awesome giveaway

HEY YOU, party lovers... check out this new blog i've stumbled upon!  SOMEONE OUT THERE HAS an amazing love for get-togethers, and gathers all these FUN AND CREATIVE IDEAS so we can have our own spectacularly stylish soirees.  and they're having an awesome giveaway, too!  so scoot on over there, and CHECK THIS OUT.  and if you enter and win it, you're welcome, and yes -- you'll have to let me borrow it!

    

pretty girls

I LOVE THIS PICTURE best friend sent me, and i decided it's blog worthy.  look at us.  AREN'T WE'RE JUST PRETTY SADIE LADIES?  this is what sets of BEST FRIENDS looks like as we GROW OLD TOGETHER.  marianne and martha are sisters, and this was taken during marianne's last visit to utah.  from left to right, COCO & MARIANNE, who have been best friends forever, and ME & MARTHA, who have been friends even longer than that.  and how fun it is; I LOVE THESE GIRLS.   as the saying goes... "amigos, ouro e vinho, quanto mais velho mais fino".
(FRIENDSHIPS ARE LIKE GOLD AND WINE - THE OLDER THEY GET, THE MORE REFINED).

girls retreat

EVERY YEAR a group of US GIRLS leaves children and husbands behind and DISAPPEAR TO A CABIN owned by one of our friends.  our slice of heaven is near oakley, utah, and we spend a whole 24 hours away from it all, IN THIS ENCHANTED FOREST of a place.

this was the first year i wasn't working during the retreat, so i was able to get there early enough on friday (the last two years my sister and i arrived around midnight due to our work schedules).  WE got to ENJOY a few extra HOURS OF FUN, and i've decided i'm getting there early every year from now on.  totally worth it! :)

during our hike

i went for QUIET WALKS, watched bambi grazing just a few yards away from me, played some HILARIOUS GAMES, laughed until i got wrinkles from it, hiked a fun trail, read a great book, star gazed (it just so happens that we caught the meteor shower that night), did some inner searching, ate a killer slice of CHOCOLATE CAKE, chatted with girlfriends, did YOGA, AND embarrassed myself playing JUNK IN MY TRUNK.  YOU'VE NEVER HEARD OF IT?  well, if you don't know what that is LOOK IT UP ON YOU TUBE.  ;)

(playing 'junk in my trunk'.  it was hysterical!)

historical diner in oakley, ut - we had to stop by on the way back and treat ourselves to milkshakes.  

trip to iowa

every time i look out of my in-law's front room window i think to myself "i can never, ever watch 'signs' out here".  WELCOME TO IOWA, the land of endless corn fields.  and my in-laws live out there, in the middle of nowhere, absolutely surrounded by miles and miles of corn and endless sky above.  it doesn't get much more out in the middle of nowhere than that.  and i'm a city girl through and through, but I LOVE BEING ABLE TO FLEE THE HUSTLE AND BUSTLE - their place is like a sanctuary to me.

THIS YEAR the sanctuary was quite busy.  THERE WERE PLENTY OF other FAMILY members at the inn.  :)

we had 4 out of the 6 married siblings out there, and although steven wasn't coming his wife amy was going to spend time there with their 2 girls.  so my kids got to enjoy what was almost a family reunion... 13 COUSINS WERE GATHERED, AND if we could have stayed an extra couple of days until amy got there it would've been 15 cousins all together.  we were only missing 5 more to complete the entire offen 3rd generation. 

too MUCH HAPPENED, so i thought it would be less boring for me to just list the many activities we were engaged in during the week we spent with scott's family:

THE KIDS... 

didn't notice the humidity

were mystified by the beauty of fireflies

WENT CRAZY on the swing set

ran around the huge property

shot guns with grandpa

climbed trees

fed the chickens

gathered chicken eggs

killed a baby chick (only jonah, actually... but who's surprised?)

went canoeing

made pretzels

met their great-grandma offen for the first time

PLAYED in the grown up size doll house

laughed themselves silly

built cool things with lego's

played with bunnies

played with the dogs

befriended the pet goat (only jonah, actually... but who's surprised?)

made tie-dye t-shirts

made cookies

ate all their vegetables

danced in the rain

made up secret hideout places (only jonah, actually... but who's surprised?) 

played in the huge tepee grandpa set up for them

had water balloon fights

went to bed late AND got up early

found gross bugs in the yard

made cousin bracelets (which is better than plain matching bracelets)

