The Case Family

Ice Skating

2012-01-22T21:02:00.000-08:00

Ok... so I totally over planned this trip and we didn't get to everything. The plan was to have the kids nap in the car as we drove to Salt Lake City, do some ice skating at the Gallivan Center, eat dinner, go see the lights on Temple Square, and then see some animated lights on the East side of Lehi that are supposed to be cool if Seth wasn't asleep by the time we got there. Haha! I was dying tired by the time nap time hit, so I decided to leave after their nap instead so I could get a nap also. We then had to have dinner first because it was later by the time we got there. We ate at Tucanos which took longer than a normal restaurant but was amazingly delicious. I promised some ice skating to Seth as we ate dinner so that was next on the list. That means that we didn't get to anything else. It turned out great though. Seth and I ice skated and Jason and Kai watched from the sidelines. I didn't know this, but everybody, no matter the age, has to wear skates at the Gallivan Center.

We had sooooo much fun and I can't tell you how many people swooned over how cute Sethie was on his skates. By the end he was getting pretty good too! He was a trooper, even when he fell. He could have skated all night and cried when it was time to leave... but that could have been because it was after his bedtime and he was really tired.

My own website!

2012-01-20T10:15:00.000-08:00

Jason has finished my website for proofreading! I'm so excited. I know this is out of order and I haven't even posted about Christmas yet. (I'm so behind at this point...) But I feel like I am finally an official proofreader. I've gotten a lot of job offers lately thanks to a wonderful review from an author with quite a few followers. To see the review, go to:

http://tyhutchinson.wordpress.com/2012/01/19/it-took-a-reader-to-set-me-straight/#more-1319

To see the kindleboard review, go to:

http://www.kindleboards.com/index.php/topic,100207.0.html

To see my personal website, go to:

ashleycase.com

Hopefully you or someone you know needs a proofreader! I would be glad to answer any questions you have. Don't hesitate to contact me. (My contact information is on my website.)

Vegas

2011-12-27T17:56:00.000-08:00

We went to Las Vegas for a business conference that Jason had to attend for work. I went with him just for fun and we left the two boys with my parents in Wyoming. They had a wonderful time there and I'm really grateful that I have wonderful, willing, loving parents that I trust with my life, because that's what my boys are to me. They also have the most wonderful Aunt Holly and Uncle Zach right around the corner who helped a ton and have two boys right around Seth's age who he LOVES to play with. Here are just a few pictures from our trip. We have been to Vegas a few times now so I didn't take a lot of pictures since a lot of it looks the same every time we go.So here's our awesome view from the 30th floor of the Aria.

I missed my boys while we were gone. I put their pictures up in our room and called them every night before we went to bed.

My favorite part of Vegas, and a part that is different every time I go, is the Belagio Gardens. They are astounding. They had a bunch of animated penguins in one section.

Here are some bells (6 to 10 feet tall each) that were really neat to see.

And here is my favorite part of the Gardens this year. There was a father, mother, and baby polar bear all made out of carnations. 5,000 carnations for baby bear. 13,000 carnations for mother bear. Father bear was even bigger but I don't know how many carnation they needed to make him. There was a train with a camera on it and you could watch it in another part. All in all, pretty awesome. This is mother bear.

These are in the bottom level of Crystals (and expensive shopping center) and they are huge. They tower over me. I saw some little kids playing amidst them and it made me miss my boys so much.

Projects I took on at the beginning of December

2011-12-26T19:51:00.000-08:00

First we made some neighbor gifts. I chose something that Seth could help with.

I also made this decoration for the wall.

Then Seth and I made this little Christmas decoration out of baby food jars. I think this was Seth's favorite project out of all of them.

This is an up-close shot of Seth and my work.

Seth put the star on the tree. He was so excited to get that privilege.

And here is our decorated tree. Not our prettiest job, but I let Seth and Jason do it and I didn't fix a thing. I just admired their work and congratulated myself that it had gotten done at all since we were behind schedule by this point. lol!

Blessings

2011-11-10T21:01:00.001-08:00

1) ZALES! We got the warranty on my wedding ring, so as long as I got it cleaned and inspected/tightened every 6 months then any problems would be taken care of for free. Well, the 6 month mark fell on the same month as when we bought our house and moved, and right after I had Kai and got my mouth surgeries. So the last thing on my mind was taking in my wedding ring to be cleaned. Of course, right after that one of my diamonds fell out. I took it in to get an estimate and it was more than we could afford right now, so I've looked unmarried with two kids for a while now. When I went to get it back from them, they decided to replace the diamond for FREE!!! I'm so excited, and grateful. A woman's wedding ring is just SOOOO close to her heart. It has been so sad to go without it lately.2) My visiting teach-ee. That's right, the lady I am supposed to visit as one of my (three) church callings. I called to tell her I couldn't babysit for her like we had planned earlier because I was pretty sick and both of the kids were also. And just a couple of hours later I get a knock on my door. She brought me homemade bread and soup! And it was wonderful! She simply said that she understood how much I WOULDN'T want to cook while being sick. What a sweetheart. How did I get so lucky to be able to Visit Teach her?3) My home teachers. Our lawn mower broke and we took it in and got it fixed... and then it broke again. Booooo... so we took it in AGAIN and never heard back from the guy. He has our lawn mower still. Who knows where he went. We may just be out a lawn mower, which kinda makes me mad... though I am trying to give him the benefit of the doubt. So our home teachers came and mowed our lawn for us, which we really needed since we hadn't mowed it since we laid the sod.4) Ty Hutchinson. He's the author that is giving me my start as a proofreader. I am so excited about this whole deal. What I've done so far has been FUN! Who says that about their work? lol! I can't wait to do more and get more experience. Any authors out there that need a proofreader??? :D5) Allen at Fair Auto. In trying to buy a new car, we have brought a few cars in to mechanics to be inspected. They charged a lot and one outright lied to me. We had a mechanic that we LOVED in Springville. (He's located in South Provo.) And it's been hard to not have him in our back pocket anymore. He did an inspection for us for free on one car. And he's always been honest and fair. His name is Allen and his company is Fair Auto. If you are around there at all it's worth the trip to take your cars there.6) Kelly at Intermountain Physical Therapy. Not only was he a GREAT PT for Kai and really encouraging, even when things weren't going well, but he was also wonderful with Seth when I brought him. He always helped me carry out the car seat with Kai strapped in it, or he carried Seth on his shoulders or something. Seth got to know him as the doctor that showed him boats. He was specialized in torticollis which was Kailand's problem, so I was more at ease handing over my baby.7) Family. We have had several family members from both Jason and Ashley's side of the family that have given us things. Essential things. Clothing for our children, strollers, water storage bottles so we now have two weeks worth of water in a disaster. The list goes on and on. There's no way to add up how much everything means to us.So if you notice, most of our blessings listed above are people. We have some wonderful people in our lives. There are obviously more blessings than I can list. These are just the few that I happened to list. What are your blessings? What has been on your list lately?

My boys are so awesome.

2011-11-01T20:31:00.000-07:00

Since Blogger won't let me upload video anymore (dumb...) you'll have to go to youtube to see why my kids are so awesome.Click here to see the video.

Hee Haw Farms

2011-10-07T19:52:00.000-07:00

So some awesome family came up and we had a great time. We went to Hee Haw Farms. If you haven't been there you have to go. It is just so wonderful. We had Seth's second birthday there last year which could not have been more fun! They have everything: a petting zoo, a huge corn maze, a really tall slide, pony rides, a trick-or-treat hay ride, an animal tractor train, corn cannons, etc. It has some scary grown up things during the night also. And you can get some great deals. (Coupons on their website, a "10 entries for $50" card, etc.) So here comes a barrage of pictures. Are you ready???

After the first phase of the corn maze, Brooke, Kai, and I all opted out of the second phase (the larger portion) so the next few pictures are of just us 3 kickin' it together.

After several other super fun things, we headed to the pumpkin patch to pick out our own pumpkins. We ended up with a huge dark green one (almost black) that Ben was kind enough to lug around for me since I had two kiddos.

These stairs don't just go nowhere; I promise. We were waiting for the wagon to come back and get us out of the pumpkin patch.

As we were riding back to the main activities, a storm rolled through that had us soaked to the bone before we could get to our cars. It went from being too hot to an all out prairie storm in a matter of minutes. Thankfully Zach helped us women get all our pumpkins packed up. We didn't get to everything (the petting zoo for one...) but it was such a fun time. I just enjoyed myself so very much!

Starting September

2011-09-15T14:45:00.000-07:00

I got new glasses! The last time I got new glasses was when I worked at the mines because I had to have prescription safety glasses. You can imagine how flattering those are. I also got two pair of cheap glasses off the internet (zennioptical.com) about two years ago. One pair was $8 and the other was $12. Needless to say they are both bent like crazy, the one pair never fit my face correctly so they fell off if I looked down, and I chipped one of the lenses. Don't get me wrong; I was STOKED to get new glasses at all, and I am so grateful that I had glasses to wear for the last two years, but it was definitely time for something REAL. I don't look great in this picture, but my glasses do! :D

We all dressed up for the Ole Miss game, BYU's first football game of the season. Here are my boys!

Kai doesn't have a BYU shirt (I know... I know...) but we did decorate his helmet like and actual BYU football helmet.

As though a corrective orthodic helmet isn't enough, the poor kid has now been assigned a TOT (Tubular Orthosis for Torticollis) Collar. It goes around his neck and has hard pieces of plastic on his left side (his bad side) to jab his jaw and irritate him if he tries to lean that way. Sounds pleasant doesn't it?

And I had to throw this one in. No one gets to see my beautiful little baby boy without all his gear. So here he is. Enjoy, because I know I certainly do.

My boys are getting so big. :)

2011-08-27T08:07:00.001-07:00

The other day Seth insisted that he needed a pink piggy to put moneys in so that he would have moneys. The only one we found had a princess crown on the side, but hey, he's happy! He woke up for a week straight after we bought it and asked where it was and had to hold it. Funny kid.

Holly brought her kids over to play the other day and Seth could not have had more fun. He loves those kids! I made the mistake of asking Seth if he liked playing with Jayden and Jordan and he automatically corrected me that there was Jayden and Jordan AND Brooke AND Ben. It was so cute.

This is Jason today out digging up all the pipes in our yard. And there are a TON of pipes! He trenched our yard for our sprinkler system. I can't believe we will be getting a yard pretty soon. I'm so excited!

Seth is potty training and doing a wonderful job. I have almost quit 3 different times but we've pushed through. He rarely has an accident now, even when we are out and about, but we're still in diapers for naps and night time.

We all went to the aquarium the other day and both kids enjoyed it. They had some cool things, including several petting stations for stingrays and starfish and such.

We went to Cars 2 in the theater and had a blast! It was such a cute movie. We ate a ton and I loved watching Seth watch the big screen. He was mesmerized. He's getting so big right before my eyes.

My boys together. You can see Kai's helmet in this picture. I have other pictures of his helmet, but most of them are of him before he got the padding put in so it doesn't look the same. We are going to decorate it and I'm really excited. I will post some pictures once we get the decorating done. He has also gotten a TOT collar which he hates. I feel so bad putting all these torture devices on my child but they are all for his good. He looks like he's gotten in an aweful car accident or fallen from a significant height or something. He's a trouper though and handling it all really well.

Kai has also been incredibly sick lately. He had croup, then the flu, then he cut his first tooth, then he had croup AGAIN, now he's teething some more. This is all amidst Orthodic doctor appointments and Physical Therapy appointments for his helmet (plagiocephaly) and TOT collar (torticollis). If he cuts the two teeth that are coming in right now we might finally get a breather (and I might finally get some sleep!)

Intermountain Health Care (IHC) should be ashamed!

2011-08-02T09:41:00.000-07:00

I'm going to link to my friends blog instead of reposting the letter he sent to IHC about his recent experience between his 2 year old daughter and and IHC's emergency room. If this happened to Seth, I would have done the same thing. I would have thrown a fit and let them know exactly how stupid they were being. If I'm in the emergencyu room then I think there's a major problem. A big enough problem that I'm willing to pay you 2 or 3 times as much to treat me. So you better treat me and let me know what is going on. And for heck's sake, build a computer system that allows your employees to get updates from past visits AND MAKE THEM READ IT! This is saddening that one of the best medical facilities in America is this disorganized and unprofessional...

http://aaronhardy.com/life-in-general/dear-intermountain-healthcare/

pictures of our new house

2011-07-18T12:37:00.000-07:00

This is our new house!

Sitting Room

Kitchen looking in the Family Room

Kitchen

Half Bathroom on the Main Floor

looking in the Living Room from the Entry

View from Sliding Door in Dining Room

View from Family Room Window

Toy area in Living Room behind Couch

looking at the Living Room and in to the Entry and Sitting Room from the Toy Area

There is obviously a lot more to show you. This isn't even the whole Main Floor. lol. I promise I will eventually get all the pictures up on this blog.

(Also, for those of you that don't know, if you click on the pictures you can see an enlarged version of them. That goes for any picture posted on this blog!)

July

2011-07-13T20:11:00.000-07:00

Seth making cookies with me for Daddy on Father's Day.

Kai sleeping.

Just Kai being adorable.

Jason with our sparkling cider in front of our new fridge on our first day in our new house.

Jason and I on our first day in the new house.

Our family at the Provo parade on the 4th of July.

Kai in his walker. He can only go backward and gets frustrated when he gets stuck.

My cute boys playing together.

Liar...

2011-07-08T07:46:00.000-07:00

You know how they say every time a bell rings they say an angel gets its wings? I'd swear that every time Obama opens his mouth a person loses their job and someone in the government gets a raise...

A Positive Update!

2011-05-26T12:36:00.000-07:00

This year has had its ups (Jason's raise for example) and downs (Seth's broken arm for example) like any year but I really want to discuss the ups. Sometimes you just gotta count your blessings, right? :)

Kai is doing pretty good. He is growing so fast and is already hungry ALL the time. He already has two meals of rice cereal a day! He's batting at toys a little and I caught him really checking out his feet the other day. I don't think I've ever seen such a look of concentration before! It was really cute. Despite his Torticollis and Plagiocephaly that he has to do exercises and stretches for every day (besides quite a number of other restrictions) he is a really happy baby.

Seth, despite his broken arm, is being a real trooper! He has just adapted really quickly and acts like it's just normal fare now. And he tells the story like a professional. It's really cute to hear his little voice: "Seth a touch a carpet with 2 hands and fall a cart. Owies and broke a arm and a big bandaid a doctor. Is pink cast!" Lol! I swear he learns at least one new word a day and I can't always pinpoint where he heard the new word so it's usually a surprise to me.

I officially reached my pre-Kai weight, even if it's not my pre-Kai shape. I think that's pretty good for someone that can't workout really yet due to my hip problems. Go me!

My surgery on my teeth didn't go just as planned, but it all worked out well. A little background: I smashed my mouth on a bar while doing gymnastics on a bar hanging from chains on an elementary school playground. The specialist put in implants for the two top front teeth that I lost but my bone hadn't grown back because it was so smashed so he ended up putting the anchors for the implants really high up, basically behind my nose. The two teeth next to them also have struggled since then. Last year, because my bone didn't grow back, my gums didn't have anything to hold on to. They started to recede making it necessary to get surgery to correct the patch-up job that the original specialist did. I met with a wonderful specialist, PK Clark of Whitecap Institute in Heber, and we made a plan. Neither one of us were really completely settled in the plan really because he had never seen a case like mine. At the end of March I got the surgery. (It got moved up from May because they had a cancellation.) They got in there and the anchors were loose and were covered in bacteria which obviously was major potential for infection. It was really the hand of our dear Heavenly Father that I got the surgery before things got a lot worse, because we were on the verge of major problems. I couldn't be more grateful to Him for guiding me in this. The whole plan had to change when they found that. Luckily they were able to think on their feet. And Jason was there to approve changing the plans. Healing hasn't been fun, but it will be worth it in the end. I have a temporary piece in my mouth right now and will get the permanent bridge in August. I am so glad I will not have to struggle with all of this anymore!

We still think the chiropractor has found the actual problems with my hips, but it is all healing slower than we would have hoped. I still can't jog even a couple of steps without it hurting which is disappointing. But I feel so much better than I used to that I'm really trying to still be positive about the whole thing.

