MY own LITTLE garden

There are a few blogs out there that I follow. One of them just happens to be written by someone who I admire lots and lots. She is super creative and I always get super inspired when I see all the cool crafts she does. With that in mind, I miss home. I miss the weather (and it actually being summer in June). I  miss my family. I miss playing soccer every day. I miss almost everything about being in Clarksville, Tennessee. I miss my dad and his incessant yard work. I miss my mom and her billions of house plants. So, I wanted to do something to bring that home to me and to make my home feel more like my own home. This is where I belong at this point in time and nothing could convince me otherwise. But it doesn't always help me not miss everything. So I made my own indoor garden. I got the idea from Janae, the awesome blogger I mentioned earlier. Michael and I went to Lowe's in Idaho Falls to look at siding for our house and I found what I was looking for.

I knew that I wanted plants that I could actually keep alive. And since we live in a desert, these little succulents seemed appropriate. So with the plants picked out, I had to find something to pot them in. I really liked the idea of an old, antique looking waterer but since everything from Lowe's looks so new, I didn't have any luck with that. So we tried Walmart. No luck there either. We did find this super cute dish, the brown one behind the plants in the above picture. Now this is meant for use as a serving platter or something like that. I found it in the section with all the dishes. It should be able to hold water and not leak... right??

Anyway, here's the idea. The plants go in the dish and the dish holds the plants. Cute right?

Here you can see I added dirt. Looks just like a garden! Derek Zoolander would want it to be at least 3 times bigger!!! I thought it was still a little plain, and if it was going to live inside, it needed to be much prettier.

So I added rocks, that I found outside.... And these little gem things that I found in my car. I LOVE it!!! It sits on my kitchen counter, getting all the light it needs all day long. This little thing is so cool. It helps me feel like I live somewhere exotic, like an actual desert that's actually warm! Yay for little things that make me happy. 

: ]

Thanks Janae for all your inspiration!

Congrats Heidi and Paul!

Heidi, my older sister, and her husband Paul both graduated with their bachelors from Austin Peay State University on May 6, 2011. Yay for them!!! We were actually in town that weekend and got to go to Heidi's graduation. Since they graduated from different departments, they were at different times so we didn't go to both. Apparently the school chose the same speaker for all the graduations and she gave the same speech at all of them, so we didn't miss anything. Yay! I'm so proud of those kids! Heidi is the first of the Roney bunch to graduate from college, and she got a bachelors! Her degree is in education, something to do with math and middle schoolers, not sure what that's called. And Paul's degree is in geology? Something to do with GIS and mapmaking. You can tell I pay a lot of attention, right? All I know is they are both working, using their degrees and planning on attending graduate school to get their masters, both of them. Heidi is working at Sylvan and will be starting as a middle school math teacher at Kenwood Middle School in the fall. Paul is working with the city of Clarksville to map out city drains and such. Congrats again you guys!!!

Sorry I didn't get a better picture of you!

I have to give thanks for the most awesomest party ever! Heidi and Paul got a huge inflatable and a cotton candy maker and had tons of food. I mean tons! Pizza, subs, veggies, fruits, chips, lots and lots of stuff! Thanks so much for lots of fun! 

He's gonna be such a good dad!

It's a BOY!

Just in case you didn't know, I'm pregnant. And as of today I'm like 19 weeks along. Almost halfway! It's been kind of crazy. In November I had a miscarriage :( so to get pregnant again so fast after that, we were a little nervous. Not that it kept us from telling anyone, but we were excited. So what else can I say about this topic? Hmmm... I had morning sickness, really really bad. And I was trying to go to school at the same time. I got pretty lucky that one of my morning classes didn't take attendance and it was my anatomy and physiology class that I had taken before. My other 9 o'clock class was a little different and I missed it a few times... But I'd rather be at home throwing up than at school throwing up. Let's see, so far I've gained about 8 pounds and I do have a little baby bump.

