Where did the Summer Go?

Excellent question, too bad I don't have a great answer.  We didn't go on any fancy fun camping adventures (if you know Clint, that's not a big surprise), we haven't done anything about adoption (had to get a house first), and we didn't win a million dollars (did anyone else?).  Our biggest excitement was of course buying a new house, so that's pretty big.  

As I was going through my pictures, we didn't do much of anything in June, it was a pretty mellow month.  It was kind of stressful wondering if we were going to get a house or not, you know since it was a short sale and the banks can be so finicky about silly little things, but everything ended up turning out.  The biggest thing that happened in June was Clint's promotion.  He was promoted to "Director of Project Management," or something like that, I just know that he gets a million emails, has two million meetings a day, and has a team of project managers that he oversees.  Sounds kind of boring to me, but he let me know that he has a "grown-up" job now, so the 9-5 days are over and that he has to do work stuff whenever it needs to be done.  This promotion has been a wonderful blessing and I couldn't be prouder of all of Clint's hard work.

July, again we dealt with the stress of a house, stress of packing and I had an amazing week at girls camp.  I'll have to do a post just about girls camp because I loved it so much!  The saddest part about moving has been leaving the young women and leaders I worked with in our old ward.  Such amazing people.

So onto August...

 This is pretty much what things looked like in August, boxes, boxes and more boxes - what a mess!  We moved into the house August 3rd and it seemed like we weren't home very much so it took forever to get things un-packed.

Two days after we moved in, there was a fire that started a few miles away from us.  We live right up against the mountain so unfortunately, I don't think this will be our last fire.  Please pray for us that we won't have to ever worry about a fire, but seeing as the state of Utah has been on fire this year, we'll just have to be prepared.

 

 On August 6th, I celebrated my 32nd Birthday.  It was a great day!  Clint took me to Texas Roadhouse for dinner and then the best part...

 

 ..Going to Sundance to see "Seven Brides for Seven Brothers."  It was the best birthday weekend EVER!  I got a house, couches and wonderful night with my amazing husband.

 The day after my birthday, I went to Cafe Rio with my friends Mindy and Shantel and guess who was there to wish me a happy birthday?  OK, so maybe Jef was there just to eat with his buddy, but I can pretend.  The three of us were too shy to say anything to him, so instead Mindy took an "accidental" photo of him, since we were sitting at the table next to him.  It made the night so much fun!

Aug 15-18 we went to San Diego for Clint's great grandmother "Momgie's" funeral.  It was a very quick trip, but we still had a good time.  More to come on that later.  Please don't judge me that I'm wearing the same outfit as I was on my birthday, how embarrassing!  :).

For over 2 years I have been having major pain in my feet, mostly my right. I just figured it was plantar faciitist and that I needed to do stretching, exercises and wear orthodontics, well after my softball game last week I could barely walk the pain was so bad.  I went to the pediatrics and he didn't have very good news for me.  I have a bone spur (it's kind of hard to see on the x-ray unless you know what you're looking for) that seems to be putting pressure on a nerve which is causing the pain.  He seems to think surgery is the best way to permanently fix the pain.  I'm not sure if I want to go through that, so we'll see what happens in the next few weeks and decide from there.

Lastly, I got a call from Salt Lake Community College on Monday saying they had a last minute opening for the dental hygiene program and that I could start my two year program the next day!  I was so shocked because I am not scheduled to start the program until fall of 2016.  The lady said that I had an hour and a half to think about it and get back to her as soon as I could.  I'm sure that I'll regret the decision I made sometime later in my life, but I just couldn't drop everything at the blink of an eye and start school.  There would be no way financially we could afford me to quit work  and I would have missed a week worth of school.  And the biggest reason, I was not mentally prepared to kill my brain like that.  It was the hardest decision to make, but we feel really good about it.  It was a VERY stressful hour and a half!

Well that sums things up in a nut shell, hopefully I'll get around to posting more post in the next few days, but life is busy as you all know so I'll get to it when I can.

