New toy, LSU celebration, funny video, lots of pics!

I got a brand new elliptical! I am actually excited to work out! I started a "health plan" on Jan. 2 and have lost ~6 lbs. so far but felt like I wasn't getting much out of my work-outs on the mini trampoline. Jared and I were supposed to join a gym last fall but never got around to it so we decided to invest in an elliptical that we could both use at home, instead. We went with a Sole E95. It is AWESOME!! It has all these features plus some:
*built-in cooling fan and water bottle holder
*built in speakers which allow you to hook up any MP3 player or other audio device
*pulse sensors for monitoring your heart rate
*oversize foot pedals with durable foam cushioning for a comfortable workout
*2 degree inward slope to the foot pedals which reduce ankle and knee stress
*adjustable foot pedal angle (can raise and lower the heel), which reduces numb toe effects and sore Achilles tendons
*Weight capacity of 400 lbs. (this means it can take a beating and will last a long time!)
*Extremely quiet and smooth operation (I'm actually very surprised at how quiet it is)

Sorry if I sound like I'm bragging but I am way too excited and would like to thank Jared for getting it for me! :) Here's a picture of it:

It's in Jared's TV room--we removed his recliner. For the record, I wanted to put it in our bedroom but Jared insisted we put it in his TV room so he can exercise on it and watch his Tivo'd shows on his big screen (our bedroom just has satellite, not Tivo, and a small TV).

OK, what else has been going on? We bought one of those little hamster balls for Zoe, our Russian dwarf hamster. I don't know why but I think it's so cute to see her run around the house in it!
I went with my brothers, SIL, niece, and a couple other guys to the National Championship celebration at the LSU football stadium this past Sat. It was SO cold but at least it didn't rain while we were there (it had rained all night and morning, so we almost decided not to go). There were 25,000 people there. It was fun, though, and I am SO happy to be living here for this championship. SO FUN!! :) Here are some pics from the celebration (we went to the Mall of Louisiana first, where we ate lunch and my niece rode the carousel a couple of times):

My brother and niece:

The coach and 4 of the team captains holding up the $30k crystal ball:

The hoisting of the new National Champions flag in the stadium:

The people I went with (L-R=my brother's neighbor, my SIL, brother, niece, brother's friend, and brother):

Me, of course:

Speaking of the championship, I know most of you have heard Jared say that I am spoiled. Well, I can't help it if he's the one spoiling me! I bought a nat'l championship t-shirt a couple days after we won. Jared came home the next week with two more t-shirts plus these penants and a bumper sticker for me:

THEN, he came home yesterday with ANOTHER t-shirt! Keep in mind that he is not an LSU fan so he buys all this stuff just for me. What a sweetie but he is the one to blame for me being spoiled! No complaints from me, though! :) :) :)

Last week, I took a bubble bath in the jetted tub and put just a little too much bubble stuff in it! I had to turn the jets off or it would have just kept growing and growing! It was funny, though! I'm only posting this because you can't see a thing. :)

One more thing, from last night. Jared asked where the camera was and I thought he was gonna take pictures of the elliptical but he asked me to put his dinner dishes away for him. He was in the living room, holding the camera, and I knew something was up. I was looking around the kitchen, trying to find some clue as to what he was up to but didn't see anything, so finally decided to just put the dishes in the sink and rinse them off. And here's what happened:

He had put a rubber band on the sprayer nozzle so that it sprayed out when the water turned on. He's so naughty! But it was pretty funny. It wasn't so funny, though, that he did it again, ready for it to squirt me when I got up at 6am this morning to make him oatmeal before he got up for work!

So that is our past couple of weeks. If you made it through all of that, thanks! :) I'll try to post more often so I don't have so much in one post next time.

LSU--National Champions!!!!!!

I made chili and cornbread and had some friends and family over last night to watch the BCS national championship game; everyone else brought food, as well (chips, brownies, candied pecans and chocolate-covered Brazilian nuts, cream-filled king cake), so the food was great! The first quarter was a little shaky but then we started to dominate and ended up beating Ohio State 38-24. WOOOOOOHOOOOOOO! Feels great to be the national football champions again! Here are a few pics from our party last night:

Me and Jared:

Dog-pile on Greg after the last touchdown:

The last few seconds of the game:
The whole gang after the game:

And, even though this is really embarrassing for me, I know that all of you will get a kick out of my post-touchdown dance:

Burn, baby, burn!

Jared was always paranoid of a real Christmas tree burning the house down in Utah, since it's so very dry there. Since we moved to Louisiana, though, he allowed me to finally get the real tree I've always wanted. Once I took down the decorations on Jan. 2, he was more than willing to dispose of it by burning it to the ground. He sure does love to start things on fire after dousing them with "Boy Scout juice", as he likes to call it (better known as gasoline)!

Ringing in 2008!

We went to my parents' party on New Year's Eve. It was a no kids party, so one of my brothers and his wife and little girl went to a kids' party. My other brother was there and one of our friends (Seth) came w/o his wife and kids. Other than that there were a few couples and a few of my mom's friends. We watched the Auburn football bowl game, hung out, and had LOTS of fireworks. Jared had some really big, pretty, loud ones that were really cool! Oh, and there was tons of food! It was a fun New Year's.

A couple of random memories:

Dad had more fun than anyone setting off fireworks--one of his fireworks flew straight into the house across the street, after which the neighbors turned on their porch light, ha ha!

Jared had a bottle rocket go awry and shoot towards my dad's Camaro. You should have seen the look on his face! bwahaha!

It is so funny to watch Tim set off fireworks because he RUNS away the second the wick starts burning.

Mom loved holding the Roman candles and actually TRIED shooting them into the trees in the front yard!

Here are a few pics from that night:

Jared sure had fun setting off all the fireworks he brought!

