Jocelyn and Scott

Bad Connections, Busses, and "Unanswered" Prayers

2012-01-22T19:11:00.000-08:00

Here is a rare one from the other half of this blog...

A few weeks ago, I took Jocelyn to her physical therapy down at the University of Cincinnati. I drove down to the loading docks by the football field and sat in the car while she went in. Needing desperately to get work some done, I pulled out my laptop and tried to connect to UC’s Internet.

No luck.

I tried again. Still no luck. I restarted my computer hoping that would resolve the issue. No luck. I did everything I knew how to and still had no luck. I was able to get the Internet just fine on our iPod, but had no luck on my laptop. I said a quick prayer asking Heavenly Father to help me connect to the Internet so I could get the work done that I needed. After the prayer, full of faith, I tried to connect to the Internet one more time. And you know what happened?

No luck.

Dejected, I figured this was just one prayer that wasn’t going to be answered. About that time, I heard a beeping noise behind me in the distance. I looked in the rear view mirror and saw a large tour bus backing up into the loading docks. I could see where it was headed, and I didn’t like it. The bus kept backing up closer and closer until it had the car completely blocked. The driver must have seen our car and backed up a little farther until we could get out. I looked back to make sure we had enough space to back out and noticed, right at eye level just outside our window, a sign on the side of the bus that said, “Free Wifi Hotspot”. I checked my computer and, sure enough, I was in luck.

Those who say that God doesn’t answer prayers aren’t looking hard enough or don’t give Him enough credit. It could have been easy to write that off as a nice coincidence, but I don’t choose to look at it that way. God does hear and answer prayers. He cares about us and the things that are important to us. If we but ask, He will listen and answer. Now, the answers certainly don’t always come in the way we expect. I thought that after I prayed, my computer would suddenly connect to UC’s Internet. He didn’t answer me that way. Instead He answered by sending me a bus. I didn’t recognize it as His answer at first. In fact, I first viewed it as a great inconvenience and even wished it would go away. I was frustrated and upset by its presence there. However, the very thing that was so inconvenient for me ended up being a perfect answer to my plea. How often do we push away people, things, or circumstances that we find unpleasant, inconvenient, or annoying when in fact it is the very answer we have been praying for? God usually doesn’t answer in the way we expect, I believe, to test how much we really want the answer. If we give up too early, we push away that person, thing, or circumstance and thus the answer to our prayers then turn and blame God for not answering us. His answers come in His time and His way, even if it takes the form of a bus.

The rest of it

2012-01-16T17:35:00.000-08:00

Here is a little more of an update in picture form...

This is Christmas morning! I was fun to have the time with just Scott and me. We got up and took some friends to the airport then opened our stockings. We waited for the presents till after church and even then we opened presents from other people and then opened them from each other.

Gingerbread house! Danielle Dean made it for us because we were going to decorate with them.
I got Scott a charger for his Xbox controler, NCAA football 12, normal stocking stuff which always includes zingers, shoe glue, a relaxation basket, and such. He got me Aero bars (bike stuff), mountain biking shoes and cleats, hangers, and other normal stocking stuff.
This year we named our tree squishy, hence the picture below. We some how fit this MASIVE tree inside our car with Scott and me. This year we are starting a new tradition; we cut a circle off the end of the tree and we are going to make a Christmas tree out of it. Every year we will add a new christmas tree ornament for each tree!
Squishy while he was still alive!
When we went to the temple in Louisville we made it into a whole trip. After a session we went to get frozen yogurt and then to the louisville slugger museum.
These pictures are backwards in time but I really don't feel like switching them around. Meredith, my sister, came for Thanksgiving this year. On Friday we went ice skating around.
I had to go into work on Friday so I am all decked out in my work clothes here.
For some CRAZY reason we decided to brave black friday (really thursday late night). This is our booty from it.
Pretending that we were having a good time counting the number of people with a missing front tooth (at least 6). We were there from 7-1ish. Thank goodness we were about 4th in line to check out! It still took an hour to check out because people had so much stuff.
It was ridiculous the mass amounts of people. We waited in the hunting department for our xbox and connect and in between the frozen foods and the deli for our TV.
Are we sure we want to do this? Especially at the most getto Walmart in Cincinnati?
Thanksgiving FEAST! Sweet potatoes, apple pomegranate salad, green been casserole, potatoes, cranberry sauce, spinach artichoke dip and TURKEY!
Our beautiful turkey when it came out of the oven. It was delicious in flavor but it cooked a little too long.
Meredith and I perfected the salt encrusted turkey this time! Next time we will just cook it a little shorter and we will have concurred the perfect turkey.
Just like 2 years ago, we had to use power tools to open our turkey up! Scott wants a salt encrusted turkey every year.

Update on life:

I have a job that I started in August. I have about a 45-50 minute commute on way. The longest it's taken me was 1 hour and 45 minutes. I am a wellness specialist at a retirement home. I really do TONS of different things. I do employee wellness programing, competitions, answer member questions, do orientations, personal training, cooking classes, cycling class, etc... I really do love it and have enjoyed everything about it except for the commute. Scott is still working at the Nielsen company and enjoying that as well. He has become the face of a software tool called Spotfire. People inside the company now call it Scottfire. He has been asked to do trainings in several places.

We do only have one car so he takes the bus into down town and then on days that he is not onsite he has to walk 1.5 miles into work. It saves a ton of money so it is worth it!

Really there's not much to update about our lives besides boring work stuff and such.

Update in pictures

2012-01-15T14:27:00.000-08:00

Here's a little update about the last 6 months of life...

So, yes, 4 days after surgery I went to girls camp. People think I'm crazy for doing it, but really it was just what I needed at that time. The first day was setting up tents, which I couldn't really do much about (dang it!). It rained as well that first day. That night I slept in the cabin with all the stake leaders on a 4 inch mattress laid on a wooden board. The next day I was in charge of check-in for all the YW coming to camp.

I gave up on the mattress on the wood after the first night. I went to the tent with the 4th years who I was supposed to be with. I slept on a cot with the same mattress on it. It was one of the most comfortable things ever! So, I slept in the tent the rest of my time there. I also wore dresses the entire time that I was there. I wasn't aloud to flex at my hip more that 90 degrees and I couldn't have any external rotation. Because of these stipulations I couldn't put on pants very easily.

I'm in the middle with a dress and t-shirt on top. A little weird but, given the circumstances...

Craig and Savanna Speil came up from Ohio University to visit us. We all went to the zoo together and had a blast.

They were walking out the door when we noticed they pretty much matched.

We drove down to watch BYU's first game! We were planning on making this sign, but then BYU wasn't doing so well. We were able to make it the last few minutes of the game and celebrate with all the BYU fans there (old mis).

The campus was actually very nice and there were SO many people tailgating. Apparently people camp out for their tailgating spot. My cousin Zoe and her family where there from Nashville, so we were able to see them for a little bit.

Scott and I catered a wedding in October. That week we made 80lbs of potatoes into fries. I was using the mandalin slicer on the first potato and slipped and cut my hand instead. The picture doesn't do it justice. We didn't have anything on hand to help so Scott ran down to the gas station while I kept my hand above my head on the wall with pressure to stop the bleeding. It didn't close for days. I really should have gone to get it stitched but I kept thinking about all the potatoes I had to deal with.

We also went to Idaho to welcome Jim and Arlene McCauley home from their 1.5 year mission in Russia.

This was what I came home to one day on our 4 year and 4month anniversary. Yes we are still the disgustingly sappy couple who celebrates month anniversary, I hope we always are.
My pumpkin I carved for Halloween.
Scott's pumpkin, which is way cuter than mine.
Scott thought of the amazing idea to have pie day the day before thanksgiving. We had pizza and then key lime, pumpkin, blueberry, and cheesecake pies. It was ingenious because we didn't have to worry about making them on Thanksgiving. More to come soon...

Part 2 Plus Surgery!

2011-07-02T18:23:00.000-07:00

This is the pretend like Amy Layne was here face!

Beautiful view from the Y!

After I went to hike the Y. The only time I had done that before was with Amy Fowler Layne 6 years ago. It was a ton of fun and kind of a last hurrah before surgery.

I drove to SLC to my grandma’s house. I got to talk with her for 20-30 minutes. She was doing a lot better than I felt like I had been told so that made me happy. She is always so fun to talk to and has so many stories to tell.

I went to Quebe’s place and got to tour it. We then went to this delicious diner. We also got frozen yogurt afterward. I got to the airport and started cleaning out the car when I realized that I had the cake batter pie in the back and didn’t give it to Quebes. So, instead I got to enjoy it again!

This picture is for my father-in-law, because he likes Roy Rogers.

At security I went in a line without the body scanner. The man in front of me kept going off so they asked me to go through the body scanner. I said I’d rather just go through the x-ray machine. They told me that I had to go through the body scanner or get a pat down. So, I opted for the pat down. It really wasn’t as bad as people made it out to be. I didn’t get touched anywhere that I felt like was horrible. The lady was very respectful. It didn’t even take too much more time. I also got to see 2 of my cousins walk by because I took a little longer.

On my flight from Dallas I sat next to a very nice lady and we talked for 1 1/2 of the 2ish hour flight.

Scott picked me up from the airport and we drove down to Nashville that night. We got into Nashville around 1:30 and talked with my cousin and her husband for a little while.

This car was all decked out with guns, horse hooves, and silver dollar pieces.

The next morning we were able to hang out with Zoe and her kids in the morning. We went to the Country Music Hall of Fame and also bought tickets to the RCA studio B tour. This was a ton more fun than I thought it would be. The RCA tour was worth every bit. This is the recording studio that Elvis Presley used the most. RCA built a studio that is more than 3 times as big next door for Elvis and he recorded in there once and then said he didn’t like it and recorded in the Studio B (the first studio). The recording studio was really big for now days but pretty small back then. They had the Stienway piano that Elvis recorded on in the studio. They let us sit and play as much as we wanted. Scott sat down and started playing jazz. Everyone was amazed and asked him to play more, but he was modest and let other’s get pictures with it.

Zoe picked us up with her kids and we drove by some famous places like a full sized replica of the Parthanon, some “old money” houses, Alan Jackson’s house (HUGE), and Brooks or Dunn’s house. We went with her to see a house they are thinking about buying and then went to dinner at a Greek restaurant. It was so fun to run around the parking lot with their boys.

