Mostly thoughts for myself

I think it's been while since I just shared a thought without pictures. I was commenting on someones blog realizing that what I was saying was preachy so now I am going to preach for myself. 

I admire people that make decisions. I really dislike people that take forever to just pick what meal they want (Jack does this bad, but I actually love him, dislike waiting) I especially admire people that make them and then admit that's what they want to do. 

A friend of mine once talked to me about deciding something, and as long as you stick to it whether you are confident or not, that is the way to make a decision. Having faith in yourself and not justifying your actions for others is the way to go. 

It's said that when you dislike something about someone else, chances are that is something that you hate about yourself. I think that about this decision making thing. I can do better. 

I think in the last year, I have made the best decisions. I think what made them good is, I decided and I stuck by myself for them. Many times I was tempted to go back because I enjoyed my life. But that is when things don't change, and clearly I can see that my life is better. I don't ever think where I am now is where I thought I would be a year ago. I mean I didn't even want to talk to Jack, thought I was going to be with someone else. I figured I would stay in Provo, happy working in my favorite job at the middle school in Special Ed. Really, my life wasn't all that bad before. But I wasn't progressing. 

I think taking my leap of faith with something different made my life MUCH better! While I am somewhere different, at least I feel like I am learning to swim instead of still dog paddling. This is literal  because for the first time in years I swam under water without plugging my nose because I decided it was best to progress with my swimming. Really, standing around has gotten old. 

I did it because I jumped, I changed my direction, left my comfort zone, quit making excuses. 

Now to muster the bravery to keep it up, more jumping. Maybe tomorrow I will dive in the water. Thanks Lorena 

Here are some thoughts from the shower....

My best friend Mandy.

I'm sad we wern't in the same type pose, but switched spots, tender enough!

Once when I was living in Park Place our shower was unavailable, so Eric and Mandy were so nice to let me come over and bathe myself. I think this was the first time I noticed how neat and clean she is. There was just enough shampoo/cleaning supplies for what she needed and nothing extra. The sink had soap and Eric's favorite Gold Bond lotion  (I made a link for this because I want to make sure that everyone knows that it is indeed an awesome lotion for your skin.) I am and was so impressed with how she keeps her home. 

I thought of this today in the shower when I counted how many bottles of things I have and Jack has in there. 4 bottles for hair care, Shaving creme, body wash, loofah , razor, wash cloth and then 1 hair and 1 body bottle +loofah. I thought "Mandy's shower doesn't look like this."

The more I thought about Mandy and her cleanliness, the more I thought of all the extra things I have vs. her. The amount of clothes, makecup, hair stuff; I guess stuff in general. Then I thought of her simple personality as well. How she doesn't seem to complain, and she is very good about keeping her business to herself or just those that she feels she should know. 

Once I made a big mistake and gave her a skunk streak when highlighting her hair. She was very forgiving, especially since we really weren't best friends then. 

And now a list of things that I like about Mandy:

Her love for pink

Her simple, direct and effective parenting style

Her ability to look at a situation for the pros and cons

also to deduce the next best solution

Her efficientcy on the phone

Her talent in quickly solving problems

Her taste in music, clothes, baby clothes and kitchen untencils

How she likes gilmore girls and our discussions we have about the show

Her googling ability (saved me a few times)

Her williness to jump to help when needed

Midnight Harry Potter movies

Her smile

Her family (it's not her, but I do like them)

Her collection of flip flops

Her need to use a lot of pillows-in conjunction the way she sleeps (or slept, it's been a while) on them

The way she rolls her eyes

The way she celebrates "whoot-whoot"

The way she cooks

How she gives directions

Our matching movie popcorn shirts

How she was the only one (and eric) to give me real bystander advice when it came to a few decisions I've made in the past couple of years

How she still cared about me just as much when I gave her the immature "I know what I'm doing"

How she let me live with her for like a year

How she fed me durring that time too

Her name

I especially like how much I like being her friend

so this ode to Mandy, the bestest best friend I have had. Happy Birthday!