Home Sweet Home

We are FINALLY home owners again!  It was quite a process dealing with a short sale, but it was well worth it.  We got a beautiful home that will hopefully bring us much joy for the next thousand years to come :).  Since it was a short sale, the seller's bank had a lot of interesting things we had to explain.  For instance, when we first applied for the loan, Clint was making X amount.  Well by the time we actually found the house and were approved by the seller's bank to buy the home, he had been given a raise of X amount.  So if you were the seller's bank, wouldn't you think, "Oh the buyer will defiantly be able to make the mortgage payment now that they are making more."  That's what I would think too, we thought that we would be making everyone's job a little easier by giving them this info, but guess what...Instead it just complicated things.  I got an email from our loan Processor Sheri (who by the way was amazing to work with, if you are looking for a loan processor, definitely check her out), who said that the bank was confused on why Clint got a raise.  I wanted to reply and just say he was awesome but I was afraid that would just screw things up, so instead we just mentioned that it was from his 6 month review and a promotion to a management position (which was all true).  I started joking around that I'd get real nervous when they asked me about the sucker I purchased 3 days ago and if I bit into the sucker or if I licked my way to the center, and if I did lick my way to the center, how many licks did it take.  Luckily, it didn't go that far.  Anyway, after climbing through hoops like that, we finally were able to close!  We got the keys late Tuesday night July 31, 2012.

It hasn't really sunk in quite yet, since I tried so hard not to get my heart into this house because of all of the uncertainties since it was a short sale.  I'm really excited now and I'm sure I'll be even more excited once we are unpacked.  You know how much fun moving is, right?  Well this will be our 5th move in the last 5 years so I definitely know that moving is NOT fun!  But we're getting really good at it!

Here is just a sneak peak of the house with Clint and Jax (Jax is the tiny dot that Clint is holding, and PS, this whole thing was meant to be because the title guys name was Jax, he has the same birthday as me, and it turns out, Clint and him are probably related!  Crazy!). I'll post more pictures once we have time to breath and can even think about such a thing, until then, if you're ever in the Ranches in Eagle Mountain Utah, stop on by and say hi! 

Miss Veenker 2012

Well it's hard to believe that last Friday night we had our 5th Miss Veenker pageant.  It was a success as always and all of the girls did such a great job, like always.  If you have no idea what the Miss Veenker pageant is, you can check out some of our other pageants Here, Here and Here (even though the last "here" is just one picture). I don't have a post from our first year, but I should do that because it's really fun to look back and see how much these girls have grown over the years.  One thing is for sure, it's time for new decorations!  If the girls didn't change so much from year to year, you would never know which year was which.  Last year we did it outside and it was so much fun, the pictures looked better, we had more space to move and the temperature was perfect.  This year we were going to try and have it outside again, but it had been raining all day and was slightly on the cold side, so inside again for us.

We had 3 categories, Talent, PJ, and Evening Gown.  We had a variety of talents this year, a magic trick, cheer routine, piano, violin, dance and a hula performance.  We had 3 new girls join us this year and lost one, apparently McKinsey is too old for this or something?  Who knows, we sure missed you though!  We had Jessica who is my cousin's daughter, Chloe who is another cousin's daughter and Boston who is my niece on Clint's side.  It is so fun to see all of them get along so well and be brave enough to perform in front of a group.  I just love them all!

 

The group after the crowning.

 We had a "licious" theme going on this year, so all of the awards ended in licious.  It makes it easier for the "judges" to come up with awards if we have some kind of theme.

 Afton did a piano number and had some fancy finger work going on throughout the night, even when the piano was no where in site.  During her modeling time, she showed us how those fingers could fly!  The cutest thing was the flip of her braids when she bowed after her piano performance.  So she got the "Miss Flip-o-licious" award.

 Ami is my sister-in-law Andrea's sister and has joined us for the pageant for the last 3 years!  It's crazy that Scott and Andrea have known each other that long.

She did an amazing Clogging routine that she choreographed herself!  She did such a great job and received the "Miss Clog-o-licious" title.

It was so much fun having Boston with us for the first time.  She doesn't have any cousins (yes, at all!), so it was fun having her join our family and being around so many girls. She did the most amazing magic trick!  We were all in awe of how she did it!  She received the
"Miss Magic-licious" title.

Brooklynn is now 13 and I am just amazed at what a marvelous young women she has turned into. Even though she is getting older, she still participates and doesn't complain (at least that I know of).  She was such a big help this year with helping me do hair.  She has the prettiest long hair, so she was awarded the title of,
"Miss Locks-o-licious"

Chloe is my cousin Andrea's daughter.  When I told Chloe about the pageant at one of our family dinners, she got super excited about it and wouldn't stop bugging her mom about when it was going to be.  I hope it lived up to her expectations because we loved having her with us.  She did a wonderful Hula Hoop routine and just when we thought she was going to loose the hula hoop, she amazed us all by keeping it up, even when it was around her thighs!  She was crowned 

"Miss Hula-licious."

