Picking up the slack

I keep telling Brent he needs to post our latest happenings but if you can't tell by the lack of posts... he has ignored me. So here I am again to give you the dirt. But first, seriously, comment, make me feel loved by replying to my diatribes.

As you know, Brent came and surprised me for Christmas which was great. Over the weekend my dad and Joyce had their farewell for their mission down in Utah. The weather wasn't great on Friday so I am very thankful that Brent was here and willing to drive us to and from Utah for this trip. While we were there Brent got to meet all of my family. Since there are a total of 20 members to my family this was easily accomplished. Everyone seemed to like him and from what I can tell he liked them as well. Before we left on Sunday he and my father disappeared for a few minutes where it is my understanding Brent approached the subject of marrying me with my dad. I know this meant a lot to my dad since he declared afterward that I was getting a good man with Brent. Part of me wonders if Brent now ranks a little higher on the scales with my dad than I do... just kidding:)

The biggest news of the week can be titled "HE WENT TO JARED'S", anyone that lives within range of a Jared's Jewelery store will understand that one. I picked out some rings that I liked on Monday and yesterday Brent went and looked at them. As much as I wanted some sort of surprises with this I did end up in the jewelery store with him yesterday solidifying which ring will turn into my wedding ring. As best I can tell Brent even ordered the ring and bought it. It needed to be sized and the center stone needed to be placed so we left the store without any rings in hand.

So now permission has been given on each side from parents for this union (I figured I should ask Peggy since Brent asked my dad - Vince), rings have been purchased (I put money down on a ring for Brent... even though he can't make up his mind what he wants). Katie is on board for it - amazing, and now Brent just needs to actually ask me if I will marry him.

On one hand I really wanted to be surprised when he decided to ask me but now that I know he has gotten the ring I REALLY WANT IT! :)

The Best Christmas Gift

As I pulled up to my house tonight and opened the garage I not only found a car already in my garage but Brent as well. This time around his work decided to give everyone Friday off and let them off early today so he won't even get in trouble. He went to work for about an hour this morning and spent the rest of the day driving to Boise to surprise me! It was great. His brother Kevin knew he was coming but no one else in the family knew so it was a surprise for them as well when I finally let him leave and he went home to Peggy and the gang.

Birthday Present

Well Karla just keeps on giving and giving, ipod tuner ,cookies and candies sent in the mail and now this sweet video camera!! ok not really I won this at my company party tonight, and it just happened to be red, I thought about wrapping it for Christmas, and giving it to Karla than I decided Nahh!!! mine all mine, sorry Karla.

Happy Birthday to Brent

So I am a few days behind with this post but Brent turned 36 on Wednesday. While he was up here this past weekend we celebrated his birthday with his family. As I was on my way over to his mom's for a birthday dinner, present in hand (a bluetooth) he called excited to let me know that his new car had hands-free capabilities. So when I showed up I didn't know what to do for him for his birthday. When I told him what I had bought him his sister responded that she had bought him the same thing for his Christmas present - great minds think a like! In the end she and I traded bluetooths and she is now using the one I bought for Brent and I am using the one she bought for him.

The following day he and I stopped at Circuit City and I simply told him to pick out that gift he kept telling me he would like and I would pay for it, lame I know but I don't think I would have ever gotten it right. Well since I felt so lame and I hated the fact that he would be by himself for his birthday after he left I baked a few goodies and made him a card. I didn't get them in the mail until Tuesday though and he doesn't pick up his mail every day so he only got that surprise today. He seemed to like the surprise though, which I am glad for and I told him that from now on he would just have to be with me to celebrate his birthday.

Mugs are back

I picked up the mugs today. I think they turned out pretty well. Brent has been dying to see his, I think he was more excited about it than Katie:)

Aren't girls fun - lol!

This post really has very little to do with my relationship with Brent other than the fact that I am amazed he hangs around the craziness that comes with my life.

Katie had her school Christmas program tonight. As soon as we got home she quickly set to getting ready for the event... that didn't start for another 70 minutes. While I knew she was in my bathroom with the door shut talking to friend I assumed she was still doing her hair. When I finally opened the door I found that she had granted herself permission to wear all my make-up. While she didn't do a horrible job putting it on I wasn't pleased to have my 5th grader going to a public event with that much make up on. I decided however to let it go and instead warn her not to do it again or she would be made to wash it off before leaving the house.

Next on Katie's must have list apparently was my jewelry. She had her sights set on wearing some of my nicer earrings... which happened to still be in my ears. Again I was gracious and let her wear them. As time approached for us to leave we hit my breaking point when she walked out wearing my heels. At this one I put my foot down. Not only does she not need to wear heels she also has no business wearing anything that is opened toed when it is only 14 degrees out and there is snow on the ground, not to mention we don't wear the same size.

This was met with whines and complaints about how horrible I was. Why my daughter has decided to hit the teenage attitude when she has yet to reach 11 I don't know but if she hopes to reach 11 I have advised her to do a little better. Of course the interesting part of having a girl is the fact that the moment she saw me after her performance she was all smiles and hugs and didn't seem to even remember the previous displeasure she felt toward having such a mother as me. To all of you with boys, tonight - I am jealous!

Do you see a resemblence?

Hal decided to take a picture of Emily and I sitting together. Apparently they say we resemble each other, what do you think?
I found this picture of Emily on the Coburn family website and I do have to admit when I saw this one I thought that if I didn't know better it could be me. Apparently many of the Coburns have commented that they think we not only look similar but also talk similar.

A few pictures to recap our weekend together

We went to breakfast at Brent's brother's house, Mark. While we were there I decided to help Hal get an embarrassing picture of Brent. This picture was followed with Brent trying to put me in a headlock and we gave everyone a show as I fought that one off. I left the match unscathed, Brent left with a rug burn on his forehead. I am scrappier than he knew.

To round off our Saturday with the Coburns we had dinner at The Olive Garden. Thankfully they we forgiving of Brent and me being more than 20 minutes late. On of the features on Brent's new car is hand-free calling so he left his phone in his car and none of the Coburns have my phone number so we didn't know what time dinner was and when Brent did finally check his messages he was with Johnny and I was at home getting ready to be out in public so he didn't have a way to tell me.

Hal is always looking to get the best picture he can and asking us to set up the scene for that. He decided it would be picture worthy to have Brent feed me, of course Brent thought it would be more fun to pull the fork away as I was trying to take a bit.

It was a fun weekend though with Brent and his family. I am especially grateful that not only did Katie get to spend time with us and Brent's family but that Brent is so eager to include her in everything when possible. The Coburns were welcoming to both Katie and me- I feel pretty lucky.

Brent's new car

Please notice the BSU magnet is already in its place of honor, somethings never change:) The new car is great, I hope Brent doesn't have buyers remorse. My top 2 favorite features: heated seats and the red accents on the interior. Good thing for Brent that he looked at other qualities when making his purchase decision.

Artist for a day

Brent's favorite birthday tradition is to paint a mug for his birthday. Over the last 10 years he has had the opportunity to fulfill this "tradition" 4 times. Thankfully this year he was able to go to Artist for a Day and quickly paint a blue mug with the Smith & Wesson logo - how surprising. For those of you that are wondering BSU was done during a previous "tradition" year.

We arrived at the store at 7:40PM to a disgruntled worker who tried her best to get us to leave since there was only an hour and 20 minutes left before the store closed. To her dismay we carried on and became the thorn in her side better known as patrons.

Katie had fun painting a mug in the shape of a Santa head. In an attempt at kindness toward our gracious customer service representative Karla jumped in and helped Katie add additional coats to her master piece after she put the initial coloring on. Though we worked at a tiring pace we did unfortunately finish our master pieces at 9:05PM, five minutes after closing.

We did learn the secret to this poor employees heart before we left when a father walked in with his toddler at 20 minutes to closing and our young saint didn't even bat an eye at letting him sit down to struggle through his work.

We all had fun, and thankfully Brent didn't even complain when the time came to pay the bill and Karla graciously allowed him to pay for his birthday present. What a good man, I think I will keep him around.

The costs that come with long distance dating

Karla texted me today and informed me that my Verizon bill will be just slightly less than 120 dollars this month. that is pretty outrageous considering that my plan only cost about 40. I guess I will just have to make one less trip to Boise this month to recoup my costs. Unless someone decides to cover the overage.

Brent

The perplexities that come with long distance dating

The 8 hour drive between Vernal and Boise definitely doesn't make getting to know each other in the traditional fashion easy. Since we cannot see how the other person is in common day to day settings Brent has grown to enjoy being on the phone with me and listening as I am doing something to see how I handle the day to day stuff.

Yesterday we made small talk while I was putting up Christmas lights on the outside of my house. While I am not sure that it earns me any brownie points for Brent to hear the occasional expletive slip from my mouth as I walked into the gas meter because I wasn't watching where I was walking or the time I dropped my screw driver (that I was using like a hammer) while I was sitting on the top of the roof. He seemed to enjoy himself and thanks to the miracle of a headset I didn't kill myself by talking on the phone while on a ladder or perched on the roof.

Brent????

I'm just saying...

Poor Brent!

Brent is going to kill me for this one but... I guess I will just hope he loves me enough to simply laugh.

I was talking with one of my friends tonight about the guy she is dating. Now he is a super nice guy but rather shy so he hasn't put any moves on her as of yet. Well my 10 year old, Katie, looks at both of us and confesses that she doesn't understand what is taking this guy so long because Brent is moving as fast as a cheetah. I laughed so hard!

Unfortunately for Brent Katie caught us kissing in the living room the night he first kissed me... the first kiss was not at my house incase you are wondering. She promptly announced that seeing us kiss was simply "sick and wrong"... I am guess I am lucky he ever called again. I really should have had the patience to wait for that follow-up kiss until I was sure she was asleep.

Addicted to the Coburns

Brent told me his log on for his family's blog and I am just addicted to it. I have been working my way through the old post, looking at the pictures and reading the comments. They are a great family. I realized I can even look at it from work which probably isn't a good thing. In between interviews today I was eagerly reading as much as I could. Trying my best to figure out which name belonged to which person and which child belonged to which parent. I am not sure I will ever get that done. So far I think I have only read about 4 months of post, maybe even less but it has taken hours to get through. I told Brent today that they are all so good looking and talented that I don't know what I would have to offer them aside from my ability to make him laugh... after all I am rather goofy!