Bear Lake 2009

Mike and I have been way busy with school and work. I'm finally getting around to putting up our awesome pictures on the blog. We had so much fun! We left on Friday the 28th of August around 7. We thought that we would make it there before 10 PM, but we had to stop to pick up bacon because we accidentally left the bacon in the freezer at home! Anyway, we ended up getting there around 10:30 and fortunately the managers were in a good mood and let us in.

On Saturday morning we got to make breakfast with Paul and Amy. We chose to make french toast with apple butter and bacon. Little did we know, Paul is a pro at making french toast.

After breakfast we got to swim. As you can see we had quite a bit of fun!

Blackmail Picture!
Kelsie in Her Awesomeness
My Cute Husband!
Keely! Pretty Much the Cutest Girl Ever!

Dad Relaxing With the Swedish Fish
Paul Commandeering the Floatation Device
Cheese!

Harrison Wake-Surfing. Pretty Intense!

The End! =)

My my my pug pug pug face, my pug pug face! (Sounds like Gaga's Poker-face)

Crazy Mac!

Crazy Mac is what I'm naming this meal that my mom, Karen makes. It was one of my favorite meals as a kid. It's basically spaghetti with cheese on top. You have to have the hamburger and the cheese! No exceptions! Anyway, we used to call it "lasagna" and then it became "mac and cheese", and then I called "Mower Mac" or "Mower lasagna" .

While I was grocery shopping a couple of weeks ago, I bought these noodles called "crazy mac". The crazy mac have a variety of noodles, including the "wheel" noodles, shell noodles, rotini and penne noodles, they're all different colors. I made some "easy mac" (The ragu cheese sauce) with these noodles one day and I ended up having left over uncooked noodles. I'm sure this happens to alot of people-you end up having 10 different bags with a handfull of noodles in them.

Anyway, last night I was craving some Mower Mac. I went to my cupboard where I keep all my noodles and found that I didn't have enough of any individual kind of noodles to make anything. So I decided to combine the left over crazy mac noodles with the spaghetti and elbow noodles that I had and told Mike we were having "Crazy Mac" for dinner. After you put the meatsauce and cooked noodles together, you put the cheese on top and bake it until the cheese is melted. It is bomb-diggety the first night, however for some reason, it is 5X better after it's sat in the fridge for the night. I suggest that you try it. It's ridiculously easy and you'll like it.

Nationalized Healthcare?

So I've been spending a lot of time thinking about this. I'm frustrated because there are so many people that say "Yes, this will be great", while a big chunk of people are VERY opposed. As a program coordinator that works with people who have developmental disabilities I'm able to see both sides of this issue.

I see my side, which is basically I pay $90 a month for medical insurance for my husband and I. This cost does not include co-pays for prescriptions or doctor's visit, as well as several other procedures, including pregnancy and child birth. We're not exactly "rollin' in the dough" just like many of the other families that are part of this nation. We make less than $15 an hour each and live in a 418 square-foot apartment. Not only do we pay our medical insurance, but just like everyone else, we are responsible for paying car insurance and other necessities. $90 is a lot to be spending considering Mike and I are both in fairly good health. We feel that this medical insurance is a priority and though it makes our budget a little tighter we pay for it because we feel it necessary to prepare in the event that we might need it one day.

The other side of this that I see is while serving people with disabilities. Some of the people I serve work, and some of them don't. I have found that though they may work AND receive money from the government to help pay for things like rent and food, they often times do not have a lot of excess cash to be throwing around to pay for medical insurance. It is in this situation that I feel like a government-run health care system could really benefit this nation.

We have to remember the people that are in low-income situations due to debilitating accidents or for other reasons which make it so that they are unable to work. We also need to remember the stories of people that get these crazy illnesses and for one reason or another, are unable to take care of their hospital bills. (IE: "What about little Johnny with leukemia?") Even the people with pre-existing conditions- THESE ARE THE PEOPLE WE SHOULD BE HELPING! Not the people that fail to prioritize their finances in order to have adequate healthcare coverage, because they know they can get it for free through the government.