Hailey had a rough night and only made it through the talent and PJ portion of the night.  But she still did a great job.  She played her violin and amazed us all with the progress she's made in the last year. If you look REALLY closely, you can see that she is wearing Tinkerbell pajamas, that earned her the title of 

"Miss fairy-licous."

Jessica is my cousin Richards daughter.  It was such a joy having her with us for the first time.  She gets along so well with all of the girls, and we love seeing her fun personality.  She did the cutest cheer dance!  She had music, moves and the cutest outfit.  She was crowned "Miss Cheer-o-licious"

Oh, Alexis, this girl can bring a smile to anyone's face!  Whether it's the funny comments she makes, her incredible dance moves, or her spunkiness coming out on the catwalk, she lights up the room and brings so much energy.  She received the

"Miss Spunk-a-licious" title.

Liberty always comes to the pageant with the funnest talent.  She is so creative, just like her mom  - a dance number from Liberty will never disappoint.  This year she performed the funnest dance.  She wore a cute summer outfit, and accessorized it with sunglasses and a beach ball.  She dance to the song "Summer Belongs to You" by Phineas and Ferb.  So cute!  She was crowned,

"Miss summa-licious."

 

Mya always does a great job on her talent, but this year she blew me out of the water with her violin skills!  You may or may not know that I grew up playing the violin and at one time I was an OK violinist (not so much any more, it's totally true what they say, if you don't keep up your talent, you're going to loose it!).  Mya played a violin number by Taylor Swift, and oh my goodness!  I don't think I could have ever done it.  I only played boring classical or church music.  I think I would have had a lot more fun practicing if I would have been smart like Mya and played songs that I liked.  She is amazing!  She was crowned,

"Miss Vi-o-licious."

After the crowning and pictures, I had the girls change back into their PJ's and we had a little dance.

Then came the good part, ice cream sundaes.

Most of the girls spent the night, but some some of them weren't able to stay, we sure missed them.  Before they fell asleep, we watched the movie Mr. Popper's Penguins. The girls seemed to enjoy it.  We didn't get to bed until after 11:00 and they were up bright and early by 7:00 the next morning.  I feel really bad saying this, but I'm sure glad I am the aunt and not the mom so that I didn't have to spend the day with them.  I know that I was ornery the next day, so I can only imagine what they were like ;).  Sorry mom's, but at least the girls had a good time!.

Thank you to all those who participated, the mom's who helped out with hair, make-up, getting the sundae stuff together and all that you do to make the pageant possible.  And a big thanks to my mom for helping me out with EVERYTHING.  She allows us to have the pageant at her house, helped me make breakfast in the morning and helped me make the sashes, plus so much more.  You're the best mom and I sure do love you!

Surprise!

Yes, I bet you are surprised to see a post from me!  I just wanted to check in just in case you were wondering if we are still alive, well...we are!  I know it's been 8 months since my last post and I need to be punished for that.  Hopefully one day I'll be able to fill you in on everything that has happened, but for now I'll just give a quick highlight of what's been going on.

During the summer we had a great time with my sister's family boating at Utah Lake.

In August we had the annual Miss Veenker Pageant

 

 During the fall I spent my Wednesday nights playing softball with Mom's Team.  95% of the team is family, hence the name, "Mom's Team"  My mom is our sponsor.

  

September 23 Clint turned 31!  Wow we're getting old!

 

In October my sister-in-law took some awesome adoption profile pictures for us.  Nothing has happened with the adoption process yet.  We will hopefully be moving in the next couple months from my parents and then we'll start the process.

On November 16, 2011 we celebrated our 10th anniversary.  We spent the entire day together!  We FINALLY got iPhones, went to lunch, went to the temple, and then went to dinner at The Copper Onion in SLC, if you have never been there, GO, it's so yummy!  It's been an amazing 10 years growing, moving, going through trials and enjoying life with each other.

In November (I think that's when it was) I was put into the Young Women as the secretary but was soon fired and asked to serve as the Mia Maid adviser.  I absolutely love this calling!

 

In January Clint and I took a quick one night, one day trip to Saint George Utah.  It was nice to get away.

 

We said goodbye to our first car in December.  The engine completely died on us so we said farewell.

 

 In February I went to Time Out For Women with my friend Shantel and sister-in-law Mariah.

 The end of February to the middle of March Clint went to India for 3 weeks for work!  It was the longest and quickest 3 weeks I've ever experienced.  Hopefully he never has to go again.  This is a picture of us Facetiming.  The only way we could talk.

 While Clint was in India I went to the cabin with my family to go snowmobiling.  Such a good time!

