The Bratton's

My 'old man' just got a little older!

2011-05-07T23:27:00.000-07:00

Jeremy's 36th birthday was a couple of weeks ago. Joyce (Jeremy's mom) came up so we could go out for the night(thank you Joyce!) We went to a movie (Rango- which by the way, was really cute) and out to the Atlantis buffet for dinner. We've been wanting to go for months but now that Paige is here, we really have to stay away because of the smoke. I think we've gone out twice since Paige was born! So needless to say, we had a good time out!!

Hope you had a good day honey! Love you!!

Paige is growing so fast...

2011-05-07T22:02:00.000-07:00

It's hard to believe that Paige is almost 6 months old. It seems like I was just pregnant with her yesterday. She's developing so quickly and it is so fun to watch her learn and accomplish even the smallest things.

At our 4 month appointment the doctor told us that we could start feeding her solids. We started her on rice. The doctor told us to make it really thin so she would like it but she wasn't really that fond of it. I thickened it up a bit and she seemed to like it however it started to give her diarrhea so we stopped that for a couple of weeks then I started her on barley cereal. Well that just seemed to make her constipated so I stopped cereal all together and started her on veggies. She has had squash, sweet potatoes, carrots and we do give her prunes on a pretty regular basis. She doesn't seem to have a preference to any of them but loves them all. It's so cute because when she knows it is time to eat, we put her in her little bumbo and her little feet both start moving in circular motions, her eyes get really big and her mouth opens like a little baby bird. It is adorable!

I think this is a photo of one of the first time I gave her squash. Now that she is used to eating I rarely see any extra on her face or bib!

She has learned to grab her feet, take her socks off and put her toes in her mouth! She LOVES to play with her feet, usually just around shower time.

She is not rolling over yet though. She gets about half way and stops. The doctor said she has the muscle tone and when she is 'motivated' enough she'll do it. In fact tonight she almost rolled all the way off the bathroom counter!

She is sitting up now! I don't know what other babies are like but to me she seems to have really good balance. She can sit up on her own unless she reaches for something a good distance from her body, then she loses her balance. But I've been pretty impressed. She just started sitting up in the past two weeks.

Paige's hair has gotten long enough on top for me to put it in a ponytail. It looks so cute on her. She doesn't mind me doing her hair, at least not for now. We'll see if that lasts!
You can sort of see it in these pictures...

One of Paige's favorite things is to ride along in her Moby carrier! I got this carrier as one of my baby shower gifts. It is so wonderful and she LOVES it. I think she feels like a big girl!

Grandpa bought her this sun hat the other weekend. It's a little big on her still but it keeps the sun off her face.

The one thing she still LOVES is falling asleep on mommy. I know it's a bad habit that we have developed and maybe with the next we'll change how our children go to sleep but for now, Paige falls asleep on mommy and I adore it!

Check Up; already 4 months

2011-04-07T12:56:00.000-07:00

Since I haven't posted any of Paige's "stats" her they are:

Newborn
19", 5lbs 14oz

2 weeks
20.5", 6lbs 8oz

2 months
22.5", 9lbs 2oz

4 months
25", 11 lbs 1oz

And we took her in 2 days ago for something else and she had gained a bit more weight, she's now 11 lbs 11oz.

She's just ity-bitty but the Doctor says she is very healthy, strong and happy. I was worried that she wasn't gaining enough quickly then that lead to me worrying that she's not eating enough to maybe I'm not producing enough, blah, blah, blah. The doctor actually told me that most breast feed babies will usually "fall off" the growth chart and not to worry.

I don't know what it is about becoming a mom but my anxiety level regarding having a little one depending on me makes me crazy and nutty with worry all the time! If I'm not worried about her eating I'm worried about her pooping and if I'm not worried about that, I'm worried something is going to happen to her. (I'm close to asking for some xanax.) I'm sure it will go away by the time we have our second but for now I guess I'll just be a nut job!

Here are some pictures from the last month

Auntie Michelle, Brock and Everett stopped by to visit on their way to Sacramento.

She's finally started to love her swing

Auntie Nickie came with Auntie Michelle and the boys

She has started to grab for everything and she rolled from her stomach to back for the first time this past weekend. I was giving her a bath the other night and she wanted the wash cloth. She started crying until I gave it to her. She's a bit young for that!

Unfortunately, she knows how to hold her bottle. Boo for mommy! It's very strange because she only gets a bottle a few days a week but she sure loves it.

ALL of my little girls hair is gone, well except for on the top!

We started her on cereal this month. The doctor told me to make it really thin so she would eat it but she really didn't love it thin. I thickened it up and she LOVES it. She grabs for my drinks and food. I feel like we're being stalked when we are eating and don't give her any. The doctor told me that I could start her on fruits and veggies but I'm not in any hurry. She'll probably write me off as soon as I start her on "real" food.

Grandpa stopped by Reno on the way back from Utah.

The most adorable towel ever. Paige after her nightly bath.

Grandma came up this past weekend. (Dad was out of town) We all had a good time.

Paige is finally sleeping through the night again. I say again because about 1 1/2 months she was pretty much sleeping throught the night. Then at about 3 months she stopped. She started teething and so she wasn't eating as well, especially at night. She'd wake up sometimes twice but I'd only feed her once. Usually the 2nd time she was waking up she was just upset and wanted us. Now she goes to bed about around 9:00pm and wakes up around 4-5am. Which is perfect because I get up for work and feed her before I go.

She's still sleeping in our room. Not in our bed but we have a playpin in the room and that is where she is sleeping. I'm trying to gain the courage to put her in her own crib but it just seems so far down the hall. But, I'm starting to notice her waking up a lot through the night and making noise a lot more. She goes back to sleep and it's no problem for her but for me, it's broken sleep! Hopefully the next month we'll be moving her to her own room.

Paige's 3 month pictures by Bellamena Photography

2011-03-30T17:15:00.000-07:00

My sister-in-law was so wonderful and took Paige's pictures. Paige did pretty good although we had to stop a few times for food and tantrum interference! She was pretty good considering we took our time. I will also say that I didn't let her edit any of these.

Changes...finally

2011-03-30T09:32:00.000-07:00

Jeremy has been working for the hospital as a per Diem respiratory aide for more than and 1 1/2 years. He's been flip-flopping between day and night shift and irregular days through the week. It's been very difficult on him. Not only is it hard to have to switch back and forth between day and night shift but he has other health issues that make it even harder on him. He was also being required to work EVERY Saturday night which meant no church and it has basically been that way the entire time he has worked there. He's maybe been to church 5-10 times since he started working there. It's been really hard on our family as well.

He was actually promised that they would make him full-time within 3 months of being hired but obviously that didn't work out. He has been made promise after broken promise but FINALLY they made him a full time employee with a semi-regular schedule(at least at this point). Just in the knick of time as well because he and I have worked out a schedule to where Paige is only with a babysitter one day a week. That may have to change in the upcoming months but for now it makes me very happy. It could be a lot worse.

Our hospital offers a program for people who would like to become respiratory therapists. This is originally why he applied for the position. He does his schooling online and the clinical he would do in the hospital(which he starts this upcoming week). They also have an apprentice program throughout the hospital which basically means he would be doing respiratory treatments and things that pertain more towards the actual job of an RT rather than being an aide. However, budget cuts meant that they still offered the apprentice program but he would not be able to get into it until 2 months before graduating from school. LAME! We're hoping with prayers and luck that they will reconsider this in the next few months as their current apprentice's graduate and they have none left.

We're excited for the new change. Steady income, schedule and he's able to go to church every Sunday. Going to church has probably been the best part of the new job! We hope it stays this way!!

Paige's Blessing; Feburary 2, 2011

2011-03-29T22:08:00.000-07:00

We had such a wonderful day! The majority of our "local" (AKA California family) was able to make Paige's blessing. Jeremy gave a wonderful blessing and she didn't cry at all! I can't say the same for her father. It was very emotional for both of us. We've always been in the congregation when other father's have blessed their babies and although it's always spiritual and wonderful, it's not your baby. But when it was our little girl, everything seems so different.

It's so wonderful to think that our little baby was just with Heavenly Father. There is always a special spirit around her and sometimes she just looks just passed us and I wonder what she is looking at.

Grandma and Papu Sargetis

Mommy and baby

Pepa and Mema Bratton

Brent, Christina and their baby Jet

Grandpa and Grandma Cesarini

Sargetis side

Bratton side

Cesarini side

The men that blessed Paige; Scott Spear, Brent Barnett, Daddy, Steve Bratton and George Sargetis

Daddy and Paige

Growing girl- over the first couple months

2011-03-29T20:22:00.000-07:00

5 weeks

6 weeks

7 weeks

8 weeks

9 weeks

10 weeks

11 weeks

12 weeks

Thanksgiving and Christmas

2011-03-29T19:46:00.000-07:00

Thanksgiving...

We had been telling our families for months that because Paige was going to be born so close to the holidays that we would not be making any trips down to Sacramento this year. I didn't know what the weather was going to be like and I felt like I would be a basket case driving down there with a newborn in the car, especially if something were to have happened. All I could think about was that we would slide off the road and we'd have to live off our 72 hour kits until someone found us and maybe by then we would have all froze to death. (A little nutty and dramatic I KNOW!) Therefore we made alternate plans, something different this year.

Jeremy's mom and step dad came up to us! I have to say, it was really nice not to have to drive anywhere. In all the years we've been together, we've always driven some place. It was nice to just be at home. Jeremy and I made a delicious meal! This is probably one of the first years that Joyce did not have to cook. She got to take care of Paige instead. (she was really bummed let me tell you) We had dinner and hung out together. It was really nice and low key. Perfect I venture to say.

Christmas was really different this year. It was a bit lonely but okay. By this time, I think I would have been okay traveling through the pass with Paige but Jeremy had to work Christmas night this year and unfortunately, none of our family could come to see us. We actually weren't even going to get a tree this year because we were seriously broke and on a tight budget while I was off work. (As it turned out, I was only able to take 2months....well, I should say thankfully I got to take 2 months. A girl at work donated a week of her vacation time and we had some other unexpected money come in as well.) My dad gave us a guilt trip about this being Paige's first Christmas and I can't believe you aren't getting one...blah, blah, blah. So we got one a week before Christmas. We celebrated the day before instead of on Christmas since Jeremy would be sleeping all day on Christmas. We opened presents for Paige and relaxed the rest of the night. She was so spoiled this year and she was only around less than 2 months! She's well loved...thanks everyone.

Christmas day, while Jeremy was sleeping I made a delicious ham for dinner. We ate before he went to work and then Paige and I just hung out! Like I said, it wasn't a bad day, just a bit lonely without even Jeremy around. Next year will hopefully be better for us.

My mom took these pictures on one of Paige's Christmas outfits...so cute.

Paige 1-4 weeks old

2011-03-29T18:57:00.000-07:00

It's hard to believe that Paige was so small. She's seems small to me now but she was so iti-bity.

This is her favorite way to sleep. It seems like when Paige does something funny that she's the ONLY baby who could ever do this weird thing. As I'm talking to other moms, their babies are weirdo's too!

We never bought a bassinet for Paige. We didn't have the money and I figured we would just put her in her playpen that we bought for the room. Well, once we got her home her bassinet (which is maybe 10-15 feet away from my bed) was too far. Paige sleep in her stroller for the first 2 months of her life. I slowly transitioned her into her playpen (which is OH SO FAR AWAY) a little after 2 months.

She only occasionally sucked on her fingers this way.

Paige's first bath...hope it gets better

2011-03-29T18:33:00.000-07:00

It started out okay. I was kind of nervous but she seemed happy before we actually put her in the tub.

But then it started, and it was not good! In fact her scream was extremely loud for a newborn I thought.

Bath time.....I heard it was much better than what happen to us. My little girl screamed the entire time! She hated it. She was cold even though the water was warm and was not having a good time. I of course as a new mommy didn't want to hear her screaming. She sounded so sad! Lets just say it was a first bath but not a great bath. She probably wasn't even very clean by the time I was done. It took a while to calm her down. Hoping it gets way better.

Now she's fine.....In Paige's defense, we had a very cold winter. The heater in our house is not great. (Half the house is hot and the other is cold) I've got to get a heater for the bathroom.

Paige's 2 week doctor appointment

2011-03-29T17:30:00.000-07:00

When we left the hospital Paige's weight had dropped to 5.14. The nurse said that actually wasn't a bad weight loss for her. We took her into the doctor about a week later and she had grown to 6.8. Our pediatrician was very impressed with our little girl! She had also gone from 19" to 22". She's sleeps ALL the day. Mostly during the day. I have to wake her up during the day for her to eat. At night she's sleeping 3-4 hours at night.

Welcome our little angel Paige!

2011-02-08T22:48:00.000-08:00

Our sweet Paige was born on November 13th @ 10:53pm. She was 6.3 1/2 and 19" long.

I worked on Friday and was actually supposed to go into work on Saturday as well. However, I started to have contractions around 8:30pm (I got off at 7:30pm that night). The pain didn't start too badly and the contractions were pretty far apart at this point. I actually wasn't even sure that I was having contractions in the beginning. But when they kept me up through the night, I knew I was having contractions. Toward the early morning my contractions got significantly stronger. Infact, I was trying to time them but I just couldn't be bothered to look at a watch. I finally woke Jeremy up around 9:00am and we called the doctor. They said not to come in until the contractions were 3-5 minutes apart. Jeremy helped me time them at this point since I couldn't! To my surprise my contractions were three minutes apart. I guess it was time to go. We ended up going to the hospital around 4:00pm. They checked me and I was already dialated to a 4. I looked at Jeremy like the nurse was crazy. I was convinced that they were going to send me back home. That was not the case and we were having a baby that night! The nurse asked if I wanted a little Fentanyl to take the edge off and an epidural. Sure do...thank you very much!

They sent me to a birthing room and we got settled in. The Anesthesiologist came in within about 1/2 hour, ah....some relief. I'll love that man forever! I was able to relax within minutes of the medication. I'd have to say it was more uncomfortable to have them switch me from side to side with that pillow than anything(but I understand why they do it). They also started some pitocin. I'm not really sure why they even started the pitocin because it was at such a minisqual rate, I don't really know what the benefit for me was. However, my water hadn't broke nor had my little missy dropped(apparently she liked it in there). The doctor came in and broke my water. The contractions definetly got more intense. The epidural worked but I could tell when I was having a contraction because I couldn't breathe. I'd turn and look at Jeremy and ask him to look at the monitor to tell me how strong they were. It was a very strange experience I have to say.

Within 4 hours of being admitted I was dialated to a 10! Little Paigey girl still hadn't come down, not even a bit! (Not a good sign of things to come folks!) When I asked the doctor what that meant, he said "ah, don't worry....you'll just have to push her down". By this time they had turned my epidural down, basically to nothing. I almost told them to just turn it off. Of course it's important to feel the contractions so you know when to push but it was so low that I really don't know how much it was even helping and to be honest, I didn't care at that point. I just wanted to get Paige out and if there was pain, so be it!

