Good Luck at the BAR!!

Justin,

I know that you probably won't read this tonight, but I just wanted to tell you good luck tomorrow!! You are going to do great! I love you so much and really miss you! One day down, two to go!!

I CAN'T WAIT UNTIL WEDNESDAY!!

Love you FOREVER!!

Jess

Home for another visit...

This past weekend, Justin and I were able to go visit my family. My brother, Jared, is leaving for the MTC on Wednesday and the family was getting together. We drove down on Friday (I drove while Justin studied...shocker!) and I spent the afternoon shopping with my Mom while Justin studied. That night we went to visit Justin's seriously cool cousin April, her seriously cool husband David and their super adorable baby, Breea. We had some Mexican food and played Ticket to Ride. It's a really fun game!!

April, David and Justin (April won...figures!)

Justin and Jess (I beat Justin!! Take that!!)

Saturday morning we had a great breakfast: bacon, hash browns and french toast. Then we all went to go see The Dark Knight. It was really intense! Justin loved it and I liked it but thought it was kind of scary...there were some parts I couldn't even watch. I had a headache at the end of the movie from clenching my teeth. Heath Ledger is the Joker and he's really creepy. After the show, we went to Uncle Craig and Aunt Wendy's house for a BBQ. Nice grilling Uncle Craig! We had lots of tasty stuff and some really chocolatey chocolate cake. Then we had to run back home and change for family pictures. Do you know how hard it is to get shirts for three girls that they all are OK with?? It's pretty much impossible, but we did it. Anyway, this really nice lady, Lisa was our photographer. We took pictures FOREVER...but hopefully they turn out. It's also very hard to get my brothers to sit still longer than like 5 seconds. We started taking pictures about 6:30 and got home about 9:00. This is a picture of my handsome husband and I on the back deck. He is SOOO CUTE! He works so hard and I love his guts!! LOVE YOU BABE!

Jess and Justin

Sunday, we went to church and listened to Jared speak. He did a GREAT job!! It was really weird to see him so serious. Usually he is so funny! He is going to be a great missionary. Good Luck buddy!! See you in two years! Love your guts!! He leaves for the MTC tomorrow!! So weird. We had a BBQ at our neighbor's house (they had a baby blessing and we had a "farewell" and since our families have been friends forever, we combined them...it was a great idea. There was tons of food!!) So we pretty much played the rest of the day...cards, lightning and the boys wrestled. Thankfully no one is dead...the rest of us watched just to make sure.

Jordan, Jared, Justin and my Justin...I don't know where Jason was.

McCall (my bros girl), Jen, Dad and Mom...and all the dogs watching Jen eat a hot dog.

Justin and I had to come home on Monday because Justin has to study. The bar is next week...I am going to be so glad when it's over. That's all Justin does...study, study, study. He can't wait until it's over, I can't wait until it's over and Dexter can't wait until it's over!!

Question

Do you think the bearded lady at the circus shaves her legs?

Older....and Wiser?

I am now a quarter of a century...Do you remember when you were a little kid and your birthday was one of the greatest days of the year. I used to get so excited and now it's just another day, but with cake! My birthday was on Monday and I was excited to spend the evening with Justin!! He had to study during the day for the bar and as our friend Tannith put it..."trying to remember why he thought this was a good idea." I went to the pool to enjoy some sunshine and a little bit later Grandma and Grandpa brought us cupcakes!! Thanks Grandma and Grandpa! We went out to dinner at a Thai restaurant in town and it was pretty good. I really miss the Mint Cafe in Cleveland!! We walked around downtown and looked in some of the shops. Then we came home and had some Coldstone ice cream cake...SOOO GOOD! It has peanut butter cups and a layer of peanut butter and chocolate ice cream and chocolate cake and the frosting is awesome - it's so rich and creamy.

Justin, you are my favorite husband! Thanks also to the Deb and Ben - I am pretty sure he remembered the cake we had at your house...SOOO GOOD!

Isn't he just so handsome!!

CAKE! Don't mind me, I look really weird in this picture.

