Oh Ray ...

If there is one man Jason wanted to see perform live, it would be Ray Lamontagne. You can't really blame him, because anyone that has actually heard a Ray CD should really want to see/hear him live. He is amazing.
Jay has been on his website everyday for about a year looking for a place that he was performing that we could fly to. Last year he was on a European tour, and I honestly thought we would be planning our Europe trip around a concert, but we only had to go as far as Salt Air. The show was awesome, Leona Naess opened the show, and then came Ray. We were serenaded with a mix of his old, great stuff and his new, less familiar CD, and I would have been happy to hear him play every one of his songs.
Thanks Ray, it was awesome!

The End of America

Check this out, it is enraging! Go Bush!

www.endofamericamovie.com

Thanks a lot Moe!

Thanks to Melissa, I have been tagged to list 8 various things, so here goes:

8 Favoriate TV Shows:
-Gossip Girl
-Lipstick Jungle
-One Tree Hill
-House
-Biggest Loser
-Americas Next Top Model
-Prison Break
-Bones

8 Things I did yesterday:
-Got a facial
-Gave a massage
-Saw "The End of America"
-Ate at Einsteins
-Celebrated Caseys birthday at moms
-Watched everyone carve pumpkins and then Morgan voted on the best (J won!)
-Got a Big Gulp
-Attempted to tour downtown condos

8 Things I look forward to
-Finding out the sex of Shelley's baby (tomorrow!)
-Shelley having her baby
-Trip to Vegas to see Alanis
-The Ray LaMontagne concert tomorrow
-Getting skinny
-Halloween
-St. Pattys day in Ireland
-Amsterdam

8 Favoriate Restaraunts
-Spag Fag
-The Paris Bistro
-Cuccina Toscana
-Au Naturale
-Any pizza place
-Pei Wei
-Davids
-Training Table

8 Things on my wish list
-Money!
-Early Retirement
-Size 6 jeans
-That March was closer
-Happiness
-Health for my loved ones
-That Jersey wouldn't die
-That my bathroom would clean itself!

8 People to tag
-Shanna
-Casey

That is it, they are the only people that I think might do it!

Is everything OK?

So why is it that about once a month my mom thinks that there must be something wrong with either myself or Jason, or our marriage? You may think I am exaggerating, but no. I often get a strange call at night because my mom couldn't sleep the night before and she lay awake all night thinking that either Jason or I am packing our bags to leave. Shanna and I are the free spirits of the family that don't attend church on a regular basis, or at all for that matter (Though I think Shanna is a card carrying member to "The Church of the Big Ring")so obviously, our relationships can't be based on anything real, and therefore are subject to fall apart at any moment. I could be wrong, but I honestly don't believe Shelley or Shane have received such calls, but I will bet that Shanna gets the calls of concern too!

Sure enough, while braving the I-80 construction traffic on my way home from work, I get the call. "Is everything ok? Is Jason ok?" There was some worry because Jason chose to not attend the family Sunday dinner with me. Let me clue you in, he was tired and wanted to play video games, and I for one, am quite impressed that he has been in attendance every Sunday for 10 years now. My own brother can't even make that kind of commitment and it is his family, so lay off! This time, it wasn't just mom, it was Jim too. This one had me wondering, because Jim is the confidant that gets to hear all of the stories about what a horrible wife I am, and J had spent Saturday with him. Perhaps something is wrong and Jason is slowly packing his bags without my knowledge. I will have to check his closet for the mounds of shoes to decrease!

Everybody's working for the weekend ...

So I am not sure when it happened, but apparently I am not 21 anymore. Instead, I am old and am unable to recover from a fun weekend.
Friday night I headed out to Wendover with Hilary, her twin sisters and another friend. Once there we met up with more friends and I gambled/drank away $80 or so. So using that as a measure, I don't need to tell you that we had a really good time, but the night slipped away from us pretty quickly. At about 3:30 I was done drinking and thew up only to emerge from the bathroom with a hungry belly; eggs and toast are the only cure. We finally got to bed around 4:30 and I was in for the night. Hilary, on the other hand, went out to get some water around 7 and decided that more gambling was in order. I don't know how she does it!
On Saturday, I finally stepped into my house around 2:30pm to lay down for about an hour. Good thing I got up an showered when I did, because Amy and Rob came over at 4 for some pre-dinner drinks. We walked up to Fiddlers Elbow for dinner (seafood enchiladas are good!) and back to the house to finish off the Vodka. Luckily, I volunteered to be the DD because I don't know that my body could have taken in any more alcohol. The evening found us at the Avalon for the Timbaland/Chris Cornell concert. Timbaland apparently has a rap CD out, but he only sang one song from it, the rest of the time he did other artists songs that he is featured on. Lets just point out that the contribution he made to the One Republic song Apologize is the "EH" through out the song. Sorry, but you can't quite get away with playing the track just to add in your part Tim. He was pretty good regardless. Chris Cornell didn't do anything old, until his encore, but his new CD should be pretty good. He has a great voice, and isn't bad to look at, but you couldn't really hear his voice because the Avalon SUCKS! Once we left there, it was off to Freaky Dee's for some more eggs and toast.
Sunday, though I slept until 11:30 we still left the house. I would have rather stayed in bed and/or on the couch the whole day, but I didn't get my way! We met Rob and Amy and saw W. at the Century. The movie was OK, a little boring, and uncomfortable in the fact that Oliver Stone portrayed George W. as a human being who has daddy issues. I prefer to think of the current president as the idiot that he has shown the nation that he is, and not think that he has a life outside of his job. The movie left off at the end of his first term, and if you weren't already surprised that he was reelected for a second term, seeing it on the big screen will shock you! After that it was off to moms for dinner.
So again I ask, when did I get so old? This had the makings of a good weekend, instead I have to resort to napping on my breaks!

