Blogging Vacation

Josh graduated this semester and we are so excited that he is done. DONE!! He was much smarter than I was at my graduation and decided that four hours spent at the graduation ceremony would be an incredible waste of his life. He decided to stay at home and play xbox instead. I wish I had thought of that.

The best news of all is that he has started a job at SRP, one of the main electric companies in the valley. He's excited because it's the job that he wanted and I'm excited that now he has to work 40 hrs/week too!! Finally! No more of this skipping class to sleep in, while I still have to wake-up at six!


Christmas this year was spent at Josh's parents house. His brother and their family flew out from Chicago in order to help us reinact the Christmas story:

Josh spent the majority of Christmas playing with his RC cars. The nephews loved them:

We spent New Year's at Josh's friends house, watching Transformers and trying to figure out how to transform the actual robots. Here's our pre-party picture:


And here is all the excitement that was New Years this year:

The transformers were actually pretty cool and incredibly addicting. I'm about ready to go out and buy some for myself.

After New Years we took a trip to Utah filled with fun, friends, and sledding! We hung out with our friends in Bountiful with their new (sort of) baby, and of course I forgot to take pictures. Lame.

I took Josh up to Logan in order to convince him that we need to move up there and also to see the family I had worked for all through college. I think Josh was almost convinced to move back to Utah after we went sledding down Old Main Hill:

Here is Sophie hiking up the hill (Heidi wouldn't stop long enough for a picture):

Sophie is now eight and she is a pro at sledding. She went with me the first time on the tube and we went so dang fast! USU used to have hay bales at the end of the hill to stop people from going into the street but they didn't have them this time. So instead we had to plow into Sophie's dad and knock him over in order to stop.

We had a few hours to kill before our friends in Salt Lake got off work, so we decided to head out to Antelope Island. We saw probably 50 bison and a park ranger tried to help us find a bobcat, but we never saw it.

Here's Josh, standing next to the Great Salt Lake. See how happy he is in the cold?
We love Utah.

A trip to Salt Lake always has to include a meal at Cafe Rio with friends:



Saturday was the laziest day ever and it was awesome. We stayed in pajamas until around five before getting ready to go up to Park City to a friends house for a night of pizza and the game Apples to Apples:


What a super fun month, but I will be much better at blogging in the future now. The vacation is over.

(approx. two weeks ago):

It's 7:15. Crap, I'm late for work again. I stop at one red light. Then another. Then another. Why? Why me? I swear I hit every red light possible. It's so frustrating being me sometimes!. I see the light in front of me turn yellow. Should I? Yep, I go for it. Take that, light! The flash behind me stops my cheering and instantly my stomach tightens. Cr-ap. I just got a ticket by the new photo radar.

(Fast forward two weeks):

Whilst reading the local news, I notice an article saying that Tempe will begin giving photo radar tickets on December 1st. Before that it was just a warning. Hallelujiah, Christmas has come early!! I've been planning on about two hundred bucks for this anticipated ticket and about a hundred in insurance raising their rates one me. So basically, I just saved $300. I'm going shopping this weekend!

Random updates

For those of you who don't know, Josh has another calling in our ward. Yep, that makes three. With church and school, I see my husband for about 15 minutes a day now. He's at the library all night tonight (AGAIN!), which means I am very bored at home. I seriously need a hobby. I tried the scrapbooking thing, but let's be honest, I'm just not that creative or motivated. Any ideas anyone?

On another note, I start my new job on Friday! And I have never been so excited to leave a job. EVER. Wahoo!

Last night we went to the last ASU football game. As soon as the game was over, all Josh could talk about was buying season tickets for next year. And he was very sad that I wouldn't let him rush the field with everyone else. We had already been there for over four hours and I wanted to GO HOME! Football is way too long. No pictures this time, because the only time we ever take pictures is at football games and we have way to many.