I was very lucky to have only pushed for a 1/2 hour with our little angel and there she was. I didn't hear any crying though. The doctor showed her to me and she was just looking around and admiring the new sites. My husband thinks I'm nut job because all I wanted to hear is that scream from her. Eventually she did let out a good cry but it seemed like a very long time. (Probably less than a minute) It's kind of like when we got our first ultrasound and everyone in the room was excited to see her on the screen, I wanted to the doctor to show me exactly where that heart beat was and I wanted to hear it and know how fast it was going. Talk about a crazy lady!

None the less, we've got our little baby here now and we couldn't be happier! It's a very unexplainable feeling that a mother (or a father for that matter) have for their child. It's something that no one can explain in the complicated yet simple way a parent can love this little being that has JUST come into their lives. For me, I am tired, I feel hormonal and crazy with anxiety but I don't care. Paige is such a little blessing and even if I don't remember it at the time, I love to get up in the middle of the night for little feedings and snuggles. We are really in love with this new little bundle of joy!

I will be back soon...hopefully tomorrow!

2010-12-28T00:16:00.000-08:00

We are alive! I have several things I want to post in order to actually "catch up" on our blog. Hopefully I will get to it tomorrow, or the next day or the next day. Kidding! I've gotta a plan for tomorrow. Stay tuned....if you want.

15 Weeks

2010-05-25T10:08:00.000-07:00

I had my 15 weeks appointment with my OB today. She measured my belly and said that it was just right for the gestational age of the baby. Then she got out the doppler to hear the baby's doppler. I said to her, "oh good, I was hoping I'd get to hear the heart beat, I've been worried." Then she said to me " yeah, this is usually the point in the pregnancy we find out the baby is dead or that there is a problem".

Now I realize that I'm a nurse and that between other nurses we talk about things that may sound a bit harsh to the "non-nurse" population because we detach ourselves in order to protect emotion or prevent getting emotionally involved. It doesn't help the patient when we become emotionally invested, it changes our judgement. So, I get that between medical professionals that language may happen.

However, I am a first time, full of anxiety new mom to be. Telling me that "this is the point in which the babies are found dead was probably not the best thing to say to me, especially cause it took a second to find the heart beat!

None the less...all is well with the little bambino. Heart sounds are perfect and I'm measuring perfect. I'm just not sure if this doctor is perfect for me. But for now, I'm excited that I know my baby is doing well.

I'm sure you've heard

2010-05-24T22:46:00.000-07:00

But We're pregnant!
We posted it on Facebook on mothers-day. We waited to tell everyone just until we were out of our first trimester. In fact, I was even nervous to tell people at that point but this is good news and it makes us more excited the more we share it with everyone. It has been a long time in the making and we could not be more excited for this little bambino to come into our lives. We found out the second week of March and had to hold it in until then.

The baby is due November 15, we will be finding out what it is in July and we'll be sure to let everyone know then!

PCOS....

2010-05-24T22:02:00.000-07:00

For those of you who don't know.....for the past couple of years Jeremy and I have been trying to get pregnant and it just hasn't happened very easily. I've always suspected that something was wrong because some of my sisters have had problems getting pregnant as well. About 10 years ago, my oldest sister was diagnosed with
Polycystic Ovarian Syndrome (PCOS).

"PCOS is a hormonal disorder that involves multiple tissues and organ systems within the body, and is believed to be fundamentally caused by insensitivity to the hormone insulin." (www.pcosupport.org)

Then one of my younger sisters was also diagnosed with the same problem. I had many of the same symptoms as they did as well so I naturally assumed that I had the same diagnoses. However it was confirmed last year when I went in to have an ultrasound and my ovaries looked like cottage cheese, literally! It doesn't mean that it is impossible to have children but it does make it very hard to conceive without help. For many women it takes many years to actually conceive without help. I don't have many years because we want several children and I'm not gettin' any younger.

Some of the symptoms include:
•irregular or no menstrual periods
•acne
•obesity/weight gain/inability to lose weight
•breathing problems while sleeping
•depression
•oily skin
•infertility
•skin discolorations
•high cholesterol levels
•elevated blood pressure
•excess or abnormal hair growth and distribution
•pain in the lower abdomen and pelvis
•multiple ovarian cysts
•skin tags

I haven't been on birth control since about a year after we were married for a variety of reasons but mostly because we knew it was going to take a while to get pregnant. We just didn't anticipate it would take this long. I talked to my primary care about what my sisters had and asked her what the likely hood of me having it was and she said that I most likely had it too. She started me on METFORMIN about two years ago. Because PCOS it an insulin resistance issue METFORMIN is supposed to help with the way your body uses glucose. (It makes me feel like crap all the time by the way!!)

We did try going to a doctor for three months towards the middle of last year and they put me on the famous CLOMID but I knew that it wasn't going to work because one of my sisters did the same thing and she needed more help than that. by that time I was kind of frustrated and we were going to be moving and starting my new job. I knew I wouldn't have FMLA if I hadn't been at my new job long enough so we waited.

In January I finally made an appointment with a Fertility specialist here in Reno. As soon as we went in we had such a good feeling about this doctor. He sat and talked with us for about an hour. Explained to us the process of fertility, which gave us a lot of hope. We did an ultrasound again that visit where it was again confirmed that I had PCOS. He also told me that I had a fibroid on the outside of my Uterus which I hadn't been told before. Nothing to worry about he said, just needed to keep an eye on it. He told us that with two perfectly healthy people, on any given month there is only a 10-30% chance of getting pregnant in the perfect circumstances. He also said it would take up to 6 months to conceive....but it was a glimmer of hope so we were okay with that!

We started the regimen in early February. He started me on Clomid again, had me come in and do several ultrasounds during the process to see if we needed to do hormone injections, which we did. We had to do several of those as well, and they made me feel so wonderful! :) (Sense the sarcasm) Then one more ultrasound to make sure there was an egg big enough and they gave me a shot of HCG which makes the egg actually release.

Two weeks later they had me come in to do a HCG blood test. I didn't even think to do a urine test because I was thinking it was going to take months to get pregnant so I just went and did the test like they asked. I got a call a little later that afternoon and she says "um, your pregnant! What's up with you getting pregnant on your first try, guess you just needed a little help." Guess so!

Our little miracle! We're so happy and we are just praying that everything goes well! Timing is everything apparently and I guess the Lord knew when we needed to get pregnant and who could help us do that.

If you want to know more about PCOS go to www.pcos.org

3 Year Anniversary

2010-05-24T21:43:00.000-07:00

March was our 3 year anniversary! It feels like we've been married longer than that but at the same time it's hard to believe it has been 3 years. I remember our wedding day so well and often reflect on what a wonderful day it was, and how much fun we had!

We didn't have too much time off so we stayed close by. We went down to Pacifica, California and stayed at a hotel right on the beach. We mostly just relaxed while we were there but it was much needed time away.
One of our main reason for going there was to see this awesome play! It was so wonderful and we loved it.

We also went down to the coast and had dinner on the beach. It was so wonderful and peaceful. We had a good time and we'd recommend the play to anyone!!

I love being married and married to my husband. So grateful for the blessing of eternal marriage! Love you babe!!

January and Lemore, CA

2010-03-15T11:20:00.000-07:00

Jeremy's parents moved to Lemore sometime late last year for work. We hadn't seen them for some time so we decided it was time for a trip down. While we were there George and Joyce had to work a few of the days so Jeremy and I had some free time. We happened to be at walmart and I really wanted a pedicure and I finally talked my husband into one as well.
Us waiting for our pedi's

Jeremy, trying not to be embarrassed

Jeremy got this bright idea to freak out his mom. He decided to paint his toe nails and walk around the house until his mom saw them. These boys torture their mother sometimes.

The funniest thing was when we told the woman who was doing his pedicure. She looked at us like we were crazy. She actually brought a customer over to look at his toe nails. I know they were talking crap in their native tongue.

We had such a nice trip. Relaxing which we needed! Oh and P.S- not the best pedicures but we got good pictures out of it.

Our homemade room decor

2010-01-10T19:16:00.000-08:00

For my birthday this year I was given a new sewing machine. It's the best gift ever because now I can finally do the projects I've been wanting to complet for a while. In October, my mom and I made these curtains for my windows. We needed something that would block out the light,they had to be super long because of the window, be reasonabily priced and look nice. My mom and I went to IKEA to get the long curtains and we still had to had material to the bottom in order to get them to be long enough.
Here's what they looked like. (Ignore the treadmill with the clothes on top of it. Use your imagination)

Well, my sister-in-law was here for the past week and we talked about how I would love to have a head board but it was super expensive. She had this really great idea of making one. Well, she just had to mention that to me and we were at the home depot that same night getting the supplies!

Then I figured that since the bed frame was going to match my curtains, then i would make a bedshirt to match as well.

It turned out really nice. I had no idea we could make the bedframe. I guess my sister-in-law has been watching HG-TV. Now I'm almost finished with the whole thing. So exciting!!

Snow, Snow and more snow...

2010-01-10T19:02:00.000-08:00

So the snow here started at the beginning of October and it was fairly light but it didn't stay that way. We've had several storms that have made our driving a little crazy and our heating bill out of control!

October....the start of the crazy snow

December's storm. We had over 2 feet of snow in our front yard alone. The roads were ridiculous. You would think that the people here would be pretty good at driving in the snow....um, no such luck. When the snow started, within a couple of miles of my house there were over 3 accidents.

Lets just say it's a good thing that we purchased a new car that was AWD before we left Sacramento. Jeremy didn't drive his Jeep for over a month. Although we don't work the same times, we would drive together to and from work. Nice quality time!! :)

And finally we went to the Cesarini Family Christmas party

2010-01-10T18:53:00.000-08:00

We ended our Christmas day at my sister Gina's with the rest of the family. We had such a huge spread of food and opened presents.

Just waiting to open presents.

Jeremy holding my niece Julianna

Tony and Bethany.

We also stopped by the Bratton household for a few hours....

2010-01-10T18:44:00.000-08:00

After we opened our presents at my families house we took a drive over the Jamie and Jerret's. We had a blast over there watching little Jerret play his new video games and Jeremy went outside and shot BB gun he got for Christmas. Although we weren't able to see Joyce and George this year for Christmas, they left gifts for us there to open.

I finally got a huge crockpot cook book. So excited!

Jeremy was more than a little thrilled this year to get an IPOD. His other broke earlier this year and he has been pretty bummed about it.

Little Jerret using his new gun.

We Spent Christmas with the Cesarini's this Year..

2010-01-10T18:15:00.000-08:00

Jeremy ended working Christmas eve day so we left as soon as he got home that night. I was exhausted because I had worked six days straight and got off the morning of the the 23rd. I got about two hours of sleep that day and didn't go to bed that night until after 1:00am. I was so excited for Jeremy to open his presents that I couldn't go to sleep. Once I finally went to sleep I woke up at 4:00am and wanted everyone to get up but they made me go back to bed until 7:00am....lameo's! It was still great though. I had so much fun this year because I was able to really surprise Jeremy. I wrapped his gifts in weird sized boxes so he'd have no idea what I got him. Hah! I'm so sneaky. He actually copied me and did the same thing so I was really surprised too.

Pictures from Christmas
My parents Christmas Tree.

We always open p.j's on Christmas eve, here's my mom's p.j's we got her.

Me shocked Jeremy got me jewlery.

My dad opening presents we got him.

My mom trying on her gift.

My dad the goof ball.

Jeremy opening his gun I got him. He had NO CLUE

Our Christmas Tree....

2010-01-10T17:42:00.000-08:00

This is our 3rd year of marriage and the first time we could actually afford to get a a real Christmas tree. The first year our in-laws surprised us with a tree and year before last we just didn't do one at all. I originally wanted to go and cut one down but there was no place near us to do that. Jeremy and I had really opposite schedules as well so we didn't have the opportunity to drive the distance to find one. However, Costco had the most beautiful Noble fur trees this year so we got it from there. It was so much fun to decorate for the holiday's this year.

Jeremy outside our front door cutting the bottom of the tree off. And acting like a goof ball.

Our Tree

Working on the decor

I thought I took some pictures of our decorations at night but I guess I didn't....so we only have the pictures in the light. Bummer!

Jack and Louie in their Christmas outfits

Jack looks so happy in his P.J's

Louie doesn't look as excited but I know he loved his P.J's on the inside!

August Family Pictures...

2010-01-10T01:02:00.000-08:00

I know this post is a little late but we took family photos with the Sargetis side of the family. Jeshua left for his mission in October 09 and we wanted to get them done before he left.
Just us..
Us Again...
The entire family
Just the Bratton'Sargetis CrewSavannah and Hailey (Jennifer and Dave's Children)
Jeshua, Jerret, Jennifer and Jeremy
Jerret, Jamie and Jerret Jr.
Hailey, Jerret, and Savannah
George and Joyce
Hailey, Dave, Jennifer and Savannah

A man that touched my heart...and it wasn't my husband.

2009-12-22T00:14:00.000-08:00

I scheduled myself like a crazy person and I'm working 6 days strait so that I can have 7 days of in a row for the Christmas holiday. It was kind of a crazy idea on my part but I really wanted the time off and we self-schedule so I can. Tonight is day four of six and I have to say it has been kind of fun. I'm taking care of the two most interesting and amazing people, on of which is the man that has touched my heart this week.

My patient was brought in for chest pain (duh, I'm in the CIC) earlier this week. As I have taken care of him, I've really gotten close to him and his wife. He is a pretty wonderful man and has such an awesome story.

He was married for over 42 years to his first wife. She was diagnosised with lung cancer and battled it for a few years before it took her life. However, shortly before she died, she told him that he needed to go out and get his own insurance policy because she was the carrier of their policy. So he did as his wife wished and got his own health insurance policy. She also made him a list of women's names. She told him that he was going to get lonely and she wanted him to remarry. So on the right-hand side of the page there were 3 names of women she thought he could marry. On the left-hand side there were 8 names of women that she told him never to date! One of the ladies on the right-hand side was actually the CFO of the vineyard that he owns. He thought she was married all these years and turns out she was single and his wife loved her! He ended up marrying this women that is wife had suggested.

Four months after she had died and he had purchased the insurance policy his upper spine snapped. This man keep working but decided to go to the hospital because he was having "a little back discomfort". (Ah, yeah...you think) Come to find out that the reason it broke was because he had multiple myeloma. (Myeloma is a cancer of the plasma cells, a type of white cell found in many tissues of the body, but primarily in the bone marrow. Plasma cells are part of the body's immune system.)

