Plain and Simple

Love Notes

2010-04-25T20:32:00.000-07:00

Dear Friends.

Just a little post to let you know that I was a little bored of this blog. So I made a new one. It's still a little guy, doesn't have many posts, and is in extreme need of some TLC, but I'm embarking on a little summer adventure with it anyways. Wont you join me?

http://toicecreamwithlove.blogspot.com/2010/04/100-reasons.html

Love always,

Catherine.

A Cheesy Little Love Note

2010-01-29T12:08:00.000-08:00

Today has been one of those days,

BUT...

It's really hard to have a bad day when you have a momma like mine!

Thanks for the package mom! I {love/miss} you so dang much!

-Catherine

P.S. Perfect timing...

Snickerdoodle Blondies

2010-01-22T16:25:00.000-08:00

If I had a fancy camera and had any talent in the areas of photography i would have taken an artistic strategic delicious looking picture of these...

Obviously that's not my picture. But these are my new best friends Snickerdoodle Blondies. Try this recipe if you like foods that are so delicious that you instantly want to eat them by the pan and possibly consider moving to some distant uninhabited foreign country so you can eat them in peace. (Because trust me, once these come out of the oven, they will disappear.)
You can find the recipe here.

A boring story about a cake, and a very grown up brother of mine.

2010-01-16T12:06:00.000-08:00

My older brother Nathan had a birthday the other day. He told me he wanted twice baked potatoes and a cake with home made frosting. I was all over it, sort of.

I found a recipe for the cake Here and got to work. Everything was going well until i opened the oven and found 2 very strange looking cakes and a pile of cake on the bottom of the oven in a little blob {I was going to post a picture, but since a blob of chocolate cake looks similar to many undesirable things, I think I'll just let you use your imagination on this one}. To make things worse, after they cooled I attempted to pop them out of the cake pans but instead of 2 round cakes i ended up with about 7 smaller country shaped cakes. I'm not sure exactly what went wrong and I was a little discouraged, however, I wasn't going to dissapoint my brother on his birthday so i scrubbed in for a little cake surgery. After pasting some of the chunks together and with a little help from one of my roomates we ended up with this:

Anyways, I would definitely recommend the recipe to any of you who have a sense of adventure and like a good tasting chocolate cake. ( Nathan told me it tasted even better day 2 )

We didn't have any candles so Nathan just made his own with some paper and crayons. Anyways the whole point of this was to tell Nathan Happy Birthday, he really is a great older brother and I'm so lucky to get to be his little sister and annoy him all the time with rants and questions and stupid stories (much like this one)!

Happy 2 and a half decades Pooky.

I almost forgot to add a title.

2009-12-01T10:44:00.000-08:00

I want to start off this blogpost with the almost cliche: "I know i haven't blogged in a while", but I'm pretty sure you guys are smart enough to figure that out on your own. So I'll just make the lame excuse that with the transition to college I simply haven't had time to blog (lie) and that I've been filling my time purely with studying (lie) and nothing else, so I don't have much to blog about (also a lie)(unless you are my parents then the above are all true). But since most of you can see straight through that I guess I'll give in and throw out a blog post. So here are some of the things I've been up to over the past couple months...

My ward hiked the Y.

football games

dances

watching a meteor

Going to a David Archuleta concert with my pal Kendra.

Celebrating Christmas with my FHE family

Building a 10 ft. snowman with my real family

Going on a super date

And having an ultimate girls night with my favorite girlies.

There you have it. Now you're all caught up.

Now you can start bugging my Brothers about updating their blog.

Dear Mom and Dad, Look at me now!

2009-09-06T11:21:00.000-07:00

Hey friends,

I just thought i would update you on some of my recent adventures.

A few wednesdays ago I arrived at my new home at BYU. My roomates and I all get along, our favorite activities include: Sitting on the couch and talking, standing in the hallway and talking, and eating and talking. We've gotten to know some of the boys in our ward. The best way of making friends always revolves around food, especially when you throw it at people windows.

Anyways, I'm not really feeling inspired to write right now so I'll just post some pictures instead.

This is our first meal as BFFs/roomies we had some salad and spaghetti and yummy garlic bread!

These are some of the amazing friends I have made out here at BYU. (Some of them are missing) we had just gotten done with ice blocking.

This picture is for my parents. Just wanted them to know I'm doing ok. I'm also living off a nutricious diet of cereal. Also, in case anyone didn't know, they totally make Chocolate Marshmellow Matey's, they are delicious.

