9/11 Looking Back

10 years ago, September 11, 2001, planes crashed into the Twin Towers, the Pentagon and a Pennsylvanian Field. 2,977 people died, countless others had their lives ripped apart and forever changed. I've spend the day watching videos, memorials and stories about that day; like this poetry

But there is one video that I keep avoiding, one I won't watch. It's sitting in my news feed on Facebook and I keep skipping over it, pretending it's not really there.

 My grandmother had an aneurysm in her aortic artery. It'd been there for some time, we all knew about it. It was a time bomb ticking away in her back. There was a surgery that would fix it, but it would likely leave her in a wheelchair. She debated about the surgery, for a while she though it would be better to go without, live the last few years still being able to walk. But then she decided it was worth it, it was worth living a little longer, she couldn't walk well anyways. So she scheduled the surgery for some time in October. Just when she decided that her life was worth living, it was taken away. Her aneurysm split open and started bleeding out.

One year ago, September 11, 2010, my grandmother past away. For several years she lived right next to me, she was a big part of my life. She was beautiful, smart, funny and my family. When it started getting difficult for her to be on her own, she moved to Las Vegas, to live with my uncle. I didn't get to see her very often after that, the two times I was able to go down there were two times she wasn't there. The last time I saw her was Thanksgiving 2009.

It was the first, and only time, she met my daughter. I was looking forward to the holidays, hoping I could see her again. I wanted to show her my daughter, her 3rd great-grandchild, show her how much she'd grown. To just see her, and tell her I loved her, and I missed having her close by.

I've been avoiding thinking or talking about her today. It's been easier to mourn with the nation about thousands that I never knew, than to mourn alone about this one woman I loved.

9/11/2011, my cousins birthday, the 10th anniversary of the terrorist attack, Grandparent's Day, and one year since I lost my grandmother.

Goodbye Grandma, I love you.

Day 24 - A letter to my parents

You know, the quality of the post cues goes down dramatically as this 30 day challenge goes on. Why would I write a letter to my parents here? If I wanted to write a letter to them why wouldn't I just send it to them? But, alas, the title decrees it, so write it I must. (Or do I? Do I really have to? Can this whine just count as my post instead.)

Dear Mom and Dad,

I love you. Dad, I'm sorry we couldn't meet up while you were in Logan a couple days ago. You've got to give me forewarning on these sorts of things, I'm kind of busy. I'll miss camping with you guys at the reunion this weekend. Tell everyone "Hi" for me, and tell them that you have the cutest granddaughter of them all. Gabrielle was very sad to see you guys leave after you dropped us off from our trip to Canada. Her adorable, big baby blue eyes started watering. She made me stand in the driveway for a long long time, looking down the road hoping to see your car come back. She will be very glad to see you guys again, I hope that can be sometime soon before she forgets all the fun. Luckily she's remembering for much longer periods of time now.
Thanks for being the great parents you were. You weren't perfect, you certainly had your faults, but you did a good job of teaching me what I needed to learn. Some parents don't seem to give a crap about their children, but I know you cared about me. Other parents seem to think their kids are porcelain, I call them helicopter parents, always hovering around. They do everything for their kids, hand them life on a silver platter and protect them from anything slightly unhappy. You most certainly did not do that for me. And for that thank you, now I can be (somewhat of) an adult. I can even go buy my school supplies on my own, without having to ask the teacher what type of notebook they want. (That really happens, true story.)

Love ya,

Britain

P.S. Please stop spoiling my daughter. It's this dark cloud lurking over our shoulders during our visits, and it leaves a bitter aftertaste. When we have to watch our daughter throw more temper tantrums then she ever has, and then have to deal with the spoiled child afterwards it casts a very negative hue over the whole visit. Please respect my parenting.

Day 21 - A picture of something that makes you happy

A lot of things make me happy. We'll start off with some good ol' ice cream, especially Coldstone ice cream.

Come on, you know that looks delicious.

My sweet daughter makes me happy, when she's not driving me nuts.

That's the center to my whole world right there.

