Fishing Pictures

Here are the fishing pictures that I promised from our trip to Montana!

Grandpa and Ian

This was one of the biggest fish I've seen in a long time - Grandpa helped Ian reel it in! It's still in our freezer waiting to be eaten (I won't be eating it, but Jeff and Ian will).

Ian and his cousin Emilie

Big Sky Country

The kiddos and I headed to Montana last week to see my parents and my brother and his family. This was our first trip to see them since they moved there about a year and a half ago. The drive to see them before their move was a short 5 hour drive, but this trip was 12 hours. I was nervous going to a place I'd never been to before by myself with the kids, so I prayed really hard that everything would go smoothly and it couldn't have gone any better (on the way there). The kids were so excited and got up early in the morning and were wide awake the whole trip, with no naps, I didn't really expect Ian to take a nap, but I thought for sure Morgan would konk out, but they were just too excited. Our portable DVD player broke and I had planned to have them watch movies for a good portion of the way, so I was not prepared with enough toys and books.


We had a fun visit and went out to the lake with my brothers boat that he bought on eBay last year. He has had a ton of trouble with it, and was nervous about taking it out, it stalled on us a couple of times, so instead of being stranded out in the middle of the lake he decided to take it in. The next day he went a bought a brand new boat with all the bells and whistles, so we took it out for F.H.E. on our last night there and went for a ride and found a nice beach and cooked hot dogs and smores. During our visit we also went swimming at an outdoor pool in a very small town. Ian went fishing with his grandpa, and didn't catch any fish on the first outing, but the second outing was a big hit (pictures will be posted later of the fishing trip, they are on my parents camera, and I'm waiting for my mom to send me the pictures.) I had a great time visiting with my mom and going through some of Nana's jewelry (she passed away last September). I also brought home a set of her china, a picture of France that she and my grandpa had bought on one of their trips their, and an anniversary clock.

Our trip home was not quite as pleasant as the trip their. Morgan was grumpy from the beginning of the trip and bothering Ian something fierce. When I threatened to stop the car, and have them both walk (isn't that was parent's are supposed to do on a trip), they settled down for a little bit, but it didn't last too long. That darn DVD player :(. Morgan didn't fall asleep until Idaho Falls (9 hours into our trip), and by this time I was in the midst of a meltdown too. Next time I will make sure that I have a working DVD player and more toys and books, and hopefully Jeff can come with us too.

Enjoying the ride to Montana

My youngest sisters girls were there for a visit, we had a girls day out!

Morgan's first boat ride - she LOVED it!

This was on the old boat

The new boat!

Mom ready for her turn on the new boat

My brother and his family - and Morgan

The older kids playing in the lake

Eating 'Smores

Morgan being silly on our way home

Of course Ian had to be in on the silliness too

And...finally she's out!

Stay tuned for the fishing pictures...you won't believe how big they were!

Our 4th!

We had a fun 4th of July this year (celebrating on the 3rd). A couple days before the 3rd, I had decided that I should try running a 5K on my treadmill. I did it with no problem so I thought that it would be fun and a huge motivator for me to do the West Jordan 5K on Saturday morning. Now, I think I'm hooked and will continue to do a few 5K's and work my way up to a 10K and my goal is to run the half-marathon next summer in my home town. After the race we came home and got ready to go to the West Jordan parade. This was our first time going to the parade, since moving here. The kids had a blast running out for the candy and we enjoyed watching the floats. We (Jeff and I) came home and had a nap, and then I got things ready for our BBQ with my sis and her fam. Later that night we went and watched the fireworks in the Murray High School Stadium, we didn't have to get their super early and it didn't take us forever to get out of there.

Here are some pics from our day:

waiting for the parade

this was Morgan's favorite float - she loved all the "princesses" she saw in the parade

Morgan helping smash strawberries for homemade strawberry ice cream

finished product - too bad I'm staying away from sugar!

fun in the sprinklers

the boys cooking on the grill - see all those veggies!

the girls on their blanket having their picnic


the boys on theirs - nice face Ian!

Summertime Fun

For F.H.E. on Monday night, I thought it would be fun to come up with some fun activities that we could do this summer as a family. We put our ideas on paper cut them out and Morgan decorated the outside of the jar with stickers. My plan is to have 1 or 2 days a week where we pick an activity (pending good behavior). It'll be fun to see what activity the kids draw. Here are some of our activities that we came up with:

Liberty Park
Park
Church History Museum
Temple Square - they have a replica of the Salt Lake Temple that we really want to go see
Wheeler Farm
Water Park
Discovery Gateway - We have a free pass from Ian's school
Planetarium
Aquarium
Zoo
Red Butte Gardens
Thanksgiving Point
Bees Game - We planned which day we are going to do this one
Craft Day
Movie
Bowling
This is the Place Heritage Park

Of course some of these we'll do only once and some we'll do a few times. I hope this will keep my kids on track to get chores done and have good attitudes this summer.

Just like any other job, my job has some interesting quirks. As some of you may or may not know, I work as an independent contractor for Liveops, taking inbound sales and customer service calls. I've been doing this at home since 2002 and have had some pretty interesting/funny/annoying/rude and totally disgusting calls. So as a way to remember some of them, I thought I'd share a couple of my latest calls.

