Last Saturday I participated in the 2009 MS Walk. Brigitte and I have both been supporting this for many years. However, a few years after we started walking for MS, Brigitte's sister-in-law, was diagnosed with MS. She has been doing fabulous with her treatments and you would never know she has MS. She is so positive and has a great outlook on life. She has also been a tremendous support to me as I faced my health challenge. There is no cure for MS right now and we all sure hope someone finds a cure soon to help out Lisa and the many others battling this disease. So now a lot of Brigitte's family comes out to the MS Walk and we always have a great time. The last few years we've been doing the walk in Provo, but we decided this year to do the Salt Lake walk. There were a lot of people and even though it was a little chilly we all had a good time.
Preparing for the walk - the Eppley clan and me
Walking - Chris (Lisa's son had foot surgery, which is why he is in a wheelchair)
UPDATE: This was an April Fools joke, so for the record, I am NOT pregnant, but it sure was fun fooling everyone this week!
I am so excited I finally get to add one of these cute little countdowns to my blog. How fun will it be to countdown the next nine months. I'm Pregnant!!! The doctors wanted me to wait a little longer but we can't be more excited to think about a new baby in our home. We've already thought about some names and are both excited and nervous about this change in our lives.
oh yeah...April Fools. Come on tell me the truth, did you fall for it?
The other night Brigitte and Tyler invited us to go rollerskating with them. It was $2 Tuesday's. Such cheap entertainment...so off we went. I love rollerskating. I don't know why I think it's so fun to skate in a circle for a couple hours but I do. I love skating to music. Tyler and Shane were good sports because I don't think they were as excited to be there as Brigitte and I were. We only lasted about an hour and a half until we could feel blisters starting. Then we had to leave and go back to being adults.
I realized we might be too old to rollerskate when: 1 - A friend was there that night, as a chaperone with his Young Men's group. 2 - They didn't have any of the songs Brigitte requested (were the 80's really that long ago?)
Brigitte was really hoping Tyler would ask her to skate during the "boys choice couples song!!"
Looks like her wish came true...
I got my guy during the girls choice couples song...and then he never left during the other songs! Lucky me.
So I have always thought that eating your wedding cake on your 1st anniversary is the strangest tradition. I actually never thought I would follow that tradition. However, the night of our reception, we had a huge cake and a lot left over. So my sister in law, Margene, took the top layer and froze it for us. She wrapped it in tinfoil and then she has one of those things that sucks all the air out of it to seal it with no air in it. (I am sure there is an official word for it, but I have no idea what it is.)
Forward one year (and a month, since we were out of town and then kept forgetting to go get it from her.) We thawed out the cake and ate it. Now, I don't know what all of your wedding cakes tasted like on your wedding day, but ours was amazing. It was soo good and fresh and tasty. But knowing it was one year later, I was completely prepared to taste dry, freezer burned cake. I was completely 100% wrong! Our one year old cake tasted exactly as it did on our wedding day. I kid you not, it was amazing!! It was so fresh in fact that we ate it for 3 days and yes even on the third day it was still tasting fresh. Shane and I ate almost the entire top layer of our cake...ok that sounds gross, it wasn't really that big.
So I just had to post about it because I am still amazed at how fresh the cake was after one year. I told Shane that I have had wedding cake at receptions that didn't taste this fresh. Seriously...still amazed!
Every year when I see this piece of paper, I know it's March Madness and I get so excited. I print out the brackets and start filling them out. I know I'm a little obsessed with it and even have a hard time working on game days. But there is just something about the tournament, the upsets and the cinderella teams that keeps me excited year after year.
In the Goold family we have a long standing tradition of passing a trophy around to winner who has the most correct picks. We all submit our brackets online and then we wait and watch, cross out games, add up points, and see who the winner might be.
We also have a trophy for all the college football bowls. And in a very important post that I forgot to blog about in January, I won the Football trophy this year!! I was so busy preparing my acceptance speech (yes we really have a family presentation) that I forgot to blog about it. My acceptance speech was a short video of my journey to becoming the winner, it's a classic but too embarrassing to post on here, sorry.
The best part of the story is that the football trophy is in our home for the 2nd year. When Shane and I were engaged, Shane was allowed to join (the trophy is strictly for family members only!) Seeing as he was about to be in the family, my dad decided to let him join. Even Whitney, who was dating Jeff at the time wasn't allowed to join because even though they had been dating longer, they were not officially engaged. So, Shane joins, submits his picks, and low and behold, he wins!! We were so excited. He prepared his acceptance speech and then, just because it was Shane that won, the family decided to protest. Jeff and the brother in laws all held up signs with an Asterisk (*) on it. They said that because he wasn't 'officially' part of the family yet that his trophy should have an Asterisk on it because it doesn't really count. Well he won, fair and square and no asterisk was put next to his name. So that is how we have had the trophy last year and now this year!