Since  I'm pregnant, school has become quite the ordeal. In my vet tech classes we do things like surgeries and take radiographs (the technical term for x-rays cuz x-rays are really just the rays the create the image but a radiograph is the image). During surgeries we use isothorine and cyclothorine anesthetics and the school hasn't take the precautions yet to make it safer to be in the room if your prego. So I had to get this ridiculous mask with huge filters on it to make sure I'm not breathing in any of the waste gases. Side effects of doing that are low birth weight and even brain damage to my little baby. So I figure looking like an idiot for a while will be worth it in the long run, right? When we take radiographs I have to stand in another room. Thankfully there are concrete walls in the building we do the stuff in so I can just stand outside the room and not outside the whole building. Yay. 

Now there are interesting people in any situation, but it has been my experience that Mormons are the weirdest and when you get a bunch of them together, the crazies come out.... Don't take any offense to this if you're a mormon, but realize that you are weird. :]  So some of the people in my classes take it upon themselves to say things they shouldn't. For example, anytime anyone needs an example even remotely related to pregnancy, guess who gets to be the example.... ME! Sometimes people even make their example about pregnancy on purpose, just to make me feel real good.... Then there's the people that seem to think my name has been changed to "the pregnant lady." Now I don't call other people names whether it's good or bad and I don't think I should be treated any different.  Then you get people that like to talk about your stomach and how much bigger you're getting. I even got a comment about my "baby belly" when I was 8 weeks along. My response to that was, this is less than how much I normally weigh, not quite sure what you mean. So she said oh, well, you're hair looks nice today. I understand people are excited and not a single one of my classmates in any of my classes are pregnant so they feel the need to live vicariously through me. But at the same time, they didn't comfort me when I was nauseous 24/7 and they sure didn't eat their smelly lunch anywhere but in front of me so I had to leave the room. So what gives them the right to say, oh wow you're getting so fat, congrats. And to tell me what I should name my baby. There's my rant for the post... 

So Michael and I really like the name Tyler or Tyson for our little boy. We're way excited it's a boy too. Michael kept saying we were going to send it back if it was a girl... glad we dodged that awkward situation. We haven't decided on a middle name yet... still thinking. Pregnancy gives you some crazy emotions and I'm really grateful Michael is such a good guy. He gives me back rubs and foot rubs and makes me feel so pretty. He is so good to me. I'm really glad I have someone who can help me when times are hard and make me feel good when I should. I'm really excited to have our own little family and couldn't have chosen a better person in the whole world to start it with. I'm really excited to see what our little boy's personality will be like, if you know me and Michael it'll definitely be interesting. Yay for babies!

 So here is what Tyler looks like. I have another doctor's visit in a couple weeks and hopefully we'll get more pictures! 

He's giving a thumbs up.

He's already so prayerful!

 The beginning!

Yellowstone X3

I know I'm behind and have a few more interesting topics to blog about, but I figured I would start with the easiest.
Michael and I have started this tradition of going to Yellowstone the first week it's open. Now only some of the park is open and there is still a lot of snow. So why do we go in the middle of April when it's gross and cold out? Well for one there are so many people in the summer months that you can't really enjoy the park. In April, not a problem. Second, it's free to get into the park the first week it is open. Yea, FREE and that's what we like about it. And lastly there's this whole thing about seeing wild animals and stuff. We figure that with less people to scare all the wildlife away, more snow on the ground to keep them from going up to the mountains, and less people to obstruct our view of a wild animal that we have a much better shot of seeing anything right at the beginning than any other time. Did I mention there's less people there? Yea, we like that. Last year on April 19 I went to the park for the first time. It was awesome. We woke up at 5 and were planning on being inside the park by 7. Then Brenda decided she was going to get a flat tire on her way to scoop dirt. This scooping dirt day was important to her more than any other day. She was going to Burley for an overnight work trip to scoop dirt there. She was going to get paid a lot and stay in a hotel for free and have food paid for. So yea, kind of a big deal. Michael was generous enough to take her to work all the way in Idaho Falls (not super far, but because it's Brenda...), come back and get me so we could change the tire on her car and drive it back to our place in Rigby. I have never seen so much change in the spare tire before in my life, just for the record. After all that fun, we got to the park at about 8 or so. We saw a ton of buffalo, elk and big horn sheep. We also saw a few pronghorns, bald eagles, coyotes, wolves, 6 bears, osprey, and deer. So here's some of the things we saw.

