Memorial Day

So it's a little funny to me that there is a day to remember people who are gone. As though we have forgotten them the other 364 days left in the year. I know these pictures are really blurry, partly because they are old and partly because i scanned them really fast. Sarah, my sweet baby died i really long time ago, but i still remember how her laugh sounds and how when i would secretly wake her up from naps or in morning to ask her where everyone was and she would tilt her head and say donnnnnn know! I never knew why i felt like i always had to wake her up to see her and play with her, but i didn't and I don't think in her short life she ever got a full nap. And then she died and I know why I did that. So I could spend a little more time with her. I wonder everyday what she looks like as a teenager and what kind of music she would like and if my parents would let her get away with anything. I wonder how many scars she would have from a years playing and running. I wonder how different our family would be. We all changed so much from the outside i'm sure it's unnoticed but we are so different. I wonder how we could be the people we are today if she were still around. I know the answer, but is it to selfish to no admit it? I would rather be a different person and have her and bubba around. She was so full of life and really crazy. It's weird because hardly any of my friends and even my husband know her. They never got to be around this beautiful baby girl. How do you explain how silly she was and how fun she was? I miss that little girl everyday not just today. WE are so lucky that we can be with our families forever.

Bubba is a whole other story. Most everyone knew him and either feared him or loved him.... or loved to fear him. I am not sure. He was very handsome and like sarah he was full of life. He was crazy and funny and a "know it all" So he thought. The day before he left to go down to st. george him and I spent hours together which wasn't common where he would sit and talk to me about life and give advice. I hold that day very close to my heart we hugged and said I love you and that is the last time i heard him speak or saw him alive without the help of ventilators. I wonder about him too. Would he be married and have children? Where would he be living? Would he have hair still.... just kidding. I just wonder and i know it seems silly to dream or things that i know will never happen until we get to the other side, but I wonder why a mother had to bury her two children and why ben and sarah were best buddies, but he doesn't remember her and why paul had to say goodbye to his best friend and why my dad seems lonely in his eyes and why emilee never got to really be an older sister. The question why is a really easy one to ask, but it really is silly. We won't know why but the Lord gives us challenges and hard ache and blessings everyday. One day we will know WHY. So not just today but everyday remember the loved ones who went before us they deserve to be remembered. I love you and miss you everyday!!








This is a picture of sarah doing her "pretty girl" pose and then me and her swinging in a hammock while camping and then bubba and i sitting on the couch together and then bubba packing sarah on his back

Mothers

What could i possible say that would give justice to that way i feel about my mother, but i'm going to try.
1. She is so funny
2. She is a hard worker with her job and with her church calling and everything.
3. She loves my dad and he loves her
4. She allows me to call her 200 times a day and never gets mad
5. She loves the gospel
6. She loves my husband and is so good to him. She makes the best mother and mother in law!!!
7. She tells all of us that we are her favorite
8. She has had some hard trial losing two children, but if you just met her you wouldn't know because she is so brave and so full of life. She is a true example of endurance and overcoming any hard ache.
9. She is beautiful
10. She puts up with my craziness.

I could go on and on about all of her good qualities. She is my friend and my mother. I love her and i'm grateful that she is mine forever. I am so lucky our whole family is so lucky.

Next I want to mention my friends who are mothers you know who you are. I am so thankful for your example of what it is to be a great mother. You love your babies and they love you. You make it look so easy (i know it's hard) I am so proud of the women and mothers you've become. It is truly what you were meant to do. I love you!

Braydon got me an elliptical for mothers day. It's super nice and has so many great features. He is so good to me. I know i'm not a mom, but i can't wait to be one. That is really the only thing i've wanted to do. It's something my heart craves. I can't wait until i get to be one. For all you mothers and soon to be mothers. I hope you had a great day and you are all beautiful women and we are lucky to know you and follow your example.

Life is hard sometimes.