My favorite husband also got me flowers for my birthday...daisies!
They are just so bright and happy! Thanks Babe - you are the best!

Another thing that is great about birthdays is that people call you! I love it when people call me!! Thanks family for the phone calls and the awe inspiring songs...you guys truly are amazing talents. I have already called David Letterman to try and book you...but I haven't heard back from him yet. I am sure that I will soon as I sent him a tape of your amazing singing! :)

HAPPY 4th of JULY!!

Happy 4th!!

God bless the men and women serving our country! God bless our veterans!! Thank you for all you have done!! God bless our founding forefathers! God bless the dudes who invented fireworks and the barbecue! We are so lucky to live in this great country!
Since we have moved to Idaho we have been really blessed to be closer to our families!! This is Grandpa Cranney. (Isn't he the cutest Grandpa??) Grandma and Grandpa invited us over for a barbecue with the cousins. It was great fun! We had burgers and all the "fixin's" on the deck. Nice grilling Grandpa!

Then we headed inside for a Nerf battle. It was chaos! There were people and darts everywhere.

Uncles and Aunts and Cousins!! (Some of the girls hid in the bathroom)

More chaos!! You can see that even Aunt Sally and Aunt Sara were in on the action.

Grandma and our cousin's cousin - I have to tell a funny story about our cousin's cousin. He is possibly the only person I know who has named his behind (I don't know how old he is - maybe 7ish??). His butt's name is Steve - which I guess is a very fitting name for a butt??

This is my favorite picture of the day. Tessa and Justin were having a battle in the living room and this is the best shot of the evening...

Nice job Girl!! It stuck to his head. Notice the 7 or so darts stuck to the window behind him?? We had a lot of fun!!

Then we went to the field at the church to launch water balloons and have some tasty dessert. Then we went back to Grandma and Grandpa's house for some fireworks!

Thanks Grandma and Grandpa, we had a great time!!

A Post by Dexter: Dear Howie B-Ham

Dear Howie,

I got the pictures you sent and I love them!! I really miss you - My BFF!!

We had some great times together - biting, chewing, and doing weird things I am not going to blog about.

Dexter and Howie (Christmas 2006)

If you are ever in Idaho, look me up and we can sniff butts or something.

Love,

Dexter

Random things for July 1, 2008

Here are some random things for today...

I decided to change my blog to something that feels a little more tropical... :)

I had to go do some personality tests for a job I am trying to get. (Thanks Angela - You are a super hero!) What exactly do they learn from personality tests?? Now they know I am a messy dreamer who has to write everything down otherwise I forget. What do they do with that information?? Hopefully hire me!!

Dexter man has been sick...ewwhh. I was up every two or so hours taking him outside...poor guy. I am not sure if it is the random plants he eats on our walks, the weird bone he picked up in the parking lot or the food we just switched him to. So just to make sure it wasn't his food...I did a little research on the Internet. They put some NASTY things in dog food...this is actually on the label of his dog food right now: Corn meal, CHICKEN BY-PRODUCT MEAL, Ground whole grain sorghum, chicken, dried beet pulp, chicken fat (preserved with mixed Tocopherois, a source of vitamin E)...and on and on with the nastiness. Basically, this is chicken neck dog food. We are switching to a good brand!! If I had only done a little research before. I am so sorry puppy!

Something I love today (besides my husband who is HILARIOUS!) is the color yellow.

We don't have cable - which I will have to admit...I don't really miss all that much with the exception of a few things. I love being able to watch What Not to Wear online!!

Why is it that there is some sort of weird satisfaction from peeling the shell off of a hard boiled egg? Kind of creepy, but I like it!

I really love Blik, which is a super cool collection of wall art, tee shirts and other random things.

My Thai Basil has sprouted and soon we will hopefully be able to eat it!! I really miss the Mint Cafe on Coventry!! Someone send me some Wild Boar Basil!! SOOO GOOD!

Something I was thinking about today is would I be willing to die for the things I believe in?? If it really came down to me being thrown into a big fire pit or denouncing my religion, what would happen? I would like to think that I would die willingly...kind deep for a post about how much I love the color yellow today. But it was something on my mind.

