9/11/2011

Today is the 10 year anniversary of 2011. To help me remember how I felt that day, I thought I would pull out my journal from 8th grade. Here are the words of the 13 year old Becky Todd on 9/11/2001... exactly how it was written.

Today is 9/11/01

Today is the most tragic day of my life. 2 of our lands traid-marks have just been distroyed. The world trader center or the twin towers have just calapsed today.

Today I got up like any old 13 year old 8th grader would get up, would be half awake half not. I got up, took a shower got dressed did my hair soon and so forth. I got on the bus like nothing was wrong. Just talking to my friends and stuff.

I get to school I was just about to first perios when a boy names Cameron Vickilion came up to me and Meghan and said "Did you hear what just happened about an hour and a half ago!!?" Both of us said "No". "The world trade centers just got hit by a plane" me and Meghan both just kind of ignoring him. Then when I got in first period, the principle came on the intercom and said that one of the world trade centers just fell down. I didn't really know what the twin towers were so I was confused. Then in 2nd period my teacher started to cry and Meghans mom checked her our of school. All the rest of the day was horrible. Every1 was crying and scared. I got home and watched the news and for once I saw what happened. It was so scary and sad. That was the day I will never forget.

(4/20/2002)

A lot has happened since then but that is something that will always be with me. I just watched another documentary on 9/11 and it is so sad. I remember getting off the bus when I got home that day and seeing Meghan come running down the hill to come talk to me. We talked 4 hours about what happened since she was home all day she had seen what happened. But me I was at school with all my confused classmates and my sobbing teachers.

I remember walking into my house and seeing my brother on the couch watching what was my first glimpse of reality. What I saw on that T.V. screen was something I wouldn't have thought possible. Smoke and flames on these buildings. Planes crashing into them. It was the most horrible thing I have ever saw in my life. I called my mom at work and trying really hard not to cry she didn't really sound worried which kind of scared me. But she thought there wasn't a very likely chance that anything would happen to her. For the next week or to, all that was on the t.v. was either 9/11 or if they have found any more servivors. I think for about a month, our country was so united and whole and it was so nice. You would walk around town and people would say hi to you or say god bless you or something. And the saddest thing was seeing all the flags like this:

It was so sad I started to cry. This day will alwats live in my forever and I will never forget it.

A Penny worth a million

I don't know if I am alone in this but I just totally suck at finishing blogs. That's right. I don't suck at writing them or starting them but...FINISHING them. I have about 20 unfinished blogs that are just waiting to be read by the world!!

This is one of them.

Back at the end of January, I was going through a rough time. We got our house but I felt like something was missing. Since George is working from home now, I felt bad that he was just home alone all day without a whole lot of interaction. So the first thing I thought to do was get a cat.
So one Saturday, I meandered into Petco to look at the kitty cats. Somehow my eyes diverted to these cute little puppies. There was one inparticular that caught my eye. It was a white border collie/blue healer with little brown spots. It was the calmest puppy of the bunch and my heart just melted!! So, I ran home and told George we had to go look at this puppy. He is thinking to himself "oh great, how am I going to say no this time..."
Well we get to Petco...and my puppy is being sold!! I was so sad!! But then we look down in the cage and there she is. A little brownish white puppy....Her face is half brown and half white with brown feckles. Just about the cutest thing I ever saw. I picked her up...she was just calm and cuddly! I knew I had to have her. But, it wasn't my decision. I knew if we got a puppy, it would be George's not mine...since he will spend most of the day with it.
After walking around Petco for about 30 minutes...we finally decided she was the newest addition to the Ortiz Family. Penny Ortiz or Penners or Penny blossom or Penny Rosa or Sean Penn or Penn State or Penny Loafer...just to name a few of her nicknames she's gotten from us.
So far our time with Penny has been great. She is the best dog in the world!! That of course was until March 21st. One day we began noticing Penny was really... calm. Which she isn't really hyper but she was abnormally calm. Then she started to get this nasty cough. The next day, George took her to the vet and the vet diagnosed her with Kennel Cough. Which scared me a little bit because I guess its more serious in puppies. That night, George and I went t visit some friends. When we came home, Penny was in the bathroom with blood all around her. She was coughing up blood. A lot of it at that. This wasn't normal. I was really worried. So we decided it would be best to take her to the animal hospital...Just to be safe!
When we got to the hospital, we were met by a very high strung receptionist who immediately started yelling at us telling us to get our puppy from the car immediately. As soon as we brought Penny in, she took her straight to the back and told us we had to give them $400 down before they'd start treating Penny. Apparently, she was in need of a blood transfusion, oxygen and plasma to keep her alive. They gave us a final estimate of $1,300 we needed to pay. Up front.

