Bite you, Apple!

If you don't already know, I have been trying to write one blog post a week for the entire year. Well I am falling a little behind. Not because I haven't wanted to, but because my computer, of course, has been broken. Well sort of.

My charger has been acting wacky for weeks. I knew that it was about to be kaput. And one day, I go to use my computer and bam- can't turn it on because it is totally dead. I was kinda wondering if my battery inside my computer was also dying. I would charge it forever and it would last maybe 1 hour. I remember my first generation iPod mini doing this when I was a sophomore in high school. I would charge it all night and in the morning I could play exactly 15 seconds of one song. They replaced my mini with a 1st generation Video iPod. For free. The batteries in the minis had a defect (remember this word later, it's important).

Luckily, I don't live anywhere near an Apple store to fix my computer. And even more lucky, I thought I had three years protection on my computer, when I only had two. So to my happy surprise, when I pulled out my files and saw my computer was completely out of warranty, I couldn't help but thank my lucky stars. Catch my sarcasm there?

I look up on the Apple website how much it is going to cost to fix. Jordan has a church calling that requires the computer to be fixed immediately, and he also has a wife that feels naked without her Adobe Suite attached at her hip. Total cost about 250 dollars. This doesn't seem like a lot to some people. Heck I don't care who you are. That is a lot to fix the computer.

I am determined to find out if my battery is dead or just the charger. My Father-in-Law bought a Mac last year, so I borrowed his cord. I am able to charge my computer. Hooray! But too bad the computer is like a person and tells you something is wrong. So my little battery icon tells me that I need to service my battery. I bet you can guess that service actually means replace. Awesome. The full 250 down the drain.

We do have a Simply Mac store, a store that is more like a a copy of Apple that can sell their products but can't have their name. They were able to check my battery and charger to make sure that they were officially dead. Which they were. Awesome.

Here's the real kicker....

The guy helping me looks at my charger and is like, "is this the charger that you had the whole time?" and I'm like, "uh...yes? Why?" And he then goes on to explain that I have a 60 watt charger, for my 15 inch mac, which is totally not enough wattage. He then goes on to explain that because the wattage wasn't enough, it slowly ate away and killed my battery, and possibly some other internal damage. I needed the 85 watt charger for my type of computer.

Not only was it not my fault, it was Apple's manufacturing mistake!!! I took my computer into Best Buy (where my computer was bought) at least FIVE TIMES and asked them to check my charger and battery because whenever I charged my computer it was ON FIRE. They never did anything. And I had to pay for their mistake.

Apple, I am mad at you. You made me pay 250 dollars for YOUR mistake.

Best Buy, I am mad at you because I knew something was wrong and you NEVER DID ANYTHING. Your "Geek" people who have that name because they are supposed to be smart, are complete morons. I had to pay 250 dollars when I never should have.

Well that's the end to my story. I just needed to rant a little.

I voted today.

I did this today.

Voted.

Go me.

I have only voted twice in my life (for president) but this vote really means a lot for our country.

I am so thankful for our founding fathers, being lead by the spirit of God, who laid the path for everything that we have today and the freedoms that we all enjoy. I love that we can all express ourselves.

I wish that we wouldn't put others beliefs or thoughts down because they do not match our own. Right now I live in a place where I don't really experience that very often. I have been sheltered from the political craziness going on in the world (unless I get on Facebook...) in the forms of ads and other things, so I'm not tired out of being excited for the Presidential Race.

I am a little bit disappointed because I did not get my volunteer shirt from the Romney/Ryan campaign, mostly because I wanted to wear it today. I hope that doesn't give away who I voted for....

Which reminds me of a funny story...

I was trick or treating when I was little, somewhere in the 8-10 range. We knocked on a door in my neighborhood. The lady was dressed as a witch and had her "I voted" sticker on and was telling us young kids how important it is to vote. Then I said, "who did you vote for?" The lady said, "That's none of your business!!" and slammed the door in our faces. As a young child, I was stunned. How rude. Now that I am older, I guess it is a sticky subject to talk about...