We put in an offer on a house (bank owned) and it was accepted! We will be moving in the 24th and 25th of June. That leaves a lot of packing and sorting, a garage sale, a lot of scheduling, etc. for us to complete in the next little while but the whole thing is really exciting. Jason and I feel really good about it. It has a master bedroom with a master bathroom and a huge walk-in closet, 2 bedrooms with walk-in closets, and another room with where the closet is the complete length of the room. On the same floor as all the bedrooms (the second floor) is another bathroom and the laundry closet. (I’d call it a laundry room, but it’s not that big. lol!) On the first floor, you have a formal living room, a LARGE family room, a kitchen and dining room, a half bath, and a mudroom/ huge pantry with a door to the two car garage. 2488 sq ft all together on a .17 acre lot. It’s really close to Jason’s work and we have all sorts of plans to fix up this and that and really make it our own. And to top it all off, since we will be moving to Lehi really close to the legacy center, we will be swimming a ton in the years to come, which I couldn’t be happier about. I love swimming! (They also have a rock climbing wall, a gym, a daycare, classes in about everything, etc.)

We will be having a garage sale on June 11th if anyone would like to bring some things and join us.

So that’s all our updates for now. As though that isn’t enough. lol.

The Year of Ashley!

2011-03-15T12:29:00.000-07:00

I think 2011 is going to be my year! There are simply some really exciting things coming up and some wonderful things that have already happened.
1. Kailand joined our family. What a wonderful way to start out the year!
2. Jason got a raise. :)
3. The implant specialist I've been working with finally came up with a way to fix my teeth so I will be having surgery to get my mouth all fixed up on May 25th.
4. My chiropractor may have found the problem with my hips and fixing it will be painful, but not long and drawn out.
5. I'm only about 7 pounds away from my pre-pregnancy weight.
6. I plan on getting down to my pre-Seth weight this year.
7. We're planning on buying a house and I'm way excited.
8. I am looking to get back in to taking a dance class of some sort which used to be a really good release for any stress or tension for me.
9. I'm actually doing pretty good with my New Year's resolutions.
10. Last, and probably least, I'm growing out my hair which I haven't done in forever.

I'm sure there are more things. I can't think of them right now. It will be so fun to look back when 2012 rolls around and see how drastically my life has changed. I know some of these things may seem small and some of them may not even be completely understandable to many of you; but trust me when I say that I will be a whole new me and a lot closer to the REAL me when this year is through. :)

Family Update

2011-02-28T12:04:00.000-08:00

We haven't written in a while, so I just want to give some quick updates. On January 16th Kailand Zachary Case was born. He was (if I remember correctly off the top of my head) 7lbs 10oz, and was 19 inches. He came with a full head of black hair and is as cute as can be. He had some issues with jaundice, but he is doing fine now. We also found out that he has eczema and a reflux issue. These have been "fun" to deal with, but he is getting better very quickly with the eczema, but the reflux doesn't seem to be going away. We'll see how this works out.

Seth also go sick recently and ended up with an upper respiratory problem, and he had almost completely lost his voice. It was really sad to hear him get excited, angry or sad because his voice would just go raw and die off... Luckily he's doing much better now. Seth is genuinely one of the most fun, happy and lovely kids you could ever meet. If you haven't met him, then you really should. He's simply amazing and he proves this more and more every day. it's not often that you find a kid that everyone complements in passing. "Oh he is so cute... Man you have the best behaved kid ever..." Those are things we hear everyday. Crazy... It makes you wonder if it is simply his demeanor and who he is or is it the parents parenting styles? We have no idea, but we hope Kai ends up being just as sweet and nice.

Seth loves taking care of Kai to the point that he "helps" by getting in the way. It's funny. He loves cuddling up with Ashley and helping to hold the baby. Ash took a picture today that showed him "reading" a book to Kai. So cute. He also had the hiccups today, and because we have been teaching him to say excuse me, he kept hiccuping and saying "Excuse Me!" each time. :) He still loves his cars, trains, and anything else with wheels. We can't wait until summer comes so that he can get out more often. We finally got enough snow the other day to take him outside and really play. I took him around in this blowup sled we got from walmart and he loved it. We threw snow at each other and he got out and pulled the sled himself for a long time. it was super fun to just watch him try and waddle through the snow. He does new things every day and it's hard to keep up. He knows all of his letters (lower and capital), their sounds, and he can pretty much count to ten. He repeats us when we pray and shouts Amen at the end. He likes when I grab his ankles and he walks on his hands. I'll try to share more as the days go on so we can have these things documented.

Kai's eyes have turned blue just like seth's. We're pretty sure he is going to have bright blue eyes when he's done changing. His hair is no longer black and is more or a brown to light brown. He sleeps a lot, unfortunately doesn't poo as much as he needs to, and still isn't sleeping well, but we think this is due to being constipated. Hopefully this works itself out with the meds. He has been able to temporarily hold his head up since he was born. He has a strong neck, or maybe it's that his head is so much smaller than seth's? He, just like seth was, is very strong. Hopefully he'll grow up strong like his brother.

Ash and I are doing well also. Well, as good as you can while not getting much sleep. Work is going very well for me at Adobe Systems. I am now a Staff Consultant and am getting a lot of attention for my Flex/Flash knowledge and how we can apply analytics tags to those types of applications. it's been a lot of fun. I'll be presenting in about a week at Omniture Summit 2011 on how to tag Flash and Flex applications for different devices like android. It will be a fun and extremely busy week, but it will be good.

Ash is getting better all the time. She is feeling much stronger and healthier after Kai was born than after Seth. We're hoping this is a good sign for her not having more issues with hip and other issues that were caused by the first pregnancy. She goes to get cleared by the doctor tomorrow, so she may be exercising and working on her goals by the end of the week. She's a wonderful mom and she really does an amazing job. I think all good women get down on themselves thinking they don't do a good enough job, but I wish she would realize how good she really is. I think she is a big part of why Seth is so wonderful. He learns from her.

Life is good, and we'll try to be more active on here.

Seth's 2nd Birthday!

2010-11-17T19:37:00.000-08:00

I know, I know. It was over a month ago... but there are so many other things that I've been trying to catch up on (like sleep, for one. haha...) that this has taken a back seat for way too long. So here's my sweet little baby that somehow grew up right before my eyes.

On Seth's actual birthday we rode the train at the Mall and he LOVED it. We got him off and he started crying so hard that Jason and I just laughed out of pure shock. The words, "I want ride choo choo!" escaped his lips more than once. The train conductor there calls Seth his "little buddy" because he sees us playing in the play area on a regular basis and Seth always waves every single time the train drives by.

We also ate at a place with an actual trolley in the restaurant and pictures of trolleys all over the walls, so Seth was excited to eat dinner in a choo choo.

The Saturday after his birthday, we had a big ol' party for him at a wonderful pumpkin patch. He got to go in the petting zoo and pet goats, chickens, a donkey, sheep, pigs, bunnies, etc. It just goes on and on. At one point there were 3 sheep and 2 goats packed in to an area about the size of a child's play house and there was fearless Seth standing in the middle just patting them all and talking a mile a minute.

He also got to ride a pony and loved that also. I thought he might be afraid but he wasn't at all. He was really good to hang on too, which was a fear of mine since he will just bail from about any height sometimes. (He knows I would never let him fall.)

After that we went over to the table that Jason had set up for us. He did such a good job of making it look festive and inviting to a two year old. I'm not sure Seth would have stopped playing long enough to do cake, ice cream, and presents had Jason not put all that effort in to it.

The cake and plates. (He had a jungle theme...)

Then he opened presents with all his fun little guests. We had 4 children from the ward and their parents, Grandma and Grandpa Rasmussen, Aunt Alyssa, and Aunt Holly and her 4 children. They were all so much fun and we really appreciate all of those that showed up, ESPECIALLY those that traveled a long way to get there. I know it wasn't necessarily convenient or easy, but I hope it was worth it because we really enjoyed every single guest.

And the family that showed up... This is the best picture we could get of Seth. He hadn't napped all day and this was taken at the end of the day, so most pictures at this point didn't turn out perfectly.

Seth got a lot of amazing gifts! He got puzzles, lots of cars and trucks, playdough (which he loves), some winter clothes, his toddler bed set (I had to teach Jason some quilting to get it how we wanted it. lol!), and (drum roll please...) a BIKE! He was so excited about all of it, but the bike especially.

We went down a HUGE slide...

We rode an animal train (pulled by a 4-wheeler and decorated like animals...)

We played in a corn box (like a sand box but with corn kernels...)

Everyone else went through a corn maze (while I sat down for a second. My pregnant legs couldn't take all the walking.)

We rode pedal cars...

And we did so much more. I know this has been long, but there is so much more to write. I don't think I can even convey how wonderful this party was. Seth loved every moment and fell asleep on his pumpkin on the way home. (I have the CUTEST picture of it, but it's on Jason's phone, so I will have to add it later...)

Pipes version 4.0

2010-10-21T20:10:00.000-07:00

I finally completed version 4.0 of the Pipes game. I took some time off away from developing it, but I'm back and the game is better than ever. Added in this release are two new game modes. Now you can play in standard mode, progressive levels or 100 turns.

Standard will allow you to pick one of the four levels of difficulty and then receive 25 turns to finish the level. Essentially, you stay at that difficulty and see how many points and levels you can rack up in the fewest amount of turns. 100 Turns allots you 100 turns to finish as many levels and earn as many points as you can. And the last mode, progressive levels, increases the level of difficulty every few levels until you reach expert. Your goal is to finish each level in the fewest amount of turns possible, earn the most points, and to reach the highest level that you can. I'll tell you now; expert is pretty dang hard.

To get the link please click "install now" below:

This is a free Flash game built in Flex for the AIR Framework. Clicking install will install the app as well as the AIR framework if you do not already have it.

Thanks,
Jason Case

Belly Bumps

2010-10-12T17:56:00.000-07:00

Just a cute story...

Seth went to the doctor today for his 2 year check up and got 2 shots (2nd Hep A and flu) so he wasn't feeling great when it was time for his nap shortly thereafter. He NEVER falls asleep in my arms. I think the last time this happened was about a year ago, not kidding. Anyway, he was cuddled up with me because he wouldn't take a nap and he was actually starting to fall asleep when the baby started kicking right where Seth's belly was touching mine. I think Seth thought it was me trying to play a game with him or something, because he started to "belly bump" me back. It was so cute. Every time the baby kicked him, he belly bumped me. I was trying so hard not to laugh because I knew if I did Seth would never fall asleep!

As a side note, Seth did finally fall asleep in my arms and I LOVED it. He just never does and I know I won't have the opportunity to cuddle him like that for much longer.

Later, when Jason was home, Jason stuck a little stuffed lamb up Seth's shirt. Seth pointed to it and said, "Baby!" It was so funny. That turned in to a twenty minute game between the two of them.

Just an update...

2010-09-12T20:00:00.000-07:00

Old Business

1 - Yep, my hip problems are still lingering, but they are much better than they were in January. As big as I've gotten so far with the pregnancy, my hips don't seem to have noticed, so that's a good sign. We're keeping our fingers crossed!

2 - The pregnancy is going well! I'm officially 20 weeks today and we have the medical ultrasound on Tuesday. We did admittedly go get a gender check ultrasound at 16 weeks and we're happy to announce that we are having a BOY if we haven't already informed some of you. (We try, but my brain is shot right now and I can't remember anything...)

3 - Seth is doing just as well as ever. I think he's the healthiest one in the houe right now. He's a sweet little guy and always so content. He gets smarter every day.

New Business

4 - Jason tore his soleis muscle in his calf so he will be laid up for a little while. He's really good with crutches though, so he can still move faster than me if needs be. lol. The doctor said 4-6 weeks of crutches and his brace, and then a little physical therapy after that. We were excited that it wasn't going to take longer than that to heal. Jason's being a trouper and has only taken one percocet and a few ibuprofen.

5 - Jason was more tired than me most days and having to sleep in every morning despite a decent diet, regular exercise, and 8 hours of sleep a night. So he went to the doctor and found out he basically has too much yeast in his digestive system. He's on a strict no yeast, cultures, or sugar diet which has been weird to say the least. He stays on this diet for a month and then slowly weans himself off of it and it's supposed to help a lot. Mean while, because of the pregnancy, I have an aversion to red meat (which is one of the things Jason is supposed to eat). It reminds me of a wonderful poem I know:
Jack Sprat could eat no fat.
His wife could eat no lean,
And so betwixt the two of them
They licked the platter clean!

6 - For those of you that don't know, I bashed in my mouth when I was 13 or 14 years old and it never healed correctly. I have two fake teeth now but since the bone never grew back my gums don't have anything to connect to so they are receding far enough that you can see the hardware that holds my teeth in my mouth that is supposed to be covered by bone. So we are forced to fix the patched up job the specialist did when I was younger and I am THRILLED!!! It involves a bone graft, a skin graft, 3 different sets of temporary fake teeth while I heal for months, etc. etc. But at least I will be able to eat apples like a normal person, and lettuce, and anything you bite with your front teeth really! Yay!

Seth and ABC's

2010-09-12T19:24:00.000-07:00

I just have to brag a little bit! Though he calls them "A-B-B's", Seth knows almost all of his capital letters and several of his lower case letters. (He calls the lower case letters babies. It's adorable!) He points them out anywhere we go. We can't read a book anymore... we just point out all the letters he knows. In the grocery store, I hand him a box of something we are buying and it's just as good as a toy most of the time because he can pick out letters as we go. His biggest flaws in all of this are: 1) he calls C *slurp*slurp*slurp* because that's the sound the Camel makes on Fisher Price's ABC game online (See link below) 2) he calls the G "for Araffe" meaning "for Giraffe" obviously... again, it comes from the Fisher Price game 3) he calls the T *roar* because of Tiger. Guess where that came from? (Again, see the link below!) Personally, I LOVE these cute little 1 year old mistakes; it means he's still my baby (a little).

http://www.fisher-price.com/us/fun/games/abczoo/default.asp

(P.S. We have started to play the toddler version of the game, and now Seth knows where a lot of the letters are on the keyboard since he has to pick them out himself. He's too smart!)

Build a Bear anyone?

2010-07-16T17:59:00.000-07:00

http://christinbanda.blogspot.com/2010/07/build-bear-ice-cream-bear-review-and.html?showComment=1279328186785_AIe9_BHDBOeaOX_LC24kp8_Li7AY9iis939T3Arj2nhqkdXMc4-MkwvqmQF2Hdd_kONLn7Crs9hsqwiV0L2u6iHN4tni5KvaNIMqJEAbwzYq58Dmy2DVrBNDRxxFdNifjyzP4e7u1KZP54629MP_jqElPZDwKXcqwHLraafy1jfnyXDjCI4DueUF3HOLi-0VYurstmCjDYF3ye3oBfrA42MXipG8oZfOP3fYOrajfQfWcS7cNOFbxukNBE-4BFoNxCF_32_SyvWa2hye6eHA30edEmzLPohoMmFY8aspEVW5caCLKex0n05bdA1NL93PEep3S2D_AOtqNb7YvmbEWaFclzqdF1udIcEWw3-Is9abnVQmdRczBAQ2UmpJ3IPAs7IVTp43DT8pHAd_6Ps3CN3p8-XRtZbrhIh0cwtlCzMin5II1dyZPeIYsAbMCazUwb9paERLx8fSevFxpBubIOdEZmVVb9i4Wg#c8190811577123908653

I know that's a long link, but if you would like to be entered in a drawing for $25 at build a bear, go for it! GL all!

Dad Life

2010-07-10T08:10:00.000-07:00

You know, there are definitely times that i think, "I wonder what life would have been like had Ashley and I chosen to not have kids so soon after getting married." And then, I get to play with Seth and see just how amazingly wonderful he is. Love it. Ashley and I are so blessed to have such a wonderful son. I have to say that I have truly learned to love family life and I really enjoy being a dad. I think I do a pretty good job at being a dad too. I make mistakes here and there, but overall I feel like Ashley and I have been really good parents. Well, Ash just showed me this video and I want to pass it along. This is an awesome video that explains the wonderful life that is dad life:

Seth's Spontaneous Cuteness

2010-06-30T10:55:00.001-07:00

Seth does something new every day that is just so incredibly cute, so I thought I would post a few of them on here. I can't believe I am lucky enough to stay home and see all of these precious little moments.

The other day I gave him Mac and Cheese for lunch, which I don't do too often but he loves it. He was so excited to eat it that he ditched the fork and started licking it off the tray. I got a good video of it, and will upload it if I remember.

Jason has a weight bench down stairs and a stereo. There isn't much else in that room. I went to do the laundry in the basement and Seth always comes with me. He loves playing down there. I heard the stereo turn on in the weight room and heard Seth playing with the dials. Then the music stayed on one song for a while. I thought he was pretty smart just to figure out how to dial in a song on the radio! When I went to check on him he grabbed my hand and pulled me over in front of the stereo and started dancing. It was the best dance party I've ever been to! We boogied for quite a while.

