You ready to play catchup?

New Computer: $1000.00.
Vacations Completed: $700.00.
Camera Found: $0.00.

Time to sit down and blog: PRICELESS.

(Keep scrolling, I'm catching up on old posts and back dating them.)

I know. I know.

I know I have been severely been neglecting my blog. But I have a wonderful excuse. My computer decided to go and get sick. It was running super slow, so my dad looked at it and said it had about 1.37 MILLION viruses on it. Ugh! We tried to fix it, and now it doesn't work at all. Lovely. Anyway, I'm at my sisters for the rest of the week babysitting my nephews while her and her husband are relaxing on a beach in Maui. ahhhhh, one day it will be our turn. :) Anyway, I'm taking advantage and using her computer. I have a ton of things I need to catch up on and no pictures here, but I do have one thing to share....

THIS IS WHERE WE SPENT OUR WEEKEND

THIS IS WHO WE SPENT IT WITH

AND THIS IS WHY

Clayton and I have been lake junkies lately. We took the boat out 4 times last week. We've been wake boarding and tubing like crazy, apparently a little too rough. During the middle of the week, Clayton was complaining that his shoulder was bothering him. He took some pain killers and didn't think much of it. Then we woke up Saturday morning, and he could barely move it. Now, Clayton is a pretty tough cookie so I can tell when something is really bothering him. As the day went on, it got worse and worse. That night, we were supposed to go to a dinner theatre with Clayton's family, and we ended up in Urgent Care instead. ALL NIGHT LONG. Man, I think they have a game they play where they just see how long people will wait for mediocre care. 5 hours later, we walked out with some HIGH DOSE pain killers, anti-inflammatories, muscle relaxers, a sling, and a diagnosis of a "strained shoulder". Clayton's doing ok, its still bothering him but he'll tough it out. I have to say, all those prescriptions make my husband an extra funny man. He is so out of it! His eyes are half-mass all day long, he keeps switching his words around, and he falls asleep mid-sentence. It's been interesting to say the least.

Happy Birthday Clayton.

Meet Clayton's bike before

And Clayton's bike after

When Clayton left for his mission, he decided to buy a bike. A VERY expensive bike. A VERY VERY expensive bike. Clayton has made a lot of memories with this bike. He even has a pretty nasty scar on the back of his leg to prove it. When we lived in Sierra Vista at my parents house, Clayton left the bike in the backyard and the dogs thought it was their brand new shiny chew toy. Needless to say it was a wreck. When we moved up to the valley, the tires were all flat so we just left it there (thinking we would get it later). Lately, Clayton has been saying that he wanted to start mountain biking again and he really wanted his bike fixed up. So, for his birthday I decided to surprise him. I had my parents bring the bike up to our house and I took it to a bike shop to get it looked at. I was shocked when they told me how much it would be to fix. Not only was the seat, tires, and handle grips all chewed up from the dogs, but our smart plan to leave it in the backyard was not so smart after all. All of the gears had rotted away from sun damage (not a cheap thing to fix). But when I weighed in the fact that to replace the bike would cost 5 times as much as fixing it, I decided that was what I would do.

Here is Clayton's reaction when I gave him the bike. Just know when you're watching, the bike is fine. The gear just slipped off. ha ha

Happy 27th Birthday babe. I love you.

Our Garden.

These are our box gardens. I'm so excited about all of our projects that we've started since my parents moved in. The first thing my dad said he wanted to do was get a garden going in the backyard. I couldn't wait. I went and picked out all the vegetables that we were going to plant. We have tomatoes, carrots, leeks, jalepenos, zuccini, squash, and eggplant. So far everything is going great, and we've already gotten a few tomatoes. I hated tomatoes my entire life until I tasted the ones from my dad's garden. Now, I'm hooked. I look at the garden and I feel so accomplished when I see little sprouts growing. It's a lot of work to maintain it, but it's been a lot of fun.

5 Years.

How is it possible that I've been married to him for FIVE years? And then again, how is it possible that I was ever NOT with him?

5 years. It just amazes me. It seems like so long ago, and it seems like yesterday. We've done a lot of growing up together. When we got married, neither of us had a clue. Now, we just have a hint at a clue, but at least we're moving in the right direction. I remember when I first met Clayton at a dance when we were 14, I instantly had a crush on him. All through high school, through different boyfriends, through fights with friends, through good times and bad times, one thing was constant in my life: Clayton was always there. He was always the special person in my heart. I'm so thankful that he was the person meant to make my life complete because there is no one else like him in the world. He makes me laugh when I want to cry, he keeps me sane when my head is spinning like a top, and he has my heart. Here's to five more babe. You are my best friend. I love you.

We did a few different things for our anniversary this year.

First up, was dinner and a movie night. I came home from school and noticed the house was sparkling clean, there were beautiful roses on the table, and no Clayton. I called for him, and then I heard soft music coming from the front room. I walked in to find Clayton sitting on the chair with his guitar, playing a song for me. He asked me to sit down and then sang, "When You Say Nothing at All." It is the same song I learned on the guitar and sang on a tape for him for Valentine's Day while he was on his mission. I have the best husband. After that, we headed off for dinner and movie. It was a great night.