A good book always helps.

Fantastic book. One of my favorites. Her blog and comics are hilarious too.

I love scrapbooking. It nice to be creative once in a while, and it's nice to feel like I'm good at something.

However I just don't get the time to do it as often as I'd like. So I am forever behind.

And as weird as this one sounds, school makes me happy too, stressed but happy. I've always loved school.

I have a love/hate relationship with this campus.
But truthfully, I've enjoyed my time here and I'll be sad to leave.

 Lastly, bright blue skies, sitting out in the sunshine soaking up that vitamin D is the best thing ever. (To a certain aunt: you're not allowed to grumble about this one.)

Oh, and the ocean makes me happy as well. 

Also, I made an edit to the previous day's post. I have put up another wedding photo taken from the photographer's site, courtesy of my aunt (and of course my fantastic Grandma who took the photo). So feel free to go back and look.

Day 20 - Someone I see myself marrying/being with in the future

Ah, super young JP. Isn't he just so cute?
That's why we are going to have the cutest kids.

Someday I going to marry this man. No, really it's true. Yeah, I don't know what to write for this post considering I'm already married and I plan on staying that way for the rest of my life.

See what happened is one day he finally decided to ask me out on a date. We fell in love and got all engaged. See aren't we so lovely dovey mushy?

As a consequence of that decision we got married. Yep, that's really how it goes folks engagement results in marriage. First comes love, then comes marriage, then comes the baby in a baby carriage.

Now I would post a wedding photo here. It would seem a fitting spot. But I don't have any of our wedding photos on the computer. This is the only wedding photo on the computer. (For some forgotten reason or other that was important and urgent my mother-in-law desperately needed a wedding photo so I scanned that one in.) If I had planned ahead better I wouldn't have used that photo in that post so I could use it here. Oh well. Anyways, I married the love of my life and best friend 4 years (-10days) ago. Someday I'll get wedding photos on disc so then I can share them with ya'll.

Edit: Here is another wedding photo that I took from the photographer's site. (Shout out to my aunt, who suggested stealing this photo, and to my grandma, the fantastic photographer.)

Click on the photo if you want to blow it up extremely huge.

Day 19 - Nicknames I have, and why I have them.

I really don't have many nicknames. I have an aversion to nicknames. I like my actual name Britain very much, so I prefer to be called Britain.

The most common nickname I have is Brit. I think the reason why is rather obvious. I still prefer Britain over Brit, except for select people who I'm close to.

Occasionally while working in the lab I get called Mormon. The reason there is also pretty obvious, because I am Mormon, and my boss/co-worker is not.

My husband has used a variety of nicknames: Love, Babe etc...

That's about it. There really aren't too many other nicknames, especially not that people have used recently.

Also, on an unrelated note, two years ago today I gave birth two the cutest girl.

She's only gotten cuter since.

Then

And she is just as cute today.

Now

Happy Birthday Gabrielle. I love you so much.

Day 17 - Someone I would want to switch lives with for one day and why

I would want to switch lives with my dear husband, JP, for one day.

He is so different from me. Even when we experience the same event, he perceives it so differently from me. I want to understand how he sees the world, how his mind works. Another thing, is I just can't fathom the depth of his love for me, or what he sees in me. If I could switch lives with me for one day, maybe I could understand him better.

Day 14 - A picture of my family and I

So we don't have a lot of family photos. Usually either JP or I have the camera, it's rare that we are both in the picture. Here is the first photo taken of our family taken while in it's current state - three people - the day Gabrielle was born. I promise my husband looks less creepy with hair.

And a much more recent picture of our family from our trip to Canada. It was hard to find one where we are all looking at the camera. See he is much less creepy with hair. 

And one more picture from Canada because I love it. I got to cross an item off of my bucket list: kiss under a waterfall. It was awesome! (The kiss and being under the waterfall.)

I just want to add at the end I love my family so much! Those two mean the world to me.

