What You Said?

The title of this post is my favorite quote from Mr. Easton Rogers, and also how I felt when Michael received his response from the accounting program. Yes- thats right, we got a response.

Remember 6 months ago when they wrote us and told us to wait until July 12th. Well, we waited VERY patiently. FINALLY- July 12th came. Michael called me from work... "Jenni, I got the Email and I want you to be on the phone when I open it". My heart is racing! I had no idea that I was so passionate about him getting in, but now that the moment was here, I was praying praying praying that he would give me happy news. So, he reads the email... "Thank you for your application to the BYU School of Accountancy, you have been placed on the waiting list.".

WHAT YOU SAID?????????

If these people make me wait one more stinkin' day I am going to FREAK! After I composed myself, I decided that this is much better than hearing "you have been rejected"! Obviously they like Michael enough to have him in the program, which is very happy news. In the email they encourage us to go ahead with our back up plan and if we are admitted they will let us know. How it works is that if anyone who was accepted drops out, we will possibly get in. We got the vibe that there are 10ish or less people on the list, although they wouldn't tell us outright, and the people who were admitted have until July 22nd to accept, if they haven't by then - we're in. SO, July 22nd is the new date we're waiting for.

What's our back up plan you ask? 2 options, study finance in China, or study accounting in Rexburg. This is a TERRIBLY difficult decision for us. We have been up late most night hashing out the pros and cons of each and it is really, really difficult. I never actually realized how much I love our life here in Provo until the threat of having to move was in my face. I love my job, I love my new apartment, I love my ward, I love my friends.... I'm not ready to move. There have been tears indeed, but both of us are 100% certain that each option is excellent and after lots of prayers, we will be guided to the right place for us.

CROSS YOUR FINGERS THAT HE WILL GET IN ON JULY 22nd!!!!!!

That's the update!

Happy 4th of July -- Coeur d'Alene style.

I LOVE THE 4th OF JULY! I get really emotional during the fireworks especially because I think it's really beautiful that all over the country, citizens are celebrating our freedom. And I'm so thankful for the people that have made/make it possible for us to live freely in this country.

For the 4th of July this year, Michael and I got to go to Coeur d' Alene, Idaho for the first time. What a beautiful place! Thanks to Shellie, that is where the Woodmansee family reunion was going down and we did not want to miss it! The reunion was a week long, but we could only stay for 3 days, bummer! But, I will say that the time we had there was well worth the 12 hour car ride! It is absolutely gorgeous up there and we had a great visit with Michael's family. This was my first time meeting a lot of his cousins and such and I am so glad that I did! They are all so friendly and have ADORABLE children! So I was definately entertained.

We spent a day out on the boat and it was a blast! And once again, even though it was freezing, Michael was in the water with no problem! hahaha- what am I gonna do with this guy?! He's very entertaining, so I guess we'll just let it slide We stayed in a beautiful house right on the lake, what a view! Shellie really got this whole thing together and we are really grateful to her because it was so nice to see the whole family. Michael and I really love Shellie and Judd and they are so good to us, so we're sad it had to end. We also got to spend some good quality time with Mama and Papa Woodmansee. They were super adorable in their tourist hats, and I might add, smarter than the rest of us. I kept saying that I wish I had a sun hat because I sunburn far too easy! Cheri even brought ear plugs for me so that I wouldn't have to listen to both of our husbands snore all night long. AND- she went without make up to encourage me in my new skin plan.

The fireworks were beautiful, the kids were adorable, the company was fabulous, the drive to and from was really fun and Michael and I had a good chat about how grateful we are to be free Americans. Watching so much 24 makes me especially grateful to be free these days. Don't laugh, I'm serious! So, Happy 4th of July! I hope yours was fun too :)

Happy Retirement, Daddy!

My father worked for Union Pacific Railroad for 45.5 years. WOW! If there has ever been a reason to celebrate, I believe this was definately it. My mom planned a fabulous party and I was lucky enough to be able to go! We stayed the whole weekend at Marc and Connie's which was SUCH a treat! They were so good to us and those boys are an absolute delight to play with!

We went on a train ride starting from Hood River. Everything was perfect. My mom had us all wearing bandanas, engineer style, we decorated the train, the boys were wearing engineer hats, and the conductor even anounced my dad's special day to everyone on the train! We went all out to celebrate my dad and it was all such a blast.

The train stopped half way, so we stopped, had lunch, and broke a train pinata. The whole hour and a half train ride back, Joseph sat in my lap ooooing and ahhhing and the trees, grass, water, mountains. It was so adorable! The best part was laughing and catching up with everyone on the train. It was so nice to enjoy each other, and on a train at that!

Our little conductors- how adorable!The Retiree and Party Planner!It was awesome to get to see the Mitchells for a bit! And I love this picture below if Marc & Connie, Darren & Jill. ADORABLE!

Tina and her family came :) After the train we stopped at Multnomah Falls and it was absolutely beautiful!Pretty much the most tender thing I've ever seen is when Joseph started to cry because he didn't want to leave, and Kellen immediately hugged him. Those cousins are so sweet!