The Oven Rebellion

So my day started pretty normal. I took Justin to his bar review class this morning. Usually he walks to the bus and Dexter and I walk with him but he had alarm issues this morning. (He was still there an hour early to study.) So I decided to take Dexter to the park to play some doggie soccer since he didn't get his walk. The park was great and the weather was beautiful. Dexter was worn out and slept the rest of the morning.

I have been talking about making pumpkin chocolate chip cookies for a couple of days and decided that I was going to make them this afternoon. So everything was going normally until the cookies needed to come out of the oven. I can't tell you what happened but I ended up dumping the entire sheet of cookies into the oven. I have no idea what happened??? How do you dump a whole pan of cookies??? Especially ones with extra chocolate chips??? Maybe it's a sign that Heavenly Father wants me to eat fewer cookies and would rather that I hit the gym a little more? Or maybe my cookware doesn't get along with my new oven? Maybe they preferred our old gas stove with the dent in the top so everything slid to the middle? Maybe my new stove just doesn't like me because this is the second thing that I have dumped in the oven and we've only been here a month!!! Twice in one month and it has never been a problem before!

And if you will notice in the picture most of the cookies (with their extra chocolate chippy goodness) slid right down in the crack between the door and the oven. It took me about 30 -40 minutes to clean everything up. There was cookie and chocolate everywhere... I took this picture so that I could laugh about it later rather than crying at that moment. I am sure that someday this will be very funny...but today...not so much. Luckily, the rest of the cookies stayed in the pan. Take that OVEN!

King of the Pants

You are probably wondering why I have such a ridiculous title on my blog. But you will have to read to the end to find out. SORRY!

The weather here has been so nice. It has been sunny and hot! This week it was in the 90's...good thing we have central AC! As a reminder of how great this weather is, I just wanted to do a little reminiscing. Valentines Day 2007. We were snowed in...I couldn't (not just because I didn't want to...but really because I really COULDN'T) get out of our garage to go to work that day. We also got another huge storm this past winter and didn't leave the house all weekend. We are talking feet of snow people!! The very efficient Cleveland Snow Plow Team (1 man who works in 5 minute shifts every other Tuesday with his rusty shovel) never plowed the road in front of our apartment building...EVER! These are just a few of the reasons I am enjoying the hot, not humid Idaho summer! So BEAUTIFUL! Poor Dexter, someone threw him in a snow drift (I wonder who would do that????)

So a couple of weeks ago I was able to go home again and visit my family. Jared went through the Temple in Logan. It was pretty cool. I haven't been through the Logan Temple before!

Mom and Jared

Mom, Jared and Dad
(P.S. - I took a bunch of pictures of you three and there are about 2 pictures that are good. In the rest of them you are either talking or laughing or your eyes are shut! You kids are a little difficult!)

Ok, Now we come to the KING OF THE PANTS. Well really they are more like gym shorts, but for our purposes here today, they will be pants. We are dog people through and through. We love our dog and because we love our dog we tease him like we tease all the rest of our family. Sometimes he gets colored, sometimes Justin tries to give him weird things to eat (like lemon juice and hot sauce - PLEASE NOTE - usually he is smart enough not to eat the things Justin likes to give him. I don't know if he can smell it's funny or if Justin's evil laughing tips him off.) and sometimes we put weird stuff on his head...this is one of those times....Ladies and Gentlemen, All Hail King of the Pants.

Justin and I find this very amusing. If you don't....too bad! Eat our shorts!

One of a million reasons

Just one of the million reasons I love my husband....he makes me laugh. He makes me laugh so hard that I cry and my sides hurt and I almost wet my pants at the dinner table. Good thing nothing came out my nose!

I LOVE YOU JUSTIN!

Pie and Picnics in the Park with the Pooch...

This is Justin not throwing pie in my face. Isn't he so NICE?? He is the nicest husband I have! Ladies and Gentlemen... $5.99 pie at Marie Callender's! (We got a key lime and a chocolate silk) They are SUPER tasty!

