Time flies when you are having fun!

Daisypath Anniversary Years Ticker

January 27, 2006

January 27, 2006

About Me

My photo
I am Brooke. I love my husband. I love my daughter. I love my job because I can pick and choose my schedule and stay home with Harper the majority of the time. I love to do DIY projects. And I love my life!

Race Track

Race Track
Juan, Camie, Josh, Me

CPK Goodbye dinner

CPK Goodbye dinner
Josh, Erin, Brooke, Josh, Brandon, Camie, Juan. Right before we moved to Texas from Cali.

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Saturday, February 28, 2009

San Antonio: The Alamo and the River Walk

So here are some pictures of me and Josh and his parents at the Alamo and the Riverwalk, both in San Antonio. It was a lot of fun. Thanks Jean and Jody for coming and visiting! We had a lot of fun!

Corinth, TX

We went up to Corinth to visit Josh's Aunt and Uncle with his parents. It was really fun. I think I had only seen them once or twice before...I think once. Anyway, it was a good day! Here are some pics from the visit.

We made it into Austin 360 and a newspaper.

Here's a picture of us in the Austin 360. We also made it into a newspaper, but I don't have a pic of that right now on my computer.

Austin 360

Thursday, February 26, 2009

Valentine's Day...The Heart Ball

So, our Valentine's Day ended up good. We went to The Heart Ball, which is put on by the American Heart Association. So, here's how the day went:

I got up and went to the mall and did some errands. While I was there, I decided to look at JC Penny for a dress. Yes, I had already ordered one but I wasn't a big fan of it when I got it. Well, I found one at JC Penny and so I bought it, and it was about 3 times less than the original one, so I was happy. It wasn't modest...but of course I made it modest. After that, I decided, since I needed to get some make up anyway, that I would get my make up done at MAC because they do it for you if you buy so much in make up. So, that was fun. Then I went home and started getting ready. I did my hair and then when I was done, Josh got home. He got home later than he was hoping and so we were running a little late. Well, by the time we were ready, which was about 6:15, we were going to be late. Well, before we left, I made Josh take a few pictures so that we could document the night. He was in a bad mood though because he didn't want to be late. I had to explain to him that not everybody was going to be on time. He said, "yea, everyone's going to be early." All though I knew that wasn't true, he didn't. So he was in a bad mood and didn't want to take pictures (you'll see the "bad mood" in the pics). Anyway, so we left and got there at about 6:45. We walked in an it was cocktail hour and there was a silent auction going on...What? I mean, I knew that people would be drinking and stuff, but this just wasn't our scene. So, we got our glasses of water from the bar, and walked around and looked at the ridiculous amounts that things were going for. We obviously didn't bid on anything because we don't have a few hundred dollars here and there to just spend like that. It was kind of funny because after about a half an hour of getting there, Josh said that we should have come late. They had the dinner doors locked and they weren't going to let us in until 8:30. Who has cocktail hour for an hour and a half? Anyway, after we took our complimentary picture, we snuck into the dinner room. It was very weird walking in because there were probably about, not even kidding, 100 servers standing around the room, in perfect posture, staring at us. We found our table and sat down. It was set up really nicely though in there. It was so nice looking that I had to take a picture. Well, that didn't go over very well with Josh. Josh was trying to blend in with the "rich folks" so he wasn't very happy when I pulled out the camera to take a picture of the "one time only" nicely set up dinner table that was set up in front of us. Rich people apparently don't document these fun times. So, I told Josh that I would turn off the flash and he was still really mad at me that I was even trying. He kept saying, no, no, no. So, I really quickly took the picture. So, you will see the one picture of the table. Sorry, that was the best I could do. I didn't mean to disappoint. Anyway, they had wine glasses, iced tea, and water on the table. So, we drank the water, let the iced tea melt and get watered down, and told them they could take our wine glasses (that was after the fact that they came and specifically asked us if we were 21). We ate a delicious dinner! Then we sat through a live auction. That was fun to watch. People spending thousands and thousands of dollars on a trip to Mexico that you could get for 1200 dollars on the internet, all-inclusive. After that, they started the dancing part with a live band. Josh doesn't like to dance, so I went to the bathroom. And when I come back, he wasn't at the table. I thought that was weird, but then I looked at the dance floor and see him and a (I'm guessing) 60 year old lady in the center (they were the only ones on the dancing floor) TRYING to swing dance. I could see how embarassed he was. It was funny. I didn't take a picture though, because I'm sure that would have made Josh even more embarassed. Anyway, that was our night. It was fun.
Here are the pics from The Heart Ball.
The ugly pic of me...the only one that there is because Josh didn't want to take pics.
Me and Josh while driving.
The only picture taken during The Heart Ball.
Can you tell that Josh isn't very excited about taking this pic?
My eye make-up for the night.

