I'm watching basketball

Well, not really. I'm blogging, but Chris is watching. So I have some new pictures to put on that I know you've all been waiting on the edge of your seats for, biting your nails. I went to my fondant class yesterday and we all made our very own disney princess/old woman doily cake. It would never be something I would make on my own- not really my style. But it was good to learn all the techniques it involved- making bows, quilting, plunger flowers, roses, ruffles, and just covering the cake in general! I had a ton of fun! There was 6 of us in the class, so we all talked and got to know each other all day. I sat by Irina- who's daughter was there to interperet for her. We thought she only spoke Russian, but then her daughter left and she was talking our ears off! We loved her- plus, she was a rose wizard! She was whipping those things out left and right. They were the hardest part, but definitely the most fun. The completed product:

After my class, I went and watched the Elder's Quorum do a home-run derby. Yes, I was the only wife to go watch, and yes I felt stupid being at all elder's quorum activity, and yes, it was absolutely freezing outside, but it was way fun to watch them! Plus, I got to embarrass Chris by cheering for him when he hit 4 out of the park :)

Derek is in our ward and in Chris' program with him. He graduates this year and he and his wife, Lauryn, just had a new baby! It is really funny to see him holding his tiny newborn, because he's about 6'10". He's a pretty large guy- but definitely one of the nicest people in the world. He looks like a pro with his boston jersey :)

After the derby, the guys all came over with their wives, and we ate tons of good food and played games. We really love our new ward and they've made us feel super welcome. The best thing about a new ward is getting to know all the different personalities. There's 2 couples who have about 4 kids each, that one night after putting all their kids in bed, came and toilet papered us. One of the ladies was laughing when she said, "Our kids have no idea where we go at night." I believe we'll fit in nicely in this ward :)

I FORGOT

I can't believe I forgot Dr. Freuen's cake! He liked his a lot. He was very cute about telling us we couldn't quit working there to open our own cake business. What a sweetheart.

i'll admit it. i'm a horrible updater.

I know. I just noticed it had been a good 6-7 months since I've last blogged. What can I say? I'm flighty. So! Since last time, I'll try to hit the highlights of what has gone on. I don't remember October. November? We had Thanksgiving dinner at Samgie's (Sam and Angie) new house! 5 bedrooms, 3 bathrooms, swimming pool, it has the works. BUT didn't have a finished basement. Enter: Chris. It started out as concrete:

And he made it into this!

He framed, put up walls and ceilings, knocked down other walls, installed stuff for a future surround sound system, and most importantly: MADE ME A WALK-IN CLOSET. Oh, I guess this is the part where I tell you that he was refinishing the basement so we could rent it from Samgie :) As if you couldn't guess from the pictures. So that's where we are living! I think we have some aversion to the light of day. When we lived in Logan right after we got married, we lived in that little basement apartment, moved to Spokane and his parent's basement, and then we rent Samgie's basement. I hope someday we get to enjoy windows... Anyway, here are some more construction pics for you to enjoy! Ps, I helped a lot. I'm a good helper.

He had a lot of dust in his hair and beard in this one!

I'm a Good painter.

I just thought this one was kinda hot. Power tools: Rawr.

Around the time he started on the basement, Chris also took on another project. He was assistant coach for the JV basketball team for Mead High School, where he graduated from. He had so much fun being Coach Dodd and he came home from practice every night with stories for me. We invited them over one Saturday to watch a basketball game and they ended up staying for over 10 hours. We had so much fun and I kicked all their behinds in Wii sword fighting :)

This is only half of all the boys that were there. I febreezed after ;)

For Christmas, we went to Idaho and spent it with my family! Everyone was there, except Ady J, who spent the holidays with Jen's family in Tejas! We missed him lots, but I'm sure he did have a nice sunshiny holiday. For my birthday, I got fired from my dance teacher job, but got a promotion at the doctor's office, so it worked out! I still miss my girls, but I'm planning on going to the recital to see them perform.

Man, have you ever tried to remember 7 months worth of activities at one time? I'm struggling.