We had to make the toughest puppy parent decision. Is Penny worth $1,300? Of course being me, I became so hysterical I couldn't even talk. George was the level headed one.

We decided to just have them do everything they could to keep our puppy alive. Even though they couldn't even guarantee that. The doctor came in and told us she has 1 or 2 things. Either she had rat poisoning or she was a Hymophiliac. AHHH!! Well, I can't think of a time she would have gotten into rat poison so we were afraid it was Hymophilia. The doctor said he'd do what he can tonight and we would just have to come back in the morning. So we left and headed home.

I did not sleep well.

That next morning, we got up at 7 and headed back down to the hospital to pick Penny up. The doctor told us Penny had been doing well all night after the blood transfusion until about 6am. She had a reaction to the blood and was having more problems. We ended up taking her to the vet and the vet was dumbstruck on how bad Penny was. I think he felt horrible just saying she had kennel cough. They didn't know what they could do with her besides just keep her stable by putting her on oxygen. They recommended to keep her at the vet until the animal hospital opened again and to take her back.

Well by the time we paid for the hospital visit at the morning at the vet, we were pretty much out of money. So all we could do was just take her home and hope for the best....

She was in pretty bad shape. She was so weak she could hardly stand. We had to get her to take her medicine which meant she had to eat something which was a whole other issue. By the end of the night though she was getting a little stronger and we got her to eat some bread.

The next morning, we woke up to a puppy that actually looked like...our puppy. For the first time in day her ears were up and she was standing and moving around!

Here is what she looked like Sunday morning.

Sad huh? Our poor little puppy. But from then on, she just got better and better. Now she is our perfect little not so puppy anymore! Healthy and so stinkin cute!

Here is a picture of her that her daycare (Yes, I said daycare...we take our puppy to daycare) took of her.

So what happened?

Well, I'll tell ya. A week before she got sick, George and I went to go see a movie. When we came home, our basement was flooded. And guess who did it? Yup. Our cute little puppy!
OUR PUPPY FLOODED OUR BASEMENT!
I bet not many people can say that!

So that night we spent about 5 hours trying to dry our carpet with a shop-vac. Well, to get our basement to dry a little faster, we opened the door to our crawlspace...and guess what was in our crawl space?
Rat poison.

How'd I get so white n' nerdy?

Recently I have been discovering my inner being. The Nerd. You know, all through high school I thought I was SOOO cool knowing all the songs to all the newest broadway shows. Rollin' into school with my van, bright red hair and I made sure everyone knew I was in the choir and musicals.

Well... I think in the past few years, I have had this transformation from one nerd to another. I'm not the nerdy choir kid anymore but a real life... Nerd. Like the ones who play magic and talk about Spock like he is a real person and such. Wow.

So, if you do any of these then CONGRADULATIONS!!!! You are as nerdy as me.

1. If you have seen the youtube video that has puppets of Harry Potter characters. Snape, Snape, Severus Snape.

2. If you play Paper, Rock Scissors, Lizard, Spock to resolve conflicts in your marriage.

3. If you know what Munchkins is.

4. If when you hear the song Miss American Pie, you start singing "A long, long time ago, in a galaxy far away, Naboo was under an attack...."

5. If you have ever played Talisman

6. If you own more than 3 mac products

7. If The Big Bang Theory is more than just the theory.

8. If you considered buying an ergonomic keyboard for your husband

9. If you watched Watson on Jepardy and tried to figure out what algorithms they could possibly have used.

10. If you know the reference in which the title of this blog came from.

2010 in a nutshell!

