Dear Vehicular Transport Gods-

Please stop picking on us. It's just mean. We'll give you whatever you want (except, of course, Buster), if you will just leave us alone.

Respectfully,
J+S

Keller, TX

Way to pick 'em Plipper & Shayne! Keller, TX comes in at #7 on CNN's Best Places to Live.

Randy J

Yesterday my dad completed another decade. And I have decided to veer from my traditional impersonal posts. Allow me to get a little reflective.

With his birthday around the corner I've been thinking about my dad a lot this past week, and I can't help but realize how truly blest I am. And then I realize that it's not just me who has been blest, but our whole family, our extended family, the members of the stake, his associates at work, and everyone who has had the privilege to spend even a half hour with him. He is truly the greatest man I know. I am not sure words exist to describe the love and admiration that I feel towards him, so I will just leave it at that for this post. But I do want my dear friends who read my blog to know how much I honor and love my father. But then again, who doesn't love Member Randy? (After my dad was released as Stake President some family friends started to refer to him as "Member Randy" because, after all, he's not "President Vest" anymore!)

As part of the birthday celebration my sister compiled a list of reasons why we love Pops. Here are my ten items:

1. We can talk Hyperion together, and it makes me feel cool.

2. He always answers the phone in a super-excited voice when I call. This always brightens my day and really picks me up when I'm feeling blue.

3. He taught me how to take pride in everything I do, how no job is too small to be done right, and to be sure that my work is worthy of the Vest name. I will always keep my home, specifically my kitchen, as though it were in a Better Homes & Gardens magazine.

4. His grammatical education has not been wasted! I always try to be sure to use "anyway" instead of "anyways" and answer the phone with "this is she" and not "this is her." Oh yeah, and I try to make sure that I modify my verbs with adverbs and not with adjectives. We are both nerds. But that's alright. I love Dad because he taught me that nerds are, in actuality, the most fun to be around.

5. He pumps up the jams and dances around to the music while doing the Taxes.

6. He has taught me more on how to be a successful human being (at work, at home, and in the world in general) than I could ever learn in any textbook or classroom.

7. He would come dance with me at stake dances.

8. Of his skewed sense of what is a real sports car. Sentra vs. TT

9. When he thinks something is really funny his face squishes up really tight. Reference the "That's what she said" photo to the right.

10. He has instilled in me the values and priorities that I am the most proud of (in myself). He is a man to be admired, and a man to aspire to.

And here are a few more, as I am no longer limited to ten items:

11. Even with all of his travels around the world I always knew that he'd rather be at home with his family.

12. He would tell my mother how beautiful she is all the time. No seriously, all the time. It use to be annoying when I was a teenager (kind of like I get the point already), but now that I'm older and maybe a little bit more mature I realize how awesome it is and what a comfort it brings children when they know that their father loves their mother.

13. He refers to his cell phone as his "hand-held device" and uses it to take a million photos at every family gathering.

14. He may be Conservative, but he sure isn't boring!!

[Update on the usage of "blest" b/c I get a kick out of these sort of things.]

When typing up the post I was concerned about which word to use: blest or blessed. Because word choice is important to me I wanted to make sure I got it right. I preferred the sound of "blest" but didn't want to be making up words or sound uneducated. Well the spell-checker in Blogger considers "blest" a misspelled word, while the spell check function in Microsoft Word leaves it alone. So I consulted my "official" source: TFD.com. Survey says:

Baby Center

So it's no big secret that I spend a little time (okay, a lot) at BabyCenter.com. Okay, so maybe it is a bit of a secret. But hey, when you can get "All the bark of celebrity parenting gossip - without the bite" on the FameBaby Blog, I'm there. And trust me, they stretch that "parenting" definition pretty far. Anyway.

I was pretty surprised while visiting today I stumbled across the following advertisements:

What do ya know -- the church is getting into online advertising!

Knowing how much time I spend there (and I'm not even a parent!) and noticing how much time others spend there (like insane-go out and get a life-amounts of time), I'd say this is a good investment for the Church.

Your thoughts--?

Remember when

Hey, remember when I use to blog?
Yeah, me too.

I'll see what I can come up with for you guys,
but don't get your hopes up.