I was about to put Go...and the name of the final team I picked but I didn't want my family to read this and know who I picked yet and give them an advantage.
Go ______________ (hint to my family, I put the right number of underlines for the final team name I picked!)
Shane and I decided to go back to Florida to celebrate our anniversary. We had such a good time last year that we were excited for a repeat trip. I told Shane I didn't care where we went as long as it was warm. So we spent the week in Florida. We had a great time. We started the week off in Orlando. We went to 3 theme parks.
Islands of Adventure - My favorite ride, The Hulk. Hollywood Studios - My favorite ride - Rockin Rollercoaster. Magic Kingdom - My favorite ride - Splash Mountain (that's kind of a random choice for me, but for this year it was true.)
Magic Kingdom
Big Thunder Mountain
The Teacups (although they call them something different now, they will always be the teacups to me.)
I was also able to meet my friend Denise and her daughter Cristina for breakfast one morning. Her daughter is darling and it was fun to see them since they live in Orlando. I used to work with Denise and we would talk many times a day, so it was fun catching up.
Then we headed down to Tampa and went to Busch Gardens. This was our favorite theme park of the week because it was totally empty. Well there were quite a few senior citizens, but they weren't interested in the rides. They were only there to see The Osmond Brothers perform (no Donny was not there, I did check!) We literally walked onto every single roller coaster and on several of them walked around and got right back on. Favorite ride - Sheikra. They take you up a huge hill and then hang you over the edge looking down on the 90 degree drop in front of you for about 10 seconds, then drop you. It was the the one roller coaster of the week that made my heart pound. Scary, but sooo fun.
This is a picture of the view from our hotel room overlooking Tampa Bay:
I loved the theme parks but I think my favorite part of the trip was the day we went to Clearwater Beach. There is nothing better to me then the sound, smell, and feel of the sun and ocean breeze. We walked on the boardwalk and up the pier and then ate lunch outside soaking up the beach atmosphere.
It was sad to come home but we had a GREAT trip. It was a lot of fun and also very relaxing. I feel like I can handle the rest of winter now...maybe.
When I was single I used to pride myself that I thought I was independent.I could go to home depot, I had my own tools, ladder, lawn mower, etc.Ok I was pretty independent and although some things were fun learning to do, deep down I always wished it was different.
Now I am married.I love being married.About once a month at least I think to myself, wow, having a husband around really is handy.When I was single I would get myself into little predicaments and then start getting so bugged thinking ‘where is my husband when I really need him?’Here are a few situations that have happened this year where I found having a husband around really comes in handy.
Gopher in window well when trying to sell my house –
Single Days: Ignore it and hope that the potential buyers don’t see it running around down there.
Married: Shane comes up with a contraption to set down there and try to trap it, fills the hole and spends quite a while getting the situation taken care of.
Broken/loose rain gutter banging against the house –
Single Days: Call my dad and beg him to come over and try to fix it. (Of course he always would.)
Married:Without even asking Shane got up one day and fixed it.I am not even sure how he did it, but he did and it worked.
Go to Home Depot and try to find one tiny little thing in that huge store –
Single Days: Wander around trying to find someone to help point me in the right direction while trying to describe what the little thing looks like and have no idea what it is really called.
Married:Shane may not know exactly where it is but at least he knows what it’s called we are looking for now.And for some reason more people come up and offer help then they ever did as a lonely single girl wandering around lost in the store.
Changing a lightbulb at the top of my vaulted ceiling –
Single Days:Go get my huge ladder out of the garage that is really too heavy for me to carry by myself (why did I even buy such a big ladder?), drag it through the door that keeps swinging closed on me and almost banging into every wall in sight.It’s about a 30 minute process, no joke
Married:Shane goes and gets the ladder like it’s a piece of paper, brings it in, sets it up, changes the lightbulb in 5 minutes tops.
Toilet making a repetitive clinging noise –
Single Days:Ignore the sound and pretend it’s not there, I mean if it’s not dripping water and it’s flushing then everything is just fine right?Or, shut the bathroom door and you really can’t hear it anymore.Or…break down and call the plumber while getting bugged that a 5 minute fix will cost you $100 or more.
Married:A quick trip to Home Depot (see above) and 10 minutes later the toilet is as good as new.
All in all Shane does a lot more then just this.I love him even if he didn’t do any of these things.But he really has been sooo helpful with everything and more.He claims he isn’t or doesn’t want to be handy but I know he can do a lot more then he lets on.I really couldn’t ask for anything more.
So for all of you that have been married too long to remember these things, think of how you would’ve handled a situation if you were single with no spouse to help you out.Yep, marriage is great and not just to have someone around to help me out of my predicaments but to have a companion that loves me unconditionally.Sick or healthy, bald, falling out hair or long and beautiful, sleeping or hyper, lazy or hard working, bored or too busy…he loves me and I love him!
Happy 1st (of many) Anniversary, I love you Forever!