In the field behind us are tons of buffalo, 3 wolves, a coyote, and trees. 

Old Faithful, we just happened to pull in the parking lot right as it's going off!

Officially known as the Grand Canyon of Yellowstone

Icebox canyon

The second time we went to Yellowstone was in October I think.... There were some parts of the park that had been closed off during our April visit due to snow, so we took the liberty of visiting again with our main focus being on those few parts. So here's what we saw.

Bugle Bugle!

A Wolf!

Round 2 of our annual tradition was quite the trip. We went on April 16 and invited Christopher and Laura. Michael had taken a feel trip with his Natural Disasters class to West Yellowstone a week before so he was able to serve as a tour guide for us. On our drive we went through Island Park, and saw a moose. We took a scenic route (which added about and hour) to see Quake Lake. There was an earthquake that caused the side of a mountain to slide and cover a river. This blocked the river and made a lake. Unfortunately there were a bunch of campsites nearby and about 30 fatalities. :( In other news.... We saw 5 more moose taking that route than just going straight. After we got to West Yellowstone (the town just outside the park), we stopped at McDonnald's and had a marvelous feast for a breakfast. 

On a side note, we were really afraid we weren't going to be able to go to Yellowstone this time. First of all, the government is stupid and apparently super good at procrastinating. So if the budget didn't get passed, the park didn't open. Thank goodness they did something with their quarter of a million dollar paychecks and figured it out. To add to that, it snowed almost every day for a week before we went. Stupid Idaho/Wyoming/Montana weather. But it opened and we got in!

Once we were in the park we saw lots of wildlife and not lots of people!

How does he have antlers that big already?

Many much moosen!

Osprey

BEAR!!!!

Teddy

Teddy was my favorite dog. He loves to go running, take long walks on the beach and chase cars. He was always really good at making me feel better and being my little shadow. He never listened to anyone the way he would me. He could do tricks like sit, lay down, speak, and dance. He was fantastic at jumping, I used to call him my little Mexican jumping bean. He was the weirdest dog ever sometimes. He could squeal like a stuck pig if you came close to stepping on him and never quite liked being picked up or he'd do the same thing. Teddy loved chewing on bones, eating table scraps and absolutely loved anything called a treat. Teddy has been my best friend for the past 5 years and always stuck by my side. I can remember when Teddy was born, his mom was Gizmo the Pomeranian and Kaiser the German Shepherd was his dad. He had one sister who died 2 days after birth. Gizmo only lived for a few months after having him. Teddy was originally Marisa's dog, but I obviously liked him more and we bonded immediately. He was born around January of 2006. Teddy and I would hang out next to the pool all day in the summer. Sometimes he'd even swim with me. When we weren't outside he was always by my side or at my feet. When Michael and I got married, Teddy was part of the deal. So we moved him from Clarksville, TN to Rigby, ID. During the weekend we moved Teddy spent about 36 hours in the back of a moving truck, squealing his head off the whole time, poor thing. When we let him out he acted like he hadn't seen me in years. He hated car rides, which made taking him on hikes difficult. But we took him anyway. Last summer we started training him to walk with us without us holding the leash. This way he had a little more roaming room and we weren't tied down to a leash all the time. It took some time for him to understand he couldn't go home unless he was with us. Once we went hiking in September at Cress Creek and Teddy decided it would be a better idea to run away. So for 2 hours... 2 hours! we searched for him. We were in the mountains and it started snowing and we searched and searched. Finally he came back, soaked and shivering and cold. Oh I was so upset! Then there was this other time when we were hiking around the Menan Butte and Teddy ran off, dang rabbits they're just so distracting! So for 45 minutes we searched and searched. Somehow he always finds us but only on his time. Silly dog. There was this other time that he ran off and then this other time. Oh how he loved to run and especially after cars. Every time he ran off he would always come back hurt. Always limping in some way as if that would make us less mad that he ran away. Well, it always worked on me. Poor thing, I'd always feel so bad for him that I would carry him back to the car. I'm sure sometimes he would legitimately pull a muscle, but every time? He was such a good dog to me. This morning, my wonderful husband took Teddy on a walk. Teddy loves walks and I don't always take him on one, so it was nice for Michael to do that. Well, Teddy did what Teddy's good at and he ran. He ran so fast into the road that the car got him. So here's to Teddy, my favorite dog.

