Ammon's 11th Birthday!

Ammon's birthday was on March 17th on St. Patrick's Day and he just loves that!
The Sunday before his birthday we had family over for some cake and ice cream.

He got some Oreos and once everyone left he discovered
someone had opened them and ate half of them! He wasn't too thrilled about that.

He loved getting so much money! Look at that face!

An airplane from Aunt Jeanette!

We got him a metal detector and he didn't
waste anytime time going out to use it...
in our front yard!

They found some sort of rusted metal.
Ammon doesn't like his "treasure".

The next day we decided to go to Esther Short Park
and see what we could find...which was nothing much.
Just some junk.

The next week we went to Klineline and he found a knife.
Lovely.

Holy Cow!

It's been 19 years since I stopped eating meat!
I don't remember the exact date that I became a vegetarian,
but I was 16 years old!

I'm not making a statement.
I'm not an animal rights activist.
I don't even like animals..
I'm not doing it for any reason other
than it being a part of who I am.
It's hard to explain.

People ask if I will ever eat meat again and the answer is
only if I was starving and it was all there was to eat.


I think that the way farmers are raising animals and injecting
them with hormones and antibiotics is not safe or healthy.
I think that eating flesh is disgusting....
almost cannibilistic.

I highly recommend watching this movie.
I even grocery shopped differently after watching it.

Getting older sucks!!!

I saw my Dr. today and she said that I need to go to Physical Therapy once a week to strengthen the part of my back that is injured. She said it will hurt and not be fun. Looking forward to it....

Dangerous curves ahead!

My back was feeling good.....until yesterday at church. Those benches in sacrament meeting killed it! I couldn't stand the twisting and turning trying to get in a comfortable position so my back wouldn't hurt--but ended up leaving in the middle of the meeting and stood in the foyer. It was feeling a little better by the next class, so I decided to go. I sat down on the metal chair, bent to put my purse down and felt a sharp pain. It hurt so bad, I ended up leaving that class and stood in the hall. It continued to hurt and standing became painful so I got in my car and drove home. I did some stretches the chiropractor recommended and that didn't help, so I laid in bed until I had to go back and pick up the kids. The rest of Sunday I spent in bed. I felt so bad because Anson had to pick up my slack.

I painfully tossed and turned all night. Not only was my back killing me but I had a migraine that wouldn't quit. Anson, my sweet, sweet Anson got the kids off to school this morning for me. I stayed in bed a little while, then showered, dressed and got ready. It's the weirdest thing. You can actually see that my body is twisted. I called the chiropractor as soon as they opened and got in 45 minutes later. He popped a few things but couldn't straighten me out. What the heck did I pay for anyway??? LAME! I'm worse off now than when I had to first see him 3 weeks ago! He wants me to go back tomorrow, but I also called my family physician and made an appointment for tomorrow as well. I may need an x-ray or there may be a bigger problem than what my chiropractor can fix. I really hope that's not the case though. At the very least I'm hoping to get my insurance to cover my chiropractic visits. I'm paying out of pocket and it's getting expensive!!!

I hope to walk out of the office looking like this tomorrow!

I'm going back to school!

After a looooooooooong year off, focusing on the screen printing business, I enrolled back in school! That's the good news. The bad news is that all my fun classes are over like art and photography. Now it's time to get down to work and actually finish getting my Associate's degree.

Last Friday I went in and took my English/writing test to see what level I am at. It was the second time taking the test, but I got a 99% which means I can take English 101. I'm not too thrilled to take it, because I hate English, but it's required....just like Math. Uhg. I took that test once and I don't even remember what I got on it but I know it wasn't college level and wasn't even close! Math is THE worst thing ever. The only thing I need numbers for is a phone number. That's it.

I have decided that from now on to take only classes that are required for the Graphic Design degree. I am signed up for Intro to Graphic Design, Art in the Twentieth Century and English 101. I think it's 13 credits and it is a lot, but if I want to finish, I need to do more than half time. If I work REALLY hard, I may get done by the time Anson gets his Doctorate in 2012! :)

In other news, Anson kind of made up for FORGETTING my birthday. I will never let him live that down...ever. Last Friday he picked up an elliptical for me. I found it on Craigslist and he got it that same day.

We don't really have room for it in this house, so we put it by the back door in our dining room. Classy, I know.

Photoshop those dark circles away!

Anson is having an article written about him for Vancouver Family Magazine and needed to submit a picture. I took this picture of him a couple of years ago. He looks washed out and those bags under his eyes kind of make him look mean! So I opened Photoshop and went to work!




I went into color balance and added a lot more yellow and a little bit of red. I also took out the bags under his eyes and softened it with the blur tool. I took out the little stray hair sticking down his forehead and filled in the um...ahem...*bald spot*. It all took a couple of minutes!

And here is a side by side!


Click on this picture to see it bigger.

Photo Restoration

I asked my mom if she had any old pictures that were in horrible condition to see if I could restore it. She gave me this picture of my grandma, Mimmer. It was going to be a big challenge because it had been through a fire. I wasn't sure I could pull it off because of the bad damage in the middle of the picture.




It took longer than I expected it would, but I think I got it pretty close to the original.

And here is a side by side.