Tuesday, June 3, 2008

Sammy's Graduations

So Sunday was my younger brother Samuels seminary graduation.

It was a pretty last minute thing, they only finalized it the week before, so we all went to Draper to see Sam.
It wasnt too long and they had light refreshments after, which was good !



Us with Sam at his Seminary Graduation

Then on Tuesday Sam graduated from High School. The graduation itself was held at UVSC, and there were 3 other schools graduating in the same building on the same day, so it took forever to get in to see him graduate.


There was about 800 kids in his graduating class and it took about an hour to read all the names. After the graduation Sam wanted to go to Chuckarama to eat, so we indulged him and went there.
Its hard to believe he has grown up so fast, I rememeber when he was 6, I think in my mind he is still 6, a little boy sucking his thumb with his sponge.
He is the 6th child in our family of 9 children and he is a big baby ... hahahaha Sam you know you are.

But seriously Sammy, you are a hard worker, and we are sure you will go far in life and achieve all your goals, we are proud of you AND we love you !!


Us with Sam right after they walked up from their seats

Monday, June 2, 2008

Phone SCAM !!

My sister signed up for every competition and prize drawing at the Bridal Fair we attended at the Grand America at the beginning of the year.
The funny thing was she actually won a few things, so when she got the phone call from the "Resort Stay" competition telling her she had won 2 round trip tickets and 2 nights 3 days for any place in the continental US she thought it was legit.
She had won other things that were legitimate so why would this be any different ?
The only catch to this was she had to be between 25 and 75, so since she is 21 she asked if I could get her trip.
The guys said yes, and she gave him my number.
So Friday I got a phone call from some guy telling me my sister had given her AMAZING trip to me, free flights and free lodging and I would get that in the mail.
BUT if I agreed to go to a presentation I would get a free weeks lodging in Hawaii and a free week in Vegas.
It sounded good to me, I wasn't really paying much attention to what he was saying because I was getting dinner for my younger siblings and son, so my lie discerning skills weren't up to par at this particular time.
Anyway, I gave the guy my email address, where he said he would send me a confirmation email with all the details of my BIG WIN.
I barely read the email, just kind of skimmed over and briefly told Stephen about it, from the beginning it didn't sound right to him.
He read the confirmation email and he the things I was promised over the phone, weren't even mentioned on the email, so he was VERY skeptical.
They told us Sunday was the only day we could go, so we scheduled it for Noon on Sunday in Park City.

Every month from about the 5th to the 14th is Stephens busy time, he can't plan anything because he HAS to be at work, and since June 6th is my birthday, and I'm pretty big on celebrating myself,we decided to go to Zooms in Park City, a restaurant we love, and do some shopping. I'm pretty sure the only reason Stephen even agreed to go was because he knows how much of a pain I would be if I didn't get something good for my birthday, I'm spoilt and a little pathetic, I know and I don't care, I LOVE PRESENTS !!!

So we checked online and found out Zooms is only open from 10:30am to 2:30pm for there lunch block, so we figured we could go to this presentation, which was supposed to be 90 mins, and then get some lunch before heading to the outlets.

We got to the place they were having the presentation at about 10 mins to 12, they had told us to be a little early so we could fill out the paper work.
The email had also said we need to have 2 forms of id so they could make sure we were who we said we were, freak, we should have asked them for some id.
So we walk to the front desk, where a women and a man are sitting.
They give us some paper work to fill out, nothing too personal, so we sit on this couch and start filling the paperwork out.
This girl, who we will call LIG (little informative girl) who looks about 12 or 13 kind of stands by the couch while Stephen is filling the paper work out, and as he finishes Stephen asks me if we should go over to them and ask about all the things we were promised.
So he goes to stand up and take the clipboard with the papers to the desk, and the LIG is like, I can take that for you, so she takes it into this room and she goes back to the desk to sit by the lady who gave us the paper work in the first place.
Stephen and I get up to go and ask the lady about all the things we were promised.
So we're sitting there telling the lady what I was told over the phone, and she is staring at us blankly, while we're explaining everything, the LIG pipes up in her professional voice, " Unfortunately. this has happened to a number of people, in order to get your flights you have to attend the 90 min presentation. The week in Hawaii is an upgrade, but you will receive your week in Las Vegas in the mail. "
After the LIG explains all this, I'm looking at Stephen like, are you kidding me ? This LIG is explaining this stuff to me and the woman sitting there has no idea what is going on.
What the crap ?

