Soldan Family Blog

Well this may not be a surprise to many of you but Jon got a new vehicle (2/8/10). SURPRISE! If you are shocked you must not know my husband. In the 5 years that we have been together (including the year we dated) he has had 5 different vehicles. 5 cars in 5 years! He is crazy and I love him! What is a girl to do I ask? Well he sold his Infinity G35 and bought a Toyota Tundra. It is really nice but extremely large. It fits in our garage by an inch at the top and an inch in front and back, it was so scary helping him pull the truck into the garage the first time. I had to have him go so slow and pull in an inch at a time. I had to stand on the garbage can to make sure he wasn’t going to create a sun roof on his truck. He says he will keep this one forever! Should we make bets as to how long we have it? Well speaking of cars, we were able to pay mine off! What a great feeling!

Friday February 12th we had our annual anti-Valentines Fondue party with my cousins Mat, Michelle, Cameron and Carly. It has to be anti-Valentines for Cameron. I think of it as just a Valentines Day Fondue party but anyway we ate way too much as usual. We really have a yummy party and I love hosting it every time.

Mat and Shel have decided to adopt and have been chosen as birth parents and are expecting a baby at the beginning of July. I couldn’t be more excited for them. They will make great parents. Congrats guys!

Saturday the 13th we were invited to a Valentines Dinner at our friends, the Loves house! We always have a fun time hanging out with them. Christin went all out and even put vinyl lettering with our names on everyone’s drinking glasses! She is very good at decorating and her house looked like pink perfection.

Valentines Day I actually had to stay home sick from church with a headache and terrible nose bleeds. So romantic!

Happy birthday to my amazing sister Stephanie. She lives in Georgia and I miss her terribly. She is a busy mom of four and always busy cooking and creating cards and crafts and makes the rest of us look bad. I have been having lots of dreams about her since she moved away, most times its about her coming back to Utah to visit for the summer and she has another kid that she forgot to tell anyone about. All of my sisters always have funny dreams about one another, makes it really fun to talk to one another to see what we did in our dreams. Happy belated Birthday Steph!

Also Happy Birthday to my sister-in-law Jenny. We celebrated her birthday on the 17th with pizza at the Soldan’s.

Jon left for his first business trip with this company on the 22nd through the 24th. I always have a hard time when he leaves. I am brave until he calls me that night and then I am a baby and don’t want to go to bed. So those nights he was gone I didn’t get much sleep. I hate going to bed alone, is there anything worse when you are so used to having someone be there?

I ask Jon to not buy my flowers for Valentines Day! I think they are way too much and I would rather him get them for me when I really need them. He got gorgeous red roses for me when he got back in town and took me out for date night. We went and saw “When in Rome”, it was a fun and cute movie.

Saturday the 27th we cleaned the church in the morning and then went dinner at Red Robin to celebrate our good friends birthday, Happy Birthday Bryan Holt! Jon and I had to leave the party early to go to Gateway to watch his little brother Mike propose to his girlfriend Lauren! We waited forever in the cold above Happy Sumo where they had dinner. We had a complete stranger walk past them as they came out of the restaurant and hand her flowers, he then got down in the main square and proposed. When she hugged him we all cheered, there were probably over thirty people there to watch it, including both sides of the family and lots of friends! It was a lot of fun to watch but I was frozen by the time it was over. I think we were waiting in the cold over an hour.

Sunday the 28th we had the missionaries and the ward mission leaders (Ryan and Diana) over for dinner. I love to cook and so it was a lot of fun. After dinner we decided that it would be fun to go on a vacation together! So ever since then we have been planning a trip together that we are taking in two days (today is 5/6/2010). After a lot of research we decided on a cruise to the Caribbean! Just a quick note about that: We are going on a seven day cruise to the western Caribbean and couldn’t be more excited. Diana and I have been getting pampered together and shopping for swim wear and deciding what to pack.

Jon and I really are out of shape and decided that if we were going on a trip with the work out King and Queen we needed to start working out. Well we started off right…. we went running one night at 11:00 March 1st. I completely froze and haven’t been able to run since then.

Time flies when you’re having ‘fun’

Time has gone by so fast and I am very behind on my blogging and I apologize. This is my last semester of school and I couldn’t be more excited. It has been a busy year so far with work, school and our new callings in church.