In the past year, Medicaid has stopped funding for important services such as vision and dental. This has really impacted my clients because now, if they want to go to the dentist to have their teeth cleaned they have to pay for their own dental insurance-many of these people don't really have the extra $20 a month to be paying for that. In my opinion, the solution should be to fix the health plans that we have now: Medicaid and Medicare.

I've had the opportunity to work with Housing over the past few months and that has been a treat. In order to receive housing benefits, one needs to apply for the assistance. (In case you're wondering, housing's waiting list is about a mile long) After you have been pulled from the list, they give you this big packet that asks you a ton of questions about your income and your monthly expenditures. After that, they give you income and bank verification forms. You have to take these income forms to everyone that you receive money from, including your employer. Then, you get to take the forms to each bank that you have a savings/checking account with. From my experience, there are some banks that wont even do this now. It's ridiculous. After that, you get to arrange a meeting with the coordinator, they figure out what you can afford and then give you that info. The reason why I'm telling you this, is in hopes that you get the idea that it's a lengthy process and kind of a pain in the butt! If we made government-run healthcare as difficult to apply for and receive, maybe people that CAN afford it would stop taking advantage of it, because it's a lot easier to just pay for it.

I also think that for many people, this service should be temporary. For example, if you're laid off and COBRA is not an option, you can apply for temporary medical insurance. They should give you a 3 month window to find a job and insurance coverage, as well as offer financial counseling to empower people to become more self-sufficient.

I've contacted United Healthcare in Draper to find out what the costs would be to do a private health insurance plan. Obviously, it's going to be different for everyone because I don't have any major conditions such as diabetes, cancer or major depression. And it's probably going to be a tad-bit more expensive because it is private. I guess the point that I'm going to try to make with this is that I'm not rich, but even if for some reason I wasn't able to get employee healthcare coverage, I would still make it on my own. I recognize, yeah, I don't have kids and both my husband and I work. But I feel like this should all be relative to the situation you're in. If you have a single-income family with 4 kids, yes it's going to be hard but that's what tax breaks are for, right?

Something that is frustrating for me to see is that the "boundary" between what's needed and wanted has been blurred. If we continue to "pitch in" our tax dollars to people that don't really need the assistance, we might as well start paying for everyone's car insurance and back-taxes too. The plan that has been suggested is ineffective in helping the citizens of our country maintain self-sufficiency. It is also frustrating that under this new plan, people like me, that prioritize their needs are being PUNISHED (Yes, I just said punished. ) for being empowered and independent.

Anyway, that's my blurb.

Remember Goosebumps?

Buddy looks like the dog off of the "Goosebumps" Introduction when it was on TV. That was a long time ago, but some of us still remember! =) The Theme is only a minute long, but if you specifically watch between 28-32 seconds you'll see what I mean!

TREK!!!

Trek was a blast! We were called to participate as a "ma and pa".

We were pretty excited and kind of nervous, but it turned out great. We had 8 kids and a "grandma and grandpa".

They were originally supposed to be our big brother and sister, but they were double our age. It was great to have them along because they helped us out so much!On Wednesday, we were the first to arrive of the ma's and pa's. We helped the first and second wards get ready.

After almost everyone was checked in, we went into the cultural hall to watch a video to help us get into the "trek" spirit. We had

some great people that helped organize this trek.

Mike called the man in the picture "Brother Trail-Boss". We weren't assigned to our families until we got there. We were really excited to meet everyone. I've always been really bad with names, so I made an extra effort to get everyone's names memorized. By the end of the week,

I was able to name off each member of our family.

When we arrived, it was a nice partially cloudy day. It wasn't too

hot or too cold during the day. The trail was somewhat easy for the first 2.5 miles. We ate lunch and then got started on the tough part. There was this huge hill that we had to pull the handcarts up. According to the missionaries there, they said that we were one of the fastest groups to pull up that hill. Just about all of the members of our family are very athletic, which probably explains why we made it up so quickly.

From left to right: Bryson, Jarren, Josh, Brett, Ali, Hailey, and Shandie and Alex .

