Easter Weekend

Oh dang it, now see.... I dont understand how to do this blog.... I am putting the pictures in by the order they happend but they are coming in backwards!!! Arg - well, your just gonna have to figure it out...... After we arrived in SLC Friday night we crashed, and Sat. we headed to the Gateway Mall and entertained ourselves by trying on many things, taking pictures all over, and just some good old fashioned fun with the intentions and strict instructions to buy NOTHING. yeah right..... there were deals man! We spent and then we got the heck out of there..... Then we went to dinner with Sean & His family... that was fun because we went to the D.I. together after and I know a good deal when I see one! So , to say the least, we each got a new pair of shoes for $3 to $4 each. Sorry Keven , you should have gotten that cannon, it was a steal at $150!

Easter weekend we got tickets for Conference so we started off on Friday, we went to the Leighman caves. This was by tour only so we picnic'd and toured and then headed the rest of the way to Salt Lake. It was quite interesting to learn that it takes like 100 years to make an inch or two of the stalagtights and yet , they were really really long, some so long they reached the ground.

Where was I?

I dont have any pictures of me, but hopefully you all got to see me on "Lets Make a Deal!" And in my defense I want you to know that I had taught 4 exercise classes and my girlfriends picked me up in the parking lot at the gym and we went straight to Vegas so if I look kinda, um, thrashed, well, its because I was, the whole day was completly exhausting. But I'm excited to get my camera in June. If you didnt see it, you still can - on www.cbs.com search for the show under Daytime TV and you want the one dated 3/25/10, I'm in the middle of the show if you want to fast forward. I'm the green cheerleader. Go Bulldogs! (whatever!)

This is Kately inside the Key West Mine. (she's a little nervous because we saw bat poop) We let dad take the wheel and drive! He drove us out past Whitney Pockets to this Key West Mine and later in the month we organized a group 4 wheeler ride with over 20 bikes to this same mine for a day outing. It was really quite fun.

Activity Days girls went to the Paul Mitchel hair school and got updo's and nails and toes done, Talia is shown here with her friend Sarah (they think they rock, they are having the time of their lifes)

Well Here is one that I have mixed feelings about. My daughter is growing up! This is Tara next to her "friend" Lane Tate. Then their is also her Best Friend Tamari, and Tamari is next to her"Friend" Michael Seary. Whatever, I'm not stupid okay? But hey, at least they are all hanging out at my house where I can watch them, Taner is the one in the blue shirt with his arm around Tamari, totally working it. Again, whatever!!

Camera Unload

Okay I'm trying to get caught up here, and I am starting at the bottom so that it is all in sychronized order but my stinking camera just died on me, so now I need to go charge it and when I get back to unloading it onto this blog the stuff the I put on will be what actually happend before what you are reading below.

Basically, enjoy the updates below, and we;ll be blogging again soon...........

AND DONT FORGET TO WATCH CBS THURSDAY MORNING TO SEE ME WIN!!!!!
I'm on "Lets Make a Deal" THIS THURSDAY!!!










Kate has been doing gymnastics because it is right next door to where I teach Zumba, so she runs back and forth while I teach my class and she loves it. She's pretty darn strong and flexible but I would be too if I ate like a bird and ran circles all day!

Well lookie there! Tara and Tiff went on a PRE hike for our 26 miler hike that we are doing in July and there was Wendy and Bubba out there too! It rocks to live by family! Theother hikers were eating packaged dinners and we got dutch oven potatoes by bubba!

Yeah Tara! Tara had her first swim meet for the High School Swim Team this saturday. She got 2nd in Breast Stroke out of like 30 girls so we figured that was worth blogging big time. Amber is on the team to and they were even in a relay together. Kinda fun!

How's your heart?

Well - Happy Heart Day Everyone!
(I tried to put a clip art heart on here but I dont get why it wont let me)

Just thought I would let you all know that for the past couple weeks I have been having my heart checked out. Echo, stress test, halter monitor, that sort of thing. No big deal, just some minor concerns with dizzyness, ringing of the ears, tight chest, that sort of thing.

The good news is ..... I'm going to live! The bad news is, I'm am the spawn of Sharon. (now that can be a good thing in many ways, but in this case its not)

I was trying to give her my family history and to be honest I dont really know it. Dad? I know at one point you gave us a list of med's you are on and for the reasons but I basically told her you had old age because thats what you always tell us. She chuckled. When I mentioned my mom she said something to the effect of "Oh yes, I remmeber her, she was a nervous little thing."