20 mins goes by and we are still sitting there, I'm getting anxious because I want to make sure we get to Zooms to eat and they are running late, Stephen gets up to tell the woman behind the desk that we need to leave by 1:30pm and he inquires what time this thing is getting started, and she has no idea, the LIG tells him that it takes 20 mins for them to set everything up so it wont be starting for a little bit longer. Then she walks in the back, I'm sure to tell them that we are needing to leave in a little while.

They come out and the get us and the 3 other couples who are waiting and they take us into this conference room, where we listen to this salesman do his pitch on Time Shares.
Since I have no idea what Time Shares really cost I'm not thinking much of what they are saying, hell the only reason we are there is to see if we get a free trip !
So this man is explaining how Geo Holiday, the name of the Time Share company, has been around for 20 years and I'm looking at the posters and everything set up thinking, I'm sure you've been around for 20 years, your posters are from the 80's.
They put on a 12 min dvd which confirms they are an 80's company, the presenter has an open shirt with a gold chain and a ton of chest hair, and as we're watching it, I'm cracking up laughing, so rude, I know.

After the 12 min video they send each couple off to a sales rep to go over all of the packages.
I think the little girl told them we had to leave because the guy we get acts like hes super busy, and give us some questionnaire to fill out, and tells us he has other customers to attend to and then walks in the back.
I'm thinking hes acting, that its his sales pitch to act like hes super busy so if we're not interested we can just fill out the questions and then leave.
So we fill out the questions, and he walks back and asks if we have any questions, I shrug my shoulders because all I'm thinking about is eating, and Stephen asks to see what the packages are, he just wants to have a look at some prices.
So he shows us a plan that is $30,000.00 and then tells us hes going to get the basic price list.
When I see the $30,000.00 I'm pretty bewildered, I don't know what I thought Time Shares cost but there is no way we are going to pay for that, we barely take holidays, and when we do, we usually get hook ups on where we stay, whether its hotels, vacation rental properties or if we stay with someone.
The guys walks out with his numbers, I think the cheapest one was $28,000.00 and I just busted up laughing in his face.
I'm thinking our cars aren't even worth that much, we've taken like 2 actual vacations in the 5 years we've been together ( I don't count going somewhere for a wedding or a funeral as a vacation, since its not really relaxing OR for me) so why would we pay $300 a month or whatever it is to get something like this ?
At this time we can tell the sales guy is getting a pretty pissed at us.
Stephens asking questions like hes interested and I'm just thinking to myself forget this place, you want my credit card details for $300 + a month, you have a LIG as a customer service person, and your 80's dvd's are just killing me. So unless I want my identity stolen or credit card fraud or something, forget it.
So Stephen and the sales guy are talking, and Stephen starts letting him down, telling him how we barely go anywhere and when we do we look for deals, and sometimes we are lucky enough to get a hook up.
The sales guy, who is pretty annoyed starts asking Stephen when hes going to man up and take care of things himself, after he says that, I'm so over it I say to Stephen lets go, and Stephen tells the guy we're not interested.
He tells us to go get our free gift at the front desk and he walks off, so we go to the reception desk and the LIG gives us the mail in form, she explains how we redeem the flights and lodging and then we leave.
As we are walking out, at 1:20pm, we see this other young couple and there faces just drop when they see we have left, we can tell they just want to get out of there, but they weren't as rude as we were.

We're laughing as we are leaving, just at how random and ridiculous the whole thing was, and now I'm stoked to go to Zooms.
We get to Zooms just to find out, its booked out for a business function and it will be open for dinner for the public at 5pm.

I was pretty bummed out about this, so we went to the outlets, got some clothes for Mana and our new baby, a couple of things to cover my ever expanding belly/body, and then we went to The Cheesecake Factory, where we ate a ton and loved it !

Such a random day.

Thursday, May 22, 2008

Happy Birthday Ama !


Us at Bucca Di Bepo, way to push Daddy Mana.

Us with most of my family


Mana and Ama
My little sister Bronte, and my brother Sam

So my mum is pretty much the greatest there is. And today was her birthday, so we all went out to Buca Di Bepo, and ate a crap load of food, it was so tasty.

Mana spends every day with his grandma, he loves her so much.


Every day when I finish work and go to take Mana home, he will pull on of the little tricks hes learnt.

Sometimes he tries to hide, sometimes he will just fight, it just depends on the day.

Any time we go over to my parents house, Mana will run inside and wave goodbye to us, or if he is sad he will always go to my mum before either of us.


So, Happy Birthday Mum, we love you !