LAUGHED themselves silly some more

watched fireworks

caught & released fireflies

cried because THEY DID'T WANT TO LEAVE... 

but do you blame them?  this was one of those weeks of magical childhood summer memories some of us just wish we'd had.  for that matter, I DIDN'T want to leave EITHER!  i was having a blast there, too!

besides hanging out with wonderful family, i was really enjoying being away from the busy life and the demands of my routine.  my in-laws live in this area surrounded by a bunch of little small towns, so even to go buy milk i had to get out on the road, and i ended up driving through the most beautiful and quaint little old towns.  i know to some people that may sound like the most boring thing on earth, but I REALLY DO SAVOR that slice of americana pie these little towns serve up.  it's so inviting to visit PLACES WHERE LIFE LOOKS SO SIMPLE and relaxed, and i couldn't help but take time to go back and walk through historic neighborhoods to better appreciate the charm of it's old brick buildings.

AND MY FAVORITE part of this trip...a little hiding place i nicknamed "THE READING NOOK".  as if life by the corn fields isn't peaceful enough, my in-laws have THIS ENORMOUS OLD TREE  in their back yard, WITH A PERFECT comfy SPOT big enough for me TO crawl up and CURL UP WITH A GOOD BOOK.  the kids can't reach it, it's too high for little ones to climb there.  so i hid there with a couple of good books and spent some much needed alone time.  IT WAS ABSOLUTELY PERFECT!  i love visiting them in the winter months for the holidays, but i have decided i can deal with the humid heat in iowa and venture there for as many summer visits as i can manage.

reunion

it's just so great every time you get a chance to have A REUNION with dear friends, and recently i've been lucky enough to experience that WITH A COUPLE OF AWESOME people i know.  i feel so lucky to have these FRIENDS in my life!  :) 

fun reunion with my CLOSEST COLLEGE GIRLFRIEDS, BROOKI AND WENDY.  man, we were like 3 peas in a pod, if there could be such a thing.  i remember when we had spring break one year, it felt like we had been apart for a month!  we missed each other so much!  then life happened and we hadn't gotten together for 12 years.  12 years!!!!  seriously, how is it that we wink then 12 years go by!?!

IT WAS PHENOMENAL to be able TO sit down with them and VISIT... THEY ARE still so AMAZING, both of them.  you know you're good friends when you can pick up right where you left off, AND things are still just as FUN.  :) 

getting together with FERNANDO AND FERNANDA CAMARGO.  i don't remember not knowing fernando.  i even have a picture someone took of me at his 1st birthday party.  so WE GO WAAAAAAAY BACK!  i hadn't seen him in 9 years.  to my sister and brother (also in the picture) this reunion was even cooler, because they hadn't seen fernando in 15 years!  IT WAS so AWESOME TO CATCH UP, him and his wife are hilarious!  we truly had a great time... WHAT A TREAT to have them visiting! 

programa de índio

portuguese idioms 101:
IN PORTUGUESE we use the expression 'PROGRAMA DE ÍNDIO', which when literally translated it means 'indian activity', or something along those lines.  not sure why that seemingly racist term was coined, but it's widely used even to this day.  i imagine it would have originated from back when the portuguese arrived in brazil and saw how the natives lived.  not much comfort in a hot and humid weather, they lived in homes made from banana leaves, they had to hunt their own food, i mean... why would anyone think that's a good idea???  it's not, and now the portuguese were stuck in the same situation.  i imagine some of them thought they should've stayed in bed instead of heading out to the docks the morning the captain decided to set sail and find a new land.  and that's the sentiment of the term 'programa de índio'.  the expression IS USED TO DESCRIBE ANY sort of activity that is A complete drag, feels like a waste of time, is INCONVENIENT rather than fun, is POORLY PLANNED, organized and/or executed.  a good example of a programa de indio ACTIVITY is spending your anniversary checking out a piece of property out in the middle of nowhere, walking in sandy terrain thoroughly covered with antelope's crap.

true story, i just did that the other day.

let me explain...
scott has a few friends who are interested in going in on a land deal.  they're thinking about buying this huge piece of property for recreational purposes.  it's near a lake, so it's at least a good investment.  they have been considering a couple of different options, and they've come to the point where they wanted to check out the lots.  so they proposed to do just that, going scouting for the advertised acreage they had heard about.  it just so happens that they decided to do that on june 12th, which happens to be mine and scott's anniversary.  it's also valentine's day in brazil, but that's just a cute detail, and is beside the point.

