The Kiwi Bird

I don't like to talk much about my job at the wonderful world of University of Phoenix, but one thing that makes me laugh are some of the names of my students. In honor of one of my students I wanted to give a loud shout out to the kiwi bird, I did not know that this bird existed. I get tons of special new students every week that I am required to speak to and one week in particular I was calling a student by the name of Willie, during the call he proceeded to tell me just to call him Kiwi...AWKWARD!!! Kiwi?!?! Why?!?! I did ask him why and he said, "because when I was younger my parents always told me I looked like the kiwi bird." There is such a bird? To say the least I'm afraid of what my student looks like cause the kiwi bird has a gigantic nose. My finance counselor that I work with refuses to call him this nick name cause he thinks that it might be a dirty pet name, but he did promise me that he would call the student Kiwi if he passes his courses. My students don't have the best track records and most of them only strive to get by with D's!

In closing I wanted to leave you a bit of humor with some other names I have had the opportunity to screw up while trying to pronounce them on the phone with the student. Bless the hearts of all the Mom's out there who might have thought that it was ok to create such names for people. Enjoy! :)

QUENAH
GHYNA
ZAUNEPPS
KENNETRICE
KINSHAWSA
SHAMIKQUA
WAUNETT
KARRKETTA
SHAQUELLA
QUARTINELLA (FAVORITE!)
MCQUEENA
PETAGAY
JA'QUETTA
SHA'TAVIUS
FRANKESHIA
NIKJOVNIA
WILNESHIA
ZIPPORAH
SUOMAYYAH
SUVANNEE

I think my favorite has to be all the names with a "Q" in them...why why why?!?!? Ha ha!

Meeting Rudolph The Red Nosed Reindeer

I know...I am so cool cause I haven't posted in so long! For some reason I have felt like this last month I have had a million things to do right from when I get off of work!! I have been wanting to blog but there has been no time at all! Although I don't have kids to take care of my job is definitely stressful enough dealing with hundreds of irresponsible students who act like kids and take up most of my days! On to brighter subjects though...

My cute friend Jenny works for this field trip company Project Exploration and invited us to go on a trip with them at the beginning of November, so we could not resist. We went to the San Diego Zoo (sorry the Phx one just does NOT compare!!) ate yummy food, hung out on the beach, and had a wonderful relaxing time! We got to spends lots of time with their sweet daughter Abigail who I just love. Here she is being so reverent while sleeping!

Our first stop was an early morning boat ride to see some dolphins and other animals! It was super fun and Jeff got this cool pic with his camera when the sunrise was coming up!

Then we made our way to the San Diego Zoo! I had never been there before and it was really great! We took a bus ride around the whole place!

So, I knew hippo's were big but when we got up close to one it was GIGANTIC!! Both of mine and Jenny's head together were not even as big as his!! Then of course...guess what happened at the Zoo?!?!?! An Ellie sized fit as Jeffy calls them!! I was mad cause I couldn't have a churro!! Ha ha...what kind of fits will my kids throw?? Any guesses?!?? ;)

Our last stop while we were there was the beach and this yummy breakfast place where Mike and Jenny introduced us to these over stuffed breakie burrits! They were delish! Then we got some pics on the beach. My hubby is becoming quite the photographer...notice the amazing shot he got of Abby and Mike at the very bottom!

Jenny even took us to a snack shop where she gave us all the treats...for FREE!! I think me and her should go and work there in the summer time! What do you say Twin??

We stopped at the beautiful San Diego Temple and also this really really awesome car shop with lamborghini's, of course Jeff and Mike were in heaven! They were the fanciest cars I had ever seen and it was funny cause no one payed any attention to us while we were in there. What if we had wanted to buy one!?!?

Stay tuned cause I will be blogging more...promise! I hope my title caught your attention again to read our bloggity!! I'm weird and like to make up random names and sayings.

Jenny and Mike thanks again for inviting us,

it was suuuuper deee duuuper! :)

Oreo Pizza Topped with Gummy Bears

Don't ask about the title for this post...just had to think of something creative to get all my fanatics back to reading our non-updated blog! Here is a run down of what we have been up to this last month! There will be more a more exciting post next week since we

will be going to San Diego with some friends this Thursday! Yipee!!!!

1. Followed our tradition again this year and went to Sugar Bowl in Scottsdale to celebrate the day we all got engaged with our great friends Mike and Jenny Stephan! Fun mems!

2. My super dee duper good friend Kari Culver from my old singles ward who I served with in the R.S. pres got married! Love her to pieces and I'm so happy for her to be

in the married club now!! She looked gorgeous!

3. The all time famous Rustin made a surprise visit for her wedding and surprised everyone at the temple! When I first got to the temple for Kari's sealing he popped out

from behind a wall and I wanted to jump for joy and yell, but of course

I acted mature and used my "temple voice", so glad he came! :)

4. Had the chance to finally go home and see my parents in Sierra Vista. My Mom looked like a pop star one day after getting ready so I had to take a pic of her. My sister Amber also got us some tickets to the U of A football game, we didn't have the best seats but still had a enjoyable time! (Amber, I'm still not forgiving you for the 2 mile walk to the stadium and

then the 10 mile hike to our seats...NOT funny!!)