Seth was standing on his little step stool looking out the window at the rain and wind the other day. His foot slipped off the side but he caught himself. It scared him even though he wasn't hurt, so he started whimpering. When I asked him if he wanted a hug from mama, he stopped whimpering, looked at me for a second, and then put his hand to the side of his head and said, "Oh no!" Needless to say, I didn't hug him right then. Lol!

Seth has a dog that plays music. He was pushing the buttons to play the music so I started making the doggy dance to the music. He ran to his closet, picked out another of his doggy stuffed animals (the biggest one of course), and then came back and sat down. He started the music with the first doggy, and then made his doggy dance while I made mine dance. We had a dancing doggy party.

I was at the park with my two friends. The one friend has an 11 month old boy and the other one has a 19 month old girl. The little girl had brought her ball and the little boy, who can barely walk, was standing in front of it. Seth automatically ran over and kicked the ball away from him and then started looking for some type of goal to kick it in to. Can you tell we have been watching/playing soccer with him?

When you ask Seth what a baby says, or if he sees a baby, he points to it and says, "Goo goo gaa gaa!" There was a 3 year old boy in a store the other day sucking on a binkie. They came down our same aisle and Seth runs over to him, points and clear as day yells, "Goo goo gaa gaa!" It was pretty embarrassing. Lol!

That is just a very small sampling of the cute things Seth is coming up with every day. He's so smart and makes me laugh constantly. I'm so glad I have my cute little family. My two boys (yes Jason, I just called you a "boy"...) are such a blessing in my life.

So share some of the amazing things your kids are doing lately that makes you laugh! I love hearing funny little kid stories!

Pipes Game - Version 3.0

2010-06-14T07:48:00.000-07:00

So I'm pretty close to having fully playable game. I added some big things in version 3. Here are the new upgrades:

Tracks High Scores
Allows you to enter a username to associate with the scores
Allows you to play in 4 different skill levels, Beginner, Novice, Advanced, and Expert
Added a menu which will let you start a new game, view high scores, or exit the game

I think that's it. My next goal will be to either add additional game play modes, or I will add internet connectivity so we can have global high scores as well as local scores. This way you could compete against the world of pipes users. Which would you prefer me to work on next? More game play modes so you can play more than the standard "beat this level in 25 turns" game, or internet connectivity?

This is a free Flash game built in Flex for the AIR Framework. Clicking install will install the app as well as the AIR framework if you do not already have it.

Thanks,
Jason Case

Updated pipes game

2010-06-08T20:34:00.000-07:00

So I took several suggestions from all of you and I have made the following updates:
- There is now a restriction of 25 turns to advance to the next level
- If you click the same color twice in a row, it will only increment one turn

I will be looking to add other game options next, as well as a menu that allows you to see high scores in different categories. So go ahead and install version 2.2 nd please let me know what you think.

This is a free Flash game built in Flex for the AIR Framework. Clicking install will install the app as well as the AIR framework if you do not already have it.

Thanks,
Jason Case

Pipes Game

2010-06-01T08:25:00.001-07:00

So I told you all that I was making a game. Well here is version 1.0. It is a basic straightforward game where you select colors to connect to your main pipes that start in the top left corner. The goal is to fill the screen with a single color of pipes. You will then move on to another level. You'll gain points as you increase the size of your pipe set. The larger the group of pipes changed in any turn, the larger the amount of points you will receive.

Please let me know if you run into any bugs so i can fix them. Also, please offer any feedback or suggestions that you have. I want to make it better. I plan to add other game play to it. I plan to add mini games wher eyou can see how many levels you can make it through while only having 25 turns (or so), a game where you have 100 total turns and you see how many points/levels you can earn, and one where you get 50 levels, then 49, then 48, and you see how many levels you can pass.

Click install now below to play. Have fun. And let me know if you have any ideas for this game or for another game. Just in case you were wondering. This game is built in Flex and packaged for AIR. This means that I could turn this into a web application as well. If you would prefer to play online and not on your desktop, then let me know. I may consider modifying the game and hosting it on jasoncase.com...

Daw's and Guk's: Part 2

2010-05-20T08:23:00.000-07:00

So I am revealing the answers to our oh-so-important game that we are playing. I'll let you know who got it right also, because I was incredibly impressed with some people's excellent guesses!

1 daw = dog
Josh!!!
2 guk = duck
Jared!!!
3 ko = go
Zach, Holly and Ben (heretofore known as ZHB), Mary Jane, Jared
4 ti = tree
5 dada = dad
ZHB, Mary Jane, Zac, Jared, Josh
6 mama = mom
ZHB, Mary Jane, Zac, Josh
7 mow = more
Mary Jane, Zac, Josh
8 car = car (car, toes, and uh oh are his clearest words for sure, even more so than
dada or mama.)
ZHB, Zac, Jared, Josh
9 dow = door
Jared, Josh
10 izit = is it? (this means "where is it?")
ZHB, Zac, Jared, Josh
11 izdis = is this? (this means "what is this?")
ZHB, Zac, Jared, Josh
12 shuss = shoes
ZHB!!!
13 s, s = sippy (I don't know why he won't say this more clearly, but a couple S
sounds always means "sippy".)
14 awbo = apple
Jared!!!
15 or = orange
ZHB, Jared, Josh
16 nana = banana
ZHB, Mary Jane, Zac, Jared, Josh
17 uhoh = uh oh (he knows what it means, but uses it in the middle of his
sentences. For example, "unga a nedel a bu UH OH bu an do a da." Funny Kid!)
ZHB, Zac, Jared, Josh
18 a, ga-a = I got it! (In the grocery store he takes the shopping list and yells
"a, ga-a!" He loves that game.)
ZHB!!!
19 saw = sock
Josh!!!
20 teeseez = teethies (He means teeth. He loves brushing his teeth.)
21 jees = jesus
Mary Jane!!!
22 baau = ball
23 choo choo = choo choo train (His latest obsession.)
Mary Jane!!!
24 dat = that
Mary Jane!!!
25 issa_____ = it’s a ______
26 ub = up
27 shu = shirt
28 ais = eyes
29 nos = nose
30 toes = toes
31 bobow = bubbles
32 uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh = I don’t know, but he says this all the time and
thinks I should know what that means. Lol!

He says a lot more words, like this, no no, and fishies. He started out only saying cheese for a camera which a two year old girl taught him that I tended for a while. Now he's starting to make the connection with actual cheese though. I just thought I'd give you guys a little taste in to how my linguist skills are coming in handy. I promise I have to translate EVERY DAY! Lol!

Daw's and Guk's

2010-05-17T07:29:00.000-07:00

So let's play a little game, shall we? I am going to list all the words I can think of that Seth says, and you see if you can guess what he's really trying to say. (some are easy, some are hard.) Ready... Set... Go!

1) Daw
2) Guk
3) Ko
4) Ti (the "i" sounds long as in Lick)
5) Dada
6) Ma
7) Mow
8) Car
9) Dow
10) izit
11) izdis
12) shuss
13) s,s
14) awbo
15) or
16) nana
17) uhoh
18) a, ga-a
19) saw
20) teeseez
21) jees
22) baau
23) choo choo
24) dat
25) issa _______ (this is always followed by another word he knows)
26) ub
27) shu
28) ais
29) nos
30) toes
31) bobow
32) uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh

He says so many more words, but I can't even think of them right now. So send me your guesses. I will be anxiously awaiting responses and will post the answers when I think everyone has written to me that's going to. Can't wait to hear from y'all!

I need help deciding!

2010-05-07T14:57:00.000-07:00

I am entering Seth's picture into the Springville Art City Festival baby contest. (Go vote if you're in the Springville area ever! Voting is beginning of June I believe.) I need help deciding which picture to enter though. Leave a comment and let me know which would be your pick! :)

#1

#2

#3

#4

#5

#6
This option consists of whipping out the camera and taking more photos to try and get a picture that is more fitting in some way. If you pick this option, please explain what you are looking for so that I can try to capture it! I would love any input cuz I am SO not a photographer! Lol! :)

Hey Big Haircut!

2010-05-07T14:47:00.000-07:00

So summer must have started, cuz we did our summer haircuts. It was Jason's turn first, since he needed it the worst. Then it was Seth's turn. This is his first summer haircut and he looks like a little boy, not even a toddler, let alone a baby! It just breaks my heart to see him getting so big so fast. It makes me grateful for today also, cuz I know it will be gone all too quickly. So here it is (drum roll please!) Seth's first Summer haircut!!!

BEFORE:

AFTER:

Coding Ideas

2010-05-06T15:00:00.000-07:00

So in my spare time,that little section of my life that barely exists anymore do to all the fun stuff I get to do with my family... :) I am building small Flex/Flash/Air applications to post as a portfolio online in the future. I coded the CaseCrafts.com site that is no longer live, but still works, and I am currently building an AIR game that I call Pipes, that you can download and play. i think it will be fairly fun. I'm looking for ideas of games, applications, or other recommendations of apps I could build. I would prefer them to be useful to someone. I can program it to be a website, a widget for a website, or as a standalone application.

So let me know if you have any ideas for me.

Thanks!
Jason

Bridal Veil falls - Seth is a cutie

2010-04-24T18:54:00.000-07:00

So we decided to trek up to Bridal Veil Falls and Seth loved it. On our way back he grabbed a pine cone and ripped off the "petals" as we walked down the path. He kept ripping them off and then tried to throw them. it was so cute. And he actually did it for a long time. Look at this thing. He picked it clean:

It's funny, when he starts concentrating on something he could do it for hours. He picked this thing clean and it took him like 30 minutes to do it. And he wasn't happy when it didn't have anymore to pick off. :) We love our little guy!

Friends!

2010-04-19T18:48:00.000-07:00

Aren't they cute together? They were talking to each other while they fixed things on his tool bench (thank you Zach and Holly) and running into each other in the curtains and giggling like crazy when I would pretend that I couldn't find them. It was so dang cute.

Emmy is my best friend's daughter and is almost 2 months younger than Seth. They have "played" together since all they could do was focus their eyes 2 feet away. Seth gets really excited when I say, "Do you want to see Emmy?" and he grabs his shoes and heads for the door. He's also cried when we left their house or when they've left ours.

Anyway, just thought I'd share my little ray of sunshine for the day! :)

Avatar

2010-04-18T17:17:00.000-07:00

So have you seen it? If so... I'm so sorry!

Let me just share my very strong opinion on this movie. My husband works for a company that was bought out by Adobe (yep, THE Adobe, the one you've heard of...) so we got tickets to go see Avatar for free since Adobe helped make this movie. I left the theater infuriated. And when Jason asked why, I wasn't sure whether it was a good thing or not that he didn't already know why I was so mad. Let me explain...

The whole movie is about a humanoid (defined as a being having the appearance or characteristics of a human) species that is being threatened and attached by humans. So what is the difference between the appearance of the humans and the humanoids? The humanoids are blue skinned with white freckles. They're tall and they have tails. Other than that, they look exactly like humans. So why am I so upset? The whole species wears pretty much NOTHING throughout the whole show. LESS than bikinis. You think I'm kidding? I saw cracks, nipples, everything except the actual genitals, though I was afraid that was next throughout the whole show.

So when we left the theater, Jason said he hadn't even noticed since they had blue skin. Again, I wasn't sure if I was glad that he hadn't noticed the body parts that I saw, or if I was upset that he was so callused by the world that seeing that much of a woman wasn't even a problem. What have we come to?

And what's more, people in church love this movie, talk about it, rave about it... in CHURCH! How is this okay? For a while I thought I was going nuts and maybe it wasn't as bad as I remembered it (which is why I have taken so long to blog about this) but then Jason and I were discussing it and decided to look up a review of the movie. They say right on the site that you see a lot of the humanoid species' body parts (they list them, but I already have, so I won't burden you all with those words again) and a human woman's bare naked body. And yet is was only rated a 4 out of 10 for sexuality/nudity on kids-in-mind.com. (0 being the most clean and 10 being the most obscene) I just don't think I can trust anybody's opinion on movies any more.

So what's the solution? Do I go see every single show by myself before I can go with my husband or let him see it? Do we just stop watching anything over PG? Do we stop going to the theater altogether? And what good would that do since we still like watching movies at home? Do I share my opinion with people in church that love this movie? Or do I keep my mouth shut, put on a smile, and let the world turn as it will?

Am I right for trying to protect my family, or am I just being a bigot or a prude?

I would love to hear someone else's opinion on this so PLEASE tell me what you think.

My brother Kasey's wedding

2010-03-24T19:56:00.000-07:00

I woke up to throw up.
Yep, most of it mine.
I took time to wake up
and took time to whine.

I didn’t want to get up
or get out of my bed
but my brother was to marry,
my best friend to wed.

So I had to be there;
I had no choice!
So what if I’m dizzy
and don’t have a voice!

I don’t do my makeup.
I barely brush my hair
but I just kept thinking,
“I have to be there!”

Lucky I have a husband
that helps out a lot
‘cuz he packed all the stuff
that I forgot.

We make it in time.
We rush into the place
and I know everyone
can see nausea on my face.

The ceremony proceeds
and I don’t even hurl!
I even smile a bit
when he kisses the girl.

Then we have the luncheon
the reception, a dance.
I shake so many hands;
no one else has a chance!

They’re all gonna get sick!
poor kids, poor moms!
Maybe I can stop it
with icy hot and lip balm.
(maybe they can stop it
by washing their palms!)

But no, I digress.
They’ll get sick, too.
and we’ll all whine together
about this dumb flu.

I get feeling better
but wonder why
I couldn’t have been sick
a day early or a day shy

of the beautiful wedding
between brother and friend
but at least I’m not sick now
and all bad days end.

(Inspired by http://blogs.babycenter.com/momformation/2010/03/18/sick-mommy/comment-page-1/#comment-5584985)

Werewolf

2010-02-25T16:38:00.000-08:00

So I don't know if any of you remember sleepovers with your friends. You watch a scary movie, eat until you can't look at food anymore... Then, when everyone is tired, punchy, and a little spooked, you all sit down and play "werewolf". I knew it as "murder" and I know there are several other names for it. It goes something like this:

Let's say you have 12 friends (yeah, it's a huge sleepover. Maybe it's your birthday or something.) From a deck of cards you separate out one ace, one king, one queen, three jacks, and 6 of anything else. Mix up these cards and then everyone draws one. the ace is the seer, the king is the healer, the queen is the hunter, a jack is a werewolf, anything else is regular human. Once you have your roles there is a "day time" when everyone can talk and look around etc. You try to gather clues as to what everyone is. At the end of the "day" you ask if there should be a hanging. If you don't want to kill anyone off everyone puts there heads down and the spokes person (whose head is also down) calls out the roles one at a time. When the seer is called, he can tap someone on the shoulder and, without looking at the seer, that person shows their card to the seer. Next the healer is called. The healer taps someone on their shoulder and that person can't be eaten by the werewolves. Then the werewolves are called. (cue creepy music...) All living werewolves silently pick one person to tap on the shoulder. That person waits until "day time" is called and then screams and falls down dead. (The hunter lies in wait. If the last living werewolf eats the hunter before only two players are left, the humans win. If this happens then, instead of screaming and falling down dead when "day time" is called, the hunter announces that he is the hunter and has shot the werewolf, and the werewolf screams and falls down dead and the game is over.) You play until either the werewolves win or the humans win.

It's a pretty fun game and there is an online version that we would LOVE to have more people join. It is a website run by a guy named Stenu that built it himself. The website is (Click on the following...) www.voitta.net. You have to sign up for an account, but you don't have to give too much info at all. You then go to "Waiting Games" and pick what game you want to join. (There is also Risk that they call "Fisk" and you get an email when it's your turn, which is cool. There are some other games too...) Click "join" and you are IN!!! Then you can click on "Own Games" and your list of games will appear under three tabs... Running, Waiting, and Ended. You'll get an email when the game actually starts. That's about it.

Anyway, PLEASE come join us. We have fun!

Runner's Corner - An Awesome shoe store

2010-02-24T12:54:00.000-08:00

So I stopped by this place called Runner's Corner in Orem, Utah this past week. I liked who I talked to so I did a little research on the place and found out that they are really knowledgeable on the subject of Running. I found a blog online that the manager writes for, and I read an article that he wrote on Plantar Fasciitis. It was quite good. You can find that article here: BarefootRunning.com. I like how they give steps to take to not only find healing, but also to strengthen the foot. In all of my appointments with podiatrists, not one went into how to strengthen my feet now that I'm not feeling plantar pain all of the time. They just made sure that my orthotics were doing their job.

So after reading this article and posting some on the comments section of that blog article, I decided to go in to Runners Corner. You can check out their website here: RunnersCornerUtah.com. Golden helped me out. He first asked about my running/exercise history, and asked about any injuries that I had. I explained the plantar fasciitis issues. He then grabbed a pair of shoes in my size and had me run a little while he examined my running style. It's interesting because several other shoe stores told me that I had problems with over pronation, but I had looked this up on the internet and it never made sense to me based on how I thought I ran. He told me I was very supinated and that shoes made for extreme overpronation would actually cause me more problems with supination. I was right and he confirmed it. I would have bought a motion control shoe for severe overpronators had I not talked to Golden first.

