Have a garbage-free day!

This is a short story that I found today while randomly stumbling on the Internet. I think we all have experiences, but sometimes we just need to forget them

One day I hopped in a taxi and we took off for the airport. We were driving in the right lane when suddenly a black car jumped out of a parking space right in front of us. My taxi driver slammed on his brakes, skidded, and missed the other car by just inches! The driver of the other car whipped his head around and started yelling at us.

My taxi driver just smiled and waved at the guy. And I mean, he was really very friendly. So I asked, ‘Why did you just do that? This guy almost ruined your car and sent us to the hospital!’ This is when my taxi driver taught me what I now call, ‘The Law of the Garbage Truck.’

He explained that many people are like garbage trucks. They run around full of garbage, full of frustration, full of anger, and full of disappointment. As their garbage piles up, they need a place to dump it and sometimes they’ll dump it on you.

Don’t take it personally. Just smile, wave, wish them well, and move on. Don’t take their garbage and spread it to other people at work, at home, or on the streets. The bottom line is that successful people do not let garbage trucks take over their day. Life’s too short to wake up in the morning with regrets, so… Love the people who treat you right. Pray for the ones who don’t.

Life is ten percent what you make it and ninety percent how you take it!

Have a blessed, garbage-free day!

Home again home again

We are back in Spokane after spending 15 days in Utah having lots of fun and enjoying time with family. We drove home on December 22nd and made it home after 15 hours of driving thru mostly clear weather except for a few strong wind storms in Idaho. We spend Christmas eve at Eric's brothers house with his family, and Christmas day at Stephanie's home. It was lots of fun, and we got many new toys like a GPS and ice cream maker. :) We will get the most out of these considering how we have already gotten lost using our GPS and who can say no to ice cream? We spent a week snowmobiling at Eric's family cabin with most of his family, and Steph's family came up for a day. We also enjoyed relaxing, shopping, and played many games. We sadly had to return to Spokane, and did so on the 7th. Stephanie is preparing for her last semester at Gonzaga which starts this upcoming Tuesday. We are looking forward to being "done" with Spokane and able to move to wherever Eric gets accepted to school.

What a year!

Well it is the start of a new year! We are excited for the things that 2010 will bring us and enjoyed looking at things that happened in this past year as well. Here is our update from 2009.

January- We arrived back in Spokane, WA after making a trip down to Utah for the holidays. Spokane received record snowfall and we were drowning in it for forever until it finally melted away.

February- We took a trip down to Utah over President's Day weekend. Stephanie had bridal showers and we made sure everything was going to be good for the wedding.

March- Finally the big day arrived! Stephanie and Eric were married during Gonzaga's spring break with the event actually taking place on Friday the 13th. We then had a brief honeymoon in Salt Lake, before heading back up to Spokane so Stephanie could get back to school. There we had an open house and Stephanie's parents came up.

April- A busy month trying to keep up with school and enjoying being newlyweds. Eric started working for American Nursery Services wiggling plants at Home Depot.

May- School finally ends! Well at least for the summer. Stephanie's mom came up to visit. Stephanie started working at Home Depot in the Hardware department. We took a trip out to Round Lake State Park in Idaho for some camping.

June- Enjoying the summer weather, we rode bikes and starting playing tennis together. Stephanie's family came up to visit.

July- Another summer month full of work, play, and BBQ’s.

August- We took a trip down to Pullman, WA to check out WSU and also went out to see a waterfall to make it a camping trip. We headed home for a trip back to Utah to see family and friends.

September- School started up again for Stephanie. It was the beginning of a very busy semester, but also her last fall semester. She is looking forward to being all finished up. This year she is working on a senior design project with Goodrich. She and a team of three other mechanical engineers are designing a machine to help Goodrich manufacture various components out of carbon fiber. Eric's job with ANS ends.

October- Eric gets hired on with Les Schwab. He enjoys learning about tires and cars. Stephanie's parents come up to visit. We also took a trip to Seattle to check out University of Washington.

November- As the end of the semester nears, Thanksgiving break was very welcome. We made up our own Thanksgiving in Washington since Eric had to work the day before and after.

December- As the year came to a close, Stephanie was glad to get finals over with. We were both excited to be able to go back home to Utah for Christmas.

Now this is Christmas!