Arizona has made a wimp out of me

I leave for work at around 7:00 each morning. It's still around 65 degrees when I leave. And yet I wear about five jackets and drive with the heater on full blast the entire way. I don't know how I ever lived in Utah. I always talk about missing snow, but I seriously don't know if I could handle it any more!

I am Rachel from Friends

A big pushover. Yep, that's what I am. I gave my two week notice at work today and ended up feeling so bad that I agreed to stay another two weeks working part-time. Even though I'll be working full-time at another job. Yep, I'm a pushover. And now I'm going to be very tired over the next month. But at least I get two weeks of Christmas break after that. Wahoo!

Back to school

Except for this time I get paid to go. I've accepted a job working in schools and will no longer have my Fridays off (sniff, cry, sob) but I will get spring break. Wahoo! It's going to be weird working in an elementary school. I'm already excited to see what they have for school lunch, cause here in the big city, you actually get CHOICES. We didn't have that in Manila.

The reasons I'm leaving my job (the edited version):

1. Right now I have to work with adults instead of just kids. The adults I see are very sad. I recently evaluated a patient who had just sustained a neck injury from a fall. Completely paralyzed. He can move his eyes and blink and that's basically it. The worst part about it? Minimal to no brain damage. So he is completely aware of everything going on around him and he cries every time I work with him. It makes me want to cry with him. I like working with kids where you can see progress.

2. I'm tired of feeling like an incompetent clinician. I have no other therapists to consult with when I get challenging kids and have no idea what to do with them. So I just wing it and feel like an idiot, especially when their parents are watching me. I feel great about myself and my job 90% of the time (when I'm working with kids), but that other 10% really bothers me.

And two other reasons that I decided to delete just in case someone I don't want to find my blog reads this.

At my new job, I already know my boss is nice. And I will be given a list phone numbers for several other therapists. And I will only work with kids. And they will be cute and fun. See? It's better already.

I've been tagged

By a Gnome in DC. So here are seven random things about myself.

1. I never remember to close drawers or cupboard doors. You can trace my steps throughout our apartment based on which doors are left open. I lived in one house that had tons of drawers in my bedroom dresser. Twelve at least and they were all open, all the time.

2. I have to read a book in it's entirety the day that I start it. I can't sleep until it's finished. Even book seven of Harry Potter was finished within hours.

3. Cereal is my favorite food. Every kind of cereal. I eat it every morning for breakfast (unless it's fast Sunday) and most days I have it for dinner as well. Right now I'm hooked on Honey Bunches of Oats with almonds.

4. I've never seen Goonies or Monte Python and the Holy Grail (?). Apparently this is unusual, judging by the reactions I get when I share this information.

5. My favorite after-work activity is checking the mail.

6. I like to recycle and I'm making my husband learn to like it as well. Why? Because I LIKE NATURE :)

7. I have the cutest feet. Ever. Just ask Gnomie and Josh. Gnomie used to get so jealous she couldn't even look at them. True story.

Four job interviews=Four job offers

Seriously, I chose the best profession ever. If anyone is considering a career move, I highly recommend speech therapy. Even Josh has talked about it.

Mine vs. Ours

After getting married, things that were once considered mine are now "ours." This is fine with most things, such as money, food, etc. But there are some things that you do not share after marriage. Toothbrushes and and underwear are two obvious examples. Since being married, I have also discovered other items that I am unwilling to share:

1. My socks. I would have assumed this one would be just as obvious as underwear, since Josh's feet are about two times the size of mine. But apparently it's not that obvious, since I soon found all of my socks so stretched out there was no elastic left at all! Besides that, feet are gross and I don't want to share my socks!

2. My pillow. I don't like new pillows. They're too fluffy and I feel like I'm suffocating in them. My pillow is probably older than I am and it is finally at the perfect flatness. And it's MINE. Josh tries to trick me and switch it with another one, but I know. I always know.

I remember I had a roommate who was this way with her hairbrush. Now I completely understand.

The Cankle Returns!!

So on Thursday Josh "tripped" and sprained his ankle. Bad. He was still walking on it that night, but on Friday morning he could barely move at all.




