TEA FOR 3 PLEASE!

FIRST EVER TEA party yesterday

A GRACIOUS HOSTESS

MILHOUSE, WONT YOU join us?

TAGGED BY SUMMER

5 things on my list of things to do today:

1. Clean house
2. Have another tea party with Shelby
3. Clean house again
4. Practice violin(always on the list, doesn't always happen)
5. Go to work

5 snacks I enjoy:

1. Chocolate almond milk
2. Mango salsa
3. Sushi
4. Dibs(those little ice cream bites)
5. Really good salmon

5 things I would do if I suddenly became a billionaire:

1. Buy my brother a workshop and tools for his tiling business and make Shelley quit waitressing and her other 5 jobs and just does school like she wants.
2. QUIT MY JOB, finish my BSN, go straight to medical school, join Doctors Without Borders, help AIDS relief in Africa; fund and help research a cure. I feel a certain responsibility to this cause after my Dads untimely death due to this disease. Also, National AIDS awareness day just happens to fall on my birthday....The universe is calling!
3. Build a house on horse property(100 acres should do it) next to a great river for fly fishing.
4. Put away a few million and ensure Shelby's Harvard education.
5. Go clothes shopping(well I'm not gunna lie)!

5 places I've lived:

1. Pinedale, Az
2. Snowflake, AZ
3. Mesa, AZ
4. Ascoli Piceno, Italy
5. Scottsdale, AZ

5 jobs I've held:

1. Server at Pat's Place in Show Low
2. Horse "technician", Tyler Farms Arabians
3. Emergency Department Technician, Banner Mesa Medical Center
4. Wedding photographer
5. Server at Flicka's

5 things people don't know about me:

1. I have never had a single cavity!
2. Fruit annoys me; the peeling, the dripping of the juices, and it does nothing to fill me up.
3. I really want to see a cranberry bog before I die.
4. I love being bare foot; inside, outside, doesn't matter. There is just something freeing about it that makes you feel like a kid.
5. I still jam out and jump on my bed.

5 people I tag:(I didn't bother to look and see who already got this tag, sorry if I double tagged you)!

1. Jen Hawkins
2. Krista
3. Lindsay
4. Cherie
5. Audrey

GO SPURS!.....I MEAN SUNS!

WENT TO A Suns game last night which was extra awesome because it is the playoffs! I am a Suns fan but I have to confess my trader like fondness/weakness for Tony Parker. What an amazing player! He scored 41 points for the Spurs in last nights game(most by far out of anyone on both teams). The game plan for the Spurs is 'get the ball to Tony'. Whatever works, right? Tony's french accent, wearing the #9 and general hotness also helps I'm sure. Making me the worst Suns fan in NBA history. I like to think that my father(major Suns fan)and I would have had a great time watching the playoffs this year. He would make fun of my basis and I would rub in his face EVERY POINT THAT TONY SCORED! Final score - Spurs 115, Suns 99.

TEMPORARY INSANITY

I WILL NEVER complain about shaving my legs again! It will be a week tomorrow since the water heater broke. The photo is of my valiant attempt to fix this problem after the part ordered came in the mail. This effort took an act of bravery. Instructions encourage you to 'unscrew the door to the COMBUSTION CHAMBER', warn repeatedly - 'EXPLOSION HAZARD', and oh ya, don't forget to turn off the gas first. Installed perfectly of course, it still wouldn't work. I would sell my...no, trade.....no, give away my right arm just to have hot water come out of a shower again. Taking a cold shower everyday is really not that bad until it comes time to shave or wash your hair. I have three options otherwise; I have done all three. Take one at someone Else's house, logically the best idea, only its not when you are packing a 2 year old around and the only family you have here is $10 in gas away. Then you start to think in other directions...."I can just stay home and take a cold shower then wash my hair in the sink"(option #2), to avoid freezing to death. The only downfall to this option is you cant shave your legs(without getting goose bumps and massive razor burn). Option #3, heat up 5 pans of water on the stove and sit in a still only luke warm tub filled maybe 6 inches. You end up flopping around like a dying King Salmon trying desperately to get all the conditioner out of your hair. And after all of this I feel bad complaining knowing I can take a cold but clean shower when some people on this earth would sell...no,trade...no, give away their soul just to have that much.

