The Wimble-"done" Update

For those of you NOT following the sad state of affairs at Centre Court this year, let me fill you in. The American men..... are gone. Andy Roddick was eliminated by a player of lesser rank- something like 4 millionth in the world. (that's also a picture I took of him in Montreal when I went up to the Roger's Cup) James Blake, Mardy Fish, Robbie Ginepri...*sigh* its a tragedy. However, as much as it pains me to say it, none of this surprises me. Patrick McEnroe- please help. :) Also in the men's brackets, there are only 2 of the top 6 seeded players remaining in the tournament! Djokovic was removed by Safin- and I have to say, I think he's our best hope against Federer. Nadal- don't get me started on him. He and Lleyton Hewitt will be hitting against each other in the morning. :) That should actually be a pretty good match. I love Fed and all- but I blame the Swiss. Roger Federer- making tennis boring one tournament at a time!
As for the women, Sharapova is out- she was also beaten by a 156th ranked player. Ivanovic, the number one seed, was taken out, as well. The Williams sisters are still playing. I haven't heard about Davenport but she had some trouble the other day with her knee and I'm not sure how much further she'll go. I thought she had retired but apparently was just taking a year off to have a baby. Cute!
Anyway, we're heading into hard court season and the road to the US Open! My favorite time of year since you can catch most the tournaments on tv at any given time! So watch and enjoy!

Pics from the retreat

Once again, I forget that I have to post out of order if I want you to read something first and see the pictures second. Anyway, read the post about the retreat to know what these pictures are.

The Retreat

So as some of you know, I'm in the enrichment counselor in one of two RS in my ward. Saturday we had our quarterly activity up at Smith and Morehouse reservoir. (note to self... smith and WESSON is a gun... wesson oil is for cooking, smith and morehouse is a reservoir). Ok. now that is straight. Anyway, we had about 50 women show up over the course of the day. We had hiking (not me, silly- others did it), card making, pool, ping ping, Wii, food, swimming and more food than was necessary!

We also had some lovely visitors in the form of a dead critter on the deck when we first got there and a lovely assortment of bugs and spiders. But my favorite was the snake I almost stepped on as I was going to look at the grill! aaahhh! You know how I feel about snakes so you can imagine my horror and sounds/possible responses to that situation. My dear friend, Bernadette, just about killed herself laughing. For those of you who know my family, Aunt Josephine came to mind. :/

Anyway, as I was working through the post traumatic stress of said event, we went to the "lake" to take in some sun. It was beautiful and I had another little nature friend come for a visit. you can see the pics. All in all, it was a good day. The sisters had a great time and that was the most important part!

The flowers and my header

I decided to try getting a less boring header today. This is the best it got! I followed Cocoa's instructions but couldn't get my editing software to stretch my photo. Maybe that's because its a real photo and it WON'T stretch. Regardless, its big and I'm done messing with it for now.

On a side note, both the pictures of the flowers in my heading and in this post were taken by yours truly! Last summer I went to Seattle with some friends and we strolled through Pike's Market. They were so beautiful! I could have sat there for hours just looking at all the great flowers. That's also the place where they throw the fish. I was able to see that and its pretty cool- but I think the flowers were more beautiful and smelled nicer. My amazing camera has this little button on it that lets me get really close up without messing with clarity and colors and such.

For the LOVE!

So as you can hopefully see, I figured out slideshows. My gosh! Who knew I was so technically challenged? i've literally been sitting here for the past hour and then some trying to get this thing to post from photobucket! All that kept popping up was lovely pictures of sunsets! And while I think sunsets are nice and everything, I'd prefer that if they're going to be posted here, that I took the pictures myself! Wow! So there it is- my slideshow. I'm so proud of it lol! Its stayin there forever!

just because...

So Meg tells me that my title looks better without the picture because you can't see the Miss Potter quote very well. yes- all good observations, but secretly I think her motivation was to get the picture off my blog! lol but since it says so much about my family and especially my siblings, I'll just repost it here where EVERYONE can get a good look at it! My mom has asked us to take a picture of the four of us together when Herc came for a visit last time... seriously, do we look like a photo-friendly group? :) LOL! anyway, this was the "most serious" we could get for our mother. Thank goodness I didn't post the oreo one, Meg.

P.S. dearest sisters... i took it off briefly 'cause I wanted dad's thing first and didn't know how to arrange it that way...but then y'all called....

Happy Birthday, Papa-san!

Its my dad's birthday today! Its probably the third one he's celebrated in Norway, would be my guess. I call my dad lots of things: dad, daddy, padre, papa, papa-san. Yes- we're big on names in my family. But I'd probably have to call my dad some other things as well- like honorable, hard working, generous, loveable, kind, hilarious and a good man. I have a lot of good memories from my family, but here's some highlights with my dad in mind:

• going to the library


• watching (or yelling at) the tv for sporting events


• getting cable and watching Braves games


• Gringo Grande platters


• Saturday morning Costco runs where mom shops and dad and I explore the books and videos and put things in the cart that mom doesn't notice


• the seminary... :) hated it but love what it taught me


• honking the horn in the poor red truck coming over the hill at Bonneville- that builds some character, let me tell you!


• listening to him tell stories with his brother, or Pop, or cousins at the reunion or Ralph


• helping me get through college, financially, emotionally, physically coming to get me on weekends from Snow- finding out the Blazer was sold ("umm about two weeks ago, sis")


• trying to keep me out of the house because I got home late and he thought I was a burglar! (which I know he really does feel bad about but its a pretty funny story)

Anyway- Happy Birthday, padre! Have a great day! Love you!

The Norwegian Connection

So I just met one of the most charming women I think I've met in a long time! Her name is Else and she's from Norway. She's the RS president in my parents branch. My mother had asked her to bring home some valuables. She called me this morning and I was able to go over and meet her.

She is seriously so lovely! She has a great energy about her and you can tell she's a doer. You need something done? She'd be the one to ask! Not to mention she had fun things to say about my mom and dad... none of which really surprised me, I mean, after all- they ARE my parents. :0 ) It was wonderful to hear that they are doing well (actually she said they were amazing and she didn't know what she'd do without them!). Thanks for watching out for them!

New Stuff

So its day two and I can tell this is going to be somewhat addicting. :) But I've got to figure out all the cool things here! So I'm going to try adding a link to one of my favorite sites during the end of June and beginning of July. http://www.wimbledon.org Hope that works out! Now I need to figure out how to not show the link, but just a word or something to click on. hmmmm

Anyway- like I said before... random thoughts. And just how many of my friends are blogging? Seriously, I know my family does it but who else out there has a blog and why do I not know about it?

My sisters will laugh...

yes- both of them are going to have a good time with me because I've given them such a hard time about being bloggers..... :) Well, with Meg moving across country, the parentals in another country and Herc in the humid southern regions, I suppose I should jump in as a way to keep in touch. Plus, as retarded as I feel just leaving my random thoughts here in the Internet, it could be fun. So, dedicated to my sisters, this one's for you! Love you!