Go Romney.

I don't know what to do with my life.

I have had a lot of things on my mind lately. What better way than to rant about it on my blog? Maybe it's not so much of a rant, but that Jordan and I are in a dilemma and I have no clue what to do.

Last year in December, Jordan graduated with his Bachelor's. We were so excited. What an accomplishment and what a feat! We had such high expectations for the future. What was going to happen next??

Well fast forward one year and we are doing everything the same. Minus going to school. We have been job searching for OVER A YEAR. We've probably applied somewhere between 500-1000 jobs in that time. I'm not even kidding. And I'm not thinking in just Idaho either. Some of the states that we've tried are Idaho, Utah, Colorado, California, Texas, North Carolina, Tennessee, Nevada, Nebraska, etc, etc. We've probably heard back from maybe a handful of those jobs, and only a couple of face to face interviews at that. We keep thinking what are we doing wrong? What do we have to do to make things different? Why a whole freakin year? I'm hoping that the Lord is ready to smack us in the face with something, because my patience is wearing very thin. But then I think to myself.. maybe the point is to have patience. Who knows..

I see all my friends moving on with their lives. Moving away, starting new jobs, having babies, doing something. I feel stopped, unmoving. Just sitting, not knowing what we should do. I try to be the best stay at home mommy that I can, but those creeping in feelings of... I should be helping with money, I should get a job, I should be doing more....keep attacking my brain. I mean Satan knows where to hit me where it counts. I've always been goal driven and wanting to accomplish things. Again, stopped. All these feelings stem from not finding a job. We have been living in the same place for almost 5 years and even though it's a very nice place to live, something needs to change.

I guess that is where my rant comes to a close... or some kind of monologue that is leading up to where Jordan and I are now and what we should do.

Jordan has not wanted to go further to pursue his masters. He is not a school kind of man. I told him that if we didn't get a job, we would at least start school. After a lot of research we narrowed it down to two schools. University of Wisconsin for a Integrated Supply Chain Master or Indiana Wesleyan for an MBA. They are both online (so if we do get a job we can still move or do whatever is needed). We applied and waited. IWU send Jordan an e-mail telling him he was accepted, and a letter about a week later. UW sent the acceptance letter and we got UW's and IWU on the same day. Super exciting.

Now comes the drama. Which one do we pick? Do we even really want to do this? I mean they both come out to be about 24 THOUSAND dollars. Is it really that much needed to go so far into debt to do this?

After we get the acceptance letters suddenly Jordan gets a phone call from a company we applied for in Utah. They do a semi-formal phone interview right then and they want to meet him. So last week we drove down to Utah for Jordan to have  his interview. On the way down... We get a phone call from a company in American Falls (about 15 mins from Pocatello). They want to set up an interview too. And just this morning Jordan sets up a Skype interview with a company based in Wisconsin but with locations for this certain position in either Utah, Texas, Arizona, Wisconsin or California. On top of that Jordan gets offered the job in Utah (but it is an extreme risky job....)

I am overjoyed with the opportunities. I am overjoyed that something is finally happening for us. But with the happiness comes all the crazy uncertainty. If Jord gets one of these jobs should we move away? Away from our comfort zone, away from Jord's family and my brother's family, away from our whole married existence? Cost of living anywhere else we go will be hugely different for us, and we will have to be a lot more careful with our money.

There are so many options/opportunities/failures that could be awaiting us. I just hope that we can make the right decisions. Lots of prayer right now for us... I hope we get an answer. I hope Jordan gets offered more than one of the jobs so we have a choice, I hope we are strong enough to possibly make a difficult choice.

There lies my dilemma. Any suggestions would be glorious. Hearing how other people got through things always makes it a little easier for me.

Bottom line. I guess we need some good ol' fashion faith.

Squatch sighting.

Jordan and I spotted the squatch. I am not even kidding. If you have seen the video on youtube from like the 60s or 70s... it is the same exact squatch. We saw him at a football game last week. If you haven't seen the video here is a frozen pic from it.

