Rewards

Scott started back to school on Monday and all I feel is sympathy and relief that I'm done with that part of my life. I remember how it felt to go back to school and feel like my brain was going to explode because of all that it was trying to absorb. He's such a hard worker and he puts his all into everything he does. He's really enjoying what he is learning and is going to learn (except for English), and we know that it will be a huge benefit when it comes to building our own business.

Today I had the whole day off, which is great after a long week of work, and Scott had to go to work and come home and do homework. I don't particularly enjoy working 40 hours a week, but it's so nice to not have to worry about coming home and doing homework, so the 40 hours is worth it if I don't have to do the school thing again. Before Scott got into his homework, we went to Blockbuster to exchange some movies and they had Lego Indiana Jones which Scott has been wanting to rent for a long time, but each time we went to Blockbuster it was out. So he was pretty excited that they had it. So he was such a good, strong person, and he did his homework and his reward was getting to play Indiana Jones. He loved Lego Star Wars a lot, but he beat that a while ago. I think it's a good thing to have an outlet when you're in school. We'll see how long it takes him to beat this game.

We Are Family...

This weekend, we got to go up to Salt Lake and visit some family. My aunt Larrie (Yes, she is a woman, and she's very cute and feminine) and my uncle Brent were in town from St. Louis. Scott had never met my Uncle Brent and since he is one of the best people I know, I really wanted him to meet him while he was in town. When we got married in October my Aunt Larrie let my whole family stay at her house and she was the best hostess. My Uncle Brent ended up in the hospital and was really ill at the time but they still made sure that everything was perfect for our family and for our luncheon which they let us use their house for. They were so great in helping us set up with everything and let us bombard them. Scott and I never got to the hospital to see him while we were there and I wanted him to get to meet one of my favorite uncles. So we got to go to dinner with the whole family on Saturday, including my cousin David that lives in Virginia. It was so fun to see all of them and get to visit.

We also got to see Joey (my brother) and Rhonda's newly finished basement. They have been working on it ever since they found out they were pregnant, and with the baby coming in the next couple weeks, Joey is pretty relieved to have it done and is enjoying the fruits of his labors. We played Rock Band in his basement on his new TV. Here is a little peak at what went on. This is the boy band with my brother-in-law Jimmy on the guitar, Joey on the drums and my rocker husband Scott singing his heart out. It was pretty fun, and really loud.



On Sunday we got to see my nephew Brett who lives in Connecticut. Scott had never met him and I haven't seen him in 2 years when he was a good foot shorter than me, now he's a lot taller than me and sounds like a man. It was so good to see him and get to spend some time with him. He's so grown up! Here's a picture of 8 of the grandkids, all grown up, and in the next couple weeks we'll be able to add one more to that.

Tradition

I love the summertime, I really do, but having an apartment without air conditioning is just plain miserable some days. There are days like today that the apartment just won't cool down. I am not a winter person and I used to wish that it could be summer all year round but this year I'm looking forward to fall for 2 reasons. Every year I have one good reason to wish for fall but I always feel like I'm betraying myself because with fall brings snow eventually. I'm looking forward to fall since it will cool things down. And also it's the most wonderful time of the year (you know you're singing the song too, I hope it doesn't stay in your head like it will mine.) We are on the countdown people. We are 16 days away from the best sport in the world starting. No, it's not basketball, not baseball either...are you ready for some football? I know I am! Last year at this time I was planning a wedding and I was only able to go to 1 BYU home game. I think that is a record for me, I usually go to at least 5 out of 6 BYU games a year. But I was preoccupied and I don't regret it at all! But sad to say, I don't remember much of what happened last year with our football team. We were obviously pretty good to be ranked in the top 25. But I am so excited to go to the opening game. I'm definitely going to follow things this year.