Ya, You Betcha

2009-08-16T16:30:00.000-07:00

My family is spread pretty far apart, I currently have 2 brothers in Utah 1 brother and a sister in law in Ohio, 1 brother in DC, and my parents who live in Minnesota. It's pretty rare to have the whole family home, except at Christmas, but as luck would have it, our whole family came home for one reason or another and we got to spend 3 wonderful days up north together at beautiful lake superior.

I love Minnesota for so many reasons, one of my favorite things about the land of lakes, is the lakes! My family and I stayed in a little summer home that was right on lake superior. We ate delicious food, went hiking, canoeing, ate at sven and oles pizza and explored some of the sites that surround the lake. The Lake Superior area, or Up North as we call it, is one of my favorite places.

Most people don't realize that the moose chair was invented in Minnesota.

Split Rock Lighthouse

Me and my brother.

Christian beat Nathan in the how long can you stand in Lake superior contest, which unfortunately is a contest where no one really wins.

This is me and my sister in law nicole in front of split rock.

Again I only wish i had taken more pictures, You'd think i woulda learned from my trip to Virginia. Anyways, I say goodbye to my favorite home state this week as I head off to college, and although I'm super excited, i will always miss good old uffda Minnisooda.

Virginia's all relative.

2009-08-16T15:41:00.000-07:00

So I haven't done a whole lot of blogging this summer so i have alot of catching up to do, and seeing as I have an excuse to take a break from packing today, I thought I would write a post about my adventure to a little place called Virginia.

A while back I decided it would be fun to spend some time with my new sister in law Nicole and I also wanted to visit my 2 brothers Matthew and Eric, since it seems i dont see them as often as my other 2 brothers. So I started saving and finally i earned enough. My reward was a whole week of virginia fun! Unfortunately i realized half way through the week that I hadnt really taken any pictures, so i will have to vividly describe most of my memories. :)

This is my Amazing brother Matthew and his Beautiful wife Nicole. They were nice enough to let me stay with them even though Matthew was just finishing up some classes and his job and they were about to move to Ohio. It was fun to see the coast side of virginia. Nicole and I spent alot of time at the beach (it was a real beach, which although we have 10,000 lakes here in Minnesota, there aren't really any real beaches), making purses, taking walks, and doing some sort of weird mixture of yoga and stretching while listening to michael jackson. Matthew and nicole and I also went out to eat at some cute little restaurants and they showed me a few of the beautiful sites in Hampton VA. Thanks again for the wonderful weekend Matthew and Nicole.

After Hampton I got to spend the weekend with my other Wonderful brother Eric in the DC area. We saw some fun things. For Example:

This is a portrait of stephen colbert hanging up in the American History museum. It was the only smithsonian we went to while i was there, but it was definitely fun! While there we saw dorothy's ruby red slippers and payed a visit to kermit the frog.

One thing i never got a picture of was the Barbeque festival in downtown DC. Although it wasnt quite what we expected it was still amazing. It was a huge barbeque competition with competitors from all over the country. Plus they were giving away free Nationals hats, which would come in handy later. I would try to describe the abundance of sweet barbequed meat but i dont think i could do it justice. Instead I'll just show you this picture of the random flying ports of potty we saw.

My second favorite thing was the Eastern Market. Eric was patient enough to take me there so i could shop. We had fun watching this little jazz band from New Orleans. We were going to have the famous pancakes but the line was a little long.

My favorite part of the weekend was hanging out with Eric. We went to a Baseball game where i got to wear my new free nationals hat. Unfortunately because i was wearing it i couldnt cheer for the orioles who were doing all the home runs and winning and stuff. But it didnt matter, it was still fun. Also we bought eric a new grill and spent a few hours putting that sucker together. To celebrate we grilled burgers which i may or may not have slightly ruined (sorry eric). It was fun to meet all of erics cool friends and spend a little time in DC. Thanks for the fun weekend Eric!

The "and you didnt think I was extreme" adventure

2009-08-01T11:17:00.000-07:00

Ok so maybe by the end of this post you wont think I'm some extreme hill woman ( I would say mountain woman, but even though they call it high adventure we didn't set one foot on a mountain).
But i thought i would try to impress you by telling you how me and 21 other girls "roughed it" for a week (although it could be easily argued that eating pizza and laying around a campsite for a week doesn't count as rough).