Since I got home from visiting my family, Dexter has been a little bit mopey. It's probably because we are completely boring, or maybe it's because there aren't 50 people for him to play with. We all really needed to get out of our apartment! On Saturday, we packed a picnic lunch, went to the store and bought Dexter a soccer ball and went to the park. The weather has been cooler (weird) but sunny. So, we enjoyed our lunch (turkey salad wraps - which I looked at some recipes and made something with what we had on hand - turkey, egg, apple, green onion, mandarin oranges, craisins, mayo, a little ranch dressing, some chopped ginger, salt, pepper and chipotle Tabasco sauce - sounds weird but it was super tasty) and relaxed a little bit. I played soccer with Dexter while Justin (you will never guess...) studied. It was nice to get out and play in the sunshine.

So, Justin bought this set of flashcards to help him study for the bar. We go over them together during or after dinner. I ask him the questions, he explains the answer and then we will go over what the card says. It's been nice because I feel like I can contribute something to his studies. Plus, I have learned a lot about the laws and exceptions to the laws and exceptions to the exceptions to the laws....

Other than that, we are pretty boring, we are both still applying for jobs, trying to unpack and Justin studies like a mad man!

Home for a visit!

Friday I left Idaho and went to visit my family in Utah! They were very excited that Dexter and I could visit. Justin couldn't go because of his bar review class. Poor Justin! All he did all weekend was study! Grandma and Grandpa Cranney invited him over for dinner and it's a good thing too, otherwise he might not have had any vegetables all weekend long! Thanks Grandma and Grandpa!

So, Friday night we went to get some Mexican food at Javier's. It was SOOOO GOOD! Then we went to see Prince Caspian. I thought it was good! Saturday I ran some errands with my parents and just hung out. Sunday we had a cook out! We roasted hot dogs (Hebrew National - All Beef Franks, cause they are tasty) for dinner and had s'mores for dessert.

Grandma, Jason and Jen roasting their dogs. Tasty!!

Dad, Mom, me and Jared roasting our dogs. (Ketchup only, no mooseturd for me)

This is my brother Jared!! Hello Jared - You are on my blog. He is going on a mission next month to Everett, WA. He is going to be SUPER AWESOME! Love you DUDE! Jared is one of the funniest kids I know. HE IS CRAZY!! That's why we like him.

After our dogs, the coals were perfect for mallows, so we made some S'mores! Who doesn't love a s'more? No one I know!

Justin and Jared enjoying some S'mores.

These are the pictures I got when I asked everyone to show me their S'MORE LOVE!!!!

This is my Dad. He is one of the most calm, boring people I know. HA!

Mom and Jason loving their s'mores

Dad and Jen's See-S'mores

Even Grandma was in on a little S'more Love. Nice moves Granny!

We had some left over marshmallows (the big ones), so Jordan decided that he was going to see how many he could fit in his mouth...(Mom is rolling her eyes at this point.) He could only put 9 in his mouth before he...well...lets just say we were laughing so hard that he might have gagged a little bit and lost his mallows in the bushes.

For $5, I was going to beat Jordan's sad little 9 marshmallows. So, I did 10 and the bushes didn't get any of my mallows! NICE! Take that Jordo!

Me...Winning!

My Mom isn't so keen on marshmallow kisses. Weird.

On Monday, Mom, Aunt Sue and I went to this crazy little Mexican place (No, I can never get enough Mexican food!) by my Aunt's house and I got fajitas. When they brought out the plate, (this is not an exaggeration, this is the Honest truth, you can call my Mom and ask her) the plate was big enough to hold a large pizza. It's true! I had enough leftovers for at least 2-3 meals. It was crazy! That night we went bowling and had a blast. We played one game for fun, one game of Skittle bowling (Each color of Skittle is associated with a certain ridiculous way to bowl - you get a random Skittle before each turn) and one game for some dough. Dad won $10 because he is a cool bowler. (He won by 1 point!!)

I had to come home today because I had a job interview this afternoon. We will see what happens...

Anyway, I had a great time! Thanks MOM and DAD and Crazy KIDS! Miss you!