And if you get desperate, you can check out our SmugMug site.
But then again you won't get any of my witty commentary.

Zack Attack

I am so, so, SO glad that my sister told me about this little gem:



because it's pretty much the funniest thing in the world. Ever.

Another day, another 5k

This weekend was pretty chill. We managed to fit in:

Homemade waffles with fresh strawberries and bananas............three times

Watching all three Back to the Future movies

I did another race, Randi's Race: A 5k run/walk for Hope and Courage. Stas was the bomb again and came out bright and early to support me. Buster made friends with Thunder the Boxer. Thunder actually ran the race with his owner. He's a little more hard core than the B-man. By the time we headed home Buster was pretty wiped out, and he decided that my foot/shoe made a nice pillow. He normally doesn't get this much excitement in before noon.


In honor of Mother's Day I decided to showcase a talent that my mother-dearest had taught me--the french braid. I've been curious as to whether I could bull this off, I figured what the heck and just went for it. So here she is:

Really, a braid at 25 is totally acceptable. When I asked Stas what he thought he told me that I look like the Ukrainian Prime Minister, Yulia Tymoshenko. You decide:

In other news, Stas has finished his finals!!! So the cable man came on Saturday and hooked us up. We are excited for the endless amount of junk we can now watch. I am already embarrassed for how much time I've wasted. Oh well.

Poor guy

Right now Stas is trying to study for his last three exams of the semester. Three finals in three days. No big deal. No pressure. Unfortunately his studying has coincided with my weekly cleaning rampage. So on top of having the cutest pup ever and a simply irresistible wife (the best distractions ever) just a few yards away, he also has to deal with the obnoxious noise of the following objects:
-Bread machine
-Dish washer
-Washing machine
-Drier

And in our little one-bedroom, the noise sure adds up. Maybe I’ll even throw in the microwave just to see what he can handle. Okay probably not. But I did make waffles with fresh strawberries and bananas for lunch, so maybe he’ll let it slide? I hope so.

Buster's next haircut

How can I not stop laughing whenever I think of this photo?


And why did it take so long for me to learn about this blog? Its hilariousness is unparalleled. Thank you Stas for, yet again, bringing a new avenue of humor into my life!

Weatherman

I can only imagine what Stas’s classmates were thinking when he strolled into class today wearing khaki shorts and a short sleeve polo. My guess is something along the lines of “hey crazy, its forty degrees outside and pouring down rain!!”

Stas has seriously been hating on the weatherman lately. Apparently whenever he checks the weather it says highs in the eighties and endless sun. Haha, wouldn't that be nice.

Today was the turning point. We were on the phone and he was expressing his deep frustrations for the inaccurate weather forecasts and “how on earth can it say that it is sunny right now, when in actuality it’s raining, raining really hard!!” I feel that as wifey it is my duty to help Stas calm his frustrations with the world. After a deep discussion of his weather-checking-situation, the problem is solved: change your location back to PA when you get home from a trip!!

Or else you might end up confusing this:

for this:

And it just might ruin your day!

Trading Up

I absolutely cannot be more excited that come this Thursday, I will be trading in this:

For this:

Birthday Poem

I generally don’t consider myself a creative person. That is unless you consider creating spreadsheets and off the wall object lessons creative.

Well, one of my co-workers has a tradition of writing a little poem for everyone on their birthday. Last Monday was his birthday, so to honor him we each wrote a poem. Then of course we made him choose the best one. By some miracle mine one. So I’ thought I’d share.

Birthday Brent-o

Your birthday is a cause for celebration,
Too bad Arizona will be your destination.
You have run all over this nation;
Seriously your voices should be used in animation.
And on your special day congratulations,
You are the funniest Brent-o in all of creation!

[Note to understand this complex literary work: he spent his actual b-day in Arizona; he is a hardcore runner and travels to do races; he does crazy voices and can imitate anyone; his nickname is Brent-o.]

Another innocent victim

…of Buster’s compulsion to chew

He got them off of the coffee table while I was napping. Tsk, tsk. Please note that the earpiece should be a solid brown and smooth; a sharp contrast to what is shown. He also got one of the lenses. I can't imagine that would feel good. oh well.