Around February, I decided I wanted to learn how to decorate cakes, so I've been trying my hand at that, and found that I LOVE IT. I am signed up for classes in May and a fondant class this month, but this is what I have done so far:

For Sam's birthday, I wanted to make him a cake with a motorcycle, but I'm a procrastinator, and a weird car with AstroBoy is the only thing I could come up with at the last moment. So I made it look like Astro-Sam was running over a bunny while his bunny girlfriend looked on in horror. Also, I wanted to practice my piped grass. I think it turned out pretty ok.

This is my Shelley friend! We made Janice, a girl we worked with, a cake for her going away party. It had a twinkie underneath the fondant. If you look close, you can see the bump :) I painted on the tiger stripes and a tattoo with Janice's name in it. Rawr.

This was Chris's birthday cake. My very first cake ever. He wanted chocolate and I gave him chocolate boobs instead!

Shelley and I made cakes for Doctor's appreciation day for the physicians we work with. This one was Doctor Hardy's. He is going to be my doctor when I am afflicted by the pregnancy virus.

Fishy face Hardy.

Dr. Havin's cake. He is from St. Louis and loves the cardinals. Coincidently, doctor's day coordinated nicely with the Cardinal's season opener game! Dr. Havin also likes the show Mad Men, so we had to decide between a baseball hat, and a figure of him with a fedora, gin in one hand, and a cigarette in the other. We decided this was more appropriate to share with his young family at home.

The last two cakes are my favorites! The jelly-bean-pooping sheep was for Dr. Mckenna. He has one of those little toys that you push on the body and jelly beans fall out his behind. So we made a cake version. I love his googaly eyes most :) Eat your heart out Michelle!

My other favorite was for Dr. Cathcart. Her favorite color is purple and she is always talking about her purse, therefore, we made her a purple purse. Make sure you look at the zipper! I loooove the zipper!

So those are my latest attempts at a hobby. We all know how flighty I am, but I feel really good that this hobby will stick, because I love it so much and could do it at home when I have little ones of my own.

Best news for last I suppose: WE ARE GOING TO THE TEMPLE TO BE SEALED TOGETHER FOREVER!!! We are so blessed in our daily lives. We have a beautiful place to live, we have more than enough food, great jobs, and haven't had to worry too much about money. But even after all of those blessings, Heavenly Father blesses us more with a miracle. I feel so grateful for families and friends who love and support us and who have said too many prayers to count. They worked. Heavenly Father answered all our prayers. Chris and I have both dreamed of this since we were young and it is finally going to happen! We would love to have everyone who can make it to come with us. We don't know for sure when it will be yet, but you better believe I will keep you posted on this issue :) Thank you thank you thank you everyone who has prayed so hard for us. We love you!

A whole summer's worth of updates.

Alright, since I'm horrible about updating the blog, I'm finally going to give you a breakdown of everything that has happened since June! Before we moved, we got to go to Boise and spend a weekend at Grandma and Grandpa Dodd's house with a lot of Chris's family. The ladies' brought a fun craft thing to do, but the guys ended up using the supplies for entertainment on the kids:Ry-fry cut her hair off and it is super cute! She looks about 18 years old now, though.We said goodbye to our first little apartment as a married couple, and I was so sad about it. Still am actually. Even though it smelled like mold, and when it rained, cats, I was so in love with our little basement! I got to take a few pictures before we left so I will never forget it:

This is me taking a shot of Logan as I'm driving and holding the camera out the window. And yes, I was crying.Chris and I are giving our little table an update. We started probably the first week in August, but still have not finished. I painted, he stained, and we just have the tiling left to do!

As maybe you know, Chris is randomly OCD about cleaning. Sometimes he gets in the mood to clean, and then you just get out of his way or you'll be knee deep in clorox. This was one of his targets. We're blaming Jeremy, as it is his territory. This was behind a couch we pulled away from the wall. Chris was covered head to foot in dust bunnies and he smelled like rubberbands.