So they know their stuff at Runners Corner. After checking my run style he brought me some shoes to test my foot width and then after a few tests he had me try on one shoe from two different pairs and go for a run. We did this a few times until I found a couple of pairs that I really liked. I tried them out and then decided on the pair I liked. I found it interesting that the pair he was suggesting to me was the cheapest non-clearance shoe on their shelves. He recommended the Asics Gel-Fortitude 3's for stability and because I would be doing much more than running in these shoes (Basketball and Insanity). I found it interesting that he recommended completely different shoes for the guy next to me because he had a different running style and different injuries.

So I will be going in today to buy these shoes, a pair of soft orthotics, and possibly getting my shoes "zeroed". I'm not sure what the real term was for this. But basically they remove a portion of the sole in order to make the shoe more balanced so you don't heel strike as much.

Golden talked to me about proper form when running, how to phase out my orthotics and strengthen my feet so I never need orthotics again, and helped me feel much more confident in spending $100+ on the shoes and accessories. I felt like I was being sold like crazy at other shoe stores. They all kept trying to tell me to buy this $150 Kayano shoe that Golden explained would actually hurt me because it is not for my running style.

Runner's Corner in Orem is awesome and I highly recommend any of you to stop in if you are looking for a pair of running shoes or if you are interested in learning more about how to run properly, how barefoot running works, and if you want to hear someone speak intelligently about the sport...

2010-02-19T19:42:00.000-08:00

Jason switched our blog back to blogger (which is WAY easier to use) so I will be posting on the blog again! yay! Before I was trying to catch up on all the exciting things going on in our lives, but since I couldn't post on the other site I got way behind and won't be trying to catch up. I will try to post on the really important things that have come and gone, but you don't get to know all the gruesome details... sorry... or you're welcome, whichever applies. :)

Insanity... It really does hurt.

2010-01-19T06:17:00.000-08:00

So I decided to try this workout program called Insanity. It says that it is probably the hardest or one of the hardest workout programs on the market. Many people compare it to P90X without the equipment. I started on Monday and did my fit test. Event the fit test killed me. I had to do half in the morning and then finish the other half later on. I just wanted to get some kind of a baseline other than, you suck cause you couldn't finish...

Today, I did my first real workout and I have to say it is really really tough. It's pretty much intense interval training for two months. We'll see how it goes. I did all my pictures and measurements on Sunday so I can see where I end up, but I'm hoping that it helps make some real progress. I need to lose some weight and get some strength back. Also, it comes with a pretty intense nutrional plan that I am following. Albeit, not to a T, but I am following it. We'll see how well this works. What's funny is that this thing wants me to eat 3000-3500 calories a day because of how intense the workouts are...

Let's just say it is fun. :)

2010 Goals... Gotta write them down right?

2010-01-14T03:24:00.000-08:00

So Ashley and I had the idea to write down some goals for 2010. I think we did a good job of writing down obtainable yet difficult goals that would definitely benefit us assuming we hit them. So these are our goals and you can feel free to help us obtain them through reminders, motivation, or whatever else you can/want to offer.

Jason:

Health:

Get back down 175 lbs

Get back to a 32 Waist

With Gym Membership - Bench my weight (assuming we do end up getting a gym membership. Not for sure yet.)

Run 5 miles

Finish 60 days of "Insanity"

Financial:

Be Debt Free this year

Earn a raise

Build full emergency fund

Faith:

Read one scripture oriented book

Say morning prayers each morning

Mind:

Read 10 books

Read one actual book (not CD)

Ashley's Goals:

Health:

Get back down to 115 lbs

Get Mental and Physical health in check

Fit into pre-pregnancy clothes

Run 5 miles

Financial:

Be Debt Free this year

Finish and sell (or give as baby gifts) all baby carrier covers

Build full emergency fund

Faith:

Read one scripture oriented book

Say morning prayers each morning

Other:

Finish sewing projects (Seth's curtains, our curtains, mending)

Do spring cleaning

So there you go. We have some lofty goals that we will have to work very hard and focus on to obtain. I'm currently 197 lbs... Not my heaviest weight ever but not far from it. I would love to get back down to my high school weight that was around 160, but I think 175 is more realistic and I haven't been that weight since the earlier parts of my mission which was around 2002-2003. A few years back, 2005 or 2006, I spent the summer running and was running about 5-6 miles a few times a week. I ended up getting plantar fasciitis which is micro tears in the plantar fascia, the ligament that connects your achilles to your heel to the ball of your foot. So now that it is all but healed, I would like to push for this again.

I've never been a reader so to say I would read 10 books in a year will be a big stretch for me. Especially if I have to read the physical book. Also, we have been really focused lately on getting out of debt before we buy a house. So we are going to work on getting out of debt and building a fully funded emergency fund by the end of the year so that we can start looking at houses and saving up a down payment for a house for next year. Can I tell you how nice it is to pay off debts? Not just to pay the minimum, but to see the debts go away permanently. It's a beautiful thing to not have a car payment and it's wonderful to see those student loans melt away.

I think the hardest one for me to complete will be the 60 days of Insanity. It's a workout program like P90x or Tae Boe, but it is extremely intense. We'll see if my body can hold up under the workouts, but I think this is what will help me to get to my desired weight. This and a good diet will get me there and both will be difficult to keep up. We shall see. I might even gives updates on the blog as I go through it on the program and whether it is working or not.

K... That's our goals for 2010.

Updates

2010-01-12T01:35:00.000-08:00

(Jason) So I decided that our blog needed some updates. We have been extremely busy with life and we haven't posted in months. Here are some updates on our life:

Seth is now 15 months old.

2 Weeks vacation for Christmas in Wyoming was a ton of fun

Working for Adobe is a great thing. They have awesome benfits and have really taken good care of us.

Ashley is now 26 and is more beautiful than ever.

I just earned 5 more bonus points for my previous comment.

Ashley will start tending two kids from the neighborhood 4 times a week starting today.

We have been following Dave Ramsey's financial dieting and have paid off about 60% of our debt during last year!! (It's tight sometimes)

We expect to be out of debt this time next year (Except for the house which we hope to buy next year)!!!!

I plan to start an exercise program called Insanity this next week. We'll see if I can shed some weight doing it. More like, We'll see if I can keep doing it... I'll shed the weight if I stick to it.

Ashley and I are closer, happier, and more talkative than ever. We love each other and I am so happy we have what we have.

Well, I hope that helps catch you up a little. Let us know if there is anything that you would like us to update you on.

The BCS is a joke

2009-12-16T03:37:00.000-08:00

This is a good example of how I feel about the BCS.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CUKQMXB5io0

It is ridiculous and it is an oligopoly which I believe is illegal which makes me wonder why the government hasn't stepped in. We would never stand for the oil companies getting together and deciding on a price to charge and then screwing over every other gas station out there. This is called collusion isn't it? The BCS must be removed before college football can ever again be taken seriously. Fans become more and more critical of the system with each year as they continue to see more and more teams get screwed out of a chance for a title. College football, you are the only sport that can never claim that you won a championship game. How does that feel? You can never prove anything because you are never given a chance to prove you can beat the best. You can only prove that you can beat the team that the computer put you up against. This is why the BCS Sux and we need a college football playoff. Don't tell me there isn't enough time, because most leagues end in early December and the title game is in January. This easily gives enough time for there to be a three week playoff or something like that. Even a "plus one" playoff would be better than what is currently happening. Have the top four play and then the winners play each other for the championship. That's only ONE EXTRA WEEK! Oh and that other excuse about it being too hard on the players and that they need to do school work is dumb too. Alabama just gave 3 days off or something like that to ALL STUDENTS, and not just the players so that they can travel and attend the game. Obviously this doesn't seem to be a problem. Your excuses are as ridiculous as your system.

End the stupidity. Form a playoff of some sort...

New Blog

2009-12-15T18:50:00.000-08:00

Hey everyone, we moved from Blogger to Wordpress. We are hosting it on my server so if you go to blog.jasoncase.com, you will get to our all new page. Check it out: Click here to go to the new blog

Want some free stuff?

2009-12-14T07:01:00.000-08:00

Hey our sister in law is having a giveaway on her blog. Just follow the link below, check out her post, leave a comment and you could win one of these:

http://lifefromeveryangle.blogspot.com/2009/12/merry-christmas-to-you-my-first.html

SilverStone Simply Baking Nonstick Carbon Steel 12 Cup Muffin Pan

SilverStone Simply Baking Nonstick Carbon Steel 11" x 17" Cookie Sheet

Guidecraft Set 9 Mini Unit Blocks

Wild Republic Really Wild Bingo

Le Creuset Multi-colored Pinch Bowls (Set of 4) (1/4 cup size)

Mindscope Octacube 3D Puzzle

Omniture to Adobe

2009-11-14T04:23:00.000-08:00

So a lot of you have wondered what was going to be happening when Adobe decided to buy Omniture. Well if is finalized and I am officially working for Adobe. All in all, nothing really changes for me. I will still be working with the same clients that I have been working with and will be learning and teahcing the same ideas. Omniture will stay mostly as it is. Though I will be getting much better benefits. More days off, better medical, vision, and dental insurance. And even better wellness benefits for gyms or other exercise related activities. Let's just say that they have the best benefits of any company that i have ever worked for.

I'm really looking forward to see where this will take us as a company. It means more money to grow faster. It probably means a stronger integration with Adobe products. And it means a stronger resume for Omniture employees. This should be a very good thing for our family going forward and we are excited to see where it goes. We plan on being with this company for a long time.

Enrichment

2009-09-14T17:44:00.000-07:00

As some of you know, I am the second councelor in the Relief Society (women's organization for my church). That means I am in charge of basically all meetings that happen among the women that don't take place on Sunday (along with several other responsibilities that don't really apply to this post, so they won't be explained...) Every now and then we have a fun get together on the second Thursday of the month called Enrichment Night. These have been both fun and stressful for the ones planning them (aka me and my enrichment leader and the enrichment committee.)

July 9th we had an enrichment night that I put together without the enrichment leader or the committee because it all had to do with the mini-groups that are run through the relief society. Mini-groups are exactly what they sound like, small clubs of women with similar interests. I have started up many mini-groups for our ward... 16 to be exact... and the women wanted to know more about them. We had a small table for each mini-group leader to set up a display for her mini-group. Some of the mini-groups are food storage, outdoor adventure, knitting, book club, sprouting, dessert night, ladies' night out, children's play group, etc. The leaders that showed up did an excellent job, but the ones that didn't really disappointed me, since only one lady told me she wouldn't be there that night and made sure I had something to display for her group. A fair number of ladies showed up and we had a good time just talking and seeing the different displays. I wish it would have been a bigger crowd with more displays, but it all turned out okay. And I am proud of myself since I really did put it together and advertise it all by myself.

Our latest Enrichment Night was a ploy to get the ladies to know and serve each other more. We did this last year and we all had such a wonderful time and got such wonderful compliments on it that the Relief Society president asked us to do it again. We call it a service auction. What happens is the ladies show up and get a paper with a list of things they need to have done to earn points. (Example: If you said your prayers before you went to bed, 10 points. If you fasted last fast Sunday, 20 points.) However many points you have total is the "money" that you have to bid on the items that have been donated by the ladies. I won some yard work from one lady and a fall decoration from another. I donated a large homemade pizza to auction and also a fleece baby carrier cover. It is so much fun just to see how you are doing with all the commandments of the Lord by seeing how many points you get, and then to see how excited people get about the thing you donated, and then getting really excited to bid on everyone else's donations. It's fun afterward also to get to know the people that you are instantly connected with through the auction. We invited the Young Women (the girls 12 to 18 years old in my church) this time and they loved it. I think they were a little surprised to see how rowdy the older ladies can get!! It's fun to see an 80 year old woman coming out of her chair because she's so excited to out bid the 20 year old woman next to her. :D It doesn't get much better than that. And the whole event is fairly easy to plan for the committee because you don't have to come up with a theme or decorations or the money for anything extravagant. It's good all around!! I am just really pumped about it since we just got done with it this last week.

More Up-Date Blogging

2009-09-13T21:07:00.000-07:00

So the next big event after the Relief Society Retreat was Father's Day on June 21st. Honestly, there isn't much to write. I made Jason a Father's Day CD and pampered him all day. We aren't doing any gifts this year for holidays and it's made it a very odd year, especially for the holidays you don't really decorate for, like mother's and father's day. Without decorations or gifts, it feels like just another day even if we try to make it special. Does that make me really shallow, that I want either decorations or gifts or both to make it feel like a holiday? Maybe it just makes me lucky that every day is as good as a holiday only without the decorations and gifts.

So on to the 4th of July. I usually love the fourth, but this year it was just aggravating! My back was out because the baby cried all night and didn't let me lay down at all. (I have back problems that I'm not sure all of you know about... anyway...) We went to the parade with my sis and dad and mom. My dad went early and got us good seats so that was good. Unfortunately I was in a terrible mood because I hadn't slept and I was sitting on a folding chair which really hurt and trying to lift my ornery son through the whole thing which hurt even more. We went home for a while and I had my dad try to realign my back all morning, which would help for about 30 minutes before the pain returned. We then went to a sidewalk sale thing in Provo and Jason got really ornery because he hates walking around at those things. It also took forever there. We were there all too long. We went home for a little bit then went to temple hill to watch the fireworks in the Stadium of Fire. (You can see them from all around.) We got there plenty early but Jason ran to the store to get a few things and it took him a really long time to get back due to traffic which was also aggravating. (My back is still KILLING me remember.) Seth had barely slept all day and wasn't sleeping at all at the fireworks. We forgot things to do while we waited for the fireworks to start, so that was kinda boring. Then people kept parking their cars in front of us and I finally went and told one guy to move his vehicle, which I think surprised everyone, including the guy in the vehicle. It then rained on us as we were walking to the van, which was way far away. So Jason took off to get the van to come pick us up, and didn't specify where he was going to pick us up at so we were lost more or less. Then the fireworks started again... YEP! we thought it was over and it was about half way through. So we tried to watch the other half but there were trees in the way where we were standing, but we didn't want to go somewhere else and become even more lost. Jason eventually found us and then the police couldn't figure out which way to send us and sent us INTO the dead end traffic at the stadium. We couldn't even turn around so my dad jumped out and tried to direct Jason to back up, but people kept walking right behind the van. That's when I hit my limit and jumped out also. I through my arms out and stopped a crowd so that Jason could move. I kept directing Jason to back up until he was about a foot from me and a little boy on a bicycle and his parents weren't very happy with me. To say the least, it took us a couple hours to drive the 15 min drive from BYU to our home in Springville. The whole time my back was killing me. It makes it impossible to move my head or my right arm without pain. We finally got home, got the baby down, and fell asleep. Thank goodness that day was over. Obviously my back still hurt the next few days, but at least I wasn't trying to act like it didn't to save a holiday.

Relief Society Retreat

2009-09-03T02:28:00.000-07:00

So you know how I said I would post about the "other" events that took place between the end of May and now? I'm finally doing it! It's going to take me a long while to catch up though, so be patient with me. But here's the first one:

Every year our Stake Relief Society (All the women of our church in this area) go up Hobblecreek Canyon to Jolley's Ranch and spend two days jam packed full of inspirational speakers, crafts, humanitarian aid projects, and food. Last year my mom came with me and this year my mom and sister-in-law, Holly, came with me. It's a blast to be up in Heavenly Father's creations surrounded by women you know and love. It's great to know that everyone is there for the same purpose. It's so much fun to discuss the talks given and to hear all the serious talks and the funny talks and the inspirational talks; Just to absorb all the light from all the people around you is refreshing. We didn't camp out over night like last year. (Yes, I was pregnant last year and camped out anyway, because I knew I wouldn't be able to this year. Call me crazy...) We did go up early the next morning though, so we were there both days. The talks that stand out most to me are these:

1) There was a talk with a man that really knew the scriptures. I think his topic was something along the lines of "Inner Beauty found in the Scriptures" and we did talk about that for most of it, but some of it was just questions from all of us which weren't all on topic because this guy just knows so much. You can bring up a random topic and ask him any question and he can quote you a scriptural reference (in any of the four scriptures, Bible, Book of Mormon, Doctrine and Covenants, or Pearl of Great Price) that has to do with that topic. It was so great to be able to drink from such a deep well of knowledge. One great thing about this guy is that he got to be so knowledgeable of the scriptures because he used to drink and do other not-so-good things until his life fell apart. Then he put it back together by studying the scriptures so much that he was just immersed in them. It's just such a triumphant story and now he is blessing so many lives with his knowledge.

