It's not ... comcastic

So, you know how they always make those cheesy forwarded emails heralding the nobility of military or public service, and the point is to make you feel grateful for all their sacrifice and hard work? I'm not saying those aren't great because they often make me teary. I don't want to minimize the attention they get by any means.

But I want to write my own public service announcement lauding the self sacrifice and hard work of your local .... cable guy. Being married to Jon has opened my eyes to what your average cable guy does every day just so YOU can watch Dawson's Creek or The Office whenever you want.
Have you ever considered what they do for YOU? :)

Let me tell you. They drive around all day and find people who are stealing cable. They knock on doors in the scariest neighborhoods imaginable and enter homes that smell like animal urine or pot. They trudge through rain and snow to make sure you're properly connected. They even climb poles like monkeys to simply do their job. But the worst is... they face rabid animals with only tazers and pepper spray to protect them!

Below is proof of what can happen when the unsuspecting technician simply places his hand NEXT TO a chain link fence to let a vicious dog on the other side get accustomed to his scent.
(Side note: he was wearing heavy-duty work gloves with RUBBER on the top)
Normally after a fight you would say, "You should see the other guy!" But in this case we won't say that because the "other guy" is probably still laughing about the mess he made of Jon's new gloves and chewing on some toy to get ready for when Jon comes back. Though he did get smacked with a screwdriver. (Don't call PETA, okay?)

By now you are surely moved to tears, just like the military ads. I know, me too. I say to you, "Ask not what your cable guy can do for you, but what you can do for your local cable guy." Just pay your bill. But if you don't, at least pull your dogs inside so Jon can disconnect you peacefully.

I love you Johnny Boy!

Stapler Incident Part 2

This is Hailey (right). She is cute. She got a stapler in her face (notice red mark on forehead). But she recovered. And she still loves me. :) This picture was taken just after she returned to class. This picture is at the end of the party. She looks much less dazed! (Phew.) It looks like Rusty got smacked. But he's just crazy and cute. And here is a picture of the stressed out teacher trying to calm the masses. They're fun, but man, you only see half of the kids in this picture. I don't know how anyone teaches and keeps their sanity! Happy Thanksgiving to all!

I'm so getting fired.

So, you may ask, "Why is there a stapler on your blog?" That is a very good question... one I wish I didn't have to address. But I just have to get this off my chest and into cyberspace. We had a Thanksgiving feast in my first grade classroom - complete with paper hats, apple turkeys, and a little smorgasbord of parent-donated, store-bought treats. Sounds lovely, right?

It would have been, but my team teacher was out with a sick child and I was stuck with either explaining the party to a clueless sub, or putting all FIFTY kids in my room. I opted for the latter, which proves my insanity. The kids were working on their hats and I was rushing around, helping parents and kids and organizing chaos. As I was reaching over kids and stapling their hats, a parent asked for the stapler. In my clumsiness, I dropped my five-pound stapler on a child's head. Not just on her head, but on her FOREHEAD because she was looking up at me as she always does. She immediately wailed and I escorted her out in front of 49 other kids and 10 mortified parents.

I am a terrible person.

She went to the office and lay down with an ice pack, only to return 5 minutes later with a goose egg on her forehead and a huge grin on her face. First graders are so forgiving.
And when she was asked what she was thankful for, what did she say?

Teachers.

I nearly bawled. Gosh, I love my job.
(a picture of the victim will be included in a later post... after permission is granted :) )

Happy Halloween?

This Halloween we decided to be movers - it was a pretty easy costume! All we needed was a U-Haul full of our belongings, an 8 hour drive to Denver, and comfy clothes! Thanks to our families, friends, ward members, and the grace of God, we made it to Denver and put our things in a storage unit in Aurora, CO. We are very unsure of what is going to happen next, but we're excited to find out.
Here are some things we found out in Colorado -
1. The mountains look very small there compared to Utah - because you're up in the mountains when you're there!
2. Much of Denver is a sweeping prairie - it makes the sky look so humongous!
3. You have to have coins on hand at any moment - or else you have to take an envelope and mail a check for 75 CENTS to an office in Denver if you don't want a $200 fine. :)
4. Don't trust any ads that look too good to be true - they probably are.
5. Fast food italian is never a good idea.
6. We can make it through any tough changes because we have each other!