Wow. I literally seems like yesterday that I was writing my blog about "2009 in a nutshell". I know I probably say this every year but WOW. This year went by really fast. So many BIG things happened in my life that i'm wondering if I even payed attention to the little things in life...It's sad to admit but although a lot of wonderful things happened this year, I don't think I lived up to my full potential in life. I think this is the first year(and probably not the last) that I wish I could kind of turn back the clock and re-do some things.

But I want to be a positive blog so I am going to tell you the Top 5 things that happened to the Ortiz' in 2010!


1. Of course, we bought a house! This was a BIG step for us! But it was probably one of the best things we could have done! I love it!





2. I graduated with my bachelors degree at the University of Utah! Woot!

3. We went on our wonderful trip to Seattle to meet George's Grandma and Grandpa!

4. A big this that happened early in 2010 was that my dad was told he most likely had Liver Cancer. All year we were preparing ourselves for the worst news...because it took them about 6 months to find out. Well, in the beginning of November, I got the best news that my dad did NOT have cancer but just a banine sist on his liver. So, my dad can continue to be the wonderful dad he is!! Praise God.

5. In early June I started my new job trainer at my work! This was a big thing since I was graduating...I didn't really know what I would do, when suddenly this opportunity came at the perfect time... Praise God again.

Here are some other things that happened as well...

• We celebrated our first anniversary
• we went to see Lion King live
• George's business really took off
• we went to Lava Hot Springs
• George spoke at Lakeside for the first time
• I am getting WAAY better at guitar...someday going to be able to lead worship by myself!
• I learned how to make ceramic pots
• I got addicted to McDonalds Sweet Tea
• We gave blood for the first time
• I got to really see my cousins Lindsey and Kim for the first time since I was a little girl
• George went to the Zoo for the first time
• I bought an ipad
• We went to the Rodeo for the first time
• We layed down tile in our house
• We made so many new friends! Some new friends were really old friends that became good friends again!
• We made Candy Apples for the first time ever!
• My cousin GraciAnna got married!
• My sister moved to Virgina!

That's all I can think of that happened....but i'm sure a million other things happened too...

Anyways, I'm glad 2010 is over....and I am SOOO excited for 2011!

The 4th!

George and I woke up to an epiphany today! This is our 4th Thanksgiving together! I know that doesn't seem like anything spectacular...but WOW! We have been together for over 4 years now.

This is an extra special Thanksgiving because its our first thanksgiving being home owners!

After a miserable two weeks of being unsure when we are getting our home(which has caused me such stress, i have a rib that popped out of place from my spine! yikes!), we FINALLY got our keys yesterday. Once we got them, we went there and the first thing we did is.... Change all the light and outlet covers! I know weird.

But we are home owners!

Here are a few pictures of our lovely home!

This is our little tint kitchen!

This is our front room. I LOVE the little loft on the top floor...

This is the one we choose!

I needs some fixin' it is great!

I'm not that uninteresting....PART II(tangent)

So I left off with me finally making it to George's house late at night. Before I can continue this story I think I need to explain how George and I met...Because I have never blogged about it so I think this is a good time for a little curve ball in this story.

June 2006:

I had just got my first real job outside of high school. It was the Layton Barnes and Noble. Back then, I knew nothing about books...so don't ask me why I even applied at Barnes and Noble, but there I was. By the end of the summer, I had been promoted to the cash lead and I felt on top of the world. One day I was working at the info desk and come to find out I am working with my arch nemesis that day. George. The pretentious, mysterious weirdo. George and I had never really talked before but I knew for some reason I didn't like him. Or maybe it was that I got the vibe from him that he didn't like me...I don't know. Either way, we didn't like each other. We were sitting at the info desk and for the first time EVER he spoke to me. This is what he said:

George: "You know, sometimes when I am here at work, I pretend everyone here are Star Wars characters"

Ha. Ok. So not only is he pretentious and mysterious but a COMPLETE nerd. I just laughed and looked at him weird. (To this day I make fun of him about this)

From that moment on, this George person intrigued me. He was so... interesting. After working with him a little longer, I learned he was engaged to a girl I grew up with(which was kind of weird). We had very few interactions because I still got the vibe that he didn't like me. I remember specifically during Christmastime, I was singing at this church in Ogden for the Weber State Choir and I saw George there. The first thing that came out of my mouth was, "What are YOU doing here?" He replied "Brooke wanted to come". For a moment, I remember feeling a little disappointed because I thought maybe...he came to see me. But then I remembered he didn't like me and he was engaged so that couldn't have possibly been the case.

