Blog Stats/Awards

Well its been almost two years (approx. 22 months) since we have started this blog so I thought, being as how activity has picked up recently, I would do a little survey of who has participated so far and share some basic statistics on the Gifford blog:

• There have been 27 posts so far on the blog
• There have been 48 comments on those posts
• 9 of those posts have included multi-media material (pics, links, smileboxes, etc.)
• The longest period without a post is 374 days from Oct. 10, 2008 to Oct. 19, 2009 from the post "Preserving Marriage - Proposition 8" (Eric) to "Autumn is My Favorite Season" (Britta)
• Shortest period between posts: 24 minutes on Jan. 2, 2008, between "Hey family! Welcome to our very own blog!" by Reesy at 4:04pm and "Happy New Year From Mom!" by Mom at 4:28pm
• Day with most posts: Tuesday April 8, 2008 with 3 posts
  

And now to the stats on the bloggers themselves

• Biggest blogger: tie between Eric and Britta at 7 posts each (although technically this makes 8 for me)
• Most multi-media friendly: Mom and Eric (honourable mention: Reesy). I have four posts with multi-media, 3 pictures and 1 link, mom has those two smile box things. Reesy also has posted her homemade stuff which is great, and actually I just realized she created the blog and created the logo so I think she actually wins and Mom and I get honourable mentions. Nice one Reesy!
• Biggest commenter: Britta wins by far with 19 comments, Mom is second with 14.
• I won't create a "prize" for least participating because then that creates an incentive for behavior we don't want, but if it did exist Jessie wins, where are you girl? Also Karen and Spencer are just as responsible and I don't think can hide behind me and Britta. Reesy, are they added to the blog? If not please add them to receive email notifications so they can post!
  

I think we should also discuss who has made the most advancement technologically with the blog. Is it dad because even though he knows the most about technology he is the least likely to blog? Is it mom because she has learned a lot about technology and is even on facebook now? Is there someone else you think should get it? Please reply and lets have a discussion! Also keep in mind we can use this venue to discuss Christmas ideas, schedules and other stuff.

Make a Smilebox slideshow

Make a Smilebox slideshow

Autumn is My Favorite Season

So no one has written on here in about a year so I just wanted to post something.  I figure this may be a good thing to get back to using since we are even more spread out than we have been.  (Not that we don't talk to each other on the phone all the time, but you know, sometimes we forget to tell each other stuff.....Jessie :) )  Anyway, not much really to report right now.  

Spence and I went with our friends Jeff, Missy, their daughter Erin, and Spencer's brother Josh and sister-in-law Steph and our nephew and niece, Drew and Natalie to Southridge Farms.  It's an orchard/farm/pumpkin-patch a little way south of Provo.  They take you on a hay ride out to a pumpkin patch and let you wander around for awhile and find a pumpkin (or six) to buy and take home.  They also have those cardboard cutouts that you stick your head in with pictures of ghosts and pumpkins.  It's a lot of fun.

We actually went there last year with Eric and Karen, so they know what we are talking about.  This was so much fun because we were there with a couple absolutely adorable 2-year-olds.  They were so excited to ride on a wagon pulled by a tractor and then see horses at the pumpkin patch.  Erin found a perfect little pumpkin just here size while Drew wasn't content till he made his dad take home the biggest pumpkin he could find.  But the best part was that both kids stopped every time they saw a camera, posed, made a cheesy grin and said "Cheeeese!"  It just cracked me up, they are such little camera hogs!  Ha ha! :) (I'll post some pictures when I get a chance to load them on my computer.)

The saddest thing was that the farm no longer sells their homemade cider.  It was the best stuff ever!!  Just ask Eric and Karen, they'll concur I'm sure.  I think it's cause it's not pasteurized or something so there are regulations....or whatever.  But I sure miss it.  But they did still have their apple cider donuts which are quite delicious.  Mmm, mmm!  And homemade ice cream (which I have never actually had because it's much too cold for that.)  It was a great day though and I ended up finding some of those mini gourds and a wicker basket to put them in.  So now I officially have one fall decoration for the season.  Ha ha!

