Sharing

I have discovered, and those of you with iphones would understand this, that the ring tones that come with the phones are horrible. I was really wanting to use the bluetooth to get the ring tones from my old phone, as I have done in the past when changing phones, but it wouldn't work. I googled to see how to make it work and found out that the iphone bluetooth only works with headsets and not other phones or computers. But in my search I found a great website that I thought I would share since some of you that read my blog have an iphone, and it looks like it may work for other phones, I am just not sure how to use it on a regular phone. This website lets you take any song on your computer and turn it into a ring tone for free and its very easy to use. I think it took me 20 min to make like 4 ring tones and thats partly because I needed to download a song I couldn't find on my computer. http://audiko.net/ It also says to log in and register but I didn't have to do that to make the ring tones.

Memorial Day Weekend

This year for Memorial weekend Ross and I were able to go to Louisiana to see his family. It was kind of a short trip but we were able to pack quite a bit in so it felt like it was longer than it really was. We flew out there on Friday afternoon and got there in time for dinner at Ross fav Mexican restaurant where we met Grant and Leah and some of their friends. Ross and I really like their carne asada and fresh chips. On Sat we met up with the grandparents for lunch and then we went to the Apple store. Ross and I both got new phones and I am totally loving/addicted to mine. I have such an amazing husband to who got it for me.

Sat afternoon we went to New Orleans for a vampire tour, I have been wanting to one since, well, for at least 4 years. Ross had done one when he was in high school and Linda hadn't done it either. While we were waiting for the vampire tour we went to Aunt Sally's, can't go to New Orleans without going to Aunt Sally's. I brought home a 12 pack of the triple chocolate pralines, mmmmmm. Then we just kind of wandered around before the tour started. This is our vampire tour guide, complete with fangs and long fingernails.

The cool thing with the vampire tour was it wasn't hokey and cheesy but he had facts and history of New Orleans that lead to the belief in vampires. He told a story of when disease hit the city and the people with yellow fever would turn yellow, their gums would recede causing their teeth to look pointy and how they looked and sounded dead but weren't always dead, so after being put in the crypts they would claw their way out and return home. He told a story of a man named Jacques who would take women home with him and they would disappear, one happened to get away and the story she told the cops was so out there no one would believe her, but it was still put in the police report. One story was of these two men who had the 2nd floor of this building and this 12 year old girl came running out of the house covered in blood, her wrists partially cut and was telling the cops that she was held hostage and these guys would slowly drain her blood into a cup and drink it or drink right from her wrists, when the cops went to this apartment they found 4 or 5 bodies around the room, drained of blood and the culprits had just jumped out of the window. The mysterious part of the story was that these same guys were accused of doing the same thing 40 or 50 years later and they hadn't aged. Its kind of hard to explain but they used real stories and real history and they took you around to these locations, so you are standing on the doorstep or across the narrow street from these locations. It was really interesting and kind of cool to get some of the history of the city like that.

On Sunday we got together with Grant and Leah and got craw fish, shrimp and crabs. I had never had craw fish before and was interested in trying it, however skeptical I was. (I am not a fan of seafood) I did try everything and wasn't so fond of the shrimp but I really liked the craw fish and the crabs. They got whole crabs and I learned how to break them open and get the meat out. The craw fish was another story. There was a technique to get the tail off. I have a video of Grant showing how to eat the craw fish.

I can't quite eat it like him, I can't bring myself to suck the juices out of the body cause I know other stuff will come with it, I will however, suck the juice and meat out of the claws. I can't quite get the meat out of the tail that way either, I have to crack the scale things and peel those and the legs off before I can eat the meat, but it was really good. I will def eat that again.

It was a really good trip and we got to do a lot of things and I def wasn't really that excited to come back to work. During the trip we also got to see Angels and Demons and Terminator, both good movies, and we hit all the restaurants that Ross looks forward to when we go. We have even started talking about the next time we go out.

Mother's Day with grandma and my first sunburn.

This year for Mother's Day for my grandma we went up to her house to plant her flowers, something we help her with every year, so we did that today. Its a lot of fun with the little kids and my grandma usually has tons of flowers to plant and it takes a while. This year we found a system for planting and it went pretty fast and we didn't have to wrestle trowels from the little kids. The hardest part was keeping my grandma in her chair. She likes her flowers planting in particular places and at 96 she can't really get down and show us, but she sure wanted to try. We had 3 of us planting and the 3 little boys were supposed to bring flowers to certain people and it moved very fast and we were done in record time. These are some pictures of us planting, and in most of the pictures my grandma is trying to get in there and help.

Zach was bringing me flowers and helping me plant and was so funny. He was trying so hard not to step on flowers but for almost every flower he helped me plant he stepped right on the flower we had just planted. Luckily he isn't very heavy and I am sure the flowers will be fine.

When we were done planting flowers we just played around in the back yard. Nate and Zach had some soccer balls and Ross and I decided to play keep away. It started first with Jackson and he was getting so frustrated until Nate joined in. Then it became a game to them too. Zach wanted to get in the game so he brought his soccer ball over so we could keep it away from him. Kind of backwards but I am not one to argue with that one. Nona even tried to get in on it, key word tried. She wasn't quite able to get it either :)

Grandma also pulled out her bubble sets and I think the adults had more fun with it than the little kids. We used most of the bubble juice in each container and then the kids tried and it didn't work so well, they weren't able to get the juice on the blower.