We pulled another 5 miles that day after lunch. We were pretty excited to get to camp. That night, we made 5-can soup. It was pretty good. The stake food committee did a great job with organizing the meals. This 5-can soup had 1 can of vegetable soup, 1 can of green beans, 2 cans of corn and 1 can of Chili + some ground beef.

For breakfast the next day we had Pancakes and

Sausage. After we finished breakfast we got everything back up and started walking again.

On the second day we were scheduled to walk 4.5 miles. It was all flat terrain, however it turned out to be 6.2 miles. There was supposedly an error with the GPS-We didn't find out about the actual mileage until we had set up camp. By this

time, I had about 4 blisters, one of which was ENORMOUS!

You can't see it very well in the picture, but if you check out my foot, you can still see where it was!

Later that day, we all got together to play "Pioneer Games". We mainly competed against one other family and our kids DOMINATED all of the games, including Tug-A-War!

We had a way good dinner that night. We were planning to have chocolate fondue for dessert that night, but we ended up not eating it until breakfast the next morning! It was really tough to get out of the dutch oven, but we managed.

The next day, we pulled back to the place we had lunch on the first day. We set up camp and ate delicious hamburgers! I could barely walk that day because my feet were so sore! Even Mike was feeling down. Something that kept us walking was the random singing that Adam, one of our "Kids" was doing. Always a different song. =)

On the last day, we were all anxious to go home. I had the option to ride along in one of the many vehicles they came with, but I decided to walk instead. It was only 2.5 miles, but I regretted it the whole way until I came over the hill. Then I was really excited that I made it. We kept singing "This is the place." I wish we had video of it because it was pretty funny! Some kid said "Isn't that from a movie or something?" and we laughed about it.

Overall it was a great trip. I forgot how hard it is to walk that far. I seriously thought I wasn't going to make it. It's funny because I'm ready to do it again even though it hurt and I was tired and dirty! It's a good way to remember our pioneers and all of the things they went through and gain an appreciation for everything they did.

Finally posting stuff!

So it's a lovely warm evening in the apartment. I couldn't sleep tonight because I couldn't get my bonnet for trek right. Kind of frustrating, but after thinking about it for 2 hours, I think I know what I did wrong. Because my mind is going a billion and 5 miles an hour (okay, I'm exaggerating) I can't sleep. So I've set up the ol' blog, just how I like it. (for now, anyway) And I'd figure I'd give the world an update on Mike and I.

We've been married almost 4 months! It has been quite an adjustment for both of us. We dated for over 4 years, but marriage is NOTHING like dating...except for, well, when you go on dates. You see things you didn't see when you were dating. Like how her face looks smashed up against the pillow with her hair standing up on end. Like this:

That's Mac, by the way. We got him shortly after we decided that our house was too quiet. It actually happened after we went to Barnes and Noble at the Gateway. We found this dog book with a bunch of different dogs in it. About 2 weeks later we got our pug. We pretty much baby him. We have taken so many pictures of him, it's ridiculous.

He was only 5 pounds when we got him. We took him to the vet last week to get his second set of vaccinations. They weighed him in at 13.8 pounds! He's only supposed to weigh 20 pounds by the time he's full grown.

Mike has been super busy! He is working 2 jobs, one in the morning from 6am-10am, and then he goes to his other job from 11am to as late as 7:30pm. I don't know how he does it. He has alot of motivation. He is also really great about helping out with the housework. He is great at keeping our clothes clean and he helps with dishes just about every day. Such a sweetheart! He is finishing up his last week at his 6-10 job so that he can get ready to go to school in the fall. He's excited for school to get started!

We try to get out and do fun stuff whenever we can. It's alot of work being out on our own. (We figured it would be!) Some of the fun things we have coming up are Trek and Las Vegas! Two events on very different spectrums. Last time we went on Trek, we went as youth. I went 3 years ago, funny that now I'm going as a "Ma". We thought it was funny when they called us to be a "Ma" and "Pa" at the time, we had just been married for over 2 months. We're excited though-everyone says we're going to have the best group (because we're the youngest Ma and Pa)! I hope that's the case.

Anyway, I'll have pictures of that when we come back. Mac's overheating. (He's a pug, they do that because of their short snouts.) I am going to get him some water and go to bed!