Just call me Shepherdess Amy

To kick off the Christmas season our Relief Society put on a play called the Women of Christmas. It went through all the women that may have been involved the night that Christ was born. True, it was mostly all based on speculation but it was still pretty fun to be a part of. There was Mary, Elizabeth, The Shepherd's Wives, The Wisemen's Wives, The Inn Keeper's Wife and Anna the Prophetess. I was a Shepherd's Wife. I probably had the easiest lines of the group but of course I cracked under pressure and missed two whole sentences! Oh well :)
Ok, I was debating telling this story but I will just hope that the chorister does not read my blog and get offended. So the play was kind of short and the Sister who was putting the whole thing on suggested that we sing a few Christmas Carols to start the night off (mind you this just so happened to be the same night that the biggest football game in Oregon was going on and we were all very anxious to get home). So the Chorister gets up and says:

"There are 14 Christmas Songs in the Hymn book. We just sang one for the opening hymn and we will sing another for the closing hymn. That only leaves 12 left so I thought we could sing them all."

We all laughed a little, thinking that she was joking, but then we got singing. Oh did we sing. Rather then saying page numbers for the next hymn she would just say "Ok, now turn the page." I could not believe it! No one could! I could not help laughing. Every time we started a new hymn I would giggle at how crazy it was that we were really going to sing all verses of all 14 carols tonight of all nights and miss the Civil War game! This got everyone else around me going and all the actresses were all giggling in disbelief the whole time. You should also probably know that there were singing parts in the play we were about to perform. It was all fun and games until about 40 minutes strait of singing and only being half way through the Christmas carols. By this time people just plain started getting annoyed and stopped singing all together. The women who had solos actually left until we were done singing because they were starting to loose their voices. I lost my giggling mood and finally some one stood up and said that this would have to be our last one. It was kind of an uncomfortable situation but we were able to preform even with our raspy voices and we all laughed about it afterward (everyone but the chorister that is). Hopefully this story doesn't get me in too much trouble but it was really funny

Because I was all dressed up we decided to take some pictures.This is me - Shepherdess Amy!This is me and my trusty sheep dog.
And this is me and my sheep!

Bella's Graduation

Today was Bella's graduation from Puppy School! She is an official good dog now. She can sit, lay down, come when called, stay and even spin! We are still working on shake a paw but she did not have to know that to graduate. We had such a fun time in Puppy School that we decided to sign her up for Intermediate classes. Here are some of her graduation pictures from today.
This is her graduating class. There was another boy Cavalier King Charles Spaniel in the class (on the far right). We decided they were boy friend and girlfriend. There was also a girl Cavalier mix. Our teacher decided that they were sisters. They were best friends and she will be continuing to Intermediate classes with us. Last, but not least, there was a Silver Great Dane puppy. Believe it or not, this puppy was only 4 months old! It was always so excited to play with the other dogs but they were so afraid of him that they would hide under our chairs during play time at the end of class.
This is Bella looking into the distance as she contemplates all her "good girl" moments thanks to this class and looks forward to many to more even better behaviors to come...

Jealous Kisses

I know, I know. I have been such a blog slacker lately. Believe it or not I have been thinking about blogging but just not getting around to it. As a result I have a storage of stories and pictures that I now have to catch up on. So here we go...
My first back in action blog has to do, of course, with Bella. She is basically the best dog ever! She loves playing and being with us and, most of all, giving kisses. She loves giving kisses so much that she actually gets jealous when we kiss each other and not her. We tried to make a video of this because it is so stinkin funny but once the camera is on she must get a little camera shy or something. She usually jumps into the middle of our kiss and tries tries to kiss us both but this time she was a little more polite.

Happy Birthday to Sean!

Tuesday was Sean's Birthday! He is now officially 24 years old. Tuesday was probably the worst day for his birthday to fall on because Wednesdays are his busy days so he is usually up late Tuesdays preparing for classes. I still decided that we had to do a little something for his birthday so during my lunch break I ran home to put some barbacoa pork in the crock pot and invite Sean's parent's over for dinner. I think it is part of Murphy's law that whenever you are trying to do something fast something has to go wrong. As I was mixing the first two ingredients of the sauce I decided to take out the brown sugar at the same time and of course I knocked over the bowl full of tomato sauce and molasses. I quickly turned around to get a cloth to start cleaning up and by the time I turned back around Bella had entered the scene. The mess was now dripping off the counter onto the floor which Bella was loving. As she started licking up the tomatoey goodness the drip was now dripping right on her head! Not only did I now have a messy kitchen and a messy dog to clean up but I was also running behind for making a nice birthday dinner. Some how it all came together though. Bella might have still had some red sticky spots for a few days but at least we had a good birthday dinner. We had Sean's parent's over and a wonderful cake to top everything off. Before I get to the pictures I have to spend a few moments telling everyone about the wonderful cake. If you are ever in Eugene and in need of a cake Sweet Life is the place to go.(http://www.sweetlifedesserts.com) We got a turtle cake and it was AMAZING! I'm usually not a chocolate cake fan but this cake seriously melted in your mouth. It was like eating one giant truffle. I can't wait for Sean's next birthday so we can try another one of their gourmet cakes. Mmmmm.