Day 07 - A Picture of Someone that has the Biggest Impact on Me

I couldn't decide on whether JP or Gabrielle are more impactful to me. Both of them changed my life forever.  So completely. JP has always been by my side, there for me through everything, taught me the basics of living on my own (do you know if you smash the milk cartoons they take up less room in the recycling bin, I didn't at first). He has helped me and inspired me to grow and become a better person. Without him, I don't think I could have accomplished near as much as I have, and want to. Nor without him would I have the second gem of my life, Gabrielle.

About Gabrielle, well I became a mother, need I say anymore about how that changed my life? I learn more about myself everyday. I also tell myself that I need to be better everyday. But it's much more than that, so much more, and unfortunately I don't have the brain power right now to even try to describe what it's like. I can not fathom what life would be like without her, I can't even comprehend how I managed to live life before her. It was like I wasn't even really living life, I thought I knew what happiness, sorrow and love were before, but I really didn't. I didn't realize that my life was bland before I had a child, now my life is full of emotion, wonder, new insights everyday. I truly now have a reason for living and smiling everyday. When I get a smile from her it's such an amazing sense of fulfillment, the reason for being. And that's only a smile, let alone the hugs and kisses. On the same note, I don't think anyone else has the capacity of complicating my life near as much as her, or making me feel so awful as when I make her cry. Also, somehow having a child just mean potential to me. Through her eyes I see the potential of what I and JP can become. I am constantly amazed at the potential she has, what she can become, and what this world can be like if put in the right perspective.

10 Things I am Very Grateful For

10 Things I am Very Grateful For

1. I am so grateful for my husband. It's common knowledge that he is so sweet. But he is also incredibly supportive. He is always there for me, helping me whenever he can. Every test day when I'm freaking out (and all the other many days I'm stressed) he is there, comforting me, telling me I can do it.

2. I'm thankful for my daughter. I never want to take it for granted that I have a beautiful, healthy baby girl. Not only that, but she's also such a happy, well-behaved child. I am so lucky.

3. I am grateful for my husband's job. With a nationwideunemployment rate of 9% I'm grateful my husband is not in that category. I grateful that it's a job he really enjoys. And that it's flexible enough that if he needs to take some time off he can, or he can do a lot of the work from home.

4. On that same note, I'm grateful for our 5 minutes in the morning and evening. This semester our schedule's have worked out really nice. JP comes home after coaching swim team, helps me finish getting Gabrielle ready in the morning, so we can drop her off at daycare together. Then we go up to campus together, and we have five minutes every morning walking from parking to talk and be together. Then at 5 I just walk over to his office, and we go home together, we get another 5 minutes walking to the car to talk about our days. Those small little moments have been so amazing. They've made such a difference, and I enjoy how close I feel to JP.

5. I'm grateful for my parents. I have wonderful and amazing parents. They taught about me hard work, integrity, respecting others, and following your dreams, and so much more. I also want to say that I'm so thankful that my parents are still married, crazily in love 25 years later. (Trust me, go to their house and you'll see way too much loving going on.) They example has meant so much to me, especially as I go through my own marriage.

6. I am grateful for sunshine. I'm one of those people who is incredibly affected by the weather. Sunny days make me so happy. But living in freezing Logan, with it's long winter, and the constant inversion that comes with the winter, it can be a long time in between the days I get to see sunshine. So the days when it's sunny and bright I'm very grateful for the brightness, the warmth and vitamin D.

7. I am grateful for personal prayer.  Prayer has been a great strength and comfort for me. I'm thankful for my Savior, my Christ. I am thankful for the strength He gives me, and His love.

8. I am grateful for my education. I'm thankful for the opportunity. I'm also thankful for my particular school, too. It has been a perfect fit for me. I love the atmosphere of Utah State, and I like the education and experiences I've been having here.

9. I am grateful for my talents. I realize that might sound a little arrogant, but I don't mean to be cocky. But I was blessed with the ability to grasp scientific principles easier than some of my classmates. (Yes, I still study like crazy mad.) With the field I've chosen to go into, it's been (and will be) a huge blessing and help. I wonder though, if my talents were different, maybe my interests would be too.

