When You Pack...You Find Some Forgotten Gems

Here are a few things I was excited about when they popped up this week as we packed to move home...

<----This cassette tape. We realized we don't own a tape player anymore, so I had to go listen to it in the car. Classic.

This video was for auditory purposes only--for those wishing to hear the rap. I tried to make it somewhat visually entertaining but it is quite lame. So consider yourself warned.

Did I forget to mention one side of the tape is the rap and the other side is instrumental (but does include the chorus background singers) so you can perform the rap yourself?

I went through all the photos we own and organized them. It was funny going through all of Rhett's photos, some of which I'd never seen. I was impressed with this one. He is only a sophomore (Rhett is muscles in red).

I was packing up and organizing all the baby/ nursery stuff and found this little dress. Last Spring I made dress for myself, and out of the scraps made this baby dress. Obviously I can't use it any time soon because we had a boy, but I tried it on R.J. to see how it fit, or if it fit at all because I just hacked it out without a pattern. To me, he looks like a boy in a dress, but maybe that is because I see him every day and to anyone else he could be a little baby girl. Rhett told me if there's any gender confusion in his future I'll be solely to blame.

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Also, I should have taken a picture (before I packed it away) of my 7th grade Home Ec project. We made wind socks or I don't know what they're called really. A tube of fabric with strips hanging off the bottom. In 7th grade my best friends were Lindsay W. and Marianne K. we called ourselves the "Rebels" to aggravate Miss Morrow, a red head teacher that taught this weird required class that was about self esteem or something?? If anyone the went to Mt. Ridge Jr. High remembers the name of that class remind me. But for sewing, we further wanted to aggravate our teacher--Mrs. Jensen. To do this, for our wind socks we chose the ugliest combination we could. Our strips were black, forest green, and lime green. I have this vivid memory of "Miss Jen" rolling her eyes back and her bouffant shaking in disgust as we laid out our strips to sew. I think she made a comment about "awful color selection" and our demands she provide brown in the future. Why didn't I take the picture of that thing??? Maybe I'll stumble across it when we unpack next week.

Jr. High update: TLC was the home ec course, each term was a different area. The class Miss Morrow taught was Quest...thank you Jessica and Marianne for informing us all. Lynette and I always quote "Miss Jen" on using the "factory fold" when cutting out fabric. I wonder if she's still teaching...

Now back to packing...

Time Line Tag

20 Years Ago...
1. I was three years old and had white blond hair
2. Wore dresses everyday, even through the winter
3. I loved books and would pretend to read for hours
10 Years Ago...
1. I was 13 years old and in 8th grade, ballet was my life
2. My favorite TV show was Croc Hunter on Animal Planet starring Steve Irwin
3. I changed for ballet in the bathroom at school and accidentally walked through the halls wearing my sports bra as a necklace. I was outside waiting with my friends for the ballet carpool before they pointed it out. A girl named Amy Neild who I was intimidated by had passed me in the hall and gave me a weird look.
5 Years Ago...
1. I had just graduated high school and was working for an artist named Thomas Holdman on his stained glass window crew. That summer we were making windows for the Sao Paulo Brazil LDS temple. I mainly cut glass.
2. Was excited to move out to attend Weber State University
3. My aunt told me she would make a bet I would be married in a year. I thought she was crazy and I'm glad I didn't take that bet because oddly enough, I would have lost.
3 Years Ago...
1. Rhett and I had been married for one year and our basement apartment in Ogden flooded and we had to make mad dash to move to ghetto Salt Lake City
2. I was half way done with the Radiology program, living at Alta View Hospital having to put in 24 hours a week of un-paid clinical hours and trying to work as much as possible around that. Some days I'd work a double, 7am to midnight...those were crazy days.
3. We started our summer tradition with all our nieces and nephews. This was the first year and they all came up and stayed overnight and we went to the drive-in movie. They had never heard of them and loved it. We saw Herbie with Lindsay Lohan and Sky High. We were racing home, I drove the girls and Rhett had the boys in the truck at 2am...the girls totally won. Since then, we've done our summer fling swimming in St. George--this year there will be 11 kids. Each year more can come as they turn 8 years old. We LOVE it.
1 Year Ago...
1. We were home and I experienced my full 4th of July in Delta, UT and it didn't disappoint. In Delta the 4th is bigger than Christmas for the town it seems--really fun.
2. We were still living in the old shack of a farmhouse
3. We were hoping to start our family
So Far This Year...
1. I gave birth to our son
2. I quit my job as the Telemetry Tech in the ICU
3. Had to move within 12 days when I was 7 months pregnant because our landlord let her house we were renting fall into foreclosure and didn't notify us...the mortgage company showed up while we were praying before eating dinner to claim the house. We still don't know what was up with that landlord, but it turned out better for us in the end because we moved into a nicer place.
Today...
1. I began packing because we're moving cross-country two weeks from today
2. Made cookies--chocolate chip, pork roast, mashed potatoes, gravy, peas...trying to use the frozen food since we're moving
3. Got pooped and puked on
Tomorrow...
1. We're spending the day to Nauvoo and Carthage, IL to see the church sites
2. Hang out and baby sit 2-year-old twins Max & Jonnie while their parents go to the Nauvoo Temple
3. Going to drive across the Mississippi River for the last time in a long while

Our Favorite Summer Dessert

We have been binging on these all summer. Idea from my little sister, Lynette, who learned of this from her boyfriend during her Jr. year of high school...Stephen--I can't remember his last name.

Step 1. Fill a bowl with shaved ice.

I can recommend the Rival snow cone maker because it's under $25 at Target, you can just put normal ice cubes in it, and it is small.

Step 2. Top the ice with fresh fruit.

We used strawberries, banana, peach, blueberries, and kiwi (not shown). For bigger groups we do the fruit buffet style so everyone can dump their favorite fruits on their own ice.

Step 3. Drizzle Sweetened Condensed Milk over fruit

1 or 2 tablespoons or more. This makes the ice a little creamy as it melts and sweetens the fruit.

Step 4. Eat, die, then go to heaven.

Garage Sale

Last Saturday we were able to sell a bunch of our junk to lighten the load of our cross-country move next week. It was actually a fun day. The med school organizes a huge yard sale for the class moving to rotations. Each family gets a parking space and so the community comes for the jack pots of 50+ families trying to get rid of thier stuff, knowing they'll be moving soon and take virtually nothing so they won't have to haul it all around the U.S.

We made some money, hung out with friends, and cleansed our lives of junk...some of which we've been packing around for 4+ years.

One highlight was shared by the girl in the booth next to us. She was selling a TV. The lady who ended up buying it was checking it out and asked: "Now...this is a color TV right?"

I was laughing so hard...maybe it's not funny though. I can't remember ever watching TV in black and white in my lifetime...can you?