2) There was an old man that had some wacky ideas about how I should raise my kids. He refused to answer any questions and blew off anyone that tried to get him to clarify what he was saying. He even made the one lady feel like her question wasn't relevant and that she was dumb for asking it. He spoke several times during the two days we were there but I only saw him once. One of my friends and I were talking in line for lunch though and she told me that she completely disagreed with almost everything he said, so I knew it would be an interesting talk when I went to it. I left his talk early, figuring that a good walk through nature would do me more good than his speech. It was so weird to have the spirit interrupted like that. Last year there wasn't one talk or speaker that I felt was just way off base like that, let alone one that insulted people. It's a long two days up there and you get so tired, so my mom and Holly just slept through it! :) That made me laugh.

3) Ranelle Wallace (author of The Burning Within) came and told a condensed version of her story and filled it with wonderful spiritual insight. It was funny and moving and she was easy to listen to.

She was living in California and her and her husband took a trip to Utah (Park City) to try and put their marriage back together. She had several warnings not to go on the trip and especially not to fly home, but she ignored them all and was in a TERRIBLE plane crash. I have the book if anyone wants to borrow it. It is such a great story about how she gets off the mountain she crashed in to, about her death and coming back to this world, and about her recovery afterward. What I found out about the story by listening to her speak was that, after everything that happened, her husband ended up leaving her anyway (this statement is so much more powerful and meaningful when you read the book)for a much younger woman and that she was diagnosed with cancer and found out the day that she was coming to speak to us that the cancer was finally gone. This woman has really been through it in this life, and yet she still has a huge smile on her face. That alone can teach us all something.

I love the way the Retreat is set up. There are several classes offered at the same time so that you can pick which speaker you want to see. It's only $10 and you get almost all your meals for Friday and Saturday, besides the wonderful speakers. I know that everybody that went with me received some sort of answer to prayer while up there. Really, if you can come next year, I would HIGHLY recommend it. Just let me know and I will invite you when it comes closer to having it again.

Banana Bandit

2009-09-03T00:28:00.000-07:00

So I gave Seth some banana chunks for breakfast and he ate them really well for a while. Unfortunately he thought he was done before I thought he should be done, so I left him in the high chair and told him to keep eating. I was eating my bowl of cereal and when I looked over, he was hiding the chunks of the banana in the seat of the high chair. He looked incredibly guilty when I caught him, then he laughed. I think he knew exactly what he was doing...

Fun things I won't post about individually that happened since my last update post (Memorial Day)...

2009-08-09T20:34:00.000-07:00

1. Jason and I are scuba certified! We went through Scuba Ted's in Springville and love the people there. Yes, they're salesmen, but they are also incredibly nice and honest. Kinda expensive, but fun.

2. May 29th - My half brother, Aaron Jacob, came to Utah from Japan (where he's stationed with the Marines) and I was able to see him for the first time in many years. We had a good time catching up and Aaron was able to meet Jason and Seth, which was fun. Our schedules only lined up for dinner and going to visit Grandma and Grandpa Ras, so our time was short, but I'm really glad we did it. It's nice to see that he's the same guy, way relaxed and fun to talk to.
3. June 2nd - Seth cut his first tooth! Lower left front...
4. June 8th - Seth cut his second tooth! lower right front...
5. June 13th - We toured the Oquirrh Mt. Temple with my fam. Way pretty and calming. It's skinny and tall, which is different than any other temple I've been in.
6. June 27th - We had a family bbq with my mom's side of the family. It was at my Uncle Jim's house and was way funner than I first anticipated. We had a really good time catching up with everyone.
7. June 28th - I sold my first baby carrier covers! I LOVED mine for Seth and now sell them on casecrafts.com which I will blog about one day...
8. June 28th to July 5th - My sis comes to stay with us just for fun, and it was! We took her to an orthodontist appointment and did 4th of July with her and my fam. (More on the 4th to come also...)
9. July 7th - I had a piano recital. Odd... I haven't had a recital for YEARS! I think I did pretty well. I played Minuet by Bach and The Clown by Kabelovsky and For Good from the Wicked Musical, which Jason sung with. He also did an amazing job. My ma and sis came to watch. Ma took pics, which I haven't gotten yet, but will post when I have them in my possession.
10. Seth turned 9 months! He's growing so so so fast. Dr's Measurments: Length is almost 29 inches which is 60% on the chart. Weight is almost 20 pounds which is 36% on the chart. Head Circumference is almost 48 centimeters which is 96% on the chart. Yep, he's got a Case head. :)

11. Pioneer day my sis was up with us again. My mom was going to Indiana because my bro and sis-in-law just had their second baby girl, and my dad works during the day, so we took in my 13 yr old sis for a week which included the 24th of July! We didn't do much, but we did go see some AMAZING fireworks in Mapleton. Really, they're better than you would expect from little Mapleton. Check them out next year! It's totally free, you just run around in a park before hand and listen to some local fiddle bands. It's pretty fun. It rained on us like crazy, but when it stopped we went back and got a good fireworks show. My sis was up for a week after that also, but that's another post...

Except for big things we would post separately about, that's it! We will get the actual exciting stories up soon hopefully. There really are some good stories to be told, but I will leave you in suspense for now.

Quote Board

2009-07-15T07:42:00.000-07:00

We now have an online quote board. Check it out: Quote Board. We have a quote board at home and it keeps filling up with all of the random things that we and our friends say. So instead of deleting them permanently will the board fills up, they will end up on this site. You will be able to find a link at the top of our blog now that will lead to our pictures, which haven't been updated in a long time and our quote board. If you have any recommendations for the page then let me know. Maybe I can implement some of your good ideas.

Why "Spreading the Wealth" won't work in the US

2009-07-14T10:37:00.000-07:00

(Jason) So I've ALWAYS hated Obama's idea of spreading the wealth in order to be fair. This idea that people who earn more money should be taxed at much higher rates based on their high income is ridiculous and unfair. And worse, it's socialism which I highly disagree with. Here's a story that's probably not true, but I honestly believe the lesson it teaches is:

Professor is a Genius

An economics professor at a local college made a statement that he had never failed a single student before, but had once failed an entire class.

--------------------------------------------

That class had insisted that Obama's socialism worked and that no one would be poor and no one would be rich, a great equalizer.

The professor then said, "OK,
we will have an experiment in this class on Obama's plan".

All grades would be averaged and everyone would receive the same grade so no one would fail and no one would receive an A.

After the first test, the grades were averaged and everyone got a B.
The students who studied hard were upset and the students who studied little were happy.

As the second test rolled around, the students who studied little had studied even less and the ones who studied hard decided they wanted a free ride too so they studied little. The second test average was a D! No one was happy.

When the 3rd test rolled around, the average was an F.

The scores never increased as bickering, blame and name-calling all resulted in hard feelings and no one would study for the benefit of anyone else.

All failed, to their great surprise, and the professor told them that socialism would also ultimately fail because when the reward is great, the effort to succeed is great but when government takes all the reward away, no one will try or want to succeed.

If you talk to people who are from the US and have lived in countries that have Universal Health Care or Socialized Medicine, you will usually hear stories of terrible doctors and people not liking the service they received. I believe this is the reason why. People who are not given proper motivation will lose interest and desire to be the best. Who cares if you are the best if you receive no reward for it. I'm afraid that eventually business will plateau and people will be less motivated to succeed if the government tries to equal everything out for everyone. The reason most people work hard is to rise above their circumstances and improve their life or their family's.

I guess the question I have is, how can we expect progress and innovation in America if we give no real reward to the innovator?

Poop

2009-06-17T12:58:00.000-07:00

So, I was practicing piano at home and Seth was playing under the bench. I turned around and asked him what he was doing. Then I said, "What's under there little man?" and clear as day he said, "Poop." No joke. Hilarious!

And, he stood up to furniture today for the first time all by himself! What a big boy he is...

Drum Roll Please...

2009-06-11T12:26:00.000-07:00

So we narrowed the pictures down to 5. The top five are (in no particular order):

Let me know what you think!

Why I love Digis

2009-06-11T08:18:00.000-07:00

[Jason Speaking] So I posted a while back about hating Qwest and how we were moving to Digis to try out their service. I had heard really good and bad things and it seems to be based on where your home is located compared to where the main tower is located.

After having this service for almost 6 months, I wanted to give a review. I love it. Digis is interesting because it is a wireless service. Instead of hard wiring cable or a phone line into your house like Qwest or Comcast, Digis relies on a small wireless hub that they mount to your roof. Our is mounted to our antenna pole. They then run a network cable into your house which then plugs into your computer or router. It's a really straight forward setup that is fairly painless.

Since getting Digis, I have noticed as good of download speeds as I had with Qwest. on Qwest we had a 6-7Mb connection and we receive the same from Digis. The biggest difference is that on Digis's network we get 5Mb download and 2Mb upload, and on Qwest we got 5 Mb download (normally) and a little less than 1Mb upload. For most people this won't matter at all, but for us it was huge.

I do a lot of Bit Torrenting. No I'm not getting illegal software or movies over this. I download LEGAL files and I want them to download super fast so I use bit torrents. Well that upload speed is huge because in the torrenting community if you don't share as much as you download, a lot of services will throttle (slow down) your download speeds. Digis has destroyed Qwest in it's ability to get our files downloaded quicker as a result of the huge upload.

So outside of that, how has it been? Great. We have had no downtimes as far as I can tell. Ashley would tell you otherwise, but it's a result of our router dying and not a result of anything Digis has done. I have not had to call their support for any reasons, except for on the first few days to make sure things were working right, but in those short conversations, I found their customer support to be superb.

Pricing is what makes this the best thing ever. At Qwest we were paying about $65 a month after taxes and fees. At Digis we are paying $40 a month for similar speeds. Now it sucks because Digis charges you $100-140 for installation depending on the deal you come in on, but we made that back in 4 months by saving $25 a month on our bills. Now we are simply saving $25 a month and we love the service.

What are the cons? The cons are that you don't know how well digis will work in your area until you try it out. It's totally based on how close your house is to the main tower in your area. They don't give you a public IP Address for free. You have to pay $5 a month to get a public address. I chose to not get this and have opted to use hamachi when I need to get to it remotely.

So that's my opinion. I love it and I am really glad we purchased it. I just wish we would have switched sooner. What's also cool about them is if you refer people, you can get free internet for a time period. I think each referral that signs up gets you a month free and if you get 5 referrals, you get a year for free. So if you decide to signup after reading this, then PLEASE say that Jason and Ashley Case referred you. We would love this. I think it also gets you a free month if you sign up through a referral. Not sure on that though.

A new image

2009-06-08T11:21:00.000-07:00

So, not only does our blog have a new look, but we got more pictures taken of Seth. Yeah, I know, we've taken a ton. But we get to order five of these pictures, no more, no less. So tell me which of the following pictures you would choose if the choice was yours! I need help deciding and love hearing others' opinions on this kind of thing!

Our Memorial Day

2009-05-25T18:02:00.000-07:00

On Memorial Day:

We did a TON of gardening in our back yard. My grandma loves ground cover plants. They are like vines that grow in the dirt and kill your grass to make room. We dug up almost all of it in the back yard in the last few days. (Jason did most of the work, but I helped.) When we are done digging all of this up, we will re-seed our lawn and hope for the best. I will never plant ground cover... ever.

After Jason did a ton of work, the baby started crying while I was running the weed whacker in the front yard. So they hit the hammock and this is how I found them.

I left them in the hammock for awhile while I picked ground cover roots out of the dirt. It didn't take long for them to get nice and relaxed...

This is another part of our yard that we've been working on. We have pheasants that keep eating our strawberries, so Jason built this little cage. And it works!

We are actually getting big red strawberries now and we can't wait to feast on them! The plants and flowers are way pretty too, so it looks good in the yard.

These are just some of our irises. I love all the different plants in our yard now that we have tamed most of them. It's interesting to see their seasons and colors, etc.

After we went back inside, Seth decided he needed to test the durability of our coffee table. He pulled himself up to it and started chewing on the side. Funny little bug! It took me awhile to get this picture, because he kept looking at the camera and falling over and things. It was pretty funny.

No, we didn't make it to the cemetery and I feel like a heel... but we plan on going later this week. Every days a good day to honor those who have given their lives for us, right? That's how I'm justifying it any way...

Wow... not one post in April...

2009-05-04T14:13:00.001-07:00

So my excuse for not posting all April is my church calling; honestly I feel like I have a part time job sometimes. And yet, do you ever feel like you're doing enough in your calling. Oh and everyone has been sick in our house, including cute little Seth. So there are my lame excuses. I know I haven't fooled any of you. :) Anyway, I have a question to ask of all of you!

What books could I suggest to my book club that is run through the Relief Society (aka non-religious but clean books) ?????

PLEASE comment! I want answers!

Seth has really grown in the last month!

2009-03-20T02:46:00.000-07:00

Seth in his jumparoo. He loves this thing. I just thought this photo was adorable. Now on to more important events that have taken place over the last month...

These are pictures of the Denver, Colorado Temple. We were there to watch my brother and his wife get sealed to the three kids he just adopted. (He was married in the temple so his son is already sealed to them.) It was wonderful to be there and watch such a historic event in their family. It was like deja vu from when my brothers and I were sealed to our parents, even down to the screaming baby! :) We had such a good time and the spirit was really strong. (Notice all the babies in the first photo aren't looking at the camera at all! Lol!)

We went to Casa Bonita afterward for dinner and had to try this hat on Seth, of course!

Another one that I just thought was adorable.

Grandpa Case came to visit and finally met Seth! Yay! It was wonderful to have him here to break up my monotonous days. We had family meals on Sunday, Wednesday, and Friday while he was here and it was good to get to see all of the family. We don't get together often enough. When Grandpa left, he cried at having to say goodbye to my sweet little guy and it was really a touching moment. Now the goal is to get Grandma Case over this way to meet Seth!

We started giving Seth rice cereal before bed. This is his first time trying it and it didn't go as bad as I thought it would! He's an expert at it now. We have tried some baby food too and found out
1) he hates bananas. He pulls a really cute bitter beer face when you give them to him.
2) sweet potatoes plug him up.
3) prunes do an excellent job of undoing what the sweet potatoes did. (I won't post those pictures in case we have anyone with a weak stomach watching, but I did take pictures; it was that bad!)

His latest thing is "dadadadadadadadada" and not one "ma" in the whole bunch. Lol! He can roll from his stomach to his back whenever he wants now and has rolled from his back to his stomach a couple of times, but he doesn't do it on purpose yet. It's usually when there's a toy just out of reach that he stretches for, but when he flips over he can't see the toy anymore, so he automatically flips back on to his backside. It's pretty funny to watch.

Yep, I dyed my hair red again last night. This is what it looks like this morning. (Thanks Jason for the excellent dye job!)

My quirks

2009-02-08T14:17:00.000-08:00

There's a thing going around facebook that asks for 25 of your quirks. So here's my list:

1) Labor wasn't as painful as everyone said it would be.
2) When I found out my husband has a brother named Josh, I got really skeptical of that brother. (Too many bad memories of too many Josh's...)
3) I feel like I have very few true blue friends.
4) I could read, eat, sleep, and sit in bubble baths all day every day and not get bored.
5) I don't like any type of stir fry or seafood... period.
6) I'm a FREAK about Lord of the Rings. (Best paper I ever wrote in College was about the linguistics involved in LotR.)
7) I'm starting my own online sewing business (casecrafts.com but it isn't up and running until about April.)
8) I play the flute, piccolo, trombone, guitar, and piano... for now.
9) I'm a member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, but I'm sure most of you knew that.
10) I had a hard time naming my son Seth Asher Case because his initials are SAC, but no other name felt right.
11) I have worked in a concession stand, been a lifeguard, a swimming teacher, a water workout instructor, a secretary, a seamstress, a janitor, a maid, a technical writer, a missionary, a dissolver operator out at the mine, and a homemaker.
12) I'm the enrichment counselor for my ward's relief society presidency and there are many times I feel inadequate to the job.
13) I would consider myself pretty if I got my teeth fixed.
14) Divorce scares the ba-gee-bees out of me. I wouldn't wish that on any family.
15) I love playing board games.
16) I can beat anyone at Monopoly.
17) I served my mission in the Canary Islands and the mission got shut down while I was out there.
18) I can't think of a happier time in my life than right now, even though it's hard sometimes.
19) I hate doing dishes, but could do laundry all day. It's actually kind of relaxing.
20) I minored in Linguistic Computing and can program in VB and a little in C++.
21) I get along easier with people that are older than I am by a few years.
22) I love family time; it's the best time.
23) I don't think I'm really good at any one thing.
24) My hair is dyed red right now and I'm loving it.
25) I am not a patient person. It's the one attribute I most desire.