Jon and I received two church callings, we both got called to the activities committee and we are also in charge of cleaning, security and snow removal. Most Saturdays Jon and I end up being the only ones that are there to clean the church so that takes up three hours every Saturday. And to tell the truth I can’t say I am happy about the calling, its the same one we had in the old ward, only we had four other people to share in the calling. This ward its only us and its a lot to do.

Jon has been really busy with work and school. Poor guy has school a few nights a week and gets home about 10:30-11:00 pm only to have dinner then go to bed. So you could say we have a boring life.

And now to jump around… It seems I left off last blog at the end of October so on to November. We went to a recommended restaurant, Vinto which I really enjoyed and bowling with my cousin Cameron and Carly. Jon and I went to Macbeth that a co-worker was in at Westminster, he was really good and we enjoyed doing something new for date night.

November 21 I went to my friend Lauren’s baby shower. She moved back east and its not very often that I get to see her. Her little boy is so cute and it was really fun to hang out with her for a few hours.

We celebrated my moms 59th birthday! Oh man is she getting old. Thanksgiving dinner was at Jon’s parents this year and we actually had a turkey dinner. Usually we have an Italian style dinner or they like to go out to eat.

At the beginning of December we celebrated our friend Ryan’s birthday with a party at their house. And then the 11th was the ward Christmas party. Also that morning my dad had surgery on his back. There were some complications from his surgery years ago that were causing him pain. When we went to visit him he was pretty bad off, and he still doesn’t remember us coming to see him even though I brought him treats.

The 12th our friends took us to Desert Star theater where we got to watch a fun Christmas play. The 13th was our Family gingerbread Christmas party at Jenny’s. The 19th we went to the temple with our friends Ryan and Diana, we then drove all around the Salt Lake Valley looking at Christmas lights. December 24th is my mom-in-laws birthday and to celebrate we went to lunch at Chilies. That night we had dinner and our traditional Christmas eve program at my parents which is always fun, crazy and spiritual all at the same time. We listen to a story “The Small One” that is the story about the donkey Mary rode to Bethlehem. The grand kids and the amount of people in a small room make it crazy. Later that night we exchanged presents with our good friends Ryan and Diana. We each got each other a work out video and they got Jon Doritos and Ranch, his two favorite things! I got Diana some hot pads because she is always trying to get things out of the oven with her bare hands!

Friday December 25- Christmas.
This has to be Jon’s very favorite day ever. He loves Christmas so much that even a few weeks ago he listened to a Christmas song, and he asks me almost everyday if it is Christmas, or how many days until Christmas! Who needs kids when you have a husband? Christmas is always the best with Jon. We have a tradition of bringing a mattress down to the front room and sleeping under the Christmas trees to try to catch Santa. At our old house we would bring our mattress from our bed but now we have too many stairs so we invested in a blow up mattress! Not as comfortable and I felt old this year when I woke up Christmas morning to my alarm going off upstairs. But its still a fun tradition for the two of us.

Jon always spoils me at Christmas and this year was no different. I needed some new cooking pots and pans so he bought me a huge beautiful red set. And to go along with that were some other kitchen supplies. I got an amazing pair of black heels and some much needed clothes. He always spoils me! This year he really only wanted books so we bought a ton of books for work and school and I also got him a lot of movies. What would Christmas be without movies? Now that I am writing this 5 months later I forget exactly what we got one another but I will include pictures to go along with this that show everything. This year was a lot of fun because I got to buy more decorations and I went all crazy decorating as much as I could.

New Years Eve was spent with some really good friends. We had a fun dinner that Loren H made us and I even had an oyster! It was a good time, playing games and having a white elephant exchange.

January 7, 2010 was the first day of my last semester ever! I took this class for “fun”. Come to find out I could have graduated in fall but my counselor forgot to tell me and then informed me I had to turn in a portfolio before I could be done. I just decided to take this Digital Painting class and am glad I did because I learned some really cool painting techniques in Photoshop. I did 4 really coll projects, some of them better then others. I wish I had had time to spend on my homework; I think I would have been able to create some amazing things. O well. We know I am a procrastinator so I guess I would have filled my time differently if work weren’t keeping me busy. I didn’t always agree with my teacher so class was difficult some mornings. Plus I had to get up at 5:30 every two days to make it to class by 8:00Am!