There are so many things about BYU football that I love. I love driving to Provo and walking down the street to the stadium. I love the pregame show (definitely not a real tailgate party). I love hearing the band come down the street and I love watching my team come out of that tunnel and hearing the crowd go wild. We spend 3 months of the year in a Cougar family, if you will. We have season ticket holders around us that have become our little community. We have the Blackfoot family behind us that drive down for every home game with their kids of all ages. And the sweet couple in front of us that are from Springville. And then you have the guy 3 rows in front of us that has to stand on every play (we used to sit right behind him and requested to move up a bit, it gets annoying having to stand all the time to see a play).

This is a great tradition in our family and the last few years my sister's family has gotten tickets next to us. It's so fun to see the tradition starting over in another generation in our family. I just love what BYU football is now. I love that we have such an amazing coach with morals and the ability to teach these boys to become men, honorable men, not just great football players. We are so lucky to have him as our coach and every time he speaks I'm reminded of how our team could have been somewhere totally different and how everything happens for a reason. And how choice #1 is not always the better choice. Our choice #2 coach was the better option. I'm so excited for this season, this is like Christmas for me. Let's hope for another great season and another 4th and 15 or 4th and 26 to win our last game. There's nothing like the feeling of winning like that. Go Cougars!

It really sucks, no really it does!!!

Today at the Westwood home it is cleaning day! Our home is caked with dust and dirty carpets, loads of laundry, along with a pretty dirty bathroom. Since I've been working full-time it's a lot harder to clean around here. I get up in the morning and workout and get ready for work just in time to leave and by the time I get home, I just want to spend some time with Scott, so that leaves me Saturdays. We've made a few trips to WJ over the weekends and we went to the temple one Saturday so this is the first time in a long time that I've had a whole day at home by myself to clean things up. It's a lot harder to get motivated to clean when Scott is around to go and play with. So, I've had to maintain a lot of self-control and not pick up "Breaking Dawn" (which I'm 200 pages into) and get to work on cleaning this place! I always feel better when I'm sitting in a clean house, then I'm not thinking about how I should be cleaning and I can just relax and do what I want. So I was getting busy on cleaning when Scott called me from work asking if my mom needed a new vacuum. There was a vacuum at Sears on sale for $79.99 marked down from $259.99 to $160.00 and then to $79.99. It's this great Hoover vacuum that was a floor model and they needed to get rid of. My mom doesn't needed a new vacuum now the Lady, the shedding machine, is in doggy heaven with all her hair. But we desperately needed a vacuum. We've been using Scott's Grandma Stanger's vacuum from her old apartment and the thing doesn't work very well. You could go over an area numerous times and still pick up stuff and still have to go over it again with our hand Dyson to pick up big pieces, and I'm pretty sure that I have some hearing loss since having to use it. The machine is so loud. It would also overheat after about 3 minutes of vacuuming so you would have to wait a few hours for it to cool and it would turn on again. It's a tiny little thing and really light but it doesn't work well. So I ran over to Sears before anyone else could snatch it up and took a look at it. I told Scott that I wanted to use my birthday money from my parents for part of it and the rule is in my family that when you get birthday or Christmas money, your spouse can't tell you what to do with it, so I wanted this for my birthday. (How sad is that!) I never thought that I would be so excited about a vacuum for my birthday, but I was so excited to bring it home and try it.

Here is a picture of our old vacuum. It's so tiny!

This is our new Hoover. It's pretty big and heavy but boy does it suck! You can see the dirt being sucked up as it vacuums an area and the bag is almost full from vacuuming our room and living. The handle comes out and is a vacuume wand to clean couches and corners. It also has some attachments. You can adjust the settings so for high or low carpet and wood surfaces.
There is a little light on the base that flashes clean or dirty when you are going over an area and it will continue to say dirty until all of the dirt is sucked up. So my carpet will be totally clean.

In all of our married life, we've never seen patterns in the carpet after vacuuming. It was so exciting to see this! And the carpet felt so much softer after. I'm so happy to have a vacuum that really works!