I love you Teddy.

What keeps me busy

This is most everyone in my graduating class of the Vet Tech program.

So it's been a while. In my defense, I've been super busy. Classes are going great! I absolutely love my vet tech classes. I've already learned and practiced how to draw blood from a rabbit and a dog. How to give a rabies shot. How to give intramuscular and subcutaneous shots in rabbits. And have seen like 4 or 5 surgeries and helped relieve the pressure from an abcess, which smells real bad. I'm gonna go ahead and leave a disclaimer here after reading through this myself: If you get your feelings hurt easily, if you can't stand strong opinions, or if you really don't want to hear the truth of it, don't read any further. I owe you that much :]
I'm the class president of our vet tech class this semester, so I helped get the SCNAVTA started. SCNAVTA is short, well sorta, for Student Chapter of the National Association of Veterinary Technicians in America. Doesn't that sound like fun?! That club has been actually pretty frustrating. Especially since it's a private school with a bunch of sheltered Mormon kids (no offense). But it's true. Since I've been to a different school in a different part of the country I feel like I understand a little better the strictness it takes to start a competitive club that looks great on a resume. I felt that mandatory service hours and attendance at club meetings would be a good way to make sure those in the club would truly get the most out of it. Others do not agree. I know that getting 30 different people with families and classes and jobs to have schedules that match up for meetings would be difficult. However, expecting someone to do extra for a club, which is considered an extracurricular activity, isn't that much to ask for. (Did you see the extra in there? Crazy!) I guess I'm wrong. But to those of you who think that college should be easy and that being part of a club that's supposed to look good on your resume is easy... YOU'RE WRONG! And I DON'T feel bad one bit for saying that. When you're in an interview with your potential employer and he/she asks the big question "So, how difficult would you say your major was?" And you answer, "Oh it was so easy, I just breezed right through it." Do you really think you're going to get the job???? Nope, not happening. So why would the question about the club be any different? How many people are out there right this moment with a vet tech degree? How many more will have graduated and be searching for jobs by the time I graduate? These are the things I take into consideration when I want something to set me above someone else. Now grades can be a big part of it, but hands on experience doesn't get any better. So why not enforce mandatory service hours, if it's only going to be for your benefit? And it will be fun because you'll be with friends.  Really what I should do is make the club super fun, no service hours, no informational speakers, nothing like that. Just have refreshments and games every meeting. Then I can get all the service hours I want by myself and have a resume that looks ten times better than any of my classmates..... Too late for that. Plus then I wouldn't have to hear how hard it is to go to meetings or to get your service hours. If you can't meet the requirements to be in a club, then don't join. It's really not that complicated. And I know people at a church school want to involve everyone, but that is not realistic. Make it available to everyone and let them choose. Did we not come to this earth for that very reason? Were we not given agency to be able to choose for ourselves? Forgive me if I'm wrong, but I want to be a part of something amazing and if it means that I sacrifice a little now and receive more blessings later, then heck yes I'm gonna do it! Dang, I should start a debate team with this! I just want to make sure that the club we start, which will be around until the program ends, will actually be to the student's benefit. It's not just my graduating class that will have this club, it's every single person that enrolls in the program from here on out. If we, meaning mainly I, don't get this started on the right foot, how will I know it will ever get better. And if it's going to get better, why not make it now when it will benefit me the most. Being a close minded, stubborn, stiff necked person doesn't seem to go well for the people in the scriptures, just be aware of that... I really don't feel like I'm asking a lot. In high school, I played soccer in the fall and did cross country then as well. I was a boy's soccer manager and at some point broke a hip, an arm and got my wisdom teeth out. I was also taking 3 AP classes my junior year and 1 AP class my senior year. And I was in 7 different clubs, one of them being the National Honor Society. To maintain membership in this high school club I had to do a mandatory 30 hours of service a semester. Plus as a senior you had to do a 10 hour service project on top of the 60 hour yearly service required. Now service could be done over the summer, but it's much easier to teach 1st graders how to read when they're in school. This is a high school club! So when I suggested 10 hours of service a semester and got immediately shot down, you could see why I would be upset. And to make another point, this isn't the first semester the program has been around and yet I'm the one making things happen and getting the club actually organized? Explain this to me please. Kids these days, can't live with 'em, can't, well you know the rest. I understand there are different personalities and some people are real go-getters and others like to tag along. But something needs to be done. I'm not meaning to hurt anyone's feelings and I certainly don't want to feed the fire that divides the first group from the second. See there's not enough diversity at this school for people to be more understanding of strong opinions, but there's enough married people with children who think they're always right and that being married automatically makes you more mature, smarter and wiser than a single person. And this, I believe, is school-wide. So the first group is made up of 15 or 16 mostly married people and the second group has 2 out of 15 people in it that are married. And it's not that the second group isn't all sorts of willing to work with the other group. Not saying that it's all their fault.... but than again. Not quite sure how everything worked out, but I know now why I started this semester and not last fall. Now obviously I was, am, in good humor while writing this, if you didn't pick up my awesome humor then read it again! But this makes me so upset! GRRR!!! I don't know how many times I can say that I don't feel I'm asking for too much. What an unbiased rule system in which to rely on for making a brand new club? Really, is that too much. Come on. All I know is this is going to be my campaign for running for SCNAVTA president next semester. Yea, see who tops that! On that note, let's look at some more awesome pictures from school! YAY!