10. JP and I have been very blessed. Things in life have managed to work out for us. We haven't had any major trials or hiccups thrown at us. Yes, there have been small bumps, but nothing terribly drastic, and nothing we couldn't handle. I'm grateful that we haven't had any catastrophes happen to us. All of the scary moments in the ER have managed to resolve themselves, no scary problems there. Our van is still running, the day it stops we'll be in a heap of trouble, and I'm so glad is still turns on when I turn the key (most of the time). Finances can get really tight, but we find a way to make it work. We've been able to find jobs when needed. When we needed a place to stay, we've always been able to find a house with minimal difficulty. Things like that, no trails that we couldn't handle. And yes, I'm going to go knock on wood now. We had it easy, and for that I'm grateful. I know our mountains will come (I want to go to med school, need I say more) so for right now I want to appreciate the calm and how blessed we are.

Potato, Potato!

My aunt wants some potato recipes, so here is going to be a ton of potato recipes. I love potatoes because (1) I think they taste very good, and (2) the actual time I have to spend in the kitchen is like 20 minutes.

Let's start with the easiest first. 

1. Mashed Potatoes

• Peel potatoes if desired (I hate the peels in there). Cut up potatoes, my general rule is 2 potatoes per person, throwing in an extra one if someone is a big eater, or just using 1 for children. I use 6 potatoes for JP and I, it's just enough for dinner and then leftovers for lunch one day.

• Put them in a pot, with water almost covering potatoes.

• Cook on an oven for 20-30 minutes, depending on how small or big you cut up your potatoes.

• Pour out excess water, but pour out as little as possible, because that's where the nutrients are.

• Add butter, however much you desire, I use one stick, and beat with a mixer. Add milk as necessary to reach the consistency you want.

• Add *garlic powder (2 T) and dill (1T) and a dash of pepper and salt (I prefer to let people do most of this on their own plates since JP and I differ in tastes there). 

• Eat.

2. Baked potatoes

• Scrub potatoes and poke with a fork.

• Rub butter on the skins and wrap in foil.

• Bake for 40-60 minutes @ 425, or 70-80 minutes @350

• Put on desired toppings (chili, cheese, butter, sour cream, etc…)

**Nutrition Information (per medium potato without toppings)

125 calories, 0 g fat, 0 g cholesterol, 28 g carbohydrates.

3. Scalloped Potatoes (One of my favorites)

     ½ cup chopped onion

     1 t bottled minced garlic

     2 T butter

     2 T flour

     ½ t salt

     ¼ t pepper

     1 ¼ cups milk

     4 medium potatoes

• Preheat oven to 350

• In a pan cook onion and garlic until tender

• Add flour, salt, pepper, and milk. Cook until thick and bubbly.

• Grease 1 ½-2 quart casserole dish.

• Slice potatoes and place half in the casserole dish, and cover with half of the sauce. Repeat.

• Cover with tinfoil, and bake for 40 min.

• Uncover and bake 15-20 min, until the potatoes are soft.

Nutrition Information (1/4 of dish)

187 calories, 15 g fat (9 g saturated fat), 44 mg cholesterol, 25 g carbohydrates

4. Optional preparation,

• add ¾ cup shredded cheese to sauce

Nutrition Information

273 calories, 15 g fat (9 g. saturated fat), 44 mg cholesterol, 25 g carbohydrates.

5.  Baked Potato Fans (one of JP's favorites)

     4 potatoes

     ¼ cup melted butter

     ½ t garlic

     ¼ t salt

     ¼ cup shredded cheddar cheese

     ¼ cup sliced green onions

     2 T parmesan cheese

• Preheat oven to 350

• Scrub potatoes, slice potatoes, but don’t cut all the way through. One tip for that is to put the handle of a wooden spoon next to your potato, so it stops you from slicing all the way.

• Place potatoes in a baking dish and press down so the potatoes fan slightly.

• Combine melted butter, garlic, salt. Drizzle over potatoes, and in between slices.

• Cover with foil and bakefor 50 minutes.