In March I attempted my first 5K.  It's a pretty bid deal for me.  I'm not a runner!  Even when I was on the basketball team I couldn't run for long distances.  I had to stop a few times to walk, but hopefully by the end of the summer I'll be a pro at the 5K.

And that about covers the major things.  I'm sure I am forgetting things, so if I am, I'll get to that next time.  We are doing good, Clint is enjoying being a project manager at Property Solutions, I applied for the Dental Hygiene program at SLCC, but it doesn't start till Fall of 2016, so we'll see if that still happens.  I have been trying to finish up some classes that I needed to take in order to get my associates, and by the end of April I'll be done with those!  It will be so nice to have a break from school for awhile.

Like I said earlier, we are hoping to buy a house in the next couple months so hopefully we'll be out of my parents hair and on our own again in the near future!  I can't wait!  And that about sums up our life.

Up-date of Summer

Well a couple days ago I was going to post about how I'm finished with school and that we have been enjoying the summer, and then I realized that summer is almost over and I start school again in two weeks!  Where does the time go?

I finished up all of my pre-reqs for Dental Hygiene school and I'm PROUD (sarcasm there) to announce that I have been accepted to Salt Lake Community College for their program for Fall of 2016!  No that is not a misprint.  There is currently a five year wait list!  YUCK!  They say that on average students have been waiting 2-3 years, but they can't guarantee anything.  The really crappy part of all that is if I have to wait till 2016 all of my pre-reqs that I have worked so hard and long on will expire and I'll have to retake them.  I'm planning on applying to a few more schools this fall, but my chances of getting in aren't the best.  So for now I'm just taking things one day at a time (no planning here because we all know that our plans get ruined if we do plan ;)). 

So why am I going to school in the fall if I'm done with all my pre-reqs?  Because I am only 14 credits away from getting my Associates.  Dental Hygiene is only an Associates degree so hopefully I'll have two AS's by the time I'm done, but just in case DH doesn't work out I  want to have at least one.  So I'm taking it REALLY easy and breaking up the 14 credits into 6 this semester and 8 next semester.  I'm hoping things will be WAY easier for me now than they have in the past since the classes are basic generals.

Now back to what we have done this summer.  This summer has flown by!  We really haven't done that much but some how it's almost over.  Some of the things we have done are, helped out with Grandma while she was still alive, had Grandma's funeral, went to Vegas, had a family reunion, went boating, celebrated my 31st birthday, I picked up 10 more hours a week at work, and Clint has been working like a mad man!  Two nights a week he works till 10:00PM.  On those days he averages about 12 hours a day!  I don't love it (I REALLY hate it), but he says he has lots of stuff to get done and working after hours really helps him focus and get stuff done.  I'm proud that he is willing to work so hard so that we can have a good life.  Thanks Clint, you're the best!

And that about covers our life right now.  Nothing too exciting, just a long list of "To Do" items that I had planned to do over the summer and only half of them got done.  Please tell me that's how everyone works so that I can feel a little better about myself.  I hope all of you had a fantastic summer with lots of accomplishments, sun and FUN!

I'm a Good Friend Now!

OK after this post I don't want anyone accusing me of not being a good friend.  Even though my only true friend is Shantel Schow (OK that's defiantly not true because I have so many of you), I am just a little peeved that non of you have told me about this AMAZING cooking blog before now.  Those of you who know about this, it's going to take a lot of repenting to me and showers of gifts for me to forgive you, but for those of you who have never heard of Our Best Bites, must check them out IMMEDIATELY!!!  I have only experienced this new form of heaven for a month now (this coming from the girl who FINALLY realized that browsing the internet can actually be great if you are using the right browser like Fire Fox or Chrome and not the icky thing they call Internet Explore), but since I've found out about it, it's changed my out look on life, or cooking that is.  I tell you that I am addicted to their website!  For the past three days I have done nothing but read their posts, OK maybe I've done a few things but I seriously have been so fascinated by what they have to say about cooking, tutorials, entertaining, life and anything else they have to say for the day.  They have SO many great recipes (most of them I haven't had time to try yet, but by looking at the pictures and seeing what ingredients are in them, I know they are all winners).  So if you are ever in need of an idea for dinner, check out their website, they will keep you on the straight and narrow, plus they are great writers and really funny!

I also bough their cook book a few weeks back and have made quite a few things out of it.  Yes I'm an OK cook (not great, OK) and I did OK with out their help, but since I've been making things out of the book this is the response I got from Larry Veenker (my dad), "This is so good, when are you going to open your restaurant?"  If you know Larry Veenker, that is a pretty great compliment and VERY shocking only because he DOES NOT give complements out very often, if ever!