Tuesday, May 20, 2008

Baby #2

So, when I was pregnant with Mana I was hoping for a girl.
I have six brothers and two sisters, and I really just hopped we would have a girl.
All up until the ultrasound, Stephen kept saying he didn't care either way, as long as it was a healthy baby.
When we finally went in for the scan to find out what we were having, I was lying on the table and the technician was showing us everything, she tapped my stomach slightly to open the babies legs, and when she did that I asked her if it was a boy, and she said yes.
I was pretty overwhelmed, and was pretty teary eyed, I mean I was excited that everything went well and that it was a healthy baby. But I had been hoping for a girl.
Stephen who had pretty much remained quiet the whole time, and had told me he didn't care as long as it was healthy, was stoked it was a boy.
He jumped up and was like, "Yeah, its a boy. I lied and said I didn't care, I wanted a boy, in your face !"
Sensitive isn't he ?
It was pretty funny though.

Fast forward to this pregnancy, even though this time we were both hoping for a girl, Stephen said he thought it was a boy, I wasn't sure, but I had a feeling it might be a boy.
And today at the scan, when the little legs opened, I saw the same thing I saw last time ...
WE ARE HAVING ANOTHER BOY !!

Also found out we are a week earlier than previously thought, so Happy Birthday Stephen, our baby is due September 24th, your birthday.
If hes lucky we will have our baby the day after, just like we had Mana the day after our anniversary.

Thursday, May 15, 2008

Two Dates in Two Days with my Two Loves !!

So Stephen and I have been super busy lately.
Stephen hasnt had a day off in the last two weeks and I've been working a ton of overtime lately, I know I previously blogged about this, so I wont bore anyone with the details, but because of my guilt about the busyness, I decided it was time to take my husband and my son out on dates !
Wednesday Night Stephen and I went to South Jordan to run some errands and go to the movies.
We always go to the movies at The District in South Jordan, we go there because they have huge theatres, they have lots of different places to eat so you can take your chinese food, or whatever it is you decide to eat AND there seats are memory foam, so its really comfortable !
We saw Forbidden Kingdom, which I thought was lame, but it was nice that it was just the two of us.
I dont remember the last time it was just the two of us, we always seem to take my younger siblings, or go out with people, we never just take the time for us, so it was a nice night.





Thursday was a day for Mana and I.
I decided to take off from work and spend some time with Mana.
We meet Jenny and Carlos at Kangaroo Zoo, which is a playarea place that has about 10 different blow up bouncy castle things, and it was alot of fun !



Mana was a little apprehensive at first, and it didnt take him long to start jumping around and sliding.
It was cute, he had the best time !!
Mana had the HUGEST grin on his face the whole time, I loved seeing my son enjoying himself so much.
A big thank you to Jenny for taking Mana on the big slide and pretty much everything, it was a little hard to manuoever on those things with my big belly.
We spent a couple of hours there, with the boys running and playing and just having a blast.
Then Mana and I went over to Maggie Moos for ice-cream.
It was empty so it was just the two of us, which made it that much nicer for me.
For me, a mum who works full time, this was the BEST way to spend the day.
I very rarely get to take our son out to do things just for him.
Usually on weekends we run errands, visit with friends or family, or clean the house.
So for me to spend time with Mana, doing something he loved, was I think a more special day for me than it was for him.












Monday, May 12, 2008

Mothers Day 2008

Mothers Day was a nice day.


Stephen and I went to the breakfast buffet at Little America with my parents, my brother and his wife and my sister and her fiance.


It was nice, the hour long wait wasnt nice, but the food was good, then we came home and I had a sleep.


Having a sleep in the middle of the day is probably the best present I could get, since I've been crazy busy at work.


I got a cute maternity top from Stephen and Mana which is a big thing for me since I wouldnt wear maternity clothes last time I was pregnant, why ? I dont know, I'm lame like that.


But as usual I sent Stephen a list of things I wanted, about 10 things, or maybe more, and he picked out something good, so I got something I wanted either way.


And we got some out door furniture, so pretty soon it will be time to have a barbeque in our yard. YAY !


Stephen and I witk my sis and fiance, parents and bro and sis in law.


Mana and I and my sweet 5 month pregnant pot, looking more like 9 months

Tuesday, May 6, 2008

Sick Mana


Lately Mana has been sick.

It snows, he gets sick, we spend the next 3-4 days taking care of him, he starts to get better, it snows again, and he is sick again.

For the last 3-4 weeks its been this way, our poor son tries to hard to sleep with us when he is sick.

Anyways, we woke up a couple of days ago to Mana calling out to his Father.

All we could hear over and over again was "Dada, Dada" for a couple of minutes.

So, Stephen went into Mana's room to lie down with him and Mana climbed on top of his father and went back to sleep.

Our son is a little heavy for me at the moment, so its nice that more and more all he wants is his Dad.