AW! Bunnies, so cute, and hairy, and the got big fangs!

Took Teddy and Chewy in to practice nail trimming and physical exams. He was ok with it at first....

But this is how he ended up. And he's a squealer too!

We learned a bit about the anatomy of a horse... 

Surgery's just so interesting! 

So that's what a uterus looks like!

Back to the classes are fun part, we've encountered some pretty hilarious sayings. Last week we did a spay on a dog and a few of us got to practice intubating. We'd never done it before and hadn't really seen too far inside a dog's throat. One of my friends looked inside the dog's mouth and saw the epiglottis (which separates the trachea and the esophagus). Her response to the alien looking thing was, "Oh gosh! What is that?" Hilarious! Especially because the whole class had been pretty loud til then and got real quiet just to hear her say that! So funny. Then another girl in class had taken the tape off the sterile surgery pack. This tape just so happened to say "STERILE" on it. And she stuck it to her shirt. So naturally she walked passed me and I said "Hey, you're sterile!" Then realized oh crap, that's pretty rude! So I tried to explain myself and another girl turns around and says "Don't judge my uterus!" Before all this hilarity had begun, a few classmates and I were discussing the creepiness of certain people. There is this guy that I knew from Tennessee that thinks he knows Michael and has a class in the same building that I do. I've only got 2 classes on campus, but go figure he's got to be there! Well, he's found this awesomely bad habit of asking me how my pregnancy is going by rubbing his own stomach. It's really creepy. Like really bad. Just try it the next time you're talking to someone. Yep, just talk to them the whole time and rub your stomach like your hungry, oh and you have to tilt your head to the side and nod a little as well. SEE! It's creepy, well I have a class on the second floor and there are several staircases and quite a few doors that take you outside. So every time I'm in that building I take a different way and yet he always finds me! So someone suggested to me that I should walk up to him and say "I have diarrhea" and walk away and all my problems will be solved! We'll just have to try that out. 

Other than the funny things people say, class is all together very interesting. We had muffins and chocolate milk on Thursday! And for homework assignments we get to read weird articles about animals. One talked about Lumpy Skin Disease. And yes, it really is as gross as it sounds. Cows get these lumps and swell up so bad they can't walk. So they stop eating, walking and drinking and start to rot while they're still alive. Yep, that's what I learn about. 

That's all for now. Expect another post this weekend about other recent news in my life.  