I love taking the time out of our busy days to celebrate my favorite person in the world. Sean's Birthdays are probably one of my favorite days in the year because I then have an excuse to make a day extra special for him. I am so grateful for my wonderful husband and can't wait to celebrate more birthdays with him in the years to come.

Family Classic

You know how there are those stories that will always come up at family reunions or when you're sitting around with friends trying to one up each other's stories? Well here is one of those family classic stories that I am sure will go down in Salisbury history. It all happened on a rainy day in Provo not too long ago. In fact, it was only about 2 months ago when we were finally picking up all of our stuff from our storage unit. It was a cold rainy day and I was anxious to roll up the door and get our move on the way. As I stood there looking at all our earthly possessions I suddenly realized that I was feeling something drop on my head and fall in front of my face. I looked down and realized that there, on the ground, were dozens of stunned wasps. Weather it was the cold or the shock of their home being rolled up into a storage door that had been closed for 8 months, either way, these little guys were so out of it that they were not flying for some reason. I was probably just as shocked as they were and jumped back to allow the Salisbury men to take care of the necessary stomping. As I looked on I began to feel a tiny movement in my hair. A little tickle if you will. I quickly put 2 and 2 together and came to the conclusion that I most likely had a wasp crawling through my hair at that very moment. I realized that freaking out would not help the situation so I tried to stay calm and asked Sean to look in my hair to see if there was a wasp. He jumped into action and confirmed that yes, that little tickle was indeed a wasp. He quickly used his key chain to try and flick the thing away. As the wasp started to realize what was going on it started to burrow deeper. After what seemed like a very long time of keeping calm the panic grabbed a hold of me and I started to scream. I realized that it would only be seconds until the little bugger got deep enough to chomp into me, or sting me, or whatever it is wasps do. As I was screaming this drove my dear husband into a panic and he yelled for someone to hand him the broom. The broom?! The next thing I know Sean is hitting me over the head with the broom! By this point the dreaded event had happened. I was stung (or bit). I stopped screaming and now just started to cry from both pain and humiliation as Sean continued to sweep through my hair with the broom. What I wouldn't give to have seen the whole thing go down as Sean's family was looking on in shock. The lesson we learned is that when there is a wasp emergency the broom is not the right way to go. Have no fear though. My head was a little sore for a few days but luckily I don't react too badly to sting. On top of that we now have a pretty good wasp story.

Seeing Friends

One of the best things about going to Utah now is seeing our friends. We have made some great friends while we were there and we miss then TONS here in Eugene.
During this trip we were first able to see our good friends Ryan and Lindsay. They made us a delicious breakfast which, unfortunately, we almost slept through! Sean's cell phone did not switch time zones so the alarm did not go off on time! It was very sad but luckily they called us and woke us up so we were still able to spend some time with our friends before they had to go to work. We scarfed down German pancakes, played with their hamsters and got to show off Bella. Ryan and Lindsay are great. Ryan is from Portland so we know that we will always get to see them at random times during the year. They are also our travel buddies. They met us for a few days in Spain and we had a blast. We have decided that our next trip with them will have to be to South Africa. Here are some pictures of us in Spain that I promised to put up for them months ago...

Waiting at a bus stop in Toledo.

Shrimp?

Waiting at the train station.

My favorite picture!
Finally, we also got to see my bestest friend in the whole wide world: Chelsea! Of course when I see Chelsea now I also get to see her wonderful husband, Rhet, and their cutest baby ever, Kyler. Chelsea has been my best friend since freshman year at BYU. We have seen each other through a lot of poptarts and martinelli's and giant cans of beans. I know that even though we are living far away from each other now that we will always stay friends. She has always only been only a phone call away for all my freak outs and cherry questions. In the words of Anne of Green Gables, we are definitely "kindred spirits". I can't imagine my college experience without her. Life would not be the same without a little bit (or a lot) of Chelsea to spice it up. Thanks for all the good memories and for being a great friend!


Showing off our newest additions.



Chelsea is the best tap dancer I know!