Preserving Marriage - Proposition 8

Hey, just this Wednesday (October 8) the church had a special broadcast about preserving the sanctity of marriage which was especially aimed towards California members and voters. Proposition 8 is an amendment to the California constitution that will define marriage and limit it to be between a man and a woman only. This will not take any from any of the civil union rights and benefits that homosexual citizens already enjoy, it would only secure the definition of traditional marriage.

Why is this important to anybody else not from California? The more that these ideas are accepted in law the more they demands be made that we agree. If homosexual marriage is given an equal position as traditional marriage then the law will demand changes. For example, Catholic based adoption agencies in Massachussets have opted to close since that state has legalized gay marriage. The state forced them to either let gay couples adopt children or shut down. Because of their Christian values they opted to shut down. Tolerance is a two way street and means as we can accept that others disagree we ask them to accept us as well. Christian groups should not be discriminated against because of their values. Follow the link below everybody to find out some more about this issue!

i have too much spare time

Hey family. So we don't really do much with this blog, so I'm just going to put whatever I want on it. I don't know what my deal is, but I've been in super artsy mode lately. I've got a myriad of projects I've been up to and I feel good about putting them on the blog. I just made a pillow today (yeah!) and this one turned out way better than the one I did last night. Red rose pillow - good, yellow owl pillow - not so good. That's okay though. Mom, if you still want the yellow owl pillow for the room downstairs, it's all yours. You won't see any amazine feats of sewingness on it though. Maybe you can hide it under a bunch of other pillows, like in ET when he hides in all the toys. Also, please observe the bird pattern gift wrap - made out of the inside of a grocery bag. Why gift wrap, that just get's ripped off eventually? I don't know. But it's fun. Last, but not least is the desk. I made it to match the dresser I did a while ago. Too bad after I painted everthing blue I had a brilliant new idea for decorating my room that only involved green. Oh well, blue is soothing right? And there's no way I want to paint all that stuff over again. I really do like it though - but painting the leaves and stuff was a little harder than I expected. Anyway, that's your Martha Stewart moment for the day. Love you all!

PS - I had a weird dream today about having to stand up in front of a class of teenagers. There was weird yellow wallpaper involved and I think I knew the teacher and she wasn't happy I was there. I wasn't happy I was there. Other than that I don't remember much. Random I know - I just wanted to tell someone about that.

525 West Morrow Drive

In case you all were wondering how our old house that we had built in Phoenix is doing I checked it out on Google Earth. Here you go:

Temple/Announcements

Ok, so this is April 26th, I believe, of this year. It is the day Karen went to the temple. You can see a picture and her and me at the top on the way in. Then there's one of all of her siblings in Utah and Britta and me. I believe you know all of them. Afterwards we forced everybody to spend about an hour stuffing announcements. We had a ton to do and i don't think it was everybody's favorite activity but they were very kind in helping. I put in a picture of Reesy and Britta and also Nikki and her husband Mike (holding the fan of temple announcements - way more than we needed). He wasn't able to make it out to California for the wedding so you all didn't meet him. They are tons of fun.

On later news. I've begun my research with my professor. So far so good. I'm working on two studies. One is an update of a study on solidarity in remote Mormon villages. My professor went to Escalante, UT in May and did over 40 1-2 hour interviews with a variety of residents there to learn about different aspects of life there (its waaaay out there in the boonies). I am now transcribing those interviews so that they can be read and then we can look for different types of trends in the answers. The other interview is about marathons in Utah and how they affect the families of those who run them.

This morning Karen and I went with her Uncle Ron and her brother Nate and Mike and some of her cousins out to do some target shooting. It was very early but it was fun. We shot .22's, .38 revolvers, some shot guns, and then some other big nasty guns. It was fun. Later on in the summer Ron is going to invite us over to do some canning, they have a huge garden with plenty to spare so we are excited.