It all started when we piled 22 girls and all their stuff into a truck and 2 vans and after a little trouble with one of our adults forgetting to put the car in park before he got out we hit the road old school style with a fresh "High Adventure 2009 CD " playing in the background. We were on our way to the grand ol "up north" (thats what us Minnesoootans call the lake superior area.) After hitting a few water falls on the map and finding out that Taylor likes boys and is as sure footed as a mountain goat we rolled into our campsite with Lipgloss by lil mama playing full blast, set up our tent right on the hill (which is a tradition that we question every year) and got right to the main event. Food.

One of the best parts about high adventure is the gaining weight part. No day goes without an amazing meal. We started out easy with walking tacos, but it only gets better, over the course of the week i had, Pizza in a box, beef stew, fresh rolls with homemade raspberry jam, dutch oven cornbread, amazing chocolate cake, tinfoil chicken dinners, cobbler, french toast waffles and pancakes, sausage and bacon, and lots of hot cocoa. And to top it all off, lots of those yummy peanut granola bars that have that yummy peanut butter coating on the bottom.

This is our pizza in a box pizza. I could try to explain to you how it all works but im not sure i even really get it. All i know is we cover the inside of giant cardboard boxes with tinfoil and put hot coals and boiling water in there to make the oven. The pizza is amazing. Allison and Tay Tay made a meat obsession pizza ("meat lovers" didnt quite do it justice.)

Don't be fooled. Inside those cardboard boxes are mountains of hot spicy pizza.

And this is what we did while we waited for our pizza to cook. It's called ninja huh, its another H.A. tradition.

If you start thinking that all we did on our adventure was sit and eat and play games you couldnt be more wrong. We also slept and danced to Lipgloss and learned the hoedown throwdown...

And did a little tying and Dyeing...

Ohh alright and we hiked a little.

Unfortunately the weather spent most of the week raining so we spent a lot of time sleeping in our downhill tent and not alot of time hiking which is really the point of HA.

The last day we had the chance to walk around one of the lake side towns which is really beautiful. So to sign off this post i thought i would put up a picture of a little garden thing we found hiding in the middle of the commercial part of the town.

(insert cheesy graduation quote here)

2009-06-10T12:23:00.000-07:00

For my graduation present this year my parents suprised me with a new camera. They gave it to me a week or two early so I could take some pictures of my last days of high school and i never turn down a challenge, so here it goes, i have alot more pictures but that would get boring and old so this, my friends, is a run down of my last 2 weeks as a high school senior.

It all started out when the seniors got done with class and finals a week early. We were determined to celebrate while every one else still had to go to school. We started off with a giant water balloon fight.

Me Trevor Cameron and Matt (top row) all secretly stole water balloons to explode on people before the picture. I forgot that Ian (middle row far right) has muscles and knows how to punch people, don't worry, I'm a fast runner :)

We let em off easy the second time. Here's all my pals (well not all of em, most of em)

We had a BBQ/yearbook signing/volleyball game. Ian and Matt made some dang good burgers.
My team won the volley ball game, i would like to say its because I'm so good at volley ball from playing it at all the Eddington family reunions, but that would be a lie. I spent most of the game face planting trying to dive for balls (it was sand don't worry) while Kati the pro Volleyball pro was doing most (all) of the work.

Eric surprised me by coming home for my graduation. It was so sweet of him. He ate all our ice cream and cake and learned the Hoedown Throwdown. He is grrrrreat!

In exchange for him coming down to visit i taught him how to sew PJ pants, which really meant i just sat there all grumpy and tired, telling him what to do.

Then we had a party celebrating my graduation. We served my favorite food... Ice cream. We bought 35 different cartons of ice cream and millions of cones and let people have at it. We also provided chairs for people to sit on but they sat on the floor anyways. I got to see a lot of people that I love and I'm so grateful for their support through the years. That pic is of me and two of my lunch buddies Kathryn and Kati (I'm not sure where Jenny was but she is our other lunch buddy)

Then I graduated:

Here's me and the momma! I wish i could say those were tears in her eyes, but they were just rain drops.

Here's my handsome brother!

Here's the whole gang (minus a few who were who knows where)

To end this menagerie of happenings was the Senior party. A night full of fun, games, prizes, blow up twister, fake Elvises, and hypnotists. I won a set of hair color treatment products (no i have not dyed my hair recently) and a gift certificate for 4 free sport yoga or kickboxing classes, the latter i will use to learn to kick and box so i can beat up Ian at the end of the summer :) That is a picture of me corey and kathryn waiting for our free back massages!