Um...I just figured out that a crazy girl I once knew somehow works for/with my uncle? hmmm....Rachel, Megan, Lillian, Chelsea I think you'd remember her. I don't feel anything but uncomfortable. 

The Ween-o-Rama

I am embarrassed that I have never blogged about this. I am proud, I just didn't realize that I never recorded it. 

two years ago I participated in a competition called queen o the ween. I beauty pageant held at the ween o rama. 

With help I made this dress out of a giant roll of shrink wrap. It took about 5 hours. This was the dress and questions section. 
This was my talent. I ate a hot dog like a turttle. This talent has not been shared very often since. Most importantly, my husband has never seen it. 
I had a big group of support. I think this might be an outing that Ruby went to and could be added to Sara's list. 
This is when I won.

This was my competition. It was tough, but I pulled through in the end. 

I was one of the best experiences of my life! Wouldn't you know it's going on again this year. Click Here to check out the website for more details. There is a little pic of me on the site as well. Even a button with my picture as the watermark. 

If any of you have a chance to attend, I would encourage you. It's a wonderful way to spend an afternoon!

Coolest things

Lately I keep seeing some really cool things. Later tonight I will be seeing terminator. I think it might end up on my coolest things list, so I hope I am not disappointed. 

I got to go hang out with some of the other wives at the park yesterday. It was fun. We got to go downtown in greenville to a cool place called falls park. On the way back we walked past this cool little bike shop. This one was $400. Maybe after I pay for everything else, I will buy this. Cool!

Greetings!

We are still alive. And to be quite honest, really liking it here. We are liking it so much that as a WE, we would like to tell you about our experiences together. Thus, you should go here to check it out. 

Pool party and a BBQ

Well our office has been doing rather well here in sunny Greenville. To celebrate we had a shindig at our complex's pool. The food was great, and so was the entertainment. As you can see there was a basketball game. On the side for those that didn't want to participate with them there was a yoga ball that was too cool to leave alone. View the videos so really capture the magic.


Jack was happily watching, and I was happily watching him. 

New Surroundings

Thinks are going well here. Oh boys it's been quite rainy! But my job doesn't really require me to go anywhere. I sit in the office all day and schedule installations. 

However, lucky for me I am not all on my own. I would like you to all meet my assistant Nygil. 

As you can see he is very helpful. A cross between a pig and a cat, he spends most of the day reminding me of his presence by snoring next to the wall. 
But all is well and at least I am not lonely!

South Carolina, we made it!

Well we made it! Here is a view of the land and about where we live. We are only 6 miles from the airport so really this is about it. 

It seemed like every plane we got on got smaller and smaller. Yeah there were only 2 seats on our side and one on the other side. 
We were getting bored, but we wanted to document the beginning of our trip!
Before we left we stopped at my Aunt and Uncle's house. That day their daughter Emma had brought home their class assignment of re-creating the farmer and his wife picture that most are familliar with. However, they were supposed to turn it into an Easter style picture. I think my favorite is the carrot ears. 
This is Emma. Yes, we all decided the picture was a little disturbing, but yet creative. 
We took miss jenny with us to the storage unit. She now is gaurding the unit. We figure if someone tries to steal all of our stuff, then they deserve to pee their pants in fear. 
This is what our trunk looked like before we shipped it out here. It was totally full. Oh and yes of course when we got here the car had to be jumped. Isn't that awsome. 
We got a good deal because they ran out of smaller units so ours was huge. We may consider moving in. Our friends Heather and Will came to help us out. That is Will in the background.
The last day of work we had some fun with the camera. This is one of my jobs to take the C-section biohazard cart down to the processing center. I get to go in the operating room to retrieve it and mop up a little. So obviously I get to dress up a little. 
This is Heather. She and I worked on the Labor and Delivery floor together. We had a whole heap of fun playing with color. 