So these past couple weeks have been rather hard for me. And I just need to vent on my blog and i understand people have had way worse things happen to them and I know that. So I ordered checks from my bank and they never arrived. So i went in and had them canceled. Well, my bank had canceled the wrong number of checks. They canceled the numbers i was currently using. So I had all these stopped payment checks come back for ALL my bills. I went to the corporate office in Ogden and they said we know we made the mistake, but we won't be paying for your returned check fees. Ok that sounds fair right... no!! So one of the places that had a check come back was costco. Well, I get my card through my work and they put a block on my card so i couldn't use it, but not only did they put a block on my card but every single person i work with had a block put on their card. Oh it was so frustrating. So then 3 days later my tire blows up on the freeway. I mean it blew up all over the place. It was super scary. Since it was after hours it was almost 300 dollars to fix. Then this last monday i get a call at work from my bank asking if I had spent money or bought anything online in Israel. Umm.... no! So someone has been using my credit card at numerous places in Israel. FANTASTIC!!!!!!!!! So i'm pretty stressed at this point. because a lot of my bills just take money directly from my card and now i have to get a new one and a new account. So it's the end of my work day and I got to leave and to my surprise my car won't start not even with a jump. So I have a girl i work with.. bless her. Drive me down to auto zone to get a new battery. And i haven't the first clue how to put a new battery in, but that was my only option at this point. So I buy the stupid thing 200 dollars and i go back to work. We are trying to figure it all out and a guy in the building behind us asks us if he could help PHEW of course you can help. So he takes the old battery out and puts the new one in it's place. oh we are home free.... NO we aren't he dropped the bolts in the car and i started bawling! What am i going to do i have no bolts I can't hook this battery up. the poor guy was looking at me like i was a crazy person, but come on you just dropped all my screws inside the car. So we took rope and tied it down so i could get back to auto zone and get new bolt to fit. So i buy the bolts and return the old battery and they said when did you buy this. I said three years ago. Oh they we will give you your money back the man said. so I go back to the sales counter and they said "well, you bought this battery 3 years and 24 days ago so we can't give you any money back. Of course you can't with a week like i've had that would make total sense. I'm pretty sure something good is in store for me soon!!

Just Because

So it was just a normal day. I got up at 3 am because of course my body just has to get up at that time and i hung out in the living room for a while then i tried to go back to sleep and slept about 1 hour to get up at five to get ready for work. I got to work took care of all the dogs and opened up. It soon got busy at 8 when we open i wish i didn't have to get there before, but that is life. I eventually had to move to the back to get our two surgeries prepped and ready to go. I "knocked" down the first dog and we got his belly shaved (neuter and hernia repair) I was in the middle of scrubbing and hooking him up to the pumps when i girl i worked with said you got a surprise upfront. This is could mean a number of things. I have to smooth something over with our staff, smooth something over with one of your clients because my employees always seem to come to me because they say i'm a very good butt kisser, but i just say i'm really good at my job :) or it could be i need to talk to a salesman or something. So I went up front to find red roses. My husband sent me rose to work with a note that said i just wanted you to know i love you and i always think of you and i will be home late which is a norm since he doesn't get home til 11 or 12 every night. It made me smile and it made me feel so good. I'm so lucky to have my best friend in my life. I feel sad because some of the ladies i work with have really "hard" husbands who don't treat them well and who don't help around the house or with the kids and don't make them feel loved. They couldn't believe a man would just send you flower "just because" and it's the little things that count and they still don't believe that we didn't get in a fight or that he was just trying to make up for doing something wrong. The Lord has blessed me so much with a great family and a great husband.

My paul is getting married!!

My brother Paul is getting married!!! He ask madison today!! I've known for awhile now that they were getting married they have had it pretty much all planned, but i knew before they started planning. I had a dream about two weeks after i met madison that they were getting married. Paul just has never seemed so happy. She is totally different from all the other girls he has dated. She is so beautiful and smart and guess what I like her... well i actually love her. She has become one of my very best friends and i'm super excited for her to join our family and become a Belnap. Madison will tell you that she knew she loved paul when they went to the draper temple open house. Well, that is where he asked her. So we set up balloons and roses each of my family had written a note to madison telling her why we loved her and why were so excited for he to join our family. We attached them to red roses and then paul wrote a note to madison and attached it to white roses. She had no clue he told her he had to pick up a mission companion on their way to his mission Reunion and paul said he wouldn't be at the place for a half hour so they had time to kill so they decided to go up to the temple and walk around. WEll little did she know that the flowers were just around the corner and she of course started to bawl and he got on his knee and asked her. I am super excited for paul. He has been my best friend my whole life and i can't imagine him with anyone else and i'm so grateful he found someone who understands our special bond and still lets us be "twins" I can't wait for their upcoming wedding even if it is in Arizona. Welcome to the family madison! I love you both so much.

For all you "haters" She doesn't like people who don't like her "amazing voice" and she knows how good she is. This girl is named miranda and she is all over you tube you need to search she is fantastic!!! I haven't laughed this hard in a long long long time!!

