Marriage Tag

I got this from my cousin Linda's blog, and thought it was cute so I decided to copy and post and participate.  I guess this is a tag of sorts for those who are married or engaged.  However, I'm changing the order a bit because it's kind of out of order and bugs me a bit.

1.  Where did you meet your spouse for the first time?
   We met in person for the first time on September 27th, 2003.

2. How long have you known your spouse?
   We met online around November 8th, 2002 on  LDS chat and that night we were chatting for a VERY long time; I believe I started chatting with him around 7 or 8 pm, EST and by the time we got offline, the sun was coming up the next morning, and since it was in early winter/late fall, it had to be around 6:30 in the morning when the sun was coming up

3. How long did you date/court before you were engaged?
  We started officially dating on September 27th, 2003, so we were dating for 11 months, & 8 days.  But we knew we were going to end up married about 2 weeks into our relationship.

4. When was your engagement anniversary?
   Jeff proposed to me on September 4th, 2004.  I went with him to pick up the ring, but I wasn't allowed to see it until he proposed to me.  Since I picked it out, I had an idea of what it was going to look like, but since it was custom made to fit a round cut diamond -the original setting was for a princess cut- it was still a bit of a happy surprise to see what the final product looked like!  He proposed to me at Tres Hombres Restaurant in Salt Lake City.

5. When is your marriage anniversary?    We were married on July 16th, 2005, in Virginia Beach, Va.  The day started out sunny and hot, but it was a dark and stormy night during our wedding ceremony... some of our guests arrived a bit rained on!

6. What is your spouse's full name?
  Jeffrey Scott Hayford.

7.  Do you have any children?
  Yes.

8. How many?
  Two.  Zoe was born on November 24th, 2005 and Ruthie was born on February 9th, 2008.

9. Do you have any housepets?
  Not at the moment we don't.  But Zoe keeps telling us she wants a dog, and Ruthie walks around meowing all day.

10. Do you own a house or rent?
  We own a home.

11. Do you live in the country or town/city?
  We live in the suburbs!

12. What is one of your favorite activities to do together?
  We enjoy playing World of Warcraft.

13. Do you have a favorite vacation spot?
  We have yet to take a "real" vacation anywhere.  The two we have taken were in Virginia Beach, VA!

14. How many siblings?
 He has five siblings, and I have two; and we've got a combination of three siblings in law.

15.  What church do you attend?
  We don't go to church anymore, but we're members of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints.  And I use that term loosely at the moment.

16.  Is this the church you were married in?
  We were married in one of the many wardhouses of the LDS church so yes.

17.  What town is your current address in?
  Sandy, Utah.

18.  Do you work or stay at home?
  I am a stay at home mom, but twice a week I watch our friends' baby.  But it's not really because we need the money, but it's more to help them out.  I really don't count it as a 'job'.

19. Where did you go on your honeymoon?
  We didn't have an official honeymoon.

20.  Leave a piece of advice for other couples.
  Talk things out, leave the lines of communication open, be HONEST with each other, and when all else fails, go have some 'couple' time in the bedroom!  Don't think 'deprivation' is going to solve anything because you're only punishing yourself.

Lagoon Day!

This past Saturday was eBay's company family party at Lagoon, and of course we went, and we also went with our friends Cooper, Ngaire and Azrael L.  Cooper is one of Jeff's best friends, and of course Ngaire and I have become very close friends as well.  Azrael is their (almost) 10 month old daughter, and I watch her twice a week.  Most of the pictures are of Zoe mostly because it was her first time ever going to Lagoon and I wanted to capture her expression and experience there.

This ride is called Bulgy the Whale, and it was the first ride she went on.  And as you can tell by the picture, she HAD NO CLUE how to react.  After getting off we asked her "Did you have fun?" to which she promptly responded with "I want to slide."

This ride is called Red Baron.. I think.  Anyway, she was starting to loosen up on this ride, however she spazzed out when the attendant unbuckled her and she lost sight of where I was at.  We explained to her that it's their jobs to help kids in and out of the rides, and she was okay after that.

This ride is called the Dragonfly.  Zoe REALLY liked this one.   This was taken right before the ride started, and I guess she was looking down to figure out what was going on.

This next ride is called Helicopters.  Zoe really started getting into the whole ride thing at this point, especially when Jeff told her about how the bar works to make it go up and down.