This man has been battling this cancer since 2007. He gets Chemo every week and is still going with an extremely positive attitude. The doctors think he is a miracle man and I do too! I won't go into his long health history but it's extensive and to look and talk to him, you'd never know.

Obviously I didn't know him before he was sick but he has such a joy for life and love and his wife. (Both current and previous wife) He told me, " I just love women, you guys are so wonderful and special. I love to listen to you talk and learn from you guys." He had a horrible childhood from the brief conversation about it but he still has a love and respect for women that I haven't heard from a lot of men. He and is wife are adorable together. He said to me the other day "you know, she's the only thing keeping me going, she's just such a wonderful person." He also told me that she was the one who taught him about Christ and what he did for all of us.

He knows he is going to die. This disease is terminal and they are pretty much at the last line of treatment for him according to his doctors. He is doing all of those things on his "bucket list" and he literally said that he had a "bucket list". He seems fairly invincable to me but I know we all have our time to go. I know Heavenly Father has a plan for this man because he should have been dead long ago.

I can't explain how rewarding it has been to take care of someone who is such a good person. I have such a great job to be able to help families like this. I honestly haven't had to do too much for him except listen and talk really, but that has been the most rewarding of all!

My second patient is a lady that was "found down" and for lack of a long story had a stroke and is now in a coma. She doesn't respond to anything really, other than when we move her and is gets a little irritated with me.

Although she can't talk and she is non-responsive to almost everything I do to communicate with her, there is just something special about her. She has a certain spirit about her and I know when I'm working with her that she is one of Heavenly Father's daughters. I'm not sure what is going on in her head, but I know that Heavenly Father is with her because I can feel his presence when I'm in the room with her.

It's hard to understand why things happen to certain people in their lives, but when I go into a room, like hers and feel the Spirit, it makes things okay. His plan is not always our plans but he loves us and wants us to be happy.

It's such a wonderful privledge to be sharing moments with people during their most vunlerable times. What a blessing it is to be a nurse.

Here we go...

2009-12-22T00:12:00.000-08:00

I have a lot of posts and pictures as of late and I will get around to posting them soon. In the mean time, I thought I'd get started on some other things that have been going on. We kinda use this as our family journal so I try to keep it updated....It will be updated. I have 7 days off over Christmas and I'm super excited to get some of the things I need to done, like blogging!!

I know, I know...

2009-11-19T23:47:00.000-08:00

I have really been bad at blogging lately. I'm usually pretty good but I just noticed I haven't posted anything since August! BAD BLOGGER!

I am exhausted tonight but I've got to stay up all night so I sleep tomorrow. I've been switched over to nights and I really love it with the exception of the changes in time. It's nice to work nights actually but I don't like having to switch back to days for 1 or 2 days than back to nights. That seems to be the hardest thing. But all is well and hopefully I'll adjust eventually.

Jeremy is also working nights. He got a job at the hospital as well. He is a respiratory aid. They will eventually be training him as he completes school to become a respiratory therapist. He's so excited about this! He finally see's a light at the end of the tunnel and it's something he will really like doing.

We love Reno! We have a wonderful house here just outside of town. It usually takes 15 minutes to get places. The only complaint we both have is the drivers. I was told that this was a pretty safe place to drive...um, I might have to disagree with that. Horrible drivers!! I thought Californian's were bad; I'd love to have more of them here to even out the crazies on the road.

We love our new ward. There are so many young families with lots of kids. They seem very friendly. My visiting teachers were at my house the second week we moved in! Seriously awesome.

We love visiters....you are all welcome to come and visit us!!

We're finally settled...

2009-10-27T19:52:00.000-07:00

in reno. We have had a very busy. We moved in at the end of September. I actually started working mid-September but we didn't want to move in the middle of the month. It all just seemed to work out perfectly.

Last 24 hours....

2009-08-25T22:10:00.000-07:00

Well seems like I was just writing on our blog about what was going on. In the last 24 hours we've decided to move out of our place by this Saturday and move in with my parents for a month then off to Reno. So needless to say...I'm a little stressed out about the entire thing. It's a lot to do and I'm hoping that we can get some people over here this weekedn to help us out! I'm sure it will all work out for us....

So far today we got a storage space, got lots of boxes, storage bags and oh so much more to do tomorrow. I've got part of the spare bedroom packed and some of the front room. We've got a lot of crap!

Moving sucks!

I really should be sleeping....

2009-08-25T00:53:00.000-07:00

I've been neglecting our blog lately but really it's just cause we really haven't done anything to interesting. Oh, or maybe nothing at all. Since school got out I worked for a few weeks then I've just been sitting around. Actually kind of bored most of the time. I can't wait to go to work next month. It feels like we've been doing a lot of "hurry up and wait" things. We know we're moving and when we are going to be out of our place but we really haven't been able to look for a place until this week because it was too far in advance. I know i'll be working and where but I don't start until mid-next month. It's frustrating thing...guess I'm probably supposed to be learning patience or something crazy like that...

As I said the past few months have been pretty uneventful but for my husband, that's a whole different story.

Jeremy injured his back in March of this year. He's got a herniated disk in his lower back. He's been on and off work since March. At this point his work is really starting to give him a hard time. We're hoping his job will last through at least next month..that would be nice! He got an epidural about a month ago and that seemed to be helping him so much. 2 weeks ago he had 104.0 temperture and we went to the E.R. where we spent a good 12 hours and Jeremy got 5 liters of fluid in his veins. He was diagnosed with the H1N1 AKA Swine freakin' flu! Really sucked too! He felt horrible and it really took a solid 3-4 days to feel better about 7 days to feel good. So he's finally feeling better from that and what do you know....this weeked we're at his dad's house having a great time and next thing you know, he can barely walk. The pain medication isn't touching the pain and we end up driving home at 1:30am. We were hoping it would feel better by morning, that didn't happen. Back to the E.R. we went. They gave him the good stuff there. Needless to say that he's not really doing any better and he just may be doped up at work tomorrow. We're praying that he'll even be able to work.....

The greatest thing ever was when we were driving home from Modesto(his dads house)there was a DUI check point. Oh my gosh! Perfect. The officer has me roll down my window, asks me if I've been drinking and of course I tell him no. Then he says "can you just blow into this?" "Sure I say", then I proceeded to tell him that I've never had a sip of alcohol in my life. I'm sure he thought I was lying but I thought it was pretty funny. No DUI arrest for me!!

The other wonderful thing that has happened for us recently is that we bought a new car!! Finally....after years and years and what seemed like an eternity of beaters, we bought a "new to us" Pacifica. We love it. I just love that it actually has air conditioning and I don't have to roast in the car. I'm a simple girl, just need a little air. I'm convinced that it makes me a nicer person on the road. Seriously! Heat makes people (myself especially) crazy. Sometimes, when a car would cut me off....I just wondered what it would have felt like to actually ram them! Hey, I'm not crazy...I bet you sometimes wonder the same thing, I just wrote it is all! :) So now I have a car with air, nice body (so I don't have the urge to ram people), and room for additions to the family. (And No....we're not pregnant)

Anyway....all is well in the Bratton home, well...other than my poor husband. Things will hopefully get better soon for him. Poor guy, can't he catch a break!

Burn baby burn.....

2009-06-27T13:00:00.000-07:00

Since we've all passed our boards and we are offically REGISTERED NURSES...On Wednesday night my two study buddies and myself had a bit of a burn party! We have studied together since our 1st semester of nursing school. We probably spent more time together in the past two years than we did with our husbands! We took all of our papers from all four semesters of school and burned them in this barrel. It was actually really fun and therapeutic!

Our night started out at B.J.'s restaurant. It's always been a tradition to eat and study so why no eat and celebrate!

Niki, Jeeya(Niki's daughter), Meredith, and Me

This was just my papers. I took this before I left the house. All those binders were full!

All of these crates hold of our papers for the last 2 years!

Let the party begin!!!

Those are my 'bestes' booties!! They were igniting the fire if you know what I mean!! :)

Niki, Meredith and Me

Mandeep (Niki's husband) was so good at helping us! He was worried we would start the house on fire. He monitored our activities!

After we were done

I'm offically a REGISTERED NURSE!

2009-06-24T14:31:00.000-07:00

On Thursday, June 18th I took my boards to become a registered nurse in the state of California. I was so nervous!I didn't start studying until about 2 weeks before because I was so burnt out from school and I just couldn't bring myself to opening the books again. When I finally did start to study I was doing 300 pratice questions everyday, it was exhausting!

The morning of I went to the temple and had Jeremy give me a blessing. I finally felt some peace after those things but I was still so nervous. Looking back I don't know why because my entire "journey" through school has just been so easy.

I decided on my mission that for sure, for sure I wanted to be a nurse. I came home and started school right away. I was able to find a jobs with great bosses that allowed me to work part-time and go to school full-time. My parents let me live with them and I was able to get all of my pre-req's done during that time. I finished all of my pre-req's in Dec. 2006 and got married in March 07. I applied to two local nursing programs and in April and was accepted in June 2007. When we got married we found a place that was close to the school even though I didn't know that is where I would be going to school. I started school in August of 2007, passed all of my extremely difficult classes and graduated on May 19, 2009. Then I schedule my boards and passed them as well. I was so calm while taking my test I have to say. I don't know why because I was scared to death but I was able to concentrate on those questions pretty well.

The funniest thing that happened during the boards was when a question came up about taking care of a "member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints" and it said something to the affect of what do you know about these patients? It had two totally incorrect answers, then it had two that were right but I had to chose the most correct of course. I sat there and read that question like 4 times because I thought "what are the chances?". The only LDS person in the room gets this question and then I started laughing because I thought "man, can't wait to meet Heavenly Father cause he's got a good sense of humor". Seriously, what are the chances?

I just can't think about the past 2 years of Jeremy and I's lives and not feel that Heavenly Father guided and directed the entire thing. To think anything else would be crazy. I ultimetely knew that I could pass nursing school because I was determined but during school, it's very stressful and it causes a lot of doubt and suspicion about what is really going to happen. I never had a problem in Clinical. I loved every second of that but classroom stuff was hard for me because I don't learn by reading alone. I have to apply it, touch and do it to learn it.

I was reading my patriarticle blessing before I went in to take my boards and it said that I should "go forth knowing that I can achieve all the goals that I set in this life". Apparently, Heavenly Father knows me well. It was reassuring to read that particular sentence at that particular time. Satan has a way of making me feel very small and unproductive and when I remember Heavenly Fathers plan and listen to the Spirit the doubt disappears.

Modesto to Visit with the Family

2009-06-24T14:04:00.000-07:00

Normally we go to Modesto to visit Jeremy's father but this time we went done to visit his Uncle Mike. I had no idea that Uncle Mike lived less than a mile away from his dad this whole time. We've been together 5 years on July 4th and we've never gone to his house!

Nevertheless, we went down last night with Jamie, Jeshua, and little Jerret. Joyce, (Jeremy's mom) brought Grandad down from Barstow to visit his son Mike and also his brother who lives in Livermoor. Grandad is very sick and his days are numbered. He's got a few types of cancer and his heart is extremely enlarged but he's a miracle man. A couple of years ago he had MULTIPLE ORGAN failure and was expected to die. all of his children came to see him, funeral arrangements were made and what do ya know.....he's still kicking two years later. The doctors have no idea why he's alive today. Apparently the Cardiologist told him that he has the largest heart he's ever seen!

This is the second time we've seen him this year and everytime I see him I really start to reflect on how precious life is. He's 86ish and although he's lived a long and fullfiling life, he often talks about the things he would have done differently. It makes me think about the values the gospel teaches us. They are no just things that we should do cause the church teaches us but we should do them because God wants us to do them and they really make us better human beings. I don't know Grandad very well but I know that's he is a good man who loves God. It may have taken him a little longer to figure that out but he knows it now before he goes to meet his maker.

These are photos of our fun night!
Jamie, Grandad, Jeshua, Jeremy, Maria (cut off), Krista
Little Jerret ropin' his momma
Jeshua and Grandad
Jeshua and Grandad again
Uncle Mike teaching little Jerret how to lasso
Little Jerret and Dew (the dog)
Little Jerret playing to Dew
Cousin Vic and Lisa, uncle Mike
"the jolly green giant" Jeshua picking peaches.
They got me a cake and flowers for passing my boards...such a surprise
Left Top: Aunt Maria, Krista, Jeremy, Jeshua, Jamie, Uncle Mike. Left bottom: Joyce, Little Jerret, Grandad, Vic
Joyce, Jamie, Jeremy, Jeshua, Little Jerret, Krista
Little Jerret and Grandad
Uncle Mike and cousin Vic

We re-decorated our wall....

2009-06-24T13:59:00.000-07:00

I saw this in a magazine about a year ago and have been wanting to do it on our huge empty wall. I finally found a fabulous deal on frames and Jeremy helped me put them up. He's such a tropper. We still have some frames to fill but this is good.

Jeremy did ask me why I did this now when we are going to be moving in less than 3 months and really, he had a point. But it looks good for now!

Dogs are worse than 2 year olds!

2009-06-24T13:49:00.000-07:00

Our dogs have to be constantly touching one of us but they are really kind of momma boys. They love their nightly snuggle. They kind of box me in most of the time and I feel guilty moving because their so comfortable.We thought these pictures were cute.

I promise he's not dead

2009-06-23T16:07:00.000-07:00

This is Jack, our 14 year old pug. He's the funniest dog in the world as you can see from the photos below. This was a nightly cuddle. He was actually completely asleep in these photos, snoring and all. We've never seen him look so lively!! Thought these were funny.

Party at the Farrell home

2009-06-23T07:40:00.000-07:00

A couple of weeks ago Gina and Sean (my oldest sister & her husband) went on a cruise to Canada. I was enlisted as the babysitter for the week and oh man, did we have fun!

One day I walked into my sisters room to find this.....

How funny is this. She actually locked herself inside and couldn't get out.

Juliana also graduated from kindergarden while we were there. She's getting so big and so old! Hard to believe it!

Valerie and Mom

Juliana and her aid
Jiliana and her class

And finally, the event Valerie waited for all week....we chopped of the bushy eyebrows. I guess she had been wanting to do this for a while. We had plenty of time so we decided to go. I decided to document this fantastic event! I'm sure she'll appreciate it...

Final results
Valerie's making sure the lady did it right, and catchin' a glimpse in the mirror
one side done, the other side waiting for the pain

During the event!

Visit with little Everett

2009-06-23T07:31:00.000-07:00

Michelle and Joaquin came down for a few weeks last month. They went out to the temple and they dropped of Everett for us to babysit. We had such a good time! The twins are getting so big....they are now about 6months. here are some pictures while he was here with us....

Visit With Nickie...

2009-06-23T06:37:00.000-07:00

Last month (MAY) Michelle and Nickie came to visit. We had such a good time with them! One day Nickie, Mom and I all went to San Francisco for the day. We went to Pier 39 and walked around. We were craving crab of course! As we walked down the pier we looked for different places to eat inside. It was raining that day and we didn't really feel like getting our hands dirty and cleaning our own crab so we walked and looked for the place with the best deal.