School, school, and more school

After our trip to Utah, we were ready for some rest. Well, that didn't happen. BYU-I's winter semester starts January 5, which is over a week earlier than Austin Peay State University's spring semester which starts January 14. So of course I ordered my books online (saving over 200 bucks by the way!) and didn't have any of them when school started. Good thing my classes are easy! Michael was smarter than that and was able to buy some books from friends and the rest from the bookstore for a pretty good price. This is my first semester at this school and let me tell you, things are SO different! There's a dress code, no shorts/ capris, no holey jeans, no facial hair, and lots of other things. Pretty much you're supposed to look well groomed and well dressed. There's also an honor code. Since it is a private school and it is a church school, that's to be expected. No lying, cheating, philandering (if you know what I mean). What I got out of it is uphold the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints standards or go to a different school. I had a hard time with this at first. Especially after coming from a public school that was very.... lacking in any kind of rules. But it makes sense. We all have a choice and if you can't do what is asked of you, then pick a different school. It's that easy. But if you can uphold the standards, then your tuition is super cheap. It's 1700 a semester for tuition here, that's about half what I was paying to go to a smaller school in Tennessee. Michael is so smart he gets a full ride tuition scholarship from his grades when he previously attended. He also gets the Idaho grant that if you live in Idaho and stay in Idaho to go to college they give you like 200 bucks a semester. Which is nice. I don't qualify for any of the scholarships yet. As a transfer student, you have to wait 1 semester for them to review your grades from this school and decide whether the grades you received were high enough to get a tuition scholarship. As a sophomore you have to get something like a 3.89 or higher to get a full tuition scholarship.

Enough about that. My schedule is awesome! Here's what it looks like.
Animal Anatomy and Physiology MWF 9-10 Lab M 3-5
Math for the real world MWF 11:30-12:30
Book of Mormon MW 12:45-1:45
Veterinary Medical Terminology TR 9-10
Intro to Lab Animal Science TR 10:15-11:15 Lab T 3-4
Animal Care and Management 1 TR 12:45-1:45 Lab R 3-5

Yea, my classes are awesome, except for my math one. Because it's dumb. Here's Michael's schedule.
Natural Disasters MWF 9-10
Developing World MW 10:15-11:15
Homer to Tolkein: Quest in Arts MWF 11:30-12:30
Energy Issues and Alternatives MWF 12:45-1:45
Intro to Business Management F 7:45-8:45
Intro to Family History TR 10:15-11:15

So far my classes are so much fun. I've learned a lot about animals. I've been able to perform physical examinations, how to do subcutaneous injections, trim nails on dogs and rabbits, and tons about the ethics and  the laws regarding what veterinary technicians can and can't do. I'm also the President of the Student Chapter of the National Association of Veterinary Technicians in America at BYU-I. This is the first semester we've had the club so organizing it is kind of interesting. The vet tech program has only been at BYU-I for 2 semesters. We're not yet accredited and we don't have a technician on staff, so technically we can't join the actual NAVTA yet. We're working on it. All the classes I have on Tuesdays and Thursdays are taught by the same teacher and I've got all the same classmates for those classes. It's a small group about 17 of us. It's nice.  So the good side to the program being so new is the classes aren't as intense as they could be, I get the same teacher for my important classes, and the group is really small. On the other hand, they're in the process of building a veterinary teaching hospital that won't be done til I graduate. We have classes in an old house that's super ghetto. And we don't have as much equipment or animals to work on. Paving the way for the future students is pretty neat though.


Michael likes his classes, for the most part. He always has tons of homework and all his classes want him to work in groups. He had to create his own website for his business class. wmplr.weebly.com It's been pretty crazy. I work Tuesday, Wednesday, Friday, Saturday and Michael is on a rotation for weekends and Tuesdays at work. So we don't see each other very often. And when we do, we're doing homework. So the fun of school has already gotten us super stressed out and thinned our wallets more than we thought. That's probably the only down side to having a name at the end of the alphabet, the government FAFSA stuff goes alphabetically so we haven't received our financial aid yet. FUN!

Hope this has been educational. :]