HIGHLIGHTS of this week

Right now, both Justin and I are looking for jobs. Dexter has been a big help...he checks out the job listings to make sure that I will be able to buy him dog food.
He doesn't look so sure about that job posting....not enough bones..he he.

Since we have the computer on the floor in the living room, he figures we are fair game because we are down on his level... the above picture shows the help I usually get from him. He just wants to play! So along with looking for jobs, Justin has been studying like a mad man. He uses highlighters when he studies and if Dexter is bothering him, Dexter gets highlighted...

Yes, he does have a yellow head. I would also like to point out that this is not the first time, nor will it be the last that he will be highlighted (I am just going with a gut feeling on that...) Dexter has also done pink (which stayed the longest and didn't come out for a month...), green...
and my personal favorite...blue.

We used to get funny looks from the neighbors and get to hear expressions like...
"De yu see tha dawg, he head blu." We miss our Cleveland friends!!

First Blog....

Ok... Here is my first blog...Don't expect too much!!


This month has been CRAZY!! I quit my job, which was a little harder than I thought it would be. I will really miss the awesome people that I worked with!! (And unfortunately I won't be able to wear that hard hat anymore.) My mom, Aunt Sue and my sister Jen (the scrunchy face screamer) came to visit us in Cleveland. We went to Palmyra, New York and saw all the church historical sites. On the way back we stopped in Niagara Falls for a couple of hours so that Jen could see the falls and get some souvenirs. And we went to Justin and my favorite place in Cleveland. The Mint Cafe for some Thai food. I love that place!! SO GOOD! The next day we went to Amish country and found some cool stuff. Aunt Sue bought a willow rocking chair that we had to fit in the back of our rented PT Cruiser. (Such a weird car!) We had a great time! The next day we went to church and then left early to go to Kirtland. We will miss being so close to Kirtland, it's such a cool place.

Mom, Aunt Sue and Jen

Then Justin and I had about a week and a half to pack what we could (I started packing in January or February...) before Justin's mom, Cheryl, came to Cleveland. She came in on Wednesday and we drove to Amish country so that I could pick up my Mom's Mother's Day present, a rocking chair just like my Aunt's) which we barely fit in our car. It was an adventure. We packed and cleaned like crazy people until Jerry, Angela, Jon and Logan came on Friday. They helped us load the truck (Thanks guys you are AWESOME!!) and make sure that the three boys who had been watching us load it, didn't steal anything. Who sits and watches someone load a truck for 4 hours??? Anyway, we got it all packed in the truck and the car safely on the trailer (Justin is an amazing driver!!). Sunday was Justin's graduation from law school! I am SO PROUD of you Babe!
Cheryl, Justin and Jerry

Here were are at graduation! Jon, (is hiding behind Angela), Angela, Cheryl, Logan Man and Jerry. It was so great to have Justin's family here for graduation! The only one who couldn't come was Melissa because she still had class - Sorry Miss! We missed you!


The HAPPY Graduate in his "Smurf Suit"! Justin was rather perturbed that is cost $200 to rent the gown. Lucky for him, he got to keep the great "muffin top" hat. He was just so excited about that.

Logan didn't like Justin's hat at all...poor little guy!

So...after graduation, we got ready to leave, jumped in the truck and took off. We left about 7 and drove through the night... it was pretty rough. Justin's mom drove with us so that we would have more drivers. So there were three of us and Dexter (He was freaking out!) But we were able to make it from Cleveland to Nebraska by Monday at about 1 or 2. We stopped at the Noorlander's house to sleep for a minute and take a shower. They fed us dinner and we played in their backyard with Shaylee and Eric. Dexter loved it! We miss you Noorlander Family!


We left Nebraska and drove through the night again. Wyoming was really bumpy!! And it was really hard to sleep in a truck. Awful!! Anyway, we made it safe and sound about 4:00 on Tuesday. We were SO TIRED!! Luckily we had help unloading the truck because I don't think we would have made it on our own.

So we have just been settling in and loving Idaho!! Our apartment is AWESOME! We have a dishwasher - it's the little things in life!!