Fall is Here!

The other day Jon surprised me with a WAY fun trip to the canyons. We both love going up there, but we haven't taken advantage of that blessing in our lives as much as we would have liked - busy with school, work, selling our house, packing, finding things out in Denver.

OH - I GUESS I SHOULD OFFICIALLY SAY - we're moving to Denver sometime in the next couple of months. :) Sorry, that should have been its own post.

But that's not the point. I'm trying to ignore that fact and appreciate Utah while I can. So we got home from work, changed into hiking clothes, grabbed some things and were off in a matter of minutes. I loved it! The air was crisp, the colors were beautiful, and it wasn't snowing yet, so everything was bright and beautiful. We cooked tin-foil dinners, hiked around, and enjoyed nature. This is the life!

Balloons!

One of the drawbacks of teaching is that every once in a while (more that I'd like to admit) I have to bring projects home. Unfortunately for Jon, he "gets" to help me. One such project involved blowing up 50+ huge blue balloons so that I could make globes with my first graders. Here are some pics from that adventure.

To get them to my car and into the school (two aspects I didn't consider before blowing the balloons up at home) Jon thought to string them on fishing line. It was awesome. Not only did they all make it to my classroom, but they also looked like a cheesy prom balloon arch. The kids and my co-workers loved it.

Unfortunately, the project went terribly. Six year olds are not spacially capable of watching me tape a continent on and doing it themselves. I now have 25 globes with the continents mixed up, upside down and sideways, and oceans all over the place. Pretty funny. That's first grade for ya.

Fast food kills...

Jon here. :)

Bonnie has been encouraging me for quite some time to post on this blog. So here goes...

On Labor day, we were mourning the loss of our community pool, so we decided to take a trip to Silver Lake up Big Cottonwood Canyon. As usual, the canyon was beautiful and we enjoyed our time up there. We were greeted by this sign,

which set the tone for our trip. We had to ditch our treats and goodies we brought for the critters in the woods (AKA, Bon, Jon & Staci). We enjoyed our time up there, snapped a few pictures for ya'll... Enjoy.

Sometimes I wonder who I married. :)

Bonnie's sister, Staci. She's training to become a ninja - don't mess!

What can I say? "I love sticks" (Really, I was just playing around with the camera)

I'm a bad blogger/Back to School!

So the last time I posted was on August 5. I feel terrible that I haven't kept my awesomely blogging friends updated on our life. But, there's a valid excuse this time. August 6 I went back to school. There was a week of heinous meetings that made me wonder why I was a teacher. Ugh. Then the kids came on the 16th. I had psyched myself up enough to be excited to see them and my classroom was perfect, but once those little baby 6 year olds invaded my world I again wondered why I became a teacher. They're so little and needy and especially sad this year.

But after a week of summer detox, we're all used to each other and we've got some routines down. They still need help with bandaids and tying shoes and wiping noses and going to the bathroom (one little girl is scared of the automatically flushing toilets). But they're so sweet. I love having them in my life every day. They say things like "What color are pilly fads (lilly pads)" or "Gosh, my crayons don't have very good balance today" when his crayons kept "jumping" off his desk. They tell me they love me and give me lots of hugs. And most of all, I can tell they're already learning things. That makes my job worth doing. First grade is the best!

Random Housekeeping...