We finally stopped at this restaurant called the "Franciscan" to eat. We looked at the menu before we went in and thought they had the best deal. It said "crab for a table, $40.00". Now that's expensive but there were three of us so we thought we'd share since it was for a table. We go into the restaurant and there are a few young girls at the front and they seat us. We are sitting there for at least 10 minutes and this man who looks like he could be our waiter but doesn't tell us his name or what he does comes over to us and asks us if we'll be having any drinks. What he really should have said is "will you be having any alcoholic beverages today". We all ordered water because we were still trying to figure out what we wanted for food. No lie, he barely looked at us, snatched the menu and walked off. That was the last time we saw him at our table for the next 10-15 minutes. He walked by us several times without even a look or glance but he never stopped. Now you have to remember that we didn't even know at this time he was our waiter because he never told us.

As we are looking at the menu everything is "Al Cart" and must be ordered separately. My sister wanted some muscles and we didn't think those things were going to fill us up so we decided to also order calm chowder too. We're looking at this bill just adding up right in front of our faces to over $90 easily, not including tip. I just felt a deep knot in my stomach because I knew that none of us had 30-40$ to be spending on lunch. I think we all kind of felt that way but no one wanted to say anything about it.

The waiter comes over and we start to order. I asked him, "do you think this is enough to feed all three of us? How much crab comes with your "table" of crab plate. He says "there's five crab legs". I just looked at him like, seriously? First of all, a crab has 6 legs so you could at least give someone the entire crab and secondly, $40 for 5 crab legs? Your out of your mind! Then my mom asks him "how many muscles come on the plate?", he says, "oh, 10 small muscles". We just kind of looked at each other like, seriously? So, he places the order and as we're sitting there kinda in shock, Nickie looks at me and says "how many did he say". We repeated all of it for her again. She looked at us and said, "oh no, I'm not paying that kind of money for this food and this type of service". She got up found the waiter, canceled the order and we left. She said he was so ticked off at her and she didn't even care because he was such a jerk! I was so proud of her. She's usually the nice one and I'm usually the mean one. She was so assertive! I loved it!

We found a better place to eat that cost less than half of that for all three of us. We didn't get crab but we did get muscles!

Mom and I
Nickie and I

My kids aren't getting cell phones....well, maybe if I get the PRIZE MONEY!

2009-06-16T21:32:00.001-07:00

I thought this was kinda funny/sad/interesting and worth posting. What the heck are these kids doing now-a-days! I'm getting old.....I text a bit but nowhere near this!

How fast R U? Teen Iowa girl wins US texting title

NEW YORK – The nation's newest texting champion has a message for parents across the land — although they might not want to hear it.

"Let your kid text during dinner! Let your kid text during school! It pays off," 15-year-old Kate Moore said Tuesday after winning the LG U.S. National Texting Championship.

After all, she said: "Your kid could win money and publicity and a phone."

For the Des Moines, Iowa, teenager, her 14,000 texts-per-month habit reaped its own rewards, landing her the competition prize of $50,000 just eight months after she got her first cell phone

Moore, with a speedy and accurate performance, beat out 20 other finalists from around the country over two days of challenges such as texting blindfolded and texting while maneuvering through a moving obstacle course.

The teen dismisses the idea that she focuses too much on virtual communications, saying that while she has sometimes had her phone taken away from her in school, she keeps good grades, performs in school plays and socializes with friends — in person — on the weekends.

In between, she finds time to send about 400 to 470 texts a day. Among her uses of the text messages? Studying for exams with friends, which she says is better done by text because she can look back at the messages to review.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20090616/ap_on_re_us/us_texting_championship

The final count-down(beware of complaining in this one...)

2009-06-11T15:44:00.000-07:00

I take my national boards next week and I'm getting so nervous. I'm actually avoiding studying right now because I'm so frustrated with it. It's coming up so quickly and I feel so overwhelmed trying to figure out what to study that I don't really know where to start.
I had a list: Finish school=check, find a job=check, pass nclex=?. So many of my fellow schoolmates have taken this exam and can out like they've failed. I haven't talked to any of them since to see if they actually passed yet.....maybe that would ease some tension.
So, I'm at home trying to do a bunch of questions and I'm so irritated because I'm not nearly as good as I know I probably should be in order to pass this test. My dogs are buggin' and jeremy is laid up in bed again with his back. Oh, and to top last week 1 of my 2 bra's broke and this week the other broke. GREAT!
In order to make myself feel better, I called one of my very good friends and were going bra shopping so my boobs aren't flopping around for the world to see! And to have a little girlie/venting session.

It's so funny how I don't necessarily forget the blessings that I am given but forget to remember them daily. I know that we have been so blessed, especially for the past couple of years and recently with this job opportunity. But I guess I need to remember that Heavenly father is carrying me and although I weigh a little more, I'm never to heavy for him. I suppose I lack the confidence in myself that Heavenly Father has.....I guess that is part of viewing yourself as a child of God.

I'm gonna be an Cardiac ICU nurse!

2009-06-08T09:54:00.000-07:00

I can't tell you how crazy this job search has been for me. Sacramento is totally saturated with nurses, especially new grads that I honestly didn't even try very hard to find a job here. We kind of already knew that we were going to have to move somewhere.....somewhere has now offically become Reno, Nevada.

Two weeks ago I made contact with a recruiter in Reno. I honestly had never spent a TON of time in Reno but some.... Jeremy and I thought that it would be a possibility for us to live there and so I made arrangements for a friend and I to take a trip. That trip was one the best things I've done cause now I have a J-O-B!

I interviewed on Friday on two floors Telemetry and the Cardiac ICU. They did offer me both but I for sure wanted the ICU. I know it's going to be hard because there is so much to learn and deal with but man.....it's just where I've wanted to be. I currently volunteer in the ICU here and I love it but I really never imaged that I would get to start exactly where I wanted right away! I don't start until September and were not sure what our exact plans are as far as moving and when and that stuff but we know where were going.

I can't express the gratitude I feel for my Heavenly Father. Although I'm not done yet, I still have to take my boards next week, I know that he obviously has a plan for us. This has been a 5 year journey and looking back now I realize that he was guiding my path the entire time because everything as just flowed so easily for our family.

I Graduated from NURSING SCHOOL....finally!

2009-06-01T10:39:00.001-07:00

On May 19th I graduated from Nursing School. It was such a great night. It seems like it took forever but it really did go by really quickly. Now I have to take my boards in a few weeks and hopefully I can find a J-O-B quickly so Jeremy can start school!
Me, after graduation!
Me and my supportive husband....it's OVER!
Me, Merideth and Niki. We studied together for 2 years!! We've become really good friends...
Me again...
Dad, Mom, Me
Merideth, Niki, Amy (1st semester instuctor), me and Jeeya (Niki's daughter behind the ballon)
Jeremy's mom made that candy arragement....she knows me so well!
Jeremy's Dad's side...Ashely, Jeremy, Me, Steve, Lorraine, Jennifer
Jeremy's mom's side...George, Me, Joyce, Jennifer, Jeremy
My dad and Bethany at Leatherby's
Grandma Taylor and my mom
My sister Gina, me, and my grandma Taylor
Everyone at Leatherby's
Grandma Taylor and my Mom

Jeremy's 34th Birthday

2009-05-21T10:39:00.000-07:00

On April26th Jeremy turned 34! Wow he's gettin' old!! :)
I made this cake for Jeremy..yummy chocolate

Jeremy blowing out his candles

Uncle Jesh and the Doggy's

2009-05-21T09:59:00.000-07:00

Jesh came down to stay with us for about a week. We always love having him, minus the wet towels on the floor! :) Our dogs love uncle Jesh. They love to cuddle with him. I thought these pictures were so cute.

First Presidency Easter Message...

2009-04-13T23:09:00.000-07:00

At this Easter season of hope and renewal we testify of the glorious reality of the atonement and resurrection of the Lord Jesus Christ. The empty tomb brought comforting assurance and provided the answer to the question of Job, “If a man die, shall he live again?” (Job 14:14).

Because of the Savior’s resurrection we will overcome death and become the beneficiaries of His mercy and grace. In a world of trouble and uncertainty, His peace fills our hearts and eases our minds. Jesus is in very deed “the way, the truth, and the life” (John 14:6).

We give our sure witness that Jesus is the Christ. Though He was crucified, He rose triumphant from the tomb to our everlasting blessing and benefit. To each member of the human family He stands as our Advocate, our Savior, and our Friend.

President Thomas S. Monson and his counselors, President Henry B. Eyring and President Dieter F. Uchtdorf, constitute the First Presidency of the Church.

Easter at the Cesarini's

2009-04-13T22:39:00.001-07:00

He had such a good weekend with our families. We spent the morning with Jeremy's family and the afternoon with my family. There was plenty of food at both places and is was all very tasty. George Sargetis and Juliana's birthday's are actually on the same day so we celebrated both at each house.

The kids are all getting so big and time is moving so fast. Juliana is now 6 years old. Time really does go by quickly.

Juliana reaching for her birthday cake....she's no dummie.
Juliana and her birthday cake
Bethany ate all of her chocolate from her easter egg hunt.
Valerie, my niece
Bethany after the chocolate
Jeremy...i don't know what he was doing
Sean and Juliana getting ready to open presents
Bethany showing us her eggs she found
Grandma helping Bethany find some of the harder to find eggs
Juliana's cake. How cute is this! My niece Jenni made it, if you need a cake done, let me know.
Melina, my niece. She's getting so tall and big.
oh Bethany....sneaking chocolate. She's way too cute to say no to.

Easter at the Sargetis's

2009-04-13T22:21:00.000-07:00

In all there there were 22 of us. George and Joyce came up from Southern California, Jennifer, Dave and kids came from Oregon and Jeshua came home from Idaho. Jerret is in Texas training for his new job in the reserves so he wasn't able to be there. Jamie came later aswell. (she was working.)Jeremy's step-dad's family was there as well and we love spending time with them! Jeremy's uncle Chris was there from Idaho. He hasn't seen him in over 10 years. He brought Jeshua back home from school at BYU-Idaho. Here are some pictures from the good time we had at the Sargetis fam...

Jeremy and I
My husband trying to kill me.... didn't work
Jeshua and the back of Hailey
Jeshua, Krista, Uncle Chris, Jeremy and Jenn
George blowing out his birthday candles.
Uncle Chris, George, Joyce,Aunt Maria and Uncle Mike
Back Row: Uncle Mike, Uncle Chris, Jenn, Dave, Krista and Jeremy. Front row: Aunt Maria, Nadia, Joyce, little Jerret, George, Hailey, Jeshua and Savannah.
Jeremy, Savannah and little Jerret
Savannah and Jeremy

Anyone who know's me knows that...

2009-04-10T23:36:00.000-07:00

I'm not really a fan of make-up. Mainly because it takes time and I don't have a lot of that and I would prefer not to spend it on make-up. I could be sleeping or something else. BUT...I've come over to the other side with this new mineral make-up by this company I was introduced to by family. Posergy. It seems very similar to a bare minerals or essentials...whatever you call that stuff. I can put it on really fast...like 3-4 minutes and I'm done. You know I'm a fan and it works so well and I love it. And it's reasonable. It's not so expensive that I won't buy it.

So I'm going to have a party at the end of May when my sisters are here. I want all of my friends to come and see the new stuff. I really wanted to see the colors in person and have someone go through it with me and I thought....hummm just have a party and everyone can see it. No obligation to buy of course but I really think it's good.

here's the website: www.posergy.com

Benedryl for Dogs?

2009-04-10T23:10:00.000-07:00

We are not bad parents to our wonderful dogs but we do give them both Benedryl. Poor Jack is up for his yearly vaccines and he has really bad reactions and get lumps in his arms. I have to give it to him 1/2 hour before we take him in.

Louie, well he's a different story. Louie's got some pretty bad allergies and we have no idea from what. We've swtiched his food 5 times since we've had him and this last one seems to do well for his stomach but is not helping his skin. The Vet tells me yesterday that we should try steriods. Hummmmm....I don't think so. It can induced diabetes and liver failure if he needs it chronically and we have to taper him off of it. It's just really a pain actually. We decided that's a no go on the steriods so Benedryl it is for a while. Hopefully it will help the poor guy with his itching. I also need to look for some type of natural remedy cause long term it's not going to kill him. (That's always good.) If anyone has any ideas, let me know. In the mean time, I just drug them both and they sleep so well for so long. GREAT! I'll keep this in mind for my children too!
Kidding....only kidding. I'm going to be a terrible mom....

This is 1 1/2 hours after the benedryl

I forgot how fun "connect four" was...

2009-04-10T23:03:00.000-07:00

I've been so bored all day. Jeremy is home from work today because his back was hurting pretty bad today and all we've been doing is sitting around all day. I've been driving him crazy because I really needed to get out of the house and do something...just fresh air. We did leave the house for a short period of time to go to the store and get gas but it wasn't long enough. There is something to be said for have idle hands. It's not good for my marriage.

This evening we decided to turn off the T.V. and turn on the music and get out the games. We played connect four for over an hour and I had a good time. The last time I played was with my niece Melina and she kicked my trash. But I actually did really well with Jeremy and I probably won more than he did. I forgot how much I liked to play that game.

Turning off the T.V. and spending a little quality time with my husband was just what the doctor ordered. It was kind of like a family night and it was fun. Next time he's gonna teach me how to play "Yahtzee". I've never play or not that I recall.

Spring Break in Yucca Valley

2009-04-10T13:20:00.000-07:00

We went down to see Jeremy's parents in Yucca Valley, which for those of you who don't know that is near Palm Springs. Our main reason to go was to see Jeremy's grandpa. We haven't seen him since our wedding, maybe once since then. We took the dogs and they played in the dirt the entire time. We only had one problem when one of our tires went flat and we had to replace the rest of them. A bit unexpected but if that's the worst that happened we're thrilled!

I'm not sure what Jeremy was doing here, but it's funny.
Louie Sun bathing
Geroge, Joyce, Grandad, Krista and Jeremy
Krista, Grandad and Jeremy

So...it's been a while

2009-04-10T13:01:00.000-07:00

I was noticing that we're really slackers. I'm addicted to facebook now.. Well, and our lives have really been fairly uneventful in the past few months. I'm back in school and Jeremy is working so we're kind of boring but a few things have happened that I figured I could update on.

School is going okay. I've got a little over 30 days until I graduate, assuming all goes well. I'm so excited to be finished and concentrate on the next venture in our lives....boards! Then I have to find a job which may not be easy, even as a nurse. But Heavenly Father got me into school and thus far...I'll find a J-O-B.