• Uncover, bake for 10 minutes.

• Sprinkle potatoes with parmesan cheese, green onions and cheddar cheese. Try to get it in between the potato slices, or else it all falls off and makes a mess.

• Bake for 5 minutes.

Nutrition Information (per potato)

245 calories, 13 g fat (8 g saturated fat), 34 mg cholesterol, 27 g carbohydrates

6.     Cottage-Fried Potatoes

     3 T butter

     3 potatoes

     ¼ t salt

     ¼ t garlic powder

      Dash of pepper

     1 small onion, or ½ of medium onion

• Slice potatoes.

• Slice onion and separate into rings.

• In a large skillet, melt butter.

• Layer sliced potatoes and sprinkle with salt, garlic powder, and pepper,

• Cover and cook over medium heat for 8 min.

• Add onion rings.

• Cook uncovered, turning frequently for 10 minutes, until potatoes start to brown.

Nutrition Information (1/4 of dish)

168 calories, 9 g fat (6 g saturated fat), 25 mg cholesterol, 19 g carbohydrates

7.     Parmesan Cottage-Baked Potatoes

¼ cup melted butter

     3 potatoes

     ¼ cup Parmesan cheese  

Several dashes garlic powder    

      Dash of pepper

     1 small onion, or ½ of medium onion

• Preheat oven to 450.

• Slice potatoes.

• Slice onion and separate into rings.

• Layer potato slices and onion rings in a baking pan.

• Pour butter over potato slices and onion rings.

• Sprinkle garlic powder, pepper and parmesan cheese over potatoes and onions.

• Bake for 30 minutes, until potatoes start to brown, turning once.

Nutrition Information (1/4 dish)

197 calories, 11 g fat (7 g saturated fat), 30 mg cholesterol, 19 g carbohydrates

8.     Roasted Potatoes.

     3 potatoes

     2 T olive oil

     1 t minced onion

     ½ t garlic powder

     ¼ t salt

     ¼ t pepper

     ¼ t thyme

     ¼ t dill

     ½ t paprika

• Preheat oven to 325 or 450.

• Chop up potatoes into eights.

• Grease a small square baking pan and place potatoes in it.

• Combine olive oil, minced onion, garlic, salt, pepper, paprika, thyme and dill.

• Pour mixture over potatoes, and toss to coat potatoes.

• Bake for 45 min @ 325, or 25 min @ 450.

• Stir potatoes and bake another 10-20 minutes until potatoes are tender and starting to brown.

Nutrition Information (1/4 of dish)

145 calories, 7 g fat (1 g saturated fat), 0 mg cholesterol, 19 g carbohydrates.

*I love garlic, so most of these recipes are very garlic-y, if you're not a huge garlic fan you should probably put in less garlic than I say.

**Nutrition Information is an estimate.

***Almost all recipes are from the Better Homes and Gardens Special Edition Pink Plaid Cookbook, (which is one of the best cookbooks ever, and it supports the fight against breast cancer) with a few alteration made by me. I think my Grandma Larson gave that cookbook to me for my wedding; thank you very much Grandma, I love it!

We took Jelly Belly swimming for the first time today. I know it's two, almost three months, past the 6 month okay mark, but finding rubber pants and a baby swimsuit (which are required at this pool) in the middle of winter in Logan wasn't the easiest.

Baby modeling her new swim suit

It was so much fun and she was so cute. JP and I always joked that our kids would be great swimmers, but we didn't realize how amazing. She took both of us by surprise, we're both used to screaming, frightened babies. Okay really, I'm going to give credit to her personality. She's a very calm baby, who doesn't cry a lot (unless she's hungry or tired), she's also very curious and loves new things. I'm sure it helps too that it was her parents, who are both very comfortable in the water, not some random stranger, that were with her.