We went to tour around the Opry land hotel, which was gorgeous. The next day we thought that my appointment was at 12:00 (that’s what we were told on the phone), but around 10:30 I double checked online and it was supposed to be at 11:00. We ran out of there and went to 3 wrong places before we made it to the right place. I had to get a CT scan and MRI and then when we got to Dr. Byrd’s office, I had to get an X-ray.

Dr. Byrd was amazingly nice. He was a very pleasant Southern Gentelman. He told us that he felt as though surgery was the best plan even though we should stay as far away from surgeons as possible. He also made a joke that the difference between minor and major surgery was that it was minor if it was happening to us and major if it was happening to him. We had questions lined out and pulled those out and said sorry we have a couple questions. He said, “of course! That is a great thing that you wrote down and brought questions!” I felt like I had as much time as I needed with him, it was so nice!

After the appointment, it was 4:30 pm. So it all took 5 ½ hours! We went to a park close to Zoe’s house and went on a 5-mile hike with a ½ mile run in the middle. This was really the last hurrah. Dr. Byrd said no running for 4-6 months! This will be agony. Now I’ll have a count down for when I can run again instead of when I can have surgery.

We both got gussied up when we arrived home. Zoe, Brad and us went to down town and got some Mexican food and then went to Station Inn to listen to Marshall Chapman (girl). The first half was awesome, she was so funny and was extremely good with words. She said that her give-a-pooper gave out a long time ago, so now she plays in gym shorts a tank top and a pearl necklace. After the break this women’s phone kept going off and then she took the battery out, then she took it out to the mailbox, then she realized that it was her other phone so had to turn that one off. Well, Marshall got so upset and cussed at her and then just wasn’t the same afterward. She wasn’t as light and funny.

We went to broadway street afterward and did some bar hopping. There were some awesome bands and it seemed really packed to us even thought Zoe said that it was pretty dead since wed. is a church night. We also went to printer’s ally, which used to be the scandalous place of Nashville, but now we only saw one strip club which happened to have nude karaoke. For some reason we decided to pass.

We got home around 1:00 am the night before surgery. At least I got to party well before I now can’t for a while.

Scott and I woke up at 5:00 so we could leave by 5:30 and get there by 6:00am. I was a little nervous, because last time I got put under I was just miserable. They got me out of the hospital 1 hour after the procedure and I was just so drugged up for so long.

They took me back for pre-op but wouldn’t let Scott come back, which made me very sad. All I want when I am nervous or scared or worried is to have him there with me. They said that it was their medical director’s direction because the rooms are so small and they have had family members pass out during pre-op. After everything was done, Scott got to come back to me. He made me much more calm, even laugh a bit! Oh, what an amazing husband I have!

Dr. Byrd came by to say hi in a full suit and tie! I was taken back and given some happy meds. I always try to hold on as long as I can to reality. I remember being wheeled into the operating room, and then it blanks out. That’s where I have made it every time.

I remember waking up and then Scott being there shortly after. I was freezing cold but they had the bear hugger machine on that they did last time. Now that I tell them I get really cold after anesthesia, they always put that bear hugger on. The first time I went under, I woke up shivering with 4 blankets and then they put a bear hugger on me. I had already gotten so cold that I was shivering for 4-5 hours afterward. The nurse came in and talked to us/mostly Scott about what I could and couldn’t do. Scott helped me get dressed into my black long dress. I did this because I remember hating anything touching my hip after the sports hernia surgeries.

Scott went out to get the car and someone wheeled me out in a wheelchair. We drove past this gas station with frozen yogurt on the way home, so I asked if we could stop. Of course 2-3 hours after surgery I walked into a gas station and got a massive thing of frozen yogurt. It wasn’t as good or cheap as Maverick’s, but still good. They had toppings at this place, which Maverick’s hasn’t upgraded to yet.

After we got to my Cousin’s husband’s parent’s house I fell asleep watching a movie on the couch. I was really in and out for the whole day. I wanted to sleep because I ended up being in quiet a bit of pain, but they told me it would be bad for the first 10 hours and then get better. I tried to watch the bachelorette but I fell asleep again half way through. I hate the feeling of waking up on the couch after a couple hours of sleep, and realizing you have to pull yourself together and make it to bed. This was even worse, because I had to crutch myself upstairs while in pain, just to go to sleep again.

Fortunately, I have an amazing husband who helped me a lot. The next day we took off at 8:00 to go in for a PT/post-op appointment. The PT had someone else in right before us. I got to watch this other girl walk around and get tortured before I went. She seemed like she was in a ton more pain than I was. She couldn’t get around very well at all. It made me feel grateful for how good I was feeling that morning.

We talked with her and her mom a little bit and found out that they were from Cincinnati of all places! We talked about all the crazy Cincinnati things there are and laughed together.

After PT which wasn’t that bad, I had a post-op appointment. He said he had to cut away the bone in 2 places on the acetabulum (hip socket) and also use some stitches to fix the labrum as well. He showed/gave us pictures of the surgery, which usually I love to look at. I watched a whole video of my previous surgery. Since it was recent it did make me cringe a little, seeing inside me and pictures of a metal object cutting away huge chunks of my bone, well they looked huge in a blown up picture. We also got a DVD of the surgery! He said no running for at least 4 months, and we’ll have to see even when that time comes if I should be starting. Again, he spent as much time and more that we needed with him. He gave us numbers to call with questions and sent us on our way.

We did some errands on the way home like the grocery store, and stopped at Target and TJ max to look for some cute summer dresses, since dresses are a lot easier to wear than pants right now. I am not allowed to flex and the hip more than 90 degrees or have any external rotation of the hip. So, I can’t reach my feet (we bought me more flipflops) and it’s almost impossible to get anything over my feet by myself. At TJmax they wouldn’t let Scott come back with me to help. He told the dressing room lady that I had surgery yesterday. She look at us and said “oh uh-huh, sorry, oh!” then proceeded to try to hand me the number 2 while I was trying to crutch back to the room with the clothes. I just looked at her and said, “I can’t take it.” And kept going back to the changing room. This was a stark contrast to when we stopped at Subway and a man ran up from his chair to open the door for me. He said, “I’ve been there.” I think it’ll be very interesting to see how people treat me on crutches.

This was what Scott did to Stitch before he left and he greeted me with some flowers as well. It took me a second look to notice that Scott had made cute crutches for him.

Saturday we went out to get the rest of the things we needed for camp. Then went to Kohls and Mejier to look for more dresses. A woman at Kohls told her daughter to be very careful around me because it looked as though I had a hard enough time already. I went to the bathroom there and a woman got me paper towels and waited for me so she could hold the door for me. At Meijer we found the best dresses/prices. I ended up with 4-5 dresses and 2 shrugs for them. I have a feeling those are going to be my outfits for the next 4 weeks.

New clothes at least made me happy if not for anything else. I have a feeling if I don’t keep myself as busy as I can, I will not be too happy. It is so true that the best thing you can do for self-pity is to do things for other people. 6-8 months without running for a runner is eternity. That will defiantly be a record for 14 years and really probably my entire life from the point I was able to run. I have always enjoyed running. I used to beg my family to play tag with me outside. I would run laps inside our house! Here is the self-pity coming! I’m just glad that hopefully I will be able to do this again without pain.

So, this is the end of the hip saga, or at least the beginning of the end. This has taken a year of our life. Hopefully a year well worth it, but we will find out in the next year. I will keep you updated with my saga of crutches stories that I am sure will happen, and on rehab. I need to make a countdown for days till I can run, 118. That was a lot more days than I was thinking…

Trip to Utah! Part 1

2011-06-26T01:32:00.001-07:00

This was hands-down one of the best vacations of my life! I don’t think I have ever taken a vacation just to see friends and have fun!

I got in late on Wednesday and drove to Provo to stay with Lisa. I slept on a very comfy couch in their gorgeous townhome. The next morning we ate breakfast and played in the sandbox with the neighbor’s kid and Cheyenne. Then we left with Robbie and Cheyenne to go to antelope island so we could play in the Great Salt Lake.

We stopped 3 times on the way there for Cheyenne to use the restroom. It was so funny to me and was a awake up call realization how much more time things take when you have even one kid.

The salt lake was not nearly as cool as other people have made it out to be. Lisa and I were freezing cold because the wind was so strong. The water was actually a lot warmer than I thought it would be. We had to wade out very far to be able to get in deep enough water so that we could try to float. Unfortunately after freezing our bums off we found out that there is a great ploy to get people like us to try to float in the salt lake. Fortunately, I can dispel the rumor for you that you float better in the Salt Lake. It isn’t true! It wasn’t as dirty as I thought it would be, not nearly as dirty as Utah Lake is.

We tried to take jumping pictures.

Well we showered off and then ate some lunch in the car because the air was so cold! It was so fun to hang out with them again though! I remember campouts with Lisa that were fun, especially that one where we figured out we were sleeping in a bed of thistles, or when Robbie, Lisa and I went camping south of Provo. So, fun times and good memories continued!

I was able to say hello to our old house. When we bought it it had Christmas lights on it. Four years later it still has Christmas lights on it!

I went off to Sarah Frey’s house after. She met me outside and we were both too excited to see each other. Since I’m injured I rode a bike while she ran along side. We both felt like it was old times and we were just catching up on a run. The wind was ridiculous and almost succeeded in blowing us both over. We made dinner together, chicken curry. Something that Amy, Sarah, and I used to make at BDA 2 all the time. I don’t think I’ve had it since we lived together, so that was an awesome meal with great memories. We were planning on making caramel corn but didn’t have butter, so ran to the store and got butter and a movie, despicable me. We made caramel corn and white chocolate caramel corn. I plan on selling these online soon!

So, we got to watch the movie and eat lots of caramel corn, while I fell asleep on the couch.

Friday Sarah has to work at 6:00 everyday so I got up the same time she did because I was still on east coast time. I decided since I was awake I might as well go to a session in the Provo temple. Twenty minutes after I left the house I was in a session! Oh I miss Provo and Mormon land a lot!

Afterward I went down to see all the adults in my life at BYU. I talked to Anne in the Track office for a while and even got a new recipe to try from her! Yay! I always had so much fun talking to anne in the office in college. She was so nice and hilarious and had awesome stories and recipes! While I was talking to her Doug came in so I got to talk with him for a little bit. He had broken his hand at a track meet which I think makes him pretty hard core.

I went to the locker room, where the code I new didn’t work, so I had to push the delivery button. I talked with Ang for a while while she was working. Good luck to her and all her travels and her master’s thesis! She is amazing and doing so much! I don’t understand how she has the time.

