Yes on 102

Nice pic of my bro the RM

Here's the grandparents and the brother. THanks, Kyle, see how nice it turned out???

Happy birthday to me

Finally doing a tag

1.YOUR REAL NAME:Meridith Richards
2.YOUR GANGSTA NAME: (first 3 letters of real name plus izzle.)Merizzle
3.YOUR DETECTIVE NAME: (fav color and fav animal)Blue dog
4.YOUR SOAP OPERA NAME: (middle name, and name of street you grew up on)Rae Tremaine
5.YOUR STAR WARS NAME: (the first 3 letters of your last name, first 2 letters of your first name, first 3 letters of mom's maiden name)Ricmepet
6.YOUR SUPERHERO NAME: (2nd favorite color, favorite drink)Pink Sunkist
7.YOUR WITNESS PROTECTION NAME: (Mother's middle name and father's middle name)Ann George
8.YOUR GOTH NAME: (black, and the name of one your pets)Black Annie

BC -- 1999

That-- and this.... Lunch at the Macaroni Grill in Tucson.... Happy, happy birthday, sisters, dear!!!

Summer 1999

Happy Late Birthday Meg!! And Happy early Birthday to me. Remember the good ol days??? BC -- Before Children??? Here's what we did with all our spare time.....

June 26th 2008 -- 10 year anniversary

More of Vegas. Yes we rode that roller coaster in the background, and yes, that's our hot tub at the New York New York.

June 26th 2008

Fun in Las Vegas for our 10 year anniversary. Look Jaimee, parisian macaroons!!! They were very delicious everyone, let me tell you!!! Then we went to the Venetian and saw Phantom, and took a gondola ride. Then back to our hot tub.... Very romantic and fun for 10 years, and we didn't even gamble people!!! Be proud, be very proud.

Happy Birthday Libbs!!

My niece the miracle baby

Happy 1 year birthday Libbs!!! We are so proud of you!

Love from your Aunt Meridith and your cousins....

150!!

So I did it!! For the past few months, well, maybe since February, I have been dieting and I am proud to say I have lost 40 pounds!!! Actually, 44!! I am back to the weight it says on my drivers license, now that is an accomplishment if I do say so myself!! How many of us are actually the weight listed on the license, hmmmm people??? I don't know about men, but for women, they always fudge a few pounds. Its really "what I hope/wish my weight was" that girls put on their drivers license. Anyway, yay for me!!! :)

June 21 2008

Another new hair picture..... I was hoping for a good hair day, you can be the judge. I was trying to get a good pix to update my facebook profile....

My new haircut late May 2008

Yeah that's the idea

OK, this is why I have 2 blogs because I need a place to vent and that's this one, where the other one is cute pix of my fam, which I haven't put up in a while.... Yeah, I know. And that's why I've put my friend Ana on this one because that's exactly how I feel..... Kickboxing, huh?? To release my pent up aggression? OK, I think I'll give it a try..... Midnight driving to Tucson again, anyone want to come along and keep me awake this time???? Ha ha. Got a new walking buddy, Julie, good times.... Mariah's birthday party and baptism are coming up, fun, busy times.....

Book and baby

So my baby is 2.... I can't believe it, I'll have to post some pictures, I just showed him Meg and Dustys blog and he says "mom".... Ummm. no, but maybe he thinks we look alike!!! Funny, and I showed him Rome and said, "can you say Rome?" And he says "bebe Rome" so cute!!! So Megann has tagged me and here I am writing it down to remind myself to do it. OK. Now I will remember. Sometime... Also, I just finished reading a good book, the Proper Care and feeding of Husbands by Dr Laura Schlessinger. Talk about a wake up call. Aimee's book club, or should I say Kristi's book club hosted by Aimee discussed it last month, and boy I wish I could have been there!!! So much to talk about. If you are ever feeling that self pity creeping up, just read it!

grocery store

So did I mention before how fun it is to run into old friends??? I saw another person from my high school at the grocery store last week. About 2 months ago I ran into Amy C, now Amy N as I was leaving the Safeway I most frequently visit. And then last Friday I saw Paul M. I meant to look him up in my elementary school pictures because its possible I've know him that long, but we graduated together in 94, along with 8 or 900 other people. Anyway, I wonder who I'll see at Safeway in 2 more months?!?!