Oh and last night was July 4th. Reesy, Anita, Karen and I had an awesome Mexican bbq. I cooked up some thin steaks and made some awesome guacamole. Reesy and Karen made some classic "Carol's bean dip" and Karen made Reesy's famous brownie recipe. It was amazing. Then we watched the fireworks out at Sugarhouse park. It was a delightful evening and it was great because I hadn't seen Anita in forever. Well thats all, this may not have been funny but for the mean time you know what we've been up to. I'll still be posting some wedding/honeymoon pics soon so wait with bated breath.

Catch up #1 - Violin Recital

Well I've finally gotten around to posting Reesy's violin recital pictures, please see Britta's former post concerning the event from last March or April. I personally think Reey's fits in nicely with the fiddling group due to her home-on-the-praries-esque attire. Unfortunately the video was taking forever to upload, I think there was some kind of problem. I'll try posting it again later for your viewing enjoyment. You'll also notice I added a picture of Britta dutifully supporting her sister in this new endevour, doesn't she just look delighted? I think she's trying to ignore that old man talking to her on the right. Soon more catch up pictures and video coming from Karen's first day at the temple, the wedding, Hawaii, receptions, etc....

need some stuff

Hey guys, so we need to put up some photos and posts about our recent and significant family events. Since I don't have any photos available at the moment though, I decided our blog needs something to pass the time. Most of you already saw this dresser I did, but just in case, I thought I'd put it up. It makes me happy. I will also put up some pictures of the table and chairs for Eric and Karen, they turned out so good! Anyway, call to action - put some photos of the wedding and open house up! Yeah!

The Cave in the Closet

So, I have decided that our family watches far too much "Dr. Who." Well, at least I do. I have just finished the second season (I know, I'm extremely far behind all of you!) and am about to start the third season. Recently I found David Tennant's video diary from the making of the show (on YouTube, or the Dr. Who site, I can't recall at the moment) and have taken to watching that as I am waiting for one of those fabulous little red envelopes of magic and wonder to arrive in my mailbox from Netflix so that I may continue my journey through space and time (and David Tennant's dark brown eyes and charming smile.)

I say that I have watched too much because last night I had a dream. A dream in which The Doctor and Rose were in my room in the dark creepy basement of my house. There we found a hole that had been dug into the wall of my closet hidden behind my coats and clothes. We noticed people who appeared to be sleeping there and I knew instantly that this hole led to another dimension or some alien cave where some other race was trying to take over/destroy the earth. Suddenly, one of the people in the hole noticed us and rushed to close off the hole. We struggled to jump in before the hole was closed off and I noticed, just before I jumped in, that I didn't have any shoes on. I ran back to my room to grab my shoes, all the while The Doctor and Rose yelling for me to hurry. And then, just in time I jumped through the hole as it closed behind me. I looked around. We were in some sort of cave with odd drawings and rocks all over the place. The Doctor began to wonder aloud at the drawings...where had they come from, what did they mean? Then, a flash of realization hit me and I knew, "These drawings were made by my sister!" I said. And as we looked each drawing had the distinct crisp scrolling design that Reese often embellishes with. And there at the bottom of each drawing on these walls was her signature! What could this mean? Was Reese affiliated with some other time and space? Did the tunnel at the other end of the cave lead to monsters or some other race? How did Reese get in my closet? And just as all these questions began bubbling up and we were about to descend through the tunnel.....my alarm rang and I woke up.

Very disappointing, I know. I was hoping for something a little more dramatic or crazy myself. Well, that's the way dreams work I guess. Maybe it will be a reoccurring dream and one day I'll go down the tunnel and find out why Reese was drawing things in a cave in my closet.

shameless

So I am afraid that what I am about to write has nothing do to with my resolutions for the year, dreams for the future, or memoirs of the past. It is a shameless brag in my amazing culinary feats. My beautiful plum cake, eaten by so many of our esteemed members of the family who can attest to it's beauty, tastiness and downright awesomeness. Now I know what you're thinking, a plum cake huh? That sounds healthy, fruity and lacking in dessert necessities such as butter and large quantities of sugar, can it really be that good? And I say to you, yes, yes it can. It may even be better than my wheat chocolate chip cookies - from which I swear I can feel myself getting healthier the more I eat. (That was just another shameless plug for my other incredible edible accomplishments. - here's another - check out my other blog, The Saturday Lunch Club)

Well, pretty much that's just my random post about nothing but stuff to eat. Good times.