5. I win the LAME-OOOOO award cause I did not participate in dressing up for Halloween this year, I wanted to be a lady bug but never got around to finding a costume. On Halloween night I just watched my hubby chow down on the all you can eat shrimp at Red Lobster, we had to hide from the trick or treaters somehow! I will post a pic of my nephews cause they melted my heart with their Mario, Luigi, and Peter Pan costumes. My sis in law Meg rocked it out in her 80's get up!! I did help decorate our pumpkin at work, she was Smurfette!! :)

6. Last but not least I wanted throw out a thermo dynamics problem for all of you to solve, don't worry it should only take you all day long to calculate the answer! No, but really I just wanted to give a shout out to Jeffrey cause this semester has been really stressful for him at school, he is taking 18 credits and still working part time too. Just wanted him to know that I love him and am thankful that he has the smarties to figure out what to do with with all those unknown words and symbols. Don't worry school will be over soon and you then can buy as many mustang's as you want...well maybe...;)

Labor Day....week

So we've been in our home for almost 2 years now, and honestly haven't done a single thing to it. In September we finally got up the courage to tackle two projects we have been talking about for quite some time now; one by choice and one by necessity.

First off, our "dining room." I say that because I'm not really sure if it qualifies as a dining room, since its just an extension off of our living room, or our kitchen, or both, since downstairs really is just one big area. Mama Schaub did some extensive remodeling of her living room several years ago, and part of that included painting an accent wall on the west/fireplace wall. We've been wanting to do that to our wall to spice up that drab corner.

The second picture is when I came downstairs and caught Jeff drawing a face on the wall! Of course I threw an Ellie sized fit and didn't believe it would come off, and it didn't after the first coat! So he assured me after the 2nd or 3rd coat it would be fine, and of course it was. Chubby Hubby is always right!

To complement the new wall, we bought some really nice curtains and rods from The Great Indoors. We then got a really cheap bookshelf for the corner, purchased at Ikea because we spent all our money at The Great Indoors. >.<

We really like it now, and it makes our house look so much warmer. It also matches our microwave and toaster. :)

So the next step in our home improvement was something we've wanted to do, but couldn't really pull the trigger on because of the cost. Our bathroom upstairs was a tub/shower combo, with a sliding glass door. Gross! Chandler has some of that incredible hard water you all dread, and it had been reeking havoc on that tub and tile. The brown grout and caulking was just disgusting. And best of all, underneath all that mess, our pipes were apparently leaking. The leak was soaking through the drywall under our bathroom, which sits right over the entryway/walkway into our neighbors front door, though luckily is all outdoors. So after soaking for who knows how long, one day it just all fell out and they had a giant hole in the roof. So we didn't really have much of a choice, and had to replace all that piping and wall, and decided to just do the rest while we were at it. This is what it looked like in the beginning. (sorry, we totally forgot to take pics before they started)

Half way done:

Since we hated that tub so much, we just got rid of it! We've always wanted just a nice stand up/walk in shower, but we thought it would have been impossible. However, it was almost easier than installing a new tub, and actually just a bit cheaper. We love the new shower, the tile, the fixtures, and everything about it. Jeff really wanted to get the optional 2 body sprays for an extra $100. I didn't want them at first, but they really are fun and again Chubby Hubby was right.

Cool, huh? We need to give a shout out to Doug Sloat, owner of Bath Pro (www.bath-pro.com). He did almost all of the work himself, and took his time to do it right, and for a lot less than we had expected for this kind of work. So if any of you need any bathroom work, call Doug!

And in case you couldn't tell from the grammar and proper use of punctuation, as well as the words to vs. too, this post was made by none other than Chubby Hubby himself. Lurbles Ellie! She's cute, huh?

Sunday Tradition

This is my niece Audrey Olivia, isn't she beautiful?

I love her to pieces and just want to hang out with her all the time so that I don't miss out on any of her cuteness that constantly surrounds her!! For quite some time now it's become a tradition on Sunday's when I see Audrey and she greets me and

that the first thing out of her mouth is,

"Aunt Ewwie, can I have some gwitter from your eyes??"

I get so excited and love to share my glitter, and so of course I say yes and proceed to close my eyes for her to take some and then watch her put it on her little eyes. It's one of those precious moments that I will always cherish! What a great way to end a

Sunday knowing that we both have "gwitter eyes!"

Car Sunshades

I wanted to blog about something funny and I think this is quite hilarious, but then again I find a lot of things that I do ridiculous! I just wanted to openly admit here to everyone that I struggle with getting these lil' darn sunshades to fold back into their form!! :( Really, it's an issue...trust me! I've been bugging Jeff to get me some free ones from his work at Desert Schools and he finally did, and I've just been having problems with getting them to fold back, so embarrassing but I'm just being honest. They are kinda to big for my Nissan Sentra Max but they semi help cool down the car when I'm driving home from work in the 110 degree melting weather that we are so

blessed with here in Phx.

I guess what I can just sit here and chuckle about is that last week after Jeff and I had lunch I timidly confessed to him that I needed him to give me some lessons on how to fold my darn sunshades!! So we literally stood there in the parking lot with him giving me the, "Are you serious Elle looks?!?" while he was trying to patiently teach me. Everyday I was spending like 5 mins trying to fold them up, sometimes I would even stand outside my car to get it correct, or I would just throw them in the back seat unfolded!! He eventually taught me this one trick how I have to flip my wrist a certain way and grab the "right corners" and it was getting a tad bit better....BUT then my friend and I want to lunch today and I told her about my ordeal and she taught me the "taco/burrito" fold that her friend a while back showed her, and that trick worked wonders for me! For those of you laughing right now I just want you to know that starting today I am a *PRO* at folding my sunshades now!! If you want me to share the trick with you let me know!

Hee hee!! I'm so out of control...;)