4:30 pm. Kind of frustrating, but whatever.
So, due to an insane rainstorm and driving in pitch blackness the whole way, the 5 hour drive turned into a 7 hour drive and we arrived in South Carolina at 11:30 pm. The girls all slept at a very nice couple's house and the boys stayed at the temple home. They made Jordan and I split up :( sad.
We had to wake up the next morning realllllly early because we were supposed to be at the temple at 6:45 am. Ha! It's really hard getting girls up and ready on 5 hours of sleep. But we were only 10 minutes late.
We arrived at the beautiful, small temple and had a lovely time. I've never gotten to help in the temple and it was a fun experience. I got to pass out towels :) It was fun seeing my girls get baptized. They are sweeties.
Here are me and our YW president and our girls (we are in regular clothes because it was pouring when we got out of the temple, so we came back an hour later to take pictures):
I was so glad that Jordan got to come with us.
So after that, one of the moms who had volunteered to come was nice enough to take us to the dealership where we picked up our new car!
Yes, it's new. 10 miles on it when we drove it off the lot.
It's going to be Jordan's car for the next 10 years, so he better take good care of it. It's a 2011 Ford Fusion. I really, really can't believe we bought a Ford. It hurts my soul a bit, but it sure is shiny.
It's pretty. I'm jealous.
When we were driving home I was terrified that we were going to crash it. And now I'm turning into my dad. "We need to park far, far away from any other cars!" He would always say, and then we would have to hike into the store from miles away. "You'll understand when you spend ***** dollars on a car, Jamie," he would say. "No, Dad, it's just a car!"
He was right. Dads always are...
Anyway, when we got home (and had loaded 300 miles on our car, bummer) and picked up Lexi from this kid that was baby sitting her, Jordan set up our digital piano. It's like a super glorified keyboard. It's keys are weighted and had great sound and looks like a piano, too. We used all our Christmas money from our parents and the cash back from our Discover card to pay for it. Yay! Thanks parents! And Discover!
We had to put it in our second bedroom because there wasn't a good place to put it in our living room on a wall that wasn't shared.
Lexi isn't quite sure what to think of our loud new box.
We love having a piano soooo much. Jordan was a piano hog last night so I didn't really get to play, but I was sooooo tired from the trip I went to bed at 9:15 anyway. I played today though. It's going to be so nice to have a digital piano because then when we have kids we can put headphones into it and play when they take naps. Yay!
We feel very blessed and a bit guiltyto have these things now, but we are going to enjoy them anyway. :)
I have a friend here in Albany named Jaylene who is the best couponer around. She usually spends like nothing and comes back with a bunch of stuff. Honestly, sometimes all she pays is tax. It's amazing. We all wanted to know how she does it, so she led us to SouthernSavers.com.
Each week, the lady at Southern Savers puts out a list of what is on sale at different stores and then it links you to different coupons to take the sale price down even further. It's awesome and addicting. However, I have not managed to spend less than $16 yet. I'm going to keep trying, though.
Today I went to Publix (It's like the southern version of Albertson's) and spent $26.60 (and saved $32.73) and got all this:
The last couple weeks I've done better. This week it seemed like all they had on sale was junk food. Usually it's stuff that's better for you, but since I'm in YW and like to bring the girls treats, I figured I might as well take advantage. I wasn't going to buy the ice cream bars, but Jordan saw them on the list and insisted. I'm excited to try the TGI Friday's Potato skins for dinner tonight. Yum!
I'm going to put one of these up every week because I want to keep track of how I'm doing with my couponing every week, so sorry if you get bored of them...
My husband is such a sweetie. I came home from Young Women's last night and found these on the table...
...and these in our room.
Earlier in the week I found the horse pictures at Hobby Lobby and I was soooo excited. I love them--it's really unusual to find any horse decor that isn't western themed, and I thought these were beautiful. And they were fifty percent off! I was so excited that I dragged Jordan over to Hobby Lobby when I picked him up from work yesterday.
Unfortunatly, the look on his face let me know that he didn't quite feel the same way about them as I did. I was bummed. Saaaaaaad Jamie.
I really, really didn't expect him to go back and get them later. Jordan is quite picky about home decor and usually will not buy anything that he doesn't really like. But I'm glad he made an exception :)
The are over our bed now but they are more of a hallway thing...but we don't have a hallway right now. Just letting you all know our bedroom will not be horse-themed...