Amazing!

OK, so I have to post this one over here in case Mariah ever reads the other one. For Christmas we wanted to get the kids a trampoline for the backyard. Judd in his honesty, wanted to make sure that the homeowners association OKed this, because we wanted to put up the saftey net which would make it over the 8feet tall that is allowed. SO, I did all the work making a diagram and jotting down the dimensions, and then began the wait. Now previously we have had many problems with the HOA regarding our front yard landscaping and I had begun to decide that the HOA was evil and run by a bunch of jerks who are just out there to make my life miserable by not approving my requests for no tree, my wrong choice of rock color, etc... So I had assumed that they knew we wanted the trampoline for Christmas, and were purposely waiting until after Christmas to deny us becuase they knew it would ruin some kids' Christmas. And I was down to about a 5% hope that it would even be approved. I was looking into all sorts of situations where people had problems with their HOA and what could be done about it. FYI-- do not just stop paying your dues, in some places the HOA can then foreclose on your house! Its all about disbanding the HOA, but who would take care of our neighborhood pool, and our multiple common areas/playgrounds?? So I had pretty much resigned myself to just hating them forever, when lo and behold on January 29th I checked the mail and there was another letter from the HOA. What was it this time, denying us our refund money??? Did we have too many weeds?? Had we left our trash can out??? No chance of that one due to our trash can loving son. Were they finally getting around to denying my request for a trampoline 2 months later?? So I open it. You cannot imagine my surprise and excitement when it said we were approved for a trampoline!!!! I said "I'm floored!" And Mariah says, "what's wrong with the floor??" So now we can put up the trampoline and still surprise the kids, becuase they don't know about it. But should Santa come give it to them for Valentine's?? Or should the easter bunny bring it?? Or does one lucky kid get it for their birthday??? See, the Santa thing was just the best time.... So now what? Wait till next Christmas?? I don't think so!!

Friends

I think my favorite thing these days is finding my old friends and reconnecting with people. I saw Janei at the temple the other day, and we didn't get our targeted session which usually makes me mad. But since I had a friend to talk to and sit by, I didn't mind. And then I saw an old BYU nursing program friend in my session. I talked to her afterwards and it was so great!! I was so happy to chat with her and find out what she was doing and what other nursing friends were doing. Then there's Cindy that I found by joining facebook, an old friend from high school, and we went out to dinner and had them over for dinner. And of course there's Suzie, and Amy, and Erin and CJ.... And lots more of you who I don't ever want to forget!! And I don't want any of you to forget me either. Its silly, but I wish I could just put all of you in a big room and talk and talk for hours. I wonder if that's what it will be like when we die and go to the next life. I hope so. I miss you all.

the spoiled uder 30 email

I think this is so funny!

The Spoiled Under 30 Crowd

"If you are 30 or older, you will think this is hilarious!!!! If not, send it to your parents! They'll think it's funny!

When I was a kid, adults used to bore me to tears with their tedious diatribes about how hard things were when they were growing up; what with walking twenty-five miles to school every morning .... Uphill BOTH ways .. Yadda, yadda, yadda

And I remember promising myself that when I grew up, there was no way in heck I was going to lay a bunch of crap like that on kids about how hard I had it and how easy they've got it!

But now that...

I'm over the ripe old age of thirty, I can't help but look around and notice the youth of today. You've got it so easy! I mean, compared to my childhood, you live in a dang Utopia! And I hate to say it but you kids today you don't know how good you've got it!