hmmm...

So I know that I am a complete nut when it comes to animals and especially my dog, but I swear that if she could talk, she would have told me off last night.
I thought she would be so happy with her life last night as Jason and I took her to Chipotle for dinner and even shared some with her. After that she got a nice long walk through the neighborhood, she should have been pretty content. Nope. She sat and stared at me for like 5 min until I finally made eye contact and asked her what she was staring at. She barked at me.
The problem is, the night before I was having some peanut butter and when I was done I put some on a Milkbone for her, and she was thrilled. I think that made her week (oh how I envy her life). So last night when I gave her a pork hide to chew on, which she normally loves, she was pissed. She knew taht I knew that it wasn't what she wanted, so she laid at the threshold of the kitchen and whined while staring at her treat jar. When I wouldn't give in, she went to bed early, by herself.

Oh hell, I am so one of those people that can only talk about their kids. Sorry!

McCain free WhiteHouse = funny stuff

So I came across this website today, and it is pretty clever! It is set up like a PSA for teens that aren't old enough to vote and gives them advice on how to have a conversation with their parents about who they are voting for. http://www.mccainfreewhitehouse.org
Watch the video too, I was lured in by Penn Badgley and Blake Lively! Worth watching just for them!

Clean up, clean up, everybody clean up!

I HATE cleaning my closet. I realize that it needs to be done on occasion as it begins to look like a bomb has hit, but I hate it! I am actually quite surprised that I wear matching shoes everyday, because I can never find the mate to the shoe I want to wear. However, because the gods of banking were on my side, I had the day off (Thanks Christopher for finding our land) and I decided to make good use of my time and clean my closet! Yikes!

I started with my sweater shelves and was excited to find sweaters that I had forgotten I had, love it! They were all balled up and wrinkly so I folded them nicely and even shaved the piling off of some of them (I know, right!?!) It looks great, and I realized that I have enough cream colored sweaters, winter white, to clothe a small nation. Time to interject some color, Stace. Then the big stuff, the closet. What a task, I had to put my summer weight pants and skirts in the back of the closet and pull out the wool and tweed pants and skirts. The shoes were the final and worst project. This task involves many trips up and down the narrow stairs to change out my shoe wardrobe from spring/summer to fall/winter. I hate to say that I have too many pairs of shoes, but I might have too many pairs of shoes!

To sum up, my closet looks AWESOME! So great that I want to leave the closet doors open so I can admire how great it looks while hoping for nice comments from Jason. We must not see eye to eye on this, because he closes the doors and reminds me that his closet always looks that nice!

Peanut M&M's = The Perfect Food

Today is the birthday of one of the kindest men in the world, my father. Now there are many things to love dad; he is kind, generous, funny, passionate and will open his heart and home to others, but I want to tell some funny stories about why I love dad oh so much!

1.) Dad has a theory that he whole hearted supports that Peanut M&M's are the perfect food. I am not lying, ask anyone, this true as far as he believes it to be. When you are hungry and need a quick snack, grab this "melt in your mouth, not in your hand" candy and you will be satiated. Hmmm, it is weird that I just figured out that this may be the reason dad has the beaties?!

2.) As much as dad loves spending time with his family (and you can't blame him, we are AWESOME!), if he doesn't want to do something, bet your ass he won't do it! There have been instances that he has been invited places and he will outright tell you "no". No pleasantries or excuse making, just "no". It works! Also, if he is ready to go and mom is still in conversation, he will actually open the door and say goodbye leaving mom perplexed because she didn't know they were leaving! Classic!