I just had to write about a few funny things at the Hagen Home. We have three main pastimes together... caring for our children (the hanging flower basket on our balcony) playing on the elevator, and lasering people with Jon's green laser. Let me start with the latter, Mr. Green Laser. I had no idea what I was getting myself into when I married Jon. :) He is a tech geek (meant with all the love in the world) and he loves little gadgets. He used to have one green laser that we could shine up to a few blocks away on the tall buildings and into cars to freak people out. It's pretty funny... until people get mad and call the cops. I was becoming okay with him owning one laser, but then he went in on one with his buddy Jim and it came in the mail from some crazy website www.wickedlasers.com . Check it out if you too want to be a nerd. Hee hee.
Now Jon can use his laser to shine people on the freeway, point at stars, and really freak people out on the road below our condo. But... and this is a big but... it should only be used while wearing protective eyewear. This sucker is powerful. Should I be worried? What's next?
On to the elevator. Jon is the HOA representative for our condo complex. This basically means that he has keys to EVERYTHING and gets called all the time for complaints. Pretty posh job. The only thing we really enjoy about this "job" is that one of those keys is to the elevator shaft. From time to time we will stop the elevator the floor below ours, get on top of it, and ride on top while people are riding inside. It's awesome. Especially when Jon is feeling particularly mean or if someone offends us... because there is an on off switch on top. Ask the jerky movers, the annoying kid downstairs or our needy neighbor... the elevator just SEEMS to be stopping a lot lately. :) Hmmm... wonder why.
Finally - our flower garden babies. This is practice for us. Someday we'll move on to a living animal (some call them pets) and later we'll take on the adventure of having kids. But for now, the flowers are all I can handle. They were my idea, but sadly, Jon is much better at remembering to water them. It's especially hot this time of year and he's so sweet to them. He even remembers to get babysitters for when we're gone. I think it's a good sign... for him anyway! I need to step it up...

Our San Francisco Treat

At the end of August we decided to escape the heat and take advantage of Jet Blue's AWESOME $59 fare to San Fran. We took a risk on a priceline hotel and were very pleasantly surprised by what we got. Not only was there a killer jungle in the courtyard, but I think we may have had more fun there than in the city! (Maybe not...)

Let me explain... Jon and I like to get into trouble like we're little kids. We must bring it out in each other! One morning we saw a woman being rude to a maid, so we decided to show her that it is not okay to be mean. We make about 10 paper airplanes and threw them down at her and her breakfast from our sixth story balcony. It was crazy! Jon even got her with a cardstock one... luckily someone from the 10th floor (we're guessing a kid) made one too so he threw everyone off our trail.

Then the next day Jon got his green laser out (which I will explain in a later entry) and lasered the floor around kids. They chased it, squished it, tried to catch it, and even attacked family members if the green dot appeared on their anatomy. :)

So the hotel was kickin, but let's be honest, San Francisco is one of the coolest places in the world. I can't even begin to tell you how much fun we had. The first day in, I made Jon drive around my shady first area in my mission, SSF. It made me giddy to be back there with my great partner in crime. But it was late so we found our way to the hotel (about 15 min outside the city) and crashed.

Saturday was devoted to sappy reminiscing and visiting all my old cities. I grew up in Hollister and my best friend Amelia lives in Santa Cruz, so we drove to SC and picked her and her sister and brother in law up. We partied like teenagers at the Santa Cruz Beach Boardwalk and ate all kinds of fried food. YUM! Then I made Jon drive to Hollister and San Juan to visit my old homes, schools, restaurants, etc. So fun!

The rest of the trip we saw a few mission folks, then saw ALL the sights. We did Haight-Ashbury, North Beach, Coit Tower, Fisherman's Wharf, SHOPPED downtown, walked across the bridge, ate sushi in chinatown (sketchy idea), played at the Palace of Fine Arts, drove down Lombard Street, did I mention shopping??

Our friends Caity and Bob came on our last day there, so we had some adventures with them, too! We even found a bonfire on the beach. It was awesome. I love San Francisco. The best part was sharing my absolute favorite place with the man I love. It was amazing.

I can't decide which pictures to post, so we'll see what happens. Stay tuned for more!