January 15&16 German Festival
That time of year came that seems to come way to fast every year, the German Festival in Ogden (Hof Winterfest). I took Friday off of work and got a ride with Cameron, Carly and my mom. The German festival is always fun and this year was the same. I was cooking in the kitchen the entire time and Carly got to help me this year. A few people weren’t there that I was sad about, my friend Ashlee and my cousin Kami. It was not the same without them. Jon came up that evening in time to clean up and go to the hotel. Poor Cameron got extremely sick and had to drive home so Saturday was a little lonely without him. My niece Lily came to visit me and help in the kitchen (eat all the candy) which was fun because I never get to see her. I am always glad when the festival is over and I always promise I wont do it again the next year. I have said that for years now.

Thursday January 21 I left with my mom and some of my sisters for San Francisco to celebrate my little sisters 24th birthday! It was a lot of fun but I really missed Jon the entire time I was gone. We got to San Francisco late Thursday night and came home late Sunday night, a long time to be away from the most amazing man in the world. All of us had a great time. We walked around a lot near Fisherman’s Warf and did some shopping, site seeing and best of all… went and saw WICKED! Loved it. Can’t wait to see it again one day. We saw Wicked Friday night after a very long, wet, cold, rainy day. We got dressed up and took our pictures outside of the theater. I guess everyday was wet cold and rainy. We picked a very bad weekend to go, the weather was not pleasant, o-well, we still had fun. Thanks for inviting me to spend time with you on your birthday Kaka.

Jon missed me so much when I got back so he took me on an early date night, we went to Cheesecake Factory Tuesday night. I love getting off the plane and finding Jon waiting for me. Love you babe! Thanks for letting me go on the girls trip.

We had other birthdays that month that we celebrated when we got home, Steve and Makenna!

We saw the movie Avatar in January and enjoyed it! We saw it in 3-D but I like it better the regular screen. Wearing the 3-D glasses on top of my glasses doesn’t work so well. Jon just laughed and laughed because the 3-D glasses kept sliding down my nose. The entire movie I had to push them back up. Pain in the butt!

Well that might be it for the month of January. I am slowly catching up on my life from the past 6 months or so. More to come soon.

Happy New Year - Last Years Update

Happy New Year! I can’t believe it is 2010 already. Where has time gone? I can still remember being at my friend Taylor’s house the night we hit 2000 and everyone was afraid the world was going to end that night. And here we are ten years later, still alive. I have been terrible at blogging this year and hope to be better this coming year. There were many things I forgot to mention and I would like to go back and make a quick note of them so that this “journal” can be a semi-complete memory blog for me.

Jon and I were able to go to the Oquirrh Mountain Temple open house and dedication. Both were amazing and beautiful. One small note, mothers DO NOT let your children play in the baptismal font during the walk through while you talk to your friend next to you. Or let your children run their hands on every wall and table with their dirty little hands. When we did the walk through I couldn’t believe the noise in the temple, it was so loud and people didn’t care to lower their voices. People were having everyday conversations in the house of the Lord. Hello people.

Speaking of temples… this year so many church lessons were on the temples and how we really need to get the work done and go more often. I taught lessons on temples two or three times for relief society this year. Don’t worry Heavenly Father I got the message! In July I once again taught on temples and my sweet cousin Carly came to listen to me. She was wonderful and participated in the lesson. Sometimes I have a hard time teaching because no one really responds and she came and answered questions and gave her opinions, she was a life saver and she is welcome anytime to my lessons. Her and my friend Alison are really the only ones to help me. Thanks!

While we are talking about Carly, her and Cameron are expecting their first baby and I couldn’t be happier. I had guessed that she was expecting at a bridal shower; she said something and then I had everyone text Cameron congrats on becoming a new daddy and she kinda freaked out and I thought that it might just be true! I am so excited that there will be a little boy addition to their family in April.

One fun thing I did while Jon was in school this summer was hang out with my friend Kattrina. I would go over there about once a week and we would watch movies together once her kids went to bed. It was nice to have some girl time and not have to be alone all night, every night. I got her addicted to some Vampire movies and its fun to discuss them together.

Jon is starting on his 13th semester at the U and his 10th straight semester, no break! Poor guy. He should be done with his masters at the end of summer and already there is talk that he will go back and get a second masters or PHD. Jon is such a go getter! Always wants to succeed and push himself. I love my husband! I know he wishes I could be more like him, I do too!

