As Promised--a few family pictures

Here's a few of the pictures (that i don't look like a crazy fat cow in) from our family photo shoot in May 2009. We went to Wheeler Park in the afternoon and had quite a few taken. Here's some of my faves

Dad riding a wooden horse. For anyone who knows my dad,

this one's not surprising :)
Blackham Family Kiddos
*Back L to R: Jonathan, Scott, Kyle, Thomas, Andrew
*Front L to R: Amy, Matthew
The Whole Fam Damily!
*Back L to R: Thomas, Matthew, Andrew, Amy, Scott, Jonathan, Kyle
*Front L to R: Dad, Mom

Bad sleep plus stress make Amy something something....

go crazy? don't mind if I do!! Lately I sleep for a few hours, then randomly wake up and stay away for a good 30 minutes before I can fall back asleep. I'm sure it's due to a lot of things but man it's exhausting. At least I managed to fit in a solid 2 hour nap this afternoon. :o)

Anyhow, I'm still alive just working really really hard lately. There is a lot of pressure and stress at work, and new responsibilities being added to the plate constantly. I made my quota for April and hopefully made it for May as well (but might have had a loan book a few days too late). Time will tell. It feels good getting a bonus and, if only for a short while, keeping my name off the naughty list.

Later Gator!

Pictures from Utah

My family always has the prettiest bulbs growing in the front yard.
If only I had that kind of green thumb. I swear I could kill a
weed if you asked me to keep it alive :p

The Hutching's dog Skye wearing a tiara. She is so well
behaved, even though you can tell she's super excited
to see new people. We had a fun time bonding together that night :)

Aimee & Amy. And yes, mine is the correct
way to spell the name :p Love ya Aimee!

Me and Jonathan (21 yrs old). Jonathan just got home from an LDS mission to Arizona. Ever since he got taller than me, I startedcalling him "shortie". He calls me "giant" and always remarks thatit looks like I've "gotten taller" since he saw me last. Love ya Jono!

Thomas (18 yrs old) and Me. He just got
accepted to go to BYU Provo for the fall.
I can't believe how much he's growing up. He's
a really talented artist and writer, I look up to him a lot.

Amy & Kyle (12 yrs old). Kyle is the "baby" of the family.
The only reason I'm slightly taller than him in this picture
is because I'm wearing shoes! Sigh...I'm the shrimpiest
of my family :(

Amy & Matthew (22 yrs old) Matthew and I have
grown much closer over the years. We may have
tormented each other as kids, but we have
so much in common. Love ya bitty!

Andrew & Scott (15 yrs old) with Amy. I purposely didn't take a picture standing up with them because they're nearly a foot taller than me! I swear they grew 5 inches since I saw them last year. Good lookin' boys I say. I had to have them help me remember which was which so I didn't label the picture wrong, lol. I swear I never messed it up when I lived at home. Sorry guys :(

Scott (15 yrs old) and Me. I have such a fun time
hearing about Scott's busy life and how he's doing in school :)

Andrew (15 yrs old) and Me. He's my "initials" friend
(our initials are both "ASB"). I can't believe
how fast he's growing up!

**pretty weak picture turnout, but I'm glad I have the memories I do. I'll update and post a few of the good family pictures once I get the proofs on CD**

Utah!!

In accordance with my utter faildom, I can honestly say I really didn't get many pictures while I was in Utah. I took a few pictures with my brothers and with Aimee, but that's about it. I had all these ideas about asking Shawn to borrow his camera, or borrowing an old family one so I could capture moments, and I didn't do it :o( **sigh** I'll try to keep my wall of text to a minimum, since there are no nifty pictures to interrupt the boringness :)

Shawn took me to the airport early early Tuesday morning and I got to Salt Lake around noon. I got to spend most of that first day just with the fam. It was precious to see my younger school-aged brothers reactions when they got home and saw that I was there. Being a big sis is good for your ego, I highly encourage it :) We had dinner as a family (Lasagne my fave) and I crashed.

On Wednesday my mom, Jonathan and I went to work out at the gym. I really wanted to be as good as I could on my vacation so I wouldn't get back to Texas all lumpy and out of shape. It wasn't nearly as good of a workout as when I workout with help, but I'm glad I did it. After washing up, my mom and I went to get Pedicure's together for a Belated Mothers Day Gift. I ♥ Pedicures, but it was my mom's very first one. After seeing me just about kick the pedicurist (is that a word??) in the face because I'm so ticklish, she wonders WHY I do this to myself so much. I had a lunch day with my work friends Kathie, Cherie, Candace, and Marianne from Bank of American Fork Murray Branch (where I used to work), but on our way up there we stopped by Day Murray Music. I picked up some fun piano music and a violin piece I'd been looking for. Now if only I had a piano to actually practice huh??? :)

It was way fun getting to see my old work friends. Being there made it feel like it was just another day at work with people I love and miss. I had dinner at my Aunt Janice's house in Lehi that evening. I feel bad that we only started really building a close relationship AFTER I moved a bazillion miles away. She was a great support to me during all the divorce stuff, and I had a fun time with her family and their cute dog Skye.