scott told me of the outing the boys were planning, and how long it would take... if WE JOINED them the plan was that we'd be picked up by 7:30 am and be back by 2 or 3 pm.  i'm a good sport, and i wanted to be supportive.  we would still have plenty of time to get back from this outing with FRIENDS and go out to celebrate our day, so i agreed to join the scouting trip.

the land itself was not at all what i had expected to see - in a bad way, unfortunately.  so i was disappointed that we had come out all this way TO CHECK OUT A LAND THAT, aside from the lake, RESEMBLED IRAQ in my opinion.  lots of oil rigs and sandy terrain.  evidently i was the only one who felt that way.  the other 9 people who were there with us thought the place was awesome.  scott loves the outdoors and when he saw the rocky formations in the area he was like  like a baby chick in a pile of left overs (another portuguese idiom, btw, that is used to describe people who are bugging out in excitement over something little and trivial.  if you ever saw a baby chick going through a pile of left overs you'd know exactly why this term was coined). but I HAD seen enough and had STEPPED ON ENOUGH antelope DUNG (it was literally e-v-e-r-y-where), so I WAS READY TO GO HOME. i felt like a true party pooper, which was ironic because there were obviously other creatures out there that were responsible for any poop we were dealing with.   

i won't get into all the details of the time we spent checking out the land, which was way longer than needed, but between getting lost from my husband, getting the car stuck in the sand, having the expectation we'd have lunch at a nice restaurant just to find out 45 minutes later it was a greasy food joint in a podunk town, trying to keep other people's dogs off my lap because they had actually eaten human feces while out in the wild, and almost getting killed in a head on collision against a semi truck because our driver had a blank brain moment and decided to pass a truck under zero visibility i think i can safely say THIS WAS about THE WORST programa de índio IDEA i've found myself in in a long time! AND ON MY ANNIVERSARY!

WE finally GOT HOME AT 6PM, i was super tired, and CRANKIER THAN MAXINE.  poor SCOTT was the one who felt my wrath - i was so upset and frustrated with my wasted day i didn't want to even look at him.  i felt bad, it wasn't like that day had been his fault.  once i felt like talking to him again we both expressed how frustrating that day had been, mostly because we had other plans.  so he PROMISED ME A HULLIGAN, and he's taking me out this coming weekend for a real celebration. i have the best husband in the world. :)

AS FOR THE darn PROPERTY...  i hated the experience so much that now i just don't want to buy the land.  partially out of spite, partially because i really didn't like that particular lot. but i took some pictures, and my pictures prove I really TRIED *very* hard TO SEE more BEAUTY than thorns in the place!  AND looking at these i can say I THINK I ACTUALLY SUCCEEDED.  we still want to invest in land, but i want to look around some more and do a lot more research about the location before we commit to anything.

lake view from the rim

scott super enthused  by a burned down gothic looking tree

wild flowers on the property

 cactus and flowers on the grounds

 juniper berries are throughout the 60 acres

what does it take?

this is a repost from my last blog (on multiply.com).  i had several people tell me they really liked what i wrote about my weight loss, so i decided i would post it here as well.  i won't be doing CAPS this time... every single word is valuable here.  ;)

(click on the title to see the entire post)

back to work

LAST YEAR I WORKED as associate producer FOR a show produced by byu broadcasting, THE GENERATIONS PROJECT .  associate producer is a fancy title that pretty much means i was their gofer, the one who gets to do whatever the producer and exec producer needed done.  i'd be the one making coffee if people drank coffee at byu broadcasting.  joking aside, i actually got to spend countless hours doing research and figuring out ways to enrich the stories with good content, contacted interesting participants, arranged for the shoots on location, coordinated the logistics of the episodes, etc...  but if they drank coffee, yes, that would've been my job, too.    