That's my dad. I'm not sure why i couldn't find a picture of me and him at graduation. But I thought i'd throw him in this post anyways. He put on a funny hat and took pictures of everyone at the senior party.

So now i guess I'm supposed to write something corny about how high school was a big part of my life and i will miss all of my friends next year and all that jazz, but I'm too lazy and you are all probably way bored already so I'll just end with this short sweet cheesy saying... Good bye high school, hello summer!

(summer)

MAY your days be merry and bright

2009-05-31T14:29:00.000-07:00

Sorry to throw that Christmas pun in there. I heart may. So MAnY things have happened in this glorious month that i have to purge myself of them in this blog.

First of all I got all my housing figured out for next year. I am going to BYU. I'm not sure if many of you know but BYU has been my dream school ever since my BFF/brother Eric sent me a little stuffed cougar that had a little blue BYU sweater when i was 10 years old. I found out I'm living in Heritage Halls which I am very excited about.

May 14 15 and 16 was the best weekend ever!!
It all started that Thursday night when my very good friend from Illinois came to visit for the weekend. Then Friday morning I had my last day of seminary ever. Then we had a half day at school so after that me and my friend Ben from Illinois and 2 of my other close friends hopped in a car and headed to the cities (Minneapolis/St. Paul for all you non Minnesotans) to see my favorite band Keane in concert. Before the concert we stopped at my friends favorite restaurant Punch Pizza were we had some very delicious gourmet pizza. After that we walked around grand avenue and went window shopping. Finally we made it too the concert. It was standing room only and we were 3 rows from the front. It was amazing.

Saturday morning I graduated from seminary. It's sad to have to say good bye to all my friends from seminary. They have all meant alot to me. However, NO MORE WAKING UP AT 5 AM!!! woo hoo!

Finally the final event of the weekend... PROM! I went and got my hair done ran home and slipped into my dress with like 10 minutes til my date was supposed to pick me up. After pictures we went out to eat at a local restaurant, went to Target (it's a tradition), and made a quick stop at Dairy Queen. The dance was amazing, the final song of the night was Journey Don't Stop Believing which was... Great?

The rest of May has just been a breeze of laziness. Life is hard when your a senior and you've already finished all your testing and you dont have any homework. I only have one day of class left and one final to take then I'm home free til (sort of) till saturday when I recieve my diploma, throw my hat, and leave my high school days forever.

All of this in the little old month of May.

Some other random things i did in may
- Bought tickets to go visit my two brothers and sis in law in Virginia/DC
-Finished my job as a nanny
- Started a job teaching tennis
- Took 3 AP tests
- Had Indian food for the first time ever
- Met my future roomates
- Had a 'Smore' gasborg party (we had a Smore Bar with a whole bunch of different Smore toppings)
-went to the minnesota Zoo
-got a bike (heres a pic: http://cn1.kaboodle.com/hi/img/b/0/0/42/9/AAAACyNOlNwAAAAAAEKUnA.jpg)

Spring has Sprung

2009-04-11T13:06:00.001-07:00

That is right. There is finally some green in MN. It snowed a little bit last week but now it's starting to warm up. Since we only get about 5 months of green here I relish it as much as I can.

So my lovely mother is out of town so I thought I would give her a little update on how things have been going with just having me and my dad at home. So here is a list of things I have learned while my mom has been gone.

1. Laundry doesn't wash itself. As fun as it sounds to jump into a big tub of swirling water for some reason I can't convince my clothes to get in the washing machine. And consequently I spent most of the week last week scrounging for the last of my clean clothes until finally I gave in and did a load of laundry. I'm also pretty sure that some of my laundry got lost in the transition because now I can't find some of my favorite clothing items.

2. Su messy casa es mi messy casa. My dad and I have been faithfully trying (but usually failing) to keep our house clean, it's funny the kinds of messes two people can make... Sort of.

3. Plants enjoy water, it helps them not die.

4. It's always nice to have your breakfast ready for you in the morning. I'm usually late in the morning and my mom always has a lunch ready for my along with something for me to eat for breakfast. Needless to say my lateness has greatly increased this week.

5. Grocery shopping is fun until you realize your really bad at it. I love(d) grocery shopping, it makes me feel cool ( I know I'm a loser) so I faithfully put myself in charge of it. I made a list, checked it twice, and still when I got home I had too much of one thing and none of the other. I ended up going to the grocery store about 4 times.