Here it is on Sunday-totally bruised and swollen:
Poor guy. He says he sprains it almost every year. Hey Heathbar, remember when you had your cankle? Did it ever get back to normal?

I heard Christmas music playing at a store on Thursday. At first I was upset. They have no right to play Christmas music two week before Thanksgiving! And then I found myself singing along to it. And how can you be mad at anything when you're singing Christmas music?

Arizona State Fair

Before the State Fair, it was time for yet another ASU football game. Lucky for me, this was not a home game, so we went over to a friend's house to watch the Sundevils lose to the Oregon Ducks. A very sad night for ASU. But the Oregon fans weren't sad:



Even though he was sad about the game, Josh managed to not talk about it the entire night and still had fun at the state fair. I haven't been to a fair for years and I can't believe how nothing has changed.

There are still the biggest animals ever:


The demolition derby:



The knock-over-the-bottles game:

(Josh came so close to winning. Everyone was cheering for him, but there was one that just would not fall down.)

And finally, the classic Skee Ball. I'm no better at this game than I was when I was twelve:



Even though the fair is in the middle of a huge city, I was happy to see plenty of mullets, suspenders, and wrangler butts. What a great State Fair. The only thing missing was me winning purple ribbons for my lamb, my cookies, and my home-sewn dress.

An update on my calling:

I am surviving. But I think the kids are a little bored. Any ideas on how to teach 14 and 15 year olds about the New Testament?

It's the same "date" every week...

For those of you who don't know Josh all that well, he loves football. LOVES it. He is on a city football league right now, THREE fantasy football teams, and he spends his entire Saturday and Sunday watching football on TV. He would watch it during the rest of the week, but we still don't have cable.

His favorite college football team is of course, ASU, so guess what our designated date night is every home game? Yep, four and a half hours of football. This week, before the football game, Josh convinced me to go with him the to library so he could study. I had nothing else to do, so I practiced being homeless:

Actually, the library was freezing, and I didn't have a jacket, so Josh was nice enough to place the student newspaper on me. It actually helped!

This week was homecoming at ASU. Homecoming here is so different than in Utah. First of all, their football team is good, so people actually come to the game. Second, they apparently realize that homecoming dances are only fun in high school. But since there's nothing else to do, everyone goes out and gets drunk after the game, so maybe high school dances in college isn't that bad of an idea.

After the library, Josh and I walked around campus, looking at all of the homecoming booths. We also bought a Sundevils shirt for me.

Here we are modeling our ASU attire:
Matchy, Matchy, red squared! :)

(BTW, I think Josh owns about ten ASU shirts. They're all he wears!)

Here we are watching the game:

(Josh is really good at making weird faces!)

The game was a pretty big win for ASU, so afterwards, all of the students rushed the field and tried to take down the goal posts:


Apparently they did take them down a few years ago, so these new posts are made with titanium-when we left, they were still trying, but I don't think they got very far. Overall, a fun date night, but football games should be about three hours shorter.

Josh and I need to take more pictures

The only good pictures I have of the two of us are from our wedding, as you can see by our "updated" picture. I'm so bad at remembering my camera.

Apparently Josh is more spiritual than I am, since his prayers were answered and not mine:

I have a calling

Seriously.

After reading back through some of my posts, I've discovered that "seriously" seems to be my new favorite word. I think Josh would disagree with that. He always tells me my favorite words are "absolutely not!" hehe.

I've been at my job for one year now and have had three bosses so far. Seriously, what kind of a company do I work for?

My first boss, I swear she suffered from short term memory loss. Then she'd blame me when she couldn't remember what was going on. AND she was the moodiest person ever, so everyday I had to see what mood she was in before I could talk to her. She was essentially fired about 4 months after I started.

My next boss was awesome, but unfortunately didn't have the personality type to deal with all of the stress from her bosses. So she left after 6 months.