I went to Nancy’s office (equipment room person) and talked to her for a long time as well. Coach came in half way through so, I got to see him for a little bit. He was an awesome coach and a great friend. I feel like I adopted him as my dad when I was down in Provo. So, Nancy and I talked about really everything.

I tried to see Dustin (old trainer) but found out he was out of town. I also went to try to see Jeff Hurst, my other old trainer, but he wasn’t in either. I went by Iain Hunter’s office to say hi, but the trend continued.

I drove down to our old house in south Provo. When we bought it, it had Christmas lights on it even though it was June. 4 years later it still has Christmas lights up on it! I also took pictures of Aimee and Tyler’s house.

I went to lunch with Katie Palmer at Guru’s. It was the dinner I had with Scott the night that he proposed to me. It was so fun to catch up with her and all her crazy travels! I wish her luck at Nationals this weekend and fun in South America (forgive me for not remembering the name of the country). I hope that in the future we can go backpacking across Europe!

After lunch I went to Alred’s orchards hoping they were open and very disappointed when they were not! Then to Wilson’s diamonds to see if I could get my ring resized and to look at wedding bands to match the ring. We will have to do a custom wedding band and they way that I want it, it’ll have to be two bands. So, I dropped off my ring and didn’t have it the rest of the trip. I also got to go to Great Harvest bread, which is an awesome bread company in the Utah area. I got cinncimon burst bread for French toast on Sunday.

Sarah was already back home with Reagan. Reagan was getting ready to leave for the wasach back relay (Ragnar). Sars and I went and hiked squaw peak. Then joined Millie and her boy Spenser for yogurt at yogurt land. So, I am obsessed with frozen yogurt. They had the best flavors I have EVER had! They had vanilla wafer, cinimon graham cracker, blueberry acai, keyline bars, and it just goes on and on! The best combination ever was the cinimon graham cracker with the blueberry acai.

We realized in the last picture that we had BAD pities so we took another one.

This is why I miss Utah so much!

PROVO!

Yes we both got these on our first try!

This is rock canyon that I fell in love with when I got injured and had to just go on bike rides all the time.

After frozen yogurt Sars and I went back and made angel food cake! If you have ever had homemade angel food cake, you will never go back! It’s that good!

We started 500 days of summer, but both fell asleep on the coach, like the old days of BDA 2.

Satuday morning we running (me on a bike) with Millie and Cecily! It was so good to see Cecily again! We did Will’s and back with them which was very nastolgic. That was my very first fun I did with someone on the team. Sars and I went to the farmer’s market to look around. There was a little girl’s skirt that was adorable and I almost bought, no I do not have any announcements. Just because I like little clothes doesn’t mean I have a little one in me. Most people have a hard time understanding this. We went back to her place and I got ready for Inga’s wedding.

I wasn’t so smart and talked to Scott the whole way up to the wedding. This killed my phone, which was a problem the rest of the time. The sealing was amazing. I love to go to sealings, they always remind me of the promises and covenants that Scott and I made, and what we can become if we are faithful. There is so much love in that little room, I don’t think anyone could keep the tears back.

After the sealing I was able to drive over to bountiful and see Chelsea and her three wee ones. She’s amazing being able to take care of 3 kids under 3! It was nice to see her and have a quick update, since I am horrible at checking other people’s blogs. I need to just start to follow people so I will go to their blog and read it.

I went on a nice pretty walk along a train out in bountiful thanks to chlesea’s directions. Then off to the wedding dinner. The Ingebretsen's did an amazing job making their back yard look so beautiful! The dinner was amazing and it was fun to hear from those who spoke. It was so fun to be able to see Kristen Ogden, Carlee Clark Platt, Quebe, Tort, Emily Mickle, and Amber Harper Andrews. We got to all catch up and chat which was nice and fun. I miss all the running buddies I had at BYU!

My phone was unfortunately dead, so I had to drive back to sar’s place to figure out what I was doing that night. I already knew I HAD to go get more of that frozen yogurt. I had a missed call from Zach, so we decided to meet up at yogurtland. I got yogurt while he went and got Panda. We had such a fun time catching up and talking and I REALLY hope that we will be able to see him in October in Idaho, since he might be taking his last classes at the horrible, I mean BSU!

When I got back to Reagan and Sar’s place we sat and talked. Really I talked while they were trying to prepare their lesson, Sorry! We went to bed way too late again.

Sunday morning Sar’s and I woke up to make desert and breakfast. We made a Animal cracker crust for a Cake batter pie. We had to add a ton more cake batter than we thought we would have to. It was good still. We also ended up making an angel food cake from a box, not as good as homemade that we made the couple of days before, but she needed to make it for her family father’s day dinner that night. We also made French toast from cinnamon burst bread from Great Harvest bakery.

Church was fun. I got to go to their class with them where they had their class about the atonement and it was very good. We had snackies when we got home. I went over to Natalie and Jeff’s and had dinner with her delisious homemade bread. It was so fun to catch up with them. She is working at a step up from an old folks home as an RN. Jeff is majoring in PdBio so he is doing pre-med, hopefully somewhere in Arizona (where he is from). We played games afterward and then they had to take off to a fireside.

I went and walked around campus since I heard the south of campus trail was redone a little. I always thought that trail was beautiful but they somehow made it even more beautiful with waterfalls and cute picnic areas. I also walked around the old places that Scott and I used to go. I saw that the sunset was gorgeous so I went and tried to get to the Y before it set too much. I didn’t catch it when it was gorgeous but it was still pretty. I called Scott and asked him if he wanted pictures of anything and of course he said the football stadium! Afterward I went home to Sar’s and did some blogging. I got to try the cake batter pie when she got home with it. It was delicious!

The next morning I had to say goodbye to Sar’s since she had work at 6:00. Sad! I went to campus and tried to see Jeff and Dustin again but just was able to send them text messages. I went up to the bookstore since they were having a sale. I got Scott a shirt and a DVD of 2009 football season.

Part 2 to follow soon...

Boring thoughts of Josie

2011-06-23T16:35:00.000-07:00

This was written a week and a day ago, but I didn't ever have time to post it!

I’m on my way to Salt Lake City! I haven’t taken a trip TO SLC in 2 years. Last time I was in Utah was only a month ago for my sister’s Iron Man in Saint George. Before that I was there to help move my sister out to California from SLC. Scott and I also drove through there 1 ½ years ago, but we didn’t stay and visit.

So, I am so excited to be able to go and see al my friends that I haven’t seen in forever! Well, it really hasn’t been forever obviously. I feel like I should have accomplished more in those two years that we’ve been in Ohio. I have gotten a perfectly worthless master’s degree and I have learned how to make a dress, sew other things, half make a quiet book, crochet and baby boy’s and girls blanket, start crocheting an adult blanket, and have become a masterful priceliner. Usually people make notes of what they have accomplished around new year’s but I guess this is as good of time as any.

I have gotten 2 surgery’s from the same surgeon in Philadelphia on my hip. I have gone on a 20 mile run in secrete hopes (that I didn’t even realize) to run a marathon. I have taken the most time off running that I have since before high school! This is what I think is the craziest. I’m the most out of shape that I have been in a long time, yet I can still go on a hard bike ride, just only an hour instead of the hours I use to go on! I don’t think any of us can realize how much we will miss something until it is taken away from us.

All the non-runners/non-exercises in the world don’t understand why I would be so upset about not being able to run. They all see it as an excuse so they don’t have to feel guilty about already not exercising. Ha! I remember days at BYU where I would sneak a run or ride in and feel guilty ABOUT exercising! Funny how perceptions are different based on our priorities in life.

Another weekend

2011-06-12T13:28:00.000-07:00

This week I had an interview at an old folks home as a wellness specialist. I have a second interview on July 11! Yay!

Scott had a half day on Friday and we are going to be in a hospital during our anniversary, so we decided to celebrate it this weekend. I'm a huge fan of Priceline. If you haven't ever pricelined a hotel talk to me, because you need to, you're wasting money if you don't. Some of our priceline finds have been $50 for a Marriot in downtown Philly!

So, we pricelined our hotel and went and played on their exercise equipment when Scott got off work at 1:00. We went to dinner at Montgomery Inn, which is a famous restaurant in Cincy that is along the river. During our dinner, we watched a big storm come in. Half way through dinner, the power went out! We got to finish eating and then our VERY kind waitress, Kim, said she didn't think it was right for us to have to pay for dinner! Crazy! So, we left her a tip and went out to brave the storm. It was a little scary of a drive back to our hotel but we made it safe.

Saturday we went to go Zip Line in Indiana. That was tons of fun and I'll put some pictures up. We went from there to a miami white water park and went paddle boating. While we were out on the lake on our paddle boat, we had a picnic under some trees.

On our way home we stopped at Meijer (grocery store) because they had amazing strawberries for 90 cents! We got 16 pounds on monday and 10 more on Saturday. Our new tradition is to each a container on our way home and throw the tops out the window in hopes we are planting new strawberry plants for next season.

The countdown to surgery continues at 11 more days!!!

Zip lining!!!
All suited up ready to go!
Out to dinner at Montgomery Inn. Scott is soaked because he went and got the car for me!
Blowing out the candles!
Yep, closer to 30 than to 20 now! He thinks he's old.

Homemade Pita's on our paddle boat!

Scott Zip lining. I took this picture while zip lining as well.

Last weekend and this weekend

2011-05-29T05:20:00.000-07:00

Scott and I have had such a fun weekends lately and many more fun ones planned! Nielsen is awesome because they always give a half day before any holiday. So, Friday was a half day for Scott.

In the morning, we went to quest diagnostics. Our health insurance will give discounts for being healthy. While we were there we saw 2 cockroaches and the place just looked like a dump. It made us wonder what was going to happen to the 4 tubes of blood they took from both of us! Well, afterwards Scott took me to school to do PT and he went to work. I was in doing PT for 3 HOURS! I stopped on my was to Scott's work to pick up some coupons for a new frozen yogurt place in Cincinnati!

Scott and I went to lunch together at this place called Melt. Its primarily a vegan/vegetarian restaurant, but they have some stuff for the meat eaters too. Afterwards we figured out everything we needed to get for young women's camp, since I'm the camp counselor for our ward. We went to goodwill to drop stuff off and to look for a couple things for camp. Instead we ended up finding some really cute red shoes, oh well! We went to a park and played catch together then home for dinner. After dinner we went to the Imax "inside a tornado." We were hoping it would be as cool as Hubble was, but weren't too disappointed. We then went to the self-serve frozen yogurt place which was pretty good. I'm addicted to these places! We saw that the baseball stadium lights were on and so wandered over to see the game. It happened to be in the 9th inning with everything tied up. It wasn't UC playing but it was the high school state playoffs. It ended in the 10th and we went home.