I HAD originally BEEN HIRED TO WORK ON A DOCUMENTARY ABOUT THE development and growth of the MORMON CHURCH in brazil, BUT THAT project GOT PUT ON HOLD so i got shifted around and became a part of the generations team.  i had the chance to go on production, which was insane and fun at the same time, but most of all i learned a lot about the structure of those programs.  i went in clueless and had a crash course that taught me tons.  i still have a world to learn, but after my experience with generations i felt a little less lost.

unfortunately the documentary project was still in limbo land when I WRAPPED UP MY CONTRACT WITH the GENERATIONS project, so i WENT BACK TO my full time job of BEING A MOM and a wife back in september of last year.  then A COUPLE OF MONTHS AGO I GOT A PHONE CALL from the line producer i had worked with, and she told me the GOOD NEWS: THE DOCUMENTARY WAS being considered TO BE SHOT, this time with a hard push to have it finished ASAP, and they wanted to ask me if i was still interested in participating.  HECK YEAH!  this documentary combines two things I LOVE deeply: the gospel and the people of brazil.  so i have a huge personal interest in BEING A PART OF SOMETHING SO CLOSE TO MY HEART. 

i spoke again with them this past week, and it seems this time things will really happen.  they've requested that i take a look at the script, where we left it off, and add any changes i see fit.  we'll flesh it out sometime in the next few weeks, and i'll be back at setting up the episodes (there will be between 3 to 4 hours of content).   

I'M EXCITED, of course, and hopeful that this time i'll have the chance to finish this project.  there are other personal projects on my horizon, so THIS IS THE PERFECT TIMING for the documentary to come together before i move on to other fun pastures i have planned for my life.

name mutiny

SO evidently THE NAME LIVIA MEANT for the new dog WAS NOT supposed to be 'POLO', BUT 'apollo' instead.  when she pronounced it to me it really sounded like polo, so that's where the mix up happened.  when scott got home from work i had mentioned to him settling on 'polo', and the kids and scott claimed no-no-no... APOLLO was what everyone preferred (to be honest, so did i).  we tried it out to see how THE DOG would react to going from a new name to an even newer name, and he seems to do just fine.  he IS CRAZY SMART!  scott worked all afternoon AND evening on training him, and he has ALREADY LEARNED to sit and stay on demand, HIS NEW NAME, AND we got him to just sit by the dining table like zoey does while we're having dinner (no begging for food or trying to eat off the floor).  i'm absolutely impressed by how quickly he is learning NEW things and TRICKS!!!  GO APOLLO! :)

apollo and zoey playing together... they are having a blast! 

dogs are like tatoos...

EVERYONE i know who has gotten a tattoo either hates it and WANTS TO get rid of it, or loves it and wants to GET ANOTHER ONE.  well, i've been permanently inked into the puppy world, and i was shocked to find out how much i loved it.  i was never a dog person, or pet person for that matter, and i'm honestly surprised to see something so settled inside me do such a 180 turn.

we started out by getting a tiny (now she's 5lbs -when wet - and she's done growing) sweet maltese puppy last july.  ZOEY is as loyal as she's smart, and we love her.  fast forward to end of may of this year...we  returned from a 2 week trip to arizona and realized my sweet little zoey became tremendously sad for leaving a play pal behind.  she was so down and i realized she missed and NEEDED the companionship, so i started looking for A permanent play PAL for her.

that's when I CAME ACROSS an ad on our local classifieds, of A DOG WHO NEEDED A NEW HOME because his owner lived in a no-pet apartment complex.  i didn't think i had a chance... the ad was 3 days old, and the asking price was so ridiculously low that i thought for sure he had been sold by then.  but i tried anyway, and it turns out his owner was still figuring out who to sell the dog to because she had an overwhelming response to her ad.  i talked to her briefly, then sent her a text letting her know about our family, our situation, and why we wanted the dog. she liked my situation the best out of all other people who had contacted her, so we set up a meeting to see how ZOEY would like her new friend.

and they LOVED each other instantly, so we brought OUR NEW LITTLE GUY home with us!  :)

i talked to his former owner about changing his name (it turns out i have a girl friend whit that name), and she was totally cool with it.  now the trick is to get him to answer to a new name.  livia came up with the name 'apollo', and i just tried calling him by that name. he answered immediately;  i'm really impressed!  SO NOW we have zoey and apollo living with us.  it was really hilarious when scott and i took him to petsmart to get him a crate, scott all of a sudden turned to me and said 'oh, my gosh, what were we thinking?!?  i can't believe that we just got another dog!'.  hahahaha... too late now, APOLLO IS HERE TO STAY! :)

meet apollo, our new dog.  he's a maltese/bichon frise cross breed, and yes, that's a smile on his face.  :)

he has an incredible personality!