Happy Birthday Jake!

My nephew Jake turns 16 today! That is so weird! Now he can drive! I was staying with his parents in Utah when my sister went into labor. It was really fun to be around when he was born. He was such a cute baby. I totally remember going with them to the hospital and on the way stopping at a store to get magazines for Janet. (I don't know why I remember that.) One of my favorite things about Jake is his sarcastic wit. He is super funny. Be sure to wear your seat belt Jake! :)

President Hinckley

President Hinckley died tonight in Salt Lake City at the age of 97. What an amazing man. He was not just the leader of the Mormon Church but a prophet of God. While it is extremely sad that he is gone in a way I am happy for him. He gets to be with his wife again and he lived such an impressive life. I always loved hearing him speak - he always had a way of stating things so simply. He always spoke with such kindness and love. He is such a great example and touched so many lives including my own. I got to hear him speak in person once when he came down to speak to all the youth in the San Diego area about 12 years ago. When he walked in the room everyone began singing "We Thank Thee O God for a Prophet." There was no denying the spirit that was there and that this man was a prophet of God. He will be greatly missed.

Valentine Avalanche

Here's my Haiku poem contribution to the Valentine Avalanche poem contest...

Ready? Here it comes...
A valentine avalanche
See's and Hallmark win.

Thanks guys!

I got the coolest package in the mail this week! I opened it up and found tons of movies! Yippee! Each movie was individually wrapped and was from a member of the Famme family. One of the packages said H.B.K. - what could that mean!!?? J/k - ha ha! Each movie sort of reminded me of the giver. Especially the Terminator/Robocop combo which was from my 4 year old twin nephews. (I don't believe that was a coincidence. I think Seth is Robocop (with the broken arm thing) and Luke is the Terminator.) I love all these movies and we didn't have any of them! Sleeping with the Enemy is one of my favorite thrillers! Janet, how'd you know that?
I also got a white kitty and a battle scarred (he's missing and arm and a hand) dragon man from Luke. I will let dragon man watch Robocop with me.

Gladiators Ready?!

So I am totally enjoying the new American Gladiators series. It is pretty similar to the old one and all the new gladiators are pretty cool. My favorite gladiator, I have to say, is Titan. He reminds me of Gaston from Beauty and the Beast.

He's so pretty and plastic-y. I am totally entertained by him.

Christmas is finally done!

So last week I finally got the rest of my Christmas presents finished and mailed off! How sad is that!? I did a few Stampin' Up journals this Christmas (or post-Christmas if you wanna get technical) and I really liked them. These were my first go with books but I think they turned out cute.

This one was my first attempt and I put it together without opening the coils and removing the covers off the books which was dumb! That made it really hard to glue the paper around the coils and it took forever. This one was for my niece who loves Pirates of the Caribbean.
I decided to use my brain on these others and it was a lot easier. This one was for my niece whose favorite subject is BOYS. It's my favorite.
For my nephew who is a major Charger fan.
I wanted to keep this one for myself. I really liked the paper.

New intern

It's a new semester so this week we got a new intern at work. I want you to know that I totally support the adage of not judging a book by its cover but at the same time I also believe that you need to present yourself a certain way if you want to be taken seriously. Our new intern seems very nice but she looks like this... (I am not exaggerating!)
This is Emma Thompson as Professor Sybil Trelawney from the Harry Potter movies but as soon as our new intern stepped foot into my office I instantly thought of Sybil. While my co-worker was introducing her to me I didn't really hear anything she said because I was so distracted by her appearance and personality. Here are my thoughts as she stood in my office. (Internal me) "She's gotta be at least 40 years old. She's got foofy hair, round glasses, she looks like... Wow and that outfit, a black lacey camisole bra thing under a jean button up tank with a green and white skirt...wait a sec! I'm wearing that exact same skirt! Ahhh!" (I proceeded to roll myself closer to my desk so I could hide the fact that we were matchy-matchy!)

For a while I tried to remain in my office to avoid the obvious "oh my, we're dressed the same" conversation. I couldn't stay there forever though and I eventually had to have the discussion with her. "Wow, we're like twins!"

She is a very nice lady but she just seems a little nutty. That's not a judgment, more like a characterization. (Listen to the justification! I am a mean person.) So since I didn't hear any of the introduction for the new intern I totally don't know what her name is. I think I will call her Sybil.

I miss old Intern already.

Funny Message...

When I got home from work the other day I found the greatest message on our answering machine. It went like this...

"Ahhh...Hey Katie, you know what??!! ( giggling) I just read your blog and I read about my birthday and...thank yooooooou. And...YOU KNOW WHAT?! I have an animated story for you! (More giggling) Talk to you later, hope you had a great birthday. BYE!"