Homeland Housewares Magic Bullet is a product that I take calls for a lot and this one was by far one of my weirdest and creepiest calls.

me: thank you for calling homeland housewares, my name is jayleen, to insure proper handling and quality assurance this call will be recorded, may i continue?

Caller: yes (in a very soft voice), hi, how are you?
me: I'm good how are you?
caller: great
me: that's great to hear, are you calling for the special tv offer where you can get a magic bullet free?
caller: yes
me: great, well let's get your order started, may I have your first and last name?
caller: well before we get started I just wanted to let you know, that you have a lovely voice.
me: Thank you
caller: I typically order a lot from infomercials and last year I spent over $6000 on infomercial products
me: wow, that's a lot of money, you must believe in all those products that you see, that's great to hear
caller: last year I bought 200 of the same item and all gave them to my neighbor ladies, because they all love me, and I love them.
me: that was nice of you
caller: you REALLY do have a nice voice, I like the ladies voices, they are usually soft.
me: thanks again
caller: ok, what do you need next? and can you speak really soft, because if you do, I'll more than likely order a bunch from you.
me: ok, may I have your credit card billing address starting with the zip code please
caller: can you talk a little softer, almost whisper to me?
me: no, I cannot I'm sorry, I'm talking as soft as I can
caller: just try and whisper
me: sorry, no I'm not going to whisper

At that point I hung-up and logged the call as prank/obscene. I wasn't about to cater to his fetish of listening to a woman whisper to him, I thought it was creepy and weird.

On the same day I got a call from an older lady that was so full of herself, I'm surprised she could fit her head through her front door. The product that she called in for was called Youthology, it's a wrinkle removing eye serum that is said to diminish bags under the eyes, and make crows feet vanish. She kept telling me over and over and over that she was in her mid 70's, hardly had any wrinkles and was rather striking. She said a lot of people told her she looked like Elizabeth Taylor. She insisted on telling me that she was a former model, and her skin was so soft and supple that nobody EVER believed that she was in her 70's.

When people call in to order products I have to read my script verbatim and most scripts have upsells, and this particular script and just a few, so I knew that as much as she was talking about how drop-dead gorgeous she was, that it would be a long call. I continued with my upsells, but only to hear how she didn't need the wrinkle serum for around her mouth, or why she didn't need the masque and moisturizing cream, because she was so amazed at how wonderful she looked. I bet after we ended the order she went and starred at herself in the mirror.

And then there's the occasional person who can spell their own name and speaks with a very thick backwoods Alabama accent, or who has their TV blaring in the back round and had 10 kids screaming, and then they have the nerve to ask me to speak up, hmmm, do you think you could turn your kids and the TV off before calling me?

After all these years I've developed a thick skin for people that are annoyed at me from reading my required upsells. I'm becoming more and more irritable at the people who literally have no clue, are rude and talk to me as though I'm the stupid one. But, I am very thankful for the opportunity that I've had to work from home all these years. When I look at outside jobs, there's no comparison, this job is always the winner.

Bubbles

I'm tired of my daily routine, but I don't know how to switch it up or how to stop worrying about the stuff that I have no control over. You know the saying, "don't sweat the small stuff", that saying was developed for me. Yesterday I was having one of those poor-pitiful-me-days. So, I decided that I was going to go outside and blow bubbles with Morgan and try and forget about the vacuuming, dusting, laundry, etc. But, I wasn't able to, while in the back yard blowing bubbles. I had all those "do to" things on my mind. Don't get me wrong, I had so much fun with her teaching her how to blow bubbles, and watching her squeal and laugh as she was chasing them around, but I couldn't forget about my list. It really makes me sad, and I know I'm not the only one that struggles with this, I'm sure 99.9% of all moms do. I want to be a fun mom, I want my kids to look back and remember that I played and laughed with them, but it's so much easier said than done. So, when I'm having a down day, I'm going to try and remember to play more and worry less. I'm going to put playing with my kids on my to do list, because if I don't, I know it won't get done. Today I'm going to sit down and color and read with her, because those are her favorite things, I'm going to try and worry less about my work schedule, and cleaning schedule. Life is too short to worry about those things that are always going to be there. My kids won't be small forever, but my housework is here to stay, darn I wish it could be the other way around. I'm going to be more grateful that my Heavenly Father has trusted me to be their mother.

Happy Birthday Sweet Girl

Our sweet Morgan is now 3. She knew her birthday was coming up for quite some time. She would say "Morgan birthday in May". She knew she was going to have a princess themed party with cake and Ice Cream, but didn't quite understand everything involved with her birthday or what it meant.

When I got home from shopping for her presents, she saw the wrapping paper and asked what it was for, so I told her it was to wrap her birthday presents, then she told me it was Christmas time. She got mad at me because I was trying to tell her it was for her birthday presents and she was insisting it was Christmas time.

Some of Morgan's favorite things are, everything princess, princess movies, princess pajamas dancing like a princess and princess dress-up clothes. Tigger and Pooh, Mickey Mouse Club house, reading books and singing songs. She insists on doing everything herself. "Me do it" or "Morgan do it" or "Me do it Meself" It's a little frustrating for both of us especially when we are in a hurry.

HAPPY BIRTHDAY MORGAN!

Jeff has a friend at work that is very artistic and talented and recently started making cakes, she volunteered to make Morgan's birthday cake this year. It turned out so cute