Denver Zoo!

Saturdays are one of my favorite days because Jared only works until 4 or 5!! Then we get to play together the rest of Saturday and ALL of Sunday!! I totally have a new found appreciation for weekends! => But, there is still an 8-9 hour block of free time on Saturday that needs filling. So this Saturday some wives and I went to the Denver Zoo. That zoo is huge! We didnt even see everything and we were pooped after 2 1/2 hours! => Here are some of the pics we took with the animals!
Watch out zoo, here we come!!!
One of the first animals we saw was this gorgeous lion! And I just fit right in with him! Rawr!!!
Then there were giraffes! We tired to stretch our necks like theirs, but we are shortie-necked wimps => This has to be one of the cutest baby giraffes I have ever seen!
This bird had the craziest hair I had ever seen on a bird! It was cool!
I couldnt ever get a picture with this beautiful animal, it was so antsy and kept pacing everywhere! Who could blame him though, being confined to a small space does not sound too pleasant.
At some point during the day Julie and I stopped for Dip N Dots ice cream! I havent had those in such a long time! They were every bit as good as I remembered them to be! =>
This picture is kind of dark, but its of Danae and I making fish faces by beautiful angel fish! I love those fish, they are just gorgeous and fun to look at!
We took pics with some snakes and sticking out our tounges, but they turned out way dark, and this is better anyways. I'mm acting like a snake, just chillin on my rock! => (hehehe, yes I know I am a nerd)
We totally saw Dory and Nemo and Marlin!! They even swam together!!
It is dark again, but this was the funniest turtle I have ever seen. IT was the pig nosed turtle (we are making pig noses)
See! Look, it totally has one!! Sweet!
So I dont remember what this animal was called, but it was so weird and cool at the same time! It had a Zebra bum, horse body, giraffe face, and like rabbit ears! What a freak of nature!! => lol And we are trying to imitate it! =>
Hippos!!!! Well this one was broken, i think. It was so slow walking and it looked like it had a limp. It was painful to watch, but when he got in the water he was fine, but it was a little touch and go there for a bit =>
And we saw a poor little rihno with his horns shaved down. Well I guess its smart on the trainers part to shave them down, but still. Its like taking away his man card => lol
Wahoo!! Elephants!! They were super dirty but also way cool!
Asain black bears! These things were gorgeous!!
We just had to pull th "Marry Poppins" penguin dance out! =>
I think flamingos are one of my favorite zoo animals! What could be better than a pink bird standing on one leg that has no effect on the eco system whatsoever! lol Not a lot! =>
So we were totally playing with this gorilla and as soon as we whip a camera out, he goes away from us! Who has ever heard of a camera shy gorilla?
k, so Julie and I wanted to take a picture on this statue so bad, but it was roped off and a sign said "display closed" so we hopped the rope and took it anyways! => We are such zoo rebels!
Thruought the whole zoo there were peacocks just walking along! I tried so hard to get one to fluff its feathers out and take a pic with it, but none of the would do it. So as we are walking out of the zoo, what do we pass? A peacock with its feathers fluffed! What a wonderful end to an animal filled day!
Can you understand now how long this day was? These are not even a fourth of the pictures we took, i just picked out the coolest ones to show! => But this day was so much fun! I do miss Jared and wish I could do these fun things with him, but I am grateful for these wives and their willingness to play with me! =>

Dinner With The Pres

On May 17 Jared and I had the opportunity to go to his Mission Presidents house for dinner. Pres and Sister Brimhall live in Denver, and he was just called to be an area seventy. We were also joined by one of Jareds fellow missionaries, whom Jared is working with this summer. It was a very fun evening! I loved watching Jared and the president and his wife and the other missionary reminise, and all the stories I was able to here was a big plus => I am so thankful we were able to go and spend that time to get to know them better!

Jared and I with President and Sister Brimhall!Added in this picture are Jareds fellow missionary Jermiah and the Brimhalls grandaughter Elsie!
And this is a picture taken at Jareds mission reunion in April '09. We are the couple standing together farthest on the right =>

I Would Be Crazy...

Being here in Denver has been a roller coaster! Not only is the weather bipolar, but i NEVER see my husband! Jared is commonly gone from 7:30 or 8:15am to 10:30 or even 11:00pm!! One time he got home at 11:30!!! I'm not going to lie about this, I DETEST this job!!! He is never home and if he has a bad day or gts sick or anything, he is 2 hours away, but I dont even know exactly where! And I wont even start on if I have a bad day!!!

Even with all of this work crap and limited time together I manage to stay out of a mental ward. And how is that you ask, well its a miracle! I am so lucky to have wonderful wives who play together when their husbands are away! Even though I play with them for little whiles every day, it seems enough to keep me sane, and I am so grateful for them! Here are some pics of some of our outings!