Sam, Angie, Trudy, and I went to Fiddler on the Roof one night. It was Topol's last tour of the show and apparently a huge deal, as he is the original Tevya. So we scored free tickets from Sam and Angie's source and we went while Bob, Chris, and Spencer went to Jeremy's football game. Maybe I shouldn't mention that during the applause at the end of the show, Trudy yelled, "Take it off!" at Mr. Topol. I'll admit, he was quite handsome for being 247 years old.

These are a few pics of Jeremy's football games:

My cousin, Brooke, got married a couple weekends ago in Missoula, Montana. Jon and Alysen drove from Portland and picked us up so we could carpool with them the rest of the way. We had such a great time watching everyone dance! My mom and dad, Jon, Kris Bahr, Uncle Steve, Brooke's "fabulous" friend who looked like he should be dancing on top of a bar in a speedo, and a couple in their 80's who were dancing so exhuberantly that I was absolutely certain their hips weren't original.
#1 Alysen, my sis-in-law!

#2 Daddy. Don't let him fool you: Even though he had a late night the night before, he managed to cut a rug to my mom's request- My humps by the Black Eyed Peas.

#3 My adorable Mom!

#4 Jonny, my brother who always looks like this.

#5 Kris Bahr, my cousin/brother who enjoyed the carmeled apple favors immensely.

#6 Me and Beef-Cakes.

So those were some of the highlights! Chris is going to Gonzaga for his master's and is LOVING IT, coaching Spencer's AAU basketball team, The Little Zags, teaching a weights class, and an x-biking class, and playing basketball any hour of the day a pick-up game is going on. (Right this second, he is passed out next to me, mouth wide open, so you know he's a little tuckered out from all that physical activity!) I have two amazing jobs that I love! I job share with another girl (which means we split a full time position between the two of us) at a OB/GYN clinic, working as a receptionist. I love the people I work with (mostly) and I love how fast-paced it is! However, I've worked at a lot of offices, and these people are more high-strung than any other office I've worked at. I want to just tell them to R.E.L.A.X. They take life waaay too seriously. Hopefully a little of my laziness will rub off on them. Heaven knows they need it. I also work at a dance studio manning the front desk and teaching a couple of classes! I have 7-9 year old's hip-hop, and 4-5 year old's jazz! I love the other teachers and the studio owner, Lisa, is so great. Very down to earth and on top of everything, but still very chill. I am so happy to be back in the dancing world! Lisa has asked the other hip-hop teacher, Courtney, and I to start working on a hip-hop duo to compete with this spring in the adult catagory. She thinks that it will be good advertising for the studio and good morale for the girls we teach. I'm a little nervous, but of course I'm super excited!

So that's our life since we've moved up to Spokane! We're still staying with Bob and Trudy, but we're trying to save so we can get out of their hair soon.

Just be expecting more frequent updates from now on, as I will NEVER spend another hour in one space of time on this stupid blog.

Happy Father's Day!

Prologue: I wanted to put some pictures on this from our camping and such, but I lost the cord to plug our camera into the computer. sorry.

In church on Sunday, the young women spoke about their father's and how amazing they were. All their secrets and strengths and quarks were brought out and we laughed and cried. I thought of my own daddy and how much he means to me. He told me once how he went to my 3rd grade parent-teacher conference. A concerned Mr. Alder told him that I had loudly bragged in class once, "All I have to do is give my daddy a kiss and he'll give me anything I want!" Mr. Alder was taken back when dad said, "Ya? Do you have a problem with that?" Oh dear. No wonder I'm spoiled rotten. No, that's not why I love my daddy. It's because he is, in a word, extraordinary. He is strong, kind, silly, handsome, intelligent, intuitive, adored, beautiful, tough, spiritual, bubbly, fluffy-haired, and in my Aunt Kathy's case: worshipped. He is Sunshine. He can write things in an incredibly beautiful way that people can't even find words for in their mind. He is the best teacher I've ever had. He loves EVERYONE. And I mean every single person. He taught me that everyone has something special about them, everyone is beautiful, and everyone is a brother or sister. He is absolutely incredible. A lot of little girls say this, but it's true when I say it: My daddy is the best daddy in the whole entire universe!