Here's Zoe in the little boat ride called... Baby Boats.  Every time Zoe went past us, we'd all say "Hi Zoe!" but of course she only said hi to Ngaire.  Go figure!

We decided to take a soothing -and shaded- ride on the train.  Here's the four of us together.  It's a shame Jeff's head got cut off, but that's what happens when you're tall!

And here's Cooper, Ngaire and Azrael.  What a fun bunch of people.

And here's Jeff and Zoe on the Space Scrambler.  She LOVED it!  At first she was a bit nervous, but eventually she let her inhibitions fly and she was putting her arms up and going "Wheee!!".  Jeff made the comment that he must be getting old because he was actually nauseous from it.  Well with a name like "Scrambler", what else do you expect?

You'll notice that Ruthie's not in many pictures, since we thought she was too young to enjoy the experience... but definitely next year!  We'll also be hitting Lagoona Beach too, it was SO HOT.

It Could Have Ended Badly....

So, tonight for dinner we had a beans and rice with tomatoes and sausage dish.. it's great because you can cook it in one pot.. although I use my rice cooker to make sure the rice cooks without scorching the beans.  Anyway, the best way to cook the sausage we decided was to grill it; we've done the dish a few times before and we do it with the grill everytime.. works GREAT!  It really brings out the smoky flavor in the sausage.

Anyways, Jeff doesn't like cleaning the grill, and I guess there was a bit of grease on it.  So after he finished cooking the sausage, he decided to 'burn the grease off' and just left the grill on while he came inside to cut up the sausage.  BTW, our grill is propane fueled, but we buy the little canisters since they are cheaper than the huge ones.  Our friend Cooper shows up -his wife Ngaire and daughter Azzie were already here since I watch Azzie on Mondays and Fridays and Jeff brings Ngaire home with him from work since they both work at eBay- and walks in and says in a converstational tone "You know your grill is on fire right?"

Jeff responded with, "Yeah, I know, I left it on."  And Cooper said "It's actually on fire."  So we go outside to see what he's talking about.. and lo and behold.. the whole right side was engulfed in flames.  Jeff thought turning it off would solve the problem.. but it didn't. 

Instead, the flames got larger.  So then I started getting a bit worried and said, "Jeff go get the fire extiguisher."   He responded with "No, it'll go down on it's own eventually."  And I said,  "No, Jeff go get the fire extinguisher, it's not going down."  So then he says "Fine!" in this.. tone of his so we go inside to get the fire extinguisher and while I cleaned up the mess I made in pulling the tab off -it went flying and hit the food and almost knocked all of our sausage on the floor- Jeff was able to quickly put it out.

Alas, we had a casualty.  The part where you cook the food on MELTED.  I guess it's made out of aluminum or something because under normal circumstances, it should not have done that.

Jeff's famous last words?  "Well, we know now that trying to burn off grease doesn't work."

I swear, Jeff's got more redneck in him than I do!

Squash Update

Well, three weeks later, and there's been definite change in how the garden looks!  I went out this morning to check how it's growing, and WOW my squash plants not only have squash, they are cute and chubby, and more are on the way!  So, on with the pictures.

So, I know the picture isn't the greatest; I'll get out there later and take a better picture; as well as update on the tomatoes and bell peppers.  But there's a definite change since I took pictures three weeks ago!  If you have to refresh your memory; click here.

Here are the cute and chubby squash.  As far as I can tell, these are the only three that are this size, so I'm geeked!  I've decided I need to name them, but I can't think of any names right now.  And if you're wondering what 'this size is', here's a comparision with my hand.

Well, roughly anyway.  I don't have very large hands, so this ought to give you some idea.  They are all roughly the same size; however I think this one is the largest of the three.  I do plan on being a nerd and going out there and measuring them to see how long they are and find out their girths.  And there's a few more starting that are roughly the size of my thumb; but a little skinnier.

And I can HONESTLY say that's how big these squash were last time I checked on Tuesday!  And yes, squash are flowering plants.  I hear squash flowers are actually quite delicious with cheese; however I believe you're actually supposed to do this with zucchini blossoms.

126144000 + 86400

That's how many seconds Jeff and I have been married, or in normal terms, 4 years!  It's gone by super fast, and come this September 27th, we'll be a couple for 6 years.  Time sure flies fast, and it's amazing to think I've been with him my whole adult life -minus two days- and I can't imagine life without him at this point.