Wednesday, February 11, 2009

Happy Birthday to Josh!

Today, Josh is 25! Happy Birthday to him! I love you, honey!

Tuesday, February 10, 2009

Answered prayers!

So, before our house was finished being built, we lived with my parents in their house. It was a big help because we were able to save money for the down payment and we were also able to pay off our credit card debt (which we had let get kind of out of control). So when we moved into our house, we told each other that we definitely weren't going to use our credit cards anymore and we were only going to use cash to buy everything...well that was hard, especially since when we moved to Texas, we had already sold everything that we had in California except for our bedroom furniture. So, needless to say, we got excited about decorating our house and used our credit cards once again.

Well, we finally cut up our credit cards so that we wouldn't have the urge to spend anything on them and are now in the habit of using only cash for our purchases but we still have the debt accumulated on the cards and each month it has been very frustrating because instead of being able to save that money, we have to send it to the credit card companies and half of it goes to interest.

We have been praying every night together to be able to focus on getting out of debt and establishing a good financial reserve as well as being able to focus on our food storage. We didn't really think that we were going to be able to do this anytime soon because we were still in a financial burden with these credit cards but we continued praying for a way to help us get out of debt.

Well, Josh came home from work the other day and said that somebody he worked with told him that if you bought a house last year, as a first-time home buyer, then you got $7500 back with your taxes. I hadn't heard anything like this, and either had Josh so we sort of got excited but we had to keep telling each other not to expect it because we don't want to be disappointed. I called my mom and asked her yesterday because she works for a CPA but she didn't know. So, I decided since I unexpectedly had the day off yesterday, that I would get my taxes taken care of. I went into where my mom worked and asked her if she had found out about the $7500. She said no, but you can go ask Don (the CPA) so I went back to his office and told him that I had heard a little rumor...so he said, yes, that is true but when did you buy your house? I told him June 5th was the signing date and then he gave me the look like, oh sorry but you're cutting it kind of close. If you would have said you bought your house had the end of the year, I would have told you yes for sure, but I know that there was a date that your house had to be purchased after. So, he sat there looking up the date while I had butterflies in my stomach because I really could use the money.

Well, the date was...April 8, 2008! I almost started crying I was so excited. So, the grand total of what we are getting is $9,793. Now, before you think we are totally rich, don't be fooled. It is all going to be gone about the same day as we get it to pay off some bills, but I am SO thankful for answered prayers.

We are no longer going to be tied down to credit card companies for years but will be able to get those paid off on February 20th. I feel like such a weight has been lifted off my shoulders. We have definitely learned our lesson about credit cards or anything else like that. We will definitely still keep the credit cards cut up and not request a new one so that we will not be tempted to use them and we will finally be able to get our food storage up and running! I am so excited! I have been waiting to do this for a long time!

I am so thankful for answered prayers and also for the very, very important lesson that both Josh and I have learned throughout our first three years of marriage!