Things I learned in SF: 1. Jon thought vacations were to relax. Obviously my family doesn't. We'll go somewhere relaxing next time! 2. It's dang cold in SF - even in July. 3. We can never get away from Draper people. Ew. 4. Drag queens put on a mean parade! (I think he was cold.) 5. My love for SF only grows each time I visit. 6. Jon is a good sport. :)

Deseret News 10K

10K. One hour, two minutes. What more can I say?

Okay... I guess a little more: Jon beat me by like 4 tenths of a second. Our friend Emily did it in a hand cycle - she rocks! And our sisters Candace and Connie and Grandpa Foote did it in around 50 something minutes. Awesome! Happy Pioneer Day!

Family Reunions Rock!

We've been married now just over four months, so it was high time I got to know his extended family. I recognized a few of them from the blur that was our reception, but during this amazing reunion I came to feel like one of them... like family. I loved getting to know everyone's personalities, quirks, inside jokes, and hopefully I let them get to know me a bit. We drove a couple of hours to beautiful Bear Lake to be with the Nielsen Family (Jon's mom's side). We stayed in an gorgeous cabin and had fun from the wee hours of the morning until later than we may have wanted! :)

There was boating, tubing, relaxing on the beach, lots of yummy food, tie dyeing, games, a crazy talent show, and a beautiful moment when Jon's grandparents really opened up and shared a lot about their lives and what is truly important. We are so blessed to have our families and each other. I'm so lucky!

Jackson Hole!

We are so blessed with great friends and the means to go visit them. We drove with our buddies Hil and C to Idaho Falls, where our other buddies Mel and Justin live. We played in Southeast Idaho for a night, livin' it up at the Riot Zone (unfortunately we didn't take our cameras!) and a sweet steakhouse.

Then Saturday, the 7th, we went river rafting around Jackson Hole, WY with our awesome friends. Justin's family has a ton of boats and all the supplies to do a river trip, so they were generous enough to share with us all. It was INCREDIBLE! Wyoming is gorgeous. I love it, despite the jokes everyone makes about the state. There were some sweet rapids, water fights, throwing's in (??), and lots of good memories made.

After the trip we went into "town" (Jackson Hole) and ate the most incredible chocolates and desserts. The town is charming and there is so much to see, but we were all so exhausted that we opted out of the touristic opportunities... there will be other chances to browse and wander.

I am so grateful for my best friends and I'm even more grateful that Jon fits right into that group. It's like we've all known each other forever... and that we'll be buddies forever!

Things I learned on our ID/WY trip:

1. too many strawberries and a car trip don't mix.

2. inflate an inflateable mattress ALL the way before trying to sleep on it... especially with a bed partner!

3. Glacier fed water is really REALLY cold.

4. 2 lbs. of fried chicken is PLENTY for a group of six.

5. Revenge is a _____ - especially on the river.

6. High-quality chocolate is worth the price.

7. you're never too old for playing at a mini-theme park

8. Don't go to Craigo's 30 minutes before closing time. They're mean.

We did it!

My family has a wickedly mean 4th of July tradition that I dragged my sweet Jon into. It's actually an awesome tradition if you forget every year how painful it was the year before. While other families are barbequing or relaxing by the pool to celebrate our country's independence, we hike an incredibly tall mountain somewhere in Utah.

This year my dad chose Mt. Timpanogos, the second highest peak in Utah or something like that, then he was conveniently too sick to go. (Just kidding, he would have loved to have been there and we missed him terribly.) It was beautiful, exhilirating, challenging, grueling and, by the end, very painful. It took us 9 hours to hike, but will take a week to recover!

My sisters Candace and Connie, Candace's boyfriend Cam, and our friends Mike, Burton, and Jefferson hiked with us. We saw moose and mountain goats, many beautiful flowers, waterfalls, glaciers, and amazing views of ALL the surrounding valleys (Park City, Salt Lake, Utah County, etc.). In my opinion, everyone should hike this mountain once in their life. But maybe not more than that! :)

Below: Us at the saddle, at the top of Timp, and us on the way down (notice my enthusiasm)

Housekeeping...