Next up was our trip to the lake. We decided to take the boat out to Saguaro Lake and camp out for the weekend. This was a definite learning experience. We had never taken the boat out by ourselves before, so I was a nervous wreck at first. But Clayton turned out to be a natural. The first night, we got out there pretty late. That was a scary experience because we had to navigate our way through the canyon in the dark. I had to be on the lookout for rocks, and I felt like the guy on Titanic, and any moment there was going to be a huge rock right in our path. We survived and made our way to the docks where you camp without any problems....except one. All the places to doc were FULL. We didn't really know what to do. We noticed that off the shore there was another dock that didn't connect to land. It was just a doc in the middle of the lake. We decided just to tie off the boat and sleep on it for the night. Just the two of us, in the middle of the lake, in a boat. Trust me, it sounds more romantic than it really was. We were so cramped and uncomfortable, but we laughed our way through it, and it turned out good. The next morning, we found the first vacant spot we could and went in to set up our tent. We spent the whole weekend on the water. It was a lot of fun. Our one mistake, in our hurried packing was that Clayton thought I got the sunscreen and I thought he got it. We ended up paying these little kids on the doc 5 bucks to let us borrow their sunscreen. Ah, memories.

Last was our trip to the mountains. Clayton and I love the mountains. So when Clayton's cousin and wife invited us to go with them to Williams, we jumped at the chance. We considered it an extended anniversary trip. It was so much fun to relax and enjoy being with each other without any other distractions. One night, we went out to eat and we just lucked into this really fun place that had a live singer. He was actually really good. At one point, he was asking for someone to come up on stage and try on his "gear". Of course Clayton volunteered ME. I was a good sport, and we had a great time.

I can't decide if he is intentionally flipping off the camera in this picture or not. Sorry for sensitive eyes.

Thanks for being you babe. I wouldn't want to be me with anyone else.

Out in the west Texas town of El Paso.

This year for Easter, my mom and I decided to go to El Paso. I jump at any chance to go because it means I get to see some of my favorite people: My Grandpa, my Grandma, my Aunt Alice, and whatever cousins end up being there at the time. My Grandpa is not in the best health lately, so I try to hold on to any moments I have with him. I'm usually stuck to his side for most of the day when we're there. This trip he said something to me that I'll never forget. He told me, "I want you to keep the commandments so we can always be together. When it's my time to go, I'll meet you at the veil." So simple. Do what is right, and you'll never really have to say goodbye to the ones you love. As I go through life, I'll always keep that close to my heart because it helps me realize what is really important. No temptation in life is worth risking being with my family for eternity. Nothing beats family.

Saying goodbye to the house we LOVED to HATE.

This is my parents house in Sierra Vista, Arizona. We moved into this house when my dad got transfered from Yuma to Sierra Vista for work. Let me tell you, that was a rough time. It was the first and ONLY time in my life when I thought I hated my parents. I couldn't understand how it seemed fair in their eyes to move me in the middle of the school year my sophomore year of high school. (That's a very dramatic time in a girl's life.) We moved 2 weeks before my 16th birthday. I had to leave my friends, my school, the boy I liked, and everything else I had known for the last 11 years. I was miserable, and I let my parents know it. Looking back on it now I can see that my parents never made a smarter move. It wasn't long before I realized that Sierra Vista was where I was supposed to be.

At that time, it was just my mom, my dad, me, and Clay at home. I remember looking for a house when we got into town. My dad had his mind made up that he wanted to live in the country. He didn't want neighbors. He wanted to be able to go out and get the paper in his G's (I don't think he thought it through that when you live in the country...you don't get the paper.) One day, I remember my dad saying that he thought he had found a really good house for us. We drove -for what seemed like forever- to an outside town named Hereford. We came up on this house that looked like it might fall over any minute. It was old and worn and didn't seem particularly special. But as we looked around, we all got excited with the possibilities. We moved in within the week and got to work painting and working on the yard. I can say without hesitation that I had some of the best memories of my life in that house. It's old, it's dirty, it's full of bugs, but we love it.

Our family has been through a lot in that house. Clayton and I even lived in it for a while with my parents after we got married. It was just like old times. There is something comforting and welcoming about the house that I'll never forget.

One day in February, I got a call from my dad. He said the Bureau of Land Management called him and said they decided it was time to tear the house down. (The house is on BLM property, and my parents had been renting it for the last 10.5 years). They said the house had too many repairs that needed to be made, and it was too big of a liability for them. My parents were devistated. It not only meant they had to say goodbye to the place they called home, but also that they had to figure out if they were even going to stay in Sierra Vista. My brothers and sister and I have been trying to get them to move to the valley for a long time, and this just seemed like a clear cut sign that that it was they were supposed to do. Since I returned to school, I haven't been working which has been a hard hit on our budget. So, mom and dad decided they would move in with us and help us out with all the bills until I finish school. There's no doubt in my mind that this is exactly what is meant to happen. But even knowing that doesn't make it any easier to say goodbye. We'll miss you house!! Thanks for the memories.

Clay's Room.

Guest Room.
Living Room.

Dining Room/Kitchen.

The View.

My sisters Amy, Tamra, LaChae and I decided to go down for a weekend to help them get organized and packed up. It was an emotional weekend. We laughed and cried at all the memories we found that had been tucked away.

The Moving Crew.

Our New Roommates. Let's hope this is NOT Bailey's new chew toy. (We're praying the dogs get along)

Here's to new memories in a new place.