Katie Phelps

While we were in California, we also went to Disney land.  It was so much fun.  I forgot how much fun it is. My family is so much fun to be with there too. We’re all kids at heart. I would highly recommend the new Toy Story Ride.  It was a great time.

The last week, my whole family piled in my mom and dad’s minivan to drive to California to go to my older brother’s wedding. It was just like when I was little all all 7 of us piled in the car to go on vacation, only this time we had Bryan with us instead of Rob (and we’re all considerably bigger, so it was a little more squishy). It was a great week though.

We left Utah on Wednesday morning and arrived at our hotel in Aniheim around 5 p.m. We then drove an hour to my brother’s house in Venice.  It was great to see Rob and Ali again. I giggle every time I see their house though.  They live on this really pretty street with such cute little pink, blue and tan houses… then his is there, completely black with red trim.

On Thursday, it was the big day.  Rob and Ali tied the knot.  It was all really exciting. Before the wedding we went down to Rob’s house.  Ali and the bride’s maids were having a getting ready brunch. While we were there, my mom and sisters and I helped the maid of honor (Ali’s sister) Cathy put together the bouquets for the bride’s maids and Ali. Rachel and I did the one for Ali and I think it turned out really well.  (I am missing my calling in life to be a floral designer.) Because I was also one of the bride’s maids, I was able to get my makeup done by a professional who was there to make us all look beautiful.  Bryan took some pictures after with his phone, but they were while we were in Costco, so they have horrible lighting.

As the time drew nearer, we set off to the wedding.  We left at 4 and needed to get from Venice to North Hollywood before 5.  Turns out, you can’t get from Venice to North Hollywood in a hour at that time of day. It was okay though, because the bride didn’t leave Venice until much later than  us.  So we didn’t miss anything.

The house where we had the wedding was beautiful. It belongs to my brother’s friend. They told us it used to be owned by Blanch from the Golden Girls. ha ha! Joseph and I were able to be a part of the wedding party. I was a bride’s maid and Joseph was the Best Man.  He was so pleased.  The house was kind of weird though, because when we walked down the “aisle,” we actually walked down some pretty steep stairs. I was afraid I was going to fall flat on my face. I did okay though.

The ceremony was beautiful. It was different than any other wedding I have been to, but it was really pretty. They had a lady preform the ceremony and before hand she found out all kinds of things about them and put them into the ceremony.  Like where and what they thought when they first met, and what they meant to each other.  It was nice. I loved to watch my brother as she read their vows. He was so happy.

After the wedding we took pictures and got some great family pictures. Then we cut the cake. It was so strange. It was a red velvet cake with a heart on the top… I mean, a real heart with veins and blood.  It was bizarre, but totally fit my brother.

Overall it was great! We had so much fun and it was so good to see Rob and Ali. I love Ali and am so glad that she’s a part of our family now.  I wish them both the most happiness in the world.

Here are some pictures:ENJOY!

I love Fast and Testimony meeting at chuch. I’m always glad to go and hear other people’s testimonies and be able to feel the Spirit from them. it is amazing to me that everyone can live and love the same Gospel but has such unique and personal experiences that strengthen and comfort them.

Today in my ward (the Vineyard 2nd Ward) we had a wonderful meeting. It began with three baby blessings, which were all absolutly wonderful. I love to listen to and feel the amazing and wonderful power of the Priesthood. Then the Administration of the Sacrament, and on to the sharing of testimonies. The testimonies shared today were simple and beautiful. They were powerful and brought the Spirit to our meeting in a wonderful way.

We closed the meeting singing the Star Spangled Banner. Toward the end of the third verse (well the third verse in the hymn book), my eyes began to tear as I was overcome with the Spirit of that song and the blessing we have to live in our country full of freedom and peace. And to remember the “Power” that brought forth this wonderful nation.

Praise the Power that hath made and preserved us a nation.
Then conquer we must, when our cause it is just,
And this be our motto: “In God is our trust.”

