CHECK OUT MY ROCKER HUSBAND!

Johnny's band, Lola, is now on MySpace and YouTube, and has been entered into The Next Great American Band contest (from the people who created American Idol.)
Lola had an incredible run in SLC in 2004 before the band (Scotty, Garry, Johnny and Ben) decided to part ways. Recently, Scotty and Johnny have reunited to play Lola's songs in acoustic settings and are getting psyched about writing and playing again!

Check them out! (THEY ROCK!)
Check out this video: (LOLA) Spread My Love Around



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To Do Today (seriously)

*Supervise the sheetrock installers in my parents’ basement while my mom takes a truckload of stuff to the dump by herself
*Interview 3 children of various ages about their friendships for my 8 page paper due tomorrow
*Call 15 people involved with the campaign and make sure they can attend a meeting tomorrow night
*Order flowers for Lee and Savannah’s new baby girl
*Make a bridal shower card
*Pick up bridal shower gift
*Visit Lee and Savannah (John’s business partner and his wife) at the hospital
*Schedule an open house for Dave Buhler
* Make a bajillion campaign phone calls
*Pick a date to go camping
*Go to my cousin, Sara’s, bridal shower
*Read 6 chapters and review for my test tomorrow
*Write my 8 page paper that is due tomorrow
*Drop off 50 yard signs to our sign installer volunteers
*Drop off information to another volunteer in the Aves
*Have a campaign conference call
*Print 500 open house invitations
*Help prepare the ceiling for new lights to be installed in my parents' basement
*Organize people to help unload Catherine and Richard's moving truck on Saturday
*Call my sister-in-law to see if she's going to the bridal shower tonight
*Call Verizon and try to figure out why my phone isn't working!!!

And apparently, write a blog post about it!

7 things I'm loving right now...

1.UtahPolicy.com, an easy and fast way to get Utah's political news.
2. Colbie Caillat, especially "Bubbly," but the whole album is great!
3. This stamp (and all of her cool sisters) from 7Gypsies

4. These antique keys that belonged to my great-great grandfather, Samuel Spencer.

5. The irreverent humor ofLil' Bush on Comedy Central.
6. My sister and brother-in-law, Catherine and Richard, on their way home to SLC from Philly. Woo hoo!
7. This list of 30 Ways to Green Up Your Life thatMadelyn sent me.

Holiday= double work

When you work on a campaign, holidays end up being marathon work days. It's always a good time to reach large groups of people and get the word out about Dave! We spent the 4th manning a booth at the Sugarhouse Merchants Fair then passing out balloons in Sugarhouse park. The balloons were such a hit, we decided to spread them out along the parade route for the 24th. We gave out 1500 balloons! It's a pretty easy type of campaigning- kids and their parents come to you!! (If you haven't checked out Dave's website yet, you can see more pics there! There's some awesome ones of me...) And a much deserved shout out to my wonderful family who always supports me in my crazy endeavors, especially my parents and my wonderful, supportive, hard working, talented husband John!!!! Love you guys!

Harry Potter read-a-thon

John's family has an annual Harry Potter Read-a-thon at their cabin. It was so fun to get into the beautiful and much cooler mountains and just relax and read the book. We ate delicious meals, played board games, and napped when we needed a break from reading. We also went to the Brighton branch for sacrament meeting and ran into a lot of friends there!

Photo 1: Sisters on a bench (that's the bench you stand on to reach the zip line)



Photo 2: One of the beautiful peaks that surround the cabin



Photo 3: Mark, Chelsea, Anne, Mom, Dad, Barb, and John (I didn't know if this picture would turn out, but I'm so glad it did! I think it's so cute and fun!)



Photo 4: Me and my Johnny boy (notice John's new "fauxhawk 'do" and my straight (for once) hair. We'd both recently been to the salon, just in time to go to the cabin... weird timing.)

Catching up with friends...

It's so fun to catch up with old friends! As I get older and more entrenched in my own little world and life, time flies by so quickly and I start to lose contact with my friends! It's easy for a month to slide by without even talking to some of them. (Incidentally, I believe this is why everyone should have a blog!) So this month it was fun to see some friends that I haven't seen in a while.

1-Madelyn, me and Suzanna

2- Me and Melanie

3- Me, Heidi, baby Katie, Katie, Chelsea, Natalie, and baby Caroline

John and I went to the Good Morning Maxfield show at Gateway last weekend. It was fun to see a lot of our friends and support Stuart's band. They have a new album that is great! I'm really impressed with how hard they work. John understands how difficult it is to succeed in the local music scene, so here's a shout out for them!
[photo 1 by GMM]
[photos 2 and 3 by me]

Happy Birthday, Bloggy!