Jeremy is doing well. He's been working hard until he injured his back. We're not really sure exactly what he did but he did something. Probably helping all those "Mormons move". :) He has 1 buldged disk and something else...(I can't remember right now) He's been at work but somedays he can't sit due to pain so this has a little interesting. The doctor told him it would take several months to heal.

Happy 2 year Anniversary....

2009-03-03T00:17:00.000-08:00

We've made it through our second year of marriage and we're still married and we haven't killed each other!! :)
It's hard to believe that it's been two years. Time flies when your happy. We had a very low-key night tonight. I was busy studying all day for a huge exam on Thursday and Jeremy is sick and his back is killing him. Needless to say we stayed in.
One thing that I've always loved about 'us' is that we don't have to go somewhere or buy each other gifts to tell one another we love each other. Time is really what we need and that is probably the most wonderful gift we can give.
I'm so grateful for such a good husband. I suppose Heavenly Father had a plan for us and I'm thankful for a wonderful man who honors his Priesthood and his wife. I love you Jeremy!!

Lot's O updates!!

2009-01-21T22:32:00.000-08:00

I've been busy tonight. I've done all of our recent updates on our blog. I've been slacking. But in my defense, I've been lazy. Guess that's not really a defense but it does take time and I've only wanted to vegg during our holiday break.

School started this week and ...oh man! I'm already feeling the stress. Jeremy looked and me yesterday and said, "don't even think about it!". I said think about what? "Your getting stressed already". Yea man! Of course. They are front loading the semester like they always do and I'm not ready.

I'll deal, like always. But I am super stressed. I just say my prayers that Heavenly Father will bless me with energy and Jeremy with patience! Thank goodness I have such a wonderful husband.

We have a new addition to our family.....

2009-01-21T22:19:00.000-08:00

Meet Louie.....

Jeremy and I have just adopted a French Bulldog from the County pound. We've been debating on whether to get another dog and we decided not to because we've been so lucky with Jack. However, we check the county and city pounds pretty often, just to see what's there. Just so happens that Louie had just been brought into the shelter. Someone had left him outside the pound. We went right down there to put our names on the list for him. In the 1 1/2 years we've been looking for dogs, we've never seen a French Bulldog come through. Jeremy's been wanting one for a while and we'd never pay the money for one as a puppy; around $1,500.00.

I got there at 9:30 in the morning and there were 3 people waiting to see him. After we started the adoption process 3 more people came for him too. One lady had come all the way from the Bay area to get this dog. She was funny too. She asked me, "are you here for the frenchy?" I said yes. She said that she wanted to come down and make sure that whoever got this dog knew what they were getting into. She proceeded to tell me a long laundry list of health problems that these dogs have and told me that if I got him to promise her I'd take him to her vet in Vacaville.
After she got done telling me all of this she says....oh, I don't really care if I get him though, I just wanted to make sure he was taken care of. Hmmmmm....I thought really?? Sure sounds like you were trying to talk me out of getting this dog. I'll give her the benefit of the doubt and say she was 'just concerned'. It was all pretty funny.

He does have a few skin issues and an ear infection but he's good. Very stubborn but a good relaxed dog. Him and Jack are still getting used to each other though... Jack just looks at us like "really? did you have to bring another dog here? This is my house".

Anyway, people think we're crazy but we love our pupp's!

Calaveras Big Tree's

2009-01-21T21:42:00.001-08:00

Sunday night we drove to Modesto to spend a little time with Jeremy's Dad's side of the family. His Grandma was in town from Arkansas and would be leaving so we wanted to visit before she left. On Monday we went to Calaveras Big trees. It was so beautiful. We were a little underdressed though. I don't think any of us realized that there would be snow....and that the trails would have packed snow on them. Nevertheless, we went on and walked one of the 'shorter trails'. It still took almost 2 hours for the short trail. After the walk they had a little warming hut with a huge fire and warm drinks. It was so much fun even with the snow. Totally worth the drive!
Me, Jeremy, Ashley, Alex, Rebecca, Gabby, Laura and Gabe
Me, Ashely, Rebecca, Gabby and Laura
Jeremy, Me and Gabe
Some HUGE TREE, Jeremy and I truly being "tree huggers"
Me and Jeremy and some large tree
Um, that was the center of a tree that had fallen down. We could walk all the way through it.

Ashley and Gabe

Jeremy and Gabe. This was the bottom of a tree that had fallen over. It was so big!!

Jeremy and Me standing between the middle of a tree that had fallen down.

Jeremy and Grandma Bratton

The whole Bratton Fam

Rebecca and Gabby

Me and Jeremy

I love Facebook....

2009-01-21T21:29:00.000-08:00

Okay, within the last 2 weeks I have signed up for Facebook. I was very apperhensive to sign up because I have a my space and I don't love it. My brother Dave got on there and I thought since he's on there I sign up for an account. Yeah...pretty much LOVE IT! I have so many friends on there who are not on my space. I have found friends that I haven't talked to in 10-15 years. These are people that I have gone to school with and lost touch over the years. I am truly grateful for this little program!!

The reason I tell you this is because while I was in Utah I was able to hook up with two of my friends from Idaho, Lisa and Darla. I haven't not talked to them in so many years and it was great to see how and what they have been doing in their lives. Here's some pictures of our visit...

Lisa, Darla & Me

Darla's two daughters. They are adorable!

Lisa's daughter, Husband, Lisa and her other daughter, Darla's husband and baby, Darla

Lisa's Children and Darla's little boy on her lap.

We had such a great visit! So great to hook up with people who were really great friends.

Utah to see the TWINERS

2009-01-21T21:02:00.000-08:00

My sister Michelle had twins in December and I went down to help her for a week in Utah. It was a really good trip. I had so much fun with the little babies; Brock and Everett. They have gotten so big! Brock was only 5lbs 2oz and Everett was 4lbs 2oz and 1 month early. They are such handsome boys and they are good boys too!

Brock - Everett

Me and Brock

Everett - Brock

Brock - Everett

They are such sweet boys.

New Year's at the Bratton Home

2009-01-21T20:38:00.000-08:00

This year we had a quiet New Year at home but it was very nice. Jeremy's Mom and Step-dad were here from Southern California along with Jeremy's brother Jeshua. They stayed here for about a week. It was nice to be able to spend time with them. Jeshua brought the game Monopoly, the city version. I haven't play that game in like 10-15 years. They had to remind me how to play. Intstead of money it had credit cards. I was out of the game within the first hour but they played until 2:00am. I sat and watched. (Now that is dedication)

Gabby's B-day

2009-01-21T20:29:00.000-08:00

This post is a little late but I thought the pictures were so cute. We went down to Modesto for Jeremy's niece's first birthday. She had such a good time and we loved watching her eat her very own Cake.

In the first one Gabby looks like she just got busted! So Cute

Bratton Family Christmas- 2008

2008-12-26T14:59:00.000-08:00

Merry Christmas to everyone! I hope you all had a wonderful day yesterday. We sure did. This was our first Christmas home on Christmas morning. It was strange but actually very nice.

We have a couple of traditions in my family that I love during the Christmas holiday. On Christmas eve my family gets together and has pizza, plays games, watches movies and opens once present. That present is usually a set of pajamas. That actually is my favorite part. I look forward every year to getting a new set of pajamas. When Jeremy and I got married I tried to give him pajamas but he really doesn't care about that tradition for himself. However, he knows how much I like it so he buys them for me. I have to say that this year is by far the best!He got me a really cute set and I was totally thrilled. We also got together with my oldest brother Tony and his family for Christmas eve and had pizza and watched the Christmas story. Gotta love that movie.

Christmas day we really had fun. We actually didn't get out of bed until almost 9:00am and I think I would have slept longer but I had to make a desert for that night. Another tradition in our family is that we have Strawberry pancakes, so I made them for Jeremy and I. We also got this handy dandy hot chocolate maker from a lady at work. We love it!

In the afternoon we went to Gina and Sean's for our Christmas dinner. It was super yummy. We had ham instead of turkey which I was thrilled about because I'm turkey'd out this year. We let the kids open their gifts from everyone and that was so fun. I wished I would have gotten pictures of that. That is really what Christmas is about, watching these little kids have so much fun. My parents had gotten each of our families a little stocking that had some homemade canned pickles, jam and a mix of sweet stuff. It was really fun. We pick names in our family and because my parents were not here, we waited and we're gonna have Christmas again in January when they get back. We're spreading the holiday!!

We left there and went to see the movie "Bedtime Stories". Now, I wasn't exactly dying to see this movie. Jeremy wanted to see it and his brother Jerret and his son really wanted to see it so we went. WOW, really great movie. It was worth the money. I think this is one of Adam Sandlers better movies that he has put out.

After the movie we came home and open some wonderful presents from my in-laws. We really had a great, relaxing, stress free day. I really enjoyed it. Jeremy and I didn't have a lot of money this year and so we didn't buy each other much. It was a different experience when what you have to focus on was each other. It felt really good.

Christmas Enrichment: Rossmoor Ward

2008-12-26T14:34:00.000-08:00

For those of you don't know, I'm on the enrichment committee in my ward and this year we had the sisters decorate their own tables and I wanted to show you what they did. Some people went really 'all out'. I was so happy that they wanted to do this because we kind of got thrown in and had to run with it this year. Anyway...enjoy the pictures.

While I was recovering the we got...

2008-12-26T14:20:00.000-08:00

EIGHT movies for me to watch. I ended up watching all of them, but very slowly. I was on some good drugs for the first 2 days. I thought we'd give our review.

"The Great Debaters": I fell asleep a little ways into this movie. Could have been the drugs or the movie??? However Jeremy said it was okay. Not the best movie of Denzel's. (He and I are on a first name basis!!)

"My Mom's New Boyfriend": I rather enjoyed this movie actually. I thought it was pretty funny. Probably not for little kids cause there's a little sex talk but it's pretty funny.

"Leatherheads": Jeremy said it was a BUST. I fell asleep. This movie is really ALL about football. Maybe if you love football you'd love this. He said it was about the beginning of how football was organized. It was just 'alright'.

"Traitor": I really liked it. It got pretty good action for the boys and a pretty good story line overall. It's worth the rental.

"The X-files": I liked it. I liked the show when it was on but I never really caught it regularly. I enjoyed the movie and so did Jeremy.

"The Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants 2": okay...look- women don't watch this with your husbands. Its a total chick-flick and I loved it. I thought when the first one came out it was going to be really kinda dumb. Granted, it's a unrealistic show but aren't all movies? This is a good movie about friends and love. Totally worth a 'girls night rental'.

"Fred Clause": We thought this was cute. It was funny, worth the rental especially if you like Vince Vaughn.

"The Perfect Holiday": This is a chick-flick too and I liked it, I didn't love it. My husband has a really big thing for Gabriele Union and so I though he'd like to watch it too. But again, not the best but it was okay.

Hope you enjoyed our review of the movies. It cost us like $40 to rent all of these movies but it was fun cause I was just at home anyway!!

Shoulder Surgery

2008-12-20T19:08:00.000-08:00

On Wednesday I (krista) had shoulder surgery. I've had it planned since summer. I've had problems with both of my shoulders for the past 10years but the left has always been worse than the right.I had calcium deposits sitting on the nerve and in the tendonin. They went in and removed it all and now I'm just in recovery! I'm doing pretty well actually. I haven't taken pain medication since the second day of the surgery. It was making me really sick and actually the pain it not too bad at this point. The doctors told me to start using it as soon as possible so I am. I've got to be back to school by Jan. 22 with a note saying I'm good to go by then.

Funny story about the surgery..
I get to the clinic in the morning and they take me back tell me to change into a gown and slippers, etc. I'm sitting there talking to Jeremy and the nurse and the Doctor comes to get the consent form signed. He introduces himself as Dr. Page the Chief resident who is going to be assisting Dr. Lewis on my case today. He looks down at my name and says "Krista, Krista Cesarini?!" and I look up at him kinda confused cause it doesn't have my maiden last name anywhere. He says "it's Billy, Billy Page!". I was kinda confused for a second and the minute he said his name and I looked at him I knew exactly who he was. This was my boyfriend for pretty much my entire sophmore year. He was actually my first 'offical' date when I turned sixteen. We went to the Olive garden in Spokane, Washington and a movie.

Jeremy thought this was all pretty amusing. He thought it was funny when he said "just think babe, he's going to see your boobs". And I said "how do you know he already hasn't!"(Becasue my husband thought he was funny, I thought I'd respond with something equally funny.) Jeremy didn't think that was as funny as I did.
Yeah...not funny. In fact, kinda embarassing! Lucky for me, at this point in nursing I've been in on enough surgeries to know that your not thinking about boobs when your getting ready to cut someone open.

What a small world it is. I knew the Dr. Page was here in Sacramento. I had heard through the grapevine but what are the chances of him doing my surgery....like 0!

Anyway, I'm doing well and recovering.

3rd Semester is OVER!..and movin onto 4th

2008-12-15T21:02:00.000-08:00

Today we took our final and grades are posted! I PASSED! Here I come 4th and final semester!!! So Great right!!!

The countdown is on!!!

2008-12-01T16:42:00.000-08:00

So I have 2 days of clinical this week and one day of not really school on Monday and 1 1/2 days of clinical next week. I can't even explain to you the excitment that I feel. I'm almost done with 3rd semester! It's hard to believe that in January I will be in my very last semester of nursing school. It seemed like forever but it did go by really fast in retrospec. I took the last regular exam today and we have the FINAL on Dec. 15th. Really thrilled!

There is one thing that really upset me today though. We did a 'lottery' drawing for our clinical rotations for next semester. Well, I picked number 50. NOT GOOD! There are only like 56 people in the class. I pretty much was in a pickle with that! Before class myself and my two friends picked out which clinical hospitals were wanted so we could all be together. There were 6 choices. There was only ONE that I absolutely DID NOT WANT. The hospital is a dive and I didn't have a good experience the last time I was there AT ALL! What do you know...no one else wanted to go to this dive either but I had no choice because there were only 8 spots left by the time it got to me and no one had picked this particular hospital. Guess who's going there! Yup, ME and I'm not happy. I'm usually pretty good about being open to things that are required and I'll go where ever and have a good attitude about it. Lets just say, I'm not excited today.

I think it will take a month or so before I can get that sick feeling out of my stomach. I know in the end it will be fine and Heavenly Father is helping me to learn patience or something like that but C'MON! I could have learned that at someplace else right!! :) Yeah, so working on accepting my new challenges for 4th semester before I even start. G-R-R-E-E-A-A-T-T-T!

Tolerance is not agreement and should not be a one way street. However, we must still remain tolerant of those who are intolerant of us.