Reasons why I need a vacation/cruise!

1. Even though it is starting to get warm I want the heat. I want to sit on the beach and relax read a book and watch the sunset over the water.

2. I need a break from real life. Work, cleaning, laundry, dishes, bills ect. It would be nice to get to spend time with braydon since we only really see each other saturday and sunday we are really really busy because of work and school.

3. sleeping in. I don't sleep well at all and it would be nice to not have to wake up and have any responsibilities.

4. You don't have to cook the food is prepared for you!

5. There is so much to do. Karaoke, comedy clubs, dancing, laying out, mini broadway plays, spending quality time with family and 1 am room service. It doesn't get better than that. Getting to relax and there is plenty to do.

This is only a few reasons why i want to getaway i am pretty close to having my parents convinced that it's a great idea too.

So Lately i have been trying to work on myself to be better... remember my new years goal? well, I came across this video off erin stock vail's facebook page and it penetrated my heart. I have a really hard time forgiving people. I trust you til you give me a reason not to and then it's near impossible to get it back. I have been hurt by people very close to me with their words and their hatred towards me. This video is a reminder that i need to forgive and be free. This video also teaches us to serve because it changes the focus off us and moves it to someone else and that is wad God does. Elder F. Enzio Busche was in my parents ward and i grew up with him. once as my teacher. He is so smart and so knowledgeable about the gospel. He is a convert and if you ever get a chance to meet him he has an incredible conversion story. The message i got from this video has made me inspired to be better. If you don't like serious or religious
videos move along to the next blog. It's not really for me to put this video on anyone else it's something that impacted me. I'm grateful for moments like that.

So these past few weeks have been really interesting. Last saturday I got the flu and that wasn't fun at all. Then monday rolls around and I have to be to work and i really didn't feel any better, but i had to be there. So I went and we were really busy, a lot busier then we've been lately which was nice in a way and bad in another. So we worked our butts off.After a 11 hour work day i had to drive up to Lds hospital to go see my grandma who had surgery on her knee because she fell two weeks earlier and she needed to get a new knee. Then, tuesday we were even more busy with 8 surgeries and a girl i work with left because she was sick and it kinda made me mad because she knew how busy we were and she wasn't that sick anyway. Then wednesday I went to ben's last season game up in logan and got car sick and that was just the best thing ever, but I wanted him to know i support him and that i really wanted to be there. It's important to him that we come. So i get to work on thursday still feeling a little weird from the flu and really no sleep, but ready to work. So we had to take x-rays of a really mean cat. We took a lateral and Ventral dorsal of the chest. A lateral is where they are on their side and a VD is on their back. So we took them, but the cat kinda moved on the lateral, but we wanted to run the x-rays to see and the cat was getting more and more pissed. Then we had to get blood from the cat and that was a joke. He was so angry at this point that it took three people to hold the cat and one to hit the vein. Well the dr. said that the lateral x-ray wasn't any good so we had to shoot it again. well we had a very upset cat and it wasn't very easy to get him on his side and kathy a girl i work with was hold him and she couldn't do it anymore so while she was still holding him I grabbed him and then she let go and went to grab a towel to wrap the cat in. while she was gone the cat kept trying to get out of my hold and was throwing himself all over the place so i had to let go and i did, but when you let go of a pissed cat you don't try and reach down and get it so i was trying to get out of the way and he lunged at me and grabbed my right hand with his sharp teeth. and i ripped my hand from his grip and there i was a bleeding mess. It got my palm and the top of my hand on the knuckles. I washed it to hard it hurt so it doesn't get infected because cats have such a weird bacteria called pasturella. It causes the area to swell and get very infected. So I went to the doctor right way and got on antibiotics. Hopefully it doesn't get infected. Right now it is looking good, but it hurts. I am thinking i really hope my week doesn't get worse. So friday i went to my grandma's and i took care of her for the day. We watched movies, slept (well she slept) talked and ate the food her neighbors brought. It made my week seem a little better by serving my grandmother. I am grateful i have the opportunity to do that for her since she has done so much for me and my family. Serving always makes you feel so great. I never really get to see braydon because he goes to school all day and some nights when he doesn't have to be at school til 11 he works at wingers to make a little money. So I really only see him on sunday. So saturday I hung out with my mom and then helped my grandma get a bath and i put her to bed. So sundays are always really nice because i get to be with braydon. We teach primary together and then we come home eat dinner and get in our sweats and watch movies. It's one of my favorite things to do! So all in all the week was a roller coaster and i'm hoping this particular ride ends soon so i can get on another one.