I honestly can't remember what we did Saturday morning or afternoon, but trust me, it was fun. Saturday night we got all gussied up and went out to a nice dinner and then to an opera/orchestra festival at the music hall in Cincinnati. It was beautiful and we give much thanks to Karen Harsh for giving us those tickets! I later learned from Heather (in our church) that Music Hall is the oldest Opera house in the Nation! It is in a not-so-nice area, but they had plenty of police around when it got out at 10:30. By the time we got home I was exhausted and we just went straight to bed.

Sunday was just like any other glorious Sunday.

Monday morning Scott got our bikes ready, well, really my bikes ready, to go on a ride at Miami white water, while I got the rest of the food ready for the church picnic. I was a little worried to leave Scott with the bikes because I think we are on our 4th pump, since he has broken the other 3! That because of his manly muscles I guess:) Scott went to test ride both bikes just to check that everything was fine. My mountain bike tire busted when he went out on it or when he was pumping the tube. So, we had to go buy a new tire before we headed out to the park. Again, I blame this all on his manliness! When we got to the park I replaced the tire and the tube just for good measure. I didn't let Scott touch it, I just didn't want to run the risk right before we were about to go for a ride. So we went on a very short but fun ride, Scott on my road bike and me on my mountain. He claims that he got a workout even though he was on the road bike, I don't know if that's true. I'm so out of shape right now. I haven't run in 2 months! That's the longest in about 5 years! Yes, I am going crazy. No, this isn't entirely my choice.

After this ride we drove around trying to find the picnic. With Kristi Cox's help, we found the place. The picnic was a blast, we got to talk with people and Scott got to play Soccer. I wanted to, but again the no running and what not puts a damper on everything. We went home and looked up Taste of Cincinnati. It is a competition that happens every year. Restaurants from all over Cincinnati come and have 4-6 of their best dishes available in smaller sizes for you to buy and try. We found the different foods that we thought we wanted to try, and drove down. First we went on a walk next to the river, something that I love doing, except running. We got a Montgomery Inn pulled pork BBQ sandwich, a vegetarian black bean burrito, and the winner overall of the best dish this year and I think the previous 3 years running, Bella Luna's Prime Rib Cannelloni. We are defiantly sold on Bella Luna! Two of their other dishes were sold out and we kept seeing people walk by that were so sad that they were sold out. We went home with a movie to just relax for the rest of the night.

This weekend all started on Wed. when we got a call from on of Scott's old roommates, Rob Nance. He said that he and his wife were coming home for the weekend (home is Akron, which is 3 1/2 hours away from Cincinnati). So, on Friday, Scott left work early and we went to Akron, oh to see him. We had a fabulous dinner off a grill with them, and then delicious breakfast after a late night. Saturday we left them at 9:00 to drive back down. On the way we stopped at Dale Stokes Berry farm to pick Strawberries. We picked raspberries at this farm last year and we were so impressed with the price and the quality of the fruit. We were a little disappointed with the strawberries. They were $2 a pound and didn't taste any better than store bought ones. On our way out we thought, maybe we came too early and the sugar hadn't set yet. Either way I still can't wait for their raspberry season to start! Jim and Arlene called us while we were there to wish Scott a Happy Birthday! Thanks again to them for spending the time to talk on the phone (they are in Russia serving a mission).

We got home ate really fast and left to go to a DODGERS vs. Reds game. One of Scott's co-workers/friends gave us tickets to this game. We were right behind the dugout just 5-10 rows up. I will not do the game justice since I did not see 9 out of the 11 runs the Dodgers earned. It was a very low scoring game, at the beginning, since each team had their best starting pitchers in. It was 2 vs. 7 in the top of the 8th. I went to the restroom and while I was there I got to hear about the dodgers, Kemp, hitting a grand slam! It was the first grand slam against the Reds this season! So, then the score was tied 7 vs. 7. It went into the 11th inning. I was getting tired and hungry and wasn't feeling well. I laughed and said that I just needed to go to the bathroom again! SO of I went. Four runs later I came back with the Dodgers up 11 to 7! The reds only got one run in the bottom of the 11th. We got some pizza on our way home and watched Ocean's 11 as we went to sleep. This next weekend we plan on going to Rising Sun, IN and doing a Zip line we bought on Groupon. Hopefully it'll be a ton of fun! We are doing it as a long weekend and a celebration of our 4 wonderful years of marriage together. Since the next weekend I will be in SLC for a wedding, and then the next weekend is surgery weekend! Yes, the count down has begun, 18 days till surgery!

This is the baseball game that we were both drenched in sweat by the end of it.
Taste of Cincinnati downtown!
In the background are THE P&G towers. If the front is Scott getting squashed by the P&G Charmin bear.
No, I didn't give THIS one to Scott (jk). It was from playing Soccer at our ward Picnic, ball to the face.
Inside Music Hall!
This is inside music hall as well.

Surgery as a Birthday Present

2011-05-22T04:35:00.000-07:00

We are excited to say that I finally have a surgery date!!!!! So, Scott and I planned and did celebrate my birthday yesterday. We also had an appointment with Dr. Divine (Cincinnati doctor in charge of finances) yesterday at 12:00. Scott worked from home yesterday morning while I studied our script of what I was going to say to convince Dr. Divine that Cincinnati needed to pay for this hip surgery in Nashville, TN. I made Peanut butter chocolate chip cookies as a piece offering as well.

We had to wait a little bit to be able to see Dr. Divine, which was totally ok since I actually knew we were going to be able to see him. This has been a long awaited day. We have tried to get something with him for more than a month now. We have had an appointment scheduled only to find out he was out of town. Nevertheless it has been a very frustrating experience to just be able to see this Dr.

We started out by talking to him about his trip to SLC and the mountains. Then went straight into… I talked briefly to you several weeks ago that I am sure that we are going to have to do a labral tear fix surgery. This surgery is very important and has a huge impact on not only the future of my athletic carrer, but also my mobility and my family in general. Because the decision on who performs this surgery is a critical decision

Dr. Divine interups and says, “Don’t tell me you want to go to Dr. Byrd (Dr. in TN I have been wanting to go see.)”

I continued, “I have done a lot of research on different surgeons. I have read personal reviews online, read journal articles, and talked to several people at UC and elsewhere. This is what I have learned through that research…

This is where the plan got interrupted and Dr. Divine again and he said, “I don’t mean to minimize this in any way, but you have practiced this speech a time or two haven’t you?”

“ Yes, I have, because this affects the REST of my LIFE. This is an extremely important decision to me!”

Well, I tried to go on with me speech which I won’t boar everyone with, but it was amazing (because of Scott’s help).

The jest of the rest of the conversation was that UC will pay for the surgery!!!!! I was SO EXCITED! We thanked him talked about logistics and ran out of there. We went to the indoor track and shouted and pranced around. I think it was more me prancing around Scott. We also said a prayer of thanks that I feel is so inadequate. The Lord truly blesses us.

The end of the story is that I got a hold of the office and we are going to be going for the appointment the 22^nd (our 4 year anniversary), surgery on the 23^rd, and post-op on the 24^th of June!

I want to say thank you so much to all of you. We know that all of our prayers have been answered and have felt everyone’s love.

That night we went to an AMAZING dinner on Nielsen, because Scott is loved a lot at work (another huge blessing). It is a rotating restaurant. We both had steak. I had the best filet mignon I have EVER eaten. I didn’t even need to chew the meat! We went on a lovely walk and then did presents

Scott got me a 24-count mini muffin tin pan and plastic whisk (something I’ve been wanting for a while now). He also bought a necklace and matching bracelet, some muffin tin liners. The best thing was a baseball glove!! We played catch for 5 minutes before we watched a movie together.

This was the BEST BIRTHDAY EVER!!! I got the best news and gifts and had a blast.

Trip to TX and UT

2011-05-17T06:36:00.000-07:00

So, as Scott would like me to say, I left him for two weeks. Really this was only a week and a half and I made him all of his comfort foods before I left along with freezer dinners. Incase you want to know what these may be: Cin. rolls, spinach artichoke dip, banana cream cheesecake. The dinners I made him were: Chicken pot pie, chicken enchiladas, and pasts shells.

The reason I left was to fly to TX and then drive with my sister to Saint George, UT so she could compete in an Ironman and then tour around UT and back home to TX. Now, for those of you who don't know how cool that makes my sister, an Ironman is 2.4 mile swim, 112 mile bike, and 26.2 mile run all one right after the other. The Saint George is either the hardest or one of the hardest Ironmans available. She did extremely well and finished in 12 hours 1 minute and 34 seconds. She was 5th in her age group, so she was able to go on the podium.

It was interesting to be on the viewing side of things instead of the participating side. It made me crave running and competing again. Unfortunately, with all my recent hip stuff, that won't happen for a little while. If you don't know what I'm talking about, don't worry I don't shout things from the roof tops.

After Meredith became an Ironman we headed out on our adventure of southern Utah. Monday we went to Zion's and hiked Angel's Landing. I loved the hike but hoped that we would have been able to hike the narrows. When we started out it was raining. Neither of us had the best clothes for the hike. When we started going back down from the top it started hailing on us. Since it was raining and hailing the whole time the waterfalls were very full on our way back down. We had to run under a waterfall and so were drenched the rest of the way. We looked so funny on the bus ride back because it had stopped raining and so we were the only ones that were drenched.

After we defrosted from the cold ride back. We drove through a snow storm to get to Brice canyon. We couldn't find a cheap place anywhere, but finally found a place for $60 and a soup and pie restaurant with only one type of soup. The theme of this trip was waking up early for sunrises to no avail and bad weather. There were always clouds in the way of every sunrise or sunset. We had a nice hike that ended with a snow storm and drove to arches and canyon lands.

We again tried to catch a sunset and sunrise with a whole lot of failure. We stayed at a little cabin that was so fun and cute. After all of our fun hikes around the parks, we found a little homemade beef jerky joint and got some delicious jerky. We drove way too late into the night and the rest the next day.

We were able to have dinner with one of Meredith's friends named Jen. It was so fun to spend the time with Meredith and make some awesome memories! Here are just a few of the pictures from our trip.