AND SHE TURNS TWO!

SHELBY TURNED TWO yesterday. Leave it to a child to bring us all together again for the first time. We threw a lovely little soiree to celebrate my beautiful child. Free of animosity or clickish corners.

Just a brief moment of sentimental retrospect - two years and two days ago I went into labor after a very long 9 months and one week(uhh). Shelby takes her time in all she does. Exactly 24 hours of labor, at 6:57pm I finally heard that battle cry! Every day since then has been the most blissfully potent, unbearably worrisome of my life. Shelby brings new meaning to all things beautiful and vibrant. As I tell her every night between bed time and prayer time..."I love you more than all the fishes in the sea and higher than the moon AND more than anyone or anything on this entire planet or in the whole entire universe" and I always will!



BLOWING OUT HER candle


CLAIRE SHELBY and TYLER


GRANDPA LEWIS WILLIAMS and my GRANDFATHER BRUCE NICHOLS. Glad to meet at Shelbys party, you should have heard this conversation; it was if you can imagine, about losing their wives of 60+ years.

DQ, SOMETHING DIFFERENT!

TONIGHT I TOOK Shelby to Dairy Queen for her inaugural tasting of this American favorite. I don't have to tell you that she loved it. Boy, you should have seen her face when I bit into the cone; she thought i was eating her bowl!

OAHU HAWAII

UNSURPRISINGLY TO SOME, I took a rather impromptu trip this last weekend to Hawaii. I have a tendency to do this because I believe that life should be..oh, I don't know...lived! This is one way I do that. I believe in getting out of our bubble and exploring this amazing place we call Earth. After the half a dozen tragedies it took for me to realize this, I am so glad I did. Though Hawaii was not as culturally challenging as other travels(minus the spelling of all the roads - Kanekapolei, Kalaimoku, Kealohilani and much much more for our entertainment and near death experiences in one way traffic for others, two way for me) it is still one of Gods most amazing creations. Luckily, my oldest friend(since she was born) Alanna had a window of time and some extra tax refund money and decided to join me. We had to be cheap! Our flight was $350 round trip, we stayed in $80 a night hotels, split it was a whopping $40 bucks each(obviously, Sarah), rented a Budget rent a car for $20 a day(again split)and ate as many cheap, very delicious, very greasy hamburgers as we could and after one or two, okay five souvenir's for Shelby later, I came home with enough money left over to pay rent and 2 or 3 bills. We rock! The key was to get out of the city, and everyone should, that is where all the beauty is.

OUR FIRST DAY - Up the windward coast headed to North Shore. Living in our bathing suits was GREAT but not so flattering the first day you are there. I was a very shiny shade of white!


THE LAIE HAWAII Temple


PLUMERIA GIVEN TO us at the temple by a sister missionary.


WORN ON THE right means you are "available", on the left "unavailable".


ON THE SET of the TV show LOST!




HEADING BACK TO Waikiki from North Shore.


SUPER FANCY HOTEL room!


DAY TWO - PEARL HARBOR - A bit of a history buff, this was a big day for me. It was really important to me that we make this stop. I wont spew my feelings on it but it was truly amazing and utterly devastating being there. My name is Sarah and I am a patriot.




VIEW FROM OUR hotel room - Waikiki.


DAY THREE - HALONA BLOWHOLE, saw a sea turtle in this bay!


HALONA BLOWHOLE


DON'T LET THIS guy fool you.....he's dead!


SUCH A BAD picture because I was laughing so hard when I took it. This moment at the airport involved comments on epilepsy and narcolepsy safety equipment!

LIKE WE NEVER SKIPPED A BEAT!

THE OTHER DAY I went to lunch/Anthropologie with Audrey Poulsen(Cooper)an old friend from high school(we are back left in the really bad, old picture). Gosh it was so good to see her. She left and moved to San Diego then moved with her family to finish high school in Prescott. A major bummer for her fans at Snowflake High. I say fans because it is true. Audrey was an institution in that place. She was our fashion guru! Still to this day everything she does, everything she touches is Paris worthy. Audrey is a total independent thinker, she knows what is "going on" in every sense of the word before anyone else has a chance to realize it. Merci beaucoup for luch Auj! And cheers to the fashion victim on the motorized cart with beads who you wanted to take a picture of and send into Oprah!