The truth about puppy mills!

I understand that not everyone loves animals and that is ok. You don't need to love animals to understand that this video is not humane and that puppy mills should be illegal. Most of my friends hate animals, but they know i love them... hello i work with them everyday. Puppy mills are cruel and disgusting i hate them. I got my sweet copper from Kansas. He was rescued from a puppy mill. He lived there his whole life and was only let out for breeding. He had rotten teeth, horrible ears, and was matted so badly he had sores on his body. I fell in love with him the moment i saw him. He is very afraid of men because he was abused, but he is doing so much better. He learned how to sit, speak and jump up. He knows when i say "get your toy" to bring it to me. I feel heartbroken that there are millions of animals left there to live their lives out and die in horrible cages without food or water never being able to touch the ground. I'm not asking you to love animals i'm just asking that if do or ever get one please don't buy one from a pet store!! And this is mostly about how much i love copper. I know most of you will this think this post is silly, but it's important to me so if you do don't read or watch it and most importantly dont comment about how silly or dumb you think it is because i don't want to know. Here are some picture of copper getting a bath, drying off, sitting with braydon, and him in his rain coat... yes i buy my dog clothes. I know i'm a weirdo.

Love love it!!!!!

Oh i just love ellen! She makes me so happy when i'm feeling down. And i know a lot of people don't like josh groban, but i love him. I used to sit in my parents study listening to him with my brother bubba. The song to where you are is really special to my family, but that isn't the point here. The point is she freaking rocks and i wish i could be funny and someone who makes people smile the way she does. I hope you enjoy.

Hello you single Gents

This stunning lady on the right is Tess. She feels as though i do not care enough about her because i haven't made a post well here it goes.

Tess is beautiful, very funny, and she likes boys. She makes me laugh a lot! She is crazy and very loud... seems a bit familiar right? Tess here you go. love you girl.

25 random things

1. I cry in the shower so no one knows when I cry
2. I like a clean house, but I hate hate hate to clean
3. I get hooked on certain food place and I go to them for three to four weeks in a row then I pick a new place and start the cycle all over
4. At my tiny house we do not have a bath just a shower and I love to take baths and so I go to my moms now and just take a hot bath, but I always shower after
5.I don’t sleep well at night I get up about 2 or 3 and that is that I’m up. And it makes me mad that braydon is sleeping so I move a lot to see if he will wake up and he never does.
6. I knew I would marry braydon when I was 16. he saved me after my brother died.
7. I love to watch movies at night with braydon, but since I hardly see him I’m stuck with tv shows… guilty pleasures as he would say
8. I don’t go to my siblings graves because I don’t like it, but if my whole family goes I will just stay in the car.
9. I had an imaginary boyfriend named pin when I was little because bubba and paul wouldn’t play with me.
10. I have the best friends and best family ever!! I think about them everyday and pray for them. They make my life better.
11. I do not like to cuddle that much, but braydon loves it mostly at night he likes to fall asleep cuddling. Lets be honest Erica would rather sleep… so I’m like no don’t touch.
12. I am a twin and I can tell when paul is sad or sick or anything like that. When he was on his mission I knew when he was sick and he never told my mom, but I would get letters or emails saying he was and I knew. It’s a weird twin thing.
13. I love going to lake powell with my cousins and family. Yes I’m very good friends with my cousins.
14. I cry when I see someone else cry.
15. I am terrified to sing or speak in public, but wish I could do musical and Broadway stuff. I love to sing.
16. I know a lot of secrets about a lot of people. Those who know me know that if they told me something and they told me not to tell I wouldn’t. You would die if you knew the stuff I knew.
17. I want to be a mom more then anything.
18. In high school I would rather have stayed at home then go to a party, but if it was a dance party I always wanted to be there… me and stomps belonged together I love to shake it and my friends know how much I love it.
19. I think I could win know the lyrics tv show. I can memorize a song really easily and I know a million songs.
20. I want to be on the crime against childrens task force. Yes I want to be a cop. I have wanted to do that since I was little.
21. I have really scary dreams a lot

22. Braydon and I read our scriptures in Portuguese every night and we say our prayers holding hands.
23. I’m afraid of the dark.
24 . I love going on cruises with my family. I would do it all the time if we had the time.
25. I am really big into trust and once you’ve lost mine it’s pretty hard to get it back.