Our sunset failure at arches
Balancing rock at arches
Our sunrise failure at canyonlands
Where they think a meteor hit.
Tunnel arch!
Cool tree at landscape arch
Pine tree arch
Landscape arch
Delicate arch!
Meredith doing camel under delicate arch
These were only from around 1800

Court of the patriarchs

We floated the river when we got back to Texas.
Me under delicate arch
Delicate arch from the other side, I don't recommend going too far over here, I almost fell to a very bad fall.
This was a cool arch on the way to delicate that you could see through to delicate arch. You have to hike up to it a little.
Again Meredith doing camel
And again!

Small update

2011-05-15T17:48:00.000-07:00

So, we STILL have not been able to get an appointment with the doctor. Hopefully this week will be the week! I loved the quoted that I heard today in our stake conference by Elder M. Russell Ballard, "Sometimes trials are to show us how much we can endure." I guess I HAVE been praying to be able to increase my patience, and the Lord does bless us with what we ask for.

Scott and I were able to go to "Mormon Prom" as chaperons. I wore one of my old prom dresses and Scott wore a matching tie. We were mistaken as a couple actually going to Mormon Prom more than once. I'm glad I still look like I could be in high school even though my body feels like it could be a grandma!

The day or two before, Scott actually asked me to Mormon prom (even though we were just chaperones) through making me pop balloons and unfold pieces of paper that were a guy and girl holding hands. On it, it read "will you go to prom with me?"

Sometime later this week I will write an update about my trip with my sister to TX and UT for her Ironman! We then went and hiked all around UT, which was a blast!

Random

2011-04-25T08:21:00.000-07:00

So, I decided that for safety's sake and for the sake of not offending some people that I don't think would ever read this blog, it would not be a good idea to put up our story of our second trip to philadelphia we took just 3 weeks ago. This is a public blog and I really don't want to go through all the trouble to make a blog private and what not because I don't ever go through the trouble to make sure I have access to private blogs, so I don't expect my friends or whatever to do the same thing. Trust me it's a lot of nothing interesting.

One story that was funny was that we went to this little whole in the wall joint the first night we pulled up. There was a homeless man standing outside who asked us if we could get him 2 pieces of chicken and mumbled something else. So, we ordered him 2 pieces (this is not a story to show how cool we are for ordering a 2 dollar meal for a homeless man). We gave them to him as we were walking back to the hotel.

Me: Here are your two pieces of chicken

Him: Did you get a roll?

Me: Oh, no, I so sorry, no roll.

Him: (a very sad face)

These last couple weeks have been extremely busy. I helped out with the food for one of my friend's daughter's weddings. That was a ton of fun and everything went so well! I LOVE everything to do with food. I am catering a wedding in July and just had a tasting for the couple last thursday! I think it went well. They at least said they liked the food. If you are looking for a caterer I would love to do your event (shameless plug for myself). I don't think I'll ever really make this into a business, but we'll see.

Last Monday we went to dinner at a groupon pizza place, then to a Red's game. Scott won tickets to the game that were 15ish rows up on the 3rd base line. It was a blast especially because we would never buy tickets that close.

Since the ward talent show and bake auction I have made 2 trifles for other families. This bake auction was raise money for our young women to go to camp. I made a trifle for the action which for some reason a lot of families wanted. There were some sad faces so I told them I would make them one. Every time I make one of these I think of Provo and Sarah Frey. There was one time that I made trifle with sarah, scott, and me and we ate the entire thing. I have yet to be able to accomplish that feat again, even with more people. Good times...

Still looking for a job. Scott is still being loved and liking his job. Still have pain in my hip. Scheduling a surgery for the beginning of June. Going to Texas May 2 for 1 1/2 weeks!

We also finally decided what to do with our vacation days. We are going to Idaho for a week when Jim and Arlene get back from their mission in Russia. We will also be going to Italy for a week to see my parents who will be teaching there! Obviously I will be taking more vacations since I do not have a job, starting with my trip to Texas, then in June I will be going to SLC, and August I will be going to Maine!!! Meredith and I were going to do an amazing bike trip (360 miles in a weekish) that I had planned out along the coast of Maine and back through the hills, but do to my potential surgery, that is scrapped for this year :( At least I have it planned for later.

Some pictures!

2011-04-12T12:11:00.000-07:00

Pictures from 2010

We got all dressed up because I was a judge at the 2010 cross country cookoff! So much delicious food.

We saw this when we were in galveston during Chirstmas time (on a truck of course).

NASA!

This is for Jim and Arlene! It's a part of the space station that Russia has put up.

When we were in San Fran. we went to Google and took a tour from Megan's friend and rode the Google bikes!

I helped my sister move out from Salt Lake City to San Francisco in December. It was a very long drive/trip. We locked the keys out of the car twice and I went through 2 boxes of kleenex! I didn't not get along with Megan's cats.

This was from our trip to Idaho. I thought this was so cute and Talli (sp?) is one of the cutest nieces I have! Of course I think all my nieces are one of the cutest!

This was during thanksgiving. Meredith got ready for our run and I saw what she was wearing and I said one min. ran back to my room and changed into her outfit. I guess this might mean I have too many running clothes!

Thanksgiving! Scott had to make our getto table so we could fit everyone!

Thanksgiving day turkey trot! The biggest in the world!

I ran as an elite runner in an Indianapolis Half Marathon. This was our AWESOME hotel the night before. I was pretty excited that some how they classified me as elite.

Our pumpkins a week after we carved them. The were wilting a little.

Trunk or treat! We were Anarctic explorers. Really I was really cold and didn't want to be outside unless I had lots of clothes on.

Pumpkin patch hay ride!

Corn Maze!

1 Whole Year...

2011-04-12T10:50:00.000-07:00

I know I have been majorly slacking on the updates to my blog. Well, that might be a little understatement seeing that my last post was a year and a half ago. Well, I guess the short run down of this last year was...

I finished grad school. At the end of it Scott was telling people he was more excited for me to finish and have his wife back than I was. I did my internship in cardiac rehab during the summer and graduated in August with an MS in heath education/public health. My GPA was the thing I was the proudest of: 4.0, yes that means I was perfect.

I also finished my collegiate running career. It didn't go as well as I had hoped, but I also was injured during all of indoor and outdoor. At the end of the season I was only able to run about 3 miles a day until the pain was too great for me to handle, and I like to think that that is a lot.

So, as I said in the other post I got injured. It started in November with REALLy tight IT bands. I asked my trainer to rub them out and werf (word for he or she) said no. That's an even longer story, but then in December it got worse. I got an MRI in January and was diagnosed with osteoitis pubis. This is softening of the cartilage at the pubic symphasis (where your hip bones come together in the front). I also had a stress fracture on my pubic ramus, but was only told that later. So, they said since it's your last season, you can just run through this and go to physical therapy. I loved my physical therapist but I still continuously got worse and worse. I had another MRI in April with contrast this time. We saw that I might have a labral tear and still had my other issues. At this point the orthopedic surgeon said I don't know what to do with you. I thought it was a sports hernia (athletic pubalgia) and a labral tear. The surgeon said I don't think it is a sports hernia and the only reason I would go in with a scope to your hip is because I think fixing your labrum might make you run differently, but I don't think it is causing you pain. At this point I was mighty frustrated with him (Scott was there and equally frustrated). This surgeon said you can go find a second opinion or have me scope your hip. He didn't give me any idea of someone to see or anything. So, I went online and looked for several hours. I found Dr. Meyers in Philly who does sports hernia repairs. This is a very new field and there aren't many people around who do these repairs. I told UC that I wanted to go to him because I felt as though I had a sports hernia. I did have all the signs and symptoms of one so I have no idea why this surgeon thought I didn't have one. Well, we got me in at the end of June 2010. Had an appointment with him on Monday he said you have a huge tear in your rectus and have ripped the muscle partially off the bone. The next day I had surgery.

So, in the last year as I just explained we also took a trip to philadelphia. We went down on a Thursday night right after Scott was done with work. Got to our hotel in Gettysburg at some a full hour at night. Scott was so tired that he was hallucinating things like umbrellas popping open in the middle of the road. The next day we went and bought an audio tour of Gettysburg and drove around and listened. It was awesome. I did this with my family when I was younger, but it meant a lot more to me now. We went on a couple of tours at the sites and ran into this really funny tour guide that thought it was pretty cool that we were LDS. So, after that humbling and awe-inspiring tour we went to hershey, PA. This was a lot less awesome than Gettysburg, but I guess what do you expect! It was still fun and we (Scott) got free chocolate out of it. Afterward, we drove into philly, which was crazy. I have to say that looking for parking was crazy. We finally gave up trying to find a cheap place to park and parked at our hotel (the hilton in downtown, $50, I love priceline) for $31/day. We then walked to Penn's landing and went to a thing called taste of Philly. A whole bunch of Philladelphia restaurants had booths that you can buy little servings of their food. We got some philly cheese steak and some other food that I don't even remember now. For dessert we ate some gelato that wasn't amazing. Saturday we woke up and went to Valley Forge and did a cell phone tour around that area. There were also some fun story tellers at the different stops along the way. Our history is just so fascinating and amazing. After we were done there we went back to the hotel and went to the Ben franklin museum. We watched Iron Man 3 in Imax. Then went to Walmart to buy food for the next day (Sunday). We went to church which in itself was a whole process! We have a GPS (Sam) and he kept taking us on streets that were shut off because of a bike race. I don't know why but Scott and I couldn't stop laughing about it. We got to church about 30 minutes late, but we tried right? The talks were very interesting. I felt like I had entered in a revival. 90% of the congregation was African. I absolutely loved the last women who spoke. I don't remember what she spoke about I just remember the spirit as she spoke, and the love and passion she had for the gospel. I don't think that us white americans are very good at that. Relief society was very interesting. It was a talk about good, better, best but I felt like I was in primary. We microwaved our lunch in the kitchen there and left to go to Longwood Gardens. These are gardens right outside Philly that a guy made and designed himself. It was breathtaking and amazing. I highly recommend this to anyone. There were lots of fountain shows and what not. We then went back to the hotel to plan the next day. We went to the visitor's center and got tickets to independence hall. We watched a movie on it and then went to the liberty bell. That was supper cool. That huge crack in the liberty bell, was actually not the fatal crack. The fatal crack was so small and tiny that you could bairly see it. There's a good anallogy in there somewhere, I just don't feel like drawing it out. The liberty bell that was sent over actually is not the same one that we have now. They had to recast it and people were saying it might not even be the same metal. We then had to go get an MRI on my hip (that was why we took the trip). After, we went to our independence hall tour. That was amazing as well. We go to see where the founding fathers decided to declare independence. They also had some of the founding fathers things out on the tables and chairs. We had to leave the tour right before they were ending to run up to the appointment with Dr. Meyers. We literally ran several blocks to get there. I was SO sweaty during the examination, I was so embarrassed. We were told about having to get surgery the next day. We got philly cheesesteaks and auntie anne's pretzels that afternoon. That night we had room service (first time for both of us). The next morning I had the surgery. All I really remember about it is waiting in the preop room for an hour. I talked to all the people in the beds next to me, read my doctor's notes. Finally I went it and as they were telling me to climb onto the operating table I put my head in the pillow and said, wow this is a very comfy pillow. They told me I could keep it and call it my 35,000 dollar pillow. I also remember coming out of anesthesia and shaking uncontrollably. People kept asking how I was doing and I kept saying fine how are you doing. I remembered that my anesthesiologist didn't get lunch before the surgery so I kept asking him if he had lunch. I also kept complementing the nurses on their hair and shoes. All I wanted when I woke up was water and my husband. I kept setting off the alarms on my monitor because my HR dropped below 40. I got into my own room afterward and they told me to order some food. I watched TV and waited for my food and husband. They kept me there a little longer because of my reaction to the anesthesia. Scott finally came and next I'll explain what was keeping him. He went back out and got me some auntie anne's pretzels. We left the hospital and went by a philly cheesesteak place. There was no parking so, yes, probably 5 hours after my surgery I stood in line for a philly cheese steak. The next day we got up and walked around valley forge, where we stayed the last night, and then drove home with several walking breaks.