6 .Giving up and having your dad go to the grocery store does not solve anything. One day I asked my dad to go to the grocery store and pick up 1 carrot 1 onion and some milk and this is what he came home with...

That would be 11 boxes of frosted mini wheats. Now I would also like to point out that there was another box in the cereal cupboard, one at my dad's office, and one that he ate the night he bought it. So all together 14 boxes. Apparently they were 7 cents an ounce instead of 20 and he could not pass up the deal. I guess they will make a nice addition to our food storage. At least he remembered the milk.

I'm sure your all thinking that I am an extremely spoiled child, which is probably true. But the two most important things I've learned this week are one that I'm pretty much going to die next year at college, but more importantly that my mother is an amazing woman and she works very hard for our family and I am very grateful for that.

By the way mom in case you were wondering some of your flowers showed up while you were gone. They're beautiful.

Fluff Free (I Promise)

2009-04-05T09:19:00.000-07:00

I know I haven't blogged for a while, and my past couple blogs have been filled with fluff (videos pictures, nonsense, etc.) And although my life is not that exciting I promise (scouts honor) to simply blog about my latest goings on.

A couple weeks ago I started my new second job as a "nanny"/"regular babysitter" for a cute little guy named Matthew. He's a fun little kid, and although for the life of me I can not get him to say my name (usually when I ask him what my name is he says "I'm to busy doing this puzzle." or "I'm to busy playing with my train set.") I know we are friends because we both have the same interest of riding up and down on elevators while jumping. On Wednesday's he goes to Spanish class to learn about dinosaurios and juegos and other fun spanish things. Afterwards Matthew and I have an hour to wander around the building before his mom picks him up. Luckily there is an elevator and long hallways that echo when you yell (unfortunately those hallways also contain business offices and their occupants do not appreciate yelling even when it makes a cool echo noise) (Fortunately one of those businesses is the cable company who I've sworn revenge on since they took away channels 76 77 and 78.) On the other days Matthew and I play in his little play room with various toys and occasionally hide from who knows what (hiding is one of Matthew's favorite things) I really love my new job.

Anyways, I wish you a happy start of spring!

It's kinda like studying for Biology

2009-02-26T08:18:00.000-08:00

My dear friends. I'm not sure if you are aware. But AP biology and I are not friends. so last night while vigorously studying for my Chapter 29-31 Virus and Bacteria quiz, I just happened to come across this:

That was the end of any lame attempt I had to study last night. I watched this video at least 8 times. Then promptly shut my biology book and went to bed. However a miracle happened. Apparently Jack Frost hates Biology too, so today Rochester Minnesota is supposed to get hit by a huge snow storm, so they called off school. That means one more day to "study" about viruses and bacteria. There are such things as miracles.

This is another means of my procrastination. I reccomend watching it a few times to really appreciate it.

Daze of Much Sno

2009-02-15T18:58:00.000-08:00

So this weekend our school had there girls preference dance Sno Daze. I asked my good pal Nate. In case you were wondering i covered his car in cheese left a note that said "I know its cheesy but will you go to Sno Daze with me?"

Here's some pictures from the dance:

Pinning on the flower
(Got it on first try by the way, no blood either)

My friend Lauren and my new friend Veronica (You can call her Vons)

(This is our Fake Smile picture)

Anyways. I know I havent Blogged very much in the past month, but in all honesty, its been pretty low key. Just the excitement about getting into BYU. The weather has been slightly warmer, its been around 37 degrees meaning I've been running outside alot in shorts. Other than that, life's been slow. Anyways, Happy late valentine's day!

Definitely and other words I can’t spell good.

2009-02-14T06:35:00.000-08:00

I don't know if any of you have caught on, but I am probably the worst speller on the planet. I'm not sure why, but I just wasn't blessed with the gift. I was looking through one of my assignments the other day and the teacher had marked several words with his scary red pen. These underlined attacks at my amount of knowledge didn't surprise me, because when it comes to spelling, I tend to get lazy. Plus, I am perfectly aware that I have no idea how to spell the words definately, tomorow, phase, excersize, Micheal, turquoise, and many others which I can't think of right now, and, I just learn to accept myself the way that I am. And now that were on that topic, I'm also really bad at using the wrong form of words like, excepted accepted, who whom, to too, yes no (just kidding). I'm forever cursed to be the most grammaticly incorrect person ever. Spell check hates me, and I’m sure all of you English people are just cringing at this post, I just thought I would apologize in advance for all my future mispellings.