Relax!

2009-02-04T14:13:00.000-08:00

Things that relax me:
1) Reading... I love to read. Magazines sometimes, but books mostly. I just finished Hiroshima and the four books in the twilight series. I perused a book about body language and social order, but it wasn't what I thought it was going to be, so I set it down. I am also reading the Fablehaven series (3 books so far but there's obviously another) and the Eragon series (I've read the first 2 books but I had to return the third to the library before I finished. Darn it all...) I now have The Road by Cormac McCarthy in my posession. I can't wait to see if it's good.
2) Swimming... I haven't been in a really long time, and I miss it terribly. I wish I had a good babysitter around here and a place to go swimming and didn't feel guilty for paying for both. I love the weightlessness, not to mention the weight loss... Better than swimming, I love teaching swimming lessons. Is that weird?
3) Sleeping... obviously. I love sleeping. I love my big soft bed and many many cushy pillows.
4) Dancing... again, I haven't danced in a really long time. Sad. I would LOVE a modern dance class right about now. Again, I'm so cheap I can't bring my self to pay for one. It sounds like I'm doing enough reading to make up for it though.
5) Sewing... Right now I'm working on starting up an online business to make an extra few bucks. It will be mostly baby stuff. Blankets, Quilts, Car Seat covers, etc. I love that I can turn a relaxing hobby into a side job. Yay!
6) Rocking my baby... I could do it all day but I don't think it would be the smartest thing for him. I think he could be rocked all day too. He's such a cuddler. Problem is, we would both sleep all day (see #3.) "So quiet down cobwebs; dust go to sleep. I'm rocking my baby and babies don't keep."
7) Folding laundry... Yep, my little confession. I won't bore you with too many details. But the smell is so wonderful...
8) Taking baths... sigh, warm, steamy, some nice salts or beads or bubbles or something. You throw a book on top of that and I may never leave. (Okay, I probably will leave eventually, but only because the other things on this list exist.)
9) Cuddling with my hubby... He's amazing. He plays with my hair and keeps me warm. The best is when he kisses me on the forehead and rubs my back.

Okay, I feel better. Gonna go do some of these things now. But here is your part:

What relaxes you? Post your list!

Sorry photos took so long...

2009-01-29T07:10:00.000-08:00

This is Seth in his blessing outfit. I took it at home a couple days after he was blessed. I thought this one was exceptionally cute. He looks like he's trying to pose for abercrombie. lol! The second one is just his booties that he got from great grandma rasmussen. They're way cute on him.

Then there's everyone at thanksgiving. We're in my brother Zach's house in WY. We had a ton of fun! I made a nasty looking pumpkin cheesecake pie. It tasted better than it looked, thank goodness.

This one is Seth (right) and his cousin, Jayden (left), who is 3 months older than him taking a nap together in the bassinet of the pack 'n' play. These two little guys had a ton of fun together. We sat them in front of each other to see what they would do. I think Jayden was confused cuz Seth wasn't reaching for things or playing yet and Seth was in awe of this baby that could do so much. It was fun to get them together.

This is Jason and I all dressed up for the Omniture Christmas party. It was way fancy and we had a great time pretending to be rich for a night. (yeah, we even had a valet park our car. Who does that?) The butter knife couldn't cut the roll, but it was slicing through the steak like nothing. Yum! I even got that dress new from Mariposa's going out of business sale. (I didn't spend a lot on it. I don't spend hardly ever; It's hard for me.)

This was Seth's gift that was too big to take to WY with us so he opened it early. He's just tiny in it in this picture. It's the neatest high chair. It has infant head supports, lays back completely, the legs adjust to three different heights, and it has a really easy one hand release. I've used it a ton already, and I don't even feed him in it yet!

This one is just cute so I had to throw it up. (Grandpa "papa" Rasmussen and Seth) It was a good Christmas break...

Us on Christmas Eve waiting to eat dinner.

Happy New Year! This is Jason's brother Zac's family (Kristen, Matthew, Nathan, Michaela... Their other daughter, Adrienne, isn't in this picture.) We went to their house for New Years and had a great time eating a wonderful meal, playing games and watching "The Bucket List". It was a lot funner than Jason and I at home by ourselves. We hadn't seen their family for quite a while so it was fun to spend some time with them.

My two men looking slick! Aren't they handsome? I love showing them off!

Seth doing tummy time which he HATES. He's doing a lot better though, so he whimpers less now.

I also had my birthday this month and turned 25. For my bday we went to Body Worlds and had a good time there. It was way interesting. Seth didn't like it much, but he made it through. We didn't do much on my actual birthday because it was a Sunday and also instead of doing presents we are taking a trip to Mexico later in the year. So Jason made me a crumb cake and I blew out my candle and Jason changed all the diapers for me. Happy Birthday! :)

Seth is smiling a lot now and giggles a little bit every once in a while. He holds up his head and reaches for toys. He even grabs them every once in a while but he has to concentrate a lot.

So there you go. Phew! That was a lot of work. But... You are all caught up!

Why Qwest Sucks

2009-01-02T12:51:00.001-08:00

So we've had Qwest internet for a little over a year now and the service has been pretty good. It has served us well but the other day we decided to switch because we could save about $25 a month by going with Digis internet. So, I researched Digis and found what we wanted and I called Qwest on Dec 30th to ask if there was anything they could offer to keep us with them. I talked to a couple of representatives and the manager in the Loyalty dept. I was told that they had nothing that they could offer. So, I called Digis and scheduled them to install their stuff today. After the installation, I called Qwest to cancel and the lady told me that she could offer me 6 months for free and the high speed package for the same price I'm paying now after the 6 months. We had just paid $100 for trhe digis install and so I decided not to take the deal. After the call I started thinking and figured we could actually save more money if we took the deal. So I called Digis and they offered nothing. I kinda expected that. I then called Qwest back and told them the stpry of what happened. I got bounced from products to loyalty and finally talked to this guy that told me that they couldn't offer me the 6 month deal. he said that we can offer you 3 months of your current service at $29 a month instead of $46 a month. I thought that was a joke and I told him that. He said that he could have made the six month deal had I called before the end of the year. I mentioned that I had called before the end of the year and their loyalty department offered me nothing and said there was nothing that they could offer.

He apologized and said that there was nothing he could do and I told him that it was crap and asked to talk to his manager. About 20 minutes later, the supervisor came on and asked me what was the matter. I described everythign that had been said and offered and he said that the offer could only be made before the year end and that there was nothing he could do. He apologized for not being able to offer anything and we said goodbye.

Can I tell you how incompetant and unprofessional this makes Qwest look. You guys are a joke and I think it is ridiculous. I'm glad that I found out that your customer reps are just as uninformed and ignorant as the reps at comcast. I really hope digis works out for us because I do not want to have to decide which idiot company to go with. The one that lies to customers or the one that can't figure what the crap is going on when the internet doesn't work. Qwest, you have officially lost my business and now instead of getting me to leave quietly I will make sure and tell everyone just how retarded your policies are. What happened to the customer is always right or even the common sense thinking that says if you help your customer then they'll probably gain loyalty and stay with you. It's unfortunate that you can't figure out how to treat the people that make you money. I really hope you figure it out, because as of now... You suck at customer service and that's enough to keep me from purchasing anything from you. It's the entire reason we haven't shopped at KMart in many years. It's funny... If you would have offered us anything at all instead of lying to us, then we probably would've stayed a customer...

Pictures will follow...

2008-12-28T14:16:00.000-08:00

so I haven't updated this in a LONG time. Sorry about that. We had a blast at christmas with my family in wyoming. We did all the usual traditions but I'll only tell you about a few so you don't think we're too crazy. We get together christmas eve and play games, like taking certain words out of the "Twas the night before christmas" poem and drawing htem out of a hat so they are all out of order. It's pretty funny. We also ate the usual foods, like 7 layer dip without all 7 layers and nasty smelling shrimp. We had a really good time and got some amazing gifts, like high boots, mario kart, and a sonic care toothbrush. we also gave each other some fun things and the baby got a lot. I had too much fun shopping for him. :) We've decided that next year we are taking a trip to los cabos, mexico so we aren't going to buy christmas presents. and the year after that we are buying one or two larger items that we need, instead of little things for each other. We are still making plans for new years.

The baby is growing up really fast. he will now stare you down and talk your ear off. it's really cute. he is working on holding his head up and coming along quite well. his eyelashes get longer every day. His favorite play toys are his bouncy chair and the mobile above his crib. He sucks on the side of his fist so it is really loud which is pretty funny. His favorite time of day is bath time for sure. He starts kicking and splashing and thrashing around, and even when he gets water in his face, he's as happy as can be.

So there ya go. I don't really know what else to say...

2008-11-14T02:17:00.000-08:00

This is a one month update on Seth... Yep, it's been more than a month. I can't believe it. It flew by to say the least. Anyway, my mom stayed to help us for a week after he was born and Jason had two weeks paternity leave, so he was around for quite a while also. It was so nice to have both of them around and to have time to feel like a family. It really helped me settle in to a routine with the cute addition around. When Jason went back to work, I went to our first pediatrician appointment. In two weeks, Seth had gained 5oz since birth (13oz since we left the hospital) and weighed 7 lb. 13oz. He had also gained an inch and was 20 in. long. He said everything was great with our baby and that he was really strong which is a huge relief. :)

I also went back to guitar lessons that day. I strap a snugglie to my front and insert Seth. (Thank you Kristen and Zac... you saved my life by letting me borrow your snugglie.) Before I do up the last strap on the snugglie, I sling the diaper bag over my shoulder, then finish doing up the snugglie. I then throw the guitar case on my back. I look a little overloaded doing it that way, but there are too many stairs to take a stroller. Everybody in guitar class thinks he's adorable, of course.

On the 30th of October, we went to help Jason at his work. They were bogged down painting for their Halloween party. Apparently they do a competition every year for the best decorated building. It was pretty fun to get to know some people from Jason's work. We went to his work's party on Halloween and got to see all the decorations. It was pretty cool! They did a really good job. Seth slept through the whole thing, which was probably good. We stayed home and gave out candy that evening and watched The Legend of Sleepy Hollow, which we hadn't seen forever.
The next day was Super Saturday in our Ward, which I'm in charge of since I'm the second councilor in Relief Society. I took him, but should have left earlier than I did. Oh well.

The day after that was Seth's baby blessing. We loved seeing everyone there to support us. Family is wonderful, isn't it? Anyway, we had found a cute blessing outfit for cheap on ksl.com earlier in the week and we sewed it down smaller to fit him. He looked so cute. There was another baby being blessed first, a cute little indian baby, and then it was our turn. Jason gave such a WONDERFUL blessing. He really spoke by inspiration. It was really neat to sit and listen to all the blessings that could be his, and ours, if we choose.

Seth's one month birthday (can you say that?) fell on Veteran's day (Nov. 11th of course). We were going to have his picture professionally taken, but couldn't schedule it. We were also going to go do something to celebrate, but Seth was pretty ornery (which means mom was also) so we stayed in. Jason fixed us some amazing homemade hot chocolate from scratch. It was great.

So, that's what we've been doing for the past month. Now you're all caught up!!

Seth's First Bath

2008-10-16T12:10:00.000-07:00

Recovery Room Video

2008-10-16T11:29:00.000-07:00

Hey, here is a video of our recovery room and stuff...

The Whole Story

2008-10-15T13:40:00.000-07:00

So we waited for the phone call from the hospital telling us to come in and be induced on Saturday, October 11th. It finally came at about 9:10. I had only gotten about 3 1/2 hrs of sleep because I was so dang excited. We checked into the hospital at 10:05 and we were in our delivery room by 11:00. They put monitors on me and asked me a ton of questions and did exams and all for quite a while, then broke my water to try to induce labor. I had specifically asked them to try breaking my water without the pitocin first and adding pitocin later if needs be, which they said was fine. That worked a little, but didn't send me into labor. So they added the pit drip at 2 ml/hr at about 1:00. That's half the dose the usually start someone at, which made me happy. (I'm anti drug-intrusion when it comes to labor. I know there are circumstances when it's necessary, but I believe they're used too much.) It didn't send me into labor still, so at 1:30 they upped my dosage to 4 ml/hr which did the job. Contractions started out pretty slowly, but came nonetheless. I went to about 5 cm by 2:30. (I started at 3 1/2 cm.) by 2:45 I was at 10 cm!! Most painful 15 minutes of my LIFE! I pushed for 15 minutes and was rewarded with a wonderful little boy. (Okay, maybe THIS was the most painful 15 minutes of my life. It's a toss up...) He's incredibly healthy and mild mannered. He's so perfect. 7lbs 8oz, 19in long. It's wonderful. :) I ended up needing a second degree episiotomy, which hasn't been very much fun. (Second degree meaning they cut skin and muscle, for those of you that don't know the difference.) We stayed in the hospital until Monday morning. We had Seth circumsized and then packed up and left the hospital. Nights have been rough and days have been fun since then. We luckily have my mom down helping us, and she has been a life saver. Life is good, isn't it? :)

He's Here!!!!!!!!!!!! :)

2008-10-15T13:34:00.000-07:00

Saturday at the latest

2008-10-07T18:31:00.000-07:00

So I don't know what to write, but it's been a while and this may be my last chance to blog before the baby gets here. After that, I will definitely have something to say. ;) Everything is set up and ready to go for baby. I'm actually quite proud of Jason and me for being on top of things and having everything ready to go. I remember reading something around 35 weeks that was talking about painting the nursery. My only thought was, "I can't even bend over without flames running up my esophagus. How would you paint a whole nursery now?" I was grateful to have it all done and ready to go. I finished the quilt I was making for little Seth. That was a good day. And I am more than half way done with the curtains for the nursery. I was really behind on house work and getting this place clean enough for a newborn, but thanks to my mom and my little sister, Alyssa, things are caught up now. That was the part I was afraid wouldn’t happen, and it’s possibly the most important part. My problem is that I can’t bend, reach, climb, stretch, lift, or move quickly. Try doing house work without doing any of those things.

I just keep thinking that next time I’m pregnant, I will have a little one running around. I don’t know how anything will get done at that point. I’m sure I’ll figure it out but it’s given me a new respect for moms. Pregnancy is one of those things you really can’t understand until you experience it. My dad said he had been pregnant seven times and I corrected him and said he had been the partner of a pregnant woman seven times. He more or less said it was the same thing and I realized how much he didn’t know about being pregnant at that time. I’ve been around pregnant women before. It’s definitely not the same.

I went to the doctor today and found out that he is leaving for a two week vacation next week. So my options were to get induced before he left or have a different doctor if Seth came after next Wednesday. What I’m hoping is that I just go in to labor in the next few days, which is definitely a possibility. If not, I’ll be induced on Saturday whenever the hospital calls and says they’re ready for me. Though I didn’t want to go that route, it has its pluses. Hopefully it just happens naturally. Wish me luck!

Baby Showers!

2008-09-15T01:59:00.000-07:00

(Ashley) I just wanted to post this and thank EVERYONE who came to my shower. It was so so so much fun to see everyone and talk to them. I saw some people that I haven't seen in a while and it was really nice to catch up with them! I also want to thank all of you for your presents. I LOVED them and got a lot of things I really needed. And, thank you so much Aunt Judy and Aunt Annette, whose beautiful houses served as gathering places for all of us. Last, but certainly not least, Thank you so much mom! My mom planned and paid for the whole thing and she did such a good job. I know she has a way full plate and she pulled this whole thing off (yeah, two showers in one day!) without even acting like it was hard. Moms are amazing actresses some times, aren't they? :) I think mine is especially good at things like this though, not to put down all you other moms out there, but she out does all of us.

New Job and stuff

2008-09-15T01:20:00.000-07:00

(Jason) I just figured that I should let everyone know that I'm no longer working at EnticeLabs. I absolutely loved working there, but because of some circumstances out of my control and the companies for that matter, I decided to look elsewhere for work. I just started at Omniture three weeks ago and have been loving it. I have really been blessed to find some great places to work. Omniture is a web analytics company. Basically, if you have a website and would like to know everything about what a user is doing on your site and what things cause your site to be the most successful and profitable then you should be using Omniture's products. The stuff we do here is absolutely awesome! It's a great company to be with. We got some stellar benefits and life is going very well. I think my favorite thing is the benefits. I'll mention just one that is going to be great for us: 2 weeks paternity leave. Sweet! So in a few weeks I'll be able to enjoy my lovely wife and wonderful little boy without HAVING to go to work. I'll probably work but either every other day or half days or something. It will be so nice.