My current boss, well, let's just say boss #1 is looking pretty good right now. You know how frustrated you get when you call your cell phone customer service center? You always get someone who barely speaks English, then finally end up hanging up in frustration. Well, that's what it's like everyday at work now. Except I can't hang up and instead we end up yelling at each other. He speaks english well enough to understand me, but for some reason the communication is not happening the way it should. My coworker seems to be fighting with him a lot more that I do, so it's not just me. So frustrating. I can't decide if he just doesn't understand what we're saying or if he chooses to interpret it in a different way, just for the sake of arguing with us. Either way, I'm just not used to fighting with people. I'm starting to develop ulcers.

Scrapbooking 101

When I was about 13 or 14 I decided to try scrapbooking. Well, having absolutely no artistic ability whatsoever, my pages were not the best. I wish I could show you a picture of what my pages looked like in 1995, but fortunately my scrapbook is in storage at grandma's house. I will tell you however, that my scrapbook is covered in a girly lavender material with lace all around the edges. There is a lavendar heart on front, again outlined in lace. So very funny! I will show pictures next time I get to grandma's.

I was recently inspired to try scrapbooking again. Josh has been after me every since we got married that I needed to do something with all of our wedding pictures, so I finally did. And this is what I created:



Just walking in the scrapbook store was enough to give me a heart attack. The store was huge. And there was so much stuff! People are so creative now-it was a little intimidating for me. So after buying a few buttons, ribbons and such, I went to my friends house to get started and THREE HOURS LATER, I had finally finished one page!!! Seriously, who has time for that? And who has the money for it? I had to borrow alot of my friend's stuff, and I still spent a ridiculous amount of money for just one page.

Oh, and I haven't found the time to do it again. Sigh.

Toothaches=The worst pain ever!

Especially when you have two of them!! I went to the dentist today to get one enormous cavity filled and tomorrow I have to get a crown on different tooth! Seriously. That makes three crowns for me and I'm barely 25. At this rate, I'll have dentures before I'm 30.

Would everyone please tell Josh that he needs to blog once in a while? Seriously.

24 is the new Alias

Well, I shouldn't say new, because it's been on for a long time. But I just started watching it, so it's new to me. I feel like I'm back in college again, spending endless amounts of time trying to watch all seasons in a two week time frame. Except instead of Sydney Bristow and her awesome kick-butt karate moves, it's Jack Bower with his guns. Even though everyone tells me he just can't die and always lives to be in the next season, I can't help but get so nervous. Seriously, I think I'm developing ulcers.

It's almost Halloween time. With Alias, we were able to do this:

(Jules, Heath, and I in 2004)

Seriously. Best costume idea EVER. Our guns even said "Secret Agent."

How can I dress up as someone in 24 for Halloween? They just don't wear the awesome costumes like they did in Alias. Maybe I should walk around scowling and pouting like that Chloe chick. . .

Viva Las Vegas!!

You know those ads you hear on the radio about viewing a time share and then they put you up in a hotel for the weekend for free and give you all sorts of free stuff? Whenever I hear them, I usually think yeah right, like that's real. Well, guess what? It totally is!! Josh signed us up to tour this time share in Vegas. In return for taking three hours to see their building and stuff, we got a three nights stay at the Hilton and $100 in free gas. Awesome, huh? Seriously, you need to do it. (and when you complain about the maids walking in on you without knocking, you get free buffet tickets!)

The best part is, when you get on the bus to go on your tour, you get a totally AWESOME boarding pass that lets you know just how important you are:

Josh thought he was special, but I knew I was the REAL VIP:

These are pretty much the only pictures we took on our whole trip, because no one wants to see pictures of Josh sitting in the hotel room watching football games ALL DAY LONG.

I love taking a day off for no reason

And then sit at home doing nothing but watch Dr. Phil, Oprah, and the Tyra Banks show.

Just look at how long my hair is!

And I make Josh tell me everyday.

Millions of peaches for me!