2008-11-15T14:56:00.000-08:00

I don't know if any of you have been following what has been going on in California regarding the Prop 8 that was just passed. The LA Temple has been shut down I believe twice within the last couple of weeks. Once for the violent protests and the second because an envelope with 'white substance' was delivered to temple workers. That happened in LA as well as Salt Lake City. This whole thing is so sad to me because if the shoe was on the other foot I believe that we wouldn't be violent and harassing those who felt differently. It's our civil right to vote and stand up for what we believe in. That was done here in California, twice and the the people have spoken. It's upsetting and I have a kind of unexplained feeling of sadness that it is coming to this point. These people are going after those who contributed to Prop 8 'YES' and harassing them, following them and causing some to lose there jobs for personal beliefs that do not have anything to do with work. Our temples, especially the LA temple was written on there were signs posted on the lawn and a number of other things.

I know that the Lord has us in the for front of his hand. He understands the trials and problems that we are going through. In reflecting on what is happening I think back to other trials the church has gone through. I also think about what Christ when through and how many hated him. This is but a moment in time!

The above post title was written by a Detective in LA in regards to the backlash of prop 8 supporters especially those 'crazy Mormons'. The link below is the article that was sent to me. It is a little long but its really worth the read...

http://www.ldsmag.com/ideas/081110hate.html

This is also a link to a conference/press statement by the Protect Marriage coalition

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dU8uuPhQog0

This is another article I was sent on the 'white substance found'

National Update

Friday, November 14, 2008
Visit familyleader.net for more articles, news & issues.
From: Maurine Proctor
Washington, D.C.

White Powder and Official Statements
Photo: Amy Fisler

Pass this email on to your friends and sign up for the Family Leader emails.
In response to the persecution and vandalism faced by The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints for its role in helping to pass Proposition 8, the First Presidency today issued this statement:

Five months ago, the First Presidency of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints sent a letter to members of the Church in California, encouraging them to join the millions of other Californians from many religious denominations, ethnic groups and political persuasions in a broad coalition to defend marriage as it has been defined for millennia.

During the election campaign, both sides of the argument on Proposition 8 had ample opportunities to express their viewpoint. The result was conclusively in favor of traditional marriage. More than 40 states in the United States have now voted to protect traditional marriage, either directly or through their elected representatives.

Today the First Presidency issued this statement about the democratic process

Since the people of California voted to reaffirm the sanctity of traditional marriage between a man and a woman on November 4, 2008, places of worship have been targeted by opponents of Proposition 8 with demonstrations and, in some cases, vandalism. People of faith have been intimidated for simply exercising their democratic rights. These are not actions that are worthy of the democratic ideals of our nation. The end of a free and fair election should not be the beginning of a hostile response in America.

The Church is keenly aware of the differences of opinion on this difficult and sensitive matter. The reasons for this principled stand in defense of marriage have already been articulated elsewhere. However, some of what we have seen since Californians voted to pass Proposition 8 has been deeply disappointing.

Attacks on churches and intimidation of people of faith have no place in civil discourse over controversial issues. People of faith have a democratic right to express their views in the public square without fear of reprisal. Efforts to force citizens out of public discussion should be deplored by people of goodwill everywhere.

We call upon those who have honest disagreements on this issue to urge restraint upon the extreme actions of a few that are further polarizing our communities and urge them to act in a spirit of mutual respect and civility towards each other.

This statement comes the day after envelopes containing white powder were delivered to the temples in Salt Lake City and Los Angeles, California and a Knights of Columbus office in Connecticut. According to the Salt Lake Tribune, the white powder found was not a known harmful toxin such as ricin or smallpox, though that doesn't mean the powder was completely safe. Further tests will need to be run to see if it is something new and the results will not be available until next week. The FBI said that sending the white powder will be prosecuted as "making false and misleading threats or attempts to use or threaten the use of a weapon of mass destruction to promote public fear."

Meanwhile the El Coyote Mexican restaurant in Los Angeles is being picketed because the manager, Marjorie Christoffersen, gave $100 to the Yes on 8 campaign. The picket is happening even though other workers there gave $500 toward its defeat. See the film and story in the LA Times. One of the ways restaurants are being sabotaged whose employees donated toward the passing of Prop 8 is by blacklisters going on line and giving the restaurants a low, one-star rating.

Happy 30th birthday to me!

2008-11-10T18:06:00.000-08:00

For all of my 'so called' friends who forgot, Sunday was my birthday! :)
I had a good day. I didn't go to church because I felt like crapola but we had Jeremy's brother & family over as well as my parents. We didn't do a huge party because my family celebrates the 4 November birthdays together next week. But I had a fabulous night. Jeremy made my favorite rainbow cake with rainbow frosting. I've had this cake for almost 10 years now. We pizza for dinner. It was perfectly relaxing.

Jeremy's family got me the IPOD I've been wanting. I'm really excited about this because i'll never have to get a new one because it holds more than I'll ever need.

Thanks guys! Totally love it! :)

The Dr....

2008-11-10T17:50:00.000-08:00

I've been sick since our little venture to Utah last week. On Thursday of this week I started having this cheek/jaw pain. I'm thinking I have a cavity and get in to see my dentist. He does an xray and see's that my sinus's are totally inflammed. I call my M.D. and she gives me some antibiotics over the phone. I started taking them on Friday. Saturday the pain is still there, Sunday it's even worse. I even took pain meds...which I never do. I was up this morning at 3:00am then finally got up at 5:0am because I have this stabbing pain in my cheek and jaw. Sure can't sleep.
I call the 24 hr nurse line through my insurance to see what to do. She tells me that I need to be seen by an M.D. in the next hour based on my symptoms. She asks me 'are you going to go to the emergency room?' and I said no, I'll probably wait until 8am to call my doctor and see if she can fit me in. She tells me to call now and that there is an 'oncall' doctor and I needed to call him. So I do..... He tells me that I need to be seen and tells me to call the office at 8am and tell them to fit me in.

Okay...so I get into the doctor at 11am. I'm talking to my doctor, relating the events of the morning. She said 'what time did you call the oncall doctor'. I told her by the time I actually talked to him, maybe 6:30am. She said to me 'don't do that, don't call the oncall doctor you could have waited until 8. This is what can be frustrating for doctors.' Um, excuse me! I was a little taken back by that comment. I'm pretty sure that I'm helping to pay your salary right?! And I'm pretty sure that I was told to make the call and I did what I was asked. Yeah, pretty upset about that little situation. Then she said she wants me to get a CT but she wants me to wait until Wednesday. What??? I guess she didn't hear the part about a 'stabbing pain level of 7 out of 10'. Yeah, pretty annoyed at this point. I can deal with the waiting on the CT thing, but don't tell me not to call the doctor. I was so irratated if you couldn't tell.

I may as well be treating myself because I'm sure not getting much help from those that are supposed to be the ones who actually know what they are doing.

I'll get over it...eventually...after I switch doctors!

Med-Surg is OVER!

2008-11-10T17:43:00.001-08:00

My 10 weeks of hell have ended! Just kidding..well sort of. This semester we have clinical rotations that include 10 weeks on a Med-Surg floor and 5 weeks in a psych unit. The first 10 weeks are over and I couldn't be more thrilled. At the beginning I wasn't sure about my insturctor or about what I was doing and by the end, I felt more confident in my abilities and really ended up loving and respecting my intructor. I wanted to kill her during the rotation but she really pushed me and I appreciate that in retrospect. I learned so much from her. It was frustrating though because it seemed like she always caught me when I made some mistake. That always happens.

Tommorow I start on the Psychatric unit. I'm pretty excited about this too. I'll have to control my face though. When they start talking about their delusions, and illusions and hallucinations I'll have to hide my face I'm sure. It's not funny but I'll probably have a shocked look on my face. Still have to work on my 'poker face'.

So we move on...only 5 weeks of the semester left!! Yippeeeee

Prop 8 Passed...restore Marriage!

2008-11-10T17:23:00.000-08:00

I'm pretty excited about this...I wasn't sure if this would pass in California. The people voted and here's the verdict.

There has been so much controversy over this in California. People are very passionate on both sides. It's kind of a touchy subject and unfortunately, the issue is not over. There are protests pretty much daily and petitions going on to overturn the vote. I think we all kinda knew that this was not going to end with the vote but this is now twice.

This subject is hard for me because from a civil point of view I think people should all have equal rights. However, giving those rights to Homosexuals then violates my religious and moral beliefs. And if I thought it would stop at marriage then I may not be so adamant about voting against it. I know that this is just the beginning and I truly believe that Heavenly Father is very sad with this situation.

Satan is very sneaky at attacking the family and this is a prime example. This will not stop in California, it's coming to the entire U.S.A. It's a matter of time.

I was in surgery the other day and I was shocked at the opinions of so many in the room. I felt like a lone dove in the room. I was also pretty upset at the politics that were being shared in front of patients. I don't know what happened to personal and professional opinions being separated. I was really disappointed in the staff, and this included several doctors. I heard one nurse say that she told her daughter that people who voted 'Yes' were prejudice and intolerante. Everyone is entitled to whatever they want to believe and I happen to believe that marriage is between a man and a women. I don't feel like I'm prejudice, I feel like I have a sense of moral belief and conviction of the plan that Heavenly Father has. I do have to admitt that I do have a couple of friends that are homosexual and they are the nicest guys ever and I do feel torn at times because I want them to be happy. I guess that's where faith comes in. We've never been a 'popular' people in society, why start now I suppose. :)

I guess we have a new President...

2008-11-10T17:11:00.000-08:00

Well, seems as though Obama has become our President. Hum, not really thrilled about this situation but we kinda knew it was coming. When you have a gazillion dollars for a campign it's kind of hard to not to win.

So, I suppose I'll have to 'support' our new president because he is our new president. I sure hope all those who voted for him knew what they were doing. I'm just not sure about all of this 'change' he will be bringing. It's so funny to me because I was watching a T.V. show and they had this pannel on there talking about 'the great Obama'. The funny part was that they were sure to mention that 'we all need to be very patient with him because he has a lot to "clean up".' True, there is a lot to 'fix' but lets be real; even if Mccain was put into office-no one would say 'lets be patient with him'. Give me a break.

I wasn't jazzed about Mccain either but at least I felt he was honest. I'm just not sure about the lines we're being feed as American's by our new President.
I truely hope that the CHANGE promised will come to those who felt inspired by him. For now, I sit, I wait and will hold my tongue. (Okay, maybe I won't hold my tongue but I will do my best to 'be patient' as the media has said.)

Okay....my rant is over....for now! :)

Michelle's Baby Shower

2008-11-10T16:59:00.000-08:00

The real reason we went to Utah was to go to Moe's baby shower. We had so much fun. The day went off perfectly with everyone's help. There were about 25 people there and Moe got so much stuff. Heavenly Father sure has blessed them with good friends....and duh, of course FANTASIC FAMILY!

.
Here are some pictures...

Michelle looks so great and she is feeling pretty good for being 7 1/2 months pregers. We're all excited for 'baby a & baby b' to get here in December.

Halloween 08 in UtAh

2008-11-06T13:47:00.000-08:00

We went to Uah for Michelle's baby shower this weekend. On Friday my Aunt Debbie and Uncle Dexter threw a Halloween party for everyone. It turned out really well and the kids had fun. I decided to dress up, which I haven't done since I was 16 years old! Here are some of the fun pictures!
My cool peace earrings!
So nice to be silly with my sisters. Nickie, Me and Moe
Grandma with baby Lucas. He was supposed to be a banana. (Lucas is my cousin's son)
Nickie, me, and Moe
Mom and Moe
Sindy, Nickie, me and Moe
Mom, and yup...that's Dad! How funny is that mask?!
My cousin Serena. Her and her husband looked so great!
Janesa, Ashley, Serena,Sindy, Me, Moe and Nickie. Don't we look so fabulous!
Goofy...uncle Dexter
Dad with my retro wigg. I think this should be his new look!
Me and Nickie having fun with grandma. She only let us put this on her because she was getting her hair done the next day.
Seriously, the best thing ever! Grandma was the best sport. I made her get out of bed so we could put the wigg on her. She gets so embarrased but she's the best grandma ever!
Moe was trying to dress up her costume. Don't really think they go? What do you think?

Prop 8...

2008-10-20T23:50:00.000-07:00

This is a letter I got from a lady in our ward. I won't put any names on it but this is just amazing. Seriously, tonight I was thinking of all of the things going on in our country and it's almost depressing. We are getting so wicked as a nation! We have forgotten so many things although we have the scriptures to remind us of them. I fear that if Prop 8 passes....well, it will just bring so many issues to light and it can/will determine where we raise our future family.
Anyway...here's the letter:
"Subject: Protest at Oakland Temple
Be aware and please be in prayer
Dear family and friends,
I had a very disturbing experience yesterday that I would like to share with
those of you that live outside of California (or outside of the San
Francisco Bay Area).
This weekend we have stake conference. Our stake conference always begins
with a stake temple session on Friday or Thursday night. Early Friday
morning I received a call from the second counselor in our bishopric to let
me know that there would be numerous protesters outside the temple, and to
remind everyone to stay calm and to drive carefully. The beautiful
Oakland Temple is located right across the bay from San Francisco , very
close to the city of Berkeley .

Apparently the opposition to proposition 8, the amendment that seeks to make
marriage in CA between a man and a woman again, has realized the deep
involvement of the church and begun to protest right outside of the temple
and harass temple patrons. The fastest way to get to the temple from our
house is to take the 680 freeway, but the exit is a bit tricky. The off
ramp is extremely short and straight uphill. You then make an almost blind
left turn, an immediate right and another left into the parking lot. As we
approached the off ramp, I realized there would be trouble. There was a
backup onto the freeway from cars stalled on the off ramp. As we moved
forward inches at a time, we realized this was due to a large group of loud
protesters who were standing on both sides of the street, yelling, screaming
and waving signs. When we got to the top of the offramp, ready to make our
turn, one protester jumped out right in front of our car. It took my
husband all his self control to carefully maneuver around him to the left
and proceed to the temple.

I tried not to listen to all they were shouting at us, but I was shaking as
I got to the temple front door. Several of the sisters, especially the ones
driving on their own, were crying (which made me snap out of it and go into
Relief Society President mode to comfort them). Later, as I was sitting in
the perfect quiet of the chapel, I couldn't help but think of Lehi's dream,
and the people who mocked the Saints from the big spacious building but
'we heeded them not.' It was a truly surreal experience, I'd never thought
that I would have to go through an angry crowd to get to the temple. As we
left late at night, the protesters had dispersed, temple security (who all
looked very large and Tongan) stood by the gates. I never saw a single
police man.

Please pray for those of us in California fighting for prop 8--it's getting
kind of scary out here!"

Oh, guess your wondering what my calling is huh...

2008-10-18T23:22:00.001-07:00

Drum roll please.....
Enrichment leader! Not as bad as I thought. Only once a quater. I think I can handle it. Well except they need something planned for our December activity. Um, does anyone have any great ideas for me or know where to get them????? Please tell me............