Oh and by the way, yes, I did get accepted to BYU.

For My Lovely Sister Nicole (who's birthday is on Saturday by the way)

2009-01-25T15:22:00.000-08:00

So I started a new quilt project. I know quilting is for old ladies but some how my mom got me sucked into it. Anyways, this post is mostly for Nicole because she wanted to see what i was working on. But everybody else can take a peak too. I still haven't decided on a pattern yet.

Sorry the pictures aren't very good. I'm not blessed with the gift of picture taking like some brothers of mine.

These are my main 2 colors.

This is a very dark picture of the complimentary fabrics.

This is another picture of the main fabric. We got a whole bunch of it for really cheap at a quilt shop nearby. I think its Micheal Miller.

This is the (almost) finished quilt that i made this summer.

So yeah, that's that! Have a wonderful week. And if I don't talk to you before Saturday:

Happy Birthday Nicole You're The Best Sister (in law) Ever To Walk The Planet!!!!!

Final-ly

2009-01-21T13:50:00.000-08:00

The past couple weeks have been crazy. Last week we had a 3 day school week thanks to two wonderful cold days. This week we have a 3 day school week due to those wonderful things called finals. Yes my friends today was my first day of finals. Of course our school was blessed with a five day weekend to prepare and study for our finals, and of course, i left it till the last minute so naturally i went to bed at 2 am last night/this morning about ready to declare myself permanantly at war with Mitosis, Glycolysis, Hydrolysis, and anything else that ends with -sis.

So what did I do with all those days of freedom if i wasm't diligently studying? Well, the answer is simple:

I did nothing.

And of course by nothing I mean I spent hours on facebook, youtube, blogs, watching movies and trying to work up the motivation to do something that wouldnt be a complete waste of time (this plan failed miserably). Now that you all think I am lazy, there are some wonderful things I did do this weekend.
- I saw Benjamin Button with some very good pals.
- My friend Ashley and I made a cheesy quote project thing for my Humanities class
-My mom and I went shopping for fabric, she's letting me make another quilt!
- I went to a hockey game
- And my personal favorite: the stake dance where they played Single Ladies by Beyonce and i got to hang out with my super hip friend katie!

Because of the cold days they crammed the finals into two days and you know what they say "4 finals a day keeps the social life away." And so with the joys of the weekend over I hopped to it and began my treck of finals cramming with a bowl of my favorite finals study food:pretzels and chocolate chips and studied from dawn till dusk...sort of.

I'm still alive after 1 day of finals, but I'm plenty exausted. And now i need to get back to studying. Have a wonderful week!

-46 and Counting

2009-01-14T17:56:00.000-08:00

Dear friends,
I was just informed by the local radio station that Rochester Public and Private schools will be closed tomorrow due to Cold Weather. Yes my friends, it is true. The expected low tomorrow is -22 without windchill, with windchill somewhere in the -40's. So, since the little kiddies waiting for the bus might get chilly, and because i am the most spoiled child of the family, the governer of Minnesota himself decided that it would be a better idea for everyone to stay home, drink hot cocoa, and do anything that doesn't involve learning. I agree with this statement in every way. Ah the joys of living in Minnesota.

Some Poetry

2009-01-06T20:31:00.000-08:00

So, I'm in a class called Writer's Workshop, and basically all we do is write random stuff. Anyways i had this assignment to write 10 poems using the different poetry styles (ex: Haiku, Limerick, sonnet etc.) I ended up doing the assignment late at night, and they're all about ice cream, Anyways, i thought i would share some with you.

A Limerick About Ice Cream:
While writing deep poetry my ice cream, it melted
And wails of great sadness and misery i belted
But I guess I'll recover
I'll just go get another
Bowl of sweet ice cream from the freezer where it dwelted

A Haiku for those who Appreciate Vanilla:
Some do not enjoy
Vanilla ice cream plain and white
That's rediculous

A quatrain about ice cream:
While in deep thought
I seem to have forgot
The ice cream I had lied
Directly by my side

And when I picked it up
And looked straight in the cup
The ice cream it was soup
melted soggy goop

So I got another bowl
Of chocolate dark as coal
And set it by my side
Where the melted ice cream lied

Not quite a Haiku about Ice cream:
There is nothing wrong with a ladybug
On a summer day so hot
Except for when it is in my ice cream

Puttin on the Ritz

2009-01-05T14:43:00.000-08:00

Dear Friends,
Today I learned that ritz crackers don't really fill you up. Unless you eat the whole sleeve. Yes thats right, the whole sleeve.