It was a busy weekend full of yummy peaches! I decided to become domestic and I bought two boxes of Utah peaches to bottle. I used to help my mom all the time when I was younger, but I had never attempted it by myself until now. Our kitchen floor is now completely covered in sugar and we get stuck every time we try to get to the sink, but I did it!



Twenty-four jars of my beautiful, home-canned peaches.



And three batches of dried peaches in our amazing dryer. Aren't they pretty? (Thank you Juslie!)


Josh always makes fun of me because I'm so excited with all my projects at first, and then by the end I get so tired and ornery with him. This weekend was no different. But I tell you what, canning is hard work when you don't know what you're doing!

So now that Josh is back in school, he's always doing homework. And then tonight he had to magnify one of his many callings and have his weekly scout thing. So what am I supposed to do when I'm home alone with no one to talk to? Well naturally, I grabbed a box of Little Debbie oatmeal creme pies and sat myself in front of the tv to watch reruns of American's Next Top Model!



Guilty pleasure, what can I say. My roommates in St. George used to watch it all the time, and I always made fun of them for it. Then of course I became addicted. Seriously, if you've never seen this before, the next time you're bored on a Wednesday night, you've got to check it out.

Here are a couple of pics of Josh and I in Mexico. We went with a couple of friends for the weekend. The entire time I told everyone to not worry about eating the food, that it wouldn't do anything to you. So of course, I was the one who ended up taking off work with stomach problems.

The water was so clean-kind of surprising for Mexico

We buried Josh in the sand and made a mermaid out of him, just like Joey on Friends :)

Then Josh decided to bury me. He forgot my toes.

I think poor Josh is excited that school finally started again and he doesn't have to go on anymore trips with me. He always complains that he never gets to spend a weekend at home and do nothing. Lame-o!

Lake Powell!

So a few weeks ago, Josh and I went to Lake Powell with some of our friends from USU. It was pretty much the best weekend ever. We even got to see Andy Bingham demonstrate the proper technique for cliff jumping. If only someone had taken a picture.

Dance party on the boat!

And of course, another classic Dawse pic

I heart Lake Powell!!

A special Prayer....

To Everyone:

I have been praying endlessly that soon my wife would receive her first calling in the Tempe 10th ward. Here is our experience...


Lars had an extremely close incident today when she was asked to speak to the Bishop of the ward in his office while I waited outside in the hallway. I could only assume that it would be her first calling. I was so excited for her. I had talked to her about this day many of times when she would receive her special calling in the ward. However, it was so sad to hear, that no such calling had yet been extended...


I, Josh King, the husband and Eternal Companion of Laura Colleen King ask that everyone reading this blog say special prayer in their heart that my wife receive a church calling in soon due time. I now have two callings and receiving so many blessings. I too would like her to receive many of these same blessings that come with serving in the church. So please, in your own time, I ask the you may find it in your hearts, in your time, and pray that she may be called into the bishops office to receive a calling. This is all that is asked. Thank you so much for your needed prayers...

With Love,
Josh

A Farewell to Myrtle

(this one's for you Heath)



I bought Myrtle alomost five years ago, on my 20th birthday. We've been through a lot since then: from the time I forgot to put on the parking break and watched her roll backwards down the parking lot until she hit a car, to the night I high-centered her on a parking curb buried under three feet of snow. Myrtle has been a great car. However, she has definitely seen better days. So it was time to get something new. And here it is--our new Trailblazer!




Even though we've had our new car for a couple of months, I don't think anyone's seen any pics of it. We just put on a trailer hitch so she's all ready to tow a boat. If anyone knows where I can store one, I'd appreciate you letting me know. That's pretty much the only thing holding me back from buying one. Well, that and Josh I guess :)

I still haven't come up with a name yet. Any suggestions?

The two greatest moments in my career as a speech therapist thus far:

1. Watching one of my patients gather all the saliva in his mouth that he can, spit it on the carpet, and then SUCK IT BACK INTO HIS MOUTH!!