So by now you must be thinking that Our Best Bites must be paying Jen to write all this great stuff about them, but sadly no -- I just really want to be a good friend and pass on this most important information to all my friends out there, so that one day I don't loose a friend because I didn't share with them the secret to life (OK maybe it's not that good, you be the judge).  So there you have it, I'm a good friend now, sorry I wasn't before, I just didn't know this valuable information yet.

Williams Family Reunion 2011

Every three years my mom's side of the family has a reunion.  We have done it at my parents cabin for the last little while because number one it's a lot cheaper than going some other place and number two it's hard to find a place for 80 people.  That's right, this year we were kind of small in numbers and only had 80 people.  A week and a half before the reunion my dad had gone up to the cabin to remove the snow from the roads so that we could get in.  By the time the reunion came there was a few snow patches here and there but for the most part things were nice and dry.  Since we can't fit 80 people in our cabin our nice neighbors allowed us to use there cabin, plus with people using their trailers, no one had to sleep in a tent.  It was great because Clint and I would have had to sleep in a tent, it would have been FREEZING this year!

The first day was a little rainy, but by the next day the sky's cleared and we were able to spend our time out side.  We had a great time riding 4-wheelers, canoeing, pinewood derby, rockets, Zumba, visiting, crafts, swinging, snowmobiling (no that is not a misprint), games, visiting some more and just enjoying what God created, family and the outdoors. 

Yes there are a MILLION pictures, but you're lucky, I cut back and only used the best ones.

See I told you we snowmobiled.  On July 1st we took a few snowmobiles to the top were there was a little bit of snow.  It was more to say we snowmobiled on July 1st than it was to have fun and go on big rides.  In one of the pictures my cousin is in her flip flops, now that's a new one I've never seen!

To end the reunion some of us went to Stadium of Fire.  David Archuleta and Brad Paisely performed.  It was seriously an awesome night!  Such a good show with the fireworks, singers, dancers, sky divers and everything else they had!  Plus we got half off tickets which made it even better in my opinion!

Vegas

The forth week of June Clint had a conference for work in Vegas.  He drove down Thursday with some of his coworkers and then I was able to come down the next day after work to meet up with him.  I didn't want to drive down alone so I convinced Andrea and Scott to drive down with me.  We got there about 6:30, perfect timing since Clint's conference had just ended.  We checked into our hotel and then went to dinner at one of the buffets in town. We stayed at an Embassy Suite off the strip, we REALLY liked it and there wasn't the craziness like there is on the strip, plus it was MUCH cheaper!  At the buffet the food was GREAT but it totally wasn't worth the money.  Non of us could eat more than 2 plates so we didn't really feel like we got our money's worth, Oh well, you live and learn.

After dinner we headed over to the Belagio to check out the water show they have.  I have always wanted to see it and never have, so it was a priority for me this trip.  It was really fun to see and really amazing what they can do with water, air and music.  We were pretty tired after the Belagio so being the old boring people we are, we headed back to the hotel to sleep.

Saturday we spent some time by the pool and by we I mean Andrea and me.  Clint and Scott lasted maybe 30 minutes and then couldn't stand being cooked anymore so they went back to our room.  After we got ready we headed back to the strip and went to Madame Tussauds Wax Museum .  That was A LOT of fun.  I can't believe how real they make the stars look.  I don't think the pictures do a very good job at making the models look real, but if you are up close and personal with the stars, the detail work is AMAZING!  I really liked going and I would recommend it to everyone.  Just make sure you get a coupon, they are all over the place if you look hard enough.

After dinner we went to a Variety show.  It was OK, there was some cool stuff but I am so glad we didn't pay full price.  We had a buy one get one free tickets and I would have been TICKED if I would have spent full price.  But really all the shows in Vegas are SO expensive so we did pretty good paying as little as we did.

Again we were pretty tired after the show so we walked the strip a little (only because we were looking for the M&M factory which doesn't exist on the strip, there is a store, but no factory), and then we headed back to the hotel.

The next morning Clint and I slept in while Scott and Andrea went to visit one of Scott's mission companions.  After they got back we packed up and headed home.  It was another quick trip but we had a good time and it was nice to just get away, even if it was just for a couple of days.  Thanks Scott and Andrea for going with us, it made it a lot more fun!

We won't go into detail on this one, let's just say Andrea had a little struggle with the window on the Jeep and her middle finger.  OUCH!!!

One of the pictures above is the temperature.  It was SOOO hot, the hottest that we ever saw was 109.  Thank goodness it was dry and not humid like it is back east!