On Thursday, my friend Melissa from BAF picked me up and I got to spend a few hours over there with old friends. It was a fun treat too because Pattie Seguin (one of my coworkers from Murray that quite arond the same time I did) happened to be making a deposit at the same time! That evening my family all went to Wheeler Farm to take some pictures together for the first time in two years. I haven't gotten the pictures back yet, but I'm hoping they turned out well. I was wearing 17 inch-too-long pants which I had to constantly roll up them and then down. I'm sure there were a few pictures where I didn't remember to roll them back down so I'm sure I'll look super hot in those :p

After pictures we all went out to eat out at Red Robin. That's not something that you do very often in a family of 9, so understandably my brothers were--excited? I feel bad for our waitress because she was constantly refilling soda's and bringing more endless fries. My dad's saying "Food is meant to sustain life, not to fill you up" was kind of ignored :P

On Friday my life got pretty crazy up until when I left to go home. I met Rose (coworker/close friend) for brunch and some shopping, had a few hours break to shoot the breeze and nap between events (something I started doing a LOT). Then that evening I met Nate, C.C., Jess and Todd at Wingers. It used to be a fun gamer hangout tradition of ours to order a bazillion wings from Wingers and pig out! After dinner I got to spend the rest of the night with my brother Matt up at his place. He has really nice roommates and friends. I didn't get a really good nights sleep because there was lots going on around me though :(

Saturday morning my dad came and picked us both up so I could meet Aimee (Ovard) Waters for lunch. OMG it was so nice to catch up! I'm pretty sure the last time I'd seen her was once up at UofU on TRAX but that's been like 6 years ago! I wish we'd had more time together, but I booked my time a little tooo closely and had to be back to meet another friend :o( Have to make more time next time I'm in town, I loved our fun talks!

Jill Taylor (BAF coworker) and her daughter came all the way from Tooele to visit me (now that's beyond the call of duty!) We went to Great Harvest, got some frozen yogurt and got to chat for a while under a tree at Draper Park. Ahh fond memories :)

I had a half an hour or so once I got home to take a power nap before getting to see Marianne (friend from BAF). I am pretty sure I was a complete bum because I was completely worn out and exhausted by then, but I'm still glad I got seconds of Mare :) I called it an earlyish night and tried to just get some sleep.

Sunday morning my family and I played "Shower Wars", which is our explanation of what happens when a family of 9 all needs to shower and get ready to be anywhere on time. We all headed off to my family's home ward to hear my brother Jonathan speak in church. It was so much fun getting to catch up with old neighborhood friends, and then the extended family at the luncheon afterwards. No one got an accurate headcount, but I'm sure there were upward of 70 people in my parents house. Not too comfortable when the AC isn't working ya know. I used to be able to brag that I knew all of my cousins names, but right around the time I went off to college I stopped keeping track :p

My plane left at 4:45 and I BARELY made it to my gate on time. We hit some traffic/road closures on the way there. Maybe it was my parents "funny" way of trying to keep me around, lol. I slept most of the way to Denver, but then from Denver to Austin there was this toddler who screamed bloody murder the entiiire time. Not even my ipod full blast was enough to even mask the sound. Ugh.

Since I fail at taking pictures AND posting them on blogs so they don't mess everything up, I'm going to post them right after this. Stay tuned!!

T Minus Something in Counting....

until I will be in Utah. My flight leaves at 7:45 on Tuesday May 12th. Even though I a) strongly dislike flying and b) strongly dislike layovers/switching planes, I'm going into with a positive outlook. I'll be there for about 5 days instead of the short 34 1/2 hour time I was there last June which will give me a lot more time to see good friends and family members. So far I haven't double booked any social engagements either.

It's kind of a bummer that I actually have to even go into work tomorrow. When I originally booked my flight when I was working in Leander, I couldn't take Mon-Fri, just Tues-Fri due to scheduling issues. Now that I'm at my new branch it would have worked just fine, but I didn't see the point in going through all the hassle. So I'll spend tomorrow (hopefully) catching up, so there's no issues while I'm gone.

Happy Mothers Day to all of my friends that are motherly!