Fiddler, not exactly on the roof

I would like to start by congratulating my older sister on her recent success as a violinist/fiddler. Aw heck, lets just call her a fiddler because, let's face it, it's a much cooler title than violinist (very bourgeoisie) and who doesn't want to say they have a fiddler in the family. We really are from Montana....

The afternoon was filled with anticipation as I waited for Reese to stand up and display her musical prowess. The recital began with the youngest of the young students who apparently had to pass off their "twinkle" song. This consisted of twelve or so small children getting up one at a time to play the same version of "Twinkle, Twinkle Little Star" in a rather screechy, squeaky, nails-on-a-chalkboard kind of way. (I would like to take this time to formally appologize to my parents for having ever been a small child playing a stringed instrument, you are magnanimous.) Then the older students (and by older I mean aged 8-88...ish) stood up to play songs in a group. This is when my beautiful and talented sister rose and, dare I say, glided up to the stage to take her place among the other students. They began with a true classic, a song that has withstood the test of time to be know throughout the ages and beloved by all, you guessed it folks...."Twinkle, Twinkle Little Star." If I never hear that song again for the rest of my life, it will be too soon. I may one day have the only children who have never heard of a twinkling little star and will probably be teased by the rest of their kindergarten classes, but I will not relent!

Their next few songs were similar musical masterpieces such as "Old McDonald" and "Mary Had a Little Lamb." But I must admit that I am impressed that Reese was able to keep up with all those kids, and the few adults. Then they played some other great fiddling songs that I don't really know the names to. All the while she was delighting us with her enchanting music Eric and Karen were playing the parts of overly excited parents at their child's first recital. They were busy pointing and smiling and taking copious amounts of pictures and even video. (I hope you post all of those here Eric!)

Really though, Reese was magnificent! I'm so proud of her for starting up the violin again and actually participating in a recital...I don't know if I would. So I just wanted to take this time to brag a little for her (you are definitely more than welcome to do so yourself Reese) and let you all know that she is definitely working on goals and achieving them! Three cheers for Clairice!!! I hope you get to play your fiddle on top of a builing in a movie some day...

Goals

It seams since Eric's and Karen's announcement, we have had a paradigm shift in our house (you didn't know I knew such big words).  My goals now are how many home improvement things (that I have procrastinated over the last nine years) can I get done by June 21st.  Health goals are secondary or not even on the radar.  However I do play basketball twice a week (running continually for an hour)' and when they checked my blood this last month everything was good including my cholesterol which dropped to 199. 

We are re-carpeting the living room this week.   I painted, stained, and caulked the stairway to the basement. I am finally finishing the trim on the stairway going up, and am currently finishing the touch up paint in that area.  Outside I have started working on the brick area, pruning trees & shrubs, and doing regular spring cleanup.

I had also been recently thinking about our blog. It seemed lonely.  I am glad it is doing better now and why is it called a blog? Where did this term originate? What is a blog? Who is a blog?And does this have anything to do with peat (not Pete)? 

With these deep thought provoking thoughts. (reference Hitch Hikers Guide to the Galaxy, Britta you know what I mean) I will close and return in seen million years.

Love Dad

April showers...

I will use the old adage mentioned above as a metaphorical representation of my life. While that makes it sound that April will suck and May will be awesome it actually means that the many responsibilities raining down on me this month will blossom into a fairly easy, fun and ultimately amazing important month of May.

Tomorrow there will be exactly two weeks of school left and so that is amongst the greatest of goals, I want to finish well what has been a moderately successful semester. Also academically I am constantly planning out my future, which often involves me finding new ways to postpone the decision of a set career path. As I am about to register for fall classes I am loading myself with sociology and honors classes to fulfill as many requirements as possible... with 17.5 credits it will be a grueling but hopefully enjoyable semester. The more I think about graduate school thoughts of waiting a year to work or applying to multiple schools for multiple programs (as in multiple different programs in each school) start to creep up. These would be fine, they just are part of a systematic effort of procrastination. I also need to be researching my Honors thesis for ideas. Anybody know anything in the alley of Art as a form of Community Development?