2. Imitating the sounds of a severely disabled little girl, forgetting that I have gum and accidently dropping it into HER mouth, while her mother watched it all. So embarassing.

Sometimes I wonder why I'm doing this, and then I get a day like yesterday, where I worked one hour out of a ten hour day and got payed to surf the web and cut off my split ends for the other nine. Excellent!

You're going to put that where?!?!!

So Wednesday afternoon, I had an evaluation on this little baby with a completly crazy mom, who justified being 20 minutes late for her appointment because "she had just turned 21 the day before and was so completely wasted she couldn't drive home." Classy. Anyway, while I was trying to evaluate this baby and ignore mom's description of her drunken state the night before, I heard my phone vibrate in my desk about three or four times, but chose to ignore it. After crazy mom finally left, I got another phone call from my hubby:

Me: (no hello) I have patients all afternoon, I can't talk right now!
Hubby: Babe, I was taken in an ambulance to the emergency room cause I couldn't breath and my chest was hurting.
Me: What?!! Are you ok? What's wrong? WHY DIDN'T YOU CALL ME?!

Apparently, Josh had gone to the vending machine for his daily sugar fix and all of a sudden lost the ability to breath. His receptionist asked him what was wrong and then promptly called 911, no other questions asked. So after his joyride in the ambulance and a three hour wait in the emergency, we found out... he has a partially collapsed lung. And the treatment? Shoving a eight inch long rod into his chest with LOCAL anesthesia only to remove the escaped air--and they let me watch the whole thing. So disgusting, but at the same time, so fascinating I couldn't look away. Poor Josh-i don't know what was worse for him-the pain from them shoving it in or watching my face as they did it. Then they sent him home with this tube in his chest and a small box on the outside so his lung could reinflate and told him to come back in four days.



Today was day four, so we went back to the hospital to see if we could remove the chest tube. Unfortunately, his lung is still partially collapsed, so he gets to take another 3 days off work and sit at home doing nothing. Lucky.


But the good thing about it is, I felt so bad for him I decided to make him dinner for the first time ever! (Apparently some people don't consider cereal to be real cooking. Whatever!) And here it is: sweet and sour chicken. Josh said he liked it, but sometimes I wonder how much truth he tells me...

So Josh is basically the luckiest husband I know. Not only did he get to spend a weekend in the mountains in Greer, Arizona, he got to spend it with me and seven other girls. With no other guys at all. He's so happy he's now part of my family filled with girls :) Every year, my family goes up to our cabin for a couple of weeks. Usually the guys will come up on the weekends to fish, 4-wheel, etc, but none of them could make it this year. But I made Josh go anyway, so he could see where I spent all my summers growing up.

We started off by fishing in the pond which is stocked with so many trout, that the fish will pretty much eat your pole-no bait necessary. Here I am, catching my first fish since high school (I think this is pretty much the ugliest face I have ever made. Ever.):


We had a bet that whoever caught the last fish had to gut all of them, so I was so happy that I beat Josh. Except no one would take my fish over to the holding tank for me. So that meant I had to touch a fish for the first time in my life. Here I am, trying to get the courage to grab the thing:


Rather than touch it with my hands, I decided that kicking it might be a little easier:


I was in the process of moving it with my feet, when Josh FINALLY caught his fish:


He threatened to make me gut all the fish if I didn't hurry up, which finally got me to use my hands. Here I am, running to get rid of this fish. I don't know why I ran like this:


While I was helping my mom catch her first fish EVER,


Josh decided to catch and eat the grossest crawdad I've ever laid eyes on:


Here's Josh with his possie of women after a successful fishing trip:


We decided to follow tradition and let Grandma gut all the fish, while we sat around making faces like this:


And my cousin Cara decided to feed Juleen a fish:


Then she decided to eat it herself:


After fishing, we decided to try out the tree swing,


Then the round swing, (the picture is blurry cause we were going SO FAST!!)





And finally: The cable car!!

Wahoo!! Seriously, who needs Lagoon when you have Greer? Sorry Heathbar :)