Prepare yourself. For this is crazy.

haha. just kidding. We did spot a little Hallie Bug and she was running around the football game like mad. I took this picture to remember how wild she was. As soon as I took it I turned to Jordan and asked what it reminded him of.. for some reason we both thought... squatch. So we spotted him.. or a bit of his character in our little girl.

I always want to write some amazing post about all the things that Hallie is doing. All I ever end up doing is just listing everything and when I read back over it.. It reads frantic and a little bit insane. I think I want to try to remember all the little things that she does that I don't want to forget to write about it in a post. My thoughts come and go so easily that it comes out frantic and crazy. I hope I can slow it down a little so you can get a picture of what Hallie is really like.

My child is a genius. I'm sure all the parents say that. This is legit. She is genius material. Alright maybe I'm just a little excited about my child. She is super smart though without a doubt. To preface, she is super observant. Ever since she was born. She never had that crazy eyes baby thing. Right when she came out the womb she knew what was up. Now for the examples.

1. Her Grandpa Blair was sitting with an empty cup on the couch (This was about a month ago) Hallie came over to him like, hey you with the cup! Give me a drink please! He handed her the cup. She stuck her little nose in the cup and looked at Gpa like, "um excuse me sir, this is empty." She immediately walked over to the fridge, stood up on her tippy toes and held the cup as high as she could to reach the cup to the water. I was a very proud mamma at that moment. I mean come on! Genius!

2. She is talking up a storm. I mean real talking. She babbles most of the time, which is freaking adorable but when she looks at me and actually talks, it melts my heart. Even when she has been a bum. She has started the "what's that?" and "I don't know" and more that I can think of at the moment. Also, she is repeating almost everything I say to her. I seriously need to watch myself (sometimes I can have a wee bit of a sailor tone to my language.. I know it's bad).

Her first words were daddy and mommy and slowly moved to bye bye and doggie. Well now there are specifics. Hillary has a puppy names Axle (which Hallie & Ax are probably BFFs) and whenever she hears the dogs barking, she looks at the door and says, doggie! So we head up stairs to go see the doggie. Then when we get up there Ax comes and gives Hallie a big kiss and she yells, Axle!! Oh yeah I'm not even kidding. It kind of sounds like apple, but x's are hard!

Other words.. Kitty, wow, no, uh-oh, cracker, cookie, chip, fruit snack, etc.

3. She recognizes people. Her gpa Blair is the Bishop of our ward, and he sits on the stand. On Sunday we come in and sit down. Jordan asked Hallie where grandpa was. She looked around saw him on the stand, pointed and said papa!! Then she got a huge smile on her face while she jumped up and down on the pew.

4. She knows exactly where the fruit snacks and bananas are. When I sit her in her high chair she can see on top of the counters. If we have bananas, she can see them. She will point and scream until you give her one. And this girl loves bananas. I always give into her tantrum. AT least she always eats the whole thing.

Whenever we go upstairs to visit grandma, if her pantry is open, Hallie goes right over to it. At first she would just stand there and stare at the box. Now, if you aren't fast enough, she will take the whole box out and bring it over to you and try to fit as many in her hands as possible. There is something about fruit snacks... At least when she is done, I can tell her to put her trash in the garbage. And she does it. Genius. I'm telling you, genius!!

5. Hallie knows exactly what she wants. She is starting to feel all these new emotions, and frustration is one of them. She gets frustrated kind of easily. When she does, man watch out. She hits decibels that only dogs can hear. Not only that but she will hold them out too, so this high pitched, long drawn out scream. Which she usually demonstrates during the passing of the Sacrament on Sundays.

6. She blows kisses. And I don't mean put her hand on her mouth and move it. She actually puts her hand to her mouth, kisses it, drops it, and blows it. The whole, real, blowing kisses process. She is amazing at it. It's the cutest thing I think I have ever seen. I can also get her to put her hands under her chin like she is posing. I don't have a picture of it yet, but when I do it's going up on the blog asap!