Anyway - all tests done and this is what my chain smoking, coffee drinking cardiologist told me.... That I need to either slow down or find a spiritual time each day to pray or meditate. I have a premature ventricular blah blah blah, not a big deal, I have permission to run myself to the ground in the next marathon but its the daily stresses and 12 classes a week I teach and the prep time and stress for each along with a family of 4 kids an big house, etc. etc. etc. She said, "I'm not telling you that you have to quit something but you arent getting any younger and you better find time to meditate or pray for about 30 minutes a day." When I asked about caffeine or if this would get worse over time or if she wanted to see me again in 5 years or something. She basically said, your heart is fine - its your brain thats the problem. Have you had any anxiety or panic attacks, I said yes, she said, Me too!! Your heart is fine, you need to find time to pray or meditate or cut something out of your schedule. I said what if I dont. She said, then you'll feel these crappy syptoms and they may get worse so chill! She admitted that the caffeine can agitate it and she definitly recommends it not to be a daily thing, only when I really feel like I need it after teaching that 4th class, a soda would be fine. Even a cup of coffee each morning would be fine but not 8 cups a day. (you get what she was trying to say anyway)

So, alas, I will live! And I wish I could just quit all my jobs and walk away but I would be sooooo depressed and that would bring on a whole new batch of problems, so I am definitly saying no to things in the future and trying to cut a few classes out but go figure..... my goal for 2010 has been to be more spiritual and take time to have more personal study..... Why did I have to have a dr. confirm what I allready know?

So - I hope you all have a fabulous Valentines Day - Men ...... Dont forget your woman! Women, give those men a kiss or two!

Love you all - Tiff

Re-Post

If you get this message, please go check out my blog, I just posted an awesome day we had but I just added more email addresses, so if you get a change, check it out. thanks!

Best Day Ever!!!

Oh my gosh, we just had the best night ever!! (you should know that I only write on here about the best days, and that not ALL my days totally rock!)

Soooo, Keven and I discussed that we dont teach our kids enough about giving service and that we would devote one FHE each month to doing service. Well, I asked the kids earlier today what they thought we could do, and they were all like, "Oh man, seriously??" So I said, Okay we will write letters to our missionaries Jordan & Matthew. They were ok with that.

Well it was hours before FHE was to start and Taner has $100 burning a whole in his pocket and he was determined to go to Walmart and buy a music player so he has somthing to listen to on the way to Vegas tomorrow. (he is going with Guitar class to see the music festival)

Long story short, he decided to save his money for an Ipod Touch since he is so close and we left empty handed but in the parking lot we noticed a lady wandering around kind of distraut and talking to herself. Well she seemed harmless enough so as she approached my car I rolled down my window and she basically said she felt really dumb but her car broke down and she was out of minutes on her prepay phone and she wanted money to buy a card to put more minutes on her phone, well, I'm no dummy so I said, well, here use my phone, who are you calling, etc.

Come to find out she was trying to call her father in Tuscon which is where she was headed and she had allready used the phone of the worker inside and couldnt get a hold of her dad. (at this point many things are going through my head, like, put her in your car and take care of her, call Keven and have him fix it, feed her, bathe her, and convert her) (all the other alarms in my head were going off about protecting my kids, my belongings, my life, and well, those all got over run by the lesson we had in RS on sunday about doing missionary work and if you do it you will be blessed, so I was banking on the blessings of safety at this point, besides, I could take her down if I needed to)

Well, I called my wonderful Kev and he said, I'll meet you there in the parking lot and he came and checked it out and found that what she thought was an exploding water heater on the freeway was just her oil cap coming off and he got her more oil, and oil cap, and topped her off and we took her to our house, he fixed it, we fed her dinner, she showered and she is sleeping in the camper as we speeek!! (I also bought her $20 more of minutes for her phone) Before we left Walmart I told her that tonight was Fam. Home Evening and that we wanted to do service tonight so we were going to serve her, she was like, Huh? Whats that? So of course I explained that we were mormons and talked about the missionaries (plugging in the guys in the white shirts part here) and how the sister missionaries (plugging in that women also serve so if she was afraid of boy ones, girl ones was an option) had given us a lesson yesterday about doing missionary work and helping people in need. She mentioned having seen those boys on bikes before but wasnt familiar with the weird rules of mormons and FHE so we talked about that. While in the checkout line there were many magazines with girls in bikinis so I stood in front of them and jokingly said to Taner how I was protecting him from soft porn, and she was like, huh? So I told her look at that, it's soft porn and we joked about how hard it must be for Taner to go outside each day without seeing anything, and we just smiled laughed and tried to help her losen up and feel comfortable with us. I mean really, we were afraid she would take us for all our money, but she was probably afraid to trust us and go to our house too.

