John & Kate Plus 8

Eric and I finally got dish! Hallelujah! Recently I've really been facinated with this show John & Kate plus 8. I think it is partly because their kids are Eurasian (which mine will be as well) and I think partly out of a morbid love of the kind of disgusting. They show her belly while pregnant with sextuplets...it is crazy!
Anyway, I have a new appreciation for all the mother’s out there. I took a confined space testing class the other day. So, the exercise was to fit into a hole that was 24inches wide and 12 inches tall (it was an oval shape). Now, with all the oxygen tanks and everything else you need, I barely fit through the hole. As the smallest NEAT team member I think everyone else was a little nervous at my tight squeeze. The saddest of all was our Safety Administrator who happens to be 6’5 and well over 200 pounds. Having him try and try to fit through that hole and then get stuck half way…someone mentioned the scene from Ace Ventura when he is being 'birthed' from a mechanical Rhino and we all laughed…but I just kept thinking about all those mothers out there who know exactly how painful that must be (for the hole!). I had a hilarious picture of it…but the safety administrator “accidentally” erased it! Eric is out of town in Cheyenne for the next few days, but when he gets back, we will post more pictures!

The ways of men

I had to get Meradith these adorable little leopard print baby ballet flats! As Meradith kept saying all day, "It's so cute I just want to eat it!"Linda Christensen makes these amazing blankets for everyone. Here is the one she made for baby Christensen.

Here are Jared and Eric...looking so cute as fisherman! You know... I got to spend a little time with Jared that day because we had to run some errands. First, Jared got Eric's fishing pole fixed for FREE, then, he and Eric came with me to a craft store. It was amazing having Jared there. Not only did I n0t get responses like, "They all look fine," or, "I don't know, which one is the cheapest?" or "when are we leaving." Jared actually gave HELPFUL input and even seemed to rejoice in my good deal finds! What a man. Eric had almost convinced me that, "That's just how ALL men are...we hate shopping!"...Jared has shown me the way!!! Thanks, Jared, for helping me choose the perfect plant!!

Isn't Eric so Handsome?!?!? Look at that happy smile!!

Meradith's Baby Shower

Ok, for the next few weeks, all of our blogs are going to be reaching farther and farther back into the past. Here are some pictures from Meradith's (Eric's cousin's wife and just the coolest girl) baby shower a few weeks ago. Isn't she the most adorable preg-o you've ever seen?

If you notice directly above my head is part of Eric's head, as he had to linger around to wait for Jared to go fishing with him. Here is a picture of the cute diaper cake Christi Christensen made. She also made the cute invitations.


Here is a shot of Becky, Meradith and me.
Here is Eric fishing behind Meradith and Jason's new PHAT house on the Provo River!

Snow Sucks!!!

Earlier this week I took some of my young women to the landfill (Kemmerer may not have a Wal-Mart or a second grocery store,…but don’t worry your pretty little head off, it’s got plenty of bars and it’s very own landfill) as part of our service project. Well, call me naïve, but up until college, I didn’t know they existed. I honestly believed that while we as a nation consume far beyond that of other nations and well beyond our needs, we recycled, reduced and reused…we were still pretty much in balance with Mother Nature…oh that innocent thought was brutally squashed as we cleaned in the landfill. Our main job was to bag up the trash that had been blown away and stuck onto the bordering fence. Two hours and fifty bags later, I decided I am totally o.k. with being a tree hugging Californian. Man, we found diapers and diapers and diapers…and lots of police reports (which all the girls seemed to like to read), cigarette boxes, drug paraphernalia, and pizza boxes. So, what I gathered is we have people who are getting arrested a lot, waste a lot, smoke “cigarettes” a lot, eat a lot of crap and have babies…right on…it’s like the proclamation to the family is crumbling right before my eyes.

So, I totally derailed, the whole point of that story was to say that I wore my brown jacket to the landfill and as it has been an eternal plight to get our washing machine hooked up, I was without my normal jacket this morning. So, I decided that I wanted to wear a "light-weight jacket". After about half an hour I realized that I was running late for work and that I do not own one. So, I put on own of my snow boarding jackets and went out the door…and to my amazement…this is what I saw….

Incident Commander

So, I have been in an on going training program as part of the NEAT team here at the plant and most recently I was in a training that was an extension of the Haz-Mat training. In each major catastrophic incident (such as 911) there is in place a type of proper Incident command system used by the government. The Incident Command System (ICS) is a standardized, on-scene, all-hazard incident management concept in the United States. It is a management protocol originally designed for emergency management agencies and later Federalized.
Anyway, in this last training we were taught that there are three major types of leaders...
1) Autocratic- must have confidence in leader, leader must be technically competent and be able to make rapid decisions.
2) Automatic-Leaves members to make decisions, usually struggles at making decision, technically insecure, informal leader of group
3) Democratic-consensus, is good in a non-emergency situation,...draws on team expertise, often used excessively by non-decision makers


I was chosen to be the incident commander in this exercise. Of course I understoodd that he was going to be testing and observing my leadership skills as well as figuring out which type of leader I am. I also knew that Autocratic is the best and the other two are CRAP and that everyone in that room was anticipating the girl was going to be a lame automatic! So…pressure was on…and I brought it! I had to create a strategy and then instruct four other people on how to execute it in a short time frame with the parameters of the assignment constantly changing. SO,…what do I have to show for it all? Just this crappy house built out of note cards…it’s surprising how difficult these little tasks can be…but I was told that I was calm and had natural leadership skills (for a girl...)

Another fun task we did was to sit back to back. One person had a picture of a constructed block pattern and had to instruct the other on how to build it. First time around only the person with the picture could speak, second time around there was communication between the two parties. My team won this challenge. The instructor said that he’s used this activity with young married couples at church before. I think this would be a pretty fun (or frustrating) FHE activity.