The Dinosaur Castle Park

I don't know about you but when I was young there weren't many "cool" parks to go to and so with Karin and Mike being in town I decided this was my chance to take their kids to the "cool" park behind our house. It looks like a castle and it has all of these fun things to do for the kids. They ran and ran from feature to feature.

They said it was pretty much the coolest park they'd ever been to. Man, I love that kids are so easy to please. I sure do love these two, they are so fun to be with.


These two were all about posing for the pictures!

Makayla is a gymnast but she's trying to restore her health from a sickness. She was really strong on those monkey bars.
I don't think I've ever seen a park with a climbing wall. How cool is that!

It was so great to be with them and get to talk with Karin and Mike for a while. It was overcast that day and really muggy but it was better than the scorching sun. I'd love to take more kids to this park so bring your kids on down. Let me show them the best park ever!

I love surprises!

I got back into town on Saturday afternoon and as soon as Scott got home, we went to the Price carnival. There were fun rides for kids and a lot of different venders selling yummy food and fun items. It was quite the teenage hangout (which is better than the Smith's parking lot which is usually the popular hangout at night), but there was quite the variety of different people. We had a fun, but hot, evening going around and seeing all the fun things that people had made and we ate some good food. I got my first experience with funnel cake. Scott loves it but I had never had it before. He said that whenever he was younger and they were anywhere where they sold funnel cake, his dad would always get at least one to share. So, I think it's fun to start our own traditions as the Westwood family and we got a funnel cake. It was SO yummy! We got powdered sugar, chocolate syrup and raspberry sauce on it. I have to say that I like this tradition.

On Sunday we went to our ward and had some great meetings and as I was standing in the foyeir, I saw a white minivan with Missouri plates pull into the almost empty parking lot next to my car. Scott came walking down the hall and I mentioned it to him, and he said "Well that's interesting" and then out popped Scott's sister Karin! They came to Utah for a couple of weeks and our nephew Joseph insisted on it being a surprise to us that they were here. So they had shown up to our apartment and went after discovering that we weren't there, came to the nearest church, found my car and were ready to go door to door to find us. Luckily they didn't have to do that. So we went back to our apartment and ate dinner that had been going in the crockpot (which I had been inspired to add extra food to it) and then they kidnapped us and drove us to Draper for the Smith Family Home Evening. It was so fun to be with them and get to talk and catch up. And the kids are growing like weeds! Joseph is so tall and Makayla is so grown up. We miss them a lot and are excited to be closer to them one day. The only downside of the whole day was that Kevin and Sandra were supposed to come to FHE too but Danika got sick on the way down. We were all excited to see Sandra pregnant, but alas it was not so. We missed you guys! It was so great to see the rest of the family though. We haven't been able to make it to a FHE for a while and it's so fun to catch up. It was especially good to see Tiffany and Brian, who we lived behind in West Jordan. We miss being so close to them and having their kids come and play with us. Megan has gotten so tall and Cameron is talking! It's only been 3 months and they have grown so much.

We are so glad that we got kidnapped by Karin and Mike and the kids. It was such a great day to get to spend with family! We are so grateful for them in our family.

Mommy and me

This past weekend, my parents went to their annual adult campout with the people in their neighborhood. This was their 20th year going which is pretty cool. They were worried about what they were going to do with Cosmo, so I rearranged my schedule and went down there and spent some quality one-on-one time with Cosmo. It's been a really hard adjustment not being able to see him everyday, and we can't wait until we can find a place where we can have him down here. It's hard with us both working full-time because he is so used to having someone to follow around all day, so we are going to wait until we have a schedule when he isn't alone for long. It was so fun to take him on my errands with me, he loves to go in the car. I also got to go out with my friend Marcia to see Mamma Mia. It was ok, it wasn't the best musical I've ever seen but not the worst. I think that they could have done it a little better. I'd like to see the live version, I hear it's much better.

It was really nice to have a 3 day weekend, I really didn't want Monday to come but we've gotta pay the bills somehow!