It's my 100th post!! In the tradition of those who have come before me, I shall enlighten you with a charming and delightful list of my 100 most favey-favorite things (in no particular order, other than what came to mind first)!

1. My Johnny (of course)
2. Gum (I really like gum! Does that make me trashy like Britney Spears?)
3. Good new music finds like Sara Bareilles (thanks Andrea!) or Stars (thanks Tosh!).
4. Scrapbooking (I love everything about it- the paper, the tools, the photos, the journaling...)
5. Rocking out in my car, singing along to the radio
6. Sleeping. My bed. Sleeping in my bed. Sigh.
7. My DVR. (One of the best inventions ever!)
8. the American Flag
9. Rainstorms
10. Reading (pretty much everything I can get my hands on... books, magazines, blogs, cereal boxes...)



11. My niece and nephew, Lily and Sam. I cannot fathom loving any children more than I love these two (although I suspect when I have kids of my own, my heart will burst open with love for them!)

12. Taco Bell
13. Red Bull
14. Traveling to new and exciting places
15. The mountains
16. the University of Utah (I just feel good when I'm on campus... cheesy, I know but I love it there.)
17. Children.
18. Waking up in the morning to find a huge snowstorm has muffled all the sound in the world and covered everything with huge, white snowdrifts.
19. Fresh produce from street stands
20. Sunday dinners with family
21. Boating and waterskiing
22. CANDY
23. A crackling fire
24. Sweaters
25. Flip flops
26. A new pedicure
27. Having someone else blow out my hair
28. Married life
29. Catching up with friends (usually through blogging)
30. Getting letters in the mail
31. Magazines (Creating Keepsakes, Scrapbooks, Etc., People, Time, Marie Claire, etc.)
32. McDonalds ice cream cones
33. the cello
34. playing games (Scrabble, Settlers of Catan, Ticket to Ride, El Nombre, Apples to Apples)
35. night games (like we used to play when we were kids- Kick the Can, Sardines, Tangauer...)
36. Singing in a really great choir (U of U Concert Chorale...)
37. a beautiful garden (like my mom's or my mother-in-law's)
38. Facebook, Blogspot, and all the other little online things I love
39. Barnes and Noble
40. Gap
41. beautiful artwork
42. kissing
43. really funny people (like Brain Regan)
44. having a clean house (never, ever happens)
45. fresh sheets and towels
46. Burt's Bees lip balm (mmm, pepperminty)
47. Bath and Body Works' products
48. DKNY Be Delicious perfume
49. online Scrabble through Facebook
50. swings
51. little baby swimsuit wedgies
52. jelly sandals
53. iChat
54. massages and facials
55. the feeling I get after a good workout (NOT the feeling I have making myself go workout in the first place)


56. my sister, and my 4 (!) sisters-in-law (so far)
57. yearbooks, journals, notes, letters, scrapbooks
58. John's (and now my) cabin, Timpine
59. Snowbird (where we first met and then, 3 years later, got engaged)
60. football games
61. Autumn (by far my favorite season)
62. Children's books
63. watching WWII movies with my dad
64. talking politics and family history with my father-in-law
65. movies that make me cry
66. concerts
67. camping

68. skinny dipping
69. feeling like I've accomplished something after working hard on a project
70. new shoes
71. my brother and my 5 (!) brothers-in-law (so far)
72. Russian
73. ancient cultures
74. history
75. my MacBook Pro
76. great literature that challenges me
77. poetry
78. my lunchbox collection

79. the Salt Lake Temple
80. having deep and spiritual discussions with little kids
81. observing an act of kindness
82. hugs
83. little old ladies and men
84. cool vintage cars
85. recycling
86. firetrucks
87. watching the Discovery and History channels with John
88. So You Think You Can Dance
89. dreaming about the future
90. being organized
91. new markers
92. long showers
93. the internet
94. dancing
95. sitting on the porch
96. neighborliness
97. gift wrapping (I want a whole room dedicated to it, like Candy Spelling)
98. shopping by myself (weird, huh?)
99. Christmas cards (even other people's, when I don't know anyone in the picture)
100. Being happy

Billboards are up!

Wanted to share the good news that Dave's billboards are now up around Salt Lake City. It's fun to see more campaign stuff everywhere- it makes me feel like all the hard work I'm doing will be noticed!

I'm hot and not in the good way...