Another this that happened that I hinted at was that we sold our house in provo!!! We were praying for this for a long time, and the Lord has a funny sense of humor sometimes when answering our prayers. A couple minutes after Scott said goodbye to me as I was wheeled into the preop room, our real estate agent called him and said I need you to print, signed and get these document notarized and sent back to me now. Scott said, my wife just went into surgery, can't we wait until later or tomorrow. The agent said no. So, luckily the nurses there were very nice and let him use the computer and print things out, found him a notary in the hospital and a fedex building close by. So, that is what Scott was doing while I was in surgery, and why I had to wait to see my husband after surgery.

We had thanksgiving at our place here in Cincinnati again. That was SO fun to have all my family here in our little apartment. We didn't do a salt encrused turkey this time but we brined it. While my family was here we went to the Zoo and aquarium. We also did the turkey trot here in Cincinnati.

We went to Boise at the beginning of December to see Scott's family up there. That was so much fun to see all the adults but mostly the little ones that had grown SO much! It had been 9 months since we had been to Idaho.

Scott and I went to Texas that year for Chirstmas. It had been something like 2 1/2 years or more since we had been to Texas. While we were there we went to the Space center in Houston where they do all the astronaut training.

This whole time I have been looking for a job to no avail. That is still where my employment status is right now.

Scott has earned two raises and one promotion since he has started his job. They seem to really like him there and he likes it as well.

The most recent saga of our life is our SECOND trip to philadelphia. Yes. The saga will forever continue it seems. I have spent too much time on this update and I'm sure that no one will read the whole thing so, I don't want to bore anyone more.

Sleepless in Boise

2009-12-30T06:43:00.000-08:00

So, as you can tell I'm in Boise and can't sleep. That seems really weird because we were up until 2:00 A.M. just sitting around and talking. I've come to the conclusion (about 3 years ago) that I have the best in-laws... ever.
It's been so fun to be out here in the mountains again. I forgot how much I really missed them horribly. The first run that I did here I had to concentrate on footing and then I finally got to look up and just stared at the mountains for the next several miles and had the most goofy looking grin on my face because of them.
Well, I know this is a short post but I still want to read the scriptures and then I have to go face the 4-5? inches of snow that fell last night. That one might be one point for Cincinnati over the rockies.

Flashing Red Lights, Frustration, and Freakishly Close Encounters of the Cervidae Kind

2009-12-13T16:15:00.000-08:00

Disclaimer: This is a post from Scott. I (Jocelyn) have done all the other posts. So, now this blog can officially be the Scott and Jocelyn blog!

Two weeks ago, we had a very interesting experience on our way home from school and work. It was a dark and stormy Wednesday night (really, it was dark and stormy…and it was a Wednesday for that matter.) It is important to know that it was stormy…not so much that it was dark, but that it was stormy…and it was Wednesday. Jocelyn and I were on our way home from work and school and just pulled onto I-75 to go home. The entrance we got on the freeway at is no more than 1 mile from the exit where we get off. Just as we get onto the entrance ramp we round a corner and see the entire freeway before us full of frozen red lights. I-75 had turned into an utterly static parking lot as far as our eyes could see. This was bad news because it was a Wednesday (see, I told you it was important to know it was a Wednesday).

It just so happens that Wednesday evenings at 7:00, Jocelyn and I teach a personal finance class at church. I am a firm believer in starting meetings on time and told the class that we would begin our classes promptly at 7:00 every Wednesday night. After 10 consecutive weeks of beginning at 7:00, I was not about to break the streak. I glanced at the clock to see how much time we had. 6:20. We sat on the entrance ramp waiting for any signs of movement. The clock kept ticking…6:25…6:30. The rain drummed down on the roof of our car as we sat overlooking the sea of red. My fingers drummed the steering wheel impatiently watching the minutes tick by with no sign of reprieve from the gridlock. After sitting in the same place for over 15 minutes, I turned off the car hoping to invoke the eternal Law of Traffic that states once you have sat idling for any significant length of time, traffic will begin moving the moment you turn off your car. No such luck tonight.

The digital numbers on our clock ticked closer and closer to 7:00. When it became apparent that no matter how quickly traffic cleared, we would still not make it to the church on time, I called the one member of the class whose number I had in my phone and asked him to let the rest of the class know that we would have to push our start time back to 7:30. In an effort to find out why in the world we hadn’t moved in over 25 minutes, we turned on the radio and listened for a traffic report. (This is where the stormy part comes in.) Right at the very exit we needed to take, a semi had slipped on the wet roads and was jackknifed blocking all lanes of traffic. To make matters worse, there was also a diesel spill on the road making it impossible for any traffic to pass.

Around 6:50, traffic finally began moving. When we got home, Jocelyn scrambled to make us salads for dinner as I got the materials for class together. As we were rushing out the door with our dinners, my bowl of salad slid from its perch on top of my binder and launched a beautiful salad, complete with salad dressing, all over our front room. Perturbed at another set back and having lost my dinner, I ran to grab towels to clean the mess. We tidied up as best we could and ran out the door with the few pieces of lettuce we could salvage from the carpet.

It was now 7:10 and we still had to get the room set up for the class. We were not, however, too worried because the church was close and we never had traffic on the roads we took to church…except tonight. We pulled onto the street and again saw the ominous, steady glow of brake lights. Letting out an audible groan, we pulled into traffic and sat, waiting. After another ten minutes, the cars began moving past a three-car pile-up that had been moved to the side of the road. (You have to understand that in Cincinnati, the “side of the road” means the right lane of a two lane road.) It was now getting dangerously close to 7:30 and we were still not at the church. As we pulled off of that road, I said aloud, “There had better not be a wreck on this road!” Had I only known then how close we would come to making that statement true.

I take back an earlier statement I made…it is important to know that it was a dark night. As we were being passed by a car in the left lane, we noticed movement in the car’s headlights. Jocelyn immediately began screaming, “Deer! Deer! Deer!” I slammed on the brakes as a deer came bounding across the road not more than 10 feet in front of us. After it scampered off the road, I accelerated to get back up to speed when out of thin air, another deer appeared directly in front of the car. I slammed even harder on the brakes causing the car to go into a slide on the wet road. Everything seemed to slow down and I could see the deer’s eyes get wider and wider. It was almost as if I could see a little thought bubble come out of its head that read something like, “Not gonna make it…not gonna make it!!!” It was only half right. Just as the deer made its final Herculean leap to get out of the trajectory of our careening car, we felt its back leg knick the front corner of our car. I regained control of the car as the deer bounded off to safety. Jocelyn and I immediately erupted into that terrified, relieved laughter that comes after a night of frustration and near death experiences. We at last pulled into the safety of the church parking lot and found that someone had already unlocked the building. (It was a good thing too because the family we normally borrow a church key from was not answering their phone that night.) Needless to say, it was an interesting night fraught with flashing red lights, frustration, and freakishly close encounters of the Cervidae kind.

For those of you wondering, Cervidae is the genus of deer (at least according to the all-knowing Wikipedia).

PICTURES

2009-12-01T06:20:00.000-08:00

We had three pies and a cheese cake. Scott loves pie, I think he would eat it for every meal.
We had some fall fun. we couldn't make that big of a pile when we didn't have a rake.
This is our turkey. I know it looks weird. We tried something new. It was a salt encrusted turkey. It was actually really really good. Sounds bad but it isn't.
Fatty while he was still alive!
Yes this is our tree and yes it is wrapped. Some how we fit it in our car.
These are the ornaments that Scott and I made! How cute!

This is my santa. All of these look at lot more awesome in person. I was really proud of my santa

This is what we had to do to get to our salt encrusted turkey. Scott liked it because he got to use power tools.

2009-12-01T06:01:00.000-08:00

So, I really don't feel like studying right now so I guess I can consider this to be productive too. I wrote a whole huge blog post a coupe weeks ago and then my computer decided to shut down so, I didn't have the time or effort to rewrite it. I also wrote Chelsea a letter that my computer lost too! Well, lots and lots has happened this month. Cross country is over it ended quite sadly but life goes on. Also, another sad story is that Baby mac died, he is now in the morgue. For those who do not know who baby mac is, it is my computer that has been with me for 4 1/2 years! Well I was in the middle of writing a research paper. I had probably spent 10 hours on it. Monday morning I woke up at 3:00 A.M. to finish it because it was due at 4:00 P.M. but I have to teach and go to class during the day. So, I turned it on and it went to the normal blue start up screen. Then tragedy fell and it went to this gray screen with lines across it. Well, I couldn't write a paper completely over and turn it in by 4. so I tried everything I woke Scott up and he tried everything. Then I sent my professor an e-mail and explained everything and went back to bed. Well, luckily he was very kind and let me turn it in on Thursday at 2:00 pm. But, it is still very very sad he has died. My father-in-law called us this last Sunday and said he was coming to visit the warehouse that next day so he wanted to see if he could stay with us. We of course were thrilled and so it was fun to have him on Monday. Then wed. Megan (my sister) came. Thursday we spent all morning cooking and then went and drove around Cincinnati and showed her all the gorgeous houses and that night we stayed up late (for me not her) and just talked with all three of us. Friday we took her to this awesome grocery store. It has food from all around the world. Then chatted some more and sent her away with lots of left over thanksgiving.
One more story happened at the beginning of this month. We were about to go to sleep when we hear what sounds like a waterfall coming from our bathroom. We go in and water is flowing over our vanity and flooding our bathroom. So we get some bowls and start dumping it in the bathtub. Scott sent me to sleep while he cleaned it up because it was 2 nights before a race. In the middle of the night I woke up and heard our sink gurgling so I went and took care of it. Then it happened again around 3 am. so I woke Scott up and said that our sink was acting up again. He's the best husband ever because he got up and took care of it. Our landlord called us and told us not to use the sinks. Well, everything is all clear now. Oh we decided to cut a Christmas tree down this past Saturday so we went to a farm and got one for 30 bucks! It was so fun. We found this one which we call fatty for obvious reasons. Then we went to get some Christmas stuff. I decided that I was going to make some christmas tree ornaments with my acheivement day girls. We are going to make snowmen heads together but then I made a santa head which I think was pretty cool and awesome. Well, I try to post some pictures now. Hope everyone ad a great thanksgiving and I only have 1 1/2 weeks of school/finals!!! Hurray!