I googled him to find a picture of him- as good as he looks here, I wanted to find one with his beard in it. No dice. He's so cute here, but in person he's absolutely adorable!

Now onto the future daddy in my life, Christopher! I couldn't help thinking this Father's day of him. It melts me to even think of the day when he becomes a daddy. This is how I see it in my mind. I'll be sitting in that hospital bed with a precious, tender, little gift in my arms. Chris will be sitting next to me in the bed, one arm around me and the other arm around mine, cradling our sweet little baby. I can't describe to you the look on his face, but I can see it. I can't tell you the feeling I'll have, but I can feel it a little now, imagining it. I'm overwhelmed. It feels like my heart is brimming and smoldering. Both of us will have tears streaming down our cheeks and I will feel like I want to shout and never speak again at the same time. Never will I want that feeling to go away and it will be like it's just us in the world. We are the center of the universe and everything else has stopped to give us our own moment to be in wonder. This is me only imagining and I am simply overwhelmed. It will be absolutely unreal when that day actually comes. Chris will step into his new role with easy grace. He might feel completely uncapable and unconfident, but from the outside you will know he was born to be this man. This child's world. And he will be. Just like my daddy is my sunshine, Chris will be the light for our child. And he'll cry his eyes out watching our little one singing with the other Primary Kids on Father's Day. I can't wait! Well, I CAN wait, but I'm excited :)

On another note, I'll tell you about our crazy weekend! Chris got down to Logan around 3 o'clock and we started getting everything ready to go camping! We loaded up the truck with pallets and candy mostly, then headed up to Porcupine Dam. Jamie and Derek, Mallory and Brady, Kelsey, Jade, Melissa, and about 5 other people met us up there. We had chili dogs for dinner and sat around the fire drinking pop and eating garbage until about midnight, when Chris deemed the rocks ready! That means the rocks he put in the fire 5 hours ago are hot enough for the "Sweat Lodge"! I don't know if you've ever heard of this, but w.o.w. It's a home-made sauna/torture chamber. Made of PVC pipe and tarps tied down, about 10 people can fit inside. You dig a pit in the middle of the "tent" and put the hot rocks in the pit. Then make sure any holes to the outside world are sat on so no cold air can come in, and the fun/torture begins. A few people have buckets of water and they splash the rocks. Hot steam spews and your eyes start burning. Then the sweat starts. My hair was soaked and my nose was literally a faucet on high. Mallory and I cheated- we lifted up the tarp enough to get a few breaths of blessed oxygen before the boys noticed the cold air coming in. When we thought we couldn't take it anymore, Chris passed out the ice cold Cream Soda's that tasted like clouds. Honestly, they were glorious. I've never tasted anything better. Then came the cries of "Do it!", "Man Up!", "GET IT!" and the buckets dumped everything they had left. It took about 4 seconds before everyone was moaning and screaming like they were on a slave ship. We ripped the tarp open and everyone (almost) made a mad dash to the lake. The "almost" was me. After everyone dried off a bit, we retired to sleep. Ha. Our tent was a "two-man". What a joke. Maybe if the two men in question were twelve year old girls. SO SMALL. We didn't sleep a wink. The next day consisted of 2 nap sessions, a trip to the new Beehive Grill (which was fabulous), and a midnight movie- The Proposal (also fabulous). Somewhere in there, we fit in Singing in the Rain, and five episodes of Entourage. Sunday consisted of church, breakfast for lunch (a Sunday tradition), another nap, finishing Entourage season 1, Rounders, and a walk. Such a good weekend. Even the Sweating Torture Lodge.

Am I really that ridiculous?