Quiz of the week

2008-10-18T23:04:00.000-07:00

Here are the rules: I have to answer the following questions with one word answers and one word only! Then I must pass it on to others.

Here are the questions:

1. Where is your cell phone? I'm on it..duh!
2. Where is your significant other? Sitting across from me on the couch.
3. Your hair color? Brown with blonde highlights as of last week. Thanks for noticing everyone!
4. Your mother? Just bought new shoes tonight
5. Your father? Loves to fish
6. Your favorite thing? A date with my hubby
7. Your dream last night? sure can't remember
8. Your dream/goal? Me to finish nursing school, Jeremy to figure out what he wants to do for his career and start having our kids that are waiting so patiently for mommy & daddy to get it together!
9. The room you're in? Front room on the couch
10. Your hobby? Hobby? Who has time for one of those?
11. Your fear? Not passing my classes
12. Where do you want to be in 6 years? Established nurse with 2 kids!
13. Where were you last night? Went on a date with Jeremy to 'Chicago Fire'. (Um, it was yummy too)
14. What you're not? Skinny
15. One of your wish-list items? New Car
16. Where you grew up? Sacramento
17. The last thing you did? Blog stocking (acording to my sister Moezer)
18. What are you wearing? pajamas
19. Your TV? Is on??
20. Your pet? Yessssss, of course....JaCkO. We love him to bits!
21. Your computer? laptop. But we do have a desktop. We never use it. Takes too much effort. :)
22. Your mood? tired
23. Missing someone? Yes, my sisters in Utah!
24. Your car? Is a piece of crap...I mean Honda. We did just get a new to us 'used jeep'. Thanks dad.
25. Something you're not wearing? a bra
26. Favorite store? don't have one..
27. Your summer? is hot
28. Love someone? Jeremy
29. Your favorite color? Hello....purple
30. When is the last time you laughed? today
31. Last time you cried? tonight. well, not cry but I did get teary watching a t.v. show. I'm gettin' soft in my old age.

I now pass the award onto:
Anyone who wants to do it!!!

And..Krista's up for a NeW CaLLinG..

2008-10-10T01:46:00.000-07:00

Oh man...am I excited for this one.(Are you sensing my sarcasim?) Jeremy gets a call today from the Bishop. He wanted to come to our house to extend a calling. Um, NO! Luckily for me, I wasn't going to be home. He, He....Bummer right.
WRONG! So now he asks Jeremy if we can both come to the church on Sunday to meet with him. I told Jeremy that I don't get called in when they want to give him a calling, why does he get to come when I get one? Jeremy thinks they are putting me in the primary presidency again. So I think you should all tell me what you think it will be before Sunday. If your right....well, then your right and INSPIRED about my life.

OuR FaMiLy UpDaTe

2008-10-10T01:26:00.000-07:00

Not a whole lot cooking in the Bratton household. I guess I shouldn't say that, we're always busy but nothing new. Jeremy is doing well in school. He's working 40 hours and was taking 12.5 units in school, on top of his calling as Ward Mission Leader. Something had to give and it was his English class. He had to drop it this last week because it was just too much, which I totally get! He hated his English teacher anyway. She was slightly slanted in her point of views on marriage & love. She was making him read these articles on things that basically marriage would never last, love is just a chemical in the brain..yada, yada, yada! My husband has a hard time dealing with people he finds to be unintelligent and especially when they take a role like she was with marriage. We believe that marriage is scared and ordained by God. I think she may have had some other ideas about it.
So nontheless...he's not taking English but he's still in his other classes. He went for his 'lie detector' test today for the Sheriff's department. We're hoping that went well. :) If all goes well he should be starting with the state in the next few months. He's very excited about that and so am I because he'll hopefully be happier doing this than what he is doing now.
I'm doing well. I'm at least keeping my head above water. 3rd semester is going well. It's hard and I've really had to step it up this semester but that's okay. It will make me stronger and a better nurse. For those of you who don't know how nursing school works, there is theory (actually in a classroom) and there is clinical (in a hospital taking care of patients). I prefer clinical any day of the week but I realize that theory is where you learn how to care for patients. Theory is fine. This semester for clinical my instructor, who I refer to as the 'Nazi' (anyone watch Grey's anatomy?). Yeah, that's her! She's scary and abrupt but she knows her crap! Which in translation means..you better know yours and be prepared, cause if not, your dead in the water. This semester I've actually had anxiety before clinical and I've not had that ever going to clinical. She scares me and intimates me, which is not easy to do. But I have to say that this semester things are really coming together and making a lot more sense. I'm not sure if that is mainly because of her or if I'm just increasing my knowledge. Maybe a little of both. Either way, I'm learning a lot which is good because I really will be better for having her. I can't always appreciate her teaching style but I can appreciate the principles behind her teaching style.
So between school, working 2 jobs, volunteering and my calling at church, I'm beat every week. I just keep telling myself, 'you've only got 6 more months of school'. And I've really only got about 8 weeks left of this semester. It has flown by. It's almost over................................yeah!

"Just Jack" adorable...

2008-10-10T01:19:00.000-07:00

He's wondering what in the heck I'm saying..
Yes, our dog loves to sit on our laps all of the time. He will sleep like that.

Yeah, it's late and I really should be

2008-10-10T00:53:00.000-07:00

in bed! I had a very good day today until this evening. I didn't have school or work today, which is a shocker! That almost never happens...I got up this morning and went to 'WW'. I'm back in the 'lifestyle' changing game. That was hard to do. It's a commitment and I'm really not good at those right now because I've got a lot going on.
Well then I decided to get my hair done at the beauty salon. I haven't gotten my hair colored in probably 2 years by a professional. Well, I guess the beauty school is not 'professional' but it's more so than what my mom and I have been doing to my hair. :) Oh, and I let her cut it too. UM, maybe a mistake. She did okay but...well... let's just say it was a gamble and I lost. It's not that bad but seriously, any of the ladies who've had layers put in their hair know that you have to use the scissors more than 4 times. She really only made four cuts to my hair and she cut the layers to short so I can't get some of it back in a pony tail. Kinda a bummer but it'll grow. Good experience. Okay...so probably more that you wanted to know about the cut...the color is cute though.
I finally get home around 3:30pm after running all of my errands for the day. I was supposed to get more done but it just didn't happen....of course.
I went to the hospital tonight to do my weekly volunteering in the ICU. It was an okay night. I know this sounds really sick so brace yourselves but I was able to help with an 'expired' patient tonight. It was kind of, um, no weird but surreal. I didn't know anything about the patient, I just heard that she was dead and they were going to do 'post-mortem' care on her. We have to do this for school too but I've not had any patients die while I was on shift.
There was a couple of interesting things about tonight. I wasn't really sure how I would react to seeing someone dead that I didn't know. I wondered if I would be disgusted or scared or nervous. I've seen my family members die and that of course has affected me because there is an emotional attachment to them. But it was interesting to look at this women's body and really not be bothered by it. It was just a body.
The other really interesting thing was how hollow her body looked laying there. This women had obviously had a tough life because she was very contracted in the limbs and looked like she would be very uncomfortable if still alive. But looking at her to tonight I couldn't help but think about body and spirit and the gospel. I know she's in the spirit world now and out of pain.
The gospel is really such an amazing thing and teaches us so much about Heavenly Father's plan and I love that. I love that he has given us so much knowledge that I don't have to wonder what happen to this women or her spirit when it left her body. I know where it is.
It also made me think of the gift our bodies are. I remember teaching the people on my mission about body and spirit. I'd always tell them that our bodies are on loan from Heavenly Father. I'd ask them how they would treat anything they borrowed from another person, especially a person they cared about. The response was always the same...I would respect it and try to give it back in the same condition I got it in. This is the same for our bodies. We need to realize they are a gift for this life and we should always try to treat them well and give them respect.
So my point in telling you all of this...well, I'm rambling but...I came home with a huge migraine headache because I didn't eat enough and I took two excedrine migraine asprin (which is totally great by the way) which is loaded with caffine so I got a burst of energy. Thus the blog entry at 1:00am! I really should be in bed.

Are we toxic???

2008-10-10T00:43:00.000-07:00

This is the sign that was posted on our bathroom door during the construction of our bathroom after leak..

I happen to be at work or school or somewhere when they started this mess but I came home and there are the signs. I'm thinking...well, maybe we should spring for a hotel since I might be breathing toxic junk in our house. Well, never fear cause they put a fan in the bathroom that ran 24 hours a day for like three days. Can't wait to see that bill!
Needless to say the sign is down, the bathroom is fixed and all is well. Except we haven't actually taken the time to put all of our things back in there yet. Soon...maybe soon. We've become acustom to using the other bathroom.

The Cesarini Family has more good news....

2008-10-03T23:49:00.000-07:00

Yes, it is about time for these two....THEY ARE PREGNANT!! Yeah.... Congrats to the happy couple. Baby should be due in June.

We haven't had any new additions to the family in 3 years...now we'll have three little ones in the next year!
SO GREAT!!

An Exciting Experience....

2008-09-08T22:46:00.000-07:00

Experiences, experiences, experiences. The Lord is amazing and knows us so well. We (Jeremy and I) had such a great opportunity tonight and it came out of a very weird situation.

We've had these neighbors upstairs since the end of the last year. It sucks having upstairs neighbors because it's loud in our apartment because they made this place as cheap as possible, thus no insulation. We can hear everything. Last year we had a problem with them being very loud and nailing things to their wall. Since then Jeremy and I have just tried to deal with the noise and suck it up.

Last night was not a good night for us and the neighbor. I tried to get to bed early last night because I had a final. I was actually in bed at 10:00pm and couldn't sleep because the upstairs neighbor had his T.V. so loud we couldn't hear our T.V. in our own house. At 12:30 I went up there to ask him to turn the volume down. I banged on the door 3 separate times and no response. I came back down and hit my sandal on the ceiling extremely hard to try and get his attention. I really don't know how he didn't hear me because I was putting all of my frustration and anger into the pounding.

Finally Jeremy goes up there and lets just say that I could hear him banging on the door from our back room. He's gone for a couple of minutes and he comes back in. Long story short....Jeremy overreacted just a wee bit and the ex-correctional officer in him came out. The guy kept saying, "Sir, there's no need for violence." Jeremy felt like a total jerk because while he was berating the poor guy our neighbor said he wanted to ask him some questions about the church video we gave him for Christmas. Fabulous right!! He wants to know about the church and Jeremy's yellin' at him.....not good. So Jeremy comes back into the house and feels terrible especially because he is the ward mission leader and this guy is a potential investigator but he wasn't being very Christ-like as he lost his temper.

At this point Jeremy knows he's got to apologize. Tonight we kind of talked about it and Jeremy said he wanted to give the guy a couple of days to cool-off. We're watching T.V. tonight about 9:00pm and there's a knock at the door. It's our neighbor who we now know as James. He came by to apologize to us for having his volume up so loud. I'm not kidding you, these two (James & Jeremy) apologized to each other so many times I had to tell them to STOP! It was like listening to two women profusely apologizing. Enough Already!!

James says I wanted to ask you guys some questions about that video you gave me at Christmas time. We invite him in to sit down. He proceeds to tell us that for the past 6 months to a year that he's really been doing a lot of research on religion. He says that he feels like he needs to find the truth. He actually really impressed us because when he said he had been doing research....he wasn't kidding. He believed many of the same things that we do. We talked about Joseph Smith, the Golden Plates and how we got the Book of Mormon, how we used both sets of scriptures together, the different kingdoms of Heaven. I mean really, this guy couldn't have been placed in our direct path any better. He asked if we could pray together. It's was like the 'GOLDEN CONTACT' that all missionaries wanted. We gave him another video to watch and a copy of the Book of Mormon to stew on. All in all, it was a pretty shocking night but pretty spiritual.

This is just proof of how Heavenly Father leads our lives and those around us. He really does have a plan for us and if we listen when he speaks he will bless us.

Our next President!

2008-09-07T22:12:00.000-07:00

Okay, so we've always planned on voting for Mccain. However, can I just say that I am so excited about Sarah Palin! I absolutely love her!!! I've never been so excited for a campaign year. This women has come out of nowhere and ended up here.

Let me just say...I get so irratated listening to people talk about this war and how terrible we are for fighting this war. I'm sure if anyone had their choice...we would never want to fight a war. However, wars have to happen, it's part of life. We know from the scriptures that there has always been wars and there will always be wars and that this is only the beginning. I'm so thankful for all of the soldgers who protect our country and really my life.
Sorry, I digressed. I'm excited to see what's going to happen in November. But as for us...Mccain-Palin is our pick!

Adorable!

2008-09-07T22:06:00.000-07:00

I don't know how many of you watched Sarah Palin at the Republican Convention but this was the cutest moment ever. Palin's youngest daughter was holding their youngest and decided to fix his hair. These pictures are priceless!!

Whoops, where's that water coming from

2008-09-05T23:54:00.000-07:00

This morning I was taking a shower and as I was getting out I noticed a couple of drips of water leaking from the vent in the bathroom. I'm thinking hum, that sure is kinda strange but maybe my shower was really hot and that's just water dripping from evaporation. However when it keeps coming down in a slow steady drip I go and get a pan just in case.
I start to get ready and do a couple of things in the house and I come back to the bathroom and now there is a full on drip over the tub and on the vent. I look over and on the other side of the tub the paint is bubbling and not looking so hot. I quickly call my landlord cause I don't know what to do. I just had this vision that the entire ceiling would come down.
Lucky for me I've got a great landlord and the HOA sent out a plumber within a couple of hours. They fixed the problem. Apparently the upstairs unit did not have cocking around part of their tub and well, we got the leak from that problem.
The huge holes in the ceiling were so they could figure out where the leak was.
The mess they made, and yes they actually did clean up well.
Nice patch job huh

Only 14 weeks left

2008-09-05T23:42:00.000-07:00

Jeremy and I both started school two weeks ago. I'm loving it! I'm excited to be back in school and learning the skills I need for my future career. I really realized this summer as I was working how grateful I really am because this education is allowing me to do what I want to do in this life instead of what I have to do. It's going to be a good semester.
Jeremy is doing well. He's handling his really busy schedule very well. I'm very proud of him. The only class that is giving him a bit of a challenge is his Anatomy and Physiology course. He's still pull through well though.

Great Website

2008-08-21T12:29:00.000-07:00

I was looking on a friends blog and I saw this website on a post. I really liked it! We all need a spiritual boost during the day.
http://findingstrengthwithin.blogspot.com/

Personality Handwriting Analysis

2008-08-21T11:56:00.000-07:00

Jeremy and I went to the California State Fair on Monday and had a really good time. And might I add that it was a bargain to get in. $5 a piece and free parking. Bargainious!
While we were in one of the exhibits we saw this guy who was doing handwriting analysis. You give him $3 and sign your name on this paper. He puts it into a machine and out pops your personality! So I wanted to post it to see what everyone else though about this analysis.