Moving

We have decided to move. Jack has an oportunity to work with a mission buddy/ies selling security systems this summer. So in about two weeks we leave for South Carolina. The company is shipping our car out for us and then flying us out there. We are pretty excited to move, live in the south, have a change. But no worries we will be back, and we will keep you updated on our happenings!

Trying to keep up

Seems like everything gets so busy at the end of the semester, even if you aren't in school. For Jack and I, well Jack describes it as "Friday I will have a life again." This is only partially true for he still has finals at the end of the month, but whatever. 

First of all, I took a picture of a picture so I could post to all the world that Becca did in fact reach her goal for the wedding jumping picture! Not only that but she looks really good doing it!  

We had a chance to go to Jack's mission reunion. It was pretty entertaining. We met some unique people. The mission pres. wife spoke which was pretty good. 

We also had a chance to use our mini-slider from Mary and Braxton. Because it was such a unique gift we felt like it deserved a spot on the blog. It was so fun, and it came with recipies. The slider is a stove top mini-hamburger maker. SO COOL!

A few weeks ago my Grandpa Rice passed away. He was buried here near Logan so my family spent some time here for a few days. Here are a few highlights. Here is a link to the rest of them if anyone would like to have some.

Mostly I just wanted to post about how we got to the cemetery as they were digging the grave. I have never seen that so I tried to capture a few shots to share. I think the guys working were a little confused, the one looked like we had just driven by like he  was some safari atraction. Really, it was kind of like that. 

That's it! until next time!

Lauretta '09

I finished most of the general editing of Lauretta's pictures. I am embarrassed because it took so long. However, all those that would like to see her beautiful face over 100 times click here!

Being a cowgirl

When Jack and I first kissed he took me out on a sunrise horse back ride. It was very romantic and memorable. However, not many people know some of the un-romanticness of the experience. There were many, but I want to talk about one. 

He tried to kiss me on the horse, but the horse kept jumping around so we had to wait to get off. Well standing next to the horse it stepped on my foot. It hurt a lot because I was wearing converse type shoes and I may as well have been barefoot; I had no protection. 

For our wedding, I got these boots so I can develop my cowgirl skills. I am so excited about them. I wore them to the athlete center to tutor with my pink shirt. Even though my pants cover up the pink I still felt pretty dang cute. 

I thought about green ones and just plain brown ones. I figure these are more my style, and to be honest the pinkness about them makes being allergic to horses unimportant. 

My first week of being Married!

I am a married woman now. Here is a small capture of a few events that transpired over my first week of marriage. First of all Jack and I have spent countless min. calling eachother husband and wife, just to let it all sink in. Well our first activity being husband and wife was to go shopping for things that we needed....
We did treat ourselves to an awsome dinner on our honeymoon that had a shrimp cocktail, litterally.

I got to sign for the check as Amanda McKie for the first time, here is how I did
No we did NOT leave just an .18 tip. We had a gift card, gave the extra in the tip and left our own on the table. I did feel I had to justify that so we focus on the new name, not anything else in the picture.

We also arrived in Logan moments after the foot and a half drop of snow settled onto the ground. so we had to shovel our way to the garage because the car couldn't drive through massive amounts of snow. We would have parked it in the street, but Logan has a law that you can't durring the winter so the plows are sure to get through. So we made it in the house around 2 am.


We got an awsome Kitchen Aid from Jack's grandparents. So after our first trip to the temple as married people we made some pizza together. I did the dough. 
and sprinkled some cheese....
Jack prepared the toppings and set up an excelent dining area.

Our pizza and uh...breadsticks turned out great. We've decided that this would become a regular activity.
I had to work while Jack was on spring break. So I would come home for a nap. Jack was nice enough to make sure that I was comfortable. 
For our one week anniversary Jack made shrimp, lobstertail and fet. alfredo with french bread for me to come home to and enjoy. It was an awsome treat!