What a busy weekend this last one has been. We took on the task of making our own thanksgiving dinner. We went full out cooking a 16 pound turkey, mashed potatoes, sweet potatoes, gravy, corn, and last but not least olives. We thought that it shouldn't be to hard of a task until we found out that our turkey was so big and how long it would actually take to cook. Stephanie woke up at 5 in the morning and put the turkey in the oven. We enjoyed the much needed sleep after that and woke up around 10 to get everything else started. We enjoyed our thanksgiving lunch at one, and then both took a nap after that. We later went over to one of Eric's work friends house for dessert with him and their family. We were told that we were to make christmas ornaments which was a fun craft. They had clear glass ornament balls and you would put in paint of your choice and shake it around and make pretty designs on the inside of the glass, it was lots of fun. We ended up setting up our christmas tree on Thanksgiving, and Stephanie went out shopping on black Friday for most of our christmas presents. We finished up shopping on Saturday and decorated the tree. It is nice to know that all the shopping is done and that we can enjoy the spirit of Christmas without having to worry about gifts and the crazy shopping madness. Until next time, we wish you a happy holiday season!

Finally a vacation!!!

And finally a post on our blog. Yay for Thanksgiving! I'm very thankful for a break from school and for not a huge load of homework to do :). I wishes my Eric didn't have to work, but such is life and so we have the great experiment.......cooking a Turkey in our little oven. Lol hopefully we won't have to call tech support too many times.

Well, for some randomness I guess a little update. Eric now works for Les Schwab Tires downtown like 10 mins from our house. Its an okay job he says, tiring changing gets the same, but he has fun people to work with at least. He works lots and lots and Stephanie never sees him anymore so she doesn't like that :(. But I guesses work is somewhat necessary.......

Stephanie still goes to school. It is not over yet. I do hw all day long. Like heat transfer and mea'urement and more boringness....and I guess I can admit it some coolness. I have an awesome senior design project and I like math and hw for all that I complain ;).

Happy Thanksgiving to all and to all a good night.

Vacation home to Utah

So we just gots back from going home to Utah and are glad to not have to drive in a car anymore. 11 1/2 hours from yesterday was plenty. We were gone from Wednesday to Wednesday and here are some highlights from the trip.

Wednesday- Drive, drive, drive, in zoom-zoom car. Forever too much construction and crazy Utah drivers.

Thursday- Windsurfing and falling into the water alot :D. We went up to Deer Creek and got out the humungous windsurfers from my parents attic and strapped stuff on top of and inside of my mom's van. It was pretty full. We had fun chillin and playing in the water and we forget one piece which my mom was so nice to bring to me so she came up and videotaped some of our fallingdowness. Lol well Eric did pretty well and got going sometimes, I just didn't quite know what I was doing.

Friday- Relaxation, yes! Chilled all day and had a bbq at my grandma's house with my mom's family. Yummy steaks.

Saturday- Winward family reunion up at Cherry Hill. Eric beat Clay in an arm wrestle. And Tyler wandered off and kinda got lost. Miniature golf with some cool crazy holes.

Sunday- Saw some friends and had dinner up at Scott's house with Eric's family. Played some rockin awesome Wii games and got sore arms.

Monday- Got errands done. Eric got pretty green new running shoes. Went out to Spanish Fork and played games with friends and family.

Tuesday- Greg and Tyler's birthday. Packing and last minute things.

Wednesday- Drive, drive, drive, sleep.....

We had a fun trip and are glad that we got to see people down in Utah. It was nice to have a vacation and not cook dinner. Eric liked not workings. Now we home and get to get ready for the start of school and new adventures.

Another day, another week, another month

So being that we never write on our blog, we are going to try to write on it with a little more consistency so that we can keep track of our random adventures and others can enjoy our stories if they want to.

So today we had yet more hot fire in the kitchen, I guess we just like cajun too much. Anyways in the midst of cooking up the chocolate for no bake cookies, the pan decides that its not big enough and the contents boil over the edges. Trying to prevent a huge disaster I pick up the pan, but being in the middle of doing dishes the sink was occupied so the pan got set down on another burner. Eric trying to be helpful and finding another location for the gooeyness got out a sheet of aluminum foil to put the pan on. That worked until I wanted to try to keep the chocolate boiling for at least the minute it was supposed to so the pan with the foil underneath went onto the hot burner and promptly caught fire. So panic ensued as the fire alarm starts going off and the fire gets blown out and the chocolate given up on trying to cook longer given the huge disaster it has created over half of our stove.

So besides that lovely little adventure.... Saturday was my last day of work at the Home Depot. So now I have a week to prep before we go on vacation to Utah and before school starts. Eric is still wiggling plants and looking for another job to keep him occupied as his hours will be getting cut soon.

We enjoy spending time with each other and often go for bike rides together down the centenial trial and take walks around campus at all hours when we just need to get out of our hot house. Cooler weather will be nice.