All the while she was humiliated and kept mentioning how dumb she felt and how grateful she was, and I simply explained that if Jesus came to my door needing anything I would give him everything and its the same for me to do things for her, its an honor and a privledge and she was all teary eyed all night long. It was an absolutley awesome experience for my kids, she told her story and for my kids to see that not everyone is a mormon being raised in Mesquite and that their lives are so simple, was really good for them. She is 32, coming from Texas going through a divorce, heading home to Tuscon to her parents (she ended up this way because she dropped off a friend in Kansas first - we didnt ask) But she was obviously a chain smoker, a non teeth brusher, and without the gospel. She was great with Taner telling him how she and her sisters had one brother and they really beat him up so Taner was lucky and spoiled because she never had a cell phone. She was amazed and impressed with my kids even though Kate was pretty much in full demon mode the whole time. We asked her all kinds of questions and gave her bottles of water, snacks for the road and a real map from Google.

Here's the clincher, at what point do you say more? The voices in my head are screaming (I know what you needdd!!) So, After dinner we sat in the front room and talked and it was so nice. I didnt go there with the plan of salvation but I asked her to take a pass a long card and take the time to go online when she got home and if she was ever really down and depressed and needed a spiritual pick me up she could call the missionaries and they could bring her a message no strings attached. She was pretty overwhelmed with our house, kids, and how "perfect" our lives were to her so she retired early and we are still on cloud 11!

My kids were like, oh my gosh, we are so jazzed, that was awesome, I wonder if she's ok out there, and all kinds of stuff. I told them, see, you dont need to do drugs, you just need to do service and it feels like you drank a monster!! Taner was like, this rocks, I feel like I have drank a 2 liter of Mt. Dew!!

We are calming down now and I'm sad to think she is out there in my trailer. She was going to finish her drive tonight, but she knew she needed sleep. She said Walmart said she could sleep in her car in the parking lot but I said, No! You will sleep on my couch. She said, well, maybe I'll just sleep in my car in your drivway, I said, NO! You will sleep on my couch. But Keven said, hey, if she isnt comfortable with in here, I'll set up a bed in the trailer and she will be comfy and warm, etc. So it worked out great.

The lord works in mysterious ways people. We asked to give service and the opportunity fell into our hands. I dont want any blessings for serving her, it was absolutely positively the best experience I have had in a long time and my family and I were the lucky ones.

Good Luck Hollie.

Memorable Day!!

(Here are the 3 hopefulls!! A cheerleader, a goddess, and the tooth fairy!!)

( Look - we got contestant numbers, we interviewed, and are headed to the studio!! - They confiscated my camera after this shot!!)

( Stuffed, exhausted and still have to drive home to Mesquite!! (I had got up at 5:30am for Spin, Zumba, Water Aerobics then left Mesquite promptly at 11am for the days events, I wasnt feeling to guilty about eating Alfredo Sauce!!)

SO WHATS THE STORY??? You know how some days are really good days and some just average, and some not so great? Well, today was one of those way freaking cool awesome exceptional days, which I totally needed by the way due to last weeks events, but thats not what I'm posting about.

The game show "Let's Make a Deal" w/ Wayne Brady has been filming in Vegas and this is the last weekend so a couple girlfriend's and I decided on a whim that we would take off and try to get in. We got sitters, packed lunches, dawned some basic costumes and went for it! It was a tedious task to stand in line with the finest losers of Vegas but Alas - we got on!! And to make a long story short, I got picked!! Oh and - shhhhh - I won!!!

But dont tell, you have to watch the show when it airs March 25th on Cbs!!! I cant say anything or I have to forfeit my prize. Also - I dont even get my prize until 3 months after the show airs (that makes it June, ARG!) AND if the show doesnt air - I dont get my prize at all - so its not really a reality at this point, but wow - I was on a Game Show!! - absolutly an experience everyone should do.

Today..... I'm exhausted, have no voice, and really need to go for a run after that celebration dinner at Olive Garden with my girl friends. But hey - I got to Hug Wayne Brady, and really wished I had dressed up as a Sister Missionary and handed him a Book of Mormon, but that was an afterthought. Hey, Wait, the last day of Tapeing is today - Maybe I'll take Keven and go again today and hope he gets on !! Na - I got carpets to shampoo (the dog left us a surprise last night) ..... Well, the clock has struck twelve and its off to clean the castle!!

March 25th - Cbs - be there!!! - You DONT want to miss it!! (and watch every second because I'm only on for 2 seconds!!, dont even blink - and I'm totally lame by the way!!!)