3.) I will tell this story because it is probably one of moms favorites ... one day he set off their house alarm while they were inside the house. When the security company came over the speaker to ask for the password they confused him by first asking for his name. He hesitated and then ran into where my mom was and said "Whats my name?". Mom may never let him live this down!

4.) Jason realized dads true hilarity one night over a game of cards. The four of us get together occasionally to play Canasta which opens up a lot of time to talk. For some reason an old friend of mine came up, Minh. He said her name like five times, then asked me how it was spelled because somehow to him, that made a difference on how he was going to pronounce it. He spent the next hour putting us all in tears by pronouncing her name Min and Minh picking up the subtleties that only he could here. I don't think I have seen Jason laugh so hard in a long time!

5.) As a scout leader, Dad got the 8 year olds their bowling merit badges by using the Wii! Who knew that would count?

6.) Another awesome thing, dad has a Wii! And a playstation and a Nintendo DS (he got the blue one) and he and my mom play these ALL of the time!

7.) Though I don't' have kids, he is an awesome grandfather. Every summer he sets up a pool in his backyard for the kids. And every Sunday he suits up and jumps in with them. He is the only adult that will brave the pool, and truthfully I think it hurts him a little that the rest of us won't dive in. Usually a good water fight starts and the whole family ends up wet anyway.

8.) Trains. If you know my dad and have been in his basement or backyard, you know what I am talking about.

9.) He really can fix anything! I am pretty sure Jason is sick of hearing me say "my dad can do that" when he is trying to do a home improvement by himself, but dad really can. And he has had to come over a few times to rewire our dishwasher and fix our plumbing on our kitchen sink.

10.) Not only can he fix anything, he is willing to help out no matter what the case. He laid pergo for Shanna, wired Shelley's basement, helps with laying sod, lends you his car when he believes you would otherwise have to walk.

Dad, you are awesome! Have a great birthday!

Pictures

Ok, so the pics are up from Bryce Canyon/Cedar Breaks trip. Also, the pictures from SYTYCD are up, and I promise they work this time! web.mac.com/mathesons or click on #1 in my blog list. Enjoy!

Why Monday mornings suck!

I had such a great weekend, I totally remember why I hate Mondays ... the fun is over!

The weekend started out on Thursday night when Amy and Rob came over with their giant bottle of Vodka and a drink recipe to watch the VP debate. It was so much fun. The signature drink of the night was "The Big Mistake" that they picked up in Mexico and so we used it to represent the Republican choice. We recorded the debate so that we could pause it many times to discuss the fact that Palin avoided actually answering nearly all of her questions and even referred to Biden as OBiden at one point. Priceless. I personally think she would have been better off letting Tina Fey debate on her behalf.

Friday morning we woke up and booked our trip to Amsterdam which we are now going by way of Ireland. Jason found an awesome deal to Ireland for 6 days and the flight to Amsterdam is much cheaper out of Dublin. So hell, why not visit Ireland for St. Patricks day!?! (Actually, I think we will be in Amsterdam by then, too bad)

After a yummy breakfast at The Original Pancake House, we left Amy in SLC and headed to her cousins condo in Brian Head. We got there about 5pm and decided to make the most of the daylight in Cedar Breaks. What started out as sight seeing turned into a one mile hike which turned into a four mile hike and us racing to get back to the visitors center before it was pitch black. Luckily we did get in a good hike, because when we woke up on Saturday morning, it was snowing and there was already about 1/2 inch of snow on the ground. Not wanting to drive back up the snowy canyon after a day at Bryce we packed up the car and headed into Bryce Canyon. It was so cold and rainy. Luckily it is at a lower elevation than Brian Head so there was no snow, but there was plenty of rain and fog to keep us cold and wet. When we stopped at Rubys diner to eat, I filled up my bladder though Jason was sure I was crazy. I figured that we didn't plan on hiking the night before, and I would have loved to have more than the water bottle that Rob brought and whatever was in his flask. It was pretty rainy at that time, so hiking seemed very out of the question!

Driving up Bryce we could barely see anything, and at some of the stops all you could see was fog. The weather did improve so we bundled up (I had on 3 jackets) and went on the Sunrise to Sunset hike. Very fun and very worth being cold and damp. It was beautiful, unfortunately before we started the hike I managed to drop my camera into a giant puddle, so I had to rely on Jason to get in the pictures. I am going to try my memory card tonight, hopefully all of my fun pics aren't gone for good.

We came home late Saturday night and got to sleep in our own bed, oh how wonderful!

Sunday was another fun day because Wendy is in town from Florida, so we had a girls lunch and hung out at Spag Fag and talked forever, then we realized that we should give up our table, we stood in the parking lot for another forever. We took some crazy pics of us and when it got too cold to stand there any longer, we said our good byes.

So yeah, with such fun filled weekends, Mondays pretty much suck!