Decked out in her robe, all ready to go

Note: To all parents that want to teach their children to swim; and I personally believe that all kids should have some basic swimming skills, and feel comfortable in the water as a safety precaution. Not to mention swimming is fun and a great fitness tool, swimming fast and correctly can burn 700 calories an hour. Anyways my advice is to start getting them used to the water at a young age, the further you delay it, the more frightened they are, and the more hesitant to learn. If you wait until they're 8 and need some pin or belt loop for boy scouts, it's going to be very, very difficult. Also, there is this get in with them the first couple of times, take a Parent-Toddler class, it's a very important step. The most important part of which is being calm. Your child is looking to you, and they can tell if you're being anxious and that'll worry them. And if they slip and get their face in the water, don't panic, I know it's instinct, but that'll show them that it's something to be scared of (which it's not). Okay, off my soapbox now.

Back to the baby, she was very calm. We got in with her, and she just looked around with her I'm-trying-to-figure-this-world-out look. After a while she discovered she could splash, just like in her bath. We also had fun tossing her in the air, and making her laugh. I was blowing bubbles, trying to get a smile, and she decided to imitate me and stick her face in the water. Yeah, that's right, my baby is that awesome. First time in the water she sticks her face in of her own accord! And there wasn't any crying at all! She stuck her face in several more times, all on her own. The first time she cried was when she let go off her rubber ducky and it floated out of her reach, and it was more a disgruntled yelp. Later, since we were encouraged by her sticking her face in, and how well she was dealing with it, we decided to submerge her, and she hardly fussed, just for a short time, and it was never a full on cry. I am bursting with motherly pride!

With her Daddy and Ducky

My Ducky

Baby and I!

So Elder Ballard came to stake conference last Sunday, and told us that we need to be more active in blogging. Yep, for reals, so here I am. However it is getting late, so this will only be a brief catch-up post and better posts will (hopefully) come a little later. So the last time I posted was.... October. Wow.

So after October here is what happened, school got really busy and really hard and the blog dropped on the priority list. In November there was Thanksgiving, which we spent with my family. In December JP got swine flu, which was all sorts of nasty and took forever to get better from. He also decided to time this to be during finals week, so I had to do all of the parenting with zero help, during one of the most stressful weeks of school by myself, darn him. I also had to sleep on the floor of the baby's room, since JP was under quarantine, this resulted in Baby Girl and I waking each other up as we talk in our sleep. Well, our quarantine was apparently pointless anyways because the next week, thankfully after finals and after JP had been fever free for three days, I got swine flu (yes, that means the apparent latency period of 48 hrs according to Pres Obama is wrong). By the way swine flu sucks really bad, it's like the flu but worse, and even after you're "better" you still feel like crap for weeks.

Somewhere in the midst of this JP also graduated from school (however we are still waiting for that diploma, which is probably at his parent's house). Yeah, go JP, he's all growed up. All joking aside I am proud of  my husband. Then came Christmas, which we spent as his family's house. After that we went to Disney World. It was a lot of fun, but I don't think I slept the whole trip. Apparently the jet lag really screwed the poor baby up, so she slept at all the wrong times (read: the entire day, no matter how hard you tried to wake her up) and therefore was awake when she shouldn't be (the whole stinkin' night, every night).

Then the next semester of school started. JP started his new job as Event Coordinator for Campus Rec, and I think he is ridiculously lucky. First off, he loves his job, second, his office goes skiing every other week or so, and  it's called working, and he gets paid to do it. Seriously, who gets paid to go ski, unless you're an Olympian? Gabrielle had to start to go to a babysitter. Well, there's another baby there who is 2 months older than her, and this baby crawls. After a couple days of being babysat Gabrielle started getting up in crawl position. She sits there and stares at the other baby and then tries to imitate her. And the other day when I went to pick Gabrielle up, this other baby was cruising. Darn it! I don't want Gabrielle to learn that, I have no idea how to baby proof our house. And well after all these changes for the rest of the family, what did I do? I went to school, like I always have and will for the rest of my life. I am taking Organic Chemistry (which I hate with a passion), Biochemistry, and Medical Anthropology. Yes that adds up to a full time student, 12 credits right there. There you go 5 months in 15 minutes. I'll try to update again, but when the last half off the semester is here, all bets are off.