Giving 2008 the boot.

2009-01-03T15:02:00.000-08:00

Hello all!

Christmas was wonderful this year! I had the pleasure of hanging out with some of my best buddies in the whole entire world, Nathan Christian and Eric. My other brother and his wonderful wife celebrated Christmas with her family this year, but I'm not bitter... Much.

Anyways, the week of Christmas was filled with inexplicable wonders and joy. Upon coming home my brothers lovingly started desintigrating every christmas cookie in the house, to document their cooking eating they started a cookie count/competition.Nathan won with a whopping 28 cookies, Eric came in a close second with 23 cookies, but to be fair, he did leave a day before Nathan. And finally Christian only counted 6 cookies, however, he destroyed the masses in his own competition:

Christmas eve our family went and rang bells for Salvation Army, except we didn't just ring bells, Eric dressed up as Buddy the Elf and we played various Christmas Carols on beautiful sounding metal pipes. Then after totally rocking at raising money, we went to Naked Willy's Take and Bake pizza to pick up our traditional Christmas Eve dinner of Pizza and Pop. While there we learned that dad really knows how to Shimmy and that its ok to talk to strangers if their dressed like buddy the elf. Finally we went home and ate our pizza while laughing and chattering about various things. Then we ended the night by playing Settlers, Bananagrams, and listening to dad tell us wonderful heart warming stories. Then like good little children we got in our PJ's and went straight to bed... after doing some last minute wrapping of presents and watching the Pursuit of Happyness.

Christmas day was just like every other Christmas in the history of my being, we had breakfast opened stockings, raced eachother to the tree, and then opened all of our presents. Then we took naps and ate and played games and ate some more, and then my mom and brothers built puzzles while I watched the nut cracker on PBS. It was sure a Jolly Christmas

After that we spent our time doing random things, Nathan and I made the creepiest cat stuffed animal on the planet, and our family went to Hu Hot.

After my brothers left all that was left was new years eve, I celebrated with some of my favorite girls from school. We stayed up til midnight and drank sparkling grape juice and attempted to learn Beyonce's single ladies dance while we kicked out year 2008 and welcomed 2009. Then in true sleep over fashion we went in the hot tub for 15 minutes watched mamma mia played wii and went to bed at 430 in the morning.

The final event of Christmas break was the postponed Christmas Ugly Sweater party/White Elephant Extravaganza which was a wonderful time. My friends are glorious people

And now I'm sitting at my computer thinking about how i have to go back to school soon, and I'm procrastinating the homework i have to do. So, i guess its time to sign off.

I hope your New Year is wonderfully happy!!

O Christmas Tree

2008-12-21T16:27:00.000-08:00

So my wonderful kind and patient brother Nathan called me the other day while he was knitting, and he began tearing up at the fact that i hadnt blogged for a while. Normally i wouldnt give in to such peer pressure, but my sweet nathan is very tender hearted, so naturally out of pure kindness, i am obliged to do what he says.

Anyways, i suppose i have to go all the way back to getting our christmas tree. As the only child at home, it is my duty and responsibility to make sure that we have a quality gigantic christmas tree. This also means that it is my job to refuse my dads threats of buying a fake christmas tree. It is alot of pressure, but i believe i handled it well this year. It all started on a blustery day in late november when my current boss called me to tell me that i had earned a job a Tradehome shoe store. So anyways back to the tree, i had to go get some papers signed at trade home saying i was a legal citizen and i hadnt broken any laws and had my rabies shot etc. and then i got home and we went to get the tree. However by the time we got to the tree farm it was almost dark

So we got to the tree farm and the kid working there asks me and my parents (Who after years and years of christmas tree finding consider ourselves professionals)
Punk Kid: What are you guys looking for tonight?
*silence*
Me: I think we were looking for a tree
*Silence+mom giggling*
Punk kid: well, whatever, but we have lots of kinds of trees
Dad: Well we're looking for a tall tree
Punk Kid: Well we might have some 6 or 7 footers in that section over there

6 or 7 FT?!?!?!?!?! oh brother. So anyways me and my lovely mother started our trek to the white pine and scotch pine area to start looking for trees. My dad was supposed to be following us, but something had caught his eye. The economy tree section. That is right... Economy trees, 14.95 for a tree that looked like it had been hit by a cattle truck. My dad was elated it was like love at first sight. So while me and my mom were busy picking out a tree that actually looked good and was about 9-10 feet tall my father runs over and says, hey guys lets get an economy tree, they are such good trees. Woah, hold on buckaroo, as the only representative for the children of the family, i had to put my foot down, there would be no purchasing of precut short economy trees as long as i was still around. I told my father these feelings of my heart, and he proceeded to try and convince me of how good these economy trees were, however, with the economy in the state its in, i didnt believe one word of it.