Also, Elder Ballard wrote a wonderful article in the Ensign this month about sharing the Gospel on the Internet. As I read through that today before I went to church, I realized what a great blessing we do have today to be able to share the gospel in so many different ways. Just as we can share our testimonies during testimony meeting on Fast Sunday, we can also share them in our online experiences. If you haven’t read it yet, and use the internet often you should read it.

Now, I want share my testimony of this wonderful Gospel. I know that the Savior, the Lord Jesus Christ lives. I know that he lived on Earth and that he died for me. I know that because of his sacrifice we can repent of our sins and we can be completely forgiven — completely forgiven. I also know that because of this amazing sacrifice, we can have eternal life and when we die, we like the Lord, can be resurected. I know that when I die, it is not the end. I know that I can be with my family again. I have been sealed for time and all eternity and when we die, our marriage will not end. I have a divine nature to be like my Heavenly Father. If I am obedient and keep the covenants that I have made that I can and will be a Queen in heaven. I know that the Lord loves me. I know that he answers my prayers and am so thankful for that blessing in my life.

I can’t fully explain the feelings that I have about the Gospel in my life. I know that without it I would not be the same person that I am today and I don’t know what I would do. I love this Gospel; I know it is true; I am so thankful to have it’s blessings in my life.

One of the things that Bryan liked to do before we were married was golf. Because he enjoys it so much, I have picked up a little bit on it. I can’t go through a real course (that would take forever because of how bad I am), but Bryan and I go to the driving range together and he’s taught me how to hit the ball so it actually goes somewhere. Horray! I think I’m getting pretty good. We’ve gone the last two Saturdays in a row. Maybe I’ll get my own PINK golf clubs soon. That would be neat.

I love the people I work with. They are great and I get along with all of them so well. We work hard and we get a lot done, but we have a lot of fun too. We play a lot of jokes on each other too.

A while ago, they played a pretty good prank on me. I stepped away from my desk for a little bit and when I come back, I didn’t realize anything had happened, when all of the sudden I heard my cell phone ringing. I looked in my drawers and around my desk and couldn’t find it anywhere. I ran to the other side of our office to see if my friends had taken it and couldn’t find it. It kept ringing and ringing and I couldn’t find it. At this point, my friends had started to watch me search for my phone, laughing. I knew it was Jim and Ian, I just couldn’t prove it and couldn’t get out of them where my phone was hidden. Then, I heard it again, ringing, ringing, ringing, ringing… Finally after franticly searching, my friend Andrea told me to look up. It kept ringing and I didn’t understand what she wanted me to do. She said, look up. Finally I discovered that they had put my phone in the ceiling. So after a little bit of complaining I convinced Ian to get it out of the ceiling for me. I thought it was all over… but it was just the beginning. During all my searching for my phone, I had failed to lock my computer and they changed my autocorrect things in Microsoft. When I typed my, it changed to “my favorite MarCom, Jim Easley.” When I typed Easy Dental, it changed to “Cheesy Dental.” When I type at it changed to “at the funny farm.” And so many more. I spent the longest time going through my autocorrect things trying to find all the words they had changed. It was the biggest pain, but so funny.

Numerous pranks have ensued since then, but Andrea and I pulled a pretty good one on Ian and Ryan. Here are some pictures:

We don’t just play pranks on each other though. There are other times where we just laugh, goof around and have fun. Today they had me put on a wig we have at work (it’s the hair for our department dummy — strange, I know).

Okay. My favorite Amy Barrus tagged me, so I thought since it was my favorite Amy Barrus, that I would do it…

List: 3 joys, 3 fears, 3 goals, 3 current obsessions/collections, 3 random surprising facts about yourself. Tag 3 people at the end of your post by leaving their names.

JOYS:

• Bryan
• My Family
• The Gospel

FEARS:

• Someone breaking into my house while we’re sleeping
• Sharks
• Not being able to have kids

GOALS:

• Read the Bible cover to cover
• Be a good mom
• Creating a Web site from scratch

CURRENT OBSESSIONS/COLLECTIONS:

• Movies
• Cups
• Shoes

3 RANDOM SURPRISING FACTS:

• I have thought about this one for a while now and can’t think of anything… I guess I’m not a surprising person.  Oh well.