Now for my usual three month update:

October- I stared the month off getting my biometrics testing done at work and I will post my results because I don’t think anyone reads my blog… if they do I am sure they gave up a long time before now.
Body Mass Index: 17.36
Systolic Blood Pressure: 99
Diastolic Blood Pressure: 65
Total Cholesterol: 187
Percent Body Fat: 29
High Density Lipoprotein: 65
Low Density Lipoprotein: 72
Triglycerides: 247
Weight: 111
Glucose: 82
Height: 5′7″

I know that is all boring but I think it will be interesting for me to compare it to next years test.

Work has been really good and I enjoy my job. I work with some great people and others that make life fun. I am usually kept busy. I am very grateful for my job and hope to stay there for a long time. I have been getting a lot of great projects designed and its fun to see my work finished.

Fall semester at UVU was interesting, I took only one class due to scheduling conflicts. I took Interactive Design 2, which was Adobe Flash and After Effects CS4. To tell the truth I didn’t learn anything, my teacher was new and kind of neglected our class. I worked on two projects and was glad when they were done. I was proud of how my first project turned out, it was a self portrait! Any of you who know me know I hate self portraits more then anything. I drew my picture on a piece of paper and then folded that paper into an origami crane all the while taking still images and then I put those images together in flash and it looked like the paper folded itself!

October 8th was a hard day for me, I had dinner with two of my sisters and had a conversation that to this day I hate to think about. I pretty much ruined my sisters life. Lets just leave it at that.

Saturday October 10 Jon and I went to the annual Strong Man Competition in our ward. I have gotten much bigger the older I get, all my jeans were dirty and I only had one pair that are from high school that I consider an emergency pair. Well I had to wear them and it was pretty funny cuz I couldn’t bend my legs enough to sit on the picnic table bench because they were too tight so I stood for most of the night and what a cold night it was. I froze and ended up going and sitting in the car after an hour.

Jon got a new job in October, working for a company called Staywell Interactive, he really likes his job and that makes me happy! Jon’s new job is Senior Program Manager.

As a part of the Relief Society board I guess, I got to go reverse trick-or-treating with one of the presidency members. We went to some of the women in the ward to drop off a treat and have a little visit. Its crazy how you can be in a ward for over a year and not ever see some of the people in your ward! It was fun but cold.

Friday the 16th we hung out with our good friends Bryan and Kattrina and went to dinner with them! They are always a blast to hang out with.

Saturday the 17th was the Fun Family Fall Festival. We met at a pumpkin patch and all picked out the perfect pumpkins to slice and dice. I love pumpkin carving and look forward to it every year. Spent a couple hours at Jenny’s house carving pumpkins and eating tons of yummy food. That is one thing about my family parties, we always have great food and lots of it. I took control of Mindy’s camera so I will have to get those pictures.

The next week (22nd) I hung out with my friends Ryan and Diana! We did an awesome yoga video together (which they then bought me for Christmas). They are a lot of fun to be around and always make my day. They are amazing at working out so the video was no problem for them but I thought I might die. Even now after doing it a few times I still think there is a possibility the video will kill me.

Still continuing in October (Saturday the 24th) we had a Murder Mystery Party to go to, hosted by Trent and Kristen Day. I was a nun and Jon was a pirate. Actually I was a pirate too but pretended to be a nun because those who killed my father were after me. The party was fun, we got to know people in our ward that we didn’t know before but no one really helped me so I didn’t accomplish any of my goals in the game. Plus the material on my head was killing me at the end and I was happy to get killed in a battle. Jon my real husband; brother in law in the game took my life. Yeah needless to say he was in big trouble when we got home.

Friday the 30th I had a work Halloween party. I dressed up as a 1920’s flapper! I have always wanted to, not the same when you got the underwear I have. But I wore my grandmas real fox fur and had a lot of fun. THere was a contest at work but I didn’t win even though many said I should have.

Halloween day Jon was able to go to a Real soccer game with our friend Ryan Rees and had a great time. Halloween night we had a party at Bryan and Kattrinas. Jon and I both dressed up, me- the flapper and Jon as a pirate (butt pirate if you really want to know). We ordered pizza and had a good time. I brought over my candy to pass out there. So there is the month of October. hope I didn’t bore you to death.

Belated Birthdays

Happy belated birthdays to my brother Spencer, Mom and nephew Tyler!

To grandmothers house we go…

Some of my sisters and I went to my grandma Meyers to clean her house. Oh my goodness is really all I can say. You will see from the pictures below that the house doesn’t look any cleaner.