Jeremy's

You have a strong sense of what is right and wrong
You are always ready for a good time.
You love seeking new challenges.
You give yourself and your time freely to others.
You enjoy exercising you mind and your body.
Your Friends value the loyalty of your friendship.
You criticism often hurts.
You have a great deal of initiative.
You thrive on admiration and praise.
You delight in putting people on the offensive and watching them squirm.
You are independent and like making your own decisions.

Krista

By nature you are sensitive, generous, and sentimental.
You enjoy competition and challenge.
You have a real desire to be the center of attention.
You like to have things run your way.
You let wishful thinking take the place of thorough investigation.
Stop, look and listen should be your daily motto.
You have big plans and expensive tastes.
You have a special way of influencing others with your ideas.
You think it is sensible to be happy.
You have a deep desire to stay young forever.
You are very independent and self-reliant.
You have good concentration and pay attention to details.

Now, I think that Jeremy's is actually pretty accurate. Mine has a few things that are totally not me like I don't care about staying young or have expensive tastes.

I thought this was kind of fun. It's not normally something we would do but since we got into the fair so cheap we splurged.

Blue Lakes...the adventure

2008-08-17T22:09:00.000-07:00

We have been planning this camping trip for about a month now. We both really needed to get out of town, away from phones and have some pure air for a while. My dad went up to blue lakes on Thursday to save us a spot. For those of you who don't know where blue lakes is...neither did we until this weekend. It's actually pretty much at the Tahoe border. We took HWY 89 to get there. It was so beautiful and green. The lakes were so pretty. It seemed like it took us a long time to get there in the dark but when we came home today it seemed to go by so fast. There was so much to see. We got out of the car a couple of times to look around before we came home. Jeremy and I actually didn't do much while we were there. We played games and talked...what a novel idea right! My dad stayed long enough on Saturday to have some dutch oven cooking and cobbler. He had to get home to go to church on Sunday with my mom. The weather was PERFECT.

We did take Jack and lets just say...he's not a camper. He did okay but he seemed pretty agitated the entire time. We brought him his own little chair to sit in off the dirt and he didn't like that too much. We tried to let him just sleep on a blanket in the tent, we'll that didn't work so we put him on lock down in a traveling kennel. He barely even ate while we were there, with the exception of the stuff my dad gave him.

I'm sure you'll read in Jeremy's post that we did leave 1 day early due to the 'bear issue' we had this morning. That damn bear ate us out of camp. I've never a bear in such close proximity to me before, I was a little nervous. I won't go into to much detail other than to say that I told Jeremy and my dad to put those stinking ice chests in the car and they told me there was nothing to worry about. I was being a 'worry wart'. Hum....don't wanna say "I told you so", but its really necessary here. :)
Here are the pictures after the bear got our food. He really liked our pepperoni, bacon, sandwich meat, cheese, and he really loved the whipped cream.

Here are some other pictures of our trip

Dad Reading his book.
Dad and Jack...just chillin'
My fearless husband building our campfire. He did a great job too!
In front of the 'lower blue lake'. We tried taking it ourselves, thus the great picture.
This shows a better view of the lake. We found some kids to take it for us.

We saw this as we were leaving the campsite. We thought it was pretty funny.
OH, and this is our tent. The screen on the right side now has a nice slit in it for our 'escape'. Good thing someone gave it to us huh. Actually, the tent is ginormous and it splits in the center and has doors. We can still use the one side and not have any bugs in there. We'll zip the center.
We really did have a great time. Can't wait for our next camping trip and we'll be more prepared with foghorns or pots and pans to bang!

We survived a BEAR ATTACK!

2008-08-17T20:29:00.000-07:00

We went camping this weekend at Blue Lakes outside of Lake Tahoe. We were sound asleep on our second night until awakened by noise in our campsite. It was around 4:30 a.m. and Krista jumped out of bed. She grabbed a flashlight and unzipped the window in our tent only to come face to face with a 400-500 lb cinnamon colored bear! I quickly jumped to my feet and grabbed my pocket knife. As the bear came crashing through the front of our tent I cut through the back and helped Krista through. The bear snarled ferociously as my knees began to shake and the hair on the back of my neck stood on end. I courageously stood my ground and mustered every last drop of testosterone as Krista ran for help. Jack barked and growled with all the energy of a 2 year old while trying to protect me. I circled the bear once and then made my move. I grabbed a shoe and threw it at its head. The bear must have seen the look of survival in my eye or heard the fierceness in my voice because he turned tail and ran. At least...that's how I'll be telling the story...

In truth Krista awoke around 4:30 to the sound of a large cinnamon colored bear wreaking havoc on our ice chest about 20 feet from our tent. We tried to wait it out but after about 20 minutes it only got closer. At this point we decided to cut through the window in our tent and go for help. While leaving Jack in his crate to continue his best impression of a stuffed animal, we kept the tent between us and the bear and tried to keep calm and not run while making a b-line to the camp director's trailer.

After waking the camp directors and their children they graciously drove us back to our camp to scare the assailant away. While driving us down he begins to tell us about the 400-500 lb bear that has made 3 other trips to our campground earlier in the week. The same bear tore off half of the camp director's fifth-wheel trailer while looking for food.

After losing our food and our nerve, we decided to pack up and leave today without spending a third night as planned. Had I not listened to my wife who knows what would have happened had we stayed in our tent. Besides, after having soiled my clothing I didn't have a spare pair of pants. ;o) (Just kidding!)

Fall is going to bring such a nice surprise...

2008-08-08T08:15:00.001-07:00

Jeremy in school right before our eyes! (If none of you caught that, the tune was supposed to be from the theme of 'Popcorn Popping' from primary)
Just thought I'd give an update on Jeremy's plans for the fall. We've been talking about how to get him started in school for a while. Although I get out of school in a little over 9 months (yeah...you heard that right...9 months. I think my time tracker said 285 days but it's not counting all the down time between breaks!)we found out that in order for Jeremy to even attempt to get into the school that he wants to go to the application must be in by Jan 29, 2009 with pre-requisites completed. This kind of put a fire under our hind ends. Orginally he was going to just quit his job completely or take a leave of absence and we just realized that plan was not going to work for us.
So needless to say that we are going to have a stressful winter but Heavenly Father has really blessed us with the classes and a supervisor who allowed him to change his schedule at work. About 4-5 months ago his supervisor wouldn't have worked with him on his schedule but he's been able to gradually show leadership qualities at work and she's given him a lot of responsibilities. It's obvious to us that Heavenly Father had his hand in this from the beginning.
Now we'll both be students and stressed out..........it's gonna be fun in our home! :)

Try this in the Office for fun....

2008-08-08T08:12:00.000-07:00

A co-worker sent this to me today. I thought it was hilarious and could really be fun in the office. Check it out..........
ONE-POINT OFFICE DARES
1) Run one lap around the office at top speed.
2) Ignore the first five people who say 'good morning' to you.
3) Phone someone in the office you barely know, leave your name and say, "Just called to say I can't talk right now. Bye."
4) To signal the end of a conversation, clamp your hands over your ears and grimace.
5) Leave your zipper open for one hour. If anyone points it out, say, "Sorry, I really prefer it this way."
6) Walk sideways to the photocopier.
7) While riding in an elevator, gasp dramatically every time the doors open.

THREE-POINT DARES
1) Say to your boss, "I like your style" and shoot him with double-barreled fingers.
2) Babble incoherently at a fellow employee, and then ask, "Did you get all that, I don't want to have to repeat it."
3) Page yourself over the intercom (do not disguise your voice).
4) Kneel in front of the water cooler and drink directly from the nozzle (there must be a 'non-player' within sight).
5) Shout random numbers while someone is counting.

FIVE POINT DARES
1) At the end of a meeting, suggest that, for once, it would be nice to conclude with the singing of the national anthem (5 extra points if you actually launch into it yourself).
2) Walk into a very busy person's office and while they watch you with growing irritation, turn the light switch on/off 10 times.
3) For an hour, refer to everyone you speak to as "Bob."
4) Announce to everyone in a meeting that you "really have to go do a number two."
5) After every sentence, say 'Mon' in a really bad Jamaican accent. As in "The reports on your desk, Mon". Keep this up for 1 hour.
6) While an office mate is out, move their chair into the elevator.
7) In a meeting or crowded situation, slap your forehead repeatedly and mutter, "Shut up, all of you just shut up!"
8) At lunchtime, get down on your knees and announce, "As God as my witness, I'll never go hungry again."
9) In a colleague's DAY PLANNER, write in the 10am slot: "See how I look in tights."(5 Extra points if it is a male, 5 more if he is your boss)
10) Carry your keyboard over to your colleague and ask, "You wanna trade?"
11) Repeat the following conversation 10 times to the same person: "Do you hear that?" "What?" "Never mind, it's gone now."
12) Come to work in army fatigues and when asked why, say, "I can't talk about it."
13) Posing as a maitre d', call a colleague and tell him he's won a lunch for four at a local restaurant. Let him go.
14) Speak with an accent (French, German, Porky Pig, etc) during a very important conference call.
15) Find the vacuum and start vacuuming around your desk.
16) Hang a 2' long piece of toilet roll from the back of your pants and act genuinely surprised when someone points it out.
17) Present meeting attendees with a cup of coffee and biscuits, smashing each biscuit with your fist.
18) During the course of a meeting, slowly edge your chair towards the door.
19) Arrange toy figures on the table to represent each meeting attendee, move them according to the movements of their real-life counterparts.

And if that wasn't enough for you...How to keep a healthy level of insanity:
1) At lunchtime, sit in your parked car with sunglasses on and point a hair dryer at passing cars. See if they slow down.
2) Tell your children over dinner. "Due to the economy, we are going to have to let one of you go."
3) Every time someone asks you to do something, ask if they want fries with that.
4) Put your wastebasket on your desk and label it "IN".
5) Put decaf in the coffee maker for 3 weeks. Once everyone has gotten over his or her caffeine addictions, switch to espresso.
6) Finish all your sentences with "In accordance with the prophecy."
7) Don’t use any punctuation
8) Use, too...much; punctuation!
9) As often as possible, skip rather than walk.
10) Ask people what sex they are. Laugh hysterically after they answer.
11) Specify that your drive-through order is "to go."
12) Sing along at the opera.
13) Go to a poetry recital and ask why the poems don't rhyme.
14) Put mosquito netting around your work area. Play a tape of jungle sounds all day.
15) Five days in advance tell your friends you can't attend their party because you're not in the mood.
16) Have your co-workers address you by your wrestling name, "Rock Hard."
17) When the money comes out of the ATM, scream "I Won! I Won! 3rd time this week!!!"
18) When leaving the zoo, start running towards the parking lot yelling, "Run for your lives, they're loose!"

His LAST HOORAH.....

2008-08-05T22:24:00.000-07:00

On Saturday at the Elders Quorum bar-b-que we got a 'bug on our ear' that Jeremy was going to be released from his calling and be put in as the new 'Ward Mission Leader'. I let him tell you exactly how he feels about that but what I can say is that we really loved being a in the Elder Quorum presidency. He was really close to Rich (the president) and was getting to know the new secretary they recently put in. This was the '1st annual Rossmoor ward' bar-b-que. They had dinner of course and Jeremy made survival course. Here are some pictures from that night...

In the first game Jeremy mad jello and put Swedish fish in it. They had to get them out with anything but their hands. It was really messy.

Second game was using the marshmallow shooters. One person had to shoot the marshmallow and the other had to catch it in their mouth.

In the third game they had to drink capers....so sick!

The fourth the contestant had to eat unsweetened oatmeal. The missionaries had a very hard time actually putting this down.

We had a good time and a good turn out. Unfortunately Jeremy won't be in the EQ anymore but we both made some great friends while he was in there.

Sleepover with Melina & Anthony

2008-08-05T22:10:00.000-07:00

This past weekend the kids came over to spend the night while Tony & Sindy went out. We had so much fun. As soon as they got here they went into the spare bedroom and Jeremy hooked up the 'Rock Band'. They were doing pretty good. I don't think they play it very often and it sounded right on...the best part was watching them. Especially Anthony; take a look at this picture......

He was concentrating on the guitar and trying to get all of the notes right. It was so funny.

We went to the Elder Quorum bar-b-que that night and the kids played at the park for hours. Then we went to have a little ice cream and back to the rock band. We went to bed at 10:00 and they got up at 7:00 and tried to turn it on again but they didn't know how. When we finally got up they played until Sindy came to pick them up. Can you say ADDICTTED!

Topper to our wedding cake...

2008-08-04T19:50:00.000-07:00

I was at my parents house the other night and I saw this thing wrapped in plastic with duct tape plastered on it and some red writing. I thought it was some Chinese thing in the frig. Although it was late we did eat 1 slice.
(Ignore Jeremy's mean look. He was in a bad mood that night! :))
I thought the cake top was actually better than the cake that we had. And it was suprisingly moist for being in a freezer for 1 1/2 years.

Update on our cars...

2008-07-18T10:00:00.000-07:00

I know for some of you this is a little dry but honestly it's a better way for me to vent, and I know my husband appreciates it!
Well, I'm happy to report that after the whole ordeal with the 4-runner (which still sounds like a Harley)I was so upset I called the dealership where our Honda was purchased from. I called the General Manager and the Finance Manager. I think I was just tired of car stuff and needed to feel like yelling at someone. I finally got a hold of them this week after a few phone calls. Our title was sitting in the finance office with the title and nothing completed. When I asked why nothing had been done...well...really they had no explanation. The lady walked over to the DMV and got my tags the very same day. Wow, amazing how hard you have to work for things and they are so simple to take care of. Now we're just waiting on the guy we purchased the car from to give us those tags. We'll see how long that takes.
So one problem semi resolved. The 4-runner will be fixed on Monday and out of my hands. I'm terrified to even have it at my house. I don't want something else to happen to it while I'm in possesion of it. NO THANK YOU! Luckily I didn't get pulled over while driving it.
Okay and the Jeep. Well this has been quite the ordeal as well. After almost 3 weeks of having my Jeep we have it back as of yesterday. What a joke....the shop that had our Jeep...well lets just say that we had a really ruff start with them. We really did get put off and looked over. However, it seems as though when the state gets involved with things they move a little quicker. Lets just say by the end of that ordeal we probably got close to $400 free in car services. Plus they automatically register our car for us and we get tags. I'm cool with that....
I guess the moral to this partcially resolved story is patience, I think. I don't feel like I gained anymore than I already had but I must have. I do have to say I'm learning to be nicer to other people I'm dealing with when things get really messy. I'm not sure if that is because I'm getting older or if it's just that I'm learning be more patient.
It always makes me nervous when we have trials that are really hard because it makes me wonder why I have to learn this now....what's coming later that I need to learn this patience. AHHH.