Well that's all I got for how much of a genius my child is. I'm sure there is more, but I'll just have to post more as I remember I guess! I just have to say, that she is such a joy. I can be so angry at her for acting out (which she knows when I am mad at her, see another thing about my genius baby!) and she will come over and won't leave me alone until I give her a hug and tell her that I'm not mad anymore. That just melts my heart. She gives the best hugs. Little arms around my neck and she squeezes until I feel like I can't breath. It is the best. I am blesssed to be her mommy!

Aaron & Candace Sautter

I know. I'm getting annoying. The only thing I post is pictures. But hey I guess that is my life right now. I could write another post about Hallie... sound good? :)

Well I had the privilege of taking Aaron & Candace's family pictures for the first time. I was so excited to do these because it literally took us a month to schedule the shoot. It got crazy busy for both families and weather here has been just a little unpredictable. We finally got them done, and I got them edited super quick because... drum roll... I have zero shoots scheduled, and zero photos to edit!! It's insane. I always feel like I have something. But now I can relax.. Not too much though, Christmas is just around the corner (and I literally have a million things to do).

Back to the pictures... It may look nice outside... and it started nice out, but it got freezing real quick. I am so proud of my little nieces and nephews for being able to stick it out through the "bite." Kinzy (who is 2) had the hardest time, so we took her individual picture the next day when it was a little warmer.

Oh and just throwing this out there... I'm thinking of doing little "mini" shoots for families that need a pic for their Christmas card. Seriously just a short little shoot for a discounted price. Let me know if you want one... AND... if any of my friends know how to work a canon camera... I would love to trade pictures with you. You shoot me I shoot you sort of thing? I also need a family picture, but I can't be in front and behind the camera at the same time. Plus Hallie needs a pretty face to look at.

ok back to the sautter's...

FAVORiTES:

Laney Sautter

This is the busiest time of year for pictures. So I have so more for you! Hooray! My niece, Laney will be turning 8 in December. What a birthday!! She will be getting baptized the very beginning of January. Her mom wanted to get her birthday/baptism pictures done early because of the freezing weather here in December. Also we wanted to get them done early because Laney is not a big fan of cold weather, and in tends to show in the pictures... if you catch my drift. haha.

I was so excited to do these pictures, and October came around and we were still having 70-80 degree weather. On the Monday of the week we decided, it was 75 degrees. In my mind I am thinking, "heck yes." Then Tuesday rolls around. 50 degrees/wind. Are you kidding me?? That much of a change!? In one day!!?? We had the pictures decided for Thursday. I was praying weather would be alright. I think every time I have scheduled a shoot with Macy it has been changed due to weather. Every time.

Thursday came around, and it was freezing in the morning. Luckily, it warmed up through the day. Although it was a bit chilly when we were ready to do pictures, it was warm in the sunlight. The shoot went so good, and Laney was a champion. It's early for her pictures, like I mentioned earlier, but I am so happy we did them. She is in her baptism dress and when the day actually comes it will be fabulous!

Thank you Laney for doing amazing!! Plus she is gorgeous so how could it go wrong??

Favorites:

Kaylie Dixon

I finally did it. I finally edited my sister's photos. I took them back in June! I was waiting on her to tell me which ones to edit. And as a crazy Senior in high school, I never got a list. Well I have two photo shoots this week and I need some memory cards freed up... and I always pick all the pictures I edit anyways.

I love these pictures. I had so much fun shooting my little seester. I can't believe she's a Senior and applying for colleges. I am honored that she would trust me enough with her Senior photos. I mean these are serious. They go in the yearbook... FOREVER! haha. I think it was the most fun because I am totally comfortable with her. So if she looked stupid, I could just tell her and she would change her face. And I got to try things that I hadn't before because for some reason, sometimes I get embarrassed as the photographer. Silly right? She was such a trooper. BOTH times we took pictures. Yes she is a special client, and I traveled all the way to Colorado to take another round of Senior pictures.

Here are my favorites. Hopefully she likes them. She is gorgeous in them all I don't see how she wouldn't!!

Kay I will be sending you a disc ASAP!