Physically my goals have taken a conscious leave. Running is almost completely out of the question due to the time it takes though I hope to pick that back up fervently in May in the weeks leading up to the wedding. I usually get 2-3 small workouts in a week consisting of pushups, ab excercises, and dancing like a lunatic to music by myself in my room (aka aerobics). Financially I'm doing much better with minimal spending, Karen and I realize that each other's money is pretty much collectively our money. Spiritually I have upped my daily scripture dose to 3o minutes a day, which i usually break into 2-3 parts. It consists mostly of the sunday school assignment and a romp through the Old Testament. After conference, though, I plan on doing a study of the Atonement for which I am excited.

Finally wedding plans are well under way. This week we ordered envelopes and will be ordering the printing of our announcements. Friday or Saturday we take pictures and next we will be sending them out. Karen and I are super excited for our trip to Montana in just under 3 weeks, just prior to it we will be ready to move our stuff into our apartment. Once finals are over I'm pretty sure time will FLY! A week in Montana, two weeks in utah working and getting recommends, planning etc. A week in California making final arrangements and then the big day. Karen is way excited, if not a little nervous, to be going to the temple on the 26th, please pray for each of us and we'll do the same for you... come May we'll be frolicking in flowers!

Picking up the slack

Ok, so now it's April and I feel as if I am adrift in an expansive sea of internet loneliness... where are you guys? Why aren't you writing? What are you doing? And Reese, what's that stuff between your teeth?! Seriously, check it out...

Anyway, I was thinking about how no one has written in forever so I thought I'd write something, anything just so our blog doesn't feel abandoned and neglected. We are now 1/4 of the way into this year and our goals. So how is everyone doing? I myself have fallen into the typical rutt which occurs shortly after the new year. I have been neglecting many of my goals and am feeling really lame about it. So, to combat that, I have... well, I have... actually I haven't done much to combat that. I am, however, aware of my slacking in goal reaching so I am determined to break that and yesterday I did two things to help.

1) I made myself go to the gym to work on getting back in the habit and make myself happier, and
2) I went to the grocery store and bought healthy food; lots of fruit and some veggies to snack on.

So now I'm feeling better and am full of renewed vigor and determination. A few new developments on this front. My work recently began a company Wellness program. We have to get our biometrics done, i.e. bloodwork, cholesterol, blood pressure, body fat index, etc. and then we work on improving it. Anyway, I'm apparently on the committee for this so I have to do good to be an example I guess. But this is helpfull in that I now have more reason to be better about it all. Also we had to take a wellness assessment that tells you how big of a health risk you are. I scored an 88 with 90+ being the best. So, not too bad and mostly it told me I need to work on my eating habits. (big surprise)

I know this is getting long but I have one more thing in reguards to my goals I would like to share. So, another of my goals was to serve more so I signed up to volunteer at the MS Walk this weekend. It's an event to raise awareness and money for Multiple Sclerosis. I'm really excited about it and it should be a good time! So good luck to all of you, and get writing!!! I need something to read at work!

'falling into place' room

hey family. so i know i did the amazingly difficult task of putting up the blog and then let you guys do all the heavy lifting since. i promise i will try to be better. so anyway, since the main idea for the blog seems to be encouraging each other to accomplish our new years goals, i just want to say GO TEAM! i think i'm supposed to put up my list of goals and resolutions, some which i have been good at and some...well, not so much - but right now i am just trying to find a new job, keep myself from moving and have a better way of viewing things instead of being cynical when my life is completely not where i want it to be going. and have a clean room. i really think my main goal in life is to have a clean room. i've come to this conclusion because i seem to have been wrestling with it for the past 28 years (oh my gosh, has it really been 28 years!). and then maybe things would fall into place - though mainly because there would actually be room on the floor. so any suggestions would be helpful - whether about my cynical-new job-moving problems or room cleanliness. love you all!

In the Bleak Midwinter

Well, Happy Valentine's Day everyone! While it's not really my favorite day of the year I am celebrating none the less...chocolate is always a good consolation on a day like today.