New things

2009-11-01T05:06:00.000-08:00

Well, Last weekend I had a week off of racing so, we decided to go to the temple. It was a pretty drive down because the trees have still retained their color for the most part. When we got into the room I saw Scott talking with another guy like he knew him. Well, when I got out the same guy was sitting in the waiting area and he asked if I was Scott's wife. Well, he ended up being the only other LDS person that Scott knows works at Nielsen and his wife. We invited them to watch the BYU game with us but they had to get back to their kids. We have the tradition of going and getting a DQ blizzard after a session so we got a pumpkin pie flavored one. We had 3 other guys in the ward over to watch the game with us. That doesn't need to be talked about... this last week of school has been crazy just like all the others, but I had a midterm in the class that is actually really hard and in Stats. I ended up getting a 100 on the stats and I'll get the other test back next week because it was a 6 essay exam.
I left on Friday morning to go to Kenosha Wisconsin for Conference. The ride up was pretty uneventfull other than we all talked and I didn't get any thing done on this 8 hour trip except 67 stats question on my computer which I lost Saturday night =(. I roomed with Lillian who is the only Kenyan that we have on the team. Her story is quite interesting. She really wanted to help her village but her parents didn't have enough money to send her to college so she started running and UC found her and asked her to run for them. Now she is majoring in nursing so that she can help the corrupt system over there. She's an awesome runner and a very nice person. Well, I woke up Saturday morning with a stomach ache and I was all shaky. I had to force food down me at breakfast. We got to the course 3 hours before we were to run. It was freezing there but luckily there was a warm building we were allowed to stay in instead of sitting in the car for even longer. My team warms up an hour before the race. I never have warmed up that early before a race so I wait until they come back and warm up 40 ish minutes before. Well, on my warm up I couldn't breathe. I even took my inhaler and couldn't breathe. I took it again 10 minutes before the race and still couldn't breathe on my strides. I had said before that I was going to go out slower and with Lillian and Tamera, so I went out slower and ran with Tamera a little under 1 mile. Then I kept going and she went back a little bit. OH! I forgot to say that this course say SO muddy! It had standing water above our ankles on several places on the course and everything else you were just sliding around in the mud. 1/2 inch spikes come in handy, even though they look like they could kill someone. Well, I finished 34th and 1st for the team. It was an ok race but not really that awesome. I felt horrible at the end and just wanted to go home.
Our ride home was pretty uneventful as well. We drove through downtown Chicago and right by Wrigley Field. We were trying to decide were to eat when coach Susan (the heads women's coach for track and the person driving our van) said we could eat a steak and shake. The plan had been to eat at a nice restaurant in Chicago but most people though it would take way too long and we all wanted to get back home. So, then the plan degraded into eating at steak and shake. Well, she looked on her blackberry and couldn't find one. We kept looking at the exit signs and finally decided we would just go one more exit and we would just get off and find something. Well we came to the sign on the highway that says what food is at the exit and we were all reading through it and then everyone erupted in hurrahs when we read steak and shake because Susan had told us that there wasn't one in this town. We exited and drove for what felt like 4 miles probably more like 2, but there wasn't a steak and shake. We were in a lane to do a U turn and just go and find a different place to eat when Kayla who was in the very back row of this 15 passenger van said look there's steak and shake up on the right up there. So, we all erupted in hurrahs and laughs again. It was just was meant to be I guess. It was the first time that I ate at steak and shake, it was good. It was so nice to get home to Cincinnati even though a high school football game was getting out of the UC stadium right when Scott was picking me up. I love being at home and with Scott. It's the best feeling ever! Now I just sent the extra hour we had from daylight savings updating this blog somewhat. I would try to put pictures up, but our camera doesn't want to download to my computer.

Major Update

2009-10-18T10:18:00.000-07:00

So, I guess it's kind of obvious that school has started! I haven't updated this in a while! Well, I've had two races since then and lots of school. School started and the first week made me want to quit. I came home after the first couple days of school and told Scott that I was thinking about quitting everything. I looked up the last day to withdraw without any fines. I felt overwhelmed with what I was expected to do. All is well now though. I teach a group fitness class for 12 hours a week. In group fitness I alternate what we do every week. So far we have done a cardio boot camp work out, stability ball stuff, and pilates. So far my classes have like it. We have had 3 1/2 weeks of school and only have 7 more to go! It's half way point of a semester. Well, I also am a slave to a proffessor for 8 hours a week, I just grade papers. Then some where in there I fit in running and 15 credit hours of Graduate work with some studying time. So far I don't feel as though grad school is hard as in mentally, but hard to fit everything in that I need to do.

Meet 2

2009-09-21T08:35:00.000-07:00

Well, I had the meet and then we volunteered at a fair for 3 hours. We had to record part of the BYU football game so we could watch it when we got home. We watched BYU rock and we were both very excited.
This last week has been my last week of freedom seeing as I will start school soon here. I left on Friday early morning for NY, NY. It took forever getting to the course for the meet but we ran the course and then went to the most awesome pizza place. We then went to the hotel hung out and went out to eat at this Italian place with the biggest portions. Saturday morning we went to the course. The meet went ok. I felt like I ran but didn't race. My parents were there though so that was nice. Then we drove into NY which was not the brightest idea. We went to the MET. for hours I tried to show them stuff that was on loan or in storage which was sad but the met is still amazing! We then met up with Breanne and Jeremiah after a wrong turn and walking through harlim! We went to this delisious thai place. Then we went on a hunt for dessert. I was VERY disappointed when breanne told me the best popcorn place in the world in times square went out of buisness. So we went to several dessert places. We got some sorbet and cream puffs and then got icecream and went to go get a cookie but that place was closed=(. Sunday morning we had to wake up at 3:40 to get to the airport. Two guys and I woke up sick with soar throats. Sunday I felt aweful but feeling a little better now.
My next meet is in two weeks. It's All Ohio which is a meet with all the ohio teams.

race day!

2009-09-12T10:42:00.001-07:00

After the race collecting cones and playing with them!
A beautiful award
At the finish line!!
The start
Coach's pep talk and game plan then we prayed and did a yell!

We (UC) tied with xavier with 48 points each. UC went 1,2,3 and then there were a lot of xaiver people. We all ran well. It was a fun race!

2009-09-11T13:22:00.000-07:00

At a breakfast after our long run at camp 4 guys went 18 I went 13.1 a half marathon
At fireworks for labor day

Fireworks at labor day!

Finally a new post!

2009-09-11T12:38:00.000-07:00

WOW so much has happened since our last post! I've gone to Maine for 2 weeks and loved every minute of it! It was sad because Scott couldn't come because he hasn't been working for 90 days=( I went skiing everyday and went blueberry picking and it was just as wonderful as it always is, although lonely. I got back and we went to a NFL Bengals game on thursday. It was fun but I wasn't feeling so well. Then the next night we went to Scott's B-day present. The Dodger's game at the red's stadium. It cost 5$ plus tax and processing. We got awesome seats. The dodger's were on a 9 game winning streak and the red's on a 4 game winning streak. The red's were doing way too well and it came down to the top of the 9th and bases loaded, 2 outs and Manney was up to bat! We wanted him to get a home run because then the Dodger's would have had a chance to win, but there was no such luck! Then there was an awesome fireworks show afterward. They were probably the best fireworks I've ever seen. Then on Sunday I was off to cross country camp! It was fun although hard at times. It was the first time that I had gotten into the some routine I had in Utah so I missed all my friends there and everything about Utah. There were also some tense moments at camp where there were some disagreements. I think it was also hard because I felt as though I hadn't seen Scott in a while and I missed him a lot! Well, the running at camp went very well I think. I had one workout while I was there and we did 7 1,000's. I had never done more than 4! It was crazy! I did the first one at 3:30 and then the next 5 at 2:20 ish, then the last one at 2:12. I felt awesome during the whole thing. It was nice to have people to run with and talk with and just be there. We got back and it was labor day weekend. On Monday we went out and played catch. Scott was telling me about his dad getting hit in the head by a baseball while he was playing when Scott threw the ball and I caught it with my eye socket. It scaired me and then made us laugh along with the 7 other highschool aged student siting at a picnic table across the park. Unfortunatly I didn't get a black eye or anything to show for it. We had an enjoyable Labor day. Just yesterday I had orientation for my graduate assistantship. I met all the other GA's and other's in my program. I found out I'll be teaching group fitness, 6 sections! so they meet for 1 hour twice a week. 12 hours of teaching a week! This will be very interesting. I hope that I'm able to teach them something. Monday- thursday 10-1 I will be teaching/workingout! I'm going to be so tired at the end of the day. Well, Scott is still enjoying his Job he just started with a new division with new people. It's funny I'll ask him what he did at work and almost everyday he builds a new macro that he thinks is the coolest. It's funny what makes him excited. I have a meet tomorrow on the 12th of september! It should be exciting. We also have lunch afterward and then we are volunteering for a prepardness booth that our church has at a fair. Well, we hope that all is well with everyone else!