Golly gee, it can get hot in the campaign office when the AC is "broken". I say "broken" and not broken, because when I went down to the building manager's office, it was a refreshing and cool 68 degrees down there. The nice receptionist informed me that "the whole building's air conditioning is out." When I looked at her with my best, "Yeah, right," face she quickly added, "Except for this floor." Lovely. Then, as if that weren't bad enough, as I was leaving to go back upstairs to my sweltering 90 + degrees office, she called out, "Be patient!" ARGH. So here I sit- sweaty, uncomfortable, grumpy- on the one day this week that I have to be actually in at the office, just waiting until I can leave!! Luckily my mom was nice enough to bring down a fan for me so I don't pass out from heat exhaustion. Hope you all are finding ways to stay cool!

Deal breakers

I read Andrea's post today about deal breakers and I loved it so much that I thought I'd post about it, too. She posed the question, What are your "deal breakers?". What do you absolutely need to have (or cannot tolerate) in a boyfriend or husband? I thought back to my dating days and realized that the things I always thought I wanted in a spouse were not the same thing as what I really *need*. This is what I posted (mostly) in response to Andrea's post.

"I once dated a boy who matched my "seminary list" to perfection. But two things really bugged me about him- 1) he put me on a pedestal and 2) we had no chemistry. #1 was confusing for a while but then I realized that I wanted a partner, not a prince. And chemistry, hello, I was naive to think it wasn't important.

So after that relationship, those two things were added to my list, which is as follows.
1. smart (must, must be intelligent)
2. funny (that we find the same things funny and make each other laugh)
3. attractive (not in a "devastatingly handsome" sort of way, but an actual, physical attraction to another person- you know, that *spark*)
4. a partner (he needs me, I need him, we both take care of each other)
5. kind, gentle, spiritual, sensitive (I don't want a "hard" guy, I want a open and available guy)
6. Not perfect, but perfect for me


Luckily, I figured out what my deal breakers were before I got married (I could have ended up with someone totally wrong for me!) So I want to know (and so does Andrea), what are your deal breakers?

Yum

Check out this awesome blog! It's called Feed Your Family and you will be able to do just that!

Who knew I was this addicted?

80%How Addicted to Blogging Are You?

Mingle² - Online Dating

Thanks Lexi for this funny little quiz. (I guess the first step to recovery is admitting you have a problem.)

Oh, what to do with a rolly-polly problem?

The solution to my getting-the-watermelon-home-from-the-store problem.

Oh, What Do You Do in the Summertime?

Do you swim in a pool to keep yourself cool?

Or do you run through the *free* fountains at the Gateway?


Two weekends ago (my posts got all un-chronological) John and I tended the Wright's while their mom and dad went out of town. We had such a good time with them!

"Rough" out camp

The theme of Stake Girls Camp was "Anchored in Christ" so each ward got to choose a vessel as their camp name. We were the "Girls of the Pearl" and decked everything out in Pirate garb. It was very fun!

John got to be there for half the time as the Stake Priesthood representative and he was very helpful!! All the little girls had crushes on him!!



We kept telling silly pirate jokes (it was part of our skit). A sample one:
Why do the pirates have trouble sleeping at night?
Because the ground is too haarrrrrrd.







Our roughing it included sunbathing by the lake.

Mark and Chelsea's Wedding!

We had such a wonderful day yesterday celebrating the marriage of Mark and Chelsea! The temple ceremony was beautiful and the rest of the day was, too! After the sealing and pictures at the temple, Mark and Chelsea took the opportunity for some quality time together and went to lunch- I think it was a great idea, you don't ever get any time alone on your wedding day! Then we all joined together for a lovely ring ceremony and wedding dinner. We enjoyed a lovely dinner, touching remarks, beautiful musical numbers, a fun slideshow and dancing at Thanksgiving Gardens before Mark and Chelsea departed in a horse drawn carriage!

The happy couple exiting the temple after the ceremony!



Family!



The lovely and elegant bride (and the gorgeous flowers she designed!)



A quiet moment...



Cute moment with one of her family members



Chelsea asked me to take this picture and dedicate it to Michelle- it broke both of their hearts that they couldn't be together on this great day!

"I love you, Michelle!" -Chels




Chelsea and her mom, Carolyn



Sue, Mark, Chelsea and Rick



Love these two!



Kate, Anne, John and Sue played "An Affair to Remember" as a surprise for Chelsea (it's one of her favorites!)



Dave, Breea, Anne and Sam




First Dance!



The whole group gathered to wish Mark and Chelsea a fond farewell!



Getting into their carriage to ride off into the sunset!



This is what was waiting for them when they got back from their carriage ride!



"Must Jarried!"