ALL the family who couldn't make it was GREATLY MISSED! And we were thinking of you guys. Thank you, mom for planning such a great weekend! It was a complete success!!

My Skin

This is a long one, but I wanted to include the details, read if you have the patience :)

Well, as we all know, I have terrible skin. It's overly sensitive, it often breaks out in hives, it sunburns very easily, I cannot use normal fun, girly smelly stuff, and worst of all, I have had terrible acne my whole life basically. I have been on every antibiotic known to man to help my skin since the time I was about 13 (with the exception of acutain). The drugs DO help. I took them all through college and I was very happy with my skin during college and on my wedding day. But, here's what happened, I got married. 1st of all, my health went way downhill after that! WHAT THE HECK!? Next, I got booted off of my parents insurance, thus- I no longer have a dermatologist to write me scripts for pills. Slowly the zits began to return. And before I knew it, I looked like a 15 year old again with terrible acne. I was wearing WAY too much make up to try and cover it up, which makes it look worse. I was the annoying wife who always talked about how ugly I am, and mostly I was 100% discouraged that I would be this way for the rest of my life.

Well, as I have previously mentioned, I have the greatest co-workers known to man. Sarah could feel for my big time because she's been there and so she gave me all her tips and secrets. She mentioned that she gets peels, facials, and extractions all from an esthatician. I thought well, that sounds painful, but worth it because her skin looked great. Then, Loriol told me that she gets her facials from a lady here in town who works out of her home and is the best in the business. So...I decided to try it.

FINALLY- a glimmer of hope. Julie Foo has given me my confidence back. She is the most adorable little lady from Syngapore. The first time I met her, she said right off, "you have bad skin, I fix your skin, you will thank me". Let me walk you through the progression of my skin with pictures to prove my progress.

FIRST- She gave me a facial with extractions. What does that mean you say? That means she takes a sharp metal tool (pictured below) and digs into EVERY SINGLE poor on my face until all of the dirt is gone. Painful? HE** YES! That took over an hour.

Then she did some other stuff that felt like I was being shocked, a nice mask, and some burny cream. I came out looking like this...
At this point, my boss called me and asked me to come into work. I was terrified. But decided that this was the price I was willing to pay and I headed off to work. Everyone was really good liars and said I didn't look that bad :) A week later, my face was already clearing up and it was SOOO smooth! I mean, obviously not 100%, but encouraging. So, I went in for my peel. At that point, she puts this super stingy stuff on my face and I chill there for a while. It was WAYYYY better than the extractions and I came out looking like this:
Better, yes? I'm always in my scrubs in these pics haha. It looked way better the next day even. SO- next week, I went back for MORE of those tortorously painful extractions. I wasn't even half as swollen afterwards this time and I'm healing way faster and now, I look like this:
BETTER, YES?! And bethy came to see me :) :) This pic isn't as close up, so I tried to zoom in. It doesn't look that great, but trust me it's better. I haven't even mentioned the hardest part of this yet. Julie Foo says "NO MAKE UP". WHAT?????????I haven't gone a day without make up in decades due to my insecurity. I spent many nights crying about going to work, church, out without make up on, and my wonderful husband has been so supportive. But if I'm going to give this a try, I"m going to give it 100%. she says I can wear make up in a couple of weeks. I cannot wait for that day. This is what I look like everynight now. It takes me over 30 minutes to do my face routine, but I love doing it because I feel like I'm making progress. Look at all of the products I use... Yep, that's 11. Not cheap. Not cheap at all. But worth every penny. So, that's that. My skin is definately not healed yet. I have a long way to go. I'll be seeing Julie every 2 weeks, then 3 weeks, and so on until I only need her every 6 weeks. But for now, I'm feeing hopeful and can see my face improving. yay!

Sorry about the novel.

The Seattle Jolley's Visit!

I'm pretty sure that I am the offical in-law party crasher. Everytime my siblings and their families are anywhere within like 8 hours of me and they are visiting their in-laws, I go crash the party. So, to the families of my siblings in-laws. Thank you, and I apologize for always stealing your time with my siblings and their precious children. I just can't help myself. As a matter of fact, I just got off of the phone with Bethany. She is visiting her grandparents for the week and I'm going to go steal her tomorrow... whoops!

Last weekend we had the chance to crash an Anderson party and see Darren, Jill, Joseph, and Justin. And bonus, the party we were crashing just happened to be Taylor's wedding! Everything was beautiful, especially the bride and groom. It was so wonderful to see them. When we walked in and saw their faces I just felt instantly happy and excited! I haven't seen Jill and the boys since the wedding and the boys are getting WAY too big without me. But they were so sweet and acted like we'd never been a part. And let me tell you something, these kids are PARTY ANIMALS and I LOVE IT! I can already tell that we are going to be getting a long for the rest of our lives because they are a blast!

Joseph the photographer with his cutie cousin Alexis. It was so funny. He was running all over the place taking pictures of cutting the cake, throwing the boquet, everything. He was legit.