Outside of work, I have been keeping really busy. We finished the nursery! That took a lot of time, and I've been doing other odd jobs around the house. I'm repainting the shelves downstairs, Jared and I installed some lights with a switch in the basement, I built some shelves in our pantry and am painting it all, and have installed some dimmer switches throughout the house. They've been some really nice upgrades and it has been nice to learn how to do it. The best part is that all of it has been super cheap because of bargains that we find.

Life is still going very well. Stay in touch everyone!

Nursery!!

2008-08-27T06:09:00.000-07:00

I was so excited about the nursery coming along so well that I thought I would update everyone else, though I doubt anybody will be as excited as me. Anyway, we had to strip the walls of some very old, very nicotine covered wall paper. (It looked Beige and Dusty Rose colored, but it turned out to be White and Baby Pink once we got it down. Gross.) We also had to wash the ceiling, which looked Gray but was White underneath the filth. We washed all the dust and stuff off of everything. After that, we taped newspaper around the base of all the walls and in the window and laid down tons of tarps to protect the new carpet. Next, the base coats (3 base coats, to be exact) are finished on everything from the ceiling to the walls, base boards, closet, etc. We then painted the ceiling and three walls and closet and base boards all a color called Muslin. It's a soft soft soft beige color. (2 or three coats on that, depending on the area) The other wall is Tile Blue. We finished that also (2 coats there and in the window sill.) Now I am detail painting around the corners of the blue wall so that it is as straight as possible. When that dries, we will tape off a border around the whole room that will be about 7-8" thick. We will paint a dark brown border about a foot down from the ceiling. Then, we will use vinyl lettering in Cream within the border. It will contain random "virtue" words. We have already ordered them, and I'm really excited to get them and see what they look like exactly. They had a display so you could get an idea, but these things are always a little different in person. I also want to see the size of the words. They are supposed to be 6" tall.

When that's all done, I will make dark blue curtains to hang in the windows. I saw some I really like in a magazine, but that means I don't have a pattern. It won't be the first time I will be completely winging it on a sewing machine, but wish me luck anyway. :) The curtains will have big wooden buttons on them, which will be adorable, because the crib set we bought has circles on it. We will also assemble the crib and dresser/changing table. We gotta hang the door back in the door frame also. After that, it's just a matter of deciding where everything should go!! I know this all sounds like a lot, but we are SOOOOOOOOO much closer than when we started.

Baby Needs

2008-08-18T13:45:00.000-07:00

So, we got the word that many people think we have somehow accumulated everything we could ever need for the baby. First, I don't know that this is even possible... Second, it is completely not true. So we thought we would post a list of what we DO have and definitely don't need, and what we are still in need of. We're not trying to be tacky and tell you what to buy us, we just want to dispel the rumors that we have accomplished the impossible task of accumulating everything we need. So here it is, the list!

WE HAVE AND DON'T NEED:
Crib
Changing Table
Walker
Crib Set
Wrap carrier
Backpack carrier
Bassinet
Baby Bathtub
Safety Gate
Digital Thermometer
Small Diaper Bag
Blanket Storage
Lamps
Rug
Hamper
Photo Albums
Diaper Stacker
Nursery Curtains
Clothes!!
Travel System

Car Seat Base
Stroller
Infant Carrier (with Infant head supporter)

Blankets
Burp Cloths
Hooded Bath Towels
Diapers
Cloth Diapers
Bibs
Pacifiers
Teethers
Brush and Comb
Baby Body Wash
Baby Shampoo
Baby Lotion
Diaper Ointment
Baby Wipes
Car Window Sunshade
Baby Book
Bath Toys
Baby Wash Rags
Baby Monitor
Crib Mattress
Toys
Soft Books
Bottles
Nail Clippers
Baby Bath Sponge
Changing Matt
Changing Table Pad
Pack N Play
Car seat undermat
Bouncy Chair
Bassinet Mattress Protector
Bassinet Mattress Sheets
Crib Mattress Sheets
Crib Mattress Protector
Outlet Covers
Diaper Pail (Diaper Genie)
Diaper Pail Refills
Travel Swing
Breast Pump
Swing
Mobile

WE DEFINITELY NEED:
Play Center
Cabinet Latches
Nursing Pillow (Boppy)
Bottle Brush
Baby Mittens
Ear Thermometer
Travel Wipes
High Chair
Changing Table Pad Covers
Clothing Hangers

THINGS THAT MIGHT BE NICE TO HAVE:
Dishwasher Caddy (Bottles)
Baby First Aid Kit
Petroleum Jelly
Cotton Balls
Large Diaper Bag
Stroller Weather Sheild
Baby Oil
Infant Car Seat Carrier Cover
Splat Mat
Jumper
Veggie Tales!

So there you are, our lists. I am sure we haven't thought of everything, so don't be afraid to get something NOT on this list. We hope this doesn't seem really forward, but we have received several phone calls asking us these exact questions. We wanted to make those peoples lives easier (and our lives in the process!) :)

Baby Seth updates

2008-07-29T07:28:00.000-07:00

Ashley writes: That's right. For all of those who don't know, we are naming the baby Seth Asher Case... unless it comes out not looking at ALL like a Seth. Seth is Jason's middle name, and Asher is the male version of my first name, so he will essentially be named after both of us. :) I am 29 weeks along. Only 11 left! We couldn't be more excited for him to get here.

Lately he's been doing this thing where he sticks his head or bum (I can't tell which it is) out really far and you can feel a huge bump on one side of my tummy. My tummy then looks lopsided, which is pretty funny. I wanna know what in the world position he is in to make such a big lump in me. lol! Sometimes he'll stick out a foot or something and make a little bump, but usually it's a giganto-bump, so I don't think it's his itty bitty foot most of the time. He kicks as often as he is able it seems. I can't tell the difference between his punches and his kicks. Should I be able to? Maybe some of you moms can answer that one for me.

I babysat my newborn nephew a bit over these past couple of weeks and it got me all excited to have a newborn in the house and take care of him and all. My brother, Zach, and his wife, Holly, are adopting a newborn from my mentally handicapped cousin who is incapable of raising a newborn. This will be their 4th kid (3 of the 4 are adopted) and they are way excited. Unfortunately, the little tike was diagnosed with a blood infection when my aunt (my adopted cousin's step mom... yeah, it gets complicated) took him in for a circumcision and found out he had a fever. Aparently one of his valves between his kidney and his bladder didn't form right, so the urine travels backwards through his system for a little ways. It didn't get all the way to his brain, so that's good news. They can't operate on him, so he will be on antibiotics until he tests out okay. We don't know how long that will be, but it could be forever at worst. But because of all the complications, he couldn't be alone even for a moment for a very long time. We took shifts watching him at the hospital in Provo and at my aunt's house once he was released. It was pretty fun for me because I got to know the hospital and some of the staff pretty well and I am really impressed with their facility. It was fun to see the laboring mothers walking the halls and the anxious dads trying not to walk too fast and leave them behind. lol! It was also fun to be around the baby because it made me a little calmer about complications. That may sound strange, but things really turned out for my nephew and he will be okay, which more or less showed me that a problem is just that, and can be solved. I love modern technology!

Another reason the anticipation has increased over the past little while is because Jason and I are working on a nursery. It is slow going right now because I get heartburn really easily these days, but it is coming along and will hopefully be done soon enough. We started by ripping down the wallpaper in the only room that hasn't been re-done in the past little while in this house. (We are still living in my grandma's house, taking care of it for her since she is in the rest home.) We then washed all the walls and the ceiling. (The ceiling was gray from all the years my grandma smoked in the house... kinda gross, but gone now.) After that came filling the holes from nails and such and then sanding down the putty when it dried. Then we dusted off the walls from the sanding and started priming. So far we have only primed one wall, the closet, and the ceiling. We have three walls and a window sill left. Then we start painting. The ceiling, three walls, and closet are all going to be a light beige color. The other wall and window sill are going to be baby blue. We are going to do accents in brown and I will make the curtains on me fantastic new sewing machine. They will be dark blue with a row of big old buttons across the top. I don't have a pattern, so I will be making it up as I go along. (I've only seen them in a magazine; wish me luck!) All this will match the crib set we picked up. We have a crib and matching dresser/changing table also, and will assemble them once we have a place to put them. The nursery doesn't have a single monkey to go in it, which is unfortunate seeing as Jason really wanted it to. That is the only drawback of the whole project.

Jason thinks it would be fun if I made a prediction about Seth's personality based on his actions that I can feel. That way we can come back later and see how accurate I am. :) So here it goes...
I think Seth is going to be a snuggly little guy, but I think he's going to be way active too. He is just too active now to calm down once he's actually here I think. He's gonna crawl and walk late I fear, but only because Jason and I won't put him down enough for him to practice. lol! But I think once he is mobile, we won't be able to keep him still any longer. He'll have too much energy and too much curiosity to stay put. So there it is, my prediction. Whether I am right or wrong, this is going to be a funny blog to go back and read later.

Our photos are now online

2008-07-16T15:19:00.000-07:00

Just so you know, you can now go to http://photos.jasoncase.com and see our photos. We have photos from when we were dating, from the wedding, the honeymoon, Florida, and others... Enjoy!

Basic Mormon Facts

2008-07-10T15:10:00.000-07:00

I read this quote today and I thought it was a good small list of some basic things that I think many members and non-members of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints don't know. I think one of the coolest ones is that we are the fourth largest Christian religions in America.

"Some facts [that] might [help others understand Latter-day Saints] include:

"First, 'Mormon' is a nickname for The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter day Saints. Members are often referred to as 'Mormons,' 'Latter day Saints,' or 'LDS.' The term 'Saint' means 'member.'
"Second, the Church was restored in 1830 in upstate New York with Joseph Smith as its first prophet and president. Today it is headquartered in Salt Lake City, with President Gordon B. Hinckley as the present prophet.
"Third, there are now over 13 million members in 176 countries and territories. About 6 million of these are in the United States, making us the fourth largest Christian denomination in America. As one of the fastest growing Christian faiths in the world, we complete a new chapel every working day. Members pay a tithe, which is 10 percent of their income, making this and other programs possible.
"Fourth, local congregations are led by volunteer, unpaid members. Both men and women serve in assigned leadership positions. "
"Fifth, Mormons are well represented in politics and government. . . . Members also serve in high and trusted positions throughout the world in business, medicine, law, education, media, sports, and entertainment."

(M. Russell Ballard, "Faith, Family, Facts, and Fruits," Ensign, Nov. 2007, 25 26)

July 4th

2008-07-07T08:02:00.000-07:00

So I have to say the 4th of July Weekend was awesome. Not only did I get a three day weekend but I got to spend it with my wife (Ashley) and her little sis (Alyssa). It was great. We acquired tickets for the stadium of fire for Alyssa's birthday and Christmas presents. She loves Miley Cyrus. Her mom drove her to Utah under the pretenses that she was just going to Bed Bath and Beyond in Utah and then decided to come visit Ashley and I. Al had no clue at all what was going on and just went with it.

After I got home Ash said, "I think we should let her in on the plans..." Al was like, what plans? Kathy (Ash and Al's mom) asked Alyssa to go get the stuff out of the trunk. Al came back with armfuls of clothing. She asked, "Why are all of my clothes in the trunk?" We all started laughing and I hung an envelope of sorts over her head. (Then proceeded to do some weird Rasmussen ritual that says, 'Heavy heavy hang over thy poor head. What would you do with a (you then hit then with the gift on the head) bonk on the head?' Weird... I know) She took the envelope and opened it. Ashley said this was her birthday and Christmas gift all in one. She started reading and was like, "Oh... Cool...". Then she went into what looked like a moment of deep thought... And then she squealed really loudly. :) She figured out that three tickets to the Stadium of Fire actually meant three tickets to see Miley Cyrus! She started flipping out. It was awesome.

Stadium of fire was great. Miley was ok but that's not why I wanted to go. I wanted to see Blue Man Group. I'll tell you what... I really want to go to concert that is just them. They were very entertaining. The opening show with the dancers was fun too. They had 1300 girls all dressed the same and they came out on half of the football field and lined up. They had all kinds of different sports equipment. They ended up acting out every summer olympic event in their routine. It was great. There were several parts where I was like, "sweet!" It was really fun. The unfurling of the flag and the paraschute jumpers were great. It was just all-together fun. I definitely feel like the money was well spent. If someone really cool comes next year, then I think Ash and I may try to go again. Maybe they'll bring Rascal Flatts or something. I'd definitely be at that.

So we had a great weekend going to Stadium of fire, playing games, and watching Lost. We taught Al how to play Settlers of Catan while getting her addicted to season one of Lost. We're all so into it. It's a great show! The only thing that would make it better is if they got rid of the random girls dressed in bikinis. I know I know... It's on an island so I should expect it, but it is still annoying since it has nothing to do with the plot. To say the least... We really like Lost so far.

Life is grand. The baby is growing very well, Ashley is great and I'm doing well also. We got all of the walls in the baby's room stripped and washed. We bought paint and are going to start painting soon. Yay!

Baby updates

2008-06-23T14:15:00.000-07:00

Ok this is Jason. I figured I should give you all some updates since Ash isn't. :p So we are almost in the 7th month. We start the 24 week this Wednesday. it has been pretty exciting. The baby is way active and is bouncing all over the place. We can even watch him kick sometimes. It's awesome! We've been doing a lot to prepare and it (with everything else we have on our plates) has kept us very busy. We have bought a crib and a changing table and we decided to get the crib sheet and bumper for the crib so we could get colors selected. We're going to strip the wall paper off of one of the rooms and we're going to paint with the colors on the crib set.

If you didn't know, we are having a boy. We have a few names, but we are pretty settled on one, but we are keeping it pretty private until the baby is born. if you really wanna know then call Ash. :) We are having so much fun and we are way excited for the baby to come in a few months. If you remind me, I'll post the ultrasound. it's pretty cool!

So to say the least we are excited. An update on us. We are still in Springville Utah living in Ashley's grandma's house. I'm still working for EnticeLabs in Provo and work is going well. Ashley is now a stay at home almost mom. :) She's doing her best to get the energy to take care of the home. it's gotta be hard to just about anything when you have an extra 10 pounds all of a sudden. She is wonderful though and things are well. Feel free to say hi sometime. :)

The Idea Stolen From Kristen

2008-05-28T13:46:00.000-07:00

Ashley says:
A. Attached or Single- very attached

B. Best Friend(s)- Jason

C. Cake or Pie- DEFINITELY cake

D. Day of Choice- Saturday

E. Essential Item- food...

F. Flavor of Ice Cream- brownies over the moon!

G. Gummy Bears or Worms- worms

H. Hometown- Lyman, WY

I. Indulgences- expensive breakfast cereal

J. January or July- I have to say January, 'cuz it's my birthday month, but I like the warm weather better so it makes it difficult

K. Kids- 1/2. We find out a gender on FRIDAY!!! I couldn't be more excited. I'm counting down the minutes...

L. Last movie I saw in a theater- The new Indiana Jones (It's not as good as the first three because of the plot, but you gotta love Harrison Ford, right??)

M. Marriage Date- August 18, 2007

N. Number of siblings- 5 brothers, 1 sister (no, I'm not making this up...)

O. Orange or Apples- I would say apples, but they make me puke since I've been pregnant, so neither now.

P. Phobias or Fears- fear of bad guys hurting me or my family, and spiders, and probably someone thinking I'm judgmental.

Q. Quote- "A ship in the harbor is safe, but that's not what ships were made for." -some greeting card Dallin H. Oaks read in a talk of his. lol!

R. Reasons to smile- family, inside jokes, blessings, etc. (there's always more to smile about...)

S. Season-Summer. I love it.

T. Tag 4- Jason, Zac, and I don't know anyone else with a blog...

U. Unknown fact about me- I don't like sherbet (or sorbet or whatever)

V. Vegetarian or oppressor of Animals- I love a big pile of red meat every now and then. I don't deny it. Heck, I was raised in Wyoming... what did you expect?

W. Worst Habit- This is hard... maybe justifying the ways I waste time.

X. X-rays or Ultrasounds- Ultrasound

Y. Your favorite Food- whatever is being shoved in my mouth at the time. Really, I just like to eat. :)

Z. Zodiac- Capricorn!

Life after school

2008-05-09T14:07:00.000-07:00

Jason Says: Graduation has finally come! Yes we are done like Ashley said and we had a fantastic time down in St George and Vegas. Now we're home and we are still busy lol. I'm working a lot of hours for a local startup company, EnticeLabs and I am loving it. It has been so much fun to work there. We have an amazing team and we are putting together an awesome product that I look forward to showing to all of you when it is completed. It's just really nice to love what I do and to have fun while I work.

I'm going to try something new. I'm going to bike to work. Gotta get a bike first, but this will be great for my health and hopefully really good for the budget. This will be a new fun adventure for me.