My long-loved glasses are joining the ranks of several other loved items from our home:

My cell phone charger (note the teeth marks and electrical tape needed to return functionality):

My ipod cord, beyond repair:

And Stas’s beloved slippers/shoes. I had already repaired them once, but this time I'm waving my white flag of surrender.

Sorry for the wanting photo quality; blame it on the camera phone.

Surprise, surprise!!

Yesterday when I got the mail, I flipped through it, pulled out the bills, and set aside the rest in a soon-to-be-thrown-away pile. (I can never quite bring myself to put the junk directly into the trash can.)

A few hours later Stas asked what had come in the mail that day. Logically my reply was “bills & junk.” After a little encouraging, Stas convinced me to go through and open up all of the junk.

This brings us to one particular item of “junk” mail. Now why did I question the legitimacy of this particular item? Well let me explain:
-The return address was from Omaha, Nebraska
-The name on the return address was simply “Sweepstakes”
-The envelope was stamped and not metered like most junk mail.
-My name was spelled wrong. And not even my married name, my maiden name. It was addressed to “Julie Best”. I mean seriously, it’s only four-letters long. If they can’t even get that right, then I really don’t care what the Sweepstakes has for me.

As I examined the contents, I became increasingly curious. The envelope held a single sheet of white paper with plain black text. Hmm, that’s odd. Normally junk mail has tons of enclosures and excessive colorful ink. The sheet was a flight itinerary, odd. As I reviewed the text on the page, these are the things that stuck out to me:
-Both Stas’s full name and my name were spelled correctly (in contrast to what was on the envelope).
-The airports selected were Philly and DFW; totally where we would want to fly to/from.
-The dates of the flights were exactly when we might be able to travel aka when I have off of work.
At this point I was thinking that these “Sweepstakes” people have some really good marketing research software. Software which is so good it kind of freaks me out. A lot.

And then the light bulb turned on – this was for real! Surprise! Stas, the most bomb-dot-com husband of them all, had booked the tickets a few weeks earlier and had been keeping it a secret from me. He even had my family in on the deal! The “Sweepstakes” letter was his fun way of letting me know. He is so creative. He made up the return address and misspelled my name just to mess with me. That’s my man! He had wanted to wait until the very last minute to tell me about it, but using his better judgment he decided to give me a two week heads up. Thanks babe, my obsessive-compulsive need to plan everything thanks you for the two week notice. And I say THANK YOU for being so thoughtful. And of course I love you.

I am so thrilled to be going to Texas. I haven’t been “home” since Christmas 2007; that’ll be sixteen months I've been away!!! Needless to say, I am excited to see mis padres, my sister & her family (including my new niece!), hopefully D & his family, to share with Stas the Omni experience, to eat at Costa Vida, Uncle Julio’s, & Sonic, to escape the eternal butt-freeze of PA, and to maybe see some more of our favorite people! I just can’t wait!!

Isn’t my husband the bomb-dot-com?

Sweet, sweet justice

{Short version} A cop passed by me with flashing lights to give a rude driver speeding ticket.

{Long Version} This morning after reversing out of my parking spot, as I was shifting into first gear I glanced in my rear view mirror. Whoa! Where did that car come from? In the short time since I checked my mirror prior to reversing out of my spot, to when I was shifting into first gear this car had sped around the parking lot and was waiting impatiently for me to go. Seriously, the lady’s face looked very disgruntled. I could tell from a quick glance that she was not having a good morning and was angrily waiting on my slow self to get out of her way. Fair enough.

I proceeded to shift into first gear and exit the parking lot. No sooner had I pulled out and I was being passed by that same car!!!! WHAT!?!?! To save a ridiculously detailed description of my road, I'll just say that if she could hold out another twenty yards it would have been perfectly safe to pass as the road turned into a four-lanes. Anyway, I was just pretty peeved about her lack of common road courtesy. Come on!! I don't drive slow, and we were so close to where the street widens that if she had waited just like thirty seconds then she wouldn't have had to force herself between me and the median!

