I changed my font at Lily Puff

Friday, June 25, 2010

It Came To Me while Driving My Car...

...That is when I realized what I want to do with my life. Besides the wife/mom business, I want to go into "I can make your yard beautiful" business. I have contacted a couple schools and am just waiting to hear back from them. Seeing as I am a stay-at-home mom, plus I work, that doesn't leave me a lot of time to leave my house and my family to go to school. BYU has a BS in Landscape Management, while I want to do the design aspect more then the management part, I think it's all ditto. I have found a school out of New Zeland which does everything online, BUT it doesn't qualify for Pell Grants. Because Andy did well on the MCAT, this time next year, we'll be moving to wherever we end up going to Med School...(Virginia! I hope!) It would be ideal to find something online, that way it doesn't matter when we move or where we end up. And then, while I am in school, I can get grant money, which will help us survive. Being in medical school, you don't get any grants because...it's a graduate school. If I can get grants, we won't be completely poor or swimming in debt up to our eyeballs. Andy's job will be to do well in school. Once I graduate, which will still be before Andy finishes everything for med school :P, I can do jobs here and there and make some money. It will be beneficial to our family and it is something I will love. Being outside, working with plants...that's right up my alley!

And it all came to me while driving my car.

Tuesday, June 22, 2010

Home Sweet Home

Last week was our wonderful week in Asheville. The greatest place on earth! We had such a great time! My grandparents are so amazing! We arrived at around 330 pm, and made the trek to Asheville (it's about a 2.5 hour drive from the airport) I had worn jeans and a long sleeve shirt for the plane ride. I always seem to freeze on the plane. Well, as soon as we stepped out of the airport, I regretted the choice to NOT wear a t-shirt under my long-sleeve shirt. It was HOT, and HUMID. I loved it. The drive from Charlotte to Asheville is amazing. You go from the lowlands to the highlands and the trees only get thicker. Many of my cousins had never seen so many trees before!
Saturday we spent the day getting ready for the big family BBQ. My grandmother went to the store and my Baca and my cousin, Evan, to the recycling yard to take out some boxes and such. I immediately put everyone else to work. We managed to get the house as clean as you can get a house that has 14 people staying in it! haha, Then, me, Andy, Donavan, and Tyler managed to get the patio cleaned and the yard mostly weeded. My grandpa has not been able to do as much this year because of an accident he had earlier this year with his leg. It felt great to get out there and help out as much as we could. My grandpa wants to fly Andy back out to help remodel the laundry/pantry room and their bedroom. He realized Andy is a lot like him when it comes to work...he doesn't stop until he has done all he can to do the job right. That night we had my brother, Donavan's, graduation. As graduations go....it was short and sweet, but mostly, it was "blah, blah blah"!
Sunday we had a big family BBQ after church. It was great. My Uncle Tim and Aunt Martha came from Gastonia. My Dad and step-mom were there with my Grandma Smith. It was wonderful. We played frisbee and bad mitten. And acted like a bunch of kids!
Monday, Andy had to leave back to SLC...LAME! The rest of us went to sliding rock!
(This is NOT any of us...we were lame and I forgot to bring the camera for the trip!!) It is seriously the best fun you can get for a dollar!

Tuesday we painted pottery. We didn't get to bring it home yet, it takes a week in the kiln. I painted a honey pot. It was so much fun!

Wednesday we went to Cherokee, NC. It's a Cherokee Indian Reservation. It was quite interesting and educational. I loved it. My grandma was telling us a story about her grandmother Queen, who swears we are Cherokee. Everyone thought she was crazy. My Mam Maws name was Janie Dorlaska, which is cherokee. To add to the suspicion of us being Cherokee, my cousin Tyler bought a walking stick made my a village member whose name was T. Queen. It will be hard to prove though. Like some other Native Americans, the Cherokee follow their lines through the mother. The fathers had nothing to do with the raising of their own children. Later, we had a picnic and played in the river with the ducks.

Thursday, we went swimming. Last year, Will LOVED playing in the pool, this year he didn't want to go where he couldn't touch. He clung to me like death! hahaha it was a lot of fun and we all got a little tan!

Friday was a realxing day because we had to fly home the next day. My grandma made her awesome Chicken n Dumplins and we made ice cream sundaes! It was a great night!


Being back in Asheville made me realize how much I miss being in the South. Life is just simpler there. I no longer am going to feel self-conscious about my southern accent, or about the fact that I use "Yes ma'am, No ma'am. Yes sir, No sir" or that I prefer blue grass music over every other kind of music. I prefer not to wear shoes most of the time, and I would rather walk out my door and see nothing but trees and green grass. I have accepted the fact that I am different from people here in Utah. And I am going to embrace it. I have realized that I am who I am.

"I feel no shame, I'm proud of where I came from. I was born and raised in the boondocks"

I can feel that muddy water runnin through my veins.

Andy loved it there. and I want to raise our kids there. I will live in Utah as long as I have to, but eventually, we'll be back in the boondocks.

Tuesday, June 1, 2010

Memorial Day...and the count down begins!

This weekend was Memorial Day. We were able to get lots of things done this weekend! Andy was able to make a new pop tab sorter for the house. RMC collects pop tabs and recycles them for $. We have to sort through them because we can only recycle the aluminum ones. He made a new sorter so when we slide the tabs down the magnet, they don't fly all over the place! Sunday we had church and got to finally do something with our calling! We had combined Relief Society/Priesthood where our group talked about the New FamilySearch site. Starting this Sunday, we will be teaching an interactive family history class. Andy and I have week 1! It'll be crazy for the first time we do the 8 week class because Will is still attached to our hip! I wonder if they'll let him go to nursery early :P On Memorial Day, we went to eat at our favorite place...MOOCHIES! We go there for all days off. Andy had the Philly Cheese Steak, as usual. I mixed things up a bit though. I got their new Hot Wing sandwich. It was like heaven, on a hoagie bun! Then we went to Babies R Us and got Will the rest of his summer clothes. We have tons of clothes for the first year...then TONS for years 2-4...but the whole 18 mo sizes we got nada. After wards, we went to Fitts Park because Andy remembered going there with his Grandma Fraser to feed the ducks...except it wasn't quite what he remembers it being. The poor ducks and muskrats lived in a creek that had the thickest film of gunk on top that I have ever seen. You couldn't go 30 feet without walking into a giant cloud of smoke. If you smoke, fine, but don't make me breathe your nasty left-overs, thanks. It was fun. Will kept saying "Uck!" (that's duck in Will tongue) It was cute, but we'll stick to Liberty Park for all our adventures.
The countdown is on for our trip to the prettiest place on the planet! 8 days to go and we'll be sittin pretty in Asheville!
Look at all that green! I miss it so much. I can't wait until we will live in a place like this. It's just...well...it's home. People are just friendlier there. It's a genuine nice too. Not a "I'll be polite to you" nice. It's green and moist and fresh. It is home to me.