1. When I was a kid, we didn't have the Internet. If we wanted to know something, we had to go to the dang library and look it up ourselves... In the card catalog!! (Do you even know what a card catalog is? Didn't think so!)

2. There was no email!! We had to actually write somebody a letter... With a pen! Then you had to walk all the way across the street and put it in the mailbox and it would take like a week to get there!

3. There were no MP3's or Napsters! If you wanted to steal music, you had to hitchhike to the dang record store and shoplift it yourself! Or you had to wait around all day to tape it off the radio and the DJ would usually talk over the beginning and mess it all up!

4. We didn't have fancy crap like Call Waiting! If you were on the phone and somebody else called they got a busy signal, that's it!

5. And we didn't have fancy Caller ID Boxes either! When the phone rang, you had no idea who it was! It could be your school, your mom, your boss, your bookie, your drug dealer, a collections agent, you just didn't know!!! You had to pick it up and take your chances, mister!

6. We didn't have any fancy Sony Playstation video games with high-resolution 3-D graphics! We had the Atari 2600! With games like 'Space Invaders' and 'asteroids' and the graphics were horrible! Your guy was a little square! You actually had to use your imagination! And there were no multiple levels or screens, it was just one screen forever! And you could never win. The game just kept getting harder and harder and faster and faster until you died! Just like LIFE!

7. When you went to the movie theater there no such thing as stadium seating! All the seats were the same height! If a tall guy or some old broad with a hat sat in front of you and you couldn't see, you were just screwed!

8. Sure, we had cable television, but back then that was only like 15 channels and there was no onscreen menu! You had to use a little book called a TV Guide to find out what was on!

And there was no Cartoon Network either! You could only get cartoons on Saturday Morning. Do you hear what I'm saying!?! We had to wait ALL WEEK for cartoons!

9. And we didn't have microwaves, if we wanted to heat something up, we had to use the stove or go build a fire ... Imagine that! If we wanted popcorn, we had to use that stupid JiffyPop thing or a pan with HOT oil and Real popcorn kernels and shake it all over the stove forever like an idiot.

10. When we were on the phone with our friends and our parents walked-in, we were stuck to the wall with a cord, a 7 foot cord that ran to the phone - not the phone base, the actual phone. We barely had enough length to sit on the floor and still be able to twirl the phone cord in our fingers. If you suddenly had to go to the bathroom - guess what we had to do..... Hang up and talk to them later.

That's exactly what I'm talking about! You kids today have got it too easy. You're spoiled!!

You guys wouldn't have lasted five minutes back in 1980!

Regards,
The over 30 Crowd"

Marshall's first broken bone

OK, so the last day of Christmas vacation, Friday January 4th, we had friends K&T over to play. They were all upstairs in the loft and I was in the computer room, Mariah and K & T came downstairs Marshall and Jayden were still up, and I hear Marsh crying.... I go up and he's just sitting on the floor crying. I pick him up and i can tell it hurts him. He cries and cries, I ask Jayden and I get nothing, did you kick him? Yes. did he fall off the couch? yes. what happened? I jumped on him.... hmmmm.... well, I guess we'll never know. So I play with Marshall a bit so I can watch him, and he's pulling at his shirt everytime he reaches for something and hurts himself.... I take off the shirt and can see a little red, but it fades.... . I think its his collarbone, so I come down and reseaarch it while he takes a nap. There's nothing you can do for a broken collarbone, so I'm in no rush. He babies the arm all week, and I let him, I find a new way to pick him up so as not to hurt it, eventually we go to the Dr to get a script for an x-ray, He thinks its broken and gives us a brace. Too bad I didn't do that earlier, he could've worn the brace all week to help it set better. So we just got the x-ray and the results. A fractured right clavicle. Hmmmm.... First broken bone in the family.... And its the baby poor guy. Also he bit through his last pacifier during this time and we had to wean him. So broken bone and no comfort tool..... :(