How many people does it take to fix a dryer vent? I guess the more appropriate question would be 'how many injuries does it take to change a dryer vent'... because we suffered a couple of casualties before completing a seemingly simple task. Jon noticed our house was getting more hot and humid than normal, and he quickly realized it was the dryer vent hose.

The typical couple would just quickly replace it and move on with their evening. Oh no, not the Hagens. First we cleaned out the entire pantry. Then Jon moved the dryer out, only to find that the newly installed shelves blocked complete access to the vent. So I (Bonnie) dove into the cavity where the vent hid. (Why do they put those so far down anyway??) But when Jon tried to help he nearly crushed me in between the dryer and the wall. THEN... here's the clincher... he let a really bad one go while I was stuck down there and couldn't escape. I nearly died.

Then I could only reach with one hand while supporting myself with the other... which made it impossible to tighten the zip tie contraption Jon had constructed. (That and the lack of oxygen and clean air to my brain was making me very light-headed!) At last Jon got back there, got the job done, swept it out, and nearly impaled himself on the shelf coming back up. Phew.

After a quick organizing of the pantry contents, we were finished. All for what? Clean underwear and socks... mom would be so proud.

Swimming!

We have a pool and consider ourselves to be Triathletes in training. Every good triathlete needs the proper gear to be successful. What do you think? The green swim cap squishes my brains out, but I'm a speedy gonzalez with it on! :)

Separation Anxiety

Yesterday was an eventful day. We sold my car on Friday and immediately decided to buy a new car. I was ecstatic, but part of me was really sad to see my Mira (miracle!) car go. We've been through a lot together: surviving a bully on her birthday (a huge semi truck!!), roadtrips, moving several times, lots of quality washing time together, and most importantly, the fact that she was my first "grown-up" purchase. I remember my dad saying he was proud of me for buying such a practical car, even though he had to watch me plow through a red light and get hit by a huge truck. Those were good times!

So I was really pushing for a pimpin' machine (see previous post) but I think we chose more wisely with a 2007 Toyota Camry. It's beautiful and I'm really excited to have her in my life. No if I can only watch out for red lights and semis... I think this will be a beautiful relationship!

Roamin' wit da homies

So Jon and I get a little bored on the weekends. We have designated Friday as our "date night" but it usually turns to trouble after we've tried to fit the norm and do typical date night things. Last Friday, after a pretty fun drive-in movie with some friends, we were heading home. But ... since we were in West Valley (da HOOd!) at midnight, adventure was bound to find us.

Now, I must digress. I speak Spanish. I taught elementary school in West Valley for the better part of two years. I have a certain affinity for the Latin (specifically Mexican-American) culture. I'm fascinated by it. Just because I could at one point walk the walk and talk the talk with my homies out there, doesn't make me one of them. But sometimes I really wish I was. They are so COOOL!

It's only natural, then, that when we were cruisin' 33rd and came upon not one, not two, but TEN lowrider hydrolic lifted pimpin' machines that I made my devious husband chase them. We pulled up alongside each of them, checking them out then pulling into side streets and turning around every once in a while so as to not get pumped full of lead. They were probably all laughing at the stupid GRINGOS who were trying to be so SNEAKY. We lost them for about 10 minutes on State Street, but luckily caught up to them just in time to see them convene at their rendezvous point. I was expecting a shady warehouse, salsa dance club, or some kind of deal... but where did they go?

Sonic. Yup... the restaurant.

Turns out their "oh so cool" life is just like ours. Oh well. It was still fun!

A Whole New World...

I feel like Princess Jasmine singing at the top of my lungs... But I'm sitting at a desk and not on a magic carpet. I finally got my own blog!!!

So, I was feeling a bit technologically backward here in little ol' Utah not having a blog, and since MANY of my friends have been blogging, I decided I should jump on the bandwagon. This is going to be yet another place for Jon and me to tell our silly stories (at least we think they're funny!) and update friends and family of our adventures. As soon as I figure out how to put up a picture... it will happen!