Yes. In fact, I AM. Drove to Blackfoot last night after work. I got there at 7:30 PM, and woke up at 5 AM to get to work on time. Total time spent in Blackfoot? 9 and 1/2 hours. Total driving time? 4 hours. Completely worth it. I picked up a pizza on my way there and stupidly, let Chris eat his own dinner in order to keep my arrival a surprise. Silly Annie. I won't do it in the future. We watched Game 3 and I was actually very much into it! I like Rafer Alston and Dwight Howard. They look like the only players in basketball who aren't crusty grouches. I know it's kind of silly to base my preference of players on how much they smile and look like they're enjoying themselves instead of on talent, but what can I say? I'm sick of these 7 foot tall, 250 pound guys gritching and moaning about EVERY LITTLE THING. They crash to the ground and clutch at their ankles when a breeze whispers through the stadium. When the ball goes out of bounds, it's NEVER their fault, and the ref's always favor the other team, of course. I've seen 5 year old girls who are tougher! Honestly fellas, grow a set. Oh and freaking Gasol is the worst! (He's on the Lakers and we hate them.) After the game, we watched Clint Eastwood in Gran Torino. Huh. He's a pretty ornery guy. All in all, a good movie. We made it to bed around 12:30, 1 ish and I slept like a rock for a few hours. Sang really loud on the way home to stay awake. I love me some Black Eyed Peas. As I am at work, I thought this was an accurate portrayal of what I feel like doing.

Our weekend.

I know you are all thinking, "Oh Annie! What did you and Chris do this weekend? I just can't live without knowing! I can't believe you would wait clear until Tuesday to even give us a hint!" Calm down, my friends. I know you live vicariously through our crazy, some may say extraordinary, lives, but we DO have things to do and sometimes I just don't have enough time in the day to keep up the blog for your entertainment. Ok, I'll cut the crap now. Wanna hear what we did this weekend? Too bad, I'm telling anyway. So, for our first week apart, I did ok- I thought. This first night I had nightmares and didn't sleep at all, but the rest I just had nightmares and slept great, so I think it will get better with time! I'm trying to be tough :) So when Chris got home Friday night, we rented a movie and ate all the garbage I baked for him and just enjoyed being together again. Saturday, we bought a camera!!! I would show you a pic, but how do you take a picture of your camera with the same camera? We took pictures all morning, at the house, at the temple, and some of Marilyn (his motorcycle).

I really hate taking pictures, but I wanted a camera, so I just tried to suck it up and put on my glamorously photogenic face :) So that night we went to dinner with my brother, Bo, and his wifey, Michelle. We ate at Noodles and Co. So dang good.After Noodles, Chris and Bo watched Game 6- i think Labron against Howard? Chell and I had our books out, but couldn't concentrate very well with the loud comments from the boys :) Then on Sunday, it was Stake Conference, so Chris and I skipped and decided to go for a hike! We drove the bike all the way (met up with about 40 bikers and rode with them through the canyon. I, personally, felt exceptionally cool to be in a biker gang for about 20 minutes) to Tony's Grove before the rain started- it felt like little bullets- so we turned around, leaving our new found friends and headed back to hike to the Wind Caves! I am the biggest baby kitty whiner. Poor Chris. This is me: I have a rock in my shoe. How long is this going to take? This gets my belly when I look over the edge. Don't make me stand by the ledge- I feel like it's going to reach up and pull me down! I don't want to climb that cliff! I'm scared, Chris! Wow, he had it bad. We made it home, with many mumblings under my breath, and got ready for game night at Mallory and Brady's! We played a game called Dirty Minds- it gives you dirty clues to guess a clean word. I won't give an example :) It was super fun except after awhile, my body started acting weird. I'm assuming the hike set it off, but we have some other theories too. It's happened before, but it hurt all over, way painful, and I wanted to go home. So we went home and I cried while Chris tried to distract me by reading me the Book of Mormon in Spanish. It really did distract me. It was so beautiful, and I felt the Spirit more than I ever had reading it in English. So now I'm going to make him read to me every weekend. So that was it! Very eventful and we had a great time together. I love being with him every minute, even those few seconds when he drives me up the wall :) Just kidding, boo. You are so perfect that you never drive me up the wall....wait......gum.