Anyway, I know he won't read this but I love you Jebbies!

How Does YOUR Garden Grow?

Well, it's been a while since I've blogged about my garden.. or blogged period.  So I figured I would write up a quick blog about the garden.  You've probably seen my last post about the garden on May 30th.  Well, we had nothing but rainstorms last month, and unfortunately got hit by hail on June 11th.  Here's some pictures from that.

Firstly, let me show you what the hail around my downspout off of my gutters looked like.

 

 As you can see, that's A TON OF HAIL.  And it's no surprise that it's not very gentle on gardens.

As you can tell (or you may not) the leaves on my plants got ripped to shreds.  BTW, it's Tomatoes, Squash, Bell Peppers and the Strawberry plant in that order.  I had to prune the heck out of them, and in some cases, I had to leave the shredded leaves otherwise they wouldn't be able to photosynthesize and grow.

And then, on top of everything else, my tomatoes ended up getting sunburned. 

But at least one of my lemon boys grew a tomato!

 

Ain't he cute!  These two pictures were taken on June 23.

And I went outside today to inspect the garden, and WOW it's definitely exploding!  The tomatoes are bouncing back from the sunburn... I had to prune one of them almost completely bare, but the branches are growing back nicely.

As you can see, the tomatoes are doing very well, as well as the squash.  However, I'm not too sure about the bell peppers, I was told they take a bit longer to grow than most other plants.  And sadly, my Strawberry plant died.  I'm not sure what killed it, but it never quite recovered after the hailstorm.  Oh well, maybe next year in a different way.

Anyway, that's the update on my garden!  On other news, I finally updated my website after aproximately 13 months of not doing anything with it.  Check it out!

And hope everyone has a happy and safe 4th.  Don't blow yourselves up okay?

Being in Pain Just Sucks

So, today started just like any other Monday, until 11:30 when Ruthie scratched my eye.  That's right, she didn't poke or jab my eye but scratched it.  And let me tell you the pain was horrible!  I thought she scratched my cornea, but I wasn't sure.  Until I was able to stand light long enough to look at my eye, and over my iris and pupil there seemed to be a ripple in the reflection.. my eye essentially looked like there was a 'chip' in it so to speak, like a chipped round glass marble.  I was able to convince Jeff to take me to the doctor, which was an adventure in itself.

At first I tried to get ahold of an MD eye doctor, but unfortunately they were booked until the end of the month.  That wasn't going to cut it, so I was able to get ahold of an OD at an eyeglasses place, but they flat out said they were unable to do anything for me.  The receptionist was nice enough to call an MD, and they said they'd be able to squeeze me in.  It's kind of lame that they couldn't see me when I called myself, but they were able to see me after the receptionist called.

So we get to the Doctor's office, and Dr. R literally took a look at my eye and confirmed that in fact, I did have a corneal scratch, and that Ruthie got me; his exact words were "Wow, she got you really good."  He gave me two different eyedrops; one is an antibiotic, and the other one was eyedrops for pain.  And to protect my cornea from even more damage, they put in a contact.  And I have to say, it's not as bad as I thought it would be!  It feels a bit strange, but that's probably being contributed from the fact that my eye's got an injury.. I'm gonna have to think about doing the switch over to contacts, or at the very least part time.

I know I'm going to be alright now, but I can't help but admit there was a feeling of panic.  Being hearing impaired for the most part does not bother me.  I've dealt with it my entire life, and I've adapted and I've accepted it as me being me.  I don't resent the fact that my hearing is not whole; in fact I think it's shaped and molded me into the person that I am now.  However, I can't say it doesn't leave me feeling vulerable, and in the time my eye was scratched and had to use a cold compress to help with the pain, and not being able to see as well as I normally do; well as well as I can see being nearsighted like I am, I have to admit to the underlying panic I felt not being able to see normally.  I rely so much on my eyes and sense of smell, touch -not so much taste-  and also my intuition to get around and about in life, and to have my eye temporarily out of commission, it really scared me.

I know I'm going to be fine now.. hopefully eye rest also known as sleeping will help out, and I just have to keep at it with my eye drops.

On other news, I'm happy to report my garden is really blooming and coming along nicely!  We've been getting a lot of rain thanks to el niño, which is really helping out the growth.  I can't wait to partake the fruits of my labor.  And of course, I'm going to share :)