Here's my mom shooting of one of the Roman candles--she really got into it! :)We didn't get our New Year's kiss in until 12:30, after we were done setting off all the fireworks. Jared thought he'd make it a little less traditional (he's such a stinker!):

And here's a very short sampling of a couple of the fireworks Jared set off:

We didn't get home until 2am, so we slept in a little on New Year's Day, then I got up and literally watched football all day. I had my brothers and 3 of our friends over to watch Georgia stomp on Hawaii in the Sugar Bowl. Felt bad for Hawaii but I had to root for the SEC team! Here's the group of us that watched the game at my house:

I truly hope the new year brings many good things for all my friends and family--and for me! :)

Voice Blog

Someone asked how to use the voice blog, so I figured I'd better post directions. You have to go to my main blog page or one of the posts (you won't be able to see it if you just read the post in an email if you get a subscription to my blog). In the upper right corner under the LO slide, you will see the Snapvine Voice Blog widget (has a picture of me on it). Click on it to activate it, then click on the play button to hear the most recent recording. You can go to other recordings by pressing the forward and rewind buttons--it will show you the date of the recording just above the play button. If anyone else has problems, or if it's just not working, let me know and I will just do away with it.

Christmas 2007

I added a voice blog to go along with the pics, so press play on the voice blog widget and listen as you view these pics:

New feature on the blog sidebar

I added a voice blog widget to the sidebar--if you get the automatic email updates from my blog, you will have to come and see the actual blog to see it. I will add voice messages from time to time and I think you can add voice comments back to me. Let me know what you think about it.

Kiki's family's trip to Louisiana

Here are some of my favorite pics from the past week; make sure you listen to my voice blog to hear about all the happenings (BTW, you can turn off the song on the picture slide, if you'd like--just press the little sound icon on the bottom of the snowman):

The Santa pic with all three kids was taken by the professional at the mall--I scanned it.

Here's that hilarious video of Carma opening her princess dress-up kit:

1st week of December

Here's our happenings this past week:

Pics from the game I watched at my friends' house last Sat. (Jared was home sick):

My brother, Ben, and our friend, Greg:

My brother, Tim:
Our friend, Greg (the party host):
Belle (niece) and me:
Jared caught a snapper turtle while I was still in Utah (scared him pretty good when he picked it up, as he didn'tknow it was a snapper, ha ha! Wish I could have seen that!). He was keeping it in the back of his truck and feeding it but decided to put it the pond next door:

This was hanging over the fireplace when I got home Wed. morning from spending the night at Maw-maw's--I have a very sweet hubby!:

Jared came home the other night with a Christmas tree. A real one! It's really pretty and full, ~5.5 feet tall:

Here's my annual pic of Chloe checking out the tree. With the artificial tree we used to have, she would get up in it and climb the branches. This one's too full for her to get in just yet but I'm sure she will find a way to get up in there somehow:

2nd week in Utah

I had a great time spending a few days with Kiki and her kids last week. Judson is growing up so fast and Carma really could not be any sweeter. I just wish it would have snowed while I was there. At least it actually feels like December there, though!

Tuesday night, we had a sisters' night at Winger's. We had so much fun together!!!:Juddy showing off a little dollar store gift I got him:
Carma is ALL GIRL!!! Here she is wearing the dollar store jewelry set I gave her and playing with her Cinderella phone. How cute is that?!:
Here's a video of a conversation I had with Carma about bananas:

And this one's for Jared:

I got home late Friday night, slept in a little on Saturday, unpacked a little, and spent over 7 hours at a friend's house watching the LSU game (beat Tenn. in the SEC championship, YAY!), playing Wii, and watching parts of other football games (getting my wish of West Virginia and Missouri losing). I had a hard time getting up for church this morning but couldn't get to sleep when I tried to take a nap when I got home because I was on pins and needles, wondering if LSU would be voted into the national championship game. Well, they were! WOOOOOOOHOOOOOOO! Tigers in the big game on Jan. 7! Should be a great game and I just can't wait to see it!

Lots of great stuff happening between now and then, though. My sister, Kiki and her family are flying here on the 11th! Better get my shopping done! I still haven't gotten my Christmas decorations out of the attic--want to clean my house first but haven't gotten around to doing that yet. Temps in the upper 70's and humidity in the upper 60's doesn't really help me get in the Christmas spirit. Hoping to get LOTS done tomorrow, though. Better get to bed so I can get up at a decent hour (considerig it's 1:45 here! :) Happy Holidays, y'all!

Thanksgiving week

We had a great Thanksgiving week in Utah. We flew in last Monday morning (11/19) and stayed at Jared's mom's house until Sunday. We spent Tuesday in "Happy Valley" to visit my sister, Kiki, and her kids and have lunch with Jared's former boss and co-workers but the rest of the week was spent with his family. Everyone in Jared's family stayed at his mom's house, except for his sister Stephanie, who lives in Florida and couldn't get off of work to come for Thanksgiving. We missed her VERY much!!! Here are some of the highlights from the week:

We were all hanging out Monday night and Mariya helped her grandma decorate the Christmas tree:

Tuesday night, Judson and Carma winking for us:

Gift Exchange Day breakfast (i.e. early Christmas since we won't be with this family for Christmas): Our present to Hailey:

Our present to Hunter:

Our present to Justin:

Our present to Benson (he was LOVING it!):

The Crittenden grandkids:

We went to Temple Square in Salt Lake City Friday night to see the Christmas lights. It was really crowded but SO BEAUTIFUL:

The Assembly Hall on Temple Square:

More views of the temple:

Jared with his brother and grandpa, who we went to visit Sat. morning:

Jared and Jason on the frozen Provo River Sat. afternoon:
The Upper Provo River Falls:
Carma in some princess garb Sunday night: