Question #2-How I met your mother...er my husband

Asked by Barbaloot (Whom I met at a fun bloggy lunch and knew I would love her blog! Plus she's got great taste in movies.)

Question #2:
Maybe you've shared it and I just haven't seen it...but I wanna know about you and your husband. How you managed to date in high school, wait for him, and then get married:)
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So hubby and I met many moons ago. I was 16 and he was 18 and we were both attending a week-long LDS youth camp thing called Especially For Youth (EFY) in the summer of 1998.

We lived far away from each other (180 miles approx 3 hrs) so when we returned home it was a bit difficult to hang out so we settled on emailing. Later that year he was traveling down to my city with his buddy and asked me out on a date. In December he came over and we went out on our first official date, where he not only asked me to be his girlfriend, but asked permission to kiss me, which I excitedly allowed (yes on our first date).

(I made him take <----- this picture a few months before he left on his mission. It's ok, we laugh at it now too.) So as you can imagine, as two young teenagers it was a bit tricky to work out the traveling arrangements. Looking back on it now I still can't believe how cool our parents were about the whole thing (letting us drive so far so often-esp considering I didn't have my own car). We'd see each other every other weekend or so while we finished out the school year and a bit more often over the summer before he left on his mission. (We got to go to a bunch of dances together but these are my fav two pictures.)

He left on his mission a few weeks after this picture was taken (my senior year Homecoming). I'd spend many a school hour writing him letters which meant he got ALOT of mail. Luckily my parents had plenty of stamps around. It was pretty fun hearing about his mission and he'd send me pictures and I did the classic thing: made him a missionary scrapbook. (What's really neat is now when he shares stories or talks about them I know who they are or remember stories myself.)

So off to college I went, and many transfers and letters later he returned home the beginning of my Sophomore year in college. We dated for a bit and later he surprised me with a visit that Halloween (2001) when he came down to visit me at school. We went for a walk and he popped the question with my dream ring! (It felt like I waited eternity to hear that question come out of his mouth but again, looking back on it now I can't believe how fast it all happened. Well at least from the standpoint of when he got home. :-P )

We were married in January 2002 (yes just 10 weeks later) and had a perfect wedding day (which if you want more details we had lunch at Wendys).

I think I covered it all. What do you think? Any more details?


**Want to play along? Do you have any questions for me? Go ahead and ask!

Question #1: Fear

Asked by: The Head Eagle over at An Eagles View. (Who has a fun blog about life as a working mom, giveaways/reviews, and life.)

Question 1:
What is one thing you truly fear?

I'm sorta afraid of heights (or better yet falling from huge heights) but I can overcome it for the sake of rollercoaster awesomeness. I'm ok going up into tall buildings but I dont do so hot on ledges. :)

I'm sort of afraid of creepy crawlies, or more importantly, ever having to be faced with the idea of needing to eat one (ala Fear Factory to win $$--that is why I could never ever be on that show).

But truly really? I'm afraid of emergency fires. Not candles, or campfires or fireworks or anything like that. But having to escape a burning building. A save-my-family-and-important-papers sorta fire. I used to lay awake at night, as a kid, devising plans about what I would do/take if my house started on fire. I lived on the second floor with the driveway below my window, not a soft landing, so I was always devising plans to not break my legs and save as much of my stuff as I could.

Hey bloggy friends: What is one thing you truly fear?

**Do you have any questions for me? Go ahead and ask!

Smell like Twilight

The winners of the Essence of Twilight contest are

#1 Brie (entry #19)
#2 Jenni Elyse (entry #2)
#3 Brie (entry #14)
#4 Terra H (entry #23)

Congratulations ladies! As I stated on the original post here's how it'll go down: First person chosen will get their first choices of scents/flavors of 2 lotions and 2 lip glosses. The second, third, and fourth prize winners will then go in descending order of their choices pictured above.

Winners please email me your order of preferences. Don't forget to check out some of these awesome companies for unique Twilight (and New Moon, Eclipse) inspired gifts.

• Essence of Twilight for things pictured above plus more.
  
• Infinite Jewelry Co for Bella's Engagement ring and Bella's Bracelet
• Charmed for an assortment bookmarks and cell phone charms and book thongs, and key chains and tons more unqiue gifts like aprons, umbrellas, scrubs, magnets, etc.
  
• Tarls Scribbles for original artwork like eeny meeny mo.

So True

Wordless Wednesday: Creative Trap

(Photo taken by me in Summer 2009.)

Tell Me: Are you curious?

What would you like to know about me?

Ask your questions, any questions. Fun questions, silly questions, crazy questions, random questions. Ask away! And in advance, thanks for playing!


This post was inspired by my bloggy friend Evonne over at Sell Party Of.

The Dark Divine-My Review

So as part of 'The Dark Divine Street Team' I got a handful of swag to pass out and a cute t-shirt to wear (that I proudly wore this weekend to two New Moon big movie events). Plus my very first ARC copy of a book. I read it in 3 days (although had I not been study for my final test ala graduating, that same week I'm confident I could have done it in a day-I really wanted to! But you'll also perhaps notice that instead of just waiting a week the book was burning a whole through my pocket. Or perhaps my nightstand. Ok on with the show...)

The Dark Divine by Bree Despain hits stores in just under one month people. Are you counting down? Because you should. This book is fabulous!

I've gotta tell you I read ALOT (as in I actually counted and it was over 107 books last year). And not all the books I read are recommend-to-others worthy. In fact a lot of times when people ask what I'm reading I purposely won't tell them until I'm done because I want to give them a good honest review and I want to stand behind what I'm talking about and really promote great authors.

Let me tell you a little bit about The Dark Divine. There's this nice girl named Grace, who has a brother named Jude and the two of them have a friend named Daniel. You think you know where you're going but this book keeps you wondering and very invested in the characters.

You can read the first chapter on Bree's website, where she's also hosting 'a huge frakkin giveaway' over on her blog so go enter and tell her I sent ya. She'll also tell ya how to find the first SIX CHAPTERS. But really, I'm pretty confident you're gonna wanna own this for yourself.

Thank You Card Winner

The winner of the Digital Room sponsored Thank you cards is
(as chosen by my daughter comment #4 because that is how old she'll be turning in a few months)

Christie!

Look for an email from me shortly. Congratulations!

Be sure to check out the next few prizes this week including lotions and body sprays and a 16x20 rolled canvas.

WIN a Large Format Poster

In preparation for the Holiday season LargeFormatPosters.com is rolling out another giveaway – 16x20 rolled Canvas. Rolled canvas prints are perfect for home decor, photo prints and signage.


Giveaway Prize: (1) Rolled Canvas for One Lucky Winner
Shipping: FREE UPS Ground Shipping in the US
Eligibility: Limited to US Residents due to shipping costs. We will negotiate better shipping rates soon.

LargeFormatPosters.com is sponsoring this giveaway so one of you lucky duckys can win this for yourself! Check out their Canvas Printing or the fun Poster Printing. You can also see some of the reviews at UPrinting Reviews. I've recently seen this and they're great quality! I couldn't believe that not only was the quality impressive but it was a super quick process (printing/shipping).

To enter:
Leave a comment describing what photo gifts you'd want to have printed for your family and loved ones.

Additional entries:
~Follow me on Twitter @cranberryfries.
~Twitter this contest. (You can copy/paste this: Win a 16x20 canvas rolled custom canvas print at http://cranberryfries.blogspot.com/2009/11/win-large-format-poster.html)
~Post this on facebook.
~Email at least 4 friends and cc me cranberryfries [at] gmail [dot] com.
~Add me as a friend on facebook (or if you're already my friend, could you help a girl out and suggest a few friends?).

Contest will close Nov 29th and the winner will be announced on my blog by Nov 30th.

*I will receive a poster print for participating in this giveaway. Thanks to LargeFormatPosters.com!

Even a little can help.

My cousin Kristin recently has worked with some foster teens in the Salt Lake City area. She has created an incredible idea for Christmas and I'd encourage you all to check it out. A few points:

~Check out the blog link below to get more details, stories, and information.
~These teens are the most overlooked population when it comes to Christmas and donations. ~They usually get what's leftover from other houses. ( One year one of the teens in the home opened the one present he got and said, "I just can't believe I got an actual present and not just candy!")
~The idea is to get their dream list (that's below) FIRST before doing other donations. These are things that not only they would want but really need.

(Click to enlarge picture or click on the Teen Foster link below to see a list.)


You can see what they still need or what's already been purchased at

It's a Very Merry Teen Foster Christmas blog.

I'd love it if you could help pass the word along. Send it out in emails, twitters, facebook, anything you can think of. She's tackling this project not just for a few youth she's hoping to help 17 boys and 17 girls. Even if you dont think you can do this along, get together with a group of friends, neighbors, family members and pool your resources to help.