Oh.  Kylee tagged me to.  So I guess since I am in the mood lately to only talk about myself, I do that one too.

A- Attached or Single? Attached
B- Best Friends? Bryan, Mel, My Mom, Rachie, Joseph, My Dad
C- Cake or Pie? Cake — Pie crust gets in the way
D- Day of Choice? Saturday
E- Essential Item? Shampoo
F- Favorite Color? Right now, red
G- Gummy Bears or Worms? Worms — because when you bite them, they grow back
H- Hometown? Orem/Highland
I- Favorite Indulgence? Anything chocolate
J- January or July? Are you kidding me? July
K- Kids? Not yet…
L- Life isn’t complete without? The Gospel
M- Marriage Date? May 19, 2006
N- Night or Morning Person?  Night person
O- Oranges or Apples? Applesauce or orange juice
P-Phobias? sharks
Q-Quote? “Wahoo!”
R- Reasons to smile? There is basically nothing that shouldn’t make you smile
S- Season of choice- Summer
T- Tag 3 people. Melanie and Lindsay (that’s all)
U- Unknown fact about me? My middle toe is longer than my big toe
V- Vegetable or Fruit? Fruit
W- Worst Habit? Hitting Bryan (and Ian)
X- X-ray or Ultrasound? To bizarre, no answer
Y- Your favorite food? Depends on my mood, right now, Ice cream
Z- Zodiac Sign? Libra

Enough about me…  the end

Finally — I’ve found some time to actually write a little bit about our trip to Nashville. Here’s the path we took: We first went from Utah to Nashville (about 23 hours), then we spent a couple of days in Nashville. After Nashville, we traveled to Alto, New Mexico (another 20 something hours). On our way to New Mexico though, we did take a little detour Mississippi to go to Paula Deen’s Kitchen. It was an hour out of the way, but it was good food (too bad it made Lindsay sick though. That was sad). Then after we spent a few days in Alto, we came home (about 10 hours). So lots of time in the car.

When Bryan was little, his family used to go on trips all over the country. When they passed from one state to the next, they would stop and take a picture by the state sign. So Bryan has a picture of himself by 48 of the United States. So as we traveled between here and Nashville, we stopped to get a picture for me by all of the states we passed by (we did miss just a few due to everyone in the car being asleep but me, or the sign being on a bridge or me completely drugged up on Benedryl because I was allergic to our hotel in Alto). Here’s all the states we went through:

So the states that I missed were Iowa, Kentucky, Colorado and Utah. Pretty good: 13 states in one trip. I think that more than doubles the number of states I had visited. The trip was so much fun though. The whole point of our trip was to go to a Fan Club Party for Kathy Mattea. My mother-in-law is her Fan Club President, so in Nashville, we prepared for the party, had the party, went to the country music hall of fame to see Kathy play and then to Alto to again watch Kathy play. It was good. If you have never heard any of Kathy Mattea’s music, I would recommend it (if you like country). Some of her most famous songs are: “18 Wheels and a Dozen Roses” and “Where’ve You Been?” Look them up on iTunes — pretty good. Anyway.

Also during the trip, I was a walking disaster. I hurt myself multiple times. At the Country Music Hall of Fame, I was pulling a chair across the patio and it got caught on a stone and jumped out of my hand. The top then flew downward (with the help of gravity) scraping my ankle on the way to the ground. I instantly screamed (it hurt) and pulled my leg up to me. Everyone on the patio saw me, except for the one person I needed to see me and to help me — Bryan. So I called out for him a couple of times and finally got his attention. He helped me put the chair back together and hobble back inside. I was bleeding and wasn’t sure how bad it was so I took a trip to the bath room to clean off my cut. After cleaning it off, it seemed okay, but it was already bruising and I could see that it wasn’t going to be good. I started to walk back to Bryan and realized I had bruised the bottom of my foot (who knows how I did that) and it hurt so bad to walk. So I sat down to keep off it and after a little while I looked down and it had swollen to be bigger than my ankle bone. It was crazy! My mother-in-law, Sue, came to the conclusion that she couldn’t take me anywhere. And it’s true. I am just a disaster waiting to happen.