After Christmas, I moved to Salt Lake so George and I no longer worked together. But because all of my good friends still worked at the Barnes and Noble in Layton, I would still get together with them regularly. Well, one night around the beginning of February, all of us were going to go to Denny's. When I got to Denny's... George was there. And again, the first thing that came to my mind was... you guessed it... "What are YOU doing here?" George never hung out with the Barnes crowd because he was always with Brooke. He didn't really explain what happened but I got the impression that they broke up. And for the first time, I really felt for the kid. That night, our co-worker Dan, invited us all to go to his church the following day. I had never really been to a christian church so I thought, what the heck. And went.

The only other person who ended up going was... you guessed it again. George. It's like I couldn't get rid of him! hehe. That day, for the first time, I got to know the real George. Not the Star Wars character dreamer George. Or the "I love Brooke" George. Or the "I didn't have time to dry my hair so I stuck my head out of my car window" George. But this kind, inspiring, and sadly heartbroken man. He told me about what happened between him and Brooke. She cheated on George with my ex-boyfriends best friend. So, I knew the guy...well. For some reason, this weird and unfortunate connection between us really brought us together. We found comfort in one another.

From that day on, we were inseparable. We spoke just about everyday, He came up to Salt Lake and visited me. We even went on an epic trip to Zion(For another blog). In 2 short months, he had become my dear friend. I never thought of George much more than a friend only because both of us were pre-occupied with our own love lives. I was chasing dreamily after a guy and George didn't know if he could ever love or trust anyone again from what he had been through. But we were there for each other, and I think above all, that was what we needed.

Until one day in early April, I hear that George was in the hospital. He broke both of his feet.

From then on, I didn't get to speak to him much. I didn't know why, but he wouldn't answer my calls or texts... It's like...he fell off the face of the Earth. Then I find out, he's moving home to Vegas. He needs surgery and he is going to live with his mom. I was truly heartbroken. I felt as though in a few short months, I had gained a best friend and lost one. One moment he was there, and the next, gone. Without even saying goodbye.

Eventually he began to write me emails from Vegas. We wrote back and forth to each other for a few months. Pouring our troubles and trials of life to each other. One day, we concluded that I was going to drive down to Vegas to visit him. I needed my dear friend George.

So, I decided to drive to Vegas....and brought a friend.

And that is the end of Part II(tangent)

Buying a home.

Ugh.

George and I are in the process of buying a home.

This is going to be my testimony right here right now that it is a pain in the TOOCHIE!!!

But we have 3 we love. All three homes we love some things about them and some things we don't love so much.

Home #1 : Clinton

Built in 2002. BEAUTIFUL neighborhood. Smallest house in the neighborhood. LOVE the outside. Beautiful good sized lawn and backyard. Weird layout of the house. Needs all new paint and carpet. Kind of cramped(Seriously considering knocking a wall out and putting a window). All one level. BUT it has....don don don! A walk in closet!! My dream! Large kitchen.

HOME #2: Clearfield

Built 1984. No Garage. Not so nice neighborhood(But not bad), Cute exterior. LARGE backyard. Completely remodeled inside...it's AMAZING! comes with BRAND-NEW stainless steel appliances. This is a ready to move in-er. We probably would have a hard time re-selling it because of the neighborhood though...

HOME #3: Layton

Built 1986. Pretty nice neighborhood. Ok exterior. New carpet, new paint. LOVE the layout of the house! Love the backyard! SMALL kitchen... comes with appliances(not stainless steel though). Needs new light fixtures.

Oh my goodness. I have no idea what to do. I would be happy with any of them.

How will I decide?!