This is at a furniture store. Its always fun to try and decorate a house you dont have with things you cant afford! =>
Yay! A Disney Store!!! If I cant go to Disneyland, I can have the next best thing right?!? =>
I am so glad one of the wives is a Disney nerd like me... it makes being nerdy and playing around so much more enjoyable! =>
I love these girls! Who would have thought acting crazy would keep you sane? =>
One of the wives has a dog, so we go walking/maybe running with her! What a good way to bond & stay healthy!
One day we even went to tour a candy factory. The tour wasnt very fun, but hey, we got free candy at the end of it!
We had all this build up candy excitement after the tour, we had to let it out somehow! And crazy picture/cany playing was the way! =>
And how can we forget, the pool! We figured that we are special wives because we dont have a book or cooking wives club, we have a tanning, shopping, swimming, eating wives club! =>
Trust me, there are many more pictures where these all came from, but i picked the best out for this post => lol But all in all, I am very thankful and grateful for these wonderful wives! They are making a hard time bearable, and even fun at times! I don know what crazy house I would be in without them!

GiAnT Bean Bag!!

When we arrived at our apartment here, there was no furniture, and we left ours in storage. There had been a miscommunication between many people. => We could rent furniture for about $900 for four months, but we decided to to things our way => We didnt want to purchase things that we didnt need or already had, so we improvised. We bought a nice blow up mattress, a card table with two folding chairs, and our latest addition, joining our apartment yesterday is a giant bean bag! We bought it from http://www.monstersak.com/ and we love it so far! I ordered it on Monday, and we got it on Wednesday! With free shipping! It was amazing!! It was a process to get ready tho, and we still dont have it completely fluffed.

Since I was working all morning and afternoon the FedEx guys dropped the 95 lbs bean bag at the apartment office. I went there to get it and realized, I could not carry a huge 95 lbs bean bag back to my apartment by myself. The Apartment managers husband was there and was nice enough to stick it in the back of his SUV & drive it in front of my building.
But then it did have to be carried into the building, & up the stairs. =>
They were such strong lifters!!! => These are two of the wives that are here, Janae and Danae. We all hang out when our husbands are off working 15 hour days.
It didnt come in a box, it came in a blue sac, and that thing was the hardest thing to get off, EVER! It really took us like 45 minutes to get the dumb thing off of the bean bag!
We finally triumphed!! But the bean bag was succtioned so hard, it felt like a rock, so began the fluffing.....
So we began "fluffing"... aka doing tricks onto the bean bag => This is Janae's kung fo-ing.
Danae, and her..... i dont really know what this is, kindof like a "oh my goodness im flying" =>
And best of all..... my superman!!! I would totally reccomend this company and these bean bags to anyone who wants to buy one. I have researched and tested so many different kinds I cant even count. And this company was by far the cheapest (about as much or even less than what people were selling used ones for on craigslist) and the best high quality product out there. Our is still in the fluffing mode, there are still the vaccummed packed lumps in there. So I cant wait to have it all smoothed out and fluffed up!!! Big 8 foot bean bags are the best!!! =>

Happy Birthday Dad!

Yesterday was my Dad's 43rd birthday!!! Happy birthday Dad!!

He did have to work, which is a bummer, but in the evening he went on a fathers and sons camp out with his four boys! What better way to spend a birthday! => hehehe

Happy Birthday Jared!!!

Yesterday was Jared's 23rd birthday! He did have to work, so the celebration started at night! => To me, birthdays are a big deal. Big celebrations,big gathering, presents, songs..... but to Jared, he does not like them so much. I cant figure out why. => But this year, he was stressing about money. We just had to pay a ridiculous amount in rent, and electricity and water.... basically all the grown up stuff, and we have not been paid yet. Needless to say, we are about broke. Jared was stressed and was worried that I was going to buy him presents, so we would have even less money. But, my birthday present to him was that I didnt spend any money on his birthday => I know, sounds weird, but he was elated! (and my dad was jeaous that my mom never gave him that present)
But, his birthday did not go uncelebrated. => I made a birthday sign for him, just like any good birthday celebration would have. We didnt have any paper, so I made it out of paper towels, I borrowed markers from one of our neighbors, and I used sticki notes from thee office => I am pretty proud of my work of art =>
He enjoyed it, even thought it made me more nerdy => Our boss's wife got wind that it was Jared's birthday, so she invited everyone on the sales team over for a little birthday celebration. I tried to get pics of it, but they all came out blurry or with a man standing in half the shot => The only one I managed to have turn out was one of our friend Ben Schacht cutting Jareds birthday cake.
Ben has been a sue chef (if thats how you spell it) in some restraunt. This cake was the most perfectly cutt cake I have ever seen, it was amazing. =>
One tradition Jared has for his birthdays is taking a picture. He has one of when he is 19,20,21,22, and now 23. His goal is to take one every year, and put them in a book.
This one is from his 22nd birthday, whihc he had while he was in Stockton. I dont know why, but all of these pictures he has this sullen face. I had to make fun of him for it, but thats how he wants his pictures to be. =>
The rest of the pics we took when we came home from the work party, just messing around with the camera and the birthday sign.
Aww! Look at the little male model! => I love him!

Jareds 23rd birthday kiss!!! The first ever birthday kiss with a spouse in this family! Of course we had to document it!
Jared was trying to zoom in for this next picture and he told me to freeze => What a nerd I am! But in this picture you can better see the letters and the reflection of the paper towel picture => hehehe I think its cool. =>
I dont really know why some of these pictures are dark, all the lights were on, but who knows => Happy Birthday Jared!!!! =>