Anyway. More to come later. I’ve got boring laundry to finish.

Well, for those of you who don’t know, (and that’s probably a lot because, I discovered that I didn’t tell very many people except the people at work) Bryan and his mom and I are all going to Tennessee this week.  We left this morning at 6:30 to drive across the county to spend a couple of days in Nashville. It’s going to be so much fun.  Right now, we are stopped for the night in North Platte, Wyoming. I’ll post pictures along the way, but if you are really interested in what I’m doing go to www.twitter.com/katibob for updates of what fun exciting things we’re doing (I can update Twitter from my phone when I have service so it gives me something fun to do during the hours in the car).

It has been a while since I went to this concert, but I haven’t yet had the chance to blog about it. (Sorry the pictures are huge. I’ll try to make them smaller and repost them)

On May 2, my family and I traveled to The Great SaltAir to see visit my older brother (we hadn’t seen him since Oct.) and to see him with his band, The Used, in concert. It was so much fun. We got up to the show early to make sure that we would be able to see the opening acts (Straylight Run). While we were on our way up to Salt Lake though, we listened a little bit to Rob on the radio. Once they got into town his band went to X96 to advertise for the concert later that night. Once at the show, Rob was taking a nap, so we watched the other bands while we waited for him to wake up. Once he woke up, we went behind SaltAir to his bus to see him. It was so great to see him. It had been so long since we had see him. I think he was pretty excited to see us too.

We left him a little while later to give him time to warm up and get ready for his show. Then instead of going back inside and watching from the back of the auditorium, we went in behind the stage and picked a spot to wait for the show to start on the side of the stage. I prefer to be over on the side of the stage because then we aren’t in the middle of the crazy mosh pit. It can get pretty insane in there. Joseph my little brother decided that at this concert he wanted to watch from the mosh pit, so he positioned himself right up front in the center of the crowd. It was pretty crazy. When Rob came out on stage he instantly saw my brother and said into the microphone that he was excited to start the show and to see his brother in the front row.

During the show Rob yelled for everyone who was a fan of The Used to scream. We stood and yelled, to support our brother. While we were yelling, the guitarist, Quinn, saw my dad cheering and stopped Rob. He said, “Bert, I found the biggest Used fan,” and Rob stopped and said, “Who?” Quinn pointed to my dad and Rob stopped and said, “Hey, it’s my dad! Everyone say ‘Hey Ed.’” Then the whole crowd yelled, “Hey Ed!” Rob then stopped for a minute and said, “Let’s have a little moment, let’s bring my mom and dad up on stage.” And so he did. The bouncers helped my mom and dad climb up on the stage. It was actually really cool to see. While on stage he hugged and kissed both of them. My parents and my brother have been through a lot and I think it is so wonderful that he loves them so much and is so close to them and I know how proud of him they are. It’s pretty awesome to see some time. Watch the Video below of my mom and dad’s moments on stage.

Also during the concert, Rob brought a bunch of people up on stage to be his “backup dancers” during one of the songs and he called up my little sister, Rachel. It was so funny. Needless to say, she didn’t really fit in with most of the other people up on that stage. It was pretty entertaining to watch her dance up there. Apparently, she can’t dance very well (neither can the rest of us though). I’ll post the video of her dancing later. She’s great.

Anyway. It was an awesome concert. I love my brother so much and I’m so glad that I was able to see him. Here’s some more pictures. Enjoy!

Two years ago today, Bryan (my handsome handsome husband) and I got married! It was such a great day. I feel so blessed to be married to someone so wonderful. I love him so much. It has been a great two years and I know there will be many many more time to come.