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.

Last weekend for Mother’s Day, I decided that I wanted to finish decorating my living room.  The last couple of weeks, I have been putting up some pictures from our wedding and a BEAUTIFUL picture of Christ that Bryan bought me for my birthday.  The only thing left was a focal point above the couch. (the Cardon’s next door have this great picture above their couch that I’m totally jealous of, so I needed to find something that would look almost as cute) So, a few weeks earlier, we went to IKEA and found this really cool mirror, and after looking around at a couple of other places, it was the best deal and would look the best — so we went and bought it.  After we bought it, we brought it home and my handsome handsome husband and Jordan moved the couch out of the way and went all “handy men” on Kinsale and I and put it up on the wall. They found the stud, drilled a hole, and measured where the other hole needed to be (only one inch away from the other stud) and put the screws in (surprisingly, it’s really sturdy too).  I was really impressed and I think it really ended up looking great.  What do you think?

Another exciting thing:

The last couple of days at work, I have been creating a special VIP invitation to an event we are putting on for the President of our company and a couple of other important people.  I was talking about the invitation with some of the other designers and we came up with the idea to do a pop up card to invite them.  So with Andrea’s help we came up with some options. We had some big plans for out of control mountains popping up out of the card, but we took a little different route. So today, I finished it and I think it turned out really cool. We only need to make five.  We cut out all the parts today and will put the cards together tomorrow. I’m pretty impressed and was very pleased with the final results. (the pictures aren’t the best… sorry)

I found this video today and I don’t know why I thought it was so funny, but I died laughing. I found it on this great site: blog.makezine.com. This site has all kinds of fun gadgets. Enjoy!

I found this thought on happiness and loved it:

If you want to buy happiness, you are much better off buying experience rather than a thing. That’s because a thing like a car, new clothes, or a cool gadget will always wear down, break down over time, while an experience, like going to the Galapagose, or a great concert, will only improve over time. You’ll always have it (Paris, bunjee jumping, that meal) forever. In the long term an experience delivers more happiness per dollar. Oh, and warm puppies (and children) are experiences, not things.

(found on swissmiss)

I would just like everyone to know, that currently katiephelps.com is a page rank 4. I seriously have no idea what that means or what it can do for me, but all I know is that Bryan looked it up and all he could say is, “No way. How is that possible? What?” Then he went online to a resource from Google and it was true.  WA HOO!  ha ha ha.

I am a pretty positive person. I tried to look on the bright side of most things, but to be completely honest, there is one thing that I just really do not enjoy at all — “that time of the month.” (Men, if you don’t want to know any more about this topic, feel free to stop reading now) So of course it’s not the best days in the world and I hate it, complain and whine most of the time… (and if you are trying to get pregnant, its even worse) So one day, while I was having a particularly bad day at work because of “woman pain” my friend sent me this letter in an e-mail and it just made me giggle.

Even if you no longer need this product, the letter is a hoot!
This is an actual letter from an Austin woman sent to American company
Proctor and Gamble regarding their feminine products. She really gets rolling after the first paragraph. It’s PC Magazine’s 2007 editors’
choice for best webmail-award-winning letter.

Dear Mr. Thatcher,

I have been a loyal user of your ‘Always’ maxi pads for over 20 years and I appreciate many of their features. Why, without the LeakGuard Core or Dri-Weave absorbency, I’d probably never go horseback riding or salsa dancing, and I’d certainly steer clear of running up and down the beach in tight, white shorts. But my favorite feature has to be your revolutionary Flexi-Wings. Kudos on being the only company smart enough to realize how crucial it is that maxi pads be aerodynamic. I can’t tell you how safe and secure I feel each month knowing there’s a little F-16 in my pants.

Have you ever had a menstrual period, Mr. Thatcher? I’m guessing you haven’t. Well, my time of the month is starting right now. As I type, I can already feel hormonal forces violently surging through my body. Just a few minutes from now, my body will adjust and I’ll be transformed into what my husband likes to call ‘an inbred hillbilly with knife skills.’ Isn’t the human body amazing?

As Brand Manager in the Feminine-Hygiene Division, you’ve no doubt seen quite a bit of research on what exactly happens during your customer’s monthly visits from ‘Aunt Flo’. Therefore, you must know about the bloating, puffiness, and cramping we endure, and about our intense mood swings, crying jags, and out-of-control behavior. You surely realize it’s a tough time for most women.

The point is, sir, you of all people must realize that America is just crawling with homicidal maniacs in Capri pants… Which brings me to the reason for my letter. Last month, while in the throes of cramping so painful I wanted to reach inside my body and yank out my uterus, I opened an Always maxi-pad, and there, printed on the adhesive backing, were these
words: ‘Have a Happy Period.’

Are you [stinkin'] kidding me? What I mean is, does any part of your tiny middle-manager brain really think happiness - actual smiling, laughing happiness, is possible during a menstrual period? Did anything mentioned above sound the least bit pleasurable? Well, did it, James?

(I did edit it just a little bit…) Anyway. After I read this I had to just laugh. Is it really that bad? Always is trying really hard with their current tag line, and I think it’s probably important to remember, it’s really not that bad. Have a happy period!

Some stories:

Earlier at work, my friends and I were all sitting around talking.  I was showing a friend of mine something on the internet.  I was explaining to him that it was php or javascript based and you just needed to go in and edit the HTML code.  And he looked up at me and said, “I have no idea what you’re talking about. All I heard was WAH WAH WAH.” Then another of my friends turned around and said, “She has to be able to talk like that to communicate with her husband.”  Then we laughed. Oh web people are such dorks.

Another time, during lunch we were sitting in the lunch room eating and some people from the Support Team came in and started talking about the things they were working on. This didn’t work here, and this person was talking about their database and the location of their files.  My friends and I at work just looked at each other amazed.  Support people are such dorks.

Today at lunch, we sat around the table and talked for 20 minutes about this really nice font I found at Veer.com.  “It’s a San Serif font with really straight edges.  It’s kind of like ITC Kabel,” I explained to Ryan and Ian. “But I like it better than Kabel because the S has really small space between it’s lines.”  “You know,” Ryan said, “They should have a pronunciation guide for font names.” I said, “Why because I say Kabel differently than you.” He said, “Yeah, but also…” and then we talked about all the fonts that we weren’t sure how to pronounce.  This conversation went on for quite a few minutes. We finished lunch and went upstairs.

Later as I was sitting, thinking…I realized: we’re all dorks.  It doesn’t matter what we are dorks about. All groups of people have the things that they are dorks about.  It doesn’t matter what it is or who you are, there is something that you think is important and interesting that someone else things is so lame.

Isn’t it great?