So it's half-way through the second month of the new year and how are we all doing? I, for one, feel pretty good about myself. Despite the recent setback caused by copious amounts of sugar, in the form of Valentine wishes and chocolated coated goodness, I have been persevering in my goals. I make it to the gym fairly frequently and try my best to make it up if I miss one of my scheduled days...I'm not perfect at it but I'm to the point where I really enjoy going most of the time so I don't usually want to miss. I feel like I've been a little more restrained when it comes to spending money (even though I don't feel like I have any extra cash in my pocket!) But I am excited about learning a great and effective way to pay down my debt quickly. So I'm going to plan that out and get started on it this month. I still get really frustrated with some things and know I can do better, but I know things will come together in time.

On a completely unrelated note-we just got slammed with a ton of snow down here! Yesterday it started snowing like crazy which made a terrible commute home. As I was inching onto the freeway last night the car in front of me braked too fast so I hit my brakes and ended up spinning my car 180 degrees facing oncoming traffic...don't worry, everything was moving so slow I was fine! The cars that were already on the freeway stopped way before they got to me and I was still pretty much in the on ramp lane anyway. So I just pulled a U-turn and headed home. I have to admit I was bit freaked out when it happend and I'm pretty sure I didn't get above 30 mph for most of the rest of my commute. So, bad roads, bad weather...February's a tough month!

Wow, It's February Already!

Dear Family,

Update to goals I am working on just in case you are interested:

1. Jessie and I will be going to the Temple in February so I have working on the new Family History website on Nana's side of the family and should have a few names to take to the Temple for Jessie to do some baptisms for and I should be able to do the initiatory work for Grampa Carl Johnson's sisters when I go.  So I am making some progress.

2.  Today I stripped the wallpaper off the walls in the upstairs main bathroom - the ugly blue and orange 70's stuff.  It was so easy.  It literally peeled off the wall w/o using the wallpaper steamer or any other tools (just a little scraper).  This was a task I had been procrastinating for YEARS!  I should have learned from Flylady to just set my timer for 15 minutes and start.  If I had done this a long time ago this task that I had been dreading would have been done long, long ago.  Now Dad and I can wallpaper and do the ceiling and the floor.  There is a lesson here about facing difficult and onerous tasks.  I think you can figure it out for yourself.

3. I am doing bad at the treadmill.  I keep thinking I am going to get on it when I get home from work in the afternoon and then I don't.  I need encouragement.  I just need to set the timer for 10 minutes and DO IT!

4.  Dad and I have realigned some of our goals/plans, etc now that Eric is getting married and we will need to spend money on things that we didn't plan or know about earlier.  We will keep you posted on this.  Our goal now is to be very careful financially so we can have the cash we need to go to CA and spend what we need there and then also make the Open House a nice event for both families to remember.  I will take all suggestions!

I hope we all keep reading our scriptures, praying, fasting and moving forward spiritually. Yesterday in Seminary we studied 2 Samuel 11-12 the story of King David where he looked at Bathsheba, then committed adultery, then murdered her husband Uriah and the lesson related President Hinckley's story about the train switchpoints when a lineman moved a switchpoint and the train that was supposed to go to Newark NJ ended up in Louisiana.  A 3" tiny switchpoint made all the difference later down the track.  The point the lesson was teaching was that David had many opportunities or switchpoints to move his life to a different direction and that each decisions that we make over time can take us in completely different directions. Even the very small decisions of daily scripture study, prayer, service, etc., will make us a completely different person than we would be if we chose to not do these things or to do them sporadically or haphazardly, so I challenge all of us to be more diligent in our spiritual journey!

Love you all very much!

Mom

El Matrimonio

It may come as no surprise to ya'll that I'm engaged to married to a miss Zacharias (Karen, as you all know her). That, of course, slightly shifts my goals to "our goals" though I still have my own. Anyway, I just thought I would formerly announce this foregoing formerly for you all in this forum, for real? Well be happy, we will be in contact for preparations and plans. I know its a change for our family but I'm confident it will bring extreme joy to us all!
Love, Eric