So as I am fuming over this driver's poor choices, I see blue and red flashing lights in my rear view mirror. Oh shoot. I typically watch my speed pretty closely on this road, as another member of my household got a speeding ticket on this street in the morning hours, but this day I was a little distracted by my disbelief in the lack of good driving behavior. Yet, before I can even check my speedometer (is that the real word for it?) the officer of the law proceeds to demonstrate proper passing etiquette as he speeds ahead of me. Well guess who he was after. . .

A bit further down the road I see this nice officer and my impatient neighbor pulled off to the side of the road. Hmm, I guess it pays to chillax on the road rage. Sucker!!

Siamese Crocs

No seriously, Siamese crocodiles!

Cardigans

The time has come to buy a new cardigan. I've actually been looking for a new cardigan for about a year and a half now. Unfortunately it seems that I am either somewhat picky, or not looking very hard.

I have two cardigans. The first is a heavier weight-single button style. Anyway, I bought it at Gadzooks in the Fall of 2005. Needless to say that a Gadzooks-quality $20 sweater is way over due for replacement. It is covered in those balled-up fuzzy things. And honestly I feel a little embarrassed when I wear it to work (or anywhere), because it looks pretty pathetic. Oh, and there is a bit of a hole in the shoulder. This sweater I leave at work, because I assume that everyone there has already been numbed of its sad state. But, alas this post is not about this sad cardigan (but this one was. Up-date, I tried to get that sweater, but they didn't have my size).

My other cardigan is quite well traveled, having accompanied me on my two most recent (okay two out of my just three) trips to Europe. Anyway, so I wear this thing everywhere: work, church, casual, hanging out, doing dishes, you get the point. It was purchased by my loving mother from her local Walmart many moons ago. Yep, that's right. My favorite cardigan is from Walmart and has gotten some serious mileage. Just this week I wore it three days in a row, which is typical. So back to the point.

This morning, just before leaving work, I did something I rarely do. I looked in the mirror, after getting dressed, and I just so happened to try and fix my hair when I found this:

Alas, there is a near-hole in my favorite cardi!!! And how long has it been there? Sweaters don't get that worn overnight! (Oh, don't mind my weird-o lips; they just do that when I'm bummed out.)

So now I am at a loss, trying to figure out what to make my next woven investment on, and how long I can pretend that the near-hole (and eventual hole) is not there. Anyone seen a fabulous multi-functional sweater?!? And so what if my life revolves around keeping warm--it's cold people!!

Memories in my sweater:
In Provo by our Christmas Tree 2006 ---- My BYU Graduation Dinner 2007

Christmas 2007 in Texas ---- In Virginia July 2008

Red Square in front of the Kremlin Moscow 2008 ---- In my heart attacked Kitchen Feb '09

B-a-n-a-n-a-s!!

Yesterday I ate four bananas. I ate FOUR bananas without even trying!! Lately I've been averaging 2-3 bananas a day, but yesterday set a new record. I had one with breakfast, one as a morning snack at work, one with dinner, and the last one of the day just before bedtime! What a delicious little food. I am so glad they are in season right now!

Special thanks to Gwen Stefani for writing a song to help me spell this delicious item.

I'm a survivor.

At least for now. I've survived another round of cuts. Keep your finger's crossed that I'll be able to make it another year or so.

Thin Mints & Independence

So I was so, SO excited when I came into work this morning and saw that the Girl Scout cookies that I'd ordered had finally arrived! Not one to wait for the perfect opportunity, I opened them right up enjoyed a few delicious morsels of my favorite cookie, the Tagalongs: a perfect combination of crunch, peanut butter, and chocolate. Mmmmmm good!!



Then, not to be unfair, I took out the box of Thin Mints. As I pulled out the tube/roll of cookies and indeed, it is notably shorter. Hmm, strange. Turns out my suspicions are correct! I guess even the Girl Scouts of America of feeling the stress of tough economic times.

In other news, today is Texas Independence Day! In 1836, 173 years ago today, the Texas Declaration of Independence was signed in Washington-on-the-Brazos! Interestingly enough, the Texans weren't just being prideful, under Mexico they were denied among other things:

• freedom of religion
• the right to keep and bear arms
• trial by jury
• no public education

Oh yeah, and that whole military dictatorship under Santa Anna business. Anyway folks, Happy Independence Day!!