Anyways, long story short we ended up picking out a 9 foot tree in about 15 minutes which is a record time for decision making in the Cragun household. We then proceeded to take it to the tree bagger, upon dragging the tree over to where the Punk Kid was standing his mouth dropped open and he said and i quote "Wow, you guys sure did want a big tree" Mission accomplished.

Our tree was so big that it didnt fit through the tree bagger, we ended up needing to cut off a branch or two at the bottom, which is fine by me because we will need that space for presents anyways. We then proceeded to haul the tree home and get it all set up for my dad to put the lights up. which he loves doing, so any of you who need someone to put lights on your tree, call my dad, he will jump at the opportunity.

This is us trying to shove the tree through the tree bagger (the red and white thing), notice Punk Kid is being eaten by the tree, his shoes are sticking out at the bottom.

This is our gargantuan tree, we have lots of ornaments on it, i oversaw its decoration and made sure that all the classic ornaments were put up (6 dwarves, ornamators, weird animal things that dad hates, etc.) And i also was happy to welcome a few new ones, like the Official White House Christmas Ornament of year 2007, and my personal favorite: Weird Scottish Guy who's Kilt wont Stay Down in back and thus is in an eternal state of mooning.

Well, to those of you who wont continue reading because this blog has gotten rediculously long, have a merry christmas and a happy new year. For those of you who have nothing better to do, go ahead and read the rest, i cant promise it to be exciting.

So a few random things have happened to me since i last blogged which was an eternity ago, and since im to lazy to talk about them in detail, ill just give you the play by play

1. My new job at Tradehome shoes
2. I had a weird dream about the kids in my youth group eating deer in my backyard
3. I entered into a drawing for an ipod touch at school, but because of a snow day, wont hear if i won or not until after winter break
4. We had 2 snowstorms in a row, allowing me to leave work 2 hours early on both thursday and saturday.
5. we had our first official snowday on Friday, which was the worst possible day to have a snow day

I'm to lazy to write anything else, if you really want to hear anything about those things more in depth, feel free to ask.

Merry Christmas Ya'll

Tis The Season To Be Rolly

2008-11-29T08:48:00.000-08:00

Happy Thanksgiving everybody! This weekend I had the wonderful opportunity to pig out not once not twice but three times, and tonight i will get the opportunity to indulge 1 more time. You see, traditionally we have thanksgiving dinner with our good good friends the Beaches, but since we would be in Illinois this year visiting my favorite brothers and my wonderful sister inlaw and "viciously" forgetting and ignoring my two other brothers (http://yeswearestillhere.blogspot.com), the Beaches suggested and requested that we have a special thanksgiving Fat Night on Wednesday night. For those unfamiliar a fat night is the once or twice yearly opportunity to throw everything in the kitchen into a deep fat frier and then eat it. The evening was celebrated with greasy batter fried goodness and the wholesome squeals of joy that can only be created by a game of Bomberman. The next morning at 5 o clock we bustled out the door to head to Nicole's Sister's house where we then particitipated of the American Past time of eating way to much Turkey Stuffing Pie and anything and everything else. The next day was the annual eat all the left overs and crackers and cheese till you look like one of those pot bellied Buddhas. And now im sitting here in the home of our lovely friends the Kays waiting for tonight when we will be celebrating once again with a second fat night. This time accompanied by My family and the Kays and their Family and the Tanners. Oh the joys of feeling like your stomach is going to explode. And now I'm going to figure out how to work my blog, because as most of you can tell, this blog is as techonologically advanced as my wonderful mother who bless her soul has just learned to text.

A wonderful beginning... sort of

2008-11-26T16:10:00.000-08:00

So, even though it seems like by making a Blog I'm copying the notorious Christian, and whats his name... oh yeah Nathan by, I'm not. I am actually copying Matthew and Nicole. And even though this post is no doubt going to be kind of lame and filled with meaningless fluff, I felt really stupid making a blog with nothing in it. So there you are dear family, my blog.