Darrennnnn- way to go. You must be Bruce Jolley's son, because Joseph and I were looking good before the bunny ears!
Justin is growing up so fast and he is absolutely adorably charming! His little personality is so much fun. We couldn't get our act together, I thought we were doing silly faces and he thought we were being cute....
And then he thought we were doing silly faces and I thought we were being cute... hahaha!
Michael was all about the cold stone catering... can you blame him?I'm really ticked at myself for not getting a picture with Jill. We were able to spend some time together later in the week. We went to lunch, she approved of my new place, and we played at the park. It was just really nice to spend some time with them. And someday, I hope to be the mom that Jill is to those boys, that's for sure. Anyway, it was really, really nice to see them.

Michael and I have SO much fun stuff going on this summer. I'll be sure to keep you posted. Right now I'm trying something new to heal my skin and I'm really optimistic about it, I'll post about that soon, I've got some pretty awsome pictures :)

Jack. 24. Our Summer Obsession.

I've got a couple of things to blog about, but I'm going to start with the most important. First of all, if you've already watched all of 24 and you plan on commenting, please don't give anything away! I've only seen season 1 so far. Thank you. My family has been watching 24 since it started, and they've always told me how good it was, but it was on during FHE in college and I was more concerned with flirting with my FHE brothers than watching 24. Now, I'm married to the only boy I want to flirt with, and we watch it together. It's so fabulous. It must be said that all of the credit goes to Emily and Steve Rogers for introducing us to this fabulous television show. And even though I'm way behind, I'm going to do this anyway...

Ok- most importantly, I LOVE JACK BAUER. I love how he just regulates everywhere he goes. And yet he's so collected. I love how he loves his family and does whatever he has to to protect them... even though it doesn't always work, which sucks. I love how there are so many story lines going on at once. It is NEVER boring. I love Senator Palmer. I hate his wife. I hate how people I trust turn out to be DIRTY RATS!!! For some reason I love Kim Bauer and I'm really worried about her.

We just started season 2, we are on our 3rd episode. We are totally hooked. We watch at lunch, after work, we stay up too late, it's truly addicting. I told Michael that we have to start slowing down because this show is really stressful and I worry about my characters during the day. That's a little out of control, so I think we'll try to slow down. I don't know how you people waited a whole week to watch the next eopisode! TORTURE!Season 1 was absolutely fabulous. I love these characters. I have very strong feelings about each of them for different reasons. I cannot WAIT to see what season 2 holds.

This is my favorite picture of Jack. I asked Michael if I ever saw Jack Bauer on the street if I could kiss him on the lips. He said no. Rude. He's a fictional character so there is a 0% chance that I'll ever bump into him, and he still said no! The truth is, I think Michael loves him just as much as I do.

Memorial Day Weekend was a Delight!

Be prepared for a large amount of pictures because we had a lot of fun this last Memorial Day weekend! It all started with Courtenay's baby shower. What a gorgeous mother-to-be! I mean seriously, take a look for yourself, she is tan and adorable and it was really fun to see all of her cute baby things.

The decorations, the treats, the setting, everything was adorable and it was just really nice to celebrate Court and John's little baby boy that we can't wait to meet!Reading my super tender card, if you can't already tell.Malls :) REALLLLY excited for a 3-day weekend!After the shower, we went our seperate ways. The Lance's drove all night to get to Jarom's hometown (stress me OUT, driving all night!), and Michael and I took off for LAS VEGAS!

When I learned we were going to be having a 3-day weekend, I knew that I was due for a visit to my Rogers family in Vegas. Carly is clearly growing up WAY too fast and I couldn't handle missing it anymore. There aren't words for how nice it was to catch up with my sis, learn all her tricks for cooking, decorating, kid raising, and tv watching, do some MUCH NEEDED shopping, play with my Easton and Carly, spend time with Steve again, and swim! Emily and Steve are always so good to us, thanks so much for letting us come visit guys! Easton's little personality is truly a JOY to be around. We had so much fun playing with him. He is hilarious and adorable and waking up at 7:30 AM isn't so bad when it's to this cute face.Carly really wanted to go outside and play with the boys, but I made her stay and play with me. I had to warm up verrrrrry slowly because she loves her mama, but it was well worth the wait because I could SERIOUSLY gobble her up she's so adorable. Just look at that face! And when she scrunches it all up, it just melts me! I actualy really miss her.One of my favorites from the weekend. She didn't cry at all when Mikey held her. I was a tad jealous.

We stopped in Beaver of course and were able to visit with Grandma, Uncle Dean, Aunt Janet, and Cousin Tad. It was really fun to introduce everyone to Michael and catch up a bit. And everytime I see grandma I just feel so happy. It rubs off from her.

It's really hard to go back to reality after such a great weekend, but at the same time, I feel re-energized! And plus, we've got lots coming up to look forward to. Summer is such a fun time! I hope you all had a great memorial day weekend and enjoyed the extra day off!