All in all it was a fun and productive day and my grandma was very grateful for the help, there is no way she would have been able to get the flowers planted herself. I think it was a better Mother's Day present than buying her something she doesn't need.

Saved to Die!

Friday morning I went over to my mom's so we could go walking. My nieces were up and so I spent some time with them while my mom got dressed and because they were there the gate was up blocking the stairs for the baby and so we had to go out the back door. When we went out to the deck I noticed a fat cat sitting in the back with a female pheasant running around it. I thought that was rather odd but realized there was a nest up there that the mother was trying to protect. I couldn't see anything else moving so I figured the pheasant was just sitting on the eggs, but I shoed the cat away, which was rather hard, it did not want to leave. When I was pulling out of the driveway I noticed the cat was heading back down the driveway to the back yard. I was annoyed and figured I would check it out when we got back from our walk. When we did get back my sister in law and nieces were out in the back and my sister in law was up in the garden. Come to find out the hen did have a nest full of chicks and the cat was trying to get at it. The hen had it hidden pretty well so it was hard to see but the cat found it and scattered the chicks. The girls had chased the cat away and Amanda was trying to gather up the chicks and put them back on the nest. I went up to help and when we thought we had them all we would find another. We counted 10 in all and when we were looking at them they were all different sizes and in different stages. They had to have hatched recently because some of them couldn't stand or really move much, some were just learning to squeek. They were so cute and soooo tiny. I have never been that close to a pheasant let alone a pheasant chick. While gathering them up I found one lost in the bushes, it was to cold to move so it just sat shivering. I picked it up and held it between my hands to warm it up, very tiny and very soft. We decided to move the nest to the other end of the yard so hopefully the cat won't find them. We have always had a problem with the neighbors cats and picking chicks out of the nests in the trees and then to see the cat trying to get the pheasants was really annoying. We had to scare the hen off the nest to gather the rest of the chicks and try to get her to follow us. She was very protective and at one point went after my niece and really scared her. I had shorts on and was afraid of coming away with bloody shins. Luckily she had gotten accustomed to my sister in law so she wasn't as mean to us when we tried to move her. When we picked up all the chicks we found 3 that were not moving and barely breathing so we put them in a basket with some rags. We also found a dead one in the bushes that I was going to take care of later. We got the perky chicks moved and the mother herded to them so they were together and nesting again and I went back to get the little dead one and dispose of it. When I went to get it it was moving around a little and as I picked it up it started to move more and more. As it got warmer it moved more and was even trying to stand up and squeek. We eventually got them all back to the mom, all but one which died. After they were with the mom she moved the nest a couple times and at one point some of the chicks were out in the open and a magpie swooped in and grabbed one. So, we save them and then they die anyways. Kind of sucks but I guess thats life, everywhere you look there is something that will snare you if you aren't aware and paying attention. There are evils everywhere in the world and you have to learn to protect yourself from it. I checked on them a little later and could only see two chicks and they had learned from their mom what to do when there is danger, they froze and blended in very well with the surroundings. We are given different examples to learn from to protect ourselves too. Its kind of sad though that out of 10 chicks there aren't many left. Maybe its kind of cheesey but it kind of made me think.

Here are some pictures I got, the chicks are so hard to see and blend in really well.

B-day

Today was my dad's b-day so my sister and I decided to do something nice and decorate his desk at work. It was fun and I think he appreciated it.

Kind of simple but we didn't have a whole lot of time this morning.

Elder Ross

So an old companion of mine posted pictures from the mission on facebook. They were fun to look at and remember the people I knew. I really enjoyed my mission and am really glad I went. I met tons of interesting people, some I still keep in touch with and some I wish I could forget, namely a guy mauling me on the street corner in NoHo. Anyways, so I came across this picture. I forgot that this is what he looked like, very innocent and young, so young. It made me laugh cause that guy I def didn't know like I know now and where we both have come since. But its a picture that makes me smile so I thought I would share.
It shows how long I have been home, it took quite a while before I realized she is breaking the rules, she is touching him, not just touching him but TOUCHING him :) This is one of the many members in the mission that took very good care of all the missionaries that came through. The sisters I went home with spent our next to last night in the mission at her house.

Gotta Love April

The weather lately has been sporatic. It will be warm for a day or two, I have even been wearing shorts and flip flops. Then it would rain and be very cold. On Wed it was raining again and half way through the day the heavy rain turned to snow. Within a couple of hours we had like 2 inches of snow. Then it stopped and seemed to be melting. Then, yesterday morning I woke up to at least a foot of snow on my car. I was going to get pictures but forgot. It took at least 10 min to dig my car out, there was so much snow. By 4:30 in the afternoon much of the snow was gone. The bad part of the weather was that cause of the warm weather most of the trees were in bloom and then when it snowed the blossoms caught and held the snow so the trees were covered in snow, which was gorgeous, but the trees weren't used to that much weight and trees were falling down and branches broke off. The complex next to ours had a couple of large purple plum trees and one of them had broken off at the trunk and the other had many large branches broken off. Half my parent's purple plum broke off under the weight. We have gotten snow this late but never this much. I am so ready for summer and warm weather. I think someone forgot to tell the weather its the middle of April.