Mercedes Out!

So just to clarify...

This is the symbol for Peace:


and this is the sign for the Mercedes car company:

That center line down the middle is sort of important. Without it your whole message is kinda different. Please know that I am not making fun of anyone who might have made this mistake in the last week but it totally cracks me up when this happens. All I can think of is replacing the word "peace" with "Mercedes." It's like saying, "All we are saying is give Mercedes a chance" or "Mercedes, Love and Joy to you this holiday season" or even "Mercedes is patriotic!" So can everyone try to be a Mercedes-maker this week?

They say it's your birthday...

As I have discussed with a few people this past week you don't just have a birth day you have more like a birth week. My official birthday was last Thursday but I have had the best week. My favorite part of my birthday has been all the fun phone calls, outings, and cards from people that I love. My BOGs took me out to dinner last Monday and it was so yummy! Thanks girls! We went to the Gulf Coast Grill and had the best clam chowder and I even ate fried green tomatoes! (I actually thought they were good too! That just proves I'll like anything that is battered and fried.) I also got to talk to all of my siblings this past week too which was so great. For my birthday Angelo and I went to lunch but for dinner we just decided to order a pizza and watch a Ghosthunters (our new favorite show) marathon from our DVR. Angelo did good too - he got me a gift certificate for a massage! I am way excited for that. Then at work the next day we had Birthday Friday. We have 3 birthdays all in one week so we always group them together. We gorged ourselves on more pizza and cake. (Tightpantsuary is looking even tighter now!) My parents took us out to dinner on Saturday which was really fun. They are always entertaining and funny. I also loved getting cards from my dear friends that I don't get to see very often but I miss very much - you guys are the best! So my birthday week has finally wound down but it was a great one. Thanks everyone! Next year is the big 3-0 and thank goodness I have a year to get used to that.

Happy Birthday Zambrana!

We have so many birthdays in January! Today my niece Zambrana turned 9! This picture is from her baptism last year and I think it totally captures Zambrana's personality - she is really sassy and funny and is a total girly girl. She loves princesses and pink. She always has a story to share and it usually starts like this - "Hey Katie, you know what..." and then once she's got your attention you are about to hear a very animated story. We hope she had a great birthday! We can't wait to hear about all her middle eastern adventures when she gets back from Dubai.

Thursday, Tightpantsuary 10, 2008

I am officially collecting signatures for my new petition. I believe that the first month of the year should not be known as January any more but as Tightpantsuary. If you are like me I always seem to attempt to eat my body's weight in chocolate, cookies, candy, etc. during December so that by Tightpantsuary my pants are well - too tight. I think this is a pretty universal problem after the holidays so why don't we celebrate it? What does January really mean anyway? According to wikipedia (so who knows if this is right,) "January is named for Janus, the god of the doorway; the name has its beginnings in Roman mythology, where the Latin word for door (ianua) comes from - January is the door to the year." So what good is a door if your big booty can't fit through it? So please sign my petition waiting outside a grocery store near you.

Happy Birthday Dooda the Gladiator

Today is my niece Dooda the Gladiator's birthday! Here is a side by side photo of Dooda as a little girl and her now. When she was little the original American Gladiator show was in its hayday and she somehow adopted this nickname. So there was Nitro, Siren, Zap, Viper and Dooda.

She just turned 20!!! What??? How did that happen? That makes me feel old. I believe she has now left the "Dooda" name behind and prefers to be called Sherise. Happy birthday! We love you!

HNY

My boss just buzzed me and asked, "What does HNY mean?" I paused for a moment as I often do when I get these kind of questions from her and then replied, "I have no idea, in what context did this come up?" Then she explained that one of our more crazy board members had responded to her monthly board email with just the following... HNY. So I did what I always do with crazy questions - I googled! Thank goodness for the internet! I don't know how life ever existed without it. So in a few seconds I was able to solve the mystery. The first option was hot naked yoga. Could that be it? I wouldn't be that surprised because this person is seriously crazy but I believe the supposed answer appeared on freedictionary.com as an acronym for...drum roll please...Happy New Year! We got a good laugh out of it. Is it that hard to just type "happy new year" to someone? Are those extra 9 letters so cumbersome? Is it better to leave someone wonder what the heck you are talking about? My boss responded that maybe she should just type back FU. She cracks me up. It reminded me of the little girl in Sleepless in Seattle that only talks in acronyms, remember her?

Jessica's Father: Jessica, this is your father. Tell us where he is, right this minute!
Jessica: "N.Y."
Sam Baldwin: What's that?
Jessica's Father: "No way."
Sam Baldwin: That's "N.W."!
Jessica: New York. He's on his way to New York.

So to all of you - I wish you HNY! (Good luck with your yoga.)