The Adventure

2009-07-30T08:50:00.000-07:00

So, we've had quite the adventure the last couple of days. Last Thursday I went down to bowling Green to get the Van with the fixed transmission. So, the drive down was quite uneventful but once I got down there I felt like I was back in Texas. I picked the van up at this little Podunk town in the middle of no where. The people there had the thickest southern draw accent ever. I LOVED IT! It was humid (like everywhere up here) and so green and treey. Everyone was so nice and wanted to tell you their life story. I felt at home! Well, I then had to drive back which was quite an adventure. I was going on the outskirts of Louisville when traffic came to a stop. I couldn't exit for another 1 1/4 miles. I went 1 1/4 miles in 2hours and 45 minutes!!!!! Ya that was not fun. People kept getting so upset and the breakdown lane became a real lane. Well, apparently there was an accident on the highway and the had to close it. Well, I finally found my way home and picked Scott up from work at 6:30! I guess they'll just think he's a hard worker! Well, we still had to exchange the van for our car! So on Friday right after Scott got back from work, we drove up to Cleveland. We stayed at some people's house that my parents met in Greece. They were really nice. The next morning I woke up way to early to say so I could go run and we were out of there at 7:00 a.m. Well, we headed up to Niagara falls. We saw Niagara falls in two hours and then headed to Palmyra, NY. Palmyra is where a lot of the LDS church history is so, we went and toured around that area till about 6:30 p.m. We met up with my parents while we were going through the area. Well, all I can say is it was unbelievable! The Spirit there was so strong. Well, my parent got a new GPS so we got sally, their old one. Well, we were planning on just staying at a rest stop along the way and then finding church to go to in the morning. Well, we plugged in our home address and Sally told us we could be home at 2:00! Well, that made our minds up that we were going all the way. We had some very nasty weather with tornadoes just south of us. We got back safe. I don't know the last time sleep felt so good to me. Well, this week I've been working a lot on Scott's Christmas present. This is truly amazing because I don't know the last time I though about Christmas until it had already passed, literally. We haven't ever had Christmas on Christmas. So, it's my goal this year to actually have holidays on holidays! I just went out and bought yarn and fabric. I'm going to make a cardigan and a dress and with the yarn a baby's blanket for our baby we'll have in at least another year. I know it's a little early, but why not? Well, until next week!

more pictures of our new place!

2009-07-21T08:46:00.000-07:00

The massive closet that we need our our clothes wouldn't fit!
Our kitchen table we haven't decided what to do with!
Our bedroom with our gorgeous bed (Thanks Brian
Bathroom
sHall way

This is the wonderful pantry that Scott and his dad made for me. It sits in the guest bedroom closet.
These are the beautiful bedskirt and curtains that I made! It was my very first sewing project by myself.
This is our kitchen where we bought a new counter height table to eat at with our stools. it fits better and works for us. We bought it at a garage sale that we saw on craigslist (where all of our furniture is from)
I think we learned that we have too much stuff when we moved in here!
I know it's still REALLY messy and Scott would be so ashamed if he knew I put these pictures up when our place was such a wreck!

Finally there are some pictures!

2009-07-21T08:35:00.000-07:00

I had one of the best runs ever today! So I went out and it looked like it was going to rain. About 5 minutes in it started to down pour. Not the rain that you get in Utah, but the full blown downpour I missed so much from Texas. Well, I felt like I could run forever. I don’t know what it is about rain it just invigorates me and makes me so happy. Well, I did actually run further than planed but oh well, I’ll just get to run less this week, which actually will be necessary. So, update since last I blogged… On Friday, we went to “happy hour” at someone’s apartment. It was a little party to get all the new employees of Nelson a little tipsy. Well, obviously we don’t drink but it was really fun anyways. There are some really nice people that work there. Well, everyone was really nice. No one else is married, so no other spouses come or anything. Ha funny thing. They started to ask Scott where the cookies were. I made cookies for the last party and I also made some last wed. that he brought into work. So, now wed. will be cookie day. Well, we left at 8:00 because my parent were supposed to be coming into town that night. Everyone gave us weird looks that we were leaving so early. Well, we picked up a movie to watch together to wait for my parents. Well, we got a call that the van transmition was dead so they were going to stay there. Well, they rented a car the next day and made it up here. So, This week I get to drive down 200 miles and pick up the Van and then drive back. Then this weekend Scott and I are going to drive all the way out to Palmyra with the van to exchange them for our car that they borrowed. It’ll be a crazy week!
As I said there are MANY parks around here and there is forest all around us. Well, Scott and I had a brilliant idea on Sunday as we walk around in them talking to my family and his. There are trees down all over the place and so we found a piece that would work perfect for a lamp. So, with Scott’s new tools we went back on Monday and sawed some fallen trees to play with. I hope it works out! If it does I’ll put up pictures!

More fun in Cincy

2009-07-14T17:21:00.000-07:00

So, right now we are taking care of a boy in the Ward. So, I have internet! Well there are a couple funny stories... I got home from a run one day and started taking a shower. I heard someone buzz at the door (our building is locked so you have to buzz people in). It was around the time that Scott should have been getting home, so I assumed it was him. I was about to jump out and buzz him in when I realized that he had keys. So I finished up as quick as I could and then realized that I had put the chain lock on our door so he wouldn't be able to get in no matter what. I heard banging on the door and kept yelling just a minute, but the walls are sound proof so you can't hear anything. So I hopped out of the shower without even squeezing my hair out and ran to the door in my towel. Right as I took the chain off the door opened and there stood our maintance man! He screamed in horror seeing someone on the other side becuase he had been banging making sure no one was inside before he opened the door. Well, then he became really embarased becuase I was just in a towel with my hair dripping. I said sorry I thought you were my husband! Well he had to turn our AC on so he could work on it. I went to the back while he explained what he was doing and then left! I thought it was funny I think he was too embarased to think so. Well, Anyway, I have loved the running around here! It is gorgous and there is a 1459 Acre park just 2 min run away! It has so many trails I haven't even begun to find or run on them all yet. The trails here are like heaven! The trees are so thick that there is no sun that gets through so it's so cool and shady. yesterday I saw a little bamby and his mom and today I saw about 6 bucks just chillin. They looked up at me then just went back to what they were doing. Just to clarify, We are not in the boonies we are about 5 miles from downtown, and we are right off the highway. Well the street we live on is called Montana Ave. I have to run on it for a while if I want to go on anyother run then the massive park. I run down it everyday. I see the same people at the bus stops and say hi to each one. I feel as though I kinda know them now. Some are friendly and some still don't say hi back. Well, on saturday Scott and I were in the library. Scott was looking at some movies and a guy came by the table and said "hey, I see you run down montana everyday!" I laughed and said "ya" Then he said " You're FAST!" Then I really laughed and said thanks. So, it's just a matter of time before people are calling me "that crazy montana runner."

I've become quite domestic. Yesterday and today I worked on making a bed skirt. I finnaly finished today! Tommorrow I will be working on matching curtains to go with it. I'll post a pic soon. When I feel like everything is clean enough and I'm back on my computer.

Well, Scott keeps working, he goes in aroun 8:30 and comes home between 5:30-6:15. It's his second week and he's still going through training. Next week real stuff starts. They gave him a lap top and they are getting their cubes tomorrow!

That's about all that is remotaly interesting that is happening. This is long enough and I don't want to boar people!
Jocelyn and Scott

We have a HOME!!!

2009-07-09T14:36:00.001-07:00

Well this will have to be short becuase Scott is still at work and I have to go get him today. Well, last time I wrote I was sitting in a library waiting for our landlord to say we were approved. We were a little worried because of the house we still have in Provo but we were APPROVED! woohoo! Well we went there and signed all the stuff got our keys and then went half an hour back to our van to pick it up. We called some people from the ward and got some help. We had the whole van unloaded in about 40 min. It was amazing. When we got everything into the apartment I didn't think we'd fit everything. Jim (Scott's dad) didn't even think we could fit everything! That's definatly saying something! Well, the next days were crazy unpacking. We have a lot of food storage because we had a whold basment to fill in Provo. Well someone came up with the ingenous idea of putting some food storage under the beds. So we raised our guest bed and then slide cans under our bed. Well, it didn't end there we have food storage in our bathroom closet. Scott and Jim made me a pantry that we stuck in the guest closet (pictures to come shortly). It is very nice to have more room! Well then we had a whole bunch of boxes to deal with so Jim came up with the fabulous idea to put the boxes in our box spring matresses. So, we packed those full with all our boxes. As amazing as it is we were able to fit everything into our apartment. Well wed. I went and met with the coach and he took me around campus a little. all of their facilities are about 3 years old. That night I was able to run with some of the people on the team. I was going to park at this guy's place becuase parking is horrible. Well, I was calling him when I was close and my phone died. Well, I found the place and started running the direction I thought the track was. I saw a group of people and they all yelled "Jocelyn?" They had split up into groups and were looking at every car without an ohio lisense plate. One guy ran up to a runner and asked her if she was Jocelyn? Yes, I did push the pace, but I didn't mean to. Well, kinda wierd but the guys and the girls ran together. It was fun but they definatly usually don't run fast. I think 8 minute pace is very typical for them. They thought 7 minute pace was blazing fast. Well, Scott is waiting and it's almost 6 so, there will be more to come shortly, just not right now.

Cincinnati!

2009-06-29T13:38:00.000-07:00

So we finally pulled into Cincinnati on Friday night! We stopped at adam-on-dioman along the way and also at the national cross country course in Terre Haute, IN. It was a fun drive for the most part, lots faster when I drove. Well we got to the motel 6 and went to check-in which we did through a bullet proof glass window. (That made us feel right at home). There were a group of kids in the parking lot getting drunk. As we left there was a guy there that said "now don't go get any booty! Keep it real." to Scott. Well the next day we spent from 9 til 4 or 5 looking for a place. We found one but they had it on hold for someone so we had to wait till monday to see if they would have it available. We then found a library to go to so we could find a hotel. After being homless and apartmentless all day it felt good to be in a hotel. We went to a little local chinease place that was ok. So Sunday we went to the ward that we hoped to get an apartment in. We LOVED it! Everyone was soooo friendly and we got more numbers by the end of church and offers for help or anything then we had numbers from our home ward in Provo. Everyone was amazing. So, we decided that we HAD to be in that ward. Bonus: the ward met at 10:00 a.m. becuase they were the only ward in the building. So monday we went and looked at some apartments that were recommended to us by some people in the ward. We ended up likeing some called Swiss chalet. We have applied to get this apartment and will hopefully hear back that we can get it by the end of today. I am tired of being homeless with a massive truck. I am running with the team here on Wednesday night! I can't wait to see some of them! Well, that is our first and only post but I will try to keep this up. As soon as we're not homeless I will upload some pictures of our wonderful adventures!