HARTS-it's not a typo, it's a torn down gas station

This is for you Michelle. I can't believe I took a picture of a gas station and posted it online. What is becoming of me? Anyway, here's the story. This gas station in American Fork, UT is on the way to anywhere south. Since 1981, whenever we would go on a trip south, whether with the boat to Lake Powell, to see Grandma in CA or where ever, it was the first gas station on the way from Sandy for YEARS and YEARS! There was nothing from our house until this gas station. Dad used his "magic green" because he had a credit card that worked there, and we would fill up and we all got a drink and a treat then went on our trip. Well, I work in American Fork and in March I was in a store and I overheard someone say that HARTS was being torn down and they were building a new little complex there. I told Michelle and so she had me take these pics for the record. They did tear it down the very next day after I took these pictures and I am happy to say they built a Zupas (yummy salads) and a Costa Vida! Way better places to stop on your way south and gas is cheaper at Costco anyway! Good bye HARTS. A monument of our past is gone, but we will never forget you!

February & March 2009

MARCH Highlight: All the Miller/Mowers met in Pocatello at Grandma's house for Spring break. Broden, Stacey, Baylor and new little Chase came from OH and Zach, Kimberly and new little Brenna came from Boise so we could meet our new little family members. Of course Megan was in heaven with the little babies and a GIRL cousin finally. Brenna actually reminded me a lot of Megan. The Mower/Hale genes are very dominant. All the cousins so far have the same nose except Tyler and Brenna reminded me a lot of Megan. Same jowels and shape face, also no hair! She was very sweet. Chase had the red hair gene show through and was adorable too. I really enjoyed seeing my sister-in-laws. It is interesting how much has changed around this family since I was nursing babies. I sure did pave a path for the other daughters. I like having some "teammates"! It was nice to all be together and enjoy a spring day.
Feburary Highlights: Megan won best use of Pink in the box decorating contest, I got a beautiful boquet delivered to work for my 14th anniversay from my loving husband, the kids were home off track for a few weeks and were creative finding things to do in this horrible winter, Brandon and Tyler earned their Wolf badge (way earlier than everyone else) and Jason, Megan and Brandon did a lot of skiing. When I found out he was taking them on black diamond I almost died, but they love it and got really good this year.
Valentines Highlights: Valentines is always fun with school age kids. They love making the cards, get lots of candy from school and elsewhere and really do like to show love to eachother. Tyler even made something special for the current apple of his eye, Mercedes Saylor and it was so cute seeing him make her a card and them take it over to her. Love is in the air!

January 2009

I tried the CK challeange called 365- which is to take a picture every day of the year. I started out pretty well, but only lasted a few weeks. It was great to keep in my mind and atleast I got some great day-to-day pics in January. These are the highlights: Megan took the great sunset picture. We had so much smog this year, but the sunsets were great. Jason was being mean to the cat usinging Megan's doll clothes. Cuddles actually did not mind too much. The boys got their DS's FINALLY! They are in an allergy study for their grass allergies and get paid way too much money for participating. We are putting most in savings for them (to pay for their braces down the road) but let them splurge on a long time wish. I got a special new watch. The kids (and Jason) polished rocks with their present from Roy. The rocks took about a month to finsih through all the stages but turned out pretty cool and Jason took the kids skiing a few times.

December 2008

Christmas day was full of fun surprises, a huge snow storm and yummy food!

Ski Lessons at Alta were awesome. The last lesson was a little rough...but we made it!

Michelle gave the kids a gingerbread house kit before Christmas and we had so much fun making it and eating it!

Christmas Eve at Grandmas. Dawn read the stories. We had an interesting rendition of the nativity and of course exchange ornaments! This is one of the best parts of Christmas!

Ok. Ok. Here is Another Post

Ok, ok. I'm doing another one. Maybe I'll make this a quarterly thing. So. I'll just pick up where I left off. Christmas was festive and fun. Here we are infront of our tree on Christmas Eve.

The Light Came On

Ok, so I spent about an hour setting this thing up. Playing with backgrounds ( I changed it 3 times before deciding on this nice brown flourish), adding a picture of the kids (it took longer than I thought to download) and then I got blogging. I went to Michelle's and looked at my cute nephews, then went to Trisha's and was looking at her list of friends and I noticed Leanne Whiffen's name. Leanne is my boss's wife. I think she is super cool, and I know she is a great writer and blogger. So I clicked on her and after 20 minutes of laughing hysterically and looking around her blog I realized a few things! 1) I am going to read her blog on a regular basis because she is so cool and 2) It is HER blog! She talks about her husband and kids, but it is not theirs. They may be her life, but they are not the title of her blog. 3) HER name is the title. She is the author, so duh, her name is on it. (She is involved in important stuff like committees and publishing companies so she needs people to find her easily. She also has a less common name (lucky duck) than Melissa Miller so she did not have to use a silly name like cuddlesisourcat because everything with Melissa or Miller was taken.)

So, even though it was 2am and I just finished My First Post, Leanne put a spark under my butt! I had to post again! OMG what have you guys done to me? Michelle got me interested, Trisha got me logged on and Leanne got me thinking about this whole blog thing. Thank you girls! I can't change my blog to my name, but I can make the title whatever I want and so I changed it. It did say "The Miller Family", but Leanne made me realize that my blog will be more about my life and what I have to say than "The Miller Family" (my life is my family so by default it is about them anyway). And, I'm the author, dang it, so I'm going to put it in my name! It actually put a smile on my face. I can't believe how obvious that is, and then how excited I was when I thought of it. It's almost embarrassing. I realized that this blog is going to be the place where I can write (without being a christmas card letter), and not just post my pictures. It might not be that great, but it does not matter because it's just for fun anyway. Thanks Leanne. If you ever read this, you rock! There are some people that you just think, "Man I wish I was all those things in a package deal." They are the essence of what you think an awesome person should be and she is on my list. Well, now I'm going to bed and we'll see if I ever post to this again.

My First Post

Well there is a first time for everything. I really don't think I need one more thing to do or worry about so I don't think I'll really keep up with this, but Michelle & Trisha made me do it. So, the pressure got to me. I have really been against these sappy -all year long "Christmas letter" type public displays of how great their life is- blogs. I think, if you have a relationship with me then you know what is going on in my life, and if you don't know, well then, most likely neither one of us cares. So I'll do this just to post pictures of my life to be saved in cyberspace and I'll probably like it and be glad. It is an easy way for a few people who care to see my photos and read what I have to say about them. It's kinda like when Michelle scrapped before me and I really was not into it and then I got more into it than her (for a while) and now I really am dragging my feet on doing this and she has been doing this and then I'll be way into it. Weird. I love photos and it's kinda digital scrapping so I guess this is like a milestone. "My First Blog." Do they make a page kit for that?