Out side of work, I have plenty to do. We're planning to do a lot of gardening. I dug up this large wild tree growing next to our house. I learned that the roots do run as deep as what's above ground. That was fun. I've been taking care of the lawn and doing all the little honey-do's that I have been putting off until the end of the semester because the last semester was crazy. I'm also doing little odd jobs like installs a new front and back porch light on the house we're living in. I also do my best to take care of my baby, and my future baby. I love her dearly and love spending time with her. Truthfully, we probably are one of the few married couples these days that probably spends too much time together because we don't seem to get that much done anymore. :)

Life is still wonderful...

Sorry it's been so long!

2008-05-01T08:00:00.000-07:00

Ashley says: I know we haven't updated anyone lately and I apologize. We finished classes, took our finals, and graduated! Graduation was fun, with Jared and Heidi and some of my family there. I hope the rest of you out there received your invitations. We sent them out but we didn't hear back from a lot of you, and this years graduation was a little weird because there were no tickets; anyone could come that wanted to. I think some people didn't think they were actually invited to attend because of that, and I apologize again for not letting everyone know. I didn't even know they used to have tickets to graduation. I blame my lack of knowledge on the fact that I've only attended BYU for two years now and I've never graduated from here before... obviously. It all went really well and the food and conversation afterward were fun.

The next Saturday we went garage selling because we actually had time to! yay! Later that day we decided to randomly run down to St. George and stay as long as possible. It was a blast and completely spontaneous. We really just laid by a pool, went shopping, slept, sat in the jetted hot tub in our room, watched movies, ate a ton, etc. It was good to just get away. And as an added bonus, we got to come home and have our room clean every day, instead of us doing it. :) Tuesday we decided to run down to Vegas and hit all the free entertainment we could find. We finished the day by attending Monte Python's "Spamalot" with John O'Hurley as king Arthur. Hilarious! We had a tiny problem when we sat next to a drunk man and the smell of alcohol was making me need to puke... again. (I had already puked twice that day, once in a ziplock bag in the car and once in the subway parking lot with a very interested security guard lady looking on.) Luckily, we were allowed to move into the seats that people didn't show up for on time, so we ended up away from the smelly drunk man and got really really good seats!! It was a good show to say the least.

Now we're home and Jason is at work full time. I am still taking classes for insurance purposes, but it's only one credit, so it's not a big deal. Update on the pregnancy: I am still throwing up which sucks. I can't feel the baby move yet. I still need my naps almost daily. And I look like I have a beer belly, but I don't look pregnant yet.

I don't feel like doing homework, so I'm blogging instead!

2008-03-17T10:36:00.000-07:00

Hey, Ashley again. The title says it all. I am becoming a worse procrastinator than I have been in the past, which is hard to imagine for me. The biggest deterrent from buckling down and doing as I should is the lack of impact my grades will have on my GPA.
If I get all A's (a straight 4.0) my GPA goes up .03, no more than that. It will go from a 3.67 to a 3.70. What motivation do I have? If I get all C's (a 2.00) my GPA drops to 3.50, which still lets me graduate without blinking. Besides school and work and home work and being sick and tired and throwing up all the time, I have an average of 2 extra meetings a week because of my church calling. Not like I mind, but it's one more thing I use as an excuse to not do homework.
Anyway, I will graduate in 38 days! I am ecstatic. I don't know who I've told this to, but I will still be taking classes for insurance purposes. The difference will be that I can choose any class I want, and it will only be 1 credit hour. Not sure what that will be yet. Maybe Judaism and the Gospel? Maybe Water Aerobics? I don't know!
Another thing I am excited for is Easter. Jason and I are skipping town Thursday and I can't wait. I'm excited to be in someone else's house for once, though I fear I will still be sick. We are headed to my parents house to dye eggs and eat jellybeans off the floor. (We have weird traditions.) This is going to sound ridiculous, but I found a good deal on Easter decorations, and it was the best part of my day...

Graduation is coming soon!

2008-02-27T15:49:00.000-08:00

Ashley and I will soon be done with school... Hopefully.... We just need to pass all of our classes now. We will officially graduate on April 25th 2008! I'll be graduating with my Master of Information Systems Management, and Ashley is getting her Bachelor of Arts in Linguistics with a minor in Linguistic Computing. 57 more days!!!!!!! Today we went to order our graduation caps and gowns. It was fun to realize how close we are to graduating. I'm way excited to be done and to move on in life.

I think it will be nice to come home and not have to worry about homework for classes that I no longer care at all about. I think one of the things I really look forward to is being able to come home and actually spend time with my wife and not have to worry about what is or isn't getting done. I guess I'll need to find a hobby or something. :)

7 Weeks

2008-02-27T15:42:00.000-08:00

I have thrown up three times before noon today. A new record! Luckily my class that I'm going to today is fairly pointless and requires no concentration. (Don't worry women; I have done the crackers, sprite, etc. The throwing up is by no fault of my own.)

And then there were three...

2008-02-19T08:34:00.000-08:00

Yes! We are pregnant and really excited. Jason and I (yes, this is Ashley typing) were late to church one day (Jan 20th) and had been praying about what in the WORLD I was supposed to be doing after graduation now that I had quit my job. There had even been one very interesting blessing given that just confused us further. Anyway, we sat in the foyer at church waiting for sacrament to get over so we didn't disturb anyone. There were a couple kids playing out there and a cute little boy started babbling at me (no real words) so I played with him for a second. Next thing I know, I look up and Jason has tears coming down his face! I was so utterly confused. He shook his head like, "Don't ask now, later." So we went in to the chapel and he sits down, leans over, and says, "I think we should have a baby." I asked him a few questions, then we realized we weren't listening at all. So we sat through the rest of sacrament, then found an empty room/closet space and talked instead of going to Sunday School. We got our first positive pregnancy test on the 10th of Feb. and a doctor confirmation on the 15th, which is when we called the fam. We are really excited. Jason wants a boy, but I don't care which we get. So far I have been dizzy, had headache and been REALLY tired, but I haven't thrown up yet and only had a little bit of nausea. Thank goodness; I hate throwing up.

Feeling like a man

2008-02-19T08:15:00.000-08:00

I (Jason) felt like a real man and husband after completing two projects this last Monday. I installed a digital thermostat in place of our old round honeywell unit. And it works great! Then I went on to install a newer security light in our back yard. It was pretty sweet. I was really excited to see that both were pretty simple and both work great!. I love doing these little Mr Fixit things and look forward to doing it more in the future.

Who should I vote for?

2008-02-05T16:20:00.000-08:00

So, I (Jason) used to absolutely hate listening about politics, but lately I have really become more intrigued by the political scene. I have found that there are several things that I really agree with and support and several things that I have grown to greatly dislike. Through all that I have learned, I have found that the person I would most like to be president to be Mitt Romney. It really has nothing to do with him being a Mormon any more. At first, I have to admit, I really wanted him to win strictly because he is LDS. As I have been watching him and learning about what he stands for, I have learned many reasons why I think everyone should vote for him.

Economics
I have been studying economics at school and have really learned how important it is to understand economic forces in order to make even decent changes that will cause good results in the economy. The biggest issue is that economics isn't a subject that people can easily recognize if they understand it or not. They only learn if they are correct by succeeding, failing, or studying the successes and failures of others. Mitt Romney is the only candidate that has a chance of winning that can truly make great strides in with the economy because he is the only one experienced and school in economics. I think this is a huge issue and I believe he is the number one candidate for people who truly care about the future of the economy.

Morality
Other than Mike Huckabee, no one truly stands for what I believe in when it comes to morality and honestly, I despise Huckabee so much that I haven't truly even figured out if he does support my views. Mitt is the only one who is stating that he is for families and for marriage between a man and a woman. He is the only one of the front runners who has the same view on abortion as I do.

Social Security
I'm 100% in favor of a form of privatized social security. I don't care how it is implemented at this point but I know it must be implemented. Especially with these morons in D.C. who are trying to pass a bill that will allow illegal immigrants to use social security. Are you frickin kidding me? I don't even think we should tolerate illegals being here let alone allowing them to use social security. But I'll talk about that later.

Immigration
I have a very strong opinion when it comes to illegal immigrants. Legal immigrants take the time to learn about America and pass all the required steps to become a citizen. Others get Visa's. (Did I spell that right?) These people spend lots of time, energy, and money to get permission to come to our country. I have no problem with them being here and I think they are very beneficial to our country. Illegals however are a pain. They are getting access to things that I have to pay for and they get it for free. They are breaking laws, and no one is doing anything about it, and they are writing amendments in order to make it easier and less painful to come here illegally. I'm SICK of this. I agree that cities that harbor these people deserve to be punished. I believe that corporations that employ these people deserve to be punished. I also believe that passing laws allowing them to come here to work, and pay taxes and do it in a legal way is a very good idea. The key to my belief is legality. I do not believe we should ever support illegal activity...

Iraq
I don't know much about this subject but I believe that we are doing well in the war. I believe that we have done most of what we needed to do and that a timetable or extraction is a good idea. I do NOT believe that we should immediately pull out. I do NOT believe that we should stay there for all that much longer either. I think either extreme is the wrong thing to do.

Leadership/Likeability
I honestly believe that McCain is a moron some days. Some days I like him. I often feel like he is a complete liar and is just saying what people want to hear. I feel the same way about Hillary Clinton. I think they both are bringing too much baggage to the table will not have the charisma to be good leaders. I do believe that McCain would be a great president for world wide work. He commands respect and speaks well. He is very over bearing though. Mitt and Obama are very very likable. I like Obama. I wish I agreed with his stance on several important issues. If I did, then I would definitely vote for him if I couldn’t vote for Mitt. I think he comes in speaking the truth of what he believes and that he brings no extra baggage. Mitt is said to be a flip flopper, but he simply resolved what he thinks he should support versus his internal beliefs. I think he is very stable in his current stances and that they are what he will support in the future. He stands for something good and pure. He is not a corrupted politician. He is a very successful business who is a proven leader of change. He saved the Winter Olympics. Without him, America would have probably missed out on that opportunity.

I honestly believe that he is the best option for president. He is proven in so many ways and I know he would be a great leader. Unfortunately, I see Mike Huckabee being a complete liar and moron who is trying to block Mitt and allow McCain to win. Huckabee is a liar because he campaigns on the stance that the nation needs a true conservative to lead. However, he knows that he has no real chance of winning. It also seems fairly apparent that he has teamed up with McCain to campaign heavily in the states that they know Huckabee can win. West Virginia. McCain was just not there at all. Did he think he didn't need those delegates or did he think that he would hurt himself by being there because he would steal votes from Huckabee who beat Mitt by next to nothing. I think the two of them are a pair of liars and that neither one deserves to be president. Maybe my view will change in the future but that's how I feel at the moment.

As a side note, I think the whole awarding of delegates is crap. Why would the democrats have one set of rules for how the delegates are awarded and then the Republicans have a different
one? How can we honestly get a true view of how the nation is voting if one candidate is blowing out the others in certain states and then losing by a percent or two in others? The delegates wouldn't necessarily show who really got the most votes, but who won the most states. This doesn't seem representative of the nation’s views at all to me, but maybe I'm just crazy.

My time...

2008-01-28T14:36:00.000-08:00

Ashley says-
I know that I told some of you that I was getting an actual career. (And I was; I didn't lie.) Here's why I DON'T have a job:

I was looking for a part-time job for the winter 2008 semester here at BYU and partially looking for something that could go full time after we graduate in April. I saw a job as a technical writer, which is completely in my feild, and applied on a whim. They got back to me right before Christmas break. I agreed to meet with them after Christmas... then I left my phone in Wyoming. They still managed to get a hold of me and I went in for a first interview and gave them Jason's cell number. That was the day before we left for Florida.

We had an incredible time in Florida. (Not kidding... read the Florida blog!) Unfortunately the company (insidesales.com) never got back to me so I gave up hope. Luckily, as soon as I got back to Utah, they called me! I was excited but something didn't feel right. I went in for the second interview (while Jason waited in the car...) and waited because the guy that was to interview me was in a meeting. I waited 30 minutes and he never came out, and that whole time an uneasy feeling was growing. I finally left without the interview and just told one of the workers there to let the guy know that I had shown up and left.

As soon as I got to the car I got a phone call. The interviewer was somewhat desperate to have me come back so I went back in after talking things over with Jason a bit. I was determined to go in and lay everything on the line since I had the feeling that I shouldn't take the job. (This whole time I had been shaking it off as nerves.) The guy accepted all of my demands and hired me on the spot, which took me off gaurd.

I went in to start work for them on my birthday, Friday January 11. I was excited to be there! It was fun to think I would actually have a full-time job, in my field of linguistics, in Utah. (These positions are pretty rare.) I couldn't believe that they had actually hired me and I was ecstatic. Unfortunately, I had the feeling that I wasn't supposed to be there. It felt like I was doing somebody elses work.

So I didn't sleep all weekend because I knew I had to quit and didn't want to. The feeling grew worse with every day that passed. So on Monday, I cried a little, then went in and quit my job, then cried a little more. The CEO of the company was really nice about it, while the other one was pretty put off. It was one of the hardest decisions I have made because it was completely against my logic, and I don't EVER go against my logic.

Thus, I am jobless and waiting for the Lord's plans to unfold. Jason and I have had some of the craziest conversations about what in the world the future is going to hold for us if it is that important that I didn't have that job. Oh well. Guess we'll find out...

Our late Honeymoon in Florida!

2008-01-28T07:37:00.000-08:00

So we had a blast in Florida. We had wonderful flights and a great experience with the car rental. We actually got a pretty sweet car to drive around. We received a place to stay in Ormond Beach, Fl (which is right by Daytona Beach) from Grandma Arthur. We love Grandma! The place was great. We got there on Saturday and it was beautiful. We drove to our place and crashed for the night.

We spent Sunday at church and walking on the beach. We were collecting seashells. The water was freezing for Florida, but it's what I remembered Ocean City's water to be in June or July.

Monday, New Year's, was spent at Disney World - Epcot. This was fun. The lines for rides were ridiculously long but we had tons of fun. I had never been to Disney World so it was a great experience for me. They had the best fireworks that I have ever seen... Seriously. They were awesome. We got home that night around 2 or 3 am.

We then slept most of Tuesday and went to a really nice dinner at the Chart House. It was probably one of THEE best steaks I have ever had. It was amazing.

On Wednesday, we went to Disney World again and this time went to Hollywood Studios. The rides here were MUCH better and the lines were smaller too. We had so much fun here. I was actually pretty impressed by some of their rides. This time we made sure we understood the FastPass's and we used them as best we could. I have to say that one of the best things here was the fantismo or fantistico or something like that. It was a show on the water at the end of the night. I loved it. The worst part was that it was absolutely freezing and we had worn shorts. So we ended up having to buy plenty of hot chocolate and a blanket to stay warm. We still had loads of fun.

On Thursday we went to International drive and walked through Wonderworks. This place is definitely recommended by both of us. The house was a lot of fun. It's a building turned upside down. They have all of these scientific "rides" that you can play with and they actually had one ride that made me completely nauseous. We were in control and we just spun it and spun it and spun it as fast as we could. I was done for a while after that. Later we played LazerTag (and I kicked everyone's butt... Maybe that was because I was the only one that knew the rules because they didn't explain them at all.) After that we went to the comedy show. This was hilarious and so much fun. I would go to this show again if I went to Orlando again.

Friday was awesome. We ended up going snorkeling with Manatees and scuba diving. Scuba diving was fun because we had never done it but snorkeling was amazing. Mostly because of the manatees. We went to an area where we got to play with them and scratch their backs and everything. It's amazing how playful these animals are. We’ll post some pictures when we get a chance.

Saturday we came home. We loved it in Florida and look forward to going back. It was amazing Grandma. Thank you!

We're staying in Utah

2008-01-28T07:27:00.000-08:00

Hey everyone, Ashley and I wanted to start a blog. So we'll be trying to keep up with our lives and posting interesting things on here. So keep checking back if you want to keep up on our lives. We want to make sure everyone knows what's going on if they want to know.

So the first thing I'll share with you is that we have decided to stay in Utah and work for the startup company, EnticeLabs. After a long period of study and prayer, we decided that we would stay. We strongly felt like this is where we need to be. We also thought that if we were ever going to try out a risky startup company, then we needed to do it now before we get wrapped up in our lives and have kids.

So we should be here in Utah for about 3-4 years at least unless something happens. Then we'll make a decision if we want to go somewhere else or stick around. We are doing wonderfully. we have been blessed in so many ways and although there have been times when we feel lost and confused, we feel that the Lord has been watching over us and directing us. Sometimes it has felt like direction into very strange and not understandable paths. We'll continue to follow no matter what the Lord tells us, but we are hoping that he gives us some direction soon.