Our valentines day dinner by candle light.

Martinelli's and chocolate milk always make the best combination!

Sean's Graduation

Ok. It is official. I am a blog slacker. Here is my attempt to update what has been going on in our lives. Starting with Sean's Graduation! The day after I got home from Canada and 10 minutes after I got out of a job interview, we were on the road to Utah. After plenty of speeding and only one ticket the whole Salisbury family made it back to the familiar town of Provo Utah. I have to admit, it did bring back some strange feelings knowing that we will probably never live in Utah again. I forget every now and then how beautiful it is! Sean and I were so blessed to be able to attend and graduate from BYU (after today's football game I am feeling especially proud of my good old alma mater). Go Cougs!

Sean zippering up the gown.

I love this picture! Mom and dad helping out.


Elder Ballard was the speaker at the graduation. His message was to stop being defensive about our religion. It was maybe a little bit of a strange topic for the graduation ceremony but a good talk none the less.

There's Sean! Do you see him?!


The supportive family.

I see him!

Sean just after he did his walk across the stage and got his diploma.

The supportive wife.







Bros.

Graduating Cougar soon to be Duck.


Graduation would not be complete without a jumping picture. Yeah!

Sean's home away from home while attending BYU.


Good Job Sean!
I am so proud of Sean for his accomplishments at school. He is an amazing student. I do not know of any one who has the determination and dedication that he does. Sean spent many long hours in the library and I often had to bring him dinner so that he could keep studying. All that time defiantly paid off. Sean was getting strait A's by his junior year. He has basically mastered the art of flash cards and has an unbelievably good memory. He has now started law school and is showing the same drive to succeed. I know he will do great! I am so lucky to have such a smart and dedicated husband! On top of all these good things he's pretty handsome too! :)

Surgery

Les went in for surgery early this morning. He had the doctor call us and tell us to stay home and come to the hospital when he was in recovery. This was probably not the best arraingement for my mom. She was very anxious all morning and we both wished we were sitting in the hospital waiting room rather then not knowing what to do to keep our selves busy at home. Finally we got the call that Les was out of surgery. Everything went as well as it could have gone. They have taken samples of surrounding blood vessels and lymph to send in for testing. The results of these tests will determine if he has to have chemo. We are all very optomistic. His first day of recovery went well and we even just heard that he was sitting up in a chair all by himself tonight! We have been recieving and making phone calls non stop to update concerned family and friends. Thank you everyone for your prayers and fasts today. Our family can definately feel the effects.

I'm Alberta Bound

I am making a last minute trip up to Canada. Unfortunately it is not a nice vacation to visit family and friends (although I do hope to see some of you). My step dad was recently diagnosed with gastric cancer. He is going in for surgery as soon as a bed opens up. I'm going up for moral support and to help out where I can. Please keep him in your prayers.

Unemployment Blues

Well I have not been blogging too much lately but that it because not much is going on! I have been unemployed now for 2 months and I am not seeing a light at the end of the tunnel. I fill out between 3 and 5 applications every day. EVERY DAY! I have probably applied for hundreds of jobs, even minimum wage jobs. I even applied at Petsmart! I have not resorted to Walmart quite yet but the time may be soon at hand. I have had 3 interviews so far. Here is the recap:
1. Athletic Training job at a high school - would have been the perfect job but unfortunately I was going up against the graduate student who had been working there for 2 years. I had a great interview but of course the job went to the graduate student because "he knows the students" (this was their explanation to me).
2. Trail Ride instructor - would have been fun but very tiring work. Unfortunately the ranch was a 2 hour drive and a 4 hour commute every day did not sound so good.
3. Administrative assistant at mystery company "The Committee" - weirdest interview ever! I still don't really understand what this company does or if it is legal. Here are some examples of the questions:
"Who had been your worst boss and why?"
"Who has been the hardest boss to work for and why?"
"How do you feel about being called out in front of your co workers?"
"How do you feel about swearing?"
Statement: "If you work here, you will be called out and you will be sworn at."
Believe it or not, I was actually willing to work here. There were 93 applicants and I was in the first interview cut of 10 candidates and then in the second cut down to 3! No such luck. Actually, now that I look back at it I think it was a blessing that I did not get that job. Who wants to work in that sort of environment?!
So here is where I stand. Hopelessly unemployed. Yesterday I turned in 9 applications. 9! And I probably will not hear back from one of them. That is what this economy means to me. So begins another day of job searching. Wish me luck!
P.S. By the way, I am not completely this pessimistic. I do know that something will come up and it is just a matter of time. Have no fear, I will rise into the corporate world once again!