The Heart Ball

Well, this your for Valentine's Day, we weren't planning on really doing anything. I'm sure we probably would have gone to dinner or something like that, but there weren't any official plans. Well, then something really cool happened! The family that I work for invited us to the Heart Ball given by the American Heart Association. It is $500 a plate, and we are going for free! I am so excited, I can't wait. We do have to spend a little money because it is a black tie affair, so I had to buy a dress and Josh had to rent a tux which can be expensive but we figured, when are we ever going to have an opportunity like this again? We are pretty excited. Here is the dress that I ordered...(I am hoping that it is modest when I get it. I know I will have to wear a white shirt underneath but I'm hoping that the sleeves will work, if not I will have to get a cover up thing or something, we'll figure it out...modest dresses are hard to find when you don't live in Utah.) This is the best picture I can get from it. I keep trying to right click to save the picture and the stupid thing would zoom in. Anyway, and it won't let me actually post the picture from the internet. But it's just floor length. I hope it works!

Wednesday, February 4, 2009

I love the Gospel!

Right now in school I am taking the Court Procedures class. We have basically been learning all of the rules and regulations of the court system in general, but focusing on the court reporter duties. Today, the first thing that our teacher Leigh had on her agenda was to talk about facebook, myspace, and blogging. I thought that was kind of odd. I thought, what does this have to do with court reporting? Well, once she started talking about it, I realized right away how it had to do with court reporting, and life in general.

My main instructor, and owner of the school, Joyce, has a daughter who is a court reporter. Apparently in depositions that she has been taking the last few months or so, she has noticed a common occurence in testimony, that people are being refused interviews or even jobs because of questionable pictures of even comments on these common website pages.

Well, of course this brought up a lot of discussion since the majority of us at the school have at least one, if not two or all three (yes, I am guilty, although I hardly ever check my myspace page) of these accounts. Now, I have seen a lot of these girl's facebook and myspace accounts and although I hadn't ever thought about it before, I am thinking that a lot of them will need to reconsider the pictures that are up.

They started talking about how they would need to change some of the things that can so easily be found on their pages so that when the time comes for looking for a job, this doesn't come back to haunt them.

I also remember watching the Dallas Cowboys Cheerleaders tryouts on CMT and remember one of the girls who got one of the highest scores not being considered for the team once they saw certain pictures of her on her myspace page.

I am so thankful that when this was brought up in school today, I was one of the few that didn't have to think about whether or not I had anything questionable on these pages. I already knew that I didn't have anything on there that would jeopardize me in any way of getting a job. It's crazy to think of all the things that the Gospel has done in my life, the ways that it has helped me. Every day there are so many things that I notice about my life that are direct results of being brought up in the Gospel. There are countless things that the Gospel has helped me through and I don't think that I can ever show the gratitude that I have towards my parents for bringing me up in the Gospel and for always being a good example. They have always gone to church, every week of my life that I can remember, unless sickness or work were in their way, of course. I am also very thankful for all of the many teachers I had in primary, and the leaders that I had in Young Women's, for all of the good examples that surround me each week, for all the Bishops that have interviewed me and helped me with certain challenges in my life.

I am also thankful for my husband. When I first met him, he was so passionate about the gospel and ready to learn. He was also willing to be patient with me because I was not at all as knowledgeable as him in regards to the Gospel (he would say in all things, haha) but I am grateful that he has helped me grow so much in the Gospel. He has helped me stay on the straight and narrow as I'm sure I've done the same for him.

Where I am today comes directly from the Gospel in my life. There are so many things that I don't have to worry about because it is in my life. I know that The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints is the one and only true church on the face of the Earth today. That its teachings can not only help us make it back to our Heavenly Father again one day but can help us achieve the goals that we want to achieve in this life.

I just wanted to share this with everyone today. I'm not usually very vocal about this (which I know I should be, at least more than I am right now) but